Really good summary of how big social trends are driving problems in the dating market. Straight women are competing for "an ever-smaller pool of men who are single, educated, and emotionally stable, who are not sexual players" https://www.edge.org/response-detail/26747

This is also very good on the same subject https://quillette.com/2020/01/16/all-the-single-ladies/

Though I've got a query about this kind of cultural comparison (common in discussion of sex differences). The idea being that men and women's natural preferences are allowed to express themselves more in egalitarian cultures in which they are given more freedom.

I assume that in this study women in countries like Ethiopia are having very little casual sex (except women in the sex industry), whereas women in Denmark etc. have much more, and apparently tell researchers than they like it much less than their male counterparts.

So I guess the big variable is actually male attitudes – Danish men really really like casual sex? And Ethiopian men much less, and so more closely match Ethiopian women?

Anyway, in general I'm sceptical of presenting data as 'egalitarian v. non-egalitarian cultures' when in fact what's being described is 'Western v. non-Western' and there are *loads* of things about Western nations that are weird (or WEIRD)

Another way of describing this research could be (if my assumptions are right) "whereas in non-Western societies both men and women oppose casual sex, in Western societies women are a little bit keener on it, and men are *much* keener"

BTW this is really good evidence for the claim that hook up culture serves male interests more than female – when women have to compete less for male partners, they reject hooking up

(whatever sex positive feminists say!)

I'd add to this that sexy selfies on Instagram etc. are not only evidence of increased female intrasexual competition, but also create a false impression of that competition being stiffer than it really is, because particularly hot (and airbrushed) women float to the top.

Hence this trend https://twitter.com/JonHaidt/status/1256975272592752643