 Hey there lovers and friends. So one day at two in the morning I was up breast pumping and I was scrolling on YouTube looking for something to watch while my boobs emptied out. And in that time I saw a video by my friends, the roommates featuring Candace Owens and this video was going up. First and foremost, I was happy for my friends because their incredible content creators have been at it for a long time and I was like, oh, let me go watch this. Now the caveat is I'm not somebody who would usually click on Candace Owens content. It's just not in my wheelhouse of joy. I appreciate the work that she has and the space that she occupies and understand that many people find a lot of what she says great thought starters or true to them. I just don't personally find it all that palatable. Nonetheless, I'm still watching with an open mind because it's around a topic that I adore and I think every perspective in the intimacy space is valid because we all experience love in unique ways. So I'm like, let me watch and just see what she has to say. And I didn't enjoy it. I didn't, and I didn't enjoy it. And then I scrolled to the comments and saw that people were super enjoying this content. Now mind you again, it was two in the morning when I watched this. So I thought to myself, I wanted to do a response video to this, which I rarely do just actually watching the video with you and then reacting as I see it. Maybe now that I've had some rest, I'll see things differently. Let's go. You know what I always say? Experiment with both and tell me what makes you feel better. And that is the truth when it comes to young women because I dedicated my first episode to young women and really talking to them about these are the options that are being presented to you. This right here was the truest part of the video and the part that I would like to amplify and uplift. Try both out for yourself. I think this notion that there is a one-size fits all way to be happy, to mate, to exist in a relationship that I see increasingly happen online is a farce. In essence, what I believe is happening for a lot of people is that they are dissatisfied with their love life and with their romantic options. And instead of looking at themselves and saying, well, am I marketing myself to the right group number one or two? Is there some self work that I have to do? Or three, do I have to work harder to find my people? They're just saying the whole system is corrupt and the whole system is wrong. Truth of the matter is there are lots of people who exist in a modern way and find tons of joy and happiness and connection. Just like there are tons of people who prefer a more traditional route and prefer women or people who identify as women to take on a more traditional role. And that's what brings them joy and happiness. So the truth of the matter is do try out both for yourself, see what feels right and what feels best for you, and then own that lane. The problem is though, is that she continued to speak. These are the options that are being presented to you. Less, less, less, take off more clothes, you know, do the most to get attention, right? If you think that that's freedom, the idea that you have to wear less and the idea that you have to get naked to be heard, you really think that's a form of freedom because that's not, that's slavery, that's bondage. I didn't have to take off my clothes to be heard in society. No, you didn't have to take off your clothes to be heard by society, but you did have to say some sensational, highly offensive things in order to spark an emotion out of people. You're no different. So if there are women who are taking off their clothes to get attention, you are doing a emotional or proverbial thirst trap to get attention. You are saying highly provocative things. They are dressing provocatively. You are speaking provocatively to get attention. Now you are correct. There is various different ways to get people's eyeballs and to get people's ears. You are choosing one way and they are choosing one way. Your way isn't better than anyone's way though. It is just a successful way. And I feel like if you can relate that and say, look, I totally get it. I say some wild ass shit to get attention. You dress and look and present yourself in a wild ass way. Again, if we went back to that original sentiment, that might work for you. This is what works for me. I think what's important is for women to know that there's options out there. Again, that would be the great end to this video, but unfortunately she keeps talking. His women will realize that when you follow these people that are self-imposed feminists, I'm a feminist. I do this. I'm a feminist. You hear that word over and over and over again. You'll find the majority of them are miserable. Where will you find the majority of them are miserable? The term feminism is a catch-all term. There's various different reasons that people tap into it or feel connected to that term. Some people just genuinely believe that there should be equality amongst the sexes. Some people use feminism as a way of showing pride for their identity as a woman. Some people genuinely do believe that women are superior to men and are fighting for that. Again, there's pockets and sub-pockets in different regions of the world. Where did you get this catch-all bit of information that majority of them are miserable? Furthermore, what are you defining as a feminist? Let's explore. Look at their lives and ask yourself a question. Do you think they are happy? Do you feel good when you do what they do? When you're constantly looking for a dopamine hit from social media because you took your clothes off and you want somebody in your comments, you know, a thirst trap with your ass out, right? And you want someone in your comments going, oh, slay, bae. You slayed the day, bae. Hashtag Tuesdays, am I right? And you do the stuff for attention and you're devaluing yourself and at the end of the day. How are you devaluing yourself? If you're doing something that is cause and effect, you know, you're getting a result from it, the result that you actually achieved. You're growing your fan base in your market, you're achieving more romantic options. How in the process of this are you devaluing yourself? Potentially you're devaluing yourself if we're trying to swim in your particular lane. So if they wanted to enter into the realm of political commentary, maybe taking off their clothes is not the best way to get where you are today. But most people that you're trying to preach to one, don't know who you are. And two, have no interest in the lifestyle that you've chosen for yourself. Have no interest in the kind of DMs that you probably get. Have no interest in opening their Instagram up and seeing the things that people say to you in the comment section. So that to be said, again, going back to the original point, there's various different ways, but why are you focusing any negative energy towards assuming that these people's lives are specifically and tragically miserable? Because I can tell you as somebody who works in this field and has worked in this field for 15 years and has spoken to hundreds of thousands of people at this point and had access to millions of different stories to the various projects that I've been a part of, the people who are struggling to date and make the ones who are having the most challenges finding partners are not the ones who subscribe to this formula. And the problem with that, I think, and where I would wish that you would have gone with this conversation is that we are not offering more options for ways to get attention or for ways for women to market themselves to be looked at as desirable. But the people who are utilizing their sex appeal and utilizing seduction, they aren't the ones who are complaining. Possibly they are complaining about not refining the right partners. Possibly they are complaining about not having long term options out of all the short term bits of attention that they get. But again, that's just a matter of a lapse in skill set. They haven't yet learned how to sift through all the options to pick the right one for themselves. And furthermore, they haven't had the benefit of intimacy education. So a lot of attention without like informed education behind it is going to put people at a high rate of choosing the wrong partners. But these people at least have options for choosing partners. The people who actually need help and who needs guidance and scaffolding are the ones who are not opting into this lifestyle. The same way that you found him is the same way he's going to find somebody else, because we are increasingly becoming a part of a society that's ADHD. You want to know why our grandparents stayed together because they weren't looking at ass cheeks all day on Instagram and refreshing it and going, Oh, that girl looks younger, that girl looks better, that girl's face tuned. I'm going to do something I probably shouldn't do. So please join me in the comment section. I'm going to answer personally why my grandparents stayed together. And I'm going to tell you, Candice, it didn't have a damn thing to do with Instagram. On my one side, my grandma stayed with a man who was physically abusive to herself and to her children, who was an alcoholic. And in addition, who was a womanizer who had several children outside of their marriage. And she stayed with him for as long as she possibly could because she knew if she tried to leave that marriage, there was nowhere else for her and her children to go that her family would disown her and that she didn't have a lot of options for work and for making money by herself. Now my grandma actually did eventually leave my grandfather and she fled to another country and started a new life. And it was just every bit as difficult as she thought it would be. On the other side of my family, my grandma did stay with somebody that she was married to for 30 years or 50 years, whatever number would get people to like stand up and clap at a brunch. And she stayed with this person is still with this person. So I will refrain from sharing full details on how despicable the things that I even know of that went on in that marriage. But a lot of it had to do with cheating. A lot of it had to do with interests in women that would now be deemed as illegal. And they stayed regardless. So possibly some of your grandparents stayed together because there wasn't Instagram. But probably a lot of your grandparents stayed together because divorce was extremely taboo for women in particular. There was very little they could do on the legal side to protect themselves against abusive partners. And then in terms of finding a livelihood outside of marriage, options were very sparse. You've got 13 year olds getting lip injections, right? Because they want to look like Kylie Jenner. Again, not a shot to Kylie Jenner. But what society have we created that ever made Kylie Jenner feel like she had to go out and buy those lips that she had to contour her entire face and change her entire body. She was already a beautiful little girl. So the society is ill. It's not normal, right? Don't let these people convince you that that's normal. That's cancer and it will that cancer will become contagious to you. Now who can argue with this? It is unfortunate that we live in a world where there's so much pressure, especially on young girls to try to appeal to the current beauty standard. But I would argue that the pressure isn't new and the preferential treatment given to those who fit within the beauty standard isn't new. But now the options to be included in the standard, that's what's new. The ability for people to say, Hey, maybe I wasn't dealt the genetic cards, you know, to fit into this group who has more mates is treated kinder by people and gets more attention online. There's something I can do about that. I actually believe that this problem is correcting itself by way of Instagram because of the fact in back in the day, for example, the less media mediums that you have, the more that the media has an impact on what you think what you feel and what you believe is beautiful or not beautiful. But now that we've got all these different pockets and various different mediums that people can be looking at the bubbles, there's actually a lot more beauty standards. So in one community, Kylie Jenner could be the beauty standard, but in another community, there are is her complete opposite that is the beauty standard. I'll never forget this. When I was working on my book, The Game of Desire, one of the people that I was working with was a pansexual woman and I got her a haircut by like my favorite curly hair stylist because she had curly hair. And the stylist gave her this beautiful cascading, but like curly like off to the side sexual cut and it looked phenomenal. And she looked in the mirror and said, I hate it. I don't feel pretty. I don't think that this is going to get me what I want. And then she proceeded to ask for a mullet within her given community. That's what was attractive. That's what the trends were. Now 50 years ago, she wouldn't have an option to see people who looked like that uplifted and amplified as beautiful and she would have chosen the like, you know, the mainstream lane of what attractiveness is. So I actually disagree with this. I do think yes, that there is pressure to get attention, but I do think now there's so many different ways that we can define beauty depending on where it is that you look. There actually was an incentive behind you even being taught that you've never actually lived the life of making a husband a sandwich and they think that's going to send you back and suddenly you're going to lose your voting rights and you're not going to be able to go get work. You know, there was a time when there was a need for feminism, first wave feminism, right? But first wave feminists would want nothing to do with third wave feminists, which is where we're at today, right? Women that think that actually first wave feminists, you could argue envied men, right? They wanted to be able to go to work. They wanted to have that option to be something outside of the home, right? There's a lot that was said there and a lot that was said is not within my wheelhouse of expertise. And I would hope that a lot of you who are very intelligent when it comes to race relations and it comes to gender studies would be able to spark up and inform where the problem areas are in this commentary. What I will say is I do agree that there is a throwing the baby out with the bathwater approach when it comes to illustrating for women how they can successfully and happily exist within a relationship. It is very true that a lot of people will find joy in the traditional value system that a lot of people will find more joy being a stay-at-home mom. They will find more joy being a support system to their husband rather than trying to create an empire for themselves. That is not untrue. I personally am not a part of this bucket. I would never find joy in that style of lifestyle. I would never find fulfillment in that, but I do acknowledge that many people would. I think that if there is a stay-at-home mom and a traditional person in your life, we should look at that person with as much awe and admiration as we do look at the person who builds it all and does it all and creates an empire for themselves because both of those individuals have been honest with themselves. They have reflected in what their truth is and they have aligned themselves with the best life for them. I agree with that. We do need to do more work in uplifting women who have traditional values and looking at them as goals because they are goals for many people. And it also goes against biology. There is a reason biological underpinning to everything that we have in the society. People keep trying to outthink biology. It doesn't work that way. There is a reason women can carry children and men can't. So that instantly allows a man to have different goals in terms of the workforce than women because that means we have to make a decision. Do we have children or continue working in our career or try to juggle both? Men don't have that same pressure and it's not their fault. They didn't design this. Men weren't like, well, I have an idea. Let's not be able to carry children and only let women be able to do that. And so there is the biological reality of that and increasingly you see women that go for it in terms of their career because they have the societal pressure. And then it's too late. And then they realize, wow, this job is not making me happy. But my gosh, can I just tell you as a new mom what you feel like when your son smiles at you? Now, I don't know how old Candace Owens is. Maybe I should have looked that up. How old she was when she first had her kid. I know she had her kid recently, but I'll speak for myself. I am 36 years old and I have a five month old baby right now. And I completely relate to what she said. There is nothing that makes me happier than having time with my daughter, getting to look in her eyes, seeing the small changes in development that she's having. I find tons of joy. I'm so grateful for the pandemic, which I know is a very controversial thing to say, but I am very grateful because it has allowed me to work from home in a way that I would have never have gotten to prior to the pandemic. About 80% of my job was traveling. I have traveled once in the past year for work and that is only because of the current times that we're in. So I attest to being at home with your baby is a wonderful thing. It is a privilege thing, but it is a wonderful thing. But I can also attest the fact that I only feel this way because I waited as long as I did. It feels like Candace Owens is ignoring that reality for herself that she did have a baby later in life than a traditional than her grandparents probably did. And that she is a career woman who has achieved a hell of a lot of success and obviously enjoys it. She talked about on another video I saw of her how happy she is to be able to go back to work. She has gone back to work within a year of her child being born. So clearly you find a lot of fulfillment and joy in pursuing your potential. So then again, if you went back to the beginning of the video and you said we have to provide both options, that's where the truth is. But like you're saying one thing and your life is a complete contradiction to all of the rest of it. Meaning that there are crappy men in the world, right? But men are crappy because we've created a system where manhood has become obsolete. You keep increasingly telling men more and more they can't matter. When I say who are they being told that by, you know, they're like I said, there's more sinister implications here of why we're making manhood obsolete. When we're saying masculinity is wrong, this is wrong. This is backwards. You don't need a man. You can just have a baby without a man. You're starting to see that sort of programming happening with young women. When you're telling women to act like men, you should aspire to the things that men naturally might aspire to when you remove the more natural feeling of men being providers and women being nurturers, which is a beautiful yin and yang that just works, right? So you're creating men to feel obsolete and then women are complaining because men aren't being men. You know, it doesn't, it doesn't work that way, right? And not only that, then increasingly you're telling women to be the opposite of what I think men want. I can't follow this train of thought. I can see the train. I have an idea where the train is going, but the train is, it is just doing a couple of loops that I just, I can't, I can't watch this train of thought. Men are being encouraged to be more feminized. And in that, I mean like attributing an assembly themselves to more feminine characteristics because of technology, a lot of overt masculine qualities that used to have a place in society no longer do because of technology and human advancement in my personal opinion. So we're asking for men to be more vulnerable, more cooperative, to be better communicators, to be better fathers, because the way that things are changing, the traditional masculine, stereotypical man doesn't have as many logical applications in the world that we now live in. I don't think, I think that we're asking women to be more masculinized, I think in a sense of like looking for equality, but we haven't quite found the equilibrium yet, but I believe that we're probably closer than ever. And I do agree that there is a lot of misplaced cynicism towards men. And I do think that we are asking for a lot of changes from men in a short amount of time. And a lot of the things that men have been told will make them attractive and popular and desirable are not actually coming to fruition as they come into adulthood. And there's a confusion that's happening in all of that. I don't think that the answer though is to go back. I just don't know what the value is in going back. So I understand what she's saying and I agree that there are some kinks that need to be worked out and there needs to be a lot more patience from both sides as we do and compassion as we do work those things out. But I don't everything the answer is to go back. History isn't recorded so that we have like a save on video games like oh the checkpoint, we can always go back if things go bad. History is recorded so that we can learn from the mistakes and not repeat them and take the good from that and carry forward and leave the bad in the past. So I never subscribe to anybody's thinking where it's like things were better the way they were before. I just can't think of another period of time that I would prefer to live in. I think that there's a fantasy that exists for a lot of us that the people who have rejected us are ultimately like unhappy and will never get what they want or the people who do things that we aren't willing to do who get the things that we want through the things that we aren't willing to do ultimately are going to be miserable. So for example Candice obviously looks at herself as better than people who use their bodies for attention where again she uses provocative language for attention but maybe because she ends up at the same place as women who use their bodies and she feels better than them they're part of her wants to like appease that by saying well they're not truly happy even if we're at the same place I'm here because I worked hard and I belong here and I didn't go the cheap route and I'm actually happy and they're here sure we're level to level but they're actually miserable underneath it all. I don't even know how happy you are. I get negative comments sometimes and they can tend to throw off my day but maybe you're better than me but that just to say that this fantasy that the people who you resent are actually miserable I don't know how much truth there is to that. So then you say men suck and it asks this question all the time you complain about men but are you being the type of a woman that a man would want right to self-perpetuating problem and then you say that and they oh my god Candice is a horrible human being and I'm looking at you going I'm not a dude I wouldn't date you you know what I mean and so again self-perpetuating problem not enough woman calling out the fact that women are not desirable right now in my opinion right they're sexually desirable but I wouldn't want to take you home to mom desirable. Again as somebody who works in this field and has worked in this field for a very long time I can tell you the people who are struggling and complaining about men who have a lack of options are the ones that you probably are saying everyone should model themselves like the ones who are more conservative the ones who are not willing to go the route of getting attention in that form those are the ones who are struggling for partnership I think they are struggling because we're not teaching them other ways that they can put themselves in front of the right partners for them and we're not making space for those women to be amplified for not doing provocative things saying provocative things or dressing provocatively so I think that again you're like pinpointing women who are doing fine and using them as a case study for what's wrong with society. Candace I like this and that and that to me is a direction where I was trying to get to today because the first part that I was thinking about was that it appears to me that a lot of the critiques that can appear to be personal is not really an attack on an individual right and we're none of us are perfect sometimes I say it's the wrong way sometimes you say things the wrong way none of us are perfect but one thing that I think you're passionate about is that you're seeing that some of these ideas that are being projected in society how they're negatively affecting the next generation especially as it pertains to our children especially your child and so I think that's something in which I definitely agree with you that unfortunately in today's society there's such an unhealthy culture especially amongst men and women especially amongst men that's why we do what we do at the roommate is trying to uplift and build better men because we see that society creates so many unhealthy messages and and it's funny that you mentioned that point where when you think about how women were once soft society has always created unhealthy messages because there's no one-size-fits-all approach and if you try to create a facade that there is one you're going to find a lot of people forcing square pegs into round holes and that's the same thing that you guys are doing here you're trying to pretend that you have the answers for everybody to how to live a healthy and happy life but a lot of people like myself who are doing all the things that you think are wrong with society who have copious amounts of joy and connection and love and options and respect from others and are surrounded by people who are in healthy relationships I wouldn't be happy in your world but I don't want to discredit your world I think that your world would work for lots of people and I do again believe that it should be amplified and it should be looked at as goals because a lot of people would find themselves in really meaningful happy connections as a result of your recipe but there's no recipe that's going to satisfy everybody's taste I think I've made my point what was the point I don't know but I think it's been made