Summary: New stats show the continued rise in chastity among young men. They point to strange but useful insights about America’s future. This is a follow-up to yesterday’s Top pop stars prepare women for loneliness.
I reject betas. Call me when I’m thirty.
The bolts are popping out of American society, as the machinery that ties us together disintegrates. Marriage evolves into shacking up (more fragile, worse for the kids). Dating evolves into hook-ups. But even those crude and dysfunctional forms of relationships are too difficult for America to maintain. Sex, as usually, shows the real nature of society. Young men are having less of it, a trend showing no signs of stopping.
“The share of Americans not having sex has reached a record high.”
By Christopher Ingraham at the WaPo.
Data from the General Social Survey.
The next graph shows the bottom line: the number of young men celibate for the past year has doubled from the average of the two decades 1989 – 2009. Other graphs show that overall sexual activity by guys has decreased in broad terms (i.e., the number of men having sex weekly and monthly has also declined).
I wrote about this a year ago: The rising number of celibate men: it’s an alarm. Then, as now, the reaction of the great and wise is to blame America’s young men. It’s their just deserts! Most men are betas. Their role of young betas in our new society is to wait patiently while women work on their careers and chase alphas. Betas can get more sex when women eventually decide to “settle” for them. This is explained below. But first, some advice.
Pop stars tell young men about life in the new era
(1) Taylor Swift shows how hot women do Game.
Have a beta boyfriend to take you to dinner and a movie. Have him take you home. Kiss his cheek at the door and fondly wave good-bye. Later go out with your real boyfriend – a bad boy, a real man. He might treat you like dirt and mock your feminist principles. But you’ll love him anyway. Just as Taylor Swift does.
(2) Life as an omega male: you can dream, but that’s all you get.
No documentary you saw in grade school so honestly showed life as an omega as “Touch My Body” by Mariah Carey (2009). 176 million views.
(3) Advice for guys – Begging is beta. It won’t work.
Shawn Mendes demonstrates this in “Treat You Better” (2017). 1.7 billion views on YouTube. Mendes sings about a pitiful ignorant beta. She knows everything he says. How stupid does he think she is? She doesn’t want to be treated “better” (i.e., what he considers “better”).
“I know he’s just not right for you
And you can tell me if I’m off
But I see it on your face
When you say that he’s the one that you want …
“I know I can treat you better than he can
And any girl like you deserves a gentleman
Tell me why are we wasting time
On all your wasted crying …
“I just wanna give you the loving that you’re missing
Baby, just to wake up with you
Would be everything I need and this could be so different
Tell me what you want to do …
“Take my hand, we’ll be fine
Promise I won’t let you down …”
Pop music teaches men many lessons about 21st Century women.
Music videos are the cheapest and easiest education you will ever get. For more examples see Taylor Swift shows us love in the 21st century.
They also provide education for girls: Top pop stars prepare women for loneliness.
When the wall approaches
When “the wall” approaches, women become interested in betas – as sperm donors, helping care for the babies, providers of beta bucks, and companions (to be divorced when no longer needed or desired). This is called “settling”, a stage in Girls’ Game: romance, party-of-her-life, marriage, kids, divorce, money (community property & child support, details here), and independence.
See these articles in The Atlantic explaining “settling” to women: “The Case for Mr. Not-Quite-Right“, “The case for settling for Mr. Good Enough“, and “Reader, Marry Him!“ Settling even works for women in our elite classes.
“When looking for a life partner, my advice to women is date all of them: the bad boys, the cool boys, the commitment-phobic boys, the crazy boys. But do not marry them. The things that make the bad boys sexy do not make them good husbands. When it comes time to settle down, find someone who wants an equal partner. Someone who thinks women should be smart, opinionated and ambitious. Someone who values fairness and expects or, even better, wants to do his share in the home.”
— Sheryl Sandberg (COO of Facebook) in her best-seller Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead
A similar recommendation is given by feminist writer Cristiana Bedei in “Why ‘Settling. Was The Best Decision I Ever Made” at Refinery 29 (h/tip to Dalrock). Her opening …
“When I met my now soon-to-be fiancé, five years ago, I didn’t really think much of him – or us, as a thing. There was no magic or butterflies. …he was way more interested in me than I was in him.”
Five years later, that’s still true.
“He was not my usual type, to be honest. On a dating app, he wouldn’t have stood a chance, with his serious tone and all. Also, I was 25 and pretty much committed to finding a male version of myself. I pictured me and my perfect mate listening to the same music, going to the same events, and doing things together all the time – this person just wasn’t any of this. And to this day, we don’t have that much in common.”
In 900 words she has not said much good about him (her description would be complementary – about a dog). She does not want children, and probably will stay with him until someone better comes along or she gets bored. Her essay implies that one or the other will happen, eventually.
What comes next in the gender wars?
“As more and more women extend the period of time they focus on “finding themselves” until their late 20s and early 30s, an equally large number of men will spend a decade or more waiting for their future wives to tire of having sex with other men.”
— Dalrock looks at marriage in “Time and fantasy.“
Girl’s Game has worked well for two generations (I doubt the same can be said for men’s Game, used by pick-up artists and such). See Millennial girls had a golden age. Gen Z’s inherit wreckage.
Trivia note: this has not worked well for our children. In 2005/06 less than 60% of US adolescents (11, 13, and 15 years old) lived with both birth parents, per the OECD Family Database (source). That was the lowest level among OECD nations. That number is probably lower today – probably much lower. This has helped fuel the rising rate of psychological problems in our young.
But all good games come to an end, since even marks eventually learn. After a decade of little luck with women – with their time and energy spent on booze, drugs, sports, video games, and porn – will the men of Millennials and especially Generation Z marry when their cohorts’ women hang out the “ready and eligible” signs? Will these men risk the high divorce rate and brutally male-hating family courts? Dalrock describes this future with scary boldness in “Time and Fantasy.”
There are already hints that many men will say “no” to women’s offers of marriage. We see few complaints by men about women unwilling to marry them, but increasing volume of complains vice versa. Women see themselves as prizes. Refusal of men to marry them means that the men are defective – or that men worthy of them are in short supply. Journalists supply supporting stories. Such as “Peter Pan Syndrome: A Man’s Fear of Commitment” at the Self-Love-Beauty website – “This is when a man is afraid to grow up. They usually put themselves first and do not want to commit to anything. They are unable to face adult feelings and responsibilities.”
Also common is advice for women, telling them how to get married in the new world. Such “Learn how to make him commit: The Secret Lives of Men” by Joel D. Amos. And we see rationalizations. Lots of rationalizations.
“Where have all the good men gone?” by Alana Kirk in the Daily Mail.
“Five single women share why they’ve struggled to find men worth dating. These sassy, sophisticated, solvent women say they are struggling to find other halves that can measure up.”
As in the Daily Mail: “Are reluctant men to blame for so many women being childless?” The answer is, of course, yes. Women are eternal victims, without responsibility for their woes.
More about the next age of America
The future of America will depend on the men of the Millennial and Z generations. Will they marry? If not, our cultural will radically and rapidly change in ways cannot predict – and might not like.
- Men are abandoning the rat race, & changing American society. — See the data.
- Will young men break America’s family structure?
- Part 1: Why men are avoiding work and marriage.
- Part 2: Will today’s young men marry? America’s future depends on the answer.
- The coming crash as men and women go their own way.
- Men are going Galt. Marriage is dying. – A review of books from the cutting edge of the revolution.
For More Information
Ideas! For shopping ideas, see my recommended books and films at Amazon.
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Books to help us understand these massive changes
Sex in History
Men on Strike: Why Men Are Boycotting Marriage, Fatherhood, and the American Dream – and Why It Matters
Premarital Sex in America: How Young Americans Meet, Mate, and Think about Marrying
The War on Sex
Cheap Sex: The Transformation of Men, Marriage, and Monogamy
Sociologist Lisa Wade spent five years studying the ‘hookup culture’ for her book American Hookup: The New Culture of Sex on Campus
