0:05 - The Battle of Attractiveness
2:20 - The Catfish Controversy
6:47 - Idolatry vs. Virtue
15:47 - The Problem with Hyper-Makeup
18:14 - The Cost of Falsehood
22:40 - Resisting Excessive Attractiveness
In this episode, I delve into a fascinating and controversial topic surrounding societal standards of beauty and the implications of hyper-sexualized representations of women, inspired by a social media discussion initiated by H. Pearl Davis, also known as Pearly Things. Davis's provocative stand against excessive female sexual presentation ignites a larger debate about authenticity versus illusion in how women portray themselves online. As I analyze her comments, particularly in the context of the upcoming Catfish of the Year award, I explore the stark differences between reality and the curated images that many women project through filters, makeup, and strategic lighting.
Throughout our conversation, I scrutinize the concept of makeup and enhancement, posing critical questions about its role in self-presentation and the expectations it generates among both men and women. The discourse isn't simply about aesthetics; it challenges the very foundation of how relationships may form based on perceived attractiveness versus genuine qualities. I reference various examples, including notable public figures like Sidney Sweeney and Paige Spiranak, to illustrate the disparity between public personas and their unfiltered reality, showcasing how such images can mislead audiences and create unrealistic standards.
One significant theme that emerges is the idea that society has tendentially shifted towards idolizing looks over virtues. I challenge the notion that attractiveness should dictate admiration, suggesting instead that we should focus on integrity, truth, and moral virtue as the cornerstones of any meaningful relationship. I bring in the age-old narrative of the Garden of Eden, using it as a metaphor to highlight the pitfalls of allowing superficiality to dominate our perceptions of worthiness and love. By establishing that men should aspire to love virtue over mere aesthetics, I argue for a cultural renaissance where appreciation for character supersedes adoration for appearance.
As the discourse progresses, I evaluate the psychological implications of these hyper-sexualized presentations. It becomes evident that they not only shape societal expectations but also impact how women perceive themselves and their worth. I advocate for a return to authenticity, where women are celebrated for who they are beyond physical appearance, and I emphasize that fostering self-acceptance and genuine connection is crucial for healthy personal relationships.
In addressing the competitive landscape of dating in the modern age, I propose that such standards foster insecurity, leading individuals to prioritize unattainable looks over genuine connections. I argue that, in doing so, we risk undermining family values and societal stability, as men are trained to seek out an unrealistic version of beauty that is unsustainable over time. Ultimately, I argue that individuals—both men and women—need to actively resist societal pressures to conform to engineered standards of attractiveness and instead focus on self-growth, integrity, and mutual respect.
In concluding this rich and multi-faceted discussion, I reaffirm the importance of prioritizing virtue and character when forming connections. Through this examination, I hope to inspire listeners to reflect critically on their own standards and to appreciate the deeper qualities that foster lasting and meaningful relationships.
[0:00] Good morning, everybody. Stefan Molyneux from Freedomain. Hope you're doing well. So, this is interesting.
[0:05] This woman, angel or devil, doing the gods or the Dark Lord's work, H. Pearl Davis, this is Pearly Things, on Twitter, and this is a fight of monumental, if not downright biblical proportions, with regards to women. And she is railing against, ah, you know what, that's a bit prejudicial. She is opposed to excessive female sexual or desirable presentation. She is against that. And so she wrote, a couple of days ago, she wrote, Now that 2024 is coming to a close, it's time to vote for our most important award, Catfish of the Year. I want to give special thanks to the filters, plastic surgeons, and FaceTime app that make this all possible. Please vote by liking and retweeting the lovely ladies in the thread below.
[1:02] And so on, right? And then there's a... The fact that there's a community note about this is, to me, quite funny. Wearing makeup and taking professional or better quality profile photos for avatars or professional use is a normal thing widely accepted by society, and apparently by Pearl on her own profile.
[1:19] So I don't think that she is complaining or railing against a little bit of makeup or some nice photos or anything like that, but let's get into this. So she says, first on deck we have the red-headed libertarian. Josie is a 40, that's a typo, 40-year-old conservative tweeter who made us think she looked 28 and hot. Unfortunately, she's mid like the rest of us. Please like this if you think she deserves the award. And of course there's a difference between the woman on the left and the woman without makeup. But she is not, in my humble opinion, Josie, the red-headed libertarian, is not mid. Of course there are bad photos and so on, and there's well-lit stuff and so on, but it is not a question of mid. But man, the ferocity between these two women. I won't even get into it. It's just absolutely wild. So what is the issue? We'll sort of get into that, right?
[2:21] So catfish of the year, this is not in particular conservatives. Sidney Sweeney, blonde bombshell. And this is Sidney Sweeney. And of course, then there were these photos taken of Sidney Sweeney.
[2:36] Where, you know, she's got bright light on her sunlight, she's squinting, brow furrows, and so on. I mean, obviously, a nice figure. I don't quite know what these lines are. Maybe she just rolled over other little fat lines on the side. She's not, obviously, not fat or anything like that, right? So, yes, there is a big difference. I don't know who these women are as a whole. Paige Spironak. So, there's this. And then there's this. And yes, these two things are very different, right? There's an old comedy, if the men know we can shapeshift, they're going to call the church, right? This is a very, very complex thing that's going on, right? So yes, there is a big difference, of course, right? And then this woman, Lolita Diarias, Puerto Rican bombshell. So this is, and this is the Cardi B thing, Or is she Cardi B without makeup, right? Not my particular pyramid-style body preferences, but, yeah, I don't know what the red nose is, but, yes, she has got a lot of makeup on, right?
[3:53] This is Sabrina Carpenter, and, yes, that's a lot of makeup. And, personally, I think that Sabrina Carpenter without makeup looks better than Sabrina Carpenter with makeup. Uh this is kabuki stuff just doesn't do it for me uh it's uh it's not real it's it puts them into ai cupidol uh territory i prefer this look i've never actually dated a woman who wears much makeup uh oh there's a note uh february she was only 15 years old again whatever i think she looks fine uh what's this girl um.
[4:30] So, yes, makeup and no makeup. Again, she looks fine to me. The big warning sign is the skull on her T-shirt. That's the dangerous thing. Courtney Nill. Look, I personally don't think that women who are trying to be influencers should pose in this kind of way. I mean, I've torn my shirt off on a couple of shows, mostly for comedy, because I'm in my 50s. So anyway, where is this? So she's got a bunch of these women. And it's an interesting question, right? It's an interesting question. Now, I'll sort of put forward a thesis as to why this has become so sort of controversial. But, you know, 10.2 million views, obviously, it's quite good. So in my view, I think a lot about the Garden of Eden, right? Story of the Genesis, right? I did a show on this very early on in my show. I think about this a lot because it has got to become a foundational mythology because it says something kind of important and kind of true, right? It says something important and kind of true. And what I think it says that's important and kind of true is that.
[5:46] Men should worship morality, not women, right? Men should worship virtue, truth, reason, evidence. Men should worship virtue, not women. And the only way that you can end up being a good partner to a woman, a good husband and father, is to worship virtue, to have integrity, right? To worship a woman gives too much power to the woman and means that you can't have integrity because you are tugged around like a kite tail after her own particular whims. And the more you worship someone, the more their whims become powerful. In general, since people can't handle power, the worse things get as a whole. So if you sort of look at the West, when women were sort of more covered up, and when men, it's an old title of an article, it's like men achieve more when it was harder to see boobs. And, you know, obviously, they're kind of true, right?
[6:48] So, when you had a society that worshipped God and truth and virtue and integrity and honor and all of these sorts of things, then men and women were generally happier. Women were certainly better protected.
[7:05] And the idolatry of the woman is in opposition to morality. And, of course, that goes right back to the story of the Garden of Eden, that there's this moral rule that's provided, do not eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And because of his deference to and worship of a woman, a curse was put upon mankind, right? We must love virtue.
[7:30] And we must love the truth, and we must love integrity, and then we can love women. But if we worship women, and I think that's idolatry where these hyper-sexualized signals, I've sort of talked about this before, these hyper-sexualized signals where you've got red lips indicate orgasm, a flush in the face like cheek rouging indicates sexual arousal, like these sort of high, this is like women walking around with, if a man had a sort of full-on Freddie Mercury phallus, right? And he's straining against his pants, right? That would be a sign of sort of sexual arousal. So, if women are constantly parading around with signs of.
[8:21] Sexual arousal or the desire to be pretty to men, that is, it's kind of a hack, right? And it's always interesting to me, of course, as an older, bald male, it's always interesting. It's an interesting question, right? I mean, who knows more about libertarianism, someone like Robert Murphy or someone like Josie the redheaded libertarian, right? And Robert Murphy, for all of his intellect, is not quite as attractive, I'm sure, to women as Josie in her prime would be to men. Is it a hack? Is it a cheat? Is it a fair contest, right? In other words, it's the old question, can men do OnlyFans? Well, not really, certainly not compared to how women can do it. So when men turn away from the worship of virtue and truth and reason and evidence and science and progress and engineering and all these sorts of things, and men turn towards the worship of women, which is sort of the modern pay-as-you-go simp culture, what happens to society as a whole? What happens to society as a whole. I think it is easy to say that it does not go well.
[9:39] So... The responses are interesting, because when Pearl says, these women are not as attractive as you think they are, that they are faking their level of attractiveness. And it's kind of hard to argue that. I mean, I have, I think once or twice I put on to cover up some sort of zit or something, mostly just because I don't want people to be distracted, I think, like a couple of times over 20 years. But for the most part, I obviously, I mean, almost exclusively, I never put anything on my face or on my head. I just sit down and do a show. So I don't have any of that sort of stuff. I've never put makeup on for professional photographs. I've never tried to get massively flattering lighting. I just, I mean, the last couple of photos I got done for thumbnails was done, was done in my study against sunlight. So anyway, I'm trying to get known, of course, one, to be known for the quality of my thoughts rather than the quality of my appearance. What matters to me is to have a pleasant sounding voice, which I think I do, rather than, say, a full head of hair, which is not particularly important. So is it a hack? Is it something that is an unfair competition aspect, right?
[11:02] And I think that the answer is yes, it is an unfair competition to have women fake their looks. And it is faking their looks. Now, with Courtney Nill, I mean, I assume that's her with less makeup. And that's her with, I don't know if there's makeup up there, but, you know, breast meat hanging out kind of thing. That's just a program for men. So what happens is, of course, if she's saying these women are faking their looks, which to some degree, of course, they are. I mean, that we can't argue with, right? To some degree, faking your looks is occurring. No question, right? May that be going to understand. So then they say, well, how do you rank, right? And then they have unflattering pictures of Pearl. She was a little heavier in the past. She has, I think, gone to the gym and lost weight and so on, and she's a semi-pro volleyball player, so obviously very fit and so on, so...
[12:06] Saying that Pearl is not as attractive as some of these women in makeup or not in makeup is not the point. And of course, it does seem kind of catty. If the women were to say, well, yeah, I enhance my attractiveness because I want to get more attention from male listeners and it gets me higher views than it would otherwise. I mean, if you were really, really good looking and you didn't have a video, you only did audio and nobody knew what you looked, I'm not sure that would be the wisest. It would be like Brad Pitt being only a radio actor or only doing audio books and stuff like that. I mean, nobody does that who's got that kind of looks. Everybody knows that looks can be monetized. And if you were to just say, yeah, I really, really enhance my looks because it helps get me more attention. And, you know, I hope to do good with all of that attention and so on. Okay, that's just honest, but it seems to be that the problem to me is the falsehood, right? That's the problem to me, right?
[13:08] That's the problem with me. It is that people can't just be honest about it. Yeah, I enhance my looks because it helps me get more viewers, right? It helps me get more. And now, you know, you can say, well, I hope to do good with all of the views that I'm getting. I'm going to be doing virtue and promoting truth and goodness and all that but all of that right that is the reality but saying if if pearl is saying these women are faking their looks and then they say well you're not pretty that's not the issue but that is a lot of how women will have this kind of combat is if she says you're faking your looks, and i mean again i don't know who this page woman is i guess she's a golfer and so on but yeah i I mean, come on, that's faking your looks, right? So if women say, yeah, I'm faking my looks, gives me more views, gives me more money, men pay me to be pretty, and I look prettier with makeup, and I get more attention and all of that, that's fine. Just be honest about it, right?
[14:11] And, you know, personally, she says, I admit as well, it's not an insult. What they're doing is fraud, is kind of the argument, right? Is it fraud to apply makeup and do your hair? Is it fraud to purchase cosmetic surgeries? No, it is not.
[14:28] Well, is it fraud to apply makeup and do your hair? Well, it's not if you say, this is not how I look, right? Right? Because this kind of hyper makeup stuff. So here's the problem. I mean, it's a lot of problems with it. Right? So if men think that this is how women look, men will not be attracted to this. Right? So what happens is by getting all of this lighting and the hair and this sort of bedhead stuff is like, so a woman who's virtually topless, who's smiling at you with bedhead is post-coital gaze. Right? Oh, you were great in bed last night. Whereas this is, you know, I've got a bunch of laundry to do for the kids, right? Nothing wrong with that, right? But the problem is, is that by realigning what men find attractive to hyper makeup and professional photographs and professionally done hair and like this stuff, which takes hours and hours and hours to do and is absolutely unsustainable in a relationship where women, of course, put their hair up and walk around in sweatpants and so on. The problem is that it recalibrates men's brains to find something attractive that is not real. To find something attractive that is not real, and is not sustainable, and is not factual.
[15:48] And in other words, you are getting more male attention in the moment. Honestly, I know this sounds like maybe it's an exaggeration. I really genuinely believe this, that you get more male attention and resources in the moment, but it comes at the expense of family formation and the birth rate in the future, because men get programmed to find heavy makeup and all of that attractive, and then when they see a woman not with that, then they're no longer as attracted, or they no longer find it pretty. And women know that, right? So then women are constantly stressed about how they look and can't relax and can't be seen for who they are and accepted for who they are, and they have a great terror of aging because they're not loved for who they are, they're loved for their looks, like it really does take a massive hammer blow to pair bonding and to dedication, to devotion, right? I mean, if you love a woman for how she looks, she's going to age.
[16:44] Right? She's going to age. I mean, maybe Josie looked like this without all of them, probably not, right? But she looked, and she's got a very nice figure and all that kind of stuff. But maybe she looked like this when she was younger, and now she looks like this. Well, if you're into someone because of their looks, well, they're going to age. I mean, I've been doing my stuff for almost 20 years, and I sure as heck don't look the way that I looked 20 years ago. I mean, 58 is different from 38. Does that mean that my wife looks older? Does that mean that we don't love each other? No, because we love virtue and all of that. We worship virtue and love each other. When you worship virtue, you can love another person. If you worship another person, you can't be moral because you're just trailing after them, right? So attacking Pearl's looks is not fair and not.
[17:35] Valid, right? I mean, I don't even know that that's the same woman down here. Was it JoJo from Juris? So, when Pearl says, these women don't look like that, and there are negative consequences to this kind of falsehood, and the negative consequences are, do you feel loved for who you are? Do you feel loved for how you look? Are you taking a shortcut to attention? I do think that we should aim to be virtuous, right? And we should be loved for our virtues. And that is fine. It's fine to be attractive. And, you know, of course, the pair-bonded marital relationship is for children.
[18:15] Children, of course, require sexuality. So the foundation of marriage is sexuality because you can be friends with people outside your marriage. You just can't have sex with them outside your marriage. Oh, is there more? There's more. Brittany Venti. Yeah, from that to that. Yeah, I mean, it's sad, of course, that she has, I assume those are acne scars and so on, and that's tough. But if you think that this is how women look and this is how a woman looks, you're going to have a tough time, right? You're going to have a tough time. Now, I think this is a comedian. I think she put an old lady filter on, and I think that's kind of different, right?
[18:52] Sarah Gonzalez. I mean, again, to me, this woman looks fine. fine. This obviously is fake Kupi doll stuff. I don't find that attractive at all. You think of kissing that and coming away with a face full of powder and lipstick. I think she looks fine and all of that. Gosh, who's this?
[19:13] Ada Lelouch. Let's see. Solid 8.5. And this is her without makeup. I don't know. That's a big difference. Big difference. Anna from TWG. I don't know who that is. Yeah, so that is not a very, very good thing. But yeah, so saying that Pearl lacks some classical features or whatever, she is not saying that she is as attractive. She is saying that these other women's looks are not real. And this is to some degree, of course, this is a sort of war of attrition because if if women use all of these makeup and filters and so on then the women who don't may suffer a disadvantage so this is well they will suffer a disadvantage right so if everyone if all the men think that women have to look like this with all the makeup and they look like that without the makeup and i think even there's some makeup there too, right? If men think that women have to look like this and then they look like this, then the women who don't wear makeup are viewed as significantly less attractive because they're not using as much makeup.
[20:34] Women are viewed as significantly less attractive, and that is harmful in the daily market for women who aren't wearing a lot of makeup. So, I think it's a very interesting topic, and I suppose the equivalent would be for men, men who wear, you know, really good toupees, or who get this hair transplant surgery or who fake being wealthy and so on, or fake having attractive girlfriends, that that would be fake, right? So there's an old trick about a guy who would go through the, receipts on a banking machine until there was someone who had a really high balance, and then he'd ask a girl out, she'd say no, and he'd write his number on the receipt with a really high bank balance, like a million or two million dollars, and then see if the woman would be more interested. So that's faking it, right? Is it faking it for a man to pretend that he's wealthy when he's not? Is it faking it for a man to get hair transplant surgery when he doesn't actually look like that? And so on, right?
[21:45] You know, it is kind of fake, right? It is kind of fake. So, these are important. These are important questions to be asked, and I think it comes down, in the long run, it's going to come down to men overcoming their instincts, right? So, for a man to say, this is a marker of significant insecurity and high maintenance, and this is a mark of a woman who is confident, right? So, high makeup is high insecurity, high maintenance, high difficulty, high neurosis, high whatever. It's just going to be a tough relationship, right? Because a woman's going to be insecure if she looks like this. But this is a real woman who's going to love you and kiss you and raise your kids and all of this kind of stuff. Whereas this is a woman who's going to, you know, take you to court or something. I don't know about this woman, but just this sort of level of makeup, right?
[22:40] So really, it does come down to men, you know, resisting Eve, right? Resisting excessive female attractiveness. So in general, a woman wants to join you on your life journey, right? So my approach has always been, I'm going to a movie, would you like to come along?
[22:58] As opposed to, I'm going to a movie if you say yes, right? And if you don't say yes, I'm not going to the movie. For me, it's always been, I'm having a life, I'd love it if you'd join me. And I think in general, women find that deep down most attractive. That's some of the bad boy stuff, obviously, to access. But women in general find it most attractive when you're having a life and they can join, rather than they are your life. Because when you're staring at them and sighing over them, you're not hunting, you're not out there getting resources, you're not competing with other men. And if you worship her against integrity, honor, virtue, and truth, then you're not a stable person to have a relationship with.
[23:38] Because the only way a woman can really trust a man is based upon his integrity, his self-control, and his virtue. So I would say, look, the red-headed libertarian obviously is a brilliant woman. There's nothing she doesn't know about the Constitution and the Revolutionary Wars and a lot of other things. I personally don't think she needs all of that stuff any more than I need. You know, I could have gone, decided to go public with wigs or hair transplants or something like that. I'd like to think I don't really need that stuff and so on, right? I mean, so I think it's up to men to, you know, pursue virtue. If you worship virtue, you can love women. If you worship women, nobody can love anyone. So I'd really focus on that. All right, freedomain.com slash donate. Thank you so much for your time, care, and attention. Lots of love from here. Happy New Year to everyone. I'll talk to you soon. Bye.
Support the show, using a variety of donation methods
Support the show
