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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.)
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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.
As a recovered simp, I can kind of comment
Dating is an extreme act of delayed gratification. Many men do not really enjoy the act of seducing women, which requires enormous investments in time and effort, and generally putting on at least a little bit of act rather than just being comfy and normal. Many men enjoy the thrill and payoff of a successful seduction but that is different from the act itself.
In irl seggs is good and all but with the latest gooning technology I would argue that hardcore gooning actually gives more seggsual stimulation than the real thing. As a result, the majority of single men do not actually have a lot of pent up sexual desire, because they are able to satisfy most of it with gooning. Incel types are different but their real problem is mental and not directly related to the physical act.
The remaining hole in these single men is therefore almost entirely social and barely physical. That makes them extremely susceptible to parasocial forms of entertainment. For lazy men, there is soooo much parasocial content available at the tip of their fingers. For free, you can listen in realtime to a girl whisper in your ear for hours, play games, talk about various topics, and depending on how popular the influencer is, even humor your messages, also for free. For a trifling amount of money - one dollar or less - you can buy her time to real your name and message, though not necessarily buy a thoughtful response. And of course, the big one, is that depending on the person, you can cheaply buy a certain level of girlfriend experience, either explicitly or unspoken. DMs, good night messages, even voice calls are all on the table. And for small time creators, it would actually be them, not paid chatters like is popular on OF.
For the content creator, it's pretty scalable, as it's relatively easy to simply manage chatting with a bunch of paypigs a few times a week to keep them on the hook. Creating the content to get them interested in the first place is relatively the harder part. For someone who enjoys creating the content, and doesn't mind listening to stinky old men ramble about whatever nonsense, it's actually quite an ideal gig.
For the simp stuck in the trap, it's extremely hard to get out. He already has gooning to satisfy physical needs, and one or several 20s women with perfect voices and decent intellect talking to him and giving him all the internet attention he needs. Even if he did want to go on dates, which he doesn't, he would likely be disappointed and disgusted by the women he meets. And don't forget that he's the one expected to do the seducing, which is something that he egirls don't need. From the logical intellectual perspective, the simp is a loser, only leaving the house to work and otherwise wasting away in his goon cave. But to the simp's reptile brain, he is living the ideal life, with constant seggsual stimulation and female attention.
Uh, how common is gooning really?
Like regular masturbation, sure, real common. But I was under the impression gooning was some technologically driven different thing.
My understanding is that the physical release is generally controlled by physical stimulation, while visual and fictional materials can provide a massive dopamine hit without it. This allows consooomers to easily consume more and more material without experiencing a sudden and messy end to the process.
I don't have any direct evidence but expect that regular users will tend towards longer and longer sessions as a result of Pavlovian conditioning.
My question was about prevalence. Yes, any 14 year old has probably figured out regular masturbation but I thought gooning was something different.
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