The obvious strategy for this woman seems to be to look specifically for men who don’t care much about looks and hygiene. (Also, you’re a bad person for saying a woman who doesn’t shave her legs is gross.) Melissa McEwan is fat and doesn’t shave her legs (though as far as I know she has good hygiene), and that works out just fine because the people she’s interested in prefer, or at least don’t strongly disprefer, that.
On the other hand, those compassionate betas (at least those we hear complaining) seem to only pursue the (admittedly common) type of women who care strongly about status. There are obvious reasons for that (it correlates with being conventionally attractive), but it does seem like they’re shooting themselves in the foot. If people who prefer your type have to throw themselves at you before you notice them, you’re doing it wrong.
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 voted you down for saying “Also, you’re a bad person for saying a woman who doesn’t shave her legs is gross” when I never said anything of the sort. Maybe you misunderstood the term “grossly obese” (which uses ‘gross’ in the sense of ‘large’)? I don’t know.
Even if I had said that, there would have to be a nicer way to correct it.
No, just the description that is intended to make people go “Ew, undateable” (obesity, poor hygiene), as opposed to “Aw, poor girl, those guys are so shallow” (ugly duckling).
But… but… how come I don’t get to say that, when you get to say “This is a terrible debate and you should all feel bad for having it.”? (Because you’re freaking Yvain. Also because you have some concept of tact.)
I said it would make it harder for the woman to get dates with men, but is that really in doubt? Do you need me to find statistics showing that (American) men in general rate women who don’t shave their legs as less attractive? And I was using it as an example of something that shouldn’t matter, but does.
You don’t get to say that because 90% of people who used it in the context you did would be using it seriously, and because accusing someone of being a bad person for being sexist is more of a trigger point than accusing someone of having a bad debate.
When you give a list of three attributes, people tend assume the salient features are common for all three or different for all three. The attributes you gave were obese, poor hygiene, and unshaved. Two of these, obese and poor hygiene, are problematic for reasons other than simple lack of social acceptance, and people thus feel more confident calling them “gross”—for which they were also primed by your use of the term in it’s other sense.
As I see it: no, you didn’t say it, but I completely understand why they heard it.
For what it is worth I appreciated the tongue in cheek nature of your call and only object to the ‘being wrong about what what Yvain said’ part, not the ‘bad’ part. I can’t help you in finding an explanation on how you managed to get to −4. Perhaps you could edit that one part out and see if you get back up to 0? People often seem to approve of retraction-edits.
Because this is a terrible debate, and we should all feel bad for having it. (I say this, like Yvain did originally, as a moth who knows it is drawn to the flame.)
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.
Also, you’re a bad person for saying a woman who doesn’t shave her legs is gross.
That meaning is very different to saying “grossly obese” in the same sentence as never showering or shaving her legs. At worst Yvain could be bad for saying that people who are very, very, overweight is gross—and even then it wouldn’t be somewhat of a distortion.
Writing simply ‘obese’ would be an underspecification. For example the only time I have ever qualified as officially ‘obese’ was when I was body building aggressively—which is an entirely different thing.
The obvious strategy for this woman seems to be to look specifically for men who don’t care much about looks and hygiene. (Also, you’re a bad person for saying a woman who doesn’t shave her legs is gross.) Melissa McEwan is fat and doesn’t shave her legs (though as far as I know she has good hygiene), and that works out just fine because the people she’s interested in prefer, or at least don’t strongly disprefer, that.
On the other hand, those compassionate betas (at least those we hear complaining) seem to only pursue the (admittedly common) type of women who care strongly about status. There are obvious reasons for that (it correlates with being conventionally attractive), but it does seem like they’re shooting themselves in the foot. If people who prefer your type have to throw themselves at you before you notice them, you’re doing it wrong.
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 voted you down for saying “Also, you’re a bad person for saying a woman who doesn’t shave her legs is gross” when I never said anything of the sort. Maybe you misunderstood the term “grossly obese” (which uses ‘gross’ in the sense of ‘large’)? I don’t know.
Even if I had said that, there would have to be a nicer way to correct it.
No, just the description that is intended to make people go “Ew, undateable” (obesity, poor hygiene), as opposed to “Aw, poor girl, those guys are so shallow” (ugly duckling).
But… but… how come I don’t get to say that, when you get to say “This is a terrible debate and you should all feel bad for having it.”? (Because you’re freaking Yvain. Also because you have some concept of tact.)
Again, where did I say that it was “gross”?
I said it would make it harder for the woman to get dates with men, but is that really in doubt? Do you need me to find statistics showing that (American) men in general rate women who don’t shave their legs as less attractive? And I was using it as an example of something that shouldn’t matter, but does.
You don’t get to say that because 90% of people who used it in the context you did would be using it seriously, and because accusing someone of being a bad person for being sexist is more of a trigger point than accusing someone of having a bad debate.
When you give a list of three attributes, people tend assume the salient features are common for all three or different for all three. The attributes you gave were obese, poor hygiene, and unshaved. Two of these, obese and poor hygiene, are problematic for reasons other than simple lack of social acceptance, and people thus feel more confident calling them “gross”—for which they were also primed by your use of the term in it’s other sense.
As I see it: no, you didn’t say it, but I completely understand why they heard it.
Uh. Okay. I guess I far underestimated the proportion of people who would seriously call you a bad person on LW. My bad.
For what it is worth I appreciated the tongue in cheek nature of your call and only object to the ‘being wrong about what what Yvain said’ part, not the ‘bad’ part. I can’t help you in finding an explanation on how you managed to get to −4. Perhaps you could edit that one part out and see if you get back up to 0? People often seem to approve of retraction-edits.
Oh, fine. Maybe I’m just oversensitive. Downvote revoked.
Because this is a terrible debate, and we should all feel bad for having it. (I say this, like Yvain did originally, as a moth who knows it is drawn to the flame.)
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!
That meaning is very different to saying “grossly obese” in the same sentence as never showering or shaving her legs. At worst Yvain could be bad for saying that people who are very, very, overweight is gross—and even then it wouldn’t be somewhat of a distortion.
Writing simply ‘obese’ would be an underspecification. For example the only time I have ever qualified as officially ‘obese’ was when I was body building aggressively—which is an entirely different thing.