Gen Z Has A Dating Problem - Sadia Khan

Chris Williamson 0:00 Why did you get banned on Instagram?

Sadia Khan 0:02 (laughs) Actually, to, to be fair, I don't know fully, but from what I did some digging and I found out there was a, um, OnlyFans content creator who felt like I was pushing a narrative that goes against sex work, pornography, and OnlyFans, and so she pulled some strings, managed to get it banned. I also pulled some strings, managed to get back on. But I'm sure with my big mouth, I'll get myself in trouble soon, so I'm gonna make a vow, and I'm glad you're here to witness it, that I'm gonna try and stay out of trouble because I don't wanna lose my Instagram. It's actually a really great platform.

Chris Williamson 0:34 Okay.

Sadia Khan 0:34 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 0:34 Well, we'll ho- we'll see-

Sadia Khan 0:35 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 0:35 ... we'll see how you get on after today.

Sadia Khan 0:37 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 0:37 So one of the things that I've noticed recently is this sort of widespread belief that love i- is... It's toxic.

Sadia Khan 0:44 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 0:45 Why do you think these sort of modern representations of female stories are so devoid of love? You know, looking at the Barbie movie, there's these previews of the Snow White movie coming up-

Sadia Khan 0:56 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 0:56 ... Rachel Ziegler, Zeigler, doesn't really look like she's pro-love.

Sadia Khan 1:00 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:00 What do you think is going on?

Sadia Khan 1:01 Well, I think the demise of marriage and long-term relationships, what that means is... With relationships, a bit like when you watch a movie, and the whole movie can be great, but if the ending is shit, we'll say, "Movies are shit. That movie was awful." Similarly, if the ending is fantastic, you'll say, "That whole movie was great." Usually, the people pushing this narrative have just come out of a negative relationship, so they define the entire course of love and the entire course of relationships by their particular ending. And if the ending was terrible, love is terrible, and they label it like that. And they also like to run with the narrative that, "My ex is a narcissist," is their favorite phrase on the planet at the moment. What that does is kind of devoid us of the responsibility in causing that toxicity, blame it on someone else, and then blame love as a separate entity as a cause for our pain when really, it's our behaviors. So the love isn't toxic, it's how we behave in love and how we behave when vulnerable that creates toxicity. But it's easier to just say that love is this really dangerous emotion and we should avoid it at all costs and always keep our armor up just in case love comes at us and kills us, when really, it's our poor decision-making or our behaviors that cause love to be toxic.

Chris Williamson 2:08 Yeah. I... It's strange to me that it appears to be like a top-down narrative as well. It's not just individuals rejecting love-

Sadia Khan 2:14 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 2:15 ... it's also in movies-

Sadia Khan 2:16 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 2:16 ... it's in culture as well.

Sadia Khan 2:17 Yeah, and I, I do, I do think there is, uh, you know, there is a lot to be gained from convincing people that love is toxic and you don't need it because independence breeds more customers. Uh, whether it's on social media, whether it's on porn sites, whether it's on cosmetic surgery, independence creates customers. So I think that it makes total sense from a marketing perspective to just breed the idea that love is no longer necessary. I saw a lot of interviews from the star of Snow White where she was almost making digs at what is actually quite a sweet fairytale, but, but trying to make it into digs, and I just thought, um, I'm guessing the narrative of seeing love as weak is being propagated in the culture today. And I don't know how I feel about that.

Chris Williamson 2:58 Yeah, there's a, a quote from that interview. "She's not going to be saved by the prince. She's not going to be dreaming about true love. She's dreaming about becoming the leader she knows she can be. The prince in the original movie stalked her."

Sadia Khan 3:14 Wh- what... Why would you sign up to a film if that's what you believe wa- was the message behind it? I'm guessing, uh, because here's what they're taking is... I'm not saying Disney movies were great for our perception of love either, but the idea of mocking connection and mocking... And let's say, for example, somebody does save you and you're in a bad position, but they do save you. Why is that so negative? If somebody's going through something and you find a partner and they help you heal and you both help each other heal, why is that a negative thing? I mean, I, I, I... Maybe I've got it wrong, but the appe- the narrative I'm getting is it's almost seen as embarrassing to fall in love when really, it's an essential component of, um, o- of our life. We all need it.

Chris Williamson 3:55 It seems to me the advice for men suggests that falling in love makes you irrational and weak-

Sadia Khan 4:02 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 4:03 ... and for women, it makes you subservient and dependent.

Sadia Khan 4:06 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 4:06 And it's almost the opposite of what both sexes want to have, right?

Sadia Khan 4:11 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 4:11 There's a trend of wanting women to have their own independence at the moment and, like, more power to them, and there's a trend of wanting men to be able to stand up for themselves more-

Sadia Khan 4:20 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 4:20 ... and love is being positioned as the antithesis of the thing that you're trying to get.

Sadia Khan 4:25 Yeah. Well, love is seen as suffering. And here's the thing, there's a big difference between, uh, pain and suffering. Like, pain is just things that happen in our life. Like, let's say the person you love passes away or you ha- you can't have a baby. That, that's pain. Uh, but suffering is the emotional consequences of our poor decision-making. Now, if you feel like love is suffering for you, have a look at your decision-making. If you're becoming weak, but if you choose wisely-

Chris Williamson 4:49 Right.

Sadia Khan 4:49 ... be... You won't w- see it as being weak. You'll see it as being, uh, com- compatible and you'll see it as being, uh, compromising. But i- and if you're becoming subservient, uh, if you choose the right person, you won't see it as a form of abuse. But if you're making poor decisions, of course love is going to be a form of suffering. But suffering is a reminder that you made wrong choices.

Chris Williamson 5:09 Yeah. I was watching this baggage claim video earlier on, she's great, and she talks about this sort of common anti-love trend-

Sadia Khan 5:16 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 5:16 ... among, she calls it feminists, uh, a, a general disinterest in emotional connection with men.

Sadia Khan 5:22 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 5:23 This is the sort of plague that she thinks going on at the moment.

Sadia Khan 5:26 Uh-huh. Um, w- I agree, and I think it's found, um... Just to kind of even out the playing field, it's also found amongst the red pill men. And, um, like we've spoke about before, when you feel like you can't access something, the best and quickest way to defend your ego is to pretend you don't want it. So to... When you feel like you're not worthy of love and which I really think is a, uh, uh, uh, a manifestation of low self-esteem, when you feel like you're not worthy of love, the quickest and easiest way to feel worthy is to pretend love is terrible, pretend love is toxic. And I see this a lot in red pill men and really high f- like, uh, proud feminists. Both cohorts tend to be people who...... personally probably believe that they're not desirable to the opposite s- gender. So the only way to get rid of that feeling of u- like being un- undesired is to pretend you don't desire the opposite gender. So I see it both, and they're almost a perfect m- match for each other. That blue-haired, you know, uh, feminist, and that red pill guy, they're almost a perfect match because they both almost have the same pathologies when it comes to their understanding of love. So they're all, they should get together. Yeah. (laughs) Yeah. That would, that would-

Chris Williamson 6:28 (laughs) That would be a very interesting relationship to observe.

Sadia Khan 6:30 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 6:31 Yeah, I, um...

Chris Williamson 6:33 There's this idea called the inner citadel that people retreat into-

Sadia Khan 6:36 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 6:36 ... if you can't get what you want, you must teach yourself to want what you can get.

Sadia Khan 6:40 Right.

Chris Williamson 6:40 And that's kind of what you're describing.

Sadia Khan 6:42 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 6:42 You know, if I tell myself that, uh, all women are awful, then it doesn't force me to try and get into a relationship-

Sadia Khan 6:49 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 6:49 ... and therefore, I don't need to feel the pain of heartbreak.

Sadia Khan 6:52 Exactly.

Chris Williamson 6:52 If I tell myself that jobs are completely pointless, then I can sit in unemployment and not be concerned about not making progress-

Sadia Khan 7:00 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 7:00 ... toward my goals.

Sadia Khan 7:00 Exactly. But the problem with that is, it prevents you from fulfilling your potential in life. Human beings are designed with the potential to love and nurture one another. And whenever we cap our potential, whether that's through, uh, like we cap our potential physically, emotionally, psychologically, anything that involves capping our potential will lead to a slow and steady depression that will signal to yourself that you're not fulfilling your potential, and it will come out and manifest as a form of depression. So when you kind of ward off love, you're warding off your own full potential, and therefore, you will see an increase in your depression and anxiety. They even find studies where women, when, um, they hold their partner's hand during labor, they experience less pain. That's how much we're designed to be in love. It's actually a, a pain relief. It's an anti-anxiety. They found loads of studies where they see, uh, people that, you know, sleep with lots of people in a communion, they sleep better. They don't have any, like micro-awakenings in the night. So we're, our body craves it. Whether you psychologically convince yourself that you don't want it, your body will still speak to you and tell you that you need it. So unfortunately, it doesn't work.

Chris Williamson 8:05 The micro-awakenings thing is really interesting.

Sadia Khan 8:07 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 8:07 I remember learning it from Johann Hari, that it's basically-

Sadia Khan 8:12 That, yeah.

Chris Williamson 8:12 ... a, um, it's like a measure of comfort-

Sadia Khan 8:14 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 8:15 ... that people have, and safety, right?

Sadia Khan 8:16 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 8:16 So, um, 15,000 years ago, you have gone out hunting, and you decide to sleep in a cave that is away from where you usually would.

Sadia Khan 8:25 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 8:26 It's adaptive for you, as this nomadic person away from home, to not go into quite as deep sleep because you can't be quite as assured that this particular location is safe.

Sadia Khan 8:34 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 8:34 It's one of the reasons why people get such bad night's sleep in hotels.

Sadia Khan 8:37 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 8:38 Because even if the room is quiet, and it's dark, and there's no LED blinking, and room service doesn't come and accidentally knock on your door-

Sadia Khan 8:45 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 8:45 ... it's still not your house.

Sadia Khan 8:47 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 8:47 And we have this in-built micro-awakening where you just come back up the threshold of consciousness and then dip back in again.

Sadia Khan 8:53 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 8:53 Two things that are interesting. If you have the sound of a crackling fire or the sound of snoring dogs-

Sadia Khan 8:59 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 9:00 ... both of those reduce micro-awakenings.

Sadia Khan 9:03 Oh, wow.

Chris Williamson 9:04 Fire would've scared away predators-

Sadia Khan 9:05 Uh-huh.

Chris Williamson 9:05 ... and the dogs would've been an early warning system.

Sadia Khan 9:07 Oh, amazing. So th- uh, well, I, I have, I read the same thing with Johann, uh, Hari's book, which is fantastic. Um, what is it, Lost Connections? Is that the right one? And yeah, it says the same thing. Evolutionary wise, we're designed to sleep with others because that creates a sense of, um, safety against predators. So when people come to me and they have insomnia, they have depression, the first thing I ask is, "What are your connections like? What is your relationships like with other people?" And they convince themselves they don't want a relationship. But I do understand. Uh, there's a part of me, and I've spoken about this a little bit with, when I was speaking to my clients, I kind of, I can understand why the lazy kind of, uh, man that feels undesirable is avoiding relationships, because there's a lot of effort for very little return, when the alternative is, I can either watch pornography or I can hire an escort. Again, li- little effort and a l- maximum return. So I get from a legi- logical point of view, if I'm gonna spend hundreds of pounds on a date and she might not even sleep with me, I could spend half of that on an escort, and she definitely will. But the goal of life is not to get sex. It's to get connection. And that's what they're trying to skip, unfortunately.

Chris Williamson 10:13 Have you reflected

Chris Williamson 10:14 on the rise of escorts and sex work? I think it's pretty fascinating-

Sadia Khan 10:19 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 10:19 ... to look at the psychology of the women who do it, and the men who pay for it.

Sadia Khan 10:22 Yeah. Well, the women who do it, uh, usually, and, uh, I think it's probably less now, but, uh, there's a h- a, a big history of childhood sexual abuse. And the reason why child abuse often then becomes monetized sex work is because when we are violated as a child, men or women, when we, when something is violated from us, the only way your ego kind of makes sense of what happens to you is to minimize the importance and significance of what was stolen from you. So if I was, uh, abused sexually, if I then minimize the importance of sex and then take some control by monetizing it and saying, "I'm now in control of my body. I'm either gonna be hyper-promiscuous or I'm going to monetize it," what it does is minimizes the significance of sex, and therefore, I don't have to deal with the trauma I experienced. I now see sex as just an activity. And therefore, if I was abused, it's not that serious. And so the psychology of them is usually coming from a broken place, and also, the other thing that they struggle with is knowing what loyalty looks like in a relationship. They don't see it as an essential component because they've monetized sex and, um, taken away the emotion c- emo- uh, element to it. So it becomes very difficult for them to be sexually loyal to their partner. It's almost like they see sex as a bit as well an activity, and if they do it with somebody else, why would that bother you? They don't understand the process. So they end up being quite emotionally disconnected, very transactional, uh, with their partners, and the relationships become, the g- the relationships don't really last very long, unfortunately. They're devoid of emotions, and then it translates into their parenting as well.

Chris Williamson 11:50 What about the psychology of the men who pay for it?

Sadia Khan 11:53 Um, the psychology of the man that actually goes towards it is usually he is somebody who's highly avoidant to begin with. There was some emotional disconnect in their parents and their household. So, when you g- want to court a beautiful woman in the real world, she requires some emotional connection first and foremost, or at least at some point. Now if you've, uh, fi- if you find it hard to experience emotional connection and you have the money to go from pornography to escorts, you skip the emotion component and go straight to escorts. Uh, basically, escorts are, uh, uh, porn addicts with money.Yeah. E- essentially, that is for them. And that low self-esteem, that intense low self-esteem, um, with the men that pay for escorts means that they don't believe they can access a woman of, of that caliber in real life, so let me at least pay him for it and therefore I don't have to experience rejection. The reason why emotional, kind of disconnect is so important for the customer, is a man that understands emotional intelligence and understands a woman's emotions wouldn't feel comfortable having sex with a woman he knows doesn't want to be there. A guy that normally has emotional intelligence will think, "Oh God, she's probably not enjoying this." And, "Oh God, what trauma led her to get here? I don't wanna have sex with somebody who doesn't wanna have sex with me." But the man who skipped that emotional intelligence and just wants pleasure will not even think about the emotional trauma that got her to this position and just think, "As long as she pleases me, I don't really care what it took to get her here."

Chris Williamson 13:19 Mm.

Sadia Khan 13:19 So that emotional disconnect in both of them, which is why they often fall in love with each other. "Fall in love." Yeah. They often do end up together and this is what I really hate about the narrative that they tell you, that on these red pill podcasts, that men want virgins, men want good girls. The amount of successful men that fall in love with the escorts is because they allow him to not emotionally connect but then still boost his ego, which is what he's... a dream come true. Whereas another woman requires that emotional connection before she can boost your ego. So the escort is just providing him with an ego boost with p- bearing in mind his emotional disabilities.

Chris Williamson 13:55 That's interesting.

Sadia Khan 13:56 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 13:56 I noticed during-

Sadia Khan 13:57 Is it... Can I ask, is it big in, in America as well? 'Cause it's huge-

Chris Williamson 14:00 (sighs)

Sadia Khan 14:00 ... where I live.

Chris Williamson 14:01 I haven't seen it.

Sadia Khan 14:02 Okay.

Chris Williamson 14:02 I mean, Dubai I think is a, a very particular, uh, Petri dish of, of like unique dating.

Sadia Khan 14:08 Uh-huh.

Chris Williamson 14:08 Maybe Miami. I mean, in fact-

Sadia Khan 14:10 Miami I would imagine.

Chris Williamson 14:10 ... I would almost be certain with Miami.

Sadia Khan 14:12 And London is, London is getting there as well. It's getting-

Chris Williamson 14:13 Okay.

Sadia Khan 14:13 ... it's just as rampant in London as well.

Chris Williamson 14:15 I'm noticing that you are in all of these locations.

Sadia Khan 14:17 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 14:17 If you move to Miami too you will be the common denominator between them.

Sadia Khan 14:19 Maybe I'm the problem.

Chris Williamson 14:20 Maybe you are.

Sadia Khan 14:21 Maybe I bring, I bring the heat.

Chris Williamson 14:22 So I noticed-

Sadia Khan 14:23 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 14:24 ... when I was at uni and I was running a lot of nightclubs, and we would go-

Sadia Khan 14:27 I know.

Chris Williamson 14:27 The only place that's open after 3:00 in the morning are the strip clubs, right?

Sadia Khan 14:30 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 14:30 So we would go to the strip clubs, um, we would like, we'd know all of the girls 'cause most of the girls would come out to one of our events on an evening time or whatever. And I noticed a lot of the girls were struggling. They would struggle to see men as like, not genuine humans, but because their job required them to see men as resources to be extracted from-

Sadia Khan 14:53 Mm.

Chris Williamson 14:53 ... like anyone that's ever been to a proper working class strip club, right?

Sadia Khan 14:58 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 14:58 There's still, you know, like girls in there that... I- I'm not derogating the quality of the women.

Sadia Khan 15:02 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 15:03 I'm talking about the kind of culture that comes through.

Sadia Khan 15:07 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 15:07 They are fucking ruthless-

Sadia Khan 15:09 Yeah?

Chris Williamson 15:10 ... with how they take money from men.

Sadia Khan 15:11 Oh.

Chris Williamson 15:12 Like, they're sitting on their la... They, it's almost like a sales funnel.

Sadia Khan 15:14 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 15:14 They understand the tricks that they can use to get a man to go for a dance, to get a man to stay with you-

Sadia Khan 15:20 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 15:20 ... and so on and so forth. They entered the game like the arena of play is, and if they've had too much to drink or they've done whatever, like probably shouldn't have gone to the strip club with your credit card, if that's the case.

Sadia Khan 15:31 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 15:31 But what happened on the other side of that, I noticed that a lot of the girls struggled to make an emotional connection with guys in their personal life.

Sadia Khan 15:38 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 15:38 And I think that trying to separate out, this is someone that I'm supposed to have a genuine connection with-

Sadia Khan 15:44 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 15:44 ... and this is someone that I'm supposed to have a transactional connection with, these two... It, it doesn't surprise me that you can't-

Sadia Khan 15:50 You can't.

Chris Williamson 15:50 ... that these are gonna bleed into each other, and the same has to be true with OnlyFans.

Sadia Khan 15:53 Um, what happens with OnlyFans and strippers and sex workers in general, the pool of women that they're left with are men they don't respect. The reality is women respect men with masculinity, alpha, protectiveness, um, providing, and et cetera. Now when you go into sex work you are left with, firstly, your customers are incredibly low self-esteem, incredibly naive to even believe that you're gonna be loyal to them. And even if he's not your customer and he's your boyfriend but he accepts your sex work, a part of you doesn't see him as powerful and a provider, and doesn't see him as protective. Because if he was truly protective, he wouldn't be with you. If he was a man that genuinely was an alpha man and wanted a good woman, he wouldn't be with you. So the type of men they truly respect wouldn't be with them. So the only men they can a- they, they definitely can't fall in love with the guy that is the, you know, giving them money. The closest thing they get to that is the pimp that's taking money from them 'cause at least then they kind of respect the fact that he, he's using her in a way. But to be manipulated by her, she feels more powerful than him, and therefore can't respect him.

Chris Williamson 16:56 I wonder how many girls in strip clubs get into relationships with the bouncers-

Sadia Khan 17:00 Yeah, I-

Chris Williamson 17:01 ... and the door staff-

Sadia Khan 17:02 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 17:02 ... and the manager and stuff like that.

Sadia Khan 17:03 They end up more, they're just more likely to be with a man that they provide for than the one that provides for them. Because a man that provides for a stripper, there's a stupidity in that, because you know this woman's transactional and yet you're giving her money. She can't respect you. But the man she has to pay for, whether he's like a bouncer that's on half her wage or he's just a personal trainer that she has to cover the rent for, she's more likely to fall in love with him, because at least he's not stupid enough to financially invest in me. And a part of her unconsciously respects him more than the CEO that's gonna buy you a house and a Range Rover 'cause she's like, "You're so stupid."

Chris Williamson 17:37 What have you

Chris Williamson 17:39 come to reflect on about the psychology of slut-shaming?

Sadia Khan 17:42 Um, it's a way of validating poor decision-making. So when we use the word you're s- slut-shaming, what we're really saying is, "Stop pointing out the flaws in my flawed behavior." Essentially, we need a society filled with guilt, shame, and regret. We need to be aware of these emotions. If we remove shame from our society and we call it ph- uh fat-shaming, slut-shaming, essentially we find a way of normalizing what is abnormal behavior.And when we do that, we then become reckless. We need guilt, shame and regret to help direct us into making proper decision-making, responsible decision-making, healthy decision-making. So whenever you hear the word, that's fat shaming and that's slut shaming, if the word before it is negative, then the actual, th- the concept is broken.

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Sadia Khan 19:29 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 19:29 Well, what would you say to the people who say, "We've had a sexual revolution, Sadia. We don't need... Uh, uh, like, girls can sleep with guys as much as they want to."

Sadia Khan 19:37 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 19:38 "This is the new world. Get up to date now. It's 2023."

Sadia Khan 19:41 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 19:42 Why should it be the case that that is, uh, negative, shameful, guilt-riddled behavior?

Sadia Khan 19:48 Because you're the one saying that men are trash, and yet you're sleeping with them all day, every day. You're the o- and it's the women that sleep around the most that will say men are trash. The women in healthy relationships are not usually the ones saying that. So if this formula was working, why are you allowing trash to enter your vagina?

Chris Williamson 20:07 I had an idea.

Sadia Khan 20:07 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 20:07 I had a theory about the game theory of slut shaming-

Sadia Khan 20:10 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 20:10 ... and the game theory of simp shaming as well-

Sadia Khan 20:12 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 20:12 ... I wanna teach you about.

Sadia Khan 20:13 Okay.

Chris Williamson 20:13 So, as far as I can see, um, m- more slut shaming comes from women than it does from men, right?

Sadia Khan 20:20 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 20:20 Which might be on the surface surprising, but a bit more inspection and it makes sense.

Sadia Khan 20:25 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 20:26 The reason that more slut shaming comes from women than it does from men-

Sadia Khan 20:28 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 20:29 ... is because women are invested in other women not lowering the price of sex-

Sadia Khan 20:35 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 20:36 ... too low.

Sadia Khan 20:36 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 20:37 Men would happily-

Sadia Khan 20:38 (laughs) .

Chris Williamson 20:38 ... have the price of sex be zero, right?

Sadia Khan 20:40 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 20:40 If you are prepared to give blow jobs on the third date-

Sadia Khan 20:44 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 20:44 ... but I want to wait until the fifth date-

Sadia Khan 20:46 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 20:46 ... I'm also a girl-

Sadia Khan 20:47 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 20:47 ... and I want to wait until the fifth date, it's in my interests to raise the price of sex-

Sadia Khan 20:52 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 20:52 ... right, by shaming anybody who is more sexually promiscuous-

Sadia Khan 20:55 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 20:55 ... than I am.

Sadia Khan 20:56 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 20:56 So, the problem that women are trying to combat is women who give sex without loyalty or resources, right?

Sadia Khan 21:03 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 21:03 They want to raise the num- the amount of loyalty and resources-

Sadia Khan 21:06 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 21:06 ... that other women, uh, use before they will give away sexual access.

Sadia Khan 21:09 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 21:10 Now, what I realized, I think is true, men simp shame for the exact same reason in the opposite direction.

Sadia Khan 21:17 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 21:18 So women are concerned about sex without resources.

Sadia Khan 21:20 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 21:20 Men are concerned with resources without sex.

Sadia Khan 21:23 Yeah (laughs) .

Chris Williamson 21:23 Right? So what a simp is fundamentally doing is saying, "I will give away one of the th- the few things that men are supposed to hold in the highest value-"

Sadia Khan 21:33 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 21:33 "... which is their ability to provide-"

Sadia Khan 21:35 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 21:35 "... and I will give you that in return for nothing."

Sadia Khan 21:38 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 21:38 Right? Or in return for some messages through a platform, or-

Sadia Khan 21:42 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 21:42 ... perhaps just f- financially dominated or sugar babying your way-

Sadia Khan 21:46 Yes.

Chris Williamson 21:46 ... through college or, or traveling or whatever it is that you want to do.

Sadia Khan 21:49 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 21:49 So, I feel like the energy is very similar-

Sadia Khan 21:51 Oh, yeah. Definitely.

Chris Williamson 21:52 ... between these two, simp shaming and slut shaming.

Sadia Khan 21:54 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 21:55 Both of them are trying to ensure that competitors of the same sex don't give away the most valuable resource-

Sadia Khan 22:04 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 22:04 ... which they don't want to have the price of derogated too low.

Sadia Khan 22:07 Absolutely.

Chris Williamson 22:08 What do you think?

Sadia Khan 22:08 Absolutely. It's a form of intrasexual selection, which, uh, in evolutionary psychology just simply means your competition within your sex. Now, the quickest and easiest way for women to, uh, to kind of beat the competition is verbal aggression. And one of the things that slut shaming does is firstly, of course, like you mentioned, it reduces the value of sex, so you're competing with people who give it for free. But in addition, by slut shaming, it's our way of unconsciously trying to put other men off that woman. Now, people only slut shame attractive women. You don't see, pe- there are many unattractive women who are also sleeping with lots and lots of men. But what happens with women, they only feel the need to shame when the person is a threat in any way, shape, or form. You will not see unattractive women get as many trolls as attractive women online. And you will not get, uh, unattractive women who sleep around get as many slut shaming comments as sexually attractive-

Chris Williamson 22:56 Because they're seen as less of a threat.

Sadia Khan 22:58 They're not a threat. So essentially, what intrasexual selection r- does is it makes women use verbal aggression, uh, against one another, b- only if she's a threat. If she's not a form of threat, we actually turn it into praise, because then it works to actually be friends with women, 'cause you can share breastfeeding, child-rearing, in evolutionary terms. But-

Chris Williamson 23:15 Alloparenting.

Sadia Khan 23:15 Yeah. But if she is any form of threat, she can potentially take your partner and take your resources. So whenever women are slut shaming and stuff, they usually focus on the women that they think that their partner would find attractive. So, they might not slut shame, let's say, for example, it's an English match, they might not slut shame the workers in Thailand and stuff like that, but they would slut shame the local OnlyFans girls because it's more of a threat. So essentially, we, um, verbally attack those that we see as the biggest threat, and that will reduce the ability of us to secure resources from a man.

Chris Williamson 23:46 Yeah, very interesting.

Sadia Khan 23:48 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 23:48 Yeah, and-

Sadia Khan 23:48 And a sad thing as well, because I get a lot of hate from women, particularly from women saying that I don't side with women enough. And I always just say, "You have no idea what it's like to be around women." Like, uh, well, I, well, maybe they do, but for me personally, I've only ever, ever experienced negativity from women, especially in the workplace. So it's hard for me to really be like, "Women are amazing, women empowerment, women, women, women," when we a- I know from my personal experience, we don't support each other at all.

Chris Williamson 24:13 Yeah, that's...It's a, a ruthless sort of realization. I had Joyce Benenson on. Uh, I've had Christina Duranti on.

Sadia Khan 24:21 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 24:21 I've had Dr. Sarah Hill on. You know, a lot of evolutionary psychology researchers who are looking at intersexual competition. Candice Blake. And one of the things that Joyce looked at was the body language of female basketball teams.

Sadia Khan 24:36 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 24:37 She found that male opponents showed more physical affection to each other than female compatriots.

Sadia Khan 24:45 Uh-huh.

Chris Williamson 24:45 So, men on opposite teams-

Sadia Khan 24:47 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 24:47 ... of a basketball court-

Sadia Khan 24:48 Are still nicer to each other.

Chris Williamson 24:49 ... were more-

Sadia Khan 24:50 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 24:50 ... like, physically affectionate-

Sadia Khan 24:51 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 24:51 ... than girls that were on the same team.

Sadia Khan 24:53 Ah.

Chris Williamson 24:54 And I think that in, there's a lot of stuff-

Sadia Khan 24:55 There's a lot of...

Chris Williamson 24:55 ... going on with hierarchy, how that works.

Sadia Khan 24:57 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 24:58 It's the same reason why girls don't talk about their achievements-

Sadia Khan 25:00 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 25:00 ... academically if they know that other people are going to find out-

Sadia Khan 25:03 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 25:03 ... because stepping outside of that hierarchy is something that's a little bit dangerous. And that's kind of ruthless, right? Like, it should be the case as a girl that if you succeed and do something well, that you should be able to, like, be proud about it.

Sadia Khan 25:13 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 25:13 And you should be able to proclaim it, and other people should say, "Yeah, fuck i- y- you did good."

Sadia Khan 25:16 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 25:16 "well done." And, uh, y- one of the disadvantages, m- men are ruthless to each other in very specific ways.

Sadia Khan 25:23 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 25:23 But so are women.

Sadia Khan 25:24 Yeah. If s- and, and the thing is with men, they would hunt and gather in tribes, so it makes sense for them to have camaraderie and be part of a group. For women, we wouldn't necessarily use each other to go hunt. We would only feel secure once we've secured the person that gives us resources. So, that's why married women tend to b- who are happily in relationships tend to be less verbally hostile to ones that are single. So, single women together are tend to be more verbally, uh, hostile to one another than when those that are happily s- spoken for because they're no longer in that competition zone. So unfortunately, the reality of, um, uh, female and female empowerment, it only works if you're not threatened by each other. The moment there's a form of threat, they become very hostile and very aggressive. And so it's very difficult d- to have a platform where you're trying to just educate people about human nature as a woman because you'll get very much a lot of hatred from other women. So, it's not the easiest.

Chris Williamson 26:13 Mm. What's your, what are your qualifications?

Sadia Khan 26:16 I'm a psychologist, so what I did is I did a psychology degree, then I followed by master's, then I actually just went into teaching, so I d- went into teaching, but then I did psychodyna- a psychodynamic diploma. So, yeah.

Chris Williamson 26:24 Okay. Is psycho- is psychology just not like a protected term? Do you not need to have a doctorate or something for that?

Sadia Khan 26:28 Uh, n- you do if you're a research psychologist and if you're going to go into, like, clinical psychology.

Chris Williamson 26:33 Okay.

Sadia Khan 26:33 Yeah, yeah. So, I haven't done a doctorate.

Chris Williamson 26:35 Great.

Sadia Khan 26:35 I would like to, but it takes a long time.

Chris Williamson 26:37 Got you, okay.

Sadia Khan 26:38 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 26:38 Talk

Chris Williamson 26:39 to me about the problem with nice guys, then, talking about simps.

Sadia Khan 26:42 Essentially, what nice guys do is, what they suffer with is not that they're too nice or anything, it's just that they have incredibly weak boundaries when it comes to women. They simply, and not actually, not just women. It, it could be anybody. What they do is they lack a, a lot of masculinity, and what they do is they blame the fact that they're so nice as to why they can't get women. But it's not about being nice. It's about a lack of masculinity. And one of the best ways to establish masculinity is placing boundaries, particularly with women. When you don't like a behavior, you don't roll over and allow it to continue and then give her more in order t- for you to get her. You set a boundary and you have a willingness to walk away. Nice guys, what happens is they don't like to exert their boundaries, and they don't have a willingness to walk away. So, what ends up happening is their nice nature becomes a reason for resentment because women don't like it. They actually feel angry when you're too nice to them because then they don't feel protected. They feel like you're weak. If you let a woman make all the decisions for you, she'll slowly start to hate you, because she'll feel like she has to raise you and she'll lose respect for you. So, you're better... What we truly want is not a man that just is, like, chaotic. We just want a man who we can trust makes good decisions. He's not the nice guy. He's the one that we'll submit to. But the one that doesn't trust his own decision-making and we have to do it and he comes across as being nice, essentially, he's seen as weak.

Chris Williamson 27:59 Yeah, uh, overly pliable-

Sadia Khan 28:02 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 28:02 ... is the term that I think about.

Sadia Khan 28:04 But it's hard. Could you, like, how do you, as a man, make sure that you're nice and not weak? Like, it must be difficult because in this day and age that if you try and be, like, a bit more assertive, the, I'm guessing it t- gets a lot of pushback. It's, it's hard for a man. How d- uh...

Chris Williamson 28:18 I don't know. I think you'd be surprised. I think that, you know, the line of acceptable behavior is way wider than most people think.

Sadia Khan 28:27 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 28:27 Right? You know, y- you can be assertive in a powerful, reassuring way without being a tyrant.

Sadia Khan 28:37 Right.

Chris Williamson 28:37 It's pretty, it's pretty easy to achieve.

Sadia Khan 28:39 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 28:39 Right? I, I, I don't think that it's that hard. But I also understand that a lot of people don't have a massive amount of firsthand experience.

Sadia Khan 28:48 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 28:48 They, they're spending all of their time learning about things through the internet.

Sadia Khan 28:51 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 28:51 They don't actually have the... You need to be skillful and nimble, right?

Sadia Khan 28:54 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 28:54 To be able to... It, flirting and dealing with even the same sex, let alone the opposite sex, is like a delicate balance, right? It's a bit of a dance. It's a bit of-

Sadia Khan 29:03 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 29:03 ... teasing. Is it too far? Is it too much? Like, you know, it's, it requires experience. And most people don't have the opportunity to develop that.

Sadia Khan 29:11 A- and it's really easy to have the willingness to walk away when you're somebody that has a lot of alternatives, and it doesn't just mean other women. It could be a lifestyle that is alternative to being settled down. But when you're somebody that doesn't have many alternatives, the willingness to walk away decreases. So, I do understand it's very difficult for men to have that. But without the willingness to walk away, she'll look for a man that does have the m- willingness to walk away. She'll look for a man that does have boundaries because we need them as women.

Chris Williamson 29:35 It's strange, and I also understand that it must be ruthless to think, "Oh, well, I would really like a nice guy." Maybe your last relationship was with some dude that was in very avoidant-

Sadia Khan 29:45 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 29:45 ... uh, in, like, masculine in a non-supporting way.

Sadia Khan 29:49 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 29:50 And you think, "Okay, well, I'll, I'll go for a nice guy. I'll go for a guy that's g- a bit more pliable and a lot more agreeable." And then, if what you're saying is true and you end up resenting them-

Sadia Khan 29:58 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 29:58 ... and you go, "I, that, that wasn't what I wanted either."

Sadia Khan 30:01 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 30:01 So, it must be difficult.

Sadia Khan 30:02 Essentially-

Chris Williamson 30:02 It must be difficult for a girl.

Sadia Khan 30:03 Essentially, what we truly want is a man who's decision-making on his own is one that we can naturally submit to. What I mean by that is if I have to tell you to do this, that, and the other, and you listen to me, I don't respect you anymore because if I had to tell you and you listen to me and I'm better than you at making decisions, y- I'm more powerful than you, I don't feel protected. You simply have to be a man that could literally take a girl by her hand and lead her into, uh, whatever lifestyle it is, but she feels safe in that knowledge. But if you're the type of guy who's like second-guessing himself, if you're second-guessing yourself and then submitting to me, it's, uh, we automatically don't find that attractive. We see-

Chris Williamson 30:37 That can't be the same for every girl though, right? There must be a spectrum of women.

Sadia Khan 30:40 It, it works well for women who are planning to manipulate you.So the women that are planning to manipulate and planning to use a man, they love this guy without boundaries. The one that's, the girl that genuinely wants to have a connection with you, build a family with you, have a network with you, she actually wants you to have a backbone and wants you to have an opinion. The one that's planning to not stick around too long, the one that's planning to be with, keep in touch with another guy, the guy, the girl that w- wants an alimony as soon as the kids arrive, that's the one that wants you to be this people pleaser, bend over backwards, do everything I say.

Chris Williamson 31:12 Yeah. What about people pleasers more generally on the girls' side and on the guys' side?

Sadia Khan 31:17 Well, I guess they would be a m- a similar match, but what happen with pe- with two people pleasers, like where the woman is just a nice girl and the guy's just a nice guy, they don't create an authentic connection 'cause neither of them are giving each other the glue or the vulnerability to attach. One's saying, "I'll just do what you want." The other one says, "Okay, I'll just do what you want." We don't know each other, we're just a comfort blanket. But one of them at least has to be a bit discre- disagreeable to create that connection, give you that kind of glue to attach to. So unfortunately, two people pleasers don't usually end up together.

Chris Williamson 31:44 Did you watch Succession?

Sadia Khan 31:46 No, I didn't. Yeah.

Chris Williamson 31:47 Okay. So it's pretty cool, it's this series on HBO-

Sadia Khan 31:49 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 31:49 ... and I think it's really early on, maybe the, one of the first few episodes in the first season.

Sadia Khan 31:54 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 31:54 And this tyrannical father is pointing at his only daughter who's just got married to a guy who's very pliable-

Sadia Khan 32:00 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 32:00 ... at least for the first few seasons unbelievably pliable, right?

Sadia Khan 32:04 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 32:05 Um, he is a bit of a social climber, the, the potential future husband-

Sadia Khan 32:09 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 32:09 ... bit of a social climber. He kind of wants to be a part of the crew, so to speak, uh, and he says, the dad is just fucking going round the room like, "This is something I don't like about you, and this is something I don't like about you."

Sadia Khan 32:20 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 32:20 And he points at Shiv, the daughter, and he says, "You married a man that's beneath you because you're terrified of being betrayed."

Sadia Khan 32:26 Aw.

Chris Williamson 32:27 Fucking painful.

Sadia Khan 32:28 Very true.

Chris Williamson 32:28 But in that moment, I saw something that's very true. You know, the people that are scared of losing their partner-

Sadia Khan 32:36 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 32:36 ... a lot of the time will date down, aggressively date down-

Sadia Khan 32:39 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 32:40 ... because they know that they're so far ahead of what that partner would typically be in a relationship with.

Sadia Khan 32:46 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 32:46 With Shiv, it's largely resources and money and access-

Sadia Khan 32:49 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 32:49 ... which is kind of strange 'cause the dynamic's flipped typically from the way it would be.

Sadia Khan 32:53 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 32:53 But, um, yeah, that just, that really-

Sadia Khan 32:55 And, and then-

Chris Williamson 32:55 It's like one of the most brutal insults, like, it insults both of them at the same time with one thing.

Sadia Khan 33:01 (laughs) Yeah.

Chris Williamson 33:01 "You married a man that's beneath you because you're terrified of being betrayed."

Sadia Khan 33:04 And it's very true. A lot of women and men, um, uh, use that strategy, but the problem is you almost guarantee the divorce. If I marry someone beneath me to prevent him cheating on me, that doesn't change the other aspect that is required for a healthy relationship, which is bringing equal value to each other's life. And when one feels like they are married bene- uh, below, it, it doesn't work out either. The true connection comes when you both bring equal value and you don't, and you choose to be with each other rather than you know he can't do any better or she can't do any better. Eventually that catches up because a person with low self-esteem who feels like they've, you know, been punching eventually starts to get so much low self-esteem that they might seek external validation, so they might be more likely to cheat or more likely to dec- uh, to betray you because at some point, they can feel that you know, they know that you know that you're above them, and that low self-esteem can qu- create a desire to connect outside.

Chris Williamson 33:57 Wow.

Sadia Khan 33:57 So unfortunately, there isn't really a cure to that other than true connection. But one thing I would say about people pleasing, they say that it's linked to an absent father. They say that peop- what has a, having a, um, a father figure does is that rough and tumble kind of play and that harsh criticism gets you in the habit of speaking truth even if it's not the nicest thing to do. Whereas the absence of that can actually make you think that you're gonna offend because it's easy to offend mum, it's harder to offend dad. So when you're getting used to that rough and tumble kind of verbal, um, altercations with fathers, it prepares you for the real world of where you are less sensitive and more likely to be truthful rather than people pleasing.

Chris Williamson 34:33 What about the opposite then? What about treat them mean, keep them keen as opposed to people pleasing?

Sadia Khan 34:39 Um, again, another tactic, um, that's very much advocated in current dating but is again counterproductive, because the moment you treat people mean, you filter out healthy people. Healthy people don't stick around to be treated badly. That doesn't go in line with their template of relationships. Healthy people have a template of relationship that requires mutual respect. Now, when they're with somebody who treats them mean, they filter themselves out, they understand. They might work on it for a little bit, but they recognize where they're not welcome. Um, when you're treating them mean, keeping them keen, you're attaching to somebody that has incredibly low self-esteem who expects to be treated like this, who will then when you start, when you stop playing that game and actually wanna commit to that person or particularly that girl, she'll become volatile. She'll self-sabotage 'cause she's so used to being treated mean, commitment doesn't actually feel good. It feels unfamiliar. So she'll recreate some chaos in order to create the separation because treating them mean, keeping them keen doesn't work unfortunately.

Chris Williamson 35:37 Do you think men and women can be friends?

Sadia Khan 35:39 Yes, I do. Do you think they can be friends?

Chris Williamson 35:42 I've seen it go both ways.

Sadia Khan 35:43 Uh-huh.

Chris Williamson 35:44 More times than not it seems to mess up.

Sadia Khan 35:47 (laughs) Yeah.

Chris Williamson 35:48 But, uh, it's, it's not impossible. I've got a number of friends who have managed to do that totally platonically.

Sadia Khan 35:54 Mm-hmm. Do you have female friends?

Chris Williamson 35:57 Do I have female friends? I do, I do have some, yeah-

Sadia Khan 35:59 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 35:59 ... but they're mostly kind of from the industry, from podcasting.

Sadia Khan 36:02 Yeah. Uh-huh.

Chris Williamson 36:03 Uh, Mikhaila Peterson's probably one of my closest friends on the planet.

Sadia Khan 36:07 That's great.

Chris Williamson 36:07 Um...

Sadia Khan 36:09 Aw.

Chris Williamson 36:09 Yeah, so it's some, but it's-

Sadia Khan 36:11 But it's not common?

Chris Williamson 36:12 ... it's, I think it's tough. I think it's tough, like-

Sadia Khan 36:14 What do you think makes it tough about having female friendships?

Chris Williamson 36:16 Well, just that... The line between what you have and what you're familiar with when it comes to guys and girls and the line of romantic desirability is pretty fine-

Sadia Khan 36:28 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 36:29 ... and it only needs to be confused by one party-

Sadia Khan 36:32 Right.

Chris Williamson 36:32 ... for the relation-, for the friendship to break down.

Sadia Khan 36:34 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 36:35 Right? It doesn't need both people to want it to happ- if both people want it to happen, the friendship turns into a relationship.

Sadia Khan 36:40 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 36:40 If one person wants it to happen, the friendship's no longer a friendship.

Sadia Khan 36:43 You're right.

Chris Williamson 36:44 Right?

Sadia Khan 36:44 It's a system.

Chris Williamson 36:44 You've got a lot of different ways, and then let's forget that, let's say that one of either people gets into a relationship with someone that isn't in the friendship-

Sadia Khan 36:52 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 36:52 ... then there's like-... two more people that can have a problem.

Sadia Khan 36:56 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 36:56 "You can't see that person anymore."

Sadia Khan 36:57 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 36:57 "I don't like it when you go around her house."

Sadia Khan 36:59 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 36:59 "I don't like it when you spend time with him."

Sadia Khan 37:01 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 37:01 So there's so many different ways-

Sadia Khan 37:03 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 37:03 ... that this can go wrong.

Sadia Khan 37:05 I understand. And the one thing I would like to point out about that, 'cause men can never understand why females can have male friends, uh, but we tend to believe that we can have male friends. And the reason why we kind of think like this is because we would rather have somebody, a f- a friend who secretly loves us than a female friend that secretly hates us. And you guys don't have to experience that. Usually when men don't like each other, they separate from each other. Women, when they don't like each other, they'll make reservations together, and they'll still go on holidays together, and they'll keep in each other's lives. So when we crave male friendships, it's because you don't know the pain... Well, not necessarily pain. That sounds a bit exaggerated. But the difficulty in finding good female friendships. They are not as easy for us, where men, if they play a sport together, they can pretty much be friends. For us, you can do everything, the- right with a female friendship. All it takes is, uh, a, you know, a birthday gone wrong or a boyfriend that they don't like or a boyfriend that they both like, um, and the entire friendship is destroyed. And there's a safety in a male friendship that we can't find in female friendships because it's very difficult to find women that are totally not threatened by you in any way, shape, or form by other women. And that's even when you're... I'm not saying just when you're attractive. Even when you're less attractive, you still have friends similar level of attractiveness, so there is a form of threat even there. Uh, so that's the first thing I think women can... why women can have better friendships with men. The other thing is, I just think if you are a, a woman or a man of value beyond your sexual kind of, um, proudness, if you've got something other to offer, isn't it natural that men, women, old, young, everybody's gonna gravitate towards you and wanna be around you? I just think it's natural f- con- it's a natural consequence of being a valuable person-

Chris Williamson 38:38 Mm.

Sadia Khan 38:39 ... is that people gravitate towards you. In the male and female form, they will gravitate towards you. So to kind of have an arbitrary rule that you can't have male and can't have female, it would only work if your personality is limited, if you have a limited personality. If I'm a girl that only talks about hair and makeup, of course I can only have female friends. But if I'm a woman that can have a lot of different types of conversations, it's natural to be able to connect with different type of people.

Chris Williamson 39:03 There's two things that makes me think about... First, I had the Director of Relationship Science from Hinge, Logan Ury, on the show-

Sadia Khan 39:10 Okay.

Chris Williamson 39:10 ... about, uh, a year and a half ago.

Sadia Khan 39:12 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 39:13 Uh, and she taught me about, um, people confuse spark in the beginning of a relationship for something special without realizing that some people are just sparky to everyone.

Sadia Khan 39:24 Yes.

Chris Williamson 39:24 And that was a really interesting insight, and it's kind of like what you're talking about here.

Sadia Khan 39:27 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 39:27 Right? That if you're somebody that's interesting and trustworthy and of high value in the world, people are just gonna gravitate toward you 'cause you're a nice person to know.

Sadia Khan 39:36 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 39:37 You're useful. You're cool. You're fun to be around. You're interesting, right?

Sadia Khan 39:40 Right.

Chris Williamson 39:41 So, there are certain people who just suck others in.

Sadia Khan 39:45 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 39:45 Right? Now, the second thing, have you heard of the over-perception and under-perception bias of attraction?

Sadia Khan 39:51 Mm. Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 39:51 So this is really interesting. It's out of evolutionary psychology.

Sadia Khan 39:54 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 39:54 So, men over-perceive the level of attraction that they believe women have toward them-

Sadia Khan 40:02 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 40:02 ... and women under-perceive-

Sadia Khan 40:03 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 40:03 ... the level of attraction that men have toward them.

Sadia Khan 40:05 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 40:05 It's, uh, referred to as a failure of cross-sex-

Sadia Khan 40:08 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 40:08 ... mind reading.

Sadia Khan 40:08 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 40:08 And this shows up very reliably in the data. David Buss-

Sadia Khan 40:11 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 40:11 ... put this out in Bad Men or Men Behaving Badly, depending on which-

Sadia Khan 40:14 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 40:14 ... country you're in. This is why a boss or a coworker will maybe make a, an ungainly move-

Sadia Khan 40:24 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 40:24 ... apart from, like, the creeps, like Harvey Weinstein and stuff like that-

Sadia Khan 40:27 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 40:27 ... make an ungainly move because they will believe that, "Oh, yeah, you know, her eyes always linger on me."

Sadia Khan 40:32 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 40:32 "She always makes it to the water cooler at the same time-

Sadia Khan 40:34 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 40:34 "... that I do."

Sadia Khan 40:35 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 40:35 "She's always in the, the, th- printing her stuff in the cupboard the same-

Sadia Khan 40:38 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 40:38 ... time that I do as well. Maybe I should try and ask her out."

Sadia Khan 40:40 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 40:42 It is much more useful for men to have a smoke alarm that goes off a lot-

Sadia Khan 40:47 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 40:47 ... and is wrong a lot, but is right every so often-

Sadia Khan 40:49 Right.

Chris Williamson 40:49 ... because the price of missing a potential signal is really high-

Sadia Khan 40:55 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 40:56 ... and the cost-

Sadia Khan 40:57 (laughs) .

Chris Williamson 40:57 ... of noticing a signal that wasn't there is essentially zero.

Sadia Khan 41:00 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 41:00 Right? The reverse for women-

Sadia Khan 41:02 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 41:02 ... in speed dating, they did this. They put men and women down at a speed dating event, asked both of them, "How attracted were you to the other one?"

Sadia Khan 41:09 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 41:09 Women regularly rated that they were way less attracted to the man than the man thought-

Sadia Khan 41:14 (laughs) Aw.

Chris Williamson 41:14 ... and the reverse true too.

Sadia Khan 41:15 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 41:17 This is the failure of cross-sex mind reading-

Sadia Khan 41:19 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 41:19 ... and it explains so much about the world that men and women inhabit because we don't inhabit the same world.

Sadia Khan 41:24 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 41:24 I don't see my interaction with you the same way that you see your interaction with me-

Sadia Khan 41:29 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 41:29 ... and this reliably smeared across an entire population-

Sadia Khan 41:32 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 41:32 ... is why men and women don't understand each other, because we do not have the same brains, and we don't see the world in the same way.

Sadia Khan 41:37 You know, but when I do deal with, uh, clients who are, you know, men, uh, who are very lonely and, um, who struggle with female connection, I do ask them, "Do you have any female friends?" And the answer is invariably no. And I always say that "You need them." And they're like, "Nope, we shouldn't be friends, da, da, da. Men and women can't be friends." And I said, "But they're training ground for women in the real world because when you have female friends, they teach you what things upset women, what things up, uh, uh, make them happy, what they mean by when they text slowly, when they text fast, when they don't text at all." They teach you so much that you can't learn from women directly because when a woman is in love with a man, she can't help but play stupid games because it's part of her protection strategy. So what she'll do is say she's done when she's not done or say she doesn't wanna sleep with you when she does wanna sleep with you. She'll say the opposite of what she truly means. But having female friends helps you understand this human psychology behind a woman in a way that, uh, experience, direct experience with them won't. So that's why I actually say, 'cause some of my male friends will be like, "This girl just did that," I'm like, "Oh, that means she wants you to do da, da, da, da," and you translate it, but yeah-

Chris Williamson 42:37 You can see the code, not the matrix.

Sadia Khan 42:39 ... you can see the code because we speak in code.

Chris Williamson 42:40 Yeah.

Sadia Khan 42:41 Yeah, it's a-

Chris Williamson 42:41 Well, I, so Destiny, who you should speak to at some point 'cause I think you guys-

Sadia Khan 42:46 Who I think is great, by the way.

Chris Williamson 42:47 Destiny's fas- fascinating dude.

Sadia Khan 42:48 And who I think is fantastic.

Chris Williamson 42:49 Very, very, very-

Sadia Khan 42:50 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 42:50 ... very big fan of Destiny.

Sadia Khan 42:51 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 42:52 He said that...Uh, someone asked him what the best piece of dating advice he is, h- he could give to guys, and he says, "During high school have lots of female friends."

Sadia Khan 43:01 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 43:01 He apparently just hung with this big group of guys and girls and had tons of female friends, and did exactly what you said. We'll get back to talking to Sadia in one minute, but first I need to tell you about Factor. If you are too busy this autumn to cook but still want to make sure that you're eating well, Factor is the solution. With Factor you can skip the extra trip to the grocery store, plus all of the chopping and prepping and cleaning up, while still getting the flavor and nutritional quality that you need. Factor's fresh, never frozen meals are ready in just two minutes, so all you have to do is heat and enjoy. And right now their autumn menu has some absolute bangers, like a cranberry pecan chicken and an apple Dijon pork chop. Or, if like me you're struggling to hit your protein goals, you can try their Protein Plus meals with 30 grams or more of protein per serving. I cannot tell you how big of a life hack it is to only be two minutes away from a 30 gram of protein meal at all times. Right now you can get 50% off by heading to the link in the description below, or going to factormeals.com/mw50 and using the code MW50 at checkout. That's factormeals.com/mw50, and MW50 at checkout. Female friends for guys are like low stakes test relationships.

Sadia Khan 44:15 Absolutely. I- I- um, growing up all my friends were men, and I still have a, a really large circle of male friends. My birthdays, every year my birthday if there's a table like this, 80% of them will be my male friends.

Chris Williamson 44:26 Is that not an Islam thing though, rather than like a friend thing?

Sadia Khan 44:29 As in, like why I have-

Chris Williamson 44:31 That you just, uh, you, in as far as I'm aware, the typical Muslim family-

Sadia Khan 44:36 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 44:37 ... would have like the fucking uncles are over-

Sadia Khan 44:39 (laughs) .

Chris Williamson 44:39 ... and all of the rest of it.

Sadia Khan 44:40 Yeah, we do have a big male dominance in our, in our world. Uh, technically we shouldn't really be interacting, uh, opposite genders. I know I shouldn't be, but I do, I'll be honest.

Chris Williamson 44:49 Haram.

Sadia Khan 44:50 It's haram. (laughs) So I do. And I have a huge... And then, but the thing is, what it meant is, it, uh, I have a plethora of understanding about the male psyche that I could never get from a textbook. A lot of people will say to me, when it comes to my content online, they say, "You have a very unique perspective. How do you know this?" And I said, "Honestly it's because I have so many males around me, and I have so, uh, an interest in them." So I'll ask loads and loads of questions, and I'll understand their relationships, and I meet their girlfriends, and I understand. So it gives me up-to-date data about what's going on with men. And, but I am s- I am biased because what happens is I naturally only know men who are confident, but I don't know what the psychology as much of the guy that's stuck in his mom's basement and addicted to pornography, and I think I'm learning that by how triggered they get by certain conversations online. So I just think it j- like Destiny said, it definitely does give you a framework of understanding the male brain that you can't get through other women.

Chris Williamson 45:43 That would be an unbelievably unpopular piece of advice to give to a lot of the manosphere to say that-

Sadia Khan 45:49 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 45:49 ... one of the best things you could do would be to be friends with women so that it's a low stakes training ground for-

Sadia Khan 45:56 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 45:56 ... finding a, a partner down the line, because it's kind of common advice that you don't need any women in your life, that-

Sadia Khan 46:01 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 46:01 ... like all you need is your boys, what could I ever get from a woman, et cetera, et cetera.

Chris Williamson 46:05 There was this, um, massive debate, did the sexual revolution fail that happened this week in LA.

Sadia Khan 46:11 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 46:12 And one of my friends, Louise Perry, was on one of the sides. Grimes was opposite her.

Sadia Khan 46:16 (laughs) .

Chris Williamson 46:16 Uh, and Tim Dillon was there, it was mediated by Barry Weiss. And, um, Rob Henderson, one of my friends, tweeted this earlier on, it's amazing. He says, "There's lots of discussion at the sexual revolution debate about whether the revolution failed men or failed women, or helped men more than women, or helped women more than men. Nobody asked whether the sexual revolution failed children. People already know it's too depressing of a topic."

Sadia Khan 46:39 Yeah, absolutely accurate. It basically failed both genders, but when you fail both genders you fail children because they're the remnants of two broken people. So I think, uh, it's massively failed children, but I think in some ways it's definitely favored the man that has no desire to invest and have responsibility. That's the only man that it favors from this, is he gets a bunch of women to have low enough self-esteem that they will be able to allow him access without any investment. Meanwhile, while he's going, he can then go on to meet the girl he actually wants to be with, whilst this girl he's happy to come at 4:00 AM after a night out. So it's the opposite of feminism. It's allowing men free rein over females, and whilst investing very, very little. I don't know who tricked women into thinking that this is beneficial, but whoever did is probably a man.

Chris Williamson 47:27 And then down the line from that, they've also managed to trick women into believing that it's fine for the guy to stay at home and play video games and make sure that the sandwiches are done all day, you can go out and earn the money.

Sadia Khan 47:37 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 47:37 I mean, it's like, it's such a trope, but people make these funny tweets online about how the patriarchy is so powerful it conned women into providing for men as well.

Sadia Khan 47:44 Uh, yeah, and the other thing that, and I know I spoke about this quite recently, is that the, um, a- like the pushing the bisexuality which only again benefits-

Chris Williamson 47:52 What's that? I haven't heard you talk about this.

Sadia Khan 47:53 Um, well, in pornography there is a lot of emphasis on girl on girl, and there's a lot of threesomes and so on and so forth, and in my personal experience seeing a lot of straight women engage in threesome activities m- primarily to please their hu- um, the man, but they'll convince themselves that they like girls, but they only seem to like girls in the presence of their partner that suggested the threesome. And they only seem to like the girl that their partner had an insight into ch- selecting. And then, and you know it's not true bisexuality because when their husband or their partner's not there, they no longer have this interest in women. And also when they really care about the guy, they don't engage in the threesomes, and I know when they love the guy a lot they don't want to share him. But if you were truly bisexual you wouldn't have that jealousy because you'd be like this is an equal playing field. I also get to touch the girl. But what I think that's happened is, um, the rise in kind of experimenting, sexual pr- uh, experimenting, is again only benefiting men. I know so many men that are in open relationships where he can sleep with other women but he can't sleep with other men but she can sleep with other women. Who benefits from that? He gets to, he gets to-

Chris Williamson 48:52 Well, that's al- so the presumption is that they're not actually bisexual, right?

Sadia Khan 48:56 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 48:56 It does seem, looking at some of the data, like... women are more bisexual than men are.

Sadia Khan 49:02 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 49:03 Uh, genuinely bisexual-

Sadia Khan 49:04 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 49:04 ... at least self- self-identifying outside of relationships.

Sadia Khan 49:07 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 49:08 But yes, I would- I would agree that I was surprised with this rise of the one-sided open relationship-

Sadia Khan 49:14 And the threesomes.

Chris Williamson 49:15 ... in- in Austin, there's a lot of-

Sadia Khan 49:17 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 49:17 ... marriages where we're open but it's only girls, and it's only when we're together.

Sadia Khan 49:22 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 49:23 Um, I- maybe- maybe this is what they want, but-

Sadia Khan 49:26 I- I would be curious what the data would be amongst women who have never watched porn and their level of bisexuality. I would imagine women who have never watched porn, they're bis- they- they would have lower rates of bisexuality than women who are addicts or watch regularly, uh, uh, and who are partnered with men who s- also make the suggestion about threesomes. I would wonder how many women who, without the external influences, because we've been taught for many, many years in the recent data that homosexuality and bisexuality is innate and it's something you're born with, but if the advent of pornography increased it, then how- it must have some external forces behind it.

Chris Williamson 50:01 Yeah. Well, there's- one of the legitimations for this is the left-handedness argument, and it's used for trans people but it might apply here. It's kind of a useful frame, so I'll tell everybody-

Sadia Khan 50:15 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 50:15 ... and let me spin a yarn. So, during the Middle Ages, people who were left-handed were seen as being touched by the devil.

Sadia Khan 50:22 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 50:22 They were seen as being witches.

Sadia Khan 50:23 Devil worship. Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 50:24 Right? Uh, so it caused lots of people who would have been left-handed-

Sadia Khan 50:27 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 50:27 ... to hide their left-handedness.

Sadia Khan 50:29 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 50:29 They weren't their true selves.

Sadia Khan 50:30 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 50:31 As w- the world began to realize that being left-handed wasn't associated with being a witch or a wizard, that was relinquished and I think the percentage went from less than five to around about 12% of the population is left-handed.

Sadia Khan 50:45 Okay. Hmm.

Chris Williamson 50:45 That's them being their true selves.

Sadia Khan 50:47 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 50:48 There is an argument made that one of the reasons, one of the justifications for an increase in trans youths and trans adults is that previously, the judgments of society created a glass ceiling-

Sadia Khan 51:01 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 51:01 ... that made people keep it away-

Sadia Khan 51:02 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 51:02 ... because they were worried about being judged.

Sadia Khan 51:04 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 51:04 Now that the judgment has been released, I'm free to be my open and- and honest self.

Sadia Khan 51:10 Um, uh, in terms of transgender, that doesn't explain the- the suicide rates still being exactly the same despite the world now accepting it, so there must be an underlying mental health concern that may have then- be a precursor to the gender kind of n- not identifying it. In terms of bisexuality, what I would then ask is, if we have now removed the stigma for bisexuality, why are not more men saying to their wives, "Can we add a man to the mix? Can we have it where, you know, you can sleep with lots of men and I can sleep with lots of men?" Why is that not being seen as sexy? Why is it-

Chris Williamson 51:43 That is a strange thought experiment to consider.

Sadia Khan 51:46 ... why are there not women there saying, "Oh, can your friend come and you two do things and I just watch?" That doesn't happen. Women are not sitting there telling their husband, "Can you tell your friend to come over and you two just do- I promise I won't get involved," the way men do. Men are saying to women-

Chris Williamson 51:58 How do you think- so I think that there- there's definitely an asymmetry going on here.

Sadia Khan 52:01 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 52:02 With how men see their partner, their female partner being with another female.

Sadia Khan 52:06 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 52:07 How do you think women would perceive their male partner being with another man?

Sadia Khan 52:12 There's no going back from that for most women. They're, once he's got- once he's- for most women, I'm not speaking of all women, but once they see the man go- because the- the thing is, women, when they provide each other with sexual stimulation, it's nothing really a man can't do also. But when a man provides another man with sexual stimulation, women can't compete with that. It's a completely different experience. So therefore, we are like, "You don't like- you d- there's nothing I can do for you. Yeah, you're at the wrong shop here, son. You have to go back to-" but with women, I- I think when men are watching another woman, there's nothing that they can do to each other that- that he can't really get involved in.

Chris Williamson 52:48 There's something strange, I- I don't know why, but it feels like a one-way street that goes in opposite directions. A woman that's bisexual, every man presumes that it's just a phase.

Sadia Khan 52:59 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 52:59 And that she'll go back from a liquid diet onto a solid diet eventually.

Sadia Khan 53:03 (laughs)

Chris Williamson 53:03 Every man that's bisexual-

Sadia Khan 53:06 Yeah, they-

Chris Williamson 53:06 Uh, more men that are bisexual are considered to just be in the closet but have not fully committed to doing it yet.

Sadia Khan 53:12 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 53:12 And I don't know where this comes from. I have no idea whether or not this has actually shown up in the data.

Sadia Khan 53:16 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 53:16 There's definitely more bisexual women and there's more gay men.

Sadia Khan 53:20 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 53:20 I know this.

Sadia Khan 53:21 But I- from speaking to bisexual men, they say that they- if they are bisexual, they end up just choosing homosexuality because they know women don't really accept bisexuality in them. Yeah, yeah, so-

Chris Williamson 53:30 That's interesting. So it's not necessarily what they want, it's what they can get.

Sadia Khan 53:33 In my experience of working with bisexual men, usually the bisexuality is, not always, but can be linked to some childhood sexual abuse. With childhood- and the- and the data also supports this, that the rates of childhood sexual abuse that leads to bisexuality in men is higher than amongst, um, heterosexuals. So usually what happens is they may have experienced some abuse by, uh, uh, uh, somebody of the same gender. Now what happens is as a result of that experience, it still creates a template of sexual desire that they don't- they- they are open to exploring as an adult as a way of reducing the trauma. When we've been traumatized, the only way that we think we can re- un-traumatize ourself is by voluntarily like, re-traumatizing ourselves. So they end up exploring a little bit or being a bit curious and stuff, but maybe they were actually heterosexual but that trauma led them astray and if the- they wanna go back to being heterosexual, women aren't as accepting and so they end up sometimes just going down that-

Chris Williamson 54:26 It's a brutal, um- it's a brutal situation that you get into because you have to either choose to be untruthful to your partner-

Sadia Khan 54:33 Mm-hmm. Exactly. Yeah.

Chris Williamson 54:33 ... if they ever ask about your sexual history, or agree to open up about something that you're fearful about how they're going to respond.

Sadia Khan 54:41 Uh-huh. Horrible.

Chris Williamson 54:41 It's kind of the- the same as the sort of one-way street of doing OnlyFans or sex work as a woman that you are gonna have to concede that in future, you're either gonna have to tell your partner and- and deal with the potential ramifications of that-

Sadia Khan 54:54 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 54:54 ... or you're gonna have to not tell them.

Sadia Khan 54:57 And when it's a partner that then accepts it and knows about it, he usually, when it- when it comes to the OnlyFans, is a por- somebody who is addicted to pornography and almost likes that, but the man that's addicted to pornography is very difficult for an OnlyFans woman to be with because they're usually men who still require novelty and still require more women, and so- and so i- i- enhances the low self-esteem for her, unfortunately.

Chris Williamson 55:19 There was this stat that I put in my newsletter this week. Involuntary childlessness is a male problem too.

Sadia Khan 55:24 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 55:25 25% of men over 42 do not have children,

Chris Williamson 55:28 5% more-

Sadia Khan 55:29 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 55:29 ... than women of the same age group. Almost 40% have experienced depression, 25% feel a deep anger. There is a lot of publicity, quite rightly, about women and childlessness, but men are very mute about this. And that was in The Guardian.

Sadia Khan 55:43 Oh, wow. Um, and, and I completely agree because one thing that men, uh, online, their voice online to kind of shame women is, "Well, you don't have kids. You don't have kids." But unfortunately, who suffers more from when not, when they don't have kids, what they find is women without kids and without marriage earn, I think, about 70% more than men that don't have marriage and kids because marriage and kids gives men a, a purpose and meaning that they can't derive from anything else. It gives them the motivation to work harder, it gives them the motivation to do those hard jobs that pay more, it gives them a, a will to live. Um, with women, we can still find connections with our friends and family and parents, and we can f- we can spread out our connections. But if you look at most men, like if we look at your fathers and, like, you know, in that generation, without their wives, they're a bit lost. I know my dad would not know what to do with his day if my mom wasn't around. And at the, as they age, one of the things that doctors always say, the first thing that as you, as you get older and you go, uh, go to the doctors, um, they'll say to you, "Have you got a wife?" And even with my dad, when they do a checkup, they, "Have you got a wife?" They check, because why? Because the rate of healing after surgery is faster and quicker when you have a wife. And your rate of recovery from cancer is better when you have a wife. Somebody checking in on you does a lot for a man because they don't get that from their social network as much as women do. So a woman aging alone, I'm not saying it's a good thing, but it's, she's more adapted to it than a man aging alone who then starts to self-sabotage, and actually kind of, uh, life becomes a slow suicide for them.

Chris Williamson 57:09 I had a look at Dr. Robert Waldinger, the guy who is currently heading the longest ever longitudinal study of happiness.

Sadia Khan 57:17 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 57:18 Um, and marriage seems to add about four years of-

Sadia Khan 57:24 Oh, wow.

Chris Williamson 57:24 ... lifespan to a man.

Sadia Khan 57:25 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 57:26 For a woman, it's roundabout the same.

Sadia Khan 57:27 (laughs) Oh.

Chris Williamson 57:27 Um, so men get, you know, through all of the... Marriage is a terrible deal for guys, she's gonna take everything in the divorce. And don't get me wrong, you know-

Sadia Khan 57:35 Yeah, it's terrible.

Chris Williamson 57:35 ... there's a lot of divorce, and it's-

Sadia Khan 57:36 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 57:36 ... it's, it's not great for either party. But the deal for men is really fucking good.

Sadia Khan 57:42 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 57:42 You wanna live four years longer? Like-

Sadia Khan 57:43 (laughs) And earn more.

Chris Williamson 57:43 ... find a partner.

Sadia Khan 57:44 And responsible more. But one thing I would say is that the family laws are so horrible in certain countries, and I'm a big advocate for marriage, but mainly because I come from a spiritual and religious background. But from a non-religious background, I can see why it seems like a death sentence to get the law involved and to get married because she can walk away with a lot, even if, like, she was not to blame. So I can understand where the fear comes from, but you almost have to take that risk in order to get the reward of a stable, responsible life.

Chris Williamson 58:12 I think the risk is, is, the risk is increasing, and the reward has stayed the same.

Sadia Khan 58:16 Uh, but it, the risk can be mitigated by good selection. When you start trusting your decisions, you'll be less likely to be fearful of these consequences. But when you make poor decisions, of course everything is a risk.

Chris Williamson 58:28 Why do you think there's this generalized culture of anti-children and family creation at the moment?

Sadia Khan 58:36 I wonder where that's stemming from. I do think it's a sad reality, and I don't know where that's coming from. I just think the reality is there's so many alternatives to having kids now. You can travel, you can really become something. If you wanna become famous, you can become famous. You can travel the world. You can make a lot of money. You can do all of these things. But, you know, uh, if you speak to people who have even, you know, scored goals in the World Cup, they'll still tell you that their b- best moment of their life is when their child was born. So I think it's a really negative thing to place, um, to kind of p- put on society. I think the reality is when you know that you're going to have kids, you have to take more responsibility of your life. You have to save more money, you have to look after your health. It gives you a will to live. Now, to remove that from you is a, is a slow and steady self-sabotage. When you don't have any children for the rest of your life and you think you're never gonna have them, essentially you could be a car wreck, and no one's gonna watch you. Whereas when you have children, it's an automatic therapy. You have to fix your traumas. You have to fix your self-sabotaging behaviors. So you're depriving yourself of reaching your full potential when you completely write that off, I, I believe, but I could be wrong with that.

Chris Williamson 59:38 I, y- you're preaching to the choir. I think that-

Sadia Khan 59:40 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 59:40 ... it's really great. All of my friends that have become fathers, they've stepped up in a way that I- I'm impressed by. Like-

Sadia Khan 59:47 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 59:47 ... they were, they were hitters before, and they're even bigger hitters now.

Sadia Khan 59:50 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 59:51 Which is why it surprises me that there is this generalized anti-children, anti-family creation culture.

Sadia Khan 59:56 It's really good. Like sometimes, you know, and they, and they even do it with men that c- are in like, you know, uh, in trouble with the law and stuff. Sometimes when they have children, it's the only way to get them off the streets because it's the only thing that gives them that mo- motivation that they can't find outside of it. Bu- so if you are feeling that, maybe it's, uh, you need to-

Chris Williamson 1:00:14 Have a kid?

Sadia Khan 1:00:15 ... settle down... Have a kid. (laughs)

Chris Williamson 1:00:15 But I, I understand what you mean as well that there is this kind of mass individualism.

Sadia Khan 1:00:21 Mm.

Chris Williamson 1:00:22 Um, I think that some of the most common reasons as to why people aren't getting into relationships at the moment, uh, working on myself right now, just don't feel ready-

Sadia Khan 1:00:29 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:00:30 ... uh, sort of biding my time, so to speak.

Sadia Khan 1:00:32 Super childish though.

Chris Williamson 1:00:33 It's just-

Sadia Khan 1:00:34 Mm.

Chris Williamson 1:00:34 ... uh, uh, it's a focus on the individual.

Sadia Khan 1:00:36 Mm.

Chris Williamson 1:00:37 Um, and it's very isolationist. It's very atomized.

Sadia Khan 1:00:42 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:00:42 It's all about the individual on their own. And I, don't get me wrong, you know, if you spend your time, maybe you're work from, working from home post-COVID-

Sadia Khan 1:00:51 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:00:52 ... um, maybe your job doesn't actually require you to interact with that many other people, or maybe you're all, doing it all through Slack and through Zoom.

Sadia Khan 1:00:58 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:00:59 You don't need to really leave the house that much anymore. You can DoorDash your food.

Sadia Khan 1:01:03 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:01:03 You can Amazon Prime whatever it is that you need. You can stay on the couch and watch Netflix.

Sadia Khan 1:01:08 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:01:08 Uh, we've become more isolated, and I think that that trend almost causes us to justify more isolationism.

Sadia Khan 1:01:14 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:01:15 Uh, and it also, it's called extended adolescence or slow-life strategy-

Sadia Khan 1:01:19 Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:01:20 ... that Jean Twenge found, and this is...... just never really getting to the stage of growing up. You know, young people are getting their driver's licenses later. They're starting work later. They're moving out of the house later.

Sadia Khan 1:01:30 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:01:30 Like, the most common living arrangement for men under the age of 30 is still being at home with their parents.

Sadia Khan 1:01:35 Yeah. And this is one of the things I- I, you know, I get a lot of slack on for online 'cause I talk a lot about age gaps. And sometimes young women, you know, they go for older men and they'll say, "Yeah, but he's 40. I know I'm only 22, but at least he'll be more responsible and he will settle down." Responsibil- uh, well, maturity is not defined by age, it's defined by how much responsibility you have. And I always say, "If he's got to 40, no kids, no marriage under his belt, he's chosen that Peter Pan lifestyle. No 23-year-old is gonna come along and wake him up. He's chosen to be that man. Are you sure you wanna be with him? You're better off with a 30-year-old that's got more responsibility than a 45-year-old who hasn't." Because if you think a number defines maturity, you're lost. The reality is, it's the amount of responsibility, particularly responsibility and care for others. So if he's supporting family, if he's supporting, uh, an ex-wife or he was married or he had kids, it does something to men. It kind of, uh, it creates a, uh, a level of responsibility and accountability that they can't get without that. So I do always tell women, um, "Don't be afraid of being with a man that's had kids or a man that's, uh, you know, been married. They're better than the ones that have had no baggage because baggage is responsibility, which is then accountability for a man."

Chris Williamson 1:02:43 Do you think that the same is true in reverse?

Sadia Khan 1:02:46 No, unfortunately. It doesn't work the same way with women. Not always. It can sometimes, but it doesn't always work the same way because women, when they have children, uh, good women with... Healthy women actually prioritize the children first and foremost. And if she doe- uh, uh, one of the priorities is sup- becoming then super cautious of the man that she allows to enter into the man's world. And her, if she's a really good mother, she tends to keep a good co-parenting relationship with the ex, and a lot of men don't feel comfortable with that. But the true good woman, like the single mom that you should be looking for, is the one that's got a good relationship with her ex-husband. What men do is they prefer the woman that has no contact with the ex and the kids have never seen the ex, and they think, "Oh, I'll go for that girl. At least the ex- baby father is not around." That's a signal that she deprives or prevents children from connecting with their father. That's not a good thing. That's not green flag. That's actually a red flag. So what men are doing is sometimes they're selecting women and thinking, "She's got children, but she, she doesn't let the kids see their dad and they're not in his life and he was a bum." But what does that tell you about her selection process and what does that tell you about her ability to co-parent? It's an insight into what would happen if you two broke up. You won't exist for those children. "That's not a healthy mother. A healthy mother is he cheated on me, he was awful, he was a wreck, but the kids need their father. I drop him every Friday." That's the healthy mother. But men don't interpret single motherhood the way they should.

Chris Williamson 1:04:07 Yeah. Do you have any idea how fatherlessness impacts boys' and girls' behavior and-

Sadia Khan 1:04:13 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:04:14 ... what they, what they look for when they grow up and start dating?

Sadia Khan 1:04:17 Um, with women, they definitely... And here's the problem women have when they grow up without a father figure and they really feel it, is they'll always date a lot older men. So they'll be 17, 18 years old and they're looking at the 30-year-old and the 35-year-old and they're getting older and older and there's a huge gap between them. Now, in my experience of working with women that go for these age gap relationships, is they are in survival mode without a father. They need that safety and comfort. And the conversations that we normally find really boring coming from our father about mortgage rates and like, you know, saving your money, they sexualize those conversations. So when they hear it from an older man, they're like, "Oh, no, he's so responsible." It's they're not used to it, so they end up initially going for the older man and falling in love. But once they feel safe and they've got the money and they've got the safety, they then look for men around their own age. They end up... It's like, it's almost like having a safe, secure base. Once you've got an older father figure in your life, then you go on to see what you're sexually attracted to. But until you've got that secure base, you're in survival mode. You're looking for who can make you feel safe, not who can make you feel like... Who you're attracted to. So they confuse, they blur the lines between attraction and safety, and they end up looking for an older man, but then cheating on him with a younger man.

Chris Williamson 1:05:24 Do you think that they over-prioritize, uh, socioeconomic status-

Sadia Khan 1:05:30 Yeah.

Chris Williamson 1:05:30 ... in that regard?

Sadia Khan 1:05:31 Rightly so. I understand why, because they don't have a backup plan. When you grow up with your father, you know at some point he'll help you when things get rough or he'll leave something for you and stuff and it naturally creates a level of safety. They don't have that safety. And usually they, if they come from a single mom home, she's also encouraging her to look for a rich man, because it benefits her as well. You know, there's usually some kind of like support network, "Okay, you can come live with us." And so on and so forth. So they come from a culture of, you know, "You don't have to love a man. All men are annoying and they're difficult, so just choose one that's gonna give you a good life." So they end up focusing on socioeconomic and, uh, economic status, but they also end up with men with low self-esteem. Because a man with high self-esteem at 40 years old would recognize he's got nothing in common with a 22-year-old who makes TikToks all day. He wouldn't have any intellectual intimacy. So she ends up with an, uh, older man with low self-esteem who, when she does cheat on him, will still take her back and so on and so forth, who, uh, who pays every bill or whatever it is. She's, so she'll... Again, she ends up with a man that d- she doesn't respect in the long run but really admires initially because he provides her with that safety she's been craving.

Chris Williamson 1:06:32 Yeah. You, you told me about this book you'd been reading to do with parental alienation.

Sadia Khan 1:06:36 Mm-hmm.

Chris Williamson 1:06:36 What's that?

Sadia Khan 1:06:37 Well, the thing is I was looking into parental alienation only because I see it so much going on. But one of the things, um, punishments women use for a man that's b- that she feels has let her down is depriving her, uh, him of access to the children. Now, the problem I see happening is with the children of such mothers, especially the men of such mothers, they go on to have very, very abusive relationships. So men who grow up with single moms who blocked access, they end up with women who are very abusive. Either they're unfaithful or they financially abuse them or they just, uh, uh, they're physically abusive. They grow up with very ab- they end up selecting very abusive m- uh, women. And from my observation and from what I'm reading, it looks like what happens is when you've been deprived of a father and you've only heard mom's side of the story, what happens is they put their mom on a pedestal. They think moms, uh, women are the innocent victims of harsh men. So what will happen is they pray to women that need saving. They always gravitate towards women that they can save and help and nurture and say, "Oh yeah, that man was terrible. I've got you. I'm gonna help you. I'm gonna show you what life looks like 'cause I've been doing that to Mom my whole life." The problem with those women is they are broken beyond you. You can't fix them-Most women can't be saved. They, they have an, uh, something broken that they need to fix, uh, themselves. But the man that thinks he can save her is the one that's a little bit more delusional, and he gets his self-esteem from seeing her now love him. So unfortunately, he ends up going for very broken women that end up re-abusing him and he, uh, he ends up not having those boundaries that he needs with