Over on the Men’s Rights Subreddit, PacmanWasALangolier is taking concern trolling to a whole new level. Apparently, according to some unspecified research, the women of today have gotten picky — tragically picky — about the men they date.
It turns out that a lot of women aren’t interested in dating just any dude out there! They cruelly, selfishly, wantonly insist on choosing whom they date and whom they don’t.
The horror!
Mr. Pacman is concerned, “honestly concerned,” for this can only end in disaster, not just for men but for those poor misguided women themselves. And possibly civilization itself.
To drop the sarcasm for a moment, let’s look at his “evidence.” First, that bit about how, historically, only 40% of men have passed on their genes. This figure comes from a paper by psychologist Roy Baumeister that’s a favorite amongst the Men’s Rights crowd, and the claim seems to be true — at least if you’re talking about the whole span of human existence.
Does this prove that women have always looked down their noses at the majority of men, refusing to have sex with decent average Joes in favor of riding that old “alpha asshole cock carousel,” as manosphere assholes so delightfully put it?
Well, not exactly. It merely suggests that in the past, more powerful men had sex with more women than the poor and subjugated, and thus were far more likely to pass on their genes. (Or at least that, however many partners they had, their babies were more likely to survive to produce babies of their own.) The figure tells us very little about the actual preferences of women, because many times the choice about who had sex with whom was made by men. Powerful men collected women into harems; male soldiers routinely raped women on the defeated side; in patriarchal cultures, fathers decided whom their daughters would marry. And so on.
Mr Pacman might also be referring to an interesting post on the OKCupid blog that revealed some interesting data on how the dating site’s (straight and bi) men and women rated the attractiveness of members of the opposite sex. But (if that is indeed what he’s referring to) he’s leaving out half of the equation, and thus totally missing the point.
Yes, it’s true that women on the site rated roughly 80% of the men on the site as “below average,” while men were much more “charitable” in their choices, with “a woman … as likely to be considered extremely ugly as extremely beautiful, [while] the majority of women have been rated about “medium.”
But Mr. Pacman has left out the most interesting part of the findings. Even though men on the site were charitable in how they rated women, with their assessments of female attractiveness falling roughly along a normal bell curve, they were more selective — much more selective — in whom they contacted. As the OKCupid blogger, Christian Rudder, puts it, “when it comes down to actually choosing targets, men choose the modelesque.” Women at the top of the bell curve in terms of attractiveness (at least as rated by site members) get
nearly 5 times as many messages as a typical woman and 28 times as many messages as a woman at the low end of our curve. Site-wide, two-thirds of male messages go to the best-looking third of women. So basically, guys are fighting each other 2-for-1 for the absolute best-rated females, while plenty of potentially charming, even cute, girls go unwritten.
For women, the results are strikingly different. While they tended to be pretty selective when it came to rating men on their looks, in practice they were far more open to dating men they considered average or below average in looks. As Rudder notes,
women rate an incredible 80% of guys as worse-looking than medium. Very harsh. On the other hand, when it comes to actual messaging, women shift their expectations only just slightly ahead of the curve, which is a healthier pattern than guys’ pursuing the all-but-unattainable. … [T]he average-looking woman has convinced herself that the vast majority of males aren’t good enough for her, but she then goes right out and messages them anyway.
Of course, the data here might be skewed by another factor that the blogger doesn’t address: on OKCupid, when someone rates someone else highly, and that someone else has also rated them highly, the site sends out a message informing both of them of a possible match. Women rating particular men as unattractive may not actually think of them as unattractive, but may be simply trying to avoid getting a lot of spammy messages from guys whose profiles they may not have looked at in detail.
So, yeah, once again, the real world is a lot more complicated, and much more interesting, than the world inside the head of the typical MRA.
Did DaPoet use the phrase “financial apist”?
See this shit is the reason why no takes MRA’s and MGTOW’s seriously.
@Historophilia
But… but… he can use a MICROWAVE. I mean, every woman out there is salivating over his microwaving prowess, so they can sit in the driveway and cry until he heats up their… WTF do they think we eat… bonbons? Yes, until he heats up their bonbons. And, with mad skillz like that, he has to make at least minimum wage, which is catnip to most women, so his concerns about financial rape are TOTALLY understandable.
Now, if he manages to master the art and science of boiling water, we’re going to have to put him in some kind of protection program or get a National Guard unit posted outside of his mom’s basement. I mean, women won’t be able to resist the alphacock that is DaPoet if he learns how to boil water. We could have TEA with our bonbons!
My panties are wet just thinking about it!
[/sarcasm]
Nova, don’t bonbons come in foil wrappers?
I just realized that I have no idea what the fuck a bonbon is. This is gonna be like when someone on a dating site sent me a message telling me to stop eating hohos. I’m gonna look up this repeated syllable food and discover I’ve never eaten one and be thus completely unable to stop eating them.
I thought it was a chocolate candy, like what you’d find in a Russel Stovers gift box, but apparently it’s a general French term for candy. Or for chocolate covered ice cream. My mother occasionally bought HoHo’s when we were children, but it was a very rare thing. Chocolate cupcakes with that white Twinkie filling inside and imitation chocolate frosting. I would stop eating that thing that you’ve never heard of and have never tried. Probably not very healthy.
But, I bet DaPoet can do some wonders with a Ho Ho in the microwave. Damn, we have to give him some kind of award for going his own way. Can you imagine the taxpayer burden that he’s saved us? I mean, 24/7 National Guard protection has to be expensive and there are a lot of sneaky ways to get into a basement. And, if he figures out how to… I shudder to say it… use the oven, I think that the fabric of the universe may be in jeopardy. Dogs will use the toilet while reciting Russian poetry, the sky will turn red and semen will rain from the heavens, turning all women into bleached blonde exotic dancers and all men into Clive Owen.
My ferrets have requested a summit to discuss these very real dangers to society. Unfortunately, the cats are in the midst of their early afternoon nap, but have agreed to schedule this emergency meeting in between that and their mid afternoon “stare at the wall, yowl and run around like their tail is on fire” workout. I hope they wake up soon. We’re a dial twist away from catastrophe here!
Nova, don’t bonbons come in foil wrappers? – Nepenthe
I read “bonbons” as “bonobos” and wondered what the hell was going on, until I realised my mistake.
Are women necessary? Absolutely Not! Noise Confusion Chaos all reign supreme whenever a woman is present while Peace and Quiet reign whenever a woman’s is absence.
DaPoet, that noise confusion and chaos you’re hearing is just because you put something foil-covered into your microwave. Take it out.
No, women aren’t necessary, when super alphas like you can use your own microwave. Except for… I dunno… making sure the species doesn’t die out and shit. Then again, once you learn to use the oven, women will all be mute with big boobies and therefore acceptable for breeding purposes. And you’ll be just like Clive Owen, who’s so alpha that he can not only use a microwave and a stove, but can engage in a gunfight with super manginas, while giving Monica Bellucci an orgasm.
The feline/ ferret summit on super alphamaleness of 2012 has determined that an Easy Bake will only cause a series of earthquakes and subsequent tsunamis in the Pacific region. NOAA has been notified and is prepared for the x-laxesque chocolate cupcakes you’ll need to bake for practice before you graduate to the big boy oven. The one in your mom’s kitchen. I’m sure that she’ll let you know where the kitchen is, if you don’t include “you fucking American whore-cunt” in your request.
We’re working vigilantly using the interwebz and the power of cute kitty videos to figure out how to stop you from learning how to turn that dial. But… I dunno if we’re any match for your alpha microwave using manliness. We were unable to thwart your microwave button pushing, so… I guess feminists around the world must prepare themselves for butt floss and learn how to walk in 12 inch Lucite heels.
Damn, I’m going to miss my Birkenstocks.
Poor guy is waiting for us to ask one of the questions for which he has carefully crafted an answer, but we don’t, so he’s forced to ask the question himself and then answer it.
What an insightful, poetic soul DaPoet is. Only a truly expansive being could be so deep and so pure to prefer a hand to a living, breathing personality that occasionally inconveniences him by saying “no.”
@Katz: Yeah, I know! We’re so misandrist, because we just blatantly refuse to read his mind and give him an appropriate lead in to his vitrol.
Speaking of menzrights and poetry, here’s a poem respectfully appropriating Kurt Cobain’s suicide to criticize feminism:
It’s by that guy who wrote this lullaby.
Cloudiah, I claim no responsibility for snorting so loud it woke my employer. That’s all on you. *accusing finger8
I like how DaPoet’s avatar is waving his right hand. Subtle and classy!
For somedude named DaPoet, there’s zero poetry in his arglebagle. Trolls these days, I swear.
His blog is a riot, too. My favorite is “intolerate of lying.”
Yeah, his blog is a hoot. Too bad he couldn’t stay there with his stunning unoriginal material.
I know he has a copyright notice up, but I am asserting fair use to quote from this one.
By all means, daPoet, liberate yourself. All women collectively are returning your “gift” unopened.
The kicker is he’s married. My sympathies to his wife.
I think the marriage is past tense…
Maybe, instead of the gift of his seed, she really wanted earrings.
I like how he manages to mix horrid literary clichés with horrid MRM clichés. He’s a real fine piece of work, and I mean that sincerely.
Nova, it read pretty present tense, but who knows. He wouldn’t be the first married MGTOW we’ve had around here, which totally blows my mind.
@HellKell: Maybe his literary greatness has taken some time to cultivate. This one seems to suggest that things went sour with wifey: http://poeticdaydreams.wordpress.com/2012/10/09/if-now-were-then/
[blockquote]
Over time we became the best of friends
delighted to be each others first in everything
just as we shared our very first kiss
even so in the end we drifted so very far apart
{snip}
Now as I lay here years later reliving
older, wiser and so very lonely
thinking if now were then and then were now
I would marry you just as I should have then![/blockquote]
And, now things make sense.
And I still suck at blockquotes.
Ah, another ‘poet’ who doesn’t know the difference between lay (past tense) and lie (present tense).
Or maybe he’s a chook and is busy laying eggs.