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I am convinced that the Sex Divide is the greatest political engine of today, and that a big chunk of the culture war is based on the existance of this divide, and the inability of society to understand that political differences between males and females have an enormous biological basis.
After I finally understood this concept, I began to "notice", being always passionate about politics and speaking about it, that the discourses and the nature of the topic I discussed with people were and are heavily genderized.
Having a political or cultural discussion with a female is, in general, radically different from having one with a male, not only regarding the topics of interests per se (males more interested in economics or raw politics, female more interested in immigration, equality or similar topics), but also regarding "how" to approach a discussion.
I feel way more free talking with males, because I always had the impression, confirmed 95% of the times, that I can be more open and direct with what I felt without receiving a backslash, that can be personal (simply the person screaming at you or hating you) or social (person beginning to talk with other people in your social network) (NB: I am not American and I do not live in a very polarized society). Apart from the political extremists and activists that you can meet, the following things happened often:
Me and the other male have a disagreement, that can be harsh or about an hot topic, but that resolve itself in a shake of hand.
We disagree on a lot of topic, but also agree on other ones, making the discussion constructive in itself.
I discover that the other male have a lot of, uh, hidden opinions that he does not reveal in his network, often because of female backslash.
In general, I love to talk about politics or culture with other middle or low class males, because I always "received" something in exchange after the discussion, something that can be a new reflection on a topic, an earnest discovering of new knowledge, or simply understanding more some concepts.
Meanwhile, apart from a selected group of very close female friends and a selected other few, almost all the discussion with females ended with a disaster. In spite of me trying to move in a different manner, being more gentle and less direct, and understanding that I need to adapt to other people when I talk about something, the discussions simply does not start well and end well. What happens is:
We have a disagreement, and at this point the discussion or close itself ("It is useless to continue, why we should?") or degenerate in a very uncomfortable discussion where the woman put herself as an emotional victim of what we are talking about.
If the discussion does not degenerate but continues, it is always redirected to morality or feeling or about a generic "natural law". At this point if I try to redirect the discussion negating the opposing point (I do not agree with your morality or I do not care about this morality) it simply degenerate again in a morality context, where your worth as individual is put on a public pedestal.
The result of all of this, after years of experience... is that I do not talk about these kind of topics with women anymore, apart from a selected few. When I have this kind of conversation I always strive for earning something, that can be knowledge, human connection or shared experiences. Why doing these with women, when the things that you can earn are statistically negative?
Adding to what I said, I also need to mention that, after lowering down the kind of topics and approaches that I have with women, both my dating life and romantic life radically improved. I do not know if it is a coincidence or not.
You see the dynamic in any online forum that is still pseudonymous (such as this one). Even though we can all guess based on general demographic surveys that 85% of the forum, at least, is male, one can't confirm the gender of any particular poster beyond their own representations.
As soon as you enable users to present as a particular gender (all the moreso if you let them add photos) that all goes out the window.
On a side note, this is also tying into my experience of becoming quietly convinced that the inability of society to 'rein in' female sexuality in a healthy way contributes to almost every form of social dysfunction we observe.
Note I'm not saying this is the ONLY condition for dysfunction (plenty of dysfunctional societies which heavily police female sexuality, cf. Iran) but just a seemingly major factor that contributes to dysfunction in the long run.
But as soon as you start letting attractive people leverage their attractiveness to gain popularity, you necessarily compromise the basic factor that allows people to engage in conversation on a 'neutral' playing field. That invites all the rest of the problems inherent to human social group dynamics.
Just say no.
Isn't it mostly men doing the rioting, heroin, shooting, looting... did I miss any?
Do you think men are more or less likely to go out rioting, shooting, or looting if they have a wife and/or kids to come home to?
Do you think men are more or less aggressive and/or desperate when they can reasonably expect that they will be able to find a long-term partner and 'settle down' with them in the near future?
Do you think that the current environment of hypercompetition in the dating market makes men more or less altruistic and conscientious?
Is that what 'control of female sexuality' looks like? Isn't tying a man down and having kids controlling male sexuality?
I guess my point here is that I don't see this idea of rampant promiscuity ruining the dating market any more believable than a claim that men spending all of their time watching Minecraft streams ruining the dating market, and I definitely don't see 'dating is hard' being the main cause behind recent unraveling of the social contract.
I doubt that it has a large scale net effect.
You might notice the term I used was rein in, not 'control.'
So yes, promoting the idea that both women and men should try to partner up monogamously is reining in female sexuality, in a world where they otherwise have virtually limitless partners to choose from.
It's likely a series of feedback loops that all play into each other. I said as much: "Note I'm not saying this is the ONLY condition for dysfunction (plenty of dysfunctional societies which heavily police female sexuality, cf. Iran) but just a seemingly major factor that contributes to dysfunction in the long run."
But I suspect that its similar to the obesity epidemic. Despite the prevalence of technology and prosperity making our lives easier, lots of people have worse health and less fulfilling lives than before.
So, too, is the 'ease' of connecting with potential partners causing some people to see worse outcomes. I think the evidence is clear that women are asymetrically able to exploit their sexuality for personal gain in this environment.
Hence, you'll see outsized effects by focusing on female sexuality as a causal factor.
Interesting.
Pick a source you find reliable and tell me if you still believe that after reviewing it:
https://news.unt.edu/news-releases/men-have-highest-risk-low-self-esteem-while-using-tinder-unt-study-finds
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/talking-about-men/201810/are-dating-apps-damaging-our-mental-health
https://bmcpsychology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40359-020-0373-1
https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/cyber.2019.0561
https://nyctherapy.com/therapists-nyc-blog/how-dating-apps-can-impact-mental-health/
Synonymous.
Hell, that might be a bigger influence than anything else, because it's making a larger and larger fraction of people unattractive, but you're still striving for an attractive partner. Just not striving in a way that includes reducing calories.
I still don't understand how you're seeing a scenario where young women go after older men as entirely the fault of women or their sexuality and not a mutual decision made by both men and women.
'Dating apps are bad for nental health' isn't automatically a support for the notion that unrestrained female sexuality is responsible for societal ills.
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It is.
The response to rioting, heroin, shooting, and looting from other men, on balance, tends to be quite punitive, ranging from social abandonment to imprisonment or lethal violence. Men are much more willing, on balance, to see wrongdoers come to a bad end, and this tends to put a cap on the consequences of such maladaptive behavior.
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Pretty sure the anti-feminist case here manages to blame women for it in some roundabout way, just like the feminists will lay all the world's ills at the feet of the patriarchy. Let me try: Low-status men are dissolute and violent because women restrict access to sex and marriage in favor of building harems for a small number of high-status men. Isn't that a common argument?
My personal view differs somewhat: Both men and women are dissolute, but only men are violent because women are physically weak and vulnerable. The cause for the dissoluteness is classic civilizational decline - we morally decay because, at our peak, we could afford to, and it was pleasant to do so.
Not a particularly compelling one. I don't know any women who would settle for being part of a harem in favor of being married to a comparatively lower status man.
I think there's this imagination that all the instances of Man not having sex have been replaced 1:1 with woman having sex with Chad.
I think reality is more like: both the man and the woman in the equation are picking a more convenient way to pass the time and unwilling to make themselves uncomfortable to find a partner.
Your competition isn't Chad, it's Netflix.
Lemme help you out here:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/in-the-name-love/202006/why-sugar-daddy-relationships-are-the-rise
Do you ever wonder how Leonardo DiCaprio is able to just keep dating a series of young women? Why do they put up with being his arm candy for a few years rather than marrying a 'lower status' man?
Surely a factor. However, I don't think it obviates the fact that women can leverage their sexuality to their advantage from an early age.
Especially if women have virtually no obstacles to finding a partner of virtually any age or description if they so desire, whereas an average man is going to have to leap through a dozen hoops just to get considered.
Consider:
https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/news-polls/age-gap-dating
And when it comes to actual marriages:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_disparity_in_sexual_relationships#Statistics
Approximately 8% of married couples feature a male who is 10+ years older than the female. For the reverse: 1.7%. A 4x disparity.
This really, REAAALLLY strongly implies that the group that is least able to find partners is young males, and possibly older females.
And that likely means a large disparity in who is having sex, with a certain subset of the population likely have none at all, despite wanting to.
Because Leo was in Titanic and gives them a ladyboner. I imagine that's also the reason Leo goes after a particular demographic-he finds them attractive. I assume that most of those partners will eventually end up married.
And yet they... don't. So either they have very particular preferences, they aren't motivated to call your bluff, or there are some obstacles that you don't see, such as social consequences.
Young men will eventually become old men, old women were once young women. Have people become less patient?
Many many do. This is why the term "Sugar Baby" is now mainstream. This is why Onlyfans is a multi-billion dollar company
And the larger point is they have this as an option.
Many men don't even have the option.
I already did this discussion here:
https://www.themotte.org/post/120/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/18954?context=8#context
But the point is, you're expecting young men, who are at their horniest and least capable of making good judgments at this age, to be able to wait a decade before they can have a chance at having a committed partner.
That is, you're saying that the very guys who need some kind of healthy outlet for their sexual and other impulses are finding it increasingly difficult to obtain a healthy outlet, and saying this won't show substantial behavioral effects?
In my experience the majority of young men don't profess a desire for a committed partner, young women do. Maybe that's changed since I was a young man.
Hyperbolic. Plenty of young men end up in relationships.
Also, while I agree that OnlyFans probably isn't a healthy outlet because of the parasocial aspect, there are plenty of others like pornhub, Literotica, HBO, and the power of imagination.
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I think you’re right that women aren’t consciously joining “harems”, but the competition isn’t just Netflix, it’s Netflix+Tinder hookups when they get sufficiently lonely, as a replacement for relationships.
And who do they go for on tinder? The same guys as all the other single women. It’s not a “harem” because they don’t know or have a reason to care about other girls the guys might be getting with, but to lonely single men, the effect is the same.
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