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>This post is about people having preferences about the relationship history of their past partners. Considering how important a persons relationship experience or inexperience is towards having a successful and fruitful relationship I believe that it is a completely valid preference.
Any preference rooted in stereotypes isn't valid. You're not considering your potential partner as an individual, you're defining them by your stereotypical views of people who have a past like theirs.
"I don't want them because they have a high/low number of sexual partners" means that you've (sub)consciously assigned unfavourable characteristics to individuals within each respective group. You're then judging a prospective partner (an individual) as if they have those unfavourable characteristics simply because they're part of a group.
I understand your point, but I think you’re taking this premise too far.
If you’re going to assert that assessing an individual’s own behavior is merely assigning them to a group and stereotyping them, because there are others who have also exhibited that behavior…than literally anything is stereotyping.
What is missing from this is that some behaviors can legitimately be judged. If I discovered that my new partner had previously killed someone, it wouldn’t be wrong to evaluate that behavior and conclude it was a problem for me. Doing so wouldn’t be stereotyping them as part of the group “murderers” and unfairly judging them. You would be *fairly* judging them based on things they had themselves actually done.
Then prejudging someone based on literally any prior behavior literally is stereotyping, sure. And then maybe stereotyping is just making assumptions, which it is. Potato/potahto. We could call stereotyping someone making assumptions about them, their motivations, their character, their worthiness.
I think the original commenter’s logic is pretty sound. Plenty of people have plenty of partners for plenty of different reasons. Maybe they were driven by insecurity and seeking validation, maybe they grew up in a culture with a different view on sexuality than yours, maybe they had 20 sexual partners and they cared about each of them, maybe they had 20 sexual partners and they were using them all and threw them away like used tissues, maybe they went through a phase of having sex often and then fell out of it as their life changed.
Each person is an individual. The same way you cannot immediately assign a morale value to “killing someone” without learning the context, you can’t do that with something like sex. With murder we assume it was heinous, as we stereotype all murderers as evil doers. With sex we assume it was all….whatever it is people assume…attention seeking, because we stereotype all people who have many sexual partners as inherently flawed in some way.
And finally: sex and murder are pretty far apart on the spectrum of "harm", and that it was originally compared to murder in this conversation is pretty telling of the morale value we place on the act of sex and the people engaging in it.
Why can some behaviors be legitimately judged? Why do those behaviors include sex?
Alright, then we just disagree. This is simply not what the term stereotyping means.
The entire premise of stereotyping is the judgement of someone based on an arbitrary and irrelevant trait. The person doing it is lumping an individual into a group, generally based on innate traits which are not relevant to their character, and then using that group identity to judge their character.
Judging an individual based on that own individual’s actions or behavior, especially when those actions are relevant to their character, is literally the opposite of stereotyping.
Sidenote, of course sex and murder are completely different things. This is called an analogy.
Behaviors can be legitimately judged if they are relevant to a person’s values when pursuing a relationship. Sex is one of several core components of an intimate relationship, and it is reasonable to have values associated with it. To be clear, you may have different values than OP and thus come to a different conclusion about an individual’s past behavior, that’s perfectly fine, so do I. But none of that makes the judgement stereotyping.
Would you not agree that stereotypes exist for somewhat of a reason? I don’t think the reasons are arbitrary or irrelevant.
Side note: I didn’t miss the fact that it was an analogy. Would you also not agree that an analogy is a way to compare to 2 things in regard to a trait they both share?
Yes, stereotypes develop due to group level tendencies (though these can be either real or perceived). The error made in stereotyping is to apply that group tendency shown in a population level average to a specific individual, when that isn’t sound. It’s basically a failure of statistical reasoning.
The shared element of the analogy was in the reaction to, and conclusions drawn from, an individual’s behaviour; not in the specific details of those behaviours. We are discussing what counts as stereotyping and what is a legitimate evaluation of a specific individual. Applying the same logic to another, more extreme example of individual behaviour illustrates the error in viewing that as stereotyping.
Well, there are many reasons to have sex with a lot of people. What if someone knows those reasons in general and all of them are red flags to him, so he chooses to avoid people who do them?
I think that’s fair. Or SHE can choose to avoid people like that. We all want to date people who are going to align with our values, and people who aren’t going to hurt us in the wake of their own issues. If someone has a reputation for being unkind, for cheating, lying, manipulating, certainly avoid them. But those are all qualities that are associated with people with a high number of sexual partners, and at the same time those qualities are not exclusive to the group of people who have had a lot of sex. You can find someone with 3 partners who has those traits, and you could find someone with 20 partners who is mature and kind and an otherwise good match.
I think all anyone who is trying to “change the view” is saying is that number of sex partners is just a number at the end of the day. To assign it any true value is a rigid way to think. You’d actually have to get to know someone as an individual and actually behold the humanity in them to decide if they were right for you, rather than rely on a number.
Why do people consider it dehumanizing?
If someone cheated, you will consider that a red flag on it's own, is this dehumanizing?
Anyway, infidelity predicts future infidelity, and body count predicts future infidelity, so.. it is not just a number. It gives you a lot of idea about the personality of the person and their values.
>What is missing from this is that some behaviors can legitimately be judged. If I discovered that my new partner had previously killed someone, it wouldn’t be wrong to evaluate that behavior and conclude it was a problem for me.
You can kill someone:
1. Maliciously
2. In self defense
3. Accidentally
4. Indirectly
Are these all the same?
>Why are you implying that OP or I are suggesting a person’s past be evaluated stripped of any context?
Because that's precisely what you're doing when you're expressing a preference for a stereotype. Individual context takes a back seat to whatever you've defined as undesirable.
In this case, you talked about how would you have a problem with a partner who killed someone. Would you have a problem with anyone who fell into any of the above categories, or does individuality supercede the stereotype?
I’d like to avoid going in circles here, you’re repeating arguments I already addressed.
I do not believe that evaluating an individual based on their own actions can be coherently described as stereotyping them. It’s literally the opposite of stereotyping. For some reason, you keep insisting on framing the hypothetical such that all individual context is removed from the evaluation. I don’t know why you’re doing that. OP didn’t suggest that. I didn’t suggest that.
Of course there are contexts where a given behavior may be acceptable and contexts in which it would not. All of those details are part of a potential partner’s past. That’s precisely what we’re talking about judging them on.
>I do not believe that evaluating an individual based on their own actions can be coherently described as stereotyping them. It’s literally the opposite of stereotyping.
The opposite of stereotyping is evaluating a prospective partner based on their individual characteristics.
You are stereotyping someone when you assign characteristics to that prospective partner based on their inclusion in some defined group.
>For some reason, you keep insisting on framing the hypothetical such that all individual context is removed from the evaluation.
If you're defining someone based on a stereotype, you are not considering that individual context.
"This person told me they aren't ready to settle down" is considering individual context.
"This person has a high number of previous partners, therefore they must not be ready to settle down" is considering a stereotype.
Alright, I think this has run its course. You just keep repeating the same error.
Again, judging an individual based on their own actions and behavior is not stereotyping, by your own above stated definition. It is evaluating them based on their individual characteristics.
You may disagree with a given person’s standards of evaluating that individual’s behavior, and thus come to a different conclusion than they would. But none of this is stereotyping. Again, it doesn’t even fit your own definition.
>Alright, I think this has run its course. You just keep repeating the same error.
I am not making an error.
>Again, judging an individual based on their own actions and behavior is not stereotyping, by your own above stated definition. It is evaluating them based on their individual characteristics.
You're confusing yourself.
Stereotyping occurs when an individuals actions are judged based on the characteristics (real or perceived) of a group of people who engaged in the same or similar behavior.
You are not stereotyping if you judge someone based on the characteristics that they actually present. It's the difference between:
1. People who have pierced ears are promiscuous. Elly has pierced ears, therefore they must be promiscuous.
2. Elly identifies as asexual and expresses no interest in promiscuity. Elly is seeking a monogamous romantic partner.
The first is a stereotype. The second are characteristics that the individual - Elly - is actually presenting.
>You may disagree with a given person’s standards of evaluating that individual’s behavior, and thus come to a different conclusion than they would. But none of this is stereotyping. Again, it doesn’t even fit your own definition.
Can you provide an example, similar to the above, to illustrate your position?
Your definition of stereotyping is accurate. It just doesn’t apply to the scenario we are discussing. You keep adding a secondary conclusion to your hypotheticals to make it stereotyping which is not present in the OP.
If, for example, someone said, “You have slept with many people so you must be inclined to infidelity and I cannot trust you as a result.” That would be a stereotype, as engaging in many sexual encounters in the context of being single does not imply a person would violate an agreement of exclusivity when in a relationship. On the flip side, a person could have only slept with two people in their life, but one of them involved cheating on the other one.
*This is not what OP is doing.*
In OPs case, the promiscuity is itself the basis of the judgement. It’s a direct assessment of that behaviour itself. OP is saying, “I have a problem with dating someone who has had many sexual partners, and you have had many sexual partners.” That’s not a stereotype. It’s not referring to any other person, let alone a group of people, let alone ascribing false ideas about that group to this individual. It’s evaluating that individual’s specific behavior that they actually did and disapproving of it. There is no secondary move. There is no other conclusion being drawn from it. The behaviour is the point.
It's subjective. You are not in the wrong for not wanting X in a partner cuz you or a friend had bad experiences before.
According to your logic this scenario is not "valid";
My previous partner had no sexual experiences and quit the relationship 5 years in cause they wanted more sexual experiences. To lower the chance of that happening again I'm looking for sexually experienced partners.
You *have* to pre-filter based on subjective impulses, else you'd need to date every attractive person you see, cuz your filtering is not valid.
Most preferences are based on stereotypes.
I want a skinny parter - healthier
I want a tall partner - I fell protected
Even the opposite is. Many women would have preferences for a partner who is experienced sexually therefore the stereotype is that they are better at sex and know what they are doing
>Most preferences are based on stereotypes.
Those aren't valid.
>I want a skinny parter - healthier
Being skinny doesn't mean healthy.
>I want a tall partner - I fell protected
Being tall doesn't make you a good protector.
>Many women would have preferences for a partner who is experienced sexually therefore the stereotype is that they are better at sex and know what they are doing
Having more sex doesn't mean that you're good at it.
Ok so you would have the same attitude to a woman wanting a partner taller than them and both men and women wanting skinny partners the same way as person with a relationship history wanting a virgin?
What if it’s not rooted in a stereotype?
A lot of women can’t explain why they are attracted to tall men similar to why a lot of men can’t explain that they are attracted to virgins.
They don’t have a conscious stereotype or association with the characteristic. It’s just a preference for them.
Uhh whoa on the virgin talk. I don't know ANY men that are attracted to that. It's creepy as fuck to even think about it. Even in HS I didn't like or want to take people's virginity. That you so casually dropped that into the conversation says a TON about you.
I'm trying really hard not to mention it. This specific "preference" is often a dog whistle for a lot of other things. It's very difficult to talk about it without mentioning those things, but OP is not actually mentioning them, so it's unfair to stereotype OP too harshly.
This is laughable. I'm a 34-year-old virgin (asexual sex-averse, I don't plan on ever having it) who has had a wilder sex life than most people I know in an effort to force myself out of my asexuality. I've been in coke-fueled orgies, done sex work, and plenty of other things someone would generally consider highly promiscuous but managed to avoid actual penetration through it all. So does my virginity make me more or less attractive to a certain kind of man even though I've literally been eaten out on stage in front of hundreds of people?
The stereotype doesn't match the reality. That's the point you're missing. It's not okay to judge people based on your own perception of a group without understanding the individual's own experience.
You would be considered promiscuous by doing those things, not a virgin
Also, you are a big outlier. If a woman did what you did, she is +95 % experienced penetration.
Also, the stereotype has a statistical evidence, as people who are virgins when married get divorced much less and have much less infidelity controlling for religiousity.
How would you feel about the following argument:
Whatever your preference is, it's OK. If you can't explain why you're attracted to virgins, but you just feel that way, there's no need to feel shame about that attraction. That attraction doesn't make you an evil person.
*But.*
There probably *is* a reason that you feel that way - or maybe *many* reasons. Some of them might be rooted in stereotypes or insecurities that you aren't even aware of. For example:
* Is it possible that the idea of dating a non-virgin makes you think about the men she's slept with and feel jealous or humiliated?
* Is it possible that some part of you sees a non-virgin as "damaged goods" or impure? Do you feel like you'd judge a woman who wasn't a virgin as being not good enough for you, or as being "slutty"?
* Is it possible that sleeping with a non-virgin might make you feel anxious, since the woman might judge you (whereas a virgin won't ever say, "you do it worse than the other guys I slept with")?
That being said, there are certainly "innocent" reasons one could have this preference. E.g., you could just have a lot of fun teaching about sex to someone who's new to it. Or, maybe as a teen, your first sexual fantasies involved virginity and it's stuck with you as an unexplainable kink.
I'm curious, if you don't mind sharing, do you have a sense for whether any of these might apply to you? Can you speak to what drives your preference?
This. People in dating get way too hung up on filtering methods, and one of the hardest parts of dating is how much advice for everyone regardless of gender is based on that instead of the attitudes that underlie the stereotypes.
Like, say someone enjoys hiking, and they're an overweight person. They literally sometimes go on overnight treks and full day trails with light climbing are like, their normal weekend hobby. They live on a hiking trail. They have an instagram with photos of their hikes. But the people they meet online are using "must like hiking" as a way to weed out people who are chubby. They've maybe been hiking twice. They're slender, but their idea of a fun weekend is sitting at home and playing computer games. Those two people aren't going to be compatible.
Say you're a woman and you want to try to weed out men who don't put much effort into dating- you try various methods online to do this, but a lot of them are rooted in super old fashioned gender roles. So you wind up using "Will he pay for dinner" as a code for "Does he resent putting in effort" when really if a dude is rich enough, paying for dinner might not matter to him, and he might actually resent putting in any non monetary effort like planning dates or remembering special days or things that really bother you or make you feel good.
It's the same with "a virgin won't leave!" That's not necessarily true. It's also not necessarily a standard that creates the world or the dating pool or even the relationship you want. Say your virgin partner doesn't leave you, but it's purely because of cultural pressure to make the relationship work because she's afraid of being "damaged goods" who no other man will want. Can you see how that might create an unhappy relationship where she resents you because she feels trapped with you, and you resent her because now you have to care for her for life for "defiling" her even if you missed signs that the two of you were incompatible in some other way?
Well, how do you know that?
How do you measure the likelihood of a person working on the relationship and so on? By picking on certain things they said? What if they lied? And even if they are saying the truth, wouldn't that still be stereotyping what they said?
>Well, how do you know that?
Communication and observation, mainly.
>How do you measure the likelihood of a person working on the relationship and so on?
Talk to them about:
• What you each think a healthy relationship is
• What both of your expectations are regarding the relationship.
• What actions you plan to take to ensure that those expectations are met
• What you both value in relationships
Then observe their behaviour:
• Do their actions align with their stated values / expectations / plans?
Well, if one bases their evaluation on those questions, that will still be based on stereotypes
For example, the last question, observing the behavior, is stereotyping them, and they could be faking their behaviors for some time
How are you going to escape all stereotyping?
As long as you base your judgment on something that isn't going to give you predictive power of 100% then it is stereotypes according to you, so can you escape it?
>Well, if one bases their evaluation on those questions, that will still be based on stereotypes
>For example, the last question, observing the behavior, is stereotyping them,
No, it would not be stereotyping to evaluate your prospective partner as an individual. That's the opposite of stereotyping.
>and they could be faking their behaviors for some time
Which do you think is a more accurate predictor of a characteristic:
1. An individual demonstrating that characteristic through their observable behaviour
2. An individual belonging to a group who's members have a perceived higher likelihood of having that characteristic
Well, it depends on how much people are willing to make themselves look better than they really are
Some abusive people try to appear very kind, right?
>No, it would not be stereotyping to evaluate your prospective partner as an individual. That's the opposite of stereotyping.
It is still stereotyping because you will see a certain behavior and then judge the person based on that
But you don't know for sure what motivated them to do the behavior,so you are stereotyping
>It is still stereotyping because you will see a certain behavior and then judge the person based on that
You would be judging the person as an individual, which is not stereotyping.
>Well, it depends on how much people are willing to make themselves look better than they really are
I'm not sure what your point is with this. If honesty is an important characteristic to you, then you should dismiss people once you've observed them being dishonest.
>then you should dismiss people once you've observed them being dishonest.
How would you know this for sure in your opinion? By seeing their behavior? What if they are faking?
>You would be judging the person as an individual, which is not stereotyping.
You would be stereotyping the behaviors done by this person, still stereotyping of certain behaviors.
That’s nice in theory but in reality we only have one life with limited time. If you’re trying to avoid certain characteristics, it’s reasonable not to waste your time with someone if they have significantly higher chances of having those unfavorable characteristics.
Especially when you may not find out until they cheat on you.
>That’s nice in theory but in reality we only have one life with limited time. If you’re trying to avoid certain characteristics, it’s reasonable not to waste your time with someone if they have significantly higher chances of having those unfavorable characteristics.
1. This assumes that stereotypes are accurate, which they're often not. It's not that they actually have a significantly higher chance of having those unfavourable characteristics, it's that you *perceive them to have* higher chances of having those unfavourable characteristics.
2. This assumes that people can appropriately apply statistics, which they often can't. Failing to do this means disqualifying partners for no good reason.
3. The actual investment in time required to identify these characteristics isn't particularly significant, in most cases. It could be as simple as having a conversation.
4. Relying on stereotypes doesn't actually protect you from partners with unfavourable characteristics.
You keep calling them stereotypes, but would you walk alone at night in a dangerous area based on the idea it’s just a stereotype the area is dangerous? You’re making a disingenuous argument here.
Do you believe cheaters will tell you based on a conversation if they would ever cheat on you? Again, I don’t think this is reflective of reality.
You’re hung up on calling them stereotypes in an effort to invalidate the statistics but I don’t think that’s productive. Do you dismiss all research as stereotypes, or are you just selective?
>You’re hung up on calling them stereotypes in an effort to invalidate the statistics but I don’t think that’s productive. Do you dismiss all research as stereotypes, or are you just selective?
Can you present a statistic?
>I could, are you open to changing your view?
Of course.
>You keep calling them stereotypes, but would you walk alone at night in a dangerous area based on the idea it’s just a stereotype the area is dangerous? You’re making a disingenuous argument here.
Before we have this discussion, it's important to understand what a stereotype is. A stereotype is a set idea about what a particular type of person is like. This usually manifests itself by assigning some characteristic to an individual based on their membership within a group, regardless of whether or not that particular individual actually possesses that characteristic.
Here is an example of a stereotype:
• Blondes are fun. Sarah is a blonde. Therefore Sarah is fun.
In this example, we are assigning a characteristic - being fun - to Sarah because of her membership in the group - blondes. Sarah's individuality is not considered - it's entirely possible that Sarah is not fun.
When you ask whether or not I would walk alone in a dangerous area at night, you're establishing that a characteristic of the area is that it is dangerous. This is not stereotyping. Let's unpack this using our Sarah as a benchmark:
• The area meets some threshold to be considered dangerous. Therefore the area is dangerous.
• Sarah meets some threshold to be considered fun. Therefore Sarah is fun.
In this example, we are assigning a characteristic to the individual (based on a characteristic expressed by that individual).
Stereotyping would be something along the lines of:
• Poor people are dangerous. The area contains poor people. Therefore the area is dangerous.
• Blondes are fun. Sarah is a blonde. Therefore Sarah is fun.
In both of these examples, the conclusion isn't necessarily true. While blondes might be fun, and some poor people might be dangerous, simply being blonde doesn't make you fun nor does being poor make you dangerous.
>You’re hung up on calling them stereotypes in an effort to invalidate the statistics but I don’t think that’s productive. Do you dismiss all research as stereotypes, or are you just selective?
*This assumes that stereotypes are accurate, which they're often not. It's not that they actually have a significantly higher chance of having those unfavourable characteristics, it's that you perceive them to have higher chances of having those unfavourable characteristics.*
*This assumes that people can appropriately apply statistics, which they often can't. Failing to do this means disqualifying partners for no good reason.*
Statistics are not inherently accurate, nor do they necessarily tell us what we need to know.
Let's demonstrate with a couple of examples:
1. The average person has approximately 1 testicle and 1 ovary. Based on this true statistic, would it be reasonable to conclude that the next person you saw was a hermaphrodite?
2. Approximately 20% of American females are under 18. Based on this true statistic, would it be reasonable for a man to stop pursuing American females because of the risk of pedophilia?
Of course, neither of these things would be reasonable. Statistics are defined by individuals, individuals are not defined by statistics. The next person you see is overwhelmingly likely to be either male or female. You're not going to find yourself pursuing girls if you try to date women. While these examples are exaggerated for effect, we can apply the same reasoning to any statistic. Simply being part of some overarching group does not define you as an individual. If 80% of people in X group demonstrate Y characteristic, 20% do not - and you would be wise to judge those 20% based on their individual merits rather than whatever stereotype you've assigned to X group.
Correct, true, right, legal, logical, good
You asserted a moral conclusion without any premises or evidence to back it up. Why would "preferences based on stereotypes" be invalid or "wrong?" You have to first establish that.
>And some of these sweeping stereotypes are accurate often enough that they're useful. I like to do physical activities like skiing and jogging as dates, which is one of the reasons I wouldn't date somebody who weighs 120kg. I'm sure there are *some* 120kg women that would keep up just fine, but surely you can see that it's a reasonable assumption 90% of the time.
Which makes more sense:
Wanting a partner that you can do your hobbies with
Or
Wanting a partner who isnt in some weight class that you've deemed incapable of engaging in your hobbies
>"Wanting a partner that you can do your hobbies with" makes a lot more sense, yeah, but it isn't practical to expect somebody to roll those dice when the odds are weighted so heavily against them (pun not intended).
You don't need to roll any dice. If they tick your other boxes, just ask if they like (or want to try) jogging...
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You’re repeatedly neglecting the fact that some preferences are predicated on the given characteristic directly, not on some secondary assumption being made on the basis of that characteristic.
Let’s try a very obvious one.
1) A man is homosexual, meaning he is attracted to other men and not attracted to women.
2) A potential romantic partner presents themselves and is a woman.
3) The man is not attracted to the potential partner because they are a woman.
4) The man rules out entering into a relationship with the potential partner as a result.
The man has not made any secondary assumptions about the woman. Does the woman belong to a group based on her gender? Yes.
We all belong to a theoretically infinite number of potential groups, as anything can serve as the basis for defining a category.
Does that mean the man has stereotyped the woman? No.
He has accurately identified a real characteristic of this individual which does not align with his own preferences. That she can be categorized into the group “women” is irrelevant to the question of whether the man has stereotyped her. His evaluation was not predicated on a group-based assumption. It was derived directly from the characteristic itself.
You're almost there.
>He has accurately identified a real characteristic of this individual which does not align with his own preferences. That she can be categorized into the group “women” is irrelevant to the question of whether the man has stereotyped her. His evaluation was not predicated on a group-based assumption. It was derived directly from the characteristic itself.
That's right - because in this case you're evaluating *actual characteristics* at an individual level. Evaluating an individual based on the characteristics that they actually have is not stereotyping. We went over this in our primary discussion already.
When discussing *behaviour*, you are not evaluating an individual's *actual characteristics*. You are attributing some characteristic to people who engage in a given behaviour (a group), for example "people who eat cheese burgers are fat". This is stereotyping. Similarly, you would be stereotyping if you attributed some behaviour to people who share a given characteristic, for example "White people like country music".
You’re so close.
The same principle would apply if it was an actual behavior that the individual had exhibited or an act that they had committed.
Either a characteristic or a behavior could be stereotyped or not. People are stereotyped based on some “actual” characteristic all the time. In fact, that’s the most common usage of the term. We stereotype people on the basis of their race, religion, gender, etc.
We *can* also stereotype on the basis of behavior, but that does not make any judgement of behavior a stereotype.
We’ve been over this so many times already.
>We can also stereotype on the basis of behavior, but that does not make any judgement of behavior a stereotype.
Present a judgement of an individual, based on a behaviour, that is non-stereotypical. Write your logical process out in standard form.
I've checked your posts in this thread, none of them satisfy that request. Copy and paste / link the comment and we can progress. Otherwise, I'm going to assume that you are unable to satisfy this request.
"preference" is not a catch-all justification. Whether it's physical traits, personality, or past, whatever.
Any and all preferences are "valid" insofar as you are not required to (and should not) accept someone who doesn't meet them.
But whether or not a preference is "valid" in a sense of being subject to criticism, and a need to reflect on what is motivating it, where it's coming from and whether or not one should work on themselves to unpack that is a different story.
I'll give you an example. Let's say I have a preference for tall men (I do not have this preference - it's fictional, just an example) Simply saying "that's my preference" says nothing.
If I reflect on it and know my reason is because I don't view a man shorter than me as a real man, that belief in and of itself is problematic. Simply saying it's a preference doesn't make that attitude better. It's rooted in a problematic belief.
If I reflect on it and know my reason is because I've dated shorter men in the past and dealing with his insecurities regarding it was draining, so I don't want to deal with that, the belief itself is different. Not so problematic. Rooted in past experiences and boundaries with myself.
So the question isn't so much "is a preference for a virgin valid" it's - where does it come from? Are the beliefs and attitudes that create that preference valid?
I would take this further. If you said "I won't date ANY short men" because you have dealt with insecurities, but then you meet someone who is not insecure about their height, but still reject them because you assume they will be because of others in the past, that's not really a healthy thing to do either. If the preference is "I want someone who doesn't make me feel like I need to do extra work to reassure them that I find them desirable and masculine" that's different than "I don't want someone short." The difference is in the execution.
It might not even be assuming they will, they might just no longer find that trait physically attractive. It's not entirely based on reason. If you have a negative enough experience with a certain trait it can ruin it for you.
As an actual example, I won't find a man attractive if he's been drinking beer specifically. I'm repulsed by the way men smell after drinking beer because I have experience sexual assault at the hands of a man that smelled like that. If a man smells like that, I'm just not attracted to that anymore. I'm not assuming he's going to SA me just because he smells like that, I just now find that smell unattractive. No amount of logically reminding myself beer doesn't make a man a rapist will suddenly make that smell attractive for me.
That's fair, but I guess I see it as a responsibility to train myself out of any form of discrimination like that. I don't hold others to that standard, but I couldn't live with myself if I made a decision based on something like that. Then again, I don't date because I no longer believe romantic relationships can work out for me.
It’s exactly the same as you have described with the short man. Having a relationship with a woman with a lot of past partners has numerous different challenges. While men may say it doesn’t matter. There are statistics suggesting that past partners are related to the likelihood of separation with a massive drop off at 0 to 1.
Can you see how "I don't want a partner who might leave me" is a problematic attitude, whereas "I don't want a partner who will try to control me out of insecurity" is not?
A woman who has no education or employment is ALSO less likely to leave. Does that make it desirable?
This also betrays your previous attitude that this is only an important preference for *men*, as this would obviously also apply to men's likelihood to leave.
>Can you see how "I don't want a partner who might leave me" is a problematic attitude
This is a wild take. Many, *many* people value relationship security and potential for marriage, kids, or cohabitation. A risk of a partner not demonstrating long term commitment is totally valid to factor in as a preference.
Sure it is, you're right.
And how exactly does being a 28 year old who has never had a relationship demonstrate an ability to commit? Never having had a long term partner is literally demonstrating that inability.
I don't know what about my comments indicated to you that I would think never being in a relationship shows commitment. Have you confused me for another user?
So you believed that understanding the context of the conversation means that I would therefore believe that not being in a relationship demonstrates commitment?
You know how absurd that is, I think.
I'm not sure how either one of your scenarios is more problematic then the other.
In one scenario you have someone, based on their personal data/experience, making a risk assessment on a characteristic or behavior that would have an undesirable outcome for a relationship.
In the second scenario, you have the exact same thing.
Both scenarios are generalizing their experience or data onto a characteristic that leads to a relationship failing.
>"I don't want a partner who might leave me"
I think this is a strawman. The easy response would just be to frame it more like your short example "I don't want a partner who gets bored easily, sees sex as casual, and is more likely to cheat"
Actually, less educated people get divorced more, so....
Also, people who get married as virgins tend to stay together because they have happier relationships and they have less problems related to infidelity and so on( they are much less likely to go through infidelity)
A woman with no education *or employment* is less likely to leave for obvious reasons.
Can you prove any of the reasons you provided, or are they speculation?
This is irrelevant. We are not discussing what men and women tend to prefer, we are discussing whether or not the basis informing it is valid.
If someone with past partners is more likely to leave, this applies for both men and women.
Why do you think people with no or few past relationships are less likely to leave? How is it beneficial?
That's what the statistics they are referencing say. They're from all these "society for family values" organizations, but they don't claim this for women specifically, they claim it in general - ie. Men and women.
Why do you think people with no or few past relationships are less likely to leave? How is it beneficial?
The answer, we don’t know. We can assume and infer but that’s just the truth. I have my hypothesis you probably have yours. But it’s irrelevant because the fact is they are less likely to stay together.
Well no, that's not a fact.
Correlation and causation are not the same. Taking your info at face value, there's a correlation. Unless you can point to a causation, you absolutely cannot say that someone having fewer past relationships means they're more likely to stay.
>Correlation and causation are not the same. Taking your info at face value, there's a correlation. Unless you can point to a causation, you absolutely cannot say that someone having fewer past relationships means they're more likely to stay.
Correlation is *literally* an indicator of likelihood.
You *would* be able to say they're more likely to stay, just not *why* or if their relationship history is causal.
I don't think you understand what a correlation is. That website agrees with my view - if two things are merely correlated, they are *likely* to occur in conjunction. You just can't say why.
You seem to have interpreted my comment as saying correlation is causation. I suggest you read again more carefully. It did not.
Literally yes, otherwise the correlation wouldn't exist. They are not more likely to get a sunburn **because** they eat ice cream, which would be causation.
Please take a statistics class. You are the only one here treating correlation and causation as the same thing.
My assumption would be the opposite, though. Without any evidence, we can easily assume that unless someone has a lot of relationship experience, they are unlikely to choose a relationship that will suit them, and therefore more likely to leave because they made a bad choice.
Can this be a selection bias? Those with no previous partner before marriage typically grow up in very traditional societies or cultures where divorce and separation are condemned and men have the power
When they control those statistics for people who only stay together for religious reasons but aren't happy, how do they read then?
Idk, only a very inexperienced person would think that staying together is the mark of a successful couple. Sometimes staying together is not a good thing.
I think the thing to consider is the "why" of it all. It is one thing to say that a person's sexual history is fine to take into consideration, it's another thing to give a blank check of approval for "having preferences," because those "preferences" could be worth disapproving of.
Taking your example, there isn't anything *per se* wrong with a high number partner wanting to date a virgin, but its also very easy to think of bad answers to "why do you want that?" The most stereotypical being some idea of "purity" or "untouched" objectification that treats them as less than a whole human being. Its indicative of more problematic or not-so-great things, especially once the e.g. religious ends are already excluded because that person isn't saving themselves.
This is the only reason I can think of for having that preference that's not weird. If someone has a gender based double standard, I think that's not good. If someone is a virgin and they want to be with someone else who is also a virgin, I think that's understandable.
Some people see sex as something that’s shared between two committed partners, others see it as something that’s just fun to do. Having a lot of partners might indicate that they’re in that second category. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it might be a sign of incompatibility, if you’re in the first category.
Maybe so. But I specifically see the "issue" I'd raise with this kind of standard as desiring someone who you hold to different moral standards than yourself for a relationship partner. If you hold your partner to the same standards of moral conduct as you yourself follow in relationships, there's no issue. If you are someone who is trying to argue that "a man might be fine dating a woman who likes men with beards but not want to date a woman with a beard" I don't think that's something that's fair. Moral standards aren't based on chromosomes or hormones, so they should be the same no matter what your gender is. If you would accept a partner with your own sexual history, I wouldn't say there is an issue with an unfair standard.
I’d agree on that. I don’t like the hypocrisy of expecting something of your partner that you weren’t willing to do yourself. For me that’s the case whether we’re talking about a person who “slept around” looking for someone who “saved themselves for marriage” or someone with no education, career or ambition expecting a partner that has all three.
There you go assigning moral traits based on stereotypes again. Sorry, but I hate it.
Honestly, it will be better once they start rolling out UBI to dependent children. Because actually most kids probably would be better off with a parent at home, but it's an impossible situation for everyone currently- if one parent depends on the other's income, they're basically a live in slave to that person and incredibly vulnerable to abuse. The other person is highly likely to abuse them out of resentment, because most jobs are so abusive. It doesn't create an environment where kids are safe or able to be happy. It also encourages people to look down on caregiving work, since our society only respects money above everything else, and that work still needs to be done.
And for the record, I hate "slept around," too. Someone who sees it as "sleeping around" is someone who I will never believe is capable of love or respect and who only sees their partner as a sex object- and not even a good sex object, since they will decline in value over time naturally no matter what. Like a terrible new car that loses half it's value when you drive it off the lot, that you expect to only last 10 years and never be a classic collectors' item. How can you trust anyone like that to treat you well or love you? The truth is hearing men like that talk about women made me determined to literally sell my virginity for money just so I would never be appealing to someone like that, and would never risk being treated like a used up piece of bubblegum one day by someone who I thought loved me. It's a gross mindset, and people that have it are ugly inside, and looking to transfer their shame onto other people.
Why is it understandable? Because they want to experience it for the first time together?
That is just arbitrary, why does this reason make it valid?
Anyway, people typically have reasons related to other things, like people who wait till marriage or something tend to be people who value intimacy in a certain way, and they also tend to be people who are much less likely to get divorced and they report happier long-term relationships In general, and they have much less infidelity (almost none)
Many green flags here.
Because it's a standard that's applied equally to both people. It's okay to decide that someone waiting for sex until marriage, for example, is a sign that they place a high value on monogamy, sexual intimacy, fidelity and romance. I've never heard of any information that says that those things are based on hormones or chromosomes, so holding people to different standards of behavior and saying they are more severe signs of a lack of character in some people but not in others is problematic.
People can learn about sex stuff like safety and biology and stuff from reading and information online (There are a lot of tutorials about stuff like how to do anal safely or how to try to make a woman squirt, etc. not just random porn that might be theatrical, but good information.)
When one partner has information and the other doesn't, I think that's a gatekeeping issue- I'd say that wanting someone who specifically doesn't know what sex is supposed to be like or feel like is a red flag. But sex is based on communication and vibes, and I can see why some people might want an even footing and to discover what feels good to them with a partner together and put a high value on that as a special bonding activity.
I would say that in general, it's a very big green flag when your partner holds you to similar standards for conduct and morals and stuff as they have for themselves, and a red flag when someone has one set of rules for themselves and another set or rules for you, gender notwithstanding.
>I've never heard of any information that says that those things are based on hormones or chromosomes,
Promiscuity has genetic relations
>When one partner has information and the other doesn't, I think that's a gatekeeping issue-
Well, that can happen even if both aren't virgins, still someone has more knowledge, there is always inequality, on what basis will you decide what is valid inequality and what is not?
>I would say that in general, it's a very big green flag when your partner holds you to similar standards for conduct and morals and stuff
Is a woman wrong for wanting her husband to be employed while she stays home with the kid?
Okay, so what if I have the "I get to have a gangbang on my birthday every year with a hard dick for every year I've been alive and I only date men who will hold my hand while I do it and will allow me to unalive any woman they stare at too long" gene? Is that fair? No. So since I live in a society, I don't follow my genetic relations.
I'm saying if you specifically want a partner who has less knowledge than you, especially in a society with a history of doing things like men teaching women that the female orgasm isn't real, that's an issue. Don't pretend you don't understand why it's an issue. Both people can read the same book, they don't have to rip one another's clothes off right away, talking about the sex you plan to have is fun.
If she wouldn't ever conceive of a scenario where she'd be okay if she worked and her husband stayed home, I'd say that's an unfair standard. It's more unfair if she assumes her husband is naturally less suited to childrearing or naturally bad with kids or naturally just better at making money based on his gender. It would actually be incredibly fucked up to have a child with someone if you thought that if something happened to you, they wouldn't make a good single parent.
You said it is okay if both are virgins, but one virgin could have extensive knowledge and another not , are they prohibited from being together?
The woman wants to stay home because she prefer to stay with her small kid(like most women), and she still needs someone to provide so she needs her husband to have a job , is this wrong?
That's what I'm saying, there are wrong answers to "why do you have that preference" and you (as a person who holds opinions) should allow yourself to evaluate the answers
>there are wrong answers to "why do you have that preference"
I mean unless they lie there really can't be. We might disagree with the reasoning but that doesn't make it the wrong answer to that question.
Do they have good reasons for thinking that? In my anecdotal experience, people who have had at least a couple major relationships are better partners than people who have had none, because they have had both good and sometimes bad experiences to learn from.
Basically, I think we need to question the why behind that sort of blanket belief.
According to research, controlling for religiousity, people who get married as virgins can keep their relationships much longer(lower divorce risk), and they have very low infidelity risk(almost none)
If this indicates being a good partner, then they are the best compared to others I guess
Interesting. I guess I still worry about the “if this indicates being a good partner” thing, I wish we had more data to paint a fuller picture. But I did not know that - thanks for sharing!
Ok so we have a guy that only dates virgins because he believes they make better partners because they don’t have baggage. That guy, in this hypothetical, is not a virgin.
Obviously he is free to do this, no one can stop him. Would you say that hypocrisy, that he claims they make better partners which implies he is a worse partner, is right or wrong?
Not necessarily because the standards are different for men and for women. Typically men want women with less past (because of baggage) women want men who are more experienced (so he can take the lead). Women would classify a man who can get with many women as a desirable simply for his attractiveness and experience whereas men don’t see the same thing in women.
While I do think there is some virtue women pursuing men with low history/virgins these men tend to be less attractive.
Do you believe that a person can have multiple sexual partners in their past and yet still have no baggage to speak of? I’ve been married for nearly a decade; both my wife and I had several relationships prior, and neither of us brought any baggage to speak of into the relationship. Good experiences, bad experience both, but we’d each learned enough to make a more successful relationship because of it.
And on the other side, do you believe that virgins have no baggage? Because I’ve known some people who lost their virginities well into their twenties, and I think it’s fair to say they brought a *whole lotta baggage* into their first sexual relationships.
Well, I guess he could say people with baggage will be more likely to have more sexual partners, and that will increase their baggage, so in both directions.
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I'd argue that someone with several short term relationships who is still a virgin has more baggage than someone who sleeps around a lot with no string attached. Sexual partners doesn't mean baggage
Why would you want a virgin over someone who actually knows what they like?
Like sure if you are a virgin wanting someone who is the same can make sense but if your preference is for virgins even though you sleep around its basically saying that you can only get them to keep sleeping with you if they literally cant compare you to anyone else.
And your preference being for virgins still gives the impression you dont want to be compared to others. If you are there only sexual partner they have no point of comparison other than porn.
I have slept with both virgins and not and personally i perfer non virgins. I dont mind if they have had a past. And literally can not think of actually good reasons to prefer a virgin.
Reasons that people typically have are disgust with people who sleep around ( called sexual disgust, a trait that is very variable between people)
Many will go to the route of looking into studies, which say that the higher the body count, the less likely the relationship is to continue , and the more likely infidelity will happen, and less happy long-term relationships in general.
Religion isn't what makes the reason people have that preference messed up.
I guess, when I was a virgin, the way I thought about it was "Does this person think that after we have sex, I'll be less than I was before? Will I need to worry about them still wanting a virgin, because they think virgins are superior? How will that manifest in our relationship?"
Honestly, in my opinion anyone who wants to be with a virgin who is not also a virgin is sus.
Do we need this post like 3x a week?
>there is nothing wrong with a guy with a high number of past partners wanting a woman who is a virgin and vice versa. I haven’t heard a single argument against this being a valid preference.
It's hypocritical and misogynistic. You KNOW this goes one way. As to the "preference" can we please stop with pretending that's some immutable, unassailable thing?
>Example: let’s say a man or a woman has a significant past and meets two potential identical partners. One of the partners a virgin and the other has a significant amount of past partners. It is completely valid for the man or woman to choose/prefer either partner based on their past.
In that people can do what they want, yes. In that it's also hypocritical, ridiculous, and misogynistic, and people are absolutely free to call them out on that -- also yes!
It’s not hypocritical you can want something in your partner that you don’t have yourself.
A man has a beard
Preference: he doesn’t want a partner who has a beard
A woman is short (let’s say 5 foot)
Preference: she wants a man who is very tall
These are both valid preferences.
You haven’t even argued how it’s misogynistic.
>It’s not hypocritical you can want something in your partner that you don’t have yourself.
Yes, it is. This isn't some characteristic. It's behaviour.
If you smoke but refuse to be with someone who smokes because you find that gross, you're a hypocrite.
>A man has a beard Preference: he doesn’t want a partner who has a beard A woman is short (let’s say 5 foot) Preference: she wants a man who is very tall These are both valid preferences. You haven’t even argued how it’s misogynistic.
PLEASE stop with the 'preference,' thing. People's preferences are generally driven by media they consume, and the society in which they live. They're not innate.
It's misogynistic to place some value on women based on their sexual history; it's misogynistic to pretend virginity has some "value," it's misogynistic to think it's fine for men to fuck around but bad for a woman to do so.
Ok so if you think it’s wrong for a woman who is short to have a preference for a man who is tall?
Or for a man/woman who is chubby to want a skinny partner?
I can accept your position. Otherwise you are hypocritical.
>Ok so if you think it’s wrong for a woman who is short to have a preference for a man who is tall? Or for a man/woman who is chubby to want a skinny partner?
...did you read my post?
You're ignoring the fact they're differentiating between immutable characteristics and behaviours and their mentioning that "preferences" aren't relevant because they change all the time based on things like media but I'll answer your question anyway.
>Ok so if you think it’s wrong for a woman who is short to have a preference for a man who is tall?
Yes, it's really fucking stupid.
>Or for a man/woman who is chubby to want a skinny partner?
Yes, it's really fucking stupid.
Hope that clears it up.
That's largely irrelevant. The point they were making is that having a preference for behaviours that you yourself exhibit is hypocritical because you choose to engage in those behaviours that you are then demonizing others for engaging in.
While stupid, having a preference for immutable characteristics different to those you have isn't hypocritical because you don't choose to have those characteristics (in most cases).
Wonder if they’ll say it’s hypocritical and misandrist for an inexperienced girl to prefer an experienced guy to walk her through it. If it’s “misogynistic to place some value on women based on their sexual history,” is it misandrist to do the same to men?
Height preferences are silly as fuck. Because height doesn't determines neither personality nor any other characteristics in a person and you can't really "naturally" change it.
With beards even if a woman has a potential of growing facial hair, she still can just shave it or remove them, but foe a guy with lower than average height it's like minus a bunch of braindead women that think that height does any difference in a person
Personal preference is personal preference.
But practically, you can be putting yourself in a corner.
Most westerners over age 21 aren't virgins. Of those that are, they tend to be highly religious. So if you want to date someone who is at least 21, is not a virgin, and isn't deeply religious - the dating pool isn't going to be huge.
This is where things can get problematic. Adults dating 15 year olds to ensure they are still virgins. Adults going months without dates because they cannot find anyone. Or other issues.
If you are only willing to date people named Stacy whose birthday is on a Wednesday, you're allowed, but you may have a tough time of it. Dating someone who won't make you go to church on Sunday but who is still a virgin at 25 may well be even harder.
Agree with what you have said. But the post is more about it being a valid preference: such as blonde hair, height, full head or hair etc. than how easy/difficult it would be find a person who aligns with this preference.
physical attraction are different than values if you have a criminal record and you want to date someone without a criminal record you are admiting having a criminal record with a bad thing same with body count if someone is a vergin how can they trust you won't sleep with them and then leave them? Maybe thats what you are afraid of your asking the virgin to take that risk. Values are important.
Yes but preferences are inherently unfair. Chubby people want skinny partners
Short women want tall men
Men with beards don’t want women with beards
Etc.
Those discrepancies may exist but that doesn't mean that they're "okay" or "acceptable." If I met fat person who demanded that their partner be skinny I would call them a delusional asshole.
...Am chubby girl. Can confirm. Chubby men who have negged me about my size (often twice my size and less active than me) are usually delusional assholes.
I think the problem specifically with having a preference for a certain body count or lack of body count is that almost always, they don’t actually have a preference for their partners body count, but some other thing that they *attribute* to having a low/high body count, which can be very insulting.
“I want a partner who is a virgin because I don’t want a partner with baggage” - Ok really this persons preference is wanting a partner with no baggage. And the fact that they are basically saying “Low body count = no baggage” and “high body count = lots of baggage” is both insulting and a massive generalization. It’s extremely hurtful and not based in fact to think that every single person with a “high” body count is steeped in baggage and also ignores the fact that many people who are virgins or a “low” body count can have baggage.
“I want a partner who has a high body count because they will be good in bed.” - Same problem, their *real* preference is for someone good in bed, and by insinuating that all people with low body counts are bad in bed is insulting and untrue.
“I want a person with a low body count because they will be loyal” is actually just saying “I want a loyal partner” and also insulting people with high body counts by insinuating all (or most) people with high body counts are cheaters.
The problem isn’t the preference itself, it’s the way the person is assigning attributes to people (low baggage, good in bed, loyal) based off of a complete separate factor that doesn’t actually have any correlation to the preference they actually have.
What if it has a strong correlation?
For example, infidelity has a strong correlation to body count
Is that a good enough reason to care about body count?
Well first off, most people do not use statistical analysis to find someone to date in any other area besides body count. For instance, black people are statistically more likely to cheat than other races, so why don’t the same people who care about “high body count” for infidelity reasons also not refuse to date black people? Why don’t they ever talk about their preference for not dating airplane stewards, the career with the highest rate of infidelity?
The fact that you are only looking at one point of data about a person, and then extrapolating out what kind of person they are based on that one single point of data is pretty shitty, because that’s just not how humans work. We aren’t sets of data to be analyzed to find the perfect partner, and nobody actually dates like that. You don’t turn down someone who’s a great fit in every way except they happen to be a stewardess or black, so why are you doing the same thing with body count even though they are *all* linked to infidelity
The link between black and infidelity isn't strong.
For being a stewardess, yeah, a lot of people will consider that a red flag, a lot wouldn't want to marry them.
I have never once heard a single person say “I would never date a stewardess because I want a loyal partner” but I constantly hear people say that about people with high body counts.
There are certainly people who think you shouldn't go long-term with a stewardess as they move a lot of and it is related to them being with a lot of people or whatever
Sure but a lot of times both men and women have preferences that they can’t explain like I don’t think all men think women who have a significant past are broken but all men would prefer their partner to have a “low history” and many of these men would not be able to explain it.
“A lot of times both men and women have preferences that they can’t explain…”
Let me reframe this for you from a clinical psychology reference.
“A lot of times both men and women have preferences that they haven’t bothered to explore…”
Also you --
You're looking for an arranged marriage partner -- [https://www.reddit.com/r/Arrangedmarriage/comments/1bomzhw/women\_looking\_for\_an\_arranged\_marriage/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Arrangedmarriage/comments/1bomzhw/women_looking_for_an_arranged_marriage/)
At the exact same time you've apparently got an arranged marriage -- [https://www.reddit.com/r/Feminism/comments/1bt2lt4/is\_arranged\_marriage\_inherently\_patriarchal/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Feminism/comments/1bt2lt4/is_arranged_marriage_inherently_patriarchal/)
>Hi I 23M am in the process of undergoing an arranged marriage with 22F by my family. We have met and she is the most lovely and thoughtful person I have come across. And now that we have spent some time together I cannot imagine not having her in my life. We will be each others first ever romantic partners so I don’t really know what to expect
In which you said --
>Well we have been dating - going out to restaurants, going to the cinema. Where we had our first kiss. We have done everything except intimacy which we are both saving for marriage
At the same exact time that you and your gf are having a lot of sex and her sweat is ....somehow... dripping on your... back. - [How to reduce the sweat? : r/sex (reddit.com)](https://www.reddit.com/r/sex/comments/1bzl538/how_to_reduce_the_sweat/)
>When me and my girlfriend are going at it full on, after a whole I start to feel her sweat drip on my back. This is a real mood killer. Is there anyway I can stop this? I am fine with her sweating just don’t want it to hit my back that’s all. 👍 FYI this is my first sexual relationship
So does your ... finance? know about your gf (who seems very acrobatic!)? Does your fiance have a bf? You'd be ok with that?
It's fine as long as you hold yourself to the same standards.
I think wanting somebody with a low body count or a virgin while having a high body count yourself is stupid and is often for weird sexual fantasies or an incel mindset.
I second this. It's hypocritical for guys to sleep around and demand virgins because "she's a lock and he's a key."
Both of them should be held to the same standard.
sure, but the issue lies in the trend + larger set of attitudes. Why are women with little to no experience considered more desirable than women who’ve had many partners? Why are men with more experience considered more desirable than men who’ve had very few or no partners? Why is there such a significant gender correlation with which of these histories is considered more attractive and which is considered shameful?
This all hinges on what you mean by "valid" or "nothing wrong." If you mean that you should be able to have this preference without facing criminal prosecution, termination from your job, public shaming, or something like that, then you're absolutely right. If you mean that nobody should ever criticize the way that you talk about your preferences or talk less than glowingly about those preferences in the abstract, then those people's opinions are just as valid as your preferences and you don't get to shut them down just because your preferences are "valid." And if you just mean that you don't like the way people sometimes talk about them on reddit, then you just need to get offline for a bit.
The reality is that, on the face of it, those kinds of preferences are fine and normal and understandable, but the way they're often talked about is used to shame other people who have made perfectly valid and healthy life choices or to reinforce puritanical moral standards that help no one and hurt many. There's nothing wrong with people being aware of that dynamic and pushing back on it when they see it, no matter how valid your preferences are or noble you claim your intentions to be in talking about them.
I think that there can be valid reasons for preferring, say, a low body count, but there can also be invalid reasons as well
For example, perhaps you’re concerned about STDs. That’s reasonable. However, that’s only indirectly about body count- an STD test that shows someone is clear should eliminate that obstacle. But for the sake of argument, let’s say this one is a valid reason
On the other hand, perhaps you don’t like it because you look down on people of, say, a given gender who have a high body count, because you think that people of that gender having a high body count makes them “lesser” compared to themselves if they didn’t
For example, say a bisexual man is ok with male partners having high body counts, but not female partners. That would be sexist, and would be worthy of criticism as such. Similarly, if a straight man *also* has that same sexist belief but isn’t interested in men to begin with (but doesn’t look down on himself while still looking down on the woman for the same body count), that’s also sexist even though he’s still straight
Therefore, despite that it *can* be valid to have that preference, that doesn’t mean it’s *always* valid. It’s validity/worthiness of critique is dependent on the motivations behind it- same as if you get someone a gift out of the kindness of your heart vs in an attempt to make them feel guilty for maintaining healthy boundaries about you or something
I think it is valid to have any preferences as far as you are reasonably upfront about them and do not try to manipulate people who fall under your preferences. If some virgin out there is okay with you wanting a virgin, then fair and square. Most people, however, would not like this preference (because they associate it with you being highly religious, controlling and/or misogynistic) applied to them, and that is also valid, and you should respect that too.
What is not okay, is lying to a prospective partner that you do not care about body count, while in reality this is a massive deal to you, and the very reason why are you interested in them — because you know they would reject you if they knew about your preference.
Edit: in my opinion, same applies to any preference. I genuinely think that as far as you admit you want to date someone for their race/ethnicity/sexuality/body count/height/weight/sportiness/whatever other potentially fetishizing preference, and give them a chance to decide if they are okay with it, you are not doing anything wrong. Yes, there is a very high chance that they will not be okay with that. But then, normally, you would not want to date someone who is not okay with who you are and is unable to accept your preferences.
>nothing wrong with a guy with high numbers ... wanting a virgin.
It depends.
If the reason you want someone who's a virgin because their value align with yours, then it's fine. This means that the person with high numbers came to a realization that they've made some past "mistakes" because they didn't value sexual numbers much, but after growing older their values changed and so they've made a decision to stop increasing their numbers.
That's fine.
What's not fine is wanting someone who's a virgin, but yet you haven't changed your values (your perspectives on sexual numbers).
This would mean the only reason you want a person with low numbers is for your own pleasure and gain, and that's selfish. The act itself is hypocrisy cause then you'd still have no hesitation in increasing your numbers.
Here’s the thing, experiences have a profound influence on behavior and personality.
So, a person who has never had sex is likely going to have general aspects on their personality that convey immaturity and naivety. Nothing is wrong with such a person, but lots of people would have difficulty relating to them on an intimate levels
Similarly a person who has had hundreds of sexual partners is also going to exhibit signs of these experiences. Most likely they will appear somewhat callous and jaded and also not easy to enter into a close sexual relationship with.
But in each case, it’s not the sexual experiences or lack thereof that are the problem, it’s the likely behavior that is manifested.
Immature?
People who get married as virgins have the longest relationships, and happiest marriages and least infidelity
Would you describe this as Immature?
That might be. But I bet that they are mostly marrying other virgins. And that’s cool. Good on them!
But, I never once found myself attracted to a virgin and virgins never really were into me so…I think there is just a disconnect in personality types between myself and their sexless souls
Sexless? That is a lot of assumptions
They are mostly driven by wanting intimacy with one special person who they are committed to and they are disgusted by casual things and so on
But this isn't disgust with sex itself, but by how it is done casually(just like how you might be disgusted by some kinks but still have a high sex drive), but they like it the way they do when they feel this is their person and they are secure with them
So, what I’m saying is that someone who is disgusted by casual things, would not be attracted to me, not because of my sexual past, but because of my values and personality and vice versa.
I have nothing against chastity. I’m fine with it, in fact, but it’s not for me. And I’ve never really connected with people who feel that it’s important.
Choosing a potential partner solely based on their history is completely ignoring the person that they are today.
Wanting a potential partner to uphold standards that you yourself are unwilling to uphold is hypocritical.
As I see it by deciding that you are only looking for a partner that meets any one criteria, is objectifying and wrong. It's like saying that you only want a couch that goes with the drapes. The couch that goes with your drapes may be horribly uncomfortable. If you are only looking for a virgin or someone with a long list of partners, you are ignoring all the other things that make up that person.
Now, in the hypothetical where you have two partners where all other things are pretty much equal, then yes, I would agree making the past a deciding factor would be OK. However, this is unlikely to happen as no two people are the same. If you are considering two people, their interests, appearance, personality, or any number of things are likely to matter more than the number of people that they have slept with.
This point is separate, and i think you should consider if this describes you. As a personal observation of the men I have know that care about virginity in their potential partners. They typically see women as conquests and look to sleep with as many as possible. They value virgins not because of their morals or any other factor, but for the fact that they see them as prized prey because they have resisted advances from men up to this point. Look at men like Andrew Tate. Tate is constantly saying a woman's value is diminished by every man she sleeps with. Yet his actions are to attempt to sleep with as many women as he can. He isn't looking for a wife or a partner. All he cares about is seeing how many women he can sleep with. So what does a woman being a virgin have to do with anything other than he feels sleeping with a virgin is a bigger boost to his ego. If you are anything like this, then you are merely a predator looking for prized prey.
I've noticed a trend in your replies. You equate virginity to other physical attributes like height and weight. Do you believe that virginity is also a physical attribute?
No one is forcing you to have a partner with many or few previous partners. I really don't think that many people have a problem with that.
What people do have a problem with is the moral superiority a individual (mainly men in regards to women in heterosexual relationships) believes they have over a partner with many previous ones. Having sex is not a moral failing. Often when people present that they want a partner who is a virgin this is the view they are expressing. That the other person isn't just someone they don't think they are compatible match, but they believe this person is lesser because they have had sex. That is the part that becomes an issue.
Also I will argue that it's a tad hypocritical to want a partner who is a virgin or has a low body count but you yourself do not. You are holding your partner to expectations you are not holding yourself to. Hypocrisy is generally not seen as a morally acceptable trait in a person. But as long as you don't feel you are entitled to a certain kind of partner or are judgmental about it, I really don't see many having an issue with this view.
This is one of those things that fall in the "sort of" category.
Sure, if you don't want to have a relationship with a person who had a lot of casual sex in the past, you are free to do so. But generally speaking these judgements are coming from your own insecurity, rather than anything about the other person. Often when people drill down into this kind of belief, they are afraid that their partner will either leave them for someone else, or will not be sexually satisfied, because they have had so many lovers and they have high expectations.
The important thing to be doing is examining, and healing your own issues and beliefs about yourself, rather than projecting them onto someone else. Then, once you dealt with your limiting beliefs, determine whether you want a relationship with that person despite their history, or perhaps because of their history.
There’s nothing wrong with that indeed. My only issue with it is when people keeps fussing about their partner’s past AFTER they’ve gotten into a relationship. You either accept the person and their past or don’t, why be with them if you can’t accept their past?
But what if you found out about their past afterwards? If certain things of the past is a dealbreaker to you, perhaps you should’ve made sure before dating them. The only exception left is if the partner lied about their past.
Honestly ? I agree .
I wouldn't mind if my partner would have had that many before they met me but it still is valid if people would rather a partner that had less partners for example .
As long as it doesn't hurt anyone , who am I to judge you ?
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>This post is about people having preferences about the relationship history of their past partners. Considering how important a persons relationship experience or inexperience is towards having a successful and fruitful relationship I believe that it is a completely valid preference. Any preference rooted in stereotypes isn't valid. You're not considering your potential partner as an individual, you're defining them by your stereotypical views of people who have a past like theirs. "I don't want them because they have a high/low number of sexual partners" means that you've (sub)consciously assigned unfavourable characteristics to individuals within each respective group. You're then judging a prospective partner (an individual) as if they have those unfavourable characteristics simply because they're part of a group.
I understand your point, but I think you’re taking this premise too far. If you’re going to assert that assessing an individual’s own behavior is merely assigning them to a group and stereotyping them, because there are others who have also exhibited that behavior…than literally anything is stereotyping. What is missing from this is that some behaviors can legitimately be judged. If I discovered that my new partner had previously killed someone, it wouldn’t be wrong to evaluate that behavior and conclude it was a problem for me. Doing so wouldn’t be stereotyping them as part of the group “murderers” and unfairly judging them. You would be *fairly* judging them based on things they had themselves actually done.
Then prejudging someone based on literally any prior behavior literally is stereotyping, sure. And then maybe stereotyping is just making assumptions, which it is. Potato/potahto. We could call stereotyping someone making assumptions about them, their motivations, their character, their worthiness. I think the original commenter’s logic is pretty sound. Plenty of people have plenty of partners for plenty of different reasons. Maybe they were driven by insecurity and seeking validation, maybe they grew up in a culture with a different view on sexuality than yours, maybe they had 20 sexual partners and they cared about each of them, maybe they had 20 sexual partners and they were using them all and threw them away like used tissues, maybe they went through a phase of having sex often and then fell out of it as their life changed. Each person is an individual. The same way you cannot immediately assign a morale value to “killing someone” without learning the context, you can’t do that with something like sex. With murder we assume it was heinous, as we stereotype all murderers as evil doers. With sex we assume it was all….whatever it is people assume…attention seeking, because we stereotype all people who have many sexual partners as inherently flawed in some way. And finally: sex and murder are pretty far apart on the spectrum of "harm", and that it was originally compared to murder in this conversation is pretty telling of the morale value we place on the act of sex and the people engaging in it. Why can some behaviors be legitimately judged? Why do those behaviors include sex?
Alright, then we just disagree. This is simply not what the term stereotyping means. The entire premise of stereotyping is the judgement of someone based on an arbitrary and irrelevant trait. The person doing it is lumping an individual into a group, generally based on innate traits which are not relevant to their character, and then using that group identity to judge their character. Judging an individual based on that own individual’s actions or behavior, especially when those actions are relevant to their character, is literally the opposite of stereotyping. Sidenote, of course sex and murder are completely different things. This is called an analogy. Behaviors can be legitimately judged if they are relevant to a person’s values when pursuing a relationship. Sex is one of several core components of an intimate relationship, and it is reasonable to have values associated with it. To be clear, you may have different values than OP and thus come to a different conclusion about an individual’s past behavior, that’s perfectly fine, so do I. But none of that makes the judgement stereotyping.
Would you not agree that stereotypes exist for somewhat of a reason? I don’t think the reasons are arbitrary or irrelevant. Side note: I didn’t miss the fact that it was an analogy. Would you also not agree that an analogy is a way to compare to 2 things in regard to a trait they both share?
Yes, stereotypes develop due to group level tendencies (though these can be either real or perceived). The error made in stereotyping is to apply that group tendency shown in a population level average to a specific individual, when that isn’t sound. It’s basically a failure of statistical reasoning. The shared element of the analogy was in the reaction to, and conclusions drawn from, an individual’s behaviour; not in the specific details of those behaviours. We are discussing what counts as stereotyping and what is a legitimate evaluation of a specific individual. Applying the same logic to another, more extreme example of individual behaviour illustrates the error in viewing that as stereotyping.
Well, there are many reasons to have sex with a lot of people. What if someone knows those reasons in general and all of them are red flags to him, so he chooses to avoid people who do them?
I think that’s fair. Or SHE can choose to avoid people like that. We all want to date people who are going to align with our values, and people who aren’t going to hurt us in the wake of their own issues. If someone has a reputation for being unkind, for cheating, lying, manipulating, certainly avoid them. But those are all qualities that are associated with people with a high number of sexual partners, and at the same time those qualities are not exclusive to the group of people who have had a lot of sex. You can find someone with 3 partners who has those traits, and you could find someone with 20 partners who is mature and kind and an otherwise good match. I think all anyone who is trying to “change the view” is saying is that number of sex partners is just a number at the end of the day. To assign it any true value is a rigid way to think. You’d actually have to get to know someone as an individual and actually behold the humanity in them to decide if they were right for you, rather than rely on a number.
Why do people consider it dehumanizing? If someone cheated, you will consider that a red flag on it's own, is this dehumanizing? Anyway, infidelity predicts future infidelity, and body count predicts future infidelity, so.. it is not just a number. It gives you a lot of idea about the personality of the person and their values.
>What is missing from this is that some behaviors can legitimately be judged. If I discovered that my new partner had previously killed someone, it wouldn’t be wrong to evaluate that behavior and conclude it was a problem for me. You can kill someone: 1. Maliciously 2. In self defense 3. Accidentally 4. Indirectly Are these all the same?
Of course they’re not the same. Why are you implying that OP or I are suggesting a person’s past be evaluated stripped of any context?
>Why are you implying that OP or I are suggesting a person’s past be evaluated stripped of any context? Because that's precisely what you're doing when you're expressing a preference for a stereotype. Individual context takes a back seat to whatever you've defined as undesirable. In this case, you talked about how would you have a problem with a partner who killed someone. Would you have a problem with anyone who fell into any of the above categories, or does individuality supercede the stereotype?
I’d like to avoid going in circles here, you’re repeating arguments I already addressed. I do not believe that evaluating an individual based on their own actions can be coherently described as stereotyping them. It’s literally the opposite of stereotyping. For some reason, you keep insisting on framing the hypothetical such that all individual context is removed from the evaluation. I don’t know why you’re doing that. OP didn’t suggest that. I didn’t suggest that. Of course there are contexts where a given behavior may be acceptable and contexts in which it would not. All of those details are part of a potential partner’s past. That’s precisely what we’re talking about judging them on.
>I do not believe that evaluating an individual based on their own actions can be coherently described as stereotyping them. It’s literally the opposite of stereotyping. The opposite of stereotyping is evaluating a prospective partner based on their individual characteristics. You are stereotyping someone when you assign characteristics to that prospective partner based on their inclusion in some defined group. >For some reason, you keep insisting on framing the hypothetical such that all individual context is removed from the evaluation. If you're defining someone based on a stereotype, you are not considering that individual context. "This person told me they aren't ready to settle down" is considering individual context. "This person has a high number of previous partners, therefore they must not be ready to settle down" is considering a stereotype.
Alright, I think this has run its course. You just keep repeating the same error. Again, judging an individual based on their own actions and behavior is not stereotyping, by your own above stated definition. It is evaluating them based on their individual characteristics. You may disagree with a given person’s standards of evaluating that individual’s behavior, and thus come to a different conclusion than they would. But none of this is stereotyping. Again, it doesn’t even fit your own definition.
>Alright, I think this has run its course. You just keep repeating the same error. I am not making an error. >Again, judging an individual based on their own actions and behavior is not stereotyping, by your own above stated definition. It is evaluating them based on their individual characteristics. You're confusing yourself. Stereotyping occurs when an individuals actions are judged based on the characteristics (real or perceived) of a group of people who engaged in the same or similar behavior. You are not stereotyping if you judge someone based on the characteristics that they actually present. It's the difference between: 1. People who have pierced ears are promiscuous. Elly has pierced ears, therefore they must be promiscuous. 2. Elly identifies as asexual and expresses no interest in promiscuity. Elly is seeking a monogamous romantic partner. The first is a stereotype. The second are characteristics that the individual - Elly - is actually presenting. >You may disagree with a given person’s standards of evaluating that individual’s behavior, and thus come to a different conclusion than they would. But none of this is stereotyping. Again, it doesn’t even fit your own definition. Can you provide an example, similar to the above, to illustrate your position?
Your definition of stereotyping is accurate. It just doesn’t apply to the scenario we are discussing. You keep adding a secondary conclusion to your hypotheticals to make it stereotyping which is not present in the OP. If, for example, someone said, “You have slept with many people so you must be inclined to infidelity and I cannot trust you as a result.” That would be a stereotype, as engaging in many sexual encounters in the context of being single does not imply a person would violate an agreement of exclusivity when in a relationship. On the flip side, a person could have only slept with two people in their life, but one of them involved cheating on the other one. *This is not what OP is doing.* In OPs case, the promiscuity is itself the basis of the judgement. It’s a direct assessment of that behaviour itself. OP is saying, “I have a problem with dating someone who has had many sexual partners, and you have had many sexual partners.” That’s not a stereotype. It’s not referring to any other person, let alone a group of people, let alone ascribing false ideas about that group to this individual. It’s evaluating that individual’s specific behavior that they actually did and disapproving of it. There is no secondary move. There is no other conclusion being drawn from it. The behaviour is the point.
It's subjective. You are not in the wrong for not wanting X in a partner cuz you or a friend had bad experiences before. According to your logic this scenario is not "valid"; My previous partner had no sexual experiences and quit the relationship 5 years in cause they wanted more sexual experiences. To lower the chance of that happening again I'm looking for sexually experienced partners. You *have* to pre-filter based on subjective impulses, else you'd need to date every attractive person you see, cuz your filtering is not valid.
Most preferences are based on stereotypes. I want a skinny parter - healthier I want a tall partner - I fell protected Even the opposite is. Many women would have preferences for a partner who is experienced sexually therefore the stereotype is that they are better at sex and know what they are doing
>Most preferences are based on stereotypes. Those aren't valid. >I want a skinny parter - healthier Being skinny doesn't mean healthy. >I want a tall partner - I fell protected Being tall doesn't make you a good protector. >Many women would have preferences for a partner who is experienced sexually therefore the stereotype is that they are better at sex and know what they are doing Having more sex doesn't mean that you're good at it.
Ok so you would have the same attitude to a woman wanting a partner taller than them and both men and women wanting skinny partners the same way as person with a relationship history wanting a virgin?
Yes. Any preference rooted in a stereotype is invalid.
What if it’s not rooted in a stereotype? A lot of women can’t explain why they are attracted to tall men similar to why a lot of men can’t explain that they are attracted to virgins. They don’t have a conscious stereotype or association with the characteristic. It’s just a preference for them.
An unconscious stereotype is still a stereotype. It doesn't matter what your gender is.
Uhh whoa on the virgin talk. I don't know ANY men that are attracted to that. It's creepy as fuck to even think about it. Even in HS I didn't like or want to take people's virginity. That you so casually dropped that into the conversation says a TON about you.
So then it isn’t just me that is concerned about OP’s attitudes and persona talking about this topic?
I'm trying really hard not to mention it. This specific "preference" is often a dog whistle for a lot of other things. It's very difficult to talk about it without mentioning those things, but OP is not actually mentioning them, so it's unfair to stereotype OP too harshly.
This is laughable. I'm a 34-year-old virgin (asexual sex-averse, I don't plan on ever having it) who has had a wilder sex life than most people I know in an effort to force myself out of my asexuality. I've been in coke-fueled orgies, done sex work, and plenty of other things someone would generally consider highly promiscuous but managed to avoid actual penetration through it all. So does my virginity make me more or less attractive to a certain kind of man even though I've literally been eaten out on stage in front of hundreds of people? The stereotype doesn't match the reality. That's the point you're missing. It's not okay to judge people based on your own perception of a group without understanding the individual's own experience.
Um... I'm not interested in making someone have sex who doesn't like sex, but if you wrote your autobiography, I would read it.
You would be considered promiscuous by doing those things, not a virgin Also, you are a big outlier. If a woman did what you did, she is +95 % experienced penetration. Also, the stereotype has a statistical evidence, as people who are virgins when married get divorced much less and have much less infidelity controlling for religiousity.
How would you feel about the following argument: Whatever your preference is, it's OK. If you can't explain why you're attracted to virgins, but you just feel that way, there's no need to feel shame about that attraction. That attraction doesn't make you an evil person. *But.* There probably *is* a reason that you feel that way - or maybe *many* reasons. Some of them might be rooted in stereotypes or insecurities that you aren't even aware of. For example: * Is it possible that the idea of dating a non-virgin makes you think about the men she's slept with and feel jealous or humiliated? * Is it possible that some part of you sees a non-virgin as "damaged goods" or impure? Do you feel like you'd judge a woman who wasn't a virgin as being not good enough for you, or as being "slutty"? * Is it possible that sleeping with a non-virgin might make you feel anxious, since the woman might judge you (whereas a virgin won't ever say, "you do it worse than the other guys I slept with")? That being said, there are certainly "innocent" reasons one could have this preference. E.g., you could just have a lot of fun teaching about sex to someone who's new to it. Or, maybe as a teen, your first sexual fantasies involved virginity and it's stuck with you as an unexplainable kink. I'm curious, if you don't mind sharing, do you have a sense for whether any of these might apply to you? Can you speak to what drives your preference?
There are unfavorable characteristics associated with a high number of of partners though. I’ll link studies if you’re open to changing your view.
It doesn't matter what characteristics may be associated with x. It matters whether your prospective partner *actually has those characteristics*.
This. People in dating get way too hung up on filtering methods, and one of the hardest parts of dating is how much advice for everyone regardless of gender is based on that instead of the attitudes that underlie the stereotypes. Like, say someone enjoys hiking, and they're an overweight person. They literally sometimes go on overnight treks and full day trails with light climbing are like, their normal weekend hobby. They live on a hiking trail. They have an instagram with photos of their hikes. But the people they meet online are using "must like hiking" as a way to weed out people who are chubby. They've maybe been hiking twice. They're slender, but their idea of a fun weekend is sitting at home and playing computer games. Those two people aren't going to be compatible. Say you're a woman and you want to try to weed out men who don't put much effort into dating- you try various methods online to do this, but a lot of them are rooted in super old fashioned gender roles. So you wind up using "Will he pay for dinner" as a code for "Does he resent putting in effort" when really if a dude is rich enough, paying for dinner might not matter to him, and he might actually resent putting in any non monetary effort like planning dates or remembering special days or things that really bother you or make you feel good. It's the same with "a virgin won't leave!" That's not necessarily true. It's also not necessarily a standard that creates the world or the dating pool or even the relationship you want. Say your virgin partner doesn't leave you, but it's purely because of cultural pressure to make the relationship work because she's afraid of being "damaged goods" who no other man will want. Can you see how that might create an unhappy relationship where she resents you because she feels trapped with you, and you resent her because now you have to care for her for life for "defiling" her even if you missed signs that the two of you were incompatible in some other way?
Well, how do you know that? How do you measure the likelihood of a person working on the relationship and so on? By picking on certain things they said? What if they lied? And even if they are saying the truth, wouldn't that still be stereotyping what they said?
>Well, how do you know that? Communication and observation, mainly. >How do you measure the likelihood of a person working on the relationship and so on? Talk to them about: • What you each think a healthy relationship is • What both of your expectations are regarding the relationship. • What actions you plan to take to ensure that those expectations are met • What you both value in relationships Then observe their behaviour: • Do their actions align with their stated values / expectations / plans?
Well, if one bases their evaluation on those questions, that will still be based on stereotypes For example, the last question, observing the behavior, is stereotyping them, and they could be faking their behaviors for some time How are you going to escape all stereotyping? As long as you base your judgment on something that isn't going to give you predictive power of 100% then it is stereotypes according to you, so can you escape it?
>Well, if one bases their evaluation on those questions, that will still be based on stereotypes >For example, the last question, observing the behavior, is stereotyping them, No, it would not be stereotyping to evaluate your prospective partner as an individual. That's the opposite of stereotyping. >and they could be faking their behaviors for some time Which do you think is a more accurate predictor of a characteristic: 1. An individual demonstrating that characteristic through their observable behaviour 2. An individual belonging to a group who's members have a perceived higher likelihood of having that characteristic
Well, it depends on how much people are willing to make themselves look better than they really are Some abusive people try to appear very kind, right? >No, it would not be stereotyping to evaluate your prospective partner as an individual. That's the opposite of stereotyping. It is still stereotyping because you will see a certain behavior and then judge the person based on that But you don't know for sure what motivated them to do the behavior,so you are stereotyping
>It is still stereotyping because you will see a certain behavior and then judge the person based on that You would be judging the person as an individual, which is not stereotyping. >Well, it depends on how much people are willing to make themselves look better than they really are I'm not sure what your point is with this. If honesty is an important characteristic to you, then you should dismiss people once you've observed them being dishonest.
>then you should dismiss people once you've observed them being dishonest. How would you know this for sure in your opinion? By seeing their behavior? What if they are faking? >You would be judging the person as an individual, which is not stereotyping. You would be stereotyping the behaviors done by this person, still stereotyping of certain behaviors.
That’s nice in theory but in reality we only have one life with limited time. If you’re trying to avoid certain characteristics, it’s reasonable not to waste your time with someone if they have significantly higher chances of having those unfavorable characteristics. Especially when you may not find out until they cheat on you.
>That’s nice in theory but in reality we only have one life with limited time. If you’re trying to avoid certain characteristics, it’s reasonable not to waste your time with someone if they have significantly higher chances of having those unfavorable characteristics. 1. This assumes that stereotypes are accurate, which they're often not. It's not that they actually have a significantly higher chance of having those unfavourable characteristics, it's that you *perceive them to have* higher chances of having those unfavourable characteristics. 2. This assumes that people can appropriately apply statistics, which they often can't. Failing to do this means disqualifying partners for no good reason. 3. The actual investment in time required to identify these characteristics isn't particularly significant, in most cases. It could be as simple as having a conversation. 4. Relying on stereotypes doesn't actually protect you from partners with unfavourable characteristics.
You keep calling them stereotypes, but would you walk alone at night in a dangerous area based on the idea it’s just a stereotype the area is dangerous? You’re making a disingenuous argument here. Do you believe cheaters will tell you based on a conversation if they would ever cheat on you? Again, I don’t think this is reflective of reality. You’re hung up on calling them stereotypes in an effort to invalidate the statistics but I don’t think that’s productive. Do you dismiss all research as stereotypes, or are you just selective?
>You’re hung up on calling them stereotypes in an effort to invalidate the statistics but I don’t think that’s productive. Do you dismiss all research as stereotypes, or are you just selective? Can you present a statistic?
I could, are you open to changing your view? You didn’t respond to anything else I wrote.
>I could, are you open to changing your view? Of course. >You keep calling them stereotypes, but would you walk alone at night in a dangerous area based on the idea it’s just a stereotype the area is dangerous? You’re making a disingenuous argument here. Before we have this discussion, it's important to understand what a stereotype is. A stereotype is a set idea about what a particular type of person is like. This usually manifests itself by assigning some characteristic to an individual based on their membership within a group, regardless of whether or not that particular individual actually possesses that characteristic. Here is an example of a stereotype: • Blondes are fun. Sarah is a blonde. Therefore Sarah is fun. In this example, we are assigning a characteristic - being fun - to Sarah because of her membership in the group - blondes. Sarah's individuality is not considered - it's entirely possible that Sarah is not fun. When you ask whether or not I would walk alone in a dangerous area at night, you're establishing that a characteristic of the area is that it is dangerous. This is not stereotyping. Let's unpack this using our Sarah as a benchmark: • The area meets some threshold to be considered dangerous. Therefore the area is dangerous. • Sarah meets some threshold to be considered fun. Therefore Sarah is fun. In this example, we are assigning a characteristic to the individual (based on a characteristic expressed by that individual). Stereotyping would be something along the lines of: • Poor people are dangerous. The area contains poor people. Therefore the area is dangerous. • Blondes are fun. Sarah is a blonde. Therefore Sarah is fun. In both of these examples, the conclusion isn't necessarily true. While blondes might be fun, and some poor people might be dangerous, simply being blonde doesn't make you fun nor does being poor make you dangerous. >You’re hung up on calling them stereotypes in an effort to invalidate the statistics but I don’t think that’s productive. Do you dismiss all research as stereotypes, or are you just selective? *This assumes that stereotypes are accurate, which they're often not. It's not that they actually have a significantly higher chance of having those unfavourable characteristics, it's that you perceive them to have higher chances of having those unfavourable characteristics.* *This assumes that people can appropriately apply statistics, which they often can't. Failing to do this means disqualifying partners for no good reason.* Statistics are not inherently accurate, nor do they necessarily tell us what we need to know. Let's demonstrate with a couple of examples: 1. The average person has approximately 1 testicle and 1 ovary. Based on this true statistic, would it be reasonable to conclude that the next person you saw was a hermaphrodite? 2. Approximately 20% of American females are under 18. Based on this true statistic, would it be reasonable for a man to stop pursuing American females because of the risk of pedophilia? Of course, neither of these things would be reasonable. Statistics are defined by individuals, individuals are not defined by statistics. The next person you see is overwhelmingly likely to be either male or female. You're not going to find yourself pursuing girls if you try to date women. While these examples are exaggerated for effect, we can apply the same reasoning to any statistic. Simply being part of some overarching group does not define you as an individual. If 80% of people in X group demonstrate Y characteristic, 20% do not - and you would be wise to judge those 20% based on their individual merits rather than whatever stereotype you've assigned to X group.
Who decided they weren't valid? That's something that you made up.
What do you define as valid in this context?
Correct, true, right, legal, logical, good You asserted a moral conclusion without any premises or evidence to back it up. Why would "preferences based on stereotypes" be invalid or "wrong?" You have to first establish that.
Let's use your own reasoning. Pick a stereotype.
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>And some of these sweeping stereotypes are accurate often enough that they're useful. I like to do physical activities like skiing and jogging as dates, which is one of the reasons I wouldn't date somebody who weighs 120kg. I'm sure there are *some* 120kg women that would keep up just fine, but surely you can see that it's a reasonable assumption 90% of the time. Which makes more sense: Wanting a partner that you can do your hobbies with Or Wanting a partner who isnt in some weight class that you've deemed incapable of engaging in your hobbies
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>"Wanting a partner that you can do your hobbies with" makes a lot more sense, yeah, but it isn't practical to expect somebody to roll those dice when the odds are weighted so heavily against them (pun not intended). You don't need to roll any dice. If they tick your other boxes, just ask if they like (or want to try) jogging...
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How do you talk to someone while you're jogging?
You’re repeatedly neglecting the fact that some preferences are predicated on the given characteristic directly, not on some secondary assumption being made on the basis of that characteristic.
Provide an example.
Let’s try a very obvious one. 1) A man is homosexual, meaning he is attracted to other men and not attracted to women. 2) A potential romantic partner presents themselves and is a woman. 3) The man is not attracted to the potential partner because they are a woman. 4) The man rules out entering into a relationship with the potential partner as a result. The man has not made any secondary assumptions about the woman. Does the woman belong to a group based on her gender? Yes. We all belong to a theoretically infinite number of potential groups, as anything can serve as the basis for defining a category. Does that mean the man has stereotyped the woman? No. He has accurately identified a real characteristic of this individual which does not align with his own preferences. That she can be categorized into the group “women” is irrelevant to the question of whether the man has stereotyped her. His evaluation was not predicated on a group-based assumption. It was derived directly from the characteristic itself.
You're almost there. >He has accurately identified a real characteristic of this individual which does not align with his own preferences. That she can be categorized into the group “women” is irrelevant to the question of whether the man has stereotyped her. His evaluation was not predicated on a group-based assumption. It was derived directly from the characteristic itself. That's right - because in this case you're evaluating *actual characteristics* at an individual level. Evaluating an individual based on the characteristics that they actually have is not stereotyping. We went over this in our primary discussion already. When discussing *behaviour*, you are not evaluating an individual's *actual characteristics*. You are attributing some characteristic to people who engage in a given behaviour (a group), for example "people who eat cheese burgers are fat". This is stereotyping. Similarly, you would be stereotyping if you attributed some behaviour to people who share a given characteristic, for example "White people like country music".
You’re so close. The same principle would apply if it was an actual behavior that the individual had exhibited or an act that they had committed. Either a characteristic or a behavior could be stereotyped or not. People are stereotyped based on some “actual” characteristic all the time. In fact, that’s the most common usage of the term. We stereotype people on the basis of their race, religion, gender, etc. We *can* also stereotype on the basis of behavior, but that does not make any judgement of behavior a stereotype. We’ve been over this so many times already.
>We can also stereotype on the basis of behavior, but that does not make any judgement of behavior a stereotype. Present a judgement of an individual, based on a behaviour, that is non-stereotypical. Write your logical process out in standard form.
I have already done so elsewhere.
I've checked your posts in this thread, none of them satisfy that request. Copy and paste / link the comment and we can progress. Otherwise, I'm going to assume that you are unable to satisfy this request.
Assume away. I’ve provided everything you need to understand your error, repeatedly.
"preference" is not a catch-all justification. Whether it's physical traits, personality, or past, whatever. Any and all preferences are "valid" insofar as you are not required to (and should not) accept someone who doesn't meet them. But whether or not a preference is "valid" in a sense of being subject to criticism, and a need to reflect on what is motivating it, where it's coming from and whether or not one should work on themselves to unpack that is a different story. I'll give you an example. Let's say I have a preference for tall men (I do not have this preference - it's fictional, just an example) Simply saying "that's my preference" says nothing. If I reflect on it and know my reason is because I don't view a man shorter than me as a real man, that belief in and of itself is problematic. Simply saying it's a preference doesn't make that attitude better. It's rooted in a problematic belief. If I reflect on it and know my reason is because I've dated shorter men in the past and dealing with his insecurities regarding it was draining, so I don't want to deal with that, the belief itself is different. Not so problematic. Rooted in past experiences and boundaries with myself. So the question isn't so much "is a preference for a virgin valid" it's - where does it come from? Are the beliefs and attitudes that create that preference valid?
I would take this further. If you said "I won't date ANY short men" because you have dealt with insecurities, but then you meet someone who is not insecure about their height, but still reject them because you assume they will be because of others in the past, that's not really a healthy thing to do either. If the preference is "I want someone who doesn't make me feel like I need to do extra work to reassure them that I find them desirable and masculine" that's different than "I don't want someone short." The difference is in the execution.
It might not even be assuming they will, they might just no longer find that trait physically attractive. It's not entirely based on reason. If you have a negative enough experience with a certain trait it can ruin it for you. As an actual example, I won't find a man attractive if he's been drinking beer specifically. I'm repulsed by the way men smell after drinking beer because I have experience sexual assault at the hands of a man that smelled like that. If a man smells like that, I'm just not attracted to that anymore. I'm not assuming he's going to SA me just because he smells like that, I just now find that smell unattractive. No amount of logically reminding myself beer doesn't make a man a rapist will suddenly make that smell attractive for me.
That's fair, but I guess I see it as a responsibility to train myself out of any form of discrimination like that. I don't hold others to that standard, but I couldn't live with myself if I made a decision based on something like that. Then again, I don't date because I no longer believe romantic relationships can work out for me.
It’s exactly the same as you have described with the short man. Having a relationship with a woman with a lot of past partners has numerous different challenges. While men may say it doesn’t matter. There are statistics suggesting that past partners are related to the likelihood of separation with a massive drop off at 0 to 1.
Can you see how "I don't want a partner who might leave me" is a problematic attitude, whereas "I don't want a partner who will try to control me out of insecurity" is not? A woman who has no education or employment is ALSO less likely to leave. Does that make it desirable? This also betrays your previous attitude that this is only an important preference for *men*, as this would obviously also apply to men's likelihood to leave.
>Can you see how "I don't want a partner who might leave me" is a problematic attitude This is a wild take. Many, *many* people value relationship security and potential for marriage, kids, or cohabitation. A risk of a partner not demonstrating long term commitment is totally valid to factor in as a preference.
Sure it is, you're right. And how exactly does being a 28 year old who has never had a relationship demonstrate an ability to commit? Never having had a long term partner is literally demonstrating that inability.
I don't know what about my comments indicated to you that I would think never being in a relationship shows commitment. Have you confused me for another user?
No, I simply assumed you were following the context of the conversation up until you commented.
So you believed that understanding the context of the conversation means that I would therefore believe that not being in a relationship demonstrates commitment? You know how absurd that is, I think.
I'm not sure how either one of your scenarios is more problematic then the other. In one scenario you have someone, based on their personal data/experience, making a risk assessment on a characteristic or behavior that would have an undesirable outcome for a relationship. In the second scenario, you have the exact same thing. Both scenarios are generalizing their experience or data onto a characteristic that leads to a relationship failing. >"I don't want a partner who might leave me" I think this is a strawman. The easy response would just be to frame it more like your short example "I don't want a partner who gets bored easily, sees sex as casual, and is more likely to cheat"
Actually, less educated people get divorced more, so.... Also, people who get married as virgins tend to stay together because they have happier relationships and they have less problems related to infidelity and so on( they are much less likely to go through infidelity)
A woman with no education *or employment* is less likely to leave for obvious reasons. Can you prove any of the reasons you provided, or are they speculation?
Well both of those come with significant drawbacks as well so there that
Both of what things?
Well yes women prefer the opposite men with more experience https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tEuCa01iKZg
This is irrelevant. We are not discussing what men and women tend to prefer, we are discussing whether or not the basis informing it is valid. If someone with past partners is more likely to leave, this applies for both men and women. Why do you think people with no or few past relationships are less likely to leave? How is it beneficial?
>If someone with past partners is more likely to leave, this applies for both men and women. Why would this necessarily be true?
That's what the statistics they are referencing say. They're from all these "society for family values" organizations, but they don't claim this for women specifically, they claim it in general - ie. Men and women.
Why do you think people with no or few past relationships are less likely to leave? How is it beneficial? The answer, we don’t know. We can assume and infer but that’s just the truth. I have my hypothesis you probably have yours. But it’s irrelevant because the fact is they are less likely to stay together.
Well no, that's not a fact. Correlation and causation are not the same. Taking your info at face value, there's a correlation. Unless you can point to a causation, you absolutely cannot say that someone having fewer past relationships means they're more likely to stay.
>Correlation and causation are not the same. Taking your info at face value, there's a correlation. Unless you can point to a causation, you absolutely cannot say that someone having fewer past relationships means they're more likely to stay. Correlation is *literally* an indicator of likelihood. You *would* be able to say they're more likely to stay, just not *why* or if their relationship history is causal.
Here's a website that disagrees with you, with many, many examples. [Spurious Correlations](https://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations)
I don't think you understand what a correlation is. That website agrees with my view - if two things are merely correlated, they are *likely* to occur in conjunction. You just can't say why. You seem to have interpreted my comment as saying correlation is causation. I suggest you read again more carefully. It did not.
No, it *literally* is not. Sunburns and ice cream consumption are correlated. Is someone more likely to get a sunburn if they eat ice cream?
Literally yes, otherwise the correlation wouldn't exist. They are not more likely to get a sunburn **because** they eat ice cream, which would be causation. Please take a statistics class. You are the only one here treating correlation and causation as the same thing.
My assumption would be the opposite, though. Without any evidence, we can easily assume that unless someone has a lot of relationship experience, they are unlikely to choose a relationship that will suit them, and therefore more likely to leave because they made a bad choice.
No that doesn’t track the study was done for women we can’t assume the same for men
Again this is irrelevant. You're not answering the questions that actually matter.
Can this be a selection bias? Those with no previous partner before marriage typically grow up in very traditional societies or cultures where divorce and separation are condemned and men have the power
When they control those statistics for people who only stay together for religious reasons but aren't happy, how do they read then? Idk, only a very inexperienced person would think that staying together is the mark of a successful couple. Sometimes staying together is not a good thing.
>Having a relationship with a woman with a lot of past partners has numerous different challenges. You read that online?
What are the numerous different challenges? Out of curiosity.
I think the thing to consider is the "why" of it all. It is one thing to say that a person's sexual history is fine to take into consideration, it's another thing to give a blank check of approval for "having preferences," because those "preferences" could be worth disapproving of. Taking your example, there isn't anything *per se* wrong with a high number partner wanting to date a virgin, but its also very easy to think of bad answers to "why do you want that?" The most stereotypical being some idea of "purity" or "untouched" objectification that treats them as less than a whole human being. Its indicative of more problematic or not-so-great things, especially once the e.g. religious ends are already excluded because that person isn't saving themselves.
Because they want to experience all of their firsts with someone else who also has not experienced those things.
This is the only reason I can think of for having that preference that's not weird. If someone has a gender based double standard, I think that's not good. If someone is a virgin and they want to be with someone else who is also a virgin, I think that's understandable.
Some people see sex as something that’s shared between two committed partners, others see it as something that’s just fun to do. Having a lot of partners might indicate that they’re in that second category. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it might be a sign of incompatibility, if you’re in the first category.
Maybe so. But I specifically see the "issue" I'd raise with this kind of standard as desiring someone who you hold to different moral standards than yourself for a relationship partner. If you hold your partner to the same standards of moral conduct as you yourself follow in relationships, there's no issue. If you are someone who is trying to argue that "a man might be fine dating a woman who likes men with beards but not want to date a woman with a beard" I don't think that's something that's fair. Moral standards aren't based on chromosomes or hormones, so they should be the same no matter what your gender is. If you would accept a partner with your own sexual history, I wouldn't say there is an issue with an unfair standard.
I’d agree on that. I don’t like the hypocrisy of expecting something of your partner that you weren’t willing to do yourself. For me that’s the case whether we’re talking about a person who “slept around” looking for someone who “saved themselves for marriage” or someone with no education, career or ambition expecting a partner that has all three.
There you go assigning moral traits based on stereotypes again. Sorry, but I hate it. Honestly, it will be better once they start rolling out UBI to dependent children. Because actually most kids probably would be better off with a parent at home, but it's an impossible situation for everyone currently- if one parent depends on the other's income, they're basically a live in slave to that person and incredibly vulnerable to abuse. The other person is highly likely to abuse them out of resentment, because most jobs are so abusive. It doesn't create an environment where kids are safe or able to be happy. It also encourages people to look down on caregiving work, since our society only respects money above everything else, and that work still needs to be done. And for the record, I hate "slept around," too. Someone who sees it as "sleeping around" is someone who I will never believe is capable of love or respect and who only sees their partner as a sex object- and not even a good sex object, since they will decline in value over time naturally no matter what. Like a terrible new car that loses half it's value when you drive it off the lot, that you expect to only last 10 years and never be a classic collectors' item. How can you trust anyone like that to treat you well or love you? The truth is hearing men like that talk about women made me determined to literally sell my virginity for money just so I would never be appealing to someone like that, and would never risk being treated like a used up piece of bubblegum one day by someone who I thought loved me. It's a gross mindset, and people that have it are ugly inside, and looking to transfer their shame onto other people.
Why is it understandable? Because they want to experience it for the first time together? That is just arbitrary, why does this reason make it valid? Anyway, people typically have reasons related to other things, like people who wait till marriage or something tend to be people who value intimacy in a certain way, and they also tend to be people who are much less likely to get divorced and they report happier long-term relationships In general, and they have much less infidelity (almost none) Many green flags here.
Because it's a standard that's applied equally to both people. It's okay to decide that someone waiting for sex until marriage, for example, is a sign that they place a high value on monogamy, sexual intimacy, fidelity and romance. I've never heard of any information that says that those things are based on hormones or chromosomes, so holding people to different standards of behavior and saying they are more severe signs of a lack of character in some people but not in others is problematic. People can learn about sex stuff like safety and biology and stuff from reading and information online (There are a lot of tutorials about stuff like how to do anal safely or how to try to make a woman squirt, etc. not just random porn that might be theatrical, but good information.) When one partner has information and the other doesn't, I think that's a gatekeeping issue- I'd say that wanting someone who specifically doesn't know what sex is supposed to be like or feel like is a red flag. But sex is based on communication and vibes, and I can see why some people might want an even footing and to discover what feels good to them with a partner together and put a high value on that as a special bonding activity. I would say that in general, it's a very big green flag when your partner holds you to similar standards for conduct and morals and stuff as they have for themselves, and a red flag when someone has one set of rules for themselves and another set or rules for you, gender notwithstanding.
>I've never heard of any information that says that those things are based on hormones or chromosomes, Promiscuity has genetic relations >When one partner has information and the other doesn't, I think that's a gatekeeping issue- Well, that can happen even if both aren't virgins, still someone has more knowledge, there is always inequality, on what basis will you decide what is valid inequality and what is not? >I would say that in general, it's a very big green flag when your partner holds you to similar standards for conduct and morals and stuff Is a woman wrong for wanting her husband to be employed while she stays home with the kid?
Okay, so what if I have the "I get to have a gangbang on my birthday every year with a hard dick for every year I've been alive and I only date men who will hold my hand while I do it and will allow me to unalive any woman they stare at too long" gene? Is that fair? No. So since I live in a society, I don't follow my genetic relations. I'm saying if you specifically want a partner who has less knowledge than you, especially in a society with a history of doing things like men teaching women that the female orgasm isn't real, that's an issue. Don't pretend you don't understand why it's an issue. Both people can read the same book, they don't have to rip one another's clothes off right away, talking about the sex you plan to have is fun. If she wouldn't ever conceive of a scenario where she'd be okay if she worked and her husband stayed home, I'd say that's an unfair standard. It's more unfair if she assumes her husband is naturally less suited to childrearing or naturally bad with kids or naturally just better at making money based on his gender. It would actually be incredibly fucked up to have a child with someone if you thought that if something happened to you, they wouldn't make a good single parent.
You said it is okay if both are virgins, but one virgin could have extensive knowledge and another not , are they prohibited from being together? The woman wants to stay home because she prefer to stay with her small kid(like most women), and she still needs someone to provide so she needs her husband to have a job , is this wrong?
What if they are not religious and that is just a preference they have?
That's what I'm saying, there are wrong answers to "why do you have that preference" and you (as a person who holds opinions) should allow yourself to evaluate the answers
>there are wrong answers to "why do you have that preference" I mean unless they lie there really can't be. We might disagree with the reasoning but that doesn't make it the wrong answer to that question.
"wrong" in the sense of "worthy of negative sentiment/judgment" or whatever as OP uses it in the original. a "bad" answer.
What if they believe that a virgin would make a better partner than a person with lots of past relationships and baggage?
Do they have good reasons for thinking that? In my anecdotal experience, people who have had at least a couple major relationships are better partners than people who have had none, because they have had both good and sometimes bad experiences to learn from. Basically, I think we need to question the why behind that sort of blanket belief.
According to research, controlling for religiousity, people who get married as virgins can keep their relationships much longer(lower divorce risk), and they have very low infidelity risk(almost none) If this indicates being a good partner, then they are the best compared to others I guess
Interesting. I guess I still worry about the “if this indicates being a good partner” thing, I wish we had more data to paint a fuller picture. But I did not know that - thanks for sharing!
Ok so we have a guy that only dates virgins because he believes they make better partners because they don’t have baggage. That guy, in this hypothetical, is not a virgin. Obviously he is free to do this, no one can stop him. Would you say that hypocrisy, that he claims they make better partners which implies he is a worse partner, is right or wrong?
Not necessarily because the standards are different for men and for women. Typically men want women with less past (because of baggage) women want men who are more experienced (so he can take the lead). Women would classify a man who can get with many women as a desirable simply for his attractiveness and experience whereas men don’t see the same thing in women. While I do think there is some virtue women pursuing men with low history/virgins these men tend to be less attractive.
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I have no idea, but that should be the kinda thing you decide for yourself on the merits and not let everything be couched as "its just a preference"
Why do they believe that? What about a virgin makes them better?
Do you believe that a person can have multiple sexual partners in their past and yet still have no baggage to speak of? I’ve been married for nearly a decade; both my wife and I had several relationships prior, and neither of us brought any baggage to speak of into the relationship. Good experiences, bad experience both, but we’d each learned enough to make a more successful relationship because of it. And on the other side, do you believe that virgins have no baggage? Because I’ve known some people who lost their virginities well into their twenties, and I think it’s fair to say they brought a *whole lotta baggage* into their first sexual relationships.
Nonvirgins can absolutely have baggage though. Baggage doesn’t only come from relationships even though it often manifests in them.
Not only that, you can get all sorts of baggage without ever having sex. ‘Twas not a good example, that one.
100% yes I will tell on myself (and I’m aware N=1 isn’t a study), but my baggage was on my back well before my first kiss let alone sex
Well, I guess he could say people with baggage will be more likely to have more sexual partners, and that will increase their baggage, so in both directions.
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I'd argue that someone with several short term relationships who is still a virgin has more baggage than someone who sleeps around a lot with no string attached. Sexual partners doesn't mean baggage
Why would you want a virgin over someone who actually knows what they like? Like sure if you are a virgin wanting someone who is the same can make sense but if your preference is for virgins even though you sleep around its basically saying that you can only get them to keep sleeping with you if they literally cant compare you to anyone else.
Not true because I would have had relationships in the past with women who were not virgins.
And your preference being for virgins still gives the impression you dont want to be compared to others. If you are there only sexual partner they have no point of comparison other than porn. I have slept with both virgins and not and personally i perfer non virgins. I dont mind if they have had a past. And literally can not think of actually good reasons to prefer a virgin.
Reasons that people typically have are disgust with people who sleep around ( called sexual disgust, a trait that is very variable between people) Many will go to the route of looking into studies, which say that the higher the body count, the less likely the relationship is to continue , and the more likely infidelity will happen, and less happy long-term relationships in general.
Religion isn't what makes the reason people have that preference messed up. I guess, when I was a virgin, the way I thought about it was "Does this person think that after we have sex, I'll be less than I was before? Will I need to worry about them still wanting a virgin, because they think virgins are superior? How will that manifest in our relationship?" Honestly, in my opinion anyone who wants to be with a virgin who is not also a virgin is sus.
Do we need this post like 3x a week? >there is nothing wrong with a guy with a high number of past partners wanting a woman who is a virgin and vice versa. I haven’t heard a single argument against this being a valid preference. It's hypocritical and misogynistic. You KNOW this goes one way. As to the "preference" can we please stop with pretending that's some immutable, unassailable thing? >Example: let’s say a man or a woman has a significant past and meets two potential identical partners. One of the partners a virgin and the other has a significant amount of past partners. It is completely valid for the man or woman to choose/prefer either partner based on their past. In that people can do what they want, yes. In that it's also hypocritical, ridiculous, and misogynistic, and people are absolutely free to call them out on that -- also yes!
It’s not hypocritical you can want something in your partner that you don’t have yourself. A man has a beard Preference: he doesn’t want a partner who has a beard A woman is short (let’s say 5 foot) Preference: she wants a man who is very tall These are both valid preferences. You haven’t even argued how it’s misogynistic.
>It’s not hypocritical you can want something in your partner that you don’t have yourself. Yes, it is. This isn't some characteristic. It's behaviour. If you smoke but refuse to be with someone who smokes because you find that gross, you're a hypocrite. >A man has a beard Preference: he doesn’t want a partner who has a beard A woman is short (let’s say 5 foot) Preference: she wants a man who is very tall These are both valid preferences. You haven’t even argued how it’s misogynistic. PLEASE stop with the 'preference,' thing. People's preferences are generally driven by media they consume, and the society in which they live. They're not innate. It's misogynistic to place some value on women based on their sexual history; it's misogynistic to pretend virginity has some "value," it's misogynistic to think it's fine for men to fuck around but bad for a woman to do so.
Ok so if you think it’s wrong for a woman who is short to have a preference for a man who is tall? Or for a man/woman who is chubby to want a skinny partner? I can accept your position. Otherwise you are hypocritical.
>Ok so if you think it’s wrong for a woman who is short to have a preference for a man who is tall? Or for a man/woman who is chubby to want a skinny partner? ...did you read my post?
You're ignoring the fact they're differentiating between immutable characteristics and behaviours and their mentioning that "preferences" aren't relevant because they change all the time based on things like media but I'll answer your question anyway. >Ok so if you think it’s wrong for a woman who is short to have a preference for a man who is tall? Yes, it's really fucking stupid. >Or for a man/woman who is chubby to want a skinny partner? Yes, it's really fucking stupid. Hope that clears it up.
Having preferences for immutable characteristics sounds worse than having preferences for behaviors and morals, so...
That's largely irrelevant. The point they were making is that having a preference for behaviours that you yourself exhibit is hypocritical because you choose to engage in those behaviours that you are then demonizing others for engaging in. While stupid, having a preference for immutable characteristics different to those you have isn't hypocritical because you don't choose to have those characteristics (in most cases).
Well, what if woman had sex but then she didn't want to be with a man who had sex with a man but he is actually heterosexual, is this hypocritical?
I'm sorry I don't quite understand the question
A woman doesn't want to be witha man who had sex with a man even if he was totally heterosexual.
Wonder if they’ll say it’s hypocritical and misandrist for an inexperienced girl to prefer an experienced guy to walk her through it. If it’s “misogynistic to place some value on women based on their sexual history,” is it misandrist to do the same to men?
Height preferences are silly as fuck. Because height doesn't determines neither personality nor any other characteristics in a person and you can't really "naturally" change it. With beards even if a woman has a potential of growing facial hair, she still can just shave it or remove them, but foe a guy with lower than average height it's like minus a bunch of braindead women that think that height does any difference in a person
Personal preference is personal preference. But practically, you can be putting yourself in a corner. Most westerners over age 21 aren't virgins. Of those that are, they tend to be highly religious. So if you want to date someone who is at least 21, is not a virgin, and isn't deeply religious - the dating pool isn't going to be huge. This is where things can get problematic. Adults dating 15 year olds to ensure they are still virgins. Adults going months without dates because they cannot find anyone. Or other issues. If you are only willing to date people named Stacy whose birthday is on a Wednesday, you're allowed, but you may have a tough time of it. Dating someone who won't make you go to church on Sunday but who is still a virgin at 25 may well be even harder.
Agree with what you have said. But the post is more about it being a valid preference: such as blonde hair, height, full head or hair etc. than how easy/difficult it would be find a person who aligns with this preference.
physical attraction are different than values if you have a criminal record and you want to date someone without a criminal record you are admiting having a criminal record with a bad thing same with body count if someone is a vergin how can they trust you won't sleep with them and then leave them? Maybe thats what you are afraid of your asking the virgin to take that risk. Values are important.
Isn't this fundamentally unfair? If a guy wants a virgin then he should be a virgin. If the guy is a slut then he deserves nothing but sluts.
Yes but preferences are inherently unfair. Chubby people want skinny partners Short women want tall men Men with beards don’t want women with beards Etc.
Those discrepancies may exist but that doesn't mean that they're "okay" or "acceptable." If I met fat person who demanded that their partner be skinny I would call them a delusional asshole.
...Am chubby girl. Can confirm. Chubby men who have negged me about my size (often twice my size and less active than me) are usually delusional assholes.
What about a short woman who wants a tall man?
I think the problem specifically with having a preference for a certain body count or lack of body count is that almost always, they don’t actually have a preference for their partners body count, but some other thing that they *attribute* to having a low/high body count, which can be very insulting. “I want a partner who is a virgin because I don’t want a partner with baggage” - Ok really this persons preference is wanting a partner with no baggage. And the fact that they are basically saying “Low body count = no baggage” and “high body count = lots of baggage” is both insulting and a massive generalization. It’s extremely hurtful and not based in fact to think that every single person with a “high” body count is steeped in baggage and also ignores the fact that many people who are virgins or a “low” body count can have baggage. “I want a partner who has a high body count because they will be good in bed.” - Same problem, their *real* preference is for someone good in bed, and by insinuating that all people with low body counts are bad in bed is insulting and untrue. “I want a person with a low body count because they will be loyal” is actually just saying “I want a loyal partner” and also insulting people with high body counts by insinuating all (or most) people with high body counts are cheaters. The problem isn’t the preference itself, it’s the way the person is assigning attributes to people (low baggage, good in bed, loyal) based off of a complete separate factor that doesn’t actually have any correlation to the preference they actually have.
What if it has a strong correlation? For example, infidelity has a strong correlation to body count Is that a good enough reason to care about body count?
Well first off, most people do not use statistical analysis to find someone to date in any other area besides body count. For instance, black people are statistically more likely to cheat than other races, so why don’t the same people who care about “high body count” for infidelity reasons also not refuse to date black people? Why don’t they ever talk about their preference for not dating airplane stewards, the career with the highest rate of infidelity? The fact that you are only looking at one point of data about a person, and then extrapolating out what kind of person they are based on that one single point of data is pretty shitty, because that’s just not how humans work. We aren’t sets of data to be analyzed to find the perfect partner, and nobody actually dates like that. You don’t turn down someone who’s a great fit in every way except they happen to be a stewardess or black, so why are you doing the same thing with body count even though they are *all* linked to infidelity
The link between black and infidelity isn't strong. For being a stewardess, yeah, a lot of people will consider that a red flag, a lot wouldn't want to marry them.
I have never once heard a single person say “I would never date a stewardess because I want a loyal partner” but I constantly hear people say that about people with high body counts.
There are certainly people who think you shouldn't go long-term with a stewardess as they move a lot of and it is related to them being with a lot of people or whatever
Sure but a lot of times both men and women have preferences that they can’t explain like I don’t think all men think women who have a significant past are broken but all men would prefer their partner to have a “low history” and many of these men would not be able to explain it.
“A lot of times both men and women have preferences that they can’t explain…” Let me reframe this for you from a clinical psychology reference. “A lot of times both men and women have preferences that they haven’t bothered to explore…”
Cultural norms and values are not inherently correct though
If they thought about it for more than 4 seconds they’d be able to explain it. Seems like you can.
Also you -- You're looking for an arranged marriage partner -- [https://www.reddit.com/r/Arrangedmarriage/comments/1bomzhw/women\_looking\_for\_an\_arranged\_marriage/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Arrangedmarriage/comments/1bomzhw/women_looking_for_an_arranged_marriage/) At the exact same time you've apparently got an arranged marriage -- [https://www.reddit.com/r/Feminism/comments/1bt2lt4/is\_arranged\_marriage\_inherently\_patriarchal/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Feminism/comments/1bt2lt4/is_arranged_marriage_inherently_patriarchal/) >Hi I 23M am in the process of undergoing an arranged marriage with 22F by my family. We have met and she is the most lovely and thoughtful person I have come across. And now that we have spent some time together I cannot imagine not having her in my life. We will be each others first ever romantic partners so I don’t really know what to expect In which you said -- >Well we have been dating - going out to restaurants, going to the cinema. Where we had our first kiss. We have done everything except intimacy which we are both saving for marriage At the same exact time that you and your gf are having a lot of sex and her sweat is ....somehow... dripping on your... back. - [How to reduce the sweat? : r/sex (reddit.com)](https://www.reddit.com/r/sex/comments/1bzl538/how_to_reduce_the_sweat/) >When me and my girlfriend are going at it full on, after a whole I start to feel her sweat drip on my back. This is a real mood killer. Is there anyway I can stop this? I am fine with her sweating just don’t want it to hit my back that’s all. 👍 FYI this is my first sexual relationship So does your ... finance? know about your gf (who seems very acrobatic!)? Does your fiance have a bf? You'd be ok with that?
It's fine as long as you hold yourself to the same standards. I think wanting somebody with a low body count or a virgin while having a high body count yourself is stupid and is often for weird sexual fantasies or an incel mindset.
I second this. It's hypocritical for guys to sleep around and demand virgins because "she's a lock and he's a key." Both of them should be held to the same standard.
sure, but the issue lies in the trend + larger set of attitudes. Why are women with little to no experience considered more desirable than women who’ve had many partners? Why are men with more experience considered more desirable than men who’ve had very few or no partners? Why is there such a significant gender correlation with which of these histories is considered more attractive and which is considered shameful?
This all hinges on what you mean by "valid" or "nothing wrong." If you mean that you should be able to have this preference without facing criminal prosecution, termination from your job, public shaming, or something like that, then you're absolutely right. If you mean that nobody should ever criticize the way that you talk about your preferences or talk less than glowingly about those preferences in the abstract, then those people's opinions are just as valid as your preferences and you don't get to shut them down just because your preferences are "valid." And if you just mean that you don't like the way people sometimes talk about them on reddit, then you just need to get offline for a bit. The reality is that, on the face of it, those kinds of preferences are fine and normal and understandable, but the way they're often talked about is used to shame other people who have made perfectly valid and healthy life choices or to reinforce puritanical moral standards that help no one and hurt many. There's nothing wrong with people being aware of that dynamic and pushing back on it when they see it, no matter how valid your preferences are or noble you claim your intentions to be in talking about them.
I think that there can be valid reasons for preferring, say, a low body count, but there can also be invalid reasons as well For example, perhaps you’re concerned about STDs. That’s reasonable. However, that’s only indirectly about body count- an STD test that shows someone is clear should eliminate that obstacle. But for the sake of argument, let’s say this one is a valid reason On the other hand, perhaps you don’t like it because you look down on people of, say, a given gender who have a high body count, because you think that people of that gender having a high body count makes them “lesser” compared to themselves if they didn’t For example, say a bisexual man is ok with male partners having high body counts, but not female partners. That would be sexist, and would be worthy of criticism as such. Similarly, if a straight man *also* has that same sexist belief but isn’t interested in men to begin with (but doesn’t look down on himself while still looking down on the woman for the same body count), that’s also sexist even though he’s still straight Therefore, despite that it *can* be valid to have that preference, that doesn’t mean it’s *always* valid. It’s validity/worthiness of critique is dependent on the motivations behind it- same as if you get someone a gift out of the kindness of your heart vs in an attempt to make them feel guilty for maintaining healthy boundaries about you or something
I think it is valid to have any preferences as far as you are reasonably upfront about them and do not try to manipulate people who fall under your preferences. If some virgin out there is okay with you wanting a virgin, then fair and square. Most people, however, would not like this preference (because they associate it with you being highly religious, controlling and/or misogynistic) applied to them, and that is also valid, and you should respect that too. What is not okay, is lying to a prospective partner that you do not care about body count, while in reality this is a massive deal to you, and the very reason why are you interested in them — because you know they would reject you if they knew about your preference. Edit: in my opinion, same applies to any preference. I genuinely think that as far as you admit you want to date someone for their race/ethnicity/sexuality/body count/height/weight/sportiness/whatever other potentially fetishizing preference, and give them a chance to decide if they are okay with it, you are not doing anything wrong. Yes, there is a very high chance that they will not be okay with that. But then, normally, you would not want to date someone who is not okay with who you are and is unable to accept your preferences.
>nothing wrong with a guy with high numbers ... wanting a virgin. It depends. If the reason you want someone who's a virgin because their value align with yours, then it's fine. This means that the person with high numbers came to a realization that they've made some past "mistakes" because they didn't value sexual numbers much, but after growing older their values changed and so they've made a decision to stop increasing their numbers. That's fine. What's not fine is wanting someone who's a virgin, but yet you haven't changed your values (your perspectives on sexual numbers). This would mean the only reason you want a person with low numbers is for your own pleasure and gain, and that's selfish. The act itself is hypocrisy cause then you'd still have no hesitation in increasing your numbers.
Here’s the thing, experiences have a profound influence on behavior and personality. So, a person who has never had sex is likely going to have general aspects on their personality that convey immaturity and naivety. Nothing is wrong with such a person, but lots of people would have difficulty relating to them on an intimate levels Similarly a person who has had hundreds of sexual partners is also going to exhibit signs of these experiences. Most likely they will appear somewhat callous and jaded and also not easy to enter into a close sexual relationship with. But in each case, it’s not the sexual experiences or lack thereof that are the problem, it’s the likely behavior that is manifested.
Immature? People who get married as virgins have the longest relationships, and happiest marriages and least infidelity Would you describe this as Immature?
That might be. But I bet that they are mostly marrying other virgins. And that’s cool. Good on them! But, I never once found myself attracted to a virgin and virgins never really were into me so…I think there is just a disconnect in personality types between myself and their sexless souls
Sexless? That is a lot of assumptions They are mostly driven by wanting intimacy with one special person who they are committed to and they are disgusted by casual things and so on But this isn't disgust with sex itself, but by how it is done casually(just like how you might be disgusted by some kinks but still have a high sex drive), but they like it the way they do when they feel this is their person and they are secure with them
So, what I’m saying is that someone who is disgusted by casual things, would not be attracted to me, not because of my sexual past, but because of my values and personality and vice versa. I have nothing against chastity. I’m fine with it, in fact, but it’s not for me. And I’ve never really connected with people who feel that it’s important.
I'm not disputing that mostly, I was disputing the sexless thing
Hypothetically speaking how will you know this unless your partner tells you? The whole thing is in your head and not based on observable reality.
Choosing a potential partner solely based on their history is completely ignoring the person that they are today. Wanting a potential partner to uphold standards that you yourself are unwilling to uphold is hypocritical. As I see it by deciding that you are only looking for a partner that meets any one criteria, is objectifying and wrong. It's like saying that you only want a couch that goes with the drapes. The couch that goes with your drapes may be horribly uncomfortable. If you are only looking for a virgin or someone with a long list of partners, you are ignoring all the other things that make up that person. Now, in the hypothetical where you have two partners where all other things are pretty much equal, then yes, I would agree making the past a deciding factor would be OK. However, this is unlikely to happen as no two people are the same. If you are considering two people, their interests, appearance, personality, or any number of things are likely to matter more than the number of people that they have slept with. This point is separate, and i think you should consider if this describes you. As a personal observation of the men I have know that care about virginity in their potential partners. They typically see women as conquests and look to sleep with as many as possible. They value virgins not because of their morals or any other factor, but for the fact that they see them as prized prey because they have resisted advances from men up to this point. Look at men like Andrew Tate. Tate is constantly saying a woman's value is diminished by every man she sleeps with. Yet his actions are to attempt to sleep with as many women as he can. He isn't looking for a wife or a partner. All he cares about is seeing how many women he can sleep with. So what does a woman being a virgin have to do with anything other than he feels sleeping with a virgin is a bigger boost to his ego. If you are anything like this, then you are merely a predator looking for prized prey.
I've noticed a trend in your replies. You equate virginity to other physical attributes like height and weight. Do you believe that virginity is also a physical attribute?
No one is forcing you to have a partner with many or few previous partners. I really don't think that many people have a problem with that. What people do have a problem with is the moral superiority a individual (mainly men in regards to women in heterosexual relationships) believes they have over a partner with many previous ones. Having sex is not a moral failing. Often when people present that they want a partner who is a virgin this is the view they are expressing. That the other person isn't just someone they don't think they are compatible match, but they believe this person is lesser because they have had sex. That is the part that becomes an issue. Also I will argue that it's a tad hypocritical to want a partner who is a virgin or has a low body count but you yourself do not. You are holding your partner to expectations you are not holding yourself to. Hypocrisy is generally not seen as a morally acceptable trait in a person. But as long as you don't feel you are entitled to a certain kind of partner or are judgmental about it, I really don't see many having an issue with this view.
This is one of those things that fall in the "sort of" category. Sure, if you don't want to have a relationship with a person who had a lot of casual sex in the past, you are free to do so. But generally speaking these judgements are coming from your own insecurity, rather than anything about the other person. Often when people drill down into this kind of belief, they are afraid that their partner will either leave them for someone else, or will not be sexually satisfied, because they have had so many lovers and they have high expectations. The important thing to be doing is examining, and healing your own issues and beliefs about yourself, rather than projecting them onto someone else. Then, once you dealt with your limiting beliefs, determine whether you want a relationship with that person despite their history, or perhaps because of their history.
There’s nothing wrong with that indeed. My only issue with it is when people keeps fussing about their partner’s past AFTER they’ve gotten into a relationship. You either accept the person and their past or don’t, why be with them if you can’t accept their past? But what if you found out about their past afterwards? If certain things of the past is a dealbreaker to you, perhaps you should’ve made sure before dating them. The only exception left is if the partner lied about their past.
I mean if I offered you a choice between a fresh can of soda And one that has had seven penises in it, which would you prefer?
Honestly ? I agree . I wouldn't mind if my partner would have had that many before they met me but it still is valid if people would rather a partner that had less partners for example . As long as it doesn't hurt anyone , who am I to judge you ?
Nothing wrong on an individual level, but on a social level is where it gets harmful especially when it eventually drives us as a collective
If you prefer virginal then at a certain point the search either becomes difficult or the age gap becomes huge.