In this bonus episode, I spoke with Rob Henderson about Jacob Savage's viral article in Compact on discrimination against white men in creative industries.

Discussed in the episode:

• 'The lost generation' - Compact Magazine
• 'The vanishing white male writer' - Compact Magazine
• 'The vanishing' - Tablet Magazine
• 'The Daily' episode on media trust

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We have seen an extraordinary change in attitudes towards gay and lesbian people over the last half century in the West. Within living memory, homosexuality was criminalised. Now, same-sex couples can get married and share custody of children. This is nothing short of a moral revolution.

Plenty of progressives think, not only that this change was inevitable, but also that further liberalisation is inevitable. My guests today are not so sure.

They note that, for the first time in a long time, younger people on average are less accepting of homosexuality than are slightly older people. Perhaps this is a result of immigration patterns. Perhaps it's a result of strategic errors made by activists. I'm joined by three people who all agree that something has gone wrong, although they disagree – subtly – on exactly how and why.

Ronan McCrea is professor of constitutional and European law at University College London and the author of 'The End of the Gay Rights Revolution: How Hubris and Overreach Threaten Gay Freedom.'

Matthew Vines the the Founder and Executive Director of The Reformation Project and the author of 'God and the Gay Christian: The Biblical Case in Support of Same-Sex Relationships.'

And Julie Bindel is a journalist, broadcaster, author, and the co-founder and co-director of The Lesbian Project.

All of these guests share a concern that the wins of the gay rights movement are very fragile. There is a very real possibility that we will look back on the early twenty-first century as an historical blip – a brief moment of victory that was squandered. We ask how that fate might be avoided.

Discussed in the show:

• 'The End of the Gay Rights Revolution: How Hubris and Overreach Threaten Gay Freedom'
• 'God and the Gay Christian: The Biblical Case in Support of Same-Sex Relationships'
• 'Lesbians: Where are we now?'
• The Lesbian Project podcast
• Stephen Ireland news story
• My interview with Darel E. Paul
• Operation Spanner

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What Conservative America gets right about Britain

Description: In this bonus episode, I spoke with Ed West about why the American Right is so preoccupied with British decline.

Discussed in this episode:

• The declining lethality of violent assault
• Christopher Caldwell on Trump's warnings on Europe
• Curtis Yarvin on hobbits and elves
• British Muslim crime rate
• Leamington Spa case

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Give the gift of everyday luxury and make every moment comfortable. Head

to cozyearth.com and use my code COZYMMM for 20% off sitewide. And if you

get a Post-Purchase Survey, be sure to mention you heard about Cozy Earth at the Maiden Mother Matriarch podcast.

I know that there are many people listening to this podcast right now who truly and sincerely want to get married, but can't find the right person. They've done the usual things – they've tried the apps, they've tried going to church, they've asked their friends to set them up. These strategies aren't futile – we all know plenty of people who met their spouses in this way – but they're not a guarantee, either.

If we've learnt anything from the social experiment of the sexual revolution, it's that matchmaking is a difficult coordination problem. Earlier this year, I interviewed Christiana Maxion, a professional matchmaker who takes a very intuitive approach to her work. Today, I'm joined by someone who comes at the problem in a very different way.

Geoffrey Miller is an evolutionary psychologist, an Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of New Mexico, and the author of books including 'The Mating Mind' (2001) and 'Mating Intelligence' (2008). He's also the Chief Science Advisor to a dating platform that claims to be able to match people based on A.I. analysis of reams of data. Things like IQ tests, personality tests, and demographic factors like age and socioeconomic status. Geoffrey believes that this non-intuitive approach to matchmaking is the way to bring happy couples together.

Today we speak about the science, and also the issue of expectations. What is it reasonable to want in a spouse? How can single people set themselves up to win in the marriage market? And what role should we give to other people – parents or siblings, for instance – in the process of matchmaking?

Discussed in the show:

• My interview with Christiana Maxion.
• Keeper matchmaking

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this bonus episode, I disagreed strongly with Meghan Murphy on the necessity of housework.

Discussed in the episode:

• ‘Women aren’t nags – we’re just fed up’
• ‘Thoughts on being raised by a single dad and the advice to “just do less”
• ‘The women quietly quitting their husbands’

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

No one is under any illusions about how tired mothers are. And fathers, too. Particularly during the early years of sleep deprivation. We're also often overwhelmed by responsibility and financial stress. None of this is in doubt.

But does that mean that mothers are unhappy? It's a complicated question to answer. A lot of people assume – particularly, I suspect, people who don't have children themselves – that tiredness and busyness necessarily suggest that a woman's wellbeing is damaged by having children. And there are, of course, feminist ideas that fall out of this assumption. Primarily, the idea that marriage and motherhood are oppressive to women, and that these are burdens that women long to be relieved of.

Today I'm joined by two academics who offer their expertise on the question of maternal happiness. Wendy Wang is the Director of Research at the Institute for Family Studies, and Jenet Erickson is a fellow at the same institute. She's also an associate professor at Brigham Young University. I met Wendy and Jenet at a conference organised by the Institute for Family Studies earlier this year at which they both presented their research on marriage, children, and – here's the really interesting bit – the strong correlation between a woman's experience of physical touch and her mental wellbeing. They both argue that mothers – specifically married mothers – are happier on average than other women. Together we examine the evidence.

Give the gift of everyday luxury and make every moment comfortable. Head

to cozyearth.com and use my code COZYMMM for 20% off sitewide. And if you

get a Post-Purchase Survey, be sure to mention you heard about Cozy Earth at the Maiden Mother Matriarch podcast.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this bonus episode, I spoke with Nina Power about 'hybristophilia' – a fetish typically found in women that is characterized by sexual attraction to criminals. We discussed what the phenomenon reveals about female sexuality, the insights offered by erotic fiction intended for a female readership, and the tightrope that women have to walk when trying to attract sexual interest from men.

Discussed in the episode:

• https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15334175/The-female-police-officers-betray-law-inside-Besotted-women-share-force-secrets-criminal-lovers-share-jail-kisses-them.html
• https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/36533018/ex-prison-officer-jailed-parties-onlyfans/
• https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/2074301/Woman-with-objects-fetish-marries-Eiffel-Tower.html
• https://www.louiseperry.co.uk/p/the-evolution-of-mental-illness-marco
• https://www.louiseperry.co.uk/p/where-do-fetishes-come-from-ray-blanchard
• https://archive.org/details/lovingtosurvives0000grah

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My guest today is Jean Twenge, professor of psychology at San Diego State University, and author of books including ‘iGen’, ‘Generation Me’, and ‘Generations.’ Her latest title is ‘10 Rules for Raising Kids in a High-Tech World: How Parents Can Stop Smartphones, Social Media, and Gaming from Taking Over Their Children’s Lives.’

We spoke about why smartph…