WEBVTT 00:00:00.759 --> 00:00:02.160 Disclaimer. The views, information, or opinions 00:00:02.160 --> 00:00:03.220 expressed by guest speakers during the Monkey 00:00:03.220 --> 00:00:04.740 Mind Lab podcast series are solely those of the 00:00:04.740 --> 00:00:05.799 guest speakers involved, and do not necessarily 00:00:05.799 --> 00:00:06.919 represent those of any entities they represent, 00:00:07.000 --> 00:00:08.800 or of the Monkey Mind Lab, or its host, Abhyasuri. 00:00:08.960 --> 00:00:10.220 The Monkey Mind Lab and its host depend on the 00:00:10.220 --> 00:00:11.160 expertise of the guest speakers for accuracy 00:00:11.160 --> 00:00:12.400 of information, and do not assume responsibility 00:00:12.400 --> 00:00:13.699 for the content or the verification of the information 00:00:13.699 --> 00:00:15.060 contained in the podcast series available for 00:00:15.060 --> 00:00:16.379 listening. The primary purpose of this podcast 00:00:16.379 --> 00:00:38.399 series is to educate and inform. Welcome back 00:00:38.399 --> 00:00:42.060 to the Monkey Mind Lab. On today's episode, we 00:00:42.060 --> 00:00:45.579 have with us Professor Lori Essig, a professor 00:00:45.579 --> 00:00:48.840 of gender, sexuality, and feminist studies at 00:00:48.840 --> 00:00:52.380 Middlebury College, where she also serves as 00:00:52.380 --> 00:00:56.380 the director of the program. A cultural sociologist 00:00:56.380 --> 00:00:59.920 by training, her research focuses on the intersection 00:00:59.920 --> 00:01:04.239 of desire, capitalism, and power, exploring how 00:01:04.239 --> 00:01:08.319 our dreams of love, beauty, and success are shaped 00:01:08.319 --> 00:01:11.260 by the world around us. She is the author of 00:01:11.260 --> 00:01:15.819 Love Inc., Dating Apps, The Big White Wedding, 00:01:15.859 --> 00:01:20.760 and Chasing the Happily Never After. She's also 00:01:20.760 --> 00:01:24.340 the author of American Plastic, Boob Jobs, Credit 00:01:24.340 --> 00:01:27.409 Cards, and Our Quest for Perfection. Through 00:01:27.409 --> 00:01:30.549 both her scholarship and her classroom, Professor 00:01:30.549 --> 00:01:33.049 Essig invites students to critically examine 00:01:33.049 --> 00:01:36.489 the everyday fantasies that often go unquestioned. 00:01:37.430 --> 00:01:40.849 Please join me in welcoming Professor Laurie Essig. 00:01:42.549 --> 00:01:45.370 Thank you so much. I'm glad to be here. Why don't 00:01:45.370 --> 00:01:49.489 we begin with the big three questions, which 00:01:49.489 --> 00:01:51.730 we kind of answered, but we'd love to hear more 00:01:51.730 --> 00:01:54.969 from you, is what do you do, why do you do it, 00:01:54.969 --> 00:01:59.180 and how did you get into it? OK, well, what I 00:01:59.180 --> 00:02:01.980 actually do now is sort of the opposite of love. 00:02:02.120 --> 00:02:06.879 I work on fascism and particular how fascism 00:02:06.879 --> 00:02:10.949 globally is organizing. as an anti -gender ideology 00:02:10.949 --> 00:02:14.650 movement. So I make a podcast called Feminism, 00:02:14.650 --> 00:02:17.889 Fascism, and the Future, which a bunch of students 00:02:17.889 --> 00:02:20.389 here at Middlebury have been involved with. And 00:02:20.389 --> 00:02:24.770 we go around trying to figure out why fascism 00:02:24.770 --> 00:02:28.439 is using gender as an internal enemy. in a way 00:02:28.439 --> 00:02:30.840 that's similar to the way earlier fascism used 00:02:30.840 --> 00:02:34.840 Jews as an internal enemy. So it's kind of the 00:02:34.840 --> 00:02:37.960 opposite of romance, but perhaps related. Okay, 00:02:38.020 --> 00:02:40.419 and what brought you into the field of romance 00:02:40.419 --> 00:02:43.520 earlier? So I've been teaching a course called 00:02:43.520 --> 00:02:47.020 The Sociology of Heterosexuality for 30 years. 00:02:47.340 --> 00:02:50.800 Wow. In fact, I think I'm a grandmother of critical 00:02:50.800 --> 00:02:55.659 heterosexuality studies. And the idea of that 00:02:55.659 --> 00:02:59.659 was I had a position as a queer theorist at Yale. 00:03:00.020 --> 00:03:02.240 And I thought, wouldn't it be interesting if 00:03:02.240 --> 00:03:06.979 we took queer theory lenses to normative heterosexuality? 00:03:07.000 --> 00:03:09.240 And so I've been doing that for three decades. 00:03:09.599 --> 00:03:12.159 Wow. And what sparked your particular interest 00:03:12.159 --> 00:03:15.879 in this area? Well, I think it's very common 00:03:15.879 --> 00:03:20.120 to look at sexual otherness in sexuality studies. 00:03:20.280 --> 00:03:23.939 And I was really interested 30 years ago and 00:03:23.939 --> 00:03:27.860 today in looking at what we consider normal as, 00:03:27.860 --> 00:03:31.099 in fact, a product of culture, history, class, 00:03:31.120 --> 00:03:36.620 race, and gender, and how we might be more critical 00:03:36.620 --> 00:03:39.199 of how normative heterosexuality develops. So 00:03:39.199 --> 00:03:42.860 the class is really about the centrality of normative 00:03:42.860 --> 00:03:46.560 heterosexuality to citizenship in the U .S. and 00:03:46.560 --> 00:03:49.719 also to formations of whiteness and white supremacy 00:03:49.719 --> 00:03:52.389 in the U .S. Because we don't really look at 00:03:52.389 --> 00:03:56.050 normative sexualities ever. And so we just assume 00:03:56.050 --> 00:04:00.009 they're natural and unchanging and just about 00:04:00.009 --> 00:04:04.409 love and what gods or God wants of us, right? 00:04:04.569 --> 00:04:07.909 So that was the idea behind the class. And this 00:04:07.909 --> 00:04:10.270 particular book came along as a function of teaching 00:04:10.270 --> 00:04:13.129 that class for so many years that I started to 00:04:13.129 --> 00:04:17.470 think about how romance is an ideology and how 00:04:17.470 --> 00:04:20.439 that fit in well with other. ideological formations 00:04:20.439 --> 00:04:24.879 of our time. Okay, so I think that brings us 00:04:24.879 --> 00:04:27.500 to the big question of the day. Can you swipe 00:04:27.500 --> 00:04:29.639 right on romance without buying into capitalism? 00:04:30.339 --> 00:04:34.600 Is love real? How much of it is influenced by 00:04:34.600 --> 00:04:37.740 everything around us, by expectations, and how 00:04:37.740 --> 00:04:41.980 much of it is a biological desire or just something 00:04:41.980 --> 00:04:46.759 innate from more than that? Yeah, I think Look, 00:04:46.839 --> 00:04:49.779 the body exists and the brain exists and certain 00:04:49.779 --> 00:04:52.120 chemicals get produced when we're in love and 00:04:52.120 --> 00:04:55.360 certain hormones get produced when we're having 00:04:55.360 --> 00:04:58.660 intimate relations. That's all true. But what 00:04:58.660 --> 00:05:01.660 we do with that is so culturally specific. I 00:05:01.660 --> 00:05:04.040 don't want to say it's unreal, but it's certainly 00:05:04.040 --> 00:05:08.180 socially constructed. So no one's born wanting 00:05:08.180 --> 00:05:10.819 a big white wedding. That would be weird, right? 00:05:11.540 --> 00:05:14.100 No one's born thinking they need an engagement 00:05:14.100 --> 00:05:17.579 ring. No one's born thinking they need the perfect 00:05:17.579 --> 00:05:20.040 honeymoon, right? Those are all things that are 00:05:20.040 --> 00:05:23.600 produced in us and mostly produced in us through 00:05:23.600 --> 00:05:25.740 culture, to some extent through our families, 00:05:25.819 --> 00:05:27.740 of course, and our families have a huge influence. 00:05:28.120 --> 00:05:32.810 But there's a whole— ideological production of 00:05:32.810 --> 00:05:37.230 romance in Hollywood, in romance novels, which 00:05:37.230 --> 00:05:39.790 are the biggest part of U .S. publishing industry, 00:05:40.009 --> 00:05:44.970 in love songs, in dating apps to some extent, 00:05:45.009 --> 00:05:46.750 depending on the dating app, but certainly the 00:05:46.750 --> 00:05:50.310 ones that we're trying to find the one. All of 00:05:50.310 --> 00:05:53.529 them produce this idea that we need this particular 00:05:53.529 --> 00:05:56.610 thing in order to find a safe and secure future. 00:05:57.439 --> 00:05:59.560 And that's the part that's really interesting 00:05:59.560 --> 00:06:02.259 to me because I think it should be obvious to 00:06:02.259 --> 00:06:05.339 most people that a safe and secure future is 00:06:05.339 --> 00:06:07.879 not produced through a white wedding, right? 00:06:07.980 --> 00:06:09.860 It's produced by having clean air to breathe 00:06:09.860 --> 00:06:13.240 and clean water to drink and food and shelter 00:06:13.240 --> 00:06:17.180 and maybe health care, right? So that was the 00:06:17.180 --> 00:06:20.529 interesting thing to me is that. People are really 00:06:20.529 --> 00:06:23.449 influenced by the ideology of romance to do certain 00:06:23.449 --> 00:06:27.370 things, to spend huge amounts of money. You know, 00:06:27.410 --> 00:06:29.810 the average wedding in the U .S. is about $40 00:06:29.810 --> 00:06:34.350 ,000. It's about $95 ,000 in urban areas. Wow. 00:06:34.569 --> 00:06:37.189 So to think about, like, oh, people are really 00:06:37.189 --> 00:06:39.709 spending a lot of resources on this, plus it 00:06:39.709 --> 00:06:42.550 takes about a year and a half to plan. And it's 00:06:42.550 --> 00:06:45.129 like, why are they doing that? Because clearly— 00:06:45.899 --> 00:06:47.879 That's not going to lead to a safe and secure 00:06:47.879 --> 00:06:51.500 future. We should all be joining political movements 00:06:51.500 --> 00:06:53.399 to save the environment, for instance, or to 00:06:53.399 --> 00:06:55.639 have health care, right? There are other things 00:06:55.639 --> 00:06:57.660 that we could imagine, but those things are very... 00:06:58.920 --> 00:07:03.300 group -based. And we've been so treated in U 00:07:03.300 --> 00:07:06.000 .S. culture and some other cultures as well to 00:07:06.000 --> 00:07:07.680 believe that we are individually responsible 00:07:07.680 --> 00:07:10.500 for our happiness and we're individually responsible 00:07:10.500 --> 00:07:12.500 for our future. And that's where I think romance 00:07:12.500 --> 00:07:16.500 works really well with neoliberalism to convince 00:07:16.500 --> 00:07:20.079 us to worry about our individual trajectory rather 00:07:20.079 --> 00:07:25.459 than our community survival. Interesting. I think 00:07:25.459 --> 00:07:29.279 that's never one you hear. So going back to the 00:07:29.279 --> 00:07:32.680 point about romance novels and rom -coms and 00:07:32.680 --> 00:07:36.240 other things like that, which people see on television, 00:07:36.339 --> 00:07:40.779 they go, hey, I want that. What's particularly 00:07:40.779 --> 00:07:45.600 the most driving factor from there that if you 00:07:45.600 --> 00:07:48.120 look at the world, say, a hundred years ago, 00:07:48.279 --> 00:07:50.579 it was very different. The concept of romance 00:07:50.579 --> 00:07:53.800 was very different. Hollywood's adapted as well. 00:07:53.839 --> 00:07:56.990 The kind of films that they're making. What's 00:07:56.990 --> 00:08:00.250 driving it to where it is today? And I'm bringing 00:08:00.250 --> 00:08:03.129 with me the Indian perspective of a little bit 00:08:03.129 --> 00:08:05.810 more collectivistic culture than the individualism 00:08:05.810 --> 00:08:09.769 in the U .S. and is very family -oriented. Yeah, 00:08:09.810 --> 00:08:12.670 so I think if you look at spending on weddings, 00:08:12.850 --> 00:08:15.370 what you see is they start to rise exponentially 00:08:15.370 --> 00:08:19.069 during the 1980s in the U .S. Can't speak to 00:08:19.069 --> 00:08:20.790 Indian. I'm sorry. But there certainly is an 00:08:20.790 --> 00:08:23.350 industry, Bollywood, that produces these kind 00:08:23.350 --> 00:08:25.769 of desires as well for different reasons perhaps. 00:08:27.110 --> 00:08:29.730 But in the U .S., you see wedding spending going 00:08:29.730 --> 00:08:33.029 up. in the 1980s and going up, up, up, up, up. 00:08:33.190 --> 00:08:35.929 It hasn't gone down. Even during the pandemic, 00:08:36.330 --> 00:08:38.990 there was only a slight dip in wedding spending. 00:08:39.230 --> 00:08:42.490 So what you see is a huge desire to spend money 00:08:42.490 --> 00:08:45.529 on weddings, even as fewer and fewer people living 00:08:45.529 --> 00:08:47.929 in the US are married. In fact, a minority of 00:08:47.929 --> 00:08:51.529 US adults are married. So that's a kind of interesting 00:08:51.529 --> 00:08:54.289 moment when people aren't. getting married, but 00:08:54.289 --> 00:08:56.129 the people who are getting married are spending 00:08:56.129 --> 00:08:59.549 more and more and more resources on it. And I 00:08:59.549 --> 00:09:03.830 think the reason is that it represents a kind 00:09:03.830 --> 00:09:07.669 of happily ever after. I mean, not really, right? 00:09:07.789 --> 00:09:10.549 Like we all know that's not really true. But 00:09:10.549 --> 00:09:13.110 for that moment, you can imagine it's true. And 00:09:13.110 --> 00:09:15.730 one interesting thing I found when I was writing 00:09:15.730 --> 00:09:19.210 my book is North Korea and the US under Donald 00:09:19.210 --> 00:09:22.750 Trump's first presidency were engaging in nuclear 00:09:22.750 --> 00:09:25.169 rhetoric with each other and one -upmanship. 00:09:25.529 --> 00:09:29.009 And that was an interesting moment where viewers 00:09:29.009 --> 00:09:32.710 of the Hallmark Channel, which is all romance 00:09:32.710 --> 00:09:35.090 movies, right, and that all end happily ever 00:09:35.090 --> 00:09:37.529 after, went way up during that period because 00:09:37.529 --> 00:09:41.669 people were so anxious. So when this nuclear 00:09:41.669 --> 00:09:45.049 saber rattling was going on between Donald Trump 00:09:45.049 --> 00:09:48.830 and North Korea, Viewership of Hallmark movies 00:09:48.830 --> 00:09:53.009 went way up. And I think it's because that fantasy 00:09:53.009 --> 00:09:56.730 of a happily ever after is something we need 00:09:56.730 --> 00:09:59.769 in this incredibly precarious moment. Right. 00:09:59.870 --> 00:10:04.470 There's nothing wrong with it. It's safety. It's 00:10:04.470 --> 00:10:08.830 security. It's your. your safety blanket in a 00:10:08.830 --> 00:10:12.330 moment when things are actually not very safe, 00:10:12.509 --> 00:10:14.570 right? The global climate collapse should be 00:10:14.570 --> 00:10:17.190 evident to everyone living on Earth at this moment. 00:10:17.970 --> 00:10:20.830 In the United States and elsewhere, there's been 00:10:20.830 --> 00:10:23.929 a huge concentration of wealth. And most people 00:10:23.929 --> 00:10:26.509 have been left worse off in the past 40 years 00:10:26.509 --> 00:10:30.110 than they were in 1980. And so for that moment, 00:10:30.210 --> 00:10:32.889 if you can fantasize, but if I just do this thing. 00:10:33.710 --> 00:10:36.470 If I just have the perfect wedding, I can have 00:10:36.470 --> 00:10:40.129 my happily ever after. That is a necessary escape 00:10:40.129 --> 00:10:43.009 valve from this moment. I have zero judgment 00:10:43.009 --> 00:10:47.610 of that. I think my desire is to get people to 00:10:47.610 --> 00:10:51.549 engage in those momentary escape valves and a 00:10:51.549 --> 00:10:53.870 more realistic sense about what we need for a 00:10:53.870 --> 00:10:56.490 happily ever after for everyone. Yeah, I think 00:10:56.490 --> 00:10:59.710 you take the wins that you can get in moments 00:10:59.710 --> 00:11:05.059 like these. having a TV wedding or exactly what 00:11:05.059 --> 00:11:06.840 you called it, the happily ever after, that if 00:11:06.840 --> 00:11:08.940 I do this, everything will be fine. If we have 00:11:08.940 --> 00:11:12.039 a big wedding and we spend a ton of money on 00:11:12.039 --> 00:11:14.080 it, the married life will be okay and everything 00:11:14.080 --> 00:11:16.419 will be fine after that. To what extent do you 00:11:16.419 --> 00:11:20.059 think it's showmanship to show to the world that 00:11:20.059 --> 00:11:22.139 you're doing okay, that you can afford to spend 00:11:22.139 --> 00:11:24.639 that much money? And do you think it's more or 00:11:24.639 --> 00:11:28.669 less about the escape or... Is it more to do 00:11:28.669 --> 00:11:31.649 with the fact that despite everything that's 00:11:31.649 --> 00:11:33.669 going wrong in the world, you want to kind of 00:11:33.669 --> 00:11:36.909 show your grounding? Yeah, what's interesting 00:11:36.909 --> 00:11:39.570 is people are taking out debt to have weddings 00:11:39.570 --> 00:11:41.730 in the United States. And a lot of those people 00:11:41.730 --> 00:11:45.149 already have student loans. So I interviewed 00:11:45.149 --> 00:11:48.669 a lot of... young couples for the book. I would 00:11:48.669 --> 00:11:50.610 go to these wedding expos where you can like 00:11:50.610 --> 00:11:54.090 pick your caterer and you can have a photo booth 00:11:54.090 --> 00:11:56.990 rental, etc. And so I would go there to interview 00:11:56.990 --> 00:11:59.710 people as to why they were spending resources 00:11:59.710 --> 00:12:03.669 on this thing. And they all talked about, well, 00:12:03.769 --> 00:12:06.429 if we do this, then our marriage will be secure. 00:12:06.490 --> 00:12:09.320 If we don't do this right. It won't be secure. 00:12:09.440 --> 00:12:12.419 Now, that's not actually true. Of course. Staying 00:12:12.419 --> 00:12:14.559 together is not in any way, shape or form related 00:12:14.559 --> 00:12:16.779 to spending on a wedding. But I think they really 00:12:16.779 --> 00:12:20.279 believe that if we take on even more debt. to 00:12:20.279 --> 00:12:22.940 have this wedding, just like the promise of university 00:12:22.940 --> 00:12:25.480 education here, right? I'll take on debt for 00:12:25.480 --> 00:12:28.120 university education and it will pay off. I'll 00:12:28.120 --> 00:12:30.519 take on debt for a wedding, it will pay off. 00:12:30.600 --> 00:12:32.360 In a previous book, I talked about how people 00:12:32.360 --> 00:12:34.799 were taking on debt for cosmetic surgery and 00:12:34.799 --> 00:12:38.240 it will pay off, right? So the entire U .S. economy 00:12:38.240 --> 00:12:41.419 is structured around debt. So I'm sure very wealthy 00:12:41.419 --> 00:12:45.100 people are just spending this money. But a lot 00:12:45.100 --> 00:12:49.159 of people are middle class and teachers and social 00:12:49.159 --> 00:12:52.059 workers and they're going to take out debt to 00:12:52.059 --> 00:12:55.899 do this thing or at least some debt. And so that's 00:12:55.899 --> 00:13:00.399 really the crux of it, isn't it? That neoliberalism 00:13:00.399 --> 00:13:03.059 as an ideology tells us to privatize everything. 00:13:03.539 --> 00:13:05.659 Privatize your health care. Privatize education. 00:13:06.320 --> 00:13:09.259 Privatize security. Everything should be privatized 00:13:09.259 --> 00:13:12.360 and then everyone will thrive. But it doesn't 00:13:12.360 --> 00:13:13.899 actually work that way, right? Like actually 00:13:13.899 --> 00:13:15.600 we privatize everything and things are really 00:13:15.600 --> 00:13:20.440 not working. But I think what it's done to us 00:13:20.440 --> 00:13:22.860 is it's trained people in the U .S. to believe 00:13:22.860 --> 00:13:26.500 that if I can do this private enterprise of the 00:13:26.500 --> 00:13:29.159 perfect wedding, I will end up in happily ever 00:13:29.159 --> 00:13:34.220 after. Excuse me. That was a Freudian slip. I 00:13:34.220 --> 00:13:37.779 will end up in happily ever after, even if that's 00:13:37.779 --> 00:13:41.279 not factually true. We've been trained to believe 00:13:41.279 --> 00:13:43.580 it's true, just like we've been trained to think 00:13:43.580 --> 00:13:46.879 that taking out $48 ,000 in debt for university 00:13:46.879 --> 00:13:50.679 education is worthwhile, as opposed to demanding 00:13:50.679 --> 00:13:53.860 free higher education for everyone who qualifies. 00:13:55.580 --> 00:13:59.519 Let's go back more to the concept of love as 00:13:59.519 --> 00:14:04.480 we know it today. Is it real or is it put on? 00:14:06.679 --> 00:14:08.799 I'm drawing on something I learned in high school. 00:14:08.879 --> 00:14:10.899 We looked at this book called Purple Hibiscus 00:14:10.899 --> 00:14:13.679 by Chimamanda Adichie. And there was an interesting 00:14:13.679 --> 00:14:16.700 perspective there where it's based in Nigeria 00:14:16.700 --> 00:14:21.120 and there's this Anglophile Christian father 00:14:21.120 --> 00:14:24.120 who would beat his kids up every time they strayed 00:14:24.120 --> 00:14:26.840 from the path of religion and faith and God. 00:14:27.039 --> 00:14:30.279 But his way of showing his love was through that 00:14:30.279 --> 00:14:32.259 because he thought he was putting his kids back 00:14:32.259 --> 00:14:34.580 on the right track. Similarly, he would equate 00:14:34.580 --> 00:14:37.570 love to money. that he would buy his kids things 00:14:37.570 --> 00:14:40.750 and that's a way of showing love. Would you say 00:14:40.750 --> 00:14:42.990 that's something that's become more common, especially 00:14:42.990 --> 00:14:46.850 in America, equating money to love and being 00:14:46.850 --> 00:14:49.330 like, if I spend a lot of money on a particular 00:14:49.330 --> 00:14:51.809 person, that's me showing my love. I don't actually 00:14:51.809 --> 00:14:54.950 need to go down to the human values and show 00:14:54.950 --> 00:14:58.009 affection or say nice things. Has there been 00:14:58.009 --> 00:15:01.990 a shift across the board on that front to a more 00:15:01.990 --> 00:15:07.039 capitalist version of love? Not really. And I'll 00:15:07.039 --> 00:15:09.399 tell you why. Marriage has always been an economic 00:15:09.399 --> 00:15:12.659 proposition. And mostly women were traded like 00:15:12.659 --> 00:15:15.179 chattel, right? A biblical marriage is that a 00:15:15.179 --> 00:15:17.899 man should have as many wives as he has cows 00:15:17.899 --> 00:15:19.779 because that's how many he can support, right? 00:15:19.899 --> 00:15:22.539 So women have always been traded in marriage. 00:15:22.580 --> 00:15:25.720 That's why, at least in many cultures, women 00:15:25.720 --> 00:15:29.480 take men's names. In the U .S., it's 95 % of 00:15:29.480 --> 00:15:31.500 women getting married will take the man's name. 00:15:32.440 --> 00:15:35.240 That's why a man walks his daughter down the 00:15:35.240 --> 00:15:39.080 aisle and gives her to the husband. So marriage 00:15:39.080 --> 00:15:43.360 has always been an economic relationship. A transactional 00:15:43.360 --> 00:15:45.179 relationship. A transactional relationship. It 00:15:45.179 --> 00:15:50.220 never had anything to do with romance. get situated 00:15:50.220 --> 00:15:53.759 into romance, well, not surprisingly, it comes 00:15:53.759 --> 00:15:57.600 along with modernity. And in particular, we see 00:15:57.600 --> 00:16:00.620 something called the companionate marriage happen 00:16:00.620 --> 00:16:06.710 in the late 1800s, where suddenly marriage becomes 00:16:06.710 --> 00:16:09.309 something that a woman can say yes or no to not 00:16:09.309 --> 00:16:13.190 in all cultures not in all classes and many people 00:16:13.190 --> 00:16:15.070 couldn't get married right they weren't allowed 00:16:15.070 --> 00:16:17.309 to get married they were enslaved people or they 00:16:17.309 --> 00:16:20.090 were indentured servants or they were in economic 00:16:20.090 --> 00:16:22.169 positions that didn't allow it but among the 00:16:22.169 --> 00:16:25.769 bourgeoisie for lack of a better word women could 00:16:25.769 --> 00:16:29.009 suddenly say no In part because first wave feminism 00:16:29.009 --> 00:16:33.029 is developing and there's this sense that women 00:16:33.029 --> 00:16:36.350 might actually be human. And so we see some of 00:16:36.350 --> 00:16:38.590 these things that we think of as natural like 00:16:38.590 --> 00:16:43.049 engagement proposals come along in the late 1800s 00:16:43.049 --> 00:16:45.429 where a woman actually has a right to say, no, 00:16:45.570 --> 00:16:47.269 I won't marry you. And if you look at some of 00:16:47.269 --> 00:16:52.740 the novels of that time, you can see. The amount 00:16:52.740 --> 00:16:54.980 of anxiety that was producing for the man to 00:16:54.980 --> 00:16:58.220 ask for a hand and be told, no, by the woman, 00:16:58.240 --> 00:17:00.960 not by the woman's father for the first time. 00:17:01.139 --> 00:17:04.519 We didn't have rings yet, though. I mean, wealthy 00:17:04.519 --> 00:17:06.599 people exchange jewelry all the time, of course, 00:17:06.640 --> 00:17:08.339 but there was no such thing as the engagement 00:17:08.339 --> 00:17:11.059 ring. That comes along with consumer capitalism 00:17:11.059 --> 00:17:14.900 and World War II. What happens is most diamonds 00:17:14.900 --> 00:17:16.539 are controlled by the De Beers organization, 00:17:16.900 --> 00:17:21.750 which is a South African organization. And South 00:17:21.750 --> 00:17:25.609 Africa was part of the Nazi alliance. And because 00:17:25.609 --> 00:17:27.609 of that, they weren't allowed to sell diamonds 00:17:27.609 --> 00:17:31.769 in allied countries. But they could in the U 00:17:31.769 --> 00:17:33.630 .S. because the U .S. was always a little bit 00:17:33.630 --> 00:17:37.190 iffy about its relationship to World War II, 00:17:37.269 --> 00:17:43.410 at least in the 1930s and early 40s. And so they 00:17:43.410 --> 00:17:45.450 come up with this idea that they will sell diamonds 00:17:45.450 --> 00:17:49.220 as engagement rings. And Frances Garrity, who's 00:17:49.220 --> 00:17:51.519 a young woman who works in advertising, she comes 00:17:51.519 --> 00:17:54.460 up with the slogan, a diamond is forever. Now, 00:17:54.480 --> 00:17:58.000 before that moment, diamonds were pretty. ordinary 00:17:58.000 --> 00:18:00.500 things they're actually pretty ordinary they're 00:18:00.500 --> 00:18:03.480 not special etc but the beers comes up with this 00:18:03.480 --> 00:18:06.319 advertising campaign the diamond is forever they 00:18:06.319 --> 00:18:08.559 convince men that they at that point that they 00:18:08.559 --> 00:18:12.220 must send spend one month's salary on that diamond 00:18:12.220 --> 00:18:15.900 now it's two months salary and that the only 00:18:15.900 --> 00:18:19.039 way to truly get married is to present a diamond 00:18:19.039 --> 00:18:22.460 ring in a box on a bended knee. They actually 00:18:22.460 --> 00:18:25.460 teach men how to do it. They teach them in workshops. 00:18:25.799 --> 00:18:29.059 They teach them through paying Hollywood producers 00:18:29.059 --> 00:18:31.640 to use diamonds and engagement rings in their 00:18:31.640 --> 00:18:34.220 movies. So all of that is completely socially 00:18:34.220 --> 00:18:36.880 made up. It has to do with consumer capitalism. 00:18:36.980 --> 00:18:39.579 It has to do with political alliances during 00:18:39.579 --> 00:18:42.519 World War II. It has to do with the brilliance 00:18:42.519 --> 00:18:44.380 of convincing people if you buy this thing, it 00:18:44.380 --> 00:18:47.930 is forever. But that doesn't mean it's not real, 00:18:48.049 --> 00:18:51.009 right? That's the thing about it is just because 00:18:51.009 --> 00:18:53.210 it's socially constructed doesn't mean it isn't 00:18:53.210 --> 00:18:57.410 real. Everything that we think of as very deep 00:18:57.410 --> 00:19:00.089 to who we are, let's say our sexual identity, 00:19:00.250 --> 00:19:03.430 our gender identity, our national ethnic identity, 00:19:03.569 --> 00:19:06.369 those are all obviously social constructions. 00:19:06.369 --> 00:19:08.710 Somebody had to make them up. No one is born 00:19:08.710 --> 00:19:11.289 thinking they're a particular sexuality or a 00:19:11.289 --> 00:19:15.420 particular gender. And diamond rings and the 00:19:15.420 --> 00:19:18.059 fetish items and the rituals of romance are very 00:19:18.059 --> 00:19:19.960 similar, right? They were all made up. They were 00:19:19.960 --> 00:19:22.140 made up pretty recently. White wedding dresses. 00:19:22.940 --> 00:19:25.920 People did not wear white wedding dresses in 00:19:25.920 --> 00:19:29.000 1910. Why? Who could afford a dress you could 00:19:29.000 --> 00:19:31.660 wear on one day? What had to happen is you had 00:19:31.660 --> 00:19:35.559 to have mass production in factories of an item 00:19:35.559 --> 00:19:38.839 that a middle class person could afford to buy 00:19:38.839 --> 00:19:42.559 and wear once. Right. So all these things we 00:19:42.559 --> 00:19:45.119 think of as, oh, but people have always had diamond 00:19:45.119 --> 00:19:48.180 rings and white weddings. And of course, it's 00:19:48.180 --> 00:19:50.720 very recent. It's 100 years old, much of that 00:19:50.720 --> 00:19:53.539 stuff. And companionate marriage, the idea that 00:19:53.539 --> 00:19:56.319 a woman might say no, regardless of what her 00:19:56.319 --> 00:19:59.819 father thinks, that's maybe 150 years old. So 00:19:59.819 --> 00:20:02.619 that doesn't mean they're not real. That doesn't 00:20:02.619 --> 00:20:04.700 mean that we don't care deeply about them. It 00:20:04.700 --> 00:20:06.480 doesn't mean that people don't spend on average. 00:20:07.079 --> 00:20:09.779 $12 ,000 to $15 ,000 on their wedding dress, 00:20:10.019 --> 00:20:14.000 which they often take out debt to do. But it 00:20:14.000 --> 00:20:17.680 means that these are socially produced formations 00:20:17.680 --> 00:20:21.920 that could, in fact, shift if we wanted to shift 00:20:21.920 --> 00:20:24.759 them. If we wanted to think differently, what 00:20:24.759 --> 00:20:28.180 else could we spend that $12 ,000 on? You know, 00:20:28.180 --> 00:20:31.079 that diamond ring actually doesn't have any value 00:20:31.079 --> 00:20:34.069 once you walk out of the... out of the diamond 00:20:34.069 --> 00:20:36.910 store. It's not a fungible object. You can't 00:20:36.910 --> 00:20:39.710 go back and sell it for $4 ,000 if you paid $4 00:20:39.710 --> 00:20:42.269 ,000, or you probably paid $8 ,000. $4 ,000 would 00:20:42.269 --> 00:20:46.230 be cheap, right? So all these things are truly 00:20:46.230 --> 00:20:49.829 imbued with magic and possibility for us, but 00:20:49.829 --> 00:20:52.609 because our culture and our society and our history 00:20:52.609 --> 00:20:57.849 produced them in certain ways. So I didn't know 00:20:57.849 --> 00:21:00.130 that they didn't wear white at weddings before, 00:21:00.210 --> 00:21:04.319 say, 100, 120 years ago. That's interesting to 00:21:04.319 --> 00:21:06.700 realize how weddings have changed to the way 00:21:06.700 --> 00:21:10.039 we know them today. What did they wear back then? 00:21:10.099 --> 00:21:12.759 What did an old -style wedding look like? If 00:21:12.759 --> 00:21:15.740 you look at a wedding from before the 1930s or 00:21:15.740 --> 00:21:19.180 even the 1940s, you'll see women in their Sunday 00:21:19.180 --> 00:21:21.920 bests, like their absolute best dress. That was 00:21:21.920 --> 00:21:26.740 often black or dark green. It was somber. It 00:21:26.740 --> 00:21:29.319 wasn't white. I believe the first person who 00:21:29.319 --> 00:21:31.059 wore white at her wedding was Queen Victoria, 00:21:31.380 --> 00:21:35.440 the virgin queen. But who could afford to have— 00:21:35.660 --> 00:21:38.720 a dress that you only wore once. You had to have 00:21:38.720 --> 00:21:42.119 mass production in factories. So capitalism had 00:21:42.119 --> 00:21:44.859 to happen in certain ways for that to be possible. 00:21:45.119 --> 00:21:47.440 Very interesting. And that's percolated down 00:21:47.440 --> 00:21:51.420 all the way today and has blown way out of proportion. 00:21:53.180 --> 00:21:57.759 Okay, so let's talk about dating apps. And I 00:21:57.759 --> 00:21:59.599 know you mentioned that you have a chapter in 00:21:59.599 --> 00:22:02.579 your book about this. How do you think that's 00:22:02.579 --> 00:22:05.759 influenced? dating culture today, especially 00:22:05.759 --> 00:22:09.359 with Gen Z and hookup culture, whether it being 00:22:09.359 --> 00:22:13.819 on college campuses or even off, even just in 00:22:13.819 --> 00:22:18.619 regular life. How has this become an influencing 00:22:18.619 --> 00:22:23.339 factor or not with the way things are going now? 00:22:24.170 --> 00:22:27.369 Anybody who's in for a long -term relationship 00:22:27.369 --> 00:22:29.990 and wants to be with one person for a long amount 00:22:29.990 --> 00:22:34.170 of time is considered to be old school now. The 00:22:34.170 --> 00:22:36.710 turnaround time on relationships is much faster 00:22:36.710 --> 00:22:42.029 than one would assume, dare I say even. The emotions 00:22:42.029 --> 00:22:46.349 behind it are not 100 % there. Gen Z has a much 00:22:46.349 --> 00:22:48.349 harder time opening up and trusting someone. 00:22:48.630 --> 00:22:51.509 The definition of a relationship is changing 00:22:51.509 --> 00:22:55.109 more and more. So how would you say that dating 00:22:55.109 --> 00:22:58.109 apps have influenced this, if at all or not? 00:22:58.950 --> 00:23:01.329 Yeah, no, they've influenced a lot. But even 00:23:01.329 --> 00:23:05.609 before dating apps existed, millennials invented 00:23:05.609 --> 00:23:08.690 hookup culture, which is not to say that people 00:23:08.690 --> 00:23:10.869 didn't have one night stands. Before that, they 00:23:10.869 --> 00:23:13.710 did. In fact, they had more people of my generation, 00:23:13.789 --> 00:23:16.190 Gen X, had more one night stands than college 00:23:16.190 --> 00:23:20.740 students today. Oh, OK. Interestingly. But we 00:23:20.740 --> 00:23:23.339 didn't have the same rules of lack of emotional 00:23:23.339 --> 00:23:25.460 connection around them. And there was no rule 00:23:25.460 --> 00:23:28.000 that they couldn't lead to a relationship. So 00:23:28.000 --> 00:23:30.339 millennials really invented hookup culture in 00:23:30.339 --> 00:23:32.599 this really interesting way. And I would argue 00:23:32.599 --> 00:23:35.299 that in part it has to do with a different ideology. 00:23:35.660 --> 00:23:39.920 And that is the ideology of pornography. So millennials 00:23:39.920 --> 00:23:42.680 were the first generation who easily had access 00:23:42.680 --> 00:23:46.369 as young people to pornography online. And it 00:23:46.369 --> 00:23:49.470 created a kind of hookup culture where sex became 00:23:49.470 --> 00:23:51.950 about the money shot, if you'll excuse my crude 00:23:51.950 --> 00:23:54.509 language, right? It became about the man's orgasm. 00:23:54.509 --> 00:23:58.289 And we start to see a big dip in women's orgasms 00:23:58.289 --> 00:24:01.150 on campus. There's a big differential starting 00:24:01.150 --> 00:24:04.869 around the year 2000 between women experiencing 00:24:04.869 --> 00:24:07.829 orgasm and men experiencing orgasm. So what we 00:24:07.829 --> 00:24:09.990 see is hookup culture on university campuses 00:24:09.990 --> 00:24:14.740 producing a very male -oriented. orgasm -focused 00:24:14.740 --> 00:24:19.420 sex culture in which one is not supposed to express 00:24:19.420 --> 00:24:21.880 emotions. You're not supposed to get the person's 00:24:21.880 --> 00:24:24.880 number and text them the next day. You're not 00:24:24.880 --> 00:24:27.160 even really supposed to say hi to them. You're 00:24:27.160 --> 00:24:29.819 supposed to keep it completely and utterly emotionless. 00:24:30.220 --> 00:24:32.539 And what a lot of sociologists have found, this 00:24:32.539 --> 00:24:34.779 isn't my own research, but people like Lisa Wade, 00:24:34.880 --> 00:24:37.779 who wrote American Hookup, what a lot of sociologists 00:24:37.779 --> 00:24:40.619 have found is people aren't really happy with 00:24:40.619 --> 00:24:44.089 this. And actually, weirdly, straight men are 00:24:44.089 --> 00:24:48.529 the least happy with this situation. So that's 00:24:48.529 --> 00:24:50.589 kind of interesting, right, that the ideology 00:24:50.589 --> 00:24:52.769 of pornography, which is that sex should be about 00:24:52.769 --> 00:24:55.910 the man's orgasm and not in any way about mutual 00:24:55.910 --> 00:24:58.650 pleasures and sex shouldn't lead to emotional 00:24:58.650 --> 00:25:02.750 connection. That ideology has permeated university 00:25:02.750 --> 00:25:06.559 campuses. And to some extent. dating app culture, 00:25:06.640 --> 00:25:08.640 depending on the dating app, obviously Grindr 00:25:08.640 --> 00:25:12.400 and Tinder. That's very much the case. What was 00:25:12.400 --> 00:25:16.019 interesting in my interviews is as people decide 00:25:16.019 --> 00:25:19.019 they want to exit from hookup culture and enter 00:25:19.019 --> 00:25:23.539 romance culture, they often use dating apps in 00:25:23.539 --> 00:25:28.000 a very strategic way to get to a marriageable 00:25:28.000 --> 00:25:31.690 person. It was a kind of misuse of dating apps, 00:25:31.809 --> 00:25:35.210 if you will, where they sort of treated it like 00:25:35.210 --> 00:25:37.710 a battle. And they were the general. And they 00:25:37.710 --> 00:25:40.849 were like, OK, the first meetup, it's a coffee. 00:25:40.970 --> 00:25:44.109 It's 15 minutes. If that goes OK, you can have 00:25:44.109 --> 00:25:46.789 a walk. If that goes OK, there could be a dinner, 00:25:46.930 --> 00:25:49.130 right? And so they started to use it as ways 00:25:49.130 --> 00:25:51.849 of weaning out who was a marriageable subject 00:25:51.849 --> 00:25:55.589 and who wasn't. And I found that a really interesting 00:25:55.589 --> 00:25:59.680 use of something that was produced. To get us 00:25:59.680 --> 00:26:01.779 to want more and more and more, right? Dating 00:26:01.779 --> 00:26:04.279 apps want to keep you on dating apps. Yeah. They 00:26:04.279 --> 00:26:08.559 don't really want you to leave. And so that fantasy 00:26:08.559 --> 00:26:13.180 they present of endless possibility and no matter 00:26:13.180 --> 00:26:15.700 what, there's just always someone else. Not just 00:26:15.700 --> 00:26:19.579 someone else. There's 2 ,347 someone else's within 00:26:19.579 --> 00:26:24.519 150 -mile radius, right? So that idea of endless 00:26:24.519 --> 00:26:27.700 choice, which is a – brilliant capitalist concept, 00:26:27.859 --> 00:26:30.279 right? Oh, you don't like this toothpaste? Use 00:26:30.279 --> 00:26:31.920 this toothpaste. You don't like that date? Use 00:26:31.920 --> 00:26:35.400 this date. More, more, more. You're just going 00:26:35.400 --> 00:26:37.420 to be happier and happier, even though we know 00:26:37.420 --> 00:26:39.900 psychologically people aren't happier with endless 00:26:39.900 --> 00:26:43.390 choice. There's decision fatigue and all this 00:26:43.390 --> 00:26:45.650 stuff starts to happen to people. And everyone 00:26:45.650 --> 00:26:47.869 I interviewed, even the ones who use dating apps 00:26:47.869 --> 00:26:50.849 just for hookup culture, said that they felt 00:26:50.849 --> 00:26:52.809 like it was a dating apocalypse. You know, it 00:26:52.809 --> 00:26:55.089 was absolutely horrifying. And they hated who 00:26:55.089 --> 00:26:57.190 they became and they hated everyone else on the 00:26:57.190 --> 00:26:59.930 apps. Right. And they didn't think it was bringing 00:26:59.930 --> 00:27:04.450 out the best in humanity. But some people use 00:27:04.450 --> 00:27:06.890 them for romantic ends of finding a marriageable 00:27:06.890 --> 00:27:10.630 subject and got married from them. So I think 00:27:10.630 --> 00:27:13.089 because you're in university culture, that's 00:27:13.089 --> 00:27:15.329 probably not very common. But 10 years from now, 00:27:15.490 --> 00:27:18.549 you'd be surprised how people in their 30s are 00:27:18.549 --> 00:27:23.170 using dating apps. Just that small shift of a 00:27:23.170 --> 00:27:25.769 couple of years makes all the difference, I think. 00:27:27.099 --> 00:27:30.039 And even with college students, if they don't 00:27:30.039 --> 00:27:33.339 use dating apps, even if it's just on campus, 00:27:33.519 --> 00:27:39.039 there's a higher rate of people being dissatisfied 00:27:39.039 --> 00:27:42.880 with their relationships. And even in high school, 00:27:42.940 --> 00:27:44.640 I saw this, and this is all the way back in India, 00:27:44.799 --> 00:27:48.099 that people tend to go for the more toxic relationships 00:27:48.099 --> 00:27:50.920 before they actually go for the real ones. It's 00:27:50.920 --> 00:27:54.579 almost as if... I don't know, there's something 00:27:54.579 --> 00:27:58.119 attractive about a relationship where you're 00:27:58.119 --> 00:28:01.160 losing something and then you realize, oh, that's 00:28:01.160 --> 00:28:04.680 not good for me at all. I'm going to do a 180 00:28:04.680 --> 00:28:07.559 flip and go get into a healthy relationship and 00:28:07.559 --> 00:28:09.380 I'm going to get something that's good for me. 00:28:09.480 --> 00:28:12.519 But the realization time that that takes is increasing 00:28:12.519 --> 00:28:15.420 more and more. Like people will be in abusive 00:28:15.420 --> 00:28:18.200 relationships. They will get into toxic relationships 00:28:18.200 --> 00:28:23.689 where it's draining for both people in it. then 00:28:23.689 --> 00:28:27.309 finally have a wake -up call. And I think that's 00:28:27.309 --> 00:28:28.930 more with my generation. I don't know if that's 00:28:28.930 --> 00:28:30.869 something that's been there for a while. Yeah, 00:28:30.970 --> 00:28:33.170 I think it's difficult to know because I really 00:28:33.170 --> 00:28:35.609 only know about university culture and afterwards 00:28:35.609 --> 00:28:38.009 because in the U .S. you cannot study people 00:28:38.009 --> 00:28:40.509 under 18 in and around sexuality or it's very, 00:28:40.589 --> 00:28:44.180 very difficult, let's say. But I will say we 00:28:44.180 --> 00:28:46.819 do see a huge amount of dissatisfaction. There's 00:28:46.819 --> 00:28:49.779 a book I teach in my class called The Tragedy 00:28:49.779 --> 00:28:52.319 of Heterosexuality, which is really about how 00:28:52.319 --> 00:28:55.740 it's not working for heterosexual women. And 00:28:55.740 --> 00:28:59.279 you could ask any straight woman on campus whether 00:28:59.279 --> 00:29:02.160 she's happy with hookup culture and the answer 00:29:02.160 --> 00:29:05.380 is going to be no, of course I'm not. But what's 00:29:05.380 --> 00:29:08.819 hard and what's difficult to understand is … 00:29:09.119 --> 00:29:10.980 We didn't create these scripts. They were already 00:29:10.980 --> 00:29:13.500 created for us. And so changing them requires 00:29:13.500 --> 00:29:16.859 communal action. We can't individually change 00:29:16.859 --> 00:29:20.059 them. As one student said to me, I would be considered 00:29:20.059 --> 00:29:23.299 insane if I asked a man to care about my pleasure 00:29:23.299 --> 00:29:26.140 during a hookup. That itself speaks volumes. 00:29:26.299 --> 00:29:39.259 So let's segue a little away from here. young 00:29:39.259 --> 00:29:41.180 people's approaches to relationships. We're talking 00:29:41.180 --> 00:29:45.480 about hookup culture and Gen Z. And do you really 00:29:45.480 --> 00:29:49.400 think that believing love conquers all helps 00:29:49.400 --> 00:29:52.900 individuals sometimes ignore red flags? That's 00:29:52.900 --> 00:29:55.519 something I've seen even with my friends. There 00:29:55.519 --> 00:29:59.500 may be some serious, serious issues, but they're 00:29:59.500 --> 00:30:01.900 blind to it. It's like those rose -tinted glasses 00:30:01.900 --> 00:30:03.619 that come about, and then when they shatter, 00:30:03.640 --> 00:30:07.099 they shatter. But do you think it's that idea 00:30:07.099 --> 00:30:12.099 of... Yeah, I don't think there's as much pressure 00:30:12.099 --> 00:30:14.480 on university campuses. I do think as you get 00:30:14.480 --> 00:30:17.240 older, there'll be more and more pressure. But 00:30:17.240 --> 00:30:20.359 I think there is some belief from romance that 00:30:20.359 --> 00:30:26.420 your life is better and happier if you have someone 00:30:26.420 --> 00:30:28.960 with whom you have a romantic relationship, right? 00:30:29.019 --> 00:30:32.900 You're one, you're boo. And I think it's interesting 00:30:32.900 --> 00:30:36.019 to think about how romance... is an ideology. 00:30:36.359 --> 00:30:38.680 And what do I mean by that? An ideology hides 00:30:38.680 --> 00:30:43.119 real conditions behind a smoke screen. In this 00:30:43.119 --> 00:30:45.900 case, a smoke screen is like fairy dust and magic 00:30:45.900 --> 00:30:48.859 will happen and so on and so forth. And so the 00:30:48.859 --> 00:30:53.000 real conditions can be actually a lot of relationships 00:30:53.000 --> 00:30:55.819 and particularly within conditions of patriarchy 00:30:55.819 --> 00:31:00.200 or white supremacy can be pretty bad. But the 00:31:00.200 --> 00:31:03.740 ideological claim that love conquers all, love 00:31:03.740 --> 00:31:07.039 is all you need, But those aren't true. Love 00:31:07.039 --> 00:31:09.200 does not conquer all. Love is not all you need. 00:31:09.500 --> 00:31:12.579 You need all sorts of things to be happy. But 00:31:12.579 --> 00:31:15.660 those are ideological smoke screens that hide 00:31:15.660 --> 00:31:18.740 us from the real conditions of our lives. And 00:31:18.740 --> 00:31:23.539 perhaps they can give us solace in times of fear 00:31:23.539 --> 00:31:26.819 and precarity, but they can also lead us down 00:31:26.819 --> 00:31:31.599 the garden path, as it were. Okay. And do you 00:31:31.599 --> 00:31:34.660 think there's—so, again, I'm— In my mind, I have 00:31:34.660 --> 00:31:39.819 the mental background of India, which, of course, 00:31:39.859 --> 00:31:41.240 is very different from what it is in the United 00:31:41.240 --> 00:31:43.019 States. But at least in India, what I can comment 00:31:43.019 --> 00:31:46.559 on is there is an inherent push from a young 00:31:46.559 --> 00:31:50.819 age to get married. We've spoken about this when 00:31:50.819 --> 00:31:53.519 we were planning out the episode, that not everybody 00:31:53.519 --> 00:31:55.960 chooses to get married in the U .S. In fact, 00:31:56.000 --> 00:31:59.099 it's more on the uprise now that people don't 00:31:59.099 --> 00:32:01.799 want to get married anymore. In India, it's not 00:32:01.799 --> 00:32:03.839 an option. It's part of the thing. It's like, 00:32:03.859 --> 00:32:05.680 go to high school, you finish your degree there. 00:32:05.880 --> 00:32:08.339 You go to college, you finish college, get out 00:32:08.339 --> 00:32:10.819 of college, get a job, get married, have kids. 00:32:10.960 --> 00:32:13.140 It's like a thing. It's like this is benchmarks 00:32:13.140 --> 00:32:16.220 that need to happen to have a successful life. 00:32:18.059 --> 00:32:21.579 Now, we know that shift's happening here. But 00:32:21.579 --> 00:32:24.720 do you think that it's somewhat similar still 00:32:24.720 --> 00:32:28.220 to India in the sense that while we're, yes, 00:32:28.539 --> 00:32:31.180 there is a shift towards marriage is not something 00:32:31.180 --> 00:32:35.900 for everyone. But is there still pressure that 00:32:35.900 --> 00:32:38.579 it's something that you need for a successful 00:32:38.579 --> 00:32:41.299 life? I think it depends. So I'm going to talk 00:32:41.299 --> 00:32:45.480 about politics now, and excuse me. So marriage 00:32:45.480 --> 00:32:47.799 is not randomly distributed in the United States. 00:32:47.839 --> 00:32:50.740 People who are married tend to be whiter, wealthier, 00:32:50.740 --> 00:32:55.140 and more educated. Right now, there is a political 00:32:55.140 --> 00:33:00.000 administration or regime. that is releasing a 00:33:00.000 --> 00:33:03.660 bunch of pronatalist policies to try to enforce 00:33:03.660 --> 00:33:06.839 a particular sort of family formation, heterosexual, 00:33:07.079 --> 00:33:10.640 mother, father, biological child or children, 00:33:10.880 --> 00:33:13.980 that's very concerned with producing a certain 00:33:13.980 --> 00:33:17.269 sort of family and will give certain... benefits 00:33:17.269 --> 00:33:20.049 to those families, right? So we even heard the 00:33:20.049 --> 00:33:22.450 Department of Transportation say they're only 00:33:22.450 --> 00:33:24.910 going to give funding to areas with high marriage 00:33:24.910 --> 00:33:28.369 and birth rates. There's some discussion in the 00:33:28.369 --> 00:33:31.029 administration of giving government grants to 00:33:31.029 --> 00:33:33.230 scholars on the basis of whether they're married 00:33:33.230 --> 00:33:36.990 and have children. So like reserving 40 % of 00:33:36.990 --> 00:33:40.349 them for them. So what we see is a state that's 00:33:40.349 --> 00:33:44.130 very invested in a certain sort of marriage formation. 00:33:44.170 --> 00:33:48.240 They don't mean gay and they don't mean stepparent 00:33:48.240 --> 00:33:52.920 and they don't mean polygamy. They mean heterosexual, 00:33:53.119 --> 00:33:57.380 dyadic with biological offspring. That probably 00:33:57.380 --> 00:33:59.200 isn't going to work. The interesting thing about 00:33:59.200 --> 00:34:02.099 pro -natalist policies is they've been historically 00:34:02.099 --> 00:34:04.559 very unsuccessful. You see a lot of them going 00:34:04.559 --> 00:34:07.900 on in Russia right now, Hungary, certainly under 00:34:07.900 --> 00:34:12.559 Hitler's Nazism and under Mussolini's fascism, 00:34:12.579 --> 00:34:15.489 there were pro -natalist regimes. That's probably 00:34:15.489 --> 00:34:17.530 not going to work. How you convince people to 00:34:17.530 --> 00:34:20.489 get married is Hollywood or Bollywood. How you 00:34:20.489 --> 00:34:23.630 convince people to get married is rom -coms. 00:34:23.630 --> 00:34:26.329 How you convince them to get married is get them 00:34:26.329 --> 00:34:28.849 addicted to reading romance novels one after 00:34:28.849 --> 00:34:31.030 the other after the other. Twenty -five percent 00:34:31.030 --> 00:34:33.889 of books published in the U .S. are romance novels. 00:34:34.010 --> 00:34:37.809 So ideology is a much better tool than state 00:34:37.809 --> 00:34:41.989 policy. And to that extent, I would suggest— 00:34:42.170 --> 00:34:45.230 just that a state would have to control culture 00:34:45.230 --> 00:34:48.869 in order to produce those effects, which is not 00:34:48.869 --> 00:34:50.829 to say that a state couldn't control culture. 00:34:51.010 --> 00:34:54.349 States have done that before. But at this point, 00:34:54.389 --> 00:34:57.769 there would have to be a lot of work done to 00:34:57.769 --> 00:35:00.809 convince people that they needed to be in heterosexual, 00:35:01.030 --> 00:35:04.829 dyadic, reproductive relationships because that 00:35:04.829 --> 00:35:09.420 doesn't seem to be what people are doing. To 00:35:09.420 --> 00:35:11.460 be clear, the U .S. has always been invested 00:35:11.460 --> 00:35:15.260 in those relationships. And for instance, you 00:35:15.260 --> 00:35:19.679 know, 130 years ago or so, the U .S. military 00:35:19.679 --> 00:35:22.420 was sent to Utah to stop polygamous marriages. 00:35:22.539 --> 00:35:25.900 I mean, the U .S. has always, from the 1800s 00:35:25.900 --> 00:35:28.119 forward, been very invested in a particular sort 00:35:28.119 --> 00:35:31.119 of sexual citizen. And that citizen is heterosexual, 00:35:31.340 --> 00:35:35.539 married, and reproductive. But also to be clear, 00:35:35.679 --> 00:35:39.030 it's not been super successful. Which is to say 00:35:39.030 --> 00:35:40.909 things can shift, right? Things could shift in 00:35:40.909 --> 00:35:45.510 India where you have a similar state with a similar 00:35:45.510 --> 00:35:48.949 investment in a particular kind of national sexual 00:35:48.949 --> 00:35:52.969 identity. And they could shift in India. They 00:35:52.969 --> 00:35:55.090 could shift here. There could be control of culture. 00:35:55.170 --> 00:35:58.429 There could be coercive policies that force people 00:35:58.429 --> 00:36:02.409 to get married. I know that China recently instituted 00:36:02.409 --> 00:36:05.809 some policies about if you're not married, you 00:36:05.809 --> 00:36:09.199 have to leave your job. So those policies can 00:36:09.199 --> 00:36:11.820 be instituted and they could be instituted. But 00:36:11.820 --> 00:36:17.840 my guess is that humans are perverse in our ability 00:36:17.840 --> 00:36:20.300 to follow orders and particularly when it comes 00:36:20.300 --> 00:36:23.059 to matters of who we love and who we don't love. 00:36:23.219 --> 00:36:26.179 I mean look at the persistence of queerness regardless 00:36:26.179 --> 00:36:29.670 of laws against it, right? Well, there are some 00:36:29.670 --> 00:36:31.789 populations the U .S. wants to control. And, 00:36:31.809 --> 00:36:33.789 of course, many, many people were sterilized 00:36:33.789 --> 00:36:35.949 under eugenics programs that went really through 00:36:35.949 --> 00:36:39.690 the 1970s. And some incarcerated people have 00:36:39.690 --> 00:36:43.289 been sterilized as well, so often against their 00:36:43.289 --> 00:36:46.829 will or knowledge. So, yeah, there are some people 00:36:46.829 --> 00:36:48.710 we don't want to reproduce. But there's a particular 00:36:48.710 --> 00:36:51.050 sort of family formation that we do want to have 00:36:51.050 --> 00:36:55.269 kids. And I would assume that's similar. The 00:36:55.269 --> 00:36:58.829 good news is most regimes have not been particularly 00:36:58.829 --> 00:37:02.809 successful at it. So in fascist Italy, they had 00:37:02.809 --> 00:37:05.929 taxes on bachelors who I assume were probably 00:37:05.929 --> 00:37:10.670 gay men and they just paid the extra taxes. So 00:37:10.670 --> 00:37:14.389 I think that it's— unusual for a state to be 00:37:14.389 --> 00:37:16.369 able to enforce these things, but they can enforce 00:37:16.369 --> 00:37:18.289 them at the margins, and people can suffer at 00:37:18.289 --> 00:37:21.130 the margins, of course. If one thing we know 00:37:21.130 --> 00:37:23.510 is true, it's that the history of romance and 00:37:23.510 --> 00:37:26.190 the history of marriage tells us is that things 00:37:26.190 --> 00:37:29.329 will change. Whatever you think is timeless and 00:37:29.329 --> 00:37:32.269 has always been that way isn't timeless, and 00:37:32.269 --> 00:37:35.090 it hasn't always been that way. And what it is 00:37:35.090 --> 00:37:37.409 100 years from now will be very, very different 00:37:37.409 --> 00:37:40.570 than it is now, that I can assure you. What do 00:37:40.570 --> 00:37:43.480 you think it means when one says that romance 00:37:43.480 --> 00:37:47.099 promises us a safe and secure future. Because 00:37:47.099 --> 00:37:51.159 even though our real future is very precarious 00:37:51.159 --> 00:37:54.980 right now, whether it's jobs or the climate or 00:37:54.980 --> 00:37:57.780 politics or whatever it is, when everything starts 00:37:57.780 --> 00:38:01.119 to feel unstable or upside down, people really, 00:38:01.340 --> 00:38:04.300 really double down on the idea of the perfect 00:38:04.300 --> 00:38:08.260 life, the one soulmate, the dream wedding, Instagram 00:38:08.260 --> 00:38:12.500 -worthy events and the perfect Instagram wedding. 00:38:12.840 --> 00:38:16.199 That's the other thing, actually. We didn't speak 00:38:16.199 --> 00:38:22.239 about the one soulmate. Is that something that's 00:38:22.239 --> 00:38:27.059 pushed, again, by governments or by various other 00:38:27.059 --> 00:38:31.940 influencing factors, whether it's... industry 00:38:31.940 --> 00:38:36.199 or Hollywood, is that an attempt to kind of limit 00:38:36.199 --> 00:38:40.639 polyamory by having the one soulmate or how did 00:38:40.639 --> 00:38:43.900 that come about? Yeah, I think you couldn't even 00:38:43.900 --> 00:38:47.719 have an idea of soulmate until that switch in 00:38:47.719 --> 00:38:50.280 marriage happened where women could say no, right? 00:38:50.400 --> 00:38:52.820 Until you could have companionate marriage as 00:38:52.820 --> 00:38:55.360 opposed to... Your father said you were marrying 00:38:55.360 --> 00:38:57.260 this person and that's what it was going to be. 00:38:57.559 --> 00:39:00.139 You couldn't have an idea of a soulmate. But 00:39:00.139 --> 00:39:04.300 obviously it was produced in Disney. You've seen 00:39:04.300 --> 00:39:07.039 the Disney classics. There's always that magical 00:39:07.039 --> 00:39:10.079 moment when the prince and the princess see each 00:39:10.079 --> 00:39:13.300 other either in the forest or the ballroom, wherever 00:39:13.300 --> 00:39:16.139 it is. And you know, obviously, that's the person 00:39:16.139 --> 00:39:19.650 they have to marry. And there's a million Hollywood 00:39:19.650 --> 00:39:22.610 stories with similar narratives. And romance 00:39:22.610 --> 00:39:25.809 novels are very interesting. They're shifting 00:39:25.809 --> 00:39:30.329 a little. There's certainly more various sex 00:39:30.329 --> 00:39:34.170 in them. And they're certainly more gay and lesbian 00:39:34.170 --> 00:39:36.050 friendly than they used to be. In fact, one of 00:39:36.050 --> 00:39:37.929 the biggest romance novels a couple of years 00:39:37.929 --> 00:39:41.429 ago was a gay romance. read primarily by straight 00:39:41.429 --> 00:39:45.010 women. It's called Red, White, and Royal Blue, 00:39:45.090 --> 00:39:50.030 and it's about the prince of England and the 00:39:50.030 --> 00:39:54.070 American president's son meeting and falling 00:39:54.070 --> 00:39:56.269 in love and clearly being destined to be together. 00:39:57.110 --> 00:40:01.610 But the point is that we've been well -trained 00:40:01.610 --> 00:40:04.070 to believe in this, and romance novels are particularly 00:40:04.070 --> 00:40:05.929 interesting because they're actually rules to 00:40:05.929 --> 00:40:08.550 romance novels. The Romance Writers of America 00:40:08.550 --> 00:40:12.630 has a website. You can go on and be, and you 00:40:12.630 --> 00:40:14.250 can figure out how do I write a romance novel? 00:40:14.409 --> 00:40:17.349 And one of the rules is it has to have an emotionally 00:40:17.349 --> 00:40:21.329 satisfying ending. Okay. Emotionally satisfying 00:40:21.329 --> 00:40:24.369 ending is like they get together and they live 00:40:24.369 --> 00:40:26.989 happily ever after. It's not that they go off 00:40:26.989 --> 00:40:28.650 in their separate directions and they work for 00:40:28.650 --> 00:40:32.289 environmental justice, right? That's not as emotionally 00:40:32.289 --> 00:40:34.110 satisfying. What we want is the happily ever 00:40:34.110 --> 00:40:37.730 after. We need that. We're trained to need that. 00:40:37.849 --> 00:40:41.179 And so I think we have to think about that as 00:40:41.179 --> 00:40:45.239 an ideological complex. Disney, Hollywood, romance 00:40:45.239 --> 00:40:49.250 novels, love songs. And actually Instagram and 00:40:49.250 --> 00:40:52.210 people's romances as they're curated on Instagram 00:40:52.210 --> 00:40:54.789 because nobody ever shows the fight you had over 00:40:54.789 --> 00:40:56.550 dropping your towel in the middle of the living 00:40:56.550 --> 00:40:59.670 room floor, right? Nobody ever shows how annoying 00:40:59.670 --> 00:41:02.690 their partner is, right? You have a curated love 00:41:02.690 --> 00:41:05.269 story on there, which is one of the reasons social 00:41:05.269 --> 00:41:08.289 media is so toxic for people's mental health 00:41:08.289 --> 00:41:11.909 because everybody's life is perfect. So, yeah, 00:41:12.010 --> 00:41:15.619 I think there's an entire ideological. complex 00:41:15.619 --> 00:41:17.840 that's producing these stories that convince 00:41:17.840 --> 00:41:19.539 us from a very young age. Think about the first 00:41:19.539 --> 00:41:22.409 time you saw a Disney film. You were a little 00:41:22.409 --> 00:41:25.969 kid. And think about the first time you got the 00:41:25.969 --> 00:41:28.090 idea that you will grow up and get married and 00:41:28.090 --> 00:41:30.989 then be happy, right? It was when somebody, some 00:41:30.989 --> 00:41:34.050 auntie said to you, oh, when you grow up and 00:41:34.050 --> 00:41:36.590 find the right woman, you're going to have a 00:41:36.590 --> 00:41:39.630 great life, right? That's introduced at a very 00:41:39.630 --> 00:41:41.929 young age. And then in high schools, at least 00:41:41.929 --> 00:41:44.030 in the U .S., we're trained over and over again 00:41:44.030 --> 00:41:46.449 to believe that. Proms, proms are kind of mini 00:41:46.449 --> 00:41:49.690 weddings, right? And you're trained to have all 00:41:49.690 --> 00:41:54.050 this romantic, affect around the prom to spend 00:41:54.050 --> 00:41:57.730 a lot of money and the man brings you in a special 00:41:57.730 --> 00:42:00.650 carriage to the prom right like not a horse -drawn 00:42:00.650 --> 00:42:04.110 carriage but a special car that's a limo or a 00:42:04.110 --> 00:42:06.730 souped up mustang or whatever it is right so 00:42:06.730 --> 00:42:09.829 that it's all this play acting for what you're 00:42:09.829 --> 00:42:11.969 supposed to get when you're an adult which is 00:42:11.969 --> 00:42:13.929 supposed to make you happy and safe and secure 00:42:13.929 --> 00:42:18.050 even though It won't. Right. I mean, we know 00:42:18.050 --> 00:42:21.090 from happiness studies that it's about community 00:42:21.090 --> 00:42:24.690 and social safety nets and all sorts of things, 00:42:24.769 --> 00:42:26.550 none of which have to do with romance. Yeah. 00:42:26.630 --> 00:42:29.429 So on that note, actually, would you say it's 00:42:29.429 --> 00:42:32.389 time to give up on romance and love or love with 00:42:32.389 --> 00:42:35.849 air quotes or perhaps change our definition of 00:42:35.849 --> 00:42:39.170 what we we expect it to be like expectations 00:42:39.170 --> 00:42:42.510 versus reality? What would a healthier, more 00:42:42.510 --> 00:42:45.860 conscious approach to romance look like? Yeah, 00:42:45.880 --> 00:42:48.199 I think it's time for people to start writing 00:42:48.199 --> 00:42:50.639 other stories. So I want to just talk to all 00:42:50.639 --> 00:42:54.119 the writers and the singer, the musicians. I 00:42:54.119 --> 00:42:55.760 want to talk to the people who might go work 00:42:55.760 --> 00:42:58.460 in Hollywood. I think it's time to tell other 00:42:58.460 --> 00:43:01.760 stories. I don't think it's time to give up on 00:43:01.760 --> 00:43:06.719 human connection and human support. I do think 00:43:06.719 --> 00:43:09.019 it's time to give up on this childish fantasy 00:43:09.019 --> 00:43:11.340 that that's how we get to a happily ever after. 00:43:11.920 --> 00:43:14.340 And I think we need to expand our definition 00:43:14.340 --> 00:43:17.139 of love, right? It's not just about the love 00:43:17.139 --> 00:43:18.679 you have for a partner. It's about the love you 00:43:18.679 --> 00:43:20.500 have for your community, for your neighborhood, 00:43:20.619 --> 00:43:23.719 for your extended family, for your family of 00:43:23.719 --> 00:43:27.079 choice, your friends, right? So I do think it's 00:43:27.079 --> 00:43:30.059 time to reimagine love as something that might 00:43:30.059 --> 00:43:35.800 bring us closer to community well -being. less 00:43:35.800 --> 00:43:41.679 than individual futures. So not quite yet time 00:43:41.679 --> 00:43:44.340 to give up on love and romance, just reshape 00:43:44.340 --> 00:43:47.039 the narrative. Reshape the narrative so we can 00:43:47.039 --> 00:43:49.579 imagine our community as a space that will bring 00:43:49.579 --> 00:43:53.059 us to a better future. I'm going to leave our 00:43:53.059 --> 00:43:54.840 audience with something to think about before 00:43:54.840 --> 00:43:58.940 we move on. Sit back here, pause for a minute, 00:43:58.980 --> 00:44:03.889 and reflect on... the values that you really, 00:44:03.969 --> 00:44:08.449 really value in a relationship versus what society 00:44:08.449 --> 00:44:11.869 tells you to value. Really sit and think about 00:44:11.869 --> 00:44:14.909 it and think about what you value out of your 00:44:14.909 --> 00:44:18.250 relationships and not what others expect. I think 00:44:18.250 --> 00:44:20.070 it's something that's needed in today's day and 00:44:20.070 --> 00:44:25.269 age. I guess the one thing that we haven't really 00:44:25.269 --> 00:44:29.690 talked about is how... The regulation of romance 00:44:29.690 --> 00:44:32.710 structures certain hierarchies in our culture. 00:44:32.889 --> 00:44:37.590 The obvious one is gender hierarchies, right? 00:44:37.849 --> 00:44:40.230 That seems kind of obvious. I don't really need 00:44:40.230 --> 00:44:42.030 to explain that to anyone. That would be sociology 00:44:42.030 --> 00:44:45.030 of the obvious. But I think the other hierarchy 00:44:45.030 --> 00:44:47.989 that's central to the ideal romance is white 00:44:47.989 --> 00:44:51.039 supremacy. And elsewhere it might be something 00:44:51.039 --> 00:44:53.699 else, Hindu supremacy, caste supremacy, male 00:44:53.699 --> 00:44:56.340 supremacy. I think all weddings are about the 00:44:56.340 --> 00:44:59.300 exchange of women even if we've updated them 00:44:59.300 --> 00:45:04.219 a bit, right? And also we know that married relationships 00:45:04.219 --> 00:45:06.880 and partnered relationships produce a huge amount 00:45:06.880 --> 00:45:09.000 of labor for women in ways that they don't for 00:45:09.000 --> 00:45:11.760 men and have huge effects on their careers and 00:45:11.760 --> 00:45:15.429 their earning potential, et cetera. In all cultures, 00:45:15.570 --> 00:45:18.050 but certainly in the U .S., the second shift 00:45:18.050 --> 00:45:21.530 is real. Right. I think it's obvious that romance 00:45:21.530 --> 00:45:25.250 can be tied up with sexism. But I think it's 00:45:25.250 --> 00:45:27.349 less obvious that it's tied up with white supremacy. 00:45:27.710 --> 00:45:31.690 And the reason I say that is because sexual citizenship 00:45:31.690 --> 00:45:34.250 was always based on who could and couldn't get 00:45:34.250 --> 00:45:37.469 married. That was often people who were propertied 00:45:37.469 --> 00:45:39.710 and white. They had to be both those things. 00:45:40.210 --> 00:45:42.510 Certain groups couldn't get married, obviously. 00:45:43.730 --> 00:45:47.010 Interracial marriage was illegal until Virginia 00:45:47.010 --> 00:45:51.489 v. Loving, which is the early 1970s. Same -sex 00:45:51.489 --> 00:45:55.929 marriage was illegal until 2015. So marriage 00:45:55.929 --> 00:45:58.489 has always been a way of doling out rights as 00:45:58.489 --> 00:46:01.289 to who gets to be a full citizen and who doesn't. 00:46:01.289 --> 00:46:03.989 And in the U .S., that was very much about a 00:46:03.989 --> 00:46:07.449 formation of whiteness that was propertied, heterosexual, 00:46:07.670 --> 00:46:11.280 and reproductive. It continues to be that way 00:46:11.280 --> 00:46:14.179 in the pronatalist policies of this administration. 00:46:14.699 --> 00:46:18.960 So I think we should be very skeptical that this 00:46:18.960 --> 00:46:23.719 is a form of liberation when, in fact, the white 00:46:23.719 --> 00:46:27.219 wedding, the perfect bride, all those things 00:46:27.219 --> 00:46:29.659 represented a kind of whiteness. So there's somebody 00:46:29.659 --> 00:46:34.199 who has a book on romance who goes back and looks 00:46:34.199 --> 00:46:37.190 at all the wedding. the covers of wedding magazines. 00:46:37.329 --> 00:46:39.289 And unless it's a particular niche magazine, 00:46:39.369 --> 00:46:42.050 like aimed at black women, let's say, or gay 00:46:42.050 --> 00:46:45.710 women, it will have a white, blonde, blue -eyed 00:46:45.710 --> 00:46:48.250 person on it more than 90 % of the time. That 00:46:48.250 --> 00:46:52.329 is the ideal bride. That's not an accident. And 00:46:52.329 --> 00:46:55.989 I think that that image of the perfect bride 00:46:55.989 --> 00:46:58.510 has to do with the way in which the state regulated 00:46:58.510 --> 00:47:01.230 marriage and continues to regulate marriage and 00:47:01.230 --> 00:47:04.789 continues to regulate benefits. There are 2 ,000 00:47:04.789 --> 00:47:08.550 federal benefits that married people get that 00:47:08.550 --> 00:47:11.570 unmarried people don't get. It's a huge tax break 00:47:11.570 --> 00:47:15.090 for people who already have money, right? So 00:47:15.090 --> 00:47:18.539 to think about the way in which— Weddings and 00:47:18.539 --> 00:47:21.059 romance culture are very much situated in a form 00:47:21.059 --> 00:47:23.440 of white supremacy. You can see it in Disney 00:47:23.440 --> 00:47:26.719 films, right? The bad guy is often a little bit 00:47:26.719 --> 00:47:30.320 darker. Think about Aladdin. Jafar is not only 00:47:30.320 --> 00:47:32.099 a little bit darker, he's the only one with a 00:47:32.099 --> 00:47:35.400 clearly Semitic nose, right? Think about The 00:47:35.400 --> 00:47:37.719 Lion King. Scar is a little bit darker and a 00:47:37.719 --> 00:47:41.650 lot gayer, right? So the way in which— We're 00:47:41.650 --> 00:47:44.210 constantly taught that love is for everyone and 00:47:44.210 --> 00:47:46.150 love is all you need. But actually, love is highly 00:47:46.150 --> 00:47:48.869 regulated. Marriage is highly regulated. And 00:47:48.869 --> 00:47:50.690 it will continue to be so. And I think there 00:47:50.690 --> 00:47:52.869 are some major fights ahead in terms of the global 00:47:52.869 --> 00:47:56.090 turn to the right and who will and will not be 00:47:56.090 --> 00:47:58.130 allowed to get married in the future. So the 00:47:58.130 --> 00:48:01.250 idea that we're progressing forward and soon 00:48:01.250 --> 00:48:04.250 marriage will allow polyamorous relationships 00:48:04.250 --> 00:48:08.570 and gay relationships and no, it probably won't. 00:48:08.570 --> 00:48:10.050 And it will probably become more restrictive. 00:48:11.200 --> 00:48:14.679 if fights aren't successful at the moment, to 00:48:14.679 --> 00:48:16.840 humanity for all people who live in a particular 00:48:16.840 --> 00:48:20.039 country. Maybe people shouldn't get special rights 00:48:20.039 --> 00:48:22.239 for being married. Maybe you shouldn't get a 00:48:22.239 --> 00:48:24.940 discount on your car insurance. Maybe you shouldn't 00:48:24.940 --> 00:48:28.260 get a discount at the food co -op. Maybe married 00:48:28.260 --> 00:48:32.679 people aren't special. And so that could be something 00:48:32.679 --> 00:48:35.039 for people to really think about. We just imagine 00:48:35.039 --> 00:48:37.690 that married people are better. And that they 00:48:37.690 --> 00:48:40.829 deserve these things. And really, it's been a 00:48:40.829 --> 00:48:44.389 way of distributing resources to people who already 00:48:44.389 --> 00:48:48.570 have resources. I think things look really grim 00:48:48.570 --> 00:48:51.510 around the world. I'm somebody who spent a good 00:48:51.510 --> 00:48:54.809 portion of my life in Russia and the other portion 00:48:54.809 --> 00:48:57.849 of my life here in the U .S. And I'm very aware 00:48:57.849 --> 00:49:02.269 of not just the precarity in the world, but the 00:49:02.269 --> 00:49:04.369 way in which that precarity is being exploited 00:49:04.369 --> 00:49:08.949 for certain. rights stripping movements, whether 00:49:08.949 --> 00:49:11.909 it's trans rights or women's rights or gay rights 00:49:11.909 --> 00:49:16.670 or migrant rights or student rights. And that 00:49:16.670 --> 00:49:20.769 seems really grim. But my advice is we have to 00:49:20.769 --> 00:49:24.730 begin to imagine what might come next. I don't 00:49:24.730 --> 00:49:27.590 think going back to what was before was ever 00:49:27.590 --> 00:49:31.070 good enough. I don't think settling for fantasies 00:49:31.070 --> 00:49:33.690 of the perfect wedding was ever what we should 00:49:33.690 --> 00:49:37.079 have been settling for. And so I think this is 00:49:37.079 --> 00:49:39.800 really also a moment for us to begin to imagine 00:49:39.800 --> 00:49:44.460 what the future could look like, how we might 00:49:44.460 --> 00:49:48.719 not repeat the mistakes of giving rights based 00:49:48.719 --> 00:49:52.099 on marital status or health insurance on the 00:49:52.099 --> 00:49:55.539 basis of marital status, how we can imagine an 00:49:55.539 --> 00:49:58.579 actual happily ever after that includes everyone 00:49:58.579 --> 00:50:02.880 and brings everyone up to a level of well -being. 00:50:03.710 --> 00:50:06.389 And that probably involves getting rid of billionaires. 00:50:06.750 --> 00:50:10.150 And it probably involves stopping our fantasies 00:50:10.150 --> 00:50:14.369 about wealth accumulation. And it might actually 00:50:14.369 --> 00:50:20.690 make us happier to do that. We really appreciated 00:50:20.690 --> 00:50:24.789 having you here. It was definitely a very thought 00:50:24.789 --> 00:50:27.929 -provoking conversation. Thank you so much for 00:50:27.929 --> 00:50:30.510 joining us, Professor Essig. Thank you so much 00:50:30.510 --> 00:50:33.269 for having me. And that brings us to the end 00:50:33.269 --> 00:50:35.309 of our episode. Thank you so much for monkeying 00:50:35.309 --> 00:50:37.809 around with us. Stay tuned for the next episode 00:50:37.809 --> 00:50:38.710 of the Monkey Mind Lab.