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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   6128 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 19, 2026

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I was catching up on the quality contribution threads for last month (yes, I'm very late...) and I ran across this post from @Amadan.

I found this part specifically was interesting in the broader context of the discussion:

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.)

One of these things is not like the other.

For men:

  • Six figures: quite difficult to do. Statistically only a fourth of the men in the US achieve this (and of course this assumes that the requirement won't change if all men achieved this).
  • Six feet: mostly driven by genetics and childhood nutrition. And only achieved by 14.5% of men in the US (according to Google).
  • Six pack: this presumably any man could achieve with sufficient exercise (and diet control) though it might be difficult to do concurrently with a six figure job.

For women:

  • 20-something: every woman will be a 20-something for ten years of her life.
  • Slim/attractive (they're mostly the same thing): partially driven by genetics? But still, exercise and diet go a long way here.
  • Virgin who is agreeable and submissive: these are all completely within the median woman's control. As they say, manners cost nothing.

Is it just me or is this scale a bit tilted?

(Apologies for responding so late and in a top-level comment; I didn't want this getting buried in a weeks old thread.)

Indeed. I have commented on this before:

Maybe women now do have ridiculous standards. But so do men.

Women's marriage standards are "six feet, six figures, six inches." Men's marriage standards are "teenage virgin". These are not the same. Every woman was a teenage virgin once (modulo the few who got broken in as lolis). Most men never meet the three sixes. There isn't a possible world where most women get what they want (becoming the exclusive wife of a top man); there is a possible world where most men get what they want, and we lived in it from the abolition of polygamy until the sexual revolution.

Never forget what they took from you.

And:

Yeah, great post. If you want a hot, relatively chaste, young, smart right-leaning woman, that’s not impossible, but you better be the equivalent of that as a man, namely a successful, attractive, charming, relatively young guy who probably has similar values, which in the case of chastity is likely some kind of religious conservatism. Young Mormon men seem to have no issue marrying chaste(ish) pretty blondes who will vote for Romney and deliver 3-4 children, because that’s their milieu. Too often some chubby suburban secular engineer whose primary hobbies are video games and online political discussion thinks he deserves the same.

The fact that you think these are equivalent requirements shows how ridiculously lopsided the sexual marketplace is against men. All a woman needs to do is be young and chaste, which is something every girl was at some point, and vote for a party that half the country supports. Meanwhile, a man who has spent decades studying and working to become an engineer or a lawyer is told "whoops, sorry, that's not enough, you also need to have interesting (to women) hobbies, be physically fit, and have a handsome face; I'm sure you will find time and energy to do all while you are working at a ridiculously demanding intellectual job, and also you better get all of that done way before you turn 35 because otherwise the idea of you marrying a 23 year old is just creepy!"

In other words, every aspect of a man's life, from his career to his hobbies to his body, must be optimized for attracting women, and it is no one's fault but his own if he fails.

"Women don't care about your struggles, they wait at the finish line and fuck the winners." -- Richard Cooper, The Unplugged Alpha

I know it's tempting to go meta and do some kind of both-sides moral equivalence thing here, but I think that's just wrong. Female sexuality is fundamentally stupid and evil in a way that male sexuality simply isn't.

I don't think wanting a harem of hot nubile young women is more stupid or evil then wanting one hot guy to commit to you. Also I don't think that most modern western men actually want a teenaged virgin. Hot young woman sure, but most men these days are not that into virgins. Nor commitment part of the what they took from you is a family plenty of men and women don't want kids these days and judging by the number of single moms with dad nowhere in the picture , rampant among the lower classes plenty of men don't care much about their kids or families.

The fact that you think these are equivalent requirements shows how ridiculously lopsided the sexual marketplace is against men. All a woman needs to do is be young and chaste, which is something every girl was at some point, and vote for a party that half the country supports. Meanwhile, a man who has spent decades studying and working to become an engineer or a lawyer is told "whoops, sorry, that's not enough, you also need to have interesting (to women) hobbies, be physically fit, and have a handsome face; I'm sure you will find time and energy to do all while you are working at a ridiculously demanding intellectual job, and also you better get all of that done way before you turn 35 because otherwise the idea of you marrying a 23 year old is just creepy!"

No you're missing the point. Mormons get to marry hot virgin blondes because chastity is part of the culture. You don't need to be an engineer to live that life you need to be a Mormon. The basic requirements in Mormon culture to get a slim virgin wife is to have served your mission. So no, if your goal is to marry a virgin and have a traditional marriage all that time being an engineer is a waste of time because that's not how modern secular western culture works, a women who is a virgin too long sees her sexual value decrease, guys don't want to hook up with virgins because they're "too clingy" and even her girlfriends would judge her eventually. Waiting for marriage is just not a thing in modern secular culture. But as a Mormon or half a dozen other conservative religious subcultures you only need a job that can rent an apartment and a good reputation in the faith and there you go you can easily marry a teenage virgin.

Our fictional engineer is not out of luck, however, he simply needs to to open Filipina.com and he'll have dozens of young pretty women falling all over him.

the idea of you marrying a 23 year old is just creepy!"

This will still exist but are you really telling me you'd turn down a marriage with a hot 20 something because it would annoy some of the most Who annoying people in the world? I actually feel that you are letting the most annoying women possible set the tone. If you look at the marriages actually happening 6/6/6/ isn't really the standard and the father you get away from tiktok and the apps, the better. Who really cares what the tiktok girlies think?

I don't think wanting a harem of hot nubile young women is more stupid or evil then wanting one hot guy to commit to you

I agree, but I think there's an important difference, which is that society has no problem telling men that their fantasy of having a harem is stupid, unrealistic, unreasonable, and will lead to social disapproval if actually pursued. In fact, I was discussing this issue with another poster a few weeks ago, and as a result of that discussion I checked out the /r/polyamory subreddit. They have an explicit rule against men asking for advice on how to set up this kind of poly relationship.

And I think most men in the West have internalized this social norm. Like most straight men, I like the idea of having a harem. However the prospect of being with one and only one female partner doesn't leave me feeling cheated.

By contrast, society is unwilling to tell average women that their fantasy of exclusive commitment from a highly desirable man is just as unrealistic and unreasonable as an average man's fantasy of building a harem. If Mr. Tall Dark and Handsome won't commit, it's because men are bad people. And women are encouraged to feel angry and cheated that their primal desires have gone unfulfilled.

By contrast, society is unwilling to tell average women that their fantasy of exclusive commitment from a highly desirable man is just as unrealistic and unreasonable as an average man's fantasy of building a harem. If Mr. Tall Dark and Handsome won't commit, it's because men are bad people. And women are encouraged to feel angry and cheated that their primal desires have gone unfulfilled.

I'd love to see something more concrete than the mere assertion that 'society says this', because from my experience, women are intimately aware of how they rank in the dating market and are able to adjust their expectations accordingly. Indeed, that's why most people were able to couple up - at least until smartphones caused us to stop socialising in person.

If 'society' is truly telling women they are perfect and deserve perfection, why did 'society' only start doing this around 2014 or so?

I understand this is a useless thing to say, but you're probably getting to the root of the problem here: modern secular culture sucks, and Mormon culture is way better. If you're a modern secular man wanting to wait for marriage, you're mostly going to be out of luck unless you get very lucky somehow. I suppose that goes for the modern secular woman, too

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