Posted on 09/03/2017 11:34:00 AM PDT by EdnaMode
Thanks to cheap sex, marriage may be doomed.
The share of Americans ages 25-34 who are married dropped 13 percentage points from 2000 to 2014. A new book by sociologist Mark Regnerus blames this declining rate on how easy it is for men to get off.
Regnerus calls it “cheap sex,” an economic term meant to describe sex that has very little cost in terms of time or emotional investment, giving it little value.
Regnerus bases his ideas, in part, on the work of British social theorist Anthony Giddens, who argued that the pill isolated sex from marriage and children. Add online pornography and dating sites to the mix and you don’t even need relationships.
The result is “two overlapping (but distinctive) markets, one for sex and one for marriage, with a rather large territory in between comprised of significant relationships of varying commitment and duration,” Regnerus writes in “Cheap Sex: The Transformation of Men, Marriage, and Monogamy” (Oxford University Press).
In generations past, women generally made men wait until marriage to have sex. To get a wife (and, therefore, sex), men had to be clean and presentable and have a good job. This, Regnerus reasons, gave men all the motivation they needed to become respectable members of society.
Now with porn on-demand and greater reproductive freedom, sex is a commodity available at any time. This has left men with little motivation for marriage, writes Regnerus, who cites demographer Steven Ruggles’ prediction that one of every three people in their 20s will never marry.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
>>>And men wonder why women aren’t interested in them lol!<<<
You give this reply to my post stating many women are unmarried and childless because they passed over men who were willing to date/marry them when they were younger - because they held out for a guy that was richer/better looking than the ones available to them.
My advice to younger women is to settle for Mr. Good Enough. Mr. Perfect may not be interested in you.
>>>American men are such pansies. The unmarried ones are losers.<<<
Exactly why are American men pansies? And what especially about being unmarried makes a man a loser?
FYI there are more unmarried young men/women than married.
Do you extend this loser status to unmarried women? To single moms who had children out of wedlock?
>>>Too many of the people writing here seem to expect a Melania Trump for a wife rather than a reasonably attractive young woman with a good set of ethics and morals. Of course, every women on this thread is wondering what you guys look like, lol.<<<
The women of today offer so many of the following characteristics,sometimes all in one package: Fat, tatted, pierced all over, short hair and hair dyed some unnatural hue. The average girl that doesn’t have these traits is now such a rare commodity that her value has skyrocketed. There are not enough such women to go around for men that desire them in my opinion.
>>>So she really isn’t pretty.<<<
I also asked if that woman was a single mom and didn’t get a reply. I think we know why her friend is unmarried.
Another idiot! This woman is unmarried and has no children. Just because I don’t answer all the questions here doesn’t mean what you think it means. Let’s face it, some of you guys just don’t like ANY women.
To those who aren’t stupid: Charles Murray wrote a book called “Losing Ground” about the separation/isolation between the wealthy and the middle class. Part of what the problem was, according to Murray, is that men are no longer marrying “down” (ie, the secretary, the receptionist, etc.) but are insisting on marrying someone with the same educational background and profession. You see this to the enth degree in Washington, DC. This has isolated lower middle class and middle-middle class people from highly educated and wealthy people and hampered women’s mobility and her children’s mobility.
This is a fact that is ignored by people who only know history from when they were born. Apparently, for most here, that’s about 2002.
I’d never take a penny I didn’t work for.
But that’s just me.
Plenty of women do.
My comment was tounge in cheek, sorry I didn’t make that more obvious to you.
I own/read Losing Ground. He is talking about demographics. A college educated man is more likely nowadays to marry a similar woman. But is that because a man is searching for that? Or because he went to college with them and later works with them more than in 1960? It’s 1960 when he goes back in time to compare to 2010, for those who have no idea about this book. You can’t conclude from his book that men are rejecting women based on their education. I have read articles with the name/theme of where have all the good men gone? And once you dive into the article, it’s college educated women past 30, complaining of the lack of similar educated men. I don’t think most men care that much about his wife’s education.
You must be an absolute delight at social gatherings.
Because Mr. Perfect was probably turned off by her high knob count and overall bitchy attitude.
Perhaps. But if I were single I wouldn’t be in the market for a man.
Except that you are wrong. I mean, unless you’re living in a trailer park smoking dope with all those fat, tattoo’ed women you guys see everywhere. I live in NYC. Believe me, men care about their girlfriends’ incomes. It’s obsessive in these highly competitive cities.
And Charles Murray’s thesis is, of course, about how this impacts people’s daily lives. To think otherwise is not to get the point of the book.
Hey - you’re missing the mother-of-all stupid threads here on FR. LOL!
I do love her. And I let her know that every time we speak. I am proud of her accomplishments. Our door is always open to her, and we have done all that we could when ever she has gotten herself in some type of trouble. I gave up on trying to interfere in her decision making process a long time ago. I am troubled that she has always made the decision that her own selfish wants have always been more important than her children's’ needs. She now is living half way across the country from them.
“Eligible victim” was meant to be a gallows humor type of joke, but she has hurt our former sons-in-laws who have custody of our grandchildren. We are thankful for their patience with our daughter and our grandchildren. None of them have spoken poorly about her to the kids and we are grateful to be able to get together with them and our grandkids. But I must admit that each time she introduces us to a new fiancé I pray that she will break the pattern she has seemed to establish. As soon as she gets tired of them for any reason she dumps them instead trying to work things out.
As far as her "baggage"... what do you call three bankruptcies, three children from three different men, three divorces, a body covered with tattoos, and other issues that don't need to be repeated? Despite all this we consider her to be a good daughter. And as I said previously, my wife and I love her and we continue to welcome her into our home and give her whatever help she asks for.
So I am sorry you were offended by my post and blame me for the breakdown of the family in our society. Would you be offended if she was a card carrying ANTIFA member and I said I called that "baggage"? Maybe one day you will end up with a grown child who repeatedly makes decisions that hurts other people in your family and then you can give me some more good advice on how to speak about my daughter on this forum.
As a young person I truly believed that one day everyone in all parts of the world would have a good opportunity for happiness and prosperity because of technology. Now I am glad that I was born in the time period that I was.
Only God can see the heart or soul.
Second it.
In in all my years of being at FR, this thread tops as #1 of any stupid or silly thread.
Lol.
With all due respect, that's the problem right there. Until you stop helping her and giving her whatever she asks for, she won't have to fully live with the consequences of her actions.
Have you considered every time she brings a new "fiance" home she's seeking your approval to screw up again?
I get it: you love your daughter unconditionally and that's all good. When will you love her enough to make her stand on her own two feet and fully live with the consequences of her actions so she begins seeing the trail of carnage she's leaving in her wake and straightening her own life out?
Hasn't she done enough damage to her three children by three different fathers? When's it enough?
Again, I say that with all due respect as a parent myself.
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