Happy day! Susan Walsh has drawn another diagram! Loyal readers of Man Boobz will recall the last time that Walsh, a would-be relationship expert who blogs at Hooking Up Smart, tried her hand at diagram making. It wasn’t pretty. In an attempt to sketch out the economic costs of sluthood, Walsh cobbled together an extravagantly convoluted mess of a flow-chart based on little more than a few bad assumptions and what she insisted was common sense.
This time, Walsh attempts to chart how the sexual revolution has transformed dating, borrowing her argument largely from some dude called Frost who blogs about sex and relationships and PUA bullshit at Freedom Twenty-Five.
Back in the old “leave it to Beaver” days, Frost argues, virtually all men and women paired off efficiently with partners who exactly matched their level of hotness, as charted on the infamous ten-point scale beloved of pickup artists and other such creatures. Fives married fives, nines married nines, and even lowly ones were able to find true love and hot ugly sex with others as unfortunate as they were. As Walsh puts it, attempting to make all this somehow sound vaguely scientific:
This system worked pretty well in achieving equilibrium with respect to SMV (sexual market value).
Naturally, neither Frost nor Walsh offer any evidence that any of this was true. Which only makes sense, since it, er, wasn’t.
Let’s set that aside for a moment and move on to our current fallen state, post-sexual revolution. Now, apparently, a small minority of hot dudes score all the chicks, from nines on down to threes. Everyone else spends their lonely nights alone with their hands and a choice of vibrator or fleshlight.
Here’s where the diagram comes in. It’s a doozy:
Now, Walsh doesn’t actually explain how she knows this (or, rather believes it, since it clearly is not true), or why exactly she thinks the sexual revolution is to blame. But Frost does, sort of. With the sexual revolution, he argues,
the social convention of monogamy starts to break down. Women are free to do what they want, and they quickly realize that the men they can persuade to have short-term sexual relationships with are much, much more attractive than the men willing to marry them. Attractive men are free to eschew marriage, and instead maintain a harem of rotating friends-with-benefits and one-night stands. Super-attractive men (professional athletes, rock stars, bloggers) can spend every night with a different coterie of young, attractive women, railing lines off their ass cheeks and banging them senseless.
Sounds great for men. And not too bad for women either, who get to shag NHL players and bloggers instead of their ho-hum husbands.
Wait a minute. “… and bloggers?” Bloggers are now the alpha males? I wish I’d known this sooner!
But every woman who elects to join a harem, must necessarily leave a lonely man behind in the great mating scramble. … The men at the bottom are left to their RPGs and porn.
So there you have the effects of the sexual revolution on men: Great for the few, awful for the teeming masses.
Well, there’s a certain logic to that argument. It’s just not, you know, true.
Walsh and all the manosphere dudes who’ve convinced themselves that 80% of men have been left sexless have it backwards: as a handy FAQ at the Kinsey Institute points out, only about 10 percent of men don’t have sex during any given year. The average frequency of sex ranges from more than 100 times a year for those in their teens and twenties to about 70 times a year for those in their 40s.
But what about the ladies? Frost explains that they suffer too, especially those unfortunate enough to be mega-hotties. Frost seems to base this conclusion almost entirely on the sexual history of one Betty Draper. This seems a very small sample size to me. Also, she’is fictional. But that doesn’t stand in Frost’s way:
What about the top woman? The ultimate hottie? Previously, she had the top man all to herself. She literally could not have asked for anything more, assuming as I do that women naturally gravitate toward sleeping with the one man who is their best option at a given time, while men are only as faithful as their options. Suddenly, her man is beset by hussies, plying him with offers of cheap sex. How does Betty Draper feel about the breakdown of monogamy in her world? …
Now [the top women] must choose between sharing, or settling for a man far below her previous catch. Meanwhile, uglier women can choose between monogamy with a man far above her previous level, or a shared slice of one of the top men. She is unequivocally better off, as the hotter women are unequivocally worse off.
Frost concludes:
The Sexual Revolution harms attractive women, and unattractive men. It benefits unattractive women, and attractive men.
Naturally, none of this is the fault of men. It is, Frost and Walsh apparently agree, the fault of all those mid-level bitches slutting it up with the top men. It’s all their fault that the ladies at the top and bottom are getting left high and dry.
Indeed, it’s high time that the hottest hotties stood up for their rights, Frost argues in a second blog post:
It never seems to occur to the hot girls of the world that the sexual revolution is the cause of their troubles. Without it, the best that a top man could do is find a top woman, and devote his life to her. In our present dystopia, he can find that top woman, and rip her heart and soul to pieces by maintaining a harem of flings on the side.
If it wasn’t for the legions of female 7′s and 8′s throwing themselves at the male 9′s, the female 9′s could have their men all to themselves. But in the world as it is, they will always be competing with the omnipresent availability of cheap and easy sex.
Were the hot women to regain their hot pride, sluts and feminists alike would quake in their boots:
The greatest fear of the feminists is that desirable women like yourselves will wake up the lies they’ve been fed, embrace their feminine modesty, and cast the harsh light reality on of the fat, shrill, used-up slutwalkers and middle-aged divorcees.
What of the not-quite-hotties? Walsh has some harsher advice for all those “mediocre sluts” out there riding that alpha asshole cock carousel. She writes:
For less attractive women, an objective assessment of market value is essential. That can only be realized by evaluating which men are interested in dating you rather than banging you.
In other words: mid-level ladies, you’re still losers. Eventually, you asses will get fat, your skin will get wrinkly, and the alpha assholes will grow tired of banging you. So what are you poor gals to do? Walsh offers this grim assessment:
These are the hard truths of the Post Sexual Revolution era. There are a few winners, and many losers. It is difficult to see how equilibrium can ever be regained. For now at least, your only option is to think carefully and realistically about your personal life goals. Make sure the choices you’re making get you closer to them.
(Confidential to Susan Walsh: You do know that using terms like “equilibrium,” like you’re some sort of sexual economist, doesn’t actually make your bullshit true?)
Given that everything in Frost and Walsh’s posts here is such unmitigated bullshit, I think I have some better advice for women of all hotness levels (if they haven’t already figured this out for themselves): stop taking relationship advice from a woman who wants you to hate yourself.
And speaking of bad choices: those smileys? Oy. Strive for elegant simplicity, not tacky clutter.
NOTE: Chuck on Gucci Little Piggy has written a response of sorts to this post. I’ve replied on his blog here. But there is something distressing going on there: Someone has posted several rude comments there under the name “Man Boobz.” THAT PERSON IS NOT ME. If any of you are responsible, STOP IMMEDIATELY. I’ve asked Chuck to ban that person and delete the comments.
EDITED TO ADD: Chuck changed the name of the commenter to “not man boobz.” That makes sense to me.
Here are the two propositions of the MRA/MGTOW’s*. The truth of these propostions is at least debatable (I say this because they explain some of my own experiences).
1. Although men prefer polygamy and women prefer monogamy, men prefer polygamy more intensely than women prefer monogamy.
2. Therefore, women who are not 10’s but who are not actively hideous have the option of trading up. This is why so many unworthy slags get so much unfair access to top-notch male chi.
(The implication being that it’s the job of the morally acute MRA/MGTOW to reform this grave injustice.)
Here is the single proposition of the bekabot. Its truth is not debatable. (I say this b/c I seriously doubt I could find anybody out there with the courage to deny it. It’s that obvious.)
1. Men may prefer polygamy and women may prefer monogamy, etc., etc., but that’s all moot, because the important thing, the thing to remember, is that any given woman would rather be alone than be with a man who is outright repulsive.
The single proposition below trumps the two propositions above. It explains why men, all other things being equal, tend to get stuck doing the courting, and it also explains why guys who spend their time arguing about whether Wilma Flintstone is hotter than Betty Rubble are never going to make it with Betty Draper, no matter how bored and lonely Betty Draper gets. Their butthurt moans about how iniquitous it all is are only going to make things worse.
Probably they know that. I have no solution to offer. I wish only to notice that all this graph-making and chartology is so much glorified wheel-spinning, and is somewhat less useful than tatting or scrimshaw, both of which require a real kind of dexterity. The moral, I suppose, is: beware how energetically you cultivate your fake-out skills, b/c the person you end up faking out may be yourself.
*
oh, and of the women who hang with that crowd, of course
Clarence, we are not familiar; please don’t shorten my name.
And I’m not exactly sure who you think you are, but let me tell you who I am not: I’m not your fucking student. This is not a classroom. And if you want to continue this derail by discussing CONSAD and the wage gap, have it. I’ll continue to read your posts and the responses, and be entertained. Any reading and research I care to do on the subject, I’ll do in my own time and draw my own conclusions.
I’m also going to keep making fun of you for defending Walsh’s post by saying that it isn’t worth defending. Because that’s hilarious.
Nob:
Do whatever you want. And I know who I am. I’m someone who has spent hundreds of hours researching shit like the wage gap and things of that nature and I’ve spent quite a lot of time on Hooking Up Smart as well. I don’t take condescension any better than you do, and I don’t need you to explain to me what is wrong with Susan’s post, so “I’m not your student” back at you, buddy.
@bekabot So what do the men want? They’d rather be with someone repulsive?
I am also surprised to see Clarence… praising?…NSWATM. And am confused about his “I turned out to having a LDR with a 15 year old” story. I know he was responding to Sarah’s story about cybering at 10, but I was a little creeped out by the detail.
Molly:
I have a friendship with her and we cybered a few times when she was unknown to me, 15 and 16. LDR, no. Never. She current has a boyfriend. Since I’ve been a friend for so much of her life, she “came clean” early last year. Glad I could clear this up before I left. I just wanted to let Sarah know that in my experience what she did may not be that uncommon.
@Clarence:
Yeah, so I skimmed through CONSAD, and I read ampersand’s dissection of the study. The critiques zie brings up are valid and accurate. If you are lazy, here’s a short summery:
1) CONSAD includes part-time employees in its sample. Since women are much more likely to work part-time, this means that the study erroneously attributes difference in pay to hours worked. But if you just look at full-time, year-round employers, the gap is much larger (and can’t be accounted for by hour differences).
2) While CONSAD tries “explain away” differences in pay through things like different positions or hours or what not, the unfortunate thing is that those factors can also be contributed to by sexism. Thus, CONSAD cannot claim how sexism relates to either the large percentage that was “accounted for” or the remaining bit.
3) CONSAD also includes a lot of assumptions about who takes care of the kids at home; who minds the house and who earns the bread. This affects mainly the interpretation of the data, not the data itself. Women don’t have to be stay at home mothers, men don’t have to be workers, the genders can switch. So thinking that there is no problem of sexism when women are consistently becoming house-wives is nonsense.
So yeah, CONSAD is not the definite authority in this matter, as it looks at the wrong data and comes to the wrong conclusions using faulty premises. Consider CONSAD critiqued.
(side note: why on earth would you say that a single study can be the “final word” on any subject? Science doesn’t deal with “once proved, always correct” mentalities. Even once you have a solid theory, it must be continuously tested and retested to ensure that it is free from bias. At best, you have a study that is consistent with a bunch of others, and therefore reinforces a conclusion. At worst, you have one that doesn’t fit other research, and either the method or conclusions are wrong, or the data is variable enough to give an outlier study.)
Clarence, what I think was so weird was how very young I was. 10 is much different then 15. I hadn’t even started to menstruate. Or masturbate. I just wanted to see if I could manipulate adult men. And I wanted to see what all of the fuss was about.
Thinking back, it was very, very strange of me. And legally problematic. I’m glad no one got in trouble, and I’m glad that I didn’t get hurt.
The difference between the intelligence Clarence believes he has and the intelligence he actually has is amusing. Nobinayamu and kirby FTW!
C, if you don’t like condescension then don’t be condescending.
Nobinayamu: I think the diminutive is “Clare”.
@Amused:
What, being female is now “diminutive”? *shock and horror*
Why would anyone want to get with Betty Draper? Sure, January Jones is a beautiful woman, but Betty is a horrible person, abuses her daughter and has the emotional maturity of a child.
@Kirbywarp
I’d hazard a guess that being called Clare is more “diminutive” to Clarence than to a woman.
@spearhafoc
And I wonder where Joan Harris would fit on this diagram? Betty Draper can’t hold a candle to her — neither in intelligence, nor personality, nor looks.
Personality doesn’t matter in this diagram. People on college campuses and in “coastal cities” don’t have personalities.
“The single proposition below trumps the two propositions above. It explains why men, all other things being equal, tend to get stuck doing the courting, and it also explains why guys who spend their time arguing about whether Wilma Flintstone is hotter than Betty Rubble are never going to make it with Betty Draper, no matter how bored and lonely Betty Draper gets. Their butthurt moans about how iniquitous it all is are only going to make things worse.”
Clarence thinks that Consad is a meta-analysis? You don’t know what that word means, you stupid tit. Meta-analyses don’t generally introduce brand new data not found in counterparts. They also don’t indicate a super-study that is automatically better; if the methodology sucks, the meta-analysis is still useless. And if you think proper study means that things are ‘proven’ to any non-conditional degree, you’re quite a stupid little troll in addition to your other amusements. Maybe instead of being on the internet, you should have paid attention in school. Or researched better and learned how to science, instead of how to brag about your age and your time spent on research.
You’ve already been pointed towards a multitude of studies that directly contradict your precious report, and all you’ve done is clutch tightly to your one study that supports your conclusion and shout fiercely “BUT EVERYTHING IS FINE”. You’ve ignored that even if, and this is fantasy, the pay gap were a myth, there’s still amazingly strong evidence for the hiring and promotion gaps, and that those gaps are generally even more critical for women than the pay gap, if less sexy to discuss. And then you whine when someone mocks you? No, no, I think we’re fine, you’re pretty much earning it.
Oh bother, I’d meant to reply to the quoted remark as well. And apparently forgot what I was thinking for it. Oh well.
Nah, this whole thing is really simple. A majority of women do fuck a minority of men. Lets be honest here, ya got rock stars, actors, the wealthy, drug runners, sports figures, good looking guys, ect, getting to fuck a whole bunch of women. It’s not neccesarily a relationship but young girls/women will fuck these boys/men.
Well years later these women have slept with ten or a dozen different guys. Nobody is gonna buy a car thats had a dozen users, it’s a used piece of crap with a world of issues. Like the saying goes, if the kitten didn’t want me I don’t want the cat.
One thing that bugs me about Farrell is how he supports (or used to support) hazing. IIRC, he dismisses women’s objections to being hazed at work by explaining that men do it to other men to prove that they’re capable of doing a certain job. So, instead of it being something negative for both men and women, women shouldn’t complain when they’re hazed at work because it happens to men, too, and serves the purpose of weeding out incompetents.
I was once on a mailing list that had several men on it who LOVED Farrell and when I posted about some pretty awful hazing of men by men in the US military, it was dismissed with, “It’s a volunteer army, they’re not being drafted, so it’s their choice.” When I pointed out that a lot of working class men join the military because it’s one of very few options open for them, I was ignored or ridiculed.
I’ve concluded that for many MRAs, the only abuse they recognize is abuse of men by women. Abuse of men by men doesn’t hit their radar, unless it’s a family court judge.
Oh, Susan Walsh. You are one big [citation needed].
(but, careful, if you point that out on her blog how DARE you say she doesn’t have the right to hypothesize!)
@Wisteria:
“I’ve concluded that for many MRAs, the only abuse they recognize is abuse of men by women. Abuse of men by men doesn’t hit their radar, unless it’s a family court judge.”
Even in the case of the judge, its the evil wife that is ultimately driving the court along. They are not pro-men, they are anti-woman.
Rutee:
A meta-analysis is a summation and analysis of data from other studies to try to tease out the relevant factors from the data of these studies. I’d tell you to go back to school, but I don’t think you liked seventh grade. Once again, argue the data and analysis of that study or kindly shut up about it.
Oh, and by the way:
Most of the “data” I’ve been pointed to, was already included in CONSAD. You seem unable to make fair or accurate arguments.