Posted on 09/24/2017 3:31:11 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Spend a little time with single women in their early to mid-30s, and you'll be grateful you're not one of them. The relationship scene is even more dismal today than when I was their age. All the women want serious relationships that lead to marriage, but many of the men they meet do not. All too often a woman moves in with some guy, hoping they're on the road to somewhere. Two years later, he tells her he's not ready for marriage and kids just yet. Splat.
But wait. Hasn't online dating made the mating market easier? Yes – for men. If you really want to hear a woman rant, just utter the word Tinder.
Single women are more equal and empowered than ever before. They have unparalleled sexual, reproductive and economic autonomy. In many ways, they're doing much better than the men. (Just look at the lopsided university graduation rates, which are now around 60-40). And yet, large numbers of young women admit their private lives are a sad mess.
If you're a gender studies major, stop reading here. You're going to hate what I've got to say next. I don't like it much myself.
In a nutshell, over the past few decades, the traditional relationship exchange has broken down. It used to be that men and women each had something the other really needed. Men needed access to sex. Women needed access to resources. Men couldn't get steady access to sex unless they had resources to offer, so they worked hard for them. The partnership between men and women was a grand bargain that (usually) left both sides better off.
For men, sex was traditionally expensive. The price tag was a long-term commitment to provide for a woman (and children). But today, sex is cheap. And that changes everything.
This is the premise of a bracing new book, Cheap Sex, by American sociologist Mark Regnerus. Sex got cheap because of three technological developments: the advent of the Pill, which divorced fertility from sex; the onset of mass-produced, high-quality pornography; and the arrival of online dating sites, which make it easy for men to find willing sex partners.
Sexual liberation is a fabulous thing – in some ways. But it can also turn men into louts, because women don't expect much in return for access. Today, most men can have all the sex they want for very little cost – no fancy dinner required. The irony, as Mr. Regnerus writes, is that today's mating market is probably more dominated by men's interests than ever before.
When women complain that marriageable men (sober, steady good providers) are harder to find than ever, they may well be right. The marriage rate is falling steadily, especially among the lower middle class, while long-term stable marriage is increasingly a privilege reserved for the better off.
A lot of women seem to have their act together these days. But a lot of men don't. "I think the greatest, most astonishing fact that I am aware of in social science right now is that women have been able to hear the labour market screaming out 'You need more education'… and men have not," MIT economics professor Michael Greenstone says in Cheap Sex.
What might explain this puzzling fact? Men don't have to prove themselves as providers any more. They can get all the sex they want anyway – including online porn on demand that can make the real thing feel mildly disappointing. (Ask younger women about men and porn. You'll get an earful.)
Like it or not, women have always been the gatekeepers for sex – not because they don't like sex, too, but because (no matter what you learned in gender studies) men's sex drive is innately higher. This means it's up to us to make the rules. "Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?" my father used to say. It drove me crazy when he said that. Now, it's dawned on me that he was right.
Since the women's cartel collapsed, women's bargaining power has seriously eroded. That's why so many single women hate Tinder, which has further commodified sex for the benefit of men. Women are just another consumer good in the shop window.
It may take a village to raise a child. But it takes a village to raise a husband, too. And modern society has largely abdicated from the job. "Good husband material doesn't occur naturally, but is instead the product (in part) of socialization, development, and social control," Mr. Regnerus writes. "[I]n the domain of sex and relationships men will act as nobly as women collectively demand."
Time to get our act together, ladies. If we don't, they won't either.
Free porn on the web has made Men weak. I see guys at work watching porn on cell phones. Why try to meet a nice Girl when you have that crap 24-7.
fungi I checked out your profile page. I have a question for ya, Mister magic eightball. How many licks does it take to get to the tootsie roll center of a tootsie pop. Riddle me THAT?
How long do you watch 'em for? Just curious.
Even a plain looking woman beats the best produced porn in the world by a country mile.
Yep, I can see that there is a problem.
With your logic circuits.
Seems like this attack on marriage, and thus Western Culture is working out EXACTLY AS PLANNED. Luckily men can pretty much opt out and still get married...but it means going halfway around the world to get that wife (as I and many other here have done).
There are almost 200 other countries in the world and we now have these things called jet airliners. I recommend the Philippines, but YMMV.
student loans.
If I were single (thank God I'm not!) or looking (again, thank God, no!), I would have little interest in most young single women. A girl willing to move in with a guy she doesn't know well enough to know if he's ready for marriage does not have the judgement to be worth my time. As for the men ready for marriage, when they meet a girl who is already living with a guy, or who has lived with several guys without it working out, they don't see her as a prospect.
Living with someone takes you completely off the market (for years at a time!) without moving toward the goal these women claim to want. A goal without a plan is just a wish. These women need to stop wishing and start working toward what they want, if they actually care about marriage.
I totally disagree.
Good men are not hard to find for good women.
Sluts always had a hard time finding quality men. It has been that way since the beginning, and it’s not going to change.
Leave it to a leftist to compare marriage to two people using each other. They truly have no understanding of marriage.
Biggest load of bull excrement ever written.
Today's brand of feminism has taught women to see men as a way to steal, at a minimum, half of their stuff and more if they can get a feminist judge to award alimony.
Too many now just con guys into marriage long enough to have the laws kick in so they can get away with nearly everything the man has and then move on to the next guy.
My son is now 22 years lod and has had few dates as he says he can't find a girl that isn't narcissistic to the point of being a sociopath.
The only reason I would have to go through the hell of a marriage I've had is I have two great children and I would trade them for the world.
Amen brother!
My wife was literally the-girl-next-door who lost a battle to breast cancer at 28. I suddenly became “Mr Mom” to my 2 little girls, 4 and 1.
I’ve dated women in their 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s ...and have pretty much given up finding “the one”...again.
One twice-divorced woman in her 50s was close to a spittin’ image of a young Natalie Wood and claimed to be a Christian. Eventually I discovered she was in a 2 year adulterous affair with a married man w/3 children who was a Deacon at her church.
C’est la vie....
Sluts I refused to marry.
I married a “good girl.”
Hmmm men marry to get sex. But a lot of the men I know who are married don’t get it after marriage...perhaps women are falling down on the job??
Not everyone should marry.
Lol
Egotistical tramps are not worth investing in.
Who convinced women men would be attracted to a woman who seeks to be their equal?
Today’s brand of feminism has taught women to see men as a way to steal, at a minimum, half of their stuff and more if they can get a feminist judge to award alimony.
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Oh please, this load of crap shows up on every thread that talks about women.
Women get so much less alimony these days than years ago, because we all have jobs now.
Women don’t get married to get some judge to give them alimony.
Unless, they are a gold digger. Although, if a man marries a trophy wife that is 20 years younger he knows what he is getting.
Buyer beware.
-—My son is now 22 years lod and has had few dates as he says he can’t find a girl that isn’t narcissistic to the point of being a sociopath.-—
When my oldest son was 20 years old (20 years ago) had a running bet he could not find a girl to date that wasn’t a baby momma already...
Never had to pay...
Though there are decent normal girls out there a large percent have some serious baggage and are very confused on what constitutes a normal relationship between a male and a female...
Most simply want a girlfriend with testicles...
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