I found an interesting post on a Christian blog that is sensitive to men's issues. In the post, the author (me) talks about how women have unrealistic expectations about men, and how they spend their prime years chasing men with attractive appearances who are unlikely to commit to them. Feel free to stop by and comment.
Source: https://winteryknight.com/2022/06/17/famous-pastor-discovers-the-real-reason-for-the-decline-in-marriage-rate/
Full text: In this post, I want to look at a series of tweets from an ordinary pro-marriage pastor. He is concerned about declining marriage rates. He observed young people in his church, and he did some social science research. And he's come up with a theory about why young Christians are delaying marriage, or not getting married at all. First, here's the marriage rate, accurate to 2020:
This pastor is just talking about ordinary Christian men in his tweets below, not the ones who do a ton of research on apologetics, etc.
Here is what the pastor said:
I saw this chart a while back and scratched out some rough thoughts...
Around 2010 or 2011, I noticed a significant shift in “the relationship marketplace.” I can sum up this shift with two trends I saw in my church circles.
First, I noticed that many (not all) average to above average Christian men in overall quality (e.g. health, looks, ambition, etc.) were struggling to get a girlfriend. At first, I thought these guys were just being too picky or had some other major deficiency. After all, there are a lot of lazy foolish men out there. This wasn’t the case with these men. They weren’t the top 1%. But they were quality and had very reasonable (perhaps too low) standards for a girlfriend.
Second, I noticed that many (not all) average to below average Christian women (I know me suggesting that such a thing exists is upsets a lot you) in overall quality (e.g. beauty, personality, temperament, etc.) had a fear of a committed relationship and were extremely picky. They would often complain that there weren’t any good men. But there were good men. They just thought those men were below them. They weren’t. The arrogance and pride of these women was shocking to me at the time. Not anymore.
I ran my concerns past a boomer pastor. He dismissed it. He thought all the women were just great and men needed to step up to win them. Man up and all that. That really was the moment I realized that there was some form of generational blindness related to what is happening. And that’s why I started tracking trends in sexuality not just generally but specifically as they related to dating (aka the relationship marketplace).
Now let me point out 2 particularly concerning trends that overturn older assumptions about the relationship marketplace.
First more and more women today are delaying marriage into their 30s. They, however, aren't delaying sex. Very few of these unmarried women are virgins when they turn 30. Stats vary but it's below 10% and perhaps closer to 5%. Moreover, these women have multiple sexual partners. It's difficult to calculate the number but a survey of the material points toward between 7-14 sexual partners prior to getting married right around 30. Others say that is a low number. Regardless, the consequences of this are hard to overstate. This sort sexual promiscuity has intense negative emotional, spiritual, and even physical consequences in the lives of these women. Also, it means that a large number of these women are using hormonal birth control and having abortions.
[...]Second, as you see in the chart above, male virginity between ages 18-30 has increased 20% since '89. That's good, right? No. It's doubtful that this increase in virginity is directly connected to an increase in morality among men.
[...]So who are these women having sex with?
There appears to be men who are consider "top tier guys" by women who are having a lot casual sex with a lot of women. Supposedly, 20% of the men are having 80% of the sex.
The pastor mentions that 80% of the young women these days are chasing the "top" 20% of men. It's important to understand that these are not the top 20% of men according to criteria like commitment ability, protecting, providing and moral / spiritual leading. These are the "top" 20% of men according to appearance. In fact, if a man has definite, defensible views on moral or spiritual issues, that is bad, because that means that he is strict, judgmental and boring. Not high status.
What do young women consider "high status"?
Look at this survey of women who use Bumble about where they set the minimum and maximum height of men they are seeking:
What this shows is that women have the height slider set to find men who are between 6 feet tall and 7 feet tall. The average height of a North American man is 5'9". This is what they value in a man.
Have a look at this survey of OKCupid users:
Again, the men with the highest status are judged by their appearances. And how do 80% of the women get the attention of these top 20% of men? Why, by giving them premarital sex, of course. Since these men are swimming in attention from 80% of the women, there is no need for them to commit first in order to get sex. Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free? Although you might think that promiscuity makes men unstable, selfish and low status, you would be wrong. These are the men that women want.
As famous feminist Hanna Rosin explains:
But this analysis downplays the unbelievable gains women have lately made, and, more important, it forgets how much those gains depend on sexual liberation. Single young women in their sexual prime—that is, their 20s and early 30s, the same age as the women at the business-school party—are for the first time in history more successful, on average, than the single young men around them. They are more likely to have a college degree and, in aggregate, they make more money. What makes this remarkable development possible is not just the pill or legal abortion but the whole new landscape of sexual freedom—the ability to delay marriage and have temporary relationships that don’t derail education or career. To put it crudely, feminist progress right now largely depends on the existence of the hookup culture. And to a surprising degree, it is women—not men—who are perpetuating the culture, especially in school, cannily manipulating it to make space for their success, always keeping their own ends in mind. For college girls these days, an overly serious suitor fills the same role an accidental pregnancy did in the 19th century: a danger to be avoided at all costs, lest it get in the way of a promising future.
I've written about how feminists support the hook-up culture before. They aren't looking for men who will commit until they reach their mid-30s or 40s, and feel peer pressure from their friends who are married and having kids. And many Christian women think that hooking up with hot bad boys is compatible with Christianity, because Christianity is just about God making women happy by letting them do whatever they feel like doing "in the moment".
What Christian women, their parents and pastors believe
Here are some things I've heard over the years by Christian women, their parents, and their pastors:
- there's nothing wrong with women choosing men based on height, appearance, and bad boy character traits
- bad boy character can easily be fixed by nagging, sex-withholding, and threatening divorce
- marriage will magically happen when the woman feels like getting married, until then she should focus on casually "dating" attractive men, career, travel and fun
- a woman's ability to choose good men and be a good wife and mother isn't harmed by having premarital sex with hot bad boys
- men aren't discouraged by a woman's student loan debt or secular left indoctrination, or her desire to put the kids in daycare and public schools, so she can keep working after they are born
- it's wrong for men to have standards about what they want in a wife and mother, or to prefer early marriage
- if Christian men want to attract women, they should spend more money on expensive cars, clothes and watches
- women are just as likely to get pregnant at 35 as they are at 20, as long as they are in good shape and healthy
- studies that show that past promiscuity causes the woman to be unhappy, and the marriage to be unstable, are all false
There are costs and risks to men who decide to marry. There are external threats from policy, courts, the workplace, the schools, etc. It's become dangerous for men to advocate for Christian views, and having a family makes it even more risky. These risks make sense when the man gets early investment from a woman - support, investment and many well-raised children. These risks make NO sense when there is no early investment from a woman. A woman who chased "high status" men will never be attracted to a good man. She may eventually want to settle for one, but she will never respect him.
Overkill_Engine Endorsed 1y ago
Or to put it simply, if you weren't her first choice, it's not worth being her last resort.
winteryknight Endorsed 1y ago
Well said.
chunky 1y ago
No one wants to be settled for. Everyone wants to be chosen.
polishknight Endorsed 1y ago
I've been married 18 years to my wife who picked me because she knew I was stable and reliable and my not handsome looks favored that perspective. In other words, she was thinking like a man or a traditional woman perhaps because she was raised in a truly traditional, pragmatic culture. She also knew she was getting older (she was turning 26!) so she had to make up her mind.
I'm ok with it. Heck, I rather celebrate her pragmatism.
I'll ask her if a hot movie star or Prince William proposed to her would she leave me and she smiles and says "What do you think?" but she also knows she's not a supermodel so that won't happen.
This "soulmate" "romantic" love, I think, is the plague of modern society: People who think they deserve the love of a perfect person who will "love them just as they are" but yet their own love is selfish. It's usually women, of course, since they get massive attention in their youth.
I judge my wife by her actions, not idealistic sentiments.
winteryknight Endorsed 1y ago
I love this comment. Good pick by her, good pick by you.
polishknight Endorsed 1y ago
There was a lot of fuss about a reddit post 2 months or so ago by someone saying he overheard his girlfriend telling her friends "don't pick hot guys, I found them too much trouble to deal with" and he realized she picked him because he wasn't hot. Nearly everyone here thought that the guy was getting sloppy seconds or "settled" and should walk but I found her remark to be, er, remarkably mature and self-aware. She had LEARNED a lesson early in life without waiting until the last minute and was even advising other women of the same.
We criticize and rightly mock women with delusional standards and ideals but yet thinking a woman should think of us as the perfect man is laughable. After all, most men "settle" for women in that we have asked out a dozen other girls and wind up dating/sleeping with/marrying the one who said yes who was the best prospect. It's how our employment choices work as well. Few of us become astronauts or CEO's but find a way to be happy as team lead in a corporate position. (I myself am a government bureaucrat and happy about it. I can hardly wait for my daughter's "parent career day" at school).
"Settling" is a humbling experience but also a stoic, mature one as we learn to find comfort in our groove and appreciate what we have. I've flown economy class to dozens of wonderful cities around the world. I flew Business once but I'm not alpha widowed about it. (Ok, VERY little. It was a great experience.) But nonetheless, I love flying international in economy: Good food, drinks, an opportunity to focus on something for 10 hours, and the thrill of arrival. "if you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with."
moorekom Mod 1y ago Stickied
Recommended reading:
Boys on the side by Hanna Rosin.
winteryknight Endorsed 1y ago
Yes! I quoted that article in my article. It's funny because the feminists can't stand to read our point of view and take us seriously, but we are familiar enough with their writings to quote it in our works, and show what the other side thinks. No name-calling here. I'd like the other side to get serious about the incentives they've created for us, and take responsibility for their own bad decisions.
polishknight Endorsed 1y ago
Wonderful analysis. I'm going to share it with my ultra Catholic friends and see what they think.
From what you describe, it appears the church you are referring to is filled with white knights and Political Correctness (even if a particular moderate flavor of it) and they may try to shame the hot guys in the parish into "manning up" and marrying a materialistic, or aging biological clock ticker.
That can only backfire.
Just like in the workplace, the message became that "uglies" "harassed" women by asking them out on dates but hot guys, of course, were encouraged to. But in a system where disgruntled women could later claim to be sexually harassed by ANYONE, NOBODY would ask women out at work hence many were either pushed onto dating apps or over time, just became quietly celibate. There has to be a reason why the dating apps have such high male:female ratios in that a majority of women may be dropping out of dating altogether.
So imagine hot guy at church is love-bombed with flirtatious women who have the attitude that he should wife them up and sign over his stuff. If they're disappointed in him, they'll badmouth him not only to the other women, but also the pastor and congregation.
Gresham's Law: Bad money drives out good.
moorekom Mod 1y ago
It's because online dating is considered low quality. The status of a woman is determined by the potential of the man who she can attract and lock down. Going online just means that she was not able to do it in real life and had no social skills. You'll mostly find women who are young & riding the carousel, women who are hustling and women who are trash. Women do not drop out of the dating market. They get pushed out, yet they hope to get another ride.
polishknight Endorsed 1y ago
Minor quibble (not with you, but the way you put it): "[She] had no social skills"
The passive-aggressive dating stance of so-called traditional dating where the man approaches the woman and asks her out is not based upon her skillset at getting a man to do such a thing, but rather a testament to her beauty and value and even "luck". As the saying goes in Poker: Money won (by bluffing) tastes better than money earned (by a better hand).
Heck, the women even have a pissing contest to see how many shit-tests and obstacles to throw at the man to prove how valuable she is. These were minimal in my mother's era (1958) where she gave my father her phone number and he had to look it up in the phone book. Play "hard to get."
And that's perhaps why women in OLD have such outrageous standards in men: If they're going to lower themselves to their hiveman girlfriends that she had to "put herself out there", she better bring home a prize.
I felt the same way in a fashion in that when I went redpill and accepted women for who they are and learned basic game, I decided if I was going to play, it wouldn't be plain-looking women. If I had to one-sidedly romance and entertain a woman during courtship while she held a sword of Damocles over my head, I was at least going for value.
moorekom Mod 1y ago
Traditional does not mean the same thing across different cultures and different times. A woman has to be approachable to be approached. However beautiful a woman is, if she isn't social, kind or approachable, she is not going to get many suitors and almost none of them will stay.
polishknight Endorsed 1y ago
I thought about your statement for a while. It depends upon what you mean by "social". Much of being social is just getting out there. In secondary school and college, it's difficult NOT to be social and one even gets a stigma as a loner or outcast otherwise. It's almost designed for courtship purposes in that you went to 5 different rooms each day with a different selection of people to meet along with extra-curricular activities AND even a sort of egalitarian order (since nobody owned a home and such.)
It was also the age that my parents and great-parents met their future spouses. In my father's case, he met my mother at age 23 at a ballroom dance hall but work was another popular venue. Men could make clumsy approaches and women were in a hurry to marry because the CC wasn't yet a thing and the best guys got taken quickly. Women even regarded those days as oppressive precisely because riding the CC or having a career and planning to "settle down" at age 30 was unthinkable. By then, the younger women who put their careers secondary to having a family would grab the greatest guys and she'd be stuck with leftovers like, well, me. :-) And what's the point of having a great career if she's stuck with leftovers or divorced men paying alimony to an ex wife? (Note: That's still largely the case today, but they can at least live under the delusion that it's not.)
A woman's social circle 60 years ago warned of the dangers of playing hard to get, waiting too long, or being anti-social while today, their social circle places a greater priority on holding out for the best deal and brinksmanship.
houseoftolstoy Mod 1y ago
It does not surprise me that it was Michael Foster who was writing about this issue, as well as having a far better diagnosis of the issue. I have seen what he has previously written, and he is quite willing to speak his mind in spite of the politically correct culture that urges us to not say certain things (especially about women). As it is quite telling that he was willing to say that there were "average to below average women" and that the boomer pastor was out of touch with the dating market conditions at large. It was no surprise that this older pastor was quick to blame men as a whole and at the same time claim that all women are great. This attitude has only made matters worse with the dating market, as there is clearly no political will on the Left to hold women's feet to the fire (because of politics with feminism, abortion), so there would necessitate a counter balance in order to rectify this issue. But too many on the Right are not willing to provide this counter balance, especially older generations of men. They have instead coddled the women and have not had the same strictness with the women as they had the men. Is it any wonder that the women are behaving the way they are and the men are by and large left frustrated?
I do not know if it is simple ignorance or willful avoidance of the subject, but there is a large avoidance of the subject of telling women that they should practice restraint with sex before they get married. They either assume the women are already doing that (which many are not) or are tolerant of the women having sex before marriage and see no issue with so-called Christian women engaging in this secular practice. Either way, this is not a good way to approach the issue of the marriage rate declining. Shaming men has been the go-to strategy for generations. This made sense when men had more authority with the corresponding expectations of responsibilities, but now the men have been stripped of their authority but still expected to maintain the same responsibilities. This has obviously turned many men off of the idea of marriage altogether, or has forced men who still want marriage to be far more cautious in their approach (as they should be). If we are going to accept equality for women in other aspects for society, why are we stopping short when it comes to the topics of religion and marriage?
Anyone who laments the decline in marriage rates but puts no expectations on the women to better prepare themselves for marriage are only going to find more disappointment. You need to address both parts of the equation, both the men and the women, if you want to improve the situation. This means you have to hold women's feet to the fire as well, not just the men. We have already seen the results of using the old strategy of shaming the men and coddling the women; it is clearly not working. Are we too afraid of hurting women's feelings? I guess these people would prefer that the women they claim to care about be spared their feelings in the short term but have misery in the long term when they find out that they are unable to get married because they never prepared themselves for marriage in any way. They may not be aware of the reason why they are not able to find a man they want to marry that also wants to marry them, but they will find out all the same that they are unable to get what they want if they continue to be coddled in this way. The truth ultimately will be far more beneficial in the long term, so let us not prioritize short term feelings over long term results.
winteryknight Endorsed 1y ago
EXCELLENT COMMENT.
If the go-to response of the culture to women not practicing restraint with sex before marriage is to blame and shame men for having standards, then men should just withhold attention and relationships and ESPECIALLY commitment from feminist women. Only women who have a demonstrated record of opposing feminism with their actions should get attention.
By the way, I did a couple of episodes of my new podcast with a conservative Christian lady, and I was wondering if you had any thoughts about them. I remember your comments from the last time we interacted.
Masculinity for single / MGTOW men: https://knightandrose.podbean.com/e/knighted-by-the-king-authentic-masculinity/
Masculinity for marriage-minded men: https://knightandrose.podbean.com/e/a-marriage-fit-for-the-king/
The podcast is new, we just started it a couple months back.
houseoftolstoy Mod 1y ago
I will have to listen to those. I recall you were a guest on one podcast that you linked, and I found that was good to listen to, so I am guessing these podcast will be of great quality.
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whytehorse2021 1y ago
There's been a correction to this line of thought. Generally speaking, women don't like men. All the stats you posted are just reminders of Briffault's Law: “the female, not the male, determines all the conditions of the animal family. Where the female can derive no benefit from association with the male, no such association takes place.”.
It makes perfect sense too. The top 4.5% of men(in looks) confer a status onto women. They get a photo of them together and show it off to the sisterhood. They don't even care to lock these men down unless there would be a large transfer of wealth.
The next status they want is is to have a husband-accessory-thing and child-accessory-thing. This is after they've gotten their Chad status, degree status, and jobbie status. So they associate with a male who has enough resources to make that happen. They don't care about any vows they make or the man they marry or the kids they have. Just the status.
Finally, they want the strong independent woman status. So they divorce rape their man and go spend all his money. Once that runs dry and they have to go back to work, they try to associate with a man again. Can you say single mommy at the Church complaining that men need to man up and wife her up? Complaining these men don't have high enough degrees and incomes?