Orion Taraban

“This is why no one thinks, “I’ve determined that a particular good would be greatly instrumental in helping me achieve an important self-relevant goal: not only because I anticipate that the benefits associated with acquiring it will significantly exceed the costs, but because I can also conceive of no better way of achieving the same goal to the same extent with a different good that could be acquired with comparable resources at an equivalent cost-benefit ratio.” Instead, they feel: “I need this,” or “This is the one,” or “Wow! I love that!” The feelings behind these statements accomplish the same goal more elegantly than awareness of the valuation process ever could: they communicate to the individual (and potentially to others) that a particular good is subjectively valuable.”
― Orion Taraban, The Value of Others

“women mate and date for gain (because they can). As a result, resources generally flow from the man to the woman in heterosexual relationships. And in every culture that has ever existed on this planet, it is the servant (i.e., the employee) who takes the money. Women’s role as employees in the sexual marketplace is not the vestige of oppressive patriarchal social structures: it is a necessary consequence of their hypergamous tendencies.”
― Orion Taraban, The Value of Others