Yes, but unlike unwanted sales, unwanted sexual attention is counterbalanced by instances of wanted sexual attention, including when the “wantedness” gradually develops; while many people on principle refused to buy products pushed on them personally (e.g. through telemarketing), no matter how good the product might be.
Good point. That’s why expected value is important. The problem is that with typical straight women, bland approaches and pursuit often doesn’t work very well.
As a result, the practice of men making non-bland approaches may be good for women on average in the big picture. How can that be?
Let’s assume that typical women require a behavior of type X to be attracted to a guy (or X, if not completely required, is very effective relative to other behaviors in attracting women). Yet women are creeped out when they are approached by men who display behavior X if those men also exhibit unattractive quality Y, or lack overall attractiveness from non-X sources.
If so, we might have a very strange looking situation where most of the time, a man displaying X towards a woman will creep her out, yet simultaneously, a surprisingly high percentage of women are actually dating guys with behavior X!
For someone to find a relationship, they need a reasonable pool of potential partners to select from. If the practice of men approaching and pursuing women in non-bland ways helps women get this pool of potential boyfriends, then that could be a good thing for women, even if results in creeping women out a lot of the time.
What are the ethics of guys displaying behavior X when P( creepy | guy displays X ) = 90% but also P( guy displays X | guy is a boyfriend ) = 90%? I think it can be ethical, but it depends. If there is a similar behavior Z such that P( creepy | guy displays Z ) = 70% but also P( guy displays Z | guy is a boyfriend ) = 90%, then I think X becomes unethical because there is now a viable less-creepy alternative.
And this is only talking women’s interests, not men’s. There is an optimal level of creepiness-risk in male approaches that gives women the pool of potential suitors they need to find boyfriends. Yet depending on how the numbers work out, that level of creepiness risk might be enough that women, especially of increasing attractiveness, are going to get creeped out a lot of the time by men employing high-risk, high-reward strategies to get them above the bland, just-another-guy threshold.
Disclaimer 1: There are many, many ways of approaching women that are both potentially creepy and which don’t even have a chance of working, such as catcalls. The expected value of these approaches is negative, and as a result they should be expunged from the male behavioral repertoire. Males exhibiting these behaviors need to be shown viable alternatives. While their behavior is oppressive to women, in a way they are also victims of oppression because their culture or subculture has inflicted maladaptive mating behaviors on them.
Disclaimer 2: Some women don’t want roguish boyfriends who sweep them off their feet, yet must endure such approaches from men who are simply doing the kind of thing that works with the majority of women. I feel sorry for these women, but I think their main beef is with other women and the incentives they provide men: women with atypical preferences in men are victims of a tyranny of the majority in the female election of male behavior.
It is reasonable for men to approach women in ways that (they have good reason to believe) will have positive expected value with the majority of women (as long as they are willing to back off or tone things down if they are making a woman uncomfortable). A possible solution for atypical women is to find some way of signaling their preferences in men prior to being approached, by style of dress or subcultural affiliation, and I think plenty of women already do this, e.g. dressing like a hipster) girl signals that she wants to be approached by hipster guys who adhere to hipster norms of behavior.
For most people, male or female, it is probably better to receive too much sexual attention than too little (assuming that we are talking just about attention, not about sexual violence). If you do not receive sexual attention, you do not have sex, and you do not have relationships. For people who want these things (the vast majority of people), going without tends to hurt their mental health and warp their self-image.
Also, many people do buy from telemarketers, and many people would never want unsolicited sexual attention. I’m not convinced you’re talking about the ordinary cases here.
Most of those purchases from telemarketers are species of akrasia: they don’t want to buy, but they feel impolite saying no. They would prefer the calls not happen in the first place, unlike women, who do prefer males to initiate some relationships with them.
And I’m not sure you’re using the term “sexual attention” correctly. It doesn’t mean “offer/request for sex”; in this context, it just means any approach with romantic intentions that could ultimately lead to sex. To not want sexual attention means to not want any romantic partner, at least where you are not the initiator.
So I don’t think that’s a relevant observation to my point.
Speaking of your unusual perceptions of the ordinary case, were you really serious when claiming that you see a 50⁄50 female split in playing Magic and at rpg conventions? You must be the only one in the world who sees this!
You must be the only one in the world who sees this
Well I don’t think I’m that bad of an observer, but I’d believe it’s possible that people in the gaming groups / conventions I go to are the only ones that see this.
And the photographers at the same conventions all simultaneously taking unrepresentative samples, and the people who blog about these same conventions being poor observers, and you counting booth babes as attendees with whom a characteristic rpg lover has a realistic chance of a meaningful relationship...
Empirical test: Look for (SFW) photographs of reasonably randomly distributed groups (e.g. audiences, hallways) at a convention, post the first three samples found.
This is cherry-picked slightly—I ignored some pics with relatively low numbers of people, and some pics that looked like they weren’t in the U.S. (but these had few females in attendance too).
I figured I’d do the same, but for conventions I actually go to. But it appears there are no pictures for Omnicon or Anonycon (the latter of which apparently means something different in the Internet at large). Group photos from Connecticon are easier to come by, but they have their own issues: (first three group images searching for “Connecticon photos” (no quotes))
To add a single point of anecdotal evidence—as a geeky girl with a history of going to conventions (though I haven’t gone to one in a while—I joined the SCA instead) - it really depends on the convention.
I’ve seen quite a few that have much more balanced gender ratios than in the past (though not quite 50⁄50). Again, this is from purely anecdotal evidence—but it is my impression that those that involve cosplay or SF media/books are often more female-involved (and the photos thomblake has provided seem to imply that Connecticon may be one of these).
Since I moved to the SCA the gender balance has improved markedly—the SCA is pretty much 50⁄50 because it has a really wide range of geeky/history/cosplay/martial-arts/crafts activities. Variety helps...
I’ve found in my own experience that conventions that have a wide variety often have a higher gender balance. eg Swancon in Perth (Western Australia) has a good gender balance (on average) as does Supanova—both of which have a huge range and variety of activities...
Yep, none of the conventions I go to have booth babes, that I’ve seen.
Though I realized I was counting “Anime conventions” and “multigenre conventions” in my mental picture of “rpg conventions” so that might unduly influence my estimate.
Yes, but unlike unwanted sales, unwanted sexual attention is counterbalanced by instances of wanted sexual attention, including when the “wantedness” gradually develops; while many people on principle refused to buy products pushed on them personally (e.g. through telemarketing), no matter how good the product might be.
Good point. That’s why expected value is important. The problem is that with typical straight women, bland approaches and pursuit often doesn’t work very well.
As a result, the practice of men making non-bland approaches may be good for women on average in the big picture. How can that be?
Let’s assume that typical women require a behavior of type X to be attracted to a guy (or X, if not completely required, is very effective relative to other behaviors in attracting women). Yet women are creeped out when they are approached by men who display behavior X if those men also exhibit unattractive quality Y, or lack overall attractiveness from non-X sources.
If so, we might have a very strange looking situation where most of the time, a man displaying X towards a woman will creep her out, yet simultaneously, a surprisingly high percentage of women are actually dating guys with behavior X!
For someone to find a relationship, they need a reasonable pool of potential partners to select from. If the practice of men approaching and pursuing women in non-bland ways helps women get this pool of potential boyfriends, then that could be a good thing for women, even if results in creeping women out a lot of the time.
What are the ethics of guys displaying behavior X when P( creepy | guy displays X ) = 90% but also P( guy displays X | guy is a boyfriend ) = 90%? I think it can be ethical, but it depends. If there is a similar behavior Z such that P( creepy | guy displays Z ) = 70% but also P( guy displays Z | guy is a boyfriend ) = 90%, then I think X becomes unethical because there is now a viable less-creepy alternative.
And this is only talking women’s interests, not men’s. There is an optimal level of creepiness-risk in male approaches that gives women the pool of potential suitors they need to find boyfriends. Yet depending on how the numbers work out, that level of creepiness risk might be enough that women, especially of increasing attractiveness, are going to get creeped out a lot of the time by men employing high-risk, high-reward strategies to get them above the bland, just-another-guy threshold.
Disclaimer 1: There are many, many ways of approaching women that are both potentially creepy and which don’t even have a chance of working, such as catcalls. The expected value of these approaches is negative, and as a result they should be expunged from the male behavioral repertoire. Males exhibiting these behaviors need to be shown viable alternatives. While their behavior is oppressive to women, in a way they are also victims of oppression because their culture or subculture has inflicted maladaptive mating behaviors on them.
Disclaimer 2: Some women don’t want roguish boyfriends who sweep them off their feet, yet must endure such approaches from men who are simply doing the kind of thing that works with the majority of women. I feel sorry for these women, but I think their main beef is with other women and the incentives they provide men: women with atypical preferences in men are victims of a tyranny of the majority in the female election of male behavior.
It is reasonable for men to approach women in ways that (they have good reason to believe) will have positive expected value with the majority of women (as long as they are willing to back off or tone things down if they are making a woman uncomfortable). A possible solution for atypical women is to find some way of signaling their preferences in men prior to being approached, by style of dress or subcultural affiliation, and I think plenty of women already do this, e.g. dressing like a hipster) girl signals that she wants to be approached by hipster guys who adhere to hipster norms of behavior.
For most people, male or female, it is probably better to receive too much sexual attention than too little (assuming that we are talking just about attention, not about sexual violence). If you do not receive sexual attention, you do not have sex, and you do not have relationships. For people who want these things (the vast majority of people), going without tends to hurt their mental health and warp their self-image.
Also, many people do buy from telemarketers, and many people would never want unsolicited sexual attention. I’m not convinced you’re talking about the ordinary cases here.
Most of those purchases from telemarketers are species of akrasia: they don’t want to buy, but they feel impolite saying no. They would prefer the calls not happen in the first place, unlike women, who do prefer males to initiate some relationships with them.
And I’m not sure you’re using the term “sexual attention” correctly. It doesn’t mean “offer/request for sex”; in this context, it just means any approach with romantic intentions that could ultimately lead to sex. To not want sexual attention means to not want any romantic partner, at least where you are not the initiator.
So I don’t think that’s a relevant observation to my point.
Speaking of your unusual perceptions of the ordinary case, were you really serious when claiming that you see a 50⁄50 female split in playing Magic and at rpg conventions? You must be the only one in the world who sees this!
Well I don’t think I’m that bad of an observer, but I’d believe it’s possible that people in the gaming groups / conventions I go to are the only ones that see this.
And the photographers at the same conventions all simultaneously taking unrepresentative samples, and the people who blog about these same conventions being poor observers, and you counting booth babes as attendees with whom a characteristic rpg lover has a realistic chance of a meaningful relationship...
Empirical test: Look for (SFW) photographs of reasonably randomly distributed groups (e.g. audiences, hallways) at a convention, post the first three samples found.
Eliezer asks so I deliver (MtG conventions):
http://www.collectorsquest.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/magic_nationals_2008_player.jpg
http://www.wizards.com/mtg/images/daily/events/pthon09/Players.jpg
http://www.wizards.com/mtg/images/daily/events/usnat09/SF_AndersonGindey2.jpg
This is cherry-picked slightly—I ignored some pics with relatively low numbers of people, and some pics that looked like they weren’t in the U.S. (but these had few females in attendance too).
Thomblake only made claims about MtG players and RPG conventions; he specifically excluded MtG competitions.
In the future, please don’t make me have to defend Thom ;-)
Again I have failed. Actually I’m not sure I know what an RPG convention is...
OK, some results of a Google image search for “RPG convention crowd”:
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/88/228173741_969d7a39dd.jpg (Penny Arcade Expo, does this count as RPG?)
http://www.palladiumbooks.com/press/GCIndy2k4/crowd4.jpg (Gen Con Indy 2004)
http://s207.photobucket.com/albums/bb61/Ghastrian/Gen%20Con%202009/?action=view¤t=2009-08-14142434.jpg (Gen Con 2009, not the greatest shot)
It would appear, based on this preliminary evidence, that reality is backing SilasBarta on this one.
I figured I’d do the same, but for conventions I actually go to. But it appears there are no pictures for Omnicon or Anonycon (the latter of which apparently means something different in the Internet at large). Group photos from Connecticon are easier to come by, but they have their own issues: (first three group images searching for “Connecticon photos” (no quotes))
http://media.photobucket.com/image/connecticon%20photos/systermatic_erorr/Connecticon%202009/Hetalia%20Cosplay/GroupShot.jpg
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3232/2737005806_b8caaa5548.jpg
http://media.photobucket.com/image/connecticon%20photos/animegeer/connecticon%2008/connecticon08104.jpg
I have no idea, looking at these photos, what the gender ratio is.
To add a single point of anecdotal evidence—as a geeky girl with a history of going to conventions (though I haven’t gone to one in a while—I joined the SCA instead) - it really depends on the convention.
I’ve seen quite a few that have much more balanced gender ratios than in the past (though not quite 50⁄50). Again, this is from purely anecdotal evidence—but it is my impression that those that involve cosplay or SF media/books are often more female-involved (and the photos thomblake has provided seem to imply that Connecticon may be one of these).
Since I moved to the SCA the gender balance has improved markedly—the SCA is pretty much 50⁄50 because it has a really wide range of geeky/history/cosplay/martial-arts/crafts activities. Variety helps...
I’ve found in my own experience that conventions that have a wide variety often have a higher gender balance. eg Swancon in Perth (Western Australia) has a good gender balance (on average) as does Supanova—both of which have a huge range and variety of activities...
Yep, none of the conventions I go to have booth babes, that I’ve seen.
Though I realized I was counting “Anime conventions” and “multigenre conventions” in my mental picture of “rpg conventions” so that might unduly influence my estimate.