Dive into a mind-bending discussion with Malcolm and Simone Collins as they explore the fascinating—and unsettling—world of disease-based mind control. In this episode, they break down recent research on how parasites and pathogens like toxoplasmosis and certain yeasts may influence human behavior, sexuality, and even cultural trends. Discover how these microorganisms could be shaping everything from sexual preferences to risk-taking, and why some behaviors that seem purely psychological might actually have a biological origin. The hosts discuss the science, the social implications, and the controversial questions that arise when we consider the possibility that diseases are pulling the strings behind the scenes. Whether you’re interested in neuroscience, psychology, or just love a good intellectual rabbit hole, this episode will challenge your assumptions and leave you questioning how much of our behavior is truly our own. Don’t forget to like, subscribe, and share your thoughts in the comments![00:00:00] Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simone. Today we are gonna be diving into something that one of our fans sent us. And as I read about this. I was mortified. It appears that toxoplasmosis, remember that thing that everybody knows about from pop culture where it’s something that you can catch from cats and it sort of disorients mice and changes their behavior and makes them more likely to be caught and eaten by cats, thus spreading the cycle of infection. And people are aware it can spread to humans and slightly change human behavior. Well, there was a study done toxic Plasmosis Gandhi, detailed description of the Conan asexual and sexual development and Cyte sporulation that showed that actually there are a number of variations of this that begin to specialize at targeting specific species. Not only that, but this paper then goes over other [00:01:00] parasites in diseases that may be modifying. Human sexual behavior so that they can spread more aggressively with a lot of receipts. Simone Collins: In other words, the diseases are in the driver’s seat of our brains. They are, Malcolm Collins: Some people’s brains. Yeah, if you’ve been involved, did you know that with, with Toxoplasmosis, before we go into it, it’s already been shown to make males that are infected with it taller and thus more attractive to women, and that. It can transfer from male to male and male to female, but not female to male. Simone Collins: That’s right. Because it’s, it’s transferred through sperm. Malcolm Collins: So yes, so no, but this is wild to me that it is literally creating extra attractive males modifying what arouses them to be more likely to be into gay stuff. So that Well, Simone Collins: and BDSM in general, just like racy stuff Malcolm Collins: ish. Well, [00:02:00] the type of stuff that would involve the types of contact that would spread a disease. But it’s not just that. Did you know that the one of the things we’re gonna be going over is HPV virus you know, the one that you can get from eating girls out. Did you know that it makes you more interested in eating girls out or wanting eaten out? So when you have HPV, you want guys to eat you out more. I got in this section wrong from memory. It’s actually yeast infections that caused this. Malcolm Collins: So we’re gonna go over. Oh, Simone Collins: that’s interesting. I mean, my generation was the first, our generation was the first to get vaccinated against it. I’m vaccinated against it. You know, the funny thing is I, it was, it was, you know, sold to me of course is like a completely sexless teen. And I was so enthusiastic about getting it, even though I like basically planned on living a virgin my entire life, but I was still like, I’m so excited to get this vaccine. I just wanted to collect vaccines, gotta catch ‘em all. But I wonder like if the opposite of it is, may have contributed to [00:03:00] my aversion to it or if the default is aversion to it and then if maybe just getting infected with it is the thing that makes this a pervasive. Now Malcolm Collins: she hates the idea of somebody eating her out, which works fine for me. No, but actually this is really interesting. So one of the things we’re gonna get to at the end of this piece is sort of a hypothesis on why these one and this isn’t talked about in the piece, but it’s something that we need to talk about ‘cause it’s very germane to our audience. Mm. Why when the science is beginning to show that this stuff is very likely happening, that some of the degenerate behavior we’re seeing in our society is literally humans being modified by diseases to have unique and differentiated arousal patterns. Mm-hmm. Why aren’t you being told about this? And the answer is fairly obvious. It would be mortified if you could say, which is one of the things we’re going to talk about is. Same sex attraction may be insert modified by a bacteria or a another form of disease. It may be mortifying to tell somebody that part of your k
