The Future Of The Sexual Marketplace - Roy Baumeister

1. 0:00 – 0:23

   Intro

   1. RBRoy Baumeister0:00

      Human female orgasm is, is a fairly novel thing. They have done studies with vibrators and so on indicating that, you know, some of the other great apes do seem to have contractions. A joke that I'm glad I'm not the research assistant who had to go to the gorilla with the vibrator and say, "Uh, sign a consent form and then we'll, we'll do something here."

   2. CWChris Williamson0:22

      What do you mean

2. 0:23 – 12:45

   How Women Shaped Men

   1. CWChris Williamson0:23

      when you say that women shaped men more than men shaped women?

   2. RBRoy Baumeister0:27

      There's the biological argument that, uh, men are change- are more changeable and, and continue to evolve faster than women do, has something... And I'm not an expert on this, but it has something to do with the, the Y chromosome doesn't have the backups that the X does. So, if, if you get a mutation on the X chromosome, it produces something weird, the, the backup, the normal one might take over and keep the person normal. Whereas, uh, for at least half of the Y chromosome, there's no backup, uh, which means that the, the men are more changeable biologically. It, uh, like to put it, uh, men are nature's play things, that there's more, uh, selection that operates on the male than on the female. Uh, and there's evidence for it, there's just greater variance, um, in, in, in males than in females. So...

   3. CWChris Williamson1:31

      More gen- more geniuses and more retards in the male side.

   4. RBRoy Baumeister1:33

      More geniuses, more retards, uh, yeah. Even with height which is a very genetic, uh, uh, thing, um, the, the high- the difference between the tallest and the shortest man is bigger than the difference between the tallest and the shortest women. Uh, so again, nature produces more variety, uh, on the male that have talked some biologists about whether this is plausible and they sort of say yes, but I haven't gotten a firm straight answer. Uh, you see, to drive evolution (laughs) forward, uh, there are a lot of mutations, some of them are, a few of them are beneficial, most of them are bad. So ideally, to improve the population, you want the bad ones to be flushed out of the gene pool, you don't want them to keep reproducing. Uh, whereas the good ones, you want them to spread as, as, uh, as rapidly as possible. Um, in our species and in many others there's a l- both of those are more easily accomplished with the male than the female. The thing is most women have a baby throughout history, uh, and hardly any have more than a dozen. Whereas there are lots of men who have zero, uh, and there are men who have, you know, a thousand. (laughs) Uh, and certainly it's easier for a man than for a woman to have a, a couple of dozen, uh, even in these days with serial monogamy and, and so on. Um, so if the son has a really great new trait, uh, then it will spread faster than, uh, than if it's in the daughter.

   5. CWChris Williamson3:16

      That's...

   6. RBRoy Baumeister3:16

      And likewise, if the son has a bad new trait, uh, it'll be easier to get it out of the gene pool and not be repeated...

   7. CWChris Williamson3:24

      That's so interesting.

   8. RBRoy Baumeister3:26

      ... than if it's in the daughter.

   9. CWChris Williamson3:27

      That's such an interesting way to frame it. I really liked as well, uh, your idea about the fact that, um, men are the demand and women are the supply when it comes to sort of the sexual marketplace. But that makes sense about why women would shape men, because men typically are the sexual protagonists. They... If women want men to, um, have a house and a job and marry them before they have sex with them, then sure enough men will stick to those norms. If they want them to be the strongest warrior or the smartest crypto investor or whatever it is, but w- women kind of set the rules of the game and then men go, "Okay, is that what we're playing?" And then they, they try and just do things. I don't know whether you follow Steve Stuart-Williams? I'm gonna guess that you probably will know who he is.

   10. RBRoy Baumeister4:11

       I don't.

   11. CWChris Williamson4:11

       Okay. So he's a evolutionary psychologist who wrote The, The Ape Who Understood the Universe. Fantastic book. And he loves posting up, um, images from nature, animals, a lot of the time birds, doing these ridiculous like extravagant dances, colorful plumage and they're doing death defying stunts, jumping out of trees just trying to get women's attention. Trying to get female birds' attentions I suppose. But you do kind of see basically the same thing, and that I think is what I liked about women shaped men more than men shaped women.

   12. RBRoy Baumeister4:43

       Yes. It seems, uh, uh, I have the impression men will do whatever is required by women in order to obtain sex, and not a whole lot more. (laughs)

   13. CWChris Williamson4:55

       (laughs)

   14. RBRoy Baumeister4:56

       And so women can set the norms. Uh, one book that influenced me early in my career was, uh, Marcia Guttentag and Paul Secord's book, Too Many Women, uh, who went through a ton of data about, uh, sex ratio differences. You know, some societies have a lot more men, others have more women. Um, and, uh, sure enough when there's a surplus of men, uh, it's not majority rule like in politics, it's minority rule, like in economics. Uh, because you know, if there are too many men as it were and not enough women, the, the s- the supply is not equal to the demand. The demand i- is high and so men really have to make serious commitments and, uh, do whatever women want in order, uh, to have sex. And when it's the other way around, uh, like after a major war that's killed a lot of the men or on today's American college campuses where women, uh, outnumber men three to two, um...... then the supply exceeds the demand and so the price goes down in the sense of what the woman can, uh, demand and expect. And, uh, a long-term commitment, no, sexual fidelity, no, uh, waiting until marriage or whatever to begin sex, no. Uh, and, uh, if she doesn't adjust to the man, then the man can cr- soon move on and find another female partner. Uh, but of course, it's reversed in places where there are a surplus of men like in America's Wild West or, uh, China during the, uh, the one-child period when there was a lot of selective abortion, uh, and millions of surplus men. Uh, then, then the price is high and the man really has to make a, a serious commitment and do whatever the wo- woman wants, uh, in order to get into a sexual relationship.

   15. NANarrator6:42

       Who did you find out was having lots of great sex?

   16. RBRoy Baumeister6:46

       (laughs) Well, that's, uh, uh, looked at the, the research on that, it's very unequally distributed. You know, if you just sort of casually read the magazines and watch movies, you get the impression lots of young people are just falling into bed with each other, uh, very casually all the time. Uh, but the, uh, the numbers and the, the survey data tell a, a different story. Um, for l- looking at people in their 20s, uh, which is (laughs) the sexual dream age in a sense, everybody younger than 20 wants to be older and everybody older wants to be younger. Uh, (laughs) um, so if, if you look at those people, um, there are a handful of very attractive people, uh, who are having plenty of sex, uh, and others a lot less. I mean, there's the sort of Pareto principle, uh, uh, shows up in a lot of things where 20% of people are responsible for 80% of the action. I mean, this is true, like, even in a scientific field, you know, 20% of the scientists are doing 80% of the, the exciting new research and publishing and so on. Um, so numbers, something like that may be, may be true. And it's, uh, uh, it's true for both men and women, but, uh, again, women are more selective so the inequality is, is bigger for men. Uh, there's a, like I said, a, a small fraction of the men are having the majority of the sex as lots of women are interested in them and the rest of them, uh, can hardly get a, a, a response. Now, I've read some, some journalistic columns and, and so on, uh, that after 30, uh, it changes for both men and women, but in, in somewhat, uh, different ways. Uh, a lot of those men who really couldn't attract a lot of interest, sort of the middle of the pack, uh, you know, attractive men, you know, by the time they're in their 30s, they've got more money, they're a little more grown up, they have a little better understanding of the world, so, uh, they find the, uh, the women, uh, are attracted to them.

   17. NANarrator8:50

       Mm-hmm.

   18. RBRoy Baumeister8:50

       Um, and so they will do well. Uh, the women, uh, in their 30s, uh, a lot of them are putting career first and so on. And, uh, some of them start to complain, "Where are the good men? We're not getting the quality of men even that they got in their 20s." And they're sort of disappointed to find that some of the men in their 30s just refuse to date women in their 30s. They don't want women in their old age, in their own age. They want, they want younger women. So, uh, there may be this sort of party, party cohort of men in their 30s and women in their 20s who are having a, a fine time. And as I said, plenty of sex. And, uh, it's, it's exciting to the women 'cause the, the men are established and have money and are, are doing well. It's exciting to the men 'cause the women are young and beautiful. Uh, but, uh, but others, others get left out.

   19. NANarrator9:43

       What about the great bit of sex, lots of great sex?

   20. RBRoy Baumeister9:50

       Lots of great sex. Well, that narrows it down some that you're, you know, just going to bed with one person after another, uh, doesn't necessarily produce the highest, uh, quality of sex 'cause, uh, it, it's better if people get to know each other and, uh, um-

   21. NANarrator10:09

       Is that borne out in the data?

   22. RBRoy Baumeister10:13

       ... do have yes, uh, in terms of, uh, quality of sex, you know, people are more likely to, um, report a, a good quality interaction with, uh, with a regular partner. Um, again, there's a bit of a gender imbalance there. Most men are not that eff- difficult to, uh, get to an orgasm, whereas women's bodies are more complicated and men maybe take some time, uh, to learn how to do it. And so to please a particular woman, um, might take a little more practice and skill. I believe I read some data that even on the, the hookups, you know, with no future or, uh, no commitment or anything, uh, the woman's rate of orgasm is low, but if she hooks up with the same man twice even without a relationship, the second time, her, her orgasmic frequency goes up. Uh, all this suggesting, again, it, it takes, it, it takes a little while. So I, I, I saw the impression married people and single people kinda envy e- each other, think the other's having a better sex life. Um, it's... The data suggests married people tend to have more sex. Uh, for the single person, there's often a feast and famine kind of periods, you know. You might have several people or, or have an intense relationship and have a lot of sex because, you know, when you start out, you're often having sex every day or twice a day. Uh, most marriages don't sustain that. Uh, but there are also long periods for a lot of single people of, of no sex at all. And, uh, you know, I'm friends with the great sex researcher, uh, Helen Fisher, and, uh, she has national survey data saying majority of single people are now saying they did not have sex one time in the past year. Um, so, uh-... when they do have it with somebody new, i- is often very exciting because it's a new person. Uh, a- as I said, there's the competence issue on a, on a first time thing, but assuming you figure it out and you, you get to know each other and you, you, you have an ongoing period, you, again, you can have a, a, a phase where you're having plenty of very exciting sex, uh, uh, uh, every day or, or two or three times a day. Um, and so the quantity is better and the excitement is better, but that's compensated by, uh, long periods when there's, uh, when there's nothing.

   23. CWChris Williamson12:44

       Yeah,

3. 12:45 – 15:36

   Lack of Data on Sex

   1. CWChris Williamson12:45

      it's a trade-off between, uh, novelty and the advantage of intimacy, right? Sometimes novelty, at least for men-

   2. RBRoy Baumeister12:52

      Right.

   3. CWChris Williamson12:52

      ... seems to be an advantage, but for women, intimacy and familiarity and understanding.

   4. RBRoy Baumeister12:57

      Yeah.

   5. CWChris Williamson12:58

      Uh, I read a great paper about how, um, (clears throat) uh, the, they'd done self-reports from women about what it was that was getting in the way of the orgasm, and it seemed like self-referential thoughts, concerns about performance, uh, expectation to orgasm, oddly, was one of the biggest barriers to women finding orgasm, at least in this paper. And I thought that was really interesting, um, but it makes complete sense because you think about what gets released during the female orgasm, bonding hormones. Do you really want to bond with a male that you haven't become familiar and intimate emotionally with just because you managed to have sex? You know, this would be, uh, I- in cases of forced sex, this could be a bit problematic, and I know that there are cases where, um, I don't know whether it's due to what happens during sex, but where women can sometimes almost fall for sexual attackers in kind of a bizarre way. Um, so yeah, I think, I think it kind of, it does make sense.

   6. RBRoy Baumeister13:54

      Data about sex are, are all a little bit weak. Uh, you know, a scientist would wi- wish for better data. I, I guess you could compare sex and violence. Those are two big issues in any society and so on, but, uh, in terms of being a social scientist and trying how much can we learn about this, we can learn a lot more about violence than about sex. Uh, because with violence, you can do laboratory experiments with simulated things, other sorts of aggression, to really test causal hypotheses very carefully. You have great real world statistics in terms of murder rates and so on. You know, uh, sometimes reporting of assaults and so on may, may change locally, but even so, you can look at trends over time. Pretty good data on that. Murder data tend to be quite reliable. In contrast with sex, we have very little like that other than, other than births, uh, which are also objectively recorded, so we know somebody probably had sex if there's a birth. Uh, but we're much more relying on what people say, and what people say about their sex lives is not the unvarnished truth. Uh, there's, uh, illusions of wishful thinking and, and other things that intrude on it. So, it's scientifically challenging. It's still worth doing 'cause it's, it, it, it's important. Uh, you wanna know something like how long does it take for people to have sex, um, well, I, I don't know anyone who sits there with a wristwatch, uh, or the stopwatch (laughs) keeping track, so people may estimate, but, you know, time sorta stands still perhaps, uh, uh, I don't trust their, their estimates all that much either.

4. 15:36 – 21:01

   Mystery of Female Sexual Desire

   1. RBRoy Baumeister15:36

   2. CWChris Williamson15:37

      What did you find out about the mystery of female sexual desire?

   3. RBRoy Baumeister15:43

      Well, um, the one r- reason it's mysterious is it's, it's more changeable, uh, than the male one. Um, I, I, I got this, uh, i- idea sometime- I remember reading History of the Sexual Revolution, and all the scholars who studied it said that, well, there was a change i- in behavior for everybody, but women changed much more fundamentally than men. Th- you know, the men, after the sexual revolution, had a lot more chances to do what they wanted (laughs) , uh, but their desires and all that were pretty much the same, whereas women's attitudes towards their bodies and feelings about sex and acceptance of their desires and everything changed in a much more fundamental way. So I wondered, "Well, why is that? Is that a general property, something about female sexuality more changeable, or is that just some specific issue with the sexual revolution?" Uh, so I w- waded through a large amount of, of other sorts of data, and it's, it's very much true. The, the way I put it sometimes is, the sex drive, e- everybody agrees, is influenced by both nature and culture. I mean, there's your genes and your hormones and all that evolution, uh, but there are also societal pressures and what other people are doing and expectations and reputations and all that stuff as well. Uh, so they argue about how much of each is there, and my conclusion is that the recipe is somewhat different by gender, th- male sexuality being more on the nature side, uh, female being more on the culture side. Uh, so you look at, for example, immigrants when they move to one culture, to another, the women pretty quickly s- settle into whatever the new, th- the sexual norms are at the new place, uh, whereas the men retain more th- their others. They don't, they don't change as much. O- or is, in terms of going through adult life, um, a woman's sexual desires at 20 may be different from 30 or 40, and she may try same sex relationships or take up masturbating or w- wanna be spanked or, or whatever, whereas, for the average man, the, the, the, his desires at 20, 25 are pretty much the same at 55 to 60. They're just, you know, diminished a bit in, uh, in intensity, but he doesn't pick up new ones as much. Or another sign-... uh, we look at highly educated women and uneducated women, the, uh, master's and PhDs so versus the dropped out of high school, they have very different sex lives. Education really seems to alter a woman's sex life, whereas the men are not all that different (coughs) as a function of level.

   4. CWChris Williamson18:28

      What's the change that it makes?

   5. RBRoy Baumeister18:30

      And religion is a-

   6. CWChris Williamson18:30

      What's the change that it makes to women's sex lives?

   7. RBRoy Baumeister18:33

      Uh, the, uh, the more educated women try a lot more things, do a lot more things. They are much less, uh, uh, traditional and conservative. Um, so-

   8. CWChris Williamson18:43

      Have you got any idea why-

   9. RBRoy Baumeister18:44

      ... uh-

   10. CWChris Williamson18:44

       ... why you think that might be?

   11. RBRoy Baumeister18:48

       Uh, well, I think one would say education exposes people to new ideas and new practices and, uh, and so on, influences. Um, and it's interesting, religion is another way, uh, uh, another set of institutions also very powerful in society. And again, the most religious to versus the least religious women have quite different sex drives whereas the men are almost depressingly similar, uh, uh, across that. Um, and there, religion sort of seems to push in the opposite direction from education, whereas the, the higher you go in education, the more the woman is open to trying oral sex or anal sex or threesomes or whatever. Uh, whereas with religion, as you go to more highly religious, the less she is open to, uh, uh, trying these different practices and multiple partners and all those things. Uh, so, so again, to the, looking at this as a social scientist, it was really interesting. Here you have two powerful sets of social forces, of institutions in society pushing in opposite directions on the sex drive and both having a bigger effect, uh, on women than on men. Uh, so, you know, I, I noticed too, uh, you know, back in the sexual revolution when I was a young man, there were all these books explaining female sexuality to them, our bodies, ourselves, and whatnot, and they didn't produce these books for men. Uh, there was some advice on, on how to understand the female body, uh, and, and so on, but there's much less, less mystery there. Uh, so for a woman, so part of this is the complexity of the, the physical response perhaps, but, uh, also for a woman to understand her sex drive, it's a moving target. So even if she figures it out when she's 20 or 25, when she's 35, she may have different feelings, different patterns of desires and, and, and so on, and what, what worked then didn't. And, and for the male, as I said, it's much less mystery to begin with. And once you've figured it out, you don't really have to, uh, continue changing or updating your, your, your understanding of, of what you want.

5. 21:01 – 26:54

   Evolution of Orgasms

   1. RBRoy Baumeister21:01

   2. CWChris Williamson21:01

      One of the interesting things that I saw was that women have the ability, but men have more motivation when it comes to, um, their desire for sex, but the way that they actually perform during sex. So women have the ability to have more sex, multiple orgasms, et cetera. Men have a... I mean, even the most virile man has a pretty big latency period after having sex. It's... So I just find it really interesting that, um, it's the group which has the biggest sex drive which is actually restricted from having sex or orgasming as much, and the side which perhaps has a lower sex drive on average seems to be able to perform more.

   3. RBRoy Baumeister21:42

      Yes. Um, I don't know if we call it orgasm, uh, performance. But, uh, but, uh-

   4. CWChris Williamson21:48

      (laughs) Depends, depends if it's real or not.

   5. RBRoy Baumeister21:51

      Uh, (laughs) there is that. Um, uh, I think part of the answer is that the male orgasm, because it's so fundamental in the process of reproduction, evolved much earlier, uh, than the female. Uh, and so the, the, the human female orgasm is, is a fairly novel thing. Uh, they have done studies with vibrators and so on indicating that, uh, you know, some of the other great apes do seem to have contractions. I, I, I (laughs) I joke that I'm glad I'm not the research assistant who had to go to the, the gorilla and with the vibrator and say, "Uh, sign a consent form and then we'll, we'll do something here." Uh, but, uh (laughs) , but they... somebody did it and, uh, so they're capable of it. They doubt that it happens very often 'cause the, the coupling doesn't last very long, and the male gorillas aren't really, uh, caring much about pleasing their partner and all that. Um-

   6. CWChris Williamson22:59

      So- Sorry. Does that mean that most other animals, dolphins and elephants and stuff, that the orgasm as a sensation isn't a thing?

   7. RBRoy Baumeister23:11

      Well, I'm not an expert on this. Uh, I have read some other experts whose... and it's not totally known. Again, human orgasms-

   8. CWChris Williamson23:20

      Can't ask the elephants.

   9. RBRoy Baumeister23:21

      ... we hear about mainly from people, uh, talking to, uh, to them. Uh, but it looks as far as we can tell, the... a lot of them, there isn't even the capability of the female orgasm. Uh, or if it's there, it's probably not a very common thing. Um, one of my lines of thought recently is that, uh, in order for humans to evolve the way we did and become these cultural beings, there had to be a whole bunch of changes, including bonding the male and the female for a longer time. This goes back to you need a bigger brain to do culture. You have a big brain, it- it's gonna burst the, uh, the birth canal (laughs) uh, if it's there in the womb, so it all has to grow after birth. Which then compared to other apes-... human babies are way prematurely born. This is all babies. Uh, e- e- you know, a young chimpanzee can kinda take care of itself, you know, in a year or two. Um, whereas, the, uh, the human is fully dependent at least till seven or eight and, and to some degree, till into the teen years. Um, so it needs, uh, the father and the mother to work together to provide more food. The human mother could not possibly feed multiple children by herself, uh, particularly when she's pregnant, uh, again. Uh, so for that whole thing to work, they had to get the man, uh, recruited into the provider role and to form the commitment to the woman. So all kinds of the changes and evolution from humans to others, starting with just facing each other during sex, uh, and kissing, you- you know, facing. You can look into each other's eyes and form an attachment there. You mentioned both sides have these orgasmic release of hormones. They start to feel love for each other. Uh, h- one of the surprising findings during the early days of the sexual revolution when people were just out having sex all over with strangers, but yet they still started falling in love. Uh, they weren't, uh, uh, able to, uh, keep them as separate in that, um, kissing. Uh, and so I would consider the female orgasm to be one of those that really improves the quality of the experience for both the man and the woman, uh, obviously particularly the woman, uh, and helps make them have this romantic love for each other, uh, that bonds them together, uh, for some years so that the children that come when you're having sex will, uh, will be adequately provided for, at least until they're seven or eight. You know, you read about the, the hunter-gatherers and as you know, through h- if you say human civilization's been around for 150,000 years, 140,000, we were hunter and gatherers. Uh, and in those, yeah, they do bond in a pretty monogamous fashion, but only for a while. By the time the kids are seven or eight, often, uh, they're getting on each other's nerves, or the man is off to find another, a younger woman or, or whatever. But that's enough to get the job done. Anyway, this is more than you probably wanted to hear, but the female orgasm I look at as part of that constellation of things that helps bind a young couple together and make them stay together through the transition to parenthood and, and through the, uh, the early years of the- the child's life.

6. 26:54 – 37:29

   Malleability of Female Sexual Drive

   1. RBRoy Baumeister26:54

   2. CWChris Williamson26:54

      What about, uh, male and female changes in sexual desire w- when you get into marriage and during marriage and then after having kids?

   3. RBRoy Baumeister27:04

      Uh, yes. Well, um, uh, I read this, uh, book some years ago. This Australian woman, uh, a journalist with some social science background, uh, um, she had contacted me and- and had a book called The Sex Diaries and wanted to know if she could get it help- if I could help her publish it in America. And I didn't know what to do about that, but I read the book with great interest. Uh, she had the idea she would keep- keep records of people, get couples to keep records of their sex lives and it would make a- a racy bestseller with lots of, uh, juicy details. Uh, and there was some of that, but, uh, more of it was, uh, uh, the husband begging for sex and the wife saying, "No, no, no." Or the- the boyfriend and the girlfriend, uh, whatever, and so she said, "It just seems like women go off sex once they settle into a committed relationship, that the- the excitement, the attraction is there for forming the relationship, not sustaining it." And it's certainly consistent with the idea that, uh, uh, it's there in the female to form the relationship, but I think nature learned to turn up sexual desire in the young woman, especially when she's started getting involved with a man, 'cause that will help him think, "Oh my God, this is great." Um, and, uh, even if she's a little difficult to get along with at times, uh, have great sex every day for the rest of my life is totally worth it. Uh, but then nature says once the bond is formed, that's checked off, and, uh, the natural agenda turns her attention to bearing and raising a child, and so she's not so eager to have sex anymore. I asked two of my relationship, uh, expert friends if this was true in the research literature. This was, you know, just the woman's, uh, the journalist getting the- these people to report it, and they said, "You know, it's not known in the literature, but we have data that could address that." And they had both collected data on married couples and they just collected tons of data over the first five years of marriage. So they went and analyzed the data, uh, which showed essentially this. Right at the time of the wedding, the man's desire for sex is higher than the woman's, but it's a fairly small difference. It- it is still significant. Men are hornier than women. Every- every measure shows that. Uh, but, uh, a small difference, and then across the first five years, the man's sexual desire stays about the same while the woman's progressively drops. And so five years into the marriage, they have a mismatch even though they were pretty close at the time when they first got married, and so th- this, Bettina Arndt, uh, in her- in her book, uh, um, The Sex Diaries, uh, her impression does seem to be correct, uh, in- in the research, um, at least in these- in these data that, uh, female sexual desire tends to dwindle and diminish once, uh, the relationship is formed and the- the commitment is established. Uh, so again, I think it's- it's not, uh, it's certainly not something that women are doing consciously. Uh, I think- (coughs) I think often the women may even be-... somewhat baffled and disappointed themselves to find out that they don't desire sex the way they did, um-

   4. CWChris Williamson30:25

      This is one of those things-

   5. RBRoy Baumeister30:26

      ... on a courtship basis.

   6. CWChris Williamson30:27

      Uh, a piece of advice that I read in Mate by Geoffrey Miller and Tucker Max is, um, a lot of the time relationships can begin and a couple are attracted to each other, and then if the woman comes off the pill, perhaps because they've got married and they're deciding to maybe have children, her hormonal profile can change, and that can actually mean that she is, uh, averse to the smell of the man. There's also some data that I've seen in the final month or so of pregnancy that the woman can feel very averse to the smell of her partner and very, um, bonded to the smell of family. And this kind of seems to make a little bit of adaptive sense that let's say that you get into an argument with your partner when you're heavily pregnant, that could be dangerous for you, so you stick with your genetic kin in an attempt to kind of keep yourself-

   7. RBRoy Baumeister31:21

      Hmm.

   8. CWChris Williamson31:22

      ... protected. Uh, and I like both of those, but i- it comes back to this idea, again, about the fact that the female sexual, um, drive is super malleable, right? And i- i- it's constantly in flux. It's changing, uh, in response to its ecology, what's going on around it. It's r- changing in response to its hormonal profile. Now, males' sexual drive is also in response to testosterone levels, right? Higher testosterone level, uh, more desire for sex, more desire for new partners, sexual novelty, masturbation, all that sort of stuff. Um, but that, it's like the male sex drive is like linear. It kind of goes up and i- it's, do you want more of it or do you have less of it? The female sexual drive can go left and right. Uh, I think you looked at data that said more women have experimented, um, going, or they swing more from men to women and then back again, whereas the bisexual category is a lot less occupied by men.

   9. RBRoy Baumeister32:19

      Yes. Um, yeah. The, it, it's complicated. There are, I guess there are more gay males than gay females, but the overlap between the bisexual category is a much bigger proportion of women who've ever had same sex, sex, uh, than for men. Um-

   10. CWChris Williamson32:42

       Why, why do you think it is that there's more gay men than gay women?

   11. RBRoy Baumeister32:48

       Well, that, uh, that continues to be debated. You have to understand the, the scholarly issue or the scientific issue is how does homosexuality continue at all?

   12. CWChris Williamson33:02

       Why has it not competed out of the gene pool? Yeah.

   13. RBRoy Baumeister33:05

       Yeah. It, nature is against it since it doesn't reproduce, and a lot of cultures have been against it, although some have, have tolerated it, but certainly the last few centuries. Uh, you know, so we look to nature and culture as the two big explanations. For once, they agree (laughs) uh, on not favoring homosexual activity, and yet it continues to survive. Uh, there's some interesting, uh, answers, uh, starting to emerge. Uh, you know, my, uh, uh, colleagues in, uh, at, at University of Queensland, Brendan Zych, uh, have a paper in, in Science, and I think a second one coming along, uh, finding out that there, okay, yes, there are genes that predict, uh, homosexuality. It's not a particular gay gene as they were once saying and periodically they found one. Uh, in contrast, it's sort of combined activity of hundreds if not thousands, uh, of them. Um, and the interesting finding is that the siblings of the gays who, the heterosexual, the brothers and sisters are, are heterosexual, you know, so and so is gay, um, his brother is heterosexual, and he has more sexual partners than the average man. So, the way I put it is that the super manly man who only, is entirely masculine in all his traits, he doesn't relate to women all that well. It helps a man to be attractive to women to have a little more emotionality and warmth and nurturance and, and all these things. They like some degree, uh, of, of, of feminine traits to be present. You know, they like a manly man too, uh, but some of it helps. So, it becomes a, a hit the middle problem. Uh, you want to have more of these genes which will produce more feminine traits, uh, in the man, uh, but maybe beyond a certain amount since they're being, being mixed together at random in the, in the fetus, um, that, uh, maybe a high amount then turns him to where he'd be more attracted to other men. Um, and so that becomes, his genes made him homosexual, which again, nature doesn't reward since it does, that sex doesn't produce children. Uh, but the same configuration of genes just a little bit on the other side of the border produces extra, uh, children, uh, by making, uh, the others more, more attractive. And, uh, and that's enough to keep the, uh, the genes replenished in each generation so it will continue, uh, to appear.

   14. CWChris Williamson35:53

       That is (laughs) so interesting. So, a couple of things. First off, one of the best tactics that you should have if you're a guy that wants to be successful with women is to have a gay brother, basically, that genetically-

   15. RBRoy Baumeister36:06

       (laughs)

   16. CWChris Williamson36:06

       ... you're going to have a hormonal profile (laughs) , a, a genetic profile that's gonna be good for you. And also, it kind of suggests that gay men are a lot closer to highly successful heterosexual men-... than we might think. You know, you've got not too far away from the genes. Also, I saw in your book, didn't it say that, um, monozygotic twins, so identical twins, have a 50% likelihood of the other twin being gay if one of the twins is gay?

   17. RBRoy Baumeister36:35

       Yes. Uh, those data are from a while ago, and I don't know, uh, if there's any update or anything. But that was an estimate which shows there's a lot of nature and a lot of culture. I mean, 50% likelihood of being gay, that's way above the, uh, it's probably 2 or 3%, uh, maybe at most 4, in the population. So, it's, if your, if your twin brother is gay and you're an identical twin, yeah, the odds are, are much higher than average. On the other hand, 50% is far from 100%. It's not determined. Uh, and, um, and... Again, uh, the true number may be a little higher than that because some people don't want to be gay, uh, and will resist, uh, acknowledging it. Uh, but, um, nevertheless, I think this is a sign that there's ample input from both nature and, and culture.

7. 37:29 – 45:08

   Why the Male Sex Drive is a Tragedy

   1. RBRoy Baumeister37:29

   2. CWChris Williamson37:29

      What did you mean when you talked about the tragedy of the male sex drive?

   3. RBRoy Baumeister37:34

      (laughs) Uh, yes. Well, uh, I'm using the tragedy and the term, uh, in the more advanced literary criticism. I mean, Arthur Miller had a famous, uh, essay. A tragedy is not just something bad happening, uh, but it's sort of a, a fatal flaw in yourself, and you're striving for something great, uh, but because of the flaw, you, you fail. And he said, uh, he said in a sense, tragedy, although it has an unhappy ending, it's more uplifting than comedy, 'cause comedy sort of looks at people's faults and foibles and bad things. And so, and so I describe it as a tragedy. I'm not saying it's, it's a calamity, and I'm not even saying that it's, that it's a bad thing. But, uh, it seems doomed, uh, to falling short of its, of its desires, that men were just instilled to want more sex than they're likely to get. Um, I think, uh, a while ago, we cited some research by one of my colleagues who, who surveyed her first-year college students of, uh, "Well, if you, if you wanted, uh, how many people would you like to go to bed with for the rest of your life, assuming it was all up to you? Don't worry about diseases or laws or pregnancy or anything, it's just, you know, to experience sex. How many people would you like to do it?" And the average for the women was, was two and a half, and the average for the men was 64. Now, with that, there's a lot of disappointment ahead for those young men (laughs) . Um, but it's, it's true. Now, it must be said, a lot of the men just said, "I'd like to have one." Presumably, they hadn't had any yet. And you think, "Well, if I could get one, that would be perfect." But the man who's had one kind of wishes he could have two or three, and the man who's had three maybe wishes for six or seven, and the man who's had 10 may wish for 15. And, uh, you know, I've known men who had over 100 sex partners, and they were still wishing for more. Um, and that, kind of, again, suggests this tragic flaw aspect, that y- nature did not design you to be satisfied, that, "Uh, I've had my sex, and it was great, and I'm done with that." (laughs) Uh, no, and, and having it more makes you think of it more, so it, it stimulates more desire to try new things and do new things with different people or the same people. Um, so, uh, in that sense, it seems, uh, somewhat doomed to frustration, and, um, I've also been thinking, uh, in, in terms of the, uh, what I mentioned before, uh, that, uh, we were talking about how women shaped men. I think women probably shaped men toward higher sex drive, 'cause, uh, as, as I said, other apes, they don't take fatherhood seriously at all. The idea that you should provide food for your children, th- their would seem ridiculous to them, and especially doing it on a regular basis over many years. And even to the mother of those children, who, after all, is just some gorilla you had sex with a couple years ago. Uh, no, no, that, that would seem ridiculous to them. Uh, and yet human males do this routinely. So, when that was evolving, there were probably plenty of men who had the same outlook that, uh, your average (laughs) gorilla does and said, "Come on, I have to work twice as hard to produce twice as much food every day and give half of it to this wife and baby? Uh, that seems nuts." And, and, uh, well, those men took themselves out of the gene pool, right? Uh, (laughs) if they didn't wanna play along, uh, and put up with supporting the women. And, uh, you know, um, I've known many women who are delightful and w- uh, and, and fine people and so on. But inevitably, some of them are difficult and neurotic and unpleasant and, and all that. And, uh, well, what's to make the man make the commitment and, and, and stay with them too? It's just, they need, they need providers to support them and their children, and the desire for sex is a strong thing. And so, I, I'm suspecting that the human male population has a higher sex drive than the animals we evolved from. And, uh, well, they were specifically selected, not in those terms, but, uh, uh, the women would reproduce with the men who wanted sex enough to, uh, stay committed and, and put up with whatever the woman's, uh, demands and problems are. So, a high sex drive would, uh, would be selected there. Uh, it's, it's ironic, 'cause of course women complain about men being too sexually motivated and, uh, although they also complain when men stop making advances and, and so on. It's, uh...... uh, it's, it's just-

   4. CWChris Williamson42:32

      A difficult balance to strike. (laughs)

   5. RBRoy Baumeister42:34

      It's a difficult bargain, you know. Uh, I'm glad I'm not a young man trying to figure out what the rules are today as they keep changing. Um-

   6. CWChris Williamson42:42

      Have you considered, uh, have you heard of the term post-nut clarity? Do you know what that is?

   7. RBRoy Baumeister42:48

      I have not.

   8. CWChris Williamson42:49

      Okay, so it's like post-coital depression and I think it's, it's, like, Nietzsche or Freud or someone that said, "After copulation, the devil's laughter can be heard." And I think he's talking about this, (laughs) like, such an apocalyptic way to talk about having sex and pillow talk.

   9. RBRoy Baumeister43:05

      (laughs)

   10. CWChris Williamson43:05

       But, um, many guys and girls as well I've heard, uh, will be familiar with the just had sex and then, (laughs) sometimes there's sort of, like, quasi, uh, melancholy state can set in. Uh, do you think that this plays into the requirement, nature's requirement for men to have a, a high sex drive that if you had sex and you laid there in the full body glow that I've heard typically is more common of a female post-sex, uh, environment, um, that that would discourage you from going and seeking more sexual partners and also post-nut clarity is now something that you can add to your, uh, scientific lexicon? (laughs)

   11. RBRoy Baumeister43:48

       (laughs) Yeah, um, this being sad or depressed after sex, I, uh, I haven't seen much about that. I, I-

   12. CWChris Williamson43:59

       Spend more time on TikTok, Roy. Loads of, loads of people on TikTok are talking about post-nut clarity.

   13. RBRoy Baumeister44:03

       Oh, okay, maybe I should try to find that 'cause, uh, yeah, it's really not something I've heard about from other men or read about or it certainly didn't fit my own experience either, uh, but, uh, maybe they do it. Uh, as to whether it discourages people from seeking new sex partners, I, I rather doubt that that's, uh, uh, that's it, that would... Uh, for example, I mean, for one thing, right after sex, hardly anyone goes leaping out and running in search of a new sex partner. Uh, the, the new sex partners are sought, you know, later on different occasions, uh, if you're single, as you're just sort of back on the market, and if you're in a relationship then, uh, um, well, people seek out other sex partners for various reasons, dissatisfaction or just excitement or curiosity. But, uh, but I don't know that the effects of a particular orgasm could last long enough to make any difference-

   14. CWChris Williamson45:05

       Yeah, yeah.

   15. RBRoy Baumeister45:06

       ... in that activity.

   16. CWChris Williamson45:07

       Yeah.

8. 45:08 – 54:48

   Studying Masochism & Kink

   1. CWChris Williamson45:08

      Um, what did you look at to do with masochism and kink and stuff like that?

   2. RBRoy Baumeister45:15

      Oh. (laughs) Yeah, I wrote stuff about that a long time ago. I was actually doing research, I wro- I wrote a book on how people find meaning in life. Um, so, uh, when I was reading for that, uh, I was just sort of looking for interesting stuff and wanted some people who have interesting lives that would lead me to, uh, you know, give me some insight, 'cause back then there was hardly any research directly on the topic. Um, so I thought, "Oh, maybe those people who like to be tied up and spanked and all that, I bet they have really interesting lives." Uh, so I was on sabbatical at University of Texas and I remember I went over to the library and, uh, grabbed all the books they had that, uh, dealt with this stuff and spent a couple of hours going through them, and I could tell pretty fast that I was not gonna learn anything about the meaning of life, uh, fr- (laughs) from, uh, the kinky sex literature. Uh, but it was a challenge. One of my other lines of work is understanding the self and masochism just seemed to be directly opposite to all the prevailing wisdom about the self, which is that, you know, you wanna think well of yourself, you wanna have high self-esteem, you wanna be regarded as a success and all that, and yet these masochists wanna be embarrassed and humiliated and put down and so on. Uh, we assume the self seeks pleasure and avoids pain, but these people wanna be tied up and spanked and whipped and things like that. Um, and the self wants to be in control, that's another widespread basic assumption in psychology that you seek to establish and maintain control over your environment, (coughs) and yet the, the masochists wanted to be tied up and, uh, uh, ordered around and, uh, you know, called slaves and things like that. So, I wondered how to, to reconcile these and, and, uh, you know, there, there must be some illusion that, uh, you know, this, these facts about the self were so well known, uh, there couldn't really be a, a contrary evidence. But eventually I was convinced there was and, and in fact that that's one of the essential features of, of masochism is trying to get rid of the self, trying to escape, uh, from self-awareness, the, the maintaining yourself and being confident and successful and all these things, uh, that involves a certain amount of stress and, and people like to, uh, uh, escape and forget who they are for a while. Um, one of my colleagues, Jay Hull, had been doing a line of research on alcohol, obviously also very popular, and he found that when people drink alcohol, they have less self-awareness, which is why (laughs) they do a lot of crazy things. I mean, if, if you're sober, you don't get up on the table with a lampshade on your head doing the, doing a, a wild dance. Um, but, uh, um, so it seems there's an appetite for things that get rid of self-awareness and temporarily even transform you into someone else, uh, so these, uh, sadomasochistic sex scenes, uh, seem to do that. Uh, I remember reading somebody was (laughs) doing a research project on the, uh, the call girls in Washington, DC, uh, thinking, "Oh, this must be a real interesting lot, you know, that's the, um, American government is there and so what are these women like?" And they interviewed a, a ton of them and, well, turned out they were just the same as (laughs) call girls any- anywhere else. Uh, but the clients that, they had all sorts of interesting information and there was a lot of masochism in there. Uh, like, I think they, uh, said that, uh-... you know, these are rich men who could afford to do whatever they wanted, but, uh, the requests to spank the call girl were not nearly as common as requests to be spanked, something like eight to one. Um, so, well, y- you think these highly successful, powerful men, they have a lot more stress. Other people are always trying to expose them and get them down. They have to maintain a really larger-than-life image and keep up, uh, th- this impression and, and get everyone around them continue to believe in how great they are. Uh, and so just getting rid of all that for a while, being tied up and, uh, who knows, dressed in women's underwear and licking, uh, the, the toes of a, uh, of a paid sex worker, you can't possibly think of yourself as a senator so-and-so while you're doing that, that it just gets you completely out, uh, of who you are. And that, that escape from self seemed to be a, a, a key part, uh, of the appeal of it. That's, that's the best I could figure out. Uh, um, so, in the, the writings I did, uh, we, we featured masochism as escape from self. The, the sadism part, uh, the compliment, that's much more complicated and I, I didn't really get, uh, get as far with that. For one thing, there are a lot fewer of those. Uh, I, I learned this when I was doing the research. Like, the clubs for S&M, they typically have four times as many submissives as dominants. And a lot of the dominants started off as submissives and then just thought, "Well, I could, um, give a perfect experience to someone else by dominating them." And so it's kind of a vicarious submission for them. So the dominant person, they might have their partner across their lap and be spanking them, but they're really empathically connecting with the partner and doing it just right to get, get the person 'cause, you know, spanking is, is, is, is part of a sex game. Uh, it's a dicey business. If you do it too much, it will spoil the mood. If you do it not enough, it'll be like, "Uh, what was that for?" Uh, so again, it's hitting the right, hitting the middle, uh, getting it just right, so it requires a high s- degree of sensitivity and empathy and attunement to the partner. And people who've had that desire and done those things themselves, um, they, uh, they like to, you know, they feel better able to do that. I met this guy from the Kinsey Institute, I think, when I, uh, I was doing this research. And, uh, the Kinsey Institute, they, they encourage their people to not only collect data, but to actually go and participate, uh, in these things, which is not part of-

   3. CWChris Williamson51:34

      Bloody hell.

   4. RBRoy Baumeister51:35

      ... programs.

   5. CWChris Williamson51:36

      That's one- (laughs)

   6. RBRoy Baumeister51:37

      It's a-

   7. CWChris Williamson51:37

      ... one, one hell-

   8. RBRoy Baumeister51:37

      Right.

   9. CWChris Williamson51:37

      ... of a request from your research candidates.

   10. RBRoy Baumeister51:41

       Well, you know, he wanted them to be welcome. This goes back to Kinsey himself. He said, "Yeah, we're trying to learn about this phenomenon that everybody does, but there's no scientific knowledge about it, so go ahead, explore-

   11. CWChris Williamson51:51

       Go be spanked.

   12. RBRoy Baumeister51:52

       ... and find out about it."

   13. CWChris Williamson51:52

       Go forth and be hit on the ass.

   14. RBRoy Baumeister51:54

       Get spanked. Anyway, what he said was that, uh, he would, uh, he found that if he could go up to a, usually a, a woman, although maybe a man too, he probably did both, who was in the dominant role, who was sort of playing a top, uh, and he would tell them, "I really have this desire to dominate you." He said there'd usually be a kind of flash in their eye, like this is exciting to them because they, they remembered that even though they're very much at the, at present playing the, the dominant, uh, role. Uh, often they'd started out with the other and they still had that kind of, uh, uh, excitement at someone proposing the idea to them.

   15. CWChris Williamson52:34

       It seems to me like a lot of the, um, exciting stuff to do with these sexual taboos is, is, is crossing a taboo line, right? It's reversing the polarity of a role. So you have the high-powered boss bitch or CEO that wants to play the other role. And I think that the cute girl next door that dresses up in leather and has a whip is an archetype for a reason because you think, "Well, that's her reversing her sort of polarity-"

   16. RBRoy Baumeister53:03

       Mm-hmm.

   17. CWChris Williamson53:03

       "... her identity a little bit." Did you look at, um, Paul Bloom's work about the sweet spot? Because he interviewed a bunch of dominatrixes, dominatri for that, and, uh, he was telling me that he spoke to one that was a professional dominatrix and she said, "Nothing captures attention like a whip." And what she meant by that was that if you've been hit in the face, for a few seconds afterwards you're not thinking about anything. And that kind of leads back to what you were talking about there, that it's people want, um, peace from mind, right? They want to escape. It's, it's a type of escapism. It's the same as using drugs-

   18. RBRoy Baumeister53:36

       Right.

   19. CWChris Williamson53:36

       ... or alcohol. It's to get them out of their headspace, you know. They've got this high-powered executive who has to do things and he needs to be... Executive function is through the roof and then he's tied up, and what can he do? He can't do anything. He literally can't-

   20. RBRoy Baumeister53:49

       Right.

   21. CWChris Williamson53:49

       ... do anything.

   22. RBRoy Baumeister53:50

       Yes. Yes. Uh, I, uh, I, I did this work long ago. It was before I knew Paul Bloom and, uh, read his stuff. Um, but that's true. And I, I did read some of them make the same kind of comment. Uh, one said, I think, "A whip is a great way to get someone to be here now 'cause they can't look away from it and they can't think about anything else." Now, they don't usually hit them in the face, I think, because they don't wanna leave marks there, and plus that's, that's risky. Uh, I, I learned the S&M communities are really careful. They wanna administer pain but not cause any injury. Um, so... And, and, and dominants who actually hurt their partners, uh, are often then shunned and, and not welcome anymore. Uh, but, uh, but wherever they whip them, like their bare ass was, I guess, the popular place, uh, that, uh, uh, it's the same thing and it certainly g- gets one's attention.

9. 54:48 – 59:29

   The Pornography Revolution

   1. RBRoy Baumeister54:49

   2. CWChris Williamson54:49

      What about pornography? You looked at that?

   3. RBRoy Baumeister54:53

      All right, well, uh, what about it? It's certainly been a huge and revolutionary change. A couple centuries ago, there was, there was very little ... Th- there always had been some erotic drawings, uh, going back into pre-history. Uh, but the availability has been quite low and I assume the quality was too. I think, uh, um, I, I forget, it was a remark that a, a young man today could go online and see more naked female flesh in, in 10 minutes than his great-great-grandfather saw in an entire lifetime. Um, so, it's clearly it's here to stay. Uh, I was young when people were still debating should it be made available and can stores sell it over the counter or only in the mail and, and, and if it's too pornographic it should be suppressed and censored and, uh, even people put in jail. Uh, now I think they've given up on most of that. There's, there's so much sexual stimulation available. Well, that's, I don't know, for better or for worse, uh, probably s- some of both. Um, an interesting question for me, uh, is if to think of novelty as a limited resource that you can get excited by new things, uh, whereas things that are the same, the same sexual stimuli year after year will become somewhat less exciting, uh, to you. So, uh, young men already have high sexual desire. It doesn't take much to turn them on. Uh, in a way it's kind of a waste (laughs) to look at all that pornography and get turned on there because what novelty are you gonna find in your 40s and 50s and 60s, uh, to produce, uh, arousal there.

   4. CWChris Williamson56:50

      There's a, a writer from the UK called Mary Harrington and she did an article called The Three Laws of Pornodynamics and the second law of pornodynamics is the Law of Fapentropy which states that whatever you start out wanking to will get progressively more weird and novel over time. And she's basically highlighting this, the fact that s- e- this isn't true, this definitely isn't true for, uh, all men, but a particular subsection of men need to continue to amp up the, uh, extremity, the novelty, wh- whatever it is, and then before you know it, you're down in the, the annals of Pornhub watching blueberry porn or whatever it is that you can manage to get yourself into. Um, but yeah, that, I, I think that that's, that's a dynamic you write that, um, males' overclocked sex, uh, drive gets really sort of weaponized and then downregulated and then you've gotta go again. Like we need to ratchet it back up again, then it gets downregulated again further because it just continues to adapt.

   5. RBRoy Baumeister57:56

      Yes. Um, the novelty is there. It's probably a stronger factor in the male than the female sex drive, but, uh, um, in some degree n- new, new things are exciting, new practices, new partners, n- new things. If we think, go back to like the Victorian period, the late 1800s where women just were covered head to foot pretty much and, uh, let's say like if, if the woman's skirt came up and showed her ankle, you know, like the man might get an erection. Uh, it's a, a turn-on, a big deal. You know, now ankles are, are nothing and knees and, and all that. So, at least though that if you're getting turned on by a glimpse of an ankle, uh, as a young man then, uh, um, you'll, there's still plenty that's gonna be new and a turn-on in-

   6. CWChris Williamson58:47

      You've got a lot of, you've got a lot of headroom to descend into. Yeah, you're right.

   7. RBRoy Baumeister58:50

      You've got a lot of headroom.

   8. CWChris Williamson58:51

      (laughs)

   9. RBRoy Baumeister58:51

      And so this, uh, second law of pornodynamics may, may well, uh-

   10. CWChris Williamson58:56

       (laughs)

   11. RBRoy Baumeister58:56

       ... have some valid basis and, uh, and sh- yeah, I, I do, uh, yeah, worry a bit about the young man. I can totally understand. I mean, none of this stuff was available when, when I was young and, uh, if it had been I can well believe I would have been curious and, and passionate enough that I would've gone ahead and, and, and exposed myself to it. But in a way I was lucky it was, was not so available and, uh, um, more things were still new to me in, i- uh, later in life.

   12. CWChris Williamson59:28

       One

10. 59:29 – 1:12:37

    Suppression of the Sex Drive

    1. CWChris Williamson59:29

       of the most interesting things, it was just a passing comment, I think it was your coauthor on this that said there were fewer sexually transmitted diseases ancestrally when humans had fewer clothes because skin-to-skin contact was more common and that meant that the diseases were able to be transmitted through, from an arm to a back or whatever, because we would be sleeping under a blanket together as a family because we didn't have enough hides to keep us warm. And then you, you develop clothes and these particular diseases realize that they need to mutate in one of the most reliable ways to get skin-to-skin contact is to be transmitted through sex. I just thought that was so interesting.

    2. RBRoy Baumeister1:00:15

       Uh, yes. Uh, that's my colleague Diane Tise. Uh, um, she knows more about that than I do. Uh, uh, so I don't know how strong the evidence for that is, but I know it's an important and influential theory and, and, and certainly very plausible, uh, with, with everything I know that, uh, uh, as we see diseases continue to mutate and adapt, uh, so they can find new ways of being transmitted and find new, new hosts. Uh, so yes, uh, the advent of clothing really made it harder for those that, uh, were transmitted skin-to-skin contact and so, uh, they started to become sexual, uh, sexually transmitted diseases.

    3. CWChris Williamson1:00:57

       There's also a, a section as well that I thought was really interesting about the suppression of female sexual desire, like in the, the fact that that's happened a lot throughout our, uh, culturally, um, it's just, uh, uh, it's one of those things where because men typically were the ones that were in power and m- the male insecurity or the, the sort of cuckold radar for men is so hyperattuned that it kind of doesn't surprise me that it would've been the sort of thing that would've been suppressed, because every man was fearful of it.

    4. RBRoy Baumeister1:01:37

       Um, well, that's one of the classic arguments about it, uh, that it was, uh, perpetrated by the men. When we reviewed that literature, and I've done many literature reviews and I could tell in advance this one was gonna be a big, tangled, complicated mess, um, but w- we dug up all the research we could find and it was surprisingly clear-cut that the s- cultural suppression of female sexuality is mainly practiced by women. It's not the men who are doing it. Um, I think if you surveyed men and said, "Well, suppose we put something in the drinking water that would reduce women's libido by half, so all women would have only half as much sexual desire, do you think the men would be voting for that? Say, 'Yeah, yeah, let's do that'?" I, I don't think so. So, the idea that men want to stifle women's sex drive, um, so that they don't have to worry about them, that, that ... I don't, I don't really think that's all that plausible or that there's much evidence for that. Uh-

    5. CWChris Williamson1:02:40

       Why are women, why are women doing it then?

    6. RBRoy Baumeister1:02:43

       Uh, women doing it probably for the, the economic reasons we mentioned before, that, uh, sex appeal is, uh, in many cultures, the woman's main ticket to a, a successful and happy life. You know, we all need resources, we need food and shelter and the more, uh, you know, nice clothes and all those things, uh, and that, uh, in most societies, men produce the majority, uh, of resources, and so women are dependent on men to get them, and, and they get them mainly in exchange for sex. Uh, often by marriage, you know, sometimes shorter term relationships or with sex work, prostitution, even just, you know, on a pay for, case by case basis. But in all cases, the, the higher the demand, the higher the price the woman can charge, the more she can get in exchange, uh, for sex, and so restricting the supply with the same demand, uh, means that, uh, the price will be higher. Uh, it's particularly focused ... I mentioned the Victorians, so, and that's roughly the period from about 1830, I think, uh, to the end of the century, to 1900, or sometimes they run it up to the beginning of World War I. Uh, but in that period, women were much more prudish than before or after. Uh, it was one of the most intense, uh, cultural suppressions of female sexuality, uh, that we've seen, uh, and that's probably no accident. There were several interesting things going on. For one, uh, traditionally in the farms, women had plenty of functions. You know, the men were still the boss of the farm, but the women did the spinning and the weaving to make the clothes, and the canning to store stuff, and, and so on. And then the Industrial Revolution took over women's work. Um, so, like, it started with the textile industry, so all that spinning and weaving, suddenly the women didn't have to do that. In the 1800s, they talked about something called the Women Question, like, what are women good for? What's the woman's proper place in society? They didn't quite have a sense of this was because of the Industrial Revolution had, uh, suddenly changed all the rules of the game and taken away the economic functions of women. Um, but what that meant is that a woman had a lot less to contribute, uh, and so, uh, sex became more and more important. Um, you know, a man wanting to run a farm in, say, 1650 or 1700 really needed a wife, and it didn't matter if you loved her, uh, it didn't matter ... You know, you wanted to have enough sex to produce children so that they would take over the farm when you got old. But you didn't really have to get along or anything. The f- the family was an economic unit, uh, but by a couple of centuries later, the man doesn't ... he's not a farmer anymore. He has an office job or something, uh, and he doesn't have that same need for female input economically. So, so her appeal, again, is, is mainly sex, that, uh, she's beautiful and he wants to have sex with her, uh, so, uh, restricting the supply, um, made him willing to make the kind of lifetime commitment. Uh, the Victorian marriages probably lasted longest in Western history. Um, that was a, a factor too, uh, and that's because improvements of public health meant that people lived longer, uh, when you think about what a marriage, they were saying, like, in the 1700s, the average marriage was 15 or 20 years 'cause one or the others would die. Uh, and then suddenly people marry at 25 and they're living till 65, so they gotta put up with each other for 40 years. Um, and then divorce was not available yet. You know, the, the 20th century, uh, changed, revoked divorce laws and gradually became more liberal and, uh, some people put this rather cynically to say, well, legalizing divorce was a substitute for, for plagues (laughs) -

    7. CWChris Williamson1:06:57

       (laughs)

    8. RBRoy Baumeister1:06:57

       ... and illnesses that, uh, you know, that kept marriages short. Uh-

    9. CWChris Williamson1:07:00

       I wonder how many, I wonder how many people were in Victorian marriages just hoping that a plague would come along, they were like, "I, I, I can't deal with this anymore. I just wanna be, I wanna be taken out."

    10. RBRoy Baumeister1:07:11

        Well, they were certainly stuck together for a long period of time and, uh, they wanted either their- themselves or their partner to be taken away. There are even sort of jokes about, uh, uh, people praying for their spouse to die and then instead they, they get sick and die themselves. And, uh, isn't that ironic? Um, so, uh, anyway, they... A lot of their adaptations to that, uh, they were much more formal. They weren't, uh, sharing everything as much, and husband and wife would separately dress up for dinner together and, uh, all those things. And, and maybe that helped, helped them tolerate putting up with (laughs) each other, uh, for a much longer period of time, uh, than in the past.

    11. CWChris Williamson1:07:51

        Treating the enforcement of sexual norms of women by women and considering it like a, a price-fixing cartel that is sort of unspoken between all women but everybody enforces, I learned about that first in Mate by, uh, Jeffrey Miller and Tucker Max, and they talk about the game theory of slut-shaming. So, they say that, um, what they, what other women don't want to have happen is for the price of s- casual sex to drop below a level that they would be prepared to get at. So, if one woman is prepared to give blow jobs on the third date but you want to wait until the fifth date, it's in your interests as a woman to apply social pressure to bring the, the price up. I mean, t- first off, that's just a fascinating way... First off, it, it is counter to what most people believe about where norms and the enforcement of them come from, right? It's mostly the patriarchy and men that are telling women what they should and shouldn't do with their bodies. The same goes for beauty standards. The same go... It's like, look, men don't, me- men don't recognize the clothes that you're wearing. Who do you think it is that's telling you that you should, that pastel shades are in or that it should be this kind of a dress or whatever? It's women that are doing that. So, the cultural side of that makes sense. I had a theory that... Have you heard of simps? Do you know what a simp is?

    12. RBRoy Baumeister1:09:16

        Hm, no.

    13. CWChris Williamson1:09:18

        Okay. So, this would be the sort of guy, um, on the internet, it's like internet-speak language, a beta male who would be fawning over a woman who evidently has no sexual interest in him, but he'll do things for her. Maybe he'll buy her gifts or take her out on a date in the long distant hope that she may one day decide to see him as a, a, a potential partner. Um, a lot of the time, guys that pay for girls on OnlyFans or support, um, sex workers without getting sex in return are kind of seen as simps, although some guys that pay for sex work may also be seen as simps. And I had an idea that in the same way as slut-shaming for women, uh, enforces the price of sex and ensures that it doesn't fall below a particular rate, that simp-shaming from men, so men that feel a particular amount of distaste for other men who are being, they would see as a little bit sort of slimy and, um, conniving. I think one of the reasons for that is that the price of resources and commitment without sex is what men have to offer women in the same way as the price of sex without commitment or resources is what women have to offer men. And I think-

    14. RBRoy Baumeister1:10:29

        Mm-hmm.

    15. CWChris Williamson1:10:29

        ... that my theory was simp-shaming is the same male-to-male enforcement.

    16. RBRoy Baumeister1:10:33

        Hmm.

    17. CWChris Williamson1:10:33

        Women don't typically enforce simp-shaming all that much. Well, why would you? You're gonna be the beneficiary of this. Do you really want to say that more men shouldn't give away more resources and, and time and money and care and attention for nothing in return? Why would you do that? But men have an incentive to do that. They're incentivized massively to do that because they don't want some woman to be able to go to the guy next door, not need to give up sex, but be able to get the resources and attention and stuff. So, that was my, uh, bro science theory around that.

    18. RBRoy Baumeister1:11:08

        Yeah, um, that, that's intriguing and, and, uh, plausible. Uh, I don't know how much of that is, is going on. Uh, and, uh, I, I suspect the common reaction to men who are doing that would be more just feeling sorry for them, um. I- if there may not be enough of them to pose a threat to the, eh, eh, artificially boosting the price of sex so that the men are expected to pay, uh, even without getting it. Um, and we notice the laws have certainly gotten that way. I mean, you can think of marriage as, uh, the man contributes money and the woman contributes sex. Uh, indeed, people choose their marriage partners partly based on those, those criteria. The woman wants a, a good provider and the man wants a, a sexy, attractive, uh, body. Um, but the laws are at the point where the woman's obligation to give sex, uh, probably ends after the, after the honeymoon, whereas the man's obligation to contribute money, uh, goes on for years, even many cases after the relationship is over. So, he's not getting any sex anymore, uh, any rights, but he still has to, uh, continue to pay. Um, so I suspect men would be more concerned about things like that. Although, uh, men seem to be, (laughs) seem to be suckers.

    19. CWChris Williamson1:12:34

        Concerned about a lot of things at the moment.

    20. RBRoy Baumeister1:12:36

        Uh...

    21. CWChris Williamson1:12:36

        So,

11. 1:12:37 – 1:17:19

    What is the Future of the Sexual Marketplace?

    1. CWChris Williamson1:12:37

       rolling the clock forward-

    2. RBRoy Baumeister1:12:38

       Yeah.

    3. CWChris Williamson1:12:38

       ... given all of this stuff that you've looked at, uh, this imbalance that we have currently in the dating market, more women in colleges, two to one pretty much by 2030 it's gonna be women outearning men between the ages of 21 and 29, more women achieving status and all that sort of stuff. Uh, what... Have you got any ideas about where the sort of sexual marketplace is moving in the future and what dating will be like going forward? 'Cause it doesn't seem, uh, massively optimistic from where I'm standing.

    4. RBRoy Baumeister1:13:10

       Well, there are always reasons for pessimism. I could, could come up with a few more,... uh, that, you know, to the extent there are these hookup cultures and patterns and that young men, uh, being single, uh, can have sex with a variety of women without much, uh, commitment or expecting, uh, them to have to contribute much themselves, that this is, this is exceptionally bad (laughs) preparation for marriage. Uh, and so adjusting to being married, uh, may be increasingly difficult, uh, for the young man, and especially if it's true that the wife is gonna be losing interest in sex. Well, um, he's going from the single life where at least there was a variety, uh, of options there and periodically would have episodes of great sex, to having not so much. Um, and the sex being often divorced from a relationship context or commitment, that also, um, doesn't seem to prepare the young man well, uh, for marriage. Um, women are also brought up today to think they can have it all and have very high expectations for what is owed to them and what they're entitled to have and, and all that. Uh, they also, um... So, uh, as I say, there, there are plenty of reasons to be pessimistic, uh, about the future of marriage. On the other hand, marriage has been a durable human institution. Uh, I remember being at a conference with a bunch of family researchers across multiple fields, and that was one of the points where the politicians were worried about the future of the family and it... Look, the family's always gonna be there. Re- re- it's, the family's not gonna disappear. Yeah, there are stresses and changes and problems, uh, and there always are and, and always will be, but, uh, it's, it's not gonna disappear as an institution. So, marriage will continue to happen and people will continue to figure it out. The declining birth rate is, uh, is an issue for some concerned about the, the, the population and, uh, apparently most of the... I just saw some data on this, that, uh, most of the developed countries, the, uh, the, the population that lives there is, is declining, is not reproducing itself, uh, and so it's only by virtue of, uh, immigration. Africa is the one exception where the population is still continuing to, uh, to increase, and it may continue to overflow into, into Europe and, and other nearby places. Um, but, uh, that's an issue, and, you know, uh, well, do we care? Does that make any difference, uh, where the people come from? There are economic issues when the population shrinks. Uh, there are environmental issues when the population expands. Um, (laughs) uh, you can always find something to worry about. Uh, overall, life has continued to get better for most people, so I have a generally upbeat outlook. Um, and, uh, despite all of the, the problems and the misguided ways that we bring up boys and girls, um, they'll probably still manage to find each other and there'll be plenty of decent people who will be glad to have a long-term relationship with, uh, with someone. And now, um, someone of the same gender as well is, is, uh, become an, uh, an option, uh, and accepted in society. Um, so, uh, having a long-term relationship seems to produce a lot of health and wellbeing benefits. Um, there are certainly conflicts and problems to be worked out, but, uh, I don't know. I... Yeah. So, uh, y- yeah, I have a few concerns and some pessimism and so on, but in the long run it's, uh, the society will muddle through and the population will manage and, uh, men and women will still find ways, uh, to go to bed together and occasionally to make, make a baby.

12. 1:17:19 – 1:18:25

    Where to Find Roy

    1. RBRoy Baumeister1:17:19

    2. CWChris Williamson1:17:19

       Good man. I like it. Uh, Roy Baumeister, ladies and gentlemen. If people want to keep up to date with the work that you do, you've written whatever it is, 600 papers and 30 books or something like that, where's it best to keep up to date with the things that you're up to?

    3. RBRoy Baumeister1:17:33

       Uh, well, I guess there's a website, roybaumeister.com, that, uh, where we update periodically with the, the new stuff. And, uh, I don't know, I can be easily found on- online if people want to know what, what the latest is. I'm also doing a blog for Psychology Today. Uh, the, the book we talked about today was an audio book. Uh, um, the, what is it, The Social Psychology of Sexual Interactions. Um, and so there's, there's plenty of, of stuff there. It's always a fascinating topic to explore and, and, and go on. One of many, but, but an important one.

    4. CWChris Williamson1:18:05

       Roy, I appreciate you. What's happening people? Thank you very much for tuning in. If you enjoyed that episode, then press here for a selection of the best clips from the podcast over the last few weeks. And don't forget to subscribe. Peace.

Episode duration: 1:18:26