Commodification of Females

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The question of this thread is does female behavior towards men tend to promote a commodification of women in the eyes of men? To better understand this, I would like to employ the metaphor of the investment. Time and effort a man puts in towards attracting a woman for a date is the initial investment. He is hoping for a return on his investment in the form of a date, a relationship, or sex. He can pursue any of many investment strategies, particularly depending on his goals and his collateral (his having a job, being intelligent, being physically attractive, possessing attractive personality traits, etc.).

I contend that those investment strategies that do not promote commodification of women are bad in that they have low probability of providing a return on investment. A male could opt for the high-cost, single-choice investment strategy: choosing one woman he is especially attracted to and pursuing her with high-cost courtship behaviors (artistic endeavor, romantic surprises, etc.) that also deprive him of an opportunity to pursue other females simultaneously. The main alternative is the low-cost (for any particular woman), multi-choice investment strategy. For this strategy, the cost may in fact be similar to the single-choice strategy, but in this case, the cost of pursuit is distributed across many women instead of one. This strategy utilizes very low-cost behaviors that are simple, fast, and relatively painless for the male to perform (a simple greeting followed with brief flirtatious conversation, a pick-up line at a bar, outright asking a girl for sex). It also allows the male to pursue sex or a relationship with multiple partners simultaneously (increasing the probability of a return on investment at any particular moment). However, the status of the females is reduced to that of commodity: more or less alike and interchangeable should plans go awry. No special significance is attached to the females pursued other than mere convenience (proximity plus availability minus wariness); thus substantive romantic feelings are unlikely to develop or endure. Furthermore, it can be said that many cases of rape are an extreme expression of this strategy.

Now, one may contest that the utilization of the low-cost, multi-choice strategy instead of the high-cost, single-choice strategy is one of mere personal taste: that all things being equal, promiscuity-tending males would naturally favor the former while their monogamy-tending peers would likewise favor the latter. Perhaps an innate preference plays a role, but I contend that men's likelihood to engage in one strategy or the other is environmentally (socially) determined and that the variable controlling this is women's behavior towards men. Hypothetically, a male using the monogamous strategy may pursue ten women over the course of his life and have success with one. In the time the monogamous peer pursued one, the promiscuous one has already pursued one hundred! If he too has a 10% return on investment, he has had success with ten women while his monogamous peer has had success with only 0.1! For the high-cost, single-choice strategy to be effective, in other words, women must favor it particularly. Empirical research has shown, though, that very few women are likely to give the high-cost strategy preference over the low-cost strategy. In other words, unless the male has particularly stringent, even masochistic goals in mind, the rational strategy is the low-cost, multi-choice one.

Go to hell.

You are perceiving the goal of a "date" or "sex" as being the objective but the worth of the comodity is an "unknow".You dont get a "valueable return",just a return.One person can have 10 dates,10 sexual experiences and they can all be pretty lame or have a cost(aids,pregnancy,being accused of rape and going to jail,being stalked by the female afterwards,etc)It can be like inheriting a house ,only to find out the floorboards are rotting,the roof leaks and the back taxs are going to leave you broke.

Relationships with humans tends to be more like building a dwelling.If you do good research,invest a lot of your time and attention into understanding what it is you really want to build,dont try and build an egloo in the dessert and are willing to work hard to make sure the foundation is solid....you will have something worth more then someone who throws up a few quick tents.

The real investment is not financial(cost of gifts or paying for dinner),but taking the time to understand what you would be happiest with,weighing the pros and cons and then persueing that objective.(Objective may take longer if you are currently making min. wage and only want to live in a mansion).

I actually tried to date more than one person at a time and found out....I cant multi-task.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Neant, for all the bragging people do or all the cover-up studies have apparently shown that of the population 1/3 really want to have sex all the time in a relationship or otherwise, 1/3 are ok with once a week, and 1/3 are borderline indifferent (though you'll never find that 1/3 admitting it to their friends - especially as a guy its kinda stigmatizing).

That said the behavioral economics enable someone who wants a real mind to mind and heart to heart connection to wait that long until they find what they really want - especially if sex is something they could take or leave or the misery of dating someone who's not right for them outweighs the benefits of sex, being with someone, or the alleviation of whatever pressure they may get from their friends about being single.

This is why though I think there's a good dose of fatalism in human behavior though and why you kinda could map out your life before your born to lock yourself into a planned route - think of it like Minority Report when Tom Cruise has the time machine, based on who a person is - if they're doing everything they can to be their best selves and optimize the quality of their life, there are certain types of choices they'll almost always make and when one strategy doesn't work which leads them to persue another, their pivot point can be pretty easily predicted too on just all the background factors and how other variables are influencing them at the time.

Still, none of that I think really cheapens the human experience, if anything though being aware of that fact I think lends you more power to change and see where and why things are breaking down in your life. The emotional majesty of certain moments of life need not be lost on this.

Okay. Where do I begin? First of all, love is not a business pursuit (however, arranged marriages were in the past). If you believe that, then chivarly is dead. One can easily find a rich woman/man to settle with without love, and both of you then will suffer. Second, what you described in the latter case is a "playa" attitude; however, there are a few considerable pertinent factors that you did not count in. One is that most women want a stable relationship with a "soulmate" - and if you're sleeping with many women at once - the chances of getting an STD increases (even with using protection), and if one woman finds out that you are sleeping with others simultaneously, you will get the "Jerry Springer" effect - yelling, screaming, and the other women will find out and most likely leave you.

The solution is to this problem is this: Love and money do not mix! Go after the woman that makes your heart 'flutter' (Given that she feels the same way), for it is better to have love and lost, than to never have loved at all.

He was just analyzing a theory.
Not saying I agree with what he is saying.

It was a metaphor to show the relative costs of two dating strategies.

The theory starts out with the commodification of women as an assumption, and neglects to take into account the fact that humans are a social species with social consequences to everything we do.

Aspies may be bad percieving the social dynamics, but the fact remains that they are there whether we notice them or not.

For the purposes of this analysis, a date, a relationship, or just plain sex is considered the endpoint (my analysis does not take into account what happens after the goal has been attained). In the context of this analysis, for men who use the low-cost, multi-choice strategy, for their pursuit of their goal, women have commodity status. For men who use the high-cost, single-choice strategy, a particular woman has a unique status which differentiates her from the mass of women and makes her worthy to pursue.

No, men who use the low-cost, multi-choice strategy inherently commodify women to a greater or lesser extent; those who use the high-cost, single-choice strategy do not. Environmental pressure (i.e., romantic and sexual frustration) resulting from a lack of success using the high-cost, single-choice strategy may result in a man switching to the low-cost, multi-choice strategy, which inherently commodifies. The high-cost strategy, as its name makes clear, is very costly to utilize; a man will invest a great deal of effort romancing the woman he fancies, but all the same, she could turn him down. During that time, he was unable to pursue other women because all his efforts focused on his would-be lover. Rejection after using this strategy is also more likely to have strong emotional repercussions than the low-cost strategy: more frustration, depression, and other forms of negative affect. For the low-cost strategy, since the emotional connection was always flimsy to begin with, any emotional hurt incurred would be light and transient.

As an alternative to switching to the low-cost, multi-choice strategy, a man who has failed employing the high-cost, single-choice strategy may switch to the high-cost, no-choice strategy, which is depression and bitterness. This switch seems to be more common although it is less pragmatic. From a goal-oriented perspective, switching to the low-cost, multi-choice strategy is likely more effective.

You're looking at dating as if it were an investment...it's not...far from it. Dating is a gamble. As with life it's all about taking a chance.

I agree with the parent post in this thread, all of it, and here's why.

AS sufferers (including me) tend to analyze things in much more detail, AS sufferers also tend to adopt a more formal approach to many things including the establishment of a permanent, steady relationship. The original post is an example of good, solid cost/benefit analysis and there is nothing wrong with it.

Here's an example of how the technique can work.

Go back thirty years and young Ed Almos has suddenly discovered girls and he's looking for some company. To aid in this process I signed up with a computer dating company and I suddenly found myself with one printout after another of girls who wanted to meet me. Initially I invested 100% of my time, emotions and money into each girl on the printout, one at a time, and the end result was a series of massive failures which eventually drove me crazy. A far better way of doing this would have been to invest a small amount of my time, emotions and money into a number of relationships at the same time. The effects of this would be:

a) I would have a better chance of finding the right partner because I met more girls.
b) Failure of a relationship would not be such a big deal because I had not 'invested' too much.
c) Multiple failures over time would not have had such a bad effect, in fact it may have hardened me to failure.

Please note, these techniques are not just for men, they can be used by women as well. If I signed up for a dating organization I would EXPECT that a woman which I met for a drink one night would also be meeting other people within the organization. She would also be investing a minimum amount of her time, emotions and money into a number of prospective partners until she met the right man.

Ed Almos

Other ways of using strategies too you know...

Investment involves calculating risk to maximize return. The idea is to understand the probabilities ahead of time and know what you want. The chances of success in sex and dating are not a blind gamble unless you make it one.

I can see why people would be a little grossed out by this thread. When you take the humanity out of something it just gets bleaker and sadder, with relationships especially its one of those things where when you steal that element you've really got nothing.