Logic is now beginning to lead others to conclude something I asserted here long ago. And that assertion should never have been any more controversial than a statement that water is wet or increasing the labor supply reduces wage rates. Sexual equality is not societally viable:
The question becomes: what are we going to give up? Family formation? Sexual equality? Sexual liberty? (By sexual equality I mean the presumption that women should be legally, economically, and educationally equal to men. By sexual liberty I mean both an absence of formal legal sanctions and an absence of guilt and psychological repression.) It looks very much as through we can’t have all three of those sustainably, and (this is the thought that really disturbs me) we may not even get to have more than one.
If we give up family formation it’s game over; we’ll be outbred by cultures that don’t. So that’s off the table. Following out the logic, the demographic future will belong to cultures that give up either sexual liberty or sexual equality, or both.
But those options aren’t symmetrical. Because, remember, the problem with today’s sexual economics is not symmetrical. It’s not women who are bailing out of the marriage market in droves, it’s men. Accordingly (as the author of the NY Post recognizes) the odds of rolling back sexual liberty are close to nil. Men don’t have to play on those terms for fundamental bioenergetic reasons (release of semen is cheap), and women post-Pill are demonstrating an unwillingness to try to make them. Because, you know, more sex (see “miswiring”, above).
I am led to a conclusion I don’t like. That is: Sexual equality is unstable. If women can’t buy marriage with sex, they’ll have to bid submission instead. This tactic also combines well with hypergamic desire – if the mean social power of men is automatically higher than that of women, more potential pairings constitute marrying up.
I don’t have a submissive wife and never wanted one. I like strong and independent women. It therefore horrifies me to reach the conclusion that sexually repressive patriarchies may after all be a better deal for most womens’ reproductive success than the relative equality they have now is. But that’s where the logic leads.
I don’t have a problem with it myself, since I don’t believe in the nonexistent fairy tale called equality. But Raymond’s logic is correct. It’s all about the demographics and the future belongs to those who show up for it. The feminist version of equality was never any more viable than the Communist one.