Are SSRIs Worth the Limited Benefit?

In this episode, Simone and Malcolm Collins dive deep into the controversial topic of SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) and their impact on fertility, sexual development, and mental health—especially among left-leaning youth. Drawing from recent studies, personal anecdotes, and a New York Times Magazine article, they explore how SSRIs may be contributing to declining birth rates, lasting sexual side effects, and shifting cultural attitudes toward relationships and intimacy.

The discussion covers:

* The growing criticism and negative sentiment around SSRIs on social media

* Case studies of individuals experiencing long-term sexual dysfunction after SSRI use

* The lack of transparency from medical professionals about potential side effects, especially for teens

* The intersection of mental health, political affiliation, and prescription trends

* Broader societal factors, including endocrine disruptors and cultural shifts, that may be affecting fertility and sexuality

This is once again a Simone-outlined episode, so the outline is below, including links, and you’ll find the transcript after it. Thanks so much for your support!

Episode Outline: Leftists Are Being Sterilized by SSRIs

* We’ve touched on the fact that fertility rates among people on the left and the right are diverging

* We’ve made it clear much of the issue is cultural

* We’ve even suggested that it’s due to infectious diseases and parasites

* But it’s more than that

* It may be that largely left-leaning young people are throwing off their sexual development by taking SSRIs and the NY Times is trying to raise awareness about the issue

* According to a recent article, “Depending on the symptom, ​d​rug and duration of use, between 30 and 80 percent of adults taking S.S.R.I.s live to varying degrees with diminished desire, sensation and function, according to a 2019 study in The Journal of Clinical Medicine. “

* But the problem may be worse when teens are taking these medications, as they’re in the middle of sexual development

* So let’s dive in and see what’s going on

Case Studies:

This is all inspired by an NY Times Magazine article in which Daniel Bergner interviewed more than 20 people with PSSD (post SSRI sexual dysfunction)

More Teens Are Taking Antidepressants. It Could Disrupt Their Sex Lives for Years.

Research on adults who take S.S.R.I.s shows they tamp down sexual desire. Why aren’t we studying what that could mean for adolescents who take them?

Archived Article: https://archive.is/NdBDe#selection-1387.0-1387.900

Some of Bergner’s opening case studies:

* “Marie began taking fluoxetine, the generic form of Prozac, when she was 15. The drug — an S.S.R.I., a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor — was part of her treatment in an outpatient program for an eating disorder. It took its toll on her sexuality. “I was in touch with initial sparks of sexual energy relatively young,” she said, remembering crushes as far back as the age of 6 or 7. Shortly before starting on the drug, she was dazzled, from a distance, by a blue-eyed hockey player at school, tall and funny and charismatic. She recalled the fluster and fantasies he stirred. But on the medication, she felt the infatuation vanish swiftly.

* “And then,” Marie said, “I realized, Oh, I’m not developing new crushes.” She had no clue that the drug might be the cause: “I wasn’t informed about sexual side effects.”

* Even as the worst of the eating disorder abated, psychiatrists and family doctors told Marie and her parents that she should stay on an antidepressant. She complied, while trying and failing to escape the sexual side effects. She traded fluoxetine for other antidepressants, including Wellbutrin, a different class of antidepressant, which is sometimes prescribed to combat low libido. She’s 38 now and has been off psychiatric medication for six years. But sexual desire remains absent. “For me it’s just an empty dark space,” she said. “There’s nothing there.”

* One of the most haunting accounts I heard of PSSD came from a parent. Ruth told me that a couple of decades ago her daughter was prescribed Zoloft, an S.S.R.I., at 11 by a psychiatrist, after a humiliating incident at school “left her feeling out of sorts and anxious.” About the prescription, Ruth said, “I guess I thought that was a good thing.” She spoke of her naïveté at the time and “blind trust” in psychiatry. Her daughter wound up staying on the drug for a decade, until 2011. Only over the past few years has Ruth learned, from her daughter, about the sexual side effects she still lives with and about her grief. “Her erogenous zones don’t work,” Ruth said. “It makes me deeply sad, because our sexuality, the pleasure we get from our bodies and our intimacy with another person, it’s such a beautiful experience; it helps us to feel not alone.” Thinking back, Ruth said, “I have huge, terrible regret” about allowing her child to be medicated. “I can’t believe I so easily said yes.”

The Rise of PSSD

* More professionals are starting to recognize it.

* “The DSM-5, the most recent edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, states that “in some cases, serotonin-reuptake-inhibitor-induced sexual dysfunction may persist after the agent is discontinued.”

* “The E.U.’s European Medicines Agency has issued similar words of caution, as have regulators in Canada, Australia and Hong Kong. In the United States, Prozac comes with a warning about the problem. And advocacy groups for consumers are pushing the Food and Drug Administration to require all S.S.R.I.s, the most commonly prescribed class of antidepressants, to carry such warnings.”

How Many People are on SSRIs?

Approximately 11–13% of American adults report current use of antidepressants, with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) making up the majority of these prescriptions. Recent national health surveys show that in 2023, 11.4% of U.S. adults took prescription medication for depression, a number that has remained fairly stable in recent years but represents a significant increase over the past decade

How Many Young People are Taking SSRIs?

* From the article: “Around two million 12-to-17-year-olds in the United States are on S.S.R.I.s. One large 2024 study in the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics tallied, month by month, the percentage of that age group who filled an antidepressant prescription between 2016 and 2022. During that time, the rate climbed by 69 percent, with the Covid pandemic’s emotional reverberations almost surely playing a part, though a notable rise was underway before then. Among college students in 2023-24, according to a survey with over 100,000 participants, 22 percent had taken an antidepressant during the previous year. This was up from 8 percent in 2007.”

How Many SSRI Users Are Affected?

* From the article: “In one study, erectile dysfunction affected less than 1 percent of former S.S.R.I. users, while another found that genital numbness impacted at least 13 percent of those surveyed. But either way, PSSD may have urgent implications for young people.”

The Role of Serotonin in Desire, Love, and Bonding

It is well known that SSRIs have a sexual dulling effect in general

* As ___ points out in the article: “Because of their predictable dulling effects, S.S.R.I.s have long been used as an off-label treatment for premature ejaculation.”

What’s underplayed is how SSRIs will affect what we would argue matters more—interest in dating AT ALL—like, high school crushes and infatuation

* Serotonin plays a distinct and evolving role in infatuation and love bonding. During early-stage infatuation, serotonin levels tend to decrease, a change linked to obsessive, intrusive thoughts and behaviors frequently described as hallmark features of new romantic attraction. This mirrors the pattern found in people with obsessive-compulsive disorder, likely explaining the all-consuming, “can’t stop thinking about you” feeling so common in early love

The NY Times article also points out OTHER ways SSRIs may be causing sexual dysfunction.

* Bergner interviewed Dr. Irwin Goldstein, “a clinical professor of urology at the University of California, San Diego, and a specialist in sexual medicine who sees 50 to 75 new patients each year for erectile dysfunction”

* Dr. Goldstein has been researching the role SSRIs play in his patients’ ED oproblems and noted that “S.S.R.I.s can cause an overproduction of what are called oxygen radicals, leading to scarring and malfunctioning… The physiological effect of S.S.R.I.s within the penis looked closely akin to the impact of aging and diseases that are well-established contributors to erectile dysfunction.”

* Rodent studies have also linked past SSRI use to just lower sexual performance:

* Bergner noted: “In a 2010 study published in Biological Psychiatry, researchers gave male rats a generic Prozac at the age of rat adolescence, allowed sufficient time for the drug to clear from their systems, then monitored the males’ sexual behavior, in adulthood, when in the presence of a receptive female. Compared with a control group, the previously medicated rats were much slower to mount, took much longer from starting sex to ejaculation and, within any one session, ejaculated much less often. Not all similar experiments have produced data quite so definitive, and results with female subjects have been a bit blurry, maybe because female rodent sexuality is trickier to measure. But all in all, the rodent research carries cautionary implications.”

Do More Leftists Use SSRIs?

* Large national surveys consistently show that liberals or Democrats report worse mental health outcomes than conservatives or Republicans, and this gap has widened in recent years.​

* See:

* Distressed Democrats and relaxed Republicans? Partisanship and mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic

* Democrats reported consistently higher levels of mental distress than Republicans during the pandemic.

* This “partisan distress gap” predated the pandemic but was exacerbated by it, especially among white Americans.

* White Democrats experienced the greatest increase in distress, resulting in a widening distress gap between white Democrats and white Republicans.

* The politics of depression: Diverging trends in internalizing symptoms among US adolescents by political beliefs

* All adolescents show rising internalizing symptoms, but increases are most pronounced among female liberals, especially those with low parental education.

* Female liberal adolescents: Had the largest increases and highest absolute scores for depressive affect, particularly those from less privileged backgrounds.

* Male conservative adolescents: Had the lowest increases and the best scores across internalizing symptom scales.

* Among people who rate their mental health as poor or who screen positive for depression, a greater proportion identify as liberal than conservative.​

* ALSO” conservatives are less likely to seek mental health treatment or to acknowledge mental health problems, suggesting some of the difference may reflect reporting bias as well as potential stigma differences.​

* See: Mental Health and Mental Health Care Utilization Across Political Affiliation in US Adults

* Researchers assessed whether depression rates and mental health care utilization differ by political party affiliation in U.S. adults.

* In Spring 2023, positive screens for depression were similar among Republicans and Democrats—no significant difference was found.

* However, Republicans were less likely than Democrats to have received mental health treatment in the past 12 months.

Important side note: Doctors largely are not telling patients—even adult patients—about sexual side effects.

* From the article: “Peggy J. Kleinplatz, a professor of medicine at the University of Ottawa, told me about a moment that shed light on how family physicians and other primary-care providers — who write the majority of S.S.R.I. prescriptions in the United States and Canada — might be thinking about informed consent with patients. In 2019, Kleinplatz gave a presentation to family physicians at a Canadian medical conference. She asked her audience of some 50 doctors how many of them were aware of the sexual side effects of S.S.R.I.s. “Eighty percent raised their hands,” she estimated. She asked how many informed their patients about these effects when they prescribed. “Just one hand went up.” Then she asked why they didn’t. “They said it’s a matter of patient compliance.” To inform about potential sexual side effects, they worried, was to risk the patient not taking the drug that the doctor thought necessary.”

* And of course doctors don’t want to bring up sexual side effects when talking about parents of teens

So Are Leftists Sterilizing Themselves (Further) with SSRIs?

It could be argued, yes, but obviously there are many factors that are making people of ALL backgrounds less sexual

Other Factors Dampening Sexuality or Sterilizing Populations

* Arguably, parasites and other diseases

* E.g. toxoplasmosis hurting sperm quality

* Endocrine disruptors

* We’re constantly going on about the TIDES studies

* Common EDCs include bisphenol A (BPA), phthalates, dioxins, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), pesticides, parabens, and some heavy metals. These are found in plastics, food containers, cosmetics, pesticides, and various industrial products

* Effects

* Women: EDCs are linked to lowered fertility, menstrual irregularities, polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), endometriosis, premature menopause, uterine and ovarian dysfunction, as well as increased risk of miscarriage and pregnancy complications.​

* Men: Disruptors can decrease sperm count and quality, reduce testosterone, cause genital malformations, and increase risk of testicular or prostate disorders.​

So long story short, we’re all screwed, but this NY times article highlights that people who take SSRIs, especially while young, are screwed even more.

Episode Transcript:

Simone Collins: [00:00:00] Hello Malcolm. I’m excited to be speaking with you today because we’re gonna be talking about how leftists are being. Sterilized by SSRIs. We’ve already touched on the fact that fertility rates among the people on the left and the right are diverging and more quickly than before, that sort of the left is just, is tanking.

And we, they’re

Malcolm Collins: circling the drain of society at

Simone Collins: this point. It’s faster and faster screaming

Malcolm Collins: into the void.

Simone Collins: It’s, it’s, it’s clearly it’s cultural. We’ve also talked about how maybe it’s also a result of infectious disease and parasites disproportionately affect people. I also

Malcolm Collins: point out that, sSRIs more broadly have become known as like really negative.

So I decided to run a sentiment analysis on next X of what people are saying about SSRIs.

Simone Collins: Oh yeah.

Malcolm Collins: 80% of the posts right now on X about SSRIs are negative. Oh. With only 10% being positive and 10% being neutral.

Simone Collins: Oh, that’s very interesting. Wow.

Malcolm Collins: And we can go into that more later in this, but yeah, basically everyone is now like SSRI.

Well, well, [00:01:00] growing up it felt like there was this campaign to normalize SSRIs really, really strongly. Like everybody needs to be on them. They’re this miracle drug. And now I, I think now that media has sort of decentralized and you can’t have these decentralized campaigns anymore, people’s individual experiences are coming through.

Simone Collins: Wow. Okay.

Malcolm Collins: But

Simone Collins: continue, yeah, I mean, so that there’s, that obviously people are becoming increasingly critical of them, but it, it may be that largely left-leaning young people specifically are throwing off their sexual development by taking SSRIs and the New York Times is trying to raise. Awareness about this, which is huge and really interesting because I, I didn’t think about this element of it.

So, according to a recent article in, in New York Times magazine quote, depending on the symptom, drug and duration of use, between 30 and 80% of adults taking SSRIs live to varying degrees with diminished [00:02:00] desire, sensation, and function According to a 2019 study in the Journal of Clinical Medicine, wait,

Malcolm Collins: what percent.

Simone Collins: 30 to 80% of adults, 30

Malcolm Collins: to

Simone Collins: 80%. And it’s not just, I, I thought like, I mean, in the past I’ve, I’ve been vaguely aware of the fact that if you’re on an SSRA, like maybe your sex drive is gonna be down. But in this article in which the, the author interviews like quite a few people who have experienced issues related to SSRIs that are sexual in nature.

Like sometimes we’re just talking about like numbness of. Intimate areas like beyond just diminished sex drive, like actual pretty serious issues. , And , the problem and, and what the New York Times is really trying to begin to delve into with this article is that when this is, is happening to teens, like it’s one thing with adults where this is pervasively understood and people are aware of it and they’re just experiencing.

Real and [00:03:00] also lasting effects. When this happens to a teen or an adolescent who’s going through sexual development for the first time, this might permanently affect the way that they exist sexually. Yeah. Kind of is similar to how, you know, if you take youth gender medicine as, as, as a kid, it’s going to permanently affect.

Your sexual development, maybe SSRIs are doing something similar. It’s just that you don’t really look at it as youth, gender medicine. And, and really the crux of this too is that not only are, are psych psychiatrists, right? They’re the ones who prescribe medications.

Malcolm Collins: Yes, psychiatrists prescribed.

Simone Collins: And not only are they loath to bring up sexual side effects with anyone. But like if you’re about to prescribe an SSRI to, we’ll say like a teenage boy or girl and their parents present, they’re present. You’re not gonna talk with them about sexual side effects because. That’s a really good point. What, why are you trying to, why [00:04:00] are you warning my girl that she’s not gonna wanna have sex?

I don’t want her to have sex. Like, what? What, you know, like, so this is, it’s one of those issues where there’s all these adverse incentives at play, but let’s get into some of like just some, I think, illustrative, evocative case studies that this, this magazine article began with. Because I think it helps to sort of.

Set this scene. Okay. Okay. Okay,

Malcolm Collins: let’s go.

Simone Collins: Daniel Berger interviewed the au that’s the author of the article, more Than 20 People with PSSD. That’s post SSRI, sexual Dysfunction for this article titled More teens are taking antidepressants, it could disrupt their sex lives for years. So here’s one. I’ll just read the quote.

In which he, he has interviewed Marie. Marie began taking. Fluoxetine, the generic form of Prozac. When she was 15, the drug an S-S-R-I-A selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor was part of her treatment in an outpatient program for an eating disorder. It took its toll on her sexuality. Quote, I was in touch with [00:05:00] initial sparks of sexual energy, relatively young.

End quote, she said, remembering crushes as. Far back as the ages of six or seven. Shortly before starting on the drug, she was dazzled from a distance by a blue-eyed hockey player at school, tall and funny and charismatic. She recalled the fluster in fantasies, he stirred, but on the medication she fell infatuation.

She felt infatuation, vanished, swiftly. And then Marie said, I realized, oh, I’m not developing new crushes. She had no clue that the drug might be the cause. I wasn’t informed about sexual side effects, even at the worst of the eating disorder as the worst of the eating disorder. Abated psychiatrists and family doctors told Marie and her parents that she should stay on the antidepressant. She complied while trying and failing to escape the sexual side effects. She traded fluoxetine for other antidepressants, including Wellbutrin, a different class of antidepressant, which sometimes prescribed to combat low libido.

She’s 38 now. So like [00:06:00] our age, by the way. Yeah. And been off psychiatric medication for six years, but sexual desire remains absent. Quote for me. It’s just an empty, dark space. She said there’s nothing there. Wow. There’s another case that, that actually comes from a parent. That this guy interviewed which is, is is kind of dark and sad.

And, and keep in mind this is, we’re talking about longitudinal cases. Actually,

Malcolm Collins: before we get to the parent thing, I actually wanna take a, a, a side note here. I, it is, it is true that SSRIs do lower sexual libido and everything like that.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: But one of the things that I’ve been seeing a lot online.

Is a lot of women identifying as ace or talking about how they never really felt, you know, attractive, like active arousal towards other people. And Simone is this way too. Like if you di diagnose RNA spectrum, you’d be ace. But for Malcolm, like you, you, he asexual. But at least that’s what you tell me. Who

Simone Collins: I say I’m, I’m gay for Malcolm.

Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Who’s to know if, if this isn’t just something you tell me to, to keep me [00:07:00] happy, you know,

Simone Collins: I’m, I’m no. You know, from the anecdotes of me trying to break into your room at night, but you’ve bolted the door,

Malcolm Collins: but dare

Simone Collins: you,

Malcolm Collins: the, the the point I was going to make here is I think that our society, because.

If you live around the urban monoculture, it tells you that your identity is what arouses you. You know, like that’s the most important part of who you are, oh, is the things that arouse you. And so, and, and indulging in those things is the best part of life.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: And I think some people, they grow up and a lot of people they grow up and they’re just like, but like, those things aren’t that powerful or aren’t that great.

And I think that. For if you are a teenage guy or girl. Sexuality might be like a really strong and big part of your life. And in some percent of the population, sexuality stays a really strong and big part of their life as they age. [00:08:00]

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: However, I think in, I might even argue the average person, just like when you are a adult sexuality, and I’m talking like thirties here, right.

Which this person is, is just not that big a thing. It’s, it’s like not that big a deal. And I think that many. People misdiagnose themselves, especially women as asexual or not having sexual desire. And what they actually have is reactive sexual desire. Mm-hmm. Which over 50% of women have. Mm-hmm. Which means you only get aroused when somebody is actively basically like rubbing on you, acting on you, making a move on you.

Right. Like, you don’t, you don’t just like look at somebody and get turned on. In the same way that that it’s being sold to you is gonna happen.

Simone Collins: Ooh, interesting theory. Because a really big element in the past associated with courting often had to do with dancing, like ballroom dancing, waltzing, et cetera.

Yeah. I wonder if part of that kind of naturally evolved as a cultural mechanism to [00:09:00] ignite reactive desire in women.

Malcolm Collins: I think

Simone Collins: it did forcing people to

Malcolm Collins: touch each other

Simone Collins: and dance around. Mm-hmm. And in a coordinated fashion also while making eye contact. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Interesting. But I, I’m, I am gonna make an argument a little bit later as to why, actually this is pretty damaging when it comes to even we’ll say non-sexual relationship formation.

So we’ll get there, but one more, one more little case study that I was like, oof. So reading again from the article, one of the most haunting accounts I heard of PSSD came from a parent. Ruth told me that a couple of decades ago her daughter was prescribed Zoloft, an SSRI at 1111. Sorry, I just think that’s crazy.

A by a psychiatrist after a humiliating incident at school left her feeling out of sorts and anxious about the prescription. Ruth said, I guess I thought it was a good thing. She spoke of her naivete at the time and the blind trust in psychiatry. Her daughter wound up staying. On the drug for a decade until 2011, only after the past few years as Ruth [00:10:00] learned from her daughter about the sexual side effects that she still lives with and about her grief, her erogenous zones don’t work.

Ruth said It makes me deeply sad because of. Because our sexuality, the pleasure we get from our bodies and our intimacy with another person. It’s such a beautiful experience. It helps us not feel alone. Thinking back, Ruth said, I have a huge, terrible regret about allowing her child to be medicated. I can’t believe I so easily said yes.

And I think this is indicative of, of the broader thing. I’m with you, Malcolm, that like, I don’t care that much if like people aren’t feeling intense. Hedonic pleasure from. From sex, but I think it’s still notable. So now basically, as the New York Times article is pointing out, there’s this slow bubbling rise in discussion about PSSD.

More professionals are starting to recognize it. It’s. Being a little bit more recognized in academic literature. So for example, the DSM five, which is the most recent edition of the [00:11:00] Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, states that quote, in most cases, serotonin reuptake, inhibitor induced sexual dysfunction may persist after the agent is discontinued.

And, and this. Is kind of a big deal because I think most people thought that the side effects only happen while you’re taking the thing, and now it’s becoming increasingly recognized to have lasting effects. Also from the article, the eus, European Medicines agencies issued similar words of caution as have regulators in Canada, Australia, Hong Kong, and the United States.

Prozac comes with a warning. About the problem and advocacy groups for consumers are pushing for the food and drug administration to require all SSRIs, the most commonly prescribed class of antidepressants to carry such warnings. So just a little bigger picture thing, how many people are actually on SSRIs?

I mean, as you pointed out, Malcolm, they are becoming less popular. They’re becoming more criticized, but still. Approximately 11 to 13% of American adults report currently use of antidepressants with [00:12:00] selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors making up the majority of those prescriptions. So one outta 10 people, at least in the US is on one of these now.

And remember that the side effects are lasting region national health surveys. What?

Malcolm Collins: Did you take SSRIs?

Simone Collins: Never.

Malcolm Collins: I did.

Simone Collins: You did? Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: I did. I don’t know for how long. I, I do remember taking them. But I don’t remember for how long.

Simone Collins: Well, keep in mind, my family just didn’t believe in, it was never something we talked about.

My parents were never like, well, we don’t believe in taking medicine. But like,

Malcolm Collins: oh yeah, I re Yeah. I took SSRIs for only a short period.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And I took Lithium for a much longer period.

Simone Collins: Yeah. But that was only ‘cause like your, your mom kind of forced you.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. By mom, it is crazy. And if, if, if we’d act up, she’d be like, oh, this must be because there’s something wrong with it.

Like basically she went through mood swings all the time and she would assume that it was us going through a mood swing rather than her going through a mood swing. Yeah. Because she’s like, but you behaved so differently between different weeks. And I’m like, it’s you [00:13:00] mom.

Simone Collins: Was lithium the thing that paralyzed you?

Malcolm Collins: . It might have been. Yeah. Something caused like bad effects. I stopped taking all

Simone Collins: my medication. Something your mom had made you take that you were still taking when we met. Caused you to get like paralyzed sometimes. Yeah. And

Malcolm Collins: I, I stopped

Simone Collins: taking this really freaking freaked me out.

Malcolm Collins: I don’t but what’s funny is the drugs that I would promote for our kids is all of the drugs that other people would freak out the most about.

I think, uh. ritalin is a really useful drug for young people. Just get ‘em on amphetamines. I’m like, you need that to study sometimes, you know, it’s hard when it’s, you know, too

Simone Collins: Well, yeah. Except, here’s the thing, I, I kind of question that we’ll need them because yet you need them When you’re working within a system that’s inherently broken, like.

School system where you like need to do all these things, but I don’t know if our kids are gonna be playing that. I used it to get like work projects done it. It is useful to get stuff done. You don’t use it now and you get a lot done. You’re insanely productive. You go into [00:14:00] defocus all the time. I think also the thing with A DHD and a DD is you.

Focus on stuff, you know, to be important and interesting.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I, well, I literally haven’t taken one in like 10 years.

Simone Collins: That’s because you do work that you find to be meaningful and interesting.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. But as a kid you, not everything you do is gonna

Simone Collins: be meaningful. Okay. That’s fair. I guess. Yeah. So yeah, when you have to learn stuff that you don’t think is useful and that you don’t wanna learn.

Malcolm Collins: And then of course, the other one that I always promote on the show and everyone should be on, I think it should just be a mandated drug, is naltrexone. It’s an, it is an opioid agonist that prevents addictive pathways from firing in your brain. Yeah. And it. Completely transformed. Like, everything I do is my life.

Like the way I spend my time online, the way I, you know, like I stopped using social media after it. Like literally, I got, I, I stopped. I, I go to my Facebook account and it’s like cobwebs. It used to be the first thing I would check every morning. I stopped compulsively refreshing newspaper sites.

Mm-hmm. I stopped compulsively refreshing. [00:15:00] Investment tickers. I stopped, you know, like all of the compulsive stuff I would do online. Just, just, it really

Simone Collins: was a constant thing for you. Yeah. Yeah. That’s,

Although, I mean, although you are pretty hooked on Korean and romance manga, so,

Malcolm Collins: you know, I, you know, what’s gotten me off of that is, is prepaying for one that I think is like.

Okay. But pretty boring. Oh, I know. So I, I’m not like drawn to it when other things are happening. That’s so funny. Getting, getting stuck in a boring one has been great to break my addiction. ‘cause I’m like, well, I prepaid food. I gotta read through the whole thing.

Simone Collins: Yeah. So, okay. About, you know, 10 to 11 to 13% of, of Americans in general are taking ssra according to the article.

About 2,000,012 to 17 year olds in the United States are on SSRIs One large 2024 study in the Journal of American Academy of Pediatrics tallied month by month the percentage of that age group who fi filled an antidepressant prescription between 2016 and 2022. During that time, the rate climbed by [00:16:00] 69% with the COVID pandemic’s emotional reverberations.

Almost surely playing a part though notable rise was underway. Four. Then among college students in 2023 to 24, according to a survey with over 10 100,000 participants, 22% had taken an antidepressant during the previous year. This was up 8% from 2007. So, so keep in mind young people are taking them more.

And actually this, this, this is totally unrelated. This morning I was going through a British psychology digest in my email about, there, there used to be this sort of happiness shaped curve with like sort of how happy you were in life, where like people were happier when they were young and then very old.

But now it’s just kind of going upward. Like you just get happier as you get older because young people are so miserable. So, kind of dovetails with this. Like we, the, the youth mental health crisis is real and a lot of them are turning to SSRIs. But then, you know, in terms of like how many SSRI users are affected by [00:17:00] this, I don’t like, it’s, it’s hard to tell ‘cause the reporting’s so shoddy.

In, in the article, the, the author writes in one study. Ed, I’m not gonna say what, you know, the, the thing where you have trouble getting, you know, affected less than 1% of former SSRI users, while, while another found that genital numbness impacted at least 13% of those surveyed numbness. I never heard about that as a side effect.

I’ve

never

Malcolm Collins: heard about this either. No.

Simone Collins: Yeah. But either way, PSSD may have urgent implications for young people. So this is. This is where I think you’re missing the importance of the effect of this with regard to, we’ll say like relationship formation and everything, and

Malcolm Collins: it’s important to note. To what Simone’s, assuming that progressives take psychoactive medications like SSRIs.

Simone Collins: Oh, I’m gonna go into the stats on this in a little bit. Okay, great. Continue. Yeah. But first I just wanna point out why this matters. So it is well known that SSRIs do have a, [00:18:00] a sexual duing effect in general, as the author points out quote, because of their predictable dulling effects. Sr. SSRIs have long been.

Used as an off-label treatment for premature ejaculation, which also I didn’t know, but like they’re so well known to cause problems that they’re like, oh, you’re coming too fast here. Take an SSRI. But what’s underplayed is how SSRIs will affect what we would argue matters more, which is interest in dating at all.

Like high school crushes and infatuation, which is what was pointed to in that first anecdote, which is why I wanted to read it. So serotonin plays a really distinct and evolving role in infatuation and love bonding. Like I’m not even talking about the act of sex or making out or anything physical.

I’m talking literally about like this stuff that gets people to date and maybe eventually get married and like be interested in the opposite sex. During early stage infatuation serotonin levels tend to decrease, which is a change linked to obsessive intrusive thoughts and [00:19:00] behaviors frequently described as a hallmark feature of.

New romantic attraction, but what else? Oh, also like OCD and anxiety, which is what SSRIs are meant to treat. So the, the problem is if people are taking SSRIs to treat things like obsessive compulsive disorder or you know, that you’re also treating that sort of, I, I can’t stop thinking about you infatuation associated with early love.

You’re making it impossible for people to experience. The thrill of limerence and new relationship energy, which we’ve had people who listen to this podcast be like, man, like, you know, I have thriving young kids, but they’re just not really interested in dating at all. And the thing is like, if you don’t feel crushes, if you don’t feel that infatuation.

Why would you bother? Honestly, like it’s just all downside, not upside. I think it’s one of the, one of the few things that really gets

whole,

Malcolm Collins: this is so fun that now when somebody tells you like I’m asexual or [00:20:00] aromantic, you can just be like, are you on SSRIs? Just to,

Simone Collins: no, seriously,

because

Malcolm Collins: you know, like 80% of the time the answer’s gonna be yes.

And you’re gonna be, it’s probably the ssri

Simone Collins: Yeah, it’s, it’s just the SSR or, yeah. Yeah. You know, just same with

Malcolm Collins: like, I can’t imagine how, how, how like blown top a progressive is gonna be if you pull that on them.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: It’s probably the ss RI.

Simone Collins: Well, and also the, the, it’s, it’s not just, so, I just, I wanna point that out though, like in terms of like the larger people aren’t getting married, problem.

I think one of the few things that did get people out and dating when otherwise it’s just so scary, is that thrill and the thrill is being robbed of them.

Malcolm Collins: The thing is, is they’re also like not even that effective. I remember the period I was on SSRIs, I did not feel any different. Like I certainly wasn’t happier.

Simone Collins: Oh really?

So wildly. There was actually a study on this, a meta-analysis in 2022 in molecular psychiatry, which showed SSRIs outperformed Ali placebos by only a very [00:21:00] thin margin with an effect size of only 0.3, , which is no better than exercise or therapy.

So they’re tanking their sexuality and fertility for. Nothing for no real benefit. And if you wanna come at me and be like, oh no, SSRIs would work so well for me, it’s like, yeah, placebos are really good. Like placebos actually do work very effectively.

If you are curious how out of control things have gotten, there was a study called antidepressant dispensing to use adolescents and young adults 2016 to 2022. That was looking at how much the rate of SSRI, , prescriptions had increased over that period. So if we go from 2016 to 2022, and we’re looking at females age 12 to 17, the rate of prescriptions increased 129.6%.

If we look at females age 18 to 25, it increased 56.5%. If we look at males age 12 to [00:22:00] 17, there was not an increase. And if we looked at males age 18 to 25, there was not an increase, which I think correlates strongly with females becoming more progressive here because as we’ve seen in many, many other studies, , progressives are way lower on happiness ratings in conservatives and have been since.

The Pew started recording the data on this, but it’s been getting worse over time and Progressive. Both depression and anxiety symptoms are way higher than they are in conservatives. , Same with females, and this is increasing over time.

Speaker 7: truth is the enemy of happiness. Have you had your joy Ollie?

Speaker 8: People in town

Are unli at unprecedented rates and nobody’s having kids anymore.

Speaker 9: and they’re.

Pete in the streets, in rainbows, have you not noticed?

Speaker 7: Oh, Ollie,

Speaker 9: why are you all wearing those ridiculous new

Gender identities.

Speaker 7: ?

You should get one. They shape your face into a smile, and when you smile, you can’t help being happy.

Speaker 10: We [00:23:00] have to tell people they need to know the truth.

Speaker 7: No, it’s better not to know.

Speaker 12: We are practically the only two people in missing. Di City, not stone. Out of our minds on joy.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. The

Simone Collins: way that one person in the article described it who was taking SSRIs for anxiety or something was that it didn’t make the anxiety go away. It like provided a moat around it. So like it was there but it couldn’t get to him as easily. Is that kind of how it felt? Because I don’t, I dunno.

No.

Malcolm Collins: And literally. Nothing, not different in any way.

Simone Collins: Also, no wonder you took it for only such a short period of time, but the New York Times also points to other ways SSRIs may be causing sexual dysfunction. So Berger, the author, interviewed Dr. Irwin Goldstein, who’s a clinical professor of urology at the University of California San Diego.

He’s a specialist in sexual medicine who sees about 50 to 75 new patients each year for ed. And here’s a quote from the article. Dr. Goldstein has been recently. Researching the role of SSRIs in his patient’s ed problems and noted [00:24:00] that SSRIs can cause an overproduction of what are called oxygen radicals leading to scarring and malfunctioning the physiological effect of SSRIs within the can I say, can I say the P word? Within the pp? Within the flippy, as our children call it?

Malcolm Collins: Within the flippy,

Simone Collins: within the technical term. Scarring in

Malcolm Collins: the flippy.

Simone Collins: In the flippy. Yes. Scarring in the flippy looked closely akin to the impact of aging and diseases that are well established contributors to, to ed.

So it’s scarring your footie. Recent, also, recent studies have linked as rights just to low lower sexual performance. So Berger noted in a 2010 study published in biological psychiatry researchers gave male rats a generic Prozac at the age of rat adolescent. Allowed sufficient time for the drug to clear from their system.

So again, they’re not on it anymore. Then monitored the male’s sexual behavior in adulthood when [00:25:00] they, when in the presence of a receptive female compared with a control group. The previously medicated rats were much slower to mount and took much longer from starting Sex to Ejaculation, and within any one session ejaculated much less often.

Not all similar experiments have produced data quite so definitive, and results with female subjects have been a bit more blurry maybe because female rodent sexuality is trickier to measure, but all in all, the rodent research carries cautionary implications. So, so it, the, the SSRIs are scarring, the footies.

And they’re making the, the, the male rats who took it in adolescence mount more slowly, ejaculate less, and ejaculate later. So ejaculate it’s not good. Okay. It, it just seems like from, from soup to nuts. Almost literally. It’s

Malcolm Collins: from soup to nuts.

Simone Collins: Literally. You’re getting

Malcolm Collins: you, Simone,

Simone Collins: you’re welcome.[00:26:00]

Malcolm Collins: This is how the abuse starts.

Simone Collins: This is bad jokes. I’m a, it’s, I’m a mom. It’s a mom joke.

Malcolm Collins: It was so funny to watch a a fan doing like a reaction to our content ‘cause they were like recording, like what they thought. And, and just watching somebody watch our content and regularly crack up, I’m like, oh, I didn’t realize that People are like.

Actually laughing when we start laughing at things.

Simone Collins: Oh, we have fun, we have fun here. But yeah, so like literally from limerence, from like getting a crush on someone to actually nodding inside them, you’re, you’re, you’re completely. Getting, getting screwed over by SSRIs and yes, leftists use more SSRIs.

I mean, there’s not obviously direct survey data or like prescriptions on, like, I wanna

Malcolm Collins: hear, I wanna hear the data

Simone Collins: here. Come on. Large national surveys consistently show that liberals or Democrats report worse mental health outcomes than conservatives or Republicans. And the gap has widened in recent years.

Malcolm Collins: And you know, it’s not because they’re taking fewer drugs or seeing the psychologists [00:27:00] less.

Simone Collins: Oh no. That has certainly nothing to do with it. I am absolutely confident. There are two great studies you can look to at this and if you want the south, whichever one in the comments is like, where are the links to the articles?

Well, if you paid to subscribe on Substack or Patreon. Thank you so much to our supporters by the way. I linked to the studies that we look at in our episode.

Malcolm Collins: Wait, you do?

Simone Collins: Yeah. Which I put in, I, I, i, I put in the, the Substack and Pat articles.

Malcolm Collins: You nerd.

Simone Collins: Yeah. So anyway, you, but for those listening, I’m gonna throw you a bone.

See Distressed Democrats and relaxed Republicans. Partisanship and mental health during the COVID to 19 pandemic. That’s the, the title of one study. But these

Malcolm Collins: people, they lack the ability

Simone Collins: to Google stuff. Yes, I swear that’s because I always listed. That’s the title. That’s the title. Google. Another title, the Politics of Depression.

Diverging Trends and Internalizing Symptoms among US adolescents by Political Beliefs. So the first study I just named they found that Democrats were parted consistently [00:28:00] higher levels of mental distress than Republicans during the pandemic That this, this partisan distress gap. Predated the pandemic, but was exacerbated by it, especially among white Americans.

And white Democrats experienced the greatest increase in distress resulting in a widening distress gap between Democrats and. White Republicans well both white Democrats and Republicans. And then the second one, the politics of depression. One found that all adolescents show a rising internalizing symptoms, but increases are most pronounced among female liberals.

Big surprise especially those with low parental education, which I hadn’t heard before. Female liberal adolescents had the largest increase in highest absolute scores for depressive affect, particularly those from less privileged backgrounds. So trailer trash girls watch out and male conservative adolescents had the lowest increases and the best scores across internalizing symptom scales.

So basically. Across people who rate their mental health as [00:29:00] poor or who screen positive for depression. A greater proportion identifies liberal than conservative, but also conservatives are less likely to seek mental health treatment or to acknowledge mental health problems, which suggests some of the difference may just reflect reporting bias.

But here’s the thing. Is if you don’t report it and you don’t get treated for it, you’re not going on SSRIs. And if you’re not going on SSRIs, you’re not essentially downstream gonna sterilize yourself through all these negative sexual effects.

Malcolm Collins: But should we be disrupting the cycle that, to get rid of the progressives that, that they’re, they’re, they’re infected with

Simone Collins: para and they’re, they’re just taking

Malcolm Collins: drugs that lower their arousal patterns

Simone Collins: and they just wanna die.

They just, they just wanna end the cycle. Malcolm maybe. Maybe we should just, I, I don’t know, let them, let them put themselves out of their misery. But for those who wanna see more research on that front, see mental health and mental health care utilization across political affiliation in US adults.

[00:30:00] All right. For the source people. But anyway, the important side note doctors, like I was saying at the beginning of this, are largely not telling patients, even adults about sexual side effects. So from the article, I found this was really interesting. The author writes Peggy j Klein Platz, a professor of medicine at the University of Ottawa, told me about the moment that shed light on how family physicians and other primary care providers who write the majority of SSRI prescriptions in the United States and Canada might be thinking about informed consent with patients.

In 2019. Klein Implant gave a presentation. To family physicians at a Canadian medical conference. She asked her audience of some 50 doctors how many of them were aware of the sexual side effects of SSRIs. 80% raised their hands. She estimated, she asked how many informed their patients about these effects when they prescribed.

Just one hand went up. Then she asked why they didn’t. They said it’s a matter of patient compliance to inform about potential sexual side effects. They [00:31:00] worried was to risk the patient not taking the drug, the doctor thought necessary. So basically that’s

Malcolm Collins: fantastic.

Simone Collins: That’s

Malcolm Collins: fantastic. They’re not telling their patients, they’re like, I think the drug is more important than your sex life, and the patient may disagree.

. Consider that in an entire room of psychologists and psychiatrists, only one was willing to warn their patients about this. I think that that shows what we often talk about here, which is to say, you should be viewing these fields as adversarial to you. They do not care about you in mass to find a good one is.

Almost impossible. You should be looking for other solutions to these types of problems if you have them. And when we’re talking about SSRIs, you can see our other videos on this. Keep in mind, this is me who has a degree in neuroscience and a minor in psychology, and who worked in the UT Southwestern, translational neuroscience department.

So I worked as a psychologist in like the [00:32:00] most difficult capacity you can. And I am saying that the place that these industries have gone is, is antagonistic to you. And, um, when you look at these really high rates of anxiety that people have, if you look at these really high rates of depression people have today, and we’ve done other videos on this, a.

You see them more in people that are more privileged, especially in women that are more privileged. Um, and we argue that what is likely causing them is that females are just not meant to be in environments where they have no real threats to them. And so if they are, especially at a young age, they invent threats and their brain basically breaks down.

Simone Collins: Well, and that, yeah, I think that’s just so interesting that like the left is all about hedonistic pleasure and everything, but they’re also like, I don’t care if this sterilizes you or causes, you know, there’s, I think it’s very much part of this, trust the science or like just trust authorities thing of like, I know better.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, my doctor told me to take it so I’m

Simone Collins: doing it well. But [00:33:00] also like I know what’s best for them and I’m just gonna go ahead and override what might be a preference in favor of something else because I know best and so I’m just not, not tell them. But of course this is really exacerbated with teens.

‘cause even I would be like really hesitant. To prescribe a teen boy or girl an SSRI. And even if I told adults about the sexual side effects, like imagine how pissed a mom would be at you as a doctor if you were like, listen, little Cindy Lou, who like. I don’t know if you wanna take this ‘cause it might mess with your sex drive and like, you know, here’s this mother being like, how dare, I can

Malcolm Collins: just imagine one of those scenes where like the parent is getting an increasingly horrified face in the background.

It’s just like boiling with rage.

Simone Collins: Yes, yes. So like of course. And I think that that probably means, I mean maybe sentiment as you’ve pointed out against SSRIs, just plummeting is gonna be enough to kind of. I don’t know, get people to stop taking them en mass. But in general, the [00:34:00] incentives are such that this issue is not gonna get resolved.

The, the discussion around PSSD has been going since like 2004. Nothing has really changed and the incentives just aren’t there. Like doctors prescribing these SSRIs to kids. Have no incentive to bring up the sexual side effects. These teens are then going through decades of taking these and dealing with adverse effects for the rest of their lives.

But kinda, there’s no accountability chain. And mm-hmm. And it’s kind of hard to tell where these problems are coming from, and no one’s getting paid to find out the root of the problem. Like no one profits from it, so no one’s gonna dig deeper. And I do admire and appreciate the New York Times for covering this and, and pointing this out as an issue to a largely progressive audience.

‘cause at least we’re giving them the chance to what

Malcolm Collins: now? What if they start breeding again? What if they start dating again?

Simone Collins: It’s too late, Malcolm. There’s no changing it. Also, we have to consider all the other factors that are sexually dampening or sterilizing populations Also largely. Left [00:35:00] populations, I mean arguably parasites and other diseases as we discussed in our episode.

Episode. But do those make them more sexual? Well, they make them more sexual, but in non reproductive ways. So those who remain sexual are now like just getting toxoplasmosis and just having like fall faia. Also, we’re keep in mind that the people who has toxoplasmosis had lower sperm motility and lower sperm count.

So even when they did actually manage to come inside someone, they were. Not as likely to lead to a, you know, a live birth. Plus of course we have the endocrine distractor issue. We’re constantly talking about host. That’s

Malcolm Collins: who we’re fighting against. The infected, the swar.

Simone Collins: We’re constantly talking about the tide studies, which, which showed that higher levels.

Oh yeah. People

Malcolm Collins: in that other video had forgotten that. We always talk about the tide studies.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Higher levels of endocrine disruptors in first trimester blood work in, in, in pregnant women as measured by these studies, the T-I-D-E-S. Studies, if you wanna look them up again, we provide references to things that you can look up People found that people don’t

Malcolm Collins: know how to do that.

They don’t know how to type. [00:36:00]

Simone Collins: Anyway.

Malcolm Collins: I need to, I need to create an, an itemized list for our daily videos.

Simone Collins: Yeah, well they, that’s, that’s what they’re asking for. Like I said, I provide linked outlines and everything, all my notes and everything when I, when we but on Patreon and Substack. So, sorry guys.

You gotta. Show some support, I guess. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And why aren’t you guys, everyone should be subscribed on Patriot. We do week weekend episodes by weekend episodes even all of it. I, we, we, we, we they’re very different structures in the weekday episodes. They’re typically just like an idea. We’re still trying to think through or like, something

Simone Collins: that I don’t kind of seeing stuff, personal stuff.

It’s, it’s fun. Yeah. I, I really like them and, and our community’s amazing.

Malcolm Collins: Some is like really useful, like the one about how you do large batch meals.

Simone Collins: Yeah, and like our, our travel tips and stuff like that. Anyway, if there’s, there’s more if you want it, subscribe on Patreon. But yeah, so there’s endocrine disruptors that are causing even people from, like in utero, like men to become less male.

Their endo genital distance is shorter when they come out. Meaning like, basically like, again, they’re flippy didn’t make it all the [00:37:00] way up to like the front, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s. Closer in to the, to the, the anus. Also one of my favorite minds, but also they’re expressing less gender dimorphic play in when they’re like eight years old, you know?

So people are becoming less male because of endocrine disruptors. Plus, you know, also just in general endocrine disruptors, which include like, like BPAs, phalates, dioxins, polychlorinated, biphenyls pesticides, parabens, some heavy metals. Like all of these things are endocrin disruptors. They in women cause lower fertility, menstrual irregularities, polycystic ovary, ovary syndrome.

That’s, that’s PCOS. Endo Endometriosis premature menopause. Uterine and ovarian dysfunction. Also increased risk of miscarriage and pregnancy complications. And in men endocrine disruptors can just decrease sperm count qual and quality. They can reduce testosterone. They can cause genital malformations, like I pointed [00:38:00] out, and also increase the risk of test dis testicular and prostate cancers.

So, I mean, it’s like, okay, the SSRIs, they’re just. They’re just the terror, the cherry on top, but they’re a cherry on top that disproportionately affects progressives and especially progressive youth. Yeah. It

Malcolm Collins: almost feels like they’re meant to sort of like, what’s, what’s the word of this? Like, numb them to the world, right.

Like to,

Simone Collins: yeah. To,

Malcolm Collins: Make them less likely to rebel almost. It’s like, it is, it’s literally like one of the pills,

Simone Collins: opiate of the masses.

Malcolm Collins: WW What was that from a show or something?

Simone Collins: Are you serious?

Malcolm Collins: Oh, opiate, the masks. Oh, I didn’t hear what you said. Yeah, no, I’m thinking more like that. Scene from Sliders was the, was the pills

where, you know, everyone is, society is forced to take these pills to, you know,

Simone Collins: Oh

Speaker: . Imagine a world where the government regulates drugs. What did you give her? Tran Ball. Standard Mood Elevator. By getting everyone hooked on them, [00:39:00] everybody’s on something. Everybody but us. You don’t know what it’s going to do to them. Damon, drop in

People.

Simone Collins: .

Oh yeah. Well, and also like, there’s the concept of Soma in brave New World. A Soma in Time saves nine. It, it’s basically like popping a Xanax or something. You’re just like, just chill.

Time

Malcolm Collins: saves nine.

Simone Collins: I I love, I love, I love Brave New World. Brave New World. They’re, they, that dystopia is my utopia.

Everyone takes perfume showers, they’re constantly popping Xanax, and they’re just having a great time. I, I don’t see what the problem is. They’re, they’re, they’re, they’re, they’re cloned, I think, or like genetically designed to be good at their jobs and born into like their striated portion of society, but really happy to be in it.

So like you can be an alpha or a beta or a gamma and you just grow up being like, man, I’m so glad I’m not a beta. ‘cause like you’re a gamma or an alpha and you’re just really happy to be what you are. You die before you get old. But also like when you’re young, you go to hospitals to [00:40:00] watch the, the people die.

So you’re like, oh, okay, so this is how it works. And then you get like incinerated in a way that generates energy for the city. So it’s all very efficient. I’m like, this is, this is perfect. What’s wrong with this? Everything’s great. Like, sign me up. Where is this world? Everything Instead of like, cool, their word for cool is pneumatic.

Like, oh, it’s so pneumatic. Everyone drives around in these cool helicopter things. Why do people think? I, I just was so confused when I read this in college and went to my honors class and like trotted up and was like, so excited to talk about this world. I’m like, gosh, this

Malcolm Collins: utopian world,

Simone Collins: how do we make this happen?

Like, let’s do this. Okay, like, let’s go. You do the helicopters, I’ll do this So mild, like let’s re we’ll regroup. Someone, someone build the conditioning chambers. They had this thing also because this was, written by Aldi Huxley, right? When Operant Conditioning was considered to be this whole new exciting thing of like, oh my gosh.

Like you can shake human behavior. So the whole [00:41:00] idea was that these, these casts of society, the alphas and the babies and the Gammas as babies, ‘cause they were all like, they were made in artificial wombs and like sort of cloned and like made in a lab. And then they would be raised in big groups by like designated like nanny minders.

And. The, the way they were conditioned is they’d listen to these sayings over and over and over, like, I’m so glad I’m not a gamma. I’m so glad I’m not a gamma. But then like also they would like, I think, electrify the floors or something. Or like some, I, I can’t remember exactly what it was, but like, they would expose the babies to something that they weren’t supposed to like, like a rose or something.

So they wouldn’t get like overly concerned with like. I don’t know, a feet aesthetics or something. And then it would, they, like, they would electrify the floor and shock all the babies. I’ll build a floor. Shocker. But like, it just, I loved it. I loved it. I, I would never, I would never believe it in shocking babies.

So I would change that about Brave New World. No, no being mean to the babies. Just positive [00:42:00] reinforcement. Never negative reinforcement, but.

Malcolm Collins: Well, we do a lot of negative reinforcement with our kids.

Simone Collins: Malcolm, I’m sorry. But it’s positive reinforcement. How many times have our kids said too, too much? Hit me again, daddy.

Not such

Malcolm Collins: for my kids.

Simone Collins: Yeah, they literally like begged me. They beg to be hit. I, I, I don’t know what to say. No.

Malcolm Collins: Run off and then do something like poke me and then run away and be like, come. Hit me daddy.

Simone Collins: And the first thing that I go downstairs to like help Malcolm dress the kids, the first thing that happens is I get punched in the spine.

One of our children, he’s like, come at me, bro. Like, they just wanna fight. They love it so much. Yeah. You think it’s negative reinforcement? Nice try. I don’t, I don’t, I don’t bop at all. Because you gave up because

Malcolm Collins: they had too much

Simone Collins: fun with it. I just, I just take things away at this point. That’s my whole thing is like, okay, you, you wanted to use that as a weapon.

You don’t have it anymore. Like I, it’s just that’s the only thing that’s working for me. I don’t know what’s [00:43:00] working for you anyway.

Malcolm Collins: Oh my God, no. I can only imagine if. If somebody who was into like little girl daddy dom play, right? If they said the stuff that our kids say to me on a regular basis, people would be like, that’s dark.

You need to stop. Like don’t be like, hit me daddy. Come on.

Simone Collins: Oh, and what the worst thing is, is, especially now that Alexa devices, Amazon Alexa devices have updated their ai and there’s, there’s a broadcasting feature. If you have a lot of them in your house, you can use them basically as an intercom system.

And it used to just be, and you can do this with a, a Google Home device too. Google Home device now still continues to just. Give a recording of your voice when you use the intercom system, but what Alexa does now is instead. Broadcast the message in her voice. So now it’s just, it, it makes it sound extra sexual.

When our children send basic messages,

Malcolm Collins: it’s Alexa. It’s [00:44:00] this woman who’s, she’s like, daddy. Hey daddy.

Simone Collins: There’s this like,

Malcolm Collins: I’m getting thirsty. Yes,

Simone Collins: yes. That’s, that’s Daddy, I’m thirsty. It’s so bad. It sounds so horrible to

Malcolm Collins: say. It’s like an adult woman’s voice

Simone Collins: and it’s just this Yeah, because like they’re ma, they’re trying to make like this maximally.

Like appealing, kind of, kind of cheerful, kind of alluring female voice, except it’s our children saying Daddy comma stuff like, daddy, come down for dinner. Daddy, I’m thirsty. And it’s just, it’s no. No, I guess we’re too diverted.

Malcolm Collins: Daddy, I’m thirsty. Daddy. I’m tired of waiting. Come downstairs.

Simone Collins: You know, it’s so bad.

It’s so, I think maybe we’re too degen for it. Like normal. Normal people would not see, normal people don’t

Malcolm Collins: hear a woman’s voice come on. Because I don’t hear daddy from adult women that much. Like

Simone Collins: I don’t. No, no. Because the only context in which adult women [00:45:00] say that actually, you know what? No, no. So like.

I know that for a fact since the, like fifties and sixties, this has been an issue because it recall and gentlemen prefer blondes. What Marilyn Monroe’s character refers to her partner as is Daddy in a very sexual way. Hmm. Do you not remember? I do. So I mean, but it was still sexual. It’s, yeah, it’s extremely sexual.

So, so it’s not us being DJs, it’s just Alexa being, making everything funny. Especially. When our children decide to use poop jokes to use,

Malcolm Collins: oh, they always, they love going because they think that it’s like a bad thing to do. So they love saying it into Alexa.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And so they’ll be like, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, pee poop.

And it’s just, Alexa, a grown woman in my room going like, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop.

Simone Collins: Daddy poop, poop, poop, daddy poop.

Malcolm Collins: Place [00:46:00] daddy poop. And, and then because we can see on the cameras what they’re doing, they turn to each other and they’re, so, I just said. On the thing. I just did it. Can you believe I did it?

And it was like, and then the other one’s like, anyway, I’ll let you go. We are just going to do so watch the video I sent you for food tonight. Thank you. On how to do the marinade,

Simone Collins: overnight marinade of the

Malcolm Collins: ongoing. It has very explicit instructions on how to handle it, and then how we cook it tomorrow.

In terms of what I’m doing tonight,

Simone Collins: I’m still do, I’m gonna do a little bit tonight. So of the marinade, that’s mostly for overnight. I’m gonna marinate some of it for 30 minutes so that we can make the rest of the noodles for each night. Right. To do that. Okay.

Malcolm Collins: That works for me. Yeah. Did you just throw it in with a lot of

Simone Collins: chi?

Unless there’s something else you wanted tonight? No. Do we have more noodles to cook or I have noodles. Well, that’s the whole thing is I, I pre-ID. Some of those egg noodles to have them sit in a fridge and dry out essentially. ‘cause you really want them dry. You personally wanted them dry? Yeah. Well,

Malcolm Collins: I mean, I want them to fry

Simone Collins: on the pan, you know?

Yeah. So that’s why I was like, well what happens if I refrigerate them for [00:47:00] one or two days and then we fry them up? Will they be better? So I either have to use them or get rid of them. So no, let’s go for

Malcolm Collins: it.

Simone Collins: Okay. All right then. That’s what we’ll do with all those. And Jo,

Malcolm Collins: we’ve got a lot of Chis left.

We got new chives coming in,

Simone Collins: so extra peppers. Do you want me to also just do some of those new peppers that you got? Mix ‘em in with those. Oh,

Malcolm Collins: absolutely. But you need to cook those for a little bit. Like those actually do need to be cooked a bit.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: So

Simone Collins: you’ll, you just slice them. I’m actually do those in like a separate pan, like saute them in a separate pan that doesn’t produce that much smoke.

‘cause you know how we like Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. How we overcook the house when we Yeah, when we do anything in the walk. ‘cause we have no. We, we, we cook in a very old kitchen that was built like at the, like 200 years ago. There’s no ventilation, so when I cook on the walk, our whole house is full of smoke.

Oh my God. It smell good though.

Malcolm Collins: I love you. You are amazing, and thank you for being a part of my life.

Simone Collins: Thank you.

Malcolm Collins: Good episode, by the way. I love the topic. [00:48:00]

Simone Collins: It’s, it’s an interesting one. Yeah. Okay, off I go. I love you.

Malcolm Collins: I love you too.

Simone Collins: Okay. Oh, trivia. What was Walt Disney’s favorite food?

Malcolm Collins: What was Walt Disney’s favorite food?

Simone Collins: Hot dogs.

Malcolm Collins: Hot dogs. That’s a good old American food there.

Simone Collins: When he was building Disneyland when it was under construction, he insisted on calling all the attractions weenies. So he was like, we got a weenie here.

We got a weenie there. Like, he just referred to them as weenies. He was a strange man. He, his obsession with trains actually predated the, the creation of Disneyland. He had a, a train, a giant train set. In his, his backyard. I mean, it was, it was big, like it was enough where you could ride in it. He, he actually.

Shut it down after some party at his house where it, it like someone was driving it too fast and it derailed and the girl got hurt. I mean, she was okay, but she was burned by the steam. So, but yeah, he was a train [00:49:00] obsessive, it

Malcolm Collins: was his steam engine too, and she,

Simone Collins: yeah, no, was he liked, he like. Old, loud, clunky trains.

In fact, that train that goes around Disneyland and Anaheim, you know, the original Disneyland? Yeah. When he went on the first test drive of it, he was irate with the team that built it. Do you know why?

Malcolm Collins: It’s too quiet?

Simone Collins: Yes. It was too quiet. And they had to explain to him. They’re like, well, it’s a, it’s a new well-built train.

And he’s like, make it louder. And they had to literally take the engine apart. Put it together, shoddily. So it’s noisy,

Malcolm Collins: but he’s right. That’s the real experience.

Simone Collins: That’s, no, it’s true. Like he really understood the, the word that came to mind was mouth feel. He really understood like the, the mouth

Malcolm Collins: feel of

Simone Collins: Disney, the patina that you need to have that experience of, of this authentic American.

Yeah, like a train that wasn’t loud and clinky and noisy [00:50:00] wouldn’t feel authentic in the same way. So I just love that weenies. That is hilarious.

Speaker 4: Okay. What are you guys working on? I, my what is this that you’re drawing? Um, I’m drawing my Christmas tree while its among us, present among us. Oh, so you want among us presents? Yeah. I want Among US Plus for Christmas. What about you, Andy? You got anything you’re up to? Yep. Torson Torson. He world, Octavia.

Earlier this morning you said the mice are retreating. Can you tell me about that? Yeah, the mice are retreated. Why are, how do you know they’re retreating? Because the guy from the mouse trap, the men don dying from the mouse trap back. That makes sense. So I got a question for you.[00:51:00]

Um, can you tell people to like and subscribe? What will they get if they like and subscribe? Um, we are gonna make, um, if the white guy subscribe, then we are gonna actually make another like cube with a new person. Always.

Speaker 5: Yeah. So you’re gonna come to their house in a cube? No. Like there’s gonna be another like wine box, Emma, and I’m gonna be in the video. We’re gonna be in the video because you gave us comments about. We you really, really, really making me in the video. So if I, if you put us, if we put you in the video, then we’ll get, then you’ll get a double subscribers and our like under the button if we get it on one video.

Speaker 4: That makes a lot of sense, Octavian. Yeah. [00:52:00] Yeah. So if the way can subscribe, you get that video. Well, the ticket, oh, you want me the ticket? And the ticket is if you actually did what? Why can’t describe and tell me in the kind of actually.

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