masculinity is a scam conversation.

[Boris97921234]

Disclaimer: a lot of these are generated by AIs, though i mostly agree with it.

In many ways, our modern culture struggles badly to talk about **healthy masculinity** — or even define it clearly.

Here's a rough sketch of the landscape:

Old models of masculinity (stoic, dominant, provider, protector) are often criticized now as "toxic" or outdated — but no strong new model has fully replaced them.

Many male role models, like sports stars, actors, or even politicians, are constantly in scandal, controversy, or personal chaos — which erodes trust and admiration.

Men’s spaces (where masculine traits could be healthily expressed and refined) — like fraternities, sports teams, armies — have often been tainted by real abuse or hazing scandals, so they get painted as automatically "bad."

Women (and society at large) often struggle to articulate what a healthy masculine role model even looks like. Sometimes they describe it in bits ("kind," "strong," "protective," "vulnerable," "leader," "emotional intelligence") — but these traits can seem contradictory, and without a lived example, it feels vague.

Media portrayals swing wildly — sometimes glorifying the macho jerk, sometimes the soft, neutered nice guy — neither of which most men actually aspire to.

A lot of guys today are just winging it.

In truth, one thing that is missing from the discussion is class, or wealth. i think the manosphere mentioned it, or even some mainstream media, if you are in the top 1% or the ruling class or whatever, life has never been better. you have endless supplies of high quality attractive women. whereas if you are anything other than the ruling class, you are kind of screwed no matter what u do.

For wealthy, powerful men (top 1% or even top 0.1%), life is incredible — they get status, access to the most attractive women, respect, freedom, options. They can be "bad boys," "good guys," "nerdy," "alpha," "emotional" — whatever — and still win.

For the average guy, it's way tougher. Even if you do “everything right” — be emotionally available, work hard, stay fit, be kind, be respectful — you still often get overlooked because you simply don’t have the resources or status that the top guys do.

The Brutal Truth

A high-status man’s "toxic" traits (arrogance, selfishness) are often excused or even admired.

A low-status man’s "good" traits (loyalty, hard work) are often ignored or mocked.

The system isn’t just unfair — it’s self-reinforcing. Wealthy men gain more opportunities to grow; ordinary men get stuck in cycles of invisibility.

 

The Two Tiers of Modern Masculinity

Tier 1: High-Status Men (Top 10-20%)

(Wealthy, elite-educated, physically attractive, or socially dominant men)

Dating Life:

Women compete for them (even passively, via dating apps/social media).

Can be "flawed" (aloof, emotionally unavailable, even rude) and still succeed.

Options = power — they can afford to be picky, take risks, or delay commitment.

Social & Professional Life:

Mistakes are forgiven; failures are "learning experiences."

Seen as naturally authoritative — their opinions carry weight by default.

Networking and mentorship come easily (other powerful men invest in them).

 

Tier 2: Ordinary Men (Bottom 80%)

(Middle-class, working-class, or struggling men)

Dating Life:

Must "play the game perfectly" (be emotionally intelligent, fit, funny, ambitious) just to get considered.

One mistake (awkwardness, neediness, financial instability) can disqualify them instantly.

Online dating is brutal — often invisible unless they stand out extremely.

Social & Professional Life:

Mistakes are career-enders; failures are seen as personal flaws.

Authority is earned through grind (if at all).

Fewer mentors, fewer second chances.

 

Trapped in contradictions:

"Be vulnerable, but not weak."

"Be ambitious, but not entitled."

"Be confident, but don’t intimidate."

Key Insight:
For these men, masculinity is a minefield — society tells them to be "better," but the goalposts keep moving.

Is There a Way Out?

For ordinary men, the path isn’t about "fixing masculinity" — it’s about strategic adaptation:

Master a high-value skill (tech, trades, sales) to climb economically.

 

[Nilsi]

Your AI is hitting something real here - but it goes even deeper.

Sex at Dawn - Ryan and Jethá - got some of it right: early human groups were more or less egalitarian, less locked into the hierarchies we see now. But the real rupture wasn’t just culture - it was surplus. Marx already saw it: once you have agriculture, property, capital - you get real asymmetries. Not just in wealth, but in status, in mating, in everything that matters.

The sexual revolution tried to roll some of that back - break up rigid ownership, give people freedom again. You can see the echoes of that optimism in Reich, Marcuse, and the early Freudo-Marxists - the idea that if you just liberated desire, the old authoritarian structures would collapse. But they underestimated how capitalism could capture liberated desires even faster than it captured labor.

The revolution didn’t touch the material structure underneath. And by trying to “free” sexuality without dismantling the economic base, it actually unraveled the few structures that had kept the worst dynamics more or less in check - monogamy, the burden of childbearing, fidelity, basic long-term pair bonding.

Lyotard already saw it coming: liberation doesn’t stop the machine - it feeds it. Desire gets re-coded, re-marketed, turned into endless circulation. Nick Land just pushed it to the logical conclusion: capitalism doesn’t repress desire - it is desire, stripped of any pretense, accelerating toward total abstraction.

You can adapt - you can build skills, increase your value, move differently - and you can win if you play it tight. But the deeper structure isn’t going anywhere. The genie is out of the bottle. The machine isn’t stopping - it’s accelerating.

Edited Saturday at 12:38 PM by Nilsi

[Nilsi]

31 minutes ago, Nilsi said:

Your AI is hitting something real here - but it goes even deeper.

Sex at Dawn - Ryan and Jethá - got some of it right: early human groups were more or less egalitarian, less locked into the hierarchies we see now. But the real rupture wasn’t just culture - it was surplus. Marx already saw it: once you have agriculture, property, capital - you get real asymmetries. Not just in wealth, but in status, in mating, in everything that matters.

The sexual revolution tried to roll some of that back - break up rigid ownership, give people freedom again. You can see the echoes of that optimism in Reich, Marcuse, and the early Freudo-Marxists - the idea that if you just liberated desire, the old authoritarian structures would collapse. But they underestimated how capitalism could capture liberated desires even faster than it captured labor.

The revolution didn’t touch the material structure underneath. And by trying to “free” sexuality without dismantling the economic base, it actually unraveled the few structures that had kept the worst dynamics more or less in check - monogamy, the burden of childbearing, fidelity, basic long-term pair bonding.

Lyotard already saw it coming: liberation doesn’t stop the machine - it feeds it. Desire gets re-coded, re-marketed, turned into endless circulation. Nick Land just pushed it to the logical conclusion: capitalism doesn’t repress desire - it is desire, stripped of any pretense, accelerating toward total abstraction.

You can adapt - you can build skills, increase your value, move differently - and you can win if you play it tight. But the deeper structure isn’t going anywhere. The genie is out of the bottle. The machine isn’t stopping - it’s accelerating.

But there’s also another path - if you’re sharp enough to see it.

You don’t have to funnel desire back into the old symbolic structures - power, sex, money, status. You can let it move freely - productive, nomadic, untethered - the way Deleuze mapped it: a will to power without justification, pure intensities chasing their own unfolding. You’re not escaping the game - you’re just refusing to play it on its terms.

But let’s be real: that path is just as brutal, just as selective. There’s no mass redemption here. Whether you play to win in the old economy or ride the fractures into something freer, it’s still a minority move - still a Redpill.

Edited Saturday at 12:50 PM by Nilsi

[Basman]

2 hours ago, Nilsi said:

 Now, under late capitalism, sexual dynamics follow the same brutal winner-takes-all logic as capital. A tiny elite captures a ridiculous share of attention, options, and access - and for everyone else, the margin for error keeps shrinking.

You can adapt - you can build skills, increase your value, move differently - and you can win if you’re sharp about it. But the deeper structure isn’t going anywhere. The genie is out of the bottle.

How does that work exactly? You can't horde relationships in a bank account like you can do with money. There's no way half of the human population is exclusively dating men who are rich and tall, which is probably only about 1-3% of the male population, or at least rare.

Women just tend to date older, which is not new. The older you get, the more the relationship discrepancy between men and women equalizes (to about 30-40% being single) (https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/02/08/for-valentines-day-5-facts-about-single-americans/). 

[Boris97921234]

5 hours ago, Nilsi said:

But there’s also another path - if you’re sharp enough to see it.

You don’t have to funnel desire back into the old symbolic structures - power, sex, money, status. You can let it move freely - productive, nomadic, untethered - the way Deleuze mapped it: a will to power without justification, pure intensities chasing their own unfolding. You’re not escaping the game - you’re just refusing to play it on its terms.

But let’s be real: that path is just as brutal, just as selective. There’s no mass redemption here. Whether you play to win in the old economy or ride the fractures into something freer, it’s still a minority move - still a Redpill.

Thank you for adding your thoughts to the discussion buddy! I really appreciate it.

[Boris97921234]

3 hours ago, Basman said:

How does that work exactly? You can't horde relationships in a bank account like you can do with money. There's no way half of the human population is exclusively dating men who are rich and tall, which is probably only about 1-3% of the male population, or at least rare.

Women just tend to date older, which is not new. The older you get, the more the relationship discrepancy between men and women equalizes (to about 30-40% being single) (https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/02/08/for-valentines-day-5-facts-about-single-americans/). 

I think the core of our discussion is really about how dating and masculinity function within a capitalist system. The asymmetry in demand is huge, because heterosexual men in general prefer multiple, young and attractive partners, whereas women are more inclined to settle for one stable provider. Plus most girls are just not cream of the crop, high quality, attractive women. From personal experience, age plays only a minor role compare to things like status and wealth. If you have great charisma or personality or humor, thats a huge bonus as well, of course. 

Edited Saturday at 06:42 PM by Boris97921234

[Basman]

7 minutes ago, Boris97921234 said:

I think the core of our discussion is really about how dating and masculinity function within a capitalist system. The asymmetry in demand is huge... 

...From personal experience, age plays only a minor role compare to things like status and wealth. If you have great charisma or personality or humor, thats a huge bonus as well, of course. 

Well yeah, women are talent scouts. The asymmetry is that there are more guys looking to mate with attractive women than there are available women.

The major difference between now and then is that women are no longer dependent on getting married in order to survive. Less women are going enter relationships or stick with them like they used to given it is no longer a necessity.

Probably a skill issue, but that is a good thing. The advantage that men have over women is that men can do more to improve themselves. An ugly women has way less options. Plenty of ugly dudes get hot chicks.

I find that this theorizing about how useless and powerless you as guys are is the male equivalent of how neurotic women fantasize about how everyone hates them. Go on a feminist subreddit and it is all complaining about how everyone is out to get them.

[Nilsi]

On 26.4.2025 at 5:07 PM, Basman said:

How does that work exactly? You can't horde relationships in a bank account like you can do with money. There's no way half of the human population is exclusively dating men who are rich and tall, which is probably only about 1-3% of the male population, or at least rare.

Women just tend to date older, which is not new. The older you get, the more the relationship discrepancy between men and women equalizes (to about 30-40% being single) (https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/02/08/for-valentines-day-5-facts-about-single-americans/). 

You can’t hoard relationships like you hoard capital, yes. But you can hoard attention - or more precisely, optionality.

Most people still imagine the mating market like a school dance. Everyone pairs off. Some hierarchy, sure - but mostly even. Desire distributed like slices of cake.

That might have been true. Once.

But again: Then came the sexual revolution. It stripped away the old guardrails - monogamy, fidelity, child-rearing obligations. The liberators believed desire would flow freely and fairly once unshackled. But they misunderstood the deeper mechanics.

When surplus is unbound, it doesn’t flatten things. It amplifies asymmetries.

Desire, like capital, accumulates in nonlinear patterns. A few receive exponential returns. Most get crumbs. Economists call this a power law distribution. Not by conspiracy, but because open systems reward small early advantages with runaway feedback loops.

That’s exactly what happened.

As monogamy weakened and markets opened up, attention pooled at the top. Not evenly. Not morally. Just mathematically.

A small minority of men - and a few women - became what network theorists call supernodes. They didn’t hoard relationships. They hoarded the possibility space of relationships. This became the real sexual capital.

Most women remained in stable partnerships. But those bonds grew increasingly conditional. If a higher-value option appeared - socially, sexually, materially - many would recalibrate. Not out of disloyalty, but because systems without friction always flow toward higher perceived value.

For most men, especially those without status leverage, relationships became provisional. Companionship, stability, or gap-filling where better options weren’t available.

This isn’t just a story about sex. It’s the same dynamic shaping the evolution of intelligence, technology, and capital. As Kurzweil and Bostrom observed: once positive feedback loops form, they accelerate. Intelligence feeds intelligence. Technology feeds technology. And as Nick Land argued, desire itself accelerates - stripped of tradition, abstraction, or morality.

What began as liberation became a self-reinforcing system. Faster. Less forgiving. Beyond individual control.

Same surplus dynamics. Same asymmetries. Just higher velocity.

And the next phase is already visible.

For most men, unable to compete in this accelerating market, the system now offers technological exits. AI companions. Synthetic intimacy. Sex robots. Not as consolation. As a structural solution - a way to reroute surplus desire into non-disruptive flows. A market niche for those excluded from human pair bonding.

For the winners, dynamics sharpen. Biohacking, neural enhancement, algorithmic social amplification. Visibility. Status. Mate value multiplied beyond what unaugmented humans can achieve.

For women - and it must be said plainly - their role as selectors persists, but within a choice architecture optimized by the system itself. Algorithms steer most toward mid-tier outcomes while continuously reabsorbing surplus desire upward toward the supernodes.

Lyotard already saw this: the system - the machinic - does not desire everyone equally. It desires what can circulate, amplify, accelerate. Low-status men become systemically invisible. The surplus desire displaced by their exclusion flows upward - reabsorbed into circulation among those still visible to the machine.

This is no longer a human economy of love, choice, or fairness. It is a cybernetic feedback loop, where desire itself has become capital - optimized, routed, accelerated.

No return to equilibrium. No restoration of balance.

What was once human strategy has become non-human process. Desire is no longer what people have. It’s what the system does.

Edited 28 minutes ago by Nilsi

[Nilsi]

12 minutes ago, Nilsi said:

You can’t hoard relationships like you hoard capital. But you can hoard attention - or more precisely, optionality.

Most people still imagine the mating market like a school dance. Everyone pairs off. Some hierarchy, sure - but mostly even. Desire distributed like slices of cake.

That might have been true. Once.

Then came the sexual revolution. It stripped away the old guardrails - monogamy, fidelity, child-rearing obligations. The liberators believed desire would flow freely and fairly once unshackled. But they misunderstood the deeper mechanics.

When surplus is unbound, it doesn’t flatten things. It amplifies asymmetries.

Desire, like capital, accumulates in nonlinear patterns. A few receive exponential returns. Most get crumbs. Economists call this a power law distribution. Not by conspiracy, but because open systems reward small early advantages with runaway feedback loops.

That’s exactly what happened.

As monogamy weakened and markets opened up, attention pooled at the top. Not evenly. Not morally. Just mathematically.

A small minority of men - and a few women - became what network theorists call supernodes. They didn’t hoard relationships. They hoarded the possibility space of relationships. This became the real sexual capital.

Most women remained in stable partnerships. But those bonds grew increasingly conditional. If a higher-value option appeared - socially, sexually, materially - many would recalibrate. Not out of disloyalty, but because systems without friction always flow toward higher perceived value.

For most men, especially those without status leverage, relationships became provisional. Companionship, stability, or gap-filling where better options weren’t available.

This isn’t just a story about sex. It’s the same dynamic shaping the evolution of intelligence, technology, and capital. As Kurzweil and Bostrom observed: once positive feedback loops form, they accelerate. Intelligence feeds intelligence. Technology feeds technology. And as Nick Land argued, desire itself accelerates - stripped of tradition, abstraction, or morality.

What began as liberation became a self-reinforcing system. Faster. Less forgiving. Beyond individual control.

Same surplus dynamics. Same asymmetries. Just higher velocity.

And the next phase is already visible.

For most men, unable to compete in this accelerating market, the system now offers technological exits. AI companions. Synthetic intimacy. Sex robots. Not as consolation. As a structural solution - a way to reroute surplus desire into non-disruptive flows. A market niche for those excluded from human pair bonding.

For the winners, dynamics sharpen. Biohacking, neural enhancement, algorithmic social amplification. Visibility. Status. Mate value multiplied beyond what unaugmented humans can achieve.

For women - and it must be said plainly - their role as selectors persists, but within a choice architecture optimized by the system itself. Algorithms steer most toward mid-tier outcomes while continuously reabsorbing surplus desire upward toward the supernodes.

Lyotard already saw this: the system - the machinic - does not desire everyone equally. It desires what can circulate, amplify, accelerate. Low-status men become systemically invisible. The surplus desire displaced by their exclusion flows upward - reabsorbed into circulation among those still visible to the machine.

This is no longer a human economy of love, choice, or fairness. It is a cybernetic feedback loop, where desire itself has become capital - optimized, routed, accelerated.

No return to equilibrium. No restoration of balance.

What was once human strategy has become non-human process. Desire is no longer what people have. It’s what the system does.

But - and here lies the crack Land never accounted for - desire is not a fixed input.

As Deleuze and Guattari argued, desire is not a scarce resource to be optimized. It is creative, productive, and irreducibly nomadic. It flows across bodies, systems, and codes. It forms alliances, assemblages, intensities that resist capture.

Queer theory followed this insight. It mapped how desire can escape optimization - refusing reproduction, refusing value capture, refusing even the identity slots the machine assigns.

It crosses bodies, sexes, machines.

Leather grips prosthetic limbs. Silicone meets muscle. Hormones pulse alongside electrodes.

Men birthing futures. Women wielding phallic power. Flesh swapping roles - faster than the system can compute.

Orgies form. Not for hedonism, but for counter-economic play. Multipartner swarms. Post-gender hookups. Breeding kinks that fracture the reproduction market.

Desire spreads sideways - into scenes, into encrypted collectives, into viral meme-sex rituals the algorithms can’t monetize or predict.

As José Esteban Muñoz wrote: "queerness is not yet here; it’s a horizon, a vector of escape."

In a fully accelerated system, even the capture mechanisms can be outpaced.

The fatal circuit holds.

Until it doesn’t.

Edited 17 minutes ago by Nilsi