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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 28, 2026

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... Yes, it absolutely fucking does.

That is completely acceptable and is reasonable as an individual preference. I am not so stupid as to suggest that no one cares about promiscuity when thinking about family formation and long-term relationships - read me charitably here, please. I'm not trying to moralize: every person's icks and turn-offs are acceptable in my books. I'll admit it wasn't a very well written sentence. I'll clarify:

It's a matter of prevalence. I imagine there are far more women who are turned off by the median man than there are men who are turned off by the median woman. Of course, there are women with stratospheric body counts, and for those hoping for virgins, any number above 0 is too high. Still, I am doubtful most men would throw a fit that their girlfriend wants to have a career or slept with 4 or 5 people. These women are not "skipping the bill" for most men - the bill has simply changed as attitudes have shifted, and perhaps your attitude has not shifted with the majority. That is completely fine.

Truthfully, this idea is not a lynchpin of my views if you still find yourself in opposition. What follows is more important and definitive to me.

... [the] rest of the post [is] just a word-for-word transposition for why the dead weight loss in a market that a cartel inherently creates (the cartel here is "all women" and the product is "family") is morally justified.

If one is a family-minded traditionalist, it's fair to say that one's values have decreased in influence over the years. That's certainly upsetting if one wants to preserve that way of life. That said, these values haven't decreased in frequency just among women. This is a society-wide change, with plenty of men along for the ride. The idea that there is some grand war in incentives between women, as a class, and men, as a class, is precisely the mindset that I think is fallacious.

If you honestly think that "all women" are in a sort of cartel where they determine the cost of entry for "family formation" or engage in "resource siphoning," I'm not sure we will ever see eye to eye. Cartels coordinate. Certainly, social movements have developed since the 50s, feminism among them, but I don't believe that the outcomes of feminism were a coordinated effort to create intractable dating standards for men. I have not observed any sort of unity in female behavior. Instead, I think there are loose federations of women with their own sets of values, who coordinate to the extent that their values change concomitantly. Perhaps you find some of these federations virulently offensive to your preferred way of life. My suggestion remains the same: disassociate from the federations of women you find disagreeable, and associate with the federations of women that you find agreeable. Otherwise, it just is an utter waste of time to talk about "the women." It's a floating signifier, so broad as to be practically useless on an individual level.

I really don't believe you are as free of resentment as you claim to be.

I'm not sure where you're deriving resentment from my comment. I think it's fairly lucid, even if you disagree with it.

Cartels coordinate.

That's called an in-group bias. Women have one, men not so much.

Since the amount of available product on the market depends on women and not men (also for biological reasons), we put women on the selling side and men on the buying side.

If sellers co-ordinate, then it's a cartel, by definition. Slut-shaming (a classic practice among women) is kind of the basic example of this: given women form a union, that is scab behavior [it's working at a discount from the cartel's perspective, defeating the power of collective bargaining], and discouraged accordingly. See also the concept of a "pick-me", where the woman throws in some other value-adds to gain an individual advantage, and the chain is similar: why would you do that, unless you want to sell -> you're trying to undercut everyone else = slut = scab -> punish.


If you honestly think that "all women" are in a sort of cartel where they determine the cost of entry for "family formation" or engage in "resource siphoning,"

The idea that there is some grand war in incentives between women, as a class, and men, as a class, is precisely the mindset that I think is fallacious.

This isn't really a conscious thing; it's merely human instinct. Revealed preferences by the relevant actors (as buyers compete with buyers, as sellers compete with sellers, and as both negotiate between each other) demonstrates the collective negotiation between men and women has the character of a market, so economic analysis is the correct framing with which to make predictions.

perhaps your attitude has not shifted with the majority

'What the average market participant is willing to afford' is actually kind of the central issue here, so 'attitudes' are inescapable here (and again, this has biology/instinctual roots). Sexual attraction obviously has a lot to do with that, and that's something you simply don't get to decide.

In this case, the clearing price of the sexual marketplace has risen to the point where it's created a much larger proportion of men and women who are either unwilling or unable to afford each other; even when they can, they have far smaller families as a result.

Feminism is to blame for a little bit of that (in the "why bother buying into someone they're only marginally attracted to" and "government-enforced wealth transfers from men to women handicaps buyers and frustrates price discovery for sellers"[1] senses- this also matters on the seller side, particularly when considering [2], but inherently affects buyers far more than sellers), but a lot of it is that the substitute goods have become far better and cheaper than they used to be (and the cost of everything else associated with supporting a family has become far higher), so the value each party must bring also must be correspondingly higher.

Which means that, at the clearing price floor, attraction (and perhaps the compromises thereon) is making most of the difference (and perhaps providing more of the buyer's remorse upon purchase), so the fixation on it at that point makes sense.

[1] Forced-diversity initiatives as well as intentional subsidy of college degrees increase a seller's perception of their real value; once they realize they're overvalued, their more advanced age has devalued them further (again, this is a thing men value, and no, you don't get to pretend they don't). Discovering this is more likely to lead to their leaving the market entirely, creating further distortion.

[2] Divorce laws in the "she took everything including the kids" direction result in buyers perceiving more risk than there actually is. This should actually decrease the price a woman can charge due to fewer buyers willing to take that risk, and can lead to sellers competing with each other in ways like "known adherent to a religion where divorce is a sin".


The idea that there is some grand war in incentives between women, as a class, and men, as a class, is precisely the mindset that I think is fallacious.

feminism [exists], continuing significant political split between men and [particularly unmarried] women

If you can't agree on the facts there's nothing further to discuss. Having interests is not inherently malicious; good and evil are not life's concern.

If you honestly think that "all women" are in a sort of cartel where they determine the cost of entry for "family formation" or engage in "resource siphoning," I'm not sure we will ever see eye to eye. Cartels coordinate.

Slut-shaming is an obvious case of such coordination, isn't it? Not the slut-shaming done by angry incels online, which is a huge social crisis existing only on the minds of feminist journalists, but slut-shaming done by other women.

I imagine there are far more women who are turned off by the median man than there are men who are turned off by the median woman.

This has always been the case though.