Saturday, February 26, 2011

Sex is cheap? Dude, it's FREE.

Two people independently sent me this link, so I guess there's a demand for this.

Sex Is Cheap: Why young men have the upper hand in bed, even when they're failing in life.
"Young men" are just one guy, right? Actually, I think I dated him. ...Twice.

We keep hearing that young men are failing to adapt to contemporary life.
We keep hearing it because it's a meme that has a grain of truth and a thick outer coating of things people want to be true for some horrible reason, from "kids these days, with their Xbox and their sexting and their Rainbow Parties" to "this feminism business has just gone too far."

And yet there is one area in which men are very much in charge: premarital heterosexual relationships.
By "in charge," this author means that they're having them. The fact that women are, duh, having the exact same premarital heterosexual relationships just proves what suckers those chicks are.

(Sidenote: Does anyone else feel like the word "premarital" is kind of a weird way to put it? It makes it sound like you're definitely going to get married later. "Nonmarital" seems like a more sensible term.)

When attractive women will still bed you, life for young men, even those who are floundering, just isn't so bad.
"Attractive"? Most of the women sleeping with young men are presumably young, but I don't think anyone collected any statistics proving that they're all hotties. And if the author is trying to conjure up an image of a dude who lives on his mom's couch playing Xbox and has a parade of hotties showing up at the door anyway... yeah, that's not really how it works.

But what many young men wish for—access to sex without too many complications or commitments—carries the day.
Right, because young men never want to have a (ewwww) girlfriend. The funny thing is, in my experience, a lot of young men are actually giant saps. In my sexually free relations with young men, I have encountered offers not just of affection but of "schmoop" and "wugs." This article simply does not account for wugs.

If women were more fully in charge of how their relationships transpired, we'd be seeing, on average, more impressive wooing efforts, longer relationships, fewer premarital sexual partners, shorter cohabitations, and more marrying going on.
This is presented without supporting evidence, just because we all know that broads only want to snag them a ring.

But actually, these aren't things that (all; your mileage will vary on account of how "women" also is not one person) women just want for their own sake. These are things that women want in a system where they have very little power, so securing a generous and committed husband is the only way to get any status. When we don't need a man's help to get by, we can afford to relax and just have some fun.

The terms of contemporary sexual relationships favor men and what they want in relationships, not just despite the fact that what they have to offer has diminished, but in part because of it. And it's all thanks to supply and demand.
I don't think the supply and demand have changed all that much, buddy. It's been very close to 1:1 for a while now.

Wait... exactly which one of us is the supply and which is the demand?

As Baumeister, Vohs, and others have repeatedly shown, on average, men want sex more than women do. Call it sexist, call it whatever you want—the evidence shows it's true. In one frequently cited study, attractive young researchers separately approached opposite-sex strangers on Florida State University's campus and proposed casual sex. Three-quarters of the men were game, but not one woman said yes.
I'm going to guess this says less about women's horniness than it does about our experience with creepers. A guy who proposes sex out of the blue is potentially dangerous, and in many women's experience, he doesn't even really want sex at all but is just playing some weird game to get a reaction. Blunt sexual advances are a form of street harassment that most of us have been through, and "you wanna fuck me, babe?" has nearly the same tone and intention as "mooooo what a cow." Most random sexual offers to women are neither compliments nor genuine offers.

As Baumeister and Vohs note, sex in consensual relationships therefore commences only when women decide it does.
Well... yeah. Consensual relationships require consent. That took two researchers?

But obviously the man has to decide too. And even within the model where he always makes the first move, making that move is a way of expressing his consent. Guys who initiate sex may always want sex (my tautology powers are tautological!), but guys don't always initiate sex.

And yet despite the fact that women are holding the sexual purse strings, they aren't asking for much in return these days—the market "price" of sex is currently very low.
Sexual purse strings? You mean the ability to not have sex when I don't want to? I'm like the fucking Scrooge McDuck of pussy here.

As for market price... hey, I'm not working for free here, it's just a different currency. Instead of rich husbands, I get paid in orgasms. And business is good.

Since high-speed digital porn gives men additional sexual options—more supply for his elevated demand—it takes some measure of price control away from women.
I'm pretty sure even old-timey Victorian dudes knew how to jerk off just fine.

And seriously, price control, seriously. It's kind of hard to miss the "whoreswhoreswhores" undertone here when you talk about sex entirely in terms of the price the woman charges the man.

But just as critical is the fact that a significant number of young men are faring rather badly in life, and are thus skewing the dating pool. It's not that the overall gender ratio in this country is out of whack; it's that there's a growing imbalance between the number of successful young women and successful young men. As a result, in many of the places where young people typically meet—on college campuses, in religious congregations, in cities that draw large numbers of twentysomethings—women outnumber men by significant margins.
So even if we followed the conclusions the author is implying here with utterly literal "the pussy market works just any other bulk commodity" thinking, we wouldn't see unsuccessful young men getting laid a lot. We'd either see successful young men turning into pussy-gorged mansluts, or unsuccessful young men who have successful girlfriends. Or just a lot of single people who can't find anyone in their demographic who wants them. But there's no permutation of this scenario where Xbox couch dude is a pussy-gorged manslut.

Unless he's got something else going for him. But too much consideration of what "something else" consists of could derail this whole article. Surely the people in these strictly-business sex-for-commitment exchanges don't like each other?

Analysis of demographic data from 117 countries has shown that when men outnumber women, women have the upper hand: Marriage rates rise and fewer children are born outside marriage.
So since the human birth ratio is pretty consistently 1.05:1, think about why men would significantly outnumber women, not in a college or a particular social class, but in an entire country. Because the women are dying. They're getting aborted or killed as infants because girl children are a burden, they're dying in childbirth, they're victims of violence. Some upper hand.

We found that virginity is more common on those campuses where women comprise a smaller share of the student body, suggesting that they have the upper hand.
Virginity is a sign of having the upper hand? Boy you couldn't have convinced me of that when I was in college and still had mine.

By contrast, on campuses where women outnumber men, they are more negative about campus men, hold more negative views of their relationships, go on fewer dates, are less likely to have a boyfriend, and receive less commitment in exchange for sex.
"Commitment in exchange for sex." Hey, I give them credit for spelling it out. Okay, it's not really credit. I think it's more like disdain. FUN FACT: The human female occasionally experiences sensations similar to "pleasure" during certain sexual acts!

36 percent of young men's relationships add sex by the end of the second week of exclusivity; an additional 13 percent do so by the end of the first month. A second indicator of cheap sex is the share of young men's sexual relationships—30 percent—that don't involve romance at all: no wooing, no dates, no nothing.
"Young men's relationships" is such a strange way to describe relationships that involve a man and a woman. You could use these statistics to prove the opposite point by changing that wording.

And hey, why would I want exclusivity if we're not having sex? What's the point of having a man all to myself if I'm not going to use him?

Women's "erotic capital," as Catherine Hakim of the London School of Economics has dubbed it, can still be traded for attention, a job, perhaps a boyfriend, and certainly all the sex she wants, but it can't assure her love and lifelong commitment.
When could it ever? Was there a time in history when I could have walked into the street and yelled "Hey! I have a vagina! But you can't have any!" and eager suitors would have swarmed me? There was a time when marriage was more common and longer-term, but based on everything I know about human nature, "love and lifelong commitment" weren't necessarily part of that deal.

Jill, a 20-year-old college student from Texas, is one of the many young women my colleagues and I interviewed who finds herself confronting the sexual market's realities. Startlingly attractive and an all-star in all ways, she patiently endures her boyfriend's hemming and hawing about their future. If she were operating within a collegiate sexual economy that wasn't oversupplied with women, men would compete for her and she would easily secure the long-term commitment she says she wants.
I know a bunch of couples who married at or before 21. Out of six that I'm thinking about now, one is still together. Turns out that when you get married you don't ride off into the sunset on matching ponies, but have to suddenly deal with being married. Which is tough when you're still young and forming your own identity. Most 20-year-olds are damn right they've got a lot of hemming and hawing left to do.

But you know, there's no moment as joyous as "Mom, he proposed! Because he can't get laid any other way!"

Michelle, a 20-year-old from Colorado, said she is in the same boat: "I had an ex-boyfriend of mine who said that, um, he didn't know if he was ever going to get married because, he said, there's always going to be someone better."
Alright, that guy's just a dick.

And yet while young men's failures in life are not penalizing them in the bedroom, their sexual success may, ironically, be hindering their drive to achieve in life. Don't forget your Freud: Civilization is built on blocked, redirected, and channeled sexual impulse, because men will work for sex.
Don't forget the part where Freud's theories have been totally disproven and these days are only ever used for literary criticism, and that's only because literary criticism is, well, not so fussy what theories they'll accept!

And in this mindset, women are... prizes? Trophies? Acquisitions? Purchases? Certainly not people with their own damn drive to achieve in life.

Hey... regardless of whether there's satisfactory sex in the marriage or not, how do monogamously married men ever get anything done?

As the authors of last year's book Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality put it, "Societies in which women have lots of autonomy and authority tend to be decidedly male-friendly, relaxed, tolerant, and plenty sexy." They're right. But then try getting men to do anything.
Has this ever actually happened? Has there actually ever been a society that crumbled because people were just too darn happy with their sex lives? (Okay, the hippies. Moving on.)

Not only are women people rather than pussy-dispensing man-motivators, men are people rather than single-minded crotch-hounds. Neil Armstrong did not go to the moon to get laid. I mean, fuck, cavemen could get laid. People achieve because the human race has as one of our traits, as immutable as the whiskers on a cat, the drive to always want more and better. Give a child blocks and they build a tower; give a person a job and they want to be the boss. Pussy's got nothing to do with it.

And if pussy did have something to do with it, fuck "society," because I'm sure as hell not giving up sex just to get some random schlub's ass off the couch.

45 comments:

  1. If I have sex with a guy and I enjoy myself a lot, I'll probably want to see the guy on a regular basis from that point onward - because I want more of the enjoyable sex. I'm sure the jackass who wrote this article would deduce that I'm a scavenging, commitment-hungry harpy using my vagina as currency, though.

    Sometimes I think the only way dumbass "studies" like this will go away is if every single woman on the goddamn planet refuses to fuck the same guy twice.

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  2. Nice takedown, Holly. What amazes me is that halfway through, I was thinking "Say, isn't this like that bit in Sex At Dawn about how societies where women have more power are places where everyone gets laid more?"

    And then hey presto, they not only went there, but completely missed the point. That is putting some serious energy into being full of shit, that is.

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  3. Clearly you are in denial and just need someone with Issues to show you how to get the man of your dreams, or actually just any man whatever.

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  4. Oh god. I just got through an epic comment-section battle with another blogger (who I normally like) over this very thing. He kept insisting that women need to demand emotional intimacy or material support before consenting to sex, because otherwise they're "selling themselves short" or something. Near the claim, he suggested that sexuality is a woman's greatest resource, which is when my head asploded.

    Researchers addressing this need to draw a line between "casual sex" and "anonymous sex." Safety concerns mean that very few women are going to agree to anonymous sex: also, women on average have a slower ramp-up time for arousal. They're interpreting "wanting sex" according to patterns more typical of male desire than female. And then they think it means something when men are more responsive to their test conditions.

    Thing is, as I found from my discussion, some people are absolutely locked into this viewpoint. The fact that women also enjoy having sex doesn't matter. The fact that women don't need men for economic and social resources doesn't matter. The fact that fewer and fewer women are keen on the idea of getting married at 21 doesn't matter. Women still exchange sex for intimacy, commitment, and steak dinners. Because they do. Because that's the way the world works. It's like beating your head against a wall.

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  5. Ginny - Really good point about "casual" versus "anonymous" sex. The fact that I'll have sex without commitment doesn't mean I'll have sex with just anyone without commitment.

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  6. This probably means there's something very wrong with me, but I can't stop obsessing over that word "wugs". Mostly because of the childhood language acquisition test: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wug_test

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  7. Haha, that's where we got the word from.

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  8. Hey... regardless of whether there's satisfactory sex in the marriage or not, how do monogamously married men ever get anything done?

    What, haven't you heard the common trope about frequency of sex in marriage?

    Neil Armstrong did not go to the moon to get laid.

    But if he was single at the time, I bet it worked anyway. ;) And probably with horrible early 70's lines like "Hey baby, I'd like to be the first man on your Moon!"

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  9. I find it really interesting how in a lot of these "Men want THIS kind of sexual relationship and women want THIS OTHER kind of sexual relationship that ends in babies and tupperware ad stuff" the stereotypical male role tends to describe me (a twentysomething fairly successful, fairly feminine person by most people's count) much more than the stereotypical female role. Sex with a decent, easy-going dude who's not going to ask for long-term commitments? Sounds perfect, actually.

    Also, Dear Social Psychologists of the World: "Confounding factors." Lookit up.

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  10. Perlhaqr - I'm guessing the trope isn't "it depends on the invidividual sex drives and temperaments of the partners tremendously, but open communication always helps!", is it?

    Neil Armstrong was married in 1969, and has never been accused of having affairs, although history does not always record such things.

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  11. Actually, Freud is studied in women's studies (because he's necessary to understand certain strands of second-wave feminism) and sociology (because he was very influential, insofar as everyone spent like a hundred years proving him wrong). I've been known to bitch about being haunted by Freud. But no one suggests he was actually right.

    What I don't think these people get is that relationships have benefits that casual sex doesn't. (And drawbacks, of course.) Love, for instance. Schmoop. The ability to irritate everyone around you. Someone who'll still stay with you if you lose your dick in a tragic gardening accident. Someone to help with the washing-up. Men can want all of that, too!

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  12. Holly: clear, concise, and articulate as always. Not to mention a refreshingly clear-headed response to all the interminable bullshit spewed about sex by social sciences types.

    Thanks! Posts like this are why I come here. :-)

    -A

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  13. Beautiful take-down.

    The 'men want to fuck and leave, women want cuddles and marriage and babies' thing is really bizarre to me. Literally every guy I've ever dated has been waaaaay more invested in the idea of romance and commitment than I was.

    (Every guy except the one I ended up marrying, anyway. Which is probably part of the reason I married him.)

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  14. Bullshit like this is so heteronormative, too, that it almost goes without saying. I am a lady who usually has sex with ladies! Therefore...is my vag still assigned a value with the stock exchange?? I NEED TO KNOW. (Can erotic capital be traded for stocks and bonds? This girl is investing for her future).

    Also, seconded on the whole "straight dudes are wubbies" thing. They really are. The patriarchy beats down their ability to express emotions, so when they open up the fact that they HAVE them (horrors!) they're usually desperately trying to get you to cuddle and date them and be super-committed. Almost all the girls I know have had dudes work really hard to get them to love them, and the girls are usually like, "meh" unless they, you know, LIKED the guy. Women are humans- and men want more than just sex!! NEWS AT 11.

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  15. Ahhh, I love this one Holly!

    I think the author suffers from the delusion that these ne'er-do-well young men are all sexing the same sexy sexers, and the rest of women (the REAL women) are hoarding their vaginas until they get a diamond riiiiiing. He is also under the impression that college-age women never leave campus. Guess what, dude, in college I always had at least one partner (and sometimes multiple) and NONE of them were from the college I attended, even though I lived on campus.

    It all really flies in the face of my own personal experience, where I was an enthusiastic initiator and participant in both casual (sometimes even-gasp-*anonymous*) sexual relationships, as well as committed ones. And while I was working hard to dispense with my virginity when I was 15, my future husband was in another part of the country clinging to his until he was 19 because he wanted his first time to be special and in the context of a loving relationship. Far more about personality and circumstance than about sex or gender.

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  16. Holly, I didn't think it was possible to love your blog more... and then you talked about wug-tests, and I was proven wrong.

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  17. I also love how the article is all "this girl is languishing in a dead-end relationship, but if her college campus had more men than women, she would find the commitment she wants!" - like commitment is all she wants and it can be with anyone who has a penis.

    Like...maybe, just maybe, she loves her boyfriend - yeah, that particular boy - and wants to marry him. These asinine studies undervalue both men and women - women are just warm holes, men are just big wallets. I hate this.

    And what about that famous statistic that's been floating around my whole life - the one about men on average falling in love faster than women do and falling out of love slower? How does that fit in with the "women want commitment and men don't" dynamic?

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  18. PC-- I think you make an excellent point! If I went to West Point, I might be more able to get commitment due to the good gender ratio, but I would also end up with an athlete who might not like Star Wars, and then where would I be?

    Also, I'm seconding? thirding? whatever the tendency of straight guys to be MADE OF SCHMOOP.

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  19. De-lurking to say that I love you for this.

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  20. Thoughts upon reading:

    * Oh, great, it's another "everyone's getting laid but you" article, that somehow manages to incorporate both "you shouldn't want this" and "if you're not getting laid then you're a loser" ideas despite their mutual contradiction.

    * That study about the propositioning was from almost 30 years ago (and to my knowledge hasn't been replicated). The people the author is talking about weren't even conceived yet.

    * That the author (a male sociology professor at the University of Texas at Austin) calls the 20-year old Texas college student "startlingly attractive and an all-star in all ways" squicks me in all ways. Is he suggesting that a less attractive woman should be less deserving of the kind of relationship she wants? Is he just complaining that students are fucking their peers instead of their profs?

    * "Erotic capital" is a profoundly disturbing idea. I don't consider myself a socialist, but it's hard not to take the view that almost every interaction between capitalism and sexuality puts the latter in service to the former. It's a broken window fallacy; you can't sell sex to someone without first alienating them from their inherent sexuality. (I guess this is the point of the Freud quote, only he and the author seem to think it's a good thing.)

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  21. Perlhaqr - I'm guessing the trope isn't "it depends on the invidividual sex drives and temperaments of the partners tremendously, but open communication always helps!", is it?

    Don't be silly! That's the actual wisdom on the subject. The common wisdom on the subject, on the other hand, is that married people never sleep together after the first three years or so.

    Neil Armstrong was married in 1969, and has never been accused of having affairs, although history does not always record such things.

    I have to admit, I mostly just wanted to spit that "Moon" line out there once I had thought of it. *looks mildly embarrassed*

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  22. Great, as always. I tentatively offer this comment in a mixture of awe and reverence -

    PREmarital = they're totally gonna get married, but they like sex now, so, hey.

    NONmarital = they're totally never gonna get married, but they like sex now, so, hey.

    Amarital = they like sex, and they're having it. Marriage? Who said anything about marriage?

    Any takers for the new terminology?

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  23. @Holly

    An interesting post, and good discussions. I enjoy reading both your statements and the comments, but the format isn't always the most conducive.

    Have you considered starting something like a google discussion group for replies to your posts?

    Many thanks~

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  24. Delurking to share the following amusing fact:

    I read the Salon article, and then immediately went to The Pervocracy, because I realized that a) I bet Holly has written about this and b) reading her takedown of this will make me feel so much better.

    And I was right! Thank you, now I don't have to go to sleep angry, but instead smiling!

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  25. Also, Anonymous at 9:12 am:

    Holy crap that linked article. ::fear::

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  26. I wanna "fourth" the "heterosexual men are MADE OF SCHMOOP!" position. In my experience (which could be considered limited cause I spend more time working and studying than I do on sex-- I mean, "looking for committed relationship cause that's what women want" lulz), I've actually had more men turn me DOWN or get butt-hurt later after sex because I claim a non-monogamous outlook and won't settle into the sort of committed relationships that THEY want. MEN ARE MADE OF SCHMOOP. Fo' srs.

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  27. Holly-

    FABULOUS and eloquent ripping-to-tiny-shreds of an absolutely infuriating article... it's stuff like that which gives us social scientists a bad name.

    <3

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  28. I just commented on this article in a discussion on a friend's FB page with many of the same criticisms...what about the female people who are happily having sex with other people who want to have sex, not because we're trading parts on the genital market but because we like sex and we picked a fun person to have it with, not to trick into some sort of ball-and-chain arrangement...yeesh.

    And kudos on calling the "premarital" thing. I always used to say that it wasn't technically "premarital sex" if you never intended to get married in the first place :)

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  29. Of course men are made of schmoop and monogamy.

    We *invented* monogamy so that we'd know it was really our children coming out of there.

    No, really.

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  30. I am realizing more and more that I don't FIT into the same world as these people - I'm nearly 24, no plans at all for marriage, dating two bisexual guys and have a FWB deal with another bi-guy. I also have a married girlfriend, and may pick up another girl for naked fun cuz damnit women are attractive. x)

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  31. ehh... hardly a take-down:
    about 33% you are right holly, they are wrong.
    about 33% opinions/annecdotes that do not fall into a true-false continuum. (annecdotes != evidence)
    about 33% you made some sort of mistake and they are actually right.

    I will not offer any counter arguments because I do not believe that I can offer a better fact ratio than yours. However, I do pride myself in ability to analyze objectively (probably too much lol).

    good job holly, but your fans need to pick up on some of your analytical ability.

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  32. Hm... would you like me to cite you the percentage of that comment that made sense?

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  33. "You're wrong, and I'm right, and your commenters are sheep" doesn't really come across any less groundlessly douchey if you use numbers.

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  34. no i actually said that she is about as wrong as she is correct. and i make no defense about my own "niceness", and even made fun of my own ego problems.

    i just won't argue about it because i know i am bad at actually making said argument.

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  35. "I'm not going to defend my position because I'm incapable of doing so. Check and mate!" is one of my least favorite Internet gambits.

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  36. If you can't articulate your own argument, that's usually a pretty damn reliable sign you don't actually have one and are simply relying on your own biases for your rectally yanked opinion.

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  37. I don't even know what I'm supposedly wrong about. although it's a very precise percentage.

    (What is the other 1%? Natural and artificial flavor?)

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  38. I am a man that, for religious reasons, is abstaining from sex until married. On dates, I pay for things out of a sense of chivalry and I love to give backrubs and professional-style massage.

    If the stereotyped view of women were correct, I would be the best date EVAR. You know what? It does not make women in general happy.

    (BTW I am very up-front about it, it's right in my online dating profiles, because finding that out when you were expecting the Swedish oil massage was leading up to something would SUCK.)

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  39. To the younger women here, this is just the next barrage of mysoginistic propaganda whose purpose it is to make you question your choices and desires, and to fall into line with the patriarchy.

    When women began building the foundations of their careers prior to marriage and child bearing, they tried to convince us all that it was more likely we'd be killed by terrorists than successfully finding husbands.

    Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!

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  40. "And hey, why would I want exclusivity if we're not having sex? What's the point of having a man all to myself if I'm not going to use him?"

    ... um, Holly? I really enjoy reading this blog, and I'd really rather you not erase my life. I'm asexual (and, no, that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with me) and polyamory doesn't work for me. Dating isn't just about sex, really.

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  41. ok, so yeah I have a touch of idiot and more than a touch of jerk... I should have just said that I wanted proof and didn't find any. unfortunately, I don't have the time right now to argue every point, but I will argue the title: if sex were free men wouldn't pay for it and there would not be prostitutes.

    and I apologize for being an idoit/jerk, but still stand by my numbers: can you prove more than a third of what you are saying without relying on you own experiences or the experiences of others?

    (I am surprised by my brush with the dark side, hopefully I can recover)

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  42. So, quick note since I didn't see this mentioned here, but Yes Means Yes blog reviewed a new sociology paper that blasted that causal sex argument out of the water: http://yesmeansyesblog.wordpress.com/2011/03/03/gender-differences-and-casual-sex-the-new-research/

    That would be the "In one frequently cited study, attractive young researchers separately approached opposite-sex strangers on Florida State University's campus and proposed casual sex. Three-quarters of the men were game, but not one woman said yes" bit. It's complete horse shit, essentially, and has much more to do with the fact that, as you said, Holly, random people walking up asking for sex are probably creeps or pranksters.

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  43. There's plenty of questionable assertions and conclusions in this article. I think this may be a more age specific phenom due to change cultural mores, and the penchant for exploration in one's teens and twenties.
    I'm not experiencing this "casual" approach to sex from women in my age group. They all still seem very old school.
    I'm 54, look 10 years younger, am youthful, in good shape, successful, etc. I have 4 sisters, my parents have been married 50+ years, and my mom had her own independent career.
    I've was married 20 years, have grand-kids, am single currently. I remain friends with my ex, my kids love me, my ex and I still do things together platonically.
    I get loads of female attention, especially from women in my age group (44-60). I quit officially dating last year, and have been on hiatus from sex for a year, not for lack of opportunity. I'll explain.
    Every woman that I dated in the last 2 years that initiated sex immediately (90% of them did) assumed that one night meant we were in a committed, exclusive relationship. All of them are financially independent and successful. It's not like they need me. However, I know of no women in this age group who are interested in sex for the pleasure of it. Or interested in companionship and sex and keeping certain parts of our lives separate. They usually want me to give up my other friendships with women, curtail time with my grand kids, etc.
    It has to be committed and exclusive immediately! They have to be my sole focus emotionally. It's gotten to the point where if a woman shows sexual interest in me, I assume she has some sort of agenda other than the sex. I finally just started asking if "we could just be friends" of every woman I know, in attempt to keep things simple. I figure that no sex means no complications. Alas, even that has failed.
    I do have a few women friends with whom I visit or spend time doing activities on a platonic level. Even they are highly territorial. Lately I'm just sort of curtailing a lot of time with any women in my age group. It's a bit of a minefield.
    I don't know. Perhaps I should go after younger women. I like them, but the maturity differences....
    And it's not that I don't want a relationship - it's just that I'm not in a hurry, been there, done that; and I want to go slow. The ladies seem set from the get-go.
    So, I'm puzzled. I read plenty of blogs by independently minded-women who assert that they too, like sex for the pleasure of it, and don't need to be in a relationship, thank you very much. Or words to that effect. Where do these women live? Am I just picking the wrong type of woman? Perhaps I'm sending relationship messages unconsciously. I wish I knew. I'd love to have sex again with someone I like. I'd even consider becoming involved, and working on a relationship. I am totally willing to wait to have sex as well - as long as she doesn't get bored.
    I love women!

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  44. whoops. That was a cut and paste job from slate. I forgot to edit it. I did not mean that your article was incorrect, I was referring to the 'sex is cheap' article in Slate.
    Your rebuttal to that article is most excellent, and is what prompted me to comment.
    Thanks!

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