I can buy that women are acutely aware of where they stand on purely physical attributes, but I think this is primarily an issue of misunderstanding what *non-physical* attributes the opposite sex is attracted to. It's largely an issue of projection - both sexes have a tendency to do it, and it's further compounded by socialization and advertising.
From a man's perspective, an example might be: I can bench 275, I dominate in my local pickup league, I have a bitchin' trans-am that I fixed myself, and I'm the go-to guy at work for technical diagnostics - why doesn't she see my value?! Meanwhile the same guy from a woman's perspective: he spends all his time at the gym or playing sports with his buddies, he drives a dumpy old car, and he's just a technical support guy that doesn't even make as much money as me..
On the flip side, the girl from her own/her friends' perspective: I didn't even go to a four year school and yet I'm making good money, enough to be financially independent and buy all the luxuries I want, I take good care of my body, I'm strong-willed and assertive, and I know exactly what I want out of life. From the guy's perspective: she's way overpaid for her qualifications and yet bases her self-worth on her income, then she spends everything she makes on frivolous luxuries and beauty products. She's shallow, argumentative, and inflexible.
Women are constantly bombarded with advertising designed to make them feel inadequate if they aren't keeping up with the latest fashions, or spending a bunch of time and money on their looks, and they see men's lack of effort in their appearance as a failing that should count against them. Meanwhile they're told they have to be a boss bitch if they want anyone's respect, and they don't understand that that isn't what men are really interested in in a romantic partner. So they put in a ton of [unnecessary] effort, then overrate themselves based on living up to the expectations they *think* men have for them.
While I agree projection is real, I also think the two sexes can get ideas into their heads that aren't necessarily projection. They're just bad ideas.
For example, while women are certainly better at evaluating their relative physical attractiveness than men are, they can also be influenced by media to adopt beauty standards that aren't very appealing to many men (and weren't that appealing to women until media highlighted it). These often take the form of being dangerously skinny. The "thigh gap" fad from a few years ago comes to mind. Maybe fashion has been this way since the beginning.
Along another line, I'm a Christian, and one false idea that some leaders have told Christian young men is that "godly women are attracted to godly men." Now clearly, these leaders' experience is that women are attracted to *them*, as leaders, with the good confidence, grooming, and social skills that go along with that. So this can lead to frustration for the sort of fellow who is dedicated to his faith but hasn't developed the qualities that actually caused his pastor's wife to be drawn to his pastor.
Relatedly, there's often a conflation that occurs between "this person has qualities that, through a combination of reason and inculturation, I have come to see as marriageable" and "this person is actually attractive to me, provoking a physiological response." A lot of our messaging doesn't seem to recognize that these aren't the same thing.
Women might be drawn to some qualities that indicate marriageability: e.g. status is surely at least somewhat correlated with having one's life together, being dependable, etc. Though ideas of a high-status man can range from a pillar of the community to a dark triad rebel biker -- which of these a woman is drawn to will probably be indicative of how well her love life is going to go.
For men, marriageable qualities are more orthogonal, for good or ill, to what actually attracts us. Some men end up with crazy but beautiful women, but I don't think the crazy usually attracts them the same way "bad boy" qualities attract women.
Great comment. But I always wonder when I read about this phenomenon whether and how women get such a keen sense of men's incomes in the first place? Things like home ownership and spending habits say something, but are women really even informed enough to reject men casually based on their incomes? At least in the UK, it would be seen as really crass to talk or ask about it and I don't recall it being much different when I lived in America.
It might come up after dating for a bit, or just be apparent from spending habits. But also it seems to me there’s been a broader trend of technical skills (the sort that men tend to have an advantage at) being categorically devalued by the modern economy. For example my ex was making more doing social media marketing and search engine optimization, which didn’t require any special education or training, than an experienced mechanic might make.
Good comment. There are a lot of distortions endemic to journalism about what some people call 'the mating market'. In general terms the distortion arise from over-generalising about the typical experiences of a stereotypical "Woman" and a stereotypical "Man". I'd like to comment on just two:
* Female 'hotness' is not so much a question of 'a sliding scale' as of two 'broad bands'. From a man's perspective there's no such thing as 'the most beautiful girl in the world'....that's a figment of media imagination. There are 1) women who are shapely, slimish but definitely curved in the right places and 2) there are women who are not. These women are definitely "unlucky" in dating-market terms (although most will eventually find a partner and hopefully 'love' anyway).
* Male 'hotness' is mostly about confidence and success (often but not necessarily in wealth terms). This is well understood in evolutionary psychology (and backed by much research). This type of man is one of two crude stereotypes in female journalism on 'the mating market' (in other words MOST journalism because this kind of journalism is overwhelmingly written by women). The other stereotype is the apocryphal "Incel" epidemic scourge. What gets almost entirelly left out of the male side of this picture is that most men are not that confident and not that successful but neither are they Incels. These men (the great majority of men in fact) do not have 'hot' women lining up for them (casually or otherwise) and have to do a lot of compromising. This rarely gets acknowledged. The reason I think is that sex journalism is 90% written by women (plus 10% by men who just want to brag). As I wrote in this The Less Desired piece, the reality is that: "The world is full of lovelorn people..... Others are prettier, richer, smarter - or just luckier - than you....." https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/the-less-desired
"Meanwhile they're told they have to be a boss bitch if they want anyone's respect, and they don't understand that that isn't what men are really interested in in a romantic partner."
I see a lot of this one - my gf used to tell me how "career is the most important thing for women to be marriageable" until I eventually told her that most guys will date (and even marry) a McDonalds cashier if she's hot enough, especially if she's also low-maintenance.
Your points about female friend culture here really resonate with me. On one hand, having come out as gender-fluid in the past few years, it's been an absolutely amazing experience being in women's washrooms in bars and seeing all the happy affirmation and support that random strangers give. In a men's washroom, it feels a little edgy just to ask someone if there are paper towels left in that dispenser. I love that about the female space.
The flip side is that I also wonder how much of the woke movement's preference for dissent-free "safe spaces" comes out of the movement being largely female-led, as an extension of the female friend culture you describe (probably starting on Tumblr and spreading to other spaces). It seems to be a political version of the sort of culture of mutual affirmation you describe, where disagreement and criticism are received as disloyalty.
> This is similar to the issues I see with women responding to “The Wall” discourse by insisting they’re actually hotter than ever at 38!
I think this is missing something more fundamental about how women often underestimate their attractiveness when they are in their teens / twenties, and then experience increased confidence in their forties partly because they are less concerned with how society values their beauty.
I think you’re right that women in their 30s and older are more confident in general - but I don’t think the women trying to convince manosphere influencers they’re still really hot are expressing that confidence
Maybe not, but it is interesting, no? The 40 year olds seem to move to a more male model of self-confidence, compared to the socially susceptible 20/30 year olds.
There absolutely IS a “I get much more attention for being ‘pretty’ at 40 than I ever was at 20.” It’s true for me. How would I describe it? 20 years later than I would have preferred it emerged haha.
It’s not the same beautiful women, as far as I can tell. It’s women with specific features, traits and types (?):
(1) if you have a strong “set point” type figure, “being the same size you were in high school as you are now” is mostly due to genetics (would be disingenuous not to mention my adhd stimulant meds help!). They’re rarely the curvy/“nice booty” types, they’re often nice legs etc. which works better for an “older” frame.
(2) features that “set” the face nicely. Think “a feature that may have looked more imbalanced with a “young face” but tend to make an older face look “younger.”
(3) “niche hotness”: fair-skin redheads, etc.”
(4) Women who happen to have styles/looks that weren’t signaling “find me hot” in their 20’s that tend to appeal more strongly a little older.
It’s a riskier gamble to “don’t worry I’m hotter now than ever,” because it’s often that you weren’t expecting this to happen.
Ironically these are often (I think?) women who are already married 10+ years, so it’s not even hotness that’s “useful” in the dating market.
" The language is “every body is beautiful” but the message is really “everyone is deserving of love, including self love”. " - hit the nail on the head there
Affirmations can skew your thoughts really far, good and bad. If that’s what women are doing here then it makes sense they’d end up with an unconscious bias where they think their league is a couple of steps higher than it is. That’s still helpful for women who think they’re worse than they are but it does mean already-delusional women get worse. So it might or might not be an overall good behavior.
Boys undergo similar social pressure but to make us less aggressive as men. I think that’s gone too far but I’m like 10th percentile in aggression to begin with so I may be the outlier that got messed up by a policy that’s overall good.
Also it’s odd to say that a woman can think she’s equal to say an 80th percentile man but also not think she’s an 80th percentile woman. I get how that happens psychologically but it is incoherent.
None of that’s narcissism of course!
Oh also I’ve noticed other words that need to be translated between genders. Like “dominant” to women means “domineering” to men. “Confident” is closer to “dominant” but men read it more like “arrogant”. Lots of confusion when we’re speaking slightly different languages!
> Also it’s odd to say that a woman can think she’s equal to say an 80th percentile man but also not think she’s an 80th percentile woman. I get how that happens psychologically but it is incoherent.
If women see relatively attractive men talking to them on the apps, but see extremely beautiful women on social media, it makes sense that they could think they’ll match with a more attractive man than their “percentile” while also recognizing where they rank vs other women.
> That’s still helpful for women who think they’re worse than they are but it does mean already-delusional women get worse.
At least in my socioeconomic class and generation I’d say women had unreasonably negative views of their attractiveness, and as far as I know that hasn’t gotten better with social media and the mainstreaming of plastic surgery.
> At least in my socioeconomic class and generation I’d say women had unreasonably negative views of their attractiveness
This seems kind of opposite to me as a guy who grew up approximately your age in the US... Is it possible that understating your objective attractiveness was kind of a trend for our generation? I mean I’ve seen you in red lipstick and surely you realize... I feel like we’ve all been duped by ad-executives telling us we’re worthless until we spend a few more bucks on an ongoing subscription basis
It just doesn't factor in compared to looks, intelligence, emotional stability, how fun they are to be around, shared values... I don't know how long the list would have to be before I got to posture. I am not sure if I could even remember the posture of any of the women I've loved and I doubt I'm unusual.
Good points - I agree it's not healthy to let too large a sense of "double consciousness" run your view of yourself. Meaning, women shouldn't try too hard to look at themselves from a man's point of view, and men shouldn't try to rank themselves from a woman's point of view. We end up sneaking in our own preferences. And in trying to approximate what the "average" man or woman looks for, you can end up either getting bitter that you don't meet their standard, or lie to yourself to protect your ego. You're also overlooking yourself and others as individuals (though you don't want to veer towards romantic fantasies of unconditional love either!) Also, I think there will always be tension between "let's give affirmations to each other for the sake of care and support!" and "let's actually quantify what makes something the adjective/label/ranking we claim it to be!". The two will never be reconciled if society keeps overlooking the obvious gender differences in terms of communication styles.
I really feel a lot of unhappily single people of both sexes would be content in relationships if they were better at looking at themselves from the other sex's POV.
Yeah some people don't do it enough, I was just stressing the need for balance, and not trying "too hard." Negotiating compromise is important, but not to the point of trying to generalize what the other sex (if you're straight) is looking for and then sacrificing the things you're passionate about, or giving up your favorite hobbies.
When people (of both sexes) give 1-10 ratings, are they really thinking in percentiles?
Objectively, young women are much hotter than men. IMO the median non-obese women in her 20s is a 8-9 (but underconfident), while the median man is a 3-4. That's why hot women are often with ugly men, while the reverse is almost never true. (Except for the online-dating/casual sex phenomenon you mention, which I could see messing with women's heads.)
Lol, I completely agree and actually had talked about this with Dan before. Women are more beautiful imo. I’ll have to ask him if he framed the attractiveness question as an absolute or relative, but either way I suspect people don’t exactly think in percentiles (although, based on the results maybe men do?)
I don’t know how “most people” think, but my inclination is that your rating is bizarre and incoherent. I’m not saying my rating track exactly to percentiles, but it would be much closer to a bell curve than “median is an 8 or 9.”
Only the hottest women I know get a 9, with a 10 reserved for a hypothetical perfect woman who I have yet to meet (there’s a funny old country song about this btw, Numbers by Bobby Bare). Most women I would call “attractive” are 6-7, and need a bit of a boost from personality for me to want to date them.
If you honestly think the median young woman is an 8-9, it sounds like you’re just saying you don’t discriminate much on looks.
Became really alert at the point where you were trying to offer the real reason women tell other women they are beautiful.
It just so happened that two days ago I was in the company of fellow gymers consisting of two males and four females. One of the females could not stop cooing to the other three "Awwwn, you're so beautiful" in the most ridiculously juvenile manner imaginable. And more surprisingly, the other girls except one were equally gulping it up as if it was the pronouncement of some beauty connoisseur.
In reality, and to my male eyes, only one of the girls would qualify as good looking in a slightly above average range. The other two recipients of this over the top compliment were women in their 40s who have bleached all the melanin out of their skin and they are the ones most targeted by the complimenter. In other words, a disproportionate amount of the compliment was directed at the very two women who least objectively deserved it.
So while I agree that this compulsive dispenser of "you are beautiful" compliment could not possibly mean it in the most objective sense (though the recipient wouldn't like this fact), I also find it quite hard to agree that she meant that these women "have something to offer". If she is asked the question: what does she think they have to offer the world? I doubt she'll not stutter a great deal. I find the hypothesis of one of the commenters more apt: that it was an act of projection. The most insecure women about their beauty, who are also given to reacting against that insecurity through self-directed affirmative utterances and gestures, are also most likely to extend the same treatment towards other women. And the more clearly physically rundown the women are, the more intrepid this affirmative compliment.
True that a large part of this motivated showering of objectively meaningless compliments is to "solidify female friendship", I doubt very strongly that such vacuous dispensing of compliments reflects well on the person dishing it.
It's a different thing if this complimenting is measured and not over the top as it'd signal some level of intelligent awareness or emotional intelligence. Mind you, none of the ladies, none, returned the compliment. Not even once.
So while indeed the unfortunate beauty socialist may be trying to signal her value as a potential friend, she may have ended up merely signaling the opposite: that she's going to be an emotionally high maintenance friend. And I doubt any of her targets are disposed to such costly investment.
" Women do seem to be more willing to stay in unfair or unsatisfying relationships than men are and sometimes need their girlfriends to help them realize that they’re dating a loser"
This is not my experience. At all. Given the sex that instigates divorce by far the most, my experience also seems to be backed up.
I would guess this comes from performance: she talks loyal and ever-suffering so that someone else can be "the bad guy."
Yes, I’ve written about the divorce stats, but I don’t interpret them the same way you do. I think women tend to put a lot more effort into marriages and also to think more about their relationship. They’re less satisfied with a marriage of strangers relative to men (this is all based on opinion and observation, I don’t have evidence for this). So, I think women are more likely to notice that the relationship sucks and leave, or to leave after years of lack of effort and work being put into the relationship by their husband. As for why I think women are more likely to stay with losers - it’s a greater desire for relationship and a shorter fertility window which I think can lead to some young women staying with a guy that’s objectively not a good match or not good to her because she’s scared of not finding someone else (sometimes rationally scared). I think this happens also because there are more male losers (greater male variability and all that).
Okay, I agree, not a 10. But is there some inflation? Do 6's think they are 8's? Does social media, especially “likes” on Instagram tend to inflate women's sense of attraction? I think so, the question is how much. Certainly not to 10s...but atleast 1 point on the looks scale (and there is a looks scale, despite what all your gfs tell you).
My hunch though is that it is more than this. With women entering the workforce and many making more money than men, especially at the low end, now it is possible for a 6 looks women to get a 7 or even 8 looks man. This also contributes to the looks inflation as well.
I recently took a gf of mine to Rosarito Beach, Mexico and it was her first time seeing Americans in large groups (she is from a small town in Mexico). She was in SHOCK at how many fat women there were with decent looking men that she asked me how this trend is so rampant. I explained to her that Rosarito Beach is a preferred vacation destination of middle/low middle class Americans and in that cohort, many women make more than men (nurse vs mechanic) and when the man makes less than the women, the women tend to require a compensating factor (looks!). And men being the thirsty sex, put up with what we can get. She instantly understood. It’s my best theory I could give at the time but the more I think about it, the more it makes sense (I grew up in Compton, Ca and now live a comfortable upper middle class life - i regularly see both classes).
So first, “does a 6 think she’s an 8” - maybe she thinks she can get an 8 as a boyfriend, but that’s different from thinking she’s in a higher percentile relative to other women, which is what I very strongly doubt
Second, a higher earning woman dating a better looking man is not looks inflation, it’s an expression of the fungibility of various attractive attributes.
> does social media inflate a woman’s self esteem ?
Oh? How so? Women definitely have a hard time as a group getting the man they want to commit to them, but generally there is no shortage of men wanting to be in a romantic relationship with them. She just doesn't want them.
Whereas men have trouble getting any female acceptance. At all.
Yep - better a fat women than nothing at all. Also, at this equilibrium, they are also highly unstable relationships. Which is, IMHO, a huge contributing factor to the much higher than normal divorce rates at the low end of the income ladder.
Common misconceptions about 'the mating market' arising from over-generalising about the typical experiences of a stereotypical "Woman" and a stereotypical "Man":
* Female 'hotness' is not so much a question of 'a sliding scale' as of two 'broad bands'. From a man's perspective there's no such thing as 'the most beautiful girl in the world'....that's a figment of media imagination. There are 1) women who are shapely, slimish but definitely curved in the right places and 2) there are women who are not. These women are definitely "unlucky" in dating-market terms (although most will eventually find a partner and hopefully 'love' anyway).
* Male 'hotness' is mostly about confidence and success (often but not necessarily in wealth terms). This is well understood in evolutionary psychology (and backed by much research). This type of man is one of two crude stereotypes in female journalism on 'the mating market' (in other words MOST journalism because this kind of journalism is overwhelmingly written by women). The other stereotype is the apocryphal "Incel" epidemic scourge. What gets almost entirelly left out of the male side of this picture is that most men are not that confident and not that successful but neither are they Incels. These men (the great majority of men in fact) do not have 'hot' women lining up for them (casually or otherwise) and have to do a lot of compromising. This rarely gets acknowledged. The reason I think is that sex journalism is 90% written by women (plus 10% by men who just want to brag). As I wrote in this The Less Desired piece, the reality is that: "The world is full of lovelorn people..... Others are prettier, richer, smarter - or just luckier - than you....." https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/the-less-desired
>>There’s a strong parallel to body positivity here. The language is “every body is beautiful” but the message is really “everyone is deserving of love, including self love”.
This is an example of the gap between male and female communication styles, with male style typically being more direct (text) and women being more indirect (subtext). "Every body is beautiful" is of course subjective, but nobody acts that way... women maybe least of all. Lots of women, particularly attractive ones, do not find every male body to be beautiful. https://theredquest.substack.com/p/fat-acceptance-will-never-happen-in-the-places-it-matters
"Manosphere Twitter" may well be retarded, however. Which is kind of embarrassing cause I may be part of it. A possible downside of Twitter and other platforms is that they optimize for attention, which is often generated through outrageous or stupid statements that provoke strong negative reactions.
Normal people who want to be in relationships figure out how to make intelligent and reasonable compromises and so wind up in those relationships and are much less likely to post on Twitter or outrage machine platforms...
Self awareness for humans is a problem always and everywhere along every axis where comparison could be triangulated and contrasted. The interesting bit for me is when people seemingly don't want to know the truth even if it could/would be kept privately. It's akin to people legitimately not wanting to know if they have a fatal disease or not (and that's lot's of people apparently - those who "would never" take a 23 & Me test to spot genetic predilections). Maybe that's the easiest way to classify: those whose curiosity is stronger than their fear and self-consciousness and those who "feel" in the manner opposite and would rather live in their own, self-manufactured dream world. Now, many are unashamed to admit their weakness, cowardice and nonexistent curiosity...not a good harbinger for a species that's known for improving itself over time as we have done up until recently.
I can buy that women are acutely aware of where they stand on purely physical attributes, but I think this is primarily an issue of misunderstanding what *non-physical* attributes the opposite sex is attracted to. It's largely an issue of projection - both sexes have a tendency to do it, and it's further compounded by socialization and advertising.
From a man's perspective, an example might be: I can bench 275, I dominate in my local pickup league, I have a bitchin' trans-am that I fixed myself, and I'm the go-to guy at work for technical diagnostics - why doesn't she see my value?! Meanwhile the same guy from a woman's perspective: he spends all his time at the gym or playing sports with his buddies, he drives a dumpy old car, and he's just a technical support guy that doesn't even make as much money as me..
On the flip side, the girl from her own/her friends' perspective: I didn't even go to a four year school and yet I'm making good money, enough to be financially independent and buy all the luxuries I want, I take good care of my body, I'm strong-willed and assertive, and I know exactly what I want out of life. From the guy's perspective: she's way overpaid for her qualifications and yet bases her self-worth on her income, then she spends everything she makes on frivolous luxuries and beauty products. She's shallow, argumentative, and inflexible.
Women are constantly bombarded with advertising designed to make them feel inadequate if they aren't keeping up with the latest fashions, or spending a bunch of time and money on their looks, and they see men's lack of effort in their appearance as a failing that should count against them. Meanwhile they're told they have to be a boss bitch if they want anyone's respect, and they don't understand that that isn't what men are really interested in in a romantic partner. So they put in a ton of [unnecessary] effort, then overrate themselves based on living up to the expectations they *think* men have for them.
Thanks for the comment, I agree and see this on both sides!
Great observations. Rings very true.
One thing I'll add:
While I agree projection is real, I also think the two sexes can get ideas into their heads that aren't necessarily projection. They're just bad ideas.
For example, while women are certainly better at evaluating their relative physical attractiveness than men are, they can also be influenced by media to adopt beauty standards that aren't very appealing to many men (and weren't that appealing to women until media highlighted it). These often take the form of being dangerously skinny. The "thigh gap" fad from a few years ago comes to mind. Maybe fashion has been this way since the beginning.
Along another line, I'm a Christian, and one false idea that some leaders have told Christian young men is that "godly women are attracted to godly men." Now clearly, these leaders' experience is that women are attracted to *them*, as leaders, with the good confidence, grooming, and social skills that go along with that. So this can lead to frustration for the sort of fellow who is dedicated to his faith but hasn't developed the qualities that actually caused his pastor's wife to be drawn to his pastor.
Relatedly, there's often a conflation that occurs between "this person has qualities that, through a combination of reason and inculturation, I have come to see as marriageable" and "this person is actually attractive to me, provoking a physiological response." A lot of our messaging doesn't seem to recognize that these aren't the same thing.
Women might be drawn to some qualities that indicate marriageability: e.g. status is surely at least somewhat correlated with having one's life together, being dependable, etc. Though ideas of a high-status man can range from a pillar of the community to a dark triad rebel biker -- which of these a woman is drawn to will probably be indicative of how well her love life is going to go.
For men, marriageable qualities are more orthogonal, for good or ill, to what actually attracts us. Some men end up with crazy but beautiful women, but I don't think the crazy usually attracts them the same way "bad boy" qualities attract women.
Great comment. But I always wonder when I read about this phenomenon whether and how women get such a keen sense of men's incomes in the first place? Things like home ownership and spending habits say something, but are women really even informed enough to reject men casually based on their incomes? At least in the UK, it would be seen as really crass to talk or ask about it and I don't recall it being much different when I lived in America.
It might come up after dating for a bit, or just be apparent from spending habits. But also it seems to me there’s been a broader trend of technical skills (the sort that men tend to have an advantage at) being categorically devalued by the modern economy. For example my ex was making more doing social media marketing and search engine optimization, which didn’t require any special education or training, than an experienced mechanic might make.
Good comment. There are a lot of distortions endemic to journalism about what some people call 'the mating market'. In general terms the distortion arise from over-generalising about the typical experiences of a stereotypical "Woman" and a stereotypical "Man". I'd like to comment on just two:
* Female 'hotness' is not so much a question of 'a sliding scale' as of two 'broad bands'. From a man's perspective there's no such thing as 'the most beautiful girl in the world'....that's a figment of media imagination. There are 1) women who are shapely, slimish but definitely curved in the right places and 2) there are women who are not. These women are definitely "unlucky" in dating-market terms (although most will eventually find a partner and hopefully 'love' anyway).
* Male 'hotness' is mostly about confidence and success (often but not necessarily in wealth terms). This is well understood in evolutionary psychology (and backed by much research). This type of man is one of two crude stereotypes in female journalism on 'the mating market' (in other words MOST journalism because this kind of journalism is overwhelmingly written by women). The other stereotype is the apocryphal "Incel" epidemic scourge. What gets almost entirelly left out of the male side of this picture is that most men are not that confident and not that successful but neither are they Incels. These men (the great majority of men in fact) do not have 'hot' women lining up for them (casually or otherwise) and have to do a lot of compromising. This rarely gets acknowledged. The reason I think is that sex journalism is 90% written by women (plus 10% by men who just want to brag). As I wrote in this The Less Desired piece, the reality is that: "The world is full of lovelorn people..... Others are prettier, richer, smarter - or just luckier - than you....." https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/the-less-desired
"Meanwhile they're told they have to be a boss bitch if they want anyone's respect, and they don't understand that that isn't what men are really interested in in a romantic partner."
I see a lot of this one - my gf used to tell me how "career is the most important thing for women to be marriageable" until I eventually told her that most guys will date (and even marry) a McDonalds cashier if she's hot enough, especially if she's also low-maintenance.
Your points about female friend culture here really resonate with me. On one hand, having come out as gender-fluid in the past few years, it's been an absolutely amazing experience being in women's washrooms in bars and seeing all the happy affirmation and support that random strangers give. In a men's washroom, it feels a little edgy just to ask someone if there are paper towels left in that dispenser. I love that about the female space.
The flip side is that I also wonder how much of the woke movement's preference for dissent-free "safe spaces" comes out of the movement being largely female-led, as an extension of the female friend culture you describe (probably starting on Tumblr and spreading to other spaces). It seems to be a political version of the sort of culture of mutual affirmation you describe, where disagreement and criticism are received as disloyalty.
> This is similar to the issues I see with women responding to “The Wall” discourse by insisting they’re actually hotter than ever at 38!
I think this is missing something more fundamental about how women often underestimate their attractiveness when they are in their teens / twenties, and then experience increased confidence in their forties partly because they are less concerned with how society values their beauty.
I think you’re right that women in their 30s and older are more confident in general - but I don’t think the women trying to convince manosphere influencers they’re still really hot are expressing that confidence
Maybe not, but it is interesting, no? The 40 year olds seem to move to a more male model of self-confidence, compared to the socially susceptible 20/30 year olds.
There absolutely IS a “I get much more attention for being ‘pretty’ at 40 than I ever was at 20.” It’s true for me. How would I describe it? 20 years later than I would have preferred it emerged haha.
It’s not the same beautiful women, as far as I can tell. It’s women with specific features, traits and types (?):
(1) if you have a strong “set point” type figure, “being the same size you were in high school as you are now” is mostly due to genetics (would be disingenuous not to mention my adhd stimulant meds help!). They’re rarely the curvy/“nice booty” types, they’re often nice legs etc. which works better for an “older” frame.
(2) features that “set” the face nicely. Think “a feature that may have looked more imbalanced with a “young face” but tend to make an older face look “younger.”
(3) “niche hotness”: fair-skin redheads, etc.”
(4) Women who happen to have styles/looks that weren’t signaling “find me hot” in their 20’s that tend to appeal more strongly a little older.
It’s a riskier gamble to “don’t worry I’m hotter now than ever,” because it’s often that you weren’t expecting this to happen.
Ironically these are often (I think?) women who are already married 10+ years, so it’s not even hotness that’s “useful” in the dating market.
" The language is “every body is beautiful” but the message is really “everyone is deserving of love, including self love”. " - hit the nail on the head there
Thank you!!
Affirmations can skew your thoughts really far, good and bad. If that’s what women are doing here then it makes sense they’d end up with an unconscious bias where they think their league is a couple of steps higher than it is. That’s still helpful for women who think they’re worse than they are but it does mean already-delusional women get worse. So it might or might not be an overall good behavior.
Boys undergo similar social pressure but to make us less aggressive as men. I think that’s gone too far but I’m like 10th percentile in aggression to begin with so I may be the outlier that got messed up by a policy that’s overall good.
Also it’s odd to say that a woman can think she’s equal to say an 80th percentile man but also not think she’s an 80th percentile woman. I get how that happens psychologically but it is incoherent.
None of that’s narcissism of course!
Oh also I’ve noticed other words that need to be translated between genders. Like “dominant” to women means “domineering” to men. “Confident” is closer to “dominant” but men read it more like “arrogant”. Lots of confusion when we’re speaking slightly different languages!
> Also it’s odd to say that a woman can think she’s equal to say an 80th percentile man but also not think she’s an 80th percentile woman. I get how that happens psychologically but it is incoherent.
If women see relatively attractive men talking to them on the apps, but see extremely beautiful women on social media, it makes sense that they could think they’ll match with a more attractive man than their “percentile” while also recognizing where they rank vs other women.
> That’s still helpful for women who think they’re worse than they are but it does mean already-delusional women get worse.
At least in my socioeconomic class and generation I’d say women had unreasonably negative views of their attractiveness, and as far as I know that hasn’t gotten better with social media and the mainstreaming of plastic surgery.
> At least in my socioeconomic class and generation I’d say women had unreasonably negative views of their attractiveness
This seems kind of opposite to me as a guy who grew up approximately your age in the US... Is it possible that understating your objective attractiveness was kind of a trend for our generation? I mean I’ve seen you in red lipstick and surely you realize... I feel like we’ve all been duped by ad-executives telling us we’re worthless until we spend a few more bucks on an ongoing subscription basis
A lot of female attractiveness is posture.
I assure you it really isn't.
Explain, please.
It just doesn't factor in compared to looks, intelligence, emotional stability, how fun they are to be around, shared values... I don't know how long the list would have to be before I got to posture. I am not sure if I could even remember the posture of any of the women I've loved and I doubt I'm unusual.
See, I'd say that posture is a major factor in looks, how a female walks, holds her head, twitches her tail, etc..
As a fellow member of the reality based community, I salute you for telling it like it is. Will share this on my Substack.
Thanks very much, Evan!
Good points - I agree it's not healthy to let too large a sense of "double consciousness" run your view of yourself. Meaning, women shouldn't try too hard to look at themselves from a man's point of view, and men shouldn't try to rank themselves from a woman's point of view. We end up sneaking in our own preferences. And in trying to approximate what the "average" man or woman looks for, you can end up either getting bitter that you don't meet their standard, or lie to yourself to protect your ego. You're also overlooking yourself and others as individuals (though you don't want to veer towards romantic fantasies of unconditional love either!) Also, I think there will always be tension between "let's give affirmations to each other for the sake of care and support!" and "let's actually quantify what makes something the adjective/label/ranking we claim it to be!". The two will never be reconciled if society keeps overlooking the obvious gender differences in terms of communication styles.
Thanks, Mike, great comment!
I really feel a lot of unhappily single people of both sexes would be content in relationships if they were better at looking at themselves from the other sex's POV.
Yeah some people don't do it enough, I was just stressing the need for balance, and not trying "too hard." Negotiating compromise is important, but not to the point of trying to generalize what the other sex (if you're straight) is looking for and then sacrificing the things you're passionate about, or giving up your favorite hobbies.
When people (of both sexes) give 1-10 ratings, are they really thinking in percentiles?
Objectively, young women are much hotter than men. IMO the median non-obese women in her 20s is a 8-9 (but underconfident), while the median man is a 3-4. That's why hot women are often with ugly men, while the reverse is almost never true. (Except for the online-dating/casual sex phenomenon you mention, which I could see messing with women's heads.)
Lol, I completely agree and actually had talked about this with Dan before. Women are more beautiful imo. I’ll have to ask him if he framed the attractiveness question as an absolute or relative, but either way I suspect people don’t exactly think in percentiles (although, based on the results maybe men do?)
I don’t know how “most people” think, but my inclination is that your rating is bizarre and incoherent. I’m not saying my rating track exactly to percentiles, but it would be much closer to a bell curve than “median is an 8 or 9.”
Only the hottest women I know get a 9, with a 10 reserved for a hypothetical perfect woman who I have yet to meet (there’s a funny old country song about this btw, Numbers by Bobby Bare). Most women I would call “attractive” are 6-7, and need a bit of a boost from personality for me to want to date them.
If you honestly think the median young woman is an 8-9, it sounds like you’re just saying you don’t discriminate much on looks.
Became really alert at the point where you were trying to offer the real reason women tell other women they are beautiful.
It just so happened that two days ago I was in the company of fellow gymers consisting of two males and four females. One of the females could not stop cooing to the other three "Awwwn, you're so beautiful" in the most ridiculously juvenile manner imaginable. And more surprisingly, the other girls except one were equally gulping it up as if it was the pronouncement of some beauty connoisseur.
In reality, and to my male eyes, only one of the girls would qualify as good looking in a slightly above average range. The other two recipients of this over the top compliment were women in their 40s who have bleached all the melanin out of their skin and they are the ones most targeted by the complimenter. In other words, a disproportionate amount of the compliment was directed at the very two women who least objectively deserved it.
So while I agree that this compulsive dispenser of "you are beautiful" compliment could not possibly mean it in the most objective sense (though the recipient wouldn't like this fact), I also find it quite hard to agree that she meant that these women "have something to offer". If she is asked the question: what does she think they have to offer the world? I doubt she'll not stutter a great deal. I find the hypothesis of one of the commenters more apt: that it was an act of projection. The most insecure women about their beauty, who are also given to reacting against that insecurity through self-directed affirmative utterances and gestures, are also most likely to extend the same treatment towards other women. And the more clearly physically rundown the women are, the more intrepid this affirmative compliment.
True that a large part of this motivated showering of objectively meaningless compliments is to "solidify female friendship", I doubt very strongly that such vacuous dispensing of compliments reflects well on the person dishing it.
It's a different thing if this complimenting is measured and not over the top as it'd signal some level of intelligent awareness or emotional intelligence. Mind you, none of the ladies, none, returned the compliment. Not even once.
So while indeed the unfortunate beauty socialist may be trying to signal her value as a potential friend, she may have ended up merely signaling the opposite: that she's going to be an emotionally high maintenance friend. And I doubt any of her targets are disposed to such costly investment.
" Women do seem to be more willing to stay in unfair or unsatisfying relationships than men are and sometimes need their girlfriends to help them realize that they’re dating a loser"
This is not my experience. At all. Given the sex that instigates divorce by far the most, my experience also seems to be backed up.
I would guess this comes from performance: she talks loyal and ever-suffering so that someone else can be "the bad guy."
Yes, I’ve written about the divorce stats, but I don’t interpret them the same way you do. I think women tend to put a lot more effort into marriages and also to think more about their relationship. They’re less satisfied with a marriage of strangers relative to men (this is all based on opinion and observation, I don’t have evidence for this). So, I think women are more likely to notice that the relationship sucks and leave, or to leave after years of lack of effort and work being put into the relationship by their husband. As for why I think women are more likely to stay with losers - it’s a greater desire for relationship and a shorter fertility window which I think can lead to some young women staying with a guy that’s objectively not a good match or not good to her because she’s scared of not finding someone else (sometimes rationally scared). I think this happens also because there are more male losers (greater male variability and all that).
Okay, I agree, not a 10. But is there some inflation? Do 6's think they are 8's? Does social media, especially “likes” on Instagram tend to inflate women's sense of attraction? I think so, the question is how much. Certainly not to 10s...but atleast 1 point on the looks scale (and there is a looks scale, despite what all your gfs tell you).
My hunch though is that it is more than this. With women entering the workforce and many making more money than men, especially at the low end, now it is possible for a 6 looks women to get a 7 or even 8 looks man. This also contributes to the looks inflation as well.
I recently took a gf of mine to Rosarito Beach, Mexico and it was her first time seeing Americans in large groups (she is from a small town in Mexico). She was in SHOCK at how many fat women there were with decent looking men that she asked me how this trend is so rampant. I explained to her that Rosarito Beach is a preferred vacation destination of middle/low middle class Americans and in that cohort, many women make more than men (nurse vs mechanic) and when the man makes less than the women, the women tend to require a compensating factor (looks!). And men being the thirsty sex, put up with what we can get. She instantly understood. It’s my best theory I could give at the time but the more I think about it, the more it makes sense (I grew up in Compton, Ca and now live a comfortable upper middle class life - i regularly see both classes).
So first, “does a 6 think she’s an 8” - maybe she thinks she can get an 8 as a boyfriend, but that’s different from thinking she’s in a higher percentile relative to other women, which is what I very strongly doubt
Second, a higher earning woman dating a better looking man is not looks inflation, it’s an expression of the fungibility of various attractive attributes.
> does social media inflate a woman’s self esteem ?
LOL ! Um no, literally the absolute opposite.
Oh and also, men being the “thirsty” sex is typically about sex, while women are typically the “thirsty” sex wrt relationships
Oh? How so? Women definitely have a hard time as a group getting the man they want to commit to them, but generally there is no shortage of men wanting to be in a romantic relationship with them. She just doesn't want them.
Whereas men have trouble getting any female acceptance. At all.
Yep - better a fat women than nothing at all. Also, at this equilibrium, they are also highly unstable relationships. Which is, IMHO, a huge contributing factor to the much higher than normal divorce rates at the low end of the income ladder.
Common misconceptions about 'the mating market' arising from over-generalising about the typical experiences of a stereotypical "Woman" and a stereotypical "Man":
* Female 'hotness' is not so much a question of 'a sliding scale' as of two 'broad bands'. From a man's perspective there's no such thing as 'the most beautiful girl in the world'....that's a figment of media imagination. There are 1) women who are shapely, slimish but definitely curved in the right places and 2) there are women who are not. These women are definitely "unlucky" in dating-market terms (although most will eventually find a partner and hopefully 'love' anyway).
* Male 'hotness' is mostly about confidence and success (often but not necessarily in wealth terms). This is well understood in evolutionary psychology (and backed by much research). This type of man is one of two crude stereotypes in female journalism on 'the mating market' (in other words MOST journalism because this kind of journalism is overwhelmingly written by women). The other stereotype is the apocryphal "Incel" epidemic scourge. What gets almost entirelly left out of the male side of this picture is that most men are not that confident and not that successful but neither are they Incels. These men (the great majority of men in fact) do not have 'hot' women lining up for them (casually or otherwise) and have to do a lot of compromising. This rarely gets acknowledged. The reason I think is that sex journalism is 90% written by women (plus 10% by men who just want to brag). As I wrote in this The Less Desired piece, the reality is that: "The world is full of lovelorn people..... Others are prettier, richer, smarter - or just luckier - than you....." https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/the-less-desired
>>There’s a strong parallel to body positivity here. The language is “every body is beautiful” but the message is really “everyone is deserving of love, including self love”.
This is an example of the gap between male and female communication styles, with male style typically being more direct (text) and women being more indirect (subtext). "Every body is beautiful" is of course subjective, but nobody acts that way... women maybe least of all. Lots of women, particularly attractive ones, do not find every male body to be beautiful. https://theredquest.substack.com/p/fat-acceptance-will-never-happen-in-the-places-it-matters
"Manosphere Twitter" may well be retarded, however. Which is kind of embarrassing cause I may be part of it. A possible downside of Twitter and other platforms is that they optimize for attention, which is often generated through outrageous or stupid statements that provoke strong negative reactions.
Normal people who want to be in relationships figure out how to make intelligent and reasonable compromises and so wind up in those relationships and are much less likely to post on Twitter or outrage machine platforms...
Great piece. I think “hitting the wall” discourse is toxic. Men hit the wall too. And 30 isn’t that fucking old.
It is an open secret that many human women value each other based on their perceived attractiveness more than human men do.
Self awareness for humans is a problem always and everywhere along every axis where comparison could be triangulated and contrasted. The interesting bit for me is when people seemingly don't want to know the truth even if it could/would be kept privately. It's akin to people legitimately not wanting to know if they have a fatal disease or not (and that's lot's of people apparently - those who "would never" take a 23 & Me test to spot genetic predilections). Maybe that's the easiest way to classify: those whose curiosity is stronger than their fear and self-consciousness and those who "feel" in the manner opposite and would rather live in their own, self-manufactured dream world. Now, many are unashamed to admit their weakness, cowardice and nonexistent curiosity...not a good harbinger for a species that's known for improving itself over time as we have done up until recently.