This is part of a series. See the index here.
This is a follow-up to the research paper on Hypergamy that we discussed earlier. I also promised reader Cameron a month ago that I would address some of his concerns regarding anecdotal evidence:
It’s not just my anecdotes, lots of guys share the same anecdotes. Now I get how the sphere itself could be seen as concentrating guys with the same experience but I hear this stuff in real life “meatspace” (as you call it). I listen to my wife’s observations of her friends and the women in her mom’s groups. And I form my impression based on that not based on a 1990s high school VD transmission study.
And so here we are.
Anecdotes are nearly useless, especially in informal or personal situations. It doesn’t matter if you have a thousand anecdotes telling you the same thing, they are still nearly useless and untrustworthy. Anecdotes can’t ever help you identify common statistical problems, like low sample sizes, (selection; confirmation) bias, or mistaking correlation for causation.
Basing your views and impressions on anecdotes is all well and good if that is the only option you have available, but when it comes to issues like hypergamy—where we have plenty of informative formal data, statistics, and studies—informal anecdotes have almost no meaningful value at all. At the very least, they can and should be completely dismissed as universal or general descriptions of reality. At worst, anecdotes lead one to believe in myths.
Perhaps we’ll discuss Red Pill epistemology in a future post. For now, let’s examine the data.
I recently ran across this old comment from 2014:
I’m not asking them to ignore that. It is exactly the point.
It is precisely and accurately the point that, according to the “best of the best” PUA themselves, Game leading to sex is rare, contra the commenter who claimed the opposite in my combox and many who parrot the sentiment elsewhere. (That’s why PUA have to make it up in volume — approach, next, approach, next, approach, next — to find that relatively rare woman, rare according to their own numbers, who will give it up).
Again, this says essentially nothing at all about what is going on in the wider world — the world of three-leaf clovers. The point is that numbers are used to create the impression of knowledge, when what the numbers actually demonstrate is ignorance.
During the discussion on hypergamy, I noted the number of number of women for whom hypergamy—if it were true—would plausibly apply to approximately single digit percentages. Some place this a little bit higher, as much as 20%, giving an approximate range of 0%-20% of women who could—conceivably—be hypergamous. In any case, given what we know about the inherent weakness of personal anecdotes, as a theory:
Hypergamy says essentially nothing at all about the wider world of relationships.
It is unsurprising, then, that when PUAs shop around, they only have success with approximately 3% of people. This checks out. The rates of success are low because very low character women—the highly promiscuous and “hypergamous”—represent only a small fraction of total women. Most women are just not that shallow and devoid of morality.
Of course this is not a surprise. At least 50% of all women who marry for the first time will stay married until death. Even in the absolutely worst case scenario, only a minority of women could even possibly qualify as hypergamous. Not even a simple majority is mathematically possible.
Sexual activity, like crime, is a Pareto distribution. A relatively small number of men and women—5% to 20%—have most of the sexual partners. For the majority of men and women outside of the tail of the distribution, there is little difference in N-count.
But here’s the thing. You don’t have to be a PUA in order to pair up with someone in the 5-to-20-percent. If a man has repeatedly poor success with mutual commitment in sexual relationships, they are likely in the that group and/or frequently trying to pair up with women in that group (like a PUA, but without the volume). By definition, they are not among the majority.
When a man is young, the number of PUA-compatible women is a small fraction of potential mates (perhaps 5-10%). But as a man ages, the number of PUA-compatible women increases as a relative percentage of all singles. (perhaps 20-40%). This increased commonality leads one to conclude that all women must be like that. But, it is just selection bias that is easily explained by the math.
In terms of the total population, the younger man who finds a wife among the 90% of non-PUA-compatible women has a less biased view of the total population than the man who finds a wife among the 10% (or higher percentages if he marries later on). The former’s experience is much more likely to match the majority experience while the latter’s definitely reflects the minority.
The Manosphere’s view is distorted in the extreme by the exceptional negative “lived experiences” of its participants.
Alex, the Date Psych, writes a lot about Red Pill topics. I plan to cite some of his work in the future. For now, I want to focus on two of his graphs (and the associated commentary). Here is the first:
Most people are sexually active (and the GSS also shows that most sex occurs within committed relationships, see: How Many Sexual Partners Did Men and Women Have in 2022?). Additionally, a similar percentage of men and women are sexually inactive. This leaves the remaining 20% in a mating pool with one another. An additional percentage (perhaps 6-10% based on the distribution above) may accumulate an additional annual partner through serial monogamy; these are people who have switched from one committed relationship to another within the span of a year. This leaves the remaining 10% of men and women in a mating pool with one another.
These figures are consistent with what STD/STI epidemiologists have called the “promiscuous 10%” (Bellis et al., 2004; Álvarez-Dardet & Ashton, 2004). This is the simple observation that 10% of the population (men and women both) become sexually active younger and have significantly more sexual partners than the bottom 90%.
Everything I’ve said above is confirmed by the Alex. Alex goes on to note that the STD/STI transmission data utterly refutes the idea of the Manosphere’s “80/20” rule. While man and women can lie about sexual partners, STD/STI transmission is hard data that isn’t subject to lying.
What should we expect if the top 10% of both promiscuous men and women are mostly moving within the same mating pool? Similar rates of STD/STI transmission for men and women. This is in contrast to if the the “80/20” rule (20% of men monopolizing 80% of the women) were true, in which case we would expect much higher STD/STI rates for women — and declining STD/STI rates for men if men are being pushed out of the mating pool by promiscuous “Chads” with de-facto harems. What we see is that male and female STD/STI infection rates have remained in tandem.
Incidentally, this is exactly what the Jefferson High study found. When researchers focus on the spread of disease, they get a more accurate picture of actual sexual activity. Anyone can lie, but an STD can’t be faked away. Just like the Jefferson High study, the rates and distributions of STDs among men and women do not support the claims of hypergamy. They show, as do almost every research study, assortative mating.
And what do researchers find over and over again? That mating is not hypergamous, that people assortatively pair. Alexander’s second graph reflects this:
We can paint a fairly accurate picture of the sexual landscape with a correction to the infographic [above]. On the left is a popular meme (based on no data). The updated version on the right that I made is loosely based on the patterns described above and shown in nationally representative data (the GSS for 2021 and 2022 for example). This also shows the pattern of assortative mating for promiscuity. Rather than “Chad Harems,” or the top 20% of men monopolizing 80% of the women (and the top 20% of men are not having more sex than in past years, see: Are The Male Elite Enjoying A Sexual Boomtime?), promiscuity is concentrated within a unique pool of men and women. It is unlikely that this pool is entirely discrete (as if a promiscuous person never, ever has sex with someone who isn’t), but it is distinct, and given that most people are tied up in serially monogamous relationships (or single and sexless) at any given point of time it is unlikely that it overlaps that much.
This should not be surprising when we consider assortative mating for personality — the observation that men and women select short and long term partners with similar personality traits — and that these personality traits predict promiscuity. However, that is a long topic best suited for a future article. In the meantime enjoy the corrected meme, spread it around, and never let the manosphere forget it.
Hypergamy is a belief almost exclusively derived from biased personal anecdotes and opinions. It is not based on hard data. Remember what I wrote in response to that “Hypergamy Paper,” which attempted to use some of the hard data?
In short, most women prefer monogamous marriages to wealthy, socially dominant, and physically attractive men, and want these men to be devoted to them and their children. For most women, this preference is not achieved.
Some women attempt to achieve a compromise of sorts through relationships with several men. The implicit goal appears to be to get the best material investment from one man and the best genetic investment from another.
This is another common trope, but the word “some” is doing all the heavy lifting there. When we look at N-count analysis in a future post, we’ll note that at most 10-20% of women fit into this category, perhaps a lot fewer.
We can cover this more in the future, but the non-anecdotal data in favor of hypergamy is practically nonexistent and the data supporting assortative mating is overwhelming.
Hypergamy is not a belief that data-centric men believe in.
People who believe in hypergamy have been selected into a biased sample. When they ask their peers (who are also, by and large, selected into—or adjacent to—the same 10-20% group) they find confirmation bias of their (already) biased anecdotes. And so it goes.
People believe whatever they see and experience and whatever those around them confirm about their beliefs. They don’t believe what the data says, not matter how strong the evidence is. What about that nationally representative data? It doesn’t matter, because it differs from their personal experience. It’s discarded or explained away in favor of personal anecdotes and personal opinions.
Just like it is super improbable to have a random, unbiased group made up almost entirely of INTJ and adjacent personalities, so is the Manosphere’s view of hypergamy a product of selection bias (and a correspondingly heavy reliance on personal anecdotes). The personal anecdotes only reflect what they should have expected of themselves and their peers, not what others outside their echo chamber should expect.
Hypergamy is not an intellectually serious belief.
I’ve said something like this throughout the series: people get what they “want” which is to say that what happens is largely not the result of randomness, but rather the product of life choices, inherent traits, and environmental biases. Men and women who experience the problems with “hypergamy” that the Manosphere describes are largely preselected into the very environments where such things are prevalent. They are so convinced that because they—and those around them—are experiencing these problems that their experience must the universal norm. But it isn’t.
It is difficult for many men to look at themselves and say:
Examples of this blame-shifting and bias-confirming effect also include attributing positive results to random “Luck.”
The choices they’ve made in life led them to the place they ended up at. The idea of “hypergamy” reflects the natural human instinct to blame others and to minimize personal responsibility and accountability. This is my main criticism with the Dalrockian Manosphere’s conception of patriarchy: men who want all the power, but none of the responsibility.
Speaking of maximizing power while minimizing personal responsibility and accountability, consider another analogous aspect:
Generally, women do NOT like PRIMARY decision making. They do NOT like wielding hard executive power. They do NOT want to own the consequences of hard calls.
Women like SECONDARY decision making. They like being vaguely influential. They like being stakeholders that can’t be blamed for problems.
And voting is the perfect secondary form of decision making. You vaguely participate as a stakeholder and are never seen as directly accountable for an outcome. So of course women love voting.
The problem is that this form of “power without responsibility” second order decision making that women love, and which voting embodies, is incredibly deleterious to large scale civilizational management. It needs to be curtailed and we are trying to figure out how.
Greene notes that the desire for power without personal responsibility and accountability is a stereotypical feminine attribute. That’s why I’ve been speaking out about its ubiquitous presence in the Manosphere. The manosphere is deeply feminine: in its expression of patriarchy, its focus on emotions and personal anecdotes instead of rationality, its political leanings, and the way it blames women for everything while giving men a pass.
With respect to this latter, hypergamy portrays women as low-character, sexual discontents. They want better sex with better men, and will trash perfectly good men to get it. But the reality is that husbands are much more likely to cheat sexually on their wives. When it comes down to actual practiced discontent, there is no question about who is to blame. Men are more likely than women to blow up their marriages through infidelity.
I’m all for criticizing the “Promiscuous 20%” of men and women, but not when men and women are not criticized equally, and not when 100% of women are—through guilt by association—roped into the 20%. None of these are intellectually honest approaches.
But the Manosphere has been hurt by too many women, such that instead of saying “people must not cheat on their spouses, but should remain faithful and content” they must say “women must not cheat on their spouses,but should remain faithful and content.”
This is hypocritical, because men are the biggest cheaters and always have been regardless of how much of a pass women might get. Or, to put it more succinctly, despite being the subject of the most negative attention and being by far the least likely to get a free pass from church or society, husbands still cheat more than wives.
Planks and specks.
But worse than hypocrisy is blaming all men and women for what is largely a problem with the few. Worse than all that hypocrisy is the slandering the innocent through guilt by association.
The first problem, as I’ve said, is people define “hypergamy” differently. As I mentioned, I don’t believe in 80/20 polygynous dating among young, unmarried people because I think such polygynous practice would be highly visible and undeniable by everyone. The origin of the 80/20 is, as far as I can tell, from the data from various dating sites where women find 80% of men below average in attractiveness, where men “like” 60% of females but women only “like” 4.5% of men, etc.
Glancing back at the Jefferson High study, they didn’t study STDs/STI’s using disease infection as a metric, they studied relationship structure and discussed implications for STD transmission. And any study that DID study STDs (Alex’s cited study?) would only be addressing the definition of “hypergamy” that claims 80% of women are sleeping with 20% of men.
Then some of the men post sloppy arguments (on a site mostly dedicated to funny memes and casual conversation) such as how women are divorcing in droves to trade up and then you (quite easily) refute this sloppy argument and claim “hypergamy” disproved? You see what you did there?
As far as infidelity, I don’t trust surveys because adultery is seen as much worse when committed by women because of the “slut” label and the shame associated with female adultery and because women hate how shame feels. But it doesn’t matter because I don’t think “hypergamy” consists of women all divorcing their husbands to trade up – I think this was the casual commentary by one commenter.
I am not aware of any of the studies you referenced as actually intending to study “hypergamy” at least as I remember them (this has been a long series). I’m not a scientist (social or natural) but I imagine in order to have a valid study you have to design an experiment to study the thing you actually want to understand. So what you have isn’t a study but rather you have “data.” But the manosphere has always had data: “80% of men below average”, “60% of female profiles liked, 4.5% of male profiles liked”, and similar. So we both have data and we’re left with subjective (and likely biased for both of us) interpretation of our data and the other’s data. So we write words in posts and comments to interpret our data.
It’s been a long series of articles. I may have forgotten some of the studies you referenced. I remember Jefferson High, a survey on male/female infidelity and a survey on why people claimed they divorce. Are their others I’m forgetting?
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I mean in your defense, it’s not your fault that “hypergamy” hasn’t been given a firm definition and/or its definition has been extrapolated from the original data and observations to 80/20 polygyny by some in the sphere.
As far as the PUA’s, I was always skeptical. For one, I went on record many times as stating that these mostly anonymous writers could be making this stuff up and their “success” could be from total volume of attempts and that I don’t believe women, “hypergamous” or not would generally fail to spot “fakes” and guys trying too hard.
I don’t know if it’s a matter of women having good character or not. It seems women have more psychological “brakes” WRT sex since sex can have so many risks and negative consequences for them.
Cameron,
First, I know you reject the 80/20 principle. I’m not holding you to it. But, hypergamy implies that some larger number of women want some smaller number of men. It doesn’t matter what the numbers are exactly, but they can’t be 50/50. But there is no evidence that it is anything but 50/50. At the very most, the difference is quite minor (in the single digits).
Second, I don’t follow your logic. How can you have any definition of hypergamy where there is no correlation between the selections females make and the ratio of STD incidence between men and women?
Third, I’ve chosen, for sake of argument, to treat those sloppy arguments seriously. You are right that refuting sloppy arguments is itself sloppy. But if I disregard them, which should I use instead? Should I use Jack’s AI Hypergamy Manifesto? Honestly, I find all arguments supporting hypergamy to be sloppy. Perhaps I should just drop the subject entirely.
Fourth, I believe the data is valid in spite of the lies. It would be a stronger signal without the lying, but it is still valid. Do you have any quantitative reason or proof why lying is actually so bad that it prevents us from detecting the signal in the data?
Fifth, the paper the Professor provided is a paper that discusses what we believe to be hypergamy, just using different words. I also consider the body of evidence supporting “assortative mating” to be hypergamy studies (or, more specifically, disproofs of hypergamy).
Sixth, I have not been compiling a list of studies, data sources, etc. I suspect that I’ve probably cited more data than I have studies, but most of the data comes from studies. Also, I don’t always post links to everything I’ve read. In short, I have not spent much time keeping detailed records. Perhaps in retrospect maybe I should have.
But ultimately, I’m okay if you want to disagree with me because I didn’t cite enough sources. I would prefer, however, a meaningful refutation. I don’t need sources to disprove something that isn’t offered, and I’ve found that people are not convinced when you give them studies anyway, so what’s the point? I’m not motivated to put in the work if there is no chance of a payoff.
In the end, I’m not a scholarly source. I’m a commentator. I’m okay playing that role for now.
Derek,
“But, hypergamy implies that some larger number of women want some smaller number of men……..But there is no evidence that it is anything but 50/50.”
I think we discussed at one point how BOTH sexes want a smaller number of top tier men/women. When I was young, the boys wanted Kathy Ireland and the girls wanted Keanu Reeves.
I think the point some of the men are making was summarized by the Devlin quote: “Women want the best and ONLY the best” where the “only” is critical. I think “only” sounds a little too elite but the 80/20 sounds like a reasonable guess at what’s meant by “only”. To me it was always about how the average woman has low romantic attraction to the average man. I don’t know what statistics you have that show this is 50/50. I don’t know of any studies that quantify unimplemented desire. Wasn’t the entire basis of the 80/20, data-wise, always about unimplemented desire?
As far as STI’s if I’m saying that “hypergamy” is “unimplemented desire for only the top 20% hypergamy” (not the practice of polygyny), then STI data wouldn’t show this.