8 ms·

Essentially, what we have right now in the sexual marketplace echoes what we have in the economy... a lot of the sex is being had by a small fraction of the peo

Essentially, what we have right now in the sexual marketplace echoes what we have in the economy... a lot of the sex is being had by a small fraction of the people. The need for sex is perhaps as high as the need for money but nobody talks about this crushing inequality, perhaps because there is no practical way to “tax and redistribute” sex. The problem is worse for men since a man needs a certain set of skills and traits to get casual sex, but is probably equally bad for the genders in terms of finding long term relationships. When social norms dictated that you must be married to have sex, every woman and man paired off and got to have sex, however low quality and in however unhappy of a marriage. I’m not sure this world is an improvement.

toyg 6y ago
> there is no practical way to “tax and redistribute” sex. But there is a way to improve supply: give dignity to prostitution.
- hn8788 6y ago
  That doesn't work out as well as it sounds. Unsuprisingly, the amount of women willing to have sex with strangers for money is relatively low. Studies have shown that legalizing prostitution increases the rate of human trafficking to meet the greater demand. https://orgs.law.harvard.edu/lids/2014/06/12/does-legalized-prostitution-increase-human-trafficking/ https://orgs.law.harvard.edu/lids/2014/06/12/does-legalized-...
  - toyg 6y ago
    That's a function of massive income inequality across countries, though. Fix that, and the incentive for trafficking disappears.
    - tengbretson 6y ago
      Let's start with the assumption that we will have to solve this problem while under the constraints of actual reality.
      - toyg 6y ago
        Are you saying that massive economic inequality is a-OK...? These are all big problems we ain't gonna fix in 5 years or 10.
        cjaybo 6y ago
        It's clear that they were pointing out exactly what you're getting at in your second sentence: any solution that that depends on solving global income inequality is practically impossible over any reasonable timeline, and therefore not worth much discussion.
    - lotsofpulp 6y ago
      But fixing income inequality would presumably reduce the number of women willing to sell sex, so you're back to square 1.
      - toyg 6y ago
        That also depends on other factors. When being a prostitute means being a criminal, obviously it's not desirable.
      - johnnyanmac 6y ago
        Fixing income inequality creates more opportunities to perform activities, which leads to more socialization leading to more potential romantic encounters. Hard to think about a spouse when you're making $8/hr but spending 33% of your life behind a counter. I also wager a portion of the people who feel they "need but can't get sex" may also learn that what they desired wasn't what they actually cared that much about. In this regard, I guess one can argue that prostitution is a crutch to a much larger problem that may never truly be solved.
        spoonjim 6y ago
        Do you think lower income people have less sex?
        johnnyanmac 6y ago
        In the grand scheme of the world definition of lower income, no. I haven't looked too deeply into it, but apparently 3rd world countries have as much or more sex, but have less access to birth control. In the context of "first world lower income", I'd wager there's a loose correlation. i.e the incel movement is one mostly formed from a frustrated lower-middle/middle class (which in the world context, means many americans for the sake of discussion). Another comment in this post heard something similar as well: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27041400 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27041400 I'd be interested in any studies that disprove this notion. I'll admit most of this comment is conjecture.
    - waterhouse 6y ago
      I don't think it's income inequality. It's legality-of-prostitution inequality. That is, the traffickers decided to move their operations from countries where prostitution was illegal to countries where it's legal, because, all else being equal, it's easier to operate in the latter. The link doesn't claim that the total amount of trafficking increased, and the quoted results don't favor the "net increase" hypothesis over the "movement" hypothesis.
- phkahler 6y ago
  >> But there is a way to improve supply: give dignity to prostitution. Better yet, guys need to learn to be the kind of man women want to fvck. They're not obligated and attraction is non-negotiable. Reality can be harsh. Guys need to treat themselves with dignity and put themselves together.
  - ngngngng 6y ago
    I think this is a good thought. My own religion gave me some direction for how to become to type of man women want, but it did leave something to be desired. And then upon searching for this sort of direction later in life while trying to improve my own relationships I stumbled upon the "red pill" communities. There's a lot of nuance to these communities as well. They tell men that you can become the type of man that women want, and they give you a roadmap to do so (work on your personality, lift weights, take care of yourself, take care of your life) but unfortunately these communities also come with some ideas that range from strange to downright misogynistic. I think there's room for some down to earth, responsible men to try and fill this space. Right now the "teach young men how to be" space is mostly filled with misogyny and terrible pick up artists.
    - JohnBooty 6y ago
      I think there's room for some down to earth, responsible men to try and fill this space. Right now the "teach young men how to be" space is mostly filled with misogyny and terrible pick up artists. Goodness yes. The PUA and red pill communities have absolutely poisoned this space and, at least in America, it's impossible to see how a healthy alternative could even take root. I know that if one sprang up, my first reaction would be to lump it in with the toxic crap and never give it a second look. It's a shame because there is absolutely a need for this.
      - johnnyanmac 6y ago
        goes back to the author's statements: >there’s a vast difference between a person who believes the stated beliefs of a group as opposed to a person who holds membership in a group as a defining part of their identity. Imagining a conversation with someone who generically believes women should be treated well is a much different experience than imagining the same conversation with person who boldly declares themselves a feminist; the same is true for what you’d expect from a talk with an MRA. Always seems to come down to good intentions, bad actors that make such "identities" dangerous. Even if it's an otherwise honest person that just wants some self-help advice.
- robocat 6y ago
  Physical sex is not intimacy. Sex work leads to some very strange dynamics, because often the Johns are desperate for intimacy, but they are paying for women that provide zero actual intimacy (because it is usually entirely faked.) I am sure there is some ideal world where prostitution could satisfy emotional needs, but in my admittedly very limited knowledge it doesn't. Prostitution has been legal in my country since 2003, however it is still stigmatised for both men and women (at least for my demographic, and I haven't noticed any difference for other demographics.)
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - mettamage 6y ago
    This. I sometimes walk by the red light district. One time I seriously considered having sex with a sex worker. I talked to multiple of them to find a click and I was appalled by all my interaction. I realized that I wanted intimacy leading into sex. What they offered: strictly penetrative sex and nothing else. As I got older, another issue arose: to what extent is intimacy actual intimacy when you are paying for it? Intimacy implies someone caring about you and you caring about him/her. That suddenly means it has an ethical component of idealism attached to it. For me anyways.
    - throwaway1282 6y ago
      I've made the plunge and become a "John" a few times now, always in other countries where sex work is either legal or tolerated/quasi-legal. I must say the experience varied a lot. About half were mechanical and just felt like they were trying to get my money. That feels pretty hollow. But I've also had some really great experiences where I felt like we had a genuine connection. I grant that this is not "real" intimacy in the sense of "they care for you", but it did feel something like chemistry or attraction. And finally I have not tried this but have read enough anecdotes suggesting that you can get intimacy while paying in good sugar daddy-sugar babe relationships. That won't be cheap though.
      - 6y ago
- troway357924 6y ago
  The movie Her is prophetic. The way to improve supply is with sex robots.
  - matheusmoreira 6y ago
    This will not provide for the psychological need to be valued and wanted by another human being.
    - Viliam1234 6y ago
      Solving half of the problem is still better than solving nothing.
pydry 6y ago
>there is no practical way to “tax and redistribute” sex This is part of the function of anti-bigamy laws and frowning upon promiscuity, is it not?
- toyg 6y ago
  That's a cap (and supply restriction), not redistribution.
foogazi 6y ago
> what we have right now in the sexual marketplace echoes what we have in the economy... It’s an economy of sorts (age, looks, height), but it also follows the financial security aspect. Inequality creates a class of people that hoard desirable traits > When social norms dictated that you must be married to have sex, every woman and man paired off and got to have sex, however low quality and in however unhappy of a marriage Might we see a return to conservative values here?
Quarrelsome 6y ago
I would argue that recent switches to a "pick up style" of dating app (e.g. Tindr) exacerbates this problem.
- spoonjim 6y ago
  For sure. Most heterosexual women would prefer sex every 10 days with a very sexually appealing man who is having sex with 9 other women than having sex every day with an average-looking exclusive Schlub. The latter was their life under the proscription of extramarital sex but Tinder allows them the former.
  - sjg007 6y ago
    Is there a research study on this? I'm not sure I buy into the Don Juan hypothesis.
    - spoonjim 6y ago
      The numbers in the article itself state that more 18-29 year old women than men are having sex. Excluding gay sex this implies the “Don Juan hypothesis” as you call it.
      - kemayo 6y ago
        Not necessarily -- it could just as well imply that 19-29 year old women are having entirely-monogamous sex with men outside (hopefully above) the 18-29 range. Also, that 18-29 chart is about people looking for a relationship. The data about actually-having-sex [1] used different age ranges, breaking up 18-24 and 25-34. It shows a spike of no-sex in 18-24 men, which evens out with women once they're into the 25-35 range. The article didn't use the handy graph in figure 1 from the study which was quite informative: [2] [1]: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2767066 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle... [2]: https://cdn.jamanetwork.com/ama/content_public/journal/jamanetworkopen/938482/zoi200181f1.png?Expires=1623123108&Signature=noyzF7xwR7NJ4vyqvCD2q6Gul~jkzk1uYk5t3vDaoywSTnXseIXC0ValpTUQ-lsfUZkxiQ22d8X5HvWCLEWuS2SkBovc4E08NhVzqK2npkDz9IC~Gk8igjBKnVg9tdLaa6Osxy9wTzsabEXKcauc8cKww7esJhfmlMx2w34YuTDmiVS70Dw8kLhg60z2lj4ObyP82I1o7IR7QmOKuHBppNRx94AELS8H3yNkdDnOW0Dw68GseJKTV99v0rPeSC-32VUZDdNwrSaFnOigAlJL3EHGk~6pjzTP3QS9qN7WDihLdvWpYRjCty5cg554WydhRsLgaSbY6kw04I4dH6xpSw__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAIE5G5CRDK6RD3PGA https://cdn.jamanetwork.com/ama/content_public/journal/jaman...
tsm_sf 6y ago
The problem is this bizarre set of expectations that's sprung up with some folks. Sex isn't equal. It never has been. It never will be. Think about it for real for a minute.
- spoonjim 6y ago
  You can say the same about wealth, or height, or anything, that doesn’t change the fact that the people who don’t have any want some.
Balgair 6y ago
> Essentially, what we have right now in the sexual marketplace echoes what we have in the economy... a lot of the sex is being had by a small fraction of the people. (Emphasis mine) Possibly. DNA analysis shows that for every 17 human females that reproduced, one male reproduced. Meaning that quite high rates of polygamy, rape, or other unbalancing factors were the norm in human history. http://awakeningtimes.com/8000-years-ago-17-women-reproduced-for-every-one-man/ http://awakeningtimes.com/8000-years-ago-17-women-reproduced... http://econintersect.com/pages/analysis/analysis.php?post=202104170425 http://econintersect.com/pages/analysis/analysis.php?post=20... Figure 5
- amznthrowaway5 6y ago
  There was some mating skew no doubt. But that number is total nonsense and the study does not show that.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- letonmorri 6y ago
  It makes sense for how tough life was 8000 years ago, I wonder what it was prior to ww1, and if that would be a useful comparison as well.
  - amznthrowaway5 6y ago
    No it doesn't https://westhunt.wordpress.com/2015/03/21/y-chromosome-crash/ https://westhunt.wordpress.com/2015/03/21/y-chromosome-crash...
    - Balgair 6y ago
      Respectfully, after reading the original paper, I agree with the findings of the authors. The last bit in the abstract puts their findings the best: "In contrast to demographic reconstructions based on mtDNA, we infer a second strong bottleneck in Y-chromosome lineages dating to the last 10 ky. We hypothesize that this bottleneck is caused by cultural changes affecting variance of reproductive success among males." Saying that the average man reproduces less than the average woman seems to fit the facts as presented in the paper. I've not read other papers that may refute that one though. This is not my area of expertise.
alcover 6y ago
“It's a fact...that in societies like ours sex truly represents a second system of differentiation, completely independent of money; and as a system of differentiation it functions just as mercilessly. The effects of these two systems are, furthermore, strictly equivalent. Just like unrestrained economic liberalism, and for similar reasons, sexual liberalism produces phenomena of absolute pauperization . Some men make love every day; others five or six times in their life, or never. Some make love with dozens of women; others with none. It's what's known as 'the law of the market'...Economic liberalism is an extension of the domain of the struggle, its extension to all ages and all classes of society. Sexual liberalism is likewise an extension of the domain of the struggle, its extension to all ages and all classes of society.” ― Michel Houellebecq, Extension du domaine de la lutte
- klaudius 6y ago
  Robin Hanson has also compares sex and income distribution: https://www.overcomingbias.com/2018/06/comparing-income-sex-redistribution.html https://www.overcomingbias.com/2018/06/comparing-income-sex-...
  - matheusmoreira 6y ago
    This is a really interesting perspective. Thank you for posting it. The author also neatly outlines why it's so hard to talk about controversial stuff nowadays. > Most who expressed outrage at my post, even most in the mass media, did not offer counter-arguments to my analogy. > They were instead content to identify me with sex-poor people today willing to do or sympathize with violence in order to advocate for sex redistribution. > Such ‘incel’ advocates were said to be personally deeply icky, and therefore so also were any policies they advocate, and also anyone like me who did not attack they and their policies immediately with extreme prejudice.
- spoonjim 6y ago
  Love seeing a better thinker and writer state my opinion so much better.
rednerrus 6y ago
Let this be the moment when the pendulum began to swing back in the conservative direction. Conservatives get a lot of things wrong but not all of it.
- shrikant 6y ago
  Free markets are best, except for sex. IOW, capitalist in the streets, communist in the sheets?
dalbasal 6y ago
I can understand why people think of these as "market problems," but I think this angle tends to loom larger than it actually is. It's at its strongest in a 19 year old, "dorm room" context. These times mean a lot to people, but in practicality this is a short period of time at the end of adolescence. Overall in life, relationships are not generally like a market. There's no "50% of the girls shagged 50% of the guys" stuff to make it like one. Mostly people are in monogamous relationships. Discrepancies (in the article) are smaller and are from dating patterns between age brackets. In any case, why analogize? Think of it as a culture. Dating culture. Marriage culture. Late 40s hookup culture. Whatever "failures" exist are cultural failures. If it really was mostly a market situation, the market would clear.

toyg 6y ago

> there is no practical way to “tax and redistribute” sex. But there is a way to improve supply: give dignity to prostitution.

hn8788 6y ago
That doesn't work out as well as it sounds. Unsuprisingly, the amount of women willing to have sex with strangers for money is relatively low. Studies have shown that legalizing prostitution increases the rate of human trafficking to meet the greater demand. https://orgs.law.harvard.edu/lids/2014/06/12/does-legalized-prostitution-increase-human-trafficking/ https://orgs.law.harvard.edu/lids/2014/06/12/does-legalized-...
- toyg 6y ago
  That's a function of massive income inequality across countries, though. Fix that, and the incentive for trafficking disappears.
  - tengbretson 6y ago
    Let's start with the assumption that we will have to solve this problem while under the constraints of actual reality.
    - toyg 6y ago
      Are you saying that massive economic inequality is a-OK...? These are all big problems we ain't gonna fix in 5 years or 10.
      - cjaybo 6y ago
        It's clear that they were pointing out exactly what you're getting at in your second sentence: any solution that that depends on solving global income inequality is practically impossible over any reasonable timeline, and therefore not worth much discussion.
  - lotsofpulp 6y ago
    But fixing income inequality would presumably reduce the number of women willing to sell sex, so you're back to square 1.
    - toyg 6y ago
      That also depends on other factors. When being a prostitute means being a criminal, obviously it's not desirable.
    - johnnyanmac 6y ago
      Fixing income inequality creates more opportunities to perform activities, which leads to more socialization leading to more potential romantic encounters. Hard to think about a spouse when you're making $8/hr but spending 33% of your life behind a counter. I also wager a portion of the people who feel they "need but can't get sex" may also learn that what they desired wasn't what they actually cared that much about. In this regard, I guess one can argue that prostitution is a crutch to a much larger problem that may never truly be solved.
      - spoonjim 6y ago
        Do you think lower income people have less sex?
        johnnyanmac 6y ago
        In the grand scheme of the world definition of lower income, no. I haven't looked too deeply into it, but apparently 3rd world countries have as much or more sex, but have less access to birth control. In the context of "first world lower income", I'd wager there's a loose correlation. i.e the incel movement is one mostly formed from a frustrated lower-middle/middle class (which in the world context, means many americans for the sake of discussion). Another comment in this post heard something similar as well: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27041400 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27041400 I'd be interested in any studies that disprove this notion. I'll admit most of this comment is conjecture.
  - waterhouse 6y ago
    I don't think it's income inequality. It's legality-of-prostitution inequality. That is, the traffickers decided to move their operations from countries where prostitution was illegal to countries where it's legal, because, all else being equal, it's easier to operate in the latter. The link doesn't claim that the total amount of trafficking increased, and the quoted results don't favor the "net increase" hypothesis over the "movement" hypothesis.
phkahler 6y ago
>> But there is a way to improve supply: give dignity to prostitution. Better yet, guys need to learn to be the kind of man women want to fvck. They're not obligated and attraction is non-negotiable. Reality can be harsh. Guys need to treat themselves with dignity and put themselves together.
- ngngngng 6y ago
  I think this is a good thought. My own religion gave me some direction for how to become to type of man women want, but it did leave something to be desired. And then upon searching for this sort of direction later in life while trying to improve my own relationships I stumbled upon the "red pill" communities. There's a lot of nuance to these communities as well. They tell men that you can become the type of man that women want, and they give you a roadmap to do so (work on your personality, lift weights, take care of yourself, take care of your life) but unfortunately these communities also come with some ideas that range from strange to downright misogynistic. I think there's room for some down to earth, responsible men to try and fill this space. Right now the "teach young men how to be" space is mostly filled with misogyny and terrible pick up artists.
  - JohnBooty 6y ago
    I think there's room for some down to earth, responsible men to try and fill this space. Right now the "teach young men how to be" space is mostly filled with misogyny and terrible pick up artists. Goodness yes. The PUA and red pill communities have absolutely poisoned this space and, at least in America, it's impossible to see how a healthy alternative could even take root. I know that if one sprang up, my first reaction would be to lump it in with the toxic crap and never give it a second look. It's a shame because there is absolutely a need for this.
    - johnnyanmac 6y ago
      goes back to the author's statements: >there’s a vast difference between a person who believes the stated beliefs of a group as opposed to a person who holds membership in a group as a defining part of their identity. Imagining a conversation with someone who generically believes women should be treated well is a much different experience than imagining the same conversation with person who boldly declares themselves a feminist; the same is true for what you’d expect from a talk with an MRA. Always seems to come down to good intentions, bad actors that make such "identities" dangerous. Even if it's an otherwise honest person that just wants some self-help advice.
robocat 6y ago
Physical sex is not intimacy. Sex work leads to some very strange dynamics, because often the Johns are desperate for intimacy, but they are paying for women that provide zero actual intimacy (because it is usually entirely faked.) I am sure there is some ideal world where prostitution could satisfy emotional needs, but in my admittedly very limited knowledge it doesn't. Prostitution has been legal in my country since 2003, however it is still stigmatised for both men and women (at least for my demographic, and I haven't noticed any difference for other demographics.)
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- mettamage 6y ago
  This. I sometimes walk by the red light district. One time I seriously considered having sex with a sex worker. I talked to multiple of them to find a click and I was appalled by all my interaction. I realized that I wanted intimacy leading into sex. What they offered: strictly penetrative sex and nothing else. As I got older, another issue arose: to what extent is intimacy actual intimacy when you are paying for it? Intimacy implies someone caring about you and you caring about him/her. That suddenly means it has an ethical component of idealism attached to it. For me anyways.
  - throwaway1282 6y ago
    I've made the plunge and become a "John" a few times now, always in other countries where sex work is either legal or tolerated/quasi-legal. I must say the experience varied a lot. About half were mechanical and just felt like they were trying to get my money. That feels pretty hollow. But I've also had some really great experiences where I felt like we had a genuine connection. I grant that this is not "real" intimacy in the sense of "they care for you", but it did feel something like chemistry or attraction. And finally I have not tried this but have read enough anecdotes suggesting that you can get intimacy while paying in good sugar daddy-sugar babe relationships. That won't be cheap though.
    - 6y ago
troway357924 6y ago
The movie Her is prophetic. The way to improve supply is with sex robots.
- matheusmoreira 6y ago
  This will not provide for the psychological need to be valued and wanted by another human being.
  - Viliam1234 6y ago
    Solving half of the problem is still better than solving nothing.

pydry 6y ago

>there is no practical way to “tax and redistribute” sex This is part of the function of anti-bigamy laws and frowning upon promiscuity, is it not?

toyg 6y ago
That's a cap (and supply restriction), not redistribution.

foogazi 6y ago

> what we have right now in the sexual marketplace echoes what we have in the economy... It’s an economy of sorts (age, looks, height), but it also follows the financial security aspect. Inequality creates a class of people that hoard desirable traits > When social norms dictated that you must be married to have sex, every woman and man paired off and got to have sex, however low quality and in however unhappy of a marriage Might we see a return to conservative values here?

Quarrelsome 6y ago

I would argue that recent switches to a "pick up style" of dating app (e.g. Tindr) exacerbates this problem.

spoonjim 6y ago
For sure. Most heterosexual women would prefer sex every 10 days with a very sexually appealing man who is having sex with 9 other women than having sex every day with an average-looking exclusive Schlub. The latter was their life under the proscription of extramarital sex but Tinder allows them the former.
- sjg007 6y ago
  Is there a research study on this? I'm not sure I buy into the Don Juan hypothesis.
  - spoonjim 6y ago
    The numbers in the article itself state that more 18-29 year old women than men are having sex. Excluding gay sex this implies the “Don Juan hypothesis” as you call it.
    - kemayo 6y ago
      Not necessarily -- it could just as well imply that 19-29 year old women are having entirely-monogamous sex with men outside (hopefully above) the 18-29 range. Also, that 18-29 chart is about people looking for a relationship. The data about actually-having-sex [1] used different age ranges, breaking up 18-24 and 25-34. It shows a spike of no-sex in 18-24 men, which evens out with women once they're into the 25-35 range. The article didn't use the handy graph in figure 1 from the study which was quite informative: [2] [1]: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2767066 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle... [2]: https://cdn.jamanetwork.com/ama/content_public/journal/jamanetworkopen/938482/zoi200181f1.png?Expires=1623123108&Signature=noyzF7xwR7NJ4vyqvCD2q6Gul~jkzk1uYk5t3vDaoywSTnXseIXC0ValpTUQ-lsfUZkxiQ22d8X5HvWCLEWuS2SkBovc4E08NhVzqK2npkDz9IC~Gk8igjBKnVg9tdLaa6Osxy9wTzsabEXKcauc8cKww7esJhfmlMx2w34YuTDmiVS70Dw8kLhg60z2lj4ObyP82I1o7IR7QmOKuHBppNRx94AELS8H3yNkdDnOW0Dw68GseJKTV99v0rPeSC-32VUZDdNwrSaFnOigAlJL3EHGk~6pjzTP3QS9qN7WDihLdvWpYRjCty5cg554WydhRsLgaSbY6kw04I4dH6xpSw__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAIE5G5CRDK6RD3PGA https://cdn.jamanetwork.com/ama/content_public/journal/jaman...

tsm_sf 6y ago

The problem is this bizarre set of expectations that's sprung up with some folks. Sex isn't equal. It never has been. It never will be. Think about it for real for a minute.

spoonjim 6y ago
You can say the same about wealth, or height, or anything, that doesn’t change the fact that the people who don’t have any want some.

Balgair 6y ago

> Essentially, what we have right now in the sexual marketplace echoes what we have in the economy... a lot of the sex is being had by a small fraction of the people. (Emphasis mine) Possibly. DNA analysis shows that for every 17 human females that reproduced, one male reproduced. Meaning that quite high rates of polygamy, rape, or other unbalancing factors were the norm in human history. http://awakeningtimes.com/8000-years-ago-17-women-reproduced-for-every-one-man/ http://awakeningtimes.com/8000-years-ago-17-women-reproduced... http://econintersect.com/pages/analysis/analysis.php?post=202104170425 http://econintersect.com/pages/analysis/analysis.php?post=20... Figure 5

amznthrowaway5 6y ago
There was some mating skew no doubt. But that number is total nonsense and the study does not show that.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
letonmorri 6y ago
It makes sense for how tough life was 8000 years ago, I wonder what it was prior to ww1, and if that would be a useful comparison as well.
- amznthrowaway5 6y ago
  No it doesn't https://westhunt.wordpress.com/2015/03/21/y-chromosome-crash/ https://westhunt.wordpress.com/2015/03/21/y-chromosome-crash...
  - Balgair 6y ago
    Respectfully, after reading the original paper, I agree with the findings of the authors. The last bit in the abstract puts their findings the best: "In contrast to demographic reconstructions based on mtDNA, we infer a second strong bottleneck in Y-chromosome lineages dating to the last 10 ky. We hypothesize that this bottleneck is caused by cultural changes affecting variance of reproductive success among males." Saying that the average man reproduces less than the average woman seems to fit the facts as presented in the paper. I've not read other papers that may refute that one though. This is not my area of expertise.

alcover 6y ago

“It's a fact...that in societies like ours sex truly represents a second system of differentiation, completely independent of money; and as a system of differentiation it functions just as mercilessly. The effects of these two systems are, furthermore, strictly equivalent. Just like unrestrained economic liberalism, and for similar reasons, sexual liberalism produces phenomena of absolute pauperization . Some men make love every day; others five or six times in their life, or never. Some make love with dozens of women; others with none. It's what's known as 'the law of the market'...Economic liberalism is an extension of the domain of the struggle, its extension to all ages and all classes of society. Sexual liberalism is likewise an extension of the domain of the struggle, its extension to all ages and all classes of society.” ― Michel Houellebecq, Extension du domaine de la lutte

klaudius 6y ago
Robin Hanson has also compares sex and income distribution: https://www.overcomingbias.com/2018/06/comparing-income-sex-redistribution.html https://www.overcomingbias.com/2018/06/comparing-income-sex-...
- matheusmoreira 6y ago
  This is a really interesting perspective. Thank you for posting it. The author also neatly outlines why it's so hard to talk about controversial stuff nowadays. > Most who expressed outrage at my post, even most in the mass media, did not offer counter-arguments to my analogy. > They were instead content to identify me with sex-poor people today willing to do or sympathize with violence in order to advocate for sex redistribution. > Such ‘incel’ advocates were said to be personally deeply icky, and therefore so also were any policies they advocate, and also anyone like me who did not attack they and their policies immediately with extreme prejudice.
spoonjim 6y ago
Love seeing a better thinker and writer state my opinion so much better.

rednerrus 6y ago

Let this be the moment when the pendulum began to swing back in the conservative direction. Conservatives get a lot of things wrong but not all of it.

shrikant 6y ago
Free markets are best, except for sex. IOW, capitalist in the streets, communist in the sheets?

dalbasal 6y ago

I can understand why people think of these as "market problems," but I think this angle tends to loom larger than it actually is. It's at its strongest in a 19 year old, "dorm room" context. These times mean a lot to people, but in practicality this is a short period of time at the end of adolescence. Overall in life, relationships are not generally like a market. There's no "50% of the girls shagged 50% of the guys" stuff to make it like one. Mostly people are in monogamous relationships. Discrepancies (in the article) are smaller and are from dating patterns between age brackets. In any case, why analogize? Think of it as a culture. Dating culture. Marriage culture. Late 40s hookup culture. Whatever "failures" exist are cultural failures. If it really was mostly a market situation, the market would clear.