Is the distribution of sex in liberal societies problematic?

I don’t quite understand the point he is trying to make, or how many times, or how, men have sex has to do with anything.

He is wrongly attempting to partially stratify social class with sexual access.

Um, no one is entitled to sex. Finding a willing partner is one’s own responsibility.

Sounds like one of those rabid MRAs that calls women frigid cunts for not fucking him, then whines about how women don’t like “nice guys” like him.

As a woman who appreciates the fact that she was able to choose her bedmate, and not be “distributed” to someone, I think it’s absolutely a feature.

Geez some people just overthink about sex a lot!

“Essentially, he argues that contemporary sexuality, though it sails under the colors of liberation and left-ish utopia, is just a continuation of the capitalist, neoliberal market, in which there are always winners and losers.”
—James Woods, the reviewer who wrote the sourced article in which Houellebecq is quoted.

Houellebecq says “men” instead of “persons”, but I thought it went without saying that what Houellebecq is talking about applies to women too.

What does this mean: ”...sexual liberalism produces phenomena of absolute pauperization…”

He means some people don’t get laid.

@Zizzou – sex with partners is not a capitalistic market because humans are not money or product to be distributed.

In this “fair” sexual “market” these “paupers” would have sex partners assigned to them? Who gets assigned to whom? By whose authority? And what if the redistributed goods don’t want to be distributed to that person?

@Dutchess_III he is trying to sound all smart and shit by saying if you don’t get laid regularly you are “sexually lower class” the only truth that can be taken from this is if you view sex as an actual commodity. Sure there is a market for it but where do you draw the line. People are disadvantaged in all sorts of ways.

I don’t see where he used the word “assigned,” @Seek.

@ARE_you_kidding_me, then he is most definitely referring to men. Men tend to strive for becoming “sexually upper class,” which just means he gets laid a lot. He gets lucky a lot.
Most women just are “sexually upper class” (as defined by lots of sex,) if they so choose to be.

I take him to be contrasting current sexual mores with those of an earlier time (that ended within living memory, I presume). Under the earlier system, most people could count on having at least one sexual partner for most of their lives, but maybe not as many as they would like, while under the current system, some people have as many partners as they wish, while many others are reduced to unwilling celibacy. @Seek There is nothing there to suggest that anyone is “distributed” without their consent under either the old old system or the new one.

He may be but this “concept” would not be a guys only club. It would be anyone who desires sex but either gets it or goes without.

Look at this line: “If it’s a dysfunction, could the uneven distribution of sex be causally connected to other dysfunctions in liberal society?” Consider Islam, and how they treat their women. Pretty sure the women have to submit to their husbands upon demand. Under the OP’s criteria, the Middle East should have a highly functional society. But they don’t.

So there is a bustling liberal society in the middle east? No, again you apply your own filter and put context where there is none.

Um, the past was not a more equal sexual market. In fact, in the middle ages many nunneries and monasteries were built solely to have a safe place to dispose of children you couldn’t afford to marry off.

@Zizzou, you misread my last comment. I was wondering out loud what the quoted individual would consider a more “fair” system.

@ARE_you_kidding_me so, he’s saying that having a lot of sex in an uber conservative society doesn’t make any difference in such a society? Has no impact? I’m not trying to argue, just trying to understand what he means to see if it even makes any sense.

@Seek Nunneries were built to house female virgins too, and to keep them that way.

Well, you can always hire a local professional sexual service provider to fill your needs.

He is saying in a sexually open society where people are free to engage how they wish the desire for sex and your access to it is a form of social class. The guy or girl who nobody wants to screw is a sexual hobo, but really only if they want sex.

So, what do you suggest? Regulations to make it all more equitable?

So people who get lots of sex are upper class, people who get little to no sex are lower class. Where do the people who couldn’t care less if they have a lot of sex come in?

^^ Yeah, that’s why there is this worrisome population explosion among the rich.

Yes, Dutch, many daughters of wealthy men were schooled in nunneries before they were sold to the highest bidder. Then the girl’s sisters would be sold to the nunneries for life.

In Renaissance Florence, marriage was such a competitive market that families could often only afford one dowry. Any extra daughters would be sent to the convent, to keep up appearances, and because a dowry to the convent was much cheaper than a dowry to a man of sufficiently high station.

This is one of those shoddy theories that has zero substance but to those who find it appealing there is a real danger of it being taken seriously.

Thank you! That was my first impression but hesitated saying so. I thought there might be some merit to it that I was missing.

Everything that humans do is problematic. Every. Single. Thing.

Don’t believe me? Think I’m exaggerating?

Then think back to the last time you were annoyed with someone because of the way they chewed their food. Or got exasperated because you heard someone breathing. Or were annoyed at the way they walked: too slowly, too quickly, too heavily, whatever. Breathing. Chewing food. Walking.

The most mundane, universal and elementary things that we do – that we absolutely have to do for basic survival – can piss people off.

Sex? Yeah, that’s problematic, any way you look at it.

Even partners in an idyllic relationship have various problems with sex, from “who initiates it” to “who has to sleep on the wet spot” to “who gets to be the inside spoon and who is the cuddling spoon”.

Like I said: Every. Single. Thing.

And just for the heck of it let’s add layers of economic disparity, political / power disparity, gender differentiation and metaphysical language to really stir up the pot beyond what jealousy and envy can already do.

Sometimes it’s a wonder to me that we manage to propagate the species at all.

What is unclear to me is how Houellebecq is connecting the uneven distribution of wealth to the uneven distribution of sex. I think he is doing more than drawing an analogy, but the excerpt doesn’t explicitly say what the one has to do with other. It doesn’t help that he says the sexual differentiation is “completely independent” of money, which is plainly false.

I’d never heard of Houellebecq before I read the article quoted above. They sure seem to like this guy over at The New Yorker magazine, though. This review sheds some light on what he’s trying to say. The reviewer characterizes Houllebecq’s position as a kind of “conservative anti-capitalism”. But bear in mind that a typical French conservative probably has more in common with Hillary Clinton than Rush Limbaugh.

But back to the issue at hand. I can say why the uneven distribution of wealth is a threat. It’s harder to say why the uneven distribution of sex is bad for society, but not impossible. On the other hand, a defender of polygamy has said that she would rather share a superior man with sister-wives than have an inferior man all to herself. Maybe the social Darwinists among us will say that some sort of selection process is taking place.

@Dutchess_III I didn’t offer any criteria. I just think the guy raises some interesting questions, and I’m curious to see where they might lead. Not sure what the submission of Islamic wives has to do with it; I’ve already said the issue is not gender-specific. If your point is that sexual distribution in Islamic societies is more even, yet they still have a lot of problems, then I have to say that I don’t know enough about the inner workings of Islamic societies to say one way or the other.

@Seek I don’t think he is looking back as far as the middle ages or renaissance. I think he is looking at more recent society. I also don’t think the points you are raising about dowries and nunneries applied to the 90% of medieval society who were peasants, nor to the powerful classes that used marriages to cement alliances.

This is hardly an appropriate place to go into a diatribe on medieval marriage practices, but I’d be more than happy to discuss it further in PM out another question.

Suffice it to say that you’d be hard-pressed to find any society that actually provided sufficient access to regular sexual congress that prostitutes and pornography were not regular features of daily life.

I don’t understand how sex is something that can be distributed. Sex is a personal interaction. Like conversation, or fighting, or playing darts etc. It takes two people to decide whether or not to do it.

It’s not like you can sprinkle it from hot air balloons like pamphlets.

“Suffice it to say that you’d be hard-pressed to find any society that actually provided sufficient access to regular sexual congress that prostitutes and pornography were not regular features of daily life.” Hear hear!
Unless, perhaps, it be a society that pressures wives to “submit” because it’s their “duty.”

Even then you will find men who do not have wives, and women who do not have husbands.

@Zissou Yes, it’s an analogy.

@MrGrimm888 “Distribution” in this context should be taken mathematically. Nobody is talking about distributing sex as one would distribute cookies.

Distribution: the position, arrangement, or frequency of occurrence (as of the members of a group) over an area or throughout a space or unit of time

Houllebecq speaks on behalf of all disgracious people in a way. He says: the sexual liberation of the 60s and 70s led to less sex for people like us, and more sex for the cute ones. Just like say the liberalization of the USSR led to pauperisation for some and gross enrichment for others. The idea is not hard to understand. I don’t know if it is factually true, but I can understand how it is a perception in the sense that sex is now ‘advertised’ freely while before it was more hidden and provate, and this can lead to a perception that “it’s everywhere except in my bed”.

In the end he is advocating for marriage and faithfulness. No need to get all worked up…

The book (Elementary Particles) is excellent, perhaps his best.

^I see. Thanks for the translation.

Sex is quite available. It just might not be the sex a person wants. I have drunk women throwing themselves at me at the music venue I work. But I hate club girls. Well ,now I do. So I do lots of rejecting. I go after ‘good’ girls now. But don’t have near as much luck.

I think it’s common to look around and think everyone is happy but you, or everyone has a nicer car , or everyone makes more money than me.

Where I work ,all the people are drunk, on vacation, or involved in a wedding party. They all seem to be living better than me. But it’s misrepresenting their real lives, or the bulk of their lives.

It’s easy to envy them. Until the end of the night, when the girls are crying over nothing on the stairways, and the men are fighting each other, showing their true colors.

Our perception of what we see can lead us to think our lives are devoid of certain things. Sometimes that’s true. Most of the time there is more to a book than its cover.

I meant to get back to this question yesterday but forgot. I’ll mark it now so it comes up in my activity.

@MrGrimm888 Sex is quite available. It just might not be the sex a person wants. I have drunk women throwing themselves at me at the music venue I work.

Available to you, but not to 5 ft tall people looking like Michel Houellebecq.

I know quite a few people who haven’t got laid for years. They are surrounded by scores of advertisements, movies, books, magazines, TV shows and people talking about sex all the time, while they’re not getting any. It must hurt, more than it did when nobody would talk or print anything about sex, e.g. in the 50s. So I do think there is a specific “sexual misery” problem in western societies, in that hiatus between many people not getting much sex and the huge hype around sex in the culture(s).

What I am not sold on yet is this idea that the whole sexual liberation movement amounted to a big con job to deprive the uglies from rightful sex… I think that’s going to far. Just because SOME people could get far more of it than others, does not mean they stole the others’ rightful share. I think there’s a lot of frustration and envy behind those words of Houellebecq, just like there’s a lot of envy in the words of many people who criticize capitalism.

So to use Houellebecq’s own analogy between sex and the economy, I do see a problem in sexual misery just like I see a problem in economic misery, but in both cases I am not advocating a return to a strick, normative egalitarian system a la USSR.

I don’t even know where to start here…..... This is a 5 course meal all served at once.

^Start with desert @cazzie .

@olivier5 Merci! So it is just an analogy after all? I’m a little disappointed.

@cazzie Maybe a GQ while you’re digesting it? “What do you put on your hot dog” got 6 GQ, just sayin’. ;-)

@Zissou I gave you a GQ. :-)

Yes, it’s just an analogy between two unegalitarian systems. The only political thought here is a critique of liberalism. “People do bad things when they are free”, to caricature.

I don’t think @cazzie meant what you think she meant @Zissou.

The phrase ‘Distribution of sex’ has me stopped in my tracks before I can even begin to answer this question. Bare with me…. still digesting. And no, @Zissou you aren’t getting a good question for this because you are quoting such a sad writer, you should be trying harder. Did you even read the New Yorker article? This man writes from such a damaged point of view, there is nothing relevant about his reflections about sex. In fact, his genius, if he has one, lies in how he represents so perfectly the damaged ego and psyche of a sexually and infantile grown man.

There is no truth in his analogy. There was never any intended. He writes to explore themes and agony experienced on a base personal level. He is not a sociologist or a psychologist. He is a writer of pornographic fiction. That’s all.

Ok, cazzie, I’ll bear with you. What “distribution” means in this context was explained succinctly a few posts up; I was disappointed to see how many presumably educated and literate people were tripped up by this one word. I hope that when you finish digesting you will be able to come up with something better than the elaborate ad hominem you just served up. And yes, I did read the review, which, among other things, offers some clues as to why this man is so damaged in the first place. In addition to the harm done to the losers in the new sexual order, there is collateral damage done to the children, even, or maybe especially, to of children of the winners.

Not sympathy-banging ugly people has negative consequences for your children? Huh?

@Zissou The man is not an economist.

@cazzie This man writes from such a damaged point of view

Maybe that’s why his books are good. Nothing more boring than a writer who writes from a perfectly sanitized perspective.

I super agree, @olivier5 . I love that type of fiction. But we who know the difference won’t confuse the fiction universe created by favourite authors with actual reality based science.

@Zissou….. which description of distribution did you identify so strongly with? There were reports and refutes from all sectors.

^The mathematical definition olivier5 provided:
Distribution: the position, arrangement, or frequency of occurrence (as of the members of a group) over an area or throughout a space or unit of time.

I actually still believe in the role of the poet (or novel writer) to illuminate reality in different ways than science can, through intuition.

Houellebecq IMO is right to point at the dark sides of the sexual liberation movement. He does so as no other man ever did before him (to my knowledge), in a very original way, and I for one won’t dismiss him as fiction. I do think he goes overboard, he makes too much of his material, he’s jealous to no end, but there’s a kernel of truth in what he says. There’s something sordid and unfair about the “dictatorship of the body”.

@cazzie It’s true that MH is not an economist. Neither are certain women writers who claim to be harmed by the unrealistic standards of beauty promoted in the media. Should I ignore their perspectives because they don’t have Ph.D.s in a social science discipline? More generally, does one have to have such credentials to make observations about our society?

Regardless of how it’s said,it still sounds like a guy who has too much time on his hands. So ,he over contemplates his situation to the extreme. It has the feel that he’s somehow blaming women for not giving it up to him.

Maybe I wrongly picked that up?

Oh, I’m sure there is a ‘kernel of truth’ in what he says, but it is from his own point of view. There is nothing scientific about it. But there is absolute value in his ability to share his experience in his gift as a story teller and literary poet. Again…. anecdotal evidence or personal feelings are not scientific proof. A person’s opinion, though very interesting and artistically fascinating, is not science. It can, how ever, inspire, and that is always important.

@Zissou Sorry, perhaps we haven’t been properly introduced. I’m Empirical Girl aka Double Standards girl. If you want to suggest an actual subject worthy of my attention, try again. I like fiction, don’t get me wrong. But don’t try pass off a fiction as some scientific study.

@Seek The article says MH’s mother left him with his grandparents at the age of 5 months while she went off to find herself, and they had little contact after that. It doesn’t mention his father. I think many children of his generation suffered from the social experiments of that time, as their parents ditched conventional structures and often ended up just reinventing the wheel at best. Maybe that’s why he disapproves of the disconnection of sex from emotional intimacy and familial responsibilities.

Um, boo hoo? The hell does his mommy and daddy issues have to do with anything?

^^ The guy hates his mother. She abandonned him, basically.

@cazzie I never tried to pass this off as a scientific study. I quoted the source, which makes it clear where this came from. The possible social scientific and ethical questions it raises might interest some people, even if they don’t interest you, and even if this writer is not going to answer them himself in a scientific way.

I don’t understand this idolisation of science. Science is just one path to truth. It is not the only one, and it can lead one astray too. And art can be waaay faster. Proust discovered the connection between smell and memory one century before neurologists.

Um, because without a method to prove things people can literally just make shit up and expect others to believe them.

Kind of like this guy is doing.

But this guy Michel Houllebecq, is an author of fiction. The person quoting him is trying to relate it to the real world. Which is fallacious.

And I don’t IDOLISE Science. I respect and understand its importance and I recognise when someone is trying to pass off an opinion as fact. It is called Reason.

@olivier5, you misunderstand what science is. It only seeks the truth. Like any human endevour, it can go astray or be perverted to individual view points. As a whole, science is self-correcting. If an idea turns out to be false, it is thrown out. Often, opinions do not care about the facts.

@Zissou Your question was absolutely trying to adhere it to the real world. You asked, ‘Is he right? If so, is this a bug or a feature? If it’s a dysfunction, could the uneven distribution of sex be causally connected to other dysfunctions in liberal society?’

You were asking in a real world sense if this fictional quotation could be used in a non-fiction context. You received a number of answers. They entertained your mixture of fiction. I was even intrigued into the whole idea of the messy concept until I realised…. Ain’t nothing real here. This was nothing more than a fugue state fantasy of a sexually desperate male character.

@olivier5 He was five months old when his mother left. He wouldn’t even remember her. If he grew to hate her it would be because of the things other people told him about her as he grew.

^Couldn’t he hate her over the principle. Being abandoned at 5 months old. That’s fucked up.

the author picks characters that are abandoned by his parents. It is part of his ‘thing’........ the then chooses how they feel. No basis on fact, just feeling…. it’s what fictional authors do.

As a person with legit mommy and daddy issues, I’m still not certain why this author’s mommy and daddy issues should be used to justify this frankly absurd premise.

Exactly, @Seek . One does not extrapolate from an experience of one.

While our individual situations may give rise to interesting and complex fictional novels and incredible flights of fancy, it is not a template to try to encompass the social masses.

Funny how misunderstanding always creeps in human communication. First it was the term ‘distribution’; now it’s about Houellebecq’s mother. The personal history of the author helps to explain his personal biases. That was the point of bringing it up. Nobody is saying that his theory of sexual inequalities is based on his own views on his mother. We’re (if i can speak for Zissou) just saying that his views are biased by an idealization of the nuclear family which he lacked as a child.

It doesn’t mean there’s no possible generalisation of his experience. He is RIGHT when he states that a non negligeable number of people only get laid half a dozen times in their entire life.

Do all adopted children hate their biological children @MrGrimm888? No. Of course not. Unless they were told hurtful painful things growing up, like, “They didn’t want you. They abandoned you.”

It’s a whole different ballgame if they’re told, “She loves you. It really hurt her to give you up, but she wanted what was best for you. She knew she was not ready to be a parent. She wasn’t ready for the responsibility. But she does loves you.”

@cazzie Yes, I am absolutely trying to relate this to the real world. That doesn’t mean I’m presenting it as a scientific claim. This is one thoughtful person’s observation, or interpretation of his experience if you prefer, which he has put in the mouth of a fictional character. That a fictional character is stating a proposition has no bearing on whether the proposition is true or whether it merits discussion. (Ever hear of a novel called Uncle Tom’s Cabin?) @Seek Note the difference between making an observation, interpretation, or value judgement and just making stuff up.

I guess I was expecting more responses like MrGrimm888’s about his experiences working at a club, i.e., responses in which people would say how their observations do or do not match what MH is asserting, or responses in which people would examine the underlying value judgement that MH is making, or larger philosophical issues even. But if anyone does know of any relevant scholarship, scientific or otherwise, that bears on these questions, that would be welcome too.

This is one person’s observation, based on the fictional character he created. I’ve heard of Uncle Tom’s Cabin…. As I’m sure you have…. but are you equating it with this? I’m sure you were expecting more ‘true to life’ stories about men grinding with women and the like….. I guess that’s your wishful thinking. To most of us, the basis of this issue is that it has nothing to do with the actual nit and grit. So…. Keep trying…. thumbs up….

@Dutchess_III It’s a whole different ballgame if they’re told, “She loves you. It really hurt her to give you up, but she wanted what was best for you. She knew she was not ready to be a parent. She wasn’t ready for the responsibility. But she does loves you.”

Some kids are smart enough to see past the lies we tell them.

I’m just saying that if he hates his mom it was because of the way those raising him handled it. You can tell the truth without telling a lie.

Dutchess . I don’t think think all orphans hate their parents. But to infer that they didn’t like you,and abandoned you seems reasonable to me.

But it doesn’t surprise me that you remove a female from accountability.

Are you really blaming the people who raised him for a possible resentment of females because his mother was a potentially piece of shit?

Can you not even entertain the idea that she abandoned him,and now he has issues?

He met his mother occasionally. It’s not like he relied on hear-say to pass his judgment of her.

BTW, I liked Houellebecq as a writer, he’s gifted and original. He’s clearly misogynist and most female readers hate him with a passion, but his voice is distinctively that of a modern man, one not particularly convinced by the whole modern man thing. He writes about the present masculine condition, stuff nobody wrote about before him, and that can be useful. It doesn’t mean I agree with him. In fact I think he’s a total asshole, cynical, depressed, angry, negative in many ways, but he can be a brilliant asshole. A sort of modern Céline.

He likes to provoke the Parisian leftist intellectual clique by putting them in front of their contradictions. E.g. the argument he puts forth in the OP is addressed at a French leftist audience and says something like this: both economic liberalism and sexual liberalism lead to massive unequality and misery, so why do you support the latter and criticize the former?

He’s usually pretty good at throwing them into cognitive dissonnance. It’s a tribute to his talent that even jellies from Norway or the US found themselves aghast on this thread, unable to even process the ideas he puts forth.

I think I processed them, but they are the type of ideas that are like really bad Indian food. They end up stinking badly and get flushed quickly.

I suppose misunderstanding is a form of process, but you were left speechless for a couple of days and after that never actually addressed anything he said.

@olivier5 I think you mistook ‘busy having a life’ for speechless, but whatever.

Your usual excuse for not contributing much.

This is a massive instance of shifting goalposts.

I don’t care what the guy’s home life was, what his favourite colour is, or whether his best friend has a third nipple.

The question was whether the idea that sex should be distributed “fairly” in a liberal society is valid, right? That there should be some form of hooker welfare for the ugly or uncharismatic?

@olivier5 writes: “Your usual excuse for not contributing much.”

My response———> 22737
Empirical Girl wins.

@MrGrimm888 “But to infer that they didn’t like you,and abandoned you seems reasonable to me.” Are you fucking serious? What a horrible, horrible thing to do to a child for no reason. I think, “She just wasn’t able to take care of you,” would be all they’d need to say. Why break the child’s heart?

Also, @MrGrimm888 Also, “But it doesn’t surprise me that you remove a female from accountability.”

1) I’m not removing her from accountability. But I am not going to sacrifice a child’s emotions so I can get a smug sense of satisfaction that I’m holding her accountable in some way, by breaking her kid’s heart. Leave it to you to even think that way.

2) There was a male involved in the creation of this child, who also abandoned the child. Leave it to you to hold only the female accountable, though.

If you abandoned your child at 5 months,you should logically think your child won’t like you.

I just can’t simplify it better.

”If you abandoned your child at 5 months,you should logically think your child won’t like you.” I’m talking about how the child feels, not how the mother feels. She’s an adult, she made the decision, she can face the consequences. I don’t feel too sorry for her. My focus is on the child’s well being.

And that may be the conclusion the kid comes to, but I would hope the adults around the child would be there to field the questions and help the child make sense of the abandonment, and help him not to blame himself.

My kid’s dad abandoned them after our divorce. My oldest was 12, the middle daughter was 6, and the youngest was 4, even though he did love them and did want them. He was just fucked up and not thinking straight at the time.

I was sure as hell not going to answer their questions in such a way as to make sure they hated their father for it just so I could feel a savage satisfaction of revenge. God, why would I even do that to my own children?

I think we can safely say that @Dutchess_III is a better mother that this guy every had. And perhaps put a pin in his conversation. It’s done. It’s been carved up and eaten.

^Indeed

The idea that someone badmouthed MH’s mother in gis presence when he was a kid, that idea of Dutchess is PURE SPECULATION. So no, she nailed nothing at all. She just speculated something and then took shot at it.

@livier5 wrote: ^^ The guy hates his mother. She abandonned (sic) him, basically.

I guess you were speculating here, too?

No, i read interviews of him where he speaks about that.

OK, then, @Dutchess_III isn’t wrong that he’s pretty fucked up because of some mommy issues and she was trying to communicate that she can’t relate to anyone with that type of ‘mothering’ style. Of course, we know it happens. As @CWOTUS so eloquently put it, “Everything that humans do is problematic. Every. Single. Thing.”

Dutch was saying that someone must have badmouthed his mother to MH as a child, otherwise he wouldn’t hate her. THAT is the part that is speculative. MrGrimm pointed out that he could have hated her out of his own thinking, and I pointed out that MH met his mother occasionally as a child, so there’s no reason to assume he relied on hear-say.

In all fairness, Dutchess was right when she pointed out that MH’s father also abandoNed him.

Back from a camping trip. Let’s see if we can re-rail this thread.

MH is saying that under liberal sexual norms, a few people may enjoy more satisfying sex lives than they would have under traditional sexual norms, but most people have less satisfying sex lives—drastically less satisfying in some cases.

My questions are a) is this true, and b) if so, is this a problem?

The premise is flawed.

“Traditional sexual norms” isn’t a thing. There’s no point in history where everyone was guaranteed to have a partner, where some didn’t have more sex than others.

I’d argue that since liberal societies don’t discount the existence of the female orgasm, a good half of the population is much more likely to have some way or other to sate their sexual appetites (without being considered a harlot or a witch).

I guess,I just think there are bigger problems (Not sure I consider this a problem. )

What about the distribution of wealth,food,water, and basic medical care?

I’m with @Seek in that the whole premise seems flawed. And I feel like it infers females have some responsibilty to go have more sex. I don’t care much for that concept.

I still don’t understand why MH can’t just go to the gym more, or try to make more money. Or play an instrument in a band, or something to make himself more attractive.

Pretty sure that most women get all the sex they want. Who is telling us we have to get more, and why?

Well, let’s see how this thread goes from here. It could be time to grab some popcorn, or just stop following.

@MrGrimm888 Don’t worry about MH, his books sell well and there’s always Thailand.

@Seek I’m not sure I understand. Are you saying the premise is flawed because there is no such thing as traditional sexual norms, or are you just saying that the answer to question a) is, “no, it is not true”, because people really weren’t better off sexually under the old norms?

Re. “Traditional sexual norms”: traditional may not be the right word, but I hope we’re not going to get hung up on a word again. There isn’t a Wikipedia entry for “traditional sexual norms”, but there is no question that sexual norms have changed over the past century. Let’s narrow it down and say that we are contrasting the norms of the period between 1918 and 1964 vs. the norms that emerged after 1964. Yes, I know norms weren’t static during that earlier period, but I think the relevant ideals of that period for MH’s purposes are monogamy, fidelity, and the integration of sexual expression with marital/familial connection and responsibility. People often did not live up to those ideals, but those ideals still influenced their behavior and expectations.

Re. “discount the existence of the female orgasm”: Again, not clear. Do you mean deny the existence, or discount the importance? They didn’t do either to the extent you suggest before 1964 or even before 1918. At least the French didn’t! But you are right to point out that quality as well as quantity is at issue here. I think MH would agree.

@Dutchess_III @MrGrimm888 MH is not saying women have to have more sex. Supposing for the sake of argument that women do in fact get the quantity of sex they want, if women partner up monogamously per the old norms, they might have the same amount of sex, but with a smaller number of partners, and for the men, instead of a few men having sex with many women while the rest of the men are partnerless much of the time, most men would also be in monogamous relationships.

But again, quality also matters, and among women who have any standards at all, there are some who do not get as much sex as they want. Certainly not enough of the kind of sex they want.

@MrGrimm888 Yes, that’s good advice for men who are hard up. Every man who is not well past his prime ought to be able to do at least one of those things. As for MH himself, I doubt that a best-selling French author really has trouble getting some if he really wants it, even if he is short and ugly. That never stopped Sartre.

@Seek GA for posting the 100th response :-)

@Zissou “monogamous” means “one,” So in the most literal terms you have sex with only one person in your life not simply with “fewer people.
Considering that you can only hope your lifetime partner is considerate and caring.

Why is 1918–1964 special? Why use that as the baseline?

Are there any studies at the time which tell us what percentage of the population actually engaged in “monogamy, fidelity, and the integration of sexual expression with marital/familial connection and responsibility”, or are we simply subscribing to a revisionist “ideal” that likely didn’t reflect reality at all?

It’s a bit like comparing modern dating with a Victorian interpretation of Medieval Chivalry. That is, basing a complaint and a comparison of modern day subjective observation with a fantasy that is based on nothing but what some people like to believe was fact.

I keep hearing ‘don’t get hung up on the words.’

Were these not MH’s chosen words?

@Seek Someone born in 1945 would be 19 in 1964. The major shifts in sexual mores occurred as the postwar baby boom came of age, though the changes were probably brewing before that. A certain arbitrariness is inevitable here, but I think 1964 is a reasonable before/after point. How far back should we go? The ideals I suggested go back much farther than 1918, but I think there were significant social changes after 1918.

There is no question that those were the ideals. There is no question that people often did not live up to those ideals. If you want studies done at the time, we may need to shorten the time frame. The Kinsey studies were done in the 40s and 50s. We could limit our comparison to the post-WWII era if you like.

So I take it you are not denying MH’s claim about the current sexual norms (i.e., that these norms are great for a few, but bad for many), but you are saying that there is no reason to think that, on average, people had it any better under the older norms?

@Dutchess_III in this context, monogamous means one at a time. Widow(er)s have always been allowed to remarry in Western societies. They are still considered monogamous.

@MrGrimm888 “Traditional” was my word, not MH’s. Maybe it was not a good choice. I was just looking for a convenient label. Maybe I should just stick with “older” for the pre-1964 norms.

I’m denying the entire premise of the comparison.

The dude is making shit up. There’s no basis for comparison. No samples taken, no studies done. He has no facts to back up his assertions. It’s the whining of a guy who feels like he doesn’t get laid enough and blames that fact on society as a whole and not the fact that he’s probably a repulsive individual.

That was my assesment as well.

So now we’re back to the ad hominem and ad ignorantiam arguments. Tsk Tsk.

He’s not the only one talking about these things. To name just two, Hannah Rosin and Caitlin Flanagan have debated whether “hookup culture” is good or bad for women. Both have published books that include the social science that you want (though I will wager that one perceptive artist will get you closer to the truth than a boatload of social scientists).

Here are some links:
https://ricochet.com/archives/is-the-hook-up-culture-empowering/
http://www.theatlantic.com/author/hanna-rosin/
http://www.theatlantic.com/author/caitlin-flanagan/

I will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you are just turned off by the messenger and are not afraid of taking a good hard look at the direction in which the culture is heading and possibly your own personal life as well.

Now I must set this aside and tend to some dreary home maintenance tasks that I can no longer put off. Best wishes, peace out.

“Each generation thinks it invented sex; each generation is totally mistaken.” – Robert A. Heinlein 1907 – 1988

Take it from us oldies.

“I was a playboy from Dubai to Paris
She wore a necklace made of pharaoh bones
Made our acquaintance on a sheetless mattress
She pressed my lips, said this won’t last long
But she’s always avoiding falling in love
Due to a life of a private affair.”

—The Virgins

Hook-up culture – exibit 2

The Virgins – One Week Of Danger

We’re best friends
We hold hands
We’re in love
You’re my man

Well is there something that you like about her? Yes!
I like the way her body bends in half
And is there something that you love about her? No!
Man if she’s playing hard to get I’m out the door

Come on baby
We get along
Please don’t spoil it
Don’t steer us wrong

Give me just one week of danger at a time
Loving isn’t easy but it sure is fun
Yeah, just one week of danger at a time
Loving isn’t easy but it sure is fun

Well is there something that you wanted from her? Yes!
I want her legs, her body, and her calves [cash?]
And is there something that you needed from her? No!
Man, if she’s playing hard to get I’m out the door

Come on baby
We get along
One week of danger
‘S not very long

You talk about me like you own me, baby, and that’s not fair
I told you that I had somebody else – you did not care
And now you’re trying to make me out to be some kind of square
You’re talking on the telephone, you’re telling all of your friends

Give me just one week of danger at a time
Loving isn’t easy but it sure is fun
Yeah, just one week of danger at a time
Loving isn’t easy but it sure is fun

I know I’ve told you this before, but song lyrics are not evidence.

Besides, I could break out some lyrics from the 15th century that would make your priest blush.

You could break out passages from the Bible that would put Debbie Does Dallas to shame.

It’s so cute how the little ones think they’re the ones who discovered sex and promiscuity. Bless ‘em. Anyone who studies the history of microbiology and STDs has a better idea than these children.

Just sharing a cool tune here… Nobody is saying that promiscuity started yesterday.

This said, are you gals of the opinion that nothing as fundamental as sexual relations has ever changed, or will ever change? Surely, there have been changes in our species’ mating patterns since we came along 200,000 yr ago.

Like what? In different societies we have this tendency to wrap sex up like it’s something spiritual, or some mystery, and to wrap all kinds of morals and rumors around it, but that really doesn’t change anything fundamental about it.

So the progress made by feminism and by the LGBT movement count for nothing?

The institution of marriage is historical, it evolved through time.

Another example is contraception, which as an option open to all, is a recent phenomenon.

I didn’t say that. I said it hasn’t changed anything fundamentally. People still screw, just like all other primates. Men may be learning more about women and women’s bodies, and women may be trying to educate men themselves (historically they weren’t supposed to talk about dirty stuff like that) but they’re still just screwing.
As far as LGBT, they’re just getting sexual gratification, like they’ve always done. They just have more room now, ‘cuz they aren’t stuck in a closet.

Of course our ancestors have always screwed, they’ve been at it since what? the pre-Cambrian? Otherwise we wouldn’t be here.

The things that changed are: with whom (number, age, gender, etc)? How often? And through what process do they get to that point, what sexual practices they use, etc.

Gays can get married and live a normal life, as opposed to hide or rot in jail. That’s a big deal.

HAHAHAHA.

Contraception is not a recent phenomenon. Ancient Egyptians invented the diaphragm barrier around 4000 years ago.

Fashionable men in ancient Greece had young wives they kept at home and young boy lovers they took out on the town. The wives often pleasured each other in their husbands’ absence with dildos made of a kind of bread dough.

Seriously, study history.

Not all gays in all societies were shunned @olivier5.

@Seek What part of “as an option open to all” did you fail to understand?

Seriously dude, learn to read.

Seek, you say, “I know I’ve told you this before, but song lyrics are not evidence.”

and then, in the very next sentence, you say,

“Besides, I could break out some lyrics from the 15th century that would make your priest blush.”

Priceless! :-D

@dutchess Not all gays in all societies were shunned @olivier5.

But most societies have historically shunned gays. That is changing.

Have they?

Yes they have.

Can you show me something that backs this up?

What societies do you know of, that don’t traditionally shun gays? Name them and count them. You will see that they are a minority.

Here is scientific proof that mating patterns can change. Something happened 8000 yr ago that still shows in our genes:

8,000 Years Ago, 17 Women Reproduced for Every One Man
by Francie Diep

Once upon a time, 4,000 to 8,000 years after humanity invented agriculture, something very strange happened to human reproduction. Across the globe, for every 17 women who were reproducing, passing on genes that are still around today — only one man did the same.

“It wasn’t like there was a mass death of males. They were there, so what were they doing?” asks Melissa Wilson Sayres, a computational biologist at Arizona State University, and a member of a group of scientists who uncovered this moment in prehistory by analyzing modern genes.

Another member of the research team, a biological anthropologist, hypothesizes that somehow, only a few men accumulated lots of wealth and power, leaving nothing for others. These men could then pass their wealth on to their sons, perpetuating this pattern of elitist reproductive success. Then, as more thousands of years passed, the numbers of men reproducing, compared to women, rose again. “Maybe more and more people started being successful,” Wilson Sayres says. In more recent history, as a global average, about four or five women reproduced for every one man.

https://psmag.com/8-000-years-ago-17-women-reproduced-for-every-one-man-6d41445ae73d#.p6t7wsex6

There are several possible explanations. One is wealth concentration: the neolithic saw the rise of more complex and thus more unequal societies than the egalitarian hunter-gatherers of the paleolithic. In this tbeory there’s no coercion necessary: Neolithic girls all wanted the same rich boy, like today rock stars have more opportunities to get laid than most…

Another possible explanation is war and conquest. The winner kills all males and keep their females. There are of ciurse evidence of war during the neolithic, e.g. the Talheim massacre. The rapt of the Sabine women by the Romans comes to mind.

Or, 8,000 years ago we were living in a matriarchal society, and the women collectively chose the best men as breeding stock and shunned the rest. It’s as provable a hypothesis as any other.

Regardless, not sure how this helps the OP’s point.

@olivier5, you asked me to name and count societies that don’t reject gays.

The Greeks, for one, as @Seek pointed out here, and the Romans.

“Native Americans”: for another. “Among Indigenous peoples of the Americas prior to European colonization, a number of nations had respected roles for homosexual, bisexual, and gender-nonconforming individuals;”

East Asia and China.

Safavid dynasty of Iran
In time of Safavid dynasty of Iranian homosexuality and homoerotic expressions were tolerated in numerous public places, from monasteries and seminaries to taverns, military camps, bathhouses, and coffee houses.

The South Pacific: In many societies of Melanesia, especially in Papua New Guinea, same-sex relationships were an integral part of the culture until the middle of the last century.

As you can see, few and fat between have been the societies that didn’t shun homosexuality. The roman empire prior to christianity is one significant exception. There are a few others but it’s a rare thing overall.

In China, homosexuality is a not a crime anymore but long was. I don’t know about India.

LOL! The article encompassed most of the world! The Greeks, the Romans (who WERE the world at one time) East Asia (little bit of land and people there) North America (before the whites.) Iran. The South Pacific.

Homophobia was created by a loving Christian God.

@Dutchess_III Please include the source when you give quotations. Are these all from Wikipedia?

It would be misleading to say that homosexuality was accepted in ancient Greece. Ancient Greek attitudes toward male homosexuality were complicated. There was a double standard: it was ok to be the “pitcher” but not ok to be the “catcher” (A Turkish student told me in the 80s that that was also how it was in his country). There was much debate over whether and in what way it was appropriate for a well-born boy to gratify the desires of an older male admirer. Michel Foucault discusses this extensively in his History of Sexuality.

Plato seems to endorse the emotional attachment but seems uncomfortable with the physical expression (Republic, Symposium, Phaedrus). Plato mentions chaperones for boys, and both Plato and Aristotle mention homosexual rape (I forget where). Aristotle mentions a homosexual favorite of a ruler who, after being insulted by the ruler for accepting the passive role (the ruler crassly inquired whether the favorite was pregnant yet), led a revolt against the ruler (Politics, I think).

I did @Zissou. Er…no I didn’t. Sorry! I only included the one for East Asia. Here you go.

@Dutchess_III Homophobia was created by a loving Christian God.

Not really. The Christians got it from the Jews. But the point i was trying to make, and for which homophobia was just an example, is that sexual attitudes and practices can change. Your statement, however innacurate historically, implies that they indeed can change. And during the republic, the Romans were homophobes. It’s only under the influence of the Greeks that they opened up. Even the Greeks EVOLVED on that topic.

Therefore, change is possible in mating patterns. QED

@Seek Or, 8,000 years ago we were living in a matriarchal society, and the women collectively chose the best men as breeding stock and shunned the rest. It’s as provable a hypothesis as any other.

That, or 16 out of 17 men were totally gay. “As provable a hypothesis as any other”, right?

Regardless, not sure how this helps the OP’s point

It shows that mating patterns and the “distribution” of sex in society CAN change, contrary to what you conservative folks seem to believe.

Ahem. Excuse me. I think I just died laughing.

I was just called “conservative” by some old white guy who thinks everyone in the 50s were sexuality satisfied.

And who would that be, pray tell? Because I for one NEVER EVER said that everyone in the 50s were sexuality satisfied. That’s just another one of your lies.

You and your crew might consider dropping your systematic rejection of everything I am saying. It’s irrational and weak. It leads you to state very stupid things out of pure contrarianism. Can’t you see what I did here? I stated the absolutely OBVIOUS (”Surely, there have been changes in our species’ mating patterns since we came along 200,000 yr ago.”), only to see you gals spent all your energy to DENY THE OBVIOUS and defend the opposite (and ridiculous) idea that nothing ever changes…

That’s why I called you “conservative”, because you defended a viewpoint that is so conservative that it’s downright absurd, just because you wanted to contradict me. You see, contrarian people are easily manipulated. All I need to do to get you to state “X” is to state “non-X”, and you will rush into contradicting me… I own you now. :-)

OR you could assume that SOMETIMES Olivier says something that makes sense to you, and SOMETIMES he doesn’t, and thus that you need to USE YOUR BRAIN to decide what is the case… Scary, huh? :-))

You talk a whole lot for someone who never says anything.

I’ll stop now. Don’t worry; you won’t have to avert your eyes.

Christians also got their God from the Jews. Same God. Same loving God says homosexuals are BAD.

It also says that shellfish and poly-cotton blends are just as bad.

Distribution of sex is on a first cum, first served basis regardless of the setting.

No it isn’t! It’s dependent on who the women choose. Could be the last guy to show up. I got the pun, BTW.

@Dutchess_III Indeed, and the Muslims too. Point is: homophobia didn’t start with Christianity.

Right. It started with Judaism. Same God.

Same tradition at least. As for the gods, i happen to believe that El/Elohim is a different god from Yahweh (they merged into one in 2nd temple Judaism but were different at some point before that), who himself is different from Jesus. So I would dispute the “same god” but it’s the same religious tradition, yes.

Whatever. They’re all imaginary.
Historically most societies accepted gays. They didn’t condemn them.

That’s still not true but whatever. The point is that societal attitudes to sex and people’s practices can change. If you think that the entire pagan world was progay and then these darn Christians changed all that, that proves my point just as well.

“Historically most societies accepted gays. They didn’t condemn them.”—Dutchess_III

D3, this is from your link above, emphasis added:

In a 1976 study, Gwen Broude and Sarah Greene compared attitudes towards and frequency of homosexuality in the ethnographic studies available in the Standard cross-cultural sample. They found that out of 42 communities: homosexuality was accepted or ignored in 9; 5 communities had no concept of homosexuality; 11 considered it undesirable but did not set punishments; and 17 strongly disapproved and punished. Of 70 communities, homosexuality was reported to be absent or rare in frequency in 41, and present or not uncommon in 29.

Also, if God is imaginary, then God cannot be blamed for originating prohibitions against homosexuals. Can anyone offer a naturalistic account for the origin of these prohibitions?

@Zissou

I found this thesis quite interesting. It’s only one thesis but well researched. His quote of II Kings 23.7 pans out. There was a time when the Jerusalem temple had a quarter for male prostitutes working for the temple… €:-0

@olivier5 I provided you with support for my argument. I would appreciate it if you did the same.

@Zissou I’m talking about historically, not present day, and not just in America.

OK, then I blame the people do believe in God and believe that he wrote the Bible and who have deluded themselves into accepting the hatred as sanctioned by the God they believe in.

@Dutchess_III Zissou provided the data.

But for the sake of the argument, let’s suppose that you are right, that there was no homophobia anywhere in tbe ancient world, and that Christianity changed all that. In first approximation, you’re by and large correct: the pre-christian mediterranean societies were much more tolerant of homosexuality than the Christian ones. I will grant you that. But you have to grant me that it proves the broader point that societies’ attitudes to sex can change, and thus people’s behaviors can change and HAVE CHANGED throughout history.

Did you provide the evidence that @olivier5 said you did, @Zissou? I don’t see it.

No one is denying that attitudes change @olivier5. They’ve changed in my lifetime.

Attitudes can change and therefore practices can change, which was my point all along. Glad you agree. :-)

Yes, I agree.
I still don’t see the data you said @Zissou posted, though, that backs your claim that historically all societies shunned homosexuals.

I never made that claim.

OK, you said that historically most societies have shunned society. I asked for proof, you referred me to @ @Zissou. He has not posted any data backing that up.

Your exact words were “As you can see, few and fat between have been the societies that didn’t shun homosexuality. ” I would like to see proof of this.

In a 1976 study, Gwen Broude and Sarah Greene compared attitudes towards and frequency of homosexuality in the ethnographic studies available in the Standard cross-cultural sample. They found that out of 42 communities: homosexuality was accepted or ignored in 9; 5 communities had no concept of homosexuality; 11 considered it undesirable but did not set punishments; and 17 strongly disapproved and punished. Of 70 communities, homosexuality was reported to be absent or rare in frequency in 41, and present or not uncommon in 29.

Now that this matter is cleared, let’s go back to the OP.

Since we now agree that societies’ attitude to sex can change and therefore that sexual practices can change, it follows that some of it may have changed since the 50s. It’s not unthinkable…

Special Pleading argument, five yard penalty.

You’re starting with a conclusion and trying to work back to data. That’s not how it works.

Leave me alone, @Seek . You have nothing useful to say, only ad hominem and lies.

Also, homosexual data sets are not accurate or comparable as the original question was given as a comparison of sex between men and women vs monetary economics. I’d have given him a 10 yard penalty, @Seek Unless his initial quote also meant that a ‘true’ liberal sexual community meant that all men were bisexual. It couldn’t hurt if he meant sex of any sort. I mean, why discount half of the population as potential fuck-buddies if you were after quantity and happy to call that ‘varied and exciting erotic life’?

I am not talking about present day, @olivier5. I can discern present day attitudes for myself. I am talking historically.

If I may throw my hat into the ring here. I think the only point @olivier5 is trying to make,is that sex, and the way people think about sex has changed over time. I think Internet pornography can attest to that with little argument.

I feel confident in concluding that as our species ‘advances, ’ perceptions, and thoughts about sex will continue to change.

The only thing that won’t change, is people will desire it. When someone desires something that others seem to have more than them, it can make them jealous, sad or envious of the ‘haves.’

The author MH was a ‘have not.’ So he analyzed his life,and the lives of others. IMO , the authors assessment is incorrect, but nonetheless a healthy evaluation of society. His problem, or the problem with his thinking, is he’s not being accountable for his role in regards to the ‘distribution ’ of sex in his personal life. He projects his failure onto society.

Sometimes there isn’t a scientifically discernible reason for something. It just, is what it is.

We all agree that the way people view sex changes over time. No need to state and restate the obvious.

^Well. It seemed like the point wasn’t taken. I was attempting to clarify, not waste anyone’s time.

@MrGrimm888 He’s still trying to pass off this opinion at fact, though. I feel what you’re saying.

I wanted to check whether everyone did in fact agree with the obvious fact the way societies and their people approach/do sex has changed historically, and will most probably continue to change. Because some posts on this thread seemed to imply that nothing really ever change in this area.

I gave a few examples: gay rights, contraception… only to get responses like “learn history, the Egyptians invented the diaphragm”. It’s taken a long time to get to any agreement, but now we’re there. So we can come back to to OP question: Did things changed the way Houllebecq described them or not, and is it a problem or not. This issue remains largely unaddressed after 160+ posts.

It’s a dumb question.

Re-read my answers.

It’s not a dumb question, but I suspect you were right @Dutchess_III when you said that it was more of an issue for men than for women. I would agree that a large majority of women can get some of it once in a while, if they want to. The same is not true for men.

@cazzie All you said was that a novelist (no, sorry, “a writer of pornographic fiction”) is not a scientist and therefore what he says is necessarily false because he is out of his domain of competence.

Throw away Shakespeare, this clown!

It’s not a problem in society . It’s a personal problem for MH. He was dealt a bad hand, but refuses to play it smart. His analysis is prepared after viewing society through his own prism of insecurity, jealousy, and understandable sexual frustration.

But he’s not ‘right.’

There are 7 BILLION people on this rock. Sounds like sex is being ‘distributed ’ just fine to me.

Laughing!

@MrGrimm888 The situation in the rest of the planet is not the issue here. Houellebecq is the first to travel to Thailand to even out his “bad hand”. He made that the subject of his next novel after the one quoted in the OP, Platform. In fact I suspect him to be preparing the pro-prostitution argument of his next book in the OP quote.

The idea presented in the OP is that the sexual liberation movement of the 60s and 70s in Western societies lead to less sex (or even no sex at all) for the most romantically-challenged among men. This is an idea I tend to agree with, because it makes logical sense. In a system of exchange that becomes progressively more competitive, it stands to reason that there’d be more losers than before (e.g. the 50s). When the girls had to marry any boy who made her pregnant, or when marriages were arranged, the chances were a little more even for every boy, me guess.

What I disagree with is that it should be seen as a problem. To me it’s a feature, not a bug. The resulting additional benefit of said sexual freedoms for the moderately successful and for the highly sucessful at the sex game is large enough to justify the elimination of the least sexy fringe from the ‘market’ (morally sad but just in a Darwinian sense: they failed at the dating game).

You’re saying something similar when you say it’s also his fault, and you’re right. The guy was not that ugly when he was younger.

But as I said, I suspect he was preparing his next point, subject of his next book: if the least sexyamong men shall remain virgin forever, while frequently bombarded by ubiquitous representations of sex, at the very least allow prostitution as a safety valve. That would even out the ‘market’ for those who can’t get laid otherwise.

So. MH basically came up with all this to justify his ‘use ’ of prostitution?

That’s a point easier made by simply looking at prostitution like any other trade. Goods in exchange for services.

Was this endeavor just a thinking exercise for him? Sounds like a waste of time. Maybe I just don’t think like him.

It’s all those slutty girls’ fault that I have to pay for sex when I should be getting it for free! Waah!

Nothing is free. We pay for it one way or the other. ~

“I done it all for the nookie….”

Yeah. More song lyrics.

‘Sex coupons for the grotesque and unlovable’. pathetic.

@MrGrimm888 No, I don’t thnk that MH came up with “all this” only to justify prostitution. He’s not pretending or lying. He just made an observation on soceity the way he sees it. It’s just that the logical consquence of what he says is that a sexualy liberal society needs prostitution just as much as a non-liberal one, but for different reasons: as a form a sexual safety net.

A similar phenomenon affects women too: some women also do the sexual tourist thing, including in Thailand, Senegal, Morocco or the Carribeans. I travel a lot for work and I do see some of them. Generaly middle age, with means.

Once I was in the same team as a Finish lady in her 60s, in Bangkok. She didn’t contribute much to the work because every day she would wake up at 11:00 after a night of fun. The first time I wondered what had happened to her and knocked on her hotel door. I saw the kid she was banging, a 20-something student… She had hit on me at the hotel bar on the first day of the mission too (I was 35). The ‘cougar’ phenomenon is not very different from a ‘sugar daddy’.

It’s logical when you think of it, because it’s not just the not-so-sexy men who don’t get any in a competitive sexual environment that aggressively advertises sex. It’s also the not-so-sexy women, e.g. women of a certain age who live alone. They must not be getting much action either. So Thailand.

Not every women or man does what he or you suggests nor feels the need for it. Being old and alone suits some of us.

Good for you Cazzie. I don’t feel that need either, because I’m lucky enough to live with someone who’s quite good at sex and interested in mine. And when I’m travelling I just rely on porn…

But contrary to you, I do not feel a need to judge and condemn those people who suffer from their lack of sex. To be judgemental about people who are less lucky than I am, now that would truly be “grotesque and pathetic”.

I do feel the need, a little, to judge their own loneliness on society as a whole, and not their own inability to find a mate.

There are seven billion people in the world, and everything is somebody’s fetish.

If you can’t get laid it’s a marketing problem, not a society problem.

Well, I guess we agree on that. It’s a feature, not a bug.

More song lyrics, from the great Serge Gainsbourg who knew a thing or two about marketing himself. He was pretty ugly but it didn’t stop him from sleeping with Brigitte Bardos and Jane Birkin…

Serge Gainsbourg – Des Laids Des Laids

Enfin faut faire avec c’qu’on a —- We make do with what we’ve got
La sale gueule mais on n’y peut rien —- An ugly face but you can’t change it
D’ailleurs nous les affreux —- Moreover, for us the dreadful-looking
J’suis sûr que Dieu nous accorde —- I’m sure that God grants us
Un peu de sa miséricorde —- A little bit of his mercy
Car… —- Because…

La beauté cachée —- The hidden beauty
Des laids, des laids —- Of the ugly (bis)
Se voit sans —- Can be seen without
Délai, délai —- Delay (bis, untranslatable pun)

“Everybody is somebody’s fetish”

why don’t we see more billboards and inspirational posters saying this??

It is a marketing problem and this is not a universal need was my point.

I wish I could agree but there are some men and women so wreched for various reasons that getting laid just is not in the cards.
@cazzie you stole my avatar from a couple years ago.

^Or if you had no arms,you couldn’t even master bate. You’d have to at least pay someone to cut a hole in a watermelon, or something.

I could still wank it with no arms.

I have a friend who is in his early 30s, and will die a virgin.

He has an incurable heart defect, and is slowly dying. His personal morals won’t allow him to pay for sex, and he doesn’t actively seek a romantic relationship, because he doesn’t want to have someone love him, then die on them.

He has never, ever, whined about his position in the way the OP’s reference has.

@Seek sounds like this is a loss to humanity and this is a good person.

This is a problem for a particular point in the human dynamic grid. It is where the line for maximun horniness transects the line for most unlikable with the added axis of ‘feelings of entitlement ’. A very small grouping if everyone is, indeed, someone’s fetish.

I don’t judge his lust for sex. I do judge his self righteous sense of entitlement to it. Remember we weren’t talking about prostitution at the beginning.

Ms Empirical never read more than a dozen words written by Houllebecq but she can’t resists the urge to judge him, lambast him and insult him. I guess judgemental people have their own need to catter for… ;-)

I read three of his books, including the one quoted in the OP. I don’t like his world view, and I don’t like him as a person, but I respect his writing skills and his capacity to say what nobody wants to hear.

About people who will never get laid due to a physical handicap, I think there is a European country which offers paid-for sex to the handicapped as part of their medical coverage, but I don’t remember which.

@olivier5 You aren’t reading or if you are you aren’t comprehending what I’m writing. I am not lambasting him. In fact, if you remember, I praised that he wrote from his point of view so well. Trying to place his writing over the whole of society as some sort of template is what I am lambasting.

What were the other two books about @olivier5?

@MrGrimm888 The first one was called “Extension of the domain of struggle” (translated in English as “Whatever”). The topic is the same: the struggle for economic success has been extended in modern times to a struggle for sexual success. People feel that they need to “perform in bed”, or be ashamed.* The main protagonist (a terminally bore IT specialist in a big firm, called “our hero” throughout the book) rejects that social game and remains lonely, but he still suffers from it.

He murders a particularly stupid co-worker in the end, the point being (me think) that social violence in the form of excessive competition and exclusion can lead to actual physical violence, when the losers of the social games can’t take it anymore.

* See for instance the recent Fluther thread on: “Still a virgin at 21; is it a shame?”

The third MH book is titled Platform, and follows a group of French tourists in Thailand. The anti-hero is called Michel, like MH, and he’s basically there to get laid but goes through the motion of a tourism trip in order not to look totally a-social. The critique of the various French types represented among the group is quite funny. The message is that the West has become a social empty shell, a pretense of a society, and that only by travelling to more peaceful and quiet (less competitive) countries can one regain some humanity.

In the end, their group is victim of a Islamist terror attack, which shows that the Thailand ‘paradise’ is not out of time but is affected by radicality and violence just like any other place.

The theme of political Islam is revisited in his latest book, whay was all the craze last year, called “Submission”. It’s a sort of political sci-fi novel on how France will elect a Muslim president in a few decades, how he will impose the shariah on the country, and how this will in fact solve all our problem by putting the sexual liberation movement to an end and women back into the kitchen. I take it as a reactionary novel, a pro-Le Pen paper, but it’s very well done with lots of ambiguity.

@Seek He has never, ever, whined about his position in the way the OP’s reference has.

People should have the decency to suffer in silence and not bother the rest of us… right?

The grace of love is what MH forgets about. Too materialist a world view can kill your sentimental life.

Bright Eyes – First Day Of My Life

Thanks olivier5 . You might like ‘The Last American Man’ I think it was by Elizabeth Gilbert.

A story of a man struggling with his relationship with society. I highly recommend it.

Thx, looks good. I should read Eat Pray Love too.

Thinking of Houellebecqian characters, one of the best and funiest books i ever read is A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. Toole is a bit like a Houellebecq who wouldn’t take himself seriously. The tragedy is that nobody wanted to publish his (only, and uniquely odd) book so Toole committed suicide… The book was published later, thanks to his mother’s relentless efforts to convince publishers that it was a masterpiece of humour in America literature. Highly recommended if you have some tolerance for non-best selling, slightly bizarre literature.

I’ll try and give it a shot. Most literature I read is definitely not best selling stuff.

Best sellers are like hot dogs, easy to make and easy to eat but you won’t remember them foundly, or at all.

I used to like John Irving but I think I outgrew it. Do either of you prefer to read a language other than English?

Unfortunately I speak English, with a very limited Spanish vocabulary. I used to know German, but I lost it over the years.

I like to read in French of course. English is ok too. I tried and failed to read a couple of books in Italian. It’s too hard for me now. In a few years maybe.

Irvin is good. A bit repetitive perhaps.

Michael Cunningham is good and so is Don DeLillo.