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The patriarchy's social norms regarding modesty, although never stated openly, functioned in effect as affirmative action / a safety net for ugly/fat/plain etc. women, basically as a treaty of nonaggression and voluntary disarmament among women, with a net benefit for all women and society as a whole. (Men used to have something similar, but that's another matter). When such norms are dismantled in the name of liberty and happiness, it contributes to a sexual arms race among women where they are given various socio-cultural incentives to pander to the sexual whims of the top 5-10% of men. This takes place in parallel with the erosion of other patriarchal norms, which results in women in general gradually losing their ability to elicit long-term commitment from the men they're attracted to, which in turn fuels the said arms race even more. This is a net negative for society, but once this said female cartel is gone, it'll not be replaced, because any woman who wants to dress modestly in effect opts out of the arms race and loses.
Very interesting idea. Whats the male version of this "disarmament treaty" you feel we have lost?
In the Christian patriarchy, every man may only have one wife and not more, premarital sex is not normalized, cheating isn't either, and keeping a mistress is only tolerated implicitly in certain circumstances. This, in effect, represents a tacit agreement among men not to fight one another over women.
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No sex outside of marriage.
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A tweet I saw recently suggested that women are hotter today than ever partially because Instagram has made the competition for attractiveness so cutthroat and winner-take all.
The ability of high-quality skincare, makeup, digital filters, and a wide selection of clothes to modify individual women's body shapes into ideal shapes makes it a system that requires a significant investment.
More like higher variance than ever, rather than higher mean. Mean or median might very well be lower.
On the right-tail, perhaps young modern hot chicks are indeed hotter than ever due to online dating- and social media-induced female intra-sexual competition and thot-maxxing knowhow with regard to skincare, makeup, filters, clothes, cosmetic surgeries, etc., that indulge the preference of young women to be sex objects.
However, on average, young modern women are also fatter than ever. Looking at old photos of groups of young women from the latter half of the 20th century, there are fewer smokeshows. However, in such photos, there are also far more WOULDs due to lack of obesity, as opposed to the WOULDN'Ts in modern day due to fatness.
Obesity is a big one, as it matters relatively little how good your skincare, makeup, nails, clothes, and surgeries are if you're fat. Something something about putting lipstick on a pig, and/or polishing a turd. Some other points against the modal young modern woman are tattoos, single motherhood, and promiscuity.
Yeah, this what I assume is going on as well. The sexual arms race is escalating among a subset of (mostly) young hot women that is small and probably becoming smaller due to the obesity epidemic, demographic implosion etc.
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Has this actually risen for the modal woman, as opposed to a bigger right tale? My impression is that the modal woman is less promiscuous than typically portrayed.
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