When you say "speific subset of the population" I take it you mean "women who are interested in sex"

I think your advice makes a lot of sense, and if she ever lets me meet him, I will probably take it. There's the rub. She almost never lets me meet men she goes out with. She says I am scary, just because I scared off a teen age boy long ago who liked to boost cars.

He has told her he loves her and she has told him ... nothing, because she just doesn't know yet.

Do you know the tarot reader predicted the presidential race? She said that McCain and Clinton would lose. She said Obama was sure to win, but that Hillary would have a reward in the end.

Kind of creepy.

No, I don't run my life by superstition alone, but sometimes I do wonder ...

Anyway, thanks.

From the asymmetry you posit, the situation does have to look unsolvable (not in the sense that men can never get sex, but in the sense that they'll always have to make a bigger effort for it; and not through the mischievous wiles of women, but simply because of hormonal differences, very much like women apparently will never be able to compete with men in the Olympics, unless we start manipulating our genes on this respect).

The vast majority of the worlds population probably doesn't really live, at least not fully,

in what a middle class person in an advanced country would consider the modern world.

In my own personal experience, the thought you express here is 100% correct.

I'll bet most women against pornography/prostitution are e.g. also pro-lifers.

I'd like to know the answer to that too, it certainly seems like it isn't true, or at least hasn't been true in the past, of the high profile public speakers on the subject. It's true that that isn't necessarily a good guide to who thinks what.

Maybe it was the case that the public speakers you refer to were a few but spoke quite often and were believed to represent a general opinion without any real questioning of the base having taken place? (I was in America in the '90s, till 1999, so I can't talk about what happened before that from personal experience.)

Men always complain that women or feminists in particular alwasys try to restrict their access to porn. I think men are more likely to believe this based upon thing that they read rather than in actuality. Moreover, when men here at Broadsheet complain about this, they never actually define porn. They act as if all porn is the same when it is really quite wide ranging.

Dworkin (whom I think dickie obscenely named himself after) and McKinnon mostly tried to rally women to oppose a certain type of porn: Violent, exploitative porn. It didn't actually work as a movement because lots of women actually like or at least are prepared to tolerate some types of porn. Lesbian women, in particular, and free speech feminists opposed this and the movement broke down.

When men go on and on about this, they never ask themselves why it failed. It failed because feminists stopped it.

Therefore, when men say feminists oppose porn, they are only making fools of themselves.

My generalizations:

Women with fundamentalist religious beliefs -- almost always oppose any porn that they can't control. Rarely, they might tolerate playboy -- because men are so weak -- but they will never sit down and watch it and they oppose internet browsing of it in their men.

Women in general -- varies completely with the woman.

Feminists -- some feminists oppose any porn in which real violence seems to be used against women. All feminist whom I know oppose porn in which it cannot be validated that the women in it are of age. I, frankly, am glad Max Hardcore was found guilty of obscenity.

but there certainly have been a lot of high profile pro choice feminists who have objected to porn and prostitution.

So in other words, if feminists had been of one mind on the subject they could have banned it, (and presumably anything else they all agree they don't like) things like the consitution are irrelvant when it comes to women getting their way apparently. I trust we won't be hearing any more about paranoid men.

I agree that this isn't really feminism's fault (except if one includes some fringe authors of the Dworkin-McKinnon kind). But I will ask here for some pity for the men--it's not simply that they don't like the perceived 'absence of rules' about how to get the women of their dreams, but it's also that it's true there are good guys out there who don't have the necessary 'dating skills' to approach the women they're attracted to. If they're still supposed to take the initiative (and they apparently usually are, either because 'they want it more' or because 'society says they have to', take your pick) and they feel insecure about it, then they can be positively overwhelmed by the conflicting feelings about being attracted to someone and not knowing how to act so as not to make this attraction (which as you pointed out will always be obvious--why else would he be trying to approach the girl?) look ridiculous. I suppose this is not in itself a man or woman thing--whoever is supposed to take the initiative in this game will be in the same uncomfortable situation, if women were supposed to do that they would feel just as awkward.

There is some sense in which what is necessary is devising some system of rules that allow people who are attracted to each other to interact on the basis of this attraction without looking either aggressive or stupid--much like common courtesy rules allow strangers to interact normally without looking afraid, insecure, angry, aggressive, or ridiculous either. Some people think that this 'community' or 'Game' may be about giving some of these rules (in the form of 'dating skills') to men who would otherwise not know how to approach the situation with any chance of success.

I think the problem is that this kind of 'Game' rules make it all look like a war game (with the "girl's virtue" as the target). So negging looks like a revolting thing--deliberately making someone feel insecure for the purpose of creating a weak spot that can later on be exploited to produce a dependence that may lead to 'hitting the target'.

But something else, something more than just 'be yourself', does seem to be necessary. Some guys are actually good, but unskilled (call them 'brute diamonds' if you will), and would appreciate some guidance. (I know, I was one of them...).