Modern Wisdom

#1021 - Louise Perry & Mary Harrington - The Performative Male Epidemic

November 17, 2025

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  • Declining sex rates, even among married couples, may be driven by modern distractions like smartphones, which facilitate "limbic capitalism" by hacking primitive drives. 
  • The aesthetic of the "performative male"—characterized by soft, consumerist presentation (tote bags, matcha)—is seen as a contemporary, post-Me Too evolution of the 'sneaky fucker' mating strategy. 
  • The erosion of national identity through education, while simultaneously removing the concept of a tribe, risks replacing it with smaller, potentially conflict-ridden identity groups based on appearance or class, as evidenced by flag disputes in the UK. 
  • The contemporary British political rift, exemplified by reactions to nativist gestures, is rooted in a class dynamic where upper-middle classes advocate for demographic changes that negatively impact the working classes. 
  • Online relationship trends like 'princess treatment' and lifestyle BDSM share a core dynamic of performative submission where the nominally submissive partner often retains significant power by controlling the narrative or requiring the dominant partner to constantly guess their desires. 
  • The decline of traditional, intergenerational social networks (like dinner parties and extended family) has created a vacuum for male mentorship and relationship scaffolding, leading to reliance on low-trust, reductive online advice and potentially contributing to relationship difficulties. 
  • The perceived sexual attractiveness of thinness remains a status signal in an obesogenic culture, even if the mechanism shifts from self-discipline to financial cost (e.g., affording Ozempic). 
  • Men titivating their physique (getting 'shredded') is often perceived by women as signaling attraction to the male gaze or being exclusionary, rather than purely enhancing their mate value to women. 
  • Wokeness appeals to certain feminine psychological preferences, such as nurturing childlike figures and engaging in moral dogpiling, while a subset of the E-Right serves as a strongly gender-coded, male equivalent focused on internet-mediated rage and abstraction. 

Segments

Merch Sale Announcement
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(00:00:00)
  • Key Takeaway: Modern Wisdom merchandise, including the Reaper Tea, is available for a limited five-day pre-sale ending November 18th.
  • Summary: The host promoted the Modern Wisdom Reaper Tea and other merchandise items available on pre-sale via mwmerch.com. This sale is strictly limited, ending on November 18th, after which the items will no longer be available. The host emphasized the high effort put into the quality and design of the merchandise.
Sex Rate Decline Analysis
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(00:00:55)
  • Key Takeaway: American weekly sex frequency has dropped significantly since 1990, with the paradox of increased sexual permissiveness coinciding with lower rates, potentially explained by fewer long-term partnerships.
  • Summary: Only 37% of American adults report having sex weekly, down from 55% in 1990, a trend observed globally. This decline might be explained by fewer people entering long-term partnerships, as partnered individuals generally have sex more frequently. Casual hookups, even if culturally accepted, result in very low overall frequency, like one hookup per year.
Smartphone Impact on Reproduction
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(00:02:41)
  • Key Takeaway: Excessive smartphone use is proposed as a plausible factor contributing to declining birth rates by absorbing attention away from spontaneous human interaction and reproduction.
  • Summary: Academics suggest that the constant engagement with smartphones, which deliver ’limbic capitalism’ joys, distracts people from natural behaviors like reproduction. This correlation is noted globally, tracking closely with regions seeing the sharpest fertility drops. The theory posits that people are too besotted with digital stimulation to behave like ’normal human beings and reproduce.'
Celebrity Influence on Coupling
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(00:04:17)
  • Key Takeaway: Parasocial relationships with high-status, uncoupled celebrities like Taylor Swift may exert a mimetic, non-zero influence on the coupling and fertility decisions of their fans.
  • Summary: The engagement of Taylor Swift is cited as a potential, though likely small, influence on coupling trends among her massive fanbase. Fertility rates are known to be influenced by close social ties, suggesting that intense parasocial relationships could mimic this effect. This highlights how media figures can act as aspirational role models, shaping behavior even without direct interaction.
Limbic Capitalism and Sterility
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(00:06:14)
  • Key Takeaway: Birth rate decline can be viewed as nature self-correcting against ’limbic capitalism,’ where commercial infrastructure hacks primitive drives, leading to cultural sterility.
  • Summary: Limbic capitalism, coined by David Courtwright, describes profitable innovation focused on hacking primitive drives (e.g., selling pornography, social media addiction) away from healthy activities. If this system’s endpoint is sterility, it suggests evolution is selecting against the current commercial culture. The only short-term fixes might involve propaganda or drastic measures like stopping Wi-Fi access.
K-Pop Idols and Aspirational Models
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(00:08:15)
  • Key Takeaway: South Korea’s low birth rate is linked to its most popular role models, K-pop stars, being contractually celibate and childless, creating a powerful anti-parenthood cultural signal.
  • Summary: K-pop idols undergo intense training and are locked into contracts forbidding dating, ensuring they remain uncoupled role models. This creates a generational impact where the most aspirational figures exemplify a childless existence. To reverse this, one intervention suggested is mandating that K-pop stars must already be parents to join the industry.
Digital Modesty and Privacy
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(00:11:30)
  • Key Takeaway: Existing in public while preserving family intimacy requires ‘digital modesty’—intentionally protecting private material from commercial strip-mining by the media machine.
  • Summary: Public figures must intentionally guard their family life from commercialization, as respecting privacy means their stories are not theirs to tell publicly. The K-pop model necessitates strip-mining one’s family life to maintain career visibility. This contrasts sharply with traditional community observation, where knowledge is cumulative and relational, not monetized data.
Community Wisdom vs. Tech Metrics
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(00:16:10)
  • Key Takeaway: Attentive, long-term interpersonal relationships provide nuanced pattern recognition (like observing changes in children’s dispositions) that technological surveillance substitutes for but cannot replace.
  • Summary: A local riding school owner’s mother-in-law observed 25 years of local girls’ behavior, providing superior insight into school impacts compared to official metrics like Ofsted. Technological replacements for this attuned observation, like apps tracking screen pressure and sleep, attempt to engineer relationships rather than foster genuine connection. This community knowledge represents a functioning social fabric often absent in digitally mediated lives.
Defining Performative Males
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(00:23:42)
  • Key Takeaway: The ‘performative male’ is an aesthetic archetype characterized by floppy hair, flared jeans, tote bags, and literary consumption, often satirized as a poorly hidden, pliable heterosexual mating tactic.
  • Summary: This term describes a man whose presentation is soft, feminized, and consumer-focused (e.g., carrying a tote bag, drinking matcha), contrasting with overtly masculine displays. It is speculated to be the aesthetic equivalent of the ‘pick-me’ archetype for men, potentially signaling a desire to appear HR-friendly and non-threatening post-Me Too. This presentation is linked to the ‘sneaky fucker’ strategy, prioritizing appearance over genuine commitment.
Post-Me Too Male Selection
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(00:33:46)
  • Key Takeaway: The generalized message from Me Too—‘don’t be too pushy’—was ignored by bad actors but taken too seriously by well-behaved men, resulting in the selection pressure favoring the non-threatening ‘Laboo Boo Man.’
  • Summary: Men who were already disciplined ignored the warning against pushiness, while others overcorrected, leading to the rise of the softer male phenotype. This selection effect means that while aggressive men persist, the men who might have benefited from guidance are now overly cautious. This dynamic is linked to women seeking partners who are physically capable but explicitly non-intellectual or non-domineering.
Himbo Archetype and Status Games
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(00:38:32)
  • Key Takeaway: The ‘himbo’—beefy, placid, and politically ambiguous—is a high-status fantasy for women seeking physical protection without the intellectual competition or potential threat of a highly capable Renaissance man.
  • Summary: The himbo is described as the human equivalent of a smiley face, embodying competence in physical domains but lacking intellectual depth, which some women find preferable to overly intellectual partners. This preference may reflect a sensible strategy to avoid status competition within a partnership, especially when financial security is already established by the woman. Taylor Swift’s choice of Travis Kelce exemplifies this, as they compete in different, non-overlapping status games.
Nationalism and Class War
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(00:52:01)
  • Key Takeaway: Educating generations to reject nationalism in favor of universal humanity creates a vulnerability where, under strife, people revert to drawing tribal lines based on visible ethnic or class differences.
  • Summary: The systematic teaching that nation-states are inherently flawed and that global humanity is the true community undermines the ability to mobilize citizens for national defense. When conflict arises, people do not abandon tribalism but instead redraw boundaries around those who look like them, potentially leading to internal conflict mirroring historical ethnic divisions. In the UK, flag disputes often reveal a class war between the working class (flagging) and the culturally middle class (de-flagging).
Class Rift and Globalization
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(00:57:06)
  • Key Takeaway: Upper-middle classes have historically invited demographic change that harms the working classes, a dynamic evident in events like Brexit.
  • Summary: The St. George’s cross symbolism is interpreted as an anti-government gesture linked to class resentment. This resentment stems from the working class being vulnerable to job displacement due to cheap labor importation driven by the globalized economy. This upper-middle-class advocacy for change that doesn’t hurt them but hurts others drove political outcomes like Brexit.
British Class Terminology
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(00:58:05)
  • Key Takeaway: The term ‘posh’ is an archaic British term rarely used in American discourse, where class is typically discussed via race, education, or wealth.
  • Summary: The speaker notes that ‘posh’ is an odd, archaic term in the US, where discussions about social standing focus on race, education, or wealth instead. Ancestry in the UK’s Northeast is suggested to be more Danish/Scandinavian, placing some individuals outside the Norman-derived social hierarchy. Genetic testing services like 23andMe are cautioned against due to data security risks.
Function Health Sponsorship Read
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(00:58:57)
  • Key Takeaway: Function Health offers comprehensive bloodwork monitoring over 100 biomarkers, physician insights, and cancer screening for $399 with a Modern Wisdom discount.
  • Summary: Function Health provides lab tests twice yearly tracking over 100 biomarkers, interpreted by physicians for actionable health insights. This service screens for 50 types of cancer at stage one, offering five times the data of an annual physical. The cost is reduced to $399 for Modern Wisdom listeners.
New British ‘Woke’ Dynamic
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(00:59:51)
  • Key Takeaway: A uniquely British form of ‘woke’ ideology is characterized by an explicit, classist approach to social commentary, unlike the more veiled class statements in the US.
  • Summary: The term ‘woke’ feels stale, but a new British variant exists characterized by classist accusations, such as mocking the uneducated (’no-teeth thing’). Hillary Clinton’s ‘basket of deplorables’ was a more veiled class statement compared to the UK’s often explicit classism. This explicit nature is attributed to Britain’s long history without invasion, allowing social structures to ossify.
Invasion vs. Immigration History
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(01:00:56)
  • Key Takeaway: The American elite’s conflation of invasion and immigration is factually incorrect for Britain, which was over 99% ethnically homogenous until the 19th century.
  • Summary: American elites often incorrectly label Britain as a ’nation of immigrants’ due to their own historical context. Britain was overwhelmingly indigenous until the 19th century, making the casual conflation of invasion and immigration a problematic narrative. Douglas Murray’s humorous land acknowledgement to the Duke of Westminster highlights the deep historical layers of colonization starting with the Normans.
Princess Treatment and BDSM
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(01:02:30)
  • Key Takeaway: ‘Princess treatment’ is functionally similar to lifestyle BDSM, where the expectation of guessing the partner’s needs grants the nominally submissive party significant, subtle power.
  • Summary: Princess treatment involves gestures like lattes in bed and partner-funded pedicures, taken to an extreme where the woman dictates behavior (e.g., not opening doors, not ordering food). This dynamic mirrors lifestyle BDSM, where the submissive partner, by controlling the narrative online and forcing the dominant partner to guess their needs, retains ultimate control in a loving relationship. The power lies in the dominant partner needing to make decisions both parties can abide by to prevent the submissive one from leaving.
Trad Wife Discourse and Agency
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(01:09:09)
  • Key Takeaway: In highly stylized, polarized relationships like the ’trad wife’ meme, the woman often retains control by managing the public social media presence and content engine.
  • Summary: The trad wife phenomenon, exemplified by figures like Hannah Neelaman (Ballerina Farm), often involves the woman running a profitable business through content creation, contradicting claims of total subjugation. Religious communities can provide ideological scaffolding that helps sustain these roles, acting as a surrogate community structure. However, this online performance does not guarantee protection from mistreatment by the husband.
Forming Virtuous Men Offline
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(01:13:27)
  • Key Takeaway: The formation of virtuous men relies on offline mentorship from other men, as online advice often prioritizes signaling over genuine competence.
  • Summary: The solution to the ‘where have all the good men gone’ question lies in actively forming men, a process primarily driven by other men, not women. Online advice often focuses on short-term mating tactics rather than building the character needed for long-term partnership. Constructive offline activities, like fixing things together, are superior to simply talking about feelings for male bonding and mentorship.
Male Competition Theory in Attraction
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(01:14:14)
  • Key Takeaway: Female attraction is highly correlated with male intimidation/competence (ability to fight), while female attractiveness ratings are poor predictors of sexual success.
  • Summary: A study showed that men’s rating of another man’s intimidation level predicted his subsequent sexual partners better than women’s attractiveness ratings of the same man. This suggests that female attraction signals are less predictive than male-to-male competition signals regarding actual sexual success. Men often misinterpret what women want, focusing on ‘cinnamon roll’ exteriors instead of underlying competence.
Decline of Cold Approach Dating
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(01:24:13)
  • Key Takeaway: The era of widespread, successful cold approach dating was a brief historical anomaly requiring a high-trust society and free speech absolutism.
  • Summary: The period where men frequently cold-approached women in bars or workplaces was short-lived, coinciding with a brief era of free speech absolutism. Cold approach requires a high-trust society where women can judge the approach as fun rather than terrifying. This practice is unlikely to return until cultural homogeneity is re-established, as current diversity makes crossing social lines too risky.
T-App as Surrogate Community
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(01:31:17)
  • Key Takeaway: The T-App, designed for women to warn each other about men, functioned as a technological surrogate for traditional community reputation checks.
  • Summary: The T-App allowed women to share negative information about men, mirroring how women in stable, grounded communities historically vetted potential partners through mutual acquaintances. Unlike real-world gossip, the app lacked repercussions for false accusations, leading to its own set of negative consequences. It was an artificial solution attempting to fix the problem created by the absence of robust social architecture.
Schlub Feminism and Online Archetypes
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(01:47:01)
  • Key Takeaway: The Me Too movement inadvertently suppressed ‘schlub feminism’—the desire for ordinary, romantic connection—by framing any pursuit of male attention as inherently disempowering.
  • Summary: The hyper-competitive online dynamic has relegated ordinary, slightly ‘schlubby’ individuals of both sexes to perpetual singlehood, as they do not fit the idealized ‘Chad’ or ‘Stacey’ archetypes. The narrative shifted to frame any female beautification or desire for male attention as empowerment for herself, not for attracting a partner. This leaves many genuinely seeking connection feeling isolated, as evidenced by the oversupply of single, earnest women in religious mingling groups.
Body Image and Standards
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(01:51:56)
  • Key Takeaway: The concept of a ‘good enough partner body’ mirrors Winnicott’s ‘good enough mother,’ suggesting perfection isn’t required for attraction.
  • Summary: If a well-put-together body is assumed to be sexually attractive, deviation on either side can reduce perceived desirability. This is analogized to Donald Winnicott’s idea of the ‘good enough mother,’ implying a standard, rather than perfection, is sufficient for healthy attachment or partnership. The speakers suggest this standard might apply to the partner’s body as well.
Obesity, Status, and Ozempic
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(01:52:42)
  • Key Takeaway: In an obesogenic culture, thinness remains a status signal, but Ozempic shifts the signal from self-discipline to sheer financial cost.
  • Summary: The rising cost of weight-loss solutions like Ozempic (evidenced by Eli Lilly tripling the UK price) ensures thinness remains a status signal, though the meaning changes from self-discipline to affordability. Obesity is strongly correlated with poverty on both sides of the Atlantic, historically due to factors like poor diet access or lack of gym time. The signal changes from ‘you can’t afford Whole Foods’ to ‘you can’t afford the jab.’
Female Beauty Tech Advancement
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(01:54:07)
  • Key Takeaway: Sophisticated beauty technology has made women’s faces and hair appear ‘prettier’ despite potential weight gain, a trend not matched in male attractiveness technology.
  • Summary: Women have simultaneously become ‘fatter and prettier’ due to accessible, sophisticated beauty tech like retinols and microblading, often disseminated via social media hacks. Men’s attractiveness standards rely more heavily on physical competence and earning potential, with appearance being secondary or tertiary. The speaker asserts that scaffold physique wins over gym physique, though this view is noted as potentially minority.
Shredded Physique Turn-off
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(01:55:17)
  • Key Takeaway: For many women, a man’s overtly ‘shredded’ physique, especially when posted for display, can be an instant turnoff, potentially signaling misplaced priorities.
  • Summary: The transformation of celebrities like Ollie Murs into a shredded physique was met with negative feedback from many women, suggesting that extreme physical display is not universally attractive. This may stem from the perception that excessive self-beautification signals a lack of commitment to family, as those extra calories are spent on self-enhancement rather than family provision. Furthermore, men titivating themselves implicitly signals to the male gaze, which can be off-putting to women who evaluate physiques differently.
Fashion Signaling and Cross-Sex Misreading
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(02:02:03)
  • Key Takeaway: Women use fashion to signal status to other women (e.g., Birkin bags), whereas men primarily dress to signal attraction to women, leading to mutual misreading of intent.
  • Summary: Women often seek validation on outfits from their husbands precisely because the husband lacks fashion knowledge, making it easier to distinguish between signaling status to other women versus genuine aesthetic appeal. Men are often turned off by high-fashion clothes meant to impress other women, exemplified by the anecdote of a man distressed by his partner’s increasingly baggy jeans. Luxury items like Birkin bags signal status and investment by a partner, serving as a deterrent against potential rivals.
Feminine Political Flavors
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(02:04:31)
  • Key Takeaway: Wokeness taps into feminine moral flavors like protecting vulnerable, childlike figures and moral dogpiling, but women can quickly pivot to right-wing causes that utilize similar emotional energy, such as protecting actual children.
  • Summary: The idea that women are innately left-wing is refuted by historical examples of female participation in right-coded movements like temperance. Wokeness appeals by channeling maternal energy toward abstract vulnerable groups (refugees, trans people) and offering opportunities for moral mobilization online. A political pivot is anticipated where women mobilize around concrete threats to their own children, as seen in working-class protests against migrant hotels (the ‘pink protests’).
Displaced Paternal Instincts
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(02:12:39)
  • Key Takeaway: The drive for entrepreneurship among men can be interpreted as a displaced paternal instinct, providing purpose and meaning in the absence of traditional family focus.
  • Summary: The strong drive for entrepreneurship among men reflects a need for purpose, channeled into a project, team, or mission, supplanting traditional family focus. This contrasts with women’s political energy, which is often tied to whether they have children; those without kids may favor abstract vulnerability causes, while mothers prioritize concrete family protection. The emotional energy driving political mobs, which Bronze Age Pervert noted as potentially female, can be directed toward either left or right causes based on the perceived vulnerable entity.