‘I’m Broke and Mostly Friendless, and I’ve Wasted My Whole Life’

It isn't just the boomers. The "Greatest Generation" were the ones who were the most politically active at a time that they yearned for political leadership from grandpa Reagan, who had a large hand in helping weaken unions, eliminate pensions, and balloon the national debt... but at the same time they were a hell of a lot more pragmatic than their kids, who somehow decided that America had a soul that needed to be fought for by voting for corporate kleptocrats who hugged the flag and the Bible and sent kids to wars they would have protested against at that age.

Simple skinnerism would also explain consumerism. Oh look! Shiny! That could stimulate my dopamine receptors briefly, I'll get it.

That's a highly reductionist view of Dworkin's point. The sexual revolution was not merely about reducing the stigma on women for having sex outside of marriage. As Dworkin explains in Right Wing Women (p. 89):

> The pop idea was that fucking was good, so good that the more there was of it, the better. The pop idea was that people should fuck whom they wanted: translated for the girls, this meant that girls should want to be fucked—as close to all the time as was humanly possible.

She continues (at p. 91):

> Empirically speaking, sexual liberation was practiced by women on a wide scale in the sixties and it did not work: that is, it did not free women. Its purpose—it turned out—was to free men to use women without bourgeois constraints, and in that it was successful.

Hence Iliza Shlesinger's point:

> > You’ve also been holding in… your intentions. We have this really nasty habit in our society of labeling women very cruel and unfair things when they express their desire for very normal things. Monogamy, exclusivity, a relationship, a family, babies. Right? We like to call them desperate, sad, psychos, baby crazy. “We’ve been married for six years. She already wants a kid! I’m a fuck man! They can’t get me.” It’s very normal to want these things.

Calling women "baby crazy" for wanting kids is the product of a male-centric sexual revolution that prioritizes what men want out of sexual relationships and criticizes women for wanting perfectly normal things out of those same relationships. I haven't read the "Selfish Gene," but I strongly suspect it doesn't "debunk" the idea that it's normal for women to want kids and that our popular culture shouldn't stigmatize that desire.

> It’s a shame if the woman in the article believes her value as a person is tied to her attractiveness and age

This is exactly my point (and that's why I used that phrase). The letter writer feels that her value in the world is diminished by her age; with her most fertile years squandered she hasn't much else to give it. The response author goes to pains to illustrate that even someone well into her 90s still has value - that she values her interactions with the older woman.

The letter writer's is a misogynist worldview. To get there, you have to assume that women aren't really contributing anything to the world beyond reproduction. Men's lives have meaning without a woman and children, perhaps, but women's don't.

Separately, I think saying that someone's value as a romantic partner is primarily in their physical attractiveness is obnoxiously reductionist. I went off on quite the drunken rant about that last night in another thread (not my best work, tbh).

But basically, I argue optimizing for the most attractive partner I can find for someone at my level of attractiveness and then locking that down (via marriage or similar monogamous institution) is a poor strategy, even if it is the most common one and one implied by genetics. My genes would also love me to sit in bed eating sugar all day, and that won't make me happy.

Ultimately: I accept that people approach dating (especially app dating) primarily by looking at attractiveness, aiming for someone in their "league" or a bit higher as evaluated visually. However, I don't think it's the best approach for your overall happiness, nor is it one that everyone employs.

I mean, can you imagine dating a teenager? They're at peak fertility. But not only is it illegal depending on the exact age and where you live, it sounds like a nightmare. Like just talking to them gives me a headache.

Me? I'm a transwoman and a lesbian so I'm a bit of an evo-psych nightmare. Despite having no real fertility to speak of and a noticeable lack of childbearing hips, I do quite alright. I'm doing much better dating women as a 36yo transwoman than I did as a 31yo cis male. I've been trying to figure out why, and the only explanation I have is that me being more authentic is, in fact, valuable to the people I date.

Stalin's relative clemency towards the orthodox church does give the lie to the idea that the policy is "Stalinist." It was a Leninist policy of long standing. Khruschev reverted to it despite his explicit denunciation of Stalinism.

> After he was done with the Nazis, he went back to his old tricks.

According to the article you yourself linked, he was pretty soft on them from after the war until his death.