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Young Prudes: Are sex norms mostly a manifestation of sex ratios?
Aria Shrecker of Works in Progress puts forward an interesting hypothesis. What if the sexual revolution of the 1960s was driven not (primarily) by the pill, but by a growing population?
The thesis rests on a few key points:
1 is fairly uncontroversial, 2 is a mathematical derivative of 1. The only part of contention is whether 3 is true, and if so, how strong the effect is.
There is definitely a correlation between the ratio of men to women at US colleges and its sexual culture. And the mechanism is pretty intuitive. This would also explain the current sex-negative turn among young people. There are fewer 21 year-old zoomettes than there are 23 year-old zoomer boys, and so with the 'upper hand', the young ladies are turning the sexual culture towards their preferences.
The greatest weakness in the hypothesis is that it predicts that a higher male:female ratio should increase commitment (marriages, having children, buying houses together) and all those things are declining. Of course, its possible that atomisation caused by smartphones is simply too strong of an effect and swamps the influence of sex ratios. Peter Foreshaw Brooks points this out in his review of her article.
If Aria is right, then we're soon in line for a marriage boom. Watch this space, folks!
Nah, IMO the elephant in the room in regards to sex ratios is median age. There isn't so much an oversupply of 23 year old zoomer males as there is one of their millennial cousins and divorcee Gen X fathers remaining active in the dating market (Women over 40 are much more likely to be "single, not looking" than their male counterparts.), and that's before you get to the married onlyfans subscribers. With that, social media/smartphones have made male attention easier to cultivate than ever for women (probably hard to avoid, if we're being honest). In short, male attention has been devalued into something less than worthless.
To be clear, I don't see an epidemic of zoomettes actually shacking up with the divorcee Gen Xers, but they'll sure as shit let the guy old enough to be their uncle buy their drinks and spend their time talking to him instead of the 23 year old zoomer. Hell, one of the Gen X attorneys that frequents my local bar paid a semester's tuition (something like 5 grand) of one of the zoomette bartenders. She didn't even fuck him! How is the 23 year old zoomer supposed to compete with that!? (On that note, in my experience being a pretty 23 year old boy can get attention, but said attention comes from 40 year old women looking for hookups who intentionally avoid men their own age because they don't want another relationship.).
Young women are rarer/in demand more today than they ever have been and are overwhelmed by male attention, be it solicited and wanted or otherwise, while the men they actually want either have endless options themselves or can't find a way to make themselves found in a sea of male attention (I'm at least partially convinced that it's more the latter than the less charitable hypergamy explanation.).
As the nation ages this will only get worse, especially with the proportion of millennial men who never married in the first place.
As a Gen Xer, I must say I highly disapprove of this behavior. It's kinda like scabbing, driving up the price of zoomettes who DO fuck old guys for the rest of
usthe degenerate old guys who would behave like that.Unfortunately for non-simping men both young and old, simps gonna simp and exacerbate hoeflationary pressures.
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