Another month down, another round of awards to hand out to the best and brightest patrons of the online pub that is In Mala Fide.
The September 2009 Comment of the Month Award goes to Doug1 for pointing out why quantblogger analyses of sexuality are flat-out wrong:
I read that Agnostic piece contemporaneously in GNXP. I didn’t post anything in comments questioning it because I had no social science basis for doing so. Nonetheless I flat out don’t believe it. Well there IS one thing I do believe. That is that there WAS a diminution of slutty sexual activity beginning it’s commonly said as soon as the 70s were over but really beginning around 1984 or so. When the aids thing hit, and it hit FAST in consciousness as a huge scare when it did. Aging boomer girls were already turning away from casual sex and big into clamping their husbands down from dreams of open marriages and so on, but that was the big thing. It did go down in the second half of the eighties and much of the 90s. Not completely atall and there were pockets, but a lot. Came back in the oughts, or really by the late 90s in NYC.
…
All this GSS and other stuff is based on a house of cards. Those cards are that females don’t lie, or don’t lie much in anonymous as reported surveys about sexual activity including number of partners or incidence of infidelity. I’m here to tell you that girls lie HUGE about such stuff and do so reflexively, as part of their personality almost, and do so so thoroughly that only the most reflective even fully realize how much they’re doing it. I’m talking about the big numbers girls. Girls for whom the answer is 7 or maybe 5 or less probably come in fairly accurately, because they figure they aren’t really even supposed to be virgins anymore, THAT is rather shameful, and anything that’s well within single digits is probably ok for almost anyone but real prude/can’t get sex guys they don’t care about anyway. That’s the urban girl feeling.
But if you think girls for whom the true answer is 15 or more, not to mention 30 or more, give their true answers much at all except possibly to a guy that loves or they believe loves slutty girls, after much showing of same, you know nothing. Because I’m such a guy (who does love the extremes including sluts for some/many things, but hardly for having my babies or committing to durably) and I’ve gone through the process of getting good true slutty stories, and eventually true slutty numbers, out of numerous girls. I know what they say to begin with and I know what they finally say after all that. I know some/many of the rationalizations. (e.g. guys whose names they can’t remember don’t count. Guys who had no emotional impact on them don’t count. Guys they can barely remember at all, and then only with effort, don’t count. Only guys they had a relationship with count. And so on.)
When you’re a calculator, everything looks like a number, and the quantbloggers are living, breathing calculators who think everything can be reduced to a readout on an Excel spreadsheet. Good work, Doug1.
Honorable mentions go to the following:
Good Observation Awards go to Novaseeker for spelling out why any man should pay heed to the words of rakes:
The reason why rakes like Byron are useful for men to understand is because these guys understand the women guys are marrying, too, because in many cases they have bedded them, or at least turned down the dangling offer to do so. Pollitt is right, of course, that female sexuality is an unruly force. She’s wrong, because of her feminism, in thinking that unleashing this unruly force is a good thing, even for women themselves (it does not appear to make most women happy, long-term, to indulge their sexuality). But for men, in a culture which no longer restrains this significantly, it is critical to understand from people like Byron and his present-day analogues just how women, even married ones, behave sexually when the “right guy†comes along.
…z.g. for noting the four factors that have altered the sexual landscape for the worse:
All the theories of the “quantsphere†fall apart when these four are introduced:
Birth control
Condoms against STD’s
Abortion
Child support/State child support/state subsidized child care/birth money
Forget about laws, social support, other supports and welfare etc.
The above four are enough to let women loose from their given by nature shackles.
The rest is also as effective but it is more difficult for the effects of these (laws, welfare etc) to be seen by the q.bloggers in the sexual context.
Millions of years of natural restraints not existing anymore… This by itself is big enough.
…Mike T for this explanation as to why the higher education scheme will soon collapse:
WRT the college scam, the biggest problem is the fact that most of the college graduates have no marketable skills, or they have demands that are completely unrealistic for what they do have. Most liberal arts majors should feel lucky to just have jobs, and most business majors probably don’t know much more about actually running a business than the average manager at McDonalds who worked their way up the management chain.
…Thursday for pointing out how sex ratios affected the sexual revolution:
I have long maintained that the sex ratio favouring men from the 60s through the late 70s helped ease men’s acceptance of the sexual revolution. Michael Blowhard, for example, doesn’t remember anything like the kind of anger on the dating scene back when he was a young buck. The hangover for men really came in force in the 90s by which time the sex ratio had shifted in the other direction.
…and Sebastian Flyte for this note on PDA:
I think excessive PDA is a good indicator that the man has not yet slept with the woman.
Great job, all.
mike wins the Witty Comeback Award for this zinger aimed at haterette shesadandy, who was caught parroting a tired lie about men who date younger women:
Yeah, because when I look at a young fertile girl with tight, cellulite-free skin the first thing I think is “Wow, I’d like to have a conversation with her!â€
Technically, mike made this comment in August, but AFTER the comment awards for that month had been issued, so I get to make an exception for awesomeness.
Justin wins the Dunce Cap Award for this spectacularly clueless statement on picking up strippers:
Strippers are not difficult to pick up. They are just always taken. There is a big difference there. In fact, the “always taken†status of strippers is due to the fact that they are not difficult to pick up.
Strippers are easy to pick up IF you have extremely tight game, which ninety-five percent of men don’t, dum-dum. Now, go sit in the corner and think about what you’ve done.
Elusive Wapiti wins the Graphic Prediction Award for this remark on Ron Guhname’s comments about his wife:
Yeah, I’d like to see that fella’s stance on how wonderful his sweet wittle woman is if she ever leaves him.
I suspect his being forced to witness his testicles sliced off before his very eyes, his kids kept from him with the approval of the State, and his ass being sold into slavery will force him to eat a lot of crow.
No man thinks his wife will divorce him until the process server shows up.
Sofia wins the Public Service Announcement Award for her advisory on how to avoid sleep deprivation:
Seriously though, over time insomnia will affect you adversely. I had to put up with a lot of crappy, biological issues because of my involuntary sleeping habits. UNFORTUNATELY, I do get panic attacks and most sleeping medications are benzodiazapenes, which I’m pretty much immune to at this point. If you have sleeping problems, and also suffer from anxiety, request barbiturates, though I don’t know if they still prescribe that in the U.S.
Me personally, I prefer OTC allergy pills or Cruzan Blackstrap when it comes to sleeplessness.
RT wins the Tinfoil Hat Award for this insane response to Satoshi Kanazawa’s contention that Asians can’t do science:
LMAO – what a laughable joke!
China beat the West in most scientific inventions (until hitting a cultural cyclic low the last 2 centuries) by centuries. Read “The Genius Of China†by Robert Temple.
And Yoshiro Nakamatsu singlehandedly invented most of our modern technology today – including the floppy disk, CD, DVD, digital watch, etc.
The US took a leap past them in the last 2 centuries due to Asia losing wars and the US winning them. Not to mention secret technology transfers from the Grey aliens. The truth comes out and normalizes over time, though. [emphasis mine - ed.]
Remember to watch out for the black helicopters, dude – the Illuminati’s coming for you!
Finally, dagezhu wins the Creativity in Bigotry Award for “correcting” me on Roman Polanski’s ethnicity:
Polanski is not a Polack, he’s a Jew.
There’s a big difference, one that would have gotten your face beaten in if you said that to the wrong people.
He raped with his Jew cock, not with his Polack cock. Get it right.
That comment cracked me up beyond belief when I first saw it. I’m a very bad person. And I would think that “the wrong people” would be less concerned with my omission of Polanski’s Judaism and more concerned with the fact that I referred to a Pole as a “Polack.”
{ 40 comments… read them below or add one }
I think one of my coworkers was taken aback yesterday when I said about Polanski, “the part that disgusts me about what he did wasn’t her age… girls that age were being married off and all for thousands of years… it’s what he did to her (drug her, rape her and sodomize her when she kept telling him no)”
The damage done to society and sexual marketplace are not, in my opinion, a result of birth control, condoms, and legalized abortion, at least, not if you take the long view.
In the bad old days before enforced monogamy, women were treated like chattel. They didn’t choose who they married, who they had sex with, and whether they aborted or kept the child. They were property assigned to men of high social status. It was worse than it is now, although none of those innovations existed.
What’s happening now is that modern, urban women are freely choosing to live in this degrading arrangement– strong-man polygamy where alcohol and social gimmicks are used to forge their consent– and the “beta” men who built civilization, liberating them from it, are utterly befuddled as to why this is happening.
When you’re a calculator, everything looks like a number, and the quantbloggers are living, breathing calculators who think everything can be reduced to a readout on an Excel spreadsheet.
The quantbloggers are a useful corrective to the Roissysphere. Roissy and his acolytes have their own biases. Roissy and co. stumbled onto a lot of very important and neglected truths, but a lot of what is written there is a serious distortion of reality.
As for women lying on surveys, IIRC Jason Malloy linked to a study where women thought they were being hooked up to a lie detector and asked questions about their sexual history. Numbers went up from 3.4 to 4.4, so you can probably add about another 33% to any survey data on womens partners. Significant, but also not the doubling that some have claimed.
Furthermore, the lying isn’t spread around evenly among all women. As Doug has noted a lot of the lying is concentrated in a few women who are being outrageously misleading. We also know that the biggest liars on these surveys tend to be low IQ/lower class men and women, though I don’t know if liar is the right word since a lot of them are so dumb they can’t actually remember, or count.
As for ascertaining the number of partners that a woman you are dating is with, you have to both:
a) consider her character in general, particularly if she is either just a crap person or is one of those that preaches but doesn’t practice
b) be careful not set off her slut defenses when discussing that shit
No man thinks his wife will divorce him until the process server shows up.
Divorce rates among the college educated are at 17%. Ron and his wife are also religious attenders which cuts down the risk even more. Based on my impression of Ron, he probably chose his mate wisely further decreasing the risk. Basically, Ron’s presumed assumption that he has a very low chance of divorce is correct.
I’ll agree, to the extent that the main cause of the problems today are the divorce laws, which favor gold-digging while disfavoring family stability.
Even worse is the newly emergent ‘false rape’ infrastructure. This has society-destroying potential, and will cause some men to disengage from women altogether. An equal number of women will thus be lonely.
Birth control
Condoms against STD’s
Abortion
Child support/State child support/state subsidized child care/birth money
The other BIG one is an elevated M/F ratio from decades of peacetime here. Not to mention increased racial diversity, where there is high multiracial crossover (especially amongst Black & Mexican men) demand for hot young White chicks – which dramatically escalates the M/F for this subgroup of women. And gives them the underlying leverage of being able to do whatever they want and get away with it, due to relative “scarcity” and overwhelming demand.
Because no matter how badly women behave now, there will likely be more than a few men who will glady put up with her shit, just to get a chick.
Seriously, I’ve read some posts by ugly, obese chicks with kids on messageboards…who still have no problem finding dates!
Now, compare this to average American Joe’s like Sodini who are fairly well-put together with no baggage – who can’t even get dates in decades!
Basically, there is a Perfect Storm against NAM American men right now, and it should be declared a national emergency.
On a happier note, a wearable HD video camera is available for just $330. The price will drop, of course.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B002QGSYZ4
This will make it easier to film your bangs (that too from a first-person perspective), which is both necessary for legal protection from the burgeoning false-rape industry, and morally justifiable given the climate.
It also makes it easier to film your daygame approaches and club Game. These cameras will get smaller with time, so will eventually be hard to notice.
Hahahaha. Assuming the point of your post is that a “wearable” camera will be more discreet…well, you see why I’m laughing.
I’d stick with cheaper HD camcorders (you can get them for under $100), or, hey, why not take advantage of the new Nano?
True. Story.
Not more discreet (at least today). Just easier to get a first-person perspective, and with hands being free.
LILGRL–
I agree that while Roissy uncovers lots of truths and very usefully punctures feminist PC, he and especially some of his acolytes greatly exaggerate some things. I could go into that but won’t here.
Actually, I’d like to get your estimates on some things.
You’re a recent grad from an elite NYC college, have an internationalist background, but are also (and I do believe this) pretty much a good girl in your own “going all the way” activities. At the same time you’re very hot looking and have had a fascination with club and other mating scenes since you were an early teen in Tokyo.
What percentage of girls are your college who were a 6 or higher would you guesstimate have had 10 or more sexual partners? This is by 22. Or if you know enough grad students of various sorts or other 20 something girls from your out and about life well enough to judge, then those as well. Though do do some age segregating. Everyone who doesn’t marry young, almost, has had more sexual partners by 30 than by 22. The looser girl types have had a lot more.
So talk about your cohort just graduated girls at 22, and if enough data, your guesstimates about NYC girls by 29.
Doug–
Unfortunately, NYU is very, very big — I could give you an incredibly rough estimate based on the people I chose to associate with for more than just a few drinks…but it wouldn’t say much, if anything. While I’m a very socially active girl, I also have very few (relatively speaking) close friends whose numbers I’d know. The most I can really do is give you the numbers of some of my friends, all of whom are in their early twenties, have lived in at least 2 big (big = 5 million+) cities.
Age, Number
22, 0
22, 0
22, 0
22, 0
22, 0
25, 0
23, 0
22, 3
22, 11
24, 1
22, 2
22, 4
23, 3
22, 0
22, 1
23, 0
24, 0
25, 0
22, 1
As you can see, approximately 1 in 20 of these girls has slept with more than 10 guys. (And, honestly, if you knew anything about her — she’s DEFINITELY the kind of person that you’d call an anomaly/outlier.) All of them are American. All of them grew up in cities larger than New York (a few of them in New York). All of them have graduated from elite schools. All travel, all the time. All are roughly in my range of attractiveness (anywhere from a fat 5 to a 10, depending on who you are, haha). So, take what you will from that.
Both TFH & Cless make a really good point: although I too see the “Four Sirens” as deeply problematic, in truth this paradigm needs a bit more refinement in the explaining, because otherwise those outside the Roissysphere, if you will, might get it all twisted.
First off, birth control-and for purposes of simplicity I’m including Abortion here-has been w/human beings for centuries, if not longer. A simple dialup of Wikipedia for words such as “condom”, “plessary” and “abortifacient” quickly informs the reader that these and other devices/methods have been around for a very long time. True, their effectiveness has always been questionable-and modern medical science has vastly improved all of the above, to the point of near 100% effectiveness AND safety-but the point is made: in pure “legacy” terms, birth control has always been around.
What hasn’t been around, as TFH rightly points out, is a system of laws steeped in an overall culture, where Women were protected *no matter what they did*. Hence No-Fault divorce, the controversey surrounding various rape-shield laws, VAWA, and the like. THAT’S the main issue here, not the simple fact that various forms of birth control were on the scene.
That said, now that the aforementioned social and legal changes are now a kind of coin of the realm, the vastly improved age-old birth control options, along w/a few new ones, greatly augments said changed social landscape. Again: birth control in and of itself didn’t cause the world we now see; they only aided it, after the fact.
I predict that now w/the Mancession picking up steam, and as more and more Women HAVE to shoulder the economic weight in society, a goodly number of laws will either be dialed back or in some other way, “defanged”. Look to hear more and more Women, complaining that their incomes are being impacted by their ex-hubbies, baby daddies and the like.
You heard it here.
The Obsidian
Birth control has existed in many cultures for many decades, yet we don’t see the misandry that exists in the Anglosphere – because the judicial system is not steeped in said misandry there.
I predict that now w/the Mancession picking up steam, and as more and more Women HAVE to shoulder the economic weight in society, a goodly number of laws will either be dialed back or in some other way, “defangedâ€. Look to hear more and more Women, complaining that their incomes are being impacted by their ex-hubbies, baby daddies and the like.
One can hope. But most of the $200K+ earners are still men, and thus most of the tax revenue is still from men.
But I keep pounding the message of technological disruption, as people have to realize the massive changes ahead (which, finally, will benefit men).
In the old days, a strong man had many advantages over a weak man. Whether as a farm hand, blacksmith, lumberjack, construction worker, or soldier, male strength was important in the economy. But technological changes came, and strength was devalued. Today, there are few high-paying jobs where a strong man has any advantage over a small, weak man. There are extremely few avenues where strength can take a man to a six-figure income over an entire career.
Therefore…..
When sex technologies become compelling by 2020, things will change again. All virtual/bot women will be made to be 10s, of course, so women who are 8s will be treated like 5s, and 7s like 4s. Women thus will have to learn to deliver good love to men, if they want a man at all. Women below the score of 8 will not get the time of day soley on the basis of looks. 35 year old women will not be of interest even to 50 year old men, as the 50 year old man can buy 3, 5, or 10 sexbots (although I still think the VR/Hologram technology is the more likely winner than robotics, due to scalability).
The only currency women will still have, is the ability to love, which many will have to learn, as they currently do not possess this attribute. Presumably, the ability to love is equal for an 8 or a 5.
So female beauty will undergo the same technolgical devaluation that male strength underwent in the industrial revolution. Except that this will be far more sudden.
Come on, half of this sample of urban women 22-25 are virgins, and only a quarter of them have had more than 1? Who’you trying to kid?
I was roommates with two Chinese-American women for two years. Both were very well educated. They were age 25 (score : 8) and 29 (score : 6) respectively at the time of me moving in. Each went through at least 4 different sexual partners in the two years I lived in the same house as them. The older girl was distinctly seeing two guys at once for a time, even though one of them was introduced as her ‘boyfriend’.
She recently married yet a different guy than any of the ones that passed through her bedroom.
Oh, Tood. Welcome to my world.
Then your friends are a carefully selected group, cuz.
No random sample of urban American college educated women aged 22-25, who are in the 5-10 looks range, would comprise 75% of women having just zero or one sex partners to date.
No way. Not even if they were all Asian-American (see above).
Unless you are expecting a big surge in their promiscuity in their late 20s. That is the only other possibility.
Well, they are a carefully selected group. For one thing, they’ve all lived in at least two cities the size of, or bigger, than NYC.
If you do your research correctly, there is only one city in the US that is as large as NYC. And it’s NYC.
Two of those girls have any Asian blood in them — one is the girl with 10+ partners. The rest are white.
The “5-10″ thing was me being cheeky. No guy I know would rate any of those girls below a 7 (barring racial preferences).
I’m not expecting a big surge in anything. I expect that things will continue as they have.
*Should be “Only two of those girls…”
*and “or bigger than, NYC”
LILGRL–
Well, yeah. I think that’s got to be it. Birds of a feather flock together. Even though very social you’re also a very good girl.
As a very good girl, I also suspect you got some serious under reporting.
Let me ask you. Have you ever pretended to be a serious slut, and asked upper half in attractiveness 20 something girls about their own sexual experiences from THAT perspective?? You wouldn’t have to know them well. You’d just have to catch them in a self revealing frame of mind, with you being a fellow numbers girl, they thought. Esp. if they’d had a bunch to drink. Sodium pentathol for everyday life. But you don’t drink much at all either, so that would tend to inhibit them – or often would.
I think 5th Horse is right here. At least.
Admittedly I haven’t gotten with college age girls in a long time but I have gotten with 20 somethings not so long ago, and, well, the distribution you report there looks WAY WAY low for them. WAY.
I wonder as well how many of your 0 and 1 NYU friends had lesbian sexual relations in college.
I’m not suggesting most of your friends would end up lesbian.
Doug –
Like I said — my sample is a very small and narrow one. While all of these girls are exactly what I say they are (by the way, I’m not in the sample): highly-educated, attractive, urban twenty-somethings, they are also of social circles that I doubt anyone here has had much opportunity to run in. They’re the daughters of billionaires, diplomats, entrepreneurs. There’s a class, in America, that is well known as the “rich class” — it includes your run-of-the-mill celebrities, Paris Hilton, Donald Trump, etc. And then there’s a class above that, one cultured and discreet enough that they keep out of the tabloids.
So yeah, that’s part of it.
As for under-reporting, I doubt it. I’ve long been a good girl and very tolerant of any “bad behaviors” my friends might exhibit. That doesn’t keep my friends’ respective parents from viewing me as, more often than not, a “bad influence”.
As I said before — I absolutely cannot give you an accurate number for the average NYC college girl. Anyway, talking about numbers is so classless.
I’m sure most people I meet think my own number is anywhere between 5 and 50, and they’re all wrong.
None of my NYU friends. And, as far as I know, none of the girls in my sample.
There’s a degree of religion (not super-religious-crazy-person, but a degree) that keeps us from getting confused about our sexuality.
Also, it’s not impossible. After all, you’re talking to a girl with a very low number, who’s been frequenting clubs in cities wilder than NYC since she was about 11.
LILGRL–
You really consider Tokyo wilder than NYC? I’d guess that’s the circles you had ready access to more than anything. As an exotic three cultures expat in Tokyo. No?
Do tell more.
they are also of social circles that I doubt anyone here has had much opportunity to run in.
So they have the well-documented ‘princess complex’, that leads them to reject just about every man? That could explain the 1s and 0s. I know several such women, who just thought TOO highly of themselves, based entirely on their father’s status rather than their own accomplishments, and are now 34 and unmarried.
Daughters of the super-rich are often cursed in a way, as the son of a billionaire has more SMV than the daughter of a billionaire. This causes a lot of friction in that class, as a middle-class hottie can climb into the group and take a man that one of the high-class 6s would have felt entitled to.
one cultured and discreet enough that they keep out of the tabloids.
This ‘class’ you mention is not the target of tabloids, as entrepreneurs and diplomats are not known to the average person.
Of course, a PUA with tight Game could seduce any of those women. That is for sure.
I’d say a fair number of women experiment with bisexuality in college. Maybe a third of them.
Then they move on to heterosexual lives, never to repeat the experiment.
Doug –
Tokyo is definitely wilder than NYC. But that aside — you think I limited my partying to the city I lived in? Please.
Tood –
I could go on and on and on…but there’s really no point. Just trust me when I tell you that you have never met anyone like these girls/me/my friends. It has little to do with money, much to do with class. I explained it in terms of money because I couldn’t think of another way to relate it to you. It’s a third-culture kid thing, which I doubt you know much about. It’s international elitism, which I doubt you know much about. If you do (for some reason) have vast reserves of knowledge on the nuances of these particular cultures, then I apologize. Otherwise, I don’t think you have any idea what you’re talking about.
No offense — you’re a cool guy, but it’s to be expected that you have no experience or even knowledge of the world I come from.
No, Tood. They were just brought up to be !sluts.
it’s crazy, but it happens.
Doug –
Yeah, I had access to much. What would you like to know?
LILGRL–
I don’t think that’s the common perception among the generally internationalist in the know people. I’d say there’s a belief that Tokyo has many fewer sex for sale or attraction to teenage girls=pedophilia taboos, it also has a lot less sense of sexual urgency or drive.
The inside scoop. The flavor. The reality at the high end. The fun stuff. Some stories. Observed or told to you. True not made up. What’s typical of the atypical there, if you get my drift.
Would be fab LILGRL.
LILgirl,
I know a fair amount this elite class.
1) The kids of this class overwhelmingly go to one of 4 colleges : Harvard, Stanford, Yale, and Princeton. No other school, no matter how good, comes even close on their list. I know as I went to one of the four (being middle-class myself, but still).
2) More than a few women from this ‘International Elite’ class end up not marrying, due to middle-class hotties being capable of taking guys from their class. These women have a curse, in a way.
____________________________
The ‘third culture’ thing :
It is very rare to be a ‘third culture’ person, but naturally, third-culture people would have just as must diversity of personalities and interests and social interests as any other group of people.
So even in college, your social group was the ‘third culture’ group, and not so much with anyone outside this specialized group? If so, why?
Tokyo is a hotbed of weird sexual perversions. The reality of how grotesquely severe sexual repression can manifest itself. The whole “panties-in-a-vending” machine story is true, but mild. There are love-hotels with everything from a few blacklights to any number of swings and bondage materials. They rent rooms by the hour, for as little as 1000Y/hour (that’s $10). There are virtual-reality rooms in which you can have “sex” with a VR girl who’s half-tentacled-monster. There are stripclubs that serve you designer drugs. There are entire stores dedicated to condoms. And that’s just the weird sex stuff.
The city legitimately never sleeps. Bars and clubs never close (sometimes pubs will close at 2, to keep up the time-honored tradition). “After parties” start at 8AM and continue until 4PM. The city is wilder than NYC, in a weirdly efficient, functioning way. It’s not like Hong Kong or the Philippines or Naples or Sao Paulo — it’s not crazy and disorderly; there are no chickens, or pigs, or beggars littering the streets. It is completely unlike any Chinatown — there is no hawking, yelling, shoving fish or whatnot in your face. People are polite, calm, quiet. But no matter where you go, it is always bustling.
You can find drugs in any park, on any street corner — as you can in any big city. Beer is sold in vending machines. Technically, there are open-container laws, but none of my friends ever felt the need to abide by them. Police cars cannot outstrip most European sports cars — they know this, and they’ll stop any chase if you start going fast enough. Trust me.
There are restaurants on top of hotels on top of strip clubs on top of massage parlors on top of churches. As for my stories — remember, I was but a teen.
There was all the usual ridiculous spending of money. One of my friends’ parents rented a penthouse out by the clubbing district, so that we’d all have somewhere to crash. This wasn’t an over-the-top spoiledness — they wanted to ensure we were safe, not spending a ridiculous amount on cabs (cab from downtown to my house = about $300), and comfortable. We were all good kids — chock-full of extracurriculars, straight-A students, and responsible.
Lots of US celebrities. They all come to Tokyo to promote everything (it’s a big market), and they all go to the same places when they’re there. Happened to be our hang-out. I’ll admit: the first time I hooked up with a celeb, I was 15 and mildly excited. Now, I’m mostly unfazed.
There’s always more, but I don’t want to give away everything right off the bat :)
Tood:
No, you don’t.
No, they don’t. Most of them get into one of those four schools; nearly none of them go. It’s a spit in the bucket to get into all of those schools if you’re a) a legacy and b) your parents are rich. Most of them go to small liberal arts schools, technical institutes, or choose their colleges based on location (NYU, for example, has a lot).
No, nearly all of these women are married to a guy who is of the same class (there isn’t really a class above) by age 27. There’s no issue with “middle-class hotties” because the class doesn’t really mix. Ok, doesn’t mix. At all. For example: as I was telling my boyfriend last night — there is no “outreach” program in these international schools, like there is in other elite schools (Exeter, etc.) — these international schools are not looking for people of a lower socioeconomic demographic to come PC up their world. No, these schools were created for one purpose, and one purpose only: to serve the community. They were not created to be elite, though they are; they were not created to be diverse, though they are.
Because the ONLY group I can truly relate to, and the ONLY group any other TCK can truly relate to, is the third-culture group. I was acquainted with many people, and always have been. But yes, my closest friends have always been of that group (even if they didn’t grow up in my particular sphere of the third culture. I’d have much more in common with a American who grew up in Paris and Amsterdam than I would with an American…or a Parisian…or an Amsterdonian.)
Look, it’s not what you think it is. I attribute little of the nonsluttiness of this group (the guys, too) to the wealth, and much of it to the upbringing. The community is deeply rooted in family values — because, when you’re overseas, your nuclear family becomes ALL YOU HAVE. Also, none of this money is “old” money — the “class” is very flexible, and has a lot more to do with attitude, tolerance (real tolerance), sophistication, maturity, etc. Let’s just say [the class] makes most of the US — even the smart/educated/level-headed ones — look like whining toddlers.
LILgrl,
You are contradicting yourself on many points.
First off, if you are talking about VERTICAL grouping, then yes, no one who is not a 3CK can relate to the nuances, just like you would never be able to relate to the subtle differences between the dal recipes of Gujarat, Rajasthan, and Punjab.
So yes, I will agree that the VERTICAL distinction is unique and others can’t relate.
That being said, people overrate their ‘uniqueness’ all the time. All young people watch the same movie, listen to the same music, buy the same gizmos, and do the same activities as their peers in the 14-22 age group.
Furthermore, parental culture trumps all. If your parents were white, then you are white in all ways except external appearance. And in Tokyo, your Viet appearance would stand out somewhat less than a white blonde, or black woman, would.
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But on the HORIZONTAL class claims you are making, I strongly disagree. Much of what you say is quite funny in a Wizard of Oz way, actually.
1) The children of world leaders go to those 4 schools I mentioned. Foreign leaders almost entirely send their kids to Harvard and Stanford, as can be easily researched. They need a big name on their pedigree, and the much lower-ranked libarts and tech inst. schools you mention don’t provide any elite pedigree.
2) First you say :
There’s a class, in America, that is well known as the “rich class†— it includes your run-of-the-mill celebrities, Paris Hilton, Donald Trump, etc. And then there’s a class above that,
Then you say :
It has little to do with money, much to do with class. I explained it in terms of money because I couldn’t think of another way to relate it to you.
It seems it is you who can’t define this ‘class’ very well. The following points will explain why.
3) Because the ONLY group I can truly relate to, and the ONLY group any other TCK can truly relate to, is the third-culture group.
Fine. But this would also lead to being exposed to a very narrow range of viewpoints, as well as a belief that your group is far more exclusive, special, and superior than you think it is. A common trap that leads to delusions of elitism. For example, one of the best and wisest thinkers here is Obsidian, who has no college degree and works in a blue collar job. He is still wiser in the ways of the world than many kids of elites at Harvard and Stanford.
I’d have much more in common with a American who grew up in Paris and Amsterdam than I would with
But that is merely TWO cultures, not three. I am definitely two-culture, growing up in America, then India, then America again. Again, this Two-culture group is not small at all, and is a VERTICAL, not HORIZONTAL class, for which you claim that ‘there isn’t really a class above’. I hope you aren’t telling too many people that this vertical 2Ck and 3CK grouping of international kids is superior.
4) I checked your profile for the first time. It seems you are a nice girl who went to NYU, works as a staff writer at a magazine, and drives a Saturn (with blue lights!). That is nice, but I see no reason to think that you belong to some elite, exclusive HORIZONTAL class that is the topmost class in the world.
You claim that I ‘have not met anyone from this class’ (your words), even though I went to the same school and work in the same profession as Chelsea Clinton, am one of the top 10 Futurists in the world, charge $5000 for a single lecture, and am on a first-name basis with many Silicon Valley luminaries.
That is laughable. Beyond laughable, in fact. Again, who’you trying to kid? I strongly call BS on the whole charade. Now, as to why there is this charade, this leads us to point 5 :
5) Your clubbing/celeb experience isn’t really anything more than an upper-middle-class club-savvy kid growing up in NY, LA, SF, LV, or London would obtain. Also, the group of people who travel the world and club in exotic locations isn’t quite so small (and certainly not elite). All this is not nearly as exclusive as you think.
What you are doing is taking an extensive clubbing hobby/experience, and incredibly stretching that into an assumption that you are part of some exclusive, rareified, elite class that there is not class above, that even people who go to the same colleges as the kids of world leaders go to, would not have access to.
While I have never seen an ‘International Clubbing Hobby’ stretched to such an extreme extrapolation of class, this is a common hangup among younger party kids, who, after crossing 30, realize how off-base that belief was, and then regret having declared it so loudly.
Conclusion :
I agree on the VERTICAL 3CK distinction, but strongly call BS on your HORIZONTAL class claim that there exists a supreme elite that supposedly I never met anyone from. This group is not nearly as elite or exclusive as you believe it to be (a belief based mostly on a very specialized group of friends, and a lot of clubbing). As the years go by, you will realize this.
Furthermore, I am well aware of the practice of the ‘international elite’ class to window-dress their image and lifestyle perceptions to maintain an allure among the proles. Vacations taken in Cannes, Ibiza, Aruba, Rio, Bali, etc. are the standard names dropped, all of which, except Rio, I have been to. Average people get fooled, but I have enough direct exposure to know the game (and yes, it is a form of ‘Game’ in terms of creating an illusory elite status).
Consider this ‘test’ passed.
(I don’t use the term ‘shit test’ – THAT is low-class).
Wrong. That’s the exact definition of a third-culture kid — a kid whose parents are of one culture (culture #1), who grew up in a different culture (culture #2), who can thus not relate well to either culture and can only relate to a mix of those two and other cultures (culture #3). It has nothing to do with growing up in three countries.
These are mostly diplomats and higher ups. Not presidents. Etc.
Wrong. I’ve been exposed to a ridiculous amount. I relate, on a deeper level, to a few. That doesn’t mean I hide out with my nose in the air.
Fail. You don’t know the definition of “third-culture.” People from another country who grow up in America are somewhat of a different story, because the America is weird and they often grow up as immigrants (sometimes not — but most people in the US try very hard to adapt).
It’s a different class, dude. Has nothing to do with how high you are, how much you charge, or Chelsea Clinton (she’s not one either).
So you went to Stanford. At around the same time as my boyfriend. ARE YOU LOCATED IN SILICON VALLEY???? OH MY GOD WE WANT TO MEET YOU.
No, it’s not. Oh, I should’ve clarified. I’m not rich. My parents are teachers. Teachers for the win.
It’s international. It’s elite. But it’s not “the international elite.” That’s a different story. It really is. The reason you can’t understand it is because you’ve probably never met anyone like this — FOR THE SIMPLE FACT THAT THERE ARE NOT VERY MANY, not because you aren’t super awesome and high-up and rich and going to Stanford and whatnot. It’s NOT ABOUT PEDIGREE. They are NOT world leaders, they are the people running countries (it IS DIFFERENT). They are NOT old money, and they are also NOT incredibly new (think Silicon Valley tech) money. They have a lot of money but YOU WOULD NOT KNOW IT. You really wouldn’t. Hell, I’ve only just begun to realize how much better off they/we are than most of America. Yes, I did live in somewhat of a bubble.
They’re also not stupid about their money. None of people I know from E. Asia would waste money on a weekend trip to Cannes or Rio. None. People who are telling you things like this don’t have as much money as they want you to think.
I should note: the clubbing has little to do with it. I was a preteen/teenager, and I wanted to party. Doug spoke of clubbing and sex, so I went with it.
Were I to explain TCK’s to someone else, I’d probably not bring clubbing into the picture. But please. Don’t pretend you really know what I’m talking about, when everything you write makes it glaringly obvious that you have no idea.
It’s okay. I don’t think you’re stupid, or anything, for not knowing. MOST PEOPLE DO NOT KNOW, and MOST PEOPLE NEVER FULLY UNDERSTAND. That’s the fact of life, and it’s one of the reasons that I cannot TRULY RELATE ON A DEEP LEVEL to people who are not TCKs. That said, I’m sure I relate better to non-TCKs than do most other people — as most TCKs have been exposed to enough that they relate very well to people. I’m not trying to say we’re social outcasts — because we’re very clearly not.
I’m pretty sure you’ve never met one, simply because the topic is usually something that comes up very early in the conversation. It usually starts with the question “Where are you from?” and when the TCK can’t answer the question…goes from there.
Too many Stanford rabble on these blogs!
Come on, half of this sample of urban women 22-25 re virgins, and only a quarter of them have had more than 1? Who’you trying to kid?
Yea, I call BS. Vast majority of American girls lose their V-cards by 18 these days. Quite a rarity to find one in her 20s, much less a majority in a group. And when so, they are often diehard Fundys or something…
OTOH, women are known for lying a lot, especially when it comes to sex…so perhaps that is the more likely possibility here?
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