Hugo Schwyzer over at Jezebel discussing how most of the mate/date choices of men are a response to what the same men believe will impress other men.
The piece reminds us of the Black Studies discussion. It’s not enough to look at what these Victims Studies disciplines say; we also have to look at what they don’t say. Schwyzer criticizes men and admonishes them to essentially not care about what other men might think of their mate choices. But you’ll never, ever see Schwyzer or a feminist academic call out female gold-diggers or chicks who like guys with broad shoulders.
Schwyzer writes:
This doesn’t mean, of course, that slender women aren’t attractive, or that all of men’s sexual preferences are simply about trying to win approval from other guys. Yet as Alice Randall, Joe Tex, and Sir Mix-a-Lot all remind us, what men want has at least as much to do with culture as with biology. In the black community, Randall suggests, those expectations about male desire have encouraged female obesity; among middle-class whites, expectations about what men want play at least a strong supporting role in women’s destructive pursuit of thinness. No, it’s not all “men’s fault.” But men are hardly innocent bystanders either. As the anecdote about Jennifer Fink’s six year-old makes painfully clear, what guys are taught to find attractive drives their desire at least as much as does their evolutionary hardwiring.
The sooner we start challenging men to think about why they want what they say they want, the sooner we’ll start moving towards at least one part of the solution to the body image crisis.
Schwyzer typically hides behind the canard that he is not a woman therefore he cannot criticize women. That’s why he won’t write a “women should start doing X” piece. This type of thinking has never stopped female feminists from criticizing men though.
Both men and women hope that their romantic choices will impress other people in order to increase their status. The case can be made that they hope to impress members of their own sex in some sort of Darwinistic struggle. This doesn’t seem controversial. And it could be true that men’s preference for thinner women helps perpetuate womens’ unhealthy focus on thinness. But this doesn’t mean that there isn’t a general preference among men for thinner women – given a binary choice between thin and fat. I do personally think that men hedge on hiding women of certain (larger) proportions from their friends. It’s nothing new to hook up with bigger girls behind the scenes. But if thin versus fat were just an arbitrary choice for white men (Schwyzer focuses on white and black men’s choices in his piece), why would it just so happen that thinner women are the chosen ones? It seems more likely that thin women are preferred to fat women but that this generality is ratcheted to the extreme.
Like this:
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Hugo hates his dick. But Hugo, the dick don’t lie.
What Schwyzer writes isn’t bad. He is doctrinaire and somewhat uninsightful, coming (as he seems to) from a lefty blank-slatist point of view. Judging from the comments, though, his grudging concession that “nature” might possibly have something to do with male sexual desire seems to be too risque for Jezebel’s readership.
Schwyzer’s view of the “body image crisis” doesn’t quite match the one I read about, where most of the concern is about rising obesity rates. Still, the guy seems smart — if he learned to read and think more widely, I’ll bet he could develop his ideas into interesting essays.
When given the options, it seems like black men prefer slender women. Black women tend to look better with a little more weight on them than white women, it makes them look softer. Most of them are obese nowadays, which is not good.
Black men are definitely not financially supporting fat women.
Reflecting a bit more on Schwyzer’s piece (which restates the victimized-by-men portion of the linked Alice Randall NYT op-ed): his argument implies that pop culture targeted at heterosexual black men will have hefty women as the sex objects. Assuming the marketers know their business, which is a fairly safe bet.
On the whole, from what I know of movies and TV, this is not so. Heftier, yeah, especially if the waif look is the jumping-off point. But how many A-list and B-list black actresses banking on their sex appeal are fatties? Seems like the same answer as for white and Asian starlets: none.
Spin, hamster, spin.
These discussions make me laugh. Sure, men may have some pressure to date a thin girl versus a fat one; women feel pressure to date someone wwith good looks, DHV and has a career. No body wants to introduce a fat, ugly loser to their friends. We ALL possess an inner desire to mate/date with someone our family, friends, peers, bossess etc. think is great > good looking, smart, engaging, confident etc. While not everyone can mate/date a Brad Pitt – Angelina Jolie, we all WANT to at some point for numerous reasons.
I personally think (opinion) that men’s / women’s dating preferences align along two paths; people who physicially look similar to their mom/dad or the opposite. If your mom is an attractive, slender brunette, you may marry a similar women OR go 180 degress opposite and marry a blonde. I have known plenty of women who have healthy relationships with their fathers and date/mate men that look nothing like them physicially. Blonde, Christian woman marries Jewish, brunette guy OR she marries blonde Christian guy that looks like her social circle and norms
The overall “fat thing” is different. The reality is that articles like that one reinforce the growing fat rationalization hamster that women possess. It is an unhealthy one. There is nothing good about being fat. It is bad for people physicially and shortens their lives. Both men and women should stop making excuses and learn how to get thinner and be healthier. Once that happens, the rationalization for being fate, dating/mating a fat person will go away and their confidence will soar.
Hugo is right about what fat girls have in common with mopeds. It is true, however, that outside of a few fetishists, that dudes who are banging fat chicks are only banging fat chicks because they don’t have the option to bang thin chicks–either through low smv or laziness.
Overall I feel like this piece is speculative projection on Hugo’s part in that he’s trying hard to connect with the feminine mode of groupthink while appeasing the non-hot. “The mens only appear to want the thins because of peer pressure, but secretly they long for your jelly rolls.”
Try conducting the “Thomas Elliot” fame experiment using a fat chick targeted towards men. As the kids say these days, FAIL.
Given that 75% of Muricans will be either overweight or obese by 2020, “an unhealthy focus on thinness” just doesn’t seem a problem that is currently plaguing women. We can dream though, right?
This bullshit is *fat acceptance* masquerading as feminism, and everyone knows it.
shyster need to acquaint himself with the concept of options. he’s such a ball-less wonder.
http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/Angry-Customer-Throws-Hot-Coffee-Fresh-donuts-Worker-150988815.html
How to write a Hugo Schwyzer article:
1. Don’t do any actual research into what reality is.
2. Pick a topic within the area of gender issues. Favorites are men dating younger women, men not being RealMan enough, men not doing enough for women, men sexually harassing women just by existing, men making women feel bad and men getting everything in life handed to them.
3. Pick a motivation of the man that makes him, and all men, look bad. Remember that men are fully conscious moral agents with complete free will who always act with evil and selfish desires vis-a-vis women. Women are simple products of their environment with no free will whatsoever. They are only acted upon (mostly in bad ways by oppressive men).
4. Publish the article and then be completely dense and non-responsive when the usual suspects ask you why you always have to make men look bad.
5. Smirk and hope that Amanda Marcotte pats you on the head and praises you.
Isn’t it the same for women, who overwhelming favor tall, muscular men? Or men who earn more? Why is it always men’s choices that are scrutinized?
Also, it takes a lot of audacity to assume you know what other men want. I thought men only dated women for “power” and “control” according to ’80s-era feminism. Now it’s to show off. Wonder what it’ll be next week. Nothing to do with wanting good genes for procreating, of course. Biology and science never enter into these discussions.
Well, that’s feminism for you. No matter what men do, think, or say they are always in the wrong… unless what they do, think or say happens to coincide exactly with what women want them to do, think or say.
Women dress, diet, put on makeup ect. For OTHER WOMEN. Lets be honest if chick is hot, ya wanna do her. Fat or thin, not being a bitch and having a real personality goes a long way. Do you realy care if she has the nice shoes or latest hand bag? No, ill bet her friends do. Personaly i like chicks with some meat on em, watching one do actual housework is kinda hot too. But thay may be because its so rare these days.
How is being thin unhealthy? It’s been correlated with longer life span. Thin does not mean clinically anorexic.
Wait, women have an obsession with being thin?
In what country do you live in?
Because what women in America need is a greater obsession with being thin.
Of course, Schwyzer’s thinking is a classic case of circularity – why do “most” men find other men dating thin women “impressive”? Obviously, only because most men find thin women attractive to begin with.
It’s the classic case of explaining a society by saying “oh, it’s their culture” – which is to say, oh, that’s just how they do things, I have no idea why. Of course it’s their culture – but why? Why does their culture differ?
The thin/fat dichotomy is not the interesting one – nearly all white and Asian men find thin women attractive. The interesting thing is that many men will often get with girls whose facial features and physical type they don’t really like just in order to impress friends. If their group of friends are impressed by tall blonds, but they like short, girly, brunettes, they will still yearn after tall blonds.
Every choice you make has some implication for your status. People eat things they don’t like to be seen as high status, they date girls they don’t like, they do things they don’t like, they read books they don’t like.
One of the best ways to make a massive increase in your happiness in life is to reduce the element status-striving plays in it and develop genuine individuality. It’s quite doable, too, despite the absurd genetic determinism in the HBD crowd. For the HBD crowd, any tendency that influences behavior is something that you are a hopeless slave to. It’s a quite amusing logical fallacy and amounts to a kind of religious belief. Many HBDers seek “celestial” guidance in life, and find it in the “voice of evolution”, in an attempt to relieve themselves of the need for conscious, rational thought and decision-making. The proliferation of quasi-religious mystery cults since the demise of Christianity in the West bears a striking resemblance to the situation in the late Roman Empire when the decay of traditional religion led to an explosion in the popularity of cults like Mithraism and Orphism. Today, this tendency is seen in game, paleo, and such things as the (mis)use of HBD as a restrictive guide to life rather than to achieve liberation through greater understanding of our biology.
I used to read books I disliked until I owned up to the fact that I just find utterly arid most of the “literature” admired by contemporary intellectuals. It took a bit of courage, but once I did that, reading went from an onerous chore to pure pleasure. I began to accept that I am just not that interested in getting girls 24/7 as I am “supposed” to be (I now believe our obsession with sex is a purely post-Freudian development. It’s artificial and unbalanced. I think it’s quite false to think that the modern obsession with sex is a result of cultural “liberation”. The modern obsession with sex is the result of a specific emphasis)
@betasattva
It seems that the jezebels at Jezebel only recognize two body types in women: thin (ranging from anorexic to what the average man finds attractive) and curvy (what you see as fat or obese). Thin is always less attractive and less healthy compared to curvy in their delusional thinking. And from the comments of one Jezebel article a while back, thinness is due to starvation triggered by media pressure and men, but fatness is always a genetic/hormonal issue. It’s how they “think.”
I now believe our obsession with sex is a purely post-Freudian development. It’s artificial and unbalanced. I think it’s quite false to think that the modern obsession with sex is a result of cultural “liberation”. The modern obsession with sex is the result of a specific emphasis
I’m inclined to agree (or at least be sympathetic), but I’d love to hear you expand on this.
Wait, women have an obsession with being thin?
In what country do you live in?
Because what women in America need is a greater obsession with being thin.
Yep. I was about to say… since obesity “kills” (statistically speaking) 280,000 to 325,000 Americans/year and anorexia kills about 150. That’s some obsession with being thin.
Well, samsonsjawbone, I’m not sure how much I can expand on it, but I will try to explain a bit more what I mean. There is this idea in today’s culture that in the Victorian age we repressed our sexuality and that the current level of interest in sex is the “natural” amount that comes forth “naturally” when that repression is removed. In other words what happened is the mere removal of a barrier to the expression of “natural” levels of sexuality, where we are now. But I don’t think it’s the mere removal of a barrier – I think we were trying very hard to distinguish ourselves from the Victorians, and to do so we placed extreme emphasis on the things they repressed, which is obviously just as unbalanced as repressing those things to begin with. Where we are now is no more natural than where the Victorians were. We are in an over-correction phase – cultural development happens not by simply eliminating the unbalanced elements in the previous generation’s approach to the world – would that we were such sane, rational creatures
– but by swinging to the opposite extreme in an excess of rebelliousness.
To be obsessed with sex and “admit” that it is “everything” is now the new in thing – I find this mentality well expressed by a peculiar species of comment I often come across on the web – the impassioned plea to “admit” that I, as a man, am “really” thinking of sex 24/7, that it is the center of my life, and the most important thing to me, and that I am salivating over every mildly attractive women who crosses my path. I always chuckle when I come across this kind of thing.
In my own life when I think back on it, I realize that sex meant the most to me when I was bored, depressed, or had few things going for me. I turned to it as an easy source of pleasure when I had little else going for me. When I was full of joy and excitement and success sex became one source of pleasure amongst many others, and by no means the most important. But receptive as I was to the cultural atmosphere, I felt somehow that not having women and sex at the very center of my emotional life was somehow “wrong” – I was supposed to. After all, the Goddess Evolution designed me that way
Didn’t she? It took some intellectual growth to understand the limitations of this view.
“Sexual repression” was the norm in the Western world all the way into the 20th century. Your observation is apt, but you are placing it in the wrong historical context. The idea of “sexual liberation” isn’t a rejection of Victorian social mores, but those of Christianity in general and Western civilization more broadly.
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tz8pzG02oxU&feature=player_detailpage#t=952s"Here is an interview with Kevin McDonald discussing the genesis of the social changes you are observing regarding sexual mores.
Also for the lulz:
Shockingly that Kevin McDonald link still works despite botching the tags.
Kyle, I think you fail to take a sufficiently broad perspective.
While I agree that sexual repression is very much Christian, I cannot agree that it is characteristic of Western civilization in general. In fact I would say the most impressive, and perhaps most distinctive, elements of Western civ are characterized by a lack of shame towards sex.
I am thinking of Ancient Greece and Rome, the Renaissance, and the Enlightenment. Sexual morality in the Renaissance was famously decadent, probably even more so than today, which I doubt many people thought was possible. Lucrezia Borgia, for instance, famously had an incestuous relationship with her father, Pope Alexander VI, and while it was considered scandalous, it was also considered characteristic of the times, nor did it lead to massive public outcry.
And of course, it was the scandalous sexual perversion of the Popes and the clergy that made possible the Reformation, which suggests that the most sexually repressive institution in the West – the Church – went through periods where it completely emancipated itself from such an attitude.
It hardly needs to be added that the Enlightenment sought to create an attitude of acceptance and freedom towards sex and the body, and that the period offers us some of the most striking, almost paradigmatic, examples of sexual libertinage, like Casanova and the Marquis De Sade, as well as many others.
You know, I almost get the impression that Kevin McDonald simply does not know any history at all, so narrow is his lens.
The pop-culture classicism is entirely ahistorical. All of the ‘libertine’ attitudes of the time were a matter of power and authority. Claudius could openly keep a harem of his toddler cousins, but various other emperors more minor sexual immorality were the subject of social opprobrium. Claudius was a ‘good’ Emperor though, and of course a powerful one.
People don’t think it is possible because it isn’t true.
What was ‘acceptable’ in all of the periods you cite was due to the fact that the people engaging in them were basically immune from criticism. That isn’t true of either the modern world or the Victorian Era with its’ more liberal attitudes towards speech, the printing press, and the industrial revolution which decentralized wealth and therefore power for a brief point in history. (Which isn’t terribly dissimilar from when Catoan/Optimates reigned in Rome and earnestly debated executing the nihilistic ambassadors of Greece due to their ‘immorality’)
The Church went through periods where it was entirely beholden to temporal, political powers and periods when religiously tempered priests reigned and wielded power over the European aristocracy. That doesn’t speak strongly to the temperament of the common layman or even clergy any more than do the views of the elite today translate to what is actually popular and socially acceptable among the masses.
Reading the history of this point in time will show how the entirety of mankind across the entire globe were widely accepting of all forms of sexual degeneracy, had a deep and abiding love for giving away their nations to brown-skinned foreigners, et cetera because those are the views of the elite.
That European aristocrats who married for political and financial reasons often with arranged marriages weren’t faithful to each other and engaged in ‘courtly love’, and who none could criticize without real-world repercussions has basically nothing to do with the prevailing ideas about sex (those ideas being very conservative and the real life of the aristocrats being extremely scandalous and hidden from public view).
No one that actually cites Casanova and De Sade should have to be reminded that both were actually imprisoned , the former becoming a fugitive for the majority of his life and the latter remaining a prisoner for his. So tossing De Sade into a cell (by both the nobles of France and later their Revolutionary ousters) is more libertine than paying a 50 year old proponent of cruising for twinks to come speak out against Christianity at a high school? Give me a break.
You get that impression because your knowledge of history is based on this Whiggish view of history were every period of history up until the Victorian era was 24/7 orgies, that ancient Rome and Greece were paradises for faggots and that civilizations that more or less passed on over ~1700 years ago are somehow more representative of ‘Western Civilization’ than Christian Europe; which is all completely ahistorical.
LOL, Kyle. I really am not sure what you are trying to say with that tremendous outpouring of verbiage. I was about to start listing things like Greek temple prostitution, pornographic frescos on walls in Pompey, the endless line of smutty classic authors, like petronius, catullus, ovid, horace, and countless others who wrote for an educated middle class audience, but then I thought, anyone who seriously claims that the classical world was sexually repressed in a way analogous to the Victorians, and that there is a fairly unified unbroken line of sexual repression that characterizes Western civilization in all periods before the modern, is so historically ignorant, or so willfully blind, that the two of us simply lack the minimum basis of shared assumptions necessary to have a meaningful conversation.
An interesting conversation to me is one in which my opposite number has at least a basic grasp of the facts and the ability to understand what they mean.
So I suppose we will have to agree to disagree. Good luck, though.
Kyle, Michael –
We also shouldn’t forget that Christian culture was very decentralized and fragmented until the near the end of the 1500s; the Church hierarchy tolerated a lot in the name of getting people in the pews. As a consequence, what habitually took place at many churches intersected with a variety of ancient rites, pagan practices, local traditions — some churches had even been used at times as marketplaces and granaries, or for the purposes of gambling, fighting, and erotic dances.
Things began to change with the Augsburg Settlement of 1555 — a treaty between Charles V and a coalition of Lutheran princes — which accelerated the centralization/bureaucratization of European life by establishing the principle of cuius regio, eius religio. Secular institutions, now allied with religion, legitimized themselves in part through sacred doctrine, a legal innovation necessitating spiritual uniformity amongst congregations. *This* standardization of Christianity is what led to the internalization of Christianity, for as Christianity became more public, it became more private; self-imposed vigilance became mandatory. Hence the era’s spread of humanism and its public emphasis on civility, along with the secular move of re-emphasizing Christianity as the answer to what classical philosophers were striving for.
Men don’t dread what other men think of their laymates; it’s what other women think. Sure, the guys may rib you a little for porking a porker; but if a hot chick sees you, you’re off her list forever. To quote Confucious: “No es bueno.”
I wouldn’t pay any attention to Hugo. He is a wanker.
This business about “women’s unhealthy focus on thinness” is such utter favor with feminists currying horseshiite. For every anorexic American woman there are fifty who are obese or fatties.
As well men care far less about what other men think as to the attractiveness of their dates than women do about what other women think. I’m not gonna say it’s completely a non factor to all or most men, but it’s not that much of one esp. outside of the outlier mudturtles. Further what most attracts and impresses other men is also highly likely to do the same for the man in question. It’s largely wired in biological attraction. Sure some men prefer blondes and others raven haired girls and others redheads, but the large majority of men will agree on who’s a hot blonde, who’s a hot Italian looking raven haired girl, and who’s a hot redhead or strawberry blonde.
amac78
What Schwyzer writes in invariably terrible, wrong, doctrinaire, left wing feminist lying. He’s not stupid but he’s not brilliant or very insightful either. Steve Sailer for example is far more insightful and imaginative, and lots smarter.
HAI–
Well done.
Michael
You’ve fabricated a completely absurd strawman. What “HBD crowd” or even individual are you talking about? I challenge you to quote any substantial passage from any leading HBD web (or book) writer who says anything remotely like that. You CAN’T you lying twat. Neither Steve Sailer, Charles Murray, Richard Hernstein, James Watson, Richard Lynn, Chris Brand, John Derbyshire, Razib Khan, Jason Malloy, Arthur Jensen, J.P. Rushton, Nicholas Wade at the NY Times, Linda Gottfried, La Griffe du Lion, hell even Heartiste/Roissy, OneSTDV, Half Sigma, Chuck Rudd, Mangan, the folks at Alt.Right, and not even Paul Francis, Peter Brimlow, the folks at VDare, nor Jared Taylor, have ever said anything like that.
Genes together with culture and mostly chance occurrences in environment growing up determine probabilities of decisions, they don’t determine actual decisions or actions. No leading HBD person believes in the complete or nearly complete absence of free will.
Kyle—
That’s a vast exaggeration and further it lacks historical and cross cultural comparison.
First of all most of the time Christianity only repressed extramarital sex, not sex within marriage which it during most periods encouraged. The Puritans for example were big about lusty sexual relations between marital couples, considering it a duty for both, but also encouraged them to think of it as a joy for both.
The 18th century in general was quite sexually licentious both among the upper classes and the lower classes, less so the middle classes, which was a general European pattern except in Britain during the Victorian period. The French court in particular by the early 16th century was quite a licentious place and atmosphere all the way to the French Revolution, and continuing again soon after it, all through the Victorian era in Britain. The Italians were quite bawdy from the Renaissance on. Before WWII there were the gay 90s in France and at least considerable opening up under cover during the last years of Victoria lead by the example of Prince Edward and more so during the Edwardian age, but still not nearly so much as in France. Both between the world wars and after the second one there was a lot of bohemian / artsy sexual licentiousness, but this was rather in rejection of Christian religion.
As well the Catholic church at least (but not most Protestant ones) often turned rather a blind eye to prostitution, believing that it eased the pressure on most girls to give up their virginity before marriage, or to commit adultery with rogues who would instead when they met resistence turn to whores.
Also, compared to who? Surely Christianity was not more repressive about extra marital sex than Islam, or Judaism. Nor more so than the Chinese.
Were the great civilizations more repressive about extra marital sex than many tribal societies? Yeah, probably.
Doug1111, it’s a question of general tendency and emphasis.
Yes, if explicitly questioned, any of those people you mentioned will give you a balanced picture of the role of genes in influencing behavior, but will frequently slip into talking about genes as if they are quite simply a script that you must follow. Often people will let assumptions guide their thinking that if asked about explicitly, they will deny. That’s very common.
Some of the writers you mentioned are quite smart and don’t do this, so you paint with too broad a brush. Most of the people I had in mind were the silly HBD popular bloggers you mentioned.
Bloggers like Heartiste and Roosh, for instance, make no bones about saying that you have no choice but to be obsessed with women and what they think of you, and more-over, that you should be doing this. For them,the findings of biology are a script you must follow, not something that liberates you to choose more intelligently by helping you understand the urges that influence your decision-making. They commit the naturalistic fallacy, seeking to derive a code of ethics from observations about what is. Roosh frequently writes about how he is tired and weary of chasing women, but does so anyways, apparently out of some bizarre sense of ethical obligation to the Spirit of Evolution. In other words, he is not merely observing something about himself, that he is obsessed with women, he is saying that he should be obsessed with them whether he feels that way or not, because it is “in our biology”. He is clearly seeking some kind of guideline which relieves him from the burden of thought and personal responsibility, and he fashions his new religion out of the cultural materials at hand, filtered through his mediocre intellect – the result is an extremely simplistic approach to the world, based on poorly-understood science, and a weak ability to think about the findings of science logically.
Heartiste says with ringing clarity that what women think of you is and should be your standard for self-value; such an ethic of male submissiveness only makes sense as an attempt to derive an ought from an is. Men like women, therefore the kind of women a man gets should be a criterion of his value. It is also an attempt to universalize a personal relation to women that is felt to be shameful; Heartiste feels himself a slave to women, probably because of incredibly strong sexual urges, and seeks to make a relation of personal inferiority to women into a widely accepted norm. It’s extremely common for men who suffer from personal inadequacies to try and have them accepted as normative by society.
HalfSigma talks about how people seek status in a way that makes clear this urge is normative for him – it supplies the basis for a guideline on how one should act; it is not treated as information about one’s nature that can be used to then intelligently choose a course of action that might well minimize the status-striving element. In other words the findings of biology are not merely illuminative, they are normative for him. He does not seek help in liberating himself, he seeks scripts for action.
Michael—
That’s not what Heartiste says at all. I don’t read Roosh all that much, but haven’t seen him say it either.
Heartiste says that by far most men, especially when they’re younger have biologically (genetically) driven lust for women. He doesn’t say you have to make pursing them your main focus in life. He says it can be pleasurable and very gratifying to get good at getting hot girls quite easily. As well it’s important to bear in mind that he fame of both is tied up in being good at teaching game, and Roosh makes his living at it, by selling game and girl hunting travel books, advertised by his game teaching website.
Heartiste most definitely doesn’t base a system of morality around genetic determinism. He’s not big on morality generally, aside from not doing malicious harm to others. He does say that evolution has shaped our sexual drives and many differences between the sexes and that science particularly evolutionary psychology regularly produces experimental results supporting his empirical if largely anecdotal (his other and that of other proficient gamers he knows) experience and observation.
There’s no script you must follow that Heartiste talks about. He’s always saying how to use getting good at game is entirely the gamer’s choice. I can be used to attract, cause to fall in love, and keep in love and lust, one true love as your live together lover or wife (with the attendant legal risks in our very unfair divorce laws and family court application), or you can use it to be a player.
None of these people are genetic determinists as you and some others charge. That’s a strawman as I said. However genes are a whole lot more important in effecting behavior than most people think and are probably somewhat more important than culture/environmental differences in many areas.
As well there are feedbacks from genes into culture/environment. People tend to like to do things they’re good at particularly as they move into adolescence and young adulthood. Natural athletes tend to like to play sports particularly those they excel at, and are even willing and sometimes keen to do lots of muscle building and tendon stretching exercises to enhance their athletic abilities (or in another age, knightly war fighting and jousting abilities). Smart people tend to like to exercise their brain muscle by doing lots of book and web reading, solving puzzles of various kinds, and engaging in debate.
Doug, that’s just not true what you say about Heartiste.
He explicitly says – not ambiguously, not by implication – that male value is determined by female approval. It’s not just something implicit in his attitude to women, it is something he has explicitly formulated as a principle. It’s not even as if he is embarrassed to admit this. It’s pretty insane and pretty pathetic if you ask me, but I guess if you are utterly immersed in the universe of your sexual urges it makes a kind of grotesque sense, even if it does not make logical sense.
If you really challenge this, I can get the relevant quotes, but it would be easier if you just went to his site.
And the script I was talking about is not about how to get girls, but the life-script of having girls as the fulcrum of your life, because it is “in our biology”.
Michael,
Heartiste is talking about male sexual market place value being determined by female approval. That makes sense, it’s the same for females.
He is very honest about the fact that a lot of the men, who are popular with women, aren’t great people in other ways.
If Roosh is weary of chasing women, he should get married. Then he’ll start to miss it.
Michael–
He says that male sexual rank is determined by how desired the particular male is by progressively hotter women. He doesn’t say that all male value or worth is determined by that.
He also does say along with most evolutionary psychologists that a good part of the reason why men developed civilization (and it overwhelming and almost entirely was men rather than women that did in every culture) was to impress women. I think that’s a bit exaggerated but partly true. I think men also did it to impress other men. Having status and wealth is it’s own reward for men, not just as a means of getting hotter and more pussy, though it works for that instinctive urge as well, and that’s no doubt part of the evolutionary/genetic “scheme” – supporting that which works to support more humans carrying more human “selfish genes”. I think Heartiste would agree it’s a bit exaggerated. He indicates such things particularly in his bold retorting to comments as “editor”. He’s a great, as in actually great, writer, and does write for dramatic effect and with hyperbole and clear contrasts most of the time.
As for going to Heartiste/Roissy’s site, I believe I’ve read every post he’s ever written. If not, damn sure almost every. Though yeah I’ve skimmed a lot of them since he hasn’t introduced that much new in the last couple of years, just a reworking of older messages for the most part.
No, I am quite aware of the difference between dating market value, and value. To say that a man’s dating market value is a function of female attraction is a mere tautology, and would scarcely need saying.
Roissy is quite explicit in saying that a man’s entire value – his purpose in life, his meaning, his metaphysical value – is a function of how attractive he is to women. He has said this numerous times, too. Lots of people don’t believe me when I say this, because it sounds so insane, and think Roissy is merely making the obvious and tautological point that a mans dating value is how attractive women find him – that’s like saying a mans attractiveness quotient is how attractive he is to women. It’s utterly pointless and tautological. No would make a point of saying that.
But I see I will have to dredge up the relevant Roissy quotes…I gotta run now, but I’ll get to it in a bit.
Michael–
Liar.
Quote where he says so, with a link. Otherwise liar.
Michael-
Where are you coming from?
Paleocon I’d guess.
Pathetic.
Lost and losing cause.
Get updated.
Stupid fuck.
lol, someone is pissed at finding his idol hollow
I don’t have the quotes. I found Roissy’s comments on this so remarkable at the time that I saved them, but my old hard drive is fried so I no longer have them. I did a quick Google search but found nothing, and there is no way I am trawling through old Roissy archives.
But I’ll tell you what – this position is not some secret thing that Roissy denies that I caught on tape or something, it’s something Roissy is proud to own up to – it’s his philosophy. Since you’re such good buddies with Roissy, just ask him. Trust me, he’ll admit it upfront. That’s what’s so remarkable about it. Even you have the sense to see that such a position is pathetic, but Roissy is not in the least bit ashamed of it. Send him an email or just ask him on one of his posts – say there’s this guy going around saying that you believe that a man’s value – not dating market value, but value as a human being – is a function of how well women like him, and see what he says.
If he denies this and says that he does NOT think a man’s value as a human being is a function of how attractive he is to females, I will completely retract my accusation and never repeat it again. Promise.
Deal?
eh, listening to a feminist who hates men tell me what I should like is like listening to a white nationalist who hates me ’cause I’m mixed race…..
fuck ‘em both….
and no, Amanda Marcotte isn’t hot, I’d don’t have to trot the party line to get in her HPV infested panties like Futrelle tries too….
She’s racist too…
http://theangryblackwoman.com/2008/04/25/seal-press-amanda-marcotteproof-that-feminism-and-racism-go-hand-in-hand/
oh, this is too funny…..
men are attracted to “hawt womyn”-evillllle….
women attracted to serial killers, no biggie da….
http://jezebel.com/5905692/do-women-envy-sociopathic-men
I can’t make this shit up…..
(and he doesn’t even mention the dark triad)
michael–
stupid twat.
Michael, you should back up your claims with quotes.
Here’s what you wrote to start this subthread, 5/11/2012 at 11:29 am.
In challenging you, doug1111 named twenty-two HBDers (5/12/2012 at 12:58 pm).
You clarified that you had actually meant Roosh, and Heartiste, and Half Sigma (5/12/2012 at 3:03 pm). Sure, we can talk about Heartiste, and make-a-career-as-the-new-Casanova Roosh, and Half Sigma. Are these three “the HBD crowd”? No, they are not.
Most of Heartiste’s readers have noticed that he writes to shock, often exaggerates and parodies, and strives for an ironic tone. So quotes from him would be pretty uninformative; I wouldn’t bother retrieving them. Half Sigma may not be A-List (sorry, Siggie), but his is a serious, expository style. And when people misinterpret him, he often responds with clarifications.
Why not start by citing Half Sigma. From often reading his blog, it seems to me that your claim about what “the HBD crowd” believes is a straw man of your own creation.
To really make your point, engage Steve Sailer or John Derbyshire. Or see if you can work your claim into a comment at Khan’s GNXP, without getting mocked.
To be clear — see if you can work your claim into a comment at Razib Khan’s “Gene Expression” blog at the Discover website, without getting mocked.
Heartiste tends to write over the top in the original article, but is more measured in his notes under people’s comments.
Heartiste is talking about male sexual market place value being determined by female approval. That makes sense, it’s the same for females.
That last sentence is simply wrong. Almost any woman can find a man who will hop into bed with her. On the other hand, there are many men who need to pay quite a lot to get any sex at all.
Of course, most women think that their sexual favors are priceless and are very disappointed after the act that many men don’t agree with them.
amac–
Yeah good point. Razib would maybe make one mocking/biting comment including the word ‘tard in it most likely warn him, and then ban him if he tried to go there again. He doesn’t suffer fools with no data, no quotes and no intelligent comments.
stonerwithaboner–
Lord knows I don’t think much of Amanda Marcotte, but that black female blogger you linked to hardly makes out a case for white feminists like Marcotte being racist. SWPL feminists are naturally going to be inclined to think first and foremost about issues that affect them, and would I’d imagine think black feminists would think first and foremost about issues that most effect them. Though there’s gonna be a lot of overlap.
Failing to think about blacks first and foremost 24/7 is hardly racist, even when it’s feminists doing such “failing”.
Forth Doorman–
Nah, Lara’s right, though you point is right too. It is men that determines a man’s sexual value rank.
It’s just that most women want to do different things with having a high enough rank. Most women want to attract a man not just of one off or fling sex but for a relationship, and at a certain age/stage, marriage.
The Fourth Doorman,
The hard part for men is getting sex with someone of quality. The hard part for women is getting a commitment from someone of quality.
Although once a woman falls below a certain level of attractiveness, it isn’t like many men are interested her sexually.
amac, I would be very happy if the HBD crowd did not think the way I described, and I am happy that you think that kind of genetic determinism is retarded.
Do you seriously expect me to go through all those sites and come up with a list of quotes? The internet is supposed to be fun, not a chore. Off the top of my head I have given you a few instances of what I had in mind; if that’s not enough, I’m sorry. What matters is not whether I characterized the HBD movement correctly, it’s whether or not the attitude I ascribed to them is intelligent or not. I would be happy to discuss with you if knowledge of our genes should be used as a life script or a kind of intelligence report that helps us better fight our destructive impulses, but you seem to agree with me on this. Which is great!
So if you feel I mis-characterized the HBD movement, OK; just be more vigilant in the future about noticing the kind of attitude I mentioned they have. See if you spot it in the future. I am quite certain they slip into the kind of thinking I attribute to them with extreme frequency. You see it both in the blog posts and the comments.
They just talk in a way that indicates they use the findings of biology to tell them what to do; the attitude is, oh, humans are social strivers and care about status, so I have no choice but to strive for status, even if I find it pointless and it hurts me. Sigh. That’s just what we humans are. Oh well. Oh, I have no choice but to be obsessed with sex, it’s in my genes. Oh, my purpose in life should be to get women, because biology programmed me to procreate, etc. What if I don’t feel all that interested in women at the moment and would rather focus on travel, say? Oh, well, you are just lying to yourself. Can’t ignore your biology, you know. Just accept it.
That kind of thing. And it’s retarded. And you see it all the time in the HBD-sphere.
In my view, the findings of biology should help free us, not imprison us. We should say, oh, humans have an innate desire for status, so that explains why I am doing this stupid thing that I don’t even like and that is hurting my happiness in so many ways. Before I understood this I felt trapped in a pattern of destructive behavior, now that I know where it is coming from, I can be vigilant about these urges for status that means nothing to me, understand why I am doing them, and learn to better resist them.
See the difference?
Don’t have time to read through all the previous comments, but I’ll point out that there have been studies where men from different cultures were asked to rank a group of women by attractiveness, and they ranked them similarly. The cultural differences of attractiveness are way overblown by deconstructionists. They desperately want to believe that beauty is just a social construct and thus social-engineerable. But it isn’t. One man may rate a girl a five and the next a six, but nobody’s going to rate her a nine (unless he just spent a year in prison or something).
Ah, this is the thing I love most about this blog, seeing Chuck beat up on H.S. (I can’t stand that guy’s stuff so much I can’t even bring myself to type more than just his initials, yecch.)
Michael–
There was a British genetic study with a sample size of over 1500 reported in a peer reviewed journal that was published and reported on in the Guardian about six months ago that found that small differences in more than a hundred genes accounted for just over 50% of differences in fluid intelligene or IQ in the test subjects. Yes this was correlation but causation could only go in one direction. Note the authors pointed out that this was a lower bound for the degree to which IQ differences are caused by genetic differences, since the highly specialized sequencing computer chip can only measure genomic differences of a certain magnitude, though more and more powerful sequencing chips come out every other year or so.
Here’s the Guardian article, which fails to make the point about the lower bound that the others make in the abstract, which is the second link.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/aug/09/genetic-differences-intelligence
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21826061
This will be pretty much impossible for the blank slate radical environmentalist leftists to rebut. There is zero doubt about the direction of causation. The likelihood is that more than 51% of the differences in IQ will be proven to be due to genetic differences between individuals. It’s also highly implausible that racial group differences in average IQ are not genetically determined by a similar percentage.
I don’t know why this study hasn’t gotten more play by the alt.right at least. I guess it’s because few of them are comfortable about talking actual genetic research. This is the first study ever to investigate genomic differences directly as to the part they play in differing individual IQ. Other studies have done so indirectly by such methods as identical and fraternal twin studies, trans racial adoption studies, and other indirect methods.
My guess is that at the end of the day we’ll discover that genetic differences explain at least 2/3 of IQ differences in relatively comfortable environmental circumstances such as prevail these days for all at least that aren’t addicted in western Europe and the US, and that when we include environmental and cultural feedbacks from genetic differences which prevail in any free environment where there hasn’t been heavy intervention, that genetic differences and their penumbra or feedbacks will be determined to account for 80% of the differences.
I think/know that genes play a big role in other mental traits as well, but IQ has been by far the most intensively studied and is by far the most reliably measured. Where one falls on the introversion extroversion scale for example, how much mental energy someone has, how susceptible to depression, how aggressive, time preference, other personality traits, and on and on.
Regardless of how much you dislike it, the fact is that genetic differences play a huge role in human mental differences of pretty much all types.
Doug, I have no problem with genes. I like ‘em. I believe in ‘em.
Point is, understanding our genes should help us guide our behavior to maximize happiness.
A lot of the talk about genes is very simplistic, too. The fact is, our genes interact in complex ways to produce sources of pleasure for us that are often quite remote from the original drive the gene encoded for. For instance, it might be true that the drive for intellectual achievement has its source in the status drive, which has its source in the sex drive, but today many men derive incredible pleasure from intellectual achievement in a way that has no connection with raising their status or helping them get sex – they enjoy a purely intellectual pleasure even if they know it gets them no status and no sex. In other words, we humans have evolved a degree of complexity that allows us kinds of pleasures that bear little relation to the fundamental drives.
In a blind universe with no purpose or meaning, the only thing that matters is satisfaction and enjoyment, and if we get pleasure from things that has nothing to do with procreation or status or any other fundamental drive – in fact things that might even interfere with achieving those things – we would be fools not to take it.
But then you have guys like roosh and other HBDers stepping in to say that we have to ignore what actually gives us genuine pleasure and focus only on pleasures that depend on satisfaction of the fundamental drives, like sex or status, because after all, even our more refined pleasures originally had some connection with gaining status and sex. That kind of thinking reflects a logical inability to understand the implications of genetics.
@ Michael 05/13/2012 at 4:49 pm
> I would be very happy if the HBD crowd did not think the way I described
This latest remark is an exercise in goalpost-moving.
> Do you seriously expect me to go through all those sites and come up with a list of quotes?
You made broad claims earlier in this thread. So, yes, I thought that you’d support those assertions with quotes or citations.
Post goalpost-moving, you are no longer making statements about what A-listers like Khan or Sailer
writesecretly believe, or even what B-listers write. Instead, you’ve moved the discussion to what some particular subset of pseudonymous and anonymous somebodies contribute to the comments sections of certain blogs.You may not realize something that many of GLP readers have already figured out. Namely, that there’s a whole lot of stupid on teh intrawebs. Pick a subject, any subject. And there are poorly-informed, not-terribly-bright people ready to contribute their two centimes’ worth. Pro, con, neither, both. Whatever.
What you think about what “the HBD crowd,” thusly defined, thinks — this is not an interesting topic.
Michael, nobody here seems to agree with your straw-man position, so I guess the only thing left is to care whether certain bloggers actually espouse it. You’re the only one who seems to think they do. I don’t particularly care whether they do, but I can tell you Krauser recently posted an explicit denial of the idea that sexual market value is the most important thing in a man’s life. You make a good point but I don’t think many people need to be persuaded of it.
Doug1111-
fair enough….
their whole crew is pretty flawed in acting like they own truth and justice (TM.)
and also they are bigoted when they accuse anyone who disagrees with them of being a misogynist….
I do not have a secretary, unfortunately.
It’s not what they “secretly” believe – I don’t believe you quite grasp what I am saying. People hold inconsistent positions all the time, both sincerely believed in, with different strands in their thought uppermost at different times, and which they slip into at different times. What I am saying is perhaps a bit more nuanced than what you think I am saying.
I’ve said clearly that I’ve seen both a-listers and b-listers frequently slip into this kind of thinking, although it is much more common amongst the b-listers, where it is perhaps the dominant tone. And it is ubiquitous among commenters.
So it is a tendency that afflicts both the best and the worst of the HBD crowd, with the only difference that the best are often emancipated from this simplistic trend in thinking.
But, to say again, it is a serious trend afflicting all levels of the HBD community, forming an important strand of thought competing for attention with more balanced ways of thinking about genes.
Indeed, the commenters at GLP have done much to educate me on this reality.
Well, defined the way you just have, perhaps not. But the more nuanced phenomena I am talking about, that cuts across all levels of the HBD sphere, might be worth talking about.
@ betassatva –
I am happy if that is the case. Roissy, and to some extent roosh, are by far the worst offenders. A problem that is endemic to the HBD community especially the game section of it is to speak out of two corners of the mouth, as it were. Krauser says something today that he completely contradicts tomorrow, etc. So it goes.
I just wanted to call attention to this way of thinking.
No it’s not, and no it doesn’t. The comparison first put forward is against the sexual mores of modern day America. Are you saying that 18th century Europe was more licentious than 21st century America? Sure they were more licentious than the Victorians but that isn’t what I was saying, and it isn’t what Michael was saying. That’s a meaningless comparison. 18th century France was still a lot closer to Victorian England than either are to the sexual mores of any equivalent part of the Western world today.
The sexual revolution wasn’t over Victorian social mores or it would have actually happened to Victorians and not 1960s Americans.
I did type “Sexual Repression” and “Sexual Liberation” in scare quotes, as these are terms from the sexual revolution.
By the standards of the sexual revolution relegating sex to something that happens between two “cisgendered” heterosexuals of the opposite sex within a traditional marriage primarily for the purposes of procreation would indeed be “Sexual Repression”. Although it is something that is completely normal by historical standards, even outside of the Victorian era.
It’s not my argument that Westerners are particularly repressed about sex either. Michael’s original argument was not that we were repressed but that we are currently obsessed and the current sexualization of society is a matter of perverse will and not ‘sexual liberation’, which I agree with. The point that I differ on is that there actually existed this absurd level of repression that was historically anomalous that arose among the Victorians and lasted until the mid-20th century.
I already addressed this in my post above. You are talking about a tiny fraction of the population whose antics were scandalous. Today those same antics would be tame if not cheered on. A lot of what happened among the aristocracy had a lot to do with the strictures of aristocratic life (like arranged marriages) and don’t translate into the sexual mores of society. Again the comparative example is the 21st century West.
Again, the Court. I’m sure J.P. Morgan and William Randolph Hearst had more than a handful of threesomes as well, but that hardly speaks to the social mores of their day.
Compared to who? Somehow Italians immigrating to America centuries later wound up being very repressed by the standards of the Sexual Revolution. Italy today is still sexually repressed by those same standards.
Compared to 21st century America, or any post-’Sexual Revolution’ country. I’m comparing the past to the present.
Although by your own metric none of these religions or societies are actually repressive because they encourage marital sex. Both actually would be less repressive than Christianity due to polygamy, concubinage, sex slavery, et cetera, by that same metric.
Kyle–
Present day America, western Europe, and the rest of the Anglosphere is probably the most licentious broad middle class in history. There have been upper classes more licentious than today’s upper classes I think, but probably not middle classes.
You’re saying that now but you weren’t saying it then. You were strongly implying that Christianity was some uniquely sexually repressive religion, when just about all religions repressed sexual relations outside marriage as a matter of morality, but with the obvious prime purpose of creating stable family life for the support of and upbringing of children in ages without effective birth control. Even with highly effective birth control the breakdown of the family in modern American and to a somewhat lesser extent the rest of the west, has been appalling. 40% of births born outside of marriage and usually outside of any long lasting mother and father relationship has been one hell of a price to pay.
Doug, if you are a successful lawyer, why do u spend so much time on the computer being sedentary? Don’t you have a life? And why do u e-fuck Bhetti…u don’t want to really fuck her?
@Michael,
It appears that your inter-textual analysis of cultural deconstruction was not sufficiently broad nor inclusive on the one hand, and on the other the focus was weakly shifted, as it was insufficiently opaque at the edges and margins.
Because one is generally faced with a choice: either reject subcultural modernist theory or conclude that consensus is a product of communication, and I believe you have failed to conclusively demonstrate a sufficiently reductionist posture for the former, while only weakly advancing the case for the latter, and it shows an insufficient appreciation of the transition from within being externalized, while maintaining a cohesive integrity, and to transition this sufficiently while sufficiently populating the exterior, it is also crucial to actualize this posture suitable to the medium it is expressed within.
I can not emphasize enough that synthesis of this dynamic tension predicates a successful strategy.
I hope that you appreciate that I have deliberately structured this critique to be accessible to your demonstrated level of ability, and thus have kept the technical jargon to a minimum.
References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_theory
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Gish_Gallop