The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

‘Hit-It-and-Quit-It on Tinder’

Posted on | August 31, 2015 | 184 Comments

Online dating apps are fueling an “apocalypse” of hook-up culture, Nancy Jo Sales reports in a frightening Vanity Fair feature:

[Alex] says that he himself has slept with five different women he met on Tinder — “Tinderellas,” the guys call them — in the last eight days. Dan and Marty, also Alex’s roommates in a shiny high-rise apartment building near Wall Street, can vouch for that. In fact, they can remember whom Alex has slept with in the past week more readily than he can.
“Brittany, Morgan, Amber,” Marty says, counting on his fingers. “Oh, and the Russian — Ukrainian?”
“Ukrainian,” Alex confirms. “She works at—” He says the name of a high-end art auction house. Asked what these women are like, he shrugs. “I could offer a résumé, but that’s about it … Works at J. Crew; senior at Parsons; junior at Pace; works in finance … ”
“We don’t know what the girls are like,” Marty says.
“And they don’t know us,” says Alex.

Hey, guys, let’s add a word to your vocabulary: Herpes.

Did you know that herpes is incurable, and that condoms don’t protect against herpes? You could ask Ella Dawson to explain this to you. Ms. Dawson was a student at Wesleyan University (annual tuition $47,972) who said she “never had unprotected sex,” but experienced a “tidal wave of shame” when she was diagnosed with a herpes infection. (Ms. Dawson graduated in 2014 with a bachelor of arts in Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, “theorizing the feminist possibilities of erotica,” so I guess that makes her an expert of sorts.) A 2010 report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that the herpes rate “was nearly twice as high among women (21%) as men (11%), and more than three times higher among African-Americans (39%) than whites (12%). The infection rate among African-American women was 48%.” For obvious reasons, promiscuity increases the risk of infection, and the CDC found that about 27% of those who reported 10 or more partners are infected with herpes.

So while Alex is congratulating himself on hooking up with five “Tinderellas” in the span of eight days, he should perhaps be thinking in terms of epidemiology. Yet the herpes virus may ultimately be less harmful than the emotional damage inflicted by mindless promiscuity:

Marty, who prefers Hinge to Tinder (“Hinge is my thing”), is no slouch at “racking up girls.” He says he’s slept with 30 to 40 women in the last year: “I sort of play that I could be a boyfriend kind of guy,” in order to win them over, “but then they start wanting me to care more … and I just don’t.”

See? Marty understands the game he’s playing. Pretend that you’re emotionally available — “a boyfriend kind of guy” — and “racking up girls” via online hook-up sites is not difficult nowadays for any reasonably attractive young man. The more a guy succeeds at that cynical game, however, the lower his estimation of women in general, because each “win” for him just proves how easily girls can be deceived. No amount of feminist “consciousness raising” can change the fundamental reality of human nature. Casual sex is a game in which guys have a decisive advantage, and therefore any girl who plays that game is a fool. When so many young women are willing to play this foolish game, however, it produces a culture shift that hurts women:

“It’s rare for a woman of our generation to meet a man who treats her like a priority instead of an option,” wrote Erica Gordon on the Gen Y Web site Elite Daily, in 2014.
It is the very abundance of options provided by online dating which may be making men less inclined to treat any particular woman as a “priority,” according to David Buss, a professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin who specializes in the evolution of human sexuality. “Apps like Tinder and OkCupid give people the impression that there are thousands or millions of potential mates out there,” Buss says. “One dimension of this is the impact it has on men’s psychology. When there is a surplus of women, or a perceived surplus of women, the whole mating system tends to shift towards short-term dating. Marriages become unstable. Divorces increase. Men don’t have to commit, so they pursue a short-term mating strategy. Men are making that shift, and women are forced to go along with it in order to mate at all.”
“For young women the problem in navigating sexuality and relationships is still gender inequality,” says Elizabeth Armstrong, a professor of sociology at the University of Michigan who specializes in sexuality and gender. “Young women complain that young men still have the power to decide when something is going to be serious and when something is not — they can go, ‘She’s girlfriend material, she’s hookup material.’ … There is still a pervasive double standard. We need to puzzle out why women have made more strides in the public arena than in the private arena.”

Will feminists ever wake up and realize that human nature is an immutable reality impervious to ideology? Viewing sexual problems as a quasi-Marxist struggle between two classes — men and women as collective groups — does not necessarily help any individual woman and may arguably make her life more difficult. Strategies recommended by feminist ideology may seem to “work” for lesbian sociology professors who view all males as hostile and dangerous, but political rhetoric about “gender inequality” doesn’t help the college girl trying to negotiate personal relationships. Are we to believe that Professor Armstrong (author of the 2002 book Forging Gay Identities) is best qualified to advise young heterosexual women on how to find a guy who will treat her right? Nancy Jo Sales reports the anecdotal evidence:

At a table in the front, six young women have met up for an after-work drink. They’re seniors from Boston College, all in New York for summer internships, ranging from work in a medical-research lab to a luxury department store. They’re attractive and fashionable, with bright eyes highlighted with dark eyeliner wings. None of them are in relationships, they say. I ask them how they’re finding New York dating.
“New York guys, from our experience, they’re not really looking for girlfriends,” says the blonde named Reese. “They’re just looking for hit-it-and-quit-it on Tinder.”
“People send really creepy s–t on it,” says Jane, the serious one.
“I think that iPhones and dating apps have really changed the way that dating happens for our generation,” says Stephanie, the one with an arm full of bracelets.
“There is no dating. There’s no relationships,” says Amanda, the tall elegant one. “They’re rare. You can have a fling that could last like seven, eight months and you could never actually call someone your ‘boyfriend.’ [Hooking up] is a lot easier. No one gets hurt — well, not on the surface.” . . .
They say they think their own anxiety about intimacy comes from having “grown up on social media,” so “we don’t know how to talk to each other face-to-face.” . . .
“It seems like the girls don’t have any control over the situation, and it should not be like that at all,” Fallon says.
“It’s a contest to see who cares less, and guys win a lot at caring less,” Amanda says.
“Sex should stem from emotional intimacy, and it’s the opposite with us right now, and I think it really is kind of destroying females’ self-images,” says Fallon.
“It’s body first, personality second,” says Stephanie.
“Honestly, I feel like the body doesn’t even matter to them as long as you’re willing,” says Reese. “It’s that bad.”
“But if you say any of this out loud, it’s like you’re weak, you’re not independent, you somehow missed the whole memo about third-wave feminism,” says Amanda.

No, ma’am. You got the memo. It’s just that you seem to be smart enough to realize that the memo was completely wrong. What feminist ideology tells young women they should do — being sexually “empowered” and expecting this empowerment to lead to “equality” in their relationships — is the exact opposite of what common sense based on an actual knowledge of human nature would advise them to do.

The accumulated wisdom of centuries still holds true. If you want to be loved, be lovable, and if you want to be respected, be respectable. As I tell young women, don’t just “play hard to get,” be hard to get. A girl who acts like trash thereby forfeits the right to complain that guys treat her like trash. One of the worst things feminism has done is to attack the sexual “double standard” by encouraging women to lower their standards, to screw around heedlessly and to view short-term “relationships” as an acceptable substitute for actual commitment.

This strategy of “equality” doesn’t work to women’s advantage. It has never worked and will never work, and any girl who plays that game is a fool. Yet feminism teaches women to blame men for taking advantage of the foolishness that feminists themselves encourage. If millions of women are on Tinder offering themselves as hook-up partners, how are men to blame if they react to “a perceived surplus of women” by playing that game? “Hit it and quit it.”

Certainly, I would never advise my kids to play that game. No decent parent would ever want their daughter to be offering herself to random strangers online, and decent parents would be horrified if their son brought home a woman he’d picked up that way. “Tinder trash” for a daughter-in-law? No, son. Leave those trashy women alone.

Remember that herpes is incurable, 21% of women are infected, and I’ll bet the rate of herpes infection is even higher on Tinder.

(Hat-tip: Donald Douglas on Twitter.)





 

Comments

184 Responses to “‘Hit-It-and-Quit-It on Tinder’”

  1. RS
    September 1st, 2015 @ 9:32 am

    MY daughters understood that my rules were also for their protection, not merely a restriction or punishment.

    Spot on. A few years ago, I drove my daughter to the airport for a flight to Europe to start a new job. During our conversation, she mentioned to me that she finally realized how liberating–her word–it was to be able to use the phrase, “my parents won’t allow it” when growing up. At the time, of course, she joined in the chorus of protests to our “overly strict” parenting. Nonetheless, she ultimately realized it helped her develop the attitudes necessary to wind up Summa Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa, when so many of her peers wound up making mistakes because they chose poorly when applying their adolescent minds to freedom which was granted to them improvidently.

  2. Eric Ashley
    September 1st, 2015 @ 9:39 am

    I see Libertarians as similar to the First Feminists. The Libertarian male’s ultimate victory over the Social Conservative male comes when the Libertarian male hires the Social Conservative male’s daughter as a prostitute. A clean, classy, college-educated prostitute which will not be greatly harmed by the encounter….

  3. Finrod Felagund
    September 1st, 2015 @ 9:57 am

    That song is in my personal top songs list.

  4. Grandson Of TheGrumpus
    September 1st, 2015 @ 11:32 am

    I’ve always thought that my understanding of modern promiscuity was “missing something”.

    Making love, (i.e., sexual relations) is a deeply spiritual act of giving yourself, “opening up” by letting boundaries drop and pass away; and for the younger crowd, (possibly) the act of co-creation of a body for another of Heavenly Father’s spirit children.

    But, at the very least, creating a new life of One Person, who has two facits, Man and Woman— Husband and Wife!

    HOW can your partner NOT be your priority?

    I find the world becoming more and more incomprehensible as time passes.

  5. Daniel Freeman
    September 1st, 2015 @ 12:57 pm

    True, but given the male need for female validation, if more women looked down on “mansluts,” then fewer men would admire them.

    ETA: Well, except that scoring is in itself a form of female validation…

    Don’t mind me, just arguing with myself over here.

  6. Sandtiger
    September 1st, 2015 @ 1:20 pm

    Exactly. Nature abhors a vacuum, and children need structure. If parents are too timid or misguidedly “caring” to establish limits, children are adrift in a culture of self-indulgence and risky behavior. That’s not parental love, its dereliction of duty.
    I made it quite clear that, although I loved them (and still do), I was not their “friend,” I was their father. Now they are good, decent people who understand themselves and have avoided the horrific missteps of their peers.

  7. Blue
    September 1st, 2015 @ 1:25 pm

    The younger generation, raised on porn, indoctrinated with a negative view of religion, and raised in an environment that encourages atheist, if it feels good do it, hedonism, views sex as something you mainly do for selfish pleasure. Tinder is the perfect expression of this where you tap random strangers and then quickly discard them in order to chase the next high.

  8. Prime Director
    September 1st, 2015 @ 2:00 pm

    Me, too.

    I tried to be clever, lyric-checking QM’s esponse (Sittin on the dock of the bay, wasting time, I left my home in Georgia, headed toward the frisco bay)

    But it came off as brusque and dismissive; not my intent.

    The posthumously released SOTDOTB shows The King of Soul at his best.

    http://youtu.be/UCmUhYSr-e4

  9. Prime Director
    September 1st, 2015 @ 2:32 pm

    As long as were on the (off) topic of Soul Music in general and Otis Redding in particular, can I axe you something real quick?

    First, compare and contrast two versions of The song he wrote, Respect:

    The original, by The King of Soul, my man Otis Redding:

    http://youtu.be/KvC9V_lBnDQ

    And the cover by her highness, The Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin:

    http://youtu.be/6FOUqQt3Kg0

    The differences between the two versions of the song correspond to the changes in the identity of the head of household in the urban community, at about the time the change occurred.

    Okay, here’s my question: Does anyone here subscribe to the notion that Otis is euphamizing when he asks for respect when he comes home? Cuz I don’t.

  10. GUEST
    September 1st, 2015 @ 2:51 pm

    Thought this was funny

  11. Matthew W
    September 1st, 2015 @ 4:57 pm

    Sorry but,
    READHEAD !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  12. Matthew W
    September 1st, 2015 @ 4:58 pm

    Seriously, women better figure out that Alex is going to go through his “adult” life with a never ending series of trophy wives.

  13. The original Mr. X
    September 1st, 2015 @ 5:10 pm

    Well, I’ve often thought that one of the main ways God punishes us is by giving us what we ask for…

  14. The original Mr. X
    September 1st, 2015 @ 5:13 pm

    The fact that they don’t feel happy should tell them something: that men and women are different, not rivals, but complementary.

    Usually when I bring this point up, the response is “That’s just because of The Patriarchy brainwashing us to think sex is special! What we really need is MOAR FEMINISM!”

  15. The original Mr. X
    September 1st, 2015 @ 5:22 pm

    Have women always found male virginity off-putting, or is that just a post-sexual-revolution development?

  16. The original Mr. X
    September 1st, 2015 @ 5:23 pm

    “If the world hates you, just remember that it hated Me first. Until I changed all my teachings to make them easier to follow, then the world loved me again.” #thingsjesusneversaid

  17. The original Mr. X
    September 1st, 2015 @ 5:24 pm

    I believe the psychological term for this phenomenon is “reverse conformity”, which sums it up pretty nicely, I think. 😉

  18. The original Mr. X
    September 1st, 2015 @ 5:31 pm

    Unfortunately the privileged youth grow up to become the leaders and opinion-formers of society. Saying “this isn’t a big deal, it’s just happening among the privileged youth” is a lot like saying “this toxic waste spillage isn’t a big deal, it’s only the river’s source that’s contaminated”.

  19. The original Mr. X
    September 1st, 2015 @ 5:34 pm

    Luckily, though, for most that happens after the hormones have quietened down a bit.

  20. Daniel Freeman
    September 1st, 2015 @ 5:43 pm

    Sorry but,
    READHEAD !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    I too love bibliophiles. Mmm, all that sexy imagination… Yum! 😉

  21. eyesfrontmen
    September 1st, 2015 @ 5:46 pm

    When you also advise young men that nearly all women eventually regret the casual sex they have, and are then driven by their feminist psychosis to relieve their psychic conundrum with false rape allegations to be adjudicated in post constitutional feminist kangaroo courts…
    The best advice to men…Stay away from these women. Sure, they are easy to pump and dump, but even the best lawyer can’t help you in a court without rules except that the slut is always right.
    The feminists that tell girls to be sluts, also tell them that consensual sex is rape. Women can hold such contradictory thoughts and feel rational doing so. There is no excuse for a man to abandon reason.

  22. Daniel Freeman
    September 1st, 2015 @ 11:53 pm

    I wouldn’t know personally, having been born in the ’70s, but I suspect the latter. It seems to be an artifact of reliance on social proof — or in other words, who do other women find attractive, times ease of getting laid for the attractive ones.

  23. Ilion
    September 2nd, 2015 @ 7:33 am

    Ilíon:And the thing is, it’s not *men* who give “elevated social status [to] promiscuous men”, but rather women.

    Dana:Uhhh,
    men give plenty of “elevated social status” to other men who have
    scored a lot.

    Right.

    That’s why words such as ‘pimp’, ‘whore-monger’, ‘skirt-chaser’, ‘lounge lizard’, ‘Lothario’, ‘seducer’, ‘libertine’, ‘playboy’, ‘philanderer’, ‘roué’, ‘heartbreaker’, ‘rake’, ‘cad’, ‘lecher, ‘swinger’, ‘debaucher’, ‘womanizer’ are said with such awe and respect.

    And who can overlook what is surely the acme of male respectability, the ‘gigolo’, who not only bangs a lot of women, but gets them to pay him for the privilege.

    When are you going to open your eyes and choose to see the world as it really is, and human beings as they really are, in contrast to the deliberate lies you were taught as part of the leftist strategy for destroying our civilization?

    Men, at least in our present culture, may tease one another that they could behave as a ‘stud’ or a ‘Casanova’, but no man respects a man who actually behaves that way.

    As I said, “it’s not *men* who give “elevated social status [to]
    promiscuous men”, but rather women.” It is not men who are impressed with that behavior, but women. It is not men who aspire to be ‘studs’, but women who aspire to “tame” a ‘stud’ by her Special Snowflakeness (and the power of her Magical P****).

  24. Dystopia Max
    September 2nd, 2015 @ 1:23 pm

    Would you encourage early marriage and open patriarchy so the majority of young men had a realistically moral sexual context outside of porn at a young age, thereby blunting its power and providing a real alternative at a time developmentally early?

    If not, you probably aren’t actually serious. If you are actually serious, you will not be effective. PORN IS A SYMPTOM, NOT A CAUSE, of social degeneracy.

    Stop talking about a “free society” and start talking about a society ruled by patriarchs, and you may actually get somewhere.

  25. Broken Premisses | Dalrock
    September 2nd, 2015 @ 1:57 pm

    […] to get argued that Robert Stacey McCain and I aren’t really in disagreement regarding the post that I responded to.  While we are in agreement on many points*, there is an important difference […]

  26. Toads
    September 2nd, 2015 @ 2:11 pm

    Dalrock, who usually agrees with RS McCain, has corrected RS McCain’s misconceptions about how Republican women are somehow significantly different from lefty feminists, and that women are somehow better at commitment than men (nothing could be further from the truth) :

    https://dalrock.wordpress.com/2015/09/02/broken-premisses/

  27. Blue
    September 2nd, 2015 @ 2:36 pm

    Who said “porn was the cause of social degeneracy”? It’s very much a symptom, but to put the responsibility for that on men would be wrong, when it’s quite clear that liberal feminism, and the sexual revolution(and of course information technology)were the prime movers behind the porn explosion. And for all their talk of patriarchy have feminists come any closer to dismantling the power structure? No. In reality they’re sell outs who only wanted to be a part of it, and are now a part of the very same system they told us they despised.

  28. Ilion
    September 4th, 2015 @ 7:31 am

    Just to let you know, I’m working on a post (which I’ll be posting at my blog). I’ll post the link here.

  29. Ilion
    September 4th, 2015 @ 7:33 am

    I’m into tall brunettes. Personally, I think blondes tend to be boring.

  30. Don’t Do This, Ever : The Other McCain
    September 5th, 2015 @ 6:34 pm

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  32. Harry_Voyager
    September 6th, 2015 @ 12:17 pm

    Men are situational, while women are cyclical. If you get he man in the habit of expecting it every time or nearly he sees her, he’ll still be in that habit when he sees her every day, while she’ll still be in the same cycle she was in originally.

    Also, when you are dating everything is still at least partly a performance, rather than what is in the tin.

  33. Objectified by the Male Gaze UPDATE: Allegedly Heterosexual? | Living in Anglo-America
    September 13th, 2015 @ 7:59 am

    […] relationships is always a mistake. Whatever the specific medium — including online dating apps (“Hit It or Quit It on Tinder”) — the participant in online romantic pursuit is creating a record of digital evidence that can […]

  34. Objectified by the Male Gaze UPDATE: Allegedly Heterosexual? : The Other McCain
    September 13th, 2015 @ 10:37 am

    […] is always a mistake. Whatever the specific medium — including online dating apps (“Hit It or Quit It on Tinder”) — the participant in online romantic pursuit is creating a record of digital evidence that […]