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Historically, monogamous societies are far more prosperous than harem-based societies. The reason is obvious: monogamy entices the entire male population to invest in their family and nation, have a good career, and build property and wealth. Without monogamy, a large segment of males have no such motivations, and they are uninvolved in society, detached from the future, and more likely to pursue self-pleasing leisure or even crime.

There is also the disease angle. STDs, including common ones like herpes, are a major factor in cognitive decline, early-onset Alzheimers, etc.

The West is about to get a major lesson in this.

Exactly. Some commenters are here just pushing the point away. But it's actually happening right in front of our eyes.

As I said, i'm not on one side of the other. I'm just noticing the social situation happening.

Quite the incel take on "biology" and the female attention market... I mean for not being on one side and all. Comments like this scare me.

This is a strange leap from a (partially true) incel talking point that monogamy is a force for the sexual equivalent of “income distribution” (incels objectify it too much; attractiveness doesn’t really match that well to the [0,10] segment of the real line) by to polyamory, which is a sort of fringe culture. If you look at your HBD/manosphere/whatever sources — I haven’t seen any of that since Nick Land’s blog went silent — you’ll see the word “hypergamy”, which is what you’re thinking of.

Like many things usually dismissed as deplorable because they’re uncomfortable, incel culture is built on some kernels of truth, but the whole edifice is shaky, not true as a whole and not helpful psychologically. It’s really best not to dwell on these things, try to expose yourself to social situations and try to be happy. I’m not genetically arranged so to be a top runner but running is fun. Losing is fun if you just go for things without expectations.

> Do you notice it too?

Nope, not in my circle of friends and I didn't even know about Polyamory apps until this article. I've no doubt there are many of them but it is not something that interests me or something I've ever talked about.

Do your friends talk about it? Do any of them use these apps?

> all women can now access that top 20% of men quite easily

How? Surely, many of them are already taken and most will be faithful; after all that has got to be one of the attributes defining them as "best". I don't think its any easier for women than it is for men.

i don’t think that increased access to “top tier” men is the root cause of this feeling. it seems to me like choices for women around partners were largely made for them for most of history. this led to men from wealth and power to define the “good” traits. the traits we defined were largely based on status.

now that access to people with these traits is no longer based on who a woman’s guardian knows, but what’s available in the market a lot of dudes feel left out.

i really think this is an issue men caused, entrenched into our society, and then shot themselves in the foot when they lost control of the market supply.

if you don’t want the 80/20 thing to exist, stop furthering the narrative and push for non-physical traits to have the greatest value. i think an emotionally available, driven and focused, and caring person is way better for a partner than a hot rich one. as long as most people don’t feel that way we are stuck in the system we built ourselves

You're kind of right. A lot of marriages were historically done for reasons other than love. Most women aren't sexually attracted to their husbands but they still needed a provider. Now that women are economic equals to men they have no reason to ever settle for guys they don't like, which is most guys. If you've ever seen a woman use a dating app you know that they're all flooded with dozens of messages from hot guys who would love to have sex with them but would never considering marrying them. So women who don't need to marry average guys are happy to wait their turn for a sexual encounter with a top guy instead of giving a regular guy a chance.

The idea that we have the ability to "push" for what's desirable makes no sense at all and it's not possible.

attraction is almost completely defined by society, and how we talk about desirable traits informs that.

take weight for instance:

in late feudal/early industrial society a heavy set person was seen as very attractive. access to the resources to become fat was hard, so a fat person was rich and the weight conveyed power.

in the same feudal/industrial time pale skin was also seen as very attractive, because it meant the person didn't have to labor outside for a living.

now thin tan people are all the rage, but you're saying we don't decide on what is attractive as a society?

> you're saying we don't decide on what is attractive as a society?

Yes. There’s no “we” who gets to make a conscious decision about these things. Attractive people are not attractive because of some narrative that was constructed.

And that’s just for long term partner preferences. Sexual attraction is almost entirely dependent on biology.

Are men any more attracted to a woman if she's tanned or not? Have they ever been? The status involved changes, and women find status attractive, but men don't care as much when it comes to what to fuck.

And have men ever not appreciated a nice, big ass?

For that matter, there's variance in what people like today; presumably there was before. And yet there are invariants- clear skin, symmetrical face/body plan.

Some of the differences in what's attractive (which breast/ass size is most attractive) also have to do with the life history strategy of the man in question. Pump and dump-oriented guys are more likely to find larger breasts most exciting (you have 10 seconds to pick the most genetically fit woman out of this lineup and 10 minutes to inseminate her; then you'll never see her again. What strategy works? Select for oversized secondary sex characteristics, female equivalent to peacock tails- costly signal of excess resources), whereas slower life-history strategy men will find smaller breasts more attractive and care about women's intelligence more (slow strategy- order, planning, division of labour, stability).