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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   33823 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.)

You're missing the underlying point because I was being sardonic. Most women do not, in fact, refuse to settle for anything less than a 6/6/6. Even nice and pretty women!

I do not believe the incel exists who couldn't find a woman, and probably a pleasant enough woman, to be a partner. What they generally can't find is a woman who meets their various standards of attractiveness, personality, virginal shy-yet-freakiness, and willingness to be a bangmaid.

Somehow having standards that may be out of your league is evil and unjust on the part of women, but reasonable and tragic on the part of men.

Something approaching half of them are projected to be single by 2030

If that's not a result of 'refusing to settle' en masse then what could it be.

And my basic reminder, I am more than happy to look at data you present that contradicts my point, or accept any argumentation pointing out where my analysis is flawed.

Anyway, here's testimony from a matchmaker (also a female) about the standards put forth by a 31-year-old single woman. "There are a decent number of profiles like this."

It could be a lack of trying on the male end. People spend more time online, which takes away from stuff done in the real world. They still have to work though, so the time is taken from recreational activities. If I am on social media 4 hours per day, work for 8 + transportation, sleep at least 6, 2 hours for chores, food, exercise, and other daily necessities, and use the weekend on family or friends, I might not really want to spend what little time I have left on dating. It is kind of tiring compared to chilling on the couch, and I can always just watch porn to take the edge off.

Add to this that for many, their social life has moved online as well, for example in the form of MMO guilds and discord communities, and there are even less reasons to leave the house. Going out just to date and nothing else feels super awkward. People want to meet others through their daily activities. But if no daily activities take place outside, then what are you supposed to do? Taking dating online as well is an option, but that has its own issues.

You could meet someone through work, but many might consider the risk of drama to not be worth it. Especially if they have little romantic experience due to what I described above.

It could be a lack of trying on the male end.

Sure.

Incentives have to be sufficient.

If the reward for 'trying' is you get rejected 90% of the time, ghosted another 5-9% of the time, and the 'win' condition is you get a woman who is overweight, in debt, doesn't know how to cook, and is iffy on if she wants kids.

Where's the appeal to putting in the effort?

I think a lot of guys are accurately assessing that their odds of winning a real prize are lacklustre, and so efforts spent on themselves pay off more.

You could meet someone through work, but many might consider the risk of drama to not be worth it.

This became a fairly explicit minefield after #metoo. Even if the woman is welcoming the advances or even advancing herself, HR is going to try to kibosh it to avoid their own liability/publicity issues.

40% of young men have never approached a woman for a date, right?

The places where it's acceptable to ask a woman out keep narrowing. Can't do it at work - HR complaint. Can't do it at the gym. Can't do it at her work thats icky.

Worst of all, you go to ask her out and she films her rejection, and its put online for you to be mocked - Some Gen Z Men Are So Scared of Getting Filmed They’ve Stopped Dating - People are using others’ dating fails to gain clout — and it’s having a chilling effect on young mens’ love lives [https://metro.co.uk/2025/12/05/millennial-men-blamed-dating-crisis-one-lazy-reason-25146072/]

Oh, have the wrong book and she won't be dating you https://www.dazeddigital.com/life-culture/article/66662/1/liking-any-of-these-10-books-is-an-immediate-red-flag-lolita-american-psycho

Or maybe she just wants you to spend an excessive amount on her https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/relationships/sex/the-2000-dating-rule-to-avoid-frightful-sex-syndrome-from-men/news-story/e22cb2c108507d006ceaa2629fa9a3e9

Have an awkward date, then she might badmouth you on tea app to every woman around. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-08-30/one-of-the-most-popular-apps-in-the-us-is-fuelling-a-gender-war/105706068

But, yeah its mens fault dating is a mess ....

Have an awkward date, then she might badmouth you on tea app to every woman around. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-08-30/one-of-the-most-popular-apps-in-the-us-is-fuelling-a-gender-war/105706068

It’s my understanding that the Tea app was removed from the Apple store. Has that changed?

It's been removed because it was hacked. No doubt there are other apps being used for the same thing.

Oh, have the wrong book and she won't be dating you https://www.dazeddigital.com/life-culture/article/66662/1/liking-any-of-these-10-books-is-an-immediate-red-flag-lolita-american-psycho

Thanks for the recommendation list!

Or maybe she just wants you to spend an excessive amount on her https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/relationships/sex/the-2000-dating-rule-to-avoid-frightful-sex-syndrome-from-men/news-story/e22cb2c108507d006ceaa2629fa9a3e9

lol @ spending $2,000 on used goods. A whore that fucks like a prude, indeed.

From "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!": Adventures of a Curious Character by Richard Feynman:

“OK,” he says. “The whole principle is this: The guy wants to be a gentleman. He doesn’t want to be thought of as impolite, crude, or especially a cheapskate. As long as the girl knows the guy’s motives so well, it’s easy to steer him in the direction she wants him to go.

“Therefore,” he continued, “under no circumstances be a gentleman! You must disrespect the girls. Furthermore, the very first rule is, don’t buy a girl anything –– not even a package of cigarettes — until you’ve asked her if she’ll sleep with you, and you’re convinced that she will, and that she’s not lying.”

“Uh… you mean… you don’t… uh… you just ask them?”

“OK,” he says, “I know this is your first lesson, and it may be hard for you to be so blunt. So you might buy her one thing — just one little something — before you ask. But on the other hand, it will only make it more difficult.”

Well, someone only has to give me the principle, and I get the idea. All during the next day I built up my psychology differently: I adopted the attitude that those bar girls are all bitches, that they aren’t worth anything, and all they’re in there for is to get you to buy them a drink, and they’re not going to give you a goddamn thing; I’m not going to be a gentleman to such worthless bitches, and so on. I learned it till it was automatic.

Then that night I was ready to try it out. I go into the bar as usual, and right away my friend says, “Hey, Dick! Wait’ll you see the girl I got tonight! She had to go change her clothes, but she’s coming right back.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I say, unimpressed, and I sit at another table to watch the show. My friend’s girl comes in just as the show starts, and I’m thinking, “I don’t give a damn how pretty she is; all she’s doing is getting him to buy her drinks, and she’s going to give him nothing!”

After the first act my friend says, “Hey, Dick! I want you to meet Ann. Ann, this is a good friend of mine, Dick Feynman.”

I say “Hi” and keep looking at the show.

A few moments later Ann says to me, “Why don’t you come and sit at the table here with us?”

I think to myself, “Typical bitch: he’s buying her drinks, and she’s inviting somebody else to the table.” I say, “I can see fine from here.”

A little while later a lieutenant from the military base nearby comes in, dressed in a nice uniform. It isn’t long, before we notice that Ann is sitting over on the other side of the bar with the lieutenant!

Later that evening I’m sitting at the bar, Ann is dancing with the lieutenant, and when the lieutenant’s back is toward me and she’s facing me, she smiles very pleasantly to me. I think again, “Some bitch! Now she’s doing this trick on the lieutenant even!”

Then I get a good idea: I don’t look at her until the lieutenant can also see me, and then I smile back at her, so the lieutenant will know what’s going on. So her trick didn’t work for long.

A few minutes later she’s not with the lieutenant any more, but asking the bartender for her coat and handbag, saying in a loud, obvious voice, “I’d like to go for a walk. Does anybody want to go for a walk with me?”

I think to myself, “You can keep saying no and pushing them off, but you can’t do it permanently, or you won’t get anywhere. There comes a time when you have to go along.” So I say coolly, “I’ll walk with you.” So we go out. We walk down the street a few blocks and see a cafe, and she says, “I’ve got an idea — let’s get some coffee and sandwiches, and go over to my place and eat them.”

The idea sounds pretty good, so we go into the cafe and she orders three coffees and three sandwiches and I pay for them. As we’re going out of the cafe, I think to myself, “Something’s wrong: too many sandwiches!”

On the way to her motel she says, “You know, I won’t have time to eat these sandwiches with you, because a lieutenant is coming over…” I think to myself, “See, I flunked. The master gave me a lesson on what to do, and I flunked. I bought her $1.10 worth of sandwiches, and hadn’t asked her anything, and now I know I’m gonna get nothing! I have to recover, if only for the pride of my teacher.”

I stop suddenly and I say to her, “You… are worse than a WHORE!”

“Whaddya mean?”

“”You got me to buy these sandwiches, and what am I going to get for it? Nothing!”

“Well, you cheapskate!” she says. “If that’s the way you feel, I’ll pay you back for the sandwiches!”

I called her bluff: “Pay me back, then.”

She was astonished. She reached into her pocketbook, took out the little bit of money that she had and gave it to me. I took my sandwich and coffee and went off.

After I was through eating, I went back to the bar to report to the master. I explained everything, and told him I was sorry that I flunked, but I tried to recover.

He said very calmly, “It’s OK, Dick; it’s all right. Since you ended up not buying her anything, she’s gonna sleep with you tonight.”

“What?”

“That’s right,” he said confidently; “she’s gonna sleep with you. I know that.”

“But she isn’t even here! She’s at her place with the lieu —”

“It’s all right.”

Two o’clock comes around, the bar closes, and Ann hasn’t appeared. I ask the master and his wife if I can come over to their place again. They say sure. Just as we’re coming out of the bar, here comes Ann, running across Route 66 toward me. She puts her arm in mine, and says, “Come on, let’s go over to my place.”

The master was right. So the lesson was terrific!

When I was back at Cornell in the fall, I was dancing with the sister of a grad student, who was visiting from Virginia. She was very nice, and suddenly I got this idea: “Let’s go to a bar and have a drink,” I said.

On the way to the bar I was working up nerve to try the master’s lesson on an ordinary girl. After all, you don’t feel so bad disrespecting a bar girl who’s trying to get you to buy her drinks — but a nice, ordinary, Southern girl?

We went into the bar, and before I sat down, I said, “Listen, before I buy you a drink, I want to know one thing: Will you sleep with me tonight?”

“Yes.”

So it worked even with an ordinary girl! But no matter how effective the lesson was, I never really used it after that. I didn’t enjoy doing it that way. But it was interesting to know that things worked much differently from how I was brought up.

And from "Be A Skittles Man" by Chateau Heartiste:

Reader Fabian linked to a funny entry on the ‘Don’t Date Him Girl’ blog:

He had several “lady friends” who stayed the night at his house and he claimed they were “Just friends”. He frequently forgot important details about me, such as the fact that I had a sister, my birthday and what sorts of hobbies I had. He blew me off constantly, would return calls a week later with the excuse of “I was busy.” I often spoiled him with gifts, rides and sex only to receive a bag of Skittles in return. (I don’t even like skittles!) That was the only gift I ever received from him! I met a new friend and we were bonding over “worst ex-boyfriend stories” and suddenly we realized “boy, a lot of these sound the same… Was his name ____?” IT WAS THE SAME GUY!!!

In an unintentional juxtaposition for the ages, reader joel left a comment in my Pimp Slap post about a wedding he attended:

I just attended a wedding the  bill for which, paid mostly by the parents of the bride but with substantial input from the groom’s parents, would easily pay for the private education of several children. It could have paid for a modest but nice house in a good neighborhood in many parts of the country. Hint: The flowers cost about $15,000.

It is amazing what the matriarchy does. The Darwinian purpose of this, I believe, is to keep the husbands working their asses off, and keep them broke, so they can’t go out and buy a younger woman for their next wife or keep a concubine.

Really. There is no other logical explanation for this excess.

Two men, two vastly different experiences with women. One man gets all the pussy he wants for the bargain basement price of a bag of Skittles, while the other man marries a woman in a wedding ceremony featuring flowers that cost $15,000.

How much you want to bet the first guy’s rotation of girlfriends is hotter than the second guy’s $15,000 flower wife? How much you want to bet the first guy gets all the anal sex and blowjobs he desires while the second guy will be begging for his once-a-month sex as soon as the vows are exchanged? If one of these guys is a herb, who is it more likely to be?

FACT: Odds are good you will enjoy a bounty of pussy and love if you act like Skittles guy. FACT: Odds are good you will spend the rest of your life begging for tepid sex from the same old boring pussy if you act like $15,000 wedding flower guy.

Be a Skittles man. Don’t be a $15,000 wedding flower man.

The biggest tragedy of the whole PUA scene is that all those guru book authors learn all those tricks that work on women, but then many of them fail to learn tricks that work on men. So they come off as blowhards with their heads so far up their asses that few want to learn anything from them.

My working theory is that PUA/TRP is unpopular largely not because men don't want to be the Skittles guy. They don't want to be like Chateau Heartiste.

Been reading some insistent advice on twitter that you can meet women out at dance classes or in book clubs.

I've tried the dance classes, and the gender ratio tends to be skewed towards males... and the women tend to bring their own partners.

So you've got a small pool of available women with a circling school of dudes trying to elbow in. I can see why that'd be daunting for single women, and potentially drive some of them away.

The book club... that's asking for quite a bit of commitment for something that has very small odds of working out, and has some small chance of backfiring.

And even if those were two viable options, its still an indictment that we've so severely narrowed the acceptable arenas to meeting others outside the apps.

When a man discloses such a thing in mixed online spaces, common reactions are:

  • Ugh, why would you join dance classes to try to meet women? Women are there to dance, not to get pestered by men.
  • Ugh, why would you join book clubs to try to meet women? Women are there to discuss books, not to get pestered by men.
  • You were unsuccessful because women could sense you were attending the dance classes and book clubs in bad faith.

A man is not supposed to approach dating strategically or with premeditation, for it tarnishes women’s Disneyian conception of romance as a spontaneous, magical phenomenon that Just Happens.

Ding ding ding.

You also have to obscure your motivations... which makes you behave even sketchier!

"Oh no, I just REALLY like discussing early 20th century Gothic literature with this lovely group of 30-something ladies. It has NAUGHT to do with the two hotties sitting over there in the corner wearing the black lipgloss, my thoughts are as pure as the driven snow."

Because as you say, if they dislike the attention, then they have the option of saying "don't invade womens' spaces just to date them, you have to respect their boundaries!" and exiling you without fanfare.

Doesn't matter is some subset of the women absolutely would accept your advances.

That said, I find it painful to dive into activities where the sole motive is trying to partner up. If the activity isn't enjoyable by itself, then I'd just rather not participate.

What a depressing article on red flag books. Talk about high on your own supply.

https://www.dazeddigital.com/life-culture/article/66662/1/liking-any-of-these-10-books-is-an-immediate-red-flag-lolita-american-psycho

I'm not going to read the article, but just in the URL I can see my wife's two favorite books she made me read.

The book thing is so weird. A female friend has commented that she would kill for a man who doesn't play vidya and reads real books (where real is defined as non-YA and non-self-help). To then try to filter based on whether a man is reading the "correct" non-problematic books is hilariously picky.

I think this is one of those cases where the things people complain about in romantic partners (problematic beliefs in men, women being "crazy" or demanding) are actually more like revealed preference in favor of associated attributes than they are negative judgments.

People complain about downsides belonging to partners they made love to, they aren't even aware of the downsides of those they don't.

"Be politically involved and have your own opinions!"

[Does this]

"No, not like that! You're only supposed to be able to do that if it's going to lead to a conclusion that I'm already winning in!"

Doesn't seem that complicated to me. There are a bunch of ancillary skills can that make this tolerable, but people who have to take the book advice thing from social media generally don't possess those nor can they realistically develop them at this point.

But leading with that is just kind of a symptom of, like, just being low-quality in general. At least the 6/6/6-seekers [with few other qualifications] are honest about how naked that self-interest is, and are selecting for people who also do that, as they should. It doesn't make for a great marriage, but neither do the "you read wrongthink books" people.

I am simply trying to create an alternative narrative for what might be going on. Likely it is a combination of several things.

Let us say female standards have increased to the point where "just" 5-10% of young men are actually just shit out of luck basically no matter what they do. Then add worsening social skills due to spending less time in person, which makes it so interactions between the sexes are more awkward, further reducing the chances of them leading to anything. A portion of men probably got rejected a handful of times in a row, and generalized that to mean they were undateable. Dating being replaced by hookup culture probably also explains some of it. Young people might report being single and childless but still have casual sex on the side, which would not always be obvious from the statistics. And then the people who are only looking for something more serious could easily give up because finding someone who wants to commit is so hard. Finally add what I wrote above about just not wanting do date, and I think we start to have a plausible-sounding explanation.

I just do not believe that all of it should be blamed on women wanting an unrealistic fantasy.

I just do not believe that all of it should be blamed on women wanting an unrealistic fantasy.

Its okay, woman blame men for all of it:

apparently men don't update their dating profiles enough - https://metro.co.uk/2025/12/05/millennial-men-blamed-dating-crisis-one-lazy-reason-25146072/

I don't even need snark with this one - How The Rise Of Healthy Dating Standards Is 'Screwing Over' Men https://www.yourtango.com/self/how-healthy-dating-standards-screwing-over-men

oh they want an emotionally open man, until they don't https://www.huffpost.com/entry/mankeeping-dating-burnout-goog_l_688bd9dde4b041333e5b84ea/amp

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/21/magazine/men-heterofatalism-dating-relationships.html

after all dating men makes woman's lives worse https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2025/sep/27/us-women-single-dating

oh, and having a boyfriend is embarrassing these days https://www.vogue.com/article/is-having-a-boyfriend-embarrassing-now

I just do not believe that all of it should be blamed on women wanting an unrealistic fantasy.

Can we blame the social forces/media that women are susceptible to for inculcating those unrealistic fantasies?

Maybe regulate those factors a bit?

China Did.

Sure, but good luck with that. The US are so against social media regulation that they threatened the EU, a collection of sovereign foreign nations, for doing exactly that.

Well, there are caveats.

Likewise, sports gambling and gambling ads were banned for a long time. Tobacco ads were banned in living memory b/c of health implications.

Me, I think it would be simple enough to just mandate that every social media site that hits above a certain userbase size must open-source their algorithm.

To a degree this is similar to mandating 'Nutrition Facts' on food. People are consuming content from a source that is completely opaque about how that content is selected and curated.

Hard to see a 1A concern there.

consider the risk of drama to not be worth it

I mean, that's kind of the thing right there, isn't it?

Wirehead's gotten a lot better, as you described (MMO guilds/Discord communities, [both gender's preferred] porn, etc.), and women are more openly hostile to men than they were in the generation that's [hopelessly outmatched when] trying to advise them.

The market clearing price has raised to the point low-quality personnel on either side just can't compete, which is what "6/6/6 or bust" (and the fuzzier/less clear-cut ways men express this) is ultimately an expression of.

Ironically it's the unearned hostility from women that's keeping prices higher than they would otherwise be, which of course is why the rich want them to be raised that way.

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