Laura: Okay, Sophia. Today's book, Gendernomics. Review it in exactly five words. Sophia: Love, dating, and cold, hard cash. Laura: Ooh, brutal. I'll go with: 'Your love life is a startup'. Sophia: Wow. Okay, so we're not exactly in the romance section of the bookstore today, are we? "Cold, hard cash" sounds about right. Laura: It's a fitting description for Gendernomics by Carl Adaugeo, who writes under the pseudonym Black Label Logic. What's fascinating is that this book emerged from online communities often labeled the "manosphere" and has a real cult following in those circles, but it's framed entirely through the language of a university economics textbook. Sophia: So it's not just a guy giving his opinions, he's trying to build a whole scientific-sounding system around dating. That's... ambitious. Laura: Extremely. He’s applying macroeconomic and microeconomic theory to human mating. And that's where we have to start—with the foundational, and frankly, most controversial idea in the whole book: the concept of the Sexual Marketplace. Sophia: The Sexual Marketplace. It sounds like a dystopian TV show. I’m already a little bit scared.

Laura: It does sound bleak, but the book’s first big argument is that this marketplace isn't new. We just pretend it doesn't exist today. Historically, it was incredibly explicit. The book uses the example of the Borgia Pope in the 15th century. Sophia: The Borgias? I know them from history class. Weren't they all about power and poison? Laura: Exactly. And marriage was one of their primary weapons. The Pope, Rodrigo Borgia, used his children's marriages like strategic chess moves to cement political alliances and consolidate power. It had nothing to do with love and everything to do with resource exchange. A daughter's marriage could secure an army's loyalty. Sophia: That is so calculating. It's like a merger and acquisition, but with people. Laura: Precisely. The book makes the same point about the Medici family, the great banking dynasty of Renaissance Florence. They systematically married their children into other wealthy families—the Bardi, the Salviati—not for love, but to secure their banking clients and ensure a steady flow of capital. Marriage was a business contract. Sophia: So in this old-world marketplace, the 'currency' was power, land, and money. It was all very objective and out in the open. Laura: Yes. The book defines this old sexual marketplace as a simple exchange: for the female, it was provision and security. In exchange, the male got reproduction and nurturing for his lineage. It was a centrally planned economy, run by families for the benefit of the family unit. Sophia: Okay, I can see the logic, even if it's unsettling. But what changed? We don't have arranged marriages for political power anymore... for the most part. Laura: According to Gendernomics, the big disruptor was the idea of 'Romantic Love'. The book argues that when 'love' and 'happiness' became the primary goals of marriage, the market shifted from a predictable, centrally planned system to a chaotic, laissez-faire economy. Sophia: Laissez-faire, like in economics—hands-off, let the market decide. Laura: Exactly. And here's the problem the book points out: how do you measure happiness? How do you put a price on love? The old, objective measures of value—land, titles, wealth—were replaced by this highly subjective, impossible-to-quantify criterion. Sophia: And that makes the market unpredictable and messy. People don't know what they're trading for, or what their own value is. Laura: That's the core idea. The book says this shift has led to widespread dissatisfaction because modern relationships are expected to be an end in themselves—a source of self-actualization—rather than a means to a practical, objective end like survival or power. Sophia: Wow. So the argument is that romance basically broke the stock market of dating. But if it's a marketplace, there has to be a currency. What are we 'paying' with today? Laura: Ah, that brings us to the book's most central and, I think, most controversial concept: Sexual Market Value.

Sophia: Sexual Market Value. SMV. I've heard this term floating around online. It sounds like you're assigning a credit score to people's attractiveness. Laura: That's not far off. The book treats SMV as the literal currency of the sexual marketplace. It determines your options, your 'purchasing power,' and how you perceive scarcity. But here's where it gets really provocative. The book argues that male and female SMV are fundamentally different currencies that follow completely different economic rules. Sophia: How so? Laura: For men, the book claims, SMV is something that has to be built from the ground up. It uses this powerful quote: "A man is born worthless." His value isn't inherent; it's a function of his performance—his achievements, his status, his skills. It's like a startup company that starts with zero and has to build its equity over time through hard work and taking risks. Sophia: Okay, I can kind of see that. A guy's attractiveness often does increase as he gets older and more successful. So what's the deal for women? Laura: This is where it gets really controversial. The book argues that women are born with high SMV. Their value is largely inherent, tied directly to biology—youth and beauty, which are proxies for fertility. And like a perishable good, this value is a depreciating asset. It peaks in the early twenties and declines over time. Sophia: Hold on. That sounds incredibly bleak for women. Like we're just a car driving off the lot, losing value every year? Hasn't this idea been heavily criticized? Laura: Oh, absolutely. This is one of the cornerstones of "red pill" thinking and it's a huge point of contention. Critics argue it's reductive and ignores countless other aspects of a woman's value. But to stick with the book's internal logic, it frames this as a purely biological-economic reality. It even uses a story about an apple farmer to explain it. Sophia: An apple farmer? How does that connect? Laura: The farmer has a huge harvest of apples. They're valuable right now, but they're perishable. He can't store their value. He needs to trade them for something durable, like gold, before they rot. The book argues female SMV is like those apples—it has a short shelf life. Male SMV, built on performance and status, is more like the gold—a stable store of value. Sophia: So a man's SMV is like a 401k he has to build from scratch, while a woman's is like a trust fund that she's spending down? Is that the idea? Laura: That's a perfect analogy for the book's perspective. And this leads to what it calls the "SLUT/STUD dichotomy." It claims that for a man, having more sexual partners can actually increase his SMV—it's social proof, a sign of high performance. For a woman, it argues the opposite, that a high partner count can diminish her value, partly because of the evolutionary male desire for paternity certainty. Sophia: Wow. That is a minefield of controversial ideas. It's one thing to talk about history, but this feels very personal and prescriptive. Laura: It is. And that’s the book's big pivot. It moves from describing this 'economy' to offering a 'business strategy' for men to navigate it. If your SMV is your company's stock price, the next question is, how do you get it to go up?

Laura: And this is where the book gets surprisingly practical, in a very unconventional way. It proposes that a man should view himself as a company—"The Company of Man." Sophia: You're kidding. Like, he's the CEO of his own love life? Laura: Literally. The book suggests using actual business analysis frameworks to manage your dating strategy. For example, it says a man should conduct a SWOT analysis on himself. Sophia: A SWOT analysis? Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats? For dating? Laura: Yes. Strengths might be your job or your height. Weaknesses could be social anxiety or living in your parents' basement. An opportunity might be moving to a city with a better gender ratio. And a threat? Sophia: Let me guess. A threat is Chad from accounting who also has his eye on the same girl. Laura: (laughing) Exactly! The book unironically suggests this. It even applies Porter's Five Forces, a complex business model for analyzing industry competition, to the sexual marketplace. Sophia: This is both hilarious and... weirdly logical. It’s taking "playing the game" to a whole new level. But does this actually work, or does it just turn you into a robot who can't connect with anyone? Laura: That's the key question. The book uses a great example to illustrate its point: the Athlete versus the Math Team Captain in high school. Both are investing time and effort. The athlete invests in a skill—physical prowess—that has high market value in that specific environment. His 'stock price' soars. The math team captain invests in a skill that has low market value in high school, so his 'equity' doesn't grow, at least not in that market. Sophia: So the advice "just be yourself" is bad business advice if "yourself" is a product nobody in your current market wants to buy. Laura: That's the book's argument in a nutshell. It says that success requires a strategic approach that considers market demands. The ultimate goal is to become a "rational actor" in the marketplace, making deliberate choices to increase your value rather than being driven by emotion or bad advice. Sophia: And I guess that's how you avoid what the book calls 'oneitis'—that obsession with one person? By treating it like a bad investment and diversifying your portfolio? Laura: Exactly. 'Spinning plates,' as it's called. It's all about adopting an abundance mindset, which comes from having options, which in turn comes from having high SMV. It's a complete, self-contained system. Sophia: A system that is fascinating, deeply controversial, and probably going to make a lot of people very angry. Laura: Without a doubt. It received very polarizing reviews for a reason. Some readers find it to be an empowering, logical guide to self-improvement, while critics see it as a cynical, dehumanizing, and stereotypical view of human relationships.

Sophia: So, after all this economic jargon—mergers, currency, SWOT analysis—what's the real takeaway here? Are we all just commodities in a brutal, transactional market? Laura: I think the book's true value isn't in its literal prescriptions. I don't think anyone should actually bring a spreadsheet on a first date. The real insight is that it's a radical thought experiment. It forces us to acknowledge the hidden systems and incentives that shape our most intimate choices, even if we don't like the language it uses. Sophia: It pulls back the curtain on things we'd rather not think about. The idea that we are all, on some level, assessing value and making trade-offs. Laura: Exactly. Whether we call it SMV or just 'having a type,' we are all making strategic choices. The book just gives those choices a controversial name. It argues that by understanding these underlying economic forces, you can become a more 'rational actor'—someone who makes conscious decisions about their life instead of being a victim of their own unexamined emotions and social conditioning. Sophia: So it's less of a 'how-to' guide and more of a 'how-it-works' theory, even if the theory is a tough pill to swallow. Laura: I think that's the most generous and useful way to read it. It's a lens. And it poses a really challenging question for all of us, not just men. Sophia: What's that? Laura: It makes you wonder, if you had to do a SWOT analysis on your own 'dating company,' what would you even put in the 'Strengths' column? Sophia: That's a tough one. And maybe a little terrifying to answer honestly. We'd love to hear what you all think. Drop us a line on our socials and let us know what your personal 'strengths' would be. Laura: This is Aibrary, signing off.