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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.

It is instictive. Women naturally fear men who have low quality genes. Rapists are often portrayed in media as rich men but in reality rape is a measure of last resort. Rape is the worst tactic for reproduction if a man has a choice. Women don't just find unappealing men not interesting, they find them revolting. Most guys don't really feel anything towards an unfortunate looking women. Life isn't meant to be fair, logically consistent or objective. We don't have a supremely rational and detached mind. We often rely on gut reactions based on what is evolutionarily advantageous. Throughout history women who avoided bottom tier men did better than those who befriended them.

Women don't just find unappealing men not interesting, they find them revolting.

I have seen this written online several times before but have seen zero evidence of it. I have, on the other hand, seen men be friends with women who seem to have zero or little sexual interest in them. Why would the women be friends with them if they found them actively revolting?

I'll add some nuance. Women find such men revolting if they make sexual advances i.e. basically expect to be treated as sexual beings.

I'll add some nuance. Women find such men revolting if they make sexual advances i.e. basically expect to be treated as sexual beings.

I'll add another layer of that - which is that very unattractive people are just considered, rightly or wrongly, to be straight up transgressive for wanting sex and relationships. That this unattractive MF'er had the gall to point that already gross, already-transgressive desire at YOU is just an extra scoop of shit on top of the steaming hot shit sundae.

I think there is a disconnect between the guy who hangs around women hoping that 'friendship' will ripen into romantic attraction, and the women who take on face value that the guy is a friend. Then if he makes an advance, she rejects him, and he drops her. She's hurt and disappointed and angry that 'he was only pretending to be my friend in order to get sex', he's hurt and disappointed and angry that 'she friendzoned me'. She characterises him as the kind of Nice Guy who treats women like penny in the slot machines - put in attention, get sex out - and he characterises her as what the redpill warned about all the time - women have it better in every way and are favoured by society.

Women and men can be friends, but this needs to be clearly understood from the start. If you're hoping "friend" will become "lover", you're likely to be disappointed. This is made worse, of course, by the "friends with benefits" style hookups, where people are vaguely friendly and have casual sex now and again. Observing this from the outside, no wonder some men think that being 'friends' will automatically lead to sexual relationship.