Numerous internet pundits, myself included, have thoroughly explored the idea that the landscape surrounding the sex, relationship, and marriage game has changed significantly over the years. That’s not surprising. We’ve had the internet for almost 30 years, and the feminist movement for even longer.
In fact, my noting that “things have changed since 1950” is not insightful or deep. It is blitheringly obvious. I am not smart. Anybody else presenting this thesis as though it’s intelligent is also not smart.
Today in 2024, most first-world women have jobs, their own money, their own residences, and support themselves. Women are even attending college in larger numbers than men, and many women are attaining some pretty impressive jobs and salaries. While it’s nice for a gal when she has an employed guy around that pays for things in her life, this is no longer something necessary for her survival, for which she needs to sacrifice or make compromises. It’s more of an optional, nice-to-have characteristic in her men.
Instead, a woman with a decent job has money and covers her own basic needs and most of her hobbies. She typically gets health insurance through her job and the birth control pill through her insurance (though the pill is pretty cheap without insurance anyway). And today in 2024, the social climate no longer expects everybody to get married young, to refrain from premarital sex, or even to refrain from purely casual sex.
This is in part because modern western society spends an inordinate portion of its time and resources focusing on the wants and needs of women when deciding the standards for sex and relationships.
When women needed marriage and children in order to be socially accepted, and needed an employed husband to provide for them and the children, the social standards regarding sex and relationships focused on that. People who had premarital sex, or God forbid purely recreational sex, were shamed. Especially women.
When women no longer needed this, the social standards for sex and relationships changed as women’s needs changed. Nowadays, marrying when older after a youth filled with casual sex is a-okay and pretty standard. And anybody who has anything negative to say about that is a bigoted ugly incel who can’t get laid and just hates women and wants to repress them.
We shame the shamer now instead of shaming the women.
With a woman’s need for financial support from an employed husband removed, the physical consequences of sex minimized through easy and cheap access to the pill (and abortion still legal to some extent in most places), and the social consequences of premarital and recreational sex eliminated or at least significantly reduced, women have been freed to a great extent.
A woman no longer needs to sacrifice or compromise on what she’s really attracted to in order to land a responsible, well-employed, kind-hearted husband to support her. She doesn’t need any of that any more on account of her supporting herself. So if she’s looking to enjoy her time with a man tonight, she can focus exclusively on whether the man is attractive and fun. It’s great — excellent even — if the guy she’s trying to pair off with is also responsible, well-employed, and kind, but those traits are optional. They are nice things to have, but secondary to the guy actually being attractive and fun.
But again, focusing on guys that are primarily attractive and fun doesn’t necessarily discount other great qualities.
If a woman hooks up with a guy who’s attractive and fun, and it turns out he has nothing else good going on, that’s fine. Then she just enjoyed some fun sex. Maybe she’ll enjoy some more with him later if he keeps being fun, maybe not.
If a woman hooks up with a guy who’s attractive and fun, and it turns out he’s also responsible, well-employed, and kind, maybe she wants a more serious relationship with him, and if he wants that too, they can date. If he doesn’t, that sucks and stings a little, but the next guy is always just one swipe away.
We like to bitch and complain about this state of affairs here in the internet manosphere, but honestly, this is all mostly a good thing. Maybe not good for “society” or “civilization” or “saving the west” from “degeneracy”, but good for men, women, and relationships. A world where women don’t provide for themselves and are therefore required to compromise on what they’re actually attracted to because they’re dependent on tying their lives to some man they’re just okay-and-lukewarm about, but not hot-and-heavy about? That’s not a happy world filled with love, sex, and respect, even if it looks good on paper for “society”.
But most women do eventually want to be married, and maybe have a kid or two or three. Despite the manosphere doom-and-gloom content you may have read, this doesn’t mean that women are going to suddenly turn 30, stop caring whether a guy is attractive and fun, and marry some random average guy they don’t even like just so they can be married, then divorce him later and take all of his money.
And despite the manosphere doom-and-gloom telling you the opposite of this, women don’t actually like men who behave like jerks, are unkind, are underemployed losers, are criminals, and so on. Or at least, women don’t like them because they are jerks or underemployed criminals. (Though men with these traits can still be fine for a hook-up, maybe even a short-term thing, if they’re attractive and fun.)
What women actually want is that second guy from six or so paragraphs above. They want a guy that they’d actually want to hook up with — attractive and fun — who is also responsible, well-employed, kind, and so on. They want a guy who is hot and fun, who also treats them well, and is responsible and sufficiently well-off to provide well for them and for children.
Here’s the part where things start to go wrong: When it comes to humans, you get the behavior you incentivize.
A guy who is attractive and fun has his choice of women. Even if he doesn’t cultivate other positive characteristics like responsibility, kindness, and wealth. So a guy who’s able to hook up with women without too much backbreaking labor doesn’t really have a huge incentive to develop the characteristics that make him an excellent relationship prospect until he reaches a point in life where that’s something he thinks he wants.
And if a guy does have those characteristics, he has even more choices among women. But even though this guy has the traits that would make him a great relationship prospect for a woman, and possibly a great future husband, that doesn’t obligate him to do so. He’s doing great in the dating and hook-up scene and doesn’t have the incentive to settle down with one particular woman until (unless?) he reaches a point where that’s something he thinks he wants.
Attractive and fun guys don’t have the incentive to settle down with a woman unless she’s pretty exceptional.
But look no farther than our modern 50-Shades or Handmaid’s Tale-style examples from the media, and you can see women’s ideal fantasy. An average woman who could be anybody, who is hotly desired by attractive, powerful, wealthy men for no particular reason other than there is just something indescribably special about her that has made her win the man lottery. And while these men she attracts are powerful and dominant people, when they are with her they are kind, respectful, responsible, and pleased as heck to take good care of her. But in a way that is still powerful and dominant — these men aren’t trying to win her over with their kind behavior. Instead, they’re powerful men who don’t love easily, but she won them over.
That’s the ideal fantasy for a woman: a guy who’s attractive and fun enough for a hookup, but also responsible, well-employed, and kind enough for a serious relationship, who’s super-nice and super-romantic toward her with no additional effort on her part other than just existing and being indescribably special for some reason.
Meanwhile, most women, unless absolutely hideous-looking, are fairly spoiled for choice when it comes to opportunities for sex and dating. Even women who are not rocking amazing bodies or any kind of useful skills we’d love our wives to have don’t typically have huge problems finding sex and dates.
So in women’s universes, there isn’t much incentive to improve. Why would a slightly chubby girl go to all of the insane effort to lose weight when she’s having no trouble dating as she is? Why would an accomplished woman with a good job ever even begin to consider lowering herself to do something that requires effort or sacrifice, to please or benefit a man, when she’s having no trouble dating without doing any of that?
Women don’t have the incentive to cultivate good marriage characteristics unless some of those characteristics are something they already found interesting and have already cultivated.
Further complicating the issue is the fact that time and familiarity breed contempt. Said another way: people get bored.
A man who is attractive and fun today seems less attractive and less fun 5+ years into a marriage, even if he’s kept up his appearance and remained fun, simply because his wife is now incredibly familiar with him. She may still like him, mind you. And she may even greatly appreciate how responsible, well-employed, and kind he is. But that raw attraction she felt in response to his looks and how fun he was that first night they hooked up is not how she typically feels 5+ years into marriage.
And that’s the best case scenario. Most marriages aren’t so ideal. Taking care of a family takes a lot of time and energy. Many men who are 5+ years into a marriage have let their appearance go somewhat, maybe due to less time and focus on diet and exercise, or maybe just due to plain old getting older. And many men who have worked a grueling job tirelessly for years being responsible providers have become less fun than they used to be back when they were dating and hooking up with women instead of working themselves to death.
Sometimes, a woman can wake up one morning and find herself married to a guy she never would have hooked up with - when that wasn’t true about the man she married years ago - and wonder if her life is still on the right path or if she needs to make a change.
Attractiveness and fun aren’t the only qualities that wan over time. A man’s responsible-ness, provisioning, and kindness also tend to become less appreciated over time. Some men get lazy and begin to coast, no longer performing at the level they were performing when they first met their women. But much of the time, even if a man has not changed very much, a woman’s perception of him changes. Essentially, the “what have you done for me lately” standard.
For example, once a man folds the laundry half a dozen times, it ceases to be a nice thing he does that his wife appreciates, and becomes a normal and expected occurrence. Now, if he ever stops folding the laundry for any reason, such as becoming busy and overwhelmed at work, the fact that he is no longer performing at the level that has become normal and expected may be seen by his wife as a failure and significant irritation, rather than the justifiable cessation of a nice thing that was always optional.
Furthermore, once the man folding the laundry becomes normal, then a decent stretch of time passes, his wife begins to feel like (and complain that) he doesn’t do anything around here. He might be confused, because he’s been dutifully folding laundry for the family for the last year or two, in addition to his soul-crushing day job. But that has become normal and expected — just the way things are around the house. What has he done lately that’s above and beyond the normal and expected things? What has he done lately to make her feel special and show that he cares, and is responsible and kind?
This idea extends to all things, not just the silly household chore example above. Once a guy’s taken his wife out to a fancy steakhouse a few times, doing a similar date (or God-forbid, a date at a cheaper restaurant) is perceived as a low-effort date with minimal thought that does not show that he cares, and does not show that he is responsible and kind. Every few months, he will need to escalate to more creative and more exciting dates to maintain good standing under the “what have you done for me lately” standard.
These degradations happen in the opposite direction as well, though men don’t usually contemplate leaving their wives over it. Women tend to focus less on diet and appearance once they have families. Despite what the internet manosphere loves to claim, this is not simply due to laziness and some kind of diabolical bait-and-switch, and happens more often because families take time and energy. (Many women also believe letting these things go and getting uglier with age is just normal.) If they don’t even have the time and energy (and discipline) to eat right and go to the gym, they certainly don’t have the energy to fold the laundry if you get busy at work and can’t do it this week.
But anyway, because time and familiarity breed contempt, and because women operate under the “what have you done for me lately” standard, her man can’t simply find a decent groove and stick to it. If he’s not always escalating to bigger and better things, eventually, she’ll get bored. The emotional response she used to feel when he did things becomes smaller as time passes, and requires more from him to get the same level of emotion.
Even if she bagged a guy she would have hooked up with, who is also responsible, well-employed, and kind, eventually that’s not enough.
So while the answer to the question “what do women want” seems like it should be “a guy who’s attractive and fun enough to hook up with, who is also responsible, well-employed, kind, and wants to be with her more seriously”, that’s only what she wants right now. Next week, she wants that plus fancy date nights.
At the core of it all, however, what women are really seeking is emotions. Stories. If you can turn that hole-in-the-wall taco place into “our place”, fuck her brains out on top of the pile of laundry then have her help you re-fold it, pick a fight with her when you’re stressed about work then let her pull you out of your funk because she’s just so gosh-darn special, you can ride some of these horses for a few extra laps.
