site banner
PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   1767 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 27, 2025

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

2
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

What happens when women don’t get attention?

The old adage says men want sex the way women want attention. But attention, unlike sex, seems easier to come by... for now.

As dating grows more complex, and sometimes risky for men, we’re seeing the rise of alternatives: AI girlfriends, VR porn, sex robots. Add to that a growing visibility of trans women in romantic spaces, and a strange new question emerges:

What happens when women can no longer command attention?

We know what many men do when they’re denied sex or companionship. They turn inward or rage outward. Some retreat to forums. Some go monk mode. Some hit the gym. A few, tragically, turn violent.

But when women can’t get even a glance, no matter how they dress, how they walk, or how perfect their makeup is, what then?

I suspect they won't react like men.

Oh, we're doing the meme where women are begging for attention as men replace them with AI waifus?

It's not going to happen because men are also biological units with evolutionary hardwiring. A woman willing to put out is never going to be alone. She might not get the guy she wants, but she can get a guy. And a man who has the tiniest shot at a real girl who doesn't repulse him will prefer her to a digital waifu.

Trans women are a tiny presence for all the noise they make, and if surveys say 3% of heterosexual men would consider dating a trans woman, I'd bet the number who really would date a trans woman is <1%.

I mean if you create a super stimulus, then people will absolutely choose that over real life. There are beetles in Australia who prefer shagging beer bottles to real females. And that happened without humans doing beetle psychology and A/B testing to create the best, most addictive Waifu-bot possible. Humans designing robot waifus would be working overtime to make their version as stimulating of the male mating system as they can.

Just looking at the NEET phenomenon as an example — people choosing to escape living an actual life in favor of internet, TV, and gaming. Is it normal or natural for a person to choose to live an isolated life indoors over going out with friends, accomplishing things, and moving forward in life? But if you make simulated reality good enough some nonzero portion of the population will choose that, and the better the simulacrum, tge more people get sucked in.

I expect robot waifus to eventually be good enough that all but the most successful men who could get supermodels anyway, and the rest will be at home alone wanking into a robot who’s learned exactly how to get him to spend time with it.

Trans women are a tiny presence for all the noise they make, and if surveys say 3% of heterosexual men would consider dating a trans woman, I'd bet the number who really would date a trans woman is <1%.

Given the fraction of men who participate in machismo-based homosexuality in places where it is socially acceptable (American prisons, non-Taliban Afghanistan, ancient Greece etc.) or the demand for ladyboys as sex workers in cultures like Thailand where that is the normative way of being a trans woman, I would say that 3% is on the low side for "What fraction of men would dick another guy if there was a non-gay way of doing it?" I would bet that the real number is in the 3-10% range.

Men don't want AGPs and AGPs don't want cishet men, so if AGPs are more visible than ladyboys (and in the West they are) then surveys are going to underestimate willingness to date transwomen.

"What fraction of men would dick another guy if there was a non-gay way of doing it?" I would bet that the real number is in the 3-10% range.

Well, "date" is different from "dick", and the chief complaint from trans women is that men are willing to have sex with them but not be seen in public.

I recall there was a survey (probably not a great one, but whatever) that something like 1/3 of men had had a sexual fantasy about a transgender partner. There's also a stat that the "trans" section of PornHub is one of the top categories. So you're correct that the level of sexual interest in trans women is higher than is accounted for in the 3%.

But the fact remains that we're still talking about less than one percent of the population, which already regards men being interested in them as highly suspect precisely because of the gulf between that 33% and the 3%. Statistically, any given man that expresses interest in them is around ten times more likely to be looking for an exotic sexual experience than a relationship, and the majority are uninterested in that -- not least because being transgender implies a certain discomfort with one's genitals, around which the sex fantasies often orbit. The minority that is interested in being an exotic sex fantasy is highly likely to be swamped by offers and choosy the same way cis women are.

But also, "having a sexual experience" is only one of the many reasons a man might desire the companionship of a woman. "Being seen as a man who has been chosen by a woman" is also a huge factor -- and it's one that the hypothetical about AI girlfriends doesn't take into account.

I don't disagree that some men on the margins are exploring alternative sexual experiences with gay men or trans women or whatever, but this just isn't a big enough segment of the population to have much of an effect on what straight people are doing.

There's also a stat that the "trans" section of PornHub is one of the top categories

Out of how many? Not a gooner, legitimately asking.

There's a little over a hundred straight categories, and transgender usually ends up in the top ten.

I'll caveat that these aren't really good data. There's a serious lumpers-vs-splitters issue where pretty popular-but-conventional stuff gets divided up into sometimes weird subcategories in ways that probably let transgender stuff punch a little above its weight class -- that's probably while creampie, for example, ends up relatively low.

((For those interested: just under fifty gay categories, and ftm usually coasts in around the mid-20s.

For an even-less-scientific number that's not even measuring the same thing, e621's total post count has male/female at 744k, male/male at 568k, female/female at 113k. Compare gynomorph at 216k, gynomorph/female at 37k, gynomorph/male at 24k, andromorph at 27k, andromorph/male at 9k, and andromorph/female at 0.5k. Gynomorph explicitly isn't the same thing as transwoman, and andromorph explicitly isn't the same thing as transman, but they're probably more revelatory about how furries think about woman-with-dick and man-with-pussy.))

If that's true then what's your explanation for the drop in sex, number of sex partners, marriage, dating etc since the advent of highly engaging and digital entertainment and social media?

When exactly do you have in mind?

All the trend lines I was seeing with a casual search start earlier. Here’s one shocked by the decline by 2010.

As with most new technologies, it destabilizes the economy, leading to outsize gains for those who were already in a good position. The dating market bifurcates, with more and more women using the tech to access a shrinking minority of men. Those guys are doing great. They did great in the sexual revolution, and they'll do great any time women are freed to pursue them en masse.

It's also a heyday for women to monetize their sexuality for the majority of men who are priced out of the dating market. Lots of lonely, horny young men to be milked for cash until they figure out AI chatbots are cheaper.

To be clear, most people are still going to pair up, this is all on the margins. But the margins are where movement happens, and the group of marginal sexual partners is growing.

More people are choosing not to go out and do the work. Porn is easy, people are difficult.

Those who do are still getting laid.

More people are choosing not to go out and do the work. Porn is easy, people are difficult.

and

And a man who has the tiniest shot at a real girl who doesn't repulse him will prefer her to a digital waifu.

don't seem compatible.

Yeah, on the margins technology (or at least something) is clearly having an effect. Maybe it's some chemical in food or water. Or one of those classic social science multifactorial explanations with 50 different causes.

The 'true human love will always prevail' rhetoric is just a story trope. Those bars, nightclubs and third spaces are still shutting down, are they not? We can see the statistics.

https://old.reddit.com/r/Infographics/comments/1c742ed/percentage_of_americans_married_by_birth_decade/ We can see the statistics on marriage like you say.

AI pornography is the worst it'll ever be.

I feel like this scenario is exceedingly unlikely, and if it comes to pass, then the women will also be able to enjoy the unlimited attention of caring and attentive (while dark and brooding) AI Husbandos.

Even if that's not the case, there's probably enough residual demand for Legacy 3D Women that they'll find some men to give them attention. Ugly women manage today, somehow.

What happens when women can no longer command attention?

They will do the same thing they've always done in this situation--abuse social power to outlaw alternatives so men's only choice is to give them attention. And then whine that they get too much attention from men.

If all you have to post is a low-effort snarl, put some more thought into it or just keep it to yourself.

Despite teenagers and young adults having less sex than they did thirty years ago, it's still trivially easy for a woman to get a man to fuck her. Apropos of my recent comment where I highlighted a Twitch streamer completing basically every sexual fantasy with over a dozen of partner by her mid-20s, a moderately attractive woman can acquire almost any man in her surrounding social environment for sexual gratification. College is one vehicle for this, as are "dating" apps for those with only a high school degree and such.

Naturally, the sexual revolution has also benefited men, at least strictly in terms of having more women to fuck. After all, more women having sex with multiple partners means men also have more lifetime sexual partners. Men have the added benefit of not being subject to the same degree of social shame for having bedded multiple women.

Okay, if your hypothetical came about -- what do you think they'd do? Don't just put us on the spot like that -- it sounds like you have something to say. Say it!

Add to that a growing visibility of trans women in romantic spaces

Last time I checked, only 3% of heterosexual men report that they would date a trans woman. Maybe that's increasing. But even if we granted that huge numbers of men gained a newfound interest in trans women, it simply isn't the case that trans women will form some great competition for cis women. There aren't many of them (what, like half a percentage point?), and most are not interested in heterosexual men, whether because they perceive heterosexual men aren't interested in them, or because they believe they can't build a relationship with them, or because they prefer women. We're looking at a fraction of a fraction of a percent here.

It's possible that some fraction of bisexual men will start dating men at higher rates (see the "I traded women for femboys" meme), but my understanding is that the situation for male-male pairings is that sex is easy to find, but ghosting and avoidant attachment is even more common than among straight men.

Sometimes straight men like to proclaim, "maybe I will go gay!" like a kind of protest, same way that women annoyed with men sometimes start investigating political lesbianism, but same-sex pairings are just different in important ways due to biological and cultural factors. The grass is rarely greener on the other side. Fantasies aren't going to save you, and trans women aren’t your fantasy. They’d be the first people to tell you that.

Cats.

This happens to most formerly-pretty women past a certain age. The unlucky ones get fat or ugly by their early 20s, those who care more and stay put-together and healthy can “enjoy” (and sometimes, often even, it is enjoy, but rarely always) male attention into their early 40s. The truly valiant crusaders, the 99th percentile, the $100k deep plane facelift aficionados, can make it to 60 as milfs. But age comes for everyone lucky enough to live out a whole life, and most women make do. Some go a little crazy for a while (an overdone and trite topic in women’s literary fiction, especially of late), most don’t.

Some young women will always want male attention, but even if most young men are inside playing VR waifu simulator, my guess is there will still be enough around to offer it.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats