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I sympathize with your vexation here. I'm not sure how productive these discussions can be if we have to regularly pause for interjections of "you haven't assigned enough (or any) blame to my outgroup". I think he could have made a better post than that.
At the same time, I also think we would be remiss to completely talk around a very obvious link between female promiscuity and popular progressive feminist messaging. A certain subset of men may benefit the most from modern dating/hook-up college, but this culture has never been broadly or enthusiastically condoned by men, at least out loud. A man may be happy that prostitutes exist if only to satisfy his base urges, but he's not exactly proud of it. And since humans aren't consistent, principled thinkers - while he may be happy that some women sleep around if only for the opportunity for him to get laid, he's probably not thrilled to find out his wife/girlfriend had dozens of partners prior to the current relationship. "X in the streets, Y in the sheets" kinda sums up the attempted propriety.
By contrast, it is feminism that has railed against "slut-shaming", argued that women who sleep around are unfairly judged compared to Chads, whitewashed sexual exhibitionism as personal exploration, and so much more since at least I was in Jr High. I'm not even interested in blaming anybody for our current state of affairs - just an admission that there is an obvious (if not clear) relationship between the dashed expectations of young women and this ubiquitous ideological memeplex. I don't think you can assign more culpability to men for herding women towards the Sex Party - gently pushing against their backsides and reassuing them to not worry, this will all be so fun - versus an industry of Grl Power media that is assumedly produced mostly by women.
As such, I am not interested in curbing or punishing legions of cheating/insistent men that potentially threaten the structural integrity of our society. Not until we dial the lens out far enough to indict a few other groups. Zero interest in "getting men to play by the rules again" when both sexes have defected from them (with women running the full sprint, one could argue), and when the fairer one routinely acts like it never has any agency in these affairs whatsoever - which is unacceptable when you've spent decades trumpeting how you know what you want, you are self-empowered, you don't need anybody to hold your hand or 'mansplain' things to you, and being chaste is just an insecure demand from the patriarchy.
Short of actual rape, there's a lot I'd give amnesty to until this conversation space starts looking halfway reasonable. But I'm not optimistic, and it is for that reason I reluctantly agree that this wound may not heal. All the "stitching up" has to happen on the men's side, and women act like they're just oblivious passengers that never saw the dozen road signs warning "POTENTIAL LANDSLIDES AHEAD".
In terms of the views of the 'people', my general impression is that most men are openly very supportive of the increased availability of sex outside of long-term committed relationships, and that many are openly supportive of the availability of one-night stands. In terms of the public statements of 'intellectuals' - I think thrre were a lot of male intellectuals in the past who supported the 'sexual revolution', and there continue to be so today?
I agree that feminism support male and female promiscuity, but male feminists and female feminists both support it.
I don't think it is really possible to get an accurate picture of sentiment here given the overwhelming amounts of social control and messaging on the topic. Most men are in fact openly very supportive of the ideologies that they are required to support in order to remain employed, but I'm not sure how much of that translates to actual, real support. The constant witch-hunting that takes place these days is, to me at least, a sign that this outward support isn't always matched behind the mask.
This includes a lot of private conversations, in groups and one-on-one. And the character of them isn't at all 'thing i say because i have to for social acceptance'. A guy in college who's very happy about his first time, or bragging about his fourth, doesn't really remind me of 'the captive mind'.
I think I may have been a bit unclear when I spoke before and given more of a hostile or conspiratorial approach, when I think this is more a case of a fish not really perceiving water. I think that the vast majority of men don't get to the level of seriously interrogating their personal beliefs and attitudes on this topic, and instead act within the confines of the society and culture that they grew up in. To complain about the current order of things is largely seen as broadcasting either "I am a loser who fails to get laid" or (a very hyperbolic) "I am a hardline conservative who wants to institute white sharia".
I personally think the current system has a lot of problems, but that doesn't stop me from acting to optimise my success within it, and being happy when I do succeed. If you actually laid all the options out and got them to make an informed choice, I think the majority of men would opt for something other than the current dating market... but this is a rationalist forum and you know what a co-ordination problem is already.
I agree in principle, but the 'inferential distance' between them and that choice are entire systems of moral philosophy so it's basically just saying 'i'm right, and people would agree if they were more correct'. Which, to be fair, is more or less true in this case.
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Thanks for expressing the basic point I was trying to make in greater detail. I'm having one of those days where the words aren't coming to me with ease.
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