Feminism is about the sexual order of a society. Feminism organizes older and less attractive women in a trade-union manner to keep off and rein in younger and more attractive competitors. One of the tactics is to keep men under the threat of criminal prosecution for sexual contact that was consensual at the time it occurred.
The bottom line is that feminists want to get rid of anything that attaches value to beauty, and they want to rein in men, especially their men, who take sexual liberties.
So, no prostitution, or only highly restricted and made unappetizing, like denatured alcohol. Ever-raising age-of-consent limits, regulating online dating, and outlawing sexism to the point where flirting becomes a risk puts men in constant danger of being prosecuted for rape or sexual assault if they do not behave as women wish. Female infidelity, on the other hand, is considered acceptable, even progressive.
Now, feminist women have good reason to like the Islamic State.
Admittedly, female infidelity is also not accepted in the Islamic State. But most women are not very concerned about whether infidelity is risk-free for them. What they definitely do not want is for their men to go astray and remain unpunished.
And when it comes to limiting this danger, the Islamic State scores high with women.
For them, this is what counts most of all: their men are only theirs, with no sex with other women.
In 2005, the US Congress passed the International Marriage Broker Regulation Act (IMBRA). The declared intention of the law is to protect immigrant women who settle in the US as spouses of US men.
Congress sabotages international marriage
(http://www.times-news.com/opinion/local_story_171102856.html?keyword=secondarystory)
Marriage broker law seeks to protect readily exploited women
(http://www.times-news.com/marriage-broker-law-seeks-to-protect-readily-exploited-women/article_d3f1b613-d8cc-5a46-ae15-fab2afe9f51b.html?mode=jqm)
Apart from other aspects, the US International Marriage Broker Regulation Act is also a typical example of restrictive legislation, hypocritically imposed to allegedly protect those it effectively restricts.
Those who are restricted are women from Third World countries for whom it would normally be a fortunate event to find a US husband, even if the US husband is not a prime marriage candidate. This is the net effect of the law.
Obviously, the law also restricts marriage brokers, for whom it reduces business opportunities, and US men who either honestly seek spouses through an agency with the intention of being good husbands, or search for female partners with less noble, more pronounced sexual motives.
But for both the marriage brokers and the men seeking female partners from abroad, the restrictive effect of the law is not as fundamental as it is for women from the Third World seeking a US spouse.
The world is full of business opportunities that mainstream moralists consider seedy, and if the International Marriage Broker Regulation Act indeed puts some of the less serious brokers out of business, they will find other business opportunities that are on par. And men looking for women will find other avenues, and these may not be more moral than looking for a spouse via an agency.
The group of people on which the law will have the most decisive effect are women from Third World countries for whom immigrating to the US as the spouse of a US man (even a less-than-perfect one) would most probably be a fortunate event.
I believe that these implications were clear to those who passed the law and those who lobbied for it. This is why those who publicly support the idea of protecting women who immigrate to the US as spouses or candidate spouses are pretenders.
I do not generally believe in altruism. It is not a genuine biological concept. Scrutiny of research into alleged altruism in the animal kingdom has usually yielded that the alleged altruism is but a sophisticated form of egoism.
(http://www.bookrags.com/sciences/biology/altruism-ansc-01.html)
Study Exposes Craven Motive of the Brave Meerkat Sentry
(http://www.nytimes.com/1999/06/08/science/study-exposes-craven-motive-of-the-brave-meerkat-sentry.html)
(http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F7091FFB385D0C7B8CDDAF0894D1494D81&n=Top%2fReference%2fTimes%20Topics%2fPeople%2fY%2fYoon%2c%20Carol%20Kaesuk)
People normally do not take prolonged action for the benefit of others. In general, this would not be a viable biological concept. People take action if it is in their interest, though the way it is in their interest, or the way they consider it to be in their interest, may be rather subtle. It may also be objectively wrong (in the Dark Ages, rich men would give fortunes to monasteries in exchange for absolution or a reduction of the time they would have to spend in purgatory… subjectively, these rich men acted out of their own interest, but objectively, they were wrong).
So, I want to examine in whose interest, subjectively or objectively, the International Marriage Broker Regulation Act actually is.
We can expect the law to have a negative impact on net migration rates, so anyone who is anti-immigration could be expected to be supportive of the law. To claim that immigrants are kept out for their own benefit is an old and common pattern. I remember that during the German “Wirtschaftswunder” (economic miracle) years, those who did not want “Gastarbeiter” (guest workers) from Italy argued that Germany was not suited for Italian workers and their families because the weather in Germany was too cold. Revealingly, they did not campaign for a technical solution to the alleged problem (e.g., more jackets and blankets).
Whom else to expect in the coalition that lobbied for and/or passed the International Marriage Broker Regulation Act? You guessed it: radical feminists, and even large segments of the US female population.
I define these radical feminists as women who hold gender-antagonistic views (“men are evil”) and are active in the public arena, where they typically lobby for anti-male legislation or are active in the legal persecution of men who have violated sexual codes.
Typically, these activists have a history of having been gravely disappointed by men. Either they were not courted by the men they desired, or they were abandoned, or both, possibly more than once. If they were not out seeking revenge against men per se, I would feel pity for them.
Many of the women who become such activists are actually excellent wife material, loyal until death does them part. Alas, the times are not right for such qualities to be in high demand, and the men they were with probably did not value their extraordinary qualities.
Instead, the men in their lives likely preferred to have affairs and later dump them forever. So, understandably, the women were deeply hurt, which led them to become activists with an agenda of opposing male irresponsibility.
Now, do not blame the men!
Not for wanting to be with other women in spite of having a loyal wife. Not for wanting to have another female partner altogether after a few years. Not for giving preference to younger women who, if possible, have never given birth before.
Blaming them for these traits would be the same as blaming them for their baldness, erectile dysfunction, or love handles.
No, I do not blame women either.
Not for being overly possessive. Not for integrating men into their fantasies of lifelong romantic partnership. Not for demanding that their men regard them as the only attractive women in the world, even when they have long passed the time of being sexually palatable.
I also do not blame them for sagging breasts, changes in buttocks circumference, or loss of youthful skin.
All of us, whether male or female, have been shaped through hundreds of thousands of years of evolution, and this applies to our physiques and the ways we deteriorate, just as it does to how our minds function and the ways our characters are less than perfect.
The keyword, whether for our bodies or our brains, is procreative success. For males, the greatest procreative success was achieved by impregnating as many women as possible, provided these women were in a position to bring up the offspring until the offspring, too, could procreate.
In accordance with this formula, one of the greatest procreative success stories involves certain Chinese emperors who kept harems with thousands of girls and women.
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4396246.stm)
For women, comparative procreative success can only be attained if they give birth to an emperor… not necessarily of China, but, for example, of the Ottoman Empire.
But before she could reap the potential procreative success, she would first have to see him through to adulthood and the throne.
(https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sultanate_of_Women)
The minds of men and women, just like their bodies, have evolved as tools for our genes to procreate, and for no other purpose. Certainly, this is not to concur with Kant’s categorical imperative that we should not apply to others what we do not want applied to ourselves. Evolution is much more flexible.
It has even programmed people to change their minds sometime during their lives, including on matters as complicated as social orders, depending on the procreative phase they are in.
Women who do not have grown sons will typically favor social models that provide a fairly high degree of restriction on how many sexual partners a man can have. After all, for women who raise children, it is an important aspect of procreative success that the father is present to share the burden.
Women who have grown sons are often more liberally minded.
This does not mean that they would want to grant their male partners the same privileges they happily accept for their sons.
Parents (and in this case, especially fathers) typically have different attitudes toward their daughters. Even fathers who are themselves philanderers wish for “responsible” male partners for their daughters (men who dedicate themselves fully and exclusively to their daughters).
I personally have no problem at all with this kind of biological ambivalence, and I do not believe that state intervention is needed, as there are many other aspects that play a role. Anyway, it would be very difficult indeed to override psychological parameters that have evolved over hundreds of thousands of years.
I would define the following archetypal frames of mind for women and men.
For women, the idea of a lifelong partnership with a single man has enormous appeal, no matter the circumstances. Young girls dream about this long before they know about sexual excitement. And women who are rich in their own right, and certainly do not need men as supporters, still cannot resist the idea of the bliss associated with lasting love and partnership.
All of this does not mean that they would not be tempted into sexual adventures on the side.
Sperm Wars: The Science of Sex
(http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0788160044/102-9502780-0044122?v=glance&n=283155)
For men, whether they find fulfillment in a single, lasting, and exclusive relationship depends much more on the circumstances they are in.
In a poor society where everybody has to toil just to meet the requirements of shelter and nutrition, men will be more inclined toward faithfulness than in a society where these requirements are easily met.
Likewise, in a society that provides a high degree of health for its members, men are much more likely to be unfaithful (as are women). Men who suffer from severe erectile dysfunction may not see much benefit in engaging in affairs, which aligns more with the female model of lifelong partnership. However, Pfizer’s “Blue” pill (Viagra), and possibly the herbal Tongkat Ali, puts them back into the game.
I have written about the wealth trap in another context. The increasing affluence of a society works against male sexual interests because it removes support considerations from the mating equation.
The increasing affluence of a society also works against female mating interests because men are less likely to stay in a partnership, even if they do not have a replacement yet.
Furthermore, affluence works against male sexual interests because it gives disappointed women the economic independence to pursue a worldwide agenda of anti-male activism.
The natural antidote to the wealth trap would be population growth.
Because sexual envy is easy to incite, and because anti-male feminists heavily utilize the media to stir anti-sexual emotions, freedom of the press also works against male sexual freedom.
By and large, the pattern we can apply to examine in whose interest the International Marriage Broker Regulation Act works is similar to the pattern that applies to the pro and con groups regarding sex tourism.
Apart from feminists who lobbied for passing the International Marriage Broker Regulation Act because it fits their agenda of restraining male sexuality, those in favor include a large part of the US female population, at least those females who are themselves on the mating market. They obviously do not want young, attractive competitors from abroad.
US men are likely split on whether they are in favor of or against the Act. Those who are in a permanent relationship with a local woman in the US will likely be in favor. Their decision to stay with a current mate for an indefinite time may not be based entirely on prolonged attraction, but may involve a good degree of compromise: staying with the partner because doing otherwise would jeopardize their public career or their business. Silently, they may envy the sexual freedom of those who could import a young, beautiful bride from abroad (a privilege they do not want to grant others because it is not available to themselves).
Men in the countries of origin of the brides available through international marriage brokers are definitely in favor (unless they are the fathers of prospective brides who speculate on a material windfall and possibly a US visa). They do not want foreign men with a clear edge to compete for the most beautiful local girls in Third World countries.
Foreign men in Third World countries who are not themselves US citizens (like myself) are mostly in a position to smile about the US legislative effort, at least as long as their own countries do not follow the US example. Though they do not suffer from US competition as badly as local men, their likely attitude is that the fewer sexual competitors they have, the better.
So, what about morals? Did not everybody in favor of the act refer to the moral necessity of having it passed?
US politics (and politics most everywhere else, though perhaps not as pronounced as in the US) have always been like that. Partisan interests are sold as moral concerns.
But are there not actual cases of abuse of foreign brides? Have they not been lied to, and even tricked? Of course they have. But this is in no way exclusive to internationally brokered marriages.