← Smart Girl Dumb Questions
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- [00:00]
A
Is falling in love a brain response or a body response? Both.
- [00:03]
B
Which is why touch can be so electrifying. They put people on an FMRI brain scanner and they were romantically in love. And they found that a part of the brain, the vta, which is the powerhouse of dopamine, would light up, which would mean the brain was pulling more oxygen rich blood. And they've done a series of other studies. They put people who had been romantically rejected also in an FMRI brain scanner.
- [00:23]
A
And what happens to their vta?
- [00:25]
B
Their brains look remarkably like someone going through cocaine withdrawal.
- [00:32]
A
Smart Girl, Dumb questions. This is Smart Girl Dumb Questions. I'm Naeema Raza and I've been on a bit of summer break because why don't adults get those, too? But that is not my question for today. Instead, we're talking about all things sex and love. My guest is Dr. Justin Garcia. He's an evolutionary biologist who heads up the Kinsey Institute, which is a leading authority for the study of all things sex and relationships. And it's a really fun conversation. I ask him about the roots of marriage, the rise of singledom, whether the Internet is killing, healing our sex lives, and what we can learn from the animal kingdom. We get into porn watching pandas and penguins who refuse to consciously uncouple. Here's the conversation. And we'll be back with season two of Smart Girl Dumb Questions at the end of this month. By the way, I really want to know what you thought of season one, any ideas you have for season two. So drop me a line namearaza101mail.com or you can leave them in the comments or reviews below. Justin, thank you so much for being here.
- [01:33]
B
I'm thrilled to be here with you, as always.
- [01:35]
A
We were introduced originally by Esther Perel.
- [01:38]
B
That's right.
- [01:38]
A
We met in the pandemic in 2020 because I was writing a piece about dating in a pandemic and then we went for a walk and I told you I thought dating apps were over.
- [01:47]
B
Yeah, I still remember it.
- [01:48]
A
And you said they weren't.
- [01:50]
B
I don't. And I still don't think they are.
- [01:51]
A
You don't think they're over? I think people want to be in real life again.
- [01:54]
B
I do, but I think so. Okay, so it's a big question, right? We know that people are struggling with the dating apps and people are struggling with dating, but I think we have to be caught, cautious about where we put that blame. Is it the app and are they dead? And I don't think that's the evidence. So for the last 15 years, we've run our Singles in America study with looking at about 5,000 singles every year. And apps and the Internet are still the most common way singles are meeting other potential partners.
- [02:22]
A
And I want to say, as a disclaimer, you are a consultant for match.com. is this your commercial line or this is your philosophical line or both of the above?
- [02:29]
B
No, I think it's so we've been really fortunate to have a long relationship with Match and they fund the singles in America. But we also are quite critical of where are people feeling burnout in dating? Where are their challenges with the apps? I'm not personally vested in a particular product. I'm an evolutionary biologist by training, as you know. And so my questions are, well, what's changed from courtship 4 million years ago or 10,000 years ago during the agricultural revolution? What has happened to the human animal and our courtship patterns? And does technology help that? Does it make it more complicated? For instance, during the pandemic, when you did your piece, and I still remember what we talked about, it was about first kiss after the pandemic. And we have data on kissing. We could talk about that.
- [03:13]
A
There's a wild study out of the SUNY Albany study that was 50% of people who think they're attracted to someone after a first kiss will be like, nope, wasn't it? They'll know.
- [03:24]
B
Yeah, they just know. There's this notion of instant chemistry. And. Well, what's so interesting about that? I did a study a few years ago with two colleagues at the University of Nevada, and we looked at cross cultural patterns of kissing. And we take for granted that kissing is part of our courtship routine, that we just do it, that you should kiss someone if you like them. And it's important, like you said, for 50% of young people, that kiss, that spark is important, but we shouldn't assume that it's the case all over the world. And that's somewhat true of all of our data. We found that around 44%, I think, was the number of societies engage in romantic or sexual kissing. For a lot of places in the world, the idea that you would say, I like you, so I'm gonna spit in your mouth is obscene to people, and particularly in places that don't have modern oral hygiene.
- [04:09]
A
Okay, so there are countries where people do not kiss. Can you name some of these countries besides Julia Roberts and Pretty Women?
- [04:16]
B
Well, even that I think is interesting, this idea that kissing also is reserved for certain types of relationship. What we found in the data was that in some cases, parents will pre chew food, they pre masticate food. So kissing can be more symbolic. You kiss maybe a baby on the mouth, or maybe you're passing pre chewed food, or maybe you kiss a religious figure. So if I'm remembering correctly, we had certain patterns in Oceania and through the Pacific islands, and in some cases actually also in parts of Central Africa. I remember one case that two anthropologists wrote that they were doing research and they would kiss each other. It was a married couple and they wrote in one of their papers that the people would say like, why are you doing that? Why are you doing that to your wife? Why would you spit on her? And they were like, no, in America this is a sign of affection and we care for each other.
- [05:07]
A
So this is very. So you're saying if I hook up with a guy from the Federated States of Micronesia, he's gonna be like, what are you, what are you doing to me in my mouth?
- [05:16]
B
Well, it depends on how western eyes they are and how. But yes, very likely in a lot of places. And it's also, we know people have all sorts of rules about kissing. Like, do you kiss on a first date, do you kiss on a third date, how soon? And what we were interested in is that there are all these scientists who have made these claims about, oh, we're passing hormones from each other. Well, the trick is if you pass hormones, yes, you might have testosterone and estrogens in your saliva. We know that because we can measure it. But just cause I dump it in your mouth doesn't mean that your brain is receiving it. And more than likely it's going into your stomach and there's no receptors for those hormones there. So this idea that it's really important for the sexual and erotic script, I think tells us that there's so much variation in the world that what we take for granted as part of courtship or relationships varies across place and time.
- [06:02]
A
Okay, I'm gonna say something that I probably shouldn't say on a podcast, but the reason I know this is because my first boyfriend, who I did for years and you know, was dating him in college, he had a foot fetish. Then when I was with my second boyfriend, it was like, you know, the second guy I'd like kind of like been with in my life and I'd be like putting my like foot near his mouth and the guy's just like, get that, like, what is. He's like. So this is how I know that, like how you have. How you hook up. Date, kiss early in your. It Sets you motion kissing, dating. Life is not how everyone is gonna hook up. Kiss and date. Which is a wild lesson I learned the awkward way.
- [06:45]
B
Yeah, we did some studies on fetishes, too. I can't let that go by. So we found actually foot fetishes are one of the most common, for what it's worth. And there's one argument that it has to do with where sensory information for feet occur in the brain. It's very close to sensory information for the genitals. We did a study years ago with one of my graduate students that was working with us from Australia at the time, Giselle Reese. And she was asking people, there's, like, clinical criteria for a diagnosis of fetishism. But it turns out that a lot of people have this sort of subclinical, you know, fetish. There's things that they really like. The challenge is that when you use the word fetish, most people assume. And technically, according to clinical guidelines, it means you're unable to have arousal in the absence of that object.
- [07:28]
A
And.
- [07:29]
B
And that's not what most people have. They say they like it or.
- [07:32]
A
Cherry on top.
- [07:33]
B
Yes. And you brought up a great part. The other piece of that is you have to negotiate it with your partners. So a lot of times people will say, okay, I have a leather fetish. But my partner says, you know, we can't do this in the summer. It's too hot. And so all sorts of ways that they're negotiating these things.
- [07:48]
A
I'm just, like, mentally picturing the guy in my mind who has the leather fetish and the woman, like, the wasp who's like, no, no. It is very warm in Martha's Vineyard this time of year. We cannot do that.
- [07:58]
B
Seasonal. This is seasonal fetish.
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A
What's the wackiest? Or you wouldn't say wacky.
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B
I wouldn't say wacky.
- [08:05]
A
What is the most esoteric fetish you have observed?
- [08:09]
B
Oh, gosh, that's a good question. The term itself is pretty broad. So some folks will consider. And now we're getting into the weeds. So some researchers debate on what's the big umbrella?
- [08:21]
A
How did you take such a sexy question?
- [08:22]
B
I know, I'm sorry.
- [08:23]
A
Fetishes. And take it to the weeds.
- [08:24]
B
You're like, what's the hottest fetish that you know about? I'm like, ah, it's a technical. Because there are some folks that would say, like, you know, if we look at the big umbrella of kink, like, what is b. Is it a fetish? Is it a lifestyle? Is it Tuesday? Yeah, exactly. It Depends on what city you're in. And so there's things like that. But people we see, sometimes fetishes are for objects. Shoes, leather, latex. Sometimes it's for a particular part of the body and sometimes it's for something entirely different. Like it has to do with like, ice cubes or it has to do with any number of things.
- [08:59]
A
Do you have a fetish? Can I ask you that?
- [09:03]
B
Sorry, I wasn't expecting that one.
- [09:05]
A
I know.
- [09:05]
B
So how do I answer that? Not according to any clinical guidelines.
- [09:11]
A
Oh, excellent. Thank you for your very boring answer.
- [09:13]
B
To my very first question.
- [09:15]
A
Okay, I want to take this all and make it a little pg.
- [09:17]
B
Yeah.
- [09:17]
A
You studied evolutionary and biocultural foundations of romantic and sexual relationships. Did I get that right?
- [09:24]
B
Yeah. Wonderful.
- [09:25]
A
Are you like a Darwin of sex?
- [09:27]
B
Yeah. Well, that's exactly what we try to do. We use evolutionary theory to understand the human animal and how that relates to all of our romantic and sexual behaviors and experiences and desires. And the Kinsey Institute, where I'm the director and senior scientist, that was founded by Dr. Kinsey, who was also a biologist. And in fact, a lot of people know when they think of Kinsey, they think of the Kinsey Scale for sexual orientation. Yes.
- [09:51]
A
It's like, is everyone a little gay?
- [09:53]
B
Yeah. And that concept of sexuality on a continuum, I think was. Because Kinsey was a biologist. If you're a biologist, you can't help look around at the natural world and see everything happens on a continuum. There's so much variation in the natural world.
- [10:05]
A
I know there's an Instagram feed called Openly Gay Animals, but are animals gay too?
- [10:10]
B
Yeah. So it depends on how you define gay. But yes, short answer is yes, it depends a little bit on how you think of sexual orientation. So when we think of what does sexual orientation orient is what a paper that my colleague Lisa diamond wrote many years ago. And one is an identity. Right. So is the gay penguin from Central park, the one that a lot of people knew about and got upset when they introduced new penguins and they had a divorce and they re partnered to an opposite sex partner. But a lot of drama in penguin world. And so one is your identity. Well, how do you define yourself? And that's how we often think about sexual orientation in humans. But when we're thinking about preferences and behaviors, that's different. And we certainly see that in the animal kingdom. And sometimes it's very purposefully responding to an ecological situation. So for instance, some birds, sometimes female birds, will sit. Will partner and sit on a nest together. They quote unquote heterosexually mate.
- [11:05]
A
They hang.
- [11:06]
B
Yeah. But then they get back. Then they have a female, female bond to sit on a nest together, but.
- [11:11]
A
They can't make an egg.
- [11:12]
B
No. So they'll still, they'll sexually reproduce with a male and then they kind of partner with a female.
- [11:17]
A
They say, I figured it out.
- [11:18]
B
Yeah, well, that's not a bad strategy. And so we see all sorts of variation in the animal kingdom and sometimes it's what we all call facultatively responsive. It's adapting to a particular ecology. And actually the same is true for human relationships. We see all sorts of relationship variat variation and sexual variation and gender variation, and often that, with that evolutionary lens, we could say it's adaptive to an environment. Like, I'm often so curious about marriage patterns, but marriage is a sort of social, cultural, legal contract that really tries to contain the biology of reproduction and love and family units.
- [11:56]
A
When did marriage start?
- [11:58]
B
That's a great question. And it depends on. I mean, a lot of traditional societies have some version of marriage. There's ritual around love. If we go all the way back. And we could talk about the work of our friend Helen Fisher, the biological anthropologist, who we sadly lost, great friend of mine and colleague and mentor. Helen argued that about 4 to 4.4 million years ago. So for the anthropologists, it's between Ardipithecus and Lucy that our ancestors started having these patterns of romantic love, of deep, what we call pair bonds in the sciences. And that those pair bonds helped humans respond to the environment and help them really disperse around the globe. And then, though about. So the agricultural revolution is anywhere between 10 and 14,000 years ago, a lot of anthropologists would say about 12,000 years ago, we saw another change, and that was with being more sedentary, so more farming, different sort of subsistence lifestyles, that marriage took on a different role because then you had different resources, you were trading, you had land and property. So it changed what was at stake with marriage.
- [12:59]
A
So what happened to marriage then?
- [13:01]
B
Sometimes I love when folks will talk about romantic love and they'll say, well, it's a Victorian era phenomenon. And I go, no, it's not. It's millions of years. It's baked into our physiology.
- [13:10]
A
Lucy.
- [13:10]
B
Yes, yes, exactly.
- [13:11]
A
Okay, and then 10,000, 12,000 years ago, when the hunter and gatherers are going out and getting the stuff, like what exactly? How did the marriage change before that?
- [13:19]
B
People partnered for love. And what we saw is that as resources changed and the politics of resources changed, marriage became more arrangements, they became political arrangements. Now we Know, like Stephanie Kuntz, work on marriage. We know, for instance, peasants always married for love because they didn't have resources.
- [13:35]
A
Even in any kind of Shakespearean play, often, like, the most pure love is what you see happening with, like, the maids in the house.
- [13:42]
B
So these sort of financial resources and the challenges they can bring has tinkered with our love lives for a very long time.
- [13:49]
A
So capitalism is the reason we're not getting laid or we're not sleeping with the right person.
- [13:54]
B
I mean, the Crypto Bros were supposed to save everyone, but I don't know.
- [13:58]
A
I mean. All right, let's take a quick break.
- [14:01]
C
This episode is brought to you by Lifelock. When you visit the doctor, you probably hand over your insurance, your ID and contact details. It's just one of the many places that has your personal info. And if any of them accidentally expose it, you could be at risk for identity theft. LifeLock monitors millions of data points a second. If you become a victim, they'll fix it, guaranteed, or your money back. Save up to 40% your first year@lifelock.com podcast terms apply.
- [14:37]
A
If you like this show, please tell your friends about Smart Girl Dumb Questions. They can find it on YouTube, Spotify, Apple, or you can just share a link with them so they can check it out. Right now. Also you. And they may really like our TikTok or Instagram at Smart Girl Dumb Questions. We're doing a new street series where we kind of go around New York and Paris and find out the last questions people ask their phone because they were afraid to ask them out loud. It is super fun and makes curiosity cool and communal again. All right, so that was all the capitalism that is ruining our sex lives. And now back to the episode with Justin. Okay, it was always for romantic love. Ten to 12,000 years ago, agricultural revolution happens. People start getting together, you know, not marrying necessarily, but in having some kind of ritualistic monogamy, which is required for preserving and appropriating resources and distributing resources. And then when's the next shift?
- [15:34]
B
So I think the one big one was about a little over 4 million years ago. Then the agricultural revolution, and then I think the rise of the Internet. And I do think, to your point, it's probably where we agree a little bit. I do think the rise of the Internet, it didn't change what's baked into our brains. It didn't change the desire for love, the capacity for love. I mean, we take for granted sometimes that. That we can even fall in love. Only 3% of mammals form these intense pair bonds. About 15% of primates. This isn't a universal that all species have the capacity to form these intense bonds.
- [16:05]
A
Really. Not everybody has this capacity to fall in love. So the interaction.
- [16:08]
B
Not all species.
- [16:09]
A
And so like, so the Penguin.
- [16:10]
B
So about 90% of bird species form pair bonds, but often for a breeding season. Penguins are known often for lifelong pair bonds. What is interesting and what. Yeah, but the challenges that I think could sometimes upset people is the natural world sees pair bonds and what we would call romantic love. In humans, it also sees separation and divorce. So sometimes pair bonds dissolve just like us. And sometimes you just say, you know, people will say, I've had enough of this person. Well, animals can do the same to each other, especially animals that have what's called preferential sociality. And if you've ever been around someone who has a lot of pets or if you've been to a dog park, they don't act the same towards all other individuals. That's a hallmark of a social animal. We tend to be a little bit more social with our family members.
- [16:56]
A
Right.
- [16:57]
B
That's part of what a romantic bond is. It's preferential that you treat your romantic partner differently, you feel differently, you want to be around them more.
- [17:04]
A
Yeah, ideally better, but in some cases worse.
- [17:06]
B
In some cases worse.
- [17:07]
A
In some cases worse. Okay, sorry, but I want to let you finish your thought. You were saying that your big sweeping claim was that the third arc of this was the Internet. And that hasn't changed falling in love, but it's changed some of the. And you didn't finish that thought mechanism.
- [17:19]
B
You've always been good with getting me back on track.
- [17:21]
A
Yes.
- [17:21]
B
So the other, with the, with the Internet is that I think it changed the capacity for way people can connect. And I do think the Internet and all the apps that have emerged, they have given us an unprecedented, an evolutionarily unprecedented opportunity. That opportunity also comes with a lot of challenges. And because just like we can pick up our phones and find someone to play pickleball with at 4 o' clock this afternoon, if you're gay or lesbian, you can go on an app and find someone that maybe you don't feel comfortable or safe walking into certain areas to meet someone.
- [17:54]
A
So the Internet did initially.
- [17:55]
B
It allows, I think the Internet allows us to find people. It's an opportunity to connect with people for the things we're looking for.
- [18:02]
A
Sometimes too much. Too much opportunity.
- [18:04]
B
Exactly. You nailed it. The challenges that it. So much choice, the human brain isn't really able to thoughtfully deal with it. And then our minds Start playing all sorts of tricks, because we think there's this abundance of resource that one of the challenges is we don't hone in. So when we look at our data about singles today, what we find is it's not that there's an absence of wanting to be in a relationship. There's an absence of people going on first dates and actually trying to establish relationships. Something about jumping from the app to the real life is where people are struggling.
- [18:39]
A
Though I want to push back a little bit on that because there's also been research that now I think it's 30% of men and 40% of women no longer see romantic partnership as critical to a fulfilled life. That's not from your study. That's another study. But have you seen that data as well?
- [18:54]
B
So there's been a lot of work on this question of singlehood, on the rise of singlehood. We know that over a third of the adult population in the United States is single. And that's true of a lot of developed countries. We're seeing more and more people who are single. And more people are getting comfortable with that. They're getting comfortable with a single life. And maybe they're going on dates, but they don't want to go too far. Maybe they're hanging out with their buddies or their girlfriends or their family. And there's a lot of richness to a single life that we're seeing reported more and more. But I think there's a caveat in that data. And my take is that just at the same time that we're seeing people say they're comfortable in their singlehood, they still are interested in these romantic bonds, Even if they're saying, I'm kind of fed up with trying to find one, or I'm a little discouraged on trying to find one. It's this thing that the human animal desires, that romantic connection even. We could talk about sexual connection. We know from our studies and plenty of other studies, people don't even want just sex. They want sex in the context of a relationship.
- [19:54]
A
Yeah, it's better.
- [19:55]
B
Both men and women say it's better. Exactly.
- [19:57]
A
It's not just that the sex is. But the relationship is better because of the sex too. As you said, it's a preferential relationship for a reason.
- [20:04]
B
Some of the desires of the intimate animal that we are.
- [20:08]
A
So you're leveling that. There's this cognitive dissonance. People are reporting that because they feel they're fated to. That maybe in some way, and the technology is part of why they feel they're fated to that. Because I think that one of the. This is my conjecture here. I think that just everything is a dating app now. So the primacy, like, if you're talking about preferential relationships, like preferential apps, I'd rather spend time on an app where I could get a job or I could, you know, catch up with my friends or, like, look up the name of my friend's baby who's turning one so I can write the card. And also just, like, serendipitously on that app, have some. Oh, wow, that's interesting. I met somebody on Instagram, right. I can know a lot more about them. Or an app where I'm, like, spending time commenting or Reddit or wherever it is. Like, these have become almost physical places on the Internet. And so we. And I think you and I talked about that when we went on the walk in the park. And Covid were. I have this romanticization of IRL relationships. And then you told me something really interesting there, which was that people think something unexpected or risky is sexier. Like if you are. They did a study where people walked on a shaky bridge. Right? Did I remember that correctly? So tell us that study.
- [21:19]
B
Yeah, so it's called misattribution of arousal is what psychologists call it.
- [21:25]
A
I love that term. I thought I liked having sex with you, but I was really having sex with you. And thinking of Brad Pitt misattribution, well, that happens, too.
- [21:34]
B
That's a whole other. But on the shaky bridge study, people walked across this bridge and either a solid one or a shaky one at the end, a confederate, someone who worked on the study, would say, here's my number. Let me know if you have any information. And when men walked across the bridge, if it was a shaky bridge, they were more likely to call the woman afterwards to ask her on a day or to sort of try to connect with her.
- [21:55]
A
And it was the same woman. It wasn't like a hotter woman on the shaky bridge.
- [21:57]
B
It was the same woman. And because this idea that your heart's pumping and you're a little anxious because the physiology of falling in love is actually awfully like an anxiety response, so you have sort of a rise in dopaminergic responses. You can have plummets of serotonergic responses, you could have butterflies in your stomach, clammy hands, you're losing your words. In another context, if you were sitting in an exam and you had that, you'd say, holy, yeah, I'm having an anxiety attack. But in the context of a first date, you Might say, oh, I really like this person. So the context of our physiological responses matter. And part of that excitement is a little bit of risk. Now, not too much, you don't want. Too much you don't want. Most people don't stop to kiss in a burning building. But a little bit. A little bit of risk and excitement can help.
- [22:44]
A
We are meaning making animals. And so we apply that romanticism to our preferential relationship.
- [22:51]
B
Yeah. And it becomes part of a story. It becomes part of our love stories. And I think one of the challenges that a lot of us have and something you and I have talked about, something I think you're good at, is framing the positive aspects of those love stories. And that just because a relationship doesn't last forever doesn't mean it was a failure. I hate that term. I hate when people talk about relationship failures. There are some that are characterized by abuse and conflict and trauma. That's its own issue. But so many people have relationships that ends and they're not failures. They were good for what they were. They were wonderful hot summer romances. And they are part of our stories and our experiences. So many of our relationships can be successful, but they. Sometimes they end and we move on to something else. And we can be in a different chapter of our life. And sometimes we want different things.
- [23:36]
A
Yeah. And I do definitely think that I have, like, very warm feelings about most of the people I've been in relationships with, if not all. I mean, in some way, in all of them. Right. You had to. Cause at some point you did. And barring that horrific experience, it just becomes part of who you are. I think it changes your physiology in some way.
- [23:57]
B
Falling in love.
- [23:58]
A
So I want to talk about that because as you mentioned, Helen Fisher, the late, great Helen Fisher, who's your longtime mentor and friend, and I have to say, a sexy woman. I thought she married late in life. Right.
- [24:10]
B
She married late in life. In her 70s. Yeah.
- [24:12]
A
So Helen Fisher had done early on, and I think this was the early aughts, a kind of study of the brain.
- [24:18]
B
Right.
- [24:18]
A
And what happens to the brain when we fall in love. So that's very different to, like, what you're saying, Clammy hands, the, like, shaky, you know, the feeling of getting off that shaky bridge and seeing a, you know, a hot woman that seems hotter when the bridge is shakier.
- [24:33]
B
Yeah.
- [24:33]
A
Is falling in love a brain response or a body response?
- [24:37]
B
Both, I think. Both. So insofar as the brain connects as the sort of central command station for our physiology, that it is part of the body. Which is why touch can be so electrifying, especially if it's someone that you're interested in or you're attracted to. And what Helen Fisher and colleagues found is they put people on an FMRI brain scanner and they were romantically in love. And they found that a part of the brain called the ventral tegmental area. And a lot of parts of the brain, but one in particular, the vta, which is the powerhouse of dopamine, would light up, which would mean the brain was pulling more oxygen rich blood so it could do its thing. And they've done a series of other studies. They put people who had been romantically rejected also in an FMRI brain scanner.
- [25:19]
A
Yes, the dumped study about Chetty. And what happens to their vta?
- [25:23]
B
Their brains look remarkably like someone going through cocaine withdrawal. Which also tells us if you've ever been through a breakup and you are depressed or you feel physical pain, it's not, I mean it is literally in your head, it's in your brain that those are real bodily reactions we have to relationship laws.
- [25:41]
A
And what's the cure for that addiction?
- [25:42]
B
Oh, I mean, mother Nature overdid herself. Right. And it's in some ways the. One of the things I've argued is that it's the cost of pair bonds. To love so intensely and deeply. That we have that capacity means that when it gets pulled away, it hurts, it stings. And in some ways in the short term it was probably an adaptive to keep us in bonds at least for several years, maybe through rearing of offspring or to deal with major challenges. Is I've come to believe that parapon's involved in part to allow us to weather uncertainty. So the story of the anatomically modern human animal is that we have survived so much uncertainty and different environments and different diseases and different access to resources and different predators. And I think that we had a teammate and our ancestors had teammates. That's what has allowed us to be this dominant species on the planet. For better or worse, that's what's allowed.
- [26:38]
A
Us to get collaborative aspect of human society. Sorry, you said something and I just. My mind went to a dumb place that I have to articulate, which is you said anatomically modern human animal. Did humans always have penises and vaginas?
- [26:52]
B
I love that you brought this up because it turns out that there's a lot about our genital anatomy that also tells us something about our story of, of relationships. So the fact that so we. If you've ever watched a nature show, you'll know that a lot of animals, male behind the female. So and there's sort of technical terms. Dorsovent.
- [27:13]
A
Sometimes human animals do that too.
- [27:14]
B
Sometimes human animals do. It's one of the top three most common sexual positions that people engage in. But the idea that we have sex face to face, missionary style, as some people will call it. But that, that is something else. That's part of our evolutionary story as a pair bonded animal. Not many animals engage in sex face to face. You're incredibly vulnerable. You're facing each other's entire sensory information with the face. So you could see each other, you can hear each other, you could taste each other, you can follow each other's breath. That is part of what makes sex so intimate. That aligning of sensory experience or synchronization. Now, I'm not trying to say the only way to have sex is mission and to breathe the same way. That's not at all what I'm saying. But that we have that capacity.
- [28:02]
A
That's a human. That's a special human.
- [28:04]
B
Yeah. And that has to do within males, that the penis was moved forward of where it is in terms of our anatomy.
- [28:09]
A
So evolutionary like the penis actually moved well.
- [28:11]
B
And also we have relatively smaller testes. And the reason we have smaller testes compared to gorillas or chimpanzees. So gorillas have quite small testes given their body mass, because they have a harem mating system. There's no sperm competition. It's one male for all these females.
- [28:25]
A
So he's like having to, to spread it around all time. So it's.
- [28:28]
B
Well, there's not. His sperm isn't competing with other sperm in the reproductive track of females. Whereas chimpanzees have multi male, multi female. They have large testes for their bad body mass because a female might mate with several males.
- [28:40]
A
So the larger the testes, the more the sperm.
- [28:42]
B
So you can produce more so it can compete.
- [28:43]
A
Got it. Okay.
- [28:44]
B
So if you're ever on a farm, you could tell what the monogamous animals are and how big their balls are.
- [28:48]
A
So should we be like judging men by the size of their balls and not by the size of their penises?
- [28:52]
B
No judgment. It's a judgment. No, no, but I'm saying.
- [28:54]
A
Okay, fine. But you know how they say like size matters, doesn't matter.
- [28:58]
B
And there's all sorts of different penis morphology. There's animals that have corkscrew shaped penises.
- [29:02]
A
And who has a corkscrew shaped penis?
- [29:05]
B
Alpacas, Certain birds, actually ducks.
- [29:08]
A
If I just say animals. Can you tell me about their penis now?
- [29:11]
B
I feel I'm on the spot. I don't know.
- [29:12]
A
Let's see.
- [29:13]
B
Okay, so alpacas have a corkscrew type penis, and then the females have a corkscrew. Corkscrew. Reproductive.
- [29:19]
A
What about a bear?
- [29:20]
B
Oh, I don't know, Z. It got me stumped.
- [29:22]
A
What about giraffes? Just tell me. Animals. You do know, Justin.
- [29:28]
B
Which animals? What's interesting is, I don't know, you didn't mention this, but when we think about, like, livestock, because they've been artificially bred, you know, a lot of livestock actually don't make. I mean, like cattle, because farmers will collect the ejaculate and then artificially inseminate because it's safer, because sometimes the heavy weight of the bull can injure the cow.
- [29:46]
A
These farmers are creeps.
- [29:47]
B
Yeah. And speaking. Oh, my God, now you're getting me excited on farming. There was a study years ago that orgasm might be associated with.
- [29:53]
A
Do you have a farming fetish?
- [29:55]
B
No, I don't. I'm like a city boy. I've always wanted a farm and I never knew I could do all these sexological studies there.
- [30:00]
A
Okay.
- [30:00]
B
And. Oh, we'll talk about China and pandas in a second. But first on pigs. There was a study on pigs that if they orgasm, that it's associated with better outcomes on their litter so that they have, like, one more piglet. So there have been some cases now of farmers, pig farmers, who will hop on top of a female and manually stimulate them.
- [30:21]
A
No.
- [30:22]
B
To orgasm.
- [30:22]
A
Oh, my God, that is so creepy. I'm sorry. Right?
- [30:26]
B
No, but in humans, there's still huge debates about the actual purpose of organisms. Sorry.
- [30:32]
A
They're doing that also just to make more pork for humans to eat probably.
- [30:34]
B
Well, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's. That's right.
- [30:37]
A
That is so weird. I mean, I was not going to date a pig farmer before, but now I'm definitely never dating.
- [30:43]
B
But they know a thing or two about the biology of orgasm. You know, it might be worth the lunch. And so.
- [30:50]
A
But.
- [30:51]
B
But we know that the science of orgasm is so complex.
- [30:57]
A
Sorry. Just booking flights to Kentucky as we speak.
- [31:02]
B
I cannot wait for that podcast. But we know that the science of orgasm. There are these debates about, does orgasm have an evolutionary function? And in males, the idea is that orgasm associated with ejaculation, it promotes mating. But in females, the relationship between orgasm and fertility is. Research has had a hard time finding clear evidence that women who orgasm have. Are more likely to get pregnant or they get pregnant sooner, or the pregnancy is more likely to last.
- [31:34]
A
Yeah, there's all sorts of things. I know men who are most likely to make you orgasm are the least likely to want to have children.
- [31:40]
B
Oh, interesting. Tell us more focus.
- [31:44]
A
I'm just drawing a relationship between fuck boys.
- [31:46]
B
Yes. So what's interesting though is that there's some evidence that partners that help women orgasm, or if we don't use the word achieve often in the literature because there's so much variation, but having partners that are like more empathetic or funnier or. It seems to be associated with better orgasm outcomes for women in heterosexual context.
- [32:05]
A
Oh, yeah. Oh, interesting. Okay, this is all fascinating. It's like I'm like unconscious. Yes. Pandas.
- [32:11]
B
Oh, those end on pandas.
- [32:12]
A
You already told me about panda penises. You're so excited because you're not.
- [32:15]
B
No, not panda penises, but panda mating. So Michelle and I were in China last year. My wife. Yes. We were visiting family in China and everyone knew I wanted to see the pandas. And it turns out that pandas have. The females have a relatively short window for reproduction annually. They're only receptive to mating for about two, three days a year. Exactly. So if the males aren't interested in mating in that particular window. Window, a whole year lapses. And part of the challenge for panda populations is how do we get them to mate?
- [32:48]
A
So researchers get the pig farmer out there.
- [32:50]
B
Yeah. Well, so they've created panda porn. So there's researchers who have created. Yes, and the researchers have created videos of pandas mating with the idea that if you show them to the pandas, like right the couple weeks leading up to the female being receptive, reproductively sexually receptive, that maybe they'll know what to do. Because sometimes has it worked.
- [33:10]
A
There's a bunch of pandas in like, like. So when they made sperm donor facilities, like all like sitting and like watching pandas.
- [33:19]
B
Yeah. You made it much more sterile sounding. But they're just in the wild and they bring like, what they put, like, they put like. Yes. They put screens up in the. In the. We just went to a regular, like, sanctuary.
- [33:30]
A
Did you show. Did you. Did you like.
- [33:31]
B
I wanted to know him.
- [33:33]
A
A little panda porn on your phone.
- [33:35]
B
Yeah, I was like, where? Where? I want to see. Like, what are you doing? What's the role?
- [33:38]
A
And does it. Okay, so we don't know yet if the porn makes that there's evidence.
- [33:41]
B
I mean, folks, researchers are working on this. But it also tells something about conservation and mating. That we're not the only species that has sort of really. Every organism we look at has an Interesting story about reproduction.
- [33:53]
A
So this is also wild. Okay, I just need a moment to process, but give my listeners and viewers a moment to process, too. Okay. So they see the porn. The pandas are watching the porn. First of all, like, is the panda porn? But this is. Okay. Why this is breaking my brain is because, like, male pandas don't just want to have sex all the time.
- [34:13]
B
Yeah.
- [34:13]
A
I think one of the things that we're told as a society is, like, men, this. This masculine desire to spread seed and to kind of always be on. I feel that is something that affects male, female relationships. You're saying these men, these panda men's, don't want to fuck all the time?
- [34:29]
B
Yeah.
- [34:31]
A
So wait, are we just wrong when we say men want to fuck all the time?
- [34:34]
B
Yes, we are wrong. And I'm so glad you brought it up because we have these deeply held beliefs about how men and women.
- [34:41]
A
I'm so glad you told me about panda porn so I could bring it up.
- [34:44]
B
Yeah. This is. You've made connections here. Thank you. Now you. Yes, but we have these beliefs about how men and women should experience their sexual lives or what is it really? What does it mean to be a man in terms of your sexual urges? And so much of it. So much of it is kind of dangerous and troubling bullshit. And. Right. We have this idea that, okay, this is what all men should want. And that now, certain cultures put that on because of their notions of masculinity or femininity. But we know that, for instance, when we ask people, what are the things you most desire in a romantic and sexual partner? Yes. People want someone who's attractive, but more than someone that they're physically attracted to, they want someone they can trust, and they want someone who is humorous, and they want someone who they can confide in. They want someone who's empathetic. So when we look at all these traits that people really want and what really makes a partner hot. Yes. Physical attraction is one small piece of a bigger puzzle of what we're looking for in partners. Well, what turns us on?
- [35:51]
A
But then. Okay, but fast forward to right now. Like, by the way, I think I have all of these qualities in spades that you just said. Empathy, humor. What was the other one?
- [35:59]
B
Someone you can trust. Someone you can confide in.
- [36:01]
A
Yeah. But I do think that we live in a world where men are kind of socialized. To want to fuck Instagram models.
- [36:09]
B
Yeah.
- [36:09]
A
To want to see a particular kind of body, face, et cetera.
- [36:13]
B
And we focus a lot on visual information so years ago, one of the dating apps took photos down for a 24 hour period. And what they saw is that it ramped up messaging.
- [36:21]
A
Which app was that?
- [36:23]
B
I think it was OkCupid that did it, if I remember correctly. I don't even know if it was done purposefully. And it was that photos were down and people started messaging me. And we know there was a study by Elizabeth Bruch at the University of Michigan, a great study, that people, they first connect with folks on an app that are about 25% higher in mate value. Mate value is this assessment of like 1 to 10, where are you?
- [36:46]
A
Yeah, yeah. And we know what that means.
- [36:47]
B
Yeah. So we tend to talk. Yeah, exactly. So we tend to have. We are aspirational and. Exactly. If we're on these apps all the time, we have these aspirational bids for our romantic and sexual partners. And we think, you know, I think always that song, like Looking for a Guy, that's was it six, five finance blue eyes. One demographer looked at how many people are there like that in this country? I think there were two.
- [37:10]
A
I think there was like a thousand something. I remember that.
- [37:12]
B
And whether it's two or a thousand, when we're talking about over 100 million singles, that's a real unrealistic expectation that we have for these, that you. And also people vary. We know that, you know, men don't always want to have sex. They get tired, they ate too much at dinner, they have too much on their mind, they're having stress, they don't feel it this night.
- [37:33]
A
But the more they work out, the more testosterone they have. They should get these pandas to work out. I think that porn, I mean, I don't know. I don't watch a ton of porn. I have to say, I don't find it that interesting. Sometimes I watch it because I'm like, what's everyone up to? I'm kind of curious.
- [37:46]
B
Yeah, a lot of Americans just incidentally watch it. It's not. There's a subset that watch it very routinely, but it's not that many.
- [37:52]
A
When humans watch porn, are they more likely or less likely to happen?
- [37:55]
B
It depends. So there's some studies that people watch porn as a couples, they watch it together. So it depends on like what your purpose is. A lot of people are watching porn. They only watch it for a few minutes because they use it as a masturbation aid. So are you watching it because you're masturbating? Are you watching it because you're with a partner? Are you watching it yeah. Very good. Are you watching it to get ideas? Yeah. Are you watching it just for entertainment because you think the storylines are funny?
- [38:22]
A
It depends. I always watch porn for the excellent B plot.
- [38:25]
B
You know, I can't believe that they did that.
- [38:28]
A
They ordered pepperoni.
- [38:29]
B
Yeah.
- [38:31]
C
This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game? Well, with the name your price tool from Progressive, you can find options that fit your budget and potentially lower your bills. Try it@progressive.com Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates Price and coverage match limited by state law. Not available in all states.
- [38:58]
A
We'll take a quick break and we'll be back with less on pandas and more on marriage and social expectations. Okay, you're a sex scientist. Is there anything that makes short kings anatomically better sexual partner or emotionally better sexual partners because they're working hard for it, or is it like they're reaching a certain part of your body?
- [39:19]
B
Yeah, so possibly. So we know that, like the whole notion of a short king, and often when it's used in sort of popular culture, it's a guy that's maybe shorter than average, but they tend to be fit. They tend to be highly fit. And one argument is that some people who if they're below average in height, that maybe they find other ways to compensate because of social expectations. So maybe they work out more, maybe they're more fit. But there's human variation all over the map in terms of the sort of anatomical nuts and bolts, as it were, of sexual activity. We can accommodate a lot of different sizes. The challenge is that it's a fairly consistent bias, though, that we see that in most societies, on average, women tend to be attracted to men that are taller than them.
- [40:04]
A
Right.
- [40:05]
B
And even as women get taller, their preferences for men just get even taller. And actually, interesting things also in socioeconomics that we know that women tend to be attracted to men that have some form of resources or wealth. And as they have more, it's that the goalpost moves. Yeah.
- [40:23]
A
This hypergamy reality, which I think is part of the reason that we're seeing so much singledom in America. And I think your singles in America study would show that the average woman has exceeded the average man in terms of education in some cases, in some cities, in terms of average income, et cetera, etc, in some fields. What is the solve for that? Like, if we are an evolutionary species, can we evolve to absorb this radical shift of, you know, what is it, feminism, social change in our life? Or is the answer to, like, have a Bit of a swing back, which is. Seems to be what we're on the trajectory of.
- [41:01]
B
Yeah. And there's sort of these movements of this idea of returning to, you know, a way that we used to be in terms of our relationships and gender norms. And I think we have to be really cautious of that. One is I mentioned Stephanie Koontz earlier. She talks about the Nostalgia Trap. And we have this.
- [41:20]
A
Stephanie Koontz is a researcher at the Family Studies Center.
- [41:23]
B
Is that what it's called? She's the Council on Contemporary Families.
- [41:26]
A
Yeah, Council on Contemporary Families.
- [41:27]
B
And she's a social historian, and she has what she calls the nostalgia trail. And it's this idea that we think it was better. In my world, when someone talks about courtship, when it was better. And I think. When do you think it was better? You think it was better when a young man had to go to a young woman's home and get permission from her parents before he could leave the parlor with her? When domestic violence was okay and there was no regulation against it? When people weren't able to make free choices? When women had nine pregnancies throughout their life and spent most of their life either lactating or pregnant. Oh, my God. You know, when do we think it was better? When we. We had more disease? When more people died from maternal. When.
- [42:06]
A
Okay, we get it. Really killing the buzz.
- [42:09]
B
But. Yeah, sorry. Okay, we'll get back to. We'll get back to animal sex. And so I think we have to be cautious about this idea that our romantic and sexual lives at some point were better than they are today. We have more opportunity today in our intimate lives than ever before. So. But one of the things that we're seeing is that this tendency. There are overall sex differences in what men and women want in their romantic and sexual relationships. And that tendency is moving as we move, exactly as you said. So, okay, what's the solution to that? But how do you. Yeah.
- [42:41]
A
Like, is there a direction change? Like, is there a world? I'm asking, like, we talked about Lucy and the hunter gatherers and 10,000, and then we talked about the Internet. Do you fast forward and see a world in which women are, like, all of a sudden short men who earn less are dating tall women who are, you know, the breadwinners or hunter and gathering in some modern technological society? By the way, when we make this social clip, we're gonna use, like, Google VO2 or VO3 and make it all. But, yeah.
- [43:13]
B
Yeah, I think that now that we're seeing more popular examples. Right. So there's Like Zendaya and Tom Holland or there's, and there's been a lot of examples, celebrities. The more, the more we see that, the more that we can model those famous cases, the more normalized it becomes.
- [43:29]
A
But when it comes to income, so.
- [43:32]
B
I think that one is still. Several years ago I was doing a study and I interviewed a woman who was an executive and asked her about her marriages. We were talking about marriage and her relationships and she said she really liked this idea because she was breadwinner in her family, by far a breadwinner. Her hours were demanding. And this idea that of having a partner who could be a kind of stay at home dad and help and she really, this really appealed to her as a concept because she said, well, we're just flipping the gender script. Yeah, but she couldn't stop cheating on him with men that were in her industry. She couldn't stop. As much as she had this guy at home, she didn't really respect him in that role. Now I'm not saying that's the way things should be or that they're always.
- [44:16]
A
Going to be that way or that.
- [44:16]
B
They'Re always going to be that person. We are committed more than we like to admit to gender roles. And for her, as much as she valued having this and I think she loved him at home and helped raise her family and helped her have the career she was having. Now that happens with men all the time, right? All the time. But what it suggests is that there was still this desire for her to be around sort of high powered men, that she wasn't really attracted to her husband anymore as this sort of stay at home debt. And there's been studies on like how couples distribute household chores which hint at some similar things going on.
- [44:55]
A
Yeah.
- [44:55]
B
And you know, there's a lot of critics who want to come out, cultural critics who want to come out and say why should women have to make the guys feel safe in their relationship? Why should. I shouldn't have to tell a partner.
- [45:05]
A
Well, certainly the men didn't necessarily do that for women.
- [45:09]
B
Well, I think that in some ways they do more than we like to acknowledge that in our relationships. Part of a long term relationship relationship is that notion of psychological safety and that it is incumbent on all of us to try and cultivate that. I mean, I think all the time you and I both travel for work. If you're in a long term relationship, it can be easy to have an affair. It can be easy to cheat. You have to. I think that if you don't want to cheat you have to put, not put yourself in silly situations. When I'm traveling on business, you know, sometimes I'll get food. I don't stay at the bar until it closes. Talking to every woman at the bar. You don't put yourself in those compromising situations.
- [45:44]
A
Right. Or you come up with rituals like, oh, the, like nightly phone call, long distance, which I always hate. Like I'm such a long distance, you know, but like I don't want to check in every night. I don't want the man to feel that he needs to check in with me every night.
- [45:56]
B
And you find a balance. But part of that balance for relationships is how do you cultivate psychological safety in it? And I think there's a lot of people, as you just said, who can be really resistant to this. Like, I'm not a child, I don't want to check in. I'm an independent person.
- [46:10]
A
But you want to make your partner feel safe. But I think anytime you create one thing that feels like work, it actually in my, my mind increases the prospect that somebody feels constrained. The best way to, I think, create psychological safety is to create some psychological freedom in a relationship, which isn't necessarily like an invitation to polyamory, but it's a sense that like you're here because you want to be here. And you could vote with your feet. That makes it feel like a choice and positive, I think.
- [46:36]
B
Yeah. But at the same time, while we let partners know that we appreciate them, that we're thinking of them, that, you know, it's. Do you go on a business trip for a week and you barely check in or you're, you know, especially now on a technological level, you send a picture. Here's where I am, look, here's Naimi and I recording whatever it is you, you, you make them, you pull them in even through into your life. And that takes. I hate saying that. Relationships take work. As you know, this is an expression I don't like, but it takes effort and it takes cultivating. It's like having a garden. You can't just throw the seeds out there and expect they're gonna do great. You've gotta cultivate, you gotta weed, you gotta fertilize, you gotta water. That's part of what? That's part of the magic. It should be part of the fun of our intimate relationships.
- [47:19]
A
Okay, I wanna do a very quick lightning round of a bunch of questions really quickly. Okay? So what role does sex play in falling in love? And is that different for men and for women?
- [47:28]
B
It's bi directional. When we're in love with people, we wanna have sex with them. And if you have sex with someone, it can trigger the physiology of falling in love, particularly the oxytocin systems, the bonding systems. So that sexual activity, particularly if it's good sex, sex or feels good, it can make us feel more connected to another person.
- [47:46]
A
Okay. Is that more true for women than men? Because I think there's something very intimate about having somebody inside of you as a woman.
- [47:53]
B
Yeah. Sexologists have argued whether there's sex differences in that. It's unclear. Men value sex with a romantic partner more than people think. And in fact, men at higher rates than women will say that the best sex they've ever had is someone that they.
- [48:09]
A
And is it better to wait and to have more anticipation? And when you have sex, is there like, you know, 1, 2, 3, 8, 15, 12 dates, what's the right.
- [48:17]
B
Yeah. A lot of people have rules about when they have sex. Now, I think rules can be good if it helps you feel calm and it helps you feel that you have a game plan. But what does this plan for? There's really mixed evidence. There are some people that have the kind of sex interview, you have sex with them, you hook up with them, and then it turns into a relationship. In our studies, about one in three Americans have at some point had a hookup turn into a romantic relationship. You learn a lot about someone when you have sex with them. You learn if they're hygienic, you learn if they're funny, you learn if they're empathetic, you learn if they're attentive, you learn if they're ambidextrous. I mean, you learn a lot about them. And so you learn if they had.
- [48:52]
A
A long career as a pig farmer before.
- [48:55]
B
So you can learn a lot. So for some people, sex early on is really informative. For other people, they want to wait. We also know that the script of sex has changed. It's what sexologists call the hierarchical reordering of sexual activity. So for instance, our parents and our grandparents generation, oral sex was something very intimate. You did that later in a relationship.
- [49:13]
A
Yeah. After you were committed, it was more intimate.
- [49:15]
B
While young people today are having oral sex before intercourse with a new partner.
- [49:19]
A
Okay, I know why doggy style is called doggy style. Why is missionary called missionary?
- [49:24]
B
I forget. I remember reading a paper about this and I forget the answer to that. But there is an answer. Someone has written about this and I can't remember what it is. I shall ask Pop, like I'm going to Send you a text later tonight and hope that your date doesn't see it and be like, why is someone texting you about missionary? But it's academic.
- [49:39]
A
It's academic. It is academic. Okay. We talked about the Kinsey Scale for sexual fluidity. You know, is everyone a little bit gay or is it just Barry Diller? I don't know. The love Barry Diller. Love Barry Diller. Great book that he's just written. Like thousands of years ago or hundreds of years ago, men were having sex with men, right? Women were having sex with that we think, like the times of Alexander the Great, it seemed like men were with men.
- [50:03]
B
So we know that sexuality can occur on a continuum, including. So sex researchers often break up when we ask about sexuality into three pieces, three components. There's your sexual behavior, there's your sexual preference, and there's your sexual identity. So your identity could be gay, straight, bi, fluid. And then there's your preferences that you say, all things being equal, these are the types of partners I wanna have. But for any number of reasons, you might not. Maybe of social pressure, maybe because you're in prison and you're only around people of the same gender. Maybe because you're cast away on an island. Who knows? And so you have preferences and then you have your actual behaviors. And sometimes your behaviors don't sync with your identity. So for instance, if we in surveys of people's sexual behavior last year, there's many more men who have had sex with men in the last year than who identify as gay and bisexual.
- [50:55]
A
Interesting.
- [50:55]
B
So behaviors don't always align with.
- [50:57]
A
Okay, is there also a Kinsey scale or some of kind. Kind of spectrum of monogamy? Because I saw that you guys have done a lot of research in polyamory of late. So is everyone a little poly?
- [51:09]
B
So in one of our studies, about 1 in 5Americans have at some point in their life had a. What's called a consensually non monogamous relationship. Some people say negotiated non monogamy. It's really about even consent. Whose consent? So there's a lot of terms. Well, there's a lot of terms and they all mean something different.
- [51:23]
A
So one in five people have done it. Does everyone have an inclination to do it or are some people. Because I feel like I am so monogamous, like I could not cheat serially monogamous if I tried. I'm serially monogamous. I'm very monogamous. I even hate that I live in New York City and I date multiple people at the same Time. I don't like it, but it's the culture that I'm part of. I don't like to be physical with more than one person at a time.
- [51:44]
B
Yeah, yeah. So we know that there are people who would try it, but we also know that a much lower number, about one in five have tried it at some point. A lower number are actively in, in a kind of consensually non monogamous relationship. So it doesn't work for everyone. There are some people who it does work with. The evidence which suggests that it takes a lot of discussion and conversation, as any relationships do, but you're just amplifying it. Cause you have two people, you have three people then or four people in a relationship. I think that you nailed it. There are some people for whom this is a desire and it works well. I mean the biggest sexual fantasy is actually threesomes, according to Justin Lehmiller's research. And even that I think is telling about opening up a relationship. But at its core you still have a pair bond. You have a core relationship and you're allowing someone else in or you're seeing other people. Some people, this is important and they want it. But what the data suggests is for a vast majority of people, this doesn't really work. So it's not to say that it's good or bad, but the pattern still tends to be forming intense pair bonds. But we know there's variation of that. There's a lot of variation in what works for them and what they want.
- [52:51]
A
I'm thinking back to our conversation about, about hypergamy. And also men feeling that they don't wanna have sex all the time, but feeling like they should have sex all the time. Women feeling like they need a partner who's a powerful man, more powerful, more better earner, more intelligent, more funny than they are. I feel so much of what keeps us trapped in singledom is this expectation. Yeah, like our societal expectation. And one of the big best movements I've had in my dating life is when I stop thinking about what my partner says about me. And I want to start thinking about what my experience with my partner feels like and is like and is going to be like through ups and downs. And how do we as like a culture knowing that that's a very simple thing. I'm saying that. And people are like, that's not wise. That's just like basic. It's normal. But really there's a trend toward it. So how do we pull ourselves out of that? Especially when I think there are people you Know, like I know there are brown men who do not date brown women. There are black men who do not date black women. There's probably the other way around, right? There are people that have such internal trauma and a desire to prove themselves to society that they, in this very personal, very intimate core part of who they are, are like, struggling to negotiate that with themselves.
- [54:04]
B
Yeah.
- [54:05]
A
What? Yeah. How do we get out of that?
- [54:08]
B
Partly what we know is that people have preferences, but we also have to be cautious about not being prisoners of those preferences. And we are never prisoners of our biology. So part of what the human animal also has the capacity to do is to flex, is to experience things that make us feel uncomfortable, to make our own decisions. We have this huge prefrontal cortex that evolved. We have the capacity for decision making and agency. And so we have to be really cautious about these ideas. And that's why you've heard me. Sometimes I'm really concerned when people say, well, men should have testosterone and men should do this and women should do that. And it's the natural, quote, unquote, natural way. I'm always like, whoa. We are not a species that's locked into a natural way of anything, particularly when it comes to love and sex. And so I think we also have to be empowered about what it is that we want and what we don't want. And we should feel empowered that we have that capacity. People have preferences, and that's okay as long as they're consensual and they're safe. But how we can also be cautious about sometimes what we think that one person is going to bring is too much. I know our friend Esther Perel will sometimes say, a healthy relationship is someone whose faults you can live with. And I love that because it's a reminder that sometimes we expect our partners to be everything. We expect them to always be beautiful to us. We expect them to always be smart. We expect them to always be an earner, always be positive. And it's what Eli Finkel wrote in his book called the all or Nothing Marriage. The academic term is the suffocation model of marriage. And it's this idea that we expect a lot from partners. You want the same person to. You want to wake up and be desired by your partner and desire them. And when you have food poisoning tonight and you hold their hair back and you say, you still want to have sex with me hu. As they're vomiting over a toilet.
- [55:54]
A
Not missionary style.
- [55:55]
B
Yeah. These are unrealistic expectations that our lives have these ups and downs. And sometimes it's within a day or within weeks, within months, within years. And that relationships are about, I think in the best case about finding someone to navigate those ups and downs with, not always be on. And I think we've set our expectations unreasonably high.
- [56:18]
A
There's this meme that's been circulating that's like either you're his type or you're wasting your time. Something like that. Is that true? Do we always date our type?
- [56:28]
B
No. Sometimes we date people that are outside our box and sometimes it's a disaster. And sometimes we each experience something new and exciting. So we have to be really cautious about this narrow box that humans have a diverse romantic and sexual style.
- [56:45]
A
So I wanna have a whole conversation with you about sex recession because I feel like no one's having sex anymore or maybe everyone's having sex. Are you having. Having sex?
- [56:52]
B
Yes, I. We're in the process of reproducing.
- [56:55]
A
That's great. That's great. That's a very good thing. Okay, let me ask you one very quick question about it. Are Americans having less sex right now on average?
- [57:03]
B
Yes, but it's a pretty complicated answer. So on average we're seeing a decline in sexual frequency in big data, as researchers have witnessed this in several different data sets that we're seeing declines in sexual frequency. But that doesn't necessarily mean that satisfaction is down and it depends on in what groups. So sexual frequency has declined in partnered people, but not as steadily in single people. So there's a lot of nuances to that answer.
- [57:28]
A
Yeah. And your data showed, or I think was it your data or someone else's data, show that like millennials and Gen Xers are having sex five times a month on average versus Gen Zers and boomers are having less sex three times a month.
- [57:40]
B
Yeah. We know that as we age we tend to engage in less sexual activity. But part of this so called sex recession is that young people, it's not even that overall sexual frequencies have decreased a little bit. It's the number of people who are just not having sex has grow. There's more zeros. So there's weighing down the average. Exactly. And they're weighing down the average.
- [57:58]
A
And then your research has also shown that like the 40s are the new sexual problem.
- [58:01]
B
Yeah.
- [58:02]
A
Right. So it's like no more 40 year old virgin. It's like 40 year olds in America study.
- [58:06]
B
We're seeing that people in their 40s are feeling a new peak of their sexual lives. And they're also saying that sexual chemistry is really important to them when they're in dating relationships. This was a sample of singles.
- [58:18]
A
This is for men and women.
- [58:19]
B
Yeah. Over 90% said that sexual chemistry was critical. Not just it's something that they would like to have. So we're also. We have new expectations. We're seeing Americans have new expectations for sex in their intimate life.
- [58:30]
A
Is sexual chemistry a leading indicator of emotional compatibility?
- [58:36]
B
There's some evidence that I'm going to reframe it. So it's sexual satisfaction and relationship satisfaction are the terms that researchers. The kind of constructs that researchers use. I'm reframing it because I don't have a good answer to your question. And so I'll answer a different one. Good dog. And so what we know is that relationship and sexual satisfaction sort of feed on each other. They're sort of bidirectional and as one goes up, the other goes up. So it's an exciting two way street.
- [59:00]
A
So can you have a good relationship with someone with whom you have bad sex? Good romantic relationships?
- [59:07]
B
It can be quite challenging. Yes. You can have a good relationship with someone that you have low sexual satisfaction. So it depends on what do we mean by bad sex.
- [59:14]
A
But you can definitely have good sex with someone with whom you have a bad relationship.
- [59:17]
B
Oh, absolutely. Yeah.
- [59:18]
A
Sometimes even better.
- [59:19]
B
Yeah. Well, what's so interesting is that just because someone is a compatible sexual partner doesn't mean that you can have a happy and healthy and satisfying relationship with that person.
- [59:27]
A
Yeah.
- [59:28]
B
But we do know from our studies, the more happy, healthy relationship you have, the better the sex becomes.
- [59:33]
A
Got it. The last question I'm gonna ask you, I ask every guest here, what do you. Someone who knows so much about panda proclivities and pig sex and corkscrew penises of aardvarks. What was the animal? What was the animal?
- [59:46]
B
Alpacas.
- [59:47]
A
Alpacas. Alpacas. They're so cute. And now we know. What do you not know? What is something that you are dumb about that we could go and find the answer for you?
- [59:55]
B
Oh, my gosh. There's so much I don't know about, you know, for the longest time I think I get the Sunday New York Times and we had a change in the delivery person, so now it's double bagged. And it's wonderful. And I really thought, how on earth does this paper get to me every Sunday? Like, what's the whole process? Where is it printed? Who bags it? How does it get here? How do I get that paper? Like, I know the brilliant journalist who produced it. How does it end up on my door.
- [60:18]
A
Thank you on behalf of the somewhat brilliant journalist. That's a great question. Okay, well, no one gets the paper anymore, Justin, so that's the answer to the question. It's just you. Evolutionary biology. Evolution is going to just take out the paper and everyone involved in the delivery chain. Thank you so much for doing this. I appreciate it.
- [60:37]
B
Thanks.
- [60:46]
A
All right, if you're like me, you need a moment to decompress from like pig farmers and corkscrew penises and all of that jazz. But I totally love Justin Garcia's non judgmental, curious, open, safe view of sex and all things relationships. He has a great book that's about to come out called the Intimate Animal, which you can pre order now. And I highly recommend it. I've seen the COVID I've seen some proofs, I've read some stuff from it. It's going to be great. Great. And I just want to say I really appreciated his kind of optimism about the world of Internet dating, his long view of history, and above everything, this idea that we need to make our partners feel safe in relationships. I think there is such a temptation in our new independent world to be super cool about these things. Chill. Oh, I don't need anything. But the reality is that we are these needy, comfort seeking animals and security seeking animals. And I just thought that was a great remind reminder that I'm definitely going to keep in mind. And I hope you do too. That's it for this week. We'll be back at the end of the month with an all new season of Smart Girl Dumb Questions. And like I said, I want to know what you think. So please drop me an email mearaza101gmail.com or say something in the comments or reviews below. Tell your friends about the show and thank you for watching or listening. I'll see you soon. This episode was produced by Dana Balut, Keely Cruz, Noah Friedman and Annalisa Cochran. And our music is done by David Khan. I'm your host, Naeem Araza. Thank you and thank you to my great team. Bye.