3_TRENDS_Vol.23: Magdalene Taylor: Sexual Skepticism, Female Trad Health + Politicization of Transport

Vol.23

3_TRENDS is an interview series with the world's leading cultural researchers and thinkers, sharing their favorite overlooked trends.

Magdalene Taylor (MT) is a writer and critic of culture and sex. She has written for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, i-D, VICE, Vulture and more. She publishes a weekly Substack newsletter, Many Such Cases.

MK: Magdalene, what’s on your mind?

Sexual Skepticism

MT: Groups like “NoFap” and anti-porn crusaders are nothing new, but I forecast that in the coming year their rhetoric will become all the more mainstream.

In particular, online figures who emphasize the sort of “return to tradition” practices of eating red meat and getting natural sunlight will further integrate a suspicion of men’s sexual practices, namely with regard to porn and masturbation.

Much of this might be generally well-meaning advice, just as the axiom of getting some vitamin D and trying to eat more unprocessed foods is.

However, I see this era of sexual skepticism following two specific patterns:

The first is that porn and masturbation will be treated as entirely synonymous, wherein the idea that perhaps some young men might benefit from watching less porn will be interpreted as “men should never masturbate.”

The idea that people can masturbate without pornography will not be considered.

The second will be the frequent invocation of vaguely pseudoscientific biology, such as the belief that quitting porn will change your physiognomy or interpretations of the relationship between post-orgasm prolactin release and testosterone.

Above all, what will be most confusing about this trend is that it will incorporate some truth to it, and followers will struggle to parse fact and fiction accordingly.

MK: For me, what this really is, is a growing inability to hold grey. Liver King is to be worship or despised. Binaries. “Well, he makes a few solid points” — cannot be uttered.

To argue the other side, we can also say young men are all too good at this contradiction holding. We saw the rise of a figure like Andrew Tate from his “some solid points” sugar-coating.

To your point though, I don’t think we can understand this trend — and how we got here — without stepping back to recognize the larger “State of Men.”

According to Pew Research, while 3-in-10 U.S. adults are single (not married, living with a partner or in a committed romantic relationship)...

Roughly 6-in-10 young men report being single.

But what’s more noteworthy is that of the Americans who are single, the largest share – 57% – say they are “not currently looking for a relationship or casual dates.”

And for the men who are — that number is decreasing over time. From 61% of men were seeking in 2019, to only 50% of men in 2022 who are seeking.

This is a clear driver of this new relationship with porn.

Likely also related are the other macro factors plaguing men...

Richard V. Reeves, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and the author of Of Boys and Men notes,

“Most American men earn less today than their counterparts in 1979 did. This is obviously an important fact of economic life, but it helps explain other problems too: why men are at a three times higher risk from ‘deaths of despair’ from drug overdose, alcohol or suicide; why one in four fathers are not living with their children; why ten million prime-age men are out of the labor market; and why so many men are open to populist arguments that the ‘liberal elite’ has screwed them over.”

Further, young men are more likely to live with their parents (and rising), they’re more likely to believe in conspiracy theories, they’re more likely to be behind their female counterparts in school (enrollment and performance), and according to the Survey Center on American Life,

“Only 21% of men say they received emotional support from a friend within the past week, compared to 41% of women.

Similarly, just 25% of men say they've said ‘I love you’ to a friend recently, as opposed to 49% of women.”

We have a gender gap — it’s just now in the other direction.

What does porn have to do with earning potential? This is a complex, intertwined issue — one without straightforward explanations — but one which is as looming as disturbing. It’s all related.

When it comes to the various facets of modern male struggles, each of these variables inform another like a fucked up, testosterone-fueled Rube Goldberg machine.

The dudes are not okay.

It will take a comprehensive, tops-down and bottoms-up approach to course correct, and further — one which will acknowledge that this is not “zero-sum support” — yes, others are in need too, but that doesn’t mean all can’t flourish.

Female Trad Health

MT: Tying into the former trend, we are going to see a new crop of that online “return to tradition” group whose target audience is also women.

They will give particular focus to hormonal health, itself a nebulous topic that most of us don’t quite have a grasp on as it relates to our own bodies. It’s easy to buy into the idea that something is wrong with our hormones when we have little evidence otherwise.

I’ve started seeing this more on TikTok, where health influencers stress the importance of “seeing the sun” within the first hour of waking, eating specific ratios of protein, carbs, fat and even ensuring you chew your food properly.

All of this, of course, is probably good and harmless advice.

Increasingly, though, I think we’ll see more of that red-pill-adjacent ideology sprinkled in, such as anti-birth control sentiments or concerns about seed oils.

Like the sex skepticism, much will likely have some truth to it amid a broader distrust of modern Western health.

MK: We often think of nostalgia in the context of media, but forget it can manifest as ideologies and lifestyles as well.

Return to tradition is not just re-valuing the past, but perhaps more precisely, the rejection of the present.

Minimalist approaches to health can be highly desirable, especially when compared with today’s excessive routines and unattainable standards.

When women joke enviously en masse that men can wash their face with dish soap and still have better skin than them, (for some) the pendulum sway is headed towards a rejection of multi-step skincare product routines... and one towards multi-step natural routines.

Who has the time or money for $30 Kardashian vagina gummies when the world is on fire?

Or maybe for some that’s just the perfect antidote?

Politicization of Transport

MT: This is my own personal conjecture, but people generally seem to interpret those who live in cities, take public transit and potentially fly several times a year as being politically left, while those who live in car-bound environments, proudly drive trucks and fly less are on the right.

It’s already the norm to critique celebs for their excessive private plane usage and the environmental impacts of it, but that attitude will soon be increasingly targeted toward the average commercial plane traveler — particularly as part of the political divide.

People who don’t care about their carbon footprint may more boldly embrace their driving while highlighting that those of us who fly multiple times per year aren’t exactly minimizing the carbon output, ourselves.

Meanwhile, those who are self-conscious about their carbon footprint will increasingly rely on train travel.

Amid all of this will be a widening urban-rural divide, where even something as neutrally appealing as walkable areas will be written off as lefty propaganda.

MK: It was interesting to see several 2023 trend reports surface “train travel” as an emerging social shift — but of course they were not framed as the “politics of mobility” but rather the idyllic vibes of locomotives.

I’m curious how this will shake out, especially during a moment when post-pandemic Zoom-life insinuates travel is not as much as a requirement as it is a preventable desire.

What I’m left wondering is: How will this “shame” manifest?

Will it be induced by oneself or others? Like many things, likely the latter.

But with all things environment, the biggest culprits here are not individuals, but rather corporations.

How will the politicization of transport apply to not one another, but to the manufacturers and shippers of the brands we buy?

As a brand, it may be time to start preparing beyond your blanket sustainability strategy and for your public transport strategy.

Carbon-footprint applies beyond materials and production, but to shipping logistics and employee travel as well.

Not all will be aboard.