Who's a woke puppy? You are!

That shiba is pissed.

Hey Dan, thanks for learning more about people instead of rallying behind the bad assumptions you learned. Fat people is what brings this up here. You used to be an ass about fat people. You got better. Also about bisexuality. Also as I recall you didn't really get how sexism worked fifteen years ago. I know the argument that you can't expect thanks for getting to "baseline decency to everybody", okay, without litigating around that I do think I can give unexpected thanks. So thanks, Dan.

Imagine if everybody in the U.S. had grown the same amount Dan has over the past fifteen years. Now snap back to this fucking reality. Yeah.

I have an attempt at a relevant analogy, if anyone likes. In an agreed monogamous relationship, not cheating is the baseline expected ethical behavior. Most people fail, but that's still the expectation. If you don't fail, that's great, but you shouldn't feel entitled to praise for not cheating. Non-praise is perfectly acceptable response to non-cheating, so don't get snippy. Your partner can appreciate it, though, and might be wise to in some shape. (A "thanks for not cheating (yet) (I hope right)" card might be too weird.)

Also relates to forgiving. Not cheating is the expectation, but my partner would be wise to figure out a way to forgive, or they're likely to end up a hermit. However, if I expect that by saying "oh, it happens, you'd better forgive me you know" I'm overstepping and being a dick.

(Yes there are ways the analogy with wokeness doesn't line up structurally, I'm sure smart folks can enumerate them!)

Honestly Dan,
I'm concerned about your recovery.
I had rotator cuff surgery along with surgery to repair a 75% labral tear (translation: that's a fucking lot). I was on medication for about 2 weeks before returning to day-to-day (except showering, cleaning under my arm was intensely painful). You're at 23 days, you should definitely have exhausted your supply of proscribed drugs! If you're using additional painkillers, STOP IT.

"the wrongly punitive FOSTA-SESTA legislation making work very difficult for many professionals in your country"

sure. I have yet to see proof that any individual has been materially harmed by FOSTA. I've read lots of articles quoting people who claim that "their friends" have been harmed by FOSTA. I don't believe a word of it.

I was in the car line to drop my kid off at school the other day and the car in front of me had an ITMFA bumper sticker. Made me grin.

Regarding aging and being lonely and facing the possibility of not being in a relationship. It's true that some people do go through life without having a fulfilling romantic relationship. It's more common that we may have a relationship like that at some points in our lives, but not at others (either due to a break up or death or whatever). The point I'm getting at is we all face loneliness as we age to some degree or other.

So what to do about it? First of all, recognize that romantic love is not the panacea that Hollywood promises that it is. Life can be hard without a partner. Life can also be hard WITH a partner. And the people in polyamorous relationships? I don't know where they get the emotional bandwidth to handle all the potential drama....

What IS important is companionship. Which could be a romantic partner. But it could also be really deep friendships. Or other strong social bonds. One thing I've been hearing a lot about lately (perhaps because I'm in my mid-40s myself) is using the Golden Girls as a model for how gay men can age gracefully. It's not such a bad idea. Helps with the bills and gives you a strong circle of support.

And the nice thing is, not everyone needs to be a Blanche. Personally, I'm mostly Dorothy, with perhaps a touch of Rose.

Surrogate partners. Duh! Dan had a column about this just a few weeks ago and no one thought of it for these poor lonely men.
Glad Mrs Seven-Page Letter got out!
And yeah to a plan of ageing with friends, in a small and mutually supportive environment. Count me in.

That "you can get all the dick you want" trope is annoying to me too. What's more accurate is that women on dating apps (or anywhere) can get all the dick they DON'T want. Finding men who are attractive and not assholes is far more difficult. And getting men who are unattractive and/or assholes is no improvement over getting no dick at all. That said, the commenter has a point that even ugly men prefer to approach attractive women, leaving less attractive women with few options. What I would advise is NOT to wait for the men on dating apps or in meat space to approach you, but to approach THEM. A lot of men who unrealistically approach only sevens-and-above will be glad to be contacted, no matter who by.

Ms Fan - I don't think a sex worker would be all that helpful to many gay men in that situation; paying for it would undo most of the good. I'll give the writer the benefit of the doubt and assume that she was not recommending they see women or straight SWs, but remain skeptical of the idea that, even leaving out that it's potentially a 7% solution (most people almost certainly cannot afford a professional of that quality on a regular basis, although the first LW seemed well enough off), it should be as easy for them to find SWs who are professional, appropriately kind and gay as it would be to acquire a bottle of Veuve Clicquot or Chateauneuf du Pape.

@10/BiSanFan: You are still describing a scenario in which women receive solicitations online and then have the luxury of deciding whether or not to meet and possibly fuck the men who reach out to them. That’s still a world in which a large percentage of women do have their pick of men and the ability to easy obtain sex.

And as someone with three lovers presently, you’re getting annoyed about the idea that women have an easy time getting sex seems rather odd.

Sour grapes, Sublime @12? I'd remind you that these are three lovers whom I've met over the course of the past seven YEARS. So, no, compatible partners don't grow on trees even for me. (While I am more "conventionally attractive" than the woman who wrote the post, I am not incapable of empathising with others' difficulties. You might try that sometime.) Getting inundated by inappropriate and misspelled messages while searching in vain for someone decent is not something most consider a "luxury," but an annoyance. And, as the commenter said, not every woman IS inundated with messages, from suitable men or unsuitable ones.

I'm not "annoyed about the idea that women have an easy time getting sex." I'm annoyed by the idea that women are considered lucky to get what 95% of the time they don't want, and that their difficulties in finding what they DO want are therefore dismissed. Like you just did.

@13/BiDanFan: Again, circling back to one of our previous conversations regarding the amount of time men need to search for female partners, it was clear that you were spending vastly less time then men spend searching for female partners. That holds far more true for women seeking male partners. The trope is true because it is objectively accurate, and a reflection of the way women identify partners. Women simply take a fraction of the time to sort through potential suitors than men spent looking for a female partner. You’ve heard this before from many others across numerous threads, which is why men aren’t interested to hear women complain about receiving 100 messages on OkCupid. That’s still 5 messages she excited to receive, with minimal work on her part.

And one can be entirely sympathetic to those women who are not going to receive many offers, but that does not change the fact that far fewer women are in that position than the wide majority of men who spend considerable amount of time online messaging women.

And I think that most people would agree that if you spent a moderate amount of time weeding out unattractive men and some assholes across seven years to identify three men who continue to be active lovers, your experience is more evidence that women have good luck finding dick on the internet.

@10 BiDanFan "That "you can get all the dick you want" trope is annoying to me too. What's more accurate is that women on dating apps (or anywhere) can get all the dick they DON'T want. Finding men who are attractive and not assholes is far more difficult. And getting men who are unattractive and/or assholes is no improvement over getting no dick at all."

I hope Dan puts that in next week's readers-advice column. I'm embarrassed to admit I naively hoped women had it better than that, but I'm convinced BiDanFan is correct.

@14 SublimeAfterglow
It seems to me that the gender time imbalance you cite comes bundled with the inherent differences between male and female partner-search behavior. As such, it seems to me that embracing the later comes with embracing the former. Not that, as a male, I don't find the former true, it's just that it's our cost of the later.

Sublime @14: I met only one of my current partners on the internet, the others I met in meatspace. (I also met a recent ex, who is a trans woman, on the internet; in both cases -I- sent them the initial message.) So my experience is NOT evidence that women have good luck finding dick on the internet. My experience is that one's luck is better if one takes the initiative in sending messages, which is what I advised the luckless commenter to do.

One could easily say, if one were being just as wilfully obtuse, that MEN are lucky because they can find all the sex they want, with hot women. They just have to pay them. Wait, you say, paid sex -- aka the sort it's easy for men to get -- isn't what most men are looking for? My point exactly.

I'd also challenge the "minimal work on her part" assumption. Women put in work every single day to look attractive in general. One could argue that the time women spend shaving, wearing makeup, maintaining their hair, keeping fit, etc, is analogous to the amount of time men who do none of these things spend sending messages.

And if it's so easy for women to find partners but not men, who on earth are these women partnering up -with-??

Can we just say online dating is not easy for men or women, for different reasons? (I maintain gay men have it easiest!)

(Another point of order is that Lover No 3 is still within the three-month money-back-guarantee period, so it can't be said yet that I've found three keepers. I do admit that I, personally, have been lucky, but I've been lucky to find partners DESPITE all the chaff out there. People are not lucky if all they find is chaff.)

Curious2 @15: Thank you, I'm happy to give you the last word! :)

@10: "That "you can get all the dick you want" trope is annoying to me too. What's more accurate is that women on dating apps (or anywhere) can get all the dick they DON'T want. Finding men who are attractive and not assholes is far more difficult. And getting men who are unattractive and/or assholes is no improvement over getting no dick at all. "

Thank you for this, BiDanFan. It needs to be said, apparently often, since so many don't seem to get it. And you said it perfectly.

Not to mention the point that the lw Dan quoted made, which is that, if you believe the idea that as a woman you are supposed to be able to get all the dick you want and you either can't attract the person you are attracted to or no one appears to be attracted to you, it's easy to internalize that into there being something wrong, inadequate, and deeply un-feminine with yourself.

Thank you for the fat link. Please tell your friend who wrote it that 70 years ago fluoride started being added to the water supply and by the 1960's it was common. Fluoride bioaccumulates and over time affects the thyroid, causing obesity.

Sorry, one more comment regarding the "men spend so much more time looking" claim. This may be true for some subset of men. But a lot of men on dating sites put in almost no time at all. They don't even read the profiles women have put hours into writing; they send one-line messages, or generic come-ons which are obviously copied and pasted and sent out to dozens or hundreds of women. That's not "putting in effort" and unfortunately, the effect of this is to disillusion women to the point that they do gloss over more genuine messages. Looking for a genuine needle in a haystack of crappy messages IS time-consuming. This is why some apps now pre-emptively block messages from people unless you've swiped them right.

It seems that you've all misread/misinterpreted Dan's line: it's "You can get all the dick you want", not "You can easily find a decent guy to have sex with".

Taken literally, it means that if you only want dick (i.e. a quick lay), it should be easy to find for most women (and gay men, must I had, since I think Dan's orientation and the specificities of gay hook-up culture do play a part in the way he expresses this).

Of course, if you're looking for a dick that's not attached to a dick, you'll have a harder time.

@16/curious 2: “It seems to me that the gender time imbalance you cite comes bundled with the inherent differences between male and female partner-search behavior. As such, it seems to me that embracing the later comes with embracing the former. Not that, as a male, I don't find the former true, it's just that it's our cost of the later.”

I have read this three times and have zero clue what you intended to say.

@BiDanFan: Paying for sex is the equivalent to getting to decide whom among the men that write you, you are willing to meet, with the possibility of fucking? Bi, that is a laughable argument.

Bi, it takes seconds to look at someone’s profile and decide they are unattractive. Even someone writing a cursory message will spend more time than that. So imagine someone who may have spent 15 minutes reading your profile and looking at all your OKCupid responses, and 15 minutes writing a personalized message. Only to have you delete their message because you think they are ugly. How often to do think people will invest that amount of time before they realize it is not a good investment if time? Not many.

Bi, in your own online experiences haven’t you spent more time writing a woman, than deleting numerous emails from men you’re not interested in? In my experience, rejecting an online approach is simply so little work compared to drafting a thoughtful message. Arguing otherwise is not objectively true.

And for the complaints about the volume of messages women receive, when pressed, women still acknowledge picking and choosing among the men who write them over spending the time to identify men online and write a thoughtful message to them. I think that is all one needs to know about what task is hard and what task is easy. Given a choice, people don’t choose hard work.

Glad to see Dan's advice and opinions for overweight people have evolved. He was quite the fat shamer for awhile.

@22 SublimeAfterglow
""It seems to me that the gender time imbalance you cite comes bundled with the inherent differences between male and female partner-search behavior. As such, it seems to me that embracing the later comes with embracing the former. Not that, as a male, I don't find the former true, it's just that it's our cost of the later."
I have read this three times and have zero clue what you intended to say."

I now see how I was less than clear. But first just in case, here's what "former" and "later" are in my initial sentence:

former= "the gender time imbalance you cite"
later= "the inherent differences between male and female partner-search behavior"

But my intent was to say something different than I did:

That if a male embraces (and not doing so wouldn't be constructive) their own MALE partner-search behavior, one needs to accept/embrace the "gender time imbalance you cite". In other words it makes no sense to complain about lying in a bed one has made themselves.

@24/curious 2: Sorry, but you don’t write very clearly even on your second attempt, but to the extent that you believe that men could spend less time looking for partners and be successful doing so within the same timeframe, I would be interested to hear your evidence as to how that is so, because that goes against all objective facts to the contrary. Simply put, if men could spend less time looking for a partner and more time with a partner they would certainly do so.

Bdf, it's impossible for me to believe that women spend more time "looking" online. I'd guess something line 60% of the profiles I ever see are blank. Christian Rudder's okcupid data mining blogs are probably the most authoritative on this matter.

But whatever, there's an obvious reality that at any level of attractiveness, men as a class do much more work into trying to find a partner, by necessity. It'd be really nice to see how the other half lives in this regard. At least for a day.

@24 The old "we should improve society somewhat"... "yet you participate in society!" defense!

There are plenty of women who are older, not conventionally attractive and socially awkward who cannot get dates. I'm sure if they were to post online looking for any random person to fuck them, they will find someone. So will the same lonely men. In both cases, the person they find will likely be a perv and a man.

And anyway, yes women (in general) have an easier time find sexual partners than men (in general). No one was disputing that. The LW simply pointed out that it's not true that women can always find lovers. If you guys believe this, you must all live in a very different world than I do or else you are ignoring all the women in your workplaces, communities, families, who are not considered attractive, who are very over weight, who are socially awkward, who are older, etc. Would they have an easier time than male counterparts in the same categories? Probably? I don't know. Less attractive women have an easier time than less attractive men. But older women have a harder time than older men. And what are we comparing? Race plays a factor too, as does income. It's just too complicated to say generally that women have it so easy as to be able to pick their partners. It depends on what you are comparing.

Really the conversation is not about women having an easier time finding someone to fuck them. It's about how more men are willing to fuck any random person, no matter how unattractive they are, than are women. So yes, if you don't care at all about the person/body attached to the dick, you will ALWAYS find a person with a dick who will fuck you- whether you are a man or a woman.

But if you have any interest at all in finding a person you like reasonably enough or one that is attractive, both men and women have a hard time with this. It's generally true that women will have more options, but as I said, that depends on what you are comparing. An overweight conventionally unattractive woman over 55? Compared to a young good looking man? Apples and oranges. Likewise, just in general, a 60 year old man vs a 60 year old woman? A socially awkward and inexperienced person? It's hard for lots of people to find sexual experiences that are potentially pleasant. And it's no more potentially pleasant for a straight woman to be fucked by any random pervert man who sends a dick pic online as it would be for a straight man to be fucked by the same guy.

Back down to earth though, the LW was not opposing the suggestion that women GENERALLY have it easier to find mates. She was opposing the suggestion that it's a parade of dicks to choose from for ALL women, and she is correct.

@25 SublimeAfterglow
Well I would like to have said "THAT MALE needs to" instead of "ONE needs to" in my penultimate sentence, but never mind, we should probably just drop this, the questions you asked don't have anything to do with my point, which I think was clear enough, and which I don't feel much like spending time on anymore. Except to expand with:

Men are who they are. And one might as well embrace who one is. The thing being complained about is a RESULT of who we are. So we might as well embrace (or at least accept) that too. Not doing so feels like sour grapes that it isn't easier since women aren't exactly like us. Like 'poor me, it's harder than it would be if women were more like men'. If men get to be who they are, certainly women get to be who they are. I know I don't like the idea of any guys, certainly straight ones, who don't like who women are.

@30 p.s.
For me, one of the very best things about women is that they ARE different than men.

quick word of advice for online daters: she probs has pictures of herself with her girlfriends and they all look alike. The best way to figure out which one is the one in the profile, is to compare eyebrows.

SublimeAfterglow @25 wrote "if men could spend less time looking for a partner and more time with a partner they would certainly do so."

And yet they generally send most of their messages to 8's, instead of focusing on 4's. That seems like the strategy of someone who would rather fantasize about meeting an 8 than have to leave their house to have coffee with a 4.

https://www.bustle.com/articles/146909-this-is-why-you-should-be-sending-more-okcupid-messages

The article quotes OK Cupid's data: "Men are reaching out to women 17 percentile points more attractive, and women contact men who are 10 percentile points more attractive."

And concludes: "So what does that mean? If you're waiting around to be messaged, you're going to be messaged by people who are less attractive than you are, and way less attractive than the people you would be messaging."

The best approach is to accept the unconventional things you like (chubbiness, short men, weird kinks, seniors) and focus your attention there, rather than getting depressed when conventionally attractive people don't respond.

Thank Shiba Inus! They are the the pups who could sell the world!

@curious 2: All that to say accept reality? I do, it seemed that we ended up in this conversation once again because others want to argue the contrary every once in a while.

@EmmaLiz: Arguing across age groups isn’t meaningful. A 19 year-old may have a easier time finding sex than his 70 year-old grandmother, but she may have had more sex partners during the Summer of Love then he’ll get in a lifetime.

What we agree on is that there are some women who do not have an easy time finding sex partners, but we know that pool is relatively small, otherwise there would be her male sex worker servicing these women, and there just isn’t.

And while finding a relationship may be a challenge for everyone, that wasn’t the comment that started this conversation, it was about getting dick online. And as anyone who gets laid regularly knows, even casual sex with a friend makes that journey of looking for a relationship easier.

Ricardo @21: Yes, and that's the source of the misunderstanding. "You can get lots of dick" is in fact true. One can get dicks attached to dicks. But "You can get all the dick you want" is a self-contradiction, as a dick attached to a dick is a dick one DOES NOT want. Hence my rephrase, "You can get all the dick you don't want." It's true, if you have no standards, great! But approximately 100% of women do, so there's no advantage. As someone said on a previous thread, it's like handing a vegan an unlimited gift certificate to a butcher shop. ("You" means "general you" throughout.)

Sublime @22: As previously discussed, I don't have to imagine. I too have spent time reading women's profiles, and messaging them (this takes less than 15 minutes per message; if you're writing that much, it could be the sheer volume of verbosity that's putting them off), and hearing nothing back. Eh. Shrug. Accept that I'm not everyone's cup of tea and that's the way it is and message someone else. Truly, if you are messaging people who are within your "league," and you're doing it politely and respectfully, some will write back. What is 15 minutes of investment in the scope of a resultant relationship, in the unlikely event (but the reason everyone's online in the first place) of a match?

Perhaps your issue is that you're bitter, and that's coming across.

What are the alternatives in your scenario? That a woman, any woman, is required to go on a date with a man she's not attracted to just because he spent 15 minutes writing her a message? (If she has no sexual/romantic interest, wouldn't that just amount to wasting MORE of his time?) That she should at least reply with a polite "no thank you"? (Women who do this quickly find out it's not worth it, as a large percentage of men reply to that with abuse.)

I sympathise with your frustration, but lashing out at "women who have it so easy" is both off the mark and not helping your appeal. As Emma said, why not try being a bit more realistic in whom you're messaging? (And since we keep going back to "my experience," I've blocked straight people on OKCupid, thus solving my problem of, let's call it, spam. This is not a solution that will work for the typical straight or straightish woman.)

Curious2 @30: "sour grapes" -- Exactly. "Boo hoo, we poor men have to spend more time pursuing partners" rings hollow with a group whose salaries are still 84% of men's, who are bound by unrealistic beauty standards, expected to be constantly hairless and to never age, who have to worry about whether being alone with a particular man will give him an opportunity to rape her... etc. Besides, you (general you again) really want women do date you out of pity? I don't.

Do -men- count themselves lucky that they could get all the blowjobs they want, so long as they accept them from unattractive men? Now you know why women don't, either.

EricaP @33-35: Right on. Hollywood has convinced even average-looking men that they're entitled to date gorgeous women. The problem is that every shmuck out there is messaging the gorgeous women.

Sublime @37: "otherwise there would be male sex workers servicing these women"
Not really. When men can't get sex for free, some percentage will go to sex workers (others join incel communities), but when women can't get sex, they just don't have sex.

@Sportlandia: "But whatever, there's an obvious reality that at any level of attractiveness, men as a class do much more work into trying to find a partner,"

I think that may be true if you're measuring the time spent pursing particular, real women: writing messages, or starting up conversations, etc. But I think it's less true (and possibly totally untrue) if you take into account the time that most women spend trying to look attractive in general, for the purposes of being someone who will be approached--time spent learning about what clothes look best and are in the current style and shopping for those clothes, time spent getting good haircuts or styles, time spent learning about/buying/applying makeup, time spent shaving, and so on. Those actions may not be seen as in pursuit of a particular man, so maybe men don't think about them, but I assure you, they take a lot of time in the lives of many women.

And for the record, I think many men would do a lot better in the time they spend pursuing women if they first spent more time on those things. A good haircut, clothes that fit and look nice...these things help, and a lot of men don't bother; maybe because they are less conditioned to think they have to look good in general, and therefore don't know that major differences can be made through these activities? I dunno.

Ms Fan - I'm reminded of the episode of Daria in which Daria and Jane are too late to see an art film and have to settle for a blockbuster. As they leave, one of them comments that she never saw it coming that the brilliant twenty-something scientist who supermodeled on the side for fun would realize that what she really wanted was a nice, overweight middle-aged beat cop with WHOM to settle down. I think it may have been the episode in which Daria wrote a short story that got turned down, but am not sure.

I can think of multiple ways to advance from your conclusion if one wants to reduce the detrimental aspects of having to pay. I don't think trying to reduce the general attitude of contempt for men who can't get free sex would really fly (though perhaps it would work if it were women). We could perhaps establish incel communities as a straight phenomenon entirely. Other first thoughts that spring to mind are rather less appealing; I'll stop for now.

Ms Ods - My guess would be Diminishing Returns. Public notice of male appearance in mixed settings seems very much Pass/Fail.

I'm not sure what the fix might be, but at least it reminded me of Mr Harding's Here Comes the Groom.

BiDanFan has this cold and right. Underlying this conversation are assumptions which are incorrect:

Women are assumed to value sex - the act itself - as highly men do in exactly the same way men do. Anyone who takes a 1000 ft view realizes this is patently false. I rank high on the sex drive for a woman. I also indulged in strange. That would make me a more typical man but a relatively unusual woman. We have more concerns of sexual violence, our equipment is not quite as user friendly as a guy’s. A guy can expect an organism with sex; a woman cannot. So when we are looking for sex, it is usually a different kind of sex than what men are looking for because what it takes for a woman to have a good sexual experience is different than men.

This is why the analogy about giving a vegan a carnivore smorgasbord is so on point. And the guys here who complain that men have an “easier time” than women to get sex are merely showcasing their deficit in empathy. They are completely unable to climb into a woman’s skin and look at sex from her point of view. When I step into a car or a hotel room, when I share a drink with a man, I have to be worried about sexual violence. And men outweigh me on average sixty pounds. Are you really sure you guys want to trade spots? Are you sure you want to be fifteen, pinned down on a bed, while a guy holds his hand over your mouth and tries to pull your clothes off and his buddy locks the door?

Oh but lucky you! You get all the dick you want!

Grrrr that women have an easier time getting sex than men....

Ms Erica - Yes, but how many Kinsey Threes did they get to draw up the scale?

Ms Cute - I've been piecing together ideas for a film to be called Whom's Not Dead, ideally with sequels. (I've been listening to reviews of the Go'd Not Dead trilogy.) The first film should star Stephen Fry as some sort of professor opposed by someone drawn vaguely to resemble Anita Sarkeesian. Then, to keep things from falling into a predictable pattern, Whom's Not Dead 2 would star Emma Watson. I haven't gotten to 3 yet.

"What we agree on is that there are some women who do not have an easy time finding sex partners, but we know that pool is relatively small, otherwise there would be her male sex worker servicing these women, and there just isn’t."

No, we don't agree on this- at least not on the part about the pool being rather small. As I said, most women are neither young nor conventionally attractive, and there are millions of lonely people out there who cannot find dates, including straight women and gay men. Unless by "relatively" you mean in comparison to men in the same groups. Where we (maybe?) agree is that women compared to men in the same situation will generally have an easier time of it- apples to apples, not apples to oranges. That does not mean that any woman compared to any man does. And I don't get your point about an older person having had an easier time when she was young- what that has to do with anything I don't know. We are talking about whether or not a person can get a choice of sexual partners. Obviously this changes over the course of your life, and in the context of this discussion (which is to advise Dan to not make it sound as if any woman can easily find a desirable partner if they open up their relationship) it very definitely matters to point out that most women are not young. It's silly to say that Dan should tell a woman who is seeking partners outside her relationship now that she got laid easily decades ago.

Women will never hire sex workers or seek casual sex at the same rates as men because they are far less likely to have fun from a random encounter. The fact is that male sexuality is not the same as female sexuality and will never be, so you can't apply the same standards to it. Women mostly do not seek sex from a sex worker when they can not get laid because no sex at all or solo sex with a vibrator is more pleasant and more preferable to a short encounter with a stranger. It's the same reason why horny straight men mostly do not seek sex with other men even though they could very easily get it- the sex would not be pleasant for them. It's also why most straight men do not seek sex with lonely, overweight, older women even if it would greatly improve their chances of getting laid and even if they themselves are not attractive men.

I'm not going to talk about it any more really because the conversation is ridiculous when we mean a baseline just any dick in the wold- yes there are men out there who will fuck anything any time regardless of anything, and if you want to get laid you can let them fuck you. This applies to men and women. And yes, you will have a harder time finding a woman who will indiscriminately allow anyone anytime to fuck her. When you apply this disparity to the entire population, yes it means that any person - man or woman - can post online and find a man to fuck them. So there will be more men willing to fuck people than there are women willing to be fucked. No one ever denied this in the first place. And if you are willing to fuck women who are totally unappealing to you, you will likewise have an easier time of getting laid. There are women in downtown hanging around in the homelessness districts in my town who will go home with you and suck your dick for a roof and a meal. If bringing this sort of exploitation and trauma into your home does not seem appealing, then you know what it feels like to be a woman whose only options are the weirdo perv who is willing to fuck anything that walks out of desperation. Most of us are not talking about opening up our bodies to just any random person, and that's the whole point here. It is simply not true that women get to pick and choose between sex partners- most women are in fact older, conventionally unattractive, etc. It is true that they mostly have an easier time of it than men in the same situation, that's all. An easier time does not mean easy.

And of course it came to me just after I hit Post - Mr Savage would portray himself as the antagonist in Whom's Not Dead 3.

BDF @ 38 - "'You can get all the dick you want' is a self-contradiction, as a dick attached to a dick is a dick one DOES NOT want."

That's why I mentioned Dan's gay viewpoint, which doesn't fit most women's attitude when looking for sex partners (at least that of the women I know), but which rings totally true to me. If my hormones kick in and I find myself in need of sex (as a bottom), a dick that gets the job done (well) is all I want (as a top... I'll admit I'm a bit choosier about asses, but it's the same general principle). It may be attached to a moron I'll never want to see (or speak to) again, but that's irrelevent as long as my sexual urge is satisfied.

Thanks so much for linking through to Michael Hobbes' article Dan - what an incredible article. I hope you've forwarded this week's wrap-up to your old friend Lindy West! I'm doing my bit to link it on social media and share it around to as many people as I can.

Re: "And yet they generally send most of their messages to 8's, instead of focusing on 4's. That seems like the strategy of someone who would rather fantasize about meeting an 8 than have to leave their house to have coffee with a 4." which is a random example of several similar messages.

I've actually used this strategy and it turned out to be a really disfunctional one. When I was in my 20's, I went through a phase where I estimated my attractiveness to be about a 2. Using the strategy above, I decided to approach women "in my own league". This lasted exactly one date before I realized that I was doing absolutely no-one any favours by approaching women I considered 2's. She wasn't flattered by my attention: she was obviously wondering just what I thought I was doing. So I no longer consider approaching only people you find attractive (I'll call them "7's" for the purposes of this post) to be something that shows entitlement. There's a serious case to be made that if you think you're a 2 you should work on yourself rather than trying to date people. But if you're going to approach people to try to date them, then only approaching people you're attracted to, regardless of your own self-perceived attractiveness, isn't fantasizing over practicality, it's common sense.

@6 rolando74
It sounds like you've read more articles about this than I have, but as I understand it that legislation has closed down websites that allowed sex workers and clients to vet each other. Given the risks involved in sex work, now that a half-year has passed, I'd be very surprised if no "individual has been materially harmed by FOSTA", and it seems to me you're asking for proof of the obvious.

@old crow

It's definitely NOT entitlement to only approach people you consider attractive. I agree with you that it does no one any favors to pretend to find people attractive if you do not. Good on you for noticing all of that. Also since this is all subjective, it's not a perfect match anyway. We generally agree about what is conventionally attractive, but humans are a wide bunch and there are outliers on all ends, and someone you find a 7 might be considered a 2 to someone else and vice versa. Likewise with you- you might have found yourself a 2 but then someone else might find you to be 7. Also personality and interests and lifestyle go a long way, and while cold approaches and online hook ups might require attractiveness at first sight, social dating can take on other considerations. Nonetheless, as was pointed out above in reference to just any dick, if we are talking about simply arranging for sex online, you might have more luck with someone who has fewer responses, assuming you are both just down for anything out of desperation.

It is entitlement if you get annoyed and lament the failure of more attractive women to respond to you or if you blame them for likewise only dating people they find attractive or go on about how they have a larger number of choices than you do. And if when you say "women" you are only thinking about these attractive women and not the majority of them- who are not young and hot- then make generalizations about all women based on the ones you find attractive, etc, then that is not entitlement (I don't think anyway) but it is a type of gender blindness.

BTW not saying that you were doing any of these things yourself and every time I've said "you" in this thread, I mean it in a general way ("one").

Ricardo @49: "You can get all the dick you want" isn't Dan's viewpoint. I've heard this from so many straight men -- envious straight men -- so I don't ascribe any gay male bias to this view. Just a male bias. As you say, many (most) men would find the ability to get random sex a positive thing. The overwhelming majority of women -- straight, bi or lesbian -- do not. This is why you don't see Grindr-like apps for women.
So: "Most women can easily get random dick" -- a true statement.
"Women are lucky because they can easily get random dick" -- a false statement.

Old Crow @51: So you let ONE woman who was puzzled by your approaching her convince you that you should NEVER approach women you didn't find attractive-on-pixels? Great sample size there. Women who are 2's have profiles on dating sites; why, if they don't think anyone will ever approach them? Why did you expect the woman to be "flattered" by your attention? If you messaged her believing you were doing her a favour and she should be grateful, no wonder that did not go over well. What about the phenomenon whereby someone appears rather unremarkable but has a great personality, an inner sparkle which makes them far more attractive once you get to know them? By approaching only people whose -photos- are attractive, you may miss out on people who are three-dimensionally attractive. And, if you yourself are not attractive-in-photos, the attractive-in-photos women will ignore you, as previously discussed, so you miss out on both groups.

@BDF

The only clarification I'd add is, the statement is not "Most women can easily get random dick" It's most PEOPLE can easily get random dick. The reason this focus shift is important is that it's nothing special or unique to a large number of women's behavior/appearance/personality that allows most women to get random dick. It's a feature of men- there is a large number of men who will fuck anything that there is generally quite a bit of random dick out there.

Also I do't think Old Crow took the wrong lesson- he was not talking about that one woman. He realized that pretending to be attracted to someone he is not attracted to is a bad strategy - both for him and to a woman- and he is correct. I think it would be harmful to repeat this strategy on many women. I don't think you are taking what he said the way it was intended, but he'll have to come along to clarify. If you deliberately contact someone who you consider unattractive because you think that this is all you can get- that you likewise are unattractive- then you are approaching a situation from a "well since neither of us can get anything better, here we are" approach which will be considered rude to most of us.

BDF @ 54 - "I don't ascribe any gay male bias to this view. Just a male bias."

Granted. I'll defer to your wisdom, since I just can't speak for straight males, and you most probably have more contacts with them than I do - at least without their girlfriend/wife being present. Most of my straight male friends I met through their girlfriends/wives, who already were friends of mine; consequently, the straight men I know rarely say things like that when I'm around, precisely because their SO is generally there too (and they absolutely don't want their SO to get any dick other than theirs, or even entertain the thought)... or because they're afraid I might report back to her if she isn't.

Old Crow @51 -- my point about men going for 8s rather than 4s was not to suggest anyone write to people they view as dogs and expect the dogs to feel grateful for some attention.

My point was to encourage people to think more deeply about what really turns them on, and explore aspects they enjoy which are not about conventional attractiveness. So, yes, write to people you find sexy -- but look for sexy attributes which aren't the conventional traits of being thin, tall, young, busty, good hair, symmetrical features and takes a good photo.

A 4 is not a 2. A 4 can be a perfectly presentable person, who may be sexy in person, but just isn't above average when most dating people judge their photos.

@52, I'm not sure you understand what "proof" means.

@58 rolando74
Of course I understand what "proof" means (don't condescend up). Apparently better than you understood that my point was to question what sort of biases a person must have that would even ASK for proof of something so self-evident.

@59 p.s.
Just in cast that was too subtle again for rolando74, by "what sort of biases a person must have" I mean that I suspect he is a rightwing troll seeking to eliminate all sex work under the pretext of fighting trafficking.

@60 oops, I meant "Just in case"
(sometimes I type the entirely wrong word)

Me: "People keep asserting X but I haven't seen any proof X is true."

curious2: "I don't have proof of X but it must be true."

Way to prove my point.

EmmaLiz @55: Yes, indeed -- as I said @39: "Do -men- count themselves lucky that they could get all the blowjobs they want, so long as they accept them from unattractive men? Now you know why women don't, either." As another commenter here said a while back, dick is cheap and plentiful. If straight men don't think that they are lucky to be able to easily get something they don't want, they should acknowledge that this applies to women too. The venn diagram of "dick that's easy to get" and "dick we want" doesn't have a lot of overlap.

I acknowledge I may have misread Old Crow, but I'd say there are three groups: people one is initially attracted to, people one is initially repelled by, and people who are neutral. Of course messaging someone you are repelled by is a pointless strategy. Messaging people who are neutral in the hope of in-person chemistry is something I would advise anyone who's not getting much joy out of only messaging people who are objectively far more attractive than themself.

Ah, BiDan@63 ~ Been a long time since I gave any serious thought to Venn diagrams. Since I am happy in my monogamous relationship my Venn diagram would be 1) All the pussy in the world and 2) All the pussy I would be willing to jeopardize what I have to get. I am comfortably resigned to having two completely separate circles. Well, maybe there IS a small tangent point where they touch...never say never.

BiDanFan, EmmaLiz is correct in her interpretation of my post - I meant "messaging someone you are repelled by is a bad strategy." I felt it was relevant to point that out because (I'm autistic and take things literally and) if someone's self-esteem is sufficiently low then, logically, "approach people in your league" translates into "approach people you are repelled by." If one considers oneself of average attractiveness then focusing on approaching other people of average attractiveness is (I think obviously) a good strategy.

I didn't expect the woman to be grateful for my attention - I thought I was trying to make a logical match - but I didn't expect the "WTF do you think you're playing at?" vibe I got from her, either (and which in hindsight I don't blame her for). Within a year or two of that I had a girlfriend who was a "10", OK I'm maybe not completely objective about that (I'm pretty fond of her still although we lost touch before the Web was invented), but still "2" probably wasn't an accurate assessment of myself back then.

As implied, my present strategy is that if my self-esteem is low, for whatever reason, I'll work on myself rather than try to date.

EricaP, I think we're getting mixed up over semantics here. I get the impression that the people you're defining as "4" are people I'd define as "6". And yes, one can message them, but if you're going to send personalized emails rather than form emails, how much time are you going to devote to this?

I think the hang up is that we are talking about the attractiveness rating system (what we might consider an objective 1-10) as the same thing as who you find attractive.

Ryan Gosling is objectively very high up on the scale- probably a 9 or 10? But I don't personally find him attractive. A good flip side example of this is Sean Connery- objectively quite low (big ears, fat, balding, bad skin) but loads of women my mother's generation think he's the hottest thing ever. It's because he's charismatic and has a nice voice.

So I think you could keep them both in mind if you are trying to be efficient. Looking in your league might mean you put most your energy into people who are about the same as yourself objectively - even though this objective scale doesn't really exist and is fraught with cultural implications and socialization- and then look for people within that scale that you find attractive. (For example, go back to celebs for a second because it seems like something we can all use as reference, but pretend they are regular people- the money and fame and fashion make them look better than they are, but since we don't know the same common people seems like we have to go with celebs.) In real life, I might attempt someone who looks like Jason Momoa or Idris Elba because why the hell not, but I know damn well I'm not in their league. And why would they get with me if they could be with a Lisa Bonet? Alright, so someone probably in my league- let's say someone who looks like Martin Freeman. Objectively, he's not any great beauty (shortish, middle aged, big ears), but it just so happens I personally find him attractive- it's the mannerisms and smile. So it seems pretty efficient to look within my league but for people I find attractive. Likewise, I have met Tommy Lee Jones several times as he lives in Central Texas, and the man is objectively not very good looking, especially when you strip away all the Hollywood stuff. Yet he's charismatic, has a nice voice, moves in a sort of sexy way- I'd say he's below my league (based solely on appearance) and yet I find him attractive as well. So...

I think the point of telling people to look in their league is that you might have more luck with people who are average looking than with great beauties, but absolutely you should find someone who you find attractive.

The issue about self-esteem is another altogether, but even within that context, I think you could say that even if you think you are ugly, that doesn't mean you attempt to talk to other people who you also think are ugly. It just means that you maybe keep yourself open to the possibility that you could find something attractive about another person who is not objectively a beauty either.

I think internet dating complicates this because in real life, we all have the experience of being in a situation in which you talk to someone who you slowly start to find attractive for reasons unique to them. But if you'd just seen a pic of that person, you would have dismissed them. I think maybe better advice is telling people to approach those profiles with that possibility in mind. If you are repulsed by them, then that's different of course!

I don't know if this helped, Old Crow, seems like you went through all this confusion early on and have come out the other end wiser already, but I could see how the "date in your league" advice would be confusing to either someone on the spectrum or someone with low self esteem or any other frustration so I tried to spell it out, ha ha.

Actually it's helped. You mentioned celebrities. To me the most attractive celebrity of the 70-80's was Stevie Nicks, and my then-girlfriend was a dead ringer for Stevie, except not a professional singer-level voice (I had it so rough! LOL) So only one female celebrity more attractive to me than a woman I've been in a relationship with. And thinking about it, I've found highly attractive women no harder or easier to date than any other non-autistic women. (Autistic women are awesome because I can communicate with them effectively, but they're really rare.) I've always assumed I'm ugly - I felt complimented on my appearance maybe twice in my first 50 years - but apparently, maybe not? God knows I had no trouble attracting unwanted gay male attention when I was younger. Much to think about - thank you.

Back to the actual topic, I think this just reinforces the point about not making it all about appearances - I'd say looks are 1/3 of a man's attractiveness, maximum. For me, most of the Internet dating I've done has been over OKCupid, and there I find the compatibility percentages more important than the photos.

I just presume that when people talk about 1-10 appearance scales, the scales are always relative to the observer, not absolute, because the populations you're considering change completely depending on the observer. 50-year olds weren't relevant to me when I was 20, 20-somethings aren't relevant to me now, there's no point even trying to measure them on the same scale.

Dating with low self esteem is a bad idea, trust me. Partly because self-esteem is closely tied to confidence, and a straight man with minimal confidence is just going to get hammered in the dating market, but also because, male or female, low self esteem seriously compromises your judgement.