Dating, higher education, sex ratios, and the hookup culture

[TeachCatechism]

Dicey or not my WHOLE POINT before we got on this tangent is that men who are seeking a mate for procreation (which is the biological motivation) will NEVER consider a woman over the age of 55. The same cannot be said of women seeking men for the same reason (e.g. Larry King et al)

Either gender seeking someone over 55 for procreation is not all there. I don’t know any woman who desires Larry King, he only gets women because he’s rich and famous. When I had a membership to Catholic Match the women would complain that much older men contacted them instead of women their age. Most people want a !mate around their age. I’m 44 and a 55 year old man is too old for me.

 

[Sarcelle]

I didn’t say that waiting itself was a punishment, but that women do get punished for waiting.

Also, as you’ve mentioned several times, women have only so much time to work with. Hence women have much more of a temptation to achieve motherhood while it’s physically possible–with or without a husband.

Hmm, I was wondering, how common is it for men to sow their wild seeds when young, grow older, find religion and than marry the next available virginal, virtuous young lady and go on to live a settled good Christian life. Meanwhile the other young or formerly young ladies this man has fooled around with become used up and undesirable like so much used tissue paper.

Offensive? You bet. But I wonder, how much of this is reality?

Now if a young lady decides to virtuously wait for marriage but finds no one that holds the same view that she holds, she will surely turn old and according to Matthew, undesirable.

 

[Hoosier_Daddy]

Hmm, I was wondering, how common is it for men to sow their wild seeds when young, grow older, find religion and than marry the next available virginal, virtuous young lady and go on to live a settled good Christian life. Meanwhile the other young or formerly young ladies this man has fooled around with become used up and undesirable like so much used tissue paper.

.

Sadly you just described my youth.

 

[MatthewTrainor]

Matthew, no one is calling you illogical.

Actually [user]Hoosier Daddy[/user] has done it twice (here and here), yet has so far declined to support his allegations.

I admit it was wrong of me to get so snarky with you in this post and for that I apologize.

The rest of your post misconstrues virtually all of my prior statements. It is going to take me a while to unwind most of that and try to put my very limited use of evolutionary psychology into the right context so I’ll have to get to it later tonight.

 

[MatthewTrainor]

Now if a young lady decides to virtuously wait for marriage but finds no one that holds the same view that she holds, she will surely turn old and according to Matthew, undesirable.

Am I the only person here who thinks that there are men who are willing to enter into a covenantal marriage prior to engaging in sexual intercourse? Does everyone think that women are required to offer a “test drive” before they can expect a proposal?!?

 

[Sarcelle]

Am I the only person here who thinks that there are men who are willing to enter into a covenantal marriage prior to engaging in sexual intercourse? Does everyone think that women are required to offer a “test drive” before they can expect a proposal?!?

Where the h## have I said that women are required to offer a test drive?! No, no one here thinks women should offer a test drive. Why do you falsely attribute views to us? You do it again and again and again. This is tiresome.

My main point was to say there are no guarantees even in a virtuous life and if what you say is correct, women pay an even higher price for sticking to their morals. That is all I am saying.

 

[BlueEyedLady]

Am I the only person here who thinks that there are men who are willing to enter into a covenantal marriage prior to engaging in sexual intercourse? Does everyone think that women are required to offer a “test drive” before they can expect a proposal?!?

Do you really think this is what the modern dating world looks like? Women who want to marry and only offer sex to men in hopes of getting a commitment? I’m in my mid-late 20’s, and I don’t know any women who would be willing to wait until marriage, much less want to. One of the best kept secrets of life is that women really like sex, often for it’s own sake and without the promise or hope for more.

 

[Hoosier_Daddy]

Actually [user]Hoosier Daddy[/user] has done it twice (here and here), yet has so far declined to support his allegations.

I admit it was wrong of me to get so snarky with you in this post and for that I apologize.

The rest of your post misconstrues virtually all of my prior statements. It is going to take me a while to unwind most of that and try to put my very limited use of evolutionary psychology into the right context so I’ll have to get to it later tonight.

Actually, I called your responses illogical in the way they pertained to your assumptions and treatment of Xantippe. And indeed it was. I know very little of the subject you are debating. You could have a factual logical position as far as I know. Fact is, I don’t really care. But if you are looking for credibility and respect of your position you need to drop the one upping and bravado and emotion and jumping to conclusions. Why, if your logic lead you to act and treat Xantippe a certain way (whom I know has a vast understanding of the subject.) would I trust it in other things?

I am a scientist by training and your approach reminds me of young students who have a little bit of knowledge and try to bully their positions. And that is a red flag for any positions you might have. Your inability to see what was illogical (your assumptions about others, your emotional responses, and your reading into posts things that were not there, along with your belittling of others whom you (falsely) assume you are more knowledgeable than) leave me little hope of being persuaded by your “facts and truth”

My advice… Work on your delivery and comprehension.

I must add though that your recent posts have been much more easier to follow and understand. So there is hope that you will communicate your position well and logically!

 

[Xantippe]

So you agree, for those women interested in motherhood the options are take a chance and hold out for marriage or abandon virtue.

Something like that.

 

[MatthewTrainor]

Where the h## have I said that women are required to offer a test drive?! No, no one here thinks women should offer a test drive. Why do you falsely attribute views to us? You do it again and again and again. This is tiresome.

My main point was to say there are no guarantees even in a virtuous life and if what you say is correct, women pay an even higher price for sticking to her morals. That is all I am saying.

Why am I the whipping boy for encouraging everyone to lead a virtuous life? The implication of your statement (and practically everyone else here who has expressed an opinion on the matter) is that virtue inevitably leads to loneliness. Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn’t. How is repeating it over and over again in any way relevant to the discussion? It’s like saying “What if a woman a young woman decides to wait virtuously for marriage and is then hit by a bus and dies.” Tragic? Yes. A good argument against maintaining virtue? No.

Leading a life lacking in virtue carries bigger risks that occur with much more frequently.

 

[Hoosier_Daddy]

 

[jlc2k2]

Am I the only person here who thinks that there are men who are willing to enter into a covenantal marriage prior to engaging in sexual intercourse? Does everyone think that women are required to offer a “test drive” before they can expect a proposal?!?

NO ONE here has said that a woman should lead an unvirtuous life. They have merely said that by doing so she may suffer, which is true. She may also suffer by being unvirtuous. You stated that virtuosity inevitably leads to more power for women (comment #18). That is what is being argued against as far as I can tell.

 

[Xantippe]

Where the h## have I said that women are required to offer a test drive?! No, no one here thinks women should offer a test drive. Why do you falsely attribute views to us? You do it again and again and again. This is tiresome.

My main point was to say there are no guarantees even in a virtuous life and if what you say is correct, women pay an even higher price for sticking to their morals. That is all I am saying.

Exactly.

Virtuous or not, we get a year older every year.

MatthewTrainor, I’d like you to think long and hard about how the stuff you’re saying sounds to women who are waiting virtuously, but who aren’t finding anybody, and are starting to lose hope that they will be able to find a husband in time to have children (or at least a child).

 

[Sarcelle]

Why am I the whipping boy for encouraging everyone to lead a virtuous life? The implication of your statement (and practically everyone else here who has expressed an opinion on the matter) is that virtue inevitably leads to loneliness. Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn’t. How is repeating it over and over again in any way relevant to the discussion? It’s like saying “What if a woman a young woman decides to wait virtuously for marriage and is then hit by a bus and dies.” Tragic? Yes. A good argument against maintaining virtue? No.

Leading a life lacking in virtue carries bigger risks that occur with much more frequently.

No, you are not the whipping boy for encouraging everyone to lead a virtuous life. You are the whipping boy because you have falsely attributed views to us, which you seem to be doing still. We are not trying to argue against virtue. We told you again and again but it is not getting through to you. :banghead:

Virtue is its own reward but we all know that, even if we do not always get what we want. You are not the only one capable of thinking that.

 

[Xantippe]

NO ONE here has said that a woman should lead an unvirtuous life. They have merely said that by doing so she may suffer, which is true. She may also suffer by being unvirtuous. You stated that virtuosity inevitably leads to more power for women (comment #18). That is what is being argued against as far as I can tell.

Right.

It might conceivably be the case that if all women (or most women) held out (in a sort of Lysistrata move) that women would have more negotiating power. However, a lone woman doesn’t. That is particularly true in a setting (like the modern university) where there’s often a 2-1 sex ratio.

 

[HerCrazierHalf]

Am I the only person here who thinks that there are men who are willing to enter into a covenantal marriage prior to engaging in sexual intercourse? Does everyone think that women are required to offer a “test drive” before they can expect a proposal?!?

Those men exist, but I believe they are in the minority. Essentially, the chastity requirement drastically shrinks the pool of marriageable men. From what female friends have explained to me they are also rare on Christian dating sites.

 

[Xantippe]

MatthewTrainor,

I would really encourage you to read the archives here

seraphicsinglescummings.blogspot.com/

and here (that’s the sequel blog by the same author):

edinburghhousewife.blogspot.com/

I don’t agree with her 100’% about everything, but she spent a lot of time out there as a Catholic single lady (10 years after her annulment) and she’s both very experienced and very insightful. And her commentors are, too. Her specialty is keeping up the morale of long-term single Catholic women, as well as giving prudent dating advice.

 

[Xantippe]

Either gender seeking someone over 55 for procreation is not all there. I don’t know any woman who desires Larry King, he only gets women because he’s rich and famous.

Right. Also, age aside, he’s got enough ex-wives to start a book club.

 

[SuperLuigi]

Even a good K-12 district can be very, very expensive, to say nothing of private school. (Our family spends a sum on two private school tuitions greater than our mortgage payment and when our third child goes to school in a couple of years, it will be a sum greater than our mortgage payment plus our hefty TX state property taxes.)

But what about homeschooling? you might say. Well, that’s potentially even more expensive than private school. If a SAHP is home an extra 10-15 years doing homeschooling and the SAHP could make somewhere between $30k and $50K a year if they were working instead, we’re looking at a loss to the family of somewhere between $300k and $750k just for those years.

So, yes, education is expensive, even K-12 education.

The 300K to 750K is a small price to pay. I had a family member who ran a daycare business and she practically raised those kids.

Also, there’s so much garbage, scandal and corruption in the education system in the last 50 years or so, it would probably shock a lot of parents if not turn them pale as to what really goes on from K through post-doc.

Let’s just say that the days of Miss Beadle and Mr. Richie Cunningham are over in many cases.

Personally, I’d rather property tax than income tax. Your part of TX may be the exception, but it’s kind of hard for me to feel sorry for people on paying so much in property taxes and they wither every time the education system holds up a kid as a marketing gimmick and says “hey, now you’re not gonna want this kid to not learn and end up on the street,are ya?” and for voting in people who raise their taxes or they vote for the increase themselves.

 

[MatthewTrainor]

Looking back, it seems you went off the deep end when I said that I’m more interested in what’s going on today.

I agree, that when I got snarky (sorry again).

I was saying that telling anyone “If you want a good spouse, you need to do XYZ because evolutionary psychology” is just silly.

I agree again, which is why I never said that.

The social, political, and technological realities of today have us living and behaving in ways that are in direct contradiction with how we evolved, so handing out dating advice as though we were still in caves makes 0 sense.

Also agreed and never claimed by me.

You have this notion that evolutionary psychology provides all the answers, has no grey area, and is uncontroversial in the psychological and scientific communities.

I do not and never made any such claim.

None of those things are true, and people are right to strongly question marriage advice built solely on that one perspective.

I would seriously question anyone who did as well. As soon as I ever see any such post I shall, but having read through most of this entire thread (I skipped over the lengthy posts that were discussing county by county population statistics or something) I have failed to find any that do.

Here are links to all my posts in this thread so far with a brief synopsis of what was and was not claimed in what I believe are the most relevant posts. I have skipped over some for the sake of brevity in what is already a very long post, but have included the links for completeness. Due to post size limitations I will have to post this in installments.

#18 This was my first post where I attempted to outline why shacking up is worse for women than it is for men. I made the rather poor choice of using some off color colloquial expressions to underscore my point about how shacking up allows men to view women, but many took offense and were unable to see through that to understand my point. I said “Holding out is a risky prospect (particularly when there is so much free milk out there) but inevitably will return women to the power position if they are seeking to find a mate for life.” By using the plural I mean to imply what Xantippe stated more clearly when she said

It might conceivably be the case that if all women (or most women) held out (in a sort of Lysistrata move) that women would have more negotiating power.

Unfortunately most people misconstrued this assertion to mean that a single woman would immediately attain power over the situation by holding out. That was not my intent.

#26 , #27 , #31 , #44 , #45

#46 In this post I responded to Xantippe’s righteous disgust at my use of the colloquialism in #18, admitting my error and attempting to put my assertions into the proper context by pointing out the biological fact that a woman can only carry the child of one man at a time whereas a man can procreate with several (even hundreds) of women in the same period. This is where I first mentioned evolution because logically there is no evolutionary advantage for women to mate with dozens of men if she could only bring one of their offspring to term whereas men who were inclined to impregnate several women would be more likely to get their genetic material into the next generation than those men who were not so inclined.

#67 This was the post where I first used the phrase “evolutionary psychology” which I did not proffer as an “uncontroversial theory that provides all the answers any question”, but merely as a logical explanation for observable inherited behavioral instincts. The second paragraph explains how those instincts can be overwritten.

#68 This is where I got a twofer and mocked both Wikipedia and Time Magazine in a single post :yup:

#75 This is the post where I got snarky with BlueEyedLady, which was uncalled for. I did try to describe the logical basis for the theory and again indicated how using the human will to overcome the instinctual urges could be a good thing or a bad thing. I did never suggested that we should simply surrender to the instincts that were the result of evolutionary psychology, to the contrary I suggested that we act counter to some of them.