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.
Jump in the discussion.
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Notes -
You've often compared the Hock to fighting in a war, Navy SEAL training or other physically taxing tests of endurance and determination. Your theory assumes that anyone who undergoes a Hock-esque ordeal would never commit a mass shooting (as Rodger did), but I don't even have to go back earlier than this week to find an example of a military veteran doing exactly that. Can't wait to hear your rationalisation for how it doesn't count because he only went through boot camp.
I reiterate: if you want to do your camping trip, go for it, but don't delude yourself into thinking it'll fix all of your problems in one fell swoop, or that it's the underlying secret to human civilization or a male rite of passage or similar. I'm not telling you this out of spite or meanness: I'm urging you to manage your expectations and be realistic. You say "the Hock provideth" so often it's starting to sound like a religious incantation, which is not a healthy approach to adopt in the pursuit of self-improvement.
Surviving the Hock will mean that I am no longer both disgusting and hypocritical for wanting a relationship.
I don't know what on earth makes you think you are disgusting and hypocritical for wanting a relationship now. There are plenty of people who post on this site who are in relationships (myself included) or even in marriages - are they disgusting hypocrites for getting into said relationships without toiling in the Arctic circle for months? Why, of all things, is that the rule-in criterion for who is entitled to be in a relationship (or even entitled to want to be in a relationship)? Should the human race go extinct because most people can't afford to travel to the Arctic circle for months at a time?
I know you're going to give me some self-pitying/self-deprecating spiel about how all those people in relationships have actually made something of themselves, which means they're entitled to want a romantic partner - unlike you, who's so uniquely loathsome and contemptible that he ought to be euthanized unless he can Prove his Worth by etc.. To which all I can say is - bullshit. I haven't made much of myself (overweight, temporarily living with my parents, failed writer, failed musician, boring email job) and have had more than my fair share of attacks of self-loathing over the years - but the last time I actually thought there was something suspect about my desire to be in a relationship, I was a literal teenager. Wanting to be in a romantic relationship is the most normal and healthy desire a human being can have, regardless of life circumstances. I literally cannot envision any person, no matter how pathetic or loathsome, for whom knowing that they would like to be in a romantic relationship would lower my estimation of them - if I met a literal convicted murderer who killed children without remorse, and he said "I'd like to have a girlfriend", that wouldn't cause me to think any less of him. I cannot even fathom how you arrived at the conclusion that the desire to be in a romantic relationship is only legitimate conditional on having achieved XYZ, and is otherwise disgusting or hypocritical. For that matter, I can't, offhand, think of any desire meeting that description. A paedophile's desire to rape children does not become any less disgusting because he is a war hero; wanting to be rich is a perfectly legitimate desire to have, even if you are a lazy bum.
The more you tell me about your worldview, the more baffling and incoherent it seems to me, and I wish you would actually try to seriously consider the well-meaning criticisms or questions people have raised about your beliefs here, rather than just dismissing them with "no, you guys have it all wrong, it's Hock or bust." You've clearly been thinking about this stuff for so long that you've become trapped in a groove, a web of cached thoughts that you can't snap yourself out of. For someone who claims to be uniquely loathsome and awful, you seem to be suspiciously confident that your diagnosis of yours and society's ills is 100% accurate, and your proposed remedy 100% guaranteed to work. It's very easy to circle all the way around from self-loathing and end up at arrogant condescending solipsism (God knows I've done it myself), and there's something uniquely unbecoming about this cocktail of victimisation complex, self-pity and egotism.
So, do me a courtesy. Without any evasions, cop-outs, goofy stylistic flourishes ("provideth", "ambulances", "-maxx") or romantic fatalism (and without invoking the [extremely statistically rare] anecdote about the acquaintance of yours who was stabbed by his partner) - please tell me, in plain language, why you think the fact that you want to be in a romantic relationship makes you a disgusting hypocrite.
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I believe Skookum does so here:
TVTropes has multiple tropes ("And Now You Must Marry Me," "I Have You Now, My Pretty" "Scarpia Ultimatum, etc." full of examples across centuries of stories about the suffering of women submitting to the attentions of a man to whom she's not attracted — or even just under the threat of such. How is it not at least somewhat hypocritical, how does it not speak of entitlement, to expect a woman to voluntarily submit to such misery, and not be willing to voluntarily submit oneself to a comparable level of suffering? If not "the Hock," what can match the ordeal a woman undergoes, being in a romantic relationship with someone she finds repellent?
What about that is bullshit, and what is your evidentiary basis for saying so?
As somewhat similar, from back in 2017 on SSC:
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And further on the livestock analogy, when it comes to chickens — as opposed to cattle, sheep, etc. — the solution is indeed the culling of most male chicks.
So why not at least offer some sort of analogous "relief" for those human males facing a similar life of suffering under such unmet drives? Why not respect the self-determination of individuals to address such an irremediable condition by providing them assistance in attaining a dignified exit from an undignified existence?
And on what grounds do you say that the likes of Skookum aren't "ought to be euthanized"?
I'd point out that in most "primitive" cultures, girls become women — full adult members of the community — automatically at menarche, while boys have to "earn" their manhood through rites of initiation — difficult, usually painful rites. And it was indeed possible to fail said initiations.
I recall once reading a thread on Tumblr talking about how the prevalence of "third genders" wasn't nearly the support for modern transgender and nonbinary identities that some like to argue it is, by going into depth on the Polynesian example, laying out the details and pointing out that the closest modern counterpart isn't "trans-woman" or "non-binary," but a formalized, institutionalized version of "prison bitch." And that often, many who ended up in such roles were indeed those boys who failed to "become men" — that these societies did indeed have a "gender binary," just that instead of "man" and "woman," it's "man" and "non-man," with some biological males falling into the latter category by failure to earn membership in the former.
Sperm is cheap, eggs are expensive. Women are precious, men are expendable. Women attain full personhood, membership in the tribe, the concern of others, automatically. Males have to earn the privilege of being a person, through their deeds and contribution to the tribe, to women and children. We must earn the care and compassion of society — and those who fail don't matter; those who fail are expendable, disposable. So, in times of modern plenty, and when women have more options outside of marriage and "settling," why not dispose of at least the worst of disposable males, or at least assist them in disposing of themselves?
Women are not a hive mind: it would be very surprising indeed if literally every woman in the entire world would be disgusted by Skookum as he currently exists. There's no accounting for taste: I routinely see an ugly and/or overweight man walking down the street holding hands with a plain or even attractive woman. Moreover, if a given woman is disgusted by @SkookumTree as he currently exists, I very much doubt that her opinion of him will significantly change once she learns that he went on a hike in Alaska. (If anything they might be even more repulsed: I can't imagine that spending two months completely alone without interacting with another soul will do much for the social skills of someone who already seems to consider himself rather socially awkward.) I wasn't asking why Skookum thinks (certain) women are disgusted by him - I was asking why he himself thinks that he's disgusting for merely wanting to be in a relationship. If he thinks that he's disgusting because he wants a relationship even though he hasn't "earned the right" to want one by proving his masculinity - well, that implies that the vast majority of modern men are disgusting, as most of us haven't fought in a war or gone hiking in Alaska or etc.. That includes most of the men who post on this site: I'm certainly not a hyper-masculine Chad, and I've never been to war or similar. If Skookum literally believes that any man who wants to be in a relationship without having proved his masculinity is "disgusting" and "hypocritical", I wish he would just come out and say "I am disgusting and hypocritical for wanting a relationship, and so are most of you", rather than dancing around the issue by self-pityingly asserting that he is disgusting and hypocritical, but dodging the question of who else is according to his metrics.
Skookum is able-bodied, physically strong (able to deadlift a perfectly respectable 275 pounds and squat 245, the latter of which far exceeds my PR) and intelligent enough to be training to be a doctor. Any criteria of "the worst of the disposable males" which includes him would probably include you. And, based on your weird comment history, on the off-chance it turns out that you're really Skookum using an alt account, I will be very annoyed by the run-around.
I don't recall him ever saying that he's disgusting for wanting a relationship, only that he's hypocritical for wanting a relationship while being disgusting (because ugly, awkward, etc.).
I'm reminded here of the They Might Be Giants song "Ana Ng," which explores the underlying horror of the "one true soulmate" concept via the singer wondering what if his "soulmate" is a woman living on the other side of the world whom he will certainly never meet.
The relevant set isn't "every woman in the entire world," it's the set of single women likely to be in a position for Skookum to ask out, which is at least a few orders of magnitude smaller.
And why would you find it surprising with this smaller set? I mean, I get there are broad cultural narratives about "someone for everyone" and "plenty of fish in the sea," but as far as I can tell, that's all they are — unsupported cultural narratives, absorbed and perpetuated mostly unquestioned. And while I wouldn't assume a consensus in these parts around the evidentiary value of pure cultural consensus, I wouldn't expect most here to rate it particularly high.
Not to speak for Skookum, but that's not how I read his arguments; the "disgusting" part isn't due to "merely wanting to be in a relationship," it's prior to that.
Again not speaking for Skookum, but it seems to me that you're continuing to misread him, and getting things backwards — his "disgustingness" is not an effect but a cause. It's not that he's disgusting for "wanting a relationship" without having "proved his masculinity," it's that because he is exceptionally disgusting that he has to "prove his masculinity," or else be a hypocrite for refusing to suffer as much as a woman would suffer from a relationship with someone as disgusting as him.
That would be the implication of what you've said, but, again, that's not what I read him as saying. It's not "men who don't do this are disgusting," it's "those men (number not specified) who are disgusting need to do this, to 'offset' the suffering they expect others to endure by tolerating their repulsive presence."
And, again, I'd say the reason he doesn't "just come out and say" that latter is because he's not arguing the former. It's not "disgusting and hypocritical for wanting a relationship," it's "hypocritical for wanting a relationship when disgusting." Again, the "disgusting" part is prior to the "desire" part, not an effect of it.
To summarize my interpretation here:
Being in a relationship with a man she find unattractive causes a woman suffering.
Some men are so unattractive and unlovable that practically any relationship he'll ever have with a woman will fall under (1). Therefore,
When one of this (quite possibly small) set of men desires a relationship with a woman, he is thus desiring that she voluntary choose said suffering; and
Asking someone to voluntarily choose to suffer for you benefit is hypocritical and entitled if you are not willing to similarly voluntarily choose to undergo comparable suffering.
He is a member of this (again, quite possibly small) set.
Note, this is not the argument that you've been attributing to him. It does not imply that most men fall into this "repulsive, unloveable" set, nor that one falls into this set because one hasn't undergone the Hock, or whatever, merely that this applies to the (again, number not specified) men who do.
And I get that you seem to disagree with (2) and/or (5). But can you at least follow the argument?
Indeed it would, and should. I've been telling people for years that my ideal society would almost certainly have me executed.
Edit — Addendum: All that said, I'd still prefer he doesn't do his suicidal stunt in the state I live in, because it doesn't matter how much he repeats "don't look for me," if he goes missing, the state will send out people to find him (or his corpse), which will cost money, when we have a crappy economy and serious budget woes. (Hence my "why not just put people like us out of our misery?" take.)
He explicitly said "Surviving the Hock will mean that I am no longer both disgusting and hypocritical for wanting a relationship." He did not say "I am disgusting, and the fact that I am disgusting makes me hypocritical for wanting to be in a relationship."
Moreover, if surviving this Alaskan hike makes him not-disgusting, that implies that the only thing about him that makes him disgusting is the fact that he has not completed this hike yet, meaning his physical appearance and social awkwardness etc. have nothing to do with it.
The point is well-taken, and I've never really bought the idea that "there's somebody for everyone". A lot of people will die alone through no fault of their own. If Skookum had Down's syndrome, or some horrific facial deformity, or dwarfism, or some bowel condition rendering him anally incontinent etc. I'd think his belief that every age-appropriate single woman he meets will find him disgusting or otherwise unfuckable would be pessimistic but understandable. (I'd also think that his belief that completing his Alaskan hike will magically negate the disgust prompted by his facial deformity to be pure cope.) But Skookum, as previously mentioned, is fit, able-bodied and intelligent. Until I'm given good reason to believe otherwise, the claim that it's reasonable of him to assume that every age-appropriate single woman will find him unfuckable is prima facie ridiculous. It's a delusion of grandeur couched in the language of self-pity.
I disagree with this outright. I note that none of the three TV Tropes examples you cited actually illustrate the alleged claim that women experience distress as a result of being in relationships with men they find unattractive. They are, rather, about the distress a woman experiences when she is forced to marry and/or have sex with someone she doesn't want to - which is a completely different scenario to a woman voluntarily entering into a relationship with a man she doesn't consider particularly physically attractive. This happens all the time. If you have hard evidence that women actually do suffer in such a scenario (e.g. if women who describe their husbands as unattractive have lower self-reported happiness than those who don't after controlling for confounders), I'd love to see it. Until then I will not accept this claim at face value, which means the rest of the argument cannot rest on it. A cursory Google pulls at least one study finding the opposite (that men and women both report greater relationship satisfaction when the woman is more attractive than the man). I think there's a lot of typical-minding going on here: maybe you and Skookum think that you'd feel distressed being in a relationship with an unattractive woman, so you're assuming the same must be true of women.
No, I can't.
[Emphasis added]. The key word is "both." Once he "completes the Hock," he won't be hypocritical anymor, therefore he won't be both disgusting and hypocritical (just disgusting).
Well, I see plenty of people, in talking about the "do's and don't's" of modern relationships and dating argue that, at least for a non-trivial number of women, being simply asked out (or comparable expression of interest) by a sufficiently-unattractive man will make her uncomfortable, let alone him expressing it directly by asking her out. Not to mention plenty of institutional "factsheets" and the like on sexual harassment which define it as "anything that makes you [generally implicitly female here] feel uncomfortable sexually" constitutes such, and coming rather close to implying something like the meme comic. Then there's all the people arguing for why no-fault divorce, and sometimes even the decline of marriage, have been vast positives for women, and therefore society, because they're no longer forced to "settle" as their grandmothers were. (See, for example, CNN here.)
A cursory Google search returned these:
ScienceDirect: "Committing to a romantic partner: Does attractiveness matter? A dyadic approach"
Taylor and Francis Online: "Sitting pretty: satisfaction with physical appearance, division of household chores, and satisfaction with housework"
SpringerLink: "Female coital orgasm and male attractiveness":
ScienceDirect: "Correlates of satisfaction in British marriages":
[Emphasis added]
From Cooijmans, N.C.J. "Does Being Physically Attractive Make You Successful in a Speed-Date? A Study That Defines Success Through Popularity, Selectivity, Amount of Matches and Satisfaction." [PDF]: "Several studies found that physical attractiveness correlates with people’s satisfaction in a relationship (Lucas, Wendorf, Imamoglu, Shen, Parkhill, Weisfeld, & Weisfeld, 2006; Krebs & Adinolfi, 1975). Lucas et al. (2006) looked at heterosexual couple marriages in four different cultures, and found that in every culture, physically attractive people who married a person with approximately the same attractiveness level were more satisfied about their marriage than physically unattractive people, or couples that differed in attractiveness."
Lucas, Wendorf, Imamoglu, Shen, Parkhill, Weisfeld, & Weisfeld "Marital satisfaction in four cultures as a function of homogamy, male dominance and female attractiveness"
Lucas, Wendorf, Imamoglu, Shen, Parkhill, Weisfeld, & Weisfeld "Cultural and Evolutionary Components of Marital Satisfaction: A Multidimensional Assessment of Measurement Invariance"
Psychology Today: "(4 Reasons Not to Settle in a Relationship)[https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/in-love-and-war/201404/4-reasons-not-settle-in-relationship]":
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Or in "How Couples Deal With the Loss of Physical Attraction":
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From the Stanford Graduate School of Business via newswise.com "No-fault Divorce Laws May Have Improved Women's Well-being":
From psycnet.apa.org: Spielmann, S. S., MacDonald, G., Maxwell, J. A., Joel, S., Peragine, D., Muise, A., & Impett, E. A. (2013). Settling for less out of fear of being single. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 105(6), 1049–1073.
Which numbered step is unclear? Where do you "lose the thread," as it were?
I think it says a lot about you that you hear "settle" and immediately think "woman forced to stay in a marriage with an unattractive husband" as opposed to "women forced to stay in abusive marriage/marriage with a drunk/marriage with a deadbeat" etc.
The fact that women are more likely to come when having sex with an attractive man does not remotely imply that women in relationships with less attractive men are therefore miserable. Sexual satisfaction is but one component of many in what makes a relationship work. (Also, most unattractive men still have fingers and tongues.)
Nowhere in the excerpted passage is it mentioned that women married to less attractive men are miserable. The study found that husbands are more satisfied if their wives are more attractive than they are, which is a separate question.
This does not imply that attractive women in marriages with less attractive men are miserable, only that they are less satisfied than attractive women in marriages with attractive men.
Nowhere in the excerpted passage is it mentioned that women married to less attractive men are miserable.
Again, you're conflating "an attractive woman marrying a less attractive man" with "settling". That's not what "settling" means. I imagine quite a lot of women would rather marry a plain-looking man who is caring, supportive and a good provider over an attractive man who cheats on her and can't hold down a steady job. Plenty of attractive women in relationships with attractive men are still settling.
This is just an opinion piece, I don't care.
Again, you haven't come close to demonstrating that attractive women in marriages to unattractive men are more prone to suicide. There are hundreds of better reasons a woman might divorce her husband (abusive, drunk, deadbeat, philandering etc.).
You've demonstrated that some rather weak and equivocal evidence exists for step 1, but are treating step 1 as if it was axiomatic and basing the subsequent steps on that.
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