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These issues are far more serious than is known and commenters saying “too bad, you don’t deserve to date someone” really don’t understand how ineffective this

These issues are far more serious than is known and commenters saying “too bad, you don’t deserve to date someone” really don’t understand how ineffective this approach is. You can’t just shame tens of thousands of men into accepting a substandard life. Disclaimer: I am not making any ethical judgments here, just observing. This problem didn’t really exist before for three reasons. One, widespread access to prostitution and its social acceptability. Reading books from earlier centuries, it’s noticeable how common this was and how little anyone seemed to be socially stigmatized by going to a brothel. Two, enforced monogamy. Our current culture is centered on removing restrictions. And as with every market, removing the restrictions on sexual access means the top players get more “resources” while the bottom get none. Monogamy was historically the solution to this. Three, the primary model of marriage being one of love or connection, and not of uniting families, having children, or passing on property. This, combined with our consumeristic society, leads people to always assume that a better option is available. Add easy divorce laws and Tinder, and the incentives for trying to work out any problems (or even get into a relationship in the first place) are nearly nonexistent. It really doesn’t seem like the culture is going to accept enforcing monogamy (2) or restrictions on divorce (3), but it does seem like (1) might be legalized at some point. Personally, that seems something of a dystopian solution to the problem, but that’s just me.

toyg 5y ago
> Personally, that seems something of a dystopian solution to the problem It's the one with the fewer externalities. Forcing an unhappy couple to stay together can traumatize children, produce widespread violence (another one of those things that were kinda just "accepted" in the past), and even end up in murder. It would be much more dystopian to force women into distributing sex equally, surely?
- ceilingcorner 5y ago
  These aren’t either or situations. Acting as if the only options are an abusive marriage or prostitution is really misleading. There are plenty of ways to incentivize monogamy, disincentivize divorce, and yet still allow for individual freedom. Why haven’t these been tested? I’ll suggest because like all movements, the gender equality movement has been driven largely by extremist activists (who gain social power) and corporations (who gain more workers and consumers), not by average people.
  - toyg 5y ago
    > Why haven’t these been tested? Have they not? Marriage is widely incentivized in most societies. The UK reality at the moment, for example, heavily punishes singles: the housing markets optimizes for two incomes, pricing out singles; the taxing system favours spreading income over two individuals; and you have plenty of other marriage-related allowances. I'd be surprised if this was significantly different in the US. The reality is that, as soon as you give people the choice, a good chunk of them will take it.
    - ceilingcorner 5y ago
      I wouldn’t say that it’s incentivized at all. Weddings are expensive, divorces are financially disastrous (yet easy to initiate), and a sizable segment of the population thinks the idea of marriage is “uncool”, for lack of a better word. Things like adultery are nearly outright encouraged in Netflix shows and novels. It doesn’t surprise me at all that many people look at marriage as it currently stands and just say, no thanks. This goes against pretty much every society, historically. https://www.ranker.com/list/best-tv-shows-about-cheating/ranker-tv https://www.ranker.com/list/best-tv-shows-about-cheating/ran...
      - toyg 5y ago
        I fear that words like "easy" or "expensive" in this realm are difficult to evaluate objectively. Weddings, for example, are not expensive, if you consider them as a bureaucratic act: in most countries, it's just a few forms to fill him with minimal fees attached. However, if you impose on them oversized cultural expectations (which come from "netflix shows of the past"...) of white horses, diamonds, banquets and so on, then yeah, it's an expensive act. Maybe, if one wanted more weddings, one should support reducing some of these artificial obstacles...? > a sizable segment of the population thinks the idea of marriage is “uncool” That's always been true, as showed in literature of the past.
      - sokoloff 5y ago
        We spent around $700 on our wedding. Front yard ceremony, $150-200 for the justice of the peace, trays of food from the local BBQ place, more wine, beer, and drinks than our 25 or so closest friends could consume. Getting married isn't inherently expensive. People make it so because an entire industry is optimized around convincing you to spend more on a dress than we spent on an entire wedding.
- ed25519FUUU 5y ago
  > It's the one with the fewer externalities. Forcing an unhappy couple to stay together can traumatize children, produce widespread violence (another one of those things that were kinda just "accepted" in the past), and even end up in murder. Two-parent households is a very well studied subject. The outcomes for children are better in almost every category with few exceptions. Splitting in an acrimonious marriage may be better for the parents, but the data says it’s worse for the children.
dragonwriter 5y ago
> One, widespread access to prostitution and its social acceptability. Reading books from earlier centuries, it’s noticeable how common this was and how little anyone seemed to be socially stigmatized by going to a brothel. uh, but: > Two, enforced monogamy. Our current culture is centered on removing restrictions. And as with every market, removing the restrictions on sexual access means the top players get more “resources” while the bottom get none. Monogamy was historically the solution to this. You do realize that the portrait of historical norms you present in these two paragraphs are diametrically opposed, right?
- ceilingcorner 5y ago
  No, because they aren’t referring to the same groups. Prostitution was historically only acceptable for men, while women were forced to either have a husband or be celibate. At least, in terms of social acceptability. Today, the restrictions have more or less been removed for both genders. Again, not saying it “was better back then”, just pointing out what’s changed.
  - FooBarBizBazz 5y ago
    > Prostitution was historically only acceptable for men, while women were forced to either have a husband or be celibate. I'm not certain about that. It also must depend on the culture. But I do remember ads that survived from ancient Rome for a certain well-reputed (male) cunnilingist.
    - ceilingcorner 5y ago
      As far as I know, male prostitution was rare globally and primarily used by other men. This was somewhat common in certain eras of Japan, but again, women were not widespread consumers.
alpaca128 5y ago
As someone living in a country where prostitution is legal I have a hard time seeing how your argument goes from that to dystopia. It's heavily regulated and controlled, which is better than people doing it anyway without any oversight and the safeties from that. And even aside from that I don't see a problem with it, of course as long as it's 100% consensual. Maybe I'm missing some obvious problem, but the thing currently driving my country towards a dystopian society is mainly growing corruption with shrinking consequences as well as ignorance, not people choosing what to do with their bodies.
- e40 5y ago
  I think the dystopia part comes in if a particular male's only chance for a sexual relationship is via prostitution. That seems pretty dystopian to me.
  - atlasunshrugged 5y ago
    Can I ask why? I mean it sucks if someone can't get laid without paying but isn't the alternative where they never get to have sex worse?
    - hug 5y ago
      Because "dystopia" doesn't necessarily mean the exact worst of all possible worlds. Yes, it would be better than "never getting to have sex at all", but it would still be a pretty unfortunate situation to be in for a lot of people.
    - 2lwxxtj 5y ago
      It means they don't get children.
  - alpaca128 5y ago
    Ah, I can see that. Although a part of this might also be the social stigma attached to the whole thing. On the flipside I've read somewhere about e.g. the Dutch government acknowledging sex as human desire to a point they pay it for some people with permanent disabilities, kind of as a form of therapy. I guess you could call that dystopian in a sense, I'd say it's much less so than people literally dying from a lack of accessible healthcare. But that's another can of worms.
glangdale 5y ago
The whole business about "top players getting more resources" is driving me a bit wild; as if there's an epidemic of "Chads each getting multiple Staceys" (in incel-speak). What seems to be more likely - based on the age charts in TFA - is that at the margins (excluding the large portion of people married or partnered relatively quickly and stably) there tends to be an age gap among those playing the fields. Early 20 year old men might want women their age, but those women have a dating pool that includes men from age 20-35, and so on.
- CRConrad 5y ago
  And then when you look at the other end of the age distribution in those diagrams, you have a lot of women over 65 going without, AFAICS mainly because the older men they've partnered with are dead already. Technically / logically / mathematically, the solution seems blindingly obvious: Women as a group could help not only (younger) men as a group, but themselves (later in life) too, simply by selecting their partners more from their own age range.
  - Viliam1234 5y ago
    Technically, 20 year old men could also date women over 65.
    - CRConrad 5y ago
      Sure. But that would require women over 65 to date 20-year-old men. Idunno...
AtlasBarfed 5y ago
Enforced monogamy and limited movement curbed the expression of the disposable male pattern in cultures, but with the introduction of dating apps, easy physical transport, increasing domination of financial resources by the few, and cultural lauding of "single life" (it drives so much consumption in consumer culture) implies it is coming back. I would also like to say that dating culture is evolving at lightspeed right now, and as cultural reflections of internet data enter the overall "pop culture consciousness", then dating culture will shift. In the years I used online dating it went from "closet backchannel" for dating to the primary means of mate seeking, and entire apps are coming into popularity based on different game theory rules applied to the process in short amounts of time. I'd hazard a guess that the evolution is happening as quickly as internet advertising techniques hit a hot streak for about 1-2 years before everyone collectively catches on and they don't work anyore.
strofcon 5y ago
"You can’t just shame tens of thousands of men into accepting a substandard life." I would challenge the "substandard life" assertion, as it's a framing issue. The biological need for sex is indeed great, I won't argue that point - but I don't believe that lacking sex necessarily makes a life substandard. In all fairness, it is extremely difficult to re-frame something so primal, but I think a stronger focus on acceptance of the world and healthier views of one's capacity to influence it would be a prime candidate for reducing the harm of the incel mindset. Getting there in any practical manner, of course, is... probably not gonna happen.
- ldarby 5y ago
  There are many variations of standards of life. Some are objectively better than others. Compare a wealthy person to someone whose standard of life was so bad they froze to death on the streets in winter, due to homelessness. There are many factors that affect standards of life, including e.g. having a shelter or not, etc. Other factors make less of a difference to the standard, e.g. access to education. This is all obvious and should go without saying. What you're trying to say is that 'having sex or not' is not a factor that affects the standards of life, but I think it quite obviously is one as well.
  - strofcon 5y ago
    I agree for the "hard" needs that are, quite literally, as universal as can be imagined. Sex, however, is not one of those. The very existence of asexual individuals who live out a long and happy life is a testament to this. There are no a-shelter, a-money, etc., individuals who simply do not need those things. There are people without those things, yes - and I agree that their existence is objectively worse off for it. Sex, on the other hand, can be entirely absent from a person's life and not necessarily impact it. So I don't think I accept your assertion that sex is objectively a necessity for a high standard of life. It currently behaves as one, because we generally accept that it's desired so deeply by so many that it qualifies as a need - and for the most part, that might well be true. But there is still the case to be made that "having sex or not" is only as much of an impact on one's standard of living as one's worldview dictates. This is not true of other "hard" needs, as pointed out before. Ie: My philosophy on sex can yield an asexual, long, healthy, and happy life, but my philosophy on shelter cannot lead to a homeless long, health, and happy life. (Happy is debatable, sure.)
majani 5y ago
Monogamy appears to have been successfully enforced for just a brief period of 150 years after the industrial revolution. Studies that show that polygamy was rife before the industrial revolution and now the digital age seems to be bringing back poly relationships in a way.

toyg 5y ago

> Personally, that seems something of a dystopian solution to the problem It's the one with the fewer externalities. Forcing an unhappy couple to stay together can traumatize children, produce widespread violence (another one of those things that were kinda just "accepted" in the past), and even end up in murder. It would be much more dystopian to force women into distributing sex equally, surely?

ceilingcorner 5y ago
These aren’t either or situations. Acting as if the only options are an abusive marriage or prostitution is really misleading. There are plenty of ways to incentivize monogamy, disincentivize divorce, and yet still allow for individual freedom. Why haven’t these been tested? I’ll suggest because like all movements, the gender equality movement has been driven largely by extremist activists (who gain social power) and corporations (who gain more workers and consumers), not by average people.
- toyg 5y ago
  > Why haven’t these been tested? Have they not? Marriage is widely incentivized in most societies. The UK reality at the moment, for example, heavily punishes singles: the housing markets optimizes for two incomes, pricing out singles; the taxing system favours spreading income over two individuals; and you have plenty of other marriage-related allowances. I'd be surprised if this was significantly different in the US. The reality is that, as soon as you give people the choice, a good chunk of them will take it.
  - ceilingcorner 5y ago
    I wouldn’t say that it’s incentivized at all. Weddings are expensive, divorces are financially disastrous (yet easy to initiate), and a sizable segment of the population thinks the idea of marriage is “uncool”, for lack of a better word. Things like adultery are nearly outright encouraged in Netflix shows and novels. It doesn’t surprise me at all that many people look at marriage as it currently stands and just say, no thanks. This goes against pretty much every society, historically. https://www.ranker.com/list/best-tv-shows-about-cheating/ranker-tv https://www.ranker.com/list/best-tv-shows-about-cheating/ran...
    - toyg 5y ago
      I fear that words like "easy" or "expensive" in this realm are difficult to evaluate objectively. Weddings, for example, are not expensive, if you consider them as a bureaucratic act: in most countries, it's just a few forms to fill him with minimal fees attached. However, if you impose on them oversized cultural expectations (which come from "netflix shows of the past"...) of white horses, diamonds, banquets and so on, then yeah, it's an expensive act. Maybe, if one wanted more weddings, one should support reducing some of these artificial obstacles...? > a sizable segment of the population thinks the idea of marriage is “uncool” That's always been true, as showed in literature of the past.
    - sokoloff 5y ago
      We spent around $700 on our wedding. Front yard ceremony, $150-200 for the justice of the peace, trays of food from the local BBQ place, more wine, beer, and drinks than our 25 or so closest friends could consume. Getting married isn't inherently expensive. People make it so because an entire industry is optimized around convincing you to spend more on a dress than we spent on an entire wedding.
ed25519FUUU 5y ago
> It's the one with the fewer externalities. Forcing an unhappy couple to stay together can traumatize children, produce widespread violence (another one of those things that were kinda just "accepted" in the past), and even end up in murder. Two-parent households is a very well studied subject. The outcomes for children are better in almost every category with few exceptions. Splitting in an acrimonious marriage may be better for the parents, but the data says it’s worse for the children.

dragonwriter 5y ago

> One, widespread access to prostitution and its social acceptability. Reading books from earlier centuries, it’s noticeable how common this was and how little anyone seemed to be socially stigmatized by going to a brothel. uh, but: > Two, enforced monogamy. Our current culture is centered on removing restrictions. And as with every market, removing the restrictions on sexual access means the top players get more “resources” while the bottom get none. Monogamy was historically the solution to this. You do realize that the portrait of historical norms you present in these two paragraphs are diametrically opposed, right?

ceilingcorner 5y ago
No, because they aren’t referring to the same groups. Prostitution was historically only acceptable for men, while women were forced to either have a husband or be celibate. At least, in terms of social acceptability. Today, the restrictions have more or less been removed for both genders. Again, not saying it “was better back then”, just pointing out what’s changed.
- FooBarBizBazz 5y ago
  > Prostitution was historically only acceptable for men, while women were forced to either have a husband or be celibate. I'm not certain about that. It also must depend on the culture. But I do remember ads that survived from ancient Rome for a certain well-reputed (male) cunnilingist.
  - ceilingcorner 5y ago
    As far as I know, male prostitution was rare globally and primarily used by other men. This was somewhat common in certain eras of Japan, but again, women were not widespread consumers.

alpaca128 5y ago

As someone living in a country where prostitution is legal I have a hard time seeing how your argument goes from that to dystopia. It's heavily regulated and controlled, which is better than people doing it anyway without any oversight and the safeties from that. And even aside from that I don't see a problem with it, of course as long as it's 100% consensual. Maybe I'm missing some obvious problem, but the thing currently driving my country towards a dystopian society is mainly growing corruption with shrinking consequences as well as ignorance, not people choosing what to do with their bodies.

e40 5y ago
I think the dystopia part comes in if a particular male's only chance for a sexual relationship is via prostitution. That seems pretty dystopian to me.
- atlasunshrugged 5y ago
  Can I ask why? I mean it sucks if someone can't get laid without paying but isn't the alternative where they never get to have sex worse?
  - hug 5y ago
    Because "dystopia" doesn't necessarily mean the exact worst of all possible worlds. Yes, it would be better than "never getting to have sex at all", but it would still be a pretty unfortunate situation to be in for a lot of people.
  - 2lwxxtj 5y ago
    It means they don't get children.
- alpaca128 5y ago
  Ah, I can see that. Although a part of this might also be the social stigma attached to the whole thing. On the flipside I've read somewhere about e.g. the Dutch government acknowledging sex as human desire to a point they pay it for some people with permanent disabilities, kind of as a form of therapy. I guess you could call that dystopian in a sense, I'd say it's much less so than people literally dying from a lack of accessible healthcare. But that's another can of worms.

glangdale 5y ago

The whole business about "top players getting more resources" is driving me a bit wild; as if there's an epidemic of "Chads each getting multiple Staceys" (in incel-speak). What seems to be more likely - based on the age charts in TFA - is that at the margins (excluding the large portion of people married or partnered relatively quickly and stably) there tends to be an age gap among those playing the fields. Early 20 year old men might want women their age, but those women have a dating pool that includes men from age 20-35, and so on.

CRConrad 5y ago
And then when you look at the other end of the age distribution in those diagrams, you have a lot of women over 65 going without, AFAICS mainly because the older men they've partnered with are dead already. Technically / logically / mathematically, the solution seems blindingly obvious: Women as a group could help not only (younger) men as a group, but themselves (later in life) too, simply by selecting their partners more from their own age range.
- Viliam1234 5y ago
  Technically, 20 year old men could also date women over 65.
  - CRConrad 5y ago
    Sure. But that would require women over 65 to date 20-year-old men. Idunno...

AtlasBarfed 5y ago

Enforced monogamy and limited movement curbed the expression of the disposable male pattern in cultures, but with the introduction of dating apps, easy physical transport, increasing domination of financial resources by the few, and cultural lauding of "single life" (it drives so much consumption in consumer culture) implies it is coming back. I would also like to say that dating culture is evolving at lightspeed right now, and as cultural reflections of internet data enter the overall "pop culture consciousness", then dating culture will shift. In the years I used online dating it went from "closet backchannel" for dating to the primary means of mate seeking, and entire apps are coming into popularity based on different game theory rules applied to the process in short amounts of time. I'd hazard a guess that the evolution is happening as quickly as internet advertising techniques hit a hot streak for about 1-2 years before everyone collectively catches on and they don't work anyore.

strofcon 5y ago

"You can’t just shame tens of thousands of men into accepting a substandard life." I would challenge the "substandard life" assertion, as it's a framing issue. The biological need for sex is indeed great, I won't argue that point - but I don't believe that lacking sex necessarily makes a life substandard. In all fairness, it is extremely difficult to re-frame something so primal, but I think a stronger focus on acceptance of the world and healthier views of one's capacity to influence it would be a prime candidate for reducing the harm of the incel mindset. Getting there in any practical manner, of course, is... probably not gonna happen.

ldarby 5y ago
There are many variations of standards of life. Some are objectively better than others. Compare a wealthy person to someone whose standard of life was so bad they froze to death on the streets in winter, due to homelessness. There are many factors that affect standards of life, including e.g. having a shelter or not, etc. Other factors make less of a difference to the standard, e.g. access to education. This is all obvious and should go without saying. What you're trying to say is that 'having sex or not' is not a factor that affects the standards of life, but I think it quite obviously is one as well.
- strofcon 5y ago
  I agree for the "hard" needs that are, quite literally, as universal as can be imagined. Sex, however, is not one of those. The very existence of asexual individuals who live out a long and happy life is a testament to this. There are no a-shelter, a-money, etc., individuals who simply do not need those things. There are people without those things, yes - and I agree that their existence is objectively worse off for it. Sex, on the other hand, can be entirely absent from a person's life and not necessarily impact it. So I don't think I accept your assertion that sex is objectively a necessity for a high standard of life. It currently behaves as one, because we generally accept that it's desired so deeply by so many that it qualifies as a need - and for the most part, that might well be true. But there is still the case to be made that "having sex or not" is only as much of an impact on one's standard of living as one's worldview dictates. This is not true of other "hard" needs, as pointed out before. Ie: My philosophy on sex can yield an asexual, long, healthy, and happy life, but my philosophy on shelter cannot lead to a homeless long, health, and happy life. (Happy is debatable, sure.)

majani 5y ago

Monogamy appears to have been successfully enforced for just a brief period of 150 years after the industrial revolution. Studies that show that polygamy was rife before the industrial revolution and now the digital age seems to be bringing back poly relationships in a way.