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I don't think it is really possible to get an accurate picture of sentiment here given the overwhelming amounts of social control and messaging on the topic. Most men are in fact openly very supportive of the ideologies that they are required to support in order to remain employed, but I'm not sure how much of that translates to actual, real support. The constant witch-hunting that takes place these days is, to me at least, a sign that this outward support isn't always matched behind the mask.
This includes a lot of private conversations, in groups and one-on-one. And the character of them isn't at all 'thing i say because i have to for social acceptance'. A guy in college who's very happy about his first time, or bragging about his fourth, doesn't really remind me of 'the captive mind'.
I think I may have been a bit unclear when I spoke before and given more of a hostile or conspiratorial approach, when I think this is more a case of a fish not really perceiving water. I think that the vast majority of men don't get to the level of seriously interrogating their personal beliefs and attitudes on this topic, and instead act within the confines of the society and culture that they grew up in. To complain about the current order of things is largely seen as broadcasting either "I am a loser who fails to get laid" or (a very hyperbolic) "I am a hardline conservative who wants to institute white sharia".
I personally think the current system has a lot of problems, but that doesn't stop me from acting to optimise my success within it, and being happy when I do succeed. If you actually laid all the options out and got them to make an informed choice, I think the majority of men would opt for something other than the current dating market... but this is a rationalist forum and you know what a co-ordination problem is already.
I agree in principle, but the 'inferential distance' between them and that choice are entire systems of moral philosophy so it's basically just saying 'i'm right, and people would agree if they were more correct'. Which, to be fair, is more or less true in this case.
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I think that most men would prefer more extramarital and no-strings-attached sex for sure! But is that what they're actually getting? I don't think that they're actually getting much of that - and statistically, only a very small percentage of them are. When you ask the question in terms of "do you want to have less sex" then obviously you get one answer, but if you phrase it as "Would you prefer a set of social norms that made you much more likely to end up in a stable marriage with a woman, or the modern environment where you have a chance at being in the 10% of men who can have lots of no-strings-attached sex?" then I think you'd get a very different set of answers. Remember that most men are actually losers in the current environment and so what they'd actually be giving up is closer to pornhub than the life of a player.
Edited because I had an odd glitch on the UI that made the post come out half-baked.
We need to distinguish tinder one night stands and sex within premarital short or long-term relationships here. The former is something that most people don't deeply engage with, and has a somewhat lopsided distribution of outcomes. But those who get results love it while thy do it. The latter is something that most people (smoothing over a ton of complexity here) engage in and personally support in an authentic way. Men love that they can sleep with women after 1-3-n dates without commitment to marriage, and then maybe leave that woman and sleep with another.
Subtract out the lingering marriages/bonds/connections from either other cultures (immigrants) or older relationships and what I've seen is a dramatic drop in pair-bonding and a dramatic increase in misery, people complaining about the dating market, people complaining about the other gender, etc. While I have no doubt that plenty of men love the ability to sleep with women without committing to marriage, this paints a somewhat misleading picture because that's an element of modern culture that technically works for them. But if you actually pull that out and interrogate it, the same processes and mores that let men engage in this behaviour are responsible for a lot of the problems that they're complaining about.
Taken in isolation that ability to get laid is indeed great and men will absolutely support it in an authentic way - but at the same time, the benefits of an opioid high are great and people will also absolutely support it in an authentic way. But that stops being a compelling argument when you look at what comes with that high and the consequences that can flow from it.
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