Modern WisdomWhy Women Say They Want One Thing But Date Another - Rob Henderson
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,404 words- 0:00 – 3:44
Has Political Division Become A Sexual Fetish?
- CWChris Williamson
"Left-wing women are learning to love right-wing men. Political division has become a sexual fetish. Today, in online political fandoms, people behind enemy lines are often seen as potential sexual conquests. Right-wing men want a liberal art ho, whereas some leftist women," (laughs) "lust after the right-wing anon. It's hard to pin down discourse like this sometimes, but this trend is also substantiated in studies about the dating patterns of progressive women." What do you think about that?
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah. I, uh, you know, I, I wonder about these sort of media trends, these headlines, um, because often the reason why they get, uh, so much interest is because they're sort of at odds with our intuitions, right? And I know you've, you've spoken w- with plenty of people about this idea of assortative mating. We tend to be attracted to people who are somewhat similar to ourselves, so then when you have this flashy headline, you know, "Right-wing men want the left-wing art ho. The left-wing art hos want the Republican MAGA bro," or something, you know, it's, it's a little edgy. It's a little... Catches us off guard. But I think there's, you know, to, to the extent that it might be true, you know, if, if you think about what are the qualities that women find attractive in men, sort of self-sufficiency, ambition, income, uh, you know, you... All, all the kinds of qualities that, that are associated with sort of an, a masculine guy. Um, and then you look at sort of the voting patterns of men, and you find that the predictors of, of voting for the conservative parties are, a- also tend to be the traits that women tend to find attractive. So if you look at, um, uh, self-identified, uh, if you ask men, you know, "How, how masculine do you feel?" versus "How feminine do you feel?" The higher men rate themselves as masculine, the more likely they are to support a conservative political candidate, uh, and the more, uh... Or the less masculine they feel, th- the more likely they are to su- support a left-wing candidate.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- RHRob Henderson
And then, um, and you can ask other questions about, uh, income. There was a really funny study a few years ago, um, in the UK about height, that, uh, there's a sort of a small but significant correlation between height and voting for conservative political parties.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- RHRob Henderson
Uh, I don't know if that would hold up today. This was, like, 2016, 2017, that period.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- RHRob Henderson
But, uh, you know, and, and then there's, like, interesting work around, um, attitudes around, like, social dominance orientation and, you know, men who are sort of, uh, uh, sure of themselves, confident, go out into the world, achieve something. They also tend to like things like low taxes, and they tend to like things like, you know, a strong military, police. All those kinds of things kind of cluster together. And so it would make sense, I think, that women, regardless of political orientation, even if they explicitly, when you ask them about politics, they're gonna say, "I don't like this or that party," but then they start to list out the qualities that they enjoy, you know, those just tend to cluster more on the right side of the political spectrum.
- CWChris Williamson
I notice that they didn't use "right-wing women are looking to date left-wing men-"
- RHRob Henderson
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
"... as one of the examples there."
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah. Well, I mean, that... I think that makes sense in general. You know, I, I saw this tweet going around the other day, got a lot of attention. Uh, it was something like, uh, you know, "I, I want, I want a, a, a boyfriend who, who looks like a Republican but isn't one," something like that.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- RHRob Henderson
(laughs) You know, and I think that's the dream, is like, you know, you have all of the qualities of a sort of prototypical Republican successful guy or whatever, but then, like, they somehow still support the, the left-wing political parties, um, which I guess is like... That, that incentivizes, you know, this idea, I'm sure you've come across it, called wokefishing, of guys who conceal their political views, u- usually guys who tend to be on the right. They will, uh, adopt the political beliefs of the opposing side simply to attract women. And, uh, you know, that, that wouldn't be a thing unless it had some basis in reality, unless, uh, you know, somewhere in the world that, that actually paid off as a strategy.
- 3:44 – 8:02
Is There A Hypocrisy Issue In Attracting Women?
- RHRob Henderson
- CWChris Williamson
Mm. Yeah. You wrote an article about Harry Sisson.
- RHRob Henderson
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
This sneaky feminist exploiting the dating economy thing. What, w- what's the story there?
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah. It was interesting. There was a, a big sort of splashy piece in the New York Post about this, and a lot of people tweeting about this guy Harry Sisson, who is a, uh, you know, he was referred to in the New York Post as a rising star, a rising Gen Z TikTok star for the Democratic National Committee or something like that. He's just sort of a left-wing guy. But, uh, there was a sort of trend going on on TikTok of these girls saying, "Oh, you know, I was... Harry slid into my DMs. We were talking, and I was sending him nudes, but then he turned out to..." Or he would say things like, "You know, I'm interested in women more for their bodies. I like their minds." Uh, he also said something like, "I don't... I, I have no roster," (laughs) or something. "I don't have a roster." But the-
- CWChris Williamson
Look, if you know the word roster, you have a roster.
- RHRob Henderson
(laughs) Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's prob- pr- pretty good heuristic there. And then, uh, and then suddenly, these women a- all discover each other, and then, uh, you know, come together and start posting these videos about how Harry is kind of a duplicitous, two-timing guy or whatever. And I thought there was something very Gen Z about all of this, because from what I understand, he didn't sleep with any of these women. They felt betrayed or duped or something because they sent him some nudes and maybe some videos or something. But he... To my knowledge, uh, it's not been reported that he slept with any of these women.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- RHRob Henderson
And so, you know, it's like th- they're feeling burned, but he didn't really cheat. They were never official. You know, he wasn't in a relationship or committed to any of these women. Um, you know, he did explicitly lie to them, uh, you know, assuming all these allegations are true, but it's not like, you know, he, he violated any kind of law. I mean, it's kind of gray area morally, I think. I think the, the sort of the outrage doesn't necessarily match the transgression.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. I wonder whether there is a... That he's set himself an incredibly high bar. If it was Andrew Tate or f- some fucking guy from the right, would people be quite as up in arms? Or is it the case that you've sort of proselytized about how pro-women you are and, "I'm softly, softly," and, "Look at my feminine bonafides," and, oh, hang on, you weren't living up to them, so there's a degree of hypocrisy between his public position and his sort of private communication.
- RHRob Henderson
That's interesting. Yeah. So, so I guess the idea here is that it's out of character. You know, he portrays himself as very much a supporter of the Democrats. He's a left-wing guy. He cares about women and women's rights, and then meanwhile, behind the scenes, he's, uh, lying to women to get naked pictures of them.... and I guess that, that is kind of like the, the, the factor here, is like they, they felt lied to and then the image he projects into the public versus-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- RHRob Henderson
... who he really is, there's a mismatch there. Um, but yeah, I mean-
- CWChris Williamson
I think it's, if you don't have that image that you project, what you have is young, pretty famous guy with lots of access to women-
- RHRob Henderson
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
... gets lots of nudes from women and is a bit duplicitous. Like, that's not a story.
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
It only becomes a story, I think, when you have somebody who has positioned themselves as not that.
- RHRob Henderson
Interesting. Yeah, yeah. So, so if he were, yeah, like you said, an Andrew Tate character or just someone who, who openly said like, "I'm kind of a hedonistic, uh, pleasure-seeking guy," and then he's doing all of this, I think, yeah, it wouldn't be a story. But it's the fact that he says one thing but then does another, there's the hypocrisy element that bothered a lot of people. And it kinda reminded me of, uh, you know, the whole like sneaky fucker idea in, uh, evolutionary biology. Um, you know, the, the formal, the more scientific term is kleptogamy of men who, or, or male species who adopt the appearance of more sort of feminine traits and then thereby, uh, sort of disguise themselves. And this sort of acts as a shield against more sort of dominant, uh, competitive rival males. They think, "Oh, he's just a soft, you know, kind of a, a weak guy. He's sort of a submissive, feminine guy." And they, um, therefore feel less, um, less bothered if you see this weak guy hanging out with the women and then the woman... Then, then the guy, the sort of sneaky fucker guy gets to, gets to have his pick of, of the women here. And I think like a lot of, a lot of guys are kind of adopting this, of this, um... You know, you can... I- i- if it's the case that women want, uh, you know, the, the handsome guy but then also sort of politically left wing and this is just going to incentivize a lot of, uh, camouflage, I think.
- 8:02 – 13:41
Do Men Portray Themselves In A Certain Way To Gain Attention?
- RHRob Henderson
- CWChris Williamson
Why is it that... What is it that you think that's sort of allowing these guys to get in with women? Is it a, a degree of safety and security? Is it that this person doesn't seem like that much of a threat? Is it that they align with my political beliefs, that they're going to be more sensitive? Is he signaling long-term investment?
- RHRob Henderson
Mm... Yeah, I, I think all of the above. Um, you know, you're, yeah, you're signaling that you're a reliable person, you're, you're compassionate, you're kind. You know, our, our mutual friend, David Buss, his classic study found that the number one trait that people search for, male or female, the number one trait that they search for in a romantic partner is kindness. And, you know, if you talk about equality and all those kinds of things, then, um, yeah, you're, you're signaling that you're a kind and caring and compassionate guy. But I think social media, it's kind of... It- it's difficult to, to sort through the actual signal versus the noise around it because if you're a high-profile guy with millions of followers and you're talking about equality and, and women's rights and all of these things and then y- you as an observer are seeing those comments receive lots of likes and shares and retweets and this guy's getting so much attention and accolades and you're thinking, "Well, he's saying this and people are applauding him," and I think this strengthens the belief that what he's saying is actually what he believes, that's actually what he, um, supports and how he lives his own life. But, uh, you know, there's, there's often a mismatch, right, between what gets attention and what, uh, you know, how people actually live. So yeah, I think a lot of guys are, are wrestling with this. Interestingly, I don't think this guy actually... Harry Sisson, he doesn't seem to have actually paid any real penalty. Uh, I saw some people online joking that this is just gonna, uh, increase his notoriety and perhaps even, um, get him more attention. That one I'm less certain about, but so far he doesn't actually seem to have suffered in, in any real way.
- CWChris Williamson
There was a, an interesting debate that you highlighted that I totally hadn't seen, which is a lot of men, especially sort of red pilly men, would use evolutionary logic to explain how somebody like Sisson is sort of wired to sleep around with lots of women.
- RHRob Henderson
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
But the same evolutionary logic also explains about why women who have been scorned by a guy like this would use gossip and venting and interpersonal attack-
- RHRob Henderson
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
... um, as a, a way to shame them and to also ward off other women. So, I think you said, uh, this isn't a bug in the system. This is the system.
- RHRob Henderson
That's right. Yeah, yeah. So, so the logic here is... And the, the other example I pointed out was with Leonardo DiCaprio where every six months it's like, oh, another, another flare-up online of, "Oh, Leonardo DiCaprio has another 19-year-old supermodel girlfriend." It's just like-
- CWChris Williamson
He cycled out somebody who just turned 25, yeah.
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah, yeah. And uh, yeah, he resets back, you know, rewinds the clock and then, um, and then, you know, there's all this discourse online where, you know, speaking very roughly, women seem to be more upset and men are like, "Hey, this is kind of evolutionary science, this is biology. You know, a super high status successful guy. You can't really be that surprised that, uh, he'd, he'd search for women who are young and youthful," and all those kinds of things. And then, um, and then women in response are trying to shame him and, and, and, uh, stigmatize this kind of behavior. And there's an evolutionary reason for both of those things, right? Like, there is an evolutionary explanation for why men would enjoy being, uh, partnered with an attractive young woman because on average, attractive young women tend to be more fertile. And so, you know, if you average that out through the course of evolutionary history, men who are more attracted to those types of women tend to have more kids. And then it's interesting if you look at, um, you know, research on, on, uh, the ages that men tend to find women the most attractive, it all clusters around 23, 24 years old, regardless of the male participant who's being asked. So even 13-year-old boys, um, they say 23-year-old women are the most attractive. They're not saying other 13-year-old girls, and then, you know, you, you go all the way up to 70 plus years old and men tend to say, "Oh, women physically are at their peak in their early mid-20s," whereas for women it's, it's a bit more sort of matched with their own age. Um, and there's an evolutionary reason for that. But then for women who shame men for, you know, as they increasingly grow older and continue to date young women, there's... Uh, the logic here is that, you know, you want to stigmatize this kind of behavior, you wanna shame it, you don't want, uh, other men to do the same thing. You're basically trying to kind of police and confine men to be a bit more committed as a caregiver. And then when you have a super high profile person like Leonardo DiCaprio,... you know, you don't want that to become sort of normalized where every successful guy who women tend to be highly attracted to, every single one of those types of guys are following the Leonardo DiCaprio model, and this reduces women's chances of commitment from one of these, um, uh, prominent guys.
- CWChris Williamson
It's interesting how, uh, if that's correct, and if it is this unspoken price enforcement mechanism to try and demotivate the high value man from, uh, uh, sleeping around, that, uh, this is kind of the opposite of a, a tragedy of the commons, right? Because only one woman is going to be with him, at least at one time, right? It's a very, very small portion of women that are going to get to date Leonardo DiCaprio, but a very large portion of women who are shaming him. So, you know, it, it, you kind of got this huge contribution, a lot of women saying, "This is very, very much bad behavior," but how many of them are actually going to benefit from the, uh, enforcement of men going, "Ah, maybe I shouldn't go full Huberman-pilled on this one. I might, uh, you know, I might, I might just play it safe"?
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah. Well, I, I, I don't think, like, you know, these women, logically, in their rational, conscious mind, they're probably not thinking, "Someday, I'm gonna date Leonardo DiCaprio-
- CWChris Williamson
Oh, of course not. Of course not.
- RHRob Henderson
... and I'm gonna get him to commit to me."
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, yeah.
- RHRob Henderson
But it could be more so like, um, "I would like to date a high-status man in general," and, and, you know, your odds are still low-
- CWChris Williamson
He'd better not behave like that and trade me up-
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... for some
- 13:41 – 22:59
Is Women Earning More Than Men Affecting Relationships?
- CWChris Williamson
21-year-old.
- RHRob Henderson
Okay.
- CWChris Williamson
So I had, I had this i- I had this idea, um, looking at sort of the rise of sneaky fuckers, the Harry System sort of thing of the world. I wonder whether the increase in... I don't know whether we're seeing an increase in that, but it wouldn't surprise me if we are. Uh, I wonder whether that's a counter to the growing sex ratio imbalance of socioeconomically successful women compared to men-
- RHRob Henderson
Hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... that this is a way for men to begin to level the playing field of maybe not earning quite as much as their female counterparts and maybe not being quite as educated as their female counterparts, that they can't show up in the ty- typical sort of protector, provider role, so maybe they can get in there with, like, um, procreator propagandist?
- RHRob Henderson
Hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
I don't know.
- RHRob Henderson
Interesting. Well, well, I, so, so the idea here is, like, as, as women surpass men, and, and in one of the, one of the pieces that I sent you that I wrote, it was something like, uh, in, in a large, lot of major metropolitan cities in the US now, Washington, DC; Boston; Los Angeles; New York City; Americans under 30, women are, uh, performing as well or even better than men in terms of earnings and income. And so if women are outperforming men, then yeah, you're going to create these, you know, soft harem dynamics of women, you know, basically being willing to, to date guys who may be dating other women. And even if they don't explicitly know this or, or desire this, this is just sort of a natural outcome. Um, yeah, I, I, I think, like, ideally, everyone wants commitment, everyone wants someone, but then I, I, I always think of this famous, uh, uh, uh, or this very nice line in a, in, uh, Steven Pinker's famous book, How The Mind Works, and it's something like, um, most women would rather share John F. Kennedy than have Bobo the Clown all to themselves.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- RHRob Henderson
And, you know, the book was written in the '90s, so the references are a bit dated, but the idea here is most women would rather, you know, may- maybe share a Leonardo DiCaprio than have, you know, some, some, uh, some guy who's barely scraping by, um, for their sole husband. And I, I do wonder sometimes, because, like, over the last five or 10 years, there's been this discussion around, uh, polycules, poly relationships, open marriages, all these kinds of things, and maybe this is kind of the inevitable outcome of the deregulation of the sexual marketplace, of men falling more and more behind and, you know, people seemingly, uh, you know, unwilling or, or uninterested in, in sort of figuring out what's going on there, improve men's prospects, and thereby, that would actually improve monogamy.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. You wrote about, uh, men floundering, women most affected.
- RHRob Henderson
(laughs) That's right.
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, which I, I love that framing, dude. I've got one, I've got one that I wanna, uh, give you in a second which is even more spicy, but, uh, men floundering, women most affected was basically an explanation of sex ratio hypothesis, right?
- RHRob Henderson
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well, that's, yeah, that's, um, you know, whenever you see men falling behind, uh, you know, often the, the headlines and the articles are framed as, "Well, women are suffering because, you know, they're, they're unable to find a, a, a desirable male partner," but, you know, the, the logic is, "Let's concentrate on the woman who's suffering," when, when actually the, you know, the reason why she can't find desirable male partners is 'cause the men are the ones who are, like, floundering and falling further and further behind.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's, uh, I, I always find that framing very interesting, and I think, um, it kind of shows who is still considered to be on top and who is still considered to be on bottom. You kind of beg the question or you sort of reveal your priors-
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... when that kind of framing comes around. And yeah, dude, you know, uh, if you, as a woman of the internet, perhaps, who tweets things a lot or retweets things a lot, uh, has an issue with the dearth of eligible male partners, but also tweets about, um, like, "These men are losers and incels. Why can't they pick themselves up by their bootstraps?" Like, cause and effect are occurring in front of your eyes here, that if most groups are falling behind, we spend billions and billions in taxpayer-funded money to try and work out what's going on and help them, and we put committees together, and we create new social movements, and we put Title IX in, and we change the way that universities are structured, and we do all the rest of it. We don't tell them to pick themselves up by their bootstraps. Like, if, if, if women have a problem, or if any group except for men have a problem, we say, "What can we do to fix society?" But if men specifically have a problem, we say, "What is it that men are doing where they don't fix themselves?" And, uh, this sense that, uh, sort of modern men are being made to pay for the sins of a patriarchy that they no longer feel a part of, and then also aren't getting the mating, uh, o- opportunities, perhaps, that they would've been used to. A- and much of that is laid at their feet, right? Their socioeconomic status is theirs to, uh, and it is only theirs. Uh, but when you're also being sort of lambasted, it's like, so you didn't get the benefits, you were told that you did. You fell behind, and then you were castigated for not having picked yourself up, and then on top of all of that, the women were like, "And I, I can't even date you. I won't even, I can't even get, I can't even get myself to find a, find an eligible partner." You go-There's, like, a lot of mental gymnastics going on there, I think, to just hide the fact that all groups can feel bad and all groups need sympathy and empathy, and empathy isn't a zero-sum game.
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah. Yeah, I think that was, that's well put. And if you look at kind of the, the research on who people think, uh, uh, deserve help or who would benefit most from help, those kinds of things, it seems to be that, especially on the political left, there's this belief that, um, historically mistreated groups, it's perfectly reasonable not to hold them responsible for their misfortunes. But then historically dominant groups, you know, men and White people and straight people and so on, that if they're struggling, if they're not doing as well in society, then, you know, there's something wrong with them. But if marginalized groups aren't doing well, it's, it's something wrong with society.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- RHRob Henderson
And, you know, i- i- it's interesting sort of if, if you break this down politically, there's a really interesting book that just came out, uh, called Outraged by the psychologist Kirk Gray, and he talks about, um, uh, what he calls, like, moral dyad theory and how, you know, we- we basically, we categorize people into two different types, generally speaking. Like, not even people, but just entities in general, including people, which, uh, you know, he calls, uh, one group vulnerable feelers, and these are people who are sort of exquisitely sensitive to suffering and to pain and to anguish, um, you know, constantly put upon and beleaguered. And then he, uh, talks about what he calls thinking doers, and this is the reverse, people who are relatively unfeeling but highly agentic, you know, capable of strategizing, forming a plan, executing, and so on. And so, like, an example of a vulnerable feeler, you know, the sort of the extremes, uh, uh, a newborn infant is a vulnerable feeler. We attribute basically no agency to the baby, but we attribute a lot of vulnerability to it. Whereas a, a highly successful CEO would be the reverse, you know, highly agentic but relatively unfeeling. We don't think of s- you know, successful CEOs as, you know, exquisitely sensitive to pain and emotional suffering and those kinds of things, but they're really able to execute. Um, but then when, when, uh, researchers apply this moral dyad framework to, to human groups, you know, basically we see that political conservatives generally attribute both to most people, you know, regardless of your, uh, your background, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender. We're all kind of capable of being competent but also, uh, sensitive and, and vulnerable. Whereas, uh, on the political left, um, they tend to view sort of marginalized and mistreated groups as one or the other, um, or, or marginalized and mistreated groups as vulnerable feelers and, and historically dominant groups as thinking doers. And so, uh, a cop and a criminal, for example, political conservatives say, "Well, cops and criminals alike can suffer, can feel pain, can plan, can execute, are responsible for their own actions," whereas political liberals tend to say, um, "You know, cops are these thinking doers, these mechanistic, highly agentic beings, and criminals are these vulnerable, um, um, ex- you know, exploited, uh, people who are, uh, susceptible to being victimized." And I think that actually kind of explains, you know, like, why we see relatively little concern for, you know, men and then when we talk about men... I, I find it interesting sometimes when you see, 'cause, you know, I spend a lot of time in academia, uh, you know, it's not enough... Like, I think left of center academics, when they talk about men in broad strokes, I think there's this fear that they may be mistaken for talking about all men, including, um, non-White men.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- RHRob Henderson
And so often they'll say, they'll, they'll specify, they'll say, "Well, these White men who are complaining about being incels or these White men who are complaining about falling behind in society..." And I think to myself, you know, it's not just, uh, it's just not, it's not just White men. I was at this conference a couple weeks ago, and this reporter, uh, uh, for The New York Times, he was on stage, and, and he was a very interesting guy. He was very balanced in his analysis of what happened with the 2024 election, and this White guy in the audience raises his hand and he says, "Yeah, that's all really interesting but..." And again, this is a White guy and the reporter is a Black man.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- RHRob Henderson
But the White guy is like, "Don't you think that this was basically White male toxic masculinity?" Um, you know, these guys who are talking about how bad they have it, these White guys. And the Black New York Times reporter shoots back and says, like, "Well, those guys are upset, but it's not just a White thing." Like, if you look at the, the, the polling data in terms of who supported Trump, like, it was across the board. Men of all races shifted towards the Republicans in the most recent election.
- CWChris Williamson
The... Yeah, the only, the only segment he lost in was White people. (laughs)
- RHRob Henderson
(laughs) Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. That's right. And so, so I think, like, a lot of people, you know, they wanna isolate it and talk about the, the most powerful and privileged group, White men, but actually it's al- it's a little more complicated than that.
- 22:59 – 29:22
Are Men At Fault For Not Sexually Performing?
- RHRob Henderson
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, can I give you my spicy... We're about, whatever, 25 minutes in, so people-
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
...that will get mad at me have hopefully dropped off by now. Um, so I wrote this. I was too scared to actually post this. I wonder how often this happens with your newsletter, which, by the way, everyone should go and subscribe to Rob's newsletter. I read it every week and it's fucking amazing. Um, uh, I wonder how many times you write something and you go, "Oh, too hot. Like, too spicy." But this was one that was too spicy to, to go in the newsletter. Um, men not erect, women most affected. There is an a- (laughs)
- RHRob Henderson
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Um, there is an asymmetry in the way the discussion is framed around men not being able to get it up versus women not being able to reach orgasm during sex. Women not being able to come is often laid at the feet of the man. Men need to learn how to work with a woman's body more, make her feel more comfortable, lol, guys, just can't find the clitoris/just use your, your vibrator, queen, men are trash. But men not being c- able to get it up is never the woman's fault. No one is saying, "Your head game is weak, Julia, step it up."
- RHRob Henderson
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Both are the man's fault and neither are the woman's. So I, I basically... It's not quite the same, but I think it's the only equivalent that we can find that if a guy has got erectile dysfunction and is struggling to get it up in the bedroom, the only close, uh, comparable, um, uh, situation that women have to deal with is that they, they can't reach climax during sex. And if it's really hard or if you need to... Uh, if there's, like, some fucking sequence of, like, rain dance things that needs to... The moon needs to be in its sort of third fucking quarter, and we need to make sure that Mars is in retrograde and then fi-... that's laid at the feet of the man, a lot of the time, that you need to make her feel more comfortable. What about, you know, what about during the day? Did you send her flowers? And yet, if a guy's got erectile dysfunction, it's never laid at the feet of the woman. Although, to be really compassionate, I think a lot of the time in those situations, women will feel it's all about them, but if you look at the commentary that goes on online, and men will also take ownership of like, "I'm not good enough. I can't, uh, you know, I'm sort of sexually, uh, i- insufficiently capable to m- to help my partner get to orgasm." But, if you actually look at what's talked about online, it's, "Guys, you're broken because your penis doesn't work," and, "Guys, you're broken because you can't get a woman into this situation where she feels comfortable enough to come."
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's, what, what was it? Men, men not erect, women most effective. That's- that's beautiful.
- CWChris Williamson
Women most effect- men not erect, women most eff- most effective. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah. That's, yeah. That, yeah. But that's an interesting point there that like, well, men aren't erect, but then it's, you know, again, it's the man's fault for being unable to achieve an erection, and that, yeah, who's, who's, who's really, uh, uh, vulnerable here? Which is, yeah, it's an interesting framing there. Like you mentioned that, uh, you know, often women do feel, um, uh, you know, uh, unhappy about this. That, that they, they see it as a reflection of maybe their own attractiveness. And you've probably seen some, some research going around. I saw, I saw Ralph Dagan tweet something about this. There was a study about how, um, women essentially feel like extremely satisfied when their male partner, uh, has an orgasm, and they feel very dissatisfied when they don't. Like, they feel like the sense of accomplishment by bringing their male partner, uh, to completion, uh, in the bedroom. Which I guess like, you know, there, there's like, you know, probably an evolutionary story you could tell there that, um, you know, historically, evolutionarily, uh, male orgasm is required for the continuation of the species, whereas women's orgasm, you know, it's, it's great but also, you know, not necessarily-
- CWChris Williamson
A little bit more novel.
- RHRob Henderson
... not necessary for the continuation. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, yeah. That's, that's an interesting one. I certainly remember looking at some stuff around ... Well, if, if you think about it this way, the bar, uh, men coming is typically quite mechanical, and that can be the case too for some women, but not all women.
- RHRob Henderson
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
And if that's the case, the bar for, uh, "I have been able, I have performed my duties as a woman in the bedroom" is lower than it is-
- RHRob Henderson
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... for a man. You know, you have a full spectrum of happens at the gust of a wind to never gonna happen at all, even on my own, for women. Whereas for guys, this is, actually, this is interesting. This is probably one of the few areas where male variability is reduced.
- RHRob Henderson
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Right? The typical-
- RHRob Henderson
Oh. Right.
- CWChris Williamson
You know what I mean?
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so in, in this case, it's, um, kind of a, the, the complexity of your sexuality and what, what brings you to be aroused and to have an orgasm, it's, it's much more varied for women than for men, which is, yeah, that, that's at odds with, uh, what we usually see. That's fascinating.
- CWChris Williamson
Novel, novel insight.
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
That's some fucking bro science for you-
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah, yeah. No, that's, that's really-
- CWChris Williamson
... Rob Henderson.
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Dr. Rob Henderson.
- 29:22 – 38:28
The Subsequent Fall Out From Netflix's Adolescence
- CWChris Williamson
back over our way. Uh, but speaking of that, uh, kind of the, I guess, topic of the internet at the moment, Adolescence. Uh, I only ... I, I was away traveling basically from when it came out until yesterday, so, uh, I only got to watch, I've seen a few episodes. But, uh, give me your, your take on that and then kind of the subsequent fallout that's happened.
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah. Well, what's really interesting, so, so I mean, you know, the basic summary of the show, I'm sure a lot of your listeners have, have seen it, about this boy, this 13-year-old boy who's, you know, kind of unpopular at school. He goes to the, you know, he's a working class kid. He goes to this, you know, rundown, chaotic school. Um, you know, one thing a mutual friend of ours, uh, pointed out, William Costello, is that like, 'cause he's worked in schools in the UK before, and he says like, "That is what a lot of these schools look like. Just sort of utter chaos, teachers barely able to contain the classroom." And this boy, um, Jamie, is relatively unpopular. He's sort of at the center of this story, and the, the show makes references to, you know, how the kid listens to Andrew Tate and how he, uh, you know, there, there were a couple of times the, the, you know, he said something about like the 80/20 rule, about how 80% of women like 20% of men. And so, there are a lot of these kind of like red pill manosphere talking points, um, throughout the show basically suggesting...... um, heavily that this boy got, like, you know, sucked into this online rabbit hole and then when this girl, uh, on Instagram, this girl he had a crush on in his class, calls him an incel, he lashes out, gets mad at her, and then he stabs her. And then the boy's arrested and, you know, there's this kind of interesting scene of him... The, the whole episode, one of the episodes con- consists of him speaking with this, I think she's a psychiatrist or something, and they're going back and forth about this. And yeah, it was, um, you know, like, it- it- it was- it was interesting as a piece of entertainment. I thought it was beautifully shot. But I don't think... Like, there are a lot of things about this series, it's being treated as a documentary, but it actually-
- CWChris Williamson
Correct.
- RHRob Henderson
... doesn't really reflect what happens in real life. You know, like- like, you know, if you look at the statistics for who commits knife crimes, it's not really, like, white 13-year-old working class boys. If you look at the statistics for, um, who is most interested in watching Andrew Tate, for example, you know, there was this interesting poll going around that, um, they broke down the- the respondents by, uh, race or ethnicity, and it was something like 41% of, uh... So this was in the UK, something like 41% of Black males in the UK said they were fans of Andrew Tate, and then for, uh, what are they called? Like South Asian or something, Asian men, um, it- it was something like 30%, and then for whites it was- it was, like, by far the lowest. Um, and yet when people talk about his fans, they often say, "Oh, these white male incels."
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- RHRob Henderson
Um, and then the other thing was, you know, that's- that, uh, you know, it just- it was just, um... You know, the whole incel thing, he's 13. The kid looks like he's 11 and a half. His voice hasn't changed. Like, it was just hard for me to- to- to fully believe that, uh, you know, some- some, like, prepubescent kid is really feeling so stressed out about, uh, you know, being a virgin or whatever. But William pointed out that actually, um, what's interesting here is that, uh, it's not so much that he's upset about not getting laid, it's about being called an incel, and this term has become a slur, and this really embarrassed the kid and so on. But, you know, overall, it was- it was fine, but, uh, very much sort of it strayed a lot from- from reality and yet it's being received in a lot of the mainstream media as like, oh, it's this iconic series that accurately reflects what's going on with toxic masculinity and so on.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
- RHRob Henderson
Very, um, uh, unrealistic.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. Art masquerading as reality and, uh... Yeah, that was one of the things that struck me. I mean, one- one of the other things that- that struck me was beautifully shot, adored it, cinematography is fucking amazing. It was shot in a DJI Ronin 4, which is a really cool piece of kit that's been around for a little while and, um, I- I thought that was great. I thought the acting was a little underwhelming actually, uh, especially from some of the kids. Um, and the acting was its l- most underwhelming when they tried to shoehorn in anything to do with mating psychology, EP sort of tangential stuff because it was so ham-fisted how they had to do exposition. "The manosphere, the red pill." What? Have you been watching The Matrix? You know, like, "Oh fuck, here we go."
- RHRob Henderson
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Um, so just it felt, you know, the exposition... But I understand, you know. This show is going to be watched by people who aren't terminally online like me and you, so maybe it needs that exposition, but that just felt a bit like, "Ugh." Um, one of the interesting things, again, I was away for all of last week and hadn't watched it, but I must have been invited onto five, 10 different panel style shows of varying levels, uh, uh, including s- like mainstream British TV primetime spots, and, uh, it was evident that they were just looking for somebody who could come on and sort of fight the fight for the pro-men's side.
- RHRob Henderson
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
Um, first off, I hadn't seen it. Secondly, that is a fight that you only fucking lose by going on and trying-
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... to defend an imaginary child stabbing an imaginary girl about an imaginary slight.
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Like, so what are we talking... And I- I- I thought about this an awful lot. Um, what it seems like happened, they invited me on the first night after adolescents sort of hit the- the news headlines and then we were able to track, oh, that's the person that got on instead of me because I said no, and looked at that, and that conversation was, you know, very placid and calm, and then they emailed again the next day and were like, "Hey, yeah-"
- RHRob Henderson
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
"... um, you know, we really wanted a little bit more sort of, uh, uh, different insights." I'm like, "What you mean is you wanted to create a firestorm."
- RHRob Henderson
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
But who's gonna come on and say, "You know, we need more 13-year-old boys that are stabbing... i- imaginarily 13-year-old boys stabbing imaginarily 13-year-old girls"? Like that is... it's not a position. And then yet this, uh, fucking... I- it's supposed to be shown in the House of Commons. We want to be able to stream this in every school. Why? As a cautionary tale?
- RHRob Henderson
Mm. Yeah. Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
As a cautionary tale for who? Because by every metric, this fantastically shot, really beautiful, very well put together, but, like, statistically pretty inaccurate-
- RHRob Henderson
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Si- I mean, we... there's fucking papers out there. How many times have I talked to you about, uh, like, the male sedation hypothesis? Like, if you look at how radicalized young men could and should be, how little sex they are having, how isolated and lonely they are by every metric, how much they're falling behind socioeconomically, the state of their mental health, the online subcultures that help to sort of ossify and make them feel worse about this, like, this isn't a request. This is not a request and you're not allowed to cut this to make it into a request, but w- where are all of the incel stabbings?
- RHRob Henderson
Hmm. Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Like where are they?
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's- it's interesting. There- there was that paper, um, last year I think with, uh, David Buss and William Costello where they wrote like, "Why is there not more incel violence?" If you look at, you know, like- like if- if you look sort of throughout historically, um, uh, instable or unstable, uh, uh, countries, communities where growing numbers of young men are-... not doing well, unable to find partners, falling further and further behind. Like, usually this leads to increased violence, increased crime, and so on, and we're not really seeing as much as you would predict based on the sort of historical trend and pattern. Um, and yeah, your, your male sedation hypothesis, I think there's, you know, that, that makes sense as a, sort of an expla- explanation. And yeah, it's, uh, it's weird that it, it doesn't happen that often, and then there's this fictional portrayal of it, and then that gets blown up and that like, you know, like, serious people who went to great universities and are supposedly mature, sophisticated adults watch a Netflix show and I, I just like, it blows my mind that you think, like, "Oh, that's, that's how the world is. That's how the world works. This thing, this four-episode thing you saw on Netflix? That's where you're getting your information about what's happening online, what's happening This is an accurate insight into what's going on with young men. Yeah. House of Commons, high, hi- high-ranking politicians. It, it's just insane.
- CWChris Williamson
In the same way that you would say, you know, this is a cautionary tale against the, the problems that 13-year-old boys are facing, like, by that logic, Batman should be a cautionary tale against orphans and people that slip into wells. Like, you're taking the, a actual situation that was narrativized, and I, I have heard that the original, uh, story that this was born out of was a different demographic for the perpetrator, that it was actually based on a real-life story and that-
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah, I've heard that.
- 38:28 – 52:26
Did Adolescence Accurately Get The Message Right?
- CWChris Williamson
But I, I watched episode three last night, and that was the one I was particularly interested to get your take on because that was obviously them trying to sort of dig into what is the psychology, what is the ideology, the mentality of these young boys, and I found that one really dissatisfying. I, I, the way it was shot, the fact that they held it together for a full 60 minutes like a fucking scripted podcast was unbelievable, um, but th- they tried to sort of touch on, "So what do you think about masculinity? What do you think being a man is?" And at no point did they find really any tension in the, the boy wasn't really able to give a particularly sort of strong answer to that. Uh, th- he, the broken home thing didn't work. There was some interesting stuff around the power dynamic between him pushing back against the woman and him typically sort of being able to play, but I, I, I didn't see that quite so much as some thinly-veiled misogyny as it was just young, slightly shrewd boy or girl knows the limits of a person in power and is able to play with those to make them feel uncomfortable. Uh, you know, he even sort of comments on the, uh, like how flat-chested she is and whether she's pretty and stuff like that. So you know, there's always this like, "I know that if you do something to me that's not, that's not right, that I can kind of get you on it." But yeah, wha- what did you make of that, that sort of breakdown and the sort of masculinity, fragile male ego discussion at large?
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah. Well, it, it, I mean, as I was watching it, um, you know, I thought about all the research on incels and how, you know, if, if you look at the mental health of, of incels, a lot of work from, from our friend William Costello here about how 67% of self-identified incels qualify for a clinical diagnosis of anxiety, severe moderate, uh, anxiety, and this is like roughly twice as high among incels as, as non-incels. And so then when you see this kid and he's so emotionally, uh, uh, fragile and kind of volatile and, you know, he probably does, uh, you know, it's, it's a fictional character, but he probably would qualify for some, uh, threshold, uh, a score above a certain threshold for depression or anxiety. And, you know, this psychiatrist lady is trying to suss this out and try to, try to pinpoint, you know, what, what exactly went wrong. I did find it interesting that they chose to have this character, like you said, raised in this intact family, and so, you know, I'm trying to figure out, like, why that specifically. It could have been a single dad. That might have been interesting if, what's, what's-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- RHRob Henderson
... the guy's name you mentioned? Stephen something?
- CWChris Williamson
Graham.
- RHRob Henderson
Graham, yeah. So if, if, if this show had been, you know, he was a, a single father, you know, working overtime at, at his plumber job to make ends meet and maybe he wasn't always able to be there for his son the way that he should have, something like that, the fact that he had two parents and, and so then I thought, "Okay, well, maybe the message is this could happen to anyone." You know, he's a, he's a nice boy from a nice family, but he just got sucked into the incel red pill rabbit hole and he got brainwashed. But, you know, that, like, y- th- we didn't really get an explanation here. Maybe that's supposed to be the, the idea here is that there is no explanation other than the incel, you know, online world.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- RHRob Henderson
But then you would expect, like you said, you would expect more of this kind of violence because if even boys from good homes could, you know, become a criminal like this, then you should see way more boys doing this, and you don't.
- CWChris Williamson
But yeah, what about the boys from bad homes? What about-
- RHRob Henderson
Exactly.
- CWChris Williamson
... the boys that don't have that good upbringing? Why are they not doing it at three times the rate, five times the rate, 10 times the rate? I watched a couple of behind the scenes, uh, on YouTube that Netflix put up themselves and Stephen Graham's explaining the script, and he's talking about how he didn't want the excuse, he didn't want there to be an excuse that it was because of abuse from the family, which constrains the ex- it constraints this sort of explanatory mechanism straight down onto this sort of aggressive subculture. But, uh, uh, I've got s- episode four to watch this evening. Um, unless they actually show how he becomes radicalized, like, you know, he was on Reddit and he was looking at these things and he's doing all of the rest of this stuff, it's like, okay, so where did he learn about this? Or is it just, is the point really just that...... the male ego and sort of male sexual prowess and your mate value when threatened and specifically humiliated at large by someone is a dangerous object. If that's the takeaway, I fucking fully agree. I fully fucking agree with that because I think, uh, humiliation is unbelievably dangerous to anybody, but specifically to a young boy. And at least, again, only in episode three, um, if the story continues the way it does, it's like guy didn't bring a knife, got it from his friend, just wanted to scare this girl. This girl had bullied him. Like, up until the point at which he brought a fucking knife to her, she was in the wrong.
- RHRob Henderson
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
She'd been mean, she'd been saying this stuff online, she derogated his, uh, status in a lot of ways, and then the situation gets out of control and it, it ends fucking tragically. Again-
- RHRob Henderson
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... fictionally tragically.
- RHRob Henderson
Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
Um, like we must remember (laughs) at no point do we need to defend or, like, try and fucking prosecute anybody because nothing happened.
- RHRob Henderson
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Um, but yeah, if that's the story and, and that's the takeaway, and maybe that's the reason that it was left so open-ended that you didn't have this sort of concrete explanation around masculinity, around what were the subcultures, you know, that Andrew Tate shite is like a passing comment.
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
But to anybody that has the fucking first idea about what the internet looks like, I would guess that most incels actually despise Andrew Tate because he-
- RHRob Henderson
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... represents an awful lot of everything that they, they don't agree with.
- RHRob Henderson
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
That they don't think, like, he's just going to be a, a symbol of all of the shit that they can't get.
- RHRob Henderson
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
So that plus red pill, plus manosphere, plus inc- it's like, this is a fucking massive world. It's like, I'm sure it's the same when good meaning feminists hear, "Oh, she's a feminist, you don't need to... You can disregard her opinion," because of, you know, other fren- like that includes fucking Pink Pill and Are We Dating The Same Guy? And r/female dating strategy. Like, all of them probably can get lambasted under the rubric of feminist.
- RHRob Henderson
Oh, right. Yeah, yeah, there's that kind of, yeah, out-group homogeneity effect of, like, any man who comments on relationships or talks or, you know, talks about women in a stereotypical way, they're all part of that same Andrew Tate, red pill, manosphere, that's all the same sort of collapsed into the same group. But, uh, yeah, I, I think that's right, that, like, even, even sort of politically, you know, the, those findings about how generally if you, if you measure the political attitudes of incels, they tend to lean center left. Um, they probably don't really have sophisticated politics in general, they're just kind of upset. They're, you know, falling behind in terms of status, in terms of income. They don't view themselves as particularly desirable or attractive. And, you know, their politics are probably, like, completely orthogonal, unrelated to however they're feeling about themselves in relationships. But it's just easy to sort of vaguely collapse Tate and Trump and everything that you don't like into-
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- RHRob Henderson
... you know, they're all just these domineering, evil men, and also incels are in there too somehow, even though Andrew Tate and Donald Trump are, like, kind of the, like, literal opposite of incels in, like, every kind of way, in terms of income, in terms of success-
- 52:26 – 1:08:04
How Psychology Can Help Us Choose The Right Partner
- CWChris Williamson
about. Yeah. Okay.
- RHRob Henderson
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Going to the other side of the spectrum now. What can psychology teach us about how to choose a good partner? I read this phenomenal article from you a while ago and then re-read it recently.
- RHRob Henderson
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
What can it... How can it help us?
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah. Well, o- one of the things that I point out right away in that piece, uh, yeah, How to Choose a Romantic Partner, is, you know, study after study finds, you know, you look at research on happiness, on well-being, on life satisfaction, that the two biggest factors are what you do for work and your, uh, your marriage and family life. You know, your choice of spouse. And that makes sense. I mean, if, if nothing else, mathematically it makes sense because you're going to spend most of your life, uh, on the job, whatever job you work, your career, and then with your family. And that takes up the bulk of your time. And so one thing that, that occurred to me as I was writing that piece is just how much information there is out there about, you know, how to become, uh, educationally and occupationally successful. Here are the steps you need to go to college. Here are the steps you need to take to master a job interview. You know, here are the, here's the pathway to become a successful doctor, lawyer, what have you. And everywhere you turn, there's no shortage of advice and it's perfectly kind of acceptable in the broader discourse to, you know, like, "What, what are you doing?" "Oh, I'm watching this YouTube series on how to, how to improve my career." That's fine. But if you were to say, you know, you're watching YouTube and I'm saying, "W- what are you watching?" You're like, "Oh, I'm watching this YouTube series on how to be a better romantic partner and attract someone." Somehow that is like, you know, weirdly stigmatized. We would think of someone like that as like, well, what's wrong with you that you can't just find one? We expect people to just enter the world knowing how to be an attractive partner and to find a compatible partner for yourself. But we accept that actually, it's, it's perfectly fine to sort of seek out information and knowledge and mentors and so on to succeed in career. And so-
- CWChris Williamson
Why do you think that is?
- RHRob Henderson
I, um... (sighs) I don't know. I mean, I, I think part of it is...You know, there could be this thing where if you are... If you require, uh, explicit advice on romance, that this in itself is, is an indicator of low mate value or that you're unattractive. That if you naturally know what to do and naturally know how to succeed as a, as a person in the romantic sort of dating market, then that in itself is an indicator that you're a worthy romantic partner. But if you need to seek out information, then that suggests, oh, actually, like maybe you shouldn't even be dating in the first place. Whereas, you know, for career, less so. I mean, I still think that we... If, if someone effortlessly succeeds like in, in, in, um, in their career, we do give them a bit of extra credit, but we're perfectly fine with, you know, people who are trying to improve themselves. We are, um, willing to, to confer special praise to those people too. So yeah, it's an interesting one, and I think it's, it's more so for, for men, um, specifically. Like, I also wonder if, you know, because of the, you know, the women are wonderful effect and, and the sort of accompanying effect of we tend to be a bit more suspicious of, of men, that if you hear that a man is learning how to improve them... their prospects on the dating market, our mind immediately leaps to worst case scenario of, "Oh, you're gonna learn-"
- CWChris Williamson
Oh, yeah.
- RHRob Henderson
"... how to manipulate women. You're gonna learn how... Or you, you're trying to-"
- CWChris Williamson
Harry Sisson all over again.
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And so we don't think, "Oh, this is just, uh, a guy who's really falling behind and wants to learn how to have a good first date and, and find a girlfriend." We think, "Oh, he's trying to hook up with as many women as possible and, and, and dupe all of them or something." Um, but, but this piece was, you know, basically about, you know, assuming that you want to find a good partner, you know, what are you actually looking for? Um, and earlier we talked about, uh, uh, uh, we, we touched briefly on assortative mating, and that does seem to be the case that if you look at measures of political orientation, religiosity, socioeconomic status, earnings, educational attainment, that we tend to pair with people who are relatively similar to ourselves. Um, there was an interesting statistic. So this study was from 2005, which found that if your highest level of education is a high school diploma, then your likelihood of marrying someone with a college degree is 9%. But if your highest level of education is a college degree, then your likelihood of marrying a college graduate is 65%. I'd imagine that's actually higher today. It seems like assortative mating is, is sort of tilting even, even further and further in that direction. But what's interesting there is that, um, the similarity, even though that, that's sort of descriptively true, that is just the case that we tend to pair with people who are similar to ourselves, when you measure level of, levels of similarity within romantic partners, similarity doesn't seem to predict relationship success. Um, and I'm... I was reading that paper and my interpretation of this is probably that similarity is necessary but not sufficient for-
- CWChris Williamson
Mmm.
- RHRob Henderson
... a long-term committed relationship.
- CWChris Williamson
Surely though, if most people are mating assortatively, you have a much smaller sample size of people who have mated unassortatively.
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah, and there's that, that issue of range restriction where if you're only looking at couples, then by definition most of them are already pretty similar, and so does that extra similarity help? Probably not. There's probably that threshold that's sort of necessary but not sufficient.
- CWChris Williamson
You're also not... You're also not seeing how many couples that were from different educational backgrounds that got together, broke up, and that shouldn't have gotten together and sort of fluked their way into it.
- RHRob Henderson
Mmm.
- CWChris Williamson
That's, that's kind of an interesting one. What about, um, personality traits, similarities in, uh, so being extroverted, being introverted, uh, propensity for low mood, blah, blah, blah?
- RHRob Henderson
Mmm. Yeah. Well, well, the personality thing is interesting in that, um, one thing that shocked me when I was looking at the personality research and similarities in couples is that the correlations are remarkably small. They vary around sort of 0.1, 0.2, statistically significant that if you're open, your partner that you tend to pair with will be a little bit more open than average. Same with these other personality traits. Uh, one that's a bit higher than the others that I saw was for neuroticism, which is about 0.2, 0.22, somewhere in that, in that realm. Um, and this is consistent with other work that, uh, you know, people who are emotionally volatile tend to be, uh, uh, attracted to one another or find something interesting about one another, whereas, you know, people who are more emotionally stable tend to seek out partners who are stable. There was a really interesting essay a couple of years ago from, uh, our mutual friend Scott Barry Kaufman, and he wrote about, um, uh, people with, with dark triad traits, that they seem to find one another interesting and attractive.
- CWChris Williamson
Oh, fuck. They're welcome, they're welcome to each other. You know, everybody, everybody that isn't dark triad is just going, "Please, for the love of God, date each other." That's a great way to...
- RHRob Henderson
(laughs) Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
That's a great way to kind of quarantine everybody out there-
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah, yeah, get them out of the dating pool. Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- RHRob Henderson
And, uh, and yeah, which, which I think like, you know, if, if you're... If... Yeah, so people who are sort of relatively narcissistic find other narcissistic people interesting and attractive and those kinds of things. Um, one thing that was interesting, uh, related to the personality point is, is, uh, authenticity, that, uh, this really interesting paper found that people who, um, score highly on measures of authenticity within their relationship, and so these were basically the extent to which participants agreed with statements like, um, uh, "I'll usually tell my partner things that are on my mind, even if there's a chance he or she may not understand me."Um, and when people, uh, are more likely to agree with those statements, they also tend to correlate highly with, uh, levels of relationship satisfaction. And interestingly, the reverse was, was the case too, that people who are low authenticity also tend to pair with people who are also, um, more, uh, deceptive or less authentic. And so there really is that sort of, uh, uh, assortative mating there going on too, which I guess, like, one, one potential inference here is that if you want an authentic partner, if you want someone who tells you the truth, you have to be a bit transparent. You have to be open yourself in order to establish that trust.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. What's that thing? To be worthy of a worthy mate, be a worthy mate.
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah, the, the, the best, you know, the, the... That's why we call them honest signals, right, is that, uh, you know, only someone who's truly authentic and truly whatever that, you know, you're going to be the most likely to attract a partner with those kinds of traits as well.
- CWChris Williamson
If, if authenticity is a, a big predictor for relationship satisfaction, is that a vote in the box for oversharing, uh, for being quite transparent about sort of what's going on, as opposed to, uh, keeping some stuff just for your journal and the therapist's room?
- RHRob Henderson
Interesting. Yeah, I, I think generally... Well, it depends on what, what the, um, the conversation is about. Um, you know, if you have your sort of most wild, extreme thoughts, like, I don't know, may- maybe those don't always have to be aired. Well, like, "I'm gonna, I'm gonna punch a baby and put it into the Rogue," or... Yeah, yeah, yeah. (laughs) Yeah. Yeah. Well, but, but I think, like, when it comes to, um, issues around the relationship itself, that maybe there's a way... I, you know, I, I think, like, it's better to generally overcommunicate rather than to let things slide and let resentments build up and then it potentially explodes later into a serious argument that, uh... I mean, there's a way, I think, to overcommunicate in a kind of diplomatic, respectful way, of just like, "Why did you do that? That upsets me. Stop doing that." You know, that's probably not the best way to go about it, but if you see something and you point it out in a gentle way. And I think that is probably, uh, a better approach than just, like, yeah, letting it all build up over time.
- 1:08:04 – 1:18:54
Indicators Of Potential Mistreatment In A Relationship
- CWChris Williamson
with a bunch of other stuff. I've heard you say before that impulsivity, dismissiveness, aggression, and being flighty and unreliable, in addition to physical attributes like tattoos or piercings and so on, are all indicators of sort of potential future mistreatment in a relationship. Why- why those? Why that suite of physical-
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... and mental traits?
- RHRob Henderson
Yeah, I mean, all of those, you know, the- there's sort of volatility, clusters around neuroticism or- or low emotional stability. And, you know, it's interesting, I'm reading this, uh, this Person-, uh, it's called The Person: A New Introduction to Personality Psychology, uh, new textbook, sort of covering the- the latest in- in that whole field, and one of the things they point out is, you know, people who are highly neurotic, you know, high on neuroticism, they'll often, you know, complain about bad things happening to them, and there used to be this question of, well, you know, are they basically, um, uh, overstating the- their own level of suffering? People who are neurotic, are they going through the same thing as everyone else but th- because of that personality trait, they are exaggerating the extent of their own mistreatment? But actually, there is a bit of that going on, but additionally, when you look at objectively what happens to people with high neuroticism, they have more interpersonal conflicts, more issues with their friends, uh, more, uh, arguments with their romantic partners, just generally more difficulty in their lives. And so yes, they may overstate what they're going through, but they are objectively going through worse sort of interpersonal disputes than- than the average person. And so, you know, if- if you want to avoid that, you know, you gotta kind of avoid sort of the aggression, the flightiness, and all those kinds of things. Um, the openness point is interesting. I would imagine... There is research indicating that- that tattoos correlate with openness to experience. I would imagine the same goes for, you know, unusual piercings, um, and those kinds of things. And so yeah, if you... You know, there- there was this study about this, about, um, uh, promiscuity and tattoos, uh, that, you know, basically the more... If you have a tattoo, you tend to be sort of more open. What- what- what's the phrase? Sociosexual orientation? Basically more interested in promiscuous sex. Uh, those things correlate together. And then the more tattoos you have, the more open you are to-
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- RHRob Henderson
... having open sex with, you know, th- uh, unfamiliar people. Um, which lines up with the other research on tattoos as well, that it's correlates with, um, you know, low impulse control and those kinds of things. And so yeah, I mean, it's funny, we, um... You know, I had this tweet, uh, put out a while ago, it was something like, uh, you know, "People put a great deal of effort into designing..." Well, no, no, the phrase is, "Don't judge a book by its cover, and people... And yet people put a great deal of effort into designing book covers. This tweet is not about book covers."
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- RHRob Henderson
In other words, we spend so much time adorning ourselves, the way we dress, our haircuts, the piercings, the tattoos, everything else, and they are sending signals about who they are. You know, th- there's a- there's a really great paper from a few years ago, it was something like, "Personality is revealed on the weekends," and the paper covered, you know, basically it can cover frequency of going to the movies, going out, how many, uh, social nights you have, you know, what your bedroom looks like correlates with your personality. So many things about you reveal this. And so yeah, all- all of that, you mentioned aggression, flightiness, and everything else. Um, but yeah, so it's- so you want someone with- with relatively low neuroticism, and then yeah, with- with education, with- with intelligence, those things as well that, um... What's interesting about the intelligence one is that when you ask people, um, you know, th- and these are sort of hypothetical scenarios, sort of roughly, "What's the ideal level of intelligence for your partner?" People tend to choose around 120 IQ, which is roughly the 90th percentile of intelligence. And so people want someone who's, like, obviously smart, visibly intelligent, but they don't want some super genius, um, maybe because of stereotypes about geniuses being, you know, kind of- kind of quirky or- or personality-wise, being a little off. Um, but when you look at the, uh, the, the, the correlation coefficients, sort of how similar spouses are to one another within marriages-Um, there is a similarity in that, um, you know, the- they- their IQs tend to correlate with one another, but there's still about a 10 point IQ difference between spouses on average, um, which is smaller than it is for say, um, two siblings. So this is all from Robert Plomin's work that, um, two siblings within a family on average tend to have 12 point IQ difference from one another, which is smaller than if you were to choose two random people in the population. The difference there would be about 17 points. And so spouses, 10 points. I mean, that's even more similar than two siblings would be. Um, but one thing-
Episode duration: 1:30:36
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