"Internalizing the Oppression"

[Silvanus]

No, physical attractiveness is right near the top of what makes men attractive, also, but things like money or status also confer money or status on his sexual partners, which they are willing to grit their teeth and ignore his unattractiveness to obtain. In and of themselves they do not "attract" anyone sexually; they "attract" mates in the same way a high-paying, high-status job attracts applicants.

And yes, I've seen hot young studs with rich cougars; more and more, these days. My best friend's mom is a (widowed) 50-something multi-millionaire dating a 26-year-old athlete. I imagine he's doing about as much gritting and bearing as any given (soon to be ex-)wife of Donald Trump.

It's not that common to be playing as a rich guy with high status. It happens, but it's not all that common.

 

[s0denone]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/7954208/The-Cougar-concept-older-women-preying-on-younger-men-is-a-myth-claim-scientists.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_disparity_in_sexual_relationships

This isn't just social norms so the year you quote is meaningless, there are well understood reasons in biology for why you're more likely to find men being attracted to more youthful women than vice versa. It's quite simply because women can have children for a much shorter time than men. That naturally works its way into male psychology through natural selection.

Did you read the study? I didn't, but I read the article and the wikipedia page that you linked me.

Let's start by taking some tidbits from the wikipedia article:

"Most men marry women younger than they are; with the difference being between two to three years in Spain,[3] with the UK reporting the difference to be on average about three years, and the US, two and a half.[10][11] The pattern was also confirmed for the rest of the world, with the gap being largest in Africa.[12]"

Africa of course being a continent in dire need of feminism and women's rights, not to mention women in the workplace and equal pay.

"A study released in 2003 by the United Kingdom's Office for National Statistics concluded that the proportion of women in England and Wales marrying younger men rose from 15% to 26% between 1963 and 1998."

Interesting... Just as the woman was establishing a firm foothold in the working market. Do you think the rise has continued since 1998?

"A 2003 AARP study reported that 34% of women over 39 years old were dating younger men.[16]"

Though not exactly England or Wales, one such report seems to think so.

"Explanations for age disparity usually focus on either the rational choice model or the analysis of demographic trends in a society.[3] The rational choice model suggests that people look for partners who can provide for them in their life (bread-winners); as men traditionally earn more as they get older, women will therefore prefer older men.[3] This factor is diminishing as more women enter the labor force and the gender pay gap decreases.[3]"

Interesting. Essentially what I was already saying.

"As people have chosen to marry later, the age differences between couples have increased as well.[3][14]"

In interesting point when considering the age gap in marriages. In 1950, the year I arbitrarily quoted, you might well be expected to marry when you were much younger than today. Not only that, but women didn't have much say in terms of education, pay or oversight and as such were primarily valuable in terms of their looks and personality only - not to mention entirely dependant upon the man that they were with, as the aforementioned "bread winners".
Today both parties often finish their education, have jobs and get married in their 30's. An age gap of 3 or 4 is pretty massive if you're marrying at 20, while it is totally insignificant if you do it in your 30's.
Are you claiming women of today are reliant upon men to "bring home the dough", and as such sexual attractiveness of the man has nothing to do with their relationship?
I will concede that women are often with men slightly their senior, but I think that is moreso because part of the ideal man for women, is a caring, mature gent who is unlike the boys they would otherwise associate with. It is less of a "white knight" this days, and more of a "mature man".
Not necessarily because he has more money, but because he is more mature, confident and has an inner peace and focus.

Let's move to article from the telegraph:

"Dr Michael Dunn, a psychologist at the University of Wales, led the study which involved analysing the age preferences of 22,000 men and women using online dating sites across 14 countries and two religious groups."

Alright. Dating sites. What kind of dating sites? Sugarbabes.com? Highstandarddating.com? Farmerdating.com?
It is a nonsensical study, clearly also not accounting for the inherent inability to rely on information in dating site profiles as a whole.

"The results of our research challenges these assumptions. Although there was some cultural variation in extremes, the results showed clearly that women across all age groups and cultures, targeted males either their own age or older."

Uhuh. They targeted their own age or older, in general. Let's have a look at the countries represented in the study, at the bottom of your linked article.

"The countries involved in the survey were Australia, Brazil, Britain, Canada, China, Greece, Germany, Indonesia, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, and Ukraine."

Countries in need of women to earn equal pay in the workplace bolded.
Maybe they shouldn't have included countries where there are literally hundreds of websites devoted to "Russian Brides" or "Ukrainian Mailorder Wives" or whatever in a study attempting to be taken seriously.
I don't know enough about China, Greece or Japan to bolden them or not.

A shame they didn't include Iraq, Iran or maybe Pakistan, isn't it? Maybe they could have pushed their averages even further. Show me a study based entirely on cultures and countries where the woman has been (on the whole) emancipated, and maybe I will give their conclusions another look. This study is entirely irrelevant to what I was discussing, not to mention intellectionally dishonest.

In other words an extremely biased survey. Where is Scandinavia? First world Europeans countries? Where's even the US? Aside from talking about some "global trend" in women's wants, the survey serves no function as a tool of anything, much less disproves the existance of "cougars" in the western world.

In other words what a colossal waste of time you brought me here. Have a nice day.

 

[Paragon Fury]

our "lived experience" is that the Gordon Freemans of the world get to go home alone or get to take home the leftovers, while the Dantes, Links, Marcus Fenixes of get to take home the best of the best and the worthwhile ones.

You, uh, call women who don't look like video game babes "leftovers" who are not "worthwhile" and you wonder why women won't go home with you? Really?

PS: I don't know a single woman (out of the hundreds of gamer women I know) who finds Marcus Fenix attractive. He is absolutely, 100% male power fantasy. Dante? Yes, many. Leon? Yep. But that has a lot to do with the fact that they have pretty faces, not that they're built like brick shithouses (see: Link)(see also: pop stars, actors). The fact that you seem to think Marcus Fenix is some kind of female sexual ideal and not an ideal intended for teenaged boys is absolutely bonkers and makes me wonder if you've had a female friend in your entire life.

1: I wasn't saying women have to look like video game characters; that is a pretty big leap. What I was saying was that many video game females don't have bodies that are that unrealistic - IE: Helena, Riku, Cortana from the original article.

2: It was a harsh phrasing, but yes. Go into a bar, a club, a convention, a classroom or basically any social activity and its not terribly hard if you've had any practice to basically take all the women and men in there and figure out the ones whom everyone willing be trying to get the attention of. The "leftovers" are the men and women at the bottom who very few if anyone will be or want to be interested in until the ones closer to the top are either taken or they realize that they don't have a chance.

And yes, I know I'm one of the leftovers. I don't have the money, the looks and I have the social skills and charisma of a sack of potatoes; I know exactly what my purchasing power in the world is as far as this goes, and I know its very low - I've never said anything otherwise.

Part of the problem people are having with your statements is that you say nothing of the people in the middle. Which is horribly melodramatic. The world isn't divided into 10 and 1's. There are a lot of people in the middle. And they do just fine in the relationship and or hook up department.

The thing is...do people really care that much about the 5s and 4s? They certainly don't care that much about the 3s and lower. The 5s and 4s only start to become relevant when the 8s, 7s and 6s start to run out or become unavailable. Nobody goes out thinking "Yeah. I'mma bag me a 6!".

Also, I'm surprised my saying I knew someone who looked like Musubi didn't draw a bigger reaction.