Cuties and the Oversexualization of Children in Our Culture
00:09Hello and welcome to the Psychiatry and Psychotherapy Podcast.I'm here to talk about getting rid of burnout, increasing job satisfaction, and feeling likean expert in what you do.One thing that created a lot of burnout and angst for me was trying to get continued medicaleducation right at the last minute.So why not join the CME membership and do CMEE while listening to this podcast?Go to Psychiatrypodcast.com.Sign up, sign in, take the test, and the certification is emailed to you in seconds.
00:35Welcome to the psychiatry and psychotherapy podcast.We are joined today with three of my colleagues, Dr. Carlina Osorio, a geriatric psychiatrist.We work closely together here at Loma Linda.I have Randy Stenet.He is the lead therapist over at a more inner city FQC center.He is actually the big guy there.Yeah, he's like the therapist.He manages the whole thing.
01:07manages the whole thing, manages the psychiatry department too, right?Yeah, yeah.And doing a great job.And he was on prior episode on PTSD and sort of his journey into psychotherapy.And then we also joined by Maddie Ulrich.She was on a prior one with Dr. Cummings on pedophilia.Maddie is in the think of it.Oh, wow.
01:32She's in the think of it this week.I'm like, Maddie, next week you can do whatever topic you want.I'm not going to restrict you.I'm not going to make you do any more torturous topics.But no, but she said, Maddie said to me at lunch today, she said she was really excitedabout this topic because she's passionate about this idea of the potential for mediato over-sexualize children and to therefore, you know, create a sort of a sexual drivein other people, in adults watching it for children.
02:07And so that's one of the big reasons why I was blown away that this movie was released by Netflix called Cuties.And I put up on my social media that I was dropping my Netflix account as a sort of a protest.And there was a mixture of responses.Most people were like, oh, absolutely, that's horrible.Some people watched the movie and were thoughtful and made some thoughtful comments.And, you know, I think through this episode, I'll explain my thought process and hopefully we'll get some thoughts from the research.And so if you haven't watched the movie, you don't need to to listen to this.We're going to be talking about the over-sexualization of children in our culture in general and the influences of that.
02:54We'll talk about sexual abuse.We'll talk about media and how media influences us.And so, yeah, welcome to the story.the show, guys. Thank you. Thank you for having us. So maybe we should start talking about some of theactual scenes from the movie cuties that were disturbing and why we thought they were disturbing. And soDr. Sorio, do you want to start us off? Most disturbing scene to you? For me, the most disturbingscene is when they throw holy water on an 11-year-old girl on a little tank top and panties.and she's moving like very sexual, sort of like twerking, and the camera is just focused on her butt.
03:42So for me, when I saw that scene, I literally, I felt like this huge desire to throw up,and I just really couldn't see the whole thing.because I think about me when I was a girl.I think about the little girls that I know.I think about my one million patientswho had been sexualized, victimized, rapebecause now this is supposed to be normal.Yeah.
04:13Rani, Maddie.So I think for me, every dance scenehad something in it that I had to turn away.I'd look away from the screen.These are 11-year-old girls.Right.And I cannot help but think that the producers, those who designed how the camera shots will be conducted,were clearly intentional about getting shots of these girls' pelvic regions.
04:44They're behind.There were some open leg dance scenes, crotch shots, so to speak, on the camera.Right.And I had to look away several times and then kind of stop and reflect to myself, like, did I just see that?Did they just make this?You know, this was not designed or marketed to be a child pornographic movie, but clearly the lines were crossed.Clearly, there was blurring of the distinctions.Yes.
05:15So I'm going to follow up on that.So I was talking to a friend of mine, she's 26.And when she was in high school, she was a cheer.So she said, well, you know, I have seen a lot of cheer and there's a lot of twerking and things like that.So I said, you know, let me just watch the movie, you know, because it might just be like cheer dancing.But for her, she said, when she saw the movie, what she noticed was that the camera was focusing on the gender areas of the little girls, not on the overall dance.Correct.Yeah, they zoomed in.
05:50a lot. They did. Yeah. It was clearly intentional and purposeful. Yeah, I think one of the mostdisturbing scenes to me was when they were trying to get into the dance, this like dance place,and there were security guards. The laser tag? Yeah. And they start like, they start like dancing andlike twerking or whatever in front of the guys. And this like older dude who's like really grossis like totally into it. The way how he's looking. Yeah, his eyes got.Yeah. So even the other guard tells him, like, I even wrote a note on that because it was so disgust, this, he told him, like, you're not doing this, right?Yeah, he said something like that.Implies that he was doing something horrible.
06:42Yeah, wrong.Grody.Yeah.And, you know, the one thing that people wrote was that, well, this was the intent of thedirector, to make people realize, like, how the media is influencing young kids and how the kids areemulating this and imitating this. What would you say to that? Yeah, because that was the intent.The director did say that they quoted her a few times, and she was saying I wanted to point out,like, how media influences young girls, like how they see all this stuff and want to imitate it,
07:14and she wanted to shed light onto that subject. So I think there are ways to do that, right? So do I have toburn my house to make a point.Right.Do you, I mean, my, my, the thing that kind of came to you was do you, do you violate littlegirls?Yes.To prove that you shouldn't violate little girls.Yeah.
07:35Because even in the filming of something like this, like I would never let my daughter dosomething, film something like this.No amount of money could have been offered.Right.To, to get a, you know, to get you to make that decision or like, I think of all.my nieces, no amount of money could have been offered to my brothers and my sisters-in-lawto make the decision, yeah, well, just let my, you know, let my daughter engage in this.I just sat there the whole time thinking, how did these 11-year-olds, I mean, they were portrayed
08:09as 11.They certainly looked at it.Yeah, the main actress is 14.Yeah, well.Still 14.Still.But they say they're 11.They say they're 11.
08:18And so for all intents and purposes, these are 11-year-old girls, how did their parents give, make the decision to allow them to be in this movie and behave in this manner?That blew me away as well.Maddie, you had an interesting argument against this thought.What were you saying?About.Specifically, you were talking about how you're not sure that that's the point that came across to you when you watched it.Oh, yeah, like, because the point, obviously, of the movie that the director said,was that she was trying to show how this was a bad thing. But like you were saying, if you go that
08:54far and you're just exploiting young girls to get that point across, like, is it worth it? Isactually making the point anymore? Like, I mean, it makes the point, I guess, but like at what cost?I think the point, it was, the point was not well made. No, it was confusing. It was quiteconfused. If the point was to shine a light that this is bad and that we should be steering girlsaway from this behavior, that point was not made.It was not made.There was some implications that maybe like it toward the very end, like, oh, these girlscrossed the line.
09:32But it was mixed because if you noticed at the last dance scene where they're up thereand those blue and black outfits and they're doing this dancing up there and then there'san audience.At one point, there was some like mothers looked like were covering the eyes.of the children, but then the camera went to a scene where there was some guy getting into it.Yeah, he was right next to the mom and her kid.So if that was the message, it was missed.It was blurred.
10:01It was not very well articulated.Well, unfortunately, I mean, would some men be into watching this?100%.Yeah, clearly.So this is where the danger is.You and me, all of us here, we can.meet, rationalize, you know, talk about the movie, but there are pedophiles out there.And they're going to have a great time watching this movie.
10:26Oh, yeah.Actually, we found, we found a screenshot on Reddit that this has been trending on a porn site.Yeah.This movie?Searches for it are in like the top 10.Two of, two searches.Here's the screenshot right here.In the top 10.
10:43Cudies movie, Cudies Netflix.Right, right next to some other horrible.horrible words.Well, and like we talked about in our last podcast, this is completely accessible.So like even people who are already convicted for sexual abuse can watch this movie whilethey're in indoors and in the hospital.My best friend is a psych tech at a state hospital and works with patients or individualswho are there as pedophiles.
11:12And he was saying that about this movie that technically the staff could not prevent itfrom being watched.They can try to persuade the patientsthat this is a bad idea,but because technically it's not pornographyand does not have nudity, et cetera,which I think that could also be argued.Could be argued, yeah.
11:32Right?They technically cannot prevent them from watching it.I want to make a second argumentthat was presented to me often on social media.It was, well, why are you getting so upset at this?why aren't you banning Instagram, TikTok, why aren't you banning like the, you know, radio or like there's so much in our culture that has super young, you know, kids, pre-pupescent kids, and kids under the, you know, legal limit acting in very erotic ways. And so I would be curious, like, what you would say to that, Dr. Sorio, or what you would say to that.Well, so I heard that argument as well.So I decided to watch like little shots of these things called dance moms.
12:21Because a lot of people were talking about like the pageant industry and all of these and that.And so I watched, you know, I never watched it before, but I was watching.And yeah, those girls are sort of sexual.I mean, they have like tank tops and everything.But the way how the camera does is they focus on the dance.Yeah.They don't focus on the bud.They don't focus on the crotch.
12:44They don't focus on the sensual movements of the girls.I'm not saying it's right.I don't like the pageant industry.I don't like none of that.But this movie is above what I have heard or seen before.So rather than it being an either or.Correct.There is a radiant of gradation, right?
13:05Of, let's say, the dance moms and some of this pageant business.and then it moves slowly in the direction of like this movie, right?Rather than it being an either or in terms of the intensity of the sexualizationor the overtness of the sexualization.Yeah, and I had never heard of dance moms before.Or toddlers and tiaras.Or toddlers and tiaras.I have never heard of that.
13:34We don't have that where I live where I'm like, I'm not going to any of those days.I'm not in the dance world, right?Yeah.But there are other people who, you know, other people said, hey, you should check out this person's page.They are against the erotization of children dancing.So there are people who are speaking out against that.And I would say, yeah, that's not good either, right?I mean, we should be careful.
13:57We should be very careful.Absolutely.Yeah.No, I also had decided to cancel my Netflix subscription.And so, but it takes a week.or two, so I was able to watch this.Yeah.But I will, right now, maintain my cancellation.
14:15And I only watched this because for this academic value, never in a million years.But I had people, professionals in the healthcare field, text me screenshots.Say, Dr. Sinette, look at this.Like, there are people in my world who are supporting this movie.and and there are very interesting reasons why they're supporting it,but one of the arguments that they tend to make is,well, look at the dance moms, look at the pageantry.You know, what about, it's like all the what abouts,
14:56as if again, this is an either-or situation, right?And I think this goes back to so many things in our culture right now,politically, socially, most everything is a bifurcation. It's either you're on one side or the other,and it's very difficult to look at things from a complex manner. Now, there are some things aboutthis that are clearly, yeah, it's unacceptable. Yeah. And I think, you know, if you are listeningto this and you're a fan of the show, like, I would be curious, you know, what your thought processand maybe you have a different thought process.But I think as a psychiatrist,
15:38the thing that I'm very concerned aboutis how sexualized content gets combined with contentthat you would not desire to combine it with.And if you combine those two things over and over and over againin front of people's eyes,the way that our brains work is that we will combine those two things.That's how I like a lot of people.fetishes and different things get started, right?
16:04Is two things that weren't meant to be combined, get combined.And, you know, anything from sadomasochism, there's case stories of, you know, the kid whowhen he's like 10, 11 years old, he's going through a lot of surgeries, he's in a lot ofpain, he's in the hospital, and he, you know, learns to masturbate in the midst of painto gratify, you know, to sort of ease and comfort himself.And then years later, it's the combination of pain and sexual,sexual acts that still sort of are needed to be happening to give him a sense of a pleasure.Right? So this is kind of like an early example of how you can combine two things. And then over time,
16:48those things get more and more wired together. The neuro circuits get more myelinated.They get, there's more, and it becomes largely unconscious then, where it's like, yeah,I don't choose to have this sexual desire.but it's been a series of events that have led to that.Yeah, even that is even more intensewhen you're dealing with two drives that get paired, right?Yeah, two drives.It's not merely like in Pavlov's classical conditioning
17:20where the bell and the Anna drive got paired.We're talking about when two drives,aggression and sexuality, for example.Yeah.Maddie, what did you find about aggression and sexualityin the research?Oh, one of the things that I saw from an article that was talking about the APA sexualization of girls, the task force, they were looking at porn.They looked at the top five porn sites, top four sites and the top five movies from each site.
17:49And just like the first scene of each movie, so not even the whole movie, they found like a 93% rate of violence in the scenes.Like violence against women specifically.Violence against women, yeah. And it's like, okay, as a culture, do we want that to be repeated in the minds of young people who are stumbling upon us?Right. So imagine, you know, I mean, Randy and I, we both work in a community clinic where there's high degrees of adversity. And we have experienced, you know, women who have been victim of human trafficking. I had the mother whose daughter, 15-year-old, was disappeared. And she had.she was part of human trafficking.And so when you show movies like this, you are sort of like, I mean, like you're sendinga message that, you know, maybe this is okay.You're sending a message to 11-year-old girls who probably are coming from broken families
18:49like, hey, this is a way to get out of there.This is something more fun.And so you are luring these little girls for the worst.And they're going to be traumatized.They're going to become victims.They're going to be raped.They're going to be drugged up.And they're going to be victims of human trafficking.
19:05Who's they?The girls.And to augment this point as well, this is on Netflix.So let's say you have some teenage girl or young kids at home during the day who can access this movie, right?And who can watch it and kind of in their mind downloads,some of the messages. But we're talking also about a movie where people are saying, oh, this,they're supposed to, this movie is supposed to kind of show how this is a bad idea and steer away.Well, you know, we in this room have extremely high levels of education. And we found it difficult
19:47to find that message. I can imagine that a young middle teenage girl who might bevulnerable, looks at this and goes, I could go down this road. This looks fun. Totally. And so they arevulnerable because they don't have the structure that they need. Number one and number two,their prefrontal cortex is not developed. That's right. They don't know how to manage all of thisemotion. So Dr. Soria, what were some of the hidden messages that you found in the lyrics and some ofthose things. Yeah. So, you know, I actually am I'm Hispanic. I'm from South America. And so I speakSpanish better than English. But, and I found that in my own culture, there is a lot of misogynism.And we have a lot of music like reggaeton and perreo, where women are really devalued. And I found a
20:43couple of songs here with horrible, horrible lyrics. So for example, when you, when the movie opens,And the girl is like dancing on the laundry and she's like low-drawing her hair with a, I mean, flattening with the iron.There is this song that says, let you know that I am not a whore.I'm a little bitch.If you want to play baby, let me tell you this.So that's sort of a piece of that.So this girl is listening and dancing to this song.I don't know.
21:16Like if I had it, I mean, would you allow your 11-year-old girl listen to this music?Absolutely not.question. And so you're sending a message to these girls that I'm a bitch, so let's playthis or whatever. And then there is another song. I don't know if I'm going to be able tolike translate this precisely, but it's where when they're rehearsing, which also the scenes arevery disturbing, it says, I'll set in Spanish first, damme puppy, papa, papa,come nobody do me baby, you take on trans. And it basically translate, give me daddy, give me daddy,like nobody else do it.
21:55Give me, give me baby so I can leave you in trans.Papi, mommy, mommy, want to give it to you.It's like, daddy, mom wanted, like, give it to you, so, you know, get ready for it.You know what I'm talking.Like, nobody else can do it.Come on and touch me.Jumping back to the violence, there's one thing I wanted to say.the thing that surprised me was how she pushes her friend in the water.
22:25Oh, my God.And her friend almost dies or the girl, you know, the competitor.And so talking about violence and erotization, it was even in this movie.And she also, and she stabs with a pen, that other kid.Yeah, she stabbed the kid in class with a pen.The kids are very cruel to each other.Very, very.And kids are cruel, you know, I mean, like, that goes on.
22:45But to the level of almost murder, it's like, it almost was like you're watching this movieand it's like, oh, is this girl going to die?And this other girl is just kind of like watching it.There was a moment where the girl that got pushed in the water was struggling.She was.She didn't know how to swim.And she was, and Amy, the main character, was standing there.Watching.
23:04Watching, not helping.And it was almost like a moment of decision.What should I do?And she took off.Well, she took off, I think, after the girl grabs.She grabbed the floaty.And then she was like, okay, I'm taking off.But still, it's.
23:19It's like, yeah, it's just the pairing of violence and sexual content so quickly after.And it's in music videos too.So it's not like kids that nowadays aren't seeing this stuff.You know, I mean, in music videos all the time I see, well, I don't watch music videos all the time.But when I have watched them, it's like violence and then something sexual, violence and then something sexual.Boom, boom, boom, boom.Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.Talk about like rapid fire gratification of two very primitive drives at one time alternating or in mesh together.
24:03The quick alternating is the pairing of those things.So that you don't feel fully satisfied unless you have one and the other.It's like at some point some of the research and looking at it has to get more violence.It has to get, you know, the dopamine response starts to require a heightening of the violence or of the sexual nature.Like a sad of masochism, right?It's like violent and sex.But the bar keeps being raised.Correct, yeah.
24:40Yeah.Yeah.And, you know, it's not like this is the only show that does that or that we could be critical of.But I think, like, as a person who's thinking about young minds, my own kids growing up,it's probably sensitized me to think, like, oh, I don't want them exposed to this.And yet, you know, it's so easy, especially with, like, YouTube.Very easy.There's so much.
25:09I mean, the Cardi B song that they were going off of, which is very erotic.The title, wet-ass pussy.That's the title.Is that the title?Yeah.And accessible to young kids because it's on YouTube.I watch the music video so that we could talk about it.There's not even like a warning before it starts.
25:31It's like there's no way you would know unless you knew what you're getting into.So like a kid could totally stumble on it because it's like the most popular song right now.Like so it's going to show up on like the feed.200, I think 200 million views.Some people are likely watching it multiple times to get those views.countups to get the view count up well let's see where else do we want to go i think we can to go backto the point where somebody mentioned where she stabbed i think dr sort of you mentioned where sheturned around and stabbed that kid in the hand that was subsequent to a scene in this movie
26:12that also was probably one of the most appalling things to a beholdwhich was this girl took a picture of her genitals and put it on some social media.And this kid saw it as did the whole class, right?And then said some comment and then she turned around and responded to him with this aggression.It's like take a moment and think, this movie wrote that into the script for an 11-year-old girl.I was absolutely, I couldn't believe it.I could not believe what I was watching.It was absolutely appalling.
26:57She also, like right before she does that,she's trying to get the phone back from her cousin.Oh, yes, yes.And she starts to undress herself.Oh, yes, trip.Yeah, to try to get him to give the phone.Yeah.Yeah, I wrote that here.
27:09She tries to sexually arouse her older cousin to what, assuage his anger.Yeah.Right?So again, it's not just the pairing of sexual.sexuality and aggression, but it's using sexuality.To get what you want.To get what you want and to appease anger.And you know what?
27:26Like, I mean, maybe a little bit of my naive world when I was watching that sin,like it happened a matter of seconds.I was like, I was like, I didn't get it.I was like, and then I'm like, oh my gosh, she's tripping to this guy.Yeah, no, I had a similar reaction.I was like, hold on.What's going on here?It was hard to process like what she's actually doing.
27:45And then I had to almost like intellectualize.it like, oh, this is what she's doing because it's such a foreign way to problem solve,you know, but yet that got road into this movie.Yeah.And so I think again, where are the young minds whose executive functioning becausetheir frontal lobes that are not fully developed to reason with this?Any child, let's say, I mean, I can't even imagine any parent would let their child watch this.But if they were to, the parent would have to sit down and explain point by point.
28:18by point what's going on and why it's not okay and this is what I mean I would never recommend thisbut that's they would have you would have to have an auxiliary frontal lobe for a child to process thisum the other thing that was really striking to me is that there was no father in this familyand the father that you know there was there was there was not present so for all intents and purposesright he was there was no father yeah he was out getting wife number two he was getting wife number twoHe was getting wife number two from their country.And so the mother was struggling with this ant figure and then the younger kids.And this child was stealing as well and lying.
29:00Yes.I mean, there was so much going on in the absence of a strong family unit.Yeah, I was thinking about hearing some of this content myself when I was super young, like third grade, beingexposed to some of the stuff and just how that shifted my worldview even. It like rockedme. You know, I'm talking about like being aware now that there is evil in the world, thatthere are truly evil people that abuse children. Like that was the age about third grade thatI became aware of that. And it really did change the way that I viewed reality. You know,And so I think the younger kids are exposed to some of this content, if it's not done in a way that's, if it's done too early, you know, I'm very careful with patients when they bring their kids in. And if they bring their kids in, if they're like, even if they're like one or two, I say, hey, look, we're not going to really talk about much today. I do the same thing. And some of the parents are like surprised. They're like, well, why not? I've had a similar response.
30:10And I'm like, well, because even at the age of two, they can understand a lot.they absorbed everything and they can feel if there's really deep they can feel sadness griefpain they'll internalize that and then may want to try to help like assuage like take care of theparent it can shift the roles yes absolutely so it can shift you from a kid to now you areparentified to some degree it can also like if if if i as a therapistsometimes struggle when my patients are telling me traumatic things to not dissociate.Like there have been moments where I'm like grounding myself in my chair because my patientsare telling me things that are so traumatic, I cannot, I mean, I know that even in college
31:05I wouldn't be able to hear some of that content without dissociating.And so, you know, it's not a good thing to have your kid dissociating because they're overwhelmed,flooded with content that is too high a level of content to take in. So I think that's whereRandy you're saying like if if you if your child was exposed to something talking systematicallybreaking it down being present with them helping them understand what's going on why it's goingon in a way that's age appropriate. Yes. It takes it takes some nuance. It takes some nuance. It takesSome nuance and kind of big picture, which has been said many times even on social media in response to this,is all of these messages could have been made without all of this sexualization in this movie.
31:58And we absolutely parents have to talk with their children about these topics because they exist in the world.but it is not necessary to have made this kind of content in order to convey that message.Correct. So the point, again, is do I need to burn my house to make a point?Exactly. Right. So I have a friend that knows this other person that she owns this place called Soul to Dance Choreography.It's an organization that talks about dance awareness, no child exploited. And so I'm just going to read what it's like at the front page of their website.In children's dance classes around the nation, young children.children are learning to dance with choreography that hypersexualize them and their bodies.These children have become covered victims of sexual exploitation in what used to be a safe place,
32:46the dance studio.Children's dance has been distorted and the art from a dance has been hijacked.As awareness grows, more and more dance educators, parents, and concerned citizens are speakingout against this cultural shift over normalizing the hyper-sexualization of children in dance.That's good.Yeah, we were talking, Maddie was looking up like other shows like Riverdale.What did you find out about that one, Maddie?Yeah, since I am still a young adult, I watch the show voluntarily.
33:24So I didn't have to look it up.I already knew about it.Okay.But there's definitely, so like the first thing is that they're like actors that are at least as old as I am.So at least 25 or older, all portraying teenagers.So they don't have teenage bodies, like, to begin with.So they, like, it's already a skewed view.Like, if I was a 15-year-old, I'd be looking at me, like, my body doesn't look like
33:46hers, but it's supposed to because she's a teenager.So there's already that distortion.But then they definitely show things that teenagers shouldn't be doing and sexualize thegirls on the show in ways they shouldn't be.For one, they do things that teenagers.don't normally do.Like they have sex very often, which teenagers, their rates are skewed.But also the way they make the girls dress on the show a lot is completely inappropriate.
34:15Like the amount of times I've seen girls on that show wearing just their underwear is like so manytimes.And it's also never teenage underwear.Like they definitely get the bras and underwear from like Victoria's Secret or something,which I would have never had as a teenager.And maybe some girls do, but it's not normal.So there's also that skewed view of like, what should I look like in my underwear as a teenage girl, which obviously you're going to think about if you're watching that show as a teenage girl.You're going to be comparing yourself to them.
34:44Like that's what all girls do.And then just like the body types that they portray, like all the popular girls, the main characters are like beautiful slim women with long hair.And like there's a few girls who aren't like that on the show, but they're not the main characters.And their characters are not developed.and they're usually seen as like dumb or like not doing the right things.They're definitely not seen as like someone you would want to identify with.I've noticed all of those things.I mean, I've never seen the show, but I can imagine that to use non-miners in this way to act as minors.
35:24Which a lot of TV shows are doing right now.That's a way that the producers of these shows can get around.any maybe potential legal pitfalls.Yeah. But it's so insidious.It's so insidious because it does entrap people, you know, the young minds to watch thisand to think that this is normal.The other thing that from the movie that caught me also was that there was a scene wherethey were chatting in a sexualized manner with an older boy on the internet.
36:01Oh, yeah.Did you catch that part?The what?They were chatting online.Okay, yes, yes.And I was just like, again, no supervision, a group of girls.Actually, it was interesting because one of the girl, I think it was taking place in the bedroomand one of the girl's mother was coming in to bring juice.
36:17Yeah.But she was totally clueless of what was going on in that moment with the chatting.And they were being sexually explicit with that boy, right?Yeah.So here's another way in which this behavior,which is so profoundly dangerous for young girls,was in a sense normalized or brushed over, right?The mother comes in and out,
36:45and it happens right under her nose, right?So I think this is just another risk area of this moviefor young viewers if they were to watch it.I think to Maddie's point,just kind of like it's i think it goes beyond just actors who are older acting and acting parts that aremuch younger it goes beyond that because there's a lot of photoshop that takes place nowadayswhere it just creates this very unrealistic and and uh plastic surgery so a lot of the famous peoplewho are influencers on different social medias not only do they focus
37:30Photoshop their pictures, but they also have, you know, $100,000 worth of plastic surgery,at a minimum, some of them probably much more, you know.And so it's like getting this unrealistic image of kind of the standard that is so farbeyond anything that is humanly possible, right?And, you know, you've seen the shows where they've done the makeup before and after,and done the Photoshopbefore and after.And it's like, whoa.
38:04But now they have filters as wellthat make people look a lot.I use filters.Like all the Snapchat filters that make you.With the ears and everything.Yeah.Filters for men too.They have ones that make women look like men.
38:19Yeah.And it's, I mean, some of it's like, okay, sure.I mean, at my age, it's not a, I'm just like,okay, you know, they have these filters that make you look moreattractive. But just imagine being a young person growing up in this world where it's not okay to justlook like yourself. Yeah. Yeah. It's, that's not going to give you attention the way that,you know, this other thing is, right? Tying self-worth to these particular ways in which I'm portrayed,right, in these social media platforms. Yep. And you know, another thing that sort of falls in these,
38:59You know, when I'm watching this movie, and then you compare it to like movies made by adult woman, you know, when they're twerking and things like that.And you see how they move the bodies.You see the children, their way of moving the bodies has a little bit more of innocence to it.Even when they're spanked the bud, right?It's like this little innocent spank.And so we know that's what attracts pedophiles.They're not attracted to the woman.That's correct.
39:27They're attracted to this innocent, sexualized little girls.That's right.Great point.Yeah.That is so disturbing to me.Yeah.And these girls, going back to that point, even toward the beginning of the movie,where they were sort of getting into the dance routine, practicing it,
39:46it was a very sexualized way of dancing, of twerking their bottoms and even,even the wayin which their bodies were moving like you're saying.They literally looked like they were having sex on the floor.Yeah.That's how it looked.Yeah.Yeah.
40:06And again,this is 11-year-old portrayed 11-year-old girls.Exactly.I mean,that should give us all pause to stop and go,wait a second.But my fear is that with movies like this,and even, again,
40:25at the lower,maybe end of the,severity level dance moms and the pageantry.Yes.We are slowly like the frog in the pot being desensitized to how really horrific that what wasportrayed is.Maddie, I want you to read the APA quote here on girls being sexualized at youngerages.
40:50Can you just read this quote?Yeah.The research summarized in this section offers evidence of negative consequences forgirls, when they're sexualized or exposed to sexualized images, and when others are exposed tosuch images. First, there's evidence that girls exposed to sexualizing and objectifying mediaare more likely to experience body dissatisfaction, depression, and lower self-esteem. Research todate suggests that these effects are not as pronounced for African-American girls. There's no researchto date on lesbian, bisexual, or transgendered youths. Self-objectification has been shown to diminish
41:24cognitive ability and to cause shame.This cognitive diminishment as well as the belief that physical appearance, rather thanacademic or extracurricular achievement, is the best path to power and acceptance mayinfluence girls' achievement levels and opportunities later in life.Yeah, and you think about, like, who's creating these movies, you know, and you think about,oh, people like Weinstein.Exactly.I know a therapist in that, you know, Hollywood area, and I was talking to this therapist, and
41:55they were like, you know, there's not just one Harvey Weinstein. There's thousands of Harvardwineswings. I mean, you know, there is this huge market for human trafficking in Thailand,India. There's a market everywhere, yeah. And some Bernardino right here. So you,everybody needs to read this book half the sky. When I read that book years ago,this is about this, you know, in all these third world countries with poverty. So it basicallyin party areas, how girls and boys are used for human trafficking is up. It uphelds me.Yeah. I have a current patient who was. And, you know, he's, he's now an academic. He's,he's gotten through it to a large degree, but it's, it's destroyed his romantic,
42:45interpersonal life, largely. And it's, you know, one year of therapy later, he's doing a lot better.But early sexual abuse, early victimization, it really does long-lasting influences.You'll remember from our neuroticism episode, it increases neuroticism.I was surprised how much sexual abuse increases neuroticism.It increases physical pain issues later in life, you know, the whole gauntlet of physical painissues.Randy, you found a paper looking at borderline personality disorder.Yeah, I'd like to share about that.
43:26But your point about neuroticism also captured my attention in when we were preparing for this,because I immediately began to think, okay, what might be the mechanism by which neuroticism,and we know from the big five research on personality, right?So neuroticism is one of the big five factors of human temperament.is what would cause, like what would be the link between childhood sexual abuse and neuroticism?And one of the things that I thought was when somebody is traumatized like that,you get a massive like flip of the switch in the limbic system, right?So it gets thrown on full blast.
44:13And you, especially if you're a child, you don't have the ability to modulate all of that intense fear and terror.right so you might sort of get something set in the personality structure to be on guard to bemaybe a little paranoid to be a little more susceptible to negative emotion maybe that is wherethe pain level the the chronic pain and the sensitivity to pain comes in is because your limbicsystem got thrown on and if it's repeated too sexual assault yeah the limbic system andI would also add the amount of stress it takes to lead to dissociation or more of thatshutdown place. Yes, yes. Largely, I think, how people deal with overwhelming situations is todissociate, it's to shut down, the dorsal vagal system. Yes. Especially for a child. And so what it does
45:14is it lowers that set point because you want to get into that dissociation faster so that youyou do not have to suffer.Absolutely.And it's that getting into that dissociative place, right?And interestingly, or not so interestingly, disturbingly, during the dance scene, they had thatsort of glazed stare of dissociation.Especially at the end, yeah.Oh, my God, yeah.
45:40And, you know, so think about dissociation as like you're leaving your body because it's sodistressing.Yeah.If you can't leave physically, you'll leave mentally.Yep, yeah. And so, you know, if this child gets into a place where they dissociate a whole lot easier, sometimes I think with the person with borderline precise or they're stuck in that dissociation for periods of time.It's actually what the study I found actually indicated was that their sample size was 36. So it was a slow sample size. They were hospitalized patients, but 44% had.that of the borderline patients in this particular small samplereported histories of childhood sexual abuse,
46:28most of which occurred between ages seven to 12.And the researchers linked several of the symptomsand struggles that are associated with BPDto the childhood sexual abuse, the suicidality,the self-harm, the paranoia,but they also listed dissociation.And every time I, I mean, I work also with,patients who are very traumatized from lifelong traumas.
46:55And one of the things I've learned to share with my patients is once we identifydissociation and then spend a lot of time session by session, pointing out all of the differentways it happens in their life and even in the moment of the session, is just to encouragethem that, hey, dissociation is something that's right about you.You know, the brain has the ability to protect you and to shield you.And if, you know, you couldn't leave physically when you were five, seven, ten, and these horrible things were happening to you. So you left psychologically, mentally, cognitively. And that's the way you protected yourself. And, but yes, we did see it, I think in the, I mean, I see it even in my opinion that when the eyes go glazed and the face gets like a little mask equality to it and there's no more shifting of affect. You know somebody has left the room even though physically they have.haven't. And I think we began to see that, like you're saying, toward the end in that scene.Yeah, that's true. I want to make a little jump back at what you mentioned about Harvey Weinstein and,
48:03of course, Jeffrey Epstein and all of these. So one of the big things about the people are likesort of glorifying this movie is that he won a Sunday film festival award. So last year,about February, there was a guy who came out saying that he had been abused, but,one of the co-founders, and he gave his testimony. So basically, when he was 13, he went to the houseof the co-founder. I think his name is Van Wagenen. He was friends of his son. And when he went there,the father put his hand inside the pants of this little kid. And so you wonder, right? So he gotthis movie got an award, and all these people that are pedophiles and that are into,you know, having sex with kids are everywhere.
48:53And there are a lot in movies and things like that.Well, I think, you know, if you are a pedophile, where do you have access to young kidsin the church sometimes?So that's why I think you see it in the Catholicism.A lot of the cases, you see it at other churches too, so it's not just there.You have access to kids, attractive kids.motivated parents in the movie scene.So people, one of the defenses is like, oh, it doesn't happen in the movies more than any other
49:30place.And it's happening everywhere.Not really, because in the movies, there's this unique combination of a high reward ifyou are liked, very, very high.And if you are blacklisted, you are blacklisted.and Weinstein would threaten people.Absolutely, yes.I listened to, there was a person who eventually brought down Weinstein who recorded him trying to get her to do what she didn't want to do.
50:04And that he was using some very advanced psychological tools to basically break her down to the point of getting what he wanted, which was something sexual.and I could only listen to about 10 minutes of it before I was like, okay, this is like, I'm, this is really, it was, it was, it was, it was, um, torturesome to listen to.But in listening to it, my takeaway was there is a total disregard of the personhood in this person's sexuality.And there's a total focus on gratification of his sexual desires.And, and it doesn't matter if he dehumanizes.the person in the process.She shifts from being a subject to an object.Yep.
50:53Yeah.And so I think this is where, like, you know, as a psychiatrist,one of the aspects of mental health is that my patient moves from finding, you know,relationships that are not meaningful to finding deep, secure connections that are meaningful,mutual, you know, and unfortunately, there is not a lot of that being portrayed in the media.And I think we see that poverty of meaning and connection even in this movie.Not only did we see poverty and inner city kind of life and the difficulties thereof,we see a father going back to that who's not physically present,
51:45a lot of disconnection where you've got a child, the main character, who's parenting younger kids,who's running around without supervision, you know, there's a really a lack of connection in thatregard. And the mother is out trying to also make a living. It was nice to see that finallyat the end she embraced her daughter. I was so glad to see that to tell you the truth.and to defend her against this elderly ant figure who was,Lord knows, trying to work out her own trauma from her past onto this child.But one of the things that I came to mind here too is,I think we have to realize that child perpetration,
52:37sexualization, child marriage has been a,around since the eons of time. And it's only, I think, within our present Judeo-Christian culture,if I may be bold enough to make the claim, where we're beginning to see the resistance to thatand saying, wait a second, we have to draw the line somewhere.I think it's probably good to define that because I think whether you're a,believer in Christianity or Judaism or not, you grew up in a culture which was saturated in it foror that preceded you in a way that created some standards.Yeah. Which are very different. Actually, I mean, even in the Old Testament, there's young
53:35brides, you know, like, I mean, back in that day, you know, you were considered a man at 1213.you were considered able to be married when you went through puberty.There are still cultures and legal systemsand function and practice today in certain parts of the worldthat will permit a child marriageif it is somehow determined that the girl has had her first menstrual cycle.And I follow a lot of these for some other projectsthat I'm interested in,
54:10but these are some of the things.things that are used to justify child marriage in parts of the world. And even like you were sayingabout the Old Testament, David, about how you even see, you know, 13, 12-year-old, let's say,being married or betrothed, et cetera. And we often think of that as a harmless, innocent littlepractice. Well, if you lived, if you lived till 30, right? Yes. I mean,I mean, the world was very different back then.It was.We lived till we're like 70 now.
54:47But what I'm saying, harmless, meaning we assume that there was no trauma involved in this for the young children involved.I imagine it was very, I mean, the history of mankind, women were not given choice a lot.You know, you were set up to marry this person.You didn't have a choice.He was probably 15 years older than you.and I mean, I think it's weird being in our culture where that seems like so abnormal.But imagine being in the culture then where anything else would be very abnormal.It was the air you breathed.
55:28Right.So I think the amount of freedom we have in general is very high.And how we look at the fact that we have laws, right, that protect against this.because whether it was a cultural practice or not,I don't think we can say, and we're not saying that,but I don't think it can be assumed rather that,oh, it's not traumatic.This was just culture.
55:51It's always traumatic, yeah.I mean, if you just see it from the biological point,yes, I was about to say.It is 100% traumatic, no matter what your culture says.Yeah.Well, I mean, sex, being sex without consent is traumatic.Right?And so if because the biology will make it extremely painful.
56:15So there's that.And then let's take it to, I think you make a point here, like consent.So what does it mean consent?Like can how does a 12 or 13 year old consent?She has to say, oh, you know, just nonverbally just know and assume, oh, this is just what happens.But they cannot consent.That's why here, when you're going to do a procedure on a child, you consent withthe parent because a child cannot give consent.
56:40I think we've figured out that the amount of high-risk behaviors a young kid doesthat changes over the course as their brain develops, as they get older, as they have morelife experience.So I think we have like a modern better perspective.I don't know.That is also grounded in neurobiology and neurodevelopmental.neuropsychology, we understand.We have more knowledge.
57:11We have more knowledge.And so, yeah, I think taking that into account is super important.Put out your argument, like, what is it again that you're really trying to say, Randy?Because I want to make sure I'm following you.Well, what I'm endeavoring to convey is that I think that one of the reasons why we are sooutraged at this movie is because we have come to a point where we believe that protectingchildren from being subjected to this kind of sexualization is right. And when we see it,when we see that that line sort of transgressed in a movie like this, it creates a very big
57:49negative reaction because we've said it is our job to protect children. And we define protectingchildren as protecting them from sexualization like this and being objectified and being theobjects of unholy gratification, shall we say, from people who are pedophiles or who take pleasurein watching children being sexualized. And my point before was that this is something that is new,that our protecting children and saying it is not okay for a child to be sexualized in humanhistory is something that is rather new if we look at big picture. I'm following you now. Yeah.The thing I would add, and why I think it's important for us to have this discussion, as people who have a lot of schooling, who have seen the science, it's because we're coming to this from a scientific perspective saying, no, as people who have studied the science, it is incredibly traumatic to expose kids to this too early and to sexualize kids before what?before their childhood is over, before they, you know, like, why do we want to speed that process up?
59:08And we don't want to speed that process up.You can't. It's impossible.And if you try to, they end up dissociating.They end up cognitively being overwhelmed by the stimuli.And then they will not enjoy, I mean, you have a number of patients.I have a number of patients.They won't enjoy sex if they've been sexualized.And so I think beyond the neuroscience, yes, we know the neuroscience, the biology, the research.
59:33Let me say that. I want to say this. They won't enjoy sex later in life. Like I'm seeing adult patients who are sexualized. And a lot of them are not enjoying sex. Sex is painful. Sex is combined with a lot of just vile stuff that happened to them. It's really hard for them to have a vibrant sex life. If in some of these people that I've seen that have been sexualized, both men and women. That's what I'm.I want to say. Yeah, but so beyond that, we also have the clinical experience. We have seen itfirsthand the disasters of child abuse in adults. We've seen all this woman who are caught, all theirbodies caught, terrible addictions, suicide. It's a disaster. And we know these are, we know100% if you rape as a child, your mental health is going to be impaired when you're an adult.Yeah, it's part of the ACEs, absolutely.And David, to your point as well, that many people, not only are they unable to fully,if at all, enjoy sex later in life as adults, often they take on the role of either the object relations oscillates between they are the abuser or the abused or they take on that perspective or that role of,
01:00:53I exist in terms of my sexuality to please another.other. You know, and I want to put this out there as if you watch, I think one of the arguments that I sawthat was pointed at me almost was that of someone who had been abused and who had joined the aggressor.Yeah. And I think that's what you're hinting at is like you either abuse others or you are the victim now.So what I mean by you join the aggressor is now you have succumbed to this internal belief on a deep levelthat the way of getting connection is to be abused.Correct.Or the way of getting good things
01:01:31is to just go along and be abused.In psychotherapy, we call it the identificationwith the aggressor.Yeah.So it's, so I think, I mean, and I see these patients.And to get them from a place of joining the aggressorto being able to stand up for themselvesis part of the daily journey
01:01:50with some of my clients.It's like to get them to make that shift,you know we have to look at the transference we have to we have to work on any anger that they canhave towards me you know so if you're if you're feeling anger towards us in the midst of talking aboutthis where maybe it's easier to join the aggressor it's it's a potential that you might feelsome anger towards us and maybe it's because it's like the transference it's the anger towards thethe the perpetrator of violence so i could see someone who would be listening to thiswould be getting angry and would be not consciously, fully conscious of why they were angry
01:02:29at listening to us have this dialogue. And it might be because it's been normalized, it's beenprotective, it's been adaptive for you to join the aggressor. And part of joining the aggressorwas to be sexualized. And so if you're hearing this right now and you're that person,I would say to you, you are precious, you're loved, you don't need to give sex to beloved.What happened to you was absolutely wrong.100%.Yeah, absolutely.
01:02:57Yeah, you didn't deserve it.And again, going back to that point, is there are so many dynamics that happen andsometimes people internalize that they deserved it or that's why they existed was to be abusedand then they take on those roles later in life in their sexual relationships.And then often also have guilt because they're acting out.something sexually in their adult life that happened to them that some part of them knows it'swrong. And shame, right? Shame is the worst. Yeah. Shame shuts people down. It dissociates people.Shame, shame. And you see through the whole movie, shame. The whole movie is about shame. Yes, yes. Absolutely. Yeah. Shame is
01:03:41who I am is bad. Yeah. And I want to say just for the record, if this was a boy going through the sameexperience as an 11 year old, it would upset me too.Oh, me too.Absolutely.So the gender for me is not a thing.Me either.One of the other arguments against was because this race, there was a race argumentthat was thrown in and like are people upset at this because of the race of the director.
01:04:05When I saw these initial scenes, I did not know the race of the director.Only through deep digging did I figure out, okay, she's, you know, this is her race.So that for me didn't seem like a cohesive argument.It has been, though, an interesting argument from a kind of a sociocultural perspective and kind of the state we're in right now politically and culturally, even across the world, is that people who criticized this movie were themselves criticized because they were criticizing somebody of color who was the director and the producer of this movie.The director is a person of color?Mm-hmm.Oh.A female woman of color.
01:04:53And so the arguments or the concern about the sexualization was diminished by then bringing that into the mix and saying, well, you're just criticizing because of those features or those diversity features.Well, I had no clue about that.Still pretty strong on my critics of this movie.Yeah.Well, you, yeah. So I hope this has been a helpful dialogue. I think we should end with a couple like main takeaways. I think protesting and it makes sense to a certain degree, especially myself as a psychiatrist, as someone who's publicly out there with my thoughts. I rarely have taken a stand. I'm careful taking stands. I really am. And this, I think, was worthy to,to come out publicly and say this is something, you know, as a professional, red lights going off,red warning lights. And, you know, maybe I need to be more honest with some of my other concerns,and maybe I will be. You know, it's easier to hide in the shadows. But I think it's really important
01:06:03for us to, you know, to put our, to put our thoughts out there, especially when they'reinformed by research, informed by, you know, our understanding of victims of sexual abuse,victims of sexualization and how that is something like we're battling against on a if you're atherapist you are battling against that on a weekly basis just going off of that really quickly becauseI did a lot of research into this topic when I was looking for articles that were criticizing itthere were like almost no scientific especially psychiatric or psychological articles about itno one's speaking out about why it's bad in that respect like it's usually like a religious likeoh, this is wrong because of these reasons,
01:06:48but I don't think people talk enough about the psychological effects of people.Yep.Yeah.And so, you know, I think that's a good reason to put this out thereand put out a cohesive argument and look at the details and break it downand to make our conclusions.The second point that I have is guarding our kids from exposure to content.I think is really important.
01:07:11If you're a parent, consider how you are going to guard them,how you're going to watch.over what they're inputting into their minds.You know, our brains evolved over tens of thousands of years.Our brains have not evolved over 40 years to note the difference between that which is seenon a video and that which is seen in real life.Both inform us, both light up our mere neurons.And so what we put into our minds is very important.
01:07:40Well, I think like you were saying before, talking to your kids, too,if they have seen something like this, taking that time to talk to them about,this is what you saw, this is what's not okay about it.Because I think that would make a big difference because if they do see something like this,because it's everywhere.Well, and that also presupposes that the parent had problems with this.Yeah.Yeah.
01:08:00You may have parents who are like, oh, this is great, honey, come watch this.Yeah.I mean, it's hard for me to imagine, but I think so.Well, yeah, and I think that goes to my next point, you know, while talking about sex,you know, how, having that conversation, right, not being afraid of having that conversation.You don't want the only conversation they have about sex and private parts to be with, you know,when they are, like, with their friends watching some Cardi B video, pornography, violent pornography,like, you know, talking to our kids about the positive aspects in an age-appropriate way, I think is really important.
01:08:42Yeah. I have a very good friend of mine.and she, I think she did college, she graduated like three years ago.And she said, she told me that when she was going through college, she learned a lot about, like, male sexuality.They taught her how to put a condom and what is a penis and all of that.But they never, ever taught her about female sexuality.And so I was sharing this with one of the residents that I work with.And she said, oh, yeah, that's true.That's still happening right now.
01:09:10Yeah.So I think that we have to be also educating.you know, the children in this topic because it's going to be out there. And so if we do it from avery conscious, protective manner, then maybe if they come across these things, you know, they'regoing to be able to manage better. I think, you know, Dr. Soria, your point is, you know,so well taken because it's having to do with approaching this from an intentional,correct, balanced, and informed perspective. And there's, I mean, we're talking about sex.here. There is still a lot of anxiety and conflicts that people carry around this topic. And it influences
01:09:51how they manage it with their children and on their day-to-day life. Yeah. My next point was to,if you do have kids, I think from an early age of starting to talk about, look, this is aphotoshopped picture and show them some pre and post-photoshop and talk them through how this is done.That's a great point. Yeah. And to when, and,I would do that in a repetitive way.Like, look, this is not a real person.This is a person who's been airbrushed, who's been, you know, and with your own kids,to be very careful about any critical remarks about their body.
01:10:30Never say any critical marks about their body.I've heard it from too many of my patients, you know, the parents that I've viewed, and itstill goes on. So to be very, very careful about your own mouth, you know, criticizing weight,criticizing body image, just completely eliminate that because it's just, it's very, very hurtful.And what you say about your own body, like if you're a mom and talking about how you feel aboutyourself, like girls are going to listen to that and emulate that. Yeah. Talking about diets you're on,I've had to talk to my wife about, hey, let's not talk about dieting in front of the kids.Yeah.
01:11:11I grew up in a highly, highly critical environment.My culture, women are very critical.There's a lot of plastic surgery there, Brazil, Colombia, all of those places.And so this is something that is still haunts me to the day because I grew up here in this all the time.So I can say that it's an amazing point.This is an interesting topic that I think is probably worth an interesting.entire episode, but the idea that my identity is fused with my body.Exactly.
01:11:41I mean, this is quite an interesting topic, I think, from a spiritual perspective,from a psychological perspective, from a sociological, physical, I mean, to say that the body,like identity is wrapped up in the body is very problematic.Yep.And as someone who's a strength, you know, an athlete, someone who's strength training,I love how in the strength training world that I'm in, there's an emphasis on strength,There's an emphasis on making small incremental changes in strength and a real move away from thiscultural deep rooted thing of being like super skinny because a lot of the pictures we see of super skinny
01:12:20people like they have not had water for the past three days before that picture.They stopped eating salt two weeks before that picture.They they lost all that weight.They took that picture and then they went back to eating.right? No one looks like that, right? But we have these images so much in our world that it justbecomes like, oh, this is what it looks, this is what a normal person looks like. No, this is what a personlooks like who's on steroids, who's on human growth hormone, who's doing a very, very restrictivediet, two weeks, three months leading up to a photo shoot. And who does nothing else with their time.
01:12:59Oh, my dear. Yeah. And probably spends, yeah, six to eight hours.a day obsessing about it.Right.Yes.Okay.Talk about real age of people.So I think with my kids, if they're watching a high school show and those kids I know are 22, 25, I'm going to be talking about that.I'm talking about this is a 22 year old.
01:13:21This is what the 22 year old looks.You know, this is not a kid from high school and just continually pointing that out.But I'm still faced with how convincing millions of people.moments of watching shows where these lies of age are portrayed and what that means and attractiveness.Like to get on to one of those shows, like you are not in the 1% of attractiveness.You are in like the 0.001%.Yeah.Right.
01:13:50Right?And it's like, yeah, that's not normal.Okay.They remind me of a scene where they pull her pants and they take pictures of the undies.And then the girl is like, well, you ruin us because you make us look like little girls.Yes.Yes.Oh, yeah, that's exactly that.
01:14:08Okay.So media should also care about portraying reality, but it doesn't, of course.Never.They exist to make money.Yeah.They exist to make money.At all cost.And, you know, there's another thought.
01:14:21It's like, okay, let's say you're a 16-year-old dude and you, like, you have 50 peopleyou're following on Instagram and TikTok who are the most attractive girls in the world.and you spend an hour of your daylooking at the most attractive girlsin the world, in the world,who are photoshopped,who have hundreds of thousands of, you know,augmentation.
01:14:45Filters.You know, what you're looking atis you are looking atthe top world in hunger games,that world that is so far from reality,you know,but what you're yearning foris that like the lower level of hunger games
01:14:58where they're going huntingwhere it's like the real people,real emotion, right?So I think that people are yearning for the real connection.They're yearning for what's real.And I think that's why most people in psychotherapy,it's like, this is a new experience.I'm really connecting with an individual here.
01:15:18And there is that kind of unique experience, right?And so I think although maybe our, it's kind of like salt, sugar, fat,initially gratifies us, spikes that dopamine, makes us want to eat more, right?Because those are like those life-saving things that we needed when we were, you know, 10,000 yearsago. But nowadays, right, we're all overly fed, right? We don't need any of them. The most nourishingto continue with the analogy, though, the most nourishing moment for me watching that movie was whenfinally she and the mother, Amy and her mother hug at the end. And finally she gets some affirmation.And then she tells her it's okay if you don't go to the
01:16:03wedding.Wedding.Your father's second wedding.Yeah. Which is another objectification of some degree, right?The second wedding.Yeah.Maddie, where you're smiling.So many things you could talk about.
01:16:19We can go on forever.All right, guys, we can go on forever.Thank you for listening.I hope if you have any thoughts, please shoot me a message on Instagram.It's a good way of shooting me a message.Or just you'll see the post on Instagram.where I said cancel Netflix.Post your comment, I'll read it.
01:16:36Even if I don't have time to respond, I always read them.And I hope this was helpful.If you want, please share this.I don't have any funding for marketing.There's no other way than you sharing it for it to get out to people.So please share it if it was helpful.Thank you.
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