My last significant post generated quite a lot of discussion, which was a plus. I want to thank my readers for keeping it civil. That makes my job that much easier. With it out of the way, I want to make a bit of a clarification of my own stance on the matter.
I ended my post Stock Imbalance with this:
Who has it harder in the marriage market: devout and serious minded Christian men, or devout and serious minded Christian women?
Can we even tell? And does it even matter?
I offered some responses to the first two questions earlier. But today I want to tackle the third. You see, I think that the imbalances do matter, and they should be talked about, if discussing them can help lead to solutions.
Description without prescription helps no one in my opinion. At best it leads us into a time sink. At worst it creates bitterness and mistrust. I might still be wasting time, but I think that trying to look for solutions to the problems in the market is still worthwhile.
Perhaps only personal solutions can be found- those that work at an individual level. That is something, at least.
But maybe solutions on a larger scale are possible. Perhaps that is merely at the level of a family, or maybe a particular church. Yet that will still be significant for the community in question. And you never know, it might be possible to sow the seeds of a long-term solution at some point. To set something in motion which will reap significant dividends in the end.
It might be just a fool’s hope, but it is better than nothing. Certainly I find it a better alternative to quiet despair.
So I intend to continue on with this line of inquiry- an examination of the marriage market, and a delving into possible methods of correcting the many problems that exist. My readers are more than welcome to chime in and add their own thoughts if they so desire. And if anyone finds this pointless, well, he or she can always sit it out.
Update: Just so I am crystal clear- at this point I don’t really care who has it better. What I do care about is imbalances- that is, forces which favor or disfavor men or women within the market. My goal is to discuss them with the hopes of eliminating as many forces that disfavor, and spreading around or boosting those forces which favor. I look on the situation as a case where a rising tide lifts all boats.
Donal Graeme 
The obvious, although not particularly timely, solution is to have children and raise them to be marriageable. If every two marriageable people can produce 4 marriageable adults, then prospects double in a generation. I don’t really think there are many timely fixes to the marriage market in general (and none of them are particularly appealing), only what individuals can do.
The biggest problem is for people who are marriageable right now to find each other. The only way to make this more likely for the market as a whole is to concentrate marriageable people. To do this geographically is pretty impractical, though could be done if a lot of people are willing to make a lot of sacrifices. The other way is to have people meet online, but trying to vet for the kind of marriageability that is the object of this discussion is somewhat difficult. It would only be worthwhile if the concentration of marriageability is high enough that those who are not marriageable have no incentive to waste their time or to lie on their profile. It might be possible.
The other problem with the online thing is that it is very difficult to develop chemistry over the internet; while video-chatting solves some problems, it cannot really imitate a real flesh and blood person being next to you. It tends to exacerbate the problem for the less attractive, because being physically present and able to be felt rather than just looked at is an aid to people who are less attractive (this is especially true for women, but “presence” for men can also be somewhat difficult to convey over video-chatting). Taking chances on people far away from either takes a lot of money or a lot of time with significant risk if meeting in person proves theres not much physical chemistry; time and money is not something young people have in abundance.
I really think the only timely and practical solutions are those for individuals. Become more attractive, actively look, increase your chances by networking and trying to widen your search geographically, take chances, and leave the rest to Providence. For people today, that is about the best we can do. For the next generation, there is probably plenty we can do to help; we just have to reach them before the problems of our current culture set in them.
How can you give a guarantee that you will fulfill your marriage vows?
Stay faithful.
Honour and obey.
Totally reject divorce?
I do think it is a pointless discussion when you start trying to have the conversation with people who have extremely different world views.
It is pointless when you have people who claim to be fellow Christians but have a wholly different understanding of the gospel from that which is found in the gospels and the epistles.
It devolves into conflations of all kinds of crazy theories, angry diatribes, and insistence that people (or, women at least) suspend reality and pretend that the only negative truths about the sexes are the negative truths revealed about women.
So in the end, the only real solutions at this point are going to be found at an individual, family level. But this is the fruit we are reaping from the seeds that were sown.
Blaming the innocents of today as if it’s their fault is all I hear being done. Which is why I do believe a lot of this (though not all) is pointless.
Is there a way to have a productive discussion about it? If so, then maybe it might be worth something.
Halt, that’s a good comment.
1) Yes. Few have children anymore. And it’s been a fast collapse. Remember, all Christian denominations agreed birth control was a sin pre-1930. Today, only Catholics remain & at least 80% of those have no praxis. It’s been an amazing doctrinal shift in just a few generations. Reap: Sow. So I simply don’t have any sympathy for people who can’t find spouses if they accept birth control or divorce within marriage (for any reason whatever). My reply? Make up your own doctrine? There are real-life consequences. Own it.
2) Most have no discipline anymore in general, and this leads to rotten people nobody wants to live around. For example: everyone wants to be their child’s best friend. Everyone thinks they can eat whatever they want, watch whatever media they want, do whatever. This is not unique to parents. I see this in everyone, especially the men and women who complain their are no marriageable people anymore. How many of those accept a higher authority than themselves?
3) Most people are not unified anymore, both within marriage, within families, and with churches. Christians generally believe they are individuals. The reason for this is obvious: if everyone thinks they can read the bible and invent their own doctrine from it, so of course nobody is going to be able to stay unified on critical moral issues. Like family. Like divorce. Like birth control. Like fasting. Like consumerism. It’s every person for themself. Well, let us not be surprised nobody can find a mate of quality. We are looking in the mirror, and it’s pretty ugly.
Yes. This is why overseas if often a fruitful path for the traditional Christian. He is already searching for needles in a haystack, and many women overseas are in the same boat yet still have traditional values. But your point is well taken: it will NOT be easy, no matter where you go. It’s a war zone of values, and men lead and women follow, so in a sense every man must fight the entire modern society to return to traditional Christianity.
i don’t think many agree on what those “marriage vows” are. I would make that claim right now on this thread.
@MK
Thanks. I’m Catholic, so that limits my own dating pool because of the issues you mentioned. The contraception thing is a biggie, but even among Catholics who claim to believe the Church’s teaching on contraception, many of them say they only want 1 or 2 kids. I want a big family.
“watch whatever media they want”
I cannot agree more with this. I don’t know how many people I’ve met who can’t fathom the idea that there’s something wrong about listening to much of modern pop music, or watching a significant portion of modern television. I knew a fairly traditional girl (went to the University of Dallas, one of the few really good Catholic Universities left in the country) who got very upset with me when I made the claim that it’s immoral to go see the movie Deadpool. To me it was obvious, but most people just aren’t willing to give up this kind of stuff; they really think it doesn’t negatively affect them, or that because it’s mainstream it cannot be actually pornographic and so that makes it ok to consume. It’s extremely frustrating.
@ Elspeth
I think you’re right, although the conversation could be framed to say that one of the points not up for debate is that both men and women have significant challenges and problems they need to face in the current market. It’s also much more useful to talk about the specific challenges and problems rather than to just say “the sum of this sex’s challenges and problems is greater than the sum of that sex’s challenges and problems.” But like I said in my first comment, I think the only timely and practical solutions for people right now will be on an individual level. Discussion of fixing the marriage market as a whole will only help those in the next generation of people entering the market (which I do think is important).
Stipulating the premise this seems rather like prisoners in one labor camp complaining about better amenities in other labor camps. Whistling past the graveyard at best and a distraction from what is important. If prisoners in some other camp actually do have it better you should be happy for them, not envious, and unless one of their specific amenities helps in your collaborative escape plan you should forget about it and focus on what is important.
You can’t know prescriptions until you diagnose the problem.
Deti’s counsel has blessed me a lot over the last few years. Reading what he (along with others) had to say about modern marriage helped me understand why mine was falling apart, and thus where to begin in fixing the issue.
Ultimately I had to deal with the fact that I was worshipping my wife instead of God, and once that was fixed, things began to improve.
However, those men who have always been more high value(in the eyes of women) almost never have good advice to help those of us who are struggling in this area.
The rich man doesn’t understand why the beggar is hungry, and philosophises that the problem is that he is jealous of people with food.
Ignore those who refuse to admit that there is a problem. They won’t and cannot help you; other men will, and you can find them.
“Ignore those who refuse to admit that there is a problem.”
No one here is claiming that there is not a problem. In fact, the claim of those disagreeing with deti was that the problem is so terrible that any relative differences between how hard men and women have it in the current market are insignificant. In fact, it seems discussion of who has it worse really just works against collaboration between men and women who are trying to do the right thing. Unless it can be shown that the relative differences themselves are significant in finding a solution (and it is far from obvious that this is the case), there’s no point in fighting over who has it worse because everybody has it pretty badly.
“You can’t know prescriptions until you diagnose the problem.”
Sure, but talking about the relative differences between men and women is like fighting about what it means that one patient has a 102 degree fever and one has a 103 degree fever. Both have a fever, and the difference is insignificant to diagnosing the overall illness.
Despite my disappointment with the way things went at Scott’s, this exercise has actually proven useful to us because I think I have a solution that might be useful in our immediate area and community. For Christians who are never married and of marriageable age right now. It won’t solve generational problems, and it will certainly take the better part of a year to get it going, but we’ll see.
One of the problems with singles ministries in many churches is that it combines divorcees, single parents, the never married, and sexually inexperienced people. There needs to be a way for young people who are not a part of the first two groups to interact with each other. For same sex friendships as well as intersexual socializing. Inspiration has taken root, so I guess this worth something.
elspeth:
Yes, if we are trying to help young marriage-minded Christians who are committed to doing the right thing then one of the dumbest things we can do is mix them all together with screwups, hedonists, players, sluts, and the
generally incontinent, and treat them all as if they are the same. They aren’t. By definition of the OP we are talking about very particular groups of young people who need to collaborate in an already very hostile culture without mutual hostility and without a lot of turds floating around in the local punch bowl.
Yes, but the reality is that men lead and women follow, so men bear the brunt of the difficulty when making cultural changes (women generally are parasitic and defensive of the status quo). This, IMO, is the genesis of Deit’s complaint. We won’t get macro change unless we start acknowledging that men must bear the brunt of the pain of change today and women are just catching up to it, unless they are really traditional.
I’m not big on “what” one should watch as much as sad regarding the consumption of media in general. The medium is the message; I find advertisements and general consumerism far more deadly than an occasional bad movie like Deadpool (I haven’t seen it) which I wouldn’t jump to call “immoral” as much as just probably just a waste of time. And if dating age, I would try to be flexible because like it or not we live in this world and young people are finding things out. But it’s the daily grind of the media teat (radio, TV, cable, sports) I find really dangerous and thus eschew. YMMV.
I must confess I cringe when people talk about “the Church’s teaching on contraception”. My thought: if we need the Church to tell us contraception is morally wrong, that the co-creation of souls & sex have nothing to do with each other, we’ve already lost. Any normal culture in the world loves family, children, and life. Who doesn’t but crazy people?
Btw, if you want a big family, I would learn to be unapologetic about leading/demanding more from women. For a woman today the thought of a weak man at the helm of their large family is a terrifying prospect. This ain’t 1950 anymore; the community and culture will not only not help you, it will persecute you. The Church generally offers zero support at best and active resistance at worse (a large family is a sign of contradiction). So having a double-digit family size (outside of communities like the LDS or Amish) is just plain dangerous for women today who overwhelmingly lack the skills and temperament. But any man who both wants a large family AND is willing to lead it unapologetically and demand more has lots of girls interested. As long as he knows you don’t listen to her BS either :-).
MK:
Thanks for the advice. I am in the early stages of bettering myself and am working on being a leader. It’s an uphill battle because it’s hard to break bad habits, but I’m fighting anyways, we’ll see how it goes.
About media: I do tend to focus more on content of media, as I think it actually plays a more significant role; if television or music has good content, then it is beneficial to the consumer ,and detrimental if it has bad content. I personally find content to be more harmful; I don’t see how television or radio as a medium in and of itself leads to consumerism. And I try to be flexible, though it’s sometimes difficult to know just how flexible to be and where to compromise. All part of life, so I’ll just keep trying to figure it out.
When I say “the Church’s teaching on contraception” I say it with the understanding that the Church acknowledges it is part of natural law, and everyone can come to know it through reason without the Church telling us so; I don’t believe it because the Church tells me so, although the Church saying it does reinforce my belief. It’s really not a difficult thing to understand. I say the Church’s teaching on contraception because I think it encompasses all the questions surrounding the topic, but that’s just an editorial choice and maybe one I need to reevaluate.
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It used to be school dances and weekend dating
I’m an incontinent screwup but I don’t really see how this is such a difficult situation for so many unless its the result of either sloth or lack of knowledge about the opposite sex. A lot of girls are as unattractive as omegas but their unattractiveness is mitigated by the male sex drive.
@ patrick:
It gets tricky when you are looking for a mate of similar devotion to faith, similar commitment to chastity, and to whom you are very attracted, with said attraction going both ways. I think the first and second ones are where most people get tripped up. Most of us who managed to marry someone we are wild about compromised on one of those two points, if not both. We’re trying to do better by our kids.
Anyhoo, connected with the mother of a woman who also has 2 Christian young adult daughters. She has some good connections, her church is centrally located and big on opening their doors to serve the community for endeavors like the one I posited to her.
Still in the brainstorming stages, but we’re working on it. Spreading the word might be the challenge. I’m sharing to offer motivation to others because bickering sans action gets us nowhere.
“No one here is claiming that there is not a problem. In fact, the claim of those disagreeing with deti was that the problem is so terrible that any relative differences between how hard men and women have it in the current market are insignificant.”
No, they were minimising the difference’s because actually looking at the differences leads to a discovery of hard and painful truths that men must come to grips with in order to survive in the current mmp. Saying the differences are insignificant is untrue.
“In fact, it seems discussion of who has it worse really just works against collaboration between men and women who are trying to do the right thing.”
Unfortunately, the nature of the problem means that men and women cannot collaborate to solve this problem. Men have to learn to not take seriously most of what women say in order to lead them. If Adam would have told Eve to drop the apple and quit talking to the serpent instead of collaborating we’d all be better off.
“Unless it can be shown that the relative differences themselves are significant in finding a solution (and it is far from obvious that this is the case), there’s no point in fighting over who has it worse because everybody has it pretty badly.”
Womens sin nature leads them to sleep with desirable men. The women aren’t miserable until they are dumped. The undesirable men’s sinful nature leads them to fapping to porn. Hence the solution is Vox Day’s (Christian) Don’t Be Gamma Plan seasoned with Game.
“Sure, but talking about the relative differences between men and women is like fighting about what it means that one patient has a 102 degree fever and one has a 103 degree fever. Both have a fever, and the difference is insignificant to diagnosing the overall illness.”
Fix men and women will follow. That’s the nature of men and women.
No man can make himself more desirable until he faces up to those hard truths of the differences between the sexes and hardens himself to no longer be broken by them, but instead to do the best with whatever he has been given. That process in itself makes a man more desirable.
It makes sense to work on a personal level and only look at society to figure out what’s coming. We are to small to worry about fixing society; if that happens it will be because of something God works out, not because we come up with a master plan. Be faithful in a small thing: your own life.
News fro Japan. While they are not Christian, and they are racially and culturally different, they are still ten years ahead of us on the demographic curve.
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/04/05/national/1-4-japanese-men-still-unmarried-age-50-report/#.WOV7N_krLGj
The only ideas that the Japanese government has come up with is to throw more freebies at their women. In short, they have no workable ideas.
Crossphased:
Marriage requires collaboration between men and women. If the contention that this is literally impossible is to be taken seriously then see the “it doesn’t matter” exit from the decision tree.
Either the specific differences in difficulty for the specific groups defined in the OP don’t matter because harping on that just makes intrasexual collaboration more difficult (not to mention is unmanly in the specific context), or they don’t matter because collaboration is impossible.
“intersexual”
“It gets tricky when you are looking for a mate of similar devotion to faith, similar commitment to chastity, and to whom you are very attracted, with said attraction going both ways.”
Actually that does make sense if I think of myself as a bad seed lol.
QUOTE – MK “i don’t think many agree on what those “marriage vows” are. I would make that claim right now on this thread.”
That isn’t the issue.
The question is not whether everyone can agree, but whether two people who DO agree, can TRUST each other.
Again, it’s one of the reasons why virginity at marriage is important. If you have an established habit of fornicating before you marry, the most likely event is that you will continue in this habit after marriage…… because sexual fidelity just isn’t important to you.
It is fundamentally unjust to demand that someone do something, without giving them the ability to do it.
So if you are going to demand that men lead, you must also DEMAND that women follow……. and provide back-up when they don’t.
The ruling spirit of modern feminist thinking is a demand that men do everything to make women happy. There has never – in the feminist doctrine – been an attitude that if women want to be CEOs, that they should build their own businesses. Never been an attitude that if women want to lead in politics, that they must inspire a majority with the desire to vote for them. The same goes with sporting clubs, social organisations or those Services that attract public respect.
The same attitude is obvious in some posts here. People not asking what they can do, but how they can impose the responsibility of changing their situation, onto others.
“Marriage requires collaboration between men and women. If the contention that this is literally impossible is to be taken seriously then see the “it doesn’t matter” exit from the decision tree.”
No man can get the guidance he needs to become a man (a desirable man for marriage) from a woman.
Leadership does not equal collaboration. There is some collaboration in marriage, but no collaboration matters of the man is not confident and desirable.
I submit that most of the problems undesirable men have come from paying to much attention to what women think and say.
“Either the specific differences in difficulty for the specific groups defined in the OP don’t matter because harping on that just makes intrasexual collaboration more difficult”
The problem is men need to learn to be men, not that they don’t collaborate correctly. You refuse to see or admit that problem
“(not to mention is unmanly in the specific context)”
Insults from autists are funny
“or they don’t matter because collaboration is impossible”
Collaboration is not a problem when the man is desirable enough. There are all kinds of women “collaborating” with desirable men right now, falling over themselves to do so.
Let’s help some Christian men be desirable enough to raise families in righteousness, instead of refusing to admit the problem.
When I see no one offering solutions to these poor guys I’m reminded of Luke 11:46 “And he said, “Woe to you lawyers also! For you load people with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers.”
Here’s the deal: for those men seeking answers, they are out there. You may have to go to Dalrock, Vox, or even the vile Heartiste, but don’t give up.
Despair is the council of the enemy. The truth is horrible but the truth also offers hope, always.
Crossphased…
I hear what you are saying on collaboration , although the scriptures tend to use words like “obedience”, and there is a difference.
The bigger problem is that there are times in our lives when everyone becomes less “desirable”.
im seeing far to many people declaring someone “desirable”, marrying them….. and then divorcing them when the tingles stop or someone more “desirable” comes along.
I, for one, have no desire to be treated as disposable. I don’t think that very many of us, here, do. So how do we make cooperative obedience a fixture, rather than something that ceases when it stops feeling good?
You can’t get your security from a woman.
There are no guarantees. My wife has a better attitude towards me than 3 years ago but it could still blow up anytime.
You have to live with that awareness, learn to live with the insecurity and get your security from God and no one else.
Kids get security from their parents, women get security from their men, and men get their security from either brothers, or, rightfully from God.
There’s no security anywhere else. Own it.
Crossphased:
Is that – or the rest of your comment – a response to something someone actually said?
Marriage is not merely a partnership between two people. It typically involves children, extended family, friends, in-laws, Church, etc. If the couple cannot agree to vow to something until death and rather relies on “trust”, it’s highly unlikely they will last life’s changes.
Nobody is demanding anything of you or anyone else. Men don’t have to lead. Nor women follow. Nor even date or marry. Men don’t have to do anything in modern times but pay taxes and die. Hell, men can shack up, stay free, or even go gay; nobody will even notice. Men (and women) have never had a better opportunity to live free and do whatever they wish than this era. However, freedom doesn’t seem to satisfy many once the shine wears off, I’ve noticed. People are made in the image of God, and thus want more than just an animal’s life.
However: if men desire a quality Christian marriage with traditional family (and I’m not saying you or anyone does) my recommendation two decades of marriage and half as many kids is for men to lead their family without fear or apology and stoically let the chips fall where they may. YMMV. But I wish you luck with whatever path you choose.
Crossphased:
“Fix men, and women will follow.” This is really just a subtle form of blaming men for everybody’s problems. “If men behave better, then women will behave better” is logically equivalent to “if women are not behaving better, then men are not behaving better,” its contrapositive. In other words, men not behaving better is a necessary condition for women not behaving better. Isn’t this precisely the logic that people in the manoshpere are railing against in the Church: that women only behave poorly because men behave poorly? Who is it that is really refusing to admit the problem?
Men lead and women follow. Both are voluntary choices; this dance requires collaboration (meaning men have to choose to lead and women have to choose to follow, and neither can make the other do these things) whether you’d like to admit it or not. Because collaboration is necessary, unless you can show how the idea that men of good will having it somewhat more difficult than women of good will somehow aids collaboration or otherwise points to a solution to the problem; it is just whining.
Followers don’t need to hear how tough their leaders have it from their leaders, and leaders don’t need to dwell on the fact that they have it tough.
MK…
I’m getting the feeling that you and I are not speaking the same language.
Firstly, what is so difficult about concept that vows and trust are not alternative options? Trust is not a different strategy, but THE vital component without which, vows are meaningless. Millions of people are agreeing to stand in a church reciting vows to each other, and finding – some time later – that their spouse cannot be trusted to keep those vows.
Secondly, there are indeed a great many people demanding that men lead. A great many in the Christian church and – in certain fields – outside of it. (Secular demands that men “lead” are usually in areas that increase the comfort and safety of women, without the admission that women could do this for themselves. )
I did not make that statement to complain about leadership itself, because I am firmly convinced that make leadership in families is commanded by God (not exactly “nobody”) but few people demanding it are prepared to endorse the female corollary, which is obedience. My objection is to the injustice and hypocrisy of that position.
And no, I am not planning on seeking marriage any time soon, on the grounds that I see no particular likelihood that doing so will increase my happiness or wellbeing.
Typically, marriage today leaves the path open for divorce and remarriage if things don’t work out, and everyone knows it. Nobody takes those “vows” seriously. Just ask them: what would you do if your spouse becomes an addict? A felon? Cheats? We all know the truth. Everyone “trusts” the other person will keep making them happy. Bad idea, since people are sinners.
I understand you. My position cannot hypocritical or unjust since I ask nothing of anyone. I’m a realist. Life isn’t fair nor just. Life is hard.
Understood. Marriage is certainly not for everyone (especially circa USA 2017). I just wouldn’t count on “happiness” or “wellbeing” regardless of marriage or not. Life is hard no matter what path is chosen.
Crossphased:
I do agree with this — not to imply that it has anything to do with what is in contention:
The traditional answer to the question “what turns women on sexually” was “who cares?”. That was better for everyone compared to the “game” attitude of learning to be a man by figuring out how to curry favor with women.
Deep Strength has helped a lot in tackling many of the problems here:
Go read the whole thing.
“The traditional answer to the question “what turns women on sexually” was “who cares?”. That was better for everyone compared to the “game” attitude of learning to be a man by figuring out how to curry favor with women.”
The traditional answer works only under the following conditions, none of which exist now in modern Western society:
1) Men’s status was artificially inflated such that a man had higher status than a woman merely by virtue of his sex.
2) Men were more confident and dominant in their own lives because of (1).
3) Virtual full employment among men.
4) Women’s sexuality and sexual conduct was subject to a system of restraints.
5) Everyone and everything, including church, economics, political entities, law and legal systems, schools and families, agreed that 1 through 4 was good and right and worked, and ensured that 1 through 4 were reality.
(For the purposes of this post, “man” and men” mean morally good man and men, singular and plural. “Woman” and “women” mean morally good woman and women, singular and plural.)
( “Attractive” means SEXUALLY attractive. It means “inspires sexual desire in members of the opposite sex”. It means “inspires the desire for persons of the opposite sex to want to have sex with him/her.” It DOES NOT mean “good for relationships” or “suitable for marriage” or “runs Game” or “uses Game” or anything else other than the definition I’ve ascribed to it. This definition is important because unless one is “attractive” as defined here, marriage is extremely unlikely, more so for men.)
“Attracted” means SEXUALLY attracted. It means “wants to have sex with” the person or persons described.
I assume the reader will understand that outliers exist. I will not qualify every statement with “most” or “virtually all” or other such unnecessary verbiage.
In my opinion, the following imbalances exist:
1) It’s much easier for women to be attractive than it is for men.
2) It’s much easier for women to get attractive than it is for men.
3) It’s much easier for men to find attractive women than it is for women to find attractive men.
4) Most men are not attractive, don’t know how to become attractive, and are actively hindered by the Church and culture on how to become attractive. The Church is actively hostile to men becoming attractive and views men attempting to become attractive as bad, evil, perverted and immoral.
5) Most women are attractive enough for the men they know.
6) Most women are not attracted to the men available to them or suggested to them by well meaning parents, family members, pastors, church friends/acquaintances, etc. because of 4) above.
7) Most women are unable to remain chaste, and eventually break down and have sex with morally bad men, because women find morally bad men attractive. Or, at least, women find morally bad men MORE attractive than they find men. Women experience no penalties, judgment, rebuke or reproof for this obvious sin. In fact, most women profit and benefit from it.
8) Morally bad men are more attractive than men. This is mostly because morally bad men understand what is attractive and what is not, what makes them attractive and what does not, and do not suffer from the ills described in 4).
9) Men are unable to attract anyone, women or morally bad women.
10) Men who do break down and have sex, whether with women or morally bad women, are subjected to withering penalties, judgment, rebuke and reproof for their sin, and are often roundly condemned.
11) Men are blamed for all the problems existing in 1 through 10 above. Women are viewed as the victims of 1 through 10 above, at the hands of men and morally bad men.
I think one of the most important things that the specific group of young men defined in the OP can take away from this particular set of discussions is that just reading Deti’s comments can reduce your SMV/MMV.
(That sounds like a wisecrack, but I think it is actually true).
“delving into possible methods of correcting the many problems that exist.”
I don’t think we’re going to be seeing many systemic solutions here. Individual solutions for men and women are pretty much the only things we’ll be able to implement. Men and women will have to implement these things on an individual basis.
1) Men need to get more attractive. That means ignoring what women say is attractive. It means carefully noticing what women actually do and what women actually find attractive, without regard to what they say is attractive.
It means getting fit and healthy, lifting weights, putting on lean muscle mass, eating clean, finding a mission and getting damn good at it, earning good money, and living one’s own life without regard to others’ judgments or opinions. It also means cultivating hobbies and interests they enjoy, without regard to the opinions or judgments of others. That can’t be done on a systemwide basis; individual men are going to have to do this for themselves. In my opinion, unattractive men is a huge part of the problem.
2) The Church (including the protestant family “ministries” that address intersexual relationships) needs to face up to the fact that they’re actively hurting men and women in trying to find marriage and in living out their marriages. The Church has completely wrong ideas on what is attractive and what is not, how attraction works, and specifically, what makes men attractive to women. The Church needs to either retool its ministries to the reality of how sexual attraction works, or cease its “marriage and family ministries”. Either learn how it works, teach it right and do it right; or shut up and get out of the way. Personally, I vote for the latter, since no “marriage and family ministry” has ever shown any willingness to reexamine what works, in light of the divorces and marriage failures and sexual immorality occurring even in their own ranks.
3) Women are going to have to get more realistic. “Prince Charming” from Disney isn’t coming. Your future husbands will be driving 4 door sedans and pickup trucks, not trusty white steeds. They live in one bedroom apartments and small houses, not mansions in the sky. They aren’t royalty; they work real jobs and pay real bills, like you do. And they’re far from perfect.
4) For women who already are realistic (which is a fair number of them, after having been burned or disappointed already), they will have to expand their searches and be much more proactive. They will have to actually do things to find attractive marriageable men. They will have to enlist the help of parents and other trusted male family members.
5) Women need to avoid morally bad men and need to stop sleeping with morally bad men. Again – individual solution. This won’t be accomplished on a systemwide, en masse basis.
Men, as a group, and women, as a group, don’t collaborate on marriage. An individual man and an individual woman collaborate together on their marriage to each other. My only obligation to others’ marriages is to respect their marital boundaries: To avoid harm to the man; and to avoid attempting to have sex with the woman.
“insistence that people (or, women at least) suspend reality and pretend that the only negative truths about the sexes are the negative truths revealed about women.”
Yeah, this happens sometimes, and I’ve been as guilty as anyone else of doing that. But it’s pretty clear that there are a lot of negative truths about men, chief among them being inchastity, preoccupation with immoral sex, and unattractiveness. The reason I don’t concentrate on them is because we hear about them all the time. Men don’t need to hear about that anymore, because we men are subjected to a 24/7/365 bombardment from all sides about how what horrible POS’s we are.
Zippy:
“First, do no harm.”
Zippy:
“The traditional answer to the question “what turns women on sexually” was “who cares?”. That was better for everyone compared to the “game” attitude of learning to be a man by figuring out how to curry favor with women.”
There is your problem. You misunderstand Game.
It is not how to curry favour with women.
It is how to handle women.
It won’t make you a man.
If you are a man it’s how to properly deal with women.
Halt:
“This is really just a subtle form of blaming men for everybody’s problems. “If men behave better, then women will behave better” is logically equivalent to “if women are not behaving better, then men are not behaving better,” its contrapositive.”
There are two different ways to say man up. One is the way society tells you, where it cuts you off at your knees and doesn’t give you any tools or direction. This is also what you hear from anti Game people
The other way says you have to man up because you are a man anyway, and it is the route to being what God made you to be. It doesn’t guarantee good results, but both the risks and rewards are greater. Also, with the second kind of man up you are not trying to please society.
Zippy:
“I think one of the most important things that the specific group of young men defined in the OP can take away from this particular set of discussions is that just reading Deti’s comments can reduce your SMV/MMV.”
Men who cut other men off at the knees just to try to make themselves look better be comparison are a dime a dozen. People can find men like that anywhere.
Father’s and brothers willing to help other men are rare.
Crossphased:
“It doesn’t guarantee good results.”
Is this a retraction of “fix men, and women will follow?” If it’s not, then I don’t see how your comment addresses the points I made in mine.
Elspeth:
Good luck, let us know if there’s any problems you and that women face that we might be able to help with. It sounds like a great idea.
Halt: No.
Crossphased:
I prefer to let individual readers decide the relative merits of anything I have to say. Some might find it useful; others don’t. That’s fine.
This is absolutely correct. Well summarized. The only thing I think you forgot is how this also made the West extremely rich and powerful as well, but also had the negative of requiring obedience from men to the authorities (say king & pope).
But you don’t mention that 1-4 could only evolve because the RCC harshly enforced it for a thousand years (with various levels of success). The problem today? Pretty much nobody (you & me included) would give up our personal freedoms to obtain 1-4 again. So our only choice is to embrace the harsh, Darwinian world our ideas create. That’s reality. Ideas have consequences, and our very ideas preclude a return to 1-4. And it’s no so bad; hella lot better than most of mankind over most of the past.