Distributist Public 1407

1.98K views12:53

Time for PSA to the young Zoomers out there.

Just as broadcasting one's sexuality is ultimately destructive for young women, broadcasting one's sexual appetite is ultimately destructive for young men.

It's hard to know how many men need to hear this. But your particular "taste" in women (while relevant to your dating strategy), is not going to signal your eligibility as a mate. I think this was common wisdom once, but many have taken the opposite message.
In reality women actually appreciate some mystery in a male's desire for them. The rule isn't absolute, but talking about general sexual preference (like a menu) or participating in a fan community around an attractive female (thirst posting) goes nowhere.

Of course what really DOES attract women is self-confidence and the respect of other men. This is why classically most men have focused on aspirational masculine subjects in their fiction consumption and hero-worship. However, somewhere we went astray.

Still, "thirst-culture" (can we make that a trope?) took over. Widespread pornography consumption did the most the exacerbate this problem, but you see the phenomenon most clearly in modern fandom communities, anime in particular. For most anime fandoms, male-viewers have a difficult time naming a male character they aspire to "be like", and a very easy time naming the female character they would want to be with. The "waifu" phenomenon puts the issue in stark relief.

Although some exceptions exist, male anime characters are either characterless ciphers (for purposes of self-insertion) or impossibly stoic. While female characters are organized around traits that certain men might find attractive / titillating . But anime is simply the starkest example. Notice the pattern and you will see it everywhere in media. This dynamic developed slowly but it took a big step forward in the West during the decade of the 2000s, probably for a variety of reasons.

One reason of course is pornography use, which sky-rocketed at this time. Another, less mentioned, is the influence of gay culture which went from being marginal to mainstream over the same period. Mainstreamed gay culture created a problem for the healthy development of young men. First, the community deconstructed apsirational and platonic male friendships into implicitly "homo-erotic" affairs, casting those who sought fraternity as "closet cases". Less discussed however is how gay-culture centered "sexuality" as identity, inviting young men to demonstrate their straightness (thirst) explicitly as a precondition for defining themselves as "straight".

You can see this in all media from the early 2000s right up until the "Me Too" movement. Fictional male characters discussing their horniness in ways that previously would have been considered embarrassing and infantile (think Scott Pilgrim / Judd Apatow).
Again, this type of frankness about general sexual thirst absolutely undermines the power of all but the most well-developed men. Still we were pushed in this direction by society and now we are where we are. It will be interesting if indeed times have changed and we are entering a "sex negative" moment. There is a lot good to be found when men and women discard the fake and game of broadcasting their thirst/availability and start trying to be decent people.

2.16K views19:31