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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   25734 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 27, 2026

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I would say that both men and women have a lot of parts of the "practical aspects of dating" that they'd prefer not to talk or even think about. Both sexes don't much like being held up to objective competitive standards, unless they're very confident of their position.

As to why you can't discuss looks productively with women, it's because attractiveness is core to female self image and requires immense kayfabe to avoid the crushing reality. To women, they have a social incentive to all claim all other women are beautiful, and to repeat it ad nauseum. They develop a literally insane view of female attractiveness and will be completely and totally unable to rationally discuss it under any circumstances. The male analogue is sexual success. You won't get guys to be any more honest about their sexual experience than you will get women to be honest about female sex appeal.

Men don't like being objectively and competitively ranked publicly by height, dick size, bank account, social media followers and number of sex partners. Women don't like being objectively and competitively ranked publicly by attractiveness, pleasantness, kindness and fertility.

To your larger question, all the stuff you're talking about is male-oriented models of the dating scene. These can be useful for men, but expecting women to be interested is a bit like expecting men to be into the framing model of intersectional feminism. If the model produces useful results for you in real life, who cares if women acknowledge it?

As to why you can't discuss looks productively with women, it's because attractiveness is core to female self image and requires immense kayfabe to avoid the crushing reality.

To some extent that's true - but on the flipside, there are also many many women (and men) who have an inaccurately low opinion of their own looks despite being attractive. Which is not necessarily a contradiction to what you're saying. The kayfabe is partly a reaction to the low self-esteem, whether that low self-esteem is accurate to reality or not.

Sure. There's also the effect that when everyone is beautiful, no one is. Leads to a disconnect between what everyone says and what everyone knows. And there's plenty to be insecure about in the space between our perceptions there.

They develop a literally insane view of female attractiveness and will be completely and totally unable to rationally discuss it under any circumstances.

I think most women have a sane view of female attractiveness, despite being completely and totally unable to discuss it directly. 4s know that a man with a choice will pick the 7 every time. "Don't go out on the pull with a significantly hotter girlfriend" is standard female dating advice. "What does she see in him/he see in her?" type calling out of apparent SMV differences in relationships are common gossip, and require accurate SMV assessment to participate in.

s to why you can't discuss looks productively with women, it's because attractiveness is core to female self image and requires immense kayfabe to avoid the crushing reality.

I think it should be pointed out that this is a relatively new development. Back when early marriage and Christian monogamy were the norm, women's lives were basically similar, regardless of their looks.

Eh, I think you'd find the same basic social patterns, just on a smaller scale. Same crab bucket, just a small one. The internet just means you can see the other four billion crabs.

As to the actual socio-sexual practices of early church christianity.....it was pretty far from what it became later, and wildly different over time. At one point, popes were having orgies with their half-sisters, at another monasteries held literal sex shows. I think you'll find that the actual state of mating at any given time was far more a product of secular trends than religious ones. These things move in cycles, religiosity and sexuality same as everything else.

I was referring to the social norms before the Sexual Revolution, not the era of the early Church.

The social norms have gone through many hundreds of "sexual revolutions" over the millenia. Give a country one good generation of relative peace and economic growth and the sexual mores go out the window. Then they fuck everything up and reinvent sexual morality from first principles and staple it onto the religion their grandparents stopped following.

All of this happened in ancient Greece and Sumeria, and no doubt much further back than all that. I'll lay dollars to donuts there's more monkey sex during times of peace and plenty.

Now that's interesting. Why the correlation between sexual mores and economic hardship?

My guess is that given a choice between an e-mail job in a climate controlled office and housewife, women take hte job. When given a choice between twelve-hour days hauling garbage and housewife, they take housewife. Times get hard, war, famine, economic collapse, and all feminism will wink out of existence until things improve.

You won't get guys to be any more honest about their sexual experience than you will get women to be honest about female sex appeal.

This has not been my experience with men. Male virgins will admit when asked that they've never been with a girl.

To your larger question, all the stuff you're talking about is male-oriented models of the dating scene.

What are female-oriented models like?

If the model produces useful results for you in real life, who cares if women acknowledge it?

Well, it's not about getting recognition from women. But if the topic of dating comes up ("So and so got back together with that guy again", "Ah heck, why doesn't she move on from him already?", "It's hard, dating in this town sucks"), this is exactly the sort of thing that might be relevant to the conversation.

"So and so got back together with that guy again", "Ah heck, why doesn't she move on from him already?"

Like it says in Proverbs:

As a dog returns to its vomit, so fools repeat their folly.

This has not been my experience with men. Male virgins will admit when asked that they've never been with a girl.

I suspect that the opposite was meant. While it is expected of a man to have a slightly higher body count, slightly is very important.

Having had 20 girlfriends doesn't make a man more attractive, and men with 10+ body count often lie about it.

What are female-oriented models like?

I think it's hard to describe them because they are more about feels than rational analysis, but you could try taking a look at female-oriented forums for discussion of dating, for example there used to be a subreddit called "Female Dating Strategy" (commonly referred to as FDS). There is also a podcast called the "Whatever Podcast," where various women are interviewed (and challenged) regarding their views on dating, sex, relationships, etc.

My impression is that the way FDS approaches SMV is that (1) men are either "high value" or "low value,"; and (2) SMV doesn't really apply to women, they are all desirable. It's kind of the same thing with biological clocks.

Admittedly, this doesn't make much sense, but as I said, it's more about feels. To see this in action, try watching a few clips from the "Whatever" podcast. You can see unattractive women insisting that they are 10/10 in looks; that all women are 10/10; etc.

I think the key thing about female-oriented models is that they follow the social rule which forbids anything unflattering to women. So that when someone says women prefer female-oriented models, what it really means is that women are not interested in any way of thinking about dating, sex, and relationships which is unflattering to women as a group.

This is one of those things where they don't want an explanation or solution, they want to complain. Anything you say about male dating strategies from a male perspective will be taken as gender defensiveness and things will spiral from there.

What you're actually complaining about is that you can't talk to women the same way you talk to men.

What you're actually complaining about is that you can't talk to women the same way you talk to men.

I think you've hit the nail on the head. And I suppose this would be because women are more inclined towards bonding than problem-solving.

Any number of reasons, many of which will affect all your other areas of conversation too. This subject is likely to breed conflict with your partner in a relationship and in my opinion should generally be avoided. There's no reason you need to be discussing the dirty details of how the sexes differ in pursuit of the other in a context that makes gender conflict almost unavoidable.

Talking about "SMV" or whatever is what the internet is for, not your date.

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