Video summary
The podcast begins with a discussion on establishing successful relationships through open communication and structured self-revelation. The divorce lawyer emphasizes that talking about one's formative experiences in a detached, narrative fashion creates valuable meta-commentary that deepens connection. He suggests utilizing tools like the "30 questions" article or card games such as *Tails* to facilitate this progressive revelation of oneself over time. This approach contrasts sharply with modern hookup culture, which has allegedly abandoned the traditional dance of teasing and earning affection in favor of immediate gratification. The speaker argues that restoring a sense of courtship allows men to engage their drive for achievement while giving women agency as gatekeepers who set standards based on discipline and character rather than just financial resources. The conversation shifts to biological and psychological drivers behind these social dynamics, specifically citing Roy Baumeister's research on sexual novelty and mate selection. According to the discussion, men are neurologically driven by vasopressin in ways that respond well to "good boy points"—small acts of kindness like cleaning up or dressing nicely—which encourage them to meet high standards set by women. The speaker references a study suggesting that if women demand pillars of community or romantic consistency, men will adapt accordingly; conversely, they may become flaky if those are the perceived requirements. This titration of sexual novelty over time is presented as beneficial for both genders, preventing burnout and fostering deeper commitment, much like restricting ice cream to children ensures it remains a special treat rather than an everyday commodity. A significant portion of the dialogue addresses the concept of masculinity through the lens of personal codes and historical archetypes. The speaker reflects on his own journey in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, noting that earning a brown belt after fifteen years was more fulfilling than winning fights because it represented overcoming obstacles to achieve a standard. He draws parallels between this discipline and old-school masculine ideals found in literature, such as the samurai or characters like Hawkeye from *The Last of the Mohicans*, who operated under strict codes of conduct regarding protection and provision. The speaker argues that there is currently a hunger among men for clear missions and expectations, suggesting that adopting a serious demeanor—symbolized by wearing a suit instead of a hoodie to social events—signals respect for oneself and others. This presentation of seriousness appeals to women seeking partners who are disciplined and focused on their mission rather than those chasing fleeting validation. The speaker also touches upon the complexities of human nature within legal contexts, noting that while people may lie in therapy or surveys due to self-deception, they rarely do so with a divorce lawyer because attorney-client privilege removes any incentive for dishonesty. Having represented thousands of clients and witnessed every permutation of domestic disputes, including cases involving substance abuse and violence, the speaker concludes that good and evil reside within everyone's heart rather than being exclusive traits of specific groups. He advocates for holding men to high standards not as a punitive measure but as a way to channel their competitive drives positively, rejecting the idea that women are solely at fault for emotional unavailability in men. Instead, he proposes a mutual agreement where women maintain gatekeeping roles regarding sex and character, while men strive to embody virtues like discipline and integrity, effectively creating "Clark Kent Superman" figures who balance approachability with serious capability. Ultimately, the episode concludes by challenging modern dating norms that have eroded the progressive revelation of intimacy in favor of instant access. The speaker asserts that if society returned to a model where earning affection required demonstrating specific character traits—such as being a protector or provider—it would solve many contemporary relationship issues without requiring men to be disingenuous or deceptive. He acknowledges potential criticism from certain circles regarding this perspective but maintains that honesty and adherence to a personal code are superior strategies for both professional success in his law firm and romantic fulfillment. By encouraging young men to clean themselves up, pursue meaningful missions, and respect the gatekeeping role of women, he believes relationships can regain their depth and purpose, moving away from transactional interactions toward genuine connection built on earned trust and mutual standards.
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What are the important things that you
think people should do at the start of a
relationship to set it up for success?
>> I mean, my answer to almost everything
is just talking. I just think I think
the more that you um
can talk about
I think when you can talk about how
you're talking about things, I think
that when you can
like almost have a meta commentary
happening of like this is so weird,
isn't it? It's scary. Oh, isn't this
interesting what we're doing right now?
Like really being able to talk about it
almost in a detached fashion and
narrative fashion. I think there's a lot
of value in that. I think there's a lot
of value in
um
in talking about like formative
experiences that this person has had.
And I think there are a lot of fun games
that can be played around that. You
know, there was an article some years
ago, I forget who authored it, but it
was about like 30 questions that can
make two people fall in love.
>> Yeah, and it gets progressively more
intense over time. Many of them are in
the questions at
chriswillx.com/valentines.
>> There you go. So, I I would say that
those kinds of entry points There's a
lot There's a
a card game now called Tails, which is
very interesting. Um
Steve from Diary of a CEO has a great,
you know, the Diary of a CEO questions.
Like there's a lot of really great like
supplemental tools. That is a fun game.
Like that game of like you're a mystery
to me, I'm a mystery to you in some
ways. We've just started this
relationship. We know we like the look
of each other. We know we like some
things about each other. There's an
energy and electricity between us. So,
let's start playing in the world of
ideas a little bit. Let's start playing
in progressively showing
Look, what is what is dating but
progressively showing more of yourself
to another person? And what is What have
we lost in sort of hookup culture? We've
lost that progressive revelation, that
teasing, that sort of playing of like
I'm going to show you a little and then
I'll show you a little more. and I'm
going to give you a little and then I'll
give you a little more. And there's this
feeling, okay, and I'm going to I'm
going to earn a little, and then I'm
going to earn a little more, and I'll be
rewarded for my efforts by a little bit
of sweetness from you. And they'll that
that's a fun dance that people have been
doing for a really long time, and we
gave it up in exchange for I I'm not
sure what we got out of that.
>> Roy Baumeister says, "Courtship is the
period during which a woman works out if
she can do better."
>> Yeah.
>> [laughter]
>> Yeah.
>> Which I think is
>> Yeah.
>> Uh
>> But it also sparks something in men that
I think we like. Something I think the
challenge and drive of
>> Drive that drive to win, man.
>> Yeah. And I feel and I feel like you
know, we've couched that now as like a
toxic masculinity, but I don't know. I I
feel like that
>> Go go [ __ ] yourself, dude. And I can
tell you to go [ __ ] yourself
neurologically as well. Uh the way that
men bond is using something called
vasopressin. You heard about this? You
vasopressin I Okay, so
here is a thing that I'm trying to
achieve.
>> Yeah.
>> This is why
>> Yeah.
>> good boy points
>> Yeah.
>> in the bedroom, when cleaning the
kitchen, when picking the kids up, when
dressing nicely, when telling him that
he needs to shave on a weekend so he
doesn't scratch your face. Good boy
points will drive a man to do obscene
things, especially from a beautiful,
charming, beguiling woman that he's
attached to.
>> Even Listen, I've trained Brazilian Jiu
Jitsu for 20 years. You think I like
having sweaty balls in my face? No. But
it's I get tapped 15 times, but I tap a
guy once, and it's enough for me to go,
all right, I'm getting somewhere with
this.
>> but when the think about how much more
it is when coach comes past who's got
three stripes on his belt and goes
>> Right.
>> Jim. Yeah. Good.
>> Good.
>> Right. OH MY GOD.
>> OH.
>> [groaning]
>> LISTEN, I I BUILT A LAW firm and
represented some of the wealthiest
people in the world. When I got my brown
belt, it was the most exciting I was the
proudest accomplishment of my life. The
amount of hours and injuries that it
took to get there, 15 years worth of
training to get there. So, to me,
there's something about that that fight,
that prize, that hunt. So, you know,
that that old school idea, and by the
way, women loved loved when there was
this courtship piece, and there was all
of that. And again, men loved being held
a little bit to a standard and having a
sense of And by the way, it solves this
body count issue that everyone's so
caught up in, because it turns into
something that No, no, there has to be
some gatekeeping, and there has to be
some sense of earning something. So, I I
think there's tremendous value in that,
and I think that if we were early in
relationships to start really like
progressively showing the other more,
both physically and emotionally, right?
And having maybe even that path coming
up at the same time. Like, as I'm seeing
more of you, like, if I've seen you with
your panties off, and I don't know how
many siblings you have, we're doing
things out of order as far as I'm
concerned.
>> It's a fascinating series.
>> Roy Baumeister is now on Substack and is
just so fascinating. He's writing a a
series on uh sexual novelty at the
moment, and he's basically advocating
that specifically for men, women need a
different treatment. Maybe he'll give
that at some point in future.
Specifically for men, you need to
titrate the dose of sexual novelty over
as long of a duration as possible. And
this is good for the men, too. It's the
same as not letting the kids have ice
cream every night. This is from his last
book, which came out about 5 years ago.
Men will do what women demand of them in
order to get laid.
>> Yep.
>> Women set the standards for sex, and men
meet them. Although this may be
considered an unflattering
characterization, we have found no
evidence to contradict the basic general
principle that men will do whatever is
required in order to obtain sex, and
perhaps not a great deal more. One of us
characterized this in previous work as
if women would stop sleeping with jerks,
men would stop being jerks. If, in order
to obtain sex, men must become pillars
of the community or lie or amass riches
by fair means or foul or be romantic or
funny, then men will do precisely that.
Similarly, if men need to be broken,
flaky, non-committal, and inconsistent,
then they will meet these standards
appropriately. Women's mate choices,
modern romance culture, and girl
magazines are not at fault for
emotionally unavailable behavior in men,
but they are not totally unrelated to
it, either.
>> You know, I I could not possibly agree
with anything more. That approach would
probably be very bad for my business
model.
And the truth is, I'm not a
psychologist. I'm not a therapist. I'm
not a researcher. I have facilitated the
demise of thousands of unhappy
marriages. People lie to their
therapists. People lie on surveys.
People lie in studies. They don't lie to
their divorce lawyer.
They don't, because there's no reason
to. You have attorney-client privilege
attached, and I have to really know
everything to do a good job.
>> on that, surely people want to put
themselves across in the best light.
>> lie to themselves, and then they lie to
me because they're lying to themselves.
But because I see so much
data on this person. I see their credit
card receipts, their text messages. Like
I I I really go in there on people. Like
you have to. If someone's going through
custody litigation or an ugly contested
divorce, you get to see everything,
really. And so,
having now listened to
thousands of people, men and women, the
abuser and the abused, the substance use
disorder and the person married to the
person with substance use disorder,
I've seen I've argued every side of
every issue in a divorce. I've spent
time with you know, perpetrators of
domestic violence and victims of
domestic violence. I've spent time with
every possible permutation. And I will
tell you,
if only there were good and bad people
in the world. Like, you know, if only we
could just find the evil people and
segregate it's Through the heart of
every man.
>> Right. Through the Solzhenitsyn. Through
the heart of every man is the line of
good and evil. And so, I genuinely
believe that if we were to say, "Look,
there have to now be standards. There
has to be a code." Like I was raised
with the idea that men have to have a
code. Like that a man is supposed to
have a code. And all of the men I
aspired to be like, which were mostly
from literature, they were always like
samurai. They were always Le Longue
Carabine in in Last of the Mohicans, you
know, it was all this idea of like the
man who was the protector, the provider.
He had a code. He had the things he
would do and the things he would not do,
and nothing was going to pull him from
that. And so, I I genuinely believe that
there is a hunger right now in men for
that, this sense of what am I supposed
to do? Tell me the mission. Like tell me
what is expected of me and what is not.
And that women were the gatekeepers when
it came to sex. They were gatekeeping.
You had to earn this. You had to earn it
not by, you know, give me the money and
then I'll give it to you. It was really
more about the characteristics that made
you someone that had resources, that is
that you were disciplined, focused, that
you were someone who was who was serious
about things. Listen, I'm a 53-year-old
man, and if you read the comments on my
videos, like it's shocking to me how
many women are like gaga over me. And
trust me, it's not looks. It's the fact
that I look like a serious person. Like
I wear a suit. Like, you know how many
53-year-old men are running around in
hoodies? Like I But you know, listen, I
it's fine, but the truth is there is
something about old-school masculinity
that is very appealing to women. Because
this this suit is a statement.
>> I'm put together.
>> I take this seriously. That's what this
says. I take this seriously. It's why
you would wear this to a job interview
or a funeral, and you wouldn't wear it
to the beach, right? You wear it cuz
you're saying, "I'm here I'm wearing
this cuz I want you to know I take what
I'm doing seriously." And if you put
this on when you're getting together
with a woman, you're saying, "I take
this seriously. I take the world
seriously. I I my place in it seriously.
So, I think the combination
of again, because I don't think it's a
mystery or controversial to say that
every man wants a good girl who's only
bad for him, and every woman wants a bad
boy who's only good for her, right? So,
the combination of a suit and sleeves of
tattoos, it's not shocking that women
would find that attractive. It's Clark
Kent Superman rolled into the one thing.
So, I don't know why we're not saying to
young men, again, like this is what we
should be focusing on is the mission,
becoming the best version of yourself,
cleaning yourself up, putting yourself
together, and saying to women, "Women,
listen, you've always been the
gatekeepers of sex. You always have
been. So, you have to start taking that
role seriously, and you have to start
holding men to some kind of a standard."
And I I'm sure that I'll get pilloried
by people in the red pill space in the
manosphere are going to say, "Oh, well,
men have to accommodate themselves to
women." Okay, yes. Yes, that's how it
works when it comes to sexual
gatekeeping. That's how it works. Unless
you want to be the kind of person that,
you know, sneaks in the back door and
steals things, and and puts on a false
face of what it is that you really want,
and you want to be disingenuous. You're
right, you can make a lot of money
stealing. You can make a lot of money in
a grift. Should you be proud of that? I
don't think so.
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Thank you very much for tuning in. Ooh,
a tasty morsel of a clip there for you.
Well, the full episode is available
right here.
That's it.