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I'm feeling rather insane right now so I'll post a screed.
Do you ever feel like there are just... too many men on this planet? Not humans. Just men, in particular.
Humans are like 1.05 males: females at birth, so there's a natural imbalance. I can only assume this was balanced in the past because males died more: from war, or hunting animals, or just generally taking more risks.
None of that happens now, in our ultra-safe modern feminized society. So we just have a bunch of surplus males sitting around.. doing nothing... simping for women. Taking up body building, or feminism, or prostitution, or onlyfans, or whatever else will give them a drop of female attention.
Everybody knows "Ender's Game," but did you ever read the sequels? It has one (Speaker for the Dead) where they find an alien race that can only reproduce through a chemical change caused by war. That's... how I feel. Like, our species basically requires war in order to sort out our psychology. Otherwise there will be this latent male aggression caused by intra-sexual competition, and it won't end until we have some stupid fucking war over nothing, just to reduce the surplus male population.
There's too many dicks on the dance floor
Oh, absolutely. There was even a big post either here or on /r/SSC where a poster argued quite convincingly that a big part of the reason why there is a modern dating imbalance and women have so much power in the marketplace is precisely because there are too many 18-25 men today compared to even 1980. In 1980 the male:female ratio had equalised by age 20-24: https://www.populationpyramid.net/united-states-of-america/1980/ ; while today the imbalance is still almost as bad as at birth: https://www.populationpyramid.net/united-states-of-america/2023/ . Of course this 5% imbalance gives women a very disproportionate amount of power (it's not 5% more power, due to how strong the human male sex drive is, men will jump through a ton of hoops before enough of them drop out so that the market clears).
I can't seem to find the post though, even after a cursory google...
Another big factor is that, more and more, 18-25 year old men are competing against older men.
Let's say you're a 22 year old woman. Who would you rather date? A 22 year old man living his parent's basement? Or a 30 year old man with his own place?
Older men are better than young men. More attractive, more successful, more emotionally mature. Men's overall value in the dating market peaks at age 38. Women peak in their early 20s or before.
While this has always been the case, in the past it was mitigated by young people falling in love and marrying without ever really entering a post-college dating market.
Now, a 23 year old women can get on the apps and instantly match with a bunch of successful, good-looking guys who seem available. It's pretty tough to turn down this proposition in favor of some young dork who actually is available. Worse, once they are discarded by these better men, they are unlikely to want to settle for worse options. It is hard to form a secure attachment with a woman if you're not the best person she has ever dated.
The gender ratio of 18-25 year olds is 1.05:1. That hugely understates the problem. For young men, it is far far worse than that.
Is this claim based entirely on that one survey from OK Cupid or something? I'm in my late 30s, generally quite fit and successful, and I would be very surprised if it turned out that I'm more appealing to college-age women now than I was when I was 23. Age-matching with a preference for slightly older men will looks like the modal choice to me.
Average age of "World's Sexiest Man" in People is 38.
You attractiveness is almost certainly far higher now than at 23 (unless you went bald or fat).
Nevertheless, women are still tethered to age expectations, so a typical 23 year old isn't going to date you at age 38 even if she finds you attractive. But it does happen, a lot more than people like.
World’s Sexiest Man (Like Woman) is a competition between famous people, it’s never some random person with the best facial structure - it’s almost always a famous model or actress for women or just a famous actor for men. The average male lead is usually pretty established and older.
In addition, the magazines who give out these awards (like People) know their largely middle aged readership and therefore cater to them. Hence why 2023’s sexiest man is 57 year old Patrick Dempsey rather than 27 year old Timothee Chalamet even though I categorically guarantee that any prime-of-her-life 19 year old very attractive woman would pick the latter over the former.
Well yeah. If you're 19. Hopefully then you grow up and develop better taste than Twiglets.
Dempsey is definitely on the mature side, so too old for 19 year olds (and let's hope to God that applies in both directions because while men of all ages might like nubile 17-20 year olds, it's too much of a scandal waiting to happen if he does pick up a hot chick of that age) but he's not in possession of a face that would turn milk sour, either.
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Fair enough. I know that if People had a World's Sexiest Woman feature they'd probably choose a bunch of mature women like Hilary Swank that no man is going to ever jerk off too. They'd probably throw a trans person in there too.
Nevertheless, I think most women do find these men sexy. It's just another data point in the OK Cupid data and, you know, actual real life.
What's your opinion on Maxim's Sexiest Woman? Yes there's a bunch of mature women in there, but this one seems to be picked because she's zaftig (as a plus-size model).
Yeesh.
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Well, at least they didn't pick Lizzo, but Patrick Dempsey is still more attractive than Timothee Chalamet.
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Yeah, basically what I was talking about.
It's hard to say for sure given how much filtering / makeup is involved, but I assume this person is average in real life. You could find hundreds of hotter women on a typical college campus.
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You are missing the filter. The average female lead is much younger than a male lead. The filter isn’t at the point where the magazine is picking which 38 year old actor is hottest - the filter is in becoming a star actor. All the personality traits etc men develop over time also make them a better actor. All the I’m young and hot things are selected for in actress and hence they are young and hot.
And it's just a coincidence that the sexiest men in the world are all of an age appealing to the last generation to still buy magazines?
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