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> Declining to date someone because they're fat is now firmly seen as a bullying tactic, but not dating someone because they're short is perfectly fine.

As they say, "'No' is a complete sentence." Anyone can decline to date anyone for any reason you like. And it's probably best not to give reasons, especially if it's something intrinsic or hard to change.

Many people lack a peer group capable of giving them effective dating advice. Men who don't have any friends who aren't straight guys of their own age should probably fix that first. And work on opening up emotionally.

I don't look to my peer group to provide me with advice on investing, diet, apartment hunting, or programming, so the notion of finding a peer group to advise me on dating would never occur to me.

"Declining to date someone because they're fat is now firmly seen as a bullying tactic"

What?

Where I come from you're allowed to date who you deem to be attractive. Nobody cares if you don't date anyone because they're fat, dumb, small, poor or what not.

Right. Personal dating preferences are sarosanct. There's been a tremendous effort over the past 50 years to replace freedom of association with egalitarian social engineering, and it's at dating where society has drawn a firm line and said "This far! No further!".

While there are activists out there attempting to use the standard social shaming toolkit to influence dating, their tactics won't work. Reproduction is too deep-seated a drive to tamper with that way. And fortunately, defeat here will blunt the entire array of tools.

It's as if an entire generation is hearing this internal monologue: "You mean that if I want you to consider me a 'woke' and good person, I need to have sex with this person I don't consider attractive? To hell with you and your morality then."

> The widespread availability of pornography probably does drive home several extra layers of resentment in someone whose personal track record with courting, dating, and sex has been unsatisfying.

IMHO, much worse is the prohibition of prostitution. In my country, pornography can be found for free on internet but prostitution has recently been completely banned.

That puts a young man who watches pornography but has, for one reason or an other, absolutely no idea how to get laid, in a very difficult position. I can totally understand how that would make him angry.

> Declining to date someone because they're fat is now firmly seen as a bullying tactic,

No, advertising, either directly to the subject or to other people specifically referencing the subject, a personal characteristic as the reason for declining to date someone has always (well, since the early 1980s, at least, don't really know how it was received before I was in elementary school) been recognized as a means of attacking that person and often a bullying tactic, (doubly so when it is done prospectively.)

Not dating someone itself, for any reason, is not generally, even now, and irrespective of the actual reason.

>declining to date someone because they're fat is now firmly seen as a bullying tactic

what world do you live on? Declining to date someone and bullying them are very obviously different things.

> Declining to date someone because they're fat

It's how you wrap it with elegance and allure: just that your preference is to date e.g. petite females. Don't mention fat etc. at all. Or just simply state the person is not your type and walk away. They are pretty aware what they are doing, including taking photos from "slim angle" and trying to sell you "sub-prime CDS as class A-shares", and then just play usual shame game to force you to cater to them. Ignore it; it's like a bad business decision, be strong, enforce what you like and not what they would like you to - you can tell them once they can e.g. run 100m sprint in 13s, then you can date, as sporty ladies make you excited etc. And you even give them a S.M.A.R.T. goal; not that it matters as they will be stuffing themselves with whatever sugar they find, but at least you don't make a political mistake of aligning with the signature of fat shaming.

> This skirts a taboo that you can barely talk about: that personal preferences in dating are not judged to the same standard, and that movements of empowerment and positivity are clashing with everyone's free will in pursuing -- and especially articulating -- what they do and don't like. Declining to date someone because they're fat is now firmly seen as a bullying tactic, but not dating someone because they're short is perfectly fine.

Do you have sources to cite on that? Because this honestly sounds like an incel talking point. The idea that it's ok for women to judge and reject men -- for being short, or any other number of male-oriented deficiencies -- but men are not similarly free to reject women based on their appearance. It's bullshit and it doesn't really exist. Anecdotally, I've never once seen someone be judged for not wanting to date someone no matter how shallow the reason. It's just another way in which these men are claiming to be unfairly victimized in the dating world.

I figure that most incel-type dudes have never had the experience of rejecting someone romantically, for any reason, but have been rejected. The complaint that women can be shallow and men can't (which isn't true; everyone, largely, is shallow to some degree) is really a face-saving way of complaining that women get to screen and reject men, and incel-type dudes don't feel like they have anywhere near that level of agency.

These are basic human-type concerns. Which makes the angry, bitter, you-definitely-can't-empathize-with-me rhetoric of many incels even more frustrating.

A search for 'double standards' on /r/tinder will show you some anecdata for example.

While I agree that the message sounds a bit like that, I think he is right about that point. For me an eye opener was Tinder. Where I live it seems like half of the women have something like "Don't even try if you are less than 1.80cm" or something like that in their profile. I am actually relatively tall and happy with my sex life, so I don't take the offense personally, yet I can't help but wonder what would happen if a guy wrote something like that about weight or boob size, for example? (I sometimes consider opening a fake female account to see if some men actually do that...) Also interestingly, a lot of women profiles are just a collection of attributes they don't want in guys, written in a very negative language... instead of, I would expect, just some positive things about themselves. I wonder where that delusional way of looking at themselves--as an inherent "price" to be "won" by the very best in men--comes from? Are men in online dating like that too? In our society we are reflecting a on what "masculinity" means, and scrutinizing and redefining male sexual behavior. This is a good thing. But I wonder if maybe it would also help young women get an understanding of femininity that is not based on these backwards ideas that could help everyone have healthier and more equal relationships.

> yet I can't help but wonder what would happen if a guy wrote something like that about weight or boob size, for example?

Have you browsed men's profiles on Tinder? You're comparing 50% of the actual data to your imagination here.

Read the next sentence, you get your answer.

If we're going to talk data/studies:

* there was that OKTrends blog article from 5-10 years back that noted women tended to rate 80% of men below average, while men tended to rate women in a normal distribution.

* there's apparently some indication that twice as many women as men manage to reproduce successfully.

* To the extent that books like _A Billion Wicked Thoughts_ reflect credible research, there's notable indications that women often employ a broader set of criteria along with a higher floor and aim for picking mates.

There may be methodological issues that I'm not in a position to evaluate, so I'm sure all of this is subject to review. Also, none of this means you have to make any categorical call about who has a more privileged or difficult life by gender; beyond the good reasons for anyone to be selective when looking for prospective mates, there are some that apply to women in particular. But it does look like there are studied reasons for suspecting that women are more selective and critical about prospective mates than men are.

A lot of people here are basing their view of gender dynamics (such as women being given 'the upper-hand' and so on, whatever that means) on Tinder and related websites/apps. It may be worth mentioning that the vast majority of people on Earth (or even the developed world) do not, in fact, use any dating apps at all. Most people's flirting activities still take place in meatspace, with all the associated awkwardness. In fact, in many parts of the world there is no concept of 'dating' at all, or at least not in its codified form as happens in the US.

I respect your experience and it may be that women do have much more power than men in the online dating world - that doesn't mean it's not an extremely skewed representation of the actual social dynamics that happens between humans. This is due to the many cultural biases of the people who make these apps and the audience they're targeting, both of which being typically college-educated urban American millenials.

Not everyone's approach to relationships is like that of a college-educated urban American millenial.

I do not think that women have "the upper hand" or that they have "more power than men", in general nor in particular when it comes to relationships. In particular, what others say here: in spite of these examples, men also reject and of course appearance is also a preference (sometimes even more so than for women).

And while I also agree that the sample from Tinder is a very restricted view, and in general I also prefer meeting people directly in the real world. What I found interesting about Tinder is, precisely, that I allowed me to directly see how women outside of my social circles and spaces I frequent present themselves. While I still live in a hipster urban area, I found that so many of these examples of very traditional views about courtship---all this "I am a price" logic I mentioned in the parent post is not so much a sign of power, but I see it as more of a conservative view that puts women in a passive role. It can be frustrating for men, but probably it is also damaging for women, and to me showed, somewhat, that the road to better gender equality and fluid roles is a long one.

> At a surface level, it seems to demonstrate that sex -- and not just fruits of performances thereof -- is a transaction, and that the attributes that they bring to the marketplace (appearance, aesthetic, attitude, interests, personality, attainment) are unpopular among the potential pool. Amateur pornography exacerbates this, because it appears to suggest that sex, and the mood of sexual adventurousness required to film it, is extremely common, and taking place between average, everyday people. This can further their fears of inferiority.

Is this more Jordan Peterson, “woe is men” shit?

Seriously, if these sovereign individuals can’t forge social relationships with others, especially women, and use that to further their understanding and connection with the real world, then that is their problem, as individuals. It’s not society’s fault that these individuals choose to not engage with society on society’s terms. It’s certainly not women’s fault and very much not their responsibility to fix.

> Is this more Jordan Peterson, “woe is men” shit?

Acknowledging the existence of a problem affecting men?

> ... then that is their problem, as individuals ...

I agree, but the society needs to acknowledge that it actually IS a genuine problem for these men. We can then encourage the development and adoption of technological solutions, such as sexual VR and sexbots. It might not be the ideal solution for these men, but at least it's a solution (and it puts no responsibility on women to do anything).

I actually agree with you, society does need to acknowledge that members are in trouble.

I don't think anything that has come out of the MRA/Petersonian fringe is helping though.

There certainly is problems with men/masculinity in society, it's both sad and tragic, as illustrated by the tragic suicide of Scott Hutchison a couple of weeks back. I'm convinced that all these people who think they're sticking up for men are only making things worse though.

The answer doesn't lie in blaming female empowerment.

> Is this more Jordan Peterson, “woe is men” shit?

What do you mean?

One important caveat here to add. Just as it is not a failing black kid's problem ALONE that he does not have the opportunity to have a stable family and proper education, so is its society's burden to educate these men on etiquette AND provide them with a stable worldview that does not belittle them for not being like the demigods seen on tv (same as how we should not shame women for having body image issues, but rather tackle advertisement instead).

I wont say its entirely society's fault, but we cant just ignore the problem. As that leads to Brexit, Trump,etc.

I absolutely agree. I was responding to parent who was posing this elaborate hypothetical whereby the person who goes incel (or whatever) is somehow absolved of the responsibility for their situation.

I would argue that there are profound differences too between institutional racism and male sexual resentment.

"I would argue that there are profound differences too between institutional racism and male sexual resentment."

Of course, institutional racism is several orders of magnitude more severe.

(Update: wow, I get downvoted for this. Nice!)

Political and social institutions are systems that require system level solutions.

A call for individual impetus or responsibility to fix system issues isn't necessarily wrong, but it's usually futile.

Consider: some set of features that identify an individual, over time, begin to predict a worse or less ideal state. Is the cause and solution most likely to be a collective individual moral failure, requiring a collective individual improvement? It's possible. But is it likely?

Or perhaps a better question, is this proposed solution likely to improve the state of the world to one we all like? "Be better, it's not our responsibility to fix your issues." If this is repeated enough does the trend reverse? Or if it doesn't reverse, do we simply not care? If we don't think this will reverse the trend, and if we do care, then this seems like a poor strategy.

You don't have to care or not care about any individual, and you don't have to take any individuals belief or claim at face value. That's the difference between trying to divide up lines and attribute moral defect to society or individual, and trying to map out a complex system at understand solutions that aren't about assigning blame or worth, but rather improving society for all.

Still, an ability to have empathy for those who suffer, whether they are part of your side of the culture war or not, is (only in my opinion) a beautiful trait.

I really appreciate this comment.

I agree and this has made me rethink my comment and the angle I took.

The suicide of famous artists such as Chris Cornell and Scott Hutchison - particularly Hutchison - has really shocked me and made me think more widely about what it means to live happily as a man these days. I think we need more people thinking about it positively. And more people need to embrace and encourage civility as you've done.

It's so easy to fling rocks in the culture wars, and satisfying too, but in a junk food way.

As you say, there's a bigger picture.

Thank you.

I like the war and peace reference too ;)

Declining to date someone fat is seen as bullying? That's a new one. I know stupid, controlling people who would say that declining to date someone of a different race is racist, although it's clearly not, but I've never heard this level of stupidity. Maybe there are some extreme morons who really think like this and don't understand the concept of personal choice or even the concept of personal taste and attraction but these idiots are certainly not the majority not do they dictate what is and isn't acceptable as far as dating. In fact the idea of someone else dictating who one dates or not is beyond stupid, controlling, infuriating, and authoritarian. I don't doubt that such shitty people exist, but their hate-because that's the only thing that drives such insane ideas-does not dictate culture.