 Hello, David. How are you doing today? I am doing doing great. It's nice to be here chatting with you. Yeah, absolutely. I was I was only recently introduced to your work. And I just started reading your books and read the most recent one. And yeah, at first I was like, Oh, no, it's gonna be like the same thing. But it was different in that respect. So with with this new book, explaining kind of how men behave badly, like, I'm always curious. I what inspired you like you've written so much on this topic? Like what what may just think like we I need a I need a new book for this. Yes, well, well, you're actually right. I've been studying human mating strategies and published on them over just 30 years or so. But the topic of conflict between sex, that's the focus of the new book, when men behave badly if it didn't roots sexual harassment. And deception, harassment and assault that that this deserved. It's such an important topic. Partly due to the current culture movements, like the Me Too movement. It's going to be just yesterday, Governor Cuomo in New York. Oh, yeah. We're resigned due to being, I believe convicted of of or were found guilty of sexually harassing 11 women. Harvey Langstey, we're spending the news, Bill Cosby, Jeffrey Epstein. And so, you know, problems in everyday life of sexual harassment, deception, and not only dating, sexual revivers and normally dating sites, sexual coercion, sexual insult, stalking, intimate partner violence. These are all forms of sexual conflict. In particular, they're forms of sexual conflict whereby males are attempting to bypass female choice, you know. And our very female choice is like the number one law of mating that is females have evolved to be choosy about when, where, with whom, and under what circumstances they consent to have sex. And men have evolved strategies, some quite appalling to try to bypass that freedom of choice. And so my goal is, and I've never quite done this before in my work, was very much a practical goal that is the goal of eliminating sexual harassment, sexual coercion, intimate partner violence, stalking. And we can't do that without understanding the causes of these phenomena. And so that's really what the book is focused on, is identifying the causes, the underlying psychological machinery, why the sexes have been in conflict over the last billion plus years since sexual reproduction evolved. So, so that's, that's really focused. And I've never really done that in any of my other books. Of course, I've touched on the topic of sexual conflict in my other books, but this, this is focused leisurely on that topic with that, that kind of practical role in life. Yeah. And, and it's, it's crazy. I've, you know, I've been a guy just since I was younger, don't know why, like I've been friends with a lot of, you know, women, right? And, and you, you hear about these statistics all the time, but like, it feels like just about every woman I've ever met, ever dated, you know, whatever there's been, you know, on the low end of the spectrum harassment, but in many cases, you know, sexual assault and things like that. So with like, the goal of your book, because me just being around women and hearing these stories, and I've worked in addiction treatment and a lot of people who start abusing substances, it's, you know, started out with that kind of trauma and stuff. So with, with the goal of the book, like, because I'm always kind of battling with this as well as like, do we think that like creating awareness and understanding will help us? I don't, I don't know what the next step is. Is it, is it acknowledging it, then create solutions, creating awareness? Like, because at a certain point, I'm like, do people not know, you know, that like some of these things are going on. So I'm curious your thoughts about that. Yeah, well, I think that there is knowledge is a first step. And specifically knowledge of the fact that men and women have fundamentally different evolved sexual psychologies. And in a, in a really profound sense, we are stuck in the interiors of our own minds and brains. And so we have to make inferences about what's going on in the minds and brains of other people. And when it's a member of the same sex, it's much easier because we share these evolved features of sexual psychology. But when it's of the opposite sex, so for example, men trying to do for what's going on in women's minds, and women trying to do for what's going on in men's minds, there are large goals, you know, and what, what I found in my research and that I highlighted and what is that both men and women are off in understanding the sexual psychology of the, of the other sex. So, you know, just to put it in a concrete example, men, this is what I found in my research, men underestimate how upsetting these sexual assault is, even things like unwanted touching, roping, sex harassment, men underestimate how upsetting that is to women, you know, and many men have the attitude of, oh, well, it's, you know, it's no big deal. You know, why is she getting so upset about it? But the fact is that these are efforts, as I mentioned, the bypass female choice. Yeah. And, and, and that's precisely why they're so upsetting to women and women have evolved to defend against the things that we get upset about, things that we get angry about, things that we are fearful of are things that have been dangerous to us over evolutionary time. So just, for example, we got evolved fears of snakes, snares, darkness, heights, and these aren't really fears, these are, these are actual dangers. And then when you move into the social and mating and sexual realms, there are sexual dangers. And so men underestimate how upsetting these things are to women. But, and they also aired in a variety of other ways. I mentioned one other and then, and then we can, oh, no, I love it. Okay. So one of the things I highlight in the book, which is one, not the only, but one of the causes of sexual harassment is what I call the male sexual overperception bias. So there's a woman's classic example, woman smiles at a man, or incidentally brushes up against his arm and he thinks, oh, she's really interested in me, she wants me. And the woman, of course, might be being just friendly or polite for, you know, smiles and inherently ambiguous signal. I mean, it's sometimes it might involve sexual interest, but sometimes not. Yeah. So, but men tend to over enforce sexual interest when it's not there. And, and, and none of the important points I want to make about that is it's not all men. So, so that as we found in our lab research, headed by a friend of graduate student of mine who's now a professor of care in Peru, where that men who are high on narcissists and men who pursue a short term mating strategy, that is they're looking for casual sex are especially prone to this male sexual overperception bias. So one way to think about that is they think they're hot, but they're not. Yeah. And about and so this is so it's no, I hope no one reads the book as a attempt to slam all men because it's not, it's not a book to slam men. It's in fact a subset of men who commit the vast majority of acts of sexual violence, though, that are serial harassers. And that's why you have a little sick like Governor Kwama, if he is indeed guilty of what the 11 women charged me or, or Jeffrey Epstein or Harvey Weinstein, we're talking about dozens or possibly in the case of Weinstein, possibly hundreds in the hundreds of victims of this and, and research on sexual harassment in the workplace shows the same thing. It's just a small subset of men for work committee or serial harassers. Yeah. And so it's not all men. In fact, most men, many men are applying those things morally up for us, you know, and that's one of the key points that I'd like to make in that I'm making the book is that men really need to join forces with women and eliminate this because most men don't want, you know, the women that they care about their, their sisters, girlfriends, daughters, mothers, female friends to be victims of sexual harassment. And so, and so men need to get, get involved in this and getting back to your earlier question, a deep knowledge of sex differences in our evolved sexual psychology is critical in understanding and, and in eliminate. Yeah. So here's, here's something that, you know, I'm curious about. So a few weeks ago, I had Catherine Simpson on here. She wrote a book, Why We Act, How to Be a Moral Rebel. And a lot of it's about like speaking up or avoiding the bystander effect, right? And like they're saying, like, men, we need to get involved and stuff like that. And, you know, I'm sure, you know, you're from, you're pretty familiar with like the Stanley Milgram obedience studies, right? Yeah. So when, when I hear these stories, right, like you've run up like Harvey Weinstein, or most recently, we have, you know, Cuomo, or, you know, these, these people of power. And whenever I see this, I don't know if you did you care about the recent story with Activision, Activision Blizzard, that video game company? Oh, so that's, that's a big story too. And like, dozens, I believe dozens or even more women are coming forward about like this frapply culture and like, a lot of harassment and all these other things, right? But whenever I see these stories in the workplace, because you know, other people knew about this, right? But I always think back to the Milgram obedience studies. And I know there's like some controversy about how they were conducted and people like debate about it. But I'm like, well, it seems like people are so afraid of speaking to authority or losing their, their, their, their job, or there's so many fears that they think that it's, it's safer to stay quiet. So I don't know how we incentivize people or get them to kind of recognize this when these huge, huge things are going on. Yeah. Well, that's great. A great point. And I think that you're right in your analysis, that is, it can be costly to speak up, especially if the, in this case, the sexual harassers in the position of authority, I think can harm your career. But, but here's here's a solution. So this is something my university recently instituted about sexual harassment in, in university context. So historically what it is, it has been up to the one, in this case, the victim of sexual harassment to report it, to document it, to, you know, if it comes to that, to, you know, testify about it. And the cheat is that everyone else, this is not a university policy. So I'm a DRC of Texas, that if anyone observes sexual harassment, they have to report it, you know, even if they're not directly involved in, and the actual threat is if you don't, you can lose your job. That's literally the, you know, the potential penalty for family to report observed sexual harassment. And so, and so this is an example where it does two things kind of changes the social norms, you know, it makes it legitimate to report these things. And of course, there, there's unanimity in, in reporting, you know, you, you don't have to, you know, the perpetrator doesn't necessarily find out, which poses some dangers in and of itself, that concern me. But the other thing that it does is, is it takes the burden off of the victim, and sort of makes the burden on everybody to, you know, and so I think it changes the social norm, you know, and makes it less costly to speak up and, and, and hopefully, and in my, you know, I'm not a big fan of having a million rules and regulations, but I think that these things that the cheese is just a social norm, like, I see a guy, even if it's a friend, you know, a colleague, you know, sexually harassing woman, they hate, this is not cool. You know, don't do that. And so rather than just leaving it up to the victim, to, you know, morcial, some kind of a complaint or or charge. So, so I think that things can be done. And again, this is another sex difference, the narrow sexual psychology that men, they, as I mentioned, they underestimate how upsetting forms of sexual harassment are to women. They don't even, they, they perceive the same acts as less harassment than women do. So, you know, you know, and so they're, they're sex differences and sensitivities. And this goes against some trend, some trends that I find kind of disturbing in the, in the culture, which is what I call sex difference denials, you know, and I think that the, the deniers of sex differences, their, intentions are sometimes good because they're, they're, they're worried that if we acknowledge that there are fundamental sex differences, then somehow these will be used to discriminate against women. But I think in this case, the opposite is true. Denying the sex differences actually can. Half of the population that is most likely to be victimized by sexual violence. Can you explain what you mean by that a little bit, how it harms by not talking? Because that's something I've been really curious about lately. Yes. So, so here's a, here's a concrete example. The mass about sexual harassment, they're written according to what's called the reasonable person standard. There's this generic person. Would a reasonable person view this pattern of action as an sexually correct and setting to, to the victim? Well, if it turns out that, as it does, that reasonable women differ from reasonable men, okay, then this generic reasonable person standard is actually, what, how do you deal with it? What if you have a reasonable judge in the case or men who are reasonable men on the jury versus a female judge and females on the jury, they will adjudicate the same actions differently because they have different evolved sexual psychology. Got it. And so, so even at the level of policy implementation, I think it would be really not, I'm not a legal expert, you know, and I hadn't talked to legal scholars about how, how to deal with this and if, you know, in a way that's fair. And, you know, the reasonable person standard was, it actually comes from English law, you know, going back, you prior to American, United States law, that the intent is, is good, you know, that is, and in many domains, a reasonable person standard is perfectly appropriate. But when it comes to the sexual domain and sexual crimes, a reasonable person standard is not appropriate. So yeah. So there's just one example of how it, how it harms women. Yeah, no, that, that makes full sense. I've been reading a lot of books lately, mainly talking about, you know, the, the debates and kind of the outrage over the conversation around genetic or gender differences and stuff. And there's the argument, you know, in, in those realms as well with like biology and stuff of, Hey, we need to talk about these because it could hurt people. I actually just finished a early copy of Catherine Page Hardin's book. It's called the genetic lottery. And she talks about how like, you know, people like, Oh, don't start talking about those genetic differences because that becomes this slippery slope. And then, you know, but it's like, but if we avoid those, I see what you're saying. If we avoid those conversations, we're not recognizing these things. And, and I know the law is tricky, but I think that'd be great if you, if you have another book and you team up with a lawyer and stuff, but here's, here's my question for you. I don't know if you've researched this at all. I'm sure it's come across your mind. Since I'm like a big psychology nerd, I'm always thinking about perception too, right? So just to throw an example out there, like I, I am no Brad Pitt, we know this, right? So bar woman standing there, Brad Pitt walks up, says something, right? I walk up, say something, perception is different. I think you touched on this in the book. I do. Yes. So, so based on whether or not the person's attracted to you, now, now here I'm going to throw another thing your way, David. Okay. Everybody's preference is different. And since we're talking about, you know, mating and all that stuff, I am into thicker women, right? So if a thicker woman came up to me and hit on me, right? And then a real skinny, like supermodel skinny, I wouldn't be attracted to her. So I would perceive those different and one I might perceive as harassing when I might not. So perception plays a big role. And this is just something that I think about because when we're talking about rules and stuff, and like you mentioned, like, you know, what you're doing on the university, like, if, if a super attractive professor did that to a colleague, but then an unattractive one did the same thing, like, doesn't that get a little tricky since perception plays a role? Yes. Yeah. And I would say that in this case, the perception is tied to our underlying sexual psychology. So it's, it's essentially not in the sense of just sort of visual input, but it's visual input that's tied to our underlying sexual psychology. And, and, and yes, there's research that you talk about that in the book of it's not just physical track. So, but that is one barrier. It's like status, another one. Status status is another one. So, so for example, if the janitor in the building, you know, starts sexually persistent, women find that more upsetting than if it's, you know, let's say, a rock star. Yeah, rock stars that maybe they expect that there's a difference to it. But Stamos does make a difference with the qualification that if the person high in status happens to have power and then that, then women find that very upsetting because this is, this is one of the situations that puts women in a very awkward bind because they, let's say they want to reject this offer. So, man, let's say a tortoise says I want to go, let's go out for a drink after work or let's go on a date. Or why don't you come back to my place? I have some entries. I want to show you that that if the guy has power over then women often engaging when I call soft rejection. They say, you know, oh, I'm busy. I can't do that or I have a boyfriend. So they try to communicate that they're not interested. But they don't say, look, I have zero interest to a total loser and I'm rejected because they're, as we kind of alluded to earlier, consequences for retaliation, which, which people sometimes do, you actually talk about a case of that in the, in the book in this true example involving Bill O'Reilly and a woman that happened to know Wendy Walsh, where she was appeared on Fox News in various segments as an expert on relationships. And he said to her, let's have dinner or want to talk about your career and talk about having you becoming a regular on the show. And so, and so she thought this was fantastic. And then after dinner, he basically said them, I'd like you to come up to my room. So yeah, hotel room and she declined. And he got very angry. Apparently, a reporter said that well, you can forget about all that business advice I gave you. And they basically cut her out of the out of the TV show. And so this is an example where sparring men sometimes retaliating against yeah. And so that puts women in this bind where if they're not interested and want to turn down the guy, but they also them to jeopardize their careers, they have they have this problem. That's why I think greater awareness is critical. Yeah. And I'm curious to like going back a little bit earlier, we were talking about the difference between what men perceive as flirting or this person's interested to write. So, so I don't know like is so okay, let's let's go back to that example of Bill O'Reilly, because I think about all these factors, like, if let's say Bill read your entire book and he realized it's like, Oh, I might be getting false signals that the fact that she agreed to dinner means that she's interested, right? So when she turns down going up to the room, he's like, Okay, part of my sexual psychology is throwing me off here. Okay. But then on top of that, when I think about, you know, jealousy, and you know, you cover a lot of that in your book to there's also this kind of more, you know, like, like, are in group status, right? Like, what if somebody in Bill's circle found out that she turned them down to right? So he has this want of me to be like, Oh, well, I, you know what I mean? So that kind of intertwines as well. So I guess basically what I'm asking is like, what, what would what in a perfect world, what would the optimal, like outcome of that scenario be where she interpreted, oh, we're talking about business, and his sexual psychology is interpreting, you know, if I'm just giving him the benefit of the doubt that that wasn't just his intention the entire time, you know what I mean? What's what's optimal here? Yeah, well, well, so that's a good question. And, and there are any, some of the optimal solutions, but I think that awareness knowledge of something like the sexual over perception bias, yeah, is is critical here. So for, for both men and women, so for men to realize, well, if she agrees dinner with me, if she smiles at me that, you know, I have this sexual over perception bias. And so maybe you need to be careful and, and find more cues before I conclude that she in fact is interested in me in that way, essentially or romantically. And then women need to know also that men are likely to make this appear in sexual misperception. And in that their smiles or touches in, you know, incidental touches, however innocuous, they may seem just knowledge that men sometimes misinterpret those will give them something, you know, make men aware of the differences. Sex differences in our sexual psychology is critical to helping to bridge the gap. Now, is this an optimal solution? Is this magically no, of course not, but it's one step in the right direction. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And, and part of the reason I asked so much of this stuff is because, you know, I have a 12 year old son, they just reopened the schools they're going back, we're mad since that. But he's, he's 12, he's getting that age. And I remember before we figured out if he was a boy or a girl, like I was definitely afraid to have a girl because I know how guys can be. But now that I have a son, like I have this like, like I need to teach this kid, right? Like, hey, you're sexual over perception bias, we need to watch out and stuff like that. So that's one of the reasons I think books like yours are so important because I agree. Like once we acknowledge it, like, you know, I read the work of like, you know, Daniel Kahneman, I love reading books on biases and all these other things because I feel like it helps me pause and just be like, okay, something in my brain skewing this and, and honestly, like, I, I, I almost think that having lower self esteem and some situations like me, when I was back in my single days and dating, it was like, I need like an over the top side that this person is interested in me. You know, so sometimes self esteem might be beneficial, but there was one part of your book where you brought something up. And I think maybe this would be very helpful if people learn. But you talk about this kind of irreplaceable mate value. All right. So you have a lot of guys or you mentioned like incels in the book and stuff like that. And there's a lot of, there's a lot of guys who try to date, they're like a six or a seven, right? And they want a nine or a 10. Well, let's say that works out for them. Well, based on the irreplaceable, and correct me if I'm wrong, but based on the irreplaceable mate value, if that lower status six of a person, whether it's status or physical attractiveness, they don't really have a guarantee that that person's going to stay because that woman might jump ship the second or more attractive or higher status male. So is that an argument for these guys to start dating at their level? Yeah, I think, yeah, yes, it is that I think that's one of the most important things if you're interested in an enduring romantic relationship, then you have to pick someone who's within your mate value range. And the main value is something it's not, it's not a static entity in the sense that it changes with the fortunes of time. I mean, people get sick, they get injured, they get a job promotion, they, they publish a bestselling novel, whatever their list rises and falls in status and mate value. And so, but the guy who's at six coming after a woman who's an eight or nine, even if he is fortunate enough to attract her in the short run, she's statistically more likely to cheat on them and more likely to trade up in the mating market, you know, when the opportunity arises. And so I think for both men and women, selecting a mate within your mate value ranges critical. Yeah, no, I think that that's so that's so important. But yeah, I just I want if anybody takes away anything from this conversation, I hope it's that it's like, here's a good reason to date in your range, you know what I mean? Because yeah, like just the way we're kind of wired, but here's a so we could we can just if I could add a qualification to that. So what we're talking about here is a consensual mate that is that is agreed upon if you have under people in the room, okay, and this says the mate value of A versus B, there would be a fair amount of consensus. Okay, but there are also the individual differences in mate value. So I know one woman, for example, who is she's a Slavic scholar. And then she really places a high priority on a guy who has deep knowledge of Russian literature. So she can have these high level sketches. Now, this is a, you know, an individual mate, most, most people don't have this as a key quality that they're looking for in a mate. But she does. And, and so there are individual differences. And that's very fortunate, because that what that means is somehow, yeah, is can be a higher and made value to you, but not necessarily to other people. I see what you're meaning. God is so so for example, like, you know, I if if like, I'm really good at fixing cars and a girl grew up, you know, liking mechanics or something, then maybe, you know, like, if like, if we have a bunch of different like levels, I played video games, so I'm thinking about like stats, right? So like, maybe if I can track the nicks down here, but auto repair or whatever that year, maybe that can help it, that can help kind of balance it out. So, so yeah, maybe we just need to be better at assessing it. And, and that that segues into something I've been dying to ask you since I read, you know, your, your previous books too, because there's this like kind of idea like we let's just take any just like typical man or woman wherever they're at on the attractiveness scale. Some people, you know, my background's in mental health and stuff. And there's this idea like, Oh my God, I'm going to be single forever. I'm never going to find anybody. And I, I've always just had this idea. I'm just like, I don't think that that has any type of like reality to it. I think that everybody could buy someone it's about finding the right mate value and matching it up. I feel like that's a lot of the issues with people not being able to, you know, attract like, you know, a long-term mate or even like a casual hookup. You know what I mean? So, you know, so like, based on your experience, have you ever met? There's a weird question. Have you ever met somebody you're like, Oh no, nobody will ever be attracted to you because I just don't see that as the case. Like I was a drug addict for almost a decade. And I still found people, even though my life was a mess. You know what I mean? So like, if, if I could do that back, then I think there might be hope for you. You just got to find the right people. Yeah. Yeah. I would say, I'm sorry. I would say the users, yes, for the most part, although there are exceptions being an important social context called sex ratio, which I'll, which I'll mention in a minute, but, but just sort of the personal anecdote. When I did my very first study of, of, this was a married couples. And what we did is we brought them into the lab and we had a male and female interviewer and we interviewed the couples. And then after we interviewed them, we rated them on a variety of characteristics independently. So the personality characteristics, you had more power in the relationship, you talk more, but also how physically attractive is this individual. And one of the things that we found is that there were, when we got to the physical attractiveness rating, this one couple, you know, kind of looked at each other because it was like, is like a guy was a one. On the one, the seven scale, one to 10 scale. And, you know, and the woman was a bit hybrid, but they were married to each other. So, yeah. So, so even, even people who are relatively unattractive can find others. But here's the qualification, sex ratio. So the extreme example was in, is in mainland China right now with the, the cohort that was under the one child policy. So they, they favored male children over female children. So there's in this cohort, a surplus of men and now they're mating age and there aren't enough women to go, to go around. And so, and so when you're, when you have an extreme sex ratio in balance, in this case, a surplus of men, no, not everybody is going to succeed in finding a date. Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. And, but, and this relates to a more general point and then to an earlier point that we were discussing about mate value is that different environments, even within, within our culture have different sex ratios within them. So for example, one of the things I talk about in the new book is what I call the mating crisis among educated women. And that is that it is the fact that at colleges, universities in both North America and throughout most of Western Europe, more women than men are getting higher degrees. They're getting more educated, both at the college level and at the higher degrees. And so at the, at the undergraduate level, and at the graduate level, some degree, there's a sex ratio in balance. So people tend to find mates from their work pool. That's one of the main services. But there are exceptions. So the exceptions are engineers. So CalTAC or MIT, there's a surplus of men. And so I can just extract a piece of advice for your son when he reaches college at it, but when I look at the sex ratios of the colleges, he's applying to and see for, for women, you know, that is the rare earth sex has an advantage in the mating market. And an example from a talk that I gave not too long ago at Texas Christian University, former student of mine, a professor there, you know, Sarah, he'll achieve by the minute, give a talk. And so just chatting with the undergraduates and the women told me there's a TCU, Texas Christian University, there's 60% women, 40% men. And the women basically said a guy who's normally a five in any other context is an eight at TCU. And then when I talk to guys who had formerly gone to TCU, they get this kind of glazed look in their eyes as they fondly remember this one time in their life when they were high in meat value. Yeah. And so the sex ratio of the environment is critical in various tremendously good subcultures. So you mentioned gaming culture. Well, my understanding is that that's a culture, subculture where there's a surplus of men, yeah, a lot of two women in that culture, you know, there. So picking, if you want to succeed in mating, one piece of advice is pick a social environment where you were the rearer sex. Yeah, no, that makes sense. And that's hilarious that you bring that up about TCU. I went when I went up to junior college, it was in this tiny town in Northern California called Quincy. You're just driving through the forest, all of a sudden there's a town population was like 1500, right? But it was like that as well. And there was it was a it was kind of a sports school. I went up there originally for football. And there was a lot more men, the women and like, you know, women were much more attractive than if you were in a bigger city or or something like that. And that's interesting. And I'm curious too, is that does that explain any type like I know there's a million factors such as like substance use and stuff. Does that explain any of the higher rates of sexual violence on college campuses? Do you think like with some of these, like, have you looked at that like, is it happening at schools where there's a lower percentage of women and more competition among men or anything like that? Yeah, I haven't looked at that. And I'm not aware of studies of that specifically, but it wouldn't surprise me if that occurred because one of the other things when you get a surplus of women, the whole mating system tends to shift more toward a short term mating situations and casual hookups in. And so I think a lot of the hookup culture on some college campuses do is do sexual violence. And so what happens then is women compete with each other for the smaller number of men that are available. And one of the ways in which they compete is by dressing in sexier clothing, skin skin, your more tight fitting clothing, and also signaling sexual availability. And so this sometimes puts women in social context where they might be at risk of sexual violence. But but again, this is that's a speculation I don't know of any empirical studies that have documented that. Yeah, and that that would be tricky to with that over perception bias too. And you have women dressing more sexual. Yeah, so yeah, that'd be an interesting study if someone did it. And something else, I cannot find an answer to this David. And I was like, when I talked to him, I have to ask. So so I'm I'm 36 years old, right? Millennial. And as I mentioned, I know a lot of women I've had friends I've been friends with women since junior high high school. Yeah, we're now adults today. And I'm sure you've seen this, but there is a growing number of women around my age who do not want children, right? But based on just about everything I understand about evolutionary psychology, it's all about mating, like everything's about mating and reproducing. But there's so many women who do not want children with demographic. Right. So well, first of all, just the clarifications, it's all about mate, but not not reproducing. So another result, all the selection evolution by selection built in to us is a desire for sex, a desire, an attraction toward people with particular quality, such as fertile individuals, and then reproduction hat. So evolution didn't have to build in a desire to reproduce, you know, all okay. Yes. And standpoint, not bad, not the second. Well, yeah, in another way of putting that is that our sexual psychology is the end product of the long and unbroken chain of incestors, each of whom succeeded in the mating game, they succeeded in attracting a mate, succeeded in attracting weight long enough to have sex with that mate, and long enough to reproduce with that mate. And so we are descendants of this chain of successful incestors. So we carry with us the mating psychology that led to their success. But that doesn't, it's not forward looking. So in other words, it's not saying, and this is, it's an easy conflation that a lot of PhDs make this error. They think that there should be like a goal maximizing reproductive success. And no, there's no goal maximizing reproductive success is just attract individuals who are reasonable and mate value within your range and do all the things you need to do. So, but, but you're absolutely right. There's this trend and it's not just in the United States, there are lower rates of actual reproduction in throughout Western Europe, and also in some Asian cultures, such as Japan, and South Korea, to some degree, where they're below, even in Italy, the reproductive rate is below the placement level. And in the United States, the people here are also reproducing below the placement level. But we have immigrants coming in, and they reproducing that sort of balances it out. So we're not, you know, we're not losing net population numbers in our culture, but they are in Italy. And it might happen in the United States as well, you know, because people who come from cultures where they historically kind of large number of children become acculturated to American life and start having fewer children. So this is a worldwide issue. I shouldn't say worldwide, it doesn't occur in all cultures, but something that is of great concern, just even from a practical level, because you have a shrinking workforce and kind of ballooning really old people who were on social security. And so this has economic consequences as well. Yeah, it's really interesting. And I'm far from an economic sky, but I hear about, we're talking about technological advances and AI taking jobs and stuff like that. And then I'm thinking about less people being born, like is that going to kind of balance it out? Like if less jobs are available and we're automating more things, is that anything that we've looked at? Yeah, yeah. Well, I haven't, you know, and few notes where things will end up in the future. You know, it's risky to make predictions too far out. You go a year or two out, five years, 10 years, few notes. I mean, I don't think anyone could have predicted, for example, 20 years ago, that there would be something like Facebook, you know, or Twitter. No one could predict these things, or that everybody is walking around with a very high-powered computer in their pocket in the form of a cell phone that can put them in touch with, you know, anyone around the world, thousands of potential mates on dating sites, etc. No one could have predicted these things. So who knows what's going to happen 10 years from now? Yeah, yeah. I just finished a book about, you know, climate change and stuff like that. And it was talking, you know, we don't know what technological advances might help stop climate change. But then I also think about the population and, you know, well, that, but that's a, that's a whole thing. But I guess complex, it hurts my brain. But speaking of, speaking of Twitter, we talked about this briefly on Twitter. But as I was reading your book, I had this question and you said it's helped some women like your book, right? Like, because my concern when I'm reading, when I'm reading the book and earlier we were talking about, you know, the goal of the book, what is it, and educating and, you know, teaching people about, you know, this sexual psychology and stuff like that. And, you know, I look very scientifically, I just try to leave out my biases and emotions and just like look at it for what it is. But my concern is that some of it's like, oh, hey, guys are guys are just going to do this, right? So I'm curious, you know, like women, you know, who have been assaulted or women who are worried about the climate and the workplace and all these things like, has it been helpful for them? Have people mentioned like a victim blaming aspect at all? Like I'm curious, but yeah, yeah, no, no, the reception to buy my book, when men begin badly has been very warmly received by women. So there have been a number of women who have reviewed it. Some from, for example, in the UK, my book came out under just slightly different title for reasons that we can get into if you're interested, but in the UK, it's bad men with the same subtitle, hidden roots of sexual deception, harassment and assaults. But there's a kind of a apparently left wing publication from the new statesman in the UK, and they published a very, written by a woman published a very favorable, strongly favorable review of the book and said basically, and the number women say this, they're going to give this book to their teenage daughters to read. And hopefully people give it to the teenage sons to read as well. Other people have said, like one colleague who read the book said, like, this should be required reading for all Friday incoming freshmen, oh, every college because it's valuable information. So, so, but no, I think I take beans in the book to avoid victim blaming. So, so even things like, you know, it's an interesting phenomenon when it comes to sexual violence, because like if someone gets mugged, you're walking down the street, someone gets mugged, no one blames the victim, right? It's a, it's a crime is defined by the act. But it's unfortunate that sexual violence was when a woman gets raped or sexually assaulted, sometimes they do blame or even sexually harassed. They think, well, what was she here? What is her? How many sex crimes has she had previously? And I think we need to shift the mindset on that because sexual assault is, is a crime. And there is a vacant now, are there attributes of victims that make them more vulnerable to sexual assault? Yeah, we know, for example, the drinking alcohol is one of them drinking alcohol that disables women's judgment and decision making. And it also impairs her physical. So you, you're physically weaker when you, when we've had a number of drinks. And so women are less able to fend off or even accurately perceive that a sexual assault might be not. Now, this is not to blame the woman because the sexual assault versus still a crime committed by the man. And that should be clear. But nonetheless, you know, women, you know, should be aware that certain things put them in danger. And if they go along to a frat party where there are these red solo cops with unknown mixtures in them, unknown concentrations, they need to be careful. And one of the things I've talked about, I think one of the most important chapters in my book is women's defenses against sexual coercion. And I talk about about a dozen of those. And one of the most important ones is bodyguards. So, so in other words, the woman's friends, family, male friends, female friends, coalition allies, people who by their mere presence deter sexual aggression. And so any guy who is contemplating sexual aggression will be, will be deterred by that. And if they do try it, then the woman has these bodyguards. And so in a weird way, and this is what I call an evolutionary mis-fetch. I've been invent the term, of course, but the conditions under which we evolved are very different from the conditions in habit right now. And so, for example, women go off to college and university, where they don't have any friends, necessarily, or and they're far away from their feelings. And their friends and family, the formerly provided these bodyguards, you know, I'm sweet of coalition allies. And so the woman is more vulnerable. And so we find in a highlight this in the book that fresh women are especially vulnerable, because it's a totally novel environment and they're not used to the dangers in that environment. And so as women, they get to be sophomores, junior seniors, the victimization rates decline. I'm import, because women become more savvy about navigating this novel environment. But I think just not only this, why I have a daughter and I'm having very little, you know, and, you know, men to be care about women. And, you know, as I mentioned, their female friends, their daughters, sisters and so forth, need to have this information. Yeah, with that, want to reduce, ideally, eliminate sexual violence. Yeah, yeah. And I think you explain that well. And I agree. I think you did an excellent job in the book. Like I, and maybe it's just because I'm very like mindful of like how you've seen how things can explode and people get offended or outraged. And are you saying, you know, are you saying we're to blame or men are just going to be like this, but I think you did an excellent job breaking it all down. But I think of it, you know, for example, I'm not a camper. And if I was going to a new area and went camping, I'd want to I'd want to know like what these bushes mean, if there's going to be poison idea, you know, just to be aware. So I can kind of avoid it or prepare and stuff like that. Because because yeah, that's that's one of my fears. Like, when I was working in addiction treatment and stuff, because a lot of people who become addicted to substances, they're victims of trauma, a lot of people victims of sexual abuse from childhood and stuff. And there's this balance of like, you know, I'm the son of an alcoholic mom where it's not my fault. But now it's like I can be aware of my situation. Now that I'm older, I have more control and more educate myself and I live in Las Vegas. And I have to learn about all the stuff going on so I can guard myself from a relapse. So that's kind of how I try to explain it. And a lot of people do take it better than than some they're like, Oh, you know, it's not my fault that this happened to me. And, you know, it's like, I know, I know, but we got to control what we can. Is that kind of what you you try to teach your daughter and yeah, yeah, absolutely. And, you know, I mean, you could say if like one reaction should be well in an ideal world, you know, it shouldn't make women in dress any way they want. I act any way they want. Slyam 12 Yeager Meisters anytime they want. But, you know, it's, we don't live in that ideal world. You know, we live in a world where they are real sexual dangers out there. You know, so and we've talked about sexual harassment, like a bit about sexual assault and offenses against that. In the book, I also go into intimate partner violence, which is another form of sexual violence. So, you know, which is during the pandemic, increased dramatically. So estimates are the rates of intimate partner violence blown up by about 20% during pandemic, due to especially in a lot of situations where women are basically stuck with a guy that they were on verge of leaving or in the process of leaving. And, and that's often the case. So the reason I call this fiscal violence a form of sexual violence is because the goal of the abuser is often made guardian or made keeping when he wants to keep the woman for himself and prevent her from, from leaving. And so that's again, a means of bypassing female choice. So, and yeah, sir. No, no, no, no, it reminds me because I think that's one of the phenomenon that just confused me or did until I read your book is stalking, right? And that, I believe you said is that's also a form of mate guarding and occupying the woman, like the goal is kind of occupying the woman's time. So it decreases the amount of time she could have to meet a potential other mate. Is that kind of like closing the mind, right? Well, so the stalking is not all stalking is mating related, but a lot of it's a journey of evidence. And, and one of the largest categories is a woman who has a left her relationship. So she's moved out. But again, the guy starts the stalker. So we'll couple things there. Okay, one is that in our study of 2,500 victims of stalking, what we found is that the stalker is lower in meat down, they can move stalking. And so part of the male psychology is a realization that he will never be able to replace her effect. And he's lost someone he was he's in it, you know, and so, but the goal is often either to try to get her back, which doesn't happen in the high frequency today. So it's rare. But also to future fear with her future mating efforts. So, and the unfortunate thing is, it's diabolically affected in the sense of like guys are deterred. So, you know, it shows up and she says, Oh, don't mind my ex, he's spying on us with binoculars. You know, he's got some weapons in his car. Yeah, you know, the guys say, look, I really like you, but call me when you get rid of your spot. I mean, there's going to be a frightening, frightening thing. And so the, the diabolical conclusion is that sometimes it is affected in interference with the woman's attempts to remate. You know, one woman actually said in our study, this, her ex basically threatened every guy that she saw. And after six months, she ended up going back to her, her ex, because there were no other guys. Yeah, it doesn't last throughout from everything. He had successfully repelled all other potential mates. And so it's like, you know, directed towards her and also directly toward interfering with these other attempts to remate. Yeah. And I saw going to the underlying psychology of that. And also in that chapter, I offer a victims of stalky, yeah, who are cantiful, by the way, a set of the sort of best practices, the advice of how to deal stalking with your victim. We even have an, I cite this in the book, a website that we created, devoted to helping victims of stalking. It's called stalkyhelp.org. Yeah. And the perfect catch is a number of, it's a research for victims of stalking and what to do about it. Got it. Yeah. I remember you mentioned that. I'm glad you brought it up again, because I'm gonna put that in the description. But yeah, it's crazy. It blows my mind, because one of the worst things is that, like you mentioned, it is effective. So, you know, the more tools people have to kind of not let that happen, you know, were prevented. And, and yeah, it bumps me out too, because just even, you know, women I've known who have had stalkers and stuff, the legal route isn't even always the best thing goes, you need, you know, a certain amount of evidence or proof or this to happen. And sometimes it's just too late. So, so yeah, it feels like there's a few things that need to happen, but, you know, whatever resources people can have to kind of navigate it. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I want to keep you all day. I literally have like 20 more things, but I want people to go get this book. So before I let you go, I'm gonna get you one more question, David. Let me put this first. So one of my things, right, growing up and, you know, it's probably that there's a whole bunch of stuff I've gone through therapy for and stuff like that, like probably my alcoholic mom, but I always needed a relationship, right, led me to a lot of toxic relationships. And I see that a lot with people. And the best thing I ever did, David, like was for like a year, it was actually the year I got sober, because there's this rule, like in 12 step programs, like, don't date for a year, right? Best thing I ever did, because it rewired me to kind of know like, Oh, you'll survive when you're single, right? But anyways, it seems like one of the biggest things affecting people in their mental health is like this, this insane fear of loneliness, right? So they'll, they'll jump into terrible relationships or toxic relationships. And I'm just curious, like from your perspective, like, like I get it, we want to, you know, have mates and stuff like that. But why is it so difficult for us to stay single? Like, is there anything we could do? Has your research found anything? Have you come across any studies like that will help us just be okay being single until we find somebody with the right mate value? Yeah, that's a good question. Well, I think it's one of these examples, though, where, where there's a miss, I mean, we want to be successful maters, not to say single is very difficult. I mean, as I mentioned, we're the descendants of the one and unbroken line of successful maters, you know? And so that's what we evolved to do. If we were asexual, like some species are, we wouldn't have to bottle, you know, that you don't have to go through this diabolical complicated process of mate selection, mate attract and mate keeping and all that. But we're sexually reducing species. And that's why I think I've you and it's made in this cliché, you get someone and the world seems full of nails that need to be counted. Well, that's what I feel about mate. It's like the center of the universe, related to everything. And so, and in, you know, we're an extremely social species, we didn't evolve to be alone. Yeah, you know, we evolved to live in groups and to find mates. Yeah, yeah, it's, it's, it's so difficult. And I don't know if we're going to kind of catch up evolutionarily to that point. But I actually stayed single and celibate for like 18 months. And it kind of just broke this spell. I'm like, Oh, I survived. Okay. And I was able to, I was able to be like, okay, well, instead of going after threes, like on a psychologically stable level, I can go after like sixes and sevens, you know what I mean? And I current girlfriend, you know, it's the healthiest relationship I've been in. So, but a lot of people I've noticed that they just, it can't stay single long enough to find that one. And sometimes you're stuck in a situation like you mentioned, that that one young woman where a stalker repelled everybody. Right. So someone, you know, which you might have found somebody more psychologically healthy, they were deterred. And so it's, it's, it's tricky. But yeah, it's something that I try to teach people like just learn how to be okay being single for at least a little bit. But anyway, David, thank you so much. And yeah, before I let you go, if there's any, any other resources like the stalking help one or like, where could people find you? I found you and we connected on Twitter. Like, where's the best way to keep up with your research? If you end up writing another book, like you have to keep people busy. Okay, I will, I do. So well, first of all, I just, you really, your listeners might be interested in the cover of this home. So it's kind of a cool cover. I mean, I like it for some bad at that. But in many behavior badly, I would say another key book. So I've written about seven books or so. And I would say another key book is my book, The Evolution of Desire, Yeah, strategies of human mating, because that kind of gives an overview of all the strategies of human mating, whereas the current book focuses on the issue conflict between sexes, that book gives an overview of tactics of attraction tactics that may potentially people can find me by just googling my name, David bus.com, the ss to ss now, not the street bus, but David bus.com. And that will bring you to my, my, my web page. And on the web page, there are links to all my books to know also links to my scientific articles, which can be downloaded for free. And also links to like the stalking help website in other resources. And so David bus.com, you know, we'll take people to those resources. Beautiful. Yeah. And I'll link all that down below. So yeah, thank you. I've been anticipating this for a while and did not disappoint David. So thanks so much for doing it. Well, thank you. It's been a delight to chat with you and hope we can meet up and chat again sometime. Absolutely.