site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   6177 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 12, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

6
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Let me flesh that out a bit. I don't actually think "wants to find a wife" is mutually exclusive with "wants lots of casual sex."

I think most men, given the opportunity to have lots of casual sex, would take advantage of it. The exceptions would be those who consider it immoral; either for religious reasons or because they are already in committed relationships.

Now of course some men who want lots of casual sex, and would happily sleep with a different woman every night, also want to find a permanent life partner. Such men, upon finding someone suitable, are likely (hopefully) to shift into the category of "Won't do it because it's immoral."

I would rephrase your question: given a choice between "Go with little or no sex until you find your wife" or "Sleep with lots of women until you find your wife," which do you think most men would choose?

Fair enough, you are clearly not the only one who's been misunderstand lately.

I meant to suggest that I think many men would prefer a wife they find very attractive and with whom they (hopefully/probably) have an active sex life to, say, a reasonable number of hookups or one night stands a year.

I would generally agree with this.

I'd say if I were faced with two choices where the quantity and quality of sex was roughly identical (though the quality is influenced by attractiveness) I would prefer a variety of plainer partners. Something like a harem of 6s or 7s vs a single 10.

Quite simply, the emotional validation of having multiple people willing to have sex with you is an extremely powerful motivator, to say nothing of the different personalities, techniques, preferences, and body types you would get with multiple partners. If there's an element of minor competition among them, so much the better.

I think most men, given the opportunity to have lots of casual sex, would take advantage of it. The exceptions would be those who consider it immoral; either for religious reasons or because they are already in committed relationships.

This is so alien to my thinking that I have trouble believing you are being serious. Sex is an intensely intimate experience. I can't imagine taking advantage of the opportunity to have lots of casual sex not because I find it immoral, but simply because I can barely handle that level of intimacy with one person with whom I'm already in a close relationship with. That level of intimacy just doesn't seem tolerable in a casual relationship to me.

A decent amount of men and a lot of women are like that. You might be demisexual.

This is so alien to my thinking that I have trouble believing you are being serious.

Clearly, one of us is guilty of typical-minding. It may be me, but it would take a lot of counter-evidence to convince me of this.

I don't necessarily think you are wrong about a large subset (even majority) of men. I'm just pointing out there are more categories than the two you laid out (1. would have lots of casual sex 2. wouldn't because its immoral), as neither of them describe me.

That's fair. I have the impression/intuition that getting casual sex would, to an extent, trade off against finding a wife; so my thought was that there might be a substantial number of men who would prioritize the "find a wife" side of the tradeoff to the extent that they are (relatively) uninterested in casual sex, even if they didn't find it particularly immoral. But maybe this is not the case. I fully admit that I am an unusual case here (I'm in the increasingly tiny minority that didn't have sex at all until getting married) and don't have a good sense of these things.

have the impression/intuition that getting casual sex would, to an extent, trade off against finding a wife; so my thought was that there might be a substantial number of men who would prioritize the "find a wife" side of the tradeoff to the extent that they are (relatively) uninterested in casual sex, even if they didn't find it particularly immoral.

My intuition is that this tradeoff exists in various contexts, but the landscape is quite a bit more complicated. There's the fact that having features and skills that are optimized for having lots of casual sex also are helpful for finding a wife, and so there's a lot of synergy. It's only when looking at the subset of men who are high in such features that the tradeoff exists. But in the general population, optimizing for one also optimizes for the other. And I think over the past half century or so, that factor has become more dominant, and the men for whom such a tradeoff exists have gotten less populous.

I think we have empirical evidence that men at the top of the top (professional athletes, monarchs) have both a wife who they deeply care for, and who's children he raises as his heirs, and also lots and lots of hookups. This is the clear utility maximum.

Let's also not overlook testosterone. Athletes are both young and flooded with the stuff by dint of lifestyle, even on the occasions when they don't happen to be juicing.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats