Did Tradwives Evolve Out of BDSM?

In this thought-provoking discussion, Malcolm and Simone Collins delve into the phenomenon of "tradwives" and the modern misconceptions surrounding traditional relationships. They argue that much of the current "trad" movement is more akin to BDSM power exchange dynamics than genuine traditional family structures. The hosts explore the historical roles of women in traditional relationships, highlighting the importance of financial empowerment and partnership. They also discuss the dangers of idealizing consumerized fantasies of traditional relationships, which can lead to instability and dissatisfaction. Malcolm and Simone emphasize the importance of building relationships based on mutual affection, romance, and care, rather than strict, inflexible roles. They also examine the generational factors that have contributed to the fracturing of cultural norms and the challenges faced by younger generations in reconstructing healthy relationship models.

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] so much of what the trad phenomenon has become, I would say is actually more of a descendant of BDSM community behavior.

Simone Collins: Yes. In actual

Malcolm Collins: trad behavior. It is a live in 24, seven slave relationship. Little power exchange. Yes. Yeah. Power, total power exchange relationship. They have. Covered in the costume of traditionalism. The tradwife TikTokers and Tumblers and YouTubers that you are seeing are to a traditional relationship what hardcore porn is to a real sexual relationship with a woman. It is a consumerized format meant to masturbate a pacific. subset of your sort of mental landscape. It is not really what it is like to be in that sort of a relationship.

Would you like to know more?

Malcolm Collins: Hello Simone, it is wonderful to be talking to you today. [00:01:00] Today we are going to have an episode in defense of traditionalism. And people can know we've done some videos

anti traditionalist, where we argue that a lot of, Trad wifing and stuff like that is really over idealizing a model of family structure from a very limited portion of United States history that isn't really indicative of any large cultural movement.

It was more what was just being sold by Hollywood at the time. And people today, they're like, Oh, Hollywood lies to us and gives us unrealistic expectations. And I'm like they were doing that in the fifties too. Like this. This isn't a new phenomenon, buddy. And they're like, Oh s**t, it was always a lie.

But I want to go on a few paths with this. So first I have heard people criticize trad wives and trad families as a LARP [00:02:00] recently. And this really got to me because All cultural frameworks are a LARP. You are always LARPing your culture. When you are an ultra Orthodox Jew and you are putting on your little outfit every day and you are doing all of the cultural things that you do, what makes it a LARP?

It is. Live action and roleplay as being what you are that helps remind you of who you are. Roleplaying as something that is differential from the mainstream societal expectations helps you maintain a differential value set, which is what the Trad families are often trying to do. But at the same time as I talk about how great trad families are, I also want to talk about this concept because I want to narrowly say this type of trad family is great, but there's been something that's been talked about a lot recently, which [00:03:00] is the trad wife to single mom pipeline, that recently happened with Laura Southern quite famously.

And so the question is how, why is this happening? Why, okay. Are these trad relationships not as stable as they were in a historic context in leading to really negative outcomes, particularly for women.

And this is where we're going to talk about trad wife is communism. But we'll get to that later in the video.

But for, before I go further, I want to hear your thoughts on any of this.

Simone Collins: Yeah, I've been watching a lot of the trad wife to single mom pipeline videos and my Top observation so far is that people, even when we're talking about the 1950s trad wife, which we still argue was a short term aberration and not at all representative of true trad wifery.

They're not even modern trad wives aren't even being like 1950s trad wives. I was watching Catch Me If You Can, and there's one ep er, there's a scene in Catch Me If You Can in which Tom Hanks, the FBI agent [00:04:00] trying to catch the character played by Leonardo DiCaprio, who's this kid who essentially masquerades as a pilot and surgeon and commits massive check fraud.

He's trying to explain to other FBI agents how check fraud works. And the FBI agents are like, what? Check numbers. Like you got to talk to my wife about this. She handles all my finances. They're acting like finances are women's work. And it really indicates just the extent to which. When that traditional trad wife, nuclear family model was being used.

Women weren't just educating the kids, raising the kids, managing the household, managing the cooking, managing the cleaning, they were also managing the family finances. They were managing investing. They were managing banking. They were doing all the payments. There was even this, there's some great YouTube videos on, the effect of housewives in Japan, investing in stock markets and the way that they influence stock market trends because they were so actively involved in investing even internationally, because at the time, and even still interest rates were so low, right? Like saving [00:05:00] wouldn't be enough.

So they had to invest actively and it was the women. In these traditional relations who are investing. And yet, when you look at the way that women in the now modern quote unquote, trad wife cosplay are behaving to them, it is just cooking and maybe light cleaning and maybe a little bit of light child rearing.

It is not literally being pivotal. To the life of the husband in terms of they don't have control over the finances, for example.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Many women in these actually traditional relationships, even if you go back to the 1950s their husbands were living on an allowance that the wife was giving them along with the rest of the family.

And we can say, why don't modern trad? family structure themselves this way. If this was a historic way of doing it within at least this cultural context. And the answer is because so much of what the trad phenomenon has become, I would say is actually more of a descendant of BDSM community behavior.

Simone Collins: Yes. In [00:06:00] actual

Malcolm Collins: trad behavior. It is a live in 24, seven slave relationship. Little power exchange. Yes. Yeah. Power, total power exchange relationship. They have. Covered in the costume of traditionalism. And it is to an, in an extent to protect the, men's egos who are afraid of and I think rightly so for some reason, given divorce laws and stuff like that today, giving women too much power in their lives.

But. Because of this, they're not able to have the type of romance and true, partnership that traditional families had. It reminds me of a scene, when I see these, like this descendant of the red pill oh, I'm being, So attractive to women. When Gomez and Morticia are dancing and being like impossibly romantic and the woman's there, like looking at them Oh, I want this so bad.

And then her date Fester has two pretzels in his nose [00:07:00] trying to impress her.

What I'm

Oh, I see.

Malcolm Collins: And that's what they come off. Like they come off like a silly goof who has no idea how to be romantic or what women really want. Because they have based it all on these. fantasies that are more