At the NSWATM blog, Noah Brand asks readers to name media that they enjoy, but feel guilty about for political reasons. He calls such guilty pleasures examples of the “Kipling Effect,” the ability of artists to produce enjoyable work with politically objectionable elements. For example, he greatly appreciates Rudyard Kipling but finds parts of Kipling’s work cringeworthy due to sexism, racism, and imperialism.
Dehumanizing Men Helps Pink Feel Better
I’ve already written about misandry from artists I don’t like, but here are some examples of the Kipling Effect for me in music videos, from artists whose music I do like. Trigger warnings for female-on-male violence and abuse.
Misery by Maroon 5
I wouldn’t call myself a Maroon 5 fan, but when I hear them on the radio, I usually stay on the same station. I’ve enjoyed their single Misery; it’s catchy, light-hearted, and puts me in a good mood.
But then I watched the music video, and went through a series of reactions:
Sweet, I like bad girls…
Cool, a subversion of male sexual dominance and female submissiveness…
Hmmm, this is starting to look like Love the Way you Lie by Eminem and Rihanna, romanticizing relationship violence…
Yeoch, and at least Eminem and Rihanna made their music video somewhat realistic and intended it as a warning about the problems of destructive relationships…
This is just a one-sided beatdown that’s supposed to be funny…
Well, maybe it’s not so bad, if it’s slapstick… It’s obviously not supposed to be realistic… maybe the cartoon action is merely a metaphor for the way the guy feels he is being treated…
If the video had been more realistic and kept things at the level of shoving and biting, I could imagine it as part of a consensual BDSM relationship. But the rocket launcher, dead passersby, and lack of any evidence of affection, negotiation, or male consent makes it hard to read as kinky, despite the BDSM image of the studded leather glove.
That didn't look consensual
On the other hand, if the video had been consistently slapstick, it would be easier to view it as a fantasy or metaphor. Alternatively, if the guy had woken up from a dream at the end with his girlfriend in bed beside him, then I could say “ah, that’s how he feels she treats him.”
Unfortunately, since we live in a culture where female violence towards men is often considered normal or even amusing, and men are often portrayed as invulnerable, I have pretty low tolerance for images of unilateral female violence towards men. If everyone agreed that it was wrong, then we could all enjoy the joke, the fantasy, or the metaphor.
The slapstick doesn’t help. Without the slapstick, it would either be an abusive relationship, or BDSM. With the slapstick, female violence becomes even more funny, and men become even more invulnerable. In this culture, those are classic misandric tropes. They are not subversive at all. A truly subversive portrayal of a dominant woman would not have her abusing men, even in supposedly humorous ways.
U + Ur Hand by Pink
I like some of Pink’s songs, but she’s got some misandry going on. I sympathize with Pink getting approached and groped by douchebags in clubs in U + Ur Hand. I often come out of the bathroom in clubs and need to rescue people I’m dating from unattractive, boring, boorish, or pushy guys who have latch onto them while I was gone. I get annoyed when people sexually approach me who should be able to guess that I’m never going to be into them.
It’s her experience. So I’m not going to call misandry. But then I watched the music video…
As the character “Lady Delish,” Pink runs around in fantastical outfits, getting admired by mostly modelesque men, and—wait… what exactly is the problem?
Listening to the song, I imagined that she was getting approached by badly dressed men who are conventionally unattractive, rude, and pushy. Yet after seeing the sort of men that Pink is sneering at, and how she treats them, I started to have a lot less sympathy for her.
- Mechanic Boy
- He is a conventionally attractive guy who checks her out discreetly a few times across the room. Pink throws a spanner at him (violence towards men: Misandry Strike One!). If he isn’t Pink’s type, then that’s fine. But it’s hard to see how he did anything wrong merely by checking her out and being lower class than her. Meanwhile, “cars were always more reliable than the men who serviced them” scrolls across the screen. Dehumanizing comparison of men to machines: Misandry Strike Two.
- Coach Carlos
- Ok, I can understand why Pink isn’t attracted to him. We can guess that he lusts after her. But unless being attracted to her is a crime, or being attracted to her while being lower-class and Hispanic is a crime, it’s hard to see how he is doing anything wrong.
- Dancing Guys
- Conventionally attractive, muscular guys with long-hair and tattoos are dancing nearby Pink. And… that’s bad? Scrolling text says she was going out to check out the “wildlife” and that “all brawn and no brains made these boys too lame.” First, there is ableism of “lame.” Second, there is misandry for referring to men as “wildlife” (which would get a pass if the rest of the video wasn’t about denigrating men). Thirdly, since some of the dancing men seem to be non-white and/or lower-class while Pink is a rich white woman, there are some troubling racial implications for her calling them “wildlife”, “brawn and no brains”, and “boys.” Another strike for misandry, maybe with a little racism and classism mixed in there.
- Vampire Guy
- Pink feels that he has a bit more substance, and she seems to find him tolerable, adjusting her neckline after he looks over. But since the ending text says that her “search continues,” he still isn’t good enough. Yet it’s good to know that at least one guy is worthy of being able to look at her without getting clobbered.
- Drink-Spilling Guy
- I sympathize with Pink for getting a drink spilled on her. But it really was an accident: her hand suddenly waved in front of him and he walked into it. It’s not like he was a drunken mess who tripped onto her. The guy apologizes and tries to talk to her. Though decent-looking, he seems a little underdressed for the party. Ok, I understand where Pink is coming from on this one.
If the video was about badly dressed, high-fiving, boisterous frat boys approaching Pink, and drunkenly spilling drinks on her, I would have a lot more sympathy with her, like I initially did when hearing the song on the radio.
Yet aside from Drink-Spilling Guy, we’re supposed to feel sympathy for Pink because of modelesque guys discreetly checking her out while she goes about her day, guys she hires committing the thoughtcrime of being attracted to her, or guys dancing nearby. Because, why, exactly? Because they expressed interest in an inappropriate way? That’s not what the video shows. Because some of them were lower class, non-white, or older? Because men should just stop hitting on women?
While the song is ambiguous, the music video expresses resentment at male desire, not just how it is expressed. Pink expresses her resentment of male sexual attention, even when discreetly displayed, with violent actions (throwing the spanner at Mechanic Boy), and violent imagery:
On her punching bag, there is a drawing of a dead man with eyes crossed out. This image, along with half of Pink’s outfits in the video, were “borrowed” from artist Martin Emond without royalty. I don’t know the context of the image in his work, but in the context of a music video about resenting men, which already has violence towards men (the thrown spanner), punching a dehumanized caricature of a male corpse is definitely misandric.
The little guy on the punching bag deserves it for checking her out
After watching the music video, I found the song to be more and more problematic. As if misandry, and racist/classist undertones aren’t enough, the song also stoops to homophobia with the derisive line “you can say what you want to your boyfriends.” Since they are approaching her, she can’t believe that the men who approach her and their male friends are actually gay; she is using it as a slur.
Pink’s attempt to universalize her experience and speak for all women gets rather grating. Pink, we know you’re a rockstar who has men fawning all over her, and hardly needs to meet random guys in nightclubs. Congratufuckinglations.
But seriously, not all women are that privileged. Some women do have to wait at the door. Some women do get dressed up for men to see. Some women do want to be approached by guys in clubs, yes, perhaps even by the sort of guys who high five their bros in the corner. Some women like muscular, wild-haired guys jumping around nearby wanting to dance. Some women would be into Carlos the middle-aged boxing coach in his fedora. Some women would probably throw their number at the tattooed mechanic boy, instead of a spanner. But if Pink has shamed him into not even looking at women, that’s not going to happen.
According to Wikipedia, some reviewers called the song a “female anthem,” perhaps because it speaks to the experience many women have of getting hit on rudely in clubs. Probably the reason that women are so frustrated is that the men who approach them are rude, unstylish, or conventionally unattractive. But that’s mostly not what the music video shows, instead showing Pink clobbering conventionally attractive men merely for looking at her from across the room, a strange behavior for a supposedly empowered woman. I’m sure that many women, like Pink, feel resentment of male desire, even when only expressed in quick glances. Is Pink giving that resentment a cathartic outlet, or is she stoking it through fantasy violence and dehumanization of men?
If Pink isn’t speaking for other women, then perhaps she is trying to elevate herself above them. Her song positions herself as superior to men, but perhaps it places her above other women, too: “I’m so attractive and high-status that I don’t need to get dates from guys I meet at clubs, and I can afford to sneer at guys that other women would find attractive, because other women aren’t rich white rockstars like me.”
California Gurls by Katy Perry
Out of all the artists in this post, I enjoy Katy Perry’s music the most. Sadly, she has some seriously broken stuff going on. Perry has already come under fire for trivializing lesbianism in I Kissed a Girl, and for homophobia in Ur So Gay (in which readers will also notice gross misandry, humorous promotion of violence towards men, body image shaming, and penis shaming).
Today, we’ll talk about a music video with less obvious problems, California Gurls.
Perry journeys through Candyfornia, ruled over by the evil king Snoop Dogg. She frees other Candyfornia Gurls from their bonds, and they conquer Snoop Dogg’s male-gendered henchmen, defeating his gummy bear army and imprisoning him in sand.
This music video takes the feminist notions of patriarchy and female empowerment, but advocates a very traditional tool: female sexual power. Thanks to their sexual power, the Candyfornia Gurls storm the land. When the Gingerbread Man tries to halt them in his little male briefs, they surround him and subdue him with their desirability. He can’t resist them eating him, and lies on the ground in pieces, quivering in delight. The Gingerbread Man may feel so lucky to get in contact with attractive female sexuality that he is willing to let them destroy him. He is a metaphor for male submission and self-obliteration in response to female sexual power.
What a lucky little guy
Another troubling metaphor is the little animated melting popsicle along with the line “melt your popsicle.” Like with the Gingerbread Man, a character representing maleness or male genitals is annihilated through desire for female sexuality.
In Candyfornia, femaleness is associated with beauty, desirability, and violence. Maleness is oppressive, but it is pathetically vulnerable due to its desire for the superior sexuality of women. Once the Gurls exploit male weakness and take over, they trap Snoop Dogg and humiliate him, flicking sand into his face.
The oppressor is now oppressed. That’s a troubling notion, when in real politics, so many feminist-led efforts to fight oppression against women turn into oppression towards men, like the new sexual assault policies on college campuses.
On the other hand, misogynistic hip hop, including Snoop Dogg’s own, persists today, so perhaps turning to the tables in a music video is an appropriate critique. I’m not going to call humiliation of Snoop Dogg misandric, but I do find the representations of maleness, female sexual power, and female violence to be misandric.
Patterns
You may or may not agree that any of the elements I’ve criticized in these music videos are problematic or misandric on their own. Yet once you consider that they are part of wider patterns and themes, perhaps you will be more troubled. Here are some of the patterns I’m seeing:
- Greater sexual desirability of women
- It’s obvious in U + Ur Hand and California Gurls. In Misery, it’s evident when she pushes away some of his sexual advances.
- Violent revenge against men
- Misery and U + Ur Hand show female violence in response to male glances. California Gurls involves violence as retribution for oppressiveness.
- Violent rejections to male sexual interest
- In Misery, she punishes him for sexual advances. In U + Ur Hand, Pink throws a spanner at a mechanic for glancing at her.
- Dehumanized images of men
- The male corpse drawing on the punching bag in U + Ur Hand. The Gingerbread Man and the Popsicle in California Gurls.
- Female violence towards men as funny
- All of them.
- Sneering and expressions of contempt and disgust towards men
- Misery and U + Ur Hand. Some research suggests that disgust plays a key role in prejudice and bigotry.
- Physical obliteration of men
- Getting blown up by the rocket launcher in Misery, and getting eaten or melted in California Gurls.
- Female sexuality granting control over men
- The abusiveness of the woman in Misery is portrayed as sexy because she is conventionally attractive, so the singer has to let her get away with it, just like how the Gingerbread Man stands transfixed letting beautiful women destroy his body.
- Resentment towards minority and lower class men
- In U + Ur Hand, a rich white woman sneers at lower class and minority men who dare to have sexual thoughts, or to glance or dance nearby. In California Gurls, a rich white woman imprisons and humiliates an African-American man.
- Homophobic denigration of heterosexual men
- Pink’s line about the “boyfriends” of men who approach her, and Ur So Gay by Katy Perry
For even more patterns, check out the following (Warning! TV Tropes is an addictive pop culture website that may eat up a lot of your time): Armor Piercing Slap, All Women are Doms, All Men Are Subs, Abuse is OK When It’s Female On Male, Abusively Sexy Woman, Disproportionate Retribution, Wouldn’t Hit A Girl.
Even though most of the elements I’m criticizing in these music videos, aren’t all problematic in isolation, they are problematic when they are part of a larger pattern of misandry, trivialization of female abuse towards men, and valuation of female sexuality over male sexuality. I’m really saddened that artists I enjoy resort to these cheap tropes. The problematic themes don’t mean that these videos are bad works of art, in fact, they are excellent. It just means that the art is sending a screwed up message.
The artists and their music video directors seem to think that they are being edgy and subversive, but their work is not subversive at all: as I’ve shown, it is part of a larger pattern of misandry and feminine sexual chauvinism. Someday, I hope that artists will learn to portray female empowerment and independence that doesn’t come from harming men with sexuality or violence.
This comment thread is the “No Hostility” thread. Please read this and this for the ground rules. The “Regular Parallel” thread can be found here.
All the music in Chicago, if not the majority of musicals.
I must admit that I don’t read into lyrics or music or try to delve in too deeply about what they (and art in general) are “supposed” to mean. I simply take it for what it is. If it happens to move me, that’s good, but I don’t go searching.
But, on the topic of music, I find myself liking the pop songs that my daughters listen to. Pink, Lady Gaga, Usher, I dunno, stuff like that. But what I do not like is all the sex and sexy videos. It really places limits on what is appropriate for children. IMO there’s far too much sex in my culture. But I think I talked about how I am a relative prude.
(aside) I came across a term the other day called “raunch culture” and although I don’t think I like what the creator of the term has to say I still like the term. I”m going to adopt it for my own uses.
I also find it interesting when people hate on a certain artist or singer. I find the level of hatred shocking. Me, I can just simply not listen to it. But others seem to go out of their way to seek out hatred. I don’t get it. Yeah, haters are gonna hate but there’s more to it. But maybe that can be for another thread.
I wonder if people would say “it’s just isolated songs” or “media misandry doesn’t really matter” in response to some of these things.
Just watched the Maroon 5 video….
probably the most disturbing form was when the “innocent guys” got stabbed by the thrown knife or blown up by the rpg round…..
I don’t know though, I think that the song was really about a guy that keeps pursuing even though he has to realize a woman is bad for him. She shows him some affection with a kiss, them pushes him away. You could interpret that as a man not knowing when to walk away…..
I do see the point about it diminishing female violence as harmless and funny….
Never bought into the girls “sugar and spice/everything nice” belief. Grew up with a sister, I have long known of females ability to be mean and cruel.
I still like violent video games so it is not like I will need a talk therapy session with DR. Drew after seeing that though….
The answer is simple, boycott those artists and replace with a steady diet of Metallica, Anthrax, Pantera, MegaDeth, Slayer, Black Sabbath and Thin Lizzy.
Play loud and proud….
In regards to your link to amptoons…
Funny how the OP seemed to gloss over ‘snakes and snails and puppy dog tails’ when discussing the politics of disgust.
Superbly written post as usual, Hugh, and you make a lot of valid points. I did, however, think some of your analysis went wide of the mark and even bordered on the offensive.
To take some lesser issues first, I don’t think we live in a culture where female violence towards men is considered “normal,” I think it’s one where it’s presumed to be justified or excusable, which is a little different. I also think you missed the ‘virgin shaming’ aspect of Pink’s U + Ur Hand video, with its implied sneer at men who masturbate instead of Banging Hot Chicks.
But I was particularly taken aback by these two sentences in your Pink discussion:
The first time I read that I thought it was offensive. Then I read the next sentences — “It’s her experience. So I’m not going to call misandry.” — and I thought, “Oh, Hugh is mocking Pink’s attitude, and he just forgot to put quotes around the previous sentences to make it clear that he was voicing Pink’s attitude and not his own.” But then reading the rest of your post (and it’s occasional asides about ‘conventionally unattractive people’), I came to the conclusion that my initial reaction was right, and that the blockquoted section above actually was your own attitude.
Now, you (and Pink) are certainly entitled to feel whatever you feel when ‘conventionally unattractive’ people hit on you. But the notion that those people have some sort of obligation to mind read and ‘know’ that you (or she) will ‘never be into them’ is pretty offensive. Boorish, unstylish, and/or conventionally unattractive people (BUCUPs) have just as much right to hit on ‘hotties’ as anyone else does. Their chances of ‘success’ may be remote, and the ‘hotties’ in question have every right to spurn their advances (though I would argue that such rejections should be done respectfully and couched in terms of “I’m not into you” rather than “You’re a loser”), but BUCUPs have just as much right to try to find happiness as anyone else. Though uncommon, matches in which the two mates involved are in ‘different leagues’ by conventional standards can and do occur.
In short, you and Pink are categorically wrong on this particular issue.
Moreover, I think you overlook an important gendered aspect to this: namely, Pink’s video appears to embody female ‘dating passivity privilege’. Pre-menopausal women of at least average looks (by conventional standards) have a much higher chance of having a moderately active love life without incurring the risks of rejection involved in initiating than average-looking (by objective standards) men do. If we assume — as I do — that a particular match may be unlikely but that no one can know for sure if it’s out of the question until an initiation/rejection has occurred, then the vast majority of possible matches that average men seek will be, to some extent, ‘long shots’. Indeed, from what I can tell, much of Game appears to be about dealing with the ‘numbers crunching’ aspect of the repeated rejections most men are likely to experience as they have to repeatedly initiate ‘long shot’ encounters until some ‘stick.’
I don’t think Pink is seriously advocating throwing wrenches at men that women find unattractive. It seems to me the more insidious aspect of her video is the implied notion that women are entitled to not be approached by ‘conventionally unattractive’ men … and if my interpretation of your writing is correct, you appear to be sanctioning this view instead of challenging it.
Yes, I also found this weird in the OP. I don’t think non-conventionally attractive people have an obligation of not offensing “their betters”. Smacks of elitism.
I did not get that impression, ballgame. I thought I sensed some problematic wordings that implied that she isn’t a terrible person for her misandric feelings, but I can’t be bothered to try to deconstruct the article again so I’ll leave it be.
Some disclaimers:
I love Pink.
I love this song.
I love this video.
Whiiiich…. actually makes it a perfect example of the Kipling effect, for me.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say Hugh’s tying to able a beauty standard, as much as say a legitimate reason to reject someone provide’s a legitimate reason to complain about having to reject them. With that said, I do think that if the men in Pink’s video weren’t attractive it would just make things worse, not better.
The whole problem is that instead of the video clearly implying that Pink’s character hates having to deal with all this ham-handed advancing when she’s minding her own business, it sort of implies that she hates men even existing in ambience.
The lyrics for the song are self-righteous, insensitive, and confrontational, but rather reasonably so given the situations they describe. It doesn’t match the video too well at all, because Pink is pretty clearly casting herself as the villainess. Take the vampire fan, I actually love the nod. She’s so pissed at these guys for hitting on her, or just wanting to hit on her, and then she’s pissed at another guy for being too shy to hit on her. It is lose, lose as a man. And that’s just it. She’s frustrated, but she’s a frustrated, self-centered, unapologetic, violent, mean person who’s literally beating up on a few male characatures just to relieve her own frustration. Her victims look more human than she does, and she doesn’t go home with anyone either. She’s only got her own hand to go to. The video’s so insanely over the top I could practically see it as an apology for the song. “Sorry for the hard-assed song guys, but I never claimed to be reasonable, and when you found my picture in the dictionary it probably wasn’t under the entry for ‘Nice Girl.’”
The video’s misandrist, and shouldn’t be taken as a how-to-guide for behavior. I do think there are people who would happily take the video at face value and believe they deserve everything they want because they have the best form of sexuality and can punish anyone they want who doesn’t enable that by not letting them have any. However, most people who seem to push the message of the song seem to mean the song, not the video and the video almost seems to be tongue-in-cheek way of giving the song the addendum ‘or maybe it’s just me.’
I wouldn’t worry about women rejecting guys and getting annoyed at guys approaching them. It seems to be something women really enjoy doing…getting all huffy at men going after them. I find it really funny actually. Women go out dressed to the nines, with their breasts hanging out and get really mad that some man dared to approach them.
Now obviously the woman has gone out with the express purpose of attracting men and she gets some sick twisted joy out of rejecting them. I think its really hilarious. They especially enjoy arbitrary ridiculous reasons for rejecting men.
To me its hilarious. The point is not to understand it. Or to criticize it. Its just to realize what a pathetic sorry excuse for a human being Pink’s character Lady Delish is. How incredibly
fucked up women are. Her only joy is frustrating men. In the end she isn’t happy. She is just abitch.[Pink deserves some harsh words, but let's not make this about her entire gender. Plenty of women have more sensible attitudes than her. --Hugh]
EDIT: This comment is long. Mega-long, because I think the underlying issues are really nuanced. Here is the TLDR summary:
Nightclubs are supposed to be superficial and hierarchical environments, in order to encourage assortive mating according to what is valued in the club culture. Some notion of “leagues”, even generous leagues, is helpful to encourage assortive mating.
Consequently, I sympathize with Pink’s frustration about getting approached by people dramatically out of her league, even though I don’t agree with her notion of how she evaluates “leagues.” Approaching far out of one’s league doesn’t deserve Pink’s level of derision, but it isn’t conducive to efficient matching in a nightclub, and it can be frustrated to people trying to use nighclubs for assortive mating.
—-
ballgame,
That’s a good point. It’s some sort of virgin-shaming or attempt at emasculation (if it’s directed towards non-virgins).
As you know, I spend a lot of a defending and advocating for sexually unsuccessful men. But I also spend a lot of time in nightclubs. I agree that what I wrote sounds a bit callous, so let me back up and try to explain where it is coming from.
A nightclub is venue where people socially interaction. But it’s more than that. Clubs have their own set of social dynamics, norms, fashions, and status hierarchies. Part of the purpose of a club is to help people who are similar in physically attractiveness, fashion, and values (according to the norms of that club) mingle and mate.
The goal is to create a hierarchy within the club according to clothing, physical attractiveness, and social status. The nightclub creates a ranking based on:
1. Dressing up
2. Physical attractiveness
3. Social status (how many people they know, how well they are regarded, how many people want to hang out with them…)
4. Social skills, charisma, etc…
The more of those things you have, the higher your “league”. In this case, “league” refers to ranking within the context of the club, which doesn’t dictate someone’s worth as a person, or even their status or attractiveness outside the club.
This hierarchy may seem harsh or superficial, but it enables efficient matching within each “league.” Mating then becomes a stable marriage problem:
Yet when someone who is in a dramatically lower “league” approaches someone in a higher “league” (in the context of the club), that’s likely to lead to rejection and a waste of time and energy for both parties that slows them both down from finding people they are better matched with (within the club hierarchy). For instance, if someone who is poorly dressed, physically unattractive and low in social status (by the standards of the club), it’s usually going to be a waste of time for them to approach someone who is dressed up, physically attractive, and a club regular. It’s not a “stable” match, because the higher-ranking person probably wants to associate with another higher-ranking person instead.
As an example, take Drink-Spilling Guy from the video. Although he is decent-looking, a hoodie makes him grossly under-dressed for a Governor’s Ball, the event. By dressing up at an event that expects people to be dressed up, Pink is communicating that she wants to be approached by people who are dressed up for that context. Drink-Spilling guy has much lower status than her (in that context), which is further deflated by him spilling a drink on her. Consequently, it’s understandable that Pink is frustrated when he tries to chat her up after spilling a drink on her, though I’m not a fan of the way she expressing it, considering that the spilled drink was partly her fault.
I understand how my comment sounds, especially given that some women and feminists have unreasonable ideas about how men should be able to mind read.
To clarify, I wouldn’t say that they are obligated to mind read. But I would say that people can make a probability judgment about whether their approach will be appreciated (even if the other person isn’t attracted). There may be a certain point where that probability is so low (practically “never be into them”) that an approach would not be a good use of either person’s time. Furthermore, it would slow down a stable marriage situation from emerging in the club, where people are matched according to what is valued in that club.
Mind reading would be saying “don’t approach unless there is a 90% chance of it being appreciated.” If I was to articulate a guideline, it would be more like “don’t approach unless there is a 1%+ or even 0.1%+ chance of it being appreciated, unless that’s the best you can do.” I don’t necessarily intend that as a moral principle (I’d have to think a lot more about it). I intend it more as a practical principle: approaching outside those parameters is just an inefficient mating practice for everyone around.
They have the right in the sense of free association. And they have the ethical right to approach, in that they aren’t doing anything wrong (unless boorish implies unethical behavior). But if my premises above are correct, this practice does not make an efficient or enjoyable mating experience for anyone, the vast majority of the time.
Think of it this way: you’re a successful businessman going to a networking event. You probably mostly want to meet other successful and well-connected business people (a stable marriage problem). If, whenever you went to a networking event, you had to spend all your time fending off pitches from inexperienced and unconnected business people, and you never got much of a chance to talk to the other successful business people (because you are all too busy fending off newbie pitches), then you might get frustrated, and it might defeat the purpose of a networking mixer.
Of course, that doesn’t mean you don’t think that less experienced business folks don’t have a right to talk to you. And you might be fine with hearing a pitch, as long as their credentials aren’t too much lower than yours.
Socially desirable people in any context (mating, or business) might be fine with one or two overtures from lower-ranked people an evening. But if higher ranked individual get deluged by overtures from lower ranked people every night, then it’s inefficient, because the higher ranked people get bogged down, and the lower ranked people spend their time getting rejected instead of meeting plausible partners. Do you see the problem?
Yet with norms that encourage assortive matching based on the relevant traits for the context (attractiveness, social experience, business acumen, etc.), then people can accomplish their goals.
Social hierarchies can be superficial, inaccurate, and unfair, but they can also be useful to facilitate productive social interaction.
Agreed.
While that is true, a club might not be the best place to find these pairings, if the gap is sufficiently wide. (And I don’t mean a gap on just one index, like physical attractiveness. I mean a gap on multiple indexes, like physical attractiveness, dressing up, and social status.)
However, I do agree with you that desirability and social status are partially subjective and can be hard to assess, so I’m willing to make a lot of wiggle-room for judging any one of those indexes.
Furthermore, women are more sexually selective than men, and as we saw from the OkCupid data, women have harsher judgments of men’s physical attractiveness, rating most men as less attractive than “medium” (2.5 on a 1-5 scale).
That’s why I am proposing matching according to club hierarchy based on both men’s and women’s perceptions and ranking relative to people of the same sex, not just women’s. For instance, I think it’s a great idea for the average man in the club to approach the average woman, even if she doesn’t think that he is good enough for her. Once he approaches, she may realize that he is better option than a higher ranked man who she will have to compete for and share. What I question is whether it’s efficient for the average man in the club to be sexually approaching the top women in the club (and vice versa).
Many folks might disagree that this sort of hierarchical approach to mating is meaningful. Wouldn’t it be great if people with such superficial views could go off on their own and be superficial together? Well, actually, that’s what lots of people are trying to do by going to nightclubs. They are trying to use nightclubs to engage in assortive mating.
People who approach dramatically out of their league in clubs inhibit assortive mating from occurring. On the other hand, Pink herself doesn’t seem to respect the strong importance of clubs as a mating ground when she devalues heterosexual congress in clubs (“we didn’t get dressed up just for you to see”, “wanna dance by myself”). Going to a club while dressed up in clothes specifically engineered for heterosexual signaling, without being open for anyone to approach her at all, wastes men’s time, and her rude rejections inhibit future approaches by men. Furthermore, it hurts other women who could be receiving approaches from those men.
I entirely agree. That’s a whole other subject, which I didn’t get into, because I was looking for examples of obvious misandry. There is also the concept of hypergamy invoked by her view of all men as beneath her. There are elements of misandry related to female dating privilege and hypergamy, but that’s a whole other can of worms.
That’s true, most male approaches are “long shots.” But all long-shots are not created equal. There is a difference between a long-shot with a 10% chance of success, a 1% chance of success, and a 0.1% chance of success. There is also a difference between a shot at appreciation of an approach (easier), and a shot at attraction (harder).
But for long-shots below 1%, that’s like admitting that you would have to approach 99+ people of that type in order to have one match, which really isn’t very efficient. If that’s the best a guy can do, and he is trying to improve his social skills and attractiveness, I don’t see a problem with these sorts of long-shots. Yet if there are other women around who meet his minimum criteria, wouldn’t it be more efficient if he made slightly shorter long-shots?
A 1 in 100 success rate shouldn’t be difficult for most people for assortive mating. It’s a really low bar. And if it’s difficult? Well, we’ll just give that person a “learner’s pass” to approach anyone, until they improve enough to achieve a 1 in 100 success rate.
The OkCupid data also suggests part of the reason that dating sites are a mess is because men are piling on the most attractive percentiles of women (see Male Messaging and Female Attractiveness graph). That just leads attractive women to be overwhelmed, to opt out, to become snobbish and spoiled like Pink, or to try to find even more exclusive social environments.
Unlike Amanda Marcotte, I don’t agree that aiming out of one’s league is one the main problems in male mating troubles. But that doesn’t mean that plenty of men aren’t doing it. I know these men exist, because I see them in clubs hitting on my girlfriends when I come back from the bathroom.
And plenty of young women also aim out of their league, due to greater selectiveness and hypergamy. This also create market inefficiencies.
Oh, I don’t think so either. I think she is saying a couple things: “look at me, I can afford to blow off men that other women would drool over,” and “I’m justified in being pissed off when lower status men are attracted to me, even when they are discreet about it.”
The message I get from the video is that Pink resents male sexual attention and desire, even from attractive men, except from guys who are very narrowly her type (but even those guys aren’t good enough). I vehemently disagree with her encouraging this resentment in other women, because it’s impossible for men to make predictions about her idiosyncratic preferences with the level of accuracy that she wants. Pink is encouraging other women to price themselves out of the sexual marketplace: her behavior only makes sense if she believes that her market value is so much higher, that offers from men are insulting.
The message I got from the song before I watched the music video is that Pink is tired of being constantly approached in clubs by boorish men (who touch her and spill drinks on her), and who are probably lower in physically attractiveness and social status within the context of clubs she goes to. I don’t agree with the derision she heaps on men, but I do sympathize with the frustration of being approached by people of vastly lower attractiveness and status (within the context of a club).
From my experience in clubs, I am aware that many men sexually approach (either women, or even me myself) against large gaps in attractiveness, stylishness, and social status in nightclubs. Some women also approach me sexually across large conventional attractiveness gap, also. I’m not going to go the weird feminist route and say that such approaches are “entitled” or otherwise unethical, but I do view that as inefficient and harmful to the ability of nightclub sexual markets to produce assortive mating and socializing.
Consequently, I would be willing to acknowledging at least in principle that being a sufficient number of leagues difference in attractiveness, stylishness, and social status in nightclubs suggests against an approach, on the grounds of efficiency. I’m not sure exactly what criteria should be used to judge this gap in ranking, and how big the gap must be to advise against an approach; I would probably disagree with Pink on those subjects.
But I do hope there is some middle-ground between holding men responsible for trying to predict women’s contradictory and idiosyncratic preferences with a high degree of accuracy before allowing them to approach, and indiscriminately advocating any sort of approach. Despite being sympathetic to men judged as low-status and unattractive, experience in nightclubs has taught me that indiscriminate approaching will quickly degrade the experience for everyone. Clubs can be superficial and harsh environments, but that’s part of the point. By participating in a club, people at least partially consent to its social hierarchy and norms (because if they didn’t, then nightclubs would be pointless). If they don’t like that environment, then they can find another club, or opt out of clubs.
(Yes, I know the environments where people can meet partners are limited, and that reducing the venue options for romantically unsuccessful people is harsh, which is why I am happy to give them a learner’s pass to approach whoever in order for them to develop social skills and attractiveness.)
I think that in nightclub contexts, we can encourage people to concentrate their approaches to matches with some minimum level of plausibility in the name of producing assortive mating. Of course, you could argue that the ability of people to approach whoever is attractive to them outweighs the interest of people in efficiency for finding homogamous partners. We could say that attractive and high-ranked people are so privileged that they should just deal with getting deluged by undesired approaches… and after all, as you observe, a small percentage of them might pan out. It’s a tough subject.
Does this lengthy exposition help explain where I’m coming from?
Personally I think “leagues” are terrible because I believe all social darwinism, including belief in social status, is wrong and immoral.
As for clubs, I think clubs are shit anyway, but it’s wrong to ever defend the existence of social hierarchies.
What’s really fun is when some women basically say “Find a group of friends first and date from there,” as if to say “You don’t deserve to be loved unless you consent to an arbitrary expression of being socially outgoing.”
At some point in my life I figured out that I didn’t want anything to do with 20 something year old club hopping girls anymore.
Slutiness, even in pretense, repulses me. I wanted a ‘nice woman’. The club scene is somewhere I hope to never ever go back to, except maybe to deride.[Nothing wrong with being repulsed by other folks' sexual behavior, but could you find a word that isn't a slur? Thanks. --Hugh]
Wanting nice girls is ‘oppression’ to women because women should be whatever they feel like being and not what male desires want them to be. :p
This cements my opinion that women have some deep psychological need to reject people. It affirms their sense of self-value.
They seem to relish telling stories about “creeps” who dared make passes at them, no matter how benign the experience, as if it was a matter of extreme importance. The purpose never seems to be about the intrusion cause by the “creep,” but to let everyone know that one, someone was attracted to them, and two, that person wasn’t good enough to approach them.
Pink’s video is simply a three minute long love letter to herself at the expense of men in general. This is the type of casual bigotry that women have never experience, ever, in western society.
“assortive mating”-uh, I guess this is why I avoid clubs….
Hierarchy,status, ugh, this is why I really dislike PUA/Game…..
@Hugh TLDR club hierarchy thingy.
As an aspie, I never grasped pretty much all those nuances. That a regular might only want to date a regular? Nope, doesn’t make sense to me. I date people I have common interests with, that are sexually compatible, and that can carry a discussion, are less superficial than most and are pretty left politically (or I’m pretty much shooting my own foot, you know). How they are dressed? Being regulars? Doesn’t enter it to me. And I didn’t think clubs should be any different.
Stoner with a Boner,
PUAs simply broke down how this works. As a wise man once said, don’t hate the player, hate the game…
Schala,
Ah, but being dressed up and a regular at a club can help many people screen for the sorts of traits you list (except lack of superficiality). For instance, you’re looking for people you have common interests with. Well, if you’re a regular at a club, dating a regular at the same club who dressing in a similar style helps you screen probabilistically for common interests.
As for carrying on a conversation, clubs are actually a decent way to find those people (well, perhaps not the sort of conversation you personally would enjoy). Also, in many clubs, people are left-leaning, so clubs are also useful for screening for political beliefs in a probabilistic way.
Some folks like to meet a look of people. The challenge these folks experience is how to narrow down their search. That’s why they all sorts of social cues, such as style, status, affiliation are employed. Yes, that will mean excluding some compatible people merely because they don’t show the right cues. But honing in on people with cues associated with what you are a looking for makes sense to folks who like to meet lots of people. It gives them an edge in meeting the sorts of people they want to meet.
People’s outsides and where they hang out is often related to what’s going on inside… even though there are no guarantees. That’s exactly why people put so much importance on superficial qualities. It never made much sense to me either, but nowadays, it does.
wow, I might be looking at this allllll wrong but saying you like club x is like saying you like brand x and others who like brand x are similar to you because they have a similar sensibility in liking x and therefore they have the same things going on internally….
Anyways, while I hate clubs I like live music-especially metal and I will see many bands play. I do have acquaintences I run into at shows. However, I am also aware of being different from many these days. No tatts or piercings, and if anything ever seemed like a tribe to me it is that. Although loving thrash, I’m probably closer to a 70′s rocker than anything else.
It feels like you are saying, find a scene, find a style, find others in that scene with a similar style. Then approach. The guys who randomly approach are putting the cart before the horse so to speak. Maybe this isn’t at all what you are saying.
and this I’ll throw out, maybe some of us are too eclectic to fit into a “scene.”
Hugh, I accept that you’ve presented an accurate anthropological description of club culture, and your logic is pretty compelling. The problem is, I don’t accept your premises.
• A club-goer is under no ethical obligation to facilitate the ‘assortive mating’ of others.
• The club hierarchy as you describe it sounds toxic and dehumanizing in some ways, so I’m not sure it deserves defending ‘on principle’. We’re not obligated to like or be attracted to anyone; we ARE obligated to respect everyone (who isn’t behaving immorally).
• One might be able to craft approximate ‘leagues’ using polling statistics, but for any individual these things are very subjective. Your expectation that others (mainly men) not push too far above their league requires such people to not only have a solid conceptualization of their own ‘leagues,’ but to also have a solid understanding of other peoples’ ‘leagues,’ which doesn’t sound reasonable.
• While it may be more ‘statistically efficient’ for an average man to seek out mates in his own ‘league,’ feminine hypergamy may cause him to be rejected a majority of the time even if he does. In a perverse way, being rejected by women ‘above one’s league’ may be more psychically tolerable than being rejected by women in one’s same ‘league,’ even if such rejections are an order of magnitude more likely.
I thought that’s exactly what we were doing.
“While it may be more ‘statistically efficient’ for an average man to seek out mates in his own ‘league,’ feminine hypergamy may cause him to be rejected a majority of the time even if he does. In a perverse way, being rejected by women ‘above one’s league’ may be more psychically tolerable than being rejected by women in one’s same ‘league,’ even if such rejections are an order of magnitude more likely.”
I think there’s some truth to this, in a way.
Lately I’ve been more baffled than I should over the seeming willingness of nerd/geek females to throw male geeks/nerds under a bus, like by embracing gynocentrism and kicking any guy who even sounded remotely “nice guy”-ish.
Of course, the feminist reply will be to say that “lol nerds make rude sexist jokes on online games and like hot chicks in chainmail bikinis and don’t just shut up and like it when the preppy girl won’t give them the time of day” but it still feels terrible that nerd/geek females will let gender politics overcome the empathy they may have for their male fellow travelers.
But as I said, fuck ‘leagues.’ Good Lord made us all, and if we’re good enough for him, we sure ought to be good enough for each other.
@balconyscene
I am a geeky girl myself, and the type of guy I am most attracted to is geeky guys, by a long margin. It’s not that I feel empathy for them, I find them hot. And I’m sure I’m not the only one. For that matter, I’m sure there are tonnes of geeky guys who are attracted to geeky girls. In my experience, geeks of either gender don’t need anyone to feel sorry for them, they are perfectly capable of charming hot people of their preferred gender.
I thought the feminists who post on the internet and who might post here are into “slutwalk” and such. I don’t think they are offended by the word. But what do I know? I really feel like an outsider to some of what goes on in gender issues. So feel free to edit my words as you see fit. I don’t want to keep track of which words might be offensive today but were perfectly acceptable in other contexts yesterday.
And what word would you recommend I use instead of slutiness (which, according to my spellchecker, isn’t even a word). I am not talking about people’s promiscuity, I am talking about how they dress, talk, act, etc not how easy they are to get into bed. It’s part of the “raunch culture” I mentioned previously.
Anyway I know I’m dragging this a bit off topic so ignore/dismiss as you see fit.
I don’t quite mean empathy as in “feel sorry for,” or heaven forbid, “pity.” I mean more in the sense of camaraderie.
ballgame,
I’m not quite sure what my premises are. I’m not really prepared to make an ethical argument about who should approach who. I’m making a pragmatic argument about what sorts of behavior result in efficient mating in a club environment. I do consider some sorts of approaches inefficient, and as a matter of empathy, I understand why Pink is frustrated at those sorts of approaches. Of course, I don’t agree with the demands and derision she places on men in response.
Figuring out the ethical obligations would get complicated, and require that we all agree on which theory of ethics we are using. For now, let’s just say that there are many cases where people would want to restrict their behavior, even if they don’t have an ethical obligation.
For instance, look at a BYOB party (“Bring Your Own Beer”) or a potluck dinner. At such events, the requirement isn’t that every single person brings something. It’s not unethical to be a free rider and show up without beer or food (unless the invitation required that everyone bring something). Yet if everyone attending the party does this, or only brings a bag of chips, then there won’t be enough for everyone to eat and drink, and it will defeat the purpose of BYOB parties and potlucks. Consequently, if you are attending such an event, and you understand how it works, those reasons may compel you to bring something, even if no individual person has an ethical obligation to bring anything.
Clubs suffer from a similar free rider problem. A club is like a potluck, where people “bring” attractiveness, style, and social connections of a sort that are valued at that club. A few people coming without those things isn’t a problem, but if enough people don’t, and instead expect to enjoy the attractiveness, style, and social connections of others without bringing any themselves, then it will defeat the purpose of clubbing.
Nightclubs also suffer from a tragedy of the commons. Asking questions during a class isn’t unethical (you’re supposed to!). It might be tempting to ask questions about everything you have any doubt about during class time. But if you and the rest of the class does the same thing, then it will eat up a lot of class time, and eventually the teacher will be forced to limit questions, or to find some way of prioritizing questions. There is only so much of the teacher’s attention to go round, so it is most efficient if people prioritize questions themselves.
People’s attention in clubs is a shared and limited resource. It can be rational in the short term to take up the attention of people you want to meet, but if everyone tries to descend on the same group of people, the attention of those high status people will be depleted. There won’t be enough to go round.
In short, once someone understands that other people are treating to use clubs for assortive mating, and that everyone only has a finite amount of attention, they might voluntarily choose to limit their approaches to remotely plausible matches, in the same way that they might bring food to a potluck, or try to answer a question in their textbook rather than taking up class time. They might make this decision not for ethical reasons, but for practical reasons: to preserve potluck parties, teachers willing to answer questions, and people being able to find desirable partners in clubs.
I’ll get to your other points in more comments.
well, isn’t one PUA strategy to make TONS of cold approaches?
I don’t really care for that club scene but I do have an interesting analogy…..
I live near a clothing optional beach which I visit frequently-the c/o is only a small portion (I can see everyone rolling their eyes and thinking “yeah, right.”) It is often a “sausage fest.” The best times to go are when the weather is nice and few are there. Even though I’ve seen stunning women there, I rarely approach as I am somewhat shy and I don’t think most women want to be approached. I might say hi if a woman seems friendly and I’ve been approached on rare occasions by women. And, yes, gay men have come on to me. I’ve also seen where a single woman or a small group of women pick a spot and get naked. They will often soon have an “audience” of the same 10 or 20 guys. The big complaint these guys will make if you are unfortunate enough to talk to them is that there are so few “chicks” here. If you read online, many women will complain about being stared at, someone sneaking pictures and being hit on several times in a row. Obviously this environment is far different than a club in that there is no cover charge. It is used by many different people for different reasons. Swingers use it sometimes, exhibitionists and even naughty photo shots-sometimes they look pro, sometimes not. Then there are those who just love the outdoors. I have meet a few, very few women there and that is not the reason I go. I have also witnessed public sex acts-not supposed to happen but it does almost daily. I will often go into the non nude “surfer” area as it is more relaxed.
Anyways, the thing that is interesting is that nudity allows for the potential to not be about status as far as expensive clothes but I suppose it creates another sort of status by one’s level of physical fitness or body type…
I’m having trouble staying concise-anyways, I don’t know about someone being in someone’s league but I guess there are “comfort levels” different people have in such a situation….
ballgame,
Several people in this thread have also expressed frustration with hierarchies. The thing is, that human physical attractiveness (as judged cross-culturally), style, status, talents, accomplishments, connections, and social skills are not distributed evenly through the population.
Some people end up with more of these things than others. Yet people want to meet others with a similar level of those things (at least) as themselves, and they aren’t ogres for having that preference.
If you’re a banker, you want to be able to find out where bankers hang out. A hierarchy in a banking club will let you quickly and efficiently find bankers with similar credentials with you, without spending too much time trying to avoid smaller bankers who want to make deals with you. If you’re an indie rocker, you want to find where the other indie rockers hang out. A hierarchy among indie rockers help you find other rockers who are as committed to the scene as you are. “Leagues” of banker or indie rocker might be hard to define, yet there are some potential cues: do they dress like a banker / rocker? do they have their own company / band? do they know lots of other bankers / rockers?
Many particular hierarchies are overly harsh, or narrowly defined. Yet I don’t see anything inherently wrong with people want to associate with other of similar qualities, and using social scenes with hierarchies to be able to find them.
Luckily, there are a lot of different scenes with different hierarchies. If you are an indie rocker who doesn’t like the banking hierarchy, you don’t have to hang out in banker clubs. Unfortunately, there isn’t always a scene available that everyone can be happy in.
If anyone here doesn’t like hierarchies, I have a question for you: are there some people you want to meet more than others? If so, then you have your own hierarchy. If you want to meet the sort of people that others want to meet, then those people are going to be higher on in a mutually-agreed-on hierarchy, and there simply isn’t any way to avoid that. The only question is what form that hierarchy should take, and how it should be enforced.
I think it’s a good thing if people can form a diversity of hierarchies, each based on different qualities… even if some of those hierarchies may be harmful in some ways. Despite that harm, this system does help people with similar traits meet each other, and I think that’s valuable.
While many of the metrics “leagues” are subjective, I actually think there actually is a bit more agreement on those topics than you have acknowledged. There is a lot of cross-cultural agreement on physical attractiveness (citations upon request). There is subjectivity on appropriate dress for a club (e.g. a banker’s suit or an indie rocker’s attire), but there is also a lot of agreement.
There are indeed several factors that make it difficult to judge one’s league: (a) insecurity, (b) inexperience, and (c) being a young male (since they are dating people with more exacting preferences). Still, I am fine with giving these people a pass to approach whoever and try to figure out where their league is.
Although it’s tough to accurately predict other people’s notions of leagues, it’s possible to make certain educated guess. For example, if someone goes to a club dressed a certain style, then it’s reasonable to infer that they want to meet people dressed in the same style. Furthermore, I think it’s possible for people to make inferences about the maximum socioeconomic or age gap that others will accept in mates.
That’s quite true. As far as I can tell, being a young female with at least average physical attractiveness puts someone a league or two above young males of at least average attractiveness. Yet, unlike Pink, I think that many young women realize that they are picky, and have a concept of “guys I’m not into, but whose approaches I’m not bothered by… even if I wasn’t into him, he had enough X, Y, Z such that if a bunch of guys with those traits approached me, I would eventually find one that I liked.” Or they have a concept of “guys who I’m not into, but I can see how he thought that I might be into him, because he does have things going for him.”
I don’t want to defend any one group’s notion of “league,” including heterosexual women’s. What I am tentatively suggesting is that some sort of notion of league is helpful to make clubs work as a place where people can meet folks who are similar to them.
I just find it a frustrating experience when my girlfriends, or I myself, spend a lot of work getting dressed up, go to a club in hopes of meeting others with similar values, and then either they (or me myself) get approached by guys decades older wearing hooded sweatshirts and jeans. Or even by guys our age, who are vastly under-dressed, but who are drunk and going from girl to girl begging for numbers.
I’m not saying that those guys are doing is ethically wrong; many of them probably just don’t know any better. I’m just saying that it’s annoying, and it doesn’t lead to a good club experience for me or the people I’m dating. The guys approaching can’t be having fun, either. It’s lose-lose. This sort of approach isn’t a horrible problem, but if it happened all night, then it would probably sour me and my dates to clubs; that’s probably the situation that Pink is in (even though that’s not what she shows in the music video, except for Drink Spilling Guy, and even though I think her respond is overboard).
I’m trying to figure out a principle that doesn’t discourage average men from approaching average women (even if average women are fixated on above-average men), but does discourage these sorts of approaches that I find frustrating (e.g. multi-decade age gap, not being dressed for the occasion, drunkenness, begging for numbers). Or am I being selfish?
Stoner,
Yes, that’s the sort of thing I’m getting at.
The nude beach is an interesting case. I’m sure that women on nude beaches are very picky about who approaches them. Yet I also suspect that some men on nude beaches will self-interestedly try to take up a lot of the attention of attractive women, regardless of likelihood of reciprocation of attraction. Over time, such a practice would drive women from nude beaches, or make them very guarded.
If gay men were to come on to you all afternoon when you went to a nude beach, or women you didn’t find attractive, I wonder how much longer you would keep going to them?
Hugh, if you’re simply making the observation that people commonly seen to be less attractive make clubs less efficient for “assortive mating” when they hit on those seen as significantly more attractive, that seems likely to be an accurate observation. But if you’re saying that therefore they shouldn’t do this, then I still don’t understand on what basis you’re making that judgment.
I don’t have a problem with hierarchies, per se. I have a big problem with hierarchies where human worth is assessed via arbitrary, meaningless, or toxic phenomena, like the width of someone’s lapel, the label on their jeans, or who they look down on. I’m especially opposed to hierarchies where such things crowd out genuinely valuable human qualities like empathy, intelligence, insight, and nurturing.
I don’t think people want to meet others with a “similar” level of attractiveness, I think people want be involved with people they’re attracted to. In many cases, this will be a dissimilar level of attractiveness (at least as judged by the culture at large). This error contaminates your subsequent analysis, where you repeat it over and over:
See how you just ‘invisiblized’ the smaller bankers who want to make deals with the bigger banks?
These are all probabilistic assessments, not absolute ones. And I don’t have any problem with the notion that some people may find it beneficial to learn these nuances. But I strongly disagree that they have any moral obligation to do so, nor do I agree that others have any right to expect others to do so. If a ‘club 3’ believes the only way to be happy is pair off with a ‘club 10’, then that person obviously needs to hit on ‘club 10s’. They have just as much right to do so as ‘club 10s’ do, even if it renders ‘assortive mating’ inefficient.
You’re not ‘wrong’ for being annoyed, nor are you ‘wrong’ for being selfish. Everyone’s selfish! You (and Pink) are, however, wrong for thinking you’re somehow entitled to live life free from being approached by people you’re not attracted to, or that you have no obligation to respect them (if they’re respecting you).
(I do think there’s something a little wrong with judging people by their fashion selections, but this affects all of us to some degree — even dirty fucking hippies like myself — and that discussion is probably best saved for another time.)
Hugh,
as I stated above, nudity isn’t the only reason I go-a big part is seclusion. I also prefer the non-busy/off season times.
as far as guys monopolizing all the attractive girls-it is a strange scene-first there are the “voyeurs” who just want to look and rarely if ever approach. Then there are a few guys who make lots of approaches. One of the guys tried to get me to be his “wingman” when his friend from the summer left. As I often hike through different sections, he will ask me if I’ve “seen anything” (hot women.) I’ve given him tips in the past, cause somehow I felt bad for him, but now realize it is like “feeding the birds.” He had lectured me a few times and I had finally told him that any time anything good seems to happen with me and the ladies, the common denominator is that he isn’t there. Ironically, I thought of the nude beach because I got a call earlier this evening from one of the regulars that I had partied with outside of the beach complaining about this specific guy.
It’s hard to describe any dynamic at this beach and one thing that keeps it interesting is that due to weather and different people, it is never the same.
I have written about a few experiences on my blog, one is here:
http://stonerwithaboner.wordpr.....die-beach/
anyways when you talk about “leagues”-it makes sense on one level but it seems like someone who views the world that way–the next step would be prostitution….
IE a male is paying for the “experience ” of being a rockstar or billionaire tycoon to get someone out of his “league.” The female is accepting cash for the “degradation” of doing it behind closed doors with someone of a lower caste.
I’m so going to the club with my gray hair, hooded sweat shit, holey jeans, and old sneakers.
I’d be interested to see Hugh’s comments about Lady Gaga’s videos, such as “Telephone.” Lots of outright male murder in those.
It so happens that the criteria are mainly invisible. Convenient isn’t it. But being club-going probably makes you less likely to fit in my criteria, because more shallow people are club-going, and are much more shallow than what I’m looking for. It’s like looking for serious-about-chess-playing people in kindergarten, to me.
So in short: I can’t form a hierachy for what I desire, and I can’t enforce it. It’s too invisible to know right off the bat. I’d need a couple weeks of just hanging out, getting to know (not dating), before I could tell if it would work long term.
It’s always an enlightening experience when you have two intelligent folks being fair with each other while disagreeing on a salient point. I keep finding myself saying “Oooohh, yeah, Hugh has a good point there,” while a few minutes later saying “Humm, yeah, ballgame’s got that right …”
It feels like watching a chess match you play against yourself.
I do want to say that I think everyone’s interpretation of the Pink song is completely wrong. Now, keep in mind that a video director came in to do their own interpretation, but …
My wife has a formal education in Feminism and American Culture – and that includes “culture” from high art down to hookup culture. Before we got married, she spent a semester going to school in a large city and was introduced to the club scene with her and her friends. Her interpretation is the song relates to being unable to simply go to a club to dance and not be propositioned by men.
It’s not that the men aren’t good enough, it’s that she’s not interested in any man tonight.
“It’s not that the men aren’t good enough, it’s that she’s not interested in any man tonight.”
So why does she go to a straight club were there will be men? Stupid or just really, really entitled?
“So why does she go to a straight club were there will be men? Stupid or just really, really entitled?”
There are a few reasons why she might do this. In the case of my wife and her friends, their roommates in their house were studying and loud music to dance to would be disruptive to them. They felt like dancing, so they went to a dance club. Since they didn’t want to look “out of place” they also wore lots of make-up and skimpy clothes.
… at least, that’s what they admitted to.
My wife, a brutal cynic, painted a more honest picture of what her friends were doing. Yes, they did feel like dancing and drinking – they wore skimpy clothes so men would buy them drinks (OMG drinks are SO expensive in the city!) and they would exchange a quick dance in exchange. But some guys wouldn’t leave them alone – or they might be some of the only “attractive” women in the club – meaning that all of the men there would come hit on them sooner or later.
My wife is not big on hooking up with random people – but she likes dancing with her friends. She often went with them only on nights where they swore they were “just going dancing” (i.e. not going to end up at some guy’s house at an ‘afterparty’ at 4 a.m.) Those nights were off-limits for hookups and my wife’s interpretation of the song is that it was an anthem for women who want to go out and dance but not get propositioned.
Disclaimer: I do not have a great deal of experience in the club scene. I am more of a hole-in-the-wall bar kind of guy. I have very little experience actually going to a dance club and trying to hook up – I don’t know if it’s really like you all (and my wife) are describing – so please don’t jump down my throat. I’m playing devil’s advocate for a system I don’t participate in for many reasons.
EDIT: I’m sorry, I didn’t see you say why a “straight” club. She and her friends were close friends with a bartender and bouncer at the club in question – so they went there.
Hugh,
I am a bit surprised at your statement:
“Also, in many clubs, people are left leaning, so clubs are also useful for screening for political beliefs in a probabilistic way.”
Really? Do you have any data to support such an assertion? You seem to be suggesting that any person one meets in a club would more likely than not be left leaning. Are you suggesting that would be true in ANY club anywhere?(Or, more likely than not, to be true in any club)
I know there are drinking establishments which cater to certain ethnic groups, certain occupational groups, labor unions, fans of certain sports teams, but as a guy who likes to talk politics with others who like talking politics, I think it’s a stretch to assume that the average club patron is more likely to be “left leaning”. While I can’t say for sure that the folks I’ve met in clubs are evenly split 50/50, I’ve never noticed a lop-sided leftish leaning. Maybe that’s just because of the parts of the Midwest I’ve lived in over the years.
“She and her friends were close friends with a bartender and bouncer at the club in question – so they went there.”
That’s good enough for me.
I like your wife’s “cynicism” – translation: realism.
“Those nights were off-limits for hookups and my wife’s interpretation of the song is that it was an anthem for women who want to go out and dance but not get propositioned.”
Not good enough. Going to a straight club and complaining about men acting according to social norms is exactly analogous to going to a restaurant and complaining about women dressing according to social norms – hair uncovered, arms showing, etc. – sexist, entitled bullshit.
Women who actually, truly want to go dancining and be ignored go to gay clubs. These chose not to do that and that says more about their intent than their disclaimers do. But so what? It’s not some high stakes situation either way. If guys start crowding them, they can just do a little throat kissing action and ward the guys off.
“Those nights were off-limits for hookups and my wife’s interpretation of the song is that it was an anthem for women who want to go out and dance but not get propositioned.”
I find this idea of theirs objectionable, however I am at a loss to find a way to voice my objection that doesn’t go to the other extreme of sounding ‘entitled.’
…stay home and dance in front of their mirror. Sorry, but I’m even more of a cynic than you are, Jim. Or, for crying out loud, they go to yoga or joomla or take ballet or any number of the numerous social offerings that let women dance or otherwise use their bodies to perform socially without getting hit on by men. In just about any town of more than a few thousand people, for every club or bar with a dance floor, there is an actual “dance club” that dedicates themselves to ball dancing, or salsa, or hip hop, or line dancing, and at every one of those places the only men you’ll really see are the ones desperately trying to learn how to dance or expertly trying to practice for competitions. You know, places where it’s safe to walk up to any guy and ask him to dance if you’re a girl, because that’s perfectly normal to do there, and actually dance for real instead of standing around in a circle with 4 of their girlfriends on a sticky floor in a room reeking of spilled beer encircled by 15 leering men doing the white-guy dance. What is that dance called, anyway? But that’s the club scene. Unless these women are looking to get their groove on with some dude who looks like he walked out of their romance novels, there is no legitimate excuse for women to go to one of those clubs. For instance, I enjoy yoga (no, really) but I stopped going to a particular yoga studio because I found the instructors somewhat emasculating (i.e. “and now point your Barbie toes up in the air.”) If I were a woman who was just looking to go dancing, the last place I would consider was a club.
Hell, as a guy if I really wanted to go dancing, I wouldn’t go to a club either. I’d go take dance lessons and actually enjoy the experience. The last time I went to a club, I got into a fight. And I’ve made out with drunk women who threw themselves at me, and even had one or two one night stands after a night out, but I really have not met a single woman worth meeting at a club. As a guy, I’m mainly motivated to go there to see drunk women making fools out of themselves because that’s fun and it’s good for laughs. But trying to pick up women, meet them, actually get to know them? It’s a horrible experience. Count me out.
Actually, EasilyEnthused’s interpretation fits very well with the line “keep your drink, just give me the money” in that P!nk song, which is just such a, sorry, bitchy attitude that, like balconyscene, I’m almost at a loss for words. Almost.
I mean, “We’d like to dance, but loud music here at home would be rude, so we must* go to a dance club, and to blend in, we *have no choice* but to sexify ourselves, and if men then want to buy us drinks, well, considering the prizes it would be *completely stupid* not to take those offers” is hardly less convoluted than the explanation the protagonist in the Bon Jovi video for “Misunderstood” (which unfortunately isn’t on youtube) has for having a naked girl on top of him just as his girlfriend walked in.
If they know they are sexually teasing the men there to get an ego boost and/or free drinks (as Easily’s wife seems to imply), then having guys assume the ladies could be interested in, you know, sexual stuff is *of course* a risk they knowingly take (unless they are really inexperienced or really stupid); playing the old “men are so rude for looking at the cleavage I so revealingly display” game (which said behaviour is a variation of) is really dishonest and hypocritical.
On a related note, a cracked article about Halloween costumes states that men who make sexual remarks are at heart serious about it, while women are just flirtily joking or jokingly flirting, and that men are the yucky ones in this regard. Am I the only one who thinks it’s more condemnable to sexually flirt with people you have *zero* sexual interest in than be half-joking half-serious about your sexual interest in the person you’re talking to?
ETA response to dungone whose first response got eaten
: I mostly agree, but there has to be a middleground between noob male dancer and expert male dancer, and I hope I’m in this middle ground (Zumba ftw!)
But I recognize the crowded clubs filled with young attarctive women dressed up and made up and for the most part looking irritatingly much like my (objectively good-looking) former flatmate (who, incidentally, put me off this kind of woman, at least until another woman of this kind puts me back on).
I prefer the locations where wearing high-heels verges close to being over-dressed, which incidentally also play better music, where you have more place toexpress yourself through dancing and where the patrons give off a collective vibe of really having a good time. (Should anyone of you come to Karlsruhe, Germany, just ask me which disco I mean
)
I want to make it clear that I (and my wife) both realize that it’s likely that a good-sized group women who say they just want “girls night out” don’t realize that what they like about a “club scene” is the way they are admired, bought drinks, etc.
Edit: Also, further complicating the situation is that some women will claim they’re having a “girl’s night out” just to get a man to leave them alone – only to go home with some other guy later. Are people entitled to be told the truth?
At the same time, I think every single person here can at least relate to pushy people who won’t leave you alone and how annoying it can be. Happens to me every time I try to buy a car from a dealership.
So the question we really need to ask is this: “Just how culpable are people for going to a dance club if they are completely closed to the idea of meeting someone for a hookup?”
Then we have to talk about what kind of a society we live in that the only option for “hookups” is a loud, alcohol-infused place where people who lack the coordination to dance are little better than the spilt beer on the dance floor.
I don’t want to have that conversation. If you want to know where I’m coming from, my best “hookups” in my life came from a couple brew-pubs, a coffee shop, two bookstores and mostly casual dating sites. I have the interpersonal skills to tell when a woman isn’t responding well to me, and move on very quickly. I never have bothered with playing “hard game” or whatever they call it.
But back to the topic, I see that elementary_watson has replied since I started typing this – and I just want to say that if you’re a woman at an establishment that was designed around getting drunk people to rub up against each other to music and you’re offended by anyone daring to attempt to have sex with you eventually maybe possibly – you have an immense social disorder.
Every social setting has some benefits and downsides. Nice, quiet bookshop? Upside – relatively quiet, little inter-social interaction, comfy chairs. Downside – hacking coughs are looked down upon, limited seating.
Dance club? Upside – Audible music, higher-than-average ratio of people trying to get laid, relatively cheap drinks. Downside – can be crowded, too loud for a decent conversation, etc.
If you’re a person going to a dance club – you have to realize that a *selling point* of that place is horny people. Complaining about it (or worse, raging about it, P!nk, I’m looking at you) will make you look as immature as a child in a library screaming “How am I supposed to read with all this quietness???”
More accurately, I am at a loss for words as to how to nuance my position so that it cannot be wrongly interpreted as “I’m entitled to hit on women anytime I please,” which is not my point at all.
Now, I shall venture to find those words.
What it comes down to is, I don’t feel like I’m entitled to a woman’s attention or humoring. That doesn’t make it moral for women to treat the mere thought of a man’s respectful but honest mistake of not knowing your preference to be left alone to be the most horrible and blameworthy thing in the world.
As for dressing sexy, well I’m going to let the women have that one, as a man I can control my ability to look or not look.
I would like to know, though, if a man is ever morally allowed to be tired of women in general just as women seem to feel so very entitled to be tired of men in general.
I think you just described contemporary top 40 pop music down to a T! Both the content and the marketing push behind it. I don’t want to have that conversation either, but I actually think that’s part of the “experience” that the marketing people in the entertainment industry want to create. People think to themselves, “I have to go to that awful club because I’m lonely and that’s the only thing that I can think of doing of in the shit town I live in.” It’s either that or a strip club if you want a chance at talking to a moderately attractive woman on a Saturday night, right? But that’s really by design. I used to be in that boat in many new towns, until I made enough friends and realized that there’s lots of things that are always going on, but you have to know enough people to actually get the word of mouth.
Yeah, I think so. I usually go on long runs on Friday nights when everyone else goes clubbing. I always see groups of men going out to do some night fishing on the beach or at the marina by where I live. I think that for most of the activities that men enjoy doing without women, there isn’t really as much of a conflict the way it is with women who want to “just” go dancing. I think men do get tired of women and have legitimate reasons for doing so, but they don’t head straight for the local knitting chapter to get away from their wives just to complain about it more. You never heard Thin Lizzy singing about the lame women of the Dublin Bridge Club, but they did have a lot of commentary about women and the dangers thereof (IMO they did a much better version of Whiskey In The Jar than Metallica).
The clubbing/drinking scene just doesn’t make sense to me as a natural social dynamic. I think it’s all manufactured through a bunch of marketing about female empowerment and how it’s supposed to be an expression of modern femininity. And these sexist male-bashing musicians are the ones that are marketed to women, enjoyed by women, and played at clubs. The music gets the women to the club, while the awful scene gets all the men to start getting drunk. It’s just a formula. There were bars long before there was a music industry, and those bars brought in men with card games and a bedroom or two for hookers. That’s nightlife… it’s an industry that evolved from separating drunk men from their money to… separating drunk men from their money. Only the marketing tools have changed. Towns made prostitution illegal, they made it really difficult to run “gentlemen’s” clubs, so the same business forces ended up getting channeled to create enough sexist anti-male music to draw the sort of female clientele that can appropriately serve as a replacement for the women who used to work there as hookers. I mean not to be rude or anything, but it’s a racket.
Whiskey in the Jar
not to go on a tangent, but I was surprised that the Metallica version didn’t have the lyrical lead guitar part…..
oh, so this isn’t to be a “derail”-the Metallica video had a bunch of drunk lesbian women as Metallica bashed away and broke stuff-I suppose there is some commentary to be made on gender there…..
@ballgame,
We have a weird combination of violent agreement and talking past each other.
I’m glad we agree on the issue of efficiency. I’m not sure what people “should” do. I’m trying to point out the consequences. If those consequences motivate people to regulate their own behavior, then so be it.
For instance, people might ask themselves before making an approach, “is this approach likely to be a good use of both of our time and energy?” or “is this person already getting deluged with attention,” or “would I want someone to approach me with such a large gap in perceived attractiveness?” If someone is unsure or inexperienced, then I’m happy to give them a “learner’s pass” to find out.
It’s not morally wrong to approach people widely out of one’s “league,” any more than it’s “wrong” to try to take up as much class time as possible asking questions. But if you and other people are doing the same thing, it will force people getting approached to become reclusive and snobbish, and it will force professors to try to shut down questions during class time.
While judgments based on these sorts of external cues might seem arbitrary, and often are arbitrary, at least some of these cues are correlated with inner qualities and values. That’s why people care so much about them; they aren’t just being superficial for the fun of it.
If someone wears the same lapels as you, the same jeans, and looks down on the same people as you do, then maybe there is commonality in other areas (though the third cue is probably more useful than the first two). Yes, that’s probabilistic, but for a highly social person who likes to meet lots of people, it would be foolish to discard even weak cues about people’s character is like. If you did, you would have to spend a large amount of time in conversations with people who you are not compatible with you as either friends or lovers.
Being judged on what you wear to a club is a bit like being judged on your grades, credit score, or resume. Those are superficial and reductive measures that don’t reflect one’s human worth. But within a large population, they are probabilistically related to certain behavior, and if you are a college, bank, or employer, it would be silly of you not to take advantage of that information.
If people want to go off and form toxic hierarchies, I say: let them.
As I began to discuss in my previous comment, some seemingly “superficial” qualities actually do indicate traits like empathy, intelligence, and insight.
Let’s say that I go out to a club that has a particular prevalent style, whether it be suits or sneakers. If I dress in that style, it shows that I have at least some empathy with the regular patrons, and insight into their tastes. I have proven that either I am part of their tribe, or that I understand something about their tribe. If I don’t dress in that style, or another one that might appeal to them, then it shows that I’m not aware of their values and aesthetics, or that I’m aware but that I don’t care.
I am quite aware that people want mates who are as attractive (to them) as possible. However, as you also point out, that will often lead to them wanting to “date up” in terms of conventional attractiveness. So, as a practical matter, many people will settle for those who are at least equal to them in attractiveness, social status, and other relevant qualities. The outcome (as far as I can tell) is mostly assortive mating with a slight bias towards polygyny and hypergamy. I’m going to look at some research and see if I can confirm or contradict my suspicions.
I pointed out that smaller bankers want to make deals with bigger bankers. I’m aware of what they want. But unless bigger bankers want to make deals with smaller bankers, smaller bankers approaching big banks will be wasting both of their time.
If big banks do want to make deals with small banks, then my analogy is off. Unless those deals are badly asymmetric, in which case, maybe my analogy still holds. When approaches happen between people with gaps of social status and attractiveness, there often is some kind of deal, but it may be punishing, humiliating, or at least disappointing for the weaker party.
A classic example occurs where a woman chases a more desired man, and ends up being able to have sex with him, but not a relationship which she wants. Another classic example is when a man approaches a more widely desired man with romantic interest, and ends up as a drink service, ride service, entertainment service, or emotional support service. These cases happen where there is a small-to-moderate gap in perceived desirability and status.
The higher status party doesn’t necessarily even need to do anything deceptive or dishonest to create these situations; sometimes the lower status person can even swing this asymmetrical friendship into status with other people by getting practice socializing with the high status/attractiveness people and being seen with them.
But if the lower status party isn’t looking for this sort of asymmetrical arrangement, then that’s another reason to avoid approaches across significant “league” gaps.
Great, then we are agreeing violently.
Yes, they have the right. But if the “club 3s” hit on “club 10s,” it makes life more difficult for everyone. The gap is so wide that a majority of those approaches just aren’t going to be productive, because the “10s” would usually prefer to be with other “10s.” It’s much better for everyone if the “3s” can settle for other “3s,” or at least “5s.” Rendering the mating market inefficient doesn’t just hurt the “10s” who want to avoid “3s”, and the “10s” who want to approach other “10s” but can’t because those “10s” are being mobbed by “3s”. It also hurts the “3s” in rejection, getting used in asymmetric arrangements, and in the opportunity cost of not making approaches more likely to succeed.
Surely you would agree that if everyone from “3s” to “9s” hits on the “10s” (as far as aggregate perception in a club goes), the math just doesn’t work. The attention of “10s” is limited. Getting hit on by someone “out of your league” once a night isn’t a big deal. Getting hit on by multiple people “out of your league” all night is tough to deal with.
To avoid that experience, the folks widely found to be attractive are forced to hang out with each other in little protective bubbles in clubs, or to retreat to even more exclusive clubs and parties.
I can’t speak for Pink, but I don’t think I’m entitled to live life free from being approached by people I’m not attracted to. Does it sound like I’m saying that?
If it affects you, then maybe you’re doing it for a practical reason, and maybe it’s not so wrong. Your time and energy are a finite resource, and you’re not doing anything wrong if you allocate those things based on superficial cues with a probabilistic relation to what you are looking for… as long as you have reasons to believe that such a correlation exists.
@Hugh & ballgame:
Isn’t what you’re talking about really just a simple matter of “courtesy?”
In society there are all sorts of acts of “politeness” that shows that you know how a system works and that you’re willing to work within its rule system.
I mean – think about many of the pet peeves we have with regards to other people. For me, it’s people who drive slower than traffic in the left lane (I’m American.) Studies have proven that when slow traffic keeps right, congestion improves by something like 20% – but people who either don’t care about the courtesy of letting others pass you clog up the system.
There are some days I could write a song about how much this aggravates me – but I don’t think those people are doing anything morally wrong enough to actually chastize them for it.
What are your pet peeves?
(That said, I think the Pink video is still wrong for showing violence towards these guys, but then again – Pink has always been a “GRRL POWER RAGEFIST” styled singer. Overreacting fits her stage persona.)
@Hugh, I’m more with ballgame here. All your points are perfectly valid and enlightening, so I hate to disagree, and I had to think for a long time about why I disagree, but I do. And there’s actually a number of reasons.
I’m not sure if it’s in everyone’s interest to support the most efficient pairing-off of likely-to-succeed couples based on the prevalent social norms. It sounds like a utilitarian thing to do, but actually there are several problems of fairness and strategy that make it more complicated.
First, a club is a business interest and as such, going out of your way to “respect” the atmosphere it’s trying to promote feels to me like getting suckered out of your hard earned money. A lot of clubs with restrictive dress codes do so to prevent people from bar hopping. You can go to 9 out of 10 bars if you’re dressed casually but if you fall for the marketing of the one club that gets you to wear a tuxedo on your night out, once you get there and pay the heavy cover charge, you can’t really leave and go anywhere else without feeling stupid. If the club is a bust, your whole night is a bust. So, in the interests of actually having a good time, it’s a good strategy for patrons to make it difficult for owners to use these sort of price and social discrimination tactics.
Second, I think that making it really difficult for the “club 10′s” to find who they want to mate with sounds like a perfectly reasonable reproductive strategy. If you want to get right down to the knitty gritty, part of passing on your genes to future generations is also about preventing the other animals from passing on their genes. Yes, I agree that it makes for an awful environment. But if the “club 10′s” don’t want to give the “club 3′s” a chance, then there is always that nuclear option – ruin, it for everyone. And in the meantime, there are other venues – a “club 3″ in a change of venue might turn into an “office-10″ or a “church-10″ or a “marathon-10″, so as a matter of strategy I don’t necessarily think it’s in everyone’s best interest to make the club scene into an efficient way of hooking up. Now, I’m a gentleman, but I don’t necessarily hate the jerks at the clubs who go around grabbing butts and imposing themselves on women – I sort of look at it as a service of sorts where I don’t even have to go to the club and I can still meet women I’m attracted to elsewhere
Third, if it’s about making peace with the social hierarchy, I think that this peace comes at different costs depending on how high you sit on the totem pole. If you’re at the top, the costs are negligible and the rewards are huge. You don’t have to walk around feeling like shit and asking yourself if you’re not good enough for the person you’re trying to talk to. You can just treat others like shit and yet still get the most attractive sexual partners there are. And if you’re at the bottom, you have to take a huge up-front hit to your own confidence as you police yourself to ensure that you leave all those wonderful beautiful people well enough alone. You’re essentially asking for very different things out of people for the sake of making things efficient and I don’t think that’s really fair. At best you’ll end up with a stalemate here.
Fourth, I think that women who get treated like shit by the top 20% of men is not the same thing as men who get treated like shit by 80% of women. Same prognosis, yes, but it’s a completely different disease.
Fifth, I think that the argument for efficient pairing-off is actually a pretty extreme way to get stuck in short-term thinking. A female “club 10″ today may become a “club 3″ 10 years from now whereas a male “club 3″ may become a “club 10″ in a decade. It’s very rare that women can drastically increase their sexual attractiveness over time, but it is a lot more likely that men might be able to increase theirs. A woman at a club might not be able to tell the difference between a junior analyst at a wall street firm and a homeless man, but they still know what they should be able to get if they are doing a better job at long term planning than she is. In any case, if she’s someone whose attractiveness is set to diminish over time but she still wants to command a high price in the sexual marketplace, then by all means it makes more sense for her partners to lease, not own. So when you actually add time as a variable, there are a lot of pitfalls to the concept of making things efficient.
In conclusion, I think it’s a better idea to ask the 80% of women and 20% of men who are walking all over their sexual partners to stop treating everyone else like shit. With men, if we pressure attractive men to pair off into permanent relationships and make it really difficult for them to fling women around, not only will the women they’re with have better lives, but the 10-20 other women who might also end up being treated like shit would be forced to go look elsewhere. With women, if we teach them to treat the less attractive guys with a little more dignity and respect, everyone involved will end up finding a lot more happiness in their lives.
This is still probably the thing most conducive to durable LTRs where you are compatible. Talking for a large amount of conversations with people who you might not be compatible with.
What they wear doesn’t matter.
Who they look down on…if they look down on anyone group systematically, I don’t even want to know them. Keep in mind that I’m not profiling assholes, but that they might be profiling others. I’m screening assholes by conversation, not what they wear, or how racist they are.
Empathy for their dress styles? Seriously?
No.
Appreciation for it, maybe. And that’s where it ends. It means nothing else, even if it was a fringe style, like dressing in catsuits.
@Hugh, I have to pick on the classroom analogy you made. I mean it made your point pretty well and all analogies have limits after which they become ridiculous, but I think that this one is a veritable gold mine for us to explore. When you apply the analogy to gender roles as they exist, then the “students” asking all the questions are always male, and the “professors” are always female. And the “club 10″ is always the expert while the “club 3″ is the one who has something to learn. And that is it, the very sort of toxic vibe that I have been picking up from feminists and others (all of pop culture) who wish to police men’s behavior.
But reality is totally different. It’s more like the sort of hierarchy you see at recess than in the classroom. I’m sick of hearing beautiful yet snotty women say crap like, “well, I’ve been in two dozen long-term committed relationships, so I know way more than you about relationships than you! [chews gum and twirls her hair]” It’s like asking a trust fund kid for advice on how to get rich. Truth is, when it comes to finding actual happiness, the “club 3′s” and “club 10′s” are all students in the same exact class and none of them are really any smarter or better than the rest. No one is the professor, no one has the right to call themselves the professor.
dungone,
You’re right about the limits of the analogy. I was trying to find an example of a tragedy of the commons, where a few people taking from a shared resource is OK, but if everyone does it, then everyone loses (like a prisoner’s dilemma where everyone defects).
Let’s make another analogy and make the man the professor, and the woman the student: homework.
Professors are selfish, and they might be tempted to assign massive amounts of homework to maximize the learning of the students.
But, if the professor assigns too much homework, students won’t have time to complete it. So they will complain, cut corners, spread rumors or avoid the professor in the future if they can. And if all professors at the school act selfishly and assign the maximum amount of homework, then the students will get completely overwhelmed.
The professors aren’t doing anything morally wrong by assigning a lot of homework. But if they assign too much, and other professors do the same, then the resulting situations just doesn’t work.
The hours of a day in a student’s life are a shared resources between professors (and students). There is only so much of it to go around. So even if professors might want to grab as much as possible, they might also realize that they need to voluntarily restrain themselves assigning homework in order for studying to remain practical.
Schala,
Say you talk with a lot of people. And you notice that the people you are compatible with tend to wear top hats. If you want to meet a lot of people in the future, would you gravitate towards people wearing top hats, or would it not matter?
Empathy for the values that underlie the dress styles.
“Those nights were off-limits for hookups and my wife’s interpretation of the song is that it was an anthem for women who want to go out and dance but not get propositioned.”
I find this idea of theirs objectionable, however I am at a loss to find a way to voice my objection that doesn’t go to the other extreme of sounding ‘entitled.’
I think what you are looking for is “public accomodation.”
For someone to inists that they can walk into some public place and dictate behavior standards to the rest of the public is toxically entitled thinking. If they don’t want to be looked at they shold mask their faces and if they don’t want to be approached in a venue where apporaches are part of the social norms, they should find other places to go.
I’d consider it irrelevant. Like the weather, time of year, or what recent Marvel movie came out. I don’t give credence to horoscope, I won’t give credence to top hats even less.
Conformism? Because seriously, 99% of mainstream culture is about conformism, and a high percentage of fringe subcultures are also conformists (within themselves).
I’m sure there’s women who feel they have to not shave their legs to be accepted within their lesbian feminist circle, the same way some girly girl is certain her friends will find her ugly if she hasn’t 2 inches thick of make-up on her face. And it also affects men, I just don’t know how (I’m clueless about male styles, they seem to be so much copy-and-paste that the difference eludes me and seems pointless – I do think the same about women’s celebrity fashion, cocktail dresses 99.9% of the time, not much variation…but at the very least the cut, color, fabric, theme vary a lot).
So given all that and this apparent obsession with “I just want to be normal!” even when people have super powers (see the ‘cheerleader’s’ emo rant about not being human because she can regenerate all the time and is immortal – and how she would so love to just be normal).
I mean come on, people who want to be normal are usually condemned with suck, seriously being ostracized, beaten up or feel they’re the ugliest since The Blob. They don’t want to be normal like all those top 5% of school cheerleaders (as if it was 100%, of course).
So given that obsession, conformism is the #1 value of society, in clothing, in habits and in anything that’s actually visible and not found through conversation. And voila the dilemma. You do have to talk to know more than the surface. Which is often a mask of pretension.
@Hugh, you probably don’t know this but I took economics – analogies not necessary for basic game theory stuff. Although I don’t think that interactions with beautiful women are analogous to the tragedy of the commons, after all, because the commons are intended to be shared by all and beautiful women are not, which may be tragic but not in the same sense. But considering the origin of the commons, I got a bit of a chuckle thinking about bringing my cow in from pasture to graze on the front lawn of the last hot girl who rejected me. Anyway, with the commons, everyone gets a little if they don’t decide to take too much. But with courtship, if you decide not to take too much, you don’t really get much of anything. In terms of game theory, it’s a different set-up, open to many more strategies, ethical and otherwise.
Unlike the professors who assign a moderate amount of homework, what you’re really asking for here is that some professors forgo assigning homework altogether, or at least give their most promising students a waiver. In clubbing, maybe that would be like asking every 10th beautiful girl for a dance instead of every single one. But doing that won’t actually increase your chances of getting to dance with that girl, so that won’t really work. In either scenario, the game theory aspect is that by asking for less yourself, you merely leave room for others to take more. So unless you find a way to cooperate with the other players, it’s a hopeless strategy. It would be something like a bunch of guys colluding to divide all the women evenly among themselves so that everyone gets a little bit of the action.
And let’s not forget that the women are independent agents themselves who may or may not choose to go along with that scheme. Even if you were to rate all the men from 1 through 10 and have them agree among themselves that 1′s will only approach women who are 1′s and so on, it does not mean that women will find that approach favorable. Women may not be interested in any men at all unless they’re either an 8 or a 10, whereas other women may actually judge what is thought to be a 1 as a 10, etc. All that the women have to do is refuse the wrong offers until the right offer comes along. The men, by trying to be fair to one another, may actually tilt the odds even more in favor of the women. A woman who is a 3 who may have been holding out for 5′s in the past may decide to hold out for a 7 now that all the 1′s and 2′s aren’t distracting her. This is sort of like a chicken or the egg question – who really started this mess – men who were bothering women who were too high status or women who were rejecting reasonable offers? At any rate it’s very asymmetrical, that’s what I’m getting at. There’s no guarantee that the strategies you’re suggesting will actually work as you envision them.
Interesting analysis, dungone.
[Uh-oh, editing seems to have screwed up the spaces! Don't know what to do about that.]
@Jim: “Women who actually, truly want to go dancing and be ignored go to gay clubs.”
Could be a cultural difference, but that sounds really weird to me.
When I want to go dancing, I have 3 priorities: good music (in my case, usually some sort of rock/goth/metal or at least enough rock/metal mixed in that I have some momentum to survive the music I don’t like dancing to), space to dance (’cause I don’t like leaving bruises on unconsenting strangers), and proximity to my house. I don’t go to formal dance classes because I don’t want to dance WITH anyone, I just want to flail my limbs around to some high-energy tunes.
This leaves me, in my mid-size Dutch city, 2 dance nights per month in a good month. None of them are in the gay club. I could go to the gay club and be bored out of my skull, but you’re going to have to agree with me that that’s a stupid way to meet my own needs.
And I think that holds true for many of the women who say that they ‘just want to dance and not get propositioned’ – making sure the first part comes true takes priority over making sure the second part comes true. All you have to do to not get propositioned is stay indoors, after all.
[Also, reconsidering, I think our local gay bar is for gay PEOPLE, not gay MEN. So if I went there, I might get hit on by girls instead of guys. Interesting, but not really solving the problem.]
Yes, I dress up. I like it, I don’t often get the chance. My husband doesn’t like dancing that much, so he stays home.
I could dress up and dance in my own house (and I sometimes do), but there’s something about being in a crowd of people who ALL want to move and sparkle that makes it better. I enjoy watching hot guys and people with great moves, I just don’t want to screw any of them.
I also don’t hate being propositioned, unless people are being asses about it. But the answer is no, no matter what ‘league’ you’re in. I don’t /like/ being propositioned either – it’s a waste of my time – but I understand that there’s no way to know that.
I know getting propositioned is the side effect of getting the things I REALLY want – dancing in a crowd, with bigger speakers than I have, with better lighting than I have. That’s fine.
But I really dislike the implication that women shouldn’t even BE there if they’re not open to plant the seed of a potential sexual or romantic relationship.
That was not the implication. The implication is that if these women want to be rude to the men around them, the way Pink is in her video, then they shouldn’t even be there. Clubs are literally advertised as places to meet new people and, right or wrong, that’s what attracts a lot of men to go. And men want to dance as well, most likely with women. Therefore, if you go to a club to dance, spend all night grinding up against your girlfriend, delighting in the attention you’re getting from all the men around you, but start to get upset when some of these men want to interact with you, then you are being misandric. If you’re willing to dance with girls, why not with boys? If you don’t want to go to the gay club because it’s “boring,” presumably because guys won’t proposition you, and you don’t want to go to the non-club dancing events that focus on dancing, presumably because you might have to dance with men who won’t proposition you, then what is it you do want? If you see straight clubs as the only option because you receive the right kind of male attention but get mad when guys hit on you, then I’m sorry, but that’s really sexist. And as Jim said, you’re asking for public accommodation when there are perfectly good options that give you what you want, but you find them boring.
What you’re engaging in is a power trip, as a sort of descendant of Victorian sexuality, where the new mores are that men can look, men can even bite their fist in desire, but they can’t “touch” or “talk” or in any way act on their sexual impulse. You’re the power broker and you delight in denying them what they want. You know, it’s sexist. You might delight in it and feed off of the energy around you as you go about your power trip, but it’s the men around you who are lending you that vibe and you turn around and scorn them for it. So like we’re saying, if you want to dance, go somewhere that is appropriate to dancing and nothing else. Do not go to someplace that is advertised to men as a way of meeting women and then comment about how boorish men are who just want to proposition you anywhere you go.
I wonder how a ladies only (not gay or lesbian, not a strip club) night club would fare. There’s so much talk about “girls night out” and “only wanting to dance” that one might assume an all ladies night club might do well. But granted, talk is cheap.
I’d also point out that once you reach age 30 or so, clubbing will probably be less interesting to you. You might even see them for exactly what they are. Sleazy places to meet shallow and superficial young people.
@Dungone,
not sure if you mean YOU=”April” or YOU=”image of random woman who does all the things you dislike” but since you refer to some of the things I wrote I’ll answer like you meant the first, OK? If that’s the wrong guess, please ignore. If I’m right, wow, that’s quite the collection of straw soldiers you have there. Gah, I don’t want to make it all about ME, but it seems you have a bunch of misconceptions I’m not willing to let stand.
“The implication is that if these women want to be rude to the men around them, the way Pink is in her video, then they shouldn’t even be there.”
Not from what Jim said.
I agree with “if you want to go places, don’t be rude.” I don’t agree with “if you want to go places, you have to actively enjoy every part of them or stay home.”
“Therefore, if you go to a club to dance, spend all night grinding up against your girlfriend, delighting in the attention you’re getting from all the men around you, but start to get upset when some of these men want to interact with you, then you are being misandric.”
No idea where you got that from. All of these things are not true. I’m more likely to accidentally punch someone in the face or elbow them in the ribs than to grind on anyone, personally. That’s why space is a criterion for me. :p
“If you’re willing to dance with girls, why not with boys?”
I’m NOT willing to dance with girls. (Which I interpret as ‘interaction while dancing;maybe touching while dancing;definitely coordinating moves beyond what’s just respecting someone’s personal space.’) I go dancing with my girlfriends, but that usually ends up as the two or three of us doing our own thing somewhere close to each other on the dance floor. We might stand across from each other or in a triangle so we can easily chat in between nice songs and ward off people who think it’s OK to touch random strangers, but that’s the most of our interactions. I meet up with people for a night on the town to have someone to talk to when we’re NOT dancing, not to have someone to dance with.
Heck, on the rare occasions my husband comes out to dance with me, I don’t even dance with HIM.
(And for the women who DO dance with girls, maybe they do that because they know they won’t leave their girlfriends with blue balls? They know sex is NOT in the cards, and they don’t want to turn on some guy and leave him hanging? I can understand why some people want to dance with other people, even though it’s not a formal style, without having anyone get frustrated or think they owe them something.)
“If you don’t want to go to the gay club because it’s “boring,” presumably because guys won’t proposition you, and you don’t want to go to the non-club dancing events that focus on dancing, presumably because you might have to dance with men who won’t proposition you, then what is it you do want?”
This is the sentence that made me think you’re responding to ME, not to EveryWoman. ‘Cause those were things I said. Still, you presume too much, and even things I explained in my earlier post.
I don’t want to go to the gay club because there’s only one of them in my city, and they play current hits/occasional eighties songs on their dance nights. I specified I like rock or metal, so their dance nights are boring. If they ever threw a rock night, sure I’d go. Their boringness comes from their music selection, not from their crowd.
And I don´t go to the non-club dancing events if I just want to rock out because they’re not conducive to rocking out. I wouldn’t mind going to them, ’cause I like some types of partnered dancing and don’t mind doing those types of dances with strangers, but they’re no substitute for thrashing around in a mosh pit.
I need to throw myself body and soul into a dance, and I can’t just do that to everything that has a beat and a tune.
“And as Jim said, you’re asking for public accommodation when there are perfectly good options that give you what you want, but you find them boring.”
If they’re boring, they’re not good. Would you tell your bridge playing grandmother that she shouldn’t complain about the lack of game nights because you know there’s a daily poker match? Not the same. Therefore, not a perfectly good option.
I’m not asking for public accommodation, I’m just piping up to say “If some women say that they’re just out to dance, that may be the case.” I don’t defend anyone being rude, but I do want to counter the “So why are you in here if you’re not single/looking?” arguments.
“What you’re engaging in is a power trip, as a sort of descendant of Victorian sexuality, where the new mores are that men can look, men can even bite their fist in desire, but they can’t “touch” or “talk” or in any way act on their sexual impulse. You’re the power broker and you delight in denying them what they want. You know, it’s sexist. You might delight in it and feed off of the energy around you as you go about your power trip, but it’s the men around you who are lending you that vibe and you turn around and scorn them for it.”
Yeah… lost you there. I’m sure some women think about it that way. And they sound horrible. But I didn’t say anything alluding to that POV.
What I want is for people to leave me the hell alone WHILE I’m dancing. Don’t chat me up at the climax of a song (“You look like you’re enjoying yourself!” “Yeah, I /was/. Now I missed the best part.”), and definitely don’t grab me anywhere. When I’m no longer dancing, you’ll notice by me moving away from the dance floor. If you want to make your move, make it then. You’ll still get a no, because I’m married AND monogamous, but that’s not something that can be helped. I’ll be nice about it.
“So like we’re saying, if you want to dance, go somewhere that is appropriate to dancing and nothing else.”
Such as? I often go to band concerts. I figure they’re as much ‘about the music’ as anything you can get, right? I dance there. I get hit on there. (And again, I don’t HATE getting hit on and I definitely don’t use it as an excuse to be rude to some guy because he can’t mindread.) Do you really think there’s a place where women can go to dance that wouldn’t attract men looking for women? Or, to not make this a single-sex easter egg hunt: Do you really think there’s a place where youngish folks of all sexes and inclinations can go and do/listen to/dance to X without other people thinking that’d be a great place to meet people who like X?
If you put a collection of attractive folks somewhere for a specific purpose, it’s impossible for it to not be appropriate to meeting people. Even the big religious youth days in our country are fertile breeding grounds for ‘friendship’ between the boys&girls.
“Do not go to someplace that is advertised to men as a way of meeting women and then comment about how boorish men are who just want to proposition you anywhere you go.”
The dance night I go to most is advertised as “Dance night! We’ll be playing this type of music. Come dance.” I go for the advertised purpose. Can’t help it if men get a separate flyer saying “Meat market! We’ll be displaying sexxxy deth chicks at half price!”
@Debaser71:
I’m afraid a ladies only metal night would be a complete failure. There aren’t even enough metal loving people around to sustain a recurring all sexes/sexual orientations metal night. There’s a monthly goth night which does well. Goths usually travel in packs, though, so I’m sure if groups of friends were required to split up, that wouldn’t be seen as helpful.
Ladies only night for people who don’t care about what music is played? Might work. Don’t know. Wouldn’t go, because I care about the music.
Personally, what I’d like most is a club that’s separated into a dancing area and a talking/drinking area, with a rule/general culture that people don’t talk excessively on the dance floor and don’t grind on people they don’t know. This makes failed approaches shorter and less awkward (“Hey, you look great, wanna get a drink?” “No thanks, I’m staying here to dance!”), makes sure people don’t clutter up the dancefloor with their static bodies or spill drinks all over dancing people, and makes sure people (m/f) don’t get groped by people they’ve never met before. And still leaves plenty of room to hit on interesting people when they’re not dancing.
“The implication is that if these women want to be rude to the men around them, the way Pink is in her video, then they shouldn’t even be there.”
Not from what Jim said.”
Hi, April.
What I said is that no one has a right to go into a place and demand treatment different from what the norms are there (with deference to legal norms of public accomodation, which definitely do not prohibit people in that place approaching and speaking to you.) That si what Pink appears to eb doing.
There is a simple solution – start private clubs. These do not have to be expensive like country clubs. You can run into some civil rights problems but they can be accomodated if bigotry is not your real objective, which it clearly isn’t. A dance club just for dancing, which is different from a standard “dance club” is not established to exclude any memmber of any group. anyone who joins and shows up and then proceeds ot hit on other members is out of compliance with the rules he or she agreed to – out on zir ass.
Hi April!
First of all, I like your attitude towards dancing, but it seems to be very different from the one criticised. Correct me if I am wrong, but your attitude towards getting hit on in a club seems to be “well, those who do can’t know I’m not interested, so no big deal if they want to chat me up as long as they’re not rude/pushy/whatev”; the criticised attitude is more like “men shouldn’t hit on me when I just want to have a girls night out dancing, even if I’m dressed and made up in a way that screams for male attention”.
(Actually, I’m a little bit interested in what you mean exactly when you say you dress up for your dancing nights; from my experience, the usual “dress code” for women in rock places is either t-shirt, jeans and sneakers, all in black or (as you brought up goth) fishnets and black leather/pvc, which is a total different game from the cleavage-revealing top, miniskirt, leggings and high heels outfit seen so much in “normal” clubs.)
I don’t think I’m too much in favour of the club model described in your last paragraph; if one sees an attractive person of the gender one is attracted to dancing in the dance area and then having to wait for him/her to go to the drinking/talking area before making an approach would make the whole “meeting new people” thing there even more predatory than it already is. I prefer being approached on the dancefloor, myself
Saw them that way when I was 18. Sleazy places to meet shallow superficial young people.
Thing is, I didn’t know any other place to meet people. I still didn’t go, something about not wanting to pay for overpriced booze, and not liking unstructured dancing (I’m lost in a “Do whatever you want!” thing). I figured I wasn’t attractive anyways, so what was I losing.
Even after wanting to meet people following my transition, I didn’t know where to meet them. I figured online was the best.
“I’d also point out that once you reach age 30 or so, clubbing will probably be less interesting to you. You might even see them for exactly what they are. Sleazy places to meet shallow and superficial young people.”
There probably is a real market for old-fashioned piano bars. People could go and dance or even just interract opnly with people they came with, the volume of the music would be low enough for real conversation and if you were too stupid or shallow for real conversation you would be out of luck and off some place to find some thumpa-thumpa-thumpa. There’s probably a huge untapped demand.
As we are discussing alternatives to sleazy clubs for meeting people, I’ll just throw out the two magical words: Karaoke Bar!
April,
To clarify what I was responding to, I was trying to cover the entire gamut of the female “just dance” attitudes that range from that of your own, to Lady Gaga and then Pink. The common thread is, of course, that I think all of it is based on a very entitled attitude that’s rooted in sexist social norms. Let alone the absolutely disgusting attitude that Pink has towards men (and IMO, one does encounter women like that at almost any club).
No, you certainly don’t have to actively enjoy every part. But you get what you pay for! Do you recall how you said that the other places you could go dancing are boring to you? Well, there you have it. If you want to receive the same quality of entertainment that’s supported by men who pay higher cover fees and overpriced alcohol, then you should be willing to pay for it yourself. I’m sorry, but going out to dance within your own personal space doesn’t pay the bills! So that’s my general problem with “ladies night out” and why I think at it’s heart it is actually taking advantage of other people. Hugh Ristik mentioned the “tragedy of the commons” in one of his recent comments and I want to point to the “just dance” attitude as a much more exact example of that phenomenon.
Also, you said this, which is not what I read debaser71 say:
“I’m afraid a ladies only metal night would be a complete failure.”
(more on that below)
@debaser,
Well, I’m afraid you just called their bluff! This is it, the very point that needed to be made in this thread. I was getting there, but didn’t quite get there like you did.
You know what the difference is between dance-focused social events such as swing-dancing clubs, hip-hop clubs, etc? Most of the time they happen in church basements and school gymnasiums. Unlike a commercial club venue, they’re usually extremely low budget gatherings, even if there is a live band (usually it’s a volunteer band). Likewise, taking classes or going to events sponsored by dance schools tends to be low budget, since dancing is the main focus.
You don’t have to build up a private club, though. In the last city where I lived, I was friends with a DJ who loved Spanish dance, so he and his wife organized a weekly event that rented out a very popular night club on an off-night, brought in dance instructors for those who wished to get free lessons, offered great drink specials, played great music, etc. It was exactly the same place, the same sound system, etc., that would get packed with women later that same night on ladies night but the event bombed and they gave up – there were not enough women who were willing to come a little earlier and pay a small cover charge to support the event. Even though there was plenty of space to dance, there were more men interested in the salsa night at the club and there would be a line of men waiting for a dance instructor to free up, and instructors even got men to dance with men. But an hour later – ladies night! and the place would be packed with women.
Do you know what the difference between gay clubs and straight clubs is? Gay clubs actually play better dance music! Not only will they play more dance-worthy techno and less top-40 pop crap, they’ll usually have better DJ’s and they’ll usually avoid anti-male garbage that straight clubs play. Also, you’re not going to have those “and one for the men” moments where suddenly the DJ plays a Kid Rock song and everyone sort of stands around scratching their heads as the one really drunk kid pounds his fist in the air. Anyway – the real difference – drumroll please – gay clubs don’t have Ladies Nights and aren’t filled with men who buy all the women free drinks.
Speaking of Ladies Nights, this is what really, really gets to me about them. It’s that when men feel that they are unfair and force men to pay more, feminists (including NOW) respond mockingly with things along the lines of, “boo-hoo, don’t you know ladies nights are GOOD for men? *wink, wink*” But when you see the real attitudes that the women who show up at those clubs display towards the men, point out how inexplicably sexist and bigoted the “just dance” attitude gets when those very clubs play anti-male songs by the likes of Pink, then where do all the feminists stand on it now? Is it still good for men? No, now it’s about how they should receive public accommodation whenever they don’t like the social norms of the events they want to enjoy… Agh… this actually pisses me off.
So, like April said – “booooring!” That’s why there are no “ladies only” dance clubs. Instead, we have pop singers like Pink and Lady Gaga promoting this “just dance” clubbing attitude where a bunch of entitled women go to a club and tell all the men to fuck off, as if they really have a right to be there and be an asshole to guys while they enjoy everything that has been paid for by everyone else.
I think I just had a great idea …
Step 1. Go to gay bar.
Step 2. Find straight (or bi) women who are just there to dance.
Step 3. Dance with them.
Step 4. Wait for them to say “It’s too bad you’re gay.”
Step 5. Say “I’m not gay, I’m just here to dance.”
Step 6. ??????
Step 7. Profit!
@EasilyEnthused, I’ve done that a number of times when I was back in college. I went along because I had gay friends who would freak out at the thought of going to a straight bar, but once there I ended up meeting girls who gave me their numbers. So even though they went there just to dance, apparently they still wanted to meet guys. Go figure. And FWIW, I rarely got any negative attention from men, at least nothing that went beyond “do you have the time?” or someone coming up to dance with me at a safe, touch-free distance, which made it easy to turn them down.
@dungone
Damn, I thought I had come up with a novel idea.
I imagine that the kind of men who annoy women at regular clubs are the same ones who wouldn’t be seen dead in a gay club.
ETA: Apparently this is an established method for going out. http://www.paz.fm/5-reasons-wh.....-gay-bars/
Although, I can say that if I went to a gay bar for the express purpose of meeting women, I’d feel incredibly skeezy.
@EasilyEnthused, I’m afraid that if someone were to really follow along with your script, step 6 would be, “So how are you not gay?”
dungone, can you stick with what April says, rather than extrapolating about what her motives might be?
I agree with you about tragedy of the commons. If too many women came to clubs to “just dance” too often, it would eventually harm the purpose of using clubs for mating.
That being said, my suspicion is that a lot of “just dance” women (though not April) are open to being approached… by the right guy. They say they just want to dance, because since they are women, and women are more selective, the chance of an attractive guy approaching them is miniscule in some environments. So it makes more sense to go to “just dance,” but if the right prince comes along, then great.
I don’t there is much of a practical worry about the “just dance” attitude causing too much damage as long as women aren’t rude in their rejections. Basically, I don’t think the “just dance” attitude necessarily makes women much more closed off about men approaching them (unless perhaps they are married, but that’s rarer for clubs). Regardless of whether she is there to “just dance” or not, she would probably mostly reject and accept the same guys who approach her.
On another subject, some of the sorts of venues that April describes have norms for more individualized dancing and thrashing around. In that case, we don’t need to worry about partner dancing being destroyed by women who want to “just dance,” because those scenes aren’t about partner dancing in the first place.
@Hugh, I thought I said as much about my responses being about everyone, not just April. But I’m afraid it still came off as unduly harsh and I admit, I should have been friendlier. @April, My apologies. Not every lady who goes to a club to “just dance” is doing so in bad faith and if they could make it fair to everyone they would. It’s the system, not the people in it, that I have a problem with. It’s only the ones who have attitudes like Pink and those who sneer at men for speaking up about sexism in the club scene who should really be held accountable.
@Hugh, I always felt that the norms for individualized dancing were caused by a repressive environment where people are too inexperienced and too shy, while others are too harsh with rejection. One can dance individually, or with a partner at a distance, without being a jerk about it – yet at some of these clubs if you try to say a simple “hello” or approach a girl on the dance floor, she’s just as likely to turn around and walk away as if you were diseased. I’ve gone out with groups of female friends and more than once I’ve seen them do that to a guy, go back to their friends, and laugh about it. Once I walked up with a group of 3 other guys up to a group of 4 girls and they all at once, without saying a word, turned around and walked off. Later we’d see them dancing with other men.
I think when people don’t speak up against that sort cut-throat environment, then after a while you end up with a “scene” where a bunch of people stand around dancing by themselves. Clubs are filled with very young and impressionable adults for whom this might be the first real experience trying to interact with strangers at a night out on the town. They end up getting turned off from it, especially the men. By the time they’re older or married, they would never want to go back to such an adverse environment. I’d like to contrast that with my experience going Salsa dancing, where I’d be dancing (poorly) with one girl and another girl would walk right up to us on the dance floor and say “I’m in line to dance with you next!” Chances are it’s the same exact sort of people with the same desire to have fun, but the one group had been taught that being aloof and hard-to-get is the perfect way to cover for their own insecurities. If those girls dancing by themselves at the club don’t get the “best” guy there to dance with them, then, well, they can just say they were there to “just dance.”
I just want to make it clear that I appreciate April coming here to post. And if I came across as accusatory I apologize. Also, I could imagine a clubs where there is a side room where people could go (for example ladies) to just dance. I’ve seen clubs with side rooms…but I’ve never seen a side room that doesn’t accommodate “hook up” culture. Granted I haven’t been to dance club in 15 years or so. (And when I was young and going to clubs, it was usually metal themed clubs, not disco/pop.)
Clubs are not places where there is assortative mating according to certain standards, in the sense that a club-3 is helped in meeting other club-3 and a club-10 is helped meeting a club-10, as Hugh suggests. Clubs are places where the aristocracy of club-10s exploits economically the mass of club-3 losers, who pays, makes the business possible, and does not get anything in return.
In clubs, everything favors meeting and mating for ultracool boys and girls (according to club culture).
On average, a club-3 girl will play harder to get for a club-3 guy than if they had met in a coffe-shop, house party, private events, etc. Mating-wise, there is no reason for a club-3 man to go to a club.
A VIP private Armani party is not paid with the money of unfashionable people: the fashion-world-3s are not concerned and not even invited. This is fair. But in clubs, the party of cool people is paid with the money of the losers who don’t get anything, except the illusion of mingling with the Gods, like in Roman Bacchanalia.
If cool people want to meet other cool people ethically, they could create private parties where entrance is strictly reserved to cool people, instead of going to clubs where the party is paid by the uncool people who are let in on purpose. Clubs promote domination instead of fostering growth and cooperation in society.
Of course, I agree that girls should not be as rude as Pink in the video, but this is just a way to say that clubs (as they are today) should not exist.
Easily Enthused: Your idea might not have been original, but it was VERY funny. I love it!
@EasilyEnthused…
I’ve gone to gay venues specifically because there were no women there.
For the record, the Maroon 5 video is about the destructiveness of a toxic relationship, according to the band themselves. It’s not slapstick, just surreal, and it is definitely not supposed to be healthy.
I do find it interesting that the first comment mentions Chicago. I loved the film, but there is, perhaps, one honest, well-meaning person in the cast, “Mr. Cellophane” himself. Well, two, actually, counting the Hungarian woman. It’s kinda hard to accuse it of being misandriast specifically, when it’s misanthropic. Everyone is selfish, stupid, or both, including Roxy’s husband.
Speaking of which, I find Carrie Underwood’s “Before He Cheats” to be quite disturbing. Especially since with a little thought, it’s plausible that the gent didn’t break up with Carrie’s character because he knew she was nutty enough to smash up his car. If a guy did that in a music video, he’d be considered a sociopath, not a triumphant beacon of hope for men.
Also, Alanis Morissette’s “Crazy”. [SPOILERS] She goes to some venue or another, and shoves around some guy who’s there with a blonde woman, even throwing a drink in his face. The plot twist at the end of the video is that the blonde is actually her girlfriend, which means some guy got knocked around for Alanis’ girlfriend cheating with him. Luckily, the blonde leaves a flower and a “sorry” note, and Alanis smiles in response, so all’s well. Except for the guy, but who cares about him?
I note that the book text in the Pink video describes Vampire-Pink’s book as having “substance”, compared to the shy gent on the next bench. So when guys so much as look at her and she doesn’t want them, they’re in the wrong. But when they somehow can’t tell she wants them to come over, they’re…still in the wrong? What is it with the video’s theme of expecting men to be able to figure out a woman’s wants and needs just by looking at them? The video is little more than a sort of empowerment fantasy, and like almost all such, it studiously avoids the consequences and implications of what it’s saying.
Interesting observations, Smith. Welcome to the blog.
I’m not familiar with that video, but from context I wonder if you meant:
I meant along the lines of he “just stopped calling” her instead of a “proper” breakup, because he figured she might take the rejection poorly. Your interpretation works just as well, though.
Haha, I remember U + Ur Hand. This might just be my incorrect interpretation, but I sort of thought the video was kind of a joke. I don’t think we’re supposed to see Pink’s character as really a pleasant person, she’s just pissed off and this is how she expresses it.
I do agree that the video doesn’t match the lyrics, because none of the men were actually hitting on her. Again, I really think that she’s just meant to be a cranky biker chick, and it’s not really a serious statement.
Maybe this is just because I like Pink, and I don’t think her other music shows a pattern of misandry. That’s the real test, in my opinion- a single piece doesn’t say much.
@Hugh
On some level I feel this is probably purposeful. It might be some sort of a mating strategy that some females in our species employ, precisely so they can lower the amount and number of suitors for other women.
@BallGame
Yep. And I agree with how you put it, everyone has the right to try. My main issue with women who believe they are entitled to not be hit on by “unattractive men”, is not so much the privilege itself, but that they expect it to be done telepathically.
In other words, they expect that the man who has no theoretical chance to somehow telepathically know that he’s in the “no theoretical chance” group and not the “has a chance given enough effort” group.
To put it differently, if these women were consistent, I wouldn’t mind it. A lot of these same women however, actually very often make men they *are* interested jump through hoops. A lot of these same women do not show any signs of interest to the men they *are* interested in.
In other words, the external behaviour is the same towards they “maybe men” and the “not a chance men”. But as you said, there’s no way to know in which group you are, until you make the move.
It’s a catch 22. You must not make a move if you’re in the second group, but you can only know if you’re in the second group if you’ve made the move.
If these women were more consistent however, I would be a lot more understanding. For example if Jane only dates and mates men whom she’s shown clear and unambiguous interest upfront, then I would have more sympathy. I could understand (a bit more, but not fully) how she’d get pissed off that men who she’s shown no interest to dare check her out.
She might not be consistent on a global level (since other women don’t do that), but at least she’d be internally consistent. However, as I said, very often these types of women who are the most hostile about being shown interest by “not a chance” men, are the very same women who never actually show clear and unambiguous interest.
In essence, they are acting like not-being-telepathic is a crime.
So, I agree with that even “simply approaching women who’s leage you’re out of” isn’t a crime or treated as a sign of bad character.
I’m bothered more by the next level of absurdity more though, where “lack of telepathic skills” is treated as a crime.
@Hugh Ristik’s TLDR comment
I was originally not bothered by your original points in the article itself, and when I saw ballgame calling you on them, I was like “What’s ballgame’s issue, I think he’s finding problems where there are none.
But after you posted that longer clarifying comment, I now understand why BallGame pointed them out, and I’m now troubled by your points as well. Specifically, I am troubled by your assumptions that there are clear demarcations of leagues based on social ideas of fashion and physical attractiveness.
You for example say something like (paraphrasing to shorten) “where it’s clear a man has a 0.1% chance, they shouldn’t approach, like I often see happen” -> I honestly can say I have no idea what you’re talking about, especially since you base it on societal ideas of physical and social attractiveness, and not biological.
And even if you use societal criteria for what’s attractive, I honestly have not seen cases of 4 feet tall morbidly obese men in sweatpants approaching supermodels at high-classed clubs as a regular occurrence. I’m sorry, I just don’t see it.
Aside from such a comical example, most scenario are a lot less clear, and fashion and physical attractiveness are far less reliable to guess your chance with.
Furthermore, the problem with your “fashion” and “physical attractiveness” criteria is that it completely ignores types
From my anecdotal experience I can genuinely say that there exists no such thing as having a 0.1% chance. From my experience you either have a 10% chance or none at all. This is because a man is either in a woman’s type or he’s not.
Yes, the men who are in the 10% range are less handsome and worse off socially and less-well-ranked in that club, than are 50% guys. This is true.
But whether you are in the 0.1% or the 10% is entirely determined from things outside your ability to consciously assess. (her being lesbian, you being a genetic mismatch and not at all her type, etc).
Again, I’ll call up male celebrities as an example.
Using your logic, George Clooney, Johnny Depp and Brad Pitt should be able to get 100% of women on this planet. But we know no more than 20%* of women in a given population are attracted to either.
*=We know means I’m going off observation, but I think it’s not a shocking statement, most men who have interviewed women know this. Women have types, and types are stronger than anything else, like fashion, social popularity or handsomeness.
-> If he’s her type, but unattractive (he is in the the unattractive and poorly dressed end of men of those within her type), then he has a 10% chance…
-> If he is the upper end of the “her type” spectrum, he is likely to be physically attractive and fashionable by that group’s standards.
From my casual skimming of hundreds of studies on the subject of mating choices, my general perception is that being genetically matched is the first and foremost criteria. Things like fashion and “physical attractiveness” only boost this.
To put it differently, you can’t be a 5% chancer, it doesn’t exist. If you’re not her genetic type, it’s 0%. If you’re within her type, you already start out at 10%.*
*-> Except for obvious exceptions like being morbidly obese. In that case even a guy her type can be off-putting. But as I said, I never see morbidly-obese guys hitting on supermodels.
Brad Pitt Vs. Johnny Depp
This is why for example you can have two equally stylish, handsome and physically attractive men, yet they are liked by different women.
Women who are into Brad Pitt generally can’t even feel any actual attraction towards Depp, and vice-versa.
What I’m trying to illustrate here Hugh, is that the first and foremost criteria is being a genetic match, or a “type” for that woman. And while there are ways to know what your fashion level and physical attractiveness are on the societal scale… there is absolutely no way to know how much of a woman’s type you are or not.
So while you claim to not be against men approaching when they only have a 10% chance, you actually are, you just don’t know it. As a man, without genetic testing and telepathy you *only can guess* if you’re in the 0.1% – 9.9% range.
I don’t know if that makes sense? In other words, in the vast majority of real-world scenarios, there is no actual fashion/handsomeness difference between the 0.1% and 10% guy.* The difference between a 0.1% guy and 10% guy is on a “type” basis. Both of them are not handsome, and both of them are “not popular”.
*-Again, with comical exceptions like seeing a 4 foot morbidly obese man hitting on a 5’10 model, which I’ve never actually seen. Aside from this comical exception, most cases of a guy being a 0.1% are based on her being or not being her type.
What I’m saying Hugh is…
The only way to ensure you’re not a 0.1% guy, is if you’re a 50% guy. In other words, the margin for the error-rate is so big, that you saying “it’s ok for 10% guys to approach, but not 0.1% guy” is meaningless in practice. This is because nobody knows if they’re an actual precise 10%. It’s a bit broader than that… In the real world it’s more like.
-> If I approach this woman, I’m likely to be in the 0.1% to 20% chance range
-> If I approach this woman, I’m likely to be in the 30-60% range
-> If I approach this woman, I’m likely to be in the 70-80% range
(with the upper percentages being of course when women have shown clear and unambiguous interest)
You say you’re ok with 10-20% range men approaching women even if no explicit invitation was given, but you defeat yourself when you make it seem not-right that 0.1% men do so. When in truth, they are one and the same.
Edit time passed, just want to clarify this, I’m not trying to post 5 comments in a row. If you can merge this with above comment, that would be great.
If the above sounds confusing and you’re saying something like “how can you be multiple percentage ranges alek, huh? don’t you either have a 10% chance with her or a 5% chance? How can you be either?”
It’s because I’m talking about what you can consciously assess…
You can consciously assess that you’re an average-looking guy who’s averagely dressed and of average social skills and “club cred”, and you’re trying to hit on a super-hot and popular girl.
-> Based on what you know, if you’re within her type, than you have a 10% chance of getting her
-> Based on what you know, if you’re not within her type, than you have a 1% chance of getting her
-> Based on what you know, if she’s lesbian, than you have a 0.1% chance of getting her
So in essence, whether you’re in the 10% or 0.1% chance, is entirely based on things you CAN NOT actually know. It’s impossible. The only way to make sure you never hit on women with whom you have a 0.1% chance, is if you only hit on women with whom you are certain there’s a 50% chance.
So while you say you’re not promoting feminist’s “It’s a crime to talk to a woman you have less than 50% chance with” mantra, you indirectly are, because you’re over-emphasing social ideas of attractiveness and forgetting types (and lesbians, and other things) altogether.
This is my last consecutive comment, I swear lol
I don’t mind if you would recommend that people only approach people with whom they have a 50% chance. Personally, I just think you’re recommending one thing, defending another, and then explaining a third.
The above paragraphs only apply on a 50% chance approach. It clashes with your earlier 10% recommendation.
One problem Hugh. No woman will turn down a man who’s her type because he wore different jeans. You’re really pointing to things that are only the “icing on the cake” as if they were the core determinant of one being attracted to another.
A fan of Brad Pitt will be super-pleased to be approached by a Brad Pitt look-alike, even if he is dressed like a bum, and socially awkward.
One itsy, bitsy tiny problem Hugh. There’s no such thing as a “club 10″ and a “club 3″. You’re making it up. [Strictly speaking, I believe this quote is one of mine, not Hugh's. Broadly speaking, I agree with many of your points. —ballgame]
Yes, there are things that statistically increase your odds of being someone’s 10, and there are things that increase the odds of you being someone’s 3. The more of the “10 likelihood increasing traits” you have, the more people you will be a 10 to. But no one person in any club on planet earth is a 9-10 to more than say 10% of the people in it.
You’re making it however seem like there’s actual people we can call “tens” and people we can call “threes”.
You just seem to have a massive blind-spot toward types Hugh.
No fan of Brad Pitt will turn down Brad Pitt because he showed up in inappropriate style. Let’s get real here. You should know better. Those gripes are things some women use as the rationalization for why they turned down a guy.
You seem to have bought into it. No woman’s actual deciding factor is the actual shoe color or jean style. Be real.
Nobody is a 10 using aggregate perception. With a big enough population of raters, nobody is higher than a 7 on aggregate.
I don’t understand you Hugh. Have you been reading maybe some PUA literature lately or something? You seem to be buying into these paranoid illusions about a club hive mind. It doesn’t exist. It’s something that insecure PUAs invented. There’s no such thing as a club-consensus or aggregate club judgement.
@Dungone
That’s a great point dungone.
In that by buying into the whole “10s don’t want to be bothered by 3s” analogy, one effectively is missing that…
-> The majority of club women treat the majority of men approaching them badly.
-> Only the top highest-level men treat the lowest-rung women badly.
If social hiearchy, brands of jeans and (socially defined) physical attractiveness were the key point, then gender wouldn’t be as huge a factor as it is.
Exactly.
Very, very well put.
Dude, you’re amazing.
Very interesting comments, AlekNovy. I think you make a lot of valid points. I would probably quibble with you about this:
The OKCupid study showed that there were a small number of women and an even smaller number of men who received 5′s on a 5 point scale, at least in terms of looks. So I think it’s possible to get consensus 9′s on a 10 point scale, at least as far as looks are concerned. Of course, if your point is that the additional factor of “types” will scramble the classification of people beyond whatever consensus you might get based on looks, then I guess I take your point.
Thanks for catching that Ball.
Yeah, I actually realized I boo-booed on that in terms of clarifying it, but it was too late to edit. It is possible to occasionally get a 8 (or even a 9) as a consensus in terms of somebody’s looks (whether he/she is handsome/pretty). But even then it’s only a modal average. This person will still be many people’s 6.And even with the consensus, that’s merely on looks.
Back to “fitting in the social requirements of the social structure… i.e. your general rating as a person
I get a feeling as if Hugh is kind of mythologizing clubs and social structures as if they were some sort of secret society with a hive-mind.
Even though clubs tend to be niched out (goth clubs, fancy clubs, etc)… There are literally a 100 different groups in that club. Each of them is it’s own hub, with it’s own ideas of what’s cool and what’s not.
While there is some “general” idea of what’s cool on an overall club-level it’s very, very, very, very general… as in you don’t walk into a fancy club dressed goth. Any specifics beyond that are individual and group-based.
Clubs aren’t like movies about high-school cliques. In fact, most people on any given night in any club (including the cool folks) are not regulars… they’re either there for the first time, or they’re there once every few months. There’s no actual way for Hugo’s implied specifics and standards to form. There’s not enough regulars to where you need to have the right brand of jeans to be “in”.
oops
I kept scrolling up and down as I was writing the responses, so I accidentally grabbed your response instead of hugh’s original claim. I just remember I was responding to his logic.
He “implied” there’s such a thing as “club 10s” and “club 3s” whereas you spelled out what he was implying.
I’m always commenting in a hurry lol. Edits need to be longer for me, like 10 days, lol.
I just thought of another point to add. One of the new rationalizations that a lot of misandrists come up with to justify creep-shaming and justify victim-blaming for when women completely abuse and harass completely polite suitors is the “too many offers” theory.
Hugo seems to have bought into it to some extent. It says something like “Popular and well liked people get a massive amount of offers so they can’t offer to be nice to everyone, or they’d spend the entire day just politely turning down people, so they have to filter out and cut”.
One problem. If this was the reason, then less-popular women would be super-polited, and popular men would be just as “bitchy” as women. In other words, this theory that PUAs, Hugh, and lots of feministas are now promoting doesn’t hold. For a very simple reason = if it were true, than gender wouldn’t be as huge of a factor as it is.
Let me give you a simple thought experiment. Ever talked to famous, popular guys, even rich folks? Most of them are super polite and nice (think warren buffet), they don’t instinctively humiliate people for “time management”.
The whole “time management” thing is something that PUAs came up with to justify the bitchy behavior of many misandric women. Some feministas liked it and snatched it up too.
Again, whenever a bunch of these excuses come up, always ask “ok, if THAT explains it, then why is gender the major factor?”
AlekNovy,
A lot of my perspective on this issue comes from hanging out at clubs with women I’m dating, and noticing the sort of guys who approach and hit on them. Often with me present. I just can’t understand why some of those guys think that their approaches will be well received, since they tend to be some combination of significantly older, drunk, or not dressed appropriately for the venue. And I just can’t help feeling that these sorts of approaches aren’t very constructive.
Let me make some clarifications in response to your comments.
That’s exactly what I was trying to get at.
I don’t agree that there is “absolutely no” way to know how much of a woman’s type you are. Sure, you can’t be sure, but you can guess.
So, what you are saying is that it’s pointless for men to even try to guess whether a woman will find them attractive, or not?
I agree that the 4 foot morbidly obese man hitting on a 5′10 model example is rare, but I’ve seen other mismatches: e.g. men in their 40′s and 50′s who aren’t dressed up approach women in their early 20′s who are. Or men who are drunk and not dressed up approaching sober women who are dressed up. Those approaches just have an infinitesimally low chance of being successful, much lower than the general “is he her type?” crapshoot that you accurately observe.
You’re right, the numbers are arbitrary. What I’m getting at is that there may be some point where a particular men approaching a particular woman is so predictably unlikely to be productive that it would be better for both people if the approach didn’t happen. Where is that point? I’m not sure. Would you agree?
My view is perfectly compatible with types. You can try to estimate the chances that you are or aren’t someone’s type.
You are correct that in some ways, my argument resembles feminist arguments, to the extent that both arguments will advise against certain types of male approaches. Yet I hope you also notice that “approaches with a less that 0.1% chance of succeeding are impractical” and “it’s a crime to talk to a woman you have less than a 50% chance with,” are very different arguments. I’m more making an argument from practicality and efficiency, rather than ethics.
Furthermore, unlike feminists, I am concerned with guys making an efficient allocation of their approaching effort. I would like to encourage men to make the sorts of approaches where they are more likely to be successful, and avoid wasting their time and energy.
As you know, PUAs often encourage an indiscriminate, mass approach strategy, and I’m objecting to that perspective, because I think it’s very harsh on men. That attitude messed me up for a while, until I tried the radical solution of focusing my efforts towards women who I thought would be into me, and interacting with women through a social circle rather than directly hitting on them regardless of their potential interest, which worked very well.
I’m actually worried that you are also going close to feminist arguments in a couple areas. It almost sounds like you think that physical attractiveness is in the eye-of-the-beholder, but actually, there is wide agreement on physical attractiveness according to the research. Furthermore, it sounds as if, like feminists, you might be failing to acknowledge the importance of social status in how women assess men. This importance isn’t as large or simple as PUAs think, but it is a factor.
Jeans are only one example of how people perceive each other based on clothing.
No, a woman won’t turn down a guy who is her type because he wore different jeans. But jeans, and other elements of clothing, influences her perception of whether he is her type in the first place. That’s because “types” are assessed based on a combination of factors, while includes physical attractiveness, body language, voice, and yes, clothing.
Yes, exactly! I seem to have given you the impression that people should measure themselves up to society-wide perceptions, but that’s not what I’m going for. Rather, I’m encouraging people to guess the potential interest of an individual person (e.g. “am I her type?”) in an individual club (“am I dressed in way that will be admired here?”). The only society-wide perception that’s relevant would be physical attractiveness, but even there, different scenes have different ideals for some elements of physical appearance.
As I think you noted above, this doesn’t apply to fancy or niche clubs and bars that do have lots of regulars.
I don’t believe that the large number of offers popular people get justify harsh rejections. What I’ve been arguing is that a deluge of offers will drive popular people out of public spaces, and into exclusive spaces.
You could be right, but I’d need to see more data on this subject.
Anyway, I would be interested to know your perspective: would you advise men who approach to only discriminate according to what they are attracted to, or would you advice that they make their approaches more targeted in some way?
@Hugh
We actually are very close to agreeing on the actual real-world solution or practical strategy to recommend to men. My issue is with the faulty reasoning you use to arrive at a very similar end-point as me.
I suspect we might be talking about different things. I’m talking about a physical, genetic type. You’re probably talking about a social type?
The research on attraction finds that women have certain facial features and characteristics they’re attracted to. For example some women like a johnny depp type face, and some like a brad pitt type face.
There is absolutely no way of knowing which one she prefers biologically in advance by simply looking at her from across the room, no.
You’re talking about types as in “artsy type, jock type, goth type, geeky type etc” I guess? But those are social types and are pure BS. A goth chick will get with a preppy guy who’s her physical type faster than she will with a goth guy who’s NOT her physical type.
And this is why the penalty shouldn’t be so bad if you guess wrong. We live in a society where women are permitted to completely destroy a guy’s self-esteem if he guesses wrong. And men don’t do that to women who guess wrong anywhere near as often.
Within a range. If you are both within the mere-mortal-range (neither she or you is ugly, neither she or you is super-hot) then yes, guessing is no better than flipping a coin.
The only time when you can guess right is if:
a) You’re subconsciously picking up signals from her (but that’s a different topic then)
b) It’s super apparent… Like you’re far below average, and she’s far above average.
What you seem to be implying is that there is some sort of a precise scale, where people are 4.5s and 6.5s and such. I’ve seen no evidence of that. I only recognize 3 major groups
a-> Drop-dead gorgeous
b-> Mere Mortal
c-> Butt Ugly
Anyone within b has a statistically equal chance with everyone else in group b (provided no signalling of interest or non-interest is going on). This is because somebody’s 8 is another’s 5, and one’s 6 is another’s 8.5, etc… etc.
And the only reason why you and me Hugh can look at the same girl, and you’ll say she’s a 6, and I’ll say she’s an 8 is BIOLOGICAL typing. She has no way of knowing whether you or me find her hotter if we don’t signal it. She has no gene-reader. The ratings go up as much as 3-4 grades from one individual to the next, and it’s not written on their foreheads.
I saw some crazy guy the other running around the street yelling something about aliens, the janitors and the city council being in on the conspiracy, and then he ran into traffic and talked to the cars.
Heck, I saw a similar thing just 2 months ago with some crazy old homeless lady lifting her skirt and showing her vagina and yelling at random pedestrians.
I’m not gonna pretend like it’s a normal occurrence though. You seem to be implying the the average club approach is a slovenly-dressed 50 year old hitting on a hot 20 year old who’s super-dressed up. I have no idea what planet this is the norm on. I seriously don’t.
What fancy club full of hot 20 year olds has bouncers that let in in undressed 50 year olds? Wtf? seriously,your story has some serious logical inconsistencies. I feel like you’re exaggerating for effect.
Again, you seem to be playing the idea of pointing to exceptional cases, to somehow justify women’s behavior in normal cases.
Of course I agree that men shouldn’t expend self-esteem on situations which are not likely to lead to productive outcomes. This is why I suggest men not even show any romantic interest or hit on women until the woman has shown interest first.
I personally do (and suggest) only throwing out a “tester”. If she responds to that tester, then proceed with a full blown approach.
My issue is with the reasoning you used to arrive at a similar conclusion as me
You seem to be implying that a man can somehow have a 90% certainty he has a chance with any given woman by just assuming her type, and that’s just not true, or even close to being true.
And if you don’t think it’s possible to have a 90% certainty guessing power, then how do you then justify women treating like crap a man who guesses wrong, if he only had a 50% chance of guessing right?
What I’m saying is that in most real world situations, you have absolutely no way to have a better than 50% guess, if you’re guessing off of simply looking at her – if you have no signals to work with.
What I’m saying is that in the real world a 10% chance approach and a 50% chance approach look exactly the same. You say you support the latter, but not the former. I’m saying they’re the same in the real world.
In the real world, you only can guess if you’re closer to the extremes. If you have a 90% chance, you can guess well because she’ll make it clear.
If you have a 0.1% chance, that will be pretty damn obvious too.
You however seem to be implying that it’s possible to distinguish a 10% chance from a 20% chance and a 20% chance from a 30% chance etc.
This is the part where we agree.
Fully agree.
Ditto
Feminists believe that a 300 pound midget can be a sex-symbol if society decided to.
What I’m saying is that individual taste ranges to within 3-4 grades. A chick who’s my 5, might be your 8, and vice-versa. What I’m saying is that unless you go to extremes, it’s not that clear.
Further, you seem to have done no research on types Hugh
Every woman agrees that both Johnny Depp and Brad Pitt are hot guys. This is because both of them posses the universal features of physical attractiveness.
Here’s the part you’re missing. Chicks who’d bang Depp in a nano-second, are not into Brad Pitt, and vice versa.
Just like every guy will agree that Angelina Jolie is a beautiful woman, but not every guy is into her. Does that make sense?
The part that you’re missing is that physical attraction is based on the individual type first, and then boosted by universally attractive traits.
In other words, if you’re a woman’s genetic type, but you’re not handsome, you have a (let’s say) 30% chance. If you’re her type AND handsome, you have a 80% chance.
If you’re not her type, but handsome, you have a 30% chance.
Guess what though? She will treat the handsome 30%er very nicely, but she’ll treat the non-handsome 30%er like shit, and blame it on him daring to approach her. That’s look-ism my friend, and you seem to have fallen for women’s excuses and rationalizations that they give when they engage in it.
And all the research I’ve seen shows that social status is only a factor when a woman is deciding from a POOL of men she’s already interested in.
To get in the pool in the first place however, is entirely based on your genetic appearance. And there’s no way to know if you’re in it.
Social status has nothing to do with getting into that pool in the first place.
You obviously define type differently. I define type as the biological type. You can’t affect the biological genetic matching process through clothing my friend.
You’re talking about the social type.
And I think you’re suggesting the impossible and impractical. I suggest testing instead. See next comment…
I suggest testing and never ever making a move without the woman showing interest first. EVER. Why guess when you can test?
My issue is with you supporting the ludicrous notion that men can know any better then chance by simply looking at a woman’s clothing or looks. That’s a lie that feminists invented to justify the misandric actions of many women today. You can’t “just know”, you can however test.
I do know there are ways to test that allow a man to keep his self-esteem in tact and never have to experience too much rejection. Specifically, there’s a great new site where we kind of discussed this and looked at some of the studies. See every comment from this comment down-wards:
http://www.seductionmyth.com/#comment-765
Let me summarize, this is what my dude-bro-guide would actually look like
In order to make your efforts more productive, you can do several things. The first would be to assess the location’s openness to approaching or meeting random people. Just as an example.
-> Streets, parks, malls – have a low approachability rating
-> Clubs, bookstores, pubs – have a medium approachability rating
-> Social circles, private parties, hobby groups – have a high approachability rating
*-Note, clubs and pubs themselves differ. Some clubs & pubs have a high-approachability ratio, like rock, goth, happy hour places where they literally have an atmosphere like a private party and anyone can talk to anyone. Some ultra fancy clubs have a very tense atmosphere where nobody approaches anyone to just chat, so they are the equivalent of approaching on the street.
Note: Never ever, ever, ever, ever hit on a woman on approach, in any venue, no matter what you’re guessing
In other words, you should only approach to socialize, no matter what the approachability rating. That is the same in all contexts. On the “opener” your only goal is “being social”, no matter how approachable the venue is. So I’m actually distinguishing approaching from “hitting on” women.
The thing that the approachability rating of the place tells you is only how quickly and directly to approach
-> If it’s a high-approachability venue, don’t even think. Just go approach everyone and anyone and introduce yourself to all people. Just be social.
-> If it’s a medium approachability context, like say an average club… there’s multiple strategies, I’ll name a, b, c and d
-a–> First try to steal a few glances from the woman you’re eye-ing. Don’t stare, just throw a glance every few minutes. If it seems she might be glancing back, increase the duration and frequency of the glances to make sure it’s not coincidental. If it seems it might be for you, then go ahead put on a huge shit-eating-grin and make a full on approach. NOT “go hit on her”. Just make a full approach as in go straight toward her and introduce yourself. The returned glancing doesn’t mean she’s interested. It just means you have a high-chance you won’t be outright rejected. It means a social approach is fine.
-b–> If you are with friends, and she is with friends, approaching as a group of guys, approaching a group of girls is fine. In this case you don’t even need to do pre-testing, because no one woman feels she is being targeted by any one guy. As a group of guys, you can approach them in a sort of “just being social and meeting people” frame. Not one of you targets any one woman, you as a group are greeting the other group
-c–> If she’s already within hearing distance, you can “pre-approach”. For example, let’s say she’s in the group standing next to your group. You can casually lean over and make a remark, and immediatelly lean back to your group and face your friends again. Don’t even wait for a response. You just throw a quick witty response about something, and that’s it. It has to be completely non-committal, with no expectations of anything. You’re just making a remark out-loud, don’t even wait for a response and turn back towards your group. What will happen is that if she has any interest to be approached, she now knows about you. If there’s ANY chance, she will now try to make it known that it’s ok for you to do a full-approach. She will smile and stare, or she will keep glancing back hoping that you re-engage her (etc. etc)… Bam, it’s ok to approach.
-d–> If she’s not within hearing distance of you, and you never managed to get back any glances from afar, this doesn’t have to mean no interest, she might have simply not noticed you existing yet. In that case, if you’re REALLY, REALLY, REALLY interested to make sure, then it’s fine to “pre-approach” or “semi-approach” as a way of testing if a full-approach would be ok.
–d1—> For example walking towards the bathroom, pass by her, look at her and throw out a remark or “hey hi, how’s it going” or comment something like “nice earrings” or whatever. YOU DO NOT STOP. You don’t even wait to see what her reaction is. That would be a semi-approach. If there’s ANY interest from her, you will notice her trying to find you later on and scanning the room for you and glancing back at you. You can now do a full approach.
–d2—> Or you can do what chicks do. Go and hover near her group and glance from time to time. Chicks have been doing this for centuries, and yes, dude, it’s ok for men to do it. So if you need a distinction to not feel like a chick, the difference is you’re assessing approachability, not trying to get an approach out of her.
-> If it’s a low approachability context, like a street or a mall, never do full approaches, only pre-approach or semi-approach or do glance-stealing.
(example) If it’s a bus-stop, don’t go fully walk up to her and face her, just throw a remark off to the side, over your shoulder. If she gives a one-word answer, she might be non-interested, she might be shy, who the fuck cares, she doesn’t get or deserve anything more. You did your test. If she responds enthusiastically however, you can turn it into a full-blown conversation (approach).
(example) If you’re walking through a market or a mall OPEN YOUR EYES, women are always hovering around guys they’re interested in. If some chick always seems to end up looking at the same shelves you are, there’s a high-probability she’s hovering to be opened. So just throw a contextual remark to the side. If she responds well, turn into full conversation, if not move on.
(example) [in a store/mall/park] If you’re both moving, when you pass by her just go “hey, what’s up” and keep moving, and DONT STOP. If there’s anything there, she’ll track you down and try to hover around you later or keep trying to catch your glance. This means it’s ok to do a full on approach (as in social approach and introduction, not hitting on her).
(example) [in a store/mall/park] You keep glancing in her direction, if the glances are returned, smile and wave. If it tests ok, proceed.
What about after the approach?
Remember, all the instructions until now say to only approach from a very social frame, almost as if you’re at a neighborhood party and you’re introducing yourself to the new neighbors. It has to have exactly 0% sexual tension on the opening. So how do you then go from the social, socializing approach all the way to sex? You test, test, escalate, test, test, escalate.
The trick here is that from my personal experimentation, women don’t mind speed if you test. Seriously, you can attempt to makeout or even further in minutes with most women, as long as all the pre-requisite tests have been done, it’s fine. I used to (and a lot of guys still do) think that women hate guys going too fast. It’s not the speed per-se, it’s the moving on without a signal. You can test and do it pretty fast though. Specifically, the entire roadmap would look like this
-1> You walk up, you make casual conversation
->>> If the woman is not super enthusiastic about you introducing yourself, back away a bit physically and give some space, because it might just be shyness. If she becomes (or looks) uncomfortable, EJECT! Immediately. Don’t even give her a chance to reject.
-2> If the woman is engaged in the conversation & interaction, you lean in a little closer and decrease the physical distance
–>++> (if she still excited and enthusiastic about the conversation despite decreasing distance)…. later you move in even closer…
–>—-> (if she seems to get uncomfortable on you getting closer)… back off to previous distance and see if you can regain enthusiastic mode you had before test. If you can have enthusiastic conversation for a few minutes, it’s ok to try another leaning in test again. If she never regains enthusiasm after the test and is actually uncomfortable even despite backing-off, eject completely, and politely
-3> (keep doing distance decreasing tests until you’re within girlfriend-boyfriend space) if she’s still excited past several distance changes, go the next step, brush her arm fleetingly
-4> if no signs of discomfort, brush arm again to test waters, if still no signs of discomfort, move in for the kiss.
The way this strategy works at maximizing productivity and reducing rejection is that…
…you look for signs of discomfort. You never even make a move if any discomfort is present. Just to make sure, you test everything 2-3 times (2-3 fleeting arm touches without discomfort etc…)
In order to give the shy chicks a chance, you don’t eject immediately on slight signs of discomfort. Remember, we don’t even test unless the chick is enthusiastic. So when I say “slight discomfort” I only mean that a super-enthusiastic conversationalist got a little less comfortable when you brushed their arm. I’m not talking about someone being cold from the moment you said hello. You don’t even test those further. You only test for the next stage when they’re fully enthusiastic about the current stage.
So, if they reacted uncomfortable to a test like leaning in a bit, or brushing their arm, you first just back-off for a bit, and then test a second time a bit later. The first failure might have her been shy and not ready the first time around.
So with all the things I listed as pre-requisites to approaching… and then the road-map to escalation, you massively decrease the odds of rejection.
p.s.
I take no credit for this guide. I simply retold the SIRC guide and other mainstream books I’ve seen on flirting that are based on studies about what works in natural pickup and hookups.I simply made it less academese, and plain-language. I don’t have a single original idea in here. A great book on this is The Flirting Bible: Your Ultimate Photo Guide to Reading Body Language, Getting Noticed, and Meeting More People Than You Ever Thought Possible
p.p.s.
You can eventually reach a point where you can just approach anyone and everyone in a medium-approachability context the same way you do at high-approachability venues. However, unless you’re at Brent Smith’s level, this will most likely result in a lot of brush offs and rejections. So until you’re at that point, it’s a good idea to get a lot of experience and calibration using the strategies I recommend in the “medium approachability” section above. When you’re ready to treat it just like a high-approachability venue, the transition will come naturally and spontaneously.
I have also seen these approaches. I have gone dancing with some very beautiful women (if I don’t say so myself) and I know exactly what you’re talking about. What’s more, it’s not just old men, not just poorly dressed men, not just lone men, but gangs of men of all ages in all dress styles.
And here’s an observation: it happens to me when I’m with a beautiful woman more than when I’m with an ugly one. And it happens to a ridiculous extent when I’m with two beautiful women. And it happens more often when it’s a large group of men and I’m the only guy there. So I’m just going to be honest here – it happens more to me than it does to other guys – guys who are more outwardly threatening, perhaps. And it happens to me even more than it does when women are by themselves. The inappropriate behavior has got to do not just with how the woman is dressed, but whether or those guys think they’re better than me. You can bet your ass that if an overweight 4′ guy in sweats takes a beautiful lady to a club, other men will be hitting on her all night. I can be pretty dangerous if I want to be, given that I have combat training and I have killed enemies of the USA, but I don’t make that my outward appearance. So when I pull one of these guys back and ask him what he thinks he’s doing, in a stern voice, they usually back off immediately. The trick is to be threatening to other men, but in a way that the girls I’m with will never notice. I’m still learning, admittedly.
The point is, guys do try to judge whether or not they will be successful hitting on some girl based on outward appearance and sometimes that is the very thing that leads to ugly situations, possibly even fights. The point is that looking at a girl just by herself doesn’t give a guy enough information so they often base it off of other cues – is she drunk enough, is it dark enough, is the guy she’s with possibly of equal or lower status.
The point is, we would still be better off if women just gave reasonable responses to being approached. Things like calling back after a date to say sorry, it didn’t work out. Things like accepting a dance offer from a guy instead of dancing with her girlfriend all night because none of the men in the immediate area are “good enough.” I think it’s absolute shit that just about every girl that I know right now who is in a relationship thinks of it as having “settled” on a guy because she didn’t really get everything she wanted. I mean, really? It still comes down to that, for me. You just can’t tell women that it’s okay to not take the men who approach them seriously while telling the men that they have to treat those very same women like gods.
p.s. I would like to make it socially unacceptable for women to dance with other women.
dungone, you make many interesting points here, but this:
… is a terrible idea. I mean, first, well, lesbians and bisexuals, and second, I don’t think we should be trying to create a world where social interactions are monitored for compliance to a code mandating heteronormative mating. Personally, I would like to make it socially acceptable for people of all ages and genders to dance with each other without being judged for their conformance to some preconceived notion that dancing is exclusively a mating ritual.
@ballgame, it does seem like a terrible idea but it’s really not, it’s just counter intuitive. I want to dance with other men about as much and for the same exact reasons as I want to flash my penis at passing women only to refuse to take them home with me after they buy me drinks, instead choosing to seductively make out with my hetero male friends while the by-then drunk women cheer like idiots.
To me, dancing with men is okay, so if there’s a stigma against it (there is) then I’d like to get rid of it, but largely it sort of seems like a waste of time. I can’t dance with other men until a bunch of women come up to dance with me; it will almost never happen; I will never feel the social validation from my preferred (opposite) sex whereas women can dance with other women all night long and still feel confident that actual men want them. When you look at it that way then a lot of the reason why I can’t enjoy dancing with other men is because of the social pressure to try to dance with women. I remember when as a child, a couple of my single aunts would actually say they felt embarrassed for dancing with other women just because no men had asked them for a dance. It wasn’t because everyone thought they were “gay,” it was because being sociable with men seemed to have meant something positive. They seemed to respect the men they socialized with, which is not the sort of vibe that I get today from my peers. I get a little more of that vibe when I travel back to Europe and find that women there are much more agreeable than in the US, even though they’re actually much more progressive as well. So I would bet you that men would feel more comfortable dancing with one another if the dating scene in general wasn’t so adversarial and one-sided.
AlekNovy,
I still think we have some different social experiences, and different intuitions about how hard it is to guess other people’s preferences.
I’m talking about both. They are linked.
That’s true. But those features aren’t evenly distributed between every social type. For instance, guys with lantern jaws are more common in some groups than others (e.g. those features are more common in jocks, and less common in artists). Social type isn’t independent of biological type.
I disagree so strongly that I find your statement laughable. What you say only applies to weak subcultures, or people who are only weakly into a subculture. I strongly disagree that a woman from practically any urban subculture will date a preppy guy who is her physical type faster than a guy in her subculture who is not her physical type. Urban women often hate preppy guys, and are trying to get away from them. In my experience, she would rather stay single than either of those options. Some people are so serious about cultural types that it will countermand their biological desires.
I agree.
I also agree, in contrast to pickup.
I disagree. I think her own physical features and appearance can be used to make educated guesses about both her biological and social type. Social type can also be used to make guesses about her biological type. This is probabilistic, of course.
But are you seriously telling me that this woman and this woman would be equally likely to be into this guy?
Sure, there is variation in preferences (and also correlation). And I disagree that she has “no way” of knowing whether you or me find her hotter. From the Seduction Myth website that you sent me to:
Evidently, it is possible to make good guesses about someone’s type. Yes, their biological type. Your argument doesn’t take that into account, nor does it take into account the case that large age gaps are a predictable turnoff.
I never said I was only talking about fancy clubs.
All I’m saying is that it’s not uncommon for men who aren’t dressed up (or only doing the bare minimum) 10-20 years older to approach women in their late teens or early 20′s in clubs. I’m not saying that it’s the most common type of approach, only that I see it a bunch with female friends or girlfriends of mine in that age group.
dungone has seen the same things I’ve been seeing. Maybe your club experiences are different.
Yes, some 20-year-olds do date 30-year-olds, but generally only when the 30-year-old is both her biological type, and significantly above average in some way.
I’m not interested in justifying women’s behavior. I simply understand some women’s frustration at being sexually approached by men who are predictably bad matches for them, even if I don’t justify them expressing that frustration to the men involved.
I think your practical advice is good, and I’ve converged on similar ideas from my own journey through pickup (partly because of pickup, and partly in spite of it).
Yet even a tester approach is a type of approach. In some cases, it might be most productive to allocate testers towards women who are more likely to respond well, and I think educated guesses can be made on this subject.
Basically, I think you are looking at a bunch of cues in isolation (e.g. clothing, age, physical attractiveness, etc…) and concluding that neither of them are strong predictors of interest, or that perception of them varies. I agree that no single one of these predictors is strong, but I don’t think you’re seeing the big picture.
If you put a bunch of predictors together, then it is possible to make educated guesses about whether someone is into you, based on:
- biological type: proven to be guessable above chance according to that study
- social type: which is sometimes a big deal, and sometimes doesn’t matter, depending on the environment. I think you are under-estimating the power of social type, and how it is correlated with biological type.
- age difference: age is shown to be an important factor by a lot of research
- conventional physical attractiveness: shown to have a moderate level of agreement cross-culturally
- drunkenness: if one person is drunk while the other person is sober
- relationship status: if the person being approached has someone in the club who they seem to be with
- social status: e.g. one person is a celebrity while the other is not; or one person has vastly more friends or connections
- race, class, and culture
A gap or lack in one or two of those areas might not be a big deal, and perceptions or preferences do vary in some of these measures. But a problem in multiple areas is probably pretty damning to the prospects of an approach. For example, a gap of social type, or a decade difference in age, might not be totally damning on their own: as long as biological type is similar, it could save you.
But if both social type is different and there is an age gap of 10+ years, then even biological compatibility might not be enough to save you, and a full-on approach is probably pointless (though perhaps a tester approach could be appropriate).
If there is a problem in 3-4+ areas, then even a tester approach is probably pointless (e.g. if you are drunk and they are sober, they obviously have a different social type than you, and they seem to be with someone, then even a tester approach might be a waste of time).
I’d be willing to wager that ‘women dancing with women’ is no more disapproved of over there than over here.
Well I would agree. But making ‘women dancing with women’ less socially acceptable is a total non sequitur to that goal.
And a terrible idea.
Wow, I never noticed that about California Gurlz before! Interesting.
I did notice a lot of blatant objectification of women though, for example, women are shown in sweet wrappers in order to be ‘unwrapped’ and they are shown wearing sweets to show that they are ‘candy’ to be consumed, this video seems quite troubling for both men and women.
(though it does show male-representative characters as literally candy, that are literally consumed, it doesn’t hit so hard because they aren’t that human-like, but there is definitely a theme of males being consumed by females also)