Jean wrote:I have a huge sex drive, I think most male do, and I accepted me never having enough sex as a part of life.
It feels that all the men between 15 and 60 are competing for about a third of the women between 18 and 35, and as it's probably simililar to a winner takes all game, men are doomed to be frustrated and inclined to warmonging and raping.
The end of monogamy as a norm is the main cause of this situation. This is due to birth control, and unlawing it would be more efficient in limiting mass murders than a magical disapearance of every gun.
Or we could stop as a society considering not having enough sex as the ultimate loser stygma.
This. Some other causes: female economic independence, 24/7 validation from smartphones and other social networking devices, and the obesity epidemic (which affects women much more than men).
America is great if you're a woman or just live to work. Not so much if you're a man with a healthy libido. Case in point: I'm in my 20's and have a swimmer's body, yet and all reasonably attractive women look at me like I'm a roach. If it weren't for escorts, I'd never get laid.
Last edited by FrugalFred on Sat Sep 24, 2016 7:14 pm, edited 4 times in total.
Yup, I feel for you guys. When my BF lived in Dubai he could afford a lovely 20-something year old Sri Lankan concubine, and in America he can barely keep a grubby, grouchy 51 year old urban sub-subsistence farmer who could stand to lose a bag of potatoes worth of subcutaneous fat. I think there are just as many obese men as women, but you fellows have less ability to close your eyes and just think of England or 1988 Jimmy Smits.
Seriously, I do not know how I am ever going to be able to afford to buy a bride for my DS28. The local market is damn pricey, and it becomes a bit of a canoe problem when you consider the world market.
BTW, how much are you currently paying for escort services? I like to keep track of the going rate, so I know how much I can write off as charity tax deduction when I give it away for free.
Toska2 said: $0. I don't pay. By accepting less than I'm worth I devalue myself.
True, but only up to a point. For instance, I frequently deal in books that are so rare, the copy I am offering on the market is likely the only one available. Just like Toska2 is the only copy of Toska2 available on the dating/mating market. However, that doesn't mean that I can rationally expect to sell my copy of " Musings on the Making of the Muskegon River Portage" for $10,000 within the scope of my lifetime.
The dating/mating market is interesting to consider because in our culture it is one of the few realms where barter, or dickering, is generally more acceptable than cash payment. Also, as you noted, it is a realm where it is often assumed that what is being offered or considered is the sum of your being. IOW, it is a realm where we are highly sensitive to other-validation. Therefore, it can be confusing and hurtful when a person does what he or she has been informed is the "right" thing to do to deserve high valuation or other-validation, and then this information is found to be incorrect.
I have heard some variation on the complaint that Jean posted and FrugalFred seconded enough times to believe that it is reflective of some current reality in this market system. Perhaps examination of a very successful player in the same position in the same market would prove helpful. Our forum-mate Olaz seems to have very little difficulty attracting and maintaining relationships with a number of attractive partners. Apparently he is in the top 5% for good looks/style, has pro-actively studied the art of empathetic communication, and espouses a philosophy inclusive of the notion that individuals should not maintain strictly bounded property rights in relationship to their own bodies (brilliant strategy for an individual most often negotiating deals with those who could likely demand highest price for access to their bodies on the open world market! (chuckle-sigh))
7Wannabe5 wrote:Just like Toska2 is the only copy of Toska2 available on the dating/mating market. However, that doesn't mean that I can rationally expect to sell my copy of " Musings on the Making of the Muskegon River Portage" for $10,000 within the scope of my lifetime.
is this demand elasticity? if Toska2/the book is outside of the preferred price range, the clients switch to substitute goods and services. let's be honest, most humans are a commodity when it comes to sexual relations, and they can be easily substituted.
it's also important to keep in mind the formula:
(cost of dinner + cost of flowers + cost of uber) - cost of escort = x. if x is positive, it's cheaper to get an escort.
BRUTE said: is this demand elasticity? if Toska2/the book is outside of the preferred price range, the clients switch to substitute goods and services. let's be honest, most humans are a commodity when it comes to sexual relations, and they can be easily substituted.
Well, one of the brain chemicals involved in the state of limerence tends towards making you believe that your love object is special. This is the same chemical that causes stock market bubbles because people believe something intrinsically different is happening. Also, even absent a state of limerence, it has been my experience that there are some individuals who are better conduits of masculine energy relative to my feminine energy, and therefore I am more likely to have sex that runs from "hawt" to "transcendent" in their company. For some people, strong-polarity and limerence are completely over-lapping concepts or events, so they would thoroughly disagree with "easily substituted." I somewhat disagree.
it's also important to keep in mind the formula:
(cost of dinner + cost of flowers + cost of uber) - cost of escort = x. if x is positive, it's cheaper to get an escort.
You forgot the theater tickets. Obviously, the frugal option is to cook the dinner, grow the flowers and bike to your friend's free concert with your date. Of course, then you will run the grave risk of dating somebody who will appreciate you for your skills and creativity rather than your cash That's why I never serve my tomato pie to a man unless I think he's a keeper.
brute has recently thought a lot about the trends in this area.
in retrospect, the "50s" culture and mentality had a very distinct impact on the sexual market.
there were some rules, some in the form of laws, others as social stigma:
1)it was unacceptable to be unmarried after a certain age (more so for women, but also for men)
2)it was unacceptable to have non-monogamous or non-marriage sexual relationships
3)birth control was unacceptable or unavailable
this basically forced all humans strongly into marriage that otherwise wouldn't have pursued it. since even the most sexually valuable players of either gender could only (openly) have relations with one other human, the top was quickly saturated. and for women, once they got pregnant, it was kind of "game over" in the sense that they now HAD to settle, and quick.
it's pretty known what the disadvantages were. but for many humans, there were also advantages. due to the 1:1 and the age thing, even the less-than-perfectly attractive members of each gender could be hopeful to attract a mate. and once they had a mate, separation was very unlikely.
nowadays all these "rules" are gone. there are old single humans, lots of alternative relationship styles, and birth control is cheap and available at every 7/11.
the perfect 10s of either gender these days can fuck several desired humans every night. there is little fear of getting pregnant from it, and there is basically no social stigma. it's certainly not illegal.
this means that, theoretically, every human has chances to "get with" a perfect 10 of their desired gender. it's of course highly unlikely that brute will get with the hottest girl in France, but there is no law and few social stigma obstacles.
this illusion of sexual availability (because statistically, it's probably just as unlikely that any random midwestern girl is going to get with Brad Pitt) leads to every human desiring way up the desired tree. every human wants a 10.
but of course there aren't enough 10s or even 9s to go around.
in reaction, the humans at the higher ends of the spectrum (7.5-10s) are flooded by opportunity for fucking, to the point where some of them use Tinder like others use AirBNB. some even monetize it with stuff like sugarbabies, "free dinner every night of the week", etc. in a way, gold digging.
humans on the other end of the scale of attractiveness have extremely low chances of sexual opportunity or mating.
this has led to an extreme imbalance in the field of sexual relations, a type of robber baron, gilded age, winner-takes-all scenario. in brute's opinion, this is why men invented pickup - so that they could at least get with someone. men didn't need pickup, and women didn't need plastic surgery, when there was, mathematically almost proven, a mate out there desperate to put a ring on it before 30.
in a way it was a very regulated market, and now it's a very free market. and there's a virtual natural monopoly on the high end of the scale.
You're largely right. I was a reasonably attractive young woman, and I spent my single years mostly fending potential mates off, not hunting for them. Not fun either, BTW. I often felt I was a means to a very base end in those people's eyes. Not a person. I think a lot of men don't know how to indicate sexual interest in a woman without objectifying her.
I think another part of the problem you outline is modern society's over-focus on the superficial. During those same years (50s onward) we've gone from living in tighter knit communities where you got to know people well enough to see past appearances, to Facebook et al where you see a carefully crafted avatar instead. How can IRL people, male or female, measure up even to their own marketing? And men, I think, are more apt than women to throw the baby out with the bathwater with regard to looks. And they do it irrespective of their own looks, which has always amused me to no end.
Another thing to consider: long-term antidepressant use is now rampant, especially among Western women. And one of the side effects of most antidepressants is low or no sex drive, and/or anorgasmia. A man may now find himself unwittingly pursuing women whose sexual feelings have literally been drugged away.
@BRUTE: I mostly agree. In fact, my default boyfriend and I came to virtually the same conclusion after comparing/compiling our recent experiences and the experiences reported by others we have dated. I would note that the power-law shaped distribution only holds true for gender/age neutral consideration if something more like "dating" rather than "fucking" is the desired outcome.
Also, someone of your generation might not be aware of the degree to which technology rather than changing societal rules has contributed to this situation. When I was 21 (1986), birth control was readily available, and there wasn't much stigma attached to sleeping around in my social circle, but the internet was not yet a dating tool. So, if I needed a new partner, maybe I would dress up cute and go to a party. Maybe during the course of the party, 3 individuals would express interest, and I would end up making out with one of them on a sofa. Maybe he wouldn't call me, so I would go to another party the next weekend. BUT, it wasn't like I could walk into a new party attended by thousands of single people in my area 24/7. It's the speed and breadth of the sorting process that is different.
My point being that the internet has pretty much made some variation on polyamory the equilibrium state for a significant portion of the population. That's why I type "default boyfriend" and he describes his own behavior in the market as "hot-swapping." For those not already significantly invested in a committed relationship, transition costs have become almost negligible, while maintenance costs have stayed the same. IOW, there has always been an upside and a downside to being in a long-term, committed monogamous relationship, and that hasn't changed, but nowadays a lot of the downside of finding yourself single again or still has been greatly mitigated for a certain percentage of the most attractive (considering all factors related to dating success, not just looks) members of the population. IOW, what used to be the economic situation only for Hollywood celebrities and French politicians is now the situation for a great many more people.
That's why I never serve my tomato pie to a man unless I think he's a keeper.
Not fun either, BTW. I often felt I was a means to a very base end in those people's eyes. Not a person. I think a lot of men don't know how to indicate sexual interest in a woman without objectifying her.