Does A Wife Have a Duty to Have "Relations" With Her Husband? Conjugal Duties

Join Malcolm and Simone Collins for a frank and thought-provoking discussion on conjugal duties in marriage. This video explores the complex dynamics of sexual obligations, consent, and relationship expectations in both traditional and modern contexts. The Collins couple offers their unique perspective on marital contracts, sexual satisfaction, and the often-overlooked aspects of successful long-term partnerships.

Key points covered:

* The concept of conjugal duties in different relationship models

* The importance of clear expectations and relationship contracts

* Sexual satisfaction as a mutual responsibility

* The role of consent and enthusiasm in marital intimacy

* Age gap relationships and power dynamics

* Challenges faced by high-status individuals in maintaining fulfilling relationships

* The pitfalls of polyamory for average couples

* The importance of appreciation and recognition in long-term partnerships

Whether you're married, considering marriage, or simply interested in relationship dynamics, this video offers valuable insights into the complexities of modern partnerships.

Simone Collins: [00:00:00] Hello everyone! We're so glad to have you back at Basecamp. Today we are going to talk about conjugal duties. That is to say, how much should each spouse be obligated to do sexy times with the other spouse? And is that important? Well Yes, and

Malcolm Collins: consent in marriages and everything like that.

Would you like to know more?

Malcolm Collins: The reason I wanted to do this particular topic is because when Fundy snark channels, when the channels that make fun of conservatives have their pearl clutching, Oh, I cannot believe they said that moments. One of the most classic is around a wife's conjugal duties. The idea that a wife either would not have the ability to decline consent in a marriage That a wife would have a duty to have sexual relations with her husband.

Simone Collins: Yeah, something along those lines.

Malcolm Collins: We hadn't [00:01:00] actually talked that much about this as a concept before, Simone, and this is just something that hasn't really come up with us. Because I've never understood I, yeah, I guess it, it didn't occur to me that you would ever say no, if I wanted to do something.

So I am wondering how do you, like what, Yeah. What are your thoughts on this topic? Do women have a conjugal duty to their husbands?

Simone Collins: My, and I'm sure you can predict this. My response is it all depends on what the relationship is founded on. If the relationship is founded on sex, then absolutely if everything is predicated on that, if you know that your partner married you because they wanted to have sex frequently or because they found you sexually attracted and wanted to have sex with you regularly and are marrying you for sexual access.

That is part of your obligation. A really common stereotype of relationships. So it's common as a stereotype because it's true. Is it really high wealth, high value men may marry a trophy wife who is much younger perhaps [00:02:00] not as professionally or financially successful, but very sexy for that sexual access.

And in that case, it would be insane for the young woman who ends up getting married. To act as though it is anything, but absolutely her conjugal duty to satisfy this has this partner sexually, as long as they're married, no matter how she feels like she should behave, as long as he is keeping up his end of the bargain, which typically is, I'm going to, you will live in luxury, you will get jewelry, you will get clothing, you will go on fancy trips, have the best food, whatever.

So I think that the whole point is, and this is why relationship contracts are so important. Partners need to know what is being exchanged before they get married, because it is 100 percent your obligation. In fact, I'm so vehement on this that let's say I'm a young, beautiful woman and an older man marries me because they want to regularly have sex with a young, beautiful woman.

Let's say I'm courting Leonardo DiCaprio, and I'm, it's all right. I [00:03:00] think that it is my duty to

Malcolm Collins: put the Leonardo DiCaprio chart on the screen here. What age is it when they turn

Simone Collins: 24 or something like that? It's quite it's mid twenties. And along those lines, I think he's a really great example here.

I would put in our relationship contract if I were to marry Leonardo DiCaprio as that he would have every right to sleep with whatever woman he chooses. And I may even offer to help source those women after I age out of his attractive age range, if I want to maintain that relationship. In other words, if I want to continue To be his wife and continue to have access to presumably his wealth, his connections, whatever, like the, whatever he brings to the table that I would then need to continue to provide that item of value.

I heard

Malcolm Collins: what she just said differently, because it's funny you're taking an incredibly. Some people would say conservatist extremist physician and immediately flipping to a progressive extremist. This is what pragmatism looks like.

Simone Collins: Pragmatism is unmoored from political [00:04:00] bias.

Malcolm Collins: So you are saying that, okay, if you are a woman who's coming into a relationship without bringing much to the table in terms of, your own career or really anything else, like you would see in a typical trophy wife,

Baby: right?

In

Malcolm Collins: that case, Just undisputedly every time conjugal duty is obviously what's expected because that's what's being traded for.

Baby: Yes.

Malcolm Collins: But in the case of Leonardo DiCaprio, you pointed something out. You pointed out an individual, and we will say that Leonardo DiCaprio has a very strong preference for women between a certain age range.

Exactly. Now, regardless of how discussing you as an individual find that or we as society may find that you're just basically throwing that out the window. You're basically being, look, I am like a restaurant server girl and somehow I got Leonardo DiCaprio, fabulously wealthy, famous person to marry me.

I'm going to be happy with that, but I also see this trend in his past dating life.

Which is he always leaves people at X age. So how can [00:05:00] I create a deal with him where being in a relationship with me is still something that is on the aggregate desirable to him, even when sexual relations with me are no longer desirable?

Simone Collins: Because I think we, what you have to do is actually parse out the thing of value that the person wants in a relationship. And the thing of value in this case is sexual access to a female under, we'll say 24 years old. And so if you are no longer a female under 24 years old, you're gonna have to figure out how to either end the relationship in an amicable way, so there has to be like a really good prenup.

It's okay when I turn 24, here's, we get the divorce, and then I get this much money.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Yeah. You would need a really strong prenup. If you were going into it this way, just like literally plan for it.

Simone Collins: Like we have a birthday party, that's an equal divorce party. The lawyer's already paid for, all these things, or you have to have a contingency plan.

I want to add though, that there's another part to this that I think is really important that shows up a ton in the funding commitments

Malcolm Collins: to sex. But I also want to hear what you think of age gap relationships before you go into [00:06:00] this. A lot of people would be like, it's just fundamentally unethical how young the women he's sleeping with are.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I don't think that those women are unaware of what's going on. This is not a situation in which they aren't aware of the fact that they're trading their beauty and youth. For power and fame,

Malcolm Collins: I would argue, I think you're right. Like at some level, they must understand what's going on.

However, I would also say that. They may not realize that essentially he is spending their most desirable years or they are spending their most desirable years on an individual who is going to leave them and they won't be able to attract the same quality partner they will when they're older, just because.

Yeah, but

Simone Collins: also. So society doesn't tell women that they're spending the most desirable years on university and career without getting married, thereby wasting their ability to secure one of the good males before all the males get taken. So

Malcolm Collins: I, I, sorry, I love this [00:07:00] take. Hold on. Before we go to the thing that the funding community does, your take is age gap relationships are wrong.

Not because of coercion. Or power differential, i. e. the reasons progressives think age gap relationships are wrong. Your take is age gaps relationships are wrong because it uses up a girl's best market years without her having full knowledge that she is spending those years. And that's where the unethical but you say that they are not differentially wrong when compared to what all other girls are doing.

So you don't complain, but if it was one of our daughters, you likely wouldn't allow them to do that.

Simone Collins: It's not that I wouldn't allow them. Our daughters would understand the opportunity cost of that choice. And I think there's something very different from opportunity cost knowledge. And I think what's more commonly implied is that, Oh, these men are so much older and more experienced.

They'll win every single argument, but I'm like, excuse me, who do you think is more [00:08:00] manipulative? The 54 year old man. Or the 23 year old girl.

, like the girl is going to school this son of a b***h I, I just don't know what else to say. No,

Malcolm Collins: I, I actually love this

 We have an amazing relationship. And it's very physical. I mean, he still pushes all my buttons. People say, Oh, but he's so much older than you. And you know what? I'm the one having to push him away. , we both have so much in common. We both love soup.

And, uh, we love snow peas and, talking and not talking. Uh, we could not talk or talk forever and still find things to not talk about..

Malcolm Collins: I would argue that if you just look at this from an outsider's perspective you have [00:09:00] a, young, underemployed 23 year old girl who is dating a billionaire guy or multimillionaire guy.

Who is the one that you think is the manipulative one here and here? I'm going to play a clip from best and show of the girl who's dating like the old guy who's about to croak and you know is sleeping with the Her trainer like the she's actually a lesbian and she's just dating him obviously for money Like who do you really yeah, I do love that where they're like, oh it must be the guy who's manipulating the girl like what a silly and misogynistic thought to have You

Simone Collins: Yeah, there's also this concept of financial abuse, right? Where like when a partner, it could be female, but typically it's the men who are accused of this, the male breadwinner or the wealthy male and a trophy wife situation financially abusing his wife because, he has access to all the money.

Now, obviously there are some cases of genuine, almost capture, where you know women are totally disempowered. They've no ability to get out of a relationship. But most of these situations are people coming in with full knowledge of the fact that they are going to [00:10:00] be financially dependent on these men.

And then they claim that they've been financially abused by their spouses. when You know they could just get a job and it's just that they don't want to get a job. And I'll never forget you and I were when we first acquired a travel management business and airlines still gave away business class flights to agency owners. And We were on a business class flight. We would never

Malcolm Collins: normally pay for a business class flight. No, but this is how we got them.

Simone Collins: It was great.

And there was this woman who Sitting next to us who had bought two seats. Yeah, because she just wanted this seat next to her empty.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. Now, she was then telling us that she was getting divorced from her husband because he was financially abusing her and I was like, I hadn't heard the term before. I was like, what do you mean by that?

And he goes she said, I was just wasting money all the time. And I didn't understand the value of money. And now that I'm out of that abusive marriage, I'm free to live my life. And here I am being like, excuse me, you bought two business [00:11:00] class seats next to each other. Yeah. You may have had a point.

Simone Collins: Yeah. This is one of those. Am I the a*****e situations?

Anyway, we did not say anything there, but anyway I, Most, I feel like a lot of the complaints in that realm as well, in terms of age gap relationships are overblown people getting into them often, and this is something that is very controversial, but quite honestly, there are other options are worse than the suboptimal relationship.

I'm not saying it's ideal to be married to someone who you may not have that strong of an emotional connection with, or you may have married. And you don't find them attractive. But they give you a lifestyle that you really want, but then again, maybe your other options are, to be, to be working at a Starbucks and you really hate customer service, or to be doing a door to door sales job.

I don't know, in

Malcolm Collins: previous episodes is. People talk about the quote unquote abuse that happens in a marriage when they are contrasting that with sitting at [00:12:00] home and having all the money you could ever want in the world instead of the hardship of a day to day office job or, low education job, which is generally going that sets the bar of what is more abusive than that.

Pretty high. So let's go down the argument that you were going to make initially, which is something you've noticed in fundy relationships.

Simone Collins: Yeah. So what's often talked about and implied within fundy or even just conservative or traditional relationships is this, the husband gets sex whenever he wants it.

And the wife off, we'll never say no. And it just happens and that it's often not. Yeah. When the women write about their encounters, their intimate encounters, there's not a lot of foreplay, like whatever, it's, it just happens and then it's over. And then, people like Ben Shapiro have talked about things like female lubrication, not being a real thing according to his wife or something.

And one really gets the impression that a lot of these more conservative [00:13:00] religious wives are technically. Not withholding sex, but as far as I'm concerned, they are not offering their part of the bargain because they are starfishing, which is to say they're just lying back and taking it for the country.

When I think that if you're if a person marries you male or female, I do not care for sexual pleasure. Your job is to understand what their sexual interests are and to meet those sexual interests satisfactorily. And I will say the one universal thing that seems to be so common across most genres is is enthusiasm from the partner is, Oh my gosh, I love you.

I cannot wait to do X to you. I cannot wait for you to do X to me. Oh my gosh, I am loving this. Yes. Blah, blah, blah. Like just lying there and shaking it. It's almost worse than denying it which I agree, but I also think

Malcolm Collins: this is [00:14:00] likely a two sided thing. So an interesting thing about Ben Shapiro's case is you may not know this but if he was actually practicing a conservative Jewish lifestyle one of the responsibilities, and I forget the word here, but there's the three core responsibilities a husband has with his wife in one of the three is to make sure that he is sexually satisfying her.

And so he is technically failing at being a Jew, if this is accurate that he is not pleasing her. And I think that this comes to a point here that you made which, which is just really important, which conjugal duty I would actually argue, and I think you argue this as well. It's almost like less, like it's less than what is actually expected of an individual.

Simone Collins: Totally.

Malcolm Collins: You don't have a, like a conjugal duty. If you are just performing a conjugal duty, you are not performing the role in the relationship, the sexual role in a relationship that's actually expected of a partner. What [00:15:00] is actually expected. is that you take the satisfaction of your partner as seriously as almost anything else.

As I say, the only two responsibilities you have above your spouse's wellbeing is to God and your kids. And after that, your spouse comes above yourself significantly above yourself. And that means that you. Should attempt to understand exactly what they're into. It's not like a, I'm just having sex with you and we're done.

It is, let me fully understand, and if you read something like The Pragmatist's Guide to Sexuality, you'll see that the way sexuality actually works is it's like this giant circuit board, basically, of knobs. It's not like a few things that may arouse people. There are, and you can go through the book Hundreds of things that commonly arouse people.

These are certain emotional states, certain environmental stimuli, certain visual [00:16:00] stimuli, different ways of interacting. Some people are very sexually reactive, meaning that they do not feel arousal or attraction to somebody just for being around them, but they do when the person is engaging them.

And you and somebody like that might be like, to you just that. Oh I'm sexually reactive, therefore, I'm never going to pursue my partner sexually,

Baby: right?

Malcolm Collins: And it's why is that the case? And it's it doesn't turn me on to do it. And it's whoa, stop.

Does it actively cause you great discomfort to pretend like you're really interested in your partner and start a relationship sometime? You're like, no, not really. A bit of LARP in the beginning isn't that much of a problem. And it's then why aren't you doing it if it makes your partner significantly happier?

This is what you're doing and here I would note that where there is the exception is in some individuals because the way sexuality works, we talk about this in our sexuality book, is it is a scale from arousal to disgust. It doesn't [00:17:00] stop at nothing. Disgust is part of the sexual system.

You can watch our other videos on this, but it's basically an inverted sexuality. Anything that arouses a large portion of the population is going to discuss some other portion of the population. Anything that discuss a large portion of the population is going to arouse a small portion of the population.

But what this means is that sometimes partners will have really high disgust reactions to a specific thing that you may be into. Now so that could be something like anal, like just no anal, like a rule, no anal ever because that would cause me such discomfort that whatever pleasure you're getting from that is just not worth it for our net productivity and desire for each other.

And that's okay. It's okay that one partner is like something that you like causes me great pleasure. Disgust and distress. The problem is when instead of being I guess negative in terms of the things you're taking off the table okay, this, I don't like this. I don't like this.

I don't like is coming at this. These are the 10 things that are approved. Because that is almost certainly [00:18:00] not going to overlap with that's not even like you went and investigated and tried to understand what your partner is into, right?

Simone Collins: Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: but here is where sexuality gets really interesting.

I think from a conjugal duties perspective Which is it is possible to have a relationship where conjugal duties are not expected Oh totally. When is that the case? That is the case when it is explicitly stated before the marriage happens That is when that is the case. And why do I say it needs to be explicitly stated before the marriage happens?

Or in a marriage contract or something like that? That is because in our society right now, if you are getting into a marriage, the default assumption Is it that marriage is going to have a sexual component? And so if one of you goes dead bedrooms that is turning your back on a component that was a presupposition when the marriage happened.

And if you have that presupposition, you're like, yeah, [00:19:00] but then I just can't bring myself to sleep with my partner anymore. Then that's a serious issue and there are multiple ways to resolve it. It could be because your partner has let themselves go, which they actually violated the contract as well.

Simone Collins: So long as you had, attractiveness clauses or no. I'd actually

Malcolm Collins: say, I'm talking default societal assumptions. I think if you guys agreed nothing before you got married, and then after you got married, one of you gained a significant amount of weight and then the other person starts, I would say that's fair.

Okay. If, however, you two are equally fit as when you got into the relationship and one person stops, I would say, no, that's a foul. And that With that foul, that doesn't necessarily mean the marriage has to break up, but it means that person now has the right to look for alternate sources of sexual release.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And I think that's the super underrated in, in that I think with especially male sexual interest, this is not so much the case with female sexual interests, just saying, basically, if [00:20:00] you can't get it with me, you're welcome to get it. somewhere else as the wife is a huge negotiating point that can really keep marriages together because sometimes women lose their sex drives.

Sometimes women just aren't that into it. And I think there's a long history of established older wives who've maybe had a few kids. Knowing that their husbands are having affairs, knowing that their husbands sleep with other women or have mistresses and being like pretty cool with it and having otherwise quite functional relationships, because it's just understood Hey, I'm not the person who's going to provide that part of our relationship anymore.

Someone else is going to do it, but I'm glad you're getting it somewhere. And

Malcolm Collins: So what Simone is saying is that if you are a woman. You can augment your value to particularly high status men by altering the expected contract that you're getting into relationship with them in and allowing them to sleep with other people.

Now a lot of people are like, ew, gross, like how could a woman do that? But the problem is that if [00:21:00] you are dating like the crim of society, like billionaires and stuff like that, movie stars. Pretty much because we, hang out adjacent to these classes of people. I'd say 70, 80 percent of their relationships are structured this way.

It is just

Simone Collins: a business relationship. Imagine that you're establishing. A contract with the vendor and you would like it to be a full service contract and it starts out full service. Let's say you're a resort working with a client and, you want that client to always stay at your resort or something.

And you have restaurants, you have a spa, you have hotel rooms, and they, and other services, tours, and they use all of that. for several years. And then they decide, you know what? I really want sushi. And you don't have a sushi restaurant. And there's one right across the street. Like why is it so impossible that they could get some service somewhere else and then utilize all of your other services?

Appreciate it. Hold on. I want to be

Malcolm Collins: clear, Simone. I think that this is something that is only viable for basically billionaire class men. I do not think that this works [00:22:00] for men below the billionaire class. And I guess

Simone Collins: because the assumption is that other women that they would be with would ultimately want a full time relationship as

Malcolm Collins: well.

No it's because, what, why do you, I have no idea where you're going with this. No. Wha like regular polyamory as practice was in our society is just completely unstable. It doesn't work. However, historically speaking people who would have been billionaire class, even in monogamous societies, even in Catholic Europe, for example, all a lot of, I wouldn't say all, but a lot of the French monarchs, for example, a lot of the monarchs more broadly had mistresses.

Simone Collins: I don't even, I don't. I can't imagine there was one that did not have mistresses.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So the, even within traditional Christian value systems, if you're talking like lovers.

Baby: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Yeah. If you go back and they're like, Oh, this wasn't true in the fifties, excuse me. Do you not think the billionaires in our society in the [00:23:00] fifties, do you not remember?

Kennedy and the famous scandal with him, and who was it, Marilyn Monroe? The billionaire men, so why is this the case? That the absolute criminally criminal men in our society generally have a choice? It's because They are the most desirable class of humans in society. By that, what I mean is if you look at how partner sorting happens, and I'll put a thing on the screen here so you can see desirable women have it good, but not that good because for a desirable woman, if I'm a top 1 percent desirable woman the problem is that the top 1 percent desirable men, Don't just have me to choose from.

They basically can choose from any of the groups of women. They'll choose within the top 20 percent of women often. I will only choose a 1 percent man. So I actually have a fairly hard time securing a man. And if a woman who is in the top 2 percent or top 5 percent tells that guy, Hey, look, I'll let you sleep around.

And I top 1 percent women aren't coming to them with that [00:24:00] proposal. Then they're not going to stick with me. And so that's why these men become used. to these kinds of proposals from women. And so it is because it becomes a cultural norm in their communities that they adopted. Do I think it leads to better relationships than the type that I have?

No, it just becomes a cultural norm in their communities. So I'll word this differently. I actually think if you are a top like billionaire class guy and you get used to You will never be able to have a life as happy As my life. And that's one of the things that I often look at where I'll look at the billionaire men in our society and I'm like, wow, they live in such poverty.

I don't know what to call it, like spiritual poverty when contrasted with my life. However if I was a billionaire, would I not act the way they act? Would I actually, and when I say a billionaire, I've been a billionaire for 10 years or whatever, not like a me today with my value system and my wife and my family and all the hindsight that gave me suddenly became a billionaire.

But if I had done the whole ultra hard [00:25:00] work thing for ages and ages and gave everything up and then began to socialize with women again, and I hadn't done it since I was in high school or, I hadn't fully, their mental perspective is quite different from the rest of society. And so I understand it, but I think it's like a temporary optimum.

And it isn't the maximum optimum. If they could get above that and then try to structure a wholesome life, I think that some billionaire class men rarely in history did structure wholesome lives. And they ended up with like uniquely good relationships. Yeah.

This is actually kind of messed up. When you think about it, that. Once I believe as, as a man. Well, and as a woman, as a woman, it shown, you know, once you get above certain levels of wealth, the probability that you get married or get into a happy relationship are very low. There's the studies of women who. We had a large amount of money.

And then what actually happens is they just divorce their husbands. Um, but, but as a man. And that you can be super, super wealthy and not have [00:26:00] access to the levels of happiness and contentment that I have access to. It's not that you literally don't have access to them. It's just that the way the world is structured makes it astronomically harder for them to access this lifestyle. Than it is for me to access this lifestyle. , so you can take someone like Elan, who I have enormous respect for.

, do I think that he would be much more contented and satisfied with his life? If he tried settling down with his own person and bought a farmstead and move to a more remote work situation. , and was able to, you spend more time with his kids and more time with one partner, he was really invested in. Absolutely.

I do not think that he has access to the quality of life that I have access to yet. I believe he has done more. To make the world a better place than I do. And thus deserves [00:27:00] more, which is, um, sad. And then you can look at the, the other ultra wealthy people that have, I guess I'd call them sort of serial monogamous relationships that is, you know, monogamy was divorce. So they have some similar lock room of a monogamous life. , but I think they even have less happy lives than someone like Ilan. , so you're, I'm thinking of someone like a Jeff Bezos, you know, When I look at the ways that this, this woman who, you know, took all this money that he made and really didn't contribute much of anything. , it's spending it on. She could not have been a pleasant person to be married to.

She just seems. You know, complete NPC, which would be so sad to be married to, or, you know, Speaking of NPCs, you could be like, well, what about mark Zuckerberg? You. He seems to be in a stable long-term monogamous relationship. , but I'm not really convinced that he is not, he just seems fully urban monoculture to the extent that he is just one of those NPC memes [00:28:00] plus. And I think that the level of happiness or really the depth of emotions that are accessible by somebody in an NPC state are fairly limited., , and this is another problem that we see. Because I think this is a mistake that, that Jeff Bezos made, which is yes, you can be ultra wealthy and in a totally, , monogamous relationship.

But if that person is a total MPC, it's just not going to be interesting. This is why for Elan, I'd recommend, you know, If he was going to settle down with someone settled down with somebody who's. Weird and interesting and willing to go against social mores like Grimes, for example, I think would be a very good long-term partner for him. , and I think that when he had tried long-term relationships to begin with. The problem is, is that the people weren't as weird as him. And anyone who wants to do some screed against Grimes here. , don't be tricked by the media. She is. An interesting and delightful person. , if you can get past all of the [00:29:00] lies. Elan also is also constantly under the media, just. Completely trying to poison the public against him. Which is very frustrating to me. , and it's also something where I reflect on, you know, in the media is mean to me or when people in public are mean to me.

And they're like, oh Malcolm, you, you monster you X, Y, Z. , I often have to take a moment to reflect on. How good my life is. And. It's it's almost impossibly good. It's almost impossibly good. When I reflect on my life these days, it feels like sort of the before scene and like a Punisher movie or something like that, which creates this sort of dread. , but I guess I, I constantly feel like it can't be this good and the way that I have come to terms with that.

Is to consider that this must be a reward for. MI. Tanking. All of the hate that my wife and I get [00:30:00] publicly and all of the threats that my wife and I get publicly. , and that we are being rewarded for the difference that I hope we are. Well, not, I hope I know we are trying to make in the world and I hope that is realized in the world. , and I guess I could see my current. Undeserved contentedness. It's a sign that we might be successful with this. , so long as we can tank through all the hatred.

Malcolm Collins: But, there is a final thing that I wanted to say for normal men.

And we can do a whole episode on why I don't think polyamory often works for middle income people. Okay. But because I've had more time to see the outcomes of it with my friend group.

Simone Collins: Longitudinal research.

Malcolm Collins: We hang out with a lot of like tech guys in California. Okay.

Simone Collins: Longitudinal anecdota. Yes.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. In my anecdota is it basically never works. Actually I can't think of a thing. No, I can think of one long term instance where it seems to have worked. Do I know it? Yeah. Yeah, but I don't know. Yeah, don't name

Simone Collins: [00:31:00] names.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I don't want to name your names.

I don't know. I it's public. Seems pretty happy. I wouldn't

Simone Collins: name

Malcolm Collins: names. Okay. I won't. I'll take

Simone Collins: that out.

Malcolm Collins: But so the but what I was going to say is the other thing that's worth noting is alongside conjugal duties is there's a few things to accept sex, non reproductive sex.

is inherently sinful. All non reproductive sex is basically a fetish. It is pleasure for pleasure's sake even if it is a bonding ritual. Now

Simone Collins: so it's sinful if you, like us, do not think that happiness has inherent value.

Malcolm Collins: I'm talking about in our system, and I think, yes, in, in most, in, I say real Christian systems.

I know there's some Christian systems that have moved to this worship of the flesh, where it's oh, in marriage sex is a holy thing, always. And I am like no. No. Reproductive sex is, but sex more broadly, I don't think that is true. You are using [00:32:00] another human's body to masturbate.

It is a form of sin. It takes away from your time that you are being productive. But that doesn't mean that, because we all sin, we aren't Jesus, right? So we all do things that are meant to satisfy ourselves. And as a partner to your spouse while you have a duty to help uplift them as a person and improve as a person, you also have a duty to max out their happiness stat.

I'd say the little green triangle on a Sim, your duty to your spouse is to make sure that's always as green as possible. And what that means is not just sex. And that's the important thing is. It means that you need to understand the sins that they are not currently working on. And allow them to indulge in those sins where, so long as they are making improvements in other areas.

With men, this means that, because a lot of women don't, desire sex in the same way men do in a long term [00:33:00] relationship, right? But, they have other sins, for example, desiring status signaling jewelry such as or desiring Or fancy

Simone Collins: trips, or furniture, whatever it might be.

Malcolm Collins: And you have a duty in the same way that they have a duty to try to help maximize your mood and self perception.

As you are working on that together, right? You have a duty to them in the same regards. And so I would say that it is as bad if you have the financial resources to invest in things like that. Unless you explicitly agreed to not before the marriage. And this is why marriage contracts are so important.

Cause otherwise they're operating off of societal defaults. But within societal defaults, I think that there is some duty to supply the woman, especially If that woman is doing her job and trying to make you as happy as possible to supply her with the things that she needs for the same sort of validation that you're getting from that sex.

And that might [00:34:00] be jewelry, it might be pearls, it might be nice furniture, it might be A pet, for example. There are many self perception modifying things. It's just that one of the most gendered towards men is sex, and yet, our society has built this bizarre consent concept today. And I'm not saying that consent doesn't matter at all, but I'm like when you just are like consent is like a steel thing that can never be crossed, you end up with this really horrible framework where a wife can just always say no, right?

Like just no, we're not having sex anymore. And consent, and you can't get mad at me for saying this. And it's like that silly the way this works in real life in a family where like you're actually having a caring relationship with your partner is one person's I value this.

And the other partner is I value this, or I'm not in the mood for this today. Could we do it? This time or under these other conditions for example, my wife would say [00:35:00] these days, I've got a small infant in the room. I don't want to hire a nanny to bring, to deal with the infant.

I don't want to put the infant in another room while we're having sex. So let's wait until the infant is old enough that it could be with somebody else or that I feel comfortable leaving it outside the room for a period of time. That is a completely reasonable thing to say. And I think that consent absolutism removes reasonable conversations from the table.

I think the thing I have. Problems with around the way consent is being a framed in modern society. Is that denying consent? Is treated as a costless activity instead of an activity that needs some level of explanation, which allows something to happen. Like, you know, for example, a stay at home wife who isn't really contributing much of anything to a relationship just. Constantly denying a man consent like permanent consent denial. [00:36:00] And thinking that the relationship can stay stable and that then. If he wants a divorce or he wants to leave, or he wants to cheat That he is 100% at fault, and there is no culpability upon the person who was denying consent. Um, It is not that I don't think that consent shouldn't be respected. Absolutely. It is that we should not because we respect consent. So seriously. That we should not act as if denying consent bears some costs.

I think, , I guess I'd call it like informed consent, , which is to say. The denial of consent with an explanation. That is time gated or resolvable. Like, I don't want to sleep with you now because I find you unattractive due to your weight gain. , that's fine because that's, you know, okay, well, so lose weight then I'll want to sleep with you again.

Malcolm Collins: But what were you gonna say? Because you really wanted to say something.

Simone Collins: Consent matters. Also If [00:37:00] someone feels like they're having genuine non consent with anything in a marriage, and that's not necessarily with intimacy, it could also be with a partner, for example, making purchases that are not approved.

That is a form of infidelity, period.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah I wouldn't even say it's a form of infidelity, I'd say it's, So I do agree that in that sense consent matters. So what I'm saying here is

Simone Collins: feeling like

Malcolm Collins: it demanding that a person obeys your consent request without consequences for denying consent.

By that, what I mean is if a wife continually declines consent without any real reason that. That would be a case where a husband would be justified in becoming angry and saying that the wife is violating the assumptions of their marriage in the [00:38:00] same way where it is a violation if a woman like takes a bunch of money or spends a bunch of money without the man's consent, but it is also a violation.

If the man never ever grants consent for the woman to splurge on herself.

Simone Collins: Yeah, I would also say though, when you get to a point where relationships involve asking for things let alone denial, just asking for things. Is being, if I always have to ask you for sex, something's gone wrong. If that's an important thing in our relationship if you always have to ask me to clean up, something's gone wrong.

One, when in an ideal situation relationship requests should be like improv. The answer is yes. And. But also you should be like the ultimate, servant to your partner because, you are unified with them toward a larger goal. You should be anticipating their needs. Like you said, putting them only after God and your children.

And doing everything [00:39:00] you can to make their lives more enjoyable, but if they're not doing the same, your relationships on thin ice. So that's,

Malcolm Collins: That's a really great point is that concepts like consent as progressives use the term begin to not make sense in a well structured relationship because in a well structured relationship, both people.

Generally consider the needs of the other before their own needs I would never question that simone is definitely in almost everything She does during the day always putting my needs before her own And as such I feel comfortable in everything. I do always putting her needs before mine So when there is arguments the arguments are often About something that I want to do for her and she feels is unjustified.

Oh, I wanna splurge on you with this. And you're just like, no, I don't want this. Are you wanting to splurge on me with something? And I'm like, no it wouldn't make me happy enough to offset the [00:40:00] cost. And so we're not going to do that right now.

Simone Collins: No. I will say that sometimes I bring things up where I know that.

I want something that is not in the best collective interests of our family and our morals. Those are never

Malcolm Collins: things that hurt me. It's like you coming to me and saying, can I, do I have permission to not go to this party? It's never like a favor you're doing when it comes to the things for me, they are always done.

And often, and this is another thing that I think is really important. And I would consider a duty of a spouse. If you're considering the duties of your relationship, it is to notice and think and show appreciation. For the things your spouse does without telling you or request and that this appreciation cannot run dry just because your relationship has existed a long time.

Simone Collins: And I also think that's like a meaningful flirtation and dating strategy in general. That, retard level relationship [00:41:00] action is things like your eyes are so pretty, you're so beautiful, you're so handsome, whatever. And then I tell you're gorgeous all the time, but that's.

Retard level compliment. What I think gives people the most sense of satisfaction, the greatest dopamine hit is when, people recognize actions that they've taken, things for which they actually have responsibility. Okay, women can put a lot of effort into their appearance, but then you can recognize, wow, the way you styled your hair today is just incredible.

How did braid your hair that way? Or but it should be around your actions or, wow, the way that you immediately anticipated the kids were going to freak out when this thing happened and you made sure that they were okay. It just really made me feel fantastic.

And I can't thank you enough, like complimenting actions or complimenting moments so much more meaningful than just compliment or complimenting attributes over which people have no control and haven't put any effort because anyone even people who actually aren't working that hard. Feel like they're putting in some kind of effort, even if it's getting out of bed or like getting dressed and being recognized for stuff [00:42:00] that they personally put energy into gives them much more of a dopamine hit than stuff that they don't feel like they worked on that day.

Malcolm Collins: Yes, no, absolutely. I 100 percent agree with you. And that's a great way, when you're thinking about how do you actually make your partner feel good, it's notice the things that they're putting effort into and compliment those things. And, but it's just also important because if they do something like, Okay.

Even if it's it's my wife's duty to do the dishes and it's no, she's choosing to do the dishes and you need to show appreciation for that every time. Yeah. It's one of the

Simone Collins: things of value that partner offers in the relationship. If you don't value that, then. Why on earth should they be putting in the effort,

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, and then they won't feel delight or appreciation now the final thing i'm going to note here Something that I noticed when I was ruminating on the point I had made earlier I was like no it is actually traditional In christian cultures for the very wealthy and most powerful men to have multiple partners.

And then I thought of an exception it is normal It is not normal in Catholic and [00:43:00] Orthodox countries, it is not normal in Protestant countries, consider King Henry VIII, he had to literally have his wives killed to get additional women. He had side chicks. He had

Simone Collins: a son with a side chick.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, he did, yes.

Okay, I'm wrong, yeah. Sorry. Men are men. He did. He did have side chicks. You're right. So even in Protestant countries, you had it.

Baby: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And the side chick wasn't the problem. The problem is that the son was the legitimacy. He wanted a legitimate Arab. Yeah. All right. So even there just always, I love when people appeal to a Christian traditionalism that is just a complete fabrication of what actual Christian history was like.

And it's no, they're there. This was actually more complicated than that. Which is always interesting to me. Or they'll be like, Oh in the Bible, it was always one man in one woman. And it's it definitely was not. You have the case of Oh God, what's the case I'm thinking of where the guy was too old.

And so his [00:44:00] wife said he could sleep with their slave to have a kid. Oh, yeah,

Simone Collins: yeah.

Malcolm Collins: That story was

Simone Collins: always so weird to me.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. Sarah, Hagar, and Abraham. And it's literally the source of the Abrahamic tradition. So it's in all of the Abrahamic tradition that, that this is not like the most It, it is actually really interesting to me, and we'll do another episode on this. This LARP of the Christian lifestyle that doesn't match lifestyles in the Bible or that are described in the Bible, but instead matches Hollywood's description of a Christian in the 1950s.

Which was like never like a real thing. And it's just interesting to me that people will say with such conviction. These are Christian values when they are not the values of the Bible or historically Christian communities. But they are just so convinced that they're Christian values. And it's baffling to me.

But it shows you how like cultural consensus works. People [00:45:00] always want to believe everything is archaic. When often it's not one of the episodes we'll do when I get around to it, And I do need to do it because I have too many pro Jewish episodes and I need to do an episode that's going to make people think.

Oh, Jews aren't gonna like this which is on how quickly the Jewish religion has evolved recently and that the medieval Jewish religion and culture is almost completely disconnected from modern the modern Jewish religion culture. I'm dying to hear more about this. Yeah. You keep referring to this over and over.

It requires a lot of research. But here for people who don't believe me, for example, I will put on a screen right now, a picture of a. Medieval Catholic and a picture of a modern Catholic. Now I am going to put on the screen a picture of an ultra conservative Medieval Jew and a picture of a ultra conservative modern Jew.

And for those who are listening on podcast and don't know what medieval Jews looks like They look like they are wearing a go piece as a hat, and they are [00:46:00] wearing green and it's got like a ball at the top of a hat, and you know what modern Jews look like, they have like long curly hair things, and all sorts of other,

I should note here for anyone who's like, oh, you're just talking about fashion. What does that have to do? Is religious identity. Um, the episode, the reason why it needs the whole episode is actually going to go over all sorts of traditions and things that are core to the religious tradition, um, and show that, uh, you know, around 50% or more are modern. In the same way that like, if I'm looking at an Amish community and you ask an Amish community, when was your community founded?

And they'd be like, well, the death of Christ. And it's like, well, I mean, but from an outsider's perspective, when was your community founded? Because when I look at Amish and I'm like, this is what makes you Amish. Um, you know, you're talking about like the 18 hundreds. Um, so, and I also need to note this in the context of, I'm not really saying it's a new religion, it's more, this, that in the same way that some languages. Like, [00:47:00] eh, when you're looking at language groups, Uh, you will find that some languages are incredibly preserved and change.

Very, very little over history and other languages evolve incredibly quickly. Um, and yet, because they completely replaced the iteration that came before them. It makes sense to call them the same language. Even though they would be completely uninterpretable to people, you know, maybe even a few hundred years apart.

Um, that's sort of what we're talking about here.

So it's a tricky subject and deserving of a full episode.

Malcolm Collins: are you looking up medieval Jew?

Simone Collins: No, I just wanted to say, if people are really interested in Catholic where there's this particular podcast on Catholic fashion that I thought was absolutely fantastic.

I just think religious fashion is really interesting.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah no I think it's really fascinating as well. Anyway, love you too, Desimone. You are amazing and I hope our fans are having a wonderful day and that [00:48:00] we can get feedback on the lavalier system.

Simone Collins: Yeah, I'm excited for it. Love you, gorgeous.

Love you too. This.

Man, I'm so happy now. You know that feeling at the end of the day when you've eaten all the frogs? You've eaten all of them! So many frogs!

Malcolm Collins: How am I coming through, by the way?

Simone Collins: Say something more.

Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simone! I am excited to be talking to you today!

Baby: Yeah, it sounds

Simone Collins: not as good as the super high quality mics, but at least now you can talk freely.

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