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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   34909 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 13, 2023

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I don't see a barter system as not a marketplace.

A barter system is "how convenient, I can provide X and you can provide Y, what a mutually profitable exchange for both of us", instead of "I can provide X units of value, you can provide Y units of value, of X is greater than Y I have lost". I agree that's a way healthier way to think of relationships, but it's still a kind of transaction, with the goal being both parties feeling they have benefited.

Fair enough, I was thinking too narrowly about a "marketplace" when I wrote my comment above. Reflecting on it some more I actually think a barter model avoids most of the things I find problematic about discussions of a "sexual marketplace" or "sexual marketplace value." I think discussions of SMV and similar tend to be oriented more towards the second mode of thinking you describe, where you "have" some objective value and you are "losing" by being with someone whose value isn't close enough to yours.

As for quantifiable or not, I guess my impetus for writing this question is in discussions of the "war of the sexes" I constantly get the impression of people struggling to think of the other side as a full agent in a transaction. They'll fall back on complaining that men/women are "shallow" or whatever, whereas to me it makes perfect sense to conceive it as, for example, both sides want a partner who they are sexually attracted to, women want a partner they can trust to provide adequate parental investment in offspring, men want a partner they can rely on for sexual loyalty/paternity, etc. I don't see why this needs to end up turning into an antagonistic market relationship when it could just as easily be a mutually profitable market relationship.

Two observations. People rarely think their own standards for partners are too high. If they did, they would lower them when they failed to find a partner. Relatedly, people can rarely think of things to change to make themselves more attractive to people they want to date or to meet people who would want to date them. If they could, they would probably just do it!

I think these observations combine to lead a lot of people (maybe just vocal online people) to believe the problem is other people's standards. This ties in to your description of not seeing the other person as a full agent. Their standards are too high, so they should lower them! They aren't entitled to their standards the way I am entitled to mine! Notions of a sexual market value, and that value entitling one to a partner of a similar value, also play into this.

When you fail to get a date with someone on a more barter-y model you both just had incompatible wants and that's fine. "They needed a cobbler but I'm a haberdasher, no mutually beneficial transaction for us." When you have a different orientation it's a matter of not getting your due. "I'm obviously a seven and she's only a five so she fact the wouldn't date me clearly shows her standards are too high." The relationship can become antagonistic because of the attributions of one's failure to unreasonable or unjustifiable actions by the other party.

But then, I'm happily married. So my perspective is obviously shaped by the market having "worked" for me. I guess I am trying to understand what makes it so hard to work for others.

I am admittedly in the same boat. My wife is the only long term relationship (or any kind of romantic relationship) I've been in. Though I do read a lot of other people articulate their romantic woes online!

I agree with all of this comment and hence don't have anything useful to add, except idly wondering if pushing strongly for people to think of dating as barter, not sales, would have any positive effect on the discourse.

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