Is the problem who women put out for ...

... or is it what they are putting off?
Commenting on a recent sexual scandal involving a politician, Andrew Klavan was moved to write this:

I blame women.  No, really.  Women — by which I mean each and every single member of the female gender — you know who you are — need look no further than themselves to explain why Weiner-types behave toward them in this fashion.   We men are always hearing complaints from women about how badly we treat them, what pigs we are, how pushy and abrasive…  on and on.  But what these same women conveniently fail to mention is that this stuff really works on them!

And this:

So, then, ladies — what do you expect?  All we guys want is for you to love us.  If this is the sort of guy you follow after in droves, this is the sort of guy we’re encouraged to be.

Nancy French thinks he goes to far but then more or less goes there herself:

Klavan goes way to far. After all, Weiner is fully responsible for his own behavior. But men often complain that — in the game of love — nice guys finish last. And you know what? They’re all too often right. Visit any college campus, and you’ll see the most boorish behavior endlessly rewarded in frat houses and on sorority row. Watch the flocks of young women following everyone from congressmen to athletes to rappers. Entire subcultures of “pick-up artists” prey on the female tendency to seek “high-status males,” consequences be damned.

Women need to ask for better from men. But we need to demand better from ourselves as well.

I guess the first thing to note here is that this is where the belief in the natural moral superiority of women when it comes to matters of sex gets us.  For women here are not only responsible for their own sexual failings, they are responsible for men's weaknesses too!

And note how the two writers above quietly assume that women ought to be rewarding nice guys for being nice guys by giving them sex. Put the question in any other context and you can see how ridiculous it is. Compare this,

You should pick Joe as an employee because he is a really nice guy who needs a job.

with this

You should pick Joe as a sexual partner because he is a really nice guy who needs sex to motivate him to continue to be a nice guy.

There is something pitiable about the woman who would accept Joe for either option.

But ask yourself a simple question, if a woman is just looking for sex, why wouldn't she respond to the tactics of pick up artists? I've written before about how these tactics rely absolutely on short-term relationships. The pick up artist's technique is to present himself as a high-status male. He isn't actually a high status male, he's some dweeb but it doesn't matter for tonight if all you are looking for is a little sexual thrill. And even less so if you are just looking for cyber sex.

The odd thing, and I'll return to this theme tomorrow and Friday, is to think that you can spend years of your life pursuing casual sex only and then suddenly turn around and do the marriage thing in your late twenties. Of course we encourage an entire class of people to do just this. And we don't just encourage them to do it with sex, we tell them to feel free about their entire lives that way. Go ahead, spend a quarter of a century just playing at life and then you can finally start taking life seriously. Get another degree, go to Europe, Bali, South America and whatever you want. Have some meaningless relationships.

Why? I all this playing around supposed to better prepare us for real life?