Sexual economics: sex as female resource for social exchange in heterosexual interactions

[LoZoccolo]

http://www.csom.umn.edu/Assets/71503.pdf

[Fumesucker]

1. !

:popcorn:

[hifiguy]

12. I am with you.

:popcorn:

This could be good.

[LoZoccolo]

21. I'm surprised it's been kind-of disappointing.

I thought that the porn threads would spill into here.

[Warren DeMontague]

31. I think I suggested a similar proposition in one of the threads

seems sort of obvious, and I would go so far as to say it might explain the seemingly hard-wired innate need by some females to 'regulate' the general social level of sexual availability, be that through slut-shaming or trying to stamp out porn.

:hide:

[PassingFair]

43. None of the females here seek to "regulate" or "ban" porn.

I think cigarettes are bad for people too, but I don't want to ban them.

MOST women don't want to deal with men who waste their time
and/or money on porn.

And we have a right to reject pornography users as lovers and husbands.

And we do.

Just saying.

[Warren DeMontague]

80. oh no! Sorry, I'm not available, if that's where you were going with that.

Taken.

[closeupready]

2. Poor form to post something like this without comment of your own.

For that reason, I am unreccing this.

[Sherman A1]

3. I will K&R

because I can read it myself and develop my own opinions.

[LoZoccolo]

4. Why?

In certain Japanese forums, it's considered polite not to put your own opinion in the original post (and also, to use the option not to send the thread to the top of the list when you respond to your own thread).

[closeupready]

5. When did DU become a Japanese forum? Hey, look, dewd, you can do whatever you want.

If my unrecc is the only one your thread gets, maybe that makes me weird, but I think if you want to post something like this on a discussion forum, YOU need to open the discussion with not just the story, but with your editorial comments/assessment of the article.

Nothing personal.

[LoZoccolo]

6. What would be the purpose of that?

So that people can decide if they'd like to read it? There's an abstract at the beginning which gives a summary of the article. If I did post my opinion, wouldn't the risk be that the topic would become about my intentions in posting it rather than the content of the article?

[closeupready]

7. Setting aside your earlier remarks that implied you prefer not to, just because,

if a news article or paper strikes you as so interesting or compelling that you consider it worthy of discussion on a discussion board which you frequent (as you do here on DU), it helps to get that discussion going by positing your own thoughts about the piece - whether the authors were right or wrong, how the findings make you feel, or what it says about our society or people in general, etc.

If you don't want to do that, don't. But I think it's rude to simply post a link without not only your thoughts about the piece, but without any 'fair use' excerpt which DU's rules provide for.

[ProfessorGAC]

8. +!

This isn't LBN. The name of this forum is General Discussion. Posting without comment seems merely to be an attempt to incite.
GAC

[LoZoccolo]

9. I think that there's enough in the article to get the discussion going. n/t

[closeupready]

14. 12 posts (counting this one) and none discussing the subject of the article you posted.

Guess it isn't as interesting as it appeared. Oh, well.

[Chorophyll]

15. The provocative title plus having to download a PDF from who-knows-where

to read it.

And I can pretty much tell from the title that the article would give me a stroke, so... :eyes:

[Boojatta]

18. Here's something that will offend a lot of people ...

Later he speculated that if the government wanted to make marriages more durable, the most effective policy intervention would be to require that fathers retain custody of children after divorce, because this would reduce the men’s ability to attract new sex partners—the implicit assumption being that divorces are caused because husbands but not wives leave their spouses to gain access to new, more exciting sex partners. In effect, this policy would reduce what the divorcing husband could offer another woman in exchange for sex.

[Fawke Em]

32. The illogical aspect of this comment aside...

What mother would want to give up custody? First you're spurned by a cheating spouse and then you have to give up complete custody of your children?

I'm thinking that argument would be rendered moot because no woman would want to get married knowing that she'd lose her children, automatically.

[RC]

17. How about posting something to get people to click on the link in the first place

I usually don't bother clicking on bare links. Why should I click on it without reason? There are plenty of other OP to get my attention.
I normally back out without clicking and fine another OP to look at.

The same goes for videos also. Post some verbiage as to why anyone should add more wear and tear to their mouse button.

[leftstreet]

10. What is Obama's approval rating among social exchange heterosexual females?

whatever those are

[Azathoth]

11. I believe this falls under the technical category of "Duh" n/t

[slackmaster]

24. I'm giving it the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Award for the day...

There's an old saying that women seek the richest man they can attract, and men go for the most desirable woman they can afford.

[MedicalAdmin]

84. There's another old saying.

Men go on dates hoping to get lucky, while women go on dates already knowing.

I must agree with other posters that blind links do not encourage reading, however a .edu suffix did help in deciding to click. Overall, a thought provoking article and one of the downsides of the publish or die ethos of academics.

[d_r]

13. I don't see that an economic exchange view

is orthogonal to an ethological view or a social constructionist view; it seems quite consistent with either.

[SpiralHawk]

19. of coarse

tis

[county worker]

16. I don't mean this as a bragging thing but I have lots of questions about this.

First, I don't buy the idea that men purchase sex from women with some means of exchange. Nor do women purchase sex from men.

In the 1980's I moved from Ohio to California. I moved to the Los Angeles area. I was a 35 year old single guy and newly divorced. I did not look my age. I was always the one on our group that got carded even though I was usually the oldest. Now most of the romantic engagements I has at that time were instigated by women and not by me. I never accepted the idea that women had some kind of different sexual appetite from men and I still don't.

[LoZoccolo]

20. Just because they made the first move doesn't mean that they still didn't expect anything from it.

It's also possible to have an appetite for something, and yet withhold satisfying it for some other goal.

[county worker]

22. They expected sex.

[LoZoccolo]

23. Are you sure that's all?

Are you sure you're sure?

[arbusto_baboso]

25. Gotta agree with county worker on this one.

Women want sex. Period. Took me awhile to realize this when I was younger, due to MY OWN social conditioning to believe what you and the paper at the link are positing.

Indeed, I think that acknowledging that women want sex as much as men do is the next logical step in female empowerment. Certainly keeping women under the old ways as "more pure" than men simply facilitates keeping women subjugated.

[LoZoccolo]

26. I don't think that the paper assumes that they don't. n/t

[arbusto_baboso]

27. But it DOES assume women are "after something" when they pursue sex.

Sorry, but my own empirical experiences argue otherwise. Large numbers of women are still into "no strings attached" sex. In fact, they are much more able to emotionally compartmentalize than men seem to be, from what I've seen.

[ieoeja]

72. The article is not about absolutes.

I think both sides of this debate are half correct. At some point in life, I achieved the status of "a good catch". And that killed my sex life.

I would say most (not all) women sometimes have sex with a man just because they want to have sex with him. I was on the receiving end of that a few times. But once I became** a good catch, a lot of women (not all) have used sex as a means to catch me.

Actually, they withhold sex as a means to catch me which is really, really stupid. They seem to think that if they have no-strings attached sex with me those strings will remain untied. Despite the fact that most of the women in question know perfectly well that my relationship with my (now*** ex-)wife began as a one-night stand.

The last that actually did sleep with me put a price on it: "I will have sex with you, but only if you promise to take me out on a date later." Not to get too mushy here, but up to that point when I had encountered her I lost all track of everthing else around me. When she stated her price, I felt an internal twist. Didn't recognize right that moment, or I would have walked. So she got her one more date. After that, every time I thought of calling her, I thought of her putting a price on the first sexual encounter and thought "she doesn't really want me for me." So I never called.


** Or maybe they just lost interest when I turned 40. Given that, against all expectations^^, I have actually grown older, not younger, in the decade since, I see little hope of ever reaching my 30s again. On the other hand, I might achieve poverty again! So I'm really hoping the problem stems soley from my becoming a good catch.

*** My ex-wife is a perfect example supporting the "sometimes" theory. She freely admits having married me purely because she thought it was the sensible thing to do, and ultimately left me because she was never really all that attracted to me. On the other hand, she has openly had encounters with men just because she wanted to have sex with them.

^^ I am a very optimistic person.

[seabeyond]

28. wrong place

[county worker]

44. Yes, I was there.

I think sometime people attach way too much to the act of having sex because of some need to raise it up to some ethereal level.

[Rex]

83. Or maybe they loath sex and think everyone is a sinner and going to hell.

Seems that way with some of the posters, they want everyone to hate sex as much as they do.

[lapislzi]

36. And you would be right

Despite a repressive Catholic upbringing, I have always been a sexually independent woman. If I wanted to have sex with a man, I told him so. This made a LOT of men uncomfortable. There's a certain type of guy (the kind I go for) that's comfortable with the kind of woman I am.

I am lucky enough to have married one. Happy ending every time!

[Name removed]

29. Deleted message

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[Name removed]

34. Deleted sub-thread

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[Name removed]

37. Deleted message

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[Warren DeMontague]

41. why not, indeed.

[hifiguy]

47. What you said, EOTE.

In trump cards.

[NashVegas]

38. There Comes a Time In Every Woman's Life

When she gets sick and freaking tired of having to pay for oil changes.



... just sayin' ...

[seabeyond]

39. there comes a time in every man's life

when he gets sick and freaking tired of having to pay for a dry cleaners????

this is really why people hook up? really?

and all men do the oil changes? and all women do the ironing?

that would eb why i see so many men getting their oil changed at a business, sitting right next to me.

brilliant

[Warren DeMontague]

81. I get my oil changed at the dry cleaners

and the jiffy lube people can't figure out why they've got 10 pairs of my slacks.

[LoZoccolo]

40. I'm not.

It says that prostitution is stigmatized by women in the article.

[seabeyond]

46. post 20. the stigmatization has nothing to do with the definition. post 20

you defined women as whores. holding out sex for a pay off.

stigmatization solely on women is bullshit, too. hence a handful of men on her reducing women to just that. how much respect is there? are you trying to convince us it is not about dissing women. and are you really gonna convince me a man wants a prostitute for anything more than using her. plenty of stigmatization on mens part. an absurd argument.

[LoZoccolo]

48. That's not the definition of a whore in the article. n/t

[seabeyond]

49. so you have found a way to call all women whores while denying that is just what you are doing

yup. kinda like, implying but not out right saying it. hence, my original post.

[LoZoccolo]

50. So you're saying if a woman has sex, and expects anything other than enjoyment of the sex itself

that she's a whore?

[seabeyond]

51. that is exactly the intent of this article. and put up purposely to play the game on du. nt

[LoZoccolo]

52. For the second time, the article does not define prostitution that way.

It says that most women stigmatize prostitution. How would that be calling all women whores, if the article is about things like why prostitution is stigmatized?

[seabeyond]

53. again... the article found a way to call all women whores and pretend not. and again

as much as you want to say iti s women taht do the stigmatizing, men dont think a whole hell of a lot of these women either. so it is absurd to merely point the finger at women. it is such a ridiculous conclusion.

[LoZoccolo]

54. I'd like to get a grip on an assumption you're making.

Do you think that:

1. I think that women who want something in exchange for sex are whores, or
2. You think that women who want something in exchange for sex are whores, or
3. The article says that women who want something in exchange for sex are whores, or
4. People in general think that women who want something in exchange for sex are whores, or
5. You have another definition of "whore" that you'd like to share.

[redqueen]

55. Have you seriously somehow missed the conventional wisdom

that so very many men are so very fond of sharing? That being that "all women are prostitutes" because of the same kind of idiocy which is so very academically displayed in the 300+ page lump of excrement that you linked to in the OP?

[seabeyond]

57. yes. they pretend. they imply. they wiggle around. they giggle. and then, they pretend

they also like to pretend that really, they respect the stripper and the prostitute, until the time the subject does not warrant they pretend. then you know exactly what they think of the women cause they let go.

then they pretend

when called on it.

and women are the ones being lectured here. what a fuckin joke

[LoZoccolo]

58. I don't think that all women are prostitutes.

I've said that I don't think that. And neither do the authors of the article think that.

[redqueen]

63. Did I ask you if that's what you thought?

Let me try to re-state in terms that you won't miss.

Are you or are you not aware of the conventional wisdom shared by many men that "all women are prostitutes" based on this theory you apparently share?

[LoZoccolo]

65. What would be the definition of "prostitute" in that statement of conventional wisdom? n/t

[redqueen]

66. *sigh*

I'm just going to assume you're being disingenuous. It's the kinder assumption.

Good day.

[LoZoccolo]

68. "I'm just going to assume you're being disingenuous. It's the kinder assumption. Good day." n/t

[Major Nikon]

82. I don't know why the concept seems so foreign to you

Dworkin and other feminists have been saying the same thing for decades.

Women have wanted intercourse to work and have submitted—with regret or with enthusiasm, real or faked—even though or even when it does not. The reasons have often been foul, filled with the spiteful but carefully hidden malice of the powerless. Women have needed what can be gotten through intercourse: the economic and psychological sur‘rival; access to male power through access to the male who has it; having some hold—psychological, sexual, or economic—on the ones who act, who decide, who matter.

-- ANDREA DWORKIN,
From, Intercourse (New York: The free Press, 1987), 128-143.

Dworkin was saying essentially the same thing, only instead of calling women whores she chose to turn it around and basically call men rapists for somehow forcing women into that situation. Regardless it's the same school of thought in that women are getting something from men as the end result of "fucking".

[trackfan]

30. In other news: Dog Bites Man. n/t

[Donald Ian Rankin]

33. Hmm. I think there's a key point they're missing.

Or at least, in a quick skim-read, I didn't notice this.

I think they're probably right that, on average, men want sex more than women want sex, and so "sex <=> sex + resource" is often a valid mutually-beneficial trade. But "on average, women want sex less than men" does not imply "women do no want sex" - most women want sex too, and so "sex <=> sex" is also a valid mutually-beneficial trade, and I suspect significantly more common, at least among my peer group.

So what they have is something that theoretically *can* happen, and they provide convincing evidence that in many places it does, but it's not universal.

The bit that most interests me is the section on courtship - I think the extend to which the lead in courtship is taken by men more than women is probably a good measure of the extent to which their analysis can be applied to a given society.

[RainDog]

59. courtship with patriarchal systems of controls tells about the system of control

not the desire of the women within that system.

[Blue_Tires]

35. So? Is it something you agree or disagree with?

Or are you just baiting the hook?

I'm also curious why you didn't put it in that 900-post thread

[LoZoccolo]

42. I think it would have been lost in the 900-post thread.

Also, it may be considered off-topic by certain standards of what is off-topic.

[guitar man]

45. Well Duh!

:silly:

[RainDog]

56. the article finds its premise isn't universal by looking beyond hetero relationships

and ignores the impact of thousands of years of religious and economic oppression of females within the context of heterosexual marriage.

it basically restates Engels' belief that the first instance of slavery was fathers selling their daughters like prostitutes in order to gain some economic advantage but ignore that, historically, the benefit was FOR THE MALE in a female's family, not the female. the reason this happened is because females were not allowed to inherit in patriarchal societies. we continue to live in societies, nearly globally, in which females are economically disadvantaged in comparison to men - even in the U.S. Our economic and religious systems are still based upon this same premise because they continue to devalue women's work and lives. women are still paid less than men for comparable work and professions that move from being historically male to female find those same professions are paid less when they are culturally viewed as "female" professions.

if the economic and cultural playing field were level, fewer women would use sex as a way to improve their economic position because they could choose to have sex as they liked and the cost of bearing children would not impact their lives to the same degree. we have seen this (and the conservative outrage) in the whole "Murphy Brown" moment. wealthy women do not withhold sex because they have sufficient financial resources to make their own decisions about with whom to have sex and how often.

historically, among wealthy families whose females were used to cement power via arranged marriages between resource-rich families, and in which divorce was not possible, female sexual activity was not dependent upon economic factors apart from her economic role as the provider of a male to inherit wealth. these women had affairs because they wanted to be with someone - their interest in sex was not in their married lives - that was a business arrangement between families. so the economic exchange model fails in such cases because the only time resource exchange for female sex is part of the issue is when females have to fulfill their duty to have sex with someone their families forced them to marry.

history is replete with entire cultures in which women in wealthy families had sex for the pleasure of being with someone. the issue of stigma for a child in that situation did not exist because the economic arrangement between families gave any child that resulted from a love affair a place within society as the child via the husband - even if that person were not the father. when economic resources of males are less secure, there is more pressure on females to not have sex for love because the male does not want to spend resources on someone else's child.

when there are more women than men in a society, more women would be able to obtain jobs that pay more money because fewer men are around to do them. this correlates with the study's view that more females than males in a population reduces the exchange value. What the authors fail to address or even look at, it seems, is if economic independence plays a role in this and limit their view to head counts rather than financial accounts.

Since the authors note that this same sort of "transaction" does not exist in lesbian relationships, the logical question would be why and the logical answer would be that both females contribute to their economic survival because there is no societal expectation for the other gender to control financial resources. -- because this same sort of love for its own sake exists in other instances in which females have greater parity with males in financial security.

when religions teach females that their value to god is in their refusal to have sex outside of an economic situation in which males have greater power - how can anyone think it makes sense to try to pretend this long, long history doesn't co-exist with the long, long history of women's weaker economic position?

iow, this paper fails to examine the ideology underlying economics in which its observations take place.

[LoZoccolo]

60. Thank you for your on-topic response, free of ad hominems. n/t

[seabeyond]

61. like it is not obvious to a half way thinking person. nt

[EOTE]

62. LOL. NT.

[redqueen]

64. +1

Rain Dog was far kinder than I, in stating that it failed due to not taking majorly important factors into consideration.

I think my analysis (it is a lump of excrement) is fair enough.

[LadyHawkAZ]

69. Great post, wish I could rec it. n/t

[redqueen]

70. Did you understand it? She basically said that the article,

and therefore, your similar OP, were failures due to not taking enormous factors into consideration.

It's sad how many people find idiocy 'interesting'.

But then I suppose some people also find climate change denial diatribes to be interesting as well.

Shame that anyone would be required to respond to such nonsense with the degree of seriousness and thoroughness that RainDog did... but then most people have a much better grasp of the issue of climate change than they do these issues... so it's really not surprising.

It's tragic that feminists can't expect that level of understanding, even on progressive boards. The only place to dare to expect that, I suppose, is on feminist sites.

I think your sense of vindication is sadly mistaken.

[LadyHawkAZ]

73. If I didn't find idiocy interesting, I'd have more people

on Ignore.

There are some people I don't bother to post long thoughtful responses to because there is no point. Either one agrees with them, or one gets an eyeful of irrational rage. I post thoughtful responses to people who seem receptive to them. In these threads, that means "very few people".

The earlier conversation I referenced had me pointing out the barter basis of relationships and asking for detail of how, say, an expensive piece of jewelry differed from a straight cash transaction, if a woman was equally incapable of giving consent after the gift was given as she (apparently) is in the presence of money, and if/how the gift-related sex ought to be prosecuted. At which point I got huffed and puffed at and don't believe I ever got a rational answer. I think your call on my sense of vindication is completely in error.

I find it a bit tragic myself that feminists have to fight to convince other "feminists" that women are not mindless children and are capable of making their own choices about their own bodies. Especially on progressive boards. Everyone's got their complaints. Not all are valid.

[LadyHawkAZ]

74. Incidentally, failing to account for historical factors

does not negate the study; leaving out the historical/religious background does not mean the behavior pattern does not exist, in the described form, today. I think you may have misread the failure bit at the end of her post.

[seabeyond]

75. the failure bet is cause they did not take any of it into account. and not taking into it into

account allows this person to say that it is innate, biological. hence, why he failed to put that into the paper. he is saying, this is just what women are.

[LadyHawkAZ]

76. Kathleen Vohs is a she

Roy Baumeister is a he, and the word you are looking for is "they". You would know that if you'd actually read or even glanced at it, since the names were in bold letters at the top. You'd also have found their conclusion that the system is primarily cultural, not innate. Way to out yourself for not reading the material which is the topic of the thread you've now posted to at least nine times.

[LadyHawkAZ]

67. Congrats, LoZo. You posted something interesting!

And to think when I made a similar statement awhile back noting that dating, courtship and marriage in society today are all barter-based, I got told I must never have been married or had children since I had no understanding of relationships.

I feel vindicated.

Very interesting article, thank you for posting.

[LanternWaste]

71. Everybody's gotta believe something...

Everybody's gotta believe something... :shrug:

[Major Nikon]

77. Sex is a dirty, filthy, disgustingly repulsive act

That's why you should save it for the one you love.

[LoZoccolo]

78. You should check out the article.

It proposes an explanation for why that notion persists.

[Major Nikon]

79. I did

That was my idea of rhetorically poking fun at it.

I have never viewed sex as a resource and from an early age I simply refused to fall into that trap. If a partner viewed the act of sex as a condition for anything, I was out. Sex is and should be a mutually benefitial act. When it ceases to be so, the deterioration of the relationship is not far behind.