It’s About Time: The New Reverse Double Standard

• April 28, 2010
164 Comments

It is much easier to make good (wo)men wise than to make bad men good.

Henry Fielding, 1749

It has long been understood that there exists a sexual double standard. Studies have consistently shown that men strongly prefer women who are less sexually experienced than they are. In theory, women who have had many sexual partners are broadcasting their likelihood of future infidelities, and represent a poor investment for a man who wants to avoid raising another man’s child. On the other hand, women prefer men who are sought after by many other females. It reinforces the idea that he is a “good catch,” and offers superior genes for her potential offspring. Not surprisingly, research shows that handsome men have more short-term sexual partners than other men. The female competition for these men provides him with social proof:

Social value of unfamiliar people is ambiguous and requires a lot of effort to assess accurately. Given limited time and motivation, other people will often evaluate others based on how surrounding people behave towards them. For example, if a man is perceived to be in a company of attractive women, or is associated with them, then his perceived social value and attractiveness will be perceived to be greater. The implied cognition in this case would be “All those girls seem to really like him, there must be something about him that’s high value”.

If he is seen to be rejected by many women, his social value will be judged negatively. The implied cognition is then “I just saw him being rejected by many women, there is probably a good reason why they don’t like him”.

In today’s sexual marketplace, there are a concentrated number of males with the most sexual partners, and they are called players. Can social proof backfire? Are there women who experience disgust at the idea of getting with a player, who will happily and determinedly reject them even if it means being alone? Is the era of the Man Slut over?

Recent research indicates that it may be. A study at the University of Illinois by Allison and Risman surveyed 20,000 undergraduates at 20 colleges and universities. Their conclusion:

COLLEGE STUDENTS LESS LIKELY HOLD TO A SEXUAL DOUBLE STANDARD. AND SOMETIMES THE DOUBLE STANDARD GOES AGAINST MEN.

One of the striking changes in college life over the past 40 years has been the decline in the double standard about whether it is okay for women as well as men to have premarital sex. But women have long been judged more harshly than men for engaging in casual sex outside of a relationship… A surprising number of students now hold men and women to the same standard. And where a double standard still exists, it can cut in either direction.

They found that 63% of men lose respect for women who hook up frequently, hardly surprising. What’s more surprising is that 41% of men lose respect for other men who hook up frequently. This may reflect the resentment of men who feel like “have nots.” Or it may be that men who are more relationship-oriented disrespect the “pump and dump” mentality.

When it came to women, Allison and Risman found that 60% of women lose respect for other women who hook up frequently. Again, this is not surprising, and speaks to female intrasexual competition. Women who prefer to abstain from casual sex are well aware that promiscuous women are depressing the number of men willing to commit. What is very surprising is that 70% of women lose respect for men who hook up frequently.

Writing at Slate, Jessica Grose sums up the study:

One reason for the shift, they hypothesize, is the increasing power of young women to determine the sexual mores. They’re definitely rejecting the double standard against women. But rather than embrace a more relaxed standard for all, they are using this new “leverage to overwhelmingly disapprove of college men who hook up with a lot of partners.” And some men are echoing that disapproval. If things continue to change in this direction, say Allison and Risman, “this change will move society toward a more restrictive standard for all, rather than toward increasing freedom to sexual pleasure wherever one may find and desire it.”

I suspect that Ms. Grose and I would have different feelings about the benefits of a more restrictive standard, but we agree that this is a significant development. Grose goes on to point out that “this new data deepens the impression by authors Neil Howe and William Strauss in their book Millennials Rising, which pegged this generation as deeply conventional and traditional. They call the millennials a “corrective generation,” a group that reverses the “negative youth trends that boomers initiated.” To millennials, boomers “seem far too sexually obsessed and pleasure driven.”” They cite AIDS and the Clinton Lewinsky scandal as key factors. Indeed, sex researchers have been documenting the Clinton-Lewinsky Effect, which refers to the radical redefinition of what constitutes sex for the Millenial generation.

These findings confirm research done over ten years ago and published in the Journal of Sex Research. Milhausen and Herold studied 165 females at the University of Guelph in Canada. In particular, they were interested in the question of how women feel about the sexual double standard. Evolutionary theory would suggest that women will accept the double standard and have a positive view of men who have had a high number of sexual partners, due to social proof. Instead, they found that women with a high number of sexual partners accepted men with a high number. Women with a low number of partners held promiscuity against men, suggesting that a woman’s own sexual experience influences her tolerance of sexual experience in men. This conclusion supports learning theory:

[Women] were more likely to discourage a female friend from dating a highly experienced male than to discourage a male friend from dating a highly experienced female. These findings again suggest that women today may be judging highly experienced men more negatively than experienced women (a reverse double standard).

Of course, this is unlikely to have any effect on the behavior of highly experienced men. Men will continue to prefer sexual variety as long as it is available to them. “They may care less than women about being judged or gaining bad reputations. And they undoubtedly find that their male peers are supportive of sexual conquests and, consequently, they may be less concerned with how they are evaluated by women.”

If there is a new morality to be ushered in, it will happen at the hands of the women who reject social proof and prefer men with less sexual history. Learning theory wins the day, as women internalize the following data:

  • A high number of sexual partners is positively correlated to a low level of agreeableness in the personality.
  • There is a strong correlation between promiscuity and people with an avoidant attachment style, usually traced to childhood. Promiscuity serves as a regulatory emotional strategy to avoid commitment, provide emotional distance and exercise freedom.
  • The handsomest/most sexually experienced men demonstrate less honesty, attentiveness and support to their wives, even as newlyweds.
  • More intelligent men are more inclined toward monogamy (as well as liberalism and atheism). It is theorized that only intelligent men are able to shed the psychological baggage of the species and adopt new modes, or “evolutionarily novel” modes of behavior. (Kanazawa)

All of this confirms the anecdotal evidence that I have gathered as a blogger and confidant to young women. Having just written posts about STDs here and here, I am also certain that fear of disease increasing plays a role in creating a reverse double standard.

It is perhaps ironic that rather than abolishing the old sexual double standard for women, deregulation of the sexual marketplace may have actually added one for men. That sounds like equality to me.

Hat tip to Stuart, Lisette and Ysabelle for forwarding the Slate article. I appreciate you all looking out for me!

Filed in: Hooking Up Realities, What Guys Want • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
  • Robin

    It's about time! This is great to see Susan! I'm glad women are finally pushing against the social norm.

    Personally, I won't hold the number of sexual partners against a man, but if I know or can determine that he's promiscuous (which I would define as more than one woman in a weekend) then he automatically drops off my radar as a potential hook up or LTR.

    It's funny that you post this today – Just last night I was hanging out with my friend and we were talking about how the military tries to shelter women and I pointed out that the double standard the military has towards women is also evident in the social world. I brought up the fact that PUA's are celebrated, but women who demonstrate the same behaviors are ostracized. Much to my surprise, I am apparently seeing a man who looks down on man whores. His view point – Men are more likely to sleep around, but a real man would play it close to the chest and not boast about his sexual encounters even with his buddies. He said that in his opinion, men who feel the need to boast about it to friends are simply trying to boost their own ego and ergo have very little self confidence to begin with.

    Needless to say, I agree with him. No matter what the PUA's say about self confidence being needed to be successfully, I hold to the idea that for most, it isn't a true self confidence, but a type of bravado that just gets reinforced to the point they can no longer drop the act and become jaded.

    • More than one woman in a weekend??!!! That’s a pretty lenient standard! I guess this is a personal judgment, but I would consider a guy promiscuous if he hooked up with more than one woman every couple of months. Like, three women in one semester? Player.

      I think it’s true that very secure men will boast less with their buddies, and I think this also comes with maturity. Personally, I think much of the boasting is about random hookups – if a guy is into a girl, he’s not going to be demeaning her for a laugh.

      I agree that self-confidence cannot withstand scrutiny if it is forced and artificial – fake it till you make it can work for one night, perhaps, but not in any sustained relationship.

      • Robin

        Perhaps I’m being lenient, but that to me is promiscuous, otherwise I see it as men being players. Players can be promiscuous, but that crosses my line.

      • Screwtape

        The thing is, what can happen here is a guy might act like he has hooked up more often when he hears friends of his bragging about conquests. Guys feel alot of peer pressure in such situations to ‘keep up’ with other guy’s exploits so he does not lose status among them. Not to mention the odd man out factor at work here. Still, it does show a lack of self-confidence. But he isn’t necessarily the man-whore he says he is.

        I liken this phenomena to the one displayed by people who try to one-up each other over scars, bad experiences, and general woe-is-me stuff. “Yah, it sucks your Dad beat you as a kid, but MY Mom would hold me down for when my Dad beat me!”

        I always like to lose these most-miserable competitions.

        • This is why studies show that when you ask college men what percentage of the male student population got laid last weekend, they say, 75-80%. The real number is 5-10%. That’s a lot of storytelling.

      • Snowdrop111

        “Personally, I think much of the boasting is about random hookups – if a guy is into a girl, he’s not going to be demeaning her for a laugh.”

        I agree with this. I have always thought this was part of the “Guy Code.” If a guy is into a girl, and the guys start in “You f****** her?” the guy goes “She’s a nice girl.” That’s guy code for “Don’t start. I’m potentially serious about her.” I’ve known a guy I was dating reply, “That’s a personal question” to “You f****** her?” Or at least this is what he told me he said. Please allow me my delusions! haha.

        I read that when Henry Kravis was getting serious about what’s her name–one of the Social X-rays from the 80’s–he asked a buddy who was potentially in on the RJR Nabisco deal what he thought of the Social X-Ray and the buddy said she was a scheming golddigger. Henry Kravis goes “I’m thinking of marrying her” and the buddy was out of the RJR Nabisco deal. I don’t know if it’s true but I think guys who know anything know the guy code–watch your mouth about a woman your buddy might be serious about–but I don’t know. Has the guy code gone away? I want my boyfriend to go caveman if another man says bad things about me. For my part I won’t act in a way that might make him have to get in a duel. OK I’m old-fashioned.

        • I’d never heard that Henry Kravis story. Ouch! I don’t think the guy code has gone away – I think the way a man speaks about a woman indicates a lot about his character. That’s what the guy code addresses – honor.

  • Cult Her Imports

    "Studies have consistently shown that men strongly prefer women who are less sexually experienced than they are. On the other hand, women prefer men who are sought after by many other females."

    Apples and oranges.

    To be correctly analagous the statement should read:

    1. Studies have consistently shown that men strongly prefer women who are less sexually experienced than they are. On the other hand, women prefer men who are more sexually experienced than they are.

    OR

    2. Women prefer men who are sought after by many other females. On the other hand, men prefer women who are not sought after by many other men, IN WHICH CASE MEN WOULD PREFER UGLY AND/OR VERY OBESE WOMEN OVER 50.

    • Duly noted. The point I was trying to make is that in this context

      Men who are sought after by many other females = men with considerable sexual experience.

      This assumes that men turning down sex is a rare event. Indeed, you might be more likely to see a Brontosaurus crossing the street.

  • Wow this is a great resource.. I’m enjoying it.. good article

  • On the female side I’m not sure it’s whether the sexual experience is a deal maker, but whether or not it’s a deal breaker. When you add up the pros and cons, men and women have different lists; that seems clear. But on the con side how would “He’s slept around a lot” rank along with “Has no ambition” or “Hygiene is lacking.”

    My ear isn’t really to the ground with college age women or women in their later twenties when the deal making is more flexible. But if all the other factors are there and he’s gorgeous and talented and funny and has a great job and wants kids – but has slept with, say, 50 women, would she cross him off the list? My guess is if the situation were reversed men would be whipping out the pen to cross away.

    • Oh, no question. I think women are much more forgiving than men on the question of number, or “notches.” It also depends on where and when. The hypothetical you describe would probably be a man in his mid to late 20s, looking to settle down. I think most women would easily forgive a past, if he was clearly oriented towards monogamy. However, meeting a guys who has all the qualities you mention, and a series of several hookups in the last year? That wouldn’t be such a good bet, IMO.

      The double standard will always apply more to women. However, I do believe that women are capable of learning – it is not difficult to see that players make every single woman miserable. Unless one has a high proclivity for risk-taking, a man with a history of flings rather than relationships is a very poor prospect.

  • Posting for Vincent Ignatius:

    I’m hesitant to buy into it until girls actually start changing their behavior. It’s game 101 to ignore what women say, and pay attention to what they actually do. Girls may claim they don’t want players, but I’ll bet money that if you observe them in the field, most of those women will go after players over nice guys.

    Players still won’t be the choice for LTRs, except for the top girls who think they can actually keep him around.

    • I agree 100% that it pays to judge people by their actions, not their intentions. I do question how you define top girls – I view women who try to flip a player as bottom feeders with very low self-esteem, especially if they KNOW he is unfaithful. A top girl will not settle for a man who has been indiscriminate in his sex life – it is a sign of poor self-discipline and weak character.

      • Vincent Ignatius

        Looks, intelligence and personality all factor into what makes a quality girl. The girls who rate highly on these metrics know they’re more likely to be able to keep an alpha male. Girls who don’t score so high but are still decent will hold out for a provider beta, though they will still hook up with alphas on occasion. Girls who are low quality will remain pump and dump material until age forces them out of the market.

        • There are some HB10s with intelligence and personality that will fall for and commit to a Player, e.g. Sandra Bullock. However, I have witnessed many refuse to halfway it with a Player. The women who have the highest mating value are the ones who possess those traits you desire but remain extremely selective about who they have sex with. They’ll probably marry an Alpha once he has finished sowing his wild oats, and some will marry Betas who are super smart yet attractive. Women aren’t looking for providers any more.

          Also, when you mention personality I assume you mean someone who is interesting and fun to be with. However, there are five dimensions to personality including agreeableness and neuroticism. My guess is that your sexual partners who are knowingly sharing are very high on both of those.

        • Il Capo

          Sandra Bullock was never a 10. Physically, she’s ~ a 6-7 these days.

        • Haha, I knew someone would say she’s a 7!!! Personally, I think she looks like a man. She’s handsome. Must have a very Alpha father.

        • Il Capo

          Hotness police at your service. And 7 is generous.

        • About “10”s and Alpha females…

          They seem to be different populations. The aforementioned Henry Kraviz is currently married to a true Alpha female, Marie-Josee Kraviz. She’s on the board at the NY Fed, and on the board at the New York Met. That’s just a start. At 61, she’s autumnally beautiful and, of course, model-slender. My guess is that if he wants to indulge a bit on the side, it better never come out in a way that would embarass her. Something tells me she would never put up with what “Babe” Paley, or Hillary Clinton did.

          Bill Clinton may want to hook up with “10”s, although his hillbilly entrails betray him time and again, but he has the good sense to stay with Hillary. It looks like his philandering days are behind him too.
          .-= Mule Chewing Briars´s last blog ..Never Let Them Know You’re Paying Attention =-.

        • Mule, I love that phrase – autumnally beautiful. Very classy. MJK sounds like my kind of woman. At least in photos she looks like she knows how to keep her husband intrigued. Is she the woman the guy called the scheming gold digger?

          I also love “hillbilly entrails” LOL! Mule is a very witty fellow. I’m not sure you’re right about Bill Clinton though. A good friend of mine has a niece who was photo’d sitting on his lap at a party. She was 22 or so. She was very proud of this photo and it made the rounds in the family. My friend was thoroughly disgusted at her brother and his wife for being very pleased. It amounts to pimping out your daughter. I kept thinking that if Hillary got the nomination, photos like that would have started showing up. I think he fools around, it’s just that no one, including Hillary, cares.

  • Posting for Il Capo:
    Color me skeptical, but I believe the vast majority of women who rationally despise men who are promiscuous will be very likely to irrationally justify the actions of a few of these men when it suits them. 

    I’ve heard women talk like that and believed them for a while, only to see them go for precisely these types of guys when it suited them. In some cases, they did so to break a dry spell and tried to keep it quiet and in other cases they pursued relationships with these guys by convincing themselves that the guys had either changed or would be changed by them. 

    I believe some women may not only say so but act in accordance all the time, but I believe that figure to be well south of 70%.

    • Posting for Dragnet

      Ha! I just realized we both used ‘color me skeptical to being our comments 🙂

    • Fair enough, women will have to walk the walk. However, these studies essentially measure changes in attitudes, and I think that’s pretty significant. How is it any different from a Gallup poll?

      If more women disrespect promiscuous men, then some will hold fast and some will backslide – that’s human nature. We are talking about men that are attractive, after all. Social proof IS powerful. However, I believe that we can and do learn from experience – many young women have witnessed other women get hurt by a player. That’s a powerful disincentive.

      • Aldonza

        Nah, what’s more likely to happen is the same thing that happens to women today when you slut-shame. They lie. When guys realize that women are turned off by high number counts, you’ll see the same sort of number-fudging that goes on when women are asked. And if we’re talking about players who have no intention of anything further than a hookup, the chances of him lying go even higher.

        • I agree that men will not change their behavior, LOL! Some will do whatever is necessary to maximize their opportunities for sex, including lie. It’s common now, obviously. It will up to women to figure out the real intentions and character of the guy, and that means…..waiting longer to have sex.

  • Posting for Dragnet:
    Color me skeptical on this one. 

    What this will probably lead to is greater discretion on the part of alphas. Most of their bad rep comes from the fact that too many of them publish very loudly their sexual conquests. I saw this firsthand at college. The players who were quiet (a la George Clooney) had no problems whatsoever…but the ones who weren’t were the targets of some degree of scorn. 

    The lesson here is for discretion…reading anything else in to this is just wishful thinking.

    • Discretion is key to the success of the player. This is very difficult in college, or a small town, but quite easy to pull off in an urban environment. However, the point is that women with full information will reject promiscuous men. That requires men to be deceitful to maintain their status while trying to seduce multiple women. If women demand more, men either have to deliver or lie, an unethical short-term strategy.

      • dragnet

        “However, the point is that women with full information will reject promiscuous men.”

        This is exactly what I’m rejecting. Women have always had an incentive to give less slutty answers in surveys than are actually true.

        But women know how promiscuous the quiet alphas are, because they talk amongst themselves. It’s only a problem when he loudly and obnoxiously publishes his activities, because it subjects his conquests to the slut label and arouses the ire of the betas around him. If he exercises discretion, women will continue to offer themselves—despite what they say in survey.

        The means by which women obtain full information about the promiscuous alpha—as well as his social demeanor—is the primary driver here. Once again, I know this from personal experience. There is no backlash against promsicuous alphas—just loud ones.

        • How about that guy you knew who was dating a woman for a long time, and she made him wait for sex – she wanted to make sure he was committed. Meanwhile, he pretended to wait while having sex on the side with numerous other women. She is an example of a woman who will not choose a player, though in that case she did so unwittingly.

          I have to say, men who are players or have tight Game will understandably reject such a study. I’m sure that “conditions on the ground” for guys who have a lot of different sexual partners look the same as they ever did.

          What may be occurring is a change in attitudes. There is no question in my mind that women are getting angry and feel misused by men who “just want to have fun.” Whether this expressed loss of respect changes behavior will be evident soon enough. I predict there will be a shift, though the most hypergamous women will make poor choices, just as they always have.

        • dragnet

          Yes, but she didn’t make him wait because he was a player…she made him wait, because that’s just how she was. Whether or not he was a player had nothing to do with how she treated him—she was just a genuinely conservative girl who still got taken, unfortunately. She made every guy wait—alpha, beta, whateva.

          Women will never single out alphas for judgment. The only real solution is the one you proposed: for a critical mass of women to impose a higher standard for men to meet by decreasing their own sluttiness. This will primarily affect alphas, yes, but that isn’t the same as holding the same alphas up to increased public scorn for their success with women.

        • Oh, I didn’t take this as a trend toward public scorn, nor do I recommend that. Heaven knows, there’s enough public shaming going around between women and men already. I’m a big believer in voting with one’s feet, that’s it.

          Personally, I think we have a situation where the most sexually active men have gotten so much poon that they have ultimately grossed out some women enough that they already have become more selective = “decreased their sluttiness.”

          Recently I was with the group of BU seniors I’ve written about, and they were talking about this issue – one of them was talking about her phone being blown up with texts from some hockey player. Her friend said, “God, his dick has been in like, hundreds of vag’s!” and they all said, “Ugh, that is so foul.” The girl who received the texts didn’t even consider responding. The guy is a man whore. The reverse double standard definitely exists, at least for guys like that.

          By the way, the study didn’t address it, but women have learned that guys who have gotten around that much will never be monogamous and are not LTR material. Some of them have girlfriends, but usually women will say, “Yeah, sucks for her.”

        • ExNewYorker

          This isn’t going to change things very much since the cads can do a very simple set of things: lie and keep their mouths a little bit more shut.

          My cad brother only bragged about his conquests to his close friends and family, for that exact same reason. In an urban setting, even a college setting, there’s still a large amount of anonymity.

          And it’s funny to hear that some women have “decreased their sluttiness”. So, they’re cutting down to only a dozen hookups a year?

          Maybe this will weed out the dumb cads, but it’s not going to affect things too much until women weed out ALL cads. But that’s not going to happen for the mainstream…maybe for 20% of the cleverer women, but not the majority…

        • Interesting you should say this. I was thinking the same thing when I wrote my current post, How to Make Sure You Don’t Fall For a Player. It was actually inspired by some things you mentioned about how to make sure the woman you’re seeing is LTR material, and what you valued in your wife.

          To be fair “decreasing their sluttiness” was coined by dragnet, not me. But yes, your point is valid. There’s not a lot of gray area in morality, IMO.

        • ExNewYorker

          I should have referenced it as being Dragnets comment…I’m still getting used to the new comment system… 🙂

          It’s possible that a backlash against players might happen. Maybe women will start being more careful about falling for the players, but it’s too early to tell, I think. However, it’s a least a good first step that a meme may be starting, and a site such as this one at least may help those on the fence…

  • Posting for Stuart Schneiderman

    Let me agree with those commenters who have been saying that there is often a serious divide between what people say and what they do. We have all known women who have sworn never to allow themselves to stay in an abusive relationship find themselves in such a relationship and be unable to get out of it.

    Part of the confusion here– let’s just say it is my confusion– is the way these categories are defined. A man can have a lot of sexual experience from being involved in a long term relationship with one woman. In fact, it he will probably have more sex than will a man who is out trolling for trollops every night.

    And there is a significant difference between the man who is always seen with a beautiful woman– perhaps because he is a star athlete or an important executive– and the man who has had a lot of sex because he hangs around bars until the last call and goes home with any woman who is still standing.

    The second type is obviously less attractive than the first. Part of this is his sexual behavior and the risk that he is carrying an STD, but the other part is that he really has very little to offer and therefore no woman would really want to stay with him very long.

    • This is true. Sexual experience does not equal promiscuity. I believe that this recent study specifically looked at promiscuity, but David Buss and other evo psychologists have researched the sexual experience question. Women would welcome sexual experience if it came from a committed relationship. My guess is that men would not welcome this in their partners though – I would think a man would feel emasculated if his partner had more sexual technique than he did. I’ve heard young men say they were relieved when their girlfriends gave them a terrible BJ, haha, because it reassured them that she hadn’t done it much.

      You’re also right about there being different kinds of alpha males. We tend to paint them all with a disapproving brush, and it’s true that men with high testosterone are generally less agreeable. However, we can all name upstanding professional athletes of good character, etc. A man who is only out for sex, and calls himself alpha when he gets some is free do to so, just as I am free to start calling myself an ingenue.

  • Posting for Kathryn

    Ooh! Thank you for posting this Susan! It actually answers some questions I’ve been having lately!

    Apparently a boy I hooked up with, but did not have sex with, has been telling his fraternity brothers that we did have sex. …Not terribly surprising… you hear about this sort of thing all the time… but I guess it’s just a different experience when it’s being said about you personally. So like a typical girl, I’ve been racking my brain and trying to figure exactly why he felt the need to lie.

    Turns out your post has opened my eyes and I’ve now realized I was just overanalyzing the situation (also, not terribly surprising). I’m now willing to bet that your explanation is right: he didn’t want to be rejected by his peers, and he wanted to help his reputation.

    …The answer is so simple.

    • Kathryn, there is no question that peer pressure is real for guys, but it’s wrong for a guy to lie about this and misrepresent your behavior, and by extension, your character. He sought to promote himself at your expense, and that is unacceptable. I hope you’re not still interested in him.

      I have a question for you – does this post ring true for you? Do you and your friends find the players attractive, i.e., a conquest to be won? Or do you steer clear of those guys?

      • Kathryn

        Oh don’t worry, I’m completely done with him. Once I got the smallest inkling that he wasn’t interested in me and was just interested in sex, I got out of there fast.

        As far as your question goes: Yes, I do find the players attractive. They usually have the looks, charm, and sense of humor… what more could you want right? But while I do find them attractive, I definitely steer clear of those guys.

        For the most part, players are fairly easy to recognize if you’re looking for it. Lots of times I have had great chemistry with a really attractive guy, but once I get the slightest feeling he might be a player I typically back off. If I am right in my assessment and he is in fact a player then I saved myself some time and heartache. If I’m wrong then hopefully he’ll be willing to pursue me until he has proved to me otherwise.

        If anything, I would say on the rare occasion when my friends and I pay attention to the players, we just mess with their heads (flirting, leading them on, etc) because we think it’s funny and they deserve it. …Not the most mature response I admit. In that respect, we see them as a conquest. It’s kind of a challenge to see how far you can build up their anticipation before they realize that you have absolutely no intention of hooking up with them. I guess it’s like we’re giving them a little taste of their own medicine or something.

        • Yay! I love that. Your head is totally in the right place.

        • ExNewYorker

          The interesting thing is that Kathryn admits to finding the players attractive. She, as opposed to a large number of her sisters, may ultimately avoid hooking up with the cads, but she’s still in the minority. And even she admits to the cad attraction…if a very clever cad appeared, he might be able to pierce those shields. And the solid beta? Oh well, he’s not even in consideration…

          So, even a woman who avoids the players still admits to being attracted to the cads. So, it’s a pretty clear message to the betas out there…you have to have some cad in you! It also is an indication that for a LTR, reformed betas have to be picky…a woman with lots of cads in the past is not a good bet…

        • Well, ENY, that’s nothing new. I have never questioned whether women find cads attractive. That’s been proven since time began, or they would be extinct by now. That’s what that study of the “dark traits” looked at – why are narcissists, liars, etc? still in the population? And they found that those men have more sexual partners than other men.

          Why do you say that Kathryn would not consider a beta? She says that it’s rare that she and her friends give a player any attention. She does admit to hooking up with a cad, but again, that can be hard to discern. Most women don’t want to arrive at college saying frat boy = cad, especially if that dominates the social scene.

          As for your message to betas – get some cad in you – yes, I second that. You know that I am pro-Game in this regard.

        • ExNewYorker

          Susan, you are correct in that I may be jumping to conclusions about Kathryn not considering a beta. I made that comment based on the internal evidence: the fact that she describes the players as attractive based on several characteristics, characteristics not commonly attributed to the average beta. Of course, I could be incorrect, but I’d call it a guess based on the available evidence.

          And truth be told, I’m not really ragging on Kathryn here. I understand the attraction to the cads. They can be very charming, and from the male perspective, they can also be very fun to hang out with and can be good friends (or siblings, in my case). But, if I ever had a close female friend, I would be frank in my advice, if asked, that they rarely make good LTR material.

          Now, I’m sure the attraction of the cads is something from time immemorial. But I’d liken it to modern day foods. We now have access to unlimited sources of fat, for example ice cream. And we have a deep attraction, as humans, to it. But learn to understand that continuous sating of the appetite with those only those types of foods can have significant health consequences. So we learn some self-control…

          Now, I’m sure your average beta has equivalent attractions, but the difference is that such a guy has a longer history of learning to accept the reality of things.

        • I cannot believe it! As I was out and about today, I was thinking of your comment and thinking that women’s attraction to cads is like the human desire for fat and sugar. Amazing! I think it’s an excellent metaphor – it gives a nice rush for a little while, but then your blood sugar crashes and you feel terrible. Some people never learn and some figure out it to stay healthy. In this case, it’s about emotional and mental health, but I think the same principle applies. And the nice, smart beta? He’s like a delicious healthy black bean soup with a ham bone in it! Delicious with a little fat and a lot of good nutrition. OK, maybe I took the metaphor too far….

  • Posting for VJ:

    I think that once again what we’re talking about here are the most select upper most tranches of the population of likely prospective women & men here. The ones all independently graded AAA by Moodys, S&P & others to be only the finest & highest quality available. In other words, that larger portion of the dating universe occupied by some sort of self satisfying, self fulfilling fantasies involving ever hopeful but never quite seen developments in human understanding & evolution. To wit:

    1.) All those ‘nice gals’ who ought to & actually Do ‘know better’? Are still prone to follow the siren call of the ‘tingle & jingle’ to bed down with those ‘bad boys’ at least for the 1st decade or so after HS/Middle School, if not by Statute, seemingly by natural law. (And yes, that’s often a Best case scenario too). Ditto for the guys (at even older ages) and the ever ready ancient pull & attraction for real beauty & especially fecund youth of any sort, at the cost of nearly all common sense, at almost any time anywhere. That’s ‘merely’ biology, but it’s still really hard to ‘overcome’, especially consciously too!

    2.) Both sexes, if careful can now easily hide their past sexual involvements. If they’ve been cautious and careful (which can easily be done, BTW), no one need know about their prior experience. And they can & often do lie about this to select audiences, as needed & required. The scars they might carry on their hearts need not be present in every interaction with the opposite sex, and they might be able to function quite well even as parents/spouses ‘in another life’. Just like many prior ‘gang-bangers’ might do upon leaving the gang to raise & family & go ‘straight’. You’ve got plenty of dark memories you might not be willing to share, but you might become a very successful otherwise ‘perfectly normal seeming’ member of the community. Other than the tats? No one needs to be reminded of much, really of your ‘past lives’. And now, many have lived several. So there’s not much of a high ‘evolutionary cost’ here for promiscuity, from either side.

    3.) About those tats…Somewhere near 40% of the female population under the age of 35 has at least one or several tats now. (Males are broadly similar depending on the population). Why is that? Same dynamic really with other ‘impulsive behavioral choices’ that she & we might come to regret later. Despite knowing how yes, ‘freakish’ it might make them seem, how ostracized it might make them in society? The impulse to ‘join the in crowd’ to ‘be cool’ or to even ‘rebel in a permanent way’ seems well just well nigh irresistible to much of the younger set. Again much of this has to do with impulse control. Denial of pleasure. Is there much in the culture that speaks to the ‘delayed gratification’ necessary & vitally needed to lead even a modicum of a healthy adult life, let alone speaking directly to some level of actually denying yourself pleasure due to it’s inherent or long range risks? Seems mighty rare, now & forever actually.

    No, this has always been a deeply complex issue with deep roots in both our Western culture (writ large) and our particular primate biology. Promiscuity will never quite go out of style as long as it’s continually celebrated & rewarded in the media, mostly forgiven in an indulgent manner when youngish, or recognized & ‘treated’ as a perhaps only a fleeting psychiatric condition in old age. And historically? When this has been dramatically less so? (Say the Dark Middle Ages?) Even then no one could stop it much for long!

    Hence the rational choice many guys eventually come to who study ‘the game’, a la Kafka ‘when you’re in a fight against the world, back the world!’ It’s perhaps not the ‘right’ way to be or even the most ‘moral stance’ for an enduring LTR, but it yes, will finally supply these desperate souls with a modicum of poon to slake their immediate desires. Ditto for the women too, BTW, which is often under recognized. Women’s lustful desires are forever under appreciated, but they remain a fact of life, and are always part of the equation.

    Cheers & Good Luck, ‘VJ’

    • a modicum of poon to slake their immediate desires

      Oh, VJ, you do have a way with words! I don’t think that all of us are equally slaves to our desires. The truth is that many people successfully adopt monogamy as a way of life, despite the ceaseless siren call of new sexual adventures. It makes sense to me that it is at least possible that human beings are capable of “evolutionarily novel” behavior, adapting or learning based on experience. Honestly, if that were not true, we’d live in some kind of sexual anarchy and destroy our own civilization – granted, we’ve set off down that path, but we’re still a long way from the point of no return.

      Re your point about hiding one’s past, this is very interesting and the subject of my next post!

      • Michael

        So how did evolutionary novel behavior ever catch on?

        Should it not have been eliminated by natural selection?

        • Perhaps it will be. I don’t think it’s clearly understood, but we do have many men making the choice to be monogamous, even though men were designed to prefer sexual variety. The theory would say that intelligent men decide, based on life experience, that they are willing to make that choice, that tradeoff, because they derive benefits that are superior to polygyny.

  • Chili

    “Research has shown a positive correlation between the number of sexual partners a woman has, and her ability to maintain a stable marriage. There is no data yet on the effect on males, but women may be either intuitive or projecting in predicting a similar outcome for men.”

    So the more sexual partner’s she’s had, the more stable her marriage? How surprising! Or do you mean a negative correlation?

    On a different note, I’ve known many women who say they are very turned off by the idea of a man being more sexually inexperienced than they, even if ever so slightly. But as has been said, there is a difference between what people say they do and what they actually do. These same women (in my experience) are in LTRs with these inexperienced men. Why? My theory is this: because an overwhelming majority of men are betas, an overwhelming majority of men aren’t gettin any. And as has been established on this blog, betas like LTRs.

    So in today’s sexual marketplace, a women has to choose what she wants in a man: sexual experience, and thus higher perceived worth, or an affinity for LTRs.

    Guess what the smart girls pick.

    • Chili, the correlation between marital stability and the number of previous sexual partners is negative. From Psychology Today:

      Consider the 2003 study of over 10,000 women which found that as the number of non-marital sexual partners went up, the probability of marital stability went down. For example, once a woman has had 5 sexual partners, the probability of pulling off an intact marriage dips under 30%; it is under 20% when the number of sexual partners reaches the upper teens.

      http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/love-bytes/200910/passion-in-hook-culture

      I think women can be uncomfortable with having more sexual experience than the man they are seeing. It makes them feel promiscuous, even if the truth is that they have only had quality relationship sex. It’s interesting that you know some women who have chosen to be in LTRs with these men, rather than acquire more sexual partners in STRs.

      • Aldonza

        OK, I’ve seen that particular study thrown about the blogosphere tons of times. It was even referred to on another blog thread as “a fact so obvious, it’s not even worth debating.” Being the kind of person I am with a strong taste for “sacred cows”, I wanted to see what it was about and what other studies might have shown.

        Here is the study for those who are curious:
        http://www.ampartnership.org/pdf/HarmfulEffectsofSexualActivity.pdf

        #1: Heritage Foundation studies have a clear agenda.
        #2: It only bothers to measure the stability of *women’s* past. As if men’s history has no impact. My gut is they did measure it and the findings were more troubling.
        #3: It is not a study that is peer-reviewed or published in any journals.

        Even carefully-designed, non-biased, peer-reviewed studies are subject to inaccuracies. This is none of the above.

        • Thank you! I spent an hour this morning looking for that study and could not find it. I had to settle for the Psych Today link. You are right about the Heritage Foundation, definitely worth skepticism there. I thought it might refer to the Kahn and London study of Premarital Sex and the Risk of Divorce – but couldn’t find that either.

          Personally, my own number would put me at poor odds and that hasn’t played out. Furthermore, women who marry very young may be more likely to be virgins, but we know they are more likely to divorce. Finally, I would imagine that a man with a very high number would have trouble sustaining a monogamous relationship – duh.

          So yes, your point is well taken. In fact, I’m going to amend the post. That claim just doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Thank you.

        • P.S. Aldonza, I’m interested to know what you think about the backlash against man whores. It is real? Is it feasible?

        • Aldonza

          Real? I don’t know based on the results of one study. Feasible? Sure. I’d even go so far as it makes perfect evo-psych sense.

          PUAs take the tidbit of “men who are attractive to other women have more value to a woman” and twisted it into a rather self-serving “all women like manwhores.”

          I agree that women are attracted to men who can get other women, but they don’t necessarily want a man who *has* slept with all those other women. It’s really not that different than men wanting a woman who can get other men (highly physically attractive), but who hasn’t exercised that option.

        • Women are attracted to men who can get other women, but they don’t necessarily want a man who *has* slept with all those other women.

          Exactly! The problem is that guys come to believe there’s no such thing as too much social proof. This misimpression will harm a guy’s chances for a LTR, no question, IMO. There will be women who can’t resist him, but perhaps not of the type that he really wants. He’s wearing a virtual big sign that says, “All sex is meaningless to me, and I can never get enough of it.”

        • dragnet

          “Women are attracted to men who can get other women, but they don’t necessarily want a man who *has* slept with all those other women.”

          Entirely sensible, if not exaclty realistic.

          And what’s the cut-off for a guy who’s been too promiscuous? I would expect that it’s higher than the cut-off men would impose for women, but I’m interested to see what the number is.

        • Aldonza

          I would suspect that a woman’s cut-off is directly related to her own “number”. That is, she’s probably more OK with a man who has more notches than her than a man would be, just not “too much” more.

          This supports my theory that the women that Game typically targets with pre-selection are more OK with high lay counts…because the targets have high lay counts.

        • I agree that this is very subjective, and also dependent on timing. For example, let’s assume a 24 year-old woman meets a man a couple of years older and he demonstrates interest in a relationship, as well as trustworthiness. At some point he tells her that he had a great deal of no-strings sex at some point during his past, but that he is no longer interested in that. I think most women would not consider that a dealbreaker, or probably even ask the number. As you say, women do love reformed bad boys, IF they are truly reformed. Still, she will need considerable reassurance as to the probability of fidelity.

          On the other hand, if a woman is dating a guy and becomes aware of recent drama with other women, lots of random hookups, etc. she will be put off. If she learns that he’s had even 6 one-night stands in the last year, it’s probably going to be a dealbreaker, and if she got word of this behavior through other women, awkward social encounters that make her wonder what’s up, etc. it won’t go well for him, IMO. Women don’t like dating men that a bunch of other women call douchebag, it makes them feel ashamed.

          Obviously, not all women are the same. I’m really talking here about women of good character – they’re generally not hooking up early and often w/o strings. In any case, they’re the best LTR material, so it’s worth considering their view if that’s what you want.

        • dragnet

          I agree about Game’s typical targets. But Game isn’t limited to these kinds of women. That’s just where most guys who employ it choose to do so.

          Don’t fool yourself.

        • Anonymous

          Thanks Aldonza! Well I looked at the ‘study’ and it’s really not a study at all. It’s entitled “A BOOK OF CHARTS” and literally no original research went into it. And mostly? It’s about abstinence Until marriage & within it, which are some of the policy directives behind the yes, wildly Right Wing Heritage ‘Foundation’. Some of the action there is described here:

          http://www.publiceye.org/magazine/v22n4/heritage.html

          But it was ‘gathered & massaged’ by the usual in house policy flacks at Heritage, all of whom have deep & well known ideological biases. Which is where they’re coming from. Mostly the charts are pretty besides the point too. It’s not an investigation after all to reveal new ‘truths’, it’s mostly things we might be able to suspect or find elsewhere, but written to highlight their special ideological cause.

          But again most of the stats were gathered for the purpose of fronting the not too controversial belief in the ‘Negative Consequences of Early Sexual Activity’, & NOT about the sexual behaviors of adults per se.

          So again the oldest stats. trick in the book: Correlation (or loose associations) does Not Mean Causation!

          So this was meant as mainly a policy document for recommendations favoring abstinence education, and their favored policy prescriptives for the ‘bible based successful conservative marriage model’, and no, I kid you not. It really tells us little about the ‘Life Course of Middle Aged Women’ who might be divorced, and have some BF or single gals in their 20-30’s who don’t happen to live at home or cloistered doing religious study in the favored convents, (which of course no longer actually exist).

          So again most of the research is highly skewed towards the negative outcomes of earlier sexual involvement as teens (which they do define as early as 12-14).

          And they have this vapid thought on the question of the number of partners too:

          • Finally, the greater the increase in the number of non-marital sex partners, the lower the probability of personal happiness. Some 56 percent of women who have had sex only with men they have married report that they are currently “very happy.” By contrast, only 37 percent of women with five non-marital sex partners report that they are “very happy.” [WooHoo!!]

          Yeah, there’s a sterling recommendation people! Barely half of the wives will be happy with you even if your virgins @ marriage! The Perfect life? Barely beats a coin flip, actually! Is it any wonder why drugs are so popular? Especially for mommies?! (Always have been actually).

          The quote in question comes from their deeply confused Chart 15: “Women Who Have More Non-Marital Sexual Partners Are Less Likely to Have Stable Marriages”. Which means anything over 5 ‘other Dicks'(non marital partners)’? You’re evidently somehow marked for life. But again this is heavily skewed, due to their focus on Earlier Sexual Involvement of Teens, hence the trouble seen? Is mostly as a direct result of that ‘action/activity’ way back then.

          Here’s their description of the chart: “This chart shows the relationship between the number of non-marital sexual partners and single parenthood. All the women represented on the chart are mothers with children. The left-hand column represents women who have sex only with men they have married. Some 7 percent of these mothers were single parents at the time of the survey; 93 percent were married. The probability of being a single mother rises as the number of lifetime non-marital sex partners rises. Some 53 percent of mothers with five lifetime non-marital sex partners were single parents at the time of the survey.
          Source: CDC, National Center for Health Statistics, National Survey of Family Growth, 1995”. [15 YO by now too].

          So if anything we now know that magic number. Most thinking gals will answer ‘no more than 6 dear’ if they dare answer the question at all. But mostly? No one but the gummint will ever know I guess! Cheers & Good Luck! ‘VJ’

        • Ugh, so distressing to play into the hands of the abstinence only folks.

        • Screwtape

          Point one: It doesn’t matter what the source of a truth is, only that it is a truth. Whether the source is likable or the result is what is desired is not relevant.

          Point two: In statistics one must always look at the sample being used and the bounds being put on the sample. Anyone can manipulate numbers and spit them out to promote an idea.

          Those two points being made, people should take a concept from economics: The more often someone partakes of something that gives them satisfaction, the less satisfaction will be derived from it. The example I was given back in my old highschool economics course was ice cream. The first time you have a flavor, it delivers maximum satisfaction. Each subsequent time you have that flavor, the satisfaction will be marginally less. This is why ice cream stores will have multiple flavor offerings, and cycle through alternate flavors year round. This is why happy long term couples have to continuously work to alter their romantic activities (changing the ‘taste’) in order to keep the desire high in their relationship. Thing is, having different people is just another form of ‘flavor change’, and if you train yourself to continuously be looking for new ‘flavors’ to keep your sexual satisfaction up, it is going to be very hard to stay committed. Yah, they can still change ‘flavors’ within the bedroom by varying techniques, but it won’t change the craving for alternate partners unless one of them left a very bad taste in their mouth.

        • Screwtape, I agree with this. My hunch is that especially for men, who naturally crave sexual variety, that habit could be very, very tough to break. A woman who marries a man with that kind of history is at higher risk for confronting infidelity, I’m sure. It’s intuitively obvious.

          The truth – that’s tough to arrive at sometimes.

        • Michael

          @Anonymous

          If we took that claim at face value, we would encourage people to marry before graduating high school.

  • Rick

    In all probability, this is just an early echo of the eventual return to more civilized behavior.

    Usually, people start talking a lot about something before there is much action in that direction.

    My cynical side assumes that once women understand this, they will simply chase jerks from a more informed perspective. Just like much of Game is very cynical, the women will probably respond cynically.

    I think that most women will still prefer a reformed bad boy to a man who has always exhibited good character.

    This is evidenced by the fact that they are merely backing away from the worst, not rejecting it in total.

    • In all probability, this is just an early echo of the eventual return to more civilized behavior.

      I agree with this. These studies are really just taking place – we won’t know how women think for a while yet. Of course, the findings themselves have an impact on public opinion. The media loves this stuff, and it becomes fodder for discussion, which is bound to shift some attitudes.

      Women will always be attracted to bad boys. The question is: how far can you push a woman, how thoroughly can you disrespect her, before she has had enough? And can women learn by watching the painful and disastrous experiences of their peers? Yes, it’s the new scarlet letter(s): P&D. Pumped and Dumped.

  • DJB

    The Allison and Risman study is unconvincing. First, the sample includes only college students. This leads to a spurious inference that if more women and men view promiscuous sex as a negative for both sexes in college, the same will hold throughout the rest of one’s reproductive life. However, if men are putting off commitment until later in life, then a greater proportion of men will view relationships in college as more casual. This is not a good thing for women generally. I know I cared nothing about a women’s history when I was only looking for a casual relationship. I would say just about anything to get the sex, including how I didn’t judge her. It was true I didn’t judge, because I didn’t see the relationship as leading to family or children, or for that matter deep emotional or financial commitment. I didn’t let her in on this little caveat. And most women I dated in college wanted more than I intended to give. Basically I wanted regular sex. Not admirable, but the truth. Really, the double standard in college is by and large applied by women against women. If my views are representative to any extent, then most men only really care about history when they are looking to invest, and when the relationship has reached a point where men need to decide whether to invest. Second, we don’t know how the survey questions were worded. That’s why I think largely surveys of this kind are useless. Garbage in, garbage out. For me, the only relevant data would be a sustained increase in the marriage rate, coupled with a decline in the age of first marriage. That would mean men either feel the environment is more conducive for investment, or women are truly changing their opinions and judging men who have a history of casual relationships. As there has been a steady decline in the marriage rate, and a steady increase in the age of first marriage, then I believe the double standard is alive and well. Unfortunately, this puts women in a tough position. Do they have sex early, and risk raising their number, with the concomitant affect that would have on their ability to get a man to commit, or do they hold out and lose a man who would otherwise have committed? This kind of dilemma makes me worry about my daughter when she gets older.

    • You are certainly right about the dilemma women face. I do know many women sitting it out on the sidelines in college. In fact, talk about peer pressure – some of them lie about their number to their friends – by exaggerating it! Women who have had 0-2 partners will often say they’ve had 5 or 6, so that they can seem more “normal.” They obviously worry that a low number will make them appear undesirable to men, which illustrates how frequently women hook up for validation from males.

      I hear what you’re saying about the survey, but the truth is that there is bound to be a lag of several years between a shift in attitudes among young women and a change in the marriage rate, if indeed there is direct causality. I’ll be interested to see whether studies start showing a drop in the percentage of students who report hooking up, and an increase in the number of relationships on campus.

      The college population is key, because it’s the center of the most extreme casual behavior around sex. When kids graduate, they take those experiences and expectations with them, importing those norms into the young professional population. When college kids start behaving differently, the 20 somethings will reflect that as they age.

  • Obsidian

    The whole problem I’m having with these kinds of “discussions” is that they are often done in either a dishonest, or ignorant, kind of way. Of course there is a so-called “sexual double standard”, one that is biologically and evolutionarily informed. But we never ask if said “standard” is legitimate or not, but rather if it appears to be “fair” or not. Nor do we ever, consider if there are other areas of human life where WOMEN actually enjoy “double standards” over Men. I posit that not only is this true, but that Women will often vociferously defend them to boot.

    I could lay them out one by one but a recent post of mine does the job quite nicely I think:

    “Women Engage In Double Standards (Much) More Then Men Do
    http://theobsidianfiles.wordpress.com/2010/03/04/women-engage-in-double-standards-much-more-then-men-do/

    Yesterday’s discussion, along with other things obtaining in the news, has inspired me to write this post, about just how much Women engage in doubles standards all. The. Time.

    This is an important topic, since it won’t be long, if you’re a guy, before you hear some lady bemoan stuff like “the sexual double standard” or “the income gap”, a form of a double standard, and so on. And to be sure, both of these issues gets mad facetime and ink. Much, much less is said though, about the very real double standards in reverse, let alone Presidential attention. But fear not, for I have come to shed the searing Light of Truth on these and other pressing matters of the day, for once you know the Truth, it shall set you free.

    So let’s dive right in:

    Female Double Standard #1: Women Objectify Men MORE Than Men Objectify Women-this is a fact, easily proofed by the most casual of observations. How? Simple: height. Women make no bones about not wanting to date a Man their own or shorter height. Take a quick spin around the Internet, there you will see Women being quite flippant, and others downright adamant, about rejecting out of hand a Man’s lack of vertical cred. Of course, many of these very same Women will call any Man who judges a Woman’s objective beauty scale to be “objectifying” and the like, and notice, have you ever heard Men enmasse deny this? Even more to the point, isn’t it true that Men settle much quicker than do Women, all things being equal? Then there’s the reaction of many of these ladies when they’re called out on the carpet for their blatant objectification of the Male form and rank discrimination based on physical factors one has no control over, *even when you freely acknowledge their right to choose whomever they want to be with*-they’ll attempt to shame you by calling you names and the like. Yet these are the very same people who have no problem labelling others as racist, homophobe, facist, etc, et al. Pot, meet Kettle much? Of course, a Woman’s desire for a taller Man harks back to our Evolutionary past, when choosing a Man based on his physical size was a reasonable thing to do; afterall, somebody had to do the heavy lifting and if necessary, killing of potential enemies. But in an age where even a kid can pull the trigger of an AK47, and when much smaller wives kill their hubbies all the time, such a fixation is really kind of silly. Yet Women will vehemently defend their right to be basically, a bigot, and will engage in rank hypocrisy at the same time. The reason why I say that, you see, is because often these very same Women will poo poo Evolutionary Psychology as being inherently misogynistic. But as we can see here, they have no problem actually embracing with a big ole bear hug, EP when it suits them.

    Hmm.

    For more on this, please see anything in the current press about Lori Gottlieb, also my recent post on her and her book “Marry Him!”.

    Female Double Standard #2: Women Are Snobs Much More Than Are Men, AND, Don’t Really Believe In Merit Either-We are often berated about this sort of thing by Women enmasse, yet many of these very same Women have no problem looking down their noses at “lesser” Men for not coming from the “right” pedigree, or not having gone to the “right” school (or school at all), not being in the “right” social circles, and so on. As author and avowed lesbian Norah Vincent chronicles in her must-read book, Self Made Man, Men are much more inclusive than Women are, especially when it comes to merit-if you can do the job, you’re in. Moreover, Men are more apt to create a system that’s more “flat”, that is to say, that is more amenable to Men or Women being able to move from one social class to another, based again on merit or at the very least, effort. Not so for Women, and this can be most vividly seen wrt Game-you wanna know the real reason why so many Women flail so wildly about on this issue? Because Game gives Men the tools to move up through the social hierarchy, that was once reserved only for the “natural Alphas” Women always desired; how dare those poor schlubs steap out of their “place!”. It rankles many Women deeply, in ways they themselves may only be dimly aware.

    For more on this point, please see my post, Why Game Elicits So Much Hate.

    Female Double Standard #3: “Reproductive Rights” Is About WOMEN, Not Men-And Women Want To Keep It That Way-with quite a few news items appearing before us involving this thorny issue-for example, the recent Pro-Life promotion efforts in the Black community, or the Woman who live Tweeted her abortion, or the Healthcare Bill that’s tied up with abortion-none of them addresses the very basic and simple premise: that it only deals with one half of the population. “Reproductive Rights” is taken to mean something that only Women can have. Men have no reproductive rights that any court is bound to respect.

    This becomes deeply problematic because Women have successfully put forward the notion that dads are optional now. Indeed, many Women are becoming single mommys *by choice*, and not just among the Lori Gottlieb set. Have we forgotten the “pregnancy pact” girls in New England a few years back? As the book Promises I Can Keep clearly shows, poor Women want to be moms and are prepared to go it alone if need be. Of course, there is no Male equivalent to such a book, even when I asked its authors whether they had interviewed the baby daddies. They hemmed and hawed and finally had to admit, no, they didn’t. Hmm.

    At any rate, the issue is clear: if a Woman has the right to determine when, and under what circumstances she is to become a parent, it is only right and just to say that the same should apply to Men. But, a quick perusal of some of the much staunch advocates for “Choice” on the Internet, will have no compunctions vociferously denying a Man’s right to choose, too. Here again, Women want the double standard to be removed when it impacts them negatively, but have no problems with it when it doesn’t. Like I said, hmm.

    And don’t even get me started on Mandatory Paternity Testing…

    Female Double Standard #4: Women Have No Desire To Financially Support A Man For ANY Reason-Here we get to the good part. While Women enmasse are all for overturning archaic notions of gender and the like, when the rubber hits the road, they not only balk but are vehement in their refusal to Man Up. Case in point? Paying for dates. Regardless of the fact that Women now make up a clear majority of the American workforce and are more educated and higher earning than many Men, to say nothing of the effects of the Mancession, Women can still be heard trying to shame Men into paying for dates, or paying more for dates, or saying “I’m not gonna support a lout” and so on. Yet, when has *any* Man said such a thing, historically speaking? It was expected that not only was the Man to pay for the date(s), but he was also to support the wife *for life*. We all either saw firsthand, or have heard of the guy who, on payday, hands his check over to his betrothed. Well, Today’s Women say “screw that!”-they’re having none of it. They want the goodies of earning a higher income, but none of the responsibilities that come with such a high honor.

    But wait Obsidian, I’m not like that, some of you ladies reading along may say. And indeed, some of you aren’t like that, my own personal life, present and at some points in the past, attests to this. And for this you are to be commended. Nevertheless, you know as well as I do, that there are easily twice or thrice as many Women out there, who take the view I outlined above, with no problem whatsoever engaging in double standards.

    Research Question for the Fellas; listen closely, and please respond:

    1. Of the past 10 Women you’ve dated or otherwise were romantically involved with, how many offered to pay for the *1st date*, without you prompting them to do so?

    2. How many of them paid or offered to pay, for *any dates* during the life of your courtship?

    3. When’s the last time a Woman called you up and asked you out on a night on the town-on her dime?

    4. When’s the last time a Woman bought you a drink?

    The responses, should be most interesting to read.

    The bottomline here is that Men enmasse, never seemed to have that much of a problem paying for dates and supporting their Women when it called for them to do so; afterall, until relatively recently, Women weren’t as fully self-supporting in that regard. But now that the tables have turned, Women have made it quite clear that not only do they have any desire to return the favor, but they also don’t have any problem denigrating any Man who fails to measure up.

    Yet another case of the Female Double Standard.

    My job is done here.

    Holla back”

    The Obsidian

    • Welcome Obsidian, nice to see you in my living room!

      First, let me say that I am only talking about a sexual double standard here. There are indeed a wide variety of double standards, some of which apply to men. For example, I’ve written how boys are being educated in feminized schools and held to a behavioral standard that is only suitable for girls of the same age.

      Second, the sexual double standard is biologically informed, which I acknowledge at the start of the post. In that sense, it is legitimate, in that it is the result of natural selection. The question is – can human beings adopt “evolutionarily novel” behaviors based on learning through life experience? This study would suggest that they can. In fact, I can imagine that my prehistoric ancestor would have thought twice about becoming impregnated by a man who was known to have fathered many other children, because he would have to share his resources too widely. The instinctive desire for his good genes would have to do battle with her instinctive desire to find a partner in parenting. Yes, large harems did exist in certain ancient Middle Eastern cultures, but they were only for men of immense wealth/power, and the women had no choice – they were slaves.

      Re objectification:

      Both sexes do this. Women do show a bias for height. Men show a bias for fertility. A hip to waist ratio of no more than .7, clear smooth skin, bright eyes, strong teeth. A very overweight or unattractive woman may be able to get laid, just by virtue of the fact that she’s better than a Fleshlight, but she will not attract the men with “good genes.”

      Re snobbishness:

      I’m inclined to agree with this, though I might say selectivity. Again, our evo roots tell the story. Women see ambition, drive, and hard work as evidence of a strong future provider. In our time, those things are most easily signaled by formal education, and consequent career opportunities it provides.

      I personally have found it much easier to work with men than women throughout my career, and have indeed found that men will reward merit, while women can be quite manipulative, political and competitive. They are more likely to create win/lose scenarios than win/win ones. I have always assumed this was because women fear a limit to the number of opportunities for them. I haven’t studied the question of meritocracy by sex.

      Re reproductive rights:

      I don’t want this to devolve into a Roe for men thread. Women bear young, it’s their bodies. I have no problem with paternity testing, and do not support a man who is not the bio father, or was a minor who had sex with an older woman, being used as an ATM. I think we will disagree on this issue, but in any case, it’s not a true double standard, because men and women are very different. It’s legit in the same way that the sexual double standard may be considered legit.

      Re paying their way:

      I do not deny that many women are trying to have their cake and it eat too here. Chivalry of the financial sort is dead, and women should not expect it. I am on record as advising men not to buy women drinks, other than as a purely generous gesture with no expectation of reward. I also advise women not to expect this, and to get the next round if this should occur. I think it’s nice for women to pay their share on dates, but it depends on the circumstances. If a man asks a woman out to dinner, a drink, whatever, he should pay. Again, if it goes well, she should offer to finance the second date.

      I’ve shared before that when I met my husband in grad school, he was flat broke, and I had an allowance. Once we were a couple, we basically used my allowance to go out. I had no problem with it, and neither did he. In fact, I don’t think we ever discussed it. Once we were committed, we took the view that it would all even out in the end. In the end, he contributed much more than I did, but I didn’t know then that would be the case.

      Double standards may have their origin in biology, but I believe that we are capable of adapting. As men stop offering to pay for drinks, women learn to stop expecting them, and as you know, reward men for not displaying submission. With fewer men going to college than men, many women will face the choice of marrying a man who is less educated, earning less, or both. Or, she can sit it out and not marry or have children. Hence the burgeoning spinster group.

      I believe that when a woman has consoled half a dozen friends who’ve been pumped and dumped by the same guy, she is capable of learning that he is not a good prospect, either short-term or long. She is capable of feeling disgust and total loss of respect. I’ve seen it happen many times. I believe that the era of the man whore is indeed coming to an end. It won’t stop casual sex, but it will affect the 80/20 ratio.

      • Obsidian

        Ms. Walsh,
        It’s too tough for me to say at this point exactly what is likely to happen going from here on out into the future along the lines the studies you’ve presented seem to indicate. What I DO know, however, is that there are many areas of human endeavor where Women have and continue to enjoy an outright double standard, and don’t seem all that interested in the least about changing it. In this, one of the goals of Feminism have been achieved in spades – that Women are People, too – with all the foiables that entails.

        That’s all I’m saying.

        The Obsidian

        • Shoot, I was hoping for a brawl, haha. Fair enough, you know I agree with you there. Plenty of foibles in the XX crowd. It’s a wonder that men think we’re worth the trouble. No wonder nature provided you all with such powerful libidos.

        • Aldonza

          What I DO know, however, is that there are many areas of human endeavor where Women have and continue to enjoy an outright double standard, and don’t seem all that interested in the least about changing it.

          So what. There are plenty of areas where men enjoy an outright double standard and I don’t see them rushing to change things.

        • I second that.

        • Obsidian

          Aldonza,
          Uh, NO “so what” – why? Because every one of the major advances Women have made, was as a DIRECT result of MEN bringing it about – which suggests to me, that Men, taken as a group, have shown and proven themselves to be quite fair and square dealing. Based on what I have laidout above in my post about Women and Double Standards, we cannot yet say the same thing for them. That’s not to say that Women can’t or won’t get there; that remains to be seen. But the early evidence as we have it, doesn’t look encouraging.

          Why don’t you actually read what i said and then attempt to poke holes in it, hmm?

          Looking forward to hearing back from ya…

          O.

        • Aldonza

          Indeed. Every one of the advances that BLACKS have made have been as a direct result of WHITES bringing it about, which suggests to me that WHITES taken as a group, have shown and proven themselves to be quite fair and square dealing.

          See how that works?

          Of course advances are ultimately made because those in power allow it. But I think you conveniently forget the work that went in by both women and blacks to bring that about and the force with which those in power fought not to change things.

        • Obsidian

          Aldonza,
          You’re really grasping at straws here, hmm? It’s OK to admit that you really don’t have a leg to stand on now. I’ll be gracious in victory. 😉

          Not only aren’t we talking about Black folks, you STILL haven’t addressed my major point, which is that this entire discussion is flawed in that it presupposes that there is only one “double standard” and that said standard only flows in one direction, to the benefit of Men and to the detriment of Women. I have presented a whole number of instances where double standards not only favor Women, but have also noted how Women will often defend them to boot. Which not only makes their posturing on issues such as these caprcious but hypocritical as well.

          Now – let’s try this again, shall we? I am arguing that the discussion is at best an incomplete one, because Women either can’t or won’t admit that they benefit from the very same double standards they want to lambast Men for having.

          Do you agree or disagree, per my essay above? How about actually addressing what I said this time, hmm?

          Holla back

          O.

        • this entire discussion is flawed in that it presupposes that there is only one “double standard” and that said standard only flows in one direction, to the benefit of Men and to the detriment of Women.

          That’s not true. I am writing only about the sexual double standard in this post, and I think I make that pretty clear. I’m not absolving women of responsibility or fault. However, anyone who observes a double standard and feels shortchanged by it is smart to speak out. Feminism is proof of that, regardless of how you feel about its consequences. It was a very effective marketing campaign.

          Women who refuse to date promiscuous men are saying “Enough is enough. You went from sexy to downright dirty. You have no standards.”

          By the way, the fact that many of the women men pump and dump are less attractive and looking to trade up doesn’t help the guys’ case. It’s further proof of lowered standards for short-term gratification, and that equals weakness of character in women’s eyes. Men who are naturally gifted or schooled in Game should use their power ethically, and I know you agree with me on that. Women are finding a way to encourage it, that’s all.

        • Aldonza

          No, I stipulated from the start to the fact that there are double-standards on both sides. My sole point from the start was that *both* sides benefit from double-standards. Further, I admit to wholeheartedly benefiting from as many of them as I can manage.

          Very few people complain about life not being fair when it’s not fair in their own favor.

          Lastly, my point in substituting your arguments about men and women with one about blacks and whites was valid and you know it, even if you’ll never admit it willingly.

        • Michael

          @ Aldonza

          You forget one thing.

          Black-dominated societies have existed since before antiquity.

          By contrast, there has never been a society ruled by women.

        • Rick

          Then why don’t you enumerate those double standards.

          Also, please discuss them at length, and with the same level of thoughtful detail as Obsidian. All you have done is make a “drive-by” comment, without any supporting evidence. Don’t be stingy – share these facts with us.

          In many ways, you have demonstrated EXACTLY why Obsidian is correct: you attempt to undermine his well-stated case with an offhand remark, as though we are to expect your “obvious” correctness.

          Obsidian put the effort in; he should be taken seriously. You’re just sniping, so you should be ignored, whether your point was valid or not.

        • Aldonza

          Obs put the effort into a *post* for his own blog and merely copied and pasted it here. I can and do respond to his posting on his own blog. I have no intention to refute that women can and do make the judgments he provides. That’s because women are…get this…human. And all humans are subject to making double-standard judgments. But, you asked.

          Female Double Standard #1: Women Objectify Men MORE Than Men Objectify Women-this is a fact, easily proofed by the most casual of observations. How? Simple: height.

          How is using one physical requirement different than the myriad of physical requirements that men have for women? Women not only have to be slim with the requisite “.7” curves, but they also need all the other signs of fertility: smooth skin, full hair, firm breasts, etc. Further, women outside of the fertile years are not released from this standard.

          Both sides use physical traits as requirements. I do not see how this is an indication of women objectifying *more* than men, but merely as a sign that both sides are looking for something likely defined by evolution.

          Female Double Standard #2: Women Are Snobs Much More Than Are Men, AND, Don’t Really Believe In Merit Either
          Obs example included no real data on this one. Of course women believe in merit. In fact, Evo-psych says that women judging men’s fitness is the real reason that men do almost anything. It’s the ultimate peacocking. It’s why men who have amazing accomplishments tend to achieve them before they take a mate and reproduce.

          Female Double Standard #3: “Reproductive Rights” Is About WOMEN, Not Men-And Women Want To Keep It That Way
          Yep. I’ll grant ya this one. Reproductive rights is about women. This is because women still bear the greater burden of reproducing. Women are the gatekeepers to fertility and that won’t change until men are able to produce children without women.

          I concede that there have been some great miscarriages of justice in the courts in making men who were later found to not be the biological father pay support. But you have to understand, child support has never been about the children or the parents. Child support has always been an anti-socialist need to pay for children born, regardless of where the money is coming from. I support mandatory paternity testing for all child support orders.

          Female Double Standard #4: Women Have No Desire To Financially Support A Man For ANY Reason
          I supported my ex completely for extended periods of time when he was out of work. At one point, I did it pregnant. Women in the workplace is part of the reason the economy hasn’t collapsed like it did during the Great Depression. Women are the de facto unemployment insurance for most families.

          Further, there are women who would like nothing more than a stay at home father, but men clinging to archaic gender roles and placing their self-worth on their occupation prevents this.

          As for paying for dates, I only date men who pay. Why? Because I can and because it shows his investment in me. If he chooses not to invest in me, that’s fine. It’s a good indicator that he’s spreading his investment around and that isn’t the man I’m looking for. Consider it my “pre-qualifier” for men who are less likely to be players.

          After I have determined that he is genuinely interested in me for a LTR, then I happily pay my fair share.

          My assertion stands. Both sides happily have and use double-standards and have no real interest in changing those double-standards and would rather point at the other side.

        • Aldonza, our responses are in sync. There are double standards that each sex uses to qualify the other. If we wanted to we could come up with hundreds of examples. Varsity athletes given passing grades for doing no work in “Rocks for Jocks”, i.e. Geology. Double standards are a normal part of the strategy human beings use to get what they want, often to great effect.

          This post is about women finding themselves in a position of disgust when observing the few men who get a seemingly unlimited supply of sex. They judge their female peers harshly, but the men even more harshly. If it’s true that people are happiest with those who have had a similar number of sexual partners, then this shouldn’t bother anyone. I don’t think any Alphas are going to be doing without. They may have no choice, though, but to ultimately marry one of the girls who they used and tossed away in their youth, if more discriminating girls won’t have them.

        • Obsidian

          Aldonza,
          No, the very fact that *the* “double standard is discussed sooooo much in just about every venue, along with the typical shaming attempts and the like, directed at Men, says that something is indeed being done about that. That to date, only two Women out of an entire forum devoted to Women in the main, have actually addressed what I said, I think really speaks volumes to my position.

          My problem is, again, the “double standard” is thought of in one way and one way alone, that of Women being put upon for sexing like a Man. Yet Women enmasse know good and well that they benefit from a myriad of other double standards all the time, they justify it and vociferously defend it.

          Since you demand data to back up my assertions Aldonza, it’s only fair that you provide some to buttress your purely personal, subjective and thereby completely non-falsiable replies. Show me the data that Women have no problem paying for dates outright. What percentage of Women are doing this? How many of them are paying for the first date?

          Where is your data that proves that Women have no problem supporting a non-working Male spouse? I’d love to see that.

          Can you provide data that shows that a simple majority of Women would support say, mandatory paternity testing?

          What does the data say about Women wanting to sign up for selective service in direct combat roles?

          I stand by what I said when I said that Women objectify Men MORE than the other way around. Perhaps you missed Lori Gottlieb’s book, for example?

          LOL

          I mean Aldonza, I’m willing to play this game if you want. That you attempt to discredit what I said because what I posted was a previous post from my blog is very bad form, and I think you know it. I am saying that Women are being openly hypocritical. They don’t want “equality” as much as they want advocacy for their side. Which I’m perfectly fine with, btw. But Women must know, that in so doing, they then provoke such a response from the other side.

          And in that kind of war, Women will lose.

          Now, let’s try this again; focus like a laser beam…

          Let’s address, directly, what I said, hmm? You bring your data, and I’ll bring mine.

          Fair enough?

          Ladies first…

          😉

          O.

        • Aldonza

          Why would I want to prove that women have no problem paying for dates? *I* admitted that I have a problem paying for dates, especially first dates. And while there are women who don’t mind supporting a spouse, I’m not one of them. I resented the hell out of it. Mainly because I had all the worst parts of being a man (carrying the financial burden alone) with none of the benefits (a helpful wife taking care of the domestic burden.) If my husband and I had agreed on that sort of arrangement, I can see plenty of good to be had. Stay-at-home wives are handy pets to have.

          We are unlikely to ever agree on which sex objectifies the other more. Seeing as that is really nothing more than a subjective opinion anyway, it’s unlikely to sway anyone either way.

          See, the difference here is, when I present my opinion, I present it as nothing more than my opinion. You can agree, disagree, ignore. But if someone is making broad statements and calling them fact without backing them up, I will point that out.

          So…are your assertions your opinion? Or fact?

  • dragnet

    Okay I get your point—and furthermore I don’t think we disagree here. I’m an ardent supporter & practicioner of Game, have definitely had much more than my fair share of fun, and I make it a habit not to judge the sexual decisions made by other men…but guys with triple digits really do have an ick factor, if only because they’re taking way too many chances with STDs.

    That said, it’s worth noting that the threshold for this kind of harsh judging of alphas is still pretty high—a triple digit body count. Even for alphas that still a fairly high threshold.

  • rogue wolf1

    Hmm…let’s see.

    From 1961 to 1969 the United States went from barely getting a man into space to landing two men on the moon.

    A woman in the 1950 would ask her bad boy stud right before he bedded her, “Do you love me?” To which he’d lie, “…Yes.”

    A modern woman asks her bad boy stud how many other women he’s had before her. To which he’ll lie, “…Five.”

    All the while Poindexter is still choking his chicken every night inbetween buying flowers for a platonic female friend, being generally sweet, and having so many tears wash down his shoulder someone may as well open an umbrella stand.

    Oh well. I guess not all progress is swift.

    • Poindexter would have gotten married in 1950, maybe even have lied about loving his “3” wife. A backlash against promiscuity in males may give Poindexter a fighting chance yet. Meanwhile, he needs to close his wallet and withdraw his shoulder. He needs to be ready if and when he gets his shot.

      • P.S. That last sentence is going to get me in trouble with Dilithium, just wait.

  • “Consider the 2003 study of over 10,000 women which found that as the number of non-marital sexual partners went up, the probability of marital stability went down. For example, once a woman has had 5 sexual partners, the probability of pulling off an intact marriage dips under 30%; it is under 20% when the number of sexual partners reaches the upper teens.”

    Huh. I read this differently from the way it’s being presented.

    They seem to imply that more sexual partners means less likely to maintain a long term relationship.

    Whereas I read it as less ability to maintain a relationship leads to more sexual partners.

    Certainly it’s been true in my case.

    • That makes sense. There may be a correlation (though Aldonza raised a valid objection above), but it’s hard to know causality. They may feed each other in kind of a vicious cycle. The more recent study did show that women with more partners prefer men with more partners, which I thought was interesting. Again, I wonder about the cause and effect – are they so intent on bedding Alpha, they don’t care about the consequences or relationship potential? Do they feel more promiscuous with a more monogamous type guy? Do they know that a guy wanting a serious girlfriend is unlikely to choose them b/c of their reputation for hooking up? My own guess is that the first two come into play, but women are fairly naive about the third. I think promiscuous women in college believe that if they act the same way as guys, everyone is in it together, and they’ll just keep it up into their 20s until they fall in love with a casual partner. They often don’t realize that those guys in college will not marry women with that history, and that when they do marry they are going to be more selective, possibly targeting a woman a few years younger.

      • Aldonza

        The more recent study did show that women with more partners prefer men with more partners, which I thought was interesting.

        I think that’s likely accurate. I found another study you might be interested in:

        Matching in sexual experience for married, cohabitating, and dating couples.

        This study found that couples are happiest when matched for number of precious sex partners, regardless of actual counts. So, based on this…alphas should marry sluts.

        • Excellent – here’s the money quote:

          Specifically, men and women who were relatively similar to one another in the number of prior sexual intercourse partners were more likely to report a higher level of love toward one another, a higher level of satisfaction with the relationship, and a higher degree of commitment to one another than dissimilar couples.

          More research needs to be done to determine causality, but the correlation is interesting in itself.

        • Robin

          LoL and we know this would likely not happen! A girl racks up more than a few partners and she’s a slut and not LTR material… *sigh* Which goes back to the OP…

  • Cult Her Imports Vomiting Up The Koolaid

    1. Five sexual partners is NOT a small number – for either men or women. We’ve all seen the PSAs that communicate the idea that when you have sex with someone, you are actually “having sex” with all of their previous partners and their partners previous partners, ad infinitum. Hence STDs!

    2. Tattoos: impulsive? I know several women over a broad age range and SES who have tattoos. They were financially saved and planned for – for months.

    • I have to say, I know quite a few girls with a little tattoo here and there – and they’re “girl next door” types. There’s a wide spectrum between a young woman getting a butterfly on her ankle and Jesse James’ mistress.

      • Il Capo

        Single tattoos are slut-markers if placed near erogenous zones (breasts, tramp stamps, etc.) but fairly irrelevant if small and out of the way such as in your example.

        Past a certain tattoo size or count, the quantity, area covered and location of tats will determine whether they are just slutty-markers or crazy-markers.

        • Speaking of crazy markers, I saw a photo of a woman whose entire back was tattooed with the game board of Candyland. WTF? What guy would not consider that a total turnoff? I cracked up though – the juxtaposition of that colorful, childhood game and this woman’s naked torso were just too much.

    • Robin

      I disagree – 5 sexual partners CAN be a small number depending on the context.
      Five partners in a year or a month or even a weekend? Definitely not small.
      Five partners over a 10 year period and all of them committed relationships, relatively small.
      Five partners over a period of 20 years, 40 years? Definitely small.

      It all depends on how you define it.

      • Vincent Ignatius

        5 is about where I start to draw the line between LTR potential and not. I definitely wouldn’t call a girl with 5 partners a slut though.

        • Robin

          LoL – And here is where the double standard comes into play. You’ve no doubt had many times that number of women but find a woman with more than 5 sexual partners unsuitable. Thanks for making me laugh just a little bit! 🙂

        • Vincent Ignatius

          My pleasure. It’s the least I could do. After all, a woman who can’t understand why all these double standards are fair probably will never win over a good man to make her laugh.

  • Vincent Ignatius

    In an earlier time, I would have been a social conservative, and I would love it if society could get back to traditional gender roles, but I don’t believe we’ll ever get that cat back in the bag. It’s not like a born again virgin is going to be able to win a quality men when she spent her youth contending to be America’s next top bukkake model. Men are also wising up to the foolish institution that we call marriage.

    Feminism has destroyed gender relations. Gender relations in the future probably won’t resemble those now, but they won’t revert either. Marriage 1.0 is dead, and 2.0 is going with it.

    • Agreed. I’m certain that gender relations will change in ways we can’t foresee today, just as the Sexual Revolution brought about a whole host of changes that were never anticipated.

      BTW, if you want to sign up for Comment Luv it will post your latest blog entry under your comments.

  • rogue wolf1

    See but that’s where the fun of the joke really starts. 60 years ago Poindexter got married much like Poindexter gets married today, difference is that Poindexter got married at a younger age and more than likely to a woman who has never been married before and certainly not to a woman who has children by a different man.

    Woman screwed around with “bad boys” 60 years ago. Difference compared to now is that if she did, she didn’t have easy available abortions to correct the “mistake,” she wasn’t appluaded in media for being liberated, if she married the fool she couldn’t then divorce him and correct that “mistake” and then go on to recieve ailmony and half of his material possessions.

    The men weren’t on easy street either. One “mistake” on his part could land a shotgun against his back and a lifetime with someone he may or may not actually like (as happened to my grand father).

    My chief point is that the main difference between now and then is that back then there were clear and logical conseqences for your actions. Conseqences make people more sensible. I would rather enjoy jumping off a tall build and flying through the air like Superman, dieing when I hit the ground, however, is a rather real disincentive. That is not to say that there are real and logical conseqences for “hooking up,” but they are not obvious or at least have been made to not be obvious.

    Yet, nothing will get men and women running into more sensible arms faster than the reality that they could be stuck with that fun one night stand FOR LIFE. No magic pills to make it go away, no convoluted legal proceeding to make it null in void. Just waking up each and everyday to a person you may or may not like and who you found attractive on a whim FOR LIFE.

    P.S. 5 was a randomly chosen single digit number. If it comes across as too high for you please substitute a lower number of your choice. Thank you and have a nice day.

    • I agree with everything you say – incentives drive behavior. Lucky for you that your grandfather had the shotgun pointed in his direction!

      A lifelong consequence to pay for a whim – yes that is powerful. And yet, avoiding that became the norm even though a relatively small percentage of people got into that predicament. The shame of one’s neighbor was enough to discourage one from traveling the same path.

      That’s what this post is getting at. Women often feel shame and regret after casual sex. Their friends observe and console. Those women become an example, a cautionary tale. The consequences may not be lifelong, but then again, when considering STD risk, they might be. Why shouldn’t that apply here?

      • rogue wolf1

        STDs are a somewhat different deal. Condoms let people think that they are safe when in fact they really aren’t. Getting a specific STD can be blamed on the partner instead of the behaviour. Generally speaking having an STD is unpleasant, but it doesn’t carry much if an additional responsibility for having it (as your previous post on herpies suggest the only real responsibility is telling future partners, if you even know you have it). Lastly an STD can be hidden whereas a bastard child and/or “shotgunned” spouse is visible for all to see, which produces shame.

        But most discussions of the consequnces of hooking up usually have nothing to do with STDs. Most have to do with the opportunity cost of short vs. long term partners. Or in other words, “how can I/why can’t you have your cake and eat it too.” Generally speaking this is an argument women seem to have with each other or men have with women (why should be obvious). With regards to hooking up men’s arguements tend to be just a new form of dick measuring, with all the pointless posturing typical of such things. (…Gives sideways glance to the alphabet soup of nonsense which is just so popular)

      • Michael

        Why should casual sex be shameful?
        .-= Michael´s last blog ..Michael is now friends with eldorado Restaurant lounge =-.

        • Women often experience shame because they are hoping for a follow up communication of some kind – an indication that the guy would like to see them again, that they were just more than a casual lay. Most of the time this doesn’t happen, and then women feel embarrassed, humiliated and rejected.

        • Michael

          Yes, it is tempting to have expectations.

          But expectations can lead to disappointments, and this is a lesson that should be learned in all areas of life, not just relationships.

    • Obsidian

      RW,
      Here, here – and that’s exactly the point that I think gets lost in the shuffle. Look, we’re fooling ourselves if we think the good ole days were so great, they weren’t – but what we got now in many ways, ain’t much better. I’m not one to attempt to tell others how they should live their lives; what I WILL say though, is that there ARE real tradeoffs to whatever decision you take. Given what we know about Women though, it is clearly understandable why they would want to avoid the consequences for their actions for as long as possible, but the world just doesn’t work that way.

      Personally, I just can’t see how much longer our polity can endure under such a zero-sum, “all the pleasure, none of the guilt” setup. Sure, for the very few “winners”, life couldn’t be better; but for the millions of losers, life is a Hell even Dante’s could not have dreamt up.

      Like the old saying goes, Freedom ain’t free – somebody’s gotta pay.

      And, we will. One way, or another…

      O.

      • I agree with you about there being no free lunch. All of the pleasure, none of the guilt sounds likes the excesses of the Roman Empire. I am not sure what you mean about the nature of women and wanting to avoid consequences?

        • Obsidian

          Ms. Walsh,
          Yes, well that’s easy – Women as we all know, are hardwired to be picky. Making a choice and then sticking to it, is something that Women have a tougher time with than do Men, in aggregate. Everyone knows this, by way of simple anecdote – how long does it take a guy to shop, versus a gal? LOL. And, the very phrase, “all the pleasure, none of the guilt”, who is that aimed at – Men, or Women? Besides, we all know that Men are much more likely to “settle” than are Women, in just about every area of life. Again, I am speaking in aggregate here.

          So, what I’m saying is that a goodly bit of what we see going down is by demand of Women. That’s not scapegoating, that’s just a simple statement borne of observation and fact.

          Any questions? 😉

          O.

        • No question that women enjoy “selecting” everything from clothing to men. It’s sport, and we love debating and comparing our choices. I’d also have to agree based on casual observation, that women are less likely to settle for a mate who doesn’t fire her up.

          I’ll agree that women have played an important role is laying down the rules – and in this post I’m suggesting that perhaps a new generation of young women is changing them. A “correction” of sorts, born of the “how’s that working for ya?” analysis.

  • Anni

    Partly inspired by this blog, I decided to abstain from sex for a while. So far I am finding it an interesting experience. I made some observations based on this post about guys in my personal life and how I feel about them in relation to their promiscuity and thought you might find it interesting. There are three guys that either have shown interest in me or I feel interested in (or both) recently, none of whom have I had sex with. Two of them are rather promiscuous – I know that one of them has had close to 20 partners, the second one I’m less sure about, but it seems that in the last 6 months he has had about 3 partners so in total I guess it is many more. The third one has had 5 partners, but he is younger than the others so that may have something to do with it.
    I am looking for a relationship, and this is how these guys measure up. The first one, who has had lots of casual sex, has had no long term relationships so far. He has expressed interest in getting into a relationship with me, but I am not interested. The second one, who probably also has had lots of casual sex, is in a long-distance relationship and cheating on his girlfriend with other women. While I do find him sexually attractive, his lack of morals is offputting. The third one is someone I am interested in. He seems interested in me too, but it’s too early to know where (if anywhere) this will lead.
    My conclusions from this little examination would be that, at least for me personally, the numbers don’t really matter. The rest is much more important. But the numbers are not completely meaningless and can say something about a person. Beyond a certain limit I would say the guy must be indiscriminate. And what matters to me more than the actual count is how these numbers happened. If he had lots of drunken sex and didn’t care one bit about the women he had it with, then I would think twice about him. If he exhibits caring attitude/behaviour towards his former sex partners and people and women in general, then I’m more likely to consider him for a relationship, or for a hookup for that matter.

    • Anni, it’s good to hear from you! I really, really like what you have to say here. I think it’s quite typical of how women feel, and reinforces the idea that these perceptions and choices are made within the context of the relationship. I think ultimately it is about understanding what a person is made of, and what their sexual history says about what they value.

      By the way, for what it’s worth, I have also heard a few stories of young women who were very wary of guys who pursued them after being in a relationship for say, 6 or 7 years. In other words, they dated a girl all through high school and half of college. Aside from worrying about his still having one-itis, they’re afraid of comparison, not measuring up, and that he’s just spent too much time focusing on one woman. So even that can cut both ways.

  • Sex Cult Kool Aid Vomit

    Most people are sheep and go with the flow of society’s mainstream or “pop culture”. Mainstream and pop culture is all about The Great American $$$, nothing more or less. It used to be that intact families drove the economy, earning and spending the most money. Now we are encouraged to become “single, isolated economic units” and drive the economy. How does that work? Keep everyone busy like a bee running after the next product that they “need” in order to look attractive to the opposite gender. Thus we are purposely kept in a state of insecurity about our looks, status, whatever, so that we keep on buying, buying, buying.

    Keeping people single, insecure and sex-crazy fuels the economy.

    That’s why our mainstream and pop culture is all about sex, sex, sex.

    Honestly, I don’t think human beings are THAT horny. We all have varying sex drives. Some of has have high libidos, some low, some medium. Our libidos, whether high, low or medium also fluctuate throughout various periods of our life.

    YET… we the media propaganda is that high libido is healthy, low libido is “unhealthy” and the way to “cure” low libido is through this drug, or that product or this, that, this and that THING.

    Everywhere we look and every song we hear it’s all meant to stimulate the sex drive.

    Otherwise, without all this propaganda I don’t think we’d be all that concerned about it.

    I mean, come on, how many people in their 60s naturally have a strong desire for sex on the regular?

    Exactly.

    Yet here we have even 70 and 80 year olds being told they “need” to have a “healthy” (???) sex life or they are not “normal”. Here – pop this pill! We’ll bill it to your in$urance.

    I know an old woman in her 70s who’s doctor told her the reason for her current aches and pains was because she’s not having sex.

    LOL!!!!!!!

    The woman had given birth to 10 children over the course of her life. Sex is the LAST thing on her mind.

    It’s all so ridiculous that I have to laugh, not cry.

    Wouldn’t it be nice if instead of pimping SEX SEX SEX and insecurity to us, the media, mainstream and pop culture instead pimped monogamous relationships from an early age?

    We could have campuses full of students happy, secure and MARRIED to each other instead of “hooking up”, gettings STDs and being just generally miserable.

    But we’d need an entire cultural overhaul and we all know that ain’t gonna happen.

  • VJ

    Again we can only imagine a past that we’ve got no direct experience with. But no, shame has never been enough, at any time to actually serious ‘curb’ these human impulses, sexual & otherwise. Not in the dark ‘Priest ridden’ Middle Ages:

    Sex Crimes: From Renaissance to Enlightenment (Dark Histories) (Paperback)
    ~ William Naphy (Author)

    and here:

    http://www.the-orb.net/textbooks/anthology/beidler/rape.html

    Nor ancient times (and the Bible could tell you this too!):

    http://www2.hu-berlin.de/sexology/ATLAS_EN/html/sex_and_the_law.html

    So again, for cultural change to take place, something a bit more powerful than mere ‘shame’ must be acting. In times just prior to the modern era? Even immediate & certain execution did not prevent extra marital couplings, bastards a plenty, and a rage of syphilitic diseases that seemed to afflict half the royal houses & families of Europe at one time or another. People do not change much. The culture they live & operate in does. Slowly. Cheers, ‘VJ’

    • Sex Cult Kool Aid Vomit

      VJ, have you not travelled to parts of the world where there is no hooking up? No pre-marital pregnancies? No divorce? I have.

      (by “no” I mean an extremely low percentage to the point of being invisible)

      Shame is part of the equation that keeps these people in line. But it’s not the only thing. It’s a strong sense of family and duty to family members more than anything else. The families are really tight there. Young people get the “attention” and “affection” they crave from their families so they don’t have to chase dick or pussy for it. The culture’s mainstream does not promote sex, sex, sex. The songs on the radio are not about sex but mostly about the mysteries of life and/or God, love for one’s family, country or culture, and of course sticky sweet love songs. And getting a good education is seen as a much sought after privelege, not a “right” to be blown off or taken for granted.

      The United States looks and feels really tacky, crass and cheap in comparison. And by cheap I don’t mean “inexpensive”.

      Overpriced and undercrafted.

      All glitter, no gold.

      • Aldonza

        And yet, India has the second-highest population of HIV+ people in the world (after South Africa.) Seems to me that *somebody* is being less than chaste there.

    • Of course, people will always have sex, and the more forbidden the more alluring in many cases. Still, women have perhaps never had as free choice in this matter as they do now. Which means that men today have more sexual partners than ever before, potentially. And women are free to show their disapproval.

  • ATS

    You also need to look behind the motivation behind why someone’s labeled such and such. All it takes is a disgruntled rejectee to start spreading lies about the rejector, akin to what Kathryn experienced, and a label can stick and be difficult to shake off. And being labeled a manwhore isn’t as damaging as being labeled a slut—there’s a difference in how men and women are perceived. A manwhore doesn’t necessarily go down people’s estimations–most men will still look at a guy who can bed a lot of women with envy, and you’ll still have women who will dream of being THE one who can reform a bad boy. But a woman being labeled a slut has it worse because the minute she’s considered one, that takes her out of the LTR pool for most men.

    Re having a high number of partners being correlative to infidelity, context also has to come into play. Like Susan, I’ve had more than 5 partners before I settled down and got married, but I was faithful in every relationship I was in. All of these partners (except for one experiment in a one night stand that I’ve never repeated, ugh–not for me, thanks) were in committed relationships with me, and I had almost all of them talking about getting married and settling down with me in the future. Like her, I’ve been faithful to my husband. So I don’t think the study takes context into consideration.

    • ATS, this is right on target, IMO. A man talking sh*t can destroy a woman’s reputation, or even inspire other guys to hit on her hard expecting a quick payoff. There was one guy in the Spitting Game film who said that he and his buddies had a special name for women who were known to have slept with three guys. It was a code word and once a woman earned it, she could count on getting a lot of male attention at parties, etc. Meanwhile, woman who haven’t slept with anyone stand around at these parties feeling frumpy and unappreciated. It comes under the heading of “be careful what you wish for,” but it’s still hard for women to watch that and not feel envious.

    • Mike

      And being labeled a manwhore isn’t as damaging as being labeled a slut—there’s a difference in how men and women are perceived. A manwhore doesn’t necessarily go down people’s estimations–most men will still look at a guy who can bed a lot of women with envy, and you’ll still have women who will dream of being THE one who can reform a bad boy. But a woman being labeled a slut has it worse because the minute she’s considered one, that takes her out of the LTR pool for most men.

      I recently read what I think is an analogy that captures what is going on here perfectly:

      A key that opens many locks is a master key. A lock that is opened by many different keys is simply a weak lock.

      • oooooooohhh, I like that. Clipped into evernote!

  • Medical Jobs

    this post is very usefull thx!

  • Sex Cult Kool Aid Vomit

    “Plenty of foibles in the XX crowd. It’s a wonder that men think we’re worth the trouble. No wonder nature provided you all with such powerful libidos.”

    What?!

    Worth the trouble? Face it, we are the ONLY thing the XY crowd has going on in their lives.

    And why would nature provide them with such powerful libidos if we were nothing but trouble? To keep them chasing trouble? Better they have low-no libidos, then their “troubles” would disappear, and quite frankly, SO WOULD OUR’S.

    PS: any woman who pays for a first date with a guy is a FOOL. Nothing is for free boys. Certainly not my time and attention.

  • Rick

    The only thing? I suppose you would like to think so.
    As it is, when the “price” of brand XX gets high enought that the downside exceeds the benefit, you see guys withdrawing from the marriage market.

    Second, the idea that your time and attention is worth any more than the guy’s time and attention is jsut another example of the narcissism of American Women ™. Time and attention are an even trade.

    “Nothing is for free?” Interesting way to put it. How “transactional” of you.
    Good luck.

    • Rick, SCKAV is a woman that Obsidian banned for her foolishness. She is known for her constant changing of names and her ridiculous arguments. I’m just saying this because I do not want you to judge women by her remarks. She is not at all representative. Although, truthfully? American women are frighteningly narcissistic and becoming moreso. I’m working on a post about this.

      • Sex Cult Kool Aid Vomit

        Please. Men chase. Women choose. If you don’t want to pay, don’t chase me. It’s not my loss. Really.

        (and yeah, most of us think like this. it’s called, “wake up and smell the java”)

      • Robin

        I agree that she isn’t representative of most women. She has a point, men chase and women choose, however I don’t agree that a woman who pays on the 1st date is a fool. I will always offer to pay on a date. If the guy accepts? Well, I’ll pay the check and then it’s the last date. If the guy refuses? He’s got potential. I still believe that a man should pay on the first date, but I am an independent woman who can pay her own way if need be.

        I think you hit the nail on the head when you say that women are being narcissistic. Women don’t think that men should pay because it’s the chivalrous thing to do and speaks of manners in days gone by, women have started to believe that it’s their right.

        Give it up ladies, we can’t have our cake and eat it too. We want to work and be treated equally with men – If we want that we have to step up and offer to pay for things here and there instead of siphoning off them. We still maintain the right to dismiss a guy that won’t pay, but the offer should be there.

        • Rick

          Is it possible that SCKAV is actually a guy trying to make women look bad? Makes sense, kinda.

          Well I guess ‘into every blog a little troll must reign.’

        • Ha! Did you make that up?

          That’s a tempting notion about SCKAV, but no, she is a woman of indeterminate ethnicity who is always making outrageous statements and complaining about America. If she doesn’t violate my comment policy she’s welcome to stay, but it’s good to know who you are dealing with, IMO. And whether you are willing to feed the troll.

        • Esau

          @Robin

          “I will always offer to pay on a date. If the guy accepts? Well, I’ll pay the check and then it’s the last date. ”

          Ah, the “shit test” laid bare: making an offer, or a request, not sincerely but solely for the purpose of making sure that it gets declined. Speaking only for myself, I have less than zero respect for this kind of behavior from women. Why do you have to lay traps like this? Why can’t you just speak honestly about what you want? Are you proud of behaving this way?

          With all due respect — though I’m not sure how much that really should be — this makes me glad I’ll never date you; who wants to go through a relationship asking himself “Does she really mean that? or is this some kind of trick question or test?” You may have it as a strong requirement that a man can pass these kinds of tricks and traps, but they just seem juvenile to me — and so you and I would have had a strong interest in avoiding each other, I think. But that gives me a practical idea. If I were dating, I would always take a woman straight at her word on early dates; if she were (like you, apparently) the kind to deal out “shit tests,” then she would weed me out quickly and automatically, which would work perfectly well for me!

  • VJ

    Yep, this confirms that so called SCKAV is an idiot by any name:

    “VJ, have you not travelled to parts of the world where there is no hooking up? No pre-marital pregnancies? No divorce? I have.

    (by “no” I mean an extremely low percentage to the point of being invisible)”

    Sorry chica, this is the ‘Null Set’. It does not exist now, nor throughout any historical period yet recorded or studied. And if you find one? Please contact this man 1st: [James Trussell @ Princeton]:

    http://opr.princeton.edu/research/person.asp?id=trussell

    He’s never seen or encountered such a fantasy land either. They might indeed (and likely do) Hide it a bit better from the prying eyes of non citizens or non community/tribal members, but infanticide is rife if abortion is outlawed, and where both are sanctioned? Abandonment is a favored & form of ‘dealing’ with the problem in such more ‘traditional’ & culturally conservative societies. (Witness Haiti actually). As it was for our ‘foundlings’ of the 16th-19th centuries, in Britain & the US. Where did you think all those kids in orphanages come from? Now & once again abroad, but once teeming with American kids who’s mothers had abandoned them for a lack of the ability to care for them. Up until the 1940’s-50’s too. Plenty of mothers & families felt not much shame or compunction about such actions. Life was hard, and you did what you could for the kids you had or favored. And that’s a story told time & time again in plenty of American & British biographies too.

    Geez, learn some history. Please. Cheers, ‘VJ’

  • Sex Cult Kool Aid Vomit

    ” I don’t agree that a woman who pays on the 1st date is a fool. I will always offer to pay on a date. If the guy accepts? Well, I’ll pay the check and then it’s the last date. If the guy refuses? He’s got potential.”

    OH. MY. GOD. What a hypocrite. Your “offer” to pay for the first date is not sincere and just another shit test. I would never do that to a man. Men know from the get-go what I expect. I don’t lure them with offers and then reject them when they take me up on them.

    VJ, you sound like just another ignorant American so I’m not going to indulge your ignorance. Let me just say this: the demographic(s) of immigrants in this country who have the least amount of OOWB (out of wedlock births) come from countries and cultures where it’s practically unheard of. These countries don’t even have full-fledged dating cultures, a hook-up culture is out of the question. Most people marry there via arranged or family assisted betrothals.

    Sure, you’ll find SOME men there visiting prostitutes, but GENERALLY IN THE MAIN, you get a majority of male and female virgins on their wedding nights.

    And this is NOW in 2010. I don’t need to read Western History. My current Eastern reality is enough to give me hope.

    You and your Mom’s experience may be different, granted.

  • Rick

    There is also something about the grammar and usage that suggests a male writer.

    Interesting.

    • I agree. Who knows? It could be Hannibal Lechter sitting in front of his laptop in PJs.

    • Sex Cult Kool Aid Vomit

      Rick, regarding “grammar and usage” that indicates a male, can you point specifics out to me? Someone else, elsewhere, made a similar comment and I’m curious as to what would indicate such in my writings. The only thing I can think of is … I don’t have airy-fairy, hippie-dippie, kumbaya opinions, which a lot of women seem to express on the internet. But then again, so do men.

  • VJ

    But alas & lack, he/she’s Still an idiot at the end of the day. Eastern/Western it really does not matter. Non marital conceptions and/or births? Going to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 20-25% at their lowest. Even in really highly conservative cultures, and historically in genuinely repressive religious regimes. Even w/o a ‘real’ dating culture. And in the almost complete absence of a ‘hook up culture’. And you know where you can go to find such stats? Here for one: http://www.guttmacher.org/ or again here:

    The Office of Population Research at Princeton University: http://opr.princeton.edu/

    And of course this was largely a fantasy, even in your mommas & grand-momma’s day too: “Sure, you’ll find SOME men there visiting prostitutes, but GENERALLY IN THE MAIN, you get a majority of male and female virgins on their wedding nights”.

    And how many ‘re-virgin’ clinics are there now in various hospitals catering to this well worn but utterly false favored fantasy, shared by many an Arab brethren? And why did the Chinese just invent a $20 ‘novelty’ item to ‘successfully simulate’ same? There’s never any need for such things as those magical people of ‘the East’ (who strangely remain unnamed) have no need of such things! All their youngin’s are Chaste we tell you! Pure on their Wedding Days! Again… & Again too! You must be some sort of rube if you think anyone might actually believe that too! ‘VJ’

    • Sex Cult Kool Aid Vomit

      Such hymenplasty procedure clinics are unheard of in India. Come on man, you need to get and travel! There is just no oppurtunity in India for young people to be alone together. There is no space or time for that, in the main. Exceptions that prove the rule will always be there. 20% OOWBs in India?!?!?! ROFLMAO. You won’t find even a 3% OOWB rate amongst Indians in AMERICA – where there is certainly more oppurtunity! Explain that, Mr. Einstein (or Freud).

      Read the sites where PUA wannabes go to India and what they report.

      I can’t speak for Arabs or Chinese. It’s rumored in India that they are sluts so…….

      But Desis? I know what I’m talkin’ ’bout.

      • Sex Cult Kool Aid Vomit

        PS: just clicke on your links VJ – Central American and Ethiopia? Are those areas even known for their chastity and virginity??? Don’t. Think. So.

        India is.

        Abortion takes place in India. It’s never been a political or religious issue like it is here in the states. Married women get abortions in India.

        Does teen pregnancy also happen in India? Yep. In rural villages parents arrange the marriages of their teens and marry them off early. So yeah, India has teen pregnancy too. MARRIED teen pregnancy.

        Funny how you cite Central America and Ethiopia. Those certainly were not the areas of the world I had in mind when I was explaining to you how chaste cultures work.

        YOU. NEED. TO. GET. OUT. MORE. DUDE.

  • VJ

    Ah India SCKV. Such lovely a place for women, with ‘bride burning’ being such an ‘advanced’ practice:

    “Bride-burning claims hundreds in India
    Practice sometimes disguised as suicide or accident
    August 18, 1996
    Web posted at: 11:30 a.m. EDT (1530 GMT)

    NEW DELHI, India (CNN) — In parts of India, husbands regard their wives as property that apparently can be disposed of at will. Indian police say that every year they receive more than 2,500 reports of bride-burning — a form of domestic abuse often disguised as an accident or suicide.

    These women are burned to death over wealth — because their husbands or in-laws are unhappy with the size of the dowry that accompanied them into the marriage.

    The number such cases reported to police is rising, due either to an increase in the number of burnings or to more willingness by victims to report them. And should the woman survive, the toll is heavy”.

    And besides being an annoying dolt? You can’t read anyway. Here’s what I said above: “Non marital conceptions and/or births? Going to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 20-25% at their lowest. Even in really highly conservative cultures, and historically in genuinely repressive religious regimes”. So yeah Dude, that relates to India too. You’ve contradicted yourself inside of an hour. Record Dude!

    Now for someone from India, we’ll teach you how to search too. (Don’t mention it Dude!) Enter here:

    http://www.guttmacher.org/search/index.jsp and then type in the magical words: India: and you get this: “Query: found 267 document(s) that matched query ‘content:india’:” Including this gem on the 1st page:

    http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/3509709.html

    “International Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health
    Volume 35, Number 2, June 2009
    Premarital Romantic Partnerships: Attitudes and Sexual Experiences of Youth in Delhi, India
    By Jaya and Michelle J. Hindin

    CONTEXT: Despite restrictive social norms, there is increasing evidence that youth in India engage in premarital romantic and sexual partnerships. However, information on how they initiate and build these relationships is scarce, even though it is vital for addressing the needs of young people.”

    Perhaps this was better hidden when you were a child way back when. Or perhaps your rich parents kept you cloistered in a privileged world where none of this was supposed to ‘get through’. But dude? It happens & is happening. Like Now. There are not really ‘chaste cultures’ just as they’re not really ‘pure races’. We’re all tragically limited as mere humans. Just some of us are dumber, and refuse to do anything to try and correct that shame & embarrassment, Dude! Cheers, ‘VJ’

  • VJ

    The wonders of modern India: A chaste culture must begin by yes, enslaving girls: (Oh Goody for them!):

    “Thursday, June 4, 2009
    Despite Legal Restrictions, Early Marriage Remains Common in India; Childbearing Begins Soon Thereafter
    Greater Government Effort Is Needed to Keep Girls in School

    Although the legal age of marriage in India is 18, nearly half of young women marry—that is, begin cohabiting with their husbands—before their 18th birthday. Over the last decade and a half, little progress has been made in reducing the proportion of adolescents who become brides, according to a new report from the New York–based Guttmacher Institute and the International Institute for Population Sciences in Mumbai. The report compares nationally representative surveys from 1993, 1999 and 2006, and finds that during that time, the proportion of young women who married as minors decreased slowly, from 50% to 45%. Similarly, the proportion of young women giving birth before age 18 declined somewhat over the same period, from 28% to 22%, which is not surprising, given that childbearing is closely tied to marriage.

    While a range of socioeconomic and cultural factors may influence when a young woman gets married, past research has shown that areas with higher levels of girls’ education have lower rates of early marriage. Keeping girls in school longer has also been found to delay early childbearing, which is rare outside of marriage in India.

    “A large percentage of young women in India are becoming wives and mothers before reaching adulthood,” said lead author Ann Moore of the Guttmacher Institute. “Government programs aimed at reducing early marriage should focus on keeping girls in school longer.” Data from the Indian states with the highest and lowest levels of educational attainment support this recommendation. For example, in the western state of Goa and the northern state of Himachal Pradesh, the states with the highest proportions of young people who receive at least six years of schooling, only 12% of young women marry before age 18. By contrast, in the eastern states of Bihar and Jharkhand, where girls have some of the lowest levels of education, 60–61% of young women marry as minors. Consistent with this pattern, the proportion of young women between 20 and 24 years old who become mothers before age 18 is highest in Jharkhand (37%) and Bihar (31%), and lowest in Goa and Himachal Pradesh (5%)”. …

    http://www.guttmacher.org/media/nr/2009/06/04/index.html

    More on the wonders of that ‘chaste culture’:

    “International Family Planning Perspectives
    Volume 32, Number 4, December 2006
    DIGEST
    In India, Men’s Sexual Behavior Puts Their Wives’ Reproductive Health at Risk”

    And of course it Never happens here. Or to
    ‘good girls’ either:

    “International Family Planning Perspectives
    Volume 33, Number 4, December 2007
    Correlates of Premarital Relationships Among Unmarried Youth in Pune District, Maharashtra, India
    By Mallika Alexander, Laila Garda, Savita Kanade, Shireen Jejeebhoy and Bela Ganatra ”

    Not hard to find SCKV. I can find it sleepwalking. Cheers, ‘VJ’

    • She picked the wrong guy to do intellectual battle with. SCKV, give it up. VJ is running rings around you, and he never runs out of energy.

      • Robin

        I don’t think she honestly will stop, she seems to be the type that would cut off her nose to spite her face and ignore such obvious resources. I’m gonna take a stab in the dark that we’ll see something back that these are behaviors happening in areas that the western world is impacting the culture, but where the culture holds true with out the impact of the western world you don’t see these issues or other such nonsense.

        • Sex Cult Kool Aid Vomit

          VJ, what about “married in their teens” didn’t you understand????

          Bihar and Jharakand are two of the poorest rural areas in India. Poor villages arrange the marriages of the kids in their teens. These teen pregnancies ARE NOT OOWBs.

          What about that doesn’t compute with you??????

          There is VERY LITTLE pre-marital sex in India.

          A 16 year old married girl who gives birth IS NOT GIVING BIRTH OUT OF WEDLOCK.

          Kapish?
          Comprende?

          Sheesh.

          Reading comprehension skills much?

        • Robin

          That’s one of the studies he posted. What is your response to the last study in his last post? Or the last study in the post before that? Don’t fault his reading comprehension when you don’t read everything he posted either. Or did you just ignore those two studies because they don’t suit your argument?

        • Robin

          Here’s a article that talks about a study conducted by NIHFW:
          http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/extract/322/7286/575
          “A quarter to a third of India’s young people indulge in premarital sex, a new study conducted by the National Institute of Health and Family Welfare and suppressed by India’s health ministry, has said. ”
          “A majority of the 3300 respondents who had had premarital sex reported first having sex at age 16-18 years. The average age for first sex estimated by the researchers was 17.4 years for boys and 18.2 for girls.”

          I’m sorry – this was from 2001…I’m sure that the percents may have increased in the following 9 years. I understand this is urban areas, but from how you keep saying “VERY LITTLE” I think your a bit off base…

  • VJ

    Again SCKV, the phrase ‘non-marital conception’ is standard for Demography & most Health services, and well understood by Demographic historians . Let’s spell it out for your dim impoverished soul, as well as your under utilized mind.

    Younger ‘marriage’, for ever younger girls today, likely means the vital element of Consent or even Knowledge is missing from the transaction, (& especially in this context), but again only for the future woman & her family. Ergo a goodly portion of those younger brides capable of being so will in fact be pregnant upon marriage, due to the fact that the boy’s family will have wanted to ‘prove’ that the girl’s fertile and fully capable of being pregnant, which is her primary purpose afterall, besides birthing boys. And in point of fact as not fully regarded as a ‘wholly rational actor’ in her own life, and being not quite able to consent (actually here, & likely now & forever in much of India), it’s Much more likely that such girls will indeed ‘fall pregnant’ due to these ministrations & investigations by the boys family. That’s a well known dynamic today & in history too.

    Now having been a student of such history, where you rely heavily on simple fantasy & ‘old wives tales’, I’ll tell you that such arrangements were not all that uncommon in Medieval Europe or even in Early Colonial America, and was a culturally favored practice.[Again see: ‘Bundling’ & ‘Bundle-boards’ when ‘courting’].

    Still what you find it hard to understand is that the very concept of ‘chaste’ is actually quite different for different time periods & yes cultures. But the underlying biology and urges remain the same. It’s the rest of the world that revolves around them.

    And yet you still want to contradict yourself too: “There is VERY LITTLE pre-marital sex in India”. Very ‘little’ in a population of what, a billion or so right? So let’s just IMAGINE say 90% of all women go to their wedding day even as desperate (and yes sometimes Pregnant) but still largely & yes, even preferably unknowing brides but not horrors, unwed mums. So at the barest minimum that must mean at least 25 Million pre-marital births, @ 10% of the lowest fraction of possible fertile women. And that’s a really conservative ball park estimate. Now 25 million of almost anything human? That’s a big issue or problem.

    So the deeper you get into the problem Dude, the worse you sound, the more you contradict yourself, and the more your favored ‘exemplar’ of India sounds like the desperately poor and ‘lesser advanced’ Third world nation it’s still struggling to overcome. In the 21st century.

    For much of India, women may be the intense focus of these ancient traditions dictating their actions to be seen as ‘chaste’ by their own communities. That’s as ever the well known & enduring dynamic of many ‘conservative cultures’ around the world. But even in their relative impoverishment, they retain more dignity & a slight modicum of hope for escape from the rigid ideological strictures you would continually demand of them. For whatever twisted reason. ‘VJ’

  • VJ

    In the calculation above, again it should be pre-marital conceptions Or births, depending on the timing. ‘VJ’

  • Wookie wookie

    Sorry for writing a belated reply, I’ve been kept busy for most of the week.
    I don’t have much to add to the main discussion because I think it’s too early to judge whether things are changing. My guess is that we won’t see a shift until Gen Z (why did we jump to X anyways..) because my generation’s children will be able to objectively see the results.

    I do have something to say that’s semi-related though. The very last bullet point you listed stuck out for me.

    “More intelligent men are more inclined toward monogamy (as well as liberalism and atheism). It is theorized that only intelligent men are able to shed the psychological baggage of the species and adopt new modes, or “evolutionarily novel” modes of behavior. (Kanazawa)”

    Wow this is unbelievably politically loaded! I’m not going to create a political discussion but what Satoshi Kanazawa said right there is a powder keg waiting to explode (if it hasn’t already). This would be cannon fodder for the Republican party.

    From an evolutionary perspective I disagree with Kanazawa because he’s implying that “enlightenment” works linearly and that monogamy is definitely the destination. While I personally prefer monogamy, how has he ruled out polygamy as a potential avenue of social evolution? Evolution works towards what is better for survival and in the absence of culling factors it diversifies. There could very well be a ridiculous situation in the future where it turns out that it’s better for a wife to have multiple husbands at her beck and call (most definitely a dream for some women).

    His statement reminds me of a prediction made during one of the Western philosophical periods (Rationalist I think) where a philosopher said that they were in the beginning of an age where all men would learn to think in a logical manner without emotion to cloud his judgement. Considering that the philosopher’s new age never materialized, I’m doubting that Kanazawa’s theory will come to fruition anytime soon.

    We are not kicking our genetic programming anytime soon.

    • Boy, Satoshi Kanazawa is really a lightning rod! He’s at the LSE, but many take issue with his research. I’m not familiar enough with the details to defend or accuse, but what I do find interesting is his bowing to learning theory here. I wonder what made him come to this conclusion, which goes against the evo psych discipline he has sided with.

      I don’t think we’re kicking our genetic programming, but I do allow for the ability of humans to reason and choose. The genetic programming is nature, life experience is nurture. Sounds reasonable, no?

      • Wookie wookie

        Yes quite reasonable. I didn’t mean to suggest that genetics dominate nurture. I was primarily reacting to his prediction of sweeping socio-psychological change. I’m leery about any suggestions of a new golden age. Those should be left to fairy tales and comic books.

        • Agreed. Making sweeping predictions is a risky business, and often leaves one feeling like a fool after the fact. Just look at the 2012 doomsday folks!

  • Sex Cult Kool Aid Vomit

    ROBIN: ‘”I understand this is urban areas, but from how you keep saying “VERY LITTLE” I think your a bit off base…””

    That’s just it, Robin. India has very few urban centers. The vast majority of India’s people live in villages and small towns. There is simply NO oppurtunity for unmarried people to mate there. Forget unmarried people, EVEN MARRIED PEOPLE don’t have any privacy, but somehow still manage to pop out babies (quick and quiet stolen moments). Indian families live in the “joint family” household, which means no privacy. The mother keeps a close vigil on the relationship between her son and his wife. Anyway, won’t go into THAT here, but suffice it to say, it’s the stuff that all of India’s soap operas center around.

    Regarding college students in the metros – would you believe that college dorms, known as “hostels” in India, enforce very strict curfews and the curfews for girls/young women are earlier than they are for boys/young men (with little to no protest), and boys are FORBIDDEN from entering girls’ hostels and vice versa?

    For all these reasons and more – India’s pre-marital sex and pre-marital birthrate comes NOWHERE NEAR that of the United State’s, even when adjusted for population size.

    VJ’s laughable ASSumption: “Ergo a goodly portion of those younger brides capable of being so will in fact be pregnant upon marriage, due to the fact that the boy’s family will have wanted to ‘prove’ that the girl’s fertile and fully capable of being pregnant… I’ll tell you that such arrangements were not all that uncommon in Medieval Europe or even in Early Colonial America, and was a culturally favored practice”

    THIS WOULD NEVER HAPPEN IN INDIA!!!. Medieval Europe’s or Colonial America’s culture have nothing to do with India. In some village arranged marriages even today, the boy and girl meet for the first time on their wedding day, and that was the prevelant custom in many arranged marriages – city, town or village up until the last generation.

    Remember, I never said there was ZERO percent pre-marital hanky panky going on in India. Sure, there is a bit. Does it compare to the United States? Not by a looooooooooooooooooooooong shot.

    Why do we assume the whole world to be as bad off as we are? Is it a case of misery loves company or have we just become that jaded?

  • V

    I love love love the academic integrity and research of this blog. It is really refreshing.
    .-= V´s last blog ..Up Until Now Everything I’ve Posted Has Been a Lie =-.

    • V, welcome! Wow, I just took a quick look at your blog, and was really impressed. Game in opera – that’s something I’ve never seen discussed before. I’ll head over there to read at a more leisurely pace a bit later.

      Enjoy your travels, and come back to HUS when you have a moment!

      P.S. We have very similar tastes in men. I too like a bit of “fey” or “dandy” – in my case, the hipster variety 🙂

      • Vincent Ignatius

        What the heck?! She got that idea from me!

        • Duly noted. No doubt she was better qualified to write it, seeing as how she’s an opera singer.

  • Jennifer

    This makes me SO happy! It’s about damn time indeed: women need stable mates, and they should know that promiscuity represents less stability.

  • moraliste

    According to standard sociobiological theory, and it sounds like some of you are familiar with it, nothing of any note whatever exists in society that doesn’t pay dividends for a significant number of individuals ( and only indirectly, groups) in their constant search to maximize reproductive fitness. (The kafka statement above applies even to a world rolling over you and crushing every bone in your body – which is why kakfa is a dark author to anyone at all familiar with him.) The hard truth is, some individuals will take any advantage they can, and would-be maximizers imitate the bahavior of the winners, no matter how ” morally reprehensible” it may be to sentimental idealists.

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