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Notes -
Time for some good old fashioned gender politics seethe:
https://old.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/11of65g/i_21m_asked_my_friend_21f_to_be_fwb_and_now_she/?sort=confidence
A clearly very socially awkward nerdy literal virgin (despite being 21 years old) guy thinks a cute girl in his study group is flirting with him. He takes her aside privately after a study session and asks her… does she want to be his FWB (friends with benefits)? He reasons that he wants to have fun like many young men and isn’t looking for a relationship right now.
The girl is shocked and taken aback. She turns him down flat and appears uncomfortable. He feels uncomfortable too and apologizes to her and leaves.
Over the next few weeks, she doesn’t say anything to him at study sessions. He tries to make contact again, not to proposition her, but just to resume their friendly acquaintanceship. She tells him directly that she doesn’t want to speak to him. He is hurt but understands and leaves her be. Soon enough, he learns that she has told her friends and extended social circle what happened, and he is widely reviled as a creep. He feels hurt and violated. He laments that he has lost a friend, and now feels like he’s being lambasted for an innocent error, and he wishes the whole thing would just end and go away.
My take on OP is sympathetic. He comes off as extremely awkward and clearly isn’t well versed in the endless myriad of opaque and seemingly contradictory rules of modern dating. He wanted an FWB, and he didn’t understand that the socially acceptable way to get one is to ask a girl out on a date (usually through Tinder), then hook up with her, then either stay as vague as possible for as long as possible about your intentions while continuing to periodically fuck, or to sort of half way shrug after a fuck session and say, “yeah, I’m just really not looking for anything serious right now.” OP genuinely thought he was being upfront and honest with another person, and assumed that he was proposing something mutually beneficial.
Yes, it’s not a good idea to outright proposition a girl to be an FWB in a library. It’s awkward and weird and I can see how it made her feel uncomfortable. But all signs point to OP making an innocent error. He didn’t know any better. When he became aware of his mistake, he immediately apologized, gave the offended party space, and only later attempted to reestablish contact in a friendly, non-threatening manner. He made an innocent mistake and responded in the best possible way.
And Reddit’s response to OP is… calling him a massive piece of shit in every conceivable way.
What I find interesting about the overwhelming criticisms of OP is that they split in two completely opposite directions, but seemingly from the same critics.
On the one hand, OP is relentlessly slut shamed. He is accused of treating this woman like a “flesh light,” of feeling “entitled” to sex, of creepily trying to fuck an acquaintance, of pursuing sex with a girl instead of trying to date thine lady like a proper Victorian gentleman.
On the other hand, OP is relentlessly virgin shamed. He’s an incel, a fool, a creepy moron. He’s daring to try to have casual sex when he hasn’t even lost his virginity because he is SUCH A MASSIVE FUCKING LOSER. OP doesn’t understand that casual sex is only for chads who have fucked a bunch of girls, FWBs are an unlockable perk, not a privilege of the sexually unworthy.
Fortunately, there is a minority of Reddit commenters backing OP up, but it is a small minority. Meanwhile, many more posters are saying that OP is well on the way to becoming an incel or Andrew Tate fan, and unfortunately, they’re right, just not in the way they think they are.
I don’t have a larger point for this post, only that it’s incredibly frustrating that a significant portion of mainstream culture has erected these standards for the dating marketplace where one false step not only does, but should result in social and moral annihilation.
The participants in the Reddit BoRU and RA threads are unwittingly putting on an illustration of our threads that discuss male vs. (lack of) female approaching, the Women are Wonderful Effect, the societal eagerness to vilify men.
The elephant in the room there, an elephant that Reddit women will generally avoid (or whose existence they will deny, as the elephant makes them feel less like strong independent #GirlBosses), is that women are extremely passive when it comes to approaching and will not take initiative to… initiate. Men have the burden of performance. It’s up to men to read women's minds as to know when/how to approach or risk making women “uncomfortable,” since nothing is worse than the sin of being a man and making a woman feel “uncomfortable.”
Not that the slightest of fucks is given to a man’s comfort—like hypothetically, gossiping to turn his classmates against him, confronting him about asking a girl to hook up (when it’s none of your business), or texting him from an unfamiliar number to insult him.
How dare Study Session Guy look for a friend with benefits when he’s a stupid low-status virgin? Ugh, the male entitlement. Who does he think he is? Doesn't he know he's a low-level character who lacks the EXP to unlock that part of the map yet, much less pursue that quest? He should be grateful for her friendship, know his place and patiently stay in the friendzone, slowly orbit and monkey dance and maybe one day the friendship evolves into a relationship if he’s lucky she so deigns.
It’s also amusing how young women sometimes act like spoiled children—especially when it comes to courtship and dating—and we pretend it doesn’t happen, provide an “oh dear, dear, gorgeous” like the Ramsay meme, or actively condone and encourage them. Study Session Girl could had just said “no thanks” and discontinued the friendship. She could had even said “no thanks” and continued the friendship. Either way, a level-headed response that might befit an adult. Yet, she had to poison the well, start a gossip mill, sink his reputation, and essentially create a hostile
workstudy session environment for affronting the Lady's honor, for having the audacity as to be insufficiently attractive while thinking she might be That Kind of Girl (which she likely is, just not for him). The crowd had to be set upon him, in name of her honor. Slay, queen! He had it coming.Obviously, this is not to say directly asking a girl to be your friend with benefits is wise, tactically. Quite the opposite, as it takes away her plausible deniability and ability to dodge accountability, her ability to tell herself and others “we were just talking and hanging out; somehow one thing led to another and omg it just like happened!” If a younger brother, male cousin, nephew, etc. recounted me a story like Study Session Guy's, I'd shake my head and be like "Did we not teach you anything? Let's review the ways that could had gone better..."
@Quantumfreakonomics remarked earlier this week that he would in the past think:
I wouldn’t say dirty, lying, backstabbing tricks are necessary for success; I certainly wouldn't like deploying dirty, lying, backstabbing tricks (Russell Conjugation, perhaps: “Others might deploy dirty, lying, backstabbing tricks, but I deploy subtle, creative, smooth maneuvers”). However, I would say a large degree of social engineering and maintaining kayfabe is certainly needed for consistent success. Asking a girl if she wants to be your friend with benefits breaks kayfabe.
"Yes means yes” comes to mind and how it can be construed as an intentional or unintentional civilisational-level shit-test. The nice feminist guys who take it slow and overcommunicate every step of the way will fumble their chances away and remain pussless, whereas the toxic inconsiderate chauvinists who go full steam ahead all gas no brakes will see many more touchdowns. It separates the socially savvy from the non-socially savvy (and in the case of “yes means yes,” helpfully gives women another way to retrospectively claim non-consensuality if they so feel like it).
Decades of gender egalitarianism and mainstream feminist propaganda certainly don’t prepare young men for navigating sex and dating. Men and women are the same, except for when women are more Wonderful but sometimes more vulnerable—and when men are shittier and more toxic.
If you believe their pretty lies about women, the same cultural forces will only blame you for believing their lies. Study Session Guy paid the price for believing that male and female sexuality are similar, that men and women have a similar disposition toward honesty. As @erwgv3g34 commented on the Motte subreddit back in the day:
>Television: *lies to you about women all your life*
>School: *lies to you about women all your life*
>Women: *lie to you about women all your life*
>You: *believes lies about women*
>Society: "Haha, you actually believed the lies we told you about women? FUCKIN' AUTIST".
This is why I hate normies.
If you aggregate up Reddit women’s reactions to threads like these (about men bungling initiation attempts)—and their dating advice (more like “advice”) in general on approaching—it shakes out to something like this:
Don’t cold approach women. What kind of creep pesters women he doesn’t know? Women don’t date strangers.
Don’t ask out women from class or work. What kind of creep exploits school or work to pester women who are a captive audience?
Don’t ask out women from your social circle. What kind of creep takes advantage of his friendships or social circle to pester women?
Don’t ask out women that you meet through hobbies like dancing or sports. What kind of creep takes advantage of hobbies to pester women? Women are there for their interest in the hobby, not to meet men.
Oh and don’t message girls on online dating or social media. There’s already too many creepy losers in online dating
(like you)and what kind of creep pesters women on their social media accounts? Ugh, just because her profile is inundated with bikini pics and lingerie shots doesn’t mean she’s looking for sexual attention.Of which, Study Session Guy violated the second (while being insufficiently attractive and sufficiently unattractive, of course). However, a man who dutifully and obediently follows these commandments will find himself with no options to improve his dating prospects. Reminds me of that hilarious Motte thread: “Just tell me where you think white people are supposed to live” started by @knob. A confused, frustrated, or indifferent man reading Reddit women’s advice might ask: “Just tell me where you think men are supposed to meet women.”
Nowhere. In the eyes of women, if you’re the type of man who deliberates about where and how to ask out women, you’re unworthy. Women generally view men who approach courtship strategically or opportunistically as inherently creepy or suspicious. They want naturals—not some imposter who, by some combination of the numbers game and clever strategery, managed to punch above his weight. After all, for women, courtship and romance are just magical things that happen to them serendipitously like Acts of God, so what’s wrong with these men who need to bombard women with messages, plot to join hobbies to meet women, or bother innocent study session classmates? So gross and unromantic.
An obvious solution for men, naturally, is to ignore women’s dating advice for men, ignore sanctimonious vilification of men who approach courtship the “wrong way,” strive toward being attractive and not unattractive, and keep a cost/benefit analysis in mind to see what trade-offs of risk and reward might work for you. My approach in recent years is to aggressively DM on social media/online dating (preselection and female mate-choice copying for the win) when I foresee having lots of free time in the near future, but be very conservative in approaching through social circle or the workplace (lest an errant attempt gets my social credit points knocked out Sonic’s-rings-style like what happened to Señor Study Session).
I created an account, after years of lurking, just now to respond to this thread As A Woman. And not only that, As A Liberal, Cisgendered Woman. I supposed I have strong feelings about reading all these sentiments about folks of my sex and gender and couldn’t help myself from chiming in, as I think most of the advice and ideas in this thread are useless for the lurking men reading here who actually want to date a woman.
I have seen tons of absolute and negative statements about my personality (since I am a woman and am therefore lumped in) with little evidence, and am wondering; do you, and folks in this thread who agree with you, actually want to date a woman? Because it doesn’t seem like you fundamentally respect them. It seems to me the general sentiment is that all women are emotionally immature children (without objective evidence to prove it). 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”. Well, I suppose some of “us” do, but that’s a kink lol. 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 hope you don't feel like you're being dogpiled, but this hypothesis of yours is not new (in fact, it's at least a decade old), greatly lacks for predictive power, and I'm tired of seeing this half-baked hypothesis being trotted out every time the topic comes up.
For most of the last 10+ years, this theory has taken the form of "Nice Guys™/incels don't realise that their misogyny is the very thing preventing them from getting laid. If they just stopped hating women and became feminist, they would have no trouble getting girls to go out with them." Sounds intuitively plausible. I can understand why Alice wouldn't want to date Bob if she gets the impression that he hates her because of her sex.
But on the other hand, the people making this argument tend to argue that the following people are also misogynists: Donald Trump (married 3 times, five children), Ben Shapiro (happily married, three children), every PUA, every man who beats his wife/girlfriend.
I'm not claiming that these characterisations are inaccurate, and I pretty much endorse the idea that a man who beats his wife probably doesn't respect women as a group. My point is, the hypothesis "incels are incels because they're misogynistic" is incompatible with the hypothesis "Donald Trump is a misogynist who has no trouble attracting women" or the hypothesis "men who beat their wives are misogynistic". Misogyny alone cannot explain both "men who are pathologically lonely, who no woman wants to date" and "men who marry a woman in a non-arranged marriage, and go on to beat her": this is a panchreston. Either one of the groups in question isn't misogynistic, or there must be some other factor(s) influencing the outcomes.
Are incels misogynists? Some of them, sure. Are the people on this site misogynists? Some of them, sure, maybe. But don't give me the pat answer "if you just started respecting women then women would be falling over themselves to date you" when this argument has been hashed out a thousand times in the last ten years, and we both know full well that there are innumerable men who have far less enlightened views on women than the average poster on this site who have absolutely no trouble attracting women.
Probably unnecessary clarification: I don't consider myself a feminist, and the typical Western feminist would probably accuse me of being misogynistic. In spite of this, I haven't had any trouble attracting women at any point in the last ~five years, have had an unusually high number of female sexual partners (including several women who explicitly told me that they disagreed with many of my opinions on gender politics), and I'm currently in a relationship with a woman I respect.
My anecdotal experience would tend towards men who are feminist having a harder time getting women to date them than men who aren't. Consider a group of four male friends. The first is me; the second is quite conservative and paid money to see Jordan Peterson live; the third admits that he finds Andrew Tate's content amusing; the fourth is rabidly feminist, who has argued with me at length that female underrepresentation in STEM is principally caused by misogyny among the men who work in those fields, and that any appeals to biological sex differences to explain differing career outcomes is sexist pseudoscience. Three of these men are in relationships with attractive women; one of them had a dry spell lasting at least two and a half years - no prizes for guessing which is which. I know I refer to it a lot, but Tony Tulathimutte's short story "The Feminist" rang incredibly true for me.
"Donald Trump is a misogynist who has no trouble attracting women" is quite a subjective statement in my opinion. As I said below, no sane, healthy person wants to be in a relationship with someone who fundamentally does not see them as equal. The women who date misogynists likely have a lot of self-hatred, or are not very emotionally intelligence, or all of the other various reasons why people get into abusive relationships.
To use the fisherman metaphor that seems to be popular here; is a man really a good fisher when the fish he catches are sickly? I'd say no. Those men you say are successful with women I'd say are not successful, just good at finding insecure people with low self-esteem.
My anecdotal experience is every single conservative man I know in my life who is in a relationship is miserable. My father and mother's relationship is full of vicious, childish fighting, and so is my boyfriend's parents to the extent my boyfriend is afraid they will shoot eachother with their many illegal guns. My brother's girlfriend is obsessive and controlling and forced him to move in with her. My boss admitted to me she only married her husband because he caught her in a moment of weakness when giving birth, my other boss is telling strangers at work about her husband's various failures, and my boyfriend's ex-best friend's girlfriend threatened to cheat on him regularly. Both of my roommates' girlfriends fight with them about menial things like going to get fast food together to the point they are slamming doors and screaming, my roommates' mother is begging her husband for cocaine, and the lady I met at my job the other day mentioned her husband bought her clothes to encourage her to lose the baby weight and she was secretly returning them because she didn't want him to know she hadn't lost it.
All of these people, though, would be adamant that they are in love, that their relationship is fine, they're happily married, etc. And yet is it so further from the truth, and I feel quite sorry for them that they don't know how to leave these toxic relationships and find people who actually make them happy. I think if you think Donald Trump's relationships are the definition of happiness and success in relationships, then it shows. So, my personal response to your anecdote is that your three conservative men are dating attractive but unsatisfied and unhappy women, and your feminist friend is not dating the first neurotic, self-hating girl he finds, so understandably he will have "less success". Or, to be more charitable, your three conservative men are very good liars, and may have landed self-respecting women, but that will fall apart when their disrespect inevitably shows, and they will end up like all the other conservative men I've witnessed, and your feminist friend has bad luck. I firmly believe no sane, healthy person wants to be in a relationship with someone who considers them lesser or who they consider to be lesser.
Additionally, I didn't say, "if you just started respecting women then women would be falling over themselves to date you". I said, "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." Certainly not the absolute statement you make it out to be. I cannot speak for the context of every man, but I can say that, in general, finding women lesser than you is going to lead to lesser relationships.
Where to begin.
I don't know what's subjective about it. It's a matter of public record that Donald Trump has been married three times and has had multiple extra-marital affairs: whatever else you want to say about the man, he's not an "incel". Some people might not characterise him as a misogynist, but I highly doubt you fall into that category. Therefore you must agree with every component of that assertion.
Which puts them head and shoulders above incels/Nice Guys™ etc., who aren't even able to find insecure people with low self-esteem.
I don't. My point was not that Donald Trump has had many happy successful fulfilling relationships. My point is that, unlike sexually and romantically frustrated incels, attracting women is not a problem for Donald Trump. Perhaps he's only able to attract insecure women with low self-esteem, but, again, that puts him head and shoulders above incels who can't even do that.
That would come as news to them. I have to say, your comment comes off as extraordinarily condescending to women. "Any woman who dates a man who doesn't share my political worldview must secretly hate herself and be miserable, without knowing it" is quite the blistering take. And how, exactly, can this hypothesis be falsified? "Any woman dating a non-feminist man must be insecure and miserable. If by all accounts she appears happy, satisfied and fulfilled, she's just in denial." What would it take for you to consider the possibility that the apparently happy and fulfilled woman dating a non-feminist man actually is happy and fulfilled?
What, precisely, do you think we are lying about?
If you're using such an expansive definition of "someone who considers them lesser", then most of the human race isn't sane or healthy.
Fair enough, I was misrepresenting your opinion somewhat. I just want you to appreciate that this suggestion isn't new: internet feminists have been bandying it about for over a decade. Sexually/romantically frustrated men hear the suggestion "if you can't get a date, try respecting women more". They look at themselves and notice that they respect women (in many cases they're just as well-acquainted with feminist theory and vocabulary, if not more so, as anyone else in their social circle, including many women). They look around and notice that there is no shortage of men in their vicinity who are able to attract women despite being unacquainted with feminist theory, or even treating the women in their lives inconsiderately or disrespectfully. They (quite reasonably) surmise that, while respecting women is a good thing, it seems to be orthogonal to one's ability to attract women. "But the only women those guys are attracting are neurotic self-hating women with poor self-esteem" OKAY, but a sufficiently sexually/romantically frustrated man is not going to turn up his nose at a woman just because she's neurotic or self-hating, and you're still left with the question of why a non-feminist but attractive man is able to attract (allegedly neurotic and self-hating) women, but an incel can't even do that. There must be some factor other than misogyny/disrespect for women which explains why these two men have such disparate outcomes in the sexual/romantic marketplace. (Hint: it's that adjective "attractive".)
I don't know if being able marry is the baseline for "success" in a relationship. I don't think men dating people they find to be less funnier, less empathetic, less intelligent and less capable than them are head and shoulders above people who are single.
I didn't say "Any woman who dates a man who doesn't share my political worldview must secretly hate herself and be miserable, without knowing it." But I do believe anyone who is with someone that fundamentally disrespects them and thinks they should be subservient has low self esteem, and could be happier.
There is nothing that would make be believe a woman dating a sexist man is happy and fulfilled, any more than what it would take to convince me a man dating a sexist woman is happy and fufilled. It doesn't help I have anecdotally seen dozens of women with sexist husbands who claim they have a wonderful marriage while behind closed doors their husbands are calling them whores in screaming matches or badmouthing them to their children, and dozens of men who claim their girlfriends are wonderful while secretly their girlfriends are threatening to cheat on them with their friends.
I think you are lying about how much you respect the women you are dating. I think, assuming they are healthy, if they knew the full extent of how the three of you felt, they would leave ya'll out of self respect. If they do know the full extent of ya'll feelings, then I'd say they have very low self esteem to stay with someone who sees them as lesser.
I know my suggestion isn't new, but neither is making broad generalization about women based on anecdotal bad experiences. Women are not a monolithic them any more than men are. And yes, I think a sexually frustrated man should not have sex with the first woman who wants to have sex with him if he thinks she is dumber than him and more emotional than him. I would find that would lead to a toxic attitude about sexual relationships.
The other factor I would say is bad luck. Unsatisfying, yes, but success in the dating sphere largely depends on finding someone compatible romantically, and that is as guaranteed as finding someone compatible platonically. If I were to renounce making friendships with other women because I had some bad fallouts in my past, my friends would tease me rightfully for thinking all people are the same.
Good, me neither, never said that. I don't know how I can make my point any clearer. I'm not saying that every man who gets married is in a successful relationship. My first comment directly mentioned men who beat their wives - surely you don't think a physically abusive marriage is my idea of "success"? My point is that incels and romantically frustrated men are complaining about a chronic inability to attract women, and this is not a problem which married men suffer from.
Okay well if there's literally nothing that could convince you, then we're dealing with a religious belief, not a political or philosophical one.
What does "respect" look like to you? I think ultimately what you're doing is falling for the oldest logical fallacy in feminism. The normative belief "I believe that women should have the same rights as men" does not presuppose the factual belief "I think men and women's brains are alike in every way (and any observed differences in behaviour, temperament or personality traits are solely attributable to social influence)". So when you're asserting that I don't "respect" my girlfriend, I think what you're really asserting is that I don't believe male and female brains are alike in every way. Cards on the table: I don't (although I do believe women should have the same rights as men). If a precondition of genuinely respecting women means believing (or pretending to believe) that female brains are exactly the same as male, then I guess I don't respect women, although I don't really understand why. No one thinks that a precondition of respecting Japanese people means pretending that Japanese people are exactly as tall as Swedes.
"So you're saying female brains are worse than male" - nope, never said that. I said different. There are certain traits in which I think men tend to perform better than women, and other traits in which I think women tend to perform better than men. There are other differences which can't really be mapped onto a "better" or "worse" hierarchy: men tend to be more interested in abstract systems and women tend to be more interested in interpersonal relationships, and I wouldn't say that one of these is "better" or "worse" than the other.
And let's leave gender aside from this for a minute: you keep talking about a partner that "sees them as lesser" or similar phrasing. Are you claiming that a mutually respectful relationship is one in which the two partners believe that they are equally skilled in all domains? Such a relationship doesn't exist and never has: it's a category with zero members. In every relationship, one person will be the better cook, or be funnier, or have better social skills, or be better with money, or will be more even-tempered. If you're conflating "a relationship in which one person believes they are better than the other in certain respects" with "abusive relationship", then I'm sorry to say that all romantic relationships in all of human history have been, are and will be abusive.
True, but the fact that every member of a set is different doesn't mean that it's impossible to make accurate generalisations about that set, and it's weird that you get so offended when people do so. For example: men are all different, we are not a monolith. Nonetheless, the statement "men are more aggressive than women" (or "men tend to be more aggressive than women" or "men are more prone to aggression than women") is inarguably true. I am not insulted by this statement, even though it's a generalisation about a set of which I am (through no fault of my own) a member. I know that the generalisation isn't true of me personally, even though it is true of the set of which I am a member. In this thread you've repeatedly made the non sequitur that a man who says "women aren't as funny as men" therefore believes that he, personally, is funnier than you personally. But that logic doesn't follow: the statement doesn't imply that interpretation. Hell, the statement "men are more aggressive than women" is true even if asserted by a violent woman (say, Aileen Wuornos) to a non-violent man.
[As an aside: I expect I'm likely to be misinterpreted here, so I'm emphatically not claiming that "men are funnier than women" is as obviously true an assertion as "men are more aggressive than women". My point is that the statement "men are funnier than women" does not imply that literally every man is funnier than literally every woman, or that every man is funny, or that no woman is funny. Those readings of the original statement are just as much non sequiturs as interpreting the statement "men are more aggressive than women" to mean "literally every man is more aggressive than every woman" or "every man is violent" or "no woman is violent".)
Now: is a woman who (accurately) asserts "men are more prone to aggression than women" therefore a "sexist" who "sees her husband as lesser"? Is she obliged to believe (or pretend to believe) that men and women are equally aggressive, in order to protect her husband's feelings? I don't think so. If a man got really bent out of shape every time his wife made this inarguably true assertion and interpreted it to mean that his wife was accusing him personally of being aggressive, I would think he was a thin-skinned numerically illiterate narcissist.
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The resentment may be visible, but you reverse cause and effect. All babies are born starry eyed and optimistic, full of love and joy. Only after being burned does the imp come out. Perhaps by then all hope is lost. But you have to answer why that happened.
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Both these statements can be true though. Most loveless men don't turn out like Elliot Rodger. For all the vitriol online, they tend to be very non-confrontational in real life (and perhaps this inability to express themselves explains their online activity, since it has no checks and balances). You see nearly nothing about their personality and mentality, except that they're very anxious. Flouting even a single minor social norm by accident would send them into panic. The mentality is certainly a problem, but imo the problem lies in how they see themselves, not how they see others.
What am I, being a women, inherently picky about?
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While I mostly agree with the model of women's behavior of the posters here, I also agree that it's often presented in a bitter and uncharitable way. I'm not really convinced that men can't hide these attitudes for the short term, but I think it would make it much harder to have a healthy long term relationship. To some extent, human nature when it comes to sex and dating is just unflattering, and that includes men's. Personally I try to stay aware those realities without anger or judgement.
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Welcome aboard! Good to have you, and I mean that sincerely.
No discussion about fishing would be complete without a fish's perspective of course, but do consider that you might not be the best source of actionable and effective advice here.
And quite honestly, I don't really see how you chiding men for not only failing at being attractive to women but also having the audacity to feel destitute about it is really that much helpful either. "Have you considered that you're a piece of shit and that's why you suck?" might be a suitable wake-up call for some people in some situations but I am not yet convinced this is one of those.
No. I think that might jeopardize my very happy marriage to a wonderful woman.
No. The general sentiment is that our Soicety (TM) is structured in such a way that women not only get away with being emotionally immature children, they are often rewarded for it.
What does that have to do with anything? I respect individual women because they have proven that they deserve it. Just like with men. At the same time, I very much do believe that the social dynamics of Current Year are giving women as a class every incentive to behave like narcissists. That is bad for everyone. Feminism hurts women, too!
Consider that you might have gotten the direction of causality wrong here and that there is a possibility that bad feelings about women, no matter how much we're trying to insinuate that only a villain could ever develop them, are a result of bad interactions with women.
But did I say, "Have you considered that you're a piece of shit and that's why you suck?" No. I said, "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'm not too sure where I called anyone pieces of shit or told them they sucked in that sentence, nor where I chided men for failing at being attractive (?) and feeling destitute.
Bad interactions with an individual don't justify vilifications of the collective. A similar argument I've seen is that Germany's economic destitution did not justify their genocide of the Jews as a "common response to being poor", because there are people every day who lose money and become despite and don't resort to racism. Similarly, having bad experiences with women and the resorting to villainizing all women as children is more of a "you" problem than a "society" problem.
The consensus explanation of any and all gender issues in progressive spaces (and therefore: most of academia, education, the media, and entertainment) is that women must never be blamed for the consequences of their actions (in fact, any and all negative outcomes for women are by definition results of an oppressive patriarchy) and that the fault for any undesirable situation must be placed at the feet of men. You see this in a lot of discussions about male issues. Men are not doing so well? Well, the patriarchy hurts men, too! Which means that the solution is more feminism. How about yet another female quota? I bet that would solve men's woes somehow.
Likewise, men growing resentful of sexual dynamics must be a them problem. They must be defective somehow. If only they were more feminist and respected women, their troubles would go away.
You coming in here reads very much as an attempt to enforce that consensus and you are using a very light version of the debate tactics discussed here, here and in subsequent replies.
Your main argument so far has been that you are a woman and that you feel bad when you see positions that don't toe the party line. That is usually enough to win an argument, especially if peppered with shaming tactics. I.e. the men disagreeing with you are resentful and that's why they can't get laid, they don't care about a maiden's distress, they are attacking you personally, their relationships must secretly be unhappy etc. Your dig about Jew-hating Nazis above might just be a reductio to illustrate a point, but it certainly serves other rhetorical purposes as well.
I am not saying you necessarily do this, but this is what I and others might pattern-match your reactions to. I am mentioning this mostly to explain the severe immune reaction you are getting.
You engaged in something that would be considered victim-blaming if it were directed at any other demographic. Mainly, you are confusing cause and effect. Some men encounter a landscape of sexual and romantic interaction that leaves them in the dust. They grow resentful because of that. The resentment is not causing that landscape, but it might increase the problem.
Edit: I see that you clarified this in another comment and describe the above as one possible exacerbating factor. We are in agreement then.
That's why I said that the problem lies in the way we structure the landscape of incentives for men and women.
Where on earth did someone in my university tell me I must never be blamed for the consequences of my actions? I certianly, as a progressive feminist active in those spaces, disagree with that. Removing consequences for all women out of some effort to protect their fragile psyche is benevolent sexism, and women who espouse that have internalized misogyny, in the same way the "divine feminine" is benevolent sexism.
What you see as "discussions about male issues" I see as "discussions about why all women are unfunny and shouldn't go to college".
My main argument has been that I think broad generalizations of women are untrue and harmful for men who want to date them? Where did I say "I feel bad" and where did I even mention "party"?
What does "structure the landscape of incentives" mean?
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I honestly think the gemmaem thread is an unfair pile-on, of the kind so prevalent in large subs. Sort-of outsider comes in, gets tons of criticism, if he or she reacts with even a fraction of the hostility shown to them, it's proof of bad faith, moral failings, deliberate refusal to accept the oh-so-clear-and-popular truth, and the gloves come completely off. I mean gemmaem's constantly reiterating that she's here in good faith, basically begging for charity, and she's not even a real outsider for us!
Any human slip from robotic, highest-decoupling arguing is interpreted as 'female shaming tactics' and the like. That doesn't mean there isn't a some truth to those things, but people really underestimate how difficult it is to argue cleanly in unfamiliar enemy territory, and with so many hostile judges. Out of charity, we should be the ones to decouple: outside, female shaming tactics exist, but in here, an argument is just right or wrong.
I somewhat agree. And I do have some sympathy for her position. Although it is the kind of sympathy I wouldn't have if she were a man - and therein lies the problem.
"I am a woman" shouldn't be considered a very good argument.
"Certain viewpoints make me feel uncomfortable" shouldn't be considered a very good argument.
"I am a woman and those viewpoints make me feel uncomfortable" shouldn't be considered a very good argument. And yet, it is an absolute showstopper almost anywhere. It is the kind of superweapon that trumps all others.
Female shaming tactics are, in fact, so, well, not persuasive, but effective, that virtually any forum that accepts them eventually turns into.... well, Reddit. Or tumblr, if you want a more extreme example.
Do you know that old ridiculously charitable interpretation of 4chan's propensity to reply "tits or gtfo" to any anon identifying themselves as a woman? That anybody who de-anonymises themselves thus only does it because they expect special treatment and that turn of phrase is an effective antidote against that?
Now, I don't think gemmaem was doing that. I have seen her around for ages and never found out she was a woman until very recently. And as I said in a reply to that pile-on, I do think her identity was relevant to the discussion. She very much is one of us, although I am not sure how much of a compliment that is.
And as someone else commented, the antibody reaction to female shaming tactics ironically looks very much like the kind of pile-on you would get for not doing the feminist party line on tumblr. I know no way around it. All I know is that I have seen one too many discussion communities doomed by letting female hall monitors run the show.
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This is unfortunately a very sad pattern of discourse and I don't see any solution to it at all other than the high (HD) decoupler taking on an infinite amount of charity on his shoulders.
It's sad because the HD is a superset of the LD. His arguments are better, his thinking is better, his logic is better, but there is just about no way to (losslessly) communicate with the LD who is often incapable of understanding the HD. (I have a theory that LD is a manifestation of sufficiently lacking verbal IQ, but that's a whole other post, Jordan Peterson thinks as much as well).
Understandably the LD misconstrues the HDs arguments enough times for him to lose any patience and take the gloves off. The LD didn't intend to do this, but at one point you run into JJ's razor and stupidity becomes indistinguishable from malice. There is nothing the LD can do, for it is outside their scope. All responsibility falls on the HD.
I'm very attuned to this dynamic because my mom and dad are a mirror of this. My dad is a HD and can argue around her in circles, she misunderstands nonattacks as attacks and retaliates. Both I and my dad try to keep a lot of patience for it and accommodate her a whole lot, but it really puts a drain on us. We know she means no ill, but it's just an unstable equilibrium and someone has to bear the load. And its a serious amount of load.
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Actually, I talked this over with my wife who told me that being able to respect one's partner is pretty high on the list of criteria for suitable mates. She explained it in terms that my proto-autistic brain translates to "assertiveness" and "social status".
This might be another example of typically-minding the other sex, just in the other direction. Assertiveness and social status are not very high on most men's lists. So when women see discussions like that, they are rightfully surprised. Why would men try to sleep with a class of people they find so unattractive? It's the mirror image of men hearing straight women talk about how little aesthetic appeal the male body has to them.
Men don't sleep with a class of people though, but with individual women.
And I don't see why you'd need to respect the intellect or such of a person to be able to engage in an activity that is fun regardless of how smart the other person is, whether that is tennis or sex. I also think that the entire argument is in bad faith, as plenty of women have complaints about their partner and talk about them in disrespectful ways. So why is this presented as something that men do?
It seems more like a feminist post-hoc justification than a fair argument. Men are upset at how women behave in dating -> can't actually be any truth to the complaint as then women wouldn't be wonderful -> if we claim that complaining is evidence of misogyny, then every complaint can be dismissed.
However, this argument completely falls apart when you notice that many women complain about men and male dating strategies. By the same logic, these women should then fail at dating and their arguments should be dismissed as evidence of them being man-hating.
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Did you originate this turn of phrase? It's brilliant.
I was assuming it was in reference to the saying/joke about fish not recognizing the fact that they swim in water.
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No, I've seen this phrase thrown around quite a lot. Even in this thread, I believe.
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It's a twist on the phrase "You don't ask a fish how to catch fish, you ask a fisherman", i.e Women be giving contradictory/ineffective advice, consult the proven experts instead.
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Women are liars in one way but this is not something that is being blamed here. The one way they are generally liar is that they rarely tell a man to their face that they find him repulsive, disgusting, or creepy.
So these low-value men don't often get the feedback needed to reconsider they way before going and interacting with women.
Which makes sense and I would not blame women for, as being too honest (perceived as harsh) with a man [with poor social skills] could lead to violence.
What I think most men here could call women is delusional.
Women will give advice to the population of men who date as if they were only speaking to the men that they have dated (the attractive ones).
They find the attractive men in their life too casual, too promiscuous, too impolite or callous, so they tell all men to be more 'romantic'. Autistic nerds read that advice -the actual target, attractive men don't need to read the fish's advice on fishing- and think they need to do more romantic gestures to get a woman, while being more aggressive would make them closer to a fisherman.
Rape is a kink. Ladies love serial killers. There's all kind of kinks out there.
I've never heard of the kink of 'unassuming nerd that nobody respects who let women tell him how to live his life'. Only as a character in a Jewish comedy.
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I quite like Scott's analogy of dating dynamics and being a well-dressed white tourist in Varanasi, India. In this parable, "street beggars" (males) and "tourists" (females) both have unflattering but mostly accurate insights into the psychology of the other. Game theory determines the shape of their interactions, more than the pre-existing personality of both parties. Any street beggar who is too reticent or tourist who is too open handed is sabotaging themselves. (The one flaw in the analogy is of course that our "tourist" is actually looking for a particular "street beggar", and the tourist:beggar ratio is more balanced, but I quibble.)
It's a failure of rationality, though, to be unwilling to concede that negative generalizations of both sides do, in fact, have a basis in reality. This goes for both the beggars and the tourists.
I believe generalizations about gender are useless, as outliers in other cultures prove that the behaviors are arbitrary. Personally, I've also found that every single person I know in real life who follows strict beliefs in gender roles is either in an unequal, aggressive and unhappy marriage/relationship, or is single/divorced. I would personally hate to look at my partner as someone who wants to lie and cheat me out like a street beggar in Varansai, India.
Do you believe the generalisation that men are stronger and larger than women to be useless, and outliers prove them arbitrary?
Do you believe there are no innate social/psychological differences between men and women, and it's all just socially/culturally contingent?
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Not a flaw at all. The fated street beggar is actually a guru who will give you Enlightenment, and not so long ago spiritually famished Brits went on entire crusades to India in search of The One, much like overworked middle-aged Western women go to Jamaica in hopes that some beach boy will give them true Rasta love.
The dirty secret of course is that all gurus are more or less street beggars.
(Successful gurus move to the West and build a sex cult with a personal harem within their school, naturally).
The ratio is just a bit more hypergamous than in normal heterosexual relations, but the market provides. India is a big place.
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Suppose there is an 18-year-old guy. He respects women. He cares about their wellbeing, and he cares about not making them uncomfortable. He also has basic reasoning capabilities. He notices that every time he hits on or asks out a women, the response is at best neutral. The overwhelming majority are straight rejection (n = 10-20 or so). He knows (or at least thinks) that hitting on women and getting turned down is not only embarrassing for him, but deeply uncomfortable for the women. He reasons that because the probability of success on any further attempts is so low, the expected discomfort he will almost certainly cause to the woman cannot be ethically justified. He thus decides to stop approaching women in person.
That person was me. This was, without exaggeration, the worst decision I have ever made in my life. I don't harbor resentment for any of these women. They were all well within their rights to reject me if they so wanted. Nobody made me stop approaching women. I made the decision myself.
Tell me, what was my mistake? Did I respect women not enough, or too much? Or was this in fact the right decision? Maybe there are inherently adversarial aspects of dating such that maxing out the "Respect Women™ " parameter zeroes out actual romantic prospects.
IMO, thinking about this in terms of "respect" is the wrong perspective. That concept doesn't map coherently onto human sexuality.
Your mistake was making generalization of all women based on the individual experiences you had which prevented you from interacting with any women. Assuming all women are deeply uncomfortable with men asking them out assumes all women share the same preferences of who, what and where they want to be asked out. There are women who do not feel terribly uncomfortable with men, friend or not, asking them out. There are women who do. There are women who you should care about making uncomfortable because they are your friends, and women who you don't need to worry too much about making uncomfortable because they are a stranger you just met. You may have been in an area that literally just didn't have someone who wanted to date you.
Assuming that you "probably" were going to fail again assumes all women have the same preferences and reactions. You should have continued to meet women, get rejected, meet more women, and eventually you would have found someone who got along with you through luck. It would have been painful to be rejected so many times, but you would have gotten used to it to the point it wouldn't be so painful it would prevent you from achieving your goals. It is not any different than making friends; would it be reasonable for me, someone who wants friends, to stop talking to other girls to try to be their friend because I have had many girls in my past who rejected my friendship with them? No. I would be told that there are so many people out there I can find at least one who wants to be my friend, if not friendly. Respecting women starts with respecting that they, like men, are not a monolithic "them" who can be controlled with a grand theory of behavior.
I probably should make a more substantial reply.
There's nothing wrong with what you're saying, by itself. Men should respect women, but respecting women doesn't mean "do all you can to see that they're not uncomfortable". Someone who is too worried about whether women feel uncomfortable isn't respecting women at all.
But then consider: this whole thread started with an example (though maybe fake) of someone whose big crime was that he made a woman feel uncomfortable. If all you mean by "respect" is to treat women like people, asking a woman for sex--something that he himself, also a person, wants, is treating women like people. So he misunderstood this particular woman. He made a mistake. But he's human; that happens. The woman can just say no. She didn't need to shame him. The idea that women are supposed to shame people like this is based around the idea that yes, respecting women does mean "don't ever make a woman feel uncomfortable" and that someone who might sometimes make a woman feel uncomfortable is a dangerous creep.
I suppose the disconnect is that where you see shame, I don't. If my study buddy randomly asked me to have sex with him with no basis of platonic or romantic intimacy, I would totally tell my friends about it, because I like to tell my friends about weird things that happen in my day, not because I have this notion I must socially shame my study buddy so he doesn't make other girls uncomfortable. There are some girls out there who don't feel the need to tell their friends about things like this, and so in another world OP's example wouldn't even be complaining. OP's example and the study girl were not friends, and she felt no obligation to keep their matters private. It happens, and I believe is not indicative that there is a grand narrative being fed to myself and other women and more indicative that OP severely misjudged his entire study group and how close they were.
Do you think the comments on that post are people just telling their friends about weird things? Because a lot of them look like shaming to me.
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Your study buddy still ends up shamed and worse off for having ask you out regardless. An ugly man who asks out dozens of girls(even politely) until they get even one yes will end up with a poor social status. At best he'd be regarded as pitiful and sad, at worst he'd be regarded as a borderline sex offender. Especially given all the people out there who underestimate how difficult it is for an ugly man to get a date, so they assume he must just be an asshole who's trying to fuck everything or an egoist who's asking out girls who're out of his league.
You're getting dogpiled on a lot here, I think a lot of men here haven't had great experiences with romance and have a negative bias to your position, and are being too harsh. But I still think that the current status quo of dating in the west(which it sounds like you're advocating for) is very, very harsh on below average men, and even above average men who're just introverted/shy. And I don't think women are getting a good deal out of things either, although their problems are very different from men's in dating.
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His mistake was both, because he stopped respecting the women around him as individuals with their own preferences and instead as a monolithic "them" who will respond the same.
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Congrats on breaking the lurking barrier.
Anyways, your theory sounds good doesn't work.
Evidence? Anecdotes. Some very successful with women guys I know have let's just say some unenlightened views about women behind closed doors among all-male company. And believe me you will have to work a whole lot to squeeze out the things I say about women in the motte in real life.
So yes, this reasoning does make sense, and I am sure actually does effect some men's chances on the margins, but I would say in large you have cause and effect mixed up. Guys become bitter about women proceeding a lack of success (and sometimes too much of it)(not the other way around), this sometimes manifests into a negative feedback loop, sometimes doesn't.
Here's something I want the 4 female readers to understand. Because they keep on making the same mistake over and over again. You realize how men are generally funnier than women right? (Perhaps because they need to be funny to get laid so they develop a sense of humor?). Men also need to get good at lying to women to get laid as well. Don't believe everything the men in your social circles tell you in polite company.
Men around you could hold views like the ones you read here and just hide their power levels. Hell, I used to draw butterflies and frame them in pretty picture frames and gift them to my ex because she liked butterflies. (Even though it was the gayest shit in the world) Very sweet of me I know.
Don't extrapolate or interpolate from mask-off conversations in anonymous online forums. You certainly know how some in the motte feel about Jews and Blacks. Some discussions are theoretical..
Also, why didn't you oppose any of his claims? Such as {you say X but that's clearly false evidenced by Y}, and instead went straight for the ad-hom?
It's just a very tired form of arguing, imagine every left-wing argument was met with, "maybe you just suck at making money".
Yes, I know that and I don't find it convincing argumentation in that context either. Because the whole point of arguing is to.. convince the other side. Shitting on them kind of gets in the way of that.
You can make an entire corpus of systems level arguments against leftism spanning system dynamics, control theory, game theory, and economics without having spoken on the character attributes of the leftists even once. But I will sneak in a few comments about how their humanities and social science major asses are incapable of not only understanding the formalized versions of fields but abstracted out models either.
Is there truth to it in both cases? Yes. Even though in the gender war front I would say the lines between cause and effect are blurrier.
They might but their mechanisms for dealing with it are terrible. It always just boils down to attractiveness. Which is rational if you assume everyone's a liar and cheater so might as well go for the good looking ones.
Do I think a better mechanism exists? Yes.. just use all that "emotional intelligence" to figure it out.
The blackpill is that it doesn't actually matter if you are a liar, cheater, or immoral (make the inference using the aforementioned proxy variable). I have enough reason to believe as much. Which is again not really a bad thing. Nature is hardly deontological.
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I have little desire to speak outside of this thread sadly, as most people here believe I am fundamentally lesser than them and so cannot converse with me in good faith. And as to your attitudes about women, as I said below, it is impossible to believe someone is lesser than you, have general animosity about their biology, choices and personality, and have a conversation with them in good faith, much less treat them well in an private, intimate setting. I am sure most the men you know who secretly think their wives are silly and immature are not very happy behind closed doors. No sane, healthy person wants to be in a relationship and therefore spend time and money with someone they consider beneath them.
Unfortunately, anecdotes are neither facts nor sufficient evidence to say absolute statements such as "Women do not know what they want.", which is unfortunate to see in a space that espouses value in objectivity and facts.
Edit: do you have any evidence that men are funnier than women?
Edit...Edit?: Opposing his claims assumes he respects me enough to listen to my argument in good faith. He already believes I am "extremely passive when it comes to approaching and will not take initiative to… initiate". He doesn't care much for my thought process and would likely be glad to have me continue to abstain. However, I think if you want to continue to talk to me you'll have to respond with a reply instead of an edit.
This isn't true at all! You can take seriously the arguments of someone who's dumber, or morally lesser, than you. Ancient kings sometimes heeded the advice of philosophers or commoners, despite believing in something like a great chain of being. Not that it matters, most mottizens are liberals or christians or some sort and hold something like 'everyone is equal morally/eyes of god' and also 'honest and clear discourse is important'
It's not an absolute statement though, it describes a tendency. If I say "man, islam sure is sexist" on a visit to the middle east, and you point out the large number of liberal muslims in the US who aren't sexist ... this misses the point? But a lot of women make statements that are transparently incompatible with their 'revealed preferences', especially about sex and dating. Obviously more generally both men and women do it, but there are specific patterns to the way women do it - like, describing the behaviors they like in men, or claiming that PUA stuff universally doesn't work (it does! example, second paragraph), which zinker is referring to.
Like, what's even happening here? What do the words "sane" and "healthy" even mean? If I believe the following: women should be subservient to men, God's law is that a husband and wife should love each other, and then enjoy spending time with my wife in the usual way you do, and "explicitly justify this" via the second premise ... I want to be in a relationship and spend time and money, and yet I consider my wife in some sense "beneath me". A sexist might spend plenty of money on their wife as part of a social game to show wealth! That statement's just not true.
Yet we all reply, reply, reply, because this place explicitly exists to have autistic long discussions about politics with people we disagree with!
I disagree. You cannot take seriously someone who you think is dumber than you, because if their argument is sound, it is not because you think their reasoning is sound or their character, but that they got lucky enough to say a smart thing.
But women are not a monolithic religion like Islam. They have their own individual preferences that vary between eachother. For example, I think PUA stuff does universally not work, and...where am I supposed to go with "describing behaviors they like in men"? How are you able to tell I am lying about what kind of man I like by the basis I am a woman? Do you have objective evidence to show women are typically lying about something as fundamentally as what they like?
"Sane" and "healthy", in my opinion, fall under "not being with someone who thinks you should be subservient to them or they should be subservient to you". A sexist is not a sane, healthy person. Does your wife know that you think, explicitly, she should be subservient to you?
That's not what the phrase 'reasoning is sound' means? If their argument is sound, their 'reasoning is sound'. Very dumb people often understand things correctly, e.g. they go about day-to-day life normally, and that requires thousands of bits of 'sound reasoning' - what made that sound, did i buy food yesterday, etc. "Get lucky" and "take seriously" are entirely compatible! If someone with 100iq, purely randomly, discovered the true theory of quantum gravity, the 150iq physicists would love to take his argument seriously. And I've learned a lot from some objectively stupid people who still, by coincidence or life experience, had interesting information.
More specifically, I've had teachers in subjects who were, clearly, much dumber than me, but they had lots of domain knowledge that I didn't have, which it was useful for me to learn, so I learned it! It's difficult to say I wasn't taking said teacher seriously as I learned all that stuff from them, in the exact same way I would from a smarter teacher. Yet that's what your argument would suggest.
But nothing is monolithic - the reason for the islam example was precisely because there are a lot of liberal muslims who don't share most of the ideas of conservative muslims. And, similarly, that phrase, as it describes women, is referring to a strong tendency among most women, not all women.
Then what explains the many women who say it works on them? An example of which I linked, but there are many more. In general, if one observes peoples' stated desires, they are so clearly influenced by social norms, mimesis, and all sorts of complicated contingencies that they are clearly very often wrong. Not as explicit lies, but more as combinations of alienation, general confusion, not wanting to seem weird, copying the desires of others, confusing signs for signified, etc. So I can just do this - from your perspective, both modern conservative women and generally past 'reactionary' women were wrong about their desires, right? So it's clearly possible.
So have 98% of all male humans who have ever lived not been "sane"? Because 'women have lower status than men and are in some what subservient" is the norm, obviously in many different forms, historically.
Yet sexists can lead ... perfectly normal lives? Again, by this claim, 99% of all male humans who have ever lived are not sane or healthy. Yet they lived very similar lives to male humans today, and we can read their cultural artifacts, books, diaries, and they clearly are, by every conventional meaning of the word, sane and healthy.
I haven't ever claimed, anywhere, that women should be subservient to men, or husbands should be to their wives. You've conflated my arguments with the general sphere of 'right-wing arguments' you're seeing here.
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I think you are making two mistakes here. The first is to assume that positions that deviate from the bog-standard feminist discourse must be evidence of misogyny. I don't think that is necessarily the case. The posters here certainly don't hate you personally - they don't know you.
Second: I think you are typically-minding men. It is extremely important for most straight women to be with someone they "respect" and can look up to. It would be revolting to be partnered to someone they consider beneath them. The same is not true for men. "Respect", in the sense women use the word, i.e. a stand-up guy that can take care of himself, is assertive and ambitious, that people listen to etc., does not place very high on the list of criteria men have for suitable partners. They do need to respect their partners in terms of earnesty, fidelity, sincerity (and for some: chastity) but it is fundamentally a different dynamic.
I don't see how calling all women lying, indecisive, immature, unfunny children isn't misogyny, and more than calling all men sexually frustrated chimps isn't misandrist. The posters here may not hate me, yes, but as I said earlier, I believe when engaging with people who find you biologically inferior to them, the most charitable interpretation of your arguments will be with pity or amusement. If my argument is sound, it is not because my reasoning or logics are sound, but because putting a monkey in a room with a typewriter for an infinite amount of time will cause him to inevitable smash out the works of Shakespeare or, a broken clock is right twice a day, because I am a woman, and things like rationally arguing doesn't come naturally according to posters here, so I either learned it from a man or I have too much testosterone in my system. Not hate, yes, but certainly not a positive sentiment.
Do you have evidence that all men don't want to be with someone they respect earnestly? Because I disagree; I think all people want to be with someone that makes them happy, and being with someone you think will be unfaithful for no reason than their biology sound a bit paranoid and miserable to me.
You continue to misunderstand me and I think it might be because you are conflating the replies of many different people in this thread here. Like women, us non-feminist men and women are not a monolith.
I am also not sure where you are getting that most people here think that women are incapable of reasoning. I would not be surprised if you found that kind of talk around here somewhere - people argue a lot of shit on the motte - but it certainly isn't a very widespread sentiment. We have quite a few very respected female posters here.
What I do think is that our society gives upper middle-class women a free pass for some extremely shitty behaviour that hence becomes normalised. Frankly, we are raising a lot of women to become raging narcissists with all the idiotic #grrrlllllpwrrrrr propaganda that is being blasted on all channels. Consequently, women will be displaying more of these undesirable traits in our Western societies. I also believe there are more male than female assholes in Iran, if that makes you happier.
I also believe that by and large, men and women are different, on average and with large overlaps, and that this difference doesn't stop at the neck. For example, there tends to be a lot more difference between stated and revealed preferences among women, at least when it comes to romantic and sexual preferences.
I am well aware that this makes me a miSogYniSt according to contemporary feminism. It doesn't mean I don't believe in equal opportunities for all. I certainly don't believe in the equalisation of outcomes for unequal effort, though.
You are again substituting what you think respect is and should mean for what I think respect is and should mean - which I believe to be different for men and women. Also, your requests for evidence are an isolated demand for rigour. I could go and look for studies on how much men and women value assertiveness and ambition in their partners, for example. But that takes time and I am not sure it would convince you one bit. You'd have to show me the effort is worth it - I don't see you providing any data backing up your experiences either.
Never said that. Read carefully.
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No one will know (or care if) you are a woman if you don't start every comment with "As a woman". But you do you.
I don't know what to say besides the fact that despite it intuitively not being possible, it happens. Especially on the motte. That's kind of the whole selling point of the place, that you can discuss civilly with people you strongly disagree with. Is it not evident to you that multiple 400+ word responses carefully understanding your arguments and then voicing agreement or disagreement at a level much higher than the rest of the internet? Did anyone tell you to "gtfo bitch"? Because that is just about how most of the internet including females you disagree with would have responded. If engaging with you sincerely and respectfully despite "hating your guts" isn't the purest definition of respect, then I don't what is.
Just bring strict arguments, I am sure you know what is good and bad after years of lurking. Leave your identity and emotions and ego at the door and you will be fine. This is "high decoupler" land and all you need are arguments.
Seriously just take my advice, and don't take the words you see here personally. Leave the fact you are a woman and just dive straight into the actual facts. I have used the internet long enough to know that making a discussion about you sanctimoniously will always end badly no matter how much the audience loves you.
Yes, the gender ratio of comedians not only in standup but all forms. And the fact that I make women laugh about 50x more than they make me laugh. Men also make me laugh a lot more than women. This is so obvious to me that I don't feel the need for evidence.
First result from google. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/336735385_Sex_differences_in_humor_production_ability_A_meta-analysis
Atleast try before immediately assuming the worst? Once again that's the whole point of the motte.
Which is a fact. Women do approach men a lot less than men approach women.
I don't know what it has to do with YOU in particular. He is speaking in generalities.
I'm here all day.
Is it not evident to me that multiple 400+ word responses carefully misunderstanding my arguments and then voicing mostly disagreement is a sign of respect and more evident that it is the expected form of discourse here if you don't want to get a ban. Talking politely to me while thinking I am not deserving of higher education, management positions and a place in the workforce because my body makes me emotional and immature is hardly what I consider to be the makeup of a person who respects me and my choices. You say, "Leave the fact you are a woman and just dive straight into the actual facts.", but did the many men here who included the fact they are men and have used mostly anecdotal evidence and subjective, absolute statements doing the same? I would say no. I would say not even you, whose only evidence I see for why men are funny is your opinion of standup comedians and your opinion on the women around you.
I decline to try, because, as I said, it is impossible to have a conversation in good faith with someone you believe is biologically inferior to you. His most charitable interpretation of me would be amusement, or benign pity, because even if my argument was sound, it would not be because my character was sound but because a monkey hitting keys on a typewriter for an infinite amount of time with almost surely type any given text, including the complete works of Shakespeare, or, a broken clock is right twice a day.
The benefit of the rules here is that I can have a conversation with people who disrespect me, not that I can have a respectful one. I am quite sure if it was not for the strict efforts of the moderation team, most men here would indeed tell me "gtfo". Instead, they say, as seen above, "you might not be the best source of actionable and effective advice here.", which I find more conductive for a conversation, yes, but not at all indicative of respect for me.
Huh? Every reply could just be "I don't think you are engaging in good faith." if so. Yet people are trying to argue your points in detail. That said arguments misinterpret your points is ... just how complicated politics discussions often work.
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I guess that depends on what you consider a "respectful" conversation.
We have a lot of people here with diametrically opposed viewpoints and identities, and by "diametrically opposed" I mean there are posters who literally believe certain other posters should be dead and/or stripped of their rights. This is not hyperbole (though fortunately, it's also a small slice of the general commentariat).
But generally speaking, this place isn't for "winning" an argument with another poster (though it's an easy trap to fall into). You may be talking to someone who doesn't actually believe you are sapient (we have those too) but that person isn't the only one reading your words.
Obviously, you aren't obliged to talk to anyone you don't want to talk to. But consider that you are not trying to persuade the hopeless, seething misogynist, even if that's the person you're arguing with.
I absolutely agree with your final sentence. Anecdotally, I never said a single word in /r/TheRedPill, and yet through sheer lurking, I found myself so thoroughly redpilled I was asking men on that forum what I should do as a woman to make men happy since I was so naturally prone to pissing them off. Those ghostly eyes watching us are always watching, after all. I like to think here we share counterarguments. If they are good or bad ones depends on those everwatchful lurkers.
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I'm more or less confident most of the users who responded to you would have responded the same regardless of the threat of the ban hammer or not. I've been seeing those names for years.
You might think you merely being a woman is enough to send everyone here into a rage or something but you do realize there are like 5 other women also in the thread?
So what?
I think the majority of the human population doesn't "deserve" higher education. I am not "disrespecting" anyone, I am proposing a way to optimize a system.
Much in the same way the system of dating would be optimized towards a male advantage if women majority non-economically productive majors were not subsidized. You wouldn't even have to think about the women at all, a libertarian can reach that exact same conclusion, and the outcome would be the same.
I also think they (most people) make bad choices. It would be disrespectful to lie about that!
I don't know why you are autistically latching onto this one point. Yes, I think men are in general funnier than women, sue me? Once again, what's the big deal if I hold that opinion?
I gave you literally all the evidence in the world for it, and it is all the evidence because there are more pressing matters to study than which gender cracks better jokes.
You can try or not, that's your call.
But I would say taking up the challenge is quite literally what the motte is for.
No one is entitled to respect. Firstly because you are a new account and no one knows you as a person. Secondly, "respect" is not a necessary precondition to have a conversation in a pseudonymous forum.
This aligns with men's experiences, once again, whats the big deal?
Do you not think that other women think that women as a group are in general better than putting on makeup or some extremely obvious majority-female activity? Are women "disrespecting" men by believing that or just believing in the truth?
You are making the whole thing about yourself and taking an issue with people disagreeing and saying that your general group might not be good at things. Those are not arguments, those are complaints.
If you want to defend the honour of your gender, do it, but you are making it all about yourself and making "omg people are mean to girls here can you believe it" statements. There's no way to engage with solipcism meaningfully.
I do think there are other women that think that all women are better at makeup, parenting, nursing, etc, due to biological preferences and yes, I think it is disrespectful to men to imply that they are incapable of certain things because of their bodies. I think all men and women are capable of exactly the same things emotionally and spiritually, sans physical capabilities due to hormonal differences which can be remedied with science.
I am making it all about myself because I am a woman, and every generalized comment about women is therefore directed at me. When you say men are funnier than women, you are also saying you are funnier than me, for no other reason than because of your body. The "big deal" of you holding that opinion is that I find it's a rather illogical and mean one, and tells me you have rather poor judgement, and also if I were to meet you in real life, I should avoid trying to be funny with you and people who agree with you because you will be hostile to all of my jokes in the company of other men. You have yet to provide me any evidence men are funnier than women other than your belief. If I think men and women can be equally funny because humor is not a physical trait, does that make it trounce yours because I believe it more than you? I'd say no.
I don't know exactly how to engage with absolute statements, which are neither statistically or personally relevant. People here make big claims about women - and therefore me - with little evidence other than personal anecdotes. Your characterization of people just saying "my" group "might" not be good at things is rather charitable for statements that literally call me indecisive, immature, emotional and illogical.
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So, I was going to respond to the above poster, but I think I'll throw it in here.
I don't think this is actually about women. I think this is something much broader, in that I think models based on monodirectional concepts of power (I.E. "Critical") are all essentially shittests. It's harmful to people who actually take this stuff seriously. (Been there, done that, got the t-shirt) But I don't think it's any different if it's sex/gender or race or sexuality or what have you. It's all essentially the same effect. It punishes people who actually take it seriously, rewards the people who have the super-secret decoder ring that tells you to ignore this stuff (or have the personality to brute force through it).
Truth is, this is my argument against teaching Critical-based ideas in school. I think kids are more susceptible to internalizing these ideas, to significant harm I think. If steps were taken to protect against this, I'd be OK with teaching it as one viewpoint along-side others (I'm a liberal individualist as an example).
But there's no ethical way to live and be an oppressor. And I think because the oppressor/oppressed dichotomy takes up so much oxygen for reasons, it leads to things like this happening, because we're not guiding men down a proper, healthy path.
Edit: Just to be clear, I'm happily married, although I got incredibly lucky that I found someone who came after me. But our marriage got a lot better when I started to push the Critical models out of my worldview and started ignoring the inherent shittests.
Who is "we" and what is "guiding" and what is the "proper path"?
The we is society as a whole.
What I would argue, is in the effort to eliminate the male gender role, activists have created this thing where we're not helping men actually succeed the male gender role in a healthy, sustainable way. (Note: Just because I think we're not getting rid of the male gender role doesn't mean I think the same thing about the female gender role. I absolutely do not) That's what we need to do, that's IMO what the guy in this story did wrong. But I also think that so much of this relies on unstated assumptions that IMO are entirely unfair.
I would argue the gender binary is a construct, since the definition of masculinity and femininity are different in certain cultures, like Japan and Korea. Therefore, since it is a construct, it is arbitrary. Therefore, the elimination of the male gender role is a good thing, because it stops men from being bullied and shamed into habits and mannerisms that are not natural to them, since not all men act the same nor have the same preferences.
The problem is that there's very little to no interest in actually getting rid of the male gender role. It's too useful, both on an individual and on a societal level. I wouldn't go as far as to say it's arbitrary....I think there's a historical development based around material needs....but certainly it's something that COULD be changed if we had the gumption. We just don't.
I don't say that as a macho type man either, truth be told, I had to work pretty hard to get at least somewhat decent both at actually performing the male gender role, and frankly, believing that it's in any way ethical to do so. I'd personally be better off if we jettisoned it. But I think asking men to basically ignore the incentive structures that exist in society is a big part of a lot of the social problems we're seeing today.
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"The idea of a 'laptop' is a construct, since, depending on the manufacturer, a tablet with an attached keyboard can be a laptop, or a 20lb bulky monster can be a laptop. Therefore, construct, arbitrary. Eliminating the role of a 'laptop' is a good thing - it will allow increased flexibility in the computing-device market to meet any available needs".
The "constructs of masculinity and femininity" in japan and korea are remarkably similar to ours. Men are physically stronger, physically larger, are more competitive, pursue women more, are leaders more, are more aggressive generally, have more potential for violence, etc.
What is wrong with "increased flexibility in the computing-device market to meet any available needs"? And do you have evidence men are more competitive than women and are "leaders" more?
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I don't see how you can say that masculinity is significantly different in Japan or Korea than the West. Societies where men were still considered leaders, fighters, and those who valued the same masculine attributes/virtues as their counterparts in the West (loyalty, strength/competence, aggression, pursuit of women, stoicism, etc.)
There isn't perfect overlap, (e.g. the aesthetics vary significantly), but I don't see how someone can look at something with 90% similarity and say that it is arbitrary because of that 10%.
If these things were actually arbitrary, you should see massive, significant differences from culture to culture. Women in lots of places should be the sexual/romantic aggressors. Men in lots of places should be considered more sensitive. You shouldn't have to go to the other side of the world, find gender norms that are similar in most ways, and say that because they aren't identical, it must all just be arbitrary.
Because the 10% exists at all means an 11% can exist, and therefore a 12%, and so on. Thus, it is not biologically set in stone, and thus men and women who deviate from Western gender norms are not deviants brainwashed by feminism, but simply expressing natural instincts. The culture of social conservatism versus the culture of social progressivism I would argue is so vastly different that, well, you have the existence of transgendered folks fighting against people who think they are mentally ill. The fact that there are trans women who successfully pass in public defeats the argument that women and men have unchanging traits that make them inherently different, as Western gender roles would have one believe.
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'The reason you're failing with women is because of your negative attitude' is a pretty common trope response to any discussion men have around about structural problems with dating in modern society. As is women taking critiques about female behaviour in the dating world as a personal affront.
Men having mask off discussions like in this thread do not (for the most part) bring negative attitudes to their interactions with women. Quite the opposite, their acceptance of the modern dating environment acts as a pressure release for any resentment they feel towards women.
I think your average guy who isn't getting laid isn't because he has a negative attitude.
OTOH, yes, I think people on this website, specifically, and other sites like it, aren't getting laid because of their negative attitude. The same way say, somebody who spends hours upon hours on /r/antiwork probably isn't going to do great in their career
See, I would disagree that your average guy isn't getting laid.
That's why I said, "your average guy who isn't getting laid."
But yeah, I think most guys are fine about this. Even guys who aren't getting laid regularly. Partly revealed preferences and partly, in many urban areas, things really only opened up the past year or so. I know things were open and freedom was flowing since basically fall 2020 in parts of the country, but mask mandates and the like weren't completely gone in my very blue neck of the woods until March of 2022, and it was only then, that things felt totally back to normal.
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You're not wrong and yet they are not wrong either. A negative attitude is, as a general rule, not very attractive.
I would have to think believing half of the human population is fundamentally lesser than you in emotional maturity and intelligence reaches past the range of negative attitude.
If you have an IQ of 100 half the population is literally of inferior intelligence.
Well, I would have to disagree. I have an IQ of 110 and I don't consider those around me with a lower number inferior to me intelligently.
Are you trolling?
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It's also a pretty absurd trope. I'd be surprised if anyone really believes that the successful men in the dating market are always or even mostly those who "respect women". It's an interesting inconsistency so many liberals have where they simultaneously see all of these issues in gender relations and yet so often the dating scene is "working as intended" when they want to use it as a cudgel.
I can buy that, and like I mentioned in my reply to @justawoman, calling it a majority may have gone too far. It's more that we all understand toxic relationships to exist, and we all know that disrespect is often not disqualifying, not just due to recent dating developments but throughout human history. I don't think that it's the best dating strategy to "become an asshole", but at the same time, a fear of being an asshole can hold you back, because it's often exaggerated, so in that sense "respecting women" is not necessarily the first piece of advice I'd give to someone in a bad spot. And I feel like there are a lot of depressed young men who think they are respecting women but are actually just fearing them, which etymology-wise isn't that different.
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It's the good ole conflating attractiveness (proxied by dating success) with moral quality. Once you drink the "be a good man to get women" [1] koolaid and actually believe it (god bless their hearts), the logical inference is that men who don't have success with women must be bad.
It is a very female coded thought process though, I have yet to see any man regardless of his success level with women use this line of logic.
[1] Attractiveness is also a near perfect predictor for "personality". Wow much linear relationship. Halo effect is a hell of a drug.
What does "female coded" mean?
X coded Y means, Y is assumed to come from X most of the time, and that it's more natural for X to make Y than Z, for E.g. It's similar to 'connotation'. It's about perception.
https://gender-decoder.katmatfield.com/about
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You think a majority of men want to be in a relationship with someone they fundamentally disrespect? I certainly don’t advocate for anyone to get into an unequal relationship like that.
Edit: I feel it's important for those third parties reading to address your second musing because it appears you are restating my thoughts not in good faith. I do see issues in gender relations, although I do not believe it is strictly because I am liberal, but I believe they occur because of the previous culture of gender roles pressuring all women and men into roles they weren't comfortable with, and as we grow as a society in intelligence, empathy, and communication we shrug those confines off and those who cling to them are uncomfortable. Unfortunately, there is no room anymore for absolute and subjective statements such as "all men" and "all women" "do this", so those trying to use that frame of mind in the dating scene are finding natural failure. No sane, healthy woman (or man) wants to date someone who thinks they are an immature liar.
My point isn't whether you or anyone else advocates for relationships like that, it's just my observation that they happen with a high frequency. The reason everyone talks about "red flags" is because we are so blinded by flattery and the glow of an early relationship that we often miss when the other person actually doesn't respect us. We may not want to date someone like this, but we are certainly willing to trick ourselves that we aren't when we actually are.
Does the disrespectful attitude actually work out to be a majority of successful men? Well, maybe not. But a more defendable position is that every man has the experience of knowing some real assholes who have no problem picking up women, and I think plenty of women have seen the equivalent on their side as well. And many of these kinds of people are perfectly willing to gaslight their target into thinking that it's really "them" who is the one being selfish immature liar. And a toxic relationship can run on those fumes for a very long time.
This should all be common liberal understanding (and I am very liberal myself, full disclosure), and yet when a frustrated young man is resentful, suddenly the liberals become stoic. Surely it's something wrong with the frustrated young man that is preventing him from finding a partner? If a man were to so much as vent, surely that would be evidence of his own insufficiency? But because it's so hard to argue this in the liberal framework, arguments like yours have to be totally tortured to assume that most women, or most anyone, can sniff out good men from bad, and are immune to toxic disrespect.
It's much simpler, and more harmonious for the liberal worldview, to just admit that some men get screwed over by the way women judge attractiveness and by the way society teaches men to date, and that they should get to vent harmlessly if they so desire. And they should eventually let go of the resentment! But they shouldn't have their venting be held against them.
By doing so they'd open the status quo up to legitimate critique. Their reluctance to do so is because of some combination of women are wonderful (women can do no wrong) and male hyperagency (men are responsible for everything that happens to them).
By not doing so it does lead to many men going through the 'anger stage' when they find out they'd been indoctrinated with social mores that are against their own personal interest. You could find them on forums like /r/theredpill and some never get over it.
If anything, admitting that "some people are bound to get screwed over" is pretty much fatal to the liberal worldview (which I'm here taking to mean "we all come out good/okay in the end"). Either you can't keep calling yourself a liberal and sleep easy at night anymore, or you go to some illiberal extreme worldview. Kind of like what we see with the rest of the culture war, really.
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I have to disagree that anyone, men or women, can hold thoughts like, “I think women are childish and immature.” and have a good faith conversation with a woman.
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