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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:
One of these things is not like the other.
For men:
For women:
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:
And:
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.
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.
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 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.
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