There’s an essay, over a hundred years old, that will have a lot of modern men nodding in disbelief at how plainly it states the facts. “Women as Sex Vendors: Why women are conservative” was written in 1908 by early 20th century socialist authors Mary Marcy and her brother Tobias. The two argue that contrary to being uniquely oppressed, women in fact hold the privilege of owning and selling for profit a commodity only they possess. It is men alone who are the true “proletarians” that have nothing to sell but the power of their labor. The implication remains incendiary to this day: Women sell sex, men buy it. Heterosexual sex is plainly based on prostitution. The scorn that society has for prostitutes is, from this perspective, nothing but veiled economic warfare waged by “respectable” women against their more affordable competitors. The blog article by one “Mensrightsreview” hammers home this point in biting satirical prose, in effect stating that women have built a kind of “sex cartel” whose purpose is to artificially keep the price of sex high so as to maximize revenue from sex, the constant flow of resources from men to women.
My point here is not to merely restate arguments made by these better authors. My point is to add a twist. If sex is an economic issue, it may be worth fighting for with economic means. But first, let me give some quick historical context.
The “Dating Crisis”
Marriage is dying. The fact is uncontestable, the trend global, the implications ominous. Most advanced capitalist societies have a slowly shrinking population. If sex is exchanged for goods delivered, surely the price of sex must move with the price of goods. And if the necessities of life are increasingly out of reach, sex will be too for those who need to buy it in exchange for those goods: Men. Not only has real purchasing power been in decline from at least the 1970s, the formerly unemployed female population’s entrance into the job market has meant another thing: If women are making money in the productive economy, they can only sell sex for further profit if a man can offer them more in goods than women can obtain for themselves. This means that not only have (sex) cartel prices been fixed above the “natural” exchange value for sex, they have been rising with women’s economic standing. Enter the “dating crisis” manifesting as many modern women’s ludicrously unrealistic expectations of men they are to have sex with. “Six figure salary, six foot six, physically fit, great in bed, treats me like a princess” etc. etc. I don’t argue that women are morally inferior to have arrived at this level of entitlement. Much less do I make absolute statements and argue that every last one of them has. I argue that a sizable chunk of women arriving at this mindset is nothing but a consequence of economic trends. If expectations for men have been rising, but their real power to meet them sinking, it can only mean the following: Fewer men than ever are having sex and fewer women than ever can find a man they find worthy of sex. In other words, in a lot of cases, there’s barely anyone left to pay the price. Sex is in a crisis of profitability.
Men react
Men have reacted in a few interesting ways to this trend. I’ll go through some of the main reactive “genres” and add my own two cents at the tail end of each one.
Pick-Up artistry
If the decline began decades earlier, the reaction arrived late. The 90s and 2000s was the heyday of “pick up” artists. These were men defining themselves in contrast to the “average frustrated chump” who could barely get a woman’s attention, whereas they, the pick-up artists, were going home with women way above their league. It was magical thinking for the man faced with frustration, fear and despair in an age of sexual unaffordability. Entrepreneurs immediately jumped in to exploit this growing niche and soon had men pay thousands of dollars for their videos, DVDs and in-person workshops.
I will presume that pick artistry’s effectiveness has, even in the best of cases, been ludicrously oversold to men. I won’t deny that it has, for those sufficiently close to being able to pay the price of sex, conferred a real benefit. If you were already reasonably good-looking and socially privileged, going “sarging” was able to hike up the odds just enough to get you laid. But I will also say this: I believe most men have been betrayed by pick-up. There is likely to be no dearth of men who have lost valuable savings to a promise that should never have been made to them. Symptoms are being treated rather than the problem. Women’s standards of what constitutes “good qualities” in men are never called into question by pick-up artists. They are accepted as “the voice of evolution” that men have to suck up to.
Of “Nice guys” and bad boys
An influential bestselling book entitled “No More Mr. Nice Guy” was published slap bang in the middle of this era. Written by a Dr. Robert Glover, the book appears to paint a stereotypical image of the sissified modern man whom women do not respect and rightly walk all over, the proverbial “nice guy”. Glover, a psychology counselor by profession, contends that boys have been taught by women to behave like women which in turns renders them unable to draw forth the masculine energy that brings them financial and sexual success. While Glover’s target audience only partially overlaps with that of pick-up artistry it seems to espouse the same worldview. There is such a thing as their true “manhood” that men have lost and must “reclaim” so they may take their rightful place as respected husband. The primary way of achieving this is a combination of weening themselves off sex and other addictions and regaining and asserting self-respect. This requires honesty and authenticity. This manifests with letting go of the phony “niceness”, inadvertently inching closer to the “bad boy” persona, hence “no more Mr. Nice Guy”. The confluence of “attractive male qualities”, the partial embrace of “dark personality traits” and male self-acceptance and actualization is a blend of themes that typify self-help for the financially and sexually struggling man. In spite of the parallels I’ve drawn to pick-up artistry, I am more sympathetic to Glover’s approach for the fact that he strongly stresses the primacy of self-respect and independence above getting laid. On top, he advocates a communal approach. Men primarily for companionship. Women for sex. Requiring companionship from women because you’re lonely is a recipe for dependence and exploitation.
Red pill and men’s rights
Men’s rights activists have long been bringing awareness to the blatant injustices of marriage, divorce and alimony for decades. Complaints about blatant hypocrisy and discrimination against men go back as far as the late 19th and early 20th century socialist attorney and author, Ernest Belfort Bax. Itself an extensive and well-intentioned movement that has done much to raise consciousness, my main gripe with it is that its approach to social change shows no consideration for the economic undercurrent of the social phenomena it’s dealing with. Men’s rights has been heavily suppressed and slandered by feminists and lives on largely in the shadows of the internet. Its primary means of promotion has been attempts to educate the public and ask for sympathy. Success has been lackluster at best.
In another nook of the internet the “Red Pill” has steadily been gaining traction among the disaffected male masses. The red pill is in my view a decisive milestone in male economic awareness. The economics of dating apps seem to have alerted a section of the male population to the economic and transactional nature of heterosexual sex itself. The “jadedness” has led to all kinds of “insertnewcolor-pill” phenomena with slightly different angles on the same basic phenomon. I see this as a good thing, as it means the collective male gears are turning and solutions are being sought.
From Pick-Up Artistry to looksmaxxing
If pick-up artistry implies becoming attractive by gaining attractive behavioral and personality traits (very much emphasized by contending that women barely care about looks), looksmaxxing went to the other extreme of the equation by emphasizing the absolute power of looks. Without going into an in-depth exploration of the intricacies and hazards of looksmaxxing, my intention is to point out the relatedness of these strategies. The means espoused are different, but the goal remains pursuing women’s favor by attempting to meet their rising expectations. Women’s expectations themselves again receive approval from the very men who suffer from them. Surrender to the sex market and its monopoly prices is implicit. Catering to the requirements of the status quo through an individualized self-improvement grindset is what ties it in, in my opinion, the closest with pick-up artistry. Looksmaxxing has gained notoriety through some of its more extreme proponents and practices. But my point is to see it as another reaction to men’s declining sexual economic prospects and the desperation with which some men are pursuing sex.
Incel, Black Pill and MGTOW
Following from the trend above, the armies of heterosexual men that found no luck with the dominant paradigms that promised to help them has steadily been growing. This is where “involuntary celibacy”, “incel” for short, was born. Men now have a name for the specific kind of economic deprivation, a.k.a. poverty, they experience. Hope of resolving the plight gave way in some sections of the male population to a complete loss of hope. “Black pill” was born. Its relation to looksmaxxing is obvious. If the only men women are willing to have sex with are at the tippy top of the genetic hierarchy, there’s no reason to retain hope and make efforts. Another group fed up with hustling for women’s favor are the “Men Going Their Own Way”. This group whose priority is to save their energy and finances, guard their sanity and protect against false accusations has decided to eschew women’s company entirely and forfeit any chance at a sexlife. To me it sounds like a monastic oath to emotional self-sufficiency: Look out for yourself, your mental, financial and legal safety come first. You’re better off without sex. But that’s about it. Admirable in itself, there’s no political or economic perspective beyond stability and self-sufficiency. More than anything, almost all approaches have been, in spite of the online communal milieu in which these perspectives were conceived, almost exclusively individualist. Ideas on how every man can or cannot save himself. But I realize I’m not being entirely fair to MGTOW here. There is an inkling of something systemic, or even political. MGTOW offers hope in the form of nonparticipation as strike action. If enough men eschew women and dating, eventually the old system will collapse and there will be a foundation to build a new one.
Losers have nothing to lose but their “loserdom”
A man no longer economically or sexually able to “make it” in the existing economic environment has very little to lose. The “personalized” approach to success has proven a failure. I argue that the failure is not that of individual men, but men not having collectively realized that a change in the economic structure is necessary. Unlike what dating apps or modern women’s behavior suggests, most men are not unworthy of most women. In fact the men they judge as below their worth are built from the same lackluster genetics those selfsame women offer. The rest is just bargaining bonus. It’s time that men come back together for the sake of companionship and solidarity and foster collective power. Some of this has happened online, but I believe it has the potential of a real-world movement. With every man pushed out of the traditional, “blue-pilled” worldview because he didn’t “cut muster” in the modern dating environment, another individual is added to a potential new army to turn things around. Men have to specifically organize themselves into local chapters and (inter-)national organizations to make their lives better in tangible ways, including in regard to sex. Community shapes emotions, worldview and sense of place and purpose. Time not sacrificed to gaining women’s favor could be leveraged to change the market structure.
Sex work: A road to the future of sex?
Let us return to the premise of this essay. Sex is an economic issue. A commodity sold on a marketplace heavily influenced by supply and demand. I’d like to put forward a hypothesis that I cannot currently support with facts. If women on the “dating market” do not sell sex at a price ordinary men can pay, I can only imagine that more men have gone to fill the void by patronizing sex workers. Yes, prostitution. Even when money is hard to come by, scratching up just enough to get brief sexual access to a woman may be many men’s only realistic access to a sexual experience. That is where I think the tide of history is inclined. It has mostly been women in men’s own working or middle classes, the women these men would have traditionally married, whose prices are now out of reach. Men have almost no choice but to look down the income scale if they still desire some sex. But contrary to “marrying a poor girl”, a sex worker offers some unique conditions. Sex work saves time, nerves and, ironically, money. You barely socialize with a sex worker, if at all in a very limited manner. Involvement is shallow. The setup is highly predictable and nondiscriminatory. If someone is barred from consulting a particular sex worker, it’s largely for legitimate reasons affecting business. A sex worker needs you to be only compatible enough for the brief exchange to go over smoothly. There might be polite chitchat but that’s all there’s to it. You meet a woman for sex. And seek companionship elsewhere. Ideally among other men.
Sex affordability as a communitarian project
Starting a collective in which we take fees from individual members so that sex work starts falling in price for those members at the point of use might be a place to begin. This can be done in countries in which sex work is already legal. There is an incentive to join, from the point of view of a member, both from a monetary standpoint, as well as a sex work positive club culture within. This builds up a social and cultural cushioning against the hostility from outside the club. The smartest club policy would be sex with women and socializing with the men. This is how dependence to sex is curbed. Since profit is not the ultimate goal of the project, we promote regular, not frequent sex. To keep it within temperance can be a club norm. This is different from other sex work as it isn’t looking to maximize price by overselling sex. Sex work is illegal in most of the world. In countries in which it is currently illegal, such a collective can function as a political entity to promote sex work positivity and achieve legality.
Sex workers themselves play a pivotal role. We promote sex work as a reasonable and good alternative to relationships and marriage. We also promote appreciation of sex workers as important allies in our struggle for affordable sex. Since sex workers are so universally reviled by their “respectable” sisters, it shouldn’t be hard to win them over. We offer them measured allyship. This means that they get a vote in policy questions. But retaining affordability is paramount. In order for sex to remain affordable, johns muster outnumber sex workers in every chapter. A house full of sex workers with voting rights would give too much incentive to hike up the price and undermine the goal of affordability.
While sex work currently offers no real alternative to the marriage-relationship system in terms of longevity (no children to be had with sex workers), it may not remain that way. If indeed the dating market continues to deteriorate, a system of solidarity, in which a male collective looks out for all its members’ reproductive interests, might offer an increasing population of sex workers both a living as well as an opportunity to reproduce. The opportunity that the sale of sex uniquely provides women could easily drive more women into sex work, especially after an economic downturn, shaping a new economic class. Men on the other hand may be better served financing their own economic safety, including sexual needs, collectively, giving themselves some bargaining power over the sex workers they patronize. If the mentioned population decline can be curbed this way, governments are likely to get in on it too. MGTOW leads the way, as what this would require is men encouraging one another to eschew traditional dating, relationships or marriage. Not a hard sell considering the current conditions that those options offer.
Nothing risked – nothing gained
Risks are everywhere. The propaganda machine run by the sex cartel and the societies in its grip isn’t likely to be kind to us. Every manifestation of growing economic consciousness among men has been met with abuse, slander and sabotage of the ugliest kind. This makes it a scary prospect to further build up organized male interest groups. Safety in anonymity might be a good place to start if operating out in the open is to be deemed dangerous.
Another is of course what I’ll call “Big Sex”. The for-profit sex industry isn’t likely to take kindly to new competition either. Where there’s a common interest, cartel formation is possible. Women could be offered much bigger pay checks to work at a for-profit joint, which would disincentivize working for sex clubs dedicated to affordability. We can only win with better working conditions and by offering sex workers a vote in how things are run.
Concluding thoughts
I know my musings are a pie in the sky right now. I am fully aware that the ideas described above need a lot of reality testing so that eventually a solution emerges that is truly fit for purpose. This means I’m looking for feedback and discussion, lots of it. Hopefully feedback that promotes meaningful action rather than doom and gloom. It feels safer and easier to consume redpill content online while still “putting up with it” in real life. Reveling in misery has a cathartic purpose. And I’d be a hypocrite to fault anyone for doing it. But I do think there is also a yearning for a future we can look forward to. A hope that things may get better for once, not just worse. For a worldview that doesn’t just endlessly diagnose a problem, but shows a way out. No one chose to be a blackpiller or an incel. Those are outcomes of a rigged economic system. Economics, I do believe, can be fought with economics. Individually we lose, united we might win. If you’re at the absolute bottom of the pile, the only way is up.