My post Thursday on Men’s Rights has spawned 119 comments so far, suggesting I could be clearer on my position. So here goes. My interests starts mainly from being puzzled by what kinds of inequality bother people, and what kinds do not. In much of social science, gender, race/ethnicity, and class are such overwhelming issues that someone like the political scientist blogger Paul Gowder states his positions on his
LV outlet are several businesses making many items and many of them are very enthusiastic about obtaining the top quality ones with the passage of time. It’s all-natural that the top quality goods like the gucci sneakers, sun shades or totes are very costly where the regular man will certainly find it hard to continue the buying with the passage of time.
In Veblen-Hirsch speak there are material goods available to any above subsistence income, and positional goods restricted to a finite number of people.
From a man's perspective women are material goods, as almost any young female qualifies as eligible, whereas men are positional goods to women. A powerful man can marry his secretary or an equal, as long as both are young and pretty, whereas women exhibit strong preference for top 20% traits like dominance and prestige.
I propose people care about inequality in material goods, since this is easily remedied, but don't care about inequality in positional goods, since this cannot be remedied.
"There’s also a dose of irony in the complaint that an ugly boy might make about being scared off from dating the pretty girls. Why does he feel like it would be such an injury to date the ugly girls? Don’t they need love too? And this generalizes beyond the beating-up case: many men who complain about their inability to attract women are not attracted to the sort of women who they can get — they’re scorning the unattractive women who are interested in them just as the women they’re chasing are scorning them."
1) Dixit dating expert David DeAngelo: "attraction isn't a choice". So you cannot blame less-than-attractive men for not feeling attracted to women "within their league", since this isn't sth. they could just choose to do, and plausibly "ought" implies "can". (Obviously the same remark applies to less-than-attractive women.)
2) What such men CAN do, however, is settle for women they don't find attractive. And certainly it is unfair that some people (men or women) have to settle for a mate who doesn't meet their standards of attractiveness when other people can get the kind of mate they want. To suggest that those with an unfulfilling romantic life should just settle for what they can get is about as ethical as saying that those who are prevented from getting a higher education because of their social/economic background should just accept their fate, because we need someone to sweep the streets or repair railway tracks.
But why are you focusing on only men in this regard? Is this not a “problem” for both genders?
Actually, life satisfaction and physical attractiveness are positively correlated in women, whereas there is no such correlation in men. (I can't find the study and am relying on memory; I welcome corrections.) To the extent that we care about disadvantaged groups because disadvantage negatively impacts happiness, we should care about unattractive women, not men.
Then again, levels of attractiveness are more easily raised in females than in males. On my estimates, breast augmentation adds on average about 1.5 points, on a ten-point scale, to a woman's level of physical attractiveness. There is, to my knowledge, no intervention that can comparably raise the attractiveness of men.
Isnt this why we have a whole indie sub culture in America now? This way beta-nerdy guys can be considered cool and attract adorable-cute indie girls?
Ive seen this scenario played out a million times over in any indie/hipster bar scene USA.
The unfortunate effect of the sexual revolution is that it has made the supposedly "hot" female appearance look very masculine. Their personalities are more aggressive, the appearance is much more sexualized and in essence you come across many attractive girls these days who have a very masculine make up.
However, the indie world seems to be safe haven for beta males. Women in this world are much more feminine. Their personalities are less dominant and their appearance is much more distinguished from men. They dont fear wearing non overtly sexualized clothing. Women here prize musical talent, intellectual ability, and other non-Alpha centric characteristics. As a result, I dont know if it is an absolute given that alphas are having all of the fun. Maybe Robin needs to go hit his nearest indie bar and check out the scene one of these days.
1. The Thursday Man takes mutual genital ownership for granted. He cannot comprehend a world where sex is positive, and non-reproductive casual sex by either partner is a similar non-issue as a stroll in the park with a friend.
Quite true. As I said in an earlier post, I have consistently failed to have sex, and in my experience, the worst obstacle by far is that most girls already have a boyfriend, and of course this is a decisive objection to them doing anything with me. This kind of sexual jealousy is common enough to be taken for granted, but there is no reason why it has to be just as universal as it is. The only way this sexual jealousy can get any worse is when it becomes sexual greed, and each alpha male is successful at monopolizing more than one woman.
Given that most people don't think about sex in this kind of free-love way, each man has to think in terms of how to succeed in the world where he finds himself. For instance, suppose I have a girlfriend, and I feel no sexual jealousy. My goals will simply be to continue having sex with her regularly. But it is quite realistic to fear that if she has sex with another man, the other man or my girlfriend will start expecting to set up their own exclusive relationship, thus excluding me. If that happened, it would be hard to find a new woman who is suitable in other respects and also not in an exclusive relationship; or to put it more simply, I won't have sex for quite a while in the future. With this risk in mind, I'd have to start thinking about my girlfriend's sexuality in ways that pretty closely resemble the conventional man who feels that he owns his girlfriend's sexuality and no other man had better intrude.
2. In a world where sex is considered a good thing, people don’t have to be paired up 1-on-1 to experience sex.
Hey, I've got a dirty enough mind that at first I thought you were talking about the kind of sex where there are more than two people in a single sexual act.
If 1-on-1 pairing is not required, romantic competence becomes less of a comparative good. To get sex, it is sufficient to exceed a potential partner’s physical and intellectual threshold, and to be available to each other at the same time and place.
This is definitely true. I think it's quite clear that I can easily exceed what the physical and intellectual threshold would be if exclusive relationships weren't an issue. Given that a certain girl is in an exclusive relationship, it's both more difficult and less ethical to try meeting the much higher threshold that it would take to get the girl to either cheat on or end her current relationship.
And of course the remarks about availability highlight the fact that of course some women are single, and a much smaller number are in an open relationship. But it is still difficult to either find them, or to know what to do in the cases when I do.
"What are the sources for the assertion that ugly men are getting an insufficent amount of booty?"
I would be suprised if ugly men got the same amount and quality of booty as handsome men on average. It wouldn't be surprising if they had less sex on average, or the same amount of sex with uglier women.
I disagree with many of the mentions of "ugly" men too, and think that they're too quick to equate "the men who can't get laid" with "the ugly men." Other major categories are those who behave in some way that makes them less likely to get laid, and those who are low in status and wealth.
"How would you even define an insufficient amount of booty?"
Involuntary celibacy is linked to higher levels of depression. I base this on the studies like the ones by Elisabeth Burgess. Zero or very low levels of sexual activity are bad for you, but much like wealth, there's a threshold where having more sex stops having a great positive effect on happiness. So if this depression is the worst thing about never having sex, then "an insufficient amount" can just mean "an amount such that more sex would greatly decrease your depression."
But "less than other men" is a bad way to define it--or in other words, it shouldn't be framed as if the issue were inequality as such. But even that is an improvement on framing the issue in terms of "rights." An insufficent amount of sex definitely shouldn't mean "less sex than I have a right to."
This whole conversation is moot because it rests on an unsupported premise. Where are the sources for the assertion that ugly men are getting an insufficient amount of booty? How would you even define an unsufficient amount of booty?
1. The Thursday Man takes mutual genital ownership for granted. He cannot comprehend a world where sex is positive, and non-reproductive casual sex by either partner is a similar non-issue as a stroll in the park with a friend.
2. In a world where sex is considered a good thing, people don't have to be paired up 1-on-1 to experience sex. If 1-on-1 pairing is not required, romantic competence becomes less of a comparative good. To get sex, it is sufficient to exceed a potential partner's physical and intellectual threshold, and to be available to each other at the same time and place. Less attractive people need to be more flexible in their availability to potential partners, but they can get sex. People can meet and exceed other people's attractiveness thresholds through physical exercise and social self-education. They can become more attractive and thus get sex more frequently with time.
3. Female IQs are centered more closely around average than male IQs. If we insist on 1-on-1 pairings, every five most intelligent males have to compete for one female of equivalent IQ, and four of them have to settle for a female of lower IQ. Hence complaints by highly intelligent males that women are stupid. Conversely, below average women have to compete for males with acceptable IQs, and many have to settle for males with very low IQs.
4. It is the obsessive treatment of "sensitive" categories that is the problem, not the lack of obsessiveness about "insensitive" categories. We would all do well with less political correctness.
Based on personal experience, I suspect that people who are most IQ-inequality-concerned have themselves had unsatisfactory IQ test results. The status-seeking explanation would therefore be that they are trying to raise the status of their own group, by denouncing IQ as a valid criterion.
The betas simply need to figure out who they are and to whom they should direct their efforts, even if they are frustrated in not being able to get whom they want
To which I reply:
One simply cannot mandate that some people should suddenly start feeling attracted to people that they otherwise are not or would not be attracted to.
"because they do have the capacity to control their own weight."
Most don't, no.
"Unattractive men as well, because attractiveness is still very much tied to success and status, which can be earned through skill and effort."
Attractiveness can be earned through skill and effort?
There is a difference between social dissaproval and punative bullying. You can discourage one without the other just as you can encourage one without the other. Social dissaproval of poor work ethic amongst urban african americans doesn't have to also be encouragement of racism.
Certainly the definition won't come from women.
LV outlet are several businesses making many items and many of them are very enthusiastic about obtaining the top quality ones with the passage of time. It’s all-natural that the top quality goods like the gucci sneakers, sun shades or totes are very costly where the regular man will certainly find it hard to continue the buying with the passage of time.
In Veblen-Hirsch speak there are material goods available to any above subsistence income, and positional goods restricted to a finite number of people.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...
From a man's perspective women are material goods, as almost any young female qualifies as eligible, whereas men are positional goods to women. A powerful man can marry his secretary or an equal, as long as both are young and pretty, whereas women exhibit strong preference for top 20% traits like dominance and prestige.
I propose people care about inequality in material goods, since this is easily remedied, but don't care about inequality in positional goods, since this cannot be remedied.
sex-deprived men should fight to legalize prostitution. boom.
"There’s also a dose of irony in the complaint that an ugly boy might make about being scared off from dating the pretty girls. Why does he feel like it would be such an injury to date the ugly girls? Don’t they need love too? And this generalizes beyond the beating-up case: many men who complain about their inability to attract women are not attracted to the sort of women who they can get — they’re scorning the unattractive women who are interested in them just as the women they’re chasing are scorning them."
1) Dixit dating expert David DeAngelo: "attraction isn't a choice". So you cannot blame less-than-attractive men for not feeling attracted to women "within their league", since this isn't sth. they could just choose to do, and plausibly "ought" implies "can". (Obviously the same remark applies to less-than-attractive women.)
2) What such men CAN do, however, is settle for women they don't find attractive. And certainly it is unfair that some people (men or women) have to settle for a mate who doesn't meet their standards of attractiveness when other people can get the kind of mate they want. To suggest that those with an unfulfilling romantic life should just settle for what they can get is about as ethical as saying that those who are prevented from getting a higher education because of their social/economic background should just accept their fate, because we need someone to sweep the streets or repair railway tracks.
But why are you focusing on only men in this regard? Is this not a “problem” for both genders?
Actually, life satisfaction and physical attractiveness are positively correlated in women, whereas there is no such correlation in men. (I can't find the study and am relying on memory; I welcome corrections.) To the extent that we care about disadvantaged groups because disadvantage negatively impacts happiness, we should care about unattractive women, not men.
Then again, levels of attractiveness are more easily raised in females than in males. On my estimates, breast augmentation adds on average about 1.5 points, on a ten-point scale, to a woman's level of physical attractiveness. There is, to my knowledge, no intervention that can comparably raise the attractiveness of men.
Isnt this why we have a whole indie sub culture in America now? This way beta-nerdy guys can be considered cool and attract adorable-cute indie girls?
Ive seen this scenario played out a million times over in any indie/hipster bar scene USA.
The unfortunate effect of the sexual revolution is that it has made the supposedly "hot" female appearance look very masculine. Their personalities are more aggressive, the appearance is much more sexualized and in essence you come across many attractive girls these days who have a very masculine make up.
However, the indie world seems to be safe haven for beta males. Women in this world are much more feminine. Their personalities are less dominant and their appearance is much more distinguished from men. They dont fear wearing non overtly sexualized clothing. Women here prize musical talent, intellectual ability, and other non-Alpha centric characteristics. As a result, I dont know if it is an absolute given that alphas are having all of the fun. Maybe Robin needs to go hit his nearest indie bar and check out the scene one of these days.
1. The Thursday Man takes mutual genital ownership for granted. He cannot comprehend a world where sex is positive, and non-reproductive casual sex by either partner is a similar non-issue as a stroll in the park with a friend.
Quite true. As I said in an earlier post, I have consistently failed to have sex, and in my experience, the worst obstacle by far is that most girls already have a boyfriend, and of course this is a decisive objection to them doing anything with me. This kind of sexual jealousy is common enough to be taken for granted, but there is no reason why it has to be just as universal as it is. The only way this sexual jealousy can get any worse is when it becomes sexual greed, and each alpha male is successful at monopolizing more than one woman.
Given that most people don't think about sex in this kind of free-love way, each man has to think in terms of how to succeed in the world where he finds himself. For instance, suppose I have a girlfriend, and I feel no sexual jealousy. My goals will simply be to continue having sex with her regularly. But it is quite realistic to fear that if she has sex with another man, the other man or my girlfriend will start expecting to set up their own exclusive relationship, thus excluding me. If that happened, it would be hard to find a new woman who is suitable in other respects and also not in an exclusive relationship; or to put it more simply, I won't have sex for quite a while in the future. With this risk in mind, I'd have to start thinking about my girlfriend's sexuality in ways that pretty closely resemble the conventional man who feels that he owns his girlfriend's sexuality and no other man had better intrude.
2. In a world where sex is considered a good thing, people don’t have to be paired up 1-on-1 to experience sex.
Hey, I've got a dirty enough mind that at first I thought you were talking about the kind of sex where there are more than two people in a single sexual act.
If 1-on-1 pairing is not required, romantic competence becomes less of a comparative good. To get sex, it is sufficient to exceed a potential partner’s physical and intellectual threshold, and to be available to each other at the same time and place.
This is definitely true. I think it's quite clear that I can easily exceed what the physical and intellectual threshold would be if exclusive relationships weren't an issue. Given that a certain girl is in an exclusive relationship, it's both more difficult and less ethical to try meeting the much higher threshold that it would take to get the girl to either cheat on or end her current relationship.
And of course the remarks about availability highlight the fact that of course some women are single, and a much smaller number are in an open relationship. But it is still difficult to either find them, or to know what to do in the cases when I do.
"What are the sources for the assertion that ugly men are getting an insufficent amount of booty?"
I would be suprised if ugly men got the same amount and quality of booty as handsome men on average. It wouldn't be surprising if they had less sex on average, or the same amount of sex with uglier women.
I disagree with many of the mentions of "ugly" men too, and think that they're too quick to equate "the men who can't get laid" with "the ugly men." Other major categories are those who behave in some way that makes them less likely to get laid, and those who are low in status and wealth.
"How would you even define an insufficient amount of booty?"
Involuntary celibacy is linked to higher levels of depression. I base this on the studies like the ones by Elisabeth Burgess. Zero or very low levels of sexual activity are bad for you, but much like wealth, there's a threshold where having more sex stops having a great positive effect on happiness. So if this depression is the worst thing about never having sex, then "an insufficient amount" can just mean "an amount such that more sex would greatly decrease your depression."
But "less than other men" is a bad way to define it--or in other words, it shouldn't be framed as if the issue were inequality as such. But even that is an improvement on framing the issue in terms of "rights." An insufficent amount of sex definitely shouldn't mean "less sex than I have a right to."
This whole conversation is moot because it rests on an unsupported premise. Where are the sources for the assertion that ugly men are getting an insufficient amount of booty? How would you even define an unsufficient amount of booty?
A few comments.
1. The Thursday Man takes mutual genital ownership for granted. He cannot comprehend a world where sex is positive, and non-reproductive casual sex by either partner is a similar non-issue as a stroll in the park with a friend.
2. In a world where sex is considered a good thing, people don't have to be paired up 1-on-1 to experience sex. If 1-on-1 pairing is not required, romantic competence becomes less of a comparative good. To get sex, it is sufficient to exceed a potential partner's physical and intellectual threshold, and to be available to each other at the same time and place. Less attractive people need to be more flexible in their availability to potential partners, but they can get sex. People can meet and exceed other people's attractiveness thresholds through physical exercise and social self-education. They can become more attractive and thus get sex more frequently with time.
3. Female IQs are centered more closely around average than male IQs. If we insist on 1-on-1 pairings, every five most intelligent males have to compete for one female of equivalent IQ, and four of them have to settle for a female of lower IQ. Hence complaints by highly intelligent males that women are stupid. Conversely, below average women have to compete for males with acceptable IQs, and many have to settle for males with very low IQs.
4. It is the obsessive treatment of "sensitive" categories that is the problem, not the lack of obsessiveness about "insensitive" categories. We would all do well with less political correctness.
Based on personal experience, I suspect that people who are most IQ-inequality-concerned have themselves had unsatisfactory IQ test results. The status-seeking explanation would therefore be that they are trying to raise the status of their own group, by denouncing IQ as a valid criterion.
The betas simply need to figure out who they are and to whom they should direct their efforts, even if they are frustrated in not being able to get whom they want
To which I reply:
One simply cannot mandate that some people should suddenly start feeling attracted to people that they otherwise are not or would not be attracted to.
Secondly, note that as a first approximation the optimum evolutionary strategy for women will only consider relative desirability of a mate.
Most people don't give a damn about their evolutionary fitness and don't date/marry based on strategies for darwinian success.
You can't apply PUA ideas to romantic mate selection. It only applies to casual sexual mate selection.
"because they do have the capacity to control their own weight."
Most don't, no.
"Unattractive men as well, because attractiveness is still very much tied to success and status, which can be earned through skill and effort."
Attractiveness can be earned through skill and effort?
There is a difference between social dissaproval and punative bullying. You can discourage one without the other just as you can encourage one without the other. Social dissaproval of poor work ethic amongst urban african americans doesn't have to also be encouragement of racism.