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Via Roissy (via Kyle), we come to Kay Hymowitz's "Love in the Time of Darwin":
Earlier this year, I published an article in City Journal called “Child-Man in the Promised Land.” The piece elicited a roaring flood of mailed and blogged responses, mostly from young men . . . . Their argument, in effect, was that the [single young man] is putting off traditional markers of adulthood—one wife, two kids, three bathrooms—not because he’s immature but because he’s angry.
Stop, stop, STOP! A pox on both your houses! The premise as stipulated by both Kay and her interlocutors -- that men are deciding to put off marriage -- is utterly and completely false as a generality applied to all men!
But to know this, Kay would have to open her eyes beyond their currently narrow field. For she is guilty of the same error as the men for whom women of less than car show model attractiveness are invisible. Like them, Kay only sees men in the top 5% of the status hierarchy, the same 5% being pursued by 95% of women, the same 5% for whose attentions women bid in an arms race to the bottom. Of course those men don't want to get married: in the immortal words of Kelly Bundy, why buy the cow when you can get the eggs for free?
But what about the other 95%? You know: the ones standing on the sidelines looking desperately for some sign of encouragement. The ones with no idea how to talk to a woman because, well, none of them have. The ones without game.
Are there tradeoffs? I've been reading Spungen too long to try to deny this. She overstates her case (as do we all), but it may be entirely possible that it is NOT in the average woman's interest to settle down in her twenties with the average betaman. (Certainly it was not in Spungen's interest.) There are arguments to be made on both sides, for both men and women, and I wouldn't try to substitute my judgment for theirs.
But this, too, is a tradeoff, so they should make it with their eyes open. They may do as they will, but please, please, please spare me the tired invective about how men-won't-settle-down. It. Is. Not. True.
Addendum: On this question, I have to recommend Roissy's usual mix of vital insight and crippling contradiction.
UPDATE: Trumwill provides some perspective
4 comments:
Some women are comfortable asking, “What’s your name again?” when they look across the pillow in the morning.
No woman has ever done this to me, but if she did I’d tell her “Fuck you, that’s my name.”
Roissy's does have some interesting things in his post, but doesn't the above sound like a claim you would hear in a rap song? If he could rhyme, he'd probably make some allusion to then turning them over and...
She overstates her case (as do we all), but it may be entirely possible that it is NOT in the average woman's interest to settle down in her twenties with the average betaman.
the women who think this way are usually the ones who don't have a clear-eyed view of just how rapidly their sexual market value will tumble downslope once they hit their late 20s onward. the trade-off for the *average* woman who wants to marry isn't between "settle down with a beta in her 20s" vs "settle down with an alpha in her 30s after having some fun fun fun"; it's "settle down with a beta in her 20s" vs "settle down with an even lesser beta or none at all in her 30s".
beautiful women, of course, have more room to maneuver, just like alpha men do, but even the hotties have to keep a wary eye on father time tapping his watch.
Roissy's does have some interesting things in his post, but doesn't the above sound like a claim you would hear in a rap song?
david mamet is the white OG.
you down wit glen-gar-ry?
The premise as stipulated by both Kay and her interlocutors -- that men are deciding to put off marriage -- is utterly and completely false as a generality applied to all men!
Is this really what they say? I got that she said men were angry and not going to take it anymore so they had given up on traditional notions of chivalry (or civility).
Bobvis: the upshot of Kay's earlier post was indeed that men were extending adolesence into their twenties, as indicated by delaying family formation.
Roissy: I agree. Spungen's experience notwithstanding (doing what she wanted in her twenties proved no impediment to settling down with Mr. Close-to-perfect in her thirties), many women do find the options not so great.
But not always. Some of us were still around 5 - 8 years later. Plus we earned more money and had picked up a modicum of social skill in the interim. And we STILL wanted to get married.
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