Glenn Geher Ph.D.

The Psychology of the Backup Boyfriend or Girlfriend

The psychology of keeping someone on the back-burner.

Posted Jan 04, 2019

Source: Baranq/Shutterstock

This guest post was primarily written by Nicole Wedberg, M.A.

Imagine this scenario: Pam is engaged to Roy. Pam also has a close friend at work — his name is Jim. Pam and Jim enjoy each other’s company, buy each other the occasional vending machine snack, listen to each other’s complaints about work, etc. If you’ve seen The Office, you know exactly how this story ends. At first, we try to accept that Jim is in the friend zone, but this just isn’t so. It’s impossible to deny that they have chemistry — Jim is not merely a friend. As the story unfolds (sorry for the spoiler!), Pam and Roy’s relationship ends, a new relationship begins with Pam and Jim, and the two of them go on to live happily ever after. You could argue here that Jim started out as Pam’s “backup” boyfriend — he was waiting in the bull pen and ready to step up to the plate the moment Roy was benched. Whether Pam was consciously aware of the fact that she had a backup boyfriend is another matter, but objectively that’s exactly what Jim was.

I think this is a familiar scenario to a lot of people in the real world, and that’s what makes it so relatable in the show. Even women who are already with Mr. Right (Jim, in our example) sometimes still have a Mr. Plan B ... just in case. Or at least that’s how it seemed to me when I was in graduate school. I bartended nights and weekends, and I couldn’t help but notice this phenomenon going on around me.

Romantic Partner Insurance As a Mating Strategy

Humans employ a wide array of mating strategies (Gangestad & Simpson, 2000). The research here focused on some of the mating strategies of heterosexual women. Prior research has shown that women will actually modify their behavior depending on what type of relationship they’re looking for (Cashdan, 1993). Those looking to settle down with Mr. Right will dress with more elegance and emphasize behaviors that indicate loyalty and an interest in fidelity. Those looking for more of a Mr. Right Now will flaunt their sexuality a bit more. Even among other women on the prowl, female mating strategies morph into something more competitive. Those who are generally more narcissistic in nature tend to display intrasexual competition more frequently than others (Carter, Montanaro, Linney, & Campbell, 2015). An example of this might be one woman giving another a false compliment — telling a woman at the bar that you love her shoes, when actually you think your crush will find them hideous, is one way to try and eliminate some competition for your desired mate. It’s not a very kind approach, but it happens.

So how does this relate to Pam? I looked into existing research to see if this “backup” boyfriend idea had ever been studied. As it turns out, Dibble et al. (2015) found that college women, on average, have 3.78 Mr. Plan B's. In fact, roughly two-thirds of all college students who are in a committed relationship openly admit to having at least one Mr./Ms. Plan B (Dibble et al., 2015). I decided to narrow my sample to only heterosexual women and study this a bit more in-depth.

First, I had to define what it was that I was actually studying. With the help of Glenn (who was my thesis advisor), and other members of the New Paltz Evolutionary Psychology Lab, I coined the term "partner insurance." Just as you might have homeowner’s insurance in the unfortunate event that your house burns down, maybe women have partner insurance — a backup boyfriend, ready and waiting in case your current relationship burns down. If this is indeed a discernible phenomenon, A) how do we measure it, and B) what predicts it?

Measuring the Tendency to Have a Backup Boyfriend

To answer the first question, we created a new scale, called the Plan B Proclivity Scale (PBP). It measures the degree to which women consider their closest platonic male friend a romantic “backup plan.” It includes items that participants rated with a close male friend in mind from "Strongly Disagree" to "Strongly Agree." A couple examples of these items are: “I’m fairly sure that, if given the chance, this person would want to date me,” and “I discuss personal things with this person.” At the end of the scale, we offered a dichotomous "yes or no" question to participants: “Separate from anything else, would you say that, in your life, you have a heterosexual male friend that you consider to be a 'Plan B'?” The answer to this question lumped participants into a category of either having partner insurance or not having partner insurance. (Note: In Part II, we will present that scale in full and will provide a scoring key — so stay tuned.)

Predictors of Having a Backup Boyfriend

To answer the second question (What predicts this phenomenon?), we have to examine heterosexual female mating strategies through a Darwinian lens. We already know that humans have evolved to utilize a variety of mating strategies, so perhaps partner insurance is just another one. From an evolutionary perspective, considering that fitness is measured strictly by the number of offspring one produces into future generations; it might actually be adaptive for a woman to have a Mr. Plan B lined up. If anything were to happen with the current relationship that caused its demise, raising children alone would be awfully tough. Having an insurance plan for your love life would increase the probably of genetic success. If partner insurance is indeed another one of these female mating strategies, we need to figure out what predicts it.

Relationship satisfaction seemed like an obvious place to start. Folks start looking and interviewing for new jobs when they’re unhappy in their current position. We can easily argue that someone unhappy in her current relationship may start to wander and look for other romantic opportunities. Sure enough, those who rated their current committed relationship with low satisfaction were significantly more likely to indicate that yes, they had partner insurance.

"Sociosexual orientation" is a fun term that essentially describes an individual’s attitude, behavior, and desire for commitment-free sex. Prior research has demonstrated that having an unrestricted sociosexual orientation predicts a desire for preferred mating traits in opposite-sex platonic friends (Lewis, Al-Shawaf, Conroy-Beam, Asao, & Buss, 2012). Simply explained, this means that if you score relatively high on the scale measuring sociosexual orientation (SOI-R), you’re more likely to have non-romantic opposite-sex friends who are very much like what you are attracted to in terms of romantic partners. This was a huge sign to me that something could be going on here. Lo and behold, women with an unrestricted sexual orientation are significantly more likely to report that they also have partner insurance.

An unexpected predictor of partner insurance turned out to be age. After discovering this finding, I had a bit of a “Duh!” moment. In hindsight, it makes so much sense. Younger women in the sample were significantly more likely to report having partner insurance than were older women in the sample. The reason this was retrospectively obvious to me is partly due to the nature of menopause. From a strictly evolutionary and biological perspective, once a female has surpassed the ability to reproduce, she has no reproductive need to have backup mates lined up. It could also be the case that partner insurance is simply a younger woman's game that women tend to grow out of. Who knows!?

Personality, of course, occurred to me as a potential predictor as well — after all, if those who are more narcissistic engage in more competitive mating strategies, maybe they are also more likely have a high Plan-B proclivity. The Dark Triad (Paulhus & Williams, 2002) measures three different, but related personality traits — Machiavellianism, psychopathy, and narcissism. I predicted that women scoring high in these traits may be more likely to have a Mr. Plan B, and sure enough, that is exactly how the data panned out. Women who report being generally more socially manipulative, emotionally apathetic, and overly concerned with themselves are significantly more likely to have a high Plan-B proclivity than do others, thus supporting the prediction that Dark Triad personality traits serve as a function of increased sexual competition, as well as short-term mating strategies.

Bottom Line

So, when all is said and done, what are we looking at? I found that 20 percent of heterosexual women in committed relationships — one in five — will report having a Mr. Plan B. My research here provides support to the idea of partner insurance being a possible mating strategy among heterosexual women. To the extent that women in committed relationships may consider their closest male platonic friend to be a backup romantic partner, we also now have a new scale that measures this phenomenon (to be provided in full, with a scoring key, in Part II of this post!).

As to whether this is a wise or good mating strategy is a whole other matter. Speaking completely anecdotally, I’m guessing Pam and Jim are the exception to the rule, and that Mr. Plan B’s rarely become Mr. Plan A’s. Further research is needed to find out (What are your plans for your master's thesis in psychology?).

This post is based on Nicole Wedberg's Master's thesis, which was successfully defended in the Psychology Department at the State University of New York at New Paltz in 2016.

References

Carter, G. L., Montanaro, Z., Linney, C., & Campbell, A. C. (2015). Women’s sexual competition and the Dark Triad. Personality and Individual Differences, 74, 245-279.

Cashdan, E. (1993). Attracting mates: Effects of paternal investment on mate attraction strategies. Ethology and Sociobiology, 14,(1), 1-23.

Dibble, J. L., & Drouin, M. (2014, May). Using modern technology to keep in touch with back burners: an investment model analysis. Computers in Human Behavior, 34, 96-100.

Dibble, J. L., Drouin, M., Aune, K. S., & Boller, R. R. (2015, June 11). Simmering on the back burner: communication with and disclosure of relationship alternatives. Communication Quarterly, 63(3), 329-344.

Gangestad, S. W., & Simpson, J. A. (2000). The evolution of human mating: Trade-offs and strategic pluralism. The Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 23(4), 573-587.

Lewis, D. M., Al-Shawaf, L., Conroy-Beam, D., Asao, K., & Buss, D. M. (2012). Friends with benefits II: Mating activation in opposite-sex friendships as a function of sociosexual orientation and relationship status. Personality and Individual Differences, 53, 622-628.

Paulhus, D. L., & Williams, K. M. (2002). The Dark Triad of personality: Narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy. Journal of Research in Personality, 36(6), 556.

Penke, L., & Asendorpt, J. B. (2008). Beyond global sociosexual orientations: a more differentiated look at sociosexuality and its effects on courtship and romantic relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 95(5), 1113.

Wedberg, N. A. (2016). Partner Insurance: Women May Have a Backup Partner as a Mating Strategy. Thesis submitted in partial completion of the MA degree in psycohlogy, State University of New York at New Paltz.

Another reason to go MGTOW

Submitted by MGTOW Larry on January 4, 2019 - 5:51pm

Men, instead of wasting time trying to please a hypergamous woman's every whim in a gynocracy that by law makes you a second class citizen, go your own way. Pursue your own interests and leave Plans A, B, C and D to their fates.

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Now, tell us how many Plan B

Submitted by Anonymous on January 4, 2019 - 7:33pm

Now, tell us how many Plan B guys are now incel.

Remember, if yesterday's Plan B is today's incel, he's wishing you the same.

no such thing as an incel

Submitted by Diagoras on January 6, 2019 - 2:45am

Incels voluntarily blame half the population for their failure to interact successfully with women instead of making the changes they need to attract women. They are volunteering to refuse to change the things about themselves that drive women away. - or in some cases, it's that they refuse to learn to be attracted to 7s, even though they are 5s at best, and instead insist on only hitting on 10s. It's not involuntary at all. They do this to themselves. They also refuse to accept any advice from women and instead pay thousands of dollars to frauds who promise they will find one night stands with 10s every night just by wearing silly hats and giving back handed compliments to women in bars.

Or, stop viewing things from

Submitted by Rakim UnderstandThis on January 6, 2019 - 10:39am

Or, stop viewing things from a "must serve women" perspective, and realise that so-called 'adaptation' can also be harmful if that which you adapt to is already diseased! Then it is maladaptive, in effect. There are cultural factors on top of the biological-sexual-evolutionary factors, making WOMEN artificially-suspicious and artificially-selective of certain types of traits? IMHO women aggressively DEMAND to be lied-to. They shirk the responsibility of facing the brutal truth of life. Across the whole spectrum. Then drag men with them. So men adapt by learning to lie to women. Men like a simple life, face it. Oxygen, water, food, shelter, sex, and maybe self-respect (in the form of fulfilling work), but the latter is optional and driven by women, even if we don't admit it consciously.
One cannot understand the whole picture without enumerating ALL aspects of it.
Which women, if committed to a belief system that is inherently based upon a lie-of-omission about human nature (gynocentricism-Feminism as opposed to true gender-equality which is biologically-impossible IMHO) - will REFUSE to do their bit in living in reality. If we don't live in a world where men have to work FAR harder than women at the mating game (thus should be paid more in salaries, to help them pay for seduction and pay for de-stressing from the stress that comes with extra hard work and emotional labour on behalf of women which they will even do for utter STRANGERS just because they are female - it adds-up and men die younger for lots of reasons, ALL related to their role in society and the hard reality of biological reproduction underpins ALL).

Diagoras - you are partly right, but blatantly still dedicated to victim-blaming when it is that subset of men known as incels.
Toxic masculinity is not something that suddenly appears out of nowhere. Men come from women and vice-versa. Men who are not given a place in society that is positive and non-toxic, will become toxic. Either we have a civilised society where everyone has a place if they conform a LITTLE BIT - with the rules up for discussion as they are created, not unwritten slavery-shackles (toxicity is likely caused by forced conformity to toxic unwritten rules, which are unwritten specifically in order to avoid scrutiny because they are a scam on certain people). Alternatively, we have trends towards animalistic anti-civilisation, where people must adapt and fight for their place against the tide and against brutal odds. Since they're men, this is seen as acceptable. Human Rights are a myth for the people who support this unwritten ruleset.
I am -voluntarily- celibate because a large variety of women piss me off with their disgusting bullshit. Happy, healthy, drama-free women are extremely sexy to me. Even from afar they warm my heart - because it gives me HOPE for the future of the human race. Yes, I believe these issues are that profound today in 2019. "Well excuse me for being sensitive". A man's not allowed to be, see? So women hate it when we insist! It is NOT misogyny to react with disgust to the prevalence of misANDRY in society today.
I need to relax as I have PTSD and women just don't care and in fact HATE mentally-ill men. Why? I believe it is because they are control freaks who fear the lack implied control over unruly men. Even though if they were RATIONAL, they'd realise that the mentally-ill are more likely to be victims of violence rather than perpetrators, which is my lived experience). That is called the Fear-Risk Paradox. Female Paranoia, ironically weaponised or just used to abuse good men for being ill (or admitting to being ill). Depression, for example, is often a form of combat fatigue. I have it, in service of my own FAMILY (parents, brothers, sisters), yet it is unrecognised as such. Since we have a matriarch dominating the (lack-of) debate in my family.
So PTSD-victims, get no respect, from most people. I've been called a "wimp" by someone who just met me. She was aggressive and heavily fitness-testing, and I wasn't really asking for that. It was just pushed aggressively, anyway. Knowing that you're NOT going to get hit, due to being female, encourages aggressive behaviour. So even females can trigger my PTSD, because I've had one of them wind up another guy, I assume out of love of drama, who then stated "I can't hit her, so I'm going to hit HIM (me) - and I'd just MET the woman and wasn't her boyfriend, but this idiot was played by her. He should have hit her. Or hit no-one. People are so cowardly in their lack of self-control and lack of control over women.
So, no respect for innocent men who have PTSD or have to put up with that aggression. Unless you're specifically a war veteran as then they relate to it being in SERVICE OF THEM so can respect it, because they are selfish people underneath it all and need things pointing out to them in a society that just serves stuff up to them conveniently, no need to question). It's not ALL women, but the trends towards narcissism and dehumanisation of men (and people in general) ARE negative. I've been successful with women but am not ALLOWED to be a sensitive, perceptive male: "You think too much" [translation of the woman's lying projection: "It is inconvenient for me to manipulate you, because you refuse to act like a dumb animal to be used by me, and I wish to play my part in dumbing-down the whole WORLD, and tell another human being to be less intelligent, for MY SELFISH CONVENIENCE - and an easier life for my male subject, since obviously doing what women say in a gynocentric society makes life easier than rebelling."]
See the huge lies-of-omission? There is a longer story behind this and this woman was exceptional, a BDP case who didn't have an off-switch for her lying, but there are MANY out there, and it's a spectrum, not isolated psycho women or men.
I can go out and get laid in 5 MINUTES flat, if I play it right.
Incel? STFU, I'm voluntarily-so. Labelling it "IN-cel" is a gynocentric Emperor's New Clothes-style lie that is necessary to avoid criticising women when women are to blame. Which they never are, right? Right?! Good luck with the disgraceful excuse for a society that you will get and are already getting, following that logic, "genius".
Only self-awareness (individual, group, whole human race) will get us out of this. Now the real sexism is in HALF the human race demanding - and idiot enablers giving them - a free pass on becoming self-aware. What are they so scared of that they aggressively refuse to do it? Doing their share of the man's excessive Emotional Labour, is what, IMHO. Look around without ANY taboos and tell it like it is.

it's monogamy, not women, that is the problem

Submitted by Diagoras on January 6, 2019 - 2:01pm

The only thing women demand to be lied about has to do with monogamy. Without monogamy we could all start having honest relationships. As for mental illness, it carries a stigma for EVERYONE including women. That is a separate problem entirely. One caveat, you should be in complete working order before entering a new relationship (prescriptions, therapy, whatever it takes.)

About dating a woman who hit you, sorry that happened but I'm going to say the same thing I would say to a woman with a history of abusive partners, there might be a reason you are attracted to someone who is not only emotionally unavailable but abusive. The reason is usually that you are not emotionally ready for a relationship yourself. It's actually a good thing (for you) that you pulled yourself out of the dating pool. The myth of the two halves of a whole is just that. A good relationship means two whole people coming together.

However, you are still making the mistake of assuming that women owe men sex. Look at the animal kingdom. Not all males get to mate with females. Women have their own wants and needs and that is our right. We have every right to our preferences as much as men do.

Plan B refers to a not-so

Submitted by Anonymous on January 6, 2019 - 11:38am

Plan B refers to a not-so-nice treatment of a guy you supposedly like, but not quite as much as some other guy. You're making him think you will at some point date him. If you're both in the same social circle and you do that, you've told the rest of the women in your circle, "Hands off!," when you're not actually dating the guy.

When this happened to me, I was the Plan B. The Plan A guy cheated on her repeatedly, but she kept on with Plan A.

Please don't take Plan A guy behavior out on Plan B guys.

The incels are the guys who were well-behaved, either by choice or lack of options, when women were Plan A'ing and Plan B'ing around them. If they'd done the things you say, they'd know they no longer qualify as incels, which is short for involuntary celibacy.

So don't yell at them, either.

this is what I will yell about...

Submitted by Diagoras on January 6, 2019 - 2:39pm

Incels are not just men who are unsuccessful with women or choose not to date. I've read all the message boards. They want to treat women as property, round us all up, and force us into marriages with men we don't like. They actually say things like "society should distribute women equally". You don't "distribute" human beings. That's sick and twisted.

stop going to these forums to form your reality

Submitted by Anonymous on January 10, 2019 - 7:51am

The Internet is an unreliable place where extremists are more likely to engage and express extreme views

If I claim modern women are all overweight screeching feminism because I frequently visit Tumblr and Twitter, would you want to be grouped with them

grow some wisdom, k?

I was a plan B many years ago...

Submitted by nkjcncjknasckjn on January 4, 2019 - 10:59pm

...What she didn't know was that she was not my plan A

Hence the statement .......

Submitted by MGTOW=outsmart on January 5, 2019 - 2:11pm

Hence the statement ......."outsmart the B#@$%!&"! How socially unifying that group must be. Lets not put ourselves in the other persons shoes and understand their perspectives, motivations or behavior, but instead "go our own way." That line was lyrics for a Fleetwood Mac song..."you can go your own way"..

Another good reason to reinforce the Patriarchy system!

Submitted by Lucifer A on January 5, 2019 - 5:21am

This is one of the many reason to reestablish or rather restrengthen the Patriarchal system in modern societies, instead of causing widespread societal chaos from encouraging disgraceful gynocentric toxic behaviour/culture.

In humans, men should have every right to control the sexuality and reproductive options of their female partners and female in general but today, in most western societies, the exact opposite is happening, ironically using the "social progress" as a pretext.

These women not only have plan B, but often marry the "dad" type of guy and secretly cheat with the "cad" during her fertility period, aka alpha's seed, beta's need. Alternatively, the current modern culture is to marry a rich man, then divorce him a few years or months later, try to snatch the children or deprive paternal care using the court system. A typical example of extreme female hypergamy and its destructive aspect.
Essentially, "modern women" using the men merely as a "sperm donors" and "source of wealth/resource", and the most appalling thing is, the current marital/family laws of many justice system supports this kind of repulsive toxic behaviour. Example, introducing the senseless "divorce without reason" policy. In fact, the state should make marital divorce extremely difficult to obtain but stupidly the opposite is done.

Females are naturally opportunistic and only care about themselves, not that it's bad but perhaps it's just the way females have evolved due to extremely high reproduction cost especially among humans. Most probably it is just an inherent female behaviour.

Therefore, given in humans females have concealed ovulation causing paternal uncertainty via female sexual infidelity easily achievable, the males are absolutely justified in controlling women and punishing women who transgress any established social order. The fact of the matter that needs to be accepted is, women cannot enjoy the seem "sexual freedom" as men, simply due to the sex differences.
In addition, this particularly important because both father and mother are equally important in a child's growing up process. Thus, given paternal care absolutely crucial among humans unlike the rest of 97% or so mammalian species, the control of women is crucial from a social perspective.

Hence, now by equipping ourselves with more comprehensive understanding about the male/female psychology and sexual behaviour through science particularly evolutionary psychology, more effective and meaningful social changes can be designed. Thus, we should really change the legal, political and social system before it is too late because, let's be honest this current warped notion about "gender equality" and "liberal women" is not only a senseless notion but downright bias with overt toxic gynocentric sentiment, ironically discriminating (against men now) and appears to be created specifically to cause social disharmony in the modern society we reside in today.

There simply can't be disruptive social policies and senseless laws enacted by frequent agitation of the mass to protest (like a hate mob) along with, conveniently exploiting fallacious and baseless gender victimology, oppression or discrimination claims, UNLESS social regression or collapse is the ultimate goal.

Wow

Submitted by Angel B on January 5, 2019 - 9:06am

You are actually arguing for the control of women and saying women should not be allowed sexual freedom but that of course men should? And of course women arent even human, but mere property. Dang. And this, based solely on the fact that a researcher found that 20 percent of women had a plan B? Maybe people like you are why women need a plan B.

Yes, but not all women, only

Submitted by Lucifer A on January 6, 2019 - 1:39am

Yes, but not all women, only women who are in committed relationship with a man with a legal marital status recognized by the state and intend to or already have a family (meaning consisting of the couple's own biological children) with him.

Well, just the dynamics of sex, reproduction and the nature of gender traits confers the man to have the "subject" position and the woman to be the object in a heterosexual relationship. It is an undeniable fact resulting from sex differences particularly in relation to reproductive cost & capacity, just as a male is independent while females are dependent.
Moreover, object does NOT in anyway imply one is a non-human "property" or any non-sentient objects for that matter but merely reflects the different sexual dynamics between men and women as explained. This dynamic also means the man has the responsibility to support, protect and provide for his family the adequate basic needs in life. Hence, it is a very fair system.
I assume that's what you meant by stating "women are mere property".

A woman joins a man in marital system simply due to the inability of women bringing up a human offspring by herself independently and the importance of paternal care in humans unlike the vast majority of other mammals. Hence, it is somewhat of a very fair "transactional" relationship between men and women.

My stance is NOT based solely on the fact that a researcher found that 20 percent of women had a plan B but as another crucial element constituting or supplementing the overall "modern" radical changes involving the marital system which is largely bias against men but unfairly favors women, in today's world causing detrimental social problems.

In essence, changing a stable system with effective order to a socially chaotic and disruptive system just due to the senseless notion of eliminating gender roles based on vital sex differences, ironically to promote "gender equality" for social progress but foolishly ignoring the overt truth about genders. Consequently, causing more societal damage then providing any good, truly an imbecilic concept.

again, you are still not treating women as fully human

Submitted by Diagoras on January 6, 2019 - 2:55am

Every human, male and female, has the right to be captain of their own ship. Yes, it's more convenient for two people to raise kids together but why does that mean they have to be trapped together forever? The kids grow up eventually. And the marriage system is actually biased against women, not men. Men usually prefer to be married. If they divorce they choose to marry again. Single and divorced men are less likely to be happy or healthy and more likely to be involved in substance abuse. Single and divorced women on the other hand are either equally as happy as married women or happier than married women. When the kids are gone, there's really no need for a husband anymore unless you are still in love but that rarely happens. Feelings fade. As far as the "backup boyfriend" idea goes, when men are single they do the same thing. They still look around. They still date other people. I can't believe someone wrote a whole article on this like it's some sort of shocking thing.

If you want to be the captain

Submitted by Lucifer A on January 6, 2019 - 6:55am

If you want to be the captain of the ship, then good for you but don't get married especially if you think it is a trap and certainly don't bring an innocent child into this world. It is not just convenient but rather a crucial necessity for a child to be given the care of two parents. So please don't be delusional. Likewise, don't expect the public to be the "father" by milking the public's money to allow a selfish attitude.

You think marriage is bias because you want to have the same independence as men, simply a ludicrous notion, given the significantly high reproductive cost of women compared to men along with reduced ability of women to be as economically successful as men.
However, the man supporting the wife and children including the excessive materialistic nature of women, is still considered "bias against women" ? Oblivious to all the benefit received. only express unhappiness of the apparent downside, not an uncommon behaviour among women.
On the whole, marriage is a fair and synergistic understanding between two opposing individuals which won't work well if one of them is a selfish natured person. Basically, "you can't eat your cake, and have it too", in a marriage.

Single and divorced women are happier because they have essentially "extorted" great amount of money from their former husband to make them richer, as women always practice hypergamy and then to jump from men to men in an erratic manner. The ridiculous part is the state laws support this disgraceful and disgusting female behaviour. No surprise divorce rates have increased significantly to 50% just in the last few decades with up to 80% of divorces are initiated by women but break up rates before marriage is much lower.
It is not rocket science why women would be "happier".

Nonetheless, this toxic attitude definitely has its destructive aspect because it will also be a major cause for women to be more selfish, egocentric, materialistic and money minded
Consequently, resulting in misery, pain and sustained suffering from egocentric attitude.
Moreover, the society will be going to the dogs from such behaviour and if continued, in time there will significant societal degradation to even sustain any proper living conditions. Essentially, in the long run, such western societies will just collapse from irreversible regressive socioeconomic conditions.

So, before wanting to be the captain of a ship, first learn the basic skills needed to be a captain. Otherwise, the ship's journey is doomed. Everything comes with a cost in this Universe!

why assume I don't have the basic skills?

Submitted by Diagoras on January 6, 2019 - 2:35pm

I was married for 18 years and we raised two kids. But I'm not attracted to my ex-husband, so why should I agree to spend the rest of my life having marital maintenance sex? That's the problem with marriage for women. Passion ALWAYS fades. In order to maintain a traditional monogamous marriage, women have 4 choices: 1-cheat and hope she isn't caught 2-refuse her husband any more sex but also torture the husband by insisting he doesn't have any either (you wouldn't believe how many marriages are like that!) 3-ask for an open marriage and be lucky enough to have that rare husband willing to try it or 4-have marital maintenance sex for the rest of her life. Don't get me wrong, doing that once in a blue moon isn't a big deal but if it's every single time for months or years on end it's demoralizing for women and if the man know she's reluctant, it's demoralizing to husbands as well. Sex is about desire and marriage kills that. And after the kids are grown, why stay? Here are some other reasons marriage sucks for women...

1- If he loses his job and needs to leave the state to go elsewhere, she has to move with him. She can't even control where she lives!

2- If someone's career needs to be sacrificed, it's always hers.

3- Very few men clean up after themselves (although that's changing in the younger generations). The usual excuse is that men have different standards of cleanliness but either something is sanitary or it isn't. At least if I'm living alone I only have myself to clean up after (and the dogs but they have an excuse for not helping out.)

4- Your decisions about money can be vetoed but if he wants to do something risky with "his" money he'll ignore your veto, his scheme will fail, and then both of you are in danger of a home foreclosure and forced into bankruptcy even though it was HIS dumb idea. You really need to be married to someone with the exact same money philosophy as you for it to work, and women on average tend to be more risk averse than men when it comes to money (and I am even more so than the average woman.)

5- If your husband is a hoarder and starts spending money on storage warehouses that you can't afford, there's really not much you can do (except divorce him.)

6- Turns out it's more important to me to have my dogs than to keep a human around who keeps complaining about them.

Oh, and for the record - the kids already sensed there was something wrong and were fine with the divorce.

What we should do is to change marriage into a temporary arrangement for raising kids - and the marital relationship need not be a sexual or romantic one - just two people (or more) who get along and have similar philosophies on raising kids. Monogamy would not be expected, neither would sex (although they could if they both wanted to), and the kids would be raised to expect a divorce at a certain age as being a normal part of marriage.

With romance and sex being out of the equation it would be easier for the parents to get along for longer periods of time, and since the kids expect a divorce as the natural course of things they wouldn't suffer any emotional trauma. And men wouldn't be hassled about watching porn or wanting sex with other women. It would be a win-win for everyone.

Well first and foremost

Submitted by Lucifer A on January 7, 2019 - 7:15am

Well first and foremost marriage is voluntary, nobody is compelled to be in one. So, if you think it is not for you, then by all means don't get married. Simple.

However, if you do intend to enjoy the perks of marriage, its companionship, support and especially if you want to have kids as most women would desire, then, the person has to be ready to sacrifice and put in the sufficient effort for the relationship to work.
So, it is a major decision which needs commitment, dedication and most importantly have a very willing to sacrifice, attitude, otherwise you would be just marrying "misery". Plain and simple, not rocket science.

Heterosexual Marriage as I said before, is a "social contract" between two different people with very opposing nature but complement each other very well, so they have to cooperate to work in a synergistic manner to achieve the most optimum benefit coupled with the most efficient expenditure of energy which primarily involves each gender embracing their intrinsic gender traits and using their advantageous gender abilities to yield the best returns.
Rest assured, this is one of the most, if not the most 'ideal' marital outcome, as it follows a natural order.

Sorry but other methods wont be as functional or as effective as this one especially all this shenanigans about "gender equality" rubbish, is just a complete hogwash! I am not going to sugar-coat anything here.
I never understood how far people can go just to shamelessly perpetuate a lie and in the process ruin people's lives, truly a very perverse conduct in my view.

Thus, if you are not happy being a women or cannot accept your feminine nature, then either remain unmarried probably live your life as "butch lesbian" doing some "man job" OR have homosexual relationship with another woman where you can actually experience true "gender equality", or whichever and whatever relationship that makes you happy. No fixed rule here to follow strictly.

However, don't get married, and then whine about how "unfair" marriage is, keep repeating all that senseless feminist rubbish, cry and throw tantrums because such stupidity will only end up making one's life more miserable.
Humans are free to decide on choices available and once a choice is made, learn to stick to it. There's nothing perfect in life as everything is relative, so be more adaptive to circumstances, a hallmark ability of mankind.

And as for the "no sex in a marriage" concept, NO man, I repeat NO MAN (perhaps older men but even that's rare), will be interested to be involved in a sexless marriage. Sex is a very central masculine need for men, just as, a secure relationship is for women.

In a "marital contract", basically women are "offering or rather selling", only two things to the man, 'sex & children' because everything else a man is virtually capable of doing or achieving independently.
There's nothing unfair, right or wrong here, it just the way males and females have evolved over millions if not billions of years. Essentially, men are designed just to have sex, while women are designed to reproduce, the female has a much higher breeding cost than the male because males evolved to be the more differentiated sex.
The "reproductive rules" were just set that way long time ago, nothing really can be changed now.

Therefore, in return for sex & progeny, a woman improves her life to a more luxurious and fully supported life by her husband as the primary provider and protector.
A simple and basic understanding of a heterosexual marriage, when seen from a bigger picture, is actually quite fair.

At the end of the day, everything comes with it's own sets of pros and cons including its unique "price tag".
As I said nothing is free in this Universe but we all are fairly free to decide and once decided, then one has to be willing to live with the chosen decision including all that comes with that choice,....the good, the bad and the ugly. Easy peasy!

Just FYI

Submitted by Anonymous on January 6, 2019 - 4:41am

Not all women are unable to bring up a human offspring by themselves independently. I got pregnant by a man who said he couldn’t help me out, so I went on to raise my son by myself. Paternal involvement is optimal in child rearing; however, it is not necessary. When the biological dad opts out of child rearing, there are usually other men who step in as male role models. For example, uncles, grandpas, etc. As more women become educated, having to join a man in a marital system out of need is going to be a thing of the past. In my life now, I can choose to date whoever I want since I don’t have to worry about finding a man to support me. Times are changing. Either change with them or be left behind.

It is a fact that children

Submitted by Lucifer A on January 6, 2019 - 5:54am

It is a fact that children without any paternal care risk doing poorly academically and socially to be involved in various substance abuse or juvenile delinquency. Boys likely will become violent abusers in adulthood and girls will become sexually promiscuous women with no self worth whatsoever.

The expense attached to human evolution especially in terms of intelligence including high reproductive cost, is the absolute need for two parental care for optimum, balanced and fair care of the offspring especially given in more than 97% mammalian species, paternal care is virtually non-existent.
Thus, it is an undeniable fact a child must have the equal care of two parents in order to produce a fairly whole individual with a balanced well-being so, deprivation of any one of the parent's care deliberately or irresponsibly should be classified as "child abuse". Period.

If there's is no father in a child's life, one is still morally obligated to involve other male roles models in some reasonable way, as you yourself stated " other men who step in as male role models. For example, uncles, grandpas,.."

Nonetheless, numerous evidence show single parent is a significant and growing social problem particularly in modern societies, not to mention the selfish 'milking' of public welfare funds essentially to pay for the the child's entire life. No doubt it is an outrageous behaviour that marks the significant degradation of a society.

Therefore, please don't give me some "baloney idea" about "educated women" or "changing times" because such disgraceful and disgusting conduct, is not only severely egocentric, to say the very least but the intentional paternal care deprivation is inherently quite abusive towards the innocent child. Totally an outrageous and repulsive 'thought process' to even suggest such a warped idea, as being part of a "positive" societal change.

all those effects...

Submitted by Diagoras on January 6, 2019 - 2:42pm

All those effects are entirely due to poverty. Children raised by a single parent with plenty of money do not suffer any harm at all. She's right. Two parents aren't absolutely essential, just more convenient.

COMPLETE NONSENSE, it has

Submitted by Lucifer A on January 7, 2019 - 7:49am

COMPLETE NONSENSE, it has nothing to do with poverty but rather a major cause for social ills in the modern and "progressive" societies, particularly in the West.

In fact, if this social depravity is left to continue, it will become a vicious cycle, the effects strengthening in every subsequent generation and eventually cause poverty. So, single parenthood will eventually cause poverty from deteriorating socioeconomic living condition not the other way around. Crucial point that needs addressing.

It has nothing to do with money but primarily about providing a child a safe, secure, stable home coupled with sufficient emotional support and care by two parents to ensure the child's well being is optimal. Period.

Furthermore, there is absolutely NO justification whatsoever, for the use of public funds to support child of women who voluntarily or irresponsibly decided to become a single mother. Public cannot be punished for poor judgement, irresponsible and selfish behaviour of such women. Outrageous conduct!

You got pregnant by a guy who after penetration decided ...

Submitted by Formula One on January 6, 2019 - 9:01am

You are so freaking smart,rubbers cost a buck apiece,now you have to raise a child alone...

Really?

Submitted by Anonymous on January 6, 2019 - 10:19am

You are going to judge me for something that happened over 20 years ago? I will admit that I didn’t make the best choices back then, but, unfortunately, I was young and immature at the time.

Angel B - and YOU react

Submitted by Anonymous on January 6, 2019 - 11:42am

Angel B - and YOU react without critical analysis of the issues. Men need to control their women because women are wayward and even chimpanzees go off in secret to have sex with other males outside the accepted group.
Why aren't MEN'S FEELINGS on this subject respected? Is it because women are so ignorant of human sexuality that they don't understand the male anxiety about being cuckholded is real, profound (raise another man's genetic child for 18 years and all the labour, emotional, physical, and financial that this takes? Compare that to women being treated like property in some lesser way, and realise that women CANNOT be cuckholded by their man, so NATURE creates this sexism. Why cannot men be respected when they have a serious logical reason for the way they feel and act? Unless... hmm... men are seen as objects and PROPERTY to be earned by manipulation, and to be used without remorse. Some sugar-coating and even 'love' is possible on top, but from a brutal sexual evolution perspective, this is how the hell it is. Don't add insult to injury by LYING about it. Cuckholdery is apparently up to 30% of the children raised by men. Think about that. Are 30% of women treated as property in such a severely-abusive way?
Or is abusive not defined by respect for human rights, and profound needs - but by whether people find out about it?
If you subscribe to THAT world-view, then you are addicted profoundly to lying by default. Such a person deserves no vote, as they cannot be responsible enough to debate and think critically enough to elect responsible leaders. Instead, the leaders will reflect THEM. Now look around at the politicians we're getting (or have always gotten?) and stop blaming someone else for the failings of our democracy.

This is women's CHOICE in modern society, now that they are (semi-) liberated. They SHOULD be judged on their actions and choices. But of course they WANT the easy route of a free pass to act how they like. That is the sick fruit of 'equality' (read Orwell's Animal Farm, it's very short and easy to understand).
Freedom IS responsibility. Otherwise civilisation COLLAPSES into selfish free-for-all (or dictatorship control-freakery where humanity dies and we become robotic). Inherently, civilisation NEEDS RULES THAT WORK AND ARE CONFORMED TO AND AGREED-TO AS BETTER THAN THE ALTERNATIVE and enforced as universally as possible. Not a huge 51% of humans get a free pass just for being female, can you say "female lower court sentences for the same crimes" without choking on the need to hide this reality in order to profit more from it?
Stop thinking for your selfish needs, and apply the concept of 'need' beyond your own ego. Can't do it, can you? I hope you can, but frankly, the odds are poor!
So, again, WHY is women being property so bad, if MEN being (manipulated, collective) property of women in general, NOT bad. Look around and see it - if you've got the guts to admit things that are against your own selfish interest, in the holistic interest of humanity, that is. Or just men, because we deserve it. How dare I suggest a woman put men first, it feels like - and I was raised Feminist who they LIE is "for everyone"!

There's this new thing called a DNA paternity test!

Submitted by Diagoras on January 6, 2019 - 2:52pm

So because men don't get what they want from women you have the right to enslave us?! Maybe find another way to get what you want. Men can't be tricked into raising someone else's child anymore because he can always ask for a paternity test. So if that is the fear, it is an irrational one.

If your "feelings" are about not just paternity but also about a woman you are involved with having sex with someone else, you should know that "feelings" can be changed with a little perspective. Feelings need to be controlled to some extent. You can't base everything you do on how you feel in the moment, because otherwise you are letting your emotions control you. Jealousy can be mediated or controlled just like any other emotion. Besides, we all know men want to have sex with more than one woman per lifetime or even per week so why not give everyone their freedom? The only person you can really control is yourself. If your happiness depends on controlling someone else, you are doomed.

I'm sorry, I just want to

Submitted by Lucifer A on January 7, 2019 - 11:04am

I'm sorry, I just want to state that paternity test has no power of hardwired feelings emerging from the primitive limbic system particularly the amygdala. NO WAY, guaranteed. It is essentially like an involuntary response.

If it was so easy to control human emotions or behaviour, then all prisons and mental health hospitals will be empty and the staff would be out of job but on the contrary the numbers in both areas are increasing.

If only a simple test such as a paternity test had the miraculous power of controlling emotion especially an emotional response emerging from a very primitive part of the brain. Such a feat would be infinitely greater that the actual function of the test. Good one!!! LOL......what a joke...hahaha

This is ridiculous....

Submitted by Sic on January 5, 2019 - 8:29pm

You do realize that you're implying every women ever (or, at the very least a huge majority of women) cheat on their husbands?
Without any proof and with all evidence pointing towards that being completely false, might I add.

Like, I get part of your point. The whole "discrimination isn't getting less, it's just that guys are getting discriminated now instead of women"-thing, but you have to realize that just switching back to discriminating women is not the answer to this issue, man.
The only way to fix this whole thing is by continually raising awareness whenever discrimination takes place, especially when it starts to become more common or even a thing done by law enforcement.
Sure, kinda lame. Kinda shitty, 'cause it's not a huge or simple thing, but instead this long, slow stupid process and stuff.
But pushing someone else down, just so you yourself won't get pushed down? That's stupid, man. Only thing that'll lead to is anger and rebellion from the suppressed/oppressed people.
So I'm sorry, but going back to the way things were, in the long-long-before, simply isn't an option and would definitely not lead to less toxicity, chaos or even violence.
Instead, it would increase all three of them.

Also, kinda confused why you thought this was the right article for you to comment this on.
Because, well, didn't you read the part where the author stated nearly 2/3 of people in relationships have a Plan B? And then the part where it's roughly 20% of women?
Meaning, logically, there would have to be around 70-90% (if not 100%) of men who also have a Plan B, for that stat to make any sense at all.
That's not written in the article, sure, but it's the only way for that stat to make any sense at all (because if one half is roughly 20% and you wanna reach roughly 60% you're gonna need the other half to be at least 80%, but honestly more like 100%) - and seeing as the stat does get mentioned in the article, it is part of the message the article is trying to send.
'Course, the 2/3 stat was probably unrelated from the 20% stat ('specially because it's kind of a preposterous idea that 80% of guys in relationships have a Plan B. Like, sorry, but that just doesn't seem realistic to me..). Doesn't change that the way it's presented, with the author saying "2/3 of PEOPLE in relationships do this" and "20% of WOMEN do this", it obviously implies 70-90% for men. So -no matter if this is truly factual or not- the article is indirectly stating that roughly 20% of women and 70-90% of men might have a Plan B.
So.... why exactly do you think it's an awful, toxic, world-ending thing that 20% of women in relationships seem to have a Plan B?:/
Because.... how dare some women have other options, even if way more men than woman look for other options, I.... guess? Or maybe because only men are allowed to look for them? Or... well.... no. I just gotta be honest: I'm really not understanding your reasoning here...
Like, seriously, did we not read the same article or what happened?

I am not sure what exactly

Submitted by Lucifer A on January 6, 2019 - 4:49am

I am not sure what exactly you are outraged about or what you think is ridiculous.

First and foremost I am not implying anything specific nor am I generalizing about women because a large majority of women wouldn't act in a manner that opposes their intrinsic feminine nature but nowadays, there are relentless attempts caused by ignorant "activist groups" to foolishly change these gender norms that on the long run, will only spell a social disaster, of which fairly notable early signs of this detrimental social change is already evident in many "modern western societies". There is absolutely no use living in a luxurious and affluent society but concurrently suffer severe disruption in one's family, emotional, mental or social well-being, depriving people of joy, happiness and contentment. In time, the socioeconomic impact will be highly detrimental.

My stance is NOT based solely on the fact that a researcher found that 20 percent of women had backup boyfriend plan instead the overall "modern" radical changes involving the marital system which is largely bias against men but notably favors women, in today's world causing toxic social problems. It is no surprise just merely in the last few decades, divorce rates have increased significantly with up 70-80% being initiated by women.

Hence, what I am stating is not some radical concept nor is it a socially regressive ideology but just reestablishing an effective and stable hierarchical social system in keeping with progressive liberal values and successful capitalism centered economy.

Furthermore, it is a very fair and pragmatic system based on the inherent qualities or natural attributes of human including recognizing, accepting along with acting based on the intrinsic gender differences that exist among humans. It also ensures ongoing progress, social order and sustained success.
If not the society will be going to the dogs and in time, the entire culture along with the civilization will ultimately collapse. Guaranteed.

Thus, just pretending the genders are equal or have the same ability and skills is not only an ignorant idea but downright harmful notion. Rest assured, there will be no society where gender differences can be eliminated whereby both sexes are involved equally in all aspects of life with the exception perhaps of people living in an extremely autocratic government. Or an utopia nation of a fantasy world.
In fact, the more socially egalitarian a society is, the bigger the gender differences are.

So, please don't perpetuate a baseless claim of oppression and discrimination of women in the past. Likewise, please don't be part of the mass of blind sheep just falling into trap of big lie because, I got news for you, at the end of the day, it is you who will suffer together with all the other sheep.
Truth based on Nature can NEVER be replaced by a "socially constructed lie" in order to fit some hidden agenda of a warped ideology that perpetuates a rather perverse narrative about the nature of genders in humans.

you contradicted yourself

Submitted by Diagoras on January 6, 2019 - 3:25pm

You said marriage is biased against men but that it is women who initiate divorce. Logically that would mean that women are more unhappy about being married than men are (and in fact studies have shown this.) So instead of forcing us to do something we don't want, why not make marriage more attractive to women (but without society tricking us into buying a bunch of romantic bs.)

And I can't believe you buy the BS that women are naturally monogamous. That lie was invented for two reasons. 1-When women were not allowed to work, we did have fewer affairs but that is only because we had fewer opportunities to cheat. Now that women are in the workforce in equal numbers to men, both men and women cheat at the same rates. 2- Men want to believe that women are naturally monogamous to ease their fear of being cheated on. It's a fairy tale. Nothing more.

And of course you would espouse a hierarchical system that puts you at the top of the hierarchy. Nope, no self-interested BS to see there (sarcasm).

Marriage in its original form

Submitted by Lucifer A on January 7, 2019 - 12:49pm

Marriage in its original form is very fair and pragmatic being a very effective synergistic system that considers both men and women's ability, potential and capability, memorialized ,certified, and recognized as a valid "contract" by the state.

So, I did not claim marriage was bias against men nor was it bias against women. Perhaps, I would have said monogamy & the marriage system is inherently better suited for women's reproductive success than men....something along those lines.

However, what I did explicitly state was, "the overall "modern" radical changes involving the marital system which is largely bias against men but notably favors women, " which is referring to the toxic gynocentric "modern" changes to the laws regarding marriage and divorce, that's an absolute disgrace to the justice system. If it was any business or any other written contract, the court would have immediately thrown out the case!

Nevertheless, due to society increase tolerance and pity towards women's perceived "vulnerability", such shenanigans are entertained by the courts. That is the main reason women use and abuse marriage as "source income" to improve their living condition. That is actually quite a clear and obvious fact.

Regardless, women not being happy in a marriage has got NOTHING to do with men NOR is a new phenomenon, because it is also very common among lesbian couple, most probably it must some intrinsic mental issue related to emotional instability of the female psyche, perhaps paranoia or neurosis causing perpetual discontentment.

I didn't say that women are naturally monogamous, did I?
How did you deduce that?
Monogamy of course is more ideal and suitable for females' reproductive success. Likewise, promiscuity is inherent part of male sexuality that help increase men's reproductive success. Thus, men who are actually sacrificing more than women to sustain monogamy yet more women are unhappy, perhaps this just proves women's perpetual discontent emotion is the real and only culprit here.
Regardless, that in NO way means women don't cheat, in fact technically, only women that are actually capable and need to "cheat" in marriage not men. Plus, women cheating will be a very well calculated act, balancing all the pros and cons before doing it.
Therefore, women will more likely cheat given an opportunity particularly, if the beta male husband does NOT have the whole "package". So, women will go wandering, seeking for the more private and highly valued alpha male's "package", especially during the ovulation period. This is the "cad and dad" or "alpha's seed, beta's need" female paradigm....perhaps also read about "the sexy son hypothesis".
That's the major reason I specifically stated, a husband is completely justified to control his wife's, her sexuality and appropriately punish her if she transgresses this rule. It should be part of the marriage understanding to be fair.

Please, don't ever assume I said or meant in anyway that all women are only sweet, angelic and only keen in monogamy.

Not outraged, just confused, to be honest

Submitted by Sic on January 6, 2019 - 3:51pm

Still think it's ridiculous, though. In a "wowza, there's people that believe that? That's kinda hilarous, I guess."-kinda way. But, y'know, I think I found the issue:
"Furthermore, it is a very fair and pragmatic system based on the inherent qualities or natural attributes of human including recognizing, accepting along with acting based on the intrinsic gender differences that exist among humans."
That right there? Is not something I believe to be the truth. Well... to be more exact, I do not believe there are particularily many clear differences between men and women.
Physically, sure. And we can talk about them all day, because of e.g. physical limits and such that cannot be surpassed by a person.
But cognitively it's all pretty much the same. The only real difference is how often what cognitive mindset occurs. Like, a few are more common for women and a few different ones are more common for men. Making a clear distinction is not possible, though, because people of all (cognitive) abilities and mindsets will still be present in each group.
(If you have the same opinion about this, then please elaborate on the specific differences between the genders that make you see a need for a different society than our current one.
If you have a different opinion, then I guess this particular part of the discussion is gonna be over now, 'cause I'm not gonna debate about this. Mainly because the evidence I could present is only anecdotal, so it would be up to you to believe me (and change your entire worldview, I guess), or not believe me (and be able to keep on living as you currently are).
And I'm pretty sure I already know which one you're gonna end up doing. Because, hey, why change your entire worldview just 'cause of one random guy who was debating with you online, right? So, obviously, I wouldn't even blame you for it...
But, if you would actually be interested in challenging your view on this, then I would of course elaborate, I just don't see the point in it, unless you do.)

Now, onto the other point:
"There is absolutely no use living in a luxurious and affluent society but concurrently suffer severe disruption in one's family, emotional, mental or social well-being, depriving people of joy, happiness and contentment."
But why do you think it will cause that? Or, well, more accurately: Why do you think people will end up destroying their own (other other people's) lives, just 'cause they have a Plan B?
Why do you even assume a majority of people will have a Plan B?
I mean, look at it this way: This entire article is only talking about the study, right? And the study (as far as I read, at least...) was only about college girls, right?
So you gotta consider that, when you're in college, you're relatively young. You may think to yourself that you should look at every "option" available to you. You may be unsure about who you're dating, because everyone's telling you "oh, but you're still so young! How can you know if this is really The One for you?". You might be in your first serious relationship and still unsure about how exactly a relationship is supposed to be, so you're also unsure about whether your significant other is really right for you.
That kinda stuff gets less severe the older you get, right?
'Cause you get more secure in what you actually want and what's really right for you. So you let go of the possible Plan B, because you realize your significant other really was right for you. Or you break up and get with your Plan B, 'cause they're actually the kinda person you want to be in a relationship with.
Either way, Plan Bs are bound to get way rarer with age (as the article itself states as well).
So it's 20% of women IN COLLEGE that have a Plan B.
But that tells us nothing about how many of them will still have one a few years further in the future. Or a decade later, or whatever.
We know it's less than 20%, though.
(And just looking at my group of friends, I, again, doubt that Plan Bs are even vaguely as common as this article is making it sound, because freaking NONE of my friends have a Plan B. And I'm friends with 5 couples, aged 18-22, so you'd think they'd be right around the perfect age for having a Plan B. And yet, none of 'em have one.
Only two people out of those 10 people are going to college though, so maybe having a plan B is simply a college-thing. Which would, again, showcase that these stats only really apply to college-students and not to any other group of the population.)

So, all things considered, why do you think that 20% of half of the population (at MOST, that is) will end up successfully destroying every good thing about our current society?
Or, alternatively, if this is just one symptom of a bigger issue, what are the other symptoms? What are the ways in which our society is getting worse and worse?

I am sorry but this is NOT

Submitted by Lucifer A on January 8, 2019 - 8:22am

I am sorry but this is NOT about what one believes, not believes, thinks, feels, has an opinion on nor is it what one considers to be "politically correct or incorrect"???

The fact of the matter is there are significant intrinsic gender differences in humans, that are not only physical couple with physiological sex differences but also the existence of psychologically, neurological and even pathological including psychiatric sex differences, all supported by science.

Furthermore, the empirical evidence regarding gender differences is not limited instead it's from various scientific fields that includes, advancing studies in neuroscience, accurate neuroanatomy/physiology using latest medical imaging like fMRI, medical genetics, evolutionary biology, recent neurological studies of transsexuality, evolutionary and cross-cultural psychology including our own human evolutionary history--all the evidences point to the one same consensus, that psychological in addition to physical and psychological sex differences in humans exist, is real and significant. In fact, the evidence is very solid and overwhelming convincing.

Example, several fairly recent, large, cross-cultural studies involving many different nations globally, demonstrates sex difference in assessing the Big Five personality traits, like neuroticism; Dark Triad traits, such as psychopathy; and subjective well-being, like self-esteem or depression, contrary to popular view, showed most sex differences are conspicuously larger in cultures with more egalitarian gender roles—such as Scandinavian nations (highest gender equal index in the world).

Psychology today is apparently an f-up...

Submitted by Sic on January 8, 2019 - 6:08pm

Most of your comment (or at least I'm pretty, sure it's most of it) was cut off by the page (last part is "Finland & Norway that only have" as far as I can tell, so I see myself unable to respond to it... Do you maybe still (roughly) know what your main arguments were or maybe happened to save the comment somewhere?

Also, just real quick: Please don't apologize. It makes me feel like I should apologize as well, for not trying my utmost to understand your position on this. But the truth is simply, that as of right now, it seems like a completely ridiculous position, y'know? So I can't get myself to take it seriously.
Which I guess I AM sorry for, but once we start apologizing here, I feel like this'll drift off into us continuously apologizing and that's not really what we're trying to do here, is it?

Now, with the (first) parts of the comment that DID survive whatever Psychology Today must have effed up somehow, I would actually only be able to restate what I've already said (aka, OPTIONAL READING FROM HERE ON OUT): The mental differences between genders are in percentages, not in whether something applies or doesn't apply. Because everything applies to some extent, even if it's only to, like, 1% of the population with that gender.
As such, making a judgement like yours, that seems to build on a system of "everyone with this gender is this way, so we have to put rules for it in place, even if those rules pose a huge detriment to everyone that doesn't behave in that way" doesn't make sense, because it would not be a merit to society, but instead inconvenience society.
(Aka, your argument is, to put it bluntly, if I've understood your first comment correctly: Women cheat so their men should decide their reproductive rights/sexuality for them.
The detriment: Men could easily force women to have children that they do not want or just straight out rape women.
That's a huge detriment, compared to the possible advantage that could be gained by implementing this, don't you think?)
It's a proposal that especially doesn't make ANY sense, if it isn't a huge majority behaving like this. Seeing as you decided to try and illuminate your hypothesis in a COMMENT towards this article, I would expect the article to support your hypothesis and maybe even be the main argument it builds off of, yet the article doesn't support your hypothesis at all. Because 20% is not a huge majority.
So, actually, the article obviously disagrees with your hypothesis.

Which is why I stated "this is ridiculous", to begin with. Because 1. your proposal still seems more negative than useful to me, 2. it's been proposed in a place where it makes no sense for it to be in (aka, the comments section of this article) and 3. it seems to be based on simplying the human psyche, because you seem to approach it in terms of "everyone does this" and "no one could ever abuse this system".
So maybe at least now it'll be easier to understand why I thought your first comment was ridiculous and what exactly I meant by that, if I already wasn't able to respond to the actual comment you had wanted to make....

Continuation Part 2

Submitted by Lucifer A on January 9, 2019 - 5:05am

The bloody second part got removed. Not sure what happened. Irritating. Anyway the following is the second part. Sorry about the inconvenience.

On the other hand, developing countries often with a more traditional patriarchal social order showed smaller gender differences in personality traits and preferences.
This sex difference in preferences is very notable in selection of job type and position, example, Algeria has more female college graduates in STEM, >40%, compared to Finland & Norway that only have In regards to the control of women's sexuality, it only applies to men and women who are married. Otherwise, there is no reason or motive for the man to support, provide and protect the woman in a marriage which is why sexual infidelity is more detrimental to men than women.
Women have sold their "sexuality and children to the man (husband)" in "technical" marriage terms, which is why the wife and children take on the husband's last name.
Men are essentially independent to do and achieve anything in Life, except to have children and sexual access to women. From that point of view husbands "own" the wife post marriage, in fact I think men have the shorter end of the stick in this "transaction arrangement". Nevertheless, it is a "voluntary arrangement".

Moreover, in relation to sexual dynamics, the man is the subject (dominant) while the woman is the object(submissive). That's the reason women are regarded the object of sexual desire and pleasure, which forms the basis of sexual attraction.
Women voluntarily engage in these roles throughout the history.

Continuation Part 2, third attempt in posting !

Submitted by Lucifer A on January 9, 2019 - 6:17am

Bloody hell. Hope it works now.
The other part is actually in reference to your latest answer, the rape story....etc. Not sure how that got posted before this.

Similar gender differences findings are reflected in leadership positions, example American women are 15% less likely to reach a managerial position at work compared to men while, in Finland women are 56% less likely and in Denmark 63%.

The same hold true for findings seen in cognitive attributes, including objectively measured mental rotation & location ability tests, as well as for physical traits like height and physiological measurement like blood pressure (both greater in men). The gender difference measured in each aspect (cognitive, physical and physiological) was larger in more gender equal countries in comparison to the less gender equal countries. A phenomenon known as "gender equality paradox", also known as "Patriarchal paradox", clearly shows these differences are intrinsic in nature and not just socially constructed.

You will also be surprise to know, similar patterns of gender difference is also seen in crying frequency and duration among women. That's right women from more affluent and feminine countries cry more often than less gender equal countries.

Likewise, rape and intimate partner violence against women (IPV) including societal perception of blaming women, in Nordic countries like Norway, Finland, etc. are higher than rates in the rest of Europe.
Example, in Eurobarometer survey assessing European attitudes on violence against women showed 74% of Finns blamed "sexually provocative behaviour of women" for violence against women, which is notably higher than other, significantly more patriarchal nations of Europe, that were less likely to agree with the same assertion (i.e. 33% in Spain, 46% in Ireland, 47% in Italy).

Therefore, these are just a few examples clearly showing gender differences in humans is intrinsic in nature with strong biological underpinning and not merely a sociocultural construct as claimed fallaciously by many people. False claims about gender probably gained most of its popularity in the 1980s-1990s supported by wrong assumptions and extensive spread of the "politically correct" views.

However, fortunately from around 2005 onward, significant progress in science especially in the fields of medicine and evolutionary psychology changed the fallacious, fixed and outdated views on asserting gender is a sociocultural invention. Moreover, wrong claims about gender severely lacked proper evidence and still does today, most were just erroneous assumptions.

This persistence but often fallacious "nature-nurture" controversy about gender partly results from failure to distinguish between proximate and ultimate causation.
On the whole, learning abilities are more often concerned with specific problems than they are the expression of general capacities, which varies from culture to culture and relates closely to specific community's tradition that vary greatly globally.

However, gender traits and various secondary sex differences that exist in both in humans and animals of most species are primarily the consequences of different reproductive behaviors, strategies, motive or inclinations of males and females.

Therefore, I am only inclined to accept truthful findings than adhering to a baseless societal belief or view influenced by political ideology. I have no reason to accept a non truthful claim. Period. Plain and simple.

In regards to the second part, I clearly stated both from the title of of my original comment and specifically emphasized the point in my subsequent response, that "the plan B boyfriend study" is just a small part of a bigger and more extensive manifestation of toxic gynocentric culture, infiltrating most modern societies including several legal aspects particularly in influencing many key public social policies.
The effect is quite cancerous, politically divisive and the detrimental potential to harm societal socioeconomic well being is high which is one of the major reason of my overall view to reestablish or reinforce the stable and progressive patriarchal social order.

The dominant hierarchical system is a successful system as it is naturally selected by evolution, in fact it is older than the existence of mankind.

In many ancient cultures of the East ,order is frequently associated with masculinity and chaos with femininity, e.g. the Yin Yang philosophy. This is because the fundamental hierarchical structure of human society is masculine, as is in most animal species throughout Nature, including chimpanzee, out closest non human relative and other great apes too.
It also the reason because most occupations like builders of cities or towns, engineers, stonemasons, and modern day bricklayers, construction workers, etc. predominantly masculine orientated.
If this was not true, then one would also encounter somewhat equal number of matriarchal societies both among humans and in the animal kingdom but none exist as an independent social system. There is really no reason to believe otherwise.

"The only way to fix this

Submitted by Hard Road on January 6, 2019 - 11:57am

"The only way to fix this whole thing is by continually raising awareness whenever discrimination takes place" - OR, teach everyone the PRINCIPLES of what causes it, so they can be proactive. Instead, we play 'whack-a-mole' and get nowhere fast, and enforcement both takes massive effort and also gets everyone on the defensive - probably NO better than how things were before this attempt at political correctness. Everyone fighting their own nature is a dangerous task. IF one is going to do it regardless of the stupidity of trying to beat such odds (or crush people into a mould against their nature), then best mitigate the worst of the harm. Which requires smoothing the path. Which requires understanding the logic of the pathways that lead to the path and lead out of it. Instead, every fool hides behind some form of lying or other. Instead of killing Medusa outright, by teaching people (via a visualisation of the pathways, for example) why prejudice is wrong and also hurts themselves in the long-run - we play childish power-trip games whilst hacking desperately at each of medusa's heads in turn. If I'm accurate in that overview, is that ever going to work? If not, we need to get past the egotism of repeating the same mistakes and expecting better results. This is de-facto mentally-ill, if we continue to dogmatically expect it to work-out in the end. No wonder so much cognitive dissonance and harm results from it. Then gets pushed onto scapegoats (men!) We're fighting our own nature.
If we stopped lying about this specific aspect of human nature, we'd see that women have it easy as hell in the seduction side of the mating game. We'd see that they are protected, even from their own mistakes, a LOT of the time (Western Society, don't conflate different parts of the globe or get confused as to cause-and-effect).
Women have other options near-100% of the time, because men are horny near-100% of the time (as a group). This means that maintaining a Plan B person, is not as necessary for women as for men, if you are honest about how long it takes to recover from a LTR commitment - look at the studies that show MOST women bounce-back FAR faster than (most, i.e. non 'Alpha' who always have it far easier) men.
Lying about our evolutionary sexuality is pathetic, and unforgivable in the modern, education-available age. No-one is fooled bar the idiot men who let themselves be played... but their own mothers keep failing to tell them the truth about women, don't they? Respect to those who arm their sons (and daughters) with the truth, without fear of how it makes them look. Fear is the enemy, hypocrisy is the enemy, ignorance is the enemy. Stop barking up the wrong tree and help your fellow humans out by raising the education level. Or don't. But don't complain at how hard a road that ends-up being...

I.... think I agree with you?

Submitted by Sic on January 6, 2019 - 4:17pm

I mean, I'm unsure about how you make the jump from education to mating rituals/seduction, so I don't necessarily agree with you on that yet, I have to admit...

But I do agree with your assessment that it's way better to educate people, instead of only reacting to someone crossing a never-before-clearly-established line.
And also with your point that we should be showcasing how prejudice ends up hurting everyone in the long-run, instead of only fighting prejudice with the (established/outward/widely perpetuated) reasoning of "prejudice is bad, because it's unfair toward some people".
After all people are always going to be more likely to do something and support something, if they know it'll benefit them personally as well.

I just only thought of daily situations, y'know? Like, when someone starts up a topic and it's obvious they're really ignorant/misinformed about the topic. In that case, we should be correcting them, showing them the actual facts of the situation and so on and so forth.
But as a society -instead of an individual dealing with a situation in their daily life- we should of course go for education first, 'cause it makes so much stuff so much easier.
So, yeah. Thanks for adding those points. They're really important after all.

Another good reason...

Submitted by Formula One on January 6, 2019 - 8:48am

You are right a 1000 percent!....women dont know what they want. They are the new blind leading the blind. They let these femnist led them down the gutter hole,and when we reach a point of how did this all happen? Why did society let this new thing happen ,they are still going to blame men.
The best thing a man in the USA can do is to import a female from an undeveloped continent and pray that the pussy hat wearing women don't get to her! Grow your beardout and reclaim masculity!!!
Get on Facebook and start men power groups!

Women DO know what they want,

Submitted by Hard Road on January 6, 2019 - 12:07pm

Women DO know what they want, but lie and delude themselves, IN ORDER TO MAINTAIN PLAUSIBLE-DENIABILITY. Which is the true hallmark of a committed liar. I used to do it myself. Look at Tony Blair's face over time he was Prime Minister for a notorious example of what continuous high-pressure lying does to a human being. But women do this routinely, as they need to APPEAR to be 'nice' people. It's a pathology, because there's no off-switch, or they HATE - like nothing else - to be provoked into showing their true face! I'm not sure if religion and demands to appear virtuous ('virtue-signalling') has exacerbated this natural tendency, but go research for yourself.
I love it when I (think I) see a woman who is being herself. It's why people like getting women drunk - it helps sort the wheat from the chaff, and helps women stop being liars pretending to be virtuous, and start being the sluts that they ultimately want to be. With contraception, there's less harm in it... but again, oxytocin-tolerance (like drug tolerance) requires upping the 'drug' dose. In other words, if a woman has lots of sexual partners and gets more and more immune to the love hormone released when she orgasms... she will become FAR harder to BOND WITH after 10-20 YEARS of this lifestyle, if a new, fit man enters her life. Which is a scam on men, if not handled right. Which it isn't, because women aren't about to give up that level of pleasure in order to have a more stable relationship and child-rearing environment. Even if it was ultimately worth it, they DO NOT SEE IT. Logic and reason don't matter to such people, just their selfish feelings and what THEY can see, touch and measure directly. With some variance in how logical female humans are, of course (respect to the real honest women out there who've got what it takes - please breed lots).

but that's just it...

Submitted by Diagoras on January 6, 2019 - 3:15pm

Why should we have to give up those feelings in order to have a more stable relationship and have kids? Polyamorous people are able to have those highs with new partners while also being in longterm relationships and raising kids. And if two parents are better than one, wouldn't 3 or 4 be better than two? Now I couldn't have done that because I need my personal space, but I'm done with raising kids anyway. Point is, life is short. It should be enjoyed.

And I hope you are not using "slut" in a derogatory way. Neither men nor women are naturally monogamous and men lie about being monogamous just as much as women do. Of course it doesn't help that women are accused of being hor-a-ble people for doing the exact same thing men do all the time.

YOU ARE SO RIGHT

Submitted by Lucifer A on January 9, 2019 - 5:24am

I know it is a very warped ideology.
And over here is Australia, we stupidly emulating this same rubbish happening in USA. Why follow something stupid is really perplexing.

Plan B

Submitted by Anonymous on January 5, 2019 - 9:42am

I’m going to throw this out there. A woman might be in a committed relationship but then by chance meet another man she is attracted to as well. She might even say to herself, “If I wasn’t in a committed in relationship, I’d be interested in this guy.” So, she says to herself, “If I find myself available down the road, I will check to see if this guy is available as well.” Thus, there is now a Plan B. Some people might say that maybe, the first guy isn’t the one if the second guy catches her eye as well. But, I don’t agree with that. I think there are multiple people out there that we could be attracted to. They may or may not pop in to our lives depending upon timing and circumstances.

A guy you may be interested in down the road...

Submitted by Formula One on January 6, 2019 - 9:16am

First you have to give yourself time to do your research on your plan b guy ..don't you?..How much money does he have..a guy don't care if a woman works at Mcdonalds..but a women do! (If reversed)

Um, no.

Submitted by anonymous on January 6, 2019 - 10:35am

I don’t have to do “research”. This particular gentleman is in an occupation that doesn’t pay that much. I am attracted to men who have good personalities. Usually, one can assess that pretty quick.

Before tends to After

Submitted by Pratihara on January 5, 2019 - 9:59am

If you have a plan B before marriage, you will continue to have a plan B after as well.

LOL!

Submitted by Diagoras on January 6, 2019 - 3:01am

Anonymous wrote:

If you have a plan B before marriage, you will continue to have a plan B after as well.

So we're all supposed to marry the first person we date?! Am I on an episode of Doctor Who traveling to the Victorian Age and I didn't notice?

More sad drivel

Submitted by kyren on January 5, 2019 - 3:13pm

"...we also now have a new scale which measures this phenomenon (to be provided in full, with a scoring key, in Part II of this essay!). As to whether this is a wise or good mating strategy is a whole other matter." Says it all really. They don't have a clue on anything that matters, like healthy relationships

my ex return back home within 12 hours

Submitted by Janice Anders on January 5, 2019 - 4:15pm

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About the Author

Glenn Geher, Ph.D., is professor of psychology at the State University of New York at New Paltz. He is founding director of the campus’ Evolutionary Studies (EvoS) program.

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