The Daily Signal - #341: The Consequences of the Sexual Revolution Continue

Episode Date: November 14, 2018

On this week's "Problematic Women" edition of The Daily Signal podcast, we cover the "sex recession," the fanfare surrounding former first lady Michelle Obama's new book, and the absurd new ad promoting gender-neutral clothing. Plus: We cover a heartwarming push from the Down syndrome community. We also cover these stories:--Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., says he won't vote for any of President Trump’s judicial nominees until a bill protecting Robert Mueller is brought up for a vote.--More teens are using e-cigarettes, and the government’s not happy. The Food and Drug Administration announced Thursday that unless stores could check for age, they can’t sell certain flavors of e-cigarettes.--CNN's Jim Acosta is still fighting the White House to get his press credential back. Judge Timothy Kelly will issue a preliminary decision today as to whether the White House has to give him is press credential back.The Daily Signal podcast is available on Ricochet, iTunes, SoundCloud, Google Play, or Stitcher. All of our podcasts can be found at DailySignal.com/podcasts. If you like what you hear, please leave a review. You can also leave us a message at 202-608-6205 or write us at [e-mail]. Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Friday, November 16th. I'm Daniel Davis. And I'm Kate Trinko. Today is our Problematic Women podcast, and we've got a bunch of topics to cover from Michelle Obama's new book to an outcry over whether Americans aren't interested enough in the bedroom. We'll also cover an inspiring new ad and a really stupid one. But first, we'll cover a few of the top headlines. Well, Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona, who's retiring, spoke on the Senate floor Wednesday to push for a vote on a bill. bill that would protect the Mueller investigation.

This special counsel was appointed to thoroughly investigate the attacks on our electoral system by elements of the Russian government during the lead-up to our 2016 general election. How such an investigation can be the cause of controversy is beyond me. Surely we all recognize that it is essential to understand this new form of foreign aggression so that we might better defend America against such attacks in the future, right? Well, Flike also said he would refuse to vote for any of Trump's judicial nominees until the bill is brought up for a vote. President Trump also voiced his views on the Mueller probe. On Twitter, he said, quote,

The inner workings of the Mueller investigation are a total mess. They have found no collusion and have gone absolutely nuts. They are screaming and shouting at people, horribly threatening them to come up with the answers they want. They are a disgrace to our nation and don't care how many lives they ruin. These are angry people, including the highly conflicted Bob Mueller, who worked for Obama for eight years. They won't even look at all of the bad acts and crimes on the other side, a total witch hunt like no other in American history. Teens are into e-cigarettes and the government's not happy. The Food and Drug Administration announced Thursday that unless stores could check for age, they can't sell certain flavors of e-cigarettes.

This was news to me, but apparently there are flavors like cucumber and mango. And apparently 3.6 million teens use e-cigarettes, and that's 1.5 million more than did last year. Quote, the bottom line is this, I will not allow a generation of children to become addicted to nicotine through e-cigarettes, said FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb. Well, President Trump gathered with top lawmakers and law enforcement officials on Wednesday to announce his support for a criminal justice reform bill. It's called the First Step Act. The bill passed in the House back in May, but the proposed Senate version adds a sentencing component aimed at helping criminals receive more just sentences and to integrate back into society without resorting to crime. Here's what President Trump had to say at the White House. Americans from across the political spectrum can unite around prison reform legislation that will reduce crime while giving our fellow citizens a chance at redemption.

So if something happens and they make a mistake, they get a second chance at life. The U.S. has placed sanctions on a number of Saudis believed to be involved in the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist who was never seen after entering a Saudi embassy in Turkey, and who had previously written for the Washington Post, among others. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin says these individuals who tariff, and brutally killed a journalist who resided and worked in the United States must face consequences for their actions. The United States continues to diligently work to ascertain all of the facts and will hold accountable each of those we find responsible in order to achieve justice for Khashoggi's fiancé children and the family he leaves behind. The government of Saudi Arabia must take appropriate steps to end any targeting of political dissidents or journalists.

Well, a U.S. District Judge in Florida has extended the deadline for fixing mail and provisional ballots that were rejected due to mismatch signatures. The order applies to voters who were belatedly notified of their signature problems. Judge Mark Walker is giving them until Saturday at 5 p.m. to fix the problem. Governor Rick Scott, the Republican candidate for Senate, called that decision baseless and appealed to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. Scott is currently leading Senator Bill Nelson. by just over 12,000 votes. Michael Avanotti, the lawyer who represents Stormy Daniels and who represented Julie Swetnik, one of the Brett Kavanaugh accusers,

is now facing accusations himself about whether he is guilty of domestic violence. Avanotti was arrested and had to post a $50,000 bail. An LAPD spokesman, Tony M., said there were visible injuries on the victim, per the Associated Press. Avanotti has denied the charges, and on Twitter Thursday suggested that a conspiracy theorist who allegedly tried to bring down Robert Mueller was also behind this.

Looks like Avenotti's the one crying witch hunt now. Jim Acosta is still fighting the White House to get his press credentials back. Judge Timothy Kelly will issue a preliminary decision on Friday morning as to whether the White House has to give him his press pass back, but that will hardly be the end of the drama. CNN is also seeking permanent relief,

meaning they want the judge to rule that Trump's seizure of the press credential was unconstitutional. President Trump revoked Acosta's press passed last week after an extended and heated exchange between the two at a press conference. Britain continues to struggle over Brexit.

On Thursday, six government ministers quit, one of them being the actual Brexit secretary. Prime Minister Theresa May continues to push her current Brexit deal, saying, quote, this is a Brexit that delivers on the priorities of the British people, end quote. Essentially, the political fight

is over how closely tied or not, Britain should be with the European Union after the formal withdrawal. Neither side is happy with the current deal. Well, in a disturbing event at a Baltimore theater performance of Fiddler on the roof, an audience member stood up and shouted Heil Hitler, Heil Trump, provoking others gathered around to run for the exits. An audience member named Rich Cher told the Baltimore son, quote, people started running.

I'll be honest, I was waiting to hear a gunshot. I thought, here we go, end quote. Another attendee, Samit Verma, says that he saw a man hold up his hand and do a Nazi salute while shouting those words. Usher's rushed over and subdued the man, removing him from the theater. Police then issued the man a stop ticket, but he wasn't arrested. Police spokesman said, as reprehensible as those words are, they are considered protected free speech because nobody was directly threatened. So yeah, it must have been terrifying. Definitely disturbing to hear that kind of anti-Semitic thing at Phila on the roof.

Or anywhere. Yeah, very concerning. Next up, we're going to be on a somewhat lighter note, and I'll be joined by the problematic women. Did you know you can now listen to all of our events through SoundCloud or just by visiting our events page on heritage.org? You now have access to hundreds of events and compelling discussions on policy issues from your car, on the train, or the comfort of your own home.

Visit heritage.org slash events for more information or search for the Heritage Foundation on SoundCloud. Do you have an opinion that you'd like to share? I'm Rob Blewey, editor-in-chief of The Daily Signal, and I'm inviting you to share your thoughts with us. Leave us a voicemail at 202-608-6205 or email us at letters at daily signal.com. Yours could be featured on the Daily Signal podcast. So it's our Problematic Women Day on the podcast. Joining me today is Kelsey Harkness, senior news producer for The Daily Signal,

and Lauren Evans, a multimedia producer at the Heritage Foundation and The Daily Signal. Okay, so our first topic is a little bit more adult than we usually go. So just a heads up if you have, you know, little pictures around. So here's a new video from the Atlantic. And it has some surprising findings. Apparently, the sexual revolution hasn't resulted in more sex lately. These should be boom times for sex. Our culture has never been more tolerant of sex in just about.

every permutation. Shameful terms like perversion have given way to cheerful ones like kink. Polyamory is now household word, and you can use apps to arrange for casual sex within an hour. But despite it all, young people are not having more sex, they're having less. The average adult has gone from having sex 62 times a year to 54 times. In the 90s, the percent of high school students who reported dating began a drop. More people than ever seem to be sitting on the sidelines, romantically speaking. Some experts say this may be because people are spending less time in couples. At the same time, the share of American men who reported masturbating in a given week doubled, while women

more than tripled. Easy access to porn is part of this story, of course. Some people say that the internet has made it so easy to gratify basic social and sexual needs that there's far less incentive to go out into the real world to satiate these desires. Okay, well, Lauren, not to put you in the spot, but I know you were very interested in the online dating portion of this video, of course, is, I don't know, a summary of a very, very long Atlantic article, which full disclosure I have not finished, but I will someday. Lauren, what are your thoughts? I thought it was really interesting.

With the online dating, it talks about how it creates such a large dating pool, and people both who online date and who don't online date kind of assume like, okay, you log on the app, you meet somebody, you go on dates, you hook up. But that's not what's happening. I think they said for an average looking man, he has to swipe on about, which swiping means that you're interested in dating them. You have to swipe on about 300 girls just to potentially talk to one. And that's not even like actually getting the date. So, you know, just because we have online dating doesn't necessarily mean that people are actually meeting one another? Right.

I mean, in some ways, you know, at least in my personal experience, sometimes having so many choices makes it that you're like, well, why should I settle on anything? Which is not a great mindset. Yeah, and they even said like the people who end up actually getting married are the couples who talk very briefly on the app and then meet up in real person, like really quickly. I think our so-called selfish generation, the millennials,

which I often push back against people calling us that. I'm a part of it. But I think our generation also has idealized relationships. We have so many Hollywood movies and examples in real life when we're following celebrity culture so closely now of these seemingly perfect marriages where sex is abundant. and then it turns out in real life, I mean, that's not how it works. And, you know, maybe we should wise up because if you look at the divorce statistics among celebrities, it's pretty awful.

Clearly, they don't have the perfect fairy tale marriage that they often make it seem in social media. So I was interested in reading this piece about how much of a role sort of celebrity culture and social media plays. because I think it is, you know, in a fortunate way, it suggests that people do have these lives that are full of lots and lots of sex. But if you actually look at statistics and talk to people, I mean, most of us know that's not how it works. So I think the article raises some interesting points on that front. And then I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on this. It got into how technology and pornography has affected the rates of men and women having sex. There are some scary things happening on that front that I didn't know about.

I mean, some of them happening here in the United States, some of them happening over in Japan where they're using really advanced technology so that you don't need a partner anymore. It said in this article, masturbation rates were going up. And so I think this is not a good sign for society that we're replacing physical interactions, physical touch with technology. I think that's going to lead to some very dangerous results. What do you think? Well, it's not just the United States. We've covered on this podcast. I'm not sure if it's still happening, but there was talk of a sex robot brothel coming to Texas.

and I believe the original outpost was in Canada. So, yeah, I think it's interesting. I think it was 2010. There was a Senate candidate, Christine O'Donnell, in Delaware, who was absolutely raked over the cold and mocked because she had said when she was younger, she opposed masturbation. And, you know, obviously not a popular opinion in today's America.

But as is being anti-porn. But I think what this article sort of says is, there might be unintended consequences to some of this stuff that maybe we haven't fully thought through. And it is interesting that, you know, yeah, we have this thing right now where it's never been easier or more approved to have casual sex. And yet it's interesting that people are not. And I think there's a lot of factors at play.

But I do think I wonder if we'll be able to have an honest conversation about this or if anyone with concerns will just be shut down as, hey, you're prudish. How dare you? It's very inconvenient to the liberal feminist. narrative that you hear that sort of promoted this whole, you know, free sex, open sex idea. And I think in so many ways we talk about this on the problematic podcast all the time, what second and third way feminist fight for ends up hurting them. And you see this a lot with Me Too. There's consequences to these interactions. And maybe our generation is finally wising up to that, we're just not ready to admit it. Yeah. And I think, too, it makes sense in our

instant gratification culture that, you know, a relationship, even outside of romantic relationships, but especially romantic relationships with a real person, is messy. I mean, Kelsey, you're married. I'm sure that you've had, you know, a few spirited discussions over the years. It's not easy. It's, you know, but a computer won't talk back. A sex doll. won't talk back. I mean, you can see some of the appeal when people are just becoming more and more used to having their way, having control, and having instant gratification. So, I mean, again, I just wonder if, yeah, there's a lot of factors including our ability, you know, we, you know, stuff like I was talking about Amazon Prime with someone recently and they were like, don't you want to get your deliveries

even faster? I mean, not that that mindset is really the problem, but I just want to say that, like, I think, again, there's unintended consequences. We want everything. We want it right away. And we don't want to deal with the drama of a relationship. Yeah. I mean, I was anti-pornography going into this, but it was just interesting in this kind of liberal article, how it just showed pornography ruins the minds of people. It used the word idealizes.

It puts this weird idealizes that sex is supposed to be this weird, you know, not intimate thing. It's this thing that you're supposed to share with the world. And then you pair it. One thing they're brought up is that women are more empowered to say no to sex now than ever, better than ever. So when they're having this bad sex or when they're having this rough sex, women just after that, they're like, you know, I don't need to deal with men anymore. And they're shutting it down. Yeah, a lot of sad things going on. Okay.

Well, on a, well, actually, I was going to say more a beat note and then I realized, no, not at all, actually. But the Canadian Down Syndrome Society is out with a touching new ad. And just to give you the visuals, it features people with Down syndrome wearing animal costumes. It is the cutest thing. I urge you to check it out with your eyes and not just listen to it. But we're going to play a short clip here. People with Down syndrome. People like me are endangered.

That's why we're applying to be the first. People, people, people. People. On the endangered list. Jaws are scarce. And our community is shrinking. We have to fight for education. We need support.

Like all these animals do. They make the world a more beautiful place. And so do we. Okay, well, Kelsey, you wrote about this for The Daily Signal. What do you think? Well, first off, I think I have to give Lauren Evans credit for finding it. She's really good at finding topics for me to write about. I'm really good at just scrolling to it.

And I'd take it away on DailySignal. So yes, I did write a piece on this on DailySignal.com. As Kate mentioned, I'd highly encourage you to watch the video. Look, in our world, we see a lot of pro-life ad campaigns. I have never seen one that is this effective. It's very highly produced, beautifully done, and it is a handful of children with Down syndrome, basically comparing themselves to endangered species.

And what this campaign is actually asking for is these children with Down syndrome because they are actually becoming endangered. And in some countries actually at risk of quote unquote extinction, they're asking to be the first humans to ever be included on the endangered species list. That's heartbreaking to me. And I think what is so powerful about this ad is it forces you to think about abortion in a different context because the reasons women seek abortions are so complicated, so sensitive, so difficult to have open discussions about. But when you realize how many women and their partners are choosing to abort children with Down syndrome,

it forces you to take a step back and ask what we're really doing as a society and whether they're, this is moral and right. So just to add some perspective to the number of children who are diagnosed with Down syndrome and aborted in the womb. So in the U.S., at least 67% of babies are aborted who have Down syndrome in the U.K. and I believe Canada, that number is closer to 90%. In Denmark, it is 98%. And in Iceland, the rate is effectively 100%. So they did a study from 2004 to 2013, fewer than four babies with Down syndrome were born each year. CBS came under fire in 2017

for publishing an article that I will never forget. It was titled, Is Iceland on track to eliminate Down syndrome? Obviously, there's a huge uproar about this because nobody is eliminating Down syndrome. They are simply eliminating the people who have Down syndrome via abortion. Very sad. I personally, in talking about abortion with some of my friends who aren't in the political world,

I find when I bring up the rates of babies when Down syndrome who are aborted, again, it forces them to think about what abortion is in a different way than perhaps they didn't want to or had never done before. So I really applaud this ad, and I'd encourage you all to check it out and share it. Yeah, and I think it just does such a good job of showing the hypocrisy of, I mean, how many infomercials have everybody seen, how many tweets have people seen of celebrities,

whether they be liberal or not liberal, but, you know, the tigers or the panda bears or the polar bears, you know, 25 of them are dying a day. I mean, that's very sad, I think. My mom always says true conservatives conserve. We should make sure that we're taking care of our environment. But these are human beings. These are people who live fulfilling lives and we're throwing them away.

And yeah, this ad just has such a good job of contrasting that. And they're so cute. They're wearing these little paper costumes. And they hit a good part too. It's not just about abortion. It's making sure that we are giving them jobs. And we are helping this community live fruitful lives. So good for them.

Yeah, very, it's a great ad. Okay, well next up, Michelle Obama's new book, Becoming is out. And on a media tour, the former First Lady has been pretty frank about her personal story. Here's what she told ABC News. I felt lost and alone and I felt like I failed because I didn't know how common miscarriages were because we don't talk about it. We sit in our own pain thinking that somehow we're broken. So that's one of the reasons why I think it's important to talk to young mothers about the fact that miscarriage has happened. And the biological clock is real because egg production is limited.

And I realized that as I was 34 and 35, we had to do IVF. I think it's the worst thing that we do to each other as women, not share the truth about our bodies and how they work and how they don't work. Well, I was glad to see her speak about this. I know, you know, women who have had miscarriages, obviously not everyone's public about that information, but it does sound like it's often a very traumatic experience. They often want to mourn and can't because people don't know they were pregnant. So I think it's a great issue for her to bring awareness on. I absolutely agree. Agree.

That's our new term for agree. Look, there's some things I disagree pretty strongly. in her book, but there's some things I give her a lot of credit for talking about. And, you know, one of those is IVF. I personally was struck that she said that women need to be frank about the biological reality of our bodies because that's true. And that's something that I don't think liberal feminist want us to be because it's very inconvenient to their narrative that women can work and have the super successful jobs and have the family they want. You know, I know people in my own life who have had to use IVF because they pushed off having children thinking that that would work for them.

And biologically, it just doesn't. So it's nice to see someone from the left who identifies as a feminist address that because maybe we need someone like Michelle to encourage some of the liberal feminists who often are very vocal on this. topic to actually acknowledge that there is a biological clock and if we ignore it, women might not ever be able to be fulfilled with the joy of having children of the biological way. Yeah, we just talked on this podcast maybe two months ago about the entire storage facility of eggs. The young women have been freezing that the refrigeration broke and they lost all these eggs.

And it's a lie that we're telling women our age is that, you know, you can have it all. You know, just store your eggs as your safety net. Just take your time finding Mr. Wright. But I also do think I do think Mrs. Obama hit on something good when she talks about her miscarriage and that women don't feel like that's a normal thing. And when they have a miscarriage, they're kind of pushed into solitude. And, you know, I don't think that every woman should have to go out there and, you know, scream their miscarriage.

But at the same time. Well, they scream their abortion. But they're not alone. And this happens, even at 28, I've had a lot of friends who've had miscarriages. So, you know, just the fact that she's kind of saying it's okay to other women, yeah, I really do applaud her for that. Yeah, and I would say, you know, yeah, I was glad to see her reference the biological clock. I think something that frankly, conservatives and liberals and moderate should all work on is, you know, how do we make our society a little more adaptable to women having children, you know, if they meet the right guy and are ready in their 20? Because I think right now there's often very real tension between building up your career.

I was actually on, of all people, Nancy Pelosi's Wikipedia page, I don't know, while ago, must have been right around the election. Because, you know, she has five kids. And I was sort of curious about her trajectory. And it seems like she married relatively young and I think had most of them, you know, relatively young. And then, of course, obviously went on to have a very successful political career. So maybe she'll have some ideas about this.

But, you know, I do think we need to figure out a way to say, like, we want women to be successful who want to be in the work arena. And we also want to make it so that, you know, their bosses get. They may need maternity leave, maybe several times over their 20s or early 30s. And I don't feel like we talk about that enough. The only other thing I would add is I'm personally not a big fan of IVF. I do have concerns about often the way it's done. There's frozen embryos left over. and I wish our culture would talk more about that and discuss, like, is that appropriate?

I would argue those are human beings. But I think, you know, overall, like, yes, these are conversations we need to have. We can't just have it in the darkness and there shouldn't be shame. Yeah. And, you know, talking about how women balance having a career with children reminds me of something else that Michelle Obama wrote and has been speaking about on her book tour. and that is, and it also relates to the first topic we were talking about, this idea of a seesaw marriage. Well, I think that was actually from a Vox article talking about her book. Okay.

Yeah. Yeah. So you were reading up about it. Why don't you explain what seesaw marriage is? And for all those wondering, yes, this is still the Daily Signal podcast. We are talking about Michelle Obama and Nancy Pelosi and Fox. But, you know, sometimes they have a- Sometimes liberals get it right.

Yeah. But they were talking about Michelle Obama talks about how when her husband was rising to prominence, she actually quit her job at a law firm so her husband could succeed. But the same thing happened that I can't remember what career Michelle Obama was, but it was early in her career when she had young children that Barack actually took a step back. And Vox labeled this a seesaw marriage. And I actually thought that was a really great way to look at it, that sometimes you need to take a step back for your partner. And other times. your partner needs to take a step back for you. And I think it goes back to what we were talking about in the first segment where people are told that they need to have it all and they can't have it all. But sometimes to have it all, you need to give things up. And it's great that, yeah, men's too sometimes should give things up on the career front. Okay, well, for our last topic, I want to quickly hit this bizarre ad. It's for a Celine Dionne, the singer is doing a collection with this. line called New New, I don't even know how you pronounce this.

But they're into gender neutral clothing. And Lauren, I think before we launched into the ad, do you wanted to describe a little bit what it looks like? Yeah, so Celine Dion is in this very futuristic hospital. She walks in, she doesn't even walk in. She's broken in. Okay, this really is like to do you. She broke into a hospital.

She broke into the hospital. She's in, it's like this jury room. There's babies in pink blankets on one side, babies and blue blankets on the other side. And in the kind of music break in the middle, she puts this like sparkly dust over all the babies and they turn into all these like gender neutral really hip babies. Like in black and white, but not like convex.

We may thrust them forward into the future, but the chorus will always be theirs to choose. I can't believe they call security. I mean, oh, come on, I'm Celine Dion. So yeah, she gets a rest. for changing the baby's clothes. She's so hip. This annoyed me so much when I first read about it.

I was like, whoop-de-do, another celebrity on a crusade to save us from the dangers of gender norms. Nothing new. And it's funny because when you actually look at the line that she is promoting and created because of this, it's just little black and white onesies that anybody would buy without necessarily bind into the left's idea of being, you know, their crusade against gender norm. So to me, the clothes were not revolutionary in any way. And I just thought this was so over-dramatized. And I guess I just hadn't seen it from Celine Dion before. So I thought it was just ridiculous over the top and complete nonsense because what she really did is create black and white onesies.

Yeah. So life changing. And I think about four times in the commercial she tried to make the joke like, I'm Celine Dion. And you're like, we know. We know. I mean, I don't know if I would recognize her. But yeah, I mean, I just was sort of like, I'm super socially conservative. And I'm like, I never thought it like, I was like, aren't most babies close gender neutral? I mean, I don't know. I guess you could get like a stupid little suit for a boy or a frilly dress for. It's not stupid. It's super adorable. Sorry. I mean, okay. But like, I just was sort of like, you know, I mean,

grew up in a large dish family and like I'm pretty sure they swapped you know blue and green clothes between us so all right people are thinking too much yes stop thinking okay well we're going to leave it there for today thanks so much for listening to the daily signal podcast brought to you from the robert h bruce radio studio at the heritage foundation please be sure to subscribe on itunes google play or sound cloud and please leave us a review or a rating on iTunes to give us any feedback and rob and jenny will see you monday you've been listening to the daily signal podcast Executive produced by Kate Trinco and Daniel Davis. Sound design by Michael Gooden, Lauren Evans, and Thalia Rampersad.

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