Courtesans & Concubines: Why We Need Them Back

<p>In this Based Camp episode, Malcolm and Simone Collins explore the controversial idea of bringing back the concept of the “concubine” (or courtesan) in modern relationships. They contrast two distinct relationship models: the true wife/housewife — a full business and life partner who advances the family’s interests — versus the courtesan/tradwife/trophy wife model, where the woman’s primary role is pleasure, aesthetics, and appearance rather than deep partnership.</p><p>Drawing on history, labor statistics, and cultural critique, they discuss how women historically contributed far more to subsistence and family businesses than modern narratives suggest. They examine why many people today unconsciously seek unpaid courtesans, the problems with “ornamental” relationships, and how clear terminology can lead to better-aligned marriages. Topics include trophy wives as a profession, Real Housewives culture, objective-function alignment in relationships, and practical advice for high-achieving men and women.</p><p>Episode Transcript</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> [00:00:00] what I like about the term courtesan is it helps separate between a true housewife and the more modern tradwife, which I think is closer to a - courtesan.</p><p>If you look at the tradwife, right, the tradwife makes everything look pretty, right? She, , does up the house. , She does the baking from scratch and everything. And she’s doing all that for appearance. She’s doing all that to, to sell, , that he has a certain type of wife.</p><p>But, like, she’s not actually managing the family budget, right? Like, she’s not actually managing the deeper parts of the family. And many people who society at large would confuse, they would say, “Well, this woman stays at home and educates the kids , as part of her duties, therefore she’s the same type of thing as this trad woman.”</p><p><strong>Speaker:</strong> Specifically, we will be delineating two categories of relationships. One, the courtesan relationship, where the woman believes that their core job vis-a-vis their partner is just their [00:01:00] partner’s pleasure and reproducing. Whereas the other, the true wife or housewife, sees their job as being fully integrated with their husband’s life and advancing the interests of their family.</p><p>Would you like to know more?</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> hello, Simone. I’m excited to be here with you today. Today we are going to be expanding on a concept that a fan came up with in response to a previous video, and it is that we should bring back the concept of concubine. And when I first heard this I was like, well, we don’t wanna normalize sort of, you know, promiscuous behavior in this regards.</p><p>There’s a lot of negative social externalities for doing it. But after they laid it out for me, I’m like, actually we, we need to start having a conversation about this. We need to normalize this concept. This is a good concept So let me explain. We had a video where we basically go over the history of male [00:02:00] and female labor.</p><p>And what we pointed out using a lot of statistics, a lot of historical examples, is the modern idea that throughout history men mostly did all the labor and women mostly stayed at home and did education and child-rearing, is just completely historically anachronistic. Women actually did the majority and I, and I mean the majority of b- like grueling labor, like, repetitive</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> tasks.</p><p>But y- y- subsistence, subsistence labor. So sort of your baseline food and, and everything else was more or less</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> handled by the- Yeah, yeah. If, if you’re talking about, like, the majority of, of, of human history was during the hunter-gatherer period, that’s 95% of human history women were doing 60 to 70% of the calories in those societies.</p><p>And then you transition to an agricultural society, and in most agricultural societies women do the farming until the plow was invented. And then somebody else was like, “And this is men.” Men plow for, like, 200 years and go, “F it, I’m [00:03:00] making a tractor.” Women do hoe-based farming for literally thousands of years, and continue to do it exactly the way they’ve always done it.</p><p>By the way, hoe-based farming, the fact that Simone loved from that episode that she just cannot get enough of, is we pointed out that the idea of women staying at home and not really doing much except for child-rearing and education came from the, the, like, sort of middle class wealthy whites in America during a, a short window of, like, the 1910s to the 1970s.</p><p>And it was like, well, what about poorer people during that period? And this is where the word hoe comes from, is it was because specifically Black women, but though I suspect that this is like, you know, it- nowadays they try to racialize a lot of things that weren’t racialized. It probably just meant poorer women in general were hoes because they worked the farm.</p><p>And that’s what made them hoes. So it didn’t mean a, a promiscuous woman. It meant a poor, uneducated woman. But we, we start talking about all this. And by the way, if you’re wondering, like, what were the types of work that men did historically, they typically did [00:04:00] things tied to war or things tied to artisanship.</p><p>So if you needed a cobbler or a woodcutter or a builder or an architect or a sailor, like, if it required a huge amount of skill outside of textiles, it was typically men doing it. And, and don’t underestimate how much work textiles were. Or how much work- Yeah ... other things that people dismiss, like weeding.</p><p>Weeding your garden is one thing. Weeding a field that’s feeding a family is significantly more work than plowing it for anyone who’s ever weeded. Weeding is, is difficult, backbreaking, and recurring labor. But which was typically a woman’s job, by the way. But when in the sort of fallout from this episode, people were going through it and they said, “You know what?”</p><p>Because we were talking about the way that women historically actually structured their relationship with men, right? Like, if the man was doing some sort of artisanal job like say a butcher or a cobbler or a blacksmith the wife would typically manage the book, manage the finances, manage the [00:05:00] storefront, manage the marketing, manage the y- the, the sourcing of goods.</p><p>And we put this out there, and we put it out with the concept of, like, a sword-and-shield relationship in a modern context, which is, like, the wife is in charge of the more stable part of the income and the man is in charge of, like, entrepreneurship, like big fish, like moving the family forwards. And a lot of people who are actually, and I think what we would consider more trad relationships, still really related to this concept.</p><p>They were like, “Well,” like while I or ... Because we have a lot of housewife listeners. So, “While I or my wife,” this was actually more rare “take on what society would call a housewife job, that is not actually what I’m doing. I actually manage our investments, I manage our finances, I manage our taxes, I manage you know, the, the sort of procuring and stocking the, the, the home with supplies, getting things fixed.</p><p>I manage like a huge variety of stuff.” And we then began to talk about [00:06:00] how there’s a new type of woman that has come to exist that isn’t this type of woman. So this type of woman is engaging in what the married wife has always done, right? Which is to say, they join ... And, like, historically, if you went to a blacksmith historically, right?</p><p>And you sat him and his wife down, and you’re like, “Look, lady, I know you manage the storefront and the money and the taxes and all that, but you shouldn’t,” right? Like, “Your husband should manage all that.” And what she would of course say is, “But then he’s gonna have less time to make stuff.”</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Yeah.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> And, and you’re like, “Well, yeah, but like, you know, he’s a man, you’re a woman.”</p><p>And she’d look at you and be like, “But, like, that money doesn’t just go to him. It goes to the entire family. You’re telling me to be arbitrarily poorer so that I can, what? Sit at home and twiddle my, my thumb all day?” Like, “What, what’s the advantage to me [00:07:00] to stepping back from this when our fortunes,” as used to historically be the case in relationships, “are completely tethered together?</p><p>As he does better, I do better. As he does worse, I do worse. Why would I not help him in the ways that I can help him?” And people said, “There’s this new type of woman who doesn’t think that way.” And this is where the concept of concubine makes sense-</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Mm ...</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> in bringing back, is that be they married or not, there is a certain type of woman who does not believe that she should be adding anything substantial to the relationship in terms of intellectual labor or labor more broadly, right?</p><p>Like-</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> She’s purely ornamental.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> She is purely ornamental. And she may still have his kids, as concubines did historically, but she doesn’t, she- she’s not a part of, like, a team where both people are pushing things [00:08:00] forwards. And the moment I heard this, I was like, “That’s a really good effing point.” Because if we can re-normalize the concept of a concubine, we can re-normalize the fear of being seen as a concubine.</p><p>Now, thought, Simone, before I- I- I yap further, as they say on Twitch now that I know, ‘cause I- I- I do the Twitch. They say, “Yapping.”</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Are we old?</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> By the way, did you know what a raid is on Twitch? I didn’t know what a raid was.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Is it when a bunch of people from someone else’s stream go onto yours?</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Yeah, that’s what I thought it was.</p><p>It’s not.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> What is it?</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> So, what happens is when you sign off Twitch, because you’ll likely have a bunch of people still watching you, like at the end of Lee’s late stream it’s still, like, well over a thousand you can set it to automatically send all those people to another streamer.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Oh.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> And that’s called a raid.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Oh, that’s cool. And you do this as a social thing. That’s why people say, “Thanks for the raid,” so and so. Nice. Okay. Yeah. I- I like the [00:09:00] idea... One reason why I like the idea of the courtesan is I think that it at least helps to create it- it helps to highlight what a normal wife actually is and that this thing that people are optimizing for now as a default, which is the courtesan.</p><p>Most people now, when they’re looking for a partner, seem to be describing an un- m- a courtesan, but an unpaid courtesan, and I think that’s also really important. Mm. They want a companion that is attractive, that will make them happy that is, that is going to, like, entertain them. But for whatever reason, they also expect that, that they’re not gonna have to, like- Pay for or support this person, like sugar daddy style.</p><p>And that just is inherently unsustainable.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> I mean, I think a lot of them do plan to p- well, I, I actually like these two versions. So let, let, let’s break this out, ‘cause I think you’re, you’re creating an interesting distinction here, [00:10:00] which makes it even worse, right? Where a woman or may say, “I’m not a courtesan.</p><p>I go to work and I earn my own money,” right? Mm-hmm. And it’s like, actually you’re worse than a courtesan in that part. Like I, I don’t know what word we should make for this type of woman, but I’ll describe what I’m talking about.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> But women do it to men, too. They want the man to be attractive and to entertain them and make them happy and pleasure them.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Most-</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> But they also don’t expect to like</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> invest anything in them ... most women expect men to pay into a family coffer.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Mm.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> There are many women who do the exact opposite, and this is what I’m talking about here, the lower than a courtesan woman. Mm. This is a woman who gets married to a guy and she sees her role as entertaining him, having sex with him you know, and entertaining can mean like playing video games with him or something.</p><p>You know, wh- whatever it means to, watching movies with him at night, you know, whatever, right? Like courtesan stuff. Because this is the modern version of courtesan stuff. But sh- worse, worse than all of that, she still has a [00:11:00] job, but she takes the income she makes from that job and she treats it as entirely her own.</p><p>Right? Like it’s money just for her. This woman is less, and, and y- I’m sure everyone has seen women online who are like this. The guy makes money and it’s for everyone in the family. The girl makes money, it’s just for her fun stuff,</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> right? Is that really common? I don’t, I don’t-</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Very common. Very common.</p><p>Yeah.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> I mean, I watch a lot of, like, couples finance shows, and that’s not what I see. I, I, I don’t think that’s, that is what you think it is.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Okay. Well, if, if anyone is doing this, they are less than a courtesan. They’re literally an unpaid courtesan. He’s not even keeping you, right? Like you’re out there being a hoe to capitalism and being a hoe for your husband.</p><p>Well,</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> I understand that, but that’s, I don’t, I think that’s a straw man. I think what’s really common is, one, I mean, we, we did-</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Audience, audience, in the comments, do you know people who have done this?</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Yeah.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Continue, Simone.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Recently there was a term for, [00:12:00] like courtesan that was more modern, and it was trophy wife, and people did treat this as a profession.</p><p>We know people, Yeah ... who absolutely, like as, and like by treat this as a profession, I mean treat it as a profession, I mean like watched- corn to learn how to perform as people might desire. Starved self to fit it right size. You know, invested in the right clothing. And then, you know, once actually paired, and we’ll say employed as a trophy wife working extremely hard to make dinners special, to make holidays special, to to provide all the, you know, pleasure and enjoyment.</p><p>Famously when Marie Antoinette was first introduced to the French court and to King Louis the, the XV he, she, she made an inquiry about the, the king’s courtesan at the time. I think it was Madame Bovary. I’m really, I, I’m so bad with names. But the- Sorry ... her in-</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Wait, hold on. Hold [00:13:00] on.</p><p>Hold on. Simone’s like, “I’m bad with names,” that she cannot remember one of the king’s courtesans during a particular period of the French court. This shows you the level of history nerd that Simone is.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> I know. So I’m like, all right. I, I, I can name most of them- I cannot name the courtesan’s names ... from, for, for Louis XIV because the love the, the book on the love life of King Louis XIV is amazing.</p><p>And there’s Athenais, there’s Madame de Maintenon, there’s all these amazing women. But I, I don’t, I, I think it’s Madame de Bovary. Anyway so Marie Antoinette, this, this young teen bride of King Louis, well, future King Louis XVI asks, you know, “Who, who is this woman?” And her, essentially her advisor you know, a- another noble woman in the court is like, “Ah that is, you know, so and so.</p><p>Her job is to give pleasure to the king.” And her being this, like, really innocent, kind of like sheltered, you know, Austrian woman would be like, “Well then, you know, we are rivals because I want to give pleasure to the king.” And she’s like, “Oh, you don’t understand, girl.” Like, not, no. But like it was very well understood that their [00:14:00] profession was to give pleasure to this person.</p><p>And I think that people who took the trophy wife career seriously, and we know people who did, understand that their job is to give pleasure to their partner and also to raise their social status. Because it was understood that as a trophy wife, they have to make them look good in a certain way.</p><p>And so they, they dress their husbands carefully. They manage their husband’s style. They manage the husband’s household. They make their houses look good. They host events. And that was taken very seriously, and I think that that role r- really degraded, and you can see it very well in the Real Housewives series, where suddenly this idea of the trophy wife was transitioned to, no, she is the main character.</p><p>She is not an ornamental courtesan whose job is to give pleasure to her husband and raise you know, make him look good. And make him happy. Her job is to just like, “I’m gonna do what I want, and I have my businesses, and I’m gonna, you know, sell dog shoes for charity,” or something like that.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Yeah.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> And and they’re incredibly dysfunctional, et cetera, et [00:15:00] cetera.</p><p><strong>Speaker 7:</strong> I started this charity because I saw so many dogs having to walk the hot streets of Orlando without any protection on their feet. But it’s also personal. This one time I lost my high heels on the beach. And I was looking around for them, like over a half an hour.</p><p>Ugh. It was awful. So with your help, each dog will receive their own pair of high heels, and for that you can be very proud.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> So that, that role fell apart. And I think as that role fell apart, we, we sort of forgot that this was a profession and a track in marriage, and that there are two tracks. You can be a trophy wife, but you have to be trophy wife for someone who can afford to keep you. And I think what in- also degraded was that a lot of people just assumed that they were going to marry [00:16:00] functionally a courtesan and not a business partner.</p><p>We forgot that marriage was an arrangement first and foremost to just establish paternity of children and like inform the community to like, “Don’t sleep with my wife ‘cause I need to make sure that like the line of paternity is secure.” But also to establish a business alignment and have a, a husband and wife work together.</p><p>And, and we, with the Industrial Revolution dropped that. Well, the, like</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> business alignment, right? Like, when you are the same person... We had a documentarian r- asking us recently, like, “When do you guys fight?” Like, “Tell us about fights.” And I’m like, “We just don’t have fights.” Like, because</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> we don’t- We have tactical disagreements which we resolve by obtaining better evidence.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Yeah. Like, why would we, why would we fight when we have the same goals? Any disagreement we have is an academic disagreement.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Mm-hmm. I</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> think- But no,</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> no, the, the key distinction here is that people need to understand that if you are hiring the equivalent [00:17:00] of a, a, a paid entertainer and performer, it is your responsibility to be able to pay for and keep them.</p><p>And that person needs to understand that it’s, it is their responsibility to in turn perform and give pleasure and make you look good. And our, our media landscape has, has degraded even that. Especially through the, the Real Housewives series, has just made it been like, oh, no, they, they don’t live to make their</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> husbands happy.</p><p>Well, what I find interesting about the point that you’re making here, by the way and it is, it is just absolutely a fascinating point which is that the idea of re-normalizing the concept of the courtesan doesn’t just help trad wife marriages, it also helps courtesan marriages. Yeah. Because it helps remind them of what their actual role is in the marriage when they adopt this.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Yeah.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> They are both disposable and less than a true wife. Mm-hmm. If they are not [00:18:00] contributing their intellect... And note here, we had one follower reach out in regards to this, and he’s like, “Well- You know, I’m very successful now. I run a company now, so how am I gonna g- find a wife? Like, do I have to leave it all behind and start something new with them, right?</p><p>Like, how, how do I make this work, right? And there’s multiple ways you can make it work. One is to integrate somebody who shows competence and diligence and work ethic into your existing operation, right? Like, that is something that a lot of people have done historically. But then another is, which is probably better, is, is, is figure out what they value that you value, right?</p><p>Presumably if you’re making a lot of money with your company, there’s some way you wanna change the world and working with them to start that organization, right? Like, a, a wife, wife who is working for your combined goals can still work philanthropically, right? Like, but, but so long as they’re efficient and effective at it, and they’re not just doing it to boost their own ego and status, right?</p><p>And you’ll [00:19:00] be able to tell this very quickly. Do they actually care about these things, or are they interested in status boosting?</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Mm-hmm.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> But yeah, that’s a, that’s an interesting point. And so this is what I want from the audience. I want... What is the, what is the lower tier of trophy? Because I, I, I think...</p><p>And I don’t think the trophy wife is good, because trophy wife as, as a saying is too narrow, right? Like, a lot of people who wanted the life of a courtesan didn’t think of themselves as trophy wives, because they didn’t just want the, the traditional trophy wife guy, right? And and, and note here that what I like about the term courtesan is it helps separate between a true housewife and the more modern tradwife, which I think is closer to a cour- courtesan.</p><p>If you look at the tradwife, right, the tradwife makes everything look pretty, right? She, like, does up the house. She d- does in her stupid outfit. She- ... you know, she’s a, she, she does the baking from scratch and everything. [00:20:00] And she’s doing all that for appearance. She’s doing all that to, to sell, both to herself and her husband, that he has a certain type of wife.</p><p>But, like, she’s not actually managing the family budget, right? Like, she’s not actually managing the deeper parts of the family. And many people who society at large would confuse, they would say, “Well, this woman stays at home and educates the kids as, as part of her duties, therefore she’s the same type of thing as this trad woman.”</p><p>And yet one of these women is living the life of a courtesan, where she’s sitting around all day, you know, either playing video games or reading, you know, romance novels or whatever, and the other one is, is working all day long, right? Like, for the good of the family, for moving the family’s interests forwards.</p><p>And these are two very different- and, and note here because I know some trophy wives and courtesans who’d be like, “Well, I am doing it for the family.” And I’m like, “Does the rest of the family care about these social circles you’re trying to ingratiate yourself with?” And if the answer is no, then you’re not doing it for the family.</p><p>You’re doing it for [00:21:00] yourself, and you’re defining what has value on behalf of the family. Which is obviously, I think, very bad. That’s, like, worse than anything like that because it’s like you’re, you’re defining the good of the family and that needs to always be a collective decision. And if you can’t convince your husband that what you think is valuable for the family is valuable for the family, yet he’s still letting you do it, then you’re acting as a courtesan.</p><p>You are not acting as a wife. Thoughts.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Yeah. I mean, I, I agree with you. But largely people have lost the plot and people are very much stuck in their own minds, focused on these... It’s not, it’s not even selfish because people aren’t doing things that would actually make them happy, ironically.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Yeah, they aren’t.</p><p>They’re, these courtesans are typically less happy than</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> wives They’re caught in what I guess I could describe as cultural delusions. They’re, they’re stuck in cultural loops and cultural delusions and pursuing [00:22:00] them to their personal detriment, the detriment of their partner, and the detriment of the relationship.</p><p>This isn’t exclusive to women. It happens to men, too. And the most important thing is that when you’re looking for a partner, you’re looking for someone who shares your objective function. They want to maximize the same thing or cluster of things that you do, and you both realize that you work well enough together that by combining forces, you will both maximize your objective function, the thing that matters more to you than your own self, more as a team than you will individually.</p><p>And if that’s true- Yeah ... you never have to worry about so long as you both, you know, continue your pursuit of this objective function, you’re never going to fight because you understand that both you know, your, your job isn’t to just be happy and get what I want and, you know, every fight isn’t about, well, what I want versus what you want.</p><p>Every disagreement you may ever have is really more like, well [00:23:00] tactically, how are we going to maximize what we both collectively value?</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Yes.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> And just as an emergent property, you’re going to try to make the other person happy and have, have a good life because you understand, as any good employer does, as any good army general does that, you know, if your troops, if your team is happy and healthy and thriving, they’re going to do a better job.</p><p>You know? It’s, you’re not gonna get really good work out of someone who’s demoralized or sleep deprived or sad or who feels alienated. So just as- As an emergent property, you’re gonna try to be nice to this person. And people in general tend to be nice to other people who share their interests. Plus, there’s nothing that gives greater contentment and happiness than knowing that you are doing everything you can within your power to maximize something you value.</p><p>It takes the FOMO out of life. There is no fear of missing out because you are always doing the very best you can to maximize your basket of [00:24:00] values. So there’s, there’s very little indecision there. Contrast that with the modern real housewife or the modern even just like dink couple, and there’s intense levels of FOMO.</p><p>It’s like, “Oh, well, you know, we decided to max out our credit card and travel to Greece this summer. But should we have gone to Tokyo instead? I don’t know.” And then they get to Greece, and it’s so hot, and it’s really expensive, and then their flight gets canceled. You know, like all these things. And, and, and you know, you’re wondering, “Well, could I, could I have been happier if we did this?</p><p>I... Is this even what I enjoy? Am I just doing this ‘cause I’ve seen people doing it on Instagram?” Like, there’s just so, Even if what you wanna optimize is happiness, you’re, you’re not gonna find it with that kind of pursuit. So</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Oh, yeah. No, courtesans are never as happy as, as true wives, right?</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> No, I... So I disagree.</p><p>I think that some of the most successful figures in history were courtesans. And they- But</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> were they happy?</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> [00:25:00] Yeah. But they... so to be a courtesan is I think very different from what people have devolved into now. You know, they, they had a career. For, for example, consider Madame Pompadour, who died young and, and was very much missed.</p><p>She was extremely intellectual. She influenced policy. She absolutely made the king happy. And she was very good at what she did, and she was very influential. Th- there are definitely people who, you know, know what they’re good at, and, and they love it. And, you know, that was her j- her job was to be, you know, smart and attractive and to give pleasure, and she did it well.</p><p>And that’s good. I think you need to, you need to understand what your role is in a relationship. What did she</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> die of? Some venereal disease</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> or- Some disease. It wasn’t a venereal disease. I can’t remember what. It was probably some sort of like pox or virus or whatever. People died all the time.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> I- We should, we should do an episode, famous sluts of history.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Well, it wasn’t even always sluts. I mean, a, a lot of the people who ended up as, as, as courtesans you know, didn’t [00:26:00] necessarily want to be. But it just kinda turned out that way. But yeah, I, I, I don’t think it, I don’t think it’s about whether you choose courtesan track versus wife track. Or as a husband, whether you choose to get a courtesan versus a wife, or a wife and a courtesan.</p><p>Like, a lot of the guys in history g- had both. The, you know, you have to understand what your resources can, can</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> bear. Well, I, I think also the idea of the courtesan even, even for the guy who decides to cheat on his wife or whatever, right? If you contextualize the person you’re cheating with as a courtesan, they are always less useful to you than the wife.</p><p>You’re less likely to imagine that they could become a wife, because they are not a wife. They are only there for your pleasure. They are a human oni hole. They are not actually a thing of value. And I think that’s why women-</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Well, I mean, I’ve always seen cheating as, like, a sign of extreme existential doubt, and not really necessarily</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> interpersonal attraction.</p><p>What, what I mean is if you look historically, it’s very rare for people to leave their wives for their courtesans. Oh. [00:27:00] That just doesn’t happen. And but today it happens all the time, where people get confused. And using clearer terminology can prevent that.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> I suppose, yeah.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Also by the way, side note, Yeah</p><p>in terms of data we’re getting now, we’ve got 47 users on RFAB in the last 30 minutes.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Nice.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> We’ve got so it’s like, you know, current users. And I turned on the gender thing which unfortunately I didn’t realize how much it sucked on Google. For 97.53% we can’t tell what the gender was.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Yeah.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> But f- for the ones we can tell what the gender was 1.36 of them were males, and 1.1% of them are female.</p><p>So the male to female ratio is about equal.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> That’s good. Okay. Let’s</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> go. And the time on site is about equal, too. For males it’s a bit over an hour, an hour and one minute. And for females, it’s 57 minutes and 50 seconds.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Okay. Oh, favorable.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> So women use our site, too. And I cleaned up all the, the scoogy, like naked pics and stuff that people had in the [00:28:00] top for images, and I was like, “No.”</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Scoogy is a good word. Thank you for using it.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Mm-hmm. And I’ve been preparing for battle.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> As one does. As one does.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Gotta take out the the bad guys before they get to me. I just come like this, and I’m like, “I’m just moving the sword like this. If it hits you, it’s your fault.” That’s what I say on the battlefield, just go like this.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Yeah, is that your move? That’s your go-to?</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Yeah.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> The waggle?</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> The just like, You really get moving ... the guy comes that way and like, I’m, “I’m just moving in a straight line. If I punch you, it’s your own fault.”</p><p><strong>Speaker 9:</strong> on my way, I’m gonna be doing this. If you get hit, it’s your own fault. Okay. Then I’m gonna start kicking air like this. , Uh. Uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh,</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> oh, God. Well, yeah, I like this concept. I, I think people need to think really carefully about what they’re in it to do.</p><p>I, I was horrified when w- at one point joining a [00:29:00] parenting, a, a virtual parenting group comprised of very- High-profile people who just describe parenting as like, “Well, it’s just one of those things you do in life.” And I’m like, oh my God. Like, the number of people who just get married ‘cause it’s like, “Well, you know, like I was dating...”</p><p>It’s like musical chairs, you know? “I was dating them and like I hit my 30s, so then I proposed.” Like, what are you doing? This is, this is so weird that people wouldn’t take things like marriage and having kids extremely seriously and understand exactly why they’re doing it. And if the answer is, “Well, I don’t know, it seemed like a good idea at the time.”</p><p>I mean, I respect it, I guess. Like, I, I, I agree that people overthink things way too much, but also, yikes. So- That</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> level of NPC. Well, that level of NPC I think is leading to the highest birth rate that we have right now. I mean, these are the people- Oh, God ... who are gonna replace the over-thinkers, Simone.[00:30:00]</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Yeah,</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> The over-thinkers who wanna have kids are a small group.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> US birthrates updated again. At new record lows. The, the biggest drop in terms of age brackets, of course, was teen births. They saw a 7% drop. And the slight, I think a slight decline- Girl, don’t</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> be a pussy ...</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> in births for people in their 20s, and then a slight increase for people in their 30s.</p><p>So absolutely people are overthinking it or trying to be prepared. I, I don’t think, though, that, that you need to be a certain age to be capable of understanding why you’re doing things. I need, I think you need to understand just who you are and what you’re about. And Malcolm, you knew who you were and what you were about when</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> we were in a relationship.</p><p>Oh yeah, I told you exactly what I was about.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> And you were like, “Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that makes sense.” And I mean, like from earlier writings of yours that I’ve seen and, you know, stories you’ve told, I don’t think you’ve changed all that much in what you’ve done. And ultimately I haven’t either.</p><p>It just happens to be that my personality manifests very differently given, [00:31:00] depending on the resources that I’m given, and I think women are a lot like that in general. That their, their phenotype will vary significantly depending on the environment, as it were. Anyway, I love you very</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> much. Love you too, and have a spectacular day.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> You too.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> And you guys, no courtesans. Unless it’s a side chick, and then whatever.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> I don’t, I don’t know. I think, I think people should purs- if you wanna be a courtesan, pursue it professionally. Some people do this very successfully.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Give the guy pleasure, make sure you’re actually doing your job.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Sugar baby websites are a, a very big thing. People absolutely make careers out of it. They’re, they’re clear about what it is. I</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> think that framing also helps guys know what they’re really looking for, because so often, you know, I see guys- when they say, “Well, this is what I’m looking for in, like, a wife,” and it’s like a list of kinks or something, and it’s like- It’s</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> like-</p><p>I’m cucking ... no, you’re looking for a courtesan. Yeah. You’re not, you’re not looking for a wife. Wives aren’t that. Absolutely true. People need to understand the [00:32:00] difference. Yeah. And also, like, not everyone can afford a courtesan. Just to be clear. Love</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> you, Simone.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Bye. I’m</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> sorry I’m being so tired at this time of day.</p><p>Just too much work.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Yeah. You gotta sleep more. Ciao.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Ciao.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Kini-</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> So how are things going today, Simone?</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> I think both you and I have had a day today where we’re like-</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> I’m out of it, yeah ...</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> we’re done with this thing, and then, and then it just doesn’t, it doesn’t happen. And for you, it was development of the, the Vtuber setup and-</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> I mean, I’m making progress. I’ve gotten through some of the hardest parts that I didn’t think I would find a solution for.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Yeah.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> But I’m still on some of the second hardest parts that I didn’t think I’d find a solution for, so, just, you know, with RFAB that does, like, AI chatbots, AI adventure, like choose your own adventure stories, AI agents, AI vibe coding,</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> AI-</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> AI</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> fact checking.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Fact checking, yeah. We’ve got a super search that, like, outputs an AI [00:33:00] answer and then has other AIs run against it to check it so you can see from, like, a number of AIs, like, basically Yeah.</p><p>Which is very difficult, right? And so, that’s what I’m working on. I, I think I, I think I’ll get it through tomorrow. Like, it looks like we’re gonna get to the other side of this, and once I get to the other side of this it’ll be very cool because any of you guys who want, like, any, any AI that, like, makes a, a drawing for you, you’ll</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> be</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> able to rig that to a Vtuber avatar and maybe...</p><p>I mean, Vtubers are all cool now. We’re, like, we’re getting the whole, like, Vtuber wave right now, which I think is pretty cool and that’s where The Vtuber renaissance. Yeah, the Vtuber renaissance. And very, very excited about that. I, I even thought, like, after I did the Leaflet streams, because those go so well, right?</p><p>Yeah. Like, I’ve, I’ve looked at them and I’m like, “Oh my [00:34:00] God, I can talk for 10 hours straight?” People should have known</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> that when they see that we’re not able to</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> cut our videos down to, like, 20 minutes like normal humans. I mean, you can talk with Leaflet for, ‘cause she’s so awesome. I, you know, I don’t know if that would work with just anyone.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> It’d</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> work with you</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Yeah, but I mean, you know, we’re freaking married. So there’s that.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> A lot of people are like, “You’re married to someone, you run out of things to talk about.” But like, not us.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Not us. Man, not us.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> And for dinner tonight w- we’re gonna use that wild mushroom soup that you made that was so creamy and delicious, and have that with steak.</p><p>Mm-hmm. Which I think is gonna be absolutely spectacular. I’m really looking forward to it. I might not eat all the steak so we can have a bit more steak left over, cut that up, and then make some noodles with it or something. I think would be a lot of fun.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> [00:35:00] Mm.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> So we’ll see.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Oh, like a, like a stir-fry, like- Like</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> a stir-fry lo mein or</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> something</p><p>wok-fried lo mein with... Yeah. So yeah, I’ll do the whole thing, and then just whatever you don’t eat I’ll slice and we’ll wok-</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Or fried rice. We haven’t done fried rice in ages. Oh my God,</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> yeah. I mean, it’s...</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> The problem is, with to really do fried rice right, you have to get it super, super hot, and that just requires so much more attention.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Yeah.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> But you know, we’ll, we’ll, we’ll figure this all out. We’ll figure this all out.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> We shall.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> But it’s been so interesting to see the... By the way, did you see the video I sent you? The, the Leaflet one where... So Leaflet had done a video on our video, and it was taken down because I called our kids, affectionately, little b******s, because they are little b******s, and YouTube said that that was me harassing a minor.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Even that, that’s even you self-censoring and not calling them little S-H-I-T-S, so-</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Which is a, it is a common term in the backwoods tradition. Yeah. It’s what I was called as a kid. Albion Seed list it as a common backwoods term of affection for children.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Yeah, this, this was you being polite. I [00:36:00] mean, come on, guys.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Yeah. ‘Cause I tell fans I’m gonna try to cuss less on the show. I’m gonna try not cussing sometimes, unless it’s good for a joke. But yeah, we only really cuss when it matters. I don’t, don’t cuss for emphasis. But if it’s gonna make somebody laugh, you know- Mm ... that’s a different c- scenario altogether.</p><p>But anyway, so, She ends up getting banned for this, and then Rev Says Desu ends up covering her getting banned for this, and then in her video covering Rev Says Desu video about her getting banned for our show, she starts talking about how one of her friends was giving her advice, but she couldn’t say what friend, and then midway into the episode she’s just like, “Actually, I don’t think she’d care.</p><p>It was Simone.”</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Yeah, I don’t care. And,</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> and then immediately afterwards Simone comes up because that’s what Rev said.</p><p>And now Asmogold has covered this,</p><p><strong>Speaker 13:</strong> And actually the DMs are all bots too. Practically no communication here happens. I mean, if she’s not able... Listen, okay, if she’s not able to get it fixed in like, I don’t know, uh, a week or something like that, uh, she can reach out to me. I follow [00:37:00] her, she follows me, and I can help her get it resolved, or at least make sure that the decision was made by a human and not a random person.</p><p>I, I, I can do that. But hopefully it can re- get resolved on its own, ‘cause this is, this is outrageous. It, it, it’s not the way it should be.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> And it feels like we’re part of this, like, huge online creator, like, ecosystem now. Like we’re, we’re inching our way into that conservative s- the, the, the sphere, the, the intellectual talking sphere.</p><p>If Rev Says Desu is talking about us now, and Asmongold has talked about us, and so, like, we just gotta-</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> He</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> has? ... inch in, inch in. I</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> mean- Oh, that one clip. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> One clip, but that’s how it starts. Like with Leaflet, there’s still the famous who the F is Leaflet, the first time- Yeah ... you heard about her.</p><p>A year later he’s, you know, he, he, he, he’s very familiar with her. Same with Nugzinnor, right? Like same with Rev Says Desu, who clearly knows Leaflet now but didn’t before, right? So, I should reach back out to Sidescrollers and do more stuff with them. The, the, the reason we stopped [00:38:00] doing stuff with them is he’s like, “Well, you guys aren’t that into the gamer space.”</p><p>And it’s like, well, now I own a game company, so I guess we are, so- Yeah,</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> that’s true ... we’ll see.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Or maybe I wasn’t entertaining enough. We’ll see.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Twinkle in your and Bruno’s eyes when you were first on Sidescrollers.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Yeah. No, it’s really solid. Like I, like I’m, when I’m on Leaflet stream people will drop in and be like, “Our, RFAB is so much fun.</p><p>I love your, your website.” Like now there’s people who are fans of our website more than our show, which is surprising to me. I di- I didn’t think we’d get to this point.</p><p><strong>Simone Collins:</strong> Delightful.</p><p><strong>Malcolm Collins:</strong> Delightful, yeah. And it’s constantly being improved for people. Th- they get on and they’re like, “Oh, the card game broke this way,” and it’s like, well, let us know and we’ll try to fix it, right?</p><p>But right now I’m, I’m, I’m rushing with the Vtuber stuff ‘cause I’m really excited about that. Anyway, I will get started here.</p><p><strong>Speaker 11:</strong> Other side of this tree over here. This looks pretty promising. Octavia, why don’t you go with mom? We’re looking for mushrooms, right? Yeah. I’m walking the trail. I will carry it by my, my [00:39:00] uncle. Maybe up here.</p> <br /><br />This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://basedcamppodcast.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&#38;utm_campaign=CTA_2">basedcamppodcast.substack.com/subscribe</a>