From my experience, most women are not interested in holding sex as a trump card. Like you and I, they are simply looking for companionship - for someone they can count on for support and non-judgement during times of crisis, but who will also push them to become better and achieve their goals. Like you and I, most are at least partially attracted to looks, confidence, humor, power, intellect, etc.
It sounds like you're pretty bitter about something or other. I think you should make more friends that are women so that you can talk to them about the way they view relationships.
transfire explicitly was addressing the condition of men seeking sex, which is not the same as mean seeking "companionship - for someone they can count on for support and non-judgement during times of crisis, but who will also push them to become better and achieve their goals".
Insofar as women are seeking that (whether or not that's like you), that would likely be a problem for men who are simply seeking sex and not to find or provide companionship.
To the extent that there are asymmetries in the degrees to which (heterosexual, for simplicity) men and women seek sex vs. mutual companionship in relationships, this will produce advantages and disadvantages to some people on both sides. For instance, to the extent the stereotypical idea that men are more prone to seek sex and women more prone to seek companionship is true (note that I'm not claiming it is), men who seek sex will have a more difficult time, as will women who seek mutual companionship (while, conversely, women who seek sex and men who seek mutual companionship will have a comparatively easy time.)
Its a simple issue of poor alignment of supply and demand (but it doesn't make it worse to be a man than a woman -- it makes it worse to be a man or woman seeking what people of your gender are most prone to seek, and people of your preferred gender are least prone to want to provide.)
Still, I wanted to draw attention to the fact that most people are looking for some mix of physical intimacy (sex) and emotional intimacy (companionship).
There will always be imbalances where needs are not met, but to posit that most women use sex as a tool to manipulate men that are less than perfect doesn't sit well with me.
First, don't get so hung up on "perfect". I think the poster intended it to mean "passing some standard", presumably a high one, and possibly one they themselves are unable to meet. Their word choice just wasn't very good.
As for the rest, it doesn't have to sit well with you: it's simply the way things have been in any culture where we expect long-term relationships and especially any culture where you have heredity concerns. Consider the stigma around, for example, "being a slut"--a great deal (if not the majority) of which is perpetuated by women against other women, from mothers warning their daughters, and so on!
The entire mythos surrounding virginity and monogamous relationships and whatnot hinges on the notion that women control the supply of sex, that men voluntarily prostrate themselves to obtain that sex, that men punish other men who take it by force (because, frankly, women are ill-equipped by mother nature to do so), that men need to know that their children (historically and especially the eldest male) are in fact theirs (something hard before paternity tests and so a piece of the slut-shaming puzzle), and so on.
To deny that women are at least somewhat shrewd and discerning in their sexual exploits is patronizing.
That's a pretty unkind thing to say to a stranger on the internet. I lose a bit of faith in humanity every time I see such things.
> I think you should make more friends that are women so that you can talk to them about the way they view relationships.
Which definitely doesn't sound near to "hey, you're fat."
And that "fat-like" part is also in fact different:
"It sounds like you're pretty bitter (...)" -- note that it discusses the impression of the written comment not the person.
Btw I don't think it's OK to remove your claim that roymurdock's response was "mean" as the responses then lose the context, maybe deleting the comment would be more appropriate?
I guess I wouldn't write it. When I read transfire's and roymurdock's comments, it's not obvious to me whose opinion is more informed, or if the question even makes sense. Their experiences with women could just be different, and one ended up more cynical than the other.
> Btw I don't think it's OK to remove your claim that roymurdock's response was "mean"
Yeah. Sorry. I was just trying to make my own comment less mean :-/
Please watch Monty Python's sketch "Nudge nudge."
I'm also not trying to imply that OP does not have enough friends. Just that he might get a broader picture of women in general if he had more female friends.
I read your edited comment about how that made you sad. A lot of things on HN make me sad - there are many unnecessarily mean, rude, snarky comments posted here with amazing regularity. I try to make helpful comments without putting others down. I'm sorry if my comment came off in a negative manner. I'm not trying to add to the general negativity of the site.
What did they say that made them sound bitter? I often see this response for points similar to the one GP made, so I was wondering what about it makes one seem bitter?
What did they say that made them sound bitter?
Is it perhaps some view that those who complain about social relationship norms are generally those not in, but wishing to be in, such relationships?
There are definite gender imbalances in our society. Is someone
bitter when they point out that women make less or that men die
more at work? [...] I wouldn't call Clinton pointing out the wage
gap as her being bitter.
For a man, unless they are handsome, wealthy and well endowed (i.e.
perfect) then they are at the mercy of women
Myself and plenty of other men I know, who are far from this definition of "perfect," manage to have perfectly healthy relationships with women in which nobody is at anybody else's mercy.
Not really, considering that the gender wage gap often pointed out (the 70-something cents to the dollar) is not standardized for time worked, experience, career choice, or a number of other factors. I would say Clinton is wrong to bring up the 70-something cents to a dollar, but I wouldn't call her bitter.
>If that doesn't sound bitter to you, see a therapist.
Even if they meant actual perfection and weren't using hyperbole, that would still just make them wrong, not bitter.
If I were to say that the average worker's pay is at the mercy of their boss, that doesn't make me bitter, even when you consider it is often wrong (direct manager often has limited input on overall salary).
Oooooookay.
Sure. Maybe the guy is totally cool with his bleak, transactional view of male/female relationships.
Or maybe he's been hurt by past experiences that he views as unfair. Which is the literal definition of "bitter," by the way.
That is some seriously messed-up stuff!
Imperfect men can either beg for sex or attempt rape?
No! Just, no! A thousand times no!
I would strongly encourage you to talk to a professional mental health practitioner if that's your view on sexual relations. Something has gone seriously off the rails for you, and I hope you'll put in the effort to try and fix things up.
That might be what you are doing when you take a woman out on a date and pay for it, but I can assure you -- as a man who has dated (now happily married) that that is not even close to universally the case.
> When a man is forward with a woman in hopes she will like the advances it is subtle form of "taking".
That doesn't seem consistent with any reasonable definition of the word "taking", differing in kind rather than degree from anything for which that word is a good fit. Its more like offering than taking -- you are putting your desire on display in the hopes that it will get a positive response; that's not anything like "taking" anything. (Unless its in a context where there is an implicit power dynamic where the expression of interest amounts to an implied threat to take, or an implied threat to impose adverse consequences if the interest isn't fulfilled. But that's a rather special case.)
I kinda figured you were looking at a distinction similar to inbound/outbound marketing, but your example elsewhere of taking somebody out to dinner vs. asking them directly is just bad.
I hope that one day you have happy, healthy relationships where you simply enjoy each others' company and things aren't so transactional.
For a man, unless they are handsome, wealthy and well
endowed (i.e. perfect) then they are at the mercy of
women.
You're right about insecurity being a turnoff for most people, though.
Women have a whole different level of choice. Not necessarily good choices, but choice nonetheless. Just try to put up a fake profile on a dating site as an experiment and see what ends up in your mailbox over the course of a few days. It's an "enlightening" experience. Not necessarily very pleasant.
Yes, in Western (or at least American) society men do tend to pursue women more actively than vice-versa. This is probably true in most cultures though I don't have firsthand experience.
No, you do not need to be "handsome, wealthy and well endowed (i.e. perfect)" in order to avoid being "at the mercy of women."
Just try to put up a fake profile on a dating site as
an experiment and see what ends up in your mailbox over
the course of a few days.
That's not the point. The point is the relative difference in effort. And it's not just that men tend to pursue, but that the starting point on dating sites is so extremely uneven - the threshold to message someone is so low that men approach at a far higher rate than they dare to in real life, and approach women well outside of the "range" they'd normally do.
Whether or not this means that women can more easily find successful and enjoyable dates and/or relationships on dating sites... is another story.
An inbox full of unwanted advances from a bunch of strangers is not exactly a liberating experience, I wouldn't think. Certainly women I know don't think so.
They clearly have a greater number of suitors to choose from, yes, but like you say - men tend to approach women in such great numbers that there's no way to know who's worth pursuing.
How do you have a quality conversation with a stranger when 100 strangers are trying to talk to you simultaneously?
To top it off, the stakes are a little higher for women. A woman is one mistake (or one instance of violated consent) away from getting pregnant. A woman is always one step away from being sexually assaulted. Obviously men can be victims too, but adult female-on-male sexual assault is vanishingly rare.