A lot of these angry young men are coming at this "loneliness epidemic" with emotions and premises and arguments that were handed to them by their families and their role models and their society. Approaching life with that framework is failing them. They are being set up to fail by every macho joke, by every peacocking influencer, by every linear action movie plot in which the guy gets the girl at the end by being badass enough.

What do you call setting someone up to fail like that? Sabotage.

https://yesmeansyesblog.wordpress.com/2009/11/12/meet-the-predators/

I am reminded of this blog post that outlines how the vast majority of rape is accomplished by recidivist rapists who rely on the social camouflage other men provide them. I'll just quote Thomas in that post because he says it better:

"The pact to make excuses, to look for mitigation, to patch things over — to believe that what happens to our friends — what our friends do to our friends — is not (using Whoopi Goldberg’s pathetic apologetics) “rape-rape”. "

If you convince young men of patriarchy's premises, then the Pact becomes easier to sign. That's just a horny dude trying to get some like normal guys dude, and not a repeat sexual offender committing rape - rape he knows he'll get away with, thanks to the social cover.

So the typical male rapist, according to the stats in the Meet the Predators blog post above, both benefits from transmitting the sabotage to his peers and probably bases their behaviour on the premises in the sabotage Moxon pointed out (that women are the property of men, mostly for the purposes of sexual use).

But I think we can trace the source of this sabotage through the rapist to a deeper dynamic.

There were also many comments implying fear of cheating, stuff like “I’m terrified of a woman who won’t sign a prenup” - pretty clear message of “women lie and cheat”.

The common thread through both categories of comment was "don't believe what women say".

I’m gonna put aside the statistics on sexual assault - how many go unreported, how many women are affected - even as damning as they are, because I want to focus on a different question that ties into Moxon's original point:

Why were these men blaming women instead of liars?

Women are a demographic who didn’t really have a say in their membership. If they’re cisgender, they were born into that demographic. If they’re trans, they are punished for seeking recognition in that demographic and forced to live incomplete lives at best if they don’t. But it’s not really a choice.

Lying is a behaviour. People who lie in pursuit of their own benefit can choose not to.

So why mistrust people who don’t choose something (being a woman) that comes with a lot of drawbacks, rather than blaming people who choose to do something bad for everyone else (lying) for their benefit?

The worst misogynists will say all women are liars. Sidestepping how there’s no evidence for this gender essentialism, there’s another question: cui bono? Who benefits when you say all women are liars?

The answer is obvious: non-women liars. AKA deceitful men.

Back to the "male loneliness epidemic" - I was an angry horny young man too. Growing up out of that phase meant coming across a lot of lessons that I wish I'd learned as a boy - lessons like "other people's feelings matter", "you can't argue people into changing their priorities no matter how right you think you are", "sexual partners aren't trophies to collect", "you're not less of a man for being kind and patient", etc.

With the years, I realized I was set up to fail without those lessons.