> any relationship they find will be tainted by knowing they weren't good enough to party with but good enough to marry.

I am confused by this.... I would feel much better about myself knowing I was the one good enough to marry rather than the one who was only good enough to party with.

Ah, I feel this is because something deeper happened than simply "a small subset of men are monopolizing the sex marketplace", something more on the level of morality and ego than can be represented in concrete facts.

Specifically, I believe we've seen a devaluation and financialization of morality (what makes me a valuable person?) in a broader sense. Christopher Lasch caught the beginning of this back in the 70s, arguing that we now judge ourselves in terms of the views of our peer group rather than relative to an authority figure or multigenerational community.

The result is that sleeping around becomes a mark of virtue (at least, among men). This sentiment is at odds with more "traditional" forms of morality and virtue, particularly coming from religious traditions, and the resulting internal conflict can cause a lot of psychic distress, a lot of asking "who am I really?" and "am I really good enough, is she merely 'settling' for me?"

If you can navigate that conflict and feel satisfied that you were good enough to marry, then I applaud you for having a level head and for having your values in order. But I expect many men do not feel this way :(

Relationships are two-party affairs. What a man thinks of himself obviously affects how he behaves in a relationship but is not as important as the view that the woman has for him. This is what constitutes the basis of the relationship.

If there are no kids, then for a woman that has spent the best years of her life dating attractive alpha males, an unattractive male is never going to measure up. Empirical evidence leads me to believe that kids can change that and be a stabilizing influence, bridging the gap between these models since both parties are able to make compromises by coming together and focusing on their kids.

The problem is your spouse will not really find you attractive sexually. She will be with you because you have money and are a good provider. She really wants to be with the guy she partied with in her younger years, not you.

That’s always been the case. People’s goals are different at different times during their life.

There’s always a transactional aspect to being in a relationship. Are you good looking enough, healthy enough, wealthy enough, well connected enough, emotionally connected, personality etc.

It may not be fruitful to frame a relationship exclusively in those pros and cons terms, but that’s the way nature has always worked.

Women are having a lot more sexual partners, a lot sooner in their lives, today than at any previous point in history. This invalidates any historical models of sexual behavior.

You can very well imagine a woman in Victorian times, keeping her virginity until her arranged marriage (in less developed Western countries this was still the case up until the 70s and 80s) to an average, physically unattractive male. The fact that he was the only male she knew sexually could very well provide the basis of a stable and healthy, loving longterm relationship, assuming he wasn't completely incompetent in giving her pleasure. This woman has acquired her model of a sexual relationship from the only man she ever knew. She never has a chance to find better, to compare.

This is definitely no longer the case. Women in developed countries are spending the formative and best years of their lives with multiple sex partners thus developing expectations and also reinforcing their baseline models and sexual norms acquired from said interactions. An average physically unattractive male looking for a stable longterm relationship faces very slim odds with this type of woman -very prevalent in the West- today unless he performs massive compromises and lowers his requirements.

I don't want to sound regressive or socially conservative, but this obviously does not bode well for the future of these societies. A permanent, ever-rising underclass bombarded daily with norms of sexual desire and models that it can never meet. One should expect the incel phenomenon -still at its infancy- to drastically intensify. Life-like sex robots may alleviate part of the problem but are probably at least 50 years away. Let us hope that VR comes together in providing alternate meaning-generating realities, sooner.

>An average physically unattractive male looking for a stable longterm relationship faces very slim odds with this type of woman -very prevalent in the West- today unless he performs massive compromises and lowers his requirements.

Do you mean an average physically unattractive male has a better chance of acquiring an average physically unattractive mate?

The mere idea that a society where a woman may have multiple sexual partners to compare against and the idea and that a man may need to exceed the standard "completely incompetent in giving her pleasure" in order to win her affections is inherently unstable reads a lot like someone claiming heavier than air flight is impossible in the 1980s. It's utterly inexplicable. People have been having sex with more than one person for a LOT longer than the 80s. What did happen in the 80s is the beginning of a massive rise in inequality that began with the top 10% earning 26% of all income in 1980 to where we are at the present time where they earn half while the bottom 50% share around 10% between them down from 2O%.

What you are framing as a crisis caused by too much female sexual choice is in fact a crisis of inequality wherein females are choosing "not poor" and the group "poor" expands year after year. Vastly more females escape this trap because men overwhelmingly value youth and attractiveness while women want people with some degree of complimentary earning power.

More recently what has happened is that the internet has allowed more niche groups to connect with their fellows. Incels are a group not of those who aren't getting any but rather those who aren't getting any who have decided to blame society in general and more particularly women. They are fetishizing both self hate and hatred of women. In the context of their in group communication their behavior and statements that would in larger contexts be considered aberrant are normalized by familiarity because people confuse repetition with truth.

If you want to decrease the negative impact of this behavior address inequality, make mental health more broadly available at zero cost, keep shutting down such communities and start putting people in prison who publicly call for acts of violence against others.

Driving evil and maladaptive behavior into hiding means less people will encounter it. Thus fewer will let its poison turn their pain into evil, or begin to view it as normal.

Wishing women boinked fewer men is a complete failure of analysis.

TL;DR Unprecedented availability of multiple vectors that enable promiscuity today, unprecedented self-reinforcing feedback loops that strengthen specific models of behavior. We haven't seen anything yet, this is just the beginning.

> People have been having sex with more than one person for a LOT longer than the 80s.

This is not accurate for less-developed countries, which is what I mentioned. I've lived in eastern Europe during the 70s and the 80s, the social stigma for a woman having multiple sex partners before marrying was enormous. Doesn't mean it didn't happen but it was definitely not the norm. Today, teenage girls in the west go through sexual partners like they go through cell phones.

> What you are framing as a crisis caused by too much female sexual choice is in fact a crisis of inequality wherein females are choosing "not poor" and the group "poor" expands year after year.

Income inequality is a very weak factor and does not explain female hypergamy today. Spend two weeks living on campus in any US college watching poor but extremely attractive male students and you can validate that for yourself. Money does not buy love or sexual attraction. Spend some time on incel forums reading their posts, assuming you can see past the hate and lingo, and you will realize that most/all of them crave these lost-youth experiences. They don't necessarily just want a partner in their 30s or 40s, but to feel wanted and loved in their 20s. Once they realize that opportunity is gone forever, they have to pick up the pieces.

> Incels are a group not of those who aren't getting any but rather those who aren't getting any who have decided to blame society in general and more particularly women.

This is very superficial since you are not examining the root causes. Look at advertisements today, movies, sports, Facebook, Instagram, reality shows, series on Netflix. We are bombarded by models of sexual attraction every minute of every day, models that are so skewed towards a specific minority that your average physically unattractive male literally stands no chance whatsoever. It's these projected models that strongly reinforce female hypergamy (for both attractive and unattractive women) while at the same time pushing the unwanted males further into the abyss. The worst of all possible worlds. Additionally, not only have all artificial limiters (e.g. social stigmas and pressure towards non-promiscuity) been lifted but accelerators like Tinder have wreaked havoc. Carnage on a societal level.

> If you want to decrease the negative impact of this behavior address inequality, make mental health more broadly available at zero cost, keep shutting down such communities and start putting people in prison who publicly call for acts of violence against others.

If you take the OkCupid studies seriously (you should), then you'll realize how antithetical to any sort of progress your recommendations are. You can't hide this problem or explain it away by shouting mental illness. This is a huge chunk of the population at large and if you miss or deliberately ignore the root causes because they tend to make you uncomfortable then your approximation of reality is completely off and any sort of analysis that you're performing invalid. Look at smoking in its heyday. Imagine being blasted by "smoking is cool" ads, watching most of "successful" society smoke whilst you not being able to afford even a single cigarette. How would that make you feel? Is that a mental illness on your part? Is it not conditioning massively amplified by very specific agents and societal effects? Should you just learn to "deal with it?"

Now consider that smoking is neutral in terms of self-perception of how other people see you compared to sexual rejection by other living, breathing humans. The psychological damage of realizing one is not wanted can be immense. We are talking about a core biological need and for the vast majority of people reason to exist. Surrogate activities (video games, traveling, hobbies of all sorts) are the counterbalance but they're not yet good enough to make this problem disappear.

OkCupid research opened the floodgates but there will be additional studies like the one linked here and societal effects coming home to roost (as it's been clearly happening). At some point, those effects will be too obvious to be ignored or explained away. Let us hope that ways to manage this catastrophic problem manifest, before the ticking time bomb goes off.

People in the former oppressor class always frame societal upheaval in terms of disorder caused by the moral failings of the former victim in this case your talk of female promiscuity.

After we freed the slaves im sure lower income laborers too poor to have been responsible for owning anyone were put off by having to compete for jobs.

Incels long for an imaginary time when naive women would have accepted their advances and been happy instead of chosen men like jobs or cars by comparing specs.

They rationalize away any actual responsibility for their own lives by pretending it's all down to immutable factors like height, race, facial structure and mock fellow incels for trying to improve health, self, or wealth because this would invite self blame for not doing so.

Inequality is a legitimate concern but this evil self hate isn't on society. We will have to help everyone we can with mental health support and for those who commit acts of violence and terror we have bullets and jail cells.

Do you have a better idea or would you like to indulge yourself in more nostalgia for a world that was worse for everyone except middle class white men?

> Inequality is a legitimate concern but this evil self hate isn't on society.

Of course this self-hate is on society, to imply otherwise because your morals won't allow you to see the facts is to stick your head in the sand. Imagine having a heroin addict on withdrawal surrounded by people using heroin. Blasting him day and night with models that reinforce heroin usage and then blaming him for not being able to cope.

> Do you have a better idea or would you like to indulge yourself in more nostalgia for a world that was worse for everyone except middle class white men?

You didn't address any of my points and suggestions and you're implying that I'm "nostalgic about the past?" Is that really what you got from everything I wrote? Let me put it in plain terms. We have a serious problem here and ignoring it because it's confronting and/or treating it with "bullets and jail cells" is not going to make anything better.

Locking up or shooting terrorists in the act of murdering people puts a hard limit on the number of people they can murder. This is like saying violence never solved anything while ignoring WW2.

I repeat myself but what specifically would YOU like to do about the problems you yourself have outlined. I think mental health support and fighting inequality are reasonable suggestions what is your counter offer. If you ran the world how would you fix it.

While personally I applaud this new-found freedom for women, and while I hope we'll figure out ways to adapt, I do share your fear to a slight degree. Maybe I'm too optimistic, but I really think we can adapt.

I think most of my worries stem from an increase in reactionary politics combined with a growing group of young, 'have-not' males. That seems to me like a particularly bad combination.

> That’s always been the case.

Has it? The question is not if people change. The question is who they choose and why - now, versus before.

> There’s always a transactional aspect to being in a relationship. Are you good looking enough, healthy enough, wealthy enough, well connected enough, emotionally connected, personality etc.

That doesn't explain the decrease in sex. As a group people are supposedly still about the same.

> It may not be fruitful to frame a relationship exclusively in those pros and cons terms, but that’s the way nature has always worked.

If we talk about humans, the article talks about the changing data. The proposed explanation is that views have changed. You're saying that views always have been like that. So there is a difference in data.

> The question is who they choose and why - now, versus before

If you go back enough you’ll find that there is waaaay more choice now than before

I think you have a very limited understanding of sexual attraction... it is not static. It can grow for someone as you get to know them and spend time with someone.

It's always interesting to watch my attraction for someone who was really hot up front start to slide down the more they talk, or the other way around. Personality is so much more important than level of initial attraction.

Raw sexual attraction is instant and involuntary, not cerebral, cultivated. It doesn't depend on anything other than a person's biology. Looks, smell, maybe other biological factors that are hard to quantify. If a woman is with you for other reasons, then she's just not into you sexually and you're playing a game in nightmare mode if you're trying to establish an LTR with an attractive female that has other opportunities or keep it going without issues (e.g. cheating). That does not mean that other slow-burn factors such as intellectual chemistry or friendship do not apply, but it does mean that they work synergistically and on top of the raw animalistic part which is the foundation.

This is all based on decades of empirical observations. On the plus side for men, it is definitely possible to learn to detect this extremely reliable indicator. On the minus side, one needs a lot of experience with many different women, which isn't the case with average, physically unattractive males.

There is something to this, but it depends a lot on attitude. It will be true for someone who's entitled or an ingrate, and everyone should run fast and long away from such a person. There are a lot of them.

On the other hand, people who have suffered at length can be quite grateful to find a decent person. Someone like that can make a great wife (or husband).

Relationships are hard enough as it is, imagine stacking the deck further against you by going for someone that's psychologically unstable. Definitely neither smart nor wise, at least for the rational type given the massive time & effort investments required.

I think we're talking about different things.

Your premise is based on a fallacy.

The guy who is among the top 10% of men is the one who is good enough to party with AND good enough to marry. However, though this guy has a plethora of women at his disposal, he can only select one for marriage.

For the women who weren't chosen, their first choice guy is no longer an option, so they have to settle for a plan B (that is, a less desirable man).

So even if you were "good enough" to marry, you weren't first choice in that either.

You're premise is based on a fallacy... that there is a strict ordering of men, and women all have the same order.

A marriage is about finding a person who fits with you, and you can build a life together. That is not the same person for everyone. My best partner is not the same as your best partner.

I never said there was a strict ordering of men. But there are characteristics that will make one man more desirable than another (e.g. good looks, height, wealth, social status, intelligence, etc.). How these factors rank may vary depending on the woman.

You say that "a marriage is about finding a person who fits with you, and you can build a life together". So take the viewpoint from a pragmatic woman's perspective; wouldn't these aforementioned traits be desirable because the man who possesses them is a candidate more likely to provide the best life to build together?

First, wouldn't everything you said about men also apply to women? How is it different?

Second, there are a lot of other traits that aren't inherently good or bad; things like "do you like going out on the weekends or staying in" and "does your communication style work with mine?" and "are the things you are good at complimentary to the things I am good at?"

My best friend and his wife get along great, but both my wife and I can't imagine living our lives like they do. I am sure they feel the same about us.

> First, wouldn't everything you said about men also apply to women? How is it different?

This thread has been discussing the implications of the observation quoted in the article: "Sexual activity was largely unchanged among unmarried women, along with no notable decline among gay men, researchers reported."

So it's unclear what point you're trying to make in relation to that.

Your premise omits the possibility that there is correlation among the diverse orderings that women apply to men. Or even barring that, that they don't converge to an aggregate ordering which is what GP is explaining that men experience.

Some traits will be clearly desirable, but so many aren't. Introvert/extrovert, opinions on how to raise kids, family goals, what sort of place you like to live (rural/urban), political views, conversation style, etc. Those are going to vary greatly amongst people.

Yes, some preferences vary widely, while others are more narrow, such as height, income, seniority/authority, and facial structure. In aggregate there is a clear spectrum from desirable to less desirable along those dimensions. It's definitely true that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, or attraction more generally, but it's hard to believe that being 1.60 m tall won't make you (in general) less attractive as a man.

I don’t think that settling down with someone that isn’t sexually attracted to you enough is a recipe for a healthy relationship.

On the plus side if you’re in your early 30’s and economically stable and well enough off for your area your get to experience life on easy mode.

I got to experience that after my last brake up before I got fed up and went for something more stable and it was really an eye opening experience.

I pretty much spent my whole 20’s in a single LTR that ended so I never had to experience Tinder before but it was a whole other experience.

Isn't sexually attracted to you upon first meeting doesn't mean that they're not sexually attracted to you in the relationship.

While it might be true, I’ve seen too many cases of infidelity and or dead bedrooms with relationships that didn’t had the former.

Also speaking from my own experience while I’ve experienced finding women more attractive as I got to know them better it wasn’t the same type of an attraction, as it wasn’t sexual but rather more complex in terms of seeing long term future possibilities and wanting to share experiences with them in order to enrich my own life, but it never really affected how physically attractive I found them.

Maybe I’m different, maybe men are different in general but at least for me I won’t settle for someone that doesn’t want to jump me or that I wouldn’t want to jump them to me it seems unnatural.

Sexual attraction is multifaceted, but by far the strongest and most important/longest-living aspect regarding the strength of a relationship is the biological component which is for all intents and purposes instant and present from the very beginning. If that's absent, you're definitely stacking the deck against you in a major way. I am not saying an LTR can't work, but you'll be putting in substantially more energy, time and effort to make it happen.

It's the difference between playing a game in easy vs nightmare mode.

This is all based on empirical observations. I am 55 years old, I've had more than 100 sexual partners in my life and a lot of relationships, some of them lacking the initial biological/animalistic sexual attraction factor I described here. I've been married twice, now divorced and in a long-term relationship with my partner. I have two daughters in their 20s.

Ultimately, it usually means you're not that desirable - just reliable.

Almost everyone wants to be desirable.

What? Cant reliability be a desirable attribute?

It can. But is reliability really the #1 attribute for people out there? Most people want a partner who excites them and who makes them happy. If they're unreliable then that can be a problem but usually a very desirable person has reliability in addition to everything else. When you're settling - you're usually settling for someone who is at least reliable but isn't very exciting.

After dating lots of people, one of the major factors in what made me decide to build a life with my wife was that I could count on her to be a reliable partner. That is soooo huge when choosing someone you are going to build a family with. It is way more important than any sort of animal sexual attraction.

I guess so, but I definitely wouldn't tell her that you're not really highly sexually attracted to her.

Why not? After 12 years of marriage I told my wife that and it cleared the air. We both knew it but it remained unsaid for so long and had been having an adverse affect on the relationship.

Yes, it was a tough and emotional week. But things are better out in the open and we have started to rebuild the relationship on love, not lust.

She did ask if I was having affairs. But I honestly said that I'm finished with sex now, I've just no time or interest in playing the chasing games. There are more important things in life.

Glad it turned out, but that sounds like a risky and hard road.

On the other hand people might be a bit more experienced when they finally have kids. And they might even have better ways to evaluate their prospective parent-partner.