Brief Thoughts on Courtship and “Dating”

[This is a fairly hastily written post, and one that is more stream of consciousness than anything else. I will probably take this material and re-organize it some point in the future, but until then I wanted to get my thoughts down and see what people think of them.]

The topic of “dating” and the dating culture has been on my mind a lot lately, and has received mention in my last post and the post before. So when I read the latest post by April over at Peaceful Single Girl, a fire was lit in my mind. The actual inquiry of the post was not what occupied my attention, however. Rather, it was the title: “Accepting Attention from a Guy who has a Committed Girlfriend.” [April has since changed it]

Something bothered me about it at first, and then I realized what the problem was: the term “Committed Girlfriend.” I realized that this was an oxymoron, and noted as such in a comment at her blog, which I will replicate here (plus typo corrections):

There is no such thing as a “committed girlfriend.” The term is an oxymoron. The word itself is a recent invention, scarcely over a hundred years old. And it signifies a woman whom a man has not committed to. Commitment comes into play only when a couple is engaged or betrothed.

Unfortunately, the dating culture has infiltrated deep into Western culture, and the notion that you can have a “committed girlfriend” has come along with it. Now, I don’t mean to call April out over this, because I’m sure she never thought twice about using the two words together like that. After all, I didn’t realize it right away either. It only goes to show just how far the rot has penetrated our culture.

Truth is, the words “boyfriend” or “girlfriend” shouldn’t ever be used in a Christian context. They are connected to a system, “dating”, which embodies a lifestyle and mode of thought which are incompatible with Christian teaching and living. In addition, there is another, more practical reason why dating should be rejected: its notion of “Exclusivity.”

Dating as a Disorder

As I have explained before, dating is a monstrous chimera which combines the SMP and the MMP together in an unholy union. When the word “dating” is used, it can included a whole range of activities which range from the sinful to the foolish to the outright bizarre. As commenter Deti explained it:

No one teaches you through it. No one coaches you. No one can teach or coach you, because there’s nothing to teach. There are no rules, no customs, no traditions, no constants, and no common frames of reference. It’s different for everyone.

Fundamentally dating means whatever you, or someone else, wants it to mean. And this is something Christians need to reject. While we shouldn’t resort to legalism, we recognize that the Christian process of seeking a spouse is one that includes rules and proper modes of behavior. We are called to chastity, and fornication is a clear sin with serious consequences. By its nature it is a system with a few winners and a lot of losers. Nor is there anything that can be “fixed”, because it was never right to begin with.

Exclusivity

Tying into the impetus for this post is the fact that “dating” encourages what we might call Exclusivity or the “steady” boyfriend/girlfriend. The idea is simple: you have a single boyfriend/girlfriend who you go “steady” with, that is, you date them and only them. This is where the notion of the “committed boyfriend/girlfriend” comes from, even though there is no commitment at this point. If you “date” someone else on the side, then you are “cheating.” Frankly, this last word seems appropriate, because in my mind the whole thing is a sick game played by the Adversary.

But sticking to the topic, this exclusivity is foolish and should be utterly rejected. Yes, that is right, I am arguing against going “steady.” The idea that you should “date” a single person at a time is an inefficient at best, and wasteful and dangerous at worst. Simply put it is an awful system for finding and keeping a marriage partner. It has no basis in history or tradition. In short, it should be thrown out. Why is it so bad?

1) Time Waste- “Dating” someone to determine if they are worth marrying can take a long time. 6 month to 18 month “dating” periods are far from uncommon. Then throw in the engagement period. Well, what happens if it doesn’t work out? Suppose you date someone for a year only to learn that it just won’t work out? Well, guess what? That year was wasted. Whatever insights you gained are far less valuable than the time lost. This is doubly true for women. A woman who spends a year “dating” only to learn that it won’t lead to marriage just lost a year of fertility that she is never going to get back.

2) Encourages Complacency- If you are going “steady” with someone, you might not feel the impetus to speed things up towards marriage. This is something that is probably more likely to “afflict” men than women, but it can happen to both. However, if you are part of a system where the guy or girl you are “seeing”  (calling upon, or being called upon) has other potential interests or suitors, then you have an incentive to decide sooner rather than later. Basically, you have to worry that someone else might propose to her first, or he might propose to someone else first. In either case, it discourages drawing out the courtship process. This is a potential concern because “Hard Monogamy” is not natural to either men (who are naturally polygamous) or women (who are naturally serially monogamous). [Ed note: Interesting theory/observation: When Hard Monogamy is socially enforced men are forced to switch from their natural polygamous inclination to a pseudo-hypergamous one] Men will resist committing because they are inclined to “play the field”, while women are hypergamous and so are inclined to wait for a better option to come along.

3) Restrictive- A dating system which encourages “going steady” is a system where men and women cannot consider many serious marriage partners. The requirements of going steady mean that they will miss out on a lot of potential spouse candidates because they are locked with their current partner. I happen to think that finding a good match is as much a numbers game as anything, and “dating” gets in the way of considering enough potential spouses.

To sum up everything I said before: Exclusive dating where you date only a single person at a time to vet them for marriage is a time waste, encourages complacency and overly restricts the potential spouses you can meet. As such, Christians should emphatically reject this system.

Calling, Courtship and Engagement

I propose that instead of a “dating” system that something akin to the old concept of courtship be instated. Without giving it too much thought, I think a three step process/system would be ideal. Step 1 is the “Calling” phase, Step 2 is the “Courting” phase, and Step 3 is the “Engagement” (or Betrothal) phase. The basic gist is that single young women interested in marrying would (through their family) make it known that they were looking to marry. Word would get out, and single young men interested in marriage would direct their attention towards these young ladies, all through a filter of family and community support.

Step 1- Calling: During this phase the young men (Gentleman-Callers) would “call” upon the young women (Ladies-in-Waiting), that is, visit them either at home with her family present or at an event designated for the purpose. I should note this would be after receiving permission to call upon the young lady from her family beforehand. They would engage in a discussion/interview where they would try to learn more about one another. Assuming that both parties found this somewhat agreeable at first, this process would continue for a while over a series of different visits and events. These discussions would be light in tone, mostly just filtering to see if there was some kind of spark, and any glaring obstacles to marriage. However, the important thing is that each Gentleman-Caller would be calling upon potentially many young women at once and each Lady-in-Waiting would have many of those Gentleman-Callers visiting her. All in all this process could take a number of months.

Step 2- Courtship: Once a Lady-in-Waiting has been open to visitation long enough, and has had sufficient time to vet a number of Gentleman-Callers, she will narrow down the (hopefully) slew of men calling upon her to a smaller number of Suitors. These men will be able to Court her, that is, to actively seek to determine if they are compatible and should marry one another. Of course, they would have to receive family approval to move to this next step as well. Whereas Step 1 was “light duty”, Step 2 is a more serious affair. The young woman should be seriously considering the young men who are her Suitors, and trying to determine which of them would suit her best as her husband. Meanwhile, the Suitors will be trying to determine if the young lady in question is worth their lifetime commitment. Depending on the situation, a man might be a Suitor for several young women at once, especially if he is high value (aka has a high LAMPS score). During this phase the families should meet to make sure that there won’t be any conflicts which could trouble the marriage. This process should take a few months, say 3 or 4 to be safe.

Step 3- Engagement: Once a Suitor is convinced that a Lady-in-Waiting would make a good wife, he will seek permission to marry her from her family. Assuming that they grant it, he can propose to her. If she accepts, then they become engaged. (If she doesn’t accept, it can be either a flat out rejection, in which case he turns elsewhere, or she asks for a little time to think on the matter. But this should be a few days to a week or two, at most.) At this point, and this point only, they become exclusive. The gentleman ends all of his other courtship and calling, and the young lady dismisses any remaining Suitors or Callers. Wedding plans are made, as well as plans for the marriage itself.

So anyways, these are my initial thoughts on the subject. As I said, pretty stream of consciousness stuff. So have at it, and tell me where I am wrong, point out how foolish I am, and so on and so forth.

Making the Music Stop

Background

In the comments following my “Woe is Me” post titled All Alone in the Dark, Sunshinemary (honestly, I’m not picking on you, its just that your comments make for great blog fodder) left this comment:

I really, really think men should refuse to marry non-virgins. Women are not total idiots. If they realize that no one will marry unchaste women, they’ll close their legs pretty quick.

While I think that this will help, to some degree, I don’t believe that it will be a complete solution. In my reply I said that:

I’m not really convinced this is the case. As I’ve argued before, I think that if you give women a choice between sex with hot men and no marriage on the one hand, and sex with only one man (who may or may not be hot) in marriage on the other hand, that many, many women will choose the first option. Whether it is their true nature, or the inexperience of youth, or whatever cause, many will take that path. Enough that you will end up with a large number of women outside the marriage pool. And far more men inside the pool who now have no marriage partner available.

Let me explain what I meant. If you give women the choice of marriage where they must be a virgin, or no marriage and they can pursue sex to their heart’s desire, a large percentage of women will choose to pursue “free” sex. How many? It is tough to say. But I believe that the percentage of women who choose that path will be greater than the percentage of men who choose that path. In part this is because the percent of men who can eschew marriage and still get regular sex is much smaller than the percent of women who are attractive to those men.

While no one can agree on a single number, a rough estimate that is widely accepted is that about 20% of men are found to be attractive to women. So let us take a sample of 200 youths, 100 men and 100 women. About 20 of the men are considered attractive to the women by virtue of their LAMPS factors. Some are better looking, some are more athletic, some might have inherited money or come from a respectable family, and a few just have a boatload of charisma. Now, depending on who you ask, between 40 to 60% of the women will be considered attractive (or at least, not unattractive). That means that 40 to 60 women will be attractive (or at least, not ugly). For the sake of this hypothetical, lets assume that half of each attractive cohort decides to forgo marriage, and that we split the attractive female cohort to the right side of the curve, or 50 women. That leaves us with 10 men and 25 women who eschew marriage. They have all the sex they want, and everyone else waits for marriage. Unfortunately, that leaves us with 90 men who want to marry, and only 75 women (of course, the 10 men enjoying the 25 women on the carousel could always decide to marry later, making things even worse). Fifteen men cannot marry because there aren’t enough eligible women. Given that skilled “players” can spin several plates at once (that is, to maintain a harem of sorts), a small number of men can claim a much larger number of women. Thus, there will still be men who cannot marry because there aren’t sufficient marriageable women for them.

More troublesome though, is whether women even want to marry. Dalrock has been exposing for years now how the ideal female sexual strategy is not life-time monogamy (marriage), but instead serial monogamy. If we give women the choice between marriage as virgins or a single life with the possibility of unlimited sexual access to alpha males, we run the risk of women choosing en masse to follow their natural sexual strategy. In the past women were very much supportive of marriage because it was highly beneficial to women and the costs of avoiding marriage were great. Remember, women have three primary impulses which drive their behavior:

1) Have sex with the most attractive man possible (in order to have his children)  [What Deti refers to as the Female Prime Directive]

2) Secure Provision

3) Secure Protection

Those three impulses are still with us, but our civilization is very different from what it was, say, two centuries ago. Back then, in order to secure both protection and provision, women had to get married. A woman’s husband would be the source of those things. She did her best to satisfy the first impulse by marrying the best man she could. Contrast this with today. Nowadays, the State provides Protection to women, and the cost is paid by the taxpayers, not by an immediate figure in her life. In fact, in many places because of gun controls laws, men are much less able to protect their wives and children then they were even a hundred years ago. Furthermore, Provision is much easier to acquire in the present age then in the past, when a woman might have been able to support herself, but would have trouble supporting children. Thanks to changes in labor laws and the labor market, in many cases women don’t need the help of a man to support themselves and children. And even if they can’t do it all by themselves, the State is always willing to lend a hand.

With both the third and second impulses satisfied without the need of a man (husband), that leaves women with just their first impulse. Unless a woman is attractive enough to snag one of the top-tier, high-value, attractive men for herself in marriage, then marriage means that she will be stuck with an unattractive man for her whole life. But why would she want that? She doesn’t need him to protect her, or to provide for her, after all. Marriage is mostly a status marker these days, a valuable one, but still just a status marker. All of which means that for many women, they may not feel compelled to seek marriage. Instead, they will ride the carousel with whatever attractive men decide to take part in it. More is needed than just making marriage for the chaste.

What will it take?

Sunshinemary’s idea is a good start, but I think more is needed to really end the carousel, or at least, to cut down on the number of women riding it. So what are some potential ways to stop the music, and restore balance to the SMP/MMP? Here are a few:

1) Convince men to only marry chaste women. Sunshinemary’s original idea is still helpful, as it will motivate those women for whom marriage is a status marker.

2) Reduce or eliminate the massive amount of state support to unmarried women with children. Single mothers receive a lot of government support, and since the taxpayers ultimately support this, it means that single mothers are able to draw provision from multiple men at once, not just a single man. If this support were to be curtailed, there would be some initial hardships, but women would be forced to adjust their behavior accordingly.

3) Encourage early marriage. The truth is that Christians who don’t promote young marriage don’t actually care about chastity. The longer that women are single adults, the greater the chances of them becoming sexually active and joining the carousel.

4) Slut Shame. That is right, we need to start ostracizing women who take part in that culture once again. While it may seem cruel, in the long run it will be beneficial to women by discouraging them from taking part in a lifestyle that trashes their ability to bond with a future husband.  While the idea of “the ends justify the means” is oftentimes used for ill purpose, the consequences of the carousel are grave enough that such tactics are important.

5) Restore Masculinity to its proper place. Women despise weakness in men. Unfortunately, our society has done its best to emasculate men. This is especially prevalent among Christians. If we want women to consider marrying, especially marrying young, we need to stop making men unattractive to women.

Conclusion

The five steps mentioned above are just a few of the steps we can take to fight against the carousel and our depraved culture. They will not be easy steps to take; feminists and their White Knight supporters are sure to actively resist. However, I am not one to just sit by and watch the world collapse all around us. On the Day of Judgment, I want to be able to stand before the LORD and tell Him that I did my best, that I tried my hardest, and that I put all of my talents to good use.

If anyone else has any additional ideas on how we can turn around the culture and stop the music for good, feel free to leave them below in the comments. I will add them to this post as time permits.

An Analysis of Human Sexual Strategies- Part 3: The Present Day

This is Part 3 of my series on Human Sexual Strategies and Socio-Sexual interactions. Part 1 covered what human socio-sexual behavior would look like in the state of nature, that is, without any set of rules or guidelines (culture or civilization) to govern it. Part 2 covered the system of “Hard” or Lifetime Monogamy, and why it didn’t always develop, why it took longer to develop than would seem logical, and how female sexual strategies played into this. Part 3 covers the changes in socio-sexual interactions in the last few decades, and tries to explain what is really happening.

The End of “Hard” Monogamy

The last few decades have seen the decline of Hard Monogamy in the West. Whether you call it traditional marriage or Marriage 1.0, it is in severe decline. Manosphere giant Dalrock has covered the decline of marriage numerous times. Ballista over at Society of Phineas also devotes a considerable amount of effort detailing the vast problems with marriage in the west.

So what, exactly, has occurred in the last few decades which caused such an abrupt change? No fault divorce is the most prominent alteration in the marriage landscape, because a more accurate name for it is “unilateral” divorce. When any single party to a marriage can end it on a whim, then it can no longer be considered “Hard” Monogamy. Instead, it becomes yet another version of soft or serial monogamy, but with a (temporary) stamp of moral approval. The removal of the social stigma from divorce is another factor.  The perverse incentives for a woman to divorce, based on child support laws and other aspects of the Family Court system also play a role. Then there is the general decline in Alpha traits in men in the west, leaving  them less attractive to women. When you combine that lack of attractiveness with incentives to divorce and reduced costs, it is only natural that many women will bolt. Lastly, women don’t need individual men to provide for them or protect them anymore. The State can provide protection, and the job market is such that many women can find jobs to provide for themselves and any children they might have. Men are simply less useful to a woman than they used to be. Hardly surprising then, that women are more likely to ditch them.

Where are we now?

This leads to the point of the post: where are we now? My theory is that we are seeing a reversion back to the state of nature in Western Civilization.

Marriage 1.0 represented a compromise between men that helped ensure that nearly all men could gain sexual access to a woman. However, women and top-tier men did not benefit from the system, and so have cause to see it ended. The top-tier men want sexual access to as many women as they can, while women want sexual access to the top-tier men. For men, hard monogamy got in their way. For women, the problem was that they needed an individual man to provide for them and protect them. They had to play be the rules of lifetime monogamy to get that. If they didn’t, then they were shamed and shunned, and forced into the far corners of society, finding what work they could.  This part was critical, because shaming men doesn’t work (because it only takes a small number of men to service a large number of women). Then along came regular police forces, feminism and sexual liberation.

Now a woman no longer needs an individual man for protection. A woman is able to get a job and provide for herself and any children she has. Or she could get the state to help out in the form of welfare. And the social stigma of pre-marital sex is gone as well. We moved from this:

To an organization of society where most good looking females chase after the smaller percentage of top-tier men they find attractive.  This is the hook-up culture, where many women spend their youth and beauty (not to mention give up their virtue) in pursuit of men who will never marry them. Instead, they end up as part of a “soft harem” which a man juggles as he sees fit (or spins as plates, if you prefer). The rest of the men are forced to compete over what is left, which is mainly women of a much lower SMV rank themselves. This fact is partly why so few women have a problem with the hook-up culture, because it benefits all of them to some degree. It ends up looking like this:

Which is exactly what human socio-sexual behaviors look like in the state of nature. Hard Monogamy was a social construct, and like everything society builds, it can be destroyed. And that is exactly what has been happening in the last few decades. Stone by stone it is being dismantled, until society finds itself at the same point where it began. Most women don’t have a problem with this, because they end up with sexual access to men of a higher SMV than they would get in a system based on lifetime monogamy. If they rode the carousel, once their looks fade with age and they are good and ready, they can settle down with a man with a SMV closer to their own. If they didn’t, well they can still settle for a man when they are good and ready.

To understand where western civilization is going, it isn’t necessary to look into the future. Just look to the past, and you will see exactly where we will end up.

An Analysis of Human Sexual Strategies- Part 2: Monogamy

In part 1 of this series, I covered the basics of human sexual strategies and how they worked out in the state of nature. To say that this system has its problems is an understatement of epic proportions. To carry over just a little bit of the previous post:

To realize the disparity in this system, look down at the Beta and Gamma men. Beta, in order to get a woman, is forced to look all the way down to the 4s. Gamma men have to go all the way down to the 2s. They have no choice but to take women at the extreme range of who they will have sex with.  Of course, this still leaves them better off than the bottom two tiers of men, Delta and Epsilon, who get no opportunity to mate at all.

In a state of nature, without any culture or social constructs to inhibit or restrain human behavior, polygamy is the name of the game. At least, for the top tier men in any social group (such as a tribe). The rest are lucky if they actually have any mates.

This social order has significant drawbacks.  The bottom tier of men, with no opportunity to mate, are likely to be resentful to the men above them, especially the Alpha tier. Without this opportunity such men have no incentive to work harder for the benefit of the group. They will contribute only what they need to survive, and no more. After all, what is the point of risking their lives under such a system? They have no guarantee of sex or progeny, the two main impulses of men. Even the Beta and Gamma tier are going to be unhappy with the system, as they are forced to mate with women of a lower SMV (Sexual Market Value) than themselves. So why would such a system last at all? Wouldn’t the lower tier men realize they could gang up on the Alpha tier men and force the creation of a more equitable system?

Fluidity of Male SMV

I think part of the reason why it wouldn’t necessarily be eliminated quickly is that male SMV fluctuates. Male SMV is based on the LAMPS vectors, most of which are not fixed in place (in fact only Looks is). Plus male SMV value is relative, not absolute, like female SMV. A woman’s SMV is based on youth (an objective measure), and beauty, which is largely objective with some cultural overlay. However, that beauty is measured against a perfect ideal, which is largely fixed. So a woman is beautiful or ugly irrespective of how she compares to other women. Men, on the other hand, are contrasted with one another by women. So a man is measured against the other men in the social grouping. A man, in order to increase his attractiveness, just has to have a higher LAMPS value than the other men in the social group. Ultimately, this means that men do theoretically have a chance to be elevated to the Alpha tier, depending on their own abilities and random chance. So while the original system might look like this:

It could also end up, as a result of an accident, and a newly discovered talent or ability by a man, looking like this:

Here we can see that an accident has hurt Alpha, and pushed him down just below Beta. And Epsilon discovered a new talent or ability which has boosted one of his LAMPS vectors, perhaps Money, and now he is in the middle of the pack. Consequently, Gamma and Delta are forced down as well. This change in the pecking order has significant impacts, because while women don’t have as much power in a polygamous system as the men do, they still have some choice in their sexual partners. So as a result this:

Will change into this:

The women have adjusted their mating preferences accordingly. Beta is now the winner, and Alpha is runner up. Epsilon, who was bereft of female companionship before, now finally has some female attention (albeit from the 2s). Because Beta is now the top tier male, he has adjusted his mate preferences accordingly. Alpha will have to adjust as well.

This fluidity is a large reason why many men probably would stick with the system. Like a lottery, they would continue to play, on the small chance that they could actually win. Even though the odds are stacked against them. The truth is, though, that even though there is some fluidity in the system, there isn’t enough to make the odds worth playing the game. Eventually, a lower tier man will realize that there is a simple solution to most of the problems which polygamy creates: monogamy.

Monogamy

The simple solution alluded to earlier is monogamy, or restraining human behavior such that one man can only have one women. To repeat: monogamy is a restraint on human behavior. A social construct. It is not in keeping with the state of nature. For monogamy to be the norm, it requires that society enforce it. Otherwise, human beings will revert to the state of nature. More on this in my next post. The visualization of a system where monogamy is the norm is easy enough:

The Alpha tier men still get the best women, but they no longer dominate the top three tiers of women. That tier of men are the only losers. The rest of the men are much better off. Beta is now with the 8, or his SMP (Sexual Marketplace) equals. And so on all the way down. Now every tier of men in the system has a mate, even the lowly Epsilon. Sure Epsilon men are stuck with 2s, but that is an improvement over no woman at all (or is it?). Men have a much stronger incentive to be productive under this system. Because more women tend to be born than men, a man is pretty much assured a chance at having a mate under this system. Since the quality of woman a man can “claim” is determined heavily by his LAMPS vectors, and productivity plays a role in both Money and Status, men have a good reason to do their best. Rollo has written an excellent post, found here, explaining how men are defined by their ability to produce more than they consume. From the standpoint of society, especially other men in the system, anything which encourages men to be more productive is valuable, and to be encouraged.

For women the situation is quite a bit different. The top tier women, the 10s, are in a great position. They now have the best men, the Alpha tier, all to themselves. This is a huge improvement for them, but not so much for the remaining women. The 8s are now with the Beta tier, whom they are probably not sexually attracted to. On the other hand, they get to enjoy all of the resources of the Beta tier men (although that total is likely less than the total of the Alpha tier men). So not a complete loss for them. The 6s, however, are not as well off. They are stuck with Gammas, a much lower class of men than they enjoyed before. Then there is the fact that the Gamma men probably have less resources  than the Alpha tier men,  so they aren’t much better off then they were sharing the resources of the Alpha tier with the other top tier women. The situation is even worse for the 4s and 2s, who are now with much lower tier men, and have much less resources available to them then they had before. For them, this isn’t an improvement. Indeed, while they may prefer a system where monogamy is the norm, it turns out to be less advantageous for lower tier women than a system where polygamy is the norm. The relevance of this will be amongst the subjects of the third post in the series.

Monogamy is a compromise. Lower tier men benefit by more or better sexual access, while the highest tier men lose sexual access. However, the top tier men don’t have to worry about the lower tier men ganging up on them. So it is a compromise. A compromise… between men. Not women. With the possible exception of the top tier women, who get the top tier men all to themselves.

It should be noted that what I have explained above is simple monogamy, that is, a simple restriction against one man having more than one woman. What it doesn’t do is take into account how women will react to such a system.

Monogamy and Women

Of course, monogamy isn’t necessarily anything new, as it is the preferred female form of socio-sexual strategy. Or at least serial monogamy is. So far I haven’t talked much about what a system operating under female rules looks like. On the surface, it would look just like a monogamous system. However, the key difference is that the women are not bound to the men in any way. So when the status of men changes, then women will change their mates accordingly. At this point there is nothing men can do about it. To use the same shift in male status as before, under a system based on serial monogamy you end up with this:

Now, on the surface this may seem like the same sort of response which occurred under the polygamous system. And it is. Female mating behaviors haven’t changed. What has changed is male mating behaviors.

Male Impulses and Monogamy

To form a socio-sexual system based on monogamy, men had to give up something important. Men have two main impulses when it comes to mating behaviors, and both are somewhat at odds with one another. I speculate that they operate on something of a sliding scale, where a man can shift back and forth between which impulse they choose to cater towards at any time.

The first impulse is what I and most others call Sexual Variety: the desire to mate with as many different (attractive) women as possible. From an evolutionary perspective, this is a strategy aimed at playing the odds. The more women you have sex with, the more children you are likely to sire. The more children you sire, the more likely your genetic lineage will continue.

The second impulse, on the other hand, is what I call Paternity:  the desire to raise certain specific children whom you are confident that you are the father of. Applying that same evolutionary filter, this impulse is an application of quality over quantity. Rather than try and have as many children as possible, you invest in those you do have to ensure their success, and therefore the success of your genetic lineage.

The two impulses aren’t terribly compatible. If other men are practicing Sexual Variety, then it is more difficult for an individual man to practice Paternity, as he can be less sure that the children are his. Under the state of nature, where polygamy is the norm, it is very difficult to practice Paternity. However, under a system where monogamy is the norm, then Sexual Variety can no longer be practiced. As such, Paternity becomes the impulse that drives men. Unfortunately for men, female mating behavior makes this a shaky proposition. After all, women are not locked into men. They can shift their allegiance as the SMV of men rises and falls. This poses a problem for men: how to be certain that the child the woman you are with is actually yours? Without the benefit of DNA testing and diverse genetic backgrounds, a man most likely won’t be able to tell. When women switch mates often enough, Paternity is no sure thing.

Women of course don’t worry about Paternity. That doesn’t matter to them, because they have no trouble knowing if the child is theirs or not when they give birth to it. All they care about is receiving provision and protection (and having sex with the best available male). Since serial monogamy is the preferred socio-sexual strategy for women, they don’t see any problems at all with this kind of system.

For men its a different matter. Since no man wants to expand resources to raise a child that is not his own (at least, not without gaining some benefit from it),  something must be done ensure that men can serve their Paternity impulse. The answer was “Hard” Monogamy.

“Hard” Monogamy

The phrase “Hard Monogamy” is just another way of saying lifetime mating, or where a man and woman who mate cannot switch mates during their lifetime together. In Manosphere parlance, this would be known as “Marriage 1.0” or traditional marriage. Under a system of Hard Monogamy women cannot switch their loyalty to men; men and women are bound for life. Under Hard Monogamy, women are stuck with their men, for better and for worse. Some women will benefit when their man moves up in value, and some women will lose out. The same applies to men, however. Men who rise up in value cannot trade out their old wives for new ones; they are stuck with whomever they chose to mate with in the past. It is an even greater restriction on human behavior than simple monogamy, and requires even more effort for society to enforce it. Initially the visualization is the same as the simple monogamy graphic.

However, when you factor in changes in male SMV, then you can see the difference:

Here the 10, the 6 and the 4 have lost out. All of their men have gone down in value, and there is nothing they can do about it. On the other hand, the 8 and the 2 have both seen improvements in their men, and so are better off. Beta cannot count on the attentions of the 10 now, and so must make do with the 8, which is not ideal but still satisfactory from his perspective. For Epsilon tier males, however, things are much less fair. They are still stuck with 2s, despite having moving up in value significantly. The other men are all benefiting from the system, because they are retaining their mates despite dropping in SMV. All in all, Hard Monogamy is a compromise. And as I mentioned before, a compromise between men, not women.

Cheating the System

While Hard Monogamy might be the product of a compromise between men, that doesn’t mean that it is a compromise that will be easily agreed upon. Like every system, it has its rules, and rules were meant to be broken. There will always be those who try to cheat the system, men and women alike. The principle problem with a system of Hard Monogamy is that it runs counter to the mutual attraction between top tier men and the middle to top tier women.

The top tier men (Alpha) still have that impulse for Sexual Variety, and may be tempted to act upon it. Likewise, the 8s and 6s are also under their own set of impulses, of which they have three. The first and foremost is the desire to have sex with the highest value man available. In context, this would be the Alpha tier men. Thus there is mutual temptation for the top tier men and the mid to high tier women to “cheat” the system on the sly. In the context of marriage, this cheating is known as adultery.

The dotted lines represent illicit relationships. Here the Alpha tier men get to fulfill both of their impulses: they have sexual variety through illicit sexual relationships with lower tier women, and are assured paternity through the highest tier women. Meanwhile, the 8s and 6s still enjoy the benefits of the resources and protection of their mates, while having sex with the top tier men. Evolutionarily, they now have a chance of having the best available men father their children. So they too can satisfy their three base impulses. Unfortunately for the poor, hapless Betas and Gammas, they might well be put in the situation of raising the children of the top tier men without realizing it. For them that might be the worst possibility, but from the perspective of the social grouping as a whole, the worst outcome involves the discovery by of them the of the cheating between their mates and the top tier men.

To understand why pretty much every culture which had marriage punished adultery severely, consider the consequences of Beta discovering that his wife was having an affair with Alpha. From Beta’s perspective, the betrayal threatens him on a base, instinctive level. Remember, men have two impulses: Sexual Variety and Paternity. Beta has given up on Sexual Variety in accepting a monogamous system, and so only has Paternity available to him. Adultery by his wife threatens that remaining impulse, because he can no longer be certain that any children she has will be his. Essentially, his genetic lineage is in danger. The resulting rage which Beta will experience is a perfectly natural and reasonable response evolutionarily, after all his genetic future is at stake. This rage, absent social controls and restraints, will probably lead Beta to attempt to kill Alpha, and possibly 8 as well. The likely result is that one of the men dies, and possibly both. 8 is also under grave peril as well. Even assuming that Beta doesn’t kill her, he is unlikely to trust her again and will not support her and her children from this point forward.

Without some sort of restraint on Beta’s behavior, the unity and safety of the social group is severely weakened. One or two males are likely to die. If only Beta dies, then his wife and her (not necessarily his) children are now bereft of support. Without the protection and provision of a male, they must depend on the generosity of the group to survive. Without it, they are likely to die. If Alpha dies, on the other hand, then both 10 and 8 are without support, and the consequences to the social group double. However this situation is resolved, it is going to weaken the social group as a whole. So society has a strong incentive to control and restrain this type of behavior. Hence, the development of laws against adultery. By punishing those who commit adultery, either with death or exile (usually a slower and more painful death), society aimed to keep the act as rare as possible. It was simple social self-preservation. Without such laws, a culture was likely to fragment and fall apart. They are yet another social construct resulting from compromise… between men.

Conclusion

While not universal, monogamy was the norm in many civilizations for a long time. In many, it still is. Some cultures still practice polygamy, as they have for generations. There are a number of reasons why polygamy could have lasted in those cultures. If the male mortality rate was high enough, then polygamy would be necessary to maintain population numbers (and because there would be enough women for even the lowest of men). If the top tier men in a culture were sufficiently more powerful than the lower tier men, then they could get away with keeping a polygamous system.

In what we know as Western Civilization, Hard Monogamy has been the norm for centuries. In the last few generations, however, the system seems to be falling apart. This collapse is a popular subject in the manosphere, and has been discussed in length. In my next post I am going to offer my thoughts on what is really happening, and why.

An Analysis of Human Sexual Strategies- Part 1: The State of Nature

(Note: this post is going to be updated over time as I track down scientific studies which offer support to some of my arguments/theories)

Several authors in the manosphere  were highly influential in bringing me into, and keeping me in, this part of the internet. Vox at Alpha Game, Rollo Tomassi at Rational Male, and finally Dalrock. Each of them added greatly to my understanding of human nature, primarily in the field of socio-sexual behaviors. One of the greatest insights provided to me was by Dalrock, when he clued me into the fact that the preferred form of female sexual strategy is Serial Monogamy. I had always internalized that men were naturally polygamous, and that women were monogamous, but the exact nature of the female sexual strategy had never been locked down in my mind. Once Dalrock cleared this up for me, I was suddenly able to understand what was really going on in American (and Western Civilization) culture today.

This series is an attempt to explain the different sexual strategies of men and women, and why they have led to our current situation. This first post will examine the state of nature, or how humans would interact without any culture (including religion) to guide them. This is going to be a graphic heavy series, because I think visual representations work best for this kind of analysis. Also, each post is going to be on the short side, to make discussions easier.

To start with, lets separate the human population into male and female groupings, and then assign them into tiers. There are 5 tiers each, all of them based on attractiveness, and each represents about 20% of the general male or female population.   This isn’t entirely realistic, because there tends to be bell curve for female attractiveness, but the general point is carried across.

Triangles represent males, circles females. Starting from the left with the male population, you begin with the most attractive at Alpha and go all the way down to the least attractive at Epsilon. On the right we have the female population, beginning with the most attractive at 10 and going to the least attractive at 2. Each group is an attempt to categorize women by attractiveness, grouping 10s and 9s together, 8s and 7s together, 6s and 5s together, 4s and 3s together, and 2s and 1s together. This will be the visualization I use throughout most of this series.

Male to Female Sexual Attraction Preferences

While female attractiveness is absolute, not relative, I theorize that men are willing to have sex and seek sex with all women equal to their attractiveness and higher. Furthermore, a man is willing to seek and have sex with a women who is two tiers below him in sexual attractiveness. This resulting pattern of which tiers of women men are willing to have sex with looks something like this:

As you can see, the top tier (Alpha) males are the most selective, and the bottom tier (Epsilon) males are the least selective.

Female to Male Sexual Attraction Preferences

There seems to be some general consensus in the manosphere that women tend to only find about 20% of the men in any given population attractive. This means that women tend to be attracted to only the top tier (Alpha) males. The pattern looks something like this:

As you can see, the top tier men (Alpha) get all of the female attention. Everyone else, from Beta on down, is out of luck.

Male and Female Sexual Attraction Preferences Merged

You start to get an understanding of the state of nature when you merge the two different sets of preferences together. The following graphic combines both, keeping the attraction lines only when the attraction is mutual. It looks something like this:

Here, the clear winners are the top tier males (Alpha), because they are the only males with mutual attraction to females.

The State of Nature

This leads us to the state of nature, where male and female attraction preferences merge with sexual strategies. The preferred male sexual strategy is polygamy or Polygyny, which happens to fit in nicely with male attraction preferences. This means that men are more than willing to mate with all of the women they are attracted to. As I mentioned earlier, the female sexual strategy is serial monogamy, whereby the woman would be in a monogamous relationship with a single man, until such time as a better man shows up who is available, at which point she leaves her old mate for the new one. Now, historically, the female sexual strategy has not been applied, because males held a distinct advantage in that they were both protectors and providers; men held more power when it came to mating. Hence, women had to accede to men when it came to sexual strategies.

Of course, the attraction preferences for men and women mostly don’t line up. This means that the lower tier women couldn’t attract a man whom they themselves were attracted to.  The female need for resources and protection forced them to make concessions when it came to attractiveness as well. Essentially, this meant that to get resources and protection for themselves and their children, women were forced to establish relationships with men that they were not attracted to. Here is a representation of what this looked like:

The top tier men (Alpha) are once again the winners. Their attractiveness to women allows them to “corner the market” as it were, and mate with the top three tiers of women. They are the winners of the genetic lottery, and in more ways than one. To realize the disparity in this system, look down at the Beta and Gamma men. Beta, in order to get a woman, is forced to look all the way down to the 4s. Gamma men have to go all the way down to the 2s. They have no choice but to take women at the extreme range of who they will have sex with.  Of course, this still leaves them better off than the bottom two tiers of men, Delta and Epsilon, who get no opportunity to mate at all.

Just as important is the fact that the 4s and 2s are not with men that they find attractive; they are compromising on their preference for mating with a top-tier man in order to gain protection and provision. Also, the top three tiers of women must all share the resources that are supplied by the Alpha tier of men. While that amount of resources is probably greater than that provided by the lower tier men, they still must share. This isn’t ideal for them; they would rather have the Alpha tier all to themselves. But because men hold all of the power in the state of nature, they are forced to compromise.

This brings to an end the first post in the series on the state of nature. In the next few days I will write up part 2, which covers how culture/civilization constructed a new system that men and women would have to follow: “Hard” or Lifetime Monogamy.

Part 2 can be found here.