Firstly, I want to thank all the commentators to the previous posts, even those who disagreed with me I'm sorry I wasn't able to reply to everyone, but as usual, it's been a busy week.
My contention that the the success of women in contemporary society may be due to their superior character traits (at least when it comes to work and self organisation) seems to have struck a raw nerve with many commentators. Many commentators seem to want to explain away the phenomenon either as a product of affirmative action or as a result of deliberate discrimination against men.
Personally, I don't buy it.
One of the advantages of family medicine is that you get to see families dynamics in action over an extended period of time. Initial impressions are either refuted or strengthened by repeated observation and after a while you become a good judge of people's character.
Whilst I agree that the world has become progressively populated with feminist harridans, it has also become more populated with less masculine men. As far as I'm concerned, whilst many women may have unrealistic expectations of future mates, in my opinion, there is a degree of legitimacy to the claim that there is a dearth of good men.
Simon Grey disagreed with some bits of my previous post but I've got to agree with him when he says:
My contention that the the success of women in contemporary society may be due to their superior character traits (at least when it comes to work and self organisation) seems to have struck a raw nerve with many commentators. Many commentators seem to want to explain away the phenomenon either as a product of affirmative action or as a result of deliberate discrimination against men.
Personally, I don't buy it.
One of the advantages of family medicine is that you get to see families dynamics in action over an extended period of time. Initial impressions are either refuted or strengthened by repeated observation and after a while you become a good judge of people's character.
Whilst I agree that the world has become progressively populated with feminist harridans, it has also become more populated with less masculine men. As far as I'm concerned, whilst many women may have unrealistic expectations of future mates, in my opinion, there is a degree of legitimacy to the claim that there is a dearth of good men.
Simon Grey disagreed with some bits of my previous post but I've got to agree with him when he says:
Here, I think, is the most important part: most men simply do not deserve good wives, and thus good marriages. Most men are not attractive. And not simply in the looks department. Most of the men I have met are weak, back-biting, narrow-minded losers. Many of the young men I know have no goals or direction in life; they seem content with dead-end jobs, Xbox and porn. I sincerely hope they avoid marriage.Many of the older men I know are not much better. A good number of them are gossipy, narrow-minded old fools who would rather engage in petty power struggles than work together in the best interest of others. They seem like a bunch of bitter old bitches.Even a good number of middle-aged guys that I know can be characterized as losers. They are overly deferential to their wives, they don’t act as fathers to their children, they allow themselves to be disrespected by everyone. They are losers, through and through.And so, while I agree with the MRA crowd that most women would make for terrible wives, I also agree with Slumlord that most men make for terrible husbands. Quite simply, most people in this world are self-absorbed cowards, too afraid to live up to their potential, and too weak to suppress their self-destructive tendencies. No wonder their marriages and relationships turn cancerous.
Testify brother!
Simon is reporting from America what I see here in Australia.
Now, there seems to be this notion in the manosphere that women today are too choosy, and perhaps they are; but there never seems to be the recognition that a lot of men are no-damn-good. And perhaps, just perhaps, the reason why women are passing them over is simply because they are too repulsive to commit to.
The question I want to pose to the manosphere is, what constitutes a good man? I mean, is a man deficient in sex appeal a good man? Is a man with sex appeal but no work ethic a good man? Is a cultureless man a good man?
Now, there seems to be this notion in the manosphere that women today are too choosy, and perhaps they are; but there never seems to be the recognition that a lot of men are no-damn-good. And perhaps, just perhaps, the reason why women are passing them over is simply because they are too repulsive to commit to.
The question I want to pose to the manosphere is, what constitutes a good man? I mean, is a man deficient in sex appeal a good man? Is a man with sex appeal but no work ethic a good man? Is a cultureless man a good man?
Let's conduct an interesting thought experiment.
Take a look a Cigstache. (Hat tip Roissy)
Let us suppose that:
Cigstache is fertile.
She is committed to having a family.
She rejects feminism.
She goes to Church and believes in God.
She is a virgin.
She wants to be a stay at home mother.
She knows how to cook, clean and mend.
She is not a spendthrift.
She is happy to put out whenever.
She clearly possess all the moral virtues of a good wife. Would we consider any man that refuses to commit to her too choosy? Is Cigstache a good woman who has been passed over?
The problem is that many betas don't recognise that they are the male equivalent of Cigstache. Sure, they may posses many moral virtues and provider capability but what they lack is sex appeal. Is such a man a good man?
I suppose what I'm asking is what constitutes the minimum standard of masculinity; the point at which female rejection is justified. When does a man become a loser?
I suppose what I'm asking is what constitutes the minimum standard of masculinity; the point at which female rejection is justified. When does a man become a loser?
260 comments:
1 – 200 of 260 Newer› Newest»My problem with this post: sure, most men are losers. But the reality is that when a women is a winner, men will flock to her, but when a man is a winner, he will necessarily have some beta traits, and women are too dumb to parse out family alphas from thug alphas. They never needed to in the past - their families historically did it for them, and they are ill prepared to do it now.
She clearly possess all the moral virtues of a good wife.
No. Visibly she is a glutton and is likely a sloth. The picture defies your analysis.
Good thought provoking post.
What you say rings true, and it also affirms the red pill idea that female economic empowerment led to the sexual disempowerment of the beta, which of course led to the oft cited state of modern manhood.
I would also say that the precursor to both was the comfort that economic stability provided Western Civilization. Easy times led to increased leisure, led to removal from actual struggle, led to complaints about perceived struggle, led to white men being really mean, bad guys, led to the gradual diminishment of masculinity, etc....( obviously a very simplified version of events).
But it cannot be denied that we are not the men our grandfathers were. My god, my grandfather was reared in a swamp, lived off the land, sold the skins of animals, killed Germans in WW2, went on to work on oil rigs (but continued to hunt and fish, for money and fun).
I on the other hand have spent most of my life in a classroom, and working in the medical profession. The success of those earlier generations allowed me this opportunity, but at the cost of a portion of my masculinity.
So the minimum standard for masculinity has definitely been lowered through the generations just by virtue of the removal of struggle, from there we can include the unintended consequences that have also led to decreased masculinity.
If I had to define a bare minimum.... It would be the ability to make your way in the world.
I back up what mdavid says. It is a virtue to make basic efforts to maintain her body. You've chosen at female 0/10 and asked why male 5/10 are not manning up to marry her.
Let me ask you a question (and this may make more sense if your American). Is Hank Hill a loser?
Hank is average in looks. He has a dead end job but he works hard at it. He has an average IQ. He is very good at masculine household chores. He is very masculine in behaivor though that masculinity gets beat down a lot in modern society (hence material for the show).
Hank Hill is basically my father. In Hank Hill's time he could get a fairly plain jane wife (Peggy). In today's world he would likely not be able to get a wife. He'd also make 50% less money for working more hours based on the last union contract they signed.
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I just don't see what your getting at. You want guys that are tough enough to win a barfight but passive enough to sit in cubicles and smile during BS powerpoint presentations. These are diametrically opposed traits. Sitting in the powerpoint presentation kills the other type of man in you, and vice versa.
Ultimately, what your saying is that every single man should be a super alpha. And then for some unknown reason these super alphas should man up and marry beta women that don't have much to offer. Why?
My experience is that most men get done what they want to get done. The women have made themselves unattractive to a subset of men. They choose to do what is needed to get by and do what they want. To me these men aren't any different than the men of the past who chose to live a life that just paid for their simple lifestyle and nothing more. There have always been men who chose to not participate in the game.
On a similar note, this article takes the new female ideals for what is successful, and then turns around and says men aren't doing these things, so they aren't XYZ. This is similar to what boys go through in school. So all the men in the service industries being taken over by women are not doing things right. Maybe, but I have yet to see a large number of women working in fields of invention and innovation. Those fields that produce the tools that allow someone without strength to do the work that once required a man.
I think there is a problem of standards. I don't think that men have changed much. The majority of men loose their drive for the bigger, better deal after getting beat down a few times. They settle in and play nice. A few succeed, and a few keep pushing and never succeed. A large set of women think that they deserve the ones that succeeded. In history, these women or their families would have made a bet on one of the young men fighting to succeed. They would not have had access to the already successful and they knew that. The problem is, they don't know that now.
Are plumbers good men?
Not from the female standards you applaud, they'e the help.
Waste disposal men? The guys that maintain the sewer system? Engineers?
Nope, no, nada.
Look, Sociol pathologist lets get it down to the very basics. If I had absolute power and declared that from this day forward not a single woman will work outside the home civilization would keep going, and probably keep going BETTER than it is now.
Sure their would be problems with it, but not ones that couldn't be overcome.
Now lets reverse it. I declare no man shall work outside the home, and I can somehow enforce it, civilization would collapse within weeks at most.
The men of the world don't have a boot on their throat forever, they have a high heel and you decry that they are inferior men without understanding that the very women you applaud are the ones that put men there.
So, while you believe from your "observations" that men are weak, you have a society reenforcing women as the head of the household (even your precious catholic church tells women they are the "spiritual head" of the household) you have them told they are powerful and tough. And men have gotten forty years of being called vile scum and then you are shocked that they are the way they are.
Its fine, you can keep spouting your nonsense if you want. By the way Cigstache there has a couple kids, so while most men would still reject her, she's able to pop a couple out, while the "loser" men are in the desert.
Want to actually make a difference?
Start lifting men up.
Whan to keep the slut fun house going?
Keep doing what you are.
Slumlord,
Perhaps an exercise is in order.
Define a male 5/10. Define a female 5/10. Without hypergamy these two should mate. I'd like to see your definitions.
P.S. Cigstash is a 0/10. She can only end up with 0/10 men. Even the loser in your example is too good for her.
Simon Grey brought up a good point that attraction is a foundation for marriage.
But should it be? Traditionally, marriage was a form of protection for women and a vehicle for raising kids. Attraction was a bonus, but not an essential.
If the definition of marriage is changing now such that attraction must be foundational for marriage, then marriage will not be what it has been. It will be nothing more than a state or church-sanctioned LTR, which will last as long as both participants want it to, or as long as both are attracted to each other.
Which is pretty much what most marriages have devolved to.
If that is the case, then it really is true that being "good" is not good enough for men anymore. It used to be, like Anon 1:21 AM said, Hank Hill could get an average wife. But now, Hank can't get a wife or even a handjob.
So now, in order to get a wife or even a GF, Hank has to be not only a good man, he has to be the exciting alpha. He has to bring the dominance and confidence; but also the sensitive beta comfort. He also has to figure out which he should be to his woman, and when, and in what amounts. He has to be the fun yet compassionate boyfriend for life, instead of the steady, manly, responsible husband and father.
Hank looks at that and says, "too hard." Hank looks at "The Situation" and sees he's the one getting the women, and thinks maybe he should do that too. Or Hank looks at an MGTOW, and thinks maybe he could do that.
If attraction is going to be a foundation for marriage, then Game will have to be the foundation. If Game is the foundation for marriage, it puts all the onus on men for its health and to keep the relationship going, and none on women. Men have all the responsibility; women have none.
deti
Slumlord:
"The problem is that many betas don't recognise that they are the male equivalent of Cigstache. Sure, they may posses many moral virtues and provider capability but what they lack is sex appeal. Is such a man a good man?"
Yes, he is a good man. He's just not a sexy man. And your argument, and Simon's argument, appears to be that a man from now on has to be both "good" and "sexy" to get any action at all.
Perhaps the question we ought to ask is whether "sexy" for men means the same thing as "attractive". I think it probably is not. Sexy is probably a subset of attractive. Attractive is good and sexy put together, perhaps.
"The Situation" is sexy, but not good.
Hank Hill is good, but not sexy.
What is sexy to women? And should men even care? If we are to believe what the manosphere tells us and what some women tell us, not caring about what women think is part of being sexy.
deti
I would ask "Why are the good men not sexy, and the sexy men not good?"
To use the Hank Hill example, growing up today he would have been beat down by the school system, rejected by employers for his "attitudes" (read: not sufficiently kowtowing to the female-run workplace), and never provided the mentorship needed to learn to be a man in the first place.
As a result we have sexy, useless, badboys like the one your client chooses to sleep with, and unsexy good boys like the "beta" close-to-virgins.
There are no paths forward for the average, masculine, good boys; only nancies and the geniuses get ahead in the workplace, and for the geniuses it's a matter of "He's good enough that we can ignore all his evil, masculine traits."
It's not affirmative action per se, and it's not just the bitchiness of modern women, it's an entire system which punishes you for being Hank Hill. I agree with you that men need to Man Up (in the real sense, not the "Marry those sluts" sense), but it's hard nowadays. The deck is stacked against our young boys.
As an aesthete and committed hedonist, I believe it's every man and woman's obligation to cultivate their appeal. Are men derelict in this regard? Yes. Are women too? Undoubtedly. They are fat, inhospitable to male leadership, prone to bastard mongering, more hypergamous than ever, more desirous of independence than real intimacy... Do these women suddenly become sweet, submissive lithe little things when they meet a man who merits your approval? Hardly.
The men who are sitting out are making a rational calculation - between the prospect of dropping out and slaving away to try and get a shitty trophy they probably won't win anyway... They drop out. Personally, I hold weak men in contempt, but their decision is understandable.
Part of the reason you hear us men complain about women and not other men is because... We're not trying to sleep with other men.
When a man feels he can't win with women, he bails. He stops trying to enhance his career and so on. The opposite is true for women - ugly women are more committed to careerism than pretty women are. There are papers that back both these points.
As others have said, your point sounds awfully like 'every woman deserves a man significantly better than her.'
"Would we consider any man that refuses to commit to her too choosy?"
If he's a 1 just like her, in a traditional culture with Marriage 1.0 and enforced assortative mating, then yes, he'd rightfully be considered too choosy.
What's a "good man"? When is female rejection "justified"? Pointless, framed questions that lead nowhere. Every man should find the answers that he finds acceptable, but he should also be free to ignore them entirely. Besides you're talking in terms of morals, and morals have absolutely nothing to do with sexual attraction and mating. Waste of time.
Höllenhund
SP, I thought you were Catholic. In the Catholic view, "sexy" and "beautiful" do not equal "good". Indeed, that which is beautiful and sexy is often the opposite of that which is good. Many of the sexiest men in this world are complete assholes and some of the most beautiful women in the world are horrible bitches. Bad crap can come in pretty packaging.
You know as well as I do that Christ would scoff at the notion that people have to be "sexy" or that men need to make themselves more "sexy" in order to appeal to women. He would have said that this type of thinking is the work of the devil. So no, one does not have to be sexy to be good. The sexy is often the enemy of the good.
To lead a rewarding life, men should strive to be "good" and not care about being sexy. If women are too shallow to appreciate good men who are not sexy, then to hell with them. Better to live a virtuous life without pussy than a degenerate life with pussy.
SP,
I think Dr Jeremy (7:34PM) had the best response to your previous post (& other comments)
Yes factors cited are probably responsible for the current cultural milieu HOWEVER at a personal level this still holds true:
As for the men...just because I don't blame you for the PROBLEM, doesn't mean you are not held RESPONSIBLE for the solution. Stop complaining. No one is coming to save you. Save yourself. Learn to be powerful, valuable, an a leader.
Be proactive.
read the whole thing.
anyway - my $0.02
I know what your trying to say, that men are responsible for their sex appeal but that is a false argument.
What has changed is that the pill has changed assortative mating behaviour, women can and do have sex outside their assortative status.
Male biological attributes reside on an immutable shallow bell curve (height, intelligence, symmetry etc.), telling men on the lower side of the curve that they have to be on the higher side is impossible.
In addition on a macro level GDP is a finite value dependant on efficiency, technology and energy costs. Redistributing wealth to women by affirmative action, Goverment employment and welfare by necessity must come at the cost of men.
Telling men that they have to increase their percentage share of GDP while maintaining the same redistribution structure is impossible.
The pill and wealth redistribution has artificially increased the sexual status of women, telling men to man up and be more sexy is naive, impossible and futile.
Whilst I agree that the world has become progressively populated with feminist harridans, it has also become more populated with less masculine men. As far as I'm concerned, whilst many women may have unrealistic expectations of future mates, in my opinion, there is a degree of legitimacy to the claim that there is a dearth of good men.
I agree with this statement based on my simple observations over the years. More good men will take care of the problem of bad women.
"We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and then bid the geldings to be fruitful."
I agree with this. Much of it is confirmed by the empirical evidence.
But it's not enough to harangue and point fingers, which amounts in many cases to a cheap shot at poor sods who genuinely don't know any better.
I did not see my previous comments fully addressed in this post, so I will try to explain myself again.
I agree that the majority of men are indeed low-value now. Guys in the manosphere often don't realize that they are not valuable enough to attain desirable women. So, they blame women's lack of interest on the women, to protect their own egos.
I also agree that it is ultimately the responsibility of men to become valuable and powerful leaders. They have to either earn what they want, or be happy with less. No one is going to give them a hand-out for complaining.
However, I disagree when you attribute this current male-female discrepancy to women's "superior character traits". When social norms and roles empowered and encouraged men in generations past, but devalued women, it was men who acted with integrity and industriousness - and women who were often seen as "lacking character". Feminists rightly showed that women's "shortcomings" at that time were a result of their inferior role and social brainwashing holding them back, not some internal trait.
At present, however, feminism and social change have done more than simply lift that oppression on women - it has turned the table. Men are "taught" to devalue themselves and are put in inferior roles to women. So, they now act shiftless, inferior, and useless - while women exhibit "superior character traits". Both are still following social scripts, the superior/inferior roles have just been reversed.
Like women did with feminism...men must take responsibility to overthrow these dis-empowering roles and cultural norms. They need to empower themselves and not listen to the rhetoric. It is inaccurate and a disservice to place the blame on their character traits, however, rather than their social education. This is a nurture issue, not a nature one, as feminists showed decades ago.
Therefore, to paint the issue as a "character trait" does not offer men an opportunity to change. It makes it an in-born difference that cannot be overcome, rather than a social role they are ignorantly following. Historical male behavior supports the latter, when men were socially-supported, they acted much better.
Getting men to "man up" then is a process of educating them not to be sheep and follow the social conventions that now encourage their bad behavior...not reinforcing the idea that they are "innately inferior". The second strategy is simply shaming...and counterproductive to men actually taking responsibility, control, and leadership.
I missed this point myself for a long time. I ignored others who tried to put me down and pulled myself up by my bootstraps. Like you, I'm very successful and didn't find any obstacle that I couldn't overcome. I thought my experience was "typical" or "possible" for all men. So, I held other men to those standards.
While I still do, to a degree, I also know that most men (and women) are easily led. A decade of social psychology has taught me that you can pretty much talk 80% of the population into just about anything (see the Milgram Experiment, and the Stanford Prison Study). Therefore, while we can educate men to take responsibility for themselves, it is counterproductive to blame them for situations that they have been "led" to and have not consciously chosen. Better to show them how they are being led, why it isn't good, then teach them to lead themselves. THEN, we can judge them if they CHOOSE to be lazy despite all that. To me, that beats simply looking down my nose at them, expecting them to be like me when they are not...because I simply had some nature/nurture advantage that prevented me from following the crowd to my doom. Most are not born leaders. But that doesn't mean they can't be taught to be.
Pardon my long comment. I was simply trying to make my position clear. Have I conveyed myself clearly? Do you need any further information?
Thanks...
Dr. Jeremy:
You're a good psychologist and you have an excellent blog at Psychology Today. It's nice to see you contributing directly to manosphere blogs. Keep up the good work!
"The question I want to pose to the manosphere is, what constitutes a good man?"
There is a difference between a good man and being good at being a man.
A good man is a guy with a job who attends church regularly. As for being good at being a man, the manosphere has already answered that question. A man good at being a man exemplifies the four tactical virtues. Jack Donovan wrote a book on it called "The Way of Men".
http://freenortherner.wordpress.com/2012/07/31/the-bookshelf-the-way-of-men/
The same with your Cigstache scenario (forgetting the fact that she has the obvious moral failings of sloth and gluttony). You may posit her as a good woman, but that does not mean she is good at being a woman. There is a difference.
Being sexy is one of the ways of being good at being a woman.
Now, a lot of guys today are losers. They are not good at being men.
The problem is, they have been taught their whole lives to not be men. They have been psychologically castrated.
I wrote a response to your original articles in which I go into this more. I'll link it rather than repeat it:
http://freenortherner.wordpress.com/2012/10/06/demanding-more/
I concur with mdavid, in that gluttony and sloth are both sins.
Not to mention she is injecting mind altering poison and chemicals that harm her mentally and physically, which will eventually harm any offspring. So I would say she wouldn't make a suitable mother.
Its scientifically proven that second hand exposure increases the chance of babies becoming allergic and more sustainable to be born with respiratory illnesses such as asthma.
Hence she doesn't have any admirable moral virtues such as prudence, fortitude nor temperance.
Now, there seems to be this notion in the manosphere that women today are too choosy, and perhaps they are; but there never seems to be the recognition that a lot of men are no-damn-good. And perhaps, just perhaps, the reason why women are passing them over is simply because they are too repulsive to commit to.
This is your third post in the series, but I'm still unclear on who exactly you are rebutting. Are there any specific posts which prompted this series?
The calls for women to "settle" for men they aren't attracted to are something I have rebutted (strongly) as well, but I haven't seen them in the last year or so aside from Christian women bloggers rationalizing why this is something they personally should do.
The far more common positions in the manosphere are:
1) Beta men need to make themselves more attractive.
2) Very large numbers of women are electing for sex outside of marriage when young and attractive and then marrying men they aren't attracted to just before hitting the wall. Vox has a new post on this at alpha game.
Point two is especially relevant here. Stipulating that good men are in short supply, and the average marriagable man lacks a high degree of alpha, women who want to marry need to be warned of the problem with this path. Picking last is a terrible strategy when faced with a shortage. So is waiting until what you have to offer is of much less value. Likewise developing a taste for alpha bad boys.
It all depends on which group we are trying to help at any given moment. If we are speaking to beta men who can't generate enough attraction, they need to make themselves more attractive. If we are speaking to sluts and former sluts who can't find a good husband, blaming a lack of good men only hurts them by feeding the hamster.
dalrock,
Attraction is as much a relative factor as an absolute factor. For instance, being rich is attractive. But rich is defined not by absolute wealth, but by relative wealth. The same goes for looks, status, etc.
You can tell an individual man its in his best interest to move up the bell curve. But you can't tell all men to move up the bell curve. By definition one man moving up means another moving down. And women are attracted not to the overall quality of the bell curve but rather a man's posisiton relative to other men.
Once again I ask for a very simple explanation from people. Define a male 5/10. Define a female 5/10. These two should be able to mate. If they can't then its not the man's fault, it's hypergamy's fault.
I think when you sit down to write up your vision of a male and female 5/10 you'll find there are plenty of good men out there, the female 5/10s just aren't choosing them. They are choosing 8/10s for a single night rather then committment to a 5/10.
asdf:
Your comment and the operation of the SMP underlying it is exactly why assortative mating worked.
Society has always had men and women who don't want to marry. We've also always had men and women who just aren't attractive enough to marry. We've also always had men and women who just cannot be married for whatever reason.
But the vast majority of people do want to marry and do marry. And under assortative mating, just about everyone who wanted a mate could find one. Might not be the best one, or the most attractive one, but you could get one nonetheless. And that's why we should return to it again.
deti
I teach at a large university, and so have been looking at very large numbers of young adults almost daily for more than twenty years. Most are, of course, near the age of peak pulchritude, but they are really not much to look at. Sweatshirts, tee-shirts, clodhopper shoes; greasy, uncombed hair. Many women wear very short shorts and show lots of thigh, but this seems more shameless than sexy. Maybe they're just slumming through the day and turn the heat up in the evening, but when I see them, almost all of them look like schlubs. Twenty years ago schlubs were in the majority, but there were still some young women in nice dresses who had spent more than five minutes on their hair, and some young men dressed in a manner that both showed and demanded respect.
Clothes aren't everything, but they tell us a lot about the person who is wearing them. The schlub-look, I'd suggest, says one of two things. Either (a) the person has no self-respect and is, indeed, a schlub, or (b) the person is such a flaming narcissist that he or she expects to be cherished and adored for an intangible "inner beauty."
Some of the pathetic young men SP is talking about are nature's own schlubs. They've been with us at least since Onan (Genesis 38:9), and haven't much changed. Others are artificial schlubs who have had their self-respect hammered out of them by feminist harridans and sexual rejection. The remainder are narcissist schlubs who have so much confidence in their intangible inner beauty that they can't be bothered to brush their teeth or learn basic game.
By the way, one sees far fewer "couples" on campus nowadays than one did thirty years ago, but they do exist. They tend to be the 5/10's that previous commenters asked about. A nice "beta" with reasonable personal hygiene can still get a girlfriend, although she'll be chunky and plain. In fact it looks as if nice "betas" with reasonable personal hygiene are the only males who still have "girlfriends."
I have one question. Did the decline in the quality of men (which is noticable and obvious) occur before or after feminism?
Joseph:
The answer is "after feminism". The two are not merely coincidental. The decline in the quality of men was a direct result of feminism.
Here's how the process worked: in the age of feminism, women started climbing the socio-economic ladder and, because of hypergamy, their mating pool shrank in proportion to their socio-economic rise. As such, ordinary men had to work harder to try to attract female interest. Many men saw [and are seeing] that the amount of work involved in self-improvement outweighs the potential return on investment and they drop out. They stop trying and decide to live a simple life with no one to please but themselves.
@Anon
Many men saw [and are seeing] that the amount of work involved in self-improvement outweighs the potential return on investment and they drop out. They stop trying and decide to live a simple life with no one to please but themselves.
The problem, as I see it, is that the self-improvement is not too hard, and too many men can't even be bothered". The whole thing about taking aboard "Game" is that it is a process of self improvement.
@Joseph
Did the decline in the quality of men (which is noticable and obvious) occur before or after feminism?
There have always been low quality men. The traditional strictures against women were effectively an affirmative action program for beta men. I'll acknowledge that feminism has contributed to the corruption of men, but the greater solvent is hedonism. The worshiping of poon and pleasure facilitated the growth of feminism.
@JMSmith
In fact it looks as if nice "betas" with reasonable personal hygiene are the only males who still have "girlfriends."
Most young men want lots of sex, not girlfriends.
@Anon
And under assortative mating, just about everyone who wanted a mate could find one. Might not be the best one, or the most attractive one, but you could get one nonetheless. And that's why we should return to it again.
My aim is to strengthen marriage, but the traditional restrictions did nothing to support the interparty dynamics within marriage. In fact, in many instances probably worked against it.
@asdf
What do you mean by a 5/10?
Is it a 5/10 out of the attractiveness scale? Or is it on the productivity scale? Or does it relate to trustworthiness or courage? Or religiosity?
You see a 5/10 is 5 points deficient from perfect.
Aristotle et al teach us that privation of form is an evil and therefore at 5/10 is 5 points away from perfect. He is not a good man, he is a deficient man. A good man is good across all the parameters of masculinity. The operating meme across a lot of the manosphere is that women are passing over good men. I repeat again is a man who is a nice good provider but deficient in the goods of sexual attraction a good man?
I'll reply to the others later.
"The problem, as I see it, is that the self-improvement is not too hard"
"You see a 5/10 is 5 points deficient from perfect."
I want you to think about how contradictory this statement is.
Exactly what are men supposed to do? I look out at the men I know. Most worked hard to get fairly stable upper middle class office jobs. Most go the the gym and take moderate care of themselves. Approximately zero of them under 35 are married or close to getting married. And that is probably a little above average for marriage candidates.
Do you want them to be a part of the 1%? Do you want them to look like pro athletes (maybe they should change their genetic structure or start juicing)? I mean exactly what level of self improvement is necessary here?
Not every man can be Don Draper. Are we suppose to assume that all improvement short of Don Draper is worthless (as the current sexual market dictates).
"@asdf
What do you mean by a 5/10?"
I mean 5/10 overall mate value.
What you've just told me is that only 10/10 men deserve a wife, even if that wife is 5/10 herself. Why not just come out in favor of polygamy? It's a mathematical certainty under the regime your proposing.
I wouldn't say average men want lots of casual sex; certainly not more than women do. After all, the hook-up "culture" is driven by women, not men. Most men obviously have a sexual appetite; however, 99% of men are perfectly willing to live in committed relationships. This applies even to those on the top of the alpha hierarchy, as long as sexual fidelity isn't expected of them. Some women think this is unacceptable, but the fact is this: in most societies, the sexual infidelity of high-status men was tolerated, as long as it was kept discreet, quite and didn't prevent the man from fulfilling his economic and emotional obligations as heads of families. I'd say these societies had and have it right, and the gynocentric American society that tries to shame and eradicate it is wrong. What works, works.
Höllenhund
@deti
"But the vast majority of people do want to marry and do marry. And under assortative mating, just about everyone who wanted a mate could find one. Might not be the best one, or the most attractive one, but you could get one nonetheless. And that's why we should return to it again."
Have you ever heard of a society that successfully "returned" to anything? Withering cultures are never regenerated; they either adapt to the newly dominant ones or perish. As long as the Four Horsemen of the Sexual Apocalypse ride, there cannot possibly be a return to assortative mating in the West.
Höllenhund
"The traditional strictures against women"
That's a curious choice of words. I'd prefer to say there simply were restrictions on female behavior, just like there were restrictions on male behavior, and neither set of restrictions was worse or more strict than the other.
Höllenhund
"The problem, as I see it, is that the self-improvement is not too hard, and too many men can't even be bothered."
Yes - because there's simply no prize, due to the overall decline of female quality and Marriage 2.0 being a laughable anti-male farce. Most of the men who cannot be bothered have made that decision after a simple cost-benefit analysis. And no, the great majority of them aren't "whining" on the interwebz about this, because - well, they indeed cannot be bothered.
"The traditional strictures against women were effectively an affirmative action program for beta men."
To the extent that the ancien regime can be categorized as an "affirmative action program", according to the accurate definition of the phrase, I think it's fair to say its main beneficiaries were women and their children, not men. Pretty much all women got a personal bodyguard and pack mule, expected to perish for the "common good" anytime, in exchange for occasionally lying back and thinking of England.
Höllenhund
@mdavid
But the reality is that when a women is a winner,
What's your definition of a winner. I know lots of female doctors who can't find mates. Remember, hypergamy frustrates their desire to marry down.
Anon @12:33
I do think that the hype-refinement of society does attack masculinity. Masculinity implies a certain "physicality". Still, the absecne of struggle hasn't killed masculinity as much as the embrace of luxury and hedonism. You see, even in ancient times, luxury was seen as a solvent of virtue.
If I had to define a bare minimum of masculinity, it would be the ability to wisely impose your will.
Anon @ 1:21 I don't know Hank Hill so I can't answer your question. But I agree that the average working man has been screwed. Still your father should more to Australia, the plumbers are making a killing.
These are diametrically opposed traits.
Christianity is all about the lion and the lamb laying down together. (See GK Chesterton on this subject)
HeligoK
On a similar note, this article takes the new female ideals for what is successful
Ummm No.
They aren't my ideals, they are the ideals by which men were judged in the past. Women seem to be better providers than men are. I'm sorry, but the data suggests that in the U.S women are out-earning men. Self-education was typically American virtue. It seems that today's women have embraced the ethic more than the men have. I don't like it anymore than you do but you've got to stare reality in the face.
@Deti
It will be nothing more than a state or church-sanctioned LTR
Facepalm. None of you really understand the implications of hypergamy, do you? If a woman with a mate value of 6 is coerced into a marriage with a man who has a mate value of 5, the marriage will be loveless and sterile and there will always agitation to escape the marriage.(and promote divorce) In order for a marriage to be a happy (and therefore strong one) a male has to have higher mate value than his wife. Hypergamy can't be willed away.
Hank looks at that and says, "too hard."
That is precisely the problem. It's all too hard. To hard to groom, too hard to keep the house clean, too hard to study etc. Was it too hard to fight the Germans and Japanese? The "old skool" new it was hard but they did it.
@Deti
What is sexy to women? And should men even care?
Our sexuality is part of our natures and a marital relationship is intrinsically sexual pretending that the sexual aspect of the relationship does not matter dooms it to failure.
@Aurini
I agree with you that men need to Man Up (in the real sense, not the "Marry those sluts" sense), but it's hard nowadays.
Yes it is but there is no other option. Unless you want the lifestyle of a player or miserable celibacy.
Basil
When a man feels he can't win with women, he bails.
Why is he opposed to learning how to win, or at least making the effort?
@Anon@ 9:21
SP, I thought you were Catholic. In the Catholic view, "sexy" and "beautiful" do not equal "good".
Ah yes, the Traditionalist Ascetic Heresy. What is sexual is evil. Beauty has an intrinsic sexual component to it and modesty was supposed to regulate not kill it. The female form came from the mind of God. He designed breasts and buttocks.
@LBF
I'm not taking cheap shots, it's just that there seems to be a blind spot in the manosphere which tends to blame everything on women. No one, except Roissy and Roosh, ever seems to justify a woman rejection of a man. Some men, in fact quite a few are losers.
Dr Jeremy.
Sorry I haven't answered your previous post but I do this in my spare time. (and I haven't had much recently)
I agree that the majority of men are indeed low-value now. Guys in the manosphere often don't realize that they are not valuable enough to attain desirable women.
Correct.
I also agree that it is ultimately the responsibility of men to become valuable and powerful leaders.
An internal locus of control differentiates the winners from the losers. In fact an internal locus of control is the essence of masculinity.
I disagree when you attribute this current male-female discrepancy to women's "superior character traits".
Character is not a passive thing. People mold their characters by their choices and their actions. The fact is women today are motivated, the men aren't. They seem to want to improve intrinsically. For example many have ambition, some realise it through marriage, others through self improvement and hard work, but the average man that I see today seems to be content to live in some sort x box squalor with access to easy lays.
It is inaccurate and a disservice to place the blame on their character traits, however, rather than their social education.
I agree that society feeds men a load of bullshit but you've got to be "switched on" and recognise the situation. Perhaps its true that most men are sheep and that they require some sort of alpha leader to lead them, because leadership seems thin on the ground.
Getting men to "man up" then is a process of educating them not to be sheep and follow the social conventions that now encourage their bad behavior...not reinforcing the idea that they are "innately inferior". The second strategy is simply shaming...and counterproductive to men actually taking responsibility, control, and leadership.,
I'm old skool.
To me, that beats simply looking down my nose at them, expecting them to be like me when they are not..
It's not about me looking down my nose, it about their resistance to change; their passivity. It's about their victim mentality. What sucks is not just their predicament but their refusal to try and escape it.
You have conveyed yourself clearly.
@ Dalrock
Thanks for dropping by.
It all depends on which group we are trying to help at any given moment. If we are speaking to beta men who can't generate enough attraction, they need to make themselves more attractive. If we are speaking to sluts and former sluts who can't find a good husband, blaming a lack of good men only hurts them by feeding the hamster.
I agree with you totally. I'm not counseling men to marry sluts. I want men to "man up" not in the sense of marrying some burnt-out carousel rider but in regaining their masculinity.
You see, my professional practice has left me with the impression that the women I see are simply more competent and ambitious than today's men. The fact that women are more academically qualified and appear to be out earning men, irrespective of their mating preferences, should be a source of concern to male commentators. Women seem to have a "drive" today than men simply don't have. I'm not saying this because I've drunk some feminist Kool-Aid, its based upon the observations that I see in my day to day practice.
I understand you have some daughters. How many young men do you meet whom you think would be a good match for your daughters? I don't have daughters but if I did, I'd actually feel sorry for them since the pool of good young men that I see is remarkably small.
A lot of the commentators here blame feminism for this state of affairs. But many men seem quite happy to wallow in some sort of gilded stye and live a life of perpetual entertainment. There is no ambition or willingness to establish a legacy. Hedonism is the rot here.
I wrote these posts mainly to the crowd that feels that the only way that men can advance is by putting the shackles on women. If any other group tried to advance by this method it would be called for what it is; affirmative action. Yet this is precisely the traditionalist argument. The other problem with this approach is that it is guaranteed to produce lots of sexless tepid marriages where the woman feels no desire for her husband. She is forced to perform out of duty. I'd rather a wife who wants to than has to.
Stipulating that good men are in short supply, and the average marriagable man lacks a high degree of alpha, women who want to marry need to be warned of the problem with this path. Picking last is a terrible strategy when faced with a shortage.
It's not just the carousel riders that complain to me about the lack of good men, it's also the good Christian girls. I know a very nice Christian girl who bears a very close likeness to this woman. She's been set up with lots of nice young men and simply can't warm to them. She is quite open that she wants someone with a bit of "spunk". She takes her faith seriously and hasn't slept around. She idolises her grandfather who was "cheeky" but never strayed. She's not picky, she just wants a man, not some christian eunuch who thinks he is a man. We seem to have lost that ability to produce cheeky but good men.
Feminism is responsible for a lot of the rot, but all is not well in the house of man.
"I know lots of female doctors who can't find mates."
Professional and educational accomplishments don't increase female mate value (that much at least). The overwhelming primary value of a woman is her youth and fertility. If she squanders that in schooling and career that is her problem.
" Women seem to be better providers than men are. I'm sorry, but the data suggests that in the U.S women are out-earning men. Self-education was typically American virtue. It seems that today's women have embraced the ethic more than the men have."
Men earn more then women across the board, hence all the complaints about equal pay. Women in their 20s earn more because they go to college more and the entry level salaries for college grads are higher. Though in many cases these women are in a lot of debt from going to school.
By the time your 30s role around men have worked hard and advanced their careers and are breaking into skilled and management roles and out earn women. Women meanwhile don't take work or advancement at work that seriously and many scale back or quit in their 30s.
The hard part of career isn't going to college and following orders (very far from "self education"). The hard part is grinding it out for four decades and putting up with all the shit you need to climb the ladder. Men do that. Women get bored.
"If a woman with a mate value of 6 is coerced into a marriage with a man who has a mate value of 5"
This isn't what we are talking about though. We are talking about 5s with 5s. Or even 6s with 5s or 7s with 5s. The female five says, "I can fuck an 8 and make my own money, why even settle for a 7."
Your ideas mathematically guarantee polygamy.
"Why is he opposed to learning how to win, or at least making the effort?"
You aren't thinking on a societal scale. Values are relative. If one man pumps up his sexy by going all Jersey Shore and getting in bar fights then another man loses sexy. We can't all win the bar fight after all. The same goes for any avenue of competition.
What your saying is for all men to devote their lives to pleasing women's sexual impulses to compete with other men. The result of all of this would be everyone staying in place.
The fact that the things women want: aggression, dominance, violence, and psychopathy are destructive to society just shows what a bad effect it would have overall.
Slumlord,
I feel like we inhabit entirely different worlds. In my world there are lots of accomplished men with good jobs and lives that are together, but there are no good women looking to marry them. The girl in your story passes them up for dudes that act like Jersey Shore guys.
You ask that they start acting like Jersey Shore douches, but its exactly because they don't act like that that their lives are together and they have advanced in society.
Perhaps there are a few men that are blessed with excellent genetics, opportunity, and luck to have the best all all things masculine, but then again why would these men marry these mediocre women. Fuck them maybe, but certainly not marry.
You have nostalgia for this girls grandfather and fighting the Nazis. My grandfather was alpha as fuck and fought the Nazis too. When he died I also found out that he beat the shit out of my grandmother for two decades. Turns out you can't wind up those toy soldiers to go kill Nazis then expect them to shut it off when they get home.
Women didn't want that, so they implemented any number of legal and cultural rule changes to shackle men. Your average man is walking on egg shells from school to work and even casual conversation. What can and can't be said. What can and can't be done. And the whole time usually under the legal power of some woman.
We then turn around and expect this man to act like the grandfather?
The only people who can act like the grandfather, break the rules, are those who either have so many resources they can buy off the rule enforcers, or so few they have nothing to lose. So it's Don Draper or "The Situation". Everyone else, if they want to be a part of society and have a career and property and such has to set their masculinity aside.
If your answer is that everyone should become Don Draper that is impossible. Only the top of the pyramid can have his wealth and genes. The endgame of this psychology is everyone doing anything they can to get ahead and you end up with things like the financial crisis.
If your answer is that everyone should be like The Situation from the Jersey Shore then your basically advocating societal collapse and you shouldn't be complaining about this woman dating this man.
Thanks for the response Social Pathologist. While I suspect neither is likely to change the other's mind, there is much value in understanding where and why we disagree. I may write a post on the issue and better organize my thoughts, but here is what I have for now:
I agree with you totally. I'm not counseling men to marry sluts. I want men to "man up" not in the sense of marrying some burnt-out carousel rider but in regaining their masculinity.
I didn't read you that way; I had something else in mind. While there is clearly an overall deficit of manliness, there is another problem I don't see you addressing. Young women aren't looking to marry, at least very few of them are. See Susan Walsh's site as an example. I think it is fair to say that Susan hopes to guide the young women in her audience into marriage. But they aren't interested in marriage, they are interested in hooking up. Susan sees this and tries to convince them to use hookups as a path to marriage. I think this is a disastrous approach, but I don't doubt her motive. If her audience were desperately looking for husbands, the site would have a very different name. The vast majority of women don't feel any urgency to find a husband. While you are right that there is a shortage of attractive eligible men, there is an even greater shortage of marriage worthy women, especially when these men are in their early twenties. You can't wait until the lottery tickets are all scratched and then complain that you can't buy the winners at original face value. So to say to women that the problem is a lack of men doesn't help them, it actually harms them. It aids in them rationalizing that their choice to put hookups/college/career/travel before finding a husband isn't the problem. When we are talking to men who can't generate enough attraction we need to focus on what they can do. When we are talking to women who can't find a husband we need to focus on what the women can do.
The lack of urgency by women to find a real life husband is a real problem. Given what we know about female nature, even if men hadn't lost their manlyness we should expect delayed marriage to result in large numbers women fixating for years on unattainable men (real or imaginary). The older a woman gets the longer her "must have" list becomes while her market power vs men her age or a few years older is moving in the wrong direction. Picking last, after raising your expectations, when your purchasing power has dramatically dropped is a prescription for disaster even if there were no shortage of good men. Doing this in the face of a shortage is downright insane. On top of all of this, I think it is very clear that young people are primed to fall in love harder and more quickly. Given that the problem is women can't fall for the men available to them I am surprised this is nearly universally overlooked. There is a season to form lifelong romantic bonds, and it occurs much earlier than is convenient for feminism. Add to this the problems premarital sex (plus 5 minutes of alpha) cause with regard to women bonding and this is a perfect storm. Why are we surprised this results in women who can't feel attraction for men in their own league?
Continued below...
You see, my professional practice has left me with the impression that the women I see are simply more competent and ambitious than today's men. The fact that women are more academically qualified and appear to be out earning men, irrespective of their mating preferences, should be a source of concern to male commentators. Women seem to have a "drive" today than men simply don't have. I'm not saying this because I've drunk some feminist Kool-Aid, its based upon the observations that I see in my day to day practice.
What is confusing me is you are clear in your first post on the series that women should have the right to choose their own life path. So far, I'm with you (especially at a societal level, not considering biblical responsibilities). However, now you appear to be saying that since women in general have chosen life paths which increase what they need from men to feel satisfied, men have an obligation to deliver it. While men who want to marry such a woman need to deliver what she wants or do without, this isn't what I read you as saying. You appear to be saying that men owe this to women. If women don't have such a general societal obligation, neither can men. Some men choose to simply whine, and my advice to women is to not marry these men. Others will happily go their own way, and I don't see where we are in a position to argue with them. Still other men will choose to respond to the signal young women are sending with the hookup culture and get good at playing that game. This isn't a morally appropriate choice, but given our larger ambivalence to women initiating hookup and divorce culture, it doesn't make sense to suddenly (at a societal level) decide we are all about morals. The players are sinning, but they are sitting at the table the women have set. At any rate, they aren't a good fit for marriage in my view, so I'm not interested in trying to sell them on marrying, sluts or otherwise.
The other area I think we disagree is you assert that feminism hasn't been about tilting the playing field but leveling it. I don't see it that way. Feminism required that we reconsider everything with regard to whether it benefits women. As a result, we have reorganized our entire society to cater to feminism. You see traditional marriage as "affirmative action for betas", but you overlook the fact that women who want to have children need resources from men, and since nearly all men are betas (except for omegas) this will have to come from betas. Feminism didn't change this, it simply absolved women of all reciprocating responsibility when cashing in. Betas in turn are becoming less motivated, something you appear to blame not on feminism but the betas not doing their share to make feminism work.
Continued in part 3 below
Part 3:
Feminism requires ever increasing subsidies to function, and these subsidies are quickly moving toward a price tag we won't be able to afford. We see this conflict everywhere, and you can tie this into the financial crisis nearly all western countries are facing. Delaying marriage and childbirth to focus on feminist goals has dramatically reduced the birthrate for the middle class. At the same time massive government programs and transfers are needed to "empower" women to the degree you seem to be arguing is natural. Not all of this appears in the form of an obvious handout; much of it is in the form of government jobs and compliance with government regulations. But the social spending and borrowing needs an expanding middle class population to continue propping up feminism, while feminism is destroying marriage and lowering middle class birth rates. This means the future generation of productive tax payers won't be there, at least not in the numbers needed to continue as we are. Making this worse is the lack of incentive for Betas to create excess production. Being the head of the household under true marriage was the incentive which caused this excess production by betas. What you are describing as a problem with men I see as a logical response to removed incentives. Take the incentives away, that is fine. But we can't complain when the logical result occurs. Note that the logical response by governments is likely to be to increase tax rates on those who produce/earn more. This will only create more incentive for men who don't have the incentive of marriage/head of household to only work as hard as they need to survive. This will lead to not only lower tax revenues but further reductions to marriage and therefore the future middle class.
Slumlord:
I'm writing to amplify asdf's points.
It's not too hard for men to improve themselves. But incentives matter. A man will not do what is hard, or even easy, if there isn't likely to be a positive effect for him. IOW, he won't do it if the benefit isn't there, or if the risks outweigh the benefits.
It used to be the case that an average man from an average town could get out of high school or even college, and then get a pretty decent job. He could attract a wife and support a family. He's not all that great looking, maybe he's quite homely. But he's alpha enough to have finished an education and gotten a decent paying job.
That used to be enough to attract a woman -- he's a man, he has an education, he's God fearing, goes to church, the local people and especially the men like him. He is able to attract a wife around his sexual market value.
But for reasons everyone in these parts knows, that's not good enough anymore. The women he knows all have educations and jobs like he does. They also have had a great deal more sexual experience than he has had. He has been busting his ass to increase his value by getting an education and earn money, By stark contrast, she has been at the same college getting her Women's Studies degree. She has had frat boys run train on her and get STRs from apex alphas. She has her own job and money, so she looks at the nice guy and says "meh".
Cont'd below
deti
Part 2
But that's not enough now. Now he has to have a job AND have money/status/dominance/confidence. Now he has to have some game.
But this is completely different from what everyone around him tells him. He has been told all he has to do is get educated and employed, and he's good to go. He was told to keep his d**k in his pants and never ever to escalate sexually because girls HATE that, his dad told him. His mom told him to "be nice and be [him]self" and girls would flock to him.
The professors at college berated him for being a man, told him that his sexual impulses are violent and threatening. They told him that if any girl says "NO" he is stop immediately. He is told that he MUST have express permission from a girl he is with to do anything with or to her. He must ask her permission to touch, kiss, grope and have sex with her.
His pastor told him that sex is bad and evil. Told him his sexual impulses are evil and wicked and sinful. He MUST not ever try to do anything, anything at all, sexual with a girl. His pastor told him that he can't look at porn or masturbate because the first is adultery and the second means he will go to hell forever. His pastor tells him that if he is simply nice, the girls at church will love him.
So he asks out the pretty girl at church, because that's what the pastor tells him to do. He does that, and gets an absolute nuclear rejection. He is laughed at and told "AS IF!!"
He doesn't understand this. He's been told all his life to be nice, be educated, and be employed. He's done all those things. He followed the rules. Why isn't it working?
cont'd below
deti
Then he reads or hears about "game". He tries some of this -- outcome independence, developing his own interests, escalating heavily on dates. It's still not working, because he is balding early and is a little paunchy. He doesn't have a great body like "the Situation" or a chiseled face like Don Draper. Well, he tries losing weight and getting in shape, but it's pretty difficult, hard work.
The young girls with low Ns still don't want him. They are chasing the superalphas, the very top of the top. The best he can get is a 4/10 former carousel rider, and a few out of shape fat girls with low self esteem.
So our average beta looks at this and says it's just not worth it.
But, Slumlord, what I hear you saying is that he should do this work anyway, when the return on investment isn't much worth it. He's made himself more attractive by spending a lifetime busting his ass in college and at a job. He is earning a little money. He can support himself. He's lost weight and is getting in shape, but it's still not good enough to get our average beta anything except the dregs and leftovers, picked over sluts.
asdf is right -- I don't see the world you see, Slumlord. I see legions of average men, working and trying to earn money, having to compete in the workforce for jobs with women they should be able to date. I see these men doing their best to make it in a world that is sabotaging everything they do every minute of every day. I see these men doing their best, but it's STILL not good enough for your patients. And it's STILL not good enough for the Christian girl you wrote of who looks like the Vargas girl -- when EVERYONE around him told him to do it their way and it WOULD be good enough.
This is to say nothing of what the North American church is doing to these men -- turning them into eunuchs and feminizing them at every turn. "Sit down. Shut up. Turn to Judges 2."
"Be quiet like good little gentlemen."
"Give Sally the ball, Johnny. Be NICE to her."
"Don't you boys DARE do anythting to corrupt these sweet little paragons of virtue! Sex is BAD BAD BAD! If you are having sex with any of these girls it is YOUR FAULT!"
At work it's pretty much the same:
"Help out Jill from accounting. Carry her stuff."
"Don't you DARE say anything that could even REMOTELY be construed as sexual. You men are all sexual harassers!"
"don't you ever ask out a girl from work (unless, of course, you're HAWT, like Kevin in Accounts Receivable)"
"Can you believe that Bob guy from upstairs asked me out? He's weird looking. I mean, he's nice, but he's kinda creepy. I think he sexually harassed me. Excuse me while I call HR."
But, Slumlord, you want men to simply forget these things, at the risk of social ostracism and professional reprisals. You seem to insist that men be "cheeky" rules breakers when they have been taught and instructed and pounded in the head all their lives that such men are antisocial asshole do-nothing good-for-nothings who will never amount to anything.
Any man who acts "cheeky" at work stands to lose his job if the wrong woman gets offended (unless he's HAWT). Any man who acts "cheeky" on a date stands to be accused of harassment or rape if he pisses off the wrong woman or makes a move on a woman he THINKS is attracted to him but isn't. Any man who acts "cheeky" at church or around women at church is branded as a creep (unless he's HAWT).
deti
cont'd below
Part 4:
You know why the woman in your last post ("As If On Cue") stays with her layabout boyfriend? Because he tingles her pu**y. He's HAWT. He f**ks her good, and that's why she stays with him.
You know why your Vargas girl Christian friend doesn't like the men at her church? Because they're not HAWT. They aren't "The Situation". They aren't Don Draper.
You're expecting men to be the whole package. You're expecting men to be rich, wealthy, successful, tall, chiseled facial features, be charming, and be in excellent physical shape. You, like your patients, seem to expect men to have Warren Buffett's money, Brad Pitt's face, Ryan Lochte's body, Billy Graham's spirituality, and George Clooney's charm. Only the tiniest majority of men can do all that.
And even if some men CAN do it, why should they do it for the current spate of women? What's in it for them? A 4/10 used up carouseler? A LSE fat girl who is as unattractive as he was? What's the point?
deti
A "cheeky" Christian man is a dork, or a dweeb, or a creep (unless he's HAWT).
A "cheeky" boy at school is a problem child, a disruption in class. He's not a class clown or funny. He's a discipline problem. He probably has ADHD. He needs Ritalin or Adderall.
A "cheeky" young man in college is a creep, or a sociopath, or a class clown, or arrogant, or just weird (unless he's HAWT).
A "cheeky" man at work is a prick, a creep, a threat to morale. He's brash and tasteless, with no sense of professionalism or decorum. He's probably overcompensating for his lack of work competence and substandard skills. He's probably a sexual harasser (unless he's HAWT).
deti
Dear Slumlord, can you please stop with the idiotic, nonsensical parallels with WW2? Nobody cares about that fratricidal war anymore.
Höllenhund
slumlord:
I went back and read your OP and your comments again.
I read you as advocating what some call Game 2.0. This is the coopting of Game and seduction techniques for the specific purpose of increasing male attractiveness to women. The purpose in turn is to furnish women at large with a sufficient supply of men to choose from for sex, boyfriends, relationships and marriage.
The intent of Game 2.0 is not to improve men or make men independent members of society. Rather, the intent is to mold and shape men into what women want them to be, when women want them to be that, and in what forms. Thus, she will have available to her the sexy hookup, the slightly less sexy but fun boyfriend, and sorta sexy but steady, responsible, wealthy husband -- all ready made, all when she wants them, and all just sitting on shelves ready for her selection and rejection.
All this is to serve women, not men, and not society.
deti
I'm with dalrock on this one. Yes, the men coming out are of less quality than in the past, but what incentive do they have to get better? So they can marry a "driven" woman with some balls? So they can be brow beaten by said woman and sent to jail if it doesn't go her way? Pay for her a house, or help her pay off her school loans and get very little in return.
The women in this country aren't that much fun to be around. They aren't worth the trouble just because they are fun to talk to. I understand where you are coming from SP, but without an incentive, your observation is just that. We con't have reasons anymore other than your a man, this is what you do. Unfortunately, feminism said that we need to redefine gender roles. Now they are redefined and everyone including yourself are like "Whoa there sonny". We have to change the incentives first. We can do that, but only through the church first.
Slumlord,
I think the time to look at the big picture is here. Namely, society rather then individual men.
What your proposing here is the same as the political economy principal called "Yale or Jail". Namely, that in economic terms one must either make it to the top or be a failure. In the US this became a description of how only top 1% are advancing and the middle class has been hollowed out. If you thinking of a career right now everything except really high end white collar work is dying (at least in the US).
Your proposing the sexual market equivalent, "Alpha or Omega". Either you're Mr. Big or your a sexless loser who deserves nothing.
When that's the payoff structure in society your going to end up with two kinds of people, psychopaths (who do whatever it takes to make it to the top) and dropouts.
The easiest way to get ahead in this world, to be the alpha women want you to be, is to be immoral. They don't show the part in Sex in the City where Mr. Big goes to his banker job and rips off a pension fund so he can buy Carrie all those expensive cocktails.
If you make it so only the best can win, people will do anything to be the best. Lie, cheat, steal, destroy their own bodies.
I've got a lot of examples to give, but I hope you can appreciate the point without them. I've seen plenty of men do plenty of evil things to get women. And I've seen plenty of good men turn into bad men if they get divorce raped and decide if the system is going to fuck them then they are going to fuck the system. We give men wives because it gives them a stake in society. If the only way to have a wive is to dominate the vast majority of men then men will kill each other to be the dominant one.
There is a great documentary out there I watched on time on steroids called Bigger, Stronger, Faster. It showed how far men (it was always men) were willing to go to be #1, to the point of killing themselves. Because remember, if your not first your last.
You say standards for masculinity haven't changed (or gotten easier), but I beg to differ. One of the best scenes in the movie shows them lining up GI Joe's through the decades. Similar to how women complain about how out of proportion Barbie is, it was interesting to see how GI Joe evolved. In the 50's and 60s he looked like an ordinary dude. No huge muscles. No sixpack. Just like a regular dude who took regular care of himself. Throughout the decades GI Joe becomes ever more muscular and ridiculous, until finally he looks like some roided up cartoon. Keep in mind this isn't Superman, it's GI Joe. The GI stands for government issue, he is suppose to be the every man that beat the Nazi's. Well, that's not good enough anymore.
Slumlord,
Also, just from personal experience, Game is not a solution.
I pretty much took your advice and learned game. I went from not getting many women to getting some through game.
Has this introduced me to good marriage candidates? No. It's introduced me to a ton of basket cases.
And no, not because they were club sluts. I'm talking "strong independent career women". My last three GFs were all career women. One had triple masters degrees from Harvard. Another was an international federal agent who tracked down criminals. All very smart and accomplished.
They were also terrible human beings. Insane, emotional, prideful, arrogant, selfish, and total basket cases. They all had high N counts and one was cheating on a boyfriend with me. They were dishonest and predatory.
Yes, game will help you fuck these women. Hard. You'll get all your sexual kinks off. But only because that is what they want. They want to be dominated. They want to be love slaves. At least until it means things like commitment, honesty, openness, sacrifice, etc. They are not about that. They are barely capable of understanding themselves yet alone another person.
asdf:
I bet at least a few of your strong independent career women friends were also looking to get husbands so they could quit their sucky jobs and stay home and start making babies.
So much for the StrongIndependentWoman (TM) trope.
deti
Women used to be men's helpmates and companions.
Women are now men's adversaries and competitors.
And worse, men and women are now competing against each other for everything: education, jobs, careers, advancement, leisure time, resources, love, and sex.
Combat dating, indeed.
deti
deti,
Obviously. Harvard girl used to complain how all of the girls in her graduating class were starting to quit their jobs at her age (early 30s). Guess they put that education to good use.
The third one actually turned out to have an ex-husband and kids (that she lied about for months). She was stringing along some beta herb lawyer who was doing her custody battle pro-bono because she slept with him once so he said he would marry her and help raise her children. Meanwhile I'm fucking her 10+ times a week in the most depraved ways and telling her that she's fucking retarded to be with me and she should be a responsible human being and do the right thing for her kids and marry the guy because there is no way I'm committing to her because she is a basket case with way too much baggage. Eventually I dumped her because I just felt too bad about the situation and she literally cried and went into a frenzy that I was cutting her vagina off.
Strong Independent Career Woman right there.
---
Backing up the comment that women want what they want when they want it on demand:
http://heartiste.wordpress.com/2012/10/12/hookup-men-vs-for-real-men/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
"which is that what we really need is the ability to diversify: hook up if we want, go slow if we want, just do a bunch of different stuff depending on where we’re at."
Feminists, and women more generally, hate the idea of judgment and of consequences for their actions. They want to slut it up, take it slow, hook up, hang out, drag it out, do the woo, and try a bunch of different stuff without the judgment of men or other women cramping their uteri, and without worrying about the consequences which might ensue as a result of their panoply of choices. This is what is known in the literature as a fantasyland: a wonderful place in the puffy white clouds where human nature doesn’t exist and actions don’t cause reactions, except those reactions that the feminist dearly desires, which desire is subject to change at any given moment depending on the feminist’s whim.
It seems to me that the type of man that women are attracted to has changed throughout the decades. What was once considered to be a "good man" in the past (hard working, provider, reliable) is no longer considered to be a "good man" now (alpha, dark triad, peacocking). It doesn't help that society at large is still telling men to be the good men of the past, which when followed is actually further decreasing their sexual marketplace (SMP) value.
Many of us beta men have had some success in changing ourselves to become the "good men" of the present. Game has helped us to find dates and girlfriends, but when it comes to marriage we don't always like what is on offer. Under assortative mating a "good man" of the past could have expected to build a family with a woman of similar SMP value, but a "good man" of the past who is living in the present is generally limited to the girls 2 or 3 points below himself on the SMP value scale. We think that we are getting screwed in the SMP but the actuality is that our self image is 2 to 3 points overvalued. The traits that once made us successful with the opposite sex are no longer valued as they once were.
My own personal experience (although it is just one anecdote) illustrates the modern SMP dynamics in the western world. You could pretty much say that I was and still am the "Steve Urkel" archetype. 4.0 GPA. Tall. Lanky. Glasses. Hard working. Reliable. Honest. Despite my multiple (and awkward) attempts at flirting I was a complete failure with women. Not a single date or girlfriend or even a kiss for the first 25 years of my life. I typically aimed for the women at what I thought to be my SMP value (6) but the only positive responses I got were from women who were 2, 3 or 4s. I began to question myself on whether I was really a 2, 3 or 4.
After learning a foreign language and graduating from college I moved to and lived in a foreign country for a number of years. In that country I had more attention by 5, 6 and 7s than in my entire prior lifetime. I was my same old self. The only thing that had changed was my location. I met a girl over there who I thought was of similar SMP value to myself (6) and we are now happily married with a family in the US.
It appears to me that betas who think of themselves as "good men" should take the path of least resistance. Rather than striving to become the alphas that many western women desire, betas should try dating where their qualities are appreciated as they once were. That is, in non-westernized foreign countries. If they do so, they will most likely discover that all is well in the SMP and that they should have little trouble in finding a mate of similar value.
-stillcode
@ Social Pathologist,
Thank you for the response, doctor. I think we are aligned in our overall thoughts (and frustrations) with modern men (and I'm only 34). I would just like to explore a few of your responses more deeply. Whether you choose to respond or not is fine. I respect your limited time. Just food for thought :)
Character is not a passive thing. People mold their characters by their choices and their actions. The fact is women today are motivated, the men aren't. They seem to want to improve intrinsically.
I agree. However, I believe that character is initially shaped by social, educational, and parental forces. Leaders (of themselves and others) are made, not born. Women have been taught and socialized to be ambitious, motivated, and value themselves. That turns into good decisions, character, a healthy identity, good self-esteem...and intrinsic motivation.
Men have not had the same education or social experience - as Dalrock's and Desi's long comments above explain. Men are being actively de-motivated, dis-empowered, and psychologically crushed. It looks like sloth and hedonism. But, it is really the "affirmative action" of socialism, liberalism, and feminism (all the same thing) that are castrating men to "level" the playing field. Young men are not even told they have balls, let alone how to use them - so they don't miss them when they are snipped!
I agree that society feeds men a load of bullshit but you've got to be "switched on" and recognise the situation. Perhaps its true that most men are sheep and that they require some sort of alpha leader to lead them, because leadership seems thin on the ground.
Thanks. That is my point. Leadership is non-existent on the ground. There is no one "switching men on". That's why they are all jut playing X-box and hooking-up. Even the Manosphere guidance is not pointing a way out of the dis-empowerment and squalor. They are simply teaching men to be more comfortable in it - either staying clear of the threatening parts (MGTOW) or gaming to get more lays.
It's not about me looking down my nose, it about their resistance to change; their passivity. It's about their victim mentality. What sucks is not just their predicament but their refusal to try and escape it.
Yep. They are lined up for the slaughter - and the slaughter house is running. Most don't see it, because they have been educated not to. The "red pill" do. But they are too busy discussing women to realize it is all about power, control, and leadership. Nice little social trap to keep the sheep in line.
I have been trying to reframe the discussion around here as one about power and leadership - much like feminism did with women. So far, I have been met with mostly disinterest and resistance. Perhaps men don't even have ears to listen and understand. I will keep trying to see who might actually want to attain personal power, and even realign social power. I welcome your efforts as well. As you say...
If I had to define a bare minimum of masculinity, it would be the ability to wisely impose your will.
That is power, control, and leadership. That gets women...and so much more. That is the perspective most men are missing, which over-arches men's rights, social oppression and change, game, marriage, success, and everything else we're discussing on here.
@ Dalrock
You appear to be saying that men owe this to women. If women don't have such a general societal obligation, neither can men.
Personally, I don't think men owe "manning up" in the true sense to women. BUT, I do think they owe it to themselves. I don't care that the women are complaining. I care that good, talented, bright men are wasting their lives because they are disempowered and de-motivated. I would hope that they would rise up, be able to find a little pride for themselves, and be something for THEM. I realize that they have been brainwashed not to even have such pride and esteem though. So, I don't fault them. I just keep trying...and am very sad that they don't even know to fight for their freedom.
@ Deti
You're expecting men to be the whole package. You're expecting men to be rich, wealthy, successful, tall, chiseled facial features, be charming, and be in excellent physical shape. You, like your patients, seem to expect men to have Warren Buffett's money, Brad Pitt's face, Ryan Lochte's body, Billy Graham's spirituality, and George Clooney's charm. Only the tiniest majority of men can do all that.
And even if some men CAN do it, why should they do it for the current spate of women? What's in it for them? A 4/10 used up carouseler? A LSE fat girl who is as unattractive as he was? What's the point?
The point is to do it for yourself - not women. To be the best man you can be...for you.
Also, all of the features you describe above are sources of power. Money is power. Beauty is power. Charm is power. You don't need ALL of those things. No man does. He simply needs A source of power to leverage to get what he desires. Women respond and submit to power in all of its forms. So does the rest of the world.
I'm not tall or very good looking. I don't have the "whole package". I focused on the talents that I had. I'm a psychologist because I'm smart and perceptive. That gives me power. I leverage that power and leadership I have to create a very content life - and a satisfying love life too. I didn't need ALL the power, just enough.
@ Stillcode
It seems to me that the type of man that women are attracted to has changed throughout the decades. What was once considered to be a "good man" in the past (hard working, provider, reliable) is no longer considered to be a "good man" now (alpha, dark triad, peacocking). It doesn't help that society at large is still telling men to be the good men of the past, which when followed is actually further decreasing their sexual marketplace (SMP) value.
Women's preference has never changed. Women always want "powerful men". That is how hypergamy operates. The only think that changes are the social structures and how men attain that power.
Historically, "good men" were also powerful. They had money, which women were reliant on. They had a socially-granted status as the head of the home. If they followed laws, rules, and customs, they were given regard, clout, and a good reputation in society. Thus, a good man was powerful indeed.
Then, social change came along in the form of feminism and tore away those bases of power. Thus, simply being a "good man" is not powerful anymore. Just look at any sitcom. A good man is just the target of ridicule now.
But, being "good" is not the only source of power...and women follow that power. Now, Dark Triad men are powerful. Ironically, they were previously dis-empowered by the same norms and values that empowered "good men". Nevertheless, at present, they use various forms of manipulation, brinksmanship, and intimidation to get what they want. Women don't "like" the treatment...but they "love" the power.
I always come across the argument in the Manosphere that Western women have somehow become "masculinized". Frankly I see none of that.
I don't see women having sex like men (hello hypergamy!), being responsible like men, leading like men, building functioning hierarchies like men, creating like men, working like men, making sacrifices like men, thinking rationally like men, controlling themselves like men or being self-aware like men.
Again, I see absolutely none of those. It's all bunk. Even the most "masculinized" women have no more than zero masculinity at all.
Höllenhund
@Dr Jeremy
Western civilization has so far been unwilling to create a masculine ideal that does NOT include "heroic" self-sacrifice for the "common good" (i.e. women and their children, supposedly sired by the men they say they were sired by). That's not a coincidence. Don't think for a minute that the Man Up Campaign will somehow become less shrill and aggressive if single men en masse start to improve themselves, find pride in themselves or whatever. No. If you're a man and you refuse to invest in your fellow womyn, you'll be endlessly shamed, ridiculed and attacked, no matter how much self-improvement you do.
And it's also small wonder that pride is considered a sin in all religions. Pride is for idiotic women and their male useful idiots. The correct virtue of real men is humility and Ataraxia.
Höllenhund
"heroic" self-sacrifice for the "common good"
Yes, I don't think people quite grasp this concept. Power is most easily gotten from sin. Money is most easily gotten from cheating and lies. Looks are most easily gotten from taking drugs and medicines that destroy your body. Dominance is most easily gotten from pushing others down.
When you've got an "alpha or omega" philosophy lots of men decide they want to be alphas. But the things you do to become an alpha are usually sins. And making sacrifices isn't alpha. Alphas make others make sacrifices for their benefit.
Let me tell you a little story. I work for the government. My boss is pretty high up and has access to a lot of information I don't. Recently I found out him and his boss have been taking bribes to allow companies to break the law. Big money with perhaps even bigger scandals out there. Gonna hurt lots of people.
Now, I knew him years before he recruited me for this job. He was just your average dude. He was definitely not the kind of guy to do this stuff. An average "good man". What changed? Partly he got some power, and we never know what kind of person we are until we get some power. But most specifically he got divorced (eat, pray, love divorceraped for not being sexy enough). Despite being a hard working six figure professional who did the right thing all his life after the alimony and child support the dude was living in a shitty apartment and driving a shitty car while the woman was giving his money to some other dude and when he saw his kid once every week he had to give him more money to buy school supplies.
I asked him why. Partly he didn't understand what was going on at first. Partly he got browbeat into it. Partly it was just small decisions that added up until it was big and not wanting to stop digging at any point. Partly it was because he rated his chances of getting a new job in the same city at the same pay level low and then wouldn't be able to pay child support.
But at the end of the day it was simple. Society fucked him. He did everything right and society fucked him. Therefore, why should he make enormous personal sacrifices for the good of society.
Can you come up with a good counter argument? If you can let me know, because I already tried turning him into his boss (who was in on it, that backfired) and now the only person who has enough proof and can actually do something about it is him, and I can't convince him.
He became what every woman wants. You can see it on any cable drama today. An anti-hero. Walt is a sexless beta loser when he is just some chemistry teacher doing his job. But when he becomes a meth dealing murder destroying the fabric of his community...SEXY!!!! Now that's a real man. A tough dude that takes what he wants, whatever methods necessary.
That's the kind of society your asking for when its sexy or die. Sexy is not a virtue. There is nothing virtuous about what women want. What women want is usually sin. That's why every religion everywhere controlled women.
Agenda Insight: Goodbye to Good Men
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeL-Fn0V8iU&feature=relmfu
The Agenda: The Meaning of Man
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uYengUXFG0
Watch the above and pay careful attention to the arguments that Jordan Peterson in particular makes in these programs.
@asdf
The girl in your story passes them up for dudes that act like Jersey Shore guys.
Rubbish.
She doesn't want a Jersey Shore type of guy, more a Cary Grant type of man. A man with polish, charm and sex appeal. She's not after some thug luvin.
This isn't what we are talking about though. We are talking about 5s with 5s. Or even 6s with 5s or 7s with 5s. The female five says, "I can fuck an 8 and make my own money, why even settle for a 7."
There are a lot of women who have an inflated sense of self worth, but there are a heap of men with the same problem. The real problem is the nerd who feels he is a 7 when in reality he is a two, wondering why all the 8's don't want hook up with him.
What your saying is for all men to devote their lives to pleasing women's sexual impulses to compete with other men.
Hello. Female hypergamy has consequences. If you don't take female hypergamy into account you're not going to get any action. If you want to find a mate you're going to have to make yourself attractive to here. Female desire has to be taken account of.
@Dalrock
But they aren't interested in marriage, they are interested in hooking up.
Agree. But it needs to be recognised that even if women could be made to marry early their hypergamic instinct has to be taken into account by any man hoping to marry them.
Dalrock, I think that we need to separate the problems with the current sexual dynamics into two. Firstly, there are the problems affecting women, and secondly there are the problems affecting men.
I agree, that today's women have been corrupted in many ways. But what I'm also trying to say is that the modern young man has issues as well, at not all of these issues are as result of feminism. There also appears to be an independent corruption of masculinity as well.
It aids in them rationalizing that their choice to put hookups/college/career/travel before finding a husband isn't the problem.
Susan Walsh recently put up an interesting post which I would have thought would have gotten more comment in the manosphere. Basically, the author was lying about her sex positive feminism. Most women who sleep around do so because it is part of the expected social script. I'm not sure of the situation in the U.S. but here in Australia most of the girls I talk to want to get off the carousel after about 1-2 rides. Many feel however that unless they've clocked up a certain amount of sexual experience they'll be judged negatively.
You get the same thing happening in mothers groups. Each mother is miserable but they all lie to each other so that they wont be judged negatively by their peers. Most women, in my experience aren't very fond of the carousel.
However, now you appear to be saying that since women in general have chosen life paths which increase what they need from men to feel satisfied, men have an obligation to deliver it.
That's not what I'm saying. The instinct of hypergamy is only satisfied if a woman's mate is more competent than she is. A man has to be able to better lead, manage, organise, etc. otherwise her hypergamic instinct is frustrated. It's not a choice.
No man is obligated to be more competent than his wife. But if he isn't, then it should be no surprise that she feels cold towards him. This is the problem of hypergamy. Legislating his "headship" in no way solves this problem. If you want a wife to be satisfied with her mate he must be able to satisfy her instinctual hypergamous desire.
@Dalrock
The other area I think we disagree is you assert that feminism hasn't been about tilting the playing field but leveling it.
Nope, that's not what I'm saying either. Feminism is batshit crazy but Traditionalism is pig-headedly ignorant. Traditionalism is not the solution to Feminism; it's its breeding ground. The problem with traditionalism is that it refused to acknowledge that the social structure it upheld was profoundly unfair towards women. Traditionalism, being so hidebound to the past was unable to formulate a solution which was fair to women. As a result, women gave feminism a sympathetic ear.
Delaying marriage and childbirth to focus on feminist goals has dramatically reduced the birthrate for the middle class.
Feminism has contributed but hedonistic materialism is the greater solvent.
@asdf
But he's alpha enough to have finished an education and gotten a decent paying jobBut he's alpha enough to have finished an education and gotten a decent paying job
Having a good work ethic does not make a man alpha. (at least in the sexual sense.)
@Joseph
Yes, the men coming out are of less quality than in the past, but what incentive do they have to get better?
You don't do it for the pussy. The men who would respond to incentive based masculinity are same ones who would become metro-sexual if it paid. They're not men at all. Are you a patriot for profit or do you love your country? Would you go homo for a price. That's the thing about masculinty; a man does what a man's gotta do: Regardless of the price.
"The problem with traditionalism is that it refused to acknowledge that the social structure it upheld was profoundly unfair towards women."
What?
Höllenhund
@Dr Jeremy
Men have not had the same education or social experience - as Dalrock's and Desi's long comments above explain. Men are being actively de-motivated, dis-empowered, and psychologically crushed.,
The players don't seem to be crushed. In the sexual free market (as opposed to the previously regulated market) it's the betas who are crushed. The PUA crowd seem to have no problem navigating the sexual market. What makes them immune to the modern dis-empowerment script?
But I'm talking about something more fundamental here. It's about having "your shit together". I mean, a man can be poor and unemployed, but why would he choose to live like a slob? Why can't he manage his bills? Or simple tasks? When people offer him the elixer of Game to help with his dating woes, why does he refuse it? So many men seem to be disinterested even in areas of their life unaffected by feminism.
You know, lots of men have hated being called up for military service, but nearly all of them that I have met have felt "that it made a man out of them". It instilled self-discipline and self-reliance into them. Perhaps you are right that there are not enough role models.
Whatever the cause, and I don't think that feminism is the main culprit here, the average man does not seem to have his "shit together."
That is power, control, and leadership. That gets women...and so much more
I'm beginning to think that masculinity needs to defined on a Briggs-Meyer type of instrument. With one axis for sexiness, another for work ethic, another for courage and so on.
"The players don't seem to be crushed."
They are massively demotivated, much more than Blue Pill alphas. Read the testimony of any PUA, even those who openly oppose and smear MRAs. What all of them agree on is that none of them want to sign up for Marriage 2.0, have children or do hard work for the "common good". They usually say they love women and all that, but that somehow doesn't make them commit to one, or even invest as much as fifty bucks into one. That's hardly a coincidence. If that's not demotivation, I don't know what is.
Höllenhund
Correction: blue pill betas
Höllenhund
@ Hollenhund
Caroline Norton.
Coverture.
How is that unfair? Marriage 1.0 was based on reciprocity and cooperation. The husband was obligated to assume responsibility for, and protection of, his wife and children, whereas the wife was obligated to submit to the headship of the husband, plus both of them had an obligation to lifelong monogamy. It was not a bit more fair to the husband than to the wife. It's not one bit less fair than Marriage 2.0, which is nothing but a farce.
Höllenhund
Social Pathologist,
1) Why would Cary Grant, who is way out of this girls league, want to commit to this girl?
2) You've basically ignored everything else. So I will restate my thesis one last time.
Women's sexual desires are not "good" without religion and tradition to guide them. Yes, strength, intelligence, good looks, etc are all positive traits. But what makes them "good" is how we use them.
If I use my intelligence to rip people off (wall street) that is not good. If I use my strength to brutalize others that is not good. If I use my charisma to manipulate and take advantage of that is not good.
Women aren't concerned with whether a man is good or not. Only that he is strong. I'd take it a step further, they would actually prefer he was psychopathic and actively evil, since it increases his chances of natural selection.
Men conceive of morals and men act morally. Women can't conceive of morals, they can only at best follow a man that acts morally.
Traditionalism was about making sure women's desires for psychopaths was suppressed and instead good men got wives. This was done because it led to functional societies.
We know what women want. It is all over premium cable targeted at women. They want anti-heroes. Wall Street scam artists. Crooked politicians. Meth dealing murders. Sparkly vampires that kill people.
A woman's idea of the perfect society is one in which all men would enter into a gladiatorial fight and slaughter each other until one champion of all the other men emerged victorious and they made love to his blood soaked body.
You think this is an exaggeration? Female targeted cable programming my friend. Episode 9 of Spartacus on Starz has Glaber, the brutal Roman corporal, soaked in the blood of a girls slit throat immediately begins fucking his wife on screen.
http://odstatic.com/todoseries.com/spartacus-28.jpg
Now that is hot!
That is what women want. That is the kind of society you are asking for when you tell men its their job to be sexy. The sexiest thing in the world is evil.
Cigstache isn't a zero, she has a lot of qualities that are desirable, if you could just look past her appearance, but you can't. Yet, you constantly expect women to be able to do the same thing, and see the heart of gold under undesirable exteriors. Let's face it, we're all shallow creatures, and this attitude has been largely helped along by the hedonistic material culture around us, that has basically turned people into commodities. I'm pretty sure each and every one of you could think of a woman who would agree to be with you, and would probably make a good wife, but you're just not attracted to her at all. We all want someone who is physically desirable (which is pretty universal), and those who are physically desirable don't want to be with people who aren't, and that's just how it is. If women who you think you're better than aren't attracted to you, that just means that you're rating yourself too high. Perhaps you should get a grip on reality and stop having such high expectations.
"Whilst I agree that the world has become progressively populated with feminist harridans, it has also become more populated with less masculine men."
You're all over the place, aren't you.
@Anon
You're all over the place, aren't you.
I'm all over the place because the problems are all over the place.
@Anon@5:58
If women who you think you're better than aren't attracted to you, that just means that you're rating yourself too high. Perhaps you should get a grip on reality and stop having such high expectations.
I think quite a few men in the manosphere overestimate their attractiveness. Commentator stilcode, for all his self-confessed awkwardness, was still able to get attention from women he considered his SMV inferiors.
I typically aimed for the women at what I thought to be my SMP value (6) but the only positive responses I got were from women who were 2, 3 or 4s. I began to question myself on whether I was really a 2, 3 or 4.
Was he too picky in rejecting them?
The problem here isn't his ability to land a mate, the problem here was in his ability to land a mate with an SMV that he wanted.
@ Social Pathologist
Regarding your statement:
The players don't seem to be crushed. In the sexual free market (as opposed to the previously regulated market) it's the betas who are crushed. The PUA crowd seem to have no problem navigating the sexual market. What makes them immune to the modern dis-empowerment script?
The PUA are still crushed. Appeasing a woman to get her to spread her legs is not the same as being empowered to create the love life (or regular life) you want. These guys are still often submissive to women. They are still looking for female approval (through sexual validation). They still go to jail if women calls false rape. Many of their lives, from what I know, are in various stages of disarray. Even many of the guys who have taken the "elixir of game", as you say, still don't have their "shit together". They have esteem issues, need validation, etc. They are still dis-empowered and don't feel great...but they are making the best of a bad situation. Or, they are angry and malignant, looking for revenge by going against the oppressive script. None of that is true power though.
Thus, game and MGTOW are faux-power that make men feel better and forget they are disenfranchised. But, they are still appeasing women, or running from them, rather than leading them. That is why few PUAs and Gamers have successful relationships. They don't have the power to make them happen. They literally lose their legal and economic power once they slip a ring on a woman...and they don't have much to begin with. So, game is an illusion, because it still doesn't give men "everything" they want. It doesn't allow them to "wisely impose their will". The sex just keeps them nicely sedated as the rest of their rights are taken away by women and the state.
Again, I am not bashing these guys - at least PUAs and MGTOW are trying. But, they don't exactly have power either. They are just making the best of their lowered social status by learning how to find scraps more efficiently and make sure women don't punish them. They are not "in charge". They have not found the answer, just another layer of social control. It just beats being sexually deprived, or divorce-raped. Nevertheless, it is still crushed and dis-empowered.
@ Social Pathologist
Regarding your statement:
I mean, a man can be poor and unemployed, but why would he choose to live like a slob? Why can't he manage his bills? Or simple tasks? When people offer him the elixer of Game to help with his dating woes, why does he refuse it? So many men seem to be disinterested even in areas of their life unaffected by feminism.
All of these areas are affected by feminism and social change for men. Historically, men learned to take care of these life tasks to get women and have a family. That was the motivation to grow up and man up. They were socially incentivized to not live like a slob because it got women. Now, thanks to feminism, it doesn't. So, many men see no reason to do these things. If working hard and buying a house will not result in a pretty, faithful, considerate, and feminine wife -most guys opt out.
In fact, feminism has made this scenario punishing...not just unrewarding...due to no-fault divorce, family court stuff, etc. Marriage is a bad deal for most men. It is bad, because men do not have the POWER to assure fair and equal outcomes for themselves. It is also bad because feminism has encouraged women to be more masculine, less feminine, and not very pleasing to men. Therefore, with the "costs" high, and the "rewards" low, most men don't see the incentive to live a good life for a woman.
Now, the other source of motivation for these life tasks would be for the man to care about HIMSELF. But, men have never been taught to care about themselves or have self-esteem. They are stuck on the women, again due to feminist propaganda. Women are soooo important and must be appeased and deferred to.
So, men either game to appease women for a lay, or run away. They never consider self-esteem and self-development, simply to have power for their own needs. They have been taught that all validation and worth comes from women...not themselves. It is a handy strategy to keep them subservient and controlled. In essence, all men have low self-esteem because feminist propaganda told them they suck (and every sitcom or romcom). So, they have no motivation to care for themselves either.
That may not be all feminism - we might need to include socialism, liberalism, etc. Heck, we might even need to fold consumerism in there too. In the end though, men have been taught to defer to women AND to not care about themselves. So, until they are trained and educated otherwise, they will continue to be slobs...whether they are gamers or not. They will continue to be socially dis-empowered and crushed, with their legal and economic rights being taken from them, regardless of how "red pill" they are.
Ultimately, then men do need discipline and self-reliance. They do need to "get their shit together". But, that should be motivated by desire to be powerful and worthwhile for themselves - not to appease women. It should be to take the life they want. In fact, in relationships, the goal is to amass power to take women out of the dominant position and put them back in check as equal partners. THEN, men can have good lives, good jobs, nice families...and the kind of wives they desire, because they will once again have the power to ENFORCE those arrangements for the benefit of all.
That is the full red pill. Men as actual, powerful, leaders of themselves and women... That takes others teaching men to have self-esteem, self-respect, and develop real masculine power though. Rather than shaming them into being good for women, just chasing skirts for sexual validation, or opting out.
"Again, I am not bashing these guys - at least PUAs and MGTOW are trying. But, they don't exactly have power either. They are just making the best of their lowered social status by learning how to find scraps more efficiently and make sure women don't punish them. They are not "in charge". They have not found the answer, just another layer of social control. It just beats being sexually deprived, or divorce-raped. Nevertheless, it is still crushed and dis-empowered."
Preach is brother. If Slumlord thinks learning game is a great path to a wife or a better society he's crazy. For the most part it just helps you fuck sluts. And they are all sluts these days.
"It should be to take the life they want."
The life most men want is to have children and raise them. But last I checked the women hold all the cards in those areas.
@ ASDF
Regarding your comment
The life most men want is to have children and raise them. But last I checked the women hold all the cards in those areas.
Thank you. That is my point as well. Most guys want families. But, they are not willing to be subjugated and enslaved to get them. So, some opt out and others go PUA. At least, if they are not "blue pill" and go blindly to the shackles.
Therefore, the true solution is male empowerment. Men need to learn to gather personal power, not to appease women, but to keep them honest with equal influence. Men need power to ensure that the women trade fairly with them. In essence, men need to become leaders again, not followers of women. Then, they can ensure loving and satisfying relationships for BOTH themselves and their mates. That involves power, influence, and persuasion for agreement, buy-in, and compliance...not just game for attraction.
Similarly, true male empowerment goes beyond MGTOW avoidance and current MRA consciousness-raising. It requires real action and appeals to protect men's rights in society. Let's face it... A man can have all the individual power in the world, but he has nothing if one call to the cops, or one no-fault divorce can rip it all away.
But, men do need to "get their shit together" and amass individual power, before they can begin to change the social order back to equal. That may require a bit of MGTOW to rest and regroup. It may require a bit of PUA to scratch the itch. BUT, the real and final focus is developing power and leadership - on an individual and social level - for the benefit of men's lives. A bit of sex is just the byproduct of power, not the objective.
As for morality...that is the piece that tempers the use of power. Men need morality and virtue. But, such sentiments alone are "blue pill" and subjugating without power. Being able to dominate a woman, but choosing to trade with her like an equal instead, is moral (and chivalrous). Bowing to her and barring your neck is weak and stupid.
So, the task of men is to amass power and attain leadership. Then, for the benefit of all, be benevolent and moral in that leadership. That ensures equal and fair relationships. Oh...that happens to appease hypergamy too. Nice how that works out :)
"She doesn't want a Jersey Shore type of guy, more a Cary Grant type of man. A man with polish, charm and sex appeal. She's not after some thug luvin"
Proves my point. WOmen want the entire package, and are sorely disappointed if he doesn't measure up in every single way.
Cary Grant was an apex alpha. Good looking. Charming. Suave. Well-spoken. Wealthy. Famous. Lived a luxurious, comfortable life. The absolutely perfect man.
And the woman in your story wants that. She wants it all. He has to satisfy absolutely every single one of her criteria. He has to be perfect in every way, or she rejects him. She's just looking to find something wrong with him, looking for any and every reason to reject an otherwise decent man.
asdf is right. What makes your friend think she is entitled to such a man? What makes your friend think such a man would want her?
deti
Dr. Jeremy:
Your advocation that men attain power and influence are good, but what you're overlooking is that they are paper tigers. They're useless when those things can be taken away at any time.
Consider the man who attains power and influence in his job and career. If by some reversal of fortune he loses them, his woman will lose attraction for him, and leave him.
Or the man who is good looking. If he loses his pleasing appearance or gets fat, he's SOL.
Or the man with status. Take away the status he's worked for, his woman will be taken away too.
And what's more, his money, power, influence and status don't mean much when society doesn't back him up. What will happen there is that as men devise new strategies to get sex or relationships without legal marriages or commitments, the law will catch up to them and simply force men to commit in the form of money. Men will be forced and required to subsidize women and their poor choices.
We're already seeing this in attempts at "palimony" or women demanding support after breakups.
We see it in some men being cuckolded yet forced to support children who aren't theres.
We see it in men moving in with or marrying a single mom, then she divorces him and sues him to support her child by another man on the ground that he was supporting the child anyway and that obligation should continue.
continued below
deti
Part II
What we'll have in relationships is a form of mutually assured destruction. The combat dating will cool to a Cold War-style of relationships.
Men will continue with women attempting ever-new ways to put a Sword of Damocles over their heads. Women will have to live with low level dread in their relationships, ever uncertain about his love or the level of his commitment. Women will have to live with the potential that their men will never take that last step of commitment, never fully give themselves to their women.
And married women will have to learn to live with their husbands simply threatening overtly to pull the trigger and, if necessary, destroy everything else in order to save themselves.
"What's he really doing?"
"Does he love me? He never says it."
"He's not wearing that thing I bought him."
"He stopped wearing his wedding ring."
"We've been together for three years and living together for 2 of those years. He doesn't want to get married, ever."
"He doesn't like telling me where he's been. He's really quiet about where the money is."
Cold War. Everyone armed to the teeth and with twitchy fingers always positioned at the nuclear button. Mexican standoffs. An uneasy peace enforceable only through knowing glances, veiled threats, and cryptic statements where no one is ever sure of anything or secure in anything. No one can be trusted, nobody can be counted on.
deti
"Therefore, the true solution is male empowerment. Men need to learn to gather personal power, not to appease women, but to keep them honest with equal influence. Men need power to ensure that the women trade fairly with them. In essence, men need to become leaders again, not followers of women."
This is a nice sentiment, Dr. Jeremy, but I do not think it will work in practice. The fact is that most men simply do not have the innate ability to make themselves powerful.
Besides, if men have to make themselves more powerful in order to acquire the loving attention of women, this can have disastrous unintended consequences. For example, I think that the financial crisis can be interpreted as an outgrowth of feminism. Male financial industry hustlers took reckless chances with large sums of money in order to vastly increase their wealth and make themselves more appealing to women. Individual men ruthlessly pursuing power does not make for a well ordered society.
It should also be noted that a society in which men have to become powerful to attain female attention is, by definition, a polygamous society. Polygamous societies have generally not been very successful. They usually have a handful of rich people and large numbers of poor, often violent, people. As a whole, these societies are not very powerful or influential.
The most successful civilizations, including western civilization before feminism, are those which strictly enforce monogamy and severly punish infidelity [but especially female infidelity]. Strictly enforced monogamy encourages men to become more productive and to provide for their families. Regrettably, it requires what feminists would regard as the "suppression" of women. This is unfortunate, but I think it is the only realistic alternative to the present state of affairs.
Calling on men to become "more powerful" is at best unrealistic and, at worst, destructive.
@ Deti,
Regarding your comment
Your advocation that men attain power and influence are good, but what you're overlooking is that they are paper tigers. They're useless when those things can be taken away at any time.
Attaining power and influence is simply the first step. Using it to influence social change is the second. Power is nothing, if it cannot be held.
So, you are right for now. Men have a difficult time holding the power and value they do obtain. Women have created a system to strip them of their power in all the ways that you illustrate. So, some men give up. But, is that the only way?
Personally, I don't think so. I think men can attain power and then learn to work the system to keep it. All of these laws and systems you identify need to be reworked. But, until men understand that this is indeed a power dynamic and work to attain some (perhaps initially transient) power, there is no hope of them turning the tide.
That is why I'm saying there is something BEYOND MGTOW and PUA. Yes, learn to be charismatic and influential to get a lay or two. Yes, stay away from marriage, so that you don't get fleeced. But, look beyond that to activism and social change with the influence and resources you are learning. Figure out how to strip down these unfair laws and prevent other dis-empowering situations from forming. Change the social structure, so male power isn't threatened.
There are a lot of very smart men in the Manosphere. They see these problems. They find ways around them, or to get laid despite them. But, few if any are talking about truly mobilizing and fixing them.
Eventually, all men have to make a choice. Continue to try to scratch by and let women continue to dictate the ever-more-limiting conditions. Or, try to amass personal power and use it to equalize the situation - at home and in society.
Yes, I can see how that could be considered a cold war scenario. But, we are heading toward male subservience and slavery now. In my opinion, a cold war stalemate - resulting in equal trade - is better than complete submission and oppression. Sure, I would certainly prefer a situation of mutual love, respect, and gratitude - but that scenario seems unlikely to return (if it ever really existed). So, a balance brought about by equal power is about the best alternative that I see right now. In fact, what I have seen of love, respect, and gratitude...is that it come from trade among EQUALS anyway. So, perhaps they are merely side effects of a power-balanced trade anyway, not the cause of it.
"Ah yes, the Traditionalist Ascetic Heresy. What is sexual is evil. Beauty has an intrinsic sexual component to it and modesty was supposed to regulate not kill it. The female form came from the mind of God. He designed breasts and buttocks."
SP, the Catholic Church [including St. Paul, a statue of whom you surprisingly display on your main page] has always taught that over indulgence in food and sex is sinful. Paul consistently taught that in order to be worthy of God's Kingdom, people have to rise above their base animal instincts and live in the spirit, not the flesh.
The only Christians who think that the denial of the flesh is heresy are Protestants.
@ Anonymous,
Perhaps I am not making myself clear. Power, after all, is a word loaded with a lot of meaning. Most of it is negative, which is a nice social control way of keeping people from even wanting it.
To be clear, I'm not talking about wall street tycoons. I'm not even talking about being rich, beautiful, or a genius. I'm talking about the average guy having enough presence, authority, and persuasiveness to get his wife or girlfriend to do what HE wants half the time. If laws were equal and she didn't have total control, that would be easy. Because the deck is stacked against him, he needs to do a bit more. Guys also need to mobilize socially to get these laws overturned.
Nevertheless, to have some power just requires a bit of self-esteem. It means not taking any shit from others and having good boundaries. It means not kissing ass and letting a woman walk all over you. It also means, for now, not putting yourself in any dis-empowering situations (like marriage). No corporate-raiding necessary there.
The idea that women only bow to geniuses, psychopaths, and billionaires is wrong. Women bow to whichever man has the character and force of will to get her to comply. Instead, however, the average guys are running around, looking to be "worthy of love".
If they switched focus, even a garbage man focusing on personal power and compliance would have far fewer headaches in his relationships. He might not get a "10", but he would get a girl of his caliber...without the B.S. If he further lent his voice to getting the current, one-sided laws changed, his lot would be even better.
Women's liberation, if not the most extreme then certainly the most influencial neo-Marxist movement in America, has done to the American home what communism did to the Russian economy, and most of the ruin is irreversible. By defining relations between men and women in terms of power and competition instead of reciprocity and cooperation, the movement tore apart the most basic and fragile contract in human society, the unit from which all other social institutions draw their strength - Dr. Ruth Wisse, 1997
Beware those who think in terms of "empowerment" and "disempowerment", who interpret all social interaction as a power struggle. This is nothing but the run-of-the-mill Marxism that has ruined Western societies.
Women can have the gender war they want. I'm not signing up for it, thank you very much. They can wallow in anger and die together with their beta provider state they voted into existence.
Höllenhund
@ Höllenhund
Thank you for the quote. Perhaps I have inadvertently bought into the prevailing frame a bit too much. The re-focus will be helpful, particularly because my leanings are far more capitalist and libertarian than marxist. My goal is also to find equilibrium and fairness. So, perhaps a paradigm shift is warranted.
Nevertheless, that doesn't change my hope. Why give up? Why disengage? Why not try to work toward reciprocity and cooperation by some other means, if that is the answer?
Dr. Jeremy:
"Why give up? Why disengage? Why not try to work toward reciprocity and cooperation by some other means, if that is the answer?"
Because for a lot of men, a woman, a wife, a family, isn't worth the risk of losing them and losing everything you've worked for.
I am a married man, 16 years. I have a son who I will strongly encourage not to marry, exactly for this reason. Yes, he can marry. But is the risk worth it? She can walk away anytime she wants and take half his income and keep his children from him.
The men who can attract women, will do so. The men who cannot will mostly GTOW.
deti
Deti,
I can already here slumlord's counter, so let me jump ahead.
When I was on a white water trip awhile back I was with a guy who was a professional NASCAR racer. He remarked that he was more afraid of the rapids then driving. This I found somewhat surprising for while both are dangerous the driving is objectively much more dangerous. He remarked that while that was true when he was driving, "my hands are on the wheel, I'm in control. In the raft I'm at the guides mercy."
Men will do all sorts of incredibly difficult and dangerous things, including for women. But only if they feel like they are masters of their own fate. Only if they feel that success or failure, no matter how bad the odds, are in their control to some extent.
What makes modern marriage so debilitating is that you aren't in control. Learning game, increasing status, what have you may reduce the chance that your woman will choose against you, but at the end of the day its her choice. No matter what you do it is out of your control.
Marty Nemko observed the change in men's attitudes too.
"I've been a career counselor for 26 years. When I began, my clients of both sexes were equally optimistic about their future. Now, girls and women continue to feel the world is their oyster but the boys and men, from the teenagers to the boomers, are ever more scared, angry, and/or depresssed. "
http://www.martynemko.com/article-topics/mens-issues
"there is a degree of legitimacy to the claim that there is a dearth of good men."
Indeed.
"Women are having a lot of fun these days laughing at the dumb, inarticulate, clumsy men they are finding on college campuses. The situation has grown more noticeable in recent times as colleges and universities tinker around with “affirmative action” for males in their admission practices. According to numerous news articles over the past four or five years, college women hate the idea of “affirmative action” programs that admit sub-par males to campus (at the expense of more women on campus),.."
http://invincibleprobity.wordpress.com/2011/03/28/why-are-american-men-so-dumb/
and
http://invincibleprobity.wordpress.com/2011/03/28/americas-greatest-social-shame/
"Caroline Norton.
Coverture."
So one woman being uncomfortable with the laws of the time, which were deemed to be "unfair". And what exactly did her efforts result in?
"As a successful lady litigant (May, 1896) remarked to her husband, "There is no law which compels me to obey or honour you, but there is a law that you must keep me." "
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Legal_Subjection_of_Men#Matrimonial_Privileges_Of_Women.
"Under the married women property act a husband has no jurisdiction over his wife’s property and income. Under the income tax he is responsible for her taxes. If the taxes are not paid, the husband, not the wife, is imprisoned. Mrs. Wilks refused to pay her income taxes–$185–and her husband was locked up. He will spend the rest of his life in prison unless the wife pays or the laws are changed."
http://unmaskingfeminism.wordpress.com/2011/01/16/sends-husband-to-jail-to-aid-suffrage-cause/
Mrs Norton did the same!
"In 1836, Caroline left her husband.[1][18] Caroline managed to subsist on her earnings as an author, but Norton claimed these as his own, arguing successfully in court that, as her husband, Caroline's earnings were legally his.[1][19] Paid nothing by her husband, her earnings confiscated, Caroline used the law to her own advantage.[20] Running up bills in her husband's name, Caroline told the creditors when they came to collect, that if they wished to be paid, they could sue her husband."
Quite an unfairness! Other social justice results of Mrs Norton:
"Often we identify the introduction of No-Fault Divorce laws in the 1970’s as the beginning of the divorce epidemic. As I pointed out in Part I of this series, this is not entirely accurate. The divorce craze actually began back in the 1860’s and 1870’s when the Suffragettes undermined father-custody with the Tender Year’s Doctrine and mother-custody became the norm, thus voiding one of the core tenets of marriage in the first place - which was bringing men into the reproduction process in a meaningful way so that their higher provisioning abilities could be utilized for the greater good of both families and society.
http://no-maam.blogspot.in/2012/07/the-marxist-dialectic-of-family-part-ii.html
Rob generally channels the book, The Case for Father Custody, a better work than the Garbage Generation.
And what Marty Nemko speaks of isn't exactly a new thing:
https://unmaskingfeminism.wordpress.com/2012/08/12/woman-have-quietly-snitched-from-man-his-really-human-qualities/
@Anon
he only Christians who think that the denial of the flesh is heresy are Protestants.
Nope, there is a strong strain of asceticism in Catholicism. JPII's Theology of the body was an attempt to affirm the goodness of the flesh. Even Benedict, in Deus Caritas Est, acknowledges that the ascetic element gained way too much influence.
You might find this post helpful.
@Deti
And the woman in your story wants that. She wants it all.
No. She. Doesn't.
asdf was implying she wanted some variant of thug luvin, whereas her tastes were for a more civilised man.
She would quite happily settle for less than Cary Grant, the unfortunate problem is that most of her potential suitors are dweebs. Sure they might be gainfully employed dweebs but they are dweebs none the less.
I don't blame her for having a minimum threshold (which is not unrealistic by the way) but to the make the assertion that she would settle for nothing but the best is plain bullshit.
No, her unfortunate problem is that she's not even on the same MMV level as some "lesser" Cary Grant. She's incapable of securing commitment from some lesser Cary Grant.
Höllenhund
@Hollenhund
No, her unfortunate problem is that she's not even on the same MMV level as some "lesser" Cary Grant.
Not only is she attractive, but she is gracious as well. She is also a woman who personally suffered as a consequence of her faith. I'm no white knight, but basically your assertions with regard to this lady are plain false.
She will make a wonderful and faithful wife for some man.
How do you know? Have you lived with her? Have you seen her at her worst?
Höllenhund
@Dr Jeremy
These guys are still often submissive to women.
I disagree. As hedonists, they're doing what it takes to get sex from women. They've recognised what appeals to female instinct and catered to it. It's the woman, when dumped by the alpha, that grieves the most. These men see women as an exploitative resource and proceed to exploit them. Saying that they are submissive to women by catering to their instincts is like saying you're being submissive in eating when catering for hunger.
I've thought about your comments for past few days and I'll agree that a lot of men seem to be motivated by incentive. Their masculinity has price. (i.e they will only be men if the price is right). I suppose I come from the school of honour. Where there are certain things that you do (or don't) because they become a man. To me it's not about the pursuit of power for itself but in being a man.
( I can't put it any more succinctly than this)
Marriage is a bad deal for most men.
I don't think marriage is such a bad deal as divorce. Those guys who do marry do reasonably well along a whole bunch of parameters. It's divorce that screws men over. NOTE, I AGREE THAT THE DIVORCE LAWS ARE UNJUST. (The capitals are for the retarded.)
That is why few PUAs and Gamers have successful relationships.
PUA's fail in their relationships because a relationships need to be satisfied amongst many parameters. PUA's optimise for one, beta's for another. My father used to say to me, that what a woman wants is a man in company, a friend in the house and a lover in bed.
Respectfully, I think the power based approach hinders rather than helps the analysis. I tend to look at relationship along "need satisfaction" lines. A man needs to have qualities which satisfy a woman and a woman needs to have qualities which satisfy a man.
The problem that I have with the MRA's and MGTOW is that they don't see that they are deficient in qualities, thinking that they are good men which have been passed over by over demanding women. The unrestricted sexual market means that women are free to choose. Sure, many choose badly and get abused, but for many of them it is preferable to a relationship with a beta. (I'm sorry but that is reality and a conservative begins with an understanding and acceptance of reality.)
Slumlord,
So let's consider the traits you believe this women deserves.
1) Has a good career with high earnings/status (most definately more then she makes, which even if she has median earnings exludes the bottom 50% of men automatically).
2) Is handsome/ripped. After all, anything less would make him a dweeb. No skinny dudes.
3) Is charismatic and socially dominant.
So what your proposing is that this girl deserves a charming upper middle class man. Sounds like top 10% to me.
Let's look at the woman:
M: Do you work?
P: Yes, I do. I work as (uncredentialed clerical work)
So she's a secretary. She doesn't have a career, and not because she gave up a career to get married. She is likely just like any other prole girl.
M: Are you intimate with your partner?
P: No, and that's weird, because I've always had a high sex drive.
Read: I'm a slut with a high N count that thinks with my vagina (yes, from your other description I can tell I've met this girl many a time).
She was clearly a naturally intelligent aspirational woman who was tough
Exactely where does this "read" come from. She's a secretary with no life accomplishments. If she were a man you'ld be calling her a loser.
M: It looks like your relationship is in serious trouble, why are you staying?
P: Guilt.
Guilt = Tingles
Dr Jeremy.
But, few if any are talking about truly mobilizing and fixing them.
I don't say this lightly, but Game is going to be a transformative force in Western Society. It. Will. Destroy. Feminism.
The way the knowledge of Game is spreading through chat forums, blogs, etc. is the ideal mode of transmission. Concentrate the leadership through some official body and it becomes a target, diffuse it through cyberspace and locker rooms and it is impossible to stop.
The other great aspect of the Game phenomenon is that it seems to have fostered a new breed of conservative thinker. The media can't choke him because they don't control the internet. And because he doesn't need to be formally qualified ideas come from anywhere and everywhere. Sure a lot of them a crazy but over time the good ideas persist and the bad ones wither. The ideas of the manosphere, and conservatism are being spread under the radar. This is an exiting time and things are progressing perfectly well.
@Denizenofgoo
Norton exploited the husband that was exploiting her. Norton's case was a cause celebre because it highlighted a growing problem of the times. As a Catholic, divorce is off the cards for me, but a woman does not become a chattel once she becomes married. She has Good God! A woman is a living breathing being, with identity, the helpmeet of man, made in his image. Not his slave nor servant.
Norton tried to be reasonable with her husband but he was a prick. His bad behaviour precipitated the breakup. (Oh that's right, men are NEVER responsible for marital break ups!)What would you do in such a circumstance? Even St Paul says part company if the relationship is that bad.
This is the whole problem with western thinking on the subject of women rights. The traditionalists think women are chattel goods and the feminists think that they are men. Third way approaches are needed. Start here.
@asdf
Sounds like top 10% to me.
She is in the top 2% of Christian women. She can choose.
"How do you know? Have you lived with her? Have you seen her at her worst?
"
That's rich coming from you! What the hell would you yourself, know Hollenhund? Yet, you presume much.
All that you know comes from what you have read. SP on the other hand, is happily married with kids. He's a doctor who interacts with all kinds of people every day.
What are your real life credentials?
TBH you lost me way back when, (on TC) you opined that all women were amoral.
The clincher was how you waxed lyrical about Otto Weininger as if at age 23 he was some sort of oracle who knew the true and awful nature of women.
In reality he was just a misfit who lived in isolation with his books and his batshit crazy notions. .. continued.
"I've thought about your comments for past few days and I'll agree that a lot of men seem to be motivated by incentive. Their masculinity has price. (i.e they will only be men if the price is right). I suppose I come from the school of honour. Where there are certain things that you do (or don't) because they become a man. To me it's not about the pursuit of power for itself but in being a man.
( I can't put it any more succinctly than this)
"
How to reconcile being motivated by incentive and being motivate by honour.
It is not honourable to allow others to use/exploit you. Exploitation is determined by whether or not the incentive structures justly reward behaviour. Hence when they don't, men are being exploited, and hence the honourable thing is to refuse to submit to your exploitation.
He was a mysogynist.(But you say he was not.)
"He proclaims Woman to be nullity itself: incapable of reason, creativity, or spiritual aspiration; sexually insatiable (“under the spell of the phallus”); psychologically incoherent, desiring nothing more than her own subordination to man—“a hollow vessel covered for a while in makeup and whitewash.”
This man who had little to do with women and who commited suicide at 23!. No real life experience at all. Just, sadly, bitter and twisted
This man who had little to do with women and who commited suicide at 23!. No real life experience at all. Just, sadly, bitter and twisted.
And you use him as a reference for women's behaviour?
Slumlord,
She is in the top 2% of Christian women. She can choose.
If this is true you are proposing a truly unprecedented market inefficiency. Perhaps your own thinking is off rather then the market?
Slumlord:
Of your beautiful, gracious, Christian friend, you first say:
"She would quite happily settle for less than Cary Grant, the unfortunate problem is that most of her potential suitors are dweebs. Sure they might be gainfully employed dweebs but they are dweebs none the less.
"I don't blame her for having a minimum threshold (which is not unrealistic by the way) but to the make the assertion that she would settle for nothing but the best is plain bullshit."
Then you say:
"She is in the top 2% of Christian women. She can choose."
If your description is accurate, she is an apex Christian woman. Her hypergamy being what it is, she will want a man who is better than she is, or in the top 1% of Christian men. IOW, just what I said earlier: Nothing less than absolute perfection. Warren Buffett's money, Brad Pitt's body, George Clooney's charm, Ryan Lochte's body, Billy Graham's spirituality.
I don't think you're proposing she should marry down.
deti
slumlord:
What do you consider to be a dweeb? Are we talking about men who go to church with your friend? If so, I'm not surprised -- church isn't known for cultivating manly behavior, at least not in the US.
Are we talking about technonerds? Or Trekkies? Or scifi/fantasy readers? Or pantywaists?
deti
""he only Christians who think that the denial of the flesh is heresy are Protestants."
Nope, there is a strong strain of asceticism in Catholicism. JPII's Theology of the body was an attempt to affirm the goodness of the flesh. Even Benedict, in Deus Caritas Est, acknowledges that the ascetic element gained way too much influence."
SP, I don't disagree with you that JPII and BXVI have both expressed the view that eros is perfectly fine, natural and not sinful, so long as it occurs in the strict confines of a loving marriage. I don't have a problem with this teaching.
The problem I'm having is your apparent view that female hypergamy should be accommodated by using Game, even by Christian men.
The post you linked to contains some thoughtful comments by an anonymous Christian. In particular, he raised an issue of great concern and phrased it so brilliantly that I can do no better than quote him directly:
"Why can women not be taught to blame and hate the ugly as they ought? If humility, for instance, is 'unsexy', how can it be right to teach men to swagger like silverbacks instead of teaching women to be more than animals? I don't deny the validity of game, the 'importance' of alpha, etc., etc.; I just can't see how it can be good. At best it may 'save' marriages to women who should never have been touched in the first place, but at what cost?"
This is of fundamental importance and you did not really address the issue in the comments to said post. I go back to my original point: THE SEXY IS NOT THE GOOD. If women want sexy and not good, then to hell with them.
Game is not the answer. Educating girls properly so that they will value the good and not the sexy is the real answer. Managing female hypergamy is the key, not trying to get men to be sexier. This is ultimately why ancient and medieval societies universally considered female sexuality to be more dangerous than male sexuality. It needs to be controlled. The societies of the past understood human nature better than us moderns. We need to revive this ancient wisdom.
@ Social Pathologist
Your analysis has given me food for thought as well. So too has the reaction of many of your readers. Thank you all.
Respectfully, I think the power based approach hinders rather than helps the analysis. I tend to look at relationship along "need satisfaction" lines. A man needs to have qualities which satisfy a woman and a woman needs to have qualities which satisfy a man.
I agree that a power analysis is not the whole picture, or even the first step. My own blogging focuses more on fair trade for mutual need satisfaction in relationships. Having value to others. Establishing a fair trade. Following through...
Nevertheless, in my opinion, "possessing qualities that satisfy a need" is also the heart of "power and influence". If you are valuable and desirable, then you also have the power and leverage to dictate fair terms of trade, so both parties are satisfied. If you don't have anything to trade, however, you have no influence either. They are two sides to the same coin.
In a system where all trade fairly and no one cheats/exploits, we can talk about the satisfying qualities side only. A "good" man can find a "good" woman, and no one has to make sure the other is taking more than they are giving. No one has to be savvy, aware, or influential to "keep the other person honest". However, when men or women start talking about exploitation and mistreatment, the power side of the coin needs to be discussed.
To give some examples...
A beta provider has qualities that are satisfying to women. That is not the problem. The problem the manosphere has identified is that a woman may be likely to exploit him for those qualities (e.g. use him for dinners, cuckold, divorce rape, etc.), rather than trade fairly. So, he has to do more than just satisfy her needs. He needs to leverage his satisfying qualities, as a form of power and influence, to try to ensure fair trade. For example, perhaps he doesn't buy dinner UNTIL he gets a kiss (rather than buying dinner first and assuming gratitude). That is translating value into power.
Similarly, women who get pumped and dumped are attractive to men. If they were not, PUAs wouldn't go through elaborate gyrations to have sex with them. But, these women too assume a fair trade - rather than exploitation. Thus, it might be advisable for them to consider their attractiveness as influence, to ensure whatever fair outcomes they want too (orgasms, commitment, etc.).
Put simply, what I'm saying is that many of us are operating under the assumption of an "honor code", when everyone is not playing honorably. At least at face value, I see the complaints of the manosphere and "red pill" thinking as a realization that not all women play fair. Men, in turn, decide to not play fair...or not play at all.
I don't think "cheat or be cheated" are the best solutions. But, just being a "satisfying" man or woman in those potentially exploiting situations isn't enough either. That is where a power analysis is a helpful addition. It helps to look at those valuable qualities as more than just something you can GIVE to the other person, and see them as something you can USE to influence and ensure a fair deal too. That is where self-development and satisfaction end, and power and influence begin.
After all that, perhaps it is easier (and more palatable) to simply say:
1) Be as valuable as you can be,
2) Know your value,
3) Don't get manipulated into settling for less than you're worth,
4) And don't manipulate others either.
That is the essence of what being a powerful and influential person is about. Maybe getting into terms such as power are too loaded with other meanings, or too academic, though. Nevertheless, I hope I'm conveying the idea more clearly over time.
If readers have suggestions for words that would convey the concept better, I'm open to suggestion too...
This is the whole problem with western thinking on the subject of women rights. The traditionalists think women are chattel goods and the feminists think that they are men. Third way approaches are needed. Start here.
Isn't it better to *start* closer to the beginning? Any concept of Catholicism seems unintelligible without doing so. It is because so many "New Feminists" *begin* with Mulieris Dignitatem that their understanding of human nature comes across as very shallow.
@MDavid,
I think you miss the point. He isn't proposing that she is perfect, he is proposing that she has virtues as listed (at least hypothetically).
@Dalrock,
While it is true that you have argued not to settle, the tendency in comments threads aren't the same as the tendency in the posts. Consider on The Spear Head the comments on the recent post about daughters. They were _terrible_ even if the post was rational. There is a "see no evil" about men on the 'sphere that's pretty bad.
@Social Pathologist,
I fail to see it as "affirmative action" for men. In what way were women actively denied? There _were_ opportunities for advancement. Most of these, for rational reasons, precluded having children. Funny enough that hasn't really changed much. I think were you're argument falls down is with the affirmative action bit. Up until then I can agree with you.
My aim is to strengthen marriage, but the traditional restrictions did nothing to support the interparty dynamics within marriage. In fact, in many instances probably worked against it.
And here I strongly disagree as you assert but provide no evidence for the same. The traditional model had rights of passage for men, society imposed requirements for status, and social supports for their authority. This "forced" a certain manning up. I think you are looking at things from the wrong end of the tube.
Men who were cads were cads (our alphas). They weren't celebrated. Traditional strictures forced them out of town or otherwise outright punished them.
I'm also not sure I agree with your proposition that men want sex and not girlfriends. Such behavior would, outside of a harem, be problematic on an evolutionary basis. We like bonding AND sex. I imagine that's why the "soft harem" exists. Otherwise the argument would be solely for one night stands.
Women seem to be better providers than men are. I'm sorry, but the data suggests that in the U.S women are out-earning men. Self-education was typically American virtue. It seems that today's women have embraced the ethic more than the men have. I don't like it anymore than you do but you've got to stare reality in the face.
....
...
I don't see this. In every family (in the US no less!) that I know the husband produces more income than the women _except_ in those cases where the husband has been laid off.
As to education I think you grossly underestimate the problems with attaining it under the current structures. I didn't get my degree until late in life since I had a family to feed, was white, and male. This effectively meant there were no scholarships. Now, I was blessed with a useful talent and crossed the six figure line early because of it, but not everyone is so lucky.
That is precisely the problem. It's all too hard. To hard to groom, too hard to keep the house clean, too hard to study etc. Was it too hard to fight the Germans and Japanese? The "old skool" new it was hard but they did it.
I agree that we wimp out, but I also put forward that the old "traditional" system was better for everyone which this comment seems to imply is true and yet your OP (and other posts here) argues against.
The fact is women today are motivated, the men aren't.
And this is I think your key error. I argue that they are not motivated. Not in anyway that is biologically sensible. Europe, Japan, and the US are starting to see population declines. Women get the degrees and work to support...nothing. What are they motivated *for*? If you are going to invoke Aristotle then you have to realize that there has to be some end to their action that satisfies the effort. The current system has none.
Also, I think you grossly underestimate the corrosive influence of women in work organizations. I can accurately predict whether a given org is healthy by the proportion of women. The more they have the more likely you will be spending time in meeting and avoiding work.
@ALL,
On the term good. Social Pathologist rightly points out contra some here that being "sexy" is good. It is a perfection of form. We are made for sex in marriage and therefore we should aspire, at the very least, to being sexually attractive. Anything else is falling short and "evil".
Such attractiveness is not the sum of all good traits but it is one of many.
"On the term good. Social Pathologist rightly points out contra some here that being "sexy" is good. It is a perfection of form. We are made for sex in marriage and therefore we should aspire, at the very least, to being sexually attractive. Anything else is falling short and "evil"."
G.K.: Nothing could be further from the truth.
Christ told his listeners in the sermon on the mount that the meek shall inherit the earth [Matthew 5:5], not the sexy alpha males who can have any woman they like.
He also said that those who think themselves first [sexy alphas] will be last and the last [the meek omegas without game] first [Mark 10:31].
The problem is that many betas don't recognise that they are the male equivalent of Cigstache. Sure, they may posses many moral virtues and provider capability but what they lack is sex appeal.
And what this makes it so HARD for betas to recognize, is that they don't realize that for women, attraction is 2 dimensional -- looks and status (money, power, fame, etc).
Many beta men are actually NOT bad looking - they NOT the PHYSICAL equivalent of Cigstache, and so they are utterly mystified as to why they aren't found attractive. They've got all the personality and character traits women claim to be looking for; and they are physically normal, and indeed I knew several rather handsome guys who got a whole lot of rejection, so... what gives?
Status. That's the missing piece.
Game is not the answer. Educating girls properly so that they will value the good and not the sexy is the real answer.
First of all.... for a young man now in his 20s, reeducating the next generation doesn't help him. He can't wait another 20 years for that generation to grow up, he needs a wife NOW. If some of the honest aspects of Game help him, so be it.
Secondly... You really can't educate women OUT of wanting "sexy", any more than you can do this to men. If you convince either sex, or both, to disdain "sexy", you don't get better marriages, you get NO marriages. Even in arranged marriage cultures (such as that of one of my immigrant coworkers), the prospectives are allowed to meet first, and if they find the other party fundamentally unappealing, they have the right to back out.
The answer then, is not to educate women out of preferring "sexy", but tell the truth to MEN about what women ACTUALLY FIND sexy, so they know what to work on. Most romantic advice is misbegotten because it targets compatibility (communication skills, spiritual growth, etc) but ignores attraction -- and all the compatibility in the world will not get you a relationship without attraction. Hence.... Game.
@GK
I think you miss the point. He isn't proposing that she is perfect, he is proposing that she has virtues as listed (at least hypothetically).
There is fault in this, however, and it surprises me that SP doesn't see it as a Catholic. Our physical bodies (sometimes in greater ways, sometimes in lesser ways, but always in some way) serve as a sign of who we are inwardly. It is *possible* that the girl pictured has the virtues SP assigns to her, in the sense that it is not a logical impossibility. But the reality of the matter is written all over her appearance, which is that she lacks in the virtues SP would like to grant her. It is not just an otherwise dispassionate chemical reaction to an undesirable image that makes the thought of this girl herself undesirable to men; it is the undeniable understanding of her physical bearing telling us what reality is in spite of our being told to deny that reality.
This isn't just a theological quibble. It's very salient to the OP such that I think it causes SP's illustration to fail.
@Dr Jeremy.
I know what you're trying to say, but the term "power", I think, is inappropriate. I think you're better off simply saying that men need to regain their masculinity, since implicit in that term are the following:
1) A strong internal locus of control.
2) Persistence in the face of adversity
3) The ability to impose your will on events.
4) Dominant sexuality.
Power tends to frame things in structuralist terms i.e dominator/dominated. This tends to be the way of traditionalist societies where the husband is the "head" of the household and it is also, paradoxically, the way that feminists interpret marriage. i.e as a power structure. Emphasising the power aspect of character feeds both ideologies.
As I see it, men and women are complementary and a man or woman fails when do not cultivate their sexual polarity. The aim should be to strengthen masculinity and femininity instead of trying to be able to exert control on a relationship to ensure a fair trade.
I know I might be nit-picking but in these issues its important to get the concepts right.
partially satisfied. I don't see these women as victims.
@Van Rooinek
You're closer to the truth than many of commentators. Most women tend to assess a mate using a multiparametric model. Most of the processing however is done subconsciously. You don't have to be an Adonis or millionaire, but you need to be attractive enough in some way for a positive feeling to be generated by your presence. Charisma, charm, clothes, pre selection etc. The thing is though it's easier for men to raise their SMV than it is for women as men tend to be more evaluate women amongst fewer criteria. Beauty being the strongest factor and character a lot further down the list.
At the same time, I don't want to overstate my case. I agree with SP that there is a blind spot in the manosphere, at least among the rank and file in the comboxes. I don't see this phenomenon as very significant however, as society at large is content to remind men that they are largely losers, even if they might find a temporary refuge from this message in the manosphere.
Van Rooinek and Anon@1:04
Secondly... You really can't educate women OUT of wanting "sexy", any more than you can do this to men. If you convince either sex, or both, to disdain "sexy", you don't get better marriages, you get NO marriages. Even in arranged marriage cultures (such as that of one of my immigrant coworkers), the prospectives are allowed to meet first, and if they find the other party fundamentally unappealing, they have the right to back out.
The problem is, that for too many years the romantic ideals forwarded in western culture pretended that sexuality did not matter. The chivalrous knight was always though of as handsome rather than hot. This is an important distinction because this idea came about from ascetic Christianity which always emphasised the moral good rather than the physical good.
SP, I don't disagree with you that JPII and BXVI have both expressed the view that eros is perfectly fine, natural and not sinful, so long as it occurs in the strict confines of a loving marriage. I don't have a problem with this teaching.
The problem was that traditionalist Christianity attacked eros within marriage. Sexuality in marriage was always framed legalistically and viewed within the "conjugal rights" type of analysis. A husband or wife could sin against the marriage by failing to render the debt but there was never any analysis (as far as I'm aware) of sinning against the marriage by making yourself undesirable. The desire of the flesh, even within marriage, have always been highly suspect.
I think some of the smarter orthodox church leaders have seem to belatedly recognised this and seem to be affirming the goodness of our bodies, but it's too little too late. JPII's Theology of the Body, while in faulty in ways is a lurch in the right direction, but the damage has been done and the Temple will need to be rebuilt.
@GKC
Such attractiveness is not the sum of all good traits but it is one of many.
Correct.
In what way were women actively denied?
It depended on the country in question, but let's see;
The right to vote.
The right to own property
Entry into lots of professions.
Limitations on the right to eduction
Limitation on ability to enter into contracts
In some instances access to their own children in divorce.
Differential payment of wages. (Less money for the same work.)
Need I go on?
Look GKC, Traditionalist society was better than today's one in many ways but it had a hell of a lot of imperfections that needed to be improved on. Traditionalism's inability to improve upon these faults (or in many instances stubborn resistance) meant that that the radicals were the only ones proposing the solutions.
From my clinical experience, most women appreciate only some of the advances of feminism. Most women, at least in the bit of the world that I work in, regard radical feminism like they would regard radical Islam: a haven of fanatics. Even the feminists find that they are having greater difficulty gaining traction.
Women get the degrees and work to support...nothing. What are they motivated *for*?
Women are far more influenced by social factors than men are. Many are pursing careers thinking that it will make them happy. Most of them live in constant fear of being judged negatively by other women. The article Susan Walsh linked to is a classic example of this. Note, she was preaching the virtues of Sex Positive Feminism whilst actually not finding it distasteful. It was more important for her not to earn the opprobrium of Team Woman than it was to tell the truth.
Also, I think you grossly underestimate the corrosive influence of women in work organizations.
I've always found it very easy to work with women, but women find it very difficult to work with each other. We once had some staffing issues with the women constantly fighting with each other over trivial issues. We stopped the problem by putting a attractive man in the group. A hierarchy quickly established and the women all got on quite well after that.
@Buckyinky
I didn't understand your post. Are you saying my friend looks slutty?
Oops!
Note, she was preaching the virtues of Sex Positive Feminism whilst actually not finding it distasteful.
Double negative.
Should be
Note, she was preaching the virtues of Sex Positive Feminism whilst actually finding it distasteful.
"I think you're better off simply saying that men need to regain their masculinity, since implicit in that term are the following:"
1) Ok
2) Adversity of what though? What are your struggling against? If the answer is simply zero sum status competition then by definition that persistence must come at the surrender of another.
3) If I want event outcome X and you want event outcome Y then only one of us can impose our will. To the victor goes the harem and the loser nothing? Sounds like a formula for people do anything (even evil) to win.
4) If you slip up and do it in the wrong time or the wrong way you are open to all sorts of legal and social penalties. Even if she changes her mind ex-post.
@Kathy Farrelly
http://changingminds.org/disciplines/argument/fallacies/fallacies_alpha.htm
"It depended on the country in question, but let's see;
"The right to vote."
A few years difference or a few decades, and they got it without conscription. Even some women noted that. The resultant politics has devolved into a "War on Women".
"The right to own property"
Men fought for lands and wars(something that feminists want to change from his-story), married women's right to own property/wealth was one of the first steps on the road to making a mockery of marriage.
"Entry into lots of professions.
Limitations on the right to eduction"
and why shouldn't men deny them? What exactly is 'education'?
What's the point of educating women if they come up with shit like feminism and behave like total ingrates.
"Limitation on ability to enter into contracts"
Ms. Caroline Norton did so merrily using her husband's name.
"In some instances access to their own children in divorce."
While there was default father-custody, it was due to the fact that nobody wanted someone else's spawn on their hands. By father-custody, the man could be forced to provide for his own.
"{Differential payment of wages. (Less money for the same work.)"
Which exists in feminist imagination, 20 years of unchanging gender-ratio in wages after passage of Equal Pay Act in 1960s.
And before Warren Farrell came to his senses
Thomas Sowell lost his youth making the point, and yet the stupidity continues on in presidential race debate! The wonders of educating women and giving them vote never cease!
"Need I go on?"
Yeah you really need to. How about bringing up how the sexual revolution was for men and not women when it was women's attitudes and numbers that changed drastically?
It's like the manosphere never happened for you!
it's not like history doesn't provide us with examples of female liberation and their consequences.
Sir John Glubb on Arab and Roman Empire
What
difference is there between women ruling and rulers ruled by women?
-Aristotle on the women of Sparta
"He proclaims Woman to be nullity itself"
"This man who had little to do with women and who commited suicide at 23!. No real life experience at all. Just, sadly, bitter and twisted"
'Woman' is an archetype of femininity. His book sold quite well after his suicide(50 editions!), the earlier english translation wasn't quite upto the mark.
He called for emancipation of masculine women, I wonder he would do so now.
"The Feminist propaganda...rests upon a revolutionary biological principle. Substantially, the Feminists argue that there are no men and that there are no women; there are only sexual majorities. To put the matter less obscurely, the Feminists base themselves on Weininger's theory, according to which the male principle may be found in woman, and the female principle in man. It follows that they recognize no masculine or feminine "spheres", and that they propose to identify absolutely the conditions of the sexes."
Something that the review that you quote from notices too.
"Weininger’s misogyny is eccentric. His extremism leads him, at times, to sound rather like a radical feminist. "
A small discussion here
Kathy, you clearly know nothing about Weininger or philosophy in general, and you clearly know nothing about me, probably because I, unlike you, don't run around the interwebz bragging about my relatives being hot. And your idea that married fathers are better analysts of women's behavior and personality than single men is ludicrous. The most pathetic Blue Pill men have always been married men, and the men who have accurately assessed women have normally been single. Which is probably not a coincidence. Plus you clearly don't know how to reason. And if I "lost you" already, why did you comment to me here to begin with? You know well that I'm ignoring you and your tradcon ilk.
Höllenhund
Slumlord, did you actually cite JPII as a source? Really? We all know his views on women were massively biased due to his Blue Pill mentality and his complete obliviousness to women's destructive and amoral tendencies. He was a massive beta who contributed greatly to the feminization of the Church. Vatican II was enough of a disaster in itself, and he just made things worse.
Höllenhund
"I don't say this lightly, but Game is going to be a transformative force in Western Society. It. Will. Destroy. Feminism. The way the knowledge of Game is spreading through chat forums, blogs, etc. is the ideal mode of transmission. Concentrate the leadership through some official body and it becomes a target, diffuse it through cyberspace and locker rooms and it is impossible to stop."
The problem is that most men are not going to be arsed to game their wives (or even game their girlfriends). Some men will, and will enjoy it, but most won’t. It’s not only that it’s a “burden”, but that it’s one that only a smallish percentage of men are naturally suited for. Most Game advocates openly accept this as well as a fact: most men won’t be able to learn to implement Game. I think all guys can learn a thing or two from Game, but implementing Game is another story — that’s persona specific, and as such, can’t be the basis for a social stability formula the way universally applied laws/mores can.
My own prediction, therefore, is for a continuing trend of increased familial and relationship instability at most social levels rather than less.
dalrock.wordpress.com/2012/01/28/will-the-real-sheila-gregoire-please-stand-up/#comment-29778
continued below
Game, writ large, fuels matriarchy rather than undermining it. It does so by making women’s “needs” and “desires” the main focus of male behavior. There’s no way around that — it is what Game does. People are very right to point out that it is the male equivalent of makeup and heels, but what is missed in that comparison is the very real fact that, like makeup and heels, this is actually pandering to female desire in the same way that the feminists critiqued female pandering to male desire — and, and this is the critical point, in a way that men never needed to do historically because, as you say, historically it was “Game-by-default”. The need to pander, or cater, to women in this way is, in every way, a downgrade for men, without question. It places men in the same position women have always been in — pandering/catering to male desire. The fact that this may get some men what they want is immaterial — pandering to men’s desire has also gotten women what they have wanted, more or less, over the centuries, but it was still pandering. For men to need to pander in the same way is a definite downgrade to the old system, and is not something men should accept, as men, long-term as a social solution.
I certainly support the right of individual men to do as they please — learn Game, don’t learn Game, do whatever makes sense to you — it’s all good, really. That is where I differ from the anti-Game crowd. I also think it would be worth a shot for a bolshevik Game vanguard to do what TFH suggests, in a Leninist attempt to bring the system to a crash. I do not, however, support this notion of Game forming the basis for the new social order between men and women. That social order would be fundamentally unstable (because most men aren’t going to Game very well, so hypergamy will be largely unaffected) and would be built around the idea of men pandering to female desire — a downgrade for men in every way. It would be the realization of what Guy Garcia dubbed “The End of Men”, where he foresaw “men becoming the new women” and, in one vein, pandering to female desire.
dalrock.wordpress.com/2012/01/28/will-the-real-sheila-gregoire-please-stand-up/#comment-29783
Höllenhund
"I've always found it very easy to work with women, but women find it very difficult to work with each other."
The problem with women in the workplace is that they want the best of both worlds. They demand affirmative action quotas to make life easier for themselves, and then they expect to be respected as members of some meritocracy. They want the rules of male competition to apply to them when they have the advantage, but also want the option of resorting to feminine wiles and manipulation when they lack the advantage. They want the option to criminalize the advances of their unattractive co-workers while permitting the attractive co-workers to approach - hence the creation of the ludicrous and unfair legal term "unwanted sexual advance". No wonder workplaces are turning into shithole minefields for men.
Höllenhund
"I don't say this lightly, but Game is going to be a transformative force in Western Society. It. Will. Destroy. Feminism. The way the knowledge of Game is spreading through chat forums, blogs, etc. is the ideal mode of transmission. Concentrate the leadership through some official body and it becomes a target, diffuse it through cyberspace and locker rooms and it is impossible to stop."
The advantage of 'Game' is that it develops a Hobbesian/Darwinistic/competitive/hierarchical worldview in those who learn it, which is antithetical to a left-wing worldview, and it does so all under the guise of promising, and actually giving, men pussy.
You couldn't come up with a better method to get men to adopt your worldview. Weltanschauungskrieg at its best.
@SP
I didn't understand your post. Are you saying my friend looks slutty?
No, not my point. I know men are supposed to be good at compartmentalizing, but your illustration with Cigstache assumes that men have an absurdly disintegrated view of sexuality - i.e., that sex appeal has nothing to do with virtue. Your illustration functions as a red herring in this way.
Sex appeal is tied more to virtue than you appear to allow for. It is true for men, and perhaps even more so for women.
@Anonymous,
Christ told his listeners in the sermon on the mount that the meek shall inherit the earth [Matthew 5:5], not the sexy alpha males who can have any woman they like.
So are you saying only the non-sexy ones make are meek? That would be ridiculous. The comment as a whole shows a misunderstanding of what "good" is.
@Van R
Game is not the answer. Educating girls properly so that they will value the good and not the sexy is the real answer.
Missed this. I'd say that the above is half right. Educating girls to appreciate the proper status symbols (that is virtues) is the real answer. They can still see them as sexy and that's fine.
@Buckyincky,
Our physical bodies (sometimes in greater ways, sometimes in lesser ways, but always in some way) serve as a sign of who we are inwardly.
"As a sign" isn't quite right. They can, but it isn't necessarily true otherwise the kid with the genetic defect is showing a picture of his soul. Their body may not be "good" but it doesn't always mean that they have a character flaw.
Now I admit in the picture as shown that's probably true. But this was a rhetorical device.
The problem with women in the workplace is that they want the best of both worlds. They demand affirmative action quotas to make life easier for themselves, and then they expect to be respected as members of some meritocracy. They want the rules of male competition to apply to them when they have the advantage, but also want the option of resorting to feminine wiles and manipulation when they lack the advantage. They want the option to criminalize the advances of their unattractive co-workers while permitting the attractive co-workers to approach - hence the creation of the ludicrous and unfair legal term "unwanted sexual advance". No wonder workplaces are turning into shithole minefields for men.
That. It should be repeated. If I could compete with a woman and have a beer with her afterward like I can with _most_ men, that would be grand. It _does not_ work that way. And even if you insert the sexy man in the group he has to deal with an angry harem going after an upstart male.
@SP,
Look I agree with you a long way. We need a better understanding of ourselves. However, I've generally seen your war on tradition for the sake of eros as misguided. Those social constraints that you discount are likely there for a reason. Reasons we learned overtime as part of the "democracy of the dead". That is, they were _advances_ proposed by the traditionalists.
"Educating girls to appreciate the proper status symbols (that is virtues) is the real answer."
Yes, but we first need to acknolwedge the problem.
Natural selection is amoral. It only cares that you reproduce, not how. Often the best reproduction strategy is sin. That is why "bad boys" are appealing. Bad boy is a successful reproductive model.
So a girls *natural* sexiness drive can easily cause her to value status that comes from sin, espeically since sin is usually a great way to gain status. When you say educate understand the task you are taking on. You have to suppress and redirect the girls natural desires. You have to tell her that how she feels is wrong, and that it really is sinful to "follow her heart" in all cases.
I know this isn't necessarily groundbreaking from a Christian perspective, but given that Christianity is only applied to men these days it is. The modern Christian perspective is that women's sexual desires are pure and it's men that corrupt them. This is not the case. Women's unbridled sexual desire is impure. Moreso in my opinion. Men may be guilty of a constant low level lust, but it's women that completely lose themselves in their less often but much more intense lust.
@GK
"As a sign" isn't quite right. They can, but it isn't necessarily true otherwise the kid with the genetic defect is showing a picture of his soul. Their body may not be "good" but it doesn't always mean that they have a character flaw.
Good clarification - it isn't strictly true in every circumstance. Our bodies, as part of the physical world, are subject to some changes beyond our control, and having nothing to do with who we are. It doesn't change the point, however, that one's body is still subject to major change as a result of who the inner person is, and that you cannot divorce the concept of personal virtue from the concept of physical appeal.
It is as a rhetorical device that I suggest SP's use of the illustration fails. Along with points others are raising, it makes me unclear just where he is coming from.
"A husband or wife could sin against the marriage by failing to render the debt but there was never any analysis (as far as I'm aware) of sinning against the marriage by making yourself undesirable."
SP:
You're quite right, there is no Catholic theological analysis of sinning against the marriage by making yourself undesirable.
The simple reason for this is that "making yourself undesirable" [which is a hopelessly nebulous concept anyway] is not a sin!!!
Again, the problem I'm having is that you, GK and other commenters are conflating the good with the sexy and the beautiful. I repeat:
in the Catholic view, THE SEXY/BEAUTIFUL IS NOT THE GOOD.
I would invite you to read David "Spengler" Goldman's always insightful thoughts on this [you may recall that F. Bardamau often referred to Spengler's "universal law" that the men and women of every time and place deserve each other]:
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Japan/ID03Dh04.html
The older societies did not fail because radicals offered such appealing alternatives, but rather because the old monarchs underestimated the danger of the secret societies & socialist organisations which opposed them. If the Tsar for instance, had set up a truly efficient secret police force & arrested all the agitators & executed the worst who were clearly murderous traitors, such as Lenin, Trotsky &c., & confined the rest to Siberia for life, then the Romanovs would very probably still rule Russia today. There are very few problems which arise in human societies which can't be solved by the proper application of armed force.
The doctrines of classical liberalism act as solvents on any society that is foolish enough to adopt them. Evil has no rights, therefore there should be no "freedom of speech" if that means that blasphemy & infidelity, corrupting the youth with libertinism &c. is supposedly "protected under freedom of speech". The same for all of the other freedom of this, & freedom of that.
The people can go back to serving God & His Holy Roman Catholic & Apostolic Church, or they can go on committing collective suicide. Unfortunately they will most likely choose to do the latter, as for them, even death is preferrable to being made to forgo gratifying themselves without restraint like the wild beasts which they apparently want to become like unto as much as they are able. The future will belong to those peoples who have not embraced liberalism, who do not see children as a hideous disease to be avoided at all costs, who recognise that there is a God-given order to things, & therefore reject the poison of egalitarianism.
This is why the people of Europe, America, Australia & New Zealand have no real reason to complain about Arabs, Turks, Mexicans & miscellaneous others overrunning them.
They chose this fate, they chose it by becoming utterly corrupt & depraved, by refusing to resist the unjust laws of tyrants, by collectively aborting & contracepting themsleves out of existence.
It is like someone taking hemlock & then complaining about the pain, & the fact that they are dying. What did they expect? To be made well by ingesting such a substance? They have sold their birthright for the sewage of American "popular culture", they have made their beds & now they can lie in them.
All of this because the rulers in earlier times neglected to deal with liberal agitators as they deserved. Such is life.
"Kathy, you clearly know nothing about Weininger or philosophy in general, and you clearly know nothing about me, probably because I, unlike you, don't run around the interwebz bragging about my relatives being hot."
Hey, Holl, you may be right when you say that I know nothing of philosophy.. I may not be the sharpest tool in the shed either,(And I don't need to be, I come across for hubby every night after he unchains me from the kitchen sink, cook his meals and do his laundry. etc.. It's all good ;) ) but it does not take an Einstein to work out that a misogynistic, manic depressive, who " argued that women and Jews were mere sexual beings who lacked individuality," and who committed suicide at age 23 was a very troubled and disturbed man, who at such a tender young age could not have possibly gained enough life experience to understand women.
"And your idea that married fathers are better analysts of women's behavior and personality than single men is ludicrous. The most pathetic Blue Pill men have always been married men, and the men who have accurately assessed women have normally been single."
Um, No, Holl honey, that's not what I said at all.
"How do you know? Have you lived with her? Have you seen her at her worst?" is what you accussingly said to SP.
Now lets turn it around, shall we.
What would a 20 year old Weininger know about women ? Has he lived with them? Has he seen them at their worst? I can find no evidence that he ever had a girlfriend, except a quip from his obviously biased father.
" Weininger's own sexual life remains something of a mystery. Some have suggested that his appearance precluded anyone falling in love with him. His father remarked that Otto didn't have sex until his 20s, but there's little evidence for this. There's practically nothing about his relations with women in accounts by friends, aside from a single meeting with a "Miss Meyer,"
Now, who could possibly conclude that (single) Otto knew anything about women when he hardly had anything to do with them.. I don't care what a great phillospher he my have been. Or how intelligent. He just never got the runs on the board with teh wimminz. ;)
SP on the other hand, must have some idea about women. He sleeps with one every night and in his professional capacity as a doctor gains insight from many of the female patients he sees on a day to day basis.
Now, you can go back to ignoring me. :D
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:OttoWeiningerspring1903.jpg
Otto certainly was a looker, eh? With a scintillating personality and a great sense of humour to boot.
How could any woman resist him? ;)
"The traditional strictures against women were effectively an affirmative action program for beta men."
This is bullshit. "Affirmative action" is the cops being a phone call away to drag a man out of his house with the approval of a white knight. Affirmative action is a welfare "service economy" where men are expected to take women to restaurants is an institution where waitresses trade on their sex appeal. Affirmative action is when a bastard who actually thinks he's accomplished because he has a job that is about pandering to women - kicks other men in the teeth and gets away with it. There is no reason anyone should be paying you for your "advice"
What the previous poster said about the nature of male productivity versus female productivity is something you'll never be able to refute. But as you are in a job that is all about manipulating women, you have internalized the rationalizations of women to justify your bias.
Many of us here you decry as losers have no trouble attracting women. It's getting past bastards like you who want to stab us in the back and kick us to the curb that presents the problem.
The current behavior of women depends on an a welfare and affirmative action based service economy in which men live in their own homes at the whims of women and must support them if kicked out. That is the ULTIMATE in affirmative action.
Nothing was stopping women from being whores in the old days except for the fact that being a whore meant being treated like a whore. Your job seems to be to counsel "whores" that "have it together" compared to their "bum" boyfriends, who can't fall back on being a whore, a baby mamma, a state supported victim.
You can be someone like my brother, a six foot tall, slim med student within a year of his MD, not bad looking, just not terribly handsome, morally upright, (beta) in other words. Studying to be a brain surgeon. And still struggle to find a decent girl to date.
And you blame those of us getting the shaft from this society for not being greasy liberals, phonies, and otherwise sociopathic characters. And you act as though some prissy missy (drunk slut on the weekends) keeping herself well made-up and her cubicle in order and essentially trading on her sex appeal "has it together."
@ denizenofgoo
it's not like history doesn't provide us with examples of female liberation and their consequences.
Yeah, Elizabeth I was pretty bad. So was Margaret Thatcher. So were Catherine of Russia, Theresa of Austria and Queen Victoria.
All a bunch of losers I suppose.
Just look a Jimmy Carter. What a winner!
Hollenhund
He was a massive beta who contributed greatly to the feminization of the Church.
Yeah. Sure.
That's why the Commies tried to kill him.
You're reframing my argument. I'm not saying I agree with all of his ideas on femininity, but I was arguing that his theology of the body was a rebuttal to the ascetics within Catholicism. BTW, Ratzinger is on the record for saying he supports V2. Oh that's right! He's a liberal as well.
@GKC
However, I've generally seen your war on tradition for the sake of eros as misguided.
See Anon@3:30am
@Kathy
I thought you had given me the flick.
Haven't read Wieninger (Should it be vinegar? given the tone of his writing) but any man who chooses to kill himself at 23 without producing any progeny is an evolutionary dead end.
Anon @2:26
The hate is strong in you.
I'm all about the love.
@Hollenhund.
you clearly know nothing about Weininger or philosophy in general
An advanced knowledge of philosophy is no protection against outright stupidity. Marx, Satre, Rorty, Foucault and Singer were/are well versed in Philosophy but otherwise evil bastards.
Weininger is a freak.
@Anon @2:44
You can be someone like my brother, a six foot tall, slim med student within a year of his MD, not bad looking, just not terribly handsome, morally upright, (beta) in other words. Studying to be a brain surgeon. And still struggle to find a decent girl to date
Yep, that was me in medical school (minus the brain surgery). But what differentiates me from some of the commentators on this post is that I never hated women for it. My faith stopped me from falling into the pit of hatred towards women (which is contra charity) that some of the commentators seem to have enthusiastically embraced. It's one thing to see the faults of women, its quite another to hate them.
To all,
I want you to remember that this is a Catholic blog-I'm all about the love.
"But what differentiates me from some of the commentators on this post is that I never hated women for it."
This is feminist/white knight garbage. If you hate the immorality, irresponsiblity and impunity of modern women, "you hate women." It's not about hating or not hating women. (although it certainly is about being able to judge the decency of their general behavior) If the system is so screwed up that even men at the right end of the distribution in the variables of success (other than money - which has to wait until the 30s) has trouble finding a decent woman and is likely at risk of being snagged by a manipulative slut because of his moral nature, then what is going on is not a matter of the removal of "affirmative action" for men. My brother and I aren't that different in intelligence, but we are different in temperament and in appearance. I don't have trouble attracting girls, but I do have trouble getting along with today's "Catholic" feminist douchebags like yourself, who would rather these girls have independent careers, and would respect them more for it, than be chaste and fertile wives of the men you're interested in cutting off at the knees. Young women trade on their sexual attractiveness, are guaranteed positions by quota, can't be easily smeared as a creep (which they typically do to socially unpopular men in workplaces), and keep their little cubicles neat and tidy and spend their money on clothes. They sure as hell don't keep the lights, the water running, or food on the table. That you call it "affirmative action" that once they had to live up to certain moral constraints to be respected members of society is truly the height of absurdity, and it is laughable that a "white knight" like you considers himself Catholic in any meaningful sense.
Hello there Soc,
Quite a bit of lively discussion albeit with some wide digressions. Hard to take the time to read ALL of it.
I tried to post a comment a while back. Some technical glitch. I wondered aloud how and penis could become erect or maintain itself in the presence if cig? Then I thought awhile and I did once know a fella who, if there was a poon available, he was having it. Never could understand that myself. Not a bad looking fellow, him. Eventually married, though I do not presume he's monogamous.
Keep up the good work. It is all about the love.
Jack
The more one sees of modern humanity, the more one comes to the conclusion that secret police, labour camps &c., are not intrinsically evil. They would solve most of the problems afflicting the world today. If some worthless piece of filth like Gloria Steinem knew that she would be put into a labour camp for a minimum of 10 years if she dared attempt any sort of radical agitation, she likely would have kept her mouth shut.
The same goes for the rest of the assorted excrescences, feminists, sodomite activists, marxists of all kinds. This is not inconsistent with the teaching of the Church. General Franco carried out repressive measures against Marxist criminals as needed. It's much too late for any corrective measures to do any good now of course, but I haven't got anything better to do right now, & thought I'd write it. The entire society is pretty much a bloated stinking carcass crawling with maggots. The best thing to do is to stay as far away from it as possible.
Anon @12:31
and keep their little cubicles neat and tidy and spend their money on clothes
Neatness and looking pretty are obviously vices. No? Cigstache doesn't have that problem. Perhaps a perfect match at last?
men you're interested in cutting off at the knees
In what way have I suggested men be cut off at the knees? Quotes please.
@Jack
Nice to have you back.
I've had a look at the Blogger spam inbox and could not find your comment.
Yeah, some men can do anyone or anything. I just don't have that type of sex drive. She has to pass Roosh's boner test before I'm interested.
@Anon
Doubling down doesn't work because it works against social entropy. The Church opted for a hearts and minds approach and it was/will be the correct strategy in the long run.
@SP..
I've always been drawn to good men, like a moth to a flame.
So couldn't stay away. :D
Besides I like what you write. (even though I don't always agree)
As a woman, I run true to form. A hissy fit every now and again is par for the course.
My husband is basically the only one who can do anything with me.
Make of that what you will. ;)
@Social Pathologist
"It aids in them rationalizing that their choice to put hookups/college/career/travel before finding a husband isn't the problem."
Susan Walsh recently put up an interesting post which I would have thought would have gotten more comment in the manosphere. Basically, the author was lying about her sex positive feminism. Most women who sleep around do so because it is part of the expected social script. I'm not sure of the situation in the U.S. but here in Australia most of the girls I talk to want to get off the carousel after about 1-2 rides. Many feel however that unless they've clocked up a certain amount of sexual experience they'll be judged negatively.
You get the same thing happening in mothers groups. Each mother is miserable but they all lie to each other so that they wont be judged negatively by their peers. Most women, in my experience aren't very fond of the carousel.
This is more of the same problem. A woman celebrates riding the carousel for a decade or more, and then after the ride is over decides she really didn't like it. Even if we take her no orgasm claim at face value, this misses the whole point. She and the other riders desperately want to ride the carousel. She very much wanted to have sex with the men she had sex with.
The no orgasm argument is akin to reading the study that found that drug dealers don't actually make out well financially and determining that they must not be doing it with the expectation of easy money. Likewise if an attorney argued that his client wasn't really trying to rob a bank, because all of the money was ruined by a dye pack explosion during the getaway and he never got to spend a dime; clearly he never intended to profit from pointing a gun at the teller and demanding cash.
These women sought out the most attractive men they could bed, over and over again. They were addicted to the feeling of sexual power that young women have in spades, and marrying would have only constrained that. That it turned out to be a terrible strategy even to achieve the short sighted and immoral aims they were pursuing doesn't change the short sighted and immoral aims.
This is without the obvious sour grapes perspective. Now that she isn't in demand anymore she never wanted the alphas to nail her anyway.
Then we swoop in and prefabricate a rationalization that she must have been a victim of peer pressure, because she of course she isn't really like that. This is outright cruel to young women, and I'm baffled as to why you can't see this.
SP I repeat again is a man who is a nice good provider but deficient in the goods of sexual attraction a good man?
I see your point. But you miss the whole issue, and that is men are of various levels, there is no "good man". There are only different levels, who historically have married their equals.
What I think you miss is that men display and women choose. Women are simply not choosing much anymore until the wall looms. Why? Because they can. So men give up, and that's what you see when you see all those crappy men. But never lose sight of the fact that women are the drivers of the situation - biology demands this. Any man today who tries to be a "good man" and find and marry his social equivalent when young will typically be fighting among the the alphas who prey on young women (unless he is in the top 3%, and then why not just play the field?). Sheese, it would be like offering sex slaves to young betas. They would never get married, and the women who used to marry them would all give up.
Fact: any woman in the top 25% will have men in the top half flock to them. But it doesn't work this way for men, they get alpha leftovers 10 years later. This is why society has always controlled the mating process, and why women acting independently is so deadly for women themselves. They haven't evolved to handle this freedom, and end up broken and alone.
Basically, my problem with your thesis is that you seem to define "good" men as being one of those 3% alphs who can score girls when they are young. They simply can't, statistically speaking. So most simply give up.
„Yeah, Elizabeth I was pretty bad. So was Margaret Thatcher. So were Catherine of Russia, Theresa of Austria and Queen Victoria. All a bunch of losers I suppose. Just look a Jimmy Carter. What a winner!”
Slumlord, you know it perfectly well that such „arguments” make it difficult to take you seriously. You deliberately chose outliners to distort reality, but these don’t change the fact that men, on average, are more suited for political roles than women. Plus you know it perfectly well that you’ve taken the phrase „female liberation” out of context.
„Yeah. Sure. That's why the Commies tried to kill him.”
Slumlord, stop it. No, really – stop it. Again, you know perfectly well that the reason the Soviets viewed JPII as a security threat was his moral support for the anti-Socialist opposition in Poland. This had absolutely nothing to do with his palpable Blue Mill mentality and utter ignorance of true female nature, which makes him a useless moral authority on sex relations. As far as Ratzinger is concerned, he voted for Vatican II before he voted against it. He has become more mature, I guess. Better late than never.
„An advanced knowledge of philosophy is no protection against outright stupidity. Marx, Satre, Rorty, Foucault and Singer were/are well versed in Philosophy but otherwise evil bastards.”
Maybe they were evil bastards, maybe they weren’t – that’s beside the point. Stupid they certainly weren’t.
„Weininger is a freak.”
Again, you’re making the same mistake as Kathy, namely judging someone’s views without bothering to learn anything about them. You know nothing about Weininger. Read his main work entitled „Sex and Character” and then we can discuss him if we want to.
But, again, Weininger has nothing to do with this thread, which isn’t that surprising considering that it was Kathy who brought him up, for no reason at all. The argument that made her flip out in her typical way, the one that I’d prefer to go back to, is this:
What exactly makes you sure that the woman in question is „gracious” and „will make a wonderful and faithful wife for some man”? Again, how do you know? What makes you so sure? Have you lived with her? How many times have you talked to her? Do you know all the details of her life? If any of your commenters resorted to this argument with the sexes reversed, you’d instantly accuse him of being yet another dumb Manosphere misogynist who fails to recognize the worthlessness and emasculation of beta chumps. You know that.
Höllenhund
Dear Kathy, I'll stop ignoring you whan you, you know, start making real arguments, and you do so in good faith. I'm not holding my breath.
Höllenhund
"Then we swoop in and prefabricate a rationalization that she must have been a victim of peer pressure, because she of course she isn't really like that. This is outright cruel to young women, and I'm baffled as to why you can't see this."
Dalrock, I think there are a couple of reasons why SP can't see this:
1. He's married to a good woman and this has significantly coloured his perspective.
2. He's [by his own admission] "all about the love".
His love for women appears to be overpowering his manosphere knowledge and has led him to view women with rose-coloured glasses. Hence his view that men have to raise their bid to appeal to women's higher expectations rather than making social changes to adjust women's expectations.
By contrast, Dr. Jeremy Nicholson's approach is to socially condition women so that they will be more likely to pursue "good" men rather than sexy bad boys. This is a much better approach than caving to women's hypergamic desires. SP's approach is really to simply feed the beast.
Read about Dr. Jeremy's approach here:
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-attraction-doctor/201208/james-holmes-mental-illness-or-social-frustration
sp, What's your definition of a winner. I know lots of female doctors who can't find mates. Remember, hypergamy frustrates their desire to marry down.
My definition of a male "winner" is somebody of the opposite sex 5% above your own social status. A female "winner" is somebody equal to the man's social status.
Today, 50% of young women are banging the top 10% of men. The line outside the alpha door is long, and he has a hard time keeping the line moving to make room for the next girl. Meanwhile, all those guys who were 5% above the girl's social status (mostly betas by statistical definition) are going without. And they soon don't even want the tarnished leftovers.
Sorry, I have a typo above. That's supposed to read, "Meanwhile, all those guys who were 5% below the girl's social status". Not "above".
And GK Chesterton, mdavid, I think you miss the point. He isn't proposing that she is perfect, he is proposing that she has virtues as listed (at least hypothetically).
My problem is your "hypothetically". The picture defies your hypothesis. She simply does not have these virtues, and any man can see this in the picture.
@Dalrok
Even if we take her no orgasm claim at face value, this misses the whole point. She and the other riders desperately want to ride the carousel
I'm not excusing their behaviour. Remember, I was the guy who put up most of the slut data. What I try to do is understand it and what are the motivations behind it. Clark-Flory is a great example of a woman who is rides the carousel out of need to socially conform. Does that excuse her behaviour? No. Is she full responsible for the consequences? Yes. Would I counsel my sons to marry her. No way.
But Clark-Flory illustrates beautifully the the cognitive processes that occur inside a lot of women. She clearly wasn't happy while she was hooking up but she was an enthusiastic cheerleader for Team Woman right to ride the carousel. From a medical perspective, what drives a woman the cheer a cause that she really knows is not making her happy.
As a doctor, I see this all the time--women doing stuff they obviously don't like but lying to me that they do.
In my bit of the world, at least, I get the impression that many women ride the carousel because they think it is expected of them. It is part of the normal social script. I don't think that they are enthusiastic embracers of the cock nor do most of them live in the thrill of their sexual power. Most of them are following the obvious but stupid strategy of using sex to get a mate. Most of them want relationships. The wannabe porn stars are few and far between, at least in my experience.
I think it's important that we have a good understanding of female psychology, not to provide excuses for sluts who want to justify their behaviour but in order to better combat the forces acting on women.
People like Clark Flory are the worst type of human beings, cheering on an evil that they themselves despise.
@mdavid
See my reply to Dalrock above.
Most women, in my experience, want to have one or two rides and then find a mate, but the current cultural milleau expect women (and men) to clock up a few miles. Check out this article. Girls are notoriously insecure. Some dumb girl, finding that she is having problems in forming a bond with a man, will read this article and think that it is her lack of sexual experience that is the problem and will throw herself onto the carousel to "normalise" herself. This is the insidious power of the media.
Basically, my problem with your thesis is that you seem to define "good" men as being one of those 3% alphs who can score girls when they are young. They simply can't, statistically speaking. So most simply give up.
Quotes please. Where have I actually said that women will only bond with the top 3% of men. Would you class Roosh in the top 3% of men?
What do you mean exactly by a good man? Don't complain to me about women, talk to me about the virtues of a good man.
Hollenhund, I'll get to you later.
@Social Pathologist
I'm not excusing their behaviour. Remember, I was the guy who put up most of the slut data. What I try to do is understand it and what are the motivations behind it.
No need to explain. Your seriousness on the issue isn't at question. I'm not challenging your motives. Both of us want to stop the harm to young women and the resulting catastrophe this causes to their future children and husbands. We will likely not change each other's opinion on the level of detail we are discussing, but this is to be expected.
Clark-Flory is a great example of a woman who is rides the carousel out of need to socially conform. Does that excuse her behaviour? No. Is she full responsible for the consequences? Yes. Would I counsel my sons to marry her. No way.
But Clark-Flory illustrates beautifully the the cognitive processes that occur inside a lot of women. She clearly wasn't happy while she was hooking up but she was an enthusiastic cheerleader for Team Woman right to ride the carousel. From a medical perspective, what drives a woman the cheer a cause that she really knows is not making her happy.
As a doctor, I see this all the time--women doing stuff they obviously don't like but lying to me that they do.
In my bit of the world, at least, I get the impression that many women ride the carousel because they think it is expected of them. It is part of the normal social script. I don't think that they are enthusiastic embracers of the cock nor do most of them live in the thrill of their sexual power. Most of them are following the obvious but stupid strategy of using sex to get a mate. Most of them want relationships. The wannabe porn stars are few and far between, at least in my experience.
This goes against what we know, both from a biological perspective and what the PUAs are telling us. Having sex makes babies, and it stands to reason that there is a strong biological drive to have sex with men the woman perceives (psychologically) as the fittest genetic donor. This is core to your (correct) point that it isn't reasonable for unattractive betas to demand that women become attracted to them. This is in fact what they are doing (having sex with the most attractive men they can get), and also what they tell you they are doing. Yet when these women have sex based on exactly these constraints, you attribute it to peer pressure. Biologically they should want to have sex with these men*, yet you are convinced that they really don't.
Moreover, the PUAs know that women are easier to bed when not in the presence of their peers. Get her away from her peer group and in private and she is more likely to have sex. Women who are traveling overseas are the PUA jackpot. The data disproves the peer pressure hypothesis.
What I would say is they do feel a sense of competition with other women, so having a hookup culture does make the temptation much stronger. She doesn't want that (other) skank to bed the man she knows is the one for her, and this is a powerful motivator to put out. It also creates a desire to gloat when she has "stolen" the sought after man from another woman (the infamous "forgotten" panties in the husband's bed are just one example of this). This might look like peer pressure, but it is something different.
I also agree that they want a relationship (with the hot alpha), but they aren't willing to work under those constraints when deciding who to have sex with. In this context commitment is all about wanting the alpha to commit to them, not as so many misconstrue offering real commitment to the man. They might rationalize that offering sex will lead to a relationship, but they aren't willing to offer and receive commitment before having sex. This limits both their impulsive fun as well as the realistic attractiveness they can expect from their sex partner.
*morally is of course a different issue.
@Kathy Farrelly
"I've always been drawn to good men, like a moth to a flame.
So couldn't stay away. :D "
Be honest. You delightedly came back after discovering that, in all reality, it's actually "The Social Philogynist".
SP,
Women have always had a genes vs provisioning balance. This isn't peer pressure. It's simple genetic economics. When they sleep with the alpha they know they are taking a risk, that has been true throughout all of history. Only by making them bare the cost of that risk, instead of externalize it,
I think you need to consider what life is like for the average beta. This essay from the Spearhead shows what life is like for more traditional working class beta males like my father (Hank Hill types). My Dad got my Mom in her prime, but today I imagine his life would be like.
The Socialization of the Costs of Sex
by W.F. PRICE on OCTOBER 19, 2012
One of the beefs the traditional left has had with US economic policy – one I happen to have as well – is the socialization of business costs (or losses) while profit remains private. Because I did some manual labor as a teen and young man, I remember feeling pretty angry about the fact that immigrant farm workers had their health care and housing subsidized by the state while I had no such benefit. This was extended to a ridiculous degree in subsequent years, with illegals getting all of the benefits of residence and state services while their employers continued to pay them low wages. As I saw it, there was a partnership between the state and private interests that served to drive wages down for natives. Unfortunately, the typical white leftist at the time was a couple generations removed from blue collar work, and tended to have a sort of class antagonism toward working-class whites (e.g. you must be a “loser” if you work with your hands), framing everything in terms of multicultural universalism, by which they justified screwing less advantaged Americans in favor of hiring cheaper foreigners.
There are plenty of other examples, and many of us are paying dearly for this in our current recession, which was created essentially by socializing business costs and thereby creating an enormously inflated bubble. It’s infuriating when you think about it, and makes me pretty pessimistic about both candidates, who both, as far as I can tell, are in league with the thieves and crooks who caused all this trouble.
However, it seems that this is a problem that goes beyond the formal business world, and has pervaded society in general to the extent that many – perhaps most – people think the government (i.e. taxpayers) should bear the costs of their life choices.
The example most in the news today is the demands for subsidized abortion and birth control that have become a feature of the presidential campaign. You’d think that our country’s women’s top priority is getting the government to subsidize their sexual choices, whatever they may be.
Following what I was getting at yesterday, sex has always incurred some expense. Like it or not, men pay for sex (or its results) in one way or another. Traditionally, you’d pay by getting married and taking the woman on as your responsibility, or you’d pay a fee for a one-off (prostitution). If you took it without paying for it, as in adultery, rape or fornication, it was a crime, or something like that. If we were honest with ourselves, we’d have to admit that it still is a quasi crime; as the old system has been replaced with something significantly more confusing, sex crime laws have become far broader in scope and can be applied to any number of situations (such as prostitution) that used to be considered beyond the purview of the law.
Additionally, despite false promises of free sex from the 60s and 70s, when feminists used to get support from men by promising we’d all be getting laid for free when we had “equality,” it turned out that sex still had a lot of associated costs. Pregnancy, of course, is one of the biggest. At first, we socialized that, but then welfare reform threw the costs entirely onto fathers (not mothers, mind you). Combined with welfare reform, we had VAWA, which significantly increased the costs of marriage and cohabitation by legally handicapping men in relationships with women. So great strides have been made in restoring a heavy cost to sex, but this hasn’t been enough, because women have grown accustomed to sexual license with whomsoever they please, and the men they generally like either a) don’t have the money, or b) are desirable enough to not have to pay.
Although the latter is a bit counterintuitive (wouldn’t women desire men who pay for them?), it’s a function of female sexual psychology. Women generally use sex to ensnare the man they want (ant they typically have high expectations), and then they begin to draw resources from him. It works in simple societies where people hold each other to account, but in more cosmopolitan settings it breaks down for a couple reasons. First, there are more than enough women to go around, so it’s easy to drop one and pick up another, and secondly there are other means for women to gain resources, such as jobs and welfare, and as long as those resources exist men who have no trouble procuring sex see no reason to provide for women, even if they have the means. And who can blame them? Although it’s a social catastrophe, it’s a perfectly reasonable attitude from a personal perspective, because, after all, the individual man didn’t create this mess in the first place.
Here’s a scenario:
A handsome young investment banker making six figures can go out to a bar and take his pick. Let’s call him Mark. Mark picks up a young woman named Amanda, she goes home with him, they have sex, and he enters her number into his phone, leaving her only a promise to call again. Perhaps he intends to do so, and perhaps not. Whatever the case, he feels no guilt or responsibility, because the woman, who happens to be in law school, also has a job at a nonprofit, and makes more hourly than the average young man in their city, so he doesn’t need to provide her with anything. Additionally, if there’s an “accident” (but in all likelihood there won’t be, because Mark is careful about these things) there’s a Planned Parenthood down the street. Not only does it provide her with birth control, but it will treat STDs and abort unwanted children resulting from her nightly excursions.
Sounds fine, so what’s the problem?
The problem is that this young woman, despite being a student and having a job, is essentially on the dole. Her nonprofit is funded in large part by state and federal grants, as is her tuition. Her sexual care at Planned Parenthood is also funded largely by taxpayers. Her life, including her sex life, is paid for by the average working Joe, but she isn’t sleeping with Joe — oh no: she’s sleeping with Mark, a guy who easily could afford to feed, clothe and insure her, but who doesn’t have to because of Joe. Although it isn’t really his fault, Mark is a freeloader.
Joe, for his part, makes do with monthly trysts with a mid-level prostitute, which he can barely afford after taxes and child support. Joe, who is an HVAC repairman, is paying for all the Amandas in his state, his ex-wife Lisa, and his hooker, who is named Elena.
Interestingly enough, Joe and Amanda have met. Joe was called in to fix the AC in her nonprofit’s office on a sweltering summer day. Because the AC was broken and the atmosphere was stifling, Amanda had unbuttoned the top part of her blouse, and poor Joe couldn’t help but look at her breasts. Amanda was furious, and called his supervisor, who apologized profusely, and when Joe got back from the job he caught hell. Fortunately, he wasn’t fired, but it sure was humiliating. Not as bad as having to deal with his ex-wife’s lawyer, but close…
I suppose we could say “life’s unfair,” and that would be entirely true. But should we make it that unfair? Should we set things up so that Joe has to support Amanda as much as Mark?
According to our nation’s single women, the answer is a resounding “YES!” Married women, however, have a significantly different take on it, for obvious reasons.
I’m not sure single women are consciously aware of how selfish they are being. I think they fully intend to find some man to support them, and think the only way they can do that is to have unfettered sex with all the Marks of the world they can get their hands on in the hopes that one of them will some day give in and marry her. The problem is that it’s a trend that reinforces itself; the more Amandas we have giving it away for free the less likely any given Mark will be to actually support any of them. The competition will escalate, desirable men will become even more reluctant to give women any financial support, and the screeching for more entitlements for single women will grow louder and louder.
It is exactly this trend that has led to the bizarre, unprecedented fixation on women’s sexual entitlements in our current election cycle. When you socialize the costs of a private activity – and sex is about as private as it gets – you create an unnatural imbalance that rewards the few at the expense of the many. You also run the risk of inflating costs to unsustainable levels, and I think that’s something young women ought to think hard about. But they won’t.
"The Church opted for a hearts and minds approach and it was/will be the correct strategy in the long run."
IN THE LONG RUN, THE AVERAGE MEN GROW OUT OF THEIR INITIAL ATTRACTIONS WITH NO POWER TO ACT ON THEM, COLLECT HIGH-MINDED EXCUSES FROM AN AGING POPULATION THAT'S KEEPING A LID ON PROMOTIONS FOR ALL THE JOBS IN THE MARKET, GET LIED TO ABOUT THE REASONS FOR NOT GETTING PROMOTED OR TRAINED, AND LEARN THESE THINGS TOO LATE TO APPLY THEM TOWARD THEIR FIRST LOVES, BEFORE THEY WERE EFFECTIVELY SEDUCED BY THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND THE DEVIL, AIDED AND ABETTED BY THEIR OWN PARENTS, WHO SAW THE JOB AS SOMETHING TO SUPPORT THEM IF THE HUSBAND THING FAILED.
NOT EVERYONE IS AN AUTODIDACT, NOT EVERYONE POSSESSES ALL FINANCIAL, SEXUAL, AND EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES AT ALL POINTS IN THEIR LIFE, NOT EVERYONE FORMS THEIR MORALITY IN COMPLETE INDEPENDENCE FROM THE SURROUNDING CULTURE, AND NOT EVERYONE INSTINCTIVELY OPERATES WITH CLINICAL EMOTIONAL INDIFFERENCE, THEN MAKES UP FOR IT BY TELLING OTHER MEN TO MAN UP.
THIS IDIOTIC "LONG RUN" VIEW IS WHY THE CATHOLIC CHURCH HAS LOST ALL ITS RELEVANCE SINCE THE FALL OF COMMUNISM. IF "WAIT FOR THE COLLAPSE OF THE CURRENT REGIME" IS YOUR STRATEGY, YOU HAVE NOTHING PUBLIC TO BUILD, PRESERVE, OR FIGHT FOR, NOTHING TO SAY TO THOSE SEEKING TO DO RIGHT FROM THE BEGINNING OF THEIR LIVES INSTEAD OF MIDWAY THROUGH, AND NOTHING TO CORRECT IN THE MAN WHO's OBVIOUSLY SO FLAWED FROM THE GET-GO THAT NOTHING YOU DO CAN HELP HIM.
CONGRATULATIONS, YOU RAN SO FAR AHEAD OF EVERYONE ELSE THAT THERE'S NO ONE AROUND TO HELP YOU BUILD THE PROMISED LAND!
Slumlord:
"As a doctor, I see this all the time--women doing stuff they obviously don't like but lying to me that they do."
I get this. I can see this.
"In my bit of the world, at least, I get the impression that many women ride the carousel because they think it is expected of them. It is part of the normal social script. I don't think that they are enthusiastic embracers of the cock nor do most of them live in the thrill of their sexual power. Most of them are following the obvious but stupid strategy of using sex to get a mate. Most of them want relationships. The wannabe porn stars are few and far between, at least in my experience."
I don't understand this. This doesn't make sense to me.
What Dalrock said, plus:
Of course these women are lying to you. Why do you believe what a woman tells you about her sexual conduct? It's well known women lie about this all the time. They are telling you they are having sex with men because everyone else is doing it and it's "the social script". Why do you believe this?
Of course they are lying to you. Telling even you that they have sex because it's "Part of the social script" sounds better than "I had sex with him because he was HOT HOT HOT and I just couldn't help myself and I wanted him to f**k me silly."
This is rationalization, pure and simple. If they were having sex because it was "part of the social script", they would have sex with betas or other types of less attractive men. They don't. They seek out and have sex with the most attractive men they can find; and actively and publicly reject men they find unattractive.
Surely you as a psychologist and physician would understand and be able to detect lying, half-truths and disingenuousness.
deti
deti,
Slumlord just hasn't lived it. He's a high status man from an older time that managed to marry a good woman. He hasn't seen the face of female lust. I have. Anyone whose truly run perfect game on one of these modern sluts has. The face of female lust is disgusting. They will do ANYTHING for the tingle. Lie, cheat, steal, destroy the lives of their friends and family.
Female lust is a terrible and powerful force. I'm not surprised women deny it, even to themselves. I'd be embarrassed by it too. Even at my most lustful I was never as in thrall to my passions as I've seen a woman be.
Now I know why you believe that women are having sex only because they are being told it is "part of the social script". It is because you are giving far too much credence to what these women say, rather than what they do.
Why do you believe what these women say? You should know that if you want to know someone's motives, you observe her behavior, not what she SAYS about her behavior. They are telling you they want relationships. That's bogus. If any of your patients or your Vargas girl Christian friend want a relationship, they can get that from any one of a hundred betas working cubicle jobs. But that's not what they want, and not what they opt for until The Wall looms.
They say they want relationships. Why do you believe them? Because they SAY they want relationships?
You should know better than this.
deti
Yes, calling traditional social arrangements "affirmative action" is cutting off men at the knees in the face of feminism. Absolutely.
There's no way most men can have the same "social display" value that young women have in a "service economy." No matter how well they clean up, dress, or speak (within their natural abilities). That you are defending the behavior of the typical modern women. you would rather stick it to "losers." than make any enforceable demands on women. You're a turncoat, and you probably think the lack of empathy for other men is "alpha."
Also, there's a good chance your patients are a skewed sample. If Australia is anything like America, healthy, accomplished men are far less likely to see a shrink than an otherwise similar woman.
Your labeling of traditional marriage patterns as 'affirmative action', and your invocation of Aristotle reveals what your attackers had alleged is true - that you believe women deserve great men. The actual quality of the woman, in your estimation, is irrelevant.
It's funny, right as a man has won the world's highest honor for creating an algorithm that highlights the wisdom of traditional, assortative mating, you seize the mantle of traditionalism *and* scoff at such practices.
You also don't know what's going on behind the scenes, when you hear man criticizing modern women. There are plenty of men who partake in the manosphere who are accomplished, in matters of women, career or both. And they too criticize. Because they see modern women as defective, and one needn't be a bitter basement dweller to realize.
Look up that tattoo study you put up, and you'll see that the frequency of tattoos is something like 10x higher among younger women, as compared to older ones.
"Also, there's a good chance your patients are a skewed sample. If Australia is anything like America, healthy, accomplished men are far less likely to see a shrink than an otherwise similar woman."
SP is not a shrink,(though some here are under the impression he is) he is a physician. A family doctor.
Many patients build up a good rapport with their doctor, if he has a good bedside manner.. (And it would appear that SP is one of these doctors)
Many people will unburden themselves and confide in their doctors. Over a time a good doctor pretty much gets to know their patient very well.
SP's observations and impressions are not invalid simply because some of the commenters here experienced something different.
I cannot see where SP said anything like this, " women deserve great men."
Nor is their any evidence that he believes this,
"The actual quality of the woman, in your estimation, is irrelevant.
SP DID say this: "Whilst I agree that the world has become progressively populated with feminist harridans, it has also become more populated with less masculine men."
SP is quite balanced and fair in his observations, from what I can make out.
As Simon Grey said :
"And so, while I agree with the MRA crowd that most women would make for terrible wives, I also agree with Slumlord that most men make for terrible husbands. Quite simply, most people in this world are self-absorbed cowards, too afraid to live up to their potential, and too weak to suppress their self-destructive tendencies. No wonder their marriages and relationships turn cancerous. "
And SP (slumlord) replied:
"Testify brother!
Simon is reporting from America what I see here in Australia."
Is there a comprehension problem here with some of the commenters?
Kathy Farrelly:
"SP's observations and impressions are not invalid simply because some of the commenters here experienced something different."
That would be true, if SP were writing about his observations of the women and what they say about their men. But he isn't writing about that. He's reporting what these women, his patients, SAY about their own behaviors and that of their men, and engrafting his own biases and prejudices onto them. SP is saying as much when he says he is old school and that men need to be men just because it's the right thing to do. SP is operating in an old value system where being a man worthy of a woman had intrinsic value in and of itself. That old school doesn't exist any more because feminism destroyed it.
If SP's patient or the Christian Vargas girl want a responsible relationship, they can get that easily from any one of the hundred or so sexually starving betas all around them. But these women don't want that. They want their hot alpha douchebags to man up and be responsible. They don't want a sexually starving beta. Even though they are not the male version of Cigstache, women today are conditioned and told that those men are the male Cigstaches.
"Whilst I agree that the world has become progressively populated with feminist harridans, it has also become more populated with less masculine men."
Why do you think that is? Because women have insisted that our laws, systems, institutions, practices, our entire culture, change to suit them. They wanted feminized men to be less threatening and to serve them. Now they have that. And now they are dissatisfied and have decided that what they said they wanted isn't really what they wanted.
deti
Again, the problem I'm having is that you, GK and other commenters are conflating the good with the sexy and the beautiful. I repeat:
in the Catholic view, THE SEXY/BEAUTIFUL IS NOT THE GOOD.
I am not a Catholic, but I don't think this is correct. The Catholic Church, like all Christian churches, teaches that God created human sexuality to facilitate intrinsic goods such as marital intimacy and procreation. Sexiness and beauty that exist within the framework of God's will for marriage and procreation are thus part of The Good because they are facilitators of His plan.
Furthermore, we know from scripture and tradition that we are supposed to facilitate The Good in our spouse. At its most fundamental, this means we are obligated to perform and provide those things which are necessary to meet their needs. A woman who lets herself go is undermining her husband's ability to frame his sexuality within the confines of God's plan (marriage). Therefore she is sinning against her husband as surely as many betas sin against their wives by being weak, rudderless non-leaders.
They want their hot alpha douchebags to man up and be responsible. They don't want a sexually starving beta.
Various bloggers, I think Roissy chief among them, have observed that "Girl Game" is so prevalent that men don't even really notice it. It is simply taken as a given that women who want the top men have to bust their asses in a gym, eat well, do their makeup, dress sexy, etc. All of those being things which make men interested in them.
A beta male bleating that he shouldn't have to change to make himself more attractive is really no different than a girl who wants to dress in old sweatpants, let herself go and complain that she has no dating prospects.
Betas were more attractive, but then one could reasonably argue that the "beta" of today would have been regarded as more of a gamma 100 years ago.
A beta male bleating that he shouldn't have to change to make himself more attractive is really no different than a girl who wants to dress in old sweatpants, let herself go and complain that she has no dating prospects
Except that I've never, never, never heard a beta male pleading that he shouldn't have to change. I have heard a woman or two, assert this, but never a man. FAR, FAR, FROM IT. The men always ask, over and over, "What am I doing wrong? How can I fix myself so women will stop rejecting me>" And NOBODY will give them an answer.
And no, they cannot figure it out themselves, usually, because it's not obvious. If the guy is fat and unkempt, he knows that's a problem and in almost all cases addresses it. But hypergamy isn't so obvious.
I can remember back in my single days, just about ready to tear my hair out over a series of baseless rejections from seemingly compatible women. I actually sat down with my then-Pastor (who, BTW, also knew all the girls in question), and asked, in absolute exasperation -- "What is so wrong with me? Is there something horribly wrong with my looks, my personality or my character, that I just can't see, that turns off all the eligible women? WHAT IS IT????"
His answer was simple. "vR, there's nothing wrong with your looks. There's nothing wrong with your personality. And there's nothing wrong with your character. The women are stupid."
Since ths pastor was one of the most honest men I've ever known, I can only assume that... he didn't understand hypergamy either. If he had, I'm sure he would have told me.
van Rooinek:
As I am sure you know, pastors are notoriously bad at understanding anything about women's natures. They are assiduously taught and instructed that women are always good, that they never ever hurt anyone, and that they only want to grow up and get married and have babies and be wives and mothers, and they want you to be emotionally available all the time to them and tell them your deepest darkest fears and desires.
Pastors also understand the score, and know what side their bread is buttered on. They know very well if they anger women, the herd mentality will kick in. The women will gang up on the pastor and start demanding concessions or else. Or else they will withhold their tithes, they will quit their volunteer positions, they will leave the church and take their families, their money and their time with them. They know they run the church; the church cannot operate without them; they do 80 to 90% of all the volunteer work; and they can browbeat their husbands into doing what they want.
deti
@Van Rooinek
Except that I've never, never, never heard a beta male pleading that he shouldn't have to change.
Yeah, but a lot of men take a different approach to the matter which effectively ensures the same result. Arguing that there is something wrong with women for desiring alpha males is simply another way of saying, "Hey I'm fine, it's the woman that have the problem." It's the women who have to change, not me.
Your pastor said essentially the same thing.
@Mike T
Women are far more socially astute than men. The nature of male sexuality is obvious and easy to cater to. Girls quickly learn that it's their prettier peers that get the good looking boys. They learn fast that if they want to land a man they have to emulate their behaviour.
A beta male bleating that he shouldn't have to change to make himself more attractive is really no different than a girl who wants to dress in old sweatpants
I tend to think of them more akin to the "fat acceptance crowd". Here beta males, like the fatties, feel their is something wrong with opposite sex for acting according to their natural desires.
Look at Deti's comment;
They don't want a sexually starving beta. Even though they are not the male version of Cigstache, women today are conditioned and told that those men are the male Cigstaches.
Emphasis mine.
Deti's alleging that beta rejection is due to social conditioning not intrinsic repulsion. The fatties argue along the same line.
My "Christian Vargas" girl would be quite happy with a beta male who acquired alpha qualities or an alpha male who acquired some beta provider ones. She has no lack of suitors, alpha or beta, it's just that she does want half men of either persuasion.
@Basil
The actual quality of the woman, in your estimation, is irrelevant.
Where have I said that? Quotes please. I'm all for men avoiding low quality women. Remember who published the slut data?
Slumlord:
Social conditioning is part of what is going on. I know many, many men who are fit, active, and have good jobs. I can say that fifty years ago these men would have no trouble going on dates or finding wives. They can't get anything at all now.
They're not fat. They don't pick their noses in public. They aren't idiots or bums or pussies. But women don't want them because they can get much better for sex. And they can do this because the social conventions that formerly restricted them have been removed.
deti
@Social Pathologist
She has no lack of suitors
This leads me to think that she and you are overestimating her attractiveness level.
If she's had no lack of suitors for several years and has found none of them acceptable, that means she is not attractive enough to get attention (for marriage) from men that she (mistakenly) considers to be her equals. If she were sensible, she would suppress her hypergamy. After all, the marriage options will only get worse for her as she ages. I've seen it happen.
pastors are notoriously bad at understanding anything about women's natures. They are assiduously taught and instructed that women are always good, that they never ever hurt anyone
Not this guy. He'd been betrayed, cheated on, etc. He knew full well what evil women were capable of. He'd also counselled fighting couples and was under no illusions there.
However... he didn't really understand hypergamy.
Oh, and his church ultimately folded. It was the most accurate, uncompromising BIble teaching I'd ever found anywhere... and nobody wanted to hear it.
BTW.. he was a direct descendent of Francis Marion, the "Swamp Fox" of the American Revolution (on whom the Mel Gibson movie "Patriot" is very, very loosely based.)
meL Except that I've never, never, never heard a beta male pleading that he shouldn't have to change.
SP: Yeah, but a lot of men take a different approach.. "Hey I'm fine, it's the woman that have the problem.".. Your pastor said essentially the same thing
Yes but that's beside the point. I was the "beta"(at least at that stage of my life), and i was MORE THAN WILLING to change whatever was wrong. I ASKED for advice.
I was NOT saying, "The women have the problem" -- the pastor said that TO ME, when I asked what needed to change. Because he, though a good hearted man and generaly quite smart, didn't get hypergamy.
Even if he had -- as I am tall, good looking, was in top shape back then, and was well educated and hard working -- if the alpha/beta distinction had been known to us, both he and I would probably have categorized me as an "alpha" and the rejections would have been even MORE inexplicable.
In the end, the missing piece was money. Once my income skyrocketed, a few years later, all of the sudden dating got really easy. No new car, no new wardrobe either --somehow the women can smell the money...
"Even if he had -- as I am tall, good looking, was in top shape back then, and was well educated and hard working --"
Well if I had been single then vR,I'd have snapped you up in a heartbeat.. ;)
"In the end, the missing piece was money."
For the mercenary women, yes.And there is, unfortunately many of those around these days..
If it's the money they are after best be kicking 'em to the curb.
Look, I think this has a lot to do with upbringing.
My own mother married my father and he had no money.
They lived with my maternal grandparents for the first two years. They had nothing but love and their first child a year after they married.
Shortly afterwards my father started his own business and did very well.
When I met my own husband, I liked him from the start. Average looking but with beautiful blue eyes and nice smile. An intelligent, honest and good man. We hit it off straightaway. He had no money either, then. But that never mattered, to me. A year after we met we were married. Nine months later I gave birth to our first child.
Now he has a successful business, but even if he didn't I would not love him any less..
Nurture plays a big part, I think.
My parents were and still are practicing Catholics. Not materialistic in the least.
They have over the years donated much to charity.My mother taught catechism in public schools and did volunteer work in a Catholic aged care facility.
Money and status has never been a motivation for me,as my parents instilled in me (and my siblings)good values..
The problem is that the world has become a very materialistic and hedonistic place. God has sadly been left out of the equation.
It's very hard to sort the wheat from the chaff nowadays.
"You don't do it for the pussy. The men who would respond to incentive based masculinity are same ones who would become metro-sexual if it paid. They're not men at all. Are you a patriot for profit or do you love your country? Would you go homo for a price. That's the thing about masculinty; a man does what a man's gotta do: Regardless of the price."
Do you hold women to the same standard?
Höllenhund
@Kathy Farrelly
"The problem is that the world has become a very materialistic and hedonistic place. God has sadly been left out of the equation."
Bingo..
@Höllenhund
"Do you hold women to the same standard?"
No.
Simple reason being is because I don't believe men and women are created equal.
Now I'm biased in the sense that I believe in a Creator. And from my understanding when men & women fulfill their God-given gender roles, ONLY then will true peace and harmony will be established.
I'm loving the comments and I hope the spirited debate continues, but to what end? We've drifted a bit, but what exactly are we arguing now? I agree the results of Feminism created in large part the culture we have today, but now what? Our forefathers and foremothers initiated this culture and now we're in neck-deep. And the saddest part to me are the young children and those soon to be born who are and will be socialized in such a sick environment. We didn't create it, but we've got to deal with it.
From what I've gathered (correct me if I'm wrong), a good part of what SP is arguing is that poon worship must be addressed in order to fix the problem. So to answer his initial question, a "good" man is a man that worships God and doesn't compromise in his devotion. And make no mistake, there's ALOT that comes with that duty and if done right then women will NATURALLY flock to men. It's amazing what not caring about the pussy will do to increase ANY man's value. Wanting pussy is one thing and a natural one at that, but CARING so much is the problem and even Game validates this position. Just having genuine passion for anything else helps the beta reclaim his lost power...one's body, one's car, one's family, the economy, physical hobbies...better yet God...and that allows a woman to compete for their attention...betas have no reason to complain, if they perceive a lack in power it's because they give it away. Funny thing it's sooo easy to take it back.
"(correct me if I'm wrong), a good part of what SP is arguing is that poon worship must be addressed in order to fix the problem."
Slumlord (SP) isn't arguing that the problem is men are worshiping pussy. He's arguing that the problem is men ARE pussies. He's arguing the slacker lifestyle, the MGTOW, the obsession with video games, the lack of ambition, the whining and complaining, the overall giving up -- it's all unattractive to women. That's his argument.
And he's right -- it is unattractive. What Slumlord is ignoring is that men respond to incentives. These women have made it clear that nothing but the absolute best will do for them, while offering very little in return. So when these men realize they aren't the best, they give up and refuse to invest. I for one don't really blame them, to be honest.
Yes, men develop a passion, by all means. Suppose he attracts a woman. What kind of woman? One with a high N who wants security and safety after all the alphas have had their turn with her? A ballbuster career girl who will divorce him? A woman who loses her attraction for him (as they all do eventually) and looks to leave him?
Vox Day has said it best: Women collectively have told men that they will not commit unless they are attracted to their men. What is a man to do then? His devotion to a mission won't keep her attracted.
deti
"No. Simple reason being is because I don't believe men and women are created equal."
That's beside the point. Slumlord's argument is that men who expect payment or some other sort of reward for showing masculine virtues aren't real men at all. I wonder if he thinks the same about women.
Höllenhund
"Slumlord's argument is that men who expect payment or some other sort of reward for showing masculine virtues aren't real men at all. I wonder if he thinks the same about women."
It sppears he doesn't think the same of women. He is saying she is a real woman because she shows feminine virtues and expect to be rewarded for it with manly, masculine men.
Implicit in his argument and use of the Christian Vargas girl is this: if she is feminine, kind, pleasant, and good, she is ENTITLED to a man of her choosing: masculine, strong, good looking, wealthy and with a ripped body; yet kind, caring, and devoted only to her.
deti
I don't think the real issue here is a sense of entitlement. The question is: what if a woman displays traditional Christian feminine virtues and worth, and yet it fails to elicit the kind of male response she expects? Or what if it even has disadvantages to her? Would Slumlord still argue that she's only a real woman if she displays those virtues and adheres to that moral code anyway?
Höllenhund
These [modern-day] women have made it clear that nothing but the absolute best will do for them, while offering very little in return. So when these men realize they aren't the best, they give up and refuse to invest. I for one don't really blame them, to be honest.
Me neither. I have degrees in engineering and chemistry, and a successful profession... but I'm 49, and for all my tales of woe, it wasn't QUITE that bad when I young....
HOWEVER... if by some evil magic, I were to be transformed right now, back into a 17 year old, in today's culture --- I would NOT SET FOOT in college. There are no longer any young women worth working for, as far as I can see, except extreme hypergamists who won't tolerate anythinng less than a multimillionaire.
So why should I kill myself in college, and run up insane college debts, when there's no longer a sexual/romantic payoff to it? I'd probably gravitate toward nonexportable skilled trades, and make a point of refusing to date any woman who'd ever set foot in college even in the unlikely event that such a woman would talk to me.
The question is: what if a woman displays traditional Christian feminine virtues and worth, and yet it fails to elicit the kind of male response she expects? Or what if it even has disadvantages to her?
Swap the genders, and you have one of the central questions of the manosphere. THe answer is simple in both cases. Attraction is not compatiblity.
Developing the Christian virtues may make you more compatible, but it doesn't create attraction -- and all the compatibility in the world will not get you a relationship without attraction (all together now: "Let's Just Be Friends")
Attraction can be improved by cutting carbs and hitting the gym. And in the case of men only, they can increase their attractiveness by pursuing more money, power, and social status.
@Hollenhund
„An advanced knowledge of philosophy is no protection against outright stupidity. Marx, Satre, Rorty, Foucault and Singer were/are well versed in Philosophy but otherwise evil bastards.”
Maybe they were evil bastards, maybe they weren’t – that’s beside the point. Stupid they certainly weren’t.
Right. On this blog truth is valued above sophism. For all their "smarts" they ultimately got reality wrong--Therefore they are idiots. Not just your plain run of the mill idiot, but truly evil cunts. If you value smarts above the good... or reality, then I think you're on the wrong blog.
The question is: what if a woman displays traditional Christian feminine virtues and worth, and yet it fails to elicit the kind of male response she expects?
By feminine virtues, I get it to mean that she is also sexually attractive? If that is the case, a woman of God chooses to go it alone.
@deti
It appears he doesn't think the same of women. He is saying she is a real woman because she shows feminine virtues and expect to be rewarded for it with manly, masculine men.
It's not that she expects manly men, it's that hypergamy makes unmanly men unattractive, instinctively. It's not her being "too picky", its just that the man-quality out there is crap. She wants to find a morally good and sexy man. In our current dating environment they don't exist. For a woman, there seem to be a whole bunch of half-men either alpha arseholes or provider beta's. She'd prefer to go alone rather than go home to some beta provider whom she feels no attraction to. Years ago, when she lacked economic independence, she wouldn't have had that option, rather, to avoid starvation or the nunnery, she would have married some provider beta and lived in a sexless marriage performing her "marital duties" on demand. It wasn't this bleak but subtlety seems to elude a lot of the commentators.
I'm not saying anyone deserves anything. It seems to be you guys who have assumed that position, arguing that there is something wrong with women for not instinctively flocking to beta males. There seems to be this whole line of thought amongst some of the commentators that beta males, who provide, manufacture and invent, are somehow wronged when women aren't compelled to mate with them. It's you guys who implicitly arguing that betas deserve mates.
Sexual attraction is not a justice issue-it's a force, like gravity that has to be accounted for in our daily affairs. Pretending like it doesn't or shouldn't matter is like ignoring gravity, with the same predictable consequences.
Anon @10:34
The problem with pussy worship is that it corrupts a man. See Roosh's writing on the subject. Still the great thing about the PUA community is that they seem to a have codified a body of thought on female sexuality that is free from the errors of feminism, romanticism and ascetic Christianity. God is all about the "red pill".
Van Rooinek stated that he wanted to change, but no one was able to give him any decent advice. I have a lot of sympathy with him in regard to this. Men have been fed bullshit with regard to women for years, but it would be a mistake to think (with the exception of Feminism) that this was some sort of deliberate plot, rather, the intellectual and philosophical machinery of the west was simply flawed when it came to an understanding of women. This is why I say traditionalism is almost a big part of the problem as feminism. Blaming women is also a false approach, since most of them are clueless when it comes to understanding their own actions. The average woman doesn't know why see finds the arsehole attractive. All she knows is that there is this irresistible feeling, or chemistry, forming between them which compels her to him. The trick is not to hate women, the trick is to understand them.
Christianity is all about an understanding of reality. This is why the anon commentator, rebutted by Mike T, is wrong. His version of Christianity is in error with the reality of female nature and desire. The good christian man loves God and operates with an understanding of reality. He caters to the reality of hypergamy within the context of God's laws.
Van Rooinek
However... he didn't really understand hypergamy.
Then he really didn't understand women.
BTW.. he was a direct descendent of Francis Marion
Virtue isn't hereditary. Each man must strive to claim it for himself.
As for incentives. Look, there obviously seem to be a large body of men who will respond to them. However you've got to look at masculinity with the context of Kholberg's theory of moral development.. The Zen man does it because he is a man, not for profit.
One of my favourite quotes from C.S. Lewis's Screwtape Letters is:
“Do not be deceived, Wormwood. Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy's will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.”
It's the difference between patriots and mercenaries.
vR: However... he didn't really understand hypergamy.
SP: Then he really didn't understand women.
Correct.
vR: he was a direct descendent of Francis Marion
SP: Virtue isn't hereditary. Each man must strive to claim it for himself.
He was one of the most virtuous men I've ever known. A true Christian first, and also a true patriot.
But, like most of the pastorate in the USA, he didn't understnad hypergamy. And he had suffered for it. As did I, while I was still single.
As an older married man of relatively high social status, I must say: Very, Very few men these days are as special and great as I am. You can try to refute this, but no matter what you say, I'm not buying into it. Given my position of authority, you simply wouldn't know what people are like these days. I'm sorry, really, I am; but it's the truth.
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