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PaperclipPerfector  6d ago (text post)   20525 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 6, 2026

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Was the progressive claim really that misogynists find it impossible to get laid?

I'm old enough to remember when the stock piece of advice feminists offered to sexually frustrated straight men was "be more feminist" and "of course women like nice guys – that's why you can't get laid, because you're not one" and so on. "The reason Nice Guys™ can't get laid is because they don't Respecc Wahmen enough" was a core tenet of what Scott calls geek feminism, and still lives on in how progressives use the term "incel" as a term of abuse towards any man whose opinions are deemed insufficiently socially progressive. See this comment by a poster who expressly believes that any woman who dates a conservative man must be mentally ill and filled with unconscious self-loathing:

My subjective observation would be that that attitude - women are liars, women are picky, etc. - about women leaks out into interactions with them, and, understandably, they, or I supposed “we”, do not want to get romantically or sexually involved with someone who thinks so poorly of “us”... I would recommend that loveless men consider one solution to their lack of success in the dating market is to re-examine their overall attitude about women and see if that isn’t playing a part as to why women are not responding the way you want them to.

I devoted several comments to attempting to rebut this reasoning as facile.

Birth rates in socially conservative countries and communities clearly prove that to be incorrect regardless of what ‘Clavicular’ is doing.

In fairness, feminists might legitimately rebut that misogynists can only get laid in socially conservative countries where women are afforded very little freedom in their choice of sexual partners, and that in a free society no woman of sound mind would voluntarily choose to go to bed with a misogynist. They tend to get very defensive when you provide them with some examples of men with backwards attitudes to women who nevertheless have no trouble attracting them.

As I’ve said before, both the ‘geek feminists’ and a lot of the counter arguments are wrong here. The nerdy sexless man who starts reposting Andrew Tate (or indeed Clavicular) reels on main is not becoming more attractive to women by doing so. M

But a lot of the criticism of the ‘feminist’ viewpoint is straw or at least weak manning. The argument was not “an extremely hot, rich and charming man who is a misogynist can’t be sexually successful”. If you asked one of these feminists whether a billionaire who hated women could still get laid, they would obviously, presumably, have said ‘yes’.

The strongman of their argument (which I’m not committed to defending as their argument) was more like “sitting around hating women isn’t going to get you laid. Make more friends, build a larger social circle, speak to more women and it’s more likely to happen for you”, and for the average sexless man that is in fact excellent advice and probably far more helpful than hitting the gym and watching Clav streams.

[...] speak to more women and it’s more likely to happen for you”

Thing is, the absolute core of 'geek feminism' was directing young men not to do this. The single biggest complaint of geek women was getting swarmed by men b/c the gender ratios of geek subcultures were so skewed and therefore the 'advice' they repeated more than anything was:

'If I want to talk to you, if I want to do something with you, I will let you know. If you are coming up to me, or talking to me, and I haven't proactively expressed interest then you are probably harassing me'.

Which hit like a freight train to guys like me who already had trouble approaching women. That the girl talking to you doesn't like you and is smiling until you get the message and go away is essentially every man's worst nightmare, and geek feminism was broadcasting it (for somewhat understandable reasons) 24/7. It also meant that the only guys talking to these girls were the ones who didn't take no for an answer, which intensified everything.

Thing is, the absolute core of 'geek feminism' was directing young men not to do this. The single biggest complaint of geek women was getting swarmed by men b/c the gender ratios of geek subcultures were so skewed and therefore the 'advice' they repeated more than anything was:

One of the few moment's I've ever had of existential horror was when I saw someone arguing that this habit from women in such spaces wasn't to police men's behavior but to brag to other women they were receiving attention from men.

If that’s already existentially horrifying, just wait until your pattern recognition kicks in and the wrongthinker within you starts Noticing a similar phenomenon when women complain about the streets not being safe to walk around in at night or bemoan their constant fear of getting raped (all the while voicing ardent support for moar third world migration and compassionate treatment of criminals).

advice feminists offered to sexually frustrated straight men was "be more feminist"

My memory is this pre-dated the mass internet access of geek feminism and the blogosphere and goes back at least to the '90s and the idea of the New Man. I was too young to have any real awareness of gender discourse prior to that but I see traces of the same message in repeats of popular 1970s sitcoms too (Bob in The Likely Lads, or the daughter's boyfriend in Til Death Do Us Part).

Unfortunately, unlike The Last Psychiatrist's dictum that "if you're watching it it's meant for you", barring convoluted epicycles I think these messages were received and absorbed by exactly the sort they weren't meant for. The Scotts A of the world were never going to cat call women and become wife beaters, it just gave them another reason to feel anxious around women.

I'm old enough to remember when the stock piece of advice feminists offered to sexually frustrated straight men was "be more feminist" and "of course women like nice guys – that's why you can't get laid, because you're not one" and so on.

I actually do not remember such a time. In fact, what I remember was closer to "oh, you are a nice guy? What, do you want a cookie? That's called being a decent human being, women don't owe you anything for that." Do you have an example of what you're saying?

In "Radicalising the Romanceless", Scott provided a prime example:

Step I. Consume More Art By Women – I think it’s a good idea to make a deliberate year-long project of it at this time in your life, when you are trying to figure out how to relate to women better…Use woman-created media to to remind yourself that the world isn’t only about you + men + women who have/have not rejected you as a romantic partner.

Sometimes I wonder if the person who wrote this actually believed that consuming art by female artists would make a man more desirable to women, or if she was just trying to line the pockets of her fellow female creatives.

Step I. Consume More Art By Women

I have seen several thoroughly red-pilled guys offer the same advice. Chicklit, romance, and by-women-for-women erotica (which is a majority of textual erotica because men don't read while wanking) all provide a view of what women actually want which is a lot less filtered than you are going to find in explicit dating advice.

Admittedly a substantial fraction of it is "a man who is unreasonably rich, powerful or physically attractive expresses genuine interest in the girl next door" which is non-actionable to men reading it for research.

I think you're conflating two things here.

Your version of the author's claim: "you should read women to get laid"

The author's claim: "being a decent human being is helpful, but not sufficient, to finding love. Since you have difficulty treating women as people, you should read women to become a decent human being"

There's no implication that reading Gloria Steinem is going to get you laid. The claim is that it will make you better off and maybe move the needle on falling in love:

So let’s talk about some stuff you can do differently to improve your life and your chances of meeting someone you’d like to be with.

What is the purpose of reading women specifically?

But I think it’s a good idea to make a deliberate year-long project of it at this time in your life, when you are trying to figure out how to relate to women better.

Does this guarantee results?

If you meet a woman, and you kind of like her, and you are looking for something to talk about, try asking her “What are you reading or watching lately? Can you recommend me something?” If you listen to her, and then go and read or watch that thing, she may or may not date you in the end, but you will get infinity coolness points because this behavior by men is sadly all too rare.

To put it simply - the (geek?) feminist perspective on this is something like "you should be a decent human being, but nobody owes you anything for that, but it might lead to something." If you do follow this playbook and expect it to lead to sex and get frustrated if it doesn't, you aren't actually a decent human being, you are a nice guy (this is a term of art).

But this is the exact point of disagreement – I don't think there's any correlation between being a "decent guy" (read: feminist) and getting laid. It's trivial to find examples of men who aren't decent guys and yet have no trouble attracting women. So the advice is worse than useless.

You are still thinking that the respondent is giving advice on how to get laid. She is doing no such thing. The advice is, basically, on how to become a decent human being, which does not constitute any obligation on the part of any woman. You are so moidbrained that you can't imagine that someone would respond to this letter with anything other than advice on getting laid, and the respondent is so foidbrained that she doesn't see why someone might expect that there ought to be an effective strategy for getting laid and/or getting married.

You are still thinking that the respondent is giving advice on how to get laid. She is doing no such thing.

The article is literally called "All the Dating Advice, Again".

And yet she acknowledges that there's no advice she can give that will lead to a date except in the most indirect and stochastic manner. It's a flinch, she can't directly address this in the terms you want it addressed in.

All advice from feminists like this is very up front that there is no promise or guarantee. Compare to TRP advice - do this, this, and this, repeatedly again and again, and you'll almost certainly pull chicks unless you are totally hopeless in which case it's probably over for you.

I can't name a specific example, but there was a whole thing with "Nice Guys(tm) are not actually nice" which, like many feminist trends, started with a legitimate complaint but then overextended massively into just punishing guys they didn't like.

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