Join Malcolm and Simone Collins as they dive deep into the evolving perspectives on sexuality, gender, and cultural norms. In this thought-provoking conversation, they explore the origins and functions of arousal patterns, the societal treatment of same-sex attraction, and how modern urban monoculture is reshaping the way we think about identity and pleasure.

The discussion covers:

* The biological and evolutionary roots of arousal and kinks

* How same-sex attraction compares to other arousal patterns

* The impact of societal norms and historical taboos

* The role of technology and online avatars in shaping future identities

* The intersection of pleasure, self-affirmation, and human flourishing

* Parenting, cultural transmission, and the importance of non-arbitrary values

Whether you’re interested in psychology, sociology, or the future of human relationships, this episode offers a nuanced and challenging perspective on some of today’s most debated topics.

Don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more in-depth discussions!Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00 ] Hello Simone. I’m excited to be here with you today. Today we are gonna be discussing my evolving views on the way that, at least within our family. But not just within our family, but I think society at large is gonna move in this direction, will think about same sex attraction in the future.

Oh, and you as an audience. So if you, if you know me historically, I’ve always been very sort of pro-gay, right? Like, you know, they should be able to get married the way they want. They should be able to live life the way they want. And while I still think a lot of that, the qualifications I have around that.

Have adapted pretty heavily, and you as an audience are gonna get to see something very fun, which is people ask, how come you and Simone always have like such similar beliefs about things or thoughts about things? And it’s because whenever one of us has like an update in our belief system, we share it with the other one to try to convince them, get pushback, and then we sort of [00:01:00 ] arrive at whatever the, the conversion.

Okay. This is the new way of thinking about this thing.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And it, it’s often a, a moderated or, or even totally new version of the idea. It’s not, it’s not always like Malcolm Williams. Yeah. Without moderation.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So I’ll sort of describe my thought journey as to how I got here. And part of this I’ve been talking to you about already.

Hmm. So the part I had talked to you about already was me trying to think through why we categorize same sex attraction. As significantly different from any other arousal pattern kink as you would call it that he is not meant to help us reproduce because predu, you know, presumably the reason why arousal evolved was to ensure that we had procreation and had children.

And we also argue that parts of the arousal system were adopted for other things that are related to survival. So across mammal species, not just in humans you see, the [00:02:00 ] submission and dominant system co-opting arousal patterns to motivate it. You know, interestingly, where you, where I find one of my favorite examples of this.

Is in most species animals, mammals, like social mammals will take on the position. A female of that species would to be mounted in order to show submission to somebody. So you will even see males do this and females do this to show submission to the part, not to their partner, no, not to their partner, but to another dominant person in their tribe or something like that.

What’s really fascinating is in species where females are dominant, like the spotted hyena, the Wake Show submission is through an erection. And in spotted hyena, you know, the

Simone Collins: way the females show dominance is through an erection, isn’t that?

Malcolm Collins: No, it’s how they show submission. What? Oh gosh. Okay. I was

Simone Collins: wondering, I knew they had

Malcolm Collins: pin, pseudo penises, it’s called.

So, so what she was thinking of is the, the females of the spotted hyena [00:03:00 ] actually have pseudo penises in order to show this, this trait. And so, because it’s a species with, with dominant females, the way that you show that you are submissive is to take on the role a male would take on right before sex.

When in species where males are typically dominant, you take on the role that, all right. The reason I go into all of this is I’m pointing out that the arousal system is used for things other than just to motivate procreation. And that this might explain some of the kinks that humans have. Perhaps even same sex attraction.

Although I think it is less likely that that motivates same sex attraction and we can get into what might cause same sex attraction number of potential things. Mm-hmm. With this being the case, there are now two broad definitions I could go for in my head that I think are good ways to divide sort of arousal patterns, arousal patterns that are serving their intended function versus arousal patterns that are not serving their intended function.

Here, you may say, well, because arousal patterns are co-opted throughout social mammals for [00:04:00 ] dominance and submission displays, then BDSM is less of a kink than same-sex attraction. Because this is just completely not useful for, for survival in this one is. However, I, I don’t think that that’s necessarily a good way of doing division.

I would go on and say that, probably in my head, the way that I would divide it is arousal patterns that are tied to reproduction and arousal patterns that are not tied to reproduction. And then you can say okay, well, but same sex attraction is totally different from any other kink. It’s you being attracted to who, who a person is fundamentally right.

And it’s something that you are, you know, you have at a young age and you can’t easily change about yourself. And here I would ask you to go to, ALA has a great study on this. I’ll, I’ll put the graph on screen if I can find it.

Where she goes over the average age that kinks first appear, and actually for a wide swath of kinks, they appear before.

Same sex attraction does. And [00:05:00 ] not only that, but if you look at studies on this, they typically only look at things like BDSM and stuff like this. But if you look at user reports of the persistency of kinks it appears that the persistency of kinks is at around the same level as the persistency of same sex attraction, maybe slightly less for some specific kicks, like the dominance and dominance and submission ones.

And I would also note here that same-sex attraction is not something that you necessarily have throughout your entire life. If you look at people who go on puberty, hormones, like, sex changing hormones like trans people do, you’re looking at a 20 to 40% change their gender of primary attraction

.

Malcolm Collins: And we also know of, we’ve done an episode on this of parasites that can change the gender that you are predominantly attracted to with things like toxoplasmosis being more likely to make you bi in order to help itself spread. And this is a, a number of studies have have like, like peer reviewed studies have shown this.

Obviously this is, this is all very offensive territory we’re getting in here, but the reason I started to go through all this is, is I was like, [00:06:00 ] okay. All of these things. But there is one core area where same sex attraction and this is sort of where I had stopped on this before and sort of been like, I guess our existing societal norms are good.

There is one area where, which is to say if you live in a society where you’re like, Hey, and this is broadly the rule we have in our society, and it’s a rule that like, I’m okay with like as a, as a social rule, as long as you don’t involve me in your kinks. Right? Like your unique arousal pathways without my consent.

Like I didn’t go into a space where I knew that people were going to be doing this or I didn’t, you, you didn’t, you didn’t force me to participate in some fantasy you have or something like that. We’re, I’m okay with that, right? Yeah. So the problem with same-sex attraction and taking that is that then, then how do these people get married?

Right? Like if, if A-A-B-D-S-M person doesn’t need to have a marriage in BDSM outfits , to get married, but there is no way a [00:07:00 ] same-sex attracted couple can get married without it very obviously being a same sex attracted couple on that stage. And so I started thinking about that and I was like, okay, I can see that and I can see why, because you don’t have any other kink like that.

There’s no other kink that is societally accepted. I suppose if you were like a PDA file, it would be very obvious if you tried to marry the person. But that’s with a non-consenting individual. If you were a, a a a Beastie bestiality person and you decide to get married to a horse or a dog, it would be very obvious.

But socially we don’t condone that. And no, I’ve, I’ve always found the reason we don’t socially condone that incredibly stupid. Which is that these animals can’t consent. And it’s like you eat animals like that, like you fat farm animals like that, you eat veal where you torture a baby cow. Like, what are you, what are you talking about?

These animals can’t consent. Your dog is something that you bought, and then it is normal for you to [00:08:00 ] breed it and sell its offspring.

Simone Collins: No,

Malcolm Collins: what are you? Well, and you put it that

Simone Collins: way, gol