@mattyanon

I remember the 90's and women were still pretending they didn't like sex, and there was genuine societal confusion about whether women actually had orgasms or not.

I remember that shit. Hell, I still occasionally encounter dudes (both online and in meatspace) who think the female orgasm is a myth. Poor ignorant dudes.

because they really did hate sex.... with their husbands.

This brings to mind Archwinger's post titled "Every unhappy wife is a rape victim".

100% providership, zero sexual interest, zero alternatives for most men.

Zero alternatives? Mistresses and prostitutes. Not that still-plugged-in-decent-Christian-fellow-me would have approved, but unplugged me is certainly much more understanding.

You don't need to be tall and ripped and make 6 figures to fuck her. You just need to be tall and ripped.

Hell, you don't even need that. I know plenty of dudes who are missing one or both and still do fine. Either one helps, but neither one is essential. Charm, confidence, and congruence are the most helpful. Dudes with an innate grasp of frame do really well too.

@Durek_The_Bald I still need to go back and read through what everyone said. I was in the middle of getting caught up late yesterday afternoon but got interrupted and never got back to it.

however...

From what I remember seeing so far, I think the two "sides" (for lack of a better term) of this discussion are talking past each other a bit.

You, @mattyanon, and whoever I'm forgetting in my pre-coffee haze are looking at things from the perspective of guys who have been unplugged for a while.

@woodsmoke, @derdeutscher, and I think @Vermillion-Rx to an extent are putting themselves into the shoes of the men who don't know about this stuff, and thinking about what would set them up for the most desirable life.

For my part, life had and still has its problems and uncertainties no matter what time period one picks, and I can see the advantages (and disadvantages) in either one.

Because I like things being based on tingles and horniness, rather than duty, commitment, and potential punishment

Why not both?

Tingles can come and go. Why should a man lose his house, access to his kids, etc because of fleeting feelings?

covenants without the sword are mere words

• Thomas Hobbes

I mean, I personally know the things I need to do to maximize my odds of favorable outcomes. I'd rather live as things are with what I now know. But thinking about all the men who will never find a space like this or any other Red Pill material, I think they may have been much better off under the old system with marriage 1.0. Too many of them are just left with nothing.

@woodsmoke

The point I'm trying to make is mainly this:

Making it unnecessarily difficult for women to divorce men (through social norms, or even law) isn't a win for men. Because women have a number of ways to make a man's life miserable anyways. In the power dynamics between men and women, men have physical strength and competency - while women have the naggiddynag and manipulation. So it's not like you will know peace and happiness just because your wife can't practically divorce you (although she'd like to).

As @Typo-MAGAshiv said:

pre-1970-or-so a man wasn't nearly as likely to have it all yanked away from him just because the wife was boooooooored and unhaaaaaaaappy

But why would a man even want to be with a woman who's boooored and unhaaaaapy? Fucking get rid of that harpy before she gets rid of you (or makes your life miserable if she can't get rid of you). Divorce is a win for a man if "boooored and unhaaaaapy" is representative of the state of one's marriage.

I suspect pre 1970's, this was indeed the state of the majority of marriages. Second wave feminism happened because "boooored, unhaaaaapy, and low libido 4 U" was representative for a large chunk of married women's lived experiences. Are we supposed to believe their husbands were happy regardless? That life still would be fine for the dude, as long as the wife couldn't divorce for practical reasons? Of course not, it must've been freaking miserable.

None of which is to say you're wrong, of course, but which version of society is better very much depends on one's priorities and the perspective from which one is analyzing the problem. As Thomas Sowell famously said, there are no solutions, only trade-offs

Yeah, I'm onboard with socially enforced monogamy being a very successful model on a societal level. Absolutely no doubt about it, as cultures who've practiced this have consistently out-competed cultures that didn't. That's why I'm trying to be clear thqt I'm speaking about the individual man's lived experience - not what works on a societal level.

Counterpoint: the modern paradigm is great for those on top o' the game, those who have a natural drive to climb ladders and build empires and those primarily/only interested in easy access to casual sex.

It's pretty shit for the great majority of men who just want a decent life with a decent woman and something to show for their efforts.

Maybe. I'm not so sure about it. But I do know that I'm nothing special, and my wife is nothing special either, and I live a good, sex positive, fairly peaceful family life with a decent woman....so far.

And if things go to shit, and it's not working for me anymore for whatever reason, I'm free to leave her without much social repercussion, and minimal financial repercussions as well. But only less than half a century ago, I would have a hard time getting to see my kids. Because women were then deemed the most important parent solely based on them being women. Today though? Not so much.

I honestly wouldn't want it any other way. If she's ever boooored and unhaaaaapy in our marriage, I want her to be free to leave me. Because I like things being based on tingles and horniness, rather than duty, commitment, and potential punishment.

@Durek_The_Bald this photo reminds me of a time my mother beat me with a belt because I was caught in a sack naked with a girl. Not that it matters but I was about six years old at the time, and we wore shorts to school. My mother kept repeating that a penis is not a toy as she repeatedly struck me with a belt. I apologized but I honestly don't know for what because I sorta enjoyed being in that sack. The girl is a woman now and has had two kids since our misadventures in the sack. There's no moral to this story but that photo struck home. Or maybe the moral is that mother's turn the their children into betas to some extent. Because that moment might be one of the reasons I ended up this site. Apart for me going to initiation school, I believe that, that moment might have reshaped I looked at sex for a long time until I found the "manosphere".

@Durek_The_Bald

Counterpoint: the modern paradigm is great for those on top o' the game, those who have a natural drive to climb ladders and build empires and those primarily/only interested in easy access to casual sex.

It's pretty shit for the great majority of men who just want a decent life with a decent woman and something to show for their efforts.

Also, only one of these group does the lion's share of the practical, hands-on work of actually building and maintaining the civilization in which we all live - and it ain't the relatively small number of high-achieving men at the apex of the sociosexual hierarchy. Not because they're incapable of building but because there simply aren't enough of them to meet the demand.

For one, the sexual revolution happened because women wanted it. Feminism happened because women wanted it. When women said they wanted to be "free", what they really were talking about was being free of beta buxx. Because it's not in their nature to want that, never have been. That's why "one woman for every man, one man for every woman" always has demanded strict social control of female nature to work (and by "work" I mean on a societal level, not for the individual man's life experience).

And children always want to eat cookies and ice cream for every meal. It's not in their nature to want vegetables. That's why a good parent doesn't give them the choice.

The fact monogamy requires heavy restriction of both female hypergamy and alpha male promiscuity isn't an argument against it. Thinking either of those have any sort of value simply because they're natural behaviors is purely fallacious reasoning and you know it. Humans do all kinds of shit that isn't natural behavior for us because we've realized both through trial and error and the inherited wisdom of those who came before (but I repeat myself) such artificial behavior is a lot better for us long term than doing "what comes naturally."

None of which is to say you're wrong, of course, but which version of society is better very much depends on one's priorities and the perspective from which one is analyzing the problem. As Thomas Sowell famously said, there are no solutions, only trade-offs.

Myself, I'd much prefer to be a retired legionnaire working my farm or a potter in first century Rome over being king of an insignificant spit of land for which I have have to scrape and claw every day for three and a half years before being conquered, killed in battle or assassinated by an overly ambitious brother or cousin in post-Roman Britain.