(hat tip to the Pervocracy)
Recently, the Washington Times has run one of the most sexist dating articles (and that is saying something) it has been my distinct misfortune to see. I’m not linking to them, because I don’t want to give them any more traffic than they already have; the Pervocracy’s takedown, done by our very own Holly Pervocracy, is far funnier. I would like to discuss two quotes and show exactly how misandric they are.
A fundamental principle of sexual economics is that “sexual activity by females has exchange value, whereas male sexuality does not,” Mr. Baumeister and Ms. Vohs wrote in their 2004 paper.
Essentially, this quote plays into the Myth of Men Not Being Hot. Both men and women in our culture tend to grow up not feeling physically desirable. Women are presented with a single attractive female body– the twentysomething feminine slender cis woman with large breasts, long legs, a round firm ass, a flat stomach, no body hair and an attractive face– and shamed when, inevitably, they cannot reach this ideal. There is a theoretical attractive woman; however, given that there is yet to be a real-life Photoshop filter, no woman can be her. Men, on the other hand, are usually taught that there is no such thing as an attractive male body at all.
Therefore, it is assumed that no woman can just want a man because he’s pretty and she’s horny. Maybe she wants him because he’s rich and can buy her diamonds; maybe she wants him because he has “game” and has tricked her into bed; maybe she wants him because he has traded for her pussy with its fair market value in love and commitment; maybe she wants him because he’d be a good father and she wants Teh Baybees. But the idea that a man can be desired is, as Figleaf puts it, “simultaneously inconceivable and intolerable.”
You would think all of the women having casual sex decried in this article would disprove that point, but no, apparently, according to the Washington Times, all those women just want to get married and have babies and are really, really bad at it. Fortunately, as a woman who has had casual sex, I can state the following as objective truth:
That’s bullshit.
Cock is awesome.
I have never met a woman who had casual sex because she thought that was how you got married, or because some dude tricked her into it. I have, however, met plenty of women who had casual sex because she didn’t want a relationship for whatever reason, but he had great tattoos, or really lovely hipbones, or a cute beard, or a soft warm chest, or nice muscles, or just this aura of being great in bed. (Also, quite a few women who had sex because he was available and she was horny, but that’s neither here nor there.)
That is because they are straight and bi women, and so they think men are hot.
Men’s rules of engagement play to their interests of having sex often, with many partners, in a more sexually permissive environment, without romance or commitment, he said.
Straight men, says the Washington Times, never obsessively stalk their crush’s Facebook or check their phones every five minutes to see if she has texted back. They never have their entire day made by seeing their crush’s smile, or go five minutes out of their way to happen to run into her on the way to classes.
Once in a relationship, unless it’s to obtain sex or get out of trouble, straight men never want to give compliments or presents or hugs to see their girlfriend smile, or take care of making dinner just because their girlfriend is tired, or even spend large amounts of time together just because her presence is unimaginably better than her absence.
Straight men never want to open up to a woman, to bare their souls. They never want to take care of a woman and have her take care of them, or get to know every random detail about her– her favorite color and her third-grade teacher. They certainly never want to spend a life together.
Straight men never stay up until four or five AM talking even though there’s school or work the next day because the girl is so fascinating they can’t stop themselves from wanting to talk to her more.
Straight men never want to cuddle.
Straight men never find a girl aesthetically pleasing without wanting to fuck her. Hell, straight men don’t even find some women attractive and some women not. If she’s available for casual sex, they’d totally fuck her, even if they aren’t actually attracted to her.
Because the only thing straight men need is a warm hole and sixty seconds.
At best, the Washington Times believes all men are polyamorous aromantics uninterested in relationships. I am pretty sure this is not true, however, mostly because my romantic life would be about twelve times simpler if it were. As much as I like to believe that my pussy is just so amazing everyone who comes inside it immediately wants to monogamously date me in order to deny other men this exquisite pleasure, I somehow doubt this is the case.
At worst, the Washington Times believes the true nature of male sexuality is using women as interchangeable Pussy Delivery Mechanisms, masturbating into a female body because a vagina feels better than your hand. And that is just fucked-up, misandric shit.
aliarasthedaydreamer
Ami Angelwings
Hershele Ostropoler
Cheradenine
jlandrith
kaija24
2020
noahbrand
Cliff Pervocracy
ozymandias
Shora
sirgabe
figleaf
John Hawkins
No, Seriously, What About Teh Menz? 
Excellently fucking stated. Men are shunted into one constricted sexual norm by society, and women another. Women are sexually “confusing” and have to be tricked into having sex (lest they be whores), and men are sexually “dogs” and will fuck anything that moves and half of anything that won’t. Women are sexy and the ones to be desired, and men are ugly and the ones to chase the women, ply them with alcohol, and convince them to copulate.
Time for that shit to end.
Another great read on this is Ben Kling’s “Penises Are Gross.”
Its pretty much about female hypergamy. Women are attracted to a mans ability to gather resources and his social status in whatever group (see the hatred of lower ranking beta and omega males). So men end up competing with each other for sex.
First: what does “beta” and “omega” mean?
Second: I have never dated a rich man. In fact, my current boyfriend, the man I am by far happiest with of anyone I have dated, is so broke I often pay for his meals. My boyfriends and fuckbuddies, insofar as I know their social stati, have ranged from “friendless loser” to “former friendless loser.” I am told I am reasonably physically attractive (you may look at the post linked below and judge for yourself). Am I secretly male or perhaps non-existent?
NSFW: http://ozymandias3.blogspot.com/2011/06/in-which-ozy-turns-into-cam-uh-sex.html
I love that post! Penises are awesome, everyone. They GROW and then they SHOOT STUFF and it is SO COOL.
I think that that sexual system has reached the remarkable equilibrium of sucking for absolutely everyone.
Yeah, actual human experience fails to support that theory very well, dude. Any time you have to throw out almost all the data to make your theory work, you need to be throwing out the theory instead.
No Sigil. I think it’s a bit more complicated than that. The verifiable fact that the majority of poor, low-status men seem to be able to find partners for sex and marriage/cohabitation tends to put the lie to this.
This division into ‘Alpha’, ‘Beta’ and ‘Omega’ confuses me, too. Don’t we use these sorts of terms for examining social behaviour in animals? Why apply a technical term in ethology to the nuanced complexities of human behaviour? It seems lazy to me.
I think men should feel better about themselves than to compare themselves with beasts.
I don’t think there are two people who actually agree on what an “alpha,” “beta” or “omega” is or how they behave…
Not only are these men comparing themselves with wolves, but they’re comparing themselves with unscientific and debunked theories about wolves. Wolves only arrange themselves in alpha/beta/omega in captivity; in the wild, packs are generally family groups, with 1-2 adults, 3-6 juveniles and 1-3 yearlings.
This post really means a lot to me as a demisexual and very romantic man who honestly doesn’t find a woman sexually attractive until already in a committed relationship. I obsessively stalk my crush’s Facebook and check every five minutes (read: thirty seconds) to see if she’s texted me back. The foundation of a relationship for me is having my day made by her smile or having the opportunity to show that I care. As far as I know, there’s something wrong with feeling like that. Apparently, I’m supposed to be this sex-crazed college student who is interested in pussy above absolutely all else in life, and I have a serious issue with that view.
And yes, I do feel unattractive on the basis of having a penis. I know I shouldn’t, but I can’t get over the societal feeling that men are inherently ugly. I have definite image problems (but I’m not allowed to talk about them because I’m a guy and I don’t HAVE emotions.)
Also, cuddling > sex. At least in my opinion. But at the same time, I’m one of those weird people who thinks that cake is better than sex.
Mod note: Crazy is an ableist term. I know you probably didn’t mean anything by it and it’s hard for all of us to avoid -ist language, but we try not to use those words here.
Very interesting. Not knowing enough about ethology, how is this applied to primates? I have seen mentions of chimpanzee communities arranged according the Alpha/Beta classification but have no idea if that’s a captivity/wild thing again.
However you cut it, it seems like an inappropriate model to use for human behaviour. Why do the more obnoxious MRAs use it, I wonder? What is its use as a tool to them?
I’m a very sexual woman, and I think cuddling is better than sex. I mean, it’s CUDDLING. Duh!
Don’t worry, Kashchej. No matter what you look like, there is almost certainly a community of women devoted to discussing how hot guys who look like you are. I mean, Jack Black has an obsessed female fandom. If he can do it, anyone can. 🙂
Being a romantic demisexual is perfectly okay! Being an aromantic sexual is perfectly okay! Both of them are real men if they are male-identified! I don’t understand why this is so hard for some people to grasp…
The article argues from a false position that social behavior = economic behavior. All economic behavior is social (ONE form of humans interaction) but not all social behavior is economic (“economic” is subset contained within “social”). However, it’s tempting to make this assumption because it tries to simplifies a qualitative concept (attraction, desire, love, affection) into something quantifiable (the “cost”). Much as a test score cannot fully describe one’s education, no survey or test can be designed to accurately weigh “how much do you love-desire-care”, which is a perennial human question (as evidenced by the entire canon of Western literature…and probably non-Western as well, though I am not as familiar with those works and don’t want to make assumptions).
Also, the social or sexual behavior of teenagers and young adolescents (high school through ~25) is not an accurate stand-in for the social or sexual behavior of all people through the life span, as most people cycle through many combinations of periods of dating, not dating, sleeping around, not sleeping around, monogamously partnered, not monogamously partnered, voluntarily or involuntarily abstinent, etc. The assumed model that the vast majority young people will date with intent to partner in their mid-20s and stay together “happily ever after” for 60+ years is a limited model that is not supported by the data. 🙂 Serial relationships–some shorter, some longer, some very long–are the rule rather than the exception.
If you guys and gals really want to argue with the sexual marketplace idea, I’m afraid there’s literally a shit-ton of papers written on this stuff over the past 2 or 3 decades.
http://books.google.com/books?id=KBi9aG0pQAkC&pg=PA26&lpg=PA26&dq=sexual+marketplace+theory&source=bl&ots=SRavDi4zk-&sig=F3jtLMojeR0eOiHeEsgVHOuuMc0&hl=en&ei=qm7_TbjXIfGn0AG65qCTAw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CEwQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=sexual%20marketplace%20theory&f=false
Pages 25 to 27 give a decent short overview.
Here’s a famous paper on it:
Click to access BaumeisterSexEcon.pdf
No, I don’t believe it’s entirely accurate or that it captures all the aspect of sex that make it enjoyable for women and men. I also think sex as an exclusively female “resource” (and often the beliefs that come with it such as that women don’t want sex. I’m willing to buy on average not as much as men, but its obvious most women are very sexual beings )is problematic, nonetheless one can easily find rants on the internet from women who feel “used” for sex and/or want more commitment, so it would be silly to dismiss this stuff out of hand simply because most of your friends are sex pozzies and not traditionalists or something like that. Marketplace theory seems to be the dominant theory of sex, at least among sociobiologists and the branches of economics that try to apply an economic model to other aspects of human behavior. I’m afraid personal experience alone isn’t enough to disprove it in aggregate.
Ozy, you should be a bit more familiar with this theory as it’s the type of stuff that Susan Walsh has spent two years promoting and analyzing on her blog. She’s more familiar with the specifics than either you or I are.
I’ll do more research later tonight or tomorrow. I’m sure there is some criticisms and limitations of this theory but I have a lot to do today. Here’s something I left *by mistake * in old comment on your blog, Ozy. It’s a bit off topic but I was responding to a post on your blog about a philosophy of life. Here’s a link to a video I hope people enjoy 🙂
I think the appeal of the alpha/beta/omega model is twofold. On one level, it sounds kinda sciencey, and is simple and mechanistic. When one is staring, terrified, into the endlessly complicated maelstrom of human relationships, it can be comforting to have a simple model to cling to, even if it’s a silly one.
Second, though, it’s a way of addressing feelings of inadequacy. It’s a way of telling guys who don’t think they’re cool or attractive or interesting “Hey, dude, it’s okay, that’s just how things are. It’s not your fault, and you can still have a role to play.” When nobody else is telling you that, it’s easy to fall for the only system that seems to provide a little bit of comfort.
That’s just my reading, of course, but I think it makes sense.
It seems to depend on the primate in question: chimpanzees have a strongly linear male-dominated social structure where aggression determines which male is dominant (although apparently low-ranking males have increased sexual opportunities); bonobos, on the other hand, may have “alpha males” but are female-dominated– a male’s status is derived from that of his mother– with very little social hierarchy and a whole lot of sex; orangutans live alone unless they are mothers with children, but have brief social interactions for mating, hunting or establishing of dominance hierarchies to obtain territories. I am literally just looking this up on Wikipedia. 🙂
I think it’s mostly derived from the pick-up artist community, which likes to use a veneer of SCIENCE! to explain its techniques of picking up women in bars.
*high-fives*
Oh yeah. So many men’s experiences of life just get ERASED by the ugly gendered bullshit. There’s been a lot of talk about how LGBT folks are rendered invisible in cultural narratives, and that’s very true. I think some of the tools for thinking about those issues can be useful in examining the erasure of low-libido men, submissive men, romantic men, and all the other dudes who television assures us don’t exist, or at best don’t count. Because seriously, fuck that noise.
Exactly! I mean, I’m nineteen years old and I’ve gone through all of those stages… I can only imagine what it’s like for people who are forty! 🙂
Don’t let anyone tell you how to define your sexuality. I guarantee you that you are fine, and that you will/do make a/many women happy just the way you are.
Also, not to beat a dead horse, but read Ben Kling’s post “Penises Are Gross” and then maybe read some responses to it over here as well.
Woo, citations! This is why you are the Token Reasonable MRA, Clarence. 🙂
Now, this is one of those issues where it’s hard to de-entangle social construction and genetics. Because assuming that women’s sexuality was controlled by a man (her husband, her father), of course they are going to bargain it for something that’s “worth something”– political connections, wealth or even just commitment to help raise the children. After all, rich men used to be the most desirable partners, but then women gained more control of their sexualities and suddenly we notice a rise in popularity of the part-time barista with dark hair that falls soulfully over his brooding eyes as he caresses his guitar.
In addition, there are many men who feel used for sex after casual sex. But because of shit like this article, they don’t really get a space to express their feelings because all men like casual sex, amirite?
Not to mention that literary evidence (most notably, the Wife of Bath’s Tale and Lysistrata) suggest that certain men in some cultures considered women to be far hornier than men.
Also, I’m kind of annoyed at your first cite. I’ve read Brownmiller’s book. That is not what she was saying at all. She was saying that rape is de facto a method of control of women’s sexuality and presence in the outside world. Now, you can agree or disagree with this (I tend towards disagreement), but it does not mean that all men are in a conspiracy to rape women.
You notice I spend most of my time in the Hooking Up Smart comments yelling at people…? Yeah. 🙂
Yes its a bit more complicated than that.
Percyprune
Look at any social group, say your high school. There will be guys with alpha traits, beta traits and omega traits.
The omegas, called losers, creeps. socially awkward and so on while have slept with have had the least amount of opportunities to sleep with women but that doesn’t mean that they wont sleep what a woman.
Beta males, will generally have more opportunities, and they will work to get opportunities, being nice, romantic a good listener etc.
Alphas will have the most opportunities and don’t have to work to be chosen, they chose.
Saying that lower status males do form relationships, does not make the above any less true.
Ozy, if you haven’t read this poem, you need to:
http://wonderingminstrels.blogspot.com/2002/02/connoisseuse-of-slugs-sharon-olds.html
I was choked up the first time I read it, because… yeah, you don’t notice how often you’ve been called ugly until someone calls you beautiful.
As a professional academic (scientist in the biomedical arena), I’d like to point out that any given academic paper is written from a single hypothesis that necessarily makes a set of assumptions that reduces the problem to a manageable size and fits the researcher’s particular specialty area. Research on anything that is tangentially related to sex and social behavior surrounding sex gets a lot of attention and press, and usually the study and it’s conclusions get lost in translation, along with the assumptions and limited conclusions. For every paper on “sex = exchange”, there are countless others with others conclusions. But the topic is hot, HOT, hawt; therefore, the literature is vast and there is a definite range of quality and rigor, so read and conclude with a truckload of salt. Also, you would have to also read all the papers in those same areas that come up with different (alternative or conflicting) conclusions (not mention looking at their methodologies, sample sizes, controls, statistical analysis, etc) to be able to make a complete assessment (and keeping up with the ever-expanding body of literature is a Herculean task, for sure!). As Clarence points out, marketplace theory is in vogue with researchers in areas that are related to marketplaces (economics, behavioral economists, sociologists with a behavioral slant, etc) but other theories dominate in the many branches of anthropology (cultural, physical, evolutionary, etc) and both of these are different than the theories of sexual behavior used by public health scientists, epidemiologists, and developmental biologists, for example. The info gets deep…but is fascinating (gateway drug to education? I wish!).
Also, although we like to think that researchers are motivated purely by the love of finding things out and seeking understanding and truth, the reality is that publications = job security, grant money, promotions, tenure, recognition, etc. and this can drive the topics under study and the places they get published as much as the other things, so “research” is not entirely unbiased or altruistic (even though we as a profession try to contain that with peer review and other mechanisms).I mean, scientists can’t even agree on what is the best lab assay to use to measure cell proliferation in a test tube; we’re not going to settle the gender and sex debate in a single journal article 🙂
P.S. I went to a talk on scientific communication and the media last year and the professional research press editor remarked wryly that if you want to get your research noticed, it better be about sex, chocolate, or primates and be easily taken out of context and blindly applied to any situation in human prehistory, history, current society, or future society!
Pretty much everything you guys have said my thoughts on the original article it’s self my god you know whenever I read stuff like this I just feel a strong feeling of fatigue like is this really where we’re still at in terms of the way the mainstream still sees sexual relationships? One question does the author of the post really have that low of an opinion of his fellow humans because if he does then I think that’s just really sad I genuinely feel sorry for him.
Also on a lighter note not only is cuddling great in and of its self it also has therapeutic benefits as well.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/04/110406123013.htm
So let me see if I understand your definitions. “Omegas” are the sort of men I tend to sleep with– socially awkward dateless guys. “Betas” are nice, romantic, good listeners. “Alphas” are guys who don’t work to get women.
I have to say that every man I know who gets pussy a lot is a “beta” and I’m not sure if I know any alphas at all.
Also, most of our commenters and contributors are at least in college.
A lovely poem!
No, that’s not how the author of the post feels. It’s about penises (and the men who own them not being ugly.
Sorry doctormindbeam I meant the author of the Washington Times article makes me sad, the post by Ben Kling was excellent sorry for the confusion totally my fault.
Basically Ozy
In general.
The guy that is chosing from a selection of women and has the most opportunities is high status or Alpha, there are various markers and behaviors.
The guy that has to work to be chosen and has fewer opportunities – beta.
The guys that are excluded or almost excluded, losers, creeps, socially awkward, omegas whatever you want to call them, are omegas.
Much of this “alpha” stuff is drawn from animals with polygynous mating practices, like gorillas, where big males beat out smaller to fuck the female. Gorillas are not like humans. Humans are closest to two other primates — bonobos and chimps. Both have multimale/multifemale mating patterns, in which the primary locus of competition is not which male and female have intercourse, but which male sperm fertilizes the egg. Female chimps have intercourse with lots of males — Jane Goodall observed one female chimp at Gombe have intercouse with fifty male chimps — and bonobo females have sex with both male and female bonobos as part of a web of social interaction.
I think there are a lot of holes in evo psych, but even if we think we can apply the behavior of other primates to explain human behavior, the tools that primatologists use to examine the relationship between the behavior of the various primates and their biology are things like semen capacity, testicular size and position, penis size and shape, frequency and duration of coitus, female cervical shape, etc. But I don’t think any of this is really at the forefront in dealing with post-agriculture humans for whom culture shares the stage with biology to such an extent that it is very difficult to impossible to separate the two, but the biology of humans strongly suggests that we developed somewhere between chimp and bonobo, as multimale, multifemale copulators, and that we are very unlike gibbons (single male/single female pair bond) or like gorillas (single male/multiple female pattern), and that monogamy in humans is a reaction to stationary agriculture and the rise of property.
You do probably know men with alpha characteristics, but they make up the smallest % of men. You would definitively be more used to dealing with betas. The fact that your guy is “socially awkward and dateless” proves the existence of the hierarchy. Generally the higher the status the more dates, the lower the fewer.
Same goes for college, as I said “any social group”.
More literary evidence: the Bacchae (ancient greek play), and if I recall correctly, The Golden Ass as well (really fun Roman book). Basically, the logic for controlling women’s movements has gone from “must control women so their unrestrained sexuality doesn’t destroy something” to “must control women so men’s unrestrained sexuality doesn’t destroy something”, exchanging one stereotype for another. 😐
You know, if there was a single guy all the women were pursuing, I’m pretty sure I’d have heard of it.
But the point is that being socially awkward means you’re less likely to have dates, because you are less skilled at the things required to obtain dates. Occam’s Razor! Status isn’t involved in it at all!
The evidence for erasure of the female libido being a recent thing goes even deeper than that. It’s been an area of research for me, and I want to get into it at greater length.
Ok we are in strawman land now.
Nobody said that all the women were perusing one single high status guy. Not all women lust after George Clooney for example, who you probably have heard of.
A low status guy, does not have the same number of reproductive opportunities that a high status guy has.
Status has many markers, not just wealth, you can be broke and still have high status markers. High confidence, body language … for example.
This is just stuff that is true.
I do recall it going back at least a bit — or the idea of female orgasms being silly went back a bit, as I’ve understood that that’s how the vibrator got invented. Doctors’ fingers were tired. But I’d be really really interested in something on that, although I’m not sure how topical it is.
It was also “true” in time past that we knew that people of other races were genetically and intellectually and morally inferior to white people and we had all kinds of “scientific facts” that “proved” it. We also knew that it was “true” (again, backed by science as well as observable “facts”) that a sub 4-minute mile was physically impossible for humans to run. Also, women couldn’t participate in sports or other exertions because it would directly damage their reproductive organs, men who masturbated were directly affecting their mental and physical health (widespread circumcision in the US arose out of a “truth” that it would discourage self-abuse), and it was natural for children to work full-time to help the family. Status is mutable, subjective, and variable…it is not a proven factual or measurable “truth” that is objectively applicable to all humans without a shit ton of qualifiers and then may only apply to a small subset of a given population who share the same values.
Wait, masturbation is bad for my health?
Uh oh. I better see a doctor real quick.
“It was also “true” in time past that we knew that people of other races were genetically and intellectually and morally inferior to white people and we had all kinds of “scientific facts” that “proved” it. We also knew that it was “true” (again, backed by science as well as observable “facts”) that a sub 4-minute mile was physically impossible for humans to run. Also, women couldn’t participate in sports or other exertions because it would directly damage their reproductive organs, men who masturbated were directly affecting their mental and physical health (widespread circumcision in the US arose out of a “truth” that it would discourage self-abuse), and it was natural for children to work full-time to help the family. Status is mutable, subjective, and variable…it is not a proven factual or measurable “truth” that is objectively applicable to all humans without a shit ton of qualifiers and then may only apply to a small subset of a given population who share the same values.”
Yes, of course but bringing up and the rest of those things doesn’t change whats attractive to people and how reproductive opportunity is higher for higher status men than it is for lower status men.
And status as you say has many different markers, not just wealth.
It is taboo to talk about female hypergamy , actually that’s something that Clarissa Thorn has written about, but the fact that its taboo, doesn’t mean its not there.
“Token reasonable MRA”, – seems we have an elaborate front for taking cheap shots wherever possible at the men’s movement here.
Are we really too politically correct to admit that reality that the higher social status = more attractive and more reproductive opportunity than lower social status?
Confident is more attractive than not confident we can admit that surely, well confidence is a higher status marker.
Are we allowed to say that the more beautiful the woman the more reproductive choices she has?
Again Sigil, you’re using the ‘alpha’, ‘beta’ definitions stolen from a zoological discipline and applying them inappropriately here. They suggest there is a spectrum of behaviours that is biologically deterministic and I don’t think I’m ready to accept something that may just as much, if not more, be a product of culture. A culture, by the way, that *can* be reshaped (which is what gender politics such as feminism is partly about).
The fact is that the great majority of humans successfully pair up and produce offspring. And they do for reasons that are complex. The very fact that there is an insufficiency of high status men for women to marry up to proves the lie of your ‘pretty much about female hypergamy’ claim. It clearly pretty much isn’t about hypergamy for the great majority of women.
Sorry, but feeble appeals to anecdotes about high school do not convince.
More men want to fuck Megan Fox than me. Is this due to male hypergamy? If so, why are you describing it as a female thing as opposed to a human thing? If not, what is your explanation?
If we define “having higher status” as “having more people who want to sleep with you,” then of course higher status = more opportunities for sex! I just don’t see that there’s any non-circular definition of “status” here that doesn’t falsify the equation.
This seems like a cool blog 🙂
I’m one of the commenters in Clarisse Thorn’s mega masculinity thread and I’ve actually explained my thoughts on a part of the conundrum in the figlead-post you cite above (“two rules of desire”).
http://www.realadultsex.com/content/shorter-no-sex-class-paradigm#comment-17675
I’ve called my theory the “Foster-Wallace” hypothesis, since I started thinking about this while reading interview #28 of Brief Interviews With Hideous Men.
I doubt we’ll ever really know the detailed relative weight of nature and nurture and personal psychology/endocrinology for any given set of behaviour/desires. The result thereof is that we have to treat people’s desires not as imaginary, but as real – and that’s only a problem for blank slate fetishists or fetishists of biological dterminism with a particular agenda that usually doesn’t have individual people but some kind of abstract collective at the core. It really shouldn’t matter too much to anyone else.
My exchanges with Clarisse Thorn, in particular, have led me to support the hypothesis that women and men have – to a large degree – overlapping desires, but that their desires aren’t entirely congruent. In the course of the now 18 months of discussion about this subject, we’ve come across this a couple of times, usually in the context of discussing relative scarcity, although the best thread I actually remember in the context was one that developed last February on feministe –
http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2011/02/28/monday-reads-3/
and includes an exchange between Thomas Millar, who also popularized the idea that relative sexual scarcity is a myth.
Well, I believe it is probably as much as myth as it is a real phenomenon that is differently affecting women and men because of the parts of female and male desire that aren’t in the intersection of the sets “male desires” and “female desires” in a Venn diagram.
Women will feel relative scarcity in the parts of their desire that aren’t also part of male desire, and vice versa. And to the extent that individuals are mostly focussing on non-overlapping parts of their desire, they will be more confronted with relative scarcity than others. And, yes, to the extent that indivdiually incongruent desires have to be balanced by two or more individuals who want to balance their respective sets of desires, some aspects will be scarcer than others, and thus “have a price”. It’s not clear that this will always be female sexuality, though.
And before I close, I’d like to link to what I consider the most insightful comment I’ve read in a while about the subject of – particularly – male sexual scarcity (and how to deal with it).
clarissethorn.com/blog/2011/04/03/storytime-fear-loathing-and-sm-sluthood-in-san-francisco/#comment-40312
Uh excuse me? Someone above claimed that I wrote about female hypergamy at some point (at least I assume they meant me when they mentioned “Clarissa Thorn”) … and I’d love to see a reference on that. Where exactly have I written about female hypergamy and what have I allegedly said?
(I’d respond directly to the comment, but there’s no Reply button on it.)
That person would be one of our resident spam-trolls (yes, we got them that quickly), who should hopefully no longer present a problem here.
Percyprune,
it depends on where you’re looking. Whether low-status men are able to find partners seems to depend a lot more on the social structure and demographics than you make it sound.
Yes, procreation rates are a crude measure of the ability to find partners, and in modern small familiy based societies, self reported procreation rates of men equal those of women. But historically, only about 50% of men seem to have procreated, compared to about 85-90% of women. That’s a pretty big difference which indicates that a lot of men are indeed “expendable”, and wars appear to be (partly) both cause and consequence of that effect.
A patriarchical small familiy in which a woman *needs* a man has helped to balance that out in most advanced economies. But that core family will progressively become less important, and it seems likely that, as a consequence, the male reproduction rate will fall again.
It’s not surprising that those who are most afraid of being in the outgroup will attempt to preserve the status quo. And I think that for a lot, if not the most, men it is true that they have no experience with being wanted, they cannot imagine being wanted (like they want women) so they cling to a social structure which at least “needs” them.
A recent Canadian study (link to pdf doesn’t work anymore) about the Asian/Chinese demographic disaster (lack of women, hundreds of millions of them, as a consequence of dysfunctional social patterns and the invention of the sonogram) is indicating that already 97% of unmarried people in China are men at the bottom of the social status ladder. It was assumed that these men would create instability but that apparently these dateless men do not appear to become aggressive, but rather withdraw themselves from society (for the time being).
Point being, there’s *something* to the hierarchiy and mating that doesn’t appear to affect women to the extent it affects men, and it’s thus apparently easier for men than for women to think in those terms.
If there is a sexual marketplace then it is not a free market. Sexual orientations and social practices place restrictions on trade. An average heterosexual woman may have fewer resources than an average heterosexual man, but she is not in competition with the men for sexual partners and so this is no deficiency in attaining a sexual relationship based on mutual attraction. However people are often not mutually attracted. Where there is conflict it may sometimes be resolved by resource transfer. Assuming again an average woman has fewer resources than an average man, then a woman is less likely to be able to resolve a conflict in her favour by resource transfer, which gives the impression of male sexuality being inherently less valuable where it is in fact only contextually less valuable.
Amen to all that! I had a long conversation with a female friend this weekend about how sad it is that men do not get enough messages about how lovely they are and how much we desire them at a basic level…not their status or their car or their bank account, but the individual man himself. We straight females DO notice the physical attractiveness of guys we desire…and most of the time, it’s a collection of many things: nice eyes, shapely forearms, an engaging laugh, the sweep of a collarbone, a particularly nice build (and what each of considers “a nice build” varies widely, from very skinny to bear-like and not always the conventionally promoted “muscle guy with abs and a shaved chest”). I really think men would like to hear more about the many ways they are desirable and loveable.
I love that Sharon Olds poem too…penises are awesome! 🙂
I dunno, I think that a “conflict resolved by resource transfer” sounds a lot less reasonable when it says what it really is, “fucking for presents.” Basically, that’s a less efficient and less honest form of sex work. While I support people choosing to do sex work if they want, I personally would feel rather icky about having the same dynamics in an interpersonal relationship.
Continuing research on this. I will say there is some good comments upthread by quite a few people including Kaija.
At this point, I seem to be in a sort of middle ground. I think the SMP is a real phenomena, and though I do think it can be made better for everyone (thanks some of sex poz feminism!) I think if it is misunderstood or ignored entirely there will be bad consequences.
Anyway, my latest haunt: http://dalrock.wordpress.com/2010/09/03/sex-cartel/
Warning for..well, I’m not sure what, but someone might get offended but I found the two paragraphs here, hilarious:
“Lets say these women are serious, and decide to form a union (a form of cartel). They will need a suitably union sounding name if anyone is going to take them seriously. I propose: Women Holding Out for Relationship Equity. But there are other women having sex with bankers out there, so we need to identify them as well. These women aren’t in it for the money, but for the pure enjoyment of the sex and the ability to exercise their sexual power. Lets call them Sisters Lusting for Unlimited Titillation. To save space, I’ll refer to each group via their acronym in the rest of the post.
So lets say the WHOREs call a city wide sex strike. Do you think the SLUTs are going to take this lying down? Of course not! They’ll just enter into a backdoor agreement with the bankers and continue as usual. In addition, not all of the WHOREs will honor the strike. Some will claim they will honor the strike (lie) and then secretly cheat on the agreement. Thats right: lying cheating WHOREs. So if you are a banker, you have all of the SLUTS and lying cheating WHOREs you can handle. This naturally will bring the golddigging WHOREs to their knees. ”
Very tongue- in- cheek I’m sure.
ozymandias42,
but honestly, while a lot of people will not immediately see this as economists do, *every* human relationship is logically some sort of value transfer. We’re all closed systems, and all our interactions with the environment, including other humans, are value transfers of some sort. I’d find it much harder to come up with human transactions that could *not* be modeled as value transfers than the other way around. There is a continuum of organisational forms for relationships, from clear-cut to very much open ended. In the former, one example of which is sex work, the contract is very explicit, as is the value that is being transferred. In the latter, one example of which is a longterm relationship, the contract is rather open, and the value transfer includes all possible kinds of aspects, from love to trust, to material and emotional safety, to help in need, to “fucking for presents” and so on.
The difference is in the explicitness of the exchange, not the exchange as such.
However, even if you view every human interaction as an exchange (and many would disagree with this model), the specific terms and values of any given exchange will be highly dependent on the individuals involved, and therefore any generalizing as to “this group trades Y for Z” or “this gender values Q higher than R” is going to be wrong most of the time…because individuals are highly variable, not only between individuals in a group but each individual’s needs and values are constantly shifting through time and with environment. Which is why it’s usually more productive to treat people as individuals and not interchangeable ciphers. And that’s what successful tradespeople (if you want to continue the marketplace analogy) do…they approach each potential exchange in terms of “what does this particular person need and how can I meet that specific need” instead of telling them that one product fits all needs 🙂 Of course that takes more work and more interpersonal skills, but most of us aren’t born with those but acquire them through time and practice!
Yes (and a little no).
Yes, individuals are highly variable, but (the little no) *if* sex/gender are categories that allow attribution *at all* there will also be identifiable sex/gender correlated preference clusters. If there aren’t, the entire debate about male/female, man/woman doesn’t make sense in the first place (this is the “Judith Butler deconstructing feminism by takeing away the subject matter”-point, but we don’t have to be as radical as that…).
Am I saying it’s impossible to conceive of relationships as an economic exchange? Of course not.
However, I think it erases a large amount of lived experience to say “romantic relationships are an exchange of X for Y.” The psychology, at least in my experience, of a relationship differs from the psychology of an economic exchange. Most notably, if I don’t get enough money for my services, I am going to be pissed right the fuck off and stop working for whoever underpaid me. On the other hand, if I go on a movie date with my boyfriend, I get his presence during movies; he not only gets my presence, but a free movie and my brilliant witty commentary.* It’s not that I value his presence more than he values mine; if our economic situations were reversed, he’d be paying for me. It’s just that economics is not a particularly good way to model relationships.
The essential difference, I think, is that I value my boyfriend’s happiness as a good in itself, irrespective of what it does for me, whereas I do not regard my employer’s happiness as a good in itself.
*Value of witty commentary may vary.
I think we’re agreeing for the most part. I myself am highly skeptical that there are too many hard and fast clusters and correlations that can be relied on for gender. In my own experience, I very rarely fit any of the assumptions for “female” and instead fit more into the “male” categories (straight woman with two brothers who grew up with mostly boys as friends, so my socialization as well as my natural personality traits don’t fit any of the stereotypes…and probably spurred my interest in gender issues and my compassion and interest in how culture affects men).
I think the typical man-woman assumptions are dangerous and miss the mark as often as they are right, which is why I distrust them and prefer to think about groups of people who cluster around more specific shared traits such as “people who watch sports on TV”, “people who enjoy cooking”, “people with high sex drives”, “people who don’t like winter”, etc. 🙂
“It’s just that economics is not a particularly good way to model relationships.”
You’re right, but that’s not because the model couldn’t fit, but because most people cannot conceive of economic exchange as something that doesn’t involve payments/monetary exchange, at least not without having read a lot of microeconomic literature.
(by the way, you’re the only person with whose brain I’m interacting, and whom I’ve seen naked (by accidentally clicking on the nsfw link above), but whose face I don’t know. Interesting combination… ;))
OK. Well, if anyone figures out what I’ve allegedly said about female hypergamy, let me know.
Well “conflict resolved by resource transfer” includes sex work. I’m not saying you should resolve conflicts by transferring resources, but that it can occur.
I turned 40 in May…
The hill..I slide downnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn
Uch. I used to think that I was inherently unattractive, so that I had to convince women to like me. I’d befriend them, try to prove what a nice guy I was, flatter them, listen to their problems, and then hope that they’d eventually “give in” and start to view me as a romantic prospect. In short, I was the stereotypical “Nice Guy”. Not nice at all in fact, but manipulative, and well on the road to becoming misogynistic and creepy.
It was only after I gave up and decided to take a break from hitting on women that I actually had my first success in ages; and that was because I was hit on by her!
Turns out that women find men attractive. Which meant that I, as a man, was found attractive by some woman. (Despite my large nose, pudginess, premature balding…) All I had to do was find her. Who knew?
So men, if you’re a shy, nice but average-looking guy who can’t get the girls, forget all that crap about how some girl will find you attractive because you have a “good personality”. Instead, stop selling yourself short. Keep yourself clean and well-presented. Spend some money on nice clothes. Stand up straight. Smile more. Think of yourself as attractive, and just talk to women, without ulterior motives; when one of them is interested in you, it will be obvious, and effortless, and It Will Happen.
That’s my experience, anyway.
Amen. I too started down the road to Nice Guy Land, but turned off before I reached BitterMisogynistville. In my case I made more of an effort to learn to flirt, which meant when a certain young lady of fond memory flirted with me, I was able to respond in kind. Thanks for sharing your story; it’s this kind of thing that I think makes this blog so valuable.
Congratulations on becoming more romantically successful! 🙂
I’d like to second the thing about talking to women. If you do not talk to women, then we cannot find you. Most of the people I know who get laid a ton also have a ton of friends, and I feel the two are probably correlated; if you know a lot of people, there is more likely to be someone who wants to fuck you within that group.
I can conceive of purely non-monetary-related exchanges (to a certain degree, a successful fuckbuddy relationship is an exchange of sexual pleasure for sexual pleasure), but once one gets into relationships in which the partners have affection for each other, the affection clouds the model, as people will do things to make their partner happy, not just to pay back for services rendered. 🙂
I wonder if it’s reasonable to say that, after a certain degree of affection and attachment, the happiness of the subject of affection becomes a good of great value to you, as does their company, and these things just enter into the economic equation. You buy them a movie ticket, you get their happiness in return.
I’m not sure if this is necessarily the best model for a relationship, but I’m thinking it’s kind of a possible one.
(Also, obviously I’m a new commenter here – I got here from Shakesville and have been enjoying it a lot so far. Thanks for the links to here, and the work!)
The problem with this idea of “value transfer” is the implication–perhaps invalid–of the zero-sum nature of value transfer. That’s not the case in interpersonal interactions. If you’d like a completely sex-free example, you can look at the “honor economy” of the medieval Norse world, where instigating and then resolving feuds allowed both parties to gain honor; honor was literally *created* through interactions.
If you prefer an example of sex, take two people who give each other an orgasm. There’s not really a “value transfer” there. Suppose the orgasms are exchanged manually–it’s not like I could have spent that half-hour doing something equally valuable with my fingers. Instead, two people collaborate to rapidly increase the amount of value in the world.
Now, you may be using a sufficiently broad definition of value transfer to include the creation of value. But if so, your language is misleading. It implies a zero-sum nature to interpersonal interactions that is not, in fact, the case