Everything Is Content - Celibacy, 4B & Our Hot Girl Summers

Episode Date: August 5, 2026

Hello EICorn-Cobs! Happy hump day! As we mentioned last week we're on a rare (but needed!) summer break from the podcast, and using this time to dig into the archive and rerelease some gems from 2024. This week is a return to a deep dive episode where we talked about our previous Hot Girl summers and the impact of the cost of living crisis on romance. How are we meant to find the loves of our lives when a second round of drinks is out of budget? Plus, we discuss a rise in celibacy. If Julia Fox and Lenny Kravitz are doing it, maybe we should be doing it too? And finally we’re asking the important questions about dating apps. Are they terrible? Why are they terrible? And what can we do to stop them making *us* feel terrible? Thanks so much for listening/re-listening! We're an indie pod which means that the three of us do absolutely everything for the show from picking topics, researching, writing show notes, emailing guests, chatting with you lovely listeners, editing, producing, sound mixing... the lot! And it's because of you all that it's possible. We'll be back with brand new eps on the 19th of August!Lots of love B, R, O xLinksEXPERIAN- Cost of Loving OENONE’S SUBSTACK- Please, don’t ask me who I amDAZED- Why are so many young people taking hallucinogens? ASBO MAGAZINE- Pxssy Palace, Queer RenaissanceTHE CUT- The women of South Korea’s 4B movementTHE INDEPENDENT - Julia Fox explains why she won’t give up her celibacy WTF PODCAST - Marc Maron x Andrew Garfield THE GUARDIAN- Lenny Kravitz THE GUARDIAN- The Orgasm Gap REDDIT- No fapWIKIPEDIA- Lesbian Feminism APPLE - Let’s Talk About … Dating POLYESTER - The Bumble Fumble BETH MCCOLL- Romanticise Your Life Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Three, two, one. No, I did that badly. Three, two, one. Oh. What's wrong with my hands? I'm Beth. I'm Richerra. And I'm Manoni.

And this is Everything is Content. Every week on the podcast, we dissect the pop culture biggest and best stories from the week. We're the delicious ice lati during a larti. I thought that, but I didn't want to correct me. I thought you just thought that was what it was. I was just like, okay, Beth. Cultural differences. We're the delicious ice latte.

I can't say it now. Oh, ice latte. Latte. Latte. Okay. Latte. Latte. Latte for my dad. Let's pretend I am your dad.

We're the delicious ice latte during a sweaty, sweltering 30-degree content heat wave. This week on the podcast, we've got a special deep dive for you. We're investigating what happened to Hot Girl Summer? In 2019, we live, laugh, loved the label for women living their best lives and hooking up without shame in honour of Megan the Stallion. But five years later, something feels different. Is the spirit of Hot Girl Summer over?

Let's see if we can figure it out. But first, follow us on Instagram and TikTok at Everything is. content pod. And if you love the podcast, please, please, please, please give us a five-star review wherever you listen to us. Before we dive in, shall we each go around the table and define Hot Girl Summer for ourselves and share if we've ever had one or if we'd like to have one in future? Anoni, what is Hot Girl Summer to you? Well, I've always had long-term relationships until I had a break up in 2021 and then 2022 was my hot girl year basically until I did get into another relationship and oh my god did I have the time of my life I had a roster oh it was amazing I was living it up

I was free I didn't care about any I didn't care if anyone texts me back you know I had like no I'd never really had that like anxiety free hooking up no strings attached and I was just I was basically being a man and I was very proud of myself. And it was just some seem to be like, it was like I was going down a big highway in the US and every light was turning green. Every man that I wanted to snog was available and wanted to snog me back.

I just, I'm single again now. I haven't really attempted much snogging, but it very much feels like if I did try, it wouldn't be there for me. Oh, that makes me sad. That sounds so powerful, your hot girl summer year. I think I had a similar thing around 2019, So literally timed perfectly to Megan The Stallion's album and like this whole trend.

I'd got dumped on Valentine's Day that year, RIP, that was devastating. And literally had like grieved, heartbreak during the like last bits of winter and was just like coming out like a butterfly out of a cocoon ready to just like have some fun. The album dropped. And I was just like, I was off the apps because I found them boring. So I was just meeting people in person, which I like obviously could never do that now. It was like pre-pandemic, so people were just alive and, like, going to events and saying yes to everything in a way that I feel like it just doesn't feel the same right now. So it was a case of just like meeting somebody at a bar or like meeting somebody at a party

that I barely knew anyone at and just like going on dates and like kind of trying my best to have meet cutes and like not make it orchestrated from like dating online. It was just so much fun. Do you know, I think it's such an interesting hangover from COVID, which we don't talk about enough because when COVID first ended, I think everyone wanted to be out. But I think that something that happened was this, the you don't owe anyone anything era coincided with Zoom calls and us getting used to not having to leave the house

to the point where we forgot that there is something fun in leaving the house. And people like, can't be else to travel. Like, I don't think we have as much energy or perseverance in terms of, like, actually getting up and going out on a whim. Yeah. Have you had a hot girl's lover before Beth? I have and I think mine coincided with the 2019 as well. I had maybe a star to Hot Girl Summer the year before, 2018, which I will cite forever as like one of the finest summers. In London,

especially, Heat Wave, World Cup, Love Island was excellent. And that was maybe my starter job. I had also just had a horrible breakup. So I was kind of like, maybe taking it too far at times. I was, like, I was really going for it, but in a kind of chaotic, often sad way. And then 2019, I was like, okay, I'm recovered from that. It's almost like I sensed something bigger was coming in terms of the global situation, which we had in 2020, because I left no stone. It was like the burning of Rome. I think as I was also approaching the end of my 20s, but I wasn't in the panic years yet.

So I was like, this is it my, I don't know, how old was that in 2019? I really can't do the mass. My, I don't know, my prefrontal cortex was cooked. and I was like, I am actually going to do everything. It was really, really fun. I think I probably did then need to recover from it in 2020. Maybe that timing was correct. Like I went all out and then suddenly it was like, no more of that.

And then I started longing for like intimacy. But 2019, oh, it was a mad one. That's so funny because we all seemed to have been around the same age. I think I was like 27 when I had my hot girl summer. And actually, I remember the minute I had my breakup because I'd been, in a relationship the minute I moved to London. So from like 23 or maybe 22, I'd like gone straight into a relationship. And I was so jealous for those people that are dated. But I think there's something really to be said for having that time in your later 20s, because I do think

when you're in your early 20s, everything's such a mess anyway. You're just running around like a headless chicken. There's something quite empowering about that specific age to go feral. You're a bit richer. You can go on slightly nicer dates. The boys are slightly less dumb. Or you can see quicker that they are not. Whereas I think I was in my early 20s trying to do hot car summer, sleeping with older men and thinking like, look at me getting one over on them. And actually they were really getting one over. Like they were profiting from that situation. I was ending up worse for wear. So I do, I think it's that knowing like, I can take care of myself a little bit. I'm not all the way wise, but I'm a bit wiser. I can make smart, stupid

decisions. Yes. Yes. That's exactly how it feels. Smart, stupid a decision. Okay, so I want to talk about the cost of living because everyone jokes about not being able to buy a house or like afford to have a family. But I think currently we can't even really afford to meet the love of our lives. May I introduce you to the cost of loving? According to new research by experience, on average people aged 18 to 35 have racked up a debt of £2,250 because of dating and relationships. Oh, sure. And another statistic shows that two in three, so 66% of young people aged 18 to 34, feel that dating is too expensive in the cost of living crisis. I feel like this is manifesting in other ways as well.

Like people stay in relationships that perhaps aren't right or they aren't happy in because they can't afford to move out, they can't afford to leave. It's just a really dire situation for single people all round. I know you girlies are in relationships, but is this something you're coming up against in your peer group or even have noticed I guess in your own relationships? Yeah, definitely. I feel like I noticed in the last two years, you can feel that breakups are not just devastating because, you know, it's the loss of a relationship and a life that you built up together. It's also the fact that it's fucking expensive and it's like this huge crash in your life where you have to pick up the pieces financially. So, you know, if you've moved in together, jumping back into the rental market, which is the fucking sticks in London, and I'm sure, you know, the reverberations are felt across the UK in the same way as well. And it's just, you know, moving, changing your life and all that kind of stuff financially is just so shit and like so much worse in this cost of living crisis. So it does feel like you can see that things are getting worse from that point of view considerably. Totally. I have friends. who've been in long-term relationships,

and either they're kind of saving money to kind of build their own future together, or in the case of the women, a few of them have got, like, the kind of get-out funds, which usually you would associate with, like, abusive relationships, but they're like, no, I just need something, some little nest egg, if this goes sour so I don't have the awkwardness of living with my partner.

So no one really has a lot of free cash. And if I've got a single friend, and it's getting towards the end of the month, and I'm like, should we do a little something? She's like, I've got this money left, and no offense, but I am. I'm saving it for dates. Like what if we want to get another round?

What if this? It's like money is the kind of token of freedom. And a lot of people, I guess, are deciding between do I spend this freedom token on seeing my friends or on that kind of possibility of a perfect first date? So I just do think it's like quite non-romantic time because everyone's quite skin or everyone is. It's a consideration whether it's you or whether it's the person you're going on a date with. Definitely. And also like even I experienced this before I moved in with my ex, I was living in my own and a flat which I loved. And then when we broke up, I could no longer afford to do that anymore because everything was so much more expensive and that my living circumstances were different. And I have so many friends that either like, yeah, basically won't break up because they're like I can't live on my own and it's like too scary to be single. Or like you were saying Beth, and we'll come on to dating apps later. But because we're not really meeting people organically, like we're

saying no one's really going out into the wild. I don't know if that's a hangover from COVID or if we're just got so used to being reliant on dating apps that that is kind of the fundamental way. I do think we've lost a means to socialise. But if you're meeting up with someone from a dating app, first of all, it's so hard to tell someone's vibe. I think a general rule of thumb is if they're really good on text, you're not going to get on in real life. I almost think like if you haven't really spoken, you've gone to date, it's better. But say you're getting the train like across London, then you've got to at least buy a first drink. Then you've got to go back, maybe it's late, you're getting a taxi, you could end up spending 50 pounds on someone

that you don't even have a vibe with and you know that within the first like few minutes. That is just, it's just not economical right now. I have a few friends that leave dates the minute they don't, and this is really economical, the minute they know that it's not a vibe, they politely leave. And I spent probably four figures over the course of my whole dating life on like extra drinks or like polite rounds that I didn't really need to. And now I'm like, God, I wish I had that money back. I wish I'd had the kind of, I don't want to say balls. I wish I'd had like, just like the strength of mind to stand up and go, it's been really nice to me, but I don't think

this is a vibe, best of luck, gone home and had that money for like a pizza or something, or a house deposit. So I think there's something in attitude as well. We can save money, but we do have to be stronger. My recent self-sat that I wrote, which was about not knowing here I am and talking about a bit about people pleasing. This is one of my worst things. I cannot, and I don't know if it's something to do with my relationship with men, because I'm a very confrontational as in not like I'm getting in an argument. I'm good at facing things head on. I'm really good at setting my ground in a work environment. On a day, I will stay there till the bitter end, even if I am literally like, I don't find them attractive.

I have this weird thing in me where I'm like, I have to make them have a good time. It almost becomes a performance. I forget if I'm even enjoying it. I'm even enjoying. it. I'm just like, I guess they fancy me. I'll make them fancy me more. And then if they're enjoying themselves, I'm like, well, I guess I can't leave. It's so frustrating. And it actually worries me about dating again because I know that I will end up in a situation that I don't want to be in, staying up way too late, having a hangover that I really didn't need to have, or because I can't say no to a man. And it's something I really need to interrogate. And some of my friends are really good at it. And what I'm going to try and start doing, if I do start dating again, is my friends like always just have something

else booked in, like with friends. And then the date goes really well, you can either text friends and I'm not actually going to be there or you can just go on another date, but give yourself like a two-hour window for that date, but always have a hard out. So if the dates at six, be like, I'll meet you at six, but I've got a dinner at eight, because then it's like you've already set that out. So that I think is a good thing to do because then obviously you also don't have to have plans. You can just leave. Yeah, that's such a good show. I feel like I probably had the exact same problem where this is going to sound really bad and yeah, feel free to judge me. But I feel like it almost becomes a bit of a game when you're on a date of like gamifying

the situation to get like reward out of it, just the validation sometimes that like you are, you know, sexy enough and you are like charming enough and somebody can feed that back to you by the end, which definitely like calls to, I think when I was dating just like sometimes not going in for the right reasons, just like doing it because I felt really crap, still kind of like bubbling over the like, you know, the rubbishness of a breakup and like needing, needing to feel like I was like, I guess like cool enough or good enough. But the good part I think about the hangups of like COVID and posts like, you know, all of us having a lower social battery is I think hopefully you guys are right that people are just way more brutal and we'll just like say, you know, I'm not getting

much from this. I am just spending too much. I'm just going to like duck out. And that's definitely something I found with friends who have kind of basically just stopped dating for like big periods of a year just because they don't want to give up the social energy. They'd rather just like cash in all of that with their friends and know that they're going to have an amazing time. So they'll just like remove themselves from the dating apps and just like quit them for like basically like a year and then maybe come back in and then just like quit it again. It's always the requit. It's like those apps when you give up smoking and it says you have saved this much money. Your lungs have got like this much health or whatever. They should have

that for the dating apps because it would be you have saved this many shit nights, this. mini shit shags this much money and you've gained like this much time because I actually think the rewards are enormous. Do you know what's so funny? One of my friends had this like really kind of unhealthy back and forth with this guy that she couldn't stop messaging. So she actually downloaded one of those like you know the addiction counter thing that tells you how many days you've been free from. Yeah, yeah. But she did it with his name. It would be like today you're six days free from and it like really helps her stay accountable because she was like sometimes I'd forget that I'd like message him. But I was also just thinking because I don't think dating can be

hot girl summer, but I think the true essence of hot car summer is actually being out wearing a skimpy clothes, dancing in a really sweaty nightclub, turning around and climbing that tall man like a tree. Cool. But I think because everything is so expensive, like I was thinking about when you go to any remotely cool bar, like I went through an obsession in my hot girl summer year of going to Art Street, which actually is famously uncool because it has like singing waiters, but I loved it. But the gun and I was there, it was so close to my flat when I moved up for my ex and I really felt like I hadn't had any freedom in that relationship and it was like COVID and stuff. So I would honestly just go there every night of the week. But the cocktails in there, I'm not joking are like 17 pounds of drink. Shut up. If you want to go out and drink, especially in London, it's like, there's not even, you can't really be chill about it and be like on a Wednesday night. Okay, girls, should we just go out to this funny bar? Because actually within like, before you've even and who's preying anymore. I mean, maybe people do. But like, by the time you've arrived there, by the time you've got two drinks,

you can't even like get drunk to get into that sort of like fizzy, fun mindset where you might want to snog a stranger, not that you have to be in need to do that obviously drink responsibly. But it's like, I think even just going out as a concept is dying, like dancing is dying, club culture is dying, especially in London. It's really hard to find places apart from in specific boroughs where you can stay out late unless you're going to someone like at Soho House, which also, by the way, is dead. Yeah, I completely agree. It's like that spontaneity that facilitates just all the kind of messiest decisions of your life,

all the ones I associate with 2019 and before, they were just like, the lifeblood of them was just getting like absolutely slaughtered on like a night that you weren't expecting it, like after work drinks, then like turning up at bar, just keeping the night going, then meeting all sorts of people. That just, I don't know. I just feel like, A, I've not had that in ages even from like a, you know, just a fun point of view, not a hookup point of view. But friends aren't having that either. It's just you can't do that without like literally footing like a what a 200 bill, a 200 pound bill on a night out which is just no one can do that. That would be obscene.

Because it's the spirit of yes. That is the spirit of Hot Girl Summit. It's the ability to say yes, I'm going to do that. Or I've, you know, I was out to meet a friend for a coffee and now we're at this ball. We're at this bar. Someone's invited us like on a house. Like, you know, it's it's the spirit of yes. And having to say no because the consequences of and it's just not fun to wake up a little bit. a hangover, but also money out of your bank account that you actually cannot afford. It just, it's the morning after from hell. And I do just think, having to say no so often, for financial reasons, just has killed that spirit of spontaneity and fun and, like, possibility that goes hand in hand with having any kind of like hot girl summer, because a hot girl summer is a summer where you don't know where you're going to end up in a night out unless you do because you've got 48 pounds. I also think it's good to say that hot girls. summer can happen in relationships. I've definitely had hot girl summers where it hasn't been about

getting with people and it's actually just been about wearing what you want to wear, whether that's conservative or whether that's like showing skin, exactly that thing of like spontaneity, freedom. You don't know where the night's going to take us. Do you think it's an age thing? Do you think we've aged out of that? Because I honestly can actually not think of the last time where that I've done that and it actually hasn't been a bit of a flop. Like I did end up going to a house party maybe like a couple of months ago, which was on a whim. It was actually like with a friend. So it was my school friend's, uni friend who I'd met that day. And she was like, come with me. And I was like, I'm going to say yes. And then I went. I was like, I don't know anyone here. And also it's

awkward. Like, everyone's Australian. Not that that's the problem. But I was like, that was just the demographic. And I was like, but so I don't know if it's an age thing, well, I'm not as good at getting stuck in. Or if our demographic just aren't as spontaneous. Or if the world has just changed in that like we don't have as much. freedom. I think it's a bit of all of the above, genuinely. And I guess our good friend Charlie X-E-X would argue that we still have, you know, another win to us, even, you know, us approaching our 30s, God forbid. But I don't know, it does, well, let's talk about Brat. How is Brat and Brat Summer the same or different to Hot Girl Summer? Would somebody be able to argue that Brat Summer is saying

that like, you know, the spirit of Hot Girl Summer is alive. We're all supposedly going out, getting like wasted and taking and or not class A's or what not on a night out. I think Brat Summer is like the twisted sister of Hot Girl Summer. To me, like Brat Summer is like her more like nihilistic twin. Like they are related, but having lived through both of them, I think that this feels, it's like, yes, go to the club, but like dance, like the world. is ending because maybe it is and everything's a bit thorough, everything's a bit dirty,

whereas hot girls on the head, I think a real like bubblyness to it. And it might just be anthropomorphising a slogan, but. No, I completely agree. Also, I've been thinking about this and what I realized, because when Brat came out, it was so inspirational to me. Like, I'd just gone to a breakup and I was like, do you know what? Life isn't over. Like Charlie's 31. I can have fun still. Like, I've come out of this really serious relationship where I thought it was going to be like this different future. But all is not a lot. So I was like, great, I can't wait to be listening to this album.

And then it just hasn't happened. And I was like, why is this? And I do think it's because spaces don't exist in the same way that they used to and because people don't have money. And so rich people can have Brat Summers. And more and more, we're noticing that, like, I guess older demographics of celebrity,

especially like women, are having these, like, amazing, quite hedonistic lives in a way that we would normally associate whatever age group it is with motherhood. I'm not talking about Charlie. I'm talking about just lots of female celebrities. And I think it's because they have access to spaces that we can't really get to. Like, where are they going out?

It looks sick, but that doesn't exist for your layperson. I honestly can't tell you a cool place to go out in London. I can't remember the last time that I went somewhere and was like, oh my God, I just found this really cool bar. Every time I do end up out for drinks with my friends and we're like, should we go somewhere else? We're all on Google Maps. Like, well, where's open? We could go to this place where it's an hour away and then it shuts an hour and a half.

Like, I think that the appetite for it is there. but I think with the closures and like residential spaces, especially in cities like encroaching in so much, there is very little outlet and to add on to the money thing, who owns a house? Like if I owned my own property, I would be throwing the sick as house parties, but we're at this weird in between age where we're not living in like eight bed strong, huge houses where the landlord knows you're a load of early 20 year old so you're going to throw house parties every weekend. We've kind of got a slight semblance of adult. but we might have her own like butter dish and a lucruse pan but like it's still not a property that we own we don't have enough space to have a party so I think does any of that make sense it's like I think we want this brat summer and everyone was very excited about it and I think the collective feeling is oh we can't yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah no I think everything I do agree with everything you said and I also agree with your definition best there is a very vibey distinction between the two there is like a level of ferreleness

to Brat Girl Summer that feels kind of a bit more like cynical and a bit more like, oh, well, fuck it. Let's just like, let's just like die then. Almost do it. Do you think it's just like a British cynicism? Do you think that's the main difference because she's English? Maybe, yeah, maybe. That's a good question. I think that is infused in it.

I think you can't remove the fact that like Charlie is a bit of a shipposter and there is that kind of like smirk with everything she does. So it does feel generally kind of a bit more like edgier and seedier. But I think that is kind of British humour as well. I don't think you can be, as we've said before, very earnest about very much without feeling hugely humiliated by it. I agree. It's just grotty, isn't it really? Are Gen Z even, like we're talking about maybe we're in the age group, but Gen Z pretty much have the same or worse financial constraints that we do. And I'm obviously not in the club to take like an age survey, but are they in the club? Are they kind of tapping into the kind of youth nightlife that is just invisible to me?

Or are they also, are they missing out on that like house party chaos in the sticky club until like the early hours time because of the cost of living crisis? I'd be quite interested to talk to like a swath of proper gen Zs who have the hunger for that but aren't doing it because it. they can't afford it either. Yeah. I keep reading so many interesting conflicting statistics on this because there's always all these articles like Gen Z don't drink. And I was found that really interesting. And there is a rise on Gen Z having much more like health anxiety

and being much more worried about what they're putting into their bodies, like including drugs and alcohol. But then I read another piece that was like actually the reason is Gen Z are much more used to being online on online spaces. They don't really like going out socializing as much. So they tend to take drugs more like shrooms. things which are more well suited to, I don't know, what they do. Gamey?

I don't know. Yeah. So it's like there's something, there was something about like it's actually just the way that we socialize, that they don't socialize as much, and how like alcohol since the beginning of time has been used as a social lubricant. People have been bonding over beer and wine since we figured out how to ferment the fruits. And so there is something to be said that, yes, Britain has a really bad relationship with alcohol and alcohol can be such a destructive drug.

but I also am such a huge believer that alcohol can be very magical, and it has been something that we have bandied around for years. I need to do more research on the Gen Z thing. Just anecdotally, when I was with my friend the other day, we were going to a gig. I'm 30, she's 33. We bumped into two of the most beautiful 20-year-old girls you've ever seen, and they were asking us where to go out, and we both pan it.

But that did give me a bit of joy de vivre, because I was like, okay, they are still out, but it was only two, and they didn't know where to go. I do think they keep us young, though, don't know? Because they always lie as well. They're like, you're not 30. And we were like, oh my God. But like, we obviously did look 30, but they were just buttering us up.

Then they were like, can you stay with us? And we were really seriously considering not going to this gig, which was like my friend's friend's gig that we had to go to. We were like, should we go? And then we were like, no, we can't. So we need the young people to sort of fluff us up and invigorate us. And actually, I think if we have a whole generation beneath us, who are not going out the same way, I think we'll wither on the vine.

I think we actually do rely on Gen Z to sort of, chases out of our houses and get us doing hot girl summers. I hope so. I mean, part of me would be terrified if I saw a club full of like people 20 years old and I was the only person like turning 30. It would make me feel a bit like maybe I should leave now.

That is what happens to me though when I do try and go out sometimes. Like me and the girls would turn out. Literally feel like with the four women from sex in the city when they turn up to that club and they're like, wait, you know, she gets to the guy and turns out, she goes back to his flat and it's like rank and she relays this all like 21. That has happened to

And also because you're so dressed up in your little heels and you're like, where is the club for the, for the 30-year-olds? I don't know why I weren't American then. So one thing I will say is I love Pussy Palace just because they've explicitly done nights out for 25-year-olds and above, which has gone down a storm online and has been pretty divisive. But, you know, good for them for fighting the good fight. Pussy Palace is a queer night out run by women of colour for women of colour. So we've gone from Hot Girl Summer, shunning, slut shaming and sexual freedom and promiscuity, to people actively giving up sex altogether. Over the last few years, there's been more than 120 million posts on TikTok about the rise of an unexpected trend, self-imposed celibacy.

So there's loads of movements that have gained traction in the media around the rise of the so-called celibacy, you know, from boy sober to decentering men. There's one called 4B, which is supposedly quite big in South Korea. But what we can see is, essentially, there's more and more reporting of women leaving sex behind and actively identifying as celibate. So what do you guys think about this? Do you think it is a case of the media inflating, what could be an anecdotal trend and making it seem as if, you know, generationally, there's this giant shift and women are giving up, Or do you think it's quite legit? Like, have you heard of friends doing this?

What's your take? I, do you know what? I was even thinking, I actually think it's quite empowering because I think what's happening at the minute, and I kind of speak about this all the time on other things, is that we've had so much progress in the psyche and the collective understanding of women's progress

towards feminism and our place in the world and creating more equality and parity. And it just feels like there is this exhaustion where it doesn't feel like men have caught up. And so we're trying so hard to come this far and the men aren't meeting us in the middle. And so often I think women are finding dating quite exhausting. They're finding the lack of emotional intelligence from men quite exhausting. And then it's like, why am I giving up, not giving up power?

It kind of is that, I guess. I don't necessarily want to sexually engage with men because I find it draining. It's upsetting. In some ways, it's kind of making me feel a bit devalued. And so I'm just going to either only, you know, masturbate or whatever. or I'm just going to not have sex for a bit and contain that power. And I do think there's this growing rise in sort of quite spiritual leaning beliefs, which I don't know if also just happens when you're 30,

because I've also started becoming a bit more woo-woo. But just this idea of like re-grounding, re-owning your sexuality, because whilst I do think you can be super liberated by having lots of no strings of text, and I do think that every woman should go through a slut era, if that's something that you want to do, I do think it's something that imagine lying on a deathbed and being like, I didn't have loads of sets. I was right about being called a slut. It's like one of life's pleasures, go get it. But I also do you think maybe there is something to be said for

completely re-centering in terms of like not having sex. I think there's something quite interesting and powerful about it, even if it's just for like a period of time. And yeah, I do have friends who have maybe started off accidentally kind of like not having sex for a bit. And then it's like, after a while you kind of don't want to have sex and then getting back out that's quite hard. people say that with women, the longer they're single, the later in their life, it gets much, much harder to try and introduce a heteronormal relationship into that because statistically women actually don't benefit in heteronormative relationships. And so the older you get and the longer that you're single, the more you're like, this is kind of actually better. This is the scam. I agree with all of that. And I think talking to my friends, I'm surprised more people aren't trying celibacy. I think more of my friends will. I think more of my friends will. I think, as people break up with husbands, and I'm going to talk about women, but we'll get on to the topic of men. I think with women, because our sexuality normally is born, like a healthy sexuality is, I think, born by ourselves.

I think men maybe learn to have pleasurable sex by the having of sex, whereas I think women learn pleasure alone. So I think there's something almost like coming home about not having sex because there's not that same pressure in young women. And, you know, you want to lose it. You want to, like, join your friends in, like, the, not, no virginity club. But there's not the same pressure of, like, I need to start having sex because that's, like, almost social capital. I think it's quite comfortable and quite reassuring to kind of come back to that. There's no huge concern, like sort of in-cell movement, like volselle, voluntary celibacy, I think is quite an empowering thing. It's talked about as, yeah, like, returning home, rediscovering something.

Whereas I think when men talk about celibacy, it's always, and I guess it's, like, famous men, it's always, like, like I'm abstaining from this to get stronger. In the same way they talk about like fasting. Whereas for me or for women, I think that I've talked to, celibacy is more like, it's a kind of feast. It's like I'm actually like feasting on this. I'm getting, I'm gaining so much rather than like I'm abstaining and I'm getting stronger because I'm not having this lovely thing.

I just think there's such a different, even as like more famous people talk about it. Like Andrew Garfield talked about being celibate. Lenny Kravitz, I think is celibate. And then there's like women who talk about it. the difference in how they talk about it is really stark. And I bet some of my male friends are celibate, but it's not something we would talk about over tea,

whereas me and the girls are delving right in. That's such an interesting point about the language used around it, because, yeah, I've, this is such a bizarre thread, but I follow loads of different Reddit accounts in the hopes of finding stuff to write about. And one of them is like the communities built around like not masturbating like no fat and men trying to give up porn. And it very much is languaged in a way that is, as you said, Beth, fasting and denial and discipline. And it feels very strict and militant.

Whereas, yeah, I mean, the way Julia Fox very recently has spoken about choosing to be celibate feels like, as you said, inviting more energy into her life and inviting. inviting, you know, joy and happiness and it feels like open. It feels like inviting and lovely and embraceful of like a new life. It's so, it's so interesting, isn't it? And yeah, I don't know. I would love to, I would love to unpick what is going on between those two communities and maybe that's why, maybe that's why we're in the position we find ourselves in where women are deriving joy from doing that, whereas men feel like they have to do that for some reason. I do think as well, we need to talk about the orgasm gap and how that plays a part into this. So, you know, lots has been, lots has been written about the fact that in heterosexual relationships or

hookups, women often don't derive the same pleasure that men do. I've got some stats from a 2023 Guardian article that said, according to Jurex, straight men have four times as many orgasms as straight women, although that fudges the figures a little. 20% of men and 5% of women answered, always when asked whether they orgasm during sexual encounters. So it is, you know, considerably different. That's so interesting. And it goes back to the thing that you said, Beth, which I haven't thought thinking about since you said it, which is that men find pleasure in other people and women find pleasure in themselves. And every single woman that I know mostly started off having sex as an act of service to a man and an act of, you know, getting, having your virginity taken from you, becoming a woman in that sense of like having experienced sexuality. And then it wasn't until maybe much farther down the line that they either discovered masturbation or discovered that their own pleasure should.

have been at the forefront of that sexual activity. I think that with the internet, I don't think that sex education is getting better, as we've seen with laws that are trying to regress what we talk about in terms of queer sex as well. I don't know if sex education in schools is actually maybe getting worse. My sex education was terrible, but that was like 15 years ago.

So I do think there's something so interesting as well about women always having had the ability to find more pleasure with themselves. Obviously, we have to hope that as time goes on, or just generally that women find pleasure and sex, but I do think that, like you said, with the orgasm gap, retura, it's when, also I don't know, it depends on the definition of celibacy, because some people do define celibacy as excluding, including masturbation as well. I wanted to ask you, Beth, because I hadn't seen this,

could you expand on what Andrew Garfield was saying about his celibacy and Lenny Kravitz? Is this voluntary celibacy, and did they explain why they were doing it? I'd love to know more. Yeah, so Andrew Garfield, I heard on Mark Maron's podcast, WTF, and he was talking about it. I think it was six months he was celibate for a film role. This was, I think, about eight years ago. So he was celibate for six months and at the same time he was fasting. So I think those two were very tied up together, like the combination of eating very little and having no sex. He didn't, I don't think he said whether he was self-pleasureing by assuming that was probably a part of it.

And he was like it was a wild experience, like it, you know, it was like a mind-opening experience. but really, I mean, short term, obviously, it depends on your attitude to sex. That's probably for some people like a lifetime. But Lenny Kravitz has been, this was earlier this year I read this, Celebrate Film, nine years, I think. So it hasn't also had relationships in that time. And I always thought of Lenny Kravitz and still do as like, you know, very liberated, very sexy. Like, I saw his Willie pop out of his pants that time.

And I watched that gift again and again. Wait, what? Do you not seen that? He was on stage, bless his heart. And he, like, he'd sat down or like, he like, He kind of went on his haunches in a pair of trousers, and he just split down the seam. And his really just, it leaps from his trousers. So I sort of associated him with kind of free-balling, Willie Leaping, like, complete sexual liberation.

And I read this piece where he talks about, and I think for him it's more about control and emotional, like, peace and energy levels, because nine years is a very, very long time. That's more of a lifestyle change. And I know Julia Fox is like two or three years into hers. That is the kind of thing that I think to turn around on, like you couldn't just. So I think they come out at Lenny and Andrew from very different points of view. It's like one was an exercise in, I don't know, like crafting a role for a film and like pushing a mindset. But the other is like a full life.

It's kind of a kind of monkery. Also quickly talk about, I just remember something I read about how to bring up Tommy Fury. I didn't know this, but apparently boxes before games aren't meant to engage in sexual or sexual activity so that they restore their testosterone prior to games. Oh, what? Trying to fight, sorry.

I don't know if that's true in any other sports. I read that summer on a gossip website and they were like, clearly he wasn't following that rule because obviously there's been no rumours about him cheating. And that's so I also think him being a shit boxer. Yeah, I also think it's interesting where women, you can obviously get pent up sexual energy But I think that there's often lots of conversations.

If you ever read stuff about when people call a vagina a yoni, I can't remember on it, but that kind of spiritual idea of the yoni, like it being your guiding force, there's so much to say that a woman, a vagina, and all of the parts of a female genitalia is, it's the lifeblood of life. It's like a house.

It's like a home. It's so many things. Whereas with men, if they don't ejaculate, as like the in-cell community will say, or like you literally hear like blue balls, it's going to impact them, it's going to be. So there's definitely also just like a different kind of tension in terms of that restriction. I think for women can feel empowering, and it's

almost like we take it in-house and we take that power and energy for ourselves. Whereas with men, it sounds like it becomes external, like they want to fight. And like, I don't know how much of that is even true logistically, or if it's just our socialized ideas of sort of like, men are full of testosterone and women are not, because as we know, women have testosterone to varying degrees. some men could have less, et cetera. Gender is not as binary as we perceive it to be. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's hard to unpick what is socialization at this point, but I would go for it and say that I reckon that those two things are down to how we've been socialized and possibly religious scriptures, kind of boiling down to how we live our lives now. One thing I'm really interested in as well is just celibacy obviously was so rooted in the idea of religion and religious morality. and what women should do in terms of living their lives and not do. It's really interesting to see that there's been a new co-opting of celibacy

to be explicitly not about religion and also be almost like explicitly feminist to decenter men and all of that kind of stuff. Do you think that that is true? Do you think that women are doing it and it's, you know, not at all to do with religion? What do you think is going on? would say people do get more spiritual with age as a rule. I would say it is probably about connecting to some sort of to see what life is like when you live it a slightly different way. But everyone I know who's doing any kind of period of voluntary celibacy or otherwise who's a woman

probably began it as a romantic, romantic exercise. So like they were saying, I actually just don't want to have, you know, bad sex anymore. I don't have casual sex. I'm going to have sex only with men that demonstrably care about me and respect me. And the depressing thing is that actually ended up looking like no sex at all because that was so thin on the ground. And I think I can see, and maybe I just don't know enough people that are openly kind of talking about their religion and their kind of relationship with God or higher power. But I've only really seen it as in kind of relation to the self and it's inherently feminist because it is related to the relations between men and women and the inequality imbalance there. It's like a correcting of that. If society won't correct,

I think people are correcting it in themselves, they're not fucking. I agree. I was going to say it's like every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Thank you. Albert Einstein. And so with the rise of in-cell culture and with the rise of Andrew Tates and men very much wanting to take women, own women, possess them, very obsessed with virginality and just their own kind of of body count, etc. I then think, like you brought up in South Korea, the women that are choosing to not have sex. It was making you think of, and I'm now on Wikipedia that are the really good source. Lesbian feminism is a cultural movement and critical perspective that encourages women to focus their efforts, attentions, relationships, and activity source fellow women

rather than men, and advocates lesbianism as the logical result of feminism. Lesbian feminism is most of the influential in the 70s and early 80s, primarily in North America and Western Europe, which is such an interesting thing historically to look at, which is kind of, I think, what's happening in South Korea, where women are kind of deciding that, well, we're not going to have sex with men. I don't know if they're having lesbian relationships, but it's also making me think that just anecdotally, again, a lot of my friends are having queer awakenings in their 30s, whether or not those, I'm sure that those queer feelings and attractions existed before, but I think that the liberation to actually act on them is also being born out of the fact that, like I spoke about earlier, there is an exhaustion happening in heterosexual relationships, not everywhere, and obviously there are some amazing heterosexual relationships happening, but I do.

do you think the exhaustion comes from maybe not even own personal experience, but just conversations and also this huge rise in famicide and misogyny and terrorism of acts of violence against women are, it's creating this massive rift and, I guess, lack of belief in the love story between men and women that we were taught to and socialised to believe in for such a long time. And so I don't think that the people in my life are enacting their queerness as a me. means to, like as a cultural kind of fight against this. But I do think that a lot of my friends now that have come out of relationships are going, actually, I think I'm going to date women. Obviously, there's a level of attraction. It's not just an act of like resistance. Resistance.

Exactly. But that is also really interesting, I think. And I don't know if you guys have noticed this as well. Yeah, it is interesting. I don't, I can totally see that across the board and I can see that through my social media and maybe I'm just plugged into the right channels. But anecdotally from my friends, I think it's a bit different and I'm not seeing that play out in the same way, but it's definitely what I'm seeing, yeah, through social media and, you know, especially like in the last, I would say three years. I don't know what it is, but it definitely feels as if I'm seeing a lot more people talking about having their queer awakenings and up until then having been in, you know, mostly strictly platonic, not platonic, sorry, heterosexual relationships. So, you

yeah, that is, I think that is a thing for sure. Because we are encouraged now to explore, or there's space now to reconsider romantic and sexual dynamics because people are not doing the, or like people who begin their relationships heterosexual and then, as is quite normal, realise about themselves that's not who they are. I think because we're not meeting someone at,

meeting a husband at 21, marriage, a little way down the line, 2.5 kids later, there's such a wide open space to do things differently. And I do think considering how sex is, sex with men is like, wielders like a tool of oppression, like reproductive rights and, you know, it is the tool by which men hurt us a lot of the time. I think it's a wonder a lot of people do stick with it as long as they do. And I do think especially like celibacy, to me, it's like, it's like kind of weird inverse of virginity, which so exhausting to be like a teenage virginity is like weirdly titillating to men it's prized it's like the kind of it's a way that they hate us and suppress us and want to control us i think celibacy almost

feels like or celibacy and um or celibacy from having sex with men almost feels like a protest i know that wasn't what you were talking about and only but it does almost feel like a fuck you to all the the kind of system of men who got excited by the idea of the I was a teenage virgin, the kind of idea of one day being a celibate older woman, like, good luck getting titillated by that. I just think there's something that feels empowering about it, that feels like an act of rage versus something quite peaceful. That's not a fully formed thought, but I just thought of like virginity as a very stressful time in a woman's life of like, when will I lose it? Will I lose it in the right way? Celebrity is almost like the grown-up sister

and getting to be like sexist in the right way. The four-be movement of, and South Korea is a feminist action advocating a boycott of dating, marriage, childbirth, and sex. It's facing challenges as it gains international attention, including online harassment of activists, risks of misrepresentation in the media and potential political exploitation, all of which threatened to overshadow. So it's literally women taking the power of their pussies and using it as a means to be like, we can take this away from you. And for so long, I hope that didn't sound like I was undermining it,

But for so long, even the fact that we call people like, you're such a pussy, as if it's really weak, and there's that really tried 2016 feminist thing that's like, how is the pussy weak when it lets you push the baby out, whatever? But it is this thing, it's that women have so much power over men because of their straight men, because of their sexual desires towards us. And for so long, like you were saying, Beth, that has been used as a weapon against us and actually taking it away.

It just shows how much power we have. So it is one of our most powerful things. and I always find it so interesting when men like Andrew Tay or are just using as a casual for that kind of man talk about desiring virgins because as a woman who's now single at 30, I don't know how old Andrew Te is, but I'm assuming he's older than me. The idea of sleeping with someone who's a virgin, it makes me feel physically sick. The idea of taking, of putting, I don't know, I just like, just leave people who, obviously that could be someone who's a virgin who is my age, but even that I would still find very uncomfortable. Like I think that I always, grappled this. Whenever men date much younger or find that purity and innocence attractive in women, I find it so alienating and strange because I find that quite upsetting and I feel always maternal to anyone who is much younger than me or is very sexually inexperienced. I feel very motherly. I feel very much like I want to educate them. I just find it so wild when we talk about sex, how gendered and how much we are socialized to have these beliefs. Because for most, almost always,

women that I know, what we really desire is sexual experience, a really good language around sex, a great understanding of consent. All of these things are what are important to women in sex and the fact that men are like, yeah, I want to fuck someone who's literally never ever been in that position before. I find it so strange. And so I completely think that actually these movements, which may sound quite extreme, makes so much sense because maybe we do have to go celebrate and take it away from them to be like, look, you're not running this conversation anymore. You have no idea what you're talking about. And your desires are really fucked up and tied into some really gross things, actually,

like an obsession with youth and youngness. So this reminds me of an excellent episode that actually I did not feature on of this podcast because I was away on a trip, where you talked about the Bumble Fumble, when they did a campaign to recruit new users that relied on Celebrate, as a sort of punchline, I think it was, I might be remembering this incorrectly, them saying don't become a nun, actually please correct me because this is definitely wrong, don't become a nun, join Bumble, something like that, or don't, it's not time for celibacy, it's time for. Let me have a look.

Someone help me, yeah. I didn't realize you weren't here. Of course we shouldn't have made you do this like, great then. I did listen to the answer. So it was, you know full well about celibacy is not the answer. thou shalt not give up on dating and become a nun. That's so offensive. And I think dating apps are,

I mean, it's quite rich for a dating app to sell themselves that way because dating apps are, even though they have been such a huge part of my hot girl summons of the past, they're such an imperfect vessel. They're the source of so much controversy, of so much misery. Earlier this year, a proposed class action lawsuit was filed by six people against match group,

which is the company. that owns and operates, I think, the biggest portfolio of online dating apps in the world, which includes Tinder and Hinge, Plenty of Fish, OKCupid. And within this proposed class action suit were accusations that the apps contained features that were game-like and addictive, basically trapping users in this circular system of having to pay to play and gamifying the experience of finding love instead of doing what they were advertising, which was making love, and finding relationships. relationships easier. And I don't want to linger specifically on this lawsuit, but I do think it is

representative of a shift in attitudes to dating apps and attitudes to using them as a tool for love. That's something I have used a lot and we can all talk about our own experiences if we feel like this is a safe space. But the more I talk about them, the more I read about them, the more I think about them, I'm finding them not so much like a tool of finding love, but more just like another roadblock on the way. And I do think attitudes have shifted. And when my friends talk about taking a little break from dating apps, it's almost always a shorthand for, I'm depressed about them, I need to feel better, kind of like giving up sex. I need to breathe. I need to feel good. I'll go, I'm not going to use the dating apps, which is kind of crazy when you think about what

they once represented, which was an open, like opening the whole world of dating potential. they're now like a chore. So when I did my let's talk about dating the other day, one of the submissions was, which goes back to our cost of loving subject, they were like people that can afford to boost themselves on these apps have better chances of like meeting the...

Because it is also kind of hierarchical. Like Hinge does that thing where it'll show you like picks of the week. Like the algorithms do figure out who the most eligible and potential users are. So if you can afford to boost yourself or like pay, that all of them now have these like premium subscriptions

it's like that is not right we shouldn't have to be paying to meet people it's so fucked up I guess it's the natural end game of you know late stage capitalism that we're literally kind of paying to meet people connect yeah it it feels so wrong

but what was your experience of dating out for Chira so I remember joining them I think I would say like 2016 was the first time I joined Tinder And yeah, all the classic stuff of thought it was really exciting, couldn't believe that like all the awkwardness of meeting somebody and chatting to somebody had been eliminated. You could just automatically know that somebody liked you. And that for like, you know, associate anxious young data felt incredible. And then all the various transitions of hinge during its heyday was like fucking brilliant. All the hotties were on there was having the best time.

And then right at the end. So, yeah, that 2019 year I mentioned just feeling so despondent about using them and feeling like a piece of meat and having to, you know, I guess sell myself and, you know, find pictures and look at myself through this like really gross lens of being like, well, what would somebody think of this? Well, what would somebody think of this answer? Am I funny enough? You know, what's a really quippy line to make somebody potentially fall in love with me? It's just a horrible, it's a horrible way to think of. can look at yourself. And I just had enough, so I quit them. Tried to meet people in person, was lucky enough to be able to do that. But yeah, I fully, fully, fully sympathise with anyone who feels as if dating apps makes them feel terrible about themselves, you know, the constant messaging, the ghosting, all of that kind of stuff. I definitely felt that when I was on it for sure. What about you, Beth? It's so mad that you said 2016 and you got on them, there was a spirit of excitement, And then 2019, which like three years is not a long time,

and that's like the length of time it took for you to get sick of them, for them to start doing more harm than good. I think that's the case for a lot of people, but they do stay on them longer. I downloaded, I think it's my second year of uni. And everyone was, I think it was just like the advent of tender, and we were all so excited about it. And that is like maybe a decade.

I think that's a decade of my life. No, just under a decade of my life on and off the app. My whole adult dating experience has been centered around. It's not the only way of dated, but it's primarily, has centered around the apps, which I think I'm not particularly pleased about, and I kind of wish there wasn't a redo button for some of it. Do you know what? Same as me, I downloaded the dating apps, second year of uni.

We all downloaded it. There were seven of us or eight of us living in our uni house. We all downloaded a day to attend at the same time. But we used it in the same way that we used to use our phones when we first got phones. So we would download Tinder be like, ha ha, ha, oh my God, that's that guy we saw in the club. We'd match with them, probably not talk to them. And then because the university, I was at Cardiff, it was like, you were kind of seeing people all the time. So you would match with something, be really exciting because you'd probably bump into them, like, outside your lecture.

So you wouldn't actually talk to anyone. It was so easy to meet people and it would just kind of show you. But we would then just forget about it for a bit. And then we'd remember and be like, oh, let's go on Tinder. And we'd all, like, sit around the table doing it. Whereas now, and it was like such a give or take thing, whereas now it's like, oh, you're single. when are you going to download the apps? And I read a really interesting statistic,

which I have no idea where it was or when I read it. So I'm just basically mating it up. But the essence of it was the longer someone is on a dating app, the less likely they are to meet someone. The people that end up getting married from the apps are the people that have a breakup, download it, match someone, and then they get married. Very often when you hear people talk about having married someone from a dating app,

they'll be like, oh, it was the first, first time I've matched. Because it's often people that haven't been on them from very long that have maybe not used them before, have really good, like maybe really aware of what they're looking for, find that person, manage to get off the app and then they get married. Whereas what even I noticed when I have downloaded them like various points during my singleness, I'll download them. And the same people that came up four or five years ago are just spinning around and also on all of the apps, whether it's Ray, a hinge or Bumble. There was a point when I like tried to download all three. And I was like, it's the same people are just coming up. And that kind of

put me off as well because I'm like if you've been on this app for like five years you're obviously not looking for anything or you're stuck in this horrible thing where you're going on dates you've got so good at it that like you've forgotten what you're looking for or even forgotten how to sort of really believe that this person could be the one because there might be someone else coming along yeah yeah yeah and I think there's a few things going on with dating apps. One, it's made dating slash connecting with people feel like a job. I feel like the way friends talk about it is, oh, I've got to put in a shift, you know, on the dating apps. You know, oh shit, I forgot to get back to this person. Give me like an hour. I need to get back to my messages.

It, like, it feels like going through your emails in a way that's like very unsexy and very unfun, which has removed the joy of it in a way. And then also one thing I remember from my time on apps, for all I said about feeling like a piece of meat, the way I, you know, viewed people on apps was like they weren't real. They were just like these images. So it felt like I could always find someone who was funnier or better if I just like swiped small and like just went through a few more people. It doesn't feel like anyone is a real person until you meet them and go on a date.

Whereas when I, when I, you know, ditch the apps and I was like trying to meet people in person, I'm so taken in by charisma and Riz. And, you know, if somebody's really funny, it's almost like completely secondary. like, I don't know, what their favorite sport is or like where they went on holiday or, you know, even what they look like to a degree because all of that stuff becomes a package in front of you and it's like so much more attractive. That's so true. And I wrote about that in my book, Romancey Your Life, about that period which I mentioned at the top of the episode in 2018

when I was just like fresh out of a breakup and doing like quite chaotic dating. And I was using the apps in, I think, quite cruel way. And luckily I snapped out of a book quite quick. but it was quite unfeeling. I was, I was absolutely collecting matches, like swiping as though I was playing like a Pokemon game or like shopping the sales, like add man to basket, add man to basket. And like I would kind of like come to and be like hundreds of matches, no connections. And it was just literally was dopamine sensation seeking, looking for validation in the form of like a little number on the screen. It says, okay, I'm attractive to another man. Okay, he would consider having sex with me. And it just like filled a variant. to your whole. And I, I, because you can't tell someone's intentions, a lot of those men probably were looking for relationships. There was no like, still sign on my profile that said she is here for bad reasons, not like cruel, not necessarily cruel reasons, but she's, you know, they were swiping probably with good intentions and I was there like drooling on my screen,

just like trying to feel something. And I do think they do encourage that bad behaviors, you know, they encourage them the same way that our endless regenerative. social media feeds do and I don't have the willpower necessarily to use them in a better way. I think a lot of people, other people don't. And because it's love, the thing that we kind of all socialised, the prize, we kind of think, okay, if we put enough into this, that's what I'm going to get so it's worth it to spend 10 years on the apps, whereas actually a lot of it, I think, can be sunk cost and actually make us not very good at dating in person. I think it sounds like Richard, you got out at a good time and also knowing it. It sounds like you.

the periodic downloading of them, trying them out and then ditching them is the only way to do it that doesn't melt your brain a bit. And I did, I really stayed on them too long. So, oh, God, I have so much to say exactly what you said, Ritterer, and I don't want to say this gang, because I did say this on my adult thing I said about dating, but the thing is, and I won't be the first to say it, but men cannot convey who they are via their dating out. I don't know what it is. women are so much better. I don't know if it's just we have more pictures of us, but I find it really easy to ascertain a woman's vibe, her energy, what kind of personality she has, even if her prompts are like nothing, it's so easy to tell. Men, all of us are like zooming in like, is he good looking? Oh, wait, no, not in that picture. Oh, no, he's quite good looking at. Oh, wait. And like, I don't know why, but it's so hard to tell what a man's like. So we will match people on the off chance that maybe they're attractive. And then more often than not, men are way better looking in real life than they are on the app. They're way more interesting. And we also have all these biases as women, I think, which is funny because, first of all, if you've ever looked at women on dating apps, there are millions of gorgeous women, like, is actually kind of upsetting. That kind of makes you feel to fetus because you're like, why would anyone pick me?

But men, if a man says he's looking for a relationship, it makes me, even if I was looking for a relationship, I'm like, don't want to go out with them because I obviously just going to go out with anyone. If they say, like, too much about their personality, I'm like, you're a bit, I'm saying don't want to date you. If they say too little, I'm like, oh, okay, you think they're too cool. If they link their Instagram, I'm like, why are you looking at Instagram? If I can't find them online, I'm like, well, I can't stalk you. So I don't want to be with you. Like, there's so many things. Whereas I find that I've had amazing connections with loads of people throughout my life. Maybe I just, I do find it easy to be attracted to people. I don't know. But like when I meet people in real life, there's a really broad spectrum of people that I will find attractive and could fancy and could kiss. But on a dating out, I'm like, there's absolutely not one person here. And then I'll do what you said, Beth, where I'll match loads of people, be like, great, that will be sat on my matches. And then one of them will message me.

And I'm like, oh, I didn't want you to message me. And I'm like, well, why did I match them then? Like, I'll always be like, oh, it's not the one that I wanted. Do you think setting people up is the answer? Because I was at a festival recently talking to a single woman who was, she was like, I don't do the apps. I just don't do them, never have, never will. I need to, you know, go out in the world to snog people.

do you have any single male friends? And I think very highly of all my, like, all the men I know, but I was sort of rack of my brains going like, who could I? Because it's, I don't think I've ever set you people up, but I think it's such a beautiful idea. Also then, like, you're guaranteed to get like a good seat of the wedding because you brought all together. But I was like, racked my brain thinking like, who would I, in the roster set up with who? Maybe it's because I think more highly of my female friends, no, no, no, I couldn't possibly do that. But Unless I'm like looking at the past with like kind of fake nostalgia, people did use to get set up. That was a thing that happened.

I think it's a really nice thing that we should maybe do more of. Would you get set up and only if I said I know someone would you go, oh God, who's a weirder friend going to be? Well, no, I'd love to be set up. I was going to say my sister was set up with her husband. But by a male friend because I agree. So they were friends through rugby and he was like, this guy. I said to my sister, I got this amazing guy, I think I'm going to love him. She was like, final gone a date with him.

But, like, saw a picture of him and she was like, I don't really think I'm going to fancy him. And now they're like, really in love. Oh, perfect story. So that's really cute. But I would love to be set up. But I agree. I sometimes have women being like, do you have anyone I can set you up with? And just because I know my guy friends too well and know that they maybe like goes to someone in the past, whatever.

I don't want to be responsible. I think it's a nice thing. But I remember actually talking to my ex about this because he had a single friend. And I kept being like, why don't we say, up so and so with him and he was like, I just don't want to be responsible for if that goes wrong. Yeah. And like, I know he can be a bit of a fuck boy. And then it's like, what if that then impacts our relationship? So I think it is a nice idea. But I also just do you think there's a death of single eligible men. Every single woman that I know is clever, funny, really

attractive, beautiful, very successful. And then I have like two kind of hot single friends that are men. That's it. No, I agree. My two cents on the set up thing is I have a different point of view. Me and another female friend was set up by one of our really good friends with two of her male like UD. chums or whatever. And it went terribly. Like we both really liked each respective person. Went on a few days and then it just ended like horrendously for me.

And then it ended horrendously for my friend as well. So yeah, we had to navigate the awkwardness of that friendship with our like bestie who'd done it. it and it was really fucking difficult. But yeah, I agree about the death of hot men. Every single female friend I have who is heterosexual has said this for years and has said that it feels as if there is competition to, I guess like, this is horrible language, but this is how they've said it feels to like nab a really great guy. And it feels as if it becomes really competitive at a house party when, you know, all the single

female women. I, the eligible bachelor in the room, and it becomes really competitive to, like, charm the shit out of him. And, like, it, yeah, it just, the power imbalance feels really off. Again, when we were doing that, like, let's talk about a thing. People were saying that a lot of the time women will stay in, like, not so great relationships, because they've managed to find one of the good ones in Alberta Comments, even though they maybe aren't, like, that happy in their relationship. It's like, well, I've got one.

And it sounds like the streets are crazy right now, so I'm just thinking they're going to keep him. And I think this is true of across the board all relationships where as you get older people do fear singleness so much that they will stay in relationships that perhaps aren't working just because they think that's better. But then I think this means, and I made the statistic up and I said it on my dating podcast, I think this means maybe like 20 to 30 percent of people in relationships are in them because they don't want to be single, which means that probably loads of people's loves of their lives are married to like the wrong person. That's devastating. That's absolutely devastating to think about. I think that is true. And it's values as well, because some people will know that, but, you know, be quite happy because the tradeoff is, okay, but I've got security and I've got, you know, some great compatibility and I've got, I can build a life with someone at this age rather than, you know, rolling the dice on, and I think being single is fantastic and you can every moment of it can be kind of mined for some kind of, like, self-growth and joy. But there is an element of, I've got to roll the dice and hope for the perfect person. And I do think there's maybe we passed through the time of like loves of lives and, you know, the fairy tale and people went, this is pretty good. And I'm going to stick with this because, yeah, the stories that come out. And I was single for such long time, I was telling the stories that and not for the faint of heart. It is, it can be quite bad at there. We'll say, though, that there is a round of divorce is coming up where a lot of great men will be, you know, back on the streets after. you know, 10-year marriages in the 20s. So, you know, it is a pool that will refresh itself

because those divorcesics do not lie. That's what I was going to say, speaking to single friends who are women, who date men, they've said the exact same thing. They were just like, I'm just going to enjoy however long I have to, because I now just feel confident that, like, if there is somebody for me who's in a relationship, they probably will just come on the market and, yeah, I'll just have a good time in the meantime. If you listening are a user of a dating app or a hater of a dating app or have found a way to date without using the apps, we want to hear from you at Everything is Content Pod. Send us your stories. Send us your tips. How are you having or how have you had a Hot Girl Summer that involves love, sex and romance without using one of the dreaded apps we need to know? Maybe let us know if you think this is the end of an era with Hot Girl Summer. Maybe the seasons are changing. Maybe everyone's doing cozy girl winter, cuffing season.

to mure autumn. Either way, we're coming up to the end of summer. So let us know, what are you looking forward to? Are you keen to cuff? Are you trying to bag somebody for the winter? Are you going celibate? Are you back on the apps? We want to hear it all.

Thank you so much for listening. If you've enjoyed the podcast, please share it with a friend. And please give us a nice review. We would love to hear what you think. And if you haven't yet, you can follow us on Instagram and TikTok at Everything is Content pod and drop us a message to keep the conversation going and email us we've been loving your emails see you next week bye bye do you say bar again