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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   21518 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 25, 2026

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When Sluts Settle Down

Of course there were men who wanted to sleep with Alex Cooper, and of course there was a man who wanted to marry her, too

One of the incel or black pill arguments I think has more than a grain of truth goes something like this:

Men are raised around the polite fiction that women (and society) want them to be nice above all else. Nice guys get the girl. And, after all, anyone can be nice. That's part of why this is important social messaging. But of course in the end, the boy must live. And he discovers that, in fact, niceness isn't what gets the girl. Being hot is, having status is. The original statement isn't wrong. In the abstract, all but the most damaged women do want a "nice guy". A good husband and father, someone to grow old with, someone who won't abuse her, someone her friends and family will respect. But that isn't all she wants, and it's certainly not the first thing most people look for. The boy knows this himself - after all, he is no less vain when it comes to an ideal partner. But he must see it to know the polite fiction, and when he sees it, it frustrates him.

Girls receive their own version of this polite fiction. It has a worthy intention and there is truth to it. But it is also fake, and when people argue it against the evidence, they do young women and themselves a disservice. That fiction is something like this, although in more liberal or progressive circles it will be stated far less explicitly (although it is still stated, by peers, by elders, and most significantly by men): Men don't want a slut. The sluts end up humiliated, pathetic, and alone. The chaste get the guy, and the happy ending. In the real world, girls grow up knowing this isn't true.

Andrew Tate once posted that he rejects “women who have slept with more than 3 men. Vile.” And the guys they influence might claim in the group chat that they would marry only a pure, virginal woman. But if a woman who looked like Cooper asked any of those guys out on a date, you best believe they’d jump at the chance—no matter how many notches she had on her bedpost.

Man, here, will say that men (or at least attractive or otherwise high status men) will fuck promiscuous women but never marry them. But that isn't really true. The truth is that some of the highest status men marry sluts. The truth is, as every woman herself realizes as she gets older, that even chauvinist men, slut-shaming men, men who post nasty comments about a woman's purported body count do so; in many cases even knowingly. Most women could give you a half dozen examples in their own lives. The boy most concerned and public about his contempt for 'sluts' at my own high school married, not ten years later, a woman everyone (including him) knew even then had been around. Who are the Miami streamer/Clav/etc influencer types going to end up marrying? It will not be chaste virgins from the imagined heartland.

Girls know that desirable men love (and fall in love with) sluts all the time. Like the fact that hot women do not always go for the 'nice guy', it is is ubiquitous. In the same way that not being neurotic about being nice makes you more confident, and therefore more attractive, not worrying about being a slut makes many more promiscuous young women more confident around men, more willing to make the first move. As the opinion piece says:

When she meets the man she wants as her husband, she’ll go get him. Meanwhile, her chaste peers are often left paralyzed on the sidelines, waiting for a hypothetical Prince Charming who respects their sacred timeline and who ticks all the boxes, only to find themselves in a perpetual state of situationship purgatory.

By the way, I think the evidence is clear that promiscuity is bad for men and women. It's bad for the soul, it's bad for future relationships, it makes it more difficult to form meaningful attachments. I don't think it's bad to have a preference for someone who hasn't slept around, in fact it's almost certainly smart. But it's just not a revealed priority preference for most men to strongly disincentive this behavior in and of itself.

Men have always been into sluts, of course. Men have always married them, or always wanted to. Real, working (well, partially working) chastity, it must be remembered, was largely enforced by the older generation, in large part for young women by older women, on both sides of the equation. It was the elderly establishment, the church elders who prevented the King from marrying Wallis Simpson. Chastity is important for paternity and therefore inheritance. There are good societal as well as personal reasons. But as soon as men were allowed (by society, by their parents, by each other) to marry sluts, they did. You cannot take seriously a threat when its very proponents work so hard to disprove it.

Part of the reason narratives conflict is that there really are people who just marry their high school sweetheart and stay happily married for life. In fact, the fertile demographics are primarily composed of such people.

But yeah, if you miss out on that, move away from your hometown, and try to find love in the club or on a dating site, well... yeah, that's a different world. People are more broken there, everything is messier, and there's no community that radiates an aura buff for healthy, long-term relationships. Children become a liability, divorce settlements loom like a sword of Damocles, etc.

the polite fiction that women (and society) want them to be nice above all else

"Niceness" is the wrong word for what most women want in a man. I think it's less of a lie/polite fiction than a viewpoint error. The ideal man is more like a German Shepherd: the dog is friendly and playful among those it knows and trusts, and is hostile and aggressive against those it does not -- especially when they pose any sort of threat to those it knows and trusts. You can leave your toddler alone with the dog without a care in the world that the dog will bite it or attack it. But obviously this in no way implies the dog is incapable of violent aggression: you want vicious aggression when an intruder enters your home! It is the proper discretion of when to be friendly and when to be violent that makes this dog radiate such an aura of safety.

Putting the above three paragraphs together, it's easy to see what's going on: in the high school sweetheart case, there was never any need to treat this person as an outsider because this is someone you've always known since childhood. But a stranger in the city you met in a club? Obviously you cannot treat this person like you would a childhood freind. They are a threat, in some sense, and you're a miscalibrated fool to not treat them as such. They definitely can just have sex with you and ghost you, give you an STD, badger you into giving them money, bring in drama with their ex(es), or goad you into signing a marriage document then waltz off with half your money. It takes a fair amount of work to overcome this trust barrier, and often it's never overcome and no long-term relationship forms.

As for sluts, well... I think this word is also too big. There are prostitutes, people who engage in casual sex, and adulterers, and IMO these are quite different, especially the latter. Historically, I think these were often conflated because of the culture-defining preeminance of pathogenic threat (even if not consciously reified as such), which rendered any non-monogamous sex extremely dangerous. Today, to at least to a decent extent, the pathogen threat can be mitigated: antibiotics and similair treatments are effective for many diseases that would have been showstoppers historically, and if nothing else, we at least have tests so you know whether the person is infected in the first place. I think adulterers now stand out as much worse than the other two, as there's been a breach of trust. Prostitutes, well... the old saying comes to mind: "There are two kinds of men who pay for sex: those who are paying you to come, and those who are paying you to leave." With prostitution, at least, nominally, there's no breach in trust. Arguably, it's just a poor woman's method of searching for a good mate -- a man in the latter category who will hopefully one day decide not to pay her to go away. As for casual sex, I think the dynamics are much the same as for prostitution, it's just for women with enough access to money to find explicit prostitution uncouth (although the social norms for dating, namely "man pays for everything", basically make this tantamount to prostitution, just without calling it that).

Are men attracted to sluts? Eh, men are attracted to women, and sluts are mostly all that's available if you fumbled the high school sweetheart route. I mean where would you even go to encounter a non-sexually-active woman where it would be appropriate to make a sexual advance? The nun archetype exists for a reason: adult women who aren't married or sexually active select themselves into circles where they'll never be approached by a man at all. In The Sound of Music, the Reverend Mother basically boots Maria out of the abbey and into a governess job for this reason: Maria clearly doesn't belong in the abbey; she's supposed to be with children and a good husband. Alas, the role of Reverend Mother seems to have been lost to time.

I agree with you. What was the point of 2rafa's post? The median age of marriage is almost 30 for women. Are they supposed to be virgins or something? Does anybody care about the difference between 3 and 6 bodies? Will they even know? There's a word for men who really don't like sluts: Epstein-ahh pedophiles.

I think this is a real phenomenon, but Epstein is a terrible example. Epstein was bringing in low-class prostitutes and passing them around to his friends. He was running a prostitution ring, not seeking to find an untarnished dame for his hand in marriage.

Normies, especially American ones, don't care. A 23 year old „courting” a 15 year old for marriage goes in the woodchipper right after Jeffrey.

Also, as an aside, I think Epstein was a polygamist and not a pimp. His friends never seem to have partaken. Only him. Doesn't change what you said though.

Man, here, will say that men (or at least attractive or otherwise high status men) will fuck promiscuous women but never marry them. But that isn't really true.

I think that this used to be far truer than it is today. Yes, some men in the past married their mistresses. But for the most part mistress and wife were steps on different relationship tracks.

I am the least qualified person to summarize modern courtship mores, but the progression looks to me like this: sex, then long-term relationship, then moving in together, then marriage. In old-fashioned terms, most men in the early stages are asking, "Will she make a good mistress?" Only once that works out will they ask, "Will she make a good wife?" The wife filter is happening late in the process, and the function of marriage then is to cement a relationship that already exists.

By contrast older mores encouraged men to check for wife material earlier in the relationship, and a man who was expressly looking for mistress material wasn't putting her on the wife track.

I went "Who the hell is Alex Cooper?" and had to find out that she's the host of the "Call Her Daddy" podcast. You all remember, the podcast Kamala decided to visit instead of Joe Rogan.

Yeah, this all sounds like the sort of circus I'd expect.

The problem with a lot of these conversations is what defines promiscuous or a slut? I find these terms so vague as to be useless. There are obviously a ton of agreement on the high end of things but I am somewhat shocked at who some guys consider to be "sluts."

The opinion piece seems to be arguing that the main characteristic of sluts is them pursuing men somewhat aggressively, initiating relationships or at least sending blatant IOIs (indicators of interest) whereas the chastity of non-sluts manifests as them waiting while being paralyzed on the sidelines and being wallflowers. I find this rather strange.

I think most women, sluts or not, obviously agree that initiating relationships with men is cringy and comes across as desperate – and that accordingly, it’s not that sluts are such by virtue of pursuing men – and that putting out early to men that are potential partners/husbands is bad strategy. The simple difference between sluts and non-sluts is that the former agree to proposals for casual sex (normally) from men they do not view as potential husbands and the latter do not.

Andrew Tate once posted that he rejects women who have slept with more than 3 men.

I think it’s worth mentioning that in a practical sense, actually following this standard would reduce his mating pool to nil in the current social reality.

I think this quote from the article parallels my post from the last week's thread:

Because the truth is that sluts actually like men. They are the more enthusiastic market participants. To survive a decade of high-volume dating in the 2020s requires a certain psychological resilience and unflappable optimism about the opposite sex that is good preparation for marriage.

I don't necessarily think it's "good preparation for marriage", but "ladies in the streets, whores in the bedroom" or "high sex drive, low promiscuity" women don't stay on the dating market for long. They get married quickly, and their men hold on to them for dear life. Those who remain are either "sluts" or women who don't really prioritize men.

This is demeaning to men, as if all that’s needed to keep a man happy in a relationship is frequent sex. It’s also plain false, if you go on /r/deadbedrooms there’s a huge majority of women posting about how their boyfriends/husbands won’t have sex with them (I’d say maybe 30-40%?).

And before you say it, the common theme doesn’t seem to be the woman becoming unattractive/older. There’s a huge number of men with porn addictions out there, men who settle for a wife that’s not actually their type even if she’s otherwise attractive (what’s a 173cm skinny blonde to do if a man has a Latina fetish?), men who have low T, men who just have completely incompatible kinks, etc.

The stereotype that all men want sex all the time with any mildly attractive woman is harmful for everyone, and especially now with hormonal issues and porn addiction becoming extremely common in men. The prevalence of ED in men under 24 has more than doubled in the last 20 years! You can’t rely on old stereotypes anymore to navigate the modern dating world, whether you’re a man or a woman.

I do not necessarily disagree with you, but I don't quite understand how you came to this interpretation.

UPD: I checked a few pages of the DB subreddit, and very few low-libido men on it are truly low-libido, as in, not really interested in sexual pleasure. At least half of them aren't attracted to their partner, a quarter have medical issues and are frustrated by the lack of sex drive. Less than a quarter are significantly less libidinous than their partner and consider themselves normal.

Sure, I think the low libido vs high libido terminology isn’t accurate, it’s about having a partner that doesn’t want to have sex with you, and this happens to women too.

If you’re brought up with the idea that men are always willing to have sex at any time, and that the way to satisfy a man and get him to marry you is to be “a whore in the sheets” for him, what do you do when it turns out your man doesn’t want to have sex anymore?

And if a man is turning down sex and instead prefers to watch porn and masturbate, that feels far worse than him just having no libido for medical reasons!

Smash his wifi and put trenbolone in his coffee.

You're correct but I think this is overcomplicating it.

  • Women want a man who is 'nice' but only to her.
  • Men want a women who is a 'slut' but only to him.

Women's fantasy is to have a strong-willed, dominant, somewhat abrasive/disagreeable man who gets what he wants, but softens around her and only her, that she can wrap around her finger, not a pushover but 'I would do anything for her'. She is the exception to the other women.

Men's fantasy is to have a youthful, viriginal, agreeable, respectable women, but so enamoured and devoted (unconditionally) that she is willing to throw herself at him and only him, and become his 'slut'. He is the exception to other men.

Everyone wants to feel special.

Men are raised around the polite fiction that women (and society) want them to be nice above all else. Nice guys get the girl. And, after all, anyone can be nice. That's part of why this is important social messaging. But of course in the end, the boy must live. And he discovers that, in fact, niceness isn't what gets the girl. Being hot is, having status is.

Isn't the problem that there's a tension between what society wants and what an individual wants? Society doesn't really care whether some random teenager "gets the girl." It only barely cares whether men overall get married, insofar as it needs to keep the fertility rate up to produce more workers. What "society" wants is for boys to be nice, stay out of trouble, and go to work. And, you know, those are pretty good things to want overall in society... it's just not the only things that a male mammal would want. I don't know the solution, but I wish we could at least start by openly acknowledge the problem.

Where is @Sloot at? He always wins these arguments.

Maybe he settled down.

Oh shit. Shots fired.

That's interesting, I wonder if that is the median view here. I disagree with him as much as I agree on the whole. Which is a better record than many.

He's the only person I've blocked here, he's so consistently vulgar, with so little to be learned from it.

Same! I rarely block people but I can't stand the self-assured, adult red pill man's mindset. Feels quite close to just pure selfish evil to me.

I think I'm in the same boat. But even when I disagree with him, the manner in which he expresses himself can almost always get a chuckle out of me, which is appreciated.

He tends to become active around topics like this. There are a large minority of topical users on TM who only come alive when the discussion shifts around to certain issues. There’s a reason I don’t partake in a lot of the political discussion here. It’s mostly arguing on incremental, insignificant tidbits of current events that aren’t going to end up going anywhere. Culture War is too top heavy on that dialogue IMO.

The “culture war” itself has cooled down and become entrenched to the point that you don’t always have new exciting “culture war” topics to talk about every day. So people just default to talking about US politics at large.

If that’s the case we need to pull from Kiwi Farms more. They never have this problem, /s.

Or AI, which has lately been the subject of half to two-thirds of the top-level posts in the CW threads. A big change from Reddit days.

Yeah. I mean that was sort of just a matter of timing. We really started talking about AI a lot in the summer of 2022 because of DALL-E, right before the migration away from reddit.

I mean, he certainly has strong views and presents them forcefully. I can't say he's ever convinced me by his arguments, though, so I guess it depends on what you mean by "win".

In the abstract, all but the most damaged women do want a "nice guy"

I tend to disagree with this. Depending, of course on what is meant by "nice." Here's an example: Suppose you need help with something, such as moving a heavy object. So you ask someone you know if they can help you. Maybe it's the person down the hall in your college dorm. Maybe it's the person in the next cubicle at work. Most people would agree that the "nice" thing to do in this situation would be to help the person.

But when it comes to romance, if a man helps a woman in this way (and they are not already in a sexual relationship), it will reduce his chances of being sexually attractive to her.

So it's not just that being "nice" is given little weight. Being "nice" undermines the man's chances.

Men don't want a slut. The sluts end up humiliated, pathetic, and alone.

I see this as an exaggeration of something which is ultimately true. Being a slut definitely makes a woman less attractive to men for long-term relationships. Especially if the woman has bastard children as a result of her promiscuity.

Of course it's true that men put a lot of value on looks. And the current relationship and sexual marketplace in the West is heavily tilted in favor of women. So yeah, a slut who is decent looking will still be able to find a decent man.

So to sum up: Men are told that being "nice" makes them more attractive to women. This is completely wrong. Women are told that being sluts makes them less attractive to men (for relationship purposes). This is correct, although admittedly the slut penalty is not so great if the woman is childless.

In general, your point seems to be one of those false balance types of arguments. The unspoken argument is something along the lines of "Ok, so men are lied to about niceness, but women are lied to as well, so it's less of a big deal."

Men are told that being "nice" makes them more attractive to women. This is completely wrong.

It’s not completely wrong at all. In the choice between a handsome, confident, successful and ‘evil’ man (a cheater, neglectful or abusive parent, etc) and a handsome, confident, successful and nice man, most non-damaged women will pick the latter. The issue is that being nice doesn’t outweigh the first three things.

Similarly, all else being equal men will go for the less promiscuous woman. But all else is rarely equal.

It’s not completely wrong at all. In the choice between a handsome, confident, successful and ‘evil’ man (a cheater, neglectful or abusive parent, etc) and a handsome, confident, successful and nice man, most non-damaged women will pick the latter. The issue is that being nice doesn’t outweigh the first three things.

When the message is sent to men to "be nice" it's not really "don't cheat" or "don't be an abusive parent." Rather, it's things like "be kind"; "be considerate" "be a good listener" "be the kind of guy who helps her move a heavy thing" etc. So you are pulling a bit of a bait and switch.

(Even so, if a man is otherwise attractive but is a cheater or is abusive, it's not going to hurt his chances with women all that much. The fraction of women who are turned on by a guy who mistreats them is not just a small number of "damaged" women. Let's put it this way: If I needed to find a wife and I had a choice between being perceived as (1) a man who is kind, considerate, a good listener, etc.; and (2) a man who is a cheater and or abusive, I would definitely take the second option. Almost all women are disgusted by men who are kind/considerate/a good listener. Most women will put up with men in the second category if they are otherwise desirable.)

Let's put it this way: If I needed to find a wife and I had a choice between being perceived as (1) a man who is kind, considerate, a good listener, etc.; and (2) a man who is a cheater and or abusive, I would definitely take the second option. Almost all women are disgusted by men who are kind/considerate/a good listener. Most women will put up with men in the second category if they are otherwise desirable.

I find this hard to reconcile with reality, but I think it's for two reasons:

  1. You are focusing on traits that correlate with other more or less desired traits. "Women," generally, may be attracted to men who cheat or are abusive, but not because they cheat/abuse. It's that men with attractive qualities like physical vanity and high-risk-taking are also more likely to be abusive and cheat. Men who listen well are probably also unattractive in other ways. Being someone who expresses kindness along with risk-taking and physical attractiveness should be the goal to attract the most women.

  2. I suppose there are many women attracted to abusers and cheaters, but those would be exactly the women that I would not find attractive, including for all of the traits that likely correlate with those women: status chasing, too much attention to physical attractiveness, shallow thinkers, etc. It sounds like horrible advice, to me, for men to optimize attracting the most dysfunctional women.

You are focusing on traits that correlate with other more or less desired traits. "Women," generally, may be attracted to men who cheat or are abusive, but not because they cheat/abuse. It's that men with attractive qualities like physical vanity and high-risk-taking are also more likely to be abusive and cheat. Men who listen well are probably also unattractive in other ways. Being someone who expresses kindness along with risk-taking and physical attractiveness should be the goal to attract the most women.

Just so we are clear, are you claiming that, generally speaking, most men could improve their dating/romantic lives if they acted more kindly and considerately towards women?

When the message is sent to men to "be nice" it's not really "don't cheat" or "don't be an abusive parent." Rather, it's things like "be kind"; "be considerate" "be a good listener" "be the kind of guy who helps her move a heavy thing" etc. So you are pulling a bit of a bait and switch.

It's much simpler than that. It's "be attractive while doing these things". Imagine the two guys from the "hello, Human Resources" meme carrying a heavy box for a woman. One of them, she's staring at his forearms flexing, one of them she's watching the sweatstains break through his shirt with mounting disgust.

If you're reading this and it annoys you, stop typing and give me 30 pushups.

I wonder how many mottizens could give you 30 pushups at all.

I could do it with a few weeks training but I'm also 130kg.it's not hard for most men to do pushups

But you're not comparing a "nice" man and a "not nice" or "less nice" man, you're comparing him with an "evil" man. In practice, "not/less nice" cashes out to something like "has judgment and standards about whom he is nice to." Which seems pretty evident to me to be more attractive to women.

It’s not completely wrong at all. In the choice between a handsome, confident, successful and ‘evil’ man (a cheater, neglectful or abusive parent, etc) and a handsome, confident, successful and nice man, most non-damaged women will pick the latter.

Strong disagree. Hybristophilia and a predilection for dark triad traits are well-known patterns of female attraction. There is a reason why the stereotypical romance novel love interest is a werewolf or a mafia boss who treats the protagonist like shit for 90% of the story.

Girls simp for Snape and Sasuke, not Harry and Naruto.

I've long been under the impression that "dark triad"/"evil" is an imperfect proxy/correlate for what women find attractive in those instances (which is not that well-understood or easily described). Otherwise, redpill-type advice would be much more effective - the men who take it are usually already resentful towards women and society, are you saying that as a group they are still somehow more held back by scruples about doing harm to others than silver spoon fratboys who have never encountered meaningful social adversity in their life?

Any theory of female attraction also needs to explain incidental features of it such as the widespread fascination with horses, which is transparently sexually charged. You can hardly project more dark-triad/evil traits onto horses than, I don't know, hyenas or pigs.

This is related to Beauty and the Beast, and vampires/werewolves. Women want men who are dangerous to bad men, and kind to them. Lacking that, some will settle for generally dangerous.

There’s also the “tortured soul” energy of your examples — a werewolf, a vampire, and the beast are all cursed with an affliction that tortures them and separates them from the human. The women in the stories serve as a stabilizing force — in BatB, literally the lifting of the curse itself — that humanizes him.

They’re dangerous, but deep down, beyond the curse, deeply good. A man who gets passionate and heated, but can be calmed by a touch of his woman, is a pretty real scenario couples experience all the time. Everyone knows that guy who will start yelling about something, and his wife squeezes his hand, and he chills out.

That's not too different from saying that obviously men like promiscuous women since women in the male equivalent form of fiction - porn flicks - are promiscuous, no? Fantasy is fantasy, reality is reality.

Porn flicks surely feature promiscuous women sometimes, but do they do so at the same sort of dominant rate as the gender-swapped version? Porn has become so diverse and large and also are extremely under-studied, so I don't know exactly. But, in general, men tend to care much less about the actual backstory of the women in the porn and much more about their looks and personality. And the personality tends to always be some form of "extremely eager to have sex with [viewer character]," I believe, but that's orthogonal to promiscuous. There's certainly cuck/ntr porn that's popular, but I don't think, in general, women commenting that you're the 6th man she's banging tonight is all that common or something that would tend to make some given porn better for most men, the same way that some man being a werewolf/billionaire/doctor would make some given romance novel better for women, all else being equal.

Personally, I have no trouble finding porn where there's no implication whatsoever of the woman (or women, as the case tends to be) has any sort of sexual history besides what happens within the bounds of that particular video, which strictly involves 0-1 males. As such, this type of porn where the women aren't known to be promiscuous appears to me fairly popular.

that's orthogonal to promiscuous

I disagree. You can't be promiscuous if you treat sex as a low-priority activity or it has a high activation cost for you.

If that falls under "promiscuous," then I'd posit that it is true that men do prefer women to be a certain type of promiscuous woman over not promiscuous. The certain type being that she considers it a high-priority activity with low activation cost when with him and only him and the exact opposite when it comes to any other man. But I don't think that means it'd be accurate to say that men prefer promiscuous women over not promiscuous women, since "promiscuous" without qualifiers covers a much wider ground.

As far as I can tell women like men who can do handyman work that they themselves are scared or incapable of doing, and find it attractive when men can do masculine things like lifting heavy objects.

As far as I can tell women like men who can do handyman work that they themselves are scared or incapable of doing,

All things being equal, I would agree. But all things are not equal. When a man does nice things for a woman with whom he is not already in an intimate relationship, it undermines her attraction for him.

To your first point, you’ve just described Briffault’s Law. I don’t know how many people here would strongly contest that point, but I’ve observed much the same. Maybe “help,” here and there, depends on the circumstance but sure. If she’s asking me to sacrifice, she’s going to have to begin negotiations. The only people I will unconditionally sacrifice for is my family. Most of these arguments rarely end up disputing the points of the other side directly. Instead they argue on the length and degrees of different factors.

I tend to disagree with this. Depending, of course on what is meant by "nice." Here's an example: Suppose you need help with something, such as moving a heavy object. So you ask someone you know if they can help you. Maybe it's the person down the hall in your college dorm. Maybe it's the person in the next cubicle at work. Most people would agree that the "nice" thing to do in this situation would be to help the person.

But when it comes to romance, if a man helps a woman in this way (and they are not already in a sexual relationship), it will reduce his chances of being sexually attractive to her.

If a woman asks a man for help and he turns her down, you think she'll be more attracted to him? Why would you think so?

If a woman asks a man for help and he turns her down, you think she'll be more attracted to him?

Absolutely, in the sense that she'll be more attracted to him than if he had simply helped her.

Why would you think so?

I think so because that's what I (and other men) have observed. If I had to guess at the underlying psychology, my hypothesis would be that when a man does nice things for a woman, he is putting her above him. He is "supplicating" as the PUA's would say. This goes against her hypergamy instincts, i.e. it becomes harder for her to look up to him. Which kills attraction.

Huh. It seems like the feeling of "looking up to" a man and thinking him significantly higher status doesn't necessarily kill attraction (movie stars are attractive), but it does kill the chance of an actual relationship most of the time, he's too high status even to interact with.

It seems like the feeling of "looking up to" a man and thinking him significantly higher status doesn't necessarily kill attraction (movie stars are attractive), but it does kill the chance of an actual relationship most of the time, he's too high status even to interact with.

I would have to disagree with this. A man is going to lose a lot more romantic/sexual opportunities by being too low status than by being too high status. I don't see Leonardo DiCaprio complaining that no women want to date him because he's just too famous and successful.

Sure, being famous and successful will improve a man's status, and then he can get away with things. Even if his status is very polarizing, like Trump, he can still get away with a lot. That's an argument for being rich and successful, not for treating people worse. I assume DiCaprio, being successful and charming, would flirt about it and possibly hire someone to help his girlfriend out.

Sure, being famous and successful will improve a man's status, and then he can get away with things. Even if his status is very polarizing, like Trump, he can still get away with a lot. That's an argument for being rich and successful, not for treating people worse.

I disagree. Treating people too nicely (and a lot of men make this mistake) communicates that you are low status. People who are too nice need to start treating people worse. It doesn't mean that they need to start being actively mean, of course.

I assume DiCaprio, being successful and charming, would flirt about it and possibly hire someone to help his girlfriend out.

As a side note, once a man is in a sexual relationship with a woman, he has more leeway to do nice things for her.

I disagree with the maximalist version of this. I agree if we're talking about the guy bending over backwards to help a woman because she's a woman, maybe some sort of childish misguided chivalrous ideal is pushing him and women resent that because they feel like the guy taking on this chivalrous role is trying to push her into the role of the grateful rescued maiden. But the well-liked, pillar of the community, popular with women guy is a helpful guy too. The difference is that he would help anyone, not just "fair maidens", and women know and feel that difference.

I disagree with the maximalist version of this. I agree if we're talking about the guy bending over backwards to help a woman because she's a woman, maybe some sort of childish misguided chivalrous ideal is pushing him and women resent that because they feel like the guy taking on this chivalrous role is trying to push her into the role of the grateful rescued maiden. But the well-liked, pillar of the community, popular with women guy is a helpful guy too. The difference is that he would help anyone, not just "fair maidens", and women know and feel that difference.

I knew one guy like this in college. He would drop everything to help just about anyone. He was popular with women in the sense that they all raved about what a prince he was. None of them dated him and as far as I know he graduated with his virginity intact.

I do agree that if a man is high enough status, he can probably play the "I am a humble servant and a lowly worm" schtick and still attract women. I would call that "countersignaling."

I knew one guy like this in college. He would drop everything to help just about anyone. He was popular with women in the sense that they all raved about what a prince he was. None of them dated him and as far as I know he graduated with his virginity intact.

"Literally me" would be hyperbole, but I feel kinship with this guy insofar as I was eager to help with classwork, except I went out of my way to help attractive women less because I realized what it would look like if it appeared I was simping. Unfortunately, being just enough of a normie to understand how I might be perceived for my actions wasn't enough to overcome aspie mannerisms.

If I must tie this personal anecdote back into culture war issues, I'd like to cite "Autism is the real Blackpill," but a DuckDuckGo search and a Google search isn't turning up anything. Did I just hallucinate this piece? Does it sound familiar to anyone else? I'd like to have another go at it and see if its sources actually held up, or if I just gravitated towards assuming whatever says the worst about me is accurate - a dangerous bias.

I'd like to cite "Autism is the real Blackpill," but a DuckDuckGo search and a Google search isn't turning up anything. Did I just hallucinate this piece? Does it sound familiar to anyone else?

Was it this one?

Yes, thank you.

"Literally me" would be hyperbole, but I feel kinship with this guy insofar as I was eager to help with classwork, except I went out of my way to help attractive women less because I realized what it would look like if it appeared I was simping. Unfortunately, being just enough of a normie to understand how I might be perceived for my actions wasn't enough to overcome aspie mannerisms.

FWIW the guy I am talking about did not have any aspie characteristics. He was just a very nice guy.

I guess part of the problem is that if you act like you are eager to please others, people perceive it as low status. In a medieval court, who would be running around trying to please everyone? Most likely one of the servants. Who might even be popular, but not respected. Not respected in the way that the king or his best warrior would have been respected.

I do agree that if a man is high enough status, he can probably play the "I am a humble servant and a lowly worm" schtick and still attract women. I would call that "countersignaling."

No, that's the thing, high status men don't play "signaling" games. They don't play act like they're servants, they're just bros to everyone. They just don't act like women are different in that matter.

Honestly, the second you start thinking about how to "signal" and playing games to attract women, you've lost; you're not and will not be high status that way. Maybe you'll trick some broken women into sleeping with you, which is maybe from some perspectives better than staying a virgin "nice guy". But high status men don't even know when their charm is on. I know some of these guys. They're just charisma black holes, there's no switch they don't act different to men and women, and their charm works on both equally, even straight guys. When they join a conversation, whatever the topic was is immediately dropped for everyone to talk about them and what's up with their lives and please talk more about yourself.

Honestly, the second you start thinking about how to "signal" and playing games to attract women, you've lost;

I strongly disagree. For example, let's suppose you're a typical guy. A girl wants you to do something nice for her, such as help her move something; hold her purse; buy her a drink, etc. Your brain (informed by years of propaganda) is urging you to do it. No, no, no. Don't do it. If you do it, it (generally speaking) ruins your chances with her.

No, that's the thing, high status men don't play "signaling" games.

Everyone plays "signaling" games, it's part of being human.

your chances with her.

Your chances of what? Your chances of quick casual sex, maybe. I don't think it harms your chances of falling into deep, mutual love, though, which is best done on a solid foundation of honesty and friendship. You cannot build a soul-deep connection with another human being if, from day one, you're playing mind games where you treat them worse than you would a stranger in an effort to push their evopsych buttons. Those tactics may get you somewhere, but that "somewhere" will not be love.

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In trading it’s called adverse selection bias. If people are willing to fill your bid then they probably have a better model of value than you and are the one with edge. A guy being nice to a girl is essentially telling a girl he’s willing to trade with her (resources for sex). The guy unwilling to trade with her (give her free stuff hoping for sex) is implicitly telling her his price is higher than what she has to offer.

Sure, and then they will not have a match, and will have very little to do with other, and any attraction will just be theoretical and not become an actual relationship. But I can't think of very many real life people who's relationships are primarily characterized by resources for sex, since they're mostly earning similar amounts before getting together, and the women have to continue working after.

That’s not really his point, I think. His point is that if you’ve already served that purpose, there’s nothing further to gain insofar as you offered assistance freely without anything in return; and as such, you get marked as “that” guy. You’re basically a chump.

That assumes you're interested. If you give her a hand and are aloof and disinterested you've lost exactly nothing. Women can smell a guy who moves the boxes or whatever because he wants to get laid. Like almost everything there's no real rule here. There's, as always, calibration of your behavior and how you carry yourself. Would you disagree?

Well, if one of my homegirls really needed help and couldn’t get it elsewhere and she offered to buy or make dinner later (I’ve had this happen), sure; why not? (I wouldn’t do this if I was in a relationship though, unless my girlfriend/spouse was okay with it) If on the other hand she thought she could dial me up because she was a pretty face who was entitled to my assistance for no other reason than the fact she exists, she wouldn’t be in my contact list for very long. As we used to say growing up: ass, grass or cash for those girls.

That is certainly one way to be. I'm more a friend in need is a friend in deed. Though I don't actually know what the hell that means. I help whoever when I can. I help people with bags. I helped an old woman today work the coffee machine in the hospital 7-11. But I tend to take over tasks as my own if I'm helping. I don't want to be told every little thing, that pisses me off. But sure.

I'm more a friend in need is a friend in deed [sic]. Though I don't actually know what the hell that means.

The phrase, as I understand it, is "A friend in need is a friend indeed." The way I always understood it is that friendship isn't a transactional relationship where you log who did what for whom and try to even it out; it's one where you support each other because you love each other as friends. So it's only when a friend is in need that you can truly be their friend, by sacrificing something to help him out of that need; otherwise, you could just be leeching off of them. I'll also add that, I thought a line from John Wick 4 captured the same idea pretty well, when Wick, chased around by assassins, turns to one of his old friends for protection and apologizes, and his friend just responds, "Friendship means little when it's convenient."

I think your own understanding of the phrase (as well as its typography) is correct.

I used to be like that. I still am but less so given the way I’d get treated. If it’s an elderly woman or a man who seems really down on his luck, I’ll offer a helping hand and some of my time, but I don’t do it for just anyone anymore.

No good deed goes unpunished, certainly. One has to ask oneself why one does it, of course, and measure that against the act and potential consequences/blowback. My rule of thumb is never be reactive emotionally. I fail at this often.

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There are tradeoffs.

Slutty Sabrina might want Chad Centimillionaire and settle for Nicholas Niceguy. Patrick the Patriarch might want Virginal Virginia and settle for Somewhat Slutty Sarah...

Also 25% of US adults under 40 have never married. So it is completely plausible that Somewhat Slutty Sarah is just not going to marry, same for Nicholas and Patrick for that matter. 25% of the US population seems not to be marriage material.

Also 25% of US adults under 40 have never married.

Not "adults under 40", rather "40-year-olds" exactly. This is a much stronger result, as it needs to be to support your theory. If the stat were for "adults under 40" I'd have been happily surprised the number was so low; it would be consistent with everyone marrying in their mid-20s!

Good point, that's what I meant but not what I said!

Why does Internet romance discourse often seem to involve these strange stereotypical characters with catchy names? Chad became so generic and escaped into the mainstream, but who are Slutty Sabrina and Nicholas Niceguy?

Is this a consequence of Dunbar’s number that we must invent these imaginary people to gossip about? You could have said “A slutty woman might want a rich handsome man but will settle for an average nice guy” but instead had to create an alliterative cast of archetypes as if this had somehow happened. Occasionally this catches on and Chad becomes a generic term for a hunk and Karen an annoying middle aged woman, but like, why is this a thing in the first place, to want to give names to these weird fake straw people?

I was just trying to be a little artsy and alliterative... Don't read so much into it.

We think of people in archetypes, an archetype imbued with enough stories becomes an egregore. It's all just memes. I think it's biological. An abstract amalgamation of ideas about people just doesn't hit the same as having a symbol like Chad and Stacy or the Chud and danger hair.

Alice and Bob have been used in cryptography discussions for decades. While initially you would just incrementally add new characters in alphabetical order, over time people began deliberately choosing characters' names as a play on words based on their role in the situation being described (e.g. "Eve" or "Yves" are characters who are eavesdropping on a conversation, "Mallory" is a malicious attacker). I view Slutty Sabrina etc. as a logical extension of that principle.

why is this a thing in the first place, to want to give names to these weird fake straw people?

I prefer Alice and Bob framings because when I'm describing a hypothetical scenario with any degree of complexity, failing to name the characters results in clunky, unwieldy prose where it can be difficult to follow which character is which. Compare:

Supposing Alice has a lot to drink and knowingly gets in the driver's seat of her car, fully cognisant of the fact that she's too inebriated to drive safely. Predictably, she has an accident in which a pedestrian, Bob, is killed. Upon her arrest, Alice defends herself by claiming that, while she did drive drunk of her own volition, she never consented to hitting Bob with her car, so she can't be held responsible for it.

With:

Supposing someone has a lot to drink and knowingly gets in the driver's seat of their car, fully cognisant of the fact that they're too inebriated to drive safely. Predictably, they have an accident in which a pedestrian is killed. Upon their arrest, the driver defends themself by claiming that, while they did drive drunk of their own volition, they never consented to hitting the pedestrian with their car, so they can't be held responsible for it.

The second example is actually pretty close to what I started writing when I originally wrote that comment, but after awhile even I started getting confused about who the pronoun "they" and its derivatives was referring to. Naming the characters made the situation much clearer. (And this is a scenario with only two characters: with three or more, naming the characters is practically obligatory.)

For the same reason Austrian economics appeals to simpletons. If it has highly complex mathematical formulas and macroeconomic models in it, people aren’t going to read it. I find it entertaining, TBF. Sometimes the mind needs a break.

Austrian economics also has the added benefit of being correct about everything. Your simpletons seem to be doing alright

Indeed, it adds humor to the conversation, which is usually necessary.

That more than anything is what gets me in hot water with others. Irony and immature sarcasm is a huge part of how I live my life. There’s a reason in past circles whenever my name gets brought up, “smart ass” is the first thing that comes to people’s minds. I have found that people either hate it or love it. It doesn’t mean I’m not out to present and deliver the logical argument; I am and I do, but I don’t see the problem with occasionally adding a little flair to things.

It predates the internet, I remember 'Billy Nomates' and I think I remember a 'John Everyman'. John Smith was the guy who wasn't who he said he was. I'm sure there are others.

I like it, it's an efficient and sometimes witty way to make it clear that we're talking about an example with a particular characteristic not a real person. And for the rest of the conversation you can just call them by their first name: 'Billy' instead of 'our hypothetical unpopular socially awkward example'.

Also, 'Joe Six-Pack'.

The truth is that some of the highest status women marry sluts.

Should this have been "men"?

Not much to criticize here, but one bit of nuance: she's been married two years, it may well be that they make it all the way (hope so), but it's a bit early to do victory lap. Which I guess is one of the best things about settling down early: If it doesn't work out, you have more breathing room to start again.

Very true. A few related thoughts:

  1. Even if you are an outright former prostitute, this does not necessarily preclude you from status if you just choose the right social group (i.e. move to Berkeley). For example, Aella, despite being, as far as I can tell, a midwit, seems to have parlayed her former profession into over 140,000 substack subscribers and about twice as many Twitter followers. This seems to have happened on the back of lurid prose and lurid twitter polls masquerading as "research". Having been Nate Soares' side piece, she has secured funding from MIRI for an AI safety project with other e-girls signing up as mentors. She's also been interviewed on Dwarkesh's podcast - unfortunately the video has been taken down, perhaps because the guy looked like he's nursing a hardon the whole time.

    Of course, Aella is something of an interesting counterexample to your specific argument because she is unable to find a husband despite offering a bounty of 100k for an introduction. However, her standards leave very few men in the pool and there may be only a handful of men on the planet who meet them.

  2. Some of these women literally marry and have kids with men they meet at gangbangs. An indicator of the state of socializing in America?

I solemnly swear I only know about this stuff due to my wife's morbid interest in it.

Aella, despite being, as far as I can tell, a midwit

Who do you consider examples of non-midwits (topwits?)? It seems to me that unless the standard you are applying is more correlated with your aesthetic/moral approval of the person than their wits as usually defined, you should then be writing off most of this forum as midwits as well.

(My impression is that she should be a little bit above the median of the Motte in terms of smarts and verbal skills, and way above in terms of agency (mostly evidenced by the successful ascent to and maintenance of local e-celeb status). Not in any sense my "type" either, so I think I have a low risk of bias due to simping.)

Who do you consider examples of non-midwits (topwits?)?

I mean, there's a lot of smart people out there. I don't pretend to have the final say on who is smart and who isn't, but I'd say, for example, Scott Alexander in his prime was a topwit.

It seems to me that unless the standard you are applying is more correlated with your aesthetic/moral approval of the person than their wits as usually defined, you should then be writing off most of this forum as midwits as well.

Aella is sculpting a public persona as her full time occupation. Her output is basically the best that she can do given full effort and attention. I like this forum a lot, but how many people here treat poasting as their full time job? I'd say zero. So I don't think that you can do a naive comparison given the discrepancy in effort involved.

My impression is that she should be a little bit above the median of the Motte in terms of smarts and verbal skills,

Why?

way above in terms of agency (mostly evidenced by the successful ascent to and maintenance of local e-celeb status).

Debatable, since on a pseudonymous forum you can't actually tell who is successful and who is full of shit. Being a publicly successful figure with a face and a name is part of the game she's playing. Nobody here is posting face reveals and most people here would rather, I suspect, that few people they know IRL knew they posted here.

I do concede she successfully attained celebrity status. Does that mean she's not a midwit? It's 2026, we've had tards as vice presidents.

I mean, there's a lot of smart people out there. I don't pretend to have the final say on who is smart and who isn't, but I'd say, for example, Scott Alexander in his prime was a topwit.

Sure, but he was... top 0.1%? Top 0.01%? Certainly somewhere pretty high up, in terms of wit, even if we assume that most of the witty people never make their wits available to the public.

Aella is sculpting a public persona as her full time occupation. Her output is basically the best that she can do given full effort and attention. I like this forum a lot, but how many people here treat poasting as their full time job? I'd say zero. So I don't think that you can do a naive comparison given the discrepancy in effort involved.

A fair point, but one hand we have plenty of very active posters and on the other hand all the escorting and socialising and what-not surely must take up some of her time as well. Besides, being able to actually translate more time investment into better output is a skill in itself.

Why?

Because most posters here produce significantly less interesting, more brainrotten and worse-researched takes? And even then, I'd be comfortable with assuming that all Mottizens are top 10% for some reasonable measure of "wits" and most are at least top 5%. I just suspect that most of us are so bubbled up that we vastly overestimate the median person.

Debatable, since on a pseudonymous forum you can't actually tell who is successful and who is full of shit.

I don't know, it seems that enough people here drop hints at their occupation that it's likely enough most are in considerably lower-agency life tracks where they essentially operate as employees in standard-ish careers, and the path to get there and advance further forward looks like "get better standardised credentials and perform better on the next performance review".

I do have to admit that I'm quite biased against Aella's detractors, simply because the correlation between aesthetic objections to her lifestyle and politics and barely-solicited public criticism of the quality of her output or intellectual qualities is so high. If my impression is that she is one of the more interesting bloggers, but then every time some topic adjacent to her is discussed a cavalcade of card-carrying MRAs and postrationalist born-again Christians and other assorted trads comes out of the woodwork to assert that she is stupid and boring (and also very unattractive to them), then it just seems like a better explanation that the detractor "doth protest too much" and also is falling prey to a variant of the just-world fallacy (believing that the world can't be so unfair that the immoral and distasteful would also be competent and talented).

Sure, but he was... top 0.1%? Top 0.01%? Certainly somewhere pretty high up, in terms of wit, even if we assume that most of the witty people never make their wits available to the public.

Yeah, but what do you want from me? You asked for topwits and got a topwit.

A fair point, but one hand we have plenty of very active posters and on the other hand all the escorting and socialising and what-not surely must take up some of her time as well. Besides, being able to actually translate more time investment into better output is a skill in itself.

I'm not sure that she still does escorting? In any case, socializing is basically your job as a public figure and helps feed the fame flywheel.

Because most posters here produce significantly less interesting, more brainrotten and worse-researched takes? And even then, I'd be comfortable with assuming that all Mottizens are top 10% for some reasonable measure of "wits" and most are at least top 5%. I just suspect that most of us are so bubbled up that we vastly overestimate the median person.

What is so well researched or interesting about her takes? Asking her Twitter followers about something is, I suppose, research, but I don't know it's particularly good. The usual deflection she offers when someone points this out is "social science is even worse" which, even if true, says more about the quality of social science research than about Aella's twitter poll to Claude code pipeline.

I don't know, it seems that enough people here drop hints at their occupation that it's likely enough most are in considerably lower-agency life tracks where they essentially operate as employees in standard-ish careers, and the path to get there and advance further forward looks like "get better standardised credentials and perform better on the next performance review".

I think this is certainly true. I am not sure that conflating "agency" with intelligence is correct.

every time some topic adjacent to her is discussed a cavalcade of card-carrying MRAs and postrationalist born-again Christians and other assorted trads comes out of the woodwork to assert that she is stupid and boring (and also very unattractive to them)

Ironically it seems to me that you are the one posting a weak knee jerk criticism here since I'm none of those things and didn't say anything about whether I find her attractive or not.

falling prey to a variant of the just-world fallacy (believing that the world can't be so unfair that the immoral and distasteful would also be competent and talented).

I think the real just world fantasy is to believe that nobody who is a midwit can attain fame and success.

What is so well researched or interesting about her takes? Asking her Twitter followers about something is, I suppose, research, but I don't know it's particularly good. The usual deflection she offers when someone points this out is "social science is even worse" which, even if true, says more about the quality of social science research than about Aella's twitter poll to Claude code pipeline.

Having somebody with sufficient clout/exposure to get earnest responses to the questions she's asking from a population of higher-functioning horny enthusiasts is a nice novelty. She's also autistic enough not to just automatically discard things that go against her preconceived notions of what the responses should be, which makes her better than social science academy members who are frequently fishing to prove their own notions since reporting otherwise is to get cancelled.

Yeah, but what do you want from me? You asked for topwits and got a topwit.

My bad, it would have been more useful to ask for your understanding of the bottommost topwit or thereabouts.

I'm not sure that she still does escorting? In any case, socializing is basically your job as a public figure and helps feed the fame flywheel.

Sure, but it does not help the "good poasting" flywheel, and I assumed that any assessment of her wits is based on her textual output rather than her life as a Gesamtkunstwerk.

What is so well researched or interesting about her takes? Asking her Twitter followers about something is, I suppose, research, but I don't know it's particularly good.

The data analysis and visualisation, ideas for things to ask, and thoroughness in constructing the questions. I have not seen things like that fetish tabooness/preference by gender/popularity chart anywhere else outside of 4chan, and 4chan is many orders of magnitude more sloppy about it.

I think this is certainly true. I am not sure that conflating "agency" with intelligence is correct.

I would think of agency as at least strongly correlated with some component of intelligence (frontal lobe stuff?), and I say that as someone with very subpar levels of agency.

I think the real just world fantasy is to believe that nobody who is a midwit can attain fame and success.

Both can be just-world fantasies.

Ironically it seems to me that you are the one posting a weak knee jerk criticism here since I'm none of those things and didn't say anything about whether I find her attractive or not.

Fair point on the latter, but I thought it was fair to put you in the "assorted trad" box given your general right-wing alignment (you get that stamp based on memory, but it's not hard to find posts that give it away in your history) and the somewhat gratuitous use of "prostitute" (Escorts are between not covered by the definition and non-central examples in modern usage, so insisting on the world seems to be meant to convey condemnation).

The data analysis and visualisation, ideas for things to ask, and thoroughness in constructing the questions. I have not seen things like that fetish tabooness/preference by gender/popularity chart anywhere else outside of 4chan, and 4chan is many orders of magnitude more sloppy about it.

I think we'll have to agree to disagree on this point, since I don't think I can convince you that the fetishes of Aella followers graphed isn't in fact interesting or quality. De gustibus non dispuntandum est.

Fair point on the latter, but I thought it was fair to put you in the "assorted trad" box given your general right-wing alignment (you get that stamp based on memory, but it's not hard to find posts that give it away in your history)

I probably pass for "right aligned" in, like, San Francisco, but I'm a little baffled to get that label on this forum.

and the somewhat gratuitous use of "prostitute" (Escorts are between not covered by the definition and non-central examples in modern usage, so insisting on the world seems to be meant to convey condemnation).

Sorry, but the definition of a prostitute is:

a person who engages in sex acts and especially sexual intercourse in exchange for pay

Which certainly covers Aella. The goal was not to convey condemnation, it was to describe how she made her money.

I was under the impression that it's a clinical and neutral label for the world's oldest profession, but M-W helpfully points out that I haven't gotten the latest firmware update:

The terms sex worker and sex work are now preferred to prostitute and prostitution, which are increasingly rejected as offensive.

I'll continue to resist this hyperstitous slur cascade a while longer though.

A prostitute is etymologically someone who is 'put out there', offered up to the public. "Sex worker" is broader, encompassing camgirls and pornstars who don't, in fact, make themselves available to the man on the street. I suppose escorts may or may not go into the narrower "prostitute" box depending on how exclusive they are, and how much personal taste factors into their choice of client (I think this was the key difference historically between a prostitute and a courtesan, at least; a woman who presents herself as a prostitute is advertising that she will fuck anybody if the money's good, while a courtesan must to a degree be wooed if you want to get in with her, she'll just also expect you to pay for the privilege if she says yes).

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I probably pass for "right aligned" in, like, San Francisco, but I'm a little baffled to get that label on this forum.

I see you use "pozzed" in a post on page 2 of your profile. I consider unironic use to be an unambiguous right-wing cultural marker. (Doesn't it come from right-wing COVID vaccine opposition, which if anything is significantly more right relative to the distribution of (>=mid)wit rightwingers than it is relative to the US right wing as a whole?)

prostitute or not

I have not actually read her CV or anything, but since people referred to her as an escort I thought she primarily sold companionship/romance (not a sex act). She may also have worked as a camgirl (since I remember seeing posts about camgirling), which I would also not group with prostitutes (as long as you can't lose your virginity over a video feed, nothing you can do over one counts as sex, as far as I'm concerned; therefore camgirling is not a sex act). I have no issue with the term "prostitute" for people who take money for performing sex acts, especially if sex acts are the main component of what money is being taken for ("I hang out with you all day and at one point we have sex" feels borderline).

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Of course, Aella is something of an interesting counterexample to your specific argument because she is unable to find a husband despite offering a bounty of 100k for an introduction.

I don't understand why, instead of offering cash upfront, she didn't first try bathing more frequently.

I don't know that it would make much of a difference given her requirements.

Yeah I don't think the shower frequency is going to be the immediate disqualifying factor for the 140 IQ, open relationship comfortable tech 9-fig+ guy she's probably hoping for.

The open relationship is a complete non-starter for any guy she’s likely to be interested in that has a brain cell. Any woman who would front the idea of an open relationship either already has someone in mind, or is cheating on you and just doesn’t want to bother with having to hide things anymore. The only real men out there of her wish pool that would “tolerate” that are ones that don’t have options.

Open relationships are kind of an inverse bell curve thing for men, IMO.

If you're bottom percentile you'll go for them out of desperation. If you're top percentile and can trivially attract casual sex from other women, then it has an appeal again even if not everybody will go for it. If you're anywhere in the middle of sexual attractiveness it's inherently skewed where the woman in the relationship will have about 10000x the ease of attracting casual sex partners and it's thus skewed.

Though on the other hand you could just make the argument that somebody on the far right side of the curve is also incentivized to just pick a girl who's monogamous and tolerates his philandering.

If you're top percentile and can trivially attract casual sex from other women, then it has an appeal again even if not everybody will go for it.

In certain subcultures, being in this level means you feel you don't need an open relationship; you can just a) cheat or b) enforce a one-sided/Islamic polyamory model. It certainly doesn't mean "complicate my life by having someone sleep with my wife".

Much more common in the entertainment and athletic fields than the ones Aella frequents so she has that going for her I guess.

That's what 'pick a girl who's monogamous and tolerates the philandering' is gesturing to, though. I'd also imagine that even in top end tech circles that very few men have clout that transfers to instantaneous endless bitches in the way that an entertainment/athletic top ender has

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enforce a one-sided/Islamic polyamory model.

"Open relationship" is the way to launder this arrangement to make it palatable in a politically progressive context.

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It’s possible they are lying on their self-reports, but this study shows mate desirability falls when either male or female participants know the number of partners of a prospective match. Maybe there’s a better study somewhere. In the case of Alex Cooper, she is famous and worth $60 million dollars. Many men will look past flaws for fame and fortune.

I’m more confused why the FreePress is running this piece. I thought this was a conservative mag? Is it not anymore?

I’m more confused why the FreePress is running this piece. I thought this was a conservative mag? Is it not anymore?

The Free Press is Bari Weiss's outlet, so the editorial line is generally speaking heterodox center left (like a 90s/early 2000s liberal) that goes soft on Trump because he's very pro Israel.

Female Value = (Sexual attention she gives you)/(Sexual attention she gives/has-given others + 1) * (Everything Else)

If she gives you 0 sexual attention, she has no value. I am not making the claim that sex is the only thing women are good for, but the claim that a woman who is unwilling to have sex with you (even after marriage), clearly does not take you seriously as a partner. Even a woman who is for some biological reason incapable of PIV should still be interested in blowjobs or something.

If she has sex with thousands of other people in all sorts of kinky ways and then gets old and loses sexual interest and you end up in a boring vanilla relationship, that's bad.

If she has sex with a bunch of guys and then marries you and has a bunch of sex with you then that's fine.

If she is a virgin and has sex with you, and only you, and never anyone else, then that's a huge bonus.

All of this multiplies all of the other features. A big everything else like being hot and rich and funny are good features to have, and enough of them can make up for a large denominator in the fraction. But it's an uphill battle compared to someone chaste and loyal who is really really into you, specifically.

Is this still the case when both people are in their 60s or beyond, and have lost a lot of libido, and are mostly looking for a comfortable partner to grow old with?

Even if they still have a lot of libido, does the wife regain her value if her party days were multiple decades in the past, or does the stain on her soul linger forever?

Does her value as a "virgin" remain after she's been married for decades and had sex thousands of times with her husband?

Is this still the case when both people are in their 60s or beyond, and have lost a lot of libido, and are mostly looking for a comfortable partner to grow old with?

Not as strongly, but still to some degree. A significant part of the equation is not merely the physical act of the sex itself but the affection/devotion/loyalty it represents. Once you're in your sixties and have lower libido, willingness/desire to have sex with you is less indicative of how much they like you. But largely yes the value per time is lower, which why you see a lot of old men divorce their wives and then marry younger hotter women. A significant part of the point of marriage is to tie people together to prevent this sort of thing. If you get married in your 20s-30s and then woman spends her youth with a man, it is unfair and selfish of him to discard her as soon as she becomes old. It's supposed to be a lifelong pact where the woman promises herself to him, and him to her, so that once she's old and the cumulative value she's provided is large, he doesn't turn around and discard her. It's her investing in him and therefore he owes her when she's older and doesn't have a young body to appeal to him as much any more.

Even if they still have a lot of libido, does the wife regain her value if her party days were multiple decades in the past, or does the stain on her soul linger forever?

Eh. I'd say the party days slowly decay, but so does youth, so by the time one is gone the other is likely to as well. Because people can change. It's not like sex is literally magical and the seed of other men taints her soul. It's what it indicates about her personality and loyalty, and the psychological impact of having sex with lots of people. So yeah, someone who slept around five years ago and then learned better and stopped doing that is better than someone who slept around five days ago, because the latter is going to have a mindset of someone who sleeps around.

Does her value as a "virgin" remain after she's been married for decades and had sex thousands of times with her husband?

To her husband? Absolutely 100%. The denominator is about devotion/affection for other people. She has more value the more she sleeps with him, because she's demonstrated her loyalty and affection to him. To other people? No. She's demonstrated the ability to be loyal, so is better than someone truly promiscuous, but if she's spent a lot of time attached to him and then he dies or they divorce or something she's going to always have hangups about him which will taint future relationships.

I should note that some of this applies in the other direction. Men who sleep around are likely to have some of these negative features in their relationships with women. But I think it tends to be to a lesser extent, first and foremost because women care less. A man is only able to sleep around if he's relatively high status, so some women find that appealing. Men can sleep around without getting emotionally attached more easily, so men who sleep around are less likely to behave differently. And men cheating on women can't create false paternity scenarios (which evolutionary is equivalent to death) so women care about loyalty less. To some extent. There are a lot of women who do care and do see men sleeping around as a bad thing, so I think on average it turns out negative for a man's average value if he's slept around, but there's much more variance. Not the near-universal loss that women experience.

I would say those are all reasonable answers, but a lot of that is well you know that's just like your opinion man. Different people are going to have very different opinions on this. Some guys genuinely might not care if their wife is sleeping around, because it gives them more freedom. Some might even get off on it. Others might hate it more than anything, to the point where they would feel honor-bound to kill over it. And most people act very differently in old age than they did as teenagers. You're trying to turn complicatd, messy human emotions into some simple math formula.

As far as I'm aware it's the majority opinion. It's not universal, but it's the default assumption you should be optimizing for if you're trying to attract a man. Once you find a specific person and you're reasonably certain you're going to settle down with them long term you should optimize for their preferences. But if you're on the market it's generally a good idea to optimize for majority opinion. Or at least be aware when you're going against it. Especially for something like this which is unchangeable. If you wear stupid clothes that people hate and then realize it's turning everyone off, you can change your clothes. You can't change the past, so if you're going to permanently sabotage your desirability in the minds of 80%+ of men you should be aware of it and only do it if you think that's worth it.

Sure, that's fine. Just as long as you acknowledge the yawning gulf between "here is a mathematical formula that describers all human interaction" and "as far as I'm aware this is the majority opinion." The next step might be to gather evidence to see if that actually is the majority opinion, and if so how much of a majority it is.

How is this consistent with the existence of celebrity simps and stalkers, who receive ~zero sexual attention from the target they value the most?

The formula is true for the average/typical male, not universal. Evolution gears men to be attracted to healthy fertile human women. However biology and psychology are complicated, and so different people develop differently. Some men end up attracted to things like feet or armpits, which are much worse signals for fertility than breasts or hips. Some men end up attracted to dogs or other men, who can't bear their children. Some men have a fetish for cuckoldry, which decreases the chance any children they have are actually theirs. Some men end up deciding to not have children and their genetic line ends. Some men end up stalking people who don't want them. Stalkers are not normal, healthy, or common. If you look at per capita out of all men, how many of them are stalkers, they're quite infrequent. It's just that celebrities are also infrequent so if you pair all the potential stalkers with all the celebrities they end up disproportionately prevalent.

Plenty of individual men break the formula. But if you look on a population level, averages dominate the market. If the majority of men dislike X, then having X decreases your ability to find a good partner. You either need to tradeoff to find a partner who likes your good qualities enough to make up for this flaw, leaving you with a lower value than you otherwise would have, or you need to get lucky searching among the subset of people who don't think X is a flaw. This can be done. If X is really important to you and you not only want someone who would tolerate it but would actively embrace and encourage it, then maybe advertising and amplifying X to disqualify the majority of partners is a good thing for you. I know I did that with being a nerd. When I was single on online dating I actively advertised my nerdiness to screen off anyone who would consider that a negative. But it does significantly curtail your options and make it harder to find a partner. And you can only do it with so many things. If being a massive slut is the core of someone's identity, the hill they're willing to die on, then I suppose they can do that. But it's a heavy cost, and is unlikely to lead to good long-term results in my opinion (especially since the majority of men who are okay with promiscuous women are likely to be promiscuous themselves and less likely to settle down).

Some men end up attracted to things like feet or armpits, which are much worse signals for fertility than breasts or hips.

Disagree. I have noticed that even otherwise stunning MILFs tend to have veiny feet. In fact, that's my theory for why foot fetishism is so prevalent in men; pretty feet are a hard to fake signal of youth.

I was under the impression that it was cross-wiring in the brain due to feet and sexual organs being modeled in physically close proximity in the brain.

I've read this hypothesis thrown about a bunch, but I don't think I've seen it actually substantiated empirically. We'd need at least like 3 fMRI studies done by 3 different institutions all trying to prove each other wrong having no choice but to publish that they found evidence of some sort of this cross-wiring that was different in people with foot fetishes versus those who didn't before we could conclude anything like this.

The fantasy in their heads substitutes for sexual attention. Hincley thought Jodie Foster would pay attention after the fact of his attempt at killing Reagan, so thats just action preceding outcome. Stalking and online simping lets the fantasy of the future potential be generated entirely in the head of the admirer, with little cost to the object of affection. Egirl with jannies modding their socials for free lean into this and since its all remote theres no downside.

Well, then you need to argue that imagined/expected/fantasised-about sexual attention does not usually constitute a significant term in male perception of female value.

By coincidence, just today I got myself re-earwormed by this tango classic, which is about the male protagonist lamenting how he repeatedly gets baited by imagined sexual attention. Surely its popularity suggests that the sentiment resonates.

It ought to be a truth universally acknowledged- although of course it isn't- that those who have lots of boy/girl friends are for the most part those possessing of the necessary sanguinity in temperament to generally attain to a high degree of success in all of the more ordinary tasks of social intercourse besides, and that these must be acknowledged as more desirable for all the normal reasons. It furthermore ought- although it often isn't- to be acknowledged that these chaste virgins sitting on the sidelines do not particularly want to date and marry Clav, their Mr Darcy may bear physical resemblance to him but is entirely unlike him in other ways.

But all that being said, there really is a large premium for social skills paid in all social tasks, including the mating game. To the sexually frustrated men reading this- go out and socialize. That alone explains a huge portion of this gap- do you think Justinian found Theodora's sexual history incredibly appealing, or Pericles Aspasia's, or Napoleon Josephine's? No, they wanted someone they could interact with as a friend rather than the stereotypical prissy upper-class wife of the day.

Go out and socialize is too vague an instruction for men who need help doing so.

My advice is to find pro-social hobbies that are done in small group settings that also appeal to women. Preferably a hobby with physical exertion or exercise. Try different hobbies and stick with ones you honestly like. Develop expertise and volunteer for leadership or teaching roles once you develop expertise.

So hiking clubs and yoga are better than chess, poker, and car meet ups. Avoid hobbies that do not interest single women.

I didn’t say ‘go out and socialize’ as a blueprint for meeting women. I said ‘go out and socialize’ because social skills are important and take work to build up. Yes, swing dancing will get you closer to your goal of female companionship slightly faster, but MMA is likely still progress in that direction.

MMA is likely still progress in that direction.

MMA still very boys club and the sort of women that tend to go into it are a bit crazy. I've found that BJJ's starting to get more female participation, though, and a bunch of guys I know who I always kinda assumed were too autistic to function in the dating realm have actually managed to find random white belt girlfriends in recent years which is good for them.

What part of 'Go out and socialize because social skills are important and take work to build up' did you not understand? Lonely men should socialize including for non-meeting women purposes. Swing dancing happens to kill two birds with one stone, but MMA still helps to teach social interactions and being normal. No seriously social skills and confidence are make or break for male romantic success, that's why you see these men who are fat, slovenly, and poor who are ladykillers.

I agree to a degree though also feel like there's also an issue if the space you're choosing to push into is overwhelmingly male, and that's also part of why the dating rate is doing poorly since a lot more hobbies are now just leaning to either extreme of gender participation. Most of the successful MMA dating stories I've seen firsthand as somebody who spends time in those gyms were 'Random anglo converts to fairly-radical Islam due to social network in the gym and ends up with a nice girl who I've never seen more than the eyes of', which I guess is some sort of gesture towards social widening helping?

Again, I am not saying that social activities for the graceless should be conducted with the intent of meeting women, they should be conducted with the intent of improving social skills, and then go to book clubs or something.

With the caveat that there's very little empirical support for any of this, I'd say that this sort of advice is generally wrongheaded. Scott Alexander wrote on SlateStarCodex, IIRC, a very long time ago about how some cognitive behavioral therapy techniques seemed to have metaphorically "gotten into the water supply," such that using them on people actually in therapy became less effective, because they had already gotten the vast majority of the benefits that come from using them. I'd guess, for the vast majority of the populace, especially among the male and romantically unsuccessful, this basic advice is something they've heard and implemented plenty.

I'd guess I interact more with incels than most people by nature of being a nerd who interacts with anime/video game fans, and the vast majority of them simply don't lack the types of social skills that get developed from engaging in social activities all the time (some certainly do, though - though in those cases, I'd guess that they're intrinsically resistant to the technique). They dress well, are well-groomed, can hold good conversation without going into autistic ramblings, make decent money, and are usually not awful-looking (though probably somewhat below average?). They can barely even get matches, much less first dates, much even less second ones. There's something else they're missing.

I suspect Aspasia's line of work did appeal somewhat to Pericles. He had a side that enjoyed a little rakish scandalizing (particularly in the Socratic tradition, which is at pains to show that Alcibiades didn't get his villainy from Socrates, but it's also evident in Plutarch).

I'll also note that in my experience this question of sexual history goes away somewhat on a psychological level if you as a guy rack up a high body count and some confidence in your skills in bed, and leveling up social skills is a first step to that.

Not sure Alex Cooper is a great example. She has good genes. Probably legitimately top 1% in looks and has over a $100 million after tax. I would marry her. That wouldn’t refute that don’t be a slut isn’t good advice for most girls. Not going to debate whether slut or not slut is better. All things being equal I would prefer the not slut. But all things are not equal.

In general people of greater ability can do thing and get away with things that would be harmful for people of lesser ability.

Personally I can do things like actively trade or go play poker and it benefits me. I would not recommend gambling to probably 99% of the population.

In modern American society my gut says I would advise young women to go be a slut. It opens a lot of doors for you and not being a slut is socially awkward now. Though I think it may be very psychologically damaging.

Not sure Alex Cooper is a great example. She has good genes. Probably legitimately top 1% in looks and has over a $100 million after tax. I would marry her.

Hm, as always with this topic, it does seem to me that people draw a ton of conclusions based on the apex fallacy. It's hard to avoid the reality that people you notice are, definitionally, people who are high status enough to be noticed, and, as such, do not accurately reflect the reality of the everyday person. What sucks is that the one societal institution that has the responsibility of cutting through the bias and fallacies to get at the truth of these things has so completely discredited itself that it has become worse than worthless for it.

That's my take on it.

There are MANY, MANY things that someone who is top 1% in status (by whatever means they came into it) can just 'get away' with that is likely to wreck someone who attempts it while even slightly outside that top tier.

Bill Belichek can date a woman who could be his granddaughter (Hugh Hefner also got away with this). Elon can sire kids with multiple women he is not married to.

I mentioned a while back that there seem to be two main stable social norms around human mating.

Either everyone is held to monogamous standards (but we expect people to fail), or nobody is... but this means top tier guys collect a harem and lower tier guys duke it out over the remains.

We're in a very uncomfortable transitory period where both sort of exist simultaneously but the exceptions that have been carved out are causing the foundations of the former to crumble in a way that may take it out entirely. Maybe already has.

This can indeed apply to women too. Madonna gets a boy toy. Beyonce sings a ballad for single ladies the same year she got married to an extremely wealthy man herself. Alex Cooper gets celebrity ladies to admit to ridiculous beliefs and behaviors that, were it a (lower status) male were saying it would sound almost psychopathic. Which, it turns out, is basically what the Fresh and Fit Podcast gets tarred with, rightly or wrongly.

Alex Cooper also gets her happy marriage regardless since she's attractive, wealthy, and now a celebrity in her own right.

This whole topic gets perilously close to my rant on elite accountability. Elites face few consequences for encouraging behaviors in the lower classes that lead to horrific outcomes, and use their status to achieve the outcomes they want regardless of their own misdeeds.

Contrary to what you might think, age gap relationships are more common in working class than middle class people, see this reddit thread for example. And I don’t think I need to show you stats about how single motherhood and having children outside of marriage is more common with lower income.

Upper middle class, high income professionals are the ones most likely to be in monogamous relationships, have children while married, and smaller age gaps.

Although maybe it’s a U shape and the true elites behave more like the working class (happens a lot)? I don’t know, but I don’t think there’s enough celebrities and billionaires to cause “lower tier guys” to “duke it out over the remains”.

can just 'get away' with that is likely to wreck someone who attempts it while even slightly outside that top tier.

I know people in age gap relationships, poly people, and people with kids from outside of marriage, and they’re certainly not elites, or wrecked by those things beyond being the subject of gossip and mockery, which isn’t a death sentence now that people aren’t dependent on living in a tight knit community for survival.

See,

last time I discussed this point, I mentioned that the data mostly relies on age gaps of MARRIED couples.

I made this point:

Bill Belichik is not married.

Leonardo Dicaprio is not married.

Nor Tobey Macguire.

Nor Anthony Keidis

Nor Scooter Braun, who gets to motorboat Sydney Sweeney.

Nicholas Cage is if we want a minor counterexample.

This is actually what I mean when I say the institution that expects everyone to be monogamous has been hollowed out.

There is zero impetus for a high status male to get married if he doesn't want to.

That’s a list of actors and musicians though, except Scott Braun (who’s a record executive). Are they really the “elites” in the same way corporate leaders and billionaires are? They might get invited to Jeff Bezos’s wedding and occasionally attend the same parties but I doubt Tobey Macguire has the same power as someone at the helm of a trillion dollar company. Musicians especially tend to be not exactly the most stable or conformist of people, you expect drug use and wild public antics from a rock star, not monogamy.

If look at Fortune 500 CEOs, about 85% of them are married which is actually higher than the average for men of the same age group. I think of the major tech CEOs only Tim Cook is unmarried (for different reasons in his case, although that didn’t stop Sam Altman or Peter Thiel), and Elon Musk, although he’s been divorced three times (twice with same woman) and has a… polarising reputation.

I mean outside of a few careers that'll consistently put you into proximity with attractive young women like acting, music, sports or working in those industries. How are most super-rich guys even meeting unattended barely-legal women and getting into a realistic trajectory to form a relationship? Even graduates and interns are now ranging older than they were historically and there's a huge pressure against shitting where you eat in the workplace.

Maybe the superrich can just get it done, but the fact that Epstein was even like a thing seems indicative that even megarich Westerners aren't particularly great at sourcing their own barely-legal whores thus Epstein being able to become a nigh-on billionaire for what shouldn't be that rare a skillset.

How are most super-rich guys even meeting unattended barely-legal women and getting into a realistic trajectory to form a relationship?

As far as I understand it, they can literally just message them on Instagram.

Likewise, yacht girls are a thing.

Ironically, I think one reason Epstein fell out of favor was... his services became way less valuable as the internet made it way simpler to find young girls to date and predate.

Part of the value of such a guy was simply being the Schelling point before the internet created new ones.

Isn't that more of a thing for rappers/athletes than just random rich guys?

Though then again I guess Elon Musk keeps finding people to impregnate, but on the other other hand they tend to skew to a sort of nerdy offbeat interesting personality moreso than just being girls gone wild.

I'm fine with Epstein going to prison but I also don't think he was doing anything wildly wildly outside of the realm of the average Dubai KTV/yacht-party operator's gamut and if I were an Emirates resident with a thing for 16 year olds there'd surely be a hookup trivially accessible somewhere.

Much of this can be easily challenged. Consider the other side of the coin and look at people who have achieved celebrity wholly unworthy of the status. I see people who think “Destiny” is a good debater. Destiny is a fast talking moron with a permanent case of bed head who treats Google like it’s some sort of “God machine,” that can spit out conclusions he agrees with all day to win arguments. That’s… not how that works… And the people who look up to and idolize him are fools. If you want to see good debaters in action, look in the philosophy and rhetoric departments. Not Jordan Peterson. Or Matt Dillahunty. Etc. There’s plenty of people like this. What Elon and Belichick have in contrast with the others is competency.

Destiny is a fine enough debater. at least the two or three I've seen him in, most front of mid was the Israel debate on Fridman. He's not a one in a billion talent but compared to most pundants he handles himself well. To be a good debater you do need to actually handle yourself well in a real time discussion. If there was a glut of people in the rhetoric or philosophy department that could handle themselves well in this kind of debate they'd be able to make a splash in the debate scene, which is fairly open.

If there was a glut of people in the rhetoric or philosophy department that could handle themselves well in this kind of debate they'd be able to make a splash in the debate scene, which is fairly open.

William Lane Craig has been doing this his entire life. That’s what debate is. Destiny understands zero about debate, because the fool doesn’t [and probably can’t] read academic literature. Norman Finkelstein trolling him was always hilarious to watch.

If you thought finkleestein looked good in that debate then I don't know what to tell you. "Debate is about seriously handling ideas, here see how epic it is that a good debator played name calling games". I don't understand how your mind works.

Finkelstein is a first rate scholar of the region who’s recognized as such. Destiny is an idiot who thinks he’s on the level because he can print out Wikipedia pages. He got treated exactly the way he should’ve been.

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All things being equal I would prefer the not slut. But all things are not equal.

It seemed to me that this was essentially what remained of @2rafa's point, after one cleaned up the slightly muddled argument, anyway. Relatedly-

In modern American society my gut says I would advise young women to go be a slut. It opens a lot of doors for you and not being a slut is socially awkward now. Though I think it may be very psychologically damaging.

If you define "psychological damage" sufficiently broadly, is this not just the two sides of the deal offered by any form of social interaction? The modal rat-adjacent slightly right-wing homeschooled CHAD would like to keep the purity of his autistic trains of thought, birthed from the dust of the internet and nursed in its dark corners like the medieval idea of a, well, rat; but his life success will increase if he goes to college, has his rough corners filed off by the feminised DEIcracy and learns to talk the talk of successful people. The monk-like mathematician would like to stay in his ivory tower counting ordinal angels on the head of a pin, but three increasingly depressing postdocs with overwhelming teaching load later he gives up, starts spending his nights on HN and before long he is grifting funding from schmucky finance bros with papers about smart contracts instead.

after one cleaned up the slightly muddled argument

Unnecessary dig.

Makes sense. Partying and hookups in a woman's 20s is signaling that she's wealthy and energetic enough to be able to do that, likes sex a lot, and has decent judgement that she didn't end up traumatized by it.

Women I've known who did that seem to be ending up with mixed results, since they go on to have a series of several year long relationships in their late 20s and early 30s, and it's easy to mess up the timing there. But most women I've known haven't been able to go out all the time anyway. They're working, a bit tired, and don't enjoy short term sexual relationships, which sounds like the more common female experience.

Yeah I think this is true, though from the male perspective it can be pretty hard to discern whether or not she ended up traumatized and, not to be cruel, that's something that can be very unpleasant to deal with in a relationship and you'd avoid if you could. People on the internet like to believe that everyone in the outgroup gets the worst-case scenario (e.g. "all party girls will cheat on you", "all picket-fence nuclear families have bad shit behind closed doors"), but there's always a distribution of outcomes.

Tangential to your point but alex cooper has that high cheekbone look so popular in hollywood that I find absolutely repulsive, so I would not in fact date alex cooper if given the chance.

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