The Titillating Trysts of the Trendsetting Troubador Tells of Trouble over Time.
Readership: All
Author’s Note: This post had some input from Deti and Jack.
Length: 3,000 words
Reading Time: 10 minutes
Introduction
In a previous post, The Future of Intersexual Relationships is Transactional (2021 March 12), we discussed how the longitudinal effects of swipe/online dating, hookup culture, and amateur prostitution are currently transforming the SMP.
Women will have no safety or security. They will have to provide for it themselves, with their own money, or else finagle it from men. They will shout louder and complain more about men’s boorish, hamfisted conduct. They can demand more police and white knight protection, and will get it. But it will not really compare with having one man she trusts implicity to give her that safety and security.
All this will have the effect of preventing all but the most valuable women from being able to keep any man at all. And this drives women’s status down. The only “status” women will have is material acquisition and monetary wealth. They’ll be acting like men – working to acquire money and status, for “independence”.
Because of the obvious weaknesses of the Transactional Model, a few other life scripts are being aggressively pushed. One of these scripts which addresses the lag in “status” is the “Kardashian Fantasy” model.
Wait, wait … The Kardashians? Really, Now?
Yes.
I am not a television watcher, pretty much at all. I have never seen the Kardashian TV program “Keeping Up With The Kardashians” (which apparently is ending a 14-year run this year) — known in the industry as “KUWTK”. I became familiar with the Kardashians because posts about them persistently made their way into the news feed on my phone, regardless of adjusting the settings to avoid that. After a while, I became curious and looked into what they were about, and what I saw was quite astounding in many ways.
But, before we get to that, some background. I suspect that many of the readers, perhaps most of you, were as clueless as I was about this massive cultural phenomenon other than a vague awareness on the periphery of our consciousness. That’s understandable, and it’s how I was about them before I started investigating them at some stage last year.
The Kardashians are a Los Angeles based family of five sisters, one brother and their mother. The mother, Kris Jenner (born Houghton), age 65, is known as the “momager” (i.e., mom/manager) of the group. The older three daughters (Kourtney (42), Kim (40) and Khloe (36) are the daughters of Robert Kardashian, who was a lawyer and businessman in Los Angeles, while the younger two (Kendall (25) and Kylie (23)) are the daughters of Bruce, now “Caitlyn”, Jenner. Kris Jenner and Robert Kardashian also had a son, Rob (34). Kris Jenner had a modest background and worked as a flight attendant in the 1970s, when she was in her 20s, before marrying Kardashian. Kardashian was in no way anything approaching as wealthy as the clan became after bigtime fame came along, but was very financially well off (in a more normal, non-stratospheric sense) and extremely well-connected in Hollywood, in part due to his friendship with O. J. Simpson from his college days at USC. The Kardashians grew up in West Los Angeles, and attended wealthy private high schools and prep schools.
Due to their connections on the fringes of Hollywood celebrity culture, the Kardashians were a known entity in that culture for some time going back to the days of the O. J. Simpson trial in the late 1990s, when Robert Kardashian made an appearance as a member of the legal defense team of his personal friend, Simpson. The older daughters were exposed through schooling and socializing to major celebrities growing up, and this formed their social group even though they, themselves, were not yet celebrities in a significant way. Kim Kardashian was known as a stylist of Paris Hilton, who was a very well known celebrity herself, and had made cameo appearances in a few of Hilton’s television shows, but Kim was not yet a very famous name of her own.
That changed in March 2007, with the release of an explicit 2002 sex tape of Kim with her then-boyfriend Ray J, entitled “Kim Kardashian, Superstar“. Kim and the other Kardashians have denied that the release of the tape was intentional or consensual, and there was some litigation around it that resulted in a cash settlement for Kim. But the main impact of the tape was that it skyrocketed Kim Kardashian to instant fame. And this fame rocket was launched at the same time as the iPhone — the most impactful culture-spreading device ever invented — was released.
Shortly thereafter KUWTK began, which was itself the result of a pitch made by Kris Jenner to Ryan Seacrest around the time that Kim was going viral. As of now, KUWTK is not nearly as popular as it was when it was newer and averaging 3 million or so viewers, and so it has finally been canceled. But its protagonists have long since moved their main publicity vehicle to social media, where their follower numbers are simply extraordinary. Kylie Jenner leads them with 234 million Instagram followers, and Kim (223m), Kendall (165m), Khloe (147m), and Kourtney (122m) are not very far behind. For purposes of comparison, according to Statista, Kylie and Kim are respectively the 4th and 6th most followed individuals on the entire platform. And as for that level of followers, it seems worth noting that there are only 4 countries on Earth that have a higher population than the number of Kylie Jenner’s Instagram followers. The reach is simply staggering, by any measure, and when taken together as a group, their collective cultural reach through social media is unique and utterly incomparable.
As one would expect, this kind of cultural reach has resulted in the accumulation of substantial financial riches. The Kardashians all have side hustles, if you want to call them that, ranging from separate beauty businesses started by Kim and, later, Kylie, to the most recent one, being a branded Tequila grift being peddled by Kendall. And even in her main gig, Kendall Jenner is reportedly the highest-paid model in the world currently. All told, the familial “winnings” are estimated by Forbes to be in the $2 billion range, give or take a few hundred million here and there.
By any measure, the Kardashians are a massive cultural phenomenon. As I note above, it is very easy to overlook this if you are not “plugged in” to the contemporary culture. I am generally not plugged in like that, and so I, too, missed this impact. But once I started to investigate this in the course of the past year, it became clear fairly quickly that this was not an ordinary cultural fad, but rather something that has been long-running and has had an impact, culturally, that is both broad and deep, and, in many ways, has been enhanced precisely because there are so many people like me (and probably you readers) who have been aloof to it and are therefore unaware of the impact it has been having, and continues to have, in the culture around us.
The Kardashians: Both Real and Directed
The more I looked at the Kardashian phenomenon, the clearer I began to see a certain pattern, a certain set of common aspects that ran through the life histories of all of them, as these have been so publicly lived-out on television and in social media. I will point out what these are next, but at the outset it’s critical to keep in mind that the Kardashian image is both real and invented at the same time.
That is, it is a “molded/scripted real life”. It isn’t a real life that would have naturally unfolded had there not been this level of fame and fortune and publicity, and had the life not been lived, for the most part, on television and in social media in front of hundreds of millions of people. Because of those elements, it is a scripted/molded/directed life, but at the same time it isn’t a film or a fiction novel. It is real — it is how they actually live.
Yet it is also a molded/scripted/directed real life, and therein lies the key to understanding the real influence of the Kardashian phenomenon: It is real, which provides the grist for fantasy/aspiration/life-goals, while at the same time it is directed/molded, scripted, which means that the direction(s) that these real lives have taken are not random or necessarily even personal, but have been designed both to reflect, amplify and deepen existing social trends, and drive both social discourse and accepted and desired behaviors in very specific, intentional directions. The Kardashians story line, as parleyed through television and, with much broader reach, social media, is one which follows a very intentional set of directions, both reflecting existing trends and emphasizing/deepening certain other ones, in a way designed to influence the attitudes, expectations and behaviors of the viewers and followers, in various, intended, directions.
These directions form a recognizable set of characteristics, which together form a pattern of life, once one examines the specific lives and then steps back and examines the composite. They are roughly the following:
- Convergence — Changes within the same family over time: In other words, things getting more radicalized, more outre, and more conformed to each other’s behavior in a convergence over time and cascading between the generations of the sisters.
- Baby daddies are the norm: Again remarkable is how ubiquitous this is in the sisters, and how different it is from how Kris started out … and how everything changed during that period from 1975 to now, both for her (see convergence above) and for her daughters.
- Not one lasting marriage: All marriages end in divorce. (Kris doubly divorced, Kim and Khloe are both divorced, Kourtney never bothered to get married but has 3 kids with bad boy baby daddy Scott Disick, Kylie and Kendall haven’t married yet, but Kylie has a baby daddy as well.)
- Financial independence, based on beauty/hotness/sexual power, is the norm and is accessible to all women in the family regardless of their naturally-born “assets”.
- Plastic surgery and enhancements of all kinds are the norm, serving to level the playing field, in terms of natural assets, between the sisters. (There have been dramatic changes in appearance for almost all of them over the years.)
- Gynocentric — Men are bit players, for entertainment/status/sex/attention, but on the periphery of their lives. The women are the center of their own lives and are the power players in every situation (other than “Kimye”, but that was a circus and Kim was always in her own control).
- Poor Masculinity — Men who make appearances are either divorced, baby daddies, sad sacks like brother Rob, or transitioned to women themselves(!).
- Some claim to be religious. (Kim actually had her kids baptized, Armenian-style. Khloe says she prays and goes to church, etc.)
- Interracial — Almost all relationships are with black men.
- Woke — Even the LGBT cultural trend found its way into the Kardashian storyline by means of Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner, and, of course, this was yet another marginalization of a masculine figure in favor of the feminine, quite literally.
Taken together these directions encompass and reinforce the following:
- Normalizing single motherhood.
- Glamorizing female singleness and single motherhood.
- Economic independence.
- Social independence from men, such that marriage is exceptional and odd.
- Divorce, singleness and unpartnered relationships are the norm, as are baby daddies.
- Glamorizing the appearance-centric, attention-centric, surgery and cosmetics-centric glam life for women of all ages (they range through the 20s, 30s, 40s and 60s).
- Marginalizing men in general — either “desirable but disposable” or on a revolving door basis, otherwise often pathetic or even trans.
- The normalization of interracial relationships to the extent that non-interracial ones are exceptional and odd for an entire family of women.
Overall, it’s not a good message to broadcast to the entire culture, and yet, it is front and center.
The Kardashian Fantasy Life Script
This is obviously a fantasy life script that is impossible to attain for virtually any other women in the real world, for numerous reasons, most of them financial and connections-related. That’s clear, so it isn’t a life script that is practicable and actionable for most women.
But the key to understanding the impact is the popularity of the fantasy, and the way it has both been tailored to the existing fantasies of women and has played a significant role in molding and changing/directing women’s fantasy lives (which set goals, expectations and influence behaviors) in certain intended directions over time. And the fact that the Kardashians fame and influence have been as long-running as they have been (and increasingly so over time), and that the lifestyles have become more extreme in wealth, fame and behavior as time has gone along, both indicate another element: A cascading generational impact, and further de-norming, radicalizing, extremizing trends over the course of time, both as exemplified in their lives, and in terms of what is being proposed as aspirational, fantasy scripting for women.
The effect of this aspirational/fantasy scripting is to make the idea of not being married to the same man for very long, or not being married at all, into a desired “life script” (not just for ne’er do well women down the socio-economic ladder, but for glamorous, famous, fabulously wealthy, popular, white women), one that includes kids, broad influence/attention/popularity, glamour, fun, excitement, and so on. It normalizes, practically institutionalizes, the legitimacy of using sexual power, and using whatever means necessary to attain and retain it, as the core lynchpin of a woman’s life design, around which all other elements are arranged to suit. And it subtly encourages things like “LGBT Allyship”, male disposability and unimportance, and, in particular, the cultural marginalization of white men (as exemplified by the extremely odd “lock step” interracial romantic choices of almost all of the Kardashian women) in favor of a world that is female-centered.
In short, this is directed cultural programming of the most subversive type. It’s subversive because it flies under the radar screens of many people (like me for a long time), which acts to magnify its power by means of going un-noticed and therefore not being taken seriously. It’s subversive because it very intentionally blurs the directed and the real, and this approach is not confined to television but extends also to the social media imaging (which is far wider-reaching and more influential), which makes the aspirational/fantasy element more alluring and more effective than an obviously fictional presentation does. And it incorporates very specific elements which appear to be clearly intended to move women, culturally, in a specific set of life trajectories as outlined above.
By this I don’t mean that we will see millions of women becoming Kardashian look and life alikes. No. The Kardashian lifestyle, taken as a whole, is not attainable by almost any real life woman, especially given the wealth and fame levels involved which drive it in reality. But bits and pieces of it are, most definitely. And the spread of these bits and pieces, as adopted by women, because they comprise parts of an aspirational/fantasy script that they find appealing (even if only as a fantasy) is very impactful. Fantasies are powerful — they make for aspirations, on the margins, and influence life expectations and dreams over the course of time. And in the power of shared fantasy lies the key to understanding the kind of influence that the Kardashian phenomenon has had, and is continuing to have, on the culture, especially the culture of American women.
Conclusion: The Emergent Fantasy of the Designer Life
Where is this headed? It’s of course impossible to tell the future with any accuracy, but some general trends are an increased emphasis on the curated life, on arranging one’s life in a way determined by oneself, full stop, on transcending any and all rules and conventions and the like. The Kardashian phenomenon is perhaps the entree into this new, larger trend — the first step towards the popularization in the mass culture of an approach to life which is designed, curated, self-determined, and which ignores all boundaries beyond those erected by personal desire.
After all, if men can surgically alter themselves to become “transwomen” (as indeed “Caitlyn” Jenner did), why can’t Kylie Jenner or Kim Kardashian alter herself to become a different woman, physically, which then enables a different persona in other ways? What we are seeing is the emergence of the curated/designer human — to curate the physical person in ways that go well beyond sartorial presentation and cosmetics and transcend the physical plant itself by means of surgery to create what is in many ways a new and different human persona, of whatever gender and appearance we like. Kylie Jenner is effectively the human prototype of this, and perhaps this will be the most lasting legacy of the Kardashian phenomenon: the allure and the making real of the possibility for fantasy fulfillment for women in all ways — material, sexual, attentional, appearance, physical, power — all of it.
It’s one large ball of feminine fantasy wish fulfillment: all empowerment, glamour, surgically-sculpted faces and trainer-honed hard bodies, attractive/rich yet utterly disposable men, sisterhood and female-centered lives, endless amounts of safe, global attention, and money flowing like water from the everlasting fountain of created/curated/designed hotness.
Related
- Σ Frame (Deti): The Feminist Life Script (2020 December 17)
- Σ Frame (NovaSeeker): The Demise of the Christian Life Script (2021 March 10)
- Σ Frame (NovaSeeker): The Upper Middle Class Career Life Script Model (2021 May 17))
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Depressing read, Novaseeker. 😦
Can’t stand the Karashians. They remind me of the Martell Sand Snakes in Game of Thrones.
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Me too, Liz. I always thought of them as caricatures, or fun house mirror images. Mostly irrelevant in the grand scheme.
I can see Nova’s point here, though. When hundreds of millions of people are paying attention to them there has to be some ripple effect culturally.
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Elspeth – My personal opinion is that the K’s are like politicians/politics. They follow and read the culture first before putting out their, ahem, “product”. Then it becomes a feedback loop driving culture and being driven by it until something disrupts it. A show like the K’s capitalizes on the sensationalism of Kim’s original “reality acting” tape because the culture was there to sensationalize verses shaming it. Once they have attention, the show then pushes boundaries culturally which creates more sensationalism and viewers/followers and creates the incentive to push the next boundary.
The ripple was already there in the west, they just found a way to amplify it and ride the wave.
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In part, yes, but the keys are (1) the boundary pushing is directed (it isn’t completely reactive … there’s a directive element, as there is all entertainment) and (2) it is taking place in that “directed” real life that is portrayed in the show and, much more now, in social media. It’s fantasy and real, directed and real — the distinction is blurred for the onlookers precisely because it’s blurred in reality as well for the ones being looked at. This makes it virulently potent in a way that a Disney film certainly is not and never was. It is not “pure fantasy”, it is “real fantasy” — it’s more potent because it’s real, even if it is, in actuality, as unattainable for most women as a cartoon fantasy princess life is. The fact that it isn’t a cartoon or a totally fictional thing amplifies its impact substantially.
This is also why the transition to social media has been seamless for them, by the way, and why the loss of the show is not very important to them. Social media does the same thing for them (and for the onlookers) as the show did, only it does it better.
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Nova – I was purporting, but not clearly enough, that the show pushing boundaries is very intentional philosophically and in action.
A former neighbor worked around reality shows and the producers know what they want from the “talent”. They put people in situations that will best get them what they want and then continue to ask questions different ways to get the sound bite they want. This fits nicely with your observation that shows and social media like the K’s is scripted reality. The words and actions are not necessarily scripted but the rest of it is set up with a certain outcome in mind.
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Reality shows are scripted!There was a revolt from writers over not getting money over their televised feminazism glorifications!
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lololol, don’t hate me, but the first time I saw a Kardashian episode, way back when Kendall and Kylie were still in middle school…i actually thought they were a charming family and could see the appeal. But by the third episode, it got disheartening. Everything seemed to revolve around sex and superficial appearances. The third episode I saw was about Kris (the matriarch posing for a swimsuit photo shoot to impress Bruce…) and I was like…alright…what else is on TV?
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I’ve never seen an episode pf KUWTK myself, but one of the reasons we gave up television besides cooking shows (we still probably watch way, way too many movies), is that this is the standard M.O.
A show starts out seeming fairly benign, the kind of thing where the level of offensiveness -if any- is fairly tolerable. That’s kind of like the hook for those of us who are old enough to still have standards. Then, once you have some level of investment in the characters (real or fictional), they start to peel back the veneer of normalcy and unleash the degeneracy. By that point, far too many people are willing to overlook it.
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[Women] can demand more police and white knight protection, and will get it.
I wouldn’t bet on the last part of that statement. As the social fabric and the economy continue to unravel, not only will “public” resources like “police” become increasingly scarce (have you seen the latest retention figures for metropolitan police forces around the nation in the wake of the last year’s events?), but men are going to be far less inclined to white knight for a sex that is increasingly hostile to the majority of them. The “Top 20 Percent” who are getting all the p*ssy might feel the urge to white knight (or not, since women will essentially be a disposable commodity to them), but the bottom 80 percent will increasingly not only feel no such inclination whatsoever, but will gladly let the majority of self-described “strong, independent women” women put their money (or more accurately, their fists) where their mouths are and protect themselves against whatever threatens them, threats that in many (most?) cases they will have exposed themselves to through their own foolish and irresponsible behavior.
Of course the one percent of women that includes the Kardashian creatures will always have their own private security force to keep them safe (at least for as long as they can stay wealthy by entertaining the moronic masses with their dysfunctional and discivilizational lifestyles). The other 99 percent of gullible moronettes in the lower classes who foolishly try to imitate them? Avert your gaze if you’re squeamish, because it’s going to get really ugly out there for that sorry lot.
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Yes, when individual men or possibly even groups of men decide that it is indeed time to “hoist the black flag” there is really little that white knights or police can do to stop them. Especially if those people should start making it plain that any perceived interference will result in white/blue “knights” homes being burned to the ground with them and their families inside. See Mexico or Colombia for further readings.
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KH – The Mexico/Colombia example is the more likely scenario. History is not filled with men peacefully walking away to mind their own business. It is filled with men and groups of men that have finally had enough and then start actively taking by force. As societal norms and rule of law erode, we get closer to the point where he historical norm of might being very valued comes into play.
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Mexican drug lords are basically warlords in all but name.
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Yes the sacred noble elites that have spurred others daughters&parents to new FEMINAZISM levels of greatness!Anybody still having trouble understanding NOBLE ELITISM!?You have the guile to call yourselves ”conservative” christians while spitting on your misfortunate brethern while giving these rich thugs your best seats to pervert the entire world!Kardashians are your real heroes but your too decent&”idealistic” to admit it!The term feminazism is okay because noble rush limbaugh!For all your country clubbing noble- idealistic needs!See why elite fanbois get in trouble with the true redpill!?
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I think this was a really long post to get to the concepts that:
We have moved very far from biblical cultural standards to our own detriment (we’re thoroughly screwed in this regard)
Fempowerment reality TV has replaced Disney princess movies as the fantasy in the minds of many girls
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“The Kardashian lifestyle, taken as a whole, is not attainable by almost any real life woman, especially given the wealth and fame levels involved which drive it in reality. But bits and pieces of it are, most definitely. And the spread of these bits and pieces, as adopted by women, because they comprise parts of an aspirational/fantasy script that they find appealing (even if only as a fantasy) is very impactful.”
I too knew very little about the Kardashian’s until reading this post. And like you, I’d heard about them for what seemed like forever without knowing much about them other than stray bits and pieces of info, e.g. Kim’s Sex tape, Bruce Jenner’s sex change, etc. What got my attention reading this blog post was the PATTERN or LIFESTYLE SCRIPTING they were using, albeit on an ultra inflated scale that most, if not all women, are even capable of emulating. However, surprisingly, I saw a connection to some of the younger women I know, late twenty and early thirty somethings, who seemed to me to be shifting away somewhat from traditional the feminist life script, Career>Carousel>Find Yourself>Stick the landing with Mr. Betabucks, to something along these lines, Start Career>Carousel>24/7 Attention Seeking on social media, particularly Instagram, into their late twenties into their early thirties.
It seemed a little weird for the ladies I knew to be shifting in that direction, like in “What the hll are they trying to do?” I think I’m beginning to understand it a little bit better. Still seems very weird to me, but I think I now see a context for it for these twenty and thirty somethings that I know. Maybe subconsciously (I don’t think or even see how this could be a conscious thing), they are taking this way of being/lifestyle of continuous ‘attention whoring’ on social media because they have culturally picked up on it in their brains and it seems to be ‘acceptable’ way now for some women to ‘develop themselves’ in their late twenties and thirties. IDK? What do you think? Just musing out loud a little after reading this post and going ‘Wow, I wonder if this explains the social media thing the ladies I know seem to have going on?” Before it was like, “Why? What the hll are they deviating from the feminist life script which says they should be trying to ‘stick the landing’ between the ages of 28-35, not chasing attention/validation 24/7 on social media?”
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Social media changed things a lot, and the impact is unequal generationally.
That is, older generations tend to dramatically underestimate the impact because almost all of us do not use social media the same way, and are not impacted by it the same way, and we tend to see it as being a marginal, irrelevant, optional aspect of life that is best avoided and ignored. That works well for us, because our social lives are not social media-based in our generation(s). But the result is we tend to really underestimate how much social media has changed life as lived by the young.
Folks under 40 differ a lot on that, and under 30 it’s completely different. Social media is native to the younger generations, and moreso the younger you go. It is the primary way that they socialize with each other, it is their main way of having connections with other people. We may wag our fingers at that, collectively, as a generation, but it doesn’t change it. It is what it is.
So when a phenomenon like this comes along and has a massive social media blueprint, we all tend to discount the impact of that and the importance of it, but for the young the impact is massive.
Social media is like app dating … game-changing, yet unless you are in the participant pool that depends on it, you don’t really get the nearly total way it has changed things from what came before.
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You’re right Nova. I agree completely with you on the impact of social media on the up and coming generations. There is also a not insignificant number of people 40+ whose lives are being shaped and changed through social media use. Facebook affairs are a thing, after all.
However, I also know that -blessedly- there is a subset of young people who are pushing back against the idea of social media as their primary ways of doing life. I affectionately refer to them as “the young old fogeys”, but from what I can see, they are definitely fighting an uphill battle.
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Lyrics to Lesley Gore’s 1963>/b> “You Don’t Own Me”
You don’t own me
I’m not just one of your many toys
You don’t own me
Don’t say I can’t go with other boys
And don’t tell me what to do
Don’t tell me what to say
And please, when I go out with you
Don’t put me on display ’cause
You don’t own me
Don’t try to change me in any way
You don’t own me
Don’t tie me down ’cause I’d never stay
I don’t tell you what to say
I don’t tell you what to do
So just let me be myself
That’s all I ask of you
I’m young and I love to be young
I’m free and I love to be free
To live my life the way I want
To say and do whatever I please
And don’t tell me what to do
Oh, don’t tell me what to say
And please, when I go out with you
Don’t put me on display
I don’t tell you what to say
Oh, don’t tell you what to do
So just let me be myself
That’s all I ask of you
I’m young and I love to be young
I’m free and I love to be free
Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: David White / John Madara
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Never would have assumed men wrote that song. Gay men, perhaps?
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I assume all the “men” in entertainment are deviants of some sort.
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Thats right!!Klaus nomi sperber made the republican-democrat oligarchy version of that in honor of FEMINAZISM!Then he died of aids for some unknown reason in aug’83!
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Without looking them up, I would guess those men were both really straight with high notch counts. It’s 1963. The elements of feminist and leftist political movements are rapidly organizing. You are a song writer and want to 1) get in a woman’s pants and 2) make money doing it. So you write a counter culture, women’s empowerment song. You come off counter culture (tingles), a bit radical (bad boy tingles) and you are a musician that really understands modern women (I seem to have misplaced my panties tingles).
It’s like Bill Clinton’s, “I feeeeel your pain” line, done to music.
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Interesting – Lesley Gore didn’t have an interest in boys. She was a lesbian; Lois Sasson was her partner of 33 years.
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That is interesting. But then, when I was growing up, Luther Vandross was known as the king of romantic R&B. Hot date music in the late 80s/90s. Actually, quite recently my husband sent me a message ripped from one of his songs:
Excuse me miss
But what’s your name
Where are you from and can I come
And possibly, can I take you out tonight
To a movie, to the park
I’ll have you home before it’s dark
So let me know, can I take you out tonight
And I’m fairly well certain he was as gay as the day is long. The difference was that unlike today, where gayness is worn on the sleeve as a badge of honor, as far as I know he never discussed his personal life in interviews.
All that to say that I’m not surprised that the woman who sang that song was a lesbian. It’s also plausible that the men who wrote it were not gay, but simply savvy writers who knew what would sell in the 1960s.
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Luther Vandross was gay? No way. Don’t tell me Barry White was gay – that guy was horny as hell.
Wife and me – first time was with Janet Jackson playing in the background – yeah it was sinful.
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Nah. Barry White wasn’t gay. He was a prolific reproducer, if I recall correctly. He got around. Janet had some really edgy music outside of her famous dance tunes. Steamy stuff.
The thing I appreciated about Luther Vandross was his discretion:
Vandross’ sexual orientation was a subject of media speculation. Jason King, writing in Vandross’ obituary in The Village Voice, said: “Though he never came out as gay or bisexual, you had to be wearing blinders.” According to Gene Davis, a television producer who worked with Vandross, “Everybody in the business knew that Luther was gay”. In 2006, Bruce Vilanch, a friend and colleague of Vandross, told Out magazine, “He said to me, ‘No one knows I’m in the life.’ … He had very few sexual contacts”. According to Vilanch, Vandross experienced his longest romantic relationship with a man while living in Los Angeles during the late 1980s and early 1990s.[52] In December 2017, twelve years after his death, Vandross’s friend Patti LaBelle confirmed that he was gay.In addition, Vandross was well aware that officially coming out as gay while he was actively making music would have been detrimental to the projection of his career, given the majority of his target audience was women seeking some mode of emotional engagement from his words. LaBelle shared that “[Vandross] had a lot of lady fans” and “he just didn’t want to upset the world”.
He respected his female fans need to see him in a certain light. Interesting, as his music really was the gold standard in romantic R&B. Sensual without being vulgar or crass, while still managing to be clearly music for adults. It’s something many artists can’t seem to manage.
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Luther Vandross, say it ain’t so! He was the Black Pavarotti!!
Well, Luther Cambell definitely wasn’t gay. Thanks to Florida public schools I knew all the lyrics to his songs. Homeschool your kids.
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I went to FL public schools and I didn’t know all the lyrics to Luther Campbell’s songs.
Who were YOU hanging out with??
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Maybe a boy thing vs. girl thing? Boys sung the lyrics to those things. Boys repeated Andrew Dice Clay’s X-rated comedy routine. They just did this – at recess, in class, on the bus, etc. You couldn’t avoid it. We didn’t have HBO – mom wouldn’t allow it. I wasn’t a great kid so it’s not like it offended me. You learn how to think and behave from your peers.
A girl in 8th grade used to read her mother’s X-rated romance novels to me on the school bus. I don’t know how you avoided this sort of thing.
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SAM and I actually discussed last night how lacking in adventure I was before I met him.
There are a couple of rap songs I can vaguely recall the lyrics of. But mostly mainstream stuff. Run DMC for example.
Oh! When I was 19 or 20, I saw comedian Bernie Mac live. Raw stuff. Cringey in retrospect. The language I mean. But that was a very long time ago and somewhat adventurous for the likes of me. To call his act “red pill” would be a gross understatement.
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You were blessed to have missed so much debauchery. Run DMC and a lot of early rap was pretty harmless. After we got cable in 1983, my favorite program to watch was Video Soul on BET – all harmless music, more R&B than rap.
Kids would also reenact the Eddie Murphy Raw comedy routine. HBO was very bad for public morality of 80s kids.
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I was raised in a house without cable TV. When I left home (I was the youngest kid), my dad finally got cable so he could watch sports. He watched it all. Baseball was his favorite followed by football, but basketball, tennis, golf, all of it. Big sports fan. But we didn’t have cable while the kids were in the house. He used his radio.
When I saw music videos, I was at a cousin’s house or some friend’s house where they had access to BET and MTV. But I didn’t get a lot of sleepover opportunities.
I used to joke that I was locked in an ebony tower. However in retrospect, I can see much more clearly how my father’s “over protection” served me, and it goes without saying that my husband appreciates it too.
I had an inappropriate romance novel stage that I went through from about 15-20, but I would never have shared that with anyone at all, let alone on the school bus. Girl next door was my middle name!
If it played on the radio, then I heard it. If it was too raw for radio, then I never heard it before I reached young adulthood except on rare occasions. We went to church twice on Sundays and on Wednesday nights too.
In a lot of ways, the guys around me (friends of my brothers) were protective of me too. Years later, I learned that this one, that one, or the other had a crush on me (actually a kind of shocking thing to me but husband was like, “Of course they did. They were all just scared of your dad”).
Mostly, I went to school, church, the occasional football game to see my brother play, and that was it. There were times it really bothered me but I liked to read, so…
I left home, then decided to go and see what a club was like. Hated it, really. Ended up the designated driver for my lifelong church friend. I’ve never drank. Ever. The only up side to that 3 months of my life is that it was during that time that I often found myself sitting with my would be husband having conversations about all kinds of stuff.
But overall, I was pretty sheltered. Only the two daughters of a preacher in our neighborhood were more sheltered than me. They weren’t even allowed to wear pants.
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Just remembered something that happened about 5 years ago.
SAM and I went to the funeral of someone I knew growing up. back to the old neighborhood I went for something other than to see my parents.
A guy, friend of my older brother, 3 or 4 years older than me came up and did the obligatory hug thing. Brief catch-up, all the stuff, and met my husband.
He wanted to know how we met. He actually said, “I was just curious to meet the guy who was able to get next to [Els] enough to get married to her.”
That gives you some idea of how sheltered I was.
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Wife was a big R&B fan: D’Angelo (“Brown Sugar”, “Cruisin”), R. Kelly (“Keep it on the Down Low”). And Janet of course. This was the music of our youth.
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“the power of shared fantasy”
I like that. With permission, I think I’m going to use it in future writings. Because it really does explain so much…that otherwise wouldn’t make sense to the practical mind. It’s like when you see throngs of fans going after a solo pop idol like Justin Bieber. It’s like…you know he can’t pleasure all 500 in the crowd of shoulder-to-shoulder girls screaming his name. In any other situation, like high school, jealousy and cat-fights would abound if you were competing for the same guy. But with the fantasy…it’s like they don’t mind sharing it. It’s the fantasy they’re sharing.
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Also have to add that I enjoyed the breakdown of this show. As one who used to watch the show and used to have a stupid crush on one of them (braces for tomatoes thrown), it made me smirk to read the key points, like the baby daddies, financial independence based on sex and superficial stuff…and of course the interracial relationships…which is bittersweet.
As a black guy, of course that’d boost my esteem (even though it’s not me)…but it’s bitter in that the relationships ended up as baby daddy situations or divorces…further adding to the stereotype about black men not being there to raise children in the house. Making one wonder if the black celebrities were selected more because white men have a higher standard when it comes to getting married and demanding a bigger role in raising their children…damn that did not feel good to type.
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Around here I see a bunch of lower class white women who have had a child or two with a black man and he either fled, is in jail, etc. Or maybe she kicked him out of her life who knows. What I noticed was that these white women are really horrible, violent and angry at the child especially if it’s a boy.
My oldest son worked at the mall and he noticed this too. I noticed it more when I took the kids to public parks, etc. I have noticed (in real life – not TV) the phenomena of angry mulatto (I think that’s the correct term) teenage boys. From what I can see I understand why they are angry. The whitetrash mom takes her anger at babydaddy out on the little boy. It’s sad. I’ve seen these women scream at the little boys when they weren’t doing anything wrong. These kids were once innocent – the mom makes bad decisions and then punishes the child for it – heartbreaking really.
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For what it’s worth, the few white guys who are involved in the situations don’t seem to be doing any better in them. Kourtney’s baby daddy is white — Scott Disick — and he never married her, and is now “getting serious” with 19yo Amelia Hamlin, who is a few years older than one of his kids with Kourtney … Bruce Jenner isn’t even a guy any more … Rob Kardashian (oy vey), etc.
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I guess it depends on your definition of “doing better.” The dude sired a kid with a Kardashian (I don’t know much but I’ll assume the Kardashian was attractive) and now he gets to bang a 19 year old who I googled and she’s attractive. That doing better unless you’re a traditional Christian.
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I meant any better than the parade of black guys that Rock is referring to … they also have sired Kardashian spawn and I assume they aren’t hurting for other women either … my point is that the show doesn’t single out black guys as having poor outcomes with the Ks, because the white guys in the show have similarly poor outcomes.
Always ends up roses for the K women, though.
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Nova is right. It’s not as if Kanye, for instance, is going to be doomed to spend the rest of his life sleeping with lower class women. Far from it, even with his obvious flakiness. One of them has kids with a black NBA player. Same applies. All of these men (the black and white alike) are going to end up with young, attractive women of their choosing.
From what I have witnessed, it’s not as much a matter of racial makeup (although I’m sure it plays a role in many cases) when it comes to the raising of boys by single moms. When black women are “left behind” with black sons from black men, the same angry toll is exacted on those boys by their mothers throughout childhood. I’ve seen it with white women who have kids with Hispanic men and one white woman whose sons have white fathers.
Then, they are coddled through the teen and young adult years inexplicably, while daughters are raised to be better. I suppose in anticipation that they have to raise their kids alone?
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I have definitely noticed it in particular with the white-woman-black man paring. Not with the whiteman-blackwoman pairing btw.
My best attempt at an explanation is that the children look way different from the woman (and her birth family) so the boy who’s half black or whatever reminds her of the absent/cheating/whatever dad in an especially visceral way.
Another possibility – around here anyway the white women who have half black children are REALLY lower class. I encountered this when I was 4 years old in 1979 and we moved to Gainesville and lived in government apartment complex in the ghetto. I got urinated on by a mixed boy (white mom/black dad) and another mixed boy liked to spit watermelon seeds on my head from the 2nd story (know that sounds like a racist stereotype but it happened). Same boy dumped a pitcher of Kool-aid on my head. Moms were mega-white-trash and mean as hell to the little boys. Northeast Gainesville sucks.
By contrast, one of my 2nd cousins (male) married a black woman and they were normal parents. No anger issues from the kids.
I could see how the mixed raced couples in DC are much more middle class so the women aren’t psycho-whitetrash women.
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Because most black women who marry white men are mostly divested from the black community (at least are not at all engrossed in what is commonly associated with black culture). It’s a certain type of woman, usually one most black men quickly write off if they bother to approach her at all. we’ve seen that up close and personal, and are fine with it. Culture matters.
And this is true even in the case of far left women like the wife of the mayor of NYC. Or the selectively black Kamala Harris who said Tupac is the greatest living rapper, LOL. They talk a good race game, but most couldn’t tell you the name of a popular rapper if you paid them.
Also, it is far more likely for black women with children from white men to be married to those men.
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Actually you may be right Elspeth. Black ghetto women are often REALLY angry at their children too. “LaDravious! Get yo’ @$$ over here, now!!!!”
We never had much money and small towns so I always grew up around a combination of whitetrash and ghetto rats, LoL.
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KUWTK has the effect of making interracial sexual relationships more common than they actually are. It also normalizes the dysfunctions and points out that, “Well, breakups and divorces are just normal. It happens to every one of the Kardashians, so there’s nothing weird or bad about it. It’s just reality.”
Interracial relationships are becoming more common, that’s for sure. But I don’t know how durable most of them are. I suspect a lot of men and women of all races “date out” from time to time, but lasting pairings don’t seem to result from them. Or if they do result in marriage, they usually divorce more than half the time.
I saw somewhere that black man/white woman pairings have the highest breakup rates, followed by black man/black woman, following by white man/black woman. Lot of reasons for that, I’m sure. First, this is pairings, which includes but is not limited to marriage. Second, the point is that interracial pairings aren’t very durable or at least are less durable than most pairings where both are of the same race.
I also think that interracial relationships are not anywhere near as common as KUWTK suggests or as people seem to believe. That’s neither good nor bad – the point is that KUWTK is distorting reality, distorting what actually happens in reality, and distorting people’s perceptions of what actually happens in the real world and in real relationships.
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In reality, the stats on interracial marriage success are far more complicated than this. In essence, when the husband is white, for reasons I can speculate on but won’t, the marriage is more likely to last. A long time ago, on the now defunct Traditional Christianity blog, we had a robust discussion about this, and later posted on it, but here are the actual statistics
Asian male/white female marriages were 59 percent more likely to end in divorce than white male/white female marriages.
Marriages involving a white husband and black wife were substantially less likely to end in divorce than marriage involving a white husband and white wife; the former pairings divorce rate was 44 percent less than the latter.
A white husband and Asian wife were 4 percent more likely to end in divorce than marriages involving a white husband and white wife.
Hispanic white/non-Hispanic white and Asian/white marriages were more liable to divorce than those of Hispanic whites and Asians.
Marriages including a black husband and white wife were more prone to divorce than those composed of black husbands and black wives.
Black male/white female couples also had the highest likelihood of divorce of all white/non-white marriages.
While interracial marriage correlates to a higher rate of divorce, this parallel applies mainly to marriages involving a non-white male and white female.
Source:
https://www.divorcesource.com/blog/interracial-marriage-and-divorce/
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Deti —
Yes, it’s directed, for certain. As Elspeth points out, the guys in question in the case of the Ks are all the top echelon of black men — athletes (Khloe, Kendall), rap stars (Kim and Kylie). I am not sure about Kris’s current paramour (a younger black guy). But these are upper echelon black guys who often do have white girlfriends or wives. The odd thing about the Ks is that almost all of them are with black guys. Does anyone know of any white family of that kind of wealth background (or, heck, even the kind of wealth background the older K girls grew up with, which was far less) where virtually everyone (5 of 6 women) is involved with a black guy? It seems odd, but of course the relationships are real, as are the kids (they’re not fake relationships, just to follow a script, in other words). It’s just very odd that nearly every relationship is interracial.
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Most of the white male black female marriages I have seen are UMC. An old Jewish man here (now deceased) was married to a black woman. An older PhD here is married to a very conservative Jamaican woman who I’m going to assume is upper middle class Jamaican.
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We’ve run across two or three such families in our educational travels. Most recently, one of the elders at a Presbyterian church we visited was a white man with a black wife and 3 tween to teen aged kids. They were really nice people, actually among the friendliest we encountered there. They lived in the neighborhood that the church in which the church was located, was a very nice, older neighborhood where the newer residents are UMC and the older residents who bought decades ago were likely middle MC.
It’s likely what I said up thread, class and culture matter, also because the men who would marry such women (even conservative ones like the couple I mentioned), are more racially liberal because the people they are around most, regardless of ethnicity (black, Hispanic, Asian, whatever), are of a more educated, higher income sphere and express that cultural attitude more than a culture or identity attitude based on racialism. Not saying that’s good or bad; just that it is.
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At speculative level, Asian men are too feminine/K and black men too masculine/r – on average. Why white women have high divorce rates with them. The Asian female/white male rate of 4% seems to be statistically equal to white-white 4% sounds like no difference.
Has anyone seen the black conservative Lipton Matthew’s speak? Hes been criticizing Candace Owens and other black Republicans. Least masculine- sounding black man ever – black nerd.
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What the idealistic elites have decent&noble age limits for their hatred of god!Talking about ages of whos effing who?Where was the idealistic elites with sodomite elite FEMINAZIST hugh hef effing that 19YO FEMINAZIST!?Thought the true redpill was’nt still fired up to battle purplepillers who think their redpillers but are not!And are on their way to their bluepill hell!I’AM that good as you have seen!I want to hear more about saved delusional elites in DC&LA!I’m not the delusional purplepilled athol kay chump, you are whoever claims to be redpilled while talking bluepilled!Wheres the decency police!?Those bluepilled betas!Of course I believe most redpillers are purplepill chumps like athol!You talk delusional just like him with your noble loser elites who are murderers that you bless!
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Interesting statistics on inter-racial marriages.
I would not have guessed some of that (especially the white man/asian woman more likely to divorce statistic). It would be interesting to get a more in depth look (are the Asian women immigrants themselves or first generation, and so forth).
Trying to think of couples I know and whether or not this is true. There are more black fighter pilots than hispanic ones, actually (or there were, I’ve been out of the loop a couple of years). Unfortunately I’m not acquainted with most of the families. Very close friends of ours are a black husband/white wife combination and they’ve been together almost as long as we have. She’s a very “dominant” type of woman. I feel badly for him she henpecks him so much, but he seems to like it. They live a very affluent lifestyle, if you saw the way they live and the way we do no one would guess we’re in the same income class.
I know at least five other black fight pilots, another with a white wife and two with black wives…the others I couldn’t say. Also know two white pilots with black wives. They are all doing well as far as I know. Maybe the USAF culture kind of replaces the cultures they grew up with.
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Liz, I’ve worked with and for fighter pilots for almost 25 years. They like to become business development and program managers for defense contractors. They are very high performing types – not always “alpha” but very upper middle class.
The divorce difference with the Asian female-white male pairing seems statistically insignificant – only 4% more.
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The only reality show we watched was the Duggars.
Now Josh being a pervert ruined that I suppose (we haven’t watched it in years anyway but it was nice to pretend there were normal families out there).
Not convinced Josh did the latest thing he’s accused of by the way. I don’t know much about technology but what would stop “them” from uploading inappropriate things to his laptop? The mainstream hates people like the Duggars (even if a lot of their old fashioned normalcy is an illusion).
My hypothesis. He was molested by that state trooper (who turned out to be a pervert himself) who counseled him or another “trusted family friend.” Before he did what he did to his sisters. I’ve read that sometimes boys who are molested by men become heterosexual deviants to compensate for their insecurities that they are homosexual since a pervert-man picked them as a victim.
Notice that everything deviant that he has done so far has been with girls/women and everything (this latest accusation excluded) he did as an adult involved women not little girls.
The latest accusation would be a good way to discredit traditional Christians, patriarchy etc. The left never misses an opportunity.
Just a hypothesis. No I wouldn’t let him babysit my children and Anna’s father shouldn’t have let him marry Anna.
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I had to watch that show for my job years ago. I liked it because it was a wholesome change and when the allegations came out…it was hard to believe. Mainly because I know pop culture watches people like these like a hawk, just waiting for something to pounce on as if to say, “A-HA! See! They’re just as wicked as the rest of us!” Like Duck Dynasty…they better not go after “Outdaughtered”.
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Here’s another example of the same “push the envelope through reality rather than fiction”, although in the “news” category (not really news, but that’s the category it’s in regardless) rather than the “entertainment” category: https://www.newsweek.com/ive-had-two-polyamorous-relationships-1592776?amp=1
Only a question of time until this is pushed in entertainment media as well.
The Ks, for all of their sordidness and money-grabbing attention-wh0ring are notable heterosexual natalists, so they have that going for them.
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This isn’t new, really. Dan Quayle was lambasted in the early 90s for criticizing Murphy Brown for having an out of wedlock child. Murphy Brown was a fictional character Candice Bergen portrayed. Brown was a divorced local TV news anchor, local media personality, a local celebrity, and very wealthy. The show was about Brown, her job, and the people in and around her professional and social life. The criticism was, “Sure, a wealthy woman like Murphy Brown can have a baby out of wedlock; but most women can’t because they can’t support those children, and it’s not good for them.” At the time, there was a significant minority of people who agreed with that criticism, but didn’t say much about it.
The difference is that it is so much more pervasive now. And single motherhood, promiscuity, the “hotness” culture – it is everywhere, in your faces, all the time. They are promoted as the standard. Social media and the smartphone culture is driving it, no question about it. It’s the ubiquity, pervasiveness, and constant drumbeat that press this on everyone. It’s loud enough, persistent enough, and “accepted” enough to drown out every other message. This is particularly true when even Christian women consume this entertainment. Even Christian women are much more accepting of premarital sex and “hotness” beauty standards.
I’ve said before that the facial beauty standard for women today is the “p0rnstar look”: Colored, done-up hair, hair extensions, heavy base, heavy rouge, sculpted or drawn in eyebrows, heavy mascara, heavy eyeshadows, fake eyelashes, heavy lipstick… Everything heavy, prominent, and exaggerated. The Kardashian women adopted this, and everyone else is using and promoting this as the new facial beauty standard.
It is everywhere, it is pervasive, and it sucks up all the oxygen in the room.
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I completely agree that the portrayal of single mothers on TV isn’t new, no.
Murphy Brown was a fictional character who was intended to push the envelope of what was acceptable for portrayal in televised fiction, and it succeeded in picking a culture war fight that galvanized both sides for voting, and certainly drove ratings. And certainly the Murphy Brown portrayal had its influence in making single motherhood more accepted broadly, socially. In that way, it operated in a similar way to how the portrayal of gays in television fiction functioned between say 2002 and 2015. Televised fiction certainly is impactful culturally, there is no doubt about that.
But this is different, in my opinion.
Here it’s the combination of so many pieces together that is new in terms of its comprehensiveness — its totality.
Not one single mother, but a gaggle of them — it’s not something to be made acceptable, it’s something portrayed as normative and glamorous. And all of the single moms are “hot”, even after multikids, all tremendously famous and popular (the social media numbers are staggering — the reach is extremely broad) and wealthy pretty much for being hot and famous (!), and IT’S ALL REAL, not fictional — it’s directed reality, but it’s still real. Murphy Brown was fictional — and that of course has an impact, too, but when it’s actually real and (unlike most single mothers) in the package of glamour, beauty, fame and eye-watering wealth — none of it dependent on the men in the picture (unlike the “Rich Housewives” shows) — it’s a totally different ballgame. It’s the total independent/empowerment fantasy, fully-featured. Literally, nothing is missing from it.
Men are around, on demand, as and when desired, and otherwise discarded. It’s portayed as normative and optimal, with marriage as suboptimal and likely to fail.
Unlike other “wealthy, hot, independent women” (where the lack of kids is cited as a “cost” of their independence), these ones have kids (only one doesn’t and she’s the 25yo supermodel of the bunch) and flaunt those around on social media side by side with their bikini shots. The presence of these kids impacts the glamour, the hotness, the fabulous homes, the travel, the independence from men … not one iota, thanks to the fabulous wealth that itself is a product of … visual hotness and the marketing of hotness.
It’s the total package of female fantasy fulfillment rolled into one. Not as a “to be followed” example, mind you — most women don’t look at Kylie Jenner and see that as a realistic life path, but they see the entire package as presenting a total life fantasy image which is powerful precisely because it’s not fiction — it’s real. So you might not be able to be, or want to be, Kylie Jenner in total, but bits and pieces of who she is are appealing, and a part of that appeal is that they are really happening, not just in fiction. It’s just tremendously powerful among young women, precisely because all of the elements are covered by it (including kids), and it’s real.
It’s the fantasy of having it all, and not having to have men around other than on precisely your own terms at all times, and never as the center of anything. Never before has female-centricity been portrayed in such an overwhelming way in the sense that every single element (independence, empowerment, sexual power, kids, men, appearance, attention, wealth, attention, travel, glamour, homes etc) is on the women’s terms completely and in an entirely unfettered way. It’s the total female empowerment, freedom, independence fantasy with no costs imposed. And the fact that it isn’t fictional is why its influence is so impactful. (Heck, if there were a fictional show portraying a family like this one it would be roundly criticized for being totally unrealistic in its combination of all of these things together.)
Now we can sit here and say: sure, there’s a massive cost that’s just not being shown. They’re all hell-bound for starters. The kids are likely going to be a disastrous mess, hate their parents and so on. The women likely have massive holes in their lives, are deeply unhappy, on anti-depressants, under so much beauty pressure and so on and none of that is shown, etc. And maybe some or even all of that is true. But the current impact is large, much moreso than virtually any other cultural phenomenon that is influencing young women today.
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I want to try a cliff notes version of what NovaSeeker just wrote.
Social media “reality” is all based on lies. Life is presented in the best case scenario, and even then, it’s conveyed through filters to improve the image. People know deep down that social media is fantastical, but they don’t care because they want the fantasy and image. They think this is what matters. There is a good probability that mood altering medication is needed to help deal with the mental discord this creates.
If I think about this any longer I may need medication.
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This I also agree with.
It has to do with social media and Instagram and the culture it has created. When everyone has a high performance digital camera in her hands, lots of “how to” info on YouTube about lighting and so on, and a global platform of limitless attention called Instagram, you get those kinds of trends in appearance taking on a swift currency that is breathtaking in its scope, ubiquity, and speed.
Instagram favors hotness. It’s a platform for hotness. Toned bodies and paparazzi makeup faces. Because it’s photos. And the standard for photos is professional model shots. And professional models wear a lot of makeup for the shoots. And YouTube teaches how to do paparazzi style makeup yourself, and so millions of girls now know how to do it because they are being taught how, and they have incentive to do it because of the endless attention funnel of Instagram, which rewards them with attention based on pure hotness. The Ks exemplify this and amplify it, and show just how extreme the rewards for it can be, but the basic premise is built into social media itself.
One of the unexpected developments of the internet was how the internet — which people have normally accused of making people recluses and socially incapable — suddenly, with the rise of smartphones and social media, began to amplify the importance of appearance to a greater degree than ever before. It’s a substantial change, and it’s happening so fast that it’s being missed by a lot of people I think.
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Speaking of speed:
It was to be expected that the internet would increase the speed of communication and flows of information. News, personal and business communications really have sped up.
This has had the effect of speeding up everything, including the way men and women relate to each other. It has also altered the way people think, cogitate, make decisions, and express themselves. It has caused people to forgo thinking for feeling, where our emotions are now our thought processes. It has caused people to avoid thinking, weighing pros and cons, reflecting, and taking facts and emotions into consideration before acting. Everyone experiences life as extreme pressure to act, and to act now. You’ve received a text or an email. A response must be formulated now. A decision must be made now. Not tomorrow, not tonight, not after lunch, not even after 15 minutes have passed. NOW. RIGHT NOW.
It has changed male-female relationships in that sex is expected much sooner than before. Like it or not, this is the standard. Sexual conduct even among Christians is now the norm – most Christian women are having sex or have had sex. What has happened is that the internet sped everything up – including how people meet, and how they relate.
The internet also sterilized and buffered communications, such that “ghosting” is how people express disinterest or break up now. How do you know that girl isn’t interested after you met? She just stops returning your texts. She left you “on read”. How do you know that guy isn’t interested anymore? Same thing. He just doesn’t respond anymore. He doesn’t take your calls, lets it go to voicemail.
Sped up and sanitized. And in the process, more and more people are left in the lurch.
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The thing with the makeup is kind of a chicken and egg scenario for me. Do they (the K’s) wear a lot of makeup because they are trying to SELL a lot of makeup or are they following a previous trend and just amplifying it? Heavy makeup looks gross to me. It’s an obvious attempt to hide damaged goods or at least to shine-up a low quality product.
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Yes, but that doesn’t stop them from having a massive amount of eyes that want to look at them.
Most of the readers here have refined tastes. But the model industry has long favored heavy makeup on professional models — that isn’t new. What is new is that Instagram now has millions of women trying to make up their faces like models do for professional shoots. Because it gets attention, eyeballs. Again we have refined tastes, but hundreds of millions of followers on Instagram indicates that many other eyeball owners are anything but repulsed by it. It definitely draws a lot of attention.
I am sure that some of the makeup is there to sell makeup — that’s true. However, I think it’s a bigger trend than that, and they’re riding that. Part of that “ride” is making money selling makeup, and a part of the ride is making money in lots of other ways by merely being the kind of people who have hundreds of millions of eyeballs in reach — something which, in and of itself, is exceptionally valuable for marketing almost anything. It’s all about grabbing attention, I think, and it’s also being broadly adopted by young women for their Instagram photos (or at least the ones they want to draw attention with), for nights out on the town, and so on. As deti says, it’s become the norm now for a lot of young women.
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I don’t know if my tastes are refined or not but what ever happened to the cute girl next door look?
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-Charlie Sheen, in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
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Lots of things. Years of sexual revolution. Mass pornography. New technology that allows women to attract a virtually endless amount of attention from the comfort of their own home — if they know how to look hot, rather than GND.
We’re not in Kansas anymore, and we haven’t been for some time.
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Isn’t it sad that the Kardashian sisters were somewhat attractive before they decided to shred their faces into what monstrosities that have “adopted” today?
Yeah, I’m puzzled how anyone finds them normal at all. H3ll, Caitlyn was Bruce aka an Olympian!
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Agree! The women that I personally know pursuing this social media attention/validation lifestyle, every once and awhile for some unknown reason, ‘drop their mask’ on the very same social media platform (FB, Instagram, etc.). They reveal what’s really going on inside them, and it’s not pretty, no pun intended. I’ve seen crying with their make-up running down their cheeks, angry diatribes directed toward men, admissions on how ‘bad they feel’ about their life or themselves (depressed would be a better word for it but they won’t use THAT word). AND THEN, they seem to just ‘snap back out of it’ and go right back to their inauthentic, “Look what a great life I have!” pics and posts. I too have wondered if they have to take meds for this kind daily, attention/validation seeking, social media lifestyle just to keep it going and not drown in their misery? Seems pretty damn empty to me to be spending their time day after day loading up social media with their “My wonderful life” pics and posts.
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Yeah, that’s Tommi “all men between the ages of 18 and 59 are trash” Lahren.
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I don’t think it’s inherently any more “empty” than the prior generations who were obsessed with “keeping up with the Joneses” kind of social/economic/status competition. This has always been the way of life for that portion who cares about it (and in the past it was a not small portion that did, although it was never everyone of course), and it has always taken its toll. Women in prior eras were fiercely competitive with one another in other ways (house, home, children, appearance, wardrobe, travel, husband’s status) and it didn’t make all of them very happy.
What social media has done among the young is take that same kind of “keeping up with the Joneses” and tied it together with social interaction for everyone. There isn’t really an “opt out” that isn’t extremely costly in terms of social life, because most of the social life of the young takes place via social media, plain and simple. For a young person to cut themselves off from social media is for them to become like a recluse in many ways socially — it’s a very steep price that almost none are willing to pay. So they participate, and then, even if they choose not to try to keep up with the Joneses, so to speak, they are nevertheless constantly, incessantly bombarded with the Joneses merely by participating in social media — they can’t “opt out”. They can choose to not compete, but unless they cut themselves off, they can’t opt out from having the competition — and their lack of participation — shoved in their face all day every day. That can make them feel all kinds of things, and none of them are positive.
And for the ones who choose to participate in the competition, it becomes a never-ending spiral. For women, who are more impacted than men are due to the psychology of attention and its pure allure for women, the competition is literally never-ending. Women are working harder than ever on their bodies, their faces, their makeup. “Putting themselves out there”, so to speak, on social media. Even to keep up with the “average” on social media is taxing, and there will always be hotter, fitter, prettier, there will always be something, and usually a lot of somethings, out there to make them feel inadequate or worse. And that’s even the case for objectively pretty girls.
But, again, the cost of totally opting out of social media is sky high for young people, so most don’t opt out. And in participating they get to choose between not participating in the competition and feeling bad and inadequate (because the competition is nevertheless in their faces 24/7 on social media whether they participate in the competition or not), or participate in the competition, which then becomes an endless, cut-throat arm’s race of gym, diet, workout, makeup, clothes, in which there are always women who are more competitive than you are because they are younger, or richer, or more energetic, or more determined or any number of things.
It’s what they face. It’s not pretty, but it’s how it is. And social media is not a fad or a phase. It’s simply a communication technology. This way of being, of interfacing, is the new way, it’s the way of the present and the future. It’s a new paradigm.
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Yeah…Democrats got their panties in a bundle over that comment “Dan Quayle is so stupid….doesn’t he understand that Murphy Brown is just a funny TV show?”
Two years later, Newt Gingrinch and the new Republican majority did a cut of PBS and the Democrats were screaming “SAVE BIG BIRD!”
Isn’t Sesame Street, just a TV show and not real life???? Caught a bunch of flack for saying that
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Murphy brown?Both men&women hated watching that show!Especialy the reruns!Just the noble chump elites pushing their loser life script for the delusional bluepill masses as usual!
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Regardless of the need for white knight protection I see a more ironic and fulfilling (to my blackpill mind.) Outcome coming.
The masses of 45-50 year olds who are so post wall, post cougar, that they realize that they will have to provide for themselves as strong independent women for the rest of their lives. They can no longer hide from the real world the reality that there are no 10s, nor even 8s, at 45+.
There comes a point after mid life crisis that you just say, “I am tired, I don’t want to work any more.”
Everyone gets there. Career peaked, family either fledged or now never to exist. The body tiring every day, holding a rear guard action against degeneration. Nothing left to achieve. Or desire to.
For the smart, able men, they see it as the culmination of their life’s work… A nest egg or assets that will fund a comfortable retirement of leisure. The reward for their long suffering.
In the old days for the married woman it was the ease of empty nesters just having to take care of her husband. The reward for their long suffering.
For the Kardashian wanna bees who didn’t stick the landing, either thru a husband or career success? The long suffering as their reward.
15-20 more years of working with advancing old age to retire on nothing. Having spent all their “career money” on student loans or living the YOLO life, they have few assets. Their standard of living will decline with their earnings and move to pension. For many it will be work until they die. Literally.
And government won’t care. 50 year old females are not a power demographic.
Men? Men at best will find the invisible and useless. At worse they will see it as delicious payback.
As one post said, “As an average man, I will give the average woman the exact, same attention at 40+ that she gave me at 20+.”
I see this in my cohort now but they were all kids raised in the 70s who are somewhat prepared.
For the cohort born in the 90s and raised in the 2000s. It will be amusing 20 years from now.
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The media flaunts the Kardashian lifestyle, the “You go girl!”, the yolo.
It purposely asks their followers not to invest in the future ,but to live for today.
It assumes that when they get to the future, someone, men, will be there to contribute what they did not work or prepare for.
It’s the old, “I deserve X” overriding the “What do you bring to the table?”
Unfortunately, the men who would otherwise be playing the saviour in the future, are now pursuing an alternate future. Worse, the Kardashian lifestyle actively punishes these future saviours as unworthy losers because they cannot contribute X NOW. They are not rich, pretty, nor hip enough to be part of the lifestyle. So they are ejected.
And 20 years later when the lifestyle ejects those 45 year old women for being too old?
Well one thing about men. They remember their tormentors.
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It will be interesting to see. The Kardashians are already in that demographic. The oldest daughter, Kourtney, is 42, and Kim is 40. And of course the Momager herself is 65 and has a cougar boytoy as a boyfriend.
Now of course “normal” women can’t do what the Kardashians are doing in terms of imitating the lifestyle completely, because of lack of money and fame and so on. But for the Ks themselves, they certainly aren’t being discarded by men due to their ages.
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I’m reminded of Hugh Hefner and the Playboy lifestyle he exemplified. He was always in the company of young beautiful women and had numerous girlfriends at his Playboy Mansion. Even at age 86 he married 26 year old Playboy Playmate of the Month for December 2009, Crystal Harris.
Fame and money transcends age. The Kardashians have both fame and money.
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I have heard about them. One had butt injections, I guess…… One did a sex tape. Bruce Jenner became woman of the year. No surprises there. In 1994 the Village People did a reunion tour, and at that time Bruce Jenner was hanging with them on tour, and we’re all surprised?????
Wheaties cereal could make a mint. Put Caitlin Jenner’s picture on the box next to the 1976 picture of Bruce on the box. It would demonstrate how far we have come or have digressed. Or put them side by side…. Make a reprint or “retro” of the 1976 box with Bruce and one now with Caitlin. See which sells better.
Kind of like when the Trix Rabbit got to eat Trix Cereal just once. (Remember that? It must have been 1976 or 1977.) Everyone voted for it by box purchase… The “yes” cereal box or “no” cereal box…. Screw that silly rabbit… I remember demanding my mom buy the NO cereal box!
Oh yeah……. That family. Important stuff. Caitlin Jenner is actually quite fiscally conservative. He/she/it was on some morning California show talking about how Newsom must be removed from office. The mom smokes weed, I think, or so I have heard…… One of them got a car at sixteen, probably nicer than the Plymouth Reliant that was handed down to me in 1986 when I turned 16.
One is married to a rapper, I think. One did a sex tape? Wasn’t that Paris Hilton? Or was it Pamela Anderson? Can’t remember. Not into porn, don’t like watching people who are better looking than me doing something I won’t be able to do… and if I could…. she wouldn’t look as good as did Tina Fey twenty years ago. I’d have to be turned on by someone who looks like Paula Jones instead of Catherine Zeta Jones…..
Yes…. That family…….. Let’s see, one of them has a baby named North? Right? They live in California, I think. Or New Jersey? All that money, or most of that fortune, just seemed to appear out of nowhere. Right? And one of them sells makeup or does TV commercials, or did them a few years back. Riiight!
That show was on, I guess, but I might of been watching something else……. I am one of those middlebrow people who back in the 1970’s would say “I don’t watch TV, well… except for PBS and MASH.”
I just never saw the big deal in them…. Maybe I missed out. I just don’t like people who are just “famous for being famous” in general. We can go on about them….. but at the same time, the reason they are famous is because they must be filling some void.
As for that inbred family the Daggers? The Dullard? That Christian one with the gazillion kids…. Same thing goes, but for the christian set. There’s really no difference in my opinion. I’d rather watch cooking shows, reruns of classic TV from the 1950’s thru the 1980’s, and even NOVA on PBS has something worthwhile once in awhile.
This family is like most women today….. As soon as the cash flow gets low, well, so do the phone calls. Like the addict who scores and always has the good cocaine to share and hang with….. as soon as the blow ain’t around, well… neither are his friends.
I don’t know much about this family aside from the occasional clip I see that I may or may not get right. Leave them alone, ignore them… If more people do that, then that’s the way they might just shut-up and find something useful to do with their spare and free time.
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It’s all voyeurism really. RE: the Duggars – my wife liked watching the girls get married and have babies.
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“Not into porn, don’t like watching people who are better looking than me doing something I won’t be able to do”
Miss Lori has a post on pornography’s effect on men. If not outright homosexual, it’s at least emasculating in the same way that a cuckhold fetish is.
https://thetransformedwife.com/pornography-is-an-attack-on-male-sexuality/
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Porn has a lot of effects, on men and women alike. It isn’t a simple phenomenon in terms of its impact.
I don’t doubt that for some men (perhaps for Gilder himself), pornography has the competitive/emasculation impact he is talking about. It certainly seems plausible to me, given the fact that a certain portion of men seems to have a cuck/femdom fetish which they probably “learned” from porn.
But for other men it seems to simply drive up their libido, rather than giving them a cuckold fetish. It has given everyone, especially men, sex on the brain. And it has impacted women’s behavior as well in terms of forming their own expectations of what sex should be like, what their own bodies should look like (shaved pubic hair, labial reductions, porn-size breasts, porn-style makeup, clothing, lips, etc.), what men should look like (cut/buff/ripped, very well hung), what sex should be like, what acts are “normal”, what kinds of desires should be indulged and so on. Often this is framed in terms of “teaching women to give in to male perversity”, but really it’s just as much a case of stoking femaledesire and channeling it in certain specific directions, and this is having a profound impact on mating, mate selection, sex, and the like. But of course Gilder won’t talk about that, probably because he and Wilson can’t even conceive of that being the case.
Porn is indeed impactful, and in a negative way. It is profoundly impactful. But many of the impacts are ones that people seem almost completely unaware of, precisely because they (men, generally) can’t fathom the direct impact porn has on women (and not only the “indirect” one of looking at what turns men on … the direct one, in terms of what stokes their own desire. That is beyond what most men want to even think about, so it doesn’t get thought about, or talked about, and women are certainly happy to keep it that way.
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“But for other men it seems to simply drive up their libido, rather than giving them a cuckold fetish.”
No idea why simply looking at a hot nude woman wouldn’t be enough to get a guy ready. Playboy and stripclubs. Not that I’m endorsing them.
I don’t mean gives them a literal cuckhold fetish. I just mean it seems to be a gay and/or cuckhold mentality. You’re looking at a. a guy’s butt and junk (and the woman too). b. a guy who’s probably more attractive than you banging the “girl of your dreams” (well for most guys the girl of their dreams for short term fun). Seems gay or cucked.
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Nova, here’s something I’ve been wondering about.
I don’t doubt the redpill narrative of sex-deprived beta male husbands and the underlying causes. I’m sure it’s a real thing.
How much of it is also that men’s hourly, daily, yearly exposure to semi-public nudity, digital full nudity, porn, etc. makes us sex obsessed or at least constantly needing it? I don’t doubt our great-grandparents did it plenty but are we (contemporary men) particular horny because we’re exposed to it constantly from the time we’re little boys?
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Think statistics show people are having a lot LESS sex now than before. T levels have plummeted too.
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Hi Liz.
I’ve seen stats like that although I think it partially reflects the skew in who’s getting it – top 20% of males and 40-50% of females or whatever.
I doubt men are less horny but who knows. I guess what I’m proposing is that men, say in relationships, are more prone to having problems during dry periods (I don’t mean long dry periods) . For example, I get really aggravated when we don’t do it at least a few times a week. Was my grandpa the same way or was it easier for him because the culture was less sex saturated?
I’m not saying grandpa was ok with frigid grandma – I’m just saying living in a sex saturated culture makes things worse.
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cameron – We are horny because we are men with 1500-2000% more testosterone floating around in our bodies than the average woman. What we are experiencing is a not a difference in drive compared to past generations (it appears men are actually in a testosterone decline, which would suggest lower drive on the whole), but a seismic shift in what is socially acceptable for men and women.
Here is what I think the biggest temptation of porn is. You marry and have one biblical outlet for sex. Then you experience what Deti has written about million times. Namely, that there are outlier marriages where women find dominant men they are actually attracted to sexually and submissive to them in all aspects of life. These are the small percent thriving happy marriages. But the vast majority of marriages, especially in the west, are to women who aren’t attracted sexually to their husbands, don’t submit to them and those marriages at the very best are tolerable. Being tolerable is highly dependent on if she doles out just enough sex to keep her control over him and the simmering rage at bay. Even then, the husband is low on the priority list and gets fit in when she has a moment for a lackluster round of her laying there while he sees if he can finish before she needs to move on to the next item on her to do list.
Porn is attractive in large part, because the women in porn play roles that are antithetical to the modern woman’s marriage and relationship script. Those women are playing up the sexual, willing, submissive, adventurous and enthusiastic part of sex that the vast majority of men won’t ever experience, but find so alluring. This the basic concept that a man would take a woman whose appearance is less than his ideal but is sexual, willing, submissive, adventurous and enthusiastic over the hotter woman who is not, is one that has been discussed here before. If I remember correctly, a woman with those attributes can overcome quite a bit of difference in physical appearance compared to her competition in the MMP/SMP.
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For example, I get really aggravated when we don’t do it at least a few times a week. Was my grandpa the same way or was it easier for him because the culture was less sex saturated?
Mike and I have sex every day (every day he is home, at any rate).
But anecdotally, his father was a philanderer. That’s how he overcame sexual drought with the wife. In Cuban culture is is very common to have more than one family (think they call them secret families, or some such).
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Hugh hefner was bi-sexual&loved voyuerism!Dos’nt everybody know this!?
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I don’t mean gives them a literal cuckhold fetish. I just mean it seems to be a gay and/or cuckhold mentality. You’re looking at a. a guy’s butt and junk (and the woman too). b. a guy who’s probably more attractive than you banging the “girl of your dreams” (well for most guys the girl of their dreams for short term fun). Seems gay or cucked.
All of porn is kind of like that, but generally speaking the viewer identifies with the person of their sex who is portrayed. So a man looking at straight porn identifies with the man, imagines he is the man, not that he is in a room looking at another man have sex with the woman (the cuck scenario). He imagines he is the man having the sex, not watching. Same for the female viewer, which is why (1) female-oriented porn is designed differently (fewer “body part closeup shots” of the women’s body, more attractive-bodied men in the scene, with full body shots of them, more foreplay, less fake reactions by the woman, etc.) and (2) lesbian porn is so popular for women to watch (it strikes them as much less fake than straight porn does, from the woman’s perspective). The point is making it so the viewer identifies with the participants, not so that the viewer is focused on their role as a voyeur.
While I agree that men who look at porn are looking at a lot of naked male bodies in their peripheral vision, most of them are very focused on the female body, and on identifying with the male body. I do think that guys who have pre-existing anxieties and fears of inadequacy, however, can be spooked by the male bodies that are now in porn, because there has been much more focus on making porn more friendly to female viewers, which involves much “hotter” males in the scenes than in the past was typically the case.
In terms of the “gay” aspect, I think this is more prominent as an effect on the female viewers, far more of whom are likely both to view specifically same sex porn than men are, and to act on that viewing in terms of “experimenting” with what they have seen in lesbian pornography.
Think statistics show people are having a lot LESS sex now than before. T levels have plummeted too.
I doubt men are less horny but who knows. I guess what I’m proposing is that men, say in relationships, are more prone to having problems during dry periods (I don’t mean long dry periods) . For example, I get really aggravated when we don’t do it at least a few times a week. Was my grandpa the same way or was it easier for him because the culture was less sex saturated?
These are both true.
In other words, it’s true that people were having more sex in early periods AND that people had sex on the brain less.
How is this the case???
One main factor is the decline of marriage. Married people have sex more than unmarried people do. That sex is generally with the same person, of course, but it’s still sex. Single people have a much larger portion of their time, typically, not having sex than married people do, even single people who are dating.
Sex on the brain, however, has definitely gone up dye to the factors you are mentioning — namely the constant bombardment with sexual images. Even for those of us who avoid porn, the imaging in mainstream media today is what was in porn 30-40 years ago in every way other than the complete nudity. Sexual imaging and posturing is everywhere in a way that it was not 70 years ago. But, because fewer people are married than was the case then, there is less sex happening. That’s the main difference.
There are other differences, too. Even married people are having less sex. Some of this is T level-related as Liz says. But a lot of it is “time”-related. Both spouses are worn out between long hour jobs and the present-day mode of parenting which is the most intensive parenting that has ever been seen, clearly. That leads to less sex. And it has also been pointed out that more egalitarian marriages (which are the norm more or less today) feature less sex than less egalitarian ones, because the sexual polarity is much smaller.. Even egalitarian feminists have admitted this in articles.
And finally, among the young set, sex has become less common than it was a generation ago due to the rise of social media, the increasing rarity of in-person meetings, the rise of dating apps, the rise of porn (makes a small percentage of men marginally less likely to seek real life sexual opportunities) — all of which tends to lead to a greater visual sexualization and sexual commodification of people, but which has also led to fewer people having actual sex. So what you have is a lot of people constantly being confronted with sexuality in images and plots and songs and so on, but fewer people having actual sex.
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Yeah every day is what I’d call “ideal minimum.” When we were young my ideal was at least twice a day, morning and evening. That didn’t always happen but that was the “ideal minimum” if that phrase makes sense. There is definitely a drop in libido for me from teens/twenties to 46. It was hard then to go more than twelve hours. I’d say it’s hard now to go more than 2 or 3 days.
So many young kids make it hard to achieve “ideal minimum.” We put a slide lock on the bedroom door. Last week two year old ran at the door and literally knocked it open – there we were buck naked – hopefully she’s too young to remember. “Daddy and Mommy are ….um… wrestling.” “Looks like Daddy was winning.”
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I think due to the nature of the human experience (we think by comparison to others, not by objective reality), more people feel they are missing out, what with the 24/7 sexual imagery. Not unlike other things that are in our faces all the time (extremes of wealth for example, the bar has moved up and up for what is considered “comfortable” as well as for what is considered affluent).
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Social media LARPing is also a part of this experience.
“Dude, if she’s not doing (insert what was extreme outlier activity 15 years ago), she’s just not that into you!”
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I have always been way too picky about women, but the Red Pill has given me solid, rational justifications for being so. It has also helped me understand the difference between features and bugs, and to prioritize which ones are more or less important than others.
Vive le connaisseur du féminisme! 🙂
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When I was younger (1990’s) the crew of guys I ran around with in San Francisco (about six of us) here and there would end up at a gentlemans club. There was on in SF that actually had good food. Like high end stuff you would see Chef Ramsey make. I liked that place. Attendant in the bathroom. Clean. No sticky floors. A steep cover / door charge to keep the riff-raff out. An enforced dress code on the men Thursday night thru Saturday night (ie shirt and tie). The women after their dance would actually join you at your table for a drink, or to chat. They were not higher-end per say (that whole industry is sleezey and groady…..know matter how you dress it up). They would never “push” for the private stuff, but they were trained here to “take time” and wait.
Never tried to date any of these women……..some were gorgeous, no doubt. I just knew even back then…it was “fantasy” and if I wasn’t going to pay, that fantasy (lap dance, private convo, light talk, a kiss or two) wasn’t going to happen naturally. Money had to be excahnged. Not credit cards. Cash.
Sure, had a lap dance or two over the years. Tipped well. No “happy ending” and no sharing of my cocaine. One gal noticed I was on it during a lap dance (I was super high and flying, and she could smell it…cocaine has a slight distinct smell)..she then mentioned “I’ll blow you for two rails”
No. Not sharing good drugs with a gal who doersn’t like me.
Yeah, threw some money on a stage before….but it was never the destination. It was just that palce we all ended up at here and there in those long ago times. I actaully liked the food at that one palce. “Brady Bunch” honesty here.
My friends at that time would go ape-sh*t crazy. Throwing money around. Lap dances, private stuff. High tips…buying them drinks…trying to flirt and mack them up. I would say “Blood, blood……this is a sure thing, you don’t need to practice game here. She is going to talk to you. They know we all kicked down $50.00 to get in here. They view us as customers. Let them see us, work us a bit. Enjoy the food, relax……”
Even back then some of my gay-pals would call me bitter or jealous because he was getting attention and I wasn’t (I wasn’t wanting it) and they were dumb, they were PAYING for attention.
Many of these women in this indusrty or career were serious cocaine addicts (I know, me at that time acocaine user calling these women addicts, oh the irony!). Many have some serious problems….many were molested and sexually abused as young girls. Most didn’t have a father. Sure, there were a few who indeed were that university gal at Berkeley who did this work for tuition….and then got out.
Porn was never my thing. Drugs were. I recall one night after dinner, some drinks…….I just wanted to go somewhere else “Hey men, lets shore up and get out of here and find the real thing, instead of just dumping money here for nothing.”
A long time ago…..
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Elspeth. Huge Luther Vandross fan here. I even liked him when he was playing in David Bowie’s backup band during the “Young Americans” sessions in 1974-1975. Loved his work in the 1980’s.
What I don’t like is after he died, Patti LaBell (and others) doing the tell all about his private life, and how he was actually “down with that scene” and making him into some black-gay Icon. It bothers me because I kinda knew as a teenager that “hmmmm, brother man like Mr. Johnny Mathis is playing for the other team” but it wasn’t an issue, because he never made it one.
He was talented, polite, fun, and always had a great attotude to his fans. He never made his private life public, and I was pretty sad when he died.
I got angry at Patti LaBell for doing that cheap talk AFTER he died. Tacky. It’s too bad because I really like her as well….but after she did that, not as much as a fan of her
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I agree, lastmod. Vandross was a class act, and his supposed friends posthumously violated his confidence. If he wanted to share that with the world he could have any time he wanted.
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Now I remember!Scott,I&rollo as the 3 studs of the manosphere did a charity benefit version of vandross&mariah careys ”endless love” song with gregoire singing along to our studly voices&guitars back in’12!The charity was churchian-feminazism makes peace with the redpill studs for the world!But the music video got banned for explicit non-polite redpill truth which elites hated as they censored us the true alpha men!But dal’ had the world primere of it live!As he interviewed all us studs&sheila for tips on dating women&marriage!
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Am I being mocked?
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Interesting. Didn’t know that about Vandross.
Joe Dimaggio was married to Marilyn Monroe for about 9 months. She divorced him, and it just about destroyed him. He remained friends with her until her death. Dimaggio paid for Monroe’s burial and funeral expenses and delivered a rose to her grave every year.
To the point: Dimaggio never once talked publicly about his marriage to Monroe despite multiple interview requests for that. He never dragged her. He never aired any dirty laundry.
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I’m just having my usual fun!Endless love is my fave vandross&mariah carey song!I hear its scott,rollo,dal’&sheilas faves too!
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I’m just old enough to remember when we at least lived with the idealized pretext that a song was just a song and a baseball game was just a baseball game and eating cereal wasn’t a statement of support for (or condemnation of) LGBTQ+ activism.
This is why I can say, regardless of what someone did privately, they produced good material. Even so-called blue pill songs are reflective of real emotions. Yes?
I know you’re just having fun, but I had more thoughts, Prof. So you get the honor -or boredom- of my reply.
Have a great day!
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“How much of it is also that men’s hourly, daily, yearly exposure to semi-public nudity, digital full nudity, porn, etc. makes us sex obsessed or at least constantly needing it?
If anything, the constant exposure has desensitized men rather than making them sex obsessed. At one time, Playboy magazines could only be sold in stores in an opaque wrapper and not kept on display. And a prized Playboy collection was kept in a secure place back home. Times have changed, I have now seen old Playboy magazines being sold at garage sales. They are no big deal, no one is interested and they have no value. It was the scarcity of nudity that piqued men’s interest, curiosity, and desire.
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Lol. When cleaning out my dad’s place….. found only one Playboy. From 1968. Sophie Lauren in a manila file in a file cabinet. You could tell over the decades it was looked at with admiration. lol
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Agree. When I was a younger teen, the girlie magazines were kept in the back of the drug store up fairly high in the magazine rack, with the covers partially hidden from view. You could only see the girl’s face and a hint of her cleavage. I remember one summer, I think I was 14, my family was vacationing at the beach and the drug store kept the girlie magazines down low on the floor with no covers whatsoever, just all piled out so anyone could thumb through them. They also had hardcore European porn which I saw for the first time ever, and it made Playboy and Penthouse look absolutely pedestrian by comparison. My 14 year old self thought he’d died and gone to heaven. The memory does seem so incredibly quaint nowadays.
Desensitized now? You bet. I just think of my workouts at the gym that I’ve mentioned in earlier posts. The women’s workout clothes are so form fitting, so tight, every curve is accented to include hints of camel toe. And you know what? Weirdly, I like it on one hand, in an eye-candy sort of way; but on the other hand, I could care less. It’s like, ho-hum. Part of that is being an older guy, but I believe the other part is that the nude and simulating-nude human female form is so commonplace now, it’s just what one sees time and time again, whether in the gym, the beach, or wherever.
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I find it odd that sometimes on Youtube, they demand me to enter my age and re-sign in to my account if I am viewing any controversial materials or stuff that could “trigger” someone, but a teen. a child can get a phone with internet access and go right on to You Porn or countless other sites.
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Yes, I agree that we’ve seen so much digital nudity since we were little boys (the endless supply of 80’s T&A movies we were raised on) that there’s some desensitization to it.
IMO, it’s harder to be around real life women that are half dressed etc. I think something in the male brain – the woman is real so your lizard brain calculates that there’s a non-zero probability of having sex with her. I think this is maybe an even bigger issue than porn and digital nudity. There are not reasonable dress standards in public or in the workplace.
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Yeah.
I also think that despite the talk about guys being less interested because they are desensitized, we have to remember that porn sites have massive, massive numbers of viewers. See here: https://www.businessinsider.com/internet-users-access-porn-more-than-twitter-wikipedia-and-netflix-2018-9
I know that doesn’t make sense to the readers here, because of desensitization and so on, but obviously there are a lot of other people who don’t seem desensitized yet.
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Yes, so I guess original point. I wonder if lack of sex, whether for incels or husbands, is harder to tolerate in the hypersexualized environment. I would think yes.
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I think so. I think this is also, together with smaller families, why the Catholics saw such a drop in vocations both to the priesthood and other forms of religious (i.e., celibate) life. Sex became the central focus of the culture, and therefore the central focus of a “well-lived” human life, in a way that it was not previously. That makes it much harder to deal with being deprived of it.
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You might be on to something there cameron232. As eye pleasing as it can be at times, there’s zero probability of anything happening for any guy (younger men, I’m not talking about myself), not even a flirty glance from her, and certainly nothing approaching a good-old fashioned conversation. It is weird at the gym these days, the only one that talks to the hot THOTs is the staff Chad, and he ‘gets away with it’ because it’s part of his job.The Stacy’s seem to like it. They seem to get into it when staff Chad is chatting them up. All the rest of the guys working out, Joe average and the Studs, they stay clear of the hot THOTs in their form fitting workout clothes. I’m sure everyone checks everyone out, but it is so subtle, I can’t even pick it up for the most part.
Novaseeker says its the effect of the dating apps; I get where he’s coming from with that line of reasoning. It also may be some of the cultural fallout from the MeToo stuff, etc. Not sure. Whatever it is, it occurs to this older dude as a little weird, like in what they h*ll happened to the ole’ ‘Birds and the Bees’ gig? The Stacy’s and the Chads (and some of the regular Joe’s), seem to be dressing the part, e.g. dressing to impress the opposite sex, but hardly any interaction whatsoever. Maybe it’s something along the lines of what you said cameron232, “IMO, it’s harder to be around real life women that are half dressed etc. I think something in the male brain – the woman is real so your lizard brain calculates that there’s a non-zero probability of having sex with her.”
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It’s what was previously called “posing”. Putting yourself out there, and attracting attention without specific interaction.
It’s happened because of “male sexual zoning”. Sexual zoning is a thing where, due to men and women interacting in close proximity in a lot of places that are focused on tasks other than meeting people (work, gym, etc.), these places are “zoned” as “non-sexualized zones for males”, where sexualized interactions from males are strongly discouraged (although still engaged in by the strongest hands on the male side in terms of SMP value), but everything else is permitted, including extremely provocative attire and/or behavior by women, and similar displays by men.
This has been a thing for some time, but intensified a lot with the more or less simultaneous rise of #metoo and dating apps, such that now almost every place outside a dating app — including places like bars — are considered to be “non-sexualized zones for men” as in, “I don’t come to a crowded bar on a Saturday night to get hit on by men, I come to hang out and have fun with my friends … If you want to meet women, there’s an app for that!” type of attitude that is now becoming quite commonplace. Of course, the young woman who says that is indeed there at the bar to be looked at, and to soak up attention, but unless the man who approaches is clearly superior, she prefers to use dating apps where she has more men than just happened to show up at the bar to choose from, and she can screen them with no muss and no fuss. This also has the advantage of keeping all the men who are not in the clearly superior category in a social box where they are simply prohibited from interacting with women anywhere in a sexual way, and are confined to using dating apps, where they are easily screened out.
All of this advantages women, substantially, and you’re seeing that play out in the specific environment you’re dealing with. It’s a broader trend, however.
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Regarding gentlemen’s clubs, I would add another category of young women who work in the more upscale clubs. This is a new category that didn’t exist a few years ago. These are young professional women who don’t need the money, but are there to seek the attention of men which they can easily experience at the club. It’s a safe environment where they can flirt with men with no strings attached. I know of several such women who told me this is due to their workplace which has created unnatural restricted environments designed to avoid potential lawsuits. The gentlemen’s club provides the necessary outlet for these women.
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I could believe that. have not been to a club like this since 2000? 2001…and like I mentioned, the one I did go to on occasion was a higher end place for sure. No sticky floors. No women with tattoos (which were around then as well…none of the women at that club had tattoos)
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Grandpa was as ready for action as any of us are today.
January 1944
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Bet she didn’t give it up on the first date; second, third or fourth probably as well! Maybe not even until she had a ring on her finger! lol
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Boomer – She’s a topless girl posing in the 1940s, you know, for the “troops”. The probability that someone so outside the social norm of the period, would wait for a ring to give it up is laughable.
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Lol! Didn’t notice she was topless. That changes things! 😉
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One day I might get to the point where I miss that a girl is topless. When that time comes I hope the obituary is well written. 🙂
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Yes, when I was a kid, my grandparents and aunts and uncles would talk about their romance stories (the “how me met and fell in love” stuff) and they would use euphemistic language so us little kids wouldn’t understand.
Phrases like “well, you know the relationship was consumated well before the actual marriage hardy har har!”
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Despite what we all see around us, I have seen signs of this quiet storm brewing, a sexual counterrevolution referred to here. This is the intro to the article:
Yes, I include my kids and their friends in these sexual counterrevolutionaries, but not all of their friends, who also are a part of it, are devout Christians. One high school friend (now 27) waited until 24 years old to give herself to a guy. I think she was playing that game someone here suggested Christian women play: “if I wait and wait and wait for just the right guy and then take the gamble…”
The gamble didn’t pay off, and I know she was devastated because she told me so, and said she will never make that mistake again. She’s not a believer, just a very conservative girl who was trying to buck the ugly trends we see all around us. Her family is nice, UMC, great people. She’s slowly exploring the faith, getting her feet wet, but she was born in a Communist country and religion wasn’t a major part of her growing up years. So her exposure to the faith has come through us.
These young people are a minority of course, but the notion that all the young women are out there slutting it up, or even that all the young men would be sleeping around if they could, leaves these young people, devout and non-alike invisible, even to each other. They may be scattered hither and yon, but they also may be ships passing each other because they are assuming that everyone is expecting sex and they don’t plan to participate outside of marriage.
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OK, but….
Charlotte will not look twice at Narayan. Narayan cannot attract Charlotte.
Charlotte cannot find any men who are good enough for her, much less sexually attractive to her.
Narayan is dead in the water. He won’t be anywhere close to good enough for the kind of woman he wants. Not even close.
Yeah, great – younger men and women want chastity. Too bad they’ll never find each other and if they did actually meet, she won’t want him and he won’t qualify.
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Add to that, that even if they do manage to find each other and marry:
half of them will divorce.
Of the remaining half,
–50% will be in dead bedroom marriages
–30% will be in marriages that are “doing OK”
–20% will be “good” marriages in which they’re “happy”
Even then,
–25% of them will cheat on each other
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Deti – Your figures are quite possible, but if Charlotte in this article has had a “Damascus Road” type moment on her sexuality in her early 20’s could the profile not change? If you think about her as a risk model with certain characteristics and then compare her to what we know is the feminist life script and do the same on the male side for Narayan there is actually a better than average chance that people with these mindsets will eventually find each other. It’s the concept of selection, whereby the buyer, Narayan in this case, is selecting for certain characteristics of the product he wants. Likewise, the product, Charlotte, is putting out features that would select for buyers of a similar mindset.
Don’t underestimate the power of being likeminded in the sales process. Over many years I have seen it produce unexpected results. It could be that the article is an outlier. Or it could be that we are seeing the beginnings of a pendulum shift in response to the negative results feminism has produced. Based on your figures, and the pain they represent for so many men who are willing to share their experiences, it very well could be that we are beginning to see the curtailing of the excesses.
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@ red pill apostle:
Gen X and older millenials were a sexual basket case of a mess. We really were, and we set the stage for what younger millenials have turned out to be like, when armed with social media. A lot of the posts here focus on that, and that combined with any first person experiences deti has, informs his commentary. Same for us all, I suppose.
The stats are overwhelmingly clear, however, that Gen Z (apparently our older kids are Gen Z as well, not millenials) is having exponentially less sex than Gen X and Millenials. By far. Part of it is dysfunction brought on by the sexual madness of the culture which has destroyed normal ways of meeting and connecting. Porn and social media attention serving as gap fillers, for instance. But part of it is a conscious choice on the part of a significant minority to turn away from the madness.
There are always young people, (those who have a particular gregariousness, outgoing, just lucky enough to meet someone etc) who are coupling and having sex, and there are those particularly on college campuses who are still doing the hookup thing. Admittedly every one of the young people I know who I call old fogeys, lived at home and went to college (Christian or not). It makes a huge difference, for the better morally, but maybe for the worst in terms of meeting someone and pairing off at all. A lot of the commentary here is slightly outdated though, mainly because we’re older.
I am still not convinced that the sexual revolution was at all about women hating sex with their husbands, for instance. Women who mostly had no one to compare their husbands to should not have hated sex with their husbands.I mean, biologically, the parts all work a certain way. You do certain things, you get certain responses. It’s not rocket science. Maybe I’m missing something, but I think it was more about sex roles, freedom from other parts of patriarchal order, and yes for some, the freedom to get out there and find a new man. But I don’t think that was the driving force. I think that came later. I have a point, and it’s this:
These younglings can carve out happy marriages, be apart of the 20%, as it were. Given their commitment to doing things the right way, I believe that they have already bucked the crappy marriage narrative by avoiding all the stuff that leads to dissatisfaction in marriage in the first place. I refuse to see myself as a snowflake in this regard. To do so is too depressing, honestly.
I’ve got more stuff write (earn my pay), but thanks for the food for thought RPA.
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I messed up the html to the link:
https://spectator.us/topic/sexual-counterrevolution-liberation/
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The Transformed Wife also covered this story.
https://thetransformedwife.com/yippee-a-sexual-counterrevolution-is-coming/
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Thanks.
I’m skeptical that this is more than a micro-trend, to be honest, among a small portion of the educated elite class. It bears watching, but I’m skeptical.
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I agree with Nova that it’s a small trend, but it speaks to something larger. I mentioned the subset of young people we’ve witnessed. They all have degrees, a few of them from a very idyllic, highly ranked, but -in my opinion- overpriced liberal arts college. It’s on all the regional lists of best LA colleges in the southeast. My kid has a degree from there too, in fact. So not Ivy League, but supposedly well educated. They have decent paying jobs for mid-20 somethings.
I also have seen the kinds of young people who would follow the Kardashian thing as worthy of emulation, and they are a different group. What I believe is that this micro trend has been brewing for a while. More young people than you might think are rebelling against this madness. Just as the rest of American society has become extremely polarized and stratified, I think the same thing is happening with regards to sex and sexual behavior.
So while these young people are a distinct minority, I don’t think pretending their stand is irrelevant is helpful. I thought this was what we wanted; educated, MC and UMC young people to make a very vocal stand for values that are more in line with Christian values. Ideally, magnifying their voices will empower other young people with the knowledge that they too can choose a different path.
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That’s possible, but it’s far too new, and likely far too small, to evaluate properly. As I said, it bears watching, but that’s about it.
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The mother, Kris Jenner (born Houghton), age 65, is known as the “momager” (i.e., mom/manager) of the group.
Oh. I thought it was a portmanteau of “mom” and “teenager.” Somehow, I suspect that I’m not really mistaken in that assumption.
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