Alex Murdaugh Convictions OVERTURNED, with Vinnie Politan and Charlie Condon, and the TRUTH About the "Sex Recession," with Dr. Debra Soh | Ep. 1316

Summary

The Megyn Kelly Show – Episode 1316 Summary

Date: May 13, 2026
Main Topics: Alex Murdaugh Convictions Overturned; The "Sex Recession" with Dr. Debra Soh

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Episode Overview

This episode of The Megyn Kelly Show centers on two major themes: the South Carolina Supreme Court’s unanimous decision to overturn Alex Murdaugh’s double murder convictions due to jury tampering by court clerk Rebecca Hill, and an in-depth exploration of the "sex recession"—the decline in sex and intimacy in modern societies—with guest Dr. Debra Soh, neuroscientist and author of Sextinction. The episode features legal insights from Court TV’s Vinnie Politan and former South Carolina Attorney General Charlie Condon, and navigates questions of fairness, legal precedent, sexuality, and culture with openness and humor.

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Segment 1: Alex Murdaugh Convictions Overturned

[00:21–51:17]

1. Breaking News and Case Recap

[00:21–07:55]

• Megyn Kelly opens with “stunning legal news”: The South Carolina Supreme Court unanimously overturned Alex Murdaugh’s murder convictions.
• Background recounted: Murdaugh, a high-profile South Carolina attorney, was convicted in 2023 of murdering his wife and son; the case drew national attention.
• Megyn emphasizes that despite a general consensus on his guilt, every defendant deserves a fair trial and impartial jury:

  “I believe he did this, but he’s entitled to a new trial...because the court clerk interfered with this jury in a way that could not possibly allow this verdict to stand.” (Megyn, 03:17)

2. Jury Tampering by Clerk Rebecca Hill

[07:55–17:38]

• Court found that Becky Hill, the Colleton County Clerk of Court, tampered with the jury—making improper comments about the defendant and case.
• Hill’s motivations included book sales, as confirmed by her writing a book about the trial, even plagiarizing a BBC journalist.
• Notably, jurors were interviewed post-trial. “Juror Z” affirmed being influenced by Hill’s comments (“this shouldn’t take long,” among others)—though other jurors denied being influenced.
• Charlie Condon remarks on the clarity the new ruling brings to South Carolina’s legal standards for jury tampering:

  “The Supreme Court has now given us a very clear roadmap here in South Carolina... when you have this kind of conduct, even if it’s going only to one or two jurors, that’s the end of it unless the state can overcome that presumption.” (Charlie, 13:05)

3. Legal and Cultural Aftershocks

[17:38–29:58]

• Vinnie and Charlie debate Hill’s intentions—naïveté versus pathological dishonesty—with Megyn advocating for the latter:

  “I firmly believe that Becky Hill is a pathological liar...this court… said she has no credibility.” (Megyn, 11:07)

• Discussion on the impact: the “moment was too big for Becky.” Small-town dynamics, international media attention, and the “air of authority” held by Hill made her influence on the jury especially harmful.
• The legal standard has shifted: material jury interference alone now suffices for a new trial, rather than requiring proof of prejudice.
• The consensus is that outstanding prosecutors and defense counsel did their jobs admirably—it was the court clerk’s egregious conduct that tainted the verdict.

4. What Happens Next? Retrial Prospects

[29:58–51:17]

• Both major political parties’ Attorney General candidates have pledged to retry Murdaugh.
• Vinnie: “When a criminal defendant wins an appeal, they win the right to be convicted again on Court TV. That’s where we’re headed.” (28:55)
• Discussion of practicalities—attorney fees, logistics, and the real possibility of a change in venue, though both experts suspect a retrial in Colleton County is most likely.
• Jury selection challenges: "Only those people who haven’t made up their minds" about the case will be eligible, leading to speculation about “egg lady” jurors less likely to convict.
• Buster Murdaugh, the surviving son, is discussed briefly; panelists express sympathy for him as a “victim of all of this”.

Memorable Quotes:

• “This is so egregious. ‘This shouldn’t take long’—what defense lawyer wouldn’t be setting his hair on fire?” (Megyn, 17:38)
• “Have you ever seen it before in all your years at Court TV?” – “No, never. Never ever, ever.” (Megyn & Vinnie, 20:13)

Key Timestamps:

• [07:55] – Charlie Condon initial reaction
• [14:14] – Cross-examination of Becky Hill (clip)
• [24:04] – Juror Z testimony (clip)
• [31:56] – The “egg juror” controversy and additional claims against Hill
• [35:06] – What next for the prosecution
• [41:58] – The kennel video as trial linchpin

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Segment 2: The Truth About the “Sex Recession” with Dr. Debra Soh

[53:13–133:04]

1. Defining the “Sex Recession”

[53:13–55:32]

• Megyn introduces Dr. Debra Soh, citing growing trends: less sex and intimacy, later marriage, declining family formation across developed nations.
• Dr. Soh affirms the “sex recession” is real and global, especially affecting Millennials, Gen Z, and particularly men:

  “People are having less sex than ever before...the statistic I keep seeing is one in three men and one in five women haven’t had sex in the past year.” (Dr. Soh, 53:59)

2. Cultural Dynamics and Gender Roles

[55:32–61:23]

• Women’s socioeconomic gains have heightened expectations (hypergamy), while men face social and institutional disfavor.

  “Women are hypergamous...prefer partners...who are more successful than they are. But our society is suppressing male success.” (Megyn & Dr. Soh, 56:20)

• The "three sixes rule" (six feet tall, six-figure income, six-inch penis) restricts the dating pool for women unrealistically.

3. Technology, Mental Health, and the Disconnect

[61:23–67:42]

• Antidepressants (SSRIs), pollution, and declining testosterone are biological contributors.
• Social media, porn, smartphones, and AI relationships promote disconnection, hinder social skills, and erode physical intimacy and emotional connection.

  “My larger concern...is not just the lack of sex, but also this disinterest in connecting...which is just as unhealthy.” (Dr. Soh, 63:39)

4. Impact of Social Media, Porn, and User Expectations

[67:42–76:46]

• Social media warp body image and sexual confidence, triggering insecurity and avoidance. Men’s standards aren’t nearly as punishing as women fear.
• Discussion of unrealistic standards and pressures—filtered images, cosmetic procedures in teens, rise of OnlyFans and extreme sexual acts as “empowerment.”
• Dr. Soh cautions: “Usually [these women] have a history of sexual abuse or some form of sexual trauma, and that’s not being addressed.” (Dr. Soh, 75:41)

5. Pornography Exposure’s Consequences

[77:08–82:06]

• Early exposure (average age 12) warps sexual development, normalizes violence in the bedroom, and increases rates of sexual abuse among peers and sexual strangulation as a porn-inspired act.
• Dr. Soh walks back previous advocacy for “destigmatizing” paraphilias, citing concerning societal trends.

6. Mainstreaming of Extreme Sexual Behaviors

[82:06–87:02]

• Critique of sex-positive influencers normalizing risky, emotionally damaging behaviors for young women.
• Dr. Soh:

  “If you’re telling women to go out and sleep with however many men, I mean one, it’s not good for the women because they’re going to get attached...If she keeps going through experiences like that, she is eventually going to hate men.” (Dr. Soh, 84:21)

7. Autogynephilia, Exhibitionism, Fetishism

[89:34–98:25]

• Analysis of “bimbofication” and autogynephilia, referencing public figures and academics in the news for extreme gender/sexual expression.
• Discussion of exhibitionist behaviors (including high-profile incidents like Jeffrey Toobin), and the exploitation of women’s spaces and children.

8. Child Abuse, Grooming, and Michael Jackson Discussion

[100:37–125:00]

• Detailed response to allegations against Michael Jackson, with Debra Soh defining biological underpinnings of pedophilia and warning against normalizing such behaviors.

• Dr. Soh:

  “For men who actually prefer children over adult partners, that is pedophilia...it’s something that is embedded in the brain, and as a result, it can’t be cured.” (Dr. Soh, 114:26)

• Discussion of grooming tactics, the overlap with certain teacher behaviors concerning gender identity, and the need for extreme vigilance among parents.

9. Solutions and Hope for the Future

[125:00–133:04]

• Return to the question of restoring healthy dating and intimacy:
  • Reduce SSRIs, processed foods
  • Address low testosterone among men
  • Restore respect for traditional masculinity and address “man-hating” within feminism
  • Encourage real-life socializing, getting off apps, learning to telegraph romantic interest
  • Men: develop a sense of humor, pursue health
• Dr. Soh recommends:

  “Meet in real life, don’t be on apps, don’t be on social media…smile very, very widely, make lots of eye contact…just keep looking at him honestly.” (Dr. Soh, 131:18)

• Humor is highlighted as a major attractor for women.

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Notable Quotes and Moments

• “I am not in fact a low IQ nut job!” (Megyn, 27:13)
• On gender double standards in education and the workforce: “You can’t go into a room and say, ‘We’re not hiring men.’”
• Dr. Soh’s reversal on destigmatizing paraphilias: “I completely take that back…Seeing how prevalent these issues have become…Sex positivity in society has been a big contributor.” (Dr. Soh, 81:16)
• On exhibitionism in academia: “They make all academics look like they’re crazy.” (Dr. Soh, 97:16)

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Key Legal and Cultural Timestamps

• [14:14] – Becky Hill cross-examination highlights the depth of her jury interference.
• [24:04] – Juror Z reflects on being pressured by clerk and fellow jurors.
• [53:59] – Dr. Soh presents “sex recession” findings.
• [56:20] – The role of women’s hypergamy and men’s declining prospects.
• [63:39] – Technology’s impact on sexual disconnection.
• [75:41] – OnlyFans and the real toll of sexual commodification.
• [84:21] – "Short-term material"—How hook-up culture disadvantages women.
• [114:26] – Biological underpinnings of pedophilia & child protection warning signs.
• [131:18] – Practical tips for finding intimacy in a sex recession world.

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Tone and Style

• The conversation remains candid, skeptical, and at times irreverent.
• Humor is frequently used to lighten discussion, especially on weighty topics.
• Legal analyses are rigorous, balanced with empathetic acknowledgment of victims and societal challenges.

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Conclusion

This extended episode of The Megyn Kelly Show is a candid, multi-layered look at fairness in the justice system—embodied in the Alex Murdaugh retrial—and the complex reasons behind declining intimacy in modern life. Megyn and her panel of experts deliver not only the hard facts, but challenge cultural trends, explore evolving standards of gender and sexuality, and urge real-world, common sense solutions grounded in personal responsibility and openness between partners. The show serves both as a legal explainer and cultural commentary, fulfilling its promise of “no BS, no agenda, and no fear.”

Transcript

[A]

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[B]

Welcome to the Megyn Kelly show live on SiriusXM Channel 111 every weekday at noon East. Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to the Megyn Kelly Show. Oh my goodness. We have, we have news for you. Second hour, we're going to be joined by Dr. Deborah. So she's got a fascinating new book and we're going to get into some of the Kristi Noem, Brian Noem issues. But we have got to begin with stunning legal news. This morning. By a unanimous vote, the South Carolina Supreme Court reversed the murder convictions of of Alec Murdoch. Mr. Murdoch is the high profile South Carolina attorney accused of shooting and killing his wife Maggie, along with his son Paul in June of 2021. His six week trial in 2023 captivated the nation. We covered it gavel to gavel here. And he was ultimately convicted of both murders. As a reminder, Here is the 911 call Alec Murdoch made when he claimed he discovered the bodies. And this call was played in Court Watch.

[C]

4147 Moselle Road. I've been up to it. Now it's bad.

[D]

Okay. Okay.

[B]

And are they breathing?

[C]

No, ma'. Am.

[D]

Okay, and you said it's your wife and your son?

[C]

My wife and my son.

[D]

Are they in a vehicle?

[C]

No, ma', am, they're on the ground

[A]

out at my kennel.

[D]

Okay, and did you see anyone? Okay.

[B]

Is he breathing at all?

[C]

No. No.

[D]

Is she okay? Do you see anything?

[B]

Do you see anyone in the area?

[C]

No, ma'.

[B]

Am.

[C]

No, ma'.

[D]

Am. What color is your house on the outside? What color is your house on the outside?

[C]

It's white. You can't see it from the road.

[D]

Okay.

[B]

Is it a house or a mobile home? It's a house.

[D]

Okay.

[B]

And what is your name?

[D]

My name is Alex Murdoch.

[B]

Okay. Did you hear anything or did you

[C]

come home and find them? I've been gone. I. I just came back.

[B]

And was anyone else supposed to be at your house?

[C]

No, ma'. Am. Please hurry.

[D]

We're getting somebody out there to you.

[B]

Murdoch, while he's continued to maintain his innocence, was found guilty and Few that watched the trial had much doubt about his guilt. However, every defendant in this country is entitled to a fair trial and to due process unfettered by influence from any third party. And that is the reason why we and other respected legal scholars have said for a while now that though, for example, in my case, I believe he did this, he's entitled to a new trial. I, I said that before I said this on this program, not because I like Alec Murdoch, but because the court clerk interfered with this jury in a way that could not possibly allow this verdict to stand. And the South Carolina Supreme Court agrees they're going to give him another shot. They've just reversed the denial of his motion for a new trial, meaning he's going to get his new trial. Because the five justices on that court found, quote, colleton County Clerk of Court Rebecca Hill placed her fingers on the scales of justice, thereby denying Murdoch his right to a fair trial by an impartial jury. Impartial jury, one that hadn't been tampered with. The court determined that the clerk shown here made improper comments to the jury and that she even wanted to write a book about the case, which she did, and that she believed a guilty verdict would help with sales. So they not only knew that she made the improper comments, they knew her motivation for doing it. And then they called in the jurors, not the South Carolina Supreme Court, but the lower court. When this whole issue was raised by the defense, because they got wind of what Becky had done, the court clerk, and they had a whole hearing with the jurors and went through them one by one. Did you hear her say anything? What did you hear her say? And the critical, the critical question, did it influence your verdict? And notwithstanding the fact that one juror, known as Juror Z, said yes, yes, it did, the lower court still refused to give him a new trial. Now, the Supreme Court in South Carolina writing, quote, accordingly, we hold Murdoch's right to a fair trial by an impartial jury was violated. And the post trial court aired in denying his motion for a new trial. Wow. So what does all this mean? Joining me now for reaction, two people who know this case very well have previously spoken to us about it and talk. Talked about it a lot on their own respective shows. Vinnie Politan, who is lead anchor for Court tv, as well as host of Vinnie Politan Investigates, and Charlie Condon, former Attorney General for the state of South Carolina and now a criminal defense attorney. This episode is sponsored by Veracity, whose founder and CEO, Allie Egan, has a story. You should hear. She is a certified hormonal health coach who experienced the effects of compromised metabolic health firsthand. For years she struggled with undiagnosed Hashimoto's. That's an autoimmune disease that impacts the thyroid. It was functional medicine that ultimately treated the underlying root causes. And now she's Hashimoto's free and the mother of two beautiful children. Allie created veracity so that everyone can access the holistic solutions and optimal health we deserve. Verasity says its metabolism ignite formula is the number one doctor recommended. GLP1 booster and natural GLP1 alternative made from a unique blend of hibiscus extracts, green coffee bean extract and magnesium. They say there are no side effects and no allergens, just two capsules with breakfast. Safe, simple and natural. So consider trying Verasity. Head to Verasity Health and use the code Megan when you're checking out, which will get you up to 65% off your order. Once again, that's V E R A C I T Y Health Co for up to 65% off. And make sure you use my promo code Megan, so they know we sent you and you get that 65% discount. Gentlemen, welcome back. What a stunning day. Charlie, let me start with you. As the former AG of this state, and I know you. You covered this gavel to gavel on a great podcast. I listened to you, dude, throughout the course of the trial, your reaction to this news?

[C]

Well, the. The decision was not surprising because the court telegraphed its feelings during the arguments. But I am really surprised, though, that it was unanimous. All five. A per curiam. They obviously got together and decided it would be best to have an opinion from everybody, not a specific justice. And I think given the notoriety of the case, they wanted the public to have confidence in its decision.

[B]

Yes, and I think the public will, Vinnie. I mean, I. People will explain to them what happened. I think most people haven't been paying attention to Becky and her role in this. But as soon as you hear what this court clerk did, you're shocked. It shocks the conscience.

[A]

No. And you know, I was down there for the trial. So as an outsider, you know, going down to Carlton county, the feeling I got from the beginning, I was calling this a big trial in a small town. And I think the trial, the moment was just too big for Becky. She didn't get it. Like she. Her eyes got really large and she knew everyone was coming in. I think at times her heart was in the right place, but she was in over her head. And I don't think she understood her role in all of this with communicating with the jury. Like, tell them when lunch is okay, Tell. Tell them what time they can leave. Tell them they. You left your eggs in the. In the jury room. But don't talk about the case. Don't talk about the defendant. And that's what she did. So, like, to me, she was very naive. I don't think she understood it. She was relatively newly elected in the position and was in over her head. And to me, to you, to Charlie, I think to all of us, it was obvious this couldn't stand. I was. The shocking part was when they brought the jurors in, Megan, like you said, and they told their stories. And the judge that, the retired judge that they brought back in for that to make the decision, not the trial judge, said, no problem because they didn't want to do it again. They didn't want to do the trial again.

[B]

Yes. And there's like this feeling that a lot of us have was like, we all know he did it. And the court even said in denying his motion for a new trial, there was overwhelming evidence against him in this case, which is a factor they say they're allowed to consider in whether to grant or not grant a motion for a retrial. I will say, I mean, Charlie, I'd love to know your thoughts because I heard you guys say nice things about this clerk, Becky, who prior to this had a good reputation. But I will say just my own impression now, and of course you've learned a lot more about Becky since you covered all this. Is not that she made a good faith mistake in not knowing what to. What she could and couldn't say to the jurors. I firmly believe that Becky Hill is a pathological liar. She's lied repeatedly. She's lied under oath. When caught here, she didn't say, oh, my gosh, I misunderstood. She lied about what she'd done. The jurors contradicted her. This court, Supreme Court of South Carolina, said she has no credibility. We don't find her credible at all. I think if you're making an honest mistake, you own it, you apologize for it. She's. She's lied at every turn. But your thoughts?

[C]

Well, it's hard to argue against what you're saying. But I will say this about Becky. I do think that Benny's right, that she. Really nice lady, former, I think, court reporter for one of our judges and she. Small town lady. Well, I think one of the telling pieces of information I got about her after the trial was that she Went on one of the, I think the Today show maybe, and she said that was the first time she had been on an airplane. And I think what had happened was that the, the notoriety of the case, the media coming in there, really went to her head. I do think I hear what you're saying about her being a pathological liar, but my sense of it is that really nice person, when she got caught with her hand in the cookie jar, so to speak, she went down the path that so many people do that are otherwise nice, good people and just kept on lying about it. So I don't know if it's her character that is immensely flawed, but I do think it's fair to say that in that moment that she did not meet the moment. And I want to say this too, in reference to the, to the judge that heard the post trial motions. I think it should be noted it really wasn't just any judge. It was Jean Toll. She was the former Chief justice of our Supreme Court. And one of the surprising aspects of the opinion is the 27 page opinion. I've read it. At the end, they commend her or her service and said it was a murky area of law. And I do think that's correct. If you read all the South Carolina cases on jury tampering, they are all over the map. You can argue both sides of that, I think very, very effectively. And what the Supreme Court has now done is they've given us a very clear roadmap here in South Carolina. The Remmer versus United States supplies. There's a three step analysis you have to go through when there's this type of contact with the jurors. And, and I do think in fairness to former Chief Justice Toll, the cases that she was looking at, they were, they were murky. And the Supreme Court recognized that.

[B]

Mm, Charlie, you're so sweet. You've always been nice and defensive of the local judges and officials involved in this case. I am not sweet inclined to give these people the benefit of the doubt, though. I thought Jean Toll was impressive as she reviewed this case. She had quite a, quite, quite a whopper handed to her as stepping in right after this case came to verdict to see whether the court clerk had queered the verdict by messing with the jurors like such an extraordinary and rare thing. And I'm sure her inclination was, having been around the block many times, not to throw this bone to the defendant because they're always trying to oversee the verdict or overturn the verdicts. It's like, you know, we see that in every case. But, but this, Becky. Vinnie, here's just one example. This is her splitting hairs. But she did lie repeatedly under oath saying she hadn't done it, she didn't have these communications and it just wasn't true. Here's one where she tried to get specific. This is where Dick Harpoutlian, former multiple time guest of many of my shows at Fox News, a great lawyer, and he represented Alec Murdoch, cross examined her on what she did and did not say to the jurors. Here it is in sought two.

[A]

Did you tell the jury not to

[C]

be fooled by the evidence presented by Mr. Murdoch's lawyers?

[B]

Mr. Harpoulian? I never talked to the jurors about any of these evidence.

[C]

The answer would be yes or no.

[D]

Then you can explain.

[C]

Did you say that?

[B]

No.

[C]

Okay. Did you ever tell the jury to pay attention to Mr. Murdoch's testimony?

[B]

To pay attention, not specifically to his testimony. I did tell the jury to pay attention to what? Just generally in the hallway when I was speaking?

[C]

Not to him?

[B]

No.

[A]

Just any witness. Right.

[C]

You got any other books in the works?

[D]

No, sir.

[C]

I mean, doesn't this make a good book?

[B]

And Vinnie, in the Supreme Court decision that we just got, South Carolina Supreme Court, they go through the testimony that they heard at that hearing, including from Jersey, a female who said that Hill told some collection of the jurors, it was later determined three of them heard it, to, quote, watch his actions. This is the day that Murdoch was about to take the stand. Watch his actions, watch him closely. She added that Hill said more, but she couldn't remember it. Jersey explained Hill's statements did influence her to find him guilty. And her affidavit Jersey submitted gave even more detailed details on what Hill said toward the end of the trial. Quoting here from her affidavit after the President's Day break, but before Mr. Murdoch testified, the clerk of court, Rebecca Hill, told the jury, quote, not to be fooled by the evidence presented by Murdoch's attorneys. Not to be fooled. Which I understood to mean that Murdoch would lie when he testifies. She also instructed the jury to watch him closely immediately before he testified, including to look at his actions and look at his movements, which I understood to mean he was guilty. And then she testified that when the jury began its deliberations, Becky told the jury, this shouldn't take us long. I mean, this is so bad. Then she said, I did have questions about Murdoch's guilt, but I voted guilty because I felt pressured by the other jurors, which would come back later. But all of that is contradicted. I mean, Becky contradicted all of that under oath. And this juror had absolutely no reason to lie, and it played directly into today's decision.

[A]

Yeah, that's problematic. Just the fact that, like, from my perspective, looking, you know, covering our system of justice every day for decades now, like a bright line. Don't talk to the jury about anything other than just logistics. We, you know, and you're. And the problem here is, like, she's, like, part of the court. And her perception in that courtroom was she was kind of like the judge's right hand, you know, gal or whatever in terms of running things. So what she says is going to have much more influence than if it was just some rando outside or if she over. Or if someone overheard one of us from the media speaking really loudly in front of the courthouse, like I was doing. Like, her influence is much greater because she's seen as part of the system and closely tied to the judge. And you know how jurors are with judges. Like, that's who they look to. Like, the judge is the one guiding them through the system. And if this is someone who's kind of in with the judge and is telling us to do something, well, I guess we should do it.

[B]

Yeah. She had the air of authority, of being connected to the judge. And I mean, this is so egregious. Charlie, this shouldn't take long. What defense lawyer wouldn't be setting his hair on fire when they heard that?

[C]

No, they had. They had. They definitely had that information. But a couple of things, not to make too fine a point here. Most of the jurors, I think 10 or 11 of them testified that there was nothing that was said to them that was untoward. That was the actual evidence at the evidentiary hearing. And in looking at juror Z, I think justice told. Wrongly hung her hat on this. But juror Z, follow me on this. She gave an affidavit in which she said, I was pressured by the other jurors. She then testified.

[B]

Yes.

[C]

That that was the more accurate statement of her feeling, meaning that the pressure on the juror, the pressure she got from other jurors was the reason that she voted the way she did, not the improper conduct. So I think justice told wrongly. Again, I'm not here to criticize the court's decision. I think overall it's correct. I mean, I do think that we now have clear standards in South Carolina when you have this kind of conduct, even if it's going only to one or two jurors. That's the end of it unless the state can overcome that presumption. The court also gave us another roadmap, though. Don't know if you recall that part of the discussion, but in the opinion, there's a court rule that you cannot, and this is a federal court rule as well, that you can't go into the. I can't have evidence about what the jurors discussed during the deliberations. The court firmly ruled that yes, when justice told former Chief Justice Toll allowed that testimony in, that was a violation of the court rule. And therefore in the future, you can't go there with this. The state is really hamstrung. It can only go by other evidence to overcome the presumption when there's a. When there's this proper improper jury tampering. So now at least we've got clearer guidance. I guess the really sad part about all this, and I think this is really the, the sad part of what's happened here is because of the really, the improper conduct of this clerk. Having sat at this six week trial and knowing the preparation that all of these lawyers had had to go into. You know, I hired the prosecutor who prosecuted the case. I knew, I knew the judge from him being a former prosecutor. Dick Hart Putland, you mentioned. He ran against. He and I were both. He was a Democratic nominee for Attorney General. I was a Republican nominee and I won that election. So all these people who are in court for six weeks every day from early in the morning to late in the day, all that is for not this defendant gets a new trial. Yeah.

[A]

And all the food truck vendors.

[B]

And they were sure to point out how great the lawyers were. The court wanted us to know that. They wrote, blah, blah, blah. Okay, Hill. Shocking jury interference was accomplished outside the presence and knowledge of the outstanding trial judge and superbly competent and professional counsel for the state and the defense. So that no one had any issue with what the judge did or what the lawyers did. It was the damn clerk, Vinnie. Have you ever seen it before in all your years at Court tv?

[A]

No, never. Never ever, ever. And in most of the cases we cover, the clerk doesn't even have any sort of role in the case. There's a bailiff.

[B]

No, the clerk gets time.

[A]

The bailiff will bring the jury back and forth and that's it. There's like one, one person usually here. Again, it's about the moment. You have to understand how small this town is. Megan. When, when we all showed up, they were afraid that we were going to starve because the Restaurants in that town are open a couple days a week, some of them only at night. So they brought. They made sure that there were food trucks for all of us. They coordinate everything. They bent over backwards to welcome everyone into town, but you have. But the people there aren't used to that. And, and, and again, I think Charlie's right with what happened with Becky. She didn't meet the moment, it got out of control and it snowballed on her. So everything that she did after the fact and trying to like, my goodness, what am I doing here now makes

[B]

her look, you're wrong. You guys are both.

[D]

She wasn't gonna make money, sell her book, Megan.

[B]

Yes, she wanted to sell her book and she knew a girl. A guilty verdict would be more helpful. There's.

[D]

That's all over the record.

[B]

How much? Not my speculation. That's.

[A]

How much money can you make from a self published book? Come on.

[D]

Have you enough to have your town

[B]

that only has restaurants open twice a week?

[A]

Have you, have you read the book, Meghan? I did. Have you read the book?

[B]

We did read large portions of it when we covered her plagiarism. Vinnie, there's a pattern of dishonesty. You stepped right in it.

[C]

I have to, I have to say. Yeah. I have to say I'm trying, Becky.

[A]

I'm trying for you, Becky.

[C]

I'm trying my best, Charlie. She needs better counsel. Yeah. I do have to say that I did read the book and I thought, boy, this book is really not that great, except that the beginning is really good. And that's the part that Becky plagiarized.

[B]

She plagiarized it, if memory serves, off of a journalist. Right. With whom she had corresponded.

[C]

Right. That was good.

[B]

Or whose stuff she thought was really good. Yeah, that's really good. So the court, we talked about it a little, but I just want to get explicit on it because we have had this legal debate on this program when it came up, and it was, what standard will the court use in deciding whether Becky's behavior is reversible error for the judge not to have considered it as a deal breaker. And the question was whether they would. Was it enough to allege and prove interference, which my understanding is that would do it at the federal court level. If you can prove interference with a juror, you know, material interference, then you can get a reversal in a new trial. Or did you also have to prove interference and prejudice, like, and it did affect the verdict. And you can prove that it affected the verdict. And that was the higher South Carolina standard. And Amazingly, the defense team, in my view, they met it. They got Juror Z to take the stand and say the following here in SOT3, was your verdict

[D]

influenced in any

[C]

way by the communications of the clerk

[D]

of court in this case? Yes, ma'.

[B]

Am.

[C]

And how was it influenced?

[D]

To me, it felt like. She made it seem like he was already guilty.

[C]

Did that affect your finding of guilty in this case?

[D]

Yes, ma'. Am.

[B]

They had it right there. Like, it was so open.

[C]

Yeah. Except that the defense put in her affidavit, which had this business about. About, hey, I was pressured by the other jurors, and then the court relied upon that.

[B]

Yeah, Charlie, let me just read that. Let me just read that, and then I'll give it to you. This is from the Supreme Court's opinion. Again, South Carolina Supreme Court. Jersey testified that when the jury began deliberations, Becky Hill told the jury, this shouldn't take us long. In addition to referencing Hill's statements, Jersey averred in her affidavit, quote, I had questions about Mr. Murdoch's guilt, but voted guilty because I felt pressured by the other jurors. She doesn't say. By Becky Hill, the clerk. By the other jurors. And that's what the judge, Judge Toll, picked up on and said to Jersey, quote, I asked you previously, was your verdict influenced in any way by communications from Becky Hill, the clerk of court? You answered that question. Yes. In light of what you said in the affidavit, which is, I had questions about his guilt but voted guilty because I felt pressured by the other jurors, is that answer that. I just read a more accurate statement of how you felt. And Juror Z answered, yes. So Juror Z did tell Judge Toll, the greater influence on me was my fellow jurors who guilted me into finding him guilty. And that was enough for Judge Toll to say, that's this is not something we would reverse a guilty verdict on. And now, Charlie, you believe the standard has been changed as a result of this opinion to sort of just say material interference is enough to get a verdict overturned?

[C]

Yes. The Supreme Court now has made it very clear, and they acknowledge it's a murky. Had been a murky area of the law. It's no longer murky. It's very clear. Remember, versus the United States is our standard, so that if you have this kind of improper conduct, you get a new trial unless the government or the state can rebut it. And so we've got a very clear roadmap here. And this is a bit off Topic. But I have to say this, Megan, the way you phrase these questions, it just shows that you have just really high level of intelligence. I can remember that. I can remember and really well articulated. And I remember seeing maybe a couple of weeks ago something about the President saying something about you maybe not being so bright. I want to say for the record that you are extremely bright, very talented and the President is wrong about you for sure.

[B]

Oh, you are so sweet, Charlie. I appreciate you vouching that I am not in fact a low IQ nut job. I love it. I didn't see it coming, but I love it. My crack, crack team has reminded me on our discussion about your best friend Becky Vinnie, that the person she plagiarized, I knew it was a journalist, was BBC journalist Holly Hondurich. And the plagiarism stemmed from emails from this reporter who accidentally sent them to Hill. They were discovered after a trove of Becky Hill's emails were made public in response to a FOIA request. The email showed that reporter Holly Hondrich sent Hill two drafts of an article she was writing about the double murder trial. And Hondurich had intended to send the drafts to her editor, also named Rebecca. When she discovered the mistake, she asked Hill to delete her emails. Hill said she would instead. Months later, Hondurich's words appeared it right at the beginning, by the way, of Hill's book. Now your sweet little cupcake Vinny Politan has got a history of dishonest behavior.

[A]

Again, in over her head. She wanted to write a book, she didn't know how to write a book. She's like, she committed to the book. And now I've got to put words on paper. I thought it'd be a little bit easier. Oh, I hear some words.

[B]

Where did I.

[A]

Let me put them on my muse.

[B]

My muse from the BBC. Okay, I want to keep going because there is a real question now about what's going to happen, Vinnie, what's going to happen now?

[A]

Oh, I'm making my reservations already. Unless they get a change of venue.

[B]

You are right.

[A]

Yeah, of course. See, this is the great thing, right, because I believe, you know, I listened to the evidence, I saw the evidence, I believe he did it. I think it was obvious once we saw the whole case. I thought it was put together very well. The defense did their best. But like, it is what it is. The facts are what they are. At the end of the day, when a criminal defendant wins an appeal, they win the right to be convicted again on Court tv. So I think that's. I Think that's where we're headed in this one. Although it does seem there'll be another slight change in some of the evidence. I think prosecutors will have to pull back a little bit. And in the way that they present some of the financial crime evidence in the case, that was another big point by the defense in their appeal. So I think they may have to rein that in a little bit. But at the end of the day, it's, it's the, there's such great evidence in this case and you have the defendant himself. I think the, the, the, the only outstanding question will be will he testify again?

[B]

Yeah, that's a good question. Wait, before I get you, because I know, Charlie, you're an expert on all this and what's likely to happen or what is going to happen next. And I want to hear that. But before that, I wanted to make an additional point on Becky. One of the issues. Sorry, but one of the issues about what she did. Okay, so she spoke to the jurors directly the day that Alex Murdoch testified and apparently the day that they got the case as well. You know, this shouldn't take long, the deliberations. But there was also the problem of what Becky Hill did or did not do with respect to the so called egg jury. Vinnie made a joke earlier about, you know, the clerk of court maybe tells you you have your eggs back in the jury room. That, that was an on point joke. And he was referencing something that really did happen in the case where one juror got disqualified the day of the deliberations, the day of the closing arguments into deliberations. And the reason she got disqualified was there'd been a question about whether she'd been discussing the case outside of the courthouse. And, and she shouldn't have been discussing the case at all at this point because they hadn't even gone into deliberations. And there was a possibility that her disgruntled ex husband had maybe said something online about this, et cetera. Well, I did not. I did. I have followed this case closely, but apparently not that closely because I missed what, what Becky Hill allegedly said to the egg juror who did get dismissed and replaced by an alternate the day that they, that she was egg juror found herself in trouble and had to go see the judge because this stuff had come out. Did she talk about the case out of school? She and good old Becky had a discussion and testimony was submitted about what that discussion was. And here is a bit of that from the proceeding before Judge Toll.

[C]

So she called or she spoke to Ms. Hill, correct?

[B]

Yes.

[C]

And Ms. Hill told her, according to the egg juror, the Murdochs probably got to him. You agree that's what she said in her affidavit?

[B]

That's what she said in her affidavit.

[C]

Okay. And then Ms. Hill asked her if she was leaning one way or the other. And the juror, egg juror said, Mr. Waters closing was good, but I still have questions. And she said, what kind of questions? And she told Ms. Hill she had questions about the guns, I suppose, couldn't find them or they were too used. And then Ms. Hill asked her, what makes you think he's innocent? And she said, the video at the kennels. And then she said, Ms. Hill said, everything the defendant has said has been lies and you should forget about the guns. They will never be seen again. Are those fleeting comments or are those egregious? Your Honor, those would be hard pressed to defend.

[B]

Yes, sir.

[C]

That would be much different from what I'm arguing this record. And then Ms. Hill told her that the full person should just go in and ask for a raise of hands and this will be over and done with and everybody needs to be on the same page. So I'm struggling, number one, with why the egg juror wasn't allowed to testify because that was directly impeaching of Ms. Hill's testimony that she said nothing.

[B]

That's amazing. So clarifying, obviously, that was not Judge Toll, who's female. That was one of the judges on the South Carolina Supreme Court who's wondering why at the Judge Toll hearing, this egg juror dismissed juror testimony was not allowed because it's a smoking gun on the character of Becky Hill. I mean, honestly, Charlie, have you ever heard of something so egregious?

[C]

Well, you, you, you're doing a very good job of prosecuting Becky, I must say. It's, it's, it's getting harder and harder to defend her. But I still stick with my earlier comments relative to. I do think that the. Benny's right. If you'd been there. I mean, Walterboro, it's the front porch of Lowcountry, very small town, really nice people. It's a. The county is, population wise, small. And so this massive international media just comes into Walterboro. And I do think it went to Becky's head, and again, not to defend her at all, what she did with this, with, with the jurors, but I just think deep down inside, I think basically she's not a morally corrupt, horrible woman. I think she's got some really good Qualities really deep. But again, it's very clear she did not hear in this trial. Very clear.

[B]

She did not. No, no, she did not meet the moment. But so that all of that is what wound up getting this ruling from the high court. And, and the question about what happens next, Charlie? So, yeah, yeah, because he already was convicted on all these financial crimes, which will keep him in jail for the rest of his life alone, without the murder convictions. So what does the state do now?

[C]

You're right. 40 years federal court sentence, 27 years state court sentence. They're running concurrently. But the, the news today is that all of the candidates running for Attorney General have said that they would re prosecute this defendant. They would take office in January. The current ag, Alan Wilson, said he would, he would re prosecute. Of course, he won't be AG when, when, when the case would come up. So it looks like. And also my understanding is the Democratic nominee says the same thing. So everybody's saying they're going to re prosecute. So I guess we'll see you soon, I guess, in Walterboro, right, Vinnie?

[A]

Yeah, I'll be there. For sure, for sure.

[B]

Is there any chance that the, that they strike a deal? Like, is there a deal to be made now?

[A]

I don't think he'll ever admit to murdering his wife and his son. He'll, he'll never do that. Even if it's concurrent. I don't think he does that.

[C]

Yeah, I agree.

[B]

And Vinny, wouldn't he also want the time out of prison, sitting in the courthouse, getting nicer meals, seeing his family? That's a much more pleasant experience than sitting in this correctional facility he's now in, which is reportedly not so nice.

[C]

A good point. It really would be. I am sort of curious of the economics here because it's my understanding that the attorneys were retained initially and that you got the sense as the trial wore on that their budget maybe got very low. I don't think this defendant is, has any resources now that I'm aware of. Everything's been taken, I think, through the civil processes. So my, my expectation would be that his current attorneys would stick with him, really pro bono. We'll see what happens. But I do think they were asked,

[B]

they were asked at Oppressor, I think, after one of these court proceedings, would you represent him if he gets a new trial? And they said, that's up to Alec Murdoch, but yes, we would. So the question wasn't then asked, what if he can't pay you anything? And it's one of those things for these well known defense lawyers. Do you do it for the pr? You know, because you're in the news every day for six weeks, it makes you a national star. It did for these guys too. Or not. Because you need to pay your bills just like anybody else. And I mean, I suppose they could do it out of the loyalty to Alec, too. Go ahead.

[A]

Well, I think when you talk about public relations, there's only a downside if they don't do it. Other criminal defendants might think a little less of hiring these guys if they're not loyal to the end, even if they're not getting paid, because they're going to presume that they got paid a lot the first time around. And I don't know what the numbers are, I have no idea. But at the end of the day, I think there's only a downside to that if they don't stay on. And by the way, there'll be a line of attorneys who will do it for free, who will jump in the case. So. So you may see a situation where maybe someone jumps in to help them a little bit in all of this just so they can continue the rest of their practice and continue to generate income.

[C]

That's a good point.

[B]

I mean, what, what about a change of venue, Charlie? Because now the whole world, but certainly all of South Carolina knows he was convicted for these crimes. So if you wanted to change the venue, where on earth could you go? You'd have to go, I don't know, to someplace without television or any electronics. Like what? What do you think Harpoutlian does to try to try to get his client a fair trial this time around?

[C]

I would think we've got 46 counties in South Carolina. I can't imagine one county that doesn't have the same amount of jurors saying what they would say about. I've already made up my mind. That is the standard. It's not that you've heard publicity, it's that can you put that aside and be fair and listen only to the evidence in the courtroom? So my expectation would be they would start in Carleton to see how it goes, and if they can't get a panel there, then to ask for a change of venue. But again, that's the strategic decision. I did get the sense, you know, Alec has a lot of local family there. I did get the sense they sort of like being there, they like being in Carleton. So my expectation we would see a retrial in Carleton.

[B]

And what do you think sticking with you on this, Charlie, because this is a particular question about the procedure. What will change in the second trial? Because, you know, it's interesting to me that Juror Z said the reason she was thinking Alec Murdoch was not guilty was the tape at the kennels. Because that's the thing for most of the rest of us that sealed his fate as guilty. He said he. I think the listening audience knows what happened in this case, but I guess I should have given a couple lines. Long story short, his son Paul was involved in this boating accident in which Paul got very drunk and ran the boat into a piling killing Mallory Beach, a teenage friend of his. The parents filed a lawsuit against the Murdochs. It would wind up spiraling to a place where Alec was going to have to make a bunch of financial disclosures and was going to have to sit for depositions and the family finances were going to come under a microscope. He panicked during all of this and I'm really short forming here, but wound up killing that son who had driven the boat, Paul, along with his mother, Paul's mother and Alec's wife. And this was done as a sympathy ploy because Alec's law firm was also looking zeroing in on Alec in the context of all this pressure on him. And he was. So he's getting examined by his law firm, which we now know he had embezzled from. He was getting examined by the community and, and potentially by these good lawyers representing Mallory Beach's family about finances, which would have put his financial schemes into the open. And the theory of the prosecution was he did this. He murdered his own family as a sympathy ploy. And it worked because his law firm backed off on its requests for documents from him. They felt so bad about what had happened. And even the lawyers representing the beach family, you know, they felt bad they were kind of going to leave him alone potentially because they just felt like, oh, this is awful. Meanwhile, that's why he did it. So back to what could happen at the next trial. Because what really I think helped do him in was he testified, even though his family was killed down at those kennels that night by two different guns and there were no eyewitnesses that he was not there, he hadn't gone to the kennels that night. He had been over with his ailing mother, who had dementia and was dying. And Paul, before he was killed, had taken out his phone and taken a video of dogs who were at the kennels. And Alex voice can clearly be heard in the background. It's very eerie. His son in that way convicted his Own father. His. His son and that videotape were the linchpin to this whole thing.

[C]

He.

[B]

It's as if moments before his death, he pointed the finger at his murderer. Actually, we've got the sound bite. We'll play it. Here it is.

[D]

Hey, he's got a bird in his mouth.

[C]

Bubba. Hey, Bubba.

[B]

It's a guinea.

[C]

It's a chicken. Come here, Mama.

[B]

Come here, Cash.

[C]

Come here, Mama.

[B]

Cash. That put the lie to Alec's claim that he had not been at the kennels. It's really what forced him to take the stand and try to explain to the jury why he lied and just sort of went on about how he'd been on drugs and he panicked and whatever. Nobody believed him. And so the question now, knowing all about the tape, Team Murdoch, knowing it's absolutely coming in, knowing how the prosecution will use it, how bad it makes him look, how he cannot get rid of it with it, with his weird explanations as the witness he thought he would be. And then there's the witness he actually was. What do they do differently? Because they. They will make different, better decisions. These are very good lawyers.

[C]

Yeah. That's an excellent summary. And, you know, I thought about this a good bit, actually, after the oral arguments at the Supreme Court, where they telegraphed, I think the decision we have today. And I've prosecuted a number of cases that came back and we had retrials when I was the prosecutor here in the Charleston area. And to my experience, a retrial typically benefits the state because, you know, what the defense is doing. I think in this case, though, it's completely different. I think the defense has a real advantage because the way that trial went down, there was all sorts of technical information that came in. It came in rather rapidly that really provided all sorts of circumstantial evidence that supported the state's theory. And I think they have a real opportunity now to reconstruct how they did things and do things quite differently. So I think it's going to. And also, I do think the defendant will not testify next time. My understanding is he wanted to testify. However, maybe they can put into evidence, since it was under oath anyway, and sworn testimony, subject cross examination, maybe they can put that in anyway. But I think the defense is going to have a real advantage here, and I think the state will not have as easy a time. There's a Himalayan mountain of evidence against him. But I do think that they're going to be put to the test a bit more than they were in the first trial.

[B]

Well, it's an interesting thing to consider, Vinnie, because you mentioned the technical discoveries that were done late that got into evidence. For example, all the evidence around the. The car. Alex Carr. And my God, your car is completely spying on you. If you have anything that was purchased within the last couple of years, it can tell them everything. Like, good luck trying to get get away with, I wasn't speeding, or I don't look at my phone while I'm driving. Between your phone and your car, they know everything you've done. It's. It's good incentive not to text and drive. But the reason the financial crimes were admitted, Vinnie, into evidence is because the defense opened the door. They opened the door. Right. That was one of the ones that. That they've regretted. I think the defense. And so the defense has the opportunity not to make these same mistakes. I think they opened the door. Didn't they open the door on the. The guy who got. The guy who shot Alec on the side of the road? The defense made a couple blunders during the course of the trial. Yeah. Cousin Eddie, that opened the door to testimony that was very bad for Alec, and they will not be doing that this time around. So, I mean, notwithstanding the fact that everybody listening to this trial in the jury box will have.

[C]

Will.

[B]

Will know he was already convicted, the trial in front of them that they're supposed to make their decision off of is probably going to be more favorable to the defendant.

[A]

Yeah, I agree. I agree. And the analysis has been perfect. But I think the biggest factor in all of this, and what's going to be the difference between trial one and trial two, is I think the defense is going to double down and try to find 12 egg ladies to be in that jury box. And I think there's a better chance to find people like that. This trial, obviously the case was big. Everybody kind of knew about it. There were a couple of documentaries. It was all the buzz down in the low country. But after the trial itself, which became bigger than big, everybody knew almost every detail about it. So now when you're looking for the jury, the prospective jurors are going to know the story. And now who's going to be left in the box? Only those people who have. Who. Who haven't made up their minds. Who are these people?

[B]

Oh, boy.

[A]

Like, who are these people? These are the people who were down in Orlando, Florida, when I was covering another trial involving a mother whose daughter's body was in the trunk of her car for weeks. That's who was left.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Like, because of how big that story was before the trial. The 12 that ended up in the jury box were the 12 that. Oh yeah, well, I don't know, maybe, maybe she didn't do it. And that's, that's. I think the defense's best shot here is that you have 12 egg ladies who, despite everything that we've seen and heard through the documentaries and now the actual trial itself, are still saying, I don't know, maybe he didn't do it.

[B]

You know, there's a weird dynamic now that's gonna be at play. Charlie that wasn't in the first trial as much, I guess, which is, I don't know, especially women, I hate to say it, they may have a bit of a savior complex here. Like I can swoop in, I can relieve him of this terrible fate. They can't really because of the financial convictions. But okay, maybe they're not, they're not gonna hear about that. They're not gonna be told anything about your verdict. Doesn't matter. He's still gonna sit in prison. We talked yesterday on this program for an hour and a half about the Michael Jackson movie and what the evidence is against him. You know, was he a child molester or wasn't he? And I do think there's a huge faction of the population that just doesn't wanna believe it. They admired him for Michael Jackson. We know why they admired him and they just won't believe it. And, and for Alec Murdoch, I think there could be a similar dynamic where he was very well known, he had a lot of swagger, he was respected in the community. Now they're going to know potentially probably that he was wrongfully sent to jail. And it's like, okay, I have the chance to be the savior.

[C]

That's a good point. I remember speaking with Descartes Putling during the trial and he said they focus grouped the case. But by far the strongest reaction they got from people who would be favoring and not guilty would be how could a father kill his beloved son and his beloved wife? And so you're right, both of you have made very astute comments. And to Vinnie, to your point, thinking about it, you make a really good point. If you haven't made up your mind based upon watching the trial, with all the evidence out there that he's guilty. If you're honest, when you come into the jury panel, you're going to tell the judge, I've already made up my mind. And you know, I think that's going to be probably a lot of people, if not most. So the Ones that are left. If you haven't made up your mind based upon what's out there, you may be very much a defense prone juror. So the state may indeed have a very hard time with, with convicting this defendant. Again, we'll just have to see. Despite the fact there's so much evidence.

[B]

Charlie, do we know what is going on with Buster Murdoch, who is the remaining surviving son, who is a couple of years older than Paul and had gone to law school but been kicked out. Right. The last I heard, for academic dishonesty?

[C]

Well, this is a bit of hearsay I'm repeating, but I think it's a reliable source. Someone told me fairly recently that he was in the, in the Beaufort area selling clothing and I believe he's happily married.

[B]

Oh, wow. Oh, well, I mean, the documentaries about the family do show him with a loyal partner who seemed to be very supportive of him. I'm going to check myself on the academic dishonesty standby, but go ahead.

[A]

Yeah, so I can verify that because we had the video, we showed it. He's selling clothing. He's trying to just live his life. He's married to, I think his wife's name is Brooklyn. She's an attorney. And you know, in all of this he kind of gets lost in the shuffle a little bit. Right, like, because he, he's got the red hair. He reminds you of, of Alec to a certain extent. But like he is a victim of all of this. Like he lost his mother, he lost his brother. I don't know exactly what he believes about his father, but at the end of the day, Buster is a victim. And you know, yeah, his last name is Murdoch, but I, I feel bad for him. I feel bad for him. Like you don't have your mom anymore.

[C]

Oh.

[B]

Some of these documentaries have him convicted of murdering this other resident of the community who was gay. And they speculated that Buster was gay. And they've basically convicted Buster of a murder that he's had absolutely no charges for. I mean, it's really. He's been through the ringer, this guy. He was indeed forced out of law school due to plagiarism. Guys, thank you. Such a good discussion. Looking forward to part two. We'll have you on plenty then. All the best to you both.

[D]

Thank you.

[C]

Thank you.

[B]

Crazy, crazy story. Missed calls and slow follow ups are silent killers. That's how businesses leave money on the table without even realizing it. That is why today's episode is brought to you by Quo spelled Q U O. The business communications system built so that you never miss a call. Your entire team can handle calls and texts from one shared number, meaning no more dropped conversations. Everyone sees the full thread, replies are faster, and your customers actually feel prioritized. Quo works wherever you are, on your phone or on your computer. You keep your existing number, you add teammates in minutes, and then you sync your CRM effortlessly. It is currently the number one rated business phone system on G2, trusted by over 90,000 businesses. To stay professional and reachable, everything you need is in one clean view. It gives your team the full context needed to provide a personalized experience every single time money's on the line. Say hello with Quo. Try Quo for free plus get 20% off your first six months when you go to Quo.comMK that's Quo.comMK. Now we're turning to an alarming trend in our culture. Despite our hypersexualized society, people are having less sex and reporting less intimacy and connection than ever before. At the same time, fewer young people are getting married, starting families, or forming long term relationships. So what's behind the decline in sex and intimacy? Our next guest is an expert on this and we are glad to have her back. Dr. Deborah Tso is a sex neuroscientist. Easy for me to say. Sex neuroscientist and author of the book Sextinction the Decline of Sex and the Future of Intimacy. Deborah, welcome back. It's great to have you.

[D]

Hi Megan, it's so wonderful to see you again.

[B]

Oh yeah, it's a. You too. I mean you were one of our first guests on this show when we were just audio only with your first book. And now it's great to have you back. And everybody should check that out too. It's called the end of gender. So you hear about this all the time, that the young people, they're not getting their driver's licenses, they're not really drinking and they're not having sex. And while I can understand those first two, there's Uber people are living with their parents longer. I don't know, drinking with the Maha world taking over is no longer favored. And by the way, some of these kids have gummies and things like that they use instead, but no sex. So what, what did you find? What is the answer?

[D]

So yeah, I was similarly perplexed by this question because I thought, yes, Gen Z, on average they are reaching typical life milestones at a delayed pace. But you would think if they are not driving and not going crazy and partying, what are they doing with their spare time instead with sextinction I wanted to determine, is the sex recession real? And I do believe it is, because I was quite skeptical before. The first study showing that there was this overall decline in sex was in 2016, and it found that Americans were having less sex than ever before. And this was especially pronounced in millennials. And this was expected to continue on for Gen Z. Now what we see is globally there is this trend of people. It doesn't matter if they are married or single, where they live in the world, whether it's the east or the west, all developed countries, all age cohorts, they are having less sex. People are having less sex than ever before. But this is especially pronounced among millennials and Gen Z and particularly men. So the statistic I keep seeing is 1 in 3 men and 1 in 5 women have not had sex in the past year. And sextion is basically a science based approach to trying to understand why are we so disconnected? What is taking the place of sex, Especially regarding what we know nowadays with screens and smartphones. I wrote the book as a guide for parents to help them understand what to anticipate in terms of child development, how to avoid making the same mistakes potentially as we made with smartphones and social media. But I would say whether you're married or single or dating or not interested in any of the above, you'll get something out of the book. Because I wrote it from that perspective. I do think this is something that affects everybody, even married people.

[B]

Well, I know you write about one of the problems because it seems to be multifaceted. The answer, and one of the problems is that as women's financial means rise, so do their demands of their partners. And unfortunately, that's happening at the same time that we are dumping on men, not allowing them into college, not allowing them into the workforce because they're men and we no longer favor them. And God forbid there are white men, or for that matter, an Asian man, they're not going to get into a good college. Like all these societal factors are conspiring to keep them down and prop up the women. But as the women get propped up socioeconomically, they want someone who's at least equal and they would actually prefer higher status to them. And yet our societies are not allowing that.

[D]

Right. So women are hypergamous. This means that they prefer partners who are at the same level of success as they are or who are more successful than they are. So this is, of course doesn't say, speak to all women, but just on average. And evolutionarily speaking, this makes sense in terms of why women prefer someone who has status and resources to provide for them and potential children. So what we have in education and in the workforce is that women are far excelling their male peers. And I think female success is a wonderful thing. I think female ambition is wonderful. But as you said, if we are at the same time intentionally suppressing male success through initiatives like diversity, having quotas that really favor women and minorities instead of over merit, and in some cases explicitly punishing men, as many of my former academic colleagues will tell me, they will sometimes experience job postings that explicitly say they are not hiring for men, especially in the sciences. There are again, lots of programs, mentorship opportunities explicitly for women and early stage researchers that are female explicitly no such thing for men. If you tried to advertise specifically for men, I think that would get shot down in two seconds. So there's this bias there. And so when you add those two things together, what happens is there's a smaller number of men who women find attractive and whom they wish to date. But the thing is men don't care as much about a partner's financial success or resources. So these highly successful men basically get their pick of women in terms of no matter how successful a woman is, all women are fighting for this smaller pool of men. And the other men who are less successful are basically shut out of the mating market.

[B]

You write about the three sixes rule, which women, many women may inherently have, but winds up being an impossibility for virtually all women. Can you speak to that?

[D]

Right. So the three sixes refers to basically top tier male specimen in terms of dating. So a man in. From this perspective, a man needs to be over six feet tall, have an annual income of over six figures and have a. I'm not sure if I can say, I'll say down, down below. Can I say on your show, a penis that is over 6 inches in length. So it, if you as a woman pursue a man who does not meet these criteria, you. It's considered settling from this perspective. So I think it's a little bit ridiculous because, because from I say a research perspective and I think if you talk to anyone who's married, those factors, I mean, there's some truth to say the annual income being enough that he can support you and your growing family, say, or wanting a partner who is taller because he can potentially protect you and offer physical safety. But you know, in terms of penis length, penis growth, it's actually a greater predictor of sexual satisfaction. So other factors like personality, common penis

[C]

growth,

[D]

we're having a Tutorial today on penises on the Megyn Kelly show. Yeah. So I think women should be allowed to want what they want. But at the same time, this is as I talk in succinction about the role of social media and just how ridiculous it's become in terms of telling both sexes that they should aspire to attract the highest status partners possible. They have to check all these additional boxes. And I mean these partner this potential partner. Not only do you have to find them, but you also have to get along. Hopefully they're nice to you, hopefully they treat you well. And things like agreeableness, that's so much more important. Chemistry. So much more important in terms of a long term relationship.

[B]

Sense of humor.

[D]

Yeah, exactly.

[B]

Totally. Yes. You know, you're right. In the book, this is actually good. Only 14.5% of men in America are over 6ft tall. I didn't know that. Only 14.5% of Men in America are over 6ft tall.$ Only 17% make over $100,000 annually. And then you write, considering that the average penis length is about 5 inches, an even smaller percentage of men will meet all three sixes. So women who, whether they're consciously requiring this or unconsciously require, subconsciously requiring this, you got to check yourself on these ladies because you are limiting the pool of potential mates down to the single digits at a time when the men are tough to find to begin with. So cast a wider net, open your heart, open your mind, and your legs ultimately to something less than 6. Sorry, I was joking. Now, what's happening on the male side, though? Because the one thing that I, when I got to this point of the book, one thing I thought first was it's probably SSRIs in some measure. Because SSRIs, these antidepressants, lower your libido. They make you not want to have sex. And so many people are on them because it's this younger cohort too, that's being like just thrown on these drugs by college counselors because they swing by the office one time and like, hey, I'm not adjusting well. Oh, here, take this. And there's really not a disclosure or discussion about how it really could lower your libido in a profound and unfortunate way.

[D]

Right. And in terms of especially children being prescribed these medications. So obviously for your audience, I'm sure there's. They're well aware, don't take advice from Deborah on Megan Kelly's Megyn Kelly's podcast. Speak to your mental health professional. But just speaking from a research perspective, we don't really know definitively what the long term effects are on of antidepressants like SSRIs on children or their sexual development in to adulthood. And so that's concerning. And the other thing is researching for this book was wild to me because there are so many toxins in our environment, in our food, in the water supply, especially when it comes to pharmaceutical waste that we may or may not be fully aware of. So even if you aren't intentionally taking antidepressants or pharmaceutical drugs or like the birth control pill, you may be in fact exposed to it without your knowing. So one of the, well, well, yeah, one of the well known side effects of antidepressants is low libido. But I would also say for people, I mean there's a larger mental health crisis going on, especially among younger, younger generations. And when someone is depressed, I mean they're mood is low, they don't really want to be around people, they isolate their self, care goes down. You know, social skills are not really the priority, socializing is not really a priority. And then the same with anxiety. So people are really self conscious. So all of these things together are creating this context or I guess mental state where people don't want to go out and date, they don't want to have conversations with people. And then with all of these surrogates coming in where you have the AI boyfriends and girlfriends, you have pornography, you have sex dolls and eventually sex robots which the technology is moving forward quite quickly. These replacements for in person sex and also connection make it easier for people to stay in this state of mind or I think make it less, make them less incentivized to want to move beyond their comfort zone. And especially I'd say for Gen Z, I really feel for them because they did grow up on screens. They don't really know a life without the Internet or social media. And so when that's your norm, you, you're not. It's a lot more difficult I think, to imagine a world that, in which that is not the center and that is not how you talk to partners or potentially meet partners or how you get sexual gratification. But my larger concern I would say, yeah, with the low libido it's not just the lack of sex, but it's also this disinterest in connecting with other people and having emotional intimacy which is just as unhealthy.

[B]

Right. It's so sad because of course if you're feeling it, you're at home alone, depressed and lonely and you just don't Want to get out there and meet people. It's like the answer to your problems is to get out there and meet people and then those problems won't exist. Like, just push yourself a little and if you actually do have a partner with whom you're having sex, your life is going to get better. You write in the book that one in eight women, citing a survey, one in eight women said using social media makes her feel less sexually desirable. This is so interesting because it's not only the problem of, oh, we all have iPhones and I'd rather watch Netflix on my iPhone or on my big screen than have sex. Which you've also found in the studies that you've surveyed that are cited in the book. So there's that, like, I just want to be distracted and escape to some series rather than have bodily contact with somebody. But it's also that for the women going online, on social media, Instagram in particular, I'm sure that I inserted, that makes the women feel less sexually desirable. And you say 1 in 11 men also reported feeling less interested in having sex with his partner after looking at social media influencers. So this reminds me, Deborah, so much. I've cited this before, but Andrew Schultz, the comedian, he's brilliant. He said once on, you know, the way the comedians have the best insights into our society. They're brilliant and they're funny and that's what makes them great. And he was saying, women, they obsess over, like, oh, God, I need to lose £20, or, you know, I'm worried about this position and how it's going to look or my cellulite or whatever. And he's like, we couldn't care less, ladies. We couldn't care less. All we want is access. We want to have the experience with you. Like, please, for the love of God, stop obsessing over those things. And that's these women are looking at these perfect women in quotes with like, the perfect curated lives. And they feel fat, they feel gross, they feel less than undesirable. Meanwhile, all their partners think like Andrew Schultz thinks.

[D]

They honestly don't care. I mean, I was reading a study of how young women, Gen Z women in particular, are looking to labiaplasty as a result of pornography exposure and avoiding sex. Actually feeling anxious about their body and anxious about having sex because their parts don't look like pornographic actresses. So when you look at social media, there's this trend overall to have a very particular look, which I go inside extinction. I talk about this timeline from going from front facing Cameras and selfies to filters to. Now we're getting to more sophisticated AI and how this is also spreading into cosmetic trends. And young in my hometown, I see teenagers fairly often walking around with injectables in their face. And I'm thinking these girls are not even done development yet and why do they feel the need to radically change the way they look? I think if women or men want to get cosmetic procedures, that's their business and I'm not judging that at all. I think especially if you have a public facing job nowadays there's so much pressure. So I fully understand that. But for my, my concern is for children especially or young women who are essentially, you know, there's no reason, there's absolutely no reason. And the only reason to me is because there are, you know, vested interests that want to push this on a generation so that they feel insecure and they feel that they need to look outside of themselves to fill that gap or to spend their money on things they don't need. So with regard to say social media, I think it's really unfortunate that even people who have partners are not interested in having sex with them or even something as simple as just being on your phone, swiping or scrolling when you're with your partner. There's so many times when I'm in public I'll see young couples, I'll think, oh that's really sweet. And then I'll see both of them are on their phones together, they're not interacting. The only time they interact is when they point, they point at their phone to each other. So, you know, I think we'd all benefit from spending less time on our screens but also to, for younger generation to be aware that this is really not something you need to be worried about. And like you said, men are just happy, they're happy with what they can get. They're not going to notice that insecurity that you have. And I would say even as we get older as women, men love it, men love milfs, so we have nothing to worry about.

[B]

Yes, I think that's right. And I think most women actually do want and would be very happy with a man who is good to them, who's kind to them, who pays attention to them, who, who potentially can provide for them and wouldn't obsess over, you know, exactly how tall he is, et cetera. It did remind me that discussion that your reference to what we see online and how it's like young girls have these images that are not realistic. This isn't about a Filter. But it is about obvious, in my opinion, disordered eating. Demi Moore is at, I think it's Cannes, right? The Cannes Film Festival is going on now, and. And she's shockingly thin. She looks truly anorexic. There was a screen grab of her. The New York Post wrote this, but they weren't the only ones. They're not the only ones who phrased it, but they were like, oh, her toned arms were all the talk at Cannes. Well, correct me if I'm wrong, and it's not Kahn my team. But in any event, you see this picture of her, Deborah. She is skin and bones. The outreached arm does not look like an arm with some muscle, you know, and it's just toned, you know, like Angela Bassett, right, who infamously or famously played Tina Turner and rocked that body as well as Tina did. She looks like a Holocaust victim. Forgive me, but I mean, it's like just barely any muscle. Can we put the picture on the board, please, of just a teeny, tiny, like, sinewy thing attached to a bone, and the elbow is protruding. The elbow bone is like. I mean, it always protrudes on everybody. You can see that bone. But I'm telling you, like, projectile. And this should not be celebrated. This really, to me, should be. I don't want to condemn her because I think there's something she's dealing with, something emotionally, obviously, but we need to speak out and say, no, no, no, no, that's not healthy, and it's not. It's not attractive. I. With all due respect to Demi, I think we actually need to shame it and say it's unattractive, because without that added layer of shaming it, you're not going to stop young girls from wanting to emulate it.

[D]

And she is so naturally beautiful, too. So it's. I mean, I can only imagine what her life is like, and I imagine she's under a lot of pressure to being in the spotlight. So my. My issue with the glamorization of particular. I guess a certain narrative around women's bodies or sexuality is when you see especially older celebrities, and I'm not trying to shame them for their age, but it's like when they're trying to make a comeback, it's about their sex appeal. It's almost always they're half naked and there's a big, splashy, you know, coverage of them with their bits out, saying, her comeback is here. Oh, she looks so young. She looks so great. She's usually had quite a bit of work done, which is fine, but My concern is for girls looking at this and saying, you know, this is a famous woman, very successful woman. And yet all the, all she has seemed to. Has to, all she seems to have to offer from the media's perspective is her sexuality. And it's not just that she's, you know, in, out in the sunshine, enjoying her day. It's. She's always very barely dressed. And again, there's nothing wrong with women who want to show off their bodies. But there's something. To me, it's like the, that her value is not that great unless she's half naked. And I can only imagine what it's like being a girl, because growing up, you know, we had fashion magazines, we had advertising and things like that, but it wasn't to the extent that it is now where you're constantly bombarded. You cannot open your phone without seeing this stuff if you're on social media. And it's to such an extreme where in some cases, oh, my goodness. When I think about. I was in a clothing store a while ago and it's like, don't ask me why I'm in a teen fashion store. But anyway, I was there and the advertising looked like quite literally softcore porn. I was stunned. It took me a second. I said, where am I? You know, and for teenage girls who are emulating this, I don't really understand in our culture especially that's so focused on pornographic imagery and, you know, making money selling your body, using your sexuality, taking all the money you can for men and making money however you can hustle, all that stuff. And it's just, I don't feel that's an appropriate message for young girls. And I don't think it's good for their self esteem either.

[C]

No.

[B]

I asked my team to pull this Lily Phillips. She's one of the only fans. I don't, I don't think you can fairly call her a model. I mean, I, with all due respect, she's a prostitute. I mean, she takes people's money and she has sex with them. So you tell me what you'd call that. So she. I'm, I'm very interested in this woman. And there's a couple more who just like her who are setting these records for having sex with. In her case, it was first like 37 men in a day, and then it was a hundred men a day. And I think she did a thousand men in a day too.

[D]

Bonnie Blue, I think, or at least it was her competitor.

[B]

Okay. Yeah, I know there's, there's more than One. And, and it's not just the two of them, by the way. So this caught my attention because she, she later sat down for an interview with the BBC and they found, they found this moment with her. Okay, so here's what happened. She, she. I wound up watching the documentary. Not, not the actual OnlyFans video, but the actual documentary of some filmmaker who was with her in the lead up to this 100 men in a day and post the 100 men in a Day. And in the lead up, she talked very cavalierly about it.

[D]

She was really excited.

[B]

I love sex. It's just something that I've always loved. My parents know they're not proud, but they support me and you know, it's just who I am. So there's. I'm not being forced into it, so there's no shame. But then she, she has the experience and each men, each man gets five minutes with her is the way it worked on that 100 men thing. And it was really so gross. She explained to the documentarian that she, she started off by giving most of these guys oral sex with no condom. So like a hundred men, no condom. And then she'd have actual sex with them and they would have to wear the condom and the, the room. I'm sorry to be too gross, but people should know the room in which she did this in her own apartment when, when the documentarian walked in with his cameraman after everybody had. Had left, the cameraman literally gagged from like the sights and smells of the room. So this is. This woman's like, happy go lucky, you know, only fans existence where she, she just casually has sex with a hundred men. And this guy. I'll get you the name of the documentary because he did a good job in sort of. He was sensitive. What? Oh, she texted, okay, let's see. It's. It's on YouTube and it's by a guy named Josh Peters. P I E T E R S. He was sensitive about her to what she'd been going through. And he kind of knew what was coming, I think before she did. And here is a soundbite of him talking to her right after it was over.

[D]

And it just took definitely a lot longer than I thought it was going to be.

[B]

I think it was when it was

[D]

only like 40 and I was like,

[B]

I'm not even halfway yet. Yeah, and 40 is still a lot of people.

[D]

It's not for the weak girls, if I'm honest. It was hard.

[B]

I don't know if I'd recommend it.

[C]

Why not?

[B]

I Think if you're a different type of girl, it's very, like.

[D]

It's kind of like being a pro in a sense of.

[B]

Like, it's just a different. Feeling.

[D]

I don't know how to explain it.

[C]

Like, it's not like just having sex with someone.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[D]

Just one in, one out. Like, it feels intense.

[C]

Like more intense than you thought it might.

[D]

Sorry.

[C]

Okay, okay. Just take. Yeah, one minute.

[D]

I feel so sorry for her.

[B]

It's so sad. I mean, that the reality of what that does to you did hit her, and I don't even think she understood what she was dealing with there.

[D]

Deborah, what I find so disturbing is that this message is being sent to young girls that it's empowering for you to sell your body, whether it's by producing your own nudes and selling them on platforms like OnlyFans, or if it's working as a sugar baby, which is basically prostitution rebranded for a higher set of buyers, in terms of women, say, wanting to pay off their university tuition or getting expensive handbags and shoes and vacations and free plastic surgery. But that's the reality. It's not good for anyone, I would say, but especially for the young women who gravitate toward this line of work, usually there are underlying reasons as to why they find it interesting or potentially enjoyable. Usually they have a history of sexual abuse or some form of sexual trauma, and that's not being addressed. And especially with the societal messages and saying that it's great for women and that this is very entrepreneurial of spirit, it's not good for them. And I do think unless they are able to heal from those wounds and deal with underlying causes, it's going to lead to more tragedy in their own lives here.

[B]

Speaking of something that happened to you when you were little. The same woman, Lily Phillips, and I don't mean to dump on her because, honestly, I feel bad for her. She seems like a sweet person and I. I really genuinely feel sorry for her. I think she needs help. She doesn't need more people signing up for her only fans. But she gave this interview to BBC Newsnight, and listen what she said here. Stop. 55.

[D]

Honestly, I probably watched pornography first when I was maybe 11, and so I've always known about it. I've always knew it was a thing, and I always thought it was very normal to watch. And I personally don't think pornography is a bad thing in moderation.

[B]

But if you started watching it at 11, I mean, that is so young. Can you describe how it has influenced you and your brain and your outlook on sex.

[D]

You know what, it actually made me really sex confident and learn a lot of things. I mean, that's mostly how I learned through pornography. And I do think it has a positive effect on me just in terms of understanding things a little bit more.

[B]

Is there a direct link between you watching pornography as you grew up and the decisions you've made to do what you do now?

[D]

I think maybe. I mean, I don't know, a life without pornography. So maybe.

[B]

What do you make of that, Deb?

[D]

Oh, boy. I mean, it's tragic, but this is the reality now. The average age at which kids are exposed to porn is 12. One in seven kids sees porn for the first time at age 10 or younger. And it's that age is getting younger and younger. And it's. I don't blame parents because they didn't know, but from access to smartphones at such a young age. So the minute a child gets their own smartphone or device, they have access to Internet pornography. And especially I would say when you're on the Internet and platforms are to some extent incentivized to want to hook children at a young age because then you have basically a customer for life. Even if they're not paying for the content, you're going to be able to monetize their views and their clicks. So I have read countless reports of how this is really warping channels children's sexual development in terms of an increase in child. On child sex crimes where you see children abusing their younger siblings or classmates. It's some really, really horrific, horrific things that are happening. But also this larger trend of violence in the bedroom, especially among Gen Z. I have not spoken to a zoomer who has not experienced this to some extent. Either they have asked a partner to choke them during bed at Dirk Sex or they have had a partner ask them to. So it's primarily men choking women. So either women asking men to choke them or men wanting to choke the women. And I don't believe this is an organic preference that this generation just happens to have. I do think this is mostly from pornography. For people who do enjoy being humiliated or physically hurt or potentially terrified during sex, that speaks again to more of abuse or neglect and in childhood that has led them to have a very pathological view of sexuality. But for the most part, I do think it's porn. And I don't even think most men or women actually enjoy doing this. I think that from porn they've learned or they believe that the opposite sex wants this. And that's why they do it. So people have been very upset at me for saying this. They say like, no, this is just a quote unquote consensual thing. I remember the first time I did your show, I talked about paraphilias, which are abnormal sexual interests. And I said that this is something, something that should be destigmatized. I completely take that back because in writing Sex Tinction and doing this additional research for the book, just seeing how prevalent these issues have become, and I do think so called sex positivity in society has been a big contributor to that. Because now what you have is young girls will see pornography at whatever age, hopefully not that young, but probably they will. And they will be horrified and disgusted by it, but they'll say, well, this is what boys want. And who am I to say I don't like it? Because you know, society's telling me that I have to be open to anything. If I don't like it, maybe I just won't have sex at all. I'll just say this is not for me. Which might be contributing to why young people are not as interested in sex. Or say there are boys who say, I don't want to choke my partner, so maybe I'm better off just being, staying over here, not getting involved in the dating market. And so what happens is instead people don't feel like they can actually advocate for themselves when they get into a sexual relationship, which can then lead to, in some cases, non consensual things happening, people getting hurt. In the case of sexual strangulation, you can die. Brain damage is very possible as well. In some cases it's accidental if people are under the influence, if they do happen to be drinking or on drugs or even in the dark or they don't know their partner. Well, I've heard of people choking someone on the first date. You know, it's absolutely insane. It's so dangerous. And so I really think, you know, whatever we can do to prevent this early exposure to pornography. Because someone like Lily Phillips, I can't speak for her, but it really is heartbreaking to hear her speak about this in this way and to say she, she doesn't know a life without porn. I can't imagine, you know, going through before you've even had your first crush or your first kiss, being exposed to this and not knowing what to make of it. And especially if a child doesn't have a parent or someone they trust whom they can go to to talk about it, it can be really distressing.

[B]

I hate to say it, but there's this other woman, this sex podcaster, Alex Cooper, is doing damage daily on her show. In my view. She. She was just out there. We played the sound bite a couple weeks ago of her saying, hey, you know, if you want to give it up on the first day, including anal, good on you. You know, no problem. No guys, like going to run away. They're not going to not call you because you gave them that. On date one. What is beyond idiocy, it's actual. That to me is actual dangerous talk, is trying to normalize that kind of behavior for your average young woman. Sure. Just give it. Give it up entirely on date one. Don't make him wine and dine. You don't get to know him. Don't establish a trust. Don't, you know, make sure that the person who's listening to you, Alex Cooper, has a strong ego and a strong family life and can understand that actually doing that might diminish her in massive ways in her own mind. Before we even get to what it does in the man's mind, it's just so irresponsible to talk like that about a very intimate act, a couple of them with a young audience, which is who's listening to her. I just find it so. So it's not just the Lily Phillips of the world who at least you have to, like, go find on only fans and I guess pay for. It's this, like this. Her podcast is very popular. She's also on Sirius xm, which is where we're airing right now. So she's been sort of mainstreamed, and I'm sure some of what she talks about is mainstream, but this is who she is. This is what she's advocating for young women.

[D]

Yeah, I completely agree with you. And again, I don't know Alex Cooper, so I can't speak to her motivations. But what I will say from an evolutionary perspective is it's very common for women to compete with other women for male sexual partners. Right. It's called intrasexual competition. So what I have observed some women do, and it makes sense again from an evolutionary perspective, is they will give women bad advice so that it will sabotage their ability to attract a good partner. And especially if a woman, a woman has a partner, it's called mate guarding. So she'll give other women bad advice or make them denigrate themselves so that other men don't find them attractive, so that her potential partner won't leave her for someone else. So if you're telling.

[B]

Interesting.

[D]

If you're telling Women to go and basically sleep with men on the first date, do whatever a man wants, do whatever. I believe the term she you used was whatever feels good to your body. And again, I'm. This is just my personal opinion, but I don't believe that's good advice. Because men have basically a dual mating strategy in terms of how they evaluate their partners. So they are looking for either wife material or they are looking for short term. And they may be looking for these two types of women simultaneously. So in many cases they will have say a wife, but they'll also, this is obviously not morally good, but they will be say cheating with shorter term material on the side. So they. Shorter term material women. I don't feel this way about women. This is just how men categorize women is, you know, women who tend to be more, say, promiscuous, more sexually available. So they'll have sex with them short term, but they definitely are not going to invest in them, they're not going to ever give them a ring. Whereas long term material women are the ones who they will invest in. They see a future with this person, they will have a family with this person. Because men do not are generally averse to promiscuity in women because they see that as well. If her sexual history involves very many partners with men, say she didn't know very well, there's a good chance that's going to continue. If I wife her up and do I want to find out sometime down the road that she's cheated on me with someone and I've been raising this child who I believe is my own, but has actually been sired by another man. So that's where, that's the psychology behind it. So if you're telling women to go out and sleep with however many men, I mean one, it's not good for the women because they're going to get attached. Because women release more oxytocin. Oxytocin during sex than men do. So women are gonna get more attached after sex than a man will. And the other thing is men, their bonding hormones go down to zero after ejaculation. So they're really into you when you're, they're having sex with you. But the minute they have their orgasm, that basically shuts off. So the sexual system between the sexes is very different. And so as a woman, she's gonna long for him after, he's not gonna care about her. And then what is that gonna do to her long term? If she keeps going through experiences like, like that she is going to eventually hate men. I actually wrote about this recently for the Globe and Mail about how we see this. We talk, I mean, media talks a lot about online radicalization among men and say the manosphere, which I think is very important that we call that out. But you see a similar trend happening among young women. And so if they're going through the motions of this where they're, or these experiences where they are constantly hooking up with guys and getting their heartbroken each time and they don't understand why, they start to blame men instead of saying maybe this is not the best decision. Especially when you have the culture telling them, oh, this is, you know, sexual liberation. This is good for you as a woman. Just do what, do what you want to do. And also it's very likely she's not even going to have an orgasm from a one night stand because women have to be very relaxed. They have to trust their partner in order to enjoy their experience. And if it's a guy you don't know, it's not going to happen.

[B]

Yeah, I love that you're shorter term material. You're, you're labeling yourself shorter term material. Is that really what you want? Is that your goal? All right. This is so fascinating. Deborah, I love talking to you. Stand by. We're gonna take a quick break and then there's much, much more I have got to ask you about. Brian Gnome. Oh, by the way, just to reiterate, the name of the book is Sextinction the Decline of Sex and the Future of intimacy by Dr. Deborah so s o h, when there are supply constraints on commodities, prices surge. You see it with the fuel prices happening right now, right, As a result of what's going on in the Strait of Hormuz. And you know what else is a limited commodity? Gold. They mine it out of the ground and when it's gone, it's gone. Governments cannot just print more of it. And that is why everyone from central banks to savvy savers consider diversifying with gold. If you've been thinking about it for years but have never moved some of your savings into physical gold, consider Birch Gold Group. Now through May 29th, Birch Gold is giving four first time gold buyers a rebate of up to $10,000 on qualifying purchases. For details and a free information kit on diversifying into Gold. Text MK to the number 989898. Birch Gold can help you convert an existing IRA or 401K into a tax sheltered IRA and physical gold. Text MK to the number 989898 to see if you qualify for a first time gold buyer rebate of up to $10,000. Here with me now, Dr. Deborah Soh s o h sex neuroscientist and author of the book Sextinction. So interesting and so many great nuggets in here. Okay, we gotta spend a minute on Brian Gnome. What is that? What is that? Where the man not only wants to be across from. From somebody with the enormous breasts, like the. They call it Bimbo iFication. Like 3000cc was the number that was thrown out of some huge number. And he, you know, he wants to see her in that, but he himself wants to wear that stuff. This is him we're showing pictures of from the Daily Mail. He himself wants to pretend he's got the enormous boobs and wears the teeny tiny girl shorts and like wants to be called, I think, was it like a slut? He wanted the women to call him like girl names as if he's transitioning. You tell me what's going on there, Deborah.

[D]

So I always want to start with the same caveat in that I don't know this gentleman, so I can't speak to his particular presentation. But just in terms of what this, say, research literature would suggest, definitely autogynephilia. So this is, and I believe that was your assessment last time as well. So autogynephilia, in that some men find it sexually arousing to have the body of a woman. So I talked about this in my first book, the End of Gender. And this is one of the main motivators for transition nowadays. So when you see someone who's born male who, quote, identifies as female in some cases has medically transitioned, but is extremely aggressive and is basically screaming at biological women who refuse to go along with this or who say things like, there are differences between you and me and you should not be in our bathrooms, you should not be in our sports. So that is one part of the puzzle in terms of eroticizing a woman's body. But then the bimbofication is a part of that because that's a part of the expression of autogynephilia. It's basically like a very extreme form of a woman's body. And no woman wants to actually look like that, or very few women do, I'll say. And the women who do choose to look like that probably have some form of psychopathology in terms of why they'd want their breasts to be so enormous. So that that basically is the focus of their entire being. Right. When you look at someone who looks like that, the first thing you're looking at is her breasts. And most women, that's not what they want. So there's that aspect. There's definitely a sexual and masochism aspect in that. The desire to be called, what was it? Slut, I think. Or degraded. So sexual masochism. Yeah. Revolves around human humiliation and.

[B]

Yes. Hold on. I think my team just sent me something on this standby. Yeah, let's see. The New York Post reports that he allegedly once told the dominatrix he wanted to leave his wife and become the sex workers trans bimbo, revealing his desire to go by the name Crystal, of course.

[D]

Yeah, that's a lot. So it speaks to. Again, there's a lot. The enjoyment of being degraded. And again, most healthy women do not desire to be called a slut. If you call a woman a slut during sex, should be very offended. So the fact that there's an individual who's male who is enjoying this speaks to. Again, there's a weird interpretation of what I think some men believe women want during sex because they are not women. So they don't actually know what it's like to be a woman and they've not experienced sexual harassment or assault in their life. So in some cases, like they. They think that being degraded is somehow a joyful thing. But then the other piece I would say is there's an exhibitionistic aspect. So exhibitionism is typically someone who wants to expose themselves to an unsuspecting person or people and they find it sexually arousing to see the other person's expression where they get shocked or very, you know, terrified or disgusted. So there seems to be an element of that here because even though it's not necessarily the genitals, if there's still an aspect of wanting to shock people, get attention. And then there are also histrionic traits in that it's wanting to be provocative, wanting to again get a lot of attention, attention seeking, using sexuality or. Or sexual language to get attention. So again, if this is someone who's being paid to talk to him in a sexual way, then there. But there's some, there's something about the exhibitionistic aspect because they, There's a bunch of different reasons why people will do this. Sometimes they're antisocial and they just get kicks out of people being really uncomfortable. But in some cases they want to get caught. The joy is again a masochistic element of. Especially if you're including your face in photos that are very sexual or potentially humiliating. There's an underlying desire maybe at a Subconscious level of wanting to be found out. Because nowadays people can send sexual images without their face. Most people would send them without their face. Right. They would probably. Or cut the head off in the photo so that they can't be identified.

[B]

Okay. This is very. This, this is reminding me of a discussion we had on the air about Jeffrey Toobin. Of course, he was the CNN Supreme Court analyst, and he's written books on the Supreme Court. Like one of the most austere, respected sober legal analysts they had at CNN who was caught masturbating on a zoom call with colleagues in advance of the 2020 election. And he, like, I guess he thought the zoom was over, allegedly. And he. He dropped Trout and. And jerked off right there in front of all of his colleagues. Not at cnn. This was for his other gig on the magazine. I don't know. I think it was with the New Yorker. And wound up losing his gig. But there. I can't. Don't remember whose theory it was because somebody came out on the show right after and that was their theory, that it wasn't a mistake. That at some level he did it because he wanted. He wanted them to see him doing it.

[D]

And I mean, from a very rational perspective, you can't think that you're going to go, say on a zoom call or sending photos to women you don't know very well of yourself, looking a certain way and think that it's not going to get leaked or that you aren't going to be. I mean, people are not going to.

[B]

Well, he claimed he thought he had disconnected. You know, he thought he had left the zoom. But there really is a question about. Because even, let's say you're going to do that, any sane person who had just been on a zoom with their entire newsroom at the New Yorker, you'd think would be, like, really sure it was disconnected and the laptop was closed and, like, no one was. And he not only didn't make triply sure, but it was on and the zoom call was still going. Like, how could he not know? The more I think about it, how could he not know? And you're saying that that. Is that a kink? Is that what we're describing, Like a kink where you need. You kind of need to be humiliated?

[D]

Yeah. Well, again, for. So the Tuban situation, I. And I don't have. I always want to preface it just to be clear that I'm not necessarily speaking to that individual, but I would say, you know, there have been case studies of men who do this where they Even if it's not happening in real time, they will be masturbating afterwards. Thinking about people being horrified and disgusted at the seeing their penis. Or I wonder if someone's on a call. If it's a video call, say, and they quote, accidentally have the call on while they're doing this. Whether it's so they can watch their colleagues expressions of horror and disgust as they're doing it. As the colleagues are noticing. Hey, what is that? What's going on over there?

[B]

That's such a nightmare to think about.

[D]

I would like to say though, okay.

[B]

On the same.

[D]

I really feel for Kristi Noem and her family and I just, my heart goes out to her. And I also hope that this gentleman gets the help that he needs.

[B]

Yeah, amen to that. Before we leave the subject of Brian Noem, there's sort of something related happening at Oxford. We talked about this with our audience. His name is, uh, Matt. I'll spare him the indignity of using his last name here, but he's a lecturer and tutor at University of Oxford, of course. And this is how he presents. Look at this guy. He is. He's got the same enormous boobs that Brian Gnome pretended to have. He's in a low cut dress. He also has a bald head, a full man beard. Do we have the sound bite of it here? Listen to him talking about. This is just from January. Listen to this guy. I'm in the process of putting a website together and that is proving to be huge, much harder than it probably should be. And the problem I'm running up against is incredibly low syndrome. Classic. Basically, what does it mean to be

[C]

an expert in something?

[D]

Because it's really not.

[B]

It's all academic talk. You get the gist. Totally bald with his beard is rubbing his fake breasts again. To me this looks like an autogynephile.

[D]

Oh my God. I don't know why they have to do this, especially as an academic. The two, they make all academics look like they're crazy. This is not why.

[B]

And shame on Oxford for hiring him. Shame on them.

[D]

Again, my assessment, again, I don't know this person, but my personal assessment would be probably something exhibitionistic, maybe a little bit of narcissistic personality disorder in there and that this person is talking about how he has imposter syndrome. Clearly you don't feel like you're an imposter as pretending to be a woman here. Isn't that probably a more pressing point? Yeah, but yeah, definitely with the low cut. I mean, if you as a. I say Someone, as someone who was working, obviously in the sciences, you would not dress like that and want to be taken seriously as a woman. You just wouldn't. I mean, whether that's fair or not is one question.

[B]

If a woman wouldn't dress like this, how do they let a man pretending to be a woman dress like this? You know, they, they. If a woman teaching at Oxford showed up with her breasts almost out of her dress, someone would almost surely say, yo, Deb, Meg, it's a no cover up. But this guy will get away with it because he's a man and, you know, this is his special identity. And nobody wants to offend, right?

[D]

No one wants to get fired if they tell him that he should cover up or maybe put the prosthetic breasts

[B]

away, even though it's another Kayla Lemieux situation, like the shop teacher up in Canada. It's like, do your sexual fetish behind closed doors where our students, our children do not have to participate in it. And for the ladies in Gold's Gym in California, same, you know, I mean, we played the videotape that we got our hands on. It was on social media for a brief period of one guy who was in the Gold's Gym. I think it was Gold's. All the gyms in California allow this, and many of them have been subjected to this, where the guy was beating off inside the stall, inside the women's bathroom, which was inside the locker room. And a young girl came in and to her credit, she took out her phone and she videotaped it. And you, you couldn't see his actual naked body, but you could see the shadow down below. He was clearly jerking off. And she and her boyfriend then came in too, and let this guy have it. They didn't hurt him. They just started yelling like, get out of here. And then the employees came in, they were like, oh, there's nothing we can do. There's. They're making women at Planet Fitness, they're making women and girls and students here at Oxford participate in these sexual fetishes, which just seems so exploitative and damaging. Deb.

[D]

Yeah, it's so egregious. And especially when it comes to self ID in places like women's spaces. Who is going to exploit this? Of course, sexual predators. And we've seen in some cases they are convicted sex offenders who are the ones going and saying, well, I identify as a woman, so there's nothing you can do about it. And in fact, if you try to kick me out, I have the right to complain. But in the in the case of say men who have these proclivities in terms of exhibitionism, their, their interactions with people may seem very benign. But again it say, say with someone who's a lecturer and is interacting with, with students looking a certain way, they in my opinion are probably masturbating thinking about it after in terms of how uncomfortable the students are, how the students probably want to say something but don't feel they can because this is someone's so called identity. So they're going to get in trouble and if anything they're going to get removed from the university if they complain. So this is basically emboldening sexual predators and I just find it so, so disgusting.

[B]

Deborah, if you don't mind, could you stick stay over to the opposite of this break for just a brief period because there's a couple things on your book that I want to touch on and one other subject that I want to get to. Deborah so is our guest today. We're talking about her book Sextinction, the Decline of Sex and the Future of Intimacy. Stand by. Our sponsor, the Electronic Payments Coalition says Washington politicians are always getting in your wallet and that now they're messing with your credit card. They say your credit card and the security it offers are under attack and that Senators Dick Durbin and Roger Marshall want to change the nation's payment system to benefit corporate megastores like Walmart and Target at the expense of everyday Americans. Credit cards can keep your payments secure and provide rewards that families use to help make everyday purchases more affordable. The Electronic Payments Coalition says the Durbin Marshall mandates would let corporate megastores cut corners on credit card processing, routing transactions over check cheaper untested networks with weaker security and fewer protections. Find out more about [e-mail] and consider telling Congress to guard your card. Hey everyone, it's me, Megyn Kelly. I've got some exciting news. I now have my very own channel on Sirius xm. It's called the Megyn Kelly Channel and it is where you will hear the truth unfiltered with no agenda and no no apologies. Along with the Megyn Kelly show, you're gonna hear from people like Mark Halperin, link Lauren Maureen Callahan, Emily Drischinski, Jesse Kelly, RealClearPolitics and many more. It's bold. No BS news only on the Megyn Kelly Channel, SiriusXM 111 and on the SiriusXM app. Back with me now is Dr. Debra so. She is the author of the book Sextinction the Decline of Sex and the Future. Of intimacy. We've got a couple things that we got to get to, including solutions. Okay, but before we do that, I wanted to ask you about something that happened on the program yesterday. We took a deep dive into the allegations against Michael Jackson because there's this new huge movie out about him that is just crushing it at the box office. Has already made a couple hundred million dollars. They say it could make a billion dollars. His brand is officially back. The movie completely ignores the molestation scandal. And there are all sorts of reasons why they chose to do that. One is it works better just to paint him as this music icon. Yay, everybody feels good and goes home. The second is they actually did originally reportedly have a section in there that tried to debunk the allegations against him and then were reminded that settlement agreements with some of the accusers prohibited them from saying anything about it. And so they had to remove what had been a preexisting section of the movie, trying to rebut the allegations. But unfortunately for Team Jackson, just as this comes out, this family that Michael was very close with in New Jersey, it's a crazy story. If you guys haven't listened to yesterday's show, do it when you have some time. So the whole thing was really fascinating. I thought we had Mark Garrigos on who knew Michael and represented him. But this family with whom he'd been very close, he like adopted them and they adopted him from New Jersey regular family. The dad had been a manager at the Plaza Hotel and he had met Michael and they didn't have a lot of money and Michael took a liking to him. And then he introduced Michael to his four children, three little boys and a girl, I think all single digits. When they first met Michael, he started going out to New Jersey regularly and visiting with them. And then it morphed into like this, quote, second family. He actually, after 9 11, Michael moved into their little New Jersey modest home for three months. Imagine this, like regular family, middle class, in, in New Jersey, suddenly has Michael Jackson living with them. He would bring his chimp, I mean, the worst house guest ever. So it's, it was a crazy story, but they were always his best witnesses. And they always said, never, never, never, never. And they talked about how when the molestation scandal would rear its head because it happened repeatedly over the years, they'd say to their children, God, anything didn't. And the children said, absolutely not. He's never laid a finger on us. He's been a complete gentleman. He's a member of the family. No, no, no, no. No, the family wound up letting the kids go on tour with Michael. You shouldn't do that. Don't let your child go away with an adult, not his or her parent, and sleep in their bed, which is what was happening. And now after they saw the documentary in quotes, because it really wasn't one, but it was two guys telling their alleged stories, leaving Neverland in 2019. One of the four now adult children, they're in their, I think, 30s now, said to the other siblings, he did do it to me. I was lying all those years when I said he didn't. And all three of the others said, me too.

[D]

Wow.

[B]

And so they've all now come out in a documentary that aired on 60 Minutes Australia in very powerful testimonials with great detail, and said exactly what they claim Michael did to them. Now I've got to put a big asterisk at the end of it because they are suing his estate. And his estate now is more flush with cash than it has been since he died, thanks to this movie. And they say they have another one, like a follow up they're about to drop as soon as this one falls out of the public eye. So they're gonna make hundreds of millions of dollars at a minimum. So their pockets are deep again. And, you know, I just, no offense to this family and I have nothing but empathy for these, you know, now adults, but children who were allegedly molested. But it would make it a lot cleaner and more credible if they just said this happened to us. And we want you to know as opposed to. And now we filed a lawsuit, you know, to get money. It just complicates things, that's all, from a PR perspective. So the reason I'm setting all this up for you is that when we did our deep dive on Michael Jackson is we took a look at his own childhood, Right. As you just pointed out on this program, typically these sexual fetishes or kinks or, you know, whatever they wind up being. And pedophilia is a different thing entirely, but it too typically will begin from something that happened in your, in your childhood. I think you'll correct me if I'm wrong because you're, you know all about this. And we looked at Michael's childhood and he was on the record prior to his death on the extreme, extreme abuse, physical abuse he suffered at the hands of his overbearing father, Joe Jackson, who seems like a truly terrible man. And Michael testified that he wouldn't even allow his children to call him dad. He made them call him Joe he worked them to the bone. He did not allow them to have a childhood of any kind. Just on the road, on tour, you keep working, that's it. That he didn't want to see them have any relaxation time. Michael told interviewers he never, ever had a vacation. I think just one time they had a vacation where they just stayed at home. But every other day off or weekend, they were working, making an album, dancing, rehearsing on tour, et cetera. Just never any downtime. And he, as a little boy, would hear kids playing at the park or, you know, playing games, and he knew he could never be a part of it. In addition to that, actual physical abuse, like beatings, which were so bad, he said his mother had to beg the father over and over, saying, you're gonna kill him. You're gonna kill him. But they continued. And then there was this weird twist, Deborah. I mean, I didn't see this coming, but of course it had me thinking about the pedophilia accusations, because listen to what he says his dad used to do to him. Fear of warning. This is disturbing. He was rough.

[C]

The way he would beat you is, you know, it was hard.

[B]

Sometimes you take.

[C]

They make you strip nude first. He would oil you down.

[B]

Your whole ritual, he would oil you down.

[C]

So when the flip of the ironing cord hit you, which is, you know. And it was just like me dying, and your flips all over your face and back everywhere. And I always hear my mother, but no, girl, you're gonna kill him. You're gonna kill him. No, I said I would just give up. Like there was nothing I can do,

[B]

you know, And I hated him for it. So disturbing and extremely odd that any parent, before administering a corporal punishment against a child, would make him strip naked and would oil him up. It's very strange. And to me, there's a very good possibility that Michael left out some portion of that abuse, because there's no reason to oil your young child up and make him strip nude before you spank him or in this disgusting case, whip him with the cord of an iron. That's, you know, just my speculation, given what we're learning about Michael and we've suspected about Michael for years. So you're the expert on these things. What do you make of that testimonial and that story?

[D]

Yeah, it's really disturbing. I definitely. Well, in terms of your assessment of pedophilia, I do. I personally think that that is a potential explanation if the allegations are true. So I don't know whether those allegations are true or not, but according to, I mean, based on the behavior that you've described, in which a grown man chooses to spend lots of time with children who are not his own, to the extent of moving in with the family and sleeping with these children in his bed, that to me is a very, very large indicator of pedophilia. And so, so for parents listening, definitely these are some signs to look out for. And I'm sure your audience knows better than to allow their children to sleep in the same bed as a strange man. But typical things that groomers will do is they will lavish a child with lots of attention gifts. They will find ways to touch a child in a non sexual way so that it normalizes bodily contact. And they'll tend to do this in front of the parents so that the child thinks, oh, this is normal, this is okay, my parents are here. My parents don't have a problem with this person touching me, even though it's in a non sexual way. But so that when the touch progresses to becoming sexual, the child has a more difficult time differentiating and saying, wait a minute, this is not okay. Now keeping secrets is another way of grooming a child, making it more likely that they're going to keep secrets of, say, a sexual nature when the abuse begins. So my general advice to parents is always trust your gut. Because I do think most parents have a sixth sense about this. But it's usually, especially with abusers, they tend to be members of the community who are in high regard, who tend to be well liked. They tend to be viewed as, in some cases, family men. And not to say that women aren't abusers, but usually it's men who are the ones who are pedophilic and intense. In some cases they will use their female partners to get access to children or to abuse children. Like there are some cases I've seen where in a daycare, women will take photos, inappropriate photos of children to send to their male partner. The male partner will then put them on the Internet for monetary reasons. Well, we know what that's for. So just to basically trust your gut instinct and just no matter how well liked or how popular someone is or how good they seem with kids to be skeptical if you are getting that sense, but with pedophilia it is biological. So there is not to say that all men who abuse children have pedophilia. So there are some men who abuse sexually abuse kids who don't actually have a sexual interest in kids. They'll do it because they're antisocial or because they can't get access to an adult victim. But for men who actually prefer children over adult partners, that is pedophilia. It's children under the age of 11. And there are differences in. In the structure of their brain in terms of why they are attracted to kids. Because for most people, when you see a child, it brings up feelings of affection and nurturing, and it's not obviously sexual excitement. So when that is the case, there is something that happened in utero or in terms of their neurodevelopment that has led them to erroneously find children sexually rousing. I just want to be very clear. I do not condone this idea that we should normalize pedophilia or stigma, destigmatize pedophilia, or that we should have sympathy for pedophiles. I think the emphasis really should be on protecting children and speaking to the warning signs so that children can be protected and public safety is held. But in terms of many, many sexual abusers will claim that they were sexually abused or abused in childhood to try to evoke sympathy from, say, law enforcement or if they are convicted.

[B]

Wait a minute. Are you telling me that's not true? Because, I mean, like, they're. You're kind of blowing my mind right now to say that it's biological. I always thought the way you become an abuser, a molester of children, is you were probably molested yourself.

[D]

There's been a chance that they were molested, but that's not necessarily why they are actually aroused by children. That might lead someone to abuse children in the future. Sexually abuse children. But the actual. But they're not necessarily actually sexually interested in kids. So these men, if you test them using, say, philometry, which is what test sets used to determine male sexual arousal and their preference in terms of their partners, pedophilic men will actually prefer. They'll respond. Their penis. We'll talk about penises. Again, their penis will respond more to. This is really disgusting for you. It's just a preface.

[C]

This.

[D]

But will respond more to children than adults. Whereas there are some men who will abuse children, but they will respond more to adults. And this test is very difficult to fake. It's considered the gold standard within Saferia forensics. So the abuse obviously can lead to someone being antisocial, being more likely to abuse kids for sexual reasons or otherwise. But in terms of the actual preference, it's more likely something that is embedded in the brain, and as a result, it can't be cured. So I think the best approach in that case is either Using medication, say, chemical castration, or definitely monitoring someone and not making society have to go along with this and say that actually, it's not such a big deal, and we should have sympathy and we should think about adding the P to the LGBTQIA acronym.

[B]

Mm.

[C]

Wow.

[B]

This is so, so dark, but important. The thing you said about how some of these guys will use their female partners for access to children reminded me of one of the most fascinating and disturbing episodes we've ever done. It was about Jared, the subway guy, and he's now been outed as a disgusting molester of children.

[C]

And.

[B]

And he wound up having his own children, too, which is also very dark. But he, for years, was in correspondence with this woman who, unbeknownst to him, was working with the FBI undercover to try to catch him. She got to know him socially. She was a radio host. He came on her program. They did something to promote heart health together, totally benign. And he made some inappropriate comment to her where she was like, what? And he was immediately on her radar. And she spent years thereafter trying to catch him, trying to get him to say some of these things on tape. And she did. She got him on tape. And she worked with the FBI, and, of course, Jared would wind up behind bars. She came on this program, and we'll find the. The program number and tell it to the audience in a minute. We actually just reran part of it on one of our Sunday super crime specials. But she talked about how Jared wanted access to her two children, and she, of course, was never going to allow this, but she pretended that she was, again in order to get him on tape. And there was a disturbing piece of tape where she talked to him about, like, the subject of talking inappropriately about sex or body parts with the children. And he wanted her desperately to do that because it would lower their defenses for when he got there and wanted to do that in a sexualized way. We have the tape. It's a quick piece of tape. Here it is.

[C]

What kind of cute friends do your kids have?

[D]

Oh, they have very cute friends. They know everything about sex.

[C]

It's all they ever talk about in school. What I need you to do is to start talking about that kind of stuff in front of them.

[D]

You know, you would just say, oh,

[C]

tell Jared what you guys talk about at school.

[D]

Oh, Lord.

[B]

What I need you to do is start talking about that stuff in front of them and tell them, oh, you know, tell Jared what you talk about at school. I mean, it's. It's so rare, Deb. You have it Black and white on tape. That's an actual molester of children engaging in the grooming, trying to set up what he thought was his female friend to, to help him groom the children. And it just, to me that speaks to so much. It speaks to what our teachers are doing in having inappropriate secrets with our children. Whether it's about their LGBTQ identity or how many genders they may be or potential transitions that the child may or may not be thinking about the child, you know, the, the teacher wants to have a secret with the kid about all of it's so inappropriate and part of grooming and it's right there black and white, that that is grooming behavior. These schools allow it. They, it's policy in the New York City schools, the privates and now the publics too, I believe, but definitely the privates for teachers not to tell the parents when a student says that he or she is gender confused or if they want to keep their so called new identity private. To have secrets about something as intimate as gender between a minor and a

[D]

grown up, it's so inappropriate, absolutely inappropriate. And it does. It's like a gateway conversation for parent, for say teachers who do have more nefarious intentions to use that as a way to build a bond and trust in a child to then potentially turn those sexual conversations sexual. So not just about now your gender identity or transition, but then also potentially opportunities for them to abuse a child. But also I would say with the interview that you, you mentioned, actually I remember listening to that episode when it came out initially. And that's a very common situation where you will see these predators because they're very cunning. They will in some cases target single mothers. And this is not to, not to make single mothers out there feel paranoid, but just to be aware that in some cases is the men will want to date women and they'll offer say childcare help or they'll offer support because they know that it's very difficult being a single mother. And raising a child on one's own is very challenging in some cases and time consuming. And so they'll offer to step in and do these tasks and help with that. But again, like I said, you have to be very skeptical of a man who wants to spend a lot of time raising a child who's not his own. Not to say that men can't be great stepfathers, but I'd say especially early on in your relationship with him and to be aware that some of these men do target single mothers because they know they're going to have an easier time getting access to vulnerable kids and having a lot of alone time with those kids.

[B]

This is reminding me of the story. I told this to Jillian Michaels when she came on one time. We're talking about like the hazards of our jobs coming back to haunt us. She's super fit and you know, attuned to healthy lifestyles with her kids. And I'm super dark on the news stories of the day and think that, you know, the sharks gonna get you in every ocean and there's gonna molester behind every corner and it's dark. But there was one time where my son was going off on a school field trip and he was on the bus and all the other moms were like, goodbye, have a nice time. And I was like, look out for the molesters. He looks back and I'm like, it'll be someone you trust,

[D]

Megan. So weird Megan, but true. Secretly packing Mason her kids backpacks.

[B]

It's dark, but it is true. Like you point out, they're going to be full of gifts like Michael Jackson. He if you listen to this family, the Casios, these kids now grown up, talk about how he lavished gifts upon them and his whole home was a layer for, forgive the term, seducing children. And what I just mean is like grooming them, making them love you, meaning making them want to spend more time with you. From the Neverland, you know, mini Disney he had out in front with all the rides to all the Peter Pan stuff to the two floor arcade. His friend and lawyer Mark Garagos told us about everything at his home was meant to dazzle a young child. And that was apparently his age group. Exactly the age group you said they all talked about how when they hit about 14, he was done with them. Although a couple of them, like one of those kids said he continued the relationship with this one boy into I think he said his young 20s. So kept going and it got more aggressive physically. But for the most part he was done with these children at age 14. And there was a girl too. So it wasn't all little boys. But that's. As a parent you gotta ask yourself why is Michael Jackson sitting in my small home in middle class suburban New Jersey for months on end spending inordinate amounts of time with my prepubescent children. Why would any normal man be interested in doing that? And like this is happening not at a Michael Jackson level, Deborah, but you know, this is happening across the country right now in other different but similar scenarios with maybe a coach who's just a little too attentive or it used to be. Boy Scout leaders could still be obviously clergy. There's been an issue, but like it will be a grown man who seems amazing and is wowing your kid and possibly your whole family with his kindness and love and gifts and attention. But you really have to keep asking that question, right? Like, why would a grown man be this interested in spending time with my minor child? And God forbid you let them be alone. You know, whatever your judgment, whether he's trustworthy or not, just there should be no alone time between your minor child and any grown up. I mean, I don't know, maybe I'm being too simplistic because it's like I think back to my own life. I took clarinet lessons. I was alone with an old, older man. He never laid a hand on me. You know, he taught me how to play the clarinet. So it's like it's tough for parents to know exactly where to draw the line, I guess.

[D]

Yeah. But I would say because there I've had pushback, you know, I've had in conversations with people about this and they'll say, you know, that's really excessive. Most people are not predators. But you have to be careful because the ones who are, are really good at it and they're very good at tricking people and they're very charismatic. And I would say also until you know how good these men, men and women are at deceiving people and hiding the things that they do, and until you've sat across the table from a child sexual abuser and had a conversation with them and see the way their minds, mind works, I think most people, we are fortunate to have a bias to see the good in people and we assume that these things don't happen and these things won't happen to us. But the reality is these things do happen. I would also say within families. I've heard from many people and some of the cases that I see when I was working in forensics would consist of families in which there was intergenerational abuse. So say there was a father who abused the daughter and then went on to abuse the granddaughters as well. And so if there's any abuse like that in the family, to please, please keep your children away from your parent, because if they abused you, they're likely going to abuse your children as well. And there are times when we'd have patients come into the clinic I was at, and in some cases the mother would side with their boyfriend or husband or stepfather over their own child, which is also heartbreaking. So this is so dark. I don't want to go keep going down this rabbit hole with your audience, but just basically, please, you know, there we. We like to see good in people, but I think it's important to be aware also, because child sexual abuse is devastating for children. And if it can be prevented, whatever. Whatever can be done to prevent this and lower the rates of it happening, I think is very important.

[B]

Yeah. Amen to that. All right, back on the subject of healthy adult consensual relationships and why they're not happening, I don't know what the answer is. Like, less SSRIs is my own personal prescription, given what I think is part of the problem. But you're not going to get rid of the iPhone. You're not going to get rid of Apple TV and Netflix. You know, we're trying to get rid of the DEI preferences so that men still have a fighting shot in society. Right. Like, that would be one antidote. President Trump, in a way, is an antidote. The return of masculinity and the stopping of the shaming of toxic masculinity, which is just, you know, nine times out of ten, men being men, who have, in a good way, aggression and who are strong and who are not afraid of confrontation, like, those are not bad things. They've kept society alive. So we're making some progress. But it's very interesting to me that you say this is happening all over the world. It's not just an American thing. So, like, what does that tell you in terms of finding solutions? It's something global.

[D]

Right. I think social media is a big piece of it. And also this increasing animosity between the sexes. And if you. So I try to be very open minded in terms of the feedback to this book. And I've had angry responses from both men and women saying that I don't go far enough in terms of blaming the opposite sex. So I think I did a fair job in terms of calling out both sides. And what I hear from young men is they really blame feminism for this. So feminism is pretty much across the entire developed world, and they feel that women are unfairly privileged. Now, I think feminism, at its most basic fundamental reason was a positive thing in terms of getting equal rights for women, allowing us to vote and to pursue an education. But I do believe feminism has gone too far in its modern iteration in that it, in some cases advocates for hating men and, again, subjugating men. So young men are understandably aggrieved by this, and they're saying, we just want to Take all rights away from women. Now at the extreme say, like, look at what feminism had done. Feminism is the cause of this and we want nothing to do with modern day women, quote, unquote, because they're impossible to deal with. And then the other side of that is young women. See the response to the extreme feminism, which is young men now saying, we want women who are traditional, who are just going to obey our orders, essentially stay at home, not work, have a large family, not, not talk back to us, not have a job and not vote. And these young women are terrified and saying, well, this generation of men wants to hold us back and take our rights away. Not realizing, I don't think all the young men who hold these views are actually at the core hateful of women. I mean, some of them might be, but I do think some of it is a response to how extreme feminism has become because over time young men have actually become more feminist. But this is Gen Z is now turning in the opposite direction and saying, no, feminism has gone too far. So I see this trend continuing because neither side is willing to back down. So you're going to see say young women going more and more and more to the left, more feminist, and the men are going to go more to the right and more, I guess, anti feminist. And so that's been one trend. But I think also in terms of solutions, which I think is very important, trying to get off of these platforms, trying to, if you do consume this content, it's basically impossible to get away from on social media, especially if you, you are young or the algorithm picks up that you find it interesting, they're going to bombard you with toxic clips of people complaining about their relationships and marriages, people being acting egregiously on dates. In some cases it's couples pretending that they're fighting or that they're. I've seen this one genre of content in which the man will say, you're not going to sleep with me tonight. Okay, I'm not paying for your dinner. And it's actually a skit. But it's not clear that it's a skit. And I don't know that the content creators intended for people to know that it's a skit, but because it becomes obviously when you look at the rest of their content, that it's just rage bait. But you see millions of views on these clips and, or in these videos. And I just think of the young people, again, who are being exposed to this and don't realize that they're basically being manipulated into thinking this is really common. This behavior is really common because it's intentionally trying to infuriate them and make them hate the opposite sex so that they'll keep clicking on other things. So that's one thing I'd say the other part of that from a biological perspective is to, you know, I talk in sextion about how the birth control pill and like you said, said antidepressants and also low testosterone are affecting this whole situation in that, you know, birth control pill halts women's ovulation. So that's going to affect how their sex drive and it affects their interest in sex and the sexual signaling that they may or may not be putting out towards men in their vicinity. And then also with men's low testosterone due to potentially, you know, plastics, pesticides, synthetic estrogens in our environment. So if men have low testosterone, they are not going to feel good about themselves, they're not going to be interested in taking risks, and they're going to have a low sex drive, but also low motivation outside of the bedroom to achieve goals. And those are the things women look for in men. They find that sexy. So if you have all that, and then the other thing is as women continue getting more successful, that's going to make it even harder for them to find an appropriate mate because as they are, they're already more successful than most men and they're just going to continue being more successful the longer they're single because they're just going to keep working. So I would say we need to really help young men get back on track. I don't think it needs to be seen as taking away from women's rights. And I do understand why some young women may feel that it is a threat to them because they've been indoctrinated by the education system. But, and I think our culture as well, like man hating, is really much seen as status quo nowadays. But if we as women don't appreciate being discriminated against as we were in the past, I don't think it's fair for us to turn around and now say it's okay because it benefits us to do the same to men. So I would say in general, meet in real life, don't be on apps, don't be on social media. Women, if you are single and looking to date, you have to make it so obvious to men that you are into them. I went through the scientific research in terms of how to flirt because I'm a very naturally awkward person. So I thought, okay, I can't give my, my Audience advice if I don't know what I'm talking about. So one thing you can do is smile very, very widely if you see an attractive man. Make lots of eye contact. I asked, you know my audience, what can women do? They say you have to make it smart. So obvious. Just keep looking at him honestly and it's smile it that compels a man to come over and speak to you. Hopefully he will be single. And for men, I say get touch his arm. Yeah, yeah. That's the other thing you will see, that's one thing I would say if you touch a man's arm, hopefully if you know him, but you'll notice his body language will change. A man will, he'll relax if he's into you. So that's one thing women can look for. And the other thing I would say for men is to, if you are struggling to take care of your physical health and your mental health is linked to that. So eat unprocessed foods. You know, there's studies showing that eating ultra processed foods or eliminating ultra processed foods from your diet can actually improve your mental health, especially depression. Look into if you are experiencing low testosterone, why that might be. I think what the current administration is doing in terms of being focused very much on health and just wellness is so important and I don't understand why it's being denigrated as a quote like right wing crazy person agenda. Because we could all benefit from being more attuned to that.

[B]

Yeah. Amen. These are great recommendations. They, it's crazy that they do need to learn how to actually flirt with the opposite sex and like telegraph, I'm into you and I would love for you to ask me out or I'd love to go out with you, whatever and beyond. But yeah, fine, practice makes perfect. Put down the phone and give it a shot. What's the worst that can happen? And for guys, I would say one other thing. Humor is amazing. If you can make her laugh, you can make her yours. So like, if you are naturally clever, even if you're not the most handsome guy in the world, you got a great shot. Because I do think women love somebody who can make them laugh. And I think we all see that as a long term source of happiness for us. You know, that's, that's well beyond, I don't know, brawn or your, your bank account. Okay, Deborah, this has been fascinating. Thank you so much for giving us so much time today. Again, the name of her book is Sex Tinction, the Decline of Sex and the Future of Intimacy. Such a pleasure seeing you again.

[D]

Thank you, Megan.

[B]

Okay. And then tomorrow we are back with Anna Kasparian. That'll be fun. And we will bring you the story of Katie Porter and what she's saying about that infamous clip in which she berates the staffer. I'm sorry. It's like the. We had a whole news hour planned for the first first hour of the show today, and then that South Carolina thing broke with Alex Murdaugh and we went in a different direction. But we're back on the news tomorrow and we look forward to doing that with you then. See you there. Thanks for listening to the Megyn Kelly show. No bs, no agenda and no fear.

[D]

So good. So good, so good.

[B]

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