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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   32250 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 10, 2023

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The dating market is more competitive for men than for women; women are far more selective than men about sex partners. Imagine an attractive person of the opposite sex walking up to you on a college campus and saying, “Hi, I’ve been noticing you around town lately, and I fnd you very attractive. Would you have sex with me?” How would you respond? If you are like 100 percent of the women in one study, you would give an emphatic no. You might be ofended, insulted, or just plain puzzled by the request. But if you are like the men in that study, the odds are good that you would say yes— as did 75 percent of those men (Clarke & Hatfeld, 1989). As a man, you would most likely be flattered by the request.

I'm sympathetic enough to the general post that I actually want someone to debunk it (I've swung a little too hard towards Caplan and Hanania on this I feel) but this seems like the weakest point.

This can easily be put down to evolved sex differences: women have more risks and less benefits from casual sex..

See, this is actually the argument for feminism: why should men's internal experience and preference be the standard here?

Clarke & Hatfeld, 1989

Looking at it, it says:

Describes 2 experiments conducted in 1978 and 1982 with 96 university students testing the hypotheses that men are more eager for sex than are women and that women are more likely to set limits on such activity.

Look deep within your heart, Tanista, and tell me you are really surprised that a bunch of young men at peak horniness years would go "oh yeah baby" when a hot chick asked them "so big boy, wanna have fun"? 😁

Describes 2 experiments conducted in 1978 and 1982 with 96 university students testing the hypotheses that men are more eager for sex than are women and that women are more likely to set limits on such activity. Related literature and data are also reviewed. In the present experiments, male and female confederates of average attractiveness approached potential partners with 1 of 3 requests: "Would you go out tonight?" "Will you come over to my apartment?" or "Would you go to bed with me?" Results were almost identical for both experiments. The great majority of men were willing to have a sexual liaison with the women who approach them. Not one woman agreed to a sexual liaison. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)

I mean, yeah, big difference between "Would you go out with me on a date?" and "Forget even dinner and flowers, wanna fuck?" Men and women are different, sorry blank slate crowd and ultra-feminists, there are gender/sex differences!

I'm imagining women were more likely to respond positively to "want to go on a date?" than "drop your knickers right now".

EDIT: Also, both experiments were done around the start of the 80s, I wonder if they would have different outcomes today. And there was a lead-up to it:

In both experiments, five college women and four college men from an experimental social psychology class acted as confederates. They were instructed to stand in an area of the college campus and approach members of the opposite gender. They were instructed to only approach those that they found attractive and would be willing to actually sleep with (in any other scenario, presumably). When the confederates spotted someone they liked they said: “I have been noticing you around campus. I found you to be very attractive.” They then asked one of three different questions:

“Would you go out with me tonight?”

“Would you come over to my apartment tonight?”

“Would you go to bed with me tonight?

In total, 48 men and 48 women were asked these questions from a member of the opposite gender (i.e. 16 each question).

This is actually kinda fun, let's have a look at the results:

1978 -

Man approaches women, asks:

Date? Compliance: 56%

Apartment? Compliance: 6%

Bed? Compliance: 0%

Woman approaches men, asks:

Date? Compliance: 50%

Apartment? Compliance: 69%

Bed? Compliance: 75%

From which I take away men have no sense of self-preservation/see no reason to be afraid anything bad will happen to them if they head off to a strange place with a strange person, like waking up in a bath of ice missing their kidney or knocked out with a Mickey Finn and robbed, or, you know, end up raped and murdered.

1982 -

Man approaches women, asks:

Date? Compliance: 50%

Apartment? Compliance: 0%

Bed? Compliance: 0%

Woman approaches men, asks:

Date? Compliance: 50%

Apartment? Compliance: 69%

Bed? Compliance: 69%

It's like our (grand)mothers always told us, men only have one thing on their mind! 😁 Sorry to be judging the entire sex on a bunch of horny college boys, but gentlemen, you just want to go straight to dessert without eating your vegetables, as it were: no date, fuck now!

From which I take away men have no sense of self-preservation/see no reason to be afraid anything bad will happen to them if they head off to a strange place with a strange person, like waking up in a bath of ice missing their kidney or knocked out with a Mickey Finn and robbed, or, you know, end up raped and murdered.

Oh, we see it.

I think every simp that ever forked over money, every guy that walked down the alley only to be ambushed by her boyfriend...they all had an inkling.

It just didn't matter enough.

I mean, I have no doubt that the typical woman has an easier time getting a date than a typical man. But for both men and women, the goal of most people’s romantic lives is not ‘go on dates’, it’s ‘find a quality partner’, and I don’t think there’s much evidence that women find it easier to find a quality man than that men have for finding a quality woman.

Yes, yes, women are really bad at filtering their mates, often don’t act in ways that endear them to quality men, etc, but that’s because they’re dumb and western society will watch the world burn before admitting that, not because they want to go on dates with losers and assholes.

I don’t think there’s much evidence that women find it easier to find a quality man than that men have for finding a quality woman.

Six hundred pound women find men to be their nurse and caretaker.

Also casual sex tends to be a mediocre experience for women; you tend to orgasm even less than in relationships (32% vs 72% from a quick Google search), you’re at the mercy of someone much bigger and stronger than you (most men don’t seem to really grasp this), the risk is higher (STDs, pregnancy, sexual assault, etc).

I’ve been with a few women in the past (although I didn’t particularly enjoy it) and it was depressing how many would be surprised by the fact that I seemed to care about them at all.

Also casual sex tends to be a mediocre experience for women

How do you compare the experience of the two sexes. Tiresias at least experienced both conditions and voted conclusively for being a women, though it cost him his sight. "Of ten parts a man enjoys one only."

I wonder which trans people prefer. Are there cases where transwomen feel that they have lost out in switching teams? Similarly, do trans men feel they are on to a good thing? My guess is that this effect is swamped by other issues.

I’m a bisexual trans woman so I got to experience some manner of both, but I do agree that the effect is greatly confounded by deeper issues like dysphoria.

My main experience would be that sex with men is a lot more variable, in that the bad is much worse but the good is a lot better, and the quality depends quite a lot on your partner, while with women it’s generally fairly average and depends more on your own state than the other person. So casual sex would be better for most men, but relationship sex would be better for women with the right partner.

The peak physiological pleasure is definitely greater when you’re a woman though, multiple full-body orgasms aren’t really a thing for men (trans men generally keep the ability to have multiple if they had it before, but they become otherwise closer to the male ones: brief and concentrated in the genitals). I certainly don’t miss the male sexual experience at all and see it as the equivalent of sexual fast food vs. going to a proper restaurant.

Would you actually expect the experience of trans people to be relevant here? I would personally expect a trans woman to have an extremely different sexual experience than a cis woman.

If post-op trans women prefer sex as a woman rather than a man, then I would consider this strong evidence that the woman's role is more enjoyable.

I agree that the sexual experience is probably very different, but my sense is that it would be better for natal women than trans women.

Similarly, if post-op trans men enjoy sex more as men, then that would be evidence the other way. Here are a bunch of transmen talking about sex. They seem hornier and more comfortable, but none claim that the sex is better. In contrast, a plurality of transwomen seem to enjoy sex post-op more.

The effect of testosterone also muddies the waters, I think, since the anecdotal accounts of FtM do seem to be "I'm a lot hornier since I started T" (as well as aggressive, self-confident, etc.)

How well a neo-phallus performs as against a neo-vagina is something I have no idea about. And not every trans person does have bottom surgery, and (it seems like) a fair percentage of trans women are lesbians. All very much confounding factors.

"I had miserable 'straight' (with women)/'gay' (with men) sex when I was still living as a man" versus "I have great 'straight' (with men)/'lesbian' (with women) sex as a transwoman" would seem to depend on psychological adjustment as well as physical factors. How do you even go about getting data on "When I slept with men as a man I didn't enjoy it, but sleeping with men as a woman I love it"?

If post-op trans women prefer sex as a woman rather than a man, then I would consider this strong evidence that the woman's role is more enjoyable.

If autogynephilia plays as large a role in the transwoman phenomenon as many posters here believe, then an autogynephiliac trans woman in a sexual encounter is getting off as much (if not more so) on her realised fantasy of being treated as a woman as she is from the actual mechanics of the encounter. This is a massive confounder making apples-to-apples comparisons with the experiences of cis women essentially impossible.

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