The Ben Mulroney Show - Was Iran close to having nukes? And a sexologist gets Ben to open up

Episode Date: March 3, 2026

GUEST:  Damien C. Kurek / Principal, Upstream Strategy Group GUEST:  Logan Levkoff / an internationally recognized expert on sexuality, parenting, and relationships If you enjoyed the podcast, tell a friend! For more of the Ben Mulroney Show, subscribe to the podcast! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://link.chtbl.com/bms⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Also, on youtube -- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@BenMulroneyShow⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow Ben on Twitter/X at https://x.com/BenMulroney Insta: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ TikTok: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ Executive Producer:  Mike Drolet Reach out to Mike with story ideas or tips at [e-mail] Enjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast is brought to you by the National Payroll Institute, the leader for the payroll profession in Canada, setting the standard of professional excellence, delivering critical expertise, and providing resources that over 45,000 payroll professionals rely on. Of all the headlines in the world, we knew we'd be talking about Iran, we knew we'd be talking about Canadian politics, I did not have it on my bingo card that we would be talking to a sexologist about online porn.

And I'm pretty sure I revealed how I saw my very first Playboy magazine. Yeah, I find myself being very honest in front of this microphone, sometimes a little too honest. But yeah, we've got that great conversation coming up. Iran apparently almost had nukes. We're going to talk about that. And are we seeing a different side of Pierre Poliev? And if we are, does it really matter to certain people who say they would never vote for them, not in a million years? So let's get right into it.

This is the Ben Mulanee's show podcast. You know, it can be easy doing this job to create a bubble around ourselves. We follow the news, we consume the news, we talk about the news, we break down the news. And it can be really easy to lose sight of the fact that a lot of you are out there living your lives, paying your bills, chasing your kids around, wondering where your paychecks went despite working two jobs. And so the news out of Iran, while it is the most significant news in terms of geopolitics, And the impact on the region and indeed the world will be significant for, I mean, hopefully generations in a positive way. It could be easy for you to say, why should I care?

Why should I care? How does this impact me? And so I want to spend a couple of minutes breaking down the impact of what's happening on the other side of the world on you, the listeners of the show and our viewers on YouTube. You might not have gone to fill up your car in the past few days. And if you do, you are in for a rude awakening. You're going to think that Mark Carney had brought back the consumer carbon tax. The gas prices have jumped significantly.

Oil could go up over $100 a barrel U.S. for the first time and God knows how long. And just to give you context, because I'm in the city of Toronto, regular gas price rose from a buck 30, almost a buck 44 per liter on February 27th, to a buck, almost a buck 44, so 10 cents a liter in just a few days. The average price in Canada went up four cents. If you're worried about the security of your Jewish neighbors, two synagogues in Toronto were attacked, shot up. again, I've said this before.

I think the choice of when they do these shootings is deliberate. It is to instill fear. They did so at a time where it was very unlikely that they were going to hurt anybody. But the message is clear. We know where you are. And yet again, yet again, in this city and indeed across this country, Jews who are just trying to live their life are being targeted because of the actions. of Israel.

One is not the other, and one can support Israel, should be able to support Israel, and not fear for their lives. And let's not forget about the Iranian business that was shot up yesterday, or two days ago, I'm sorry. And in all three cases, it is entirely possible that the culprits are either former members of the IRGC or Akelet. of those people. The stock market is in flux. Travel restrictions are in place. What's happening on the other side of the world has direct impact on your life here in Canada. Now, there is new information as to why the U.S. attacked Iran. Let's listen to the NATO Secretary General Mark Ruta about how he sees, how he saw the situation prior to the U.S. and Israel taking action. I'm answering that question. Of course, NATO is not itself involved, but let's be absolutely

clear item what's happening here. Iran is close to getting his hand on a nuclear capability and on a ballistic missile capability, which is posing a threat not only to the region, the Middle East, including posing a existential threat to Israel. It is also posing a potential threat to Israel. a use that's to us here in Europe. Yeah, so look, you may not like Donald Trump. You may say, oh, he acted unilaterally. If you don't like unilateral action, then you must like multilateralism. NATO is the systematic embodiment of multilateralism.

So that's the voice of multilateralism. But let's listen to the man who is the champion and the leader of these airstrikes against Iran, the president. Here's what President Trump said. If we don't stop them or if we didn't stop them or if we didn't start, they've been decimated. But if we didn't do what we're doing right now, you would have had a nuclear war and they would have taken out many countries because you know what? They're sick people. They're mentally ill sick people.

They're angry. They're crazy. They're sick. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Okay. Well, let's take his medical assessment of the. these people off the table.

You may, you may believe him. You may believe Mark Ruta. You may not. But in my, this hosts humble opinion, a, at some point, the chance over the course of 47 years of death to America, death to Israel, death to the West, at some point, I think it's the responsible thing to take those chance seriously. and ask oneself, are they taking steps as a nation to put into practice what they have been chanting for four and a half decades? That's how I see it.

Meanwhile, Iran is firing off missiles and drones, like some sort of out-of-control fireworks display. And the drones that they have are effective, lethal, and cheap. They've been hitting oil and gas facilities in the Gulf states. and the scale of these attacks are massive. The UAE alone has faced 165 ballistic missiles, two cruise missiles and 541 drones. But as effective, as potentially devastating as the counteroffensive by Iran, I think that is matched by not only the technological air superiority of the U.S., but the intelligence gap demonstrated. between what Israel knows and how in the dark Iran is. You'll remember that I think 40 some odd leaders were killed in the first 72 hours, right?

Including the Ayatollah. And so what does the country have to do? Well, they have to bring their council of experts together to pick a successor. Israel knew when they were getting that group together and boom, destroyed the building where that meeting was taking place. It's unclear how many of the council's 88 clerics were in the building, but I think it's safe to surmise that a big chunk of them were taken out in that one targeted attack. And could this spill over into something bigger? Has Iran lost what's called Gulf sympathy? Well, look, the UAE, Qatar, and others say that Iran strikes are reckless and disproportionate.

and there is the possibility of one, a few, or all of them entering the fray militarily. And I want you to consider what that means. For the first time in the history of the world, we could see a military alliance that includes Arab nations of the Gulf and Israel. Think about what that means. How bad is Iran? Arab nations and Israel could find common cause to fight this terrible scourge of a cancer, of a tumor, of a toxic nation together. During the first Gulf War, when George Bush had assembled a coalition that included a number of Arab nations,

Israel had been asked by the United States and the Western Alliance to stay out of the fray, if they entered, so many Arab nations would have broken from the alliance. And Iraq was trying to get them to enter by sending scud missile after scud missile after scud missile into Israel. One of my dad's responsibilities was to be on the phone with the leadership of Israel to reassure them that this was going, that please, whatever you do, do not retaliate, do not retaliate. That was how hard it was to keep the Arab nations in that alliance.

And now we're living in a world where the Arab nations may voluntarily enter an alliance that already includes Israel. I want you to think about that. Think about how terrible a nation has to be for these guys who have never, never found common cause with Israel on anything militarily to create that reality, which I don't think is that far off. All right, we are going to take a quick break. But when we come back, we're going to be talking to the MP who stepped aside so that Pierre Poliev, could have a seat in the House of Commons. Damien Couric joins us next on the Ben Mulroney Show. Welcome back to the show.

Thank you so much for spending some time with us. It feels like we are at the beginning of a big reintroduction by Pierre Poliev to the Canadian voter. And I think it started a little while ago. And I think it's going to take a long time before it takes hold. But thus far, what I've seen over the past week or so, I haven't seen a misstep. I appreciate the tone.

and I, but I do know there's a lot of work to do. And so to talk about that, let's welcome Damien Currick, principal at Upstream Strategy Group, to the show. And you might remember that he stepped aside for Pierre Poliev so that Pierre could find himself a seat in a by-election in the House of Commons. Damien, welcome back. Thank you very much, Ben. It's good to be with you. So, yeah, I like what I've seen so far from Pierre, from his speech in Ottawa,

in Toronto last week where he laid out a positive, constructive countervision to the prime minister's Davos speech. I don't know if it was by design, but I think a lot of people interpreted it that way. It wasn't slogans. It was, as he called it, visionary. And from there, he's done a number of things, including sitting down with Peter Mansbridge for his Sirius XM show The Bridge. Give me your sense of what's going on with the leader. Yeah, look, I think what we're seeing is, you know, not so much a different Pierre Pollyav, but the showcasing of another side of the guy that, you know, many Canadians may not have seen before. You know, everybody knows Pierre is that guy that can get up in question period and be that fiery debater that can get, you know, a rousing round of applause

with a fiery stump speech at a convention or political rally. But I think for those of us that know the guy well, we know his, his intellect and his ability to connect to those complex political and philosophical ideas and make them work for the average Canadian. I think what we're seeing firsthand now, whether that be with Mansbridge, whether that be at the Economic Club, or the speech that he gave at the Thatcher lecture just today in London. Yeah, I was listening to it right before the show. I didn't catch the whole thing, but I saw the beginning.

As a matter of fact, let's take a moment, Damien, if we can, and listen to a little bit of Pierre on the bridge with Peter Mansbridge. I believe we need to make this country unbreakable and absolutely united. I am a firm Canadian federalist. I said that in the by-election. I've said it my whole life as a born and bred Albertan. And the way to unite this country is the same way we make it affordable and make us autonomous.

And that is to unlock and unblock our resources. Allow the people of Western Canada to fulfill their full potential. And Peter, if we did that, nobody would be talking about. separation, just like nobody was talking about separation before this liberal government was elected. And look, his job is to oppose, but there are different ways to do it. And it seems in that interaction with Peter Mansbridge, you know, he expressed great respect for Mark Carney. He said, I believe the prime minister respects me as well. He wants to work constructively with him. And so I think there's, I think this is a good beginning for him. Some might argue it may be too

late for that. However, you never know. One thing is for sure, Nanos released a poll where a ballot breakdown. And he has, the conservatives have a lot of work to do, I mean, a lot of work to do in Atlantic Canada, as well as with boomers from 50 to 60 and women. That was the knock during the election and it looks like it's still the knock today. So whatever plan I think he has, I think it's got be a multi, I mean, I think it's a 12-month plan at least. How do you see it? Yeah, and I think that in that Mansbridge interview, he said, look, the strategy has been adjusted. He's going to talk to everybody. Speaking to somebody who spent 50 years at the CBC, I think, in the showcase for that. And I expect that over the course of the coming weeks and months, we're going to get to know more

and see more of this side of Pierre that really breaks down the real issues. that our nation is facing, is willing to be collaborative, while also showcasing the best of what Canada can be. And I think that's what came through in these last few speeches. And I think that's what we can expect to see continue. Well, you know, one thing that I said last week, Damien, was one of the advantages to being prime minister is it's very easy for voters to see you as a prime ministerial.

And once people see you in that role, it's easier to vote for you in that role. However, that doesn't preclude someone like Pierre Poliev from presenting as a statesman and presenting as a responsible alternative to the prime minister. And if you couple that with, and I think we're seeing that, you couple that with meeting people where they are. And that includes, look, boomers, I don't know what the, I don't know how many of them listen to or watch the CBC. But my inclination is they're probably more prone to watching legacy media than they are podcasts. So going to talk in places where they might be found is a smart strategy. And so on those two fronts, I think he's checking those boxes.

What do you think, because there's only so much you can control. As a matter of fact, Damien, that's what he said. We have to control what we can in Canada. The same is true for a politician. He has to be able to control everything that he can on his side of the fence. But what has to happen on the government side for for his ambitions to take root and to and to yield success. Yeah, Ben, I think in the short term, you know, this has been being seen as an opportunity for a divided parliament to get some stuff done in the best interests of Canadians. It's been a clear path, the economic speech, a few other things that have been proposed. And I think what it does is it really is going to be a test for the prime minister and the liberals who have, you know, they're quick

to call the opposition political, but they certainly are pretty good at doing politics themselves. And now it's up to them to reciprocate and to say, look, in the best interest of the country, here's how we can chart that path forward together. And it may require some give from them as well. Yeah. It certainly won't be all take. And I think that that's where now the test really will be in the hands of the prime minister to say, okay, you've been given the offer, there's the terms, will the prime minister rise to the challenge and be willing to work with the opposition to actually make Parliament work at a time where I think all Canadians agree that it's essential.

And look, what I've always said is after the whirlwind of Justin Trudeau resigning and the collapse of the conservative vote and the rise of the reinvention, if you will, of the liberal party under Mark Carney, I'm not going to make any predictions. as to what the next three years are going to look like. So why anybody thinks they can predict the next three years when nobody predicted that, so those 12 months is beyond me. And my opinion, Damien, I don't know how you feel about it, is that how one feels about a politician

is conditional on how you feel about the alternative. And if you look at Pierre Poliyev over the last week and you look at Mark Carney over the last week, Mark Carney hasn't spoken to the press once since the world was upend. And since we did a rapprochement with India that was credibly accused of election interference and being involved in the death of a Canadian citizen. And his full-throated endorsement of this attack on Iran, which I'm glad he did, some say flies in the face of his position that he took at Davos. So all of a sudden, in just this one moment, it's a snapshot of Pierre, I think, acquitting himself quite well compared to the other side. Yeah, I agree with you.

And I think that even the prime minister versus senior members of his cabinet's response to what happening in the Middle East has been telling that it's truly, I would suggest political chaos. And that's been something, you know, having sat close to six years. years across the aisle from these liberals. I look at some of the positions that the prime minister is taking now. And the only thing that seems to keep them together right now is the fact that Mark Carney was able to pull off a win. And at some point, there's going to be some questions by those more extreme ideologues that are within that party, whether it be on the green side of things, whether it be, you know, the Stephen Giebos that probably called themselves socialists, eventually they're not going to be quiet anymore. And Mark Carney is going to be

to have to face the challenges that will come from within his own caucus. And I think that what we see juxtaposed right now is a Pierre Polyev that is showing the statesman-like image. And those of us who know well have seen at different points in time. We've also seen the attack side. But this showcase, I think, is going to really show Canadians that Pierre is up for the job of Prime Minister. And with some real substantive policy options that say, look, we can build Canada at home. We can build relationships abroad. And we can be pragmatic when it comes to our relationship with our neighbors to the south.

Make sure that those things can all be done. Damian Couric, thank you so much for being here. Please come back sometime soon. Maybe come back as part of my political panel. I'd love to have you. Sounds great, Ben. I look forward to it. Well, we found out last week that Canada's economy in the last three months of last year

shrank by 0.6%. So a lot of people are girding for a recession. If I told you that we were already in a recession, but not an economic one, you'd say, well, what do you mean, Ben? I'd say, yes, according to the data, North Americans are in a sex recession. Fewer people are having more. How do you say this? Either fewer people are having less sex or more people are having less sex. Regardless, there's less sex being had.

And to discuss this, we're joined by Logan Levkov. She's an internationally recognized expert on sexuality, parenting, and relationships, the author of Got Teens and probably the best name of any book. Third Base ain't what it used to be. I have to read that book, Logan. Welcome to the show. No problem. Thank you for having me, Ben.

Okay, so look, I know that North Americans are by and large are having fewer kids. I didn't know that you had to take a further step back and say they're also having less sex. To what do we attribute this? Well, there's so much. First of all, I think we're about the same age. I remember a time where the panic was, teens are young people having sex all the time. I kind of yearned for that. To be honest with you, because I feel like there are so many things in our world today

that are preventing not just younger people, but all of us from having real intimate connection. So, I mean, the stats are pretty staggering at this general social survey that, you know, in night, just from like a married couple perspective, which I know does not represent everyone, But in 1990, 55% of adults between the ages of 18 to 64 were having sex at least once a week. In 2024, that number was down to 37%. So it went from over half to just barely over a third. Yeah. And that's, I mean, that's a broad swath, right?

18 to 64. For young people, which is, which is, I remember that time. That was a great time. Between the ages of 18 and 29, less than, um, Sorry, not less than, almost a quarter of that age group has not had any sex in the last year. So, I mean. Yeah. I mean, yeah, they're in a sexual desert.

And is it due to lack of connection? Is it due to sort of the digital world replacing actual real human connection? Is it the swiping? Yeah. It's all of those things. So, I mean, look, I think that COVID set us up a little. We were already on a decline. But then the stay apart, be masked, don't engage, don't take risks really at a huge impact on people.

Add to that, obviously, access to pornography, using screens instead of connecting with human beings. And then there are these other interesting things that I think we're going to see more of, AI companionship versus human companionship, which is going to be on the rise. And then, of course, sex has also gotten super political. and I think people forget that sex is also supposed to be just fun and intimate and pleasurable and we're not always supposed to think so much. Yeah. Which maybe I'm not supposed to say, but I'm going to say anything. Well, yeah, I mean, listen, at one point there's certain, I remember there were certain universities maybe sometime in the past decade where people had to fill out the consent forms before they could engage in.

Yeah. I remember that. You have to ask it every step. Yep. Yeah. Do I have your consent to do X and Y and Z? and that can, listen, when I was a kid, I was afraid that the omnipresence of AIDS and HIV. That was the boogeyman. And you heard all of these urban legends about, you know, some guy having sex for the first time. And he goes into the bathroom, the woman's gone and she writes on the window, welcome to the world of AIDS, right? And that mess with our heads. And then this feels like that. where it could scare people.

But I saw this young woman on social media who said something that I will never, it's going to be part of how I think forever. She said, online community is an oxymoron. This notion that you can replace live connection with human beings in the flesh can somehow be realistically replaced with a digital analog is, it's not true. There's no such thing as a real online community. And when I heard to say that, I felt so, I felt so sad for a generation that we have,

we've essentially told this entire generation, you can have everything you want online. Look, you don't have to go to school, and you can stay in your room and swipe around, and you can, and it's just like being out there with your friends. And it's not. No, it's not, it's not close to that. I'm chuckling only because that's how I started in this field.

I was a 15-year-old peer HIV and HIV, educator. I grew up in the suburbs of New York. I came home after school and my parents had condoms and bananas sitting on my dinner table and said, you know, this is how you protect yourself. And next week you learn how to teach other people. So I had that same boogeyman. But now I feel so badly for for so many people, but particularly a younger generation because, you know, we become, you know, our experiences as adults are based on the experiences we had as young people. So learning how to take, you know, calculated risks and thoughtful risks and put our feelings out there and, you know, add to that, I think the pressure and the, and again, like the Me Too movement, best of intentions, right?

And really important. But I think it's scared a lot of people away from having intimate connections too because they were afraid of how they were going to be interpreted in some way or another. Well, there's also. So all of those things together. Yeah, there's also the issue that there's an entire generation of men who are told that the things that make you who you are things are problems that we as a society need to overcome. So I personally contend that there's no such thing as toxic masculinity.

They're just toxic people. And because I've met plenty of toxic women. Like some of the worst people I've ever met, I've worked with. And they were awful human beings who relished, relished destroying other people. And so I firmly disagree with that. But there was, there's an entire generation of men who were, who were beaten down by a society that said, the things that are specific to you are wrong. And I wonder whether that played into how they treat the opposite sex and how they see themselves in, in that, that male, female binary.

I think it all, I think it all counts and all has an impact. You know, I'm a big believer. And I don't like to make generalizations about, about anyone. I agree with you. Like toxicity is not determinant on someone's sex or gender. It's just a personality trait. And the more we can acknowledge that, I think, the better off that we are. But I, you know, it's interesting.

I have an almost 21-year-old son and an almost 17-year-old daughter. And I'm raising them exactly the same way. And it's so interesting to me that I'm trying to remind them, even though they're growing up in this world where one of them might be told he's innately bad because of his, you know, his sex. I'm trying to, obviously, I don't just try to undo it. I don't raise my kids like that. But, you know, it's hard to combat those messages and remind young people that growing up,

we want you to have intimate encounters. We want you to figure out who you are and understand what, like, love and lust is like and how to make decisions when the stakes aren't that high because when you get older, they're hell of a lot higher. I mean, I remember I saw a post. You see these posts and they just stick with you forever. And it was, it was to the soundtrack of the Boys to Men's song. What was that ballad, that crazy ballad, the end of the road.

And it's like, I was going to say, Dad or I'll Make Love to you, right? Which seemed like it could have been the appropriate one to. I said, kids today will not appreciate that, you know, as a 16 year old, a 15 year old, and that song spoke to us about how about crushing loss of love and none of us had ever had a girlfriend before it was it was it was it was absolutely true but but there was this socialization that came from sort of figuring it all out together and and now I think you're right with with all this information online and I think we'll talk about online pornography when we come back there's there's a there's a there's a manual but the manual is about is about getting

it wrong. Like how to end up in the wrong place. Follow these steps and you'll end up in the wrong place. And so I love to- Well, the wrong place is a pun. I have to tell you about it. The wrong place could be a lot of different places. Well, when we come back, I'd love to talk about, you know, how we can, I've got kids, my sons are 15 and my daughter's 12. I'd love to talk to you about how we can, even in this world with so many bad options out there, how we can raise them to end up in the right place. So we're going to talk about that more about, we're going to talk more about sexuality and getting it right with Logan Levkov when we come back right here on the Ben Mulroney show. Yes, indeed. Let me just say, when I was a kid, when I was a kid,

my brother and I went to my grandmother's house and we were going through some boxes in the basement and we came across my uncle's stash of Playboy magazines. And we just couldn't believe it. It was like we've discovered the Ark of the Covenant and we brought it home with us. And I think I think, I care, somebody in our house, probably my dad, somebody said as we were looking at these and they came over our heads like, you know, most of those women are probably dead now. And we're like, okay, well, now you just ruined it. But, you know, I remember, and I'm joined by Logan Levkov, an internationally recognized expert on sexuality, parenting, and relationships. People are having less sex these days and we're trying to figure out why. I remember as a kid, Logan, in the middle of the night, trying to, all the, all the, all the, all the erotica on television was blurred out. And if you just position the TV in the right way, you might be able to see something. In other words, it was, it's a far cry from how easily we can access that kind of content on our phones,

wherever we are, whenever we want it. And I, I remember reading something that that, that, that, that, that, that access was warping people's perception of what was what they could expect, like especially like people who didn't, who never had sex. Like what could they expect when they had sex? And it was messing with their heads and it was messing with their, the anticipation and the expectations. And it was leading to disappointment and confusion and really bad interactions between

men and women. Yeah, I think, I think that's very true. I share the experience. I remember, and even as a teenage girl, I remember having slumber parties and we would sit and try to unscramble the television. And we weren't even seeing much, but we were excited at the prospect of what we could see. You know, as someone who spends a lot of time still teaching young people, you know, I'm a big believer that we have to talk about pornography or any sexually explicit media, the same way we talk about any other kind of media literacy. Like, there are certain things we need to be thinking about. At the end of the day, great if you get an amazing reaction out of pornography, but the purpose

wasn't designed to teach you about how to actually have an intimate experience with someone else. And I remember talking to a group of teenagers once and they said to me, well, if I use pornography and my partner doesn't, then I'll know what to do and she won't. And I just thought, whoa, are you bound to be disappointed, my friend? That's not how it works. But that's, that's, that's If there only, if any of us, by the way, are getting our only information about sex from pornography, our perspective is going to be pretty damn skewed. Yeah, no, that's a good point. I also have a lot of friends who have been, you know, they grew up in a world of, you know, swiping right. I think it's right, right.

And they tell me that they've gotten to the end of the dating apps. Like they're on all of them, but so is everybody else. And so consequently, they meet the same. same people over and over and over again and and they're not they're not fulfilled and they're not satisfied and and oftentimes you know the photos or or the bios aren't uh aren't accurate and and it presents them with that and when you meet somebody for the first time and you know that the person you're meeting is not the person as they presented online again you're smacked in the face with disappointment and i got to wonder whether between you know the the false expectations of

pornography and, you know, people embellishing on dating apps, I got to wonder whether that constant disappointment could be contributing to people saying, you know what? I'd rather just chill with my friends and hang out. I think it could be, especially if you think that dating, whatever that means to you, feels like work. One of the things I've always been kind of troubled by, and again, I think that people should use whatever is available to connect.

So if dating apps work for you, amazing. great. Like I have zero issue with it. But I do think the constant swiping creates this environment where the grass is always greener and we expect that someone is going to literally like tick off every single box in our perfect, you know, wish list. And that's never going to happen. So the minute something feels off, we move on to the next because we don't know what it's like to see if we can like work out some of the kinks and see what's real and what isn't real. But people don't get practice if they're constantly moving on to to the next. Yeah. You know, I kind of feel like, you know, one of the, one of the problems with

dating apps is that you expect that in that pool of thousands, you can find perfect and, you know, not to not to play, you know, the disappointing sexuality educator, but like, there's really no such thing as perfect. No one is going to do everything. Well, and that's the thing, that's, that's another thing I've seen where, you know, people break down what women's expectations are, for example. Oh, I want a man who's at least six, two, who makes at least $200,000 a year, washboard abs. And somebody statistically breaks it down and says, there are maybe, there's a, like it's an infantessimally small group of people that you are trying to find. And in the town that you live in, there are three people that fit that criteria. So, Ben, I have to tell you,

so years ago, I was one of the experts on the first three seasons of the American married at first site. Oh, wow. I was tasked, yes, and I was tasked with figuring out what people found attractive as it related to sexuality and relationship role models. And people used to come in with a laundry list of everything they wanted physically. Like forget like non-negotiable value qualities of another person down to eye color. And I thought there is a reason why you are single. It is very clear to me.

Well, then what do you think of what do you think of? And maybe we should tweak that list. you think of the shows like love is blind, which I've always said, a show can either be a social experiment or it can be hosted by Nick Lachey, but it cannot be both. I think that's a good point. Look, I, for me, and one of the reasons I did Marriott for Sight back in the day was that I, I really don't care. I mean, I care what happens as couples experience life. But, you know, I want to be clear. People who sign up to marry a stranger on reality TV. are not representative of the, like, global population.

Like, not even close on any show. So putting that aside, I think that the best shows like that are those that hold a mirror up to our own lives. So we look at them and say, huh, I kind of feel like I do that in my relationship. Watching it from the outside, I'm not that comfortable anymore. But yeah, but it feels like, as you said, these expectations are so high for so many different reasons. But, you know, the stories that I love the most are the stories like that my mom, mom had that when she met my dad, she was not impressed.

And after their first date where she brought her cousin on the first date, he dropped off the cousin and then he dropped off my mom and she was going to turn on her heels and say, well, thank you very much. That was great. And that was going to be the end of it. As he was driving away, he screamed out the window. I'll see it tomorrow again at seven. And he just made himself omnipresent until she.

Right. Indispensible. I heard a stand-up comic say. I, you know, I, I, I did everything I could to get that woman to fall in love with me until I finally heard those three words that every man longs to hear. I give up. And that's, but that, but there's an element of beauty there, right? Where the, where the, it takes a person a while to, for their opinion to change or for

that annoyance to become adoration. Like, those things happen. And, uh, and these people who want it all on day one, uh, sort of, um, are, are forgetting that relationships are work. And you build together. You can build together. I mean, look, they shouldn't feel like a, they shouldn't feel like a job, right?

But they take, but they do take effort. And things don't happen magically. And I feel like this idea that there is a list. And by the way, if you don't find someone on that list on an app or any way that you're dating, then pornography becomes really easy to rely on because you get the like the physical pleasure outlet

with whatever visual you're looking for in that moment, and you don't have to work that hard. Yeah. Yeah. So I hate the idea that it's going to become a substitute. Like, sure, pornography can enhance whatever it is you're already doing, but it's not meant to take the place of an actual human being because vulnerability is a good thing.

So we only have about a minute left, but I guess as a parent, I guess what I'm gleaning from this is all this stuff exists and, you know, it's going to be part of our kids' lives and whether we talk about that or not, feels like there are all the more reason to have these actual conversations with them. As someone who's been in the trenches, as somebody who knows about all of these things from my own perspective,

having those conversations about things that have happened in my life or in the lives of the people I know would probably be a good counterbalance to the stuff that's online. So important to share and share honestly and talk about the good things. Like, don't shy away from the good things.

But also, our kids need to know, you know, why we have some concerns because our world looks so different. Like, look, the realities, I was never, I was never afraid that I was going to be doing something that I wasn't supposed to be doing and someone was going to snap a photo of it. Logan, thank you so much for being here. I hope we can do have another conversation like this someday. I've really enjoyed it. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. Hello there.

Thursdays on Global. I'm Madeline Matlock. She's the lawyer with the legendary name. Don't underestimate Miss Matlo. This woman's a shark. You know it, baby. The one you can trust, even if she has to bend the rules. Things aren't always as black and white as they seem.

To crack a case. This is how I get things done. Emmy winning actress Kathy Bates is Matlock. All new Thursdays at 9 Eastern on Global. Stream on Stack TV.