You're the one who declared sex transactional -- I'm only trying to describe it in your language. Your first response makes the following statements as if fact:

* Men do not want to have intimate, conversational platonic friendships for their own sake, whereas women do.

(I would challenge this one on the basis of "individuals vary more than groups vary," but I think you would agree but stipulate that we should discuss the majority when discussing the aggregate, so I skipped it. The guy I'm dating has more close, intimate, conversational platonic friendships than I do, though.)

* Sex IS transactional.

(I don't necessarily challenge this one in the way you use transactional although I agree that it is NOT transactional in the way the blogger uses it, e.g., there is no amount of friendship-investment that has "paid off" the cost of sex and now you are owed sex.)

I accepted your two statements because from past conversations I think we generally agree on most of the premise, although we would frame it differently, and proceeded to discuss the matter from a transactional perspective accepting both these statements as fact even though I could quibble on minor details of both. So your criticism of my transactional analogies is merely criticism of the parameters you set for the conversation and I accepted -- therefore I will discard it in responding to your rebuttal.

>This isn't a gender issue. This is a relationship issue.

It is a gender issue because it is an issue men bring to the table and place on the shoulders of women in every conversation about relationships, masculinity, patriarchy, and society. Men consistently demand that women solve what they perceive as women's "problem with nice guys" before men will acknowledge that being a bad person isn't a good trait. It is not a matter of opinion that online dating is something an attractive woman literally cannot experience without receiving vitriolic, profane diatribes about what a cunt she is for not liking a nice guy like this SO SO NICE guy calling her a cunt. Men have negative relationship experiences, but in the aggregate, accepting that exceptions exist, nice-guy issues are an issue of men pursuing women in unacceptably aggressive ways and then complaining that they did not get what they wanted because they are so nice.

>I fathered a kid with someone who didn't want to have sex with me when we met.

And Al Roker caught his wife by stocking her apartment with food while housesitting for her after she'd "friend-zoned" him, but that doesn't mean much other than that there are success stories out there presenting enough variable reinforcement to convince men who are less attractive, less savvy, or simply pursuing a woman less interested that they, too, will eventually marry the woman currently turning them down.

>Presumes these activities are mutually exclusive, as if one can't be bummed about being friend-zoned by one girl while also banging another.

Negative. He can be bummed--but still valuing the friendship enough to keep up with it without being a jackass about it--while banging someone else. It's much less likely he'll be a non-jackass if he's bummed and sees the person who bummed him out as his only possible sexual prospect.

>Then your relationships are shallow. Sorry, I know that sounds harsh. It is nonetheless true.

Bullshit.

I'd accept if you stated that this indicates that the way I see sex is shallow, because I certainly don't view it as the earthshattering be-all and end-all to human intercourse that some people do. The relationships that do or don't generate sex, on the other hand, aren't. If a heterosexual male and a heterosexual female are platonic friends for a long enough time, there is likely to come a phase of the friendship where one or both are sexually attracted. You either deal with that as a game changer or as something that's just part of choosing to have attractive opposite-sex friends. It's shallow to let something as normal and expected as sexual attraction ruin a friendship.

>You keep coming back to this "if you're asking for sex from me you aren't asking for sex from anyone else" canard that has no basis in the discussion at hand.

Strawman -- didn't say that, didn't imply it, don't know why you inferred it.

>My objection to the article is that it claims to present "hard truths" when in fact it simply obfuscates the problem further while also conveniently absolving the author in particular (and - the root of my objection - women in general) of any mis-steps or wrongdoing.

The audience is men. One could suggest the author write a follow-up post giving advice to women or talking about her own relationship mistakes. This post is intended to give advice specifically to men who are unhappy because they believe they are "friend-zoned" for being "nice guys." This is not a problem for which women are at fault. Individual women can and do behave badly, but in the aggregate, this is a massive issue with dating today and is the fault of men who are unable to be clear about their desires and expectations, unable to evaluate their own appeal, and unable to moderate their emotional investments appropriately.

> I can't be the only guy in the world to have friend-zoned women. I don't pretend for a moment I'm doing anything but. I also don't act as if the women I've friendzoned could do anything about it, and I don't pretend they're idiots or unworthy for being upset over the outcome.

Sure, I've been so-called-friend-zoned, and my guy friends have been on that side of it, too. But you notice how women get upset over this individual guy who won't fuck me, while men end up believing that all women just hate "nice guys" and love "assholes."

There's a female equivalent to this, too: The woman who doesn't hold up her end of the relationship other than being attractive, and then goes "men are shallow and just want a dumb blonde with fake tits!" when her boyfriend dumps her after she ages or otherwise becomes less attractive. Because she 1) chose a guy who didn't expect anything of her besides being attractive and 2) then proceeded to become less attractive without adding anything to what she offered to the relationship, she draws the conclusion that all men are shallow, not the conclusion, "If I want a relationship based on more than looks, I can't expect my looks to be a get out of jail free card for any and all bad relationship behavior." I could write thousands of words on that one, too, but that isn't the topic at hand. The topic at hand is male responses to female rejection, which are often uniquely vitriolic and generalized toward all women, and on the specific, incorrect theme that women just don't want a nice partner and would prefer an asshole.

>I'm not sure what your point is but it's pretty clear we've struck a nerve. Recognize that you're essentially saying "even in a world where you can buy cars on Craigslist for $100 some asshole is still going to want to drive a Ferrari."

I'm not sure what's so clear about that? You know me, you know that I use colorful rhetoric on pretty much every subject. I have no issue related to this in my life right now, and the last similar situation I was involved in was a long time ago and I was the one being rejected. I woke up, browsed the Web in bed, noticed my furnace was broken, typed some stuff on Hubski, tried the furnace guy again, yadda yadda. I mean, I can't convince you with words on a screen not to make assumptions about my emotional state, but if my word counts for anything with you, you're incorrect. I am passionate about relationship issues, as you know. I work with victims of domestic violence and other crimes, as you know. I am interested in gender and sexuality in general, as you know. Of course this topic elicits a high word count and colorful metaphors from me.

The rest of your rebuttal is based on my transactional analogies, which, as stated, are made to work within your framework established in your statement that sex IS transactional, so I'll leave that alone except for this one piece:

>The issue at hand is not "I've invested 70% of my available free time in you, I deserve a shag" the issue at hand is "I am more emotionally invested in our relationship than you are and resent that you cannot adequately explain why."

I think you're making two erroneous assumptions here:

1) That so-called-nice-guys DON'T think that way. They do, and I've heard them complain exactly in those terms: "It wouldn't cost her anything to just have sex with me once in a while, and I've spent hours listening to her problems in the last week alone. She has sex with guys she meets at the bar, why wouldn't she just have sex with me now and then?" If that sounds a bit pathetic, it's because it is, but I assure you, there are literally millions of men in the US alone who think exactly that way.

2) That emotional investment requires sexual attraction. He's emotionally invested and sexually attracted. She's just emotionally invested. The friendship might be important enough to her that she'd turn down sex with an attractive crush if she knew it would hurt the friend, so her emotional investment in the platonic friend is GREATER than her emotional investment in a sexual attraction.