
Why won’t guys grow up? Sexual economics (2012) - jseliger
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/why-wont-guys-grow-up-sexual-economics/article5172942/
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dalke
This 2012 article starts off with a claim:

> The old-fashioned custom known as “dating” (as in: guy calls up girl and
> asks her out next Friday, takes her to a movie and a meal, picks up the
> cheque, takes her home, kisses her goodnight and, if he’s lucky, gets to
> third base) is something their grandparents did. Today, people just hook up.

Did the author get this from watching old TV shows? Because if you read, say,
the Feynman stories about picking up women in the 1950s, you don't get the
same opinion.

> “Today’s young man faces a sex life that probably would have exceeded the
> most optimistic imagination of most men throughout history,” Roy Baumeister
> says in his book Is There Anything Good About Men?

It's like the 1960s sexual revolution, and the era between The Pill and AIDS,
when most VDs could easily be treated, didn't even happen.

Consider this scene from the 1969 "Alice's Restaurant" movie -
[https://youtu.be/sP05C_agI3k?t=1316](https://youtu.be/sP05C_agI3k?t=1316)
(note: shows a topless and purportedly underage woman), where the self-
described 'teenybopper' lists the number of people she's had sex with, and how
she want to sleep with Arlo - someone she's just met.

And I think there's a discussion in Heinlein's "To Sail Beyond the Sunset"
describing how the people of some era (1960s?-1980s?) feel as comfortable
giving a blowjob as previous generations might have shaken hands. Heinlein was
a proponent of sexual liberation and free love, but surely his writings give
an indication of what what's underneath the sanitized sexual history of the
US.

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alttab
I dunno, I've seen a lot of adolescent-minded 20 somethings not getting laid a
whole bunch.

In some cases, guys don't grow up not because sex is so readily available, but
in some cases (especially due to society's pressures and feminist social
development) because they've given up and retreated to a digital lifestyle.

Interesting article, and maybe true on the whole, but I have seen a lot of
first hand anecdotal evidence that suggests young college aged males are
having a lot _less_ sex.

~~~
sixbrx
I think the "market" may be getting more efficient with Tinder etc, and is
tending to few-winners-take-all.

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NTDF9
An important point:

In a world of free sex and abundant resources, for a man, it totally pays off
to learn the art of seduction than other arts (productive stuff like STEM,
economics etc....real stuff with economic value). Women are easy to get with
the right amount of time, right words and actions. Education, moral values,
caring nature etc. have almost ZERO appeal in attracting most vapid women in
today's world.

So why would most men (who don't have economic worries...or are just dumb) put
any effort in their most productive years learning important skills?

\-------------------------------------------------------

This article also misses the observation that men are a spectrum of attractive
to unattractive (whatever attractiveness means to women).

With that in mind, attractive men can quickly log on to a dating app, message
a 100 women and some of those women will respond positively (leading to sex).

For unattractive guys, most girls don't respond (so no sex for them).

Today's dating world is so fucked up that most of my male peers have
absolutely no interest in dealing with female emotional concerns. They end up
in "open relationships" which women agree to be in (because they have been
told it's ok) and then suffer heartbreak....whereas the other guys (who don't
get sex) just sit at home playing video games.

Even women don't want to "settle" until 30s by which they don't have any
sexual appeal to men.

Marriage just doesn't have any appeal. What's the point of getting married?
What does a woman bring to the table that they can't get themselves (except
emotional turmoil)? There's no reason to get tied in a legal commitment that
if broken, would be extremely expensive and scarring.

Why won't guys grow up? They have grown up. Women are the kids expecting a man
to marry them if they are not bringing anything to the table except declining
sexuality and years of partying and baggage and still expecting men to take
their legal burden.

Source: 27 yr old male in SF city.

~~~
CyberDildonics
> vapid women in today's world.

I think most of what you said is pretty on point except for this - I'm not one
to say that everyone is equally astute on the whole but I don't think it's
fair to call most women vapid any more than it would be for them to call
people who read hacker news 'losers' (because geeks made being a geek/nerd
cool).

~~~
NTDF9
The reason I brought it up is because of the irony of their demands.

Most women want men who have it all figured out (aka grown up men) but
themselves don't realize how imperfect they are. They'd rather spend hours on
pinterest looking at hair ties of different colors than on something that gets
their student loans out, career planning, family planning etc.

So many women are vapid but want a guy who makes six figures, is six feet
tall, knows how to build a car from ground up and can has some cool artistic
side and yet can fight drug overlords....I mean...these are such divergent
qualities and skills...it's pretty funny when one hears it out loud.

If they expect an amazing guy with everything figured out (aka worked his
socks off his entire life exploring different things and learning how to deal
with shit), they better be amazing too.

EDIT: To answer you: I agree...so many men who don't take care of themselves
want a hot supermodel with a degree in physics. It's just so divergent. Many
men suffer from the same dichotomy.

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sova
"...it turns out that, wherever women have more autonomy, people have more
sex."

