site banner
PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   2038 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for October 8, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

2
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

A thought and question I've had bouncing around in my head that I don't expect a real answer to, or even a coherent framing, since its possible there are a few false premises at work here.

Is it possible that one side effect of the rise of Onlyfans/digital prostitution is that (many) men are noticing that (many) women know precisely what men want in a sexual partner and are willing to provide it... but only outside the context of a committed relationship.

Simply put, Onlyfans creates an extremely liquid marketplace for attractive women to produce smut content for a large audience. Content producers want to optimize to capture as many customers as possible. Something like 87% of the customers/users on OF are men. So competitive forces drive the (mostly females) creators to figure out exactly what men's sexual preferences are and provide content tailored to those preferences and produce it en masse.

So by sheer economic necessity, these women are demonstrating that they are willing to engage with men's deepest sexual desires in order to make a buck.

Imagine being a 20-something male in the current environment, being aware of the fact that you can go on OF and for the price of a cheeseburger find women who will perform almost any male sexual fantasy you could imagine. Then going on the dating market to find a woman who might be willing to indulge in fantasies with him (assume he's seeking an otherwise healthy, committed relationship).

If he goes into the dating marketplace and is open about his own personal sexual desires, he can be branded as a pervert or a sex pest because "women don't exist solely to please men" and/or "you can't reduce women to sex objects, even if they sexualize themselves." In some cases, they might just simply express ignorance of men's sexual preferences and act as though expecting sexual gratification from a partner is suspect!

But this would read as extremely bad faith given that, as above, women clearly can figure out what men want if they put in a modicum of effort, and WILL provide it when provided sufficient incentive.

Seems, to me, that seeing the difference between what women are willing to do for money and attention from thousands of onlookers online vs. how they can be unwilling to indulge their own partner's personal desires could lead to a feeling of resentment.

Do you expect you're talking about the same women? The women I know best wouldn't dream of setting up an OF account. I am sure they have their secret garden like all women, the face they don't show me and would never show me, but I am not sure the OF types are the same girls one might be approaching at, say, Starbucks. Of course you could argue you're talking about some sort of female psychology here, but that seems like women assuming all men are subscribers to OF or are dangerous potential rapists. This is only true in the least charitable view.

Also I am not sure it's either realistic or ideal (despite the modern idea of writing up a dating profile) to be "open about preferences" from the get-go (primarily because I think these preferences should be a natural growth based on shared experience of one another, and not, say, what one learns one gets off to via watching porn).

Many women are students of male weakness, yes. For various reasons. But I'd argue against anyone who suggests all men want one type of inamorata, actually. There are commonalities, probably, among men, but I mean camgirl and porn sites all have the Category button for a reason. If what you mean is "All men want to see your tits" then you're probably right. Past that it's vague. But presumably for most the draw of such sites is the same as the draw of the waterlogged magazine cache in the woods for boys of my era--the erotic forbidden. There have been Playboy centerfolds for a long time. That doesn't mean that's everyone's ideal (thus you get sexless wonders asking on reddit and elsewhere "Would U date an Onlyfans girl?") Regardless of the answers, the fact that this is a question that gets asked suggests these girls and women who put themselves in that marketplace are not the norm, despite how it seems.

I will offer that I think the normalization to some degree of this sort of virtual prostitution is very troubling and I can't imagine it sending us anywhere good. An equivalent would be normalization of, say, fighting and violence for men. We all have that side in us, buried to some degree. Make it acceptable and people suppress it less. There probably is a zone where girls who never would have imagined themselves dancing naked to shitty music in video are doing so because as you say, easy money and some degree of anonymity.

The women I know best wouldn't dream of setting up an OF account.

How do you know this?

Would you expect them to admit it if they did?

Regardless of the answers, the fact that this is a question that gets asked suggests these girls and women who put themselves in that marketplace are not the norm, despite how it seems.

I'm really no longer sure what "the norm" is, other than all indications are that its trending towards running an Onlyfans being a relatively acceptable practice.

And more to the point, it means any female who wants to figure out how to satisfy male sexual preferences need only check into what some of the top content producers are putting out.

Women now have no real excuse for being unaware of men's sexual preferences.

And guys now get the impression that females are willing to satisfy those preferences even if they claim to find them disgusting and crude.

An equivalent would be normalization of, say, fighting and violence for men.

AH, but I don't think that is equivalent.

Sexuality is often idealized as something to be shared with solely your committed partner, and seeking sexual gratification outside the relationship is considered adulterous.

Hence why having a sexually explicit OF might be a violation of that relationship.

I don't think a man's capacity for violence is something that has the same level of "sacredness" where he is expected to express it solely to his partner.

Although I see your point that we have a social interest in restraining the male tendency to violence.

I'm really no longer sure what "the norm" is, other than all indications are that its trending towards running an Onlyfans being a relatively acceptable practice.

I think you may be falling for the availability heuristic, and your language is a bit weaselly. According to this source, there are a mere 2.1 million content creators on OnlyFans (and I imagine that includes numerous dormant accounts, or accounts which were set up but then the owner chickened out before actually posting so much as a single suggestive still photo). There's no doubt that that's dramatically higher than previous generations of pornographic performers (the IAFD, a database of more traditional pornographic films and performers, only lists 218,000 performers in the entire database), but there are 3.9 2.2 billion [thanks for the correction /u/orthoxerox] Millennial or Gen Z women in the world. The overwhelming majority of women of any age are not involved in the sex industry in any capacity, including OnlyFans.

EDIT: And that's not even to mention the fact that that figure of 2.1 million content creators includes content creators who don't create pornographic content, like fitness instructors or similar.

but there are 3.9 billion Millennial or Gen Z women in the world. The overwhelming majority of women of any age are not involved in the sex industry in any capacity, including OnlyFans.

Isn't this the number of women and men? Otherwise other generations would all have to fit into the remaining 0.2 billion.

Correct, will amend.

I have no idea what the argument you’re making is, that women should act like whores for their partners because they can Google the porn that OnlyFans creators make?

I'm exploring a question "whether the fact that women act like whores on OF for random strangers could lead to men resenting the fact that they won't do so in the context of a relationship."

I don't think there's any "should" about it.

Males have a lot of sexual preferences that they are, generally, told are disgusting, base, or socially unacceptable.

The signal that OF seems to be sending is that, for a relative pittance, women will absolutely engage in the most disgusting, base, or socially unacceptable behaviors that men want.

And OF is blurring the line between what is 'real life' and what is 'fantasy' with regards to sexual behavior. Indeed, a huge part of the "appeal" of OF is that women market themselves as just ordinary girls who just happen to like all the sexual behaviors men prefer and have as high a desire for sex as men do.

So men might be reading the signal, then contrasting it to their own experience in the dating market, and feeling as though women are intentionally withholding sexual behaviors from men that they would willingly engage in for paying online voyeurs.

How do you know this?

Would you expect them to admit it if they did?

We never know anyone completely, I suppose, so in the sense that anyone is capable of anything, sure, they might conceivably, in the wrong circumstances, get naked on a webcam for rent money. But shame, modesty, fear of public discovery, to say nothing of just lack of interest in debasing oneself in that way for strangers--I can say with relative certainty the women I'm thinking of wouldn't go there. Now there are some I know who would, and have, and another set who might without surprising me.

Also I'm not sure women have ever been unaware of the more base aspects of male lust. Are you suggesting Onlyfans has now pulled back the previously hidden veil on male raunchiness?

Are you suggesting Onlyfans has now pulled back the previously hidden veil on male raunchiness?

I'm suggesting that 'before' only professional prostitutes (often working at the direction of a male pimp) or porn stars (often working at the direction of a male producer/director) would have much reason to actually cater to men's sexual fantasies. And those behaviors were generally relegated to the seedy fringes of society and it was understood that "proper ladies" were expected to be less open to such base behaviors, so it was never asked of them.

There was absolutely no pressure to normalize those sexual behaviors, and women who wanted to learn about the 'crazier' things men desired would have to go and consult with actual prostitutes and porn stars. And for obvious reasons nobody would expect them to do that.

There's now a direct economic incentive for comparatively ordinary women to be aware of and cater to men's desires, and further to exhibit their willingness to engage in those behaviors to a large audience of mostly men.

And men are, thus, getting the signal that it is fine to ask women to do these things, and women are aware of what men actually want, sexually, without having to be prompted. The women are figuring it out on their own so as to better cater to their customers.

So this seems like it significantly shifts the norms of male expectations around sexual behavior, which will probably have other impacts if those expectations are thwarted in their actual experience.

There's now a direct economic incentive for comparatively ordinary women to be aware of and cater to men's desires [...] And men are, thus, getting the signal that it is fine to ask women to do these things

True, but...

women know precisely what men want in a sexual partner and are willing to provide it... but only outside the context of a committed relationship.

...your mistake is conflating the narrow context of participating on OnlyFans with the far broader context of "outside a committed relationship". Any OnlyFans user who is confused about this will likely find it clarified the first time he tries to transfer his experience to Tinder where, instead of having his requests to see a pretty girl's bumhole happily accommodated (for a price), he will be blocked and reported. At that point the man's expectations should be suitably recalibrated.

There's probably a parallel miscalibration where some men will treat OnlyFans performers as if they were actually on Tinder by trying to force the interaction into the frame of an intimate relationship. The difference is that the OF performers are incentivised to play along to keep the simpbucks rolling in. That seems like a bigger risk of distorting men's impressions about what is normal.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats