I just found this article on The Washington Times Economy of sex: It’s cheap these days. It confirms much of what we have been discussing here. For example, not long ago I speculated that women delaying marriage past their most marriageable years could shift the marriage market power from women to men:
Although plenty of women dabble in sexual-market relationships and then settle down successfully with life partners, he said, many women are “not witnessing marriage happening on the timetables they prefer and expected.”
This is because, as economist Timothy Reickert has found, power shifts away from women as they move toward their 30s, Mr. Regnerus said.
The article also points out that women would benefit from a Sex Cartel as they did before traditional conservative women took the feminist bait and started worrying about the double standard instead of female chastity:
“When women collude to restrict men’s sexual access to women, all women tend to benefit,”…
However, he said, “none of these things are occurring today. Not one. The price of sex is pretty low.”
It turns out you can focus on making sure hookups are fair, or you can look out for marriage minded young women (but you can’t do both). Sorry marriage minded virgins, traditional conservative women have other priorities. Maybe you could try your hand at hookups instead?
Since the authors labor under some very outdated paradigms, they tend to misinterpret what is going on. I found this bit amusing:
Say a young man wants to get to know his girlfriend of two months “more,” he said. If she says no, “then this tells the man, ‘The price is higher than you think.’ And he will have to figure out how high the price is: Does she need more time, more commitment?”
Sex after being a girlfriend for two months? Women wanting commitment? Tell that to the fine ladies at Date Me DC! They are still trying to figure out how to get a guy to call her his girlfriend after two months of sex. But at least we did away with that insufferable double standard, and women are no longer trapped in commitment.
They also misunderstand why women’s sexual power is high in their twenties and declines as they age into (and past) their 30s. They think this is solely due to a change in the numbers of men and women in the market:
The sexual market generally has more men than women in it, and rules of supply and demand operate, with the rarer sex wielding more power, Mr. Regnerus said.
If the authors hadn’t fallen asleep during Douchebag Math 101 they would understand that attractive women actually far outnumber attractive men when both are in their teens and 20s. So they are right for the wrong reason. Women in their 20s still have the power because they are in their peak years of attractiveness and can pick from attractive men of all ages.
if women were more in charge of how their romantic relationships transpired … we would be seeing greater male investment in relationships, more impressive wooing efforts, fewer hookups, fewer premarital sexual partners
But that isn’t what women want. If there were greater male investment, there would be more monogamy, less soft polygamy. And women in the middle tiers of attractiveness would lose access to the men they desire most. For the female 7, the choice is a relationship with a 7 versus a casual arrangement with an 8 or 9. And outside religious contexts, many women are content never being the one and only. They deny it, and would *like* to be #1, but when push comes to shove, most won’t lower their standards.
The problem with these commentators is that they listen to women gripe about men. But these men of whom they whine are a fraction of the full population of age appropriate men. The sexual strategies of men and women are not static; they are in part borne of the prevailing circumstances. Women do not always desire monogamous relationships.
When they can get it they don’t want it, and when they want it they can’t get it any more. That is, a quality mate for marriage. At the peak of their value, and some time past it, there is no convincing them that the years of plenty are short in number, their conclusion imminent; without proper provisioning, years of famine loom ahead.
The feminist movement has been so cruel and detrimental to women’s happiness that I no longer believe it was a movement with the best interests of females in mind. I see it as yet another disruptive attempt by the hostile elites to lead the United States into chaos and disharmony.
I think second-wave feminisms intent was to free women from the need to marry and in so doing actually cost many women the opportunity to marry.
You keep implying that I and other traditionalist women are in favor of hook-up culture. To say that people should not practice deception in hook-up culture is not the same thing as saying that I actually approve of it or would encourage anyone I care about to engage in it.
I fully plan on marrying my 2 girls off to a Duggar boy when they are about 17..
I also find it interesting that you seem to be implying that traditionalist women have some kind of power over the sexual market that they are refusing to use. If I could wave my magic wand and make raunch and hook-up culture disappear I would do so.
Middle-aged happily married women are not respected by younger women. For instance- I got in trouble at Sophias for simply stating that I thought the boots she requested an opinion on “sent the wrong message”. She basically replied that I was trying to encourage her to be less attractive to the opposite sex because of jealousy. When I linked to an article to Susan Walsh she said that middle-aged women giving younger women advice was stupid.
I have a 20 year old cousin who is wracking up the partner-count and ruining her SMV by her hard partying. I have given her an enormous amount of advice that she tells me she doesn’t want to hear because again…she assumes I am some jealous old-bitty.
I will *hopefully* have more influence over my own daughters than I have over extended family or the general population of young women but the idea that traditional women giving advice to younger women has *any* affect is just laughable to me. It is usually just an invitation to be called old and boring.
I have basically retired from giving advice to young women (other than my daughters) and I do think these women are acting unwisely…BUT that doesn’t mean I think the onus is *completely* on women to try and change the hook-up culture. I don’t buy into this idea that men have free-pass to be crazed hornballs and women should be paragons of virtue. That just isn’t going to work. The women are just as horny as the men and even when they have the best intentions they are going to succumb to temptation. Even the 50’s had an extremely high unwed pregnancy rate and that was at time when hooking-up was actively discourage and shamed by the culture.
The way I see it the only thing that is going to end hook-up culture is by completely changing how we all do business. We need to put an end to co-ed schools, teen dating, and allowing teenagers to spend much of any time unchaperoned. Teen brains are not wired to have self-control and forethought so sitting around and waiting for young women to learn to keep their legs closed is going to be a long wait…no matter how much traditionalist women shame them.
If we structure society in such a way that boys and girls are not thrown together willy-nilly and expected to navigate their hormonal storms by themselves then we can protect them during the time when their self-control is at its weakest and in so doing have a psychological impact on how they perceive themselves and gender relations.
If we do nothing to change the structure but just keep handing out advice we will not see a change.
Am I the only one who gets angry when a man tells women how to enslave men sexually? Imagine a US infantryman taking a jaunt over to some Iraqi stronghold and saying, “Why, nice to meet you, Mr. Towelhead. I just thought you might like to know that if you exploit this weakness in our defense, you will annihilate our entire base camp. Aren’t I a nice American? Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to head back and pretend I’m on the side of my own country. Happy hunting!”
That’s an interesting phenomenon Paige, especially contrasted with the fact that uncoupled women appear to be deeply jealous of coupled women their own age at many ages.
@Paige
The way I see it the only thing that is going to end hook-up culture is by completely changing how we all do business. We need to put an end to co-ed schools, teen dating, and allowing teenagers to spend much of any time unchaperoned. Teen brains are not wired to have self-control and forethought so sitting around and waiting for young women to learn to keep their legs closed is going to be a long wait…no matter how much traditionalist women shame them.
Can you cite a source showing that teen brain structure has changed in the last 40 years? Schools were coed when my mother (now 70) went to school. Something else must have prevented rampant promiscuity amongst girls then.
Hint: It involves the mean old double standard.
Basil Ransom–
I think a lot of girls could be convinced if they got this message, but this isn’t the message the heavily feminism suffused media is giving girls. It’s also not what many of them want to hear, bu that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t hear if it was said consistently to them, but it isn’t.
Girls are at their most attractive as marriage candidates in our culture when they’re around 24-5. That when they should be getting into a LTR with a guy who’s both good mate/dad material, looks headed towards being a good provider if that’s what she wants, and also gives her gina tingles. However most guys her own age who are gina tinglers even if they aren’t real playas aren’t ready to settle down once and for all and head into marriage. So she needs to expand her concept of what’s age appropriate husband material to guys 7 to 10 years older. They also have the advantage of having proven themselves more in the world, or not.
I.e. girls just need to chuck the messages of even feminism lite (as generally promulgated in the entertainment media) more or less altogether.
The teen-sex rate was not non-existent 50 years ago (when your mother was 20). The significant difference is that women more often got married if they got pregnant so the out-of-wedlock birth rate was low. This arrangement also didn’t lead to happy marriages and one could question whether it may have influenced the rise of second-wave feminism.
The double-standard wasn’t the only thing that was different back then either. Religion was a stronger cultural influence on both men and women. Divorce was less common meaning more teen girls had involved fathers which has been proven to significantly impact their willingness to engage in high-risk behavior. Now you have raunch culture all over the TV and radio and school nurses handing out condoms.
Here is a chart that shows the teen birth rate going back to the 40’s.
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db58.pdf
I think this statistic suggests that even in conservative cultures women were not the paragons of virtue they were expected to be. While teen sex was less common than now it was still a significant problem in society.
When my mother was in high school, a 15 year old girl having sex with a guy on the football team would have been considered a slut. Now you (and other traditional conservative women) see her as a victim if the football player doesn’t follow up with an offer for a relationship after the casual sex.
When looking at the results, which system was really kind and which is really cruel is apparent to all who are willing to see.
The bottom line is that women restrict access to sex to gain access to male economic resources. The degree of restriction to female sexuality correlates with the degree to which males hold a monopoly on economic resources.
The trouble with asserting that “women have the power to influence sexual norms were they to use it” ignores the fact that there is a large opportunity cost to women to restrict access to sex. Namely, they want sex too, and if they restrict access, they don’t get it either. Sex is cheap today because males no longer have a monopoly over economic resources, so it is less profitable for females to restrict sex.
An excellent discussion of the origin of the female sexual cartel can be found in this paper, entitled “Cultural Suppression of Female Sexuality” by Baumeister and Twenge.
http://www.femininebeauty.info/suppression.pdf
“Four theories about cultural suppression of female sexuality are evaluated. Data are reviewed on cross-cultural differences in power and sex ratios, reactions to the sexual revolution, direct restraining influences on adolescent and adult female sexuality, double standard patterns of sexual morality, female genital surgery, legal and religious restrictions on sex, prostitution and pornography, and sexual deception. The view that men suppress female sexuality received hardly any support and is flatly contradicted by some findings. Instead, the evidence favors the view that women have worked to stifle
each other’s sexuality because sex is a limited resource that women use to negotiate with men, and scarcity gives women an advantage.”
[D: Yes. The sexual revolution broke the sex cartel. Feminists backed the revolution because they don’t (generally) value marriage and chafed at any restrictions on women. Traditional conservative women implicitly backed it because the were outraged at the double standard. They in effect decided to cease shaming female promiscuity until promiscuous men were equally shamed, which means never.]
Paige—
No, most girls in their teens and twenties aren’t nearly as horny as guys are at that age, particularly if girls aren’t having a lot of sex. Of course it varies among girls but so too does it among guys. Cute and hot girls are often or usually rather “drunk” and reveling in their attractiveness and power over men of all ages in their teens and early twenties though. Most women are at their horniest in their thirties (though not while nursing infants) and sometimes extending into their forties. So yes it easier for girls to restrain themselves, as societies have always known, before massive feminist lying about nearly everything they promulgate.
As for the free pass business, it’s girls having casual sex who are hurting their future marriage market prospects, not the guys who are able to do it to one degree or another (alphas, lesser alphas a some borderline greater betas). They’ll be thought more studs than sluts by the great majority of girls, so long as the guys don’t do it with mud turtles but only with cute and hot girls. Far more girls than guys are prepared to believe that guys can settle down and stay committed if they decide they want to. Also whether a guy has scored a lot in his teens and twenties or not, he’s still gonna be made tempted by other hot women a few years into marriage.
Girls that don’t want to take any risk of being a fling can date accordingly. They probably need to date guys their own sex rank, rather than a higher one however, and or a guy a good lot older. Like ten years older. That’s the strategy that makes sense to me, for both her and him. A lot of non super player alphas and lesser alphas in their mid thirties are ready to settle down by then and begin to start a family. A lot younger girl will be more likely to have a lot less mileage on her and be at her attractiveness peak.
Actually, no they didn’t. IIRC it was in the area of 3-5% among whites in the fifties, with most of those given up for adoption, and around 22% for blacks. Now it’s around 28% for whites and 71% for blacks. This was a time when the only birth control was condoms and they often weren’t so easy to obtain and considered very shameful and associated with seeing hookers by much of the population.
Yes, the teenage girl was unwise and foolish and to some an extent the victim of her normal sexual impulses and a lack of parental supervision. Shaming teenage girls for succumbing to sexual impulse strikes me as stupid. It is parents responsibility to see that teen girls (and boys) are not in over their head. Even when we called 15 year old girls a slut they still acted stupidly…because they were teenagers and that is what teenagers do.
[D: Exactly. As I said, trad con women have more important priorities. So now we have hookup culture and marriage minded virgins are underbid by a flood of female promiscuity.]
Paige–
It strikes me as very effective, when it’s done not just by one corner of society.
A lot fewer teenagers were having sex in the 50s. (Btw, there was supposedly a spike upward in teenage sex during WWII in this country.) Lower teenage pregnancies now has to do with much more available and reliable birth control.
Just because YOU are interested in a 17 year olds well-being doesn’t mean many 30 year old women are. Many 30 year old women have done everything in their power to prevent a 25 year old man from dating a 17 year old girl. Despite the fact that a 20 year old man has a fairly low chance of being ready for commitment while a 25 year old man may very well be ready(or not, but it is a reasonable possibility).
More than enough older women HATE HATE HATE younger pretty girls they are forced to work with.. There was an article on Sibling of Daedalus about a female boss who made her life extremely unpleasant.
My cousin has to deal with older women at work who HATE HATE HATE her. Why? She is competition they can’t beat….. this though she already has a steady boyfriend. And only two boyfriends total at like 21. But they still attack her.
If you think your lone voice negates the chorus of screaming attack harpies…. well… you are basically telling the pretty young girl to do what the older attack harpies want, right? To stop competing with them. For different reasons, but the message is identical. What is the young woman supposed to think?
NOTE:
Isn’t that what Sofia accused you of? Trying to eliminate her from competition?
You are completely underestimating the power of teenage hormones. When I had my first sexual experiences I wasn’t thinking “What would my parents think?” I was thinking “OMG THIS FEELS SO GOOD”. Its like a drug high. I could care less *at the time* if anyone thought I was a slut. It might have upset me later but at the time I wasn’t thinking of any of the consequences.
[D: But wait, I thought you said teen age girls only have sex because they expect love in return. Now you are suggesting they have casual sex because they like it, not because some mean boy tricked them into it.]
The best bet for keeping teens from having sex is good monitoring. Anything less is asking for trouble. There is a reason the Our Father says “Lead me not into temptation”….once you go so far it is nearly impossible to resist going all the way.
And I don’t have “other priorities” or whatever the heck that means. I care quite a bit about this issue….I just completely disagree that your proposed solution is actually effective.
Just a tangential thought that occurred while reading this thread. Don’t know if it goes anywhere, but it seems to me there’s another angle to the virgin girl seeking marriage: men have absolutely no incentive to trust it, even beyond the cheapening of sex. The raw statistical approach makes the claim subject to doubt anyway, moreso as time goes by. And in the event that a man does highly value a virgin bride and later realizes he was deceived, I can’t imagine him having much of a legal recourse. Can you just imagine the response from the womenfolk when such a case hit the news…
So yeah – even if an individual man were immune to the supply of commitment-free sex, there’s still an awful lot of obstacles to make it worth perusing the chaste. At best, it’s a “bonus” – certainly not worth attaching any sort of heavy weight to it.
Most womens sexual pleasure is heavily intertwined with their emotions. If the relationship wasn’t one they wanted to last then the sexual impulse would not be as strong. What I am saying is that most teen girls don’t purposely engage in casual sex. They find out later by the actions of the guy that it was casual. Of course there are exceptions (rampantly promiscuous teen girls).
My approach to the teen sex/promiscuity issue is lowering the divorce rate so that more teen girls have active fathers who are inclined to put strict limits on their child’s behavior. Single mothers don’t have the time or the authoritative power to keep teen kids inline.
[D: Good idea. But if you want to reduce the divorce rate you will first have to reduce the prevalence of teen sex.]
I think that parents who think they can simply shame their daughter into being virtuous little angels without putting strict limits on them are likely to end up disappointed or with a teen girl who keeps a lot of secrets from them.
When my mother was in high school, a 15 year old girl having sex with a guy on the football team would have been considered a slut. Now you (and other traditional conservative women) see her as a victim if the football player doesn’t follow up with an offer for a relationship after the casual sex.
And when I was in high school– which was not too long ago– the same would have been thought of another 15 year old doing that. In fact, not only was she a slut, but she was specifically targeted by certain guys who knew what they could get from her. To top it off, these same girls would feed into that, so really most 15 year old girls who are promiscuous aren’t so because they are victims of their sexual impulses, or “preying,” or anything else. They prefer the attention to the lack of attention marriage-minded virgins do not receive. I imagine these days in high school, chastity is considered too high a price to pay in lieu of promiscuity, when really it should be the other way around. Teen girls have sex because they do expect love in return, and also because it feels good and that’s what they want. When it comes down to it, they’re exchanging chastity for promiscuity.
Personally, I can understand why in the past– and even now in many cultures– women were considered property. Having your daughter’s virginity tampered with is a high price to pay, in many ways.
Lia S. makes a good point. When I was in high school about 10 years ago the promiscuous girls were hated by the other girls and absolutely adored by the men. Even if they were ugly if word got out they were willing to have sex then men clamored to be with them. From the adult perspective it is easy to say that this kind of attention isn’t the kind a young woman should want…but it is rather intoxicating for the teenager.
Another reason I am hugely opposed to co-ed schools. Sending teens to spend all day with each other in a mixed-gender setting is a recipe for disaster.
Wow Paige are really something. Dalrock you have hit on another topic that when put into play explains so much about how we as a society find oursevles here. You are the bicycle every fish should have.
BTW sex is cheap and women seem to want to keep it that way (slutwalks) And marriage for the sake of sex or even to have a wife is way too high. (family law) The sad thing about all of this feminism has given women the mindset that any benefit a man has from a woman is bad. So women openly dump on men all of the time even there own husbands. So now the only reason to talk to a woman is for sex. That is all a woman has to offer. And marriage is way to high a price for something I can walk into a club at 10:30 PM and be getting from a woman I met there by 2 AM.
I also agree that a lot of women my age are stupid about teen sex and the dangers of promiscuity and there advice to young women tends to be very stupid.
I know women who let their teen daughters boyfriends sleep in their beds. If I found out my teen girl was having sex I would take away her car (if she had one), her phone, her internet, and anything else that would allow her access to the boy. If she still gave me trouble I’d send her away to one of those troubled youth camps. So long as i am financially responsible for my child I am not going to allow them to practice high-risk behavior.
I agree with Paige–we need to get parents supervising teens more. People think the important years are the preschool ones, so they have a parent home then, but then leave their teens to fend for themselves, and it’s dangerous.
But I don’t think things are as glum as you suggest–at least for certain subsets. I’m just finishing up research for a book I’m writing for Christian women on sex, and I did a survey of over 2000 women about sex. Of Christians, 40% were still virgins on their wedding night. But here’s what’s interesting–that number is not lower for those who were married in the last ten years than for those who were married thirty years ago. It’s roughly the same. So we seem to have stabilized, in a certain way. IF you belong to a church and IF you take it seriously, getting married and waiting until you’re married to have sex is still extremely possible (and that’s what I’m raising my girls to do). But that’s only because you’re surrounded by young men who agree with those values.
The problem is that those values really are almost only completely in the church today, so that to tell girls they should “wait until they’re married” when they don’t know any men who think the same way is basically like telling girls “you’ll never get married”. Without a religious reason to wait, I can’t see anybody waiting.
(Oh, and incidentally, those who did wait enjoy sex much more today than those who didn’t).
Part of this problem Paige, is that chastity isn’t taught by parents and also isn’t valued. Many parents don’t even expect their children to remain virgins at age 18. Without the expectation, how can it be taught?
Last time I checked the stats, with young women, half of them lose their virgnity before age 21. In other words, half of the young adult female population lower their SMV at an early age. The other half I believe, lose their virginity after 21 but that does not necessarily mean it occurs after marriage.
From the adult perspective it is easy to say that this kind of attention isn’t the kind a young woman should want…but it is rather intoxicating for the teenager.
Attention is attention, whether it’s negative or not. Attention is also equal to “love” when it comes to most teenage girls.
I’m wondering now– if victimization is no longer a feasible view to see this issue from, how does that change the perspective that many parents have, and that previous generations had, about guys “taking advantage” of young women? Is there such a thing anymore?
Even if slut shaming were in force to the same degree, effective contraception, women’s empowerment, and the anonymity of city living enables female promiscuity. Women want sex all the same, and the costs of having it have shrunk. Short of making people into prairie voles, how is monogamy to be maintained? You have to make up the difference somewhere. Expecting slut shaming to go beyond the levels of say, the 50’s, is a bit much.
Separating the sexes in youth is a possible solution. The threshold for sexual arousal and interest is much lower among people not usually exposed to it; a girl kept away from unrelated men for all of her youth will easily take interest in an average man. The schlubby nice guy can pique her interest, when she hasn’t been consorting with guys all her life. Without experience, she will be slow and hesitant in her actions.
How do you define a slut? The most lenient yet plausible one I could come up with is: a woman who has sex outside of exclusive monogamous relationships.
The problem is that those values really are almost only completely in the church today, so that to tell girls they should “wait until they’re married” when they don’t know any men who think the same way is basically like telling girls “you’ll never get married”.
Yes, this is what I was thinking of as well when I said that the cost of chastity is too high compared to promiscuity. We know that thinking “you’ll never get married” isn’t true by any means, if they aren’t surrounded by young men who believe in those same values. However, this once again goes back to the old-age double standard debate. Does it really matter, and should it matter, if young women are surrounded by men who share these beliefs? Why should that change someone else’s lack of resolve determine your own in the matter? In the end, I think we need to ask “why should it matter? why should you change?”
Dalrock, you said:
“D: Yes. The sexual revolution broke the sex cartel. ”
This is true. It is worth noting that women’s economic independence was a precursor to their sexual independence, as they no longer had to drive such a hard bargain in the sexual marketplace in exchange for economic support.
Since you are an erudite chap, here is another economic paper you might enjoy, entitled “Genes, Legitimacy and Hypergamy: Another Look at the Economics of Marriage”.
http://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp4456.html
The author argues that certain conditions must exist for traditional assortative marriage to exist (which the author terms the ‘Victorian’ model); economic inequality in society must not be too great, and sexual repression must exist to put a high price on out-of-wedlock childbearing. The absence of these conditions lead to the breakdown of assortative marriage due to female hypergamy (the ‘Sex In the City” model); high economic inequaltiy provides too much reward for hypergamy, as does a low penalty for out-of-wedlock child bearing.
The author notes that the conditions for the Victorian model correspond to a high degree of political power held by beta males, who are the biggest beneficiaries of this system. The biggest losers when the Victorian model breaks down into hypergamy are the low ranking beta males, who can’t get a woman, and the highest ranking females, who can’t monopolize the alpha males.
For those of us who value the traditional system of marriage, the news isn’t good. It appears a return to universal assortative marriage would take a reduction in economic inequality and a re-imposition of female sexual repression, which in turn would require a return to female economic dependency. I can’t imagine any condition short of a major social upheaval that would put this hypergamous genie back in her bottle.
[D: Thanks! I’ll check that out.]
There’s also the fact that any solution that requires society-wide parents in the plural to enforce is rather… stretching reality. Downward spiral.
@ Waveector
Actually…I could see the genie being put back in the bottle with the new trend towards social responsibility. It wouldn’t be traditionalist in flavor…but it might have similar results.
Look at the slow food, environmentalist, anti-consumerist, alternative-education, attachment parenting movements…they have led to the new breed of “radical homemakers” among middle-class whites. A “radical homemaker” is as financially dependent as a 50’s housewife. If the radical homemakers raise their children to be socially conscious non-consumerists homesteading homeschoolers then they are less likely to be carousel riding alpha-chasers.
[D: Not if they refuse to tell their daughters being promiscuous is wrong (in strong/judgmental terms). As you said, teenage girls don’t have a long time horizon. Asking them to hold out for a better future won’t generally work.]
@Paladin
Am I the only one who gets angry when a man tells women how to enslave men sexually?
Let’s look realistically what choices we have, as a society. We can have “free sex”, or we can have functioning families. I prefer the latter. I guess even many anti-marriage commenters are not against the idea of marriage per se, only sceptical about possibility of marriage in this culture. Less promiscuity means less sexual variety for men, sure, but also for women… so it’s only your choice to see it as “enslaving men sexually”. I am sure a feminist reader would see it as “enslaving women”. You cannot have less sluts without limiting sexual opportunities for alpha males; it’s connected.
@Paige
Middle-aged happily married women are not respected by younger women.
http://www.the-spearhead.com/2010/03/13/the-decline-of-the-matriarch/
Young women today are so empowered that nobody is allowed to tell them anything. Not even older women. Well… probably the conflict should not be between wise older women and young women, but rather between wise older women and feminists. If a woman attacks feminism, at least she cannot be immediately rebuffed as a “male chauvinist pig” or “patriarchal opressor”; she must be answered seriously. Only women can remove the appearance of legitimity from feminism. If you remain silent, feminists will convert your daughters at school, and you will not be able to stop it. Fight now, while you can.
Shaming teenage girls for succumbing to sexual impulse strikes me as stupid.
Is “succumbing to sexual impulse” right or wrong? Or to sound less judgemental, is it smart or stupid? If some action is wrong, it is OK to say that openly when someone does it. How else can you teach people what is right and wrong, if you are not allowed to “shame” anyone for making the wrong choice? Are you supposed to say something like — well, you shouldn’t do that, but if you do, it’s still OK — and expect people stop doing that?
He’s a bit all over the map, which is basically because he ignores hypergamy altogether.
On the one hand – “The sexual market generally has more men than women in it, and rules of supply and demand operate, with the rarer sex wielding more power, Mr. Regnerus said.”
On the other hand – “However, he said, ‘none of these things are occurring today. Not one. The price of sex is pretty low.’ ”
It’s tough to reconcile those two statements without factoring in hypergamy. Cost of sex is low . . . FOR THE FEW ALPHAS THEY ALL WANT.
@ Viliam Bur-
I see a significant difference between bluntly explaining the stupidity of an action and shaming…which is basically devaluing the person based on their actions (i.e. calling them names) which I don’t see as being as effective and has some very negative consequences. I also doubt whether it is compatible with Christian charity.
I will tell my sons and daughters that sex outside of marriage is extremely high risk. It can result in STDS or pregnancy and it can negatively affect ones ability to pair-bond. I will explain to my daughters that good men do not find promiscuous women attractive. I will explain to my sons that while some women find male promiscuity attractive the women who are the most marriage-worthy would be disgusted by it. I will also explain the hormonal benefits of exclusive pair-bonding for life with both secular and religious resources (ala Athol Kay and others).
What I will not do is show such an extreme double standard that I would call my daughter a slut and give my son a high-five for his studliness for engaging in the exact same behavior. Rather I would treat them equally- show that I am disappointed they engaged in high-risk behavior and restrict their freedoms.
“The biggest losers when the Victorian model breaks down into hypergamy are the low ranking beta males, who can’t get a woman, and the highest ranking females, who can’t monopolize the alpha males.”
What about women from low ranks? Have you heard of baby farming? Serious enough to legislate against.
As for whether getting rid of coedschools* would help deal with teenage sex, the history in places like Ireland may show otherwise.
*I am not a fan of coed schools, but for academic reasons (for both boys and girls) rather than social ones. Personally, I think the best schools are ones where they have a boys and girls school next to each other or close by and they are taught separately but do socialise. This way less risk of kids going ‘boy mad’ or girl mad’ at age 16 or 18. Or not being able to relate to the opposite sex even at an older age.
I’m also against coed sports, but only since today as it was the first time I’ve heard of it. Apparently it happens in the States and in South America. Astounding.
Paige,
“Actually…I could see the genie being put back in the bottle with the new trend towards social responsibility.”
I think what you discussing is correct, but is limited to a limited slice of society. Middle class whites, as you point out. I would add Asians to that, and specify college educated in additon. These are the people that are still practicing marriage successfully. By some counts, hypergamy has decreased among this set, with most college-educated marrying among themselves. And the divorce rate is much lower among this group than for the population at large.
But this is a diminishing island of sanity, as the tide of marital breakdown and hypergamy encroaches from both below and above in the social spectrum.
Dalrock:
Interesting analysis. Any discussion of economics in this context should also include opportunity costs. Which costs are higher for women? Sex now on the carousel? Or postponing sex until monogamy or marriage? Current research is giving us the clear answer: Many former carousel riders don’t get married because they destroyed their marriage market value; or held out for “Mr. Right”. Then they discover they’ve waited too long. But younger women marrying men of comparable sexual market value would seem to incur lower opportunity costs, because they seem to get what most women say they want (marriage) earlier and with less emotion expended.
Lily–
There are isolated instances of it happening at schools in the US but it’s very rare. It’s generally in the form of one girl being allowed on a boy’s team. It’s always at the elementary or at most junior high level. It’s very rare but it makes the news now and again.
Doug, RIv has been doing it (see Yohami’s blog), Yohami say they do it in Argentina and I found an entry on that SWPL blog, so must be bigger than that. Perhaps it’s relatively recent. I would call what they describe as mixed sex rather than coed (I was confused when I first read RIv’s post, in two ways), but the post on SWPL also describes it as coed.
But you’re right I should not have mentioned it in this context because it appears what they are talking about is not a children’s thing. My mind was just reeling with taking it in at the time I posted.
Length of article: 740 words
References to sex as a commodity for sale: 14, approximately 1 reference every 53 words
References to love, affection, or family: 0
References to marrage: 9 (mostly as the price for sex)
Now, what was that oldest profession again?
(Cue Tina Turner)
Shaming teenage girls for succumbing to sexual impulse strikes me as stupid.
ROFLMAO!!!
This method has been used with great success by countless cultures for thousands of years. The idea that it’s stupid and ineffective… strikes me as stupid!
Women all know the math, instinctively, because this is how all human societies have always worked. Men want more sex; women want resources and commitment as well as sex. Men want it, women got it. Women sold their youth and beauty, which is what men find attractive. Women, liking resources and social power, find resources and social power often more attractive.
Ergo: The sexual marketplace is the same everywhere except where deformed by social policies (or religions, etc.) that seek to change the negotiating strategies.
But feminists need not worry. They’ve convinced themselves that they don’t want marriage, anyway, and that massively powerful and taxing states are in their interests.
And the anger at prostitution is never from a protect-the-whore root: it’s in every case from a “Men should not have options” position.
It’s often nakedly stated, too: A prostitute who voluntarily does what she does for the huge money and personal freedom is betraying the Sisterhood; read, she’s a strikebreaker breaking ranks with the Sexual Union. She’s letting men off the hook; she’s giving men another outlet, and reducing the power of women.
Many women claim “You have no right to sell female sexuality” – as if she doesn’t own her own sexuality outright, but rents it from some Feminine Sexuality Central.
I’m a 19 year old virgin. My boyfriend is also a virgin [he’s in his 20’s].
I think virgin couples are rare nowadays because there’s just so much pressure to lose it. Appearently only sexually active relationships are normal. If you’re not having sex, than it isn’t love.
My boyfriend is a devout Christian and feels guilty that we’re not having sex. Poor guy was afraid I’d break up with him when he admitted to practicing abstinence!
I also agree that a lot of women my age are stupid about teen sex and the dangers of promiscuity and there advice to young women tends to be very stupid.
My family is very strict and would kick me out of the house is I started slutting around. [Although I’m not sure why I’d suddenly start acting like a slut, I was raised better than that]
I’ve never been given bad advice; however I’ve had a lot of older women make weird assumptions about me. [Heck, it happens here on the Manosphere…] I’m a young beautiful girl; obviously that means I must be sexually active *facepalm* It’s like older women just assume all younger women are incapable of keeping their legs shut.
I had to get an X-ray last year, and I got into a fight with the X-ray technician because she wanted me to take a pregnancy test before the exam. She didn’t believe me when I said I was a virgin!
@Paige
I see a significant difference between bluntly explaining the stupidity of an action and shaming…which is basically devaluing the person based on their actions (i.e. calling them names) which I don’t see as being as effective and has some very negative consequences.
Names like Harlot?
I also doubt whether it is compatible with Christian charity.
I think I know the title of my next post: God doesn’t want us to teach our daughters about sexual morality. Just ask Paige…
I will tell my sons and daughters that sex outside of marriage is extremely high risk. It can result in STDS or pregnancy and it can negatively affect ones ability to pair-bond. I will explain to my daughters that good men do not find promiscuous women attractive. I will explain to my sons that while some women find male promiscuity attractive the women who are the most marriage-worthy would be disgusted by it. I will also explain the hormonal benefits of exclusive pair-bonding for life with both secular and religious resources (ala Athol Kay and others).
What I will not do is show such an extreme double standard that I would call my daughter a slut and give my son a high-five for his studliness for engaging in the exact same behavior. Rather I would treat them equally- show that I am disappointed they engaged in high-risk behavior and restrict their freedoms.
(emphasis above mine) I’m guessing right about now some are suspecting Paige is a sock puppet and I’m discussing this with myself…
By the way, I noticed you left out the word sin even while referencing Christianity.
“You keep implying that I and other traditionalist women are in favor of hook-up culture. To say that people should not practice deception in hook-up culture is not the same thing as saying that I actually approve of it or would encourage anyone I care about to engage in it.”
Agreed. I’m a Christian whom is traditional conservative in orientation and I had to do a double glance when he started saying that we are “worried about the double standard” when in reality it’s all about virginity and chastity. If anything I’d say Dalrock has been influenced by way too much MRA dogma where we are to blame. Who talks about the “double standard”? Hint: Liberals and libertarians.
[D: Don’t forget Paige.]
Not to mention the “double standard” that so many complain about has never been a particular feature of traditional conservatism. Virgins and virgins match and female sluts and bad boys or “alphas” tend to support one another as well. Liberal with liberal, libertarian with libertarian, conservative with conservative.
I’m guessing right about now some are suspecting Paige is a sock puppet and I’m discussing this with myself…
Paige doesn’t sound like a troll. She sounds like a good Catholic mother that does not want her children to engage in promiscuous activities.
She would prefer her sons stay virgins until marriage. What’s so blasphemous about said idea?
Virgins and virgins match
Yeah. I’m happy my boyfriend is a virgin. I wouldn’t consider dating a manwhore that wouldn’t value my virginity.
Too many men on the manosphere think they deserve a virgin bride despite participating in behavior just as promiscuous as the “sluts” they condemn.
You’re not going to find a good girl by practicing Game at a bar. When the sun rises in the morning, a drunk one night stand will not suddenly transform into a beautiful LTR material woman.
The more I read articles like this and the comments women write about them, the more I start seriously considering MGTOW. How can women be such imbeciles? Not a bit of this would matter in the slightest if they’d stop competing with men and treating us as inferiors instead of relating to us and treating us as equals.
As for these ‘trad women’ they are such hypocrites it makes any decent man want to vomit. It’s nothing but ‘Feminism with a Smiling Face’; their platitudes of virginity and chastity is the same feminist tactic of using sex as a weapon. Destroy the cultural myth that women alone are the ‘owners of sex’—a notion preached especially by the tradcons—and maybe men and women would actually like one another again.
I’m starting to believe that, instead of feminism changing the social and economic landscape the opposite is true: the change in the economical landscape caused a shift in society and feminism is the convenient ideology to swallow it.
It can easily fall into a chiken and egg argument, but my explanation goes as follows:
1)Much like racism, people realize that employing women results in an increase of productivity, even if it is only in the short term (which is more than enough to happen).
2) Women get employed, gaining economic equalty in the process, fundamentalist rage but as usual, incentives overwhelm moral and ideals.
3) Lesser betas whose only hope to get married was to be providers get priced out of the market now that they lack any feature to attract a woman. Being the bottom pile of society, no one mourns.
4) The reduced supply of men – augmented supply of women causes the price of sex to drop.
5) Women now raise their child alone, get pumped, dumped and finally left after their sex lifetime expires and sometimes they don’t get anything other than a job to sustain themselves for their whole life. Their reaction? As the fox and the grapes fable, total pride!!!
Although this version gets to the same state we are, conclusions are different:
1)Trying to combat feminism is a typical case of fighting the symptoms rather than the cause of the disease. A change of economy would be able to lock women in the house again and they will celebrate it with pride again.
2) It gives me the impression that prosperity itself is what makes women the expendable gender rather than men. If true, the feminism – nation decadence correlation, if exists, would be instantly obvious. Feminism doesn’t accidentally causes collapse, it seeks it.
Greyghost:
That’s a keen insight. Women really DO NOT have anything more than sex to offer in a relationship. That’s why they jealously promote the idea that they have all the control over sex and reproduction. The way to put an end to it all is teaching them that men can say ‘no’ too; and teaching men that there is neither guilt nor shame in saying ‘no’.
Destroy the cultural myth that women alone are the ‘owners of sex’—a notion preached especially by the tradcons—and maybe men and women would actually like one another again.
However said that women “owned” sex? If you have read Dalrock’s previous articles, you would see that it is the idea of women being the gatekeepers of sex. By asserting that women are the gatekeepers of sex, there is no victim-hood to be claimed because she could have easily said “no,” and has to be accountable for her actions. The idea that women are the gatekeepers is more so about placing MORE responsibility on women, which is the opposite of what feminists want. Feminists want to see sexual responsibility placed more on men, and less on women, because “all women are victims to predatory sexual men,” as they want everyone to believe.
Sure, men can say no. In fact, it is more alpha for a man to say no from time to time to a woman when it comes to sex, instead of caving in to please her every whim. Dominant alpha men do not need to act like the lascivious, prey-seeking animals feminists make them out to be.
Lesser betas whose only hope to get married was to be providers get priced out of the market
Didn’t we have a fun argument recently about how women should only marry if they’re deeply in love with their partners? So why is marrying low ranking beta males based on their ability to provide a good thing? I’d rather spare these men from the lies and send them to prostitutes.
@ Eric
I asked my husband what a woman has to offer a man besides sex. He said “Someone to share life experiences with”.
@ Dalrock
I mentioned religious resources which would include the Bible. It certainly doesn’t mince words when it comes to fornication.
But since we are on the topic of religion I would like to mention that I see no instances of Jesus Christ using shaming language towards unchaste women. He was very blunt with the woman at the well but name-calling was not used when he confronted her with her sin. And in the case of the adulterous woman he defied the double-standard of the day by asking the men about to stone her to reflect on their own sin.
I am not one to obsess over the double-standard because in my real life it isn’t even an issue. It is just expected that our kids will all be held to the same standard of chastity. I would have almost forgotten the double standard still existed if it weren’t for the manosphere trying to revive it.
He said “Someone to share life experiences with”.
The problem is that a lot of women don’t want to share life experiences with most men! 🙂
@ Eric
Wives todays are all burden. A marriage today is usually centered around the wife. You have heard the of the 60 to 80 percent of house hold purchaces are decided by the wife. My favorite is “if momma ain’t happy ain’t nobody happy” That is true and it is enforced by law. Right now we have promarriage blogs that discuss “marriage game’ Think about that, marriage game. It is not enough to be loyal,honest, and committed to the wife and family any more. A healthy marriage requires you to game your wife into the gina tingles so she won’t get bored and leave with the kids. A woman like that has nothing to offer any one.
PS this is some too “Someone to share life experiences with”. That right there is her husband doing something for her. Hell i can take the dog to the grand canyon.
I think it’s nuts to claim that bringing back the “sex cartel”, ceteris paribus, would increase male investment in women. If she’s not offering sex, what is the modern woman good for? Women used to be able to command a high price because they were valuable as companions, helpmeets, etc. Now all they have to sell is sex. If they want to put that behind a paywall, they’ll do about as well as TimesSelect.
I think the “men are led around by their dicks” model is very, very limited. Yes, we’re horny, but we’re not stupid, the sex market and the marriage markets are different markets, and marriage was never the price paid for sex … not for men, at least.
I think the dating culture that the US has — it does not exist elsewhere — has reached its logical conclusion. Elsewhere, you meet women (men) in the pub, at church, at dance parties etc that you go to as a group… and then fall for each other. Dating as it “dinner and a movie”? Meh.
Instead it’s let’s go to the dance floor…
Now you have a hook up culture where there is pressure to bonk for a date. It’s nuts. But I’m not American: I did not grow up in that culture. And I did go to a co-ed school: the protection occurred because the patriarchy was still there & had not been destroyed by the feminist wave.
(And I was a teenager in the 1970s. With two sisters. And when they looked at thugs all the men in the family from the grandfather to their brothers gave the thug a certain stare — if you make my sister cry you WILL pay).
Dalrock, Paige is correct: the idea is to use the old fashioned words such as sin. However, the secular world we live in I tell my teenage boys… the Bible says this… and the law says that if you have a kid you are going to have to support it. I won’t… you will. Therefore don’t have sex unlessyou are prepared to raise her child .
The boys had a pretty nasty lesson on this: one of the First XV (rugby, think football team) hung himself in his girlfriend’s garden because she was pregnant and the family were shaming him into taking responsibility.
At 17, the young man was yet another casualty of the gender war that has been running since around 1970.
“What I will not do is show such an extreme double standard that I would call my daughter a slut and give my son a high-five for his studliness for engaging in the exact same behavior.”
It is not a double standard if biology, laws or culture makes something, on average, very easy for one gender and, on average, very difficult for the other gender. It is only if biology, laws or culture do not, on average, give any gender any advantage or disadvantage that we can start talking abut a double standard. There some such areas, but access to willing sex partners do not belong to them.
For example I am not very impressed that my daughters are doing better in school than I did, or that they have more positive interest from the opposite sex than I had. Nor I am impressed if a guy is better than a woman at armwrestling.
Paige you seem to be overly concerned with “shaming” and you refer to it as if it’s nothing more than insulting with harsh language and putdowns.
That’s not shaming. That’s bullying.
Shaming in a culture is when there is a commonly accepted standard by society, and going against that standard means you will pay social consequences…you know that people will look at you differently and consider you “shameful.” And in such societies, people who acted shamefully, felt embarrassed and remorseful for their actions when they realize the social consequences.
We need shaming in a culture where there is no shame. We have “slutwalks” were women walk around immodestly dressed with placards proclaiming their sluttiness.
That is the face of a shameless culture.
Is that what you are really advocating for? Don’t worry, I’m sure these self proclaimed sluts didn’t have their feeewwwllings hurt by insults and societal opprobrium.
Are you really concerned that someone may call a young girl a SLUT for being promiscuous? Shouldn’t you be more concerned with the long term consequences of promiscuity rather than she might get upset that somebody called her a name?
It almost seems as if you’re arguing that a young girl is more damaged from being called a bad name than her actual behavior and what it does to her long tern.
Ludicrous.
We need shame in our cultural in the worst way. All of the actions and behaviors that used to be considered shameful and people felt embarrassed if they were caught and exposed, are now celebrated and voluntarily proclaimed outright as desirable and commendable.
Paige: Are you high fiveing men for, on average, keeping their virginity longer than women?
Or shaming poor people for not giving as much to charity as Bill Gates?
Or does context differ, so that we cannot talk of a double standard?
As Brendan once said, for Christians the double standard does not exist. And he is right.. It does not exist for me. Never has..
“For example I am not very impressed that my daughters are doing better in school than I did, or that they have more positive interest from the opposite sex than I had. Nor I am impressed if a guy is better than a woman at armwrestling.”
What nonsense comparing such stuff with promiscuous behaviour… Not in the same ballpark.. I would not (as a Christian) want to share my man with any other woman, and would be devastated if he shared such intimacies (reserved only for the two of us) with someone else…
I have always felt this way. It’s how I was brought up by my parents.. I place great stock on love and fidelity.
Because I had good parents who led by example, I myself now have a good and loving marriage.. So too does my brother who married a virgin at the age of twenty four. They have two kids and have been happily married now for eigtheen years..
Oh, and one other thing.. My brother was a virgin when he married, too.
This rubbish that is circulating , that women want an experienced(sexually) man is just that.. RUBBISH.
Sex is not rocket science!
In any case all women are not the same.. A loving couple will soon work out what is right for them… Love, that’s the key…
It’s the reason that I still have great sex with my husband after fifteen years of marriage.. It’s still special.. How can promiscuous sex be satisfying and fulfilling for either sex? Really? It’s superficial and hollow… No depth of feeling.. No deep connection or bond.. Just self gratification.. In the end it loses its appeal. Nothing edifying or lasting..
Sex for sex sake does not satiate nor satisfy a deep human need.
We all need to be loved and wanted..
To have sex with the person that you deeply love and care for?
Ah.. There is nothing better on God’s earth.. 😉
Kathy: On average it is less of an accomplishment for a man to remain a virgin, and a greater accomplishment for a woman. On average it is more of an accomplishment for a man to remain have casual sex, and a lesser accomplishment for a woman. The same goes for a lot of things, were biology, laws or culture gives men or women and advantage or a disadvantage.
Of course it is possible for subgroups to use a very high or a very low standard for both genders, even if it puts more or less pressure on the members of the two genders than they are feeling outside of this subgroup. If the subgroup does not have enough influence this will lead to secret excursions outside of the subgroup or to people not measuring up to leave the subgroup all together.
Most of christianity is not homogenous and/or influential enough to exert such pressure. It’s not like criminal gangs with a “blood in, blood out” code.
Religious groups that really exert strong pressure on its members to conform (the talibans comes to mind) are generally not very well seen.
Lavazza .. It is all for nought, without love.
It’s all about feeling that deep love and connection.
You are approaching this from a purely analytical and emotionless point of view..
Fact is , most human beings just are’nt made that way.. They need something more meaningful and deeper to sustain them.. A connection, if the relationship is to be a lasting one… You just won’t get that with a slut . (of either sex)
Sex and love DO go hand in hand with a couple who are deeply in love.
Sadly..Sex has been cheapened.. It’s seen as a thirst to be slaked.
More’s the pity. 😦
Kathy: “You are approaching this from a purely analytical and emotionless point of view.”
Well of course, we are discussing if the word “double standard” is an accurate description. How can straying from “a purely analytical and emotionless point of view” be any good in such a discussion (but for fudging the matter)?
“To know yourself or to judge your actions you need to know Tarka, Vitarka and Kutarka.
Kutarka is wrong logic. Most people apply this logic and get caught up in ignorance. For example : The door is half open means the door is half closed. Therefore, the door is fully open means the door is fully closed!
Or: God is Love. Love is Blind. Therefore, God is Blind!!!
Tarka is sequential logical understanding; it increases scientific knowledge. When sequential logical understanding changes, then scientific conclusions change. For example: Pesticides and antibiotics were considered to be very useful in the past, and are now proven to be more harmful. In tarka, the paradigm changes.
Vitarka is asking questions to which there are no evident answers….Who am I? Where am I? What do I really want? These philosophically appealing questions bring forth spiritual knowledge, increase your awareness and bring about the blossoming of Consciousness, i.e., Atma Gyan increases.
The wise know to distinguish between the three. They will not apply kutarka or tarka for vitarka, and vitarka for tarka.”
All gobbledygook to me Lavazza.
Guess I am just a simpleton then.. Love of a good man ( my husband) and a damn good root does it for me every time. 😉
I think it’s great that the p-supply is abundant and the “price” has gone down.
If you’re dating a 20-something, it’s hot, exciting and perfect. The 40-something divorcee will do things the 25 year old will need a lot of coaxing to do, and the older woman will be better at it.
If you can stay away from single LTRs, and choose the best women from a set of parallel relationships, it’s self-selection at its best.
For a divorced guy with older kids like me, it is paradise. For the 20-something man that thinks he’s going to get a faithful wife who cares about marriage, it is Hell.
For that matter, it’s Hell, too, for the divorced and single women out there.
Thank you, Feminism!
@Anonymous Woman
I’m a Christian whom is traditional conservative in orientation and I had to do a double glance when he started saying that we are “worried about the double standard” when in reality it’s all about virginity and chastity. If anything I’d say Dalrock has been influenced by way too much MRA dogma where we are to blame. Who talks about the “double standard”? Hint: Liberals and libertarians.
Not all traditional conservative women are opposed to slut shaming, and my intent wasn’t to lump you or others who do shame sluts with those who refuse to. Part of the problem is those women who feel this way are in denial of it. They will come up with any excuse you can imagine to not shame sluts, but they won’t admit they are against it. See Paige’s comments in this thread as a textbook example. Another example would be Kathy. I generally like Kathy’s comments, but on this issue she has a huge blind spot. She passionately denounces men who are promiscuous, but expresses admiration for “Doomed Harlot”, a feminist who openly states that she wants women to feel no social pressure against being sluts (and said that the slutwalks were her kind of feminism). Kathy insists she is repulsed by promiscuity across the board, but if this were truly the case she would not look favorably on a feminist who wants to encourage women to be promiscuous. Her deep feelings on the topic only run one way.
As further proof I’ll offer our general culture. Only a minuscule number of women claim to be feminists, yet as Anonynonymous above states we are a culture with no shame. The vast bulk of “traditional” women looked the other way as feminists removed social norms which have been in effect for thousands of years. It simply would not have been possible if traditional women hadn’t been convinced to go along. What we have as a result is the situation described in the article I linked to in the OP.
@SheilaGregoire
But I don’t think things are as glum as you suggest–at least for certain subsets. I’m just finishing up research for a book I’m writing for Christian women on sex, and I did a survey of over 2000 women about sex. Of Christians, 40% were still virgins on their wedding night. But here’s what’s interesting–that number is not lower for those who were married in the last ten years than for those who were married thirty years ago. It’s roughly the same. So we seem to have stabilized, in a certain way. IF you belong to a church and IF you take it seriously, getting married and waiting until you’re married to have sex is still extremely possible (and that’s what I’m raising my girls to do). But that’s only because you’re surrounded by young men who agree with those values.
I wouldn’t extrapolate the results of your poll to represent Christian women in general. I noticed from your twitter site that you have the following request:
I need 18 more CHRISTIAN MARRIED MEN to fill out this “bedroom” survey: totally anonymous, 2 minutes max!
To start with, the audience you are speaking to are going to naturally be Christians who generally agree with your view on things. In addition, you are telling them upfront that this is a survey of Christians about sex. This suggests a very specific mindset, and we know that people will not answer truthfully about moral issues even when a survey is anonymous. Lastly, those Christians who weren’t virgins but would answer truthfully are simply less likely to want to take the survey than those who know they can give you the answer you want. I’m not saying any of this is intentional on your part, either. It simply is the way that surveys work.
If you wanted an unbiased sampling of Christians you would need to find a way to not tip them off ahead of time what was being studied. Ideally any question on their religious beliefs should come after the respondent has already answered the sensitive moral questions, and the survey would have to have the feel of being a general survey not just on sex, etc.
A quick question for you if you don’t mind: What is your position on shaming sluts? Is this something we should bring back, or should we keep the status quo?
Actually, we have plenty of shame in this culture, it is just that is is being used inappropriately and destructively rather than constructively. Or, to turn Anonynonymous’s comment around, right now we do have shame in our culture in the worst way, what we need to do is attempt to turn it around so that is used in the best way instead.
The tactic of attempting to silence anyone who spoke out against the excesses of feminism, or tried to point out destructive behavior by women, was so common that someone cataloged the most common personal attacks and grouped them by type of message. http://exposingfeminism.wordpress.com/shaming-tactics/
The mother of all of them – and by far the most commonly used – is “you are just saying this because you can’t get laid” – as though “getting laid” is the highest and only good, and if someone isn’t getting laid, nothing they say could possibly be valid.
Far and away the biggest users of these tactics are women, although plenty of men are very fond of using them.
And, from my little exposure to the femosphere – or maybe even slutosphere might be more accurate – shaming is used by promiscuous women against non-promiscuous women (and men who can’t get laid) far more than the opposite.
When I was in my thirties, I was quite promiscuous. One thing I discovered is that after a one night stand, you are just as horny the next day as you were the day before. It was exciting but never satisfying. Using another person as your toilet does not add to your self esteem, either. It just adds a little extra bragging rights to your horny angry buddies.
I can’t imagine how a girl/woman feels about these persistent mechanical encounters. It must numb them and in the long run feeling cheap. Hopefully, they don’t end up feeling like the lifeless street walking prostitutes.
Even though my religion is against homosexual acts I don’t make it a point to run around saying that God hates fags. I’d consider such behavior disdainful and uncharitable. Also- it doesn’t seem to make people less gay it just makes people more secretive about their gayness and more likely to commit suicide.
Shaming young people tends to create self-destructive behavior. Teens are psychologically fragile. We have an epidemic of eating disorders, self-harm, drug abuse, and other destructive behaviors that teens indulge in as a psychological release from the pain and confusion that often accompanies youth.
Does shaming work well enough that it is it worth the collateral damage?
If I were going to be in favor of shaming it would be towards the parents, particularly the ones who take no measures to prevent teen sex and instead actively encourage it. If a teen is having sex on your watch then it is to some degree your responsibility. Some parents are just naive…some were strict enough but their child was extremely sneaky…and others are just idiots who hand out condoms and tell them to go have fun.
Nobody can realistically create wide-scale societal change….least of all by running around calling people names. Individual people can create community change by getting involved in their churches and schools to educate the youth and their parents.
@John,
That’s exactly how I felt from about 32-36. I went through a rutting phase when I ran up a huge list of conquests. By the end of this period, my game (as I played it) was tight like a dancer’s bottom: I could tell exactly what was necessary to get a woman into bed in the shortest possible time, and roughly more or less what it would be like.
I was randy as all get out: After a long relationship/marriage, I had no self-esteem. Then I got some. Then I over-dosed. I actually fell madly for one girl, and left the rutting phase; after that it was occasional. The girl wanted to marry me; there was a 10-year age gap, and I thought this was too much (at the time; my current SO is 11 years younger than me). I might have done it and I suspect it would have worked out nicely for both of us. In the end, I shattered her by leaving. More: Because she knew I didn’t want to leave. She was baffled by my resistance.
The real reason: i didn’t want to get tied down; my soul had been drained by dogging it all over, and it I thought I wanted this freedom. As it turned out, I also wanted stability and a family.
It does drain you. After a point, once the curiosity module is satisfied, it’s not a positive.
Dalrock your female commenters are amazing. It is text book. They are behaving with seriousness exactly as discrbed in advance. Over and over again.
No kidding Greyghost, considering that the shaming of this behavior was used in the past and seemed to work.
@Zed
Actually, we have plenty of shame in this culture, it is just that is is being used inappropriately and destructively rather than constructively. Or, to turn Anonynonymous’s comment around, right now we do have shame in our culture in the worst way, what we need to do is attempt to turn it around so that is used in the best way instead.
Great point. In addition to the examples you mentioned it strikes me that shame is reserved for those who would shame problematic activity. Paige is invoking this by suggesting that anyone who would judge slutty behavior is mean and unchristian. This is the basic point of the slutwalks as well. Shame on that man (and anyone else who thinks this way) for suggesting that being a slut is bad.
You are creating a false dichotamy where only 2 extremes can exist. Either a person must be pro-promiscuity or they must be in favor of “slut shaming”. This is not true by a long shot and there are some communities and Churches who have dramatically lowered the rate of teen sex through educational initiatives without the use of cruelty or shaming tactics.
” I’m guessing right about now some are suspecting Paige is a sock puppet and I’m discussing this with myself…”
Ah, the jig’s up, man. Time to come clean. (Although setting up and running a second blog as “Paige” was really clever of you. Gotta give you bonus points for that.)
[D: If I didn’t know better I wouldn’t believe it myself.]
Interesting idea.
But I think you are wrong a person that has a house that wants to sell in 500,000 when everyone else is selling at 200,000 can do the sale with patient and looking for an specific buyer. Let’ say that he is selling high because that house was owned by Elvis. A rich Elvis fan will surely give that money without protest, right?
The thing with the virgin selling marriage is that she has to add an additional incentive. She might need to up the wifeable skills, learn to cook, have a pleasant personality, willing to support her man’s projects no matter how silly it might look to others, not being a nag, trying to look as hot as possible, be sensual without being sexual and hint enough that sex with her won’t be boring and spent her time in venues of potential buyers: churches, community groups, niche market dating sites… Then she will find her buyer. But again is hard to master patience and cultivate personal skills when every skank is getting a lot of dates and attention with little to no effort. Tough market indeed. Not impossible but really though.
“Kathy insists she is repulsed by promiscuity across the board, but if this were truly the case she would not look favorably on a feminist who wants to encourage women to be promiscuous”
I do not look favorably upon any woman who promotes promiscuity, Dalrock. This is a blog, not real life.I was polite to a woman DH, who stated her point of view politely. If you look back over the comments you will see that I said quite clearly that I do not agree with her point of view..I think that you clearly overlook that fact. I would also have been polite to Greenlander had he also expressed himself in a polite manner and engaged with me.(even though I disagreed with his behaviour) .
DH was non confrontational, I responded in kind. Simple as that.
Do not confuse engaging in a polite manner with acquiesence.
I might be “out of my tree ” from time to time, but I find it very hard to be rude to someone who engages with me in a nice manner. 😀
Kathy- I truly believe I can be thoroughly anti-promiscuity without verbally assaulting promiscuous women. I prefer blunt but calm dialog because that is the only thing that has ever made me change my mind about anything.
The logical fallacies have been numerous. Between the false dichotomies, ad hominems, and appeals to antiquity it is clear that the real answer to any debate in the manosphere is “because I said so”.
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Newsflash “Pro-Male/Anti-Feminist Technology” stop your contradictions. MRA’s and feminists are both alike because both of them believe in liberal assumptions such as equality, rights and freedom. It’s time to stop scaring readers from the ‘manosphere’ and placing blame on conservatives — http://grerp.blogspot.com/2011/05/letter-from-reader-re-manosphere.html
Not to toot my own horn, but I wrote about this exact same thing, but included a chart to demonstrate the two-tiered market between sex and marriage;
http://captaincapitalism.blogspot.com/2010/09/economics-of-courtship-part-1-two.html
Here’s the thing, though.
The argument proceeds from the assumption that “women” are a fungible commodity. If you’re looking for a relatively-willing concave surface into which to insert your genitals periodically, that may well be true. But if you’re looking for a marriage partner, it’s not…at least not if you’ve had some exposure to women who’ve been riding the hook-up train for years and have just decided to settle down. In the marriage market, a woman who’s been sleeping around for a decade or more simply is not an economically comparable good to one who has.
The price of nearby, comparable houses has an effect on what you can expect for yours. But the price of burned-out crack dens in the ghetto has very little to do with the market for well-maintained houses in good neighborhoods.
Women can only alter the macroeconomic bargaining power of “women” as a class by collective action that is frankly unlikely. But an individual woman can do an awful lot to help out her own _personal_ sexual market value by staying out of the hook-up rat race.
@Gorbachev
The real reason: i didn’t want to get tied down; my soul had been drained by dogging it all over, and it I thought I wanted this freedom. As it turned out, I also wanted stability and a family.
It does drain you. After a point, once the curiosity module is satisfied, it’s not a positive.
Ah, the aphorisms I have collected in the ‘sphere. The one that I think fits here is this: “I was more disappointed with my success with women than with my failures.” I recall reading one “artist’s” pickup routine that included the line “Do you like strawberries?” He could predict the reaction of every girl to his routine, once he had mastered it. It demystified women for him, and commoditized them for him.
Call me negative about the economics of sex today, but as Stanley Kubrick put it…
greyghost said: “Think about that, marriage game. It is not enough to be loyal,honest, and committed to the wife and family any more. A healthy marriage requires you to game your wife into the gina tingles so she won’t get bored and leave with the kids. A woman like that has nothing to offer any one.”
That’s depressing. The initial relationship “high” always wears off and must be replaced by something else. “I do… until I find someone better and take our kids, the house and half your money because you didn’t keep me entertained” just sucks.
The toothpaste is out of the tube, and there is no putting it back.
Since naive young women can get all the sex they want from high-status men while deluding themselves into thinking that real relationships will follow, basically Western Civilization is toast.
America as we know it will die, and some other culture that enforces traditional values will rise in its place.
Men will check out and be “peter pans” and women will grow old and alone, having to put out at ever more frequent levels to get any attention as they age.
Male investment in women is going to decline until the crisis point, which will be negative population growth.
The boys had a pretty nasty lesson on this: one of the First XV (rugby, think football team) hung himself in his girlfriend’s garden because she was pregnant and the family were shaming him into taking responsibility.
At 17, the young man was yet another casualty of the gender war that has been running since around 1970.
People seem to forget that the good old days involved a lot of extrajudicial killings.
Men often got killed in duels, in vigilante violence, etc. for violating sexual boundaries.
That model might be called “barbaric” by some, but I suspect that it tends to produce viable tribes. If the future is such that tribes can’t exist, such a model probably won’t come back … but if the future is a viable environment for tribal culture, then I expect to see violence return as a direct disincentive to sex.
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I am much more drawn to a simple answer.
This market will change when the Law of Economics force it. The current trend is exhausted. Perhaps no need for a big push . Hard times tend to remove the slack from the system. For example, tatoos ( and what they symbolize in some ways ) popularity will plummet. Slutting will lose value in a society where funds are hard to obtain. Much of what we observe is founded on a disintegrating economic foundation.
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@ John: “I can’t imagine how a girl/woman feels about these persistent mechanical encounters. It must numb them and in the long run feeling cheap.”
We had a word for girls like that when I was a lad. The word was “ruined”. It was a very good word, and describes their situation quite well.
Females loved birth control because it meant more sex for females.
Females hated birth control because it meant more sex for men.
Birth control was the genie out of the bottle.
The feminist wants to try and ‘tame’ the genie to make it work for women and never work for men. Nearly everything they do in the way of draconian date rape laws is aimed at this. (Females free to fuck around all they want but can cry rape if the guy doesn’t call back the next day.)
The conservative female, feeling the genie is untamable, wants to try and put it back in the bottle.
PT Barnum
“Just because YOU are interested in a 17 year olds well-being doesn’t mean many 30 year old women are. Many 30 year old women have done everything in their power to prevent a 25 year old man from dating a 17 year old girl”
Chances are she doesn’t really give a shit about a 17 year olds well-being either.
When that girl accused her of slut shaming about the boots she was probably spot on.
Just because a female isn’t a feminist doesn’t mean she’s not a female.
PT Barnum
“Just because YOU are interested in a 17 year olds well-being doesn’t mean many 30 year old women are. Many 30 year old women have done everything in their power to prevent a 25 year old man from dating a 17 year old girl”
Chances are she doesn’t really give a shit about a 17 year olds well-being either.
When that girl accused her of slut shaming about the boots she was probably spot on.
Just because a female isn’t a feminist doesn’t mean she’s not a female.
Wavevector
“It is worth noting that women’s economic independence was a precursor to their sexual independence, as they no longer had to drive such a hard bargain in the sexual marketplace in exchange for economic support.”
What pile of crap! Obviously the pill FORCED economic independence upon females because their now less valuable sexuality no longer bought as much. THIS is the reason for females entering the work force. Trying to make having to go to work look like wanting to work to save face. Yet another “I mean’t to do that!” PeeWee Herman moment.
jack:
“Male investment in women is going to decline until the crisis point, which will be negative population growth.”
Yep. And I believe the next significant chapter to be written in this saga will be the creation of the male birth control pill. Barring a miraculous turnaround by women on their ability to be more future time oriented, not to mention accepting to rescind much of their currently inflated social power, the true collapse of western society will follow soon after.
Strap on your seat belts and enjoy the world as it is while you can folks, because the male birth control pill is only a handful of years away.
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I wanted to make a comment on the “Double Standard.” What double standard. Slut shaming is forefrong in our mind because feminists harp on it. Don’t forget that back in the day a man caught with a women he was not married to was forced to marry her at gunpoint. Or a man caught cucolding another man was lible to be jailed, beaten, killed or worse by the husband and his friends. It sort of aggrivates me when people talk about the poor sluts who are shamed when men can go bang whomever they wanted. That was never the case. Both men and women’s sexuality was equally suppressed in traditionalist settings…
Maybe that was a good thing maybe not… but we need to remember how shitty it was for men too!