I imagine if you will a landscape where the killer went through life, school and college where people put less value into sex than they do now. Where men didn't boast about conquering women as though it were a solo effort. Where men talking about their feelings wasn't looked down upon by peers and where entire internet cultures weren't built around echoing sentiments that women are the root of social inadequacy, and sexual immaturity. Is it hard to say how much externalities had on making him form is opinion? Yes. But also to say it had an absolute zero effect is bunk. Every teasing from his peers about being a virgin, every film about loosing your virginity before a certain point, every ad on TV and every post on PUAhate put something into the guy. It gave him validation. Instead of denying the theories he formed on his own, it proved them. It proved that there was some truth in what his mind was forming instead of making him question his outlook. It mattered. We will never know how much now but it did matter.
It's interesting, but some of the examples you mentioned, I have actually raised and agreed with to a certain degree.
I don't think I did entirely. This is true of course, and me using 'virginity' as an example, I am kind of agreeing to a degree that there are certain views and expectations within society geared towards having sex like it is a prize to be won, but I can't help but see that we're hard-wired to compete for sex anyway. Society just puts greater pressure on people. You're somehow a 'loser' if you haven't had sex yet, etc.
The value people put on having sex, and losing your virginity, along with other things, does have an effect. It puts unneeded pressure on people to conform to that norm. A lot of value is placed on having sex which could have helped to place that emphasis in the mind of Rodger. However, in terms of 'normal' people, the effect all this has it quite complex. Of course yeah, it brings sex way into the forefront and makes it a prize to be won, but at the same time, there are a lot of men that don't develop an extreme misogynistic view of women as a result, There are some men that do for whatever reasons.
At the same time, we are kind of hard-wired to 'compete' for sex. A big part of our life centres around it. As someone else I remember mentioned. There is a 'game' and there are winners and losers, and with that comes jealousy, sadness, a feeling being inadequate, etc, etc. There are natural negative consequences of rejection.
That's not to say those things you argued aren't true, they are, and just compounds the problem, I just take into account that even without these pressures put on us, we will still compete for sex, and there will be negative consequences.
These issues could have had an influence on him. At the same time I find impossible to escape the fact that he reacted extremely to everything anyway,and had the potential to do this for a number of reasons. He had underlying psychological issues that made this course of action more likely.
It depends really what the talking point is. I do agree though that a mixture of these things could have influenced his obsession.
