The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Oestrogen Expert: Birth Control Changes Who You Are...Would You Still Love Them If You Came Off It?! Oestrogen Makes You More Attractive!
Mon, 25 Nov 2024
From sabotaging sex to axing attraction, new research is showing that the birth control pill can have impacts you never imagined Dr Sarah Hill is a renowned evolutionary social psychologist whose work focuses on women and health. She is also the author of the book, ‘How the Pill Changes Everything: Your Brain on Birth Control’. In this conversation, Dr Sarah and Steven discuss topics such as, how the pill affects a woman’s choice in partner, the real reason people are having less sex, the link between the pill and orgasms, and the optimum time to initiate sex. 00:00 Intro 02:18 What Is the Mission You Are On? 03:12 Is This Conversation Only for Women? 04:01 Why Does Sarah Hill Do This Work? 05:27 Is There a Problem in Dating When Women Have More Resources? 09:14 Is Sex Trending Down? 10:37 Why Don’t Women Date Broke Men? 12:23 Is This Patriarchy? 14:49 Why Do Men Take More Risks? 16:36 Are Men Better at Business Than Women? 23:00 Why Don’t We Live Like Our Biology Intended? 25:36 Signs of a High-Status Male 27:19 How Women’s Preferences Change During Their Cycle 33:32 High Testosterone and Relationship Status 34:27 Do Men’s Testosterone Levels Plummet After Having a Baby? 36:12 Do Nice Guys Get Laid? 37:22 What Makes Us Attracted to Someone? 41:21 Are Men Less Attracted to Successful Women? 42:55 Jealousy Among the Sexes 47:17 Why Do Women Have Gay Best Friends? 49:12 Why Did Sarah Write Her Book on Birth Control? 53:49 What Does Sarah Wish She Was Told About the Pill? 55:48 How the Pill Changes Your Sexual Desires 01:02:19 If My Partner Is on the Pill, Will She Like Me If She Comes Off? 01:06:02 Would a Man’s Attraction Change If a Woman Is Off the Pill? 01:08:18 Will My Testosterone Be Lower If My Partner Is on Birth Control? 01:11:14 Is There a Population Crash Coming? 01:12:59 What Is a Good Man? 01:15:07 Sex Appetite Across Genders and Why 01:18:26 Advice for Young Men Struggling to Get a Woman 01:21:17 Advice for Daughters on Attracting a Man 01:23:43 Are Men Attracted to Confident Women? 01:26:38 What Are Daddy Issues? 01:28:18 What Role Does a Father Play in a Woman’s Sexual Partner? 01:28:53 What Impact Does the Birth Control Pill Have on Stress? 01:31:37 Depression and Suicide Linked to the Pill 01:33:31 How Did Sarah Feel About Her Daughter’s Decision on Birth Control? 01:38:36 What If Men Had to Take the Pill? 01:42:26 What’s the Most Popular Email Sarah Gets? 01:45:53 Guest’s Last Question 🚀 The 1% Diary is live - and it won’t be around for long, so act fast! https://bit.ly/1-Diary-YT-ad-reads Follow Dr Sarah: Instagram - https://g2ul0.app.link/KjuJon93HOb Twitter - https://g2ul0.app.link/UFHinMb4HOb Website - https://g2ul0.app.link/f3JSWDd4HOb You can purchase Dr Sarah’s book, here: https://g2ul0.app.link/oEjQpGOwJOb Studies mentioned: https://beacons.ai/thediaryofaceo Watch the episodes on Youtube: https://g2ul0.app.link/DOACEpisodes My new book! 'The 33 Laws Of Business & Life' is out now: https://g2ul0.app.link/DOACBook You can purchase the The Diary Of A CEO Conversation Cards: Second Edition, here: https://g2ul0.app.link/f31dsUttKKb Follow me: https://g2ul0.app.link/gnGqL4IsKKb Sponsors: ZOE - http://joinzoe.com with code BARTLETT10 for 10% off Colgate - https://www.colgate.com/en-gb/colgate-total Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: How does birth control affect attraction?
Are you saying that you'd recommend that a woman looking for a partner gets off the birth control pill until they find one?
Yeah, I mean, researchers found when women who were partnered to attractive men went off hormonal birth control, they were more attracted to their partner. But for women who were partnered with less attractive partners, they became less attracted to their partners and reported being less sexually satisfied.
It's quite frightening.
Dr. Sarah Hill is a leading research psychologist and professor uncovering the shocking effects the contraceptive pill has had on women, relationships and society and what we can do about it.
There's been nothing more instrumental to women's ability to be able to achieve independence than the birth control pill. And so we're very cavalier in just giving it to people. Oh, well, you should go on it for this and you should go on it for that. But it has huge costs.
And when I started to dig into the research, I found there's at least five different things the birth control pill does to change who we are. And these risk factors, they're swept under the rug by their doctors who are prescribing it. First, the changes are emotional states with increased risk for developing anxiety and depression. And then it influences our ability to put on muscle mass.
And it can also affect our sexual function because it turns off that estrogen surge that makes us feel sexier and makes us want to have sex. And there's more. But we also know that it affects men in two different ways. And this has implications for society around us. I'll tell you why.
So... So what are the alternatives for women?
Let's dive down into that. First...
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Chapter 2: Why is the birth control pill significant for women's independence?
Right. We know that women are dating upwards because that's what women express a preference for, and it's also who women tend to marry. So when you look at, for example, data looking at the education levels of people who get married and the age of people when they get married, women generally will marry somebody who's older. And generally earns more money than they do themselves.
And, you know, this is something that isn't specific to the U.S. This is something that we tend to find cross-culturally that women tend to express a preference for this. And, yes, it has become more common for women to be open to partnering with people who earn less money than themselves, for example. or have less education than themselves than what it used to be.
But it's still not what it would be if women were actually more willing to make that trade-off. What we see is that instead of choosing to marry down, what many women are choosing to do is simply not get married at all.
Are they making that choice, or is it just a lack of good options?
I think yes and yes, right? I think that they're making that choice because there aren't good options. So I think that many women feel the constraint of the fact that there's not as many partners available that have the qualities that they're looking for in a long-term partner.
And as a result of that, they're just making the choice when it's between that, like, you know, just staying single and not partnering with somebody that they desire, or partnering with somebody who has fewer resources than they do or less education than they do themselves. They're choosing the former.
They're instead choosing to be single instead of having to partner with somebody who doesn't, you know, sort of meet what their exacting standards are.
Are they still having sex?
Yeah, you know, that's a good—so sex is down. Like, sex is trending downward. What we tend to see is that people are having a lot less sex than they used to. They're having sex later. They're having less—fewer people are not virgins. That's a double negative. More people are virgins when they're graduating high school and college than there were in the past. This is becoming increasingly common.
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Chapter 3: What are the risks of hormonal birth control?
Right. Yeah. Well, you know, we have inherited this mating psychology from our distant ancestors who are very much more reliant on men for things like provisioning, resource access, and even protection than what contemporary women need. And this is because throughout most of our evolutionary history, we spent our lives, you know, having to be pregnant regularly.
lactating, caring for young children. And we're very heavily dependent on the ability of our partner to gain access to things like food and the other resources that we're not able to get access to when we are very pregnant or dealing with young children. Like, I don't know if you've ever gone... hunting before or met a two-year-old, but the two things don't mix, right? The children are loud.
They're not going to allow you to sneak up on a buffalo. It's not an ideal situation for women. So women historically have been very dependent on men for resources. And we've inherited that brain because over the course of evolutionary history, women who would have placed an emphasis on choosing partners who have these kinds of qualities
they would have been more likely to have surviving offspring who then passed that tendency or that preference onto their offspring who'd pass that preference down to their offspring. And so human, you know, contemporary human women, even though we're able to gain access to resources of our own, we still have that preference, right?
We've inherited that preference from our successful ancestors because women who had that preference would have performed better than women who didn't pay attention to that sort of thing.
So oftentimes people think things are the way they are because of a patriarchy or because of sort of social factors. But you're saying that there are sort of innate biological differences and evolutionary differences in men and women that go beyond our sort of sexual organs and stuff.
Oh, yeah, no, absolutely. Yeah, you know, and in fact, the patriarchy, which just refers to, you know, male control of resources, right? wouldn't really exist if women didn't desire resources in their partners. Because the reason that men tend to control a lot of resources is because women demand resource access on the part of their partners.
And if women didn't care, then men wouldn't work so hard to get access to them. You know, there's this really great quote by Aristotle Onassis where he once said, without women, all the power and money in the world would be completely meaningless. And I think that there's a lot of wisdom in that.
Men work so hard to control the resources, not because men together are banding together and trying to hoard the resources and keep them from women. I don't think that that's really how the world works. And I think if you have a look around, we'd see that that's not really how the world works.
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Chapter 4: How does the birth control pill affect sexual desire?
One of the reasons, not the only reason, but certainly one of the reasons that we see that more men tend to be in positions of being a CEO, for example. is because oftentimes men are more willing to make the trade-offs that you have to make to get into those positions because men are wired that way, right?
And the reason that they're wired that way is because they've inherited these tendencies to want this despite the costs because it would have paid off in terms of being able to attract better partners, a greater number of partners, right, and then being able to have your children do better. And so the patriarchy, yes, that is something that exists.
We do tend to see that men tend to control resources more frequently than women in most societies around the world. But this isn't because men are banding together and trying to exclude women. Instead, this is just a product of men's evolved psychology trying to work as hard as they can to get access to resources, in part because women require them.
And men are much more likely to take risks, aren't they, as you say? So as you were speaking, I was thinking about the gambling statistics that I read that said the vast majority of gambling addicts are men. So I was just thinking about that in the context of like entrepreneurship and these kinds of things. Is that to say that men are going to be more entrepreneurial?
Yeah, yeah. You know, I would think so, yes. And the reason being that it is about risk, right? And women oftentimes, again, you know, a lot of this has to do with the psychology that we've inherited. And throughout most of our history, women were caring for young children. I mean, this was, you know, kind of what our bodies made us have to do. It's like our bodies are wired for
having babies, right? And this doesn't mean that this is what women should do, right? Or what women need to do, or that, you know, that this is somehow destining women to do one, you know, this set of activities. But instead, throughout most of our history, we spent a lot of our time pregnant and caring for young children.
And that has selected for our psychology to be very risk sensitive and risk averse. And what we tend to see is that women are more risk averse than are men. And we can see this play out in terms of things like gambling, right? We know that overwhelmingly. Men tend to be the ones who are gambling addicts relative to women. But also in terms of good risks, right?
Because you do see something like being an entrepreneur, for example, which is something that does come with a pretty big risk attached to it, meaning that, you know, there's a big boom and bust. But the risk associated with the possibility of a bust is something that women's psychology is a little bit less tolerant of relative to men's.
I think one of the interesting observations I've had as an investor, but also as an entrepreneur myself is there may be data to support the fact that more men are likely to start businesses, but it doesn't necessarily mean they're better at it. And part of that links to what you said about this
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Chapter 5: Why are women becoming less interested in casual dating?
And this does not mean that this is what most men do. Most men don't translate their increased status and their increased access to resources. By gaining access to an astronomical number of partners. But historically, that's something that men sometimes do, right?
If we look at history, you'll see particularly in polygynous cultures where you have men who are able to have access to multiple partners at the same time. those men who have the most resources and have the highest status tend to have multiple wives, right? They tend to have a greater number of children, right? And we are the descendants of people who would sometimes make that decision, right?
And so what we tend to see is that that has shaped men's mating psychology and shaped men's achievement motivation psychology in ways that helps to promote, you know, gaining access to resources in part because gaining access to resources is leads to a greater fitness return than what is available to women from doing the exact same thing.
This wasn't a long time ago in human history either, because my granddad in Nigeria, I've never met the guy. I don't believe he's still alive. I've never been close to him. But I was told that he had 10 or 14 wives.
Right.
And so I was told that I have 30, 40 cousins in Nigeria. Yeah.
Right, yeah.
I mean, I'm doing okay financially, but I probably don't have the means to meet them all and become friends with all of them. But yeah, that's pretty striking that just sort of one generation above my dad was a man that had multiple wives.
And so when you say that that could be passed down to me in some way, that sort of proclivity to want to acquire more resources so that I can support more people, it's quite frightening.
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Chapter 6: What does the research say about men and women's dating preferences?
We form these long-term pair bonds. And so then we also have to ask ourselves, given that this is something that is possible for men to increase their reproductive output simply by gaining access to new partners, Why is it that most men don't do this? What are the benefits?
When you look at contemporary hunter-gatherer groups where humans are living in ways that are more similar to the way that our ancestors likely lived than what we do currently, what you tend to see is that those children who have an investing father around, their probability of survival is vastly higher than that of the children of women who do not have an investing partner around.
One of the other parts of the answer is that women generally don't want to share, right? And so what you get is by men being willing to restrict their own what we call reproductive value, which just refers to the number of potential children that they can have into the future. That increases the quality of partner they're going to be able to have because most women don't want to share.
And so if you are a woman who's of high value, meaning that you have a lot of the qualities that men desire in their partners, you can be really picky and say, no, I'm not going to share. And so if you want to mate with me, then that means that you're going to have to make some decisions.
Because, you know, imagine that you're a man, and just based on all of the qualities that you have, let's say that your mate value is, and let's assume that mate value has a 1 to 10 scale. Okay, so there's a 1 to 10 scale, and you're a 7, right? Excuse me. All the qualities. I'm just, I'm not talking about you. I'm talking about the royal you. What have I got to do to be an 8?
The reason I'm making you, and again, I'm saying the royal you, a 7 is because, so I'm just... Bear with me here. Imagine that you're a seven, right? And you're a seven without being willing to, I know, without being willing, I know it sounds sad, but you just got to trust me here. Your value of seven is because you are not really willing to commit to a long-term relationship, right?
So you have all these resources and you have, you know, and you've got your attractiveness and you've got your good genes and all the other things. I've got a dog. Right? Yeah, but you're not willing. Podcasts. Yeah, exactly. You've got a podcast. You've got all this, like, great stuff going for you. But you're not willing—you're not going to just, you know, commit your resources to one person.
And you meet somebody who's just, you know, she's amazing, and she also has a podcast, and she's gorgeous, and she's a nine. You can increase your value to her just by being willing to invest. Right.
Because women desire that, because women generally place a priority on somebody's willingness to stick around and to continue to invest resources in just her, you can increase your value from a 7 to a 9 or a 10 just by virtue of being willing to commit.
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Chapter 7: How do women’s preferences change during their menstrual cycle?
I do know that research finds that men don't place as much of a priority on that compared to women. But I don't know that they penalize them exactly, right? If you had somebody, if you show a man a photograph of a woman who's dressed like a CEO and she's gorgeous, and you show a man a picture of a woman who's dressed like a Burger King service person, right? And she's drop-dead gorgeous.
Men are going to find her similarly attractive in both conditions. It doesn't matter. The woman could be doing – it doesn't matter what the woman is doing. And there's been research that shows this. They'll show men and women photographs of people in different types of outfits. And the men's ratings of how attractive the women are has just everything to do with how attractive the women are.
For women rating men – It all depends on what they're wearing, right? Do they show cues to resource access? Do they not show cues to resource access? And women tend to modulate how physically attractive they find men based on whether or not they have these cues related to provisioning ability.
So I don't know if there was a really attractive, and there are a lot of really attractive, females in positions of power.
Men will find them just as attractive as they do somebody who's not in a position of power, although they may be, you know, potentially less likely to choose them as a long-term mate, you know, if there's issues related to power dynamics and that sort of thing that they don't want to mess with.
What about jealousy? And specifically, is the term intersex? Women being jealous of women, men being jealous of men. You mentioned a second ago that if 60% of the college-educated or college attendees, or 70% of them are women, and there's only a pool of 30% which are men... isn't there going to be a ton of competition amongst women? And what direction does that competition travel in?
Is it low status women having competition with high status women? Or is it, what is it?
I mean, the competition when you have cases where there's an asymmetrical sex ratio and like we do on college campuses, I mean, women are very competitive amongst one another for access to the men that are available.
And oftentimes the way that this, like the form that this tends to take is that women become increasingly likely to be willing to do whatever men want of them in order to be chosen as a mate. And what we've tended to see on college campuses is because men are more oriented towards
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Chapter 8: What advice does Dr. Sarah Hill have for women considering birth control?
I mean, I guess I might tell her to hit the gym. It would probably make her feel better. But I don't think that I would tell her, like, you know, you should probably go and get your hair done and, you know, I'm trying to think. Oh, well, go off the birth control pill so that if she was on the birth control pill, which she is not.
But I'm just thinking in an abstract way like what I would tell her, like things that women can do to increase their attractiveness to men. I mean it's like, okay, go be more beautiful. Like what are you going to say? And so like I said, my real advice if my daughter said this, I would say you like probably need a different pool of mates.
What if she was 35? Yeah.
If she was 35, hmm, good question. So if she was 35, what would I recommend? Like, is this, like, what I would actually recommend to my daughter? Or are you trying to get at, like, what should a woman do? Because here's—I have two different answers, right? So if a woman is just, like, looking for—if you want me to write—
a pamphlet called 35-Year-Old Woman, Here are the Things You Need to Do to Find a Partner. I mean, it would have a whole list of unsavory, like, things that, you know, I mean, it would be like, consider Botox. Men are attracted to women who have features related to youth and fertility. consider having a Brazilian butt lift because men are also interested in this.
Why don't you also consider, you know, spending time on your hair and makeup? But I don't think I would write that book. You know, that's not the advice that I would give.
Do men find confidence attractive in women? Because I was thinking about this as you were speaking, because I can think of many people that I know, many women and men, but many women that I know that are maybe approaching their 40s, and they're beautiful. But they're single and they don't want to be single.
And it's not necessarily a physical thing, it appears, but it seems to be more of like a self-esteem confidence thing. And I can see how in men confidence matters, like if they're stood up straight and they exert those signals of dominance or not dominance, but like a high status.
Right.
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