Pornographic Progress, Sexbots and the Salvation of Man

Women are like elephants – nice to look at but I wouldn’t want to own one.
WC Fields

In my previous post (“The Sex Cartel: Puritanism and and Prudery as Price-fixing among Prostitutes”), I discussed why prostitutes and other promiscuous women have invariably been condemned as immoral by other women on account of their promiscuity, despite the fact that they provide pleasure to, in some cases, literally thousands of men and, therefore, according to the tenets of the theory of ethics known as utilitarianism, are literally giving ‘the greatest happiness to the greatest number’ as Bentham advocated and ought therefore to be lauded as the highest paradigm of moral virtue right up alongside Mother Theresa, who, although she dedicated her life to heeling, feeding and caring for the sick, poor and destitute, never went as far as actually sucking their cocks.

Who can seriously doubt that a few dollars for magazine full of beautiful women expertly fucking and sucking who, on the page, remain young and beautiful forever, is better value for money than marriage to a single solitary real-life woman, who demands half your income, grows older and uglier with each passing year, probably wasn’t exactly a Playboy centerfold even to begin with, and who is legally obligated to fuck you only during the divorce proceedings?

The answer lay, I concluded, in the concept of a price-fixing cartel that I christened ‘The Sex Cartel’ which functions to artificially inflate the price of sex, to the advantage of women as a whole, by stigmatizing, and where possible criminalizing, those women (e.g. prostitutes) who provide sexual services at below the going rate (e.g. outside of marriage). Puritanism and prudery are thus, I concluded, nothing more than price-fixing among prostitutes.

In the current essay/post, I expand on this theory, extending the analysis to pornography. In doing so, I explain the gradual liberalization of attitudes towards sexual morality over the course of the twentieth century as a rational and inevitable response to what I term ‘Pornographic Progress’.

Finally, turning my gaze from the past to the future, I prophesize that the future of fucking and the eventual emancipation of man from the sexual subjugation of The Sex Cartel, will come, not by political progress reform, revolution or insurrection, but rather from Virtual Reality Pornography and so-called ‘Sexbots’.

Thus, the so-called ‘Sexual Revolution’ of the Swinging Sixties was but barely a beginning. The Real Sexual Revolution may be yet to come.

In Praise of Pornography

Across a variety of jurisdictions and throughout much of history, pornography in general, or particular genres of pornography, have been outlawed. Moreover, even where pornography is legalized, it is almost invariably heavily restricted and regulated by the state (e.g. age-restrictions).

Indeed, traditionally, not only pornography, but even masturbation itself was regarded as immoral and also a health risk. In the Victorian era, various strategies, devices and mechanisms were invented or adopted to prevent masturbation, from the circumcision to Kellogg’s cornflakes.

Therefore, if men had really listened to their self-appointed moral guardians, their doctors, their medical experts, church leaders and other assorted professional damned fools who sought to dictate to them how they should and shouldn’t behave in public and in private and what they should and shouldn’t insert their penis inside of, they would have been completely reliant on women for their sexual relief and women’s sexual subjugation of men would have consequently been complete.

Today, the opposition to porn is dominated by an Unholy Alliance of Radical Feminists and Religious Fundamentalists, who, despite professing to be enemies, appear to be in complete agreement with one another on every particular of the issue.

This is no surprise. Despite their ‘left-liberal’ pretensions, feminists have always been, at heart, puritans, prudes and prohibitionists – from prohibition itself, largely enacted at the behest of women’s groups such as the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, to the current feminist crusades against pornography, prostitution and other such fun and healthy recreational activities.

Why then is porn so universally condemned, criminalized and state-regulated throughout history and across the world?

The production and consumption of pornography is, of course, a victimless crime. The vast majority of women who appear in pornography do so voluntarily, and they have every economic incentive for doing so, earning, as they do, substantial salaries, many times greater than the salaries commanded by the more talented male performers alongside whom they perform, who do much more difficult jobs.

Indeed, far from being inherently harmful, pornography provides joy and happiness to many men, not least many lonely and disadvantaged men, and a lucrative livelihood for many men and women both. There is even evidence it may reduce levels of sex crimes, by providing an alternative outlet for sexually-frustrated men.[1]

Why then is pornography criminalized and regulated?

The usual explanation is that pornography is demeaning towards women.

Yet what is demeaning about, say, a Playboy centerfold. Far from demeaning women, soft porn images seem to involve putting women on a pedestal, as representing something inherently beautiful and desirable and to be gazed at longingly and admiringly by men who pay money to buy pictures of them.

Meanwhile, even most so-called hardcore pornography is hardly demeaning. Most simply involves images of consensual, and mutually pleasurable, sexual congress, a natural act. Certainly, it is no more demeaning towards women than towards men, who also appear in pornography but typically earn far less.

True, there is a minor subgenre of so-called ‘male domination’ within the BDSM subgenre. But this is mirrored, and indeed dwarfed, by the parallel genre of ‘female domination’, which seems to be the more popular fetish and involves images at least as demeaning to men as those depicted in ‘male domination’ are to women.[2]

True, if pornography does not portray women in a negative light, it does perhaps portray them unrealistically – i.e. as readily receptive to men’s advances and as desirous of commitment-free promiscuous sex as are men. However, as psychologist Catherine Salmon observes:

“[Whereas] pornography imposes a male-like sexuality on females, a fantasy of sexual utopia for men… consider the other side, the romance novel, or ‘porn’ for women. It imposes a female-like sexuality on men that is in many ways perhaps no more realistic than [pornography]. But no one is out there lobbying to ban romance novels because of the harm they do to women’s attitudes towards men.[3]

As Jack Kammer explains in If Men Have All The Power How Come Women Make The Rules, while pornography represents a male fantasy, BDSM apart, it involves a fantasy, not of male domination, but rather of sexual equality – namely a world where women enjoy sex as much as men do, “participate enthusiastically in sex… love male sexuality, and… don’t hold out for money, dinner or furs”, and thereby lose their sexual power over men.[4]

On this view, Kammer concludes, “pornography does not glorify our sexual domination of women” but rather “expresses our fantasies of overcoming women’s sexual domination of us”.[5]

Pornography and The Sex Cartel

Yet this does not mean that the opposition to pornography is wholly misguided or irrational. On the contrary, I shall argue that, for women, opposition to pornography is wholly rational. However, it reflects, not the higher concerns of morality in which terms such opposition is typically couched, but rather base economic self-interest.

To understand why, we must revisit once again “Sex Cartel Theory”, introduced in my previous post. Whereas the prevalent prejudice against prostitutes reflects price-fixing among prostitutes, opposition to pornography reflects rent-seeking, or protectionism, among prostitutes.

Like price-fixing, rent-seeking and protectionism is a perfectly rational economic strategy. However, again like price-fixing, it is wholly self-interested and anti-competitive. While benefiting women, the rest of society (i.e. men) pay a concomitant cost.

An example is where practitioners in a certain industry (e.g. doctors, physio-therapists, lawyers) seek to prevent or criminalize others (often others lacking a requisite qualification) from providing the same or a similar service rather than allowing the consumer free choice.

It is my contention that when women seek to restrict or criminalize pornography or other form forms of sexual gratification for men, they are also engaging in analogous behaviour in order to reduce competition for their own services.

Catherine Hakim explains:

“Look at social exchange between men and women in terms of women gaining control over men and gaining resources by regulating men’s access to sexual gratification. If pornography is an alternative source of such gratification for men, it… reduces women’s bargaining power in such a sexual/economic arena.”[6]

The essence of my argument is explained by psychologists Baumseister and Twenge in their article in the journal Review of General Psychology in 2002 which I quoted in my previous post. Here, Baumseister and Twenge observe:

Just as any monopoly tends to oppose the appearance of low-priced substitutes that could undermine its market control, women will oppose various alternative outlets for male sexual gratification, even if these outlets do not touch the women’s own lives directly.[7]

As I explained in my previous post, these ‘alternative outlets for male sexual gratification’ include, among other things, homosexuality, sex with animals, corpses, inflatable dolls, household appliances and all other such healthy and natural sexual outlets which are universally condemned by moralists despite the lack, in most cases, of any discernible victims.

However, although homosexuality, sex with animals, corpses, inflatable dolls and household appliances all represent, in one way or another, ‘alternative outlets for male sexual gratification’ per Baumseister and Twenge, undoubtedly pornography is first among equals.

After all, whereas most other outlets for sexual gratification (e.g. homosexuality, bestiality, necrophilia and inflatable dolls) will appeal to only a perverted and fortunate few, and will wholly satisfy even fewer, the same is not true of pornography, whose appeal among males seems to be all but universal.

Women are therefore right to fear and oppose pornography. Already pornography represents a major threat to women’s ability to attract and retain mates. Increasingly, it seems, men are already coming to recognize that pornography offers a better deal than conventional courtship.

For example, in one study published in the Journal of Experimental Research in Social Psychology found that, after viewing pornographic materials, men rated their commitment to their current relationships as lower than they had prior to being exposed to the pornographic materials.[8]

This should be no surprise. After all, compared to the models and actresses featured in porn the average wife or girlfriend is no match.

Who can seriously doubt that a few dollars for magazine full of beautiful women expertly fucking and sucking who, on the page, remain young and beautiful for ever, and which costs only a few dollars at most, is better value than marriage to a single solitary real-life woman, who demands half your income, grows older and uglier with each passing year, probably wasn’t exactly a Playboy centerfold even to begin with, and who is legally obligated to fuck you only during the divorce-settlement?

Yet this desirable state of affairs was not always so. On the contrary, it is, in terms of human history, a relatively recent development.

To understand why and how this came to be and the impact it came to have on the relations between the sexes and, in particular, the relative bargaining positions of the sexes in negotiating the terms of heterosexual coupling, we must first trace the history of what I term ‘pornographic progress’ from porn’s pre-human precursors and Paleolithic Pleistocene prototypes, to the contemporary relative pornographic utopia of Xvideos, Xhamster and Pornhub.

A Brief History of Pornographic Progress

Pornography is, I am convinced, the greatest ever invention of mankind. To my mind, it outranks even the wheel, the internal combustion engine and the splitting of the atom. As for sliced bread, it has always been, in my humble opinion, somewhat overrated.

The wonder of porn is self-evident. You can merrily masturbate to your cock’s content in the comfort and privacy of your own home without the annoyance, inconvenience and boredom of actually having to engage in a conversation with a woman either before or after. These days, one need never even leave the comfort of one’s home.

However, though today we take it for granted, porn was not always with us. On the contrary, it had to be invented. Moreover, it’s quality has improved vastly over time.

Proto-Porn and Pre-Human Precursors

Our pre-human ancestors had to make do without pornography. However, the demand was clearly there. For example, males of various non-human species respond to an image or representation of an opposite-sex conspecific (e.g. a photograph or model) with courtship displays and mating behaviour. Some even attempt, unsuccessfully, to mount the picture or model.

Ophrys
By mimicking the appearance of bees to induce the latter into mating with them, Ophrys flowers function as ‘nature’s prototype for the inflatable sex doll?’

Ophrys flowers, a subfamily of Orchids, take advantage of this behaviour to facilitate their own reproduction. Orchids of this family reproduce by mimicking both the appearance and pheromones of female insects, especially bees.

This causes male wasps and bees to attempt to copulate with them. Naturally, they fail in this endeavour. However, in so failing on successive occasions, they do successfully facilitate the reproduction of the orchids themselves. This is because, during this process of so-called pseudocopulation, pollen from the orchid becomes attached to the hapless male suitor. This pollen is then carried by the male until he (evidently not having learnt his lesson) attempts to mate with yet another flower of the same species, and thereby spreads the pollen enabling Orchids of the genus Ophrys to themselves reproduce.

Ophrys flowers therefore function as nature’s prototype for the inflatable sex doll.

In mimicking the appearance of female insects to sexually arouse hapless males, Ophrys flowers arguably constitute the first form of pornography. Thus, porn, like sonar and winged flight, was invented by nature (or rather by natural selection) long before humans belatedly got around to repeating this feat for themselves.

At any rate, one thing is clear: Though lacking pornography, our pre-human ancestors were pre-primed for porn. In short, the market was there – just waiting to be tapped by some entrepreneur sufficiently enterprising and sleazy to take advantage of this fact.

Prehistoric Palaeolithic Pleistocene Porn

Early man, it appears, developed porn the same time he developed cave-painting and art. Indeed, as I shall argue, the facilitation of masturbation was likely a key motivating factor in the development of art by early humans.

Venus Figurine
Venus figurines: ‘Palaeolithic/Pleistocene Proto-Porn?’

Take the so-called Venus figurines, so beloved of feminist archaeologists and widely recognised as one of the earliest forms, if not the earliest form, of sculpture. Countless theories have been developed regarding the function and purpose of these small sculptures of women with huge breasts and protruding buttocks.

They have been variously described, by feminist archaeologists and other professional damned fools, as, among other things, fertility symbols, idols of an earth goddess or mother goddess cult (the sole evidence for the existence of which are the figurines themselves) or even symbols of the matriarchy supposedly prevailing in hunter-gather bands (for which alleged social arrangement the figurines themselves again provide the only evidence).

The far more obvious explanation, namely that the figures represent portable, prehistoric Palaeolithic Pleistocene porn – sort of the stone-age equivalent of a 3d Playboy – has been all but ignored by scholars.

True, they are, to say the least, a bit fat for modern tastes. However, as morbidly obese women never tire of reminding us, standards of beauty vary over time and place.

After all, if, as popular cliché has it, beauty is in the eye of the beholder’, then sexiness is perhaps located in a different part of the male anatomy (‘sexiness is in the cock of the beholder’?), but is nevertheless equally subjective in nature.

Of course this may partly reflect wishful thinking on the part of fat ugly women. Research in evolutionary psychology has demonstrated that some aspects of beauty standards are cross-culturally universal.

Nevertheless, to some extent (albeit only in some respects) the fatties may be right.

After all, in other respects besides their morbid obesity, the images are obviously pornographic.

In particular, it is notable that no detail is shown in the figurine’s faces – no nose, eyes or mouth. Yet, on the other hand, the genitalia and huge breasts are rendered intricately – a view of the important aspects of female physiology unlikely to find favour with feminists.

Surely only a feminist or a eunuch could be so lacking in insight into male psychology as to flick through the pages of Playboy magazine (or, if you prefer, the buried archaeological remains of Playboy magazine a few thousand years hence), observe the focus on unfeasibly large breasts, protruding buttocks and female genitalia, and hence conclude that what he (or, more likely, she) had unearthed or stumbled across was the holy book of an Earth-Mother-Goddess cult!

Art as Porn

I am thoroughly convinced of the thesis that the ultimate function and purpose of all art, and thus indirectly arguably of civilization itself, is the facilitation of fapping

For the next 20 thousand years or so, pornography progressed only gradually. There were, of course, a few technological improvements – e.g. in the quality of paints, canvasses etc. However, the primary advancements were in the abilities and aptitudes of the artists themselves, especially with regard to their capacity for naturalism/realism.

Goya
Eighteenth Century Porn by Goya

Thus, by the early nineteenth century, there were classical nudes. Notwithstanding the pretensions of intellectual snobs towards higher forms of appreciation, anyone with a functioning penis can clearly perceive that the primary function and purpose such works is the facilitation of masturbation.

At this juncture it is perhaps appropriate to declare that I am thoroughly convinced of the thesis that the ultimate function and purpose of all art, and thus indirectly arguably of civilization itself, is the facilitation of fapping.

Crucifix
Crucifixes: An early form of sadomasochistic gay porn?

The Catholic Church, on the other hand, has jealously guarded its own monopoly on pornography catering for more niche tastes. I refer, of course, to the ubiquitous crucifix, which no Catholic Church or pious papist home can ever be complete without.

Yet, on closer inspection, this familiar image is clearly, by any standards, rather suspect, to say the least. It represents, after all, a nearly naked man, wearing nothing more than a loin-clothe – and usually, I might add, a suspiciously lean and rather muscular man, who invariably sports a six-pack – writhing in pain while being nailed to a cross.

In short, the registered trademark of the One True Faith is, in truth, a blatant and undisguised example of sadomasochistic gay porn.

Indeed, it represents precisely the sort of homoerotic sadomasochistic imagery which, if depicted in any other context, would probably be condemned outright by the Church and banned along with The Origin of Species and Galileo. No wonder the Catholic priesthood and holy orders are, by all accounts, so jam-packed with perverts, sadists and pederasts.

Photography, Printing and a Proletarian Pornography for the People

The facilitation of masturbation forms the ultimate function and purpose, not only of all art, but also of all significant technological advance, from photography and the printing press, to the internet, robotics, virtual reality and beyond

However, crucifixes were clearly a niche fetish. Moreover, churches, unlike adult booths, generally neither facilitate nor encourage masturbation.

Meanwhile, classical nudes were necessarily of limited distribution. Worth a great deal of money and painted by the great masters, they were strictly for the rich – to hang in the drawing room and wank off to once the servants had safely retired to bed.

Clearly there was a need for a more widely available pornography, something within the grasp of all, howsoever humble. I refer to a Proletarian Pornography, suited to the age of democracy and socialism. A true Pornography for the People.

The invention of photography and of the printing press was eventually to provide the vehicle for this development over the course of the nineteenth century. By the dawn of the twentieth century there were magazines, both cheaper and better than the classical nudes that had preceded them. A true People’s Pornography had arrived.

Yet, once this process had begun, there was to be no stopping it. Soon there were moving pictures as well. It is a little known fact that, in France, the first pornographic movies were filmed within just a few years of the development of moving images in the late nineteenth century. (Here’s another one. But, be warned, pornhub it ain’t and tissues are probably not required.)

From this invention of photography and the printing press onwards, the history of pornographic progress is irretrievably bound up with scientific and technological progress itself.

Indeed, I am firmly of the opinion that the facilitation of masturbation forms the ultimate function and purpose, not only of all art, but also of all significant technological advance, from photography and the printing press, to the internet, robotics, virtual reality and beyond.

The Genre That Dare Not Speak Its Name

However, there remained a problem. As we have seen, the Sex Cartel, in order to maintain its jealously guarded monopoly over the provision of male sexual gratification, has sought to limit the distribution of porn. In addition to employing legal sanction to this end, they have also resorted to the court of public opinion – i.e. shaming tactics.

Thus, men who are make use of pornography are subject to public censure and shaming, and variously castigated as ‘perverts’, ‘dirty old men’ and ‘losers’ incapable of attracting real-life women or girls for themselves.

The result is that the purchase of pornographic materials had long been subject to stigma and shame. A major component of Pornographic Progress has therefore been, not just improvement in the quality of masturbationary material itself, but also ease of access, enjoyment and privacy/anonymity involved in acquiring and making use of such material.

This is illustrated in pornographic publications themselves. Before the internet age, pornographic publications almost invariably masqueraded as something other than pornography. Pornography thus became ‘the genre that dare not speak its name’.

For example, magazines invariably titled themselves with names like Playboy or Mayfair or Penthouse, as if wealthy, indolent and promiscuous millionaires were the only people expected, or perhaps permitted, to masturbate. Curiously, they virtually never adopted titles like ‘Horny Pervert’, ‘Dirty Old Man’ or ‘The Wanker’s Weekly – a Collection of Masturbationary Aides for the Discerning Self-Abuser’.

Elsewhere, pornography was disguised in sex scenes in mainstream movies, TV shows and newspapers. While page three is well known, even ‘respectable broadsheets’ were not immune, articles about the evils of pornography often written largely, I suspect, as an excuse to include a few necessary illustrative examples beside the text. All of which evasions were, I suspect, designed to deflect some of the shame involved in buying, or owning, pornography.

A major part of pornographic progress is therefore the migration of pornography from adult booths and adult cinemas to the privacy of bedrooms and bathrooms.

Thus, a major development was home-video. Videos might still have to be bought in a shop (or they could be ordered by mail from an advert in the back of a magazine or newspaper), but masturbation itself could occur in private, rather than in an adult booth or seedy cinema.

Pornography was beginning to assume its modern form.

Then there were DVDs and subscription-only satellite TV stations.

Eventually came the Internet. People were spared even the embarrassment of buying porn in a shop. Now, they could not only watch it in the privacy and comfort of their own home – but download it there too.

Pornography had, by this point, assumed its contemporary form.

Pornographic Progress and the Sexual Revolution

What then has pornographic progress meant for the relations between the sexes in general and the terms of romantic coupling in particular?

It is my contention that the gradual liberalization of the standards of sexual morality over the course of the twentieth century is a direct result of the process of pornographic progress outlined in the previous sections.

Whereas most people view the increased availability of pornography as a mere symptom rather than a cause of the so-called ‘Sexual Revolution’ of the Sixties, my theory accords pornographic progress pride of place as the decisive factor explaining the liberalization of attitudes towards sex over the course of the twentieth century.

In short, as pornography has improved in quality and availability, it has come to represent an ever greater threat to women themselves and, in particular, their ability to entrap men into marriage with the lure of sex.

As sexual gratification was increasingly available without recourse to marriage (i.e. through pornography), men had less and less rational reason to subject themselves to marriage with all the inequitable burdens marriage imposes upon them.

After all, when pornography was restricted to Venus Figurines and cave paintings, virtually every man would prefer a real-life wife, howsoever ugly and personally obnoxious, to these poor pornographic substitutes.

However, when the choice is between an endless stream of pornographic models and actresses catering to every niche fetish imaginable expertly fucking and sucking as compared to marriage to a single real-life woman who grows older and uglier with each passing year and is legally obligated to fuck you only during the divorce settlement, the choice surely becomes more evenly balanced.

And, today, in the internet age, when images of Japanese girls in school-uniforms defecating into one another’s mouths are always just a mere mouse-click away, it becomes close to being a no-brainer.

In response, as the quality and availability of pornographic materials increased exponentially, women were forced to lower their prices in order to compete with porn. The result was that promiscuity and sex before marriage, while once scandalous, became ever more common over the course of the twentieth century with increasing numbers of women forced, through increasing competition from pornography, to give up their bodies for a price somewhat less than that entailed in the marriage contract.

The male marriage strike is therefore a reaction, not only to the one-sided terms of the marriage contract, but also the increasing availability of sexual relief outside of marriage, largely thanks to the proliferation of and improvements in pornography.

Whereas in the Victorian era, men had little option but to satisfy their biological need for sexual relief through, if not wives, then at least women (e.g. prostitutes), now increasingly pornography provides a real and compelling alternative to women themselves.

The average woman, being fat, ugly and old, is simply no match for the combined power of xvideos, xhamster, spankbang and pornhub.

The Present

This then is the current state of play (or of playing with oneself) with regard to pornographic progress. The new face of porn is thus the internet.

Nudie magazines are now officially dead. Playboy magazine is now said to lose about $3 million dollars annually, and the company now seems to stay afloat largely by selling pencil-cases to teenage girls.

However, there is no reason to believe that pornographic progress will suddenly stop at the moment this article to published. To believe this, we would be as naïve as the publishers of nudie mags were when they failed to see the writing on the wall and make the move into the virtual sphere.

The current age of internet porn will come to an end, just as peep shows, adult cinemas, nudie mags and Venus figurines did before them. Just like these obsolete mediums of masturbationary-aid were replaced by something altogether superior, so internet pornography will be replaced with something altogether better.

Wanking will only get better. This much is certain. The only uncertainly is the form this improvement will take.

The Future of Fucking

Predicting the future is a notoriously difficult endeavour. Indeed, perhaps the one prediction about the future that we can hold with confidence is that the vast majority of predictions about the future will turn out to be mistaken.

Whereas in all previous porn, it was women themselves who swallowed – along with the cum – the majority of the profits, with virtual reality porn and sexbots, actresses will digitally-generated and women themselves wholly bypassed to cut costs.

Nevertheless, I am sufficiently confident about the future of pornographic progress to venture a few guesses as to the nature of future pornographic progress.

One possibility will be what I term Virtual Reality Porn, namely an improvement in gaming technologies able to provide a more realistic simulation of real-life. The result may be something akin to the ‘holodeck‘ in Star Trek, the pornographic potential of which is only occasionally alluded to in the series.

However, this is not, on reflection, the direction in which I expect pornography to progress.

There are two problems. First, for the moment at least, even the most state-of-the-arc gaming technologies represent a crude simulation of real life, as anyone who has ever played them for more than a few minutes soon realizes.

Second, although the characters with whom one interacts may come to look increasingly beautiful and lifelike, there is still the problem that one will not be able to touch them. In lieu of touching the virtual porn stars with whom one interacts, one will be obliged instead (as in most contemporary pornography) to touch oneself instead, which is, as always, a poor substitute.

I therefore confidently predict that, in the short-term, pornographic progress will come in another sphere instead, namely robotics.

Sex Dolls

Already the best in Japanese sex dolls is better looking than the average woman. In addition, it does not nag, spend your money or grow fatter or uglier with each passing year. It is true that they remain utterly inert, immobile, unresponsive and incapable of conversation. However, on the plus side, this also means they already have a more pleasant personality than the average woman.

Whereas all but the most rudimentary ‘Virtual Reality Porn’ remains the stuff of science fiction, the development of, if not true ‘Sexbots’, then at least of their immediate pornographic precursors, is surprisingly well advanced. I refer here the development of sex dolls.

Although they are not, as yet, in any sense truly robotic, sex dolls have already progressed far beyond the inflatable dolls of bawdy popular humour. In Japan – a nation always at the cutting-edge of both technological progress and sexual perversion – sex dolls made of silicone are already available which not only look, but feel to the touch, exactly like a real woman.

As of yet, these sex dolls remain relatively expensive. Costing several thousands of pounds, they are not an idle investment – but are probably, on balance, still cheaper, and certainly better value, than a girlfriend, let alone a divorce settlement, but not yet comparable to a trip to, say, Thailand.

In some respects, however, sex dolls are already better than a real woman – or, at least, better than the sort of real woman their customers, or, indeed, the average man, is likely to be able to attract.

Already a Japanese Candy Girl (or even its American equivalent Real Doll) is better looking than the average woman. In addition, it does not nag, spend your money, get upset when you have sex with her best friend or grow fatter or uglier with each passing year.

Yet, of course, they are not yet, in any sense, truly robotic.

In terms of physical appearance, they are distinguishable from a real-life woman only by their physical beauty and lack of imperfections. However, they remain utterly inert, immobile, unresponsive and incapable of even the most rudimentary and inane conversation of the sort in which women specialize.

However, on the plus side, this also means they already have a personality more pleasant than the average woman.

One might say that they are… as lifelike as a corpse.

From Sex Dolls to ‘Sexbots’ – The Future of Pornographic Progress

All this, however, could soon change. Already American manufacturers of real doll, who market themselves as producing “the world’s finest love doll”, have begun experiments to turn love dolls robotic. In other words, within this year, the first so-called ‘SexBots’ – robots designed for the purpose of sexual intercourse with humans – may come off the assembly-line.

Within a few decades, Sexbots will be exactly like women themselves, save, of course, for a few crucial improvements. They will not nag, cheat on you or get angry when you cheat on them. Moreover, they will be designed to your exact specifications of beauty and breast-size and, unlike real wives, will not grow older and uglier with each passing year or seek to divorce you and steal your money.

In addition, they will have one crucial improvement over every woman who has ever existed in every society throughout human history howsoever beautiful and downright slutty – namely, an off-switch and handy storage place in the cupboard for when one tires of them or they become annoying and clingy. This is both cheaper than divorce and easier to get away with than strangulation.

The Campaign Against Sexbots

Perhaps the best evidence of the coming obsolescence of womankind is the reaction of women themselves.

It is notable that, although sexbots remain, for the moment at least, a figment of the male imagination, a thing of science-fiction rather than of science, the political campaign against them has already begun. Indeed, it even has its own website.

Just as feminists, moralists and other professional damned fools have consistently opposed other ‘alternative outlets for male sexual gratification’ such as pornography and prostitutes, so the campaign against Sexbots has begun before the first such robots have even come off the assembly line.

Not content with seeking to outlaw sex robots before they even exist, opponents have even sought to censor free speech and discussion regarding the topic. Thus, an academic conference devoted to the topic had to be cancelled after being banned by the authorities in the host nation.

No prizes also for guessing that the campaign is led by a woman, one Dr Kathleen Richardson, a ‘bioethicist’ – or, in layman’s terms, a professional damned fool – who has recently launched a campaign against the (as yet) non-existent sexbots.

It is also no surprise either that the woman herself is, to put it as politely as possible, aesthetically-challenged (i.e. as ugly as a cow’s ass) and therefore precisely the sort of woman who is likely to be the first casualty of competition from even the most primitive of sexbots.

(Just for the record, this is not an ad hominin or gratuitous personal abuse. Whether she is consciously aware of it or not, the fact that she is hideously and repulsively physically unattractive is directly relevant to why she is motivated to ban sexbots. After all, whereas more physically attractive women may be able to fight off competition from robots and still attract male suitors for somewhat longer, it is ugly women such as herself are sure to be the first casualties of competition from even the most rudimentary of robots. Indeed, one suspects even an inflatable doll is more visually alluring, and is probably has a more appealing personality, than this woman.)

There is a key giveaway to the real motivation underlying this ostensibly moral campaign, namely, these same bioethicist luddites have, strangely, never, to my knowledge, objected on moral grounds, let alone launched high-profile media campaigns against, vibrators, dildos and other sex toys for women.

Yet vibrators are surely far more widely used by women than sex dolls are by men and also far less stigmatized. As for actual sexbots, these have yet even to be invented.

So why campaign only against the latter? This is surely a classic example of what feminists are apt to refer to as ‘sexual double-standards’.

Are Women Obsolete?

Within perhaps just a couple of decades, women will be obsolete – just another once useful but now obsolete technology that has been wholly supplanted by superior technologies, like typewriters, video recorders, the Commodore 64 and long drop toilets.

There has, in recent years, been something of a fashion within the publishing industry, and among feminists, for books with outlandish titles like Are Men Necessary? and The End of Men which triumphantly (and gendercidally) hail the (supposed) coming obsolescence of men. Such hysterical ravings are not only published by mainstream publishers, but even taken seriously in the mainstream media

This is, of course, like most feminist claims, wholly preposterous.

The self-same women who loudly proclaim that men are obsolete live in homes built by men, rely on clean water and sewage systems built and maintained by men, on electricity generated by men working in coal mines and on oil rigs and, in the vast majority of cases, live in whole or in part off the earnings of a man, whether that man be a husband, an ex-husband or the taxpayer.

In short, as Fred Reed has observed, Without men, civilization would last until the oil needs changing.

However, while talk of The End of Men  is obviously not so much premature as positively preposterous, the same may not be true of the End of Women. As Steve Moxon suggests, were Freud not a complete charlatan, it would be tempting to explain the bizarre notion that men are about to become obsolete by reference to the Freudian concept of projection.[9] For the painful truth is that it is women who on the verge of obsolescence, not men.

Already the best in Japanese sex dolls are better looking than the average woman and lose their looks less rapidly. Already, they are cheaper than the average divorce settlement. And, being unable to speak or interact with their owners in any way, already they have personalities more pleasant and agreeable than the average woman.

Soon with developments in robotics, they will be vastly superior in every way.

Sexbots and the End of Woman

It is time to face facts, howsoever harsh or unwelcome they may be in some quarters.

Sexbots will have one crucial improvement over every woman who has ever existed, howsoever beautiful and downright slutty – namely, an off-switch and handy storage place in the cupboard. This is both cheaper than divorce and easier to get away with than strangulation.

Within just a couple of decades, women will be obsolete – just another once useful but now obsolete technology that has been wholly supplanted by superior technologies, like typewriters, video recorders, the Commodore 64 and the long drop toilet.

Like all cutting-edge scientific advancements and technological developments, sexbots will be invented, designed, built, maintained and repaired almost exclusively by men. Women will thus be cut out of the process altogether.

This is a crucial development. In all pre-existing forms of porn since the development of photography, the primary financial beneficiaries of porn have always been women themselves, or at least a small subsection of women (namely, those willing to undercut their sex industry competitors by agreeing to appear in pornography).

While it was men’s technological expertise that created photography, moving pictures and the internet, and men’s entrepreneurial vision that created the great commercial porn empires, real-life women still had to be employed as models or actresses, and typically demanded exorbitant salaries, many times those of the male performers alongside whom they performed (and whose jobs were much more difficult), for jobs that often involved nothing more than posing naked or engaging in sexual acts in front of a camera.

In short, although it was men’s technological and entrepreneurial brilliance that produced porn, it was women themselves who swallowed – along with the cum – the majority of the profits.

However, with Virtual Reality Porn and Sexbots, there will be no need of ‘actresses’ or ‘models’. Already magazine pictures are digitally-enhanced to remove imperfections. In the future, porn stars will be digitally-generated. Women themselves will be wholly bypassed in order to cut costs.

Increasingly, women will find themselves rendered superfluous to requirements.

From blacksmiths and tailors to cobblers, weavers and thatchers – technological advance and innovation has rendered countless professions obsolete. Soon perhaps the ‘Oldest Profession itself will go the same way. It’s called progress. The Real Sexual Revolution has but barely begun…

After all, who the hell would want a real wife or girlfriend or even a whore when you can download something just the same or better from a hard disk or purchase it as a self-assembly robot for a fraction of the price – minus the incessant nagging, endless inane chattering and obnoxious personality? Plus, this one can be designed according to your precise specifications and doesn’t mind when you screw her best friend or forget her anniversary.

Soon women will be put out to tenure just like any other outdated machinery. Or maybe displayed in museums for educational purposes to show how people used to live long ago.

If it is deemed desirable to maintain the human species, then, so long as a womb is necessary to incubate a baby, a few women may be retained for reproductive purposes – perhaps housed in battery cages for greater reproductive efficiency.

This is why women so despise pornography, with a passion and venom unmatched by other forms of Puritanism. That’s why they create entire ideologies – from Radical Feminism to Religious Fundamentalism – dedicated to its destruction. Because it represents a threat to their own very existence, livelihood and survival!

But the good news is – Women Cannot Win. The ferocity of the feminist onslaught only confirms that what women must already intuitively grasp – namely, the writing is already on the wall.

Technological progress is, for better or worse, unstoppable.

Like the mythical Ned Ludd and his followers who, in response to being rendered unemployable by the mechanization of labour, smashed workplace machinery across the north of England in the Nineteenth Century in the vain hope of stopping progress and their own inevitable obsolescence – the prudes, puritans, luddites and feminists are destined to fail.

Like it or not, Virtual Reality Porn and Sexbots are on the way. The ultimate salvation of man from the tyranny of the Sex Cartel will lie, not in men’s rights activism, campaigning, political action, reform, rape, nor even in revolution – but rather in sexbots and hardcore virtual-reality porn.

After all – from blacksmiths and tailors to cobblers, weavers and thatchers – technological advance and innovation has rendered countless professions obsolete. Soon perhaps the Oldest Profession itself will go the same way.

It’s called progress.

The Real Sexual Revolution has but barely begun!

_________________

Footnotes/Endnotes

[1] E.g. Diamond, M. (1999) ‘The Effects of Pornography: an international perspective’ in Porn 101: Eroticism, Pornography, and the First Amendment

[2] For example, as an admittedly rather pseudo-scientific measure of the popularity of the two genres, it is notable that TubeGalore.com – in my own extensive experience the most comprehensive of the various porn search engines – returned over twenty-five times as many results for the search femdom, as for maledom (284377 vs. 11134). However, this is perhaps misleading, and reflects only the popularity of the two terms, not the actual pornography they describe. For example, a lot of what could be described ‘maledom’ is often instead catalogued under the more generic lable ‘extreme pornography’, which nevertheless also includes under its rubric may other types of pornography too. This could be taken to indicate that ‘maledom’ (albeit not under this name) is actually more mainstream than ‘femdom’.

[3] Salmon C, ‘The Pornography Debate: what sex differences in erotica can tell about human sexuality’ in Evolutionary Psychology, Public Policy and Personal Decisions (New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum 2004) by Crawford C & Salmon C (eds.) pp217-230 at p227

[4] If Men Have All The Power How Come Women Make The Rules (2002): p56.

[5] If Men Have All The Power How Come Women Make The Rules (2002): p57.

[6] Salmon, C ,‘The Pornography Debate: what sex differences iJn erotica can tell about human sexuality’ in Evolutionary Psychology, Public Policy and Personal Decisions (New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum 2004) by Crawford C & Salmon C (eds.) pp217-230 at p227

[7] Baumeister, RF, & Twenge, JM (2002). ‘Cultural Suppression of Female Sexuality’ , Review of General Psychology 6(2) pp166–203 at p172.

[8] Kenrick, Gutieres and Goldberg, ‘Influence of popular erotic on judgements of strangers and mates’ Journal of experimental Social Psychology (1985) 29(2): 159–167.

[9] Moxon S The Woman Racket: p133.

The Sex Cartel: Puritanism and Prudery as Price-fixing Among Prostitutes

“There would seem to be, indeed, but small respect among women for virginity per se. They are against the woman who has got rid of hers outside marriage, not because they think she has lost anything intrinsically valuable, but because she has made a bad bargain… and hence one against the general advantage and well-being of the sex. In other words, it is a guild resentment that they feel, not a moral resentment.”

HL Mencken, In Defence of Women 1922

“Why is the woman of the streets who spends her sex earnings upon her lover scorned universally?… These women are selling below the market, or scabbing on the job.”

RB Tobias & Mary Marcy, Women as Sex Vendors 1918

In my previous post, I discussed the curious paradox whereby prostitutes and other promiscuous women are invariably condemned by moralists as sinful and immoral despite the fact that they provide pleasure to, in some cases, literally thousands of men. Therefore, according to the tenets of utilitarianism, they are literally giving the greatest happiness to the greatest number as Bentham advocated and ought therefore to be lauded as the highest paradigm of moral virtue right up alongside Mother Theresa, who, although she dedicated her life to heeling, feeding and caring for the sick, poor and destitute, never went as far as actually sucking their cocks.

Why then are prostitutes invariably condemned and castigated as immoral?

Broadening the scope of our discussion, we might also ask why so many other sexual behaviours – from homosexuality and masturbation to pornography and sex with household appliances – have been similarly condemned as immoral despite the lack of a discernible victim.

In this post, I attempt to provide an explanation. The answer, I propose, is to be sought, not so much in arcane theorizing of moral philosophers, nor in the endless hypocritical moralizing of moralists and other assorted ‘professional damned fools’ but rather in the dismal science of economics.

Thus, far from being rooted in morality or ethics, the phenomenon is rooted, like so much else in life, in base economic self-interest – or, more particularly, the base economic self-interest of women.

___________

The entire process of conventional courtship is predicated on prostitution – from the social expectation that the man pay for dinner on the first date, to the legal obligation that he continue to support his ex-wife, through alimony and maintenance, for anything up to ten or twenty years after he has belatedly rid himself of her. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a prostitute as ‘a person who engages in sexual intercourse for payment’. That’s not the definition of a prostitute. That’s the definition of a woman! The distinguishing feature of prostitutes isn’t that they have sex for money – it’s that they provide such excellent value for money.

To understand this phenomenon, one must first register a second curious paradox – namely, that the self-same women who liberally and routinely denounce other women as ‘whores’ and ‘sluts’ on account of the latter’s perceived promiscuity themselves qualify as ‘prostitutes’ by the ordinary dictionary definition of this word.

In The Manipulated Man, her masterpiece of unmitigated misogyny (which I have reviewed here and here), prominent anti-feminist polemicist Esther Vilar puts it like this:

By the age of twelve at the latest, most women have decided to become prostitutes. Or, to put it another way they have planned a future for themselves which consists of choosing a man and letting him do all the work. In return for his support, they are prepared to let him make use of their vagina at certain given intervals.”

The Oxford English Dictionary defines a prostitute as ‘a person who engages in sexual intercourse for payment’.

That’s not the definition of a prostitute. That’s the definition of a woman!

The distinguishing feature of prostitutes isn’t that they have sex for money – it’s that they provide such excellent value for money.

After all, who can seriously doubt that thirty quid for a bargain basement blowjob in an alleyway or Soho flat provides better value than conventional courtship? Marriage is simply a bad bargain.

If you want sex, pay a hooker. If you want companionship, buy a dog. Marriage is not so much ‘disguised prostitution’ as flagrant extortion. Frankly, in the long-run, one is likely to get better value for money in a Soho clip-joint.

___________

Yet, whereas marriage is a raw deal for men, it is, for precisely the same reason, a very good deal for women. The more that men are obliged to pay out in exorbitant divorce settlements and maintenance demands, the more women receive in these same divorce packages. In short, courtship is a zero-sum game – and women are always the winners.

It is therefore no surprise that, as the feminists incessantly remind us, men earn more money than women. After all, why would any woman take the trouble to earn money when she has the far easier option of stealing it in the divorce courts instead? Moreover, there is no fear of punishment. Far from the courts punishing the wrongdoers, the family courts are actually accessories and enablers, who actively aid and abet the theft.

Marrying money is both quicker and easier than earning it for yourself. Thus, just as slaveholders had a vested interest in defending the institution of slavery, women in general, and wives in particular, have a vested interest in defending the institution of marriage.

However, in doing so, they are faced with a difficulty, namely that no rational man would ever voluntarily choose to get married any more than he would choose to voluntarily enslave himself. It is, as we have seen, simply a bad bargain. Some combination of prostitutes, promiscuity, pornography and perversion is always preferable.

Since women have a vesting interest in defending and promoting the institution of marriage, women also therefore have a vested interest in discouraging these alternative outlets for male sexual desire that threaten the institution of marriage by offering, on the whole, a better deal for men. This then is where sexual morality comes in.

___________

“Just as any monopoly tends to oppose the appearance of low-priced substitutes that could undermine its market control, women will oppose various alternative outlets for male sexual gratification”

The key factor uniting pornography, promiscuity, prostitution, perversion, masturbation, homosexuality, sex with corpses, with animals, with inflatable dolls, with household appliances and all other such fun and healthy recreational activities that are universally condemned by moralists, feminists, politicians, assorted do-gooders and other professional damned fools despite the lack of any discernible victim is that each represents a threat to the monopoly over the provision of men’s sexual pleasure jealously guarded by ‘respectable’ women.

These respectable women, to maintain their monopoly, therefore seek to stigmatize, or even, where possible, criminalize these normal, healthy and natural alternative outlets for male sexual gratification.

Take, for example, pornography. Not only are the performers, producers and consumers of pornography widely stigmatized (as ‘whores’ and ‘perverts’ respectively), but also, in virtually all times and places, pornography is heavily regulated and restricted, if not wholly illegal and an unholy alliance of religious fundamentalists and radical feminists endlessly campaign for still further restrictions.

Thus, in Britain so-called ‘hardcorepornography (i.e. featuring real sex between actors) was only legalized in 2000, when the pressures of European integration and the internet had made this change unavoidable. In recent retrograde measures governments have even tightened restrictions on the porn, even criminalizing mere possession of certain varieties of so-called extreme pornography.

Why is this? Simply because pornography represents a threat to women’s marriage prospects by offering men an alternative outlet for sexual gratification that provides better value for money than marriage.

Baumeister and Twenge explain the basic economic logic in their article Cultural Suppression of Female Sexuality published in the journal Review of General Psychology in 2002:

Just as any monopoly tends to oppose the appearance of low-priced substitutes that could undermine its market control, women will oppose various alternative outlets for male sexual gratification[1]

This is because “pornography and other forms of sexual entertainment… offer men sexual stimulation” and, in doing so, “could undermine women’s negotiating position” in their relations with men.[2]

Similarly, Donald Symons, in his excellent The Evolution of Human Sexuality (which I have reviewed here):

To the extent that heterosexual men purchase the services of prostitutes and pornographic mastubationary aides, the market for the sexual services of nonprostitute women is diminished and their bargaining position vis à vis men is weakened” (The Evolution of Human Sexuality: p262)

In short, women oppose pornography because they recognise that porn offers manifestly better value for money than does marriage and conventional courtship.

After all, a magazine full of beautiful women expertly sucking and fucking and who remain, on the pages of the magazine, young and beautiful forever is surely better value for money than just a single real-life wife or girlfriend, who grows older and uglier with each passing year and is legally obligated to fuck you only during the divorce proceedings.

In short, a picture of a naked woman in a magazine is usually better value than the real thing. As WC Fields observed:

Women are like elephants to me, nice to look at – but I wouldn’t want to own one’.

___________

“A rational economic strategy that many monopolies or cartels have pursued is to try to increase the price of their assets by artificially restricting the supply. With sex, this would entail having the women put pressure on each other to exercise sexual restraint and hold out for a high price (such as a commitment to marriage) before engaging in sex.”

But if, as we have seen, all women are in some sense prostitutes, then why are prostitutes themselves subject to stigma and moral opprobrium? A pornographic magazine, dvd or inflatable doll can indeed be viewed (per Baumeister and Twenge above) as a ‘low priced substitute’ for a real woman. However, the same cannot be said of prostitutes themselves, since most of the latter (rent-boys and transsexuals apart) are themselves women.

Key to understanding the stigma and moral opprobrium attaching to prostitutes and other promiscuous women is the concept of a price-fixing cartel.

By offering sex to men for a cheaper price than that demanded by respectable women, prostitutes and other promiscuous women threaten to undercut the prices other women are able to demand.

In short, if the town whore gives blow-jobs for twenty quid while Miss Prim and Proper in the house next door demands an engagement ring, a wedding ring, a marriage certificate and the promise of a cushy divorce settlement a few years’ hence, then obviously anybody with half a brain knows where to go when they want a blowjob and Miss Prim and Proper is likely to be left curiously bereft of suitors.

The basic economic logic is explained thus by Baumeister and Vohs in their paper Sexual Economics: Sex as Female Resource for Social Exchange in Heterosexual Interactions, published in 2004 in Personality and Social Psychology Review:

A rational economic strategy that many monopolies or cartels have pursued is to try to increase the price of their assets by artificially restricting the supply. With sex, this would entail having the women put pressure on each other to exercise sexual restraint and hold out for a high price (such as a commitment to marriage) before engaging in sex.”[3]

However, as every first-year economics student knows, a price-fixing cartel is inherently unstable. There is always the ever-present threat that some party to the cartel (or an outsider to the agreement) will renege on the agreement by undercutting her competitors and reaping the resultant windfall as customers flock to receive the lower-priced goods or service. This can only be prevented by the existence of coercive apparatus designed to deter defection.

This is where sexual morality comes in.

In short, women have therefore sought to discourage other women from undercutting them through a quasi-moral censure, and sometimes criminalization, of those women generous enough, enterprising enough and brave enough to risk such censure by offering sexual services at a more reasonable price.

On this view, sexual morality essentially functions, in economic terms, as a form of collusion or price-fixing. As Baumseister and Vohs explain in their article on Sexual Economics published in Personality and Social Psychology Review in 2004:

“The so-called “cheap” woman (the common use of this economic term does not strike us as accidental), who dispenses sexual favors more freely than the going rate, undermines the bargaining position of all other women in the community, and they become faced with the dilemma of either lowering their own expectations of what men will give them in exchange for sex or running the risk that their male suitors will abandon them in favor of other women who offer a better deal.”[4]

This is what I refer to as: ‘The Sex Cartel’ or ‘Price-Fixing among Prostitutes’.

___________

On this view, women’s prejudice against prostitutes is analogous to the animosity felt by trade unionists towards strikebreakers during industrial actions.

After all, on the face of it, one would not expect a strikebreaker or scab to be morally condemned. After all, a so-called ‘scab’ or strikebreaker is simply a person willing to perform the same level of work for less remuneration or in worse working conditions than other workers who are currently striking for better pay or conditions. This willingness to do the same work while receiving less in return would, in any other circumstances, be considered a mark of generosity and hence a source of praise rather than condemnation.

Yet, in working-class communities, the strikebreaker is universally scorned and despised by other workers. Indeed, his violent victimization, and even murder, is not only commonplace, but even perversely celebrated in at least one well-known English folk song that remains widely performed to this day.

Why then is the scab universally hated and despised? Simply because, in his otherwise commendable willingness to work in return for a little less than his fellow workers, the scab threatens to drive down the wages which the latter are capable of commanding.

And despite its hallowed place in socialist mythos, a trade union (or ‘labor union’ in American English) is, in essence, an anti-competitive monopolistic worker’s cartel, seeking to fix the price of labour to the advantage of its own members. Like all cartels, it is inherently unstable and vulnerable to being undercut by workers willing to work for less. This is why trade unions invariably resort to intimidation (e.g. picket lines) to deter the latter.

The same rational self-interest, therefore, explains women’s hatred of whores. As leading early twentieth century American socialist Mary Marcy observed of prostitutes in the passage quoted at the beginning of this post:

These women are selling below the market, or scabbing on the job”.

This is why TheAntiFeminist has characterised feminism as “The Sexual Trade Union”, representing the selfish sexual and reproductive interests of ageing and/or unattractive women.
___________

However, whereas the striking miner or manual labourer sometimes wins our sympathy simply because he occupies, as socialists have rightly observed, a relatively disadvantaged position in society as a whole, the same cannot be said of wives and women.

Although, as feminists never tire of pointing out, men earn more money than women (not least because they work longer hours, in more dangerous and unpleasant working conditions and for a greater proportion of their adult lives), women are known to be wealthier than men and dominate almost every area of consumer spending. According to researchers in the marketing industry, women control around 80% of household spending.[5]

A more appropriate analogy is therefore perhaps that provided by Baumeister and Vohs themselves. These authors view women’s attempt at artificial price-fixing as analogous to“other rational economic strategies, such as OPEC’s efforts to drive up the world price of oil by inducing member nations to restrict their production.”[6]

The appropriateness of this analogy is underscored by the fact that the exact same analogy was adopted by Warren Farrell, the father of the modern Men’s Rights Movement, a decade or so previously in his seminal The Myth of Male Power (which I have reviewed here). Here, Farrell observed:

In the Middle East, female sex and beauty are to Middle Eastern men what oil and gas are to Americans: the shorter the supply the higher the price. The more women ‘gave’ away sex for free, or for a small price, the more the value of every woman’s prize would be undermined… which is why anger toward prostitution, purdah violation (removing the veil), and pornography runs so deep, especially among women. It is also why parents told daughters, ‘Don’t be cheap’. ‘Cheap’ sex floods the market.[7]

___________

This then explains the prevalence of prejudice against prostitutes and promiscuity, and why this prejudice is especially prevalent among women. Only by slut-shaming whores and other promiscuous women can The Sex Cartel’s monopoly ever be maintained.

In contrast, men’s interests are diametrically opposed to the Sex Cartel. Consistent with this theory, men are found to be more tolerant, liberal and permissive in respect of virtually all aspects of sexual morality.

Thus, one study from the late-Eighties found that the vast majority of women, but only a minority of men, were wholly opposed to prostitution in all circumstances, whereas, in contrast, three times as many men as women saw nothing wrong with the sex trade.[8] Likewise, more women than men report that they are opposed to pornography.[9]

Of course, feminists typically explain so-called ‘sexual double-standards’ as some sort of male patriarchal plot to oppress women. In fact, however, women seem to be more censorious of promiscuity on the part of other women than are men. Thus, ‘sexual double-standards’, to the extent they exist at all, are largely promoted, and enforced, by women themselves. Thus, one recent meta-analysis found significantly greater support for ‘sexual double-standards’ among women than among men.[10]

Men, in contrast, have little incentive for slut-shaming. On the contrary, men actually generally rather enjoy the company of promiscuous women – for obvious reasons.[11]

There is, as far as I am aware, only one exception to the general principle that men are more tolerant and permissive on issues of sexual morality than are women. This is in respect of attitudes towards homosexuality. Here, strangely, women seem to be more permissive than men.[12]

However, opposition to homosexuality can still be explained compatibly with Sex Cartel Theory. Warren Farrell suggests in The Myth of Male Power (which I have reviewed here):

Homophobia reflected an unconscious societal fear that homosexuality was a better deal than heterosexuality for the individual. Homophobia was like OPEC calling nations wimps if they bought oil from a more reasonably priced source. It was the society’s way of giving men no option but to pay full price for sex”.[13]

___________

The Sex Cartel’s efforts to de-legitimize the sex trade involve the stigmatization, not only of prostitutes, but also of their clients. Indeed, these days the patrons of prostitutes seem to get an even worse press than do prostitutes themselves. On the one hand, they are castigated for exploiting women. On the other, they are also derided for being exploited by women and having to pay for what (it is implied) ‘real’ men should have no business having to pay for.[14]

In addition to moral sanction, the force of the criminal law is sometimes co-opted. Thus, around the world, prostitution is frequently wholly prohibited, and, if not, is almost always heavily regulated and restricted, such that both prostitutes and their patrons find themselves subject to the full force of the criminal law for partaking in a victimless and mutually-consensual commercial transaction.

Again, the current trend in law-enforcement is to target the customers rather than the prostitutes themselves (i.e. men rather than women) – a policy that manages to be both inefficient and unjust and is roughly comparable to prosecuting occasional pot smokers while letting drug-dealers off scot-free.

___________

Every woman, from the Whore to the Housewife, the Prostitute to the Prude, the Puritan to the Princess, is each, in her own way, forever a Whore at Heart.So, ironically, for all their fanatical feminist flag-waving and sanctimonious puritanical moral posturing, the real reason women hate prostitutes is precisely because women are prostitutes. Like any other class of commercial trader, they just don’t like the competition.

In reality, however, prostitution per se is never wholly criminalized or prohibited. If it were, then virtually every woman in the country would be behind bars – and so would virtually every man.

After all, as perceptive observers (end even a few feminists) have long recognised, one way or another, all women are prostitutes, according to the ordinary dictionary definition of this word.

Indeed, the entire process of conventional courtship in Western society is predicated on prostitution – from the social expectation that the man pay for dinner on the first date, to the legal obligation that he continue to support his ex-wife, through alimony and maintenance, for anything up to ten or twenty years after he has belatedly rid himself of her.

All the world is a red-light district. And all the men and women merely tricks, suckers, johns, punters, hookers and whores – plus perhaps an occasional pimp. Every woman, from the Whore to the Housewife, the Prostitute to the Prude, the Puritan to the Princess, is each, in her own way, forever a Whore at Heart.

So, ironically, for all their fanatical feminist flag-waving and sanctimonious puritanical moral posturing about saving women from sexual slavery and exploitation, the real reason women hate prostitutes is precisely because women are prostitutes. Like any other class of commercial trader, they just don’t like the competition.
_____________

[1] Baumseister RF & Twenge JM (2002) ‘Cultural Suppression of Female Sexuality’, Review of General Psychology 6(2): 166-203 at p172.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Baumeister RF & Vohs KD (2004) ‘Sexual Economics: Sex as Female Resource for Social Exchange in Heterosexual Interactions’, Personality and Social Psychology Review 8(4) pp339-363 at p344.

[4] Ibid, at p358

[5] See Kanner, B., Pocketbook Power: How to Reach the Hearts and Minds of Today’s Most Coveted Consumer – Women: p5; Barletta, M., Marketing to Women: How to understand reach and increase your share of the world’s largest market segment: p6.

[6] Baumeister RF & Vohs KD (2004) ‘Sexual Economics: Sex as Female Resource for Social Exchange in Heterosexual Interactions’, Personality and Social Psychology Review 8(4) pp339-363 at p357

[7] Farrell, W, The Myth of Male Power (reviewed here) (New York Berkley 1994) at p67.

[8] Klassen, AD, Williams, CJ, & Levitt, EE (1989). Sex and morality in the U.S.: An empirical enquiry under the auspices of the Kinsey Institute Middletown: Wesleyan University Press: cited in Baumseister RF & Twenge JM (2002) ‘Cultural Suppression of Female Sexuality’ at p190. More precisely, 69% of women were wholly opposed to pornography in all circumstances, as compared to only 45% of men, whereas 17% of men versus only 6% of women saw nothing wrong with prostitution.

[9] For example, Lottes, I, Weinberg, M & Weller, I (1993) ‘Reactions to pornography on a college campus: For or against?’ Sex Roles 29(1-2): 69-89.

[10] Oliver MB and Hyde JS (1993) ‘Gender Differences in Sexuality: A Meta-Analysis’ Pyschological Bulletin l14(1): 29-51

[11] Though it is true that men may not wish to marry a promiscuous women. Here, concerns of paternity certainty are paramount.

[12] Harek G (1988) Heterosexuals’ attitudes toward lesbians and gay men: Correlates and gender differences Journal of Sex Research 25(4); Lamar, L & Kite, M. (1998) Sex Differences in Attitudes toward Gay Men and Lesbians: A Multidimensional Perspective The Journal of Sex Research 35(2): 189-196; Kite, M. & Whitney, B. (1996) Sex Differences in Attitudes Toward Homosexual Persons, Behaviors, and Civil Rights A Meta-Analysis Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 22(4): 336-35;Lim VK (2002) Gender differences and attitudes towards homosexuality Journal of Homosexuality 43(1):85-97.

[13] Farrell, W, The Myth of Male Power (reviewed here) (New York Berkley 1994) at p87.

[14] These two claims are, of course, wildly contradictory. Moreover, it is notable that, while men who pay for prostitutes are routinely ridiculed for ‘having to pay for it’, the same stigma does not attach to the man who takes his girlfriend out to dates at expensive restaurants, buys her jewellery or, worse still, pays the ultimate price by subjecting himself to marriage – yet the latter surely incurs a steeper financial penalty in the long-run.