1178: Connor Beaton | How Society Engineered a Generation of Lonely Men

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Welcome to the show.

I'm Jordan Harbinger.

On the Jordan Harbinger Show, we decode the stories, secrets, and skills of the world's most fascinating people and turn their wisdom into practical advice that you can use to impact your own life and those around you.

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Today on the show, a long overdue episode with my friend Connor Payton.

He's the founder of Mantalks, a men's mental health company.

He's a smart dude.

We've been friends for years, had a lot of offline conversations that have been particularly insightful, and I wanted to share some of that with you all here as well.

Today, we explore the loneliness epidemic in men, fatherless boys, the decline in dating and relationships, of course, with both genders, AI girlfriends, incels, porn brain, and of course, my favorite subject recently, I guess, dicks.

Yes, a girthy tangent into the obsession over penis size, and a whole lot more.

Here we go with Connor Bateon.

Thanks for doing this on short notice, man.

I know we've been planning to do this for about eight years.

A hot minute, man.

A hot minute.

I'm just glad to be here.

Yeah, let's talk about arson, incels, and dicks.

That's what we got today.

That was great.

Yeah, it's funny because I'm not actually joking.

That's all in the notes.

It was in the notes.

Lots of stats.

My wife was like, why do you have a stat about repeat arsonists?

And I was like, well, because it fits in on the whole macro picture of, you know, kids without fathers.

I thought that was really interesting because I grew up in Detroit or the Detroit area.

And every, there's something called Devil's Night, which I don't even know if it exists outside of Detroit, but it's the night before Halloween, I think.

And it is a massive arson night where tons of buildings, at least in the 80s and 90s, used to get burnt down.

Really?

Yeah.

And usually abandoned buildings.

But the problem with abandoned buildings in Detroit is people still live in them.

You don't really know if it's abandoned.

There could be homeless, you know, unhoused people living in there.

There could be families with kids living in there because they're like, oh, this house isn't so bad.

We'll just live in here rent-free until dad gets another job.

It doesn't have electricity, but who cares?

Or it does have electricity and gas, right?

So like somebody will go in there and just burn it down, not realizing there's a family that lives in the basement.

So why would you do this?

I used to light things on fire when I was a kid, but it was like wooden sticks.

There's a boxes.

Very renowned story in my family that I reached a certain age and I started lighting everything on fire.

Like I, I got these rocket engines.

Oh, yeah.

Super fun.

I attached them to my sister's Barbie car and I was trying to like create a rocket.

And so I strung the wire back up to the deck and me and my buddy like lit it up and I thought this rocket was going to like, you know,

you know, up a hundred couple feet.

But instead it just blew up and like disintegrated the Barbie car that it was strapped to and then blew apart the fireplace outside that it was inside of.

And then the other story is spraying pine cones with crappy $5 musk that like one of my aunts gave to me and lighting them on fire and then hawking them at my sister.

Oh, that's terrible.

She was with you.

I think it's a very throwing.

I think it's a very like common thing.

She was riding by on her bicycle, right?

Like no, no siblings were hurt in this story.

Yeah, you know, I think it's very common.

You know, there's, yeah, there's this thing called young man syndrome.

You know, young man's syndrome.

Young man syndrome is this period of time where the highest mortality rates happen.

The highest suicide rates happen.

The highest injury rates happen for young men.

And it's between the ages of 16 and 26.

That's a long time.

Right.

10 years?

You can do a lot of damage to yourself on 10 years.

But I think that's this period of time where young men are trying to sort out their relationship to risk-taking, relationships, and sex, their own identity.

And we have a very externalized way of trying to sort those things out.

You know, it's not like an internal process.

It's usually not a social process.

It's like, I got to go out into the world and try and grapple with who am I and who am I socially and contextually within the world.

And a lot of the times that leads to us doing really stupid things.

You know, I was 19 and bought a thousand cc motorcycle.

I was going to say, it's these guys who ride bikes no helmet on a highway and they're lane splitting.

And you're like, you know, that if you hit like a rock, you're dead.

It's a meat cran.

It's over.

Yeah.

It's over.

And even with a helmet, what if someone is still doing this at like age, I don't know, 45, asking for a friend?

Yeah, I mean, there's probably a a certain propensity towards trying to feel alive through taking risks.

Just a risk, there's a whole like finding my identity, trying on new things.

Yeah.

I feel like I'm still doing that.

I'm not doing as many dangerous things.

Ah, well, that's fair.

Okay.

A lot of the times, this is a whole different subject, but what we psychologically do with things like trauma and abuse and abandonment and attachment issues is there's a whole bunch of ways that we have maladaptive strategies to try and deal with the pain and the suffering that can coincide with that.

So for some people, they sexualize those wounds and they try and explore them and figure them out by different risky sexual behaviors.

And then for other people, they will take crazy risks with money or they'll take crazy risks with gambling or relationships or in their career.

And so some of those things can show up in that way.

But I think what you're talking about is just kind of like a normal, I'm trying to figure out who I am.

You know, I'm trying to figure out what's my purpose, what's my function in the world.

And I think that's a big question for a lot of men who feel very rudderless in today's society when we see this like collapse of young men in today's society.

I want to talk about loneliness first, I think, because the loneliness epidemic, it seems very real.

I, I'm ashamed to admit this, I thought it was kind of a BS thing because I, 2020 hindsight, I probably did experience it, but I forgot about it.

And also, a lot of my friends never talked about it.

But the more I talk with men who are fans of the show, for example, in our advice inbox on Fridays or just online, or just even on Reddit.

And look, this is an online forum, so it self-selects a little bit for maybe people that are online all the time and are lonelier.

But I see and hear about this constantly.

Guys feel like they have very few and your stats that you sent me, many guys feel like they have no close friends.

That's actually almost hard to believe.

It's hard to wrap my mind around that.

I think in the broader context, when we sort of pull back, a lot of the male-oriented spaces have collapsed over the last couple of decades.

What is a male-oriented space?

It's like places that are just for boys and men to gather.

Things like Boy Scouts, it's not just boys anymore.

It's co-ed now.

It's co-ed.

Is that a bad thing, though?

Let me pause on that because I'm a, yeah, as an Eagle Scout.

It seems cool that you can do that with your son and your daughter.

Yeah, I mean, I think that we do need co-ed spaces, 100%, no doubt.

And throughout the course of human history, young boys have had spaces where they've learned and grappled how to be young men.

And in many ways, manhood and even masculinity to some degrees is something that is modeled for a young man.

And so when we collapse those spaces where young men learn, here's how I deal with anger, here's how I deal with power, here's how I deal with feeling powerless, here's how I, you know, interact with women, here's how I be a good citizen, when those spaces start to collapse, a young man is left with a vacuum or a vacancy of learning.

how to go through this transitory period between being a boy and then being a teenager and then being a man and the responsibilities that come along with that and the expectations that come along with that.

And I think we've gone through this transition where, for a period of time, we told men, this is exactly how you have to be.

You have to fit into this box and fit into this mold.

It was constrictive.

And then that shifted.

And for the last decade or two, how manhood and masculinity has been formed is: here's all the things that you shouldn't do.

Don't do any of those things.

Don't be any of these things.

But we haven't actually created direction for men.

And so for a lot of guys, they fill in the gaps with charismatic online personalities that are very enticing that fill that void.

You know, we do need some of these spaces because young men are going to go through these periods where they're looking for advice.

And one of the things that I sent you is just the impact of fatherless homes.

Yeah, we can get into that in a minute.

I do want to stick on the loneliness thing because it's really terrifying.

15% of men report having no close friends.

In 1990, that was 3%.

And if you had no friends in 1990, I mean, I don't know anybody.

Well, I guess they didn't have any friends.

So why would I know them?

But

I feel like there weren't that many guys that seemed chronically lonely.

Like all of us played together, right?

Among men aged 18 to 24, 28% say they have no close friends.

In contrast, only 10% of women report the same.

So women are doing much better.

on this front.

And in 2020, Harvard found 61% of men had felt serious loneliness in the past month.

Yes.

That's really damning.

I don't think that existed when I was younger.

I could just be wrong, but it looks like the data supports that.

One in five men could not identify a best friend.

I don't think I've ever had that situation in my whole life.

Yeah, me either.

27% of men said they had a best friend they could talk to about personal issues.

That's really sad.

I mean, this is like 75% of guys don't have anybody they can talk to about personal issues.

These are a lot of the men that you see in the online forums that are trying to get some advice and some grasp on how to actually just operate as a human being in the world, you know, how to be social, how to interact with people at the coffee shop.

not like never mind going up and, you know, asking somebody else for their phone number or going on a date, but just basic social things.

And there's a lot of contributing factors to this.

I do think not having fathers in the home has impacted this for sure.

I think obviously the rise of social media has made it so much easier for people that are naturally more introverted, that have higher levels of social anxiousness and anxiety.

to not have to deal with the stress.

To just never do anything.

Of just never doing anything.

But then also there is this correlation for young boys that the more that they are incentivized to take risks, the more healthy and integrated they are in society.

Healthy risks, not like a dangerous, you know, death-defying risk.

That's a healthy risk.

Like asking a girl on a date, is that asking a girl on a date, risking rejection, like taking the risk sometimes to join a sports team, taking a risk to go up to another guy at the gym, you know, in high school and start up a conversation, then maybe a friendship develops out of that, talking to another guy at a party, you know, over a drink and just starting up a conversation.

Those are just little social risks that a lot of young men have not been taught to take and they've not been incentivized to take.

And so slowly it's chipped away at their capacity to even have some of these normalized social skills.

And then I think the other thing is we have replaced relationship in a big way with technology, right?

So I worked at Apple for a period of time.

and oversaw some of the retail stores in British Columbia.

And I remember being in the retail store and seeing seeing kids that are like two, three years old just on iPads.

And I think we've gone through this generation where instead of being relational and learning how to regulate your nervous system and just be with unwanted emotions, anytime that happens, what we see is young boys and young girls turning towards technology as a kind of salve.

as a kind of digital soother for themselves when their system is upset.

And I think when you look at porn usage is another good example.

Yeah, I want to talk about, you know, young men use that, or men in general really use that as a method to soothe themselves.

And this creates even more loneliness because you have access to just so much.

Let's get into that.

I want to drop these last few stats.

Men are five times more likely to say they have no close friends than they were in 1990.

Yes.

25% of men say they have five or more close friends.

So 75% of men don't have five or more close friends.

It's insane to me.

Well, do you have any, like, do you have any notions?

Yeah.

Do you have any friends, Jordan?

Yeah, are you one of those?

Canada, you at least don't know them.

I don't know.

Yeah, we're fellow Canadians.

I forgot about that.

I'm from Michigan, so I'm Canadian with shitty healthcare.

So in America, I have to explain this joke now.

In America, if somebody was like, hey, man, you're a loser.

You don't have a girlfriend.

The most common lie in Michigan anyway was she lives in Canada or she lives in Ohio or goes to a different school and you don't know her.

And so it became this meme as we became adults where somebody would be like, hey, man, how long has it been since you've been out of work?

And I'd be like, Someone will go, He has a job, but it's in Canada.

He has a job, it's in Ohio.

You don't know the company, never heard of the company.

And or like, hey, man, are you dating anyone?

She lives in Canada.

So it's just because it's such a transparent lie.

Yeah, no, I'm from Michigan, so I'm actually south of the United States.

You're north of Cartoon.

You're an adopted Canadian.

Yes.

You're adopted Canadian.

A Canadian that can't get.

Did you, when you turned 18, go across the border and go to strip clubs?

Yes, only when I was 18, though, not when I was 16 and had a really shitty fake ID that said I was 18

because I couldn't pass for 21.

And then you go to Windsor and you buy beer at Joker's or whatever in Windsor, or you go to some strip club and the girls are just like, are you a child?

Because you look like a child.

You have no facial hair.

And no money.

I at least had like the big sideburns at 16, so I could somewhat pass

as an 18-year-old.

Not me.

Although I didn't get in trouble.

You know what?

Actually, I must have passed because when you come back over the border, customs agents were always like, doing any drinking in Canada?

And they didn't bug me at all.

So I must have looked like maybe I was legally able to drink in Canada.

But imagine being a 16-year-old, 17-year-old, 18-year-old kid and having zero friends to go and do what you and I are talking about.

I know.

And it doesn't have to be that.

Like, I'm not talking about like every young man needs to go to the strip club and drink booze and do that kind of shit.

Like that's what I'm talking about.

It's not to be a waste of time.

But, you know, just like the...

Roaming around on bicycles and, you know, trying to figure one another out and like who you are.

Yeah.

And our identity psychologically is social in its nature.

And so part of our psychological development actually requires other people.

So to know who you are, you also have to be in relationship with other people because they mirror back parts of you.

So it's an important developmental piece that, you know, I think a lot of young kids are missing out on.

But I'm curious, do you have insight into what you think is causing so many young boys to collapse in their relationships?

There was a post in our subreddit, the Jordan Harbinger subreddit, about why don't men approach women more?

And one of the guys, and this is the most upvoted thing, said, because when we do that, we get called creepy.

And now instead of just being rejected, it can affect your career.

It can affect your reputation at school.

The risk is way too high.

It could be filmed.

You could be trolled on TikTok for it.

And this has happened, I guess, to a few people in the sub.

the subreddit.

And that's really scary because, first of all, I remember trying to approach women when I was in my 20s and it was very difficult.

And no one had a smartphone.

You didn't have to, that moment in time alone, as ephemeral as it was, was terrifying enough.

And so most guys wouldn't do it.

And eventually you'd get over it and it would be fine.

And if you really made an ass of yourself, you just don't go to that bar again or something like that.

Or, you know, probably that would never even be a concern.

Now, the concern is you are immortalized forever in this moment where you did something silly and it spreads like wildfire and it literally poisons your entire job prospects or your academic career.

So, a lot of guys don't do things like that anymore, which is really sad.

So, the risk has become really high, and guys are just saying things like, it's too risky, it doesn't make any sense.

And then, of course, you also have apps now that guys can sort of hide behind where they're like, nobody meets by approaching anyway.

So, they use apps.

I'd love to talk about the apps because you mentioned in the stats here a recent poll on Bumble, one of these dating apps for people who don't know, shows that only 15% of women say that they'd be willing to date the men under 5'8.

Guys right now who are five foot seven are like, or under, are freaking out.

However, I think the reason that this is important to qualify, and you can tell me if I'm just spouting BS here, this is in a vacuum.

It'd be like somebody saying, Hey, Jordan, would you rather date somebody that's super hot and rich or just one of those things?

And I would go, Oh, yeah, I would like to date somebody that's super hot and rich because then I have a super hot girlfriend who's rich.

Let's say I was married, right?

So that's the preference.

But it's like, if I just met somebody that I liked, none of those other things would matter anymore.

So this height thing, guys see that and go, I'm doomed because I don't fit this preference.

I'm now looking at this 15% of women.

And then let's look, the ones that are married and let's take out the ones that I'm not attracted to.

Oh, great.

Now I'm only going to be looking at 0.0001% of the women in this app are going to match with me.

And that's just not how it works.

I will also say.

When I was younger and not married, I asked women how tall they thought I was after knowing them for a while.

Almost every girl said six feet tall.

I'm 5'10 with shoes on.

Even when I am next to them and they know how tall they are, they overestimated my height if I wasn't standing right in front of them in the moment.

So what that told me was it doesn't really matter.

It's more of a feeling.

They're not actually going, hmm, well, I'll stand against the wall and see how tall you are.

I dated women that were taller than me and they would say things like, you're not that much shorter.

Or they would say, no, we're the same height.

And I'm like, I literally can do this on top of my head and I'm still not as tall as you.

What planet are you on?

And it just, it was like more of an emotional decision that I just wasn't shorter than them.

And that was it.

You couldn't convince them with a ruler.

So there's a couple of important things here.

One, dating apps are designed for us to prioritize our preferences.

Yeah.

And the reality is that when you're in the real world, sometimes your preferences are more malleable and fluid than is this guy five foot eight?

If he's funny, if he's charismatic, if you find him attractive, if there's just like an inherent spark with him, that whole like, is he five foot eight goes out the window and it's completely irrelevant.

The other thing is that obviously men and women, we have our insecurities and those things show up in the dating apps and those things show up in our fear of rejection and all those different pieces.

One of the main things that I found is really interesting in a lot of the research around relationships, specifically in the area that you're talking about, is that our perception of what it is that women want is often a little bit different than what it is that they desire.

And the other thing is that what we think women want, for example, in height or in something like we're going to talk about the size of your opinion, the size of the menu

is often way different than we as guys think.

And so a lot of this has nothing really to do with the average female choice and preference, but more to do with sometimes our insecurities and our fears of being tall enough, being whatever it is, girthy enough.

God, am I going to say that word?

Yeah, you're going to say that.

I'm not going to say that word on a podcast.

But those things actually don't match up.

And so when you look look at the research, women will say sometimes, like for example, the 15% will be under five foot eight.

But if you get them into a socialist situation and there's a guy that's five foot six or five foot seven and he's charismatic and funny or he's just lovable or he's attractive, that doesn't matter at all to them.

And it really starts to fade away.

Are there some women that are still like, I won't date a guy that's under six feet tall?

Sure.

But maybe that's not your cup of tea anyway.

I think a lot of women outgrow that.

Man, you just remind me.

When I was in law school, we were moving out of a house and we had to move some of the previous tenants crap, like furniture.

They just left it there.

The landlord was like, oh, maybe these guys will want it.

We didn't want it.

We moved one of the beds and we found a diary of a woman who was in a sorority.

And of course, we read that because we didn't know her.

So it was like, look, this is going to be fascinating.

She had a whole bunch on how all the pressure.

from her girls in her sorority was on dating taller guys, but she only connected with guys that were shorter.

And she was eaten up inside about this because she didn't care but she had all this pressure and she's like my goal is after school to just forget about how the whole pressure thing and just go for the guys that i like but i can't do it now because the girls would make fun of her which is ridiculous like the dumbest thing ever i know that sort of disproves part of our point about preferences but it also shows you that the social pressure for this stuff even when you know it's dumb you're trying to outgrow it it's really tough i i had a buddy who married a really attractive woman who was taller than him and i remember someone said like in front of him, we were all cool with this.

We were like, so it doesn't matter that you're taller than him.

And she's like, well, he's really hot.

Oh, he's really smart.

He's really funny.

All these things are true.

And this is law school.

It's all full of like smart people.

And she goes, he's not that much shorter.

And it was like, she was probably 5'9, 5'10, maybe even taller.

And he was probably 5'4.

This is a significant height difference.

This was not like.

oh, it's an inch shorter.

I mean, it was noticeable, especially if she was wearing heels.

I mean, it was just like, wow, okay, your now wife is so much taller than you.

So it was such a fascinating thing because while it's a preference, the behavior doesn't necessarily match the preference outside of the vacuum.

And the problem with apps is you can filter so that you don't even see the people that don't fall in that preference where you're, you end up cheating yourself like crazy.

Right.

Because you can say, like, oh, I only want, let's say, I only want a guy in this income level.

But since it's a light preference and you wouldn't care about it in reality, now you're just only seeing people in that particular income level.

Right.

And you go, there's nobody on here that I click with.

Okay.

Well, you did select millionaires only, and you're wondering why they're all shallow a-holes who are looking for models on an app.

I think we as men often conflate norms with the rules, right?

And so, there are norms, right?

There are like normal, ideal preferences that a lot of women do have.

Most women, if you ask them, they do want a man that's taller than them.

Yeah, that is true.

That's just statistically true.

However, that's not a rule with no exceptions.

Yeah.

And I think that we as men sometimes we have this very like linear process to these types of things where it's like, that's just the way that every single woman is.

And because we want this very calculated, very linear process that helps us just kind of feel safe within the dating world, right?

That allows us to be like, oh, if that woman's taller than me, then I shouldn't even bother approaching her because she's not going to find me attractive.

And those norms don't help us actually get into relationships.

I have the exact same story.

I know a woman who's six feet tall.

and her husband is like five foot seven.

Whoa, okay.

And when they started dating and they've they've been together for a long time, they've got two kids, they met in college.

And same thing, she had a lot of pressure that was internalized, right?

She was like, you know, should I be doing this?

And what will other people think?

And, you know, there was other, other questions from her friends of like, don't you want a guy that's taller than you?

And, and she just kind of had to say, like, I actually genuinely love this guy.

He makes me feel everything that I want to feel.

And so it doesn't matter how tall he is.

Right.

She kind of owns it in the sense that, you know, she wears like three inch heels still.

So she's like six foot two, six foot three.

And it's just like, that's how the marriage is, right?

What's interesting, what's interesting about this is guys have a choice how they respond to this, right?

Like he could have gone, you got to wear flat shoes only.

I'm going to wear these, I don't know, whatever, shoes that have a big sole on it.

Yeah, lips and stuff.

I got some lips in there.

And then also, I know a lot of women back when high school and college, they used to slouch because they were like, I don't want to be taller than the guys that are there because they won't talk to me.

My friend Kalina used to do this all the time.

We used to make fun of her.

She actually had like a postural issue because she was constantly slouching.

Then there's the other guys who i mean this is how i sort of chose to respond to it because i was attracted to these taller women i was like no be this giant amazon like i want people to look at us and go like what the hell you know i used to say things like don't make me come up there if she would get sassy with me you know and like it was interesting one day i met one of her exes and this dude was legitimately like six foot seven yeah and he was like oh you're dating this short guy he's drunk right so there's a major a-hole Actually, this is early on.

This is probably like our third date or something.

And I was like, oh, man.

So I didn't feel bad because I can't get taller.

So I'm not going to let this dude emasculate me.

But I wasn't, I was like, you know what?

I'm going to meet you inside.

You handle your business.

I'm not going to sit here and get abused in front of this girl from this guy.

And I figured it's either over with and this is going to be like a big thing or whatever.

She came in and she was like, I am so sorry.

That guy is, he's a terrible person.

And I thought, oh, that's interesting.

She's, and later on in our relationship, she's like, you handled that the exact right way because I was so embarrassed.

I didn't want you to have to see what I did next.

And I was like, what was that?

Because I did.

I was looking at the window because I was like, what did they make out?

I'm out of here.

Right.

And she, she tore him a new asshole.

And the next time we ran into him at that bar, she was like, Don't freaking talk to me.

And he just like ran out, like tail between his legs.

He actually was the one who felt emasculated because he was like, Wait, I got dumped for this freaking little shit, you know?

And so, you really have a choice at how you can respond to this, but I also really understand why guys they're just on thin ice, right?

With a lot of this insecurity.

It's not only height.

You mentioned earlier, and I'm going to blame you for this, penis preference studies

where...

I like that I just sent you just like this massive arson, dicks, and incels.

It's just the trifecta.

But this was fascinating because I did look this up and I did a bunch.

I went down a girthy rabbit hole.

Girth rabbit hole.

Penis length and stuff among others.

I wish to have girth rabbit hole.

And the unfortunate news was like the preference for women was still well above average, which is kind of funny because it doesn't make sense.

If you look at the fact that we still exist and have not evolved to only like only men with larger addicts have not been the ones who reproduce.

So this preference is already a little bit suspect.

Yeah.

But then when you look into the data more, because I was like, wait a minute, I need background on this.

It turns out that when you rank the preferences, women were choosing, I think it was like they wanted 6.4 inch penis for short-term relationships and 6.3 for long-term relationships.

And so it's basically the same, but most men are like five or five and a half.

That's the average globally.

And I think in the United States, it's like five to 5.8 or something like that.

I'm going off memory here.

And so, like, all the guys in this comment section of wherever these things are posted are like, oh my God, I'm screwed.

Or see, yeah, or that's why I need this pump or whatever.

So, so they go crazy.

But then when you look and you do further investigation, when they rank the size, it's like number 11.

Before that, it's like, how fun is the guy?

How does he make me feel?

How smart is he?

Height is in there.

Is he

compatible in other ways?

Is he good looking?

Income is high.

And it's like, oh, this is my preference.

But in the preference range of preferences, this is way at the bottom.

It's kind of like, would you rather shop at Target or Walmart?

And if you just say 97% of people said Target, you're like, oh my God, Walmart's going to go out of business.

Oh, but that was the 87th thing that was most important about which store they shop at.

So actually, it doesn't matter almost at all.

So I found that to be really fascinating.

And I'm saying all this because I don't want my short kings out there to get in their heads when these pieces of info are far from definitive when it comes to your dating life.

A lot of these surveys are done in a vacuum and it's basically boroscience.

Yes.

And I think that there's also an overemphasis.

that we as men put on those parts of our body.

And penis size is almost exclusively a guy thing, by the way.

100%.

I researched this.

Women were like, what?

And guys are like, well, if I'm stretched this and bone press that and like the girth is this but when it's this and if it's warm outside if it's above 28 degrees

if there's a light breeze just hitting the tip at the exact right time it's it's at full mass exactly and they're like is it bone pressed or is like how hard do i press on the thing because if i do it i get another two millimeters out of it and it's like none of it ends up being relevant in all these forums i'm gonna out myself here but i did a lot of reddit research there's there's these like big dick problems subreddits where you think it's gonna be a bunch of guys guys bragging and mostly it's like guys who are trying to hide the bulge because they're suffering work consequences when they do presentations or they're losing clients or they like can't have sex with anyone because they have a giant dong.

Right.

And it's like, oh, this is almost as bad as having something that's too small.

Like there's anything on the extremes is actually really bad.

When if you look at the data around if a woman breaks up with the man or divorces a man because he has a small penis, it's actually quite small.

Yeah.

You know, not the penis, but the actual like the divorces and the separations, it's a very small amount because it's just not that big of a deal.

I often, when I look at this data, I often wonder what would that data be like pre-dildos and pre-internet where you can see

the largest penises on the planet, right?

And so it's probably different 50, 60 years ago, but you know, it is what it is today.

And I think when men put so much emphasis on that, it just creates such deep insecurity.

When you look at the data and the research, body dysmorphia amongst men is starting to skyrocket.

And it's really crazy.

You know, you have men getting leg extensions to get taller.

I was going to mention that.

They're breaking their femur and installing these plates that they have to ratchet up and, you know, going to Turkey to get hair transplants.

And there's penis injections that they're now getting for to have a larger, you know, girthier penis.

And it's like a form of Botox.

I'm researching this right now.

It's so funny you mentioned it.

Botox is right.

No, one of the names.

No, no, no.

Or Scrotox, which is not exactly on the nose because it goes in the penis and not into the scrotum.

I am doing a show on penile enhancement, and one of the doctors from this clinic called Upsize is like a really good authority on all this stuff.

And he's like, come in and get it.

I'll hook you up and you can see if it works and talk about it on your show.

So I am going in on Saturday

to get Bocox done.

No way.

Here's the thing.

The results, if they don't lie to you, are supposed to be like really modest.

It's like not a big deal.

And the reason, it's also temporary.

Otherwise, I would never consider doing it because I looked up everything that can go wrong, and it's like pretty much nothing because Botox is pretty medium.

So never let it be said we don't go the extra inch for this.

Yeah, you're really going or the extra centimeter in this case.

The extra inch.

Yeah, it's far from a mile.

So apparently, you can, it like adds like maybe a centimeter.

And candidly, one of the doctors was like, and that's if it actually does anything because for some guys, it just like doesn't do much or doesn't do anything.

Yeah.

It also relaxes some stuff.

So it's like firmware erections, yada, yada, yada.

So it's not about a lengthening thing, but the other stuff that they offer at this place and other places that I've researched at this place called Upsize, he only does like filler, which is like the filler that people get in their lips.

He'll put it in someone's penis, but there's other clinics that do like silicon sheaths and stuff.

That stuff is so dangerous

because the complication rate is like 5%.

And look.

If you had a complication rate from removing a fingernail of 5%, it's probably an infection.

And like worst case, you lose your fingernail.

What happens when they have to remove a silicon sheath from your penis?

You don't magically regrow that tissue.

You just have a scarred, disfigured dick for the rest of your life.

Right.

Not worth it.

Not worth it.

Not worth it.

So like all the stuff that does extreme different stuff, and even that, by the way, won't make it longer.

It just makes it girthier.

Such an awkward word.

And guys will do this.

And this doctor, Joel Pash, he's really honest.

He's like, guys will come in and say, oh, I'm doing this for my wife.

And he's like, no, you're not.

Yeah.

He's like, you want to do something for your wife, take her to Paris.

Do that for your wife.

Don't spend your vacation budget on a half-inch girthier penis that she doesn't care about.

Like, if you have a super unhappy sex life because you have a really small member, okay.

Now it's like you're into like a medical kind of thing where it's like,

you know, but if you're like in the average and you just want a monster dung, that's for you.

Don't lie and say it's for your wife.

She married you already, right?

Obviously, you had some sexual compatibility.

If she, if you can't get a date at all because you have a three incher okay like i was just do what you can i'm sitting here thinking about two things one how different this conversation is than the one that you than the one that you had with richard reeves and two how this is the bait and switch how we've gone from male loneliness to to scirthy dicks i'm going to do a whole show on it so people who are really sad that we're going to change the subject from penises right now that are like that are really enjoying they're going to get multiple hours it's a it's going to be a long double episode but i do i do think that there's a good point here which is a lot of the times the social issues that we as men face are ridiculed yeah they're really ridiculed there was a study that came out on the male loneliness side that showed that the average guy needs two nights a week with male friends for optimal mental health oh interesting i do feel better when i have a hang sesh totally yeah and it was wild when the research came out and you saw the comment section the amount of ridicule that was going towards like you know how ridiculous is this And why do men need that much time together?

And it was really telling because I think for a lot of a lot of these issues, when men are suffering and struggling, it's often looked down on because the perception is that men are causing the suffering, the struggling.

And so it's very challenging to talk about male loneliness, suicidal ideation, the lack of fathers, the role that that has.

A lot of the issues that guys face dropping out of school, right?

We have less men going to school than ever before, less men in the workforce than ever before.

What ends up happening is that when these issues come up, there's almost like a vacancy or a vacuum of empathy and compassion because the perception is men are the cause of this.

And so pick yourself up by your bootstraps and just go fix it.

Yeah, that bootstraps thing is funny because that, you know, where that expression comes from?

I would assume a war.

I can't remember the exact bootstrap,

which straps these are for, but the point is that it's actually physically impossible to pick yourself up by your bootstrap.

It's pulling the boots onto your feet.

So when you say pick yourself up by the bootstraps, what you're saying is do something that is this whole cliche is that it's actually impossible to do that.

Totally.

So I always found that ironic.

I do want to talk about incels because I think this is a fascinating.

Again, I'm going to do a whole show on incels because the phenomenon itself is fascinating to me.

I used to really look at these guys negatively, but I do have a lot of empathy for these folks, especially given my previous line of work, which many people know is going to be teaching men dating skills.

There were guys that sort of but for the grace of God would have made a left turn and instead they made a right turn and went into the self-improvement angle.

But there were guys that gave up and became sort of incel red pill type guys.

67% of incels qualify for a diagnosis of severe anxiety.

Oftentimes, severe social anxiety.

Yeah.

So they have severe anxiety, but their anxiety is specifically around being in social situations, relationship situations.

They are just chronically crippled by nervousness around even just talking to people, having normal interactions.

And so this perception that incel men are hate-fueled death monsters that, you know, want to go out and murder people is very rare statistically.

They are generally very afraid, very fearful people.

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Now, back to Connor Baton.

A lot of these, this is from my research on incels as well.

A a lot of these so-called like incel terror attacks turn out to not be that when you do a deep dive.

There was one guy who ran a van into people in Canada.

And when the, I guess, CSIS or whatever, the Royal Canadian RCMP interrogated him,

he was like, yeah, I didn't really mean that incel thing.

I just did it for attention because he was a psychopath.

And he did that incel comment because he knew it would get clicks in media.

So they counted that as like incel murders people, but he was like, whatever.

That's not even it.

It wasn't even a thing.

And then there's a couple really famous ones, Elliot Roger, who murdered his roommates and, and then a bunch of other people.

He also had other mental illness that had a little bit, but not really.

And it wasn't like I'm an incel and I'm doing this.

He had all kinds of stuff that was going on.

And that was a mass casualty.

And that's kind of the only other one that's really out there.

Meanwhile, there are maybe hundreds of thousands or even millions of incels, and most of them are just kind of bummed out and played Diablo 3 all the time.

Right.

Well, I think that's where, you know, this TV series on Netflix that got so much attention, adolescents.

Have you seen it?

Oh, I haven't watched it.

I heard about about it.

Yeah, I mean, it's interesting because they're trying to portray an incel, and there's a lot about it.

There's a guy in the UK named William Costello, and he's like one of the lead researchers of incels.

And they have some of the biggest body of work on research for

incels.

Not, I mean, I follow him and

I'm wanting to have him on the show because he's super interesting.

But, you know, they found a whole, like, when you dig into the data, like 47%

of incel men are non-Caucasian.

Yeah, it says 42 in your nose.

42.

There we go.

So, you know, I think there's a perception that it's like angry white boys in their mom's basement.

That is 100% what I.

Yeah, which is not generally the case at all.

Again, they're generally struggling with severe anxiety.

They have mental health issues.

Oftentimes, they need support and help.

Quite often, they do come from fatherless homes.

You know, when you look at it, they have really major challenges with like suicidal ideation.

30% of them think about suicide daily, which makes me so sad.

Compared to the everyday population is 5% saying they had a suicidal thought once or more in the last year.

So this is heavy on suicidal ideation.

They have no relationships, no close friends.

That's one of those sort of characteristics.

Yeah, and I think this is the empathy gap that I'm talking about when it comes to men.

It's like these guys.

You know, and of course, it doesn't excuse behavior of going online and trolling women and, you know, spewing hate towards women.

I'm not excusing any of that, right?

Like if that's happening from some of those guys, I'm not excusing any of that.

There is an empathy gap.

These are some of the men in our societies that are struggling the most.

You know, they're thinking, 30% of them are thinking about self-harming.

You know, and so we have to approach these conversations, I think, in a different way to understand like, well, A, how are these young men getting to that place?

And then B, how do we create structures and systems within our societies to circumvent that from happening more and more?

Because it is happening more.

Men are getting more socially isolated.

They are getting more lonely.

They are lacking in male role models.

And so when that continues to happen, they go into online gaming and, you know, they're on Twitch all the time and then they're more isolated.

And then their only friends are in the digital realm.

I'll tell you that one turning point for me, this is years ago, I met this show fan.

He was a really nice guy.

He ended up meeting my wife.

We ended up hanging out.

And I was like, he's shy, but he's like a sweet guy.

I like him.

I had a good time.

I later found a bunch of his posts under another name that he was using.

And they were crazy vitriolic women hating incel posts.

And I saw him again and I was like, can I ask you a question?

You know, we had such a good time with you.

You got along with generally well.

What's the real you?

And he was like, I think the one that you met was closer to the real me.

And I was like, what is all this shit?

And he was like, I just get really angry about the state of my life and I blame women for it.

Even though I know at some level, it's really not them.

It just, they're just an easy target.

And I find a lot of people agreeing with me when I post about this kind of thing because they're in the same situation.

And that was really eye-opening for me because he didn't want to do anything harmful to women.

He didn't actually want bad things to happen to women.

He just desperately wanted to not be alone.

And the outlet was just, oh, if I complain about women, all these other guys will pile on and I feel like I have community.

That was really eye-opening and sad for me.

Yeah, they get incentivized, they get rewarded, they get social connection.

Like a lot of the things that they're lacking, they get in spades.

If you read this, you would be like, wow, this guy's like one step away from going on a machete spree or like sexually assaulting someone.

But then when you talk to him, he's like, would never do it, has sisters that he has a good relationship with.

Like, he's also had girlfriends in the past, and those relationships, by all accounts, ended like more or less amicably.

And it was shocking because it was like two different people.

Even to this day, I'm like, God, but that angry guy is in there.

Scares me a little bit.

I think sometimes when some of this data that we're talking about starts to come out, whether it's about dating apps or whatever it is, I think sometimes people are worried or scared that that's going to reinforce certain behaviors within men.

I also think it's become much more socially acceptable.

Like there's just a gender war happening.

And there are women who think the world would be better off without men.

You know, like

the other side exists of like all men are evil, all men are rapists, like all men are this way.

And there's a kind of loathing on the other side that has become more socially acceptable largely because women don't generally tend to take the dramatic action that men do when they get that far off the rails.

That's interesting.

You mentioned that men's psychological issues are often misrepresented.

I'm curious about, I'd love to talk about this.

75% of therapists in some states, more than 80% are women.

So what, man?

A lot of women understand men really well.

I have female therapists.

Why is that a problem?

It's not necessarily a problem.

It's more about the macro picture of the vacancy of male role models.

You know, there are certain things that men are going to be dealing with and struggling with that sometimes women just are not going to really understand.

And the therapeutic industry is, I think, doing a disservice because it's approaching male issues from a female perspective.

How so?

Well, when you look at a lot of the training that therapists go through, they don't really learn how to differentiate between resistance in a man or a woman.

And how a man will show resistance versus a woman is oftentimes very different.

Another version of that is how a man will signal that he's at risk for something like suicide.

So there's a study, I think I sent you some of the data in the UK that showed that 80% of the men who had taken their own lives in the UK had sought out help.

And of those 80%, 95% of them were deemed as low risk or no risk, meaning that the therapists that they were seeing couldn't identify that they were at risk for suicide.

Yeah, that's terrifying.

That's a massive body of research, right?

It's not like 10 or 20 guys.

It's a lot of men.

Sometimes we miss out on the fact that when people go to therapy, they're incentivized to express and talk about their emotions.

Not a problem.

That can be very helpful.

I think for a lot of men, that's very helpful because we generally live in a culture of suppression, you know, and in my book, I wrote about how.

within masculine culture, it's very common that we see strength as a byproduct of our ability and capacity to suppress our emotions.

So the more that we can stuff shit down, the stronger and more capable we perceive that we're going to be, but it actually has the inverse effect.

I wish I did not fully agree with that.

I'm like, that's me, definitely, and my dad, and probably my grandparents.

Totally.

And so we adopt this idea when, in fact, it's the inverse of that.

We have to have some dominion over emotions.

We have to be able to express them when necessary.

We have to, you know, have some level of connection or mastery with them.

But the big thing that the therapeutic industry misses out on is usefulness and competency.

And so, Richard Reeves, who you had on the show, they did this big study through the American Institute of Boys and Men, and they looked at the notes that men had left behind when they took their own lives.

And the one word that stood out was useless, just chronically through all these notes.

And so, when men feel useless, through in society, they feel useless, and in marriage, relationship, family, friends, the more useless a man feels, the more he can start to logically rationalize not being here.

And therapy therapy is not optimized to help men be useful socially and relationally.

And it is also not optimized to help identify when a man feels like he's lacking competence in something and then help him to develop the systems to develop competence.

Even if it's something simple as, I need to get better at setting boundaries in my relationship because I let my girlfriend or wife or boyfriend walk all over me.

Right.

Right.

It's like, okay, well, that's a skill set that you can actually develop.

And this is the difference: men actually look at these things as systems and skills that we need to develop.

And the therapeutic industry does not tailor it to that way.

So like our tagline is, it's not therapy, it's training.

It's like, this is helping you to be more competent as a man.

And if you can do that, you're actually going to up-level your level of confidence.

Wow.

Yeah.

Richard Reeves, episode 1126, we do a deep dive into more on, we focused more on education gap and stuff.

Less on the dick gap.

Yes.

And more on the education and workforce.

I like that I got this out of you.

I feel much more prepared for that version than the education and the workforce.

I think it's because I just had more respect for him than I do for you.

Yeah, that's right.

That's right.

That's fair.

No, you and I go way back.

I'm not a researcher.

No,

I just felt comfortable with it because I feel like we've known each other for three years.

We've got that rapport.

I feel like Richard Reeves would not.

engage in a conversation.

He would politely change the subject immediately.

I could be wrong.

I don't know.

Maybe I'll try it next time he's on the show.

I do, one bit of good news from your notes was that more men are seeking therapy than ever before.

Yeah, I don't think we necessarily have more problems.

I think we are recognizing the problems more, I should say.

So it's not just like, oh, more men are seeking therapy because more men have issues.

I think these issues have always existed.

But to your earlier point, we've just choked them down and drank them away or something like that.

Like if you came back from Vietnam and you had PTSD, you just became an alcoholic or a drug addict or just like beat your kids or something or handled it in some other destructive way.

I mean, there's a million stories like that where you just suffered in silence.

Now I think guys my age, especially and younger, they're going to betterhelp.com/slash Jordan.

They're talking about it, which I encourage.

I mean, that's, I do it.

I feel a million times better after talking to a therapist, even if I'm just venting about something.

Because to another one of your earlier points, if you don't have a best friend that you can do that with regularly, where is it all going?

Yeah.

Where is it going?

You got to get those demons out, man.

Well, and that's the case for a lot of a lot of men is that it's not that they have a vacancy of friends.

It's that they actually have an absence of one or more friends that they can talk about meaningful shit with.

That's actually the gap.

And so a lot of men will say, no, no, I got buddies in my life.

I have friends in my life.

But then if you dig a little bit deeper and you say, do you have men in your life that you can talk about meaningful, substantial challenges with, embarrassing challenges with, struggles that you're having financially, relationally, sexually, the answer is almost always no.

You know, so few men actually have guys in their life that they can say, hey, you know, my wife or, you know, my girlfriend and I, we're going through these challenges.

We're trying to have a kid.

It's not going well.

Those types of conversations are becoming more prominent among men.

I think it's becoming much more socially acceptable amongst men.

And one of the things that I was talking about was that we've, we've lived and we've been raised by the men who were raised by the men that came back with incredible trauma from World War II.

Yeah.

My grandfather fought in World War II.

And what he and everybody else faced was insanely traumatic, you know, insanely challenging.

And some of the stories I heard my grandfather talk about were wild.

And as a kid, I didn't think much of it because they seemed like, didn't even like seem real.

But as an adult, you're like, holy shit, you saw that happen.

The saving private Ryan Beach scene stuff.

And then they raised the next generation of men.

And those men were handed down the trauma that their fathers experienced and witnessed.

And so I think we're just starting to like really sift through that and sort through that.

and metabolize some of what a lot of men experienced post-World War II.

Yeah, that's a really interesting point.

I, there's a lot of this epigenetic generational trauma stuff, too, that's sort of new science.

Have you heard about this at all?

Yeah.

Where I used to think it was a ridiculous argument where, like, people would say, oh, well, if you're a black dude, you know, you got generational trauma from this.

And I was like, oh, come on.

That's not a real thing.

Now it's like, oh, it kind of is.

But it also explains why a lot of us Jews are a little weird, right?

Like,

okay, so a bunch of your family was like in a pogrom and then the Holocaust and then another pogrom and then you came here and did it.

And it's like, oh, okay, maybe I did inherit some shit.

Yeah, it activates certain genes in the body and genomes.

And yeah, that makes a ton of sense.

I would love to talk about, going back to dicks, no, I want to talk about porn brain.

Yeah.

You mentioned porn.

It's unfortunately, and I can tell by online comments and real-life discussion with younger guys, especially, porn is clearly the primary driver of sex education among men that I would say are maybe under 40.

I'm 45.

The online porn thing started when I was in college, but it was a little nascent.

It was easy to to find, but it wasn't like nobody I knew was like addicted to it.

And by the end of college, some guys, you were like, dude, do you ever leave the house?

So that sort of started then.

But if you're under 45, under 40, you probably had porn in like middle school.

So I had, I don't know, what, a half decade of like hooking up with girls, maybe even having sex with girls before porn hit the scene.

And then it was a slow ramp up.

These other guys had porn way before they saw a real woman in the flesh other than, you know, from the neck up or whatever.

So that's terrifying.

Yeah, and you dial up, like dial up like loaded line by line, like there's eyes, yeah, yeah.

And you're like, oh, please, please be naked.

And the rest of the channels are like, yeah, yeah, please be hot and naked.

Please be honest naked.

And the guys who are under 40, like they, their first exposure was probably like a mobile phone with their friend is showing them.

Well, the research shows that most young boys are finding porn between 9 and 11 years old.

It's horrifyingly young.

I mean, you have to think about just the vast impact of chronic sensory overload.

If an 11-year-old boy opens up the internet and starts watching porn, he can, within a few hours or a few days, see more naked women in that span of time than any man throughout human history will have seen throughout his lifetime.

I always think about that and it's terrifying.

Imagine, because I guess I would have to chat GPT this, but if you lived 3,000 years ago and you were not like a pharaoh or something like that, you probably saw, I don't know, a handful.

Maybe you slept with a handful of women in your tribe if you were like a real chad going for it, right?

The chad.

To use an incel term, but like most, that was it.

And that was like your lifetime, and you died when you were 26 or something from a stubbed toe.

And that was the end of it.

Now you get these little kids who are essentially looking at these little clips or whatever of porn.

And yeah, their brain is like probably not evolved to handle that.

Yeah.

Do we know what that does to your brain?

What does it do?

I mean, the research on this, from what I've seen, is kind of varied.

You know, for some people, there's definitely desensitization is a big one.

How does that show up?

Because, like, erectile dysfunction.

Really?

Okay.

So, if you, as a man, watch too much porn for a long period of time, what will eventually happen is that, and this is, this is research back, is that you end up going down more like deeper, more intense forms of pornography.

Because you need novelty to sensitively.

Because you need more novelty over time.

And then that ends up desensitizing your system so that nothing actually really gets you aroused.

Nothing in real life, yeah.

Nothing in real life.

Yeah.

But also then the porn that you watch, you have a harder and harder time getting aroused because you're so desensitized.

I see.

You know, if you're a nine-year-old kid that starts watching porn and then fast forward to

29 years old and you've been watching porn every other day for 20 plus years, your system gets desensitized.

And then on top of that, it skews and alters your perspective and perception of what sex should actually be like, real life sex.

And so a lot of a lot of this.

I'm sorry.

I just, you know, back to the the intrusive thoughts sometimes continue but it you know it skews what you perceive sex to be and so for men what generally happens is this really hyper fixation on performance yeah lasting long size all those different pieces and then depending on the pornography that they're watching some men will need to replicate what they've been watching in porn in order to actually have you know ejaculate or whatever wow so it can really screw up your real sex life i've heard that there's also have you heard heard of death grip?

Have you heard of this?

No.

This is,

I swear this was, this is real.

I was like, this is fake.

I got to look it up.

Apparently, and it doesn't happen to everyone, obviously, but guys who watch a lot of porn, they start to increase the tightness of their grip on the penis.

And eventually it gets so tight because of desensitization of nerves and stuff like that that real vaginas don't work for them at all.

And you see these relationship issues where guys can't do anything with their girlfriend or can never finish because they literally need this death grip.

And you can undo it, but it takes like you have to abstain from masturbation for like 60 days.

And these guys are essentially porn addicted, doing you know, multiple time per day kind of guys.

So like they can't do that.

It's very hard.

And it ruins relationships.

Imagine if your partner could never finish with you, but he's watching people swinging from the ceiling, doing whatever novelty porn.

And you're just like, well, I can't compete with that.

You know, he's watching anime tentacles stuff.

I think the interesting thing is that porn kind of plays a role in everything that we've been talking about so far.

You know, like, number one, from an attachment perspective, it creates a kind of pseudo-attachment.

So, if you look at OnlyFans as an example, so first off, OnlyFans did like, I think in 2023, it did like $6.6 billion, right?

The women of OnlyFans just like raked it in.

They've accrued.

There's guys on there too.

There are guys on there.

There are guys on there for sure, but they, you know, on average, they are not doing nearly as well.

That's probably true.

And when you break down what men are generally looking for, the women that are doing really well, a lot of them are the sort of like next door girlfriend experience.

They're offering this kind of pretend pseudo relationship.

You have women that are doing like fin subbing.

I don't know if you've ever heard of this, but this is like financially submissive.

So a man will become a financial submissive to a woman.

Oh, and it's called Finn Dom Fin sub.

Fin Dom, Fin Sub.

I don't know the difference.

Yeah, she'll be a Finn Dom and he's the Fin Sub.

Oh, okay.

So she'll basically tell him, like, she'll text him and be like, send me $100 right now.

Yeah.

And basically they play this game of instead of draining his nuts, they drain his bank account.

I had dinner with a friend yesterday, and she was telling me she has this very attractive female friend who's a really nice person, and everyone loves her.

They have a nice circle of friends.

She was like, hey, guys, I'm bringing this guy that I'm dating.

I have to warn you, it's going to be our relationship is a little weird.

And just so you guys know, it's going to be a little weird.

And they're like, what do you mean?

Right.

And she's like, you'll see when we get more.

So they go out to dinner.

And again, this is a very nice girl who's like had a bunch of normal relationships.

And they're like, oh, we want to meet your new boyfriend or whatever.

They have dinner.

They're going to like, they go to like one of those Michael Meeta nice restaurants or whatever.

And the guys are like, you know, okay, I had this and this and this.

I owe $67.

And the girl's like, John, pay for my friends.

And they were just like, no, you don't have to do that.

She's like, no, no, he's going to do it.

You're going to do it.

Huh?

And she's like abusing him verbally.

And everyone was like, oh my, what is, you know, because they were embarrassed.

And she's like, no, no, I told you this is our thing.

So she's berating him and he pays for all the food.

And the guys and girls in the group were like, we got to talk to her.

This is very uncomfortable.

We're now abusing this guy and we didn't sign up for this.

So while they're telling her, she's like, okay, then you're really going to hate this part.

And she goes to him and she's like, go get me $1,000 right now from the ATM.

He goes and withdraws $1,000.

And then he's like, what are we doing now?

And she's like, shut up, go to the room for the rest of the night.

And then they basically had to do an intervention where they're like, this is unhealthy for everyone and you can't do this.

And she's like, I know, I feel bad, but also like, he really likes it.

So they had this talk with him where he's like, no, I appreciate this.

I enjoy this.

And she's like, it's kind of fun, but obviously you can't have a serious relationship with somebody like that if you're a normal person.

You're not a sociopath.

So this is one of the weirdest things I've ever heard because I don't understand where that comes from.

If somebody treated me like that for one second, I would, no, I would never stand for that.

This guy wants more of that.

Yeah, I mean, generally,

so this is what I would call sexualizing your trauma.

Yeah.

So like we can fetishize our trauma in all kinds of different ways.

And so depending on what that guy's background was like and his upbringing, he might just be playing out some type of repetition of what he experienced as a kid or what he felt was happening as a kid.

But this is the type of stuff that can start to unfold when you've just been watching so much porn that you're desensitized.

And do you think that's like a normal way of being?

And in the BDSM community, they have a saying that I've interpreted as like, don't yuck my yum.

Yeah.

You know, like, don't poo-poo what I want to be doing.

But I mean, I think that these are some of the things that guys are dealing with.

So, another example of this, this trauma thing where it's more obvious, same friend had dinner with her the other night, same dinner where this story came out.

She's like, Yeah, I'm going out with this guy, and he's like a wealthy New York blue-bloody family.

We're like, They probably had like a house in Nyack and a house in Manhattan, an apartment in Manhattan, and then another house in what it was at Hamptons or something like that.

Like, this guy's got dough.

And his thing is, he wants her to be mean to him, but sporadically and unpredictably.

So like they'll be having a nice dinner and he'll say something.

And she'll, instead of going, like rolling her eyes gently and being like, well, I disagree with that.

He's like, no, I want you to tell me what you really think.

She's like, shut the hell up.

That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

And he's like, keep going.

And she's like, why?

And he's like, you know why.

He's like getting turned on by it.

And her and I were talking about this.

And I was like, yeah, if you ever meet his mom, I feel like you're going to understand what's going on here.

Like you're going to meet their parents and the dad's going to be like, does anybody want dessert?

And the mom's going to go, shut up, Tom.

You're an idiot.

We're talking.

And you're going to go, Ding.

Yeah.

I get it.

But then it's like, can you have a serious relationship with someone like that?

You're marrying into this family with this trauma that they're not dealing with in a normal, like, healthy way.

I don't know, man.

I mean, look, sometimes you can use Kink and BDSM to move through some of those things, but what you're talking about are generally results of pretty real and severe attachment disorders that lead to anxious and avoidant and disorganized.

And sometimes a result of like pretty severe trauma.

And those types of things,

they do require you to have some type of understanding of what's actually going on.

You can't completely resolve them just through kink and BDSM play.

Depending on the situation, you can definitely move through some of it.

And I know some people that have used BDSM and kink as a means of like working through some of that stuff.

reclaiming power from trauma or abuse or abandonment or neglect.

And that absolutely can happen.

But I think for a lot of people, it's not conscious like that.

And it's just this repetition of a trauma, you know, of a pain.

Yeah, I suppose if you've got your therapist and you're conscious of why you're doing it, but it still pushes the right buttons, that's different than being like, yeah, I have no idea why I like to have somebody punch me in the face randomly while we're driving the car.

Just keep doing it.

I had a buddy of mine that like went to a king party and he's like, everything was really cool, except there was this one dude that wanted to be rolled up in a carpet and stepped on.

And he was like, I couldn't not think about it and like sit in the corner with a drink being like, what happened to that yeah yeah yeah like what the happened to him you know he wants to be rolled up in a carpeting stepped on i was like i don't know man like i don't even want to get into that one speaking of giant dicks now for a word from our sponsors we'll be right back

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Now for the rest of my conversation with Connor Beaton.

I talk to a lot of women my own age, just friends of mine, and they'll say that when they sleep with younger guys, like if they're divorced or they're still single or whatever, younger guys, you would think, oh, yeah, this 28-year-old guy is going to like rock my world.

My husband was 55 and wasn't really interested anymore because of hormones.

They say they're terrible because they don't know really what they're doing because their sex ed is from porn.

And they have to be like, yeah, you know that that doesn't feel good, right?

That hurts.

Or like, what are you doing?

And I don't want to get too graphic, but they'll be graphic.

And I'm like, wait, guys think that's real?

And they think that that's real because they see it in porn.

Well, I mean, you look at some of the videos online, like people going around.

And

what was it?

A buddy of mine sent it to me.

And it's like this guy just walking through the streets of like Vegas or somewhere and just asking people like thumb in or thumb out.

He was asking women, thumb in or thumb out.

And he was talking about like having a thumb in the butt.

And so it's so funny to see some of the people's faces.

Like a lot of like the younger crowd like got the reference, but then anybody over like 35, 40, like no reference whatsoever.

They're like, what are you talking about?

Thumb in, thumb out.

You're like, what?

So gross.

Yeah.

These guys are largely clueless.

And I feel bad for them, right?

Because you have to get feedback from somebody that's going to give you feedback.

But a lot of the younger women they're sleeping with maybe don't even know that's like okay.

Maybe they don't even know like they're the woman they're sleeping with is like it's not my job to teach you how to do this.

I think there's a lot more sexual openness, but I wouldn't necessarily say that that's sexual literacy.

Yeah.

Like competency.

I remember being a young man and I think I was fortunate in some ways like being able to get attention from women wasn't always challenging, but it was still really confronting, like the risk of rejection and like feeling embarrassed.

I was at that very like interesting intersection between I had access to porn, but I also had access to women.

And I think about the men today, and if I had the access to porn in the way that there is today, I don't know if I would have been as relentless pursuing relationships with women because porn is just this easy access, low risk, high reward experience.

You don't have to get told no.

You're not going to get rejected in any way, shape, or form.

You can explore whatever the hell it is that you want.

And there's really no real risk of embarrassment.

Whereas in real life, all of those things exist.

You have to risk being rejected and embarrassed and sometimes humiliated, having like a humiliating experience if you can't get it up or you come too fast.

So I think for a lot of guys, it's just, it's like this linear.

problem solving tool where it's like, oh, I don't have to deal with anything.

And then the other reason why it's so addictive for a lot of men is it's what I call the nervous system reset button.

So if you're stressed out, if you're feeling lonely, if you're feeling bored, if you're feeling angry, if you and your girlfriend got in an argument and you're pissed off at her, porn is the ultimate reset button for your whole system.

And so you go jerk off, you ejaculate a whole bunch of neurochemicals, dopamine, prolactin, they all course through your body, your body relaxes and it shifts how you were feeling before.

So for a lot of guys, it's a state change tool, right?

It's like as soon as you're feeling something that you don't like, what a lot of guys will go do is jerk off and watch porn.

And then they don't have to feel that anymore.

But what ends up happening for a lot of men is it creates a dependency.

And so they, in order to feel better, in order to not feel bored, lonely, angry, sad, whatever it is, they need porn in order to do that.

And for some men, they become so dependent on it for very specific things, like going to bed at night.

I've worked with men where they're like, in order to go to sleep, I need to jerk off and watch porn.

And other guys, it's like, in order to start my day, I need to jerk off and watch porn.

That's how I have to start things.

Otherwise, I'm a mess.

This might be above your pay grade here, but what if you make the porn with your significant other and you use that and it's not from the internet?

Is that better?

I mean, sure.

Asking for a friend.

Sorry, wife.

I'm not talking about you.

Sure, yeah.

Or wait, that came out even worse.

Yeah, this is a hypothetical.

You're like, yeah, like you're like, should I edit that part out?

Nope, I'm leaving it in, but I'm just going to leave it there and let you talk.

Please start talking.

Yes.

Yes, it is.

And if you still have a dependency on the porn over the real-life sexual experience, it's going to be hindering your relationship.

You know, ideally, the average human being is actually wanting is skin-to-skin.

penetration.

So sorry, to clarify, is it better if you're making it in your, like, let's say you're traveling a lot, so you make some with your significant other.

Is that still, that's still bad?

No.

Oh, it's not, not at all.

No, not at all.

Explore, have fun, you know, send the, I mean, within moderate, like, like whatever is, is within your relationship, right?

Like

I'm talking about consent, consensual, like, hey, I miss you.

Here's a picture of me in front of the mirror.

I just mean, is that better than like watching a stranger?

Yeah, I think for the majority of people in relationships, that is what they're looking for.

For some people, it's not.

For some people, it's maybe you're playing around with, I want you to go and watch some chick on OnlyFans tonight.

Like that can be it for some people.

But I think for the majority of people in relationships, they are wanting sexual exploration with their partner.

Yeah.

And that's fulfilling and satisfying.

And however you want to do that, whether it's sexting or FaceTiming and exploring it in that way, like for some clients that I've worked with in the past, like I'll have them explore power dynamics, you know, and if they're traveling a lot, as an example, there's so many different ways to do that, you know, creating a separate phone number sometimes or like a WhatsApp and pretending, you know, that there's like a role play there.

I see.

Oh, that's kind of a cool idea.

You know, so there's a whole bunch of

different ways that you can do things.

But I think generally for most people, and you and your partner have to figure out whether, because some people classify porn as cheating and some people don't.

That's true.

I mean that.

You kind of have to have that conversation and be open and transparent of, do you use porn?

Do you watch it?

Does your partner use porn and watch it?

Is that something that you want to do in your relationship?

Like all of those things are important.

And I think for a lot of guys, the challenge is that we treat porn like we treat unwanted emotions, which is I'm never going to fucking talk about my relationship to porn.

And so they get into a long-term relationship.

Some stuff starts to happen, starts to go sideways.

They watch more porn and more porn.

They're not communicating to their girlfriend or their wife.

And then all of a sudden it comes out that they've been watching a whole bunch.

And it creates this big rupture in the relationship.

Yeah.

Because it hasn't been talked about.

It's been hidden.

It's been suppressed.

And that's just a recipe for disaster.

You know, anytime that you suppress stuff and are hiding things actively, even if it's lying through a mission, you're going to cause a pretty big rupture and conflict somewhere down the road.

I see this kind of post all the time online on our sub or other ones where there's an existing relationship issue.

Like, my boyfriend's not interested in sex at all anymore and hasn't been for several months.

And then it's like, oh, and I found out he's watching porn because there's a major difference between, wow, he's just really stressed out and he doesn't have any sex drive.

I'm concerned about him.

Is it me or is it something else?

Oh, he's using porn.

Now it's definitely just, I'm not good enough as a female or whatever in his life to sat that it's way worse, right?

When they find that yeah and a lot of guys have so much shame around it that when it does come out it's like the shame becomes crippling for them it's like oh i'm what's wrong with me i'm such a piece of crap they promise to never use it again yeah i promise they had to use it again it's like stuff but you have no tools to actually stop using it and you've become dependent on it and so for a lot of men i mean i'll speak personally it took me a long time to stop watching porn i basically quit cold turkey but i that's how i quit things is i just never do it again porn was one of those like i like to say that i was a hobbyist addict like i i dabbled in different addictions, but porn was probably like my main one for a long time.

How long did it take to quit?

Probably a year, year and a half.

Really?

So you just kept going like relapsed back into it or?

Yeah, just relapsing into it and, you know, just kind of like, okay, this is the last time.

I'm never going to use it again.

You know, like a lot of those like lottery mindset, promising orientations.

And it, it just, it had been in my life for such a long time.

And I think that's the case for a lot of guys.

It's like a really hard thing to quit.

And what I like to say is with addiction specifically because most addictions are attachment issues is that you can't replace addiction without relationship and so if you want to have some type of real replacement for porn and it's not something that you can just quit cold turkey right like for you you're just like i'm done that's how i quit stuff but it's not the easiest way

some some guys can do that though some guys can literally say i'm going to go no fap for the next six months i'm not going to masturbate i'm not going to nut i'm not going to watch porn i didn't say that and they can

i just had no porn i know i know i know those guys those guys are on another level that's like a hard I don't know how you resist that.

But, you know, some guys can just do that because it's, it's just like some people can say, I'm not going to drink this month and it's no problem.

And other people, it's just like, I am struggling to not have a drink.

And so porn is that for a lot of men now.

And it's, I think, it's one of the most underreported addictions that we have to date, period.

I would agree with that.

I mean, I have no evidence for this, but I would guess if I got to ask 50 guys that I knew decently well if they did cocaine, drank too much, smoked too much weed, ate too much junk food, or watched too much porn.

I don't know which ones would be very upfront about the porn thing.

Totally.

I think they would probably sooner admit that they were doing tons of blow and smoking weed every day and eating Cheetos every day than they would be to be like, yeah, three times a day with

porn hub.

I don't think most guys would admit that.

They would admit using it because guys talk about that kind of stuff.

I don't think they would ever be honest about the frequency if it was bad.

Totally.

Well, it wasn't until I was more candid about my usage with porn that I actually was able to move away from it.

The struggle and the challenge that I was having with it.

And I think that's the case for a lot of guys.

It's like they become dependent on it.

Maybe I'll just talk personally for a moment, but like I had an issue with porn while in relationships,

while cheating in relationships.

Oh, wow.

You know, and so like sex was a big challenge for me in a lot of ways.

And porn was just an outlet where, you know, I could turn towards that whenever I, whenever I wanted.

It's just like, it's just just there you know it's on your computer it's in your pocket it's like having a liquor cabinet in your pocket that you can pull out at any time and a dispenser at any time for weed but it doesn't cost you anything you know which is like it's mental right it's just crazy and you can drive afterwards you can just wash your hands you can drive afterwards maybe not during you know I mean

if you can like good for you some people are definitely driving Tesla's the self-driving there you go that's why Elon and created it good lord but you know I think it's one of those things where in order to overcome it you have to face the shame and the embarrassment of what's actually been going on.

You kind of like have to eat the humble pie for a little bit.

The whole idea that you need more and more extreme stuff that's really got to be scary because I would imagine at one day, like, and that kind of never really happened to me.

I think probably because I didn't use it frequently enough and then got rid of it.

But I would imagine there's guys out there that one day are just like, How am I sitting here watching AI alien porn?

What is going on?

I think it was 2023.

The number one most search word on pornhub was hentai.

And hentai is anime porn.

Anime porn, right?

And so, like, that's the thing.

That's the number one most search thing.

And then, you know, you have all kinds of their stuff.

But a lot of it is, it's not even based in reality.

And that's kind of where it's heading, right?

It's like AI is going to completely flip the porn industry.

I don't know if you've seen this, but there are entire content creators now.

The script is AI.

The woman is AI.

The platform is AI.

You know, everything is just completely AI.

And so we're going to be even more removed because right now, you know, if a guy goes online and he's watching porn, at least it's a real person.

If he goes on to a webcam site and he's like talking to some chick, yeah, it's a real woman, but maybe he's talking to some dude behind the camera that's like typing for her.

Or if he goes on OnlyFans, same thing.

Like a lot of those OnlyFans, when you talk to them, the likelihood that it's actually that woman is very, very, very low.

I read a piece about

it.

And there's whole industries where these chatters are paid about a dollar an hour.

Yeah.

Because some of the more popular creators are talking with thousands of people at once.

So they hire these agencies to chat.

Right.

And they're AI bots now.

A lot of them are AI bots, and a lot of them are just like $1 an hour paid, and they're probably training the AI bot that's copying the things that they say.

It's really crazy.

Yeah, I'm not sure if the person has 15 followers, it's probably them answering the DMs.

But yeah, the popular ones, they use these services.

That's insane.

There's a guy that I saw on Instagram the other day that was talking.

He's, I think he was selling a course on how to do this, which was kind of funny.

But he created an AI program that basically turned him into a filter.

So he would record himself saying sexy things or like sending a specific like voice message, like, hey, Jordan, how's your day?

And blah, blah, blah.

And the AI filter would turn him into a beautiful blonde woman with big boobs and it would alter his voice.

And so it was literally him just recording himself.

But what you saw was this beautiful blonde woman speaking some sexy message to you.

Gosh, that's so crazy.

And he's allegedly making tens of thousands of dollars a month.

I saw something similar yesterday on Instagram.

However, it was deep fakes of celebrities, and it was the guy showing he had like a light and he would shine it on his face.

Yeah, yeah, I saw that.

Oh, yeah.

Wasn't that incredible?

Turned into Elon.

Turned into Elon, turned into like Timothy Chalamay or something.

I don't even know who these people are, but I'm guessing.

Shalomay.

He turned into, yeah,

he turned into.

I saw Adam Sandler at Sushi plays the other day.

It was funny.

I almost yelled out, Shalomy, really loud.

But then I thought, why be that guy?

He did a couple of other, like Star Wars, what's it, Mark Hamill, the guy who plays Luke Scar.

It was so convincing.

So real.

I couldn't believe it.

And then I was just like, well, make damn sure you're never talking to anybody online.

You, you know, don't say anything you wouldn't want to say in front of a perfect stranger who knows how to use AI deepfake software.

That's it.

Well, and I think it's, it's detrimental.

I think two things are going to happen.

And I think that women are going to start to be disproportionately impacted as well.

I think men are going to be more and more sucked down this rabbit hole of AI pornography that's just hyper-realistic and virtual reality oriented.

Customized for them, customized for them.

And that's like personalization is going to be king and is starting to be king, not just in the porn industry, but I think even in like the mental health space and the therapy space, like, you know, one of the biggest use cases for ChatGPT is apparently therapy.

Wow.

That people are using ChatGPT.

And I've had people that have told me this, like that have reached out and said, I've been using ChatGPT as like my coach, and I've told it to be like Eckhart Tolle and Connor Beaton and to give me life advice.

And they're like, it's incredibly profound.

It's so good.

I was like, what?

What are you talking about?

So I think men are going to go down this rabbit hole of more and more AI-oriented because it's just going to look so real.

And I think what's going to start to happen with women, and there's already apps, I think there's an app called Dipsy, D-I-P-S-E,

where it's basically ai erotica and because for women it's a very different like women get caught in like the story and so some women will get addicted to pornography but what more women will get addicted to is the romance novels and they'll get really sucked into these like hyper erotic romance novels you're going to start to see these very personalized romance novels where you as a woman are in the story and the hero or the guy that's sort of like sexualizing is going to be sexualizing you.

It's not going to be sexualizing this like damsel that you're projecting yourself onto.

They're actually going to be sexualizing you.

So you get to be a part of this erotica.

And then I think it'll be personalized into maybe a video or something like that.

And you can tailor it.

But we're not far off from that.

The porn industry.

And I think the last thing I'll say is, I think OnlyFans models, what you're going to start to see is that real life models are going to start to charge more of a premium because the AI at some point is likely going to have to be tagged.

And you'll see this whole industry come out where men are fetishizing women that aren't even real.

And they know that.

And they're having relationships with women.

And, you know, that's like that movie, Her, with Joaquin Phoenix.

It's like, but porn.

Well, I can't say that I'm not curious about that because it seems really interesting, but I can see that being horrifically bad for you if you really get interested in it.

Yeah.

It might be a salve for some people.

You know, I think in Japan, that's already starting to happen where there's such a separation between the men and women.

And I think that for a lot of guys out there, they've just given up on hope of being in any type of relationship with a woman.

And so I struggle with it sometimes.

Instead of the porn element, though, I want the advisor.

I want like, okay, this thing knows me really well.

What would I tell myself if I were not emotionally invested in this problem?

What would the smart Jordan?

And then maybe add in like...

a little bit of, I don't know, some super, you know, what would Oprah plus Jordan plus my wife plus my dad plus my my best friend, plus my producer, plus these 10 super smart show guys.

What would those people amalgamated into one brain tell me to do about this particular problem?

That seems really cool.

And I think that's there.

They'll start to happen.

But I think what hopefully what young men start to do is use these tools to help them develop competency versus what's happening right now, which is avoid the risk of rejection and embarrassment.

That's really how these tools are being used in a lot of ways.

And so, you know, you could have like a bot that's supporting you and learning how to talk to women better in real life and like how to get through some of these challenges.

Let's talk about fatherless kids and the time we have left here, which is quickly coming to a close.

43% of U.S.

children live without their father.

That's way more than I was hoping to see.

90% of homeless and runaway children are from fatherless homes.

71% of pregnant teenagers lack a father.

That's, I guess, not surprising, but that's still sad.

A lot of youth suicides from fatherless homes.

I mean, the stats are damning.

85% of children who exhibit behavioral disorders, fatherless homes.

You got to give the

arson.

Let me see.

90% of repeat arsonists.

90% of repeat arsonists.

This whole thing is just crazy.

Kids in juvenile state facilities, 80% of youth in prison, fatherless home.

I mean, this is 75% of adolescent patients in chemical abuse centers, fatherless homes.

This is horrible.

Yeah, 85% of behavioral disorders in kids are in kids that have no father in the home.

The interesting thing is if you look at the data, one in four children, so 25% of kids, won't have their father in a home, and then 43% don't have any father in the home.

So it's, you know, it's, it's a pretty wild thing to start to look at.

But then when you start to look at the impact of that and then you break it down, young boys will disproportionately be impacted by this.

We do see that young girls have sometimes a proclivity towards more hypersexuality and teen pregnancy, things like that.

But things like socialization, friend groups, academics, all of those things generally stay on average and aren't really that effective because they have their mother in the house.

Whereas young boys like really start to go off the rails.

Adverse behavior, acting out, taking big risks, self-harm starts to go up quite a bit when, and this is like a new thing that's happening in younger generation, in the younger generations now where young boys are disproportionately harming themselves more than they ever have.

So things like cutting and self-abuse, that's starting to go up.

The role role of the father is incredibly, incredibly important, especially for young boys, because number one, it's really supposed to model what a man can look like.

So it gives that young boy a trajectory.

This is where I could go or shouldn't go, even if it's not great.

Even if that man is lacking in ambition and, you know, he's got some anger problems and that kind of stuff.

It at least gives.

that young boy like guardrails, you know, kind of like the boiling alley analogy.

It's like, put the guardrails up.

You know, it's interesting you should say that because I've seen and heard quite a few guys say, I had a terrible father.

He cheated on my mom and he used to drink too much.

And I'm thankful because I know I do the opposite of the things my dad would do.

And I'm like, is that just a weird cope?

And they're like, no, I'm actually glad that I grew up with this person because I have a model for what not to do.

But if you had no father, Now you are stabbing in the dark because you don't know, you don't have a real role model for how your behavior affects others in some way.

I think one of the other things that's not really in this data, because those are completely absent fathers, is what I call Ghost Dad.

And Ghost Dad is the dad that's.

Is that Bob Hosby movie from 1984?

I think it is.

I can't look it up right now, but I can't.

Oh my gosh, that's great.

I didn't even know that reference.

Ghost Dad is basically the dad that's there, but not.

He's around, but is emotionally disconnected, doesn't really take interest in your life, doesn't really teach you much of anything.

And so he's essentially absent.

Another version of this that we see is when divorce happens and a young boy is separated from his father and he only sees them once a month or once every couple months.

And so that can have a very similar impact on a young boy.

Having a man in the house gives that young boy some trajectory towards what he could move towards and what he should avoid, like what's working and what's not working.

And kids are very perceptive.

And so they know very quickly like, oh, dad's anger sucks.

You know, he's constantly being passive aggressive to mom and he's yelling at me all the time.

Like he's kind of a dick and kind of an asshole and so i don't want to be like that but it gives that young boy something to push up against which is a very very important part and so that's one piece the second piece is generally speaking fathers will help to do a couple things for kids but for young boys especially the first one is risk incentivization so mothers statistically and and traditionally will try and get their kids to take less risks and actually be safer.

And fathers will actually encourage risks.

Yeah, I can see that even in my own family.

100%.

Same with mine and my wife.

And my wife is like very, very progressive, very liberal in a lot of ways.

And even with her, I see her like, oh, should he be on that?

Should he be jumping off that?

Like, he's on those rocks over there.

And some of that, you know, is her family system because her parents do it too when they're over.

I just witnessed that like, should he be staying on those rocks?

I'm like, he's fine.

Yeah.

Well, what if he falls?

I'm like, then he falls.

And he will fall.

You know, he's going to hurt himself.

He's going to learn not to stand there anymore.

Right.

And so, you know, I think the risk encouragement is a big part of it.

And it encourages that boy specifically to go out and face the hardship that we've been talking about this entire podcast, right?

To face the hardship of the rejection, the not defaulting to these coping mechanisms like pornography or, you know, chronically smoking weed every single day.

It incentivizes him to have to go forward and do hard things.

Like generally, fathers are there encouraging their sons or sometimes maybe more forcefully, getting their sons to do hard things.

So the risk piece is a big part of it.

And then the last piece is regulating intense emotions.

Sometimes through rough and tumble play, like my son is four years old, and he is so physical.

He's just such a physical kid.

My daughter is not like that.

Yeah, my daughter gets so annoyed when I wrestle with her.

My son loves it.

My daughter kind of likes it, but my son goes full Hulk, you know, on it.

And I'm not, I'm not like encouraging him to do that.

You know, when young boys go at three years old, there's a spike in their testosterone from birth until three years old.

It's all the same levels, but then at three, there's like a pre-spike.

So it's almost like a much smaller version of what you'll see in teenage years as they go through puberty.

And that's why when you see three years old, three to four years old, young boys start to sometimes bite and hit and

become more aggressive.

That's good to know that that's like what?

I remember being like, and I know the data, I'm being like, is this normal?

Like what my son's going through?

Like, is he all right?

We called him our threeenager.

Yeah, yeah.

He'd be like, I'm not doing that.

And he'd go get his Nerf gun, start opening fire.

And we're like, okay, that's a little disturbing, pal.

By the way, Ghost Dad, 1990, Bill Cosby.

He's been walking through doors.

He's been falling through floors.

He's been going through a lot lately, but he's still dead.

Wow.

Yeah, corny.

Yeah, some of that didn't age well.

No.

Oh, yeah.

Bill Cosby?

No.

Pretty much the whole thing aged like milk.

Yeah, yeah.

Pretty much.

But I think for a lot of young boys that being able to regulate your intense emotions is another big part of it.

So when you don't have that, when you have a vacancy of learning how to do that, there's a much more hyper-reliance on your mom in order to teach you how to do that.

And so you have a lot of young men that have been taught how to deal with their emotions from their mother.

And it's not to put down moms in any way, shape, or form.

No, they're the ones that are there when the dads are gone.

That's right.

We're doing the opposite of trying to put the moms down.

That's right.

Just to be clear.

Yeah.

And sometimes, depending on what that mom's gone through, she can, you know, say things like, never be like your dad.

Your dad was such an angry man.

And you should, and anytime that that boy starts to express anger out of her own fear or her own trauma because of what she went through, she'll demonize him.

She'll shame him.

Yeah.

So if she shames him, shames his anger, you know, good boys don't get angry.

Real men don't allow themselves to get angry.

He can disconnect or even disassociate from his anger.

And we need some connection to our anger in order, for example, to even set boundaries or know if a boundary has been crossed.

Like that's part of the marker that a boundary has been crossed.

And so a lot of these boys grow up to be men that have no boundaries.

They don't stand up for themselves.

They're sort of like chronic or classic nice guys that, you know, never insert themselves in a relationship.

And then, you know, that can lead to some of the stuff that we've been talking about of.

It's too hard for me to go and talk to a woman or be in a relationship.

It's just easier for me to go jerk off and watch porn and be in these little forums online and have my digital friends and not need to deal with the hardship of being in a relationship.

And so those things can snowball really quickly.

I can definitely see the line that you would draw between someone who was raised without a dad learning to become a really nice person and then having that kind of blow up in their face with the people pleasing stuff and having that result in broken relationships, lack of attraction, getting walked all over in a relationship, turning that into, well, women cheat and break your heart and, you know, break over your boundary.

I'd rather not deal with that.

And then dot, dot, dot or just a guy who says things like all women cheat i see that a lot and i'm just like oh my god a significant number of men believe this that's really horrible yeah well it's i think it's a deep fear for a lot of men have it's a deep fear for everybody i think but i don't think all women cheat yes it's a deep fear for me too but i don't think all women cheat i think some women do yeah yeah i did this one video where i was talking about getting clear on what your fears are of women and what you're afraid of when it comes to women, because the reality is that men and women hold different power.

Women are generally afraid of what a man can or would do physically, and men are generally afraid of what a woman could do character or socially.

And for a lot of guys, I think they're just disconnected from that fear or it's like all-encompassing.

You know, there's like such a deep terror of you could destroy me and my character or my reputation or, you know, you could break my heart by going and cheating on somebody and, you know, just terrorizing them.

But that has nothing to do with dad.

That's just a little aside.

No, no, but that stuff is interesting.

I mean, endlessly fascinating.

I know we're out of time, man.

Thanks for doing this.

Long overdue.

Yeah.

Maybe in the next 10 years, we can do another one.

Yeah, see?

We'll do another one in seven or eight years.

That's right.

Sounds good to me, man.

Thanks for coming in.

Thank you so much.

Conversations like these always blow my mind.

66% of men between the ages of 18 and 29 have not been on a date in the last year.

And no, it's not because of their height.

50% of men between 18 and 25 have never asked a woman out on a date.

I mean, this does not bode well.

Guys, we are porn-brained, we are overly interneted, interneted, and we are under-socialized.

This is not a good sign for either gender.

There's a lot more to discuss with this.

I think this is just the beginning of this kind of dialogue here on the show.

All things, Connor Bayton, will be in the show notes at jordanharbinger.com.

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