FEMALE SPEAKER: Is everybody excited to be here?
What a good turnout.
Chris and I were just joking.
We're like, sex sells.
[LAUGHING]
FEMALE SPEAKER: So we're so happy to have Dr. Wendy Walsh
here today.
And I know you guys have been bombarded with emails as
reminders of why Wendy is here.
But just to give you guys some background on her, she's
America's thought leader on relationships.
And each week on CNN and "The O'Reilly Factor," she breaks
down the psychology of sex, love, gender roles, divorce,
parenting, and other human behaviors.
As host of Investigation Discovery Network's "Happily
Never After," she guides viewers through the sometimes
treacherous sides of love.
As resident expert at datingadvice.com, no subject
is taboo in her popular advice column.
And as former co-host of the "Doctors" TV show-- if you
guys haven't seen it, definitely
check her out on YouTube--
she was nominated for a 2012 Daytime Emmy Award.
And she also lectures on evolutionary psychology and
human mating strategies at California State University,
Channel Islands.
She holds a BA in journalism, a master's degree in
psychology, and PhD in clinical psychology.
She has authored "The Boyfriend Test," "The
Girlfriend Test," and "The 30 Day Love Detox."
WENDY WALSH: Thank you.
Wow.
[APPLAUSE]
WENDY WALSH: I don't need to use a microphone, right?
You guys can hear me all, OK?
Yeah, OK.
It's a little more intimate that way.
If you hear anything that you want to tweet, I would be
really, really thrilled if you would tweet it today.
It's @DrWendyWalsh.
The reason why I called my lecture the Economy of Sex is
because it's a very provocative title, and people
immediately think of prostitution.
But it has nothing to do with that, actually.
It has to do with the fact that, anthropologically, we
are here to reproduce, right?
And we have a survival mechanism to reproduce.
And the big currency for reproduction, of course, is
obtaining a mate who will give you offspring that will
survive into the next level.
So that's why I call it the Economy of Sex.
And I really love that slide, by the way.
Because how many people have ever sat on a date and watched
somebody eat their money?
OK, let's start off with a fun little fun fact quiz.
If you had to guess, what percentage of American men
aged 18 to 25--
this was a young person study--
can obtain sex on a first date-- they
have such an A game.
Why don't you just think the number in your head for now,
and then we'll go over them.
What percentage of men in our culture
are considered players?
And here's how this study defined players-- they've had
at least three sexual partners a year for
three consecutive years.
That's at least nine partners in three years.
That's considered a Don Juan.
Number of hook-ups the typical college student has each year.
Think about it.
Percentage of college students who are virgins.
And the number of lifetime sexual partners.
Now, I don't want any men to talk, because men always know
the correct answers to this, I will tell you that.
[LAUGHING]
WENDY WALSH: Men know the numbers so well.
OK, so I only want to hear from women.
How many men aged 18 to 25, if 100 of them go out on a first
date with a new woman tonight, what percentage are going to
obtain sex.
AUDIENCE: 60.
AUDIENCE: 25
WENDY WALSH: 60.
25.
What else I got?
30.
No men talk yet.
OK, guy, give me something.
AUDIENCE: 2%.
AUDIENCE: 5%
WENDY WALSH: There we go!
OK.
it's actually just under 20%.
But again, these are young, 18 to 25-year-old guys.
So it's just under 20%.
I'm sorry?
AUDIENCE: What number did you say?
WENDY WALSH: Just under 20%.
So it's about a one in five chance, if you're 18 to 25 and
filled with testosterone and you've honed your A game as
much as possible.
But the point here is women are ingesting this idea that
sex happens all the time to everybody, and they're the
ones that should be complying.
All right, percentage of men who are players.
They've had at least three partners a year.
Let's start with women.
These guys have had three partners a year for three
consecutive years.
Women, what percentage of our male population?
This study was older.
These were men 18 to 30.
AUDIENCE: 25.
WENDY WALSH: 25%.
AUDIENCE: 65.
AUDIENCE: 50.
WENDY WALSH: 65.
50.
Come on, anybody else?
40?
OK, I want a man to answer.
AUDIENCE: 10.
WENDY WALSH: 10-- that's pretty generous.
It's 3%.
AUDIENCE: Wow.
WENDY WALSH: Now, remember, you guys are living
in LA and New York.
It's a whole different world in LA and New York, right?
[LAUGHS]
OK, number of hook-ups the typical college student has
every year.
AUDIENCE: What's a hook-up?
WENDY WALSH: Oh, a hook-up is--
that is the big question, actually.
Because people use the term so loosely, and they may mean
that they just met for coffee.
But the truth is a hook-up is a sexual encounter with no
strings attached and no expectation of ever seeing the
person again.
AUDIENCE: Five.
WENDY WALSH: Five a year per college student.
AUDIENCE: One.
WENDY WALSH: One.
AUDIENCE: Three.
WENDY WALSH: OK, the one is right on.
The average college student has about one a year.
AUDIENCE: That's the average.
WENDY WALSH: Right, that's the average.
Right.
The study showed that, in the same study, when they asked
people what do you think the typical college student has--
not me, them--
they found that they said about 80% of the typical
students have at least two or more.
That's the belief system.
But when they actually ask people have they had hook-ups,
they found that only 35% of the students had only one
hook-up in the last year, and the rest had none.
Percentage of college students who are virgins in 2013.
Guess, men or women.
Huh?
AUDIENCE: 15%.
AUDIENCE: 30.
WENDY WALSH: It's 25%.
25%.
Human beings begin having sexual activity usually
somewhere between the ages of 16 and 25,
and it's a big range.
And the higher one is educated, the longer they
delay the onset of sexual activity, because they tend to
put career--
oh, and by the way, religion is named number three as why
these college students choose virginity.
Number one is STD, pregnancy, and then the other is
derailing their career and education plans.
And then three is religion.
I'm going to save the number of lifetime sexual partners
until we get to the end of this lecture.
But I want to say quickly, what I'm hearing from you is
that you guys are believing the media mythology that
everybody--
especially the women--
that everybody's hooking up everywhere, all the time.
And that's actually not the reality of what's going on.
OK, what we're in right now is what I call a high supply
sexual economy.
And it's actually related to the rise of women.
Now, I'm not blaming women here.
I just want you to understand that when women rise in power,
sex rises in supply in our culture.
Now, we know what happens when women are disadvantaged.
We have enough examples of that around the world, enough
examples in history.
When women are disadvantaged and they cannot extract
resources from the environment, they basically
have to monetize their pussies.
I'm sorry.
We can't put that on YouTube, can we?
[LAUGHING]
WENDY WALSH: So either they withhold sex, wait till a guy
signs on the dotted line to support them and their
offspring in a contract called love and marriage, right?
Here, they don't have a choice, by the way.
It's not a choice.
When you don't have the ability to extract resources,
get a job, gainful employment, the only thing you can hope to
do is hook up to a guy who will support
you and your kids.
And in order to do that, virginity is coveted.
We know that in cultures where women are disadvantaged,
marriage rates go up, more children are born into
wedlock, virginity is coveted, and, oh, yeah, prostitution
goes way up.
I used an old-fashioned prostitute there because the
height of prostitution worldwide was probably
Victorian England, the most repressed time for women.
And it was a time of great economic expansion, when the
middle class was developing in England.
But it was only a time of economic prosperity for men.
So women had a choice-- not even reveal a ankle or, God
forbid, they couldn't get a husband, or sell it.
And in Victorian England, it was estimated there was one
prostitute for every 12 men in the population.
That's pretty high--
a lot of competition there.
So we know what happens when women are disadvantaged.
We know what happens with sexuality.
And I want you to think a little bit about what's going
on in the sex slave trade in Asia right now.
Think about what's going on in India, China, Thailand, where
women are disadvantaged, right?
And one interesting thing, a modern day twist on it, is
that as women are becoming more educated,
particularly in India--
they're working the call centers,
they're becoming doctors--
they're retaining their virginity
because of cultural pressures.
So you've got this population of women who are now working,
having education, retaining their virginity maybe until
they're 30, until their wedding day, because of the
cultural pressures.
And you've got this huge population of men-- what, 20%
of them who get laid on the first date-- who can't.
So it gives rise to more prostitution.
When we have powerful women that we have right now, what
happens is--
[LAUGHING]
AUDIENCE: --we know that we're seeing an unprecedented rise
of women in America.
For every two guys that graduate college, there are
three women.
Women make up 3/5 of graduate school populations.
The only place we're 50-50 are law
schools and medical schools.
Maybe we're lagging a little bit in engineering and the
hard sciences-- we're catching up fast.
So in the aged 22 to 32 population, women are actually
making more than their male peers.
Because we are now in a world of information technology.
And guess who are great communicators?
Hmm.
We are darn good talkers and good typers.
So all of a sudden, women have an equal ability, or better
even advantage, to extract resources from the
environment.
And there are more women in the workforce
right now in America.
Now, a lot of expensive men were laid off
during the Great Recession.
And we still need a lot more heels and stilettos and skirts
in the board rooms, but there are definitely more women
working than men in America right now.
So what happens is when women have their own economic
potential, they don't need marriage necessarily, so they
put sex out into the culture in high supply.
Because they can finally just enjoy the pleasures of their
body, right?
It sounds good, doesn't it?
You know, it does.
It sounds really good, that women can just make their own
money and have sex with whoever they want,
whenever they want.
Except three things happen to men in a high
supply sexual economy.
And this is the first example in history where we've been
able to actually look at it.
The first is some men lose ambition.
Historically, hunter-gatherer men competed against other
young men to extract resources from the environment so they
could impress women.
Did you know a hunter-gatherer man could have easily
supported his entire village on squirrels.
But oh no, he had to go out and risk his life, get a team
of boys together, pull back a huge woolly mammoth, because
what would he get?
He'd get access to more women.
He could also display waste, because there's no way of
refrigerating all that meat, right?
So he could say, hey, I'm so big and cool, I can let that
meat just rot in the sun.
Because I know all you ladies will have your pick, and then
I'll have your pick of you.
By the way, today's woolly mammoth is called
a Super Bowl ring.
[LAUGHING]
WENDY WALSH: Same deal.
So when women are making their own money, there's a small
population, maybe 30% of the men, who can now sit their
mom's basement until they're 30 playing Xbox and ask women
to text in naked pictures of themselves.
And then they can go over to her condo, because she has a
perfectly well-suited Martha Stewart bed, and they don't
need to do anything.
So that's one problem that we're starting to see.
There are a host of books about it. "Failure to Launch"
is one of the big ones about young men failing to launch.
That's one of the problems in a high supply sexual economy.
Some others lose the ability to commit.
Because there is a group of men who are loving this high
supply sex.
And they're riding this wave of free sex, because, oh,
guess what?
Men don't have a fertility window.
Oh, there is no rush.
They can wait until they're in their 40s, and they can marry
a girl who's in her 20s.
Or they can leave baby mamas along the way.
They've got lots of choice.
So it's getting harder and harder for women to get some
men to commit.
I say some, because they don't all fall.
And the other thing that happens is plenty of good
guys-- remember the other 97% that aren't the players--
they feel pressure in a high supply sexual economy to act
like players.
So you end up not being authentic with who you are.
AUDIENCE: To me, are they players?
WENDY WALSH: What?
AUDIENCE: That's New Kids on the Block.
WENDY WALSH: That is New Kids on the Block.
[LAUGHING]
WENDY WALSH: I wondered if anybody would recognize that.
I just like the picture.
OK, so those are the three things that happen to men in a
high supply sexual economy.
But there are also three things that happen to women in
a high supply sexual economy.
Some women adopt a male model of sexuality.
Now, this is a good place for me to stop and explain that
men and women are biologically a little different.
I love that we're really politically correct in our
world and we do know that in our workplace we can be as
equal to extract resources from the environment.
But I have not met a guy yet who can breast feed.
I have not met a guy who can actually grow baby.
And none of you have fertility windows.
So when you hear me talk about the differences, don't think
political incorrectness, think I'm thinking about the
biological reality of what's going on.
So let's talk about sexuality.
Men and women have sex for different reasons and in
different ways.
Women, not all women--
OK, don't jump on me--
can fall in love through sex.
Because their body excretes large amounts of oxytocin, the
female bonding hormone.
There are only two times in a woman's life where her body
excretes a lot of oxytocin.
It is during breastfeeding, so that she can have a bonding
experience with her baby.
And it is during female orgasm.
So there are plenty of women out there, because of our high
supply sexual economy and our permissiveness and our media
telling you that everybody's hooking up, who start hooking
up, and then start going, whoa, this
doesn't really feel good.
Or they call me and say, why hasn't he called me back?
And I'm like, but you said that was just sport sex.
Why do you care if he calls you back?
But I don't know.
He should still call me back.
Right?
So their body is bonding, and they're not even aware of it.
Now, men can also fall in love not necessarily through sex,
but if they are in love with someone, they can have much
better sex, OK?
But a man can also have sex with the same woman every week
for six months and not like her one bit more than he did
that first date.
Because men, biologically, can separate sex and feelings a
little easier than women can.
Now, we are seeing a group of women who are able to
disassociate and disconnect from their biology.
We also see high school students give birth in the
stall of their prom and didn't know they were pregnant.
OK, so people can separate from their bodies.
Now, the other thing that happens in a high supply
sexual economy is all these super educated, powerful women
start to look at their male peers who may not be doing as
well and say to themselves, well, I'm going to
wait for the CEO.
Because I've got an MBA, and I'm making $240,000 a year.
Why should I be dating my buddy from the block who's
working blue collar somewhere?
So what happens is you see this population of women who
are holding out for a higher status man.
And sociologists actually call it the George Clooney effect.
[LAUGHING]
WENDY WALSH: So we are seeing this population of women,
there are some behaving like men.
There are some saying, I'll settle down when I feel like
it, because I know there will be a greater guy.
But remember, there's one population of peer men who are
in their mom's basement.
There's another population of peer men who are not
committing any time soon, all right?
So this is a message.
AUDIENCE: The numbers don't work out.
WENDY WALSH: The numbers don't work out.
They're losing out.
Because number three is, many women are losing the freedom
to be mothers.
This is the new feminist crisis of our generation, and
it is this--
one in five women are losing the freedom to be mothers.
Because either their fertility window closes before they can
get a guy to settle down, or because they believe the
marketing mythology of the fertility clinics.
In vitro fertilization has not improved since the 1980s.
It's efficacy is about the same.
It's about 15% success rate.
The average cost--
I did a little bit of research-- is $13,700.
So for your $13,700, you have an 85% chance of
failing with in vitro.
But every time a celebrity goes on the news and says that
they bought a baby or grew an egg or bought an egg or froze
an egg, everyone gets excited.
Egg freezing-- don't even get me started about egg freezing.
We have not even thawed out those suckers enough to know
what's going to happen.
You think autism was the big diagnosis of our generation?
Wait till you see kindergarten classrooms filled
with thawed out eggs.
And they're taking $20,000 of women's hard earned after-tax
money to freeze their eggs.
AUDIENCE: Well, women--
why don't they go for men who are older than them?
Our windows are different.
And men mature at a different rate.
So I think there's a natural--
WENDY WALSH: There's lots of solutions, yeah, but you have
to do it before your 35.
The height of female fertility--
anybody know?
[LAUGHING]
AUDIENCE: I just had a baby.
AUDIENCE: It is more that they're losing the choice to
be mothers, not necessarily the freedom?
To your point earlier that they're constantly choosing--
WENDY WALSH: Well, they think they're choosing, but they're
not being given the full picture.
They're given the marketing of the fertility clinics that
they can wait.
So many young women think they can have a baby
until they're 50.
Quick question-- what do you think the biological height of
female fertility is?
AUDIENCE: 32.
AUDIENCE: 27.
AUDIENCE: 25.
WENDY WALSH: That's a great example.
You're closer.
It's 20!
It's 20.
AUDIENCE: Oh, I understand.
I thought you said--
WENDY WALSH: The height.
No, the height.
I'm sorry, the height.
The best it gets.
It takes a big decline at 30, falls off a cliff at 35, OK?
AUDIENCE: That's, again, the average.
The variety is huge.
WENDY WALSH: Yes, there's a huge range.
AUDIENCE: Some women lose it at 28, and some
women lose it at 45.
WENDY WALSH: Right.
One of the women I interviewed for my book actually had
fertility problems in her late 20s.
AUDIENCE: This is very complex, because we go for our
career, and some of us are choosing to opt out--
WENDY WALSH: This is the big question.
We're going to get there.
OK, I just want you to understand that when sex
changes in price, it affects our families, it affects our
cultures, it affects everything.
OK, so what happens to both genders in a high supply
sexual economy?
Many are unknowingly shuttled onto the sexual mass market.
And so when I hear you guys talk about these ideas that
people are having--
that players are 25% or 60% of men, that college students are
hooking up everywhere, I know you're ingesting the message
of our culture that sex is cheap.
And sex is not cheap.
A high supply sexual economy creates a
myth of sexual freedom.
The message it sends to men is take all sex,
any sex, at any cost.
And the cost to men--
usually, by the way, men don't read relationship books.
And I'll love you all if you would read mine.
But they do you call in to radio shows, especially the
truckers in the middle of the night.
[LAUGHING]
WENDY WALSH: And they do email me a lot.
And I hear from so many men who tell me, I'm
actually a good guy.
I actually want a girlfriend.
I actually would be happy to have a family
before I'm too old.
But all these girls are so sexually aggressive right now,
and I can't get one to stay still long enough.
So they're being overlooked by their peers, maybe, because
they're not George Clooney.
And the other thing that happens, the message to women
is have plenty of not-too-much sex.
Because we have this thing called the
sexual double standard.
And I want to explain to you why the sexual double standard
is actually hardwired in men.
What I tell women all the time is, the good news is the
sexual double standard has been completely erased--
but only in the minds of women.
And it's still very much alive in men.
And you can sit there and train, and train, and train
men all you want, but it's a reflex in them as hard-grained
as our fear of snakes.
Did you know, by the way, I teach some evolutionary
psychology at my kid's high school.
And I come with a bag.
I pretend it's moving.
It's got stuff in it.
And I throw a big giant, very realistic looking rubber snake
into the room.
And the kids scream!
And I go, why are you so afraid?
And then I take the next thing out, and
it's electrical cable.
I go, in your lifetime, more people die of electrocution
than snakebite ever.
But you are hard-wired to be afraid of snakes.
So you are also hard-wired to have a double standard.
And here's why.
The double standard, by the way, is the thing that gives
women demerit points for sexual experience, and gives
men, woohoo, great, exciting credit for the same sexual
experience.
So in our hunter-gatherer past, if a man happened to
hook up with a promiscuous woman, and he spent his time
getting those squirrels or woolly mammoths or anything
else for that offspring, he would risk giving his time,
his resources, and protection to somebody
else's offspring, OK?
So just to show you that this fear is very real, in one
inobtrusive study in American hospitals, they found out that
a full 10% of the babies born do not match the DNA of the
doting daddy at bedside.
Aw, so women fool around, too.
AUDIENCE: Or maybe the men know that it's not there, but
they are there anyway.
WENDY WALSH: Or they may not know.
This was an unobtrusive study, yeah.
Why do you think those celebrities run right away for
a DNA a test whenever they get that bill for the baby.
It's the same thing.
Whether you're bringing them squirrels or paying an alimony
check or a child support check.
It's the same thing.
Guys want to know.
And by the way, guys didn't invent monogamy.
This new research came out in the last--
I love that more women are getting into anthropology.
Apparently they're signing up for that,
too, besides med school.
So the belief was that monogamy was invented because
women were so frail and fragile during those
vulnerable years of pregnancy and nursing that they needed
to have the protection of a man.
They needed to have his resources--
OK, first of all, the hunter-gatherer societies that
exist on the planet today, the gatherers, primarily women,
bring home way more calories than the hunters.
The hunters get the glory, because that
woolly mammoth is big.
But if you just count nuts, roots, and berries, we're
doing just fine without you all.
But what happened is women move because we're gatherers.
So women were the ones roaming further
and further and further.
And if a man wanted to be sure that that was his offspring,
he better tag on to her and keep going after her, right?
So it was actually men who invented monogamy, they're now
suggesting, because they wanted to make sure who their
offspring were.
The double standard's around.
It's probably not going anywhere for
another 100,000 years.
So that's the problem in the high supply sexual economy, is
that women are loving their sexual freedom but, at the
same time, astutely aware of their count, and having
conflicted feelings about what's going on.
So let's talk about what is natural mating.
And some of the pictures that you're going to see here, I'm
thrilled to tell you that there are a few
hunter-gatherer societies on the planet today.
And many of them are being-- did you see the new stuff from
the new tribe they found in Peru in the last week?
Oh, go online.
Google it.
AUDIENCE: So every one of them, there will be 100 people
and 300 anthropologists around them?
WENDY WALSH: Exactly.
Actually, you can't go near them.
Because there's a rule in Peru that if you meet any
indigenous people, you cannot touch them.
You have to go far away.
So most of these pictures-- maybe not this one in
particular, because they're posing--
are taken with long range telescopes.
Because they will die from diseases from us.
They're not ready to be exposed to
our modern city diseases.
So here's what our families look like.
We lived in a roving encampment of maybe 25 to 35
people-- about the size of an average office work group,
about the size of an average classroom.
This is a number that works well for humans.
Most of the people were related to us.
They were biologically related.
We lived with aunts, sisters, cousins, mothers.
We were protected by our brothers.
Probably the longest male-female relationship and
the closest one in our history was brothers and sisters.
Because think about it-- your siblings are with you your
whole life.
Your parents eventually die off.
Your mate you meet and stays for the second
half of your life.
But your siblings are there from the beginning and end.
So they tend to be very helpful with keeping-- anybody
who has a biological interest in those
offspring help them grow.
And in fact, anthropologists are now showing that our
increase in intelligence is largely related to this very
important family structure, that if a child has
consistent--
consistent is the key word, not a new nanny fired every
week because you don't like her--
OK, consistent primary attachment figures.
A young baby has to learn how to decode different people's
ways and expressions when they're pre-verbal.
So that decoding process while the brain is tripling in size
in the first year of life is actually the big intelligent
explosion of humans.
So we lived in these encampments.
We really didn't see many
non-biologically related people.
Except, oh, yeah, those hunters, the odd hunter, the
3% player, the Don Juan.
He's meant to be in this culture, too, for a reason.
So he would travel a little further with his little pack,
and, trying to look for woolly mammoth, oh, he'd stumble on
our village.
And all of a sudden, all the women would sit up and take
notice, because there was pheromones that smelled a lot
different than their brother.
OK, so let's talk a little bit about how anthropologists
decide whether a certain primate species is monogamous,
promiscuous, or something in between.
AUDIENCE: Testicle size?
WENDY WALSH: Yeah, very good.
It's scrotum size.
So basically, we look at scrotum size in relation to
body weight.
So at one end of the scale, you've got the orangutan--
big, hulking body, teeny little nuts--
very paternal, very monogamous.
At the other end, you've got the chimpanzee.
I don't think you can take a picture of a chimpanzee
without showing his balls, they're so big.
[LAUGHING]
WENDY WALSH: Tiny, little, fast-moving body, huge,
enormous gonads--
very promiscuous.
So what do you think human beings are?
We're somewhere in the middle.
Because we have it all.
We have it all.
We have, some people would say, a system of perceived
monogamy, or culturally imposed
monogamy, or some natural--
serial monogamy.
In fact, because our life is so long now, most people will
see at least two very long term stints of monogamy in
their life span.
When "till death do us part" was invented,
death was pretty imminent.
[LAUGHING]
WENDY WALSH: So we'll probably see long stints of monogamy.
But, yeah.
So this is why, in America today, if we're looking at
paternal investment in one's offspring, you are going to
see a guy who's only investment in his offspring is
one teaspoon of sperm at the one end of the scale.
And at the other end of the scale, you're going to see a
baby-wearing, carpool-driving, softball-throwing, doting dad,
and everything in between.
I happen to live in a neighborhood that's a
wonderful--
I live in Playa Vista, a little bedroom community, and
it's filled with small children and babies.
And I would say that at least 30% are stay-at-home dads.
I don't know if they are working from home offices.
But they line up those little strollers by the basketball
courts in the morning-- it's pretty hysterical-- and they
get their game in.
I'm like, don't let the ball hit the pink stroller, please.
OK, but I mentioned attachment.
My area of interest is an area of psychology called
attachment theory.
It's the ways human beings attach across a lifespan.
And specifically, the mass media talks about
mother-infant attachment, father-infant attachment,
because we know that that is the foundation for healthy
personality development.
And it eventually translates into a healthy love
relationship in adult life.
So a healthy attachment means that you've got caregivers who
are responsive to a child's needs, and they help create
emotional intelligence, feelings of security.
When a baby is not stressing about when mom's coming back
or because their diaper is wet or they're crying because they
need food, guess what?
They're having this moment of quiet looking
out into the world.
And their brain is growing synapses like crazy as they're
able to learn.
If a baby lives stressed, not feeling safe, they don't grow
as much in intelligence.
So attachment is primary.
It leads to intellectual intelligence, as I mentioned,
less anxiety, depression, personality disorders.
Attachment is now being linked to so much stuff that's
happening later in life.
And more than anything, the thing I care about is that it
becomes a blueprint for love that transfers eventually to
adult relationships.
This is one of the pictures that was taken last week of
this new tribe they found in Peru.
They're all over Google right now.
They're really great pictures.
This is what our biology is wired for,
to live near nature.
And there's a psychologist in Canada--
I'm Canadian, so I love to quote this guy.
I think his book is called "Last Child in the Woods." And
he coined a new diagnosis that he calls Nature Deficit
Disorder in children, and they are associating with ADD,
ADHD, anxiety issues, et cetera.
So we're meant to be surrounded by nature.
This is what our biology is wired for.
We're meant to be with a very safe, secure group of not more
than 30, 35 people.
And every once in awhile, you get a new hunter, or you meet
with another band of 30, 35 people.
And you say, oh, that's probably only my third cousin.
I think that'd be fine, right?
And that's how we made it.
This is what we are wired for.
But this is what our biology is responding to--
crowded subways, crowded nightclubs,
crowded digital worlds.
So imagine your biology now responding to all these
objects, pheromones, cues that a new hunter has walked in, or
you ventured on a new place with new young--
but our biology is going crazy.
Because actually, sex with somebody who you weren't
related to was a trace nutrient in our
anthropological past.
I make the comparison between the slow food movement.
Sugar, salt, and fat were vital but trace nutrients in
our anthropological past.
Our smart corporations realize that we have an unsatiated
craving for salt, sugar, and fat.
So they put it into absolutely everything
to make us get addicted.
So the slow love movement, which I'm going to be talking
to you about, is very much like the slow food movement.
Remember, this is what we're wired for.
This was taken with a long range telescope.
And this is this new tribe in Peru that I can't pronounce
the name of.
This is really what we're wired for.
And this is what we have.
This is what we need--
high nutrition relationships that are good for our biology,
that are good for our psychology, and, more than
anything, good for our offspring.
Of course, the answer is to charge the
highest price for sex.
And that price is care and commitment.
I was holding a lot of focus groups for my book, because I
pulled up all the research-- and by the way, I didn't start
out to write a book called "The 30 Day Love Detox--
don't have sex for 30 days, or you're going to break up." I
set out to write a book about Love 2.0, Love 3.0.
I want to pull all the research and see
what's going on.
And the research spoke to me, and I started
pulling in focus groups.
And that's how I met Marty.
Thank you very much.
Marty was at one of my original focus groups when I
was researching my book.
AUDIENCE: You knew me from somewhere.
WENDY WALSH: I pulled in groups of women, and I just
asked them to talk to me about their dating lives and what
was going on.
And what I discovered is that a lot of women-- because we're
going back to the beginning now-- who believe that we're
in this high supply sexual economy, where every guy's a
player and every woman should comply, are signing up for
these low criteria relationships that don't
actually suit their biology.
A low criteria relationship is one where they text a lot.
They meet for dinner and sex every once in awhile.
Their families haven't met.
They haven't ever talked about a future.
And, oh, they forgot to mention sexual exclusivity.
So these are the low criteria relationships that are
existing today.
And they work great for guys, by the way, with no fertility
window, and it's not a problem.
But to actually take the time--
Now, here are the myths that I came up with that are really
keeping people single.
The first is this idea that we talked about already, that the
hookup culture is everywhere and everybody's doing it.
It's not.
The media is selling you products using sex and selling
you reality shows using lots of hook-up sex to get your
eyeballs there, because this was trace nutrients in our
anthropological past.
This idea that women have sexual needs-- women's
sexuality is very responsive, meaning that women's biology
gets geared up when they meet someone they're interested in.
All of a sudden everything gets charged up
and they get excited.
But when that interest goes away, everything calms down
and gets suppressed for a while.
Women don't tend to replace their boyfriend with
pornography and masturbation.
That's a guy thing.
Guys do that.
Women, it just goes away.
And then they meet someone else they're interested in,
and it all charges up again.
But what I hear a lot of women say today, because, again,
they've been adopting a male model of sexuality, is, well,
what about my needs?
What about my sexual needs?
Well, when you look at the research, plenty of women have
sex because they're actually looking--
sometimes they have a desire to be desired.
Sometimes they just want closeness and companionship.
So the sexual act is something that they will do because
they're getting all those other things.
So when I hear about, what about my sexual needs?
I always say, you know, guys are a little different.
Guys are wired to be a little more like basic plumbing--
clean the pipes every once in a while.
And every guy's different-- sometimes it's once a day,
once a month, twice a week, whatever.
Everybody's got their thing.
They use their girlfriend.
They use their hand.
They use their porn.
Did you know--
I'm telling you guys this-- one third of all content on
the internet is porn.
Which is causing a whole other problem for guys, because,
again, that's junk food sex.
So it's desensitizing them.
They're having trouble with real, live, warm-bodied women.
Because it's not a new visual stimulation.
What makes long term monogamy work is a very
rich fantasy life.
And porn disables your fantasy life because you're being fed
new images all the time.
OK, this is the one that people always ask me about.
Well, what about sexual chemistry?
You've got to make sure you've got that sexual chemistry.
Like somehow winning the husband lottery is what you're
trying to do.
If you just hit on enough, eventually you'll go, oh!
It's perfect.
Well, actually, one study of more than 2,000 couples showed
that the hotter the sexual chemistry early on, the worse
the relationship outcomes--
the more breakups, the more fighting.
Because sex is a trick.
What it does is your body is overwhelmed with hormones, and
your neurotransmitters are on fire with excitement.
It's not unlike heroin, in fact.
So while you're on this heroin high of dopamine, [INAUDIBLE],
you literally are not making decisions about whether this
person would be a good partner for you.
You're saying, they're perfect because I'm orgasming.
They're perfect.
I'm getting off.
It's great.
And then, when your body starts to get accustomed to
the dopamine hits, you go, oh, now who are they again?
What was that about?
And then you say, well, we just didn't have chemistry,
and you move on.
Actually, studies of long-term married people, and even
arranged marriages, shows that sexual chemistry is something
that's fashioned.
It's fashioned out of intimacy, emotional intimacy,
where can actually say, here's who I am.
I'm not necessarily part of the hook-up culture.
I'm part of this, or I like to do this, or I like to do that.
But if you don't have emotional intimacy, you can't
even talk about it, right?
And the last one, this idea that sex leads to love that I
talk about.
Sometimes for women, sex does lead to love.
But it rarely does for men.
You know what?
Men don't fall in love through sex.
Men fall in love through trust.
And because of the sexual double standard, they don't
really trust women who are easy.
So it's a crazy catch-22 that women are being forced into.
And finally, this idea that promiscuity can be turned off.
Do you know how often I hear people say, look, I'm doing
this for now, but when I settle down, I'm just going to
settle down.
I would venture to say that every relationship you have in
your life is a training ground for every relationship you're
going to have in your future.
And the only way to train for monogamy is to abstain or be
monogamous, actually.
Because you're setting yourself up for needing more
variety of stimuli.
So I hope I've been able to explain to you how the slow
love movement is a lot like the slow food movement.
When Carlos Petrini, the chef who started the slow food
movement in Italy, when he saw the McDonald's go up near the
famous Spanish Steps in Rome and finally put his foot down
and said, enough.
We will return to the family table.
We will have slow food.
We will not have mass-produced, high-technology
food, and started this slow food movement.
And we've started to see little farmers'
markets crop up.
The beginning of that, they all thought we were nuts.
They thought we were a bunch of hippies, in the '80s and
'90s, growing our food and being organic.
Well, now what do we know about nutrition?
We realize that high-tech, mass-produced food is not what
we should be taking into our body.
And the same thing with high-tech,
mass-produced junk food sex.
Farmers' markets, in my mind, equals the kind of close,
emotional, loving, supportive intimacy that
we want in our lives.
And so I came up with this idea of slow love.
Oh, and by the way, my book is called "The 30 Day Love
Detox," because one study I found showed that if you have
sex within 30 days of meeting somebody, you've got about a
90% chance of being broken up within one year.
If you wait only 31 to 90 days, the stats go to about
25% that you'll still be together.
But what does it mean?
It means that you're building some kind of friendship, some
kind of connection before the onset of the heroin that
you're going to do.
So slow love--
[LAUGHING]
WENDY WALSH: --is about purging low nutrition
relationships.
The other thing I've noticed that people do to satisfy
themselves emotionally while they're in one of those low
criteria relationships, the one that's just mostly
text-based and meet for dinner and sex, is they keep their
self-esteem by having a bunch of other partners online.
When I say partners, I mean potential partners.
They've got Facebook friends.
They've got Twitter.
They've kept in touch with their high school sweetheart.
They've got maybe ex.
They've got somebody at the office.
Part of purging low nutrition relationships includes purging
all those digital relationships that are not
really bringing you emotional sustenance.
And then delaying the onset of sex with a new partner--
I could not find any research to show that waiting too long
was too long.
Also for my book, I interviewed these born again
virgins, men and women who decided to opt out of the high
supply sexual economy and just say, mmm, it's
really not for me.
I'm going to wait until I find someone.
And I also interviewed former virgins who were now married,
nursing babies.
One woman was a Harvard MBA Wall Street broker, and
dressed sexy as anybody else.
And I said, hah!
I wanted to know, how do you say no?
How can you say no?
You're looking hot.
You're going out on dates with same guys.
How can you, when the pressure comes on-- and what I heard
over and over from women is that when you are so sure
inside yourself, men and women, that this is what you
want for your health, that it's really easy to say no.
Because you're not even pressured that much.
But this one 25-year-old MBA virgin, I asked her, so what
do you do when a guy says, oh, come on, I'm going to get it
from somebody.
I might as well get it from you.
I mean, you know I'm going to go out there and get it.
So come on, you and I, we've been dating for a while.
And she said, oh, I love it when they say that.
I just say, actually, I don't think you can get sex with me
from someone else.
So the point is she values herself.
I know a college student girl who--
the pressure line from the guy was, I don't think I should
have to work for sex.
And she said, I'm not sex.
I'm Sheryl.
Right?
So it's about understanding what's going on
and where you fit.
The other thing is to make sure that you are brave enough
to ask for sexual exclusivity.
Isn't it amazing that although, as I say, 20%
percent of men may be able to obtain sex on a first date,
80% of women are smart enough not to expose their eggs and
their bloodstream to somebody they wouldn't even give the
keys to their apartment to to water their plants while
they're out of town, right?
So we get into these sexual relationships, and plenty of
people are afraid to ask for exclusivity when STDs are
running rampant in our culture.
It's so simple to just ask.
The "what are we" conversation is so difficult
for people to have.
And then, of course, to make sure you use the F word, which
are "feelings." How do you feel about this?
What's going on?
And to practice intellectual commitment.
Now, what is intellectual commitment?
Love and sex are what happens at the beginning of a
relationship.
But once all the hormones die down, then it becomes an
intellectual commitment.
And that's when I hear people say all the time, well, I want
to keep my options open.
Or, I want to just--
later I'll be-- and I'm just like, no, why don't you make
an intellectual commitment like you do in an exercise
program, to a diet?
See what happens.
See what you learn, even if you're just practicing
emotional intimacy.
Because here's why.
It's very well researched--
long-term, monogamous bonded people actually have higher
life expectancies.
They live longer.
AUDIENCE: How do you control?
How do you be sure?
WENDY WALSH: Do you know Dan Buettner's
work "The Blue Zones"?
Anybody read "The Blue Zones"?
It's these five areas on the planet they call blue zones
where a disproportionate amount of people live to be
over the age of 100.
And then he looks for commonalities between these
five areas--
and long-term married partners.
None of the men over 100 have been playboys.
They have like one wife taking care of them.
Actually, health-wise, monogomy benefits men more
than women, believe it or not.
Women's health goes down just a little bit, because they're
doing double duty.
Men tend to have much better health if they're in a
relationship.
Long-term married people of course accumulate more wealth.
Do you know how expensive divorce is?
Or maintaining two houses with a baby mama
and a bunch of kids?
Or two baby mamas?
Yeah.
Putting it all in one big pot and planning for the future.
Their offspring do a whole lot better.
I always say this to young men when I see them out
at parties and stuff.
I go, OK, here's a little quiz for you.
If your choice tonight is to hook up with five women and
hope that three of them have your babies, and you never see
them again, or you find one woman and stay with her for 20
years and two kids and put them through college, where
are your genes going to be in five generations from now?
Are your genes going to stay in evolution's chain?
I think this is the better way.
OK, I'll close it with by the numbers.
Average lifetime number of sexual partners by gender--
this is a new study for Centers for Disease Control
that came out in 2009.
Now, here's what you should know.
AUDIENCE: This must be median.
WENDY WALSH: I'm sorry?
AUDIENCE: The mean has to be equal.
WENDY WALSH: No.
Here's why.
I love having bright people in the room.
[LAUGHING]
WENDY WALSH: Even on anonymous sexual surveys, men lie up and
women lie down.
AUDIENCE: Oh, so these are lies.
These aren't actual--
AUDIENCE: Reported.
WENDY WALSH: These are reported.
OK, yes, so your mean answer is five, right?
It's probably five.
This is a Centers for Disease Control study of more than
6,000 people.
And this is age 18 to 44.
So it's not over--
middle age is not encompassed there.
And by the way, anything I've talked about today, please
feel free to contact me.
I've got all the references and the studies if you want to
look into them a little further.
And they're all in my reference
section of my book, too.
I think some of you are going to get a copy of the book.
OK, so now I want you to understand that if the mean is
5, the number of people who have had sex with more than 15
people is 27% men and 10% women.
Again, men lie up and brag, women lie down.
So I don't know, maybe it's 15%, 17%.
Yeah.
So that's also pulling that number, that 6 and 4.
That still brings in that 27% of men who have 15 or more.
So even to say that the average lifetime partners is 5
for men is even a little high.
AUDIENCE: Do you think the men with a lot of sexual partners
actually lie down, and the average lie up?
WENDY WALSH: That's a good point.
But in general, the way our culture is, men tend to over--
yeah, but you're right.
So you're saying, once they hit a certain point, even they
know that, culturally, having 300 partners is not cool.
[LAUGHING]
WENDY WALSH: So they'll start to take it to 30, right?
But my favorite study is the number of men who would prefer
a romantic date over a hook up is 75%.
Women are always surprised by this number.
Is there any man in this room who can help explain to the
women why this number is this number?
Is there any man who would prefer a romantic date to a
hook-up in this room?
AUDIENCE: One is very--
it's over, and that's it.
WENDY WALSH: And so a romantic date could lead to--
[LAUGHING]
WENDY WALSH: --well consistent, frequent sex.
It also could lead to all the other things-- a relationship.
Oh, God forbid.
It could actually lead to all the social support that you
need, that accumulation of wealth, the better health, and
everything else.
So even men like romance and like slow love.
But women feel that somehow--
in fact, when that population of women who've adopted the
male model of sexuality, they're actually not adopting
a male model of sexuality.
They're adopting the three-percenter.
Because that's what they know.
That's been the most obvious to them.
So if you love better, you can actually live better.
And there's all my contact.
And let's start with some questions.
[APPLAUSE]
AUDIENCE: Thanks so much for this talk.
It was very, very interesting.
Thanks, Marty, for putting this together.
I had one comment and one question.
My comment is I used to teach sex health in college.
And I feel like so many students would benefit from
seeing these numbers when they first enter into college.
Because as you said, the media's totally off.
And I grew up watching "Friends" before going to
college, and I was like, oh, everybody's just in bed with
each other all the time.
[LAUGHS]
WENDY WALSH: I actually have an answer of how you all can
help me with that.
Marty very kindly has a camera here for a reason.
I'm going to use part of this as an audition tape for NACA,
National Association of Campus Activities, to audition to get
on the college circuit.
So I should put a link up.
If anyone emails me any quote about this talk that's
positive, I'll put it on my flyer.
Yeah, I'll put anything you can give me positive.
And you're always welcome to go and refer me for a TED
Talk, just saying.
[LAUGHING]
WENDY WALSH: It's online.
You just fill it in.
Go ahead.
What's your question?
AUDIENCE: And then another thing-- you refer to the whole
economic background of this.
I definitely believe it's an exchange, and there's lots of
sex economics going on.
But I think a major part of economics is understanding the
marginal utilities and being open about your functions.
So I feel like everybody might not be within these numbers or
these ranges or anything like that.
But I think a very important thing along with slow love is
just open and honest love, like from the beginning--
WENDY WALSH: Exactly!
AUDIENCE: What you're looking for, what you want.
Sometimes the men want something that traditionally a
woman would want.
Sometimes the woman wants something--
WENDY WALSH: Yeah, I think there are as many men who are
afraid to say, I want a relationship.
AUDIENCE: Yeah.
Yeah, and I think you can have completely healthy hook-up
relationships where a woman gets what she needs because
that's what she needs at that given time.
But what she needs might change later on.
WENDY WALSH: And then, unfortunately, it sometimes
biologically changes because of the biological changes that
happen-- either she's starting to feel
bonded because of the--
I interviewed so many people for this book.
And some of them said, here's the thing about hook-ups.
It always starts out fun, until somebody gets hurt.
Because eventually, one person likes the other person more.
AUDIENCE: Yeah.
And that's, I think, when maybe you're not being honest
to yourself about how your utility function has changed.
WENDY WALSH: Yeah, the first person to be
honest with is yourself.
AUDIENCE: Yeah.
Yeah, so I think it would be really cool, how you built the
basic economic thing, if you extrapolate out to how
people's functions can be different and how they change
over a lifetime, and how what you look for is different, and
that might lead to serial monogamy and
that kind of thing.
WENDY WALSH: The two times where men and women need each
other the most are when they are raising offspring who are
very small children, the zero to 10, or zero to to 12, and
my age, as we get older, and we're looking for
companionship to settle down with, as health
problems start to happen.
AUDIENCE: Thank you.
WENDY WALSH: Thanks.
AUDIENCE: Any other questions?
AUDIENCE: What effect do you think STDs had in early human
sexual development?
WENDY WALSH: Well, I'm only guessing, but I would say that
in the early sexual development, STDs--
because, again, these are small populations of people.
So if they came like any other disease, if they came through,
they wiped out a group.
Remember, at one point there were 27 humanoid species
living together, and some of them mixing and mating even.
So that's even separate from the other
four primate species.
So plenty of them got knocked out along the way as we zeroed
down into one.
And STDs were one way.
Lots of other diseases, too.
AUDIENCE: So how did that affect how people are now?
WENDY WALSH: So you're thinking it might have most
knocked out the people who were the most promiscuous?
Is that your guess?
AUDIENCE: I don't know if that's true.
Maybe.
WENDY WALSH: I don't know.
Does that sound like it could have been?
I think that if we stayed too 100% monogamous--
although, there are plenty of species that are 100%
monogamous, and they tend to procreate and do just fine.
But I think what was important for humans is that we had the
three-percenter who wandered so that we could mix up the
gene pool as much as possible.
You know about the Swiss t-shirt study, right?
The smelling of pheromones?
OK, so the Swiss t-shirt study is where they put a bunch of
men and asked them to sleep in the same--
they each had their own--
t-shirt every night for 14 nights.
And then they put it in a Ziploc bag every morning to
lock in the freshness.
And at the end of a couple weeks, they had a panel of
women just smell the t-shirts.
And what they found is, the pheromones that the women
found most attractive were those that had the most
disparate immune systems.
Because when you mate with somebody, you take one gene
from another and another from another, so that you've got
blue eyes from one, and long legs from another, and brown
hair from another, et cetera.
Except immune systems-- they combine.
So we can actually sniff out when people have immune
systems that are too similar to us.
That's why our brothers smell so nasty to us.
Honestly, they do.
I remember growing up, thinking, guys, take a shower.
But I didn't notice it with other guys.
And what else was I going to say about STDs?
So in the same sense, I think along the way, people have
been using all kinds of ways to attract mates separate and
aside from just visual.
Visual's a big one for men.
And women most vote for intelligence and kindness over
looks, by the way, you guys.
So don't worry about your hair or worry about
how funny you are.
Because it's connected to intelligence, too.
AUDIENCE: You could have funny hair.
WENDY WALSH: You could have funny hair.
That would be great.
[LAUGHING]
WENDY WALSH: Anyway--
AUDIENCE: Any other questions?
AUDIENCE: You said that a lot of the stuff that you say is
not politically correct, which is probably like the
understatement of the--
WENDY WALSH: [LAUGHS]
AUDIENCE: Do you have the Women's Studies department
parked out across your office with torches and forks.
WENDY WALSH: The true feminists understand that true
feminine, female sexual freedom is to have choice.
And I don't actually say there's one
right way to do anything.
I can give you statistical probabilities.
I can tell you a little bit about your biology.
By the way, the more sexual partners a man has had, the
more likely he is to perceive diminished attractiveness in
each new mate.
So it's a race to the bottom for him.
Every new woman rolls over easy, it disappoints him.
This was a big study out of UCLA.
The more sexual partners a woman has had, the more likely
she is to be on an antidepressant.
Now, it could be working in reverse.
Depressed women could be using sex to self-medicate.
We don't necessarily assume causality there.
But we look at all this, and we look at the picture of
what's going on, and we listen to our own bodies, our own
souls, and we ask for what nutrition is out there.
I wrote a blog a couple--
and you're all welcome to subscribe to my blog.
I send out a weekly newsletter.
AUDIENCE: Or your YouTube channel.
WENDY WALSH: My YouTube channel, of course!
I wrote a blog about how I really have this new,
enlightened thinking that the Muslim hijab is actually a
great act of female sexual freedom.
Because I spent a month in London.
I talked to a lot of Muslim women, these young, hot girls
working at Starbucks with their hijab.
And I would just talk to them about who they
were, and very modern.
And they said, listen, you guys think you've got female
sexual freedom, and you are doing Brazilian waxes,
vajazziling, bleaching your anus, all to please men and
the porn industry?
Like, that's female sexual freedom?
And I looked at them, and I thought, you know what?
This whole idea of choosing to be modest, nothing put on
them-- nobody says on Oxford Street, you've got to wear a
hijab, right?
So the choice to be modest is power.
It's female power.
And there was a feminist who I quoted in my blog who said,
bearing your breasts on YouTube isn't necessarily
female power.
Neither is wearing a hijab.
What's female power is being able to have the choice.
And that's freedom, to understand all the various
choices available to you.
AUDIENCE: So you answered the question of why it is that
feminists should not be angry with you.
WENDY WALSH: Oh, but are some of them angry?
AUDIENCE: I don't think you're politically incorrect.
I think, from a woman's standpoint,
you're spot on, actually.
WENDY WALSH: I think teaching women to understand their
biology and respect it and empower them to live out their
biology is good.
I do have a few women, usually the undergraduates at the
university level who are very pro-fem, they'll
walk out the back.
I'll watch them go, [SIGHS], close their
books, and walk out.
And then there'll be a few that'll stay later for the
chitchat who will be like, so I've been hooking up with this
guy for a while, thought he was my boyfriend.
And I just saw on Facebook that my friend
slept with him, and--
[PRETENDS TO CRY]
[LAUGHING]
WENDY WALSH: I'm like, did you ever have a talk with him
about exclusivity?
So it's just a matter of being authentic with ourselves and
our feelings and being able to talk to people.
I know you guys are in the tech business, and it's all
about [TYPING NOISES]
now.
But I do say that when you have a relationship with
somebody by text, whether it's business, whatever
relationship, it's like listening to your favorite
band without the drummer or the lead singer.
So you're missing a lot.
When we communicate, we have visual.
We have body language.
You've got vocal tone.
You're smelling me.
We've got pheromones.
Your brain is taking in so much information right now.
But when you're [TYPING NOISES], you're
actually putting yourself on.
That's why people fall into catfishes.
Because they are projecting their own needs, loves, and
desires on to the computer.
And they get just enough back that they think it's real.
AUDIENCE: Can you talk a little bit more about--
you were saying women aren't allowing
themselves to be mothers.
I think that's a very complex--
so there's socially we've changed.
Biologically we haven't changed.
All the women who are graduating ahead of men, we go
for our careers, and then--
WENDY WALSH: I know exactly what you're saying.
OK, right now, there's a book you have to read that I love
called "Reshaping the Work Family Debate--
Why Men and Social Class Matter." It's by Joan--
ah--
up at UC Hastings law school.
OK, she wrote this amazing book, saying, our problem is
right now we are not preparing women for motherhood.
We have failed them in our push to push girls forward and
push girls into higher education.
I have a high school-age girl.
In ninth grade, they sent them out a college application,
told the kids to fill it out, look for the holes, and start
filling them in in the next three years.
My kid is 15 years old.
She has no interest in going to hang out in the mall and
pick out boys.
She wants to go tour colleges on every vacation we take.
I'm like, you've got to stop.
You've got to have fun.
You've got to be a teenager.
AUDIENCE: And globalization--
WENDY WALSH: Right, they're pushing these girls, pushing
these girls like crazy.
She's all concerned about her GPA, and she's crying in the
bathtub if it's not 4.0.
And I'm like, stop.
AUDIENCE: And boys, too.
WENDY WALSH: Go smoke some weed and meet a boy.
Yeah, exactly.
[LAUGHING]
WENDY WALSH: But honestly, I never thought as a mother that
I'd be thinking that to my daughter.
I didn't say it.
I'm thinking it.
I've also said to my daughter, listen, I know you watch "Teen
Mom" on MTV-- and by the way, my friend Jared in the back--
Jared and Jordan, the two J's--
produce for MTV.
They do the VMAs.
and they produce "Teen Mom." and I was like, listen, to my
daughter, if you watch teen mom, and you have a teenage
pregnancy, you are so going to be grounded.
And I'm so going to take that baby.
Because I'm afraid--
the whole problem here is--
I'm not going to get to be a grandmother.
That's really what it's about, OK?
So the answer is, if you look at more developed countries
like us, like Sweden and Iceland, they have very
powerful women.
They have more babies born out of wedlock.
But what they have are the social supports that
we don't have here.
The problem is this--
the single mother walk--
we don't have the social supports advanced enough.
So the single mother walk is a hard one.
I'm in it.
I've been single for eight years; I've got two kids.
Let me tell you, single mothers in America today have
their own worse mental health, worse physical health.
Their kids have worse physical health.
Their kids have lower academic grades, earlier onset of
sexual behavior, and more sex, drugs, rock and roll,
basically, OK?
We do not have any social support.
So when I see the government trying to push this whole bill
to provide preschools, at least that's some child care.
14 million single mothers are raising one in four American
children right now--
one in four.
And it's only going up, because women are not choosing
marriage, or men are not using marriage, or their children
have divorced, themselves.
We have a second generation now of divorced people who are
terrified of it.
So the answer is a very complicated one that has to
not only involve personal decision, not only in how we
raise our girls, but also in looking at our culture as a
whole, and what we can do to support single parent
families, whether it be a man or a woman raising the kids.
Yeah?
AUDIENCE: It's tough.
You know, you're asking women to basically look to try to
have babies at 25, 26, 27, 28.
But for men who are ready, who are genetically--
WENDY WALSH: Interestingly enough, research shows that a
girl who has a baby during college or right after college
takes less of a financial hit than if she takes a
big time off at 35.
Because she's not making much then.
And she's young enough to hop back on the treadmill.
When you're 35 and you're making $250,000 a year and you
take two years off to stay with the baby, it's a whole
different thing.
AUDIENCE: And also you're commitments--
you're paying a much higher mortgage at that point.
WENDY WALSH: Everything, yeah.
It's so much harder.
Exactly.
AUDIENCE: But then coming back into it at the age--
WENDY WALSH: I'll tell you, one of the changes we can make
right away--
everybody in this culture stop using the word "maternity
leave." It's paternal leave.
It's paternity--
or sorry, it's parental leave.
Sorry.
As soon as we call it parental leave and men get into the
game and think they have equal access to
these benefits, then--
AUDIENCE: Google has a great maternity leave.
WENDY WALSH: But what about the guy who wants to stay home
and take care of the kids?
And what if she wants to charge back?
Until it becomes gender equal, until the care of children
becomes gender equal and it's instituted at the corporate
level, then--
I'm Canadian.
So in Canada, you get a year off, father or mother, paid at
80% of your salary.
Because they have socialized medicine, and they've learned
that if you breastfeed those babies, you reduce your health
care costs by so much.
AUDIENCE: I know, but that makes sense, you see.
WENDY WALSH: Yeah, there's a number.
AUDIENCE: That makes sense, so we're not going to do it.
You're trying to make sense--
WENDY WALSH: Oh, of course!
We don't want to make sense.
OK.
Sorry?
AUDIENCE: I just don't see Americans ever getting there.
Drug companies alone.
WENDY WALSH: But you guys have the power.
You're our future.
You're young Americans who have a
voice, you're out there.
[LAUGHING]
WENDY WALSH: [LAUGHS]
OK, I got a peer over here.
I'm still older than you, I promise.
AUDIENCE: I wouldn't bet.
WENDY WALSH: I would bet.
How old are you?
AUDIENCE: 51.
WENDY WALSH: Oh, we're peers.
I'm 51, too.
[LAUGHING]
AUDIENCE: We'll hook up later.
WENDY WALSH: OK.
[LAUGHING]
WENDY WALSH: Exactly.
AUDIENCE: Dr. Walsh, thank you so much for being here today.
That's for you.
And guys, if you want your book signed, we have some
Sharpies in the back.
I think we might have run out of books.
But thank you guys so much for coming.
And thanks for joining us.
WENDY WALSH: Do I get a Google t-shirt?
Oh, yay!
[APPLAUSE]