Scott Galloway needs to keep the word Asexual out of his mouth

Transcript Transcribed by Laura M.

Courtney: Hello everyone and welcome back. My name is Courtney, I am here with my spouse Royce, and together we are The Ace Couple. And recently we’ve had a couple people here and there reach out to us with a link or a social media post with a very ragebaity title asking us if we are going to comment on this. Now what do all of these links and posts have in common, you might ask? One man, Scott Galloway. And for our dear listeners who have been with us for some time, we actually have spoken about Scott before in two different contexts. So it could just be that we haven’t done a good enough job of connecting the dots between these stories, but with his new book coming out recently, this man is everywhere. He is on all of the major news stations. Enormous podcasts, big YouTube channels. So you, if you haven’t already heard his talking points and been able to identify them as his, I think that is going to change soon.

Courtney: You are going to start hearing more about this man and you’re going to start recognizing him. He’s already a very big name. He’s written books before. He’s had very prominent interviews. He’s a podcaster. And if you’ve only ever heard of him from our commentary, you might recognize him from such hits as, “College students aren’t having enough sex, so they’re turning to anti-Israel protests.” Or: “Trevor Noah podcast says asexual males are the most dangerous people in the world.” And you know, some of the recent sound bites of his that have been sent to us have been from things like The Daily Show, speaking to Anderson Cooper. Very prominent platforms, of course. And at first, I did not think we were going to talk about him again. We covered the Trevor Noah podcast. We talked about how completely heinous I think it is to attribute the campus protests to a lack of sex.

Courtney: And it’s important to keep in mind that Scott Galloway is a marketing professor. He knows sound bites. He knows what will get attention. He knows how to get platformed on these widely consumed shows. Knowing that he has a new book that is all about masculinity and his views on a prescriptive sort of masculinity that he wants young men to be able to consume, a part of me was extremely reluctant to give him more airtime. Now, in the grand scheme of things, our podcast is small potatoes. He’s on these huge shows. He is everywhere right now. And a lot of these news shows, especially like Morning Joe, things on CNN, sometimes he’ll only have five to ten minutes. And when he has those, he will pull out exactly the same talking points over and over again.

Courtney: So if you see a few of his interviews, you’re going to start to hear his voice in your head and be able to more or less repeat the gist of what he’s trying to convey. This is brilliant by a marketing standpoint. I didn’t really want to rehash that more, but I did watch an interview with him recently on Katie Couric’s YouTube channel. It was quite a bit longer, and I wanted to hear more about what he is saying right now, when he has more than that 5 to 10 minutes. And I’ll be honest, it changed my mind. I came away from that interview saying, “Okay, let’s talk about him again.” Or perhaps as a little thought experiment, let’s talk directly to him. So Scott Galloway, this podcast is for you.

Courtney: There were two things that you said to Katie Couric that made me think perhaps this would be worth our time. You said you care too much about what strangers think, and that you read criticisms and negative comments and you really take them to heart and sometimes it hits you way too hard. And I noticed that you did not say that asexual males are the most dangerous people in the world. What you said instead were “broke young males” are the most dangerous people in the world. I don’t know if that was a conscientious change or if that’s just what came out of your mouth in the moment, but on behalf of our Asexual Community, I sincerely hope you actually saw and took to heart the criticisms and backlash following that Trevor Noah podcast, where there was a portion of our online community who were rightfully calling you out for that horrendous talking point.

Courtney: If that’s the case, and you are open to criticism and understanding that you don’t always get things right and striving to do better, then in the interest of good faith, let’s take it a little bit further. And I hope that I will be able to use your own framework of masculinity to demonstrate where it is that you’re falling short and how you are actually perpetuating extremely harmful stereotypes that disproportionately impact my community. Now, Scott, you say a lot of things right and a lot of things wrong. Listening to you for an hour at a time is just a constant back and forth of, like, ideological whiplash. You say some things that I strongly agree with, some things I strongly disagree with. And some things you’ll say where it seems like, yeah, maybe your heart is in the right place. Maybe there’s something underlying that we can agree on, but the way you said it was just really messed up. And it’s just nonstop back and forth like that.

Courtney: So while there are certain things we will never agree on, and I will not even try – such as Palestine – there are some points you make that I’m overwhelmingly in support of. You’re in support of universal healthcare, the reproductive right of choice, economic policies that don’t extract wealth from the younger generation to funnel it to the older generations. But then you’ll say things such as, “We are evolving a new species of asocial asexual males.” And this is exactly the kind of talking point where I am sure 90+ percent of people listening are going to just, based on vibes alone, think, “Yeah, you’re right, and that sounds bad. We should do something about that.” But 90+ percent of people out there are not educated about the Asexual Community, asexuality as an orientation, nor the actual prejudices and discriminations that we face. So that is where I would like to step in.

Courtney: And Scott, I know you love your talking points and your statistics. I have some of my own, and I will put links to all of these references in the show notes on our website and the description box on YouTube for you or any other listener out there who wants to explore these further. But when you imply that asexual males are a new species, that is inherently dehumanizing rhetoric. And with any prejudice against any marginalized group of people, dehumanization is one of the most effective and dangerous ways that bigotry is able to plant its seed and grow. And did you know that, not only relative to heterosexuals, but also even relative to homosexuals and bisexuals, survey respondents express more negative attitudes toward asexuals. They desire less contact with asexuals, and they’re even less willing to rent an apartment to or hire asexual applicants.

Courtney: In the same study of all sexual minority groups, asexuals are the most dehumanized. They are seen as less human. And they are so dehumanized, in fact, that although it may seem contradictory, asexuals are seen as more machine-like, more robotic. But also, we are seen as more animal-like, less like humans, more like either animals or robots, somehow at the same time. Doesn’t matter which way you take it, we are seen as non-human. Among other human traits, we are widely viewed as being cold, emotionless, unrestrained, impulsive, less sophisticated. Now a big part of your talking point, Scott, are about opportunities for young people, namely young men. Knowing that there are asexual men in this world, how exactly does it make you feel to know that there are people in bias reports saying, “Yes, I don’t want to rent living spaces to asexuals. I don’t want to hire asexuals.”?

Courtney: One of those reasons being we’re seen as less human. And here you are on some of the largest platforms in the world saying that one of society’s biggest dangers right now is that we’re evolving a new species of asocial asexual men. Not only is it rhetoric like this that is contributing to this society-wide stigma, but because we know these biases are already present, there are unfortunately a lot of people who will hear you say things like that and just based on their pre-existing biases are gonna be nodding their heads. “Yeah, that sounds right. That’s what makes me feel more comfortable.” Now, Scott, your framework, your code for masculinity if you will, uses the three P’s: protect, provide, and procreate. I don’t want to spend too much time on Procreate because this is one that is just in a lot of ways going to be fundamentally incompatible with common experiences in the Asexual Community.

Courtney: Obviously just from a physical and biological standpoint, there are some people who are just never going to be physically capable of procreating. And I do think talking points like this also harm those people. I think there are people who do not need or want to ever procreate, whether those people are asexual or not. And I do think talking points like this hurt those folks as well. You joked with Katie Couric that you chose these words because they were the three P’s and so Procreate fit in there, whereas horniness didn’t. So that does also tell me that this is not 100% about reproducing and having kids. That certainly seems like an element of it. But you talk a lot about young men’s desire for sex and to find a mate and that you want more men to go out and do that.

Courtney: And if we keep things at a surface level, I am sure you or others could make an argument on your behalf that says, “Well, we just aren’t talking about asexual people that don’t have that desire. So it’s not about you. Let us talk to the majority of the population that have it.” And that’s where I would like to point you back to your foundational principle of Protect. One of my favorite things I have heard you say is how a healthy masculinity should involve protection. You’ve said this is not only physical, but can also be morally defending others. In your discussion with Katie, you use the Trans Community as an example. You say: “If you are a truly masculine guy, I don’t care if you don’t understand the trans experience.” You don’t care if you aren’t sure or don’t think that trans women should be competing in high-level sports. You don’t care if you don’t really understand the bathroom arguments. That as a masculine man, if you see an entire community being vilified, a community being under attack, your knee-jerk reaction as part of that foundational masculinity should be to protect that community.

Courtney: So for your consideration, I would like to turn this back to you and say: I don’t care if you don’t understand asexuality. I don’t care if it is confusing to you that there are people out here, including men, who experience little to no sexual attraction, little to no desire for sexual activity, perhaps little to no desire to procreate. But we as a community have very much been under attack, and although it is very often in similar ways that the Trans Community has been vilified, we’ve also garnered the nickname of the invisible sexuality. We do not get the same headlines or press or societal awareness that trans issues often do. So if no one has actually presented to you several of the ways in which the Asexual Community has been socially or politically attacked, allow me to be the first. An Asexuality in the UK report from February of 2025 shows that nearly one in three, 31% of people believe that asexuality can be cured by therapy.

Royce: To clarify before you continue, that is conversion therapy we’re talking about.

Courtney: Exactly. And taking that a step further, a Gallup report on conversion practices from January 2023 found that more than one in three, about 35% of asexual people have been subjected to conversion practices. That is a huge number. That is more than gay men. That is more than lesbians. That is more than bisexual people. In several reports, not only the Gallup conversion practices, but also the National LGBT Survey, both of those find that as a sexual orientation, asexuals are the most likely to undergo conversion therapy. Second only to the Transgender Community. So when we have studies that show that about one in six gay people, about 17% are subjected to conversion therapy, but more than one in three percent, 35% of asexual people are…? That is twice. That is over twice that amount.

Courtney: And yet in many countries, in many jurisdictions, asexuality as an orientation is not protected. Even in places where conversion therapy is banned. In a study identifying suicidality across minority orientations, it was found that asexual individuals face slightly higher percentage compared to those of other minority orientations. In the Asexual Community Survey, focusing exclusively on our community, it was found in 2016 that 50% of asexuals have seriously considered suicide, 14% of asexuals have attempted suicide. And I know that this is an issue that you care about, Scott, because you frequently cite how men compared to women have a higher likelihood of completing a suicide attempt. A year earlier in the 2015 Asexual Community Census, it was found that 43.5% of nearly 8,000 Aces surveyed reported having experienced some sort of sexual violence, including rape, assault, coercion.

Courtney: I know this is also an issue you care about because I have heard you say on a number of occasions that if you take two teenagers, a boy and a girl, and they are both sexually assaulted, it is in fact the boy who is most likely to attempt or complete suicide later in life. Now, Scott, in addition to actually procreating, you advocate strongly for just getting involved in young people’s lives. Specifically in your case, men of your generation getting involved in the lives of young men. This is a concept that I largely agree with. When asked in interviews why more men are not getting involved in the lives of young boys who need role models you’ll say they’re afraid of being labeled as pedophiles. It’s because of people like Michael Jackson. It’s because of the social stigma.

Courtney: I imagine the protector in you, given what you have said about the Trans Community being under attack. I imagine you are familiar with the bigoted accusations that trans people should not be around children. But did you know that nearly identical political arguments have been levied specifically against the Asexual Community as well? Let’s take for instance Safe Schools Alliance, who threw an absolute hissy fit back in 2021 just because Girl Guiding on Twitter wished everyone a happy Ace Week.

Royce: And Girl Guiding is the UK organization equivalent of, like, Girl Scouts over here, right?

Courtney: Yeah, it’s scouting. It’s groups of young people with adult mentors and volunteer group coordinators. And to be clear, Ace Week happens in October. It’s basically like any organization saying, “Happy Pride Month.” It is truly not that deep. And yet, Safe Schools Alliance published an article responding to it, saying that one of the many reasons why asexuals should not be troop leaders is because of grooming. Quote: “It is our opinion that conversations about asexuality may groom children to see enthusiastic consent as an optional extra. This is clearly a risk. As an example, if a youth group leader says or lets it be known that he is asexual and then a child asks a question about it, the predator has now got an easy way to discuss sexual desire or lack of with a child. He can pretend to be increasing their knowledge. He can work out how to exploit the specific vulnerabilities of individual children. He can use the cover of, ‘I am an asexual, so I have no sexual desire,’ to give the child a false sense of reassurance while he continues to groom her or him. He can touch her without her worrying that it is a sexual touch. He can get quite far until she sees that it is too late and that she cannot get help. He can also make her feel as though no one would believe her as everyone knows that he is asexual.”

Courtney: So not only do they name grooming as an entire section of one of the many reasons why asexuality is so dangerous to even have a mention on a social media post, but the asexual troop leader in question was immediately called a predator. And yes, in this scenario that they played out, completely made up with no basis in reality – this is the epitome of making up a guy to get mad at – it is a man trying to get involved with young people. And I know, Scott, just from the way you speak that your target demographic is straight men. Straight cis men. But it’s culture wars like these that make it harder for asexual men, broadly queer men, trans men to try to step in and be a mentor figure in young people’s lives. We have a friend who has been on the podcast, Tyger Songbird, who was a middle school teacher, but as an asexual Black man teaching in Oklahoma, had to make the very difficult decision to leave his teaching job for a variety of reasons.

Courtney: Issues with administration, discipline, but an enormous part of that was the culture wars that target not only LGBT students, but also LGBT teachers. I can put links to some of his articles on the matter in his own personal experience as well, because I know that not having enough male teachers in school is also an issue that you have pointed to time and time again.

Courtney: Now let’s take things from another angle. You speak very highly of the importance of a marriage, a romantic partnership, a cohabitating partnership for men to have. I – and many in my community – would argue that there is a glaring blind spot for the importance of other types of community, deep meaningful platonic friendships among other things. And surely not everyone in the general population, let alone the Asexual Community, wishes to have a marriage, but I am one of very few publicly vocal married asexual people.

Courtney: A lack of representation for this type of relationship is one of the many reasons why we started this very podcast. But outside of our community, very few know that asexual marriage is and has been under attack right here in our very own country even. In 2022, when Republicans were railing against the proposed Respect for Marriage Act, which at its essence was attempting to strengthen protections for same-sex marriages, which was already legal in all 50 states, coming off of Obergefell vs Hodges, Supreme Court case. As was justifiable, most of the press around this Republican backlash at the time was citing homophobia, how they do not want to reaffirm these rights and in fact may want to roll them back, which is true and understandable. And yet what didn’t get further press coverage was the fact that asexual marriage or platonic marriage was used as a scare tactic for why the Respect for Marriage Act should not be passed.

Courtney: A letter here addressed to Mitch McConnell, the then minority leader, signed by 83 political and religious organizations, in the very first example for why the Respect for Marriage Act was dangerous, said that this would require federal recognition of any one state’s definition of marriage without any parameters whatsoever. Citing, among other things, platonic marriage. And what’s right alongside platonic marriage in that list of scary new definitions of marriage? Marriages involving a minor or relative. So once again, this is putting intentionally sexless yet no less meaningful marriage between consenting adults next to pedophilia and incest. For years we have been seeing think-piece articles entitled things such as Why We Should Push Back Against Platonic Marriage.

Courtney: One article talking about the harms of platonic marriage says that these – quote – “friend marriages, it is important for students of the family to know that each of these are not increasingly concerning slides down a slippery slope. They are each natural manifestations of the bottom of that slope. Which makes sense when you compare it to these political letters. Well, we can’t codify same-sex marriage, because what’s next? Platonic marriage?” Why that would be the bottom of the slippery slope? Now, did you know, Scott, that in over half of US states, there are marriage consummation laws on the books? We’re talking about my marriage now, my life, and lives of people like me.

Courtney: And Scott, I know there are times when you will point out the privileges you did have. Being a straight white man born in the generation that you were. And I think from the way you speak that we had a few similarities growing up. You talk about growing up with a single mother. I did as well. In your talking points at a societal scale, you hold that a girl raised by a single mother is going to, on average, do better than a boy who is raised by a single mother because the boy is really the one who suffers from not having the father figure in their life. But you’ll mention all of the advantages you had that were able to get you into college. I did not have a lot of those things. I was systematically gatekept out of higher education, although it was something I at the time did want to pursue.

Courtney: You talk about your mother getting sick and not being able to financially support her in the way you would have liked to. My mother got very, very sick when I was still in middle school. I started working at a very young age, and despite working sometimes multiple jobs throughout middle and high school, I was still not able to go to college. One of the biggest economic advantages that I have had in my personal trajectory was being able to get married to the partner that I did. If we did not get married, I would not have been able to start my own business. If we did not get married, I would not live in the wealthiest county in Kansas right now. Compared to the extreme poverty that I once lived in – including sometimes housing insecurity, food insecurity – I feel extremely wealthy right now. But you and I, as just two case studies, are on very different playing fields.

Courtney: I live a comfortable middle class life, the kind of life that I think all Americans should have access to. And although you are much, much wealthier than I at this point, your ability to go to college was one of your extreme privileges. The ability to marry was one of mine. And I do not think, ideologically speaking, that someone should have to get married to have this sort of economic viability in our country. And marriage is absolutely not equal for people in different classes, of different physical abilities. Disabled people cannot get married without risking losing their life saving medical care. These are all criticisms we frequently, frequently talk about. But because I know you use sexuality and relationships, the prospect of marriage and families in the future, as a big motivator in terms of masculinity and incentivizing young men to get their shit together, I know this is something that you understand on some level.

Courtney: You think the rolling back of reproductive rights is a travesty? I agree with you on that. I think the rolling back of marriage rights would also be completely egregious. I’m inclined to believe that you agree with me on that. So when I see articles such as this one, which was written by a post-doctoral fellow in comparative law at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, it’s talking entirely about the legal risks of platonic marriage, the legal pitfalls of platonic marriage. And this is calling attention to Obergefell vs Hodges, saying: “The idea of marriage Obergefell puts forth is one founded on rather traditional family norms. The plaintiffs in the Obergefell case, a gay couple, were in every way, aside from their same gender, congruent with what most Americans understand a married couple to be. Their relationship was sexual, exclusive, romantic, nuclear, and involved two people. They were also committed to each other for life. To show that same-sex marriage is a subset of the broader fundamental right to marry, LGBTQ litigators chose to reinforce pre-existing norms of marriage and family.”

Courtney: Many articles weighing in on the risks, legal risks of non-sexual marriages talk about the concept of sham marriages, fraudulent marriages. And it’s an odd place to sit in, in a post-Obergefell USA to think, well, the only reason why I’m still married is because no one’s made a big enough fuss about it yet. And yet there are all of these legal experts weighing in about how consummation is required for marriage, should be required for marriage, how platonic marriage is not legal now, nor should it be, and that these conversations are happening at a national congressional level. And yet we don’t get the same press or social awareness as other queer orientations do. And so my question to you, Scott, is: where is that protective masculinity? I can’t begrudge you if you have never been presented with these conversations before, but now that you have, what are you going to do with it?

Courtney: We are a minority orientation, a marginalized community. We are disproportionately subjected to conversion therapy. Our marriage rights are constantly in question. We face extremely high risks of suicidality, of sexual assault. When we try to become the mentors and teachers of the younger generation, we’re accused of being groomers and predators. But what I don’t see, Scott, are a lot of people that look like you, who have a voice and a platform like you, who are stepping in to protect us. You don’t have to understand everything about sexuality, you don’t have to understand everything about asexuality in order to use your masculine protection, just like you advocate others do with and for the Trans Community. But I don’t see you doing that.

Courtney: Instead, what I see from you is that you are one of the loudest and most consistent voices saying things such as: “Asexual men are the most dangerous people on the planet.” And that asexual men are a new species, a new breed, something different from human. So you are fundamentally one of the most prominent speakers perpetuating negative stereotypes that are already prevalent in our community. And truth be told, of the three P’s of protect, provide, and procreate, Protect is my favorite one. To me, I can pick apart and criticize Provide and Procreate. Procreate I touched on a little bit. I could go on for hours, but instead I’ll just continue my weekly podcast talking about cultural issues from an asexual lens. Provide is very money focused. It’s very money obsessed. It’s extremely capitalistic. And our current capitalist system is extremely unequal, which you well know because you advocate for certain policy changes that you think would benefit the younger generation and stop extracting wealth from them.

Courtney: So the nuances of each of these, these Provide and Procreate, I could pick apart all day, but what I really just want to do is contrast them with why I think they are fundamentally different from Protect. And that is because providing and procreating hinges on, to some extent, others. There’s always more any of us can do with personal accountability in different sectors of our life, of course. But procreating, especially in the sense of horniness and reproduction that I’ve heard you talk about it with, it does inherently involve another person. You need consent for the sexual activity, you need family planning, you need to make a shared decision. And when it comes to the very fundamental act of sex, which you always say is fire, it can be dangerous, but it can be a great tool. You think young men with that innate sexual drive should use it as a tool to become better people, dress better, smell better. I like that you add “develop a kindness practice.”

Courtney: But at the end of the day, nobody is entitled to sex with another person. Can you make yourself in some ways more desirable to others and strive towards that? Of course. And that is something that I see you preach a lot. But if you tell men, even men who want to procreate, let alone take perhaps someone in my community, an asexual man who doesn’t want to have kids, doesn’t want to be married, you’re saying, in a sense, you are less masculine, you are less manly if this does not happen. And I think with any sense of internal self or any sense of confidence in one’s gender, I think it really needs to come from inside. But the ability to have sex, the ability to get married, the ability to have kids, involves another person. No one’s entitled to that.

Courtney: Providing, especially when you talk about money, economics, being a breadwinner, that also in a lot of ways hinges on a lot of other people. It hinges on someone hiring you, someone keeping you as a valued member, our economy that, as you well know, is completely hinging on a very small handful of companies and industries. We’ve seen mass layoffs even in technology sectors that were thought to be extremely safe career trajectories just a few short years ago. There are people who are very skilled workers who still for one reason or another find themselves out of work. But protection, I think if we were talking in raw physicality, your example I’ll see you cite of masculine men are the ones who break up bar fights. The guys who start bar fights are weak men. They’re not masculine men. I don’t think everybody needs to be a physical protector. I don’t think everybody wants to be a physical protector.

Courtney: I know for a fact there are some people who are just not physically capable of being a protector in that sense. But when you add that protection can come in a variety of ways, it can be moral protection, it can be speaking out and protecting marginalized communities. Legal protections, policy protections, trying to advocate for legislation that will protect the most marginalized communities. You know, with our recent crisis of SNAP benefits, we didn’t necessarily need a big strong man to break up a fight, but we sure need a hell of a lot of people out on the streets feeding the community. And that’s something that someone can do as a protector.

Courtney: If you have an internal sense of self that says, “I’m a protector, I protect others, I look out for others, I advocate for marginalized communities.” That to me is the only one of these three things on this list that you can have an internal sense of. And no matter what your physical or economic or relational positionings are in this world, you can find some way to act on that desire to protect people because it truly does take a village. And it does, it does truly feel to me like if you are telling an entire generation of young men that their masculinity hinges on these three things, two of the three can be taken away very quickly and easily, at any point, at any point. And then where does that leave their sense of self? Where does that leave their sense of masculinity?

Royce: That’s a good point, but even in focusing in on protection, protection isn’t a masculine trait, it’s often more of a human trait. Generally, if you think about very protective individuals, particularly of vulnerable communities of people like children, the stereotype is the mama bear sort of person. If you think about records of what are normally referred to as hysterical strength, I think is what it’s normally labeled as, when someone gets a burst of adrenaline and lifts the side of a vehicle that has someone trapped underneath it, the depictions are often of women. I don’t think that protection is a masculine trait. I think it is a human trait. I think that we’re focusing on masculinity because modern renditions of toxic masculinity have a heavy focus on physical strength and oftentimes violence as a result.

Royce: So if what Scott is trying to do here is reframe that, what you have to get at are the societal pressures that are causing young men to adapt bad social habits in the first place. And the bar fight is a good example. Someone who has anger issues, who doesn’t have a good enough, you know, control of their emotions or has poor communication skills, who goes out into public spaces and starts fights, that is an objectively negative personality trait. And one way to go about that is to call that person weak, which I think is a fair comment. Because calling a person like that weak is probably going to strike a nerve, because they probably see themselves as strong. But the– if you step back and actually look at the argument itself as it stands, it kind of falls apart. It seems like a means to an end. And so the– the branding of Protect, Provide, Procreate just kind of falls apart, I think, when you look into it.

Courtney: It does. It does. I mean, when, when I say protection is good because it is something that you can develop as an internal sense of self and you can find your own way to act upon it within your own strengths that you can foster over time. I agree that is not solely a masculine trait. It’s– It’s really the way you look at it. I consider myself a protector. I know protectors of all genders and protectors of no gender. But if he was not saying such dangerous rhetoric as ‘asexual males are the most dangerous people on the planet’, then I could– I could give that a pass, branding this masculinity, and trying to encourage young men to incorporate into that own– their own internal sense of masculinity. Because we know far too many young men are getting totally red pilled, they’re finding the Andrew Tate’s of the world, and that’s who they’re looking to as their sort of masculine North Star.

Courtney: So I would, in theory, much rather have someone like a Scott Galloway who is saying, you know, “Masculinity isn’t demonizing trans people. It’s not demonizing immigrants. It’s protecting them.” I would so much rather a young man who is trying to grapple with what masculinity means to him find a talking point like that. So that would be one where it’s like, you know, if it works, it works. Let it work for those it works for. But we also must point out that a lot of these talking points are not new. A lot of these have been, you know, a societal understanding that has made it much more difficult for people in our community, asexual men, to actually be able to identify at all with masculinity. Because time and time again, we’ll speak to ace men in the community who say like, “Yeah, growing up, I was always taught either directly or just by, you know, social proximity, media that a masculine sexuality is an inherent part of being a man. And I just fundamentally do not have that inside of me. So how can I be a man if this is not something I want?”

Royce: And that framing causes a lot of identity repression, too. Where if someone is already struggling to figure out their orientation and now you have such strict gender roles that are also in conflict – like, for one to be true, the other is in conflict – the end effect is that they end up pushing down or repressing that part of themselves. Which is one thing that can often lead to, you know, mental health struggles if you’re repressing a part of yourself.

Courtney: Yeah. And when it comes to mental health struggles, I mean, I will hear Scott say that a large percentage of male suicides happen after a divorce. After a divorce, when that marriage, that main relationship in a man’s life is over. And he’ll also sometimes point out things like, you know, widows versus widowers. You know, if someone has a spouse who dies, he’ll say, like, “Widows tend to get happier after their spouses die, whereas men get a lot worse.” Those statements need a lot deeper analyzing than the sound bites Scott presents them as. Because he’ll say that like that is a problem and that’s why men need relationships, because they’re so much better when they’re in relationships.

Royce: Instead of looking at the inequalities that are often found inside of relationships or how if you’re looking at a situation where one person in a relationship has died, you’re inevitably looking at an older population, a population that may not have had as much freedom in choosing a partner as people do nowadays?

Courtney: Yeah, absolutely. There are several branching webs of social concerns that we could explore out from that starting point. But to me, it really does come down to the internal sense of self. If you are hinging your sense of self off of others, being in a relationship with someone, then who are you when that relationship does fall apart? Then not only has the relationship fallen apart, but your entire sense of self has fallen apart. If you build your sense of self based on money, finances, what happens in a catastrophe where all of your wealth runs dry? All your money’s gone, but you developed your sense of self around being a provider, someone who has money and makes money, who are you now? This is not only an issue where in this situation we’re talking about, you know, gender, masculinity specifically, but this is something I’ve thought a lot by a disability standpoint.

Courtney: As someone who is a disabled woman, growing up I considered myself to be a dancer. Dancing was an activity I did. I trained very, very hard. I thought of it as a career path for myself. And in fact, I did teach dance lessons for a number of years because I love working with kids and students and teaching. I do have that maternal protective love to give and share. But when my body started breaking down further and I could no longer dance, not only did I lose an activity that I loved, but when I considered myself – my very internal sense of self – to be a dancer, and that gets taken away or it needs to look fundamentally different from how it once did, now you’re also verging on an identity crisis.

Courtney: So I’m a big proponent in everything, whether it be physical ability, whether it be gender, in developing an internal sense of self that does not rely on others. It’s the same when we started talking about, you know, people who are advocating for the right to sex, how everyone has the right to sex. Where that gets very dangerous very quickly, because if that inherently involves another person, no, you don’t have a right to it. You do not have a right to anyone else’s body. Do you have a right to pursue those relationships with mutual consent? Absolutely. But that’s why I see Protection as being fundamentally more flexible than Procreate. Because let’s say there’s a very narrow view of protection saying you have to be strong, you have to be able to carry your wife and kids out of a burning building, you have to be able to break up that bar fight. All right, well, to hell with physically disabled men then. They don’t get to be men. Which is a thing that society has already told disabled men for decades.

Courtney: But when you say not only physically, but morally, ethically, politically protecting people with your speech and your vote, I think there are infinite ways in which we can be effective protectors, and I think that’s what makes a strong community and a solid society.

Courtney: So Scott Galloway, I am pretty sure you are not actually listening to me right now, nor reading the transcripts available on our website. I am probably not going to speak about you again. I am not going to read your book. With one exception. If some way somehow this made it to you and any of it resonated or you wanted to discuss further, I would read your book if you would have a good faith conversation about your harmful and flippant use of the word asexual. Either in private or recorded, your call. I will read your book in preparation for that conversation.

Courtney: And for our regular listeners, hopefully, this gave you a more well-rounded picture of who Scott Golway is, how he has been on our radar, and his talking points are becoming popularized and more widely spread. And who knows, if you are the type to comment on YouTube videos, maybe go find some of his recent interviews and leave some negative comments. If he wasn’t bullshitting us, apparently he reads negative comments and apparently it really, really does affect him. So don’t be like the biggest asshat in the world, just as a general rule to people, probably.

Royce: You said negative comments. Maybe constructive is a better word?

Courtney: They can be a little negative. You gotta remember what this guy said about the campus protests. We’re allowed to be a little negative.

Royce: Oh sure, sure.

Courtney: We’re allowed to be a little negative to Scott Gallaway. [chuckles] Don’t get me wrong, I’m a firm believer in let people be mean but not abusive. No, I’ve never said that before. I’m gonna have to sit on that and decide if that is actually what I think or not, but it felt right to say in the moment. So there you have it. You’re allowed to be a little mean to Scott Galloway, but don’t be abusive. I’ll let you be the judge for where that line is, but throw in some of the good points I mentioned. Try to get the actual gist through, because this entire thought experiment is– I will never ever see eye to eye with this man on issues such as Palestine. Never. But usually lately in these press tours he’s been doing, he’s not talking about those.

Courtney: He’s talking about men and young boys and masculinity and these three P’s and procreating. And he’s talking about how asexual males are a new breed, which, mind you, the context with which he says that is criticizing big tech companies and algorithms and AI. I agree with a lot of those things. I agree we should criticize Big Tech and they should be held accountable for the ways that they are in fact fucking up young people, and adults for that matter. But once you say asexual males are dangerous, or you say asexual males are a new species, that is harmful prejudice rhetoric. And if Scott Galloway is really open to self-reflection and criticism. And if he really is a protector, he will keep the word asexual out of his mouth.

Courtney: So on that note, we are going to end, as always, with our featured MarketplACE vendor. And today we are giving a huge shout out to Universe of Nya, where you can get 2D art and design commissions by a Black queer artist. Links as always in the usual places. Definitely check out this shop. I know we’ve got some astrology lovers out in the audience, and you all know that I personally am not an astrology person, but you cannot deny that this artwork is absolutely beautiful. We have an entire series here, Through A Lens, which is inspired by every single sign. Gorgeous, gorgeous artwork ready to buy. Of course, commissions are open if you have your own character you would like to see come to life. According to the Ko-fi here, the artist is actually going to school for a Bachelors in animation and is working to raise money for that. We absolutely need more ace animators out there. So definitely check out this shop. And as always, thank you all so much for listening, and we will talk to you all next time.