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While divorce rates may be around 55% and if, for the sake of argument, the total percentage of unhappy marriages is 30% (although combining lack of sex with domestic abuse is a strange categorisation to me) don't you think a lot of those unhappy marriages end in divorce? The remaining "happy" couples is probably higher than 10%.

On top of that I think you're using some very vague statistics and a stated concern for women's mental health to justify a misanthropic and potentially misogynistic world-view. It's not a very healthy mental position to take, for yourself, to believe that the majority of women or society at large is set against your own happiness.

This incel philosophy is dangerous and spreading. There was just an awful terrorist attack by an incel in Toronto.

There is actually an insane correlation between abuse and sex.

Draw what inferences you will from this, but women in abusive relationships overwhelmingly report having fantastic sex lives.

Anyone who’s been in a long-term, safe relationship may have noticed that it takes work, on the part of both partners, to keep the candles burning.

Learning stuff like this seems to defy everything that one knows, but this is the construct.

There is actually an insane correlation between abuse and sex. Draw what inferences you will from this, but women in abusive relationships overwhelmingly report having fantastic sex lives.

If true, it seems like the research backing this up wouldn't be shouted from the rooftops because it makes people uncomfortable, but I'm unable to find anything backing up your fairly wild claim.

In fact, here's a study showing the opposite (from what I can tell): https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5296519/#b14

That study references this one: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10896-015-9744-...

From that second study: For both men and women, greater increases in victimization were related to lower satisfaction.

Would love to see any research backing up your claim.

One could probably cite the immense popularity of Fifty shades of gray. It's supposed to be "BDSM themed", but actually, it's just a story about an abusive relationship build on "great sex" [0].

Most people familiar with BDSM practices/norms hate those books/movies with a passion due to how they misrepresent BDSM like it's just an abusive relationship.

The article also quotes a 2000 paper about consent by legal scholar Robin West [1], imho it's relevant to the discussion at hand as it argues that even violent and abusive marriages are often traceable back to acts of consent by the woman.

[0] https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/02/co...

[1] https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1847983

As I mentioned to above poster. Here is a source from "The Science of Trust" by Dr. John M. Gottman, foremost expert on this subject.

"As we interview these abused women, Neil and I were astounded by one consistent story about half of these women told us. They said that the best sex they had ever had in their lives occurred right after a violent beating they took from their husbands. The very thought of having sex with someone who had just hit you was totally out of the realm of our experience. Is that the combined result of dopamine and oxytocin."

There is more but really I'm at a -4 for making this post, so trying to teach people uncomfortable truths is not well-rewarded around here.

Maybe you're being downvoted because you're spouting unsourced nonsense with a wink-wink as to why it might be true, instead of "teaching truths"?

A line in a book about interviews of abused women doesn't really equal actual research sufficient to back up your wild claim here. Further, you stated that women in abusive relationships "overwhelmingly report have fantastic sex lives", but you've posted a line from a book stating that roughly half (of some) abused women said their best sexual encounters had occurred immediately after physical abuse.

That's a world of difference, and it really draws into sharp relief the underlying point you were trying to make (your clever "draw what you will from this, but..." notwithstanding) and how far from the truth it actually lies.

Don't you think your comments would be more convincing if you had sources?

Yes. It would. Here's one from "The Science of Trust" by Dr. John M. Gottman, foremost expert on this subject.

"As we interview these abused women, Neil and I were astounded by one consistent story about half of these women told us. They said that the best sex they had ever had in their lives occurred right after a violent beating they took from their husbands. The very thought of having sex with someone who had just hit you was totally out of the realm of our experience. Is that the combined result of dopamine and oxytocin."

I suggest reading the whole book. It's fantastic.

What a bunch of redpill bullshit.

While I disagree with a lot of the specifics of what tajen said, I can definitely say that I have a lot of female friends and acquaintances who conflate “men they can casually date due to dating apps” with “men they have a chance of marrying”.

They always wonder why they seem to get ghosted or why their dream guy ends up “cheating” on them. It’s not really a mystery from my point of view.

Is this happening in a large city? What ages are your male and female friends getting married?

Birds of a feather...

OK rather than outright calling this out as "redpill bullshit" can you refute it with any substance?

Refute what exactly? A bunch of assumptions and pseudo-statistics?

Well, yeah, sure, why not?

"A bunch of assumptions and pseudo-statistics" could be Hacker News' official tag line. What makes this thread special?

"The illusion of choice." Would women be better off if we could somehow free them from those false expectations, even if it meant losing their freedom to experiment?

“It gives them the illusion of choice, and many women build false expectations, feeling that they could settle with any of those Don Juans, which is false.”

Why flag? Why not respond.

I think women learn pretty quickly that these “Don Juan” types will not settle with them. They learn this when they attempt to settle with these “Don Juan” types, who readily cast aside any disillusionment about them settling.

I don’t mind that they experiment, but not building wrong expectations is important. Without this illusion of choice, they might be more satisfied with an average guy.

They might settle younger, spend time building the relationship with a man who’ll enjoy paying for her studies and who will remember her beauty for the rest of his life; and both will rise in their career by receiving more affection in their 20ies. Then at 30 have kids, without the impression of having lost her youth like when you have the illusion of choice, and without the impression of getting second-hand goods with a lot of baggage (fat on one side, kids pension on the other).

Can we remove the illusion of choice without removing freedom? That’s the problem with traditionalists. But I’m convinced we should at least try to convey the message, so little girls know where not to fall, or explain that the Charming Prince doesn’t exist. But we’re far, far from having a discussion like this is the current education.

And somehow the bachelor carousel is more attractive. Humans. (I’m joking, I know both genders are desperate in such situations, one of the big problems being the illusion of choice).

Don't try to match with the top 10% if you are not in there yourself? It's not the app creating an illusion, if you are delusional to begin with...

Except people's expectations and standards are shaped by what they are surrounded by; what's available. Now that you're exposed to way more profiles, that all feel available, standards naturally rise.

okcupid published some nice research into this, iirc women consider ~80% males to be "below average". So female standards are seriously skewed towards a small number of super-alphas, who, given a totally free market, would get all the dates

Yeah, but what about the flip side? Not all women are desirable to men: fat, unattractive, already have kids, etc. There's a lot of women who just never get a date, because their photos aren't very attractive and men want pretty women (I'm a man and I'll admit this readily: if a woman is a little overweight that's an automatic disqualifier for me).

Here's the published article: https://theblog.okcupid.com/your-looks-and-your-inbox-8715c0...

Basically, men rate women more along a bell curve, but mostly message the upper end of attractiveness, whereas women rate most men as ugly and then reply anyway.

It's nice that you can afford to be picky, but Okcupid talked about this as well, iirc _any_ woman short of actual physical deformity will get plenty of suitors. Compare this to about 50% of men who will not get any at all. In pre-historic times, only 40% of males procreated (again, iirc)

So the flip side seems quite small.

Are you overweight yourself at all ?

No, not at all. My last girlfriend was largely attracted to me because I'm thin, and she's a fitness nazi and hates fatness.

Seems pretty normal. Like women with shorter guys (and many other stuff on both genders etc)

pretty == underdeveloped. Ignore this phenomenon to your own peril.

What's this supposed to mean? You think only ugly women are developed or something? This doesn't even make sense.

Maybe he meant that if someone is pretty, they don't really need to have other good skills.

Plus their character might spoil, since people like them anyway just based on looks...

Except some guys do know how to "look" at girls rather than ogle

I get the impression you've never actually spoken to a woman in your life.

It was a bad comment for HN, but please don't reply to a bad comment by breaking the site rules yourself. That just makes this place even worse.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html