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Culture War Roundup for the week of August 28, 2023

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A question: why do people believe that people - especially men - who are unsuccessful with romantic relationships are unsuccessful because of a lack of moral virtue? A man who's 30 years old and has never gone on a date or kissed anyone is assumed by default to be some kind of fat, basement-dwelling loser. When he is in fact a short but fit engineer, or a corporate lawyer, or a programmer for Google, he's then roundly criticized for being misogynistic or lacking in moral virtue. Occasionally, darker - much darker - suspicions are raised: let's say that there are reasons why these men frequently avoid being around unrelated children. It seems difficult for people to comprehend that an apparently healthy, gainfully-employed individual could fail to meet with romantic success despite a decade of trying...unless there is something seriously morally wrong with them.

Someone who fails at being a salesman, or a business owner, or even at playing basketball worth a damn...doesn't get that. "I'm a nice, decent, hardworking guy...but I can't sell shoes at Nordstrom, I've been working hard to do this and have dreamt of being a salesman since I was 12" is a kind of absurd complaint. He might be a fine human being and maybe he'd make a great heavy equipment operator, but he just doesn't have the talent for sales. We don't think there's something morally wrong with our hero because he can't sell shoes, or because he's a short, clumsy guy that sucks at basketball.

Because men are assumed to be the ones who have agency in this regard. Men act, women are. And therefore if something goes wrong it’s men’s fault.

Adding to that that many people, especially women, have experience with men whose approach to dating is morally undesirable, but no experience with men who are unsuccessful at dating for some orthogonal reason. Yes, men with morally undesirable approaches to dating are generally doing OK for themselves romantically, but that’s often what women have to go off of.

As for OP, there are many women in the Philippines and Ukraine who would be happy to have you.

As for OP, there are many women in the Philippines and Ukraine who would be happy to have you.

That's kind of a cheap shot.

Speaking as someone married to a Filipino woman, I don't see it as a cheap shot. I think it's excellent advice. Modern Western gender relations are deeply confused and toxic at the moment, and the gap between public rhetoric, professional rules, and private preferences all requires a greater-than-usual degree of reading between the lines to successfully navigate. By contrast, the implicit deal in many non-Western societies remains comparatively clear: the husband will provide some combination of social status and financial security, and the wife will create a pleasant home and family environment. Given this, I think choosing a non-Western wife is an extremely good option for many men, especially non-neurotypical men who struggle with the elaborate courtly cognitive dissonance required over here. That said, just because the rules over there are relatively more clear-cut doesn't mean they're totally transparent, so it's not something to blunder into without appropriate contextual knowledge. Otherwise you'll end up in a situation where you're shocked, shocked to find that your Filipino wife expects you to bail out her brother's failing business back home, or your Ukrainian wife expects to be provided with the means to keep up a glamorous wardrobe.

If he was a first time poster about this particular issue I would agree with you, but after getting warned downthread for single-issue posting about this topic it seems like ‘dude, go to the Philippines if you have that little success in the USA’ is exactly what he needs to hear.

So like, at what point do men in the Philippines start picking up on this? If it really is such a "traditional" culture, shouldn't we expect Western sex tourists to start getting the Bataan treatment from locals?

The men with the most say are probably the most supportive of it: the immediate family of the courted woman. If she marries you, some of that American money will invariably end up in their pockets. Which isn't anything bad or duplicitous: in less individualistic cultures, of course you help out your inlaws with money when necessary.

It doesn't extend everywhere; Filipinos are much more open to foreign marriages than, say, Mongolians (don't even consider trying it).

In a traditional culture, getting a wealthy and stable but kind of boring guy for your daughter is a stroke of luck, and young guys who might be interested in her don’t have to like it- they have a lot less say in it than she does.

Rich nerdy white guys who have trouble in the western dating market aren't really engaging in sex tourism. They're actually bringing a lot of legitimate value to the table in the context of more traditional marriage markets. They're not going to get the Bataan style treatment from locals because a lot of the locals actively want to get picked up by a rich nerdy first worlder.