By David Futrelle
Several years ago, a certain subset of pickup artists became obsessed with ovulation after reading (or hearing of) a study suggesting that women on the verge of ovulation tend to be especially attracted to the sort of hyper-masculine “alpha males” that PUAs spend so much energy pretending to be.
Indeed, some enterprising PUAs literally began tracking the menstrual cycles of various women they were attracted to, using spreadsheets or apps designed for actual menstruaters, so they could schedule their seduction attempts for when their targets would be at the height of their horny alpha-hunger.
This sort of talk has largely died down in PUA hangouts like the Red Pill subreddit after, one assumes, a lot of failures in the real world. (The “alpha male” part of the original study has basically been disproven, though it’s apparently true that cis women on average do get a bit hornier before they ovulate.)
But hope lingers on, at least in the heart of one lonely incel who posted a plaintive query in the Braincels subreddit earlier today (and then reposted it in the IncelsWithoutHate subreddit). His question? Well, you might as well read it for yourself.
Alas, poor NiceGuy897393 got no useful advice, only mockery, in the Braincels subreddit, the main Reddit hangout for incels. The regulas in the IncelsWithoutHate subreddit were a little more helpful.
“That’s just not how it works,” wrote a commenter called
Miranda_Bonard.
women are not just idk, looking for sex when they are ovulating. If you’re not their type, they won’t want you. + how the fuck did you get to know her schedule? And being sweaty doesn’t help most of time when you want to date someone.
A commenter called Cavedwelling offered an even more detailed answer:
People are a little more complicaited than that, People don’t really work like animals. Girls feel a plethora of things during their period, …
And humans aren’t attracted to the smell of sweat like animals. Sweat is a bad smell, girls would be alot more attracted to a touch of cologne than the smell of bacteria eating sweat in your armpits.
If she didn’t like you before, she still won’t want to fuck you then. It’s best to just talk to her and feel out the situation.
Woah. “Just talk to her?” Like she’s another human being? There’s a radical idea.
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@Jenora Feuer:
Easy!
Scientist: If I asked your brother whether he’s the Truth quark, would he say yes?
There’s a big difference between not showering due to mental health/economic status, and deliberately not showering in order to get laid. One is life circumstance, the other is knowingly violating a social contract because having sex supersedes all else.
But mainly this guy is a jerk for thinking women go into estrus, just like animals, and are therefore easy to manipulate.
@Buttercup Q. Skullpants
There is a big difference, but people here were talking about their own showering/cleaning schedules, and then expressing bewilderment about how anyone could *not* shower X times every Y days.
That’s where it starts to cross the line into shaming, which is something I was/am getting concerned about happening in this thread.
@Rhuu – Oh, I totally agree, I’m not comfortable with the direction the conversation is taking either. That’s why I was trying to refocus on the OP. Nobody here should feel shamed.
@Buttercup Q. Skullpants – Ah, okay, I misunderstood the tone of the comment. Sorry!
@Moggie:
I’ll admit I liked the ‘Gordian Knot’ approach to that taken in the webcomic Order of the Stick, where they meet the standard truth-teller/liar combo: the rogue stabs one of the two in the foot, and when that one goes “Ahh! You stabbed me!” and the other one says “She totally did not!” they know which one is telling the truth.
That said, I also have a copy of Raymond Smullyan’s Alice in Puzzleland, which included several Knight/Knave puzzles, and then added Spies who could either lie or tell the truth, whichever suited their purposes. The last puzzle involved a court case with one of each of the three. At the end you’re told that the judge asked a question, got an answer, and that allowed the judge to solve the case. You’re not told what the question was or what the answer was. You’re then told that this story was told to someone else, who couldn’t figure what the answer was, and who asked what the question was. Once he knew what the question was, he could solve it even without knowing the answer (because only one answer would have a unique solution). And that is enough information to solve it even without knowing the question or answer, because there’s only one question the judge could have asked which would result in one answer with a unique solution like that.
Gah.
@Moggie:
Your comments about Stevenage reminded me of my first trip to Europe, which was to the Netherlands. We – my spouse and I – were told that people generally want to live in the old population centers.
We took a drive up to the north of Holland, where there’s all the land that’s been reclaimed from the ocean. Apparently, there’s not much interest in living or working on this ‘new’ land.
re: dental care
I’m an American on Medicare and Medicaid (disabled due to kidney failure), and one thing that is frustrating to no end is that together, they cover virtually everything EXCEPT dental care, for which they provide no assistance whatsoever. Despite the tremendous effect that dental dealth can have on overall health.
Dental care is generally not covered because it’s so expensive, and that’s for one simple reason: everyone (or very nearly so) has or had teeth, and they need an astonishing amount of care to keep healthy. Combine that with the fact that the vast majority of people don’t take proper care of their teeth to begin with, and you’ve got a perfect storm of continuous maintenance costs plus the increased cost of emergency care, which is remarkably specialized. That’s a lot of burden for even the most progressive single payer system to shoulder.
Not everyone gets cancer, or diabetes, or breaks a limb, etc. But everyone needs regular dental cleanings, plus a very large number will also require cavities filled, root canals performed, and wisdom teeth (not to mention damaged or decaying teeth) removal.
I’m not saying for an instant that, in any right-minded society, dental care shouldn’t be covered by the single payer health system. I’m just explaining why it isn’t, since I wondered the same thing once and did some research.
@Jenora Feuer:
If you think that’s bad, I’ve heard this one (and no, I don’t know the answer to it)
There are three Gods. They know everything and are omniscient, and will answer any question, but only once per person each, and only if it can be answered as “yes” or “no”. They do not speak otherwise. Their words for “yes” and “no” are “ba” and “da”, but you have no idea which one means which. One always tells the truth, one always lies, and one always answers randomly, and you can’t tell them apart. How do you question them to be certain you get the right answer, regardless of what you want to know?
@ snowberry & jenora
Here you go…
@Katamount and Doethreetwoone – I think that dentistry should be (at the least) treated as a regular medical specialty, but it would be better if it was put on a level of a GP.
It took me until my mid-50s to realize that I’ve had some bad dentists in my life, which had a very detrimental effect on my mouth. I found an excellent dentist* three years ago and have put him on notice that he’s not allowed to retire until after I’m dead!
*Everyone in that office is really great, actually. Makes a huge difference! Totally random thing: The office is within walking distance of my house!
Not looking at that video until after I think about it myself.
Admittedly, I kind of like the whole ‘you have enough information to solve this problem now’ twist as a piece of information.
One classic version of that is the census taker who wants to know the ages of three children. The mother refuses to tell the census taker the individual ages, but she tells him the product of their ages is 36. She then tells him the sum of their ages, and the census taker says he still doesn’t know how old they are. Then the mother says that the youngest likes ice cream, and the census taker says, “Ahh, thank you,” and leaves. How old are the children?
Answer: the only possible sum for which the census taker wouldn’t know the ages after that point is 13, which could be 9,2,2 or 6,6,1. If there is a ‘youngest one’, that means 6,6,1 is the only answer.
I’ve seen the same puzzle starting with the product being 72, which gives an answer of 6,6,2 (instead of 3,3,8) instead.
Sometimes with puzzles like this, just knowing that there IS a solution with the information you have is enough extra information to find it.
(I have a copy of an old book of puzzles by Charles Dodgson, a.k.a. Lewis Carroll, around somewhere. Need to find that again.)
I’ve no problem with people who aren’t daily shower-ers. It’s just people who actually believe the garbage the subject of the article, Mr. NiceGuy believes (yes, there are some people like that) are pretty much deliberately trying to offend to get “notice” from the people they’re trying to attract (in their own realities, of course). They do this by “cultivating” their own scents in a variety of ways, many of which seem to involve avoiding soap and water for long periods of time.
In actuality, they’re merely harassing someone who’s not interested, and that’s definitely not cool.
@Katherine the Adequate
And harassing lots of people they don’t even intend to harass while they’re at it. That’s another part of this nonsense they don’t seem to think about: how can they be sure that their Manly Scent will only be directed at the woman they’re interested in? Or will all women be suddenly drawn to him, and he’ll get to reject the uggos, haha take that? What about the men who come into scent range? Are they just going to be intimidated and ease away, knowing that someone manlier than they are is around? What if TWO of these people take aim at the same woman? Do they have to have a scent-off?
Unquestionably so.
It’s a peaceful method of settling the dispute – that’s not to be sniffed at. 😛
(Hey, it’s late and the insomnia demon has been prowling)
Years ago, via a regular link roundup post on Requires Hate’s old blog, I stumbled across a page written by someone based in Southeast Asia (I’m wanting to say it was Malaysia, but I’m not sure). The writer was taking Westerners, especially white Westerners, to task for their lack of hygiene, specificity the fact that Westerners don’t take showers 2+ times a day to keep their BO down to acceptable levels.
While having to take multiple showers a day might make some sense in a tropical country where the heat and humidity makes people sweat more, I (at least) have a bit of trouble figuring out how that would work in practical terms. Like, do all the businesses there have showers installed in all their restrooms so people can clean themselves on the go, or is everyone expected to commute home several times a day to shower?
And are you allowed to wear the same clothes all day between showers, or do you have to change them each time? The mind can’t quite figure the logistics on that idea to make it seem worthwhile for a huuuuuuge group of people to do THAT often a day.
@Redsilkphoenix
The majority of my workplaces have had showers available.
Thank you to the folks who mentioned that not everyone is able to be hygienic.
When I was homeless it was one of the major indignities that really got me down. It took a lot of effort to stay as clean as possible, but it was no where near my standards.
After that, Ive been a lot less judgy, especially on the bus.
BUT! That doesnt mean it stopped being really awful to me to smell it, Im still a sensitive smeller, so much so I will get off that bus or move seats. What I wont do is make it your problem
There are men (and other people but in this case specifically as an odd toxic masculinity thing) who are deliberately inconsiderate about their scent for bad reasons (like I think the hippie reasons are understandable), but they are in the minority.
Some people also probably just cant smell themselves, hate showering, dont think its a big deal. Its annoying and ok to vent about and to delicately bring up in a sensitive way when necessary, but I dont think you should assume or be mean.
Apologizing ahead of time for necroing this thread, but just noticed Jenora’s response to me re the Hygiene Hypothesis and wanted to thank her/him/them for the info.