Hello,

My guest this week is Magdalene Taylor, a writer, cultural critic and senior editor at Playboy. Magdalene has made a name for herself as one of the most astute critics of modern romance and especially its intersection with technology. She famously blames the phones!

Our conversation is wide-ranging, but we speak about the digitization of sexual language, the rise of AI partners and the unfortunate shift away from sexual experience as mystique and now as another zone of optimization.

Topics include:

* The digitization of sexual vernacular such as “looksmaxxing”* Why dating apps feel like extractive infrastructure* The allure (and danger) of AI companionship* The cultural fetish of the “tradwife” and the pornography of purity* Why phones (and not porn) might be the cause of the sex recession

Read Magdalene’s beloved newsletter on sexual culture: Many Such Cases.

Follow her on Twitter or on Instagram.

Hope you enjoy it!

Ruby

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