THE TRUTH ABOUT SADISM! - Part 1
This episode explores sadism, masochism, and consensual BDSM without judgment. It discusses the impact of sexual elements on societal dysfunctions.
Full series: https://rss.com/podcasts/sadism/
Join the PREMIUM philosophy community on the web for free!
Get my new series on the Truth About the French Revolution, access to the audiobook for my new book 'Peaceful Parenting,' StefBOT-AI, private livestreams, premium call in shows, the 22 Part History of Philosophers series and more!
See you soon!
https://freedomain.locals.com/support/promo/UPB2022
Brief Summary
In this episode, we delve into the captivating world of sadism and masochism. I find this topic personally intriguing, as it's a mindset that I struggle to fully comprehend. With an anthropological approach, we aim to explore this subject without constantly passing moral judgment. Sadism, the pleasure derived from causing pain to others, is contrasted with consensual acts of physical pain or humiliation for sexual gratification known as BDSM. I believe that as long as these behaviors are consensual and don't result in irreversible harm, they may not be a moral concern. Furthermore, I argue that many dysfunctions in society may have a sexual element, such as the behavior of a stereotypical Karen or couples engaging in hostile fights. Additionally, the power dynamics and domination present in public rituals or workplace hierarchies can harbor sadistic components. While I personally feel perplexed by sadism, I'm interested in exploring it without constantly condemning it.
Chapters
0:00:00 Introduction to the Fascinating Topic of Sadism
0:03:50 Society's Dysfunctions and the Relationship to Sadistic Tendencies
0:07:05 The Suspension of Disbelief and Sadistic Satisfaction in Fictional Violence
0:07:29 The Complexity of Sadism and Paraphilias
0:12:48 Paraphilias and the Distinction from Healthy Sexuality
0:18:16 Hypermasculinity and the Capacity to Avoid Empathy
0:21:05 Women's Expectations of Selective Empathy in Men
0:28:12 The dynamics of power and masochism in relationships.
0:32:10 The nature of women's thrill in being desired.
0:35:50 The importance of bravery in pursuing attractive partners.
0:38:42 The Pitfalls of Settling for Less
0:47:22 Freud's Observations on Sadism and Masochism
0:49:06 The Purpose of Pleasure: Selfishness or Pair Bonding?
0:54:15 Gifts and Abilities: Serving Self or World?
0:56:51 The Dehumanization of Excellence and Competition
1:00:03 Domination and Submission: The Absence of Reason and Negotiation
Full series: https://rss.com/podcasts/sadism/
Join the PREMIUM philosophy community on the web for free!
Get my new series on the Truth About the French Revolution, access to the audiobook for my new book 'Peaceful Parenting,' StefBOT-AI, private livestreams, premium call in shows, the 22 Part History of Philosophers series and more!
See you soon!
https://freedomain.locals.com/support/promo/UPB2022
Brief Summary
In this episode, we delve into the captivating world of sadism and masochism. I find this topic personally intriguing, as it's a mindset that I struggle to fully comprehend. With an anthropological approach, we aim to explore this subject without constantly passing moral judgment. Sadism, the pleasure derived from causing pain to others, is contrasted with consensual acts of physical pain or humiliation for sexual gratification known as BDSM. I believe that as long as these behaviors are consensual and don't result in irreversible harm, they may not be a moral concern. Furthermore, I argue that many dysfunctions in society may have a sexual element, such as the behavior of a stereotypical Karen or couples engaging in hostile fights. Additionally, the power dynamics and domination present in public rituals or workplace hierarchies can harbor sadistic components. While I personally feel perplexed by sadism, I'm interested in exploring it without constantly condemning it.
Chapters
0:00:00 Introduction to the Fascinating Topic of Sadism
0:03:50 Society's Dysfunctions and the Relationship to Sadistic Tendencies
0:07:05 The Suspension of Disbelief and Sadistic Satisfaction in Fictional Violence
0:07:29 The Complexity of Sadism and Paraphilias
0:12:48 Paraphilias and the Distinction from Healthy Sexuality
0:18:16 Hypermasculinity and the Capacity to Avoid Empathy
0:21:05 Women's Expectations of Selective Empathy in Men
0:28:12 The dynamics of power and masochism in relationships.
0:32:10 The nature of women's thrill in being desired.
0:35:50 The importance of bravery in pursuing attractive partners.
0:38:42 The Pitfalls of Settling for Less
0:47:22 Freud's Observations on Sadism and Masochism
0:49:06 The Purpose of Pleasure: Selfishness or Pair Bonding?
0:54:15 Gifts and Abilities: Serving Self or World?
0:56:51 The Dehumanization of Excellence and Competition
1:00:03 Domination and Submission: The Absence of Reason and Negotiation
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00:00 So a fascinating topic in my view is sadism.
00:00:05 And maybe you've known a sadist, maybe you have some tendencies towards cruelty yourself.
00:00:10 But I just find it absolutely fascinating.
00:00:13 We've got some research to go into the great depth and detail of this mindset, of this behavior.
00:00:20 And of course the flip side, which is masochism.
00:00:23 So, I mean, start of course always with the definitions.
00:00:26 What is sadism?
00:00:28 So the general way of understanding it is deriving pleasure from inflicting pain on others.
00:00:34 Now I find this really fascinating because it's such a foreign mindset to me.
00:00:38 The idea of taking pleasure through cruelty is like the polar opposite of my emotional apparatus.
00:00:46 And so I find it like an upside down world.
00:00:49 It's the nether, it's the backrooms, it's all kinds of crazy stuff.
00:00:53 Because it just is such a complete opposite to my mindset and makeup.
00:00:58 The idea of watching people in pain and so on is just appalling.
00:01:02 I rush to do anything you can to save and solve it.
00:01:05 So it is one of the most, if not the most foreign mindsets to me.
00:01:09 Which is always very interesting to explore from that standpoint.
00:01:12 Now also I'm going to try and avoid over the course of this conversation,
00:01:16 I'm going to try to avoid judging it morally.
00:01:19 I mean obviously it's unhealthy, at least in the context of healthy relationships it's unhealthy.
00:01:27 And of course it's cruel and vicious and mean and destructive.
00:01:32 And obviously if it's not role-playing then it's going to violate the non-aggression principle.
00:01:37 So all of those moral standards, please assume, are implicit.
00:01:41 I don't want to have to keep repeating it.
00:01:43 This is going to be anthropological exploration of an immoral mindset.
00:01:50 Just so you understand that, I'm not going to go in and "Oh this is bad, oh this is bad."
00:01:54 I get all of that, I understand all of that, but we're going to explore like an anthropologist will explore.
00:02:00 If an anthropologist is looking at a mutilation ritual in a tribe,
00:02:05 they have to describe it and try to understand it.
00:02:08 But they don't have to in every other breath be condemning it.
00:02:12 That's taken for granted, so hopefully that will make sense.
00:02:16 So Webster's Dictionary defines sadism as the derivation of sexual gratification
00:02:21 from the infliction of physical pain or humiliation on another person.
00:02:27 If it's consensual and does not cause gross irreparable harm,
00:02:31 then it's generally known as BDSM, bondage domination sadomasochism.
00:02:36 So, of course it's not exactly a healthy lifestyle choice,
00:02:40 but it's not an immediate moral concern if it's consensual and avoids gross irreparable harm.
00:02:46 So, I don't know, what are we talking about?
00:02:48 Wax on the nipples and things like that, or light lashings with a symbolic whip, this kind of stuff.
00:02:55 So it's role-playing and it has sort of the relationship of, you know,
00:03:01 fake wooden sword medieval duels at a renaissance fair
00:03:04 as opposed to actually slashing people up in some misty morning duel in the 19th century
00:03:09 with real swords and the aim is death.
00:03:11 So it's a form of role-playing and therefore it's still consensual.
00:03:18 It's not a violation of the non-aggression principle.
00:03:20 And so, however we might look at it as dysfunctional, it would not be immoral, evil in that way.
00:03:26 Sadomasochism is the giving or receiving of pleasure from acts involving the receipt or infliction of pain or humiliation.
00:03:33 I mean, a lot of society's dysfunctions are driven by fairly warped, at least in my view, fairly warped sexual preferences.
00:03:43 So, if you look at someone like a Karen, you know, the sort of stereotypical Karen,
00:03:50 it's a middle-aged woman who wants to speak with your manager, that's kind of a humiliation ritual.
00:03:56 You're attempting to dominate and humiliate the retail worker
00:03:59 and I believe in many cases that has a sexual excitement component,
00:04:05 which is why this behavior just seems so incomprehensible to other people.
00:04:10 As some couples who fight, the fighting is part of a sexual ritual, right?
00:04:16 The hostility, the domination, the wrestling for control,
00:04:19 and when one person then finally asserts dominance, then sexual activity can occur.
00:04:24 So a lot of it, I think, has to do with this kind of stuff.
00:04:28 If you look at a struggle session, right, this is sort of a leftist trope,
00:04:32 I guess it happens in fascism as well, but a struggle session is when you have to be openly and publicly humiliated and subjugated to a particular person's ideology.
00:04:44 Well, that to me has a kind of sexual component to it, in that you are humiliating someone,
00:04:50 you're grinding them down, you're asserting your will and dominance over them,
00:04:54 and power and sexuality for this kind of mindset are always, always intertwined.
00:05:02 You can see this with bosses dominating, you know, so the typical male boss dominating helpless, independent female employees.
00:05:09 There is a sadistic element to that.
00:05:14 So when I look at these kinds of public rituals where you have to mouth the most absurd statements
00:05:21 or you get banished, attacked, humiliated, fired, that is an assertion of will and dominance,
00:05:28 of anti-rationality, of a common sense, and there's a sadistic element to that that has,
00:05:34 I think, I can't prove it, but I always assume that it has a certain sexual component.
00:05:39 You saw this with regards to people who did their own research, right, during COVID and so on, did their own research.
00:05:46 They were shamed and humiliated and attacked.
00:05:49 So this dominance wherein absurd, anti-rational statements have to be mouthed and repeated
00:05:55 and you have to bow and scrape before them, that has a sadistic element,
00:05:59 and sadism to me is generally tied into a warped sexual impulse.
00:06:06 So there's a lot of that kind of stuff going on in society at the moment,
00:06:10 which is obviously somewhat unfortunate.
00:06:14 Of course, if it's non-consensual sadism, that's outright torture,
00:06:17 and that's immoral and evil and a violation of the non-aggression principle, not UPP compliant and so on.
00:06:23 Now, the sadist will often seek a victim who is not a masochist.
00:06:27 And the masochist is like, you know, hurt me, baby, hurt me, because for the sadist, though,
00:06:32 some of the sexual excitement would derive from the very unwillingness of the victim, right?
00:06:41 So, no don't, no don't, in a roleplay will satisfy, I suppose, some sadists,
00:06:47 but they kind of have to dissociate and there has to be a suspension of disbelief,
00:06:53 if that makes sense. There has to be a suspension of disbelief.
00:06:57 Like, you know, these horrible Saw movies where people get trapped and tortured
00:07:02 and have to, you know, mutilate themselves in order to survive and so on.
00:07:06 So somebody who's a real sadist would watch a Saw movie, I suppose,
00:07:10 I mean, I assume that they do, would watch a Saw movie and would gain some satisfaction,
00:07:16 and I assume some erotic satisfaction, from watching people be brutalized, tortured,
00:07:21 and humiliated in this kind of way. But of course, he knows it's a movie,
00:07:24 he knows it's not real, he knows it's fake blood.
00:07:27 And, you know, it's always, is that, does that slake off his sadism or does it tease it
00:07:33 and draw it further, close to the edge of actually acting out?
00:07:37 Always a tough, always a tough question. I don't know if there are any general answers to this kind of stuff.
00:07:42 Now, clinically, this is known as sadistic personality disorder or sexual sadism disorder.
00:07:49 Depending on the professional or academic you come across,
00:07:52 they may only consider it sadism if the pleasure experience is sexual in origin.
00:07:57 Sexual sadism disorder, we'll call this SSD, not to be confused with the non-mechanical storage drives.
00:08:05 SSD is generally classified as paraphilia.
00:08:08 The term paraphilia refers to sexual interests or fantasies or urges or behaviors
00:08:13 that are outside the range of what is considered typical or normative in a given culture or society.
00:08:19 So, this would be pedophilia or, I guess, bestiality, exhibitionism, fetishism,
00:08:26 sexual focus on non-living objects, voyeurism, and so on.
00:08:30 So, in general, it's kind of considered the norm in society,
00:08:35 but I think the way that I would classify it, again, I'm no psychologist,
00:08:41 just an amateur outside view, but the way that I would look at it,
00:08:45 or the case I'm going to make to you, is that there are sexual preferences that are related to fertility, right?
00:08:54 So, breast size, hip to waist ratio, even features, and so on.
00:08:59 Markers of self-discipline, such as having a slender body in a time of cheap and excess food production and consumption.
00:09:08 So, there are things that you would consider sexually attractive that would, in fact, be related to fertility and genetic quality.
00:09:19 Good teeth, good hair, clear eyes, clear skin, all of that kind of stuff.
00:09:24 These would all be related to health and genetic fitness and so on.
00:09:28 So, there are things, and we wouldn't say that a woman has a fetish for tall, dark, and handsome, right?
00:09:38 That's not a fetish. That's a preference that would be related to genetic quality in a lot of ways.
00:09:44 We wouldn't say that a man has a fetish for a very pretty woman with a great figure.
00:09:51 That's not a fetish, because all of those things would be related to genetic fitness.
00:09:55 However, if a man is sexually excited by a toaster, we would say, "That was actually a plot point in some show from many years ago."
00:10:02 Or, what was it, Henry Winkler played a guy who was attracted to watching a woman crush insects.
00:10:08 Well, toasters, insect crushing, not specifically related to human reproduction.
00:10:14 So, where the wiring has gone from pointing your sexual desires towards genetic fitness of a partner and, you know, youth and so on, right?
00:10:25 I remember when I, I think it was in the 70s, there was a movie called Harold and Maud about a teenage guy who ended up with a woman who was in her 70s or whatever as a girlfriend.
00:10:35 A very odd film, very strange film, quite a cult classic, I suppose.
00:10:40 I don't remember much about it, other than, well, that's a genetic dead end, right?
00:10:44 So, that would be, I think, more of a fetish, right?
00:10:49 Because, in the same way, also, you know, like if you have a preference for pregnant women, right?
00:10:55 Then, well, not your wife, right? But some pregnant woman.
00:10:58 That would be not ideal for you, because you're already, your genetic reproduction is already displaced by another man's baby.
00:11:04 So, paraphilia, they say it's outside the range of what's considered typical or normative in a given culture.
00:11:11 That's relativity, and I'm obviously not a big fan of that.
00:11:14 Philosophy doesn't deal with relativity, right?
00:11:18 Philosophy doesn't deal with relativity.
00:11:20 If there's some culture that really worships the color red or something, and there's another culture that really worships the color blue, that's not philosophy.
00:11:29 That's not even aesthetics.
00:11:31 That would just be sort of local customs, like, "Oh, in this country, they dance this way. In this country, they dance this way."
00:11:36 That's not a subject for philosophy, because it's purely subjective and relativistic.
00:11:42 So, the subjective and relativistic stuff, philosophy.
00:11:45 If it's genuinely that way, philosophy doesn't have anything to say about it.
00:11:48 But, if we can say there are sexual preferences that relate to reproductive fitness and the health and quality of your offspring,
00:12:00 well, philosophy would have something to say about that, because that's objective.
00:12:04 That's an objective metric.
00:12:07 So, typically, in general, they will say, "Well, whatever the norm is, is healthy, and that, of course, is just pure relativism," and so on.
00:12:16 It literally is a positive law doctrine, which says, "Whatever the law says is legal, is both legal and moral."
00:12:24 We don't judge the laws, we simply examine them, neutral anthropology style.
00:12:29 So, talking about this paraphilias in the way that I talk about it here, we're going to say that if you have a particular fetish that is not related to genetic fitness,
00:12:44 and with all sort of humility and respect, we're just going to talk about genetic reproduction here.
00:12:50 So, some stuff that we're not going to be dealing with.
00:12:54 But, in general, there's sort of evolutionary pressures for genetic reproduction.
00:12:58 Whereas, if you're sexually attracted to, I don't know, anteaters,
00:13:02 then that's obviously something that's not exactly priming you for genetic reproductive fitness as a whole.
00:13:11 So, paraphilias are often characterized by intense, persistent sexual interests in objects, situations, or individuals that are not typically associated with normative sexual arousal.
00:13:21 For paraphilia to be classified as a disorder, right, so this is sort of psychologically speaking,
00:13:26 it typically must cause significant distress or impairment to the individual or involve personal or legal consequences,
00:13:32 especially if it involves non-consenting parties.
00:13:35 So, I guess one of the things I heard about when I was a kid was this sort of issue or question of peeping toms.
00:13:41 Peeping toms, I guess that guy, the original Tom guy, kind of got around.
00:13:46 But peeping toms are people who are voyeurs, right?
00:13:49 They enjoy watching other people, you know, sort of the typical example is the creepy guy in the raincoat crouching in the bushes watching some woman undress, or what, so voyeuristic, right?
00:14:01 So, voyeuristic.
00:14:03 And it would seem to me that that's a sort of a twist.
00:14:07 So, in a lot of this paraphilia stuff, you can see the essence of something that's not dysfunctional, which then becomes dysfunctional through excess, right?
00:14:17 A lot of the sexuality stuff is sort of the Aristotelian, the Aristotelian mean, right?
00:14:22 So, a rounded buttocks would be an indication of estrogen and youthful fertility and so on.
00:14:30 But then if it gets too much, right, you've seen these sort of ridiculous Brazilian butt-lift women who basically are carrying around their own couches on their rear ends.
00:14:38 Well, that gets to be too much, right?
00:14:40 That gets to be too much.
00:14:42 And so, I think healthy sexuality is when you're kind of in the middle of these things, and then it gets unhealthy if it goes to the extremes.
00:14:52 So, in the case of women, a certain amount of healthy male assertiveness would be a good thing, right?
00:15:01 A complete deficiency of assertiveness, you know, some drippy spineless guy who's kind of depressed and absent and so on.
00:15:09 Well, that would be not particularly exciting, unless you happen to be, I guess, a sadistic woman who wanted to.
00:15:15 But if he has no will, even the masochism wouldn't be, like, even sadism against a person without any particular will would not be satisfying because there'd be no resistance.
00:15:24 So, a man who has no assertiveness is probably not that attractive to a woman.
00:15:32 But if we look at assertiveness, deficiency is bad, but an excess of assertiveness is aggression, right?
00:15:41 It could be yelling, violence, and so on, right?
00:15:46 So, when nature designs us, so to speak, or when we evolve, everything that points you at a trait has a danger of also pointing you at an excess of that trait, if that makes sense.
00:16:00 So, everything that, like, a woman likes an assertive, kind of dominant guy because he needs to go out there and win against other guys to gain resources for the kids, and so on, so she's going to like an assertive guy.
00:16:12 And if you look at Fifty Shades of Grey, we have a guy, Christian Grey, who has gone beyond assertiveness to mimed or mimicked violence.
00:16:23 And sometimes, not even like there is, I think there is real whippings and beatings in the S&M that Christian Grey likes.
00:16:30 And so, you've gone beyond assertiveness to violence, right? You've gone beyond assertiveness to violence.
00:16:38 Makeup, of course, is a way also of taking features that in and of themselves are attractive and then exaggerating them, often to the point of clownish, kabuki pantomime stuff, right?
00:16:51 So, it goes to an excess. And so, everything that nature puts within us that aims at a plus can end up with the plus being a minus through excess, if that makes sense, right?
00:17:08 So, let's see here. For a philosophical definition, sadism is experiencing satisfaction, which could be pleasure, or relief from pain, by inflicting pain on another involuntarily, with masochism being the inverse.
00:17:21 So, consensual sadomasochism is not the same, of course, as acts of sexual aggression. Sadomasochists seek out pain in the context of love and sex.
00:17:31 They do not do so in other situations, and they dislike uninvited aggression or abuse as much as the next person.
00:17:38 Sadomasochists are not psychopaths, and that's sort of an important thing.
00:17:44 You know, like people who play Dungeons & Dragons don't actually want to go and explore sewers and fight giant were-rats, right?
00:17:51 It's a fantasy idea. People who play shooting games generally aren't going to end up, obviously, the vast majority, aren't going to end up shooting anyone.
00:18:00 So, that's important. Now, sadomasochistic practices are actually quite diverse.
00:18:05 So, one study identified four separate clusters. Hypermasculinity, infliction and reception of pain, physical restriction, and psychological humiliation.
00:18:15 So, hypermasculinity, that would be the Christian gray thing where you take male traits of dominance, and dominance does involve the capacity to avoid empathy.
00:18:32 So, I'm sure that you're aware of this, particularly if you're a man, but if you're a man and you've not engaged in, say, highly competitive sports,
00:18:40 or if you're a woman and you haven't engaged in highly competitive sports, then this empathy shut-off is really, really important.
00:18:49 And, I mean, I've been doing this, of course, for close to 18 years, and when I do a great show, and every show I try to do, I try to do a great show,
00:18:59 but when I do a great show, what happens is I am drawing you, or the audience, away from other shows.
00:19:08 So, you're listening to me and not to someone else. Now, the people who lost audiences to me, I have to not have empathy for them.
00:19:19 In fact, not only do I not have to have empathy for them, I have to, I don't take pleasure in it, but I at least have to measure my success relative to other people.
00:19:30 So, if I win a thousand audience members, then those thousand audience members are taken away from somebody else's show, at least, you know, for the time that they're listening.
00:19:42 You understand that if you're running a marathon and you want to win the marathon, it means that everyone else is going to be a little bit sad because they also want to win the marathon.
00:19:50 And so, win-lose requires the shut off of empathy. Right? So, when I was in cross-country running or swimming, you know, I'd be running and there'd be a guy next to me,
00:20:03 pounding through the water or pounding across the pavement, and we would both ferociously want to win.
00:20:08 And I would push myself and he would push himself, and we'd end up better runners because we're competing.
00:20:14 But I want to win and that means he has to lose. Right? So, if I was running and some guy tripped, I could then slow down, assuming nobody else was close, and I could still win.
00:20:24 But I would want to win and men, you know this, and I'm sure women know this too, but, you know, that sort of ferocious, "I'm going to win and you're going to lose. I'm going to beat you."
00:20:36 Right? So, in most sports, there's not beating anyone abstract. There's beating you. I want to beat you. I want to win and you're going to lose. I'll be happy and you'll be unhappy.
00:20:47 And it's a zero-sum game. Like, one of us is going to be happy, one of us is going to be unhappy.
00:20:54 And, I mean, this is one of the challenges, of course, of being a man, is that women do expect you to have selective empathy/opposite of empathy.
00:21:05 Is it cruel to want to win a race against another guy? It's certainly involved, because you know that by winning the race he's going to be unhappy.
00:21:15 And it goes even further than that in the sort of race towards dating a girl. Like, in your teenage years or wherever, you want to date Sally and your friends think Sally is the greatest.
00:21:26 You're going to shoot your shot and, of course, if you get to date Sally, who everyone thinks is the greatest, then you'll be very happy and they'll be unhappy.
00:21:35 So, women need men who have the capacity to reverse empathy. So, if you think about watching your friend run a race, you're cheering and you want that friend to win the race.
00:21:53 But, if you are racing against your friend, you are not cheering him on. You want to win at, and it's going to be at his expense.
00:22:03 Now, his unhappiness and your happiness are kind of the same thing, because both arrive from you winning.
00:22:10 Both are the result of you winning. So, what women like, evolutionarily speaking, is a man with the capacity for coldness.
00:22:21 A man with the capacity for cruelty. The cruelty is the result of winning. It's not directed at the other person.
00:22:30 Unless I happen to really dislike that other person, in which case, them losing might be... I might be happy because of that.
00:22:40 And, of course, in the ultimate, you know, if war or combat or a duel or something like that, or a fist fight or something, then you kind of have to win,
00:22:49 because the price of losing could be maiming or death. So, you kind of have to win.
00:22:54 And so, you have to have the capacity to either A) be unbothered by other people being very unhappy, which is what you need to win,
00:23:03 or actively taking pleasure in somebody else's unhappiness.
00:23:09 So, of course, women want men who have the capacity for this kind of coldness and/or cruelty,
00:23:16 because that means, of course, that they have a man who's going to get resources.
00:23:21 But at the same time, of course, they want him to be tender and sensitive and affectionate at home.
00:23:27 This is one of the paradoxes, one of the many paradoxes that men have to sort of work with and deal with.
00:23:33 So, for a woman to be turned on by a man's aggression, coldness, lack of empathy and cruelty is understandable.
00:23:46 Because if a man is, you know, kind of soft and gooey and sensitive and empathetic and wants to encourage everyone else and never win himself,
00:23:52 he's going to lose out in this sort of battle for scarce resources that characterizes most of our evolution.
00:23:59 He's going to lose out.
00:24:01 So, a woman is going to have to be attracted to a guy with the coldness and even the cruelty to win at the expense of others.
00:24:10 But, of course, everything that nature primes you to be attracted to, you run the risk of it being too far, of it going too far.
00:24:19 So, you can think, of course, that women often will like a taller guy,
00:24:24 but a guy who's too tall is going to have, often, knee problems and back problems and shoulder problems,
00:24:31 and because his heart has to work harder to pump the blood everywhere, he might not live quite as long, and so on.
00:24:38 So, nature aims for height a lot of times, but it's easy for nature to overshoot the mark.
00:24:45 It's easy for nature to overshoot the mark.
00:24:50 And if nature overshoots the mark, then that's a negative, if that makes sense.
00:24:56 So, it's the same thing with sexual desire.
00:24:58 Nature programs us to respond to particular stimuli, but in that dice roll, a lot of times you'll get, you know, the six, the seven, the eight,
00:25:07 and the two six-sided dice, but occasionally you'll get the two, and occasionally you'll get the twelve.
00:25:12 But there's always a dice roll, as far as I understand it, with this sort of evolutionary stuff,
00:25:16 and it's easy, relatively easy, at least in the large population, for things to go too far,
00:25:21 rather than assertiveness and aggression, which is necessary for a man to win.
00:25:25 The woman's desires, for whatever reason, could come out of childhood, could be whatever, right,
00:25:30 goes to cruelty and sadism, and so on.
00:25:35 So, a more recent survey suggests that sadistic fantasies are just as prevalent in women as in men,
00:25:42 although it is true that men with sadistic urges tend to develop them at an earlier age.
00:25:47 Now, what we do want to do, of course, is we're going to talk quite a bit about the Marquis de Sade,
00:25:55 and that's where the word sadism, of course, comes from, and he was a really chilling French aristocrat,
00:26:01 which we'll get into, it somewhat ties into the history of the French Revolution, but
00:26:06 de Sade wrote, "How delightful are the pleasures of the imagination!
00:26:10 In those delectable moments the whole world is ours.
00:26:13 Not a single creature resists us, we devastate the world, we repopulate it with new objects,
00:26:18 which in turn we immolate.
00:26:20 The means to every crime is ours, and we employ them all, we multiply the horror a hundredfold."
00:26:28 So, of course, the desire to dominate nature, the desire to win at all costs, and so on,
00:26:33 is baked into humanity.
00:26:37 We didn't become the dominant species on the planet by accident.
00:26:41 So, our desire to dominate, to win, to wipe out rivals and enemies, that's natural,
00:26:47 and there's nothing wrong with it at all, in fact, it's probably quite healthy,
00:26:51 but can it go too far?
00:26:53 And that too farness, is it early trauma?
00:26:57 I think probably a lot of times, is it genetic?
00:26:59 I have some doubts about that.
00:27:01 Is it that you indulge and allow yourself to take every step further and further
00:27:07 to break down your inhibitions, right?
00:27:10 Because I think healthy humans have impulses to aggression, and we also have blocks to aggression.
00:27:18 We don't indulge ourselves that much, right?
00:27:21 So, we will have an impulse towards aggression, but we also have the capacity to resist that impulse.
00:27:27 That extremity is kind of a temptation, that reason and moderation give you blocks too.
00:27:33 But, if you continually allow yourself, increment by increment, bit by bit, inch by inch,
00:27:41 if you allow yourself to wear down inhibitions, then you kind of uncork the inner demons,
00:27:47 you uncork the inner monsters, and that is a result of a whole series of choices.
00:27:54 So, you can sort of think of spicy food, right?
00:27:57 If you allow yourself to get progressively more and more used to spicy food,
00:28:01 then you can tolerate stuff that would be inconceivable when you first start,
00:28:05 and you're going to burn out your tongue receptors,
00:28:07 and you'll have trouble tasting ordinary food, and so on, right?
00:28:11 So, for a wide variety of reasons.
00:28:14 So, a woman who is attracted to a really dominant guy, when he starts to become aggressive,
00:28:20 she either puts that in check and says, "No, no, no, that's not good."
00:28:23 Or, she allows herself or indulges in the excitement of that danger,
00:28:29 and then you're sort of slippery slope, you keep going down, right?
00:28:33 Masochism.
00:28:35 So, there was a fellow, Leopold von Sascha Masoch, author of Venus in Furrows from 1870,
00:28:41 and this is where the word "masochism" comes from, from Masoch.
00:28:46 He wrote, "Man is the one who desires, women the one who is desired.
00:28:51 This is women's entire but decisive advantage.
00:28:54 Through man's passions, nature has given man into women's hands,
00:29:00 and the woman who does not know how to make him her subject, her slave, her toy,
00:29:04 and how to betray him with a smile, in the end, is not wise."
00:29:09 So, if you're in pursuit of a woman, then she has a great deal of power.
00:29:15 And, there's a lot of, of course, frustration in the modern world
00:29:19 at the wild amount of social and economic power that young, attractive women possess,
00:29:27 and there's a certain amount of resentment.
00:29:29 The aristocracy of youth and beauty is something that I think a lot of people have kind of an impulse to challenge,
00:29:36 or to resent, right? Unowned privilege is something which we are kind of half programmed to resent.
00:29:42 So, the fact that men pursue women gives women the upper hand.
00:29:48 And, the more that the man pursues the woman, the more desirable she is, the more power she has.
00:29:57 Right? So, if the man catches the woman, if the woman becomes his bride and the mother of his children,
00:30:04 then her value to him increases, her sexual marketplace value to others diminishes.
00:30:11 Right? You trade in sexual market value for love.
00:30:15 That's really, that's the purpose. The purpose of sexual market value is to give women the free choice
00:30:22 from a variety of men, so that she is then responsible for her choice.
00:30:27 Like a woman who's married off and forced into matrimony, we don't blame her for her choice in husbands.
00:30:33 She's some 14 year old kid in history who's married off.
00:30:37 Like, what is that old joke? My girlfriend demanded that I treat her like a princess,
00:30:43 so I married her off against her will to cement the alliance with France.
00:30:48 So, we wouldn't blame a woman married against her will.
00:30:51 So, the purpose of youthful sexual attraction is for a woman to have a variety of suitors,
00:30:57 so that she has the greatest choice, because out of choice and options comes quality. Right?
00:31:02 Out of choice and options. Prison food doesn't have much quality because it's a monopoly. Right?
00:31:06 So, out of choice comes quality and responsibility.
00:31:11 So, the purpose of youthful female beauty is to attract as many men as possible,
00:31:15 so that the woman has the highest, she has the most variety from which to choose,
00:31:20 and therefore, that's really the only, it doesn't guarantee quality, but it's the only possibility of quality.
00:31:27 And so, she trades in her hotness for love and devotion. Right?
00:31:35 So, she chooses a man, she gets pregnant with the man's children, she raises his children well,
00:31:40 she's a great companion to him, and you know, like that joke, "Okay, hear me out.
00:31:45 Only fans, but there's only one fan and he takes care of you for life." Right?
00:31:50 So, that's the idea of trading in the lust of strangers for the love of a husband. Right?
00:31:57 That's the deal. And it's tough for women to trade that in.
00:32:02 I mean, it's very, nature has programmed women to be incredibly thrilled and excited to have men desire her. Right?
00:32:11 And that process is supposed to be relatively short. Right?
00:32:14 Six to 12 months, I've sort of talked about that a young woman would have in the sexual marketplace
00:32:19 and therefore, she would have to choose the husband, her husband and the father of her children.
00:32:24 So, for a woman, that's the offer from God, you could say, or the offer from virtue,
00:32:31 is trading your sexual market value for the love and devotion of a man,
00:32:35 and the love and devotion of children, and so on.
00:32:38 The devil, of course, so to speak, would say, "No, no, no, stay where you're desired.
00:32:44 Stay where you are desired." Because sexual market value for women is much easier
00:32:51 than being a wife, being pregnant and raising children. Right? Obviously.
00:32:56 Even if you say, "Well, she's going to have to exercise for two hours a day."
00:33:00 It's like, "Okay, well, so she exercises for two hours a day. All right.
00:33:03 So, she buys a bunch of creams and you know, but all of that is easy, relatively. Right?
00:33:08 The having a raising of children and the risk of that too. Right?
00:33:11 Having a raising of children is really hard work.
00:33:14 I mean, that's really, especially when they're young. Right? It's really, really hard work.
00:33:17 Pregnancy can be difficult. There's a lot of vomiting.
00:33:20 Sometimes for some women with morning sickness, and there can be complications,
00:33:24 and childbirth is a challenge, and breastfeeding can be difficult.
00:33:27 So, the devil says, "Well, stay where things are easy and fun."
00:33:31 Which is to be lusted after, to be desired, to be told how beautiful you are,
00:33:36 and all of that, and you never have to trade in your sexual market value for love,
00:33:44 and pair bonding, and devotion.
00:33:48 In other words, you hoard your money until your money disappears. Right?
00:33:53 This is like inflation. Right?
00:33:55 Don't spend your money, just hoard it, and then the government steals it,
00:33:58 in a sense, through inflation anyway. Right?
00:34:00 So, of course, when this is the war, right?
00:34:03 Women get into their 30s and their 40s, and they find, of course, that eyeballs are drying up,
00:34:08 attention is drying up, and then they panic and try and trade in their sexual market value for true love.
00:34:15 And it's, well, it's a pretty tough trade. It's a pretty tough trade at that time.
00:34:20 So, for the masochist, the woman who is the most scornful and rejecting
00:34:27 is probably the woman with the highest sexual market value. Right?
00:34:32 So, again, going after, and I still remember, I still remember the name of the girl
00:34:37 who was the queen of my junior high school, right?
00:34:42 Which is 45 years ago. I asked her out.
00:34:47 And she was the queen of the high school, and so she had to be fairly distant
00:34:53 to all the boys who worshipped her.
00:34:55 I can go back, you know what, I can go back even further.
00:34:58 I can still pick out the girl who was the queen of my boarding school.
00:35:03 And the boys used to run past the fences, because we were separated, right, boys and girls?
00:35:07 The boys used to run past the fences to try and just catch a glimpse of her, and I would be in their midst.
00:35:12 And she was a little goddess, right?
00:35:15 And this was out of, what is it, 500, 600 kids?
00:35:18 I could, I could, I guarantee you, I could still pick her out of the picture of my boarding school in my basement.
00:35:25 And so, knowing the very highest and most attractive, of course, there was nothing sexual about it,
00:35:32 we were like six years old, but, you know, she was, she was dreamy or whatever, she was cute.
00:35:38 But knowing the highest romantic object and being willing to brave rejection in order to win her
00:35:47 was essential for men, right?
00:35:50 To have the courage to continue to pursue a woman and the courage to face rejection, right, was important.
00:35:58 I mentioned this on the show in the past, how, you know, one of the calculations that I would have to do in junior high school
00:36:03 when I was, you know, grade six, grade seven or whatever, I guess it was the end of elementary school,
00:36:08 beginning of junior high school, was you'd go to dances.
00:36:11 And you'd go to dances and you would then cross the no man's land of the dance floor,
00:36:17 you'd get to the far side and you'd walk up the line of girls.
00:36:21 And you'd have to find that girl.
00:36:23 You knew that there would be some girls you'd be able to ask out and they would say yes.
00:36:28 But, so you had to find a girl who was attractive enough that your friends wouldn't mock you relentlessly
00:36:33 for asking her to dance, but not so attractive that she'd never dance with you.
00:36:36 You've got to find that middle ground.
00:36:39 And you want to push the high envelope as a male, right?
00:36:42 So, you know, the least attractive girls, and I'm sorry to put it so coarsely,
00:36:46 this is just the mechanics of at least my mind and the mind of my friends,
00:36:50 though those many decades ago, but the least attractive girls, yeah, you could,
00:36:54 they would dance with you, but your friends would mock you and roll,
00:36:59 and roll their eyes because you're aiming too low.
00:37:01 So for a man, in a sense, welcoming rejection, or at least being okay with rejection,
00:37:09 is essential to getting a quality partner.
00:37:13 So, it's the same thing in the business world, right?
00:37:16 So, in the business world, when I was a software entrepreneur,
00:37:21 the salespeople would sometimes have to call a hundred people to get one sale.
00:37:29 That's not that uncommon in sort of niche markets, niche products, markets.
00:37:36 Now, if you hate rejection, you can't do that job,
00:37:41 it just wears you down, it grinds you down.
00:37:43 I don't know if anyone can be indifferent, completely indifferent to rejection,
00:37:48 that seems kind of robotic and inhuman.
00:37:51 If you get a little bit of a thrill out of rejection,
00:37:55 then you're going to be able to pursue the hard to attain much better, much better.
00:38:03 So, taking some pleasure in rejection, even if it's a small pleasure,
00:38:09 allows you to continue to pursue a very high goal.
00:38:14 Now, of course, you could say, "Well, gee, why would you ever take pleasure in being rejected?"
00:38:21 Because if nature can program you to take pleasure in being rejected,
00:38:25 even a small pleasure, then you can work much harder and take more risks.
00:38:33 So, a guy who's terrified of rejection is going to aim low in the attractiveness of the girl he asks out.
00:38:41 And that has problems, because in order to avoid the immediate rejection,
00:38:46 he ends up with a woman that deep down he's saying, "I could have done better,"
00:38:50 and that doesn't help the pair bond, and it doesn't help his, you know,
00:38:54 the quality of his kids maybe, or the quality of his wife's parenting, or something like that.
00:38:59 So, in order to avoid rejection, you aim too low, and then you end up with regret.
00:39:05 I think everyone's had it over the course of their life where they say,
00:39:09 "I'm going to save money on X, Y, or Z," and you get something for half price,
00:39:15 but it ends up being low quality, and then you regret that.
00:39:18 "I aimed too low, I should have spent more. That was a bad idea. That was a bad call.
00:39:22 I mean, I have this even now. I'm 57. I have this even now."
00:39:26 "I saved money by buying a second-hand tablet to do call-in shows,"
00:39:32 because I'm like, "Well, what do I care?"
00:39:34 Because I would buy second-hand computers, and it didn't matter, really.
00:39:38 But, of course, the battery life sucks, and so that's a problem.
00:39:41 And a couple of times I've had the computer die while in the middle of a call-in show,
00:39:45 and then that's a real hassle and a problem, and I should have just spent more to buy the tablet.
00:39:50 I mean, and I have not got around to, I don't think I can, I think that, yeah,
00:39:55 you can't replace the battery or something like that.
00:39:57 So, yeah, that's just the reality of the situation of buyer's remorse.
00:40:02 So, on the other hand, if you take too much pleasure in rejection,
00:40:08 then you will ask girls out who will never say yes, and then you get a reputation as delusional.
00:40:14 You get, even the normal girls don't want to go out with you
00:40:17 because they recognize that you have some sort of fetish for rejection.
00:40:20 So, if you hate rejection too much, you aim too low, or don't aim at all.
00:40:27 If you love rejection too much, then you aim too high and also miss the mark.
00:40:32 So, again, this is the Aristotelian meme.
00:40:34 You have to be okay with rejection, right?
00:40:37 I mean, when I'm doing a live stream, or, you know, of course, here,
00:40:40 at freedomain.com/donate, if you'd like to help the show out,
00:40:43 I think there's really important work here.
00:40:45 But I ask people for donations, and most of you won't donate.
00:40:53 That's kind of like a rejection, right?
00:40:55 So, I have to be relatively comfortable with that.
00:40:58 You have to get relatively comfortable with it.
00:41:00 Now, I think having a slight preference for rejection,
00:41:04 and salespeople will say this to themselves.
00:41:06 They'll say, "Yeah, I've got to call 100 people to make one sale,
00:41:10 so everyone who rejects me, I'm fine with, because that means I'm just closer,
00:41:15 I'm one person closer to that person who's going to say yes."
00:41:18 So, they turn it into a positive.
00:41:21 So, nature may well program us with a slight preference for rejection,
00:41:26 or, you know, I know this is kind of hard, if it's hard for me,
00:41:30 but I do this, of course, I do this every day,
00:41:32 again, with donations and other things and so on, right?
00:41:35 And, of course, when I was starting out in my show,
00:41:37 I would try to get conversations with people,
00:41:39 and they would say no, or they wouldn't even respond or reply.
00:41:42 You know, there's a lot of rejections in that.
00:41:44 But you just got to keep going.
00:41:46 Now, I never learned to love the rejection,
00:41:48 I think that would be kind of odd, but you can understand that
00:41:51 if nature gives you a slight thrill with regards to rejection,
00:41:53 it's an incentive to keep risking rejection.
00:41:56 Now, of course, she also has to program into you
00:41:58 a great happiness when you're accepted, right?
00:42:00 Happiness that's greater.
00:42:01 Because if the thrill of rejection is too great,
00:42:04 then you just become a masochist, right?
00:42:06 This is sort of what I'm talking about.
00:42:08 Nature has to program you to want something,
00:42:11 and then the flip side of wanting something
00:42:13 is being sad or unhappy or angry if you don't get it, right?
00:42:17 So, you really want the girl, you ask her out,
00:42:20 she says no, you're sad.
00:42:22 Now, if you're too sad, you don't ask girls out,
00:42:25 and so you have to find some way to be okay with the rejection.
00:42:29 And so, if nature gives you a slight positive experience of rejection,
00:42:33 then you won't be as afraid of rejection.
00:42:35 And, of course, you think of actors, right?
00:42:37 Actors go to hundreds of auditions, never get any roles,
00:42:40 and they have to keep going,
00:42:42 which means they can't take those negatives too seriously.
00:42:45 Of course, this is the story of my life in a lot of ways,
00:42:47 is constant rejection, but you just got to keep going.
00:42:51 So, a man will measure, to some degree,
00:42:58 the quality of a woman by her coldness and her scorn.
00:43:05 Her coldness and her scorn.
00:43:08 I mean, you can see this kind of stuff where
00:43:10 a really attractive woman gives you a cold look,
00:43:13 and then they'll get some very unattractive woman
00:43:15 to give exactly the same look, and it looks very strange,
00:43:17 it looks very bizarre.
00:43:19 And so, men will be drawn to women who reject a lot,
00:43:25 because the women who reject a lot have high value,
00:43:27 and you want to kind of clear that hurdle, so to speak.
00:43:30 And so, to be drawn towards a woman who rejects you
00:43:35 is kind of baked into, or at least has the capacity to reject you,
00:43:39 is kind of baked into human nature.
00:43:42 If it goes too far, then it becomes a fetish for rejection,
00:43:46 a fetish for humiliation, which is masochism.
00:43:51 So, in 1782, I've talked about him in the History of Philosophy series,
00:43:55 in 1782, in his book Confessions, the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau
00:44:01 discusses the sexual pleasure he derived from childhood beatings,
00:44:05 adding that, quote, "After having ventured to say so much,
00:44:09 I can shrink from nothing."
00:44:12 He certainly did not censor himself.
00:44:14 Here's a quote.
00:44:15 "To fall at the feet of an imperious mistress,
00:44:19 obey her mandates, or implore pardon,
00:44:22 were for me the most exquisite enjoyments."
00:44:26 So, yeah, and beatings of children, well,
00:44:31 it's almost like too dark a forest to venture in alone and unaided,
00:44:35 so let's just say there's some pretty creepy stuff going on there
00:44:39 that often borders on paraphilia or fetishism.
00:44:43 So, the Kama Sutra, of course, second century India,
00:44:48 includes an entire chapter devoted to blows and cries.
00:44:53 So, sexual relations, this is a quote from the Hindu text,
00:44:56 "Sexual relations can be conceived as a kind of combat.
00:44:59 For successful intercourse, a show of cruelty is essential."
00:45:04 So, this battle, right, this war of the sexes,
00:45:07 and what's that old joke, like the war of the sexes can never be won
00:45:10 because there's way too much fraternization with the enemy,
00:45:13 but, yeah, this idea that the man conquers, the woman submits,
00:45:18 she doesn't want to submit, and so on.
00:45:21 And this, of course, is the whole plot of Pride and Prejudice.
00:45:25 If you look at this Jane Austen novel,
00:45:28 that you have a man who has an excess of pride,
00:45:31 an excess of arrogance, an excess of superiority,
00:45:35 and he must be humbled in order to be a fit partner.
00:45:40 He's attractive because he has all this land,
00:45:43 he has all this money, he has these giant houses,
00:45:46 and he's incredibly successful.
00:45:49 Well, at least he has a lot of resources.
00:45:51 Success and resources aren't always the same thing, right?
00:45:54 It could be aristocracy, just born into it, or win the lottery,
00:45:56 or something like that.
00:45:58 But he has all of these resources, but he's too arrogant.
00:46:02 He's too arrogant, and he needs to be humbled.
00:46:07 He needs to gain more moderation in his arrogance
00:46:10 in order to be a fit partner for Elizabeth Bennet.
00:46:16 And I have a sort of similar story arc with Rachel Hastings
00:46:22 in my novel The Present, that she's far too vain
00:46:27 and needs to be humbled in order to be a good partner for Oliver,
00:46:29 or at least have the potential for that.
00:46:32 So, the battle, right? The battle is...
00:46:35 And for a woman to feel conquered can be quite sexy,
00:46:38 and for the man to do the conquering can be quite sexy.
00:46:40 But the challenge is, how do you transition that
00:46:43 into a loving pair bond to the benefit of the children?
00:46:46 That's the challenge.
00:46:48 All right, do another few minutes here in this first part.
00:46:50 Let me know what you think, of course, when we're done.
00:46:52 The physician Johann Heinrich Melbom
00:46:56 introduced the first theory of masochism in his treatise
00:46:58 on the use of flogging in medicine and venery.
00:47:02 This is from 1639.
00:47:05 According to Melbom, flogging a man's back
00:47:07 warms the semen in the kidneys, don't you know,
00:47:10 which leads to sexual arousal when the warmed-up semen
00:47:13 flows down to the testicles.
00:47:15 Other theories of masochism centered around the warming of the blood
00:47:17 or the use of sexual arousal to mitigate physical pain.
00:47:21 In three papers on sexual theory,
00:47:23 a little bit of a time jump here, 1905,
00:47:25 Freud observed that sadism and masochism
00:47:28 are often found in the same individual,
00:47:30 and accordingly combined the terms.
00:47:33 Right, sadomasochism.
00:47:34 He understood sadism as a distortion of the aggressive component
00:47:37 of the male sexual instinct,
00:47:38 and masochism as a form of sadism directed against the self,
00:47:42 and a graver aberration than simple sadism.
00:47:46 So masochism is a form of sadism directed against the self.
00:47:51 See, that doesn't really...
00:47:52 Again, I'm not going to say that this summary
00:47:54 is all of Freud's thoughts on the matter,
00:47:58 but of course, you know, as we know,
00:48:00 Freud denied the reality of childhood abuse,
00:48:03 particularly the childhood sexual abuse
00:48:05 that he continually got from his neurasthenic
00:48:08 or, quote, "hysterical patients,"
00:48:10 and thus betrayed the children.
00:48:12 I betrayed the children.
00:48:13 All of those who talk about child abuse
00:48:16 are attacked by child abusers,
00:48:18 and this is one of the reasons why people don't talk about it
00:48:21 and why child abuse tends to continue,
00:48:23 and in many cases is even escalating in the modern world.
00:48:27 But to me, masochism would have to do with
00:48:31 we are wired to have some positive responses
00:48:35 to being rejected, and if it goes too far,
00:48:37 for whatever reasons, if it goes too far,
00:48:40 then that becomes negative.
00:48:42 All right.
00:48:43 So sadism can also be a defensive strategy.
00:48:45 By objectifying their partner,
00:48:47 who is thereby rendered sub or non-human,
00:48:49 sadists do not need to handle their partner's emotional baggage
00:48:52 and are able to tell themselves that the sex
00:48:54 is not all that meaningful,
00:48:55 a mere act of lust rather than an intimate and pregnant act of love.
00:48:59 Their partner becomes a trophy, a mere plaything,
00:49:02 while one can own a toy and knock it about,
00:49:04 one cannot fall in love with it or be hurt or betrayed by it.
00:49:07 Yeah, I mean, I think there's real truth in that,
00:49:09 and the question of the orgasm is central to human life, right?
00:49:14 Is the orgasm a unifying, pair-bonding experience
00:49:20 that cements the value of monogamy
00:49:22 and builds a life partnership that is a stable base
00:49:26 from which to raise children?
00:49:28 Or is it entirely for your own pleasure,
00:49:31 regardless of its purpose?
00:49:33 Do you consume things for you or in order to do something else?
00:49:41 Right, so if you look at people with, they overeat, right?
00:49:45 So people overeat, and they say that the purpose of food
00:49:48 is the pleasure it gives me.
00:49:50 The purpose of food, it's selfish.
00:49:52 The purpose of food is the pleasure it gives me.
00:49:55 Whereas other people say that the purpose of food,
00:49:59 yeah, pleasure is important,
00:50:00 but the purpose of food is to break bread with people,
00:50:03 to chat, to pair-bond, and to provide fuel
00:50:07 for me to go out into the world and do good things.
00:50:10 Right, so is food there for your pleasure and your pleasure alone?
00:50:14 Or is food there as a means by which you pair-bond,
00:50:19 break bread with people, and use it as fuel to go out
00:50:21 and do good things in the world?
00:50:23 Right, that's the big question.
00:50:25 Right, that's the big question about this kind of stuff.
00:50:28 And you can see this in just about every area of life.
00:50:32 So if, for instance, you spend four hours a day in the gym,
00:50:37 well, what is the purpose of exercise?
00:50:40 Is the purpose of exercise to maintain health and strength?
00:50:46 And to allow you to age with as much grace as possible?
00:50:50 And to keep your body fit for the enjoyment of sports?
00:50:54 And to stay healthy so that you don't burden your children
00:50:57 with early ailments as best you can?
00:50:59 So what is the purpose of exercise?
00:51:01 Is the purpose of exercise to allow you to live a better, longer life?
00:51:08 Or is the purpose of exercise to pile physical attractiveness on you,
00:51:14 or muscles on you, in order to serve your own vanity?
00:51:18 Do you do the thing for you, or do you do the thing with an end in mind?
00:51:26 I know this sounds... I'm really phrasing it badly,
00:51:29 which is kind of unusual for me, but I'm kind of at the edge of
00:51:31 where, at least for me, language can accurately portray things.
00:51:36 So do you diet because you want to live a better, longer, healthier life,
00:51:42 or do you diet because you want other people to envy your abs?
00:51:47 Is it vanity-based? Is it just for you?
00:51:50 Or is it to allow you to do other things?
00:51:53 Do you make money so that you can buy things to make yourself look cool
00:51:57 and good and dominate and flex and all this kind of stuff? Bugatti!
00:52:02 Or do you make money in order to provide for your family
00:52:06 and do some charitable good in the world, and so on?
00:52:10 Do you lust after a woman or a man because you genuinely admire her character?
00:52:18 She's great, she's wise, she's funny, she's interesting, she's well-read,
00:52:23 she's good and sexy, and... right?
00:52:27 Do you lust... or do you lust after her because it will be highest status
00:52:33 for you if she's on your arm?
00:52:37 For women, when you look at a guy, do you think,
00:52:40 "Will he be a good father for my children?"
00:52:42 or do you think, "Will I look higher status for dating him?"
00:52:47 or "What will my friends say?"
00:52:50 Now, again, I'm a medium... I'm an Aristotelian mean guy even in these things.
00:52:55 You shouldn't completely not care what other people think,
00:52:58 but you shouldn't run your life by what other people think.
00:53:02 So, with regards to, let's say that you get a thrill out of rejection.
00:53:08 Okay, so do you then just get into some weird sadomasochistic thing
00:53:12 where you get beaten and humiliated and you get all these orgasmic thrills
00:53:16 from being rejected and humiliated, then it's just for you.
00:53:20 Or do you say, "Wow, you know, I have a pretty good relationship
00:53:23 with being rejected. I can use this to forward challenging thoughts
00:53:27 and ideas in the world."
00:53:29 The gifts that I have, let's say, you know, with regards to language skills
00:53:34 and imagination skills and so on, I don't even really know where this came from
00:53:40 in particular. It could be, of course, my Christian upbringing,
00:53:43 but the idea that all of my gifts would be just for me and my comfort
00:53:47 is kind of incomprehensible to me.
00:53:50 That's demonic. That's kind of satanic, right?
00:53:54 I mean, I think my gifts are for the world as best as I can make them.
00:53:59 Now, that doesn't mean that I would immolate myself,
00:54:01 but it does mean that I would focus on taking the gifts that I have
00:54:06 and trying to help the world as much as possible.
00:54:10 But my gifts aren't just for me. My gifts aren't just for me.
00:54:14 So, let's say that you're a great songwriter and a singer,
00:54:18 then are those gifts there to make the world a better place
00:54:22 or are those gifts there to make you money and get you laid?
00:54:27 What is the purpose of the abilities that you have?
00:54:31 And masochists take their capacity to have a positive experience with rejection
00:54:38 and turn it entirely into pursuing their own hedonism,
00:54:42 rather than saying, "Okay, well, if I'm less sensitive to rejection
00:54:45 or even have a positive experience of rejection,
00:54:47 then I can do things in the world that other people would be afraid of
00:54:51 because they're afraid of being rejected, good, necessary, positive things."
00:54:55 So, without a doubt, the capacity to dehumanize,
00:55:01 which is sort of what I was talking about in terms of
00:55:04 your capacity to compete and win as a man,
00:55:07 you have to dehumanize to some degree the person you're competing with
00:55:12 or the entire group that you're competing with.
00:55:16 I mean, we all see these sports movies and it's like,
00:55:19 "Well, this sports team has the blue outfit and so we want them to win,
00:55:26 but that other sports team has the red outfit and we want them to lose."
00:55:29 And, of course, I've said this before, but I remember even as a kid
00:55:32 watching these movies thinking like, "Well, okay, but if we just shot the camera,
00:55:36 if the camera was just on the other side of the field,
00:55:38 then we'd be cheering for the other team. There's nothing moral here."
00:55:41 Now, of course, you know, it's the... they always have the same cliches,
00:55:46 like it's the broken-down, chaotic, disorganized team with the broken-down,
00:55:49 chaotic manager who's fallen on hard times and, you know,
00:55:53 they've got to find something within them that can turn it around and so on.
00:55:57 And it's always made by middle-aged men who feel they've missed out on
00:56:00 the virtues of life, but you have to dehumanize in order to win.
00:56:06 I mean, when I was in the business world, I had competitors
00:56:09 and we would see the same people over and over again
00:56:12 and we would be competing for the same jobs.
00:56:15 And I would want to win and I would want them to lose,
00:56:18 which means you kind of have to turn off your pathological altruism,
00:56:22 your excessive empathy and so on.
00:56:24 Now, of course, I believe that me winning was better for the client,
00:56:27 better for the environment, because I thought, you know,
00:56:29 I genuinely believed that what I had created was better than what they had created,
00:56:32 so I had some good reasons for all of that.
00:56:35 But again, dehumanization is essential to the production of excellence
00:56:41 that requires competition, which requires win-losing,
00:56:46 which requires that the winners to some degree dehumanize those they're competing with.
00:56:50 You can't get excellence without some levels of dehumanization.
00:56:56 I mean, just think of how many auditions you have to go through
00:57:01 in order to get the lead in a movie, assuming you're not already famous.
00:57:05 When I was auditioning for the National Theatre School,
00:57:08 there were 1600 applicants and they took 16 people, so they took 1% of people,
00:57:14 which meant I really wanted to go.
00:57:17 And that meant I had to do my absolute best,
00:57:20 because if I had not done my best, then somebody else would have gone
00:57:24 and they would have been happy instead of me.
00:57:27 So I have to focus on winning and there is to a certain degree
00:57:30 of dehumanizing others through that process.
00:57:34 And I hope this isn't too much of a shock to anybody who's honest.
00:57:38 I know there's not much of an argument, but of course anybody who's honest understands this.
00:57:42 Just by listening to this, in a sense you're dehumanizing the needs and preferences
00:57:45 of every other content creator who wants you to listen to their show and not my show.
00:57:52 There's literally tens of millions of other content creators out there
00:57:56 who would much rather you be listening to them.
00:57:58 I want you to be listening to me, which means I have to be perfectly comfortable
00:58:02 with their unhappiness that you're listening to me, not them.
00:58:05 And it's the same way they want to be perfectly comfortable with you listening to them, not me.
00:58:10 So dehumanization is kind of essential.
00:58:16 It's kind of essential.
00:58:18 Like if there is... you think of sort of our ancestors, right?
00:58:23 So if there's a shortage of food for the winter,
00:58:26 you would rather other people's children go hungry than your own children go hungry.
00:58:30 That's sort of natural and baked in, right?
00:58:33 You would rather other people's children go hungry than your own children go hungry.
00:58:38 Now that means to some degree you have to shut down your empathy
00:58:42 with the other parents and the other children.
00:58:45 It's just the way it is.
00:58:47 So again, so this dehumanization, lack of empathy and so on,
00:58:50 it's kind of baked into every choice, quality, market, excellence pursuit.
00:58:58 But of course it can go too far.
00:59:00 The purpose of dehumanizing competitors is to serve your own family.
00:59:05 It is out of love for your family that you would dehumanize competitors.
00:59:11 So if you're an athlete and if you win this race,
00:59:14 your kids get braces and they desperately need braces,
00:59:17 then you have to dehumanize your competitors because you love your children.
00:59:22 But you take these things to excess and it can be too far.
00:59:26 For the couple, sadomasochism can be seen as a means of intensifying normal sexual relations,
00:59:31 pain releases endorphins and other hormones,
00:59:34 leaving a mark or memory, testing boundaries,
00:59:37 giving form and expression to psychological realities,
00:59:41 building trust and intimacy or simply playing.
00:59:43 In her book Aesthetic Sexuality, Romana Byrne goes so far as to argue
00:59:50 that S&M practices can be driven by certain aesthetic goals
00:59:53 tied to style, pleasure and identity and as such can be compared to the creation of art.
00:59:58 Blech! Well that's kind of nuts in my opinion.
01:00:03 Now the other thing too is that in the absence of rational negotiation,
01:00:08 dominance and submission are the only alternatives, right?
01:00:12 In terms of how things get done, where resources go to.
01:00:16 In the absence of rational negotiation,
01:00:18 of course in the free market price is a form of rational negotiation,
01:00:22 but in the realm of relationships, you either negotiate according to reason and evidence
01:00:28 or you end up with domination and submission.
01:00:32 So for a man, often it's physical violence, for a woman,
01:00:35 often it's the emotional abuse called nagging.
01:00:38 But you can't come to a rational accommodation and so you have to bully and dominate.
01:00:44 And so to me, the sadomasochistic relationships would be characterized by an absence of reason.
01:00:52 And in that absence of reason, the sexual dynamic then mirrors
01:00:58 the emotional and relationship dynamic of dominance and submission.
01:01:03 Because in S&M, you are not negotiating for mutually shared pleasure.
01:01:09 It's one person wins and the other person loses,
01:01:11 but they win by losing and the person wins by winning and that's the best you can do.
01:01:16 The only win-win you can have is win-lose.
01:01:18 Well, that mirrors the relationship dynamic as a whole,
01:01:21 the negotiation of the relationship dynamic as a whole.
01:01:25 So where you don't have reason, you have bullying,
01:01:32 you have domination and submission, like those two pieces of paper on a flat surface,
01:01:37 you push them together, one goes over, one goes under. They can't negotiate.
01:01:41 And so if you are raised in a situation where you are dominated and bullied and so on,
01:01:49 then you don't develop the relationship skills of negotiation. You just don't.
01:01:55 Now then, you go out into the sexual or romantic marketplace
01:01:59 and you don't have the ability to negotiate.
01:02:03 And so what happens? Well, you have to make some decisions.
01:02:07 Because you can't negotiate, you can't recognize reason or virtue or values or empathy in a positive sense,
01:02:14 or any of that. Empathy can go pathological.
01:02:17 You need a mean of empathy. Too little is cruelty, too much is self-sacrifice.
01:02:21 You need a mean of empathy. Empathy can't be a compulsion.
01:02:25 Empathy has to be a negotiation. You're empathetic with those who share your values of empathy,
01:02:29 but you have to have the ability to turn off your empathy when around cruel or exploitive people,
01:02:34 because otherwise your empathy will simply be used against you, and you get weaponized against yourself,
01:02:38 and you're no longer in control of your own destiny.
01:02:41 You're just appeasing the most aggressive people in the room.
01:02:44 So, if you grow up without being reasoned with, then you lack skills of reasoning,
01:02:49 you lack skills of negotiation. And so how are you going to make decisions?
01:02:54 Well, you're going to make decisions based on lust.
01:02:56 You're going to make decisions based on, "Well, this person is hostile and aggressive,
01:03:00 therefore they must have great value, therefore I will serve them and try to win them."
01:03:05 If you don't have reason, you only have manipulation.
01:03:09 Now, of course, masochism is a form of pretend submission that actually controls the other person.
01:03:18 So, at the end of the third movie, I'm not proud, but I took one for philosophy,
01:03:24 actually I took three for philosophy. At the end of the third movie, "Fifty Shades of Grey",
01:03:30 they go back to the sex dungeon, and the woman turns around and looks at the camera
01:03:38 with a smile of domination, right? Because he is now addicted to dominating her, she's in charge.
01:03:45 She gets the house, she gets the resources, she gets the kid, she gets the guy,
01:03:49 she gets all of this stuff. She's in charge by submitting to him.
01:03:53 And he is actually a slave to dominating her, because he can't get a healthy woman.
01:03:58 And of course, Christian Grey was raised in a situation of extreme child abuse,
01:04:02 and I think molestation, if I remember rightly, and all of that.
01:04:05 So, he wasn't raised in any way learning how to negotiate.
01:04:11 And therefore, the sexual pattern mirrors the relationship dynamic of submission and domination.
01:04:19 And submission is simply a strategy to gain resources, often, right?
01:04:25 I mean, you see this with dogs, right? Dogs will bare their throat to the dominant dog,
01:04:30 and so the dominant dog stops attacking them, and then they get to survive and reproduce.
01:04:35 It's a form of manipulation. So, there is, I think, a sort of Mobius strip,
01:04:39 infinity symbol of wraparound when it comes to this kind of stuff.
01:04:44 Of course, I just realized that I used a flash of a movie scene to make a philosophical point.
01:04:49 But, it certainly struck a chord with people in a very foundational way.
01:04:55 So, yeah, this is the introduction. We have a long ways to go, and a lot of very interesting stuff here about sadism.
01:05:01 I just wanted to put something out to get your thoughts on it, and where we're going,
01:05:06 and whether it has value or interest to you at all.
01:05:10 Of course, I will provide resources, the articles and the footnotes and so on, as we go forward.
01:05:17 Next, we do, okay, well, like, how common is sadism?
01:05:23 Because, you know, if it's teeny, teeny, tiny, then it's more of a sort of outlier movement.
01:05:30 If not, so we've got all of that. We've got the history of sadism and its manifestation
01:05:34 in particular philosophical and artistic and even political personalities,
01:05:40 and where it's grown to in the modern world.
01:05:43 So, we've got a lot of great stuff coming. Please let me know what you think.
01:05:46 freedomain.com/donate if you find these kinds of examinations helpful.
01:05:51 So, this is part one, probably be a six or seven part series, but let me know if you find this helpful.
01:05:56 Thank you so much for all of your support. Lots of love from up here. I'll talk to you soon. Bye.