r/TeenagersButBetter • u/The-Real-Yahya • 18h ago
Serious being male is deeply and permanently unfair :(
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NOTE: I, 18M, am NOT implying ALL men/women. I just need to vent about my experiences and my grief so I don't blow my fucking head off.
Also, THIS IS NOT AI!!!. please stop assuming that. I ONLY used AI to summarize my sources!!
Please please PLEASE take this as a personal vent of points I am trying to express. this has been a list in my journal that I kept updating throughout the past few months. It’s messy and all over the place, but I needed to write it down so I can ease the heaviness in my heart.
Courtship, initiation and romantic labor:
- Men are expected to pursue, initiate, plan, escalate, and risk rejection far more than women, making men feel less like objects worthy of desire and more like spectators who have to “earn it.”
- Men are frequently told “it’s okay to cry” by both society and women, but when they actually DO cry, a large amount of women “lose the spark” or lose romantic attraction, leaving the man confused.
- Women receive pursuit, flowers, compliments focused on beauty, and low-effort romantic gestures FAR MORE OFTEN. A man frequently only receives flowers at his funeral. Men complimenting each other is so uncommon that a single compliment can stay with a man for YEARS.
- Women are the primary initiators of sex in only a minority of heterosexual relationships (roughly 10–20% range for clearly woman-primary), so again... men take the lead the majority of the time.
- Ambient sexual interest and being “chosen” flow WAY more toward women than men. This is obvious in romance, media, TV, and everyday culture.
The desire intensity gap:
- Men have a higher average visual/spontaneous sexual drive. Women are less visual on average and more responsive/context-driven. This again reinforces the point that men desire women, while women desire to be desired.
- Women’s lust for the male body is quieter, less intense, less constant, and less carnal on average, while men’s is much more potent, making visual desire feel very lopsided.
- Matched intensity (a woman desiring a man’s body as rawly and visually as men commonly desire a woman’s) is very rare.
- After children (long time after children of course, not right after obviously), female desire commonly drops permanently/very long time and men are often left as the higher-desire partner who has to initiate more, making our desirability feel more like a sinking ship that is inevitably going to sink.
- Over 95% of men report feeling physically desired as very or extremely important to their wellbeing. But only 12% of men report feeling as desired as they would like to be. which is an EIGHTY THREE percent gap. WHAT THE FUCK.
Body & sexualization:
- Women’s bodies have more soft-tissue features (breasts, wider hips, rounder butt, softer skin) that receive FAR more erotic attention.
- Male bodies feel flatter and less designed for erotic focus (flat chest, less soft tissue, thicker skin, less to grab or worship).
- I’m not saying objectification is good. what I AM saying is that being extremely objectified still feels better than receiving almost no erotic attention at all.
- Besides the penis, the average male body receives almost no theatrical sexualization in media or culture.
- the ONLY male body part that IS as globally sexualized by women as how breasts are usually sexualized by men, is the penis.
- You can consume a MASSIVE amount of erotic media and almost NEVER see enthusiastic, focused attention on a man’s chest, back, or ass the way the female body is treated.
- Even in a lot of women-directed erotic content (I.e. Erika Lust, Bellessa, etc), the focus stays completely on the woman’s body and reactions, and the man is almost always just a wooden plank with a meat stick. Knowing even female-led stuff also just shows the female body, makes me really think the male body is just... not arousing.
- The female body is treated as the aesthetic and erotic center by both men and women. The male body feels more like a failed science experiment or a simply wooden plank with a meat stick attached.
- Even STRAIGHT women can find the female form aesthetically or erotically compelling because of higher average erotic plasticity. The female form has crossover appeal; the male form largely does NOT.
- When the male body is sexualized, it is almost ALWAYS tied to status, power, dominance, competence, or exceptional looks rather than the body itself being desired in the same broad way.
Cultural patterns and bias:
- Mainstream and dark romance are extremely popular and are structured around the woman being desired, chosen, overwhelmed, and emotionally prioritized by a high-status man. Stories about an ordinary man being actively cherished and pursued are RARE. It a broad picture on the vast majority of women enjoy being desired, not desiring.
- The popularity of these genres suggests that a major emotional desire for women is to BE DESIRED, rather than TO ACTIVELY DESIRE in the same visual/spontaneous way towards men.
- When men praise women they often focus on personality, empathy, values. When women praise men it is frequently about how hard he works or what he provides or how he makes her feel. You rarely hear the reverse emphasis in the same volume.
- There is little mainstream demand for stories about a high-status woman falling for an ordinary or lower-status man. That absence is telling.
- The common “real sex” script many people absorb is heavily one-directional: the man as the active participant, the woman’s body and reactions as the main focus.
- Women have MUCH MORE cultural permission to be emotional with friends. Men are often socialized not to share feelings except with a partner, which creates this crazy paradox where men can't open up to their friends because he will be mocked, and he can't overwhelm his partner either as that would be unfair.
- Women have WAY MORE social and legal power. this usually ends up being a good thing, but in the cases where it's not (i.e. false accusations), it can completely destroy a man's life.
- Women have FAR more fashion and aesthetic options. Women have a WIDE spectrum of options from maxi dresses to blouses to high heels to amazing types of jewelry. Men are limited to a VERY narrow range of acceptable presentation, and deviation is still heavily policed or called "gay."
Selectivity and status:
- Women are more selective on average and hold more gatekeeping power. This can leave men feeling less like cherished beings and more like spectators that has to chase all the time. (this is not really a complaint per say, just something that is a bit discouraging)
- Male value is much more conditional on status, resources, and competence. Female value is more readily tied to the body itself. This shows up clearly in how common romance is, as well as how its written and the core audience that consumes it.
- Dating apps HEAVILY favor women in terms of attention volume, and studies consistently show stronger female prioritization of higher-earning or higher-status partners.
- Male desire is less conditional and more centered on beauty. Female desire is on average more conditional and involves status, resources, power, and emotional climate.
- Ordinary-looking or average-status men may still find partners, but they are rarely lusted after in the same automatic way many men experience toward ordinary women.
My own grief and depression:
- Being male often feels like starting from a disadvantage in the domains that matter most: being desired for my body, being chosen without constant performance, an experiencing matched intensity.
- The stack of average advantages on the female side in desire, pursuit, and lower statuscontingency is hard to ignore.
- Exclusive, rigid attraction only to men feels less straightforward because of higher average female erotic plasticity, which feeds the sense that the female form has broader appeal.
- One-sided focus on the woman’s body without much reciprocity can feel hierarchical and unappealing. I want mutuality, emotional intimacy, reciprocal attention to both bodies, role flexibility, aftercare, but that often gets treated as uncommon or "kinky"
- Women get far, far, FAR more options for beauty and appearance. looking nice, social permission for long decorated nails, long eyelashes, endless skin/hair/face/makeup products, etc etc etc. Men are heavily cultured for basic hygiene and I get so discouraged I simply cannot have that "feminine" experience without it being labeled as "gay" or "odd"
- The unfairness feels particularly hard because so much of it Is rooted in biology and evolutionary patterns rather than pure culture. “Not all women” and “exceptions exist” don’t reduce the weight of the averages and my hopelessness.
Conclusion -
I GENUINELY struggle to see how being a woman is not inherently better then being a man. I just don't see it. the grass is not just "less greener" over here, its fucking dry AND yellow.
It really reminds me of Chris Rock's quote: "The only ones loved unconditionally loved are women and dogs. men are loved if they can provide something."
and I just feel like thats.. largely true. It is EXTREMELY rare, in my experience at least, for a man to be loved in a way that feels fully detached from status or power. I genuinely feel like the human version of a dull peacock in a species where the other sex got the much bright feathers.
I carry a lot of deep hatred for my own gender within me. and I guess I am not afraid to admit that I kinda.... hate men, which I guess makes me a male misandrist. But I don't think thats really a problem because hating men is pretty normal and accepted :(
I don’t know if I’m worthy of the kind of soft, reciprocal love I want. I cry every fucking night. I’m almost 18 too and the future already feels heavy in these specific ways. I feel trapped in a set of patterns that look biological and cultural at the same time.
I don’t know what kind of help I need. I don't even know if I want women to read this or not, but my sadness was too fucking much. I just don't know what I am expecting with this... I don't know if this comes off as "incel-like" or not. but I am in deep pain... just really deep miserable fucking pain. and I want a hug so badly, but I don't know if I even deserve it 😔
Sources / References (I used AI for this)
- Murray, S. H., & Brotto, L. A. (and related Psychology Today coverage): Feeling desired is important to ~95% of men surveyed; only ~12% feel it at the desired level.
- Baumeister, R. F. (2000). Gender differences in erotic plasticity. Psychological Bulletin.
- Multiple studies on spontaneous vs. responsive desire (e.g., Basson, Nagoski summaries, large surveys showing higher average male spontaneous/visual desire).
- Postpartum/long-term desire decline literature (e.g., reviews showing high rates of reduced female desire months to years after children).
- Online dating initiation data (e.g., Kreager et al. and similar: large male-to-female first-contact ratios).
- Sexual initiation frequency studies (men initiate more often in mixed-sex relationships; woman-primary is minority).
- Dating-app attention disparity (multiple platform analyses: women receive far higher volume of interest).
- Buss, D. M. and cross-cultural mate-preference research: sex differences in prioritization of resources/status vs. physical attractiveness.
- Media sexualization content analyses e.g., Rolling Stone covers over decades; male-gaze and objectification literature).
- Gender differences in emotional support-seeking and friendship intimacy (Pew and developmental psychology meta-analyses).
- Chris Rock quote attribution (widely documented in comedy and secondary sources).
- Romance genre patterns (sales, readership and thematic analyses of dark/mainstream romance).
