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The specialization of [parasocial] romantic/sexual partnership
(More than a shower thought, less than a fully formulated theory.)
While the median person in the US is still in a romantic relationship, singlehood is on the rise, with some claiming a prevalence of 30%.
It is very apparent that the median man and the median woman have quite different ideas about what they seek in a romantic or sexual relationship, with men being more interested in casual sex and women being more interested in long-term relationships.
(
This seems plausible from a kitchen table evo psych point of view: in the ancestral environment, all things being equal, the man who jumped at a chance to have no-strings-attached sex had a greater inclusive genetic fitness than the man who did not. Realistically, quite a lot of the opportunities for no-strings-attached sex in the ancestral environment were probably wartime rapes, but there were likely opportunities for consensual casual sex as well.
For women, it was likely more complicated. There was a selection for pair bonding to secure paternal investment -- because that increased the reproductive chances of the kids. If one had paternal investment, one would have preferred someone had has the status or ability to provide well for ones family.
On the other hand, one also wanted to select for genetic fitness to boost the reproductive chances of one's offspring. For a lot of traits, this coincided with being a good provider: being a great hunter is partly genetic, so there were both immediate and genetic reasons to prefer such a mate. While being the victim of wartime rape was quite bad also from a genetic point of view (zero paternal investment!), having a partner who was genetically inclined to wartime rape was preferable. One also wanted a partner who was winning the Keynesian hotness contest in your society, because that will bode well for the reproductive success of one's sons. If all the other women of the society thought that men with blue eyes were icky, marrying a blue-eyed man was a very bad reproductive strategy!
In short, from kitchen table evo psych, the ideal man was someone who had a lot of sexual success who was also willing to enter a committed long term relationship.
)
In my world-model, the median single woman going on a successful tinder date is going to meet a man who is great at getting tinder dates and convince them to have sex with him. This is a highly specialized skill. Women pass 95% of the suggestions. Together with a 2:1 gender imbalance towards men, this means that the average man who gets a match probably had to outcompete 30-40 other men to get there. However, being found hot by one woman is strongly correlated with being found hot by another woman. Of course, part of being found "hot" here is "being willing to breadcrumb women into thinking that there is a long term potential".
There are probably men who are moderately successful at dating which use apps for a while, find true love in their fifth match and live happily ever after, but those are also unlikely to stay on the apps (and if they are, will likely state outright that they are in a happy primary relationship, which will likely lower their appeal significantly).
While most of the men using online dating are trying to get laid with little success, I think that for the few men who are able and willing to sacrifice time, money, and ethics to get really good at tinder (or the offline equivalent: being a PUA), stringing along three or four women seems achievable.
While the link in the last paragraph bemoans the fate of these women, I think that it is fair to say that their revealed preference is to pay with sex for the illusion that a hot promiscuous guy is going to go exclusive (or primary) with them any day now. There is a difference between being the hottest unconquered available woman within driving distance on some cloudy Wednesday and being the woman who will make him forget about all other women, forever, though. Relatedly, if a real Nigerian royal had trouble getting money out of the country, chances are they would contact specialized firms on the Cayman Islands, not random owners of email addresses. (That does not change the fact that scamming or lying to get laid is evil, though.)
(Of course, this is not only an online thing. For most offline social situations, the workplace rules are more or less in effect. You have to know what your relative status and SMV is and what you can get away with. Also, flirting is all about deniability and avoiding establishment of common knowledge. I would argue that the possibility to commit a social faux-pas is intentional, being willing to do something which would be transgressive if you had read the signs wrong is a costly signal to send and generally appreciated if you are right. In the real world (at least outside Aella's RMN parties), people do not wear wristbands indicating what they are comfortable with, so engaging with women is left to those men who either are good at reading the cues or who do not care if they come across as sex pests to any women who are uninterested. Dark triad and all that. For spectrum-dwellers like myself, the main advantage of online dating is that women there can be safely (if mostly futilely) approached: as long as you do not use crass sexual language or send unsolicited dick picks, you will be considered background noise, not a sex pest.)
--
On the flip side, catering to the sexual and romantic needs of single men is also a trade which greatly benefits from specialization. Para-social relationships allow for economics of scale far beyond what the fuckbois can achieve. With straightforward porn, there is little malicious deception going on (stepsibling status aside), but I think that there is a niche of softer content (e.g. without guy participation) where romantic attachment from the audience is actively encouraged, and the relevant persona's foster an air of singleness despite being in a happy relationship or married.
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This symmetry is not perfect, of course. The fuckbois are motivated by their sex drive or some obsession, while the women selling sex to men online are mostly motivated by cash.
Given that this is the CW thread, I should probably show some links to the culture war.
Its probably fair to say that the bottom 50% of men, in terms of attractiveness, are functionally invisible to the average woman.
Which is to say, they don't actually count those men in their own personal calculation of what "men" are like. If you tell these women that a huge portion of men are actually not able to get matches on tinder, or can't successfully approach women, and thus are unable to find a relationship despite honest best efforts, these women will simply disbelieve you. Availability Heuristic and all that.
So from their perspective, the men that they notice and pursue, i.e. the ones that actually 'exist' for them, are doing just fine. In fact they're doing TOO well, its not fair that he can just pump and dump her because she's one of 5 or 6 others he has on tap!
I'd say that most of the intersex animosity is because women see the top, call it 20% of men as "men" and the bottom 50% as nonentities that don't enter their thought processes at all. And then there's that awkward 30% of men who are in a superposition of 'man' and 'not man' unless and until a woman decides to pay them attention.
If they only compare themselves to the upper 20% of guys, and ignore the bottom 50%, then mentally yeah it feels like SHE is the disadvantaged one in this situation. They can ignore things like the male suicide rate, the fact that most of the crappiest jobs are male-dominated, and that men are generally disfavored by the law because they only see the top 20% of dudes, who ARE in fact doing really well, and assume that's representative. And boom, there's your patriarchy.
Meanwhile, the other 80% of men are painfully aware of their own status, and are finding that every woman they attempt to approach is in fact pursuing those top 20% of guys, and, as noted, is un-self-aware of this factor, and disregards the experience of the vast majority of men when judging them.
So women are mad at 'men' because the only men they care about are rejecting them in the end, refusing commitment but taking sex.
Men are mad at 'women' because when women get mad at those top men, they put ALL men on blast, and that catches a lot of guys in the crossfire who have not done a damn thing to deserve it. They're being treated like villains ON TOP of being rejected by women en masse because those top men are gleefully exploiting their position, and women are incapable of regulating their own marketplace so are getting increasingly distressed and lashing out.
And uh, it looks like said men are getting very, very fed up with this.
And no, this is NOT explained solely by manosphere influencers. Even men who are successfully dating seem to believe less in gender equality. Because those top 20% of guys probably have come to understand women from the other side.
One possible solution I've been considering recently is forcibly marrying and then if that doesn't work, castrating these men. Of course I would like women to shape up too, but that seems like a tall ask.
The thing is, the top 20% of these men that don't get married are frankly throwing a lot of their life and use to society out the window by continuing to live the lifestyle of a Lothario. Not only does stringing 2-4 women a long at a time embitter those women and make it more difficult for them to stably pair bond, the sheer amount of time that it takes to juggle these relationships impacts your ability to do work, have friends, take care of yourself, and generally contribute to society. These men are also ruining their own ability to pair bond by engaging in this lifestyle. Consider two examples. One of my current roommates, let's call him James, has lived like a Lothario almost the entire time I've known him. Long term "girlfriend" back in California who he constantly cheats on with a rotation of 2-3 women here in Baltimore. Some of my resentment towards him is certainly jealousy (he has recently been fucking a girl I went on a date with and mildly liked), but it's hard not to see how this behavior is ruining his life. When I first met this guy he was deeply interested in history and biology and in pretty good shape. Now he doesn't do anything except scroll on instagram, watch retarded kids TV shows, and have sex with these women. He also recently got his PhD, but with ZERO publications, despite being in a computational biology lab where the expectation is 3-4 papers by graduation. This guy is smart and should be contributing to society, but instead is mooching off the NIH tit and ruining women. The other example is my friend Saul, who used to live this kind of lifestyle, until he started dating this girl Deborah. They got married last year, and since then his efforts around the house, at work, with friends, and with his art projects have skyrocketed because all that time he was spending at bars and on tinder is now going into his actual life.
I’ve been inwardly giggling at you and @faceh’s recent comments matter-of-factly talking about castrating or even executing “Lothario” men.
Like the state of affairs is so bleak, the cultural inertia too powerful to reverse, that such a practice is more realistic and further within the Overton window than marginally but directly limiting or inconveniencing the FUN or freedom of young women in some way to increase the protections afforded them.
lmao, epic roommate-mogging.
Do you have to listen to her moaning when he’s taking her to poundtown in your apartment? If I had a roommate, I’d be looking into lease-breaking options before subjecting myself to potentially seeing a crush, even a mild one, walk into a roommate’s room—much less listening to her moaning when it’s her turn out of his soft harem to get railed, at which point the recently discussed option of assisted suicide would rise in temptation.
Maybe he could kindly grab a PoV cellphone sex tape with her for you. It might break her spell on you, cure your crush on her, for you to see her Wonderfulness get defiled. On the other hand, it could also skyrocket your seethe and jealousy.
Well, he’s laying pipe left and right, so it sounds like he’s still in decent enough shape. The market speaks. What better judge of shape than what’s deemed sufficient by various young women to dick them down?
That’s disgusting: scrolling on Instagram, watching TV shows, and having sex with various women. How does he meet these women and how does he seduce them? Just so I know how to avoid such a lifestyle.
“What do you call someone who gets his PhD with zero publications?”
“Doctor.”
If he’s not intending to go into academia or pursue one of the rare industry jobs that cares about such a thing, publication grinding is a poor use of time. If he indeed is intending to do so, the only real victim of his lack of publication record would be himself.
If he’s “mooching” off the NIH, to the extent this is an injustice, the fault primarily lies with his PI and/or dissertation committee for letting him coast his way to a PhD. Otherwise, I disagree he has some unilateral duty to Contribute to society based on some nebulous Social Contract, a duty rarely demanded of women or non-Asian minorities.
Expecting him to labcuck and publication grind Just Because instead of chilling out and slinging dick would sound like Calvin’s dad and “misery breeds character” to me.
You should invite James here. Would be entertaining to hear things from the perspective of jdizzler’s rizzler roommate.
ETA:
I was mentally formulating a response to @mrvanillasky's reply along these lines with a tag to @thejdizzler, but given @FCfromSSC's reply this is combined with the follow-up to that too.
I did not intend to insult nor antagonize @thejdizzler with the portion @FCfromSSC quoted, nor any of my original comment. The opposite, actually: I was expressing to @thejdizzler the sense of horror and hilarity I got from the situation like I would have if a close real-life, similarly-aged male friend recounted me such a tale. Perhaps I was in an overly jovial mood from the comments about castrating/executing "Lothario" men,* for the reason described in "like the state of affairs is so bleak..." But then again, one's crush signing up to be on a Lothario roommate's roster of fucktoys—what is this, if not a plotline out of some dark comedy?
I was not trying to "teach a lesson", nor was I (on the other side of the coin) trying to provide @thejdizzler guidance, gentle or otherwise. As at least for the immediate situation at hand, I didn't have anything in mind to be taught or guided beyond the generic "just live solo," which is a common generic suggestion of mine, especially to young men having anything less than a blast of a time living with (a) roommate(s). Or "just don't have crushes on chicks who are potential soft harem members for other guys," which might not be all-too-actionable advice.
Conditional on having-Lothario-roommate-casually-piping-down-your-crush, @thejdizzler's tolerating the situation with better chillness than I likely would, hence my partially joking comment that such a scenario would make me feel more tempted by assisted suicide on the margin.
* If I wanted to object to such proposals I would have (time/energy permitting), but I didn't—the proposal(s) of castrating/executing "Lotharios" strikes me as mostly amusing and fanciful. The thing I did want to provide a friendly objection for was something more grounded, the notion of a unilateral duty to "contribut[e] to society," and/or an obligation to for some reason having to go above and beyond in completing one's PhD (or any degree, for that matter). This was unrelated to the section @FCfromSSC quoted.
Compare and contrast:
My assessment is that you are intentionally aiming to be as inflammatory as possible to another commenter with the above, perhaps in an attempt to "teach a lesson" to someone you disagree with. Your post appears to me to be well outside the sort of discussion we aim to foster here.
Your record is four warnings and three AAQCs, and no warnings this year and the last two notes being AAQCs. If this were the usual line-toeing, you would get a warning, but as it stands you are getting a three-day ban. Your record shows that you have a fairly good understanding of where the line is, so I am not buying the scenario where the above is anything other than a willful choice. If you decide to make a habit of this sort of comment, you can expect further bans to escalate rapidly.
??? I think it's because Sloot didn't want to be castrated, or be 'erased from the gene pool' for the crime of not living up to his full potential or fucking girls @thejdizzler pines for. Which aside from being petty and mean is quite a hardline policy, let's face it.
If Sloot or anyone else wishes to object to the policy of castrating or killing "Lotharios", they are as free to make their case as those in favor. I think the ludicrous nature of such a policy is sufficiently evident that arguing against it is a waste of my time; others who judge differently are free to discuss as they will. We allow people to make foolish and even insane arguments here, because we are not interested in accepting responsibility for policing which ideas/positions/ideologies are good and which are not.
What we do not allow is commenters using their posts to directly attack each other, or wind each other up. It seems obvious to me that this is what @Sloot did, and doing so is a violation of several rules here.
It's also worth pointing out that the interpretation of the rules that I am applying here is the reason @Sloot has not himself been banned up to this point. He routinely makes comments that could be described as "petty" and "mean", as well as "advocating hardline policies". He usually does so from behind a level of abstraction similar to that employed by @thejdizzler above, which helps a great deal to keep him on the right side of the line.
It sounded to me like you thought sloot's inflammatory tone came out of nowhere. But it was the equivalent of an inflammatory response by a woman to a 'misogynistic' policy someone here might propose.
Sloot talks like this all the time. If he felt particularly threatened or incensed by the castration comment, it did not show.
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I recognize that it's a pretty hardline policy. I'm throwing it out as a potential solution to the Lothario problem because every other solution other than "bootstraps" I see as equally outlandish in today's political climate.
I really shouldn't have stated that I was interested in the girl at all, or done any introspection and admitted I was slightly jealous of the guy. Like at @faceh has stated before, even trying to discuss this gets you labeled as an incel.
Yes, violent fantasies of what you're going to do to Chad and Stacy is standard incel fare. I don't see it as serious discussion of policy.
If it was, I'd say morally it's an evil policy - you need far more, and more tangible evidence of harm, to harm others. Practically, it would require the incels to win against the chads on the battlefield when they couldn't on the football field.
The Incels don't need to win against all Chads or even most Chads. The problem is not Chad, it's Lothario. Look, I've said it a billion times on this thread and others, my problem is not with guys who can lock down hotter girls than me (although I would be lying if I said I wasn't jealous). It's with guys who churn through tens or hundreds of girls by lying about their intentions, making those girls slightly less dateable for a healthy Chad, and with standards that make relatively normal dudes invisible. In this case forced marriage, followed by castration when there's adultery, doesn't actually seem that far outside of the historical wheelhouse as a way to rein these guys in.
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Yup.
Its not so much a complaint that the playing field isn't level or fair, "Wahhhh Mommm they aren't sharing the pussy, make them share!"
Its objecting to playing the game this way at all because its making everything worse for everyone involved. Either crack down on the people who are making it suck so much... or make everyone play a different, friendlier, more fun game.
But both complaints read like you're sexually unsuccessful and crying for someone to give you a boost, to the uninformed observer.
If both men and women are allowed to lie, misrepresent their intentions, back out of their agreements, and undercut each other, in other words, to defect without penalty, this is where the game spirals to. And there is no obvious bottom.
Coordination to improve things is fuckin' hard, but it requires people to admit the problems that exist and to being impacted by them. And we can't even get to THAT step without people dogpiling on the ones who admit weakness.
And when the people most capable of effecting and coordinating change are also one of the few ones who benefit from the status quo (high value, somewhat sociopathic dudes), its even harder to shift. They don't see a need to adjust things.
Don't have anything more to add, but just wanted to say that I really appreciate your voice on these topics. You're one of the few posters who actually seems to take suggestions in this sphere seriously, rather than trying to question the psychology or underlying deeper motives of the poster in question. And maybe these are my insecurities talking, but this kind of thing drives me absolutely up the wall. Like yes, I am sure there is a little bit of jealousy involved in my reaction to Lotharios in real life, and my life could be improved by following the PUA handbook a little more, and not caring what women think a little bit more. Yet I fail to see how this reflects on the deeper problems that you and I both are pointing out.
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