Success, equality, ambition and independence are the qualities men find most attractive in women these days. Men’s choices fly in the face of Paglia’s trippy predictions like this one: “After the next inevitable apocalypse, men will be desperately needed again! Oh, sure, there will be the odd gun-toting Amazonian survivalist gal, who can rustle game out of the bush and feed her flock, but most women and children will be expecting men to scrounge for food and water and to defend the home turf.” Men today want to marry, breed with, hire and raise that Amazonian survivalist gal—suggesting she’s not that odd at all.
And last, but certainly not least, one of the most transformative freedoms we can thank women for is sex without unwanted consequences. The modern man enjoys an active sex life with multiple partners before marriage and after. Marriage is not determined by unintended pregnancy or the rush to have sex as it most often was in the ’50s. Men embark on a much more leisurely path to marriage; settling in with a more thoughtfully chosen partner much later in life as a result of the campaigns women have waged and won. Sex in marriage is also more fun, fulfilling and less fraught with life-altering risks. It’s also worth mentioning that family planning is a cornerstone of the critical work of stabilizing nations in the developing world. So, thank you to women for coming up with a solution for that, too.
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