What are the implications of imbalanced sex ratios? What happens when there are more men than women, or vice versa? In the matter of a surplus of men (i.e. a sexual market favoring women), we in the US may already be experiencing that on an enormous (heh) scale. I wrote about this misunderstood catastrophe in my groundbreaking post “Obesity to blame for game” (with illustrations!):
Game has been refined, taught and embraced by men in direct proportion to the shrinking pool of attractive thin girls. As the reduced supply of skinny chicks have seen their sexual market value skyrocket, they have adjusted by pricing their pussies out of reach for the average guy. In return, men have sought solutions to this new challenge in the rapidly advancing science of seduction. Where simple courtship worked in the past, it is no longer effective against the deep bunker defenses of the in-demand slender woman.
There are other reasons for the rise of game, but obesity plays a whale (heh) of a role. A fattening female population means we have a de facto male surplus. Some men will settle for fatties, (some men screw sheep), but most will prefer to stick it out competing for years in the dating market and avoiding marriage until they either drop out or get what they want — a thinner chick.
I also speculated what a female surplus would do to courtship dynamics. On many major college campuses, women outnumber men 3 to 2. I called this a poon nirvana for the typical college male and predicted how the excess chicks would alter the hothouse campus atmosphere: Women acting sluttier.Fat women ostracized more than ever.Betas taunted by a flesh machine churning out display product they cannot buy.Alphas living like harem kings.Alphas in general acting more caddish. More drinking, fighting, fornicating, and video gaming.Betas in general withdrawing more from social life to seek the sympathetic embrace of their computers or like-minded losers in love.Dating replaced by fucking (“hooking up” in the current nomenclature).Blowjobs and anal sex increasingly accepted as virginity-sparing sex substitutes.Later marriages.And finally, a tired rationalization hamster punching in overtime. The female mind has never been so besotted with challenges to her anti-slut barricade!
Since there are, generally, fewer fat chicks at college age than later ages, the national obesity calamity would not significantly counterbalance the absolute skewed sex ratio favoring college attending men.
There was an excellent discussion of sex ratio over at the “Evo and Proud” blog. Especially read the comments, where Peter Frost and Jason Malloy argued opposite sides, Malloy taking the position that, somewhat counterintuitively, a population of excess males means more well-behaved males, since women in control of the dating market are better able to fulfill their goal of finding a productive and reliable Dad to help raise children. Men under such constraints are therefore likely to rein in their latent caddishness and emphasize their daddishness to appeal to the limited number of available, choosy women. Malloy presents some evidence for his case.
I wasn’t convinced, though, because I thought Malloy’s premise was faulty. Do women instinctively prefer the Dad to the Cad, and if so, do alpha males and beta males pursue the same sexual strategy in a dating market with a dearth of women? What happens in societies that are structured to the benefit of women? That is, what do women actually choose when they can have their cake and eat it too? Peter Frost articulated my doubts in a comment at Dennis Mangan’s blog:
Jason [Malloy] ignored, however, the authors’ warning that female scarcity is socially beneficial only if there are limits on women’s sexual freedom:
“Remember that the background conditions under which imbalanced sex ratios have had their effect have been relatively constant from the time of classical Greece until the advent of the twentieth century. Earlier we called attention to the importance of the fact that structural power—economic, political, and legal—has invariably been in male hands. This condition has prevailed in every high and low sex ratio society that we have examined in detail. What this means is that sex ratio imbalances might well have radically different effects in a society where women had appreciable structural power.” (Guttentag & Secord, 1983, p. 233)
“… Young single women are not confined to the home and have much experience with the opposite sex. They make their own decisions about male friends or the choice of a husband. Either party to a marriage can now get a divorce if they want one. These changes that free young single people to choose their own mates and loosen the marriage bond favor the gender that is in short supply. In a word, structural constraints that have in the past neutralized dyadic power, particularly that of women, have disappeared.” (Guttentag & Secord, 1983, p. 239)
Does the current USA strike you as a society imposing limits on women’s sexual freedom? It is to laugh. Just the opposite is happening in Western cultures. If any gender’s sexual and marital prerogative is being straitjacketed, it is American men’s, specifically American betas.
What about China, where the male surplus has ballooned, prompting a slew of opinion articles warning of Chinese territorial ambitions and saber rattling to release the building pressure of millions of unsexed and unloved men? China is more patriarchal than the US, but in the big cities it looks to be changing, the urban culture quickly beginning to reflect the worst (best?) of the West.
A sex ratio favoring women might have very different effects in Afghanistan than in the US. In cultures where women have little incentive to slut it up, delay marriage, or pop out bastard spawn confident that the government will act as uber beta provider, they may well become more chaste, and pickier about choosing reliable Dad types. But in cultures of free-wheeling sexuality, easy availability of contraceptives and abortion, female economic empowerment, anti-male divorce laws, and disappearance of anti-slut social shaming mechanisms, women may very well respond to a favorable sex ratio by opening their legs for every alpha male to shower five minutes of attention on them, prefering to share the choicest cock with other women rather than monopolizing the ground beef cock of the squabbling male masses.
I’d like to get away from the macrocosm abstractions for a minute and ground the argument over sex ratio in something we have all experienced in real life. I have been in bars where there were way more men than women. There’s nothing more dispiriting to the inveterate player than walking into a roomful of Bob Evans. I can tell you exactly what happens in those situations.
- Women’s egos explode. 5s think they’re 7s, 2s think they’re 5s, fat chicks think you desire them. You want to see an American girl’s entitlement complex break the sound barrier? Put her in a bar in a typical big city with other overeducated, chubby girls and surround with twice as many horny men. Add liquor and mix vigorously. Mystery likely had the inspiration for the neg when he was navigating a similar sad scene.
- Men become irritable. Is a sausage fest a breeding ground for well-behaved Dads? Good lord, no. What usually happens is this: A small number of very smart men quickly assess the futility of the situation and bail for greener pastures. The rest drink to excess, gathering the courage to approach the one or two hot chicks in the room, only to discover that bitch shields are set at maximum deflection. Then the men become agitated, and oftentimes there is pushing and shoving, leading to fights. That’s when the women bail, because the atmosphere has gotten toxic. A few men remain behind for garbage hour, hoping to scrounge a scrap of snatch.
I’m agnostic on the issue of sex ratio and its impact on the overall mating market. I think there are other variables that are more important in determining how men and women behave in the most crucial market of all. Nonetheless, with a rising male-skewed China and a declining feminist USA, sex ratio may have profound effects on who next will grab the mantle of hyperpower.
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