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Culture War Roundup for the week of March 6, 2023

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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 work study 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:

"oh, I'm just too honest for the dirty, lying, backstabbing tricks required for success in the dating market." I typically dismiss this as egoistic rationalization, but I am again starting to wonder if it is true.

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.

  • -14

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.

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.

  • -10

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.