Rational approach to finding life partners

c_edwards

Speaking from personal experience, finding the right relationship can be HARD. I recently came across a rational take on finding relationship partners, much of which really resonated with my experiences:

http://waitbutwhy.com/2014/02/pick-life-partner.html

http://waitbutwhy.com/2014/02/pick-life-partner-part-2.html

(I'm still working my way through the Sequences, and lw has more than eight thousand articles with "relationship" in them. I'm not promising the linked articles include unique information)

http://waitbutwhy.com/2014/02/pick-life-partner.html

http://waitbutwhy.com/2014/02/pick-life-partner-part-2.html

(I'm still working my way through the Sequences, and lw has more than eight thousand articles with "relationship" in them. I'm not promising the linked articles include unique information)

No woman owes sex to no man. If you think that women have any kind of duty to sexually satisfy men, you are deluded and have very unhealthy and dangerous attitudes.

Contrast this with:

No boss owes a job to no potential employee. If you think that bosses have any kind of duty to employ you, you are deluded and have very unhealthy and dangerous attitudes.

Compare your reaction to the first and second sentiment. What accounts for the difference?

In principle "no woman owes sex to no man" and "no boss owes a job to no potential employee" are indeed closely analogous (I myself lean libertarian-ish so I agree with both), but empirically the kind of people who "think that women have any kind of duty to sexually satisfy men" and the kind of people who "think that bosses have any kind of duty to employ you" seem demographically and culturally different to me -- if anything, I'd expect those two sentiments to anti-correlate for hysterical raisins (e.g. the former i... (read more)

1gjm11y

I'm not Mirzhan_Irkegulov, but my reaction to the two is very similar: both are correct, and in general no one has an obligation to have sex with anyone else and no one has an obligation to employ anyone else. I'll guess that you're thinking about anti-discrimination laws, according to which in some circumstances an employer can get into trouble for not employing someone. But those are quite special circumstances that very rarely apply to sex (it might apply to prostitution, and I can kinda see a case for forbidding prostitutes to refuse clients on the basis of race etc., but also prostitution can be really dangerous and it's therefore probably better to say that prostitutes should have absolute discretion to refuse clients). (The other obvious kind of case in which such obligations might exist is where a relationship is already in existence. You might reasonably be aggrieved if your spouse suddenly starts refusing to have sex, or if your employer fires you. But I don't think either side of this comparison is what anyone in the thread had in mind.) Anyway. Apparently you consider that there should be harmony between one's answers to those questions. I'm pretty sure you don't think that employers should ever be obliged to employ particular employees. Do you think that women commonly have a duty to provide sex to men? In contexts other than existing long-term sexual relationships?