What Do We Do About Young Men and Porn? (Your Radical Questions with Jordan Stephens)

0:00This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. If journalism is the first draft of history, what happens if that draft is flawed? In 1999, four Russian apartment buildings were bombed, hundreds killed. But even now, we still don't know for sure who did it. It's a mystery that sparked chilling theories. I'm Helena Merriman, and in a new BBC series, I'm talking to the reporters who first covered this story. What did they miss the first time? The History Bureau. Putin and the apartment bombs. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello and welcome to Your Radical Questions. This is where I put your questions to one of our brilliant radical guests.

0:47Guests like? Jordan Stephens. That's the man. This is your chance to engage directly with the super smart, super interesting people we have on this podcast and basically ask them about their ideas for the future. We've been talking about trying to create a sense of community, trying to build a kind of pod squad, go on this journey together. And this is basically one of the ways in which you can get much closer to the amazing people that we've had on this podcast. So we've already done this with the farmer and shepherd, James Rebanks, with Chris Packham. We've got a couple of absolute crackers coming up with Jamie Oliver and the best-selling writer, Naomi Alderman as well.

1:17Today, yeah, that's good, isn't it? Yeah. Today I'm joined, you heard his voice there. Today I'm joined by Jordan Stevens, who is known for being one half of the, do you know what? How would you describe Rizzle Kicks? What, like as a genre? Yeah. like hip pop that's that's what Anna said yeah yeah Anna our genius genius producer Anna Budd was chatting to a fiance husband fiance fiance and it was like hop hip well actually I'd probably say alternative hip hop on a basis that you know some people think that it's a slightly different a pop edge or but I think alternative hip hop but it's because you sing so beautifully and you've got anyway I'm being too nice I also felt for a moment like I was on University Challenge which was funny because you let me say my name things about it's really funny Jordan Stevens.

1:59Yeah, you did. Jordan Stevens. Let's meet the team from Neesden. Don't get me excited, bro. Jordan is one half of, he's probably best known for this, so he's also done a huge amount of activism and writing and acting and so on and so forth. He's one half of the alternative hip-hop duo, Rizzle Kicks, but also someone who's given a lot of thought to the situation facing young men and boys in modern society. And as part of that, he wants to encourage open, honest, responsible conversations not least about the use of porn and the impact that that is having on sex and relationships and he's a man in demand but he's sticking around to answer your questions which is a sign of how surging this podcast I think this is Britain's apart from Miss Me which you do with Makita Oliver in place of Lily Allen who's currently being highly successful elsewhere smashing it I would broadly say that Radical is the most exciting podcast in Britain but then I'm biased anyway you ready for some questions I'm ready born ready alright here we go this one is the first one and it's from Corin Hello Amol.

2:58My question for Jordan Stevens is what one change in society could address young men's obsession with pornography? And I'd also like to ask him how we encourage young men to learn to connect at an emotional level. Thanks. What can you do to address obsession with pornography? Well, I think demystify it. I think with pornography. More sex education? Yeah, I think we should be more willing for people to engage with their desires. needs to be more understanding of you know for example i don't think and you'd have to check me on this but i'm not sure there's any real conclusion on like kinks and fetishes scientifically i don't think there's a real understanding of why it is that we are hyper focused on there's some i think there's some idea that our first experience of sexual arousement we might we might attach that to something in our immediate vicinity or but i don't think there's really an understanding it's I think it's quite complex.

3:54So anyway, that'd be interesting to look more into. But I think ultimately demystifying sex, being able to have those conversations. On Corinne's second question, can I offer a couple of answers to see what you think? She says, how do you encourage young men to learn to connect on an emotional level? I've got two answers to that. One, which is not very thought through, but it's just an instinctive and slightly anecdotal reflection of my childhood is sport and play. You know, when I was growing up in a pre-smartphone era, which I know makes me sound very old, just played with people. You just went out and played with people.

4:21I grew up on Tooting Beck Common. every single day in the summer holidays. You go and play football, play cricket, and maybe a bit of Mario Kart in the morning. But playing with people and actually sport is an incredibly important part of that. And I feel like I learned to connect with other human beings primarily through my experience of sport. And the flip side of that is real life as opposed to digital life. You know, in the main podcast, we were talking about this astonishing statistic. I'm sure people would dispute it, saying that in America now, people are spending more than eight hours a day on screens, i.e.

4:53in terms of their waking hours more of it is on screen than off screen i.e. in real life and I think that there is a case and I say this as a parent really rather than as a campaigner there's a case for trying to explain to young people the wonder of real life as opposed to the temptations of digital life and part of that means resisting those temptations for yourself Yeah, I don't think you should get a smartphone until like after 18 you should have a dumb phone just call and text Really? Yeah. What do you think of that social media ban in Australia? Great. I don't even know what it is. It sounds good.

5:27So Australia's done this thing. I think you have to be over 16. Great. And they've forced the tech companies to make it impossible for people under 16 to have an account. Great. Well, there you go, Corinne. It's a ringing endorsement. Also, I will say as well, on the emotional thing, I think you should be taught how to feel. I really think that I had to be guided into understanding. Anger was a big one for me. feeling the anger instead of running away from it or creating depression that early inhibitory emotion sorry to interrupt you think people should be taught that earlier so maybe 14 15 year olds should be guided through that i think like i say right this worked for me if i'm going into a situation again and again and the same thing's happening so uh if i'm going into a social circle and um i start to feel you know like a little bit i'm doing this i'm tapping and then i start drinking and then you know i get really drunk and then you know mess around and then the next day I feel like regret or whatever else.

6:21I would suggest that people would ask the question, why are you jiggling? What is it about the situation that's feeling anxious? Do you even like the people you're around? Do you even want to be out right now? Maybe you want to be doing a different activity. Really, we should be going to spaces where we don't feel, it's fine to feel a bit anxious, but so much so that you have to react defensively, i.e. drinking, in order to cope. Those are interesting questions. We don't ask these questions. Some of our listeners, perhaps of our older listeners might think that the domain or the arena in which people were taught how to feel used to be, more so than it is now, the home.

6:56And in this context, we've got a question from Jackie. And Jackie actually sent us this question after a much earlier interview we did with Laura Bates, who you know, and also with Steve Chalk, who's a really fascinating guy, founded the Oasis Charitable Trust, which runs a chain of academies and the UK's first secure school. And Jackie got in touch to say, here it is, I quote, Why is there such an absence of dads? I'm a divorced mother of two, so I have seen the direct results of this. One very good reason is that women, inspired and encouraged by positive feminism, the reform of divorce laws, social change, etc., have been enabled to leave destructive, abusive, controlling and faithless marriages and have the confidence to go it alone.

7:36But in doing so, have deprived their sons of dads. We need to unravel the contradictions of the feminist achievements, which now facilitate freedom and opportunity for women, while in many cases at the same time, depriving boys of their much needed fathers, even if those fathers were not the best. So a lot in that. But I think that point about the contradictions of feminism is trying to point to this idea that one consequence of feminism for good and for ill is that a lot of boys are growing up without dads. very hot button topic it's very like a touch point it's a minefield to i think align feminism with the breakdown of the family that is like a real it's a it's a tough one well jackie would say it works both ways there's a upside there's a benefit a moral gain from the freedom of women to say actually i don't want to live with this abusive scumbag but there's just because life is nuanced and their trade-offs that's come with a cost i think i think look i think this is my approach right is i think it's difficult to discuss something like that on general terms yes i think ultimately all of these things need to be a case-by-case basis and i worry that people apply a general idea into their individual circumstance one of my main concerns for example is that i know just from my personal sphere that there are a lot of men stuck in abusive relationships who aren't under immediate physical threat which is perhaps the difference but they don't know how to get out of it and they often stay in it because of the children or the child right so like that that i think there's more unity that can be found in like a societal discussion on how to have healthy relationships than just separating it purely on gender because both men and women obviously have the capacity to do damage and weaponize children men and women right both both every human reserves the right to leave an abusive situation and i think oftentimes times i would think it's a good thing to do that because no child should grow up watching abuse firsthand yes it's difficult not having both your parents there but another thing i would say is that one thing and laura bates advocates for this too is that we really need to be continuing to to to normalize platonic relationships between two heterosexual people like sorry between men to whatever a man and a woman right ideally heterosexual there's this odd myth confusion it's definitely something that pops up on the like manosphere and the femisphere if that's a thing that you know that every man is just in a friend zone because there isn't the opportunity to have sex with their female friend obviously i don't agree with that i have many female friends i actually find oftentimes i find it easier to make friends with women than i do with men in that situation right if a son or daughter or child or two children have to step away from their one parent because that parent's abusive i would love there to be a space where there is another person who can step into that paternal role and provide a similar amount of care because it is a blessing to be able to help a child grow you know and it's a responsibility of all adults to do that so i guess my way of saying it is yes sure there might be an immediate issue with single parenting I would believe ideally it wouldn't be a single parent so let's create that village let's create a connection around people of that's diverse in terms of life choices you know did someone do that for you yes actually yeah I had you know two or three figures in my life I got a better one of my oldest friend's dad I think for a while he wasn't actually also there as much because he was busy working but I've definitely felt that from him I would call him my second dad for a lot of boys it'll be their football coach it'll be their sunday league manager um you know some teachers but again it's it's my mum what my mum blessed me with was uh godparents and a close circle of people with really open views on life and love thank you very much you need jackie let's get another question from flora who sent us this voice note new technology will always be employed for sexual purposes and to oppress and humiliate women any historian of industrial progress should know this.

11:42Why then was there so little anticipation of the AI pornography crisis that has developed in so little time since the release of deepfake AI programmes? My personal view is that all products should have to pass a does no harm test, as pharmaceuticals do. We've had 200 years to process the impact of the steam powered industrial revolution on the most vulnerable in society, and we should have seen the negative effects of the AI revolution coming a mile off. wow i think this is my opinion and please challenge me on this is i think you like being challenged don't you i love being challenged i really do because sometimes i just get in my own head um i really think that people have too high of an expectation of humans for example if you read about like the death scroll right like the technology the coding that was involved for somebody to be able to load a page as they're scrolling the person who invented that didn't think let me destroy the minds of like two generations to come they were like how do i load this page quicker in a day and they did it so you think sometimes incentivized humans will do things without really much concern for the longer i don't think sometimes i think all the time maybe i'm wrong that's what i mean challenge me like i really think that at the the crux of like all like tragic advances if you want to call them advances in like human whatever has come because an individual or a small group of people have gone, well, this will be easier.

13:08Well, that's fun. You know, in the moment. They'll think that in the moment without thinking of a consequence. But isn't what you're casting as tragic advances? Yeah. Actually, the scientific revolution that allowed us to sit in studios with nice lights, headphones, and go home to a hot shower. Those aren't tragic advances. Isn't that material progress? Yeah, no. Well, it depends how you measure progress, isn't it? But you said you think, what did you say about humans? You think humans, they're overrated. No, I think people have too high expectation. Like when people, again, I actually have arguments with my friends about this because, you know, when you go into the conspiracy rabbit hole, you end up, basically everyone ends up with an idea that there are like a small group of people who are making these really long term decisions and planning it all out and putting it all out and then planting things and doing trials.

13:50So that's ultimately where most conspiracies end up. Whereas I think more realistically that, yeah, sure, I do think that like the more like people where money is no object and they have, you know, yes, they might be having discussions. But I don't think those people are the most intelligent and apt people on the planet. I think that capitalism has allowed those people to be lifted. And actually, in many cases, they are almost completely emotionally inept and are making decisions for bizarre reasons. like but bear in mind we're in a world where peter thiel who's one of the leading minds in inverted commas and ai was saying things like investor based in silicon valley big founder of co-founder of not co-founder but big investor in facebook yeah so palantir and yeah big influential figure but this guy's saying like calling greta thunberg the antichrist like he's got a he's got an interesting to put it mildly theory about the antichrist which but did you get i don't want to go into it too far into that but i mean as in like you know the people who we're who we're upholding as though as the future as making these big decisions like she's asking a question why haven't they foreseen it because there isn't these people aren't sat there i don't believe going how can i improve the everyday lives of human species they're going can i do a cool bit of code to do something quick and i won't think of the long-term damage so i am going to challenge you briefly in two ways the first is politics isn't what flora is really asking for a reasonable expectation that politicians come together to say there is this impending harm our job is to minimize harm and up you know and maximize or optimize the chance of good social benefits and it it's reasonable for flora and other people who are concerned perhaps about ai and porn to think that we should have seen it coming and that we should have regulated better before and that we should i mean i could tell you now about sort of where ai is developing in a way that british government's policies don't reflect yeah and don't you think that politic don't you think what I think Flora is getting at is that we've been let down by politicians.

15:44Yeah, because, all right, okay, so it's like on a governmental level, there should have been a real priority. Smarter regulation, faster. Yeah. Earlier. You should have been better. Well, they're being bullied by big tech, right? These guys hold so much power. That's pathetic, if it's true. Yeah, well, of course it's true, no? Why else would they be, why else would they not be able to implement, you know, like some more stringent safeguarding measures? Well, they're saying that it's because they want the economic benefits of these companies investing here. These people who don't pay tax. They would say that they want people to have access.

16:09to the benefits of social media and that they've just been slow. I don't think there's any, I don't think anyone would defend the slowness of regulation. It's just money, right? It's just money, like, that's what you're saying. Like, they're bullying them with money because they're saying if you don't help us or enable us, then we're going to pull certain things and it'll make life difficult for you. It's bullying. Big tech companies bully governments. That's the issue. They would call it lobbying. The other way in which I want to challenge you is about your view of humans. Don't have too high expectations of humans.

16:35Yeah. Aren't humans incredible? Yeah. absolutely incredible that's that that should be that should that shouldn't be there's not a high expectation i don't think i mean as in like shouldn't we celebrate what humans have achieved yes we're destroying the earth look you know chris packham was sat there a week ago yeah i don't mean the human species i i mean as individuals i'm just saying that i again my friends challenged me on this so i might be wrong but i really don't believe that like big global shifts have come as a result of a really well thought out plan especially with technology i don't think that people are sit there going in 10 years i see what you mean are we creating safeguards for boys and girls i think somebody is in silicon valley in a unique environment that none of us will ever understand very microdosing acid probably saying like saying like dude wouldn't it be nuts if i could like create a girlfriend that looks like five of my last girlfriends in one person do you mean there's no do you get what i'm saying though genuinely but like but like adam curtis talks about this adam curtis has made whole documentaries about about like the painful reality of like global shifts you know it doesn't even make the point in can't get you out of my head that like the entire basically globalization or like the the selling of the of the american gold reserve was because ronald or was it richard nixon was paranoid yeah that's fucking insane adam curtis's uh documentaries on the iPlayer.

18:03Absolutely. It's paranoia. It's not sitting there going, how am I going to affect, you know, the economics? No, it's like, I think these people are trying to kill me. You know? I know exactly what you're saying. Thank you, Flora. I think that's more than you bargained for. Our next question is from, in fact, we'll make this a final question. This is from Laura. Laura says, she's been in touch today, quote, why did he, why did he decline a recent invite to Downing Street for International Men's Day? Well, Do you want to know? Yeah. Of course I want to know. And also, more importantly, Laura wants to know.

18:37Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just felt it was a photo op, personally. I really don't agree with how the government has dealt with what's the genocide happening in Gaza. And I found it quite insulting that their stance on it was, by the way, International Men's Day, was to have a like a champagne reception at Downing Street. I can think of other things you could have done to help international men in the last two years rather than bring together a couple of footballers and some people working in the sector and have pictures of you laughing while you shake their hands which is exactly what happened by the way.

19:16I am more than happy as you say I'm doing this literally tomorrow. I will go into parliament, I'll consult, I'll speak. I really do. I understand my position and maybe there are some places even with the government i don't agree with or a party that i don't align myself with if i can affect policy i've got a lot of friends in the creative space who are politically neutral because they need money from budgets right i get that but for me i wasn't willing to compromise on my on my belief it or my if i have to make again to make my point to make it human like my resentment like genuine resentment and disgust and anger towards some of the choices or inaction from that government in like that's just happened i can't in good faith go and and shake someone's hand so some people push back on that i'm sure the government would say that to some extent it's a bit of a straw man for two reasons first of all your view on what's going on in gaza uh or has happened in gaza and is you know an ongoing situation in gaza which you know israel would not call a genocide um but your view on what's going on in gaza is fundamentally separate to what the government is or isn't doing on international men.

20:25Secondly, the government say they're doing quite a lot. There's a men's health strategy where streeting is a health secretary to try to take it quite seriously. And they would say that having a reception where you invite lots of people. So I should be clear. I did go to that reception. They would say that they tried to bring people in from all walks of life, invited into the heart of government, the prime minister's office and house to raise the profile of these issues. and sure there were some nice pictures on Instagram and TikTok and all the rest of it but they would say they absolutely are taking this issue seriously, trying to do things and yes you may not like some of what the government is saying on other issues but isn't it better to engage with them on this?

21:04I will. I will. I'm not saying I won't. Like chat to me. Like they can have my email, they can have my number like I will consult with anybody I'll speak to West Street and I'll chat to them. I'm not doing it on camera. That's it. Like you're not using whatever platform i've got to to in my mind wash the responsibility that you have i i understand that running the country isn't easy right and people will turn around me you'd be prime minister then yeah it must be hard but i'll be real man like my heart is broken from the actions of keir starmer and david lammy it especially david lammy just basis off the fact of this is a black guy i'm seeing in government some of the shit he said and done over the last two years it's genuinely broken my heart what are you talking about david lammy i remember being one One of my first moments when he delivered a speech in Parliament about Windrush.

21:54And I remember being totally mobilised by his kind of presence there. And I remember feeling, again, I have to be real, like a connection based off the fact this is a black man in this space. And then the reality of, I think, what he stands for and who he is, I met him briefly once before. It just really disappointed me. I'll just be honest. I find it difficult to engage with the performative element of politics. David Lammy I'm sure would want very much to meet you and to and to say to you that he you know is thinks of himself as someone who is trying to stand up for vulnerable people he's given however many years two decades of public service as an MP I'm not here to defend David Lammy I'm just saying that he would he would he would say that he's tried to be a pioneer he's tried to represent the labor movement he's tried to fight for rights around the world all that's and so listen but he's But just to be clear, right, he's in the current government and the decisions that have been made in recent times on an international level are things that I can't align with.

22:55Thank you so much to everyone who's been in touch. Thank you to Laura. Thank you to Jackie. Thank you to Flora. Thank you also to Corinne. I really, really appreciate it. I'll be back on Thursday when I'll be speaking to the chef and campaigner, Jamie Oliver. Thank you so much for all your questions for him as well. Jordan, it's a pleasure, mate. Thank you. Appreciate that, bro.

23:20If journalism is the first draft of history, what happens if that draft is flawed? In 1999, four Russian apartment buildings were bombed, hundreds killed. But even now, we still don't know for sure who did it. It's a mystery that sparked chilling theories. I'm Helena Merriman, and in a new BBC series, I'm talking to the reporters who first covered this story. What did they miss the first time? The History Bureau, Putin and the apartment bombs. Listen on bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts.