patrick.net

Dan8267 says

Instead of talking in vague generalities like "honor" and "respect", you need to think about the subject matter more thoroughly so you can build up a detailed mental model of how you want men and women to behave and why. Then you need to write a specific, not vague, illustration of this and justify it to the rest of us.

Remember, it is you who are asking everyone else to change their behavior to conform to your standards. That means you must be able to outline the specific rules you want us to follow and you have to justify those rules to all of us. We are free to reject your rules if we find your reasons compelling.

I am not asking anyone to conform to my standards. Not at all. I am another voice here. I also am not making up a detailed mental model of how others should behave. That is absurd. It comes down to this: Are you using the other person or not? Everyone can ask themselves that and come to their own conclusions.

Dan8267 says

Second, you are implying, intentionally or not, that men being sexually aroused or gratified -- which by the way doesn't happen at Hooters -- is degrading to women. Perhaps you should start by specifying exactly what constitutes denigration. I sincerely doubt that all women have the same opinion on this. Some women think that showing their faces in public is degrading.

Of course everyone is free to do whatever they feel they need to do. A man being sexually gratified in a consenting intimate relationship with another person is not degrading. And yes, the Hooters girls signed up for the job so you can argue they have consented to letting men enjoy their cleavage. I am talking about systemic wide exploitation in using a person's body and sexuality to sell anything, whether it is a beer at Hooters, calvin klein jeans or a ticket into a strip joint. It has more to do with in the marketplace the ends can justify the means. Dan8267 says

But who are you to judge those women as being morally inferior, stupid, or wreckless?

Where did I say that? Those are your words. I have no judgment on what a woman decides for herself. I am interested in the underlying dynamics that lead all persons to prostitute themselves.

Indiana Jones says

I believe whenever we compromise ourselves and do something that doesn't honor our selves, in return for something we believe we need or want, we are prostituting ourselves. In this way we are all "exploited" or "oppressed" -- men and women.

So doing work you don't like is being exploited? As long as it is not forcefully imposed on you, why is that exploitation or degradation? It's just people struggling to survive.
And bottom line: in this effort women have an option men don't have. Nothing prevents them from taking the same crappy jobs men do.

Indiana Jones says

I am talking about systemic wide exploitation in using a person's body and sexuality to sell anything, whether it is a beer at Hooters, calvin klein jeans or a ticket into a strip joint.

This is exploitation by men? and not women FREELY choosing to use what nature gave them to get ahead?

Again, you've twisted an advantage women have into a perceived "exploitation". That's your perception. Nothing else.

Let's face it: If someone were to forbid women to ever use their beauty or attraction to derive a revenue, feminists would fall on that person like ‎smallpox on low Irish clergy. But absent such interdiction, they are happy to bitch about how women are "exploited".

Rin says

And here, it's that one party (the females) who get to be a long term teenagers while the other party is told to 'man up'.

This is true. However, both genders face the same problem. Ever since the invention of the pill, every successive generation has prolonged childhood. It used to be that at 18 your were an adult and expected to have a job, settle down, and start a family. The Boomers pushed it to the early 20s. Gen X pushed it to the late 20s. The Millennials don't think adulthood really begins until you reach 30 and your 20s are just for playing around.

Now we can prolong childhood as long as we want, but we all still age at the same rate as our Stone Age ancestors. Biologically, humans are evolved to select mates and reproduce in their teens and early 20s. Delaying long-term mate selection and engaging in short-term mate selection during the teens and 20s is the prime reason why today men and women are largely dissatisfied with their long-term romantic relationships.

The pill is a disruptive technology, like all significant technologies, and we have yet to create new mating rituals and rules to deal with the consequences of the pill. I think that eventually our society will, but it may take a few more generations. In the meantime, the mating market is a mess and strongly favors short-term mating at the expense of long-term mating. It's not men or women who are better off due to the pill, it's men and women following short-term mating strategies who are better off and happier, and men and women seeking long-term mates who are worse off and less happy as a result. After a few more generations, this may change.

Rin says

In summary ...

Dating & Romantic relationships are unsatisfying

Boning Hoes are satisfying.

It's as simple as that.

Um, yes, that's a shorter way of saying it.

Most young people don't date. That went out in the late 80s. By the early 1990s high school and college relationships were about "hooking up" rather than dating. You had one or more casual sexual partners, but it was a very ambiguous relationship. Neither party knew where they stand or whether or not they had a boyfriend/girlfriend or just a hookup partner.

It's not the situation I wanted when I was back in college -- I was one of the rare men seeking a long-term relationship and hunting for a wife -- but in retrospect I should have simply embraced the cultural change. I would have been happier back then.

The down side to this culture is that those few seeking long-term relationships are basically doomed to failure because no man or woman in the age range of 18-22 believes there's a snowball chance in hell that their romantic partners in college (or high school or post-high-school) are going to become their spouse. So everyone engages only in short-term relations and thus the criteria for choosing mates changes. It becomes far more superficial. This is bad for anyone seeking a long-term relationship or a potential life partner, but it's great for those seeking lots of short-term mates.

Now that I'm older and no longer desire to settle down, this plus the fact that the Millennials is a much larger generation than Gen X works greatly in my favor. Is it worth giving up finding your "soulmate" in college and settling down with him or her right away? Probably not, but that's not an option today anyway.

Indiana Jones says

I believe whenever we compromise ourselves and do something that doesn't honor our selves, in return for something we believe we need or want, we are prostituting ourselves.

Honey, you and everyone else prostitutes yourself every time you show up to work. Do you really want to be spending your time working for a corporation? You are trading your most precious commodity, time, for money. But you do that because you have to in order to make a living. It's not ideal, but it's hardly degrading.

As for sex, young men and women both want it and a lot. Young people are horny, like it or not -- and personally, I like it -- and that includes women. It is your opinion that a woman being horny and lusting after people and wanting to expose herself is degrading or prostituting or not "honorable" whatever the fuck that means. It certainly isn't a fact that feeling lust and being turned on by looking at or being looked at is somehow dishonorable or degrading.

Certainly there are trade-offs between short-term and long-term sexual behaviors and certainly the current system, for reasons too advance to get to in this discussion, is not the optimal solution for happiness for either gender. However, discussing those trade-offs and deciding what behavior will yield the maximum satisfaction in all aspects of one's life does not entail making some moral judgement against those who choose a different path than the one you like. Every person owns his or her sexuality and ultimate has no one to answer to except himself/herself and his or her long-term, committed mates.

I do agree that long-term relationships are more beneficial and stable, and obviously so given even basic game theory, but that's a practical assessment, not a moral one. In my opinion, the morality of sexual relations comes not in the choice of long-term vs. short-term, but rather in the choice of cooperation vs. defection. It's not immoral to seek short-term relations, which both genders do in abundance. However, It is immoral to pretend to seek a long-term relation with someone when you are really seeking a short-term one, and this is something both genders do. In males, this comes in the form of having a relationship lasting years, typically with a woman in her early to mid 20s, giving all the overtures of relationship that may lead to marriage but never having any intention of marrying her and then leaving her when she's older and he acquires a younger version of her. In females, this comes in the form of marrying a man for financial security and to have a father to help raise the children she has, almost always secretly, with another male.

I have had 26 sexual partners in my life so far -- I'd have had far more if I hadn't seeked long-term relationships exclusively in my teens and early to mid 20s. Not once did I pretend to be seeking a long-term relationship when I wasn't. Most of my sexual partners have been short-term ones that I did not love or intend to marry. However, I made no pretense that our relationship was more than sex and maybe friendship. As such I see no way in which I have ever degraded a woman. If you want to make the argument otherwise, then give me a reason why my actions were somehow "dishonorable" to the willing and quite frankly enthusiastic sexual partners I had. Also explain why the denigration seems to only go one way in your mind.

I'd say that looks and height are more important than money and power when it comes to scoring with chicks. Women love them a hot toned guy, and if he's also smart and nice, it will be hard to make them leave him alone. As long as he's self sufficient, well groomed, and doesn't reek of desperation, women will spread their legs.
Honestly, it's hardly difficult to get women to boink with these days. What's hard is maintaining a relationship with one long enough to have and raise kids. I get more enjoyment from my kids than my sex life, but whatever. You make your choices in this life, and there are trade-offs to every arrangement.

Hard or soft? :-/

Quigley says

As long as he's self sufficient, well groomed, and doesn't reek of desperation, women will spread their legs.

Honestly, it's hardly difficult to get women to boink with these days. What's hard is maintaining a relationship with one long enough to have and raise kids.

And you see how both of these things are related to each other and to the pill, right? The pill resulted in a dramatic shift in the mating market -- and yes, it is a market like it or not -- from long-term to short-term. This has made it almost trivially easy to get laid for men, but it has also made it nearly impossible to establish and maintain a life-long relationship or to find a quality life-partner. Note that life-partner and sexual partner mean completely different things.

Quigley says

As long as he's self sufficient, well groomed, and doesn't reek of desperation, women will spread their legs

I need names and phone numbers please......

I don't disagree with you on this, Dan. The current culture is extremely hostile to marriage and committed lifelong relationships. Women are constantly encouraged to seek their own wants and needs and ignore the needs of their partner. Men are subjected to extreme cultural criticism about their looks, style, hair, job, wealth, education, and even their penis. Whenever something goes wrong, it's up to the man to fix things, and if fixing things takes too much time or effort you can be sure the woman will complain about that too. Men are expected to repress their feelings but be in touch with hers and willin to listen to hours of the most mind numbing drivel as she bitches about the trivial inconveniences in her life, but they mustn't zone out or stop listening! No, that is death if she catches them! Oh, and men should keep their own problems to themselves, no matter how horrendous and soul crushing. Admitting difficulties to a woman raises a red flag in her mind that the man might be on the road to Loserville, which triggers an automatic flight or seek-a-new-man syndrome.
And that's the best case scenario.

Sometimes I think those Muslims have it right with the way they treat their women.

Dan8267 says

Honey, you and everyone else prostitutes yourself every time you show up to work. Do you really want to be spending your time working for a corporation? You are trading your most precious commodity, time, for money. But you do that because you have to in order to make a living. It's not ideal, but it's hardly degrading.

Now that I've known a bunch of prostitutes, I can say one thing, many would rather go that route than to take on a "real" job.

For instance, one wanted to be in financial services, but after a few months of 50 hour work weeks, she dropped it, to see clients at $200/hr, which is the going rate with a lot of Australian escorts. The average Australian accountant earns ~$54K/yr. She makes that, seeing 2 or 3 clients per week for a few hours. Obviously, she does more work because it looked like she traveled a lot to England, Singapore, etc, but it's not like the work is taxing. I mean it's just BJs and spreading her legs.

Quigley says

Women love them a hot toned guy, and if he's also smart and nice, it will be hard to make them leave him alone.

Actually, women love hot, toned, and tattooed douchebags. Or if the woman wants pure white collar, an abusive sales executive or sociopathic litigator. But yes, they're both categories of douchebags, though douchebags, conceptually, are more associated with rogues/thugs.

The man in your statement is actually me and for the most part, until I'd left STEM for financial services, women were not that interested in me. But today, I'm no longer 'nice' just outwardly polite. And I don't care to date women anymore.

Rin says

Now that I've known a bunch of prostitutes, I can say one thing, many would rather go that route than to take on a "real" job.

For instance, one wanted to be in financial services, but after a few months of 50 hour work weeks, she dropped it, to see clients at $200/hr, which is the going rate with a lot of Australian escorts. The average Australian accountant earns ~$54K/yr. She makes that, seeing 2 or 3 clients per week for a few hours. Obviously, she does more work because it looked like she traveled a lot to England, Singapore, etc, but it's not like the work is taxing. I mean it's just BJs and spreading her legs.

BTW, the other big lie is that Femi-Nazis will usually say that these women don't want this escorting work and were trafficked. Well, I'd say that driving from the outer 'burbs of Sydney into its downtown region is not trafficking; it's called, being stuck in traffic.

All and all, there's this false notion that a slew of women want to study a hard STEM field and become nuclear engineers but guys have routinely held them them back. In reality, most non-Asian females won't put in the effort to become a nuclear engineer. At best, you'll see the more diligent women go premed than anything else. And many of those women are also Asian. The truth is that the average woman wants more money for less work.

Quigley says

Sometimes I think those Muslims have it right with the way they treat their women.

False dichotomy. The Middle Eastern Islamic countries treat women like property and that's down right evil. Men in America don't have it as bad as women in the Middle East by far, but there is no reason to believe that we have to choose between a misogynous culture or a misandrist one. There are plenty of far better alternatives.

Rin says

Actually, women love hot, toned, and tattooed douchebags.

Unfortunately, this is true for many women. It's because their genes are assuming that douchebags are more likely to get their genes into the next generation, what scientists call the Sexy Son Hypothesis. If a woman bears the child of a womanizing douchebag that other women also find attractive because he's a douchebag, then any male descendants she has will have douchebag genes and will be attractive to the dumb douchebag-chasing women who will bear his children. Or as women put it, "you want a bad boy you can turn good", except that they never turn him good.

Rin says

All and all, there's this false notion that a slew of women want to study a hard STEM field and become nuclear engineers but guys have routinely held them them back. In reality, most non-Asian females won't put in the effort to become a nuclear engineer. At best, you'll see the more diligent women go premed than anything else. And many of those women are also Asian. The truth is that the average woman wants more money for less work.

+1

It pisses me off when pseudo-feminists blame STEM workers for the lack of women in STEM when it's the bigotry of non-Asian women that's the cause of that lack.

Indiana Jones says

I am talking about systemic wide exploitation in using a person's body and sexuality to sell anything, whether it is a beer at Hooters, calvin klein jeans or a ticket into a strip joint.

Are you asking men not to be attracted to pictures of attractive women?

Or are you asking advertisers not to use what actually works, but rather to let other companies use it to take revenue and market share?

Or are you asking the people to use the law to restrict freedom of speech because you don't like how it's being used?

Or maybe you're just asking people in general to avoid products that use pictures of attractive women in their ads...

sbh says

men's continued douchebaggery

BTW, when did the term douchebag, go critical?

Until perhaps a decade ago, the pejorative term, dirtbag, used to encompass a lot of today's douchebags. But then, all of a sudden, we got this massive flux of douchebaggery nationwide.

sbh says

Does that mean we can partially blame women for men's continued douchebaggery?

It's a positive feedback mechanism called "sexual exaggeration". It's the same reason women have breasts.

Dan8267 says

+1

It pisses me off when pseudo-feminists blame STEM workers for the lack of women in STEM when it's the bigotry of non-Asian women that's the cause of that lack.

The thing is that the OP is actually, not too disparate from these Femi-Nazis.

In the beginning, she'll say that those Australian prostitutes were trafficked. Then, if/when they show their green cards or Aussie passports, she'll change tack and say that they were conditioned by a male dominated society.

But then, when she sees that many were in fact, students, or earlier working as waitresses, secretaries, accountants, etc, then she'll run and hide because she can't throw the Navy nuclear engineer wannabe credo at us.

However, as soon as the legal hoes with papers disappear from the context, using a few weeks to forget about the earlier situation, we get back to the notion of trafficking women from eastern Europe or South America, and then again it arises ... the idea that men had stopped women from becoming nuclear engineers.

This is the basic pick 'n roll strategies of Femi-Nazis, so that men are tricked into ditching half their income for them. In reality, women will bang douchebags anyways. How about instead, banging a nice guy who's willing to pay for the ride?

Rin says

This is the basic pick 'n roll strategies of Femi-Nazis, so that men are tricked into ditching half their income for them. In reality, women will bang douchebags anyways. How about instead, banging a nice guy who's willing to pay for the ride?

And in the land of the free and brave, if a woman shows up and says to me, "Hey look, I'd maxed out my credit cards and have zero savings because I'm a poor saver and I love to shop for useless outfits and jewelery, can we bang, and you can cover this month's rent?"

I'd have to turn her down because I wouldn't know if she were undercover vice squad. In Australia, however, the above wouldn't be an issue.

Women will bang douchebags anyway? Dang, if only I had known years ago.