So how did we get to this absurd situation where gay men have become the cool guys who receive all this consideration and patronage from elite institutions, now including the U.S. Supreme Court; while the adult male virgins with normal desires have become the freaks, weirdos and expendables, apparently become women say so?
As near as I can tell from what I have read about Charles Darwin, if you could travel back in time and meet him before he married his cousin Emma Wedgwood, about a month before he turned 30, you would have met an adult male virgin. Yet Darwin managed to get Emma pregnant ten times, despite her late start too, and seven of their children survived to adulthood. Darwin and his wife probably have hundreds of currently living descendants now, so he clearly had the goods when it came to masculinity.
Rationalists consider Darwin just about the greatest intellectual celebrity on their side, ever, even though by current standards many people today would have called him a loser in his 20′s because of his adult virginity.
Why do many adult males derive their sense of (low) worth from their (lack of) sexual success?
Because this is not automatic. There are situations where celibate men are high-status, e.g. Catholic priests in religious countries. And there are much more situations where people simply don’t discuss their sexual history. For example, when I read a book by an author I like, or when I play a computer game, I do not care about the author’s sexual history. Even when I meet someone and debate with them, I don’t ask this type of questions (which may be unusual behavior; maybe the rest of the society is obsessed by it, I don’t know).
So how did this “sexual history” become the most important thing about a man… as opposed to e.g. his skills, intelligence, character traits, etc.? Actually, did it, in general? Or is it just a specific subculture? (Let’s ask whether things are real before debating their causes.)
Here is a competing hypothesis: Maybe what we are observing here is actually a wave of depression, caused by something other than lack of sex. The lack of sex is the consequence of the depression; and so is the mental strategy of deriving one’s own sense of worth from their failures.
For example, this is what my hypothesis would predict: If you take an average depressed young male virgin and somehow manage to get him laid, his problems will not go away. Either he will somehow rationalize that this specific situation does not count, or he will continue to have low sense of worth because of something else. Also, he will probably try to somehow sabotage this opportunity.
In your experience, do the unlucky young male virgins behave like this? Because I know a few examples that do. For example, I know a guy who is unhappy because he can’t get a girl, but as soon as a girl he was interested in reciprocates his sexual interest (this happened repeatedly), he finds some stupid excuse and stops being interested in the girl (before having any intimacy); so he keeps being sad and lonely. I know another guy who is otherwise intelligent, but consistently does a few things that completely undermine his social status (such as making self-deprecating jokes, which are completely unnecessary, and usually not even funny), and you can’t make him stop doing that. If some girl would express interest in him, my model says he would do something that would most likely send her away.
Why are gay men considered cool? I guess selection bias plays a large role here. For an average gay person, you probably don’t know about their sexual orientation. But you heard about gay celebrities, and so did everyone else. So this creates the impression that being gay and being a celebrity correlated positively.
And the best way to reduce this effect would be to tolerate homosexuality in everyday life. Then you would also know many gays who are average or losers. (Ironically, if you know a gay man who has problem finding a boyfriend, and keeps his sexual orientation secret from you, you will probably consider him one of those straight guys who can’t find a girlfriend.)
EDIT: To avoid misunderstanding, I am not denying the possibility that average young heterosexual men today may have a more difficult situation finding a girlfriend than their equivalents decades ago. Just saying that the extreme cases (whom you called “freaks, weirdos and expendables”) usually have some additional problems.
Rationalists consider Darwin just about the greatest intellectual celebrity on their side, ever, even though by current standards many people today would have called him a loser in his 20′s because of his adult virginity.
How much overlap is there between the “rationalists” and the “many people today”? Just because Mohammed is the most common first name and Wang is the most common last name doesn’t mean Mohammed Wang is a common full name.
gay men have become the cool guys who receive all this consideration and patronage from elite institutions, now including the U.S. Supreme Court; while the adult male virgins with normal desires have become the freaks, weirdos and expendables, apparently become women say so?
This raises an interesting question, actually. How many of those “gay men” are only being gay because that’s their solely alternative to being a loser virgin? After all, that’s a common scenario in male subpopulations with no access to women—consider convicts, or folks living in sexually oppressive societies.
Updated to add: I’m not suggesting that our own society is sexually oppressive, at least wrt. gays. I’m only saying that the scenario for male virgin losers is close enough that they should respond in similar ways. If anything, we should expect gay behavior to be even more common (in the affected subpopulation), compared to societies that do repress it—and where it exists nonetheless.
In a sexually oppressive society, gays are likely to have very low status. For truly non-gay men, it can’t be beneficial to switch from being seen as the local singleton to being seen as the local degenerate.
So how did we get to this absurd situation where gay men have become the cool guys who receive all this consideration and patronage from elite institutions, now including the U.S. Supreme Court; while the adult male virgins with normal desires have become the freaks, weirdos and expendables, apparently become women say so?
As near as I can tell from what I have read about Charles Darwin, if you could travel back in time and meet him before he married his cousin Emma Wedgwood, about a month before he turned 30, you would have met an adult male virgin. Yet Darwin managed to get Emma pregnant ten times, despite her late start too, and seven of their children survived to adulthood. Darwin and his wife probably have hundreds of currently living descendants now, so he clearly had the goods when it came to masculinity.
Rationalists consider Darwin just about the greatest intellectual celebrity on their side, ever, even though by current standards many people today would have called him a loser in his 20′s because of his adult virginity.
High time you get this: not all news is about you. Obsessing about how everything compares to your situation is only going to hurt you more.
The thing is, he didn’t live under our standards. It makes no sense to judge him by the expectations of a culture he never knew.
Why do many adult males derive their sense of (low) worth from their (lack of) sexual success?
Because this is not automatic. There are situations where celibate men are high-status, e.g. Catholic priests in religious countries. And there are much more situations where people simply don’t discuss their sexual history. For example, when I read a book by an author I like, or when I play a computer game, I do not care about the author’s sexual history. Even when I meet someone and debate with them, I don’t ask this type of questions (which may be unusual behavior; maybe the rest of the society is obsessed by it, I don’t know).
So how did this “sexual history” become the most important thing about a man… as opposed to e.g. his skills, intelligence, character traits, etc.? Actually, did it, in general? Or is it just a specific subculture? (Let’s ask whether things are real before debating their causes.)
Here is a competing hypothesis: Maybe what we are observing here is actually a wave of depression, caused by something other than lack of sex. The lack of sex is the consequence of the depression; and so is the mental strategy of deriving one’s own sense of worth from their failures.
For example, this is what my hypothesis would predict: If you take an average depressed young male virgin and somehow manage to get him laid, his problems will not go away. Either he will somehow rationalize that this specific situation does not count, or he will continue to have low sense of worth because of something else. Also, he will probably try to somehow sabotage this opportunity.
In your experience, do the unlucky young male virgins behave like this? Because I know a few examples that do. For example, I know a guy who is unhappy because he can’t get a girl, but as soon as a girl he was interested in reciprocates his sexual interest (this happened repeatedly), he finds some stupid excuse and stops being interested in the girl (before having any intimacy); so he keeps being sad and lonely. I know another guy who is otherwise intelligent, but consistently does a few things that completely undermine his social status (such as making self-deprecating jokes, which are completely unnecessary, and usually not even funny), and you can’t make him stop doing that. If some girl would express interest in him, my model says he would do something that would most likely send her away.
Why are gay men considered cool? I guess selection bias plays a large role here. For an average gay person, you probably don’t know about their sexual orientation. But you heard about gay celebrities, and so did everyone else. So this creates the impression that being gay and being a celebrity correlated positively.
And the best way to reduce this effect would be to tolerate homosexuality in everyday life. Then you would also know many gays who are average or losers. (Ironically, if you know a gay man who has problem finding a boyfriend, and keeps his sexual orientation secret from you, you will probably consider him one of those straight guys who can’t find a girlfriend.)
EDIT: To avoid misunderstanding, I am not denying the possibility that average young heterosexual men today may have a more difficult situation finding a girlfriend than their equivalents decades ago. Just saying that the extreme cases (whom you called “freaks, weirdos and expendables”) usually have some additional problems.
How much overlap is there between the “rationalists” and the “many people today”? Just because Mohammed is the most common first name and Wang is the most common last name doesn’t mean Mohammed Wang is a common full name.
This raises an interesting question, actually. How many of those “gay men” are only being gay because that’s their solely alternative to being a loser virgin? After all, that’s a common scenario in male subpopulations with no access to women—consider convicts, or folks living in sexually oppressive societies.
Updated to add: I’m not suggesting that our own society is sexually oppressive, at least wrt. gays. I’m only saying that the scenario for male virgin losers is close enough that they should respond in similar ways. If anything, we should expect gay behavior to be even more common (in the affected subpopulation), compared to societies that do repress it—and where it exists nonetheless.
In a sexually oppressive society, gays are likely to have very low status. For truly non-gay men, it can’t be beneficial to switch from being seen as the local singleton to being seen as the local degenerate.