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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   26618 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 30, 2026

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Women don't grow up thinking about how to be woman, because much of what defines femininity is there by default. You are simply born a sexy girl - you simply gestate a fetus - and then give birth to it. There is little to no skill barrier required in comparison.

I’d phrase it as: society generally believes that men need to be prepared for marriage through conditioning, rewards and punishments, whereas in the case of women this is unneeded, because they are naturally a) monogamous b) inclined to become mothers. This isn’t incorrect as such, as women are indeed naturally monogamous, with the caveat that their promiscuity, to the extent that it is indulged, manifests as serial monogamy, which is something that has zero allure to promiscuous men. And the motherhood part obviously no longer necessarily asserts itself in a world of cheap and reliable contraception, abortion access, various distractions etc.

If you are poor, fat, and socially inept - as a man, you will be harshly judged and looked down on within our society.

I’d phrase it as: poverty is a state you’re supposed to remedy as a man by raising yourself up, being an ambitious worker, earning more money, acquiring more skills etc. As a woman your remedy is supposed to be eliciting commitment and financial support from a rich man. Society in general is willing to cut women slack and provide support in such situations if they fail, under the assumption that it’s somehow all the fault of evil men or something, but has zero sympathy towards men who fail. Also, social adeptness is seen as a necessary virtue for men if they want to mate but not for women.

Women do have non-sex drive inclinations to motherhood- watch them interact with small cute things(children or animals) sometime. Our society gives girls enormous amounts of conditioning to try to break this, because it's terrified of having to eat the bill for unwed motherhood and is unwilling to oppose pre-marital sex. But remember those studies of girls who had to care for infant simulators and then went and got pregnant?

Calling this pattern of behavior "serial monogamy" is like calling someone who gets shitfaced every other day "serially sober".

I'm stricken every time by the level of effort levied to whitewash and excuse women's promiscuity. I still haven't stopped thinking about the time I was told that women's desire to lock down the double alpha is somehow an impulse that a meaningfully monogamous society could be built on. Cool, I guess all we need to do is figure out a way that Ultra K-Pop Superstar can somehow monogamously marry ten thousand horny fourteen year old girls.

Unfortunately this is what it looks like to midwit normies, I think. What they see is that the average single woman is never sexually interested in multiple men at the same time, and wants to hold onto just one. So they assume that women are naturally fit for marriage and men aren't. It also doesn't help that society's entire concept of romantic relationships is gynonormative.

It also doesn't help that society's entire concept of romantic relationships is gynonormative.

What do you even mean by this?

It means there is an unstated social consensus that romantic relationships are to be assessed according to female norms by default.

If a guy and a girl are sort of seeing each other and the girl wants to make it ‘official’/serious but he doesn’t, he’s seen as a ‘commitment-phone’, Peter Pan, manchild, player, free rider etc. If this happens the other way around, she’s just weighing her options, not ready for anything serious, still seeking to find herself, finding her voice and place, still wants to have fun etc.

And if either party wants to end an ongoing relationship, we generally see the same pattern. If the guy leaves, he’s a jerk, asshole, uncaring etc. If he wants to remain, he’s a clinger, a creep, emotionally immature, it’s only that the woman feels trapped and wants to find herself again etc.

"Emotional intelligence" certainly seems to be a $4 doublespeak for "my way or the highway".

Closely related: how society "intellectualises" female gaze and sexual interest as more sophisticated than its more primal and unfiltered male counterpart, hence justifying policing of female sexualisation in media.

serial monogamy, which is something that has zero allure to promiscuous men

There are a lot of ex-wives out there who would be surprised to hear that. I'd agree that male promiscuity leans toward trying to attract multiple mates in parallel rather than in serial, but cads who "trade in their wives for newer models" are a stereotype (and occasionally a hilarious stereotype) for a reason.

To what extent was this phenomenon a social reality, I wonder? Outside the imagination of Boomer feminist activists, that is?

Prominent examples of male infidelity + divorce + serial monogamy with younger partners currently include the President of the United States, around half of the six richest men in the world, the last male UK Prime Minister before this one, two of the last three governors of California ...

Though, looking into details, I'm not sure any of them became serial monogamists by choice, they're men who tried to pull off parallel polygyny in secret but got caught. I'd guess those men found serial monogamy more alluring than actual monogamy but tried to also pull off polygyny as long as they could first, but perhaps they just found polygyny so much more alluring that they were willing to risk it backfiring into serial monogamy if their spouse caught and didn't forgive them.

the last male UK Prime Minister before this one

Do you mean Rishi Sunak? How does he count? Did Schwarzenegger or Jerry Brown leave their wives and then marry a younger and hotter woman? I don't get it.

Damn it, I'm one Prime Minister off. I meant Boris Johnson.

Shwarzenegger's affair partner was 6 years younger than his wife, though I wouldn't say hotter. After Gavin Newsom's divorce he dated a woman literally half his age, but the woman he married was only 7 years younger. I'm afraid I also misremembered a bit about Newsom: the "affair" he was part of might not have started until after he was divorced, in which case the only infidelity was that the woman was married to ... well, Wiki calls Alex Tourk "Newsom's close friend", but I feel like the rest of the sentence disproves that description.

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