- The unrestrained hypergamist's wet dream. | The Woman and the ...

I don?t usually read Hooking Up Smart, Susan Walsh?s blog aimed at college women navigating the SMP (sexual market place) while at university, ?but I happened to read a post there recently entitled?Can Lysistrata Work for College Women?? I would like to quote from, and then discuss, a few excerpts. ?Mrs. Walsh wrote:

Emily Esfahani Smith?has a?Plan to Reboot Dating?in The Atlantic, calling on ?women to implement the Lysistrata strategy as a way of ending hookup culture[...]?Though a feminist, Smith disagrees with Hannah Rosin?s recent assertions [Smith writes]: ?Rosin argues that the social progress of women depends on the hook-up culture. Women in their 20s and 30s are, for the first time, more successful than their male peers. These alpha females not only outnumber men on college campuses, they have also overtaken men as the majority of the work force. This would not have been possible without sexual liberation, which has let women delay marriage and child-rearing to pursue their educational and career ambitions without worrying about the emotional burdens of a relationship. Women are better off in part because of the hook-up culture, the argument goes.?

Smith then goes on to offer evidence that most women are pretty miserable in hookup culture [...] : [Smith writes]??Sexual liberation may be indispensable to female progress, but the hook-up culture is not empowering for all women. This isn?t to say that early marriage or abstinence is the solution. But these are not the only alternatives to the hook-up culture, either. There is a middle way: meaningful sex in the context of a non-marital relationship [...]?In other words, the solution is a dating culture, which still allows women to delay marriage and pursue their careers, and also lets them have those intimate relationships with men that they don?t want to delay.?

This puts Smith and me squarely on the same page, as this reflects my own views about what constitutes potentially achievable change[...]I do think there is value in the Lysistrata concept with some adaptation. If all of the women currently not benefiting from hookup culture in any way were to declare their unwillingness to participate and play by those rules[...]??this move would clearly identify the dissatisfied 80+% of females. Their unhappy male counterparts would have an opportunity to bring back the date.

I won?t pretend that I am an expert in hook-up culture; I?m 43 and in my 22nd year of marriage. ?I understand that young women wish to have no relationship responsibilities by remaining unmarried yet still have all their emotional and physical needs met by being in a (serially) monogamous relationship. ?What I don?t understand is why men would voluntarily agree to go back to this scenario. ?Why should young men care that young women want ?relationships? while they pursue their careers? ? If she isn?t willing to marry him, then he?s lower on her list of priorities than her career, her freedom of movement, and most importantly, her freedom of choice. ?This isn?t a more moral choice than hooking up ? this is a hypergamist?s wet dream! ?The man is lassoed into providing temporary benefits to the woman until she determines that she needs to dump him so that she can follow a job or trade up to a better man. ?She gets all the benefits of hypergamist mating and none of the downsides!

And him? ?Well, in my opinion, the male analog of female hypergamy is polygyny. ?So what does he get out of giving up the hook-up for the serially-monogamous ?relationship?? ?In terms of his biologically preferred mating strategy, the scenario Mrs. Walsh proposes gives him all of the downsides (investing his time and resources in a woman, restricting his mating opportunities with other females) and none of the benefits (a woman who would be committed to him alone for life and possibly bear his children).

Readers already know my solution to all of this, of course ? a return to a marriage-based model of sexual relationships. ?If not marriage, then why should a young man consent to dance to the hypergamist?s tune?

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Source: http://thewomanandthedragon.wordpress.com/2012/11/16/the-unrestrained-hypergamists-wet-dream/

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