Hookups Reflect the Supply and Demand for Sex

Posted by Susan Walsh on Dec 13, 2008 in Hooking Up Realities, Relationship Strategies |

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Supply and Demand in Equilibrium

“Women are better off when sex is scarce and men have few outlets for sexual satisfaction, because men will offer women more under those circumstances than they will offer when sexual gratification is widely and freely available. It is rational for women to try to restrict men’s sexual opportunities, and one effective way to do this is to enforce norms and informal pressures that hold women in general back from sexual indulgence.”

Symons and Barash, Sociobiology

Now that we have a better understanding of the hookup environment, let’s turn our attention to figuring out what you want and helping you get it.

What is it that girls really want?

When I was a girl my friends and I all wanted the same thing: a big, grand, passionate love. We were ready for sex, but we dreamed of having it in the context of being in love. And I believe that most girls today want that too, to be in love. Falling for someone who feels the same way about you is a pretty amazing feeling, maybe even the best feeling in the world.

Most girls live very full and busy lives, and many question whether they have the time to devote to a relationship. They don’t want to become so submerged in a relationship that they lose their own identity. Oddly, the only apparent alternative to hooking up on campuses is the “college marriage”, also known as “joined at the hip.” These relationships are characterized by a constant togetherness. Couples eat all their meals together, study together and sleep together every night. Most girls who are hooking up in hopes of finding a relationship are not looking for that kind of all-consuming togetherness, but an equal partnership that is both emotional and physical.

Girls can’t have what they want until they reclaim the upper hand.

Having come of age in the 70s, I can assure you there were many disadvantages to the traditional dating model, and women had fewer choices then, but we definitely had more control. In the hook-up scene, guys make most of the rules, so it’s not surprising that those rules result in fewer relationships all around. Hooking up as the way for girls and guys to get together is deeply entrenched in the culture and is here to stay, at least for the foreseeable future.

Girls say they don’t object to hooking up per se, only that it rarely goes anywhere. You need a strategy to hook up smarter, so that you can reclaim the upper hand with boys. Girls today do have more freedom and control over their own lives, and exercise it in many areas. Your challenge is to find a way to use all your strength, empowerment and belief in yourself in the area of relationships.

Start by seeking a healthy relationship with a Quality Boy.

What is a Quality Boy?

He respects your feelings, your body and your time.
He is earnest and trustworthy. That means he does what he says he is going to do.
He is mature, meaning he is emotionally available and demonstrative.

You may be saying to yourself that you don’t know any boys like that. They are out there, although they may be hard to spot in the midst of all the hooking up. Remember, we do not blame boys for hooking up whenever and with whomever they can. They are only being true to their nature! Your job is to offer an alternative to a boy who demonstrates relationship potential, and to sell him on its benefits.

You need a strategy for success.

Now that we understand what you want and what you’re up against, it’s time to get down to the business of formulating an effective strategy. We’ll continue to use the Strategic Problem-Solving Model to understand our target market (Quality Boys) and design our product. Let’s start by understanding the relationship between supply and demand in the marketplace.

The Law of Supply and Demand

The law of supply and demand is a fundamental concept of economics. It determines the price and quantity of a good on the market. It says that equilibrium will be achieved when the amount of a good being provided is equal to the amount of that good being desired. For example, if you have ten concert tickets to sell, and you have ten friends that want to buy them, everyone is happy. That’s equilibrium.

The law of demand says that the higher the price of something, the lower the quantity demanded. If something is very costly, people will think carefully about whether they want to spend resources on that or if there is something else they want more. If your concert tickets are $150, some of your friends might bow out. If something is super expensive, you’re going to think carefully about whether to buy it, and you may decide to spend your money on something else.

The law of supply says that the higher the price of a good, the more the producer will supply. The higher a price the consumer is willing to pay, the more eager the seller will be to provide additional supply to increase revenue. So if your favorite band can get huge ticket prices, they are more likely to go on tour. They may play more cities or tour more frequently than if they can only get $35 per ticket, for example.

To review, when supply and demand are equal, the relationship is in equilibrium. This means that both sellers and consumers are happy. Everyone has what they want at a fair price. You may not think it’s fair for any band to get $150 per ticket, but if they can sell out at that price, then we say “that’s what the market will bear.”

Equilibrium does not equal satisfaction for women.

The law of supply and demand can be used to think about any transaction, including sex. Girls supply sex, and guys demand it. Of course, guys supply sex too, and girls do demand it, but girls are much more likely to want the sex to be meaningful, i.e., committed. Back in the day when girls rarely had sex before marriage, guys had to put forth enormous effort to get it. They came calling to meet the family, stated their intentions, brought gifts, paid for outings, etc. They took things at a slow pace, made a commitment, and often had to marry a girl to have sex with her. Today there is so much sex available to boys that they literally need make no effort to get it. Oh, there’s a slight risk of rejection when they target a specific girl, but they are usually drunk enough to blunt the momentary pain of that.

So, if sex is the ultimate goal for guys (and we all know it is), then if you give it away for free you can expect to get very little in return. No respect, no treats, no romance, and definitely no relationships. Today there is a huge demand for sex, and a huge supply of sex to fill that demand. We could say the market is in equilibrium. So everybody’s happy, right? Wrong!

Girls (the suppliers) are going bankrupt in the romance department because they are literally giving away a valuable product. When you have sex with a guy for nothing in return, you’re making a very unprofitable deal. In fact, it’s worse than that; when you have sex with a guy and get nothing in return, you wind up feeling crappy about it. Which means you have less than you did before. You are essentially paying him!

Guys literally have almost all of the power today. Young women need to wake up and shift the dynamic. And that, girls, can only be achieved if you limit the supply by raising the price.

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Martin

Honestly it isnt that simple. You should respect the sexual freedom females have fought so hard for in the west higher. If you look at the world you will find a pretty strong correlation between sex is extremely limited outside marriage (supply is low), something like Afghanistan or Northern India, and places where being a female is something really depressive. This correlation is even true if you go back in the history of the US, in the fifties, yeah females probably waited longer for sex after a date but overall their lives was defiantly worse. Of course correlation doesn't imply causation but it is food for though. The main reason "for the hookup culture" compared to a place like Greece in the sixties is that females today actually have the freedom of choice, and I am sure it has made them happier overall.

(oh and I mainly wanted to attack that worthless sociobiology quote with this post :p)

susanawalsh

Hi, Martin, thanks for leaving a comment. OK, I get it that you are not on the evo psych bandwagon. I do respect and appreciate sexual freedom for women. I also agree that in countries where women are oppressed, the supply of sex is low outside of marriage.

In the US in the 1950s, one could argue that the quality of life was lower overall, I suppose. Women certainly had fewer rights, and now enjoy something pretty close to equal opportunity. With that opportunity comes responsibility. If you are a woman who wants casual sex, it's all good. The supply is endless. However, if you prefer relationship sex to casual sex, you would be wise to hold off until you are in a relationship.

Today's permissive sexual environment has not made women happier overall. On a typical college campus, there are few couples to be seen. Most guys are under considerable peer pressure to remain single, and to get laid. That leads to hooking up as the default sexual encounter. Women are not forced to participate of course, but it's the only game in town. College counseling centers are chock full of female college students who feel like crap because the boys they have had sex with now pretend not to know them on campus.

reality

indeed, on the point of projection I have to echo 11minutes' point.

females do the sexual selection. females, by and large, determine the sexual culture.

if there's a situation where the sexes "aren't interested" in marriage until "age 30" (which incidently is when the biological clock begins to tick a little louder), then more than likely that trend can be put down to the female population.

it's really so very elementary, if you weren't so caught up in projecting your behaviour and perceived failures onto others.

susanawalsh

reality, I've left your comments up here for the sake of frank discussion, but let me say that your snarky tone is unnecessary and unpleasant. You hide behind your online anonymity to express your anger and bitterness toward women. Change the attitude. You might just find that you get further that way.

reality

"In the end men and women may want the same thing, but that time tends to occur when men approach 30."

Projection, projection, projection.

reality

this is bullshit though because you can't change the "greater culture". a woman on a micro level not participating in slut culture - sorry i meant hooking up - is not going to have any effect on the wider culture. media such as porn and mtv maintain a certain sexual culture also, and you can't combat that. feminist and sexual liberals like you unleashed anarchy, and it's not going back into the box no matter how many pseudo-intellectual "supply and demand" theories you want to put forward.

susanawalsh

I'm not looking to change the greater culture. I'm looking to give women a strategy for effecting positive change in their own individual lives. I guess it's fair to say that the Sexual Revolution did indeed unleash anarchy. It changed the expectations of men, that's for sure! All a woman can do is redefine those expectations as they are applied to her. That is all that is under her personal control. Perhaps there will be few men who are willing to be in a relationship in order to have sex with her, but it's the only card she's holding.

VJ

Umm NO. NO. No. Please. Not again with the supply and demand silliness. It's wrong. It's silly. And it's old. Very old. And it's being used here in the wrong context of sociobiology & evolutionary psychology. Really.

Let's cover only some of the salient points, as I'm not sure if anyone's interested or listening.

Premises: 1. Guys & gals Want, Desire & need Love. 2. BOTH SEXES Like & desire Sex. Really. You know this. Why on earth would any woman want to try and deny this to try to gain some putative 'advantage' in some (any) marketplace? Reputation perhaps, but this is truly a different age. No a longer horse and buggy culture where 'fast women' are decried as the universal 'scourge of youth'. 3. How Much do the partners Desire sex & how much are they willing to pay for it? This is critically more important than any projected simple 'supply & demand'. Without this? There IS no supply, nor demand!

What happens when you get email, a mainly almost costless & now ubiquitous communication system that can easily convey complex written texts & much more? The Post Office goes broke! It's users use it less, it's needed for fewer things, and it's volume never recovers.

What happens when any bloke with an computer ($300+, sometimes supplied by parent) and an Net connection ~$20-30 mo. can download more images of beautiful naked women doing whatever he might imagine in his most wildest erotic dreams for essentially Free? The market is reconfigured. Now I don't think this is the main problem here, (what's wrong w/ a few serial 'college marriages', and why do you imagine this is somehow 'new') but it's a start to understanding the supposed 'economics of the 'marriage market'.

So again, how to describe the market? It's really not a 'sex' market. Sex is now ubiquitous. It's everywhere. People can download high quality porn into their phones for amusement. It's mostly free too. More images of nakedness & skin than a small village might have viewed in a lifetime of illicit pleasures just 50 years ago. Available to any teen with a modem & a 'home' isp address. Again, this creates a disincentive for many of the guys to actually get up off the couch and meet 'real live girls'. After all, they're much more complicated to figure out, and the sex per expenditure on the 'real' gals is often in multiples of 10's -$100's over the 'fantasy' that's readily available on the net.

So again, what is the market? It's perhaps, yes, a Marriage market, which means many things to many people. For most gals? Perhaps better than 80% of them? It's also about begetting kids and providing for same, within the context of marriage. Now that's a particular arrangement. All the Biology? Just speaks to the begetting & provision for kids. With or without marriage. Almost any female on earth, no matter how they look, can beget children, if they're of age, and so inclined. (We'll confine our remarks here to consensual relationships). It's in the provisioning for the young that everything begins to break down & look tenuous. Why is that? Economics. Male wages have been stagnant or declining for a generation by now, without many people noticing. (See EPI.org for details)

Why is that important? Throughout history, it's the male who has made the home, and provided for the children. Typically he'd already have a home or the wherewithal to buy one Before he seriously courted anyone. What happens when you barely can keep your head above water in a dead end job? You're not considered 'marriageable' material. Sure, women will screw you every now & again, but they'd not consider you a worthy prospe3ct to 'raise kids with'. And mostly, that's a 'safe bet' too, and hence the dramatic rise of single motherhood too. So we see the phenomenon of single moms and 'baby daddys' that really can not marry due to their 'lower economic class status'. Hence the women that flock to be 'bankers' GF's etc.

So what's the market look like for participants? For women? It's still a buyers market until they're out of fertility range. Then it gets interesting. If you desire a Family, you Need a Woman to have your child with you. If she needs marriage to do this, then if you're at all 'suitable' it might come off. It may not last long, but it can happen. If you're a single guy with a non exciting job, long hours of demanding and isolating work? You're almost invisible to the 'market'. You might be getting your sex where you can, but starting a family of your own is a distant & unrequited dream for many. For the women who want kids? There's many, many options, some more friendly and available than others. But for most, it's not much of a problem. It never has been if you're at all healthy. Marriage & a more serious LTR typically for them comes later, when they're done with the kids mostly. A sort of 'bifurcated' family life of 'serial monogamy', if that fortunate. There's plenty of single women with several kids by different dads who are still looking for 'the one' to marry & settle down with. In their dotage. And it can happen. But sex? Never really is being 'rationed' here. It's impossible, as again, it's costless, and available almost everywhere. And there's nothing anyone might be able to do about that, if if they so desired.

So no, supply and demand don't work well here. But Other economic models? Perhaps. Cheers & Good Luck, 'VJ'

susanawalsh

Wow, VJ, you're become a prolific commenter! Thanks for taking the time to read my posts and share your thoughts. I'll keep my response brief. Basically, I would posit that nearly everything in life can be explained by a supply and demand model. We have wants and needs. We find others who can provide them, and give up something the other party values in exchange for what we value. Sex is no different. What your analysis fails to reflect is the realities of the hookup culture today, especially on college campuses. In the end men and women may want the same thing, but that time tends to occur when men approach 30. In the meantime, women are increasingly frustrated with the lack of relationships available to them.

susanawalsh

You are correct that women have the ultimate say in when to have sex. Guys want sex more than women, so women get to make that call. Guys have the ultimate say in when to have relationships. Women want relationships more than guys, so guys make that call. Trouble for young women today is there's a whole lotta hooking up going on and not much in the way of relationships. What you say about hot guys may be true, but 20 years ago hot guys wanted hot steady girlfriends. Today they want harems, as you point out. Since it's the hot guys who set the cultural standard, girls lose.

11minutes

Guys literally have almost all of the power today.
It's still the women who decide when and with whom they have sex with.

The difference to pre-feminist times is that nowadays women do not have the materialistic need (birth control, access to entire jobs market), nor the societal pressure to "settle" into marriage.

These are all advantages to women. They literally are on par with men these days.

What you cry about is the result of twisted evolutionary psychology. While men perceive female attractiveness on a linear scale (ie. there is a steady gradient from ugly to hot), women's preference is highly nonlinear (ie. there are few attractive guys for hordes of unattractive losers).

The result is a skewed market situation - not quite like the one you outline here:

Most women rival for the same few men, while most men rival for different women.

The result is that nowadays few men enjoy large harems of girls while most men stand on the sideline.

As a result, most girls are unhappy because they fuck guys who don't fully invest in them (they have many other girls to care about), and most guys are unhappy because they don;t get any action.

So, "guys have all the power" is plainly wrong. It's the privilege of an elite - granted by the majority of girls...

Hooking Up Smart

Hookups Reflect the Supply and Demand for Sex

Symons and Barash, Sociobiology

What is it that girls really want?

Girls can’t have what they want until they reclaim the upper hand.

Start by seeking a healthy relationship with a Quality Boy.

You need a strategy for success.

The Law of Supply and Demand

Equilibrium does not equal satisfaction for women.

Guys literally have almost all of the power today. Young women need to wake up and shift the dynamic. And that, girls, can only be achieved if you limit the supply by raising the price.

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