The annual AskMen Great Male Survey is out (H/T Zach) and it always provides interesting fodder for discussion. There’s also a smaller companion Female Survey, administered by the website Pop Sugar.
A note about the respondents:
AskMen is an online men’s lifestyle site whose mission is “helping guys become better men.” They target ages 18-34, and have 19 million readers per month.
PopSugar is a women’s lifestyle site, targeting females 18-40, with 28 million readers per month. This is PopSugar’s first year hosting the female survey – the prior two years it was hosted by Cosmopolitan magazine.
The total number of survey takers is more than 50,000, and that is not split between women and men. In recent years, the male survey alone garnered over 50,000 responses, and last year the female survey had 13,000 respondents.
The male survey splits results out by country, including the U.S., Canada, U.K. and Australia. The female survey does not break it down.
I have no information re sexual orientation of the respondents.
Some of the responses on the female survey seem a little wacky, as you’ll see. It doesn’t pass my consultant sniff test, but I offer the findings here for you to debate as you will.
Here are the most interesting results:
Update: I forgot a couple of great questions!
What is the ultimate male status symbol?
A family: 41%
A high-profile career: 31%
A beautiful wife or girlfriend: 15%
A beautiful car: 6%
A beautiful house: 5%
A membership to an exclusive club: 2%
50% of American man said “a family.”
What defines a “real woman” in 2012?
Being financially independent: 24%
Being successful and fulfilled in her career: 21%
None of the above: 15%
Being a great mother and wife who takes care of her family: 14%
Being charismatic and popular: 1%
Being attractive and a great lover: 25%
1. Of the four choices listed below, which is the most important personality trait for deciding if a woman is “relationship material”?
A sense of loyalty: Men 36%, Women 42%
A sense of caring/nurturing: Men 23%, Women N/A
The ability to protect: Men N/A, Women 28%
A sense of humor: Men 22%, Women 7%
Intelligence: Men 19%, Women 23%
American men prioritized loyalty much more highly than other men (47%) and ranked intelligence second (21%). British men rank sense of humor as important as loyalty, both at 30%.
2. Do you believe in the institution of marriage?
Yes, I believe it is a necessary institution and one in which I will participate to help preserve:
Men 70%, Women 44%*
Yes, I believe in it as an institution, but it is not for me:
Men 18%, Women 20%
No, I do not believe in it:
Men 12%, Women 36%
*This is the first wacky number. The 2011 Great Female Survey indicated that 83% of women selected this option. I can’t explain why it would have decreased 47% in one year. Here is a 2011 chart from Pew Research that shows the sexes in line re marriage (U.S. only):
American men are the most committed to marriage (79%), Brits the least (61%).
3. How satisfied are you with your sex life?
Somewhat satisfied; there is room for improvement: Men 41%, Women 24%
I have no sex life: Men 12%, Women 27%
Not satisfied with quantity: Men 14%, Women 5% 
Completely satisfied: Men 14%, Women 19%
Not satisfied with quality: Men 7%, Women 25%
“There’s an old joke – um… two elderly women are at a Catskill mountain resort, and one of ‘em says, “Boy, the food at this place is really terrible.” The other one says, “Yeah, I know; and such small portions.”"
Woody Allen
American men are the most satisfied (67% are completely or somewhat satisfied), and have the fewest celibates (12%, less than half the other countries).
4. At what point does the number of former sex partners that he/she’s had begin to bother you?
If he/she’s slept with more than 10 partners previously: Men 43%, Women 24%
If he/she’s slept with more than 20 partners previously: Men 21%, Women 19%
I don’t care how many previous sex partners he/she’s had: Men 20%, Women, 14%
If he/she’s slept with more than one other partner previously: Men 10%, Women 32%*
If he/she’s slept with more than 100 partners previously: Men 6%, Women 11%
*This is the other wacked result IMO. Manwhore shamer that I am, even I don’t believe that a third of women are bothered by a guy’s having had 2 previous partners.
5. Who should pay on a date?
Both should take turns: Men 51%, Women 57%
Him: Men 49%, Women 43%
Her: Men 0%, Women 0%
Strong evidence that women are not going on dates for the free chow.
6. Marriage Potential
About half of men say wife potential is somewhat important, though they won’t break up with a girl if she doesn’t have it. A third consider it essential, and the rest don’t care.
In contrast, only a quarter of women in the female survey report that it is somewhat important. Nearly half say it doesn’t matter at all, approximately the same number that indicated in the previous question that they do not intend to marry.
7. Prenups are not controversial.
35% of men say a woman’s signing one is very important or somewhat important. 42% of women are happy to sign, and another 41% of women would demand the man sign a prenup.
8. Cheating
When asked if they would cheat on a partner if they could get away with it, 73% of men were unlikely to do so, compared to 68% of women.
9. Letting yourself go
54% of men would dump a woman if she got fat. 33% of women would dump a man for adding the kilos.
10. Sexting
More than half of women have sent racy photos of themselves to spark or maintain attraction, while only a third of men have done so. 31% of women would share racy pics with friends, while 83% of men say “they are for my eyes only.”
11. Lying about # of sexual partners
53% of men have lied about the number of partners they’ve slept with.
No corresponding data for women. Why didn’t they ask that??? Is it because they assumed it’s 100%?
12. STD Testing
73% of men and 61% of women have been tested for STDs 0 or 1 times.
13. Cad moves
42% of men have or would be willing to falsely tell a woman they love her just to get her to have sex.
14. You wish.
81% of men never have anal sex.
15. Would you be offended if a woman faked an orgasm with you?
Yes, I would be offended that I wasn’t able to pleasure her. 58%
Yes, I would be offended that she was deceiving me. 25%
No. 17%
34% of men have faked orgasms. The 58% explains why women fake them in the first place. It also explains why they’re dissatisfied with the quality of sex.
16. How often do you fake orgasms?
Never: 33%
Rarely: 26%
Often: 15%
Every time: 26%
Don’t do it ladies, you’ll only paint yourself into a corner it is very difficult to crawl out of.
17. Aging gracefully
About a third of women say men start losing their looks at 30, but 21% say never. 39% of men say a woman starts losing her looks at 40, 17% say never (???) and 6% say 60 (whoo hoo!).
18. Male birth control
American men are more interested in male birth control than any other group – 86% would take it, compared to 73% overall. Meanwhile, half of women say they wouldn’t trust it even if it became available.
{ 701 comments… read them below or add one }
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“thinking you beat the system”
What system and created by whom?
LOL
Courtley – “Perhaps because, despite all the online rage and convoluted theorizing of devoted Manospherists, that dreaded “blue pill set of rules” is actually still working out okay for a solid majority of men out there. ”
Or they simply don’t realize that they are at a disadvantage. Wait a few years until 50% of these happily married men are divorced, and ask them how well the “blue pill” system is working for them.
If I would have found the ‘sphere 7 years ago, I would have believed they were all absolutely nuts. But, after my divorce and seeing first hand some of this stuff at work, it is damn hard to deny that at least SOME of this stuff is 100% true. For me the problem was figuring out how much of it was BS, and how much of it was the real deal. As in most things, I believe the truth is somewhere between “blue pill life is perfect” and “all women are lying whores out to use men”.
As I said earlier to Megaman, the happy blue pill man of today may very well be the pissed off red pill man of tomorrow. Stats only show the current landscape. What I and other men are saying is: we believe it WILL get worse before it gets better. How much worse depends largely on how well red pill information can be pushed out to the masses, and how well they accept it. I’m not hoping for a good outcome anytime soon.
Really? I just hang up on those people. Is it fun to “put one over on them?”
“Really? I just hang up on those people. Is it fun to “put one over on them?””
yep. I either hang up on them (if I’m not in the mood) or I mess with them mercilessly until they catch on, or I get tired and give up.
Cooper, there are three types of women.
1. Women who have no understanding of the bad decisions they are making, and how picking the brooding stranger over the nice guy will affect their lives. In our sex-positive culture, many women just do not have this information. maybe 50% of women.
2. Women who do know that what they are doing is wrong but don’t care because they know they can get away with it. And often they do get away with it. Many men will accept a girl who has been around the block, if she’s hot and acts nicely. We, girls, see this phenomenon and wonder why we ought to restrain our sexual desire when guys accept sluts as wives. So we do play the system. After all if we have sexual power, why shouldn’t we use it? (maybe 30% of girls)
3. Girls who are aware of how their reproductive choices affect their lives and choose to make better choices. i.e. wise girls ( 10-20% of women)
Girls in number 3 are in constant danger of falling into category 2, because often guys don’t really care/reward sexual discretion.
I also have to point out that men also “play the system/ make bad choices too”.
Guys will sleep with attractive, bitchy girls through their twenties and then at 35 look for a virgin to marry. When you’ve gone around de-virgining all the virgins and convincing your guy buddies to cheat on their girlfriends and sleep around–at 35/40, you suddenly want a virgin?
hmm.
“So we do play the system.”
By sexually satisfying men, the agents for your so-called oppression? Clearly, they are the ones benefitting most from this “system” as the joke is on…
“you suddenly want a virgin?”
Virgin is a term used by women to shame men who merely do not want a promiscuous woman. Just the very fact that men WANT TO switch piles [whether they do is irrelevant] sends a very disconcerting message to women society-wide.
Just A Thought – “Girls in number 3 are in constant danger of falling into category 2, because often guys don’t really care/reward sexual discretion.”
THIS! This is the point I’m getting at, and what I think Susan should put some real focus on preventing by making sure the women in group 3 KNOW the real scoop, KNOW how those choices can change their future, and KNOW that at least some men really DO care about sexual discretion.
They need to know just how badly it would suck if they met the perfect man, and he rejected her simply because she wanted to have some fun.
And as far as it goes, I’ve NEVER ONCE given men a free pass in terms of bad behavior. I think slutty men are just as bad as slutty women.
“When you’ve gone around de-virgining all the virgins and convincing your guy buddies to cheat on their girlfriends and sleep around–at 35/40, you suddenly want a virgin?”
That’s not me. 1. I’ve not gone around de-virgining all the virgins (couldn’t it be said that the women have de-virgin’d themselves?) 2. I haven’t, nor would, encourage a guy to sleep around on his gf. And 3. I’ve has a preference for low-N women all along. (this isn’t limited to 30+ men)
Also, I agree with what you said in #140 about marrying younger. And what Zach said (#?) about kids preventing career development, and not marriage.
So many people I know (in early twenties) have seemingly demonized marriage, as if they hold absolutely no power over what type of marriage they can have, or will create. They all have these fears about how unhappy, or boring, their lives will be once they marry. I don’t understand why some young people (ones I personally know) can’t imagine themselves married AND still in control of their happiness in life.
——-
Re: Ted D, Courtley
Can we get a description of, each of yours,”blue pill” v “red pill” rules?
All I really got is ‘blue’ guys turn ‘red’ after being divorced.
“They need to know just how badly it would suck if they met the perfect man, and he rejected her simply because she wanted to have some fun.”
Ohhhh, they are starting to get it along with the kick-in-the-ass realization that men just. wont. change.
Thus all the female angst out there.
@just a thought
Re: category 2. I think you’re forgetting that “get away with it” leans very, very heavily on looks. Hot girls can get away with it. They’ll have men lined up around the block to take them out/commit to them, no matter how they behave (although woe be to them when their looks start to fade). Average looking girls? Not so much.
Also, I think a lot of people are missing the anonymity factor in all of this. In major cities, with 100s of thousands or millions of people, it’s often very unlikely you’ll have any idea what a girl’s sexual history is if she doesn’t tell you herself. I’d say that for at least half the girls I meet at bars, we have no overlap in friend or acquaintance circles. So if that girl decides one day that she’s going to jump off the carousel, and her new guy doesn’t obsess over finding out about her past, there’s a good chance he never will.
I think the “acts nicely” part is important as well. You’re right, in this day and age a lot of men let them get away with it. For me at least, almost all of the girls I’m interested in have an N at least over 5, and often over 10. That’s due to the fact I’m only really interested in social girls who enjoy partying/dinners/bars/etc. By age 25, it’s very hard for any attractive girl in that scene to keep an N under 5, because she’s getting hit on constantly. So even if she’s very, very selective, just by pure volume the N will rise. I’m totally aware of these dynamics, and thus I have a different threshold for N than a lot of guys. As long as the girl is selective (ie not sleeping with every other guy that hits on her), I’d rather trade a few more notches on her belt for a fun, exciting girl who I love hanging out with, than pick up a boring, stay-at-home-on-Fridays low N girl. And before you go out there talking about how I won’t be able to find a relationship with the former category, I think it’s pretty clear through the research that most of those girls are actually hoping to find one. The vast majority of girls I know in the hookup scene, except for the most slutty around, are always looking for a relationship instead of a hookup.
My daughter took a multi-church youth group to the beach (over 300 miles
away ) , and roped my wife and I into chaperoning. The kids were middle-school age.
On Saturday, while the kids were in the water, I decided I wanted to feed some seagulls. Bad mistake. every scrap I threw out was endlessly fought over and hotly contended, passing from gull to gull before finally disappearing down one’s throat.
I noticed that the behavior of the gulls wasn’t that different from the little girls my daughter was in charge of. There were about 80 of them, and of the 80 I would say that about 60 were in full race-to-the-gutter slut mode, all chasing the same 8-10 boys.
We’d pull one little bimbo off a favored boy and three hours later we’d find him huddled with a new “girlfriend” somewhere. Official “girlfriend” status seemed to be very important to the girls; to the boys, not so much. At any rate, official “girlfriend” status seemed to have a half life not much longer than carbon-11, at which time one girl would be deposed and another take her place.
Say what you will. This is how women act before their reflective qualities have matured and everything they do is instinctual. It is what undergirds all subsequent developments.
@Just a thought
Forgive my delay in welcoming you, I’m on family vacation. Thanks for your thoughtful comment.
I’m curious to see if other women perceive this too. I suspect that many men don’t “go after” anyone.
@Sal
And welcome to you too! Please join in again!
I often find that I can’t access my own blog when I’m on wifi away from home, like at the car dealership, for example.
I feel sort of ashamed when I’m told HUS is inappropriate.
@Zach
Great story there about the Olympic athletes.
This doesn’t surprise me. Imagine being home-schooled or the equivalent your entire life into your 20s. This is one of my favorite quotes by an Olympic athlete, Alberto Tomba:
“I used to have a wild time with three women until 5 a.m., but I am getting older. In the Olympic Village here, I will live it up with five women until 3 a.m.”
@Zach
Fair enough, that’s a really good point. I’m sure all the women making fake offers would insist they are sincere, and would answer that way on the survey.
I also agree that it’s very tricky for guys. You never know whether you’re with a liberated woman, a traditionally minded woman or something in between. In addition, I’ve known guys who were put off when the woman insisted because they interpreted that as her saying there would be no second date, and she wanted to discourage those expectations.
@Courtley
Hey, good to see you!
Indeed.
#129 -Ted D.
Please don’t take this in a creepy way, but I enjoyed the description of your relationship with your special person. If I am ever with someone I want things to be that way.
I’m so glad the story on the Olympic athletes has come up. (If you missed it, it’s here.
What caught my attention was this:
I sort of understand, but only in a minor sense from my days at a martial artists trying my hand at tournaments. It’s like everyone you see is a winner and attractive and the testosterone runs pretty thick.
But now I see it in terms of alpha-ness and beta-ness. There’s a lot of Alpha-ness on display in the Olympic village right now, but it’s not like everyone there is particularly attractive in a physical sense nor will everyone come out with a medal. It’s that they seem attractive to each other because they feel like winners, if only by participating at such a high level event.
It’s more a state of mind than anything else, isn’t it? And I think it’s not relegated to a favored few, either. It’s a sense of accomplishment you might feel after college graduation in a tough major or after getting a promotion. I got it once when I “beat” a new & used car sales man and got the (demonstrably fair) price I wanted. That’s a competition too, you know.
These are things that should separate the alphas from the betas even if they occur every day.
When I look at the list of things in the survey, many come down to one question: What are people looking for in a mate? It seems the story about the Olympic Athletes tells me more directly what people are looking for.
@Just a thought
I’m 20 right now. I’d love to get married now. But everything I hear, whether from listening to female friends state their preferences or from reading blogs, surveys, forum posts, etc. online, is that women who wish to get married prefer an older guy who has a good career and is settled down and all. It’s so frustrating that because of my age and lack of career, the girls who would consider a relationship with me right now are looking for a short term boyfriend. I know at least two guys who feel the same way.
>> “I also agree that it’s very tricky for guys. You never know whether you’re with a liberated woman, a traditionally minded woman or something in between. In addition, I’ve known guys who were put off when the woman insisted because they interpreted that as her saying there would be no second date, and she wanted to discourage those expectations.”
I’ll admit that I’ve done the rummaging “fake offer” thing before. (My usual “strategy” is just to dig through my purse and sloooooowly take out my wallet). Although it’s more of an awkwardness thing when I’m not sure what the guys expectations are when it comes to paying. Like some of the other girls have said, some guys will be insulted if you pay your half, but on the other hand you don’t want to look like a gold digger either. …but maybe that tactic isn’t as sneaky as I thought it was. : P
I haven’t dated very many guys, but IME the guy has always insisted on paying, so I just make sure that I thank him/be grateful. If we’re at the bar, I’ll also occasionally send a drink his way or get smaller things while we’re out (coffee etc.) And I won’t let a guy spend money on me unless I’m seriously interested in him.
INTJ,
A lot of marriage-minded girls also tend to go for older guys because they assume that most younger guys aren’t interested in getting married any time soon.
I’d personally love to see more people getting married young.
@Emily
Yeah I don’t blame them for that, and I’d certainly believe that at least at UT Austin, around 80% of young men are not interested in marriage.
” I know at least two guys who feel the same way.”
You can add one more. I’m only 23, and my cousin who’s 32 is dating a 24yo (and been together for 1year+)
She couldn’t believe I was a year younger than her, she said namely because I look like the type ready to settle down, and that gave her the impression I had to be at least 27.
It’s that they seem attractive to each other because they feel like winners, if only by participating at such a high level event.
I do beleive this is another piece on the puzzle of attraction and SMP. Most people want to feel like winners but I think culture gives little space for that. I mean showing your amazing pics on facebook loses the shine when everyone else does it. Marrying young is for losers in popular culture as it being not very sexually experimented, so yeah I think the whole self steem but not self worth is mixed with that too, YMMV.
yep. I either hang up on them (if I’m not in the mood) or I mess with them mercilessly until they catch on, or I get tired and give up.
I usually say that I just moved to another country and took the phone with me. “Sorry but now I live on Burkina Faso, it looks like the company hasn’t made the transfer” they usually give up.
@ Ted
“But when it all comes down to brass tacks, my issue with promiscuity is still very much about the exchange of even values and price discrimination”
Yep. If you put out for some other guy faster than you did with me, I am skeptical of your feelings for me. Trust is damaged. Better try hard to make up for that. It’s not impossible, but it’s damn difficult, and you did it to yourself.
@ Ana
Hell, it’s hard to be a winner because everyone is gonna be insecure on something. The important bit is not to compare yourself constantly to other people, because everyone’s got you beat in something.
This leads to many interesting cases where I somehow end up jealous of my best friend and he ends up jealous of me. He is quite convinced that, once I muscle-up and if I ever fix my teeth, I’d clean up with girls better than any guy he has ever known. I am quite convinced the only reason he isn’t ALREADY cleaning up with girls is because he’s a goddam pussy that can’t open and escalate and he goes after the hottest ones all the time.
“If you put out for some other guy faster than you did with me, I am skeptical of your feelings for me. Trust is damaged. Better try hard to make up for that. It’s not impossible, but it’s damn difficult, and you did it to yourself.”
This is a universal feeling among men [fortunately limited to those stuck dealing with promiscuous women]. What is the female reaction upon learning this is really now men feel?
#177 -Abbot
“This is a universal feeling among men [fortunately limited to those stuck dealing with promiscuous women]. What is the female reaction upon learning this is really now men feel?”
Doesn’t bother me.
Ref golddiggers: Couple of years ago, on some relationship site, one woman said, “Coffee? Hell no. It had better be a good martini”. Another said, “Don’t think I’m impressed with a chain restaurant where I already know the menu.”
With the latter case, I suppose a chain restaurant shows a slight lack of imagination. OTOH, maybe the guy’s not a gourmet in the first place and it’s company he’s after, not food. A steak is a steak.
Point is, such women are advertising the price for their company without explaining the value-added first.
And non-chain restaurants don’t have to be particularly fancy, either. Endless little places advertising “home cookin’”.
Agree with caveats to the survey. There’s no such thing as a completely trustworthy promise of anonymity. I don’t suppose they’d want to use fingerprints, but tiny cameras in the ceiling looking over your shoulder, hidden marks on the paper…. I have no idea, and I trust that most of the tests are anonymous as there isn’t much the tester is going to do with the info if it’s personal. But still…. Got to be an effect.
Do I hear some negative comments about the Good Man Project? Although they ran four short stories of mine, I have some major and minor objections. They ran a piece about a guy who rescued a woman from a burning car at a Texas toll booth. The responses were tepid, tentative and seemed to be reaching for some excuse not to be expected to do the same if necessary.
Strange when you think the objective is the “good” man.
For all those who, like me, want to marry young. Mark Regnerus wrote a very sensible opp-ed about it in the Washington Post. Here’s the link:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/24/AR2009042402122.html
Susan, what do you think?
@Ted D
Fair enough regarding most of your post and I appreciate you taking a skeptical eye to all of this and understanding that your personal experiences are a big factor here. But I have to call you out on the assumption that 50% of these men will be divorce–you have to know this statistic is and has always been inaccurate.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/07/divorce-myths-debunked_n_804934.html#s219156&title=Half_of_All
For some demographics of men–those who fall into the educated, higher-income, married-in-their-later-20s bracket, the “blue pill” will be a completely suitable way to view the world of relationships. For other men, just by virtue of their education and income level, the state they live, in etc., the odds are indeed stacked against them.
This is a huge part of the whole SMP that I don’t see discussed enough in the Manosphere or related type of blogs. It seems to me to be the elephant in the room here–that the sexual revolution has brought advantages in some ways to certain segments of society, but wrecked havoc on the already economically and socially disadvantaged.
I think that a lot of answers may be indeed by the people, who may genuinely think they believe in what they say, only because they haven’t yet found that they don’t really think like that
I remember a lot of things I was believing in when i was 25 or so, which I found now ridiculous.The influence of the culture and your peers is sometimes sooo huge…
For once thing, I always liked the big butts but I joked along with my friends, and I would deny it, if someone would asked it
If I got asked in some online poll whether big butts are sexy, i would say definetely no and I would believe I had not lied.
“For some demographics of men–those who fall into the educated, higher-income, married-in-their-later-20s bracket, the “blue pill” will be a completely suitable way to view the world of relationships. For other men, just by virtue of their education and income level, the state they live, in etc., the odds are indeed stacked against them.”
Most of the people I know fall into that category. Based on the dynamics I see between the couples both the husbands and wives would be endlessly better of with some red pill wisdom. Most of the marriages will survive without it but that does not mean they are very satisfying unions, or that even though many of them are quite satisfying unions they would be much more happy with some red pill understanding and married game. Even one of the most horrible cases of a passive overly beta man with a wife reluctantly wearing the pants I think will last because they are both very relationship oriented, low count, very future time oriented, very, very, very security seeking, neither have much options and most critically I think they have much lower expectations of how much desire and infatuation and satisfaction they are supposed to and need to
feel. I think they are in a sense happy with the comfort the other brings plus SOME remaining sexual attraction. Many of the other marriages I see are much, much better than this one but they do seem to share the common factor of being between people who seem to have decided that they will stay with something that is quite good rather than keep up the revolving chair dance to look for a better deal. Just a basic understanding of married game would help them a lot.
Courtley – the thing is, I’m not UMC at all. I would say I am LMC, but compared to many in my immediate area well off, which is to say I live in a town being turned into a public housing ghetto. For Susan’s target audience your statement is probably true. But from where I’m sitting, 50% divorce rate is a likely outcome for man that says “I do”. I’m already part of that group, and according to your stats my chances were better because I have a higher education.
Stats are fine and well for general discussion, but at some point the numbers just DO NOT describe reality for everyone. And even though I have a college degree and a white collar job, I also have a divorce decree in my document safe. For me you can show any stat you like, and it won’t reverse what the court system already approved.
@Wudang
Satisfaction levels are trickier to quantify than the divorce rate, obviously, and I’m sure we can all think of several couples off the top of our heads who will probably stay together and be fairly happy, but could improve their happiness if they had a better understanding of gender psychology–but I’d also say that a deeper understanding of the individual they married would probably benefit a lot of couples as much as or more than the “red pill” theories.
Regarding the part of my comment that you quoted, though, do most of the people you know fall into the first or second categories I described? I am thinking the first, since your point seems to be that staying together in and of itself is not an indication of happiness, but you did quote what I said about both demographics, so not quite sure there. :/
@Ted D
Stats are all about the big picture and can indeed be irrelevant to individual situations. I am just saying that to overlook the statistical correlation between socioeconomics and things like the divorce rate, or single motherhood, and instead ONLY focus on theories of female sexual behavior is short-sighted at best, and intentionally reframing the discussion to fit one’s personal vendetta against women at worst, which is what I think happens far too often in the wider Manosphere.
As you said earlier, I think the answer lies somewhere between a totally naive “blue pill” worldview and an “all women are whores” one. I think this is probably generally true whenever a version of the ‘nature vs. nurture’ debate comes up. Biology and environment both play a role in shaping human behavior.
I do believe there are many couples–many of the people I know personally, anyway–who have a very “blue pill” perspective but still have happy and solid marriages. Generally these couples have some version of the traditional male as protector/provider and women as receptor/nurturer dynamic in their relationship, although what looks like can vary widely from couple to couple. This exists despite most of these men NOT believing that women prefer dominant assholes and, in fact, often believing quite the opposite, because this belief doesn’t necessarily prevent them from embodying certain traditionally masculine traits in their relationships.
Almost all the people I know are in the first category. Highly educated UMC. I had at least some friends in my teens that came from poor backgrounds and have not gotten an education but I rarely meet any of them anymore. I also know a few locals where my family has a summer house and that is a coastal small town where many do not have an education.
Coutrely if a couple does in fact have a more traditional dynamic going on what they intellectually believe or tell themselves that they are doing is not really important. That is still in large part a red pill dynamic which maintains sexual attraction. Those friends of mine that fall closer to this I have less worries about. The problem is that the expectations of behavior in relationships today is so far off from what is useful even those who have everything right on paper end up with problematic dynamics. I have a network of friends that includes an unusual amount of very alpha men, especially sexually alpha, and even most of them fall far too much into a betaized dynamic in relationships because they believe they are doing what they are supposed to do.
“Coutrely if a couple does in fact have a more traditional dynamic going on what they intellectually believe or tell themselves that they are doing is not really important. That is still in large part a red pill dynamic which maintains sexual attraction.”
Well, sure, that is kind of my point.
You can have that dynamic while still believing those craaazy blue pill things, such as being kind and compassionate are more positive in relationships than being a domineering asshole. The fact that the men I know are kind, compassionate and what the Manosphere would term “provider beta” types is not mutually exclusive to them also assuming the traditional masculine protective role in their relationships. This is why I say that the blue pill is still going to work out fine for most people, because contrary to popular Manosphere belief, what makes the majority of women feel protected and feminine in their relationships is not extreme domination that only a super-duper alpha can bring, it is something the average guy can do regardless of his personal theories on female sexuality.
As a low-N girl who is no stranger to fun and excitement…ouch.
Ditto, I went out with a guy once who was completely flummoxed that I insisted on paying for my coffee. He later told me that he almost took it as a sign that I wasn’t interested, had I not agreed to a second date.
I also had an embarrassing date where I showed up before he did and ordered a drink at the bar, then realized I didn’t have my wallet. (For real!) I profusely apologized to him when he showed up, and he kind of smirked. We hit it off in conversation and at one point he asked me if the reason I wasn’t ordering more drinks was because I didn’t have my wallet, and offered to get me another. I declined, but he treated me to ice cream afterwards anyway.
I planned the next date for us, but we never got to it because he had to leave the city. No idea if that was actually the case or not, as I may have left a bad impression wrt the wallet…
/storytime
>> ” ‘I’d rather trade a few more notches on her belt for a fun, exciting girl who I love hanging out with, than pick up a boring, stay-at-home-on-Fridays low N girl.’
>> ‘As a low-N girl who is no stranger to fun and excitement…ouch.’ ”
You think that’s bad? I read his post while I was staying at home on a Friday.
(I’m not always this boring! Really!)
@Just a thought
Nice article. Since I’m a UT student, I should actually meet this Mark Regnerus.
“Red pill world” might be more real than “blue pill world,” but it still isn’t reality.
The whole ‘pill’ system Red OR Blue is a way people make sense of their experiences. But they aren’t the experiences themselves.
I wonder if some of the difficulties are with Blue Pill Worlders getting into relationships with Red Pill Worlders.
Two people on the Blue Pill can get along just fine. Two Red pill people…they both know what the score is.
But when people on two different worldview prescriptions come together, hurt feelings ensue.
Zach, I think you will be able to find a relationship. And your post offers pretty good insight into how most guys outside of the manosphere approach relationships. Guys generally will notice a woman’s attractiveness first, her kindness next, their compatibility third and ask about her sexual escapades last, if ever. This is not necessarily a bad way to go about relationships because kindness and a good personality is probably more important than the number of guys she’s slept with. As an N=0 girl, I find that I tend to stay away from alcohol, bars, and parties because I don’t drink and don’t want to risk drunken hookups, stupid memories, law-breaking, and/or sexual assault. This often makes me seem pretty boring.
“This is not necessarily a bad way to go about relationships because kindness and a good personality is probably more important than the number of guys she’s slept with. ”
Absolutely true, but a high N starts to ring alarm bells, and certain kinds of sexual behavior also starts to ring alarm bells.
High-N women aren’t all horrible people. I absolutely believe Tom when he says he knows some double-digit N women that are great wives. Susan herself seems to be an absolutely wonderful mother, wife, and person.
It’s still ringing alarm bells in those initial stages, though. Way easier to trust and connect with an average- or low-N woman. At least it is for me.
In a hypothetical situation where a double digit N woman landed on HUS-island and tried to find a husband, half of the men here would instantly DQ her or otherwise be very suspicious of her. Is that really worth a ONS or a fling or never being single in college? Is it really worth seriously jeopardizing your marriage prospects with HALF of your mating pool, when women college graduates already vastly outnumber men college graduates?
Nope. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
And while I really think Abbott is exaggerating when he says EVERY man feels his way, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that a significant portion of men feel this way (half or more). I am not sure women are aware of the massive MMP damage they are doing to themselves by engaging in slutty behavior. I am reminded of Lokland’s story where he lived with a bunch of women and they absolutely thought Lokland was in a tiny minority when he said they were damaging their MMP.
Not the case. There’s a significant chunk of men that feel like me, or Jesus M, or Ted D, or Lokland, or Jason.
Not saying you aren’t, but you are assuming that the men currently occupying HUS-island are prizes.
Although I believe that guys prefer low-N women, I still think that it’s easier for a slut to get a husband than it is for a woman who’s waiting until marriage.
On a slightly different note, hookingupsmart.com made it to the Internet map:
http://internet-map.net/#11-127.95220947265625-97.0949478149414
@Susan
Even then you’re not helping women much.
Half of women think it’s mutual investment, half of women think it’s the man’s duty to invest, but not a single damn woman thinks men are worthing investing in alone.
Kind of telling. If the best a man can do is 50/50 why should he bother?
“Although I believe that guys prefer low-N women, I still think that it’s easier for a slut to get a husband than it is for a woman who’s waiting until marriage”
Where [in the West] are these women who are waiting for marriage?
Well there’s Jackie for starters…
I mean no disrespect to proponents of early marriage, but… where would the younger folks find people they’d want to marry? In high school you know, well, other high-schoolers and some people from around the neighborhood. That’s a pretty limited group, and depending on where you live a good portion of your classmates will already be acting like tramps and douchebags. (and no, not all girls like them -they treated me badly for no reason and I fought back, and I might’ve gotten that one guy busted for drugs…)
If you go to college you become familiar with any number of classmates there, depending on the heaviness of your schedule and the size of your college. But there are still so very many people out there…
I guess I’m very biased because I’ve had crazy wanderlust since I was old enough to spell the word. But to me it’s like deciding which Cajun dish you’re going to eat -Cajun is GREAT, but wouldn’t you want to give some other menu a glance -you don’t have to choose anything from there if you don’t want -before deciding that’s all?
(Sorry for the lame analogy. I solemnly vow if I ever get married he’ll never starve. XD)
“Way easier to trust and connect with an average- or low-N woman.”
No matter what, no man anywhere would say or believe otherwise when all other traits are close enough to equal
“Is it really worth seriously jeopardizing your marriage prospects with HALF of your mating pool”
That is it – its the new man shortage aka the slut taker shortage: its all about the quantity of men willing or at least not repelling sluts for commitment. Women and their feminist advocates have already given up on the whole “sex positive” thing which was created SOLELY to get men to embrace a woman’s sexual expression as positive for marriage preparation [at best] and not even thinking about it [at worst].
“I am not sure women are aware of the massive MMP damage they are doing to themselves by engaging in slutty behavior”
But you can be absolutely sure that women who do get a whiff of the truth throw up a wall of denial and the rest are kept from the awareness via propaganda spewed by those who fear it. Its only a matter of time before the lid blows off and one article after another about this damage will riddle the mainstream media. Then even those men who were oblivious, purposely or otherwise, will be taking the guilty until proven nonslutocent approach to all their dates.
Sai,
The trick is to find somebody who also has crazy wanderlust.
My bf and I are both really into travelling and we sometimes go on trips together. (If anything I’m the one holding us back for $$$ reasons.) I don’t see why marriage would put an end to that. I plan on marrying somebody who wants to travel the world and be badasses together.
If you don’t think that the Revulsion Standard is not permeating society…
“Men have an innate emotional revulsion from bonding with promiscuous women. The feminist society today just pressures men to marry sluts, otherwise, you just might be labeled primitive/small dick/any other feminist shaming technique. But the revulsion in your guts is right, men have intuition as well, sluts don’t deserve to be loved, sexually experienced women are only good for sexual experiences, they don’t worth the risks to have any emotional bonds with.”
http://dicipres.wordpress.com/2012/04/25/sluts-dont-deserve-to-be-loved/
This is not about right or wrong or morals or ethics or shaming certain behaviors, its only about how men feel.
The ONLY question is – what are women going to do about it? That is besides whine and shame
“you are assuming that the men currently occupying HUS-island are prizes.”
I can’t speak for everyone but I definitely am.
This is being repeated all over America, every day, more and more -
” I will say that as a guy with a girlfriend who has had 13 sexual partners to my 2, it is difficult. It is a thought that pops into my head without control. I try not to judge her for it. However I will say, that I think the reason behind multiple sexual partners leading to failed marriages is because all too often in a relationship (albeit normally the males fault) there is a certain amount of animosity that stems from the elevated number of sexual partners. For instance, I can go weeks without thinking about it and then run into one of her numerous flings, then I must start all over at square 1. I would like to look into to the divorce rates of couples with a disparity between previous sexual partners. I feel as if I had slept with 13 women it would not bother me as much.”
From the site cited above
#205 -Emily
Everybody needs somebody else to spell it out for them sometimes, huh?
@SayWhat
“Not saying you aren’t, but you are assuming that the men currently occupying HUS-island are prizes.”
Quite true, but if your standards are inflexible, it means you are shrinking your mating pool even more.
And according to the askmen survey, a huge chunk of men are going to DQ you when you hit double-digit N. It’s not just HUS readers. We actually have quite a few more “open-minded” men here.
If I were a girl, I wouldn’t be taking the risk.
I’m also not sure that sluts have an easier time finding husbands than chaste(r) girls. Girls waiting for marriage, though, yeah, that’s a totally different ball-game. The vast majority of guys are not going to wait until marriage to get laid.
Setting that standard more or less means eliminating, like, 90% of the men out there.
As for my PERSONAL experience, from what I can tell, the chaste(r) girls have married, the slutty girls always have boyfriends but switch through them PDQ.
Its not hard to stay 100% faithful to someone for an entire life.
“the chaste(r) girls have married, the slutty girls always have boyfriends but switch through them PDQ”
Why is knowledge of such pure logic is so painful…for some?
“Its not hard to stay 100% faithful to someone for an entire life.”
Then it behooves a man to maximize those odds
Abbot, in the deep South, women are more likely to wait for marriage. Religious girls are more likely to wait for marriage. Children of immigrants, who come from a country with more restrictive values are more likely to wait for marriage. But if you are prizing virginity, you may have to compromise other things you’d like, namely, sexual experience, how “fun” a girl is, and attractiveness.
Sai, I think that the fun doesn’t have to stop with marriage. It’s children that take away your choices, not marriage. Furthermore, I personally don’t really want to date 10 guys or even 5. I’d rather have one guy, depend on him and not have to worry and then get married. I think many people feel like I do.
However, I think chaste girls do have a harder time meeting guys, because as a group they are less likely to go to bars, go to wild, crazy parties and so on. Furthermore, guys often DQ virgins because they represent too much investment and the pressure is too great.
I know a girl who went on a date with a guy. The first question he asked was , ” What’s your sexual experience?” When he found out she was a virgin, he basically walked out. I know another virgin who was hopelessly crushing on another guy, but he wouldn’t date her because she was a virgin and eventually ended up dating someone else. I think virginity is a great risk in this culture right now and that’s why I find hooking up smart kind of frustrating. If you are very attractive, a guy would perhaps be willing ti take a risk on you; but otherwise, guys will run away. Perhaps because I am in college I have a skewed viewpoint, but here, virginity is (dare I say it) a badge of shame.
Abbot July 28, 2012 at 9:42 pm
“Its not hard to stay 100% faithful to someone for an entire life.”
Then it behooves a man to maximize those odds
Abbot, huh? Whadya mean?
Just a though, yeah, there are virgin women in their 20s but many of them aren’t the “hotties” guys say they want. There’s always a trade off somewhere, this is what some people don’t wanna swallow.
That’s absolutely false. I had no problem attracting guys when I was a virgin, it was the virginity itself that repelled them (after 5-6 dates of investment). And I know quite a few other girls who are virgins, and beautiful to boot.
Guys want chastity, girls want providers. Them’s the breaks.
Agreed. In fact, just the other day an associate (who I know for a fact is cleaning up with the ladies) on my team was mocking girls who were “sexually empowered”. Too bad it doesn’t cut both ways, last I heard he’d already slept with half of Manhattan.
What is all this mention of virgins? Why does this always come up? Where has any man here stated that they want or are looking for virgins? Enough with this crap already. Men do not want to marry sluts. A slut is not defined as a woman who is not a virgin. Now the record os straight. Again. Men, universally, if they can find it, want a woman who did not cock men up while traveling alone or with girlfriends on vacation, did not jump from tent to tent on the beach on spring break…and on and on and on. Why? Because its too easy for women and taking advantage of that cheap [valueless] advantage is considered low. Men dont want low. They want to be proud of their life mate choice, to introduce her to friends knowing that she maintained character. Because men do want to bond with a woman because that feels really good and do not want or need to go through some mental “thought control” torture to get there. Is there anything else that needs to be explained after dozens of posts and thousands of comments on this website? Women want to do this and that and then later have this and that. Good luck, really. Men want to dodge and duck and make sure they dont throw their entire lives at the town bike. Good luck to them too. But who in this world has more options? Well, there is the rub, and the angst among women is palpable. Now that the information is out there, women can no longer claim ignorance and all the whining, shaming and strategizing will not change how. men. think.
^^
“A slut is not defined as a woman who is not a virgin.”
Ahh…now we’re getting somewhere! I agree with you that most men out there are not looking to marry virgins. The ones that are either have religious or non-Western cultural convictions about female virginity, or are massively insecure about their ability to sexually please a female partner and compete with former partners.
I think most guys define ‘slut’ as a woman who has a lot of ONS, or a serial cheater/cuckolder, not a woman who has Ever Had Sex Before. I’d say your average “non-slutty” 25-year-old woman has probably had 2-4 sexual partners, and as long as those partners were steady monogamous boyfriends, most men are not going to consider that woman a slut unworthy of marriage. If those relationships ended because she cheated, that might do it, but if they ended because they were in high school and went to different colleges or they just discovered they were incompatible life partners or any other sort of non-skeezy reason, again, I think most men can handle this. I think this is why Susan is smart to recommend serial monogamy and advise against hook-ups and cheating, because those are the things that bring out that gut-level revulsion in guys that want to get married, not the fact that you had sex with a couple of steady boyfriends who you cared about.
Also, this:
“I’d rather trade a few more notches on her belt for a fun, exciting girl who I love hanging out with, than pick up a boring, stay-at-home-on-Fridays low N girl.”
Yeah, again, I think MOST guys sort of feel similarly. I don’t think all guys take virginity as an automatic sign of being sexually frigid, I think they tend to judge that a little more holistically, but guys looking for a life partner must balance their concern that the woman is unable to bond sexually because of extreme promiscuity with the concern that she is so out of touch with her sexuality that he’ll end up in the all-too-common sexless marriage.
“guys looking for a life partner must balance their concern that the woman is unable to bond sexually because of extreme promiscuity”
Somewhat but it is really he who will be unmotivated or not enthusiastic about bonding with her. That lurching attraction bubble is burst from the get go. Too many probes have compromised the membrane…
I have pretty high standards what I consider gf/wife material, and I agree with this.
>> “What is all this mention of virgins? Why does this always come up? Where has any man here stated that they want or are looking for virgins? Enough with this crap already”
It’s because there are a lot of virgins out there (more than ever according to Susan’s stats!) and they actually have a HARDER time in the SMP. Virgins are highly relevant in these conversations.
From what I can tell, the “ideal” for most most men seem to be a girl with an “N” of 1-2, or at the very least a virgin who will put out fairly early on. But from there, it’s very easy for those numbers to add up even for a well-intentioned girl who doesn’t do ONS etc.
To be honest, I’d actually prefer it if guys preferred chaste virgins. It would be a lot less confusing.
IMO most guys prefer chastity, BUT ONLY TO A CERTAIN EXTENT.
@Emily
Yes, it is easy for the numbers to add up even without ONS, but surely not as quickly if you’re really waiting to be in a committed relationship before having sex. And again, I think HOW your N’s were added up, and under what circumstances and with whom and what sort of attitude all factor in. Yes, while # certainly does matter, what a lot of guys are looking for in a wife/long-term partner is demonstrable character and morals and trustworthiness and some kind of natural proclivity towards long-term mating and “beta males.” It is the women who demonstrate an insatiable draw towards extreme dominance, being badly treated, and promiscuous sex without emotional attachment that I think a lot of guys avoid when seeking wives and mothers for their children.
“the “ideal” for most most men seem to be a girl with an “N” of 1-2, or at the very least a virgin who will put out fairly early on”
“Most men” is correct regarding that universal thinking and although the comfort-level-N [CLN] varies, the lower the N the more the waiting feels right. High N women who later in life want to slow down the time to sex are currently running into a wall of impatience from men who refuse to grant them the agency to make them wait.
“your average “non-slutty” 25-year-old woman has probably had 2-4 sexual partners, and as long as those partners were steady monogamous boyfriends, most men are not going to consider that woman a slut unworthy of marriage.”
It is NEVER these low N women who shame men by calling them “virgin obsessed” as if to make the argument that low-N-women seekers are some sort of archaic cavemen throwbacks. ONLY sluts and feminists us the V word as a weapon because they now find themselves being evaluated and pitted against women who exercised restraint. Its a war between factions of women and men are being used as scapegoats. Deep down, all women know that men do not want to marry sluts if the option is available. Any woman who states otherwise is a liar, in denial, ignorant or stupid.
“It is the women who demonstrate an insatiable draw towards extreme dominance, being badly treated, and promiscuous sex without emotional attachment that I think a lot of guys avoid when seeking wives and mothers for their children.”
and there is no statute of limitations on that demonstration
>> “It is NEVER these low N women who shame men by calling them “virgin obsessed” as if to make the argument that low-N-women seekers are some sort of archaic cavemen throwbacks. ”
My complaint isn’t that men are “virgin obsessed”. It’s the opposite. My complaint is that men DON’T want to get involved with virgins, and then turn around and complain that there are too many sluts.
Myself, Saywhaat, Jackie, and many religious girls that I’ve known have all been rejected for being too chaste.
I think it’s comparable to guys who get rejected for being “too nice” and then have to listen to the girls complain that there are too many jerks.
“To be honest, I’d actually prefer it if guys preferred chaste virgins. It would be a lot less confusing.
IMO most guys prefer chastity, BUT ONLY TO A CERTAIN EXTENT.”
‘de-flowering a virgin’ is probably a widespread male fantasy…but…if you have any morality, taking the virginity of someone who values it as a casual sex act – pretty shit behaviour (IMHO).
So if ‘you’ make something of the fact that you’re a virgin, he may walk away because he’s treating you as a human being. ‘nice guy’ is a loaded term, perhaps ‘decent human being’?
(either that or he thinks ‘you’ will be too much effort. not ‘decent’ as much as ‘efficient’)
Emily, you are completely right. And your words back up what I see in dating. I would only add another level to your argument, guys are more likely to commit to hotter virgins. I.e., if you are a virgin who is a 6 or above on the attractiveness scale, guys will be more likely to commit to you and take it slow. Virginity becomes an advantage for marriage minded men.
If you are a 5 or below, virginity becomes a disadvantage because guys don’t want to wait and don’t think you are worth it.
“The first question he asked was, ‘What’s your sexual experience?’”
Yeah, well, IMO that should have DQed him right there. Who the hell asks that of someone they just me, much less as a first question? She should have ran like hell.
First time poster here,
@Emily
“To be honest, I’d actually prefer it if guys preferred chaste virgins. It would be a lot less confusing.”
Do you think the other way around, that girls (including virgins and non virgins) prefer a virgin guy?
@just1x
“So if ‘you’ make something of the fact that you’re a virgin, he may walk away because he’s treating you as a human being.”
Would you apply that same situation if the guy told a woman that he’s a virgin?
@Just a thought
“guys are more likely to commit to hotter virgins. I.e., if you are a virgin who is a 6 or above on the attractiveness scale, guys will be more likely to commit to you and take it slow. Virginity becomes an advantage for marriage minded men.
If you are a 5 or below, virginity becomes a disadvantage because guys don’t want to wait and don’t think you are worth it.”
Do you think the same is true, that girls would be committed to a guy if he was a virgin based on higher value in physical attraction?
Courtley your views on what PUAs think and what the red pill means is ill informed. This is what hardcore PUAs have to say about romance:
http://www.pua-zone.com/showthread.php?5098-Is-romance-always-beta
When I say it does not matter if you believe blue pill stuff if you actually behave red pill I am meaning exactly that not that it is fine to keep some blue pill behavior as long as there is a good chunck of rep pill. The latter is never useful IMO. When I say believe blue pill and act red pill I am referring to stuff such as my father which is a blank slate blue piller intellectually but was a major alpha in his time or the hardcore feminist activist I went to college with who ended up with an extremely cocky and wild alpha and thinks they have an equalist relationship.
Red pill does not IMO exclude being nice or necessitate being an asshole. It does include the knowledge that that can work scarily well but it does not prescribe anything other than sufficient dominant behavior combined with non needy niceness on his OWN terms and appropriate taking into account your own self interest. Have you read any actual PUA material? If you want to know read the book of Pook by Pookie, the most influential poster on Sosuave one of the biggest PUA forums, read David Deangelo who has made millions on his material and is I think the most sold PUA teacher with the exception of Mystery, read Juggler, read Carloz Xuma, read Zan, read James Marshall, read 60 years challenge, read the fastseduction archives of Nashville player, Franco, TVA-Oslo, Hitori, Illuminatus, Arron Sleazy and more. These are all highly influential PUAs, several of which pre date the publication of the Game. They do not advocate being an asshole or being not nice they just advocate being dominant. And what being dominant means according to them might be different from what you think and varies quite a lot in between them because there are so many different styles.
@Emily
“Myself, Saywhaat, Jackie, and many religious girls that I’ve known have all been rejected for being too chaste.”
By whom? Are you looking for dating partners in religious environments that reflect your beliefs? If you’re not, then yes, you are going to weird many dudes out. But within the social circles of conservative evangelicalism, Mormonism, Roman Catholicism, orthodox Judaism and others, you should be able to find guys who hold to similar convictions about sex, and indeed, who find it completely normal for an unmarried 20something woman to be a virgin.
@Andrew
no…I have never (well…since the red pill) been of the opinion that men and women are exactly the same. before the red pill? well there was some cognitive dissonance caused by believing feminist claptrap. I can’t believe how long it took me to believe my real world experiences over the indoctrination.
nice to ‘meet’ you
@Wadung
I’m just saying that lots of men can pull off being ‘sufficiently dominant’ without a lot of “red pill” theoretical knowledge, which you seem to agree with, I think. Most men default to this naturally in their relationships. Guys that have a hard time doing so may benefit from some level of “red pill,” but I have concerns with how “red pill” theories are interpreted by at least some percentage of said guys. Not so much that they, themselves, successfully become assholes, but that they come to believe this is what all women secretly/truly desire, and I think that is a false and demoralizing view of women.
Andrew,
This is one case where I’ll admit to being an extreme outlier.
I was raised with the idea that I should save myself for marriage, and then I’d marry a guy who was saving himself for marriage and that it would be all wonderful. (Religious upbringing.) I actually felt extremely ripped off when I realized that I probably *wouldn’t* be marrying a male virgin, unless I were to marry a guy who’s involuntarily celibate, in which case I’d probably have to compromise on many other traits. Sure Tim Tebow types exist, but they’re pretty much unicorns.
Like I said though, I’m almost certainly an outlier on this issue. I also suspect that in general, a virgin girl is less likely to have a problem with a virgin guy.
Courtley,
The problem is that most religious groups have WAAAAY more girls than guys. I’ve also noticed that most of my Catholic guy friends tend to date non-Catholic girls. I’ve asked a couple of them about this trend, and they were both like “yeah, it’s about the sex thing.”
@Emily
there are ‘other bloggers’ out there that point out the different experience men and women get from church.
women; you are god’s special princesses
men; you are sexually deviant animals
just compare mother’s day praisefests and father’s day shamerants…
and ‘you’ wonder why men wander away from the church?
@Emily
“The problem is that most religious groups have WAAAAY more girls than guys.”
Yeah, this is very often true. But not always. Scout around some of the trendier Christian churches in your city, ones with good bands and a younger pastor, and I think you’d be surprised at how many guys show up to places like this.
232 -Andrew
As long as your teeth aren’t gold-plated and your pants fit properly -and you came right out and said you are a looker -you are automatically so much better than what I’ve lived around. I’d have no problem with you, virgin or not. Maybe you did it for Jesus, maybe you did it for health reasons, maybe you haven’t met anyone you want to see you naked. You made and are continuing to make that decision with a sound mind and I respect that.
(And that’s a very fair warning about sexless marriages, but some of us are very excited for the wedding night, haha! I guess you have to find a tactful way to talk about that along with other important things like faith, household location, number of kids, etc. so you know your odds of being frustrated are low.)
@JustiX
There’s lots of reasons why men leave religion, and I think the way churches handle sexuality is a huge one. But I know lots of women–myself included–who were turned off by the misogyny inherent in a lot of more conservative church circles, too. It’s not always “God’s special princess” (though that is far too common and entirely cringeworthy and patronizingly sexist in its own way). There’s plenty of shaming of women for being too tempting and not modest enough and “causing the brothers to stumble.”
Religion can be an effective way to keep certain sexual standards in place and create communities where people bypass a lot of the issues of the current SMP and find partners and are happy. Many of my friends are evangelicals of some sort and got married in their early 20s as virgins and seem to have pretty good marriages and sex lives. But we weren’t from the most extreme circles–you have to be careful to avoid the too-conservative communities that use guilt and shame as the main means of keeping everyone chaste.
I have mixed feelings on religion, basically, but that is perhaps irrelevant here. It is fascinating to me, though, to see how close certain Manosphere views on sexuality and women are to ones found in conservative religious circles. It’s like traditional religious values without the religion. They want to bring back the traditional values while discarding the one thing (religion) that actually was responsible for entrenching them in society in the first place.
Just1X (239),
FWIW, I agree with you completely. I can’t stand the overly girly “let’s-talk-about-our-feelings” brand of Christianity myself, so I can’t even imagine how awful it must be for the guys. I don’t think anybody really benefits from the current status quo.
Courtley (240),
Don’t worry, I have a bf. He’s an atheist, but he’s from a Catholic family. But finding him was seriously an uphill battle!
#239 -Just1X
What denomination are you? I believe you, but where I am it’s like:
Men: you are godly decision-making leaders, go out and do stuff!
Women: it’s a man’s world, he is the hero and you are back-up, God commands that you fix a sandwich
I like sandwiches, but I went through a period where I felt God didn’t like women. Could it be a regional thing? (I’m in the South)
Courtely, I disagree most men tend to be sufficiently dominant in relationships today. Look at movies of guys in the fifties and compare them to men today. It`s like night and day. Testosterone is down by 50% in the last 50 years. Men have a strong pull to betaize themselves in marriage to a large degree. Some naturally take on a leading role some need to be taught and today, most having been taught the opposite and ALL cultural influences working in the opposite direction there is no way men are taking an appropriate role in relationships.
Women usually have no clue what they actually want in a man, especially today. Of the women in the relationships turned around by men following Athols advice I am certain virtually none of them would have been able to describe anything remotely resembling what they actually ended up responding well to. The many women who have now found the site, agree with the ideas and wants their husbands to learn almost never understood any of this about themselves until they found Athols site.
You also need to take account of the fact that women change their dominance requirements according to their SMV. The prettier she is the higher her dominance requirement on average will be. An average girl will often feel uncomfortable with a man as dominant as is required by a 10. The underlying reason is that he is perceived to be unlikely to stay with her by a middling woman while a hotter woman believes her looks are sufficient to keep him around. She might think like this explicitly but it is more likely she has unconsciously adapted her preferences according to reality.
A study found exactly this pattern with most women rejecting the highest testosterone men while the very hottest actively desired them and the scientists theorized this was because they thought their looks was sufficient to keep them around even though they had weaker natural pair bonding genes because of very high T.
As men we like to know what is THE most attractive man to women as in what is acquired to get a 10. Not that many us will realistically aspire to get one or are willing to put in the work to be that man but we would at least like to know. When many men talk about what women really want they refer to what the women with the greatest options choose. And, those men are usually very dominant although they can also be VERY good looking greater betas with status as in this SMP too many high dominance men are busy with casual sex so less are available than they would like.
@Joe
Watching the road race and its aftermath yesterday, I couldn’t help but come to the same conclusion. Every cyclist was so incredibly dominant in his presentation, both physical and mental, that the notion of even considering their sex lives seemed entirely irrelevant, not to mention inappropriate.
@Richard
I’ve generally found that women who advertise a price without advertising the value add thing they, in and of themselves, are the value add and generally aren’t.
Another thing I’ve noticed is that a higher proportion of single women act this way as they age. I’m not sure if it’s a case of more of the ones who aren’t like that aren’t single or if women age and get bitchy. I’ll ascribe to either depending on the day of the week.
I think this is heavily related to the fact that no one thinks women should foot the whole bill. Women in western culture are taught to have a princess complex and it seems a larger and larger number do. This is important.
What the ‘sphere misses is most of this is all at the margin. Susan usually gets that but often thinks because it is at the margin (alpha chasing, carousal riding, hooking up) it’s unimportant or we should at least keep it in proportion.
The problem is changes at the margin that remain uncorrected add up over time. A one second one Netwon push is less effective than a .01 Newton push over two minutes. Also, we’re much less likely to notice the latter until it’s too late.
In an age where educated women under 30 make more than their male counterparts, when women are pretty much 6:4 in college, and where grrl power is the celebrated rule and men better shut the hell up about it that half of women think they should go dutch while half expect men to pay isn’t progress.
It’s princessing…big time.
@Wadung
I mean “sufficiently” in terms of, it’s enough to keep their relationship stable and together, not that they had achieved Ultimate Romantic Happiness. (Again, the word ‘sufficient’ means ‘just enough.’) As I said earlier (maybe not to you, though) satisfaction in relationships is harder to quantify than how many people are staying together. It’s another conversation entirely.
You’re entitled to your opinions on how you’d like to see relationships work. For me, on a personal level, as a straight woman, I prefer men of today to the 1950s model, no contest.
And you actually explain WHY very well, I think, and seem to admit something the Manosphere sort of has a hard time owning up to:
“You also need to take account of the fact that women change their dominance requirements according to their SMV. The prettier she is the higher her dominance requirement on average will be. An average girl will often feel uncomfortable with a man as dominant as is required by a 10. The underlying reason is that he is perceived to be unlikely to stay with her by a middling woman while a hotter woman believes her looks are sufficient to keep him around. She might think like this explicitly but it is more likely she has unconsciously adapted her preferences according to reality.”
Yes. Although I think there’s quite a few very objectively beautiful (7+) but still shyer, low-dominance women out there, and less attractive ones that still like a lot of dominance–but I think your assessment is fair if we’re talking about the majority. When men in the Manosphere bitch about “women,” they’re bitching about the preferences of the hottest 10%, but claim that what the top-10% requires is true for alllllll women. As someone who’s not in the top 10% and doesn’t require that level of dominance and actually finds it a turnoff, I am rather peeved at being lumped in with those girls, for obvious reasons.
@Emily
You know, it’s funny, but as an atheist/agnostic from an evangelical Christian family and background myself, I often think my perfect match would be . . . an atheist from a Christian or similar religious background. I suppose that sounds rather narcissistic, but I think I’d make a hell of a lot more sense to someone from a similar background. Sorry to hear he was so hard to find! Where do you live/where did you meet him?
Ah, I see, well congrats.
“Tim Tebow types exist, but they’re pretty much unicorns.”
Tebows will propagate exponentially when, and only when, women respectfully reinforce the gate lock and disable master-key holders
@a couple of people
I don’t do god at all and never have*, I was referring to ‘The dread blogger D” (da-da-dahhhhh). (to me, FWIW) he’s quite authoritative on religion vs the church.
* CofE in the UK, extremely nominally. So I kind of loosely share moral values, but not the god-thang.
“It is fascinating to me, though, to see how close certain Manosphere views on sexuality and women are to ones found in conservative religious circles. It’s like traditional religious values without the religion. They want to bring back the traditional values while discarding the one thing (religion) that actually was responsible for entrenching them in society in the first place.”
I’d be careful that you aren’t misattributing some of the talk about low-N to religion. It ain’t necessarily so, there are evo-psych arguments and also biochemical ones too, as well as just attitudes I have/see (with/without evo-psych).
Courtley,
I’m in the UK, and I met him through my social circle. But during my “Forever Alone” years, I was living on the North American west coast.
Given the overall man shortage in churches today, I think that non-religious guys from religious backgrounds are the next best thing. Ideally it’s best to find somebody with the same belief system. But even a guy who’s left the church will still have a decent understanding of the culture and be more sympathetic towards it. At least that’s my experience. IMO it’s more important to find somebody who has good character and who is compatible.
>> “Tebows will propagate exponentially when, and only when, women respectfully reinforce the gate lock and disable master-key holders”
Unfortunately you’re not going to get the mass Lysistrata movement that you’re hoping for. The genie’s out of the bottle, and there will always be sluts. And because of that, the women who DO “reinforce the gate lock and disable master-key holders” often end up losing out.
“you’re not going to get the mass Lysistrata movement that you’re hoping for. The genie’s out of the bottle”
There was never any genie in a bottle and that is abundantly evident after a five hour plane ride to the vast region south of Mexico. The so-called genie is a culturally derived euphemism to describe women who relentlessly blow their bodies and with it the dignity as seen from the gaze of men…
@just1x
Nice to meet you too.
“no…I have never (well…since the red pill) been of the opinion that men and women are exactly the same.”
Why do you think so? Do you think that women see that as an opportunity to be with that kind of person for a potential LTR or just for another notch on the belt?
@Sai
I guess I made it obvious that I am a virgin, huh? I’m glad I passed your checklist of no gold teeth and loose pants, lol. I definitely didn’t do it for religious reasons, which is funny because I’m a buddhist and atheist (I born and raised in a Christian household). The only reason why I’m still a virgin is because of reasons similar to the user ‘Emily’ on here said in response to my comment minus waiting til marriage and marrying a guy, lol. All I cared about was falling in love with a woman and being with her for the rest of my life. I do believe in the concept of a soul mate and giving my heart and soul to a woman and vice versa. I think my odds are not just low, but extremely low and it’s not just only because I’m a virgin. I think my ethnicity, geographic location, choice of lifestyle, and probably religion factor into my odds too.
I don’t care much for virgins when it comes to LTR. Marriage, on the other hand, requires a different standard. If she’s going to be the first person I give a ring and devote my entire life to, then I better be the first person to get in that vadge.
@Just a thought
Re early marriage, Regnerus makes some compelling arguments, but my own personal preference puts the sweet spot at the mid-20s for women. I don’t think 24 is too young to marry by any means, but I think it’s important for women to establish the ability to support themselves, which generally takes a couple of years after college.
Also, from a purely practical point of view, few women today are meeting their future spouses in college. Most 21 yo college graduates don’t even have the opportunity to consider whether the time is right to marry.
As someone who married at 27 and had my first child at 30, I wish I’d had a bit more time. I would have liked to have started a family earlier, and I probably would have had a third child.
Crazy how fast the world changes, in super-lib NorCal only 20 years ago, plenty of college couples ended up married, I even know some HS sweethearts who got married!
@ Emily
“you’re not going to get the mass Lysistrata movement that you’re hoping for. The genie’s out of the bottle”
The course of history is long. Who knows what will be happening in 20, 50, 100 years?
>> “The course of history is long. Who knows what will be happening in 20, 50, 100 years?”
That’s very true. Although a Lysistrata movement 20 years from now isn’t going to do much good for today’s singletons. : P
I do think that, as marriage becomes rarer and rarer, the next generation of UMC families is going to be more traditional/conservative. This is purely speculative, but I think people with that kind of mindset will be the ones who generally end up doing the marriage/baby thing.
@Andrew
“Why do you think so? Do you think that women see that as an opportunity to be with that kind of person for a potential LTR or just for another notch on the belt?”
1) Religiously, male virgin is good. (I heard rumours to that effect). I would expect that to indicate higher LTR potential (and remember that I am an atheist)
2) From what I’ve seen around and about, men’s ability to bond with a woman is not considered to be as diminished by lots of partners as women’s ability is. A biochemical thing (take it, or leave it as anecdote).
So, being low-N for a man is less important biochemically.
3) N > 0 for a man indicates that ‘someone else’ thought that he was breeding potential (theoretically, given the pill exists).
So, I’d see being a male virgin as a mixed bag. For a religious woman looking for marriage – cool. otherwise, meh
It all comes down to understanding that men are not the same as women *gasp*. 2 & 3 don’t apply to women in quite the same way.
2) Women’s ability to bond is seen to be decreased by each N. (bio chemical argument – take it or leave it, or google it).
3) Being able to find a sex partner is not much of a validation of women – it’s generally speaking easy for them. So looking to raise their notch count probably isn’t a widespread thing for average women.
#254 -Andrew
I hope you find somebody somehow. The world is a huge place, so if only from sheer numbers there should be a girl who would love to marry you. The trick is you two finding each other, I guess.
Hope, that is so cool, I’ve never seen the internet map before!
Personally, if I were a guy I’d like those odds, but this is a matter of personal preference. As I’ve often stated here, I wanted my husband to pay the first time, then I spent the next year paying nearly 100%, due to our different economic circumstances.
@Courtley
As a religious person who is waiting for marriage– this is probably the only place I even mention it. And even then: anonymously!
There is just too much weird baggage bound up in this choice to talk about it otherwise. I would like to be seen as a person, not a hymen, thank you very much!
========
“But within the social circles of conservative evangelicalism, Mormonism, Roman Catholicism, orthodox Judaism and others, you should be able to find guys who hold to similar convictions about sex, and indeed, who find it completely normal for an unmarried 20something woman to be a virgin.”
Courtley, in my experience some of the *worst* offenders were those who attended church on Sunday but would pressure me big time on Friday and Saturday.
Plus I was engaged previously and was continually pressured …. and ended up cheated on.
So at this point in time, I’d love to believe that even religious men are going to be on the same page, but my experience definitely contradicts this.
Basically, I believe it will take divine intervention for me to get married.
@Just1x
“women; you are god’s special princesses
men; you are sexually deviant animals”
Just1x, you are an atheist, right? Where are you getting this?
Because I *have* seen this attitude. Mostly in hardcore evangelical churches, where the girls consider themselves “daughters of the King” and there is a lot of princess-y behavior.
But in my experience (Catholicism), guilt and shame are equal-opportunity, all the way! Confessing your sins every week (or even just before redletter days of obligation) will do that to a person! Plus, there is supposed to be fasting and giving up stuff like meat on Fridays during Lent. PLUS, there will always be a focus on donating $/stuff for the less fortunate, and a big emphasis on “works” and not just “faith” –which is one of Evangelicals’ many contentions with Catholicism.
( And I should mention my parents always took us to more “liberal” parishes.
)
So the princess quotient was low, in my experience! Plus, women can never rise as high as men– the most they can do is become a Nun. Whereas there will be female “prophetesses” and ministers in Evangelical denominations.
Underdog (255),
How common is it for guys to into LTRs with girls who they have no intention of marrying? (I’d love to hear from the other guys on this as well!)
@Andrew
“All I cared about was falling in love with a woman and being with her for the rest of my life. I do believe in the concept of a soul mate and giving my heart and soul to a woman and vice versa.”
=========
Andrew, you sound really awesome! You should consider yourself a rare prize. Our society sends a really toxic message, in my opinion, that a guy who chooses to wait is somehow a loser in his parents’ basement.
Personally, I would be impressed beyond measure to meet a man of such high standard and integrity. Actually, I would feel a little intimidated by the strength it takes to go against the grain.
Men like FFY I can laugh at but someone who has behaved like you, the only option is complete respect.
@Underdog, Emily
I am with Miss Emily– Underdog, tell me more!
“THIS! This is the point I’m getting at, and what I think Susan should put some real focus on preventing by making sure the women in group 3 KNOW the real scoop, KNOW how those choices can change their future, and KNOW that at least some men really DO care about sexual discretion. ”
Putting it in terms of what men want:
(a) won’t work
(b) is beside the point
Look, I don’t follow my male base instincts (i.e. to fuck every hot young thing in sight). It’s not because I think I can’t get away with it (increasingly, I could the way things are going) or because I’m afraid the perfect future wife would disapprove (again, depending, these days my demonstrated ability to spread my seed would be just as likely to turn her on), it’s because that’s not the kind of man I want to be and the society that behavior produces is not one I want to live in.
Form follows function (if it doesn’t, that’s where ugliness comes from). The function of sex is to produce children. Feral sexuality sucks for kids, given the alternatives. That’s why this SMP feels ugly.
The solution is to make women aware of their base instincts, where they come from, and what better alternatives exist. Not better for men, better for her, her children, and her civilization.
@Jackie – ‘Dread Blogger D’… ’nuff said
@Emily
I’m not sure that I’m the market that you’re interesting in answers from (divorced, 40′s), BUT(!) it might be worth asking what does marriage do for you, versus what it does for a man? Marriage for a man is basically more legal liabilities and precious few benefits. Taking the romanticism out of the issue (as men are wont to do), what’s in it for men?
(I’m off for the gorgeous evening – blue sky, few small clouds – as good as it gets in the UK today – see ya)
“Tebows will propagate exponentially when, and only when, women respectfully reinforce the gate lock and disable master-key holders”
Oh, bullshit. We already have a lot of Tebows.
Most women with options view them as chumps. They’re not entirely mistaken.
Hell on earth – I agree with Desi…I’m off for a drink and a lay down in a dark room
I meant #269 ttfn
Susan,
“AskMen is an online men’s lifestyle site whose mission is ‘helping guys become better men.’”
Interesting comparison in the websites. Could you imagine PopSugar having a mission at all, let alone “helping girls become better women”?
The fact that this is what young women are reading (Cosmo is the most popular product in college bookstores) should tell us something. We have a generation of women we’ve neglected to “raise,” evidently having convinced ourselves they were just fine on that pedestal we placed them on. Notice we have no such compunction with boys/men.
We’re all pedastalizers now. All done with the best of intentions, but we have a mess on our hands.
I think the women sense something of this reality, which is why they respond so powerfully to those with the temerity to judge them/not kiss their asses.
Anyone else notice some options were left out of the answers? Or that some of the questions and answers were very leading.
Take “Who should pay on a date?”
They only give the option for both & him. – No option for girls who pay for dates? or do we just assume no girls pay for dates ever?
In the past they also asked questions that no longer show up such as “have you cheated on your partner?” I still remember the 2 years that question showed that more girls **had** cheated on their partners while more men wanted to cheat on their partner if they could get away with it, but didn’t.
You look further at the question “Which female in your family was born at a time that offered the best opportunities for a happy life?” – the highest answer was “me – 41%”. “ME” covers all generations and all ages and effectively tells you nothing.
Sorry to say but these stats mean less and less every year that they continue, now they’re just hiding/leading and warping parts to get specific answers.
@Just1X
“Taking the romanticism out of the issue (as men are wont to do), what’s in it for men?”
Just1x has already left the building, but if this is true, why does so much research say that the quality of life for married men goes up?
(And actually, single women have a higher quality of life than married women with kids!)
@Desiderus
Des, are you a practicing Christian?
Maybe it’s time to go easier on the virgins.
It dawns on me that there really is no such thing as an involuntary virgin. At some point, sooner or later, an adult makes decisions about sex in an adult way, and from that point on being a virgin is absolutely voluntary. It’s often that this is best for that person’s mental make-up, right?
As for the so-called involuntary virgins, I have a feeling that “striking out” only means that someone hasn’t taken the time to find out what it takes to reach someone, or is reluctant to learn how to begin the process. (And isn’t that what Game really is? A way to start the process?).
I don’t think people are actually repelled by virgins (as SayWhaat said above in 217). Sometimes a virgin is rejected because the other person doesn’t want to wait, which is a simple lack of patience. Sometimes the virgin is rejecting because of fear or even immaturity.
Frustrating as virginity may be, if the reasons are impatience or fear or immaturity, time will cure it. It’s not really so bad as we’re making out. If the reasons are more profound, well, time heals that, too.
“Yes, I believe it is a necessary institution and one in which I will participate to help preserve:
Men 70%, Women 44%*”
PopSugar isn’t exactly a representative sample, but:
(a) this fits with my lived experience with young (18-28) women, both UMC and MMC, although it manifests itself in different ways depending on social status. NAWALT, but, crucially, they’re not the ones setting the cultural norms.
(b) given what we know of the reading habits of high status women, the way in which it is non-representative may mean things are worse than they seem, not better. PopSugar is more SWPL than white trash.
For female supremacists, hard and soft, hypergamy (and worse) is non-negotiable. As the institution of marriage can make hypergamy awkward, if lucrative, it has come under increasing attack/neglect. Not the only institution in this boat.
What has been (conveniently*) forgotten is what marriage is for in the first place. It was instituted to allow a woman to fully leverage her sexual power to maximize the value of her mate, while also allowing her to find a mate of similar age for enhanced compatibility/child-raising energy.
As a woman’s peak SMV is in her early twenties, while a man’s is in his 30′s, maximizing her value would otherwise take pairing with a much older man (this is what things in this feral environment are gravitating toward as a best available solution, much to the consternation of Susan’s generation).
Marriage allowed her to trade her present value for her husband’s future value, while enjoying a mate her age.
This is why its always naturally been assumed that its women who are most interested in marriage. This is no longer the case.
*- the thing that changed is that women now believe they can get an even better deal by getting her high value man both right away in her early twenties, and then a high value man in her thirties.
Delaying gratification is so…. traditional. Too bad no one thought to tell them it was a liberal tradition. Produced a lot of progress too.
“Good” girls sense that this whole thing is vaguely shady, so they instead save themselves for the high value man in her thirties, with tragic, if predictable, consequences.
“Des, are you a practicing Christian?”
Nearing perfection.
@Emily and Jackie
I honestly have no idea how common it is. Most of my friends are betas to follow the dating, LTR, marriage route. Back in college, a roommate of mine dated a very hot girl for almost a year knowing he would never get any more serious with her (not sure if the girl knew). He was a high status frat boy, though.
Read of a college senior virgin. Actually, she’d had a bad experience in high school and been a virgin ever since. Saving herself, so to speak, for marriage and serious about it.
Met a potential alpha. Which is to say, their situation was such that alpha traits besides size and ruggedness were not in evidence. A classroom. But she ran into him–literally–coming around a corner in the building and has been involuntarily hothothot for him since. Does not want to date him, fears he’s fixing to ask her out, because she’s more than half way to “yes” as to sex already.
Otherwise, she thinks, besides being hothothot for him, that such other characteristics as she has seen are pretty neat, too.
A conundrum.
Asking again. Where did blue pill come from? Whose idea was it? Who benefits? Who kept it going? Why? If it’s so obviously bogus, then there needs to have been some energy devoted to keeping it going, as its connection to reality was insufficient to maintain momentum.
Churches: A feminist Presbyterian pastor several years ago sermonized on Father’s Day about what abusive animals fathers are and how they need to be shamed and get their act together and admit their crimes and so forth. Read it once. Seems to have disappeared from the web.
Just,
“Out of all the girls on campus, 60% of men go after the top 10% of girls. Those girls will be more likely to use you, reject you and treat you badly because they can and because their is often nothing that differentiates you from all the guys who want to date them. As a woman, I cannot change the before of the top 10 percent of women.”
Lot of good stuff here. A couple additions.
There is something you can do: get in that top 10% and start kicking their asses. There are so many women who are uninterested in/clueless about male attraction triggers that it should not be that hard to do. If you start offering a better deal than the bitches; first the men, then the bitches will take notice.
This goes for men the other way too, and is taken from the last couple years of my personal experience. It took more work as a man, but you can make yourself (much) more attractive in this environment.
“But I challenge men to try to imagine what it is like to be a woman. I am 19, I am a virgin, but I don’t plan to what till even 25 to have sex. Why? Because sex is awesome, from my personal explorations, I’ve found that I enjoy it and I do have a sex drive.”
Heh. We’re men. I think we understand sex drives.
Then again, there are trade-offs in life. I’ve had dry spells, voluntary and involuntary. I lived and often thrived.
You like the crack-pipe, you live with the consequences. Sex is not an exception.
“Women in the 1930s and 40s got married at 18 and 19. Today, obviously, most people do not do that. As a woman, am I supposed to wait until my ‘mystery guy on a white horse comes riding over the rainbow at some undisclosed time in the future comes to marry me’ and then have sex?”
Nice straw man. Not sure where the ultrapassive part comes from.
I’m at the height (a little past, actually) of my SMV (sexual market value) right now. I’m doing everything I can to invest that value in finding the best marriage partner I can while that power lasts. Lots of active steps.
You’re at the height of yours as well. Are you doing likewise?
“No. From 16-24, we girls are horny, we like sex and we want to have it.”
Sex produces children. When your two-year-old uses this argument on you, will it be effective?
“There is no reason to delay having sex, unless religion comes into play.”
Ignorance is not the same as non-existence. BTW, the reasons likely preceded, and in a sense caused, the religion, not the other way around.
“In fact, religion is partly behind the reason why I’m a virgin right now. Religion entails sacrifice and self-control. It’s no surprise that being religious causes a girl to suppress her baser sex urges…. but not for long and definitively not forever.”
Religion is about transcendence, not suppression. Can you conceive of nothing higher than the base?
“But at 20, honestly women think with their pussy and not with their brains. This is not something society can easily change.”
Luckily, women can do it yourselves without getting society involved. Best get on it.
>> “BUT(!) it might be worth asking what does marriage do for you, versus what it does for a man? Marriage for a man is basically more legal liabilities and precious few benefits. Taking the romanticism out of the issue (as men are wont to do), what’s in it for men?”
I think that all depends on who you’re marrying. I plan on trying very hard to be a good wife. Hopefully I can make it worth his while.
@Wudang
Any chance of a link? I’d be interested to see that.
“(And actually, single women have a higher quality of life than married women with kids!)”
Is that why married moms are going wild & behaving as if they’re single again?
http://www.theawl.com/2012/07/the-40-year-old-reversion
http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/25/living/moms-gone-wild/index.html
#278 -Joe
Time and/or a passport, haha! Got my German book here…
#283 -Desiderius
I actually got my degree already, but how would one join the 10%, or its post-college analog? Everything I did/tried at that time seemed to end up calling attention to features I wasn’t proud of.
Get this -my brother, who is younger than many posters but somehow knows much more, has proclaimed that you are all full of crap. He figured this out while taking a break from gaming and drawing half-naked chicks to read over my shoulder. I have yet to find out how he discovered your shameful secret, because he won’t read any news, let alone things like this. (Last year I had to explain to him who Uncle Joe was, but I like history more anyway…)
I love my brother, but watch out for trolls.
“I think most guys define ‘slut’ as a woman who has a lot of ONS, or a serial cheater/cuckolder, not a woman who has Ever Had Sex Before. I’d say your average “non-slutty” 25-year-old woman has probably had 2-4 sexual partners, and as long as those partners were steady monogamous boyfriends, most men are not going to consider that woman a slut unworthy of marriage. If those relationships ended because she cheated, that might do it, but if they ended because they were in high school and went to different colleges or they just discovered they were incompatible life partners or any other sort of non-skeezy reason, again, I think most men can handle this. I think this is why Susan is smart to recommend serial monogamy and advise against hook-ups and cheating, because those are the things that bring out that gut-level revulsion in guys that want to get married, not the fact that you had sex with a couple of steady boyfriends who you cared about.”
I say Jimmy report this and agree. I’ll toss my agreement in as well.This description sits quite well with me.
@Emily
“Myself, Saywhaat, Jackie, and many religious girls that I’ve known have all been rejected for being too chaste. ”
Just to point out.
I reject religous girls no questions asked.
Its not because their chaste but because their religous.
I don’t do religion. I’m cool with God not the church. (My wife is Spiritual/Taoist. I’m an Atheist.)
I would like to ammend my previous statement to reject(ed).
@Susan
@Underdog
“I don’t care much for virgins when it comes to LTR. Marriage, on the other hand, requires a different standard. If she’s going to be the first person I give a ring and devote my entire life to, then I better be the first person to get in that vadge.”
Ew. Good luck with that dishonorable double standard and misogynistic attitude. This is exactly the kind of thing that I think rightly pisses off zie scary scary feminists. Trust me, the women who make a conscientious effort to be virgins until marriage generally require the same from their man, since again, it’s very often for religious reasons.
@Jackie
Yeah, there’s hypocrisy among religious people, obviously. But without sounding too smug, I gotta say, as a graduate of an Christian university and a very involved church youth grouper in high school . . . Trust me, there are lots of guys out there super committed to being virgins till they wed. They of course expect the same from their girls and tend to have very high standards when it comes to looks and family background and they also tend to be largely snapped up by age 25. But in the circles I come from they are the norm, and I’ve been close friends of these type of guys, and their girlfriends/wives, to know that they aren’t all hypocrites.
@ Courtley
Different standards. Get it through your head. There’s nothing misogynistic about it. If I’m expected to partake in the archaic institution of marriage, then I expect the woman to uphold her end of that archaic tradition also. Thanks for saying my outlook pisses off feminists, though. I’m barely 26 with a good career. There should be no problem if I wanted to settle down with a virgin.
I do want to retract my first sentence of that quote, though.
“I don’t care much for virgins when it comes to LTR” should have been “I don’t care if she’s a virgin or not when it comes to LTR”
If the girl is a virgin, then I wouldn’t mind abstinence until I like her enough to marry. If she’s not a virgin then the furthest I’d go is cohabitation. I’d be a fool to accept all the risks of marriage with a regular girl.
@Courtney
“Any chance of a link? I’d be interested to see that.”
I found this:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/Health/Women-more-attracted-to-men-with-feminine-faces/2005/02/13/1108229858700.html
Not sure if it is exactly the same one I read before because it was years ago. I read the actual research paper then and as far as I can remember the study I read at the time involved tons of different attraction factors and how women differed in desire for them according to how they rated themselves. So, there might be more studies out there about the same thing.
I think this study shows two things at the same time. It both shows high masculinity, high T, alpha traits being what women ideally want and it shows that women who aren`t amongst the most attractive really do feel a TURN OFF for the most alpha men. It also seems to back the notions that women who rate themselves as not amongst the most attractive really do feel attraction for and probably MORE attraction for more beta faces and so probably also beta personalities. We don`t strictly know from the study how much attraction they feel, just who they will choose, but I believe they also feel more actual attraction. It makes the most sense for nature to wire us to be attracted more to what we can get and not only grudgingly settle for it.
We also don`t know from reading the article what were the precise attractiveness levels involved but that might be more clear in the actual research paper so look for that when you read it. Did the women who desired the most masculine men rate themselves really, really high or was it just high. We can`t conclude all the women that did not want the high T guys where at all unattractive, they might have been 7-8s amongst those groups while only the 9-10s where willing to gamble on the highest T guys.
I think a large part of attraction differences towards alpha/beta can be attributed to this. Obviously far from all can be explained by this because there are women like Ana, Jackie and many more who do not like alphas. What their dopamine system and adrenal system looks like I think can be another big part of this. I think risk takers naturally are more attracted to high T men and risk averse people will be more turned off by them for example. Whatever the causes for the variation those other variables will not be distributed in the same way beauty is. You`ll have high risk taking 3s and dopamine craving 4s. Personally I believe from just looking at people on the street that more of good looking women are more excitement seeking and risk accepting in general. They certainly strike me as less careful and timid on average. It would make sense for nature to couple hypergamy inducing genes with beauty genes. Obviously that is far from always the case, but I think it holds partially true.
By the way, I have been doing a lot of people observing lately inspired by all the studies I have read that show people are very good at guessing stuff about what other people are like just from seeing their faces and by the fact that emotions are very readable through body language. My observation is that there are a lot of people with SMV 1-5 that are absolutely attracted to each other and some very much so. It is just obvious from the body language and the interaction. However, it is clearly less so on average than for more attractive people. Fewer people 1-5 show the body language around their partner as the most attractive people do. Some do. Some seem madly in love and attracted despite both being 3s. But on average their body language and interaction do not reflect being into each other to the same degree. All in all, it seems to me that there is far more real attraction in the 1-5 range than people naturally assume, especially around these parts of the net.
It makes sense to me that nature would organize things so that there were quite a lot of attraction down the scale as well because the people there need the glue of attraction as well and if there are no real possibility of reaching higher it is more useful to be attracted at your level. It also seems to me that the people I observed that did not look more than moderately attracted still often looked happy together. I think they have modest attraction and great friendship and that is no small thing. I think they are happy with smaller excitement levels because their expectations are lower and their emphasis is more on togetherness. Thats not too bad IMO. That is a pretty good life.
I have seen some studies that suggest attraction is objectively felt less down the scale. There is the study about women with more symmetrical men having more orgasms for example, and I`ve read some stuff about lower SMV partners investing less in each other etc.
THe theory of the researchers seems to be that the highly attractive women who go for the high T men are counting on their beauty being enough to keep them around. Lower SMV women worried that these men would cheat and the higher SMV did not worry too much about that. Now I have read that when men fall in love their testosterone goes down 25% or so and their oxytocin levels go up a lot. If they become fathers they get an additional 25% decrease in T. This makes them more functional in relationships and better fathers. I think with the 9-10s these guys get a so much stronger oxytocin increase and stronger T decrease that their behavior becomes less problematic for the woman and they become better fathers. So it is not just about these men being more dopamine attracted to their wives and so check their behaviors because they don`t want to loose their hottie, it is also about the high T guys hormone profile changing. But this only holds for the highest SMV women.
@Lokland
This is pretty much where I fall in as well. Not a hard and fast definition, but it rings true.
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