Edit: I don’t understand the downvotes. wedrifid’s objection is true, but it wasn’t my main point. Is it because I’m telling people to hit on people who aren’t their first choice? Or is it the “how dare you want the same characteristics everyone wants” undertones? Or did I just plain miss Yvain’s point?
I would say you missed his point. The description was meant to be analogous to the sort of men who’re held up as having entitlement complexes. If she doesn’t meet many men’s preferences, her dating prospects are going to be slim, and she can try to seek out men whose preferences she meets, or try to change aspects of herself which will allow her to meet more men’s preferences, or, yes, she can complain about it and rail against men for having the preferences they have, but the last one is unproductive and insulting so it’s no wonder if people take a dim view of it.
Since the woman is being rejected by people whose preferences she doesn’t meet, and complaining about it, there is no “on the other hand” relative to the men who’re complaining about their lack of success with women whose preferences they don’t meet, they’re behaving in the same way. You seem to be arguing that the men are more socially blameworthy (because they are shooting themselves in the foot) for not engaging in the behavior which you say the obese woman should be engaging in. But in the context of the analogy, she isn’t doing those things.
Also, Yvain didn’t even come up with the analogy, it was related to him by people who didn’t think that his previous analogy (the ugly duckling woman being rejected by men) was appropriately descriptive. So saying something like “Also, you’re a bad person for saying a woman who doesn’t shave her legs is gross” sends a doubly negative signal, first for parsing his statement in a disingenuous way, and second for holding Yvain accountable for the opinions of other people he’s relating to us. Unless you were obviously joking, I would have downvoted for that alone, even if as you say it isn’t the main point, unless the rest of the comment was exceptional.
I think part of the situation is that both the very fat woman and the shy man feel rightly that they’re on the receiving end of a hostile conspiracy.
It isn’t just that people are spontaneously unattracted to them, it’s that there’s a lot of public material which portrays people like them (and perhaps especially in the case of the very fat woman) anyone who’s attracted to them as objects of mockery.
Thinking about the dominance thing.… there are heterosexual couples (actually, now that I think about it, the examples I know best are poly) where the woman is dominant.
If a man is temperamentally in the not-dominant to submissive range, would looking for a compatible dominant woman be a good strategy?
If a man is temperamentally in the not-dominant to submissive range, would looking for a compatible dominant woman be a good strategy?
There are many more submissive men than there are dominant women. On top of that, in the poly community I seem to have noticed a pattern where dominant women end up primaries with even more dominant men (with both taking more submissive people as secondaries, etc).
So the prospects for a submissive male can be slim.
I would say you missed his point. The description was meant to be analogous to the sort of men who’re held up as having entitlement complexes. If she doesn’t meet many men’s preferences, her dating prospects are going to be slim, and she can try to seek out men whose preferences she meets, or try to change aspects of herself which will allow her to meet more men’s preferences, or, yes, she can complain about it and rail against men for having the preferences they have, but the last one is unproductive and insulting so it’s no wonder if people take a dim view of it.
Since the woman is being rejected by people whose preferences she doesn’t meet, and complaining about it, there is no “on the other hand” relative to the men who’re complaining about their lack of success with women whose preferences they don’t meet, they’re behaving in the same way. You seem to be arguing that the men are more socially blameworthy (because they are shooting themselves in the foot) for not engaging in the behavior which you say the obese woman should be engaging in. But in the context of the analogy, she isn’t doing those things.
Also, Yvain didn’t even come up with the analogy, it was related to him by people who didn’t think that his previous analogy (the ugly duckling woman being rejected by men) was appropriately descriptive. So saying something like “Also, you’re a bad person for saying a woman who doesn’t shave her legs is gross” sends a doubly negative signal, first for parsing his statement in a disingenuous way, and second for holding Yvain accountable for the opinions of other people he’s relating to us. Unless you were obviously joking, I would have downvoted for that alone, even if as you say it isn’t the main point, unless the rest of the comment was exceptional.
I think part of the situation is that both the very fat woman and the shy man feel rightly that they’re on the receiving end of a hostile conspiracy.
It isn’t just that people are spontaneously unattracted to them, it’s that there’s a lot of public material which portrays people like them (and perhaps especially in the case of the very fat woman) anyone who’s attracted to them as objects of mockery.
Thinking about the dominance thing.… there are heterosexual couples (actually, now that I think about it, the examples I know best are poly) where the woman is dominant.
If a man is temperamentally in the not-dominant to submissive range, would looking for a compatible dominant woman be a good strategy?
There are many more submissive men than there are dominant women. On top of that, in the poly community I seem to have noticed a pattern where dominant women end up primaries with even more dominant men (with both taking more submissive people as secondaries, etc).
So the prospects for a submissive male can be slim.
Now that I think about it, I’ve been generally mostly following that strategy.
Thanks!