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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 18, 2023

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Are you suggesting that the average WEIRD man would prefer much less of this extramarital and no strings attached sex, but pretends to like that sort of thing to keep his job?

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.

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

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.

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.