Being Thankful

It is so easy to focus on everything that is wrong with your life that you tend to lose sight of what has gone right. I have a lot to be thankful for, far more than what I have cause to mourn:

I am thankful that my family is still intact; that my parents are still married and none of our family is estranged from one another.

I am thankful for my good health, and that of those dear to me.

I am thankful for my security and safety, and that I don’t fear for my life at all times.

I am thankful that I do not want for food, or water, or shelter at night. That I don’t have to worry when my next meal will be, or if I will have enough clothes and warmth to survive the winter.

I am thankful for friends that care about me, and whom I care for in turn.

I am thankful that my Lord loved me enough that He was willing to suffer death for my sins on a cross. I thank those who introduced me to my faith, and helped keep it strong over my life. I am thankful that I may worship my God in peace, and have not been required to lay down my life for my faith.

¹ Praise the Lord!
I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart,
in the company of the upright, in the congregation.
² Great are the works of the Lord,
studied by all who delight in them.
³ Full of honor and majesty is his work,
and his righteousness endures forever.
⁴ He has gained renown by his wonderful deeds;
the Lord is gracious and merciful.
⁵ He provides food for those who fear him;
he is ever mindful of his covenant.
⁶ He has shown his people the power of his works,
in giving them the heritage of the nations.
⁷ The works of his hands are faithful and just;
all his precepts are trustworthy.
⁸ They are established forever and ever,
to be performed with faithfulness and uprightness.
⁹ He sent redemption to his people;
he has commanded his covenant forever.
Holy and awesome is his name.
¹⁰ The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom;
all those who practice it have a good understanding.
His praise endures forever.

(Psalm 111)

[My next post might be password protected, depending on how I go with it. If it is, those interested can request access here in the comments or by e-mailing me via the address in my About page.]

Update: Password is going out soon.

Selected Sunday Scripture- #1

In what I’m hoping to make a Sunday tradition here on my blog, I’m going to post a couple of Bible quotes from various passages I’ve read over the past week. These quotes will be ones which I found especially appropriate at the moment, really touched me, or left me with some questions I would like answered.

The first passage is from the First Letter of John:

¹⁵ And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have obtained the requests made of him. ¹⁶ If you see your brother or sister^[a] committing what is not a mortal sin, you will ask, and God^[b] will give life to such a one—to those whose sin is not mortal. There is sin that is mortal; I do not say that you should pray about that.

I found this passage fascinating because it indicates that we aren’t required to pray for those who commit mortal sins. Not that we can’t, only that we aren’t required to. I’m curious as to how my readers have heard this passage explained before, as it is not one that I’m familiar with, nor one I can say I’ve ever heard a homily/sermon on.

The second passage is from the First Letter to the Thessalonians:

Finally, brothers and sisters,^[a] we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus that, as you learned from us how you ought to live and to please God (as, in fact, you are doing), you should do so more and more. ² For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus. ³ For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from fornication; ⁴ that each one of you know how to control your own body^[b] in holiness and honor, ⁵ not with lustful passion, like the Gentiles who do not know God;

I found this passage particularly intriguing because of what is mentioned in footnote [b] here. A more literal translation would be how to take a wife for himself, which leaves us with a passage that states: “that each one of you know how to take a wife for himself in holiness and honor…” Which, if I’m reading this correctly, would seem to indicate that Christian men are expected to know how to find a good wife as a means to avoid sin. And furthermore, they are to do so in a manner consistent with Christian teaching and practice.

The last passage is from the Book of Sirach:

¹⁹ Do not dismiss^[d] a wise and good wife,
for her charm is worth more than gold.
²⁰ Do not abuse slaves who work faithfully,
or hired laborers who devote themselves to their task.
²¹ Let your soul love intelligent slaves;^[e]
do not withhold from them their freedom.

²² Do you have cattle? Look after them;
if they are profitable to you, keep them.
²³ Do you have children? Discipline them,
and make them obedient^[f] from their youth.
²⁴ Do you have daughters? Be concerned for their chastity,^[g]
and do not show yourself too indulgent with them.
²⁵ Give a daughter in marriage, and you complete a great task;
but give her to a sensible man.
²⁶ Do you have a wife who pleases you?^[h] Do not divorce her;
but do not trust yourself to one whom you detest.

²⁷ With all your heart honor your father,
and do not forget the birth pangs of your mother.
²⁸ Remember that it was of your parents^[i] you were born;
how can you repay what they have given to you?

There is a lot packed in this small passage, but I found the part about daughters especially poignant. A father is advised to:

1) Keep them chaste

2) Do not indulge them

3) Marry them to a sensible man

Sadly, Christian fathers don’t seem to be accomplishing any of these tasks these days. And we are all the worse for it.

[This will probably be my last post until after Thanksgiving, although I will keep an eye on the comments and the e-mail address folks can contact me with.]

The Shrinking Gap- The Conundrum of Female SMV and Marriage

My latest post, which examined how male attractiveness increasing with age is thwarted by the current nature of the marriage market, prompted a female reader of mine to contact me. She agreed with my assessment of the state of the MMP for men, and then offered her thoughts on how things worked for women. I thought they were excellent points, and she graciously allowed me to integrate them into a post. The first part of this post will be quotes from the two of us, mostly hers, with some of my replies. The second part will be an analysis and summary of the points raised earlier.

I.

My reader, who wishes to remain anonymous, said this:

[As a woman it] may be, or rather, it is simple enough to attract a man in your age bracket that displays good overall LAMPS simply by being young and in shape while dressing and acting in a feminine manner. But that only gets my foot in the door. Once the serious talks begin, then there is a completely different set of things that I have to consider.

I think one of the more common situations I have encountered is a man who, nearing or in his early 30s, is ready to settle down with a woman younger than himself. But similarly to situations Red Pill men encounter with various women, he has already “lived his life,” so to speak. He has had numerous “relationships,” ONS’s and everything in between with various women usually starting from high school moving forward and he may have been heavy into the party/club scene which typically means he was also probably heavy into drugs/alcohol. Add a kid or two to put the icing on the cake. Then finally at some point in his late 20s/early 30s he “grows out of that phase” and wants to settle down and take his life and faith seriously. Now keep in mind, these are men in the age bracket to which I am directed to open my search. This search can continue well into my mid to late 20s where by then, my overall [SMV] and fertility are beginning their decline.

When I remarked that she was one of the few women who seemed as cautious of a man’s history as (aware) men tend to be of a woman’s history, she added this:

It’s common Red Pill knowledge what a fast lifestyle in ones twenties can do to woman, ranging from poor overall health, an inability to bond to one man, an overall jaded worldview and the list goes on. But I view it as more of a general thing: one’s past, man or woman, effects your future for better or worse. And speaking from a strictly Christian perspective, I’d be mistaken to attempt to hitch my wagon to a man that had his share of pump and dumps before deciding to settle down in the same way a man would avoid a woman with the same history. A lot can be said for forgiveness and repentance, but a man’s past still counts. At least for me, anyway. That goes equally for sinful misconduct outside the sexual arena, as well. These things can often times be clear markers of different character or personality flaws that may show up further down the road and should I be married to such a man and these patterns or behaviors rear their ugly heads… what can I do?

I responded with these observations:

You make a great point that there are really two different searches someone is conducting. The first is to search for someone who wants to marry, and the second is to search among those who want to marry for someone worth marrying.

…

I suspect that the reason why the kind of men you describe are common is because those men who never engaged in the party or hook-up have “checked out.” They eschew dating in general, most likely because they were burned one too many times by women.

…

It seems to be a general conundrum that both men and women face: those who are willing to marry are not worthy, and those who are worthy don’t want to marry.

Those were the most relevant parts of our conversation. This brings us to part 2.

II.

In my previous post, I explained the dilemma that men faced:

The older we get, the more attractive we become to women, but at the same time, there are less marriageable women available to us.

Women face a different situation, one that on its face seems quite a bit worse: Their SMV decreases over time, and there aren’t necessarily any more marriageable men available to them over time.

Women have the advantage of starting off in a better position than men, and that is a considerable advantage, to be sure. But in the current MMP it isn’t so much of an advantage as it could/should be. Younger women who want to marry young find that men their age don’t tend to want to marry. At least, that is what I have heard from my younger female readers, including the one who inspired this post. In this sense, younger men and women are alike; both eschew marriage for the time being. This is unfortunate for young women looking to marry, because younger men tend to have less baggage (just as younger women tend to have less baggage). Those younger men who do want to marry tend to be less attractive, and often are poor choices in other ways as well.

Once you start to look at the older cohort of men you find that they are more attractive, and more eager to marry. On the flip side, they oftentimes have a lot of baggage from their wild and crazy years. While most men don’t build up the same amount of baggage that women do on the carousel, it can and will affect them nonetheless. Most of the men who don’t have baggage fall into two camps: those who chose not to accumulate baggage, and those who couldn‘t accumulate baggage. The first group is a small percentage of the population, and hard to find (at least, that is what I’ve heard from my female readers). The second group are often poor choices for marriage, because their lack of baggage is largely a result of deficiencies on their part. Also, many of them might not be interested in marriage to begin with, and the absence of baggage arose from the fact that they have left the field and no longer play the game (think MGTOW).

So all in all, for a woman looking for a good man without baggage to be her husband, the pickings look slim indeed. Much the same as it is for men. To repeat myself, those who are willing to marry are usually not worthy, and those who are worthy usually don’t want to marry. And this seems to be the case for men and women.

Thus we get the conundrum that marriage minded women face in the present age: They start out near the peak of their attractiveness, but are in a race against the clock to find marriageable men before their attractiveness fades so much they no longer interest those men.

 

Update: In case it wasn’t clear enough in the main post, this post is written from the perspective of some of my female readers. I don’t necessarily think that all of the observations are correct, but I assumed them to be true for the sake of argument in this post. It was either that, or call them liars. Despite that, I think the ultimate conclusion is still accurate.

Mind the Gap- The Conundrum of Male SMV and Marriage

Over the course of my time blogging here in the manosphere I have noticed what seems like a pattern whenever I mention my age and growing older. Fairly consistently, whenever I express alarm at my age and how it will impact my ability to marry well, a Red Pill aware woman will speak up and say that I’m needlessly worrying. She will point out that my SMV is increasing over time and that I have yet to hit my peak. I’ve seen the same directed towards other men as well.

Now, none of what these women said was incorrect. According to Rollo‘s interpretation of SMV, I  am getting more attractive over time. And my personal observations certainly match up with this, although I don’t know if that is simply because I am getting older or because I have unlearned a whole slew of unattractive behaviors. All of that is besides the point, however, because these women are confusing an increase in SMV, which corresponds to the Sexual Marketplace, with the ability to marry well, an entirely different matter.

Before I continue in depth I think it best to re-post the graphic representation that Roll made of male and female SMV, interposed:

…

While I have some minor disagreements with it, I think that Rollo has managed to aptly convey how male and female SMV develop over time. There are a couple of key things to take away from his graph:

1) The numbers that Rollo provides on the side are better understood as a percentage, specifically of the maximum level of attractiveness that an individual man or woman can achieve.

2) Under this assessment women “peak” at 23, and men at 38. That creates a gap of about 15 years.

3) The critical point, where male and female SMV achieve rough “parity”, is at the age of 30. This age, interestingly enough, roughly corresponds with the point where women start to hit The Wall.

With these observations in mind, lets turn back to the intersection of age, male SMV and marriage. The key flaw in the thinking of those Red Pill women is that they confuse the Sexual Marketplace and the Marriage Marketplace.

In the SMP, the only thing that really matters is SMV, or attractiveness. If your only intention is to establish a sexual relationship, then its a game of competing with your peers for the most attractive members of the opposite sex available. The higher your SMV, the higher the SMV you can get in the opposite sex. In this sense, things are definitely looking up for me. My ability to “pull” women for the purpose of sex is only getting better over time. But this isn’t what men like myself are looking for.

In the MMP, there are a large number of factors which determine relationships other than SMV. Attractiveness does play a role, of course, but must compete with other criteria. Age is one of these. It doesn’t matter in the SMP, because most relationships are temporary things, sometimes not even lasting a single night. But marriage is (supposed to be) a long term, for life endeavor, and so a potential spouse’s age makes a huge difference. For men in my position, the central problem is that the closer we get to our “peak”, the greater the age gap between us and the women we want (who are at their peak or before it). And this age gap matters because women these days aren’t necessarily going to marry a man significantly older than themselves.

They might be concerned about being widowed early, and having to take care of children by themselves. Or even widowed late in life, but still having to face a decade or more alone. Also, they could be concerned about the criticism they might face from friends and family from marrying a man significantly older than themselves.  In addition, there is also the significant, perhaps overriding fact that many women these days don’t want to marry when they are young. So marrying a woman near her prime is difficult enough.

If you think I might be off base here, I suggest you ask yourself this question: How many 18-23 year old women do you know who want to marry as soon as possible?

Follow that up with this question: How many 18-23 year old women do you know who want to marry and would be willing to marry a man in, say, his early to mid thirties?

The answer to both questions is precious few. And this small pool of women becomes even smaller when you factor in other criteria to decide if such women are marriageable. I’ve explained my criteria before about what I look for in a potential wife, and I image most other men in a similar position have similar criteria.

When taken together, every day that passes takes men in my age group further and further away from the ideal age range of women that we want to marry. Giving up on younger women and focusing on those closer to our age isn’t a terribly great strategy either. As you look at progressively older age groups of women, fewer and fewer women in each age bracket meet our criteria for marriage (mine already rules out the majority of women by the time they turn 18).

Thus we get the conundrum that marriage minded men face in the present age: The older we get, the more attractive we become to women, but at the same time, there are less marriageable women available to us.

Sometimes What Is Sauce For The Goose Is Not Sauce For The Gander… Or Is It?

The role of male attractiveness in the happiness of marriage has been a topic which has consistently received a lot of attention in the manosphere. As Novaseeker has explained, we live in an age of hedonic marriages, where attraction plays a major role in the contentment and happiness of both spouses. The role of female attractiveness in marriage, however, has received far and away less attention. Fortunately, Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit posted a link to a recent study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. The study concerns how the happiness of a marriage is impacted by the wife’s attractiveness. A few relevant parts from the whole article:

A study of more than 450 newlywed couples over the course of four years found that men with physically attractive wives remained much more satisfied in their marriage than men who did not. However, the attractiveness of a woman’s husband played no part in the satisfaction that women felt from their marriage.

…

The study strengthened support that there is a gender gap for how much physical attractiveness corresponds to (self-reported) marriage happiness.

Husbands with attractive wives in all four independent, longitudinal studies analyzed were more satisfied than their wives at the beginning of each marriage. As the marriage progressed, the husbands with the attractive wives remained more satisfied, and the attractive wives in these couples also reported being more satisfied.

You can read the full article here.

Now, at first glance it seems like this study contradicts the manospherian “wisdom” that husband’s attractiveness impacts his wife’s happiness with the marriage. This part I quoted uses the word “attractiveness” for both men and women, but earlier in the article, in a part that I don’t quote, the author used the word “looks” instead. At this point my regular readers have no doubt picked up on the obvious flaw in the article: the author has confused a man’s Looks with his attractiveness. Needless to say, a man’s Looks are only a single component of his overall attractiveness to women. But of course, this is something that few people really understand, and so male attractiveness and Looks are confused all the time. The unhappy result of this is that we get studies like this, which are reliable in one sense (the wife’s attractiveness), but not in another (the husband’s attractiveness).

Still, the study does seem to support the idea that the attractiveness of one spouse does make a difference in the happiness of the other. Around these parts we’ve long known this to be the case for men, and now it appears to be the case for women as well. This is altogether unsurprising to me, both because of the prevalence of hedonic marriages, and because attraction connects to the deepest and darkest parts of our brains, and so is likely to greatly influence all of our mental functions. Happiness and contentment being just two examples.

 

Update: This also matches up with what St. Paul said in the First Letter to the Corinthians, Chapter 7. If it is “better to marry than to be aflame with passion” than it stands to reason that one should probably not marry unless there is at least some sort of passion between a couple. And attractiveness certainly plays a role here.

Film Review: A Dream of Flying – Guest Post by An Observer

Or: What happens when a company goes beta

[Editors Note: Today’s guest post comes courtesy of An Observer, who felt that it was more appropriate here than his usual digs. I leave it here for my readers to enjoy while I work on my next post, which concerns how women poison the well for other women when it comes to courtship.]

In the proud tradition of tech companies like Nokia and Blackberry, film industry stalwart Canon is doing everything it can to self-promote, with the exception of developing new products.

Canon is a key player in electronics and consumer products, such as the digital single lens reflex (DSLR) camera market, which recently suffered a decline in sales for the first time in years. Criticized for resting on its laurels instead of developing better cameras, Canon has a huge legacy customer base from years of selling 35mm digital cameras and lenses. But its cameras are arguably years behind its competitors. It has one mediocre product in new markets like micro four thirds, and does not compete at all in the booming smartphone industry, which has largely made standalone, entry-level cameras redundant and irrelevant.

Most companies that wish to endure would probably identify a need to change strategies at this point. Instead, Canon USA and Ron Howard recently launched a film festival, showcasing 10 films inspired by user-submitted photographs. Celebrity directors included noted cougar Eva Longoria, and other lesser known industry people minor league celebrities like designer Georgina Chapman, who produced today’s film of interest.

Media is an important conduit for transmitting values, making closer examination of the underlying values worthwhile. All the films appear well made and professionally done, meaning their chosen messages are all the more easily absorbed by a ready audience.

The short film introduces us to Clarissa, a young girl who can fly, sent to an institution to make her “normal.” Punished whenever she transgresses, she runs across a young boy who persuades her to escape with him. During the attempt, she is captured and returned to the institution to live out her childhood.

Years pass and Clarissa has become an adult. She has a job, an apartment and is single. A young man approaches her, the same boy now too grown to adulthood. He asks her to come see the world with him. Stricken with guilt and memories of the institution of her youth, she runs from him to the same institution, now an abandoned building and spends the next fifty years hiding there, as a recluse.

Finally, an old man knocks at the door. It is the same man she knew as a boy, who has now seen the world and asks her to come away with him again. They travel to an amusement park, where they ride a ferris wheel. Despite her protestations, she finds herself flying away with him, finally. The teddy bear is left behind, and here the film ends. There are a number of sub-themes running through the film, but a few key points are worth noting.

1.      Clarissa is a special snowflake, misunderstood by all but one man she chooses to spurn when young.
2.      Her special ability must be kept secret, and means she does not get the associated recognition and attention for it.
3.      She is pursued for years by the same man, and only relents to his attentions in old age, when there are no other options left,
save solitude and death as a lonely spinster.
4.      The man’s responsibility is to pursue, which he does periodically, but with persistence.
5.      Eventually she is unable to resist her dream man’s charms, and is quite literally swept off her feet.

Romance films tend to be solidly blue pill in their relationship portrayal, with this film adhering to the script. Our heroine is consistently shown as a passive victim of circumstances. Presumably abandoned by her parents and institutionalised, her escape attempt is thwarted by hesitance, when she drops her teddy bear.

In adulthood, she is shown as a soft careerist, holding a job and living in an apartment, all markers of independent feminist life. There is no husband, no family life to speak of. Though attractive, she is portrayed as bereft of male interest and attention, totally contradicting contemporary reality.

By the time old age arrives (which she achieves with hair intact, interestingly), the man that pursues her has seen the world, yet only wants to see it with her. As “the world is not enough”, he must have her with him or his experience is incomplete.

As a romance piece, it ticks the usual boxes. Pretty, though misunderstood female lead is pursued by handsome, confident young man whom she chooses to spurn. Never mind, he will be back one day, and he is.

Directed by English fashion designer and actress Georgina Chapman, she married well known film producer Harvey Weinstein in 2007, at age 31.

At just a few minutes in length, it encapsulates many of the key themes of contemporary blue pill interactions:

1.      The girl is always special
2.      The girl is free to reject the boy at any time
3.      Girls are to get jobs and live in apartments

Side note: there was also the theme of provision, inferred from when Clarissa retreated to live in the abandoned institution building. There is no explanation of how she attained food, clothing, hair care products, or even how she kept a huge building remotely serviceable with no visible income or means of support. Presumably this is by some mystical, magical means that ‘just happens,’ perhaps echoing the role of beta men whose job is to keep civilization going, but are so invisible and low in status they are unseen.

The role of men is also spelled out:

1.      The man must always accept her decisions
2.      The man must be prepared for rejection
3.      The man must be exceptional
4.      The man should retain an idealised notion of who she is, or ‘oneitis’

Whilst very different to such films as Fireproof or Courageous, some of the underlying messages are the same. As such, it represents the toxic underbelly of supplication that beta men, and beta companies, are encouraged to embrace. Boldness and determination is for alphas; normal men that behave as betas will have to wait their turn, as our hero does. In other words, wait your entire life because it will work out in the end; incredibly bad advice when this life is so limited, a conclusion that applies to all, regardless of belief.

http://www.photographyblog.com/news/project_imaginat10n_festival/
http://www.enstarz.com/articles/27695/20131025/georgina-chapman-marchesa-co-founders-project-imagination-film-gets-help.htm
http://www.steves-digicams.com/news/canon_and_ron_howard_partner_for_a_unique_photography_contest.html
https://www.longliveimagination.com/films

Creepy or Hawt?

[Caution, minor profanity in this post.]

Tonight you’re all gonna be part of a social experiment…

Reader Donald R. has clued me in to a video that I think encapsulates a lot of Game/Red Pill concepts. However, rather than have you watch it straight away, I want to conduct aforementioned social experiment. I would like my readers to watch the video twice. The first time, watch it WITHOUT the sound. That’s right, turn off the sound on your computer before watching the video the first time. Then, write down your initial results, including:

1) What do you think is happening?

2) What do you think is being said by the men?

3) What do you think is being said by the women?

4) What is your impression of each person in the video?

AFTER you have done that, watch the video WITH the sound. Then write what you think now. Post both your initial and your final thoughts on the video in the comment section below.

WARNING: DO NOT WATCH WITHOUT CHECKING INSTRUCTIONS ABOVE!!!

Once I get enough comments I will throw my own into the mix, and explain my intentions with this post.

Kindling the Fire Through Gratitude

My post Lighting the Fire led to a spirited debate over what causes/maintains/builds attraction inside of Marriage. During the debate Velvet suggested that there was such a thing as “utilitarian tingles,” deriving from a man’s provision. Naturally, this evoked a considerable amount of opposition from male commenters, as well as the author of this blog. Elspeth instead suggested that there was a sort of “negative tingling” in play when a man can’t provide. This made sense to me, as a man’s ability to provide is tied to his employment, which is tied to his Status.

Matters went back and forth, and a number of other topics were addressed, including how nerds are clueless about women, how men shouldn’t take relationship advice from women, and why so many men seem to think that women can only love conditionally. Fortunately, just as the thread was dying, Je Suis Prest left this comment:

On the subject of utilitarian tingles, I’d like to suggest something I’ve been thinking of that may or may not be correct…

I think there are two distinct things being said on that subject:
1) that the lack of provision prevents tingles; and
2) that provision is attractive.

In general, I buy the first statement. If a woman has spent the day stressing out about feeding the kids and finding enough money for rent, she’s not likely to be interested in procreative-type activities when she gets some time alone with her man. Stress has numerous negative effects including killing the mood for both men and women. Also, if a woman thinks of her husband as being less of a man because he doesn’t have a job, that attitude will definitely move him down on her mental scale.

This is a good explanation of the “negative tingles” concept arising from a lack of ability to provide. But the real gem of her comment is this:

At first, I was disinclined to accept the second premise, but then one of my female friends sent me a message about a thankfulness challenge that she’s embarked on. (Bear with me, this does tie in to the main point). She found that the more she looked for things to be thankful for so that she could journal something each day, the more she realized how blessed she was throughout the rest of the day. I’m wondering if when Velvet describes provision as being attractive, she’s experiencing something similar. If a woman is actively looking for attractive aspects of her husband and takes note of how well he provides for her, I can see how that would lead her to think about what a good man he is, how lucky she is to have him, and how many other women would want a man just like him. All of those thoughts could raise his status in her own mind and make him more attractive. I can also see how it would be possible for a woman who is actively looking for positive things about her husband to be warmer and more pleasant to him, which could lead to his interactions with her to be more positive and how that could feed into attraction as well. Could it be that this is what is meant by utilitarian tingles?

[I put those parts that I think were most relevant in bold.]

I think JSP is definitely onto something here. Gratitude has a profound effect when a wife shows it to her husband. It affects them both in a positive way, and binds the two of them even closer together. The way I see it, when a wife develops a healthy sense of gratitude for everything her husband does for her, she is elevating him in her eyes. This increases his Status relative to hers, which has the double effect of both satisfying her hypergamy and making him more attractive. Increased gratitude can only be a net gain.

Commenter Deep Strength then followed up her comment with his own:

That would be taking on the attitude of gratitude and thus by extension our actions change to that of “praos” (the greek word for gentleness / meekness / humility) which is a key player in submission. One of the fruits of the Spirit. The very opposite of which is entitlement.

The reason why we as Christians would willingly submit to God and his commands because we know of the grace and mercy that we are afforded in Him through Jesus. We are forced to accept humility / meekness / gentleness before Him, as all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. That is, we cannot do enough to save ourselves on our own. It is the gift of God. And this is why we willingly do the will of God, even though it cannot make up for the gift that He has given.

Provision in this sense can be viewed as something to be grateful for, and thus as wife realizes she is grateful for that she willingly can take on “praos” which leads to submission.

He has kindly provided a missing link here, connecting gratitude to submission. This allows us to see that in a wife with a respectful attitude and a warm Christian spirit we get this:

Provision—>Gratitude—>Submission—>Attraction—>Everyone Wins!

When we see things in this light, we can understand that everything a wife does is connected to her attraction to her husband. While his dominance and overall masculinity is important, it is only part of the puzzle of ensuring a healthy relationship between the two. She must also clothe herself in “the lasting beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in God’s sight.” (1 Peter 3:4). A good place to start is with being grateful for all that her husband does for her, because every act of gratitude just adds more kindling to the conjugal fire.

Here are some other discussions on gratitude:

Sunshine Mary-

Be a low-maintenance wife

Women’s arrogance and the downfall of assortive mating

Elspeth-

Transforming my mind as a Christian wife

If anyone knows of any other good posts on gratitude, let me know so that I can include them here.

Rethinking the Scale and Testing Subjectivity

One of the things that really surprised me when I dug into the utility of the “1-10 scale” in my post Should a Woman Know Where She Ranks On The “1-10 Scale”? is how varied male evaluations of a woman’s attractiveness could be. I always knew that there would be some disparity, but I was not expecting to hear multiple tales of women being rated both 5’s and 9’s, all by different men. I concluded that the answer to the question was No, but I was unsatisfied with this. So, after some further thinking on the subject, as well as some prompting by a few readers, I have decide to delve once more into this subject.

Categorization

Briefly I want to talk about an idea that I bounced back and forth with a reader concerning a more accurate, or at least, more streamlined system than the 1-10 scale. In it I divided women into quartiles, ranging from: Very Attractive in the first quartile, Attractive to Plain in the second quartile, Plain to Unattractive in the third quartile, and Very Unattractive in the fourth quartile. The reader indicated to me that a woman who fell into the Attractive to Plain category might feel offended, as being called “plain” could be considered an insult. Being a cold and unfeeling man, and an INTJ to boot, I wasn’t terribly moved by this. However, I did realize that the line/region between Plain and Attractive was far more significant than that between Very Attractive and Attractive.

A quintile system was proposed as an alternative, with the categories of Very Attractive, Attractive, Plain, Unattractive and Very Unattractive. This seemed an improvement to me, because it allowed for some of the elasticity that you find near women of “Plain” features. But then I realized that it was just a condensed version of the 1-10 scale. Very Attractive equated with 9-10, Attractive equated with 6-8, Plain was 5, Unattractive was 3-4 and Very Unattractive was 1-2. The real advantage of this system, or the quartile system,  is that it replaces an arbitrary value like a number with a clear descriptor. Each man might have a different idea what a “6” represents, but with a descriptor like “Attractive” you are more likely to see agreement on what it means.  Also, because it creates just a few broad categories, you are more likely to see consistent results in terms of what women are rated as being.

Another idea I had concerns the notion of “Plain” women. It is generally accepted in the manosphere that men tend to find what is attractive in women, rather than what is unattractive. Otherwise stated, men may be picky, but they have a much easier time identifying what is attractive in a woman and basing her overall “rank” off of that, rather than what they find unattractive about her [Obesity being a glaring exception to this].  What I think may be a consequence of this is that men are not apt to label a woman plain for long. Given enough exposure to a woman, a man will probably begin to rate her upwards, out of the plain category. So the only women who really rate as “Plain” and stay that way are those who have nothing positive or negative about their appearance. Since this isn’t likely to be terribly common, you tend to end up with a distribution curve that looks less like a bell curve and more like this:

I am curious to see if any of my readers have thoughts on these ideas. Is the quartile/quintile system just another folly like the 1-10 scale, fraught with subjectivity and lacking in precision? Or does it have merit? And is “Plain” less common than would be expected?

What kind of Divergence?

Now that I have my thinking out loud done with, I want to move into the heart of this post: trying to figure out just how subjective male evaluations of female attractive happen to be. My last posts on the subject touched on this and I think it is time I addressed it head on. We know that men have individual preferences that manifest themselves in what they are looking for in women. But how diverse are the preferences? Essentially, what is the spread? Answering this via anecdote is ineffective in my view. Something with a little more depth to it is required. You really need to test it, by comparing a large sample of male opinions about a woman’s attractiveness.

When I first started this post, I wasn’t sure if someone had tested this before, but reader The Shadow Knight clued me in that Heartiste had explored some of this ground before. Several times, in fact. CH’s original post is gone, but he did leave up the re-cap/analysis post written in replay to this original. There are a couple of points in his post I think worth highlighting.

Nevertheless, despite the justifiable criticisms of the methodology listed above, and the specter of Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem, there was considerable agreement on each girl’s ranking. Plus or minus one point and a few wiseguy outliers, most men share the same opinions about where women fall on the 1 – 10 looks scale. Beauty is not an artifact of individual male minds. It is an objective reality. That this should be so and that men are wired with preferences for the more beautiful over the less, proves that men exercise some choosiness when deciding on a mate, just like women do. Pickiness is not gender specific, though women are pickier than men in general.

This paragraph sums up a lot of my views and expectations. I always thought that a large enough sample size would get you a fairly accurate view of female attractiveness, and the data (found in the linked post) seems to support that. Furthermore, CH and I agree that there is an “objective reality” when it comes to beauty. This leads to an interesting paragraph about mid-range values:

As I predicted, there was stronger agreement at the tails of the beauty distribution and more fussiness agreeing on the middle rankings. Every man knows a 3 and an 8 when he sees one, but one man’s marginal 6 could very well be another man’s solid 7. Looking at the bar graphs, this observation is confirmed by the wider spread (heh) of the votes for the 4-7 group.

I have a theory about why there is so much divergence in rankings for women towards the middle of the 1-10 scale. The reason they tend towards that point is because they possess a few markers of attractiveness, but only those few. Since they have so few, men who rate those features highly will tend to give them a higher score, while men who don’t care for those features or don’t like them will rate those women lower. Their physical features essentially demonstrate how men value certain features more, and those women who are most attractive, and consistently rated as attractive, tend to have all of those features.

When a reader/commenter proposed a simpler three tier system to categorize women (I system which I considered and rejected swiftly), Heartiste had this to say:

This is mostly correct. I’d separate the middle tier into two subgroups: Lower middle (4,5) and Upper middle (6,7). The distinction is important, as there is a critical and abrupt change between the two groups that has important implications for how men treat these women.

In other words, CH was suggesting a tier system which was a near match for the quartile system I had proposed earlier in this post. Although he treats 5’s a little differently than I do (by suggesting they are in the lower middle tier, the general structure is the same.

Conclusion

I originally was going to host a series of videos with attached polls to gauge the attractiveness of various women, but I have decided against it. At this time I am unable to discern a moral basis for carrying out the study, and that gives me pause. Plus my gut instinct says that I shouldn’t do it. So for the time being I will hold off conducting any kind of social experiment on female attractiveness. Instead, I will rely on Heartiste’s studies and be satisfied that there is at least some evidence that you can get an objective measure of female beauty.

Second Thoughts

I have a new post ready to go, but I’m hesitating about posting it. Here is how I described it in my preview post:

After having talked privately with a number of people, I want to address the subject of the “1-10 scale” again. Specifically, what I want to cover is just how subjective it really is. We know every man has his own set of criteria on what he likes, but I’m curious just how far it extends. So what I’m planning on doing is posting a number of videos of some female ASMR artists (a mix of some I like and others who I think would provide a good variety of physical features). Then, underneath each video I will have a poll to give readers a chance to rate the attractiveness of the woman. I’m very much curious to see just how much of a “spread” there is.

My interest in the post is mostly to see how much of a distribution there is to male evaluations of female attractiveness. Now, in the past I would have considered only my own thoughts on the subject and would have just carried on with posting it. However, I have been somewhat more… self-aware as of late, and so I realize that there might be other factors to consider. Principally that my post calls for men to rate a woman on the 1-10 scale, with the results being visible to everyone. There is always a chance that one of these women could find their way here and see the results. Since women are naturally quite concerned about their physical appearance, this could be potentially embarrassing, insulting or distressing for them.

I would appreciate it if my readers provided some input on the matter. At the moment I am still inclined to publish the post, but I am open to changing my mind.

Update: Thanks to TSK for suggesting I check out Heartiste’s site for a previous example of this kind of test in action. I’ve integrated it into my post. Right now I think I am going to post it sometime tonight, but as a private post first. I will give interested readers/commenters whom I am familiar with a chance to look it over and give their thoughts on whether it should be opened to the public or not.

Update 2: I have decided not to post the poll/study for now.  I will publish the rest of the post, and will save what I worked on in another post, but will hold onto it for now. While I couldn’t think of any clearly immoral reason to go ahead with it, I also couldn’t think of any clear moral reason to support it either.  I was reminded of an old post by CaseyAnn recently, titled The Lie of “Amorality” (non-Catholics can simply replace Catholic with Christian for the same general effect) wherein I read this:

From this we can see that there is, in fact, a moral dimension to everything. Everything follows, in one way or another, an implicit moral code that either favors order, natural law, and the love of God – or encourages disorder, perversion, and disregard for God.

Since I couldn’t discern how such a poll favored “order, natural law, and the love of God”, I concluded I should not proceed. If I ever do come upon a good reason, then I will go ahead, but not until such a day.