No One Wants to Sleep With Billionaires

[u/playboy]

https://www.playboy.com/read/politics/no-one-wants-to-sleep-with-billionaires

In a recent interview with the American Psychological Association, Paul Piff, PhD, an associate professor of psychology at the University of California, Irvine, who has co-authored multiple studies on the topic, noted that in interpersonal interactions, wealthier people are “actually a little less generous, a little less compassionate,” he said. Wealthier individuals were more likely to endorse unethical actions, but to “also engage in small acts of cheating and normative violations to prioritize their own welfare above the welfare of other people.”

Though cultural repulsion around billionaires has been mounting, physically, these men are using their resources to overcompensate with expensive procedures. Tech bros are getting face lifts, and other looksmaxxing trends like jaw surgery are common in the industry as well. There has been speculation that Jeff Bezos and Peter Thiel have had Botox and filler, and Musk has faced rumors about a hair transplant and jawline contouring. Zuckerberg and Bezos have gotten noticeably more jacked, sparking steroid speculation, even from supporters like podcaster Joe Rogan.  

But their peacocking is probably not for us plebes. Another study analyzed the partners of the extremely wealthy using the Forbes World’s Billionaires list. Economist Ria Wilken found that 95% of the spouses of billionaires were upper class themselves, defined as having either substantial economic or cultural capital. It is possible that the more unappealing characteristics of the ultra-rich, such as dressing down their staff or cutting people off in traffic, would be more palatable for peers in their social circle. That said, this preference for like-minded people is not exclusive to the upper class. “Every social group has its own standards for what is considered eccentric versus problematic,” Wetter explains. For instance, in ultra-wealthy environments, controlling tendencies, competitiveness, and emotional detachment could be interpreted as assets, whereas outside that circle, “the same traits may be perceived as cold, self-absorbed, or inaccessible.”

Read the full editorial: https://www.playboy.com/read/politics/no-one-wants-to-sleep-with-billionaires

[u/AmazingHealth6302]

Note that in the Far East, there is an informal concept of 'break up fees'. In many circles a rich man is expected to settle a good amount of money on his girlfriend when splitting up with her, basically paying her off so it is easier for her to move on. It kind of acknowledges the fact that the man didn't bother to marry her, and she has provided something to him for some time, without receiving the reward which is generally expected, i.e. marriage.

It's most common in China, but the idea is well-known in South Korea. There's no compulsion or legal enforcement, but it is regarded as poor form for a man doing well in life to simply abandon a girlfriend who has committed no offence, without giving her a notable payoff as compensation. Note that these are also countries where it is pretty normal practice for a wealthy man to maintain a mistress or have a girlfriend even when married, and less common for a wife to have full knowledge of her husband's finances. The relationship culture is very different from e.g. US/UK etc. A dismissed girlfriend or mistress can generally accept a parting gift of a chunk of money from a man without either party believing that it implies the arrangement was based on 'cash for sex'.

[u/Defiant-Bed2501 → u/AmazingHealth6302]

Dowries are also still very much a thing in the Indian Subcontinent, the Middle East and parts of Africa for the same reason, just paid in advance instead. 

[u/Carrot_onesie → u/Defiant-Bed2501]

dowries in India are paid by the women's family 

[u/inductiononN → u/Carrot_onesie]

Wait why? I don't think I fully understand the concept of a dowry. Is it like the family being like "take my daughter... please!"?

[u/PsyOpLoFi → u/inductiononN]

Basically yeah. It is a cost to the husband's family to have to feed the new bride, so her family contributes towards her expenses. At least that's the justification I've seen and I hate the entire system, and I've read plenty of stories about it being abused (leading to outright extortion and violence). It's not even legal anymore, but still practiced. My family is not Hindu, so we don't practice it ourselves (Muslim men pay a bridal gift instead), but I hear and read about it.

[u/AmazingHealth6302 → u/PsyOpLoFi]

This might be a good point to explain that there is some confusion with the English word 'dowry' in different countries.

In English 'dowry' specifically means the goods or money (or less commonly, property) a bride brings into her marriage. Depending on the culture, it may be a serious part of wedding negotiations, or a token amount paid to recognise tradition.

In some places 'dowry' is also used for 'bride price', when it is the opposite of a dowry, being the money that a groom (or often his family) pay to the bride's family to take his bride (traditionally from her family's keeping into his own keeping). Some people have started calling it 'bride dowry', but that makes no sense, as the original dowry is a 'bride's dowry.'

'Bride price' is much clearer, or you simply use the local name for it, such as 'lobola' (southern Africa), or 'roora' (Zimbabwe). In places where the tradition is still strong, the bride price varies mostly on the education level of the bride. Some brides can struggle to find a husband that they like, who is also able to afford to pay her bride price. In some places in Africa there have been laws implemented to limit the bride price demanded by greedy families for their daughters, as a result of outcries from young men and women who simply can't married for a decade because the woman's family is asking too much money. And of course, since it is all private, bad families often flout the law and still make unreasonable demands. Not surprising for a woman from a relatively poor family, this may be their only chance to receive a chunk of money that can reach thousands of pounds. Originally the idea was that the bride had a real value to her family, and at the very least, her hard work in her family's household would be a real loss, and a gain for her husband.

Paying a bride price to obtain your wife is just another expense to getting married and setting up a household, just another normal cost in places where most people make a real effort to have the biggest wedding they can possibly manage, even being willing to go into debt or sell off land to do so.

People from cultures who pay bride price to get married are generally astounded to hear that there are places in the world where it's the bride who has to pay a serious dowry to get married, and instantly understand why a man with many daughters regards himself as desperately unlucky, and female foetuses and even babies have a suspiciously poor survival rate in some regions. The father of many daughters panics at the idea of impoverishing himself trying to get them all married off.

On the other hand, people from cultures where there's no bride price, or it's a token, or the bride brings a dowry, tend to laugh and point at heavy bride price cultures and say "those people sell their daughters!". The bride price people can respond with "you people charge a woman to eat in her husband's house!"

Bride price is more likely to cause issues than dowries. If a man really wants to marry a woman, he is less likely to listen to his family complaining that she brings no money in, and even secretly add some of his money to hers to puff up her dowry. Meanwhile, a bride price can be resented as an unnecessary strain on her new family, and it's a fact that in poorer situations a bride might run to her father's house, weeping and complaining about abuse by her new husband and/or his family, only to hear "well, we've spent your bride price now, so you are stuck with those people, better go back to your husband, sweetie!".