April Fools Post: Prairie Hen

From an alternate world where fashion works sensibly

Once again, the previous resident of this body has been replaced by an alternate version of themself from a different universe. I really need to take this body for an exorcism.

I am going to call my world of origin Prairie Hen. When prairie hens mate, the males stand in a raised area and dance, and the females hide in a nearby bush and watch them. This is the correct way for flirting to work, and your society is ridiculous.

Of course, our society wasn’t always sensible. For thousands of years of history, women had no meaningful ability to choose their sexual partners, and men concentrated on becoming rich and powerful enough to buy a woman (at whatever level of explicitness of the transaction). Sex happened regardless of what the woman thought about it; she just had to lie back and think of England. But then companionate marriage developed, the birth control pill was invented, and the sexual revolution hit, and men started trying to be pretty.

Evolutionarily, it makes sense. Look at any other species. The males look like this:

And the females look like this:

The reason is simple: in nearly every species—and certainly for humans—reproduction is much more costly for females than for males. Therefore, the males will tend to take any opportunity they can get for reproduction, while the females are choosier. Therefore, males evolve to be beautiful in order to show off their good genes, while females evolve to be more practical in appearance so that they can take care of their offspring.

This is also what you would expect from an economic perspective. On average, men want sex more than women do. Men are more likely to be interested in casual sex than women are, both in general and with any specific individual. In a heterosexual relationship, men tend to have the higher libido. Therefore, men are the ones who should put effort into making sex more desirable for women—just like cereal companies put effort into making their cereal more desirable for consumers.

In your world, women put a lot of effort into being sexually attractive… in order to be pestered by men offering sex they don’t want? They spend lots of time and effort getting dressed up for the nightclub so that they can dodge men hitting on them while they just want to dance? In Prairie Hen, when women just want to dance, they go out in sweatpants. It’s men who go to the club shirtless and wearing body glitter.

“Women do it because they like getting dressed up.” Come on. Stop pulling my leg. If you just want to show off how cool your outfit is, you can go promenading like a member of the gentry in the Regency. It’s dark in a nightclub! No one can see your outfit. It isn’t the worst possible place to show off your fabulous fashion sense—that would be a funeral, or maybe a secret meeting with the president about whether the Russians will invade—but it certainly makes the top thirty.

Now, you might argue that women dress more sexily than men because women are, on average, less visual than men. That’s true in Prairie Hen as well as this world. But there’s no reason for men not to maximize their chances! Women tend to be less visual, but that doesn’t mean that they’re uninterested in male beauty. Beauty is just one strategy for men to improve their odds, alongside dancing ability, charm, and so on.

While I’m complaining, why can’t men on Earth dance? In Prairie Hen, the white boy shuffle would get you viciously mocked by your friends if you were a teenage boy and given helpful, slightly condescending advice if you were an adult.

I think the problem is your culture’s absurd idea of “masculinity.” High heels are simply not a feminine item of clothing. Men are taller than women. High heels enhance the naturally sexual dimorphic trait of height. Women, on average, prefer men who are more masculine in appearance.¹ Therefore, men should wear high heels, and women shouldn’t. I don’t understand the difficulty Earth has with this obvious syllogism.

Don’t get me started on this idea that makeup is “feminine.” You can use contouring to enhance masculine features just as you use it to enhance feminine features. And an even skin tone without unsightly blemishes is hardly a gendered trait.

And when Earth does catch on to sexual dimorphism you people are still so confused about it. No one likes body hair. It’s gross and animalistic. Women naturally have less body hair than men, so it’s fine if they don’t remove it, and in fact points to a rather unattractive vanity if they do. Men have an enormous amount of body hair, so of course they should shave. No one wants their sexual partner to look like a gorilla. Marvel films understand this! Do you see the generic Chrises have chest hair?

Men in your world don’t even seem to understand what traits make them beautiful. I have had multiple conversations with men where they seemed confused about what visually attractive traits they might have other than a large penis. If pressed, it might occur to them that women prefer men who are tall and have large muscles. Why would any allosexual man have this little insight into how to seek out one of the greatest pleasures they can experience?

I’m not saying it’s a good thing to have teenage boys crowding around a mirror, saying “ugh, look at my weak chin, Sam. You’re so lucky, the lower half of your face is so strong.” “I’m lucky!? I’m lucky?! Look at your hipbones, Alex, they’re perfect. I look like a pig. I’m going to stop eating anything except boneless skinless chicken breast, the Rock recommended it in Men’s Fitness.” I supported body positivity. But maybe we could have a little more objectification of men than this?

When I got here, I was so confused by the objection to “dick pics”: what heterosexual woman would object to a beautifully composed, well-lit picture of a naked man, hard penis tastefully curving against his leg? Then I discover that on Earth dick pics are badly lit phone camera pictures with the penis filling up the whole photo. If you’re very lucky, there’s a beer can for scale.

Why.

The absence of male beauty—with a few sterling exceptions—is the most glaring example, but men behave bizarrely on Earth in many other ways as well. For example, I discovered that on Earth men rarely eat women out during hookups, and men are more likely to orgasm during one-night stands than women. That makes no economic or evolutionary sense. On Prairie Hen, women are enormously more likely to orgasm during a one-night stand than men, and it isn’t at all uncommon for a one-night stand to be a man showing off his oral skills for half an hour followed by a perfunctory handjob. If you’re good in bed, you get a good reputation, and then women will be more likely to sleep with you. Pray tell, are men on Earth unaware of the concept of gossip?

It is even more absurd in relationships. Peruse r/deadbedrooms for a while and discover how many heterosexual men are like “my wife doesn’t want sex with me. Bitch.” and only in the comments do you discover that the sex hurts. Gee. Do you think that might be related to her not wanting sex? Of course not, this is Earth, the planet of men failing to agentically pursue sex in any way.

Even more confusingly to me, some Earth men object to the concept of “sluts.” I assumed at first that slut-shaming was directed at men, who pursued casual sex while women wanted relationships. But no. Men shame women who want casual sex! How are you supposed to have casual sex if other men are shaming women who want casual sex? They’re like “oh, I wouldn’t want to marry a woman who has had a hundred sexual partners.” On Prairie Hen, those women are the most desirable, because they want sex the most. You’re not going to get any “not tonight honey, I’ve had a headache” with a woman with a hundred sexual partners.

All I can conclude is that no men on Earth want to get laid. Perhaps they are all actually asexual but there’s pluralistic ignorance about the subject. Every one of them is pretending that they want sex in order to avoid looking bad in front of the other men, but in reality they’re all content with pornography and video games. Men do actually pursue success in video games.

1. Of course, some women prefer a slight, feminine man—especially teenage girls—but I’m generalizing. (Can I point out that in Prairie Hen teenage boys respond to teenage girls’ fondness for slight feminine men by being slight and feminine? Because in Prairie Hen teenage boys care about getting laid?)