How and When is Sex Ed Appropriate?

We explain our strategy of aggressively educating kids about sexuality to normalize it and reduce interest. We believe society frames sex as no different from porn and this obsessiveness ruins enjoyment. True happiness comes from improving future generations, not temporary pleasure. Early exposure and openness make desire and experiences less appealing long-term.

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] I was like, okay, let's look into the data on this. Yeah. Generally it seems that the more you teach young kids about sex, the less they have sex and the later they have sex the first time. Do you think that's because adults

Simone Collins: are tainting it with uncoolness?

Malcolm Collins: I would that could be part of it. Yeah,

Simone Collins: but does this teaching kids about sex include teaching kids about. Abstinence, or like teaching

Malcolm Collins: kids to not have sex.

Okay, so you can do abstinence only education, which actually has a similar effect to general sex education.

Simone Collins: Interesting. See, I had thought as a kid growing up, and like younger, that like abstinence only education didn't work. That's what I always heard. Abstinence

Malcolm Collins: only education doesn't work. Of course, because that's what they wanted to tell you.

Yeah. Like that fit the narrative. Perhaps in this only education actually does work, but it doesn't seem to work as long as general sex education. The more a community is told to restrict access to these sorts of things, the more they're going to engage with these sorts of things under the radar.

It really seems like. The best panacea [00:01:00] against over sexual abundance. So we will teach our kids, basically the answer here is we will teach our kids pretty aggressively and early about human sexuality. But because we want them to engage in the topic with moderation, and we think that that is the best way to achieve that outcome. ​We are getting to do a special recording today because we had the disappointment of setting up all our recording equipment For a Great Britain, what about a GB news interview?

And this is the second time they've done this to us But you know, we always got to be ready for those news conversations and said we're like what we blocked out time Anyway, we might as well take the time to chat with each other which is more fun Let's be honest. We had one of those, those recording sessions ruthlessly stolen from us by a a friend where we had to talk with a friend.

Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. The burden of [00:02:00] friendship. Will it ever leave us, Simone? God, I don't know. One day I hope to be famous enough that I do not care about alienating myself from friends. The whole world can be just you, me and the kids. Won't that be wonderful?

Simone Collins: Yeah, except then like the friends that you do hang out with probably just hang out with you because you're famous, which sounds annoying.

No,

Malcolm Collins: no, I don't want any friends. Once I'm, once I'm at that level. Just, just

Simone Collins: would be completely isolated. Okay, that's dreamy. I'm

ready

Malcolm Collins: for that. You, me, the kids, living in our, our antique farmhouse in the woods. Yeah, that's fine. Okay. Or potentially we're going to have to go set up our charter city by then, some remote place in the far north, a little settlement, right?

Simone Collins: God, I don't want to leave this place. I really like

Malcolm Collins: it. I know. I know. So today's topic is an interesting one. And it has to do with when we think it is appropriate and how we will engage with our kids and the subject of sexuality. Indeed. And [00:03:00] what's really funny is I think a lot of people might see us or they see, you know,

they know that broadly, you know, we consider ourselves as very like culturally similar to Ayla. And, and we're friends with her, you know, we have her on the show sometimes. And then we'd be like, what, so you want to raise your kids to grow up like Ayla, right? Like, is that your goal? I'm not

Simone Collins: grow up like Ayla, because she grew up in an extremely hardline conservative religious

Malcolm Collins: household.

Yeah, well, I mean, we are an extremely hardline conservative religious household, we just have a different view of sexuality. We're

Simone Collins: not a sex negative extremely hardline conservative religious

Malcolm Collins: household. Yeah, that's what you meant. So, so, our response would be, you know, which of us Ayla or us, do you think, grew up not learning about sexuality?

I was exposed to sexual, like, like, information at an extremely young age. And, and I would say it was extremely negative. I, I remember, because I remember, okay, so the house I was living at the time, I couldn't have been older than seven. When my mom, I [00:04:00] remember this conversation with my mom. Oh dear.

Simone Collins: And she takes me by Okay, so

Malcolm Collins: you're totally pre pubescent at this point. And she goes, well, Malcolm, you're going to need to be very, very careful because many young girls are going to try to get you to get them pregnant so that they can force you to marry them and take your money.

Simone Collins: I mean, actually, that's, if you have a family that is likely to be targeted for that.

Malcolm Collins: I understand. She had a perception that we were that kind of, and I guess my family more largely was that way at that age. That was sort of at times your

Simone Collins: family did have a lot of wealth. And I think was known for that. Also, like it could be a similar liability if like, you know, that your kid is like going to be the high school star.

And then like women would. You know, you need to warn your sons that like, women will pursue them just for social status. It's not as like, the pregnancy

Malcolm Collins: risk is not as dangerous. I remember she also told me like, at a pretty young age, [00:05:00] that I needed to know how to be good at sex. I needed to know how to, like, that this was something that I should take the time to research and familiarize myself with.

Like, she wasn't like, creepy, like, I'm gonna. you know, teach you about all this stuff, which I appreciate, but she was just like, this is something you can study and you should take the time to study because it will matter both in terms of your social, you know, popularity and your ability to secure a high quality wife.

And, and, and as. Other people who have read other of our works know one of the things that my mom always, always enforced me as a young kid is that the single most important decision or accomplishment I would ever make is who I married. So for her to be like, this is really important in terms of who marries you, for her to be like, this is important in terms of who you marry, like, she's being like, this is a really critical life tool. And you also grew up with a lot of exposure to sexuality stuff at a young age, right? Yeah, I mean, all

Simone Collins: my parents just left, like Porn illustrations [00:06:00] and like

Malcolm Collins: this is one of the most embarrassing moments of my life at your house.

So do you remember this? So I'm talking with her dad in the living room.

Simone Collins: This is like

Malcolm Collins: in like a main, like in the living room. And I see on the bookshelf. Like, cool looking, like, anime thing.

Simone Collins: Yeah, so you're like, oh, it's manga.

Malcolm Collins: Cool. And I pull it out, and it is a hentai book. In her family's living room.

Pretty explicit. While I'm talking to her dad. Yeah. I pull this out, and I just like, put it back. Pretend nothing happened. Cause I am mortified. I think. Your family is, is the one extreme I wouldn't go to. I mean, they pushed you into the type of woman who, who, you know, by the time we were married, I was only the second guy she had ever kissed, you know, much less you definitely had never had sex with anyone before me or anything like

Simone Collins: that.

Yeah. Which is weird because like, I mean, as you can imagine, like if a child is knocking about a house where a lot of the illustrated books are. [00:07:00] Literally extremely explicit material. Like you are exposed to that sometimes without, and no, always with that annotation, like, you know, early, cause you're going to pull the thing with the pictures off the bookshelf, not the stuff with the words.

So that was great. Interesting. And move on there. Did

Malcolm Collins: your parents tell you about sexuality at a

Simone Collins: young age? Like, so what's really interesting is. The only sex talk I remember with my, with any parent was with my mom. I remember where I was in the house and she was basically like, Simone. So when it comes to sex, like you have a, it's like a precious jewel and you have a certain number of jewels and they're very precious.

And you just need to be really thoughtful about who you give them away to. And, you know, I was really generous with my jewels.

Malcolm Collins: She said that, yeah. She said

Simone Collins: she wouldn't, [00:08:00] she, she essentially told me she wouldn't have. been so generous. Like she she basically said, I, I wish I hadn't slept around as much when I was younger.

Which was interesting. But

Malcolm Collins: you know, to be in this hippie culture growing up, you know, your mom, like her whole shaman thing, you know, she's really into all that for her to tell you that you must've been like, wow, she's really serious about this advice.

Simone Collins: I was indifferent to it because like with you is this really bizarre exception.

I'm asexual, like I'm not attracted to anyone except for you, like, and I've been having these sex dreams about you. It's so freaking weird, man. It's like, anyway, so like, I have problems

Malcolm Collins: with you. But this is only because of the pregnancy, right? Like the

Simone Collins: Who knows? I mean, I've always been hot for you, but like now it's just worse.

So yeah, probably pregnancy hormones, which who knows? You've also just been extra hot recently and amazing and perfect and the best husband ever.

Malcolm Collins: This is sweet. I have a yandere wife here.

Simone Collins: No, [00:09:00] like genuinely. Like, yeah, I hate everyone else, only have eyes for you, but like, so that means though, like my mom having that talk with me meant nothing because like, I wouldn't have been

Malcolm Collins: interested.

achieved status. I mean, I believe that the reason why I was so sexually active at a young age, which is less important for a guy, is because In terms of like my, my status on the marketplaces because I believed that it was important to my social standing and my, you

Simone Collins: were trying about Yeah, but for women, that's not the case.

I mean, and I do remember, like, there were some actually women in my high school who I really

Malcolm Collins: respect. Not all women. Some women believed that they can gain social credit for this. Some, some do.

Simone Collins: And there were some women in my high school who I thought were really beautiful and way smarter and cooler than me.

Who. Did become sexually active in high school. And then I would hear people say things like describe them as cum dumpsters. And, you know, think that that was kind of weird, but like, I, I, I had zero one. I didn't [00:10:00] think anyone would ever be attracted to me. So obviously like, I wouldn't think about sex is something that I would

Malcolm Collins: like.

You're so inherently humble, Simone. It radiates from you.

Simone Collins: I, yeah, you've also seen me in high school. Well, like I wasn't, I, I was not. Even close to the top 50 percent Okay,

Malcolm Collins: you were less attractive than you are today when you were younger I'll agree with that, but I think that you were still very attractive.

I I

Simone Collins: was like in high school. I was like a Three and a half and maybe you

Malcolm Collins: were nerd bait in high school. I've six you were nerd bait, but continue

Simone Collins: That's sweet. In, in college, sorry, post college in college and post college, I was nerd bait in high school. It was a real story. So, one, like I never would have thought to use that as a social currency.

Cause I didn't think it was a social currency. I had second until I met you, I thought it was completely asexual. So like. I had no interest. So like my mom saying that to me meant nothing, basically like no amount of sex [00:11:00] education or lack thereof or abstinence education would have changed my stance and policy around sexuality.

And I think this is a really important point. I think that with many kids, they're going to do what they're going to do. If they're the kind of person who's going to just hormonally, biologically have a high sex drive or grow up in a culture that makes them feel like they are. Sexually attractive and for validation.

They need to have sex. They're going to have sex. It doesn't matter. So like the only thing you can do at that point is try to encourage safe sex and strategically productive sex.

Malcolm Collins: So I don't think that the evidence agrees with you on this. Really? Okay, go on. So this is something that I had recently looked into before this, because I wanted to double check.

I was like, okay, let's look into the data on this. Yeah. Generally it seems that the more you teach young kids about sex, the less they have sex and the later they have sex the first time. Do you think that's because adults

Simone Collins: are tainting it with uncoolness?

Malcolm Collins: I would that could be part of it. Yeah, I think that's a big part of it.

And there's a whole psychological issue here that we'll [00:12:00] get to. But I think that you see your own experience as being more anecdotal than it really is. And the reality is that the data is pretty robust on this. Like I went through a number of studies on this. It seems it's not like a Yeah. Sometimes the data goes one way.

Sometimes the data goes the other way, which you sometimes see the data is profoundly. The more you teach kids about sex, the later they have sex and the less sex they have early in their lives. Okay.

Simone Collins: But does this teaching kids about sex include teaching kids about. Abstinence, or like teaching

Malcolm Collins: kids to not have sex.

Okay, so you can do abstinence only education, which actually has a similar effect to general sex education.

Simone Collins: Interesting. See, I had thought as a kid growing up, and like younger, that like abstinence only education didn't work. That's what I always heard. Abstinence

Malcolm Collins: only education doesn't work. Of course, because that's what they wanted to tell you.

Yeah. Like that fit the narrative. Perhaps in this only education actually does work, but it doesn't seem to work as long as general sex education. Yeah, well,

Simone Collins: because I [00:13:00] mean, eventually for the average person, something's gotta give, right? I mean.

Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: yeah. So it is protective. It is not as protective.

Simone Collins: Even though they really care about abstinence.

Malcolm Collins: Well, yeah, it was, it was more, the studies that have looked at this long term, like six months to a year out show that you get a persistent effect from regular sex education and a, and a non persistent effects from abstinence only education. And I think that a lot of this comes from the way that you acculturize kids to think about sexuality.

As a kid, for example, you get somebody like me, I smoked, right? Like, like cigarettes, right? Clove cigarettes, of course, because I needed to sleep with all the hot girls. And the hot girls were into clove cigarettes. They really were though, yeah. So, you go and you sneak out behind the rock in town and hope nobody saw you.

As soon as that was the Rockwood town, as soon as I went to college, there was a [00:14:00] rock by the lake until we go into the woods and then in New Hampshire and hook up and you, you know, but as soon as it was legal for me to do that, I immediately stopped doing it. I never did it again in my life. Oh, funny.

No, and I'm lucky I didn't become addicted to it because I could have, right. I, I, I'm lucky that my

Simone Collins: cigarettes don't have nicotine in them. Could that be.

Malcolm Collins: No, they have nicotine in them. My family just historically is not particularly susceptible to nicotine addictions or really any addiction other than alcohol.

So, and your family is pretty much like the complete bears when it comes to all of it's done everything. So, so I, I, I think there was a genetic thing protecting me and I didn't do it that often. I literally only did it when I wanted to go hook up with someone. So it was, it was rare but it was something I engaged in because it was disallowed.

And this is another thing you see in the data.

Simone Collins: But, so that's why I would expect abstinence only education to [00:15:00] backfire, because you're making something

Malcolm Collins: forbidden. Well, it does seem to backfire in the long run, right? But I think the more you engage with sexuality, like the grosser it seems, okay? Yes. So, that is one aspect of it. But I think there's more to it than that.

Okay. I think that if you look at the data, another thing you'll see is, so even in adults, if you look at regions by there was this great study, I think it looked at like how conservatively Mormon regions were. Okay. This is a culture that doesn't particularly like masturbation and it was looking at by zip code and it showed that the amount of online porn consumption was Correlated with how conservative the area was.

Isn't that marvelous? And I seem to remember a historic thing about like PayPal addresses and then sales of girls gone wild that, that was selling in those ads or something. But generally this is something you see over and over again. The more a community is told to restrict access to these [00:16:00] sorts of things, the more they're going to engage with these sorts of things under the radar.

It really seems like. The best panacea against over sexual abundance. So we will teach our kids, basically the answer here is we will teach our kids pretty aggressively and early about human sexuality. But because we want them to engage in the topic with moderation, and we think that that is the best way to achieve that outcome.

Yeah, and

Simone Collins: also that when they do it, they do it safely. But so then, okay, so like, let's go a little further with this. Like, I think the thing,

Malcolm Collins: I don't think that they should go out there and have a ton of sex. I do. But I

Simone Collins: do think that when they do, they should do it safely. So that's part of what sex ed is all about.

yoU know, a lot of what these studies are looking at is when people do eventually,

Malcolm Collins: I'm making is that sex ed has a secondary effect depending on how it's done. So what I'm

Simone Collins: saying is if we

Malcolm Collins: like, I don't care about it. Don't [00:17:00] care about it. I'm talking safe sex outside, obviously you're going to have more

Simone Collins: safe sex.

I know, I know. What I'm talking about also is the chilling effect of adults teaching you this thing. So for example, if you and I teach our children like, oh, by the way, like if and when you want to try anal, these are like the processes you should go through. Like here's how to like clean Make sure you use lube!

Yeah, like you gotta use lube, like start small, you might want to start pegging a little bit before you go full out, like, you know, before you, this is how you douche properly, here are the various, and like, they're just getting increasingly like, just disgust, like disgusted, ashen face. If your

Malcolm Collins: parents tell you this stuff.

Oh

Simone Collins: yeah, no, if we teach our children. Like how to do any, you know, like, you know, here, like here are the various techniques, like, you know, when you go down on someone, you know, make sure you don't, you know, don't use your teeth, you know, make sure blah, blah, blah. And like, you know, and you for deep throating, this is some methodology and positioning that may indeed they're going to die.

And I

Malcolm Collins: mean, but here's the thing about this. My mom [00:18:00] telling me about this, whatever they're. One, whenever they hear one of their friends brag about it. Right. Yeah. So they're not gonna see it as high status. They're thinking about their parents. And two, you know, the first time they engage with it, the way you sabotage your kids having sex is bury those memories in their heads.

Yes. Not just don't engage with it. And I also think even in mind, so if a kid's going out there and they're educating themselves about their sexuality, right? Yeah. Yeah. They're going on online websites, they're like, okay, what is sex about? What is Mm-Hmm. . Those are going to be really sex positive, I think in a particularly toxic way in an uncritical way.

Like,

If you go online and you look at the places where this is talked about within online communities, they're often very uncritically sex positive.

Or I think if you look at something like our book on the subject, the pragmatist guide to sexuality, like if I was in us and I was like, how do I teach my kids realistically about sex? Honestly, the audiobook for The Pragmatist's Guide to Sexuality is probably a pretty good place to start. [00:19:00] Because it really makes it not sound cool, it makes it overly analytical, it goes really deep, it unmystifies a lot of it.

With a lot of this stuff, Unmystifying it is how you build protection against it. Yeah,

Simone Collins: one of our best reviews for The Pragmatist Guide to Sexuality was something along the lines of, I came to this book to better understand how man loves one another, you know, how we intimately you know, come together.

And instead I came away disgusted by humanity. And we're like, exactly, exactly. That was our goal. Yeah. Mission accomplished. You may have given us a two star review, but we're keeping it. Cause you know,

Malcolm Collins: fire hydrant of sexual, like what humans are actually doing online. It is the collective delete my search history of humanity being, being poured down our kid's throat, like some sort of torture device.

Simone Collins: But you know, we're not going to, we're not going to say any of this in a sex negative [00:20:00] context, although we're also not like. We're not ourselves, obviously, is super infatuated by sex. You know, we're

Malcolm Collins: not Oh, the thing I don't understand at all.

Simone Collins: The idea of calling it making love makes me,

Malcolm Collins: you know.

Also, I had a high sex drive at a younger age because I grew up again. This is something we talk about. You can tell from people's facials features. My facial features are of somebody who was overexposed to testosterone growing up. The reason I had so much sex growing up, like I mentioned, that's on other things I'd slept with a hundred different people before I started college.

The reason I had done that is because I had this Over driven sex drive. And a lot of people are like, Oh, you should, as an adult now, now that you're free, because testosterone goes down when you have kids, it goes down when you're in a long term monogamous relationship, they're like, you should want that back.

I'm like, why would I want that back? That was not just. Hell in that it was something that I constantly [00:21:00] thought about all the time. It was Simone, right? Like, we get receipts and she's like, Oh no, that could block your test. I'm like, grab the receipt. I'm like, Simone, I don't want you touching it because you're pregnant with our kids.

I don't care anymore. I won the game, right? Why? They're like, well, don't you, don't you want to be virile? I, I suspect that these people who like go out there hunting for virility have never really experienced like full on male sexuality. So just like

Simone Collins: how not only logistically cumbersome it is to have a lot of sex, but also like how legally emotionally and socially liable it makes you, right?

Malcolm Collins: Well, and, and morally. So, you know, I look at the first person I had sex with, you know, the first time I had sex with someone. I had gone to this camp that was for nerds. It was, it was, you would only get invitations if you had gotten over a certain score on the SATs. And before this or I was thinking it was like an IQ test or something.

Anyway, before this, I had never really and it [00:22:00] was hosted at Cambridge or Oxford or something like that. Cambridge, Cambridge. I had never really done well with women before this moment, but I had just gotten into the period of starting to like, try to logistically using online environments, try to understand with you know, if then statement, like I would use that if the statements, but I would use chains of texts when talking to girls online and learn which chains worked and which chains didn't.

So I just begun to like really formalize this process. I get into this environment where I am valued for being nerdy. You know, the first party there, I'm hooking up with two girls at the same time behind the party. I end up choosing one of them, and it was literally, like, basically NTR porn Netanari or whatever.

This girl had been in a long term relationship. She was a very conservative Christian girl. She was saving herself for marriage and she was just like, . I will do any, like, I'm really, really into you.

Like, I know I've been with this guy forever, but let's just do you. [00:23:00] This is, this is what I want to do. Like, this is the path I want to take. And at the time, like, that was really hot to me. It's so funny, we had this one person on the, the, in the comments once being like, Oh, Malcolm, you seem like you're, you're into cuckoldry or whatever.

Like, do you want other people to sleep with your wife? And I was like, you've really read me wrong. Like I used to and that was something I did a lot. We were, I slept with somebody else's prom date on prom. You know, one of my friends I did the things where as an older person now looking back on it, it was really immoral.

And I feel very, very bad about it. That's

Simone Collins: good. Yeah. It's a dick move.

Malcolm Collins: No, I was a dick. I was a dick. I was driven by my hormones at that age. Yeah. And I didn't have any sort of a moderating Moral instruction telling me to do otherwise. I mean, if you look at, you know, who was my moral instructor up to that point, which was my mom, right?

Her position [00:24:00] was if you can f**k people over and flex on them and show that you're better than them, then do it. Yeah, that's very much a Trumpian sort

Simone Collins: of mindset. Totally. Well, are we going to teach our kids, our sons, especially some form of bro code? I

Malcolm Collins: mean, Yes. Yeah. No. Well, I mean, I'd say that I, I, I will tell them about my background and that I made mistakes.

That was bad at the time I thought, and you can even see Trump do this when I say Trumpian, you know, he brags about sleeping with his friends, wives, like as an adult. Right? Like long after he should have known that that was the immoral thing to do and like trying to pressure his friend's wife into sleeping with him.

The lack of progression

Simone Collins: there.

Malcolm Collins: And for me, I view this period of when I was super sexually active as a period in which I broke a number of moral codes, which I should have known not to break. You know, sleeping with people that were hot, but I didn't respect. Sleeping with people that were, no, I never Bye.

Like, like my, the one thing I always stuck with is I would never hurt their feelings. Right. Right. Which is meaningful. If [00:25:00] somebody gave their virginity to me, which happened a lot, like about a third of the people I slept with were virgins. That was like the group that I did best with. I would always try to date them from a specific period of time afterwards if they wanted that.

I would try to. I mean, sometimes they didn't. Sometimes they were just like, I want practice before I sleep with my boyfriend, which again, like just me being the f*****g antagonist in NTR porn. But that's also kind

Simone Collins: of sweet if they, you know, just didn't want to disappoint someone that they I

Malcolm Collins: understand, but I shouldn't have done it.

Yeah. And so I think people who have never been cursed with this ultra high male sexuality, they do not understand. It's like somebody one day injected me with like meth. Got me addicted to it. And I didn't ask for this at all. And now all of a sudden I'm breaking into people's houses and f*****g stealing s**t so I can get math.

Right. Like it was wrong and it was evil. And I am trying to, as an adult learn to like, like, like not a tone for it, but I [00:26:00] don't want to go back there. Like, I don't want to be like, Oh yes. introduce that challenge to me again. Yeah. Although one

Simone Collins: way to atone for it, of course, is to raise kids to do better.

So that, that is a hope that we have for our kids then. I think another thing that I, I, I think about a lot is when it comes to I do think that it creates a certain lack of understanding of like how these dynamics work and I'm, I'm not even talking about like what people are willing to do. I'm talking about what people.

Expect from partners as a default. And I think one of the biggest things that I see in terms of people, like problems that people have with sex throughout their lifetimes that we see people post about online a lot is that partners don't feel sufficiently desired. And it really, it has nothing to do with like, I don't care if like they're doing wacky stuff in bed or if they have like zero sex [00:27:00] lives, a lot of it comes down to like how desired a partner feels.

And if there's one through line through every single like fetish you'll see in erotic material. Like the thing that people almost universally, and of course there are some fetish based like differences here, but like, it's almost always based around the person being very into banging you like the concept there, like enthusiastic interest.

And I think a big problem that That both men and women have, especially after being exposed to any form of erotic material. And this is, you know, romance novels for young women, or like, you know, manga. Or like, you know, typical, standard, very visual erotic material for men. Is they just kind of assume that without putting any effort.

You're going to end up with a partner who's showing like insane levels of enthusiasm for you. And like that, unfortunately, that's actually either something that like, unless you're like some kind of Adonis or you're like really rich or [00:28:00] famous, which is kind of hard to do, especially when you're just a kid.

You have to put a lot of work into getting that kind of interest. And I, I don't know how I'm going to approach this with our kids yet, but it is something I want to talk about with you because I, I want kids to understand that like, no, a woman or man is not going to be like insane. Like, you know, like cannot control themselves around you.

Malcolm Collins: I know I've had that with some girls. Well, you're you, I mean, no, I understand, but, but some people I assume, I mean, I don't want to say it's an act, but like they know to lean into it. Like, I, I think that the better thing to focus on with kids is I think a big problem in our society. Basically sex, non reproductive sex from the perspective of our culture and the way we're teaching our kids is no different from pornography.

Yeah, agreed. No different from pornography. It is no additional social standing. Well, I would say

Simone Collins: it's, it's probably a little worse because you're more likely to put yourself at physical, logistical, legal, moral risk. No,

Malcolm Collins: it's just pornography with extra [00:29:00] steps. Yeah. It's pornography with extra steps and risks.

So insofar as it feels better to you than pornography, then engage in it. But if it doesn't feel better to you than that, then. don't engage in it. And, or don't waste a ton of time seeking it out. And I think the, one of the core problems in the way our society frames this is it puts, you know, corn in one category, actual sex in one category, and then like reproductive sex in another category.

And then there's conservative religious groups, which sometimes are like corn and actual sex should go in the same group. But that whole group is off limits. Whereas we say, No, because they're in the same category, just engage with porn. Don't engage with actual sex unless it is moving you towards reproductive sex.

And and even in that case, reproductive sex is largely immoral from our perspective if you can engage in polygenic screening. And so you know, don't, don't over indulge in that either, [00:30:00] you know, so, uh, what this means is I think when you frame things that way, when you're like, look, what you are doing when you are having sex with someone else for pleasure is you're basically using another human being like a fleshlight, like.

Why? Like, you, you, you functionally are getting nothing additional out of it other than any hormones that force some sort of a bonding to you. And insofar as it's creating hormones that force a bonding to you, then you're using it as a tool to brainwash the other individual, which, okay, yes, learn to use that tool well, but recognize what you're doing and that that is the purpose of sex in those circumstances.

There's an argument that It's not your personal gratification.

Simone Collins: A lady or gentleman with a weaker imagination may just have difficulty getting the same enjoyment from not exactly the real thing.

Malcolm Collins: Well, I mean, I, I, I think that that framing for our kids will work in terms of leading them to understand that [00:31:00] sex is a tool that can move them towards their goals.

It is a tool that it goals. The big one that sex helps with is getting someone to marry you. But the and then have kids.

Simone Collins: Wait, so you think you're more likely to marry someone if you've already had sex? As a guy, yeah. As a guy, yeah. I guess because you can be sure that you're not sexually incompatible because that's kind of

Malcolm Collins: scary.

No, like I had a, I mean, the way that I, you know, you can get women basically indebted to you, like get them to have a, a supernatural is the wrong word, but I mean, it's, it's.

Simone Collins: Oh, so you're, you're talking about like oxytocin and like. Yeah. Terminal

Malcolm Collins: bonding. Okay. Utilize that to achieve bonds with people that then you can then utilize to or exploit whatever you want to say to better achieve your long term goals.

Okay. Insofar as you don't hurt them. And, and keep in mind, you know, if there's somebody who's out there going to be having sex anyway, like, how did you ruin all these women? You know, after, after [00:32:00] the first few, I was like, okay, no, I'm only going to go for the type of girl who I know would otherwise go out there and have sex with people.

So yeah, that's how we're going to engage with sexuality with our kids. So I think the question is, what outcome are you aiming for? Are you aiming for Ayla? Which, who I think, you know, we love Ayla, really smart person. I, I, I think that the strategy that she has chosen, she's really pioneered it. And I think it's shown that even if you are the best at the world at what she does.

It's still hard to find a husband if you take that path. And so I wouldn't recommend it for our kids. So do you want to take that path or do you want to take our path?

Our path is extreme and total sexual education, allowing your kids to be exposed to sexual information at a young age, normalize it and treat it as something that you as a parent are engaging them on.

Or do you extremely restrict sexual content, tell them to restrict masturbation and don't engage them with pornography. It's at the path you want to take. Right.

Simone Collins: So that we're, we're essentially saying traumatic explo [00:33:00] exposure. Versus sheltering.

Malcolm Collins: Well, not traumatic exposure, normalization.

Simone Collins: I think if my parents, Now, I guess if my parents told me, like, the logistics of anal, for example, I wouldn't be traumatized, but,

Malcolm Collins: You'd never have anal.

Simone Collins: I, I never would, anyway. I'm not into anyway. Like I guess I should like give a better description of like, something I'd be into like ChAARI. No. Yeah. Then I would be much less likely to do it. Yeah, it's true. Did Even if it's something I'm kind of inclined to . Sorry, that's,

Malcolm Collins: that's the not tying thing.

Simone Collins: Uhhuh

Yeah. Yeah. I'm, I'm in, I'm a, I'm a Swaddler, so. Um,

Malcolm Collins: yeah, she, she, she likes being restrained is what she's

Simone Collins: saying. It's very, well, I mean, it makes sense. I think like, I would imagine that the proportion of autistic people who like, if they were asked to choose sexual fetishes that like were the sexual equivalent of a weighted blanket, You

Malcolm Collins: are such a goof Simone and [00:34:00] I absolutely

Simone Collins: love you.

But no, yeah, you're right. If my parents had been like. Learn about this. I would be like, maybe I will never do that. Okay. Let's do this to our children. We're so terrible. Hah hah hah! Heheheheheheheheh. Foo foo foo

Malcolm Collins: foo. It's gonna be bad. This is what the private disguise of sexuality says. That we have ruined sex for our children for life.

Well

Simone Collins: that's why we dedicate the book to them. Because at least they have that.

Malcolm Collins: Alright, love you so

Simone Collins: much. Love you too!

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