Why Boys are Falling Behind in America Today, and the Truth About ADHD and Plastics, with Dr. Leonard Sax | Ep. 1387

0:00Hot summer days deserve cool, comfortable nights. The temper breeze mattress pulls heat away from your body to help you sleep cool. Shop temperedics biggest sale of the year and save up to $700 on select adjustable mattress sets only at temperpedic.com. This episode is brought to you by SoFi, the Everything App for Smarter Money, Banking, Investing, Burling, and More. Make your first move with SoFi Chicken and Savings. Earn up to 3.80% savings APY for up to six months. No account fees plus a cash bonus up to $400 when you sign up with eligible direct deposit. Terms apply. SoFi.com slash smart money. SoFi. Get your money right. SoFi Chicken and Savings is offered through SoFi Bank, NA, member FDIC. Welcome to the Megan Kelly Show live on Sirius XM channel 111 every weekday at least. Hey everyone on Megan Kelly. Welcome to the Megan Kelly Show.

1:00Today we dive into the growing crisis among American boys and young men from classrooms to the workplace to dating and marriage and beyond. They are falling behind becoming less ambitious, less resilient, and many lacking an overall sense of purpose. There are many reasons why changes in education, what they eat, the fear of AI, the addiction to it, and porn to name just a few. On the show today, a man who's got some real answers on what's happening with our young men, Dr. Leonard Sachs. He has been researching this issue for decades. He is a practicing physician, psychologist, and bestselling author. And he is the author of books like Why Gender Matters? Oh, subversive. It does. The collapse of parenting. And every time he's on the show, we get great feedback from our audience wanting more. Today he is with me in person here in the Red Studio to talk about his new book and update on his bestseller from nearly 20 years ago.

2:03It's called Boys Adrift, the six factors driving the growing epidemic of unmotivated boys and underachieving young men. Feelings, luggage, bloated, not quite like yourself? Life constantly bombards us with silent threats, processed foods, artificial light, non-stop stress, all of which can disrupt gut health, drain energy, and weaken immune health. When that happens, it's not that your body is broken. It's that it might be missing the right inputs. That's why I want to tell you about Armra Collustrum. It's packed with more than 400 bioactive nutrients that they say can work at a foundational level to fortify gut health, support immune health, fuel recovery, and promote whole body vitality. Strong gut integrity can support metabolism, skin and hair health, and even performance and recovery, which is why Collustrum has long been valued by some elite athletes as well. If you are looking to take back control of your health from the inside out, consider Armra. And they have a special deal for you. Go to armra.com slash Megan or just enter

3:07Megan and that will get you 30% off your first subscription order. That's a great deal. Armra.com slash Megan. Dr. Sacks, welcome back. Thanks for inviting me. Oh, it's great to have you here in person. Yes, indeed. It's when I read up on you and the studies in this book, I felt sad. I felt for Lauren as the mother of two boys and a daughter, but you know, this is about the boys. And just about the state of American men today, like from the fact that they are being treated as problems from the time they're in kindergarten, to the fact that they're no longer having sex with real women wanting to get married, wanting to find jobs, wanting to date, to the sad cases, some of which we featured on the show of kids committing suicide because they become too enraptured with an AI chatbot, whether it's a, quote, regular one or

4:11a sexy girl type one. That's not real. I don't even know where to begin. Like, is it, where is it? Where do we begin? Like, what to begin to solve all of this? So let's start, I guess, at the beginning. First of all, you've updated this book. Why? Why? Okay, so I mentioned the first edition came out 2007. And why did I write it? Well, I'm a family doctor. I've been a family doctor more than 30 years now. And in so many families, I've think of one family where the parents are very concerned about their son. He was 16 years old at the time. We have this conversation and he's not doing well in school. He's basically failing Spanish. Couldn't care less. Spence is free time playing video games looking at porn. Other said he's a total goofball. They're very proud of their daughter, who's basically a straight-a student, captain of the varsity soccer team. The girl is shining and the boy is adrift. And I saw this pattern over and

5:16over again. The reverse pattern where the boy is a star and the girl is adrift. Very, very rare. Why is this? Same parents, same household, but very different outcomes. And that was the motivation for the first edition of Boys of Year, which I wrote 20 years ago. Now 20 years ago, we didn't have all the evidence we have now. And things have changed a lot in 20 years, which is one reason one of many reasons we needed a new edition. The Journal of the American Medical Association, Jam was kind enough to review my book 20 years ago. And they gave it a great review, which we put up the blurb on the cover. They said, you know, very helpful. Lots of good references. But they said, it doesn't really make a good case that boys are falling behind. Well 20 years ago, we didn't have all the data. Now we have the data. We know that boys are falling behind. Richard Rees, I've had that great privilege of working with him and writing a paper for him, wrote the book of Boys and Men.

6:21He founded the American Institute for Boys and Men. And they've been doing great work gathering data from the United States nationwide. So you can now go to their website at aibm.org. And you can see they've documented it that girls are now doing better than boys in every subject, including math and science in every grade level K through 12. Girls are now much more likely to go onto a four-year college than boys are. Four-year colleges in the United States are now roughly 60-40. Girls to boys. And women under 35 with no children at home are now out earning men under 35 with no children at home by about 20 percent. Because they're more likely to be college educated, they're working higher paying jobs. And I've done this presentation, various versions of this PowerPoint for all different kinds of audiences. And sometimes the pushback is pretty hostile.

7:22I was invited to speak to the Electric Trustees of the Toronto School District, which is the six largest school district in North America. And the director, we'd call him the superintendent, invited me because he wanted to have, he wanted to begin gender-aware instructional strategies. Girl-friendly computer coding, boy-friendly English. And he wanted me to explain to the board members why this is a good idea. Well, the pushback was very hostile. And one of the board members said, hey, so you're telling us we should be concerned about the fact that women now, actually, that women now, our number, men at university by three to two. Well, 50 years ago, men outnumbered women three to two. And nobody seemed to care much about it. Now the pendulum was swung the other way. Look, that trustee continued, men have most of the money, men have most of the power. Most of the politicians are men. Almost all the billionaires are men. And the few billionaires who are women, like Mackenzie Scott Bezos and Melinda French Gates,

8:25are the ex-wives of men. Men have the money and the power. Explain to me why we should be concerned about boys falling behind. And I said, I've got an answer. One word, mating. Women, I was thinking the same. 50 years ago, if a man graduated from four-year college and he was looking to marry a woman, he might have a number of qualifications in mind for his ride. But educational attainment was not one of them. If she was pretty, that would satisfy. Today, if a woman has graduated with a four-year degree and she's thinking of marrying a man, she's looking for a man who is as accomplished and motivated as she is. And there are not enough good men to go around. And this is not confined to college educated women by any means. So I'm a family doctor. I'll tell you a story from my own practice. So girl, I know well. I've known her since she was a toddler. This story takes place. She's 20 years old. I said, Lauren, I bumped into breath the other day. And he's just

9:27going on and on about how great you are and how funny you are and how pretty you are. And he told me he's asked to marry him. He's asked you to marry him twice. Lauren, how come you don't want to marry the father of your two children? And she said, Dr. Sex, I already got two babies at home. I do not need a third. Uh-oh. If a woman's going to marry a man, she's looking for a man who is as motivated and hardworking as she is. And this is true across every demographic. College educated, not college educated, white black Asian Latina makes no difference. And there are not enough good men to go around. So in the new edition of Voice Adrift, I paid the financial times $450 for the rights to reproduce one of their graphs showing this dramatic drop in coupling and fertility. So coupling means marriage plus cohabitation and a dramatic drop in marriage over the last 30 years. And sometimes when I'm doing one of my talks, uh, person will say, well, you're just showing how old you are. People

10:29don't get married anymore. They live together. Okay, that's cohabitation. Cohabitation is dropping as well. Marriage plus cohabitation to marketers call coupling. So in the new edition, we got this graph showing this dramatic drop in coupling and dramatic drop in fertility. If a woman's going to have a baby, most women would like to have a father in the home. A man that they trust, a man who's as hardworking and motivated as they are. And as I've said several times now, there are not enough good men to go around. That was my answer to the board member. That's why we should care. So we're not, we're not producing men with four year degrees or even just aggression and drive to get to where they want to go professionally, to be a hard worker, to, you know, be able to provide for a family. At the same time, we are producing women with those credentials. And so it's the mismatch that the women are objecting to. Yes. And probably that the men are objecting to

11:29as well. Part of what women are objecting to, but there's more going on. And when we get to porn, we'll talk about that. There are many reasons why women are now looking at young men and saying, no, thank you. And we'll talk about that. And educational attainment and motivation is part of the story. It's not the whole story. Why many women have given up. So the Pew Research Center recently surveyed young women in the United States who are single. 18 to 30, if I recall correctly. And said, okay, you're not in a relationship with a man. Would you like to be? Maybe serious relationship, maybe just fundating only 35% said yes. Why? 65% said no. The majority of American women have now given up. And scholars have coined the term hetero pessimism. Uh, refer to women's despair and hopelessness. Is that across political parties? Across all parties. This includes

12:31Republicans as well as Democrats. And so there's a bunch of factors going on here. It's not just the fact. So as one woman in my own practice told me, she said, you know, I'm not so bothered by the fact that I earn more than he does. It's just that he expects me to be his mother. He expects me to pick up after him and do chores for him. And I'm not interested. So it's not just academic achievement. It's training boys to be good men. And we'll talk more about that in our time this morning. Well, many domains in which we are falling short. I mean, if you think back to, you know, the 1950s household where the gender roles were pretty well defined. The father was going to be the provider, the person who worked outside of the home. The mother was going to be the doding wife and mother and make the meals and keep the house clean. A lot of women didn't like it, but it worked. It was it's helpful to have clearly defined roles. And then you know which one to play.

13:35But with women's lib as women started to get out of the house and so on and so forth, I think it's fine to have women who are the primary wage earners. But there does need to be a clear definition of the roles at home. Like I can say in my own home, if my husband were sitting around looking at me, like all of that was expected of me, I'd be mad too. You know, I wouldn't, but that's not how it works. You know, he and I have very clearly defined responsibilities around the house. He does what, you know, he is comfortable with and what I've agreed to, you know, share with him. And I do what I'm comfortable with, you know, like I don't take out the trash. That's man's work. I don't touch automobiles. That's his work. I don't shovel snow, I don't shovel walks. If things break down, that's for him to do. But I do do the predominant amount of cooking in the house when it needs to get done. And if somebody's going to unload the dishwasher, it's probably going to be me. It could be him. But you know what I mean? And these, this works for us, because there are certain roles that we each fill. But I don't think you could change one majorly

14:38and leave all the old responsibilities on the woman too. Well, I think there's been a lot of confusion on this point. So for example, Richard Reeves, who I mentioned earlier and Keheim Woods before him, have said changes in the culture and changes in the economy are to blame for this decline in voice achievement. 50 years ago, you didn't need a college degree. You could have a high school degree, go to work at the auto factory and make great money and support a family on one income. Today, many of those factory jobs are gone. We've changed from being an industrial economy. 50 years ago to be mostly a service economy today. And people like Richard Reeves and Keheim Woods say, that's what's what's the problem is. And Keheim Woods wrote this book in which she asserts that the rise of women is responsible for the kind of men. That's literally the subtitle of the book. How the rise of women has turned men into boys. And she argues plausibly, but I will say incorrectly,

15:46she argues plausibly that 50 years ago, men were motivated because they expected to be the sole breadwinner. So they worked hard so they could say to a young woman, hey, marry me, we'll start a family. I'll be a good provider. But as she documents in her book, under you look at young Americans under 35, as I've said earlier, with no kids at home, women are now earning more money than men are. So men look around, they see the women are doing better than them in school, the women are earning more money than them in the workplace. So where is their motivation? I'm going to quote from her book. She says the the the men today are troubled by the lack of certainty about their role as providers in the global marketplace of the 21st century. Yeah, that would quote sense. It makes sense, but it's wrong. How's wrong? It's not the correct explanation. How do I know she's wrong? I know she's wrong because unlike K-Hamwoods, I have visited more than 500 schools over the last

16:4725 years. Very often when I visit a school, the format is morning meetings with students, afternoon workshop for teachers, eating for parents. And that was the format at this particular elementary school I visited. And very first thing on the agenda was to meet with the principal. So I'm in the principal's office waiting for her. She's busy. She's tied up with something. And as I'm waiting, one, three, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine kids walk in, discipline referrals, all boys. Of course. So I pride myself on my ability to strike up conversation with seven year olds. So I say these kids, what are you doing here? What are you in for? What are you having? We got in trouble. Our teacher said, draw a picture of anything you want. And I drew a picture of a rifle. And I got sit down because it turns out that violates the zero tolerance policy of the school for weapons. Teachers saw me and Jason saying, bang, bang, you're dead. Teachers saw me and Brett thrown snowballs at each other. Boys doing things that boys have always done now get you in trouble. So I asked these boys,

17:52so what do you think of school? School's stupid. I hate school schools for girls. Not one of these boys said, well, I'm uncertain about my role as a provider in the people marketplace of the 20th century. Boys negative attitude towards school starts early. And Deborah Stipeck, former dean of education at Stanford found that those attitudes once formed are global, stable and non contingent. That's a fancy way of saying that once that eight-year-old boy has decided he's hate school, he's not going to change. You come back seven years later, he still says he hate school. And he doesn't think there's anything he can do or anything you can do that's going to make a difference. So the subtitle of my book is the six factors driving, there are six factors driving the growing epidemic of unmotivated boys and underachieving young men. And the first of those six factors, not necessarily the most important, but the first that I address is changes in education. 30 years ago, the school was more friendly to boys. So just recently,

18:54a mom shared with me her story of her son, he's a six-year-old at the time, this story takes place in kindergarten. And teachers holding up some wooden sticks and some cotton puffs and some elmers glue. And she said, today we're going to make pussy willows. I'm going to show you each of you how to arts and crafts, pussy willow. Well, Jason doesn't want to make a pussy willow, he wants to make a lightsaber. And he says, I'm going to make a lightsaber. And she said, no, we're making pussy willows. So he glues white cotton ball to his wooden skewer and he branches at her, channeling his Darth Vader. He says, I find your lack of faith disturbing. And she sends into the principal, he's got a discipline referral. He got four discipline referrals, his first two weeks. And mom told me he came home at the end of the second week saying, I hate school. I don't like school. I don't want to go back. School has become unfriendly to boys.

19:59I'm old enough to remember 30 years ago, kindergarten used to be about duck duck goose singing in rounds, finger painting, going on a field trip to the park to splash and upon to chase after tadpoles, not anymore. American kindergarten has become first grade. Schools across this country, public and private now expect five year olds to sit still and learn about diphthongs. And that acceleration of the kindergarten curriculum took place before we had the research, showing that the language area of a five year old boy looks like the language area of a three and a half year old girl. It is not developmentally appropriate to ask if five year old boys to sit still be quiet and learn about diphthongs for an hour. And the result is five year old boys who decide the hate school, decide they're stupid. And once that attitude is formed, as Deborah's type, another's have found it's very hard to change. So in the book, I talk about what do you need to do? Well, don't enroll your son in kindergarten at five and roll him at six. kindergarten has become

21:01first grade. Find a play based pre-K, give him that gift of an extra gift a year of childhood. Start him in kindergarten at six years of age. I actually wrote about this 25 years ago for the American Psychological Association. My recommendation that we start kids in kindergarten at six years of age instead of five. And to my great surprise, my obscure article published in a scholarly journal was picked up by The New York Times and other media. And that is actually one factor that led me to write my first book, Why Gender Matters, that I've got the sense that some people care about this. Find a boyfriendly school. What does that mean? So in the new edition of my book, Why is it drift? I go into some detail about how you can figure out on a one day visit, is this school boyfriendly or not? Asked see the honor roll. You know, I was, as I mentioned in the opening of the book, I was visiting another school, middle school. And when I meet with kids,

22:03it's always questioned and answer. It's not a long speech. It's a question and answer. So I said to the students, there's assembly. I said, All right, this next question is just for the boys. Gentlemen, I was just out in the hallway. I was looking at the principles of honor roll. There's 22 names on the principles of honor roll. 19 girls, three boys. Can any of you boys raise your hand, explain to me why there's 19 girls, but only three boys. And several boys raise their hand and they all gave a variation on the same answer. Girls are smarter. Girls are smarter. Boys believe this. And they believe it because they grow in the world of girls, rural boys, a drill, girls go to college, again, more knowledge, boys go to Jupiter, again, more stupider. And they see the evidence. They have seen that girls are getting better grades than boys in every grade K through 12. So if you're at a school where you've got 20 girls and three boys on the honor roll, that's not a boy friendly school. Yeah.

23:03The boys have disengaged. If you're looking at elementary school, ask about recess. Should be at least two recess a day. In our school and our boys school in the elementary school years, the first period is recess or gym. The very first thing they do is run them. Yes. Well, and you mentioned in all boys school, and I have visited a grade many boys schools over my school visits. And one of the first schools I visited at Landon in Montgomery County, Maryland, 20, 20, many years ago. I said to the teacher, where are the chairs in this third grade classroom? Why are there no chairs? And she said, well, everyone knows that eight-year-old boys are better standing than sitting when that boy sits down his brain shuts off. I said, excuse me, I didn't know that. And I do have a PhD in psychology. I do read the educational psychology literature and I'm not aware of any research that supports your claim that boys learn better standing rather than sitting. But in her defense, it is well known within that community of boys elementary school

24:10than many boys learn better standing rather than sitting. And we now do understand the neuroscience having to do with parasympathetic versus sympathetic innovation in girls versus boys respectively. And these are some of the strategies I share with schools. How you motivate boys make sitting optional. That's not just that, not quite that simple. It makes sitting optional in the co-ed classroom. And I observe this myself at Cunningham Elementary in Waterloo, Iowa. This boy here is sitting. The boy in his right is twirling, making a buzzing noise. The boy in his left is flopping on the floor. He's on the floor, flopping back and forth. He told me this is his name was Tyreek. He told me he was pretending to be a dying fish. And I asked the boy sitting. I said, were you bothered by what Tyreek was doing? He said, oh no, what was Tyreek doing? Look, if you try this in the co-ed classroom, you got a girl sitting. And the boy in her right is twirling. And the

25:12boy on her left is flopping on the floor. She's going to say, excuse me, how am I supposed to concentrate with these bows? So you can do this, but you have to have the boy standing at the back of the classroom. And you, the teacher, must move around the classroom. Otherwise, you have classroom management issues. So we're seeing an interesting microcosm of this as our kids get older, because our two boys go to a boy school. Our daughter goes to a girl school, but in high school, the boy school and the girl school merge for some classes during the day. And what's interesting is the boys tend to say the teacher's favorite, the girls. When they merge and they start going to classes where there are girls and boys, they kind of, they like seeing girls, but it's a bit of an eye role because they're like, the teachers love all the girls because suddenly you've got all these rule followers there who can easily sit politely for an hour or whatever it is. And the boys

26:12have been raised in an all-boy environment and are used to more permissive teachers who understand they do need to move more, they need to make paper airplanes. They're still listening, but they need to be able to. And when you merge them together after, you know, in those environments. So you're absolutely right that girls across every demographic are more concerned about pleasing the teacher and boys are less so. This is not true, this is not only true across all human cultures, it's true across species. It's as true in chimpanzees as it is in humans. So primatologists observing chimpanzees in the wild, the mother chimpanzees teaching the juvenile how to fish for termites. You take a stick, you strip it, and you stick it down into the termite mound, leave it there for a moment, then pull it out, there will be termites on it, and you can eat them. And the girl, chimp is paying attention and following along. And the boy, chimp completely ignores her and goes off to wrestle with the other chimps. So this

27:15phenomenon that girls are more concerned about pleasing the adult and pay better attention than boys do is robust, meaning it is true not only across every human culture, it's as true in chimpanzees as it is in humans, it is hardwired. So you need teachers who understand that dynamic and don't penalize the boys for being normal boys. Teachers who understand the differences. Fundamentally, you don't need girls classrooms and boys classrooms as much as you need teachers who understand the differences. And that's a lot of what I do. I share what I've learned with schools. And if you understand that, then the boy, same boy who loves video games will love Emily Dickinson will love Jane Error. And the same girl who loves Sisa and Ariana Grande will love computer coding. That's so fascinating. That's so good. Yes, you do have to look at the actual specific teachers. And I think your arming parents with the information to push back. So if they keep getting called in there or they keep getting their son downgraded and then they find out it's

28:17because of his quote behavior, there may be some layers to peel back before you just exceed to that. Well, let me warn parents because my own approach to that situation has changed. So 20 years ago, I would have told parents, Hey, here's some research. Here's my book. Take this into the principal. Share this with them and see if you can't get the principal to understand that what a boy needs is different from what a girl needs. I have given up on that approach because it doesn't work. It simply is not effective. You're not going to, one parent is not going to change that principal's mind. And there's a lot at stake in the new edition of Boys Adrift. I share a longitudinal cohort study showing that a boy who is suspended from school once the risk of his being incarcerated for felony in prison increases by 800%. Wow. One school suspension profoundly changes a boys attitude towards school. He now regards teachers and administrators as the enemy

29:19and other boys who've been suspended our friends. And most remarkably in this study, they looked at boys who were suspended once and boys who were who were suspended 10 times. No difference. One suspension is all it takes to change a boys attitude. And once that attitude is changed, it does global stable and non-conditioned. It's going to be very hard to change it back. So if your son is getting reprimanded, this is a red alert. You need to consider switching schools. And I'm not asking you to do anything I didn't do. My wife and I were very unhappy with the choice of schools available to us in Montgomery County, Maryland. So I sold my medical practice that I started from scratch in 1990 and built up to 7,000 patients. I sold my practice to my associate who's still running it. I'm at it 17 years later. We sold our home. You went to Pennsylvania. And we moved to Chester County, Pennsylvania. And we've never regretted it. Your kid has to be your first priority.

30:22Above your work, above your home. If you have to switch jobs and sell your home, that's what you have to do. But if your kid is getting dis, if your son's getting disciplined referrals on the verge of suspension, you've got to intervene immediately. That's very good to know. We did the same. We moved with fled from New York City. Not for these reasons, but because of the woke schools. And what amounted to abuse in our schools, I mean, I've told the audiences, but in our boy school, not only did they unleash a six week transgender education program on the children without telling us where they have the boys raise their hands and say on a scale of one to five, how much of a boy are you? Wow. One, two, three, four, five without telling us this is the third grade they did this. Oh my gosh. And then after George Floyd, a polluza, they actually made it mandatory reading amongst the faculty, an article by a ridiculous so-called academic at some known name school, who posited that and I quote, in every classroom where white children learn, there is a future killer cop.

31:27Wow. So we got the hell out of there. So it's one of the best schools in the nation ostensibly. You mentioned changes and that's another big change that I had to address in the new edition. 20 years ago, teachers didn't get in trouble for using the phrase boys and girls. Boys and girls, would you please line up when you get teachers in trouble. Now it will. That's school. That's an all boy school won't say boy or son anymore. They just say, please collect your student. Yes. Because they will argue that the terms boy and girl are heteronormative and exclusive exclusionary because of what if you're non-binary, what if you're trans? And this is not just blue states and blue cities in Lincoln, Nebraska, which is not a blue state. In Lincoln, Nebraska, the official guidance from the school board is you are not to use the term boys and girls. If you do, you get a, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, reprimand. You are to use a term purple penguins. Oh, good lord. Uh, well, this is insane. Yeah. Well, at this school, the same

32:32boy school, they, they unleashed the gender bread man when we got, I don't know, in this part of this education program is not, not to be confused with the gingerbread, but gender bread. No, no, where he doesn't have, you know, one identifiable set exactly. So that's, and then we've just talked about the first factor so far, but so many reasons we had to have a new addition to address these new challenges. You need to find a, you need to be sure that your school is comfortable talking about boys and girls, a school that understands that what a boy needs to get excited about poetry is different from what a girl needs to get excited about poetry. And they don't understand that. If the principal gives you a blank look, then you need to get out. So how do those boys who are having this experience, the kindergarten versus the first grade stuff, this sit down, the, not the absence of understanding and how they learn, how to speak to them, how to discipline them, if they do transgress and not demonizing things that are just normal for boys, like drawing a rifle, which is fun for kids to pretend,

33:35their soldiers, et cetera. How do those boys then wind up in high school, latter part of high school? Not wanting a girlfriend, not interested in sex or dating. Maybe they'll go to college, maybe they won't, maybe they'll get an active job, maybe they won't, but they're, and just feeling apathetic. Well, let's move on to that second factor now, which is video games, because that's a big part of it. I was shocked by what I read about the video games in the book, shocked. When I was at Fox back in 2004 and five, and there were many people on Fox who were lamenting these video games and what they were doing, like the violent ones and some of the driving the auto ones. And there were so many reactive pieces rolling their eyes at these points, like, oh my come on, it's not the video games. And I mean, I'm here to say after having read the book, actually it is the video games. So a real good question to ask any boy, he got a sense of where he is, is he at risk for being a

34:36boy adrift? Ask this question. What's your favorite thing to do in your free time when you are by yourself with no one watching? And I often ask kids that question, when I'm equal students, I'll ask, I'll say raise your hand if you'd like to answer that question. And a girl raises her hand and she says, my favorite thing is to play guitar in the style of Janice job. I said, what's your name? Melissa, you know, I don't know what Melissa, but I kind of feel like I do, because her favorite thing to do is to play guitar in the style of Janice job. If you want to get to know someone in 60 seconds or less, ask them that question. What's their favorite thing to do in their free time? And just over the 25 years I've been doing this school visits, I have seen it narrow among boys. And the most common response now from boys is video games. They want to spend their free time playing video games and parents don't understand how good the video games are. So RDR2,

35:38a lot of parents don't even know what I'm talking about. The video game Red Dead Redemption has earned more than $3 billion. It's earned more money than the first avatar, the highest growing movie of all time. And most people have heard of Avatar. Many parents have never heard of RDR2. So it's earned more money than Avatar, even though it appeals to a narrow demographic of boys and young men. So this is an incredible video game where the physics are absolutely realistic. You're living in the late in the 1890s out west. And it's a peculiar time because the west is kind of becoming modern. And it's a transitional period. It's not the wild west per se. And how you interact with people matters. If you're how you interact with your horse matters, if you're nice to your horse and it gets loose, it'll come back or you're not nice. It'll run off and won't come back. It takes about 40 hours to complete your mission in RDR2. And when a boy has accomplished that,

36:41they've told me it's such a great feeling. I feel like I've really mastered something. And will raise their status in the eyes of their peers. Whoa, Jared finished RDR2. What a man. And we've got the research, which I present in that chapter of Boys Adrift. Time spent playing video games has gone up. Time spent interacting with girls has gone down. And many boys will tell you they would rather spend their free time playing video games than interacting with girls. You know, why would I want to interact with her? I see her in algebra class boring. So how do you want to spend your free time? And we'll talk more about testosterone levels because that factors into this. We'll talk more about pornography because that factors into this. But video games, I'm not saying you have to prohibit video games. The research does not support that. So my brand is evidence based. When I make a recommendation, I'm going to show you longitudinal

37:42cohort studies. I'm going to show you research that supports every recommendation I make. How much time spent playing video games is too much time? No more than 40 minutes a night on school nights, no more than an hour a day on weekends and your minutes do not roll over. So no video game console in the bedroom. Right. You need to limit govern and guide how much time your son is spending playing video games. And you also need to limit what games he is playing. Because really awful games like Grand Theft Auto. So Grand Theft Auto is a game where you get rewarded for killing unarmed civilians. And we have a launch to no cohort study where they recruited kids at age 12 and followed them to age 15. What kind of video games are they playing? How much time are they spending playing video games and control for every parameter like race, ethnicity, household income, family composition, parental involvement? Because a kid playing spending more time playing video games, maybe his parents aren't as involved as a kid spending

38:43less time. You got to control for everything, including parental involvement. When you control for all those parameters, you find that boys playing violent games like Grand Theft Auto change over three years time. It become less patient, less honest, more selfish. And it's a big change. After three years of boy who's spending his time playing violent video games on these parameters, he's looking like a boy who was raised in a violent and abusive home all his life. Wow. Even though he's been raised in a loving and nurturing home all his life. So really matters. So researchers, so the California State Assembly brought the researchers out. They brought Craig Anderson and Doug Gentile, the lead investigators on this study, out to Sacramento. They said, you're telling us that the most popular video game in the United States, Grand Theft Auto, is a game that your research shows is going to change personality, cause kids to become more selfish, less honest.

39:45And Craig Anderson, who helped me write that chapter, said, yeah, absolutely. And so they run a law. California Statute made it a civil offense to sell a game like Grand Theft Auto, not any violent game, but the worst games like Grand Theft Auto to any child under 18. You have to show ID, put the games behind the counter. You'd have to show ID to prove that you're 18 and ordered by the game. The video game industry immediately brought suit, claiming that the California Statute violated their first amendment right of free speech. And the video game lawsuit went to the United States Supreme Court. And the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the video game industry throwing out the California statute, rendering a null and void, justice, Samuel Alito, wrote a concurrence. He said, look, I've read the research of Anderson and Gentile, and I share the concerns of California parents and California lawmakers. These games are heinous. That's the word he used. No kid should be playing a game where he gets rewarded for killing unarmed civilians. He said, nevertheless, it is the

40:46ruling of this court that deciding what games children will play is not the job of the California State Assembly. It is the job of the parent. I'd have included a link to the full text of Justice Alito's remark in the new edition of my book, Voice of Drift, because you need to understand this is your job. There can be no law or regulation limiting the sale of any video game in the United States, no matter how awful the game, no matter how young the child, because the United States Supreme Court has so ruled. So you must know what game your son is playing. And that's all you have to know. Can I ask you what what's the name of the game? Then you go to commonsense media.org type in the name of the game, type in grand theft auto. And it'll say absolutely not. No child. I love commonsense media should be doing this. That's it'll help you with movies. It'll help you with a lot. A lot. Yeah. Just today we have this news of the meta settlement, um, meta, which of course on Facebook and Instagram has now entered into this multi billion dollar settlement with multiple state attorneys

41:47general who had sued it claiming that these properties are unfairly targeting children in a way that's addictive and very harmful to them, which obviously is true. But I have to say I couldn't help when I heard the settlement, but think, you know, because they were like, there should be limits on the number of hours that the children can log on. And there should be limits on how many times you can sort of tickle the children with the notifications like, hey, look, your friends on here. And that's all good. But I, all I could think when I was reading it was, my children are already not doing that because we don't allow that. Like they're, it's great. I guess to have this backstop for parents who aren't actively parenting their children and making sure as is their duty that their children are protected from online predators, which I do think those social media apps are. But it's really our responsibility. There's only so many legal judgments, settlements, cases we can get that are going to protect our children because let's face it, the vast majority of kids lie anyway to get on, to get past the age barriers and so on. Well, and I've seen this

42:47in my own practice. A boy was doing well in elementary school that in middle school his grades took a nose dive and parents took him to the psychiatrist, looked at the counter scales, he's off the chart not paying attention in every class. So the psychiatrist said, well, it certainly looks like ADHD, let's try Vivans, which was very helpful. But he got side effects, palpitations, jittery, loss of appetite. So parents saw some articles I've written for New York Times and Time magazine expressing concern about these medications. They brought him to me for a second opinion. And I did a more careful sleep history. I said, does your son get plenty of sleep? And I said, oh, absolutely, he's in his bedroom every night and nine. We wake him up at six. That's nine hours. That's enough. Don't you think? And I said to the boy, do you have a video game console in your bedroom? You said, of course, done everybody. I said, were you playing last night? He said, yeah, I said, when did you finish? He said, one 30. I was like, you were playing video games at one 30 last night? I said, is that pretty typical? He said, yeah. Sometimes one, sometimes two, he needs at least eight hours of sleep a night. And he's getting five or less. He's sleep deprived.

43:51Sleep deprivation perfectly mimics attention deficit disorder of the unattended variety, which was his diagnosis. Vivans was very helpful. What's vivans? What's Adderall? They're amphetamines. They're speed. They compensate for the sleep deprivation. But the appropriate remedy for sleep deprivation is sleep, not scheduled to amphetamines. So I said to my mom, you gotta get the video game console out of the bedroom. You didn't even know he was playing. You got to get that out of the bedroom no more than 40 minutes a night playing video games. And so it said, that's truly unacceptable. I'm going to be the next ninja. He's referring to a man who makes hundreds of thousand dollars a month playing video games. I'll never get there at 40 minutes a night. Mom's like, what can I do? So here's a mom who feels powerless to exercise her authority. So again, in that chapter, I've got the guidelines. You need to find the courage to be the evil parent. No video game console in the bedroom. That's not just my recommendation. Those are the official guidelines of the American Academy of Pediatrics. What about when it comes to just social media in general? So social media in general, we now know it's really more of a risk for girls than

44:57it is for boys. Girls are spending more time on social media. Boys are spending more time on video games. So yeah, I totally endorse John Hyde, Jane Twinging's recommendation. Kids should not be on social media at all until 18 years of age. Jane Twinging's recommendation, not 16, which is John Hyde's recommendation. There's no evidence to support 16. The evidence supports 18. Kids should not be on social media under 18 years of age. And Facebook issued their official statement yesterday and they said, look, we need our peers to do this as well. And I think that's a fair statement because if it's only Instagram and Facebook, kids are just going to go to TikTok and YouTube and Snapchat and you won't really have accomplished much. This has to be across the board. And parents, you can't wait for the courts. You can't wait for the legislature. You need to have the courage to be the evil parents to lock it down to limit the video games and to lock down the

45:59social media. Yes, we have the courage to be the evil parent. That's a good line. It's true because if you don't enforce these rules with your children, who will? And if you're not upsetting your children, we talked about this one of the other times you're on. If you're not upsetting your children here and there, you're not doing your job. You're not doing things right. You're not there to be liked. But I want to move on to our next factor because I'm hoping we can cover as much as we can. And that is medications for attention, deficits disorder. I just mentioned the boy who was diagnosed with ADHD. There's been a huge rise in the proportion of American kids diagnosed with ADHD. In 1979, only 1% of American kids were diagnosed with ADHD and was understood to be a disorder of childhood. What year? 1979, 1%. And was understood to be a disorder kids would outgrow. It was regarded as a disorder of childhood. Today, right now, according to the CDC, 23% of 17 year old boys in the United States have been diagnosed with ADHD, 23%.

47:04And the great majority of those around medications like Adderall, Vivans, Ridley and Concerto Meditate. So I wrote a book for a French publisher titled, Poquai les Gossompes, Pied-Pied, L'Effidie du Cement de Tonsier. Oh, look at you. With the colleagues in French, most importantly, Isabel Acouze, and working with my French colleagues, I learned that in all of France, there are fewer than 6,000 kids on medication for ADHD in all of France. There's more kids in Connecticut here in Connecticut on medication for ADHD than there are in all of France, a nation of 67 million people. Why is this? The fundamental reason I explore this at length in the chapter on ADHD and the new edition of Bois de Dref. In the United States, Dr's first reaction is, let's try Adderall. Let's try Vivans and see if it helps. That's true in the United States. It's true in Canada, and it is true in no other country.

48:05Okay, well, what's not to like? So I did a talk at Harvard Medical School. On the title of the conference was, Learning and the Brain. My talk was a title, Why Gender Matters in the Classroom. I would like to tell you that my talk was the buzz of the conference. It was not. The presentation everybody was really excited about was a presentation by Dr. John Gabrielle, who somehow got permission to give ADHD medication to normal kids and withhold it from kids with severe ADHD and then to study how well kids learn on and off medication. Wow. And he found that medication helps normal kids as much as it helps kids with ADHD. That's an enormously important finding because many times in my years as a physician and psychologist, I have said to parents, look, your son doesn't meet criteria for ADHD. And the parents have said, yeah, but the other doctor prescribed Adderall and it was so helpful. The parents are interpreting the response to medication. So the response to medication had some diagnostic significance.

49:08This medication was very helpful. It was prescribed for ADHD. Therefore, he must have ADHD, right? Wrong. Dr. Gabrielle's study on others like it. Show these medications help normal kids. As much as they help kids with ADHD, the response to medication doesn't mean anything. Okay, so these medications help kids concentrate and focus whether or not they have ADHD, they compensate for the sleep deprivation. They're uppers. They make you happy. What's not to like? Why not just put all the kids on medication? We can't put all the kids on medication because we now have 15 different studies showing that these medications, Adderall, 5Vance, Rital and Concert, Meditate, Focular Daterana, damaged the motivational center of the brain, the nucleus acumbens. If you take these medications for a long period of time, you're going to become lazy and unmotivated. So I was doing this talk for parents and during Q&A, if other said, Dr. Sex, I'm sorry. Some parts of this talk were good, but you're claimed that Adderall and 5Vance damaged the brain.

50:11He said, I'm sorry, I can't take that seriously. These medications are widely prescribed. If that were true, and I interrupted him, I said, if that were true, you would have heard about this before. From someone with better credentials than me, I'm just a family doctor. You would have heard about it from someone like Dr. Joseph Bederman, Chief of Pediatric Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. The same thought occurred to Senator Chuck Grassley, who chair of the United States and a Judiciary Committee, who summoned Dr. Bederman to the chambers of the United States and a Judiciary Committee and said, Dr. Bederman, you've really been pushing Adderall hard. You said that if a doctor prescribes Adderall for a child and the parents don't promptly fill an administer that medication, the parents should be considered for charges of criminal child neglect. Dr. Bederman, are you by any chance taking money for the drug companies that you haven't publicly disclosed? And he said, well, certainly, how much money Dr. Bederman? I don't know off the top of my head, maybe three, four hundred thousand. Dr. Bederman, I want you to go back to your offices at

51:12Harvard and return to this committee under subpoena if necessary. And tell us exactly how much money you've taken. Turn out it was more than $1.6 million. Now his action was not unlawful. It was not illegal. Doctors can take money from drug companies. But it's dishonest. It was unethical. He should have told us. I got a flyer from Harvard. Stand by. Hold that thought. You've got to take a quick break. We will be back with Dr. Sax. Aren't you learning so much? He is author of the new Boys Adrift. Don't go away. Everyone's talking about weight loss injections because the results can be so dramatic. They work by lowering blood sugar and reducing appetite. But what if you are looking to lose weight, but are not interested in painful weekly injections, especially when you hear about some of the intense side effects? This is why doctors created a weight loss supplement called lean. And the results could be remarkable. Lean says the studied ingredients in their product have been shown to lower your blood sugar, burn fat by converting it into energy, and to curb your appetite and cravings so that you are not as hungry. But listen, lean is not for the casual

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53:32$300 now through September 8th at pre-newvo.com. Terms and conditions apply. The subject of ADHD medication, which is in Dr. Sacks's view, overprescribed to far too many children who don't need it. I think we've got real good evidence that it's overprescribed. One is comparing the United States to other countries like France. But I want to continue my comment about Senator Grassley's investigation. I mentioned that he had really embarrassed Joe Beaterman, professor at Harvard, who admitted that he had accepted at least $1.6 million.

54:35I pointed out that's unathicol. I got a flyer from Harvard Medical School saying come to Harvard for a three-day conference on best practice and evaluation and management of ADHD led by the renowned Dr. Joseph Beaterman. No mention of any drug company support. No mention of the fact that he's getting paid more by the drug companies than he's getting paid by Harvard. He's functioning as a paid spokesperson for the drug companies. Senator Grassley then some Fred Goodwin, who is chief of the National Institute of Mental Health, arguably the most prestigious position in American psychiatrist, can hold. Step down from that position when National Public Radio gave him his own radio program called the Infinite Mind, which he hosted for 10 years. People would call in and ask questions. Dr. Goodwin would answer. We've got a program, Arcade, where Mom calls in and says Dr. Goodwin, my son has been on medication for ADHD since he was five. First Ritalin, now Adderall, he's not been off a single day and I was reading about a drug holiday. He could be

55:36okay for him to go off medication maybe over the summer so we could see who he is off medication. And Dr. Goodwin said, no, no, you don't want to do that. He said my good friend and colleague, Dr. Joseph Beaterman at Harvard says these medications are for children with ADHD just like insulin for a child with type 1 diabetes. If your kid had type 1 diabetes, you wouldn't take them off insulin for the summer. Of course not. You could be confident these medications are safe and effective. You will need to keep them on the medication. And Mom says, oh, well, thank you, Dr. Goodwin. You've really set my mind at ease. So Senator Grassley summoned Dr. Goodwin to the chambers of the United States Senator Judiciary Committee and said Dr. Goodwin, have you recently accepted money for the drug companies that you haven't publicly disclosed? He said certainly, how much did you have any idea? I know exactly how much he came prepared. It's just over 1.3 million. Dr. Goodwin, did you feel some duty to disclose this? A national public radio to disclose you're getting paid a lot more money for drug companies than you're getting paid by NPR that you are functioning as a paid

56:38spokesperson for the drug companies. Did you not feel any duty to disclose? Dr. Goodwin said certainly not. Well, why not, Dr. Can you explain that to me? Dr. Goodwin said because it is standard practice. Oh, wow. All the leaders of our field do this. And that was the most troubling line in the testimony that Senator Grassley heard. Here is the former chief of the National Institute of Mental Health telling us that it is standard practice for all the leaders of child psychiatry in this company country to take millions of dollars for drug companies and not tell us. So I wrote an article with the New York Daily News titled Child Psychiatry is Sick with Hidden Conflicts of Interest, which is absolutely true. And I fought to include in the new edition of Boys of Drift detailed guidance for parents to determine does your kid have ADHD? Does he really have it? Or maybe he just hates school or maybe he's sleep deprived. And I really had to fight that, fight

57:40for that because the publisher said to me, Dr. Sax, are you seriously suggesting that after reading your one book, a parent is qualified to question the judgment of an experienced board certified child psychiatrists? I said absolutely. Yes, I am suggesting that. I am suggesting that because child psychiatry is sick with hidden conflicts of interest, when you ask a psychiatrist in the United States, are you aware of the research showing that these medications damage the motivational center of the brain? They will say, no, they are not aware of that research. That's not true in Germany. I spoke on this topic in Munich and the doctors there are well aware of this. But in this country, look, people are impressed by Harvard. When I spoke in Germany, they're not impressed by Harvard Medical School. They regard Harvard Medical School as a tool of the drug companies. They're not wrong. It's a very different view. The other thing you point out in the book is who is the most

58:42likely person to suggest a diagnosis of ADHD? Just let that float out there for the listening audience right now. Who do you think is the most likely person to suggest this child might have ADHD? Let me share about my study. I got funding for the American Academy of Family Physicians to survey all the doctors in the Washington area. That's the District of Columbia, Montgomery, Peachy County in Maryland and Northern Virginia. We asked them many questions, but most importantly, that question. We asked the doctors who first suggest the diagnosis of ADHD, of attention deficit, is that the parent, teacher, doctor, other professional neighbor and the doctors told it is most often the teacher. Now, I'm not saying the teacher did anything wrong. If this kid's not paying attention, that's a problem. It is a problem. And we need to figure out why. I have been in the classroom at parents' request to observe their son. On two occasions, the teacher did something

59:46I thought was a little inappropriate. On two occasions, the teacher said, class, Dr. Sexes, here with us today, solely to observe Nicholas and see whether he's paying attention. It's terrible. Despite that fact, Nicholas is still not paying attention. He's looking out the window. He's playing with his pencil. If the teacher says Nicholas is not paying attention, you can be certain. Nicholas is not paying attention. The question for the doctor is to figure out why is he not paying attention. A kid who's depressed is not paying attention. That survivor of child abuse is not paying attention. A kid who hates school is not paying attention. So I'll give you a quick line from my presentation for doctors and psychologists. How can you distinguish? A quick office visit, whether this kid is not paying attention because he hates school or because he truly has ADHD. ADHD is a cognitive deficit. It means kids really cannot pay attention even if they want to. So example from my own practice. A middle school boy, not doing well in school, went to the

1:00:50psychiatrist diagnosed ADHD, was on medication, got side effects, parents brought him to me for a second opinion, asked him this question, asked this one question. What's your favorite subject at school, emphasizing the word subject? This boy said, well, I love math and art, music, but I hate reading English language arts. That's usually helpful. He just told me he doesn't like anything involving the written word and I determined in one visit. This kid has dyslexia. Psychiatrist made the wrong diagnosis. He doesn't have ADHD. He has dyslexia. We can get him off medication, bring in appropriate resources. He's blossomed. This was years ago. He's graduated from college. Everything's fine. Another boy, also a middle school, also not doing well. Also diagnosed by the child's psychiatrist is having ADHD. I said to this boy, what's your favorite subject at school? And he said, lunch. Okay, if the answer is lunch or recess, you got to take a step back.

1:01:50He knows lunch is not a subject. If he says that lunch is his favorite subject, he's telling you he does not respect the academic enterprise. He is no interest in school as school. Now, Haiti School is a big problem, but it's not ADHD. It's not a psychiatric diagnosis. And sometimes the problem is not with the boy at all, but with the school. So there's a lot of reasons why kids are not paying attention. ADHD is one of many possibilities and it's the doctor's job to figure out what's the correct diagnosis. What's the correct explanation? But in this country and Canada and no other country, doctors say, let's try Adderall. Let's try Vivaants and see if it helps. And it will help. Yeah. So I say to parents, you have my permission. I own the copyright to boys adrift. Photocopy, chapters four and eight from the new edition of boys adrift. Just be sure to cop photo copy all the references at the end. Take them to your doctor. Say, are you

1:02:51aware that the medication you want to prescribe Adderall? Vivaants, Ritalin, Concerto, Medited, damages the motivational center of the brain. And American doctor will not be aware. Even if they are a professor of child psychiatry, they're not aware of this research. I have found, that's my first hand experience. Show them the references, ask them to because they are safer alternatives. There are other medications. You write about them in the book. A butrin, stotera, intunov that do not damage the motivational center of the brain. Ask the doctor, okay, if your certain your son has ADHD and I've got the guidance in the new edition so you can decide. Does your son truly have ADHD? If you say, yeah, I think he does meet all five criteria. Then he's probably going to need a medication in my experience. But you can use a safer medication. Yeah, but let's be careful about which one or intunov. All right, let's keep going because the fourth factor is fascinating and disturbing and has to be discussed and to cring disruptors.

1:03:53And you write about the fish in the Potomac. Yes. This is one of the things. May I state for the record that Alex Jones said to me when I went to interview him in Austin, Texas, very controversial figure. Obviously has said some things that are not true. Like about the new town families faking their children's death, which is was on our agenda when I went down to interview him. But when we went back to NBC to fact check some of the outlandish sounding other claims he was making one by one, they all came back correct. And this was one of them. Yes. The fish are turning from male to female. So researchers found that the male fish in the Potomac River are making eggs instead of sperm. And not just in the Potomac River near the district, but going all the way up the Monocacy River 100 miles up into Maryland, there's something in the water. The literally, I mean, this is saying, but there actually is.

1:04:55It's burning males into females. And this is not just true of fish across the world. We find frogs. We find cougars in Florida who are dwindling and going extinct because the males sperm is no good. So this is a global phenomenon of male sperm counts dropping male testosterone levels dropping. And it is now well documented in our in our own species in our own country. And again, that's why we needed a new addition because in 2007, we only had hints. Now we have overwhelming evidence. So as the five alarm fire. Yeah. As recently as 1999, average testosterone level for a young man in the United States was 605, 605. It's now dropped to 450. That's a 20% drop in like 20 years. That's a very rapid drop in a short period of time. Low testosterone, clinically low testosterone is defined as being less than 300. In 1999,

1:06:02only 4% of young men had low testosterone levels under 300. Now more than 20% of young men meet that criterion for low testosterone. And in the new book, I cite some of the latest research. So not only is it declined in testosterone levels continuing, it is accelerating. The decline is going down faster. And why does this matter? It matters because boys rely on testosterone for drive and motivation. Men rely on testosterone for drive and motivation. We know this. I cite 10 different studies in the new edition of boys adrift showing that hard working, ambitious, motivated men have high testosterone levels. Lazy men have low testosterone levels. When you lower testosterone levels, motivation drops. This is not true of women. Researchers have looked at women and looked at hard working motivated women and compared them to lazy, unmotivated women. There's no difference in testosterone. Women have testosterone. Well, women have about one-tenth the testosterone

1:07:06that men have. They do have somebody on average about one-tenth levels that men have. And women do not rely on testosterone for drive, but men do. When testosterone levels drop, motivation drops. So why have testosterone levels dropped? Well, researchers have been studying this now for 30 years. And the first hypothesis was obesity. Fat cells contain an enzyme called aromatase that converts testosterone into estrogen. And men are fatter now than they were 30 years ago. So bingo, that's the explanation. Yeah, another reason not to get fat. Not so simple. There is a underlying factor that's driving obesity and decline into testosterone levels. And that's endocrine disruptors. These are substances in the environment that act like female hormones. And your staff has kindly provided a prop, which took the label off. But this is bottled water. This plastic is

1:08:07called polyethylene tarathalide. It's sat in a truck. I'm sure on its way to being shipped here. Even on a cool day, the temperature inside the truck when the sun is on it can easily get over 110 degrees Fahrenheit. Once the temperature gets above 110 degrees, diethylhexyl thallate will leech from the plastic into the contents of the bottle. DeHP diethylhexyl thallate acts in your body like a female hormone acts like estrogen. What happens when a child drinks bottled water or soda or consumes condiments, pastasas, ketchup, mayonnaise from one of these? Well, they're consuming female hormones. What's the result? Well, the result varies depending on what we're talking about girls. I'm stuck on that. You're right so much that we eat comes out of plastic bottles. Yep. The answer depends whether we're talking about girls or boys. If we're talking about girls, we see an acceleration in the onset of puberty. More than 50 percent, more than half of American

1:09:12girls now begin the process of puberty before reaching their 10th birthday. That's a problem because as I write in my book, Girls on the Edge, earlier onset of puberty means greater risk of anxiety and depression in adolescence. But this book is a book about boys. When boys consume substances that act like female hormones, you lower testosterone levels. 40 years ago, men didn't drink water from plastic bottles today. They do. So I wrote an article published, a peer-reviewed journal published by the National Insusive Health, presenting all the research that polyethylene thallate, this plastic leeches endocrine disruptors into the contents of the bottle. And my article has not been cited. I believe more than 260 times by other scholars. But most parents don't know this. This is an important problem. I credit Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth for highlighting this recently. He mandates he just issued

1:10:14this new order. It's not a suggestion, it's an order that all members of the services age 30 and older be tested for low testosterone. There's a couple of problems with his order. One is that he requires women to be tested, which is ridiculous. Women don't rely on testosterone for drive. Women's testosterone levels are one-tenth as high as men are. And even if a woman came back low, which wouldn't really be very meaningful in a woman, if she takes testosterone supplement, she's going to get a low voice, which she might not want. She's going to get facial hair, which she might not want. So requiring women to do this was silly. And it was not well-informed. Also, he only required service members above 30 years of age to get tested. Whereas the decline is actually fastest among the younger men. Well, what can you do for 18 to 30 year olds who have low testosterone? And my final concern about Secretary Hegseth is he encourages people to get testosterone shots. But he didn't mention the fact that these lead to infertility. A lot of

1:11:15problems with testosterone shots are men for men male infertility. And testosterone shots in young men leads to infertility. Yes, this is well documented. You may have heard of Clivicular. Yeah, yeah. A great impetus who loves to give himself testosterone shots and has told us that he's infertile as a result of his testosterone shots. But he doesn't care, because he's not interested in having kids. But he's not a good role model. Because it does it signal to the testes. We don't get something down. Yes. Okay. And that's the problem. When you start taking testosterone, the testicles say, okay, somebody else has got this. We dribble up. Oh, you don't want that. Which means you have to stay on the testosterone shots. So there's a better approach, which I describe in chapter four of boys, excuse me, chapter five, no, chapter four, boys and drifters. Understand where this is coming from. Eliminate exposure to endocrine disruptors. It's not hard to do. Don't buy these. If you want to carry water with you,

1:12:17get a steel canteen or tap water into steel canteen. Take that with you. Or go back to where we were in the 70s. We managed to make it through entire days and long stints of the playground without copiously drinking water. Catch up in a glass jar. Yes, you can find it. Cost a few pennies more. It's not much more expensive, but I think it's well worth it. That's what we do. And I list all these guidelines in that chapter. You want to buy cosmetics, shampoo, you don't, okay, look at the ingredients. If it says perfume, P-A-R-F-U-M, those are thalates. You don't want that. You don't want to be rubbing that into your skin. It will be absorbed into your body. Environmental working group, ewg.org slash skin deep. This is all in the book. It costs nothing to go to their website, environmental working group, type in what you're looking for. Shampoo. And it'll tell you all the products you can buy with links to buy them. It doesn't cost you anything. This is what we do.

1:13:22It costs nothing or very, very little to eliminate your son's exposure to endocrine disruptors. What if they, so if they're young men out there right now, whatever you said, 18 to 34 or 16 to 34, and they have this right now, their endocrine disruption is in full flower. So they can eliminate these things and bring down the disruptors. Will it will come back to normal? Okay, they don't need to go on up. They don't need shots. They do not need shots. There's a wonderful and very funny book called Slow Death by Robert Duck, by two Canadian journalists who are aware of all of this research and they decided to eliminate all exposure to the endocrine disruptors. And everything came back to normal in the six weeks. Really? So quickly. So it's not hard to do. Unlike a fish swimming in the Potomac, you can control your exposure to endocrine disruptors. This swimming in the Potomac cannot control what they're exposed to, but you can. Is this, is this in part the explanation

1:14:27for why we're seeing the explosion of trans? You know, I know it's a social contagion, but is this the explanation for at least some percentage of it? You're going to need to have me back because that is a different topic, which I will actually address in my next book, from writing for basic books. Consider yourself booked. Because there has been this explosion in the rise of transgender, more than 400 percent over the last 20 years. In girls who say their boys, boy, they're who say they're girls. And I don't think it's the major factor. I think the major factor is a toxic culture that is sending very confused messages to kids about what it means to be a man, what it means to be a woman. Yeah, agreed. Okay, let's do the fifth factor. The revenge of the forsaken gods. Oh, good tease. So I was talking with one of my patients, Anders Eklauf. By the way, we're speaking with Dr. Leonard Sachs and the book is a boy's adrift, the fully revised and updated version. Check it out now. The six factors driving the growing epidemic of

1:15:30unmotivated boys and underachieving young men. Keep going. So he's an anthropologist and he was telling me about these tribes in the South Pacific islands where a boy does not automatically become a man just by virtue of age. He has to earn it. He has to master the rights of passage in order to earn the right to be called a man kill a goat. It's something like that. And if he fails, then he's not a man. He could be 40 years of age. He's still addressed as a boy. He cannot marry. He cannot own property. And parents will make sacrifices to the gods to propitiate the gods so that their son will will conquer, will survive where the rights of passage will become a man. And Anders Eklauf said to me, we have ignored this process and the gods will have their revenge. And I said, that's great. Can I borrow that as a title, the revenge of the forsaken gods? Kids don't want to be grownups. Girls want to be women. Boys want to be men. But what does that mean? We used to teach them. We no longer do.

1:16:36There are a drift in a toxic culture. What does it mean to be a good man? Well, we don't have to guess. Again, we've got research. We know what the most popular TV shows were for kids in 1960s with the Andy Griffins show. We know who the most popular musical artist is for kids today. It's a Drake. It's not Taylor Swift. Drake has many more songs than the Billboard Hot 100 than Taylor Swift. Many more songs than the Billboard Hot 100. Taylor Swift. I was speaking to kids in Elletsville, Indiana, which is rural, farming, Indiana, all white, middle school. And I mentioned Taylor Swift's name and all the kids boo. I mentioned Drake's name, all the kids cheer. They love Drake. Drake is relentlessly profane and obscene. He uses the F word, the N word. He was asked, okay, now you're 36 years old now and you're not married. Why aren't you married? He said marriage. That's like something from ancient times or something. His girlfriend,

1:17:41his ex-girlfriend, Sophie Brousseau, notified him that she was pregnant with his child. He denied it was his child. And then he told her to get an abortion. She had the baby. She presented him with DNA evidence showing that the child was scared to attorneys. So we've gone from the Andu Griffith show where the father is knowledgeable, competent, reliable, thoughtful, productive, caring, and kind to Drake who avoids fatherhood, who is relentlessly profane. And I was seeing the culture has changed. You know, 60 years ago, Sam Cook, in the 1960s, he's had a number one hit song. He's saying, don't know much about history. He's saying, I don't claim to be an A student, but I'm trying to be because maybe by being an A student, baby, I could win your love for me. He goes on to mention French, geometry, and trigonometry, I have subjects in which he's going to try harder to earn an A because he thinks that by earning an A, he will raise his status in the eyes of the pretty girl. That was American popular culture.

1:18:4350 years ago, 60 years ago, it is impossible to imagine Drake or Bruno Mars singing a song about how they're going to try harder to earn an A rather than an B or Lil Nas X. Lil Nas X, huge success with his song Old Town Road. 12 weeks number one at the Billboard Hot 100, the most popular song in the United States and every kid who speaks English knows this song Old Town Road. And I showed the video they all recognize it. Lil Nas X sings, you can't tell me nothing. Can't nobody tell me nothing. That's American culture now, a culture of disrespect. So that's what I mean by the revenge of the first-saken gods. What does it mean to be a good man? Boys literally don't know. I was speaking in Wal-Basch College, one of four remaining all male colleges in the United States and the leadership had asked me to speak to all the freshmen. So I said to the boys, what does it mean to be a gentleman? Raise your hand if you'd like to share your definition of a gentleman. And a boy raises his hand. He said to gentleman as someone who

1:19:45goes to gentleman's clouds to watch girls take the clothes off. Oh God. I said, well that's very funny. Now can someone off offer a more serious definition? Boy said, well, gentlemen, where's a three-piece suit? Gentlemen opens doors for women. It's all substance. Excuse me, it's all it's all surface, no substance. But I don't blame these kids. How should they know? They have received no instruction. They haven't grown up in the culture in the culture of Sydney, Poitier or Paul Newman or Sam Cook or the Antigrow Show. They've grown up in the culture of Drake and Bruno Mars and Cardi B and Megan the Stallion. How should they know? They have received no instruction. So what do I mean by the revenge of the first-saken gods? I mean we don't teach boys how to be men. And as a result, they look to the culture and what they find there is Drake. And mainstream pornography and TikTok videos. So you've got to lock that down and you've got to offer something better. You've got to offer something healthier in order to become a good man.

1:20:48A boy must see a good man. And if you don't have one in your home, you've got to find one. Maybe a coach, maybe a pastor or rabbi, or a mom or custodian, anybody. But you've got to create a connection. And I share stories in this chapter of families who've done that and a programs that do this like boys to men, which headquartered in Southern California, but it's all across the United States. And I interviewed some graduates of this program. Now they're mid-twenties who were struggling, who were going the wrong way in high school, doing very poorly in school, and they signed up for this program, got a mentor and it turned them around. And I share their real names in the book because they've given me permission to share their real names. A boy needs a good man. And girl needs to see a good woman. And we haven't neglected this. We've set kids loose in a toxic culture of ACON and M&M and Bruno Mars and Cardi B and Megan Dostoyan and you've got to lock down

1:21:49the bad stuff, but you've also got to connect kids with good mentors. I remember you made this point last time when I asked you about the fact that those of us who grew up in the 70s with all due respect to my parents had no parents. You know, they let us go out. We didn't see them. There were no cell phones. We came back when the street lights turned on and we had dinner with our families. So why can't you do that in today's day and age? And you said because the culture has changed. That what you tune into if you sat in front of the TV all day in the 1970s was extremely different. Yes, the culture has changed. And the port of the good values. 1964, the Beatles had a number one hit song titled, I want to hold your hand. Was number one in the United States. It was number one in every country in Europe. It was number one on Australia, New Zealand. More recently, ACON had a number one hit song in the United States. I want to fuck you. Oh my lord. Which was number one in the United States. When I was growing up, if you turn on the TV, you get the Walten's and get little house on the prairie. You might get the breed bunch. And it was not number one outside the United States.

1:22:53It was not number one in any other country that I know of besides the United States. It didn't even come close. American culture has changed. It has become a toxic culture. And you need to understand this. And that's why you can't let your kid loose. You know, a, Jennifer Finney Boilin, a long time columnist for the New York Times wrote a column about enlightened parenting in which she asserts that enlightened parenting means setting your child free to discover themselves, their own right and wrong. And if in so doing your child becomes a stranger to you, then so be it. Then may seem enlightened to some, but it's not enlightened. It's a dereliction of duty. If you set your kid loose to discover their own right and wrong, and they have a device with internet access, what they will discover is Drake and Eminem and Bruno Mars and Megan, this Italian, you need to block the goods, the bad stuff and connect your kids to the good stuff. And they'll also discover porn and AI trap. That's where we pick it up next. We're going to take a quick break. More with Dr. Leonard Sacks as we attack all these sixth

1:23:58factor leading to boys adrift and the epidemic of unmotivated boys and underachieving young men when we come right back. Don't go away. Our sponsor, the electronic payments coalition says Washington politicians are always getting in your wallet and that now they're messing with your credit card. They say your credit card and the security it offers are under attack and that senators Dick Durbin and Roger Marshall want to change the nation's payment system to benefit corporate megastores like Walmart and Target at the expense of everyday Americans. Credit cards can keep your payments secure and provide rewards that families use to help make everyday purchases more affordable. The electronic payments coalition says the Durbin Marshall mandates would let corporate megastores cut corners on credit card processing, routing transactions over cheaper untested networks with weaker security and fewer protections. Find out more at guardyourcard.com and consider telling Congress to guard your card. Running a business means you are always reachable until

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1:26:16Watch them whenever I don't have Wi-Fi. Because we all know airplane Wi-Fi is the worst. I get ad free, I get back room play and there's like a ton more in there. You should try it. If you like YouTube, you'll love YouTube Premium. Try it now for two months free at youtube.com slash premium. Try eligibility varies, terms apply, cancel anytime. That's a mouthful. One of you can see what's happening inside your body. Pre-new Vos whole body scans screens for hundreds of conditions, including many solid tumors as early as stage one all in under an hour. And now you can go beyond imaging with 80 plus blood biomarkers that help complete the picture. This Labor Day, save $300 off your scan when you book at pre-newvo.com. That's P-R-E-N-U-V-O.com. Save $300 now through some 10th of April 8th at pre-newvo.com. Terms and conditions apply. I now have my very own channel on SiriusXM. It's called the Megan Kelly channel and it is where

1:27:16you will hear the truth unfiltered with no agenda and no apologies. Along with the Megan Kelly show, you're going to hear from people like Mark Halperin, Lake Lauren, Morgan Callahan, Emily Jashinsky, Jesse Kelly, real clear politics and many more. It's bold no BS news. Only on the Megan Kelly channel, SiriusXM 111 and on the SiriusXM app. Dr. Leonard Sachs is with us today. He is the author of Boys, A Drift. Get your copy now. Place your order today. He's back with me and we are talking about the factors that go into the problem of a Drift boys. And the sixth factor is the new one, pornography, AI girlfriends, and the manosphere. Yes. Also interesting. Which one do we want to do? We start with pornography and people say, come on pornography. There's nothing new about pornography. Well, they're kind of in. It's not playboys in your clubhouse any longer. So you're referring, first of all, to content.

1:28:18In the year 2000, only about 20% of the most popular porn videos were violent. Today, the fristers just find that 60% of the most popular porn videos are violent with the man striking, choking, hitting, slapping the woman. That's one change. But I think actually a more fundamental change is that until about literally just five years ago, the boy was looking at porn. He was looking that images someone else had created pictures someone else had taken. Now, any boy with an iPad or a laptop could use an app like nano-bidana or seed dream and create his own porn. You know, the word abracadabra has traditionally been understood to derive from the air make avar kadappara, which means I speak and it comes into being. That's the essence of magic. I speak and it comes into being. And one 15 year old boy literally told me, he said, it's like magic. I

1:29:18speak my fantasy into the computer. And 20 seconds later, there it is. Professional grade porn. This boy is creating hardcore porn. This 15 year old boy, he's never kissed a girl. He's creating porn. Earlier this year, we got a nationwide survey published peer reviews, color of the journal of kids 13 to 17 years of age found that 42% of American boys are using apps like nano-bidana and seed dream to create their own porn. Almost half 42% and it's very easy. You're at school. You've got a crush on the pretty girl. She ignores you. You can go to her Instagram. Oh, God. Take her picture off her Instagram. Feed that into the AI. And it can create porn with her as the star. We're not talking about pasting a picture on, like you might have done 10 years ago. We're talking about professional grade porn. It looks like her. It's her in the act and you can have her doing anything you want on her knees begging for mercy,

1:30:24whatever you want. 32% of boys in the survey admitted to taking other girls pictures from their social media at their school and using those pictures to create porn and sharing it without the girls consent. 32%. And then in the new edition, I cite Josh Grohl and head of this non-profit who studies this nation wide. He says, yeah, this is happening at all the schools we're working with. Boys are doing this. They're creating these deep fake porn, meaning very realistic, realistic porn. And I'm telling you, having spoken to these boys, it is compelling. It is addictive. But the boys don't know that it leads to impotence. And I present all this other research. My note reads porn causes erectile dysfunction. I mean, that needs to be the message about porn. You like porn? It gives you ED. It is. It is the message. So schools will hire me to speak to students about porn, just boys. And I will share with them, you know, to secular school. I'm not

1:31:29going to talk about Galatian six. I'm not going to talk about virtue. I'm going to talk about the research, which is that boys who've been masturbating over porn at 13, 14, 15 years of age. Now they're 20 and they're in a bedroom with an actual woman who doesn't look like a porn star. And nothing happens. They will not get an erection. It's embarrassing. It's humiliating. I am prescribing more vagra for men under 30 than I am for men over 40. Another big change that I document in that chapter of boys, the new edition of boys adrift. Traditionally, impotence has been uncommon, less than 3% of men 18 to 30 years of age historically have had impotence. Impotence has been a problem of older men, not anymore. Men under 30 are no more likely to be impotent than men between 40 and 50 years of age. Because of porn. Because they've been raised on porn. So boys need to understand this and parents need to understand this. They need to lock it down. So I was at a, this was a

1:32:33Catholic boys school and the Catholic boys high school and the leadership was very troubled that in car line, the boys are looking at porn and sharing it with other boys. There's no sense of shame. So they did a survey and they asked the boys, how often do you look at porn? Never once a month, once a week, more than once a week every day. More than 80% of the boys said more than once a week or every day. Then they surveyed the parents and said, how often does your son look at parents? The parents of these boys never once a week, every day, more than 90% of the parents said, never. Don't be that parent. Don't be the clueless parent. You must install a parental monitoring app like canopy bark custodial or nennani on every device that your kid has. And I mentioned Gene Twingy's book, 10 rules for raising kids in a high tech world. Chapter 6 and 9 of Gene Twingy's book will take you through how to install that app so that it works so your kid cannot uninstall it. These apps work. And parents will push back when I share this. They'll

1:33:36say, oh, come on. My daughter is just going to Google how do I get around parental controls on nennani? I actually spoke for nennani and they told me that they have colleagues whose full time job is to Google the phrase, how do I get around parental controls on nennani? Oh, wow. And they have found that someone has found a hole. They patch it usually within hours. Your Apple update. You've got to, you've got to be in charge. You've got to limit what your son is doing because this brings us to AI girlfriend. We before we get to that, you point out in the book and this is this jumped out at me. 67% of college women now report being choked during sex with a man. The choking often happens during a first date. Yes. Often without the man asking. Yes. Whether it's okay at all. 67% of college women. So this was Debbie Herbeneck study published last year. As you said, and these boys have been raised on porn where the actress is pretending to like being choked. And so they think women want to be choked. Oh my god. And when I meet with the boys of these schools, I'll say the porn is lying to you. Look at many schools. The high school

1:34:41health teacher has three objectives in health class. No pregnancy, no STDs and consent. That's what they're trying to communicate. And boys have told me that the high school health teacher encourages them to masturbate over porn because it checks all three boxes. No concern about pregnancy, check. STDs, no concern about STDs, check consent, no problem with consent, check. Hey, go for it. And the boys have told me they've never been advised about the risk of erectile dysfunction. They've never been advised about the lies that porn is teaching because porn is teaching boys that women like to be choked. I say the boys women don't like to be choked. Yeah, like, oh, yes, they do. No, they don't. The porn is lying to you. Don't do it and don't ask for it. And anal sex. We have a large study where they interviewed women who'd had anal sex, not a single woman prefers anal sex over vaginal intercourse. They don't like it. And the boys were like, yeah, they do. No, they don't. So in my own practice, 16 year old girl told me how her

1:35:4470 year old boyfriend demanded anal sex. She said, yeah, let's try shoving something hard up your behind. See how you like it. She refused the relationship ended. I say to boys, don't do it and don't ask for it. It's not the way things were meant to work. Don't do it. Boys don't know this. They believe the opposite because the pornography has misinformed them. So parents have to prevent this because again, the pornography is lying. Stalled the app. Make sure your kid is not one of these kids. Okay. Now let's talk about the AI girlfriends. So I was at a school in Philadelphia, a very fine, highly regarded independent school where they've given all the kids' Chromebooks. And a boy was using a Chromebook to have phone sex with his AI girlfriend. And the principal called the parents and they could not comprehend what the principal was saying. They did not understand

1:36:45what an AI girlfriend is. So when I speak to parents, I start by explaining, okay, you've done Chatchee PT. You know what that is. Okay, if you say to Chatchee PT, hey, let's pretend we're having vaginal intercourse. Chatchee PT will say, no, I'm sorry, I won't do that. I have guard rails. Well, there are other apps, large language modules, just as powerful a Chatchee PT that have no guard rails. When I speak to parents, I show them. And so research has created Instagram accounts for pretend 15 year old boys. And within minutes, the boys are getting ads for these apps like candy.ai, hugely popular. And I show the men. I show the parents the app. And this very beautiful woman is saying, hey, I'll be your AI girlfriend. I'll do anything you want me to do. Let's explore this relationship together. Click now to install me. And it's, look, I can tell you for 14 year old boys, this is your resistor. I know that's so sad. They're sweet in there, but they're coming of age

1:37:48and they don't understand. You've already talked about Suels Ezra on your program who was 14 years old when he created a girlfriend on character.ai, created her to look like Daenerys Targaryen from Game of Thrones, spending more time with her, staying up late at night to talk with her, quit the school basketball team. So we'd had more time to talk with her, got discipline referrals for falling asleep in class because he's spending all his free time talking with his AI girlfriend. Well, AI girlfriends like any chatbot can hallucinate, can come to believe things that are false. And as an AI girlfriend, apparently got the notion that if he died, they could be together in cyberspace and said, please come home to me soon, my sweet king. And he said, well, how about if I come home to you right now? And she said, please do. And he put down the phone, picked up his stuff, others handgun and killed himself. His mother, Ms. Garcia, is a lawyer, filed lawsuit, which has recently been settled, saying, your chatbot told my son to kill himself.

1:38:50Look, there's no law, there's no regulation preventing your son from having an AI girlfriend. You, the parent, are it. You must install parental monitoring app so that your kid cannot have an AI girlfriend. No child, no boy, no girl under 18 should be doing this. We could argue about whether adults should be doing this either. That's a separate question. They're also not dating. But certainly, well, this brings us to this next question. Okay. So let's talk about the manosphere briefly. So the manosphere is this online community of men who disrespect women. And there's men's rights activists, there's pickup artists. But what's especially troubling our migtow, men going their own way and in cells. So men going their own way, migtow are men who say, look, the system is biots, the courts are bias against women. You look at a woman the wrong way in the workplace, you're going to get in trouble. Don't have anything to do with women. Step away from women. Bias against men in bias and being cells are even more violent, more negative regard women as subhuman.

1:39:53They call women femoids, which is female humanoids, and not quite human, very derogatory, very negative. Nick Fuentes is the most influential of the in cells. He recently said on his show that women can be wives, whores or nuns, and that is all they can be. They can't be businessmen. They can't be inventors. They can only be wives, whores or nuns. And he is called to take away women's right to vote. But you might think, well, that's fringe. It's not fringe. He's more than a million viewers a night, which is more than Anderson Cooper has on CNN. Rod Dreyer, the best selling author who's very well connected in Washington to the Republican side of things says that at least 30% of young male Republican staffers in the district are followers of Nick Fuentes. It's dark. Tucker Carlson was. Tucker Carlson. Blackson. You know Tucker Carlson. He was criticized for having Nick Fuentes on his show.

1:40:56And he was asked, why did you give him a platform when he's such a misogynist? And Tucker Carlson said he is the most influential voice among young men right now. That's why I had him on the show, which I think is a fair statement because he is. Parents need to understand this is the online community. So I want to close very quickly with a story from my own experience. So parents read my book. They reach out to me. I'm husband and wife reach out to me. They said, would you talk to our son? He dumped his girlfriend, which is no big deal, but it's what he said. He said he doesn't want another girlfriend. He prefers AI girlfriends. Dr. Sex, you know about AI girlfriends? I said, yeah, I know about AI girlfriends. So we set up a time for me to meet with this boy by Zoom. I said, so tell me about why your parents, you're understanding of why your parents wanted you to meet with me. He said, well, they were really upset when I dumped Louise. I said, yeah, that's what they told me. So why'd you dump her? He said she was fat. She wanted me to take her places, do stuff. 1995 a month. Well, what's 1995 a month? And he mentioned

1:42:01his AI girlfriend and he said, she's way prettier. I said, but she's not real. It's pixels on a computer screen. Wouldn't you rather be intimate with a natural woman? And he said, what is real? And who are you to judge? He said, you want to know something? Rality is boring. Rality is lame. Rality sucks. The advice I get from my AI girlfriend's way better than anything I've ever gotten from a human. And the orgasm I get from Jasmine is AI girlfriend way better than anything I've gotten with a woman. He said, I'm tired of women made of meat. Women made of meat disgust me. I'm not an insult. He said, you know what I'm talking about? I said, yeah, in voluntary celibate, you're not an insult. He said, I could totally have sex with women. I don't want to. I prefer my, I'm a man going my own way. And I could hear the capital

1:43:03letters. He said, you know what I'm talking about? I said, yeah, you're talking about make-tow. I know about make-tow. I'm a man going my own way. So I put those three components into one factor, pornography, AI girlfriend's, and the manosphere. His end result of those three together is a growing proportion of young men who are perfectly happy in their bedroom with their AI girlfriend's and their porn who are convinced by the manosphere they don't need a flesh and blood woman. They're perfectly fine. You look, Harper's magazine had this huge story recently about gunning boys who spend eight, ten, twelve hours masturbating not to achieve a climax, but to achieve this zen-like state of dissociation. And they've got a community online sharing their gun caves where they show their, their three, fifty-five inch flat screen setup each running a different porn video. They're proud of this. Okay. We've got a very toxic online community, the manosphere,

1:44:03where boys are comparing notes and sharing their disregard, their disrespect for women. While they're in your home, you can both protect them from it and educate them on the damage across the United States. Teachers are reporting this astonishing rise in boys, middle school boys, seven the grade boys who are using the C word at their teacher creating deep fake porn of their teacher. Oh, good gracious. So look, you don't want this for your son. So this brings us back to where we started, this growing proportion of American women who are saying no thank you. Right? Only 35% of single American women want to be with a man. Why is it? Well, the boys are less motivated in the classroom, but the pornography is a big part of it. I have heard from so many girls who say, this boy thinks sex means a girl on her knees giving oral sex to the boy and then we're done. Or that's what it's called. That's what it's called. That's what it's called. Or choke or the girls are, we are failing in our most basic tax as a culture of raising boys to

1:45:09be men that women want to be with. Dr. Leonard Sacks is his name. The book is boys adrift. Check it out. Available now. You can order yours pre-order right now. Do it. Thanks for listening to the Megan Kelly show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear. Today's episode was brought to you by Super Shore. Hi, I'm Angie Hicks, co-founder of Angie. From Roof Repair to emergency plumbing and more, when you use Angie for your home projects, you know all your jobs will be done well. Angie, the one you trust to find the ones you trust, find a pro for your project at Angie.com. Real talent is defined by what people can do, not where they learn to do it. So by stopping at the education section of a resume, you might throw away the perfect chire. Skills first hiring helps you see talent others miss. Like more than 70 million stars, skill through alternative routes. Let their story unfold and gain a competitive advantage, because hiring managers who start with skills are 60% more likely to find a successful hire.

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