Tuesday, February 23, 2016

Treating People Like Commodities

It's quite popular nowadays to talk about Sexual Market Value (SMV) while discussing the relationships between men and women. For those unfamiliar with it, it basically rates women on scale 1-10, with ten being the highest and divides men into categories like alpha, beta, gamma etc.

There is certainly some truth attached to this theory. I guess we all can agree that a healthy fit 18 year old girl will be attractive to most men, while overweight 50 year old not so much. We also know just from observations that there are men who all girls appear to flock to, and passive-agressive losers unable to form healthy relationships. It's also true that traditional marriage contract had a financial aspect to it.

The problems do arise, however, when we are trying to reduce human beings with their complex emotions, to simple economical units. Life is much more complicated than an equation and people aren't entirely rational creatures, either. Moreover, a woman isn't just a sum of legs and breasts. She also possesses a personality which can be pleasant or otherwise. Further, the theory of absolute SMV rests on the assumption (not at all traditional) that all women are basically social equals and only get distinguished by the degree of beauty and youth they possess, which is entirely untrue since there is also such a thing as social/class distinctions.

A young waitress can be much prettier than a 30 year old PhD feminist, but a man from "a good family" will be more inclined to marry his social equal, though not always, of course.

So my next point is, that while I do believe SMV exists it's relative, not absolute. Take the example of an 18 year old vs a 50 year old. While in absolute terms, the younger woman will have much higher SMV, most men of certain age will have very little chance with her and they know it, too! But for a 60 year old widower, a 50 old lady may be a very good companion and just exactly what he needs.

I'd also like to point out that from a Christian point of view, we should be a bit more charitable to those less fortunate. It can be dangerous when we start dividing people into groups based solely on their utility/ worldly achievements. I've seen men saying that women after certain age should die already since nobody wants them, or that all childless unmarried women are totally useless. Of course, we can apply the same criteria to men and come to the conclusion that for instance, a handicapped man who doesn't work has totally no SMV and should die, already. The same will be true for older people of both sexes.

Yet, guess what? I've known a lady all my life who chose not to get married because she has a inheritable disease and wouldn't want her children to have it. She's worked all her life, she helped her family, she's a good Christian. I object to the idea that her life has no value.

I also knew a lady disfigured by cancer whose husband died when she was in her late 60s. Her SMV was probably close to zero, but then what happened? She found a slightly older widower, also suffering from cancer and not in the possession of an ideal body, either, but they are happy together. They support each other in their old days.

Treating people as commodities who only exists that you can profit from them isn't something which we should aspire to. It's a merchant logic, not Western and not Christian.

10 comments:

  1. Housewife from FinlandFebruary 23, 2016 at 5:17 AM

    Very good post.

    I think that SMV-theory probably works in some degree when it comes to casual sex. But when it comes to marriage -well, there are far too many variables. And even in casual sex, there are other things that affect -like pheromones.

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  2. Thanks! I agree about casual sex vs marriage, the problem arises, however, when people start reducing complex problems to sex/lack of it. Like I've read posts that Hitler started WWII because he had no game. It's simply ridiculous.

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  3. Excellent post, particularly the last paragraph. It certainly is not Christian to regard people and categorize them in this way. ~Lady Virtue

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  4. Thanks, Lady Virtue and welcome to the blog!

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  5. And who's to judge who deems what is beautiful or not?

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  6. Well, we have certain standards of beauty, and most men prefer certain things in women. I don't have a problem with that, my point is, love isn't entirely rational and you can't reduce relationships between people to mathematical equations. One girl can be objectively more beautiful than her neighbour, but have "an attitude". The other girl can be more plain, but have good character and be fun to be around. The same is true about men, while one can have more power, status and money he can be all around a horrible human being. Material things are important, but they aren't the only thing which is important. And Westerners have always been idealistic. It's since we lost our idealism that our troubles began.

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  7. I didn't know about the SMV-theory. I just knew people have the tendency to separate sex from marriage which leads to changing partners and ignoring other criteria that make husband and wife stick to their marriage.
    Ps. I switched to barley and chicory coffee 2 days ago. I chose a variant with more cereals and less chicory but it is ok. I can rest in the afternoon since I gave up real coffee. I really enjoy a short nap, it helps me get up fresh next morning.

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  8. Well, sex outside marriage has always existed, but it was frowned upon. It wasn't something you talked about in polite company and men who had mistresses were supposed to keep it to themselves. Nowadays, sex is treated as another commodity and both men and women openly brag about their experiences in this field.And then we get theories like SMV which are trying to reduce people to just a combination of purely material aspects.

    As for coffee, I haven't tried the barley variety yet. I still have the pure chicory variant but since the one with cereals is cheaper, I may give it a try.

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  9. Housewife from FinlandFebruary 24, 2016 at 7:58 AM

    What annoys me most in the SMV-theory is that it assumes that all women are the same. So do the "gamers", or how those men are called in english who make it sport to have casual sex? Especially those "gamers" seem to believe that if you play well enough, ANY woman will have casual sex with you.

    What bothers me that the difference between decent women and those not-so-decent does not exist anymore. It is like people wouldn't acknowledge anymore, that the difference exists. Especially those MRM-men.

    It makes me feel very insecure. Back in the old days, if you were a decent woman, men treated you as such. Nowadays you can be treated in any way, quite randomly, no matter what what you are. I would very much prefer a world where my actions would have som effect on how people treat me.

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  10. They assume all women are sluts because those are the only women they interact with, since they spend all their free time chasing them:)

    What I find most irritating is how some men think they are all entitled to 9 or 10, while being really nothing special. Those girls know their own value, of course they will go for the best man available. These guys keep decrying hypergamy while they themselves are doing exactly the same, only going after the cream of the crop. Give this nerdy overweight girl with spectacles a chance, she may have a heart of gold:)

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