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The basic assumption they operate under "Men like innocent partners, women like promiscuous partners" is false, or marginal at best. So when you try to use anecdotes as proof of your universal law, I think a counterexample is appropriate.
Do you really not believe this? How many women do you know?
This isn't some oblique inference I've picked up or just assumed. From the dozens of actual mouths of horses, women do not want to lash themselves via marriage to a man with unknown sexual skills, preferences, and penis size. While men (bizarrely) tolerate hot dead fish for a long time, rolling the dice on ever having an orgasm from someone else just doesn't even pass the sniff test of rationality.
I'm not saying women only want lotharios with high body counts, but an untested virgin is a massive risk.
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Is true if you just add the statement with "traits associated with". A 22 year old who has had sex with 9999 guys, had her mind and body wiped to be equivalent to the 22 year old that lost her virginity at prom, eventually broke it off, and is now marrying her college sweetheart is probably just as appealing so long as the man doesn't know. But there is no such thing. A man who is promiscuous is high status because he can win women. A woman wants a man who can win women, because women are convinced by this. But the woman also wants to win him and end his promiscuity streak. If they could have a virgin that simply refused 100 propositions a day from hot actresses, they would pick him over the guy who slept with all 100. But again, they can't have that because it doesn't exist (aside from possibly Tim Tebow).
Isn’t it strange that when they marry, women do a 180 on what they want in a man? I thought those were hard-coded preferences. And if they aren’t, I’m pretty sure early promiscuity in men is also correlated with greater rates of infidelity, so women would be just as anti-promiscuity in partners as men.
Its not strange or a 180. Its a consistent preference for high status, with a second false belief that they can change the man without lowering his status.
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My general conception of the paradox of male-female compatibility is as follows:
Young women hope that the man they marry will change. Men rarely change all that much, leading to disappointment.
Young men hope that the woman they marry will stay the same, but women change a lot (esp. due to childbirth), leading to disappointment.
Yes, I do think that women often want a completely different man than the one they choose, partially because they are so wired to want to settle down that they are motivated to make big compromises to make it happen (like temporarily pretending to like things the man likes, including frequent sex), but also because they believe that men are unfinished projects.
Anecdotally, I am an agnostic white-collar nerd who married a woman from a family of religious blue-collar semi-rednecks. My theory is that she was initially attracted to how different I was from the men she grew up around, and that every day since she has increasingly resented not only how unlike them I am but how uninterested I am in that entire world as she gravitates back in that direction.
Do you see a divorce in your future?
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Calling this a 180 seems akin to saying it's a 180 that a man would want a virgin bride but then after they got married, he'd want her to be sexually available to him whenever he felt the desire. It's just a bizarre framing.
The Madonna/Whore complex is real! This is exactly what men want. But they don't want a 180-degree change, they want a singular sexual devotion to them, which is constant from when the girl is a virgin waiting for the right man to when the girl is willing to become his sexual fantasy and his alone.
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Right, that’s another hole in the theory. They are apparently attracted to a lack of sex and ability to say no to suitors, but that characteristic is soon gone, and yet they keep at it. Promiscuous irrelevancy does not run into such rudimentary problems.
They are still attracted to the ability to say no to suitors; once you are married you don't want your partner cheating.
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Wrong. Men have a preference for women with low partner counts when it comes to seeking long term relationships - but it isn't the only preference that they have. Individuals are complex and there are multiple factors involved in what makes someone a compelling choice as a partner. Partner count is just one of a galaxy of factors at play in any individual interaction or mating choice, and while influential, it isn't the only quality being looked at. Women generally prefer tall, wealthy and handsome men - pointing out that short, poor and ugly men can still find partners doesn't even reach the point of needing refutation because it does nothing to even address the point being made. Some women marry men who are shorter than them - this does not mean that there is not a general trend of women preferring that their partners are taller than they are.
Similarly, the notion that men are the gatekeepers of commitment does not mean that men have exclusive control over all relationships and their preferences are the sole determinant in how relationships play out. Jeremy Meeks and Leonardo DiCaprio are more than capable of turning women down for sex, and JK Rowling doesn't have to think twice when she turns down a local plumber's offer of making her his housewife and living off a portion of his income. This does nothing to change the broader general trends and isn't some "gotcha" for the view you're arguing against.
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