Does A Rise in Gays Precede Civilizational Collapse, Historically Speaking?

In this provocative video, the hosts discuss the contentious question: do gays contribute to the collapse of civilizations? They explore historical examples including the Roman, Islamic, and Greek empires, as well as insights from the modern era. Drawing from various scholarly works, including JD Unwin's 1934 study, they examine the correlation between sexual norms and societal success or decline. The episode delves into whether loosening sexual boundaries, specifically around same-sex relationships, can be linked to civilizational collapse. The hosts also critique modern and historical cultural norms, providing a balanced view on a highly debatable topic.

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello, Simone. Today is going to be a very spicy episode because I am going to be asking the question, do gays lead to the collapse of civilization?

The Fall of Rome.

Joe Rogan had this to say on his podcast fascinating that the end of empires, they get really concerned with gender and hermaphrodites the Roman fem boy. Fully grown and willing to take on the role of a common Roman woman. Even the emperor himself donned girly outfits, mascara, and held many chamber parties . The Roman Senate began having debates to determine if quote, being with a fem boy was a totally gay thing. After all,

Malcolm Collins: oh. So this is one of those things that I thought was really good for like. Us to do, because I think our audience knows that we would be honest with them about what we found on either side of this issue. Okay. Like there is no answer I could come to on this question that's not gonna piss off some large part of our audience.

So, you know, you're getting an honest answer from me and [00:01:00] I I, and you know, a lot of people. What made me think about this is I heard. If you look at Christians today, because I was reading , a piece about how different the modern Christian and conservative movement is from the historic Christian and conservative movement.

And they pointed out that if you look at Christians today who argue to ban things like same-sex marriage, they base their arguments on the Bible. But if you look at historic conservatives you know, you go back to a Ronald Reagan or something like that they based their arguments on loosening sexual morays, specifically around gay sex will lead to the collapse of civilization.

And they don't really mention the Bible that much in, in why they, they argue for this stuff anyway, and it makes a lot more sense. Like, I, I argue that like, okay, if it was true that gays or loosening sexual boundaries around gayness could lead to the collapse of a, of a civilization, like if that was a trend that kept happening over and over again in history, like I can [00:02:00] understand like the morality of putting a law around gay marriage.

I never understood why you'd wanna police somebody else's marriage, but I was like. Oh, the collapse of civilization. That makes sense. But the, the Christian argument makes no sense to me because like obviously these people don't believe what you believe about God or Christ, so you're not really helping them, like Right.

How does it help a, a, a non, what you would think of as is your type of Christian person for you to enforce them to follow a few Christian rules? Yeah. Like that, that's not the core point of c That's like broadly against. Everything Christian. When, when, when it's supposed to be the, you know, if you're a traditional Christian on a alperin, you would say, well, Christ died for your sins.

And it is through him that you, you, you get to God. Like, and, and, and even what Christ said, you know, he's not a Sharia law guy. You know, he's, he's. He's a, you know, render unde Caesar, right? Like Christianity is actually distinct among the major religions and that he does not talk a lot about how you should govern a country and explicitly has built [00:03:00] within it a separation of church and state which I argue is one of the reasons it has been such a successful religion.

It's much better to build religion that way and that when you get a merger of church and state, as you have seen within some Christian churches, the churches get watered down super, super quickly. Which is funny, a lot of people think the reason you shouldn't have a merger of church and state is because the church will impose all sorts of theocratic rules on people when in reality, no, it's the state and the bureaucrats are very good at watering down churches.

And that you really only get strong churches in regions where you don't have a melding of church and state. Right? And it, but it happens every time. So the melting happened recently. You might still get some theocratic stuff, but if it's a hundred years ago, 200 years ago, now it's typically wishy-washy.

But a lot of this comes down from Janie Unwins work which is where the theory was initially posed. So I'll go into his arguments for this concept. JD Unwins work frequently cited in support of the claim for I say, theoretical framework. His 1934 book, sex and Culture studied three six societies and concluded that strict sexual restraint, [00:04:00] prenuptial, chastity.

Monogamy correlates with cultural flourishing while sexual liberalism leaves UK within three generations. However, unwins focus is on general sexual norms, not specifically same sex relationships. And his methodology has been critiqued for lacking direct causation. The, for the claim, I, I told it to steelman both positions.

Unins findings are interpreted by some like Rory f Mc. Paul's blog to suggest that Western sexual revolution late 1960s could lead to a collapse by the 2070s with modern factors like antibiotics and pornography, accelerating the decay comments in various articles. Also link homosexuality to moral decay, citing studies on intimate partner violence.

IPV from the university of to. Torino these are disputed. Well, I mean, I know that IPV is super high in lesbian communities in gay communities.

Simone Collins: I'm gonna ask Claude because that's, yeah, [00:05:00] that's somewhat, huh.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, it says even Claude says, higher or equal to heterosexual men. Was it it happening in 25 to 33% of, of gay relationships? So. Okay. That's, that's like not bad argument there, right? Like, Hmm. If you're like, well it's associated with societal ills found within these relationships. And I think few people would argue that it intimate partner violence isn't a societal ill that, you know, there, it might make sense to have regulations against it against the claim.

Critics, including historians on Reddits, are ask historians, Ooh, such, such veracity. There argue Unwins work is too broad with no direct evidence. Linking same-sex relationships to collapse The Guardian article 2015 satellites as a claims, calling it a slippery slope argument, EG leading to beigy, animal marriages, fevered, ramblings.

But a lot of the slippery slip stuff has turned out right. Like I remember I was in GSAs as a kid and yeah. It would've been considered homophobic. [00:06:00] Like I remember because somebody mentioned this and they got like chewed out and like yelled at and, and shut out of a room to suggest that trans people would ever attempt to compete in the sport of their gender.

Specifically that that trans women. Would try to compete in women's sports. They were like, that's just homophobic, slippery slope. You know, insane ramblings. And now they're doing that, like the normalization of maps these are minor attracted persons. Is, is a movement that has been growing, I'd say for that, like the past 10 years or so.

In terms of, of, of normalization. The yeah, so I don't know if I agree with that. Right. Like, so I then said, okay, I can do research myself, Mr. Unwin, because I also hate the pr