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So the Bezos-Sanchez wedding took place, and by all accounts it was exactly as overblown, tacky, and vulgar as anyone's little heart could desire. I haven't watched any of it myself, so why am I mentioning it in the Culture War thread?
Well, because Tina Brown commented on it, and it's at least tangential because we've often discussed on here "what do women want/dating apps/men get the rough end of the stick in divorce/other such delightful War of the Sexes fodder".
I get the impression that Tina wasn't on the guest list so there may be an element of sour grapes here, but in general I think I agree. Jeff Bezos, fourth richest man in the world (depending on the day and the ranking) could have pretty much any woman in the world he wanted. So, who did he blow up his marriage for and before we get into the complaining about his wife taking him to the cleaners, it was he who caused the divorce (actually, divorces because his inamorata was also married at the time)?
The woman next door, a triumph of grinding determination to keep her figure through diet, exercise, and plastic surgery. She managed to find a classy wedding dress so kudos for that, as well as showing off the results of all that effort.
Back to Tina's commentary:
Ouch. But also, yes. What am I trying to say here? Mostly that the next time there's yet another post about reversing the fertility decline by putting obstacles in the way of women going to higher education, steering them to marrying early, and good old traditional 'the man is the head of the house and women should work to please their husband and that includes sex whenever and however he wants it', remember this. Male sexuality is a lot simpler than female sexuality. Jeff could have destroyed his marriage for a nubile twenty-something with naturally big assets, but he went for tawdry 'sexy' with the trout pout and plastic boobs (though once again, I have to salute her commitment to starving and exercising in order to keep a taut muscle tone). It's not much good to criticise women for being shallow in the dating market when the fruits of success are to dress like this and hook your own billionaire.
Perhaps the next rich, famous man will update his priors accordingly:
“What’s the reaction from women for dating a fresh, childless young woman in her late teens or twenties?”
“Seethe, rage, accusations of you being a groomer pedophile who’s exploiting power dynamics and taking advantage of someone whose brain hasn’t even developed yet because you can’t handle a woman your own age.”
“What’s the reaction from women for marrying a middle-aged divorced woman who’s already been around the block and had her fun?”
“Seethe, rage, accusations of you being a trashy, shallow, classless bimbo-fetishist who’s too insecure to handle an intellectual woman.”
“Well then…”
A driver of the hate is that she presents as younger than she is, possibly passing as a thotmaxxing woman in her mid-to-late 40s and maybe even pre-menopausal (at least from afar). Thus, she isn’t decrepit-looking enough and is younger-looking than Bezos “deserves.” If she looks like she still might have eggs, she’s too young for the seggs.
I suppose, in general, progressive hate is likely to result whenever, wherever there’s a successful white man enjoying himself—from other tech bosses like Zuckerberg and Musk (including pre-Trump associations) to athletes like Kelce and Bauer. Modern progressivism: The haunting fear that some white man, somewhere, might be happy without benefiting women, racial and sexual minorities.
Do you think Bezos didn't think of simply doing a Di Caprio, or was afraid of the backlash?
I've often heard an opinionoid about the idea of older guys dating 18 year olds that goes something like "there's nothing we can talk about after fucking", and while lately it does look like sour grapes/Havel's groceryism when it comes from older guys, there might be something to it. Of course, if it was revealed that Sanchez is actually not particularly good intellectual company, then I'd be at a loss.
I was being cheeky in half-joking about the incentives and rock-and-hard-place nature of appeasing women's opinions when it comes to the dating choices of high-status men. I imagine it occurred to him on some level, and maybe backlash is/was a consideration of his. However, I also do believe he legitimately fell for her, at least on some respects.
I don't remember if it was specifically about sex/dating or in general, but I recall reading a comment somewhere to the gist of: When you're trying to make sense of a famous actor's behavior, just remember that no matter how cool or suave he looks on screen, he's likely still a weird theatre kid at heart.
This can be easily extended to tech figures and professional athletes.
Where, despite becoming rich and famous, the mental software of many male celebrities remains incompletely updated when it comes to dealing with women, their toolkit remains lacking, and they can exhibit quite what many would call suboptimal behavior—including inertia, passivity, low standards, one-itis, and/or habit of strippers/prostitutes. Hence why Zuckerberg's wife is mid even for tech-dork standards, Julian Edelman can be caught in a one-night-stand with a chubster, Conor McGregor can be filmed heading off with an outright fatty to presumably bang or at least fool around, James Harden choosing to splash cash on strippers instead of maybe resting so he can play defense, etc.
Many men will claim "what's the deal with [male celebrity]? If I were in his position I'd bang so many more and hotter chicks." A large subset of them is likely right.
For sex/dating purposes, I posit temporarily switching Bezos's mind for a few months with that of a random man who's had double-digit one-night-stands with attractive women in his lifetime would result in outcomes that would make DiCaprio look pedestrian (with non-prostitutes and non-single/divorced mothers, of course).
It's sour grapes, as online dating statistics would suggest from the infamous OKCupid study or the Bruch-Newman paper. Older guys who say stuff like that likely weren’t banging hot 18-year-olds when they themselves were younger either. You can’t reject me; I’m withdrawing my application and never wanted the job anyway. Plus, the elbows of 18-year-olds are too pointy.
Or maybe sex with young models is just not their thing. By that I don't mean that they're gay or don't enjoy it, but even for the rich and famous there are opportunity costs. Most men with a pulse I know would enjoy driving an exotic sports car on a track or in an environment where they can let it loose. And most men with a pulse I know would enjoy sex with young nubile models (presumably who know what they're doing in the bedroom). But not every man who has the opportunity to decides to own and collect exotic sports car. Maybe they prefer to spend their leisure time (a scarce ressource that rich and powerful men don't necessarily have more of than the average joe) and money on travel, or on a yacht, or on going on safaris and hunting rare animals, etc... Some, I assume, will go for women, but I'm not surprised it's not all of them. It still requires time and effort of them and some risk, they still need to keep minimally in shape so that they're not so repulsive (while many women find wealth and power attractive, if you're so physically repulsive to her that it's obvious she's just holding her barf in for a payday, I think it'd put a lot of damper in most men's enjoyment of the act), they need to spend time hanging out in places where you meet young models.
They also need to be careful which young model they take to their hotel suite; falling prey to a gold-digger who casts a powerful "one-itis" spell on him like some witch is always a possibility, we're talking about women at the absolute peak of female power here, I'm not sure every man is immune. And sex involves vulnerability for rich men too, often of blackmail.
In that context, prostitutes are almost appropriate, kind of like renting an exotic sports car to ride at the track. The well-vetted high class ones will be discreet and won't be much as much risk. What looks like one-itis or low-standards, could very well just be a man deciding to settle with a woman that has higher value to him than to most others, a sensible choice as it ensures a better return for the ressources invested. Having a preference for traits most others see as a flaw is a blessing; it means less competition.
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That makes sense to me. If theres a woman right in front of you that you can have consequence-free sex with, and your reaction is to go find a different one, I suspect thats mostly been selected against. It would be too rare to have multiple such options to have a specific reaction for it.
As for Zuckerberg at all, keep in mind that a rich guy that you know for being rich had many opportunities to sell it all and have more money than a hedonist could ever need, and he made it to the point where you know him because he didnt take those. There could well be large numbers who update however you think they should, that you just dont see. Actually, Im curious how you think they should, since you say that prostitues are bad also?
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It’s quite plausible that they were simply acting on their own preferences!
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