There’s a toxic complaint circulating in some corners of the internet: the idea that men shouldn’t bother working unless they’re “rewarded.” Let’s be clear,your reward for work is money. The same way women get paid for their work. There is no covert clause that guarantees you sex for holding down a job and paying your bills. The paycheck is the reward.

Where did this bizarre idea come from, that beyond money, society somehow owes you women’s bodies too? Sex is not a utility like water or electricity. It isn’t on the same plane as food and shelter. It’s more like going to Paris for fresh croissants: a pleasure you’re free to pursue if it matters to you, but never something society hands out by default.

This misplaced entitlement is why people have less empathy for men’s dating complaints. When women want to be wives and mothers and it doesn’t work out, they adapt: they buy homes, invest in themselves, find community. They don’t threaten to torch society if they can’t get a husband. If women said, “Fly us to Dubai first-class or life isn’t worth living—we’ll make everyone miserable if we don’t get our way,” no one would have sympathy. Yet men demand empathy while openly suggesting violence if they’re not “rewarded.” That’s not just unattractive—it’s absurd.

The tax complaint is equally ridiculous. “If women don’t owe us sex, why should men pay taxes?” For starters, single childless women out-earn their male counterparts and thus pay more taxes. And the men who pay the highest taxes? Married men aka men who are in relationships Meanwhile, the biggest beneficiaries of taxes are children and the elderly who are typically cared for by women. The idea that we have a social safety net is not a scam, and if you don't believe that children should eat because you can't get women, you need to ask yourself why you are expecting to be taken seriously.

You benefit from being in society by having roads, lights, medicine, and safety. That is your reward. You’re also free to make friends, build relationships, and seek partners—but a girlfriend or a wife isn’t your default prize for putting pants on and going to work any more than a best friend is.

The sooner we drop the delusion that women and sex are part of some cosmic reward package for basic productivity, the sooner both men and women can build healthier expectations of each other