Honestly, I think some people have just too much time on their hands and it’s fashionable to be outraged on the internet. 

…we forget that we are fighting the sum of our evolution to this point.

We’re also fighting it when I don’t murder you for getting on my nerves.  That’s a pathetic excuse, particularly for a university professor.

Should he have to turn off his sexuality because he is at a conference?

Should I have to turn off making cracks about your ass when we work in the same office with you?  Yes. When you’re in a work setting, you need to shut the fuck up about what your dick wants.

If this were a gay woman who made this comment, would we be just as outraged? If this were a straight woman making the same comment about men, would we be similarly upset?

If you were in an office full of gay men, how would you like to hear about what dogs the straight guys (you) are?

The other thing to keep in mind is often times when accusations of sexism are made, we forget that we are fighting the sum of our evolution to this point. That doesn’t excuse the infraction, but I think it’s silly to try and deny that this old model exists because it allowed our species to successfully and efficiently perpetuate itself. We now are choosing to hold ourselves to higher, more fair standards, but we can’t forget that this is ingrained in us biologically and culturally for a reason.

Should we fight sexism? Yes. Women should have the same opportunities and encouragement to pursue the life and career of their choosing. Should he have to turn off his sexuality because he is at a conference? Asking him to do so seems to me to be the inverse problem. Thought experiment: If this were a gay woman who made this comment, would we be just as outraged? If this were a straight woman making the same comment about men, would we be similarly upset?

But one time the asshole mysteriously fell backwards off the front steps while pestering me, which I think was a brief manifestation of Carrie type powers.

Also, why do so many like Dario take entropy so goddamned seriously to the point that every crowd must perfectly reflect the world at large?

To answer your question, it will help me if you’re right.  There’s more to this than simply (1) I’m ugly and (2) Women like handsome men with money.

The older I get, the less important looks become.  I’ve reached an age where women my age are beginning to attach less importance to looks.  As we all get old and lose whatever physical attractiveness we once had, we all lower our standards.  That’s good for me.  The handsome young men who once bested me in any contest for the attention of a woman are now past middle age, developing their outsized paunches, and are on a more-equal-every-day footing with me.  That’s encouraging.

Second, I’m far from rich but I’m financially stable.  Believe it or not, on a couple of occasions in my life, pretty women in dire financial straits have thrown themselves at me simply because I had a steady income and wasn’t one missed paycheck from being homeless.  The observation of that sort of desperation was sobering.  Again, at my age (mid-50s), I’ve begun to achieve something closer to parity on the overall attractiveness scale that women seem to employ.

Finally, my attitude is changing.  Since retirement, I’ve lost a great deal of weight.  Within the next year or so, if this progress continues without too many setbacks, I’ll be thinner and healthier than at any other time in my adult life.  With these changes comes an increase in confidence and a better attitude about just about everything, including my own desirability.

As an aside, I’m not sure why you conclude that I don’t like women much.  In fact, I like them very much.  I’ve been consistently disappointed by them throughout my life; the disconnect between what they say they want (“I just want a nice guy who will treat me well out of sincere love”) and what they actually want (i.e., what they actually sleep with – “bad boys” or just your run-of-the-mill good looking, moneyed jerks who break their hearts without even a twinge of regret) grates on my nerves but I actively work to keep from allowing bitterness to creep into my outlook.

The older I get the better life gets.  I accept I’ll never bang a supermodel but that’s not really the point.  As both I and potential partners age and see enough of life to appreciate the spiritual more than the physical, my chances of finding a lasting relationship improve.

Or, as my dearly departed mother used to say, “Of course you don’t get laid.  You’re a nice guy.  Most women haven’t been crapped on by life enough to appreciate you.  Believe me, once you’re in the retirement home, you’ll have all the tail you want.  It’ll most likely be rolling your way in a procession of wheelchairs, but you’ll have your pick.”

Mom, bless her soul and in case you couldn’t figure it out for yourself, had a wonderful, wicked, scathing sense of humor.  As I get old, though, I begin to realize that she was probably right.  :-)

I’m not claiming I know what it’s like to have spent a lifetime, from birth to death, as a Western woman. But I am claiming that I can certainly “start to understand,” and go far beyond that start.

As far as venom or empathy goes, I actually took great care not to appear as an attacker; oh well, internet.

From what I can tell, most of your other comments in this string are based on this one misreading of my original comment, so I guess consider this a reply to those, too.

You could, for example, have a fetish for ugly people.  But by definition you’d need to have a basis of attractive, an awareness of it and probably even an appreciation of it to be able to identify with, and ultimate get off on, the opposite.