The price of sex

I found this rather interesting:

“The price of sex is about how much one party has to do in order to entice the other into being sexual,” said Kathleen Vohs, of the University of Minnesota, who has authored several papers on “sexual economics.” “It might mean buying her a drink or an engagement ring. These behaviors vary in how costly they are to the man, and that is how we quantify the price of sex.”

By boiling dating down to an economic model, researchers have found that men are literally getting lots of bang for their buck. Women, meanwhile, are getting very little tat for their . . . well, you get the idea.

Sex is so cheap that researchers found a full 30% of young men’s sexual relationships involve no romance at all — no wooing, dating, goofy text messaging. Nothing. Just sex.

“Every sex act is part of a ‘pricing’ of sex for subsequent relationships,” Regnerus said. “If sex has been very easy to get for a particular young man for many years and over the course of multiple relationships, what would eventually prompt him to pay a lot for it in the future — that is, committing to marry?”

Did you answer, “Love”? You’re adorable.

With reliable birth control, lower social sigma, and less economic dependency the cost of sex to women has lowered and they are able to lower their “price”. The Internet makes “shopping” for availability, “quality” and “price” much easier for males. Hence the competition among “sellers” has increased and the price has dropped. There are some women that are even competing over sexual access to men. In essence some women are “paying” some men instead of the reverse.

One would then think that the price for two wives or at least a wife and a girlfriend should now be low enough that I might be able to afford it. But the last time I checked with Barb she assured me that was not the case. It is kind of hard to understand her when she is growling like that but I think she said she would have to sell all my organs to pay off the debt incurred.

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12 thoughts on “The price of sex

  1. Speaking as a fella with two wives,* I can tell you that in some ways the economic and relationship costs decrease with additional partners. Splitting the rent and utilities three ways is a heck of a lot easier than two, for example, and when one of you is sick it’s a great help to have somebody to help with nurse duties.

    The math is less comforting when two get sick at once, and God help the man who gets both his wives pregnant at the same time.

    [* – Not as far as the gummint is concerned, obviously, but we’ve never been too concerned with whether the government approves of our family.]

  2. Interesting that she talks about the cost of sex to men but not to women. In a free exchange of “goods” both parties are better off.

  3. You gotta sell it right. “Honey, just think of much easier it would be to keep the house clean with an extra set of hands to help.”

  4. Societal shifts may appear to change the “price of sex” here and there, but basic human nature and the physical differences between men and women don’t change much. We aren’t living in a brand new universe just because some people think (or want to think) sex is cheap.

    Child rearing and maintaining a larger household are of course a pretty big “price” once you start down that road.

    No mention of gold-diggers? STDs? The effects on the kids from being raised by single mothers? Custody battles? The price of getting someone pregnant before you’ve taken the time to realize that they’re bat-shit insane? Our neighbor is in prison right now over a deal like that. That was a pretty expensive lay.

  5. Was there an unspoken “non-leaking” between the “my” and “organs” in her response?

    😉

  6. As you age, the price comparisons become more valid and are easier to measure and understand. For example, I can see where a night of nooky might not equal the value of a decent Nightforce scope, for example. In extreme cases, it might not even equal a box of .338 Lapua Magnum. heheheeheeheee

  7. … she assured me that was not the case. It is kind of hard to understand her when she is growling like that but I think she said she would have to sell all my organs to pay off the debt incurred.

    An obvious example of predator(y) pricing if ever there was one. 🙂

  8. Dating around where I live sucks. More golddiggers than a reopened Rio Tinto mine. If I wrote a manual for men, I’d entitle it… “Barriers to entry: regional pricing anomalies contravene reports of diminishing male monetary inputs resulting in successful mating.” Or, “If you ain’t got money, you ain’t got me, honey.”

  9. Sounds like a rehash of what they say in Japan about teenage females doing the deed with old business men for cheap trinkets, one women who wrote on the subject was mainly explaining to females that they could get a lot more monetary value for the services being provided and they should stop being duped, i.e. hold out for a bigger payout.

  10. I prefer the “multiple girlfriends” route to the “wife and girlfriend” route anyway. Economically speaking, marriage is a pretty bum deal for men these days. I held out a little hope for getting married and having kids until I watched a friend’s wife get hooked on drugs, get a criminal record, and then still get full custody and the house despite that.

    “The price of getting someone pregnant before you’ve taken the time to realize that they’re bat-shit insane? ”

    I’ve lost count of the number of women I’ve known over the years that wouldn’t date me because I didn’t treat them like shit. Then they’d decide later that “all men suck” and go hit the sperm bank and become a single mom.

  11. Alan has a point there, but I think that it is because of the “power of the P***y”, that makes the females sellers and the males buyers. If the price to women is going down, it is because they are expecting less of the relationship, too, at least until they think it’s time the animal rut relationship they’ve been pursuing with “boys” or “males” should magicaly change into something more lasting with those same boys and males,
    Of course for that something, they need a man, not a male, and they of course, need to be an adult, too.

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