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The State of Dating in New York City · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. Welcome to step I
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: never told you question if I hurt you. Today, we
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: are so thrilled to be joined by friend of the show,
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: contributor to the show, Friend I r L.
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: Joey.
• 0:26
  Speaker 3: Welcome, joe Thanks for having me. Oh my god, I'm
• 0:29
  Speaker 3: so honored I get the friend I r L title. Now, yes,
• 0:35
  Speaker 3: we've officially all met.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: We were recently in New York and we have officially
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: all met irl, even though I was like, oh really,
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: we haven't already, And.
• 0:45
  Speaker 4: To be fair, I had met Joey you before, so
• 0:48
  Speaker 4: just saying in the I r L.
• 0:51
  Speaker 5: That is not to put that as like a competition
• 0:55
  Speaker 5: or anything.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: But you know, Samantha, geez correct, Okay, never forget you
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: won't let me.
• 1:05
  Speaker 5: Of course. Yes, I'm very excited to talk about this, Joey.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: There are a couple of things we're gonna have to
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: come back and revisit with you soon. One is that
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: since being a guest on our Sex and the City episode,
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: you have since Binge watched Oh.
• 1:23
  Speaker 5: Yeah, correct, I did.
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: I did, And that is what I pitched this episode
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: as it's not a sex in the City episode, but
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: it is a.
• 1:33
  Speaker 5: It is also kind of a Sex in the City
• 1:35
  Speaker 5: episode because again, yeah, you.
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: Guys had me on your show back in spring, and
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: I watched one episode and then like a couple weeks later,
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: I was like, now I'm just curious. I need to
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: go back and watch like the first couple episodes and
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: see what the show is really about. And then cut
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: to like two months later I had seen the entire show,
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: and yeah, I will say I did make a note
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: in my outline here that says apologize to straight.
• 2:01
  Speaker 5: Women because I'm so sorry.
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: I did dismiss the show for a very long time
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: as it's for straight people. I'm not watching this. Why
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: would I watch Sex and the City That was fantastic.
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: I again, I'm sorry straight women. I forget y'all have
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: y'all have some serious game when it comes to the
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: rom com the rom com circuit, I don't know, I
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: like it, but something again, I think like this is
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: something that really because this show really really stuck with me.
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: I will say, like, this is a weird ear. This
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: was a weird summer. The show was maybe one of
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: the things that was keeping me saying this summer and listeners,
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: this may shock you, but I am currently single uh.
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: And you know, obviously a reason you guys talk about
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: the show, and a big reason why it holds up
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: and it's still so popular is because a lot of
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: these experiences are so universal and still hold up and
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: are still sort of things that I have experienced, I've
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: seen my friend's experience. You know, even when you cut
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: through all the weird nineties stuff that doesn't hold up
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: super well.
• 3:07
  Speaker 4: Or.
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: You know, the way dynamics have changed, it's still something
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: that at the end of the day, like very clearly resonates.
• 3:15
  Speaker 5: And so anyways, this is the other thing is I
• 3:19
  Speaker 5: finished the show and immediately went I could do that.
• 3:22
  Speaker 5: I love this, I love everything.
• 3:23
  Speaker 4: But first of all, let's talk about the power of
• 3:25
  Speaker 4: streaming and how it really does bring back old series
• 3:31
  Speaker 4: because this would have never happened.
• 3:32
  Speaker 5: You would have, maybe to be fair, syndication happened.
• 3:34
  Speaker 4: And that's part of the reason I got into Sex
• 3:36
  Speaker 4: and the City because I never originally watched it, but
• 3:38
  Speaker 4: then I watched the syndication when it came out, the
• 3:41
  Speaker 4: very like edited version of Sex and the City. So
• 3:44
  Speaker 4: it's always kind of been there, but this level, like
• 3:47
  Speaker 4: where you can actually binge it and not have to
• 3:49
  Speaker 4: wait I think I actually went after I watched it
• 3:51
  Speaker 4: in syndication and bought the DVDs, not even playing like
• 3:53
  Speaker 4: I went and bought every single season on DVD because
• 3:58
  Speaker 4: I was also that person without streaming, and this is
• 4:00
  Speaker 4: how old I am. I have them somewhere, but I
• 4:04
  Speaker 4: just love that it also is relevant enough, like there's
• 4:07
  Speaker 4: still things that's outdated, but the other things is like, yeah,
• 4:10
  Speaker 4: that line is too hard, and you're like, this is
• 4:13
  Speaker 4: thirty thirty years old, twenty years old. Why do I
• 4:16
  Speaker 4: think this is relevant?
• 4:17
  Speaker 5: Yes, Samantha, I've already told you why. It told me.
• 4:20
  Speaker 5: It took me a little.
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: Bit to finish the last season because of.
• 4:24
  Speaker 5: Some parallels that were happening in my life.
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: But uh yeah, I will say I did. I do
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: remember distinctly, like going to the library and getting the
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: DVD version of like the old seasons of Doctor Who
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: when I was in high school, because I think streaming
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: it just sort of started up then, but my parents
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: were like, no, we're not paying for this, so I
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: have I have bought, I have gotten the DVD set.
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: I have had that experience that.
• 4:55
  Speaker 5: Makes me feel better.
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but and then kind of to go back to
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: hopefully not making y'all feel too old again. I was
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: going to say the other thing about the show that
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: really stook out to me was there was a moment
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: watching it where I realized, like, something that I find
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: really interesting because it is interesting, of course to see
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: the things that are similar and the things that have changed,
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: but in terms of the things that have changed.
• 5:19
  Speaker 5: I realized I.
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: Was kind of raised by the generational women that would
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: have been around the same age as the characters, or
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: like in their twenties thirties when the show is coming out,
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: And so I think it is really interesting to see
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: how much like the expectations and sort of conversation around
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: dating and sex and marriage and all of that was
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: for me growing up, and how much that was not putting,
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: you know, too much on this show.
• 5:51
  Speaker 5: But this show was.
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: Really something that I think was like showcasing that conversation
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: on a mainstream sort of platform for kind of the
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: first time and really like allowing women to have these
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: conversations about sexuality and dating. And so yeah, once again,
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: this is this episode's premise is becoming at a big
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: like I think I could be carry Bradshaw. And then
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: every moment I sat down to write this doubting myself
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: and being like, who am I? Who am I to
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: pretend like I know all there is to know about dating,
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: and then remembering that Carrie is also very bad at
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: dating in the show. So I think, I think maybe
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: I'm perfect for this. That being said, obviously, dating is
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: such a strange thing to write about because it is
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: such an individual experience and it's hard to make general claims. Again,
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: even kind of what I've said so far about like
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: how like the conversation about dating when I was growing up.
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: Obviously that's going to be different for each individual person.
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: Like I grew up in a fairly progressive environment. I
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: think like that really affected how that kind of came
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: across in my life. Was raised by a femine mom,
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: you know. And also there's all these you know, there's
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: different social factors in the fact how we date and
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: who we're dating and where we're dating, et cetera. So
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: I don't mean this to be like a generalization. This
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: is more or less kind of supposed to be me
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: commenting on what I'm seeing in the statistics, what I'm
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: seeing in my life, and what I'm seeing from talking
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: to my friends. So for context, I'm in my mid twenties.
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: I live in New York City. I will say personally,
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: I don't have a strong desire to get married. It
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: would be nice if it happened, if I found the
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: right person, but it's not like my number one priority
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: I think when it comes to dating, which I think
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: has definitely been a big difference that I've seen.
• 7:40
  Speaker 5: I'm also I'm bisexual.
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: I've dated people of all genders personally, and I'm gonna
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: get a little bit more into this later. I have
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: kind of made it a boundary for myself. I only
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: date other queer people, so I'm I don't date straight men,
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: which has been interesting to say the least. But all
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: of this obviously affects like how I date, because yeah, again,
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: like somebody who's listening to this, who if you're a
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: straight woman listening to this, you're gonna have a very
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: different experience than I am. If you're a gay man
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: listening to this, you're gonna have a very different experience.
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: If you are, like lesbian who only dates women, have
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: a different.
• 8:17
  Speaker 5: Experience than I am.
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: If you're somebody who's this gender, you're gonna have a
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: different experience. But again, something I came across when thinking
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: about this this summer and talking to most of my
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: friends about their dating lives, everybody seems super miserable.
• 8:34
  Speaker 5: And some of that is just a given.
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: Some of that is the fact that being a young
• 8:39
  Speaker 3: person and trying to date is always gonna be hard,
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: and especially in the world we live in now. But
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: I do think there's something that's like changed about dating culture,
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: uh for whether you want to say for gen Z
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: or just for like twenty twenty four dating culture or whatever.
• 9:01
  Speaker 3: I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing. I think
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: it's just different. And again I started by talking about
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: Sex and the City because I think watching that show,
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: it was coming out at a time where we also
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: were seeing these norms changing and the conversation changing, and
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: we were seeing these characters trying to navigate those changes
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: as they were happening. And I think, again, those changes
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: weren't necessarily bad.
• 9:24
  Speaker 5: I would argue they were for the best.
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: I think, like, at the end of the day, anything
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: that leads to people being more sexually liberated or just
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: like personally liberated in their identity and their life, like,
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: that's a good thing. But it's a new landscape to navigate.
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: So this is my attempts to break down some of
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: these changes. Going back again to the end of the summer,
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: there was this moment where there was a story that
• 9:49
  Speaker 3: was pulling up on social media about how New York
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: City is supposedly the worst city to be single in.
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: I found a number of like serious news publications.
• 9:58
  Speaker 5: That wrote about this. There was a Timeout.
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: Article about it. It was all over Twitter. You know,
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: it was a fun thing to share, especially if you're single,
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: just being like, ah see, this is the problem. But
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: at the end of the day, it kind of confused
• 10:11
  Speaker 3: me because, look, it's not like it's great being single
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: in New York.
• 10:15
  Speaker 5: But I will say I think like, it is a city.
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: Where there are a lot of young people, there's a
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: lot of single young people, and there's a lot of
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: things happening where like you can go out and meet
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: other people that are also single and maybe have similar
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: interests in you. So I don't know, At least to me,
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: I was like, saying it's the worst city to be
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: single in felt a little bit like a stretch. So
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: I did some research to find this actual survey. Turns
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: out it's from a site called fetish Finder, which is
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: primarily a BDSM blog.
• 10:48
  Speaker 5: I have not been able to find the.
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: Actual survey with the like concrete results and who they
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: were interviewing and who whatever. So Fetish Finder, if you
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: reach out to me and send me the full study.
• 11:02
  Speaker 5: I'm happy to look at it. But I will say
• 11:06
  Speaker 5: this sort.
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: Of made me pause for a sec because I was like,
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: this doesn't seem this doesn't seem right. And then so
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: I did find a article from Secret Philadelphia that was
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: talking about this survey, because Philadelphia was also listed is
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: one of the worst cities, and they did say that
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: researchers conducted a survey that focused on six key metrics
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: and that was one population of single people too, likelihood
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: of marriage, breathe, the annual divorce rate, for the rate
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: of individuals actively searching for a relationship, five quality of living,
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: six cost of living.
• 11:39
  Speaker 5: Those last two I'm not going to talk about because
• 11:41
  Speaker 5: that is okay, that's understandable.
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: But the thing that really stigrated me was this emphasis
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: on likelihood of marriage and divorce rate, because at least
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: to me, I was like, I don't think like that
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: brings up the question is wanting to get married and
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: stay married and not get a divorce, Like is that necessary?
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: To have a healthy romantic and sexual life.
• 12:06
  Speaker 5: Like to me, that seems sort of obsolete.
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: Like I feel like the divorce rate in the city
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: I'm living in is not going to affect how I,
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: a twenty something year old is going to like go
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: about going out first dates, you know.
• 12:23
  Speaker 4: One, I wonder what what was the Did they say
• 12:25
  Speaker 4: who the best, where the best place was to date?
• 12:29
  Speaker 4: Did they say what city was the best? Or did
• 12:31
  Speaker 4: you note that it was definitely?
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: I remember I was surprised because they were like like
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: they basically listed just every major city as like a
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: bad city to date in. I was like, okay, yeah,
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: top ten were cities. It says number one New York,
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: number two, Los Angeles, number three, Philadelphia, number four, Chicago,
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: number five, San Antonio, and then Fort Worth, San Diego, Houston, Phoenix,
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: and San Jose.
• 12:53
  Speaker 5: So Atlanta, you guys do not make the cut.
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: Congrats, But again.
• 12:59
  Speaker 5: To me, this just kind of looks like a list
• 13:01
  Speaker 5: of some major cities.
• 13:03
  Speaker 4: I think, one more reason for you to move to Atlanta.
• 13:05
  Speaker 5: It seems oh.
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah, sorry, this is actually just say exactly that's the
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: that's the takeaway from all this. I did find a
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: New York Post article where they talked about this survey,
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: and in the survey they talked to two people that
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: sort of were like, yes, exactly, that's so right. The
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: two people they interviewed were a twenty three year old
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: and a twenty four year old, and they were both
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: talking about how like they didn't really want to commit
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: to a relationship or whatever people were and I was like,
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: maybe the problem is just that they're twenty three and
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: twenty four, and most people at that age are pretty
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: on the middle. Again, that's just my take. I this
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: study does not worry me too much in the state
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: of what it's like to be a single person in
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: New York or any of the other city mentioned.
• 14:01
  Speaker 4: But yeah, I love that this conversation because honestly, Annie,
• 14:05
  Speaker 4: I just had a throwback on when before I started
• 14:08
  Speaker 4: this show, before I started in or maybe it was
• 14:12
  Speaker 4: right when I was starting with Sminty that you myself
• 14:17
  Speaker 4: another friend of ours had a conversation about how we
• 14:21
  Speaker 4: need to normalize women being sexually active and really like
• 14:26
  Speaker 4: loving sex and all of that. On top of the
• 14:28
  Speaker 4: fact that we also had the conversation that we also
• 14:30
  Speaker 4: need to normalize people who do not need sex, like
• 14:34
  Speaker 4: this is the beginning of your asexuality conversation on our show,
• 14:40
  Speaker 4: not Your Journey, just the show Annie, and I just
• 14:42
  Speaker 4: remember that that was such a big point of our
• 14:45
  Speaker 4: general conversation with our friends, Like it became a whole
• 14:48
  Speaker 4: conversation about like, we know, sex, and the city had
• 14:51
  Speaker 4: like brunch talks where they openly talked about their sex
• 14:53
  Speaker 4: life and this is so amazing. And then coming back
• 14:55
  Speaker 4: to but like, let's stop shaming women who were like, no,
• 14:59
  Speaker 4: I'm good without being overly sexual. I love like both
• 15:04
  Speaker 4: of those things were going like this flip side of
• 15:06
  Speaker 4: both celebrating, you know, women in sexual desires, but also
• 15:11
  Speaker 4: celebrating in the fact that that's not important necessarily a
• 15:15
  Speaker 4: need like for everyone. Like, I think it's so fun
• 15:18
  Speaker 4: that we do have these conversations because it does open
• 15:21
  Speaker 4: up so many avenues.
• 15:22
  Speaker 5: It's interesting that you brought up the the not having sex.
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: A little bit too, because another thing that I keep
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: seeing is there's all these weird like think pieces that
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: keep going around that are like gen Z is not
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: having as.
• 15:35
  Speaker 5: Much sex as previous generations, and I don't.
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: That always is so weird to me because I'm sort
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: of like, okay, again, what is your metrics for how
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: you're asking people, because I think all of the things
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: you're describing, there are things that happen in every generation.
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: There are people that decide like, this isn't for me,
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: I'd rather There are people that decide like, yes, I'd
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: rather wait till marriage.
• 15:54
  Speaker 5: There's people that decide.
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: I'm not as into sex as people that are a
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: sexual etcetera, etcetera.
• 16:00
  Speaker 5: There's people that just.
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: Decide to not prioritize dating, and at the same time,
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: like there's people that are doing all the normal things
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: or you know, engaging in hookup culture or whatnot. You
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: have your you know, you have your Samanthas, and you
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: have your your Charlotte's and every generation on this Samantha.
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: But there does seem to be a weird obsession with like, oh,
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: gen Z isn't having sex.
• 16:23
  Speaker 5: I don't know.
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: I think in my my friend group, my close friends,
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: what I have seen that I feel is different is
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: when we were younger, we all thought we wanted the
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: kids in the marriage, and now I have I'd say
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: at least fifty percent of my friends are like, actually,
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: I'm really good without that, and or like, if that happens,
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: it's nice, But I'm fine being single or going about
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: my own my work or whatever it is. We did
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: a show on online dating and people were telling their
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: stories and I was like, why the could anybody put
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: up with this?
• 17:05
  Speaker 5: This is ridiculous.
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: Well that's a perfect segue because my next section is
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: about online dating culture and online hookup culture. So this
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: is where I think it's interesting. And I would love
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: to hear both of your perspective on this too, because
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: I my entire Tinder came out, like Tinder was released
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: in twenty twelve, I was in middle school. My entire
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: teen years, dating apps were kind of seen they were
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: like a new thing, but they were like becoming normalized.
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: They were becoming a part of the culture, and I
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: think especially they were starting to become very heavily associated
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: with like millennial dating culture. And again, at the time,
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: it was sort of seen as this new novel thing.
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: By the time I was getting to their age where
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: I was starting to date, it was just sort of
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: seen as like the norm, Like it wasn't like everybody
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: you know, you turn eighteen and you download Hine or whatever.
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: And again, I do think something that is that genuinely
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: is a big change that has happened is that.
• 18:13
  Speaker 5: If you look at the statistics.
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: Now in twenty twenty four, gen Z is using dating
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: apps significantly less than older age groups, when again, when
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: it was launched in twenty twelve, the app was almost
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: entirely geared towards millennials who would have been in that
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: eighteen to twenty five age group.
• 18:32
  Speaker 5: That now, that.
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: Eighteen to twenty five age group is not the main
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: demographic of Tinder. And I will say I use dating apps.
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: I think dating apps are fun. I think there definitely
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: is like a market for them. But I think just
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: sort of culturally, people are beginning to feel very burnt
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: out from dating apps. And part of this is, I
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: don't know if you guys remember this, but like four
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: years ago, like nobody could leave their houses and everybody's
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: social interaction was online.
• 19:23
  Speaker 5: I do remember that. I know it was crazy. People
• 19:27
  Speaker 5: seem to be forgetting.
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: So who's to say I was twenty when the pandemic started.
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: I And if you look at the age demographic of
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: gen Z, a lot of gen Z was finishing up
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: high school starting college in their late teens early twenties,
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: and for a lot of people, again that is when
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: you start using dating apps. That's when you start like
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: really experimenting with dating and meeting new people. And for
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: a lot of people, all of a sudden everything was online.
• 20:01
  Speaker 5: You were only really able to meet people online.
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: And so I think it does make sense that Tinder
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: did reach its peak user base in twenty twenty one
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: and twenty twenty two, so sort of this time when
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: a lot of people were still following like social distancing
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: rules and whatnot. Not going to get into the state
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: of how we're handling COVID now that's a whole other conversation,
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: but yeah, I think like we need to remember a
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: lot of gen z we spent those sort of formative
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: years when we were supposed to be experiencing these kind
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: of connections for the first time, or really experiencing like
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: serious connections like this for the first time completely online.
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: I know a lot of people that had like their
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: first relationships start as online relationships during lockdown, and there's
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: nothing wrong with that. I am like all for people
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: that have long distance online relationships, I will say a
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: lot of them are not together anymore. I do know
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: a couple that are still together, so you know, it
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: does work for some people, But I think a lot
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: of times, Like again, that worked for when that was
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: the only option, but it gets old, and I think
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: part of the burnout with dating apps comes from the
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: fact that we're all just tired because that was the
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: only option for like a solid two years to meet people.
• 21:32
  Speaker 5: That being said, of course, like I'm sure everybody.
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: Listening to this knows at least one couple that got
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: together through a dating app. I like, I have a few,
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: like really close friends in my life that met their
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: partners through dating apps and are like in healthy, happy relationships.
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: So clearly people are still using these apps to go
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: out and meet people.
• 21:50
  Speaker 5: But also we live in a.
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: Weird late capitalist healscape where all these companies are obsessed
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: with constantly expanding and growing, and I think what they're
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: starting to see is that money is plateauing. These companies
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: like are seeing that their userbase is sort of hitting
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: a peek. People are turning to other things, and they're
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: kind of panicking, which.
• 22:08
  Speaker 5: Is how we got Earlier this year.
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: There was a weird moment when Bumble decided the next
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: the best way to advertise to gen Z was to
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: put up all these billboards that were like discouraging celibacy.
• 22:20
  Speaker 5: Was a weird moment. This was back in April.
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: It's been dubbed the bumble Fumble, which I kind of love, but.
• 22:25
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it was. I think like.
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: Part of the frustration I've been hearing with dating apps
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: is that a lot of these apps are doing these
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: weird sort of marketing techniques to try and get people
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: to stay on. They are messing with the algorithms in
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: a way where they want you to pay to get
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: like the premium access so you can get your best
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: matches because they need to keep making money even though
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: the thing that they're doing they've kind of reached the
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: limit of how much it works.
• 22:52
  Speaker 4: Yeah, we actually did do I think a Monday money
• 22:56
  Speaker 4: on the bumble Fumble, as well as like all of
• 22:59
  Speaker 4: the pay for essentially pay for play. I know that's
• 23:02
  Speaker 4: a very like not taboo way to say it, but
• 23:04
  Speaker 4: like the way that the dating apps have become like
• 23:06
  Speaker 4: you can't just find a person, but if you want
• 23:08
  Speaker 4: to superior person, you'll have to pay the apps. And
• 23:13
  Speaker 4: some have actually touted that as a security measure, which
• 23:16
  Speaker 4: is hilarious because they were like anybody can pay, like
• 23:20
  Speaker 4: that's the reason black markets exist in the first place.
• 23:23
  Speaker 5: But all of those conversations.
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, that's the thing too, Like, look, I'm not
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: going to judge anybody based on whatever we're doing the
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: other dating Like, I've never.
• 23:30
  Speaker 5: Paid for a dating app.
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: I don't see a world in which you need to
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: pay for a dating app. We talked about the bumble
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: Fumble as well on there are no girls on the
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: Internet with fort shit and.
• 23:43
  Speaker 5: As well kind of.
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: All of these weird moves these companies are making, and
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: the fact that, you know, something we talked about in
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: the show too is the fact that a lot of
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: people seem to be burnt out with these apps. And
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: I do think part of it is that the apps
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: are sort of making it weird. They're really trying to
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: get you to pay money. They're trying to get you
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: to like subscribe to these premium accounts. But at the
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: same time, I do think it is important to remember, like, yeah,
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: we're all coming off of a significant period of time
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: where we were only interacting with people online and that
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: gets old.
• 24:17
  Speaker 5: And I think like a lot of people are really craving.
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: You know, meeting people quote unquote naturally or like in public,
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: or meeting people just sort of spontaneously.
• 24:28
  Speaker 5: Again, I see, you're both shaking your heads.
• 24:31
  Speaker 6: I'd love to hear your I'm making no, we just
• 24:34
  Speaker 6: don't want to meet people, or that too. That too,
• 24:38
  Speaker 6: this introvert is very heavily staying in my house.
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: This also, I think it's fascinating because I will say,
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: I was gonna say the top I I'm ultimately somebody
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: who is very much pessimist in my life, but dating
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: is maybe one of the one spaces where I'm like
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: more optimistic, I think than most people, just.
• 24:55
  Speaker 5: Because I'm like, I love to meet people. I'm an extrovert.
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: I think like, even if it doesn't work out, it's
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: always nice to meet new people.
• 25:03
  Speaker 5: And like, see what I see who's out there?
• 25:07
  Speaker 4: You are a young extrovert ready to take it on
• 25:12
  Speaker 4: the world and meet new people. I think again, this
• 25:15
  Speaker 4: is a lot to do with like personality, but also changes.
• 25:18
  Speaker 5: And that brings me to this question.
• 25:20
  Speaker 4: Are you going out to meet people if you're not
• 25:23
  Speaker 4: using apps? Is that actually happening? Are you going to bars?
• 25:26
  Speaker 4: Are people going back to bars? Is that a thing?
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: People are going back to bars? I will say, I think, like,
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: see this is the question. I'm getting that too, because
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: I'll say, like, I'm somebody I'll go out to bars
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: with friends. I'll go to I've they've done a lot
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: of like local events. Again, like I'm queer, I mostly
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: go to events that are focused towards like the queer community.
• 25:48
  Speaker 5: But I think.
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: There really has been kind of a emphasis on trying
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: to go out and meet people, yeah, at bars or
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: like there was like a tweet that I remember seeing
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: that was like we need to like yeah, we just
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: need to bring back people having like house parties and
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: people need to get house parties, which is.
• 26:10
  Speaker 5: Like, yeah, no, that's like I don't know.
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: I'll go to house parties, you meet friends, and friends,
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: you meet likes these normal ways that people were like
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: meeting people and dating and people. And I think, again,
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: I don't want to blame too much of this on
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: like twenty twenty in Lockdown, but I think we are
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: all still a little bit socially stunted from that, and
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: I think part of the sort of awkwardness around dating
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: right now is coming from that and coming from.
• 26:34
  Speaker 5: The back that we were all like.
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: Still kind of learning how to be human skin and
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: learning how to interact.
• 26:42
  Speaker 5: However, I will say, on.
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: The app side of the question, while we're seeing these
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: sort of like old guard quote unquote dating apps like
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: Tinder and Hinge and Bumble losing users or like at
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: least their numbers starting to plateau.
• 27:02
  Speaker 5: Something that has changed recently is.
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: That there's a lot more like specific apps that are
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: either geared mainly at like cookups or non traditional sort
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: of relationship styles that have seen like an increase in
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: users and that I find interesting. So a kind of
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: case study in this is the app Field. If you
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: haven't heard of Field. It was originally launched in twenty fourteen,
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: and it was called I don't know how to pronounce
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: this three ender ThReD. It's like Tinger, but they have
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: a three instead of the TI. Like it's clearly supposed
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: to be like like it's it's supposed to be like ooh.
• 27:41
  Speaker 5: Threesomes have I don't know whatever, but it's it's supposed
• 27:45
  Speaker 5: to be like cheeky.
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: But it's an app that is primarily was geared towards
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: people that were interested in kink or polyamory or you know, exploring.
• 27:54
  Speaker 5: Multiple partners, et cetera.
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: Basically any sort of like non traditional or like taboo
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: type of sex or relationship style. The app is notally
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: like very pro sex worker and sex positive, and that
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: is kind of why it's seen a lot of people
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: again that are either in sex workspaces or like more
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: drawn to less traditional forms of sex or whatever relationships
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: or whatever, have come to this app. Field is again
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: unlike Tinder and Hinged in all these other apps, it's
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: one of the few apps that is seen a significant
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: increase in.
• 28:26
  Speaker 5: Users the past few years.
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: So there is this really great article from Cosmopolitan UK
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: that was called is Field like a mainstream dating app?
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: Now love that title as somebody who writes how I talk,
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: But this article points out how the app nearly doubled
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: its revenue in twenty twenty three, which again very different
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: from the conversation we're having with other apps.
• 28:51
  Speaker 5: And I think there's a number of reasons for this.
• 28:57
  Speaker 5: You guys have kind of talked before on this app
• 28:59
  Speaker 5: about how some of the.
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: Lingo that traditionally has been more associated with like underground
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: taboo lifestyles or like sexual preferences or whatever, has kind
• 29:16
  Speaker 3: of been making its way into mainstream a lot more.
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: You guys in an episode I think earlier this year
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: about like the popularity of U saying like daddy and
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: mommy all of a sudden, as kind of colloquial words
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: and how that originally had of course a very much
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: more explicit not that it's not sexual now, but at
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: least it seems like it's kind of been toned down
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: a little bit.
• 29:39
  Speaker 5: And I find this sort of the fact that Field is.
• 29:42
  Speaker 3: Becoming more popular really interesting because I think it is
• 29:45
  Speaker 3: kind of in the same vein of that debate over
• 29:48
  Speaker 3: whether it's becoming mainstream because people are more open and
• 29:52
  Speaker 3: more liberated sexually, or it's just becoming a like toned
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: down version of this thing that people think is like
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: a and sexy and then they get there and they're
• 30:02
  Speaker 3: sort of like in over their heads. So going back
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: to that article from Cosmopolitan, there was a quote that
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: I think really some of this up that said, for
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: some of the king community, new members are enthusiastically welcomed
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: for other Field's recent popularity and makes them feel like
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: a quote spectacle. One user tells Cosmopolitan UK that some
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: men quote see women on there as being easy and
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: too available for sex, and that it has started to
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: feel like quote a platform for men to throw around
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: the word dom without understanding it. Another female user agree,
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: describing Field as quote oversaturated with people with no clue
• 30:37
  Speaker 3: asking overly intimate questions straight off the bat. So again
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: I I that is something that's really interesting to me.
• 30:46
  Speaker 5: Like it's.
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: I think again going back to that idea of like,
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: these things are becoming less taboo. These are things that
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: people are talking about more openly, These are things that
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: are less stigmatized. But what is that actually doing to
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: like the people that are interested in these things, that
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: want to have these communities and want to have these
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: like more ansular communities. And again, another kind of difference
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: with Field that I think is interesting is the article
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: did include this quote from the Field CEO and a Crova,
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: a female ceo.
• 31:23
  Speaker 5: You know dating apps. Historically they've had a lot of
• 31:27
  Speaker 5: problems with misogyny, So maybe that's a good sign.
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: I don't know, but she was quoted saying, in terms
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: of scale, there's so much potential for Field, but we
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: have to make sure people are involved for the right
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: reasons and they behave in a certain way. We're not
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: trying to grow at all cost, which again is very
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: different from what Tinder and Hinge and Bumble are sort
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: of prioritizing.
• 31:47
  Speaker 5: And this maybe.
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: Gives me hope for the fact that maybe like Field,
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: won't turn into the next fumble fumble situation.
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: Uh, But who's to say.
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: It's interesting to me because I feel when we've done these,
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: when we were looking at what's going on with online dating,
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: something has happened in a lot of cases where going
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: back to this point of men coming on just to
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: throw around the term dom where it's like more men
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: than women in a lot of cases, and they'll go
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: to where they think the women are, but they will
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: tell you anything. And I know I'm generalizing, but I've
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: just we've seen this in a lot of cases when
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: it was talking about the statistics and men just being like, well,
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: there's we must go over here now let's try feel
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: So it's sort of like I hope that they're able
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: to make the space not become a place where it's
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: just dudes who don't care to underst stand the truth
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: of it or what it's about. But that is what
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: we've seen in a lot of these instances.
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: I will say a lot of my conclusions at the
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: end of this are a lot of the problems come
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: down to the fact that men are still very bad
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: at respecting boundaries.
• 33:16
  Speaker 5: But yeah, I think it does kind of bring about.
• 33:19
  Speaker 3: The question where it's like, how do you navigate like
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: wanting to as as somebody who's not a sis man,
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: as somebody who's like a woman or or non binary
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: or whatever however you identify, Like if you want to
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: be engaging in more casual dating or casual sex or whatever,
• 33:36
  Speaker 3: how do you do that in a way that's also
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: not putting you in a space where like you're with
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: these men that just kind of like, like the quote said,
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: sort of just see you as like being quote easy.
• 33:47
  Speaker 5: I guess this might be a good place.
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: To bring up my one big dating gap complaint, which
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: is so I brought up at the top I only
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: date other queer people. That is, I have another episode
• 34:06
  Speaker 3: I'm doing for you guys at some point about non
• 34:09
  Speaker 3: binary identity and all of that and kind of how
• 34:14
  Speaker 3: what that means to me, but also sort of the
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: state of how I think unfortunately, since people have sort
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: of taken it and turned it into like a third
• 34:20
  Speaker 3: checkbox on like you know, if you're like filling out
• 34:23
  Speaker 3: a form and it says like male female, like they've kind.
• 34:25
  Speaker 5: Of just made it like a third category instead of really,
• 34:28
  Speaker 5: We're going to get into that in another episode.
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: But I have had this weird not weird, I guess
• 34:35
  Speaker 3: very expected thing happened this past year where I all
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: of my dating apps, I verily clearly state I'm not
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: interested in straight men. I am somebody who I consider
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: myself like trans masculine. I might at some point decide
• 34:49
  Speaker 3: that I want to take more steps to transition physically
• 34:53
  Speaker 3: or you know, just socially sort of present more as male.
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: So I'm not interested in dating straight men because to me,
• 35:02
  Speaker 3: it's like if you're a man and you are only interested.
• 35:05
  Speaker 5: In dating.
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: Women, or you're not interested in dating other CIS men, like,
• 35:11
  Speaker 3: to me, that just says that you only sort of
• 35:14
  Speaker 3: see me as like a reduction to what my body is,
• 35:17
  Speaker 3: and you're not really interested in getting to know me
• 35:18
  Speaker 3: as a person or whatever. For some reason, this very
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: very low bar boundary does not seem to communicate to
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: many men on these data gaps. Because I have done
• 35:33
  Speaker 3: some of the most ridiculous messages on Hinge, on Tendre,
• 35:39
  Speaker 3: on field too, I will say one of the most
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: ridiculous ones is that somebody responded to me and said,
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: I like to be the little spoon.
• 35:47
  Speaker 5: Does that make me straight? I'm just gonna leave that
• 35:51
  Speaker 5: one there. Anyways, and I know I'm not alone.
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: Here because this is something that I've seen discussed more
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: and more online, and this is something I've discussed with
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: friends where I think we're at a weird spot where
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: and I think, again, I live in a more progressive
• 36:05
  Speaker 3: environment obviously, so this is kind of more the case
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: and more than norm there where I think, like, like
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: something else I see, so and Field is the only
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: app so far that I've seen that has like allowing
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: people to do this. But people like, you can put
• 36:17
  Speaker 3: your sexuality on your your profile and people will say, like,
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: instead of saying that they're like by or straight, they'll
• 36:24
  Speaker 3: say they're dinosexual, which means they're only attracted to people
• 36:27
  Speaker 3: with like.
• 36:28
  Speaker 5: Vaginas, which I don't know.
• 36:33
  Speaker 3: Again, to each their own, but to me, that makes
• 36:36
  Speaker 3: me deeply uncomfortable. That is not something I want to
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: hear from somebody that I'm trying to date. I can imagine,
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: especially as like a more binary transperson, that is not.
• 36:46
  Speaker 5: Something that you want to hear.
• 36:48
  Speaker 3: But yeah, I just I think, like going back to
• 36:52
  Speaker 3: that that quote about these men coming in and just
• 36:55
  Speaker 3: calling them yeah, throwing around the word dom and saying
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: that going where they think that it'll be easy to
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: find sex. I think there has been kind of also
• 37:02
  Speaker 3: a trend of men like finding ways to change the
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: language and still be objectifying to anybody that they see
• 37:09
  Speaker 3: as a woman or quote like a woman light because
• 37:12
  Speaker 3: at the end of the day, I am aware that
• 37:14
  Speaker 3: like some especially men, see me and just are sort
• 37:17
  Speaker 3: of like, okay, you are you are a woman with
• 37:20
  Speaker 3: short hair, you are a slightly quirky woman. That is
• 37:22
  Speaker 3: what your gender is, and that that's also a weird
• 37:25
  Speaker 3: thing to try and navigate like. That is the reason
• 37:27
  Speaker 3: why I'm like, I have so many questions, yes, opening
• 37:32
  Speaker 3: up to the table.
• 37:33
  Speaker 4: I need I need to clarify that because of the
• 37:37
  Speaker 4: lag in our recording that I thought you said dino
• 37:41
  Speaker 4: as in like d dog, and I was like, do
• 37:43
  Speaker 4: they just really like dinosaurs?
• 37:45
  Speaker 5: So I was really confused. So I had a kind
• 37:47
  Speaker 5: of boomer moment.
• 37:49
  Speaker 4: Then I realized what you said, and that sounds like
• 37:52
  Speaker 4: very much a man making something up just to sound
• 37:55
  Speaker 4: So is it just mainly men who put that as
• 37:56
  Speaker 4: their sexuality or am I assuming.
• 37:58
  Speaker 3: I will say, I've only I've only seen cis men
• 38:01
  Speaker 3: do this so far. Okay, again to each throne, maybe
• 38:05
  Speaker 3: somebody is like, that's fine by me, I don't care.
• 38:08
  Speaker 3: To me, that seems weird and reductive and like, at
• 38:13
  Speaker 3: the end of the day, it does not not seem
• 38:14
  Speaker 3: more transphobic to just refer like to you just found
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: like a like a progressive way of saying I only
• 38:21
  Speaker 3: want a date.
• 38:22
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I agree.
• 38:23
  Speaker 4: There's definitely transphobia in there, misogyny in there, Like way
• 38:26
  Speaker 4: to put a person down to their private parts, like
• 38:29
  Speaker 4: to their genitalia. That's such a weird way, Like you've
• 38:32
  Speaker 4: obviously just said you don't care about that person, You're
• 38:35
  Speaker 4: just using them, uh, and their reproductive product. Like it's
• 38:39
  Speaker 4: such a despicable in every realm, Like it's sexist, transphobic, uh,
• 38:44
  Speaker 4: like homophobic, all of the things. It's like, what are you?
• 38:48
  Speaker 4: What is wrong with you? Just go find yourself a flashlight.
• 38:50
  Speaker 4: This is what you need.
• 38:52
  Speaker 3: Sorry, Well yeah, it is, like and it's it's one
• 38:56
  Speaker 3: of those things where I'm.
• 38:57
  Speaker 5: Like, do you just see like do you just see
• 38:59
  Speaker 5: queer people?
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: Is like being more like again quote unquote like easy
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: or like sexually.
• 39:04
  Speaker 5: So you're like, oh, I need to get in there.
• 39:05
  Speaker 5: That's where I got.
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: But I will say too, I do know I was
• 39:08
  Speaker 3: recently talking to like a friend of mine who's cis
• 39:11
  Speaker 3: gender lesbian, and she was complaining about too, how like
• 39:14
  Speaker 3: they're keep being CIS men that'll show up on her
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: dating app like like kind of like she'll be scrolling
• 39:21
  Speaker 3: through and they'll be like a lot of CIS men
• 39:23
  Speaker 3: that'll have their things say that they're lesbians even though
• 39:27
  Speaker 3: they're identifying themselves as CIS men, because they think that's
• 39:32
  Speaker 3: the way to go about meeting women that'll be interested
• 39:35
  Speaker 3: in them somehow.
• 39:35
  Speaker 4: At that point, I feel like they're just trying to
• 39:37
  Speaker 4: find a way to get rejection.
• 39:39
  Speaker 5: It's like a rejection king. Ooh maybe maybe it's a king.
• 39:47
  Speaker 3: Oh god no, no, this is the like see, this
• 39:52
  Speaker 3: is bringing back to at the beginning of the year
• 39:53
  Speaker 3: when I was on talking about all the like TikTok
• 39:55
  Speaker 3: trends and like different like fashion trends and how I
• 39:58
  Speaker 3: like ultimately so a lot of that was connected to
• 40:01
  Speaker 3: like kink content and like how like especially the tradwife movement,
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: there's a whole weird kind of side of that that
• 40:10
  Speaker 3: is related to kink content.
• 40:13
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it's we can't scart, which which leads me to
• 40:16
  Speaker 5: my next point, which is we live in a really
• 40:20
  Speaker 5: dub world right now.
• 40:23
  Speaker 3: And I think ultimately, like as much as we want
• 40:26
  Speaker 3: to speculate and talk about how these apps are working
• 40:30
  Speaker 3: and how like social dynamics are changing, and how like
• 40:36
  Speaker 3: what people are looking for and dating is changing, at
• 40:40
  Speaker 3: the end of the day, if you're somebody who's trying
• 40:47
  Speaker 3: to date men, trying to date SIS men, we need
• 40:52
  Speaker 3: also look at the culture that is happening with SIS
• 40:55
  Speaker 3: straight men right now. And like, I don't know if
• 40:58
  Speaker 3: you guys know this, but we just had it pretty
• 41:00
  Speaker 3: significant presidential election in which you know, myself and a
• 41:10
  Speaker 3: lot of people were very, very scared and disappointed with
• 41:15
  Speaker 3: the outcome for many reasons.
• 41:17
  Speaker 5: And a big part of that is.
• 41:21
  Speaker 3: Questions about the future of reproductive rights and bodily autonomy.
• 41:25
  Speaker 3: And you know, right now are having this Supreme Court
• 41:28
  Speaker 3: Court case going on about access to gender firming care,
• 41:32
  Speaker 3: like bodily autonomy is under attack from many different sizes
• 41:37
  Speaker 3: right now. And then the other side of that too. Again,
• 41:44
  Speaker 3: I don't it's complicated when we talk about the election.
• 41:47
  Speaker 3: I don't want to take away the agency of the
• 41:49
  Speaker 3: fact that there were a lot of women that voted
• 41:51
  Speaker 3: for Trump, particularly white women.
• 41:53
  Speaker 5: There were a lot of white women that voted for Trump.
• 41:56
  Speaker 3: But that being said, just seeing the numbers of men
• 42:00
  Speaker 3: across all demographics, having those numbers go up for men
• 42:05
  Speaker 3: that had voted for Trump, like, that's got to be scary.
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: And I think seeing these yeah again, seeing these numbers
• 42:12
  Speaker 3: grow up, seeing how many men are being radicalized by
• 42:15
  Speaker 3: this kind of rhetoric, are being radicalized by these sort
• 42:18
  Speaker 3: of movements. There's it's no surprise that things like the
• 42:23
  Speaker 3: four B movement are you know, getting a lot of
• 42:26
  Speaker 3: traction on social media right now, and you know whether
• 42:30
  Speaker 3: or not that's going to be effective or whatnot. I
• 42:33
  Speaker 3: think the fact that it is kind of becoming more
• 42:36
  Speaker 3: prevalent is something that people are talking about, is showing
• 42:38
  Speaker 3: the fact that, yeah, it's it's hard to date if
• 42:41
  Speaker 3: you're a straight woman and your options are like sixty
• 42:45
  Speaker 3: percent dudes who have fallen down a weird right wing
• 42:50
  Speaker 3: rabbit hole. I think something else that was really concerning
• 42:53
  Speaker 3: was right before the election, there was this trend going
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: around of women being like canceling out my husband's.
• 42:57
  Speaker 5: Vote, like that was that was weird, That was weird.
• 43:03
  Speaker 3: And that and I that's another conversation where I think, like,
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: what does that say about you that you're married to
• 43:09
  Speaker 3: somebody who's doing that. But on a larger scale, yeah,
• 43:13
  Speaker 3: that is very concerning to see like what the trends
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: are here.
• 43:29
  Speaker 4: But yeah, they's definitely a big conversation and who is
• 43:34
  Speaker 4: controlling a lot of like the narratives as well as
• 43:38
  Speaker 4: how to how to kind of like sift through all
• 43:41
  Speaker 4: the information that is being said, because the back and
• 43:44
  Speaker 4: forth in that conversation alone about women saying they have
• 43:48
  Speaker 4: to hide their votes and then say from their husbands,
• 43:51
  Speaker 4: and that being a whole narrative, and then it got
• 43:52
  Speaker 4: flipped into weirdly being like women were lying to their
• 43:55
  Speaker 4: friends because they did not want to be ostracized for
• 43:57
  Speaker 4: voting for Trump. Like there's so many back and forth
• 44:00
  Speaker 4: in them. And when I just talk about women, like
• 44:03
  Speaker 4: the bigger pictures seem to be like the white Cis
• 44:05
  Speaker 4: women that we have talked about many times. And then
• 44:09
  Speaker 4: we also see a bigger like a great big number
• 44:12
  Speaker 4: of people who would be considered allies in trying to
• 44:16
  Speaker 4: help protect these rights. And of course there's that other
• 44:19
  Speaker 4: It's weird because it's all over the world right now.
• 44:22
  Speaker 4: Like I have been in deep thought and looking through
• 44:24
  Speaker 4: having a conversation about feminism around the world and the
• 44:27
  Speaker 4: states of it, because we're seeing governments collapse, We're seeing
• 44:31
  Speaker 4: the rise of new feminist groups coming up, which is amazing,
• 44:34
  Speaker 4: but we're also seeing bad feminist groups coming at the forefront.
• 44:38
  Speaker 6: Two.
• 44:38
  Speaker 4: And you're like, oh, no, no, learn from the US
• 44:41
  Speaker 4: and old school ways.
• 44:42
  Speaker 5: You don't want to do it this way.
• 44:44
  Speaker 4: But it's such a hard conversation because it's both cyclical
• 44:48
  Speaker 4: and new.
• 44:49
  Speaker 3: Right exactly, I think, like, again, this is where I'm
• 44:52
  Speaker 3: I'm kind of I want to.
• 44:52
  Speaker 5: Be careful here.
• 44:53
  Speaker 3: I'm not saying like, oh, it's just men that are
• 44:55
  Speaker 3: the problem, because I don't believe in gender essentialism to
• 44:59
  Speaker 3: begin with. I think, like, I don't think your gender
• 45:03
  Speaker 3: is the overall determining thing and like what kind of
• 45:05
  Speaker 3: person you end up being. But like, and yeah, there
• 45:09
  Speaker 3: were a lot of women, there were a lot of
• 45:13
  Speaker 3: CIS women, there were a lot of straight women. I'm
• 45:15
  Speaker 3: sure there were queer women too that voted for Trump
• 45:21
  Speaker 3: and that was their decision. And I'm not going to
• 45:23
  Speaker 3: take the agency away from them from saying like, like,
• 45:26
  Speaker 3: obviously they did that, that was their decision. But at
• 45:30
  Speaker 3: the same time, like, what are the rest of us
• 45:32
  Speaker 3: supposed to do, like we're all suffering from this. And
• 45:36
  Speaker 3: then yeah, when you look at the numbers of men
• 45:38
  Speaker 3: like like that that voted for Trump, the the increases
• 45:42
  Speaker 3: are significantly more. And yeah, again, I mean sex is
• 45:49
  Speaker 3: power and dating is power. One of my favorites Janelmona
• 45:53
  Speaker 3: songs is everything is sex except sex, which is power.
• 45:56
  Speaker 3: This is a lot of ways, like how marginalized people,
• 46:00
  Speaker 3: how women like that is the way that we have
• 46:04
  Speaker 3: shown power historically. And again, like, I think that is
• 46:08
  Speaker 3: why it makes sense that we're seeing this increasing conversations
• 46:11
  Speaker 3: about stuff like four B and like more extreme movements, whether.
• 46:17
  Speaker 5: Or not it's going to be effective.
• 46:19
  Speaker 3: I again, kind of going back to what you're saying,
• 46:22
  Speaker 3: I think we are in danger of sort of like
• 46:24
  Speaker 3: falling into very turfy gender essentialist type rabbit holes that
• 46:31
  Speaker 3: are just going to ultimately end up hurting all of us.
• 46:35
  Speaker 3: But at the same time, like I understand why this
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: reaction is happening. Like, if you're looking into the world
• 46:40
  Speaker 3: and this is the stories you're reading about, like all
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: of these men that are voting to take away your
• 46:46
  Speaker 3: bodily autonomy, you're seeing, you know, Nick Fuentes, get on
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: Twitter right after the election and say like your body
• 46:53
  Speaker 3: my choice, and hearing about like middle school boys shouting
• 46:56
  Speaker 3: your body my choice at like teachers and young like
• 47:01
  Speaker 3: that is terrifying.
• 47:03
  Speaker 5: And I think we can't talk.
• 47:04
  Speaker 3: About the fact that something really weird is happening with
• 47:07
  Speaker 3: dating and dating culture without talking about the fact that
• 47:10
  Speaker 3: something weird is.
• 47:11
  Speaker 5: Just happening with.
• 47:13
  Speaker 3: Men in general and the radicalization of young men.
• 47:17
  Speaker 4: Because honestly, on the other scales to this, because we've talked,
• 47:20
  Speaker 4: we're talking about the gen z or dating you uh,
• 47:23
  Speaker 4: a queer person dating, non binding queer person dating and
• 47:26
  Speaker 4: in New York and all these things, and then the
• 47:30
  Speaker 4: bigger conversation of like, we love seeing we being the
• 47:34
  Speaker 4: old people love seeing things change and people understanding that
• 47:39
  Speaker 4: things are own spectrums now and it's not just black
• 47:42
  Speaker 4: or white or you know, arb, but then also seeing
• 47:45
  Speaker 4: like a big chunk of and this is sad for
• 47:48
  Speaker 4: y'all gen Z boys voting for Trump. Like, I honestly
• 47:53
  Speaker 4: was really shocked by that, almost as shocked as like, uh,
• 47:56
  Speaker 4: not really, but like Latina Latino voters also not really,
• 48:00
  Speaker 4: but you know, on that level of like, huh, I
• 48:03
  Speaker 4: really thought that there was this big shift, but it's
• 48:06
  Speaker 4: not changed that much.
• 48:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I mean honestly same, And like I think
• 48:11
  Speaker 3: part of that, like I sort of naively hoped that again,
• 48:17
  Speaker 3: this is the thing where I was like, oh see,
• 48:20
  Speaker 3: it seems like our generation is so much more understanding
• 48:23
  Speaker 3: about like gender diversity and you know, sexuality being much
• 48:28
  Speaker 3: more fluid and.
• 48:32
  Speaker 5: Whatnot. And then or not maybe not or even if
• 48:39
  Speaker 5: that's not the main like even.
• 48:41
  Speaker 3: If if there's somebody who maybe doesn't believe that and
• 48:44
  Speaker 3: you know, voted for other reasons, they're still at least
• 48:49
  Speaker 3: saying that they don't care enough about these issues to
• 48:52
  Speaker 3: make it like a priority.
• 48:56
  Speaker 5: So yeah, it's weird. It is.
• 48:57
  Speaker 3: It is weird, And I think this was sort of
• 49:02
  Speaker 3: the like, it was fun writing this episode and delving
• 49:05
  Speaker 3: into all the like, you know, the way that we're
• 49:07
  Speaker 3: meeting and how that's changing and the way that you know,
• 49:10
  Speaker 3: conversations about sex and sexuality, like the ways they are
• 49:14
  Speaker 3: becoming more open. But then at the same time, it's
• 49:17
  Speaker 3: kind of like, oh, now we can't we can't talk
• 49:19
  Speaker 3: about this without addressing the fact that, yeah, it is
• 49:23
  Speaker 3: gonna be weird to date if your dating pool includes
• 49:27
  Speaker 3: a bunch of men that don't see you as like
• 49:30
  Speaker 3: a human being.
• 49:32
  Speaker 5: So I don't know, and I.
• 49:35
  Speaker 3: Don't think we should be settling for that. That is
• 49:37
  Speaker 3: the last thing we should be doing. So to clearly things,
• 49:43
  Speaker 3: you know what, We're always gonna need a feminist movement.
• 49:45
  Speaker 5: We're always gonna need a queer liberation movement. And this
• 49:49
  Speaker 5: is why I guess this is our job security now.
• 49:52
  Speaker 3: Huh, so much to talk about, but at what cost?
• 49:59
  Speaker 5: That's true.
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: I hate when people tell me that It's like, oh,
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: you'll have plenty to talk about, Like I kind I
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: would rather not rather not have that much.
• 50:07
  Speaker 3: So on that note, I do ultimately have hope. I
• 50:11
  Speaker 3: do ultimately feel optimistic. Again, like I talked about at
• 50:16
  Speaker 3: the top of this episode, I'm in my mid twenties.
• 50:20
  Speaker 3: This is kind of the time when this is supposed
• 50:22
  Speaker 3: to be happening, you know. Bringing it back to Sex
• 50:26
  Speaker 3: and the City, they're all in their mid thirties, and
• 50:29
  Speaker 3: I'm I am grateful that despite like all the things
• 50:33
  Speaker 3: that I just talked about, like I do live in
• 50:37
  Speaker 3: a world where I'm not expected to settle down in
• 50:39
  Speaker 3: my mid twenties, and it's not like look down upon
• 50:42
  Speaker 3: because that I don't want to do that. I am very,
• 50:45
  Speaker 3: very grateful for the fact that, like be you know,
• 50:50
  Speaker 3: there has been all this build up and feminist movements
• 50:53
  Speaker 3: and queer liberation movements and what not to change these
• 50:57
  Speaker 3: dynamics around sex and gender. So again, I don't at
• 51:02
  Speaker 3: the end of the day, I don't think it's a
• 51:04
  Speaker 3: bad time for dating. I don't think it's any worse
• 51:08
  Speaker 3: than it has been historically. I just think it's changing,
• 51:12
  Speaker 3: and I think there's new things that we need to.
• 51:17
  Speaker 5: Watch out for.
• 51:18
  Speaker 3: Seems so intense, but really it is, like there's new
• 51:20
  Speaker 3: things we need to watch out for. There's new ways
• 51:25
  Speaker 3: that again we're seeing men kind of a and I
• 51:30
  Speaker 3: keep saying men, but you know, it's anybody. Sure, there's
• 51:33
  Speaker 3: plenty of toxic women and non binary people out there too,
• 51:36
  Speaker 3: But yeah, I don't know, Like the things are changing,
• 51:44
  Speaker 3: the social dynamics are changing. We are all still again,
• 51:48
  Speaker 3: I think, socially recovering from being stuck at home for
• 51:51
  Speaker 3: like two years, and I think ignoring that is like
• 51:55
  Speaker 3: a big blind spot, like, like clearly a big part
• 51:59
  Speaker 3: of the problem again, the fact that we're all still
• 52:02
  Speaker 3: relearning how to like exist in a society or whatever. Yeah,
• 52:09
  Speaker 3: I don't know again, I at the end of the
• 52:12
  Speaker 3: day just bite all this.
• 52:13
  Speaker 5: All this being said, I still feel.
• 52:16
  Speaker 3: Pretty optimistic, okay at the end of the day, like
• 52:21
  Speaker 3: things are changing.
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it sounds like it's weird but hopeful, weird but hopeful.
• 52:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, exactly, there we go subscribes a lot.
• 52:31
  Speaker 5: In my life. Tagline will be in my autobiography.
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: I think COVID messed us up a lot worse than
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: we're admitting it did.
• 52:41
  Speaker 5: Oh yeah yeah, and so yeah, I completely agree with you.
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: So yeah, thank you so much for sharing this with us.
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: We do have some other episodes planned with you in
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: definitely another sex in the City episode now that you've
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: definitely seen the whole thing, I know.
• 53:01
  Speaker 5: But in the meantime, where can the good listeners fight you?
• 53:04
  Speaker 3: You can find me on Instagram, Twitter, now on Blue Sky,
• 53:11
  Speaker 3: although I haven't really used to get at Pat not
• 53:14
  Speaker 3: prat that's pattn ot pr a t t if you
• 53:19
  Speaker 3: want to follow me on TikTok for like the two
• 53:21
  Speaker 3: weeks that we have TikTok still.
• 53:22
  Speaker 5: You can find me at Hot Topic Dad.
• 53:25
  Speaker 3: It's hot topic like the store and then just Dad
• 53:28
  Speaker 3: mostly cosplay stuff. But you know what, whatever, if you
• 53:30
  Speaker 3: want to see that. So all the app's about to
• 53:33
  Speaker 3: be gone anyways.
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, definitely go check Joey out and all those
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: places listens if you haven't already. I'm so glad you
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: were able to come on. I know you're a little sick, and.
• 53:47
  Speaker 5: Also so glad we get to finally meet gues Oh God.
• 53:50
  Speaker 5: Of course.
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: In the meantime, if you would like to contact us,
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: you can meet emails a stuff Me, mom stuff atiheartmedia
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: dot com.
• 53:56
  Speaker 5: You can find us.
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: On Twitter and blue sky at mom Stuff podcast and
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: on Instagram and TikTok at stuff We Never Told You.
• 54:02
  Speaker 5: We are us on YouTube.
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: We have a tea public store, and we have a
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: book you can get wherever you get your books. Thanks,
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: it's always to a super producer, Questenior Executive Producer Maya
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: and Archtuntar, Joey, thank you and thanks you for listening.
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: Stuff Will Never Told You is production by Heart Radio
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