Similarly, technology may be shifting the dating/intimacy market toward a winners-take-most equilibrium, which favors the most attractive young men.
I am a little worried about the medium/long-term impact on society. Not because I find non-monogamy morally objectionable or something, but because having a stable long-term partner seems like it can be beneficial in helping people through hard times. It also seems to me that if a sizeable chunk of young men end up feeling undesirable, unwanted, and frustrated, the consequences won't be pretty, we all lose.
That needs good coordination even in mom-dad situation. And gets more and more complicated if more people are involved.
More specifically for polyamorous, it seems to keep much harder a stable, jealousy-free, neutral relationship. Even in mom-dad, kids tend to pick favourite parent or parent picks a favourite kid and that creates all sorts of issues. This would definitely add much more tension with multiple "moms" and "dads" around.
Don't they always adapt to different rule sets anyway? There is one set at home, one at school, one when they go visit the grand parents and one for whoever is babysitting. There is a lot of overlap but a lot of exceptions/infractions depending on the context. Plus kids are more or less constantly probing for edge cases and try to push the boundaries naturally.
Isn’t this observation kinda the point of the assertion kids need a stable set of rules at home going back to one source above others whether that is either parent or both as a pair. That’s what prevents them from endlessly pushing their boundaries out.
Also this kind of reasoning is hard in forums because people on forums seem to have a lot of difficulty not crossing generations for groups with specific examples and hypotheticals.
That assumes that their parents are the ultimate source of authority and in many cases they aren't. Parents don't typically enforce much of a dress code for instance, but schools will often require uniforms. Kids have to learn a different set of rules for different contexts.
> That’s what prevents them from endlessly pushing their boundaries out.
The only thing that seems to prevent it (or limit it anyway) is constant enforcement, but that's also usually limited to where they have authority. A rule not being enforce in one context is a rule that will probably be broken in that context. Once in a while breaking these rules might even make them appreciate them.
They're in early age.
> Parents don't typically enforce much of a dress code for instance, but schools will often require uniforms
Ultimately it is on parents. If parents DGAF, kids are likely to stretch the dress code. At least here, schools can only call home and ask parents to make sure they will wear uniforms. Worst school can do is send kid home. Then it's on parents to enforce the uniform.
> Kids have to learn a different set of rules for different contexts
Different context. But multiple-mom-dads at home would be same context with simultaneous nodes.
> The only thing that seems to prevent it (or limit it anyway) is constant enforcement, but that's also usually limited to where they have authority
And with multiple-mom-dads it's likely there won't be constant, consistent enforcement.
We've a saying in my mother tongue that roughly translates to "9 nannies and the kid is headless". So far in my observations it's 120% true. Both in kids raising and elsewhere in life, e.g. project masnagement. If there's no single person who takes responsibility (or multiple persons coordinating fantastically well), you're in for a rough ride.
This is more about toddlers than school-age. By the time they hit school, they're already building on top of early age experience. Which is crucial for later development.
The problem is they don't know what to expect. Humans are pack animals. As long as they know what rules to follow, they tend to follow. But once they don't know what to follow... They start making their own rules since, well, they need some sort of rules.
This is one of the reasons why dropping the kid off at different places with different people at early age (like 0-2 years) is not that good. My wife used to work at kindergarten and according to her experience, there's a massive difference between classes where they have same people working with them and where staff changes every few months. Same applies to elementary school. Much less effect after that though.
> There is a lot of overlap but a lot of exceptions/infractions depending on the context. Plus kids are more or less constantly probing for edge cases and try to push the boundaries naturally.
Yes. But the problem is when there're lots of people with different edge cases and different boundaries. Then they learn that if one person doesn't bend, they can just go to someone else and that person will do what they want. Thus boundaries effectively don't exist. Only obstacles you can go around.
Pretty much. This is the demographic most susceptible to radicalization.
This goes hand in hand with my thinking that no one knows how to do poly “right”. They appear to be tools for people to stay blissfully ensconced in their regimes of self-care. I remember in my first poly relationship I was ready to go to war for my partners. But I almost never felt this readiness returned. To them, it might have been so much adornment for an aesthetic life holding little in the way of deep and lasting engagement.
For an image of what this could look like, Bertolucci’s “The Dreamers” hits the spot.
The Extension of the Domain of the Struggle (Whatever) is his first novel. The motif is that similar to economic inequality, due to sexual liberation, the sociosexual arena has become more winner-take-all, hence the extension in the title. The plot chronicles the disillusionment of a sexless programmer in denial after going on a road trip with a similarly dysfunctional co-worker who ended up commiting suicide. The story ends the protagonist going postal but offers no practical solution.
His next book The Elementary Particles follows two half-brothers who were dysfunctional in opposite ways. One was a complete sex addict who failed to individuate and the other became a monk like molecular biologist responsible for making sexual reproduction obsolete.
His next novel Platform is an in-depth analysis of the discontentment of sex tourism from the perspective of his alter ego, which is clearly formed by his own lived experience in Indonesia. I think it's his least coherent work FWIW.
The Possibility of an Island arguably follows the timeline of Atomised and describes the nature of love through the narrative of three clones of the same person from the hedonistic present, totalitarian future and hunter-gatherer post-apocalytic future.
Submission is about the return to traditionalism after a Muslim party won the election in France. The effect is complex but nominal as we all know there is no going back.
I am waiting for the English translation of Serotonin which should be released before end of next year.
Those young men need to stop basing their self image on their own ego and sense of sexual entitlement.
What we're seeing here, in my humble and uneducated opinion, is the end of a period in societal history where women served the role of sexual currency in a market of male status. The social and religious pressures on women to validate men through sex and marriage are no longer relevant, and women are now seeking sexual fulfillment and relationships on their own terms, rather than those dictated to them by patriarchal society.
However, many men are still wedded, as it were, to the old model whereby their social status is accounted for by the number of women they have had sex with, and whether or not they are in a sexual relationship at the moment. They feel cheated because society has told them they are entitled to sex, and that there is something wrong with them if they don't get as much of it as they want.
What bothers me about this conversation is that disastrous, society-shattering consequences are always mentioned if women keep choosing not to have sex with more men, but no one seems willing to suggest that men need to change the way they view sex, relationships and themselves.
It certainly is not an "old" model since most of society still ascribe to it. Men with many partners are still seen as more desirable due to network effects.
Yes, the model is still prevalent, but I'm arguing that's exactly the problem. Basing status and self-worth on sexual conquest makes no more sense than basing it on the number of slaves in one's retinue or the size of the pile of gold in one's treasury. It's a ridiculous and archaic way of thinking.
edit: I may have lost vouching privileges again, so to address blockmarker's dead comment below, unlike other animals, humans are sapient and capable of acting beyond the limits of mere instinct. The entire premise of human civilization, law and society is that abstractions beyond our animal nature are not only possible, but desirable.
Yes, it may be part of our biology for males to want to seek out multiple mates, but it should also be part of our biology, then, for males to murder the children of other males in order to maximize the spread of their own progeny and genetic lineage. And we should be marking our territory with our urine and solving all disputes with ritual violence rather than a system of laws.
We don't have to act like gorillas, we can be people if we choose.
Absolutely. However basing your self worth on acceptance/rejection of people you are attracted to or admire is perfectly normal. Note I'm not saying it's perfectly rational, or even healthy - but I do think it's normal, for people of any gender.
I guess we probably disagree on what the majority of men are after - a hookup or a relationship? And if men who are looking for a hookup instead looked for a relationship, would they have more success?
I think that even if all men were looking for a faithful, committed, relationship, then we would still see to some extent the unequal sex rates cited in the article. I don't know the solution to this however, just like I don't know the solution to the many other inequalities that are unfair towards women instead - the gradual liberation and increase in power of women is a great thing, and for anyone to suggest moving back to increasing male dominance is abhorrent.
If I managed to convince 10 hot chicks to have sex with a virgin nerdy guy(say by paying them), he won't be able to get the 11th by himself.
On the otherhand if a virgin rockstar decided to lose his virginity, there will be dozens of women lined up to have sex with him.
I may have missed part of this conversation but I don't think there's a suggestion that women are doing something /wrong/ or that they need to be the ones to "fix" this problem. Although admittedly the framing kind of makes it look like this because it appears to be women's behaviour and attitudes that have changed over recent decades, rather than men's.
I agree with you; Since this is the way things are going, men need to find a way to change their expectations and entitlement and adapt. Unfortunately discussions around this often get over-run with misogyny and bitterness (MGTOW/red-pill) and it's remarkably hard to find safe spaces for men to talk openly about their issues while keeping out that subset of men. (shout out to /r/menslib)
If the adaptation required is to become part of the 20% of men that 70% of women pursue, bitterness from the 80% of less-desirable men is inevitable since they can't compete, which inhibits their ability to obtain a mate and have a good life.
Sure, a mate isn't _technically_ required to live a good life, but in our intensely individualistic society where the number of friends men have is dropping precipitously, relationships form a core of socialization for many men.
Perhaps this is the part where we need to change and improve? Rather than expecting the world or women to align to us.
Perhaps this is the part where they need to change and improve? Rather than expecting the world or men to align to them.
Isn't it a good thing that men who feel they are not attractive to females quit for good the dating scene?
Isn't part of the problem the narative that females have been fed -- that they can just have fun in their 20s and then settle down with a nice guy in their 30s?
If females knew they won't have the backup option in their 30s, maybe they'd be more willing to choose the monoganous option earlier in life?
As an aside, why do you refer to men as "men" and "guys", but women as "females"? The asymmetry there felt quite jarring to read.
It's not jarring, in the context of the comment. The first letter of MGTOW mentioned in the earlier sentence is "men". "Nice guy" is a trope which has seen some usage when talking about relationships.
I'm married and have been with my wife since our early 20's and we have a baby daughter, there is no bitterness towards women in general.
I just find that monogamy is a pretty good compromise and the kind of bullshit happening in the western world spreads everywhere and ultimately is responsible for so much missery in both women and mens lives and society in general.
I don't want to impose my views or tell people how to live their lives, I know not all people are the same, some(overwelmingly men) are quite ok in the long run with polygamy/polyamory, BUT I'm against the modern bullshit "anything goes,go get it!" -- I'm absolutely on the "think very carefully how you live your life, the years where you can mess around without big consequences are far fewer than you realize" camp.
I am absolutely against enforced monogamy, I am 100% for honesty and people understanding the consequences of their behavior-- and MGTOW or the herbivore men of East Asia is such a natural consequence. I am absolutely disgusted by how people try to spin this from "natural consequences" to "it's the mens fault, of course young women go and have sex with top men, it's the herbivore mens fault that women do this".
I am however bitter at the vilification of men in general, the brainwashing of young men, the mistification of women and the relationship between the sexes.
I am against false naratives such as: "men are expendable violent pigs that just want sex and are responsible for all the bad things in the world and women are good fairies, women should pursue careers in their 20s and have fun and settle down in their 30s, and men and women are exactly the same biologically".
It almost seems as if you’re saying this is how things should be and that men should be the ones to change their views to accept it. From a sociological perspective, men (or any specific population) who aren’t able to form meaningful relationships) can cause problems for society just as the original post stated. Women are the ones who headline this discussion only because they lead the power dynamics which happen to be extremely unfavorable to a large population of men.
I'm not sure that's so true. Plenty of people are talking about that. It's hard for them to get a fair hearing and a good-faith discussion, given the modern state of affairs, in which the most extreme voices are given all the attention.
Edit: below you wrote:
> Basing status and self-worth on sexual conquest makes no more sense
which I profoundly disagree with and sounds to me about as tone deaf as "let them eat cake".
Reproduction is at the core of our existence, we are programmed to want to do it. This 80 % of men aren't simply going to roll over and say "oh well, I guess I'll forgo sex and female attention".
Not having long-term stable partners is also not mutually exclusive with being polyamorous and many poly people (again, in my experience) benefit from having multiple deep relationships with whom they can share their problems and struggles with. Load-balancing actually benefits all in this case.
A better comparison would be that children growing up in a polyamorous environment are more like a tribe of people instead of the classic family.
This becomes truer with age, too. How much extra energy do you have at 45? Do you have an extended family to help you? Not everyone has a good family, but with a marriage you have two chances at having a family. People will say polyamory doesn't preclude this, but there are hardships I'd never consider outside of a serious marriage. (full time financial support, integration into a family structure, etc.)
"yeah dating apps are likely to be the only major environmental change in the past decade to have had such an effect - but the mechanisms around this are manifold and complex and we must avoid being too simplistic in our models for how matches occur"
Yeah, so billions the world over progressed from their local musicians and folk tradition to Kanye West, Coldplay, Taylor Swift, and Nicky Minaj.