Why Would Any Man Choose To Be Cucked? - Dr David Ley

1. 0:00 – 0:26

   Intro

   1. DLDr David Ley0:00

      The term cuckolding is related to the cuckoo bird that lays an egg in the nest of other species, and then that egg hatches sooner, and then the cuckoo chick consumes the food and the resources of the other species. And early naturalists looked at that and said, "Well, that's what happens if a guy's wife cheats on him. The man is at risk of investing resources in a child not genetically related to him."

   2. CWChris Williamson0:25

      (wind blowing)

2. 0:26 – 4:23

   Why Dr Ley Studied Cuckolding

   1. CWChris Williamson0:26

      Cuckolding, why did you get into that?

   2. DLDr David Ley0:28

      (laughs) Why did... Well, uh, to be clear, why did I get into writing and reading and researching about it and dr- working with people that, that engage in it? Um, uh, back in like 2007, um, I was clinically depressed. Um, I, in my day job, so to speak, I run a, a large, eh, you know, community mental health center agency, uh, traditional behavioral health services, lots of Medicaid, HR, budget, all those kinds of issues. Um, and it was really challenging. I was really struggling. So, um, I, I started collecting data for a study about, uh, consensual non-monogamy. At the time, very little had been published about polyamory, et cetera. And, uh, I never published the study. It was a, it was a crappy little study, probably not very good anyway. But as I was doing it, I ran into these two couples who lived the cuckold or hot wife lifestyle, where the wife was, uh, enthusiastically, um, you know, sexual with people outside the relationship, with men outside the relationship, and the, and the husband was monogamous. And my initial impression and reaction was honestly to say, "Wow, that, that's crazy. That, that can't work." Um, but what was really remarkable was that, uh, both of these couples had been married for decades. They had incredibly successful careers, uh, very healthy, you know, kids, families, um, incredible communication skills. By every measure that we would, as a therapist, you know, apply, these were very healthy people. And so then I, I kind of questioned myself. I was like, "Well, why did I assume that, that they're unhealthy?" And, and at that point, you know, I'd been working around sexuality issues for a while, but, but I realized that without noticing it, I was applying moral biases around female sexuality, around promiscuity, around monogamy. And those biases had snuck into my clinical thinking. And so I, uh, went to the literature, and there was nothing published about this. There was, there was one study in the '90s by an Isra- Israeli psychologist who analyzed, you know, letters to Penthouse about wife sharing. And, um, there's nothing else, nothing else published about this. And then as I started, you know, talking to people, I started hearing how common this was. And so I dove into the literature, um, evolutionary psychology, uh, ps- psychology of monogamy, biology of s- uh, of sexuality, female sexual arousal. Um, uh, and I also interviewed people, um, around the world who were living, uh, this, this lifestyle. And, and at the end of the day, I found that, you know, there were actually lots of, uh, people who... clinicians like me who, um, assumed it was unhealthy because they'd never been taught how diverse sexuality is. Um, and, uh, the fascinating thing is, I mean, you know, when I wrote the book, um, nobody was really talking about cuckolding. But over (laughs) the past few years, it's really exploded. I mean, we've got, you know, the Jerry Falwell Jr. scandal, um, multiple folks around, uh, the Trump administration actually involved in cuckolding, and, um, it's super popular in pornography now, uh, and we didn't see any of that coming. Um, and, and n- my book, uh, Insatiable Wives, on the topic, um, re- was re-released as an audiobook last year, and it's just like flying off the shelves on Audible because people love to go on these road trips with their wife and pop that in and then say, "Hey, what do you think?"

3. 4:23 – 15:13

   How is it Possible for Men to Find Pleasure from Cuckolding?

   1. DLDr David Ley4:24

   2. CWChris Williamson4:24

      There is a very large cohort of men that are listening right now who are thinking, "Fuck no. How, uh, is a man able to get past his inherent, uh, concern around his wife going off with another man?" We are evolutionary programmed for male parental uncertainty to be something that we are incredibly fear, uh, scared of, right?

   3. DLDr David Ley4:49

      Mm-hmm.

   4. CWChris Williamson4:50

      How is this something not only that a non-insignificant group of people, men, can deal with, but can actually take pleasure from?

   5. DLDr David Ley5:03

      It's a really interesting question, Chris, and it's, it's one that, uh, you know, I'm starting to think we need to research because y- you're right. There, there are many men that when they... uh, the fear of infidelity by their female partner triggers rage and even, you know, murderous behaviors. Uh, eh, eh, fear of infidelity is really common in, in spousal homicide. But then there are these other men that the idea of their wife being unfaithful turns them on. What's the difference between these guys? Right now, we don't know. Um, I, I will speculate that, uh, some of it is about openness to experience, um, uh, eh, eh, there may be some, some kink in this. Um, s- uh, many of the, the men who explore cuckolding, um, are interested in submission, uh, from a b- a bondage and discipline kind of standpoint, but not all. Um-There is, what's really interesting though is that the men who grow up in highly, uh, rigid stereotyped masculinized kind of, uh, environments are actually more likely to be turned on by the idea of cuckolding because it's an escape from the constrictive rigidity of, in order to be a man, you know, you must be so manly that your wife would never even want another man. And there are lots of guys that, you know, find that pressure kind of a burden, and they, they want to escape from it or at least a vacation from it. And cuckolding and the opportunity to kind of sit back and sort of watch, um, is, is less pressure for these guys. Now interestingly, um, you know, cuckolding and fantasies of cuckolding appear to be more common in Republicans than Democrats, uh, appear to be more prevalent in, uh, highly macho kind of societies, Brazil-

   6. CWChris Williamson7:22

      What's the-

   7. DLDr David Ley7:23

      ... Russia.

   8. CWChris Williamson7:23

      ... what's the, what's the data that you're pulling that sort of stuff from?

   9. DLDr David Ley7:26

      Um, uh, a couple of different sources. One, uh, Justin Lay Miller is a psychologist, um, a co-author with me on some research around-

   10. CWChris Williamson7:35

       Great.

   11. DLDr David Ley7:35

       ... cuckolding.

   12. CWChris Williamson7:36

       Twitter follow. Everyone should follow Justin.

   13. DLDr David Ley7:37

       Yeah. Absolutely. And he's, he's got data on the prevalence of sexual fantasies, um, related to politics and, and political stances. Um, and then-

   14. CWChris Williamson7:47

       Is that self-report?

   15. DLDr David Ley7:50

       Uh, four th- yeah, self-report, 4,000. I mean, how do you, uh, h- h- how would it be otherwise? We, I mean, I'm not sure how we would measure people's sexual fantasies aside from-

   16. CWChris Williamson7:58

       I, I don't know. Some like, some implicit bias bullshit on a computer-

   17. DLDr David Ley8:05

       (laughs)

   18. CWChris Williamson8:05

       ... where you select

   19. NANarrator8:06

       Oh joy, yeah, okay great, yeah, yeah.

   20. CWChris Williamson8:08

       I don't know. But okay, yeah, cool. So you've asked a non-insignificant sample of people about their sexual fantasies.

   21. DLDr David Ley8:15

       Mm-hmm.

   22. CWChris Williamson8:15

       And in that cuckolding appears to show up how much? How much does it show up?

   23. DLDr David Ley8:21

       Um, you know, in Justin's research I wanna say he found that, uh, oh, there's a siren going by. Sorry.

   24. CWChris Williamson8:28

       That's fine.

   25. DLDr David Ley8:30

       Um, in Justin's research I wanna say he found about 50 to 55% of men were, reported that they had, had at least one fantasy of watching their female partner with another man. Around 45% of women reported, uh, that they were interested in being watched with another man by their partner.

   26. CWChris Williamson8:49

       Dude, that is unbelievable. Like I, I don't deny that Justin has got the, the, the data to back this up but I just think how is there more than 50% of men, not only that, but there's 10% more men that want to see their wife get fucked by another man or at least have fantasized about it once.

   27. DLDr David Ley9:13

       Mm-hmm.

   28. CWChris Williamson9:13

       And the difference between maybe thinking about it-

   29. DLDr David Ley9:16

       Right.

   30. CWChris Williamson9:17

       ... and going through with it is literally a universe apart, right? You know, there's a lot of things that we think about doing that we don't.
4. 15:13 – 22:17

   Is Cuckolding Repressed Homosexuality?

   1. DLDr David Ley15:13

   2. CWChris Williamson15:13

      Have you seen any evidence suggesting that this could be some repurposed repressed homosexuality-

   3. DLDr David Ley15:20

      Mm-hmm.

   4. CWChris Williamson15:20

      ... that men could want to perhaps be involved with another man-

   5. DLDr David Ley15:25

      Mm-hmm.

   6. CWChris Williamson15:25

      ... but he's currently got a wife, and the closest he can get to a man is letting her have sex with another man? And if you were to do some eye tracking during that event, you might find that his eyes are on him more than her?

   7. DLDr David Ley15:35

      Right. Um, absolutely. I mean, first, let me, let me say, you know, as with any sexual behavior, um, this is complex. There are lots of different factors and reasons for each individual person that drive them into this, um, or, or make it arousing for them. But you're absolutely right. For a significant portion of these guys, there was some suppressed bisexuality. Remember that most of these guys are coming from more conservative, uh, political or social backgrounds where being bisexual or having same-sex interest i- i- isn't acceptable. But, you know, you can have sex with your wife... w- w- with another man through the vehicle of your wife's body, um, interacting with, um, with his penis sexually or inter- interacting with his semen by going down on her afterwards. Um, you know, a friend of mine on YouTube, uh, runs the, the Fuck Yeah Friendly Fire, um, web, uh, uh, account where he shares porn of guys, you know, interacting with each other sexually as they are having sex with a woman. And there's a lot of, you know, uh, bisexual, um, kind of interest in there that is coming out in these soft bisexual behaviors.

   8. CWChris Williamson16:54

      What was the proportion of men that had some sort of bisexual inclination? Can you remember?

   9. DLDr David Ley17:00

      Ah, you know, we didn't... Um, I didn't collect numbers on that with these... with the research that I did for my book. It was, it was much more qualitative kind of research. Um, I, I would roughly guesstimate that bisexuality is probably 30 or 40% of guys that are into, into cuckolding. Um, i- uh, now, Joe Kort is a psychologist and a friend of mine. And he, he points out that there are guys who have sex with other guys when they're not motivated from a bisexual kind of place. And I, I've questioned that, but Joe has a good example of a guy who, you know, is not bisexual and not attracted to other men, but he's very into being submissive. And so if his wife or a dominatrix forces him to have sex with another man, even though he's not into it for the other man, he's into it because that is the ultimate level of submission. And so it is erotically arousing-

   10. CWChris Williamson18:06

       Wow. (laughs) That is...

   11. DLDr David Ley18:06

       ... not because of the s- not because of the guy, but because of the submission.

   12. CWChris Williamson18:10

       (laughs) That is one hell of a level of submission.

   13. DLDr David Ley18:12

       Mm-hmm.

   14. CWChris Williamson18:13

       And, wow, dude. Some of the, um, like corners of the internet with kinks... I didn't think that I was particularly vanilla sexually, but dear God, like this, (laughs) this makes me think-

   15. DLDr David Ley18:26

       (laughs)

   16. CWChris Williamson18:26

       ... this makes me think that I don't... Okay, so...

   17. DLDr David Ley18:28

       Well, y- you know, it...That, and, and that it, remember where I started, that because most therapists, and most people don't know this, 90% of therapists and psychologists and mental health clinicians in the United States have almost no training in sexuality. So, we've always assumed that vanilla is the norm. But, uh-

   18. CWChris Williamson18:49

       It's not that vanilla.

   19. DLDr David Ley18:51

       Yeah, well-

   20. CWChris Williamson18:51

       It's not, it's not... I'm not, I'm not that vanilla, right?

   21. DLDr David Ley18:53

       (laughs)

   22. CWChris Williamson18:54

       I'm relatively vanilla.

   23. DLDr David Ley18:56

       But we, what we know now, actually, research from, from Quebec, um, uh, in Canada, um, has found that around 50% of a normative population, non-clinical population, have interest in things like exhibitionism, sadism, masochism, um, voyeurism, um, things that we used to think were disorders. And about 30% of people have engaged in those behaviors. And so, what we're finding now is that the norm is actually much more diverse-

   24. CWChris Williamson19:30

       Yeah.

   25. DLDr David Ley19:30

       ... than we ever believed.

   26. CWChris Williamson19:31

       Indeed.

   27. DLDr David Ley19:31

       But people kept their mouth shut because they didn't wanna be shamed for it.

   28. CWChris Williamson19:35

       The sexual Overton window, perhaps, is a little bit wider than we might have first realized. Okay.

   29. DLDr David Ley19:40

       Mm-hmm.

   30. CWChris Williamson19:41

       Hotwifing. What's hotwifing?
5. 22:17 – 29:00

   The Weird Dynamics of Female Cuckolding

   1. CWChris Williamson22:17

      is different about gay or lesbian... Is there such a thing as female cuckolding? What's the reverse?

   2. DLDr David Ley22:22

      (laughs)

   3. CWChris Williamson22:23

      Do women have fantasies about watching their husband have sex with another wife?

   4. DLDr David Ley22:27

      Some. It's called cuckqueening, um, and the, it's spell, it's spelled kinda funny.

   5. CWChris Williamson22:33

      (laughs)

   6. DLDr David Ley22:33

      Um, uh, instead of Q-U-E-E, it's spelled Q-U-E-A for some reason. I'm not entirely sure.

   7. CWChris Williamson22:39

      Okay.

   8. DLDr David Ley22:39

      Um, it's, it's much, much, much less common, um, than the fantasy of cuckolding. But yeah, there are, um, wives who get aroused at the idea of their, their husband with other, with other women. Um, and, you know, I, is that... One of the things that, that we see happen in a lot of non-monogamous relationships and in cuckolding especially and, and, and cuckqueening, I guess, is that the more attractive your partner is to other people, the more attractive they become to you. Right? Because, a- and, yeah, there's a lot of, um, talk online about, you know, women being interested in men that are attracted, attractive to other women, right? (sighs) Um, is that some of it? Maybe. Um, I, I, I called it the queen bee, um, or the, or the, or, or, or the king bee kind of, uh, phenomenon in my book, where, you know, having, having a partner that is attractive to other partners and that you can share with them, but then you get to take them home, um, feels kind of rewarding and exciting and fulfilling.

   9. CWChris Williamson23:53

      (inhales) What I'm thinking about is how wild and interesting it is that, on average, females show more bisexuality than males.

   10. DLDr David Ley24:03

       Mm-hmm.

   11. CWChris Williamson24:03

       There's more gay men, but there's more bisexual women in the world. And, ancestrally, polygyny was more common-

   12. DLDr David Ley24:15

       Mm-hmm.

   13. CWChris Williamson24:15

       ... than, what's the other one? What's the one where it's one woman, many men?

   14. DLDr David Ley24:18

       Polyandry. Polyandry.

   15. CWChris Williamson24:19

       Polyandry. Thank you. Um, so we have, you know, at least some ancestral, uh, predisposition to this, o- one man, many women. We also have a increased preference amongst a non-insignificant cohort of women for women compared with men for men.... at least when you've got, uh, the bisexual relationship. And yet, you're saying that f- queen bee-ing, whatever it was called, uh, female queening or whatever, is significantly rarer than the thing which seems to be statistically, in terms of sexual preference, less likely, and ancestrally in terms of predisposition, less programmed. That's so interesting.

   16. DLDr David Ley25:04

       It, it is all super interesting. And, (sighs) um, we don't know what it looks like, um, in, in societies where there is greater egalitarian sexual economics. In the polygamist s- um, history, reproduction and mating was oftentimes women's only kind of economic value or resource that they, that they controlled. Um, so, you know, I, I know, you know, Jordan Peterson got, got in trouble by talking about, uh, you know, the, i- the, that we should have, you know, socially enforced monogamy.

   17. CWChris Williamson25:48

       Enforced monogamy, yeah.

   18. DLDr David Ley25:49

       Right.

   19. CWChris Williamson25:49

       He didn't use the word socially which was the problem, and that was why-

   20. DLDr David Ley25:52

       Right.

   21. CWChris Williamson25:52

       ... he got in trouble.

   22. DLDr David Ley25:53

       Right.

   23. CWChris Williamson25:53

       Yeah.

   24. DLDr David Ley25:53

       And, uh, you know, and, and he's got a point because historically, you know, polygamist societies had higher rates of violent crime because you had powerful men that had all the hot chicks, and you had lots of young men who couldn't date or mate or reproduce. And so, they had nothing better to do than start trouble. Um, but again, in that histor- i- in, in that historical society, women didn't have economic independence like we have now. What's really interesting is that as men's economic, uh, index goes up, infidelity actually tends to go down. But as women's economic, um, uh, index goes up, infidelity goes up because-

   25. CWChris Williamson26:38

       Female infidelity or male infidelity?

   26. DLDr David Ley26:40

       F- f- female, female infidelity. So, women who are economically independent are more likely to engage in infidelity because they're not gonna lose everything. They're not gonna, they're not gonna be destitute, uh, living in a shelter.

   27. CWChris Williamson26:51

       Would it not also be-

   28. DLDr David Ley26:52

       The consequences for them are as great.

   29. CWChris Williamson26:53

       Would it not also be the case that women who are more economically independent are struggling to find a mate hypergomously that's a- above and across from them, which means that it is more likely they're going to have to mate down? William Costello's got some new data-

   30. DLDr David Ley27:05

       Right.
6. 29:00 – 34:24

   Wider Implications of Cuckolding & Porn Use on Society

   1. CWChris Williamson29:00

      and the practice of non-monogamy more broadly, and I've got a ton of friends, I'm here in Austin which is like the non-monogamy capital of America.

   2. DLDr David Ley29:05

      (laughs) Right, yeah. (laughs)

   3. CWChris Williamson29:06

      Um, but, but here or San Francisco, uh, there is an element of, of fear that I have around a kind of Chesterton's fence analogy going on here, that there are things which can be enjoyable, pleasurable, and even good for the individual, but which can be damaging, uh, when you smear that across an entire society. You know, for instance, monogamy is pretty good for societal stability. You know, if you have, it's a sexual redistribution strategy. If you do have that polygynous society-

   4. DLDr David Ley29:38

      Mm-hmm.

   5. CWChris Williamson29:38

      ... you are looking at young male syndrome, you are looking at higher rates of loneliness, of reduced health span, of reduced birth rate, of re-d-d-d-t- all the way down. Um, I'm not saying that we need to start enforcing, like you can't do cuckolding in the comfort of your own home. Like, you can do whatever you want.

   6. DLDr David Ley29:53

      Right.

   7. CWChris Williamson29:53

      Um, but I do think that it's an interesting whatever, ethical or philosophical question to ask. You know, we put warnings on, uh, cigarettes. We put warnings on foods that aren't particularly healthy for us. I don't know, I wonder if there is a, an equivalent, uh, type of relationship set-up that could be enjoyable to an individual but could be, uh, corrosive to them perhaps in the longer term, it could be corrosive to them, but we don't allow young people, we shouldn't allow young, young people to watch porn. Like, for a similar sort of reason, that exposing people to, uh, sexualized content at a young age isn't necessarily good for them. It was just a, a thought that I had in my mind.

   8. DLDr David Ley30:32

      Mm-hmm. I, uh, I think the, the issue is that one relationship type doesn't work for everybody, and, um, a lot of the problem here has come from...... a, a historical approach that monogamy is the only right way to do it, and the more taboo you put around, you know, uh, uh, violating monogamy, the more exciting it's gonna be for some people. Um, e- also, the more social structures require that, or at least the, the appearance of it. I mean, I, you know, uh, uh... As, as Dan Savage, you know, calls it, monogamish turns out to be much, much more common than we've ever ta- than we've ever recognized. (sniffs) And, uh, uh, again, I think the... Part of the issue is that when we, when we use the term monogamy, we're, we're meaning sexual fidelity, but that's not actually what monogamy means. Monogamy means life partner, means-

   9. CWChris Williamson31:35

      What's sexual fidelity?

   10. DLDr David Ley31:37

       So, uh, not being, not having sex with other, w- with other partners. Um, but you can be monogamous to the definition of monogamy and still have sex with other partners. A lot of the birds, for instance, swans and geese, that people have said, "Oh, they're so romantic. They, they mate for life." Well, yeah, they partner for life, but they still have sex with other w- with other animals in the species. So-

   11. CWChris Williamson32:04

       And 95% of birds don't have penises either-

   12. DLDr David Ley32:07

       (laughs)

   13. CWChris Williamson32:07

       ... I think, so I'm not sure how much we can draw across- (laughs) across from a-

   14. DLDr David Ley32:10

       That's fair. Now, uh, you know, a, a comment that you made, though, just a moment ago is... And I think it relates. You know, should, should kids, you know, be allowed to watch porn or have access to porn, I think, is a very complicated and, and, and challenging question. What, what some research has found, though, is that the more parents try to prevent kids from seeing porn, the more the kids wanna see it, the more the kids work to seek it out. Um, what we find is that the... That kids that are younger and seeing porn or report seeing porn at younger ages tend to be higher sensation-seeking kids already. They are kids that were already interested in sex, and the reason they saw porn was typically because they were seeking it out at younger ages. So, the, you know, the whole social dialogue right now about, you know, um, uh, the whether pornography is damaging for kids or not, not all kids are the same. And the other thing that we find is that the kids who are harmed by seeing porn, who learn unhealthy lessons, right? They learn that to have anal sex, you don't need lube or prep. They, they learn that, you know, to, to give a girl an orgasm, you just jump on and pump away. These are unhealthy lessons. Kids that learn those unhealthy lessons tend to be kids who think pornography is realistic sex. So, kids that think pornography is realistic sex tend to be kids that have poor levels of sex education or have grown up in societies or cultures or communities where you don't talk about sex. The way we can protect kids from any harms from pornography is through giving them good sex education. Emily Rothman is in Boston. She's a psychologist and colleague. Brilliant, and she's got really remarkable research on an evidence-based strategy called porn literacy, teaching young people, adolescents, what porn is and isn't, what they should or shouldn't learn from it, and that, um, remarkably has very, very strong success for preventing kids from learning unhealthy lessons from, from pornography.

   15. CWChris Williamson34:21

       I think definitely given the increased prevalence

7. 34:24 – 42:31

   How Should Children Be Taught About Sexuality?

   1. CWChris Williamson34:24

      and ease of access, that anybody that's got a smartphone and, you know-

   2. DLDr David Ley34:28

      Mm-hmm.

   3. CWChris Williamson34:28

      ... nine-year-olds, ten-year-olds now are getting iPhones for Christmas. So, I don't know, you put the parental block on, and you've got some smart kid at 12 years old-

   4. DLDr David Ley34:36

      Mm-hmm.

   5. CWChris Williamson34:36

      ... that knows their phone better than their parents. Like-

   6. DLDr David Ley34:38

      That's right.

   7. CWChris Williamson34:38

      ... what are you gonna do? Um, so in that regards, I, I, I suppose it's a, an in- an unwinnable war. Uh, I do think that porn literacy would make a lot of sense. I do... There is something really brutal, unfortunate about the way that the human mind works, which has been... Something you've brought up a bunch of times today. As you try to wall off-

   8. DLDr David Ley35:06

      Mm-hmm.

   9. CWChris Williamson35:06

      ... a taboo, the typical response from at least a non-insignificant cohort of people is to try and seek that out more, right? I, I remember I used this story a few years ago where, um, if you've ever been stood with somebody next to the edge of a cliff or whatever-

   10. DLDr David Ley35:26

       Mm-hmm.

   11. CWChris Williamson35:26

       ... and you just think in your mind like, "I wonder what would happen if I push them over?" And then you can't stop thinking about that thought because you think, "Oh my God, that's so terrible. I mustn't think about it. I mustn't think about it. Well, I'm thinking about how I mustn't think about it, so I'm thinking about it."

   12. DLDr David Ley35:37

       Mm-hmm.

   13. CWChris Williamson35:38

       And you continue to refer yourself from the thought you mustn't have. Uh, that being said, as far as I'm concerned, exposing anybody that legally can't have sex to videos of people having sex seems to cross a line as far as I can see. Unless it is, like, very structured, therapeutically done in a- an evidence-based way with the blah, blah, blah, I, I don't... I, I struggle to see how we would be able to justify exposing kids to videos and images of stuff that they... That would be illegal for them to enact. Like-

   14. DLDr David Ley36:16

       Yeah. Yeah, this famous sex educator years ago, though, he said, "What if we taught kids how to swim the same way we teach them about sex? We tell them, well, you can't do it until you're a certain age, um, we can't expose you to information about it, um, eh, you can hear us in the room having a lot of fun, but you don't get to know what's actually going on until you're 18, and then we throw open the doors and you can jump in the pool." How many kids would drown?Uh, I think that... A- and I'm not advocating that kids see porn, by no means. It's for adults. But I think that there's a very significant kind of moral panic around this that is significantly exaggerated. Um, Alexander Stuhlhofer is a, a Croatian researcher who's looked at, for instance, you know, the relationship between, uh, you know, uh, consuming violent pornography and, uh, sexual engaging and sexual violence, specifically in adolescent males. And what he found was really interesting. He found that young men who watched less pornography were at greater risk of engaging in sexual violence, and that me- the- the young men who were interested in watching sexually violent pornography actually stopped watching sexually violent pornography as time went on in this longitudinal study, that, you know, the, uh, access to pornography correlates with a very significant decrease in sexual violence in our society and in every society where this has been studied. There's a lot of fear about pornography that is, uh, just like me when I was, when I was reacting to those early couples that I saw, that is based on morality and c- y- these intrinsic kind of intuitive fears, but the data typically doesn't hold up.

   15. CWChris Williamson38:21

       What are some of the other biggest myths that people hold around porn?

   16. DLDr David Ley38:27

       Well, one of the ones that, that is, you know, all over the internet right now is, you know, porn-induced erectile dysfunction, that watching too much porn causes erectile dysfunction. And so you've got these guys saying, "Well, porn broke my dick and, and I can get hard when I'm watching porn but I can't get hard when I'm having sex with my- trying to have sex with my female partner. It must be because of pornography." And there's absolutely no scientific evidence to support this and there's lots and lots of evidence showing that, you know, watching porn is always going along with a certain behavior, right? Jerking off. And we, we talk about porn but we don't talk about masturbation. So whenever we talk about porn, we have to talk about masturbation. Now, masturbation and sex are two different things. What we know is that, uh, roughly half of men under age 45, around 40% of men, um, will report at least one episode of erectile dysfunction, and the number one predictor of that is anxiety. Anxiety, obesity, drugs and alcohol, and limited sexual experience. Um, now watching porn and masturbating is different from having sex. When I watch porn and masturbate, I don't have to buy the internet dinner. I don't have to worry about finding its clitoris. To turn it on, I just have to push the button. Um, but when I'm with a partner, I need to be mindful. I need to restrain my own sexual desires or behaviors and be sensitive to theirs. And if you are an anxious person with limited sexual experience, that can be challenging. Research, uh, uh, just last year, uh, showed that in men that have any sexual dysfunction, delayed ejaculation, premature ejaculation, erectile dysfunction, the men are about 50% more likely to experience symptoms of that dysfunction during partnered sex and not during masturbation, because again, during masturbation, you can sit back and relax. So how do we, how do we address that? By trying to reduce the anxiety, by trying to help guys learn to not be so penis-focused in their sex, to learn, um, other behaviors, expand the definition of sex. But for these insecure guys who are on these chat rooms and NoFap rooms and every other darn thing where they're being told if your penis doesn't work every time then it's broken and you're less of a man, it creates this anxiety shame spiral that increases iatrogenically the occurrence of that anxiety-

   17. CWChris Williamson41:04

       What's iatrogenically?

   18. DLDr David Ley41:05

       Iatrogenic is when a intervention that is supposed to help something actually, um, uh, creates more harm. So if you go in the hospital for, uh, appendicitis and you get your appendix taken out but then you get a staph infection, that's iatrogenic, where the healing actually caused another problem. So the intervention of trying to prevent erectile dysfunction appears to actually be increasing it. And now there's one group that we d- one group of men that we do see struggle with erectile function when they are, um, with a partner, uh, but not when they're watching porn, but it's driven by shame. Guys who are ashamed of watching pornography are more likely to have difficulties performing, um, or getting erect when they're with their partner because they're ashamed of their private sexual behavior. A lot of this is, is the shame, not the porn. Typically, watching porn, and again, accompanied by masturbation, is an indicator of libido. Guys who w- watch more porn have more sex. This is data that comes up consistently because watching porn and masturbating to it is an indicator of your overall desire for sex, and those guys overall are more likely to pursue sex or value it, um, and- and so enact it in their life.

8. 42:31 – 49:10

   Role of Shame in Men’s Relationship with Porn

   1. CWChris Williamson42:31

      If shame causes erectile dysfunction and stopping porn stops the shame, then surely proximally stopping porn stops erectile dysfunction.

   2. DLDr David Ley42:41

      Not so much, because, um, the- there's this interesting phenomenon of, uh...Uh, it's called a flattening where, um, the more conservative your attitudes are about, about sex and porn, the more you start to view any kind of, uh, sexual stimuli, whether it's Frederick's or Hollywood Catalog, I don't know if they make that anymore, um, uh, as, as porn. And we see this huge number of religious men who identify as addicted to porn but report that they haven't watched porn in the past month. In fact, there's a significant number of religious men who identify as addicted to pornography but have never watched porn. So, it's the porn starts to become this stand-in for sexual desires or thoughts that they feel like they're not supposed to have. The number one predictor of identifying as a porn addict is not how much porn you watch but whether you were raised religious. Um, so when, when somebody comes to me and says they, they're addicted to pornography or they're addicted to sex, (sighs) what that tells me as a therapist is that they have thoughts and feelings and desires about sex that they wish they didn't have. As a therapist, I now wanna try and understand, why do you think you shouldn't have those thoughts and wha- what do you think those thoughts mean about you as a person? Can we explore that? The, the, the, the research on effective treatments for people that struggle with these sexual behaviors or desires is not actually getting them to stop the sexual behavior but instead engaging in cognitive behavioral therapy or acceptance and commitment therapy which are strategies that try to change the function of the behavior and try to address the meaning and the cognitions that we put to the behavior.

   3. CWChris Williamson44:43

      You could imagine for a, a large group of probably secular, probably mostly non-religious guys who are in NoFap subreddits and whatnot that the choice between, "I have shame around porn use and masturbation that makes me feel like I shouldn't do it and it has potentially caused me to perform more poorly with a partner or make me feel like less of a man. I can go through ACT or CBT or I can stop watching porn and stop masturbating," for many of them, that is a much simpler, easier to control, more immediate return. So, I can see... I mean, I, the, the evidence with regards to NoFap, I don't know. I mean, there's some of it that's a little bit overblown that you're gonna levitate and that women-

   4. DLDr David Ley45:32

      (laughs)

   5. CWChris Williamson45:32

      ... can smell your pheromones and stuff like that. That does, that, that did always seem a little bit far out to me.

   6. DLDr David Ley45:36

      (laughs)

   7. CWChris Williamson45:36

      But I can also see how the level of shame that you have or the level of self-judgment that you have around anything can manifest in as real of a way as you want due to an expectation effect, right? You know, the placebo effect if we could bottle it-

   8. DLDr David Ley45:50

      Mm-hmm.

   9. CWChris Williamson45:50

      ... would be the strongest effect in pharmacology and there's an equivalent in psychology as well with the expectation effect. If you are expecting to feel bad because of doing a thing and you stop doing the thing, the alleviation of feeling bad by no longer doing it is going to not be insignificant.

   10. DLDr David Ley46:07

       Yeah. Again, though, um, what is the definition of the behavior? And so a lot of the, um, a lot of the, the, the folks, you know, online that, that wanna stop masturbating, they unfortunately will now r- frame as a relapse, um, any sexual thoughts, any, any sexual fantasies, um, a wet dream that, that biologically is gonna happen if you stop having, um, regular emissions. Uh, your body is gonna get rid of old sperm by having a, by having a nocturnal emission and wet dream. The, the, the, the, the abstinence-only goal increases distress, depression, and suicidality, um, unfortunately because it-

   11. CWChris Williamson46:57

       That shows up in the data?

   12. DLDr David Ley46:58

       Yeah. Yeah. In study after study and people that participate more and more and more in these abstinence-only forums, um, are sh- are, are, uh, uh, they're showing higher levels of anxiety, higher levels of depression, um, and, and more and more thoughts of suicide. It, it's unfortunate because the goal, the abstinence goal, it's not necessarily a healthy one, right? Um, how many, how many, how many ejaculations or orgasms should a man have every month to have the most healthy prostate, right? 22. A man should have urologically recommended 22 orgasms a month for the, for the healthiest prostate. Now, my prostate effectively at this point is immortal. Um, when I die, my prostate will probably live on for another 100 or 200 years. There's no point at which sex stops being healthy. Um, uh, m- people who have more sex live longer. Now, we don't know if that's because healthier people have more sex or because having sex makes you healthier. It's probably both. But there's no point on that curve where it all of a sudden goes down where, okay, that's too much sex. It, sex appears to be a very healthy human behavior and masturbating appears to increase sexual desire, increase testosterone levels, increase sexual performance. Pe- men and women who masturbate more tend to have more sex and tend to enjoy sex more. Again, there's a chicken and egg kind of phenomenon. They're ha- they're masturbating more because they like sex because it's, i- i- i- it's a valuable experience to them. They're more motivated toward- towards it. But sex is also a muscle. The more sex you have, the more you wanna have sex. The less sex you have, the less sex you wanna have.And so there, um, uh, the idea that, you know, i- i- if I, if I stop masturbating that then I'll be a better lover, in, in, in sexual medicine is simply not true.

   13. CWChris Williamson49:09

       Have you looked at

9. 49:10 – 53:43

   How Porn Use Impacts Motivation to Find a Mate

   1. CWChris Williamson49:10

      how porn use affects single people's drive to find a mate?

   2. DLDr David Ley49:16

      Um, yeah, actually, um, um, well, I mean, I have not. Um, uh, but a guy named, uh, Sam Perry is researcher in Oklahoma and he's looked at this and, um, a really interesting paper dropped, I think just last year, um, where, uh, basically (sighs) you know, looked at the question of, um, because porn is a cheap and easy sexual outlet, um, uh, does it, uh, you know, is it, is it like fast food so that guys, um, will stop wanting the steak dinner, they'll stop pursuing marriage, and found no evidence to support it, that, um, again, watching porn is an expression of li- uh, of libido and desire for sex, and, uh, people who watch porn and masturbate want more sex, and sex is different than masturbation because in sex with a partner we have touch and we have another person there and we can smell them and, um, all of these things that, all of these stimuli that are not present in masturbating to pornography. So masturbating to pornography is not something that blocks interest or takes the place of, uh, sex. Now, I will give a caveat in that I do see people, um, oftentimes where a man, for instance, is choosing to watch pornography and masturbate rather than having sex with his wife, and there is this kind of idea then that, you know, the porn and masturbation has become, has taken the place of sex with his wife. But what I consistently find in those cases is a couple of things. One is that the couple stopped having sex as frequently and so the guy is watching porn and masturbating to compensate, um, for the decreased sex frequency. But two, the wife is, um, not interested in the same kind of sex that the husband is interested in. Oftentimes the wife is more shaming of sex, um, and views masturbation as, uh, shameful or i- or immoral. And so more and more and more the guy is now faced with, "Well, (sighs) it- it's not that I don't wanna have sex, but I'm not sure I wanna have sex with you," because of conflict in the relationship or because of sexual mismatch. Um, again, Sam Perry found that, um, early, he, i- i- his early research in '17 he found that watching porn predicted later divorce. He went... Now, he's a great researcher and he went back to that research later on, um, eh, at suggestions of folks like me who were saying, "You know, there's, there's more to this story," and found that if you separate out the, the variance of masturbation in those couples, that actually porn watching had a neutral to slightly positive, uh, predictive, uh, relationship with the marriage. But masturbation frequency predicted later divorce. Now, it's not that masturbation, um, is causing divorce, but masturbation and increases in masturbation frequency reflect a mismatch of sexual desire within the relationship, and it's that mismatch that is causing the later divorce and relationship problems. Typically, w- you know, a- and this is, th- this is my mantra, is that, you know, porn-related problems, sex-related problems overwhelmingly are symptomatic of other issues, and unfortunately when we focus on the porn or the sex, uh, I call it the sexy shiny object syndrome, we get distracted by the sex. We blame the sex or the porn for everything. Yeah, I- I see, I see many men who come in th- and they're struggling with porn and they're watching porn too much and they identify as porn addicts. Well, these are guys with OCD or really significant anxiety problems that they're not treating. Watching porn and masturbating is a great way to turn off your anxiety for a little while, but they need other ways to turn off that anxiety, um, and they need help dealing with the anxiety, but they get distracted and people around them get distracted by blaming the porn.

10. 53:43 – 58:18

    Advice for People Who Want to Improve their Relationship with Porn

    1. DLDr David Ley53:43

    2. CWChris Williamson53:43

       Mm. What, w- what would you say to somebody that's listening to this and says, "I don't like my relationship with porn. I don't like my relationship with masturbation." Um, what would you tell them?

    3. DLDr David Ley54:00

       (sighs) Um, so I see a lot of those guys and I, and I, and I talk about this a lot in my, in my third book. It's called Ethical Porn for Dicks: A Man's Guide to Responsible Viewing Pleasure. And, um, first, I think that's actually a really good question to ask yourself. Unfortunately, many people don't think about their sexuality when they're not turned on. They don't think about how they feel about their sexual desires, behaviors, or interests when they're not turned on. Now, when we are turned on, um, our, uh, sexual disgust and our disgust reactions go down. Um, our, our friend and colleague, uh, D- Diana Fleischman has remarkable research on this showing the relationship between disgust and sexual arousal. When we are turned on, we are less disgusted by things that we find disgusting when we are not turned on. So being turned on changes the way we think.I want people to think about their sexuality when they're not turned on, and I want 'em to think about how it makes them feel about themself. But then I also want them to ask the question, "Where did I get that? Is that right? Do I believe that?" Many of us were raised with racist and sexist values, homophobic values as children. But many of us now reject those values. We- w- w- w- we don't believe in racism or homophobia or sexism. So, so our values and our attitudes can and do change. If you were taught that, you know, masturbating made you less of a man, I want you to ask where you got that idea, and I want you to e- also think about why did the people who told you that think that? What were they wanting? Now, we... (laughs) I, I hate to say this 'cause, 'cause it sounds ridiculous, but in fact, the Nazis in- uh, uh, told Hitler youths that they shouldn't masturbate, and that wanting to masturbate made them less of a man, man because it was a way to create insecurity that they could then capitalize on and use to manipulate the young men. Churches, I mean, the Christian church has, has gotten thousands of years of control over people by creating sexual insecurity and by framing masturbation, um, as, as unhealthy. There's a remarkable researcher in, in Israel named Yaniv Efrati, and he's, he's got this incredible paper, um, called Oh God, I Can't Stop Thinking About It, and he actually showed that the more religious a person was, the more they tried not to think about masturbation. And, of course, as you and I have said multiple times today, the more you try not to think about something, the more you think about it, and the more distressed and anxious and ashamed they became about it. So, if somebody's telling you these things, why? Um, you know, Kellogg's Corn Flakes was invented as a food to... As a bland food that wouldn't trigger physical hedonic pleasure and lead to people wanting to masturbate and have more sex, because again, there's this, there's this idea that masturbation somehow depletes you. Um, Samuel Tissot was a Swiss physician in the 1600s who first argued in European literature that, um, masturbation depletes men of some, uh, essential kind of element. Turns out not to be true. Um, turns out, you know, the, the, the stuff that comes out of your penis when you have an orgasm, it's not your brains. It's not, um, it's not energy. Um, and masturbation appears to be a very, very healthy behavior that has been so- socially stigmatized.

11. 58:18 – 58:58

    Where to Find Dr Ley

    1. DLDr David Ley58:18

    2. NANarrator58:18

       David Ley, ladies and gentlemen. If people want to keep up to date with the stuff that you do, where should they go?

    3. DLDr David Ley58:23

       Uh, you know, they can find me on Twitter, um, @DrDavidLey. On Instagram, davidleyphd, and I've got a website, davidleyphd.com. Uh, it is important to know, though, that Ley is spelt L-E-Y, not L-A-Y. Sounds like getting laid.

    4. NANarrator58:38

       David, I appreciate you. Thank 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: 58:59