Why can Guys sleep around, but girls get punished? Here's why..

True enough- when the dichotomy has been so deeply internalised- and for women, this is far more the case than men- it can sometimes be hard for people to break out of it, which is why it so important to publicly recognise this sort of thing, so we don't just default to it. Thank god for sex-positives and the Third Wave, that's all I can say. ;)


Additionally, because the active role is the traditionally masculine one, many men find being pursued in this manner as emasculating, and so that kind of female assertiveness is far more likely to meet a negative reaction than the corresponding male assertiveness.

Well, I'm still not sure that the madonna/whore dichotomy, as we're calling it, has been internalised from an external source. Given how central a feature it is of many women's hopes, dreams and desires, I have found myself thinking that it's something they externalise into culture, rather than internalise from culture.

As for men who're emasculated by powerful women, I find them deeply saddening. I remember joining a conversation between a man and woman who were agreed that it was wrong for a woman to ask a man out. The man went so far as to say that he'd avoid such a woman in the future and regard her as weird and not even worthy of friendship.
There was no mention of feminism or emasculation; they were simply discussing relationships, but the frank admission, as though this were a normal or acceptable thing to say, astounded me.
 
You sound like an academic from a Women's Studies department.
If that was true, I'd be explaining this a hell of a lot better. :p

Well, I'm still not sure that the madonna/whore dichotomy, as we're calling it, has been internalised from an external source. Given how central a feature it is of many women's hopes, dreams and desires, I have found myself thinking that it's something they externalise into culture, rather than internalise from culture.
I'm not sure how one would go about arguing that- it seems to invoke a very essentialist model of gender, with apparent reference to biology, and I can't really imagine what base, biological cause women would have for collectively self-policing their sexuality. After all, the whole dynamic is a competition for male approval, so, unlike the Alpha/Beta dynamic, it's hard to characterise it as a natural, self-interested power struggle. (Certainly, while the Alpha/Male dynamic is present in our closest ape ancestors, the Madonna/Whore is most certainly not.)

As for men who're emasculated by powerful women, I find them deeply saddening. I remember joining a conversation between a man and woman who were agreed that it was wrong for a woman to ask a man out. The man went so far as to say that he'd avoid such a woman in the future and regard her as weird and not even worthy of friendship.
There was no mention of feminism or emasculation; they were simply discussing relationships, but the frank admission, as though this were a normal or acceptable thing to say, astounded me.
Yeah, I can believe that. A lot of men are very heavily invested in the traditional masculine-strong/feminine-weak view, and, unlike women, don't see much reason to change.
 
... it seems to invoke a very essentialist model of gender, with apparent reference to biology, and I can't really imagine what base, biological cause women would have for collectively self-policing their sexuality. After all, the whole dynamic is a competition for male approval, so, unlike the Alpha/Beta dynamic, it's hard to characterise it as a natural, self-interested power struggle. (Certainly, while the Alpha/Male dynamic is present in our closest ape ancestors, the Madonna/Whore is most certainly not.)
I know it's hard to justify, but here I can only use what I'm told, not even having myself as a datum.
I could believe that the vast majority of women I've met are brainwashed fools, unable to rebel against culturally imposed standards except in a superficial way, or else I could believe that they truly want and support a system which relinquishes individual power and imposes severe restraints.
Neither option is especially pleasing.

But we can imagine (without much, if any evidence) how women would come to support such a system. Female promiscuity works against male monogamy. When sex is hard to achieve, men will be forced to choose between no sex or sex with only one woman, and women will get a life partner. Female promiscuity gives men other options and the women who want a life partner will find it much harder.
The biological forces behind women wanting a life partner are widely known. I think that women do have a greater tendency than men to want lifelong romance and lasting relationships and dedication (although men are frequently very keen on that too), and part of this desire manifests itself as disapproval of promiscuity: male promiscuity because it gets men in the habit of cheating and looking for more, and female promiscuity because it cheapens sex, giving men the chance to think of it outside of relationships, and because many women (and men) find sex an emotionally intense act which binds them to each other.
The implicit belief is that you can't do lots of that (with many people) without it losing its force.
That's how we get to 'damaged' men, who've lost a true love. That's why we get re-writes of James Bond to have fallen in love and lost her, and hence being emotionally unassailable, rather than simply not ever being particularly 'feminine'.
 
I know it's hard to justify, but here I can only use what I'm told, not even having myself as a datum.
I could believe that the vast majority of women I've met are brainwashed fools, unable to rebel against culturally imposed standards except in a superficial way, or else I could believe that they truly want and support a system which relinquishes individual power and imposes severe restraints.
Neither option is especially pleasing.
It's not that they are "brainwashed fools", but that they have internalised the misogynistic standards of society to such an extent that those values become their own. It does not rob the women of agency, it simply acknowledges that all agency is coloured by cultural and social context, and the internalisation of one's marginalisation is hardly unique, as the "I know my place" mentality exhibited by many marginalised groups throughout history evidences. Unpacking the prejudices which one has internalised, whether they are applied to oneself or to others, is always the first step towards combating them.
It's worth remembering that an important part of this is the deeply internalised notion that power is innately masculine, and that women can only hope to access it through men, which leads women to play the Madonna or the Whore- to varying degrees, the dichotomy being far less well defined than is imagined- to gain male favour. This sort of internalisation doesn't represent a desire for oppression, but an inability to properly conceive of an alternative, and a desire to gain privilege with the assumed-to-be-absolute dynamics which exist.

But we can imagine (without much, if any evidence) how women would come to support such a system. Female promiscuity works against male monogamy. When sex is hard to achieve, men will be forced to choose between no sex or sex with only one woman, and women will get a life partner. Female promiscuity gives men other options and the women who want a life partner will find it much harder.
The biological forces behind women wanting a life partner are widely known. I think that women do have a greater tendency than men to want lifelong romance and lasting relationships and dedication (although men are frequently very keen on that too), and part of this desire manifests itself as disapproval of promiscuity: male promiscuity because it gets men in the habit of cheating and looking for more, and female promiscuity because it cheapens sex, giving men the chance to think of it outside of relationships, and because many women (and men) find sex an emotionally intense act which binds them to each other.
The implicit belief is that you can't do lots of that (with many people) without it losing its force.
That's how we get to 'damaged' men, who've lost a true love. That's why we get re-writes of James Bond to have fallen in love and lost her, and hence being emotionally unassailable, rather than simply not ever being particularly 'feminine'.
A fair argument, although it's worth noting that the dichotomy isn't purely one of monogamy against promiscuity, although it is superficially presented as such- it's also one of sexual assertiveness, the Whore being a woman who actively pursues sex- although the traditional denial of female sexual desire often demands that it be treated as part of an exchange, even actively manipulative, further justify the marginalisation of women deemed to fit the category- a habit which as the proper domain of men, and so insufficiently feminine. It's not merely the policing of sexual habits, but of gender conformity, which is why it can be roughly framed as the female equivalent of the male Alpha/Beta dynamic (although the details are somewhat different), the greater role played by sex simply reflecting the traditional tendency towards the unquestioned sexualisation of women. Indeed, in one of the most prominent traditional form of the dichotomy- the Wife and the Mistress- both women remain monogamous, with only the man exhibiting polyamorous behaviour.
Also, I'm sceptical of the "women want love, men want sex" tradition (although I'm aware that you're not representing it quite so literally as others sometimes do)- it strikes me that a lot of that is drawn from the attitudes towards sexual intimacy exhibited by each gender, specifically, that woman- in accordance with Madonna/Whore- are socialised with an aversion for active expressions of sexual lust, and so are obliged to frame such things in terms of purely romantic intimacy. Similarly, the conviction that emotional intimacy is innately girly, combined with the masculine belief in the necessity of point-scoring through sexual conquest, often leads men to frame their desire for emotional intimacy in terms of the physical. (If anything, it often seems like men often become more deeply invested in love, because they haven't been socialised in a manner which allows it to be easily dealt with, and so feel it rather more rawly.)
After all, from an evolutionary standpoint, it also benefits men to care for a single mate and brood, so as to maximise the attention he can give and best ensure the success of his offspring. The harem has always been the habit of the upper classes, who's material privilege- not least the ability to delegate child-rearing to their social subordinates- allows such things.
 
If that was true, I'd be explaining this a hell of a lot better. :p

By this I only mean that you are repeating tired old theories of gender roles that have long since become obsolete; obsolete, ironically, by the very same feminists that claim failure in this regard. The notion that women are still an oppressed underclass, with a complex social web that maintains taboos under the guise of their protection, and which they themselves enforce, has long since been destroyed in the West. (It would serve such academics to maintain the illusion of this failure, for then they would have sufficient cause for speachmaking.) Not only are women equal to men, and not only legally but socially now as well, but in some countries and with some measures, they have earned so many rights as to become priviledged. I could mention divorce laws, sexual harassement, and other frameworks, to name a few. Whatever taboos women may still be enforcing under their own will, they are doing for reasons other than oppression. I would guess that since it is not the men that are enforcing these behaviors, nor take much interest in them (men are quite happy to have women sleep with them), that the women, in their own competition amongst themselves, are doing all the enforcement.
 
By this I only mean that you are repeating tired old theories of gender roles that have long since become obsolete; obsolete, ironically, by the very same feminists that claim failure in this regard. The notion that women are still an oppressed underclass, with a complex social web that maintains taboos under the guise of their protection, and which they themselves enforce, has long since been destroyed in the West. (It would serve such academics to maintain the illusion of this failure, for then they would have sufficient cause for speachmaking.) Not only are women equal to men, and not only legally but socially now as well, but in some countries and with some measures, they have earned so many rights as to become priviledged. I could mention divorce laws, sexual harassement, and other frameworks, to name a few. Whatever taboos women may still be enforcing under their own will, they are doing for reasons other than oppression. I would guess that since it is not the men that are enforcing these behaviors, nor take much interest in them (men are quite happy to have women sleep with them), that the women, in their own competition amongst themselves, are doing all the enforcement.
See, now, that's a strawman, and a rather grand one at that. I never once used the term of referenced the concept of an "underclass" (it doesn't even make sense in this context, now or historically), my comments have been about social and cultural constructs, not formal or legal inequalities, I repeatedly addressed the fact that competition with each gender is a major factor in sustaining these constructs, and I have been primarily attempting to examine these constructs and discuss how they effect us (men and women), rather than to engage in anything so patronising as liberating the poor, oppressed wimmens from the evil he-man conspiracy.
Honestly, it's been the third-wave for a good twenty years now. If you can't keep up, leave me be! :rolleyes:
 
I really don't understand the concept of "dressing like a slut", common as it is.
You are saying you don't know a streetwalker if you see one?
(I hate the word "slut". As far as I am concerned it denotes a woman who puts out to everyone else, except the one who employs that description.)
 
You are saying you don't know a streetwalker if you see one?
Well, yes, I understand what it denotes; the ignorance was feigned, for rhetorical purposes. I just don't consider the logic by which the phrase is arrived at irrational, and not a little misogynistic.

(I hate the word "slut". As far as I am concerned it denotes a woman who puts out to everyone else, except the one who employs that description.)
Nicely said! :lol::clap:
 
Well, yes, I understand what it denotes; the ignorance was feigned, for rhetorical purposes. I just don't consider the logic by which the phrase is arrived at irrational, and not a little misogynistic.
It depends on the logic, I guess. Nevertheless "dressing like a prostitute" can be an objective assessment.
 
They are bad because you can't dictate what a person should or shouldn't do based on their gender. "Oh, you're a woman, you shouldn't wear pants, now get back in the kitchen and make me a sandwich" is pretty outdated form of thinking...
I'm not dictating anything. I do have expectations about how people should behave however. If someone breaks those expectations, I of course take note of it, but it's not like I'm stopping anyone from breaking my expectations.

Men should be like ____, and women should be like _____.. How about we each be ourselves instead? We're individuals and not members of some sort of a borg hive mind, after all.
Yes, we are all individuals (I'm not!), and we are free to do as we please. However, there are expectations in society as to how you should behave.

Nobody argues that all such expectations are bad, but it seems certain people here have problems with expectations that are different for men and women. I think there should be different expectations, precisely because we are different biologically. I will never treat a woman like a man, or a man like a woman. I don't think the vast majority of women not the vast majority of men would want that.

But sure, do whatever you like. I'm not gonna stop you - but I might not be supporting you either.

Well, firstly, the rules are not nearly as strict as we like to think; European Christian culture simply holds to a particularly straight-laced form of the gender binary, one which is not universally echoed- some societies traditionally recognise third gendered, bi-gendered, transgendered or androgynous people, while others are gynofocal (albeit rarely, if ever, matriarchal). European (and European-derived) culture, you see, is in no way the base template for human society, simply a single, rather dull manifestation. The rather hateful little binary you prescribe is certainly a recurring feature, yes, but it is not the absolute which you suggest, either in terms of potential nor in actuality.
First of all, I would like you to explain how treating men and women differently is "hateful".

Secondly, I know I'm not a Dachs, but I do consider myself to have a fair understanding of history. I have no idea how you could infer that I was only thinking of European societies from those paragraphs, as I was clearly referring to the whole world throughout the text. Please refrain from being condescending and ridiculing. That being said, even though I did try to come up with some, I was, and still am, at a loss to come up with any societies that match the emboldened part of your statement. Since you apparently know of such cultures, I would appreciate if you would educate me on some of them.

Secondly, since when was traditional precedent equivalent to absolute legitimacy? Traditional precedent would maintain despotism, aristocracy, slavery, and all manner of oppressive practices which, quite rightly, we now abhor. Why are the visible tyrannies of barbarity to be so openly scorned, but the invisible ones stubbornly retained?
Traditional precedent does not in itself give legitimacy of course. My point was that if several different methods are tried out, and one seems to be the most successful, then it can be argued that that method is the best one.

I do not see different standards for the sexes as a form of tyranny, and anyone is free to break the standards, I am free to say what I think about it, and we are all free to accept the consequences.

And how the hell you claim that something is invisible when you obviously see it, and complain when others see it in a different way, I have no idea.

And, finally, why are you so ready to deny the individual in favour of the collective? Why do you scorn individual fulfilment in favour of what is, essentially, a caste system based on what goolies you happen to have been born with? If the Enlightenment gave us one thing, it was the firm knowledge that the individual matters, and that society exists as a collective of individuals. Why so quick to forget this now that you find yourself in a position of social privilege?
A caste system is acceptable if there are real differences between the castes. I recognise that there are inherent differences between men and women, and as such, I think different standards for men and women is the right position to take.

And just like anyone is free to break any convention in society, so is anyone free to break these conventions. Anyone who breaks conventions has to deal with the consequences of course, whether they are legal or simply social.

And finally, I'm pretty tired of people like you talking about men being "privileged" all the time. That is simply not true. There are different standards, and thus different rights/privileges and duties for each sex. For men, I did point out that they are expected to be the provider, to be the ones to take responsibility, to be strong, to defend their family and society, to risk - or even sacrifice - their lives when needed. Talk about privilege.

Oh, and noting that you're from the UK, you should be happy, as it seems your compatriots may soon make sure men are the only sex with the privilege to go to prison.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1311004/Judges-ordered-mercy-women-criminals-deciding-sentences.html
Judges have been told to treat female criminals more leniently than men when deciding sentences.

New guidelines declare that women suffer disadvantages and courts should ‘bear these matters in mind’.

The rules say women criminals often have poor mental health or are poorly educated, have not committed violence and have children to look after.

When I said he's missing the dynamic, I meant that he failed to recognise it; it was, of course, painfully blatant. You're also right that the greater presence of sex in modern society means that women are often expected to adopt traditional Whorish behaviour, but they are still, as the example reflects, expected to maintain a properly Madonnaish detachment. It doesn't challenge the basic problem that the legitimate sexual agency of women is still denied, and full sexual agency denigrated as "slutty" should it appear.
It's not that simple.

Let me outline some basics:
1. By nature, most women want to be provided for or at least have the extra economic security a man can provide.
2. By nature, most men want sex. Furthermore, men value sex with a non-promiscuous woman more than with a promiscuous woman, assuming they're equal in other aspects.
3. Thus, most women are best served by appearing less promiscuous to make a man stay with them, and by trying to influence other women to be less promiscuous to make the option of leaving her less desirable for a man.

If you want to challenge (1) or (2), go ahead. I'll be out watching for flying pigs. If you accept (1) and (2), but think (3) does not follow, I would like to hear why.

The "Nice guy/Jerk" thing really isn't equivalent to the Maddona/Whore dynamic, because it describes, to an extent, the application of the Alpha/Beta dynamic to male-female relationships, rather than the dynamic itself, specifically, how Alphas and Betas, respectively, are expected to obtain the Madonna (and, in the short term, the Whore). The Alpha/Beta and Madonna/Whore dynamics are within each gender, rather than between genders. (It should also be noted that the Alpha/Beta dynamic is rather less strictly determined than the Madonna/Whore dynamic, so the Nice guy/Jerk dichotomy really isn't as binary as it is made to appear.)

Also, the Alpha/Beta dynamic does not merely refer to the "mating game", but to society in general. It's just that the Madonna/Whore dynamic reduces women to the pure sexually, and so the Alpha/Beta dynamic is only able to parallel them in that regard. It should also be noted that, in this context, it's used to refer to a specific gender-based in-group/out-group dynamic, rather than a more specific dominance/subservience relationship between individuals (although that is obviously one of it's manifestations).
You are mixing two different sets of Alpha/Beta here. One is the Alpha/Beta dynamic between men as to who is the leader and who is the follower. That is outside of this discussion.

The other is the Alpha/Beta categories of men when it comes to sexual attraction. In their most perverse forms, these two categories become the Jerk/Nice guy. Women are attracted to the Alphas, and not the Betas. The way for Alphas and Betas to get a girl is the same, its only that the Alpha does it correctly, the Beta doesn't. Outside of the mating game, it doesn't matter if a guy is sexually Alpha or Beta.

With no rules (the opposition to jerks, the slut-shaming, etc.), in its most exaggerated form, we end up with all women trying to be closer to the Whore, while only having sex with the Jerk who has no reason to commit at all, and the Nice guy getting no sex (or even commitment). While that is a great time for the Jerk, and great some of the time for each woman, that is not a healthy society.

The problem with this is that it conflates any female assertion of sexuality as sexual promiscuity and, society being what it is, uses this as a basis of moral condemnation. You're making the leap from "revealing clothing" to "lacking proper womanly morals", which, again, denies women legitimate sexual agency. It's back to the old notion that sex is something men do, and that women experience, and that any woman who plays an active role in intercourse (or, indeed, a man who plays a passive one) is acting against their proper gender type.
Well, to be fair, making a leap from clothing to what kind of the wearer is, isn't exactly limited to the sexual viewpoint. Do you think this is wrong in general, or just when it comes to judging women's sexual morals from clothing?

I disagree that sex is something men do, and women experience. Sex is something both sexes do, but that men must work harder to achieve than women, and, biologically speaking, that the goal of getting sex is more valuable (as in rarer or harder to achieve) to men than to women.

"Misogyny" is properly understood as contempt, rather than hate, which is merely a manifestation of contempt, and referring to sexually active women as "sluts" most certainly constitutes contempt. That's not to say that any given usage represents a misogynistic speaker, but it certainly represents misogynistic activity, and a speaker who is insufficiently aware of this fact.
Well, I don't have contempt for women, but if your definition of misogyny means "contempt for women who are sexually active", I'll try and remember that.

For the record:
- A "slut" is a woman with relatively lower standards for who she will sleep with and who thus sleeps with relatively more men.
- A "whore" is a woman who sleeps with men for money.

I don't need to put any moral value into these. I will note that a slut is great if I want sex, but I'm less likely to want a relationship with her. The same goes for a whore of course, but instead of time and money to socialize, in that case one just needs money.

In terms of formal legal privilege? True enough, despite the complaints of so many men. In terms of social privilege? Don't make me laugh.
Alright, refresh my memory. Tell me what social privileges does men have that women don't have?

I can then try to match you with some that women have and men don't. :)

That's a tough one. I certainly wish I hadn't had sex with as many of them as I did, but if I hadn't had sex with at least some of them I mightn't have realised what I was missing. I more regret not sticking with the "long-term" girls longer than I do having sex with the "short-term" girls.
So you don't consider the sleeping around to be a problem, merely that it took time away from staying with specific girls you were more attracted to.

Only men are not less likely to marry a 'madonna' after sex with a 'whore'. They are much more able to separate sex from emotion, and many men cheat, but of these a vast majority really would prefer to be with their wives. The 'madonna' does not lose her man entirely if 'whores' exist: she just loses complete control of his sexual life. Even if the man remains faithful, the easy access that surrounds him puts pressure on her.
Well, I'll admit that I'm assuming in my post that men are honourable and don't cheat. And cheating isn't exactly accepted, neither by women not society. So a man who would still want to have sex with lots of women is better off outside of marriage.

Very true- in both the Alpha/Beta and Madonna/Whore dynamics, membership of the favoured group must be constantly reaffirmed in opposition to others, which means the constant assertion of power other anther (although, in the M/W case, this power is gained indirectly, through men).
Of course they get their sexual value indirectly from men - that is precisely why there is a mating game. Conversely, it is not men who decide who is sexually Alpha and Beta. That decision lies with the women they are trying to game. This is the whole concept of a sexually dimorphic specie: Each sex is trying to impress/please the opposite sex!

An interesting point. There's certainly a discussion to be had about this issue, but it may just suffice here if we agree that women (hell, people) should not be obliged to adhere to standards of appearance which they do not find fulfilling, in whatever direction).
You think there should be no standard to adhere to when it comes to clothing? You see no problem in going to a business meeting and the man greeting you is wearing sweatpants and a dirty t-shirt?

True enough- when the dichotomy has been so deeply internalised- and for women, this is far more the case than men- it can sometimes be hard for people to break out of it, which is why it so important to publicly recognise this sort of thing, so we don't just default to it. Thank god for sex-positives and the Third Wave, that's all I can say. ;)
Sure - that means much easier and much more free sex for all the Alphas.

It's not a good thing for society as a whole. Nor do I think it is good for most women in the longer perspective.

But whatever. I get free sex.

Additionally, because the active role is the traditionally masculine one, many men find being pursued in this manner as emasculating, and so that kind of female assertiveness is far more likely to meet a negative reaction than the corresponding male assertiveness. In terms of social prescriptions, that may even be a large factor, given how deeply invested so many men are in both their privilege over women, and the public image of masculinity which affirms Alpha status. While playing the active role is seen as inappropriately masculine for a woman, playing the passive is seen as inappropriately feminine for a woman, and men are more self-policing and quicker punish in regards to that behaviour (especially given that, these days, many people will at least theoretically support women adopting a degree of "masculine" behaviour- masculinity is traditionally power, so female masculinity is empowering, which is dimly understood to be desirable- while the male adoption of "feminine" behaviour is seen as necessarily dis-empowering).
I have no problem with a woman asking me out. But traditionally women have the social privilege of being the one who is being asked, and is thus free to accept or decline. Taking on the role of the one who is asking, and revealing ones interest, and risking humiliation from a decline, is not something most women wants to do. But I think a lot of men would like to not having to do it.

If that was true, I'd be explaining this a hell of a lot better. :p
Nah, you're already doing a pretty good job of saying whatever such people say. Don't think it would have made much difference. ;)

I don't find their arguments any better either, and I really don't put any trust into the word of an academic of "Women's studies" anyway. (Nor in most humanities for that matter, but that's digressing.)

I'm not sure how one would go about arguing that- it seems to invoke a very essentialist model of gender, with apparent reference to biology, and I can't really imagine what base, biological cause women would have for collectively self-policing their sexuality. After all, the whole dynamic is a competition for male approval, so, unlike the Alpha/Beta dynamic, it's hard to characterise it as a natural, self-interested power struggle. (Certainly, while the Alpha/Male dynamic is present in our closest ape ancestors, the Madonna/Whore is most certainly not.)
I know I said this previously in my post, but I'll repeat myself just in case.

a)
The biological reason for women to shame other women into being less promiscuous is:

1. By nature, most women want to be provided for or at least have the extra economic security a man can provide.
2. By nature, most men want sex. Furthermore, men value sex with a non-promiscuous woman more than with a promiscuous woman, assuming they're equal in other aspects.
3. Thus, most women are best served by appearing less promiscuous to make a man stay with them, and by trying to influence other women to be less promiscuous to make the option of leaving her less desirable for a man.

b)
The sexual Alpha/Beta categorisation is different from the male hierarchy Alpha/Beta categorisation. And while they may be correlated, that is not by causation.

c)
Men are grouped into the sexual Alpha/Beta categories by women. While you can claim the Madonna/Whore dynamic is a competition for male approval, you must recognise that there is also a competition between men for female approval. This dynamic/power struggle is what we refer to as the mating game. Each sex is trying to impress/please the opposite sex! It is not wrong in any way, it is simply natural.

It's not that they are "brainwashed fools", but that they have internalised the misogynistic standards of society to such an extent that those values become their own. [...]
Give me a break. You really think that if 1000 men and 1000 women suddenly materialized somewhere, that the men would come together and agree that they would not like the women to be promiscuous???

Women have a vested, biological interest in making men stay with them. That is the reason behind this whole behaviour!

[...]
Also, I'm sceptical of the "women want love, men want sex" tradition [...]
Both sexes want love, that's not the point. The right difference to point out is: "Women want material support, men want sex".

After all, from an evolutionary standpoint, it also benefits men to care for a single mate and brood, so as to maximise the attention he can give and best ensure the success of his offspring. The harem has always been the habit of the upper classes, who's material privilege- not least the ability to delegate child-rearing to their social subordinates- allows such things.
You're only considering one male mating strategy here.

While it is true that one effective male mating strategy is to have offspring with a female and then stay around to support the female and her offspring with his resources, to make sure his offspring grows up.

Another, and equally effective, mating strategy, is to mate with lots of females and have many offspring, but not squandering his resources on any one. Simply by numbers, he is bound to have at least several of his offspring grow up.

While for females, there is only one possible strategy: Having her offspring and nurturing them until they grow up. This is of course easier done with a male to help support her and the offspring.

As such, men don't need to stay around, women have to. Thus, women were bound to develop ways of making a man stay with them and their kids. Since men can easily get enough grown kids by simply sleeping around enough, a possible way of making the man stay is to make sure there is no other women offering him sex.

See, now, that's a strawman, and a rather grand one at that. I never once used the term of referenced the concept of an "underclass" (it doesn't even make sense in this context, now or historically), my comments have been about social and cultural constructs, not formal or legal inequalities, I repeatedly addressed the fact that competition with each gender is a major factor in sustaining these constructs, and I have been primarily attempting to examine these constructs and discuss how they effect us (men and women), rather than to engage in anything so patronising as liberating the poor, oppressed wimmens from the evil he-man conspiracy.
Honestly, it's been the third-wave for a good twenty years now. If you can't keep up, leave me be! :rolleyes:
When you refer to women being less privileged than men, you ARE claiming they are an "underclass". If you want to change your stance to say that women (and men) are "different-class", then go ahead.

(I hate the word "slut". As far as I am concerned it denotes a woman who puts out to everyone else, except the one who employs that description.)
:lol:

I still think a good definition for a slut is a woman who has lower relative standards in what men she will sleep with than is common in her culture.
 
So you don't consider the sleeping around to be a problem, merely that it took time away from staying with specific girls you were more attracted to.
I consider it a massive waste of time and effort, so yeah, it was a problem. Though I wouldn't be averse to sleeping with many different women if I didn't have to make any sort of effort.
 
Spoiler :
99568719.png

I don't agree with it, at least thats what I tell girls I am trying to sleep with..

:evil:

Do you agree or not?


----------------------------------
EDIT: If you REALLY didn't realise, this was a JOKE to spark a DEBATE on the subject. It is not MY opinion on sexism.. sheesh!

In continental Europe this poster is outdated, this kind of common place belongs to at least 10 years ago (but I'm pretty sure it applies to GB as well). Now girls are much more gross than guys. They are gross in dressing, gross -close to disgusting- in how they speak, gross in how they move and act and gross in their relationships with guys, including sexual relationships. Does this now make the female sex the strong sex? I highly doubt it. Personally, it only makes me sad to witness the complete loss of femininity the world is experiencing thanks to the so called women emancipation. Women eradication is a better definition.
 
See, now, that's a strawman, and a rather grand one at that. I never once used the term of referenced the concept of an "underclass"

You don't need to. It's quite implicit in your comments that you are, in a subtle way, making women into the enforcers of a male-dominated systems of female oppression.

I repeatedly addressed the fact that competition with each gender is a major factor in sustaining these constructs, and I have been primarily attempting to examine these constructs and discuss how they effect us (men and women), rather than to engage in anything so patronising as liberating the poor, oppressed wimmens from the evil he-man conspiracy.

Academic double-speak if I've ever heard it. First it's female self-enforcement, then it's a Madonna-Whore dichotomy.

Mind you, btw, I am not ignorant on these topics, and it is not the first time I've heard them. I remember hearing the Madonna-Whore diatribe in 1992, and it sounded pretty dated even then. It suggests that men are so conflicted about their sexuality that they can't figure out if they want to have sex or not. Maybe this was a factor around 1000 AD, when religion made sex to be evil, and made both men and women feel guilty about having even sexual thoughts, but not today. Even by 1992, there had already been a sexual revolution so to suggest that it still goes on today, much less in 1992, in any significant degree, is laughable.

Honestly, it's been the third-wave for a good twenty years now. If you can't keep up, leave me be! :rolleyes:

Yeah, whatever.
 
Y
Mind you, btw, I am not ignorant on these topics, and it is not the first time I've heard them. I remember hearing the Madonna-Whore diatribe in 1992, and it sounded pretty dated even then. It suggests that men are so conflicted about their sexuality that they can't figure out if they want to have sex or not. Maybe this was a factor around 1000 AD, when religion made sex to be evil, and made both men and women feel guilty about having even sexual thoughts, but not today. Even by 1992, there had already been a sexual revolution so to suggest that it still goes on today, much less in 1992, in any significant degree, is laughable.
I readily believe that most men have problems. They are made to feel guilty by women if they have lots of sex (and women find out). They desire sex. Most men also desire commitment from a woman.
They want different things: easy sex and a passive, chaste and pure woman. The two are not easy to put together in one person
The easy sex is a biological drive: the desire for a 'pure' woman is entirely cultural.
Unless perhaps it's due to a deep mistrust of women, and hence the need for her to have proved her disdain for sex so that you can be sure that any time you invest in her children is invested in your children too.
Whether it's because of culture, insecurity or mistrust, it's a worthless construct.
 
First of all, I would like you to explain how treating men and women differently is "hateful".
It encourages hate, in that it demands conformity to and within prescribed genders, rewards active conformity and punishes dissent.

Secondly, I know I'm not a Dachs, but I do consider myself to have a fair understanding of history. I have no idea how you could infer that I was only thinking of European societies from those paragraphs, as I was clearly referring to the whole world throughout the text. Please refrain from being condescending and ridiculing. That being said, even though I did try to come up with some, I was, and still am, at a loss to come up with any societies that match the emboldened part of your statement. Since you apparently know of such cultures, I would appreciate if you would educate me on some of them.
Oh, there's a bunch- the Native Americans have the "Two-Spirits", people who are recognised as inter- or bi-gendered; Amerindians have many customs of Cogenderism; some Mesoamerican cultures recognised a third gender; the Indian subcontinent and South-East Asia has a long history of third/trans/inter-genderism, like the India Hijra or the Thai Kathoey; in much of the pre-Christian Middle East and Mediterranean, eunuchs were not regarded as men, but as a third gender; the Albanian hill-tribes entertain a form of transgenderism known as "Sworn virginity"; many tribal societies in India, Africa and the Americas are gynocentric, which is to say female centred (although not matriarchal, and usually patriachal), and in the "pre-civilisation era" were widely found in other parts of the world, e.g. the Ancient Britons; China has a long history of transgenderism; that do?

And I am sorry if I sounded condescending, but this a point on which many people stick. The interaction aspect of one's own culture are often unthinkingly assumed to be the universal default (and I am as guilty of that as anyone else!), leading people to make That's-Just-The-Way-Things-Are remarks that can be easily refuted, if only they were made aware of all the Aren'ts.

Traditional precedent does not in itself give legitimacy of course. My point was that if several different methods are tried out, and one seems to be the most successful, then it can be argued that that method is the best one.
All it demonstrates that it has been most successfully sustained; it doesn't suggest for a second that it is the most preferable for all involved, or that it is best suited to modern society. Not long ago, racial privileging was seen as a reasonable and well-establish system for all concerned; we've changed out tune about that one, haven't we?

I do not see different standards for the sexes as a form of tyranny, and anyone is free to break the standards, I am free to say what I think about it, and we are all free to accept the consequences.
The privileged are often the last to recognise the softer tyrannies for what the are.

(And it's "genders". "Sexes" are biological, not social.)

And how the hell you claim that something is invisible when you obviously see it, and complain when others see it in a different way, I have no idea.
By "invisible" I mean "in-obvious". It was not intended literally.

A caste system is acceptable if there are real differences between the castes. I recognise that there are inherent differences between men and women, and as such, I think different standards for men and women is the right position to take.
"Inherent differences"? What, you mean sexual organs? I'm not really sure why that should dictate social prescriptions. Why not let people figure this out for themselves?

And just like anyone is free to break any convention in society, so is anyone free to break these conventions. Anyone who breaks conventions has to deal with the consequences of course, whether they are legal or simply social.
"Of course negroes are free- a negroe can sleep with any white woman he likes! I mean, sure, he has to deal with the various rope-based consequences afterwards, but, c'mon, we're all adults here." :rolleyes:

And finally, I'm pretty tired of people like you talking about men being "privileged" all the time. That is simply not true. There are different standards, and thus different rights/privileges and duties for each sex. For men, I did point out that they are expected to be the provider, to be the ones to take responsibility, to be strong, to defend their family and society, to risk - or even sacrifice - their lives when needed. Talk about privilege.
You self-evidently don't know what "privilege" means in this context. It does not refer to a specific list of social advantages, but to the collective favouring of one group over another. "Female privilege", as the weeping reactionary would have it, is actually a form of benevolent sexism, one which denies women agency.
Besides, no-one ever said that male privilege was actually good for men- it's not! It demands the constant reaffirmation of masculinity, which leads men to self-repressive and even destructive behaviour. Patriarchy, as the saying goes, hurts men too.

Oh, and noting that you're from the UK, you should be happy, as it seems your compatriots may soon make sure men are the only sex with the privilege to go to prison.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1311004/Judges-ordered-mercy-women-criminals-deciding-sentences.html
I am not even sure what point you are trying to make here. That women are advantaged because society treats them as weaker, and condescends to them as such? Is that equality, in your mind? :huh:

It's not that simple.

Let me outline some basics:
1. By nature, most women want to be provided for or at least have the extra economic security a man can provide.
2. By nature, most men want sex. Furthermore, men value sex with a non-promiscuous woman more than with a promiscuous woman, assuming they're equal in other aspects.
3. Thus, most women are best served by appearing less promiscuous to make a man stay with them, and by trying to influence other women to be less promiscuous to make the option of leaving her less desirable for a man.

If you want to challenge (1) or (2), go ahead. I'll be out watching for flying pigs. If you accept (1) and (2), but think (3) does not follow, I would like to hear why.
"By nature"? What on Earth is "nature"? Biology, society, what? And upon what grounds are you making these assertions? Certainly not personal experience, unless you have- somehow- happened to meet certain people who have never, ever had any contact with the rest of humanity.

You are mixing two different sets of Alpha/Beta here. One is the Alpha/Beta dynamic between men as to who is the leader and who is the follower. That is outside of this discussion.

The other is the Alpha/Beta categories of men when it comes to sexual attraction. In their most perverse forms, these two categories become the Jerk/Nice guy. Women are attracted to the Alphas, and not the Betas. The way for Alphas and Betas to get a girl is the same, its only that the Alpha does it correctly, the Beta doesn't. Outside of the mating game, it doesn't matter if a guy is sexually Alpha or Beta.

With no rules (the opposition to jerks, the slut-shaming, etc.), in its most exaggerated form, we end up with all women trying to be closer to the Whore, while only having sex with the Jerk who has no reason to commit at all, and the Nice guy getting no sex (or even commitment). While that is a great time for the Jerk, and great some of the time for each woman, that is not a healthy society.
Alpha/Beta, in this context, refers to the system of competition by which masculinity is affirmed. It isn't a formal in-group/out-group, but an attitude towards masculinity and maleness which privileges the overtly masculine, and punishes the insufficiently masculine and the feminine. It's a male thing, rather than an inter-gender thing; to women, all non-Omega men (outcasts, most prominently (although somewhat out-datedly) homosexuals) are socially superior, it is simply that men with greater privilege within their gender can extent greater privilege to her, and so is recognised as preferable. (Not that this is the entirety of human relationship dynamics- good lord, no!- it's just how this sort of thing plays into it.)

And, honestly, the whole "Nice Guy/Jerk" thing is kinda crap, anyway. It's a distorted Beta-view of the Alpha/Beta system, and reeks more than a little of bitterness. It's really no surprise that, among women, "Nice Guy" is code for "actually a self-entitled jerkoff".

Well, to be fair, making a leap from clothing to what kind of the wearer is, isn't exactly limited to the sexual viewpoint. Do you think this is wrong in general, or just when it comes to judging women's sexual morals from clothing?
I think it's illogical. It simply does not follow; how can "sluttiness" be inferred from dress? It makes no sense, and thus serves only as a moral condemnation. Aside from anything else, it's entirely unobjective, given that different people have subjective notions of sexuality, including sluttiness.

I disagree that sex is something men do, and women experience. Sex is something both sexes do, but that men must work harder to achieve than women, and, biologically speaking, that the goal of getting sex is more valuable (as in rarer or harder to achieve) to men than to women.
I was talking about the social side of sex, in which men are seen as active and women as passive. Obviously, it is an activity in which both take part, as if I would question that.

Well, I don't have contempt for women, but if your definition of misogyny means "contempt for women who are sexually active", I'll try and remember that.
Did I call you a misogynist? I don't recall doing. However, if I did, I would've meant the first definition, given that the second- assuming a lack of similar contempt for men- follows from it. Please don't twist my words.

For the record:
- A "slut" is a woman with relatively lower standards for who she will sleep with and who thus sleeps with relatively more men.
- A "whore" is a woman who sleeps with men for money.

I don't need to put any moral value into these. I will note that a slut is great if I want sex, but I'm less likely to want a relationship with her. The same goes for a whore of course, but instead of time and money to socialize, in that case one just needs money.
"Whore", in this context, is non-literal. It's just the name of that side of the dynamic, taken from it's most extreme example of the archetype (via the Madonna-Whore Complex, a related but distinct concept in psychology).

Alright, refresh my memory. Tell me what social privileges does men have that women don't have?

I can then try to match you with some that women have and men don't. :)
As I explained above, "privilege" does not refer to a series of discreet privileges, but a system in which the experiences of an in-group are favoured over an out-group.

Of course they get their sexual value indirectly from men - that is precisely why there is a mating game. Conversely, it is not men who decide who is sexually Alpha and Beta. That decision lies with the women they are trying to game. This is the whole concept of a sexually dimorphic specie: Each sex is trying to impress/please the opposite sex!
Well, firstly, see my comments on Alpha/Beta above.
Secondly, I'm not sure what you mean by "sexual value". I was talking about social privilege and social validation, and the fact that men are collectively and, to an extent, individually self-validating, while women are traditionally obliged to seek validation through men (validation could always, of course, be sought through women other women, but it would have little to no weight outside of women's spaces, while male validation was assumed to be universal).

You think there should be no standard to adhere to when it comes to clothing? You see no problem in going to a business meeting and the man greeting you is wearing sweatpants and a dirty t-shirt?
I don't think you really understood the point I was making. It was about gender-coding or social prescriptions of appropriate sexuality, not about general presentability.

Sure - that means much easier and much more free sex for all the Alphas.

It's not a good thing for society as a whole. Nor do I think it is good for most women in the longer perspective.

But whatever. I get free sex.
I don't actually know what these things which you are saying are supposed to mean. I am not convinced that you understand the references I was making.

I have no problem with a woman asking me out. But traditionally women have the social privilege of being the one who is being asked, and is thus free to accept or decline. Taking on the role of the one who is asking, and revealing ones interest, and risking humiliation from a decline, is not something most women wants to do. But I think a lot of men would like to not having to do it.
Well, the mislabelling of enforced social passivity as "privet", aside, I'm not sure I see your point: People who are invested in traditional social models likes the models? No crap?

I know I said this previously in my post, but I'll repeat myself just in case.

a)
The biological reason for women to shame other women into being less promiscuous is:

1. By nature, most women want to be provided for or at least have the extra economic security a man can provide.
2. By nature, most men want sex. Furthermore, men value sex with a non-promiscuous woman more than with a promiscuous woman, assuming they're equal in other aspects.
3. Thus, most women are best served by appearing less promiscuous to make a man stay with them, and by trying to influence other women to be less promiscuous to make the option of leaving her less desirable for a man.

b)
The sexual Alpha/Beta categorisation is different from the male hierarchy Alpha/Beta categorisation. And while they may be correlated, that is not by causation.

c)
Men are grouped into the sexual Alpha/Beta categories by women. While you can claim the Madonna/Whore dynamic is a competition for male approval, you must recognise that there is also a competition between men for female approval. This dynamic/power struggle is what we refer to as the mating game. Each sex is trying to impress/please the opposite sex! It is not wrong in any way, it is simply natural.
This was mostly addressed elsewhere. If I'm missing anything, tell me.

Give me a break. You really think that if 1000 men and 1000 women suddenly materialized somewhere, that the men would come together and agree that they would not like the women to be promiscuous???
I have no idea what the men would do. When my whole argument is that this sort of thing is derived from social constructs, I can't make any assumptions about these people.

Women have a vested, biological interest in making men stay with them. That is the reason behind this whole behaviour!
And men don't have a "vested, biological interest" in female monogamy? Are you forgetting which one actually gives birth here?

Both sexes want love, that's not the point. The right difference to point out is: "Women want material support, men want sex".
I didn't realise that both genders were monolithic hive-minds. :huh:

You're only considering one male mating strategy here.

While it is true that one effective male mating strategy is to have offspring with a female and then stay around to support the female and her offspring with his resources, to make sure his offspring grows up.

Another, and equally effective, mating strategy, is to mate with lots of females and have many offspring, but not squandering his resources on any one. Simply by numbers, he is bound to have at least several of his offspring grow up.

While for females, there is only one possible strategy: Having her offspring and nurturing them until they grow up. This is of course easier done with a male to help support her and the offspring.

As such, men don't need to stay around, women have to. Thus, women were bound to develop ways of making a man stay with them and their kids. Since men can easily get enough grown kids by simply sleeping around enough, a possible way of making the man stay is to make sure there is no other women offering him sex.
Of course, this assumes that it's an either/or proposition for men, which isn't always the case, especially in the high levels of society. (Potentially, polygamy could be equally viable for women, if society didn't demand that they rely on a single male for support, a result of the inability of men to accurately ascertain (until recently, anyway) the parentage of children.)

When you refer to women being less privileged than men, you ARE claiming they are an "underclass". If you want to change your stance to say that women (and men) are "different-class", then go ahead.
"Out-group" and "underclass" are not interchangeable concepts. The latter implies universal inferiority, which is obviously not the case here- while women, collectively, are treated as inferior to men, that is just one of many intersecting systems of privilege- race, sexuality, religion, disability- some of which may rank certain women above certain men.

Jesus Christ, people really hate having their privilege pointed out to them. "When I ask why the poor have no food..." :rolleyes:

Also, @Nanocyborgasm: Meh. You're clearly not interested in this, so let's just leave it.
 
I must admit that it sounds odd to be told that one has privilege when in those situations one is treated fairly.
I think a better way of breaking the news is to explain that women still suffer social control. Privilege to me is an advantage beyond the normal; the OED calls it 'a benefit above that deemed usual or necessary'. Obviously it's hard to define a 'normal' when it's split roughly half-way, but I'd assume 'fair' to be a fair stand-in. And really, when men have freedom and women don't, the problem is not that we need to control men too, but that we need to lift our restraints on women.

OED: A right, advantage, or immunity granted to or enjoyed by an individual, corporation of individuals, etc., beyond the usual rights or advantages of others; spec. (a) an exemption from a normal duty, liability, etc.; (b) enjoyment of some benefit (as wealth, education, standard of living, etc.) above the average or that deemed usual or necessary for a particular group (in pl. sometimes contrasted with rights).
 
I readily believe that most men have problems. They are made to feel guilty by women if they have lots of sex (and women find out). They desire sex. Most men also desire commitment from a woman.
They want different things: easy sex and a passive, chaste and pure woman. The two are not easy to put together in one person
The easy sex is a biological drive: the desire for a 'pure' woman is entirely cultural.
Unless perhaps it's due to a deep mistrust of women, and hence the need for her to have proved her disdain for sex so that you can be sure that any time you invest in her children is invested in your children too.
Whether it's because of culture, insecurity or mistrust, it's a worthless construct.

Your comments are mostly dated, and reflect the concerns of a previous generation, or certain religious subcultures.
 
I wonder if people like Nanocyborgasm really believe that we live in the post-sexist utopia they seem to envision, or if they are just so blinded by privilege they can't quite bring themselves to look around.


Link to video.

:mischief:
 
This is getting to be a lot. Our posts are to big to reply to in a timely fashion.

I'm gonna reorganise your replies so that I can answer them in fewer paragraphs so we can spend less time on getting through each post.

It encourages hate, in that it demands conformity to and within prescribed genders, rewards active conformity and punishes dissent.
Oh, there's a bunch- the Native Americans have the "Two-Spirits", people who are recognised as inter- or bi-gendered; Amerindians have many customs of Cogenderism; some Mesoamerican cultures recognised a third gender; the Indian subcontinent and South-East Asia has a long history of third/trans/inter-genderism, like the India Hijra or the Thai Kathoey; in much of the pre-Christian Middle East and Mediterranean, eunuchs were not regarded as men, but as a third gender; the Albanian hill-tribes entertain a form of transgenderism known as "Sworn virginity"; many tribal societies in India, Africa and the Americas are gynocentric, which is to say female centred (although not matriarchal, and usually patriachal), and in the "pre-civilisation era" were widely found in other parts of the world, e.g. the Ancient Britons; China has a long history of transgenderism; that do?
And I am sorry if I sounded condescending, but this a point on which many people stick. The interaction aspect of one's own culture are often unthinkingly assumed to be the universal default (and I am as guilty of that as anyone else!), leading people to make That's-Just-The-Way-Things-Are remarks that can be easily refuted, if only they were made aware of all the Aren'ts.
All it demonstrates that it has been most successfully sustained; it doesn't suggest for a second that it is the most preferable for all involved, or that it is best suited to modern society. Not long ago, racial privileging was seen as a reasonable and well-establish system for all concerned; we've changed out tune about that one, haven't we?
Fascinating links. Thanks. And no problem about the accusation of condescension. I was abit more emotional last time than I usually are. I can understand where you were coming from with that reply.

However, after having read your links, my objection still stands. Yes, you show several societies that are more tolerant than other historical societies, of people who step out of the male/female roles. But notice that those "outsiders" most notably go outside because of their sexuality. And that they are always a very small minority in their societies, who were still running on normal expectations.

There was no indication (quite the opposite in fact, i.e. in the Albanian case) that the social expectations of males and the social expectations of females were different. There was simply the possibility of defining oneself as being not-male or not-female. If I didn't make myself clear previously, let me try again:

The expectations that I postulated of males and females are, to a greater or lesser extent, the same expectations of males and females that are found in every human society. Because of the great variations in human cultures, that has been necessitated by the different environments, and the small variation in expectations of the sexes, I find it reasonable to assume that what differences in expectations that there are, are grounded in our different sexual dimorphic biologies and is the product of our evolution.

Thus, I can not find it wrong to keep these expectations, though I'll readily agree that there is a balance to be found. Having women own property, having legal rights and being independent of their male relatives is not a bad thing. And there are plenty of human societies who has been that way and thrived. There are none that have removed all differing expectations of males and females.

The privileged are often the last to recognise the softer tyrannies for what the are.
"Of course negroes are free- a negroe can sleep with any white woman he likes! I mean, sure, he has to deal with the various rope-based consequences afterwards, but, c'mon, we're all adults here." :rolleyes:
You self-evidently don't know what "privilege" means in this context. It does not refer to a specific list of social advantages, but to the collective favouring of one group over another. "Female privilege", as the weeping reactionary would have it, is actually a form of benevolent sexism, one which denies women agency.
Besides, no-one ever said that male privilege was actually good for men- it's not! It demands the constant reaffirmation of masculinity, which leads men to self-repressive and even destructive behaviour. Patriarchy, as the saying goes, hurts men too.
As I explained above, "privilege" does not refer to a series of discreet privileges, but a system in which the experiences of an in-group are favoured over an out-group.
Well, the mislabelling of enforced social passivity as "privet", aside, I'm not sure I see your point: People who are invested in traditional social models likes the models? No crap?

I first have to comment that I find it a bit weird that you will label something you claim is not good for men as "male privilege". There seems to be an inconsistency in your terms.

And comparing potential social stigma to lynching of Negroes is simply too much hyperbole. There is a difference between thinking less of someone and attacking the life and property of a fellow man.

Finally, you said my experiences are favoured over the experiences of women as a description of male privilege, and that privilege is in no way a specific list. However, I would still like you to list some forms of privilege that men have and women don't (or vise-versa). If you can not make your accusations about male privilege any more concrete than that it is an abstract "collective favouring of one group over another", I find it hard to take your claim of male privilege seriously.

(And it's "genders". "Sexes" are biological, not social.)
"Inherent differences"? What, you mean sexual organs? I'm not really sure why that should dictate social prescriptions. Why not let people figure this out for themselves?
"By nature"? What on Earth is "nature"? Biology, society, what? And upon what grounds are you making these assertions? Certainly not personal experience, unless you have- somehow- happened to meet certain people who have never, ever had any contact with the rest of humanity.
I have no idea what the men would do. When my whole argument is that this sort of thing is derived from social constructs, I can't make any assumptions about these people.
And men don't have a "vested, biological interest" in female monogamy? Are you forgetting which one actually gives birth here?
I didn't realise that both genders were monolithic hive-minds. :huh:
Of course, this assumes that it's an either/or proposition for men, which isn't always the case, especially in the high levels of society. (Potentially, polygamy could be equally viable for women, if society didn't demand that they rely on a single male for support, a result of the inability of men to accurately ascertain (until recently, anyway) the parentage of children.)
Exactly! The sexes are biological! That is the crux of this issue. When I talk about nature, I refer to the biological and natural evolutionary origins of humans.

I see you state that your "whole argument is that this sort of thing is derived from social constructs". That is quite telling. From one of your previous links I came to a page about Patriarchy and a paragraph beginning:
Most sociologists reject predominantly biological explanations of patriarchy and contend that social and cultural conditioning is primarily responsible for establishing male and female gender roles. According to standard sociological theory, patriarchy is the result of sociological constructions that are passed down from generation to generation.
I suppose you agree with "most sociologist". I do not. I think they are being unrealistic and willingly ignorant of the biological side of humans.

I can of course agree with them that customs, such as social and cultural conditioning, can be passed down from parents to children, however, I think people arguing that fundamentally fails to recognise that such customs must have occurred somehow. And seeing as they are the same all over the world, it is logically to assume that they must have their roots in human biology, and human sexual dimorphic biology.

There are greater biological differences between human males and females than simply our visible sexual organs. If you need to refresh on this, I suggest Wikipedia's article on Sexual dimorphism, especially the section about humans. Of course we are not "hiveminds", as you try to disparage it. However, we are animals. We have instincts and the sexes have different needs and wants rooted in their differing biologies.

Now, as you contended, both of the two mating strategies I discussed can work, and it is of course possible to mix them. And throughout or history they have mostly been mixed, as can be read in the Wikipedia article: "The sexes differ more in human beings than in monogamous mammals, but much less than in extremely polygamous mammals."

Biologically speaking, human males can increase their chances of success if they can impregnate many females. As such, they are biologically always ready for sex, and always wants sex. Furthermore, by using their resources, they can make sure that their offspring are better off, so it can also be a viable strategy to stay with a female and their common offspring.

However, the male can't know if the offspring is really his! And if not, he would be wasting his resources on raising some other males offspring. As such, a male would be evolutionary smarter to mate, stay with and provide for a non-promiscuous female, who he can be more sure won't ****old him. Regardless of whether he also impregnate other females.

Biologically speaking, human females are the ones stuck with child rearing if they want to see their offspring succeed. Thus, they will increase their chances of succeeding if they can get a man to help provide and protect her and the offspring. Human female polygamy on the other hand serves no purpose. She will not get the male to provide for her offspring if they doubt the offspring are theirs, and she can only give birth to one child a year (in general) no matter how many mates she has. Of course, any female would like the possibility of several men providing for her and her offspring, but as she can only expect a maximum of one male to do so, she is best served with mating - and keeping! - the most high-status male she can convince to stay with her.

These inherent biological differences between men and women are what founds the basis for our current social expectations for the sexes.

Alpha/Beta, in this context, refers to the system of competition by which masculinity is affirmed. It isn't a formal in-group/out-group, but an attitude towards masculinity and maleness which privileges the overtly masculine, and punishes the insufficiently masculine and the feminine. It's a male thing, rather than an inter-gender thing; to women, all non-Omega men (outcasts, most prominently (although somewhat out-datedly) homosexuals) are socially superior, it is simply that men with greater privilege within their gender can extent greater privilege to her, and so is recognised as preferable. (Not that this is the entirety of human relationship dynamics- good lord, no!- it's just how this sort of thing plays into it.)

And, honestly, the whole "Nice Guy/Jerk" thing is kinda crap, anyway. It's a distorted Beta-view of the Alpha/Beta system, and reeks more than a little of bitterness. It's really no surprise that, among women, "Nice Guy" is code for "actually a self-entitled jerkoff".
Well, firstly, see my comments on Alpha/Beta above.
Secondly, I'm not sure what you mean by "sexual value". I was talking about social privilege and social validation, and the fact that men are collectively and, to an extent, individually self-validating, while women are traditionally obliged to seek validation through men (validation could always, of course, be sought through women other women, but it would have little to no weight outside of women's spaces, while male validation was assumed to be universal).
I still say you are mixing two concepts here. While they are related, it is more by correlation than by causation.

Among men, the Alpha is the leader and the Beta is the follower. While you can say that this is arrangement is a positivistic attitude to masculinity, remember that masculinity encompasses precisely the traits that makes a good leader. I suppose one could even argue that is how we defined the concept of masculinity. That the competition for leadership involves men for most situations, is simply because men have a greater tendency and need for competition, and are better served by getting higher up in the hierarchy.

It is more important for men to get higher up the hierarchy because then they will command more resources, which in turn makes women find them more desirable. Women, on the other hand, have a much greater chance of propagating by simply not sticking their necks out too much (This is because, even though rising in the hierarchy is a good thing, anyone who tries to rise faces the risk of falling out of the hierarchy altogether. As women can be generally sure they will get a mate anyway, the risk-benefit-analysis advices not trying to climb the hierarchy).

However, when it comes to the mating game, the sexual Alpha and the sexual Beta is not necessarily the same as the leadership Alpha and Beta. In prehistoric times it probably was, but nowadays it is only weakly correlated. Men who act as Alphas would have done in prehistory are the sexual Alphas, because that is what women are instinctively attracted to. Of course, many leader Alphas of today also act like Alphas, but many do not.

The "Jerks" act as they are prehistoric Alphas, whether or not they are leader Alphas in todays world. All the "Nice guys" who think they are good, relatively successful men do not get the sexual validation they desire from women. They are called Nice guys because women will tell them that they are nice (they really are), but because the way they are acting they have no sexual potential and are not desired by women. However much men are able to validate themselves amongst men (and women among women), when it comes to the sexual market it is still women who hand out the validations to men. Just as men are the ones to sexually validate women. Of course, when Nice guys are constantly deprived of sexual validation they can easily turn into "a self-entitled jerkoff".

And before anyone says something, acting like a prehistoric Alpha does not mean being a brute and clubbing a woman on her head before carrying her back to the cave! That didn't work in prehistoric times, and it doesn't work today. ;)



------------

These last points I'm not sure if we should bother with anymore, as I feel they are only tangentially interesting for our discussion. If you feel like replying to any of them, I may or may not reply to them the next time.

I am not even sure what point you are trying to make here. That women are advantaged because society treats them as weaker, and condescends to them as such? Is that equality, in your mind? :huh:
Eh, this is actually a bit off-topic, but I had just come over the article and wanted to post it. If you feel like going on with this, you can read my response in the spoiler. Otherwise just ignore it - our debate is confusing enough as it is, I should have brought this up at another time.
Spoiler :
No, my point is that that is "equality" in the mind of your 3rd wave compatriots.

Though to me they seem mostly like hypocrites, by first complaining about being treated unequally:
Updated guidance on how to sentence female criminals was distributed in April in a new section on ‘gender equality’.

It told judges: ‘Women remain disadvantaged in many public and private areas of their life; they are under-represented in the judiciary, Parliament and senior positions
across a range of jobs; and there is still a substantial pay gap between men and women.’
And in the next instance demanding inequality when it suits them:
‘Women’s experiences as victims, witnesses and offenders are in many respects different to those of men,’ according to the Equal Treatment Bench Book.

‘These differences highlight the importance of the need for sentencers to bear these matters in mind when sentencing.’
I think it's illogical. It simply does not follow; how can "sluttiness" be inferred from dress? It makes no sense, and thus serves only as a moral condemnation. Aside from anything else, it's entirely unobjective, given that different people have subjective notions of sexuality, including sluttiness.
I don't think you really understood the point I was making. It was about gender-coding or social prescriptions of appropriate sexuality, not about general presentability.
Well, of course slutiness is relative. That's not my point. Every single animal judges other beings by appearance. Humans are no different. That we look on a persons appearance and make inferences about how that person is happens all the time, regardless of whether the person is a potentially provocatively dressed woman. If a woman's clothing may make another person think she is slutty, that person (depending on what kind of person it is of course) may say something.

"Whore", in this context, is non-literal. It's just the name of that side of the dynamic, taken from it's most extreme example of the archetype (via the Madonna-Whore Complex, a related but distinct concept in psychology).
Sorry, this is my bad. I've sometimes come across discussions of what the difference of a slut and a whore is, so when I give the definition of one I tend to give the other as well. It didn't connect that we were also talking about the Madonna/Whore stereotype in this discussion. Please disregard.

I wonder if people like Nanocyborgasm really believe that we live in the post-sexist utopia they seem to envision, or if they are just so blinded by privilege they can't quite bring themselves to look around.


Link to video.

:mischief:
:lol:
 
This is getting to be a lot. Our posts are to big to reply to in a timely fashion.

I'm gonna reorganise your replies so that I can answer them in fewer paragraphs so we can spend less time on getting through each post.
Good call. ;)


Fascinating links. Thanks. And no problem about the accusation of condescension. I was abit more emotional last time than I usually are. I can understand where you were coming from with that reply.

However, after having read your links, my objection still stands. Yes, you show several societies that are more tolerant than other historical societies, of people who step out of the male/female roles. But notice that those "outsiders" most notably go outside because of their sexuality. And that they are always a very small minority in their societies, who were still running on normal expectations.

There was no indication (quite the opposite in fact, i.e. in the Albanian case) that the social expectations of males and the social expectations of females were different. There was simply the possibility of defining oneself as being not-male or not-female.
I think you may misunderstand; the individuals in question were, generally, members of a specific, formally defined gender with a clear social role, rather than being of no gender, representing a broader view of gender, rather than a looser set of gender roles- tellingly, explicit intergenderism, rather than third genderism or transgenderism, only seems to emerge when it correlates with a form of religiously-derived social elevation. Certainly, I would argue that you are over-simplifying the issue by reducing it to one of sexuality, which is a distinct concept from gender in all societies; aside from anything else, in most cases, the existence of third genders creates a form of socially acceptable homosexuality, so it's eveidently (not to mention, of course, those who were explicitly asexual, as the sworn virgins, or effectively so, such as eunuchs), so it can not be assumed to be a peculiar quirk of the third gendered individuals in particular.
My point wasn't to prove that gender is entirely arbitrary, or that it does not bear a certain consistency over human society, merely that it is not as set-in-stone or as self-evidently derived from biology as we may think. The above all are fairly conclusive evidence that humans do not necessarily arrive at a system of strict biological determinism in these matters, even if it is common.

If I didn't make myself clear previously, let me try again:

The expectations that I postulated of males and females are, to a greater or lesser extent, the same expectations of males and females that are found in every human society. Because of the great variations in human cultures, that has been necessitated by the different environments, and the small variation in expectations of the sexes, I find it reasonable to assume that what differences in expectations that there are, are grounded in our different sexual dimorphic biologies and is the product of our evolution.

Thus, I can not find it wrong to keep these expectations, though I'll readily agree that there is a balance to be found. Having women own property, having legal rights and being independent of their male relatives is not a bad thing. And there are plenty of human societies who has been that way and thrived. There are none that have removed all differing expectations of males and females.
The problem is that gender is a social construct- whether or not you are argue it to be biologically derived or preferable, this you must accept- and, when prescribed, it acts to control and channel the behaviour of it's members into pre-determined avenues, thus robbing them of agency. The system of prescriptive gender dictate "acceptable" models of behaviour not derived from an end goal of individual fulfilment and satisfaction, but from a set of archaic and outdated environmental demands (some would even argue that traditional gender roles are distorted exaggerations of the original forms, but that's another debate).
Now, that's not to say that gender is, in itself, a bad thing- certainly, I can't see us doing away with it any time soon- simply that the form it takes is better rendered as subscriptive and malleable, an expression of shared experience, rather than an expectation of shared behaviour ; a forum, not a courthouse.

I first have to comment that I find it a bit weird that you will label something you claim is not good for men as "male privilege". There seems to be an inconsistency in your terms.
In certain usages, perhaps, but not in this; privelege, remember, originally referred to a position of social superiority- the word itself means "private law", a reference to the legal freedoms of the nobility- and so may also be used to refer to a form of status, rather than an discreet "item" of advantage. In this case, it refers to the system by which the interests of men are placed above those of women and other non-men, and is a major component of the social structure known as "patriarchy", a term which indicates male dominance (noting that it is patriarchy, rather than male privilege per se, that is harmful to men).

And comparing potential social stigma to lynching of Negroes is simply too much hyperbole. There is a difference between thinking less of someone and attacking the life and property of a fellow man.
The hyperbole was intentionally- a rhetorical flourish, call it- but, at a basic level, the analogy holds, as both represent the objectification of an other human being, the demand that they conform to prescribed expectations, rather than the allowance that they act in a personally fulfilling manner. Oppression is oppression, however subtle the tyrant may be.

Finally, you said my experiences are favoured over the experiences of women as a description of male privilege, and that privilege is in no way a specific list. However, I would still like you to list some forms of privilege that men have and women don't (or vise-versa). If you can not make your accusations about male privilege any more concrete than that it is an abstract "collective favouring of one group over another", I find it hard to take your claim of male privilege seriously.
Again, it is a system of social ranking, rather than a list of discreet privileges, so that is hard to do. However, I could give you some examples of male privilege, the most obvious being the traditional notion of "masculinity" as the collective possession of strength, dynamism and assertiveness, and "femininity" as weakness, passivity and non-assertiveness, which itself generates much of the power dynamic between the two. (Noting, of course, that this concept is not universal to human culture- in some, masculinity and femininity were framed as different kinds of power- it's simply the most obvious example in Western culture.) An example of this is the contradiction between the "stud" and the "slut", both essentially being examples of sexual assertiveness, but the former being an at least approximately positive notion and a recognition of masculinity, but the latter being an explicitly pejorative one with strong overtones of improperly masculine or un-feminine behaviour, and for which the superficial definition of "promiscuous individual" is more readily and more frequently waved.

(And, yes, that should have been "privileged", not "privet". One is a position of social superiority, the other a plant used in hedging, although, oddly enough, the British have traditionally used the latter as a symbol of the former. Typoes work in mysterious ways! ;))

Exactly! The sexes are biological! That is the crux of this issue. When I talk about nature, I refer to the biological and natural evolutionary origins of humans.
Well, the sexes may be, yes (that is an entire debate in itself!), but not the genders. They are more or less explicitly constructed. After all, think of a species of animal that we explicitly gender in the absence of fairly blatant sexual dimorphism (and by which I mean divide into discreet genders, rather than broadly conflate with gender in the " dogs are male/cats are female" manner). There's a reason, I think, why we draw a linguistic distinction between "male" (as a noun) and "man".

I see you state that your "whole argument is that this sort of thing is derived from social constructs". That is quite telling. From one of your previous links I came to a page about Patriarchy and a paragraph beginning:
Most sociologists reject predominantly biological explanations of patriarchy and contend that social and cultural conditioning is primarily responsible for establishing male and female gender roles. According to standard sociological theory, patriarchy is the result of sociological constructions that are passed down from generation to generation.
I suppose you agree with "most sociologist". I do not. I think they are being unrealistic and willingly ignorant of the biological side of humans.
Well, yes, I agree with the people who actually know about this subject, who have studied it at length, and are subject to a fairly rigorous system of validation and peer review. Is that deficient of me, in some way? :huh:
Honestly, we're getting into "evolution is just a theory" territory here. :mischief:

I can of course agree with them that customs, such as social and cultural conditioning, can be passed down from parents to children, however, I think people arguing that fundamentally fails to recognise that such customs must have occurred somehow. And seeing as they are the same all over the world, it is logically to assume that they must have their roots in human biology, and human sexual dimorphic biology.

There are greater biological differences between human males and females than simply our visible sexual organs. If you need to refresh on this, I suggest Wikipedia's article on Sexual dimorphism, especially the section about humans. Of course we are not "hiveminds", as you try to disparage it. However, we are animals. We have instincts and the sexes have different needs and wants rooted in their differing biologies.

Now, as you contended, both of the two mating strategies I discussed can work, and it is of course possible to mix them. And throughout or history they have mostly been mixed, as can be read in the Wikipedia article: "The sexes differ more in human beings than in monogamous mammals, but much less than in extremely polygamous mammals."

Biologically speaking, human males can increase their chances of success if they can impregnate many females. As such, they are biologically always ready for sex, and always wants sex. Furthermore, by using their resources, they can make sure that their offspring are better off, so it can also be a viable strategy to stay with a female and their common offspring.

However, the male can't know if the offspring is really his! And if not, he would be wasting his resources on raising some other males offspring. As such, a male would be evolutionary smarter to mate, stay with and provide for a non-promiscuous female, who he can be more sure won't ****old him. Regardless of whether he also impregnate other females.

Biologically speaking, human females are the ones stuck with child rearing if they want to see their offspring succeed. Thus, they will increase their chances of succeeding if they can get a man to help provide and protect her and the offspring. Human female polygamy on the other hand serves no purpose. She will not get the male to provide for her offspring if they doubt the offspring are theirs, and she can only give birth to one child a year (in general) no matter how many mates she has. Of course, any female would like the possibility of several men providing for her and her offspring, but as she can only expect a maximum of one male to do so, she is best served with mating - and keeping! - the most high-status male she can convince to stay with her.

These inherent biological differences between men and women are what founds the basis for our current social expectations for the sexes.
Oh, I certainly don't disagree that we based our concept of gender on the biological sexes, I just think that constructing a binary, prescriptive model of gender out of it is irrational, repressive and overwhelmingly harmful for all concerned. After all, what you describe is a rough approximation of a primitive human society, not a description of modern human society, even with all those prescriptions of gender which we have retained! What's to say that the traditional model is relevant to our society, if not actively damaging? After all, a strict tribalism was also characteristic of such societies, yet we can both agree that both that and the derived attitudes (racism, sectarianism, xenophobia, etc.) are incompatible with an effective modern society. I certainly can't see someone with no vested interested in either side coming out in favour of, say, the Northern Irish Troubles, and, even then, not as an explicit defence of tribalism.

I still say you are mixing two concepts here. While they are related, it is more by correlation than by causation.

Among men, the Alpha is the leader and the Beta is the follower. While you can say that this is arrangement is a positivistic attitude to masculinity, remember that masculinity encompasses precisely the traits that makes a good leader. I suppose one could even argue that is how we defined the concept of masculinity. That the competition for leadership involves men for most situations, is simply because men have a greater tendency and need for competition, and are better served by getting higher up in the hierarchy.

It is more important for men to get higher up the hierarchy because then they will command more resources, which in turn makes women find them more desirable. Women, on the other hand, have a much greater chance of propagating by simply not sticking their necks out too much (This is because, even though rising in the hierarchy is a good thing, anyone who tries to rise faces the risk of falling out of the hierarchy altogether. As women can be generally sure they will get a mate anyway, the risk-benefit-analysis advices not trying to climb the hierarchy).

However, when it comes to the mating game, the sexual Alpha and the sexual Beta is not necessarily the same as the leadership Alpha and Beta. In prehistoric times it probably was, but nowadays it is only weakly correlated. Men who act as Alphas would have done in prehistory are the sexual Alphas, because that is what women are instinctively attracted to. Of course, many leader Alphas of today also act like Alphas, but many do not.

The "Jerks" act as they are prehistoric Alphas, whether or not they are leader Alphas in todays world. All the "Nice guys" who think they are good, relatively successful men do not get the sexual validation they desire from women. They are called Nice guys because women will tell them that they are nice (they really are), but because the way they are acting they have no sexual potential and are not desired by women. However much men are able to validate themselves amongst men (and women among women), when it comes to the sexual market it is still women who hand out the validations to men. Just as men are the ones to sexually validate women. Of course, when Nice guys are constantly deprived of sexual validation they can easily turn into "a self-entitled jerkoff".

And before anyone says something, acting like a prehistoric Alpha does not mean being a brute and clubbing a woman on her head before carrying her back to the cave! That didn't work in prehistoric times, and it doesn't work today. ;)
I thin that we may be getting our terminology muddle a bit here, which is what happens when it's borrowed from another context; in this context, "Alpha/Beta" is understood as a non-literal usage describing the informal in-group/out-group existing within the male gender of human society, and which primarily manifests itself in inter-individual interactions, rather than than on a grand scale. It's essentially a borrowed label for the system by which masculinity is associated with greater social status, and femininity and unmasculinity with lower status, and the constant process of reaffirmation, necessarily in comparison (perhaps implicit) to women and other men, that accompanies it. (Of course, it gets more confused when it comes to women, because the conflation of masculinity and power still exists, but meets gender-policing, so it all gets rather complicated.) It is related to but not interchangeable with the variant listed above, although many would argue that it was the base from which they emerge, the first representing the inter-male ramifications, the latter the male-female ones.
Also, "Jerk/Nice Guy" is essentially a modern concept, and is barely found in even Victorian literature, nor is it found in every culture; we tend to project this into the past, particularly as it leads us to the hypermasculine "savage caveman" archetype which some men to find somehow validating or reassuring. Elements of it do appear in the traditional Alpha male- in his assertiveness, forthrightness and independent mindedness, but it does not necessarily manifest in the antisocial form of the "Jerk"- let's not forget that, until the 20th century, the benevolent sexism of "chivalry" was a major determinant male desirability.

Eh, this is actually a bit off-topic, but I had just come over the article and wanted to post it. If you feel like going on with this, you can read my response in the spoiler. Otherwise just ignore it - our debate is confusing enough as it is, I should have brought this up at another time.
No, my point is that that is "equality" in the mind of your 3rd wave compatriots.
I don't think you know what the "Third Wave" actually is- it refers to a number of related strains of feminism emerging from around 1990 onwards, characterised by a pro-sex position and a post-structuralist model of gender (that is, gender-as-construct, rather than as innate). The sort of strict, traditionalist delineations seen here are most certainly not in the spirit of the third wave, and only in certain strains of the second wave.

Though to me they seem mostly like hypocrites, by first complaining about being treated unequally...
And in the next instance demanding inequality when it suits them.
Well, firstly, equality is more complex than just "utterly deny the existence of inequality", so sometimes double standards are necessary, simply because the experiences of men and women are not interchangeable. The point is that they should be neither dis-empowering nor should they be designed for eternal retention, as the traditional ones seem to be.
Secondly, I don't think that you can take the Equal Treatment Bench Book as a definitive authority on all issues of gender, ever. :mischief:

Well, of course slutiness is relative. That's not my point. Every single animal judges other beings by appearance. Humans are no different. That we look on a persons appearance and make inferences about how that person is happens all the time, regardless of whether the person is a potentially provocatively dressed woman. If a woman's clothing may make another person think she is slutty, that person (depending on what kind of person it is of course) may say something.
But the problem is that the leap from "dresses provocatively" to "is sexually promiscuous" cannot be reasonably maintained; the logic simply isn't robust enough to bear closer examination. This isn't "wears an Iron Maiden shirt" to "listens to Iron Maiden", this is "has a green goat" to "is a member of the Provisional Irish Republican Army"- it's a wilful conflation of two distinct things, essentially with the goal of asserting fault on the part of the other.
Which, of course, reveals the true meaning of "slut", which is not "sexually promiscuous", but "sexually assertive", something which is considered improperly feminine, intruding, as it does, into the domain of men, and thus denying the legitimacy of active female sexuality. Which is just dandy, I'm sure. :p
 
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