Wharton’s White Party – Slutty enough for you?
“[Hookup culture] is an engine of female progress—one being harnessed and driven by women themselves.”
Hannah Rosin
I couldn’t agree more. Women control access to sex. A promiscuous culture or norm cannot exist without the participation of women. It is women who have driven down the price of sex since the Sexual Revolution, not men.
Hannah Rosin’s upcoming book The End of Men is excerpted in the September issue of The Atlantic, the unrivaled go-to source for all stories describing the educated female’s life trajectory and meteoric rise to financial success and emotional independence. Boys on the Side is an interesting account of contemporary gender relations to be sure, but it doesn’t really hold together as a depiction of hookup culture, which Rosin says has been the norm for about 15 years now.
Let’s take the story she opens with. She attends a business school midweek happy hour. (This is presumably Harvard or Wharton. In my Wharton Class of 1983, our Thursday night happy hours were very well attended by the most social members of my class – usually around 50 or 75 of us out of 650.) Let’s compare my experience with what Rosin observed recently:
2012: Rosin is rather shocked to see that women are not appalled by a pic of some chick blowing a snowman’s penis, which she calls porn.
1983: We would not have been shocked by that pic, which we would have called humor. I recall a pic of an African tribal boy performing cunnilingus on a cow that made the rounds. Someone had left it in the mail folder of a real ass kisser.
2012: Someone’s boyfriend suggests going to a strip club, and then gives a buddy the finger for teasing him about marriage.
1983: Someone’s boyfriend suggests going to a strip club, and then gives a buddy the finger for teasing him about marriage.
2012: “Many of [the women] had been molded on trading floors or in investment banks with male-female ratios as terrifying as 50-to-1, so they had learned to keep pace with the boys. Women told me stories of being hit on at work by “FDBs” (finance douche bags) who hadn’t even bothered to take off their wedding rings, or sitting through Monday-morning meetings that started with stories about who had banged whom (or what) that weekend.”
1983: Ditto. My best friend from Wharton was the first female Managing Director at Merrill Lynch, in charge of Trading. Everyone, and I mean everyone f*cked everybody else. Entitled and immoral behavior from the Masters and Mistresses of the Universe is nothing new.
2012: ““Here in America, the girls, they give up their mouth, their ass, their tits,” the Argentinean said to me, punctuating each with the appropriate hand motion, “before they even know the guy. It’s like, ‘Hello.’ ‘Hello.’ ‘You wanna hook up?’ ‘Sure.’”
1983: “Here in America, the girls, they give up their mouth, their ass, their tits,” the Indian guys said to me, punctuating each with the appropriate hand motion, “before they even know the guy. It’s like, ‘Hello.’ ‘Hello.’ ‘You wanna hook up?’ ‘Sure.’ So why don’t you hook up with me before I have to return to an arranged marriage?”
2012: She and I stood by the bar at one point and watched a woman put her hand on a guy’s inner thigh, shortly before they disappeared together.
1983: I opened the door to the restroom at the MBA House to find a female classmate giving a BJ to a married student. They disappeared shortly afterwards.
Rosin describes the females she observed as having worked for a decade already, having cut their teeth on Wall St. These are tough, ambitious broads in their early 30s. They are among the most aggressive women in America, the top 1%, those who have successfully battled to the forefront of high achievers in highly competitive environments. They are extraverts, leaders, analytical thinkers, and workaholics. Some may marry, but many won’t, and it’s fair to assume there aren’t many future mommies in the group. All this was equally true in 1983.
In other words, while many things have changed, none of the things Rosin observed are new, and none of these examples relate to hookup culture specifically.
Rosin is more effective and accurate in her portrayal of the role of feminism:
Single young women in their sexual prime—that is, their 20s and early 30s, the same age as the women at the business-school party—are for the first time in history more successful, on average, than the single young men around them. They are more likely to have a college degree and, in aggregate, they make more money. What makes this remarkable development possible is not just the pill or legal abortion but the whole new landscape of sexual freedom—the ability to delay marriage and have temporary relationships that don’t derail education or career. To put it crudely, feminist progress right now largely depends on the existence of the hookup culture.
Indeed, women cannot outearn and outperform males if marriage and family are a priority. While 94% of Millennial women cite motherhood as one of their most important priorities in life, it remains to be seen what choices they will make as they proceed through their 20s.
Lisa Wade is a feminist sociologist who has studied hookup culture. While she is positive about casual sex and hooking up, she acknowledges that it doesn’t work for many women:
Many of the women in our sample, specifically, felt that they had inherited a right to express their sexuality from the women’s movement of the 60s and 70s. They saw college as an opportunity to enact their liberation. So they embraced sex …and the right to say “yes” to sex. And it was going to be glorious.
But many of our female respondents felt disempowered instead of empowered by sexual encounters. They didn’t feel like equals on the sexual playground, more like jungle gyms.
It may be that the women who actually enjoy “having sex like a man” also enjoy “having a career like a man” and have no intention of being saddled with a domestic role.
Rosin’s next stop was Yale, where she spoke with some women protesting the “hostile sexual climate” there.
[One freshman] was high on her first taste of the hookup culture and didn’t want a boyfriend. “It was empowering, to have that kind of control,” she recalls. “Guys were texting and calling me all the time, and I was turning them down. I really enjoyed it! I had these options to hook up if I wanted them, and no one would judge me for it.” But then, sometime during sophomore year, her feelings changed. She got tired of relationships that just faded away, “no end, no beginning.”
This is a common tale, evidenced by the dropoff in hooking up after freshmen year, as women learn the hard way that “sex as empowerment” is a scam peddled by feminists. When Rosin asked the girl what she would like instead, she replied, “Some guy to ask me out on a date to the frozen-yogurt place.”
Rosin goes on to claim that in spite of their unhappiness, these women staunchly defended hookup culture, which is counter to what the recent College Life Survey of 19,000 students revealed:
Even one of the women who had initiated the Title IX complaint, Alexandra Brodsky, felt this way. “I would never come down on the hookup culture,” she said. “Plenty of women enjoy having casual sex.”
No surprise there – Brodsky is a feminist activist, hardly representative of the typical female student. As Rosin has already observed, feminism needs hookup culture. Without it, women just might refuse to prioritize their careers throughout their 20s. (Tidbit: CBS has ordered a pilot for a show based on Kate Bolick’s article last fall. It has been described as a show where being a single woman is the “destination, not the journey.” Whoo hoo.)
Where Rosin really goes awry is in conflating hooking up behavior with hookup culture, a common mistake. For example, here is how she characterizes the typical female student today:
For most women, the hookup culture is like an island they visit, mostly during their college years and even then only when they are bored or experimenting or don’t know any better. But it is not a place where they drown. The sexual culture may be more coarse these days, but young women are more than adequately equipped to handle it, because unlike the women in earlier ages, they have more-important things on their minds, such as good grades and internships and job interviews and a financial future of their own.
She cites researcher Elizabeth Armstrong, who describes hooking up as a “larger romantic strategy,” part of a “sexual career.”
Armstrong and Hamilton had come looking for sexual victims. Instead, at this university, and even more so at other, more prestigious universities they studied, they found the opposite: women who were managing their romantic lives like savvy headhunters. “The ambitious women calculate that having a relationship would be like a four-credit class, and they don’t always have time for it, so instead they opt for a lighter hookup,” Armstrong told me.
…The women wanted to study or hang out with friends or just be “100 percent selfish,” as one said. “I have the rest of my life to devote to a husband or kids or my job.” Some even purposely had what one might think of as fake boyfriends, whom they considered sub–marriage quality, and weren’t genuinely attached to. “He fits my needs now, because I don’t want to get married now,” one said. “I don’t want anyone else to influence what I do after I graduate.”
Yet Rosin also reveals hard numbers that contradict her conclusion, citing the research at Stanford of Paula England (also previously cited here). England has made the following assessment of hookup culture based on a sample of over 20,000 students:
- 11% of students enthusiastically enjoy hookup culture.
- 50% hook up, but do it rather ambivalently or reluctantly, some with extremely negative experiences.
- 38% opt out of hooking up altogether.
It turns out that students have a median number of five hookups in all of college, and that includes any hookup, not just sex. Since sexual intercourse is believed to occur in fewer than half of hookups, we can estimate that at most, the median number of sex hookups is less than three in four years, and that includes relationships.
About 66 percent of women say they wanted their most recent hookup to turn into something more, but 58 percent of men say the same—not a vast difference, considering the cultural panic about the demise of chivalry and its consequences for women. And in fact, the broad inference that young people are having more sex—and not just coarser sex—is just wrong; teenagers today, for instance, are far less likely than their parents were to have sex or get pregnant.
Here Rosin acknowledges that hooking up frequently occurs as a means to getting into a relationship, which is the opposite of her contention that women hook up to avoid relationships. The fact is, both are true. Rosin’s error is in focusing on the 11% that is enthusiastic about hookup culture.
There’s a stark disconnect between the feminist hookup culture script, and the actual behavior of college students. Clearly, there are women who display ravenous, voracious sexual appetites. They may be found at the Yale Women’s Center, MBA Happy Hour, and on campuses throughout the nation. They are the female leaders of tomorrow, and they deserve credit for their achievements. But they do not speak for the majority of women, and Rosin has failed to realize that.
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Rosin is post-wall. Don’t expect her to understand much that isn’t directly related to her 2nd wave feminism worldview. When the facts don’t fit her worldview, she discards them.
I would have been so impressed if you had chosen to word that, “before their fertility starts to decline”
The reason why we have a certain kind of focus on people during their 20′s is not because it is some sort of magical number, but because it is when girls are most able to have children. Specifically, before they hit 27 (on average).
I wonder why some guys don’t approach more often? I mean, where is that approach anxiety coming from?
But, god, those guys at the investment banks, what douche bags. Right?
(Please tell me that I am not the only one that can see why we are seeing a bifurcation between milquetoast betas and “douche bags”.)
Thank god no one would judge her. I mean, could you imagine that someone might judge her for her actions? And, that, those judgements might be in line with traditional social norms? I mean, anyone that might judge a girl for hooking up is basically worse than a Nazi.
She could ask some guy to a frozen yogurt place. But, he might then turn her down, and really enjoy it.
=================
I need to lighten up.
Susan, you did a whole bit where you sorta chastised her for complaining about things in 2012 that you experienced in 1983.
But, you know, I am actually going to defend her, a little, on this one.
I am guessing that the girl that was complaining about the culture she experienced in finance was a culture that she was not prepared for. What I mean is this:
I believe that most girls that become nurses have a fairly good idea of what they are in for before they start nursing school. I am thinking of long or awkward hours, ungrateful patients (whole lives you may just have saved), bureaucratic healthcare systems, bland/”dead” hospital environments (they always seem so lifeless to me), etc.
Same for girls that become teachers: controlling children instead of teaching them, dealing with unrealistic parents, bureaucratic school systems, etc.
Personally, I did not become aware of how douchey the financial world was until recently. As far as I know, there have not been many examples in pop culture (law offices we see all the time, but Oliver Stone’s Wall Street is one of the only movies about investing that I can think of prior to the recent “meltdown”) and teachers and guidance counselors were absolutely not telling us that finance was douche central. And, if you knew these things back in ’83, well, maybe someone could have told us.
Still, the girl in question was much more likely to take the role of victim relative to the likes of you.
Aaaand this is why I don’t mess with certain parts of the feminist movement. This part assumes that all women are upper middle class, brilliant, well-educated with good jobs. That’s, at most, like 5% of the population. Building social policy off of any 5% of the population, rich or poor, well-educated or not, male or female, is stupid. As Susan said, this is only reflective of a specific milleu, not what the average woman on the street is dealing with.
But the average person shops at Walmart. And drinks PBR unironically. And goes to church! Horrors!
I read that Hannah Rosin article this morning. Jesus. My face now has a permanent outline of my palm on it.
Sad. Because it’s becoming more and more obvious that both men and women want something more than to use each other as self-propelled sex toys. And the orthodox feminists are too blinded by their hate to realize it.
From the article: To put it crudely, feminist progress right now largely depends on the existence of the hookup culture.
Me: Major facepalm, from a woman who went to college and graduate school with no interest in and experience in any type of hookup culture, and i was in graduate school in a period that overlapped somewhat with the time when the business school students were in college. I’m sure the Marcottians and so forth would find me a poster girl for their kind of feminist achievement (in the workplace at least)…
As I think about me and my friends from graduate school–marriage in graduate school or shortly thereafter, some having children while in graduate school or in the first few years of their academic jobs….But otherwise, I imagine I would be a major failure, ie., church on Sunday morning (even if it is in a liberal denomination), a traditionalist-minded woman who teaches women’s history, including feminist theory, and not the sex-pozzy type! Lawd, they would hate me, especially as my research interests tend to focus more on topics of interest to married women…19th c. married women’s movements….
And of course, they don’t think anything about the vulnerability of the traditionalist-minded young woman who wants marriage and not hooking up. Of course, in their mind, those young women would be hopeless prudes. Bah!
And to criticize the hook up culture, would be to label themselves anti-feminists, even when it works to their detriment–they would be going too much against the grain. Celebrate the sex pozzy’s individualism to do what they want, even if that is not what you would do—to criticize would be to judge, and that is inappropriate.
In addition, they would be putting themselves on the bad side of the girls who are the most powerful sexually, ie., who can get men to want them.
Yet, are they really more powerful when some of them want the dates the more conservative women can get? When I was that age and in graduate school, I just stayed away from those chicks.
I just read both the Rosin and Marcotte articles, and I’m having that weird feeeling you get when you understand all the words but they don’t correspond with reality. Perhaps it’s a function of my not living in the rarified atmosphere Rosin described, but I don’t know any young women who feel empowered by all this fcuking around. Are young women putting off marriage because career considerations? Sure. Do they have some sex along the way? Sure. Is all female accomplishment dependent on the hook up culture? I think not. There’s a leap in logic there I’m just not following.
Now that’s some wholesome looking people in that photo. Anyone else here find that attractive? They’re faces are glowing and that all have bright, white pearly teeth. Much more attractive and pleasing to the mind than what passes for “hot” these days.
Not to worry. Eventually these chicks will all die out without having spawned a next generation, and the world will be inherited by the children of far more traditional cultures: evangelical Christians, Mormons, Muslims, Orthodox Jews . . .
That photo? No. I don’t say this often, but they look dorky and gay.
The women being described as “empowered” by hooking up in these articles are of a certain type-A, go-getter, highly extroverted, sensation-seeking and competitive subgroup of women. They likely have their academic, professional and social lives all in order, and tend to seek chaos and excitement in the sexual arena. They would be your ESTJ or ESFJ types on the Myers-Briggs.
Because these women are so accomplished, extroverted, social and visible, their voices tend to drown out the shy, meek, introverted and invisible women. These type-A “trendsetters” make it look so cool, go glamorous, and make other people believe that they, too, can play that game. Perhaps it’s similar to how naive youngsters think they can also be a movie star or pro sports player.
It would be interesting to contrast these type-A women with the rising entrepreneurial stars in Asia. From what I can gather, the top Asian businesswomen tend to remain rather asexual and go for designer fashion, high-end luxuries, expensive vehicles and other material goods. It could be due to a culturally different marker of “success” and lack of sex-positive feminism, combined with a much stricter and less liberal sexual atmosphere in general (for both men and women).
I just read the article by Heather Wilhelm about Rosin’s book, and I have to say, it really left me in a funk. It’s been all over the blogosphere today.
@J
Me too. I hope you’re right, J., and Susan’s words bolster that hope.
It really seems like Rosin’s writing about that same small corner of Manhattan or perhaps, K Street in DC, that just knows it’s the center of the universe. Everyone revolves around it. Them.
No. It doesn’t, even if the TV insists it does.
(R)Evoluzione
The least she could do is construct a logical argument. She is inconsistent and contradicts herself repeatedly in the article. She’s a respected writer and commentator – but her thinking is muddled.
@Hope #12
Great post. I’m sure youare correct, as always, regarding the MB types.
@Joe
It really seems like Rosin’s writing about that same small corner of Manhattan or perhaps, K Street in DC, that just knows it’s the center of the universe. Everyone revolves around it. Them.
Exactly!
“That photo? No. I don’t say this often, but they look dorky and gay.”
Gay as in homosexual? I don’t see it. The guy on the far left is the most attractive. I like his coloring and he has something of an exotic look.
“The women being described as “empowered” by hooking up in these articles are of a certain type-A, go-getter, highly extroverted, sensation-seeking and competitive subgroup of women. ”
Hope, I can see how sex can be felt as empowering if one has grown up with issues around it.
Be it resolved: The Hookup culture exists because many College women like it that way, and they think it benefits them & they enjoy it. It may not benefit All College women, but just enough of the true ‘elites’ to keep it going year after year, self perpetuating all the wonderful nuances of mating & rutting on (mainly) daddy’s dime.
The poor dears!
“Rather than struggling to get into relationships,” Armstrong reported, women “had to work to avoid them.” (One woman lied to an interested guy, portraying herself as “extremely conservative” to avoid dating him.) Many did not want a relationship to steal time away from their friendships or studying”.
“The women described boyfriends as “too greedy” and relationships as “too involved.” One woman “with no shortage of admirers” explained, “I know this sounds really pathetic and you probably think I am lying, but there are so many other things going on right now that it’s really not something high up on my list … I know that’s such a lame-ass excuse, but it’s true.” The women wanted to study or hang out with friends or just be “100 percent selfish,” as one said. “I have the rest of my life to devote to a husband or kids or my job.” Some even purposely had what one might think of as fake boyfriends, whom they considered sub–marriage quality, and weren’t genuinely attached to. “He fits my needs now, because I don’t want to get married now,” one said. “I don’t want anyone else to influence what I do after I graduate.”
For many of the guys? They Know that time is short, and they’re ‘seriously looking’. The gals? It’s their Play time. Their ‘decade of sexual discovery’, but nothing too heavy mind you, nothing too ‘emotionally involved or taxing’. Just some reliable quiet, pliable dude with a reliable big dick perhaps, or the other version of ‘daddy, look at me now’, stepping out with the ‘rainbow parties’ of all sorts of ‘flavors’.
So it’s a severe time mismatch time & time again. By the time these er… Ladies are Finally (somewhat more) ready for a ‘family’, & well past the age of 35, (and hearing the rapidly decline of their fertility), those guys are gone, or moved on. What you’ve got left are the re-treads, left overs, the walking wounded, the previously ‘confirmed bachelors’, the better hidden Bi’s, or the granddads looking for a new trophy wife. That once common vision of the big suburban house with the white picket fence and a secure future with that one loving man is but a distant dream, unless that man is at least a decade older now, and divorced (at least once). All those 100′s of stand up studly single dudes who you were tripping over in school? Gone with the Wind! [Cue the music]
Tragic Fact of the day: Most thinking College gals Marry one of their College/Uni BF’s. Or at least a guy friend they knew. You’ll never likely be in contact with that many guys you’ll know on such an intimate basis and observe in many different circumstances on almost a daily basis. Internet dating can’t quite replace that either. And Census figures on the decline of marriage bears this out. I guess no one told them, and they remain wholly ignorant of the demographic facts too. Hey they only go to Yale or Wharton, who the hell expects them to read or think much!? Cheers, ‘VJ’
@Ramble
Hey, we missed you!
No, I think all of your criticisms were valid.
” They are more likely to have a college degree and, in aggregate, they make more money. What makes this remarkable development possible is not just the pill or legal abortion but the whole new landscape of sexual freedom—the ability to delay marriage and have temporary relationships that don’t derail education or career. ”
I don’t see why a serious would have to derail education or career. The only forseeable problem would be if it broke up and the resultant heartbreak and depression affected studies and career.
@Ramble
OK, but she stayed ten years! We vote with our feet. She stuck around, presumably made bank, and now she doesn’t get to whine that men told her dirty jokes. Just my .02.
My friend who was MD of Trading is an incredibly tough woman. She has never married, and never wished she had. I do think she’s a lot like a man in many ways, and she was very sexually aggressive back in the day. She cashed out in her 40s and moved to the country, btw.
@PVW
I remember when you first left a comment here, and I immediately had my guard up. I figured you for a gender bending feminist prof, and it took me a few comments to realize what you were about. In retrospect, that seems crazy!
Exactly, and it’s preposterous to claim they represent the norm.
“1983: “Here in America, the girls, they give up their mouth, their ass, their tits,” the Indian guys said to me, punctuating each with the appropriate hand motion, “before they even know the guy. It’s like, ‘Hello.’ ‘Hello.’ ‘You wanna hook up?’ ‘Sure.’ So why don’t you hook up with me before I have to return to an arranged marriage?”
Are you serious?! What a turn off.
“Rosin goes on to claim that in spite of their unhappiness, these women staunchly defended hookup culture, which is counter to what the recent College Life Survey of 19,000 students revealed:
Even one of the women who had initiated the Title IX complaint, Alexandra Brodsky, felt this way. “I would never come down on the hookup culture,” she said. “Plenty of women enjoy having casual sex.” ”
I can understand this. While there are many things that I do not personally like for myself, I do not want to see the freedoms and liberties of fellow citizens taken away. I don’t drink alcohol but don’t think it should be made illegal. I don’t like certain religions but respect the legal rights of people to follow the religions of their choice, etc.
I thought the Rosin piece was to some extent a confirmation of what I have observed in my limited interaction with college students as a part-time professor. The most sexually aggressive girls are also the ones that combine high professional and lifestyle ambitions with high SMV and high confidence; they aren’t fringe element SMP losers or sluts desperately seeking to get male attention by any means necessary (although I’m sure that element also exists).
The exceptions, of course, are girls with high religiosity. I think that hookup culture fills the vacuum created by the lack of marriage-track relationships formed in college pitted against the desire to explore aspects of adulthood that are now available. We talk sometimes about how men are the gatekeepers to commitment and women are the gatekeepers to sex; perhaps hookup culture itself is the de facto gatekeeper to both, the bottleneck through which anyone who wants a sexual relationship in college—casual or long-term—must first pass.
The reasons given for the alpha girls’ mating preferences would be unsurprising to anyone here: no time for a serious relationship and associated drama or emotional baggage; must concentrate on job/travel/grad school; cannot count on a man for support—must be self-sufficient first and then have a merger between equals later in life; question of why a hot guy would want to settle down in such a favorable environment; some disillusionment with at least the traditional ideal of marriage, family, and motherhood.
It may be reaching a point where the most realistic choice for women who don’t want to go the casual route is going to be celibacy throughout the college years, but I’m not sure how well that kind of message would play out.
Ahh but then there is this:
http://socialpathology.blogspot.com/2012/08/more-promiscuity-data.html
And this :
http://dalrock.wordpress.com/2012/07/04/conventional-wisdom-on-the-trend-in-us-divorce-rates-may-be-about-to-change/
I guess I figure that some percentage of women and men won’t be damaged by “promiscuity” (and when we are talking about such low numbers, I really do have to put promiscuity in quotes) but that a surprising number will be and this consistently affects women worse than men.
I also think that the elite schools , for the most part, won’t be “elite” much longer, due to the education bubble and the changes in the larger economy.
I predict interesting times.
@Joe
“It really seems like Rosin’s writing about that same small corner of Manhattan or perhaps, K Street in DC, that just knows it’s the center of the universe. Everyone revolves around it. Them.
No. It doesn’t, even if the TV insists it does.”
Co-sign completely.
@Susan
Thanks for the speedy analysis!
Do you know when Hanna Rosin’s projected publication date is? I googled but didn’t come up with anything.
@Bastiat Blogger
Good stuff.
“The exceptions, of course, are girls with high religiosity. I think that hookup culture fills the vacuum created by the lack of marriage-track relationships formed in college pitted against the desire to explore aspects of adulthood that are now available. ”
Yes. This. I think part of that vacuum is due to a lack of any real mentorship by parents or school/church/community authority-figure-types on how to form these marriage-track relationships. This goes back to my point in the other thread about the helicopter parents and other, broader social circumstances that are causing young people to emotionally mature at a slower rate than in the past.
No matter how hard I tried, I cannot imagine producing anything in the English language better adapted to annihilating a young mans desire/intent to settle down and marry than Roisins” Boys on the Side.”
OK, we get it. Women instinctively feel nearly unlimited contempt for the kind of guys who might commit to them.
Now that that is over with, let us party…
Um, Rum? Don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the party’s over.
“Rosin goes on to claim that in spite of their unhappiness, these women staunchly defended hookup culture, which is counter to what the recent College Life Survey of 19,000 students revealed:
Even one of the women who had initiated the Title IX complaint, Alexandra Brodsky, felt this way. “I would never come down on the hookup culture,” she said. “Plenty of women enjoy having casual sex.”
No surprise there – Brodsky is a feminist activist, hardly representative of the typical female student. As Rosin has already observed, feminism needs hookup culture. Without it, women just might refuse to prioritize their careers throughout their 20s.”
There’s a disconnect between what surveys reveal college-aged women want, and what they’re willing to defend from a more political standpoint, if you will. It’s become quite taboo to do any sort of open slut-shaming among young women whatsoever, even if it’s just gossiping with your friends–and I’d guess more so at universities than outside them.
In fact, I’d say that openly stating that your sexual preferences fall towards monogamy and emotional intimacy and that you dislike the idea of having sex with random strangers seem to practically be treated as “too judgmental” in some of these circles–or at the very least, incredibly prudish.
The actual voices and opinions of most women on college campuses just seem to be disregarded.
@Sick of it all
I certainly don’t want to see anyone’s personal sex life limited by the government. It would be nice, though, to be able to express a negative opinion of casual sex in, say, the classroom of a state college without being told you’re offensively slut-shaming. I’ve been out of college for four years and didn’t attend a big state school, so I’m not sure if this is actually the environment now, but it’s the impression I’m getting.
Courtley, you can express that without backlash as long as you pre-empt the backlash with “for me”. What people don’t like is when personal choices get projected onto others or society at large. There are 2 religions in particular that also have issues with projecting their own truth claims onto the rest of the world. Either we are free or we’re not. And that means free to act and to choose differently from our neighbors.
Socialists can put a spin on anything, murder 20 million people and call it a ‘worker’s rebellion.’
What used to be promiscuous and slutty is now empowering.
@Sick of it all
Yes, I completely agree. But let’s have freedom with accurate information and honest discussions.
“There’s a stark disconnect between the feminist hookup culture script, and the actual behavior of college students. Clearly, there are women who display ravenous, voracious sexual appetites. They may be found at the Yale Women’s Center, MBA Happy Hour, and on campuses throughout the nation. They are the female leaders of tomorrow, and they deserve credit for their achievements. But they do not speak for the majority of women, and Rosin has failed to realize that.”
Damn. Damn. DAMN.
Feeling the love for you just now, S. Walsh.
Give ‘em hell, Susan!
BB,
“cannot count on a man for support—must be self-sufficient first and then have a merger between equals later in life; question of why a hot guy would want to settle down in such a favorable environment; some disillusionment with at least the traditional ideal of marriage, family, and motherhood.”
The elephant in the room is the fact that the environment is no longer favorable in this economy. Not close. The whole hookup script is premised on the ability to become self-sufficient on your own before pairing up. Even in good economic times, this wasn’t how things played out for many women.
Now that the economy sucks, and the changes are likely structural, not cyclical, it may be that a strong partnership among equals we be the prerequisite to establishing oneself in the first place. That turns the whole script on its head.
“Clearly, there are women who display ravenous, voracious sexual appetites. They may be found at the Yale Women’s Center, MBA Happy Hour, and on campuses throughout the nation. ”
They can also be found in churches, mosques, synagogues, etc.
Now that the feminists are advocating it, I hope that we can at least agree that the SMP the men here have described actually does exist, and that it functions as we’ve described it.
@Desiderius
“The elephant in the room is the fact that the environment is no longer favorable in this economy. Not close. The whole hookup script is premised on the ability to become self-sufficient on your own before pairing up. Even in good economic times, this wasn’t how things played out for many women.”
It’s interesting how Rosin’s article centers around the business world so much. These women are going to be part of a very small and elite minority of Gen Y-ers who actually become wealthy through their own efforts, at least from what I understand based on the idea that Gen Y is projected to achieve a lower standard of living and wealth than our parents did. This little group of elites may well become a world unto themselves, with their own little SMP tailored to their tastes. I think Hope’s evaluation of them as very type-A, ESTJ/ESFJ types is also highly accurate.
This isn’t to say that every wealthy, successful young person necessarily shares the views of the women Rosin is apparently captivated with, of course, but I think the financial aspect of this is significant.
“Now that the economy sucks, and the changes are likely structural, not cyclical, it may be that a strong partnership among equals we be the prerequisite to establishing oneself in the first place. That turns the whole script on its head.”
That’s an interesting hypothesis. I feel like my young married/co-habiting friends are all in better financial straits than single ones, and having the option of being supported while someone goes back to school or takes that internship has to be nice. And it has to feel at least a little bit better than having your parents play that support role.
The thing is, for the women Rosin seems to refer to and quote it’s not even so much a practical concern that they be financially stable before marriage, but more of a desire to live out this certain phase of being single, sleeping around a lot, traveling, and having fun on their disposable income. It’s like Phase 3 of adolescence (1 and 2 being high school and college respectively).
“These women are going to be part of a very small and elite minority of Gen Y-ers who actually become wealthy through their own efforts, at least from what I understand based on the idea that Gen Y is projected to achieve a lower standard of living and wealth than our parents did. ”
Yeah and I don’t get what the big deal about that is. My parents own their own home, 2 cars, and a bunch of ugly furniture. Its a burden more than a pleasure. I prefer to go light on my feet and the earth. We really don’t need so much stuff.
“There are 2 religions in particular that also have issues with projecting their own truth claims onto the rest of the world.”
Three religions, actually. You forgot Leftism.
“Either we are free or we’re not. And that means free to act and to choose differently from our neighbors.”
False dichotomy. As in most things, there are degrees of freedom (I made a math joke!). Also, people ARE free to be promiscuous. But freedom to act does not mean that you are free from criticism of your actions or opinions that make you uncomfortable. You see, the ability to express one’s opinion is also a freedom, and a far more important one than the freedom to debase oneself.
“Its a burden more than a pleasure. I prefer to go light on my feet and the earth. We really don’t need so much stuff.”
Speaking of projecting one’s truth claims onto others…
“Three religions, actually. You forgot Leftism.”
Liberalism is not a religion. One can be liberal and atheist. Liberalism is an ideology, not religion.
“Speaking of projecting one’s truth claims onto others…”
We don’t *need* so much stuff. What we need is oxygen, water, sunlight, food, basic shelter and some clothes if we don’t live in a hot climate. But we don’t *need* “stuff”.
@12,22,39
You’ve nailed my feelings on these women. These are a very specific elite, and they’ll have options not available to a typical woman. In a weird way, this is a form of gender equity. Men have always had to deal with the fact that elite men can do things sexually that the average Joe on the street couldn’t dream of pulling off.
Personally, I would like Ms. Rosin to do this reporting in a middle-class suburban neighborhood or some third-tier state school. Methinks the dynamic would dramatic change.
Slightly OT perhaps, but I just came across an excerpt on promiscuity from an old post – a male therapist talks about promiscuity, first in women, then for both sexes:
Sick…”Liberalism is not a religion. One can be liberal and atheist. Liberalism is an ideology, not religion.”
Depends what you mean by a religion. If a religion is an all-encompassing explanation of life and the world, taken largely on faith, then certainly the Marxist form of leftism, as adopted by true believers, could be considered a religion. See Koestler on Closed Systems:
http://photoncourier.blogspot.com/2004_06_01_archive.html#108638662359305703
Today’s dominant flavor of leftism (“progressivism”) certainly has some of those same attributes.
” Is all female accomplishment dependent on the hook up culture?”
Since men are almost always seen as a benchmark for female economic accomplishment and so-called “sexual equality” then what slut defenders are saying is -
To be equal to men economically, embrace all manner of penis
To be sexually equal, express yourself with numerous penis
To be a fully developed human, you will blossom through beholding a variety of penis
To break the centuries old male power hold, avail yourself with a full spectrum of penis
To be a more confident wife, prepare yourself with a minimum five year legacy of packing penis
The slogans –
MULTIPENIS!* Without it, you’re a woman going nowhere.
Feeling down, low self esteem? PENIS!*
Hating on men today? Its simple! You know what to do ladies…
*bellowed with a deep voice, like those guys on the radio advertising autos
Penis penis, get your penis here! Always willing, always ready, never a rejection! Come and get em, penis penis, get your penis here!
“desire to live out this certain phase of being single, sleeping around a lot, traveling, and having fun on their disposable income”
all good stuff. Why is it that these authors/promoters never bring up the harsh reality that most men shun or at least do not have an appreciation for such a phase when seeking a wife? Oh right, that won’t sell books.
Abbot @ 47 – Thanks man! I needed that first thing on this particular Friday morning.
That’s why I posted it. Do these look like hardened sluts to you? That pic is recent, but quite representative of the student body when I was there. The typical MBA student is not humping his or her way through school (though some are).
@VJ
Hey, good to see you.
What’s remarkable is that only 11% is “just enough.”
It sounds like you buy Rosin’s analysis. I gather you reject my finding that 20% or fewer of both male and female college students are promiscuous and servicing each other? While the other 80% is on the beach?
Many of these Ladies are highly educated and successful in their careers, giving them “outsized” impact on the culture. One Kate Bolick is worth a couple of dozen happily married women at 28, right?
This is a two-sided problem. Women delay marriage, making a match with a college bf unlikely to go the distance. And there are actually not that many relationships in college that might work as a foundation for marriage. Chicken or egg?
This is very much the norm for your generation. Negative reinforcement, i.e. shame, is no longer an acceptable form of controlling behavior in society.
@SW #52
Well, there’s a difference between social shame and legal restrictions, which is what I thought ‘Sick of It’ was referring to. I don’t think that Western/European cultures have historically tended to actually legally restrict extrmarital sex, did they? I know the Puritans did, and there are probably more examples, but for the most part I don’t think anyone had to pay a fine or go to jail if they stepped outside of the socially-accepted moral code. They just lost their reputations and the respect of their communities, and that was enough to make most people think about the consequences of their sexual choices. Social approval/disapproval is powerful.
@ SW
“Many of these Ladies are highly educated and successful in their careers, giving them “outsized” impact on the culture. One Kate Bolick is worth a couple of dozen happily married women at 28, right?”
That does seem to be the crux of Rosin’s view, doesn’t it? And she seems rather unaware of it, too.
Courtley – “That does seem to be the crux of Rosin’s view, doesn’t it? And she seems rather unaware of it, too.”
Don’t be so sure she is ignorant of what she is saying. Women of her cohort are fairly certain they are the cream of the crop. After all, they did exactly what the feminist agenda said they should. All those SAHM are selling out. You didn’t get the memo? It came with your “Proud to be a Modern Woman” club information packet.
@Clarence
Thanks for linking to the Social Pathologist – I hadn’t realized he’d linked here. Do you have any data re this affecting women worse than men? Most of the research seems to have been done on women alone, but when men are looked at, the number of premarital sexual partners also seems to predict divorce.
@Courtley
Agreed. This is related to the current norm of shaming virgins as well.
@Susan:
“This is very much the norm for your generation. Negative reinforcement, i.e. shame, is no longer an acceptable form of controlling behavior in society.”
This touches upon William Penn’s point that you can either be ruled by God or tyranny.
You can either regulate yourself, or someone else is going to regulate you at gunpoint.
Freedom without limits, which is where we are now, is not where we will be two generations from now.
People will either self-regulate or they will be regulated. They don’t actually get to vote for a third option.
Re: stifling of the debate. I teach macroecon and strategy-type classes, so I don’t have the mandate to get into this topic as much as, say, a gender studies prof would. However, I use the question of marriage as one of the standard templates for decision tree/game tree type work, and this allows for discussion of the students’ subjective perceptions of the payoffs, costs, risks, etc. of settling down. I try to make sure that everyone feels very comfortable with voicing personal opinions, but there are some people who are just more outspoken and aggressive than others and they will always tend to speak out.
The only “slut-shaming” I have personally seen has come from a few guys who are extremely frustrated with the SMP and who make this a recurring complaint. There was an outburst in one class—a Russian female student blurted out that she wanted to do an independent study with me this fall. She worded it in an unfortunate way—”I’d really like to be under you for a few months.” The group of Rosin-favored alpha female students in the class all giggled and a few started adding their own versions of what independent study should entail. One of the guys who had been most critical of campus dating life and prone to outbursts became visibly upset and turned around and said, “God, all of you girls are so weak for alpha penis!” The whole class laughed for several minutes.
Other than a rare, semi-humorous complaint by one of the males who feels left in the cold, the alpha females are essentially controlling the narrative. The core debate is not usually about casual sex IME; it is about delayed marriage and the required personal development projects and benchmarks that should be achieved before sincere husband-hunting can begin. Once this date is put out far enough in the future because of academic, travel, and job goals, hook up culture just clicks into place unless there is a religious belief system in that individual that says that pre-marital sex is just plain wrong.
I personally came to HUS because I realized that I’m probably contributing to this situation in some ways and that I have a personal investment in this SMP that may cloud my judgment where the lives of others are concerned: if I have a female student who wants to become a hedge fund or private equity manager, I’m going to give her the best advice that I can about career development, grad schools, jobs,travel experience, etc.
Susan – “Do you have any data re this affecting women worse than men? Most of the research seems to have been done on women alone, but when men are looked at, the number of premarital sexual partners also seems to predict divorce.”
It is the Patriarchy holding women down!
Seriously though, I’ve noticed this same thing and it boggles the mind. It’s almost as if we’ve all secretly decided that only women’s sexuality matters when it comes to figuring this stuff out. Like I said in the other thread, I will entertain the idea that female promiscuity may be the larger concern, but men can’t be promiscuous if women aren’t having sex with them. So I don’t get why all the effort put into figuring out the female side of the equation without even adding up the male side.
My buddy todd properly frames the discussion here. Let me take it a step further…
To be frank, im having a very hard time seeing whats the big deal about rosins piece and ms walshs response; in the end, they-rosin and walsh-are far and away more alike than different. Neither will be bothered all that much to deal with the true wider implications of female choice coupled with what roissy has called the four sirens, other than pander to their respective constituencies.
Last month, one of if not thee most commented posts ever in the history of hus, happened to deal with a woman that neither ms walsh nor ms rosin deals with all that often: one ms jessica shairer. See, what neither walsh nor rosin will deal with honestly, is the simple fact that, for every kate bolick there will be at least one-if not several-jessica shairers: white women who while also attending college and coming from nominally middle class backgrounds, will simply not have the wherewithall to navigate the hookup scene and will become casualties of the true war on women, which has been waged by their white, umc sisters. Neither will deal with this in any appreciable way, because lets face it, neither walsh nor rosin has to live next door to the jessica shariers of the world-a none too bright gal with a black baby daddy, and all that flows therefrom. So, color me a weebit cynical about the whole exercise; and i beg our hostess’ forgiveness for my candor.
That said, another very powerful question that i dont see either side-walsh or rosin-deal with, is that there are powerful tradeoffs that must be made in order to make “a womans nation” possible; what cannot be denied, is that women-from the kate bolicks to the shaniqua jenkins and beyond-want choice; choice and freedom to define on their own terms, what it means to be a woman. And it would be downright foolish for anyone to deny, that women do not have that right in our time.
The big question-actually two-is, one, what are the prices that must be paid for these freedoms-who will pay?-and second, of course, is whether men will be afforded the same freedom to openly question their role(s) in society, too. On that note, i think its fair to say, that to ask the question is to answer it-i mean, does anyone here honestly think it would be possible to see a “kevin bolick”/fortress astoria coverstory feature in the atlantic? A major network making such a story into a tv show? Appearances on the today show? Etc et al?
Come on.
As the body counts of the jessicas and shaniquas mount on one side, and the kates and hannahs do same on the other, the rest of us will be faced, if for nothing else but sheer preservation and survival, with grappling with the question:
What price, “freedom”?
O.
Obsidian – I don’t begrudge Susan or Rosin or anyone for being in the UMC, and I do my best to see things from that perspective. But, I can’t help feeling like the vast majority of folks living in the UMC don’t or perhaps can’t see things from MY perspective. And, as far as things go, my perspective is by no means the worst our society has to offer, yet I often find myself growing concerned that things are getting worse, and can’t help but wonder how things are looking further down the tree. I’m guessing it is pretty covered in bird crap by now from all the shit that keeps dropping on down.
Freedom isn’t the end goal, it’s just a necessary element that permits the goals to be achieved.
Also, who wants to be in the UMC at all? Isn’t the goal to rise into the LUC , ultimately having your family, several generations hence, pass through the MUC to the UUC?
JP – I’d be happy with simply seeing my children do better than I managed. I have hope that they will, but it would be a lie if I said I expect it at this point. With the economy as it is, and globalization still bleeding jobs from the U.S. I simply don’t have much faith that there will be good jobs for them post college.
So, sure the ultimate goal is to make it all the way to Bill Gates status, but my realistic goal is for my children to have financial independence on a much smaller scale, but financial independence all the same.
The thing is, sexuality and the SMP plays a vital role in this outcome because at this point, the most likely way for my children to succeed is to partner up with an equally successful mate and tag-team life. The less likely it is for them to find that mate, the less likely they are to succeed.
Susan:
Ask and ye shall receive:
http://socialpathology.blogspot.com/2010/08/defining-slut.html
http://socialpathology.blogspot.com/2010/08/several-commentators-have-raised.html
http://socialpathology.blogspot.com/2010/08/defining-slut-more-data.html
Note that promiscuity increases risk of marital dissolution for both sexes, but that men’s risk seems lowered in comparison to womens. I think whatever the explanation for this explains the most – if not all- of the one infamous double standard that feminists love to rail against. And in fairness to our “sluts” some of them do seem to do well enough to maintain a marriage or ltr, so if we could only figure out why – there might be a lot more happiness in this world.
As for the Dalrock link (in light of past events) in case you were scared to click on it, it basically says that many states (including the biggest one in terms of population, California and a few others as well) haven’t reported on divorces or divorce rates for 20 years and this has skewed the dissolution statistics of marriage to the extent that there might have been no decline whatsoever over the past 2 or 3 decades in terms of incidence of divorce. Like him or hate him, Dalrock knows his marriage stats, and he has been in contact with the people who do the National Marriage Project and this new data (if it pans out) might be in their next report.
So, while I’m sorry for the link, I did think it was important enough that you’d want to be aware of it.
The problem for the upper classes is hearing the sound of distant tumbrels and missing the point of what is happening.
“A tumbrel (alternatively tumbril), is a two-wheeled cart or wagon typically designed to be hauled by a single horse or ox. Their original use was for agricultural work; in particular they were associated with carrying manure. Their most notable use was taking prisoners to the guillotine during the French Revolution.”
@Ramble
“I wonder why some guys don’t approach more often? I mean, where is that approach anxiety coming from?
But, god, those guys at the investment banks, what douche bags. Right?
(Please tell me that I am not the only one that can see why we are seeing a bifurcation between milquetoast betas and “douche bags”.)”
I said I had experienced something similar under the past post. Cause I’ve been casted as both before.
“Guys were texting and calling me all the time, and I was turning them down. I really enjoyed it!”
I’m gonna be honest, when I get a wiff of this kind of attitude, I stubbornly want to refuse them that enjoyment – by not even giving them the rejection opportunity. For some that is enough validation on it’s own to send them happily on their way – or for them to keep you orbiting. I pass.
@Ted D:
You might be amused by the Archduird Report.
Here’s a link to a fun example of when the UMC collides with The Greyhound Bus:
http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2012/07/distant-sound-of-tumbrils.html
“Once, though, his years as a foreign correspondent in some of the world’s rough places broke through, and he climbed aboard a Greyhound bus for a trip through the American Southwest to see the country and the people first hand.
The scene is really one of the best examples of unintentional comedy in modern letters. Kaplan briefly succeeded in extracting himself from the bubble in which tame intellectuals of his caliber normally live, and the world outside the bubble shocked him right down to the soles of his Bruno Magli shoes. His fellow passengers were, like, fat, and even the thin ones didn’t seem to be trying to fit any definition of pretty and stylish he’d ever encountered; they wore cheap ill-fitting clothes in garish colors, and some of them had their belongings in plastic garbage bags rather than, say, Gucci suitcases. You could practically hear the “Ewww, icky!” escape his lips.”
Just to extend and revise my remarks a bit from the previous post…
…my point, one of them anyway, is that it would be a mistake to suggest, as ms rosin does, that women have freedoms today based on such narrow factors as she does in her piece; sure, money can and often does play a role, but its bigger than that, since as edin and kafalas have shown in their work “promises i can keep” that even poor women want “choice” too-and they take those choices. It goes much deeper than that; what rosin doesnt explicitly spell out is the degree to which our very way of life has been profoundly reordered-to such an extent that both the umc white woman, and the poor woman of color, can do a kind of ala carte approach toward womanhood.
This is why its so very crucial to look at these things through a door instead of through a keyhole, and here i turn to ms walsh: because whether we like it or not, all of these things are not only interconnected but as scholars like hacker, tiger, hymowitz, murray and others have clearly shown and proven, they impact each other. To think that what kate bolick proposes, implicitly, intentionally or otherwise, wont have any bearing on what jessica shairer or shaniqua jenkins does, goes beyond naivete, and veers into the field of the diengenuous.
I keep bringing this point up not because of any “doomsday” notion, but simply because the stakes are high-and the burden of paying for them are in no way even. Again, neither ms walsh nor ms rosin have to live next door to a jessica or a shaniqua-but quite a few of us do. We have to deal with the downsides of these arid academic debates over how many feminists can dance on the head of a pin. And while freedom and choice can be great things, the ugly truth is that everybody cannot handle these things as much as we would like to admit.
And this is why im cynical about these discussions-because i see them as little more than quibbles over trifles that in the end wont have the kinds of game changing, earth shattering implications for many of these folk, that it can and will have for others.
O.
@Clarence
No problem re the link. I don’t ever want to stifle productive debate or learning, believe it or not.
A couple of things. I found this quote at SP. It’s about infidelity rather than divorce, but interesting:
http://socialpathology.blogspot.com/2010/10/infidelity-part-2.html
Since my readership is highly educated, this is a very important finding, assuming that female infidelity is correlated to divorce.
Also, I left a comment at SP on his new post re the only study I have found re male promiscuity. Unfortunately, the link is dead, but here’s an excerpt of the findings:
THE EFFECTS OF PREMARITAL SEXUAL PROMISCUITY ON SUBSEQUENT MARITAL SEXUAL SATISFACTION
(Christen, 2004, BYU)
She found something very interesting, IMO:
Gender Regression Differences. The male model explained much more of the variation of marital sexual satisfaction than did the female model…
Further, the male model had significant variables including premarital sexual promiscuity, while the female model did not have any significant variables.
The coefficient for premarital sexual promiscuity in the male model was -.053 and was significant at the .006 level. This indicates that for every additional premarital sexual partner a man has, the likelihood that he will categorize himself as being extremely satisfied with his first marital sexual relationship as compared to only being moderately satisfied decreases by 5.3%.
The coefficient for premarital sexual promiscuity in the female model was -.046 and approaches significance but does not reach significance. The standard error for this variable was .029, .01 higher than the male model and .016 higher than the complete model. No other variables in the model were significant.
The results of this study support the first hypothesis, indicating that premarital sexual promiscuity may be a significant predictor of subsequent marital sexual satisfaction.
The second hypothesis, that there would be gender differences, was correct but in the opposite direction hypothesized. There were significant gender differences between men and women but the significant effects were much stronger for males, not females. The gender variable in the full model was not significant but in running different models for males and females, the male model was significant while female model only approached significance. Therefore, while males’ marital sexual satisfaction is affected by premarital sexual promiscuity, these results indicate that the relationship is not significant among females.
While men report a lower age at first intercourse, higher number of sexual partners, a higher frequency of intercourse, and tend to report more permissive sexual attitudes (Oliver & Hyde, 1993), it appears that their marital sexual satisfaction is still affected more by premarital sexual partners than females’ marital sexual satisfaction. This may be due to the evolutionary biological theory that males tend to be more invested in or notice more the physical aspects of the sexual relationship, while women tend to be more invested in or notice more the emotional aspects of the sexual relationship (Buunk, Angleitner, & Buss, 1996).
Due to this difference, premarital sexual promiscuity may not influence females as much because the past emotional connections are no longer salient and the focus is on meeting the needs of the current relationship. Further, women tend to be aroused more and are more likely than men to report attraction increasing in long-term relationships, indicating that having previous sexual experiences may in fact lower the overall comparison levels and comparison level for alternatives for women in a marital sexual relationship (Knoth, Boyd, & Singer, 1988).
A while back I read through the backgrounds of all of the contributors at Feministing and a few other feminist and leftist blogs/sites. Of all of the contributors at all of the sites, not one had a background in math or a hard science. Not One!
Leftists often like to claim the truly intelligent as part of their cabal, but the truth is that most doctors and scientists, even if they lean left (and many do, a sorta conservative center-left), they rarely are able to align themselves with actual leftism. It is simply too illogical.
You will get no argument from me. Again, it was a mild defense.
Think of my light defense as a reference to a scene in “Knocked Up”. That movie, as far as I can remember, was the talk of the town for a while for all sorts of reasons (Heigl claimed that Apatow hated women, Seth Rogen obviously would never have gotten a girl that pretty to spread her legs, or if she did she would have definitely aborted any resulting baby, etc.), but I thought the most interesting scene was when a 22 year old young man asked, point blank, of his father for real, genuine, specific advice on what to do and his father said, “I don’t know”.
This is something that I am seeing. The older generation basically bailing on giving real, specific advice (other than say, “go to college”) that would be relevant to how young people are living today. That is, other than our host.
Many people, in their heart of hearts, know who their enemies are, not by there stated political beliefs, but by their basic actions and directions in life.
There is a reason why things like food and “culture” are a bastion of the left and things like sports and hunting are a bastion of the right.
If you see that some guy is concerned that his son is not improving fast enough at linebacker, and you voted for Obama, you can basically assume that you hate that father.
Could you imagine caring about something so basic and primal as succeeding at a stupid and violent sport as football. Now, where is my smoked pimentón?
You’re really sweet.
I won’t be commenting as much. I have other things I need to attend to. But I will drop in every now and then.
I was actually thinking of having one of those dramatic exits. You know, where the person claims that they are never coming back, but then they sorta sheepishly slink back in a few days later to make their inane comments.
Anyway, I missed you too.
Ramble makes a joke!
Susan – “This may be due to the evolutionary biological theory that males tend to be more invested in or notice more the physical aspects of the sexual relationship, while women tend to be more invested in or notice more the emotional aspects of the sexual relationship (Buunk, Angleitner, & Buss, 1996).”
This resonates with me a great deal, and I think I’ve demonstrated this exact thinking just yesterday. I discussed how the “emotional” part of a LTR isn’t as important in my mind because I see it as a default OF the relationship, and in fact I place FAR more importance on the physical aspects.
I guess it’s a good think I didn’t screw may way around the world after all!
@ted, jp:
As murray points out in his “coming apart”, if there is “begruding” going on, its coming *from* the umc down-not the other way around. Murray demonstrates just how segregated, isolated and utterly out of touch the white umc are, to/from the rest of the country-yet they are also in the position to set public policy and social norms for the rest of us.
We see this right here in this forum; when pressed, ms walsh will not hesitate to retreat into a “this is for thus and so market” shell, much like a turtle. Yet we know-again i cite one ms jessica shairer as exhibit a-that quite literally millions of women will try their hand at the hooking up game and lose…badly. No one wants to tell them to stay in their lane, because we have so thoroughly quaffed the idea that we’re all baby einsteins and just “figure it out”. Not only was that ever the case, but in the not too distant past we had what ms hymowitz called a lifescript. Weve done away with that because we thought that it was oppressive and “racist” and “unfair” and “sexist” and so forth-only to find that it actually had some utility…some purpose. But you cant say this openly in society anymore without someone accusing you of being a “hater” of one kind or another…and quite possibly paying a huge price for it.
So, we all windup doing the wink and nod-those of us who can afford to get away from the chaos that invariably ensues when the doors are blown off hardheaded, hardfought wisdom of the ages, do so; and the rest of us who cant, or more or less forced to grin and bear it, faking the funk all the way.
The assumptions undergirding so many of these discussions, both here at hus and beyond, are quite fascinating when you sit down and think about it-but from an “alien” pov like mine, such assumptions are at best, a bit hopeful, if not wildly and just plain wrong.
Let me be emphatically clear. I do not begrudge anyone for being part of the white umc simply for being, well, white and umc. Nor am i angling for women to be herded back into the kitchen barefoot and pregnant.
But what i am saying, is that there are heavy prices to be paid for all this. And whats worse is that to even suggest that there might be profound side effects and unintended consequences to female choice writ large and accepted as the sine qua non of our time, is to court being banished from polite society. Meanwhile, the jessica shairers of the world dont get cover stories on the atlantic; they wont be feted by matt lauer. At best theyll get multipage treatments in the nyt, and gawked at in the guise of “cautionary tales” elsehwere on the internet, as if they were carny oddities.
At what point will some simple, commonsense, straight talk about all of this, ensue? What will it take? How much more of this can our republic stand?
O.
“This is very much the norm for your generation. Negative reinforcement, i.e. shame, is no longer an acceptable form of controlling behavior in society.”
Just because you’re not using it, doesn’t mean that someone else isn’t.
“the alpha females are essentially controlling the narrative.”
Always have, always will in this sphere. The good ones have convinced themselves that controlling narratives and behaviors (via shame) is bad. Others have filled that gap to promote, and in some cases enforce, other narratives and behaviors.
Control and shame are in fact not ideal, but we don’t live in an ideal world. Its a good thing that the best strive for something better, but abandoning imperfect traditions before that better is widely achieved is allowing the perfect to be the enemy of the good.
There is a difference between bad and imperfect.
“I was actually thinking of having one of those dramatic exits. You know, where the person claims that they are never coming back, but then they sorta sheepishly slink back in a few days later to make their inane comments.”
Yeah, I hate that. I usually save my inane comments for later.
“This is something that I am seeing. The older generation basically bailing on giving real, specific advice (other than say, “go to college”) that would be relevant to how young people are living today. That is, other than our host.”
Agreed, she’s showing the way.
I think we just assumed we’d always have the Greatest Generation around for that stuff and our job was to criticize them and keep them from overdoing it. Now that they’re gone we’re a little lost.
“Negative reinforcement, i.e. shame, is no longer an acceptable form of controlling behavior in society”…maybe this is true for SEX, it’s not true for consumption behaviors. If you buy non-”green” produce, or shop at Wal-Mart, or wear unfashionable clothes, or have unfashionable entertainment or political tastes, those same SWPLs that would never criticize sexual behavior will be first in line at the stone-casting.
Susan, re:
“Due to this difference, premarital sexual promiscuity may not influence females as much because the past emotional connections are no longer salient and the focus is on meeting the needs of the current relationship. Further, women tend to be aroused more and are more likely than men to report attraction increasing in long-term relationships, indicating that having previous sexual experiences may in fact lower the overall comparison levels and comparison level for alternatives for women in a marital sexual relationship (Knoth, Boyd, & Singer, 1988).”
That’s certainly a possibility, but another would be that there is a well-documented decline in sexual frequency/quality as marriage progresses, children come on the scene, etc. and that women are more inclined to accept this than men are.
High-N men might be the least likely to want to accept this change and may consider regular, satisfying sex to be a central component of successful marriage (where a low N man may have lower expectations and thus easily fulfilled sexual appetites). This would make a low-N man a particularly attractive LTR bet for a woman who was not planning on making world-class sex a defining feature of her relationship. She could relax with a low-N partner in a way that she probably never could with a high-N (on the other hand, this could also be seen as an anti-competition, pro-complacency, anti-price system discipline argument).
At the same time, some percentage of high-N women would have pursued promiscuous strategies as part of a (possibly ill-conceived) attempt to gain male attention and access to an LTR, which would make for a different motivational element than you would find in women who pursued promiscuous strategies because they just enjoyed having sex with many different men. We men tend to assume that high-N women fully enjoyed what they were doing (and this appears to be a correct assumption today), but the explanations could be much more complicated.
I hate to see people conflate Rosin and Marcotte. Rosin is a sharp thinker who does indeed grapple with contradictions and such. Marcotte has a pre-existing bias and will do whatever it takes to get from A to B – reminds me of reading some pious theologian who can take counter-evidence and turn it into evidence. Her views are structurally unfalsifiable int he same way religion is. My only exposure to Rosin on this issue was through Marcotte’s Slate distillation and I intend to withhold judgement on Rosin until I read the book and confirm what I suspect, that Marcotte saw what she wanted to see.
Biggups to desiderious; he cited one of my favorite quotes ever.
Going back to the topic: one of the really big things to strike me, and todd has alluded to this earlier, is the degree to which just how much the more modest “sisters” to the ms rosins of the world, dont even rate. They simply do not exist. While there has been much made in the manosphere about the apex fallacy, in truth this notion is much stronger amongst women themselves than going across the gender aisle.
From time to time im asked, why i focus so many of my remarks on certain cohorts of society; my response is simple: because theyre not the ones making the most noise in the public square. It isnt jessica shairer or her black/hispanic counterpart (or lower on the ses scale) whose making the most noise; its the rosins and marcottes and to some extent even the ms walshes of the world who are.
Still, its hard to deny that the lives, if one wishes to call it that, of the former cohort are quite hard and thats putting it mildly; and one cannot help but wonder to what extent do these “freedoms” play a role in all of that. And because again, we cant discuss these openly on the national stage without being tarred and feathered, we cant get a handle on what all of this will mean, nor what the likely endgame will be.
Deep.
O.
@Brian
I think Rosin seems like a better thinker than Marcotte, yes.
I also want to read Rosin’s book. I’m a bit confused, to be honest–initially when I read about it, it was in this context of “Oh look, this smart female feminist writer has woken up to some of the problems facing men,” and I didn’t think she was celebrating the end of men so much as analyzing or just announcing it, as a researcher. I’m not very impressed with her focus group for the “Boys on the Side” article, though, because it’s such a narrow slice of women in an article that seems to want to deal with a bigger picture of “women,” but I could be reading her as being more approving of her subject matter than she actually is.
Susan This was also in those links. Didn`t know if you missed it.
Due to this difference, premarital sexual promiscuity may not influence females as much because the past emotional connections are no longer salient and the focus is on meeting the needs of the current relationship. Further, women tend to be aroused more and are more likely than men to report attraction increasing in long-term relationships, indicating that having previous sexual experiences may in fact lower the overall comparison levels and comparison level for alternatives for women in a marital sexual relationship (Knoth, Boyd, & Singer, 1988).
Interesting…
David Foster
Sick…”Liberalism is not a religion. One can be liberal and atheist. Liberalism is an ideology, not religion.”
Depends what you mean by a religion. If a religion is an all-encompassing explanation of life and the world, taken largely on faith, then certainly the Marxist form of leftism, as adopted by true believers, could be considered a religion. See Koestler on Closed Systems:
http://photoncourier.blogspot.com/2004_06_01_archive.html#108638662359305703
Today’s dominant flavor of leftism (“progressivism”) certainly has some of those same attributes.
________
liberalism is pretty scary, but only if your eyes are wide open.
The difference between Modern liberalism and conservatism
Modern Liberalism is the belief that government is owner AND distributor of freedom and rights while conservatism is the belief that government protects the rights and freedom man is born with.
These two ideal can not co-exsist..One must be defeated and subdued by the other.
its simple, chose being protected or owned.
In some countries Leftist Marxism is indeed a type of religion. we could be headed that way too.,
I like this one also…
Ineptocracy
A system of government where the least capable to lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed are rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminshing number of producers.
Clarence,
And in fairness to our “sluts” some of them do seem to do well enough to maintain a marriage or ltr, so if we could only figure out why – there might be a lot more happiness in this world.
_____________
Its because there are different reasons women become promiscuous. Not all sluts are created equally. Cant lump them all in the same pile.
Most are damaged before they become promiscuous, some become damaged by being promiscuous and some come out of it unscathed. It is the unscathed ones that go on to have successful relationships. Probably not a lot of help for the ones who were already damaged before hand, and little hope for the ones who became damaged.
@SW #45
Compulsive promiscuity is common among girls who have been sexually abused and fatherless girls. There is significant overlap between those two groups as abuse by mom’s bf is common. When I meet promiscuous women, including sex workers, I immediately wonder if they were abused.
@Abbott #47
Penis…it does a body good.
All kidding aside, I have to admit that it always improves my mood when I’m having a bad day.
This is my male privilege showing, but…
How the fuck does a Wall Street woman have trouble finding a husband/boyfriend? Do they just not want a relationship? Or is every single Wall Street man unfit for a relationship?
@Ted#49
Ted, you are truly a god on earth because you have a penis. I wish your wife a penis-filled weekend.
As Martha Stewart migh say if she posted here, “Penis…it’s a good thing.”
Now don’t forget to share that penis.
J – “Now don’t forget to share that penis.”
But… I don’t think my wife would like it if I shared. Wait… If I succumb to her desire to restrict my penis only to her, am I falling for the female narrative?! Oh NO! QUICK! SOMEONE HAVE SEX WITH ME, I’M BECOMING A MANGINA!
ya know, I’ve come to the conclusion that I am much more annoying to others when I’m in a good mood.
“Fuck’em if they can’t take a joke”
Neither will be bothered all that much to deal with the true wider implications of female choice coupled with what roissy has called the four sirens, other than pander to their respective constituencies.
Obs, I really don’t want to spend the rest of my day discussing this, but I’m always puzzled by your attempts to make Susan take on this and related subjects. It’s not her bailiwick. She comes from a middle class family and became UMC. Not to criticize Susan, but what does she have to say of value regarding the poor or the working class? I come from the working class, but I don’t feel comfortable pontificating about it because things have changed since I made the jump and I know I have little of value to say any more. If Susan pretended to know something she didn’t about working class life, I’d be offended. If I were black and poor, I think I’d wonder just who the hell “Lady Bountiful” thought she was to condescend to deal with my problems. And I have in fact gotten that reaction as a helping professional.
@Ted
Then share it with your wife, but SHARE. A penis is a terrible thing to waste.
@Sick of it All
“Liberalism is not a religion. One can be liberal and atheist. Liberalism is an ideology, not religion.”
See david foster’s comment at #46. I couldn’t have said it better.
“We don’t *need* so much stuff. What we need is oxygen, water, sunlight, food, basic shelter and some clothes if we don’t live in a hot climate. But we don’t *need* “stuff”.”
In a strict sense – that of “what we need to not die” – you’re right. But in a larger sense, human beings in fact need much more than that in order to lead worthwhile lives. And let’s not forget that there’s a word for people who lack “stuff”: poor.
The issue at hand was that of forcing one’s own truth claims onto others, and when you claim to know what other people “need” then you’re doing exactly that. I actually have no problem with claiming what other people need – to a point – but in my experience those people who cry the loudest about not being told what they should do spend a great deal of time telling others what to do themselves.
Sick: “We don’t *need* so much stuff. What we need is oxygen, water, sunlight, food, basic shelter and some clothes if we don’t live in a hot climate. But we don’t *need* “stuff”.”
Perhaps your parents got that stuff to raise and educate you. Can’t pay the bills with sunlight and water, after all.
J: “A penis is a terrible thing to waste.”
Susan, you may have competition for the Line of the Week Award.
GudEnuf: those women have hypergamy-driven ransom-demand checklists a mile long and A) many of the traits on those lists are virtually incompatible with one another and shift according to a woman’s moods/hormonal cycle; and B) the exceedingly few men who do in fact have all of the desired traits tend to have their own, quite different checklists for the women that they would conceivably marry (assuming that they even want to get married).
What’s remarkable is that only 11% is “just enough.”
But is the best 11%…that is all that matters
@Obsidian
See, what neither walsh nor rosin will deal with honestly, is the simple fact that, for every kate bolick there will be at least one-if not several-jessica shairers: white women who while also attending college and coming from nominally middle class backgrounds, will simply not have the wherewithall to navigate the hookup scene and will become casualties of the true war on women, which has been waged by their white, umc sisters.
I’m not white and I’m not upper middle class, but I see what you mean. A few months ago, I was speaking enthusiastically to a friend about one “tiny” change that employers could make that would be mutually beneficial to them and their employees, would make the world a better place, would make us all burst into sunshine and rainbows, blah, blah, blah . . .
My friend, who is actually an employer, pinned me with one look and countered: “Bellita, do you think everyone in the country is like you?” She then went on to explain that if all her employees were like me, then she would be glad to make that change. But the fact is that they weren’t, and that the terms she set for them were not only very fair, but also pretty generous.
@GudEnuf
Seriously, with 50 to 1 odds? The answer has to be that they don’t want one, just as Ms. Rosin claimed. Also, they have to be so aggressive at work – no place for female charms there.
(Heigl claimed that Apatow hated women, Seth Rogen obviously would never have gotten a girl that pretty to spread her legs, or if she did she would have definitely aborted any resulting baby, etc.),
I find Seth Rogen adorable and did even when he was fat.
I find Apatow’s attitude toward women to be just weird. The classic Apatow plot involves a dorky Jewish guy (Rogen, Jonah Hill, the BIL in “Knocked Up,” all as proxies for Apatow himself) finding a blonde goddess (Heigel, any of Leslie Mann’s characters, Leslie Mann IRL as Apatow’s wife) who loves him despite his not being worthy of her.
I once saw Mann and Apatow interviewed. He went on and on about how lucky he was to have her, and she basically agreed. Despite the fact that I’m probably perceived as one of the least feminine or submissive women here, but even I wanted to puke. I find it doubtful that Mann would have a career without her husband; at least, I’ve never seen her in a non-Apatow production. He is a prolific producer. She lives what is no doubt an extremely priviledged life style because of that. Every day should be “Steak and BJ Day” for him. He’s a man of accomplishment.
@SW
Tell me the cowalingus pic was photoshopped.
Tell me the cowalingus pic was photoshopped.
_______
LMMFAOOOOO
Bit of a tangent, but I vaguely recall reading that the tribal boy/cow pic had something to do with how that tribe ate placentas and/or cow blood because they didn’t have much food. Granted, that could be total BS.
I certainly don’t want to see anyone’s personal sex life limited by the government. It would be nice, though, to be able to express a negative opinion of casual sex in, say, the classroom of a state college without being told you’re offensively slut-shaming. I’ve been out of college for four years and didn’t attend a big state school, so I’m not sure if this is actually the environment now, but it’s the impression I’m getting.
State schools are a lot less PC than more prestigious schools, but all of them have the women’s studies contingent especially in psych/soc departments.
I find Apatow’s attitude toward women to be just weird.
As you say Apatow is a man of accomplishment. He’s done way more than just “Knocked up”. It was 1 movie. Get over it.
@ms j:
Your questions directed to me are as curious as my comments were in prompting you, lol.
I mean, what is this discussion really all about-lets takeout my commentary (which, i might add, did have as much to do with race as you assumed-i specifically referenced jessican shairer)-ok, so whats the debate again? It seems pretty clear to me that women, writ large, want “choice”-in this, rosin is right. Now to be sure, not all or even most women may not want to be the prototypical party girl with all that connotation means. Still, the point is made: women want the freedom to explore life outside the lines, to whatever degree they may feel comfortable with. Even when they personally wouldnt do thus and so, they want other women to have the right to do so (for example, abortion). Choice and freedom is really at the root of what im saying, and what it can and has meant for the country at large. Jessica shairer is one such example of what that means-an example that to be frank rarely gets any shine, especially in the way im coming at it.
I read a tremendous number of such discussions like the one we’re chomping online ms j, and im always coming away scratching my head. At the end of the day, when the dust clears, the putative “combatants” are going to be just fine; even ms bolick, manless though she may be, will still be able to retreat to her retreat on cape cod. Meanwhile the rest of us will have to grin and bear the side of “freedom and choice” that never make it onto the floor where these discussions take place.
I reminds of of how democrats and republicans argue over something like tax policy-they sound two sides of the same coin. Theyre more alike than different, truly. And any real discussion has to be had among “third position” candidates that are known more for their oddness than anything else.
So, yea, i get it. Both ladies that form the basis of this post are indeed drawing distinctions over the question of hookup culture. But they are so razor thin when compared to the larger framework, and again im not even bringing in the “race” thing-again, jessica shairers example is a clear case in point. She got caught up in a big way, and no one wants to seriously question why because “freedom” and “choice” are seen as sacrosant and to even fix ones mouth to do so is akin to blasphemy.
I mean, all of these “atlantic” discussions, i dont know about anyone else here, seem so distant and remote to me-and this is coming from one who is considered fairly widely read. I just come away from it all scratching my head and thinking that murray, if not a genius, will do until the real thing shows up (lets all hold our breath waiting for his argument to appear as a overstory at the atlantic lol).
Finally: your point about the deepseated anger many of the “left behind” is something that i do not think gets anywhere near enough attention and this again is a manifestation of what murray was talking about. You and i know, especially in light of the “helicopter parent” discussion the other day, how some people can and will put as much distance between themselves and this; they know good and well it exists and is very real. Just yesterday i saw no less than three incidents of very angry women, shouting and cursing out at the top of their voices, at men. One of them took place about a block away from where i get my haircut in kensington, another in north philly, and still another around the corner while getting some vittles for dinner. One of those incidents involved a white woman. I predict that we will see more of this in the days and weeks ahead, a kind of spreading of feminine anger and rage, as they come to grips with the downsides of “choice” and “freedom”.
And i predict that this wont make the cover of the atlantic.
O.
@ms hope:
I think there is a very strong hbd component at work here wrt the hookup scene both in and out of college as well; those women with very high amounts of testosterone and extravertedness most definitely benefit and promote it all while the more retiring and shy gals lay in the cut.
Heres the thing though: i dont think the shy gals really have that much of a problem with “choice” and “freedom” writ large-and thats key. Again it seems like we’re making very razor thin distinctions in the overall scheme of things at the end of the day. To me, the real question is whether we are willing to tolerate the tradeoffs and downsides of “choice” and “freedom”; it appears as though women are attempting to have it both ways.
Thats the impression one gets from my vantage point. It is entirely possible that i could be wrong.
O.
EA, shhhushhhhh. The group’s consensus is that you are lowering the level of discourse. Put your head on your desk, close your eyes and relax.
Here’s a virtual graham cracker.
Nice to have a post that tells anybody who wonders in; Why HUS exists and why it is needed.
“No, you’re not mad, you’ve just been lied to about how people are and what they want. The truth is here”
St JustYX: Why HUS exists and why it is needed.
“No, you’re not mad, you’ve just been lied to about how people are and what they want. The truth is here”
Shorter, if harsher, version: “Where pretty lies perish”. (Now, where did I read that?)
@J
Don’t forget that Apatow is the producer of Girls! I give him a ton of credit for sponsoring Lena Dunham, but I thought the episode he wrote (about her trip back to Michigan) was weak.
No, it was from National Geographic. It was a practice among the young men of the tribe to stimulate the cows this way in order to increase milk production, as I recall.
As I said, it was left in the mail folder of a guy who was a shameless brown noser in every class. As in, “That’s a lovely dress you have on, Mrs. Cleaver.” Reportedly, he cried when he found it.
J, you are hilarious.
@Esau
In a weird way, I think Roissy and I have a certain ying and yang complementarity.
@J
“I once saw Mann and Apatow interviewed. He went on and on about how lucky he was to have her, and she basically agreed.”
Hahaha. He made his own bed there as far as I’m concerned. Consider this tidbit:
“Apatow semi-famously stole one of those moments from his own life, last night recalling the time he was forced to deal with his wife Mann throwing him out of their car on the way to a gynecological appointment.
‘I don’t remember what the fight was about,’ he said. ‘She kicked me out, which is a very difficult moment because you don’t know what to do.’”
There’s always something weird about marriages with a high SMV-imbalance IMHO. I do get an off-putting vibe from him, but I did finally watch the first seven episodes of “Girls” and once I got over how much the characters annoyed me, I was impressed with Lena’s clever writing and she’s had only glowing things to say about him as a boss and as a person.
@Obsidian
You’re right, even shyer women don’t want to live in a culture where their education and work opportunities are severely limited and their only option for any kind of financial security in life revolve around marriage. Before you try to advocate for it, spend some time living in a country and culture that does operate that way, and then get back to us.
@Esau, nice one, appropriate
@Gudenuf
Those wall st women even with such a great ratio in their favor have basically the same pb as the very attractive women. If the milieu is so promiscuous, people will therefore look outside for life partners; after you’ve heard of who is sleeping with whom, where and how, you might not want to dip in that pool, you know too much of their sexual history already. Then you also have the fact that from what I gathered, these Wall Streeters work crazy hours which in itself is incompatible with family life and even moreso for women. If were a woman in that environment, I’d actually marry some one equally achieved but with more regular hours (like an univ prof, or even a doctor) so he can take a bigger part in childcare. I remember an episode of Sex and the city where Miranda was telling her boss at the law firm that she wanted to reduce her hours to 50hrs a week because of her baby (?!?!?) I wondered how many hours she was working at that firm.
@Susan:
Yin and yang, yes.
And you do!
I wouldn’t go as far as to say Roissy saved my life when I found that blog, but it did save my sanity, and helped me go from a hopeless White Knight to a vengeful Dark Knight. Though I’ve sunk a bit too deep into the dark than what I think is good for me, so I read HUS as well, hoping to find a good balance.
As far as I’m concerned, your two blogs really do complement each other quite nicely. Both deliver the truth, but from two different sides.
@Mireille
When I was a mgmt. consultant, I worked over 100 hours a week, including travel time (I obvs did not bill nearly that much). I did that, in fact, right up to delivering my first child – under pressure from my firm I lied to the airlines about how far along I was so that I could keep flying for a big project. After I had my son, there was no way to reduce my hours materially, so I went freelance and worked as a subcontractor 3 days/week. Even that amounted to about 40 hours.
BTW, nearly all the professional women, and all of the partners, were childless, and most were unmarried. It’s a serious life choice.
@Susan
Lucky that by running this blog you’ve discovered the easy, low hour, low emotional investment lifestyle then
*runs for the hills*
@JustYX
Haha, yes! At only a fraction of my previous pay!
Haha, yes! At only a fraction of my previous pay!
You work less and you get paid less? Color me surprised
Maybe this would be a good post for the future and for young women reading this thinking on getting that kind of jobs. The pros and cons coming from someone that had been on both sides might be a good “This is your future” kind of insight. Just a though.
@Hope
“It would be interesting to contrast these type-A women with the rising entrepreneurial stars in Asia. From what I can gather, the top Asian businesswomen tend to remain rather asexual and go for designer fashion, high-end luxuries, expensive vehicles and other material goods.”
That’s how I am/would be, except I’m black and not Asian. I’d also rather make my own clothes because I don’t like what they have in the shops.
@Abbot
I wish I had a witty response to your radio commercial, but I have none. It’s just too funny.
@JP
“The problem for the upper classes is hearing the sound of distant tumbrels and missing the point of what is happening.”
I’m an okay knitter. SEE WHAT I DID THAR~
@Ramble
“There is a reason why things like food and “culture” are a bastion of the left and things like sports and hunting are a bastion of the right.”
Ok, but what if you like both?
@Courtley
“You’re right, even shyer women don’t want to live in a culture where their education and work opportunities are severely limited and their only option for any kind of financial security in life revolve around marriage.”
And HOW.
BTW, nearly all the professional women, and all of the partners, were childless, and most were unmarried. It’s a serious life choice.
I guess you can’t have it all
Seems to me this is the biggest lie perpetrated on women that they can simultaneously have a family and be good mothers and also achieve the highest levels of career and professional success.
The truth though is everyone faces similar choices. Men face choices as well about what they want to prioritize. I’ll never reach the levels of upper management, but that is because I’ve decided certain lifestyle issues are more important to my personal contentment. I’ve found many people spend their lives chasing something they were told they should chase without ever really thinking about what they would feel like once they actually got it.
I wouldn’t go as far as to say Roissy saved my life when I found that blog, but it did save my sanity, and helped me go from a hopeless White Knight to a vengeful Dark Knight. Though I’ve sunk a bit too deep into the dark than what I think is good for me, so I read HUS as well, hoping to find a good balance.
Yup. One of the things that many women just can’t seem to grok is that many of the “male advocacy” blogs they find highly objectionable have in fact “saved” many men. At the risk of hyperbole, in some cases I think it literally means their lives if you are talking about someone who was suicidal. I know this because I read the comments.
I think finding a good balance is key, and even within that balance I think reasonable people can disagree about particulars.
You can’t have it all goes for both men and women and we see this time and again with husbands in high stress careers like surgeons who miss out on seeing their kids grow up and who are at a high risk for divorce or getting cheated on because of all the time they spend away from home and family. There are trade offs everywhere in life. If spending a lot of quality time with your family is a priority for a man then he needs to choose a corresponding career track.
@ஆம்
Plain Jane, Really?
@Mike C
I think that’s huge, or as Jim Cramer would say, UUUUGE! lol I added that last part, whether THEY themselves really want it or are just listening to those voices, imaginary or real, telling them what they need to be to be successful or good enough.
I worked in a top consulting firm for a while and most of the people seemed so stressed and miserable, though of course putting on the happy face when anyone who would be evaluating them was looking.
I’m a strong believer in figuring out what you really want and going for that. Now if that is to be really ambitious and achieve high levels of success at the expense of other things then more power to you but if it’s just to satisfy the echo of ego in your head then no.
ps Typing blockquote makes me think of quote blocks and cock blocks.
I just read this moments ago, and I just had to post this right away….this is for you Courtley and Susan and I wanted to post this really given the trajectory and direction of many recent discussions…
http://marriedmansexlife.com/2012/08/i-see-alpha-beta-everywhere/
I See Alpha / Beta Everywhere
After reading your blog I could see every mistake I’ve made in our relationship, and why being nicer to her didn’t make her respond the way I thought it would. Why giving her flowers when she was cranky with me only made her crankier (too much Beta). Why helping more around the house didn’t lead to her feeling more amorous (although she did appreciate it). With just some slight nudges using game (adding more Alpha) our relationship is getting better. Within the first 24 hours my wife had asked me to sit on the sofa next to her to cuddle, sought me out for a kiss, and told me she loves me: things that she almost never does. Every time I think I’m wasting my time following the advice on MMSL, she turns around and responds in a way that you’ve predicted.
I’ve been reading everything I could about game and have even begun (secretly) to read my wife’s romance novels. Do yourself a favor: If your wife reads romance novels then read some of them yourself. They’re textbook examples of what women want (it seems so obvious now). If she reads very many, it’s likely you’ll be able to discern the type of man that turns her on.
It might just be confirmation bias, but now that I see the whole Alpha/Beta theory written out, I see it everywhere.
The latest example that I’ve run across of the Alpha/Beta theory was when my teenage daughter had a slumber party recently, and my wife (who is unaware of Game concepts) overheard the girls talking about the boys in their school. What struck me about the conversation that she relayed to me was that the girls were categorizing the boys into two groups: “Hot & Mean” and “Not-hot & Nice.” There couldn’t be a better example of the Alpha/Beta theory, as interpreted by 13 year old girls. My eyes are open.
Athol: Thanks. I think it’s interesting to see how the 13-year-old girls react to what attracts them. At 13 they simply have no awareness of what would make a good long term partner, so they don’t consider Beta Traits in a boy at all. All they react to is the pure Alpha display of the boys.
OK. 3 points
1. For the most part, most men are still too beta and need to “alpha” up. Concerns about legions of alpha asshat douchebags are like worrying about the bogeyman in your closet.
2. Stuff like this is just one more example that trying to sell women on beta men isn’t really going to work. Try telling those 13-year olds to go for the “Not-not and nice”. For most women, a guy is going to have to bring at least some amount of “alpha” although I would agree that for many women that amount might be minimal
3. I think it is important for men who regularly read here to understand that many of the female commenters especially the most active really are anomalies. There is nothing negative about that, but they represent a minority. For guys who need to alpha up just a bit and maybe hit the gym, it makes more sense to do that then hope to find one of the anomalies in real life.
Mike C…”I’ve found many people spend their lives chasing something they were told they should chase without ever really thinking about what they would feel like once they actually got it [or whether THEY themselves really want it].”
C S Lewis, in The Screwtape Letters, had his senior devil say that one of his greatest satisfactions occurs when a human, on his arrival into Hell, says “I now see that I spent my life doing NEITHER what I wanted nor what I should.” (approximate quote)
imaginary or real, telling them what they need to be to be successful or good enough.
Often, that voice is the voice of their parents and parents expectations. Susan recently remarked at the in her thirties (I think) she was worried about disappointing her Dad by telling him she was going to be a stay at home Mom.
I worked in a top consulting firm for a while and most of the people seemed so stressed and miserable, though of course putting on the happy face when anyone who would be evaluating them was looking.
+1,000,000. I was a super high achiever all of my young life from grade school through getting my MBA. My Mom emphasized this greatly, and honestly I wouldn’t change it. Overall, the stress she put on academic achievement was a good thing.
But then I hit a rough path…a perfect storm of negative circumstances so to speak, and at the age of 31, I found myself unemployed, living with my parents, and then I started a job as a bouncer. And you know what, that year I spent bouncing I was happy as a pig in shit. I went to a job where I made $10 a hour, hung out with cool guys, talked to girls, got to work out 6 days a week, was the healthiest I ever was. It wasn’t sustainable as a permanent lifestyle but God damn I was happy. It caused me to reevaluate everything I thought about my “life purpose”. Was my purpose simply to keep “achieving”? I realized that was bullshit. It was what someone else wanted…to be able to point to me as a source of pride and say “I produced that”. It was great to unshackle those expectations and throw them in the trash.
@Anacaona
I was thinking about that when I wrote this post. I was like those women in business school. My first year I would have said that I was not focused on marriage and might never have kids. I was all about my career. Even if I didn’t totally believe that, I would have said it. It’s only by chance that I took a different path in life. Many of my fellow female classmates have had great careers but no family. Quite a few have also done what I did – prioritize family over career at some point.
” I went to a job where I made $10 a hour, hung out with cool guys, talked to girls, got to work out 6 days a week, was the healthiest I ever was. It wasn’t sustainable as a permanent lifestyle but God damn I was happy. ”
What wasn’t sustainable about it?
@Mike C
I agree, and it’s reflected in how much less happy my generation of women is compared to previous generations. (Men, on the other hand, have stayed about the same.) You know, it wasn’t only a carrot – you can have it all! It was also a stick – you’d better achieve a lot, you’re being given opportunities your mother never had, etc. These college women who are so achievement oriented have been raised with these priorities. I have always felt sheepish and guilty for stepping off the fast track.
True enough. My husband left a job when the company moved an hour away. He didn’t want to add that commuting time to his workday, which would have meant he didn’t see the kids much on weeknights.
@Mike C
I kind of had a similar path of high academic achievement and didn’t take as much time as I now wish I had to enjoy life along the way.
Over the last while I’ve been travelling a lot, learning Portuguese, reading, doing some serious astronomy, hiking and really enjoying life. lol Even though I like to bitch about the long hours of my former job it was a cool job and did allow me the savings to do what I’m doing now. But, yeah, not yet a sustainable lifestyle for me. My sabbatical is about coming to an end.
It raises some interesting points about narratives and life choices. I find it interesting that I have little desire to go back to a high-hours kind of job as a single man but ironically if I were married with kids (something I want someday) that I would do that sacrifice willingly if that made the most sense in that situation because there would be someone to do it for, although I would prefer a lower-hours job to have time with them. I think most decent men do respond to being needed and that the decrease of feeling needed (getting married later, in part due to women delaying it, and the message that women don’t need men) greatly contributes to the “aimless” young men syndrome. This new narrative is affecting young men. It’s also affecting women in the many ways discussed here of convincing them to postpone marriage and children until their 30′s because they have to work, travel, experience different men. And then some realize that wasn’t what they really wanted. A shame that some of the pretty lies perish too late.
@Mike C
Agreed. And most will not become alpha asshat douchebags. However, some will abandon all character and become full-blown cads. They probably always had the potential, and Game was just the key that opened the lock. But I will continue to shame their behavior and warn women about wasting their time with bad men.
Interesting, I’d be curious to know what the daughter of this man thought of her parents’ marriage. It sounds like she is definitely going to be in the 20%. In any case, this revelation is nothing new – in every teen drama, there is a very bad boy who does well with women, e.g. Chuck Bass in Gossip Girl. 13 year olds chatting at a slumber party are gossiping, fantasizing, and impressing one another. It doesn’t mean they will seek a “hot and mean” husband in 15 years. As for the Dad, that’s hardly surprising either. He thought doing housework would make his wife horny for him? Oy. To be honest, a lot of the men who write in to Athol seem to have no sense of what constitutes sexually attractive behavior. My guess is they never did – the fact that they were able to attract a wife at all is surprising. The fact that she’s a regular reader of romance novels makes it clear – this woman was starving for masculine behavior.
If you are correct, shouldn’t we see more women having sex with asshats in college?
Miss Walsh.
I enjoyed reading this article.
@Susan
2 Things:
1) Thanks for your blog, both the posts themselves and the great environment to discuss highly meaningful topics and get a wide variety of perspectives.
2) No need to feel sheepish or guilty. I think you made the right choice and that you wouldn’t trade your kids or husband for whatever career achievements you might have had. I think that at heart you feel this way so be proud of your decision and don’t let the naysayers, both real and those in your head, get to you. Sending a cyber-hug your way (not sure if you want one–lol–but at least know that it’s sent with the best of intentions).
Highly related to this and Mike C’s comments, this article about the five regrets of the dying is highly relevant to what are priorities perhaps should be.
http://beyondtheopposites.com/2011/11/22/top-five-regrets-of-the-dying/
@Susan
At some point your blog will grow to the point where you can write a book or do other things. It is not implausible (especially if you really get ambitious about getting your message out) that you’ll end up having a much more positive effect on society than if you had stayed on the fast track.
@Susan
You did what you felt was best, you regret nothing and are happy. If anybody wants to hate on you, to heck with them.
Over the last while I’ve been travelling a lot, learning Portuguese, reading, doing some serious astronomy, hiking and really enjoying life. lol Even though I like to bitch about the long hours of my former job it was a cool job and did allow me the savings to do what I’m doing now. But, yeah, not yet a sustainable lifestyle for me. My sabbatical is about coming to an end.
What you are describing above is one of the main reasons one of my major life goals is to achieve financial independence at a young age. I want to spend my time doing the sorts of vocational things you describe instead of slaving away in a cubicle until I can start collecting Social Security at 67. You might find this book interesting:
http://www.amazon.com/Your-Money-Life-Transforming-Relationship/dp/0140286780
It raises some interesting points about narratives and life choices. I find it interesting ***that I have little desire to go back to a high-hours kind of job as a single man**** but ironically if I were married with kids (something I want someday) that I would do that sacrifice willingly if that made the most sense in that situation because there would be someone to do it for, although I would prefer a lower-hours job to have time with them.
For me, what you are describing here was the key variable in deciding not to have children. I wrestled with this deeply since it is arguably the most important decision I don’t get a second chance at. I would ask myself how will I feel about this at 70. Will I deeply regret it? Ultimately, I decided I had to live my life based on what I know I want now rather then the hypothetical 70-year old, and even now I recognize I might regret it. But make no mistake, having children brings a set of responsibilities and risks that a man without children doesn’t have to worry about. I want to be clear I am not advocating for any particular choice, just describing my own circumstances. I have to admit I find it surprising when some people talk about their kids leaving and “getting their life back”.
Either way, I think it is key to not buy into the materialistic expectations that you have to have a certain house in a certain neighborhood to be considered a “success”.
I think most decent men do respond to being needed and that the decrease of feeling needed (getting married later, in part due to women delaying it, and the message that women don’t need men) greatly contributes to the “aimless” young men syndrome. This new narrative is affecting young men. It’s also affecting women in the many ways discussed here of convincing them to postpone marriage and children until their 30′s because they have to work, travel, experience different men. And then some realize that wasn’t what they really wanted. A shame that some of the pretty lies perish too late.
Perfectly said.
@HanSolo
Thank you so much for the kind words and vote of confidence!
Han,
That is a ***PHENONEMAL*** list. I need to do better with staying in touch with old friends.
I want to highlight this one:
2.***I wish I didn’t work so hard***
This came from every male patient that I nursed. They missed their children’s youth and their partner’s companionship.
The U.S. was founded on the “Protestant hard work ethic”. I think this one is the biggest crock of shit there is. Now mind you, that doesn’t mean being a lazy sloth. But here in the U.S. this is elevated to such a crazy degree. Who is first in the office in the morning, who is last to leave, who works the most hours. It is just nuts.
@Mike C
Thanks for the book recommendation. It looks like a great blend of putting a value on your time and desired pursuits, upping your income and cutting out unneeded expenses, all in the pursuit of achieving what you really want.
I agree that the excessive materialism and the gilded-cage jobs required to maintain that are messed up. I mean, who the fuck cares about keeping up with the Joneses? Just keep up with your own dreams.
As for the kids thing, I’m just such a nurturer and have a lot of love that I totally want kids. To the point of seeing cute babies and thinking I want one! lol As to the effort and expense, I’m more on the free-range side and think helicopter parents are insane–my sister’s a bit too much of a hoverer to be honest. Part of it’s that I’m the youngest of 6 and so by the time I came along my parents were so worn down and knew that most things won’t kill you so they said, “Do whatever you want. Just don’t do something stupid or dangerous.” I remember my friends when I was 5 and 6 weren’t allowed to cross the street w/o an adult while I was riding my bike around town, visiting far-off, exotic candy stores, buying sweet cereal and 2% milk at the grocery store and generally having a grand old time (we had skim powdered milk and not-sweet cereal). The notion of having to pay for kids’ college is foreign to me too since my parents didn’t pay for mine. I was lucky though with scholarships and worked to support myself. I plan on passing on my genes, independence-at-18 and somewhat frugal outlook to my children.
As to your decision not to have kids, it kind of sounds like you’re torn but it’s true you usually can’t have your cake and eat it too so if you’re at peace with not having any then great. Not my place to tell you what to do but since it seems like there still is a nagging regret in what you say I would just say to really think it through before permanently deciding against it.
And I enjoy your comments on here.
#142 -Mike C.
I agree with you. To heck with the cube farm, I want to see things and have adventures.
Plus there are things kids need that I don’t have and therefore can’t give them.
@Mike C
I think balance is key and too many jobs, especially the high-flyer type, are way out of balance. Having lived in Mexico, Brazil and elsewhere really showed me that our expectations in wealthier countries are kind of whacked. A kind of hypergamy of materialism where we want more, more, more. In Brazil, due to taxes, cars are at least 2x more than in the US. Combined with lower incomes most people drive small economy cars. It’s almost like any new mid-sized car here would be much nicer than what’s typical there.
@Mike C And I know you’ve given a lot of thought to the issue of having kids so I wasn’t trying to imply you hadn’t.
After high school I worked on a Caribbean cruise ship, saved up some money while seeing part of the world and after 2 years of that took off for a long hike through the Amazon. Returned to the States, signed up to work on a Mediterranean liner, and cruised around the Croatian Isles, Greece and Malta. After that I stayed on in Croatia working in a cafe and from there traveled across Europe and made my way into Central and East Asia. I learned more during those 6 years than I ever would have in any American University.
Along the way I met my would be spouse and settled down in a charming village and lived a slow and content life for a while until both of us got the itch to globe trot again.
No, it was from National Geographic. It was a practice among the young men of the tribe to stimulate the cows this way in order to increase milk production, as I recall.
Huh? That’s interesting. I made a similar argument to DH when I was breastfeeding. Think I should tell him I weaned the boys?
J, you are hilarious.
Thanks. I blame Ted and his contagious good mood.
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