MRA statistics are from Uranus

Given how much nonsense that gets repeated as fact on MRA/PUA/MGTOW blogs/forums, I thought it would be a good idea to have a topic to post some of the oft-cited facts and to see if there is any actual source out there in the world that backs up the claims in any way. So, bascially, one big [citation needed] topic.

If you post one, please post a link to where you found it. And if you have any idea where it might have come from, post that too. If some of these claims are actually valid, I'd like to know that. If some of these claims have some vague connection with something that is vaguely true, I'd like to know that also.

Once we assemble a nice list, I'll do a post about it on the blog.

To start things off, here's one from MRAL, posted in this very forum, that's often repeated in the manosphere: The "80% of women only sleep with 20% of the guys and the rest are not getting any" claim.

http://manboobz.forummotion.com/t60p60-nice-guy-syndrome#1518

females are only hypergamous with a very narrow subset of men (the 15-20% that make up the Alphas), leaving the rest of the men either celibate or fighting desperately to pass off an a Lesser Alpha for one night (the "table scrap phenomenon). Remember that it's not the comparable 15-20% of Alpha women that do this, it's more 70-80% of women, including the Betas and even Greater Omegas who think they're entitled to Alpha Cock even though it's WAY out of their league.

When asked for his course, he said it was anecdotal evidence from PUAs etc. In other words, the source (until further notice) is: URANUS. I'd be curious if there is any survey or study that someone might possibly cite that might, even in some vague way, back up this claim.

The only one I can think of is that often-cited lecture by Roy Baumeister that notes:

Recent research using DNA analysis answered this question about two years ago. Today’s human population is descended from twice as many women as men.

I think this difference is the single most underappreciated fact about gender. To get that kind of difference, you had to have something like, throughout the entire history of the human race, maybe 80% of women but only 40% of men reproduced.

http://www.psy.fsu.edu/~baumeistertice/goodaboutmen.htm

A couple of things: 80% vs 40% is not the same as 80% and 20%. The bigger point is that this skewed percentage probably has very little to do with women's preferences. It reflects long eras of history and prehistory. It reflects time periods in which rape was a widespread weapon of war (it still is) and in which powerful men were "entitled" to rape women. (Quite a few of us literally have some Genghis Khan DNA in us.) It tells us very little about the contemporary world.

Any thoughts on this, or any other MRA factoids you guys want to post?

Somebody needs to write him for that source :\ I tried googling and all I found were ppl saying it and citing back to that piece (which is actually from a book I think... I posted the review of it on the same thread) :\ Nebody want to borrow the book and look for the cite? o_O But so far I have seen it spread around a lot, and even conclusions on blogs/forums based on "since we know that..." but it goes back to that piece :\

There's a limited preview of the book up on Google books, but the page on which he discusses the DNA thing isn't available to preview, alas. I really don't want to have to buy the damn thing.

Ugly Women Are Big Whores:

Females who perceive themselves as less attractive might be more likely to engage in casual sexual relationships since they are less likely to gain a long-term high-quality partner (Harris, 1998). For those who receive feedback suggesting that they are particularly attractive, however, it may make more sense to hold out for a high-status male from which they are likely to gain a high level of investment (Trivers, 1972; Wright, 1994). This is a controversial notion but one for which there is some empirical support. Walsh (1993) has found that the less attractive a woman feels she is, the more partners she is likely to have. Moreover there is clear evidence that the most beautiful women in a given society do tend to marry the most powerful men (Symons, 1979).

- Harris, J. R. (1998). The nurture assumption: Why children turn out the way they do. Free Press
- Symons, D. (1979) The Evolution of Human Sexuality. New York: Oxford University Press
- Trivers, R.L. (1972). Parental investment and sexual selection. In B. Campbell (ed.). Sexual Selection and the Descent of Man (139-79). Chicago: Aldine.
- Walsh, A. (1993). Love styles, masculinity/femininity, physical attractiveness and sexual behaviour: A test of evolutionary theory. Ethology and Sociobiology. 14, 25-38.
- Wright, R. (1994). The Moral Animal: Why We Are the Way We Are Vintage

If you needed any more proof that only women who are 7s or above are worth pursuing, then here it is. Ugly women are just as rotten on the inside as they are on the outside. Beta guys might think that their best bet is to settle for that sweet chubby chick who plays Magic: The Gathering, but when he fucks her he'll be rubbing up against so many dicks by proxy that it should count as a gay frottage gangbang.

That's how he sells books! xD

It's a brilliant plan! State some thing that can be cited for controversy as fact and then publish just that page... and force ppl to buy your book to find out where you got it from! xD

David, Steven Pinker's "The Blank Slate" seems to be the Holy Book for many MRA's. Well, aside from "the Predatory Female" but I don't think that's what you're looking for here.

(Just so you know, I moved this from "mostly on topic" to "on topic," which is where I meant to post it.)

David, I'm not sure how many I can find, but if any scientific papers show up I'll see if I can look up the direct source since I can get past at least a few paywalls (yay for being on University Internet!), if you need me to. I'm pretty sure I can't legally just pass you the pdf, but I can at least scan it and let you know my opinion on methodology, etc, and whether it actually says what people think it says.

For example, very quick scan of

- Walsh, A. (1993). Love styles, masculinity/femininity, physical attractiveness and sexual behaviour: A test of evolutionary theory. Ethology and Sociobiology. 14, 25-38.

gives the fact that, you probably guessed it, the sample is of 400 college undergrads. And thus is totally applicable to all cultures ever >.<

I posted the 80%-40% statistic and was promptly bashed. It wasn't a case of "It's on the internet so it must be true." I thought if the NY Times was quoting it then it must be true.

The NY Times is not a scholarly institution.

I'm pretty sure FSU is.

You did not quote an FSU article, you quoted an NYT article quoting a book by a professor at FSU, which cannot currently be easily verified. Big difference.

just for clarity, I'm simply explaining why you were 'promptly bashed'.

"The blank slate: the modern denial of human nature - Google Books Result
books.google.com/books?isbn=0142003344...
Steven Pinker - 2003 - Psychology - 528 pages
And men and women differ in their patterns of sexual jealousy, their mate preferences, and their incentives to philander. Many sex differences, of course," ...

On page 347 Pinker talks about DNA, mitochondria, y chromosomes and how they point to a select fewer number of males that were used for mating. You know, back when we were surviving the ice age. Sorry, for some reason I had trouble just posting a link to the one page under google books. The whole thing is available free for reading. He makes some valid points, I must admit.

@elgie hmm, could you give a link to what you're looking at? I could only find the google book result that only gives ~30 pages or so, the rest say 'unavailable'.

As we know, women can't be trusted to give honest answers, but men are brutally honest. So if only 20% of men have sex, how does that explain the 96% of USian adults who claim to have had sex? Either most men are liars, or only 4% of USian adults have not had sex.
That link is from 2007, but at the time 17% of men reported having sex with two or more partners within the previous year. Note that's not lifetime, but just within a one year period. That number's close to the 20%, but that's only counting people who have had multiple partners. (Only 10% of women claim to have had two or more partners, but as we know from above and from every MRA, we're lying skanks who can't be trusted to give honest answers.)

To see the actual report instead of a news article posting extracts, here it is - http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/ad/ad384.pdf

From Wikipedia...

A 1994 study in the United States, which looked at the number of sexual
partners in a lifetime, found that 20% of heterosexual men had 1, 55%
had 2–20, and 25% had 20 or more.

Now that's an earlier study so if you add those numbers together, that leaves 10% of USian men who have never had sex. However, unlike the previous study I linked to, it doesn't state if the study didn't include the homeless, prison inmates, or other institutionalized adults.

So yeah, anyone claiming that only 20% of men are having sex, they are getting that statistic from Uranus.

Omegas are so omega that pollsters ignore them.

LOL Ami!

@Nobby, I feel stoopid and can't seem to link! I googled "steven pinker mating preferences". About halfway down that page, is "the blank slate: the modern denial of human nature-Google books result" Guess that brought up the middle of the book for me about gender differences and mating patterns. pg 347 was the scientific stuff, but is was all interesting in a historical sort of way. Not sure it's so applicable in modern society, though.

Hey, I couldn't even copy and paste the paragraph on 347. Arrrrgh. And I haven't even had a drink yet!

heh, thanks for trying, I'll give it another shot when I get home.

Tabby Lavalamp wrote:As we know, women can't be trusted to give honest answers, but men are brutally honest. .

I can say with confidence that I would certainly lie if a pollster asked me. I don't think I'm that different from other men in that regard. I don't believe any statistic relies on self-reporting. The 80%-40% statistic is from genetic research. I think I'll trust the genetic research over someone asking a dude if he ever got some.

Buttman wrote:
I can say with confidence that I would certainly lie if a pollster asked me. I don't think I'm that different from other men in that regard. I don't believe any statistic relies on self-reporting. The 80%-40% statistic is from genetic research. I think I'll trust the genetic research over someone asking a dude if he ever got some.

David's already mentioned the use of rape as a weapon of war and rich and "noble" men feeling entitled to rape. Depending on what societies you look back on, there's also polygamy and concubines to take into account. If you're looking back on history and think women have been philandering through the ages, you are wearing some pretty willful blinders. It's pretty obvious that disparity isn't the result of women's choices.

Plus if 40% of men have surviving descendents, I would think that way more than 40% must have had sex. I mean, anyone who was infertile, or whose partner was infertile, or whose children died young would be excluded from that 40% no matter how much they were bangin'

I don't believe any statistic relies on self-reporting. The 80%-40% statistic is from genetic research. I think I'll trust the genetic research over someone asking a dude if he ever got some.

Besides that a) we still haven't been able to find out what "genetic research" this came from and b) it doesn't necessarily mean what you say it means... why would you trust that over a poll? o_O The research is about our ancestors (and who passed on genes doesn't = who had sex, as said above), not genetic proof that 80% of women and 40% of men have had sex in the world today o_O

So I is confused xD Also apparently a LOT of men are lying.

This is basically a statistic that people can hang whatever interpretation they want on to it. The misogynists are going to interpret it as being as unfavorable to women as they possibly can, the feminists are going to look for a more equitable explanation. For that reason, unless we can figure out a good explanation as to WHY it is that way, any further conjecture is ev/psych fanfic.

Or where that stat came from in the first place xD

I thought this was going to be a thread where we make up ridiculous statistics relating to mras, too bad.

jumbofish wrote:I thought this was going to be a thread where we make up ridiculous statistics relating to mras, too bad.

You can do that if you wish, but I find it's much more fun and satisfying to listen to their ridiculous statistics and counter with actual numbers.

jumbofish wrote:I thought this was going to be a thread where we make up ridiculous statistics relating to mras, too bad.

70% of MRAs prefer New Coke to Coke Classic.

Oh, don't forget Slavey's assertion that 90% of black children are in single parent homes (it's actually closer to around 50%). And that someone who lives in the ghetto = black. Which is not necessarily a statistic, I guess, but it's still something he asserts.

Or his arguing that marriage is declining and the divorce rate is sky high, and most women get princely sums of child support and alimony after the divorce.

With Slavey, it's sometimes difficult to tell whether his contra-reality assertions are due to stupidity, ignorance, or dishonesty.

EDIT: or some combination of the three.

Or ECONOMIC STAGNATION!!!!!!!!!!

It's a known fact that 98% of MRAs make up statistics on the spot.