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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   24725 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 29, 2025

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Just to make a general observation about the gender war as a followup to my comment on the Promise Keepers organization:

I think we can generally observe is that women’s main complaint about men is that desirable hetero men are unwilling to exclusively commit. If we accept this, we can also see that this is actually two complaints rolled into one. 1. The men that are willing to commit are undesirable (icky, clingy, lame, “chopped”, entitled, toxic, porn-addled, skinny fat etc.). 2. The men that are desirable are unwilling to commit. (On a tangent I’d argue that most of the lipstick feminist complaints made in the mainstream media by middle-class women about men in general do usually boil down to the rather similar complaint that 34-37-year-old successful, well-paid, charismatic, tall, ambitious etc. urban men are in no rush to marry 31-34-year-old college-educated middle-class office worker women.)

If we look at this logically, to the extent that it even makes sense to try doing so (which is a valid question in itself), there are two potential remedies for this problem. 1. Focus on the undesirable men that are willing to commit and somehow transform them into desirable men i.e. alphaize the betas 2. Focus on the desirable men and incentivize them to commit i.e. betaize the alphas.

Now I don’t know about you but to me it seems self-evident that #2 has more potential for success no matter how you look at it and yet virtually everyone who makes any sort of recommendations regarding this entire issue (and that does not only include Red Pillers) is promoting #1. No, really – I’ve never seen anyone advocate for #2, not even the Promise Keepers or, for that matter, any other similar group that does not claim to be feminist and is at the same time pushing the nebulous concept of a new positive masculinity.

Am I seeing things that are not there or is this really not the case? Because as far as I can tell, it is. It seems like there is a general unspoken consensus in society that trying to compel sexually successful men to commit to women is a completely impossible, pie-in-the-sky idea that deserves no attention at all; that, in other words, expecting modern women to elicit commitment from the men they are attracted to is laughable lunacy.

alphaize the betas vs. betaize the alphas

C.S. Lewis addresses a similar dilemma in The Necessity of Chivalry:

The medieval ideal brought together two things which have no natural tendency to gravitate towards one another. It brought them together for that very reason. It taught humility and forbearance to the great warrior because everyone knew by experience how much he usually needed that lesson. It demanded valour of the urbane and modest man because everyone knew that he was as likely as not to be a milksop.

What, then, is the ideal that can bring both types of incomplete men together?

Many of the problems with modern dating aren’t specific to dating, they’re common to every type of social relations.

The loneliness epidemic is getting worse and worse and if a huge chunk of modern men can barely make a single real life friend, what are the odds they can find a girlfriend?

None of the gender war arguments explain why same-sex friendships are more difficult nowadays. But all the reasons that explain the loneliness crisis - social media addiction, an increasingly individualistic culture thanks to technology, the breakdown of communal third spaces, the fact that everyone is moving away instead of staying in the same town all their life, etc. all explain why people could be struggling to find a romantic partner.

Or a very simple explanation: the poorer, the less technologically advanced you are, the more socialising becomes a necessity. If you’re in a poor rural village, you need to socialise with your neighbours because they’re the ones that will help you if you get sick, fall on hard times, or just need an extra hand to help around the house/the farm. You need to get married and have children, not only because of social pressure but because family is both a safety net and a labour pool.

The loneliness crisis didn’t happen overnight. As we got more technologically advanced, we needed to rely less and less on other people for survival and even entertainment. People bring up how people in the past complained about every technological invention ruining the fabric of society as an argument on how social media/smartphones/AI isn’t that bad, but the past complaints were essentially right.

Books made it so you could stay home and be entertained without talking to anyone, although you had to be literate and still go out to the shop to buy them. Daily newspapers meant you didn’t have to get your gossip around the dinner table or at the pub. Television meant you didn’t have to leave the house to see a movie or a show. Smartphones let you have all of the above, and let you talk anywhere with anyone at anytime on your own schedule, replacing frequent in person hangouts where you could actually bond, with group chats and shallower, asynchronous text conversations.

AI is taking it a step further and making it even worse. Do you really think that the vast majority of people, who are now currently addicted to social media and scrolling TikTok all day instead of going out to make friends and romantic connections, will somehow be able to resist the slurry of AI generated content tailored precisely to engage them? LLMs designed to be the perfect conversation partner, the perfect friend, the perfect girlfriend or boyfriend, accessible 24/7 as a gorgeous realistic avatar that fulfils all your fantasies?

Great post!

Maybe we'll have to go back to formal dances or something instead of dating apps at some point. It doesn't seem to be working out. Especially, most men don't look very good in photographs. Women like the way men flirt or smell or pursue physical activities or talk as much as how they look in photos.

It does seem like some otherwise perfectly nice and friendly women I've known have broken up with men after what seems to me like a long period of time, perhaps a year, for reasons that seem very petty. It's not socially appropriate to say to the woman: is that really what happened? That sounds very petty. It seems like an error, I suppose in the future their bloodlines will die out, and be replaced whether through culture or nature with people who descended from less petty women, but that is of course no consolation in the moment for the men they broke up with.

Absolutely seeing this trend. It's happened to me and many of my male friends and acquaintances. Best friend's wife of 15 years left out of the blue, zero reasons given aside from a comment of "you're too negative". Another friend's wife decided she was a lesbian, having been married to a him for 10+ years. I was engaged to be married and the woman decided she wasn't attracted to me, after being together for years.

Fundamentally, I think there is a "Netflix" mindset going on. Like how you turn on Netflix, scroll through the shows and maybe something catches your eye for a minute so you watch the intro. But then the actors or soundtrack kind of annoys you or whatever, so you just go back to scrolling for another show. This has permeated the culture. We are all about quick dopamine reward. Our media consumption is short form, endlessly scrolling, outrageous by necessity. Women feel this in particular as massive consumers of social media, and they are also fed vastly different content on these platforms than men. They're validated endlessly and gassed up. They are told, and they know, they can get a man at any moment, and so they seek the neurochemical hit and then discard quickly as soon as it becomes real, in search of the next hit.

It's fundamentally broken. I'm a 36 year old man, have been in several long term relationships, most recent one ended a while back after she became physically abusive to me. I started dating earlier this year and it's been disgusting. I used to want a wife and a family but I have given up on that dream.

I was engaged to be married and the woman decided she wasn't attracted to me, after being together for years.

Therein lies the paradox of commitment.

By committing, a man is signaling that she is the best that he can do, in which case she may be subconsciously wondering if she can do better. This is especially pertinent now more than ever, when she can easily get attention from better looking or (perceived to be) higher status men on social media and/or OLD—if she doesn't already have such men giving her likes on social media and sliding into her DMs.

When she perceives that she's his only option, she may start to lose attraction for him and start getting the ick. In contrast—prior to commitment—there are tailwinds from female mate-choice copying in tingle induction, when he's still seeing other women or she's under the impression that he might be. As one chick put it, "im glad he doesn’t have hoes but why does he not have hoes??? am i fighting for a spot no one wants??!!"

I used to want a wife and a family but I have given up on that dream.

You can have a family without a wife, even without spraying and praying. Egg donor + surrogacy costs only a few tens of thousands to a couple hundred thousand USD, depending on your location and your willingness to use a foreign surrogate. If you're white-collar-coded, people might seethe at you for cheating at life by having a child or children without getting gatekept by the step of marrying a woman, but haters gonna hate.

I am skeptical about the thought of raising a child without a mother in the home.

In the past, dating seems to have been less serious, as well. You could go out on several dates a week with different people, so long as you weren't supposed to be exclusive/serious with one person. A date might just be a one-off thing with no expectation that it would develop into something more. And of course, the expectations around sex (on the first date? wait till the third date?) were completely different. You might take a woman out, buy her dinner, and hope that would lead to more than "goodnight, Horace" on the doorstep, but if it didn't... she was behaving just fine by the standards of the time.

Now dating seems to be a cross between a job interview and a judgement of your entire life. If you don't get another date after this one, you've wasted your time. If she doesn't put out, she's wasted your time and money. If she doesn't answer your messages on the dating app... if you haven't the right profile and the right photo... if you can't get a date on an app you'll never get one anywhere else... you're a failure, women are too picky, women are to blame, men are to blame, something is wrong and someone has to be held accountable.

It really seems impossible.

I'd argue that dating used to be less serious precisely because it didn't entail the possibility of premarital sex, at least not with society's sanction.

Well, the first thought I have is that the general premise of men either being “alphas” or “betas” looks flawed. 80/20 is a myth (summary: 20% of both men and women are promiscuous), and most people only have sex in long term commitments, and no, most women aren’t promiscuous with relative few men in their 20s before settling down in their 30s.

So, if alpha/beta doesn’t exist, why are these women alone in their 30s:

  • Some women are so damaged, they are emotionally unable to commit. Some can have sex only if emotional intimacy is not part of the package; others are both sexually and emotionally “anorectic”.

  • Likewise, some women can only get attracted to unavailable men because they feel they are not worthy of being loved.

The reason women are attracted to these supposed “alpha” men is not because those guys are taller or cuter than other guys, but precisely because those men are not available.

So the solution is not to fix men, but to fix women so they can get attracted to men who are actually available. And, likewise, fix men so they can get attracted to women who are available.

I think people are ignorant of how widespread insecure childhood attachment is. It wreaks havoc on the individuel's ability to form healthy relationships as an adult. At least 1/3 of the population in any country have insecure attachment styles. It's highly inheritable. You are 80% likely to have the same attachment style (coping mode) that your grandmother had when she was a child.

fix men so they can get attracted to women who are available.

I think Ozempic's gonna do a lot for this, honestly. I'm now married but went through the dating app hunger games just after COVID and I feel like a huge chunk of the market was disqualified for me via obesity. If a decent chunk of those get on the GLPs + social pressure to be thin builds back up again I think that could do a ton for the bottom end of the dating market.

I do agree that there's quite a small population of genuinely promiscuous women, though. In my experience with friends and acquaintances who I'd consider 'good sensible women' most of their dating app experiences tend to be 'Make an account for a week or two every 6 months, then either overshoot their tier and quit since that doesn't go anywhere or have one or two meh dates and wander off'.

Also in my experience a lot of people aren't getting meaningful first relationships in highschool/university for whatever reasons, then go to dating apps for essentially their first kiss/partner/whatever and have no idea how to escalate. I saw a lot of preppy 25-35 year old women with zero dating history trying to conduct the whole thing in HR Mode since they had no other framework for processing anything.

People who “passport bro” (date in other countries) can give us a pretty good picture of what dating looks like. As one datapoint, when the obesity rate is 12% (Philippines) instead of 41% (US), it’s a lot easier to find a wife.

As a general rule, when the obesity rate is 20% or lower (Peru in the 2010s, Kenya now, etc.) dating gets a lot easier.

It seems relevant to note that an American man who isn't top of the market, income height etc wise in the Philippines is, uh, probably not able to travel to the Philippines. I don't think 'mail order brides' tell us anything because the bargain is pretty simple- she gets a much higher standard of living with a husband who's less likely to be a violent drunk and her children live in a much wealthier society, he gets a wife. That's not a deal that the domestic dating market will likely have.

A lot of good points under this post, with many of which I agree. But there's something I haven't seen mentioned. Average screen time for Gen Z and Millennials is 7 to 9 hours a day (half of that being at work and other half recreational). After 8 hours of sleep, 8 hours of work, 3 hours of grooming/shitting/pissing/cooking, 1 hour of commute, an average young person has 4 hours of free time per day. I have absolutely no doubt most of that free time is going towards scrolling Tiktok, Instagram or Twitter. As a man, if you're not lucky enough to have some women in your workplace that are your age and single (good luck taking the risk to rizz them up), have a group of friends that's not just made up of other men, or have hobbies that aren't meatfests, you're done for. Even if you're good looking enough (unlikely), meeting women through dating apps is pretty much a second job, for which you don't have free time for because you're scrolling tiktok. And everywhere else in your life, you just don't have an opportunity to mingle with single women. And even if you're lucky enough to have women around you can hit on - that requires effort and time, will you sacrifice your precious screen time for it? Even if you do, the ball is now in woman's court and women spend 1 extra hour scrolling their favorite choice of social media on average.

I have a theory that collapsing social norms play a big part in this- in the eighties and nineties single people were expected to go out dancing(etc) even if it wasn't their cup of tea. Nowadays only the very extroverted/promiscuous/partying do this. And, well, 'not a huge partier' is a legitimate preference to have(which most people share for their long term partners, on both sides of the gender divide). It's a whole thing where evaporative cooling of the normal modes of social interaction make those modes of social interaction less appealing for normies.

I've seen guys on twitter lament that the only women at bars, dance halls, etc are 'washed up party sluts' or whatever, with boomers wondering why guys think this way all of a sudden. And I have a sneaking suspicion that shy second grade teachers in the eighties were a lot more likely to go out dancing anyways than they are now- do you think they liked the club much back then? It's loud and it's after their bedtime and there really are a bunch of sleazy guys out to get them there. Phones and occasional hinge profiles are so much safer, even if they don't work.

While I agree that there may be some positive feedback loops that killed off the appeal of some types of social interactions, I think it's mostly just an excuse for many to continue scrolling. There's other social activities outside of hitting the club or bars that are also cooling off. I believe every possible activity is in competition with scrolling tiktok. The guys on twitter crying about party sluts in the club are just using it as an excuse to why they are not out there getting easy (according to them) women every weekend and are sitting refreshing their feed with 8 hour screen time on a weekend instead. Probably the first time in history when men are complaining about legions of easy women. What's easier? Dress up, get a fresh cut, allocate some cash, get at least one friend to do the same (nobody is going to the club alone) on a weekend or just stay in and scroll your favorite source of dopamine instead? I think it's really that simple. I'm guessing we would be back to early 2000s state of things within a year if our phones just poofed one day. Back to what I said in my original post, 7 to 9 hours of screen time daily, with half of it being off work is truly insane and we all kind of just accept it. As on old zoomer, 4 hours of screen time was my allowance with my xbox 360 on a weekend after a week of good grades. Now everyone, from young to old, has this as their daily baseline. Even Elon Musk, the richest person in the world, is glued to his twitter feed while running 67 companies at the same time. He is able to remain functional (even that is debatable) because of his naturally high agency and a curated cocktail of medications and supplements. An average person doesn't have either. On the bright side, natural selection will probably do its thing pretty quickly and humanity will be back to normal after a generation or two because everyone else will die off glued to their screen and talking to their AI caretaker

You're also more likely to meet someone that's part of your community at the local dance. You're there with your friends, he's there with his friends, there may be some mutual acquaintances, someone you know and trust may be able to vouch for his character, etc. It's a much safer way to date for a woman.

A lot of the complaints about women having unrealistic standards seems to come from dating apps, and I feel like it may partially be a form of risk mitigation. When you know nothing else about a man, you start looking for higher standards for what you can find out about him, to compensate for unknowns. A man that makes 6 figures and spends 20% of it frivolously has a better chance of providing for his family than a man that makes 50k a year and does the same thing.

Also dating apps make it way easier to just close something down off a small speedbump and move onto the next potential. There's no anchoring from overlapping social circles and a chance you'll keep bumping back into somebody.

I do feel the rise of dating apps makes it a lot more possible for women to reach above their assortative mating tier for 'casual dating' and then completely break their internal sense of what's actually achievable/practical. I've got a few female friends and acquaintances who are holding out for a hot doctor as husband material or whatever since they've occasionally been able to have casual sex with one.

The biggest problem wasn't apps, though they are an inevitable result probably.

The biggest problem was the migration of most romantic and flirtatious interaction to text based typed formats, which are inherently scalable.

I can only take one girl for a drink on a date Friday night, or rock climbing Saturday afternoon, or wake up in bed with her on Sunday.

I can text seven girls "us" under a picture of two cats snuggling, a thirst trap of me rock climbing, a quirky story about the coffee shop I found, a picture of a funny passage from the book I'm reading, a joke I heard, and a picture of me laying artfully nude in bed Sunday morning. And they'll all be reasonably satisfied, or at least too satisfied with that level of intimacy to feel a real need to settle for lower quality elsewhere.

Digital affection scales in ways that physical affection cannot. I can only have sex with one woman with one erection, I can sext seven women with the same erection.

Most women would prefer real sex with a real man who is really theirs, but they're never going to feel needy enough to go get it.

This and the way the quantification of criteria became memetic. Most women do generally prefer a man taller than they are. But as most women aren’t 5’10” or 6’0”, the arbitrary thresholds of 6’0” or 6’2” work against them in finding a fulfilling love life. In person courtship is better suited to producing happy relationships, as the metrics used are less needlessly-precise.

I frequently tell femcel friends that statistically the man you're going to end up with is a few inches shorter and a few shades browner than your ideal.

On a tangent I’d argue that most of the lipstick feminist complaints made in the mainstream media by middle-class women about men in general do usually boil down to the rather similar complaint that 34-37-year-old successful, well-paid, charismatic, tall, ambitious etc. urban men are in no rush to marry 31-34-year-old college-educated middle-class office worker women.

One point that bears noting is that this is a particular subset of women — if you’re hearing from them they are likely college educated — that are running out of time and are rather noisy about it. Three out of every five men in their 30s with college degrees are married.

My wife and I and our social circle are college educated, in shape, economically secure, and living in a large metro area (and not in the burbs of it). Assortative mating still has major pull. And, I and my wife are now in those respective age ranges you mentioned.

Our mid-to-late twenties were full of our peers’ weddings. So much so, that as custom now dictates bridesmaids buy whatever dress is chosen for them and women spend more on bachelorette activities than men do for bachelor parties, toward the end of that roughly five-to-six year run of constant weddings (we had to split up one weekend to attend different out of town nuptials), my wife’s response to receiving a save-the-date was mixed, to put it politely.

My wife has one chaotic mess of a friend who is unmarried, and, she missed the boat. Wedding season is over. All her/our friends have spouses and careers. Most of them have children. And, our social circle hardly includes any singles.

In the top-two-quintiles-of-income assortative mating market she’s shopping in, it’s not that a majority of guys in their late thirties are looking for twenty-somethings. It’s that a significant majority of those college educated late-30s guys are already married. The music has all but stopped and most of the chairs are taken.

Good post. It does a good job of clearly stating the problem of R/K selection theory in the context of human beings.

The vast majority of human history is a bunch of elite men getting lots and lots of women pregnant. The problem with this is that once you hit the agrarian revolution, let alone the industrial, the necessities of society at a scale beyond the village means you have to find some sort of social institution to prevent a lot of intra-male mate competition.

Enter marriage.

Marriage is a miracle. It's institution (which is close to a human universal, btw, in any society that's progressed past hunting-gathering) creates a way for males to pacify their natural urge to kill other males as means to guarantee mate access, and also creates a basic economic and social building block. Throw on top of it property and inheritance rights, and you've got yourself the beginnings of something durable.

When the institution of marriage breaks down, you can see what follows. It isn't anything new, it is a de-evolution to our chaotic ancestors' way of mate selection. Does this kind of sound like the modern dating market? Lack of commitment, multiple partners in parallel, "infidelity" beginning to lose all meaning and significance, "situationships" being strategic ambiguity by both men and women to hedge their bets.

I'll dig it up later (if I remember) but I was listening to a podcast where the guest had a great line. Marriage, specifically the wedding, isn't about a public commitment of love to the other person, it's about publicly signaling that both of you are off the market and that you'll abide by all of the laws and norms around marriage - and so should other people! There's no ambiguity. If you sleep with a married man or woman, you're a homewrecker. You should know this because of the publicly displayed wedding band that is visible at all times (and also, you know, that other person should tell you they're married).

But marriage, at least in the west, is utterly meaningless - doubly so for any sort of real legal or social consequences for failing to live up to its requirements. Cheated on your wife? No big deal, there's couples counseling. Or you can just get a divorce. You've been divorced? Who hasn't! It's so easy to do now that you don't even need a reason other than "I guess I just don't like him/her anymore."

And we haven't even got to the wildly out of balance reality of the legal system. If I'm a 34-37 year old male, tall, in good shape, earning a high income, getting married is such a high risk that many lawyers specifically recommend against it. The only exception being a prenuptual agreement that is so stacked against the wife that it becomes quite foolish for her to get married because she'll be in a kind of economic concubinage.

As many others have said, the way to fix this issue - to the extent that it is possible - is through recultivating social esteem. Marriage should be a capital-B Big Deal and should be reserved, frankly, for worthwhile men selected by women with honor and virtue. I'm not going to get all "virgins only" here, but when a retired pornstar marrying some guy isn't scene as laughably retarded, we've got a problem. Marriage should be seen as a goal for the ambitious young man in the same way that starting your own business is - not for the feint of hard, full of needs for sacrifice and hard work, but, ultimately, a quite noteworthy achievement.

Adultery should be a crime. I'd not recommend locking people up for it, but it should be a misdemeanor that is publicly searchable. There has to be real consequences for promiscuity that violets a marriage contract. If you want to sleep around with other unmarried folks, that's fine.

Finally, I don't see how you can re-invigorate marriage in a wholly secular worldview. An important mental shift is in seeing "husband" and "wife" as a distinct and special human role. What are the specific and unique duties a man has to a woman and vice-versa in a marriage. How does one's behavior necessarily change? If these questions aren't answered thoroughly, you devolve to the modern secular marriage; roommates who occasionally sleep together and file taxes together.

To comment on your framing of "alphatize the betas" vs "betatise the alphas" -- the answer can only be to alphatize the betas through a series of verifiable and impossible-to-cheat milestones in life. This traces back to ceremonies and traditions around the journey to manhood. In human history, a woman wouldn't marry a man who couldn't provide food and shelter for her and their likely offspring. Today, marrying an unemployed man or a man with shaky employment stability should be a not starter. Physical fitness matters - fattys need not apply. I think the biggest missing piece is social and community esteem. If a man has literally no friends or has no meaningful community network, he is not marriageable - even if making millions of dollars!

But again, even with the rubric I've just laid out, it doesn't matter unless marriage matters.

The vast majority of human history is a bunch of elite men getting lots and lots of women pregnant

This is an oft quoted meme, but I’ve researched this and the evidence is questionable.

Let me give just one example: It’s well “known” on social media that, historically, two women have reproduced for every man that has reproduced. However, the evidence for this is tenuous. It comes from Imran Khan quoting John Tierney mis-quoting Baumeister mis-quoting Wilder et al, a study which said no such thing. The actual number is that 1.4 women reproduced for ever man in African tribes, 1.3 in Europe, and 1.1 in East Asia.

Other evidence shows that polygyny does not look to be normal human behavior.

There exists the concept of a Covenant Marriage which doesn't seem to have gotten much uptake.

From "The Right to Marry" by Sister Y:

A few states - Lousiana, Arizona, and Arkansas - allow what is called "covenant marriage," marriage that may only be dissolved on fault grounds. However, couples may not even use covenant marriage to credibly promise lifetime partnership, because either partner may simply relocate to a non-covenant-marriage state and initiate no-fault divorce proceedings there.

We got married in a fever, hotter than a pepper sprout We’ve been talkin’ ’bout Jackson, ever since the fire went out

Ironically that was a common tactic back when most marriages could only be dissolved for fault. You’d move to a state with no-fault divorce long enough to establish residency and then get divorced. Everything that’s old is new again.

So, how do you incentivise people to actually sign up for your newly highly gatekept version of marriage? All those people in situationships are not going, "I wish there were a death pact contract I could enter with a partner that society and law would force us to respect". You can't just decree from above that some action is to be seen as desirable and have people abide; otherwise social engineering would be a lot easier.

First off, when you say something like "highly gatekept" you're giving away some of your online habits and, more enjoyable for me, you give me the opportunity to -

YesChad.jpeg.

I absolute want to gatekeep marriage. That's, like, the point, bro. If you don't literally keep the gates you're doubly fucked when the barbarians show up.

All those people in situationships are not going, "I wish there were a death pact contract I could enter with a partner that society and law would force us to respect"

That's hyperbolic and you know it. People in situationships want to get out of them. So much so that "defining the relationship" is literally the next meme after situationship in the meme-chain of modern dating. The problem with that next step is that it isn't actually a true next step. There are plently of memes and funny YouTube videos that illustrate how when one part wants to "define the relationship" the other party swerves and avoids in order to keep the undefined situationship going. And the world continues to burn turn.

You can't just decree from above that some action is to be seen as desirable and have people abide;

I agree completely.

We used to, however, let people make their own decisions and then live by their own consequences. If you didn't want to make a good decision, you totally could! But then, later, you'd have to deal with it. The problem today is that a large part of society that routinely makes good decisions and employs delayed gratification, self-sacrifice, and discipline is actively coerced (via taxes) to subsidizing tens of millions of people who not only make bad decisions but actively defect from a pro-social game.

Let me be clear, I don't want be to be forced to abide any of my personal values system ideas. That would be tyranny. I just want consequences to have actions for everyone. My original comment that gatekept marriage attempted to outline what I think the requirements for making a good marriage decision are. People are free not to abide by that, but they must abide by the consequences.

This is something that a big state could easily do. The US and much of the West quasi-criminalized going outside during Covid, there is an enormous river of state power that merely needs to be directed towards pro-social ends. In Britain they arrest thousands of people for tweets, that's their 'incentive' for people to think a bit more carefully before they speak. The state can indoctrinate children for hours and hours a day, there's a gigantic surveillance apparatus watching just about everything, they have 20-40% of GDP to spend...

Our elites simply need to make a decision and then enforce that decision and then it just happens. The difficulty of social engineering is overestimated. The US did it pretty well, they pointed bayonets at teenagers so they'd go to school with blacks, they forcibly bussed whites to black schools, implemented affirmative action schemes to give blacks better jobs. It didn't change performance-based outcomes that much but they certainly could produce behaviours, they dramatically reduced racism just via straightforward suppression and indoctrination.

They could suppress adultery too, it's really not that hard. But they don't want to.

The risk I see with 'make marriage a much stronger contract' social engineering is that even more people opt out of it. Marriage has already become an elite institution, with the commensurate dysfunction among the lower classes who aren't getting married.

Marriage worked better when everyone did it, because it reinforced the norm. The collapse of that norm is tragic, but making marriage even more exclusive and difficult is going to collapse it further.

Sex outside of marriage: it's illegal. Unacceptable. Totally contrary to Our Values. You're in prison, you're a lowlife, a scumbag, media will show you to be the bad guy.

Done!

Alternately, affirmative action for married couples in the workforce. Companies must declare targets of married employees, explain what actions they're taking to achieve these targets. You could boost fertility the same way.

making marriage even more exclusive and difficult is going to collapse it further.

Yes, probably, but people will adapt.

Think about the way it worked in the past. If you wanted to have sex, marriage was the only way for most people. In fact, the whole trope of a man promising he loves a woman only to flee the morning after coitus is illustrative of this. If you were sleeping around a lot, as a man or a woman, you were circling the drain, so to speak. After a while, the only people you could have sexual congress with were just as on the margin of society as you were. The obvious exception here is, of course, wealthy / elite men who could engage the services of discreet prostitutes or employ some sort of concubinage on the side.

Then, during the sexual revolution in the west, this changed. You didn't have to promise yourself to your high school sweetheart. You could kind of dog around for at least college, but maybe get wifed/husbanded up right around graduation. But, if we play the tape forward another 50,60 years, we have what we have today; perpetual fuckery (or an utter lack thereof) well into one's 30s.

If we flip the switch back, you'll see a dip in the marriage rate for some time. Then, as a planned and stable marriage becomes more rare it will regain social currency and people will begin to orient themselves towards it. Situationships, polyamory, etc. will be seen as weirdo fringe stuff.

For a lot of people, when you have an utterly destroyed shell of an institution, it doesn't make much sense to even bother with it. It's pointless paperwork that can be undone on a whim, but at the pain of much more paperwork and likely legal wrangling.

Elite women obviously still want to opt in, because they're likely getting a wealthy man on the hook. If you're both poor? Who cares? Religious people still do it, because their religious communities still enforce some amount of social approval for proper use of it and some amount of social sanctions for improper use. It's still a somewhat stronger social contract for them, if not a legal one.

In Whit Stillman’s brilliant indie debut, Metropolitan, Taylor Nichols’ commedically-pessimistic Charlie Black is convinced that the entire preppy class is doomed, fated, to suffer downward social mobility.

Late in the film, Charlie engages a man in a bar, a member of the preppy class perhaps a decade his senior, looking for confirmation of his theory. Man at Bar, played by Roger W. Kirby in his lone acting role (who in real life would go on to co-found the law firm of Kirby McInerney), tells Charlie, resignedly, that he is going to have to accept that many of his peers will indeed be successful.

I’ll set aside elite, as I am not sure exactly how that would be defined, but most college educated Americans still get married. And, like Charlie Black, commedically-pessimistic single men need to accept that the upper two quintiles of Americans are still mostly getting married, and for reasons beyond and exempting ensnarement. Things like love, support, companionship, respect and admiration shared between two imperfect people looking to build a life together.

I will grant that one could want high marriage rates solely for their cumulative societal impact. And structural changes have reduced that rate, but much moreso the lower one travels down the socioeconomic ladder. And all the same, when I see getting someone “on the hook” errantly proffered as the driver of marriage in, say, the top two quintiles based on income, I want to tell the speaker to rejoice at the institution’s decline.

For every black- or red-pilled unwed man I encounter online that has reduced women’s motivations down to a hypergamous id — wicked daughters of Eve, all! — I hope they realize they have been set free. From experience, the overwhelming supermajority of a marriage is spent outside of scratching one another’s physiological itches, and as such, any man that does not particularly like women would be wise to avoid marrying one. You almost-invariably wind up cohabitating and spending time in each other’s company.

I guess most of this comes down to what one categorizes as "elite", as that was the specific category mentioned.

In any event, yes, love and such. Great things. Though I have heard it flippantly put, "You should marry for love and not for money... but it's just as easy to love a rich man." But that's neither here nor there. I do believe that many folks marry for love, but then the challenge returns to your court. Is the driver of whether or not people fall in love their position on the socioeconomic ladder? I doubt so. When it comes to discussing differentials, or particular categories like "elite", there may be other factors concerning what modern marriage has become which may be relevant.

Is the driver of whether or not people fall in love their position on the socioeconomic ladder?

No, that would be mistaking a second-order effect for a first. The requisite is proximity, which itself is heavily influenced by position on the socioeconomic ladder.

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All those people in situationships are not going, "I wish there were a death pact contract I could enter with a partner that society and law would force us to respect".

How do you square this view with the fact that marriage was invented and became wildly successful to the degree that it's one of the most popular human institutions historically speaking?

I think people would like to commit to stable partnerships were this an option, actually. How about we legalize marriage and see what happens?

As a starter, speak out against the folks who are working to accomplish the opposite. I've covered this before as being a fully-general argument against any sort of minority view. "How do you convince people to sign up for [any view that is a minority view, which by definition is not preferred by most people at the current moment]? Well, you, uh, convince them. Maybe giving reasons, showing them data, making arguments, etc."

I think people tend to talk about (1) because they perceive (accurately) that it is where the change has been in the last several decades regarding relationship formation. I'm not aware of any data indicating that "desirable" men are less willing to commit today compared to, say, 20 years ago but there is some data showing women are less interested in getting married over that period. Additionally it's a little unclear to me how large the pool of "desirable but unwilling to commit" men even is. Are there a large fraction of men out there who women want to marry but do not themselves want to marry? That's not clear to me. I can think of some high profile anecdotes but not sure how generalizable that is.

On (1) my pet theory is that women's expectations for marriage and relationships have evolved along with their economic development in ways that men's expectations have not really caught up with. If your pitch, as a man, is that you are going to be an economic provider that is probably much more effective as a pitch in 1982 (when men's average wage was 50% higher than women's average wage) than it is in 2025 (when men's average wage is ~18% higher than women's average wage). Among young people (aged 25-34) that gap is even smaller (35% advantage for men in 1982 vs 5% today). Add to this that it seems women are more comfortable being single than men are and a drop off in relationship formation is not that hard to explain.

Additionally it's a little unclear to me how large the pool of "desirable but unwilling to commit"

Dating apps mean that that small slice of men can cultivate way more connections than they'd historically be able to, plus adjusts the self-perception of women about their 'tier' in the system and what's actually achievable. I don't think you actually need that many playboys to change the vibe.

Add to this that it seems women are more comfortable being single than men are and a drop off in relationship formation is not that hard to explain.

Yeah, I think the old belief that women are more romantic than men, on average, isn’t true. That’s not to say that women don’t read romance novels more than men, or that many women don’t have a great interest in romance, but there’s a revealed preferences sense in which men feel the lack of a partner more acutely than men do.

Is it just sex? I don’t know. When I was single and lonely obviously that played a factor, but more of a factor was falling asleep alone, missing subtle physical affection, enjoying telling someone I love them, giving little gifts and seeing someone’s eyes light up, cuddling on the couch, etc. Having a partner feels physically grounding. Do women just not experience that kind of lack as acutely? Am I just weird?

Yeah, I think the old belief that women are more romantic than men, on average, isn’t true. That’s not to say that women don’t read romance novels more than men, or that many women don’t have a great interest in romance, but there’s a revealed preferences sense in which men feel the lack of a partner more acutely than men do.

There is a large and real asymmetry to these two types of singles. Any woman that is not currently sleeping next to a man has the option of doing so so long as she is not completely grotesque. Like any of the "girlboss" types that are single and are proudly single, still can call or swipe on any single guy in the vicinity and simply trade a little fornication for companionship for at least a few days. A single man simply doesn't have that option. Even the guys who are 6'+ and great looking don't routinely get instant hookups from the apps.

There is a saying that men are the more romantic sex, masquerading as the more pragmatic one, while women are the more pragmatic sex, masquerading as the more romantic one.

From speaking with my female friends, vs my male ones, there are dramatic differences in how they talk about their partners/potential partners. My female friends, specifically, tend to literally talk about how much the man makes, how good of a partner he appears to be (as in, if they were out in public, how well would he make them look), and how high status he is (expressed as what would their parents/friends think about him); whereas my male friends tend to be a lot more about how their partner makes them feel (some of which is appearance, but it also includes things like how she thinks about them, or does them little favours, etc). A book I read by a female author (The Black Magician, by Trudi Canavan) had a line in it that was something like "People in the slums tried to find a man who could provide, but often married for love instead" (in the context it was in, it was presented as a contrast to the well off people in the city, who married specifically for providers).

Actually, come to think about it (and it's a little bit of a tangent), one of the things I've noticed from reading a number of books is that you can always tell from how the romance is presented whether it was a female or male author, even if the rest of the book passes fairly well for either gender of writer. Off the top of my head:

  1. Male writers tend much more towards smaller age gaps between men and women, and try to avoid power differentials; female writers definitely do not. It is extremely rare for a male author to have a male character date his students, proteges, trainees, etc. - whereas I'd almost say it's the reverse for female writers. There was a period of time in the fantasy genre where every single book being written was "male assassin trains younger man, and ends up dating him" - which were all written by women. There's a series by Tamora Pierce in which the main character is raised by a man in his twenties, and when she's 16 ends up dating him which seriously squicked me out when I read it.
  2. Male writers often have the man doing all of the work to set up the relationship - with women it tends to range from the woman being actively seductive (see Tamora Pierce, above), to being closer to equals (Robin Hobb has this with Fitz and Molly in Assassin's Apprentice). Even in examples written by male authors where the woman is much more seductive in nature (I'm thinking here of Shade's Children, by Garth Nix), the actual 'event' tends to have the male character taking more of the lead.

(I do realize all the books I mentioned above are both YA and fantasy - I'm trying to maintain a tiny bit of opsec here, even if I've basically given everyone enough info to identify who I am with even a trivial amount of work).

Male writers tend much more towards smaller age gaps between men and women, and try to avoid power differentials; female writers definitely do not. It is extremely rare for a male author to have a male character date his students, proteges, trainees, etc.

I'm pretty sure this reflects only on what is acceptable in the publishing industry.

I would agree except that it’s exactly the opposite for female authors - like, another Trudi Canavan book (Priestess of the White) has the exact dynamic of young girl raised by an elderly man in her village, and ends up with him in the second book.

It’s just not something men think about putting in their books in the same way women do. It’s hard to describe the exact difference, but a while back, I read a bunch of books that ranged from “romance” to “kind of smutty” to “basically just pornography” by both male and female authors (with the goal of comparing and contrasting how men and women approach the genre). With male writers, a dynamic like that is more of a “sleep together once,” while with female authors, it’s presented as a healthy relationship.

Seriously, it is very very easy to tell - the male smut novels were honestly kind of hilarious in how they immediately presented exact measurements of every female character who appeared - the female ones were much more likely to focus on how well dressed or wealthy they were.

The Measurements thing is pretty common, but I'll caution that mainstream (even 'mainstream' in the sense of the Playboy 'I can't believe it happened to me' sense) filters male-focused sexuality a lot more aggressively than women writers, even around the same kinks. Tamora Pierce's weirder age gaps predate the real heavy norm shifts in the late 1990s, but there's reason I keep bringing up the Blue Is The Warmest Color problem in romance; it's something you have to actively avoid and block the further you get into fandom spaces. But even well outside of the squicky questionable or overt absolute number age problems, male-written fantasy like what you're motioning around is not just possible but pretty common in fandom spaces.

((And it's just an outright standard trope for M/M stuff, whether the writer or artist is a top, switch, bottom, or straight guy.))

There's just a lot of forces that make sure that sorta writing doesn't come from a man in modern publishing, from the general pressures against men writing romance-heavy stories, the heightened scrutiny if they do, and the wider pressures against hiring men in those roles at all.

I think this is the first time I've heard of Shade's Children in the wild. I loved that book when I first read it in middle school, after Sabriel.

Sabriel (and Liriel/Abhorsen) were really good books - I stayed up way too late reading Sabriel when it first came out, and the scene in the reservoir was so creepy that I didn’t get any sleep at all that night.

Sabriel is one of my favorite books from my youth. The fighting on the modern side of the wall was what stuck for me, but that reservoir scene was so eerie, I don't blame you.

I stayed up all night one Thursday reading Lirael cover to cover because the girl I borrowed it from wanted it back over the weekend. Seven hundred plus pages, under the covers at night. They really are fantastic books. The bells were always so interesting to me. Named, with personality and purpose, to control the dead. And one, bigger than the rest, that never* gets used.

*Chekov's death bell

My impression from what I've read is that women tend to have more intimate platonic friendships than men do and so a lot of these kinds of emotional needs are fulfilled by those relationships. Whereas men tend to get those needs fulfilled from a romantic partner.

I guess in some ways that’s true, and I guess I do hear about the “galentine’s day” type stuff where that’s leaned into. But it also doesn’t describe the women I’ve known personally, who have definitely been in close relationships with women but nothing I would say gets anywhere close to competing with men especially for physical affection. But I can also say I’ve never been close with women who are kind of the stereotypical “girl with the girlfriends” energy. Most of the women I’ve known have been introverts who hate sororities, that sort of thing.

Straight women can get physical affection from female friends without it being weird, whereas men can only get it from immediate family members or a sexual partner.

Also frankly if a woman does want to get sexual affection essentially delivered to her doorstep she can do it on an app so long as she possesses a somewhat warm body. Meanwhile most guys have to actually work somewhat.

There are only a small number of men who are desirable under current standards, so even if you made them want to commit there would still be a shortage. In fact it's not that desirable men don't want to commit, it's the fact that all of those who do want to commit quickly do so, so the remaining single 34-37 year old successful etc. men are all single for a reason.

Of course not all men are created equal but getting fat and skinny men to get swole is actually quite easy.

Even if you could do that, it wouldn't solve most womens' problem, since there are far fewer chads than women. And the feasibility depends on you being able to betaize the alpha while still retaining whatever characteristics women find attractive. Which may in fact not be possible because it may be a literal contradiction -- the women making the complaint may be attracted to the very characteristics that also result in the men not committing to them. This is the often-denigrated but never disproved theory of "Chicks dig Jerks".

They're phrasing it this way to dodge the core source issue. Men that are desirable won't commit because women aren't willing to accept anyone they don't 'desire.'

Its hidden in the term 'desirable,' and how that is not an inherent property of men, but rather a descriptor that is almost entirely created in the mind of the female population. And thus can change without the men doing anything differently. Men do not get to decide what women find desirable, they can only hope to determine what that is and try to comply with it.

I could give my long, comprehensive argument (with stats!) showing that men are by and large the same as they've ever been, but women as a group have elevated their expectations while simultaneously becoming less appealing as mates.

I won't. I'll just point out my previous argument that I've yet to see contradicted: About 50% of the male population are 'invisible' to women. They don't register as human. They aren't even on their radar as possible mates, they are background noise... until they attempt to interact then they're 'creeps' or 'incels' or whatever. These men aren't even in the competition because to be 'desirable' you first have to be 'noticed.'

It is a blackpill, but there is not a single piece of evidence really contradicting it. A man who is the combination of 'average' height, 'average' salary, 'average' talent, fame, renown, and 'average' physical strength will not get female attention under modern circumstances. Hence why 'maxxxing' of one form or another is so popularized. Men HAVE to stand out along at least one dimension, ideally multiple, to even rise to attention, much less be attractive.

Flatly put: women aren't even registering that there exist men who are less than 'ideal' but would still make great partners. In their mind its that top 20% who ARE the standard, and there's maybe another 20-30% below that they could eventually settle for after their own sexual market value diminishes.

That bottom 50% is invisible. They are not part of the mental calculation when a woman is competing for a mate. Ask most women to describe what they think an 'average' man is like and it'll be an average derived from the sub-population of men they actually notice and care about.

Find me a SINGLE woman who will openly say "I'm actually perfectly fine with marrying a man who is not exceptional in any particular way, as long as he fulfills his role as a man." And its rational for them not to say that because that's just inviting a bunch of sub average dudes to come running in hopes of slipping past her apparently lowered defenses. They don't 'win' by advertising lower standards.

If this factor is true and accurate, there's no point in trying to address it on the male side of the equation. None. Expanding the pool of 'desireable' men entirely depends on women expanding their definition of 'desirable' to include an actual reasonable portion of the male population. Otherwise, most women will continue chasing a sub-population of men that BY DEFINITION they cannot all lock down... unless they're willing to share.

And even then, you have to get these women to become appealing to more men too.

And there is no aspect of culture ANYWHERE in the West that pushes women to do things that make them more appealing. None.

Which shows precisely where we could start trying solutions, doesn't it? Maybe look at the obvious area we're NOT doing things?

So lets simplify it: "The men women find desirable have no need to commit because they have many, many options available due to women finding them desirable. Women resent that they can't lock down these men but are also unwilling to adapt their behavior."

  1. Focus on the undesirable men that are willing to commit and somehow transform them into desirable men i.e. alphaize the betas 2. Focus on the desirable men and incentivize them to commit i.e. betaize the alphas.

  1. Is impossible in practice as it would merely raise the level of what women find 'desirable' to compensate. This happens in EVERY arena where ranking is easy to ascertain. The benefits will accrue to the top 10-20% at best. Women will adjust desires upward without hesitation.

  2. Won't work because even if we marry off the top 10% of men and somehow ensure they stay committed... you haven't suddenly made the remaining population MORE desirable to the remaining women.

Look, I don't think women are the problem. But the problem is with women. Specifically, in their mind, in that they've formed cultural expectations that, via feedback loops, are completely divorced from reality and renders their own desires unachievable.

So... you have to address their desires. Reality can't be manipulated to fit their desires, so it seems obvious to me that you gotta at least TRY to make their desires comply with reality.

I could give my long, comprehensive argument (with stats!) showing that men are by and large the same as they've ever been, but women as a group have elevated their expectations while simultaneously becoming less appealing as mates.

Please do, because from what I can see in this comment, and the one you've linked, you haven't presented any actual evidence. Just a just-so story that doesn't match the data at all. To pick out an illustrative sentence:

It is a blackpill, but there is not a single piece of evidence really contradicting it. A man who is the combination of 'average' height, 'average' salary, 'average' talent, fame, renown, and 'average' physical strength will not get female attention under modern circumstances.

Among men between the ages of 22-34, 90% have had sex ever and 75% have had sex in the last year. There has been a big rise in sexlessless starting in 2014*, but even then, the average young man is definitely getting female attention. The article also demonstrates that while there is a gap in male a female rates of sexlessness, this is not driven by promiscuous men hogging all the women.

*Which happens to be the year after smartphone penetration crossed the 50% marker, I think this is related.

Although we've argued about this in the past, I don't disagree with you, in very broad strokes, about your key points. Women's expectations have gone up, women's desirability has gone down, and a lot of people are finding it hard to find a partner. I think the reasons are actually a lot more complicated and multi-faceted than "Women are unreasonably picky (bitches) and aren't willing to settle," but sure, that's part of it.

I am going to repeat one point that I have brought up before and add another one I haven't:

"I'm actually perfectly fine with marrying a man who is not exceptional in any particular way, as long as he fulfills his role as a man."

This kind of sugarcoats the whole notion of "settling." You're right, most women would not agree to that statement. How many men would agree to that (gender-swapped) statement? Probably more men than women, because yes, there are men who will settle for literally any willing pussy, while there aren't many women whose sole criteria is "penis." But there are not many men who would really be happy about settling for a woman who just checks the "sex, mother" boxes and nothing else.

(Caveat: Obviously I am talking about the West here. We know that in many parts of the world, "vagina and fertile" are indeed the only criteria men have. Are those cultures models we would wish to emulate?)

So how about being likeable as a person, being attractive and pleasant, being smart or at least sensible? (As Mr. Knightly said in the very redpilled era of 1816: "Men of sense do not want silly wives.") Most men don't want to settle either, even if their standards for "settling" are lower than the average woman's. Not to belabor the stereotype about incels thinking their obese cheeto-crumbed-neckbeards are entitled to a hot fit young blowjob enthusiast, but it's hard to avoid the impression that it do be like that from many of the most vocal grievance-mongers. This is somewhat unfair, but it's also somewhat unfair to just write off women as being unreasonably picky bitches who will not settle for less than the "three sixes". Both these stereotypes exist, but you keep bringing up things like the OKCupid survey (from, like, 15 years ago), which given the limited and narrow datasets (the attractiveness surveys, IIRC, mostly ask people to rate based on photographs alone) do not convince me you really have evidence that "50% of men are invisible to all women" and that no women will "settle" for a guy who is just a basically decent, normal man.

My other point:

Reality can't be manipulated to fit their desires, so it seems obvious to me that you gotta at least TRY to make their desires comply with reality.

On the one hand: sure. If it is true (big if) that chubby grocery clerk Sally is waiting for her 6/6/6 chad to marry her and let her live her life as a TikTok-watching SAHM, Sally should really adjust her expectations. But your notion that women should "make their desires comply with reality" really gives me "If you don't find fat/black/trans women attractive, you should work on yourself!" vibes. I know you are not saying that, but you are saying something in that ballpark: that people are responsible for who and what they find attractive and should be willing to change their attraction for the social good. That is going to be a pretty hard lift for anyone.

It's frustrating that the problems created by feminine autonomy are dogmatically treated by the West as a masculine problem. Because when men were cruising around, not committing to relationships and having casual sex, in traditional societies they were called 'cads' and 'equivocators'. Women weren't cajoled to 'woman up' to the standards of lechers and playboys. Men have already lowered their standards in the modern dating market. Women aren't expected to cook, to clean, to pay for anything, or even be pleasant. And women STILL EXPECT MORE from their mates then they did in yesteryear!

And now the girlbosses aren't getting married, because Plain Jane doesn't want to settle for Plain John and is unhappily seeking her spot in Mr. Chad's harem. How is this men's fault? Why would Chad commit when he's got a buffet of easy sex to pick from every weekend? And even if we could tame the Chad, there's only so many Chads to go around. What's the average guy who isn't a werewolf surgeon billionaire supposed to do? Yes, neckbeards have unrealistic standards. But what, exactly, does a woman have to bring to the table to be seen as a desirable mate? Can you name any? Or is this just another feminist cope that excuses women of all agency and responsibility?

The bottom 80% of the male population isn't getting 80% of the female attention. They're getting ~5% of it. That's female freedom in action: to pursue the best men. And because of how heterosexual attraction works, only the truly hideous women with no redeeming qualities at all will know how it feels to be an average man. To pretend that there is equality in this is obvious liberalslop. Women are never lonely - never truly lonely - until they pass the age of forty, then they experience the bleak reality of equality. Only then do they understand!

Men know. Young men know. Every male knows about a simp in their immediate friendgroup who goes the extra mile for a woman who won't give him the time of day. Women complaining about noncommitment from Chad is an obese welfare queen complaining about starvation to a Ethiopian. The average man that sits around and waits around for a suitor to approach him like an average woman does will die of old age before he gets approached. The average man - to state it plainly - does not attract the average woman at all, nowadays. All he is a free dinner and entertainment, the human version of watching TV filler when nothing better is on.

Dance, jester! Dance faster!

And now the girlbosses aren't getting married, because Plain Jane doesn't want to settle for Plain John and is unhappily seeking her spot in Mr. Chad's harem.

That isn't true. The marriage rate for graduate women (a reasonable proxy for 'girlbosses') has been increasing since the 1980s, and has only declined by 10% from 1968 to today (85% to 75%). The collapse in marriage has been among lower class women.

The bottom 80% of the male population isn't getting 80% of the female attention. They're getting ~5% of it.

I'm not sure how you're measuring 'sexual attention' but if we define it as 'having sex' then this obviously isn't true. 20% of men having 95% of sex is an insane figure. According to the GSS, the most promiscuous 20% of sexually-active, never-married young men have about 50-60% of the sex. And more to the point, the figures are the same for women. Basically, there are a subset of promiscuous men and women who have sex with eachother, while the less promiscuous majorities of both sexes have less sex.

Lyman Stone explains what's going on with male sexlessnes:

The rise of young male sexlessness isn’t about Chads and Stacies; it isn’t primarily about Tinder or Bumble; it’s not mostly about attitudinal shifts in what women want from relationships; and it’s not mainly about some new war between the sexes. It’s mostly about people spending more years in school and spending more years living at home. But that’s not actually a story about some change in sexual politics; instead, it’s a story about the modern knowledge economy, and to some extent exorbitant housing costs. As such, it’s no surprise that rising sexlessness is being observed in many countries. This, in turn, suggests that finding a solution to help young people pair up may not be as easy.

The marriage rate for graduate women (a reasonable proxy for 'girlbosses') has been increasing since the 1980s, and has only declined by 10% from 1968 to today (85% to 75%). The collapse in marriage has been among lower class women.

I won’t dispute those statistics and I have to concede that they do contradict the usual Red Piller / Manosphere arguments. But two things need to be pointed out in this regard. One is that there are roughly three female college students for two male college students and it has been so for more then a decade or so. This means that roughly one out of three college-educated women who want to marry will basically have to either accept a husband without a college degree or forego marriage. As the former is unlikely in most cases, I very much doubt that the marriage rates quoted in the article will continue. (Someone in the Manosphere called this the coming ‘hypergamy crunch’.) The other thing is that we’ve seen the normalization of something in the past 2-3 decades that can be called the ‘consumption marriage’ among the middle-class and the upper class, meaning a marriage formed primarily for financial reasons in order to preserve and signal class status. Since the consequences of the Sexual Revolution have become clear, single motherhood and family dysfunction have largely become associated with lower class status; I imagine this is the main factor driving this trend.

I'm not sure how you're measuring 'sexual attention' but if we define it as 'having sex' then this obviously isn't true.

Whenever women engage in transaction sex of any sort with men they aren't attracted to, as opposed to having sex for its own sake, I'd argue that doesn't count as sexual attention.

This means that roughly one out of three college-educated women who want to marry will basically have to either accept a husband without a college degree or forego marriage. As the former is unlikely in most cases, I very much doubt that the marriage rates quoted in the article will continue.

Actually, we've already seen this exact thing happening. Scott has written about it. Basically graduate women are marrying the higher-earning working class men. Turns out women don't care much about credentials for their own sake, only credentials as a proxy for high potential salaries.

Whenever women engage in transaction sex of any sort with men they aren't attracted to, as opposed to having sex for its own sake, I'd argue that doesn't count as sexual attention.

What percentage of the 90% of young, unmarried men who have had sex do you think visited prostitutes? My bet is a very low number.

It's not prostitution I was referring to, but the phenomenon known as settling - i.e. women marrying men they aren't sexually attracted to. These relationships don't include female sexual attention.

Basically graduate women are marrying the higher-earning working class men

I'm not going to deny that this can be true, but I wonder how these two groups of people are even meeting? Their social circles scarcely overlap, if they overlap at all.

how these two groups of people are even meeting? Their social circles scarcely overlap, if they overlap at all.

On Hinge. Putting some effort into your dating profile and including "Electrician", "Elevator Mechanic", etc. is definitely gonna get you dates. I honestly don't know how men who make $40-50k a year are going to get married. The only friends of mine in relationships are the ones making $80k+.

I'm in a major west coast city, and in-person dating seems to be dead. I got 5-7 phone numbers from girls last year, and only one ended up getting coffee with me. This was going out every other weekend. Compared to 16 matches, which became six dates from instagram, Hinge, etc.

I may be too broke to date in person though. The bars and events that are $50-100 per night may be active.

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I've seen this realization hit one of my older female cousins: she's 43 now. Absolutely desperate for a boyfriend/husband because she really wants children. Wealth isn't a problem because my uncle and aunt are loaded, but she just can't seem to find anyone who works long term. She's been continually lowering her standards, in all the wrong ways, for the past 10 years, and I think is slowly coming to the realization that she's never going to find someone. I have a lot of sympathy for her: she got screwed over by a Kiwi expat who had another girlfriend back home that she probably would have married, and her sister (my favorite cousin who actually shares my birth date, but not my birth year) has been happily married to her highschool sweetheart for 15 years (and has never dated another man). Both have got to sting. Yet it's been absolutely tragic to see the vicious combination of parental and internal standards make it impossible for her to settle down.

Long-term this is only going to end with either an internal reversal of the feminist position (unlikely but possible, I see some signs of this in the corners of YouTube), or the forcible return of strict marriage laws probably through Islam in Europe and Evangelical christianity in USA. In the meantime, I don't think there's much we can do personally other than try to be realistic about our own standards (selecting for traits that actually matter in a marriage) and not simping.

Honestly Musks Sperm might be her best choice now. Otherwise she would probably need to find someone 60 who’s ok with having 2 kids.

There are 40 yearish guys who want to get married. Actually most successful guys get serious about it then. But they all end up dating 30 year olds.

If she has family money and wants kids. Then her best bet really is just going to a sperm bank. Then hopefully finding a life partner for her later years.

I've seen this realization hit one of my older female cousins: she's 43 now. Absolutely desperate for a boyfriend/husband because she really wants children. Wealth isn't a problem because my uncle and aunt are loaded

Bolding mine. It's over for her when it comes to children unless she or your uncle and aunt had the foresight to have her eggs frozen. And even then it'd hardly be a given that an offspring could be had.

She's been continually lowering her standards, in all the wrong ways, for the past 10 years, and I think is slowly coming to the realization that she's never going to find someone.

She's 43. The time to start orienting herself toward having children within marriage was at least 20 or more years ago, not a slow dialing-down from the time she was 33 at her convenience.

she got screwed over by a Kiwi expat who had another girlfriend back home that she probably would have married

Common polygyny W.

But there are not many men who would really be happy about settling for a woman who just checks the "sex, mother" boxes and nothing else.

Men aren't even offered the choice, to be blunt.

Women are, and they reject it.

Soooooo... what is the point of telling men to change?

I know you are not saying that, but you are saying something in that ballpark: that people are responsible for who and what they find attractive and should be willing to change their attraction for the social good. That is going to be a pretty hard lift for anyone.

We had a system that was workable somewhere around a century ago and it has been on the decline since approximately the 70's..

I consistently point out that the marriage arrangement, especially when following the fairly strict Christian standard, solves for most of the issues.

Top 10% males are expected to pick and stick with a woman, removing that man from the field. They are also expected to NOT go around deflowering virgins or maintaining a rotation of women. (they will anyway in many cases, but they have to keep it discreet and DO suffer social sanction when discovered)

Men and women are expected to pick a partner relatively early, and stick with them once committed. So you don't have women dating around for the better part of a decade, standards rising all the time. You don't have men growing increasingly frustrated through repeated rejections from women.

And perhaps most important, the focus of the marriage is ensuring stability for the purpose of raising kids. So we de-emphasize the whole "sleep around and have fun for as long as possible before settling" element.

And finally, the Christian expectation "no sex until marriage" ensures that women are less likely to get exploited for sex without commitment, men can reasonably expect that they will be giving commitment to a relatively chaste woman, and thus the risks to each side are truncated.

But we tossed that entire standard out, and replaced it with... NOTHING!

So its base instincts and ad hoc social arrangements all the way down!

And nobody's happy! Yayyyyyyyy.

And to the extent we think marriage is the ideal solution... men continue to prioritize it as a goal just as much as they always have. Women continue to prioritize it less and less. Men desiring to get married went from 76% to 74% over 30 years. Women dropped from 83% to 61%. There's no question which gender is the driving force here.

So ONCE AGAIN. The problem is with women.

I don't know what else to tell ya. If the solution to this was to browbeat men, we'd have solved it a long time ago because that's all men get from every angle is constant browbeating.

We had a system that was workable somewhere around a century ago

Yeah, I've come to realize that the cultural norm of limiting sexual relations to long-term monogamous marriage was a reasonable compromise among the interests of men, women, and society as a whole.

If the solution to this was to browbeat men, we'd have solved it a long time ago because that's all men get from every angle is constant browbeating.

Yeah, I think a big part of the current problem with dating, marriage, and family formation is that our society is so gynocentric that it's unwilling to shame women for pursuing their selfish and immediate desires over what's best for children, for society, for men, and even for women in the long run.

Yeah, I've come to realize that the cultural norm of limiting sexual relations to long-term monogamous marriage was a reasonable compromise among the interests of men, women, and society as a whole

Historically there appear to be two (2) long term sustainable social norms here, for any 'advanced' civilization.

"Enforced" Monogamy, and Hierarchical Polygyny. Either everyone, including the King, is restricted to one spouse... or the King gets as many women as he wants, and all the rest beneath him can fight to acquire as many as they can manage.

The former seems obviously superior, you have fewer 'surplus' males that have to be culled, and the children of monogamous relationships get a stable environment with (one hopes) fully invested parents. But a society set up for polygyny can still make things work.

I keep trying to act in ways that will reinforce the former. I treat marriage as a priority, I try not to 'ruin' women as partners for other men. I encourage social norms that support marriage.

If people insist on transitioning to the latter, then I'm dropping all pretenses and competing for reals, and I betcha I could amass a decent harem in short order.

Men aren't even offered the choice, to be blunt.

Women are, and they reject it.

You keep saying this. What little you've posted in the way of "data" is not very convincing, and the rest is vibes, which I will simply counter with my own impressions based on the people I see around me dating and getting married.

I am not saying there's no problem or that it isn't rough out there. It's just not the hopeless wasteland you keep presenting. Men and women are both getting a raw deal in a lot of ways, but you keep insisting it's all women's fault and poor <50% men never ever get a chance, which flies in the face of my observations.

We had a system that was workable somewhere around a century ago and it has been on the decline since approximately the 70's..

Comparing 2025 to 1925 has so many conflating factors that trying to reduce men's dating woes to "Women have become too selective" is like saying our modern economic woes are because we moved off the gold standard. There may even be a degree to which that is true, but someone harping about the gold standard as the reason for everything wrong with the economy today is ... probably not seeing things clearly. Yes, women today can be more selective than they were in 1925. What are the reasons for that? I imagine you don't like your position being reduced to "Women should be forced to settle or starve," but how else to interpret "The problem is that women today don't have to get married to a man they don't particularly like"?

Despite being non-religious, I don't entirely disagree that "the Christian standard" had certain advantages, and I give you credit for arguing that we should impose the old rules on men as well as women-- if we force women to settle, we should also force men to stop alleycatting. But I don't really think we can do either without reverting to a level of authoritarianism we didn't have even then. Given that most people are not as religious as they used to be, and without a religious justification, you're basically going to have to impose state-mandated dating controls. Sounds like a cure worse than the disease.

So ONCE AGAIN. The problem is with women.

So you keep saying. Women would argue that the problem is with men. We could go back and forth on to what degree this is self-centered female narcissism (your preferred theory) and to what degree this is men being of genuinely lower quality and women not actually needing to settle to avoid starving. You hate "men need to step up," but some men really do need to step up, and by that I do not mean they need to wife up carousel-riding Cathy at age 35, but I mean I see a hell of a lot of men who don't really bring much to the table at all other than "Penis, not a drug user (unless you count weed), has a job." Why would a woman want to settle for that if she doesn't have to? Why would you settle for that level of pickings?

I honestly do not see men who actually have something going for them unable to find a partner.

Assuming, of course, that their standards are not too high... You don't want fat Sally the checkout clerk or carousel-riding Cathy, fine. You insist on a 20-something slim attractive virgin who is agreeable and submissive? Hmm, good luck if you're not a 6/6/6. (Or a Mormon.)

I don't know what else to tell ya. If the solution to this was to browbeat men, we'd have solved it a long time ago because that's all men get from every angle is constant browbeating.

I don't think the solution is to "browbeat" men, but I think moral disapprobation on both sexes has been implemented, historically. That horse is out of the barn. Give me a solution that doesn't reduce to "Women need to settle or starve." Or just "browbeat women instead."

Women should be forced to settle or starve

I agree with your overall comment, but I've got to jump in here. 'Settle or starve' has never been the choice women had to make in the west. Not when we were hunter-gatherers (meat would shared within the band), not after the shift to agriculture (women can grow crops and make textiles for sale, hence the word 'spinster'), not after the industrial revolution (where there was ample factory and domestic work). Never.

Indeed, 'settle or starve' suggests that widows (who made up a huge percentage of women in societies before modern medicine) would just starve to death, which they didn't. People only starved to death during famines, when everyone was starving to death.

Except that spinsters lived, yes, but in poverty. So did domestic servants, prostitutes, etc. Women had a far smaller range of jobs available to them and earned far less from those jobs than men working them.

Yeah, I've already addressed this to our snarky friend. Historically it wasn't really settle or starve, but it was settle or probably have an impoverished and empty life. My issue is, as I said, with modern incels and incel-adjacents who say things like "If a woman won't be led, she won't be fed."

Here on the Motte, some of them have a fondness for saying things like "maybe we should use what worked for 5000 years..." and if you read what they are proposing, it's basically that. Yes, they have a myopic, ahistorical view of the history of sex relations ( even ancient tribal societies did not resemble Tarnsmen of Gor).

So you keep saying. Women would argue that the problem is with men. We could go back and forth on to what degree this is self-centered female narcissism (your preferred theory) and to what degree this is men being of genuinely lower quality and women not actually needing to settle to avoid starving. You hate "men need to step up," but some men really do need to step up, and by that I do not mean they need to wife up carousel-riding Cathy at age 35, but I mean I see a hell of a lot of men who don't really bring much to the table at all other than "Penis, not a drug user (unless you count weed), has a job." Why would a woman want to settle for that if she doesn't have to? Why would you settle for that level of pickings?

Because she does have to if she wants a long term relationship. The same 100% of women can't all have long term relationships with the 5% of men they swipe right on on the apps. If you are a college graduate woman working some office job, or at a school, you are a dime a dozen. You are the female equivalent of like a construction worker who drinks too much Budweiser during every Thursday night football game and ends up hungover at work Friday.

men being of genuinely lower quality and women not actually needing to settle to avoid starving.

I think of all the modernisms about the history of men and women that breaks my heart the most, this is probably it. Women only did it to not starve.

Whenever I feel like I might not be doing enough, I remind myself that inadequacy is impossible to escape as a man. If the men who came home from World War fucking Two weren't worthy, then it simply isn't achievable and never was.

I don't think the solution is to "browbeat" men, but I think moral disapprobation on both sexes has been implemented, historically. That horse is out of the barn. Give me a solution that doesn't reduce to "Women need to settle or starve." Or just "browbeat women instead."

There's nothing to be done. You can't have a solution that isn't just browbeating men that doesn't involve some level of browbeating non-men. It's impossible.

I think of all the modernisms about the history of men and women that breaks my heart the most, this is probably it. Women only did it to not starve.

I don't actually think this was literally the case! Though certainly the situation for an unmarried woman was pretty dire in previous eras. Maybe not quite starvation level, but there is a reason so much Regency and Victorian literature was about women trying to find a husband before they aged out of any hope of doing better than seamstress or nanny.

It's the modern guys who have, I assure you, here on the Motte and elsewhere, been more or less explicit about wishing women had to settle in order to eat. Granted some of them may be ironic or trying to be edgy. I certainly hope most of them don't really want women to choose between dick and starving. But there are a fair number whom I believe are pretty literal.

There's nothing to be done. You can't have a solution that isn't just browbeating men that doesn't involve some level of browbeating non-men. It's impossible.

Okay, but what's your solution that involves browbeating both men and women? As I told @faceh, that's basically been the line taken by most religions, and yet here we are. So do you propose morality laws, taking away all benefits for non-married or childless couples, or what? Some variation of those things has been tried also, with little success.

It's the modern guys who have, I assure you, here on the Motte and elsewhere, been more or less explicit about wishing women had to settle in order to eat.

They didn't make it up themselves. They picked it up from the broader culture, and slapped a coat of And That's a Good Thing! paint on it.

Okay, but what's your solution that involves browbeating both men and women?

Too many to count; the issue is that, like face guy's proposals, you'll reject them because they involve some measure of browbeating prescribed to non-men.

Too many to count; the issue is that, like face guy's proposals, you'll reject them because they involve some measure of browbeating prescribed to non-men.

Here's something which could be done which does not entail browbeating women:

Give men a path to achieve social status. For example

  1. The Amish forbid the use of modern agricultural machinery, which means that every man has a good opportunity to be a productive and respected member of the community.

  2. Orthodox Judaism gives men the opportunity to engage in advanced religious studies, up to and including rabbinical ordination. Which means that every man has the opportunity to be a respected member of the community.

  3. Since someone mentioned World War II, it's worth noting that the American men who were conscripted, to the extent they made it back in one piece, were awarded substantial social status.

In a society where (almost) every man gets a fair chance to achieve social status, the net effect is that (almost) every woman gets a fair chance to have a husband she can look up to. Which is a great way to get women into marriage.

Could these sorts of policies be implemented today on a large scale in the United States? I tend to doubt it. Feminists and other gynocentrists would freak out about any large-scale policy or social norm aimed at giving men any kind of boost. For feminists, EVERYTHING has to be about women, all the time.

And ultimately that's a big part of the problem, perhaps the core. Addressing the status quo around marriage, family, and birth rates will require norms and policies which assign special burdens and advantages on men and women. Our current society is just unwilling to accept special burdens on women or special advantages for men.

I shudder to think at what is likely to happen to relationships if 80% of the population ends up unemployed due to AI and we all get UBI.

Too many to count; the issue is that, like face guy's proposals, you'll reject them because they involve some measure of browbeating prescribed to non-men.

Nope, wrong. Don't presume to project sentiments onto me contrary to what I expressed.

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Too many to count; the issue is that, like face guy's proposals, you'll reject them because they involve some measure of browbeating prescribed to non-men.

The usual dodge here is "Both have to change. Now, let's start with the men..."

So ONCE AGAIN. The problem is with women.

So you keep saying. Women would argue that the problem is with men. We could go back and forth on to what degree this is self-centered female narcissism (your preferred theory) and to what degree this is men being of genuinely lower quality and women not actually needing to settle to avoid starving.

To be blunt, a lot of the complaints on here are men getting to see what it was like from the female point of view over those centuries of "no free choice for you but men can sow their wild oats and they decide if they finally want to marry at age forty".

My God, any potential mates are out there having sex, commitment-free sex, and are economically independent, plus picky about who they'll eventually settle for? They have options and freedom and exercise those options? How appalling!

Shoe on the other foot here, gentlemen, and very funny to see the solution being "force them to marry!". To take the example of one comment above, about "being this person is so disadvantageous in marriage, you are recommended not to marry" - if you're 34 and not married by that age, what is wrong with you? why so picky? why not get married straight out of high school (as some suggest women should be steered into it) and have your mother pick your potential spouse for you?

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Would you say that those men were acting in a noble and becoming manner? If yes, good riddance to you. If not, then you should ponder why you feel the need to giggle about men (who have never lived in that world or acted in that way) getting a taste of medicine.

What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. If, sixty or so years ago, women en masse had decided to be rampant whores but the continent and socially responsible men had refused to dally with the trollops, we wouldn't be having this conversation about "women: why aren't they getting married and pumping out babies?"

It takes two to tango, as they say, and men were delighted to have free milk but not have to buy the cow. Now buyer's regret has set in? Ah well, such is life!

...men who no longer exist and do not complain about this topic today (or maybe they do in their nursing homes). I guess I don't get your point. Because some people were shitty back then it justifies other people doing shitty things today?

While the historical double standard is real, it was supported by widespread prostitution, not a one sided hookup culture. Seduction was literally a crime in these societies.

Yes, there were a handful of artists and very wealthy men who got away with it. They get away with statutory today(see Epstein et al), which is the actual equivalent(remember, the concept of a 'teenaged girl' as a box a young woman might fit into is actually very recent- most historical languages had equivalent terms which meant 'unmarried young woman' and they had similar legal rights and protections).

To be blunt, a lot of the complaints on here are men getting to see what it was like from the female point of view over those centuries of "no free choice for you but men can sow their wild oats and they decide if they finally want to marry at age forty".

I highly highly doubt that in centuries past any significant percentage of men lived this sort of playboy life. This strikes me as typical feminist BS where the experience of the average woman is compared to that of men who are extraordinary in terms of fortune and social status.

My God, any potential mates are out there having sex, commitment-free sex, and are economically independent, plus picky about who they'll eventually settle for? They have options and freedom and exercise those options? How appalling!

What they are missing is both knowledge and responsibility. Current women are not good at evaluating their worth on the dating market.

To be blunt, a lot of the complaints on here are men getting to see what it was like from the female point of view over those centuries of "no free choice for you but men can sow their wild oats and they decide if they finally want to marry at age forty".

This has never been the vast majority of men. You're hyperfocused on the top ten to one percent of men who have the luxury to do this.

Looking back at the past three generations of men on my father's side, not one of them did this, my father included.

The vast majority of men really are invisible to women, huh.

if you're 34 and not married by that age, what is wrong with you?

I've spent the past ten years trying to get together a job and a life that can actually support a family. So far it's been an utter failure, for one reason or another.

why so picky?

No sane woman would want to marry me.

why not get married straight out of high school

I never received any attention from woman in high school.

and have your mother pick your potential spouse for you?

Funny story my family had over Christmas dinner. My mother was commenting on how she was bragging to her hair dresser about how good her two sons are(myself and my brother), referencing all the things we do for her in terms of managing the household and all the special things we like to do one around the holidays. The hair dresser, in turn, apparently regaled to my mother how worthless her various relatives were regarding such things and how much of a pain they were.

And it couldn't help but occur to me, listening to this, that at no point during this entire conversation these two women apparently had, was there the wherewithal or instinct or desire to go 'Hey, I have/you have these two, single, adult men - I have/you have these single relatives, why don't you/I get them together as a social date and see if anything clicks'.

I'm beginning to wonder just how many generations of women have failed their sons by this point.

So you're happy to be linked with a worthless woman who doesn't manage the household or do anything in regards to family bonds or much of anything at all? Because unless you mean "hairdresser's worthless male relatives" (which is what she was complaining about) and "me and my brother", I don't see this working.

Your mother was boasting of her filial sons. Her hairdresser was talking about how the guys in her family were not like that. If you think that out of that "hey, we both have unattached male relatives, let's get them together and see if anything clicks" is what you want in order to get married to a woman and have kids with her, I don't think it'll work.

If you want to marry a hairdresser or woman of that social class, nothing is stopping you going to a hairdresser's salon and trying to find out if any of the women there are single.

The hairdresser in question was referring to the woman and men in her family.

I bring this up as a point because, presumably, she might very well have single, available family members looking to get married.

At not one point did my mother inquire about this, at no point did the hairdresser in question volunteer.

If you want to marry a hairdresser or woman of that social class, nothing is stopping you going to a hairdresser's salon and trying to find out if any of the women there are single.

Your confidence in my social acumen is staggering.

And it couldn't help but occur to me, listening to this, that at no point during this entire conversation these two women apparently had, was there the wherewithal or instinct or desire to go 'Hey, I have/you have these two, single, adult men - I have/you have these single relatives, why don't you/I get them together as a social date and see if anything clicks'.

Quite possibly that happened, your picture was shown; your job and height were stated; and you were rejected without being made aware of it. The dirty little secret is that single women who report difficulty finding relationships are almost uniformly super-picky.

This has never been the vast majority of men. You're hyperfocused on the top ten to one percent of men who have the luxury to do this.

Yeah, I made this point independently. Feminists (in fact most women) tend to engage in the "fallacy of the peak," in which they compare average women to super-elite men.

Quite possibly that happened, your picture was shown; your job and height were stated; and you were rejected without being made aware of it. The dirty little secret is that single women who report difficulty finding relationships are almost uniformly super-picky.

Hah. You don't know my mother. No, I'm fairly certain this didn't happen in the slightest. I don't even beleive she has a picture of me to show, come to think...

You are quite correct on the rest of it, though.

I would assume there are many men who would gladly settle for "vagina, not a drug user, has a job" as long as she is merely average in all other aspects as opposed to negative.

No drugs? That's no fun. I'd swap that for "nice to me".

That's almost where I'm at myself, although I have a handful more red flags now that I've been through enough.

I did a huge dating blitz in like 2021-2022 and I'm now happily married with children after doing a lot of first dates.

Honestly my criteria for 'worth a first date/potentially something' was prettymuch just

  • Has some sort of actual job/career path
  • Doesn't have somebody else's kids
  • Biologically female
  • Not obese
  • Not Tattooed (Personal preference thing and malleable if it's just one or two in reasonable locations)
  • Not obviously super slutty/druguser

Then I was willing to atleast meet the person, though it's shocking how many women couldn't get over those humps

it's shocking how many women couldn't get over those humps

It was shocking me in approximately that 2021-2022 period when I was re-entering the dating market. Now its just a default expectation (which sucks).

My criteria were pretty close to your stated ones. But something I came to realize is that a woman, in the current era, who does not have tattoos, with a low (less than 4) body count, ... they ALSO tend to be anxious/avoidant/flighty. Which explains why they aren't following the crowd/out partying/getting laid in the first place. They can seem ideal and even engaging early on and then disappear on you with little warning. Eventually the fear of commitment overrides the desire for companionship. The other issue I keep slamming into is women that check the boxes... but who are so focused on career/academics/family (even into their mid 20's!) that they genuinely don't have much time to date.

I'm considering a sincere dating blitz this year since literally the only real goal I haven't achieved for myself is finding a decent partner who will stick around.

But the whole thing about going on "a lot of first dates" is its necessarily taking a ton of time that I could be spending on things that actually convert into money or a finished product or actual fulfillment for me, rather than constant low-level psychic damage with the occasional spike of heartbreak.

My real hope is finding a decent 'filter' so those dates are at least with people who are in it with good faith and intentionality. I hate wasting time and money on a process that has a low success rate, my instinct is to search out ways to increase the success rate.

Last year a friend connected me with a single acquaintance of his who checked most of the aforementioned boxes at first blush, made it to three dates, which were all pleasant, then she moved back in with her parents for [reasons]. Fast forward a couple months, she meets a guy she knew from years ago while there, and they enter a relationship. I only learn of this when my friend relays the news. He was apologetic, but I told him it was actually the best dating experience I'd had in 5 years (he's married with kids, not his fault for not knowing the lay of the land).

The part that stings a bit is that this dude is a divorcee with two kids, and she just dove right into his arms. I can't even imagine what he offers over me, other than comfort/familiarity. There's that flightiness.

So looking for a 'fresh' start in the new year, but at a loss as to what channel I can try that I haven't already which would help ensure the women I match with meet that very basic floor of eligibility.

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You keep saying this. What little you've posted in the way of "data" is not very convincing, and the rest is vibes, which I will simply counter with my own impressions based on the people I see around me dating and getting married.

I am not saying there's no problem or that it isn't rough out there. It's just not the hopeless wasteland you keep presenting. Men and women are both getting a raw deal in a lot of ways, but you keep insisting it's all women's fault and poor <50% men never ever get a chance, which flies in the face of my observations.

The marriage rate is down to like 47%. For young adults, even worse.

The relationship formation rate is down globally. Money quote:

The proliferation of smartphones and social media has been one such exogenous shock. Geographical differences in the rise of singledom broadly track mobile internet usage, particularly among women, whose calculus in weighing up potential partners is changing. This is consistent with research showing social media facilitates the spread of liberal values (notably only among women) and boosts female empowerment.

"Its the women" is the standard interpretation. Its just usually couched as them being 'victims' of social forces they are helpless to effect.

Are you spending much time around people who are ages 20-29? They're the ones reporting the most problems

The simplest piece of data to support my "50% of men are invisible" is the fact that, SURPRISE, about 60% of young men are single compared to 34% of women. 44% of Gen Z men reported zero, zip, nada romantic experience..

So who, then, are the women dating in this situation?

Give me a solution that doesn't reduce to "Women need to settle or starve." Or just "browbeat women instead."

Stop sending so many women to college. They absorb a ton of debt. They choose majors that don't pay as much. They take longer to pay down their debt, and it causes them a lot of distress. They 'burn' 4 or more years of their fertility for this.

And, of course, they come out the other side with massively inflated standards for a mate. The irony for women is that going to college tends to reduce their appeal as mates (not a given, but they tend to make choices that lead there) while making their expectations for a mate go higher.

Do this by making it harder to get student loans in general, going back to before the 1993 Student Loan Reform Act.

See if that moves the needle.

(And to be clear, yes, a lot fewer men should attend college too, by my estimation)

If even that is too much to stomach, I'd say you're not serious about addressing any of this.

I'm not fighting for this position because I desperately want/need it to be true. I wish it weren't. I'm compelled to defend it because I can't find any single supportable argument that points elsewhere.

Add on, of course, the recent revelations that white males have been systemiatically excluded from many, many opportunities.

All of this would of course combine to produce the large amount of Male Gen Z Angst and anger we're seeing bubble up.

It’s a lottery. The data shows that girl bosses tend to find great mates. Elizabeth Holmes got married because she’s still kind of hot and went to Stanford. And married to a rich kid. It still vastly boost mate value as a signal if you can back up the signal (Steve Jobs wife went to Stanford MBA).

Beneath the high end though and bringing debt to a relationship it’s probably a bad thing. And just getting a nursing degree for a second solid income if needed and being cute is a better plan.

Stop sending so many women to college.

Still not going to work, because now the "34-37 year old male, tall, in good shape, earning a high income" (1) doesn't want to marry just yet because there's so much out there to achieve both in professional life and in personal life having fun (2) ugh, why tie myself down to some dull 20 year old who can't even earn her own living and will be a leech dependent on me instead of a partner?

You can reduce the number of women going to college pretty substantially without actually getting it below the male rate.

The irony for women is that going to college tends to reduce their appeal as mates (not a given, but they tend to make choices that lead there) while making their expectations for a mate go higher.

How does this square with the fact that there's an almost 20 point marriage gap in favor of college educated women? College educated women are worse mates and have higher expectations, but are much more likely to be married? Most of the decline in marriage rates over the last 50 years has been among non-college educated women. Non-college-educated women have seen marriage rates decline from 79% to 52% while college educated women have seen marriage rates decline from 78% to 71%. Empirically, college helps women get married.

How does this square with the fact that there's an almost 20 point marriage gap in favor of college educated women? College educated women are worse mates and have higher expectations, but are much more likely to be married?

That Dataset actually only goes up to the 1990ish birth cohort. Check Page 43 of the PDF

Any shifts that emerged in the past 10-15 years are probably not reflected here.

And the last 10-15 years are when the most drastic shifts have happened.

I haven't found as much reliable data that is more recent, but...

The longer a student is in college — the least likely they are to get married, study says

Study Here

Empirically, college helps women get married.

If they find their partner while in college, this is likely true.

Of course, I'd believe that many non-college educated women are just shacking up with guys and not marrying them too (and popping out the occasional kid), whereas I'd guess college-educated women are just single and childless.

That Dataset actually only goes up to the 1990ish birth cohort. Check Page 43 of the PDF

Sure. It's asking about whether someone was married by age 45 so it is necessarily limited to people who are age 45 or older (birth year 1980 or earlier).

Any shifts that emerged in the past 10-15 years are probably not reflected here.

And the last 10-15 years are when the most drastic shifts have happened.

I'm curious about the precise claim here. For ~40 years between 1985 and the present the fraction of college educated women married by age 45 looks pretty stable around 71% (+/- a couple percent) while the fraction of non-college educated women married by 45 underwent a steady collapse from around 71% to 52%. Is the claim that in 10-20 years, when the current cohort is 45, these numbers will have reversed? There will have been a climb in the fraction of non-college educated women who are married? A decline in the fraction of college educated women who are married? Did going to college become a net-negative for women's marriage prospects just in the last 10-15 years?

The longer a student is in college — the least likely they are to get married, study says

The less likely they are to be married in the 25-34 age range. If people are unlikely to get married while in college then being in college means delaying marriage, potentially out of this age window.

Are you spending much time around people who are ages 20-29? They're the ones reporting the most problems

Yeah, actually. Most of my younger coworkers are actively dating and/or getting married.

Maybe I am in a very unusual bubble, but I actually don't think so.

Stop sending so many women to college.

As a practical matter, how do you propose to do this? We don't "send" women to college, they choose to go.

If your solution is "Campaign on social reform that encourages fewer women to go to college and more women to get married young and have children," okay, I don't object to that in principle, but if churches are failing to sell that message, how will you?

If your solution is "Don't let them go to college," well, no, I'm not going to jump on board the "Make women property again" Jimbus.

Do this by making it harder to get student loans in general, going back to before the 1993 Student Loan Reform Act.

Okay, I'll buy that. I doubt it will actually reduce the number of women who want to go to college. It might reduce the number of women who go to college for Afro-Queer Anti-Colonialism Studies.

I'm in the 20-29 age cohort and it's a wasteland for a lot of men. When I used to go to church every single guy in the young adult group was either married or completely single (and this ratio was something like 10:1 in favor of single-men). And this was a Catholic Church where people are supposed to getting married early. At work it is similar, although in my family things seem to be better (my sister and all my female cousins have long-term boyfriends who are certainly not chad, although my sister's boyfriend is 6' 4").

I tend to agree with you that many of the put "women back in a box" solutions are pretty unworkable. Although stable, happy marriage might be far preferable on long time horizons, dating an average person as another average person is much less exciting than freedom and independence. I see this in myself with dating: why would I go out to a bar or another coffee date, when reading/exercising/friend activities are so much more exciting and less stressful. It's probably even worse for young women, who are constantly bombarded with attention and opportunities.

I don't find the political speculation to be particularly useful, but perhaps we can glean some personal self-improvement type stuff from all of this. I think both men and women could be better about selecting for traits that actually would matter in a marriage. Stability, kindness, physical fitness, etc., rather than raw sex appeal or charisma. That kind of selection is something that you as an individual can control (and advise your friends about). For men I think this means desexualizing your brain (no more porn and masturbation), and under no circumstances simping. Seeing women as human beings like you not only helps you to evaluate them more accurately, but also makes them more attracted to you. For women, I think I would recommend something similar: stop consuming fantasy romance slop.

why would I go out to a bar or another coffee date, when reading/exercising/friend activities are so much more exciting and less stressful.

We need Everett True to get you bashful young men sorted out 😁

Although stable, happy marriage might be far preferable on long time horizons, dating an average person as another average person is much less exciting than freedom and independence. I see this in myself with dating: why would I go out to a bar or another coffee date, when reading/exercising/friend activities are so much more exciting and less stressful. It's probably even worse for young women, who are constantly bombarded with attention and opportunities.

Well, the way to solve this problem is for society to award social status to people who make the sacrifice of getting and staying married. That's how things work in religious subcultures. Yes, it creates hardship in certain cases, but it works.

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Also society mandating that college degrees include passing tests that include engineering level calculus and physics.

Better still: abolish degrees; keep the tests.

What is the value add of requiring that someone spends 4 years in a building? Whatever it is, it cannot be worth it.

In a sane world, a GED would be worth more than a high school diploma, because you actually have to know something to pass the standardized GED test, whereas you can graduate from some high schools without knowing how to read.

Maybe I am in a very unusual bubble, but I actually don't think so.

I think you're in the bubble of "people who are generally social and talk about their personal lives."

Which an increasing number of young folks just... don't.

And its not an issue unique to the U.S.

We don't "send" women to college, they choose to go.

If they can 'afford' to. And if they can't get student loans as easily, fewer of them will be able to afford to, unless parents pay the way.

I'm really just trying to make adjustments on the margins here. If 10% fewer women end up going to college, and the marriage rate bumps up about 5%, I think that's a sign of improvement.

If your solution is "Don't let them go to college," well, no, I'm not going to jump on board the "Make women property again" Jimbus.

Look, I keep saying, I'm trying to push for 'moderate' changes now, because the Zoomers are probably not going to be as patient.

If you want to salvage the current 'equality' of the sexes under the law, you have to address this now. If literally any solution that inconveniences or upsets women is a nonstarter then it's not getting solved until we hit an actual crisis point.

If literally any solution that inconveniences or upsets women is a nonstarter then it's not getting solved until we hit an actual crisis point.

Well I think it's pretty clear by now that either (1) some game-changing technology or technologies will make the whole issue moot; or (2) religious subcultures with fertility-promoting norms will simply breed the problem out of existence.

Option (3) would be for secular societies to adopt policies and/or social norms which inconvenience or annoy women, something that seems very unlikely to happen any time soon.

If literally any solution that inconveniences or upsets women is a nonstarter then it's not getting solved until we hit an actual crisis point.

Yes. But the precondition seems to be true and as South Korea shows, any crisis point is far off.

As a society we’ve basically nuked option 1. The most basic accomplishment a man has to do in life is have a job. The most depressing stat I’ve seen in Americana and I believe under discussed is the prime-age male employment rate is now 83%. It was 97% in 1960.
Alpha and Beta is a stupid concept in the modern data world. A huge portion of the data market isn’t even getting to beta. And of course we had the recent article in the exclusion of white men from status industries. Alpha and beta was interesting in 2000 with Mystery. And it does show up on dating apps. Getting a job is the first step to getting your dick wet. We can hate on the apps but the dating market would still be completely fubar with a close to 20% male unemployment rate.

On pure attraction the data I’ve seen lately only 10% of men max are physically attractive to females. The other 90% of men women can learn to find them attractive. Its accomplishments. If the job market is nuked and the ability of white men to gain traditional status is blocked then men will not develop the resumes and confidence to make women wet. Nelson Rockefeller had a 25 year old in love with him when he died. I don’t think that was because of his good looks.

I believe the 3rd category would be "omegas", they don't belong anywhere. But good looking chads can be deadbeats and still get laid. Job and money are only offset by good genetics.

Yes the PUA have always had that category. I guess my point is a lot of betas and alphas have become omegas because of the job market.

I am not sure what a DiCaprio or Clooney would be if they were waiting tables in LA unable to find work. Unable to find work as white-men. Then they give up and go home and play video games all-day.

I think even high status men can become omegas when they lack opportunities for achievement and purpose. The Tylor Chase childhood star to unhoused story feels realistic to me now.

I am not sure what a DiCaprio or Clooney would be if they were waiting tables in LA unable to find work.

They'd clean up. Again, the rules that apply to you and me don't really apply to DiCaprio. I know the whole "she's over 25" memes, but remember his character in Titanic was a poor artist. Asian and South Asian men have the least luck in dating, but very successful careers. Their culture rewards grindmaxxing, and neglects social and dating skills. Tylor Chase is a Hollywood tragedy. I don't know what I'd do at that stage. I come from wealth, graduated with zero debt, got enough money in my savings and a steady of stream of rental revenue to retire today and still afford expensive holidays twice a year. I have a great job that'll probably hit 6 figures before I turn 30. My last relationship was during college. Running on 4 years with zero play.

I question whether they would clean up. Or would they be unemployed and living in their mom’s basement. A big part of becoming charismatic and interesting is having success which requires getting your foot in the door. Then you gain experience and confidence. I can get laid easier at 40 and bald than at 22. A lot happened between those years.

If Clooney or DiCaprio were 22 in 2018 they wouldn’t get casts for anything. They would be waiters at best. Then give up. I’ve been at a couple parties with DiCaprio. There isn’t anything about him that seems special other than another guy with a drink in his hand. He lives off his name and being really good at acting.

There are more obvious examples of guys we can agree would be nothing if the door wasn’t open. If Antonio Brown was banned from football because of his skin color it’s completely obvious he would be in jail. Though looks like that will happen anyway.

I’ve been at a couple parties with DiCaprio. There isn’t anything about him that seems special other than another guy with a drink in his hand.

Mrs. Bezos would appear to disagree.

I think you're mistaking the advertising for the substance. From my dim memories of PK, it was a lot of complementarian christian feminism packaged in terms like "being a prayer warrior". A lot of "You need to be the leader of your household (by taking your wife's advice on everything)". There was absolutely nothing there about how to game single women, keeping wives in line, excelling in competitive endeavors etc. Nothing of what you're talking about. It was much more #2 than #1.

Furthermore, the whole "alpha/beta" thing is a useful shorthand perhaps, but not super descriptive of the phenomena we're talking about. You can't make large numbers of men "alpha" because it is an inherently zero-sum competitive thing. Those who claim to teach this are selling snake oil. There can be only one in any given room or situation. If we're talking how to appeal to women, the answer is contextual respect. You just need to achieve something respectable, and be a leader in a context that tickles a particular woman.

Of course, lots of men have contextual dominance of a field that reduces their appeal to most women. Being top DPS on your MMO raiding guild is competitive and zero-sum, but unlikely to attract many girls (though not zero). Being the least gay dude in a community theater is easier and better odds. The most sexually successful men I know are a pastor, a bartender/part owner of the bar, and a guy who organizes community bike rides. When you understand why this is, you understand contextual dominance.

Furthermore, the whole "alpha/beta" thing is a useful shorthand perhaps, but not super descriptive of the phenomena we're talking about. You can't make large numbers of men "alpha" because it is an inherently zero-sum competitive thing.

I don’t think the “alphaness” of men is strictly, inherently zero-sum, unless we define it that way. Increasing the status and dominance of all men shouldn’t be all purely zero sum given female hypergamy, although it might very well still be mostly zero sum.

For instance, chicks generally have five or so tranches for height in their capital stack, whether consciously or not:

  • Senior debt: “Must be taller than me”
  • Mezzanine debt: “Must be taller than me in heels”
  • Junior debt: Must be taller than some round number (e.g., 180cm, 6’0”, or 190cm)
  • Equity tranche A: The taller he is relative to her the better
  • Equity tranche B: The more men he is taller than the better

Where the A & B tranches are pro-rata. The third could be moved to first if she is quite tall herself, or the round numbers changed.

Only the last tranche, B, is inherently zero sum. So if we waved a magic wand and made all men six inches taller, it should result in at least some positive sum gains. However, if most of the variance in female attraction is driven by B, then indeed most of the gains will be zero-sum.

We can use the height example to generalize for status/dominance. Income works almost one-to-one—just without the “heels” tranche—and the round number examples become something like $100,000, $150,000, $200,000 or the local currency counterparts.

Being top DPS on your MMO raiding guild is competitive and zero-sum, but unlikely to attract many girls (though not zero)

Every guild has a female tauren druid who ends up getting involved with the GM...

Not even MMOs are safe from hypergamy.

Given the gender ratios, they're probably some of the least safe places.

Lmao. You know I got blacklisted on my server in WoW back when I was 14 because the GM's girl kept begging me to boost her through low level quests for achievements. Finally I had had enough and called her an achievement whore.

Then she whined to the GM I had called her a whore and I got ratfucked. Taught me an important lesson.

"a" being the keyword. As in, just one. Whereas being the top sportsball player or rockstar can get you swarms of girls fighting over you.

In mine, it was a shaman, and she cucked the old GM with the new GM.

Poor former GM, monkey-branching claims another victim.

These shamanka ain’t loyal.

#2 is the dream though, every second RomCom has the plot of a desired guy being tamed.

If #2 works fabulously, then the next complaint would be (quite reasonably) that all good men are gone. Women don't want the desirable men to commit in general, they want the men to commit to them.

The problem is simple: Modern women - as a a group average, not literally everyone, to be clear - have standards above what the actually existing average men can offer. Worse, some of these are strictly relative (i.e. " he has to earn more than me"), so it's in direct conflict with other preferences such as feminism.

As a single man, you can't actually change much about the general issue, but you can improve your ranking to get a chance for yourself. So #1 it is.

The outcome is still that only a minority of women is really happy with their catch, a substantial number settling but with resentment since they're convinced they really deserve better, and another part looking at the latter and rather staying alone.

Modern women - as a a group average, not literally everyone, to be clear - have standards above what the actually existing average men can offer.

Not to sound like a dick, but I guess you're aware that women usually make exactly the same complaint in reverse?

Not to sound like a dick, but I guess you're aware that women usually make exactly the same complaint in reverse?

It turns out it is possible for a complaint and its reverse to be made... and for one to be accurate and the other not. "I know you are but what am I" is not a killshot. The infamous OKCupid study that showed women rate 80% of men to be below average tells us this is likely to be the case here.

Why do you act like this is surprising or somehow contradicting the parent's point? Everyone can simultaneously be low quality and have high standards, and in fact this feels truthy with respect to our society.

Sure. And they also complain about the opposite, men being pigs who will settle for anything as long as it has a suitable hole. And they also complain about men actively prefering worse partners since they would feel threatened otherwise.

Any survey, experiment or just demographic data I'm aware of on the topic shows a stark difference between the sexes. Women will openly admit to strong exclusion criteria in surveys, act on them in experiments, and live by them demographically.

Men have preferences to be sure, but will generally date whomever they can get. The actual problem with men is that they are more violent and generally willing to force themselves upon others to exert their will, i.e. the complete opposite of our current problem. And, to be clear, very good to be kept in check. It's just that women also have toxic tendencies that need to be checked, even if they are less dangerous.

even if they are less dangerous.

In an environment of actual equality they axiomatically must be treated as equally dangerous and destructive; the overwhelming majority of the modern problems with the relations between the sexes (problems that started 150 years ago, though various economic forces during that time would disguise this) are caused by society's failure to do exactly this.

I think we can generally observe is that women’s main complaint about men is that desirable hetero men are unwilling to exclusively commit.

FWIW that's not my impression. My impression is that women's main complaint men is unwanted sexual attention.

  1. Focus on the undesirable men that are willing to commit and somehow transform them into desirable men i.e. alphaize the betas 2. Focus on the desirable men and incentivize them to commit i.e. betaize the alphas.

Neither of these solutions is workable. For one thing, as the saying goes, hypergamy floats. If all men were tall, modern Western women would perceive 6'0" as "icky." For another, there is a strict mathematical limit on the number of women who can be the beneficiaries of alpha male commitment. For the average woman, no amount of general cultural or policy changes will get her (monogamous) commitment from a highly desirable man.

that, in other words, expecting modern women to elicit commitment from the men they are attracted to is laughable lunacy.

I agree, and part of the problem with modern dating culture is that society tries to accommodate women's childish desires. Actually, this also applies to unwanted sexual attention. For one thing, women tend to exaggerate this issue as a flex. For another, women, generally speaking, object to sexual attention from men they deem unattractive no matter what the circumstances, no matter how polite or respectful the man is. At the same time they love and want sexual attention from men they deem desirable. How's this supposed to work given that men can't know in advance whether any given woman will find them desirable? The answer is that it can't.

Everyone has desires that are childish, contradictory, and unreasonable. The difference with women is that society actually takes those desires seriously.

I agree, and part of the problem with modern dating culture is that society tries to accommodate women's childish desires. Actually, this also applies to unwanted sexual attention. For one thing, women tend to exaggerate this issue as a flex.

Yeah, it's a common humble-brag. Ugh, I hate how I get hit on and checked out all the time. omg it's literally like the worst. Just because I wear a sports bra and volleyball shorts everywhere doesn't mean I want sexual attention.

For another, women, generally speaking, object to sexual attention from men they deem unattractive no matter what the circumstances, no matter how polite or respectful the man is.

Sexual attention from an unattractive man is less likely to receive objections if he makes it clear he doesn't actually think he has a shot, if he signals he could be a willing orbiter, or if the sexual attention comes from afar and she gets something in return (e.g., Instagram likes/comments).

At the same time they love and want sexual attention from men they deem desirable. How's this supposed to work given that men can't know in advance whether any given woman will find them desirable?

Men are supposed to just read women's minds to know whether or not to approach, lest they run afoul of the workplace rules.

Sexual attention from an unattractive man is less likely to receive objections if he makes it clear he doesn't actually think he has a shot, if he signals he could be a willing orbiter, or if the sexual attention comes from afar and she gets something in return (e.g., Instagram likes/comments).

Yes, I agree. I was thinking mainly about situations where the man tries to pick up the woman; "hits on her"; "slides into her DMs" etc. As you say, any sexual attention where the man communicates that he thinks he has a chance of a sexual/romantic relationship. Also it applies to catcalling and the like. But yeah, if the sexual attention strictly puts the woman into a higher status position, then a lot of the time it's okay, for example if a man pays $100 to subscribe to a woman's Onlyfans.

My impression is that women's main complaint men is unwanted sexual attention.

For another, women, generally speaking, object to sexual attention from men they deem unattractive no matter what the circumstances, no matter how polite or respectful the man is.

Good point, but I'd file this under "the men that are willing to commit are undesirable", as I assume the great majority of the men giving away all that unwanted sexual attention would be willing to commit.

How's this supposed to work given that men can't know in advance whether any given woman will find them desirable?

Well, you see, they're supposed to just get it i.e. magically know in advance.

Good point, but I'd file this under "the men that are willing to commit are undesirable", as I assume the great majority of the men giving away all that unwanted sexual attention would be willing to commit.

I think you underestimate the myopia of male horniness here.

The fundamental problem is that female desires are inherently impossible to fulfill. Each woman wants to be the exclusive wife of an alpha male, but there simply aren't enough alphas to go around. If Chad has a soft harem of five girls, and you force him to settle down, then he can only settle down with one of them, leaving the other four in the lurch. Whichever girl that dated Leonardo DiCaprio before turning 25 gets to keep him, deprives all other girls of Leonardo DiCaprio.

From Sexual Utopia in Power: The Feminist Revolt Against Civilization:

It is sometimes said that men are polygamous and women monogamous. Such a belief is often implicit in the writings of male conservatives: women only want good husbands, but heartless men use and abandon them. Some evidence does appear, prima facie, to support such a view. One 1994 survey found that “while men projected they would ideally like 6 sex partners over the next year, and 8 over the next two years, women responded that their ideal would be to have only one partner over the next year. And over two years? The answer, for women, was still one.” Is not this evidence that women are naturally monogamous?

No it is not. Women know their own sexual urges are unruly, but traditionally have had enough sense to keep quiet about it. A husband’s belief that his wife is naturally monogamous makes for his own peace of mind. It is not to a wife’s advantage, either, that her husband understand her too well: knowledge is power. In short, we have here a kind of Platonic “noble lie”—a belief which is salutary, although false.

It would be more accurate to say that the female sexual instinct is hypergamous. Men may have a tendency to seek sexual variety, but women have simple tastes in the manner of Oscar Wilde: they are always satisfied with the best. By definition, only one man can be the best. These different male and female “sexual orientations” are clearly seen among the lower primates, e.g., in a baboon pack. Females compete to mate at the top, males to get to the top.

Women, in fact, have a distinctive sexual utopia corresponding to their hypergamous instincts. In its purely utopian form, it has two parts: (1) she mates with her incubus, the imaginary perfect man, and (2) he “commits,” or ceases mating with all other women. This is the formula of much pulp romance fiction. The fantasy is strictly utopian, partly because no perfect man exists, but partly also because even if he did, it is logically impossible for him to be the exclusive mate of all the women who desire him

Alphaize the betas? Not going to work. Much of what makes men alpha is zero-sum; fame, status, leader of men, etc. We are all richer and taller than we were before the industrial revolution. Doesn't mean women are suddenly much more attracted to the average man; it just means they keep looking for the top 20%.

Women's wants cannot be satisfied, and we are going extinct trying. Since they are going to be unhappy no matter what, we might as well go back to what worked for the last 5000 years; forcibly pair off each woman while she still young, virginal, and fertile, to a beta who is willing to do the work of building and fighting to support his civilization.

I salute you for quoting Devlin. At some point I probably 'd have done that here myself, but I wasn't sure of the probable reception.

If Chad has a soft harem of five girls, and you force him to settle down, then he can only settle down with one of them, leaving the other four in the lurch.

But one is still more than zero.

The fundamental problem is that female desires are inherently impossible to fulfill.

I basically agree with you, but I think it's worth noting that male desires are similarly impossible to fulfill. Most men would instinctively like to have a harem of women, adding in a new, young one every few years kinda like the king of Saudi Arabia does. Obviously this desire is mathematically unreasonable.

The difference, of course, is that society does not take this sort of desire seriously. If a man said that his girlfriend/wife should accept him dating others while still remaining faithful, he would get rebuked. If he said that every man should be able to build a harem in this way, he would be laughed at. But fundamentally, this is no different from the situation where an average woman has a fling with a highly desirable man and complains that he won't commit to her. Except of course in terms of society's reaction.

If a man said that his girlfriend/wife should accept him dating others while still remaining faithful, he would get rebuked. If he said that every man should be able to build a harem in this way, he would be laughed at.

Would he? Depends how he phrases it. A man who identifies as poly, and explains this preference in 'snowflakey' "here are my personal boundaries" terms, a significant segment of the Blue Tribe would applaud his courage for being open about his orientation. Whether he would, in fact, get much action, is a potentially thornier question, but voicing this desire isn't taboo.

Would he? Depends how he phrases it. A man who identifies as poly, and explains this preference in 'snowflakey' "here are my personal boundaries" terms, a significant segment of the Blue Tribe would applaud his courage for being open about his orientation.

I tend to doubt this, but it's easy enough to test. There surely is a subreddit for polyamory. So it's easy enough to post on it that you are a man looking for a relationship which consists you, multiple women, and no other men. And see what kind of a response you get. I'm pretty confident it will be some combination of (1) heavy downvoting; (2) ridicule; (3) rebukes and scorn; and (4) deletion/banning.

Edit: I just looked at /r/polyamory and found the following:

Personal ads and the like are not allowed. If you post asking for people in your area, or anything looking like a personals ad, it will be removed. Same with commenting anywhere attempting to do the same. This includes asking how to find "a third", "a unicorn", or multiple women to date only you and maybe each other.

In other words, there is a specific rule against a man asking how to go about setting up a harem type relationship. Note that other (mainstream) relationship discussion boards generally do NOT have a rule against a woman of average desirability asking how to get exclusive commitment from a highly desirable man. On the contrary, if a plain Jane posts her dating profile and asks for suggestions on how to attract a partner with 8-figure net worth, chances are it will be frowned upon to politely tell her that she's just too unattractive to have any realistic chance.

I’ve come across two witticisms on Manosphere blogs regarding this issue.

Plate-spinning / soft harems = promiscuity, as preferred by men; serial monogamy = promiscuity, as preferred by women.

And: the woman’s ideal is a strong man who’s a frightening menace to everyone except her; the man’s ideal is a virgin bride who turns into his personal slut. Neither is one bit more realistic than the other.

the man’s ideal is a virgin bride who turns into his personal slut.

I see statements like this, and I recall Samwise Gamgee from Lord of the Rings - who basically went off to war, went through hell, came back, married his childhood friend, and had something like 8 kids.

When society has gotten to the point where you can point at Samwise Gamgee, the literal everyman in a story filled with demigods and suffering, tragic figures, and say 'That's an unrealistic fantasy, stop dreaming', I think we've lost a bit of the plot somewhere along the way.

Modern Samwise Gamgee would have come home to find out that Rose Cotton cheated on him with Jody Took and the government that he fought so hard to defend would steal half his shit and give it to her (because Sam married Rosie for BAH before deploying).

Not even all THAT modern

Plate-spinning / soft harems = promiscuity, as preferred by men; serial monogamy = promiscuity, as preferred by women.

And: the woman’s ideal is a strong man who’s a frightening menace to everyone except her; the man’s ideal is a virgin bride who turns into his personal slut. Neither is one bit more realistic than the other.

Agreed, but I think that again it's worth noting society's reaction. Imagine male and female online dating profiles which expressed these sorts of preferences. Which one would get laughed at by society?

Similar question with male versus female promiscuity.

True. As far as society is generally concerned, serial monogamy is not promiscuity.

That seems reasonable enough at a glance, since it does not have many of the downsides of "typical" promiscuity (the destabilising effect of making it not theoretically possible to match ~everyone up, greater connectivity in the STD transmission graph, unclear paternity...).

Group #2 is much smaller than #1. Probably at most 10% of group #1. So why would you focus on #2? If you have a 1% converting success on both groups, you'll influence more people on #1. And in terms of society overall it's better if you don't have a large group of single males that are single and resentful towards society.

What you should do instead, is force women to lower their standards. Women are the gatekeepers here, and if you (somehow) convince them to date lower, which considering there are more educated women than men, will have to happen at some point, would work more towards solving this than anything.

will have to happen at some point, would work more towards solving this than anything.

Does it have to happen? What seems to be happening is that we are all turning into South Korea. Even developing countries are having collapsing birth rates. There seems to be nothing pointing toward women settling, their standards are sky high and climbing.

Especially middle income countries seem to be in free fall. Women in LATAM are seeing what the upper middle class in California have, and they aren't settling for Pedro in their village.

Especially middle income countries seem to be in free fall. Women in LATAM are seeing what the upper middle class in California have, and they aren't settling for Pedro in their village.

Pedro still has a shot after his village women are done Having Their Fun with los Brayans y los Yeisons and are ready to settle down, he just has to work toward being able to afford an upper middle class Californian lifestyle in the meanwhile.

A few LatAm countries (Argentina, Colombia, Mexico, Uruguay) have decriminalized/legalized abortion in recent years, which might not help the birthrate situation. To the extent abortions are eugenic it could be overall value-add though from a human capital standpoint.

While Argentina and Uruguay are more secular, Mexico and Colombia decriminalizing/legalizing abortions is kind of funny, given the supposed high degree of religiosity in those two countries and the supposed impermissibility of abortion in Catholicism. Religious conviction taking a backseat to hoeflation.

I have this Indian friend, lives in Mumbai. He's been putting himself out there (on and off) for 6 years, and gets ghosted and stood up constantly. Twice he met his dates' friends, passed their vibe check, and got shafted anyway. His last one turned into a "relationship" with this girl coming out of a bad breakup. So bro was just her unpaid therapist for 8 months, before she flaked and went back to her douchy ex.

Bonus point: the ex is a Tatebro.

Fascinating to see this stuff go global.

If you have a 1% converting success on both groups, you'll influence more people on #1.

And eventually both paths will result in the same number of single women pairing up.

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