How to square support from economic equality, with support for sexual liberalism which creates sexual inequality?

TommyThirdEye · 2023-01-07T14:20:53+00:00

Another link between economic and sexual inequality is the rise of Only Fans models. Many women have quite literally capitalized on the loneliness and isolation of young men (we have all seen the statistics of male sexlessness). Theres now "girlfriend experiences" being offered as a service by some OF models, It really is depressing that this is even now somthing to profit from. Datings apps are full of profiles of women promoting their OF accounts also on social media platforms like Facebook and even here on Reddit, it's very common to get random friend requests or follows that turn out to profile promoting their Only Fans. At some point, this has to be acknowledged as a result of privilege in favor of women. As aways any negative impact on men/boys is ignored and this is just painted as empowerment for women.

In terms of bringing more equality to the dating/relationship market, I really don't know what the answer is, although I think a good start would be for the left to actually start acknowledging the hardship men face in dating, without thinking that it will take the spotlight away from women's issues.

respect_the_potato · 2023-01-07T13:57:04+00:00

In one case the resource that needs to be distributed more equitably is money, which is an inert social construct, and in the other case the "resource" that needs to be distributed more equitably is women, who are people with their own preferences. That's an important difference, and there's no conflict of values between supporting the former but not the latter if your underlying value is something like "giving individuals greater autonomy in their lives".

Another thing is that nearly all leftists would agree that capitalism doesn't reliably reward people who are better in any sense, whether those traits are innate or acquired. So it isn't a matter of replacing a just system with a more equitable system, but of replacing an unjust system with a system that is at the very least more equitable. I suppose you could argue that women's choice of partners is similarly unjust and needs to be corrected for, but the only way I can imagine a personal preference of partners potentially being described as unjust is to the extent that it's influenced by the desire to marry up in the context of an unjust system like capitalism, and the better solution there would still just be to get rid of capitalism, not to make women marry poor men.

OpeningInner483 · 2023-01-07T15:10:57+00:00

You can't.

Instead of just wasting your life on a sexual revolution that will never come, just focus on becoming as rich and successful under capitalism.

No one will come to save you. You have to save yourself

Ok_Line_886 · 2023-01-07T12:20:14+00:00

I think this idea suffers from a very simplistic view of the "sexual marketplace". Plenty of short guys, ugly guys, poor guys, etc. have historically dated and married very successfully.

If that has changed, that's not a problem with men, it's not a problem with the marketplace, so it's a problem with.....

Motanul_Negru · 2023-01-07T15:52:12+00:00

Sorry if this comes across as doomer, but sexual reproduction is always going to be a vector for competition and inequality. What we really need is an asexuality pill.

Sydnaktik · 2023-01-07T15:48:34+00:00

I, sadly, don't have an answer. But I do have a lot of thoughts on the topic.

I haven't seen you mention the term hypergamy explicitly, which is strange because that would be the root of the problem.

If men and women are both equally interested in seeking exclusive partnerships, then naturally everyone will pair off regardless of how deregulated the sexual marketplace becomes. Or in cases where the least attractive men are unwilling to pair off with the least attractive women (and/or vice versa) then you will have an equal number of single men and women unable/unwilling to pair off with their available prospects.

Hypergamy is the premise that women are in general more willing to exclusively connect sexual and/or romantically with a man who is not exclusive to her. Whereas men are in general more interested in connecting sexually and/or romantically with multiple women who are exclusive to him.

I see a lot of circumstantial evidence for this to be true, but from my perspective it's far from conclusive.

But if we assume hypergamy is real, then society will slowly steer to a situation where the top 20% of men most able to attract mates will end up with the top 80% of women with leaving a large population of sexually and/or romantically unsatisfied men.

This winner takes all situation creates massive incentives for men to sacrifice to achieve this winner status. While, at first, many men will naturally succeed, inevitably, those who can barely succeed will seek to corrupt to social system in order to gain an advantage. Over time, as the system becomes more corrupt, this advantage becomes stronger. Eventually obtaining a position of leverage within the corrupt system becomes almost necessary for sexual and/or romantic success. This, I expect, would happen regardless of the economic system in place (capitalism, feudalism, communism, socialism etc...)

If you'll allow me, I can generalize the problem even more. In the end this is about the battle between good and evil as seen from a liberal leftist perspective (who seeks a society with both equality of opportunity and equality of outcome and/or a fair balance between the two). Evil is a society where there are winners and losers, and good is where everyone is a winner. But at the core of life is evolution and at the core of evolution is competition and at the ore of that you have winners and losers.

So, from a liberal leftist perspective. As long as there is life, there is evil. Which leads some to take on a nihilistic view of life. But personally, I feel these people should stick to nihilizing themselves and leave the rest of us out of it. Personnally, I'd rather take the bad with the good than not have any good at all. So more humans and more life, is better than less or none.

So as a humanist, liberal leftist. I'm inclined to find solutions that will keep us going with as much fairness and equality as possible knowing that achieving it completely is impossible. Moreover, I believe that any success on that front doesn't change the life->evolution->competition->evil paradox. At best, all we can do is change things so that the equality becomes less visible and/or less painful to us. Over evolutionary time periods, nature will make sure that we become aware of the new kinds of inequality and that being on the losing end feels painful.

On a more practical level, I believe that both liberal and leftist ideologies exist for social evolutionary reasons. There is a dichotomy between leftist (equality) and rightists (hierarchies and competition). People more inclined to the right will be more aware of natural competitions and seek to win giving them better evolutionary success. But society with more leftists will be more stable and powerful due to less infighting, giving them better evolutionary success. Similarly, authoritarian structures can be more efficient and eliminate corruption from selfish actors. On the other hand, liberal structures can be more creative, agile and adaptive. People with an authoritarian ideology will tend to be better adapted to obtaining positions of authority that they can use to gain an evolutionary advantage, whereas people with a liberal ideology are better adapted to gain an evolutionary advantage through independent, individual action.

Modern life seems to greatly prefer the liberal ideology as technological progress has made creativity, agility and adaptivity critical to success. However, advances in bureaucracy, political science and technology has made it possible to create large stable societies. Leftist ideology has made the creation and implementation of these advances possible, but these advances also makes room for right wing ideology to grow without collapsing society.

So that's my understanding of the full context of your question. If hypergamy is real, it becomes a critical force in all of that. I'm still no closer to figuring out what to do about it. :P

RockmanXX · 2023-01-08T00:57:19+00:00

The second problem, is the sexual marketplace men inhabit is far more brutal and capitalistic than the one women experience.

That's not limited to dating but life in general. Love&Intimacy is kept away from men and its commodified via fantasies of romance. Emotional Support&Social acceptance is not something men get by default like women do, its something men have to "earn". We're doing men disservice by reducing the issue down to "Sex". This problem isn't Sex, its Men lacking a sense of belonging, emotional intimacy and love(and not just Romantic kind but just love in general).

If the problem was simply Men not getting sex, then legalized prostitution would be enough. The real problem is that Men are deprived of empathy and are led to believe that a women are the only outlet for emotional intimacy. Its true we can't do much to change Women's dating habits BUT we can do a lot in terms of stopping the male shaming and combating Male Social Isolation.

Supporting what is effectively a sexual free market,

??? "Sexual Market" only exists in the minds of those who view love&intimacy as scarce commodities, rather than something humans give to each other for FREE. Love is priceless and i'm not "competing" with anyone for it.

Moist-Quiet-647 · 2023-01-23T20:38:55+00:00

The solution is transhumanism. I.E. abolish the genetic lottery by giving everyone the best genes (attractiveness is almost entirely genetic) so everyone can succeed in life. No "redistribution of women" would be needed anymore because equality in attractiveness means everyone will be able to access love and sex.

Also, you misunderstood Houellebecq. His point is that sexual and economic competition actually go hand in hand (which I disagree but that's not his point). There's no contradiction.

hotpotato138 · 2023-01-07T14:40:51+00:00

Most women prefer to marry men who earn equally or more than them. Some women don't care. The dating coach I follow, Alan Roger Currie, slept with 100s of women while being broke and unemployed. In his experience, women didn't care about his status for casual sex. Unfortunately, he passed away recently so he can't give consultations.

If there was no such thing as money, would women still prefer to marry up? I think women are conditioned by society to prefer that for marriage. They are being practical. If there was no money in society, women might prefer men like Alan.

agiganticpanda · 2023-01-07T13:29:54+00:00

First of all, it's not equality it's equity. it's not about having things equal, but having a set standard of living accessible.

Also, you seem to look at marriage as trapping a sexual dynamic as if that's the end all of a relationship dynamic, which is pretty gross. Also, as if marriage doesn't have the same dynamics - wealth, looks, natural ability in play as part of the decision to get married. If you aren't getting laid by those same standards, why would a person marry you? This framework also doesn't include bi/gay men which have an entirely different dynamic.

I'm a bigger dude, I'm polyamorous, married, I live with two of my partners and I have 3 partners outside of my household. I don't make a lot of money for my area, but living with four other people provides me with some fun money. I'm successful in my relationships in part because I make the effort to contribute to their lives in effort, and make the effort to satisfy them sexually.

Deconstruction of the dynamic of marriage opens more opportunities - because a person can have a relationship that gives them security while engaging in other relationships that satisfy other wants/needs. I'm definitely biased myself, but I'd never go back to a monogamous relationship framework. Too many missed opportunities to connect with people.

BKEnjoyer · 2023-01-07T19:19:33+00:00

Legit thought this was a pro-sex work thing lol but it’s not at all, I completely empathize with your ideas though. We need to fix it all so we don’t have to rely on stuff like that and OnlyFans that is not “real” and is exploitative (sorry if that sounds too feminist)

DumpsterCyclist · 2023-01-07T23:02:50+00:00

I think about this a lot. My main conclusion is that we just live in really complex times and there isn't much you can do about it. You can only do what you can to seek out someone that does not have these economic views and expectations of the opposite sex.

I try to do everything I can to not let my own frustration, or my own bad experiences (specifically dating sites), affect my views on this too much. It's kind of hard, though, because there are still so many old-fashioned things going on in the world of gender relations, and it's super ironic to me that being (or at least feeling) more progressive/left on the economic aspect of dating is somehow out of touch. In other words, I should totally just "get it" that someone that, say makes $45,000 a year and pays 37% of the income in rent would not want to go out with a poor guy like me that probably has way more in savings than them. It's because I don't have a this ambition to be a winner in our current late stage capitalist environment. "What are you doing with your life to make yourself desirable to the women in your area?" Guys such as myself aren't applying themselves enough in the world in which they are doing great. "Prove your worth". Again, it's really strange and kind of awkward, because it's all tied to success in our current economic system, increasingly bordering on on almost feudalism at times, and increasingly fucked reality to begin with (I'm thinking 6th mass extinction, climate change, etc.). I understand the world of dating for women is full of guys that just want to fuck, see them as nothing but pieces of meat, have pretty much zero idea of how to talk to them in a rational matter (at least online), and plenty of other things. I know that's real. But the whole career/education thing is just way exaggerated. Everybody needs to chill out and just learn how to hang and try to get to know a stranger.

CompetitiveOwl2 · 2023-01-09T00:45:47+00:00

I honestly think this is a really complex issue. I've typed and retyped this comment a few times. I'm not sure I can really lay out my thoughts on this very clearly without a lot of time investment so perhaps I'll do my own post later. I think alienation and atomisation are a core part of this issue. I also think that a lot of women are trying to find a decent partner and going through a relatively "normal" pattern of meeting someone, dating and moving on if it doesn't work out.

One of the issues I see for these women and for the men left out of this process is that, well, men and women are basically the same proportion of the population. What's the problem? Well, these women (and to be clear I am not at all suggesting these are shallow or "bad" women) may not be one of the ones to settled down with the men who were able to thrive in the dating scene or be lucky enough to connect with someone and not get rejected. In other words: as people settle down they may find their options are 30+ year old men who have deep wounds from social isolation and who simply don't know what it's like to be with someone.

This isn't an issue because of sexual compatibility (although a man who has felt like sex simply isn't an option may take a lot of convincing to believe that he is wanted, convincing that their partner may find wearing) or lack of "skill" or any of those things. I believe those can be worked on. It is an issue because you have people who come from totally different worlds in terms of relationship experience. People overlook this but how can a woman who has had 2 or 3 serious relationships really understand a man for whom sex and relationships are barely a real concept. Men for whom sex, love, affection, appreciation and companionship might as well be science fiction. This issue of relatability isn't one I've seen discussed before really.

It is also my view that very few of the men who end up sexless and loveless are genuinely unappealing to women. It is the ability to meet and make a connection that is lacking.

To my mind, leftism leans towards blaming the structures and systems over the individual. I think rebuilding communities and promoting relationships of value and worth is the way forward. I'm talking about leveraging everything we know about human psychology to build environments wherein people have the opportunity to really see and understand the humanity of others, to feel a genuine belonging and connection to the people around them. Their neighbours, schoolmates, postal workers, sanitation workers etc. A sense of community that makes people understand that we are all in this together. That it isn't about who has the best car or the hottest girlfriend or the most money. It's about if our friends, families and neighbours are thriving, about whether we can pursue the things we love in life.

In doing this I believe community social events of all kinds will be essential. More school dances, school volunteering trips, community dances and meals, community sports, community cleanup and conservation efforts. Actively using these to put people in mixed groups, to keep kids and adults alike constantly getting to know and connect with their peers etc. I can't help but think that even if a kid really loves gaming and reading, the few hours a week spent helping out at the local library, or what have you, with a group of their peers, will allow them opportunities to make irl friends, to meet someone they like, to get a chance to know them, maybe to ask them out. It may seem silly or even trite but I really believe that boys and girls, men and women, being put together and mixing a lot to be exposed to one another, to know each other and to almost be forced to look below the surface of a person would lead to a significant decrease in loneliness both platonic and romantic. There will always be shallow people, there will always be people that just want to get off but when you know the men and women around you well and know where you can go to meet men and women and get to know them then why would you settle for them if that isn't what you want?

Title	How to square support from economic equality, with support for sexual liberalism which creates sexual inequality?
Author	zaph239
Upvotes	25
Comments	158
Date	January 7, 2023 11:30 AM UTC (3 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/comments/105mx0p/how_to_square_support_from_economic_equality_with/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/how-to-square-support-from-economic-equality-with.1146658 https://theredarchive.com/post/1146658

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