Transcript - Are We Overcomplicating Love and Sex?

Opening Remarks

James J. Sexton (00:00:00):

It’s also really nice ‘cause, you know, humanity continues. Like, we have to make babies in order for that to happen. And in order to make babies, we have to have sex.

Malavika Kannan (00:00:07):

The economy is really bad. And it can be hard to be in the mood if you, like, live with, like, a lot of roommates or if you haven’t been able to leave your parents’ house.

Carolyn Gorman (00:00:14):

Roommates are not what’s stopping sex.

James J. Sexton (00:00:16):

Yeah. We had sex everywhere.

Carolyn Gorman (00:00:17):

Yeah. (laughs)

James J. Sexton (00:00:17):

‘Cause women are still desiring marriage because last time I checked, it wasn’t mandatory.

Malavika Kannan (00:00:21):

For young women, it’s just very clear that marriage may not be the best source of, like, financial protection and dignity.

Nick Gillespie (00:00:26):

Should marriage still be the goal?

Malavika Kannan (00:00:29):

Yes.

Nick Gillespie (00:00:30):

Is monogamy over?

Malavika Kannan (00:00:31):

No, but it could be.

Debate Starts

Nick Gillespie (00:00:36):

This is Open to Debate. I’m Nick Gillespie. Welcome to our series called Generational Divides. Today, we’re bringing together people of different ages, a Gen Xer, a Millennial, and a Zoomer, to discuss sex and relationships. It’s such a big part of our lives, but we can still be awkward and avoid talking about it. Dating and sexual norms in the U.S. have come a long way since our Puritan ancestors. Early courtship was strategic, formal, and typically didn’t prioritize romantic love. The concept of dating wasn’t even really invented until the late 19th century. Going steady came about in the 1950s. Then there were the sexual revolutions of the 1960s and ‘70s. Now there’s hookup culture, love bombing, and situationships. Over time, romance has broadened to become less rigid, more inclusive, but always really confusing. You might remember your grandparents telling you how they met. It may have seemed so simple, so uncomplicated by dating apps.

In fact, my grandparents, one set of my grandparents had an arranged marriage. So do older generations have it all figured out, or have the kids stumbled onto something? Today, we wanna hear what different generations think about dating trends, our changing attitudes towards sex, the rise of non-monogamy, and more. A note, before we continue, we’ll be covering some controversial and intimate topics. And I wanna say to our participants, let’s keep all the blows above the belts. All right. First, I want to, uh, welcome our Gen Zer, Malavika Kannan. She’s the author of the new novel, Unprecedented Times. She’s taught at Stanford. Her work has appeared in New York Magazine, Vulture, The Washington Post, and more. She also has a relationship advice column with Teen Vogue. Welcome, Malavika.

Malavika Kannan (00:02:27):

Thank you for having me.

Nick Gillespie (00:02:28):

Next, we have Carolyn D. Gorman, our Millennial voice. Carolyn is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute, where she researches how policy impacts people with mental illness. Uh, she served on the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. And she often examines the cultural norms that young people are navigating as they grow up in the U.S. Welcome.

Carolyn Gorman (00:02:49):

Thank you.

Nick Gillespie (00:02:50):

And finally, we have James Sexton, our Gen Xer. He’s a New-York-based attorney whose practice focuses on divorce and family law. His clients include everyone from Fortune 500 CEOs to entertainment personalities to stay-at-home mom. He is the author of the book, How to Stay in Love. Welcome, James.

James J. Sexton (00:03:11):

Thanks so much. Great to be here.

Nick Gillespie (00:03:13):

All right. Let’s, uh, start talking on our first topic. Uh, is should Gen Z have more sex? We’ve all seen studies from the CDC, the Kinsey Institute, and places like that that showed g- that Gen Z is having less sex than generations before did at the same age. Let’s start with our Zoomer. Uh, what are your thoughts on this? Is, i- is this a big deal?

Malavika Kannan (00:03:37):

Um, I fundamentally think that any moral panic over who is or isn’t having sex is sometimes just, like, not super productive.

Nick Gillespie (00:03:43):

And that’s why Gen Z women are having less sex.

Malavika Kannan (00:03:47):

I think that if you are uninterested in entering a sexual playing field that is uneven and when there’s a power dynamic that perhaps previous generations would have been conditioned to accept or even eroticize, I don’t blame people who are not in the mood in those conditions.

Carolyn Gorman (00:04:00):

The interesting thing is every generation has seen a decline in the amount of sex that they’re having as a-

Nick Gillespie (00:04:07):

Right.

Carolyn Gorman (00:04:07):

... young person. And I think what that tells me is whatever our sort of persistent message has been, something’s wrong with that. What we’ve done is change the incentives around sex and responsibility, and specifically responsibility from men. The advent of birth control and the normalization of sex outside of marriage made there much less reason for men to feel obligated to women to stay in a married relationship. So women might have had more control over what happens if sex happens. Uh, but if they can’t find a partner, they’re expor- exposed to more physical safety risks because men are less invested in the conversation. They’re faced with economic risk. If they get pregnant, they can’t terminate the child or don’t want to, and then have to support the child on their own. And so I think we have tried to, uh, make things better for women. And the deal hasn’t always paid off.

Nick Gillespie (00:05:22):

Okay. Uh, James, what are you thinking?

James J. Sexton (00:05:26):

I mean, to the core question, I think young people should be having more sex. I think they just should because I think anything that gets them off their phones is good. So I think anything they-

Nick Gillespie (00:05:34):

And even if it’s sex? They’re, they’re watching sex-

James J. Sexton (00:05:35):

It’s just whatever it is.

Nick Gillespie (00:05:35):

... they’re watching porn, but it’s like-

James J. Sexton (00:05:38):

Honestly, I mean, certainly sex is one of the most enjoyable things we can do with our bodies. I hope we can all agree on that. I mean, I enjoy yoga. I think rollercoasters are fun. But I think almost anything I’m doing, having sex would be more fun. That, that seems ... I don’t ... That shouldn’t necessarily be a controversial topic, if it was occurring just from a pure physical sensation standpoint. But, I mean, everything that, that I’m hearing here is, is exactly the kinds of things I hear when I talk to young people. I think what’s happened with s- the proliferation of social media is everyone now identifies as heavily aggrieved.

Carolyn Gorman (00:06:10):

Yeah.

James J. Sexton (00:06:10):

And if you’re basically caught up in how aggrieved you are, why would you wanna spend time with the enemy? So I, I think it’s understandable that there’s a massive boys versus girls war that is only getting fed more and more by the algorithm. And a side effect of that is that people aren’t feeling connection, they aren’t feeling closeness, and they’re not feeling safe ‘cause I don’t think anyone could feel loved unless they feel safe.

Nick Gillespie (00:06:35):

What were you gonna say?

Malavika Kannan (00:06:36):

Well, I was going to say I agree with you that, like, gender relations are incredibly polarized right now. And I think that the metaphor that you brought up earlier, to me, really signals that. Like, sex, to me, is not like riding a rollercoaster because a rollercoaster is, like, does, is not something that has power dynamics baked in. It’s not a political, it’s not a politicized thing that you could be doing. There aren’t the same riks- risks attached to it. But I agree that there has been, like, profound gender polarization between young men and young women about the basic assumptions and expectations behind sex. Um, it doesn’t help that, like, many young people in this country, including myself, grew up without any form of sex ed, let alone, like, comprehensive sex ed. And something that I have noticed personally, and, like, there are many potential things to blame, porn could, in fact, be one of them, that the baseline expectations between young men and young women are very different.

Nick Gillespie (00:07:21):

What, what are, what’s the difference?

Malavika Kannan (00:07:23):

But the consequences are very different. Like, what to a young man might feel like routine sex to a young woman does, in fact, land in her body as a profound violation. And we could, like, invalidate the other’s perspective.

Carolyn Gorman (00:07:34):

Well, why wouldn’t a woman then stop having that sex?

Nick Gillespie (00:07:37):

Well, they have though-

Carolyn Gorman (00:07:37):

That ... Yeah. Well, they wouldn’t-

Nick Gillespie (00:07:38):

... right? Isn’t that the point? I mean, if you, if you’re buying that argument, they have because Gen Z is having less sex. Although the drop-off is much higher among young men. What is the role of technology in this? And maybe it’s not as simple as saying it’s online porn or it’s phones, but, you know, where ... I mean, is it fundamentally, is it the information that people are being fed through some kind of online culture?

Malavika Kannan (00:08:04):

I mean, I would say it plays two roles. I do think that for young men, like, access to things like porn has, like, severely warped their perception of, like, what women want and, like, inhibited their ability to connect to them. But I would say for women, like myself-

Nick Gillespie (00:08:15):

Mm-hmm.

Malavika Kannan (00:08:16):

... the effect of the internet is something much more akin to what consciousness raising would’ve-

Nick Gillespie (00:08:20):

Mm-hmm.

Malavika Kannan (00:08:20):

... done for, like, feminists of a previous generation. I think problems that I might have otherwise been convinced to internalize or think were just my fault, I’ve come to understand are conditions faced by a lot of women, which suggests that it’s a broader political one.

Nick Gillespie (00:08:32):

Mm-hmm. It’s interesting, though. I- in the wake of con- consciousness raising, certainly in the early ‘70s, women had more sex. Uh, they felt empowered to have sex on their terms, whereas you’re talking about this current kind of moment of consciousness raising is women withdrawing from a sexual, uh, forum, or whatever the right word is for it.

James J. Sexton (00:08:53):

Well, I, I think something that you said earlier was very resonant, and, and that is that sex education has vanished. And I think it’s vanished because politically, there’s such an argument about what should be included in the sexual education curriculum. And I think sexual education hasn’t disappeared at all. It’s just become porn for most young men.

Nick Gillespie (00:09:12):

This idea that sex education has vanished. Again, I’m a Boomer, and I went to Catholic school, so I can guarantee I did not only get negative-

Malavika Kannan (00:09:20):

Yeah. (laughs)

Nick Gillespie (00:09:21):

... zero sex education, I got something beyond zero.

James J. Sexton (00:09:24):

We have the shared trauma.

Nick Gillespie (00:09:25):

So, but we had sex.

Carolyn Gorman (00:09:28):

I think kids are gonna get this. Teens are gonna get this. Whether or not it’s formal, do I trust the education system to provide that or provide that well? Uh-

Nick Gillespie (00:09:36):

Yeah.

Carolyn Gorman (00:09:37):

... we can’t teach kids to read, so why would we expect them to be able to-

Nick Gillespie (00:09:42):

Well, then maybe the sex ed is working finally where-

Carolyn Gorman (00:09:44):

(laughs)

Nick Gillespie (00:09:44):

... kids are not having sex.

James J. Sexton (00:09:45):

I’m pretty sure-

Carolyn Gorman (00:09:46):

I think one p-

James J. Sexton (00:09:46):

... that’s not the case.

Nick Gillespie (00:09:46):

Because-

Carolyn Gorman (00:09:47):

... o- one part of the conversation that I think we’re really leaving out is that one very big predictor of how much sex happens is whether people live together. And we just don’t see the same rates of-

Nick Gillespie (00:09:58):

And by that, you mean in a cohabitated space?

Carolyn Gorman (00:09:59):

Yeah.

Nick Gillespie (00:09:59):

Yeah.

Carolyn Gorman (00:10:01):

In a cohabitated space. We don’t see the same rates of marriage and we don’t see the same rates of live-in relationships. So that is mechanically gonna lower the amount of sex.

Nick Gillespie (00:10:10):

You know, everybody’s having less sex than they had 50 years ago, regardless of the age, kinda broadly. But then when you look at younger people, how much does the fact that, like, more young people live with their parents-

Malavika Kannan (00:10:21):

Mm-hmm.

Nick Gillespie (00:10:22):

Is that part of, is that part of the issue? Is, how does something like COVID fit into this where there was a, a period of forced isolation during a formative era of, you know, of younger people, particularly Gen Z’s life? I don’t, do you, is that at play here?

Malavika Kannan (00:10:38):

I think that’s absolutely at play here. The economy is really bad. And it can be hard to be in the mood if you, like, live with, like, a lot of roommates or if you haven’t been able to leave your-

Nick Gillespie (00:10:45):

Mm.

Malavika Kannan (00:10:45):

... parents’ house. So I think that that’s definitely part of it.

Carolyn Gorman (00:10:48):

I don’t know.

James J. Sexton (00:10:49):

I-

Carolyn Gorman (00:10:49):

I think young people ... I’ve lived in New York. And everyone has a bad New York roommate story.

Malavika Kannan (00:10:53):

(laughs)

Carolyn Gorman (00:10:53):

And roommates are not what’s stopping sex.

James J. Sexton (00:10:56):

Yeah. We had sex everywhere.

Carolyn Gorman (00:10:58):

Yeah. (laughs)

James J. Sexton (00:10:59):

Like, we had sex everywhere. We had sex in cars. We had sex in ... like, we had sex ... It wasn’t like, “Oh, no. I live with my parents.”

Nick Gillespie (00:11:05):

But that was like-

Carolyn Gorman (00:11:05):

Your, your bad roommate [inaudible 00:11:06].

Nick Gillespie (00:11:05):

... for [inaudible 00:11:06] right?

James J. Sexton (00:11:05):

We lived with our parents, but, I mean-

Nick Gillespie (00:11:05):

Yeah.

James J. Sexton (00:11:06):

... we l- we, we had sex. Like, you, you found ways to have sex.

Nick Gillespie (00:11:08):

So, so, well, then what, what is it, though? Is it, um, you know, is, is it higher levels of, um, of depression or higher levels ... I, and I’m not even sure that this is the case of prescriptions of SSRIs, which sometimes lower sex drive. I mean, how much of this is organic? How much of it is ideological? Um-

Carolyn Gorman (00:11:26):

I think there is a definite ideo- ideological play here. And what that is is there is no longer a very clear playbook for how you interact with the other sex.

Nick Gillespie (00:11:38):

Right.

Carolyn Gorman (00:11:38):

Men don’t know how to approach women because they’re scared of being accused of being harassed. Uh, maybe they wanna make sure that a woman doesn’t feel like they are, you know, being patronized too. And so they don’t interact with women. And then, you know, there are ... If we don’t have a playbook or expectations around social norms, you just don’t get that interaction to ever happen. You’ve sort of few low-pressure, low-cost opportunities for people to interact. I think that that happened, that, uh ... COVID really exacerbated that, definitely. But that existed before, certainly.

James J. Sexton (00:12:17):

We’ve always treated d- you know, this culture’s always treated dandruff with decapitation. Like, we’ve always found ways to over-correct. And so, you know, the idea of saying, well, you know, men were told for a period of time, “Hey, maybe you shouldn’t just randomly start walking up to women and hitting on them when they’re in spaces where they might just be shopping or doing yoga and not wanna be approached and sexualized.” That’s a perfectly fair thing to say. To then solve that by going, “Okay. Then don’t talk to women at all,” is problematic. But I can certainly understand if you’re a young woman who’s been raised in an environment where a man coming up to you and saying, “Hi, I -”

Nick Gillespie (00:12:50):

Mm.

James J. Sexton (00:12:51):

“... I think you’re very attractive and I wanted to see if you might wanna get together with me sometime,” is perceived as a form of assault-

Carolyn Gorman (00:12:56):

Yeah.

James J. Sexton (00:12:57):

... is a problem. So I, I just think, again, that, that if we, if we continue to look at why would you want to have sex with your enemy? Why would you ... If you’ve been conditioned to believe that this person is your oppressor, why would you wanna have sex with them? Women or men? If men are being, young men are being taught that women are the problem, and young women are being taught that men are the problem in heterosexual relationships, why would you wanna have sex with each other?

Nick Gillespie (00:13:19):

Let’s, um, ta-

Carolyn Gorman (00:13:21):

Can I just-

Nick Gillespie (00:13:22):

Yeah.

Carolyn Gorman (00:13:22):

... push back on that?

Nick Gillespie (00:13:23):

Sure.

Carolyn Gorman (00:13:24):

I think that’s being a little extremist. Men and women don’t all think that they are the enemy. I think there is still a lot of camaraderie. People still want to get married. There are just way fewer opportunities to actually develop real relationships with people. And when those relationships-

Nick Gillespie (00:13:40):

And when you say real relationship, you mean, like, in person, in real life, and then-

Carolyn Gorman (00:13:44):

And meaningful. You know, you, when you see someone over a repeated amount of time, you get to know them, you get to know their good side, their bad side. You sort of have these opportunities to flirt. You have these opportunities to get to know, “Is this the right person for me?” And we just don’t have those types of opportunities as much anymore.

James J. Sexton (00:14:02):

Can I ask ‘cause I know you write, like, a dating column as well for Teen Vogue. And, and I-

Nick Gillespie (00:14:07):

It sounds like you’re begging for content-

James J. Sexton (00:14:09):

... and I do-

Nick Gillespie (00:14:10):

... if nobody’s, if nobody’s dating or nobody’s going out.

Malavika Kannan (00:14:11):

No. I actually-

Nick Gillespie (00:14:12):

You know?

Malavika Kannan (00:14:12):

... disagree with that profoundly.

James J. Sexton (00:14:14):

Yeah.

Malavika Kannan (00:14:14):

I think that young people and young women who tend to be the ones to write into this column, like, do want to have sex. They do want to-

James J. Sexton (00:14:20):

Yeah.

Malavika Kannan (00:14:20):

... have love. I think, as you mentioned, these are fundamental human desires. I just think that, like, the question of risk is so high.

James J. Sexton (00:14:26):

Yeah.

Malavika Kannan (00:14:26):

Like, I do think that, like, for young women, like, going out with a man is, like, rolling the dice-

Nick Gillespie (00:14:32):

Sure.

Malavika Kannan (00:14:32):

... that could result in being a little disrespected at best and, like, having something super egregious happen to you-

Nick Gillespie (00:14:37):

Can I-

Malavika Kannan (00:14:37):

... at worse.

Nick Gillespie (00:14:37):

... and I, I’m not at all questioning that feeling, but I’m curious for the two of you, like, how do you respond to that? Because it seems like when you go out on a date now, you know, because people have social media, like, you, it, people are much more now in quantities than they would have been-

Carolyn Gorman (00:14:54):

I totally disagree.

Nick Gillespie (00:14:55):

... 30 or 40 or 50 years ago. Where you might, you might-

James J. Sexton (00:14:58):

But they have a very performative self out there that may m- not in any way be accurate.

Nick Gillespie (00:15:02):

Yeah, sure. But, but it’s all ... I mean, it just seems ... I mean, do you think that people, like, meeting on a date now, they are, they’re more anonymous than ever?

James J. Sexton (00:15:12):

They’re safer than they’ve ever been.

Nick Gillespie (00:15:13):

It’s a risk.

James J. Sexton (00:15:13):

Their location’s-

Nick Gillespie (00:15:13):

Well-

James J. Sexton (00:15:14):

... being tracked, they can give their friends-

Nick Gillespie (00:15:16):

Yeah, but-

James J. Sexton (00:15:16):

... their information.

Nick Gillespie (00:15:16):

... but this is what I’m saying, so-

James J. Sexton (00:15:17):

But I, I ... See, the question I wanted to ask you ... Because I do- I wouldn’t know from my lived experience, and you might, as someone not only from lived experience, but also as, as, as speaking to that group of, of Teen Vogue readers, which I imagine is mostly young women. You know, in my generation, and I don’t know if this is a foreign concept or if this is still a thing, and that’s part of my question, there was this idea of, like, the bases when you were dating somebody. Like, you would meet someone, you’d flirt with each other, then you’d go out, maybe there’d be a kiss. That’s first base, you know? Second base was, like, you know, over the clothes stuff, maybe. Third base, we’re starting to get a little more intimate.

This was not all on one date. This was really not even within a compressed period of time. There was this sense of a progression. I get the impression from the young people I know that that’s just not how it works anymore. That it’s like first base is we have sex. Third base is we exchange actual information about our families and we make plans to go out on a date. Like, I’m trying to understand, how do you navigate conversations about dating if it’s that chaotic and if sex has become that much of a lead thing when people expect to have any kind of romantic connection? Or is this just bad information that’s being handed to an older generation?

Malavika Kannan (00:16:29):

I think that it seems like what you’re saying is contrary to what the premise of the debate is, that young people aren’t having that much sex. I mean, I think that Gen Z is just m- not a monolith and people have, like, wildly different dating experiences.

James J. Sexton (00:16:42):

Mm. I guess what I was saying is that maybe the reason why people are avoiding it-

Malavika Kannan (00:16:42):

I’m sure there were players in your generation too.

Nick Gillespie (00:16:44):

Yeah. I, I, I mean-

James J. Sexton (00:16:44):

Tons. Absolutely.

Nick Gillespie (00:16:45):

Yeah.

James J. Sexton (00:16:45):

And, and, and some of them purported to be it, and some of them hid the fact that they were, so they were closet players. But the question I, I guess I was having is if you felt it was binary, right, of you either are not with someone or you’re having sex with them, that you didn’t have a sense of a progression of you were gonna have some time to get to know this person before you had sex with them, or were even expected to have sex with them, or it would be considered poor form to have sex with them too quickly.

Nick Gillespie (00:17:10):

You know, that actually strikes me more as something that the leading edge of the Baby Boom talk about. If you talk about-

James J. Sexton (00:17:15):

Yeah.

Nick Gillespie (00:17:16):

... you know, people born between 1946 and, you know, the mid-’50s.

James J. Sexton (00:17:19):

Yeah.

Nick Gillespie (00:17:20):

They would talk about in the late ‘60s and ‘70s, that type of expectation that you would have sex first and then get to know each other.

James J. Sexton (00:17:26):

Right.

Nick Gillespie (00:17:27):

But even by the time I came along, you know, years after that, that was not operative. I, and I doubt ... From the young people I know, including my children, like, that, the world you’re describing does not seem very much in play.

James J. Sexton (00:17:40):

At all, I think, anymore.

Nick Gillespie (00:17:41):

Well, I mean, again, every, everybody’s different and everybody-

James J. Sexton (00:17:43):

But the question of, like, Tinder, Grindr, and the-

Nick Gillespie (00:17:45):

Yeah.

James J. Sexton (00:17:45):

... myriad of other apps that are essentially like, “Hey, we wanna hook up,” if the expectation is, “If I enter the dating marketplace, I have to have sex with this person, it’s expected that I would have sex with this person,” that makes it a much higher percentage move to allow someone into your physical-

Nick Gillespie (00:18:00):

Any, any-

James J. Sexton (00:18:00):

... space at all.

Nick Gillespie (00:18:01):

Yeah. Well-

James J. Sexton (00:18:01):

Because if I’m saying I wanna get to know you-

Nick Gillespie (00:18:03):

Another way-

James J. Sexton (00:18:04):

... versus I wanna have sex with you, it’s two different things.

Nick Gillespie (00:18:05):

Another way of saying this is, you know, is hookup culture, which was the moral panic of, you know, 10 or 15 years ago.

Malavika Kannan (00:18:12):

Yes.

Nick Gillespie (00:18:13):

Is hookup culture gone then?

Malavika Kannan (00:18:15):

I mean, it sounds like that’s what you’re describing, like, hookup culture and casual sex, which, like, I’m sure has been a thing people have been doing s- for-

Nick Gillespie (00:18:21):

Yeah.

Malavika Kannan (00:18:22):

... like, time immemorial. And technology has maybe facilitated a little bit.

Nick Gillespie (00:18:25):

For sure.

Malavika Kannan (00:18:25):

But if, if-

James J. Sexton (00:18:25):

It’s made it easier.

Nick Gillespie (00:18:26):

I think it’s-

James J. Sexton (00:18:27):

Yeah.

Nick Gillespie (00:18:27):

... in the first kind of cuneiform tablets and-

Malavika Kannan (00:18:29):

(laughs)

Nick Gillespie (00:18:29):

... it’s like after the kind of [inaudible 00:18:31].

Carolyn Gorman (00:18:30):

(laughs)

James J. Sexton (00:18:31):

I mean, my gay male friends are still full in on it.

Nick Gillespie (00:18:33):

Right, but that’s also-

James J. Sexton (00:18:34):

So heterosexual couples, it seems less.

Nick Gillespie (00:18:35):

It might be the place where you’re at. Like, Grindr and Tinder are different than something like, OkCupid and, uh, Hinge, or whatever-

James J. Sexton (00:18:41):

Correct.

Nick Gillespie (00:18:42):

... you know, the, so ... Carolyn?

Carolyn Gorman (00:18:44):

If casual sex is no longer the thing-

James J. Sexton (00:18:47):

Mm-hmm.

Carolyn Gorman (00:18:47):

... then did that just not work? C- are we not willing to admit that and bring something back into the conversation? Something like marriage, more expectations, higher accountability for partnership, for teamwork, for commitment.

Nick Gillespie (00:19:04):

Right.

James J. Sexton (00:19:05):

It would be excellent for my business model.

Carolyn Gorman (00:19:06):

(laughs)

Nick Gillespie (00:19:07):

Yeah. Um, one of the thing ... uh, you know, a couple of you have talked about how there does seem to be ... You know, and, and to say, like, men and women are really, you know, at odds with each other, this is a, you know, perennial theme, right? Of all art. I mean, it goes back certainly to the, you know, to the Old Testament. And, like, most religions start, there’s a male and a female concept and they’re kind of merging and at war with each other and things like that. But, um, does ... Gen Z is more likely to identify as bisexual than older generations and things like that. Is that part of this dynamic? And if you are bisexual on one level, you would say, “Okay. Well, that doubles my, you know, my field of people that I could interact, or if I’m sapiosexual or whatever.” Or is that actually a sign of retreat from traditional sexual roles and sexual desire?

Carolyn Gorman (00:20:03):

I think that there’s a, a broader problem with that. And it’s not a retreat from so much, from something so much at is, as it is a movement towards something. And that movement, what that movement is towards is self-focus and individualism. I think we have just really become a society that wants to put ourselves first and is not willing to do something for the broader team. If you are married, you’ve made a commitment to someone, you’ve made a commitment to each other. And because we are so interested in ourselves and our own happiness at a sort of superficial level, we’re much less willing to put up with a husband who puts dishes in the sink and doesn’t load the dishwasher. The sort of normalization of divorce, of not marriage in the first place is, I think, problematic in that aspect.

Nick Gillespie (00:21:03):

Those are very different things. And the divorce rate peaked in the early to mid-’80s. So, um, you know, and then we can talk about the formation of marriages or long-term relationships. But is the problem in the dating sphere ... And I, let’s start with you, and then we’ll come to Malavika. Is the problem that people are too individualistic?

James J. Sexton (00:21:24):

I think there was a period of time, and I can say this as someone who was a very far left progressive in the ‘90s, um, that-

Nick Gillespie (00:21:31):

In the 1990s?

James J. Sexton (00:21:31):

1990s.

Nick Gillespie (00:21:33):

Okay.

James J. Sexton (00:21:34):

Correct. Yeah.

Malavika Kannan (00:21:34):

(laughs)

Carolyn Gorman (00:21:34):

(laughs)

James J. Sexton (00:21:35):

Yeah. Thank you. Uh, uh, uh, you know, the, the, there was a sense of commonality and a sense that, that the right was the party of rugged individualism and every man for himself. And then I think we got deeper and deeper on the left into this very identity-driven concept. Well, I can’t understand the experience of a trans woman because I’m not a trans woman. And I can’t ... A trans woman of color understands her experience, whereas a trans woman who’s not of color wouldn’t understand that. And a trans woman of color who is college educated would not understand the experience of a trans woman of color who’s not college educated, and so on and so forth, which if you follow this all the way down, becomes an incredible form of rugged individualism and becomes exactly what Robert Bork was pushing for, which was essentially every man for himself.

So because you can’t possibly understand my lived experience, what are our common dreams? Todd Gitlin in Twilight of the Common Dreams kinda predicted this in the early 2000s, saying, “Look, the left has now reached the point where we don’t believe in anything in common anymore. We don’t have any singular unifying narrative anymore that we can say we all are in support of, other than very vague concepts, like love and acceptance.”

Nick Gillespie (00:22:46):

Okay. So then, you know, bringing that back to the sexual conversation. And, you know, we started with you.

Malavika Kannan (00:22:50):

Yeah.

Nick Gillespie (00:22:50):

We’ll end this section with you as the representative Gen Z, the unsexed generation.

James J. Sexton (00:22:56):

(laughs)

Nick Gillespie (00:22:57):

Is it that-

Malavika Kannan (00:22:58):

(laughs)

Nick Gillespie (00:22:59):

You know, it’s, you know, Gen Z is too individualized in their interpretation of their experience, so-

Malavika Kannan (00:23:04):

Yeah.

Nick Gillespie (00:23:05):

... how could I ever be with anybody because they’re so different then?

Malavika Kannan (00:23:09):

Right. Well, I mean, I think queerness is, like, a beautiful note to end this segment on. I s- I never expected-

Nick Gillespie (00:23:13):

Mm.

Malavika Kannan (00:23:14):

... to hear on NPR that bisexuality is an escape from, like, men who don’t do the dishes or is, like, a form-

Nick Gillespie (00:23:18):

Yeah.

Malavika Kannan (00:23:18):

... of selfishness. Um, I will say that, like, as someone who is queer, um, I do find that I have, like, a much healthier relationship to sex that is oriented around exploration as opposed to, like, risk management, which I think is, like, the condition of most of my exclusively heterosexual female peers. And I think something that I think about a lot as a queer person is that, like, human difference is inescapable. Like, I encounter some degree of power dynamic in every person I’m in relationship with. But, like, for whatever reason, maybe the power dynamic doesn’t feel as structural. It doesn’t feel like this person has the same ability to, like, alter the condition of my life or treat me like a second class citizen in the way that a man can do that to me. Um, and I think that that has created, like, a playing field that is just much more likely to foster connection and alternative ways of relating to one another that is, like, remarkably, I think, a lot warmer and more inclusive than people like to stereotype, like, woke p- people.

Nick Gillespie (00:24:12):

So can I just ask, though, ‘cause most people identify as heterosexual, do you think it’s impossible for somebody who identifies strongly as heterosexual to have that sense of exploration? Or is it, is it, is heterosexuality then just part of a structural power dynamic that is going to destroy sexual relations?

Malavika Kannan (00:24:32):

I mean, I think that women who are straight, like, are often, like, incredibly courageous and creative in pioneering, like, alternative ways to live their lives. Like, I see women who, like, co-adopt with their friends, who buy homes, like, with other women.

Nick Gillespie (00:24:45):

Mm-hmm.

Malavika Kannan (00:24:45):

Like, it is always possible to, like, jailbreak from a certain way of existing.

Nick Gillespie (00:24:49):

Is that true for men as well?

Malavika Kannan (00:24:51):

I think so.

Nick Gillespie (00:24:51):

Yeah. Okay. Well, let’s, uh, leave it there. Uh, another aspect that comes up when discussing sex and dating is what a relationship looks like. Um, I wanna ask our panel, is monogamy overrated? Before we answer, um, we wanna talk a little bit about ethical non-monogamy, which has become a, a phrase that is, you know, in more common c- uh, uh, currency than before. Uh, Malavika, this seems to be something that, um, Gen Z talks a lot about, uh, as a resident Zoomer. What is ethical non-monogamy to you?

Malavika Kannan (00:25:27):

I would define ethical non-monogamy as an alternative form of relating to others, where instead of having, like, a closed monogamous primary partner, there’s a degree of openness.

Nick Gillespie (00:25:36):

Mm-hmm.

Malavika Kannan (00:25:36):

Whether that is sexual or there’s, like, other permutations of it as well.

Nick Gillespie (00:25:40):

And, and it’s, it’s, it’s openly discussed. So, ‘cause there’s a lot of non-monogamy going on, but this is, it’s more out there.

Malavika Kannan (00:25:49):

I think non-monogamy has had a couple of, like, big moments in the media lately. Um, I think that it’s something that, like, the queer community has, like, its own, like, long and historic-

Nick Gillespie (00:25:58):

Right.

Malavika Kannan (00:25:58):

... relationship with that is maybe a little bit autonomous-

Nick Gillespie (00:26:00):

Yeah.

Malavika Kannan (00:26:00):

... from what everyone else is doing.

Nick Gillespie (00:26:01):

Okay. Well, James, your business is based on non-monogamy, right. So-

James J. Sexton (00:26:06):

Yeah. I have a PhD in infidelity.

Carolyn Gorman (00:26:06):

(laughs)

Malavika Kannan (00:26:06):

(laughs)

Nick Gillespie (00:26:06):

Yeah, yeah. It-

James J. Sexton (00:26:07):

Um, yeah. I mean-

James J. Sexton (00:26:09):

... it’s a, it’s a huge ... Whether it’s a cause or a symptom of the disconnection between two purportedly previously monogamous partners is a question that I, I don’t know that I can answer. Um, but yeah, I think there’s certainly a rise now in the discourse on ethical non-monogamy and on other forms of relationship. Hopefully, as a function of the fact that we’re just so spectacularly bad as a species at monogamy. Um, it’s a, it’s a fairly, um, uh ... You know, and again, I think the opportunities for infidelity have become much easier. I mean, if you listen to a song like Stevie Wonder’s Part-Time Lover from the 1980s, it seems almost quaint because it’s the sort of code of, you know, how he’s gonna get in touch with his lover who he’s ... Whereas now, you just-

Nick Gillespie (00:26:50):

Right.

James J. Sexton (00:26:51):

... can be texting your lover from, you know, the end, the, the other end of the couch while your spouse is sitting right there. But I think we know that, that, that adultery or infidelity has been around forever. I mean, it’s one of the 10 ... It’s actually two of the 10 commandments, which I find fascinating, that God allegedly could give us 10 rules, and twice, he had to say, “Don’t covet your-”

Carolyn Gorman (00:27:09):

(laughs)

James J. Sexton (00:27:09):

“... neighbor’s wife-”

Nick Gillespie (00:27:09):

Right.

James J. Sexton (00:27:10):

“... and don’t commit adultery.”

Nick Gillespie (00:27:11):

Right.

James J. Sexton (00:27:11):

“Thou shall not kill,” got one. So I think that’s an interesting side note. But I, I think, you know, um, um, it’s certainly true that, for example, many of my gay male friends for many years have practiced some form of ethical non-monogamy where they have rules within the relationship. Now, again, that’s partly a function of the fact that in queer spaces, because these were ostracized people for so many years, they could create their own permutations because they were like, “I’m never gonna be accepted. I can do what might make sense for our relationship.”

Nick Gillespie (00:27:39):

So can-

Carolyn Gorman (00:27:39):

Oh.

Nick Gillespie (00:27:40):

... I ask, though, do you think monogamy is overrated? Or in, you know, in ... When you are seeing your clients as-

James J. Sexton (00:27:46):

Yeah.

Nick Gillespie (00:27:46):

... a divorce lawyer, it’s not like they were like, “Oh, yeah. We agreed to be non-monogamous.”

James J. Sexton (00:27:52):

Well, I, I think monogamy in its best form, most people would agree, is not a rule-based concept. So if, if I was in a romantic relationship and my partner said, “You know, I really wanna have sex with a whole bunch of other guys, but I’m gonna honor our promise,” that’s not gonna make me feel great. But if my partner says, “I have sex with as many men as I want to. One, you,” then to me, that’s a form of monogamy that makes sense. When I’m m- you know, when I’m full, I stop eating. So if I’m satisfied sexually, of course, why would we be looking outside of this relationship if it can satisfy us? I am not qualified to talk about ethical non-monogamy success rate because I’m a divorce lawyer. So I see a lot of people who try it, I think, as a Hail Mary pass at the end of a relationship that was disconnected. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t a lot of very happy people out there who would never come into my office.

Nick Gillespie (00:28:44):

Would you, before we go to Carolyn real quickly, would you say, and as somebody who sees a lot of, you know, people at their worst or, or in moments of, of deep distress-

James J. Sexton (00:28:53):

Sure.

Nick Gillespie (00:28:53):

... is there more of a sense of, like, there are different ways to be married than, say, when you yourself were married?

James J. Sexton (00:29:00):

I mean, I think that there are people who have marriages of convenience, marriages where they’re sexless, marriages ... I mean, that, that has not changed, and I don’t think that will ever change. I think that’s a tradition. And, you know, one of the things I’ve always said is that, that monogamy is a tradition. Now, some traditions are, you know, things we do because of the wisdom of people before us that was passed down to us. And in some ways, tradition is peer pressure exerted by dead people. So to the extent that monogamy is peer pressure from dead people, it’s probably not a good idea. But to the extent that it’s a relationship permutation that actually makes sense and helps our species thrive in some ways, or where it, if Freud is right in civilization and its discontents, that it’s one that prevents chaos, then that might be a good thing. I don’t know that I’m qualified to say. I just know we’re bad at it.

Nick Gillespie (00:29:47):

Carol?

Carolyn Gorman (00:29:47):

Yeah. I think let’s not overthink this. First of all, we are a panel that suffer- suffers from a lot of selection bias. Non-monogamy actually does not happen at very high rates. Polygamy specifically, uh, happens at very low rates, rates of like 2%.

James J. Sexton (00:30:03):

How would we know that? I’m sorry.

Carolyn Gorman (00:30:04):

We hear about this all the time. We have survey data to show this.

James J. Sexton (00:30:08):

So people who answer surveys-

Carolyn Gorman (00:30:09):

Yes.

James J. Sexton (00:30:09):

... say they’re being monogamous?

Carolyn Gorman (00:30:10):

Mm-hmm. That’s correct.

James J. Sexton (00:30:11):

I mean, that feels like that might be a problem, right?

James J. Sexton (00:30:14):

I don’t know a lot of people that are gonna sign up and be like, “Yes, I’m doing a lot of sex outside my marriage.”

Carolyn Gorman (00:30:19):

There are all, there are all sorts-

Nick Gillespie (00:30:19):

Yeah.

Carolyn Gorman (00:30:20):

... of surveys, all sorts of census data, all sorts of data that we can use to study this. And in terms of marriage not working, that’s actually not true. It’s-

James J. Sexton (00:30:31):

It’s not?

Carolyn Gorman (00:30:31):

... not perfect, but- (laughs)

James J. Sexton (00:30:31):

I don’t know. It bought me a Rolex. I mean-

Carolyn Gorman (00:30:31):

It is-

James J. Sexton (00:30:31):

... that’s crazy.

Carolyn Gorman (00:30:31):

(laughs)

Nick Gillespie (00:30:36):

No, but a- but again, I mean, marri- divorce rates are lower than they were in the mid-’80s.

James J. Sexton (00:30:40):

Yeah. That’s an absolutely hilarious statistic that you cited be-

Nick Gillespie (00:30:43):

Why, why is that a hilarious statistic?

James J. Sexton (00:30:43):

Because that’s the number of marriages that catastrophically fail. And that’s at about 47%.

Nick Gillespie (00:30:48):

Yeah. But that-

James J. Sexton (00:30:49):

Hovers between four-

Nick Gillespie (00:30:49):

... end, that end in divorce.

James J. Sexton (00:30:50):

Then there are ... Right. Catastrophically-

Nick Gillespie (00:30:51):

Yeah. Okay.

James J. Sexton (00:30:53):

... fail and end in divorce. Then there’s another, according to the latest research, 10 to 20% of people that are physically separated, no longer living-

Nick Gillespie (00:30:59):

Right.

James J. Sexton (00:31:00):

... together, but just didn’t get around to filing an actual final divorce. So now we’ve got something that fails roughly 67% of the time.

Nick Gillespie (00:31:07):

So, but you’re saying that’s higher-

James J. Sexton (00:31:08):

And wait, hold on. Let’s add one more onto this. Now we’ve got people that stay together and hate each other.

Nick Gillespie (00:31:13):

Yeah.

James J. Sexton (00:31:14):

And don’t like each other. And there’s another research that says another 10 to 15% that says that.

Nick Gillespie (00:31:18):

This is the divorce lawyer. And you’re saying, so-

Carolyn Gorman (00:31:19):

Yeah. (laughs)

Nick Gillespie (00:31:20):

... there are no good marriages because-

Carolyn Gorman (00:31:22):

(laughs)

Nick Gillespie (00:31:22):

... they’ve all, were at, like, 110% of marriages that are either end catastrophically or people hate each other.

James J. Sexton (00:31:26):

No, we’re somewhere in the area of, like, 87%.

Nick Gillespie (00:31:28):

But there’s the ... I mean, all of the data shows that divorce is lower now than it was in the-

James J. Sexton (00:31:32):

Yeah. The finalization of the entry-

Nick Gillespie (00:31:35):

... ‘80s. Yeah.

James J. Sexton (00:31:35):

... of a judgment-

Nick Gillespie (00:31:35):

Which certainly counts-

James J. Sexton (00:31:35):

... of divorce.

Nick Gillespie (00:31:36):

Which certainly counts for something.

James J. Sexton (00:31:37):

Well, it could be that people just aren’t filing for divorce. There, 10 to 20% of them are just going out for milk and never coming back.

Carolyn Gorman (00:31:44):

But if they’re not filing for the d- for-

Nick Gillespie (00:31:44):

Yeah.

Carolyn Gorman (00:31:45):

... divorce, then that matters too. At the end of the day-

James J. Sexton (00:31:47):

No.

Carolyn Gorman (00:31:48):

... marriage is not-

James J. Sexton (00:31:48):

No, it doesn’t.

Nick Gillespie (00:31:48):

Yeah.

Carolyn Gorman (00:31:48):

(laughs)

James J. Sexton (00:31:49):

Who signed on to get married to say, “We’ll be miserable with each other, but we’ll survive this endurance event-”

Nick Gillespie (00:31:54):

Carolyn.

James J. Sexton (00:31:54):

“... without entering a judgment of divorce”?

Nick Gillespie (00:31:55):

Carolyn, should, should marriage still be the goal?

Carolyn Gorman (00:32:01):

Yes.

James J. Sexton (00:32:01):

Marriage.

Carolyn Gorman (00:32:01):

(laughs)

Nick Gillespie (00:32:01):

And marriage, marriage and monogamy.

Carolyn Gorman (00:32:01):

Marriage and monogamy-

Nick Gillespie (00:32:03):

Monogamy, marriage. Okay.

Carolyn Gorman (00:32:04):

... should still be-

Nick Gillespie (00:32:04):

Explain-

Carolyn Gorman (00:32:05):

... the goal.

Nick Gillespie (00:32:06):

Explain the connection between marriage and monogamy as you see it.

Carolyn Gorman (00:32:09):

Yeah. So marriage, you’re making a commitment to be exclusively sexual with one person, but it’s more than that. You are making a commitment to a partnership. You are making a commitment often to raise a child. And it is not perfect. It’s hard. I’m almost married a year, so thankfully it’s been-

James J. Sexton (00:32:28):

Almost a year?

Carolyn Gorman (00:32:28):

... very great for me.

Nick Gillespie (00:32:28):

Yeah.

Carolyn Gorman (00:32:28):

Yes.

Nick Gillespie (00:32:28):

Almost a year. Yeah.

Carolyn Gorman (00:32:31):

It’ll be a month, a month from now. Um, but look, there’s a reason that this has been the primary model for so long. And all of these other alternative models are frankly peripheral.

Nick Gillespie (00:32:42):

Right.

Carolyn Gorman (00:32:43):

We can objectively try to understand whether or not monogamy and marriage specifically is overrated. We can look at what we want to get out of relationships, happiness, life satisfaction-

Malavika Kannan (00:32:56):

Mm-hmm.

Carolyn Gorman (00:32:57):

... uh, what we sort of value in our life.

Nick Gillespie (00:33:00):

Economic security, career, help, et cetera. Carolyn, t- as a Millennial, like, I mean, how, how, is this a generational, uh, kind of dynamic that you see at work among your friends and colleagues or the people that you, you, you kind of do research on? Because this is oftentimes people talk about, you know, generations go from one extreme to another, et cetera. And Millennials tended to be oftentimes were the children of divorced parents. That was more common. Um, so can you put the interest in marriage mon- and monogamy in a generational context?

Carolyn Gorman (00:33:33):

Um, I think my generational cohort is probably mixed. But statistically, people support marriage in every generation, and Millennials are no different. The vast majority of Americans support marriage and think that marriage is the best model. Whether or not they think it’s perfect is a different question. Yes, a lot of Millennials, uh, sort of have this experience of parents being divorced. And maybe for some, that gives an appreciation for marriage, but you could just as well see the alternative to that. Um, “I’m never gonna get marriage. I’m never gonna kids.” And that is something that I think we at least read about a lot in the popular media. Are Millennial women, uh, a- afraid to have children for sake of traumatizing them? Because, you know, all of us successful women whose parents were divorced are so traumatized that we haven’t been able to keep jobs or ... I mean, it’s sort of silly, like the trauma narrative. Like, if you’re really not gonna have children because your parents got divorced, there are bigger problems in the world.

Nick Gillespie (00:34:45):

Okay. Malavika?

Malavika Kannan (00:34:45):

Yeah. I mean, when I think about the question of monogamy, I think as someone from a generation who is still building our worldviews and for whom-

Nick Gillespie (00:34:50):

Mm-hmm.

Malavika Kannan (00:34:50):

... possibilities aren’t foreclosed, I do think quite existentially about what the point of a marriage is.

Nick Gillespie (00:34:55):

Mm-hmm.

Malavika Kannan (00:34:55):

And I think a lot of us would say, like, love and companionship. And I think that’s a beautiful and true ideal for many. But I also view it as, like, a form of protection above all else. Like, I view it as, for many people, an economic calculation that they make because for a very long time, like, American society has oriented towards, like, a partnership where the man is usually the one who does the labor under capitalism and the woman is the one-

Nick Gillespie (00:35:16):

Mm-hmm.

Malavika Kannan (00:35:16):

... who does the reproductive and sexual and emotional labor at home. And that is no longer the case. Like, the economy is tough. A lot of women, like, do work, which I think is a great thing. But also, data shows that when these women come home, regardless of how much they outearn their husbands, they’re still the ones doing, like, the lion’s share of, like, domestic labor.

Carolyn Gorman (00:35:35):

Can I, can I just say that’s actually not ent- ... It’s, um, yes and no. It wasn’t the case that women were always the, these ubiquitous trad wives who-

Malavika Kannan (00:35:44):

Yeah.

Carolyn Gorman (00:35:45):

... all stayed at home. You really had a lot of White, wealthy women who wanted to sort of shed the bourgeois values and be able to do more of what they wanted, but this was not sort of a unified movement. Black women were much more concerned about wage gaps, about, uh, work protection, labor protections-

Malavika Kannan (00:36:09):

Mm-hmm.

Carolyn Gorman (00:36:09):

... and that’s because they were already in the workforce.

Malavika Kannan (00:36:11):

Right.

Nick Gillespie (00:36:11):

Mm-hmm.

Carolyn Gorman (00:36:12):

So this idea that, um, marriage didn’t need to be for everyone, uh, was, I think, actually most detrimental for the women who had least to gain for new opportunities in the workforce, uh, but most to lose from the idea that men had no obligations to women.

Malavika Kannan (00:36:37):

Yeah. And I agree with you. I think that we all, as women, like, deserve, like, a sense of, like, safety and dignity.

Nick Gillespie (00:36:42):

Mm-hmm.

Malavika Kannan (00:36:43):

That, for many, comes from the ability to provide for yourself. For some, has come from marriage or a combination of the two. And I think that for young women, it’s just very clear that marriage may not be the best source of, like, financial protection and dignity, especially-

Nick Gillespie (00:36:55):

Mm.

Malavika Kannan (00:36:55):

... when we see these questions of how labor is distributed. Um-

Nick Gillespie (00:36:58):

Well, and increasingly, women, uh, particularly single women and younger women, are not only more likely to be employed, but are doing better in the workplace.

Malavika Kannan (00:37:08):

Right. And the fact that you might have a job and, like, still have a man at home too, to, like, bring back the metaphor, doesn’t do the dishes.

Nick Gillespie (00:37:12):

Mm-hmm.

Malavika Kannan (00:37:13):

Like, I don’t blame anyone who, like, is looking for-

Nick Gillespie (00:37:15):

I don’t know why you’re looking at James when you say that, but, uh-

Malavika Kannan (00:37:16):

(laughs)

James J. Sexton (00:37:17):

I deal with the dishes. Yeah.

Malavika Kannan (00:37:18):

Oh, no, no, no. The-

James J. Sexton (00:37:18):

No. Uh-

Malavika Kannan (00:37:19):

He doesn’t take the-

James J. Sexton (00:37:19):

... ma- marriage rates are actually-

Malavika Kannan (00:37:20):

... garbage out, though. (laughs)

James J. Sexton (00:37:21):

... marriage rates are actually going up, though.

Nick Gillespie (00:37:22):

Yeah.

James J. Sexton (00:37:22):

They’re not going down.

Nick Gillespie (00:37:22):

Right.

James J. Sexton (00:37:23):

So people, so that, that theory, which is that women’s agency, autonomy, economic viability, that’s all going on.

Nick Gillespie (00:37:30):

They don’t need a partner the way that they used to.

James J. Sexton (00:37:30):

Right. They don’t need it, but they’re getting married more.

Nick Gillespie (00:37:31):

Right.

James J. Sexton (00:37:32):

So, so the interesting thing about that is women are still desiring marriage because last time I checked, it wasn’t mandatory. Um, and they are, in fact, now doing it for some reason other than economic security. And the interesting thing I think no one likes to talk about when talking about marriage statistics and divorce statistics, and I had a debate with Matt Walsh on The Daily Wire about this, is that people were talking a lot about we need to get rid of no-fault divorce and that’s what we should be doing. The reality is that has to do with barriers to exit. I mean, arguably, you should make barriers to entry. But I would take it a step further and just simply say, you know, when, when people marry, if you want the marriages to last, if you look at the data, the data actually says that if people have housing stability, if people have w- a wage gap that isn’t so extreme that people are able to maintain economic viability, people who have college education are significantly less likely to divorce. So a lot of this-

Nick Gillespie (00:38:22):

They’re also more likely-

James J. Sexton (00:38:23):

I hate to sound a bit-

Nick Gillespie (00:38:24):

... to get married in the first place. Right.

James J. Sexton (00:38:24):

I hate to sound a bit like there is no war but the class war. Fundamentally, if you want people’s living, basic living conditions to improve, that will improve marriage outcomes because people are still getting married. 86% of people get remarried within five years of their divorce. That’s someone who went through a catastrophic failure of this technology, and they sign on for it again. So it serves some purpose for us. And we love it as a society for some reason, so why wouldn’t we bolster it?

Nick Gillespie (00:38:50):

Very quickly, Carolyn, yeah, explain-

Carolyn Gorman (00:38:52):

I just think you have the reverse causality there.

Nick Gillespie (00:38:54):

Yeah.

Carolyn Gorman (00:38:55):

We wanna change living environments, but who is supposed to do that? Government? I think marriage is a way to change living environments. Marriage is a way to, uh, create stronger financial stability that leads-

... to better housing, that leads to better outcomes.

James J. Sexton (00:39:11):

Marriage isn’t gonna solve economic-

Nick Gillespie (00:39:13):

So, well-

James J. Sexton (00:39:13):

... issues of-

Malavika Kannan (00:39:14):

Well-

James J. Sexton (00:39:14):

... core instability and massive income inequality in the United States. It’s not the slightest bit going to solve that problem.

Carolyn Gorman (00:39:20):

But when you’re talking about a household level, how do you expect individuals to, to change this? Marriage is-

James J. Sexton (00:39:28):

Well, I mean, theoretically, democracy. So democracy, theoretically, is you’d have people getting together-

Carolyn Gorman (00:39:31):

So, so-

Nick Gillespie (00:39:32):

... you’re, are you, you’re arguing more that marriage is fundamentally a cultural phenomenon, not a political phenomenon, and it’s not gonna respond even, you know, to ... It’s, it’s not the marriage tax break.

Carolyn Gorman (00:39:44):

Yeah.

Nick Gillespie (00:39:44):

That is the reason why people either form or l- or leave marriages.

Carolyn Gorman (00:39:47):

That’s right.

Nick Gillespie (00:39:47):

So how do you, how do you explain the rise in marriage rates over the past, you know, few decades where, you know, more people are choosing to get married? Is that a, a cultural revival? Or is it ... What’s going on there?

Carolyn Gorman (00:40:00):

Well, I think we should be specific about who is choosing to get marriage, or married, excuse me. And that is wealthier, better educated, uh, groups. Uh, marriage rates are still lower than, um, in lower income-

James J. Sexton (00:40:16):

Right.

Carolyn Gorman (00:40:16):

... groups than they are in higher income groups.

James J. Sexton (00:40:18):

But still rising within those groups. Within those cohorts, they’re still rising. They’re rising across every demographic.

Carolyn Gorman (00:40:25):

Because you’re always gonna have people who understand that there is a benefit to being a team. You’re always going to have people who know that this is the best way to raise a family and want to raise a family. And so I think on the margin, you’re gonna see that, but-

James J. Sexton (00:40:41):

We, it’s like drugs don’t need drug dealers. Drugs sell drugs. Like, marriage doesn’t need to be sold to people. There’s something about this that we like

Nick Gillespie (00:40:48):

Well, wait. Let’s-

Malavika Kannan (00:40:48):

So I, disa-

Nick Gillespie (00:40:48):

Can we ... Yeah.

Malavika Kannan (00:40:48):

Well, I wanna push back-

Nick Gillespie (00:40:48):

Can we ask ... Yeah. Malavika, go.

Malavika Kannan (00:40:51):

... against what you said earlier about marriage not being mandatory. ‘Cause I don’t necessarily think that that’s true. Like, legally, it’s not. But I think that right now, like, there are just very few viable alternatives for people to have the safety and dignity in an incredibly precarious world, which I think we all agree it’s, like, really precarious right now.

Nick Gillespie (00:41:06):

I don’t actually, but-

Nick Gillespie (00:41:07):

…I’m willing to take-

Malavika Kannan (00:41:08):

You don’t think so?

Nick Gillespie (00:41:09):

No. I,

Malavika Kannan (00:41:09):

I mean, for many Americans, like, a health issue could, like, bankrupt you. Like, we-

Nick Gillespie (00:41:12):

Yeah. Sure.

Malavika Kannan (00:41:12):

... we have no social safety net in this country.

Nick Gillespie (00:41:12):

But that has always been the case. And the thing that is remarkable about the-

James J. Sexton (00:41:16):

But wait, how would heterosexual marriage, how would heterosexual marriage bolster that in some way that a polycule couldn’t? Or a group of people living together in a non-married situation [inaudible 00:41:24]?

Nick Gillespie (00:41:23):

No, but any kind of-

Malavika Kannan (00:41:24):

Yeah. We, we don’t know that that’s true. We t-

Nick Gillespie (00:41:26):

Any kind of union could.

James J. Sexton (00:41:28):

Well, what you’re saying is that-

Nick Gillespie (00:41:28):

That’s the point.

James J. Sexton (00:41:29):

... many hands, light work. Like, there’s a lot of ways for people to share the burdens that are created.

Malavika Kannan (00:41:34):

Yes.

James J. Sexton (00:41:34):

So, but marriage is a very-

Malavika Kannan (00:41:35):

And I’m not convinced that marriage-

James J. Sexton (00:41:35):

... specific legal-

Malavika Kannan (00:41:36):

... is the only option.

James J. Sexton (00:41:37):

100%. But-

Malavika Kannan (00:41:38):

But it is-

James J. Sexton (00:41:38):

... but yet, it’s the most compelling.

Malavika Kannan (00:41:38):

... one that is legally and socially incentivized.

James J. Sexton (00:41:41):

Uh, well-

Malavika Kannan (00:41:41):

Those, those types of-

James J. Sexton (00:41:42):

... legally incentivized, how so? Because the catastro- the ... I mean, I make my living in the, the incredible risk. One could make a very cogent argument that marriage is an inherently negligent activity. Negligence is defined as a failure to perceive a substantial and unjustifiable risk of serious harm. Anyone who’s been divorced will tell you it’s seriously harmful. So, and now there’s a over 50% chance of it catastrophically failing. So it’s a negligent, arguably reckless activity.

Nick Gillespie (00:42:07):

But you’re also, you are ... This is all you see.

Malavika Kannan (00:42:09):

Yeah. (laughs)

Nick Gillespie (00:42:09):

I mean, this ... I, I don’t know that you’re the best-

James J. Sexton (00:42:11):

But these are numbers. These are numbers.

Nick Gillespie (00:42:12):

No. Well ... Yeah. But the, the-

Carolyn Gorman (00:42:14):

You know, when you talk to trauma researchers-

Nick Gillespie (00:42:15):

Yeah.

Carolyn Gorman (00:42:16):

... they often say rates of trauma are very high.

Nick Gillespie (00:42:18):

Yeah.

Carolyn Gorman (00:42:18):

And that’s because the people that they-

Nick Gillespie (00:42:19):

It’s all I see at day-

Carolyn Gorman (00:42:20):

... are treating-

Nick Gillespie (00:42:20):

... every-

Carolyn Gorman (00:42:21):

... are people-

Nick Gillespie (00:42:21):

.. work. Yeah.

Carolyn Gorman (00:42:22):

... who have long-term trauma conditions, not the entire population.

James J. Sexton (00:42:25):

But wait, you, you guys do know, like, math is math.

Carolyn Gorman (00:42:28):

(laughs)

James J. Sexton (00:42:28):

Marriage is more likely to end in divorce than death. All marriages end. I’m sorry to tell you as the newlywed.

Nick Gillespie (00:42:33):

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Carolyn Gorman (00:42:33):

(laughs)

James J. Sexton (00:42:34):

Your marriage will end. I hope it ends in death.

Nick Gillespie (00:42:35):

No, but they’re less likely to end in divorce than they were in the mid-80s.

Carolyn Gorman (00:42:39):

And they’re less likely-

James J. Sexton (00:42:40):

That is correct by, by about-

Nick Gillespie (00:42:42):

Yeah. So-

James J. Sexton (00:42:42):

... 3%.

Nick Gillespie (00:42:42):

No, no, but that’s, that’s-

James J. Sexton (00:42:44):

If I said there’s a 47% chance-

Nick Gillespie (00:42:45):

Hey.

James J. Sexton (00:42:46):

... when you walk out today-

Nick Gillespie (00:42:46):

No, no.

James J. Sexton (00:42:47):

... you’re gonna get hit with a bowling ball, you’d walk out of here without a helmet on?

Nick Gillespie (00:42:49):

But, you know, what I’m saying is that it, the, the, the divorce rate is lower than it used to be.

James J. Sexton (00:42:53):

Yes.

Nick Gillespie (00:42:54):

And if marriage rates are going up, something has changed. And I don’t think we’ve quite figured out how that’s happening if, in fact, marriage is so awful.

Carolyn Gorman (00:43:02):

(laughs)

James J. Sexton (00:43:03):

But if we combine what you’re saying about how different relationship permutations are on the rise and are much more socially acceptable, particularly among young people, why then are we signing on for one that we know ends-

Nick Gillespie (00:43:17):

Yeah.

James J. Sexton (00:43:17):

... catastrophically most of the time?

Nick Gillespie (00:43:19):

Well, the other ones also do- (laughs)

Carolyn Gorman (00:43:21):

Because these alternatives do not work. (laughs)

Nick Gillespie (00:43:21):

Yeah.

James J. Sexton (00:43:21):

I, can we-

Carolyn Gorman (00:43:21):

And-

James J. Sexton (00:43:23):

... say that?

Carolyn Gorman (00:43:23):

Yes. We-

Nick Gillespie (00:43:25):

No, no. I, I, and, uh, well, we’ll end this segment, but I think what we can say is that all permutations of relationships tend to end the longer they go on, right? So it’s like polycules, there are some polycules that I’m sure are in their fourth decade.

Carolyn Gorman (00:43:40):

Mm-hmm.

Nick Gillespie (00:43:40):

Most of them are not. And just like most relationships, uh, you know, whether you’re living together or you’re married or whatever.

Carolyn Gorman (00:43:47):

Look, marriage is complicated enough with one person. When we’re talking about alternative living arrangements, alternative relationships, you’re only adding to that.

James J. Sexton (00:43:57):

Or you’re [inaudible 00:43:58]-

Carolyn Gorman (00:43:57):

The people with these types of-

James J. Sexton (00:43:58):

... the responsibility.

Carolyn Gorman (00:43:58):

(laughs)

Nick Gillespie (00:43:59):

Okay. We’re going to, we’re going to, uh, close this segment out. Uh, just very, very quickly, yes or no with half a sentence, is monogamy over?

James J. Sexton (00:44:09):

No.

Carolyn Gorman (00:44:10):

No.

Malavika Kannan (00:44:11):

No, but it could be.

Nick Gillespie (00:44:12):

Okay. Very good. Uh, so our next segment is should people have more babies? The U.S. saw record-low birth rates this year, according to the CDC, uh, the Centers for Disease Control. This is being credited to women delaying pregnancy and having fewer children overall. Carolyn, let’s hear from you first. Should people have more babies?

Carolyn Gorman (00:44:35):

I think people should have babies if they want. I don’t think it’s a good idea to force people to have babies. But I do think that we could be more honest with women, that they ... And let them know that they are realistically on a timeline. And I’m not sure that we have been as honest in the past as we could be. And I think a lot of Millennial women especially right now are feeling like, “I waited too long. And I didn’t know that this would be the outcome.”

Nick Gillespie (00:45:07):

What would be the outcome?

Carolyn Gorman (00:45:09):

Not being able to have children.

Nick Gillespie (00:45:10):

Okay. Uh, James, uh, do you think we should be worried about low birth rates?

James J. Sexton (00:45:16):

Well, that’s a different question. Um, I mean, I don’t think anyone should be having babies-

Nick Gillespie (00:45:20):

Well, should we be having more babies?

James J. Sexton (00:45:21):

I think anyone who wants to have babies should have babies. I don’t think anyone who doesn’t wanna have babies should have babies. But I think you shouldn’t wait until you’re ready to have a baby to have a baby because I don’t think you’re ever ready to have a baby. I, I say that as someone who had a baby at 24. Like, and I was totally not ready. We were totally not ready. But we had a baby and we figured it out in some way. And I think what younger generations are doing-

Nick Gillespie (00:45:42):

And you got divorced.

James J. Sexton (00:45:42):

We got divorced-

Carolyn Gorman (00:45:43):

(laughs)

Nick Gillespie (00:45:43):

Yeah.

James J. Sexton (00:45:44):

... but it wasn’t ‘cause of the babies.

Nick Gillespie (00:45:44):

Okay. Right.

James J. Sexton (00:45:45):

Actually, we’re still super close because of the babies who are now grown men. And we have a wonderful relationship.

Nick Gillespie (00:45:50):

Yeah.

James J. Sexton (00:45:50):

We raised two children as divorced parents from the age of five and seven when we divorced, and-

Nick Gillespie (00:45:53):

Sure. I, I hear you and, uh, I feel you.

James J. Sexton (00:45:55):

... we’re, so we’re ... I, I do not consider the fact that I got divorced as a function of the fact that we had babies.

Nick Gillespie (00:45:59):

Yeah.

James J. Sexton (00:46:00):

Um, we, we had babies when we were not ready to have babies, and that didn’t take a toll on the marriage. That actually was something that bonded us pretty closely and has kept us bonded for many, many years post-divorce.

James J. Sexton (00:46:10):

What I was saying about marriage and, and children is we’ve created for people the sense that if you don’t do it perfect, don’t do it at all. So wait till you’re economically stable, wait until you’re fully self-actualized, wait until you’ve found your perfect partner, had some years alone with them to enjoy and travel and Instagram the things that you’ve been doing, and now you’ll be ready to have babies. And it does not work with the b- actual ticking clock of biological reality.

Nick Gillespie (00:46:35):

Is that, do you, do you feel like that is a quintessential Gen X insight-

James J. Sexton (00:46:38):

Mm.

Nick Gillespie (00:46:38):

... as opposed to, you know, like, not waiting or you, you are just, you’re making it up as you go along? That seems to be-

James J. Sexton (00:46:46):

No, I, what I, what I think is that we were less risk-adverse and I think we had less people telling us we were doing it wrong. I think the internet is telling everyone that they’re doing it wrong all the time. And what I will say is, again, if you really care about declining birth rates, create economic conditions for young people where they can have children. Create economic conditions where people don’t have to be married to have children, where people who are young and married can have children and will have a place to live and an affor- a wage that’s payable and health insurance that will help cover the pregnancy. If older generations like ours care about young people having babies the way we all claim to, everyone’s all got their arms up about, “Oh my God, the birth rates are going down,” okay, so let’s create economic conditions for young people where they are going to be able to have babies.

Nick Gillespie (00:47:29):

Okay.

Malavika Kannan (00:47:29):

The, the problem is-

Nick Gillespie (00:47:30):

Let’s wait. Before we go, we’ll come back to birth rates because this is also a global phenomenon that, that complicates what you’re talking about. Malavika, what’s your response when you hear people say, “We need to be having more babies. We need to be having more babies”?

Malavika Kannan (00:47:44):

Well, first of all, my question is who should be having-

Nick Gillespie (00:47:46):

Yeah.

Malavika Kannan (00:47:46):

... more babies? ‘Cause I think this is, like, a very ... Like, when people say this, especially in America, to me, I don’t ever hear anything but, like, a eugenicist racist fear that, like, the White population is going down because, like, when Black women, like, women of color, poor women, migrant women are having babies, like, they hate to see it. Like, they’re, like, called, like, irresponsible. Um, so I think, like, any question about birth rate-

Nick Gillespie (00:48:05):

Who is calling them irresponsible?

Malavika Kannan (00:48:05):

Like, society.

Nick Gillespie (00:48:05):

Okay.

Malavika Kannan (00:48:05):

Yeah. Or, like, and I agree, actually, with James that, like, I think that, like, there’s, like, remarkable, like, diversity in what people want. And, like, given the chance via, like, economic, like, guarantees of safety and dignity for all people, would make a wide variety of choices.

Nick Gillespie (00:48:23):

Mm-hmm.

Carolyn Gorman (00:48:24):

The problem is we can’t really do that except culturally. The expectation-

Nick Gillespie (00:48:28):

Uh, we can’t do what?

Carolyn Gorman (00:48:28):

Set up these-

Nick Gillespie (00:48:29):

Change the birth rates?

Carolyn Gorman (00:48:33):

Uh, set up the economic conditions for that. I think that-

James J. Sexton (00:48:37):

Why?

Carolyn Gorman (00:48:37):

The types of pol- the types of solutions that people are talking about are things like free childcare or minimum wages or paid leave.

Nick Gillespie (00:48:47):

Guaranteed housing, things like that.

Malavika Kannan (00:48:48):

Well, yes.

Nick Gillespie (00:48:48):

Yeah.

James J. Sexton (00:48:48):

Yeah. But you’re saying, you’re saying-

Nick Gillespie (00:48:48):

None of which-

James J. Sexton (00:48:50):

... those as if I was saying levitation.

Nick Gillespie (00:48:51):

No, no, but none of those-

Malavika Kannan (00:48:52):

(laughs)

Carolyn Gorman (00:48:52):

(laughs)

Nick Gillespie (00:48:53):

... none of those policies has worked in any of the places where they’ve been tried, whether you’re talking about Singapore or France.

James J. Sexton (00:48:58):

In the permutations they’ve been tried.

Nick Gillespie (00:49:00):

Okay. So real natalism has not been tried yet, uh, under the-

James J. Sexton (00:49:04):

But not that real-

Nick Gillespie (00:49:04):

Yeah.

James J. Sexton (00:49:04):

... natalism hasn’t been tried, but I think that we could, within this cul- ... I, I can only speak within the context of Western culture and, and the United States-

Nick Gillespie (00:49:12):

Right.

James J. Sexton (00:49:12):

... specifically. But in a, in an elected democracy, if people are genuinely concerned that people aren’t having children ... And we all agree that having children and having those children be educated and having a b- uh, uh, e pluribus unum, having-

Nick Gillespie (00:49:25):

Yeah.

James J. Sexton (00:49:25):

... many cultures, a great melting pot where people come together and all feel safe and all have a high quality of life. We can’t solve the problem of childcare? We can’t solve the problem of-

Nick Gillespie (00:49:34):

That’s, but that’s ... Uh, the question is, is that going to increase childbirth rates?

Malavika Kannan (00:49:39):

I agree.

Nick Gillespie (00:49:39):

And there’s no evidence that it would-

James J. Sexton (00:49:41):

I think it would.

Nick Gillespie (00:49:41):

... or it will.

Malavika Kannan (00:49:41):

This is a profoundly, like, anti-child and, like, anti-mother country. And I-

Nick Gillespie (00:49:44):

How d- how ha- w- uh, uh, quantify that a little bit.

Malavika Kannan (00:49:47):

I mean, I think that, like, for example, like, right now, we’re seeing ... Well, I will say this, a s- a statistic that always makes me feel good is the fact that, like, teen pregnancy is going down.

Nick Gillespie (00:49:56):

Right.

Malavika Kannan (00:49:57):

And, like, conservatives have been having, like, losing their minds about this fact.

Nick Gillespie (00:50:01):

Not about teen birth rates, but about birth rates in general.

Malavika Kannan (00:50:03):

Well, teen birth rates too.

Nick Gillespie (00:50:04):

Okay.

Malavika Kannan (00:50:04):

Teen-

Carolyn Gorman (00:50:05):

I think that might be a little bit-

Nick Gillespie (00:50:06):

Yeah.

Carolyn Gorman (00:50:06):

... of echo chambery. I, I get it too, so ... But I don’t think it’s hurtful.

James J. Sexton (00:50:10):

Yeah. I don’t think any conservatives are-

Carolyn Gorman (00:50:11):

I don’t think conservatives are very upset about-

James J. Sexton (00:50:12):

... are pro teen pregnancy.

Carolyn Gorman (00:50:13):

... teen birth. Yeah.

Nick Gillespie (00:50:14):

(laughs) Well, do b- you know, v- maybe different, different people have different points of view. But what ... Um, so continue that thought, though, that, uh, you know, it’s a good thing that f- fewer teenagers are have, or unwanted pregnancies, broadly speaking, are down, particularly among younger people.

Malavika Kannan (00:50:32):

Yeah.

Nick Gillespie (00:50:32):

So that’s a good thing.

Malavika Kannan (00:50:34):

I think that’s a good thing.

Nick Gillespie (00:50:35):

Is it, is it ... I guess, uh, the ... Let me reframe the question slightly. Is it a problem that more women are having fewer children? Because this is-

Malavika Kannan (00:50:44):

No.

Nick Gillespie (00:50:44):

... also a global phenomenon.

Carolyn Gorman (00:50:45):

Well, here’s one reason it is a problem. If we want things like childcare, then we are going to have to take from the workforce somewhere else. We also have an aging population. We also want mental health workers everywhere. There are only so many people. And so if we want these solutions, then we need people to carry out these solutions. And so you fundamentally can’t have-

Nick Gillespie (00:51:11):

But we don’t say that about food. Like, we’ve-

Carolyn Gorman (00:51:13):

Mm-hmm.

Nick Gillespie (00:51:13):

... massively increased food production. And the percentage of people directly involved in farming or production of food is, like, one or 2%, where it used to be 70, 80%.

Carolyn Gorman (00:51:23):

I’m not ruling out any type of-

Nick Gillespie (00:51:24):

I mean-

Carolyn Gorman (00:51:25):

... technological change.

Nick Gillespie (00:51:26):

Yeah.

Carolyn Gorman (00:51:26):

I think that that’s perfectly possible, but right now, that’s, this is what we’re facing.

Nick Gillespie (00:51:31):

James?

James J. Sexton (00:51:32):

Yeah. I still don’t understand the argument because I, I, I, I just have to say, I, I, I think we have the means to do all kinds of amazing things. I say as a wealthy New Yorker, uh, if you raised my taxes and you could show me that that was going to help people with food stability, housing stability, it was gonna help young people get educational programs that would help them, um, you know, further their lives and be able to have children-

Nick Gillespie (00:51:55):

Yeah. But what does that have to do, what does that have to do with women having more children? Because-

Malavika Kannan (00:51:59):

I agree women are-

James J. Sexton (00:52:00):

Because women are trying to, wo-

Nick Gillespie (00:52:01):

Globally, but globally, the, the correlation, which is very stark and, and, you know, conservative writers, um-

James J. Sexton (00:52:07):

Yes.

Nick Gillespie (00:52:07):

... have pointed this out-

James J. Sexton (00:52:08):

Yes.

Nick Gillespie (00:52:09):

... again and again, that as women gain more years of education-

James J. Sexton (00:52:12):

Yes.

Nick Gillespie (00:52:13):

... which is a proxy for equality of opportunity and legal protection and standing and things like that, they have fewer children. That’s why globally-

James J. Sexton (00:52:20):

Right, right.

Nick Gillespie (00:52:20):

... in virtually every country-

James J. Sexton (00:52:21):

Yes.

Nick Gillespie (00:52:22):

... whether poor or rich-

James J. Sexton (00:52:23):

Yes.

Nick Gillespie (00:52:24):

... there are fewer women. So you, I mean, in your-

James J. Sexton (00:52:25):

The, the female of every sp-

Nick Gillespie (00:52:27):

... your ... All I’m saying is your, y- your argument for a larger social welfare net-

James J. Sexton (00:52:32):

Yes.

Malavika Kannan (00:52:32):

Yes.

Nick Gillespie (00:52:33):

... has nothing to do with how many children are being born.

James J. Sexton (00:52:36):

I, I totally disagree.

Malavika Kannan (00:52:37):

I-

James J. Sexton (00:52:37):

Because women-

Nick Gillespie (00:52:37):

But then-

James J. Sexton (00:52:38):

... of every ... Females of every species make their nest and give birth to their babies where it is safe and not dangerous, right? We have created a society where it is very dangerous for a woman to give birth to children. And I believe that if you create economic-

Carolyn Gorman (00:52:56):

It’s not that-

Nick Gillespie (00:52:57):

Yeah.

Fir- first off, that’s-

James J. Sexton (00:52:57):

I think if-

Malavika Kannan (00:52:57):

The maternal mortality rate-

Carolyn Gorman (00:52:57):

(laughs)

Nick Gillespie (00:52:57):

... a ridiculous oversight.

James J. Sexton (00:52:57):

I, I think if we create-

Malavika Kannan (00:52:57):

... in this country is embarrassing.

Nick Gillespie (00:52:57):

But, but beyond that, how do you explain in the EU, and particularly in the wealthiest countries of the EU with the most extensive, uh, uh, childcare programs for children-

James J. Sexton (00:53:05):

Mm-hmm.

Nick Gillespie (00:53:06):

... they have the lowest birth rates? So places like Italy, places like France, they are not, these are not unsafe places. These are place, places that shower mothers and families with young children all kinds of welfare spending, and it has no effect.

James J. Sexton (00:53:21):

I think that you’re-

Malavika Kannan (00:53:21):

I don’t see this as a problem or a contradiction.

Nick Gillespie (00:53:25):

Yeah. No, no. I-

Malavika Kannan (00:53:25):

I see this as a great thing.

Nick Gillespie (00:53:25):

... I don’t see it as a problem other than, like-

Malavika Kannan (00:53:27):

I think on one hand, people who choose to have children should be able to do so in conditions of safety and dignity.

Nick Gillespie (00:53:31):

Yes.

Malavika Kannan (00:53:31):

And I think we have different opinions. I’m not in the same tax bracket as you by far, but I think-

James J. Sexton (00:53:35):

Sure.

Malavika Kannan (00:53:35):

... that’s great. Like, I, I have thoughts that you probably don’t wanna hear about where we could get the money for childcare and for dignity for children and mothers. And I think on the other hand-

Carolyn Gorman (00:53:41):

No. I, I’d love to hear that, actually.

Nick Gillespie (00:53:41):

No. That’s-

Carolyn Gorman (00:53:41):

Yeah.

Nick Gillespie (00:53:41):

Yeah.

Malavika Kannan (00:53:44):

And I think on the other hand, it’s also true that, like, when given more opportunities, women can make a broader array of choices of what to do with their lives.

Nick Gillespie (00:53:52):

Right.

Malavika Kannan (00:53:52):

And I do think that having a child, for many women across history, was the only way you could have dignity or provide something to society when women have more options. Like, I refuse-

Nick Gillespie (00:54:01):

Yeah.

Malavika Kannan (00:54:01):

... to believe that fundamentally, motherhood is the most exciting or best thing that a woman could do with her life. And, like, if you’re given the chance to, like, do something else with your life, I understand that people would take that chance.

Nick Gillespie (00:54:11):

Can I just-

Carolyn Gorman (00:54:11):

But we also really-

Nick Gillespie (00:54:11):

Yeah.

Carolyn Gorman (00:54:11):

... pride motherho- mothers. I mean, we have-

Nick Gillespie (00:54:13):

I’m sorry. Say that-

Carolyn Gorman (00:54:14):

... always sort of looked down on motherhood, though. That’s why I think if-

James J. Sexton (00:54:17):

On what pla- on what planet-

Nick Gillespie (00:54:17):

When we have-

Carolyn Gorman (00:54:17):

I think we have. I think-

James J. Sexton (00:54:17):

... do we look down on mother-

Nick Gillespie (00:54:19):

Wait. Talking about Chevrolet, apple pie, Mom, Chevrolet, and apple pie. I mean, moms, moms are the cornerstone of American society.

James J. Sexton (00:54:27):

We fetishize mothers.

Nick Gillespie (00:54:27):

Yeah.

James J. Sexton (00:54:28):

We, we make motherhood-

Nick Gillespie (00:54:28):

(laughs)

James J. Sexton (00:54:28):

... the highest aspiration

Nick Gillespie (00:54:29):

This might be a gender difference that we’re-

Carolyn Gorman (00:54:30):

Maybe it is a-

Nick Gillespie (00:54:30):

Yeah.

Carolyn Gorman (00:54:30):

... gender difference. But I think we’ve always sort of looked at stay-at-home moms as lesser than.

James J. Sexton (00:54:36):

Who’s the we?

Malavika Kannan (00:54:37):

Mm-hmm.

Carolyn Gorman (00:54:37):

And-

Malavika Kannan (00:54:37):

Yeah.

Carolyn Gorman (00:54:37):

Society. American soci-

James J. Sexton (00:54:39):

Society has looked down on stay-at-home mothers?

Carolyn Gorman (00:54:39):

... American society has looked down on stay-at-home mothers.

James J. Sexton (00:54:43):

As, as compared ... Well, I, it’s not surprising that capitalism believes that people who aren’t contributing to the labor force and aren’t the economic engine aren’t the best thing.

Malavika Kannan (00:54:52):

No. M-

James J. Sexton (00:54:53):

And that w- way we should do instead would-

Nick Gillespie (00:54:54):

But, but you’re-

Malavika Kannan (00:54:54):

Motherhood is a dignified form of labor.

James J. Sexton (00:54:54):

... be a better choice.

Nick Gillespie (00:54:55):

... you’re arguing from an anti-capitalist point of view that we need to spend more so that moms can opt out of the labor economy.

Carolyn Gorman (00:55:01):

(laughs)

James J. Sexton (00:55:02):

Well, no. The reality is, is that women are-

Nick Gillespie (00:55:03):

Right?

James J. Sexton (00:55:03):

No. I, I actually don’t believe that there can be a reallocation of resources, which I think-

Carolyn Gorman (00:55:07):

Where is this money coming from?

James J. Sexton (00:55:07):

... we all know is exactly how that work and s- ... Taxes, which is where all of our money comes from.

Carolyn Gorman (00:55:11):

(laughs)

Malavika Kannan (00:55:11):

(laughs)

James J. Sexton (00:55:11):

And it can come from many different ... I mean, do you really-

Nick Gillespie (00:55:13):

Yeah.

James J. Sexton (00:55:14):

... have the reductionist view that it’s like, “Oh, no. This is the fixed amount of money we have, and it has to go to all these places, so what column will you take it from?”

Carolyn Gorman (00:55:20):

No, not at all. I just have a realistic view about what government is capable of. And I don’t believe that government is capable of solving all of our problems. We also need to have-

James J. Sexton (00:55:29):

Well, we can agree on that, but you, you can’t-

Carolyn Gorman (00:55:29):

... cultural things.

James J. Sexton (00:55:30):

... agree that they could reallocate resources to childcare. And by the way, to answer your earlier point, what’s happening in the European Union, by the way, it, it could be that in various ... Like, Singapore’s reasons for not having children versus the United States’ reasons for not having children could be dissimilar and don’t have to be connected to each other, right? Like, the proliferation of cigarette smoking in one country versus another is not a function of now this is global how we’re feeling. Yes, the birth rates are down in various places, but they might not be down for the exact same reasons. When you ask women about what it is that they want, younger women, motherhood is lower on the list now.

Nick Gillespie (00:56:05):

That’s right.

James J. Sexton (00:56:06):

When you ask women in their 30s and 40s and 50s who haven’t had children, do you regret not having children, the numbers are going up and up and up and up. And by the way, look at the proliferation of reproductive-related technologies where pe- women later in life now say, “Hey, I didn’t want kids before, or I wasn’t able to have kids before. Now I want to.”

Nick Gillespie (00:56:26):

So this is a wonderful success story then because instead of ... You’re essentially agreeing with Carolyn, uh, because women have more choices and it’s like if women are having ... You know, there are fewer teen births, but there are more births to women in their late 30s or early 40s.

Carolyn Gorman (00:56:42):

But that technology is not as successful as people presume it is.

James J. Sexton (00:56:46):

It’s abysmally unsuccessful.

Carolyn Gorman (00:56:46):

It’s abysmally unsuccessful.

Nick Gillespie (00:56:48):

No, but it’s getting better, right? It ... I mean, it certainly is.

James J. Sexton (00:56:52):

From its awful baseline.

Carolyn Gorman (00:56:53):

Of course. Yeah.

James J. Sexton (00:56:53):

Yes.

Nick Gillespie (00:56:54):

Well, well, what ... You gotta start somewhere, right? And isn’t it better that some, that some-

James J. Sexton (00:56:57):

Well, you could start by having babies at a time where your body is most primed for having babies and creating conditions where people feel like they could do that and-

Nick Gillespie (00:57:03):

But you would, uh-

James J. Sexton (00:57:03):

... might be inclined to do so.

Nick Gillespie (00:57:03):

But, uh ... Yeah.

James J. Sexton (00:57:05):

Feminism was always about women being able to choose what they wanted, whether they wanted to be a mother-

Nick Gillespie (00:57:09):

And also being emancipated f- uh-

James J. Sexton (00:57:11):

... or a worker or both.

Nick Gillespie (00:57:11):

... of being emancipated from biological strictures, right? Because this is what birth control-

James J. Sexton (00:57:16):

From rigid biological stricture.

Nick Gillespie (00:57:17):

Yeah. Birth control allows women more control over their reproductive system-

James J. Sexton (00:57:22):

Sure.

Nick Gillespie (00:57:22):

... as well as so does IVF and so do other forms of, uh, uh, reproductive technology. So you can say, “Oh, it’s bad,” but-

James J. Sexton (00:57:29):

But the success rate of, of ... The success rate of birth control versus IVF is, you can’t even compare those two technologies-

Nick Gillespie (00:57:34):

I ... Of course not.

James J. Sexton (00:57:34):

... in terms of percentages.

Nick Gillespie (00:57:35):

But, you know, they are improving. IVF is improving. That’s all.

James J. Sexton (00:57:40):

From its abysmally low baseline, yes.

Nick Gillespie (00:57:42):

The baseline always starts at zero. Um, let me ask real quick as, as a kind of f- finish to this segment. Why are women having children later? And this is something that is fascinating. And through about nine- uh, the early ‘70s, the typical first live birth was to a woman in her teens. They were typically 18 or 19. No longer the case. The average age ... And I’m, I’m sorry. I don’t have the number in front of me, but it’s in the mid-20s and it’s always inching upwards. Why are women having children later in life?

Malavika Kannan (00:58:13):

‘Cause we have more choice. Like, every single time, like, I’m at the club, I am so grateful I don’t have a baby at home. Like-

Carolyn Gorman (00:58:18):

(laughs)

Malavika Kannan (00:58:19):

... every time I’m, like, I don’t know, like, out for dinner with my friends, I’m like, “I’m not buying diapers.” Like, I just think that having, like, uh, just, like, so many choices available to me is, like-

Nick Gillespie (00:58:26):

You can bring kids to restaurants, by the way.

Malavika Kannan (00:58:28):

Yeah. But I don’t want to.

Nick Gillespie (00:58:28):

All right. Okay. What about you?

Carolyn Gorman (00:58:31):

I think we shouldn’t give women the sense, though, that they have a choice when they don’t. And we should be careful about sort of where we’re drawing the line. If women knew how unsuccessful these alternatives are, then they might actually feel as if they’ve been given a false choice. I can work later. I can work longer. I can wait to have children. And then when they get to that point, they don’t actually have the choice.

Malavika Kannan (00:58:58):

I guess I would say as a queer person, like, having, like, a biological baby has never been, like, the most important thing to me. And I will also say something I’m surprised hasn’t come up yet, and I guess I’ll say it is, like-

Nick Gillespie (00:59:07):

Mm-hmm.

Malavika Kannan (00:59:07):

... climate change is, like, a profound existential threat, like, facing, like, future generations. And I do sometimes think ... Like, I, I’m not convinced that it is, like, even moral, let alone necessary, to bring more first-world babies onto this overburdened planet.

Carolyn Gorman (00:59:21):

I think taking that perspective reduces our accountability to solve the problem in some ways because we are less invested in success.

Malavika Kannan (00:59:30):

Yeah. And I didn’t say that, like-

Nick Gillespie (00:59:31):

Yeah.

Malavika Kannan (00:59:31):

... not having children, like, relieves me of, like, the possibility for care for future generations. I think that I don’t have to, like, pop a kid out myself to, like, have that relationship with, like, a younger person or to-

Nick Gillespie (00:59:41):

Mm-hmm.

Malavika Kannan (00:59:41):

... like, still be a mother or a caretaker in some way.

Carolyn Gorman (00:59:43):

Yeah.

Nick Gillespie (00:59:43):

Very ... Uh, James?

James J. Sexton (00:59:45):

Yeah. I mean, I don’t, I don’t, I’m not going to tell-

Nick Gillespie (00:59:48):

Was it nuclear war?

Carolyn Gorman (00:59:49):

(laughs)

Nick Gillespie (00:59:49):

Was it-

James J. Sexton (00:59:49):

... I’m not going to tell two women-

Nick Gillespie (00:59:51):

Yeah.

James J. Sexton (00:59:51):

... that, that, um, they should be having babies.

Nick Gillespie (00:59:53):

Right.

James J. Sexton (00:59:53):

What I will say is that, um-

Nick Gillespie (00:59:54):

Well, why, why is it, why do women ha- who have children have them later in life?

James J. Sexton (00:59:59):

Well, I think women are waiting until they’re more stable. I think they’re waiting until they have their education completed. I mean, the number of women going to college has gone significantly up. Graduate school. You know, opportunities are much greater for women than they were even in my generation. So I think that a lot of young women are focusing on themselves and they’re focusing on themselves in the b- fun ways that you’re talking about, going to the club, going out to a restaurant, enjoying time with friends, traveling, doing all the wonderful, fun things that the world is filled with the opportunities to do. And they’re also being responsible. You’ve written books, you’ve taught, you do all ... You know, you’re, you’re doing things that require real work and effort, so you’re playing and you’re working. Where does a screaming infant fit into that situation? Where does a creature that throws up on you fit into that?

I can tell you, if all we’re presenting to people is look at how unbelievably burdensome children are, and they are burdensome, believe me, the reality is we’re not presenting to them also that, yeah, but they’re also wonderful and they’re also lovely. And it’s an investment you have to make in something that’s quite awful for a period of time and quite burdensome for a period of time. And you don’t get to go to the club and you don’t really get to go out and eat, unless you wanna irritate everybody else in the restaurant.

Carolyn Gorman (01:01:01):

(laughs)

James J. Sexton (01:01:01):

But you know what? When they’re little and they, they, they start to, like, grow into this wonderful creature and you love them so much and they love you so much. And in some ways, it’s also really nice ‘cause, you know, humanity continues. Like, we have to make babies in order for that to happen. And in order to make babies, we have to have sex. So we find ourselves full circle again-

Carolyn Gorman (01:01:18):

(laughs)

James J. Sexton (01:01:19):

... at the reality of trying to find some balance between the competing demands of enjoyment of life and hedonism and fun. And I don’t say hedonism a negative thing. And also, the responsibility of trying to create a society and create conditions where people can live lives that are a mixture of pleasure and responsibility.

Nick Gillespie (01:01:37):

It is. We’re gonna end this-

Malavika Kannan (01:01:39):

Well, I’ll say I’m only the-

Nick Gillespie (01:01:39):

Yeah. Go ahead.

Malavika Kannan (01:01:39):

... second or third-

Nick Gillespie (01:01:39):

Yeah.

Malavika Kannan (01:01:40):

... generation of women in my family for whom, like, there is any option besides-

Nick Gillespie (01:01:44):

Right.

Malavika Kannan (01:01:44):

... like, pregnancy and, like, motherhood as, like, the only thing I would be able to contribute to the world, my only sense of self-worth. And I don’t blame young women who are looking for alternatives. Like, this is an experiment. It’s going to be messy. Like, not everything is going to turn out right. But, like, I’ve seen the alternative. And the last thing I would do is, like, fault anyone who’s looking for something different.

Nick Gillespie (01:02:01):

Yeah.

James J. Sexton (01:02:01):

But I also would go so-

Nick Gillespie (01:02:03):

Sure.

James J. Sexton (01:02:03):

... far as to say I think you’d probably have exceptional kids.

Nick Gillespie (01:02:05):

Can I ask-

James J. Sexton (01:02:05):

I think if you raised kids-

Nick Gillespie (01:02:06):

Well-

James J. Sexton (01:02:07):

... and you raised them with the ideas that you talk about, I mean, you already are spending time kind of offering a quasi-parenting perspective to a bunch of women who read your column and who could learn from you. And I think when you’re a parent, you have this wonderful ... I mean, the Black Panther Party constantly talked about the fact that one of the most revolutionary acts that a revolutionary can do is have as many children as possible.

Nick Gillespie (01:02:26):

That is a terrible, uh, model to follow. And if ... I, I would recommend reading the memoirs of female Black Panthers.

James J. Sexton (01:02:33):

I have.

Nick Gillespie (01:02:34):

Most of whom have left the party, so-

James J. Sexton (01:02:36):

I, I wasn’t advocating for the Black Panthers, but-

Nick Gillespie (01:02:36):

No, no, but-

James J. Sexton (01:02:37):

Yeah.

Nick Gillespie (01:02:37):

... I’m saying that i- there, if there is a, um, you know, a patriarchal revolutionary society culture within America, it was, it, you know, it was in the Black Panther Party. So okay. Before we wrap up, we’re gonna do a lightning flash round. I’m gonna ask a question, and I want quick yes or no answers. Are dating apps the best way to meet people?

Malavika Kannan (01:02:58):

No.

Carolyn Gorman (01:03:00):

No.

James J. Sexton (01:03:01):

I have no idea.

Nick Gillespie (01:03:02):

Okay. Um, should we bring back singles events, like speed dating?

James J. Sexton (01:03:06):

Yes.

Carolyn Gorman (01:03:07):

Yeah.

Malavika Kannan (01:03:08):

Yeah. And I do them for my friends.

Nick Gillespie (01:03:09):

Okay.

Carolyn Gorman (01:03:10):

That’s so fun.

Nick Gillespie (01:03:10):

Um, would you ever have a relationship, uh, with multiple people at once?

Malavika Kannan (01:03:16):

Yeah.

Carolyn Gorman (01:03:17):

No. And, husband, if you’re listening ... (laughs)

Nick Gillespie (01:03:19):

Oh.

James J. Sexton (01:03:20):

You mean a sexual relationship?

Nick Gillespie (01:03:22):

A relationship.

James J. Sexton (01:03:24):

Well, I have relationships with lots of people.

Nick Gillespie (01:03:25):

Okay. Say, yeah, sexual relation.

James J. Sexton (01:03:27):

A romantic relationship?

Nick Gillespie (01:03:28):

Yeah. Sure.

James J. Sexton (01:03:28):

No.

Nick Gillespie (01:03:29):

Okay. Um, are date nights still essential to a relationship, to a committed relationship?

James J. Sexton (01:03:35):

I think they’re very helpful.

Carolyn Gorman (01:03:38):

Yeah. That seems reasonable.

Nick Gillespie (01:03:40):

Yes.

Malavika Kannan (01:03:40):

I was told that term is really gross, but yes.

Carolyn Gorman (01:03:42):

(laughs)

Nick Gillespie (01:03:42):

Why, why is it-

Malavika Kannan (01:03:43):

It just doesn’t sound cool. It makes you sound like an old person. Sorry.

Carolyn Gorman (01:03:45):

(laughs)

Nick Gillespie (01:03:46):

Yeah. Well, the world is getting older.

Malavika Kannan (01:03:47):

I know.

Nick Gillespie (01:03:48):

And you are getting older-

Malavika Kannan (01:03:49):

(laughs)

Nick Gillespie (01:03:49):

... so get used to it. Um, uh, sh- uh, should men pay for the first date?

James J. Sexton (01:03:53):

I, I am of the mind, yes.

Nick Gillespie (01:03:56):

What about, uh, homosexual dates?

James J. Sexton (01:03:59):

Among two men?

Nick Gillespie (01:03:59):

Should men pay the first date, for the first date?

Malavika Kannan (01:04:01):

Well, someone’s gonna pay.

James J. Sexton (01:04:01):

Should n- should lesbians bring a man along so he has to pay?

Nick Gillespie (01:04:03):

Yeah.

James J. Sexton (01:04:03):

No. Um, no. I, I, I d- I think that i- in its seriousness, I am of the mind, in heterosexual relationships, that, yes, it’s, I, I’m of the generation where men pay, but I understand the argument that there should not be that obligation.

Nick Gillespie (01:04:15):

Um, bracking in, bracketing this to a kind of more conventional heterosexual situation, should men pay for the first date?

Carolyn Gorman (01:04:22):

Yes. Only so that we have a norm and people know what to follow.

Malavika Kannan (01:04:26):

I think whoever asks should pay.

Nick Gillespie (01:04:28):

All right. Very good. Um, okay. To quote the movie, When Harry Met Sally, uh, which have we, very quickly, have we all seen that?

Carolyn Gorman (01:04:36):

No.

Nick Gillespie (01:04:38):

Okay. (laughs) Um, Can men and women be friends? Can, can men and women be platonic friends?

James J. Sexton (01:04:46):

Absolutely.

Carolyn Gorman (01:04:47):

Yeah. But not best friends.

Malavika Kannan (01:04:49):

I don’t have enough data.

Nick Gillespie (01:04:49):

(laughs)

Carolyn Gorman (01:04:50):

(laughs)

Nick Gillespie (01:04:50):

Uh, okay. Uh, related to this, can you be friends with an ex?

Malavika Kannan (01:04:56):

I am.

Carolyn Gorman (01:04:57):

No.

James J. Sexton (01:04:58):

I’m friends with all of my exes.

Carolyn Gorman (01:05:00):

Yeah. But how close?

James J. Sexton (01:05:02):

Quite close.

Malavika Kannan (01:05:02):

(laughs)

James J. Sexton (01:05:02):

Yeah.

Nick Gillespie (01:05:02):

But not that close?

Carolyn Gorman (01:05:02):

I think there is such a thing as too close.

James J. Sexton (01:05:02):

Quite close. Well-

Nick Gillespie (01:05:02):

Okay. Would you-

James J. Sexton (01:05:08):

... there, there is such a thing as too close. I don’t think I have a too close relationship with any of them.

Carolyn Gorman (01:05:10):

(laughs)

Nick Gillespie (01:05:11):

Would you call someone you’re dating on the phone without texting first?

James J. Sexton (01:05:15):

Yes. But it’s generational. Yes.

Carolyn Gorman (01:05:18):

Yes.

Malavika Kannan (01:05:20):

I do.

Nick Gillespie (01:05:21):

Uh, what’s an acceptable age gap in relationships?

Malavika Kannan (01:05:25):

I find eroticized power imbalances to be really gross, so, like, small.

Nick Gillespie (01:05:30):

So what, what’s that mean?

Malavika Kannan (01:05:31):

Like-

Nick Gillespie (01:05:31):

Six months?

Malavika Kannan (01:05:33):

Like, three years.

Nick Gillespie (01:05:34):

Three years.

Carolyn Gorman (01:05:34):

What if the woman was older than the man?

Malavika Kannan (01:05:37):

I still think it’s weird. I think you should pick-

Malavika Kannan (01:05:39):

... on someone your own size.

Carolyn Gorman (01:05:40):

No. I think a decade.

James J. Sexton (01:05:44):

I think it’s stage rather than age.

Carolyn Gorman (01:05:46):

Mm.

James J. Sexton (01:05:46):

So I think the difference between a 20-year-old and a 40-year-old is a massive difference. Whereas the difference between a 50-year-old and a 70-year-old in terms of lived experience-

Nick Gillespie (01:05:58):

What about a 30-year-old and a 50-year-old?

James J. Sexton (01:06:01):

I think there’s still a significant gap in their life experience and the stage of their life that they’re in, but if they were both divorced people who had children, for example, that might be ... I think it’s more stage than age. I, I just think-

Nick Gillespie (01:06:11):

Okay.

James J. Sexton (01:06:12):

... reducing it to a number is a very linear way of approaching it. And I think there’s more complexity than that.

Nick Gillespie (01:06:16):

Ver- ... Yeah.

Carolyn Gorman (01:06:17):

Empirically, smaller age gaps are better.

Nick Gillespie (01:06:20):

Okay. Uh, by better, you mean more successful?

Carolyn Gorman (01:06:22):

It’s, it’s more successful [inaudible 01:06:23].

Nick Gillespie (01:06:22):

Okay.

Carolyn Gorman (01:06:22):

Yeah.

Nick Gillespie (01:06:23):

Um, okay. Here we go. Uh, final, uh, lightning round question. Who has a harder time dating? Gen Xers and Boomers or Gen Zers and Millennials?

James J. Sexton (01:06:34):

I speculate Gen Zers and Millennials.

Carolyn Gorman (01:06:37):

I think Boomers.

Malavika Kannan (01:06:38):

I think it’s just hard out here.

Carolyn Gorman (01:06:38):

(laughs)

Nick Gillespie (01:06:40):

All right. Fair enough. Okay. Uh, that’s it for the flash round. Uh, now we are going to wrap up. I have one final question for each of you, and it’s the same one. What’s your one piece of dating advice for folks at any age? Malavika, we’ll start with you because you are a dating advice columnist, right?

Malavika Kannan (01:07:00):

I guess when I, I’m imagining, like, the audience of young women that I usually think about, I would say that dating and romance is, like, a great adventure, but you need to be able to fill your cup from many sources.

Carolyn Gorman (01:07:11):

I’d say state your intent.

James J. Sexton (01:07:14):

I think it would be my, my life advice for people, which is the hard thing to do and the right thing to do are almost always the same thing. So being authentically yourself in relationship is harder than being performative, but it’s the right thing. Being candid with your partner is the hard thing, but it’s the right thing. So the hard thing to do and the right thing to do are almost always the same thing.

Nick Gillespie (01:07:32):

All right. Thank you again, James, Carolyn, Malavika. It was a pleasure having you join us today.

James J. Sexton (01:07:38):

Thank you.

Malavika Kannan (01:07:38):

Thank you.

Nick Gillespie (01:07:41):

That’s it for this week. A big thank you to you, our audience, for tuning in. This episode was made possible thanks to a generous gift from Liberty Ears Foundation. Our work is also made possible by listeners like you, the Rosenkranz Foundation, and supporters of Open to Debate. Robert Rosenkranz is our founder. Our CEO is Lia Matthow. I’m Nick Gillespie. We’ll see you next time on Open to Debate.Opening Video