Is the peacock a sex object? I don't think so

The second footnote of this article made me think.

Kanazawa and Still claim, in all likelihood correctly, that females are the choosers in all species where they invest more parentally than males. In these species it is the male that is the object of sexual attraction. However, it is well known that in humans this pattern has been reversed so that it is the female rather than the male who is the primary object of sexual attraction. For this reason, Kanazawa and Still's attempt to draw a parallel between humans and other animals in the mode of mate choice does not succeed.

What has Sanderson been smoking? The male is the primary object of sexual attraction in most species? Surely when the female gets to chose and the male must display, that means the female is the sex object. Being the selective sex equals being the object of sexual attraction as I understand it. Peahens (say) may look drab to us, but it is they who are the attractive ones. They are the sexy sex. The peacock isn't attractive; he is desperately trying to attract females with a pathetic and costly display. Most males are unworthy of most females and it would be ludicrous to call an average peacock who may well fail to attract any female at all the primary object of sexual attraction while every female is desirable by default. This has not been "reversed" in humans. It is precisely the same. Some women are more desirable than others of course and able to get men of higher status, and they do things like boob jobs and wear makeup to enhance their attractiveness which peahens don't bother with, but fundamentally it is the same. If the peacock's display makes him a sex object, then men must be termed sex objects by virtue of our desperate and largely futile attempts to seduce women, and clearly that is preposterous.

We all know that women are sex objects (and the bodies of men are worthless, in other words sex is a female resource, universally understood as something women have and men want as Baumeister makes abundantly clear), and I believe that is the case in other species as well where the female invests more parentally. The only true male sex objects (besides homosexuals, of course) are found in the few species where the male invests more in parenting, e.g. the bird Centropus grillii, where the males care for the young while the females spend a large proportion of their time calling from conspicuous perches. It would be nice to be a sex object, but the downside is the parenting burden. You have to work hard either way, but the choosy sex has the bonus of being sexy -- they have intrinsic value unlike men and an extra unlimited resource at their disposal -- so in the aggregate women have it easier. Females of most species are also virtually assured reproductive success, but on the other hand men can succeed spectacularly when they do succeed, like Djengis Khan.

By the way I found Sanderson's explanation of monogamy somewhat compelling. Male choice may in fact have a hand in polygyny -- not everything is completely driven by women.

Works Cited

Baumeister, R.F. & Vohs, K.D. (2004). "Sexual Economics: Sex as Female Resource for Exchange in Heterosexual Interactions." Personality and Social Psychology Review, 8, 339-363.

Wolfgang Goymann, Andrea Wittenzellner & John C. Wingfield. "Competing Females and Caring Males. Polyandry and Sex-Role Reversal in African Black Coucals, Centropus grillii." Ethology, Volume 110 Issue 10, pp. 807 - 823.

Sanderson, Stephen K. "Explaining Monogamy and Polygyny in Human Societies: Comment on Kanazawa and Still." Social Forces, Volume 80, Number 1, September 2001, pp. 329-335.

Sexual Utopia in Power

"Sexual Utopia in Power" (The Occidental Quarterly Vol. 6, No. 2) is possibly the best article I have ever read. My blogging against feminism is almost redundant after F. Roger Devlin has put it so well. This is what I have been thinking ever since growing up in the hateful climate of feminism -- and hate breeds hate, resulting in the angry man I am today. These are my views exactly on everything from sexual harassment to divorce. The Occidental Quarterly is clearly a great, paleoconservative journal. It is heartening to see some sanity in this age of feminist terror. I am especially thankful for Devlin's recognition of "the forgotten men" -- the losers -- "of the sexual revolution" (p. 29). I am one of them and it is indeed time for us to speak up. Perhaps we really ought to form gangs which engage in antisocial behavior, as Devlin suggests, to increase our chances with women. It is perplexing and dispiriting that this has not already happened. Where is someone like Catiline when we need him? Or perhaps Spartacus would be a better analogy. We have to do something. Individually, we can improve our lot somewhat by working on our game, studying the material of David DeAngelo, Neil Strauss and the other pickup gurus, but that can only change the order of the hierarchy while the fundamental scarcity of women remains. We can't all be alpha males, by definition. It does not seem to me that the gurus realize this, as evinced by this line from The Game: "By socializing guys like Sasha, Mystery and I were making the world a better place" (p. 87). No, Style, you are not making the world a better place. If Sasha gets lucky, it means some other man will be frustrated instead, and that is just as dangerous. I doubt that there exists a large reservoir of untapped female promiscuity ready to materialize once we all become pickup artists. Perhaps a few spinsters could be converted, but all of us improving will mostly just raise the bar and there will be about the same number of losers as before. To improve the overall situation of men, we have to assault feminism at its core. We must destroy the independence of women which permits them to be so choosy. Of course this means ending welfare and affirmative action, but serial monogamy, which is just as bad as polygamy and has led to a record number of childless men, must also somehow be discouraged by making divorce more difficult. Women will still be hypergamous and men will seek promiscuity, but a kind of sexual egalitarianism will have been brought back when no woman can afford to price herself out of the market. Another strategy is to improve the sex ratio, as Angry Harry is advocating, and that appeals to me even more than restoring monogamy. And why stop at 15%? Let us breed women like cattle! Meanwile, we do still have the option of foreign brides, and that is probably what I will resort to as soon as I can afford it.

I disagree with Devlin's optimism about the tipping point being at hand, that "we have reached the historical moment when we men have the upper hand in the battle of the sexes" (p. 33). The way I see it, we are still in stage two of the sexual revolution -- the reign of terror -- and I think it must get even worse before it can get better. Most men still don't realize what has hit them and many even consider themselves feminists. There has been some reaction, yes -- or you wouldn't be reading this -- but men's activists are still far between and mostly ignored. The men's movement has yet to make the transition into a mass movement, though I concede it could happen at any time and am reasonably confident that it is inevitable. The feminists are still able to pass any law they wish without significant outcry from men. The persecution of men is currently only limited by the imagination of the feminists, as we shall see.

While the other evils of feminism of course also deserve attention, the number one priority of the men's movement should be to fight the feminist definition of rape, in my view. At least this is what enrages me the most, along with their constant assaults on the justice system to bring juries into line with the corrupt laws already passed (Norwegian feminists are even lobbying for abolishing the jury in rape trials in order to boost convictions). In the latest further corruption of British justice, video recordings of statements made to police by alleged rape victims can now be used as their main evidence in court. The feminists at the BBC censored out my comment to this article, so I shall publish it here instead:

This further corruption of justice may help to increase the conviction rate for a while, but it will also help to increase the amount of hostility towards not just feminists (who deserve it) but all women, and hopefully there will be a devastating backlash sooner or later. There is a limit to how far you can go before men will fight back. Personally, I lost sympathy for "rape" victims long ago. It is impossible to take rape seriously the way the feminists have redefined it, and the "justice" system is now clearly just a special interest group for the feminists, or it would be concerned with getting at the truth rather than simply finding ways to convict as many men as possible based on the assumption that everyone accused is guilty, and probably all the rest of us too.

Eivind Berge
Bergen, Norway