Different Room, Same Building

[Or otherwise called “Different Faith Tradition, But Same Culture”]

Reader and Commenter Patrick recently left a link to a Catholic blog which goes by the name Traditional Catholic Femininity. The link was for a post titled “Shortage of Marriageable Prospects Among Traditional Catholics.”

To warn everyone, it is a long post. Too long even to even just cut quote from. So I will make an effort to summarize it, if only poorly. All the same, it would be best to read the whole thing. Here is my attempt at a TLDR version:

First off, we have the quotes from another post that are the foundation-

• Too many Catholic women cannot marry, or at least marry well, because there is a real shortage of good, marriageable Catholic men.
• This shortage is because Catholic men think they are ready but are not, and need to seriously up their game.

At this point the proprietress of the blog chimes in, and offers the following:

1. The solution to the problem is for Catholic women to marry older men, preferably 10-15 years older and at least 35.
2. Because women mature faster than men women will find men their age to be immature, so to find mature men they need to look at older men.
3.  All of this means that men are just not ready to be married before their 30s in any way.
4. If you marry an older men he will love you more for it, and be less likely to cheat/abandon you, etc.
5. Men choose mates based on youth and beauty, and women chose mates based on the physical and material security he can provide.
6. This dynamic is proven to work! Look at Joseph and Mary! And see what happened with Adam and Eve!
7. Don’t marry a man just because he is hot, marry because he is able to provide, otherwise don’t marry at all
8. Younger men need to work hard, build themselves up, become leaders, etc.
9.  If you are a younger man and you think you are ready for marriage, you are fooling yourself. You just want a housekeeper you can have sex with.
10.  Only a handful of men who are young are there. Most of the rest of you are losers. Fix yourselves up.
11.  If you are concerned about sexual sin, that just means you are weak and lack self discipline. Learn to control yourself. If you can’t then you are just basically a sexual predator.
12. Oh, and women are attracted to a disciplined and self-controlled man.

That is gist of it.

So what do I think of the post? Well, I think that Elspeth, in her comment to that post, said it well: “This whole screed is filled with bad logic and inconsistencies.”

It is bad. Really, really bad. I mean, where to begin?

You have the standard men bad, women good trope. It disguises itself somewhat by saying it is merely about younger men being immature, but really, it is

You have a misunderstanding about the maturation rates of women and men. The author seems to think it simply means men are slow- rather than understanding it means that men can continue to mature past where women do.

You have a misunderstanding about what women find attractive in men, in a bad way. All of the focus on “Beta traits”, while completely ignoring or down-playing the “Alpha” or Attractive traits.

You have a misunderstanding of both Mary and Joseph’s marriage, as well as Adam and Eve’s.

The author takes time to repeatedly trash younger men. I don’t know about my readers, but I sensed real disdain here. Like visceral disdain.

Oh, and of course a complete misunderstanding of, and a downplaying of, male sexuality.

And did I mention that none of this is founded in Scripture or the writings of the Fathers of the Church or Saints?

So yeah, bad.

Mind you, the advice for women to marry older men is well-intentioned, so there is that. Unfortunately, few will actually listen to this advice, so it doesn’t accomplish much. Instead this post, rather than coming across as advice to women, seems much more like an exercise in bashing men.

And that is where the post’s title comes from. Not that there was ever any doubt, but Catholics, even Big T “Traditional” ones, still swim in the same culture as other Christian faith traditions. And that culture carries with it some of the things I mentioned above. The particular expression might vary, but the ingredients are the same, if you will.

Of course, my readers might have their own thoughts on the subject. I encourage them to off their ideas in the comments below.

Set Up To Fail

Today I would like to revisit this comment from “Hungarian Girl,” one which I have addressed already in my post Tissue-Paper Walls. Here is the same money paragraph again:

it’s very difficult to have high self-esteem when you do everything “right” but still have poor luck with the opposite sex, and it creates a very lonely feeling when you follow your values but end up getting victimized for it. Our society is simply set up so that selfish people appear to get ahead–that goes for Chads sleeping with hundreds of women, and the slutty girls having “fun.” Eva is the equivalent of the beta male looking on confused, and just because you can’t imagine a woman sharing that experience with you, doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. In fact, most women are profoundly insecure. The ones who are open about it–like Eva–haven’t learned the lesson that YOU perceive all women to be adept at–hiding their feelings and vulnerabilities.

I have put in bold those parts of the paragraph that I want to go over this round- most of the beginning, as you can see.

Before I go further, let’s break this comment down into its constituent parts:

• A lack of success with the opposite sex + doing everything right= lack of self-esteem
• Following your values + being victimized for it= extreme loneliness
• Society is set up for the selfish folks
• Women can experience the same kind of confusion that “Betas” feel when the market runs over them

Now to tackle each of those points in order.

The first point is something that many men, especially the young ones, in the sphere completely understand. Anyone who has spent time as a “Beta”, or whatever point in Vox’s model that you think applies, knows the confusion that this system creates. We have been told many things which, when applied, fail utterly. Or when we compare what see with what we have been told, nothing adds up. And over time, that just crushes your confidence and spirits.

The second point is again pretty easy to understand. That is just human nature. We will just naturally feel lonely when we do what we think is right, and get blasted for it.I am sure the Prophet Elijah felt that way after he fled Ahab into the desert.

As for the third point, I think our society goes beyond just being set up for the selfish. It is also set up for the short-sighted and the short-term focused. It benefits those looking for immediate gratification (pretty much always sexual), and punishes those who try to plan or optimize for the long term. Otherwise stated, short term relationships are favored (and the shorter the better), and long term relationships are disfavored. We have set up a SMP/MMP which is an enormous version of the Prisoner’s Dilemma, only this one is far more likely to end in betrayal.

The fourth point is one that I think many, if not most, men in the ‘sphere have trouble with. However, if we look back to the first point here, they can see there is nothing which really restricts the principle of crushed self-esteem to men. Women can experience it too, although the circumstances might be different. Now, their confidence won’t affect their attractiveness like it does for men, but it will impact their desire to play the market. So there is a strong negative effect, even if it is less direct that men feel.

Now that is just self-esteem. There is nothing which makes it so women cannot face a similar kind of confusion that men feel. Do I think it is less common for women to experience that confusion? Yes. But some will no doubt experience it.

So where does all of this take me? It goes back to a simple conclusion that I made in my post Market Failure:

However the Marriage Marketplace worked in the past, one thing is abundantly clear about how it works today: it doesn’t. The current Marriage Marketplace is broken, and is almost completely subsumed into the greater Sexual Marketplace (“SMP”) which has largely taken its place. This process has been a complete and utter disaster, whose consequences will be felt for generations

The present Market does its very best to set up for failure anyone who aims to “do it right.” In fact, it goes even further than that. It attempts to hide what “doing it right” actually is, and also creates confusion about what constitutes “doing it right.”

The end result is that the present Market is really great for short-sighted and selfish people who are only looking for immediate gratification. They benefit while everyone else suffers.

Money Matters

In his most recent post, Blue Pill Alphas, Rollo asks the following question:

But does that make a capacity for provisioning inherently a Beta trait?

Before I try and answer that, here is the surrounding text for context:

While I do concur with the assessment about women’s exaggerated sense of entitlement, I would also argue that this difficulty is a result of women’s prioritizing long-term security (emotional and provisional) as part of their sexual strategy reprioritizations that come in the wake of their Epiphany Phase. Ergo, this would explain the ease in gaming women pre and post Epiphany Phase. Provisioning and long term security are low sexual priorities for these demographics of women.

But does that make a capacity for provisioning inherently a Beta trait? I think it’s easy to misconstrue that capacity as Beta, because provisioning is a high-value attribute that is expected from Beta men according to their own sexual strategy. Provisioning is associated with Betas because it is integral to their sexual strategy, and also part of the Blue Pill plan for which women are hoping to fulfill at a point in their maturity when they are subjectively at their most necessitous.

What do you think?

It is easy to presume that provisioning, or a man’s access to resource/Money is something that is purely “Beta.” After all, a steady job hardly moves the needle when it comes to sexual attraction from a woman. However, this does not mean that Money/resources mean nothing.

In my page “What do Women Find Attractive in Men?” I lay out what attributes women look out for when it comes to male sexual attractiveness. Some snippets:

While visual features do play a part, and other physical features have their role as well, there are other things which can make him attractive to women. It is well established throughout history that money is something which women find attractive in men, along with that undefinable characteristic known as charisma, and women have long been known to be drawn to men of high station. When all of this is analyzed in the context of female behavior like hypergamy, it is possible to discern the triggers for male attractiveness to women, and categorize them based on their nature. There are three principal categories under which male attractiveness is analyzed: Appearance, Personality, and Externalities, or APE for short. Under these three categories are five more specific subcategories which contain the sets of attributes which determine male attractiveness: Looks, Athleticism, Money, Power, and Status, or LAMPS for short.

Incidentally, you will see this model sometimes called the LAMPS or PSALM model (the reason for which I explain next).

There is no universal female measure of what makes a man attractive. Some women are more attracted to one attribute over the other, just as men are attracted to different women in varying degrees. Each woman has her own set of preferences, so there is no single standard. As a mental exercise, one can view these as a point system, where a man has a certain value from 1 through 10 in each LAMPS subcategory. Then they are added together some sort of weighted average is applied. Theoretically, as long as you have enough in certain areas, it can make up for deficiencies in others. However, based on personal observations, anecdotes and the vast amount of empirical research provided by the PUA community, it is clear that certain attributes/subcategories tend to be more important than others for most women. In general the (not universal) order of importance:

1) Power- Clearly the most important set of attributes, well above the others. Charisma is king.

2) Status- Also extremely important, plays a significant role in interacting with female hypergamy.

3) Athleticism- Of middling importance, perhaps because resources are plentiful, but still something which women like in men.

4) Looks- With the exception of height, this set of attributes provides little bang for your buck; it might get you initial attention but won’t keep it for you.

5) Money- Great wealth is required for this attribute to be meaningful, likely a product of a resource-rich culture where women can easily provide for themselves.

Money comes last in importance, and let me repeat again what I just said: Great wealth is required for this attribute to be meaningful, likely a product of a resource-rich culture where women can easily provide for themselves.

We live in an age where material comfort is the norm. The overwhelming majority of Western women have no concept of what it is to “do without.” They can support themselves, or they can rely on the state (i.e., other anonymous men) to support them. Thus, it takes a lot of Money/resources for this particular attribute to move the needle re: sexual attraction. I would argue that 6 figures isn’t enough, not any more. Now it takes millions, at least.

With that in mind, we should also remember that Money/resources plays into those Desirable traits that women want as well. Since “desire” and sexual attraction are not the same, the fact that Money is also a desirable trait only really matters when women are looking for desirable traits in the first place. And as Rollo and others (myself included) have explained elsewhere, most women in the West care about them the most while in their Epiphany phase.

Hence, it just seems like Money or provisioning is a “Beta” trait. Rather, it is a low priority PSALM/LAMPS trait that rarely affects a man’s sexual attractiveness. After all, most men aren’t millionaires. And those who are usually have other traits going for them, blurring the lines somewhat.

 

The Necessity Of A Secret Identity

Post full title: Superheroes And The Necessity Of A Secret Identity From A “Red Pill” Perspective

 

[I enjoyed my last comic book post so much I decided to write another one. It should go without saying that this might be less than entirely serious.]

Not too long ago I had a conversation with a friend wherein the subject of superheroes came up. One of the things we talked about, that was interesting from a sociological perspective, was the effect that the presence of superheroes would have on general society. But what really got me thinking was to wonder what it would be like to actually be a superhero.

Oh, I’m not talking about what it would feel like to be able to fly, or have super strength or speed. No, what I was wondering about was the effects that superpowers and a superhero persona would have on someone’s everyday life. Would an everyday life be even possible? Maybe, but it might not be ordinary. Guess it depends.

There is one area of life, however, that would be dramatically affected by one’s superpowers and super-heroic persona: romance.

As I was pondering the impacts that being a super would have on one’s love life, I came to the realization that any hero, male or female, who wanted to marry would need a secret identity. I would go so far as to argue that in today’s climate a secret identity would be a necessity, even.

Why? Well, lets examine it for men and for women separately.

For men who don’t want to marry, and who otherwise don’t care about the possible benefits of a secret identity, then being an “open” Super would be quite a perk. The PSALM/LAMPS boost that a man would enjoy from being a super would have to be enormous. The Status alone would push you into the very top tier of men (unless powers were super-plentiful, I suppose). Then throw in a likely boost to Masculine Power from the confidence of super-powers, and possible athleticism boosts, and yeah… you are set. Oh, and you could probably make bank with endorsements, too. You would be the ultimate player.

But what if you want to marry? Well, here is the problem- that huge PSALM/LAMPS boost from being an open Super would make you a huge target for gold diggers and ultra-hypergamous women. [I imagine that female Supers would fall here.] Sure you might be able to get a 10… but will she stick by you? The thing about Supers is that their Status would probably fluctuate. Just like sports teams, some Supers might be seen as more “hot” at one time than at another. If your “stock” as a Super goes down then your attractiveness will drop (and your bankroll as well re: endorsements). This risks your wife leaving you if she is ultra-hypergamous and thinks she can find greener/fresher pastures elsewhere.

Besides all of the regular problems with divorce, any Supervillain foes you might have could possibly use that ex-wife as a source of info. She might blab all kinds of secrets that you don’t want out. Whether that is any kind of weakness (like kryponite), or merely something embarrassing, it could really hinder your heroics. Even if she didn’t leave you, she would be an obvious target for seduction. And lets face it, if anyone could pull off “Game”, it would be a Supervillain.

Heck, even if she doesn’t leave you, you might still need to constantly “game” her if she is “needy.” Since super-heroism is probably pretty demanding all the time, is that really worth it? I would say not.

Given all of this, a secret identity makes perfect sense. Setting aside all the other benefits, it means you can woo women without the danger they are marrying you just because of your powers. It also makes her less likely to blab your secrets, and reduces the potential of her being targeted for seduction by a foe.

Now on to women…

As a female Super, you would have a number of things to worry about as well. One thing worth mentioning is that the status of being a Super won’t be a boost to your attractiveness like it is with men. Since female attractiveness/beauty is nearly all physical, unless your powers affect your looks, it is a wash- at best.

The first issue that I can think of is that some male Super would marry you just to have super-powered children. That assumes it is genetic, of course. But if it is, then you risk being used as a breeder. Maybe it isn’t so malevolent, but still, there is always the possibility that he marries you just to marry a female super. Perhaps it is a family dynasty thing, like race can be.

Another issue is the concern over being perceived as an Alpha Widow. An open female Super who dated male Supers in the past will have trouble with non-Super men. And I mean trouble aside from her own hypergamy. The problem is that non-Super men might worry (reasonably, I might add) that they would have trouble competing with a male Super, either in terms of memories or future faithfulness.

A secret identity would protect against both problems. Men looking for genetic mothers of super-powered kids would skip you by. At the same time female Supers would be mostly insulated from the association of uber-Alphaness with male Supers and being able to compete.

I am sure there are more reasons to use a secret identity for both male and female super-heroes, so if my readers think of any feel free to add them below. Also feel free to critique my thoughts to your heart’s desire.

The Way We Met

[See update at the bottom of the post.]

I ran across the following story via a friend. Apparently it is part of some Facebook feed called The Way We Met:

“I was best friends with George for 10 years before we started dating. We met in High School and developed a really special friendship over the years. I always felt more comfortable telling George something than anyone else I knew. He became my most trusted companion and we hung out all the time. People who didn’t know us always thought we were dating. When we went our separate ways for college, we didn’t talk as much anymore but our friendship remained just as strong. George was always there for me after every bad relationship ended to help me pick up the pieces. I would often say to people, “I think friends can be soul mates, I really think George is mine.” It was odd how we would say the same thing at the same time and always knew what the other person was thinking. I always knew how much George meant to me, but it wasn’t until after my Mom got remarried that I started to look at him in a different light. The day of my Mom’s wedding I came down the stairs and he looked up at me with a big smile and said, “You look beautiful baby,” and then kissed me on the cheek. I don’t know why but something about that moment has always stuck out so strongly to me. The rest of the evening I kept staring at him and thinking about how handsome he was, what a gentleman he was, and how much I cared about him. We danced with each other all night and I realized how perfectly we fit together. It felt like home. After that, it took a couple weeks of nervous deliberation but we finally decided we wanted to be together. It’s crazy to think that my soul mate has been with me this whole time, I just wasn’t ready to accept it yet.”

There are a couple of images that accompany this. They are side by side for comparison:

Now some of you might recognize these images. That is because I featured them in my recent post, Telling Photos. Now that I have included the text that accompanies the photos we can finally start with the making of sense.

So what do we learn from both of them together? Here are a few things:

• The guy (George), was a beta orbiter for a long, long time.
• The gal (whose name I don’t have), had numerous broken relationships. A reasonable inference can be made that [those relationships, or at least some of them, were sexual, although it is not certain].
• The gal believes in Soul Mates. Ouch.
• The gal’s mom was either a divorcee or was a widow. That is not good news for good ol’ George [if it is the latter].
• They are probably somewhere between 24 and 28 years old.
• George majorly stepped up his attractiveness over those ten years.
• She was somewhat overweight at first, and it seems she has managed to get at least some of that weight off.

[A number of these are red flags. They are indicators of possible problems with her as LTR material. That doesn’t necessarily mean she is poor material, but they should prompt caution.]

Here is the thing- if someone who wasn’t “Red Pill” savvy read this piece, they would probably find it sweet. Those of us who are savvy, however, would probably have an entirely different reaction. I found the story sad, not sweet.

You see, reading the piece and looking at those photos tells me that the woman here wasn’t having issues accepting that she was supposed to be with George. Rather, the problem from the beginning was that George just wasn’t sexually attractive. He was too “Beta”, if you will. Since he wasn’t sexually attractive to her, his other great traits meant jack. However, as the years passed by George grew in confidence, and it shows in that second photo. Eventually his attractiveness grew to the point where she no longer dismissed him as a sexual partner. At that point his other great traits were able to come to the forefront, and before you know it you have this:

“I realized how perfectly we fit together.”

Among other things, this story serves as further evidence in support of Rollo Tomassi’s SMV chart:

What happened here is that the girl’s SMV started out much higher than George’s. However, as time went on his SMV continued to climb and climb. Meanwhile, age has reduced the girl’s potential SMV. However, her (presumed) weight loss had the effect of reducing the effective loss of SMV that she felt. The end result of all of this is that both are pretty close in comparative SMV at the time of this photo.

I mentioned before that I find this sad. The reason why is simple: George is now attractive enough that he can get the attention of decent looking girls (I suspect that while most readers would disagree about the actual number, most would agree that she is at least attractive). Yet what does he do with that newfound power? He goes after the girl he has been crushing on for a decade. A girl with all kinds of baggage (which she freely admits to). A girl whose mother probably was a divorcee. A girl who might very well be reaching her “Epiphany phase,” and thus looking to “cash out”on what remains of her SMV.

George seems like a decent guy, and now probably one with options. He should have focused on younger women with less baggage. Instead he married a girl with more red flags than a Communist parade.

Now that I have fleshed out the rest of this story, I invite my readers to comment further. I believe some good solid lessons can be derived here. Sure, most will already know them, but a refresher course never hurts. Plus you never know, there is always the chance for some newfound wisdom.

*For the record, the couple put all of this out there. They made it public, not me. I am merely commenting on what is effectively a public statement of theirs.

Update: Made a few corrections to try and clarify things; they are in brackets. People came to more conclusions than I was expecting in this post.

Update 2: I wrote a followup post which addresses the problems with this one- In Defense of George.

Tall, Dark And Handsome

One of the arguments that I’ve raised on this blog which has consistently generated the most opposition is that Christian women have the same sexual attraction or arousal filters that secular women have. In fact, I created my LAMPS/PSALM model in large part as a response to Christian women who objected that they “Were Not Like That.” My goal in creating LAMPS/PSALM was to provide a universal blueprint of the different factors or attributes that influence a woman’s sexual attraction or arousal to a man. Naturally enough, that model has received its fair share of opposition (not all of it from women, it should be noted).

Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it) reality has a way of providing plentiful evidence to back up my theories. In particular, there are numerous accounts from Christian women which completely back up my theory. One such account, a sad tale indeed, can be found here. A thoughtful reader has helpfully alerted me to yet another account that supports my model. [It should be noted that this reader lives outside of America and Europe, and has confirmed that the harms of feminism and sexual liberation are not limited to those respective regions.] The title of the article is that of this post- Tall, Dark and Handsome. I recommend reading the whole article. It shouldn’t take much time, as it isn’t a lengthy one. As you will hopefully have read, the account contained therein follows the usual pattern:

• Good Christian Girl meets tall, dark and handsome Stranger
• Good Christian Girl learns that the Stranger is not a Christian (or his faith is lukewarm)
• Good Christian Girl is invited to spend time with Stranger
• Good Christian Girl decides that spending time with him is ok, its not like anything will happen
• Good Christian Girl discovers that she enjoys spending time with Stranger
• Good Christian Girl starts to experience “feelings” towards Stranger
• Good Christian Girl lies to herself about her “feelings”
• Good Christian Girl gets invited to some event or place where she would be alone with Stranger

This is where the usual pattern is broken. Fortunately for Camerin (the authoress of the article), she had some good friends with more sense than she did. They pointed out what was going on, and managed to get her to engage in some self-reflection. In having these friends Camerin demonstrated great luck. In acting reflecting on the situation, Camerin demonstrated far more wisdom than is typical in this day and age. It would have been very easy for things to have gone quite differently for her if she had lacked either.

As this story, and the countless other ones out there, should demonstrate, Christian women are affected by the same sexual attraction/arousal attributes that secular women are. This used to be common knowledge. Sadly, that wisdom was lost all with so much else in the last few generations. Christian mothers need to impart this knowledge to their daughters as they grow up, so that their daughters stand a chance resisting the temptations of this world. And Christian women need to stop deceiving themselves that they aren’t as drawn to the Tall, Dark and Handsome man as other women are.

Before I go, I wanted to quote and highlight this little tidbit:

The next time I saw Jake was at a dinner with some friends. Jake and some of the guys told stories about stupid things they’d done while drunk. I knew they were exaggerating a bit to impress and/or shock us girls, but I still should have been turned off. But for some inexplicable reason, I was still attracted to him.

This thinking is what you get when Christian Churchian culture misleads women about their own nature. If Camerin had known about what she was really attracted to it might not have made a difference. She might not have realized what was going on until her friend forced her to confront the truth. But perhaps she might have been clued in sooner. That could only have been a good thing for her.

P.S. It should also be noted that Camerin’s account appears to contain some other manospherian memes or tropes. There is Max, “my best guy friend,” who is most likely a Beta Orbiter. And there is the delusion about what she was actually attracted to: “I also realized that most of my attraction had been to his attention and flattery.” There are probably others, if I took the time to dig into the article further.

Analyzing Attraction- Part 3

This is Part 3 of an ongoing series concerning sexual attraction. Part 1 can be found here, and part 2 here.

Subjective Considerations

In the last post on this subject, Elspeth sought clarification about the objectivity of attraction factors versus their subjectivity. I’ve attempted to cover such subjects before, but not to great success. So here is an attempt to try again.

My original argument was that the LAMPS factors are objective factors, in that each women’s evaluation of a man’s sexual attractiveness is controlled by them. However, a better way of describing them is that they are universal. They apply to all women, regardless of individual characteristics. In that sense it is objective. However, past that point there is a lot of subjectivity involved.

As a general rule, the PSALM model is the arrangement from the most to the least important attributes: Power, Status, Athleticism, Looks and Money. However, even there you will find some variation. Some women are much more focused on a man’s appearance, while others don’t really care much at all. So while generalizations are possible, they are not perfect. Subjectivity matters here.

Furthermore, inside the individual factors subjectivity can play a significant role. Looks and Athleticism are the most subjective of the 5 sets of attributes. Some women prefer men with dark hair, some with light hair. Eye color preferences vary. As do other features. However, there are still certain general masculine features in the Looks category which are almost universally preferred. This is especially the case with facial features. Height is an interesting twist to this. The general preference is for a taller man, however the exact height preferred can differ between women. The ideal range, from what I can tell, seems to be around 6’0 to 6’4. Athleticism also has some variation- some women prefer a man with a swimmer build, others prefer the lean look of a runner, while yet others prefer the bulk of a weight lifter. Yet even in this the overall preference is still towards the ideal of each particular build.

Status and Money are the most objective of the LAMPS factors. Here it is pretty safe to say that the more, the merrier. More money and a greater status are always more attractive. Status might leave more room for subjectivity, in that some positions might be seen as higher status than others for some women. But overall there tends to be a lot of conformity here.

Power is hard to analyze here. There are a lot of subjective factors when personality is concerned, yet certain things (confidence, assurance, dominance) seem to be universally attractive. I’d be curious of folks’ thoughts on this.

Our Ideals Are Not Necessarily Ideal

The Daily Mail, not normally a news source of mine, had an interesting article recently. Essentially, a survey was conducted which asked questions related to sex and attraction. An interesting result of this was that when women were asked to name the ideal female “beauty”, they gave Cameron Diaz (presumably when she was younger). Men, on the other hand, listed Kate Upton. When men were asked to give the ideal male physique, they gave Hugh Jackman, while women listed Ryan Gosling.

What I found interesting about the choice of Diaz was the mention in the article of her “slim, boyish shape.” I’ve heard a few women I know, and attractive women at that, mention that they wish they were possessed of a thinner and taller profile or body shape. I am kind of curious why women would prefer this. While I have a few ideas of my own, I would like to hear what my readers think.

As for the men, I think I understand why men picked Hugh Jackman over Ryan Gosling. Since men are primarily driven by physical appearance, they selected a high-status man who seemed to best fit the peak masculine physical look. However, as the PSALM model points out, both Power and Status are of greater significance to a man’s sexual attractiveness than his Athleticism or Looks. Which makes me wonder if Gosling is considered higher Status right now. Or perhaps, if not necessarily purely higher status, if he is considerable more desirable by women right now. Which ties into my next point.

A Short-Cut To Status

Pre-selection is a feature of female behavior wherein women find men more attractive in relation to how many other women find that man attractive. The greater the number of women who seem to be attracted to a man, the more attractive he will tend to be in female eyes. This behavior is tied to Status  and is a “short-cut”, women use it to quickly and easily gauge a man’s position in the overall market.

It is a behavior that gets quite a lot of play in Game circles, as it can be truly potent in driving attraction. While I’m not really interested in their particular “trade”, the behavior has an impact in the Marriage Marketplace just as it does in the Sexual Marketplace. As more than a few Christians have attested to before in this particular section of the internet, if a man in church manages to “invoke” this female behavior it can almost completely shut out other men.

In his latest post Rollo quotes from an earlier piece by Heartiste explaining an “experiment” which relied on this phenomenon:

Basically, the guy had a few friends follow him around the mall, one guy filming him and the other two guys (I can’t tell if any of his hired guns were women) acting as his “groupies” or entourage. He goes around identifying himself as “Thomas Elliot” when people, mostly women, ask him his name. Eventually, he begins to pile up admiring and gawking female attention, which only snowballs into more female attention. Apparently, not one of these starstruck chicks thought to question if Thomas Elliot was a real celebrity. That’s the power of preselection and fame; so powerful, it can disengage a woman’s neural logic circuitry.

[For those who want the link to the original post, go to Rollo’s post- as a general rule I don’t linke to Heartiste.]

Rollo then comments on how pre-selection plays the dominant role in the insanity which we know as “teen idols”:

Preselection is a very powerful motivator of women’s hypergamous decision making process. Even the perception of fame (or even the potential for it) is a prime motivator and incentive to lock down a man who presents the hypergamous optimal ideal – a guy who satisfies the sexiness her Alpha F—s hypergamous needs require and the long term security of provisioning potential from status-confirmed Beta Bucks.

Whether this “famous” guy actually embodies this ideal is irrelevant to a woman’s Id-centric psyche. When women are younger, tweens and teens, this self-convincing is much easier since girls lack any real world experience to reference with respect to what the guy really represents. A capacity for abstract thinking is something that develops as we mature, but the desire to optimize hypergamy is a limbic, instinctual drive for girls and no amount of reasoning can compete with the fantasy of a pre-fabricated idealized Hypergamy.

They want to believe it.

[DG: I wonder if this might be the female counter-part to men pedestalizing women. Thoughts?]

Thus we have hordes of girls and young women willing to go to behavioral lengths they would never consider with the mundane men they’re familiar with in order to just brush with the possibility of  that hypergamous ideal. They will literally climb over one another to realize this.

The thing is, many older women can experience this behavior as well. They tend not to be as extreme about it, but I’ve seen it expressed before. SO it definitely seems to be an innate female behavior. Perhaps experience tempers it, as Rollo implies. Or maybe a woman’s drop in SMV, and her knowledge of his, makes her realize that she doesn’t have a real chance of pulling off this kind of “coup.”

Naturally, many Game practitioners and PUAs try to find ways to capitalize on pre-selection. I’ve heard of some hiring escorts to provide the appearance of female attention. Others will use female family members or co-workers for this purpose. It can be a huge card to play, and frankly any man looking to attract women should keep it in mind. If not for his own use, but to be wary of other men using it.

What I am curious about is how, or if, this could be ethically used by Christians within the confines of a church. Assuming that you cannot, or should not use it, what steps might be taken to counter-act its effects? Or is that even really possible? From what I’ve seen, the only thing that can surmount a man with pre-selection is another man with an even greater perception of pre-selection. I invite my readers to chime in with their thoughts on this subject, and all the others broached in this post.

 

Analyzing Attraction- Part 1

This is the first in a series of new posts on the subject of attraction. My life is quite busy at the moment, and I’m deliberately restricting the time I spend online right now as a result. So most of the posts in this series will be shorter rather than longer. Today’s post is mostly review.

I. Back to Basics

Attraction was a principal focus of this blog in the beginning, with a special focus on male attractiveness. Even before this blog was created I wrote a guest post for Sunshine Mary wherein I set out what I perceived to be the different categories that women evaluated men for in terms of their attractiveness. And by attractiveness, I mean sexual attractiveness. More about this clarification later. This was my original LAMPS formula:

• Looks
• Athleticism
• Money
• Power
• Status

As I noted in that original post, not all categories (which I called vectors then) are equal. Some were valued more highly than others by most women, and individual women could vary in their preferences as well. In terms of overall importance, they are (in descending order of importance) Power, Status, Athleticism, Looks and Money. This is sometimes referenced as PSALM. I often refer to them together as LAMPS/PSALM. A man with a high LAMPS/PSALM score is attractive to most women, and a man

I later clarified this theory bit by discussing the overall categories that women look at: Appearance, Personality and Externalities (also known as APE). The LAMPS factors all fold into that system, which is even simpler and pretty much catches everything there is to catch.

One of the major components of my LAMPS/PSALM theory and model was that it focused purely on sexual attraction. I deliberately excluded any “comfort” traits from it, because those ultimately have no bearing on female sexual attractiveness for all or nearly all women (possible exceptions to be discussed in a later post). I sometimes reference their effect on women as “creating Desire.” Desirable traits or “Retention” traits influence women in so far as elevating some attractive men over others. But unless a man meets a woman’s high threshold for sexual attractiveness (thank you Hypergamy), they don’t help a man.

Or do they?

II. Attraction v. Arousal

Rollo Tomassi has written plenty about his own views on attraction. So far as I can tell he hasn’t formulated a system or model as specific as mine. What he has done is use different terminology and approach attraction from a different light. Rollo uses the terms arousal and attraction to describe what I call attraction and comfort/security. Here is a sample of his use of those those terms from his post Alpha Tells:

In a social environment where men are conditioned to believe that women are as equal, rational agents as men, the belief men put their faith into is that women will appreciate their intrinsic qualities and base their sexual selectivity upon a man’s virtue, bearing, intelligence, humor, and any number of attractive intrinsic qualities. However, the truth of what women base their sexual selectivity upon (arousal) is far more evident in their instinctual, unconditioned behavior when around Alpha men – as well as men’s instinctual sensitivity to that behavior.

While Rollo uses the term arousal, and I use attraction, I believe that they both get to the heart of the same thing: female sexual affinity for a man. Essentially, a primal urge to want him sexually and to mate with him. Where Rollo and I perhaps differ is Rollo’s use of attractive to describe what I call desirable traits. Rollo gives them far more credit than I do in terms of generating female attention. As I understand his thinking, women are affected by two forms of attraction: sexual (what he calls arousal) and comfort/security (what he refers to when he mentions attraction). What happens is that women start out mostly driven by sexual attraction/arousal. As they get older, comfort/security attraction start to take precedence. This switch roughly coincides with a woman’s Epiphany phase- the point when her SMV starts to drop enough that both she and the men around her notice it, and react accordingly.

What Rollo has argued, and what is different from my original take on comfort/security/desirable traits, is that women are actively attracted to these traits. Women notice them and will seek men out based on them. And they will do so even if a man is not sexually attractive.

My own take on desirable traits was that they didn’t grab attention from women. Women aren’t drawn to them and they were only considered after a woman found a man to be sufficiently sexually attractive.

Having seen Rollo further develop his Epiphany line of thought through his Preventative Medicine series, I am now inclined to agree with his view on comfort/security traits. Women can and do appreciate them irrespective of a man’s sexual attractiveness. However, whether a woman does such a thing is heavily influenced by where she is on her “life script.”

Rollo’s female SMV timeline

Unfortunately, women being attracted to these traits doesn’t really help marriage-minded men much at all. This is because most of the women who are focused more on attraction rather than arousal are looking to settle. They are older and are desperate to cash in what remains of their SMV. This might make them appealing to PUAs and others of their ilk who can use this desperation for their own sexual gratification, but not to men looking to marry. Such women are not apt to make good wives. They are more likely than not to be or to become frigid during marriage. Also, they have lost much of their fertility already. Finally, it should be noted that their looks will have started to deteriorate, else they would still be in their Party Years phase.

So where am I going with all of this? That is for the next post to explain.

Appearances

[To begin with, apologies for the low level of activity here at this blog, and elsewhere. I am still catching up with comments here. Hopefully I will have time to respond to them today. The next few weeks will be very busy for me, and posting and commenting will be erratic, at best. So don’t be surprised if my weekend, religious themed posts are the only ones I make. Not sure how long this will continue, but into October at the very least.]

Short post today, following up with something I said in my most recent musings post. Therein I said the following:

Something that I want to address as well is the Looks/Athleticism versus Personality debate that seems to show up all the time in the comment section at The Rationale Male. A lot of folks there place too much stock in Looks, as compared to the other LAMPS/PSALM attributes. My suspicion is that the reason why is because Looks and Athleticism are obvious to everyone, whereas Personality/Power can be much more difficult to pick up. Not sure when I will get to writing it, but would love to finish it sometime this month.

To clarify, when I say Looks in that quote I meant the more general category of Appearance, which is used in the simpler alternative to my LAMPS/PSALM formula, APE, to encompass both Looks and Athleticism. I don’t think most of Rollo’s commenters distinguish between the two, so for the remainder of this post I will use Appearance, or A, in lieu of Looks and/or Athleticism.

To quickly summarize what many argue over at Rollo’s blog: Appearance matters more than anything. Good looking men get all the good looking women. Personality and “Game” only gets a man so far. If you aren’t born good-looking, you are just out of luck.

There’s more, but I think I got the heart of it. As for my response, well, I think that argument is bunk. Which should surprise no one, really, since I’ve argued for over a year that the most important part of male sexual attractiveness is a man’s masculinity and personality, which are both tied together. I think there are two reasons why many of the men there have come to that erroneous conclusion.

The first reason is that handsome, good-looking men are also more likely to be confidence and assertive, and those score stronger on their Personality/Power attribute. This comes about because Appearance is the easiest attribute to evaluate. You just need to look at a man to get a fairly accurate reading on where he falls on the scale of Appearance. Since women notice it so easily, they will often direct a lot of attention early on at handsome men, in order to evaluate them more fully (although they may not consciously realize this). Such attention will often, at least initially, be positive. Good-looking men who receive this kind of positive attention are likely to build their confidence more easily, as well as to hone their communication skills with women. This in turn will, over time, improve their Power/Personality scores as well.

So it isn’t simply that handsome men just have their looks going for them, they often will also have their confidence and interpersonal skills going for them as well. But those talents/skills aren’t as visible as a man’s looks. So those who observe the success of handsome men with women don’t realize that a lot more is going on beneath the surface than just looks. This is supported by reports from many in the ‘sphere of conventionally handsome men who were able to get initial attention from women but quickly lose it due to personality defects. Whether that is shyness or feminization leading to an emasculated personality, those men find themselves victims of the fact that Power/Personality is more important than Appearance to female sexual attraction.

The second reason for this disconnect is that women want it all. Women want a man who scores well on all the LAMPS/PSALM factors. If given the choice between a good-looking man “with Game” and an average-looking man “with Game”, women will choose the former (at least, in so far as attraction is concerned). Since good-looking men tend to be confident, they “have Game”, more often than not, it stands to reason that a good-looking man will simply be more attractive all around than a man who isn’t good-looking. Surmounting that hurdle is possible though. Strong External factors, such as social Status or Money, can give an average-looking man an edge. But relatively few men can have that kind of Status or Money. So in the present SMP good-looking men have a significant advantage over men who are only average (or below) in looks. This is only heightened by the fact that women can often achieve decent Status and Money values for themselves, thus raising the bar for men. Personality can compensate for a deficiency in Appearance, but it is very, very difficult to have  Power/Personality score that is high enough to beat out a man with a high Appearance score and a high Power/Personality score.

Taken together, those two factors- good-looking men also have a high Power/Personality score, and women wanting it all, explain the phenomenon that the commenters at Rollo’s blog have observed and described. Of course, my readers are free to disagree and voice that disagreement in the comments.

I should note that I also have another post on attraction which I want to work on, although I have no idea when I’ll have the time for it. I want to explore some alternate theories of attraction, including that which Rollo seems to advocate.

Defining The Problem

I.

The purpose of this post is provide a single space where I define the terms that I use across my blog in ways that might be different in meaning from the common understanding. It is meant to serve as a reference in later posts, and as a place to direct inquiries made via comments or e-mail. I will be updating it over time to add more terms and to clarify and flesh out older terms. This will not be a static post. One thing I should make clear is that these are the terms/words as I used them. My commenters and other blogs might use them differently.

I’ve been meaning to write a post like this for a long time now, but never got around to it. A number of my posts, including my recent post “What qualities should a man look for in a wife?” have involved confusion and misunderstanding because readers and commenters didn’t understand what I meant by certain terms. Having a frame of reference would have helped there. Also, Deep Strength’s recent post, “Attraction, desire, chemistry, arousal and marriage” was another major catalyst in finally getting around to it. Keep in mind that he and I agree on a lot when it comes to definitions, but don’t agree on everything.

II.

So, without further ado, here are the terms I would like to define:

Attractive: When I use this word it generally is in reference to sexual attractiveness. An attractive woman is a woman who is sexually attractive to men, and an attractive man is a man who is sexually attractive to women.  It does not refer to traits which might be valuable in men or women, but do not affect their sexual attractiveness in any way.

Attractive/Attraction Traits: An attractive trait on someone is a feature that is sexually attractive- it generates sexual attraction in men or women. It is not something that might be desirable because it has positive ramifications, but doesn’t affect how sexually attractive he or she is. An example of an attraction trait is a man or woman’s facial structure- this is something that will affect how sexually attractive a man or woman is.

Attraction: When someone wants someone because he or she is sexually attractive to that person.

Desirable: When I use this word it is generally in reference to reasons to be drawn to a person for non-sexual reasons. It applies to those things someone might want in a man or woman, but do not impact their overall sexual attractiveness. Generally come into play only in long-term relationships. A desirable woman is a woman who has many traits that do not make her sexually attractive but otherwise raise her value as a potential long-term partner. A desirable man is a man who has many traits that do not make him sexually attractive but otherwise raise his value as a potential long-term partner.

Desirable/Desirability traits: Those traits which men or women want in the opposite sex that don’t affect sexual attraction but are otherwise valuable to have. Loyalty is an example of a desirable trait- it doesn’t affect sexual attractiveness but is valuable in a potential long-term partner.

Desire: Refers to when someone wants someone else because he or she finds the other person sexually attractive and because that person has a number of positive traits which them them a good long-term partner. Example- If I desire a woman it means that I find her attractive and she has those traits which I value in a potential wife, so I want to make her mine.

AWALT: All Women Are Like That. Often used in conjunction with a broad statement about female nature. Generally means that nearly all women meet whatever standard or possess whatever behavior is being asserted, so it can be treated as though all women are like that.

NAWALT: Not All Women Are Like That. Often used to reject a statement that claims AWALT or implicates as much. Asserts that there are always outliers and exceptions to general female behaviors and actions.

FI: Refers to the Feminine Imperative.

Feminine Imperative: A concept (to the best of my knowledge) first advanced by blogger Rollo Tomassi at The Rational Male. A somewhat difficult concept to explain, I use it to refer to hardwired human biological conditioning which generally favors abstract female interests over abstract male interests in the social group. The general idea is that the FI manifests itself in those policies and rules which favor women over men, even when those rules/policies are illogical or run counter to other policies or beliefs (such as equality under the law). Unless consciously accounted and compensated for, any system over time will be overtaken by the FI and morph into one that favors women at the expense of men.

EAP: Stands for Entitled American Princess most of the time. Occasionally used to refer to an Evangelical American Princess. Both however are essentially the same thing as I used them, with the latter merely being more specific.

Entitled American Princess: Refers to an American woman (usually unmarried) with a massive entitlement complex who earnestly believes that all men should treat her as a real, live princess. That is, defer to her interests at all times. Such women see the overwhelming majority of men as mere tools to be used.

SMV: Stands for Sexual Market Value

Sexual Market Value: Refers to how sexually attractive someone is in the overall environment that they find themselves in. For women, this tends to be objective- a woman is not more or less attractive depending on how attractive the women near her are. Female SMV is usually rated on a 1-10 scale. Male attractiveness is partially subjective- how attractive a man is can be impacted by how attractive the other men in the environment (“market”) are.

SMP: Stands for Sexual Marketplace.

Sexual Marketplace: Refers to the overall “dating” scene between men and women in which both sexes compete with their own sex for the attentions/affections of the opposite sex. Recognizes that attractiveness is the primary driving force in the overall “value” someone has in this system. The primary purposes of this environment, this “market” is sex and sexual gratification, and not long-term relationships or marriage.

MMV: Stands for Marriage Market Value.

Marriage Market Value: Refers to the overall “value” someone has when looking for a potential spouse in the overall environment that they find themselves in. Tends to be correlated with, but not necessarily match, SMV. MMV is a mix of objective factors, such as loyalty, and subjective factors, such as overall place in the job market. Both attraction and desirability traits determine MMV.

MMP: Stands for Marriage Marketplace.

Marriage Marketplace: Refers to overall collection of people seeking marriage in the present environment. At the moment the Sexual Marketplace is dominant, and thus the Marriage Marketplace is forced to operate within it. This creates a great many problems. Based on the understanding that some men and women make (or would make) better husbands or wives, and that men and women therefore compete with one another to get the best possible spouse.

Hypergamy: Refers to the female reproductive impulse which drives female behavior more than anything else. As used here, hypergamy is the female inclination to seek out the highest value (that is the most attractive) man available  and to attempt to secure that male as a mate. Essentially, women are driven to have the best when it comes to men. If a better man comes along, they will want him instead. If a woman feels that she can do better than her present man, it will greatly reduce her attraction to him and her relationship with him may die. Hypergamy doesn’t care- it doesn’t care what a man has done in the past for a woman, it doesn’t care what promises she might have made or what oaths she might have sworn and it doesn’t care who might be hurt so long as it gets its way. However, women are not robots- they can overcame their hypergamous instincts and not be ruled by them… if they chose to.

Churchianity: Refers to a perverted, corrupted form of Christianity which is no longer consistent with basic Christian teaching and doctrine. Does not refer to sectarian splits, or arguments between faith traditions (i.e., Catholic v. Orthodox v. Protestant). Churchianity is heavily infected by modernism/liberalism, and would be unrecognizable to early Christians as representing the Christian faith. In many respects Churchianity is what happens when people attempt to reconcile their worldly views with Christianity. Rather than conforming to God, they conform to the world, and “adjust” their religious beliefs so that their faith is compatible with their worldly beliefs.

Churchian: Someone who practices Churchianity. A churchian is of the world, and not of God. Someone who does not accept that their faith requires rejecting the world and embracing the persecution which results from it.