^The 20%, or the 40% man as I hope to demonstrate
What is the 80/20 theory of dating, or the theory about the 20% man? Cited from the 'examiner' webpage:
Have you ever visited a popular nightclub in a major city, and you noticed that one guy may have three, four, or five women hanging around him while another three or four guys in that same club have no women paying them any attention at all?
Let's say a professional matchmaking organization got one thousand single heterosexual women together and transported them to an island where all of their living expenses would be covered, and they would never be in desperate need for anything crucial to their survival, such as food, beverages, clothing, and comfortable living quarters.
The mythical '80-20 Rule' Theory of Dating and Relationships says . . . . within a matter of days, weeks, or months, approximately 800 of the 1,000 women are going to be competing with each other for the attention and companionship of roughly 200 of the 1,000 men on that island.
You see a lot of takes on here that are based roughly on this idea that a small pull of super hot guys with LMS (looks, money, status) have their pick of a large pool of both very attractive and moderately attractive women that would prefer to upgrade than date in their own 'league'. Attractiveness and the idea of league, is of course subjective but we can probably agree that in our culture there is some universality of desire:
Men:
- Physicality: tall and muscular builds
- Low bodyfat %
- Muscularity does not have to mean bodybuilder physique, but many women have definitely shown preference for the slender/toned variety of men ("the swimmer's physique")
- Facial symmetry
- Masculine facial features: angular bone structure (chiselled jawline, etc.), thick eye brows, deep-set eyes and good facial hair
- Smooth thick hair, preferably short for most women
- It's true that men have their beliefs totally muddled up about what constitutes an attractive physique for most women
Women:
- Narrow waists, arms and legs
- Modest curvature with very slight muscle tone (waist and thighs need to be narrower than hips as minimum requirement)
- Don't need to be as tall as men but height is a factor
- Facial symmetry
- Effeminate facial features: rounded bone structure, puckered lips and small nose
- Smooth hair and probably with length also
Now that we've got this definition of attractiveness out of the way, I think it is fair enough for me to proceed with terms like 'attractiveness' and 'league' for the remaining take without too much controversy and the underlying premise that such terms are ultimately subjective. I have been guilty of referring to the 80/20 theory a lot in my takes as well and gotten some stick lately because a lot of the 'evidence' for this theory is non-conclusive at best. I want to devote this take to digging up a few studies that have been done to confirm this - mainly based on surveys, social experiments and the social darwinism of anthropology. In this take I want to demonstrate three things:
1. 80/20 should be substituted for a more realistic theory of general hypergamy hence this take is 'the 40 percent man' rather than 'the 20% man'
2. That this theory does have some evidence behind it
3. That this theory is more useful for the pro-male agenda because it actually has a grounding in reality.
4. An adaption of the 80/20 caricature is more credible and likely to be taken more seriously in general.
1. Let's be realistic
It doesn't always help to be pessimistic. When we are pessimistic about what we can and can't achieve, we become psychologically paralyzed. Why is this? It's the brain and central nervous system literally shutting down from an overload of negative information. Rather than focusing positive energy on the kind of action that would generate an outcome, the negative individual has decided instead that he would prefer to dwell on how tough he has it and how he can't change a thing.
All of the energy that is instead redirected into negative thought is actually physically and psychologically demanding, and the brain shuts down any further action in order to conserve energy and promote survival. After all, what is the point of wasting energy on action when nothing can be done to improve the individual's circumstances?
Instead of action, the individual takes the last ditch resort to promote survival and improve his condition: he engages in the cry for help, in other words, he complains - he complains about why things are unfair, how hard he has it and asks what he has ever done to deserve being mistreated so poorly. The survival mechanism is predicated on the assumption here that somebody will listen to the cry for help and come to the individual's rescue. Who knows, maybe somebody will. But in the long run, it is not good for:
- self-esteem building
- the feeling of accomplishment when you know you have achieved something by yourself
- happiness
- feeling of security in a constant, reliable stream of success
- learning valuable lessons about life
Another point is that positive energy and confidence actually happen to be attractive to women, and negative energy is a repellent. I'm not saying this is the way things should be. A lot of guys with positive energy and confidence show narcissistic and sociopathic tendencies. A lot of guys suffering depression, anxiety or stress may be experiencing a temporary phase in their life. They might be altruistic people. They might have many positive traits and even some attractive traits (intellectual, physical and assertiveness-based). But the bottom line is, this is the way things are - even if you don't personally think that's right (subjective!) - and any period spent 'stuck in a rut' is not going to be conducive to success.
Besides, 80/20 theory is NOT an accurate representation. Men would have evolved with much lower sex drives. Men with high sex drives simply could not cope: there would be significantly higher crime rates, violence against women and violence against sexually successful men (note: this does happen to an extent however, as was the case with the notorious 2014 Isla Vista shootings). But most men do not engage in these levels of insane, catastrophic thinking: most men are relatively relaxed and go about their regular 9-5 schedules, albeit somewhat begrudgingly.
2. Evidence behind the theory
It's near enough impossible to find direct evidence that 20% of men sleep with 80% of women (or with my argument that it's probably more like 40% of men sleep with 60% of women). But evidence can definitely be found for what I will define as hypergamous female practices.
Not all the evidence that get's referred to is solid or conclusive, for example a lot of it is just social experiment stuff posted on youtube, but still happens to be somewhat informative.
Vitalyzd happens to be quite an attractive, youthful and confident youtuber, so you'd expect him to be successful in his approaches, but many of his 'gold digger prank' youtube experiments seem to suggest that women on the whole are more interested in him when he has proven that he has a nice flash car and wad full of cash. This is evidence of female hypergamy in so far as these women are interested in the 'money' and 'status' (professionalism = high status) elements of the LMS triad:
In one of his many infield footages of live interactions with random women, Owen Cook also demonstrated how women tend to react differently from sexual comments made by an intellectual, low testosterone male with a solid work ethic compared to a high testosterone male with a fun-loving outgoing party attitude. The difference was that the latter kind of 'alpha' male received more positive comments than the former kind of 'beta'.
I am highly sceptical of a 'survey' conducted by an anonymous female and self-proclaimed psychology student on this website (by the way other similar takes have arisen from self-proclaimed psychology students posting as an anonymous female). As I say, I don't know what the truth is behind these unsubstantiated claims but if she is correct, then her experiments demonstrates that a small pool of males are promiscuous compared to a much more sizeable proportion of females on Timber (out of 600 participants, 300 male, 300 female, only 50 males were successful on Tinder, compared to 240 females).
A more scientific study would be the 1989 Elaine-Hatfield study that proved most men (75%+) would say "yes" to casual sex proposals when approached by an attractive member of the opposite gender, compared to the fact that absolutely no women (0%) would oblige given the same proposal. Of course, this study is not without criticism given the increased risks women face (STIs, pregnancy and physical danger), or the fact of need for emotional intimacy. Nonetheless, these risks can be mitigated (contraception and only taking the man back to the woman's apartment, OR getting the man's contact details to establish some form of trust over time).
Also if women need emotional intimacy for sex, this is just evidence that sexual pleasure is not something valued in and of itself (after all in women, the libido cannot be easily separated from the personal connection to one's partner). Furthermore, this study is evidence of hypergamy given the fact women are so incredibly selective about sexual partners and would not consider intercourse with the vast majority of men.
What makes women so hypergamous? As mentioned before, there are plenty of surveys and social experiments conducted that have demonstrated this same fixation women have with wealth and status:
Another theory for this selectiveness / sexual hypergamy that you find in women would be the very fact that female attraction is an essentially irrational phenomena. The linked reference here lists hundreds of reasons from a University of Austin study why women choose to have sex. Compared to the near-universality of traits that men find attractive in women there is virtually no correlation in female desire whatsoever. This means that men will need to have a lot of attractive attributes to be deemed worthy of female attention. That's because of all the different things women are typically attracted to compared to the near universality of what men consider attractive.
3. The 40 percent man theory still has a pro-male agenda
Funny, that I have feminists calling me MGTOW on one hand and MGTOWs calling me feminist on the other. The truth is, this theory is still pro-male in so far as it points out the systemic inequalities in dating for the young male. Of course, the situation is reversed for the moderately attractive man as he get's into his 30s and he has his selection then of either young women that are sexually available or older women that wish to settle down and have children. However, most men would attest to the fact that if they could choose one period in their life to have their pick of women, it would most certainly be in their 20s when they:
- don't have the same work commitments,
- are youthful and high energy
- have a higher sex drive
- want something to remember their youth by
But I digress, this is not relevant to most women who are simply more interested in emotionally mature and financially stable men from an early age. Of course, this has a very good biological rational (women are looking for survivors to pass on good genes and provide a stable and nurrturing family habitat, after all). The average man that doesn't have the ideal, desirable qualities to most women will simply have to accept his lot. Usually this means he either:
- commits to one woman that will be within his league if he is lucky (most monogamous relationships do not last that long in a man's twenties, anyway);
- he is promiscuous, it will mainly be with very undesirable women or else he will be forced to use strippers and escorts; otherwise, he remains celibate and inexperienced (possibly even a virgin) until his sexual market value begins to rise at a later age (assuming this man has a good exercise and diet regiment combined with a solid work ethic).
How is this a pro-male perspective? Simple. I am not denying the inequalities of the contemporary dating game, nor am I necessarily justifying certain trends in female dating behaviour (which are defined throughout the course of this take). I am simply denying that - as tough as it may be, and as unlikely it may be to find that one needle in the haystack (i.e. that one good girl) - men are not owed anything.
Ultimately men have the choice of lowering their standards or raising their appeal. Sure women might have standards too (arguably higher than that of men, if you agree with the premises of this take) however they are nonetheless equally and morally entitled to their standards the same way men are. I think that what makes the dating game so tough at times is the complexity and level of nuanced difference between the standards of the respective genders. These guys that cry out LOOKS! MONEY! STATUS! often have very little idea of what it is precisely women are attracted to. I don't profess to be an expert by any means but the research I've done shows radically different conclusions to a straight forward LMS triad.
4. The theory is more credible
Women cannot dismiss such a theory as ridiculous so easily as they would a take like this one for example, which compares the day in the life of an 'average' female versus that of an 'average' male:
A day in the lift of the average 5/10 girl: Wake up to 23 text messages waiting to be answered on your phone. Check your email/facebook/twitter and have 295 likes on that new selfie you took of yourself. You want more attention though, so you shower up, put some clothes on, put on the makeup, and snap a quick selfie of yourself that you quickly upload to facebook. Get on the bus, and several men stand up to give you their seat. You get hit on by a nice guy on the bus who is slightly above average looking, but not good enough so you friendzone him before he asks for your number. Get off the bus, head to class, where the professor gives a lecture on how women have it so difficult in America and how there is still male privilege out there. You grit your teeth at how unfair women have it. Men are pigs! Later on, you meet up with your girlfriends to go clubbing. You are hit on by an uncountable amount of men, and after using several of them for free drinks, you ditch them and start dancing with your girlfriends.
5/10 male: Wake up to 2 text messages one from your mum one from your phone provider. Check your email/facebook/twitter of your crush and she has already dozen guys white knighting her via social media. you get on the bus and go to school. You send a snapchat to your crush hoping she will notice your 15lbs of lean gains, truth is she couldn't care less. get off the bus, head to class, where the teacher gives a lecture on how difficult women have it in America and how there is still male privilege out there. Your forced to join the everyone in their chants of #yesallwomen. You check your snapchat and your crush stilll hasn't replied, don't worry it's only midday. You accidentally trip on your way to work and 29 women and several men all laugh at you. You see a reply from your crush. She says "that's cool" code for 'Phuck off I'm about to meet up withTravis for a quickie. He's a drugdealer, but he has a motorcycle and plays drums in a band.
Another example of the kind of guy that suffers from LMS syndrome would be the user that posted a take about good looks and social status. In this take he's basically promoting the stereotype that all nice guys are just boring, unattractive guys that don't assert themselves and good guys are the opposite of all this and are therefore successful attracting women. Actually, you see this phenomena in some feminists as well. The difference with this guy, is that he posts a picture of a guy that is actually pretty good looking by conventional standards, labels him average then insists that this kind of guy would be hooking up with someone sorely below his league.
Obviously takes like these need to be taken with a healthy pinch of salt. It doesn't really help MGTOWs that are trying to prove a valid point about female hypergamy because they won't get taken seriously. E.g. looking at some of the female responses from each of the respective takes, we can see that what I say is true. From the first question, women have written the following:
You're a f**ing dumbass
You are comparing a girl who is wildly popular, extremely good looking, a little shallow and very self absorbed to an undeniably average guy
Hahahahahahaha brb dying of laughter #maletears
In the my take, they have written:
Funny how you posted a pic of an average guy and want us to sympathize with him because he's apparently nice.
I love how a bit part of your take is basically your being upset that people, namely girls, don't treat 'nice guys' better than anyone else solely because they're nice. Because, being nice is super taxing on them, and very charitable, right?
It seems like you only hang out with a certain type of woman and think we're all the same. This take is so unbelievably ignorant and blindly full of itself, I don't even know what to say. Not that it matters anyway, somehow I get the feeling that you're so closed minded and bitter that there would be no point in saying anything.
I can almost guarantee that by contrast, a take such as this one, although it has a similar agenda, it will generate a very different level of response and more interesting debate in general.
Conclusion
It's true: the world does not owe men a stream of passionate, steamy sex with hot women anymore than it owes women a stable and committed lover. Not that there aren't promiscuous women and not that there aren't men looking for love and relationships. However, it does seem there is a gynocentric bias in dating that does not favour men. Any negativity, bitterness or frustration you see in young men from their lack of sexual prowess is somewhat understandable in the very least. In particular, these trends of female hypergamous dating that I've mentioned throughout seem to be more prevalent among young, moderately attractive western women than any other group of females.
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