Academic inquiry about the effects of the hookup script on the SMP is still in its relative infancy. To date, most research has focused on college students, although there is some evidence that as students accustomed to hookup culture graduate, they are taking these norms with them. The last vestiges of dating can be found online, and even there the younger users of online dating sites are often anxious to shift to a “hanging out, meeting up out” model rather than continue dating in the traditional way.
Lisa Wade is a sociology professor and the co-founder of the popular blog Sociological Images, which covers a wide range of topics. She recently gave a talk at Franklin and Marshall College about a study she conducted on hooking up. That study was small, just 33 female and 11 male freshmen. However, Wade feels that the data was very, very rich. I don’t think we can extrapolate too much, but she provides one more data point in the puzzle. She sums it up for MTV:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWt1Ttmk4Ug&feature=player_embedded
Looking over the transcript of her talk, I noted some very interesting findings.
1. The sexual script has changed.
The Old Order, Dating:
- kissing
- groping
- naked groping
- intercourse
- oral sex
The New Order, Hooking Up:
- kissing
- groping
- oral sex
- naked groping
- intercourse
Here’s what actually happens in hookups:
- Kissing and non-genital touching: 32%
- Manual stimulation of genitals: 15%
- Oral sex: 12%
- Intercourse: 40%
2. Hooking up is not epidemic because most students don’t do it.
- The average number of hookups for a graduating senior is 7.
- 25% of college students will never hook up.
- 30% will hook up three times or less in four years.
- 30% will hook up 4-9 times.
- 15% will hook up 10 times or more during college.
- 91% of college students report that their campus is characterized by a hookup culture.
In other words, 85% students hook up rarely if at all. Only 10% or so have four hookups per year.
Undoubtedly, some of those hook up every weekend, but they are a very small number.
3. Students are extremely dissatisfied with the sex they do have.
Most of my students – who remember were all frosh — were overwhelmingly disappointed with the sex they were having in hook ups. This was true of both men and women, but was felt more intensely by women.
Students wanted at least one of these things from sex:
- Empowerment
- Pleasure
- Meaningful experience
Very few claimed to have gotten any of these things from hooking up.
Feminism’s empowerment scam:
Many of the women in our sample, specifically, felt that they had inherited a right to express their sexuality from the women’s movement of the 60s and 70s. They saw college as an opportunity to enact their liberation. So they embraced sex …and the right to say “yes” to sex. And it was going to be glorious.
But many of our female respondents felt disempowered instead of empowered by sexual encounters. They didn’t feel like equals on the sexual playground, more like jungle gyms.
Wade goes on to attribute this at least in part to men pressuring women for sex.
Many of our female students recalled consenting to sexual activity they did not desire because they felt it was their only option, even in the absence of physical coercion, threats, or incapacitation.
Options such as saying “no,” asking him to masturbate, leaving the situation, or abandoning the friendship or relationship did not seem to occur to them. It was almost as if they felt that it was the natural order of things… like water flowed downhill, women must release men’s sexual tension.
No doubt this reflects the perception by women that relationships are rare in college, and that men are calling all the shots, something other researchers have also focused on. Clearly, the number of men actually able to pull this off is even smaller than 20%, so I’m surprised it was such a strong theme among the women.
Pleasure was elusive:
Even when sex was both consensual and truly wanted, students often reported highly unsatisfying sexual encounters. This, too, was more true for women than for men.
- Many of the women explained that they felt like “masturbation toys.”
- Women were dissatisfied with the sexual skills of their partners, but they also often deprioritized their own pleasure.
- One woman, who had hooked up with 13 men in her first year, confessed that she had not been given a single orgasm.
“I was just a warm body being used to make a guy have an orgasm.”
“I feel like a “sex toy” with “three holes and two hands.”
“My sexuality was filled with anxiety and my need to please the guy instead of worrying about my own pleasure.”
“… even if I was in charge I did not make sure I was being pleased.”
“…the guy kind of expects to get off, while the girl doesn’t expect anything…”
Not surprisingly, Wade reports that men receive more oral sex than they did 20 years ago, while women receive less.
Combine that with the fact that intercourse alone is unlikely to reliably result in orgasm for women, and we see fewer orgasms for women.
Both men and women prefer meaningful sex:
One of my male students, Joel, confessed that meaningless sex turned out to leave him feeling empty. So Joel hooked up a few times in his first semester, but he didn’t hookup at all in his 2nd.
Joel might have been looking for love, as some of my students were, but much of the time, when students said that they wanted sex to be meaningful, they didn’t mean that they only wanted to have sex in the context of love.
But they did want something; and they used terms like “intimacy” or “connection.” And they also wanted it to be in a context of “trust” and “care.”
One arrangement students had high hopes for was Friends with Benefits. They thought that they could escape the hassle and energy drain of committed relationships while still enjoying physical intimacy with someone they cared about.
In other words, they wanted to be “in like” so that they could explore their sexuality in the context of benevolence.
It turns out, though, that the sex ruined the friendships.
Hookup culture prescribes a sort of carelessness about sex that precludes benevolence. One of the rules of hooking up, after all, is that you are supposed to do it carelessly.
Sex is supposed to be careless in two ways:
- You’re not supposed to choose your partner carefully, or think carefully about whether to have sex.
- You’re not supposed to care for your partner.
Alcohol plays such a critical role in hookup culture because in addition to lowering inhibitions, it announces that you have entered a careless state.
Getting drunk is one way to show others, including your hookup partner, that you’re being careless. If you’re drunk, well you didn’t really mean it.
One student, who confesses that she’s never had sex sober, explains that sober sex is scary because “The rule of [hooking up] is that you can never show your true feelings and insecurities to the partner.”
It was the inadvertent or perhaps inevitable display of emotion that made FWB so problematic. Usually students were no longer friends after they stopped having sex.
So it turned out that the sex on campus was very antagonistic, mean even… and that most students would have been happy if their hookup partners would just be nice.
Interestingly, Wade found that men were just as interested as women in having relationships. All were dissatisfied with the hookup script, although the men were less negative due to their higher rates of orgasm.
4. There is no perceived alternative to hookup culture.
Overall, most students are unhappy with their sexual lives, and feel that hookup culture impedes both sex and relationships.
- 11% of the students enthusiastically enjoy hookup culture.
- 50% were having hook ups, but were doing it rather ambivalently or reluctantly, some with extremely negative experiences.
- 38% opted out of hooking up altogether.
- Less than 1% maintained a committed relationship.
Despite this consistently negative feedback, Wade, who is sympathetic to feminist concerns, sees a lot of positives in hookup culture, and says that:
Despite all the problems with casual sex on campus, abandoning the hook up as a college sex stable is not the way to go.
Her rationale:
1. Many students learn a lot from hooking up, even if they didn’t like it.
2. For many students, hooking up helped them clarify their values, embrace their own sexuality, and learn how to enforce their boundaries.
3. Hooking up is also good for students who are really focused on their studies or on balancing work and school; it is a way to get sexual experience that doesn’t include the intense time and emotion investments required by relationships. It is a way to gain sexual experience in a less distracting way.
4. Hooking up turns out to be, in many ways, emotionally safer. Hamilton and Armstrong found that, when hook ups go bad, people can get hurt; but when relationships go bad, they tend to go bad in a much bigger way. Bad hookups were isolated events, but bad relationships sometimes wreaked havoc with students’ lives.
Wade believes that the problem is not hooking up, but the lack of alternatives to hookup sex.
One of the things that was so striking about the students I studied was that even those who rejected hooking up for themselves – the ones who opted out – would bend over backwards to insist that hooking up was a good thing and that they wished they felt differently.
Many who didn’t like the idea of hooking up for themselves, then, saw their own approach to their sexuality as an unfortunate dysfunction instead of a valid choice.
When a campus is characterized by a hook up culture, hooking up is the main and even the only way that students feel like they can engage sexually; other kinds of sex seem impossible or undesirable or even embarrassing.
What’s extremely troubling here is Wade’s failure to acknowledge the menace of hookup culture – something only 11% of students like. Instead she suggests that students would be happier if:
- LGBT groups were a source of support, even though not a single participant was non-heterosexual.
- The Office for Religious and Spiritual Life was more active on campus.
- Hookup culture didn’t disallow and discourage abstinence, which is not tolerated.
- Feminist groups on campus could address assault, coercion and the lack of sexual pleasure.
This is mostly nonsense of course, politically correct platitudes that are the equivalent of handing someone an inflatable tube as a tsunami approaches. Still, I give Wade credit for her final admission:
It’s hook up or shut up. The lesson we get from pop culture and from many of our friends is that saying “yes” – to sex, with anyone, for any reason — is equivalent to being sexually open and free. This definition of sexual liberation – the one in which you simply say “yes” – doesn’t leave room for you to say “no.” Saying “no” is conflated with being sexually repressed.
…Ultimately disrupting the dominance of hookup culture is up to you.
At least Wade understands there’s no going back. We have to find a way forward. And I think she’s right about one thing: only at the individual level can the shift occur.
{ 271 comments… read them below or add one }
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The qualitative analysis looks intriguing. However, given the small number in the sample, it’s only a start to a far more thorough analysis.
11% liked hook-up culture? Hmmmmm, that must be the one hot guy in the survey who was getting all the sex.
I noticed that the participants who rated hookup culture more highly were the ones who didn’t participate. Was that fear of being judged by the liberals or “grass is greener” fallacy? or both?
The apex fallacy and hypergamy easily explain how women can see 10% of men running things and conclude that men in general get whatever they want. That’ll probably be repeated a few times in the next twenty posts.
It’s impossible to remove this woman’s feminist bias from her research. It affects everything from how she sorts and presents the data to what conclusions she draws from it. She certainly didn’t read the numbers and conclude that the heterosexual hookup scene would be improved by more gay pride resources. She didn’t read the numbers on consensual hookups and conclude that women need more resources for battling sexual assault. And even if the numbers did somehow show a gender inequality against women, does anyone really believe that she didn’t “know” about that before doing the research?
I would be interested in seeing how many of those not hooking up are opt-outs, and how many are involuntary. And, while I doubt there’s any way to measure it, I’d like to see how many of the involuntarily celibate would become opt-outs after some experience. Personally, after a string of recent successes breaking up a long period of involuntary celibacy (and that after getting most of my experience from long-term relationships which weren’t really satisfying, probably due to my understanding and knowing of only the rudiments of Game), I’m about ready to opt out again. Hell, I don’t even want a double-digit partner count. Hookup culture, now that I know my way in, has made it so much easier to meet girls – but all those girls appear to be of low quality. How many are actually low quality is speculation at best on my part. So finding a girlfriend will probably take a while, but if even the good girls are doing it despite not wanting to, it’s one place to look.
It’s also interesting that students listed “empowerment” as one of the top three reasons for hooking up. If they filled that out on a survey, that says a lot about omnipresent feminism; if it was part of a multiple choice question, it says a lot about the survey-crafter’s bias – and much less about the students, if “empowerment” was 3rd out of 4 choices. It’s such a vague term, anyway: “intimacy” means something, “pleasure” is pretty easy to define, even “a meaningful experience” means more to me than just “empowerment.”
I read the data differently than you do and therefore come to an opposite conclusion. If the women, even the ones having 3 hookups or less, are getting a significant proportion of the sexual encounters from hookups, then they are participating in hookup culture. Since I find it difficult to believe that someone that hooks up twice has had more than 5 or 6 ‘relationship’ sexual encounters, they are still getting a very significant amount of their sex from hookups.
Therefore I would say that 75% of women are significantly involved in hookup culture.
“the hook up as a college sex stable”…I’m guessing this was supposed to be “a college sex STAPLE”…but what a great typo!
@Susan Walsh
“Clearly, the number of men actually able to pull this off is even smaller than 20%, so I’m surprised it was such a strong theme among the women.”
—————————-
Apex Fallacy anyone?
-E
Susan > Excellent article and commentary. I witnessed the hookup scene firsthand. A couple friends who were FWB eventually were no longer friends. I knew a couple (high school sweethearts) who went to the same university, and ended up breaking up due to “hookup cheating” (I guess you’d call it that). I only knew one couple who started out as hookup partners, graduated, and then married. They were divorced 2 years later.
I came across a similar academic article somewhere (I’ll try to find it). The gist of it was, a bad hookup might ruin your night, but a bad relationship in college can ruin your life. Kind of an extreme comparison. Most of my guy friends tried to date here and there in college, but we didn’t have much success. I had some ideas why back in the day. SInce it sounds like young people want an alternative to the hookup scene, what do you think is inhibiting dating? Is it just laziness? Fear of rejection?
Always the best advice, especially for the ladies. I opted out, regretted doing so for awhile after college, but ultimately was glad to have avoided it. But saving yourself means potentially waiting a long time. I didn’t meet my SO until 5 years after college. Patience may be a virtue, but there also has to be some incentive to wait, for the guys particulary.
They say there’s “no going back.”
“No going back” — the perennial mantra of people who want to excuse social dysfunction as “progress.” Progress toward what? More misery? Less love? Some thing where relationships not explicitly permitted by feminists are illegal? What? Help me out here.
If America was declared a communist state tomorrow, I’d certainly want to “go back” to having some kind of freedom, even though the communism came later than the freedom.
Just because something came later doesn’t mean it’s better. Social practices are not computers; the latest model isn’t always the best.
Hookup culture is filthy and rotten, no matter what the blasted calendar says.
Had you of you studied the Restoration? My husband hates the period before that with a fire of two thousand suns the name of the play “The Country Wife” solely sent him into an spiraling rant of hate and cursing words and my hubby is very calm not prone to rantings.Here is the infamous work: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Country_Wife
My point being is that we already had turned back to good things that used to work before we went all free. Freedom per se can be lived along with certain societal compromise the thing is that feminism and mainstream make it impossible the first time around. We don’t have to. Now we have evidence of how much this hurts is all a matter of someone let the people in power to realize that trying to solve everything by “adding more feminism” is like pretending to extinguish a fire adding more powder. It works only because everything will burn down and the fire won’t be able to continue, but then everything will burn down, YMMV.
@david foster
Haha I know! It was her typo, not mine, so I decided to leave it in.
@Private Man
My thoughts exactly! I agree the sample size is awfully small. To be honest, I’m surprised they would design such a small study.
@dhurka
That’s a fair assessment. I don’t think there’s any other kind of culture to choose from. So you get a third of the students opting out completely. A bunch of the remaining students are hooking up reluctantly or regretfully. So yes, they are involved in hookup culture, even if it isn’t working too well for them.
You’d think with this many young people being dissatisfied, they’d figure out a way to stop and do something else.
@Ensemble
Indeed. As someone who only figured this out myself about two years ago, I’m not surprised. This is perhaps the biggest challenge to young men today. Just getting this across to women.
@Megaman
I think both play a role. Mostly, though, I think the culture promotes it. That results in most young people feeling like they’re the oddballs. It’s well documented that nearly all college students think that everyone else is having good hookups in great numbers. Even I am surprised by the numbers in this small study. It does truly seem like hookup culture is something very few are navigating successfully or enjoying. The end result is that a vast majority of young people feel that they are “have nots.” No relationships, no sex, no intimacy. I think college kids are quite lonely for the opposite sex, with a few exceptions.
@CrisisEraDynamo
Fair enough. But here’s why we can’t go back: The Pill. And abortion on demand. For the first time, the last 50 years have freed women from unwanted pregnancy. There are STDs, and some social consequences to acting too slutty, but in general female sexuality has been totally unleashed. I just can’t envision how it will ever be restrained again, barring a terrible outbreak of disease or something like that.
The only answer is for hookup culture to become unfashionable. Something only losers do. That sounds ludicrous, but it’s happened with other things, e.g., smoking.
You’d think with this many young people being dissatisfied, they’d figure out a way to stop and do something else.
Young people might be brazen and reckless but they are not revolutionary the status quo is the only sense of social contract left in a world full of single mothers and broke homes. They lack the confidence to stand against it because again the culture sells the idea that “50 years ago women couldn’t have meaningless sex and we had the burden of being the sex gatekeepers, we fought hard for all of you to enjoy it! Enjoy it!!! Enjoy it goddamn it or I will call you a prude and you will never amount anything in life…loser!” Hard to stand up to that if you are young and inexperienced.
@ Susan Walsh
There nay be no turning back, but so-called irreversible filth is still filth and completely unworthy of respect.
It’s telling that the women who participate in the hookup culture feel like masturbation toys. I’d say that this culture has reduced women to exactly that, hence why feminists always want ever more onerous laws to dictate male behavior around women and reduce male rights to nothing. We’re exhorted to “respect women” while the women are commanded to not only disrespect men, but also to not do anything that shows you deserve respect *as a woman.*
It’s like picking up a handful of commonplace grasses and declaring them to be worth $1 million by fiat. No one would be dumb enough to pay that much for grass. Like those grasses, women are valued well beyond their metaphorical market price by feminists who want to build an artificial “respect” around women, who are then told not to act respectfully.
I don’t care about the Pill, and I certainly don’t care about abortion on demand. The culture is disgusting, I will not respect something so dreadful, and I’m running out of adjectives.
Nothing personal, Susan. I’m just not taking excuses anymore.
Susan, did you seriously claim not one participant was non-heterosexual when the study clearly states that three bisexual women took part in it? Are bisexual women straight now? o.O
So people are having drunk casual sex with people they don’t like and feel pressured itno sleeping with? Well, uh, there’s your problem.
Dr. Ozy prescribes the following to those who wish to have a happy, healthy casual sex life:
1) Consider whether you honestly want to have casual sex. Not having casual sex is okay and doesn’t make you prudish or antifeminist or anything. And you can decide you want casual sex at any time– you’re not making the decision that’s right for you forever, just the decision that’s right for you right now. If casual sex makes you sad or upset, stop having casual sex.
2) Don’t ever, ever, ever, ever criticize someone else’s decisions as long as those decisions are making them happy. It’s their sexual life, their body and their choices. You can gently point out to someone that their casual sex or relationship or celibacy is making them miserable, but don’t call someone lame for being a virgin or slutty for having casual sex. That’s not cool.
3) Don’t get drunk and have casual sex. Tipsy is okay, but if you’re too drunk to drive you’re too drunk to fuck. The first time around, at any rate.
4) Only fuck people you LIKE. If you cannot stand to eat breakfast with them the morning after, you shouldn’t sleep with them. The best fuckbuddy relationships are just that– relationships. They should be casual and commitment-free, true, but they should also involve arguing about Galactic Civilization and making puns at each other and talking politics and stealing each other’s comic books. (Or insert your own description of “friends” here.)
5) Do not have sex you don’t want to have. The person you are with is capable of masturbating.
6) Don’t pressure other people into having sex they don’t want to have. You are capable of masturbating.
7) Know what you want out of sex and be willing to dump someone who doesn’t want it too. If you love cuddles, don’t fuck someone who won’t cuddle. If you’re vanilla as can be, don’t fuck the dude with the mind-boggling collection of hitty toys.
Also, only 1% of college students have relationships? That seems… low. I’d suggest that Wade probably has a non-representative sample, which is extremely common for qualitative research in the social sciences. Nearly everyone I know– including the people who have casual sex– has had at least one relationship.
Also, Susan, it’s a small study because it’s qualitative. An average qualitative study involves two to three hours of interviews with each participant and even more time spent transcribing and combing the responses for common threads, so a very small study still adds up to weeks of work.
“a bad hookup might ruin your night, but a bad relationship in college can ruin your life”
A bad relationship can ruin your life? Driving to the grocery store can ruin your life if you’re in a sufficiently bad auto accident, but the odds are strongly against it.
Have we become such a culture of fragile wimps that people (men+women) think that falling seriously in love with someone, thinking it’s mutual, and then getting ditched will **ruin your life**??
How much of hookup culture is due to fear of emotional risk?
Anyone committed to the quest to find “meaningful” sex must first solve the riddle of finding what might have”meaning” in any part of life. -because – in an icecold void, even the most energertic sexual friction falls short of producing any meaningful warmth, much less spirirtual transcendence.
If our typical modern nihilistic college student cannot find “meaning: in random hooked-up sexual encounters then he or she should give up entirely in the quest for meaningfulness in life in general. The train has left the station and will never come back. They should try to get comfortable with total psychological empiness. That is the best they can hope for, after all. Given their orientation…
Hint: The comprehensive nihilism you have inbibed since kindergarten makes sex meaningless, per se. If you feel like affirming a different view mayybe you are just over doverdosing on dopamine and serotonin and oxytocin. but keep in mind that there are available pharmicutical reversing agents for all these love-spasm hormones.
Someone isn’t telling the truth here-not when 89% of college students PROFESS to hate the hookup scene, yet participate in it anyway. Actions speak louder than words; they always have, and they always will…
“Clearly, the number of men actually able to pull this off is even smaller than 20%, so I’m surprised it was such a strong theme among the women.”
eighty to ninety percent of the women are hooking up with ten to twenty percent of the men. The fact that ninety percent of the men are unable to pull this off is invisible to them, because ninety percent of the men are invisible to them.
I’m not so quick to blame feminism for this, although it certainly has its place in the sex-pozzing of campus culture (there is zero slut shaming on a major college campus, for one – interesting how slut mores weren’t part of the survey, at least you didn’t quote it) but I think the tide of divorce is what destroyed formal coupling culture. Kids don’t have good role models, they don’t learn how to relate to the opposite gender in an attractive positive way, and they become relationship-avoidant. It becomes an entrenched cultural phenomenon and it never goes back. Now we have kids coming of age whose parents were children of divorce and the cycle continues.
“You’d think with this many young people being dissatisfied, they’d figure out a way to stop and do something else.”
I wouldn’t be so sure. I’m sure you knew plenty of people in college who woke up hungover, said “this sucks, I’m never doing this again.” Aaaaaand next Friday night they were doing a method-acting audition for an extra in a Katy Perry video.
“I think college kids are quite lonely for the opposite sex, with a few exceptions.”
It’s ironic, we’ve created this mixed-gender society where boys and girls mingle from a young age, and the end result is that men and women feel completely alienated from each other, can’t express their feelings for each others and are unable to form basic intersexual bonds.
“I just can’t envision how it will ever be restrained again, barring a terrible outbreak of disease or something like that. ”
You just answered your own question. It’s going to happen. Nature always finds a way.
“3. Hooking up is also good for students who are really focused on their studies or on balancing work and school; it is a way to get sexual experience that doesn’t include the intense time and emotion investments required by relationships. It is a way to gain sexual experience in a less distracting way.”
WTF? Did she even read the data she collected, which said the collective “low-maintenance sex” experiment was a total failure?
4. Hooking up turns out to be, in many ways, emotionally safer. Hamilton and Armstrong found that, when hook ups go bad, people can get hurt; but when relationships go bad, they tend to go bad in a much bigger way. Bad hookups were isolated events, but bad relationships sometimes wreaked havoc with students’ lives.”
WTF? x2. Everyone in the survey said they felt emotionally vapid and unfulfilled. This sounds like her feminist hamster talking, the one that would say “better to be single than to marry an imperfect mate and settle!” Not to mention that college relationships don’t have to be serious life-changing hurt events when they break up. Sucks bigtime, but nowhere near something like getting divorced.
Good data, bad conclusions.
“Interestingly, Wade found that men were just as interested as women in having relationships.”
No, the ninety percent of men who were not getting any sex were interested in having relationships.
The women were all interested in having relationships with the same guy, but that once guy only had relationships with half a dozen of them, leaving the rest with unsatisfactory sex and no relationship.
Between my hitches in the military, I was a landscaper. I specialized in large commercial irrigation systems.
My municipality was having a drought that necessitated watering restrictions, and the local government formed a focus group that I was a part of. The lady who put this together was a PR person who’d done extensive work on anti-smoking campaigns in the 1980′s.
Listening to her talk was fascinating. In her opinion, the most effective work she did was in educating kids from 1st through 3rd grade. She turned elementary school kids into little anti-smoking warriors who nagged their parents incessantly to quit smoking (I sure did).
In her opinion, the best way to make any kind of societal behavioral shift was to bring little kids over to your side, convince them that they are saving their parents by doing “x”, and let ‘em rip. She did the same thing with water conservation, and it worked very well.
Interesting, a bit scary, and utterly inapplicable here.
“Daddy, that lady was only an HB5! Don’t you know you’re screwing around with assortive mating?! Mommy was an HB7 before the Hypergamy Monster took her away to live with Uncle Billy!”
“Uncle Billy? I thought it was Uncle Timmy.”
“No, Daddy! I have lots of uncles! A new one every weekend. They smell like cigarettes.”
Susan-
Yes, this topic is massive apex fallacy territory.
I think we should carefully note that the so-called nice guys and beta males have not gone anywhere – they are still available for dating.
Women may hate the hookup culture, but they OBVIOUSLY hate dating average guys even more.
There are moments of red-pill thinking that crop up here and there in the current cultural stream, but we are still a long way from the narrative shifting – and UNTIL THE NARRATIVE SHIFTS, nothing, nothing, nothing will change.
Mmm…How about a sad face of a kid, crying: PLEASE MUMMY DON’T LET ME WITHOUT A DADDY?
It could be a small caption with: No abuse, No cheating = No divorce.
Why do people say 90% of women hook up with 10% of men when Susan has repeatedly given sources that show 80% of women don’t even hook-up in the first place? What are you guys seeing that I’m not?
@ Anacoana
Yesssss! I read Country Wife a year or so ago, it’s weird to think the Victorians came after the Restoration period isn’t it? After you’re finished scolding cheaters and femmies, you should really read School for Scandal (R.B Sheridan). It’ll make you so angry.
Dogsquat: Yeah, parents, especially fathers are heavily invested in society. At least good parents.
SW: How shall getting some sort of the male attention that most women want ever become unfashionable? How shall intrafemale competition become unfashionable? Ah, now I see. There was always intrafemale competition, but the price to pay for trying to cut corners for a chance to get ahead in the race was higher. So cutting corners should become unfashionable, something no high status woman would do and that only bottom of the barrel women will do (sounds familiar). It can happen and it will and must happen, but I dont see it around the corner yet.
here’s why we can’t go back: The Pill. And abortion on demand. For the first time, the last 50 years have freed women from unwanted pregnancy.
Then the pill is a recreational drug?
you can decide you want casual sex at any time
Corrected: A woman can decide she wants casual sex at any time
Don’t ever, ever, ever, ever criticize someone else’s decisions as long as those decisions are making them happy.
Warning: does not apply to a man who decides to deny a promiscuous woman her sudden need for long term companionship with him
eighty to ninety percent of the women are hooking up with ten to twenty percent of the men
So ladies, is this how you like it with your Mr. Apex?:
Yeah, picture that next time you’re out with a “relationship minded” girl talking about her parent-funded “college experience”
Hydie sipped at her glass. Here was another man living in his own portable glass cage. Most people she knew did. Each one inside a kind of invisible telephone box. They did not talk to you directly but through a wire. Their voices came through distorted and mostly they talked to the wrong number, even when they lay in bed with you. And yet her craving to smash the glass between the cages had come back again. If cafes were the home of those who had lost their country, bed was the sanctuary of those who had lost their faith.
–Arthur Koestler, The Age of Longing
Okay. Looking at this dataset (which is admittedly small), we see the following:
That means that 75% of the sample was, to some degree, hooking up. Only 15% was in hyperdrive, but 75% were hooking up to some degree. The remaining 25% are likely a mixed bag of people who don’t hook up for religious/moral reasons, or people who are not attractive enough to hook up (the bottom 15-20% or so of both sexes is never having it easy in any SMP).
The sample was 33 women and 11 men. The trouble, of course, is that she chose to have all freshmen as her sample. That was obviously silly, because freshmen women *often* are with upperclassmen, sexually/relationally, and not with freshman men. But even leaving that aside, when you see that 75% of the sample was hooking up to some degree, and 80% of the sample is women, you can do the math. That is, if only 20% of the women were hooking up in a sample that was 80% female, then you wouldn’t have the fact stated that 75% of the sample was hooking up to some degree. What this particular dataset shows is that a substantial percentage of the women was hooking up, albeit at very different frequencies. My guess is that some women like it and most do not — and of the do not, some keep doing it anyway, at a lower frequency, whereas a smaller group drops out of it altogether, while an even smaller group goes at it like pigs in heat. Now it’s not clear from this data whether these women are having sex with all 11 of the men, or whether it’s a smaller portion of the men — again, this is where the methodology of using all freshmen is a bit daft, because in all likelihood most of the freshman women are hooking up with upperclassmen and a good number of the freshmen men are hooking up with internet porn — but again, the study doesn’t address this. It does say, however, that most women are, to some degree, hooking up, although the frequency differs between them and some hook up a LOT more than others, while some hook up only a little and then drop out of the hookup scene.
We’ve essentially created a culture where male/female relationships are either “full-on sexual” (i.e., hook up scenes, clubs, bars, etc.) or sanitized/desexualized (i.e., every other setting). This has been done to make most spaces free of sexual harassment and the “objectification of women” by the “male gaze” and so on — in schools, the workplace, the public sphere and so on. So what we’ve done is a kind of “sexual zoning” from the social perspective, with some settings being the equivalent of a zoned red light district where its all about sex, and other settings being sanitized like hospitals in terms of sex relations. Some people (alpha males, very attractive women who like using their sexuality for various reasons) transcend these settings with social permission. But everyone else more or less sticks to the zoning script. The trouble is that it’s hard for many people who are not “transcendent” of the zoning to switch back and forth between zones, especially as we all spend most of our time in the desexualized/sanitized zone. This leads to a lot more compartmentalized sexuality (the culture has compartmentalized it to protect women, essentially), which, in turn, leads, for many people, to a kind of disconnection from the opposite sex in relational/intersexual terms, as you say. Men and women are getting very good at relating to each other in sanitized and desexualized ways, but this is coming at the expense of being able to relate to each other in a holistic way: that is, either she’s a work colleague treated in a sanitized way, or she’s a hook up prospect at the club, treated like a sexual tigress, but there isn’t much space for a holistic approach that transcends that, and sees people as sexual (but not hypersexual tigresses) in all settings without that becoming harassment. It’s something that is taking a toll on relationship formation, and the younger generation is bearing the brunt because this all or nothing type of bifurcated intersexual relating is all that they know.
@ Brendan
Wow, I’ve sensed that for quite a while. Thanks for putting it into words.
@Brendan
We’ve essentially created a culture where male/female relationships are either “full-on sexual” (i.e., hook up scenes, clubs, bars, etc.) or sanitized/desexualized (i.e., every other setting). [...] It’s something that is taking a toll on relationship formation, and the younger generation is bearing the brunt because this all or nothing type of bifurcated intersexual relating is all that they know.
Yep. That about covers it.
The thing is, past societies tried to highly regulate behaviors between the sexes, so that women could feel safe everywhere while at the same time letting the sexes court each other. It obviously didn’t work perfectly, and the chafing against the restraints got us the Sexual Revolution and the mess we’re in today.
Brendan…very interesting point about zoning.
Thank you Brendan. =]
But… a small objection here. My fault for not clarifying earlier, really. What I meant was that people will say this regardless of the sample involved. Take a look at any other post in the archive and you’ll see more of the same. For example, the Marcotte post a few days earlier visibly stated “80 percent of women do not seek or enjoy casual sex” in the closing sentences. And if I remember correctly, it’s only 20% of women who are actually promiscuous and have high partner counts. And yet a considerable amount of commentators decide to steam on anyway and continue saying that most women are still promiscuous, all women are like that, they’re lying about their counts, renew your travel documents, pickings are slim blah blah. I’m like, huh? That isn’t reflected anywhere; where are you looking?
So, basically my gripe is that people are exaggerating – wilfully or otherwise. That, and the bizarre nihilism.
THIS. A thousand times this. I’m guessing the untapped potential is in the sub-group that hooks up but resents it whilst the conscientious objectors suffer because of the pig group/others undercutting them. Hence, the need for slut shaming.
redneck: “Interestingly, Wade found that men were just as interested as women in having relationships.”
“No, the ninety percent of men who were not getting any sex were interested in having relationships.”
I submit that that 90% of men not getting any sex want to get into relationships because they perceive it as the most surefire way to get sex. Let’s face it. If they could get sex without the relationship, they would do so. The problem is the current SMP: 80% of women want the top 10 to 20% of men and won’t even consider anything less. These 80% to 90% of men can’t even get noticed.
jack: “Yes, this topic is massive apex fallacy territory.
I think we should carefully note that the so-called nice guys and beta males have not gone anywhere – they are still available for dating.”
The women in the sample seem to say that all the men are getting whatever they want. No. About 10% of men are getting whatever they want, but since those 10% have 80% of female attention focused on them, that’s what they see, and that’s what they perceive to be reality.
This all just reinforces the conclusion that game is the answer for men in today’s SMP. A regimen of rigorous self-improvement, attitude adjustment, walking away from relationships and inperpersonal interactions that don’t yield desired results, and a certain amount of boldness will give a beta some edge he can use to get a woman he’s interested in to take notice.
@Ozy
My mistake! I only took in the first part of that sentence, “None of the students identified as gay or lesbian…”
The discrediting of social science research is the usual feminist fallback position to any study in the social sciences they don’t like. Which happens to be all of them.
I thought of you, Ozy, when Wade, a feminist, described there being intense pressure to hook up, and that abstinence is disallowed and not tolerated. It’s the quickest route to ostracization. That is in keeping with what I hear from readers.
I think 1% is low for college students having relationships, but perhaps not low for freshmen. In any case, the number of relationships is very low compared with past generations.
I think we have a vocab issue here. To be honest, a brief and intensely sexual experience is not a committed relationship, it’s a fling, no matter what you call it. Relationships last longer than a couple of months. By the same token, there are those in “relationships” lasting 2 years, with little or no emotional intimacy. They’re just dressed up booty call arrangements.
Did I say otherwise? Not sure what you’re getting at here. Wade is a respected academic. If I thought her study was inconsequential I wouldn’t have written about it. I just said that it’s probably not valid to extrapolate too much from this one study.
@david foster
Well, according to the things students told Wade, it’s just huge. The students put more energy into “not caring” than anything else, even as they say they hate pretending that they’re just sex toys.
“Even when sex was both consensual and truly wanted, students often reported highly unsatisfying sexual encounters. This, too, was more true for women than for men.”
Who knew John Lennon was writing about hookup culture.
Last night I said these words to my girl,
I know you never even try girl,
C’mon (C’mon) C’mon (C’mon) C’mon (C’mon) C’mon (C’mon)*
Please please me, whoa yeah, like I please you
You don’t need me to show the way, love
Why do I always have to say “love?”
C’mon (C’mon) C’mon (C’mon) C’mon (C’mon) C’mon (C’mon)
Please please me, whoa yeah, like I please you
I don’t wanna sound complaining,
But you know there’s always rain in my heart (in my heart).
I do all the pleasing with you it’s so hard to reason
With you, whoa yeah, why do you make me blue?
*”Come on” is clearly a double entendre.
@Susan
It’s sad more than anything. Everyone is pretending not to care about anyone else, even as the “sex toy” hookups are making them feel like no one cares about them. It’s a vicious cycle that’s eating people alive.
@ Brendan:
“The trouble is that it’s hard for many people who are not “transcendent” of the zoning to switch back and forth between zones, especially as we all spend most of our time in the desexualized/sanitized zone. This leads to a lot more compartmentalized sexuality (the culture has compartmentalized it to protect women, essentially), which, in turn, leads, for many people, to a kind of disconnection from the opposite sex in relational/intersexual terms, as you say.”
And what this is leading to currently is:
1. Women see only 10 to 20% of men as men. The rest are seen as irrelevant chaff.
2. This is most difficult on men, because men are hardwired to see (or at least evaluate) most women as possible sex partners.
3. There is much, much greater permission for women to “transcend” the two spheres. More and more young women dress provocatively and overtly sexually. They know full well that they are exploiting their sexuality; while insisting that only attractive men take notice. If an unattractive man takes notice, this is ”creepy” and “sexual harassment”. Men are increasingly noticing and pushing back against this perceived unfairness.
I’ve long noted that there is an increasing number of young women who believe that anything goes WRT their own conduct. They can say anything they want anytime they want to whomever they want, devoid of negative consequences. They believe they can do anything they want, anytime they want anywhere they want, again without negative consequences.
4. The compartmentalization of the culture to cordon off sexuality to certain locations and situations creates enormous cognitive dissonance in men. They naturally want to approach, have a little swagger and braggadocio, and want to compete. But they’ve been taught that approach is sexual harassment, swagger is arrogance and violence, and competition makes others “feel bad” and that “everyone has to win”. They spend so much time in a sanitized desexualized environment that when transplanted to a situation in which it’s “okay” to meet women, they have no idea what to do or how to act.
The result is that men have learned and been taught to suppress their natural sexual urges and selves so much and to such a pervasive extent that they’ve forgotten (or never learned) how to act like men. It is not just sexual selves in the sense of having sex, but that which marks a man: self improvement, seeking excellence, competition, swagger, focus on tasks, problem-solving and accomplishment.
Hence, the manosphere’s focus on game and self-improvement (so-called “inner game”).
@ Brendan “Men and women are getting very good at relating to each other in sanitized and desexualized ways, but this is coming at the expense of being able to relate to each other in a holistic way.”
I agree with the second clause, but not so much the first. Men and women are having a great deal of difficulty relating to each other as men and women because “the sex thing always gets in the way”. Putting the genders together in the workplace means they spend enormous amounts of time together while simultaneously having to ignore consciously the white elephant in the room. I suspect this is a problem for men far more than it is for women. There are days I spend more time with my assistant than with my wife. It’s very, very difficult to segregate the professional from the sexual in such circumstances. Feminism’s insistence that men and women are exactly the same and process information in exactly the same way certainly has not helped matters, particularly when the evidence continues to roll in that this simply is not true and has never been true.
This is why I don’t agree that men and women are getting very good at relating to each other in desexualized ways. Women might be good at it. Men are not.
@Badger
I am really, really disappointed she hopped on the feminist hamster wheel there at the end. She was very open about it’s being a disaster, then said “hookups should still be a stable (sic).” I also find it totally offensive that she basically said that sometimes things that suck are good for you. Who is she to say that? Certainly none of her students said that. She’s scolding them, essentially.
The facile comparison to relationships, i.e. “all this bad stuff happens in relationships too, women feel hurt when boyfriends dump them too,” is a favorite feminist tactic. Wade is now saying that hookup hurts are less significant than hurts involving the heart.
@redneck
That’s really not what the data said. If you look at the stats, most people are hooking up very little. Not all the women are flocking to one guy, at least you can’t conclude that from this data set. I’ve written about this several times, and it’s been my contention that about 20% of guys and 20% of girls are promiscuous. If this study is accurate, I grossly overestimated for both sexes.
@Dogsquat
The book Join the Club (conveniently located in the Amazon widget to your left) is all about how peer pressure can be used to effect positive change. One of the most successful campaigns was making the tobacco companies evil. Teens climbed on board in droves and smoking became totally uncool. Similar programs have been successful in Africa with condom use.
Making hooking up uncool is going to be tough because women are the gatekeepers of sex, and slut shaming is the only obvious form of peer pressure available. Women are loathe to do that, for a variety of reasons.
@Jack
I don’t know whether they do or not, but I don’t think they’ve really had an opportunity to try it. There is no dating script. Average guys can’t deploy one, and if they did women would likely not know how to respond. As Badger said, they might think it’s weird and uncomfortable to go minigolfing with a guy. They’re used to male attention coming in the form of a sexual invitation.
This is a favorite claim in the Gamesphere. The appeal is understandable for men who are in the 90% of dissatisfied men. Game is sold on the idea that every guy can move from the 90% to the 10%. The reality is that most guys can move from involuntarily celibate to in a sexual relationship with a lot of work. A few can soar right to the top and get casual sex, like Jesus did this summer. But the odds are strongly against it. Stepping up one’s game is a good strategy, as long as the goals are realistic and achievable.
@Lavazza
I agree. If women were prepared to slut-shame in the name of female intrasexual competition it would have already happened. A more realistic hope, perhaps, is that women will become aware that they’re not alone in feeling miserable in hookup culture. That, in fact, not everyone is having great sex and an awesome time. Perhaps then they will opt out in the interest of self-preservation. This already happens to some degree as women proceed through college. Far fewer juniors and seniors hook up than freshmen and sophomores. If enough women step off the carousel, then only the lower market value women will be cutting corners. Guys will still hit it, but a secondary “dating” track could spring up for the higher value women. If there was a return to more relationships in college, then guys might think twice before hooking up with fuglies.
I don’t see it around the corner yet either, but at least the conversation is happening.
“3. Hooking up is also good for students who are really focused on their studies or on balancing work and school; it is a way to get sexual experience that doesn’t include the intense time and emotion investments required by relationships. It is a way to gain sexual experience in a less distracting way.
“4. Hooking up turns out to be, in many ways, emotionally safer. Hamilton and Armstrong found that, when hook ups go bad, people can get hurt; but when relationships go bad, they tend to go bad in a much bigger way. Bad hookups were isolated events, but bad relationships sometimes wreaked havoc with students’ lives.”
When clothes start flying, even if it’s not P in V, the participants think there’s no emotional connection. But they are connecting emotionally. Once you’ve crossed the Rubicon of sexual involvement with a girl, you never see her the same way again. It’s probably the same with women. Once that history is there, you’re connected in a way that you are not with someone you’ve never been sexual with.
If there’s no emotional investment in hookups, why would the data indicate the participants are at least trying hooking up, but they don’t like it? Why don’t they like it? I submit that for women, it’s because they think it’s going to lead to a relationship but it almost never does. They try again and again, thinking the way to that alpha’s heart is through his penis, but they never get the brass ring.
I suspect that most men don’t like it because they can’t do it most of the time. And hooking up for most men is so extremely unpredictable and unreliable as a conduit to sex. So trying to hook up is more a frustration for most men than anything else. For most men the time, money and emotion invested is vastly disproportionate to the return they get. Put another way, the ROI is terrible. (They call it “getting lucky” for a reason.) Quite simply, men would like hooking up a lot more if it yielded more consistent results for them.
Standard superior wisdom from Brendan.
I will just add one thing. Yes, we can say that 75% of the women are hooking up to some degree. However, a third of those have 1-3 hookups in college. That could literally mean making out one time with a guy during college. There’s undoubtedly a spectrum even within these small numbers, but overall I’m surprised that most women are really not getting busy very often at all. Certainly the stereotype of Girls Gone Wild in college, dancing on a tabletop at frat parties, drunkenly stumbling upstairs for a threesome – this is very rare.
@Badger
Watching the George documentary has convinced me that only John was alpha. In today’s SMP the other three would have turned into assholes or had difficulty sustaining attraction with women.
This is true. It’s kind of like the inverse of the apex fallacy for men, I think.
Yeah, I suppose that it varies, and certainly also generationally as well. I do agree that women find this model (most of the time desanitized, and only certain specific, pre-ordained “zones” sexualized) much easier — in part that’s because it’s the way female attraction tends to work (most men are not that attractive to any given woman, anyway, whereas with men it’s the reverse) and in part because this approach was taken specifically to “protect” women from male sexuality in certain contexts. So, by design, it’s supposed to “check” male sexuality in most settings — something which, of course, men are going to struggle with more than women, on average, because female sexuality isn’t being directly checked (yes, the laws apply neutrally, and there is some female on male harassment going on, but generally most women are just not attracted enough to most men for this to balloon into a big issue), and women are just not that attracted to most men that they come across most of the time.
I do think, though, that for the *younger* generation that Badger is talking about here, many of them are quite good at relating to females/women in a desexualized/sanitized way, because this is all they know growing up. There are a few larger than life dissidents who buck the system from the male side (natural alphas), who are basically given social permission to do so because their approaches are much less “unwanted”, but for the vast majority of younger males/men, the issue isn’t that they are not good at being desexualized around women — the issue for them is they don’t know how to be holistically sexual around women without the women finding them creepy, or without it being outside the context of a clearly sexualized zone (like a frat party, or a booty call, or a club). For people our age and older, it’s a bit different, as we were growing up when the social regime was in the process of changing, so we have a mixed bag of views, perspectives and challenges (and frankly I think our generation of men and women is quite antagonistic towards each other as a result of the confusion we had growing up together with the rules in the process of being changed radically away from what our parents were talking about). But for the young, I think the situation is different, because the transformation has been more or less complete.
@Brendan
I have to be careful not to fall into this trap myself. The SMP has changed so dramatically since the early 80s that when I write about those days I feel like I’m watching a silent movie in sepia tones. That’s why I rely so heavily on readers, my focus group girls, and research to inform my understanding. Getting into the mind of today’s college student is a huge leap for those of us >40.
some settings being the equivalent of a zoned red light district where its all about sex
So, then its like this
and this?
Did they do this at a large university or small one? That would change a lot. If they did this study at my university, the numbers would be COMPLETELY different. I go to a university of 45,000+ people and the “hook up culture” is a huge part of my university.
Sex or more so sexuality is being commodified and sold to us.We are sold the idea of the hook up or one night stand solely for marketing purposes.
Homosexual , heterosexual ,bisexual just brand names. drink buy , consume,Ok you can fuck too , but only after you buy the trendy clothes , the hot makeup, the premium alcohol , the new axe spray and the overpriced education.
pleasure, meaning and empowerment can not be bought or sold.
Fine if they hate it, but what do they want instead? and, do both sides want that same thing?
This is an apt description of my experiences in college, along with my male friends. And we weren’t picky when it came to dating. We were pretty optimistic coming out of high school. I assumed it would be fun to meet new people in the dating sense. It seems like old-fashioned thinking now. The girls I really liked tended to already have boyfriends (isn’t that always the case). But after a couple of years of marginal dating success, I think a lot of guys just stop trying. Maybe some them opt to just hook up albeit infrequently, but it doesn’t sound like they get much out of that either. The student body was 55%/45% female/male at my university. Since women appear to want more meaningful relationships in college, you’d think the numbers game alone would help guys who felt the same way? Are men and women completely out of sync on how to go about dating? There must be something else going on…
@Matt C
This study was at a small college of about 2,000 I think. But living in New England among quite a few small, liberal arts colleges I know they hook up culture is the only game in town there too. I think it’s true across the board, except perhaps for religious schools like BYU or some evangelical schools.
Truth be told, the forcible desexualization (remember, men are trained to pedestalize women, while women are trained to curse men) angers me as much as the hookup culture. You can’t blame this on the Pill or abortion. This is purely a creature of feminist tyranny — one I intend to buck as much as possible.
Once I realized that all of these rules are in bad faith — that they are all intended to punish men collectively — I decided to thumb my nose at them as much as possible. I take baby steps, of course, but it feels liberating to see through the rules and no longer have to grovel at the feet of rude, boorish women.
This thinking is “sexist.” I know. I also know what “sexist” means: one who criticizes women as a group, for any reason, or one who doesn’t see feminist tyranny as just.
“The SMP has changed so dramatically since the early 80s that when I write about those days I feel like I’m watching a silent movie in sepia tones.”
Careful glorifying the past. This is from 1980:
http://youtu.be/Xbt30UnzRWw
“Devo” is short for “Devolution”, as in the Sexual Devolution.
It has progressed further than we could have imagined, but its been going on for a long time.
I actually think things are starting to get better, as Brendan intimated. The high-school kids I teach seem to have healthier attitudes about a lot of things, not just relationships. Strauss and Howe predicted that we (Xers) would make better leaders/managers/teachers/generals etc… than the unrealistic Boomers, and I’m seeing that play out in the schools – I travel to several.
As Brendan noted, inter-Xer relations aren’t going so well, thanks to the moral junkfood diet we grew up on from the Boomers (it actually seems like the younger the girl, the more mature she is regarding relationships – though my lower limit is 25 so the younger ones may just be talking a good game), but it at least helps us cut through the bullshit in what we teach the new guys, or more importantly in what they come up with themselves.
College wasn’t too long ago for me (2 years or so), and the hookup culture was definitely present at my university. I avoided it, but I know some people who did engage in it. I found that they came back from their experiences worse for wear. One common theme throughout all of the hookups tended to be that they became emotionally bonded to their partners, but would rather claw off their own faces than to admit/show those feelings to their partners.
Aside from the mere potential of getting hurt, why are people so afraid to be emotionally vulnerable to a potential partner in the first place?
Megaman,
“The girls I really liked tended to already have boyfriends (isn’t that always the case)”
I thought that too. Google “I have a boyfriend”. When a girl says that, it can mean almost anything. Some just blurt it out without thinking whenever they get nervous or feel lower value than the guy. Women are very attracted to men with options (this is also known as social proof) so she’s trying to DHV (display higher value) by letting you know about her options (other men).
Imagine she’s some nerd talking about his girlfriend in Canada. Often times, its no more than that, and she says it for similar reasons.
Some of course actually do have boyfriends or are trying to nicely let you know they are not interested or that you have come on too strong. As in most else with women, reading IOI’s (indicators of interest) will tell you a lot more of what it going on than what they actually say.
As for women reading this, if you’re over twenty-five and don’t have a ring (and you want to start a family at any point in your life) there is no such thing as a boyfriend. You’re too old for boys.
Sassy,
“Aside from the mere potential of getting hurt, why are people so afraid to be emotionally vulnerable to a potential partner in the first place?”
In my experience working with high school kids, there is a general fear of messing up in any way. The Boomer school leaders are often great people, but they also want everything always to be sunshine and rainbows and the Millennials are always afraid to disappoint their beloved Boomers.
The good news is that the fear is pretty shallow, and that if you get beyond it people can really open up (I think players are actually taking advantage of this phenomenon – especially the “leave ‘em better than you found ‘em” crew). Xer teachers like me give the students permission to admit past mistakes (by admitting our own and calling a mistake a mistake*) and more importantly to make new ones (the only real way to learn), and its amazing how quickly they reconnect with their natural joy of learning.
The same potential is there for relationships.
* – for a Boomer, every choice is equally wonderful. No disappointment allowed – too judgmental.
“I don’t think there’s any other kind of culture to choose from.”
On the campuses of Liberal Arts institutions.
I finally made it to an Ivy at 31. I met a great many wonderful people there, best in the world, learned a tremendous amount, but culturally and intellectually, it was a Luther goes to Rome experience. Veritas is far from the top priority.
The Liberal Arts are at their very heart about learning about (and in great teaching, experiencing) the great cultures across time so that we might choose the most appropriate forms from each to fit the particular times in which we live. That students would say what you quote here shows just how deeply they’ve been defrauded.
“female sexuality has been totally unleashed. I just can’t envision how it will ever be restrained again”
I’ll give you a hint: it wasn’t males who leashed it in the first place.
It’s very doable. Men are awash in a sea of single mothers on their best behavior. Women know full well how to do it, their mothers and the alpha females just need to learn how to pass a shit test or two when they’re raising them/setting the standard. Women are also much more conformist than men, so when the lead changes, they”ll change too.
“I came across a similar academic article somewhere (I’ll try to find it). The gist of it was, a bad hookup might ruin your night, but a bad relationship in college can ruin your life. “..
That’s a good point. Maybe the hookup culture is a reaction to that.
Also, I wonder how much pressure is put on girls to act like they don’t want or need marriage or ltr’s or a family. But, there seems to be pressure to have a boyfriend and be desirable. But your not supposed to admit that? Not being female I can’t say what pressures their under but they certainly seem to be getting some confused messages. Which would make it hard to be honest about want the actually want.
As far as pressure on the guy side, the main thing when I was in college is that it was kind of competitive and if you got with multiple hot chics you were winning.
Good to be done with college. It’s a wonder any studying gets done at all.
Understandable, yep. Acceptable? Probably not. It’s just counter-productive and super jaded.
Oh, and this. Game can only take you to a certain point, insofar as it can help strip away negative trait and societal conditioning. But other than that, whatever is left over is your actual self and you would do well to acknowledge your natural league imo. Shouldn’t complain about hypergamy if you’re trying to do the same on the sly, lol.
I knew quite a few guys who were willing to be “vulnerable”, given the right circumstances. I was one of them. However, it was extremely difficult meeting a girl who would give me the opportunity.
There seemed to be two worlds co-existing at the same time when I was in college: 1) Women who wanted something meaningful, surrounded by men who just wanted sex. 2) Guys who wanted something meaningful, surrounded by women who didn’t want anything from them. It’s a strange world.
@ Desiderius
But most women are already well-behaved. Kind of. It’s just that there’s a slutty and sizeable minority who mince around and lower the price for everyone else. What is an alpha female, out of interest? Does this mean there’s omega women? O_o
Isabel:
“But most women are already well-behaved. Kind of”
If a woman hooks up, supposedly just a few times, I don’t think she is well behaved and am inclined to very much doubt that it was just a few times. And most women surveyed in this survey admit to hooking up a few times.
Isabel October 8, 2011 at 5:07 pm
> What is an alpha female, out of interest?
No such thing as alpha females. The female equivalent of an alpha male is a hot chick. Females are judged primarily on looks, secondly on feminine behavior, such as being a good cook, cleaning stuff up, and so forth. Males are judged primarily on status – but females are notoriously poor judges of male/male status, tending towards a more primitive evaluation of male status than males employ.
Thus, as Roissy (now Heartiste) regularly demonstrates, the extremely poor correlation between male status among males (Steve Jobs being high status) with male status among females (a pimp, or better still some guy in jail for abducting, murdering, and eating young girls, being high status)
“Shouldn’t complain about hypergamy if you’re trying to do the same on the sly, lol.”
I think its gone beyond complaint at this stage, although I do think there is a less severe apex fallacy running the other way, especially if net porn is counted. The problem is serious enough that hypocrisy is small potatoes.
“There seemed to be two worlds co-existing at the same time when I was in college: 1) Women who wanted something meaningful, surrounded by men who just wanted sex. 2) Guys who wanted something meaningful, surrounded by women who didn’t want anything from them. It’s a strange world.”
Given radical non-judmentalism, including even, most crucially, self-judgment, the consequent unleashed hypergamy points those women to the men who don’t want something meaningful, and only those men.
“Wanting something meaningful” on the part of the man with that woman is itself a sign to her that she could do better, since since he committed first, she could theoretically find someone better (i.e. someone who could make her commit first). Likewise any real man cannot compete with her ideal man, and completely unfettered hypergamy cannot bear second-best.
On the flip-side, inexperienced men are afraid to have their inexperience exposed and women are afraid to “settle” for someone who they might have to help get over this.
It’s massive Groucho Marxville. No one wants to be a member of a club that would have them.
Isabel,
“But most women are already well-behaved.”
If the ones who get married before 25 count, you might have a bare majority.
Well-behaved means valuing the traits that make a good husband, father, and citizen over those which make a good quick lay. The former will be a better lay in the long run in any case (if for no other reason than the latter likely not being there at all). Once you find a man well-qualified in the first three, or who at least exhibits good potential, no one will give you any grief if it doesn’t work out due to lack of chemistry.
Bad behavior is putting the cart before the horse.
Evil behavior is disqualifying a man for possessing those first three qualities.
“Oh, and this. Game can only take you to a certain point, insofar as it can help strip away negative trait and societal conditioning. But other than that, whatever is left over is your actual self and you would do well to acknowledge your natural league imo. Shouldn’t complain about hypergamy if you’re trying to do the same on the sly, lol.”
@Isabel
Women, however, do not want to date men who are in their “natural league”; they want men who are of higher status than themselves. Therefore, advising men to date within their league is basically telling them to drop out of the market altogether. In today’s smp, men without game are forced to date down.
@ Redneck
No offence but this is just an excuse that dark Gamers use as permission to be assholes. Have you ever stopped to notice the type of women who fall in love with prisoners and cannibals? Why are most of them suspiciously fugly and/or overweight? Yuck.
“What is an alpha female, out of interest?”
My definition:
In a monogamous civilization functioning properly, they‘re the ones married to the alpha males. Mencken has a great article on the general practice of fierce monogamy on the part of the great alphas of history, contrary to the popular stereotype that they can’t keep it in their pants. Paul Newman would be a more recent example.
Civilization was built by alpha females and beta males. Western Civ recruited the alpha males and became great, but it all starts with the alpha females, as they set the tone for the rest, and still do.*
Hugh Hefner’s defection started the Sexual Devolution. Hugh wasn’t a great loss. The alpha females he took with him have been. One sign of hope is that he’s finally quit attracting alpha females.
According to Roissy, alphas are those with the most options for obtaining what their gender most values. For men (again, according to Roissy), that is sex, for women (for whom sex is trivial to obtain – someone tell Karen Owen), that is the commitment of alpha males.
* – Late feminism’s need for victims has cut women off from their history. They very much rocked every cradle, male and female, and thereby ruled that world.
redneck,
Jobs did quite well for himself. Had an OOW child, dated several actresses and considered marrying singer Joan Baez.
Unsolicited advice: stick to religious communities if you are looking for a mate.
Desiderius,
This seems backwards to me. If I tell a guy I have a boyfriend, it means bug off. Not an encouragement to game me harder.
if she’s into you, you won’t know anything about any boyfriend (even if she does actually have one).
Heading out, plans tomorrow. Hope all enjoy the spam.
One last thought: I am seeing more of this about, but they all seem pretty miserable. That’s the alternative to not getting this right. The misery. Knock yourself out, Amanda.
@ Desiderius
Oh, I see. Kinda interesting you mention the influence of alpha females actually. I just finished watching one of the episodes in the BBC’s Mixed Race Britain series and they mentioned two very influential women who leveraged their beauty into political influence and power. One was called La Melincha: a Native Indian woman who facilitated discourse and treaties between Cortes and the native tribes. The other was Chica de Villa and she was a black slave girl who married a very ealthy alpha called Joan Fernandes and became one of the most powerful women in Brazillian history. There were some other ones as well but I wandered off in search of grapes and missed the backstory. The concept of female alpha is kinda bizarre if I’m honest. It’s doesn’t sound that exclusive if all you have to do is be hot, at least not as exclusive and unattainable as male alphas are. But then again, the average woman here is 5’4 with a 31+” waist so maybe not. -_-
“But most women are already well-behaved. Kind of”
Take away hook ups and insert drug user or smoker, I only smoke 8 cigarettes a day so technically that doesn’t make me a non smoker?
I’ve been knocked back by women because I smoke casually but if a chick smokes cock only several times a year that is different?
@ Johnny
Well-behaved doesn’t mean that you have never misbehaved. The average woman doesn’t casually hook-up with eight men a year either so what’s your point? In any case, I hope you weren’t expecting me to actually object to your personal tastes. You can disqualify women for eating steamed vegetables for all I care. Your prerogative. But it’s still not going to stop me from calling out people who stretch the truth.
Is “hate” a new SWPL code for bitching about something yet still participating in it anyway?
SayWhaat October 8, 2011 at 7:00 pm: ” If I tell a guy I have a boyfriend, it means bug off. Not an encouragement to game me harder.”
What girls believe themselves to be doing has little relationship to what they are actually doing.
But rather than compare my real life experiences as I recall them, with your real life experiences which you will doubtless recall to be completely different in every way, let us look at something we can both observe: Novels by woman for women where the story is in substantial part about the heroine’s romantic interests:
If some male tries to pick up the heroine in a romantic novel she will usually tell him she has a boyfriend, together with lots of similar discouragement, including horrifying thermonuclear shit tests that would would reduce most real life macho males to running away and weeping in secrecy like a little girl, and yet somehow, the fictional pick up artist brushes aside such objections with grace and style, and eventually scores.
redneck, I’ve never read a romantic novel in my life. That you are using fiction as a basis for what women do in real life…. O__O?
Susan: Oh, I was just ‘splaining because some people seemed to be wondering why the study was so small.
The curse of the social scientist is the drive to explain methodology at any opportunity… you should see my most recent ex* go on about ANOVA.
Normally I don’t call “non-representative sample” at studies, but waaaaaaaaaaay more than one percent of people I know are in relationships. It’s possible it’s different school cultures though.
I definitely agree that there’s a pressure to hook up and that it’s a bad thing, because I think ALL sexual pressure is a bad thing. I just think we should end all pressure to do one thing or another sexually, not replace it with a pressure not to hook up, you know?
*I like him because he basically disproves ALL OF GAME (except, of course, preselection). Shortish nerdy dude, so femme that everyone thinks he’s gay, suddenly acquires three girlfriends via the power of comic books and butterbeer, and then dumps two of them to be monogamous with the third, even though all three of the girls are okay with the situation as it stood.
Some women say “I have a boyfriend” when they don’t and someone is hitting on them. This is because, in my experience, they don’t want to be hit on and a lot of dudes will respond to “no” with “come on, give me a chance” but “I have a boyfriend” with going the fuck away (and, possibly, the sentence “I just wanted to talk. Bitch.”).
As a Beta in college I can offer my own data point:
1. Haven’t had a lot of sex.
2. Asked girls out on traditional dates but all got rejected (ie. I don’t believe in the absence of an alternative to hooking-up).
3. Easiest way for me to get female attention is by going to late-night events (after 12AM) with a lot of booze. I hate partying but that’s the only way for me to get girls.
As an addendum to the previous post:
You might be wondering why I’m going after the party girls. Typically, the “nice girls” are too focused on their careers and school to bother with dating guys they’re only slightly interested in. Either they have relationships with the top guys or they’re hooking up with them.
I feel like they think it’s a waste of time to date average guys.
Ozy,
shut up.
Dr. Ozy prescribes, at 18 above: Don’t ever, ever, ever, ever criticize someone else’s decisions as long as those decisions are making them happy. It’s their sexual life, their body and their choices.
Let me ask the esteemed Dr. Ozy:
Would you sanction criticizing someone who’s taking an excessive amount of drugs, ruining his ability to learn or do anything constructive, as long as that decision is making him happy at the moment? Is it OK to criticize someone who’s blowing off their studies so badly they’ll never graduate or even pass, if the person is happy partying on (for now)? What about people who join up with cults, yet appear happy behind their glazed eyes and creepy rictus? Overeating? Shoplifting? If not these, then what choices is it OK to criticize?
Further, what meaning does the word “criticize” even have here? do you see a meaningful distinction between “criticize”, which is forbidden, and “strongly advise to the contrary”? What is the magical threshold past which saying “That’s stupid!” crosses from advice (acceptable?) to criticism (absolutely forbidden)?
I really don’t know what track you’re on here, semi-magically excepting sexual decisions as beyond criticism, when so many other personal decisions clearly should not be. Just taking a wild guess, I would bet that your “ne plus ultra” stance against sexual criticism of any kind derives from being horrified by gay-bashing and its notorious thousand-year history. I don’t know, it’s just a guess. But the general point remains, that even if some or even most criticism of sexual decisions is bigoted and harmful, it does not follow that all criticism of sexual decisions should be forbidden.
Susan, having been a parent for a while now, is very much in the habit of telling young people to plan ahead, to avoid behaviors that are enjoyable now but will likely hurt the person, soon and for their future. She’s not responsible for her readers as though they were children, but the impulse is still a positive and constructive one. If she believes firmly, based on a lot of experience and research, that young women are very likely to have their near and far futures impaired by leading promiscuous lives with lots of casual sex, then shouldn’t she pass that conviction along? Whether you class it as advice or criticism, and then get your knickers supremely (“Never, never, never!”) in a twist if it’s the latter, is no more than a pointless word game; bottom line is that she’s calling it as she sees it to a readership that’s interested. By contrast your absolutist “Don’t tread on my sexual decisions!” stance seems to me just fractured and shrill, anomalous and discontinuous with other normal personal relations, and so very hard to take seriously.
Here’s what I think seems to be happening.
The mating game is the highest stakes game that there is in life. Bar none. People are loathe to admit that today, with all of the platitudes about personal empowerment and independence and so on, but the actions belie that, and confirm that this is the critical game that is being played — a very high stakes game.
Using what may be a familiar analogy, a desirable college woman (either because she is very hot, or because she is a good mix of hot and “nice” or what have you) is like a top 5 football team in the first quarter. She seems to always be on the opposite team’s side of the field. If she finds herself a few yards short on third down, why not go on fourth? After all, it’s the first quarter (in the mating game), you have a top 5 team, and you’ve always been on their side of the field? You’re going to go on fourth and see what happens — it is, from the risk perspective, a seemingly good risk. A much better one than punting and waiting for a more “traditional” opportunity to come up next time. In other words, why not, at least once or twice, go for the top guys on fourth down, instead of backing down from that and punting and maybe going for a peer guy on the next series? There isn’t a very convincing reason why (other than having been burned with that strategy already or having a religious moral restriction), so that’s what you see these women doing.
What happens after it doesn’t work? That depends on the specific woman. Some will keep pushing it on fourth down, even though, as the quarters advance, they are no longer ranked fifth, but between 15-20 or even out of the top 25. Some will decide to punt and recalibrate to do better in the next series. And some will decide to sit out the season (the reasoning being that if they can’t get the top guy by going for it on fourth down, they are better off avoiding punting and the next series, and instead waiting for the “pro game” to start after graduation, instead of dealing with amateurs like you).
The thing that men have to understand is that if you were an attractive 20 year old woman, you probably would be acting not very differently from how they are acting. Their opportunity cost is sky, sky, sky high in terms of punting and going for “peer” you in the next series, as compared with going for the alpha on fourth down, or sitting it out until the pros. That calculus doesn’t change until their team’s rank deteriorates, really. And I think this also holds true for many middling women, who are “attractive”, but not HB8+ hotties. It’s an opportunity cost game for women at that age, and it’s quite understandable, as their value is higher than yours, even on a peer basis.
Getting past that takes a time orientation that is middle term, but most people (men and women) lack that, as Slumlord has been discussing on his blog recently.
Yohami: A withering counterargument, I’m sure.
Esau: I would say that partying to the point that you won’t graduate is, in fact, harming your happiness, insofar as you will be very unhappy when you don’t graduate. The same for overeating, shoplifting and so on. (Drugs and cults are a bit different, since addiction and brainwashing both harm the ability to make free choices about what will make you happy.)
I am… unconvinced of the negative evidence for sluthood qua sluthood. (Obviously, if you do not enjoy casual sex, YOU SHOULD NOT HAVE CASUAL SEX.) The main objection (beyond “women don’t enjoy sluthood”) appears to be that many men do not want to marry promiscuous women; while the Hooking Up Smart regulars don’t want to marry sluts, you guys are also the definition of a non-representative sample, in much the same way that reading a website called CatsAreAwesome.com will give you an imbalanced idea of how many people love cats. I imagine that a less experienced partner is very important to some men, a turn-off to other men and a complete non-issue to still other men.
Nevertheless, if a woman is interested primarily in long-term relationships wit men from a subculture known for its disdain for sluts (manosphere people, evangelicals, dudebros, etc.), she should definitely consider whether she wants to have casual sex.
“This seems backwards to me. If I tell a guy I have a boyfriend, it means bug off. Not an encouragement to game me harder.”
Come on, you’ve been here long enough to know what shit testing is and how women employ. You may not do that, but many women do, enough to make it a staple discussion among red-pill men.
You do realize that every time you say that when it’s not true, you create a harsher environment for monogamy? Guys writ large are clueing in to the fact that women drop this line when they are single, when they want the guy to work harder, or when they have a boyfriend but are open to another offer. For single women to appropriate IHAB as a flirt-buster hurts the value of actually having a boyfriend, subjecting legitimately non-single women to advances they shouldn’t need to fend off because single girls can’t come up with something better to disqualify themselves with.
This actually reminds me, I had a pseudo-argument with a woman once who said she was at a party and this dude was talking to her and she kept telling him she had a boyfriend but he wouldn’t “go away.”
I said, “I call shenanigans – because _you were still talking to him_. It sounds like despite your protests of having a boyfriend, you enjoyed the attention of this other guy too much to just walk away from him.” I explained how many, many women would say they had a boyfriend and wind up involved with the man she said it to, and so the phrase had lost all effect.
She didn’t have an answer to that. “Going away” so as to respect the bounds of her relationship is HER job, not his.
“Well-behaved doesn’t mean that you have never misbehaved.”
In other words, just because I’m promiscuous sometimes doesn’t mean I’m promiscuous?
Yeh, you stick to that logic. Suits guys like me to a tee, as a 6’5 guy (ex beta) that looks like a thug and now behaves like one I’m enjoying those ‘well behaved’ girls.
Yet in the back of my mind I feel a pronounced sadness that comes from knowing your stabbing your fellow man in the back…..
Ozy,
You liking a nerdy effeminate boy doesnt “disprove ALL GAME”, it just shows where your preferences are. I dont even need an argument for that.
<blockquote>Yet in the back of my mind I feel a pronounced sadness that comes from knowing your stabbing your fellow man in the back…..</blockquote>
Get a grip on yourself man. Nietzsche would be ashamed of you.
Again: 80% of women do not hook-up or enjoy casual sex and certainly not with eight men a year. You’re arguing a non-existent point and using hyperbole and random leaps to distract from it.
Nobody cares. Good men don’t tend to concern themselves with self-professed thugs who ride the bitch carousel so save your crocodile tears.
Pronounced sadness, my backfoot. LOL.
Susan-
For every carousel rider, there are ten women who are not riding the carousel, but are still holding out for an alpha. They may not be promiscuous, but they are still years away from the point where they become realistic about their market value.
If anything, a tired carousel rider might be more open to realistic dating than a frustrated “5″ that thinks she can play with the 8s.
Isabel October 9, 2011 at 3:36 am
> Again: 80% of women do not hook-up or enjoy casual sex a
Yet various surveys show a substantial majority of women engaging in hookup sex.
SayWhat,
“This seems backwards to me. If I tell a guy I have a boyfriend, it means bug off. Not an encouragement to game me harder.”
What’s backwards is cutting my comment in half to make me look like a clueless player. Tearing me down doesn’t build you up, especially when you have to cheat to do it.
This is the sort of bad behavior I’ve talked about before, and I think it comes from mirroring the cocky one-up-manship that women find attractive in men.
Sorry SayWhat, not attractive to good men, at all. Fix your comment.
Oops. It was Chica de Silva and Joao Fernandes. Ugh, disregard my bad memory. >.<
Okay. Where are they?
OK I’m calling BS on much of this. We’ve got a study that says ‘an average of 7 hookups per graduating seniors’, yet the study was done primarily on Frosh? So it’s even more ‘extrapolated’ than usual or based on an even smaller sub-sample size? Given that, let’s call this an average of 2 HU’s per year. Does that make sense to anyone? Is it being biased or ‘pulled’ here by a small subset of high numbers? Is that 7-8 number with Separate people? If so, it’s oh only about 50-100% Higher than most recent estimates of the ‘average’ lifetime sexual partners for the entire Female population. Strange that. So are the numbers actually broken down by Sex/Gender as they should be? If so this is a pretty startling revelation.
But that’s not the big takeaway here! The women are seemingly somehow Not satisfied by this? But they’re Still continually having unsatisfying//less than gratifying sex? With this Alpha/Apex Fallacy group? Go figure! Does this make any sense to anyone given the accurate biological description of ‘female [mating] choice’ theory’? This is what passes for ‘empowerment’ for the most & best educated generation of women in history!? And it’ll likely take them, what, some decade(s) to [perhaps] wean themselves from this attraction to such hypergamous pursuits? What part of this picture is not madness? The 70-80% of guys who remain largely almost celibate (but for a few infrequent lucky scores) or the fact that if they might all endure unsatisfying sex for years with people they don’t quite fancy, they might as well be married! It can’t get any worse than this folks! Talk about unintended consequences, this is a perfect description of the worst of all possible worlds! A hell of your own making in point of fact. And you’re welcome to it. Cheers, ‘VJ’
a tired carousel rider might be more open to realistic dating
any takers for a “tired” rider?
how about one only driven to the deli on Sundays?
More realistic? That is going to require “more realistic” men willing to wait for the ball at home plate. Feminists keep praying saying that there are plenty of the “willing.” But they never say “be honest” because its universally known that desirable “realistic” men are unicorns
Yes, this explains everything from hippies to the ill-advised self-esteem movement in the early 90s. “Celebrate me! I won a prize for participating!”
If I had to pinpoint one thing that got this whole thing (HUS) started, it would be that when my daughter first started asking me for advice, I used my own past mistakes as a springboard. This wasn’t an intentional strategy, just an instinctive response. I think it reassured her that I wasn’t going to judge her harshly, and she was willing to accept that much of what I’d learned was timeless. That is, she accepted sex differences as a given, so my advice was not outdated.
I am… unconvinced of the negative evidence for sluthood qua sluthood.
Then you’re not paying attention. In addition to the physical problems related to STDs and the emotional problems that tend to be exacerbated by extended stays in Slutville, the proof of the negative evidence is the observable deceit practiced by the vast majority of women with regards to the extent of their sexual experience. Unless you are one of those rare women who promptly and accurately reports her previous sexual history upon request, you are quite clearly convinced of the negative evidence for sluthood qua sluthood as well as its disattraction for men seeking exclusive relationships and marriage.
regulars don’t want to marry sluts, you guys are also thedefinition of a non-representative sample…
YET
I imagine that a less experienced partner is very important to some men, a turn-off to other men and a complete non-issue to still other men.
Imagine. Read: I don’t know what the fuck I am talking about but need to ensure that the female lurkers dont concern themselves with how men really feel from whatever they want to do with their bodies [with men]…and other bullshit feminists marching order crap
@ozymandias
I am… unconvinced of the negative evidence for sluthood qua sluthood. (Obviously, if you do not enjoy casual sex, YOU SHOULD NOT HAVE CASUAL SEX.)
I’m reading this to mean that you believe that “sluthood” is not intrinsically damaging, and only the extrinsic factors should be considered. In reply I’d point out that multiple studies (including this one) demonstrate that many women are having casual sex not because they want to or enjoy it but because they think that is the only way for them to get sex or sexual attention.
The main objection (beyond “women don’t enjoy sluthood”) appears to be that many men do not want to marry promiscuous women; while the Hooking Up Smart regulars don’t want to marry sluts, you guys are also the definition of a non-representative sample, in much the same way that reading a website called CatsAreAwesome.com will give you an imbalanced idea of how many people love cats. I imagine that a less experienced partner is very important to some men, a turn-off to other men and a complete non-issue to still other men.
Nevertheless, if a woman is interested primarily in long-term relationships wit men from a subculture known for its disdain for sluts (manosphere people, evangelicals, dudebros, etc.), she should definitely consider whether she wants to have casual sex.
One aspect of the argument you’re missing here is that the majority of the single men their own age have very low numbers. If we’re taking as granted that a man’s willingness to accept past casual sex in his future wife is correlated with the difference between their respective numbers, then many women are racking up their numbers without realizing how much it will hurt them when it comes time to settle down with someone more stable.
You’re positing that the men who “disdain sluts” are in minority subcultures, but the evidence suggests that while men with low numbers may not “disdain” sluts, they do hesitate to commit to a women who has had significantly more sexual partners than he has.
Unless you are one of those rare women who promptly and accurately reports her previous sexual history upon request, you are quite clearly convinced of the negative evidence for sluthood qua sluthood as well as its disattraction for men seeking exclusive relationships and marriage.
At what point does claiming naivety start to make these women look like obtuse assholes? Is that time now?
“you are quite clearly convinced”
Until proven or shown otherwise, THAT is the holy grail of the awareness of “slut shaming.” When a women lies or withholds information about her sexual history she DENOUNCES defense of slut behavior as a sacrifice to have her man. When a women lies or withholds information about her sexual history she ADMITS that men universally do not want to marry sluts. When a women lies or withholds information about her sexual history she CONCURS that avoidance of sluts for marriage is the definition of “slut shaming.”
men with low numbers may not “disdain” sluts, they do hesitate to commit to a women who has had significantly more sexual partners than he has.
Thats a lot of hesitation going on out there. How’s that marriage rate doing these days?
Uh huh
That hole is getting pretty deep. Someone should take away the shovels from those sex poz diggers
“Hooking up is not epidemic because most students don’t do it.”
This sentence is illogical. An epidemic doesn’t mean everybody gets the disease. Everyone in college today (except maybe at BYU) is exposed to hookup culture and its effects, even if they aren’t doing it themselves or have mild symptoms, and it corasens the entire college sexual marketplace. That’s an epidemic.
Which leads me to…
jack,
“For every carousel rider, there are ten women who are not riding the carousel, but are still holding out for an alpha. They may not be promiscuous, but they are still years away from the point where they become realistic about their market value.”
+1. You don’t have to actually be hooking up every weekend to be a participant in the mindset of the culture, if you are not participating because you are holding out for an alpha and don’t want to compete for one by offering casual sex (which is one step above joining a harem but still not a winning strategy).
In addition to trying to snag an alpha (and frat guys and football players have always had their share of polyamory and side-dish sex), people hook up to salve their sexual curiosity and frustration in an environment where dating and “commitment” are either impractical or not an available option.
When I entered the corporate world, I was shocked to find women 23-28 who were totally clueless about dating and men. I guess I was naive. They were smart, attractive, well-dressed and still complained they “couldn’t get a date.”
They weren’t carousel riders (that I knew of), some were dedicated against but were still called by the siren of modern female wisdom, “don’t settle,” and so they didn’t know a good prospect if he hit her in the face.
One aspect of the argument you’re missing here is that the majority of the single men their own age have very low numbers.
She is not missing anything. Sex pozoids have NEVER even acknowledged a promiscuity gap or harem because to do so will leave them with lots to explain. They will not confirm or deny. They will make no opinions about it. Sure, they will reach for the occasional census statistic or “study” - not to show that women are having less sex but rather to try and show that men are having more. That men are equally guilty. But alas, they cannot.
Yohami: I do believe “nerdy effeminate boy gets a harem” is not entirely the outcome predicted under Game theory.
I know it’s an anecdote and doesn’t actually disprove anything, but nevertheless it amuses me.
In the interests of full disclosure, I am also currently sleeping with a guy who negs. Example:
Him: You’re about a six. [His fuckbuddy, my girlfriend] is a 7.5.
Me: What?
Him: You’re above average!
Me: Six is what people say when someone’s ugly but want to be polite.
Him: Do you really think I would lie to make you feel better? (pause) Besides, it depends on the standard deviation of attractiveness.
My sex life simultaneously proves and disproves game! *g*
VD: I don’t lie about my sexual history and am frankly rather offended at the suggestion that I would. I think lying about your sexual history (and lying in general) is incredibly unethical in nearly all circumstances. However, as you’ll notice in the next couple of sentences, I pointed out that one of the negative consequences is that a certain number of men will not want to marry you, and if you want to marry a man in one of the groups in which they cluster.
Negative emotional consequences falls under “don’t have casual sex if casual sex makes you unhappy,” and STI risk can be minimized with sensible precautions, including condom use and regular testing (and, besides, driving is far riskier than sex, and no one says you shouldn’t drive because of the risk of accidents…).
Wayfinder: That falls under “don’t have casual sex if casual sex makes you unhappy.” I agree that a lot of women (AND MEN, the men aren’t exactly happy in the study either, which is something I think a lot of people are overlooking) are pressured into having casual sex they don’t really want, and that that is bad and people should stop doing that.
That seems plausible-ish, but my anecdata doesn’t support it (I’m a slutty slut slut, and I’ve mostly fucked straight male virgins, who have a bizarre tendency to want to commit to me). Assuming for the sake of argument that’s true, the woman needs to assess whether she wants to date only people who have had large amounts of sex or who don’t care that she’s had more partners than he has. If she doesn’t, then she should refrain from accumulating partners.
Of course, the same thing is true the opposite direction. Lots of men are freaked out by female virgins; therefore, a woman who has made the choice to be virginal needs to assess whether she only wants to date people who are also virgins or who don’t care that she’s never had sex before.
Abbot: My only observation is that men in all three categories exist, and that they do tend to cluster in certain groups. I do not have sufficient information for a statistical breakdown of the size of the relevant groups, nor how much is based on biology and how much on social construction.
Also, I would like to point out that I am COMPLETELY EXEMPT from complaints about the promiscuity gap, because I have slept with seven-soon-to-be-eight virgins, been the first kiss of three college students and am currently involved in a poly network with four men and two women in. I am the one-woman Committee to End the Promiscuity Gap here.
one of the negative consequences is that a certain number of men will not want to marry you, and if you want to marry a man in one of the groups in which they cluster.
Contradiction with feminists and promiscuous women who regularly declare its impossible for it to be negative since this widespread “cluster” of men are not “worth” marrying. So which is it? Note to lurkers: “cluster” is the latest balance redress term and like all others, is ineffectual per this:
Negative emotional consequences falls under “don’t have casual sex if casual sex makes you unhappy,”
Meaning: If unhappiness is being turned down for commitment from a man you desire in the future due to casual now you’re considering giving up now, DO NOT have casual sex.
woman needs to assess whether she wants to date only people who have had large amounts of sex or who don’t care that she’s had more partners than he has.
The number of cocks frequented by a woman is irrelevant to the next man who has an interest in “dating” her. Does this need to be paraphrased for the 64th time?
Lots of men are freaked out by female virgins
Not even a close second to the repulsion for commitment to sluts that men universally have
complaints about the promiscuity gap
What complaints? A man merely needs to just avoid promiscuous women for marriage. There is absolutely no reason to complain unless he gets duped into cleaning up after a messy battalion.
She is not missing anything. Sex pozoids have NEVER even acknowledged a promiscuity gap or harem because to do so will leave them with lots to explain. They will not confirm or deny. They will make no opinions about it. Sure, they will reach for the occasional census statistic or “study” - not to show that women are having less sex but rather to try and show that men are having more. That men are equally guilty. But alas, they cannot.
I recently read a study in a Christian magazine that claimed over 80% of Christians engage in pre-marital sex; Christian women more than Christian men.
It’s sad that the promiscuity gap shows up even in Christian relationships.
Desiderius,
I apologize, I wasn’t trying to tear you down and make you look like a player. I just didn’t want to quote a giant chunk of text and so I selected the part of it that was relevant to what I wanted to respond to, without changing its meaning.
Here is your entire comment:
I was responding to your second paragraph, and I would say that my answer still holds, except now I have to respond to Badger.
Badger,
Whew. Hope I’m still not misquoting anybody!!
I have to say that I was completely unaware that non-single girls used this line. Really. If I’m faced with unwanted attention, I can and will wak away. Although a simple “I’m flattered, but I’m not interested, sorry” does suffice.
BF,
How is it promiscuity if the sex occurs within the boundaries of a meaningful, respectful relationship?
http://www.epjournal.net/filestore/EP08390404.pdf reports 80% of female survey respondents engaged in some form of sex during a hookup, but only 32% engaged in vaginal intercourse. The difference was largely oral sex.
Badger,
A lot of women are holding out for someone they find “compatible”. This could be sigmas, greater betas, alphas, whatever. I don’t know how many women hold out for Prince Charming (certainly by our 20s we realize he got hit by a truck and just ain’t coming), but I think I can say that most women just hold out for a guy that they “click” with. Preferably one who has his shit together.
I’m not blaming non-dominant men for being non-dominant, we all know society is the cause of that. But telling women to stop chasing after Major Alpha isn’t gonna do one thing if beta men don’t step it up in terms of dominance.
That many college students hate the culture? PRAISE GOD!!
Saywhaat, there are far more balanced men in terms of weak vs. uber-alpha than many make it sound.
“A lot of women are holding out for someone they find “compatible”. This could be sigmas, greater betas, alphas, whatever”
True that.
It’s sad that the promiscuity gap shows up even in Christian relationships.
Fresh meat [and female mind control] recruited for the harem
Assuming for the sake of argument that’s true, the woman needs to assess whether she wants to date only people who have had large amounts of sex or who don’t care that she’s had more partners than he has.
In the current market your first “cluster” of men are exclusively alpha. You assume that since they themselves get “large amounts of sex”, they should accept your own promiscuity. Well, I got some news for you. A few may, but the vast majority probably won’t. A double standard? You bet.
Those “who don’t care that she’s had more partners than he has” in your market “cluster” are men for whom you are a step up, i.e. 3′s to 5′s only.
OK. I agree that the culture is epidemic and inescapable. In fact, it prevails even though when you come right down to it, there’s not a lot of casual sex happening all over campus on any given weekend night. It’s infrequent for nearly everyone. That is what needs to be exposed – the reality that it just isn’t working. Because hooking up has been made to seem cool, empowering and liberating for women, and has obvious benefits for men, neither sex has been particularly willing to stand up and speak out against it. People quietly opt out, but they feel marginalized when they do.
This is harsh! Many women enjoy real, deep friendships that last a lifetime. They are intensely loyal to one another. The worst thing I can say about them is that they enable one another with unrealistic analyses of “why he didn’t call,” etc. The young women I know have very tight and intimate friendship groups. They’re not 100% stable but they survive pretty much everything.
That’s not a neg, that’s being an asshole. A neg should be something that charms you, not makes you feel ugly. Perhaps you weren’t deeply offended by his remark, but many women would be.
The classic feminist feint! Personally, I think driving on an icy road during a blizzard at midnight is less risky than have no-strings sex with your femboy’s fuckbuddy’s girlfriend’s sub’s bisexual roommate.
Now that’s what I call successful niche marketing.
“Come virgins, one and all! Ozy the 6 will swipe your vcard and write about it on the internet!”
1. Undergraduates so figure includes both men and women. Each gender had 277 participants and both reported similar behaviours on almost every level except comfort.
2. At least once over the course of four years (i.e length of degree) is the qualifying criterion. It appears a woman who engaged in above-waist petting once in four years is on the same level as a woman who has had full intercourse 400 times in a year.
3. Women reported as being very uncomfortable during intercourse and oral sex but comfortable with petting. Men reported as being comfortable with everything.
This just states that 65-80% of college-aged kids have had some form of sexual contact over 4 years. It doesn’t prove that most young women frequently hook-up.
And neither have you disproved that women enjoy hooking up. If anything, you’ve gone out and done the opposite. Why didn’t you read your own evidence before submitting it? =/
*Proved. Not disproved, sorry. =]
@redneck
That study is a good one, but as far as I can see it doesn’t address the question of frequency. It does say that 81% of respondents have engaged in some form of sexual behavior at least once while hooking up. What I find particularly interesting about Wade’s study is not that many students have hooked up, but how rarely most do it.
Once again, something that repeated academic studies have shown, as per ‘redneck’s comment & cite above:
Women & men can and will define sex differently, at different times in their lives, for differing purposes and to different audiences, depending on circumstances. Many women simply do not wish to classify oral sex or mutual masturbation or other Non P/V intimate contact as ‘sex’! Worse, they may not wish to classify any ‘ONS’ as sex, it was simply a ‘one off/Foolish drunken mistake’! Perhaps only ‘relationships’ (of slightly longer duration) count! So there’s several different biases working in opposite directions in many instances. The guys often have the desire/tendency to want to inflate their numbers, while almost all of the women want to reduce/delimit/rationalize away their higher numbers. But in sample after sample, study after study, the picture gradually emerging now is a sexual boon for the younger women of almost every description (in terms of Numbers, strictly), a relative drought for a huge swath of the guys, for a variety of reasons, some fiarly complex, some not.
One obvious conclusion is that it takes perhaps a decade or more of dissatisfying hypergamous seeking sex and relationships before the modern mating game returns to try and seek some level of ‘equilibrium’ in returning to look at fellow members of their own ‘set’. By then? Many of your former objects of affection or affiliation are or have been married. Predictably for this the most & well educated generation of women in history, we’re likely to have the largest modern cohort of never married & childless singletons. Perhaps since WW11 in Europe or the Civil War in the US. Cheers, ‘VJ’
Indeed. And unlike those previous populations of unmarried women, no blood will be spilled in creating this cohort. Some will choose to avoid marriage, most will simply scratch their heads and wonder why it “just never happened.”
Well, I got some news for you. A few may, but the vast majority probably won’t. A double standard? You bet.
Those “who don’t care that she’s had more partners than he has” in your market “cluster” are men for whom you are a step up, i.e. 3′s to 5′s only.
Promiscuous women are not the biggest losers in the SMP but they sure are the most delusional and set themselves up for the deepest disappointments
Predictably for this the most & well educated generation of women in history, we’re likely to have the largest modern cohort of never married & childless singletons. Perhaps since WW11 in Europe or the Civil War in the US
Thus, self genocide. It ends with them. Sex pozzies and all.
YES, VICTORY!!! [as-is real photo]
say buh bye
Susan: Huh, I thought that totally fit the definition of “backhanded compliment.” He said something nice (you are of above-average attractiveness) in the single douchiest manner possible. There goes that theory about how the hell he gets laid.
Almost 42,000 people die in car accidents every year in the US. The only stats I can find suggest that sex is linked to 30,000 deaths a year. That means that cars are 1.4 times more likely to kill you than sex. (Other variables: more people drive than have risky sex; however, the risk of dying from casual sex is much more easily made negligible than the risk of dying from driving in a car is.)
I don’t seek out virgins! I seek out socially awkward, geeky, highly intelligent gamers. When I’m 35 they’ll all have racked up dozens of partners, and that’s fine by me. :)
And… the Mark drops the closing elbow on Typhoid Ozy.
The sentence before was the classic:
“I’ve mostly fucked straight male virgins, who have a bizarre tendency to want to commit to me”
Ozy says to our fine readers wondering why guys won’t commit, “Let them eat cake!”
It’s not the tendency that is bizarre (although the propaganda about men not committing loves to claim otherwise) – it used to be called making an honest woman of you, but I imagine it will take more than a virgin to pull that one off.
Yep El, we all know about the double-standard of asshats.
“Thus, self genocide.”
If there is genocide, it is a more subtle variation than any that has come before, and it most certainly is not “self”. Those pushing the policies and mores that reinforce the hookup culture have successfully marketed themselves as “progressive*,” but in their own lives they are as socon as they come, and the results of those policies and mores are the most regressive in our history, and maybe reaching long before that.
The most alpha female (also a divorced – not her fault – mother with three great kids) I’ve ever dated once gave me this book in extreme excitement, saying it might be the best book she’s ever read, I just had to read it she told me. I did. To me, it is genocide porn. I’ve never been more sickened reading a book. Imagine a book called “The World Without Jews” or “The World Without Women.” And of course, the “us” in the title is disingenuous – the author is still very much there observing the scene. What is gone is the rest of us.
Now this woman is one of the best people I know – a very caring and professional nurse, a great mom to children remarkably healthy for what they’ve been through, but population control/reduction and various hard green causes are very popular with that set, and alpha females rule the world. What I’ve seen from them in the mating game does not instill confidence in their benignity.
Interesting times.
* – the worst result here is that many dissenters therefore label themselves “conservative” when there is nothing conservative about them. Kids still tune them out on that basis.
Susan,
“Because hooking up has been made to seem cool, empowering and liberating for women”
You know who the coolest people are?
The dead. About 68 degrees.
The tyranny of cool has finally jumped teh shark. I seen my teen students figuring it out every day after choking to death from terminal irony/sarcasm.
That means that cars are 1.4 times more likely to kill you than sex.
Given that death-by-STD is way down on the list of reasons to avoid casual sex, defining “danger” to mean exclusively death is a bit of a non-sequitur. Further, going by your link, sex-related causes is one of the top nine causes of death. That’s way higher than I thought it was, and “slightly less likely to be deadly than automobiles” is not the sort of high-risk activity that I want to be anywhere around.
That seems plausible-ish, but my anecdata doesn’t support it (I’m a slutty slut slut, and I’ve mostly fucked straight male virgins, who have a bizarre tendency to want to commit to me).
So, by your own testimony, virgins have a “bizarre tendency” to want to commit to the first girl they have sex with. If the other women are wondering where the men are to commit to them, at least eight of the otherwise commitment minded men were apparently broken of this awful habit of attaching meaning to sex by you, personally.
Hooking up 3 times or less is still a problem. I would have like a further breakdown to 1 or 2 hookups and then 3 to 5 hookups. The way I see it, 1 or 2 times is probably a mistake or accidental hookup, but 3 to 5 hookups means you enjoyed it enough to try it again to get it right and then realized it probably wasn’t right or maybe you couldn’t get enough action so you reluctantly stopped. Therefore, I think 89 percentage is misleading. It is more accurate to say despite their reluctance and ambivalence, the greater majority of people are persuaded to try the hookup culture. This is simply sad. So much about betas and ugly girls.
“What I find particularly interesting about Wade’s study is not that many students have hooked up, but how rarely most do it.”
Rare, maybe, but does not mean never. People do seem to get action, nonetheless.
SayWhaat,
“I apologize”
No, you didn’t. Apologies involve admitting a mistake and expressing regret. Here’s an example:
I once ended a relationship with a girl because with all the IOI’s (this was before I knew game, so they must have been super-obvious) I was getting with her on my arm (due to social proof), compared to all the IOI’s I wasn’t getting (I was a bad eye averter at the time) before that relationship, I suddenly thought I could do better instead of focusing on making it work with that girl/getting to know her better.
That was a mistake. That’s me admitting it. Intention really doesn’t matter.
I regret doing that both for the hurt it put her through but also the lost experience on my part, including the possibility of something more that we both missed out on.
That’s expressing regret.
It OK to do that – we all make mistakes. Might even make you easier to relate to. What doesn’t is offering rationalizations and mislabeling them apologies, and playing dumb about what my actual concern was. I have confidence you can figure it out.
“Whew. Hope I’m still not misquoting anybody!!”
Yeah, ridicule and apology don’t really mix that well. Try again. Have you fixed the original comment yet?
“I have to say that I was completely unaware that non-single girls used this line.”
And yet you claimed it meant “bug off!” when you use it.
“Although a simple “I’m flattered, but I’m not interested, sorry” does suffice.”
Probably better than “bug off!” Which one do you really use most often? Hope from here on out it will be the latter.
@Ozy
Do you recall from the Marcotte Boxers post that women are highly aroused by the idea of being irresistible? Telling a woman she’s a 6 before you bang her is unlikely to make her feel that way. He’s either a selfish prick or incredibly inept. Based on your description of your targets, I’ll assume the latter.
To keep with the blizzard metaphor, you’d have to get the odds of dying from having sex with promiscuous people. Partner count is the best predictor of STD transmission, as you know.
Haha, surely you know that you are unusual in your proclivities. Not too many Ozys around. These guys should get their fill while they can.
the risk of dying from casual sex is much more easily made negligible than the risk of dying from driving in a car is
the risk of a man dangerously speeding his car to the hills away from a casual sexer with her marriage claws out is easily made more negligible if that woman refrains from sexually experimenting with herself all over town. .
These pozoids will say just about anything to justify engaging in casual sex. Good reason to keep them away from your young impressionable daughters so they can be raised with the least amount of exposure to these creepy perverted and dangerous influences.
SayWhaat,
“I have to say that I was completely unaware that non-single girls used this line. Really. If I’m faced with unwanted attention, I can and will wak away. Although a simple “I’m flattered, but I’m not interested, sorry” does suffice.”
By my count, you’ve brought the “what do I do if the guy won’t stop talking to me” up at least four times in threads we’ve been on. Is this all about one situation, or are you faced with a lot of unwanted suitors? What’s up with that?
Sue,
You know, I was thinking about this just last night. I was wondering if my game was really that good, or if something else was at work. And I think I’m just much better looking than I ever gave myself credit for. I know that sounds arrogant, but I don’t mean it to be. I was looking back at pictures of myself, and there’s no doubt that I was the goofiest, most awkward looking teenager that’s ever lived. Everything was out of proportion. I know a lot of boys go through that, but I think I suffered it a bit worse than most. Point is, I think I kept the old mind-set of goofy looking guy even after I grew out of it. Desiderius said:
Alpha is more of a mindset than anything, I think. You can have an Alpha that fell out of the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down, and you can have a Beta that’s top tier in terms of looks. Lola said on another thread:
This made me think of the problem with alphas in general: they’re shallow. Character is all about learning, and the primary way that people learn is from fucking up, losing, or being unable to act. The most dominant people ride through life with hardly a bump in the road. These people have no depth. They’re simple people, simplistic even. They may rule the world, but inside nothing’s there. Betas have more character, more depth, and more wisdom. Which reminds me of Hamlet, when he says, “thus conscience doth make cowards of us all.” Though Hamlet had it backward. Cowardice doth breed conscience in us all. Of course, the best bet is to have both alpha and beta. Depth AND the ability to act. I think any guy trying to “be” alpha should think again. You need both. NOT in order to keep a woman around (though it helps), but to be a fully realized human being. WOW, that was a rant. Not sure if any of that made sense. I started out with one thing and came up with something totally different. Sorry about that. *Taking soap box under arm and walking off into the sunset.*
Isabel,
“But other than that, whatever is left over is your actual self and you would do well to acknowledge your natural league imo. Shouldn’t complain about hypergamy if you’re trying to do the same on the sly, lol.”
Oh this is such cowshit. Every time, IRL or on the Internet, there are men giving testimony to what a drag the relationship market is for regular guys, at least one woman will speak up and say “you just have to stick to your league, all you guys just want supermodels.”
It’s very presumptive for a woman to say that, because it assumes (a) the guy is not very high value, and (b) the guy isn’t considering mates in his SMV band.
In my case at least, the presumption is wrong. For much of my young life, I stuck to what I thought was “my league,” women who were compatible with me, who would appreciate me, who had a comparable SMV, etc etc. It was a failure strategy, a totally unnecessary winnowing of my options, and I found out later that a good number of women I thought were “out of my league” in fact were interested and my refusal to consider them (in accordance with trying to be pragmatic) was part of what blinded me to their interest.
The criticism has all the signs of a big projection. The fact is, men are less selective about their mates’ attractiveness than women are. That’s just a fact. If anyone is going after targets out of their league, it’s likely to be women. If anyone doesn’t understand their “league” and are shooting themselves dismissing good candidates for silly reasons, it’s women.
I think this tendency of women to presume bad faith by men is motivated by (say it with me) the apex fallacy, because women have this idea that men can just get whatever they want when in reality only the small subset of men who are on the radar screen of Team Woman have a lot of options. it’s also motivated by the soft misandry pervading our culture where every time something bad happens to a man, a chorus goes up that it’s his fault – “he must have done something to make her reject him/attack him/falsely accuse him/rob him in divorce court.”
I wrote a post about this, where I told guys to just pursue women they were interested in, don’t worry about “league.” Most young women are shockingly unaware of their own league, and in any case a man has no idea if he’s just what a woman is looking for unless he tries to escalate.
http://badgerhut.wordpress.com/2011/06/26/just-go-after-whoever-youre-interested-in/
You’re off on your concept of hypergamy. Hypergamy does not mean maximizing the SMV of your mate – that’s just the genetic imperative. Hypergamy has to do with status, and means only seeking to mate with people of higher status than you. Status is not a big part of a man’s SMV computation hardware (e.g. Playboy models are hot to men because they’re hot, not because they are famous), it is a large part of women’s.
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