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Hypergamy is often misunderstood because it is based on a common but yet somewhat acceptable conception: that women aim for men out of their league for their own satisfaction.

Actually whether women intentionally aim for it or not, the main genetic purpose of women is to have descendants and in particular more descendants than other women, because otherwise in purely genetic terms they disappear from history and their inheritable traits would also disappear. But the propensity to hypergamy has not disappeared.

So the hypergamy instinct which is so strong in women must be at least not-conflicting with that aim, but also must support it and indeed it does, in both types of hypergamy:

Economic hypergamy, choosing the most economically successful males, helps having many sons by providing more funding to bear and raise them.

Sexual hypergamy, choosing the most attractive and sexually active male help having sons that are also attractive and sexually active, and thus spread the genes of their their mother faster and wider than the sons of other women.

Of the two sexual hypergamy is clearly the most important instinct, as women get particularly turned on by sexy pump-and-dump players. It is reasonable that it is pointless as to outcome other women as to descendants to have a man able to provide for raising many children if the sons are not attractive or do not have a pump-and-dump player attitude to sex.

There is one case where women practice hypergamy for their personal advantage: when they want to maximize the chances of having a comfortable old age. In that case they will practice economic hypergamy, not only so that the man they choose will provide them with a better lifestyle, but also in the hope that his sons will also be like their father economically successful and thus continue to provide their mother with a better lifestyle when her husband dies.

But given how strong is the instinct to sexual hypergamy before menopause, my guess is that economic hypergamy is rarely chosen by young women, unless it is imposed on them by older women, who are near or past menopause, or anyhow do not care about whether the economically successful men are attractive because they are for their daughters.

The practice in some cultures of women wearing a veil or a full body coverall is indeed related to hypergamy.

The first important detail is that the same women who wear a veil or a coverall in public instead often dress very flashily and sexily in private even if the veil or a coverall are used with the excuse that there is a religious requirement for both men and women to dress modestly; but that requirement should apply to both as to cost and looks, regardless of whether in private or public. The second important details is that wearing veil or coverall in public is not just an individual choice in those cultures but strictly enforced by the matronarchy.

Therefore the veil or coveralls are not worn for modesty, but as a tool both for and against hypergamy: to ensure that the valuable men owned by some women (mainly the wives, but also mothers, sisters, cousins) do not get attracted by other women dressing sexily. Without ensuring that all women have a veil or coverall there is a much higher risks that valuable men already owned by some hypergamous women get turned on by other women who are of course hypergamous too and then seduced and stolen. Hypergamy means that most women are very keen to take valuable men owned by other women and vice-versa to prevent that happening to the men they own.

It is not a coincidence that in those cultures there is often a high proportion of marriages with cousins and other relatives: the female relatives are those a man can see without veil or coverall, and marriages with female relatives ensure that valuable men (and their inheritances) remain owned by the matrons (often grandmothers and grandaunts) who rule an extended family.

Sexual (and financial) hypergamy for women has a significant psychological consequence in addition to anxiety: Fear Of Missing Out.

Every hypergamous woman who pursues a man out of her league as her instincts demand is constantly wrapped by the fear that her current target(s) is not the most sexually (or financially) attractive man whom she has a chance with. What if a better man turned up shortly? This was one of the reason why many women would not engage in promiscuity when young and were virgins on marriage: being already pregnant with a less attractive man would prevent them from becoming pregnant with a more attractive man, so it was a difficult step to take.

Note: The other reason why most women were virgins on marriages was that the mothers of the grooms insisted on it, to ensure that their investment in bearing and raising their sons would not be voided by the bride being already pregnant with the child of another woman's son.

The Fear Of Missing Out was particularly strong before anti-conceptionals: getting pregnant with a man out of her league meant being unable to get pregnant with a man even more out of her league, for at least the duration of the pregnancy. Thus the high demand for abortions in the past, and also in the present.

Note: in some (mammalian too) specieses females kill their cubs if their main male mate dies, in order to better attract a new male mate.

The anti-conceptional pill changed a bit that situation: it simulates pregnancy to prevent conception, but a pregnancy that does not last 40 weeks, and stopping taking the pill simulates ending the pregnancy, rather quickly. This has enabled many women with a weaker instinct for reproduction to sample many men, even those slightly less attractive than their ideal of a father for their sons, knowing that there was no risk that these less than ideal fathers would make them pregnant. However old instincts persist and for many women FOMO is still a powerful force leading them to procrastinate pregnancy.

There is however another side to FOMO: that the more they wait, the more hypergamous women age, and therefore their league falls, and so also the attractiveness of the men most out of their league they can target.

As a man when I was younger I did not much understand existential anxiety: for me life was rich with relatively low risk opportunities, starting from nothing things could only become better with time, there was plenty of time to recover from mistakes.

Existential anxiety comes from having to commit irreversible choices that might have long lasting consequences, and being unable to even just calculate odds, or the odds are too close, a condition of radical uncertainty, that often results in:

Procrastination: if important choices loom, and it is not clear what the odds are, or they are too close, postponing the choice may help both psychologically and in practice.

Denial: attempting to avoid all risks and therefore all opportunities.

Surrender: refusing to choose and letting others or circumstances make the choice.

For women existential anxiety is very strong even when young, because it relates mostly to the huge investment with uncertain consequences of choosing a potential father for their sons:

Bearing and raising a child is a long term commitment that pre-empts many other commitments, and a woman can only do one pregnancy at a time which last quite a while.

Not bearing and raising any children means the irreversible commitment to extinction of their genetic line, and often giving up security and comfort in old age.

It is often unclear which fathers are the best, and given that many men don't like to spend effort helping raise other men's sons, the balance between having a single or multiple fathers.

Note: for most women "sex" is an alias for "potential pregnancy" even if contraceptives have reduced the probability. For men "sex" also means "potential fatherhood", but they can more easily avoid the consequences.

Hypergamy reduces existential anxiety: women who choose to target as potential fathers men rather more attractive than they are reduce the risk of having unattractive sons, even if that increases the risk of not having children at all. Lower anxiety also makes sex easier and more pleasurable for women, thus also increases the chances of having children.

Note: the awareness of the risk of not having children arises from either memetic or generic pressures, and for many women it has been more memetic than genetic, and the memetic pressure has considerably lessened in recent times, leading to a temporary fall in natality rates.

It is pretty obvious why men who are not pump-and-dump players are sexually jealous: since they are committed to fund the raising of a woman's children, they don't want to share their funds for the raising of other men's children.

It is also obvious why women who use men who are not pump-and-dump players to fund the raising of their children are non-sexually jealous: they don't want to share that funding with other women.

But why are women who are turned on by men who are more sexually attractive than they are and are pump-and-dump players jealous of them and try to hold on to them despite knowing that they are wayward, developing often manipulative tendencies including baiting those men with "special" sexual practices? What do they care if those players pump-and-dump other women?

This blog has had some posts on the sex market from the point of view of women, whether younger or older, and their preferences for using men as either reliable providers or sexy players.

What about the point of view of men? Broadly speaking it does not matter, because their roles are set by women's preferences, as it is women who actually do most of the reproduction activity, and this while imposes on them most of the risks also gives them most of the control (while for sex it is attractive men who have the most control).

Men have to simply adapt to either being used as reliable providers or as sexy players, and in general they do best if they are sexy players, as most women very willingly submit to them, but only because they want to use them as templates for having sexy player sons.

Note: to be considered a desirable sexy player a man must be out of woman's league or way out of her league. Unfortunately there are men whose absolute level of attractiveness means that they are out the league only for women who are so unattractive that they cannot have an erection for them. Their best choice is to pay for sex if they badly want it.

One of the things that both reliable providers or sexy players however need to come to terms with is that most women (at least before the menopause) will be unable to consider them as if they were people too: for men it is possible to regard women as people, to be interested in them as persons, to appreciate their personalities and characters, because for men reproduction is not such an all consuming issue, and other aspects of their relationship with women can interest them.

But for most heterosexual women the reproductive instincts and the risks and costs of reproduction are so strong that it is difficult for them to regard heterosexual men in a way that is not instrumental, something that it is often summarized as the principle that women and men cannot be friends. Men of every type have to accept that women have every right to consider them instrumentally and that for most women "feelings" may mean merely "lust" (or its opposite).

It has been repeatedly noticed that USA (but not only) government and corporation speakpersons always lie, by way of direct untruth, dissembling, or just bullshitting.

That seems strange because in some cases it must be to the benefit of their organizations to say fairly representative information when it accidentally aligns with their interests.

This could be simply to consistently obscure matters, or because fairly representative information is too precious to release it to the public, or because of not even bothering to know what is fairly representative, but I think that there is a bigger reason: why take the responsibility of saying something fairly representative?

If someone says something fairly representative because they believe it to be in the interests of their organization but that turns out to be against those interests they can be blamed by saying that it would not have happened had they lied.

But if they say a lie that turns out to be against the interests of their organization, there is much lesser blame: they did try to lie to further the interests of their organization, if it did not work it was an accident, not a mistake.

So I occasionally see discussions of "hypergamy" where the terms is used in two rather different meanings, which causes quite a bit of misunderstanding:

Where it means the preference of (usually older) women for stable relationships with "provider" men with higher status or more money or power than them, as that may give them better lifestyles.

Where it means the preference of (usually yonger) women for sexual adventures with "sexy" men more attractive than they are, as that may give them more sexually attractive sons.

Those are really quite different meanings, and have quite different impacts on the lives of women and on the structure of society.

Note: most women are simply uninterested in men who are both not sexy and not providers.

Note: As usual in the following when in the following for brevity there are definite statements, they should be interpreted as to probabilities, not as universal laws, because in human behaviour there are many nuances.

The fundamental principle of human society life is "the mother is always certain, the father never" (which is still largely true despite the possibility of DNA testing, which has anyhow been made practically illegal in some countries, "to protect mothers from violence").

The secondary principle of human society is that bearing and rising children is risky and expensive and slow, while impregnation is mostly safe, cheap and quick.

This means that, especially before modern times, having daughters or sons has different consequences:

Daughters: generate less income than sons, but their children are guaranteed to continue the genetic lineage of their grandmothers, even if they will be expensive and few.

Sons: their children are not guaranteed to continue the genetic lineage of their grandmothers, but if the sons are very attractive they will be, and will be cheap and many, and if the sons are faithful and hardworking they will support their mothers on old age.

This means that the main strategies available to would-be mothers are:

Choose as fathers pump-and-dump players (which makes them attractive as likely to have many children) a woman can have sex with, and "prefer" the birth of sons.

Advantages:

Sex will be very pleasurable for the mothers.

The mothers will likely have many grandchildren for their genetic lineage.

Disadvantages:

The mothers having to bear and raise their sons on their own.

The mothers will be later being left alone and poor in old age by both the fathers and their sons.

Choose as partners and fathers faithful hardworking men (which makes them unattractive as less likely to have many children), and "prefer" the birth of sons.

Advantages:

This will likely result in the bearing and raising of children being largely funded by a man.

The mothers will be supported in her old age by the sons.

Disadvantages:

Sex will be disgusting for the mothers.

The sons will likely be unattractive as their fathers, so there is a large risk that most of the grandchildren of their mothers actually be fathered by attractive pump-and-dump players.

Choose as partners unattractive faithful hardworking men, and as fathers attractive pump-and-dump players, and "prefer" the birth of sons.

Advantages:

This will likely result in the bearing and raising of children being largely funded by a man.

Those sons will be likely attractive pump-and-dump players who will give their mothers many grandchildren continuing their genetic lineage.

Disadvantages:

In case of discovery the mothers will likely lose the support of their faithful hardworking partners.

In any case in old age the mothers are unlikely to be supported by their pump-and-dump player sons.

Choose as partners and fathers faithful hardworking men (which makes them unattractive as less likely to have many children), and "prefer" the birth of sons and at least one daughter and Ensure that their unattractive, reliable, loyal, hardworking men sons marry virgins trained and repressed by their mothers to accept sex with unattractive but worthy men and be faithful (at least to some extent) to them.

Advantages:

Sex will be very pleasurable for the mothers, except for the few cases they will have to give it to their partners.

The mothers will be supported in their old age by their partners and sons.

The daughters will guarantee with some grandchildren the continuations of the genetic lineage of the mothers.

The sons will have grandchildren more likely to continue the genetic lineage of their grandmothers, especially the first borns.

Disadvantages:

The mothers will have to train and repress their own pump-and-dump player sons, if any, to be reliable, loyal, hardworking partners, in order to be acceptable as son-in-law to other mothers.

The mothers will have to train and repress their own daughters to accept sex with unattractive but worthy men and be faithful (to some extent) to them, in order for their daughters to be acceptable as daughters-in-law to other mothers.

Sex will be disgusting for the mothers (and their daughters).

The mothers won't have as many grandchildren belonging to their lineage as if they had chosen as fathers pump-and-dump players.

Note: The strategy of choosing proven pump-and-dump players as fathers who miraculously turn into faithful hardworking partners just for them is the dream of every would-be mother, but they know it is very unlikely: the attractiveness of those pump-and-dump players is largely because they have a strong ability and drive at scattering their seed around.

The last listed strategy is that of the "matronarchy", and it is the matronarchy that has resulted in the sexual and social repression of both women and of the successful pump-and-dump players they are sexually attracted to.

Pre-feminist societies are systematically misdescribed as being based on the patriarchy, because of attention only towards one of the two social hierarchies, that of men, but:

There are two social hierarchies, one for women and one for men, there are wealthy and powerful women as well as wealthy and powerful men.

In both social hierarchies there is a struggle for dominance, women fighting women, and men fighting men.

The social hierarchy of men was dominated by older men, usually in a position of greater military or economic power.

The social hierarchy of women was dominated by older mothers and grandmothers, the "matrons", and in particular those controlling and influencing men with greater military or economic power.

The struggle for dominance in the social hierarchy of women is about longer term "dynastic" matters: whose daughters get to control via marriage the "best" men, and thus which "matrons", mothers and grandmothers, get the best chance at out-breeding their lineage over that of other mothers and grandmothers.

The struggle for dominance in the social hierarchy of men is about short and medium term "governing" matters: who gets to give orders to other men, or take their wealth.

As a rule the social hierarchy of women was more important and powerful than that of men, and that can be described as "men govern but women rule", which situation be called "the matronarchy":

Older women would rule by controlling or at least influencing their sons and husbands, in particular as to the marriage choices of their sons and daughters, which often were decided solely by the women.

There would be the usual tension between wives and mothers-in-law, as most men would be at the same time sons to a woman and husbands to another, and thus subject to conflicting control and influence.

As a rule this tension was resolved in favour of the older mothers-in-law, whose power is a telling sign of a matronarchy.

Men would usually do most of the harder, more risky tasks, from mining to wars; the women would usually do the easier, less risky tasks, with the exception of the still quite risky task of pregnancy.

Most men and women would anyhow have very little power: for men at work or war, for their women controlling or influencing them. A duchess and her duke would have quite different lives from those of a peasant and his wife.

Note: in the matronarchy the role of men was pretty much that of disposable livestock controlled and influence by the "matrons", their mothers, grandmothers, and wives. The wealth and power of a woman was largely proportional to her skill at acquiring, controlling or influencing, valuable livestock for themselves and their daughters, and begetting and raising valuable livestock.

The sexual and non-sexual oppression of younger women was largely done by matrons (in particular their own mothers and grandmothers, but in general by the community of matrons), even if occasionally delegated to men (as in a mother saying to a father "you should tell our daughter ..."), because:

Matrons would only accept virgins as wives for their sons (in the 1950s for example 95% of brides in the UK were virgins), to ensure that at least their first grandchild would belong to their own genetic dynasty, and to reduce the chance of infidelity after that. Mothers and grandmothers would be not just worried about relinquishing part of their control and influence over their sons to another woman's daughter but even more worried about the other woman's daughter giving her own mother grandchildren fathered by the sons of other women and not the matrons' own son, thus largely wasting their investment in their sons..

While the tendency of women is to consider desirable the most sexually attractive men, regardless of their power and wealth, matrons would consider power and wealth more important for their sons-in-law, in part because with age and after menopause their sexual desire would wane, in part because having powerful and wealthy sons-in-law would benefit them and their lineage.

Knowing that most matrons would sexually repress their daughters and granddaughters to ensure that had a chance to gain the approval of the mothers and grandmothers of men with greater wealth and power, and that depended on their virginity and other "traditional" characteristics.

Because of some enormous economic and health changes the power of the matronarchy has become much weaker, and "feminism" is the result of that and its distinguishing characteristic is young women rebelling against the matronarchy to follow their sexual instincts instead of the control from their mothers, mothers-in-law, and grandmothers, choosing the thrill of being used by sexually attractive "player" men instead of settling with and using wealthier or more powerful "provider" men.

The USA armed forces have a pretty much standard way of fighting wars, whether on land or on the sea, based on two principles:

Strategically, transform every war into a war of attritition, and cut off the enemy from resupply opportunities (naval blockades).

Tactically, achieve air superiority (first kill enemy radars, second kill enemy airports, third kills anything that is left in the air) with overwhelming amounts of airplanes, and then mop up the enemy ground and sea forces.

These two aims are meant to make the most of the USA's financial and industrial superiority, which allow the USA armed forces to have overwhelming logistics to counter attrition, and overwhelming numbers of airplanes that are very expensive platforms,

This is just a modified and scaled up version of the way of war of the english empire, which was similarly based on overwhelming logistics, and used overwhelming numbers of capital ships instead of airplanes, with cruiser guns pounding the enemy lines from afar instead of carrier bombers doing it.

The two ways to have a chance against the american way of war are:

Submarines to sink USA resupply ships and thus deny the USA logistics advantage.

Anti-aircraft missiles to shoot down USA airplanes and anti-ship missiles to sink the USA carriers.

One of the telling aspects of USA protectorates is that they don't have significant anti-aircraft or anti-ship resources, and vice-versa one of the telling aspects of countries that have effective independence from the USA is that they invest a lot in anti-aircraft and anti-ship resources to deter USA power.

Decades ago most women were mothers in order to raise sons as pension assets, and this meant that they wanted low housing costs, to devote more of their income to pumping up the asset value of their sons, and they wanted higher wages, because their retirement living standards depended on higher wages for their sons. But in recent decades two things have happened:

Many women have become real estate owners often because of income from working, also often thanks to divorce or inheritance.

Many more women rely on fixed-sum pensions, often because of income from work, sometimes because of survivor benefits, than on sons for their retirement living standards.

This has meant that many women voters are investors in real estate more than in sons, so they want higher housing costs, because that boosts the value of their real estate assets, and want lower wages, because other people's wages are a cost to them, not a source of income via their sons.

Accordingly an english politicians has written as to neoliberalism, whether called reaganism or thatcherism:

Most women in most cases don't throw themselves at men, (but do what they can to attract the attention of attractive men), and when they do many unattractive men are suspicious. That is because there can be two main reasons why a woman throws herself at a man:

The woman wants sex from an attractive "player" man quite out of her league and she thinks that it is such an important achievement that other considerations are secondary.

The woman wants to settle with an unattractive "provider" man in her league or below, and she is already pregnant because of sex with a man quite out of her league; sometimes she wants to settle with a "provider" because she plans to become pregnant by a "player" man.

An interesting question that is relevant to out times is how the USA state controls their protectorates. For politicians the answer is easy: with money, there are many examples in the past of USA state representatives bribing outright foreign politicians or simply donating to their campaign funds.

The answer is more difficult when it comes to ensuring that the members of the state bureaucracies of USA protectorates are more loyal to the USA than to their own countries or at least than to the politicians of their own countries, because in particular for security, military and diplomatic officers being a nationalist is a pretty strong impulse.

From various past episodes the way is to undermine or blacklist people deemed more loyal to their own country than to the USA: by using means such as destroying their careers by hinting that there is secret evidence that they are unreliable, or explicitly refusing them security clearances, up to suspending security, military or diplomatic service collaboration unless the protectorate gets rid of them.

In this was the USA state can be assured that the top security, military, diplomatic officers of their protectorates either sincerely believe that it is good to be more loyal to the USA than their own countries, or realize that their career is more important then loyalty to their own countries.

My guess is that in addition the USA state ensures in at least some cases that that the families of top politicians and security, military, diplomatic officers of their protectorates get privileged access to USA resources, such as studentships, work visas and residence permits, job opportunities, business partnerships.

There is this article by Cory Doctorow about “surveillance capitalism” where a central point is that “the hidden persuaders” of “big data” driven advertising are not very effective, and one of the examples is how creepy and ineffective “pick up artists” are, but he paints a ridiculous misrepresentation of “pick up art”, for example:

“Some pick-up artists eventually manage to convince women to go home with  them, but it’s not because these men have figured out how to bypass  women’s critical faculties. Rather, pick-up artists’ “success” stories  are a mix of women who were incapable of giving consent, women who were  coerced, women who were intoxicated, self-destructive women, and a few  women who were sober and in command of their faculties but who didn’t  realize straightaway that they were with terrible men but rectified the  error as soon as they could.”

That is just “woke” paranoia creating a fantasy of “pick-up art” conforming to “woke” prejudices, because my understanding of “pick up art” is:

Most women desire to have sex with attractive men who turn them on.

The attractive men who turn them on are those more handsome and more sociopathic than the women themselves.

To satisfy the desire of most women for sex with attractive men who turn them on a man has to become more handsome and more sociopathic.

Therefore “pick-up art” is all about men’s self-improvement to make women happier by offering them more opportunities to satisfy their desire for sex with handsome and sociopathic men ("pump-and-dump players").

Note: the downside of “pick-up art” applies to men only: that since the sexual desire of most women is for a specific type of men, it implies that men’s sexual lives are entirely controlled by women’s desire, on a take-or-leave it logic, and “pick-up art” teaches men to slavishly bend themselves to women’s sexual preferences.

It seems to me that there is no manipulation or persuasion in “pick-up art”, its goal is to genuinely give women the type of man that women want. However many women are outraged by “pick-up art” because it involves an element of artifice: that “pick-up artists” make an effort to become more attractive, therefore they are not naturally more handsome and sociopathic, and therefore their sons are unlikely to genetically inherit their attractiveness (their sons are unlikely to be "pump-and-dump players"), and having naturally sexually attractive sons is why most women prefer sexually attractive men.

So while men who have made an effort to become more handsome and sociopathic are not deceiving those women who are attracted to them, they are genuinely sexually attractive, those women feel indirectly cheated because such attractiveness even if genuine is not genetic and inheritable.

This is understandable, but it is also a notable example of double standard: most men are turned on by women who have well proportioned young bodies and are patient and sweet (because those traits are associated with better health and safer childbearing and greater faithfulness), and there are whole industries and pretty much the entire “Women’s Interest” type of magazines devoted to helping most women to look more beautiful and young, and to pretend to be “more feminine” (more patient and sweet), at least before marriage, as “picked-up art”.

There is a common prejudice that handsome men are stupid, and that may have some applicability, for example because:

Handsome men turn many women on so they get laid whether they are stupid or clever, so they can afford to be stupid.

Many women may prefer stupid men so they can control them more easily, and are only turned on by handsome men, so they may be less keen to get laid with handsome and clever men than with handsome and stupid men.

Highly clever men (and women) often have difficulties relating to others, including women.

Sometimes I end up discussing "women" with other men and it is regularly frustrating that most men don't get most women's real sexuality, and so the discussions are difficult. That's not because unattractive men are unwilling to get it, but because they cannot: they never experience it directly because they don't turn on women, so their interactions don't involve sexuality from the side of the women.

It is like discussing colors with someone who is blind from birth. Except that the blind realize that they are blind, but many unattractive men think that they experience female sexuality, when what they experience is the awkward pushing off or the fake toleration of those men's sexual attentions by women who are not turned on by them.