thanks.

you raise some very good points.

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what dr. house brings to medicine, i bring to everyday life (an extreme dose of cynicism), don't listen to the curmudgeon!

i am going to take a moment and clarify the intent of this topic since it went so horribly off the rails a few posts back.

the point of this topic was not to slander women.

the point of this topic was to be provocative IN THE SENSE to provoke thoughts about how in modern western societies, women are granted tremendous power simply by virtue of having a vagina.

that is not a woman's fault.

that is men's fault.

every time a man is willing to sell his soul, or compromise his standards, or be treated like a little child, or controlled and manipulated simply to get a piece of ass because he doesn't have the confidence to be his best self, he adds to this problem.

this thread had nothing to do with why women cheat.

it was about what women can gain from cheating if they choose to do so. (what they can gain because of weak, desperate men as the one just described in the last paragraph). again, not her fault. hence, the golden ticket reference.

the golden ticket is: having a vagina and being surrounded by desperate men (in society) that will do, give, say, offer ANYTHING to get it.

the fact of the matter is, like it or not, grab any couple walking down the street and pull them aside. in the vast majority of the cases, the woman is going to have a lot more options available to her than the man. pua be damned. it doesn't matter. women have more options. i don't mean "options" to get laid. i mean options to change her situation drastically in life. ... to be supported, to be taken in, to be pursued, to be showered with gifts and attention and support.

and yet, still no more women cheat than men.

i guess that is a testament to women!

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what dr. house brings to medicine, i bring to everyday life (an extreme dose of cynicism), don't listen to the curmudgeon!

A golden dicket lol?

Please explain your reasoning to me further. From what I understand of this paragraph, the majority of the women has the opportunity to change their life situation for the better, yet they don't do it, because of reasons not named. ("a testament to women!")

How can this be true? Every human being wants the best situation in life they can have. I conclude cheating is (in most cases) not a change for the better - otherwise women would do it more often.

Not every woman can cheat to improve her situation. It's logically inconsistent. (same thing as: with a fixed amount of money, not everyone can get richer)

Women who have supplicative men as mates might feel the urge to cheat, but that would mean roughly two things. Cheating with a higher value male (opportunity for better situation) or cheating with male of equal or lower value.

The latter scenario wouldn't mean improvement at all; it would mean changing from a low value male to another one.

The first scenario is a dangerous one. The high value male has lots of women contending to be his mate. There is only a small chance that her situation actually changes for the better, because there's competition.

High value males mate with multiple women, without the social consequences. Women can't risk this type of behaviour because the social consequences would be huge. Considering that social connections are virtually the most important thing in a woman's life (much more so than for men, I believe), being considered a slut is disaster.

Consider a population of 5 men and 5 women. 4 men are supplicative and "do everything for a piece of ass". 1 man is high value (strong leader who is responsible for the resources). The 5 women are all not equally attractive, they rank from 1-5.

The women would be competing for the high value male. The 4 supplicative males would get little attention. The less attractive women get no attention from the high value male and settle for the lower value males.

Our society looks like this: 3 of less attractive women have settled for a supplicative male. The high value male mates with the 2 most attractive women.
What are the options for the 3 women who are not in a relationship with a high value male? Where's the golden ticket?

I think that a lot of the trouble stems from being unable to separate women's power in relationships from women's power in general. This doesn't seem to be the problem with how we are viewing men (i.e. in GreenGranted's discussion, women are ranked according to their looks, whereas men are ranked according to their behaviour).

It is arguably true that women have greater "choosing power" when it comes to dating. I think that every single man who turns to pickup believes this with every fibre of his being. I am not looking to argue this point (yet). So please hold your fire.

This greater choosing power in dating does not equate to greater social or economic power. Women still have a hell of a time getting basic needs taken seriously (such as reproductive health and maternity leave). Women still get paid less than men, even when controlling for type of work and hours. If you turn on CNN you will see coverage of women politicians focused on her clothing and perceived bitchiness, whereas men politicians are judged by their voting records and speeches. I think we should be careful when saying that vaginas give women a "free ride" because, even post-third wave feminism, this doesn't seem to be the case - they have a harder time of it.

As far as choosing power goes: within traditional courtship scripts, I think that the more attractive women probably did have greater choice as to who their partners would be. More attractive women had more men competing for their attention, hence more choosing. However, since men do not outnumber women 10:1, or even 2:1, there were obviously a lot of less beautiful women getting ignored and passed over. We think that women have greater choosing power because we only notice the beautiful ones, acting snooty and expecting men to beg. In the end though, in traditional courtship scripts, women still had to choose SOMEONE; it was not an option 70 or 80 years ago for a woman simply not to get married. Only women who were heiresses could even conceive of such a possibility, since they were unlikely to be able to find a job they could support themselves on, or even be able to buy property in her own name without a male co-sign.

Nowadays, women have made some gains. It's expected that most women will have some job or career at least before she's married, if not continuing it afterwards as well. They can vote, buy a car, go on vacation. They can choose not to have anything to do with marriage or relationships if they prefer. And if a relationship that a woman does enter into doesn't suit her, she has the option to leave because she can get a job and not be destitute afterwards.

As a side note, more young men than young women are optimistic about getting married; when asked if they expect they will get married one day, more men than women say yes. Additionally, marriage is good for men's health (lower blood pressure, lower rates of chronic illness and pain, heart disease, etc.) but BAD for women's health (pretty much the opposite of men's gains). So it makes a lot of sense that women nowadays are more reticent to get married, especially married young.

Basically, my point is that I think a lot of people here have got it backwards: the fact that women are "using their vaginas" LESS to get ahead in the public sphere is the reason they have MORE options when it comes to intimate relationships, including having particular expectations of the men they get involved with, or not having one at all.

now ^this^ is a good argument. you make some very good points.

i agree with everything you said. it sounds as though you have a fairly good understanding of how a social hierarchy plays out.

the only answer i could give to your points (which are great, btw) is that perception is reality.

what you have given their in your post is a REALISTIC look at what truly happens.

but we all know that perception is reality.

if a girl PERCEIVES herself as alpha, then she will act as such, even if this means delusional behavior.

i believe we live in a culture, where by virtue of simply being female and "buying into the hype", large portions of the female population think they ARE the alpha female and therefore will act as such.

now, they will experience defeat and failure, but at every turn they will be stumped and not understand why it is happening. how could it be? if you are the hottest, smartest, most-desirable person on Earth, how can you not get your way all the time?

or not get the alpha male all the time.

again, you've made some excellent points and i think they are spot on. what you have done is highlight the reality of the situation which only applies if you are talking about people who live within reality. however, when perception comes into play, things change...

we've all know that delusional girl at one point. you know, the fat, ugly, loud, obnoxious chick who KNOWS WITH EVERY FIBER OF HER BEING that she is the sexiest creature alive. lol

i believe that narcissistic mentality if fairly prevalent among large swaths of the female population.

so what does this mean?

it means that even beta and omega females will think and operate as alpha females. with a "golden ticket" mentality.

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what dr. house brings to medicine, i bring to everyday life (an extreme dose of cynicism), don't listen to the curmudgeon!

you make some good points and thanks for your civil tone. it was not my intent to start any arguments with this thread. just to provoke conversation on a touchy subject, that's all. i appreciate your input.

i guess i would highlight one thing from your post...

i think we all would agree that "marriage" is the ultimate "committed relationship".

if marriage is good for men's health but bad for women's health, what does that say about women's "natural" inclinations toward committed relationships?

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what dr. house brings to medicine, i bring to everyday life (an extreme dose of cynicism), don't listen to the curmudgeon!

Oh boy... you're so correct, too bad I'm realizing this basic logics when half of my life is already gone...
Fortunately for me, my GF of 4 years who cheated on me due to my own degradation to a beta, is trying very hard to get me back...
Of course it is happening ONLY because after I left her and regained self-respect to become an alpha again....
When she saw me as a someone popular, cool, sexy, confident, secure and awesome, being chased by crowd of women - she simply joined them!
LOL!
BTW, this is my first post. Great place to be, even for an old fart like me - never stop learning...

There is no point to dwell in the past. Most, if not all of us are in here because we did not know the important things that we do know plus the more we will learn in the future. Every person wishes they could do something differently while growing up. Try to appreciate that those experiences taught you something and thus will improve your life in the future no matter what age you are.

Like Mack said, perception is reality. Think about how many celebrities who have wealth, health, fame, looks, etc. commit suicide, take anti-depression pills, etc. You'd think they would be very happy but that's not how life works.

In order to be happy you gotta think positive, be authentic and continuously develop your core self.

I apologize for the long-windedness of the explanation that is about to come, but I really would like to answer your question fully and to the best of my abilities.

A great deal of seduction theory is based on assumptions about men's and women's differing natures, which come from evolutionary psychology. One of the most famous evolutionary psychologists, especially when it comes to differential mate selection and mating strategies, is David Buss. He did a study in 1989 which gets cited by everybody and their dog, in which he "proved" that women need emotional commitment in a relationship, and men desire sexual fidelity.

The experiment went like this: Get a bunch of straight college undergrads, both men and women, to answer the following question.
Which of these two scenarios would upset you more? Your partner telling you that he/she had sex with someone else, but there was absolutely no emotional connection and it will not happen again, OR
Your partner telling you that he/she is in love with someone else, but promises never to act on it or cheat on you.

Overwhelmingly, men found the first scenario more upsetting and women found the second one more upsetting. Buss and his colleagues concluded that this is due to men facing paternity uncertainty, and women needing men to be committed to providing exclusively for them.

BUT, some other researchers disagreed (I apologize, but I can't recall their names at the moment. Probably a Web of Science search for articles citing Buss would find it). They replicated the experiment, but also asked the following questions:
Do you think it is possible for a woman to have sex with a man without being emotionally involved?
Do you think it is possible for a man to have sex with a woman without being emotionally involved?
Do you think it is possible for a woman to love a man without having sex?
Do you think it is possible for a man to love a woman without having sex?

The point of these questions, of course, was to measure certain cultural beliefs: basically, we tend to think of women as emotional and vulnerable to falling in love easily, but hesitant when it comes to sex. Men, of course, are generally assumed to be the opposite. The researchers called these beliefs Differential Infidelity Implications: basically, if you buy into these cultural beliefs, then you unconsciously assume that if a woman has sex with a man, she's in love with him, and if a man is in love with a woman, he has had sex with her.

So, these researchers did some statistical analysis with the numbers and found that, not only did Differential Infidelity Implications account for MORE variance than sex in the original question (which situation is worse), but that sex actually was not a statistically significant predictor of the dependent variable. The more rigorous study found that culture better accounted for these differences in men's and women's preferences than biological sex did.

So, my point is generally: I think that women's preferences for committed relationships stem from this cultural assumption about men's and women's abilities to love with and without sex. There is some good scientific literature out there to suggest that these things aren't as natural as we sometimes assume.

Finally, with regards to your question about women's "natural" inclinations towards committed relationships: I think the fact that more men than women are optimistic about marriage demonstrates that women are less interested in them than we think. Historically, yes, women have pursued them because they both fit with cultural assumptions about women's roles, and helped to guarantee a roof over her head because women were less able to get jobs and provide for themselves at the time. Simply because a pattern has held over a long period of time, does not mean it is "natural". Women's pattern of pursuing committed relationships held over a long period of time because social conditions demanded it, and a lot of people have mistakenly interpreted this as a product of evolution. Now that these social conditions are slipping away beneath our feet, we have two options: keep repeating these evolutionary mantras to ourselves and insist that men's and women's differenes are innate, or realize that our social world, and our opportunities for intimate relationships, are opening up to possibilities that we haven't seen or imagined before.

very informative.

so women have traditionally maintained fidelity to keep a roof over their heads.

golden ticket. lol

but truthfully, thanks for your post, that was very informative.

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what dr. house brings to medicine, i bring to everyday life (an extreme dose of cynicism), don't listen to the curmudgeon!