Pulled Every Which Way

One of the points I have made on this blog before is the following:

~Women live in a perpetual state of contradiction~

It isn’t a unique claim, other bloggers have made similar statements before. But it is still an important point to make, because men do not grasp this at first and need to in order to truly understand women.

In today’s post I want to explore one dimension of this crucial aspect of female behavior: that Mate “Idealism” versus Mate “Pragmatism.” You see, women have two opposing natures which are always fighting against each other when it comes to selecting a mate. I don’t think I am going to cover any new ground here, but if anything I hope this post will serve as a bit of a recap.

The first of these is what I will call “Idealism.” This is expressed in the female desire for the best mate possible. Sometimes this is called Hypergamy, but that isn’t really an accurate descriptor of the behavior involved. Rather, what women experience is a sort of “Ruthless Idealism” which screams for the best possible man possible, compromises be damned. They will ignore the good or even the great in a mad desire for the perfect.

On the other end of the spectrum we have what I will call “Pragmatism.” This can be summed up by the expression “any port in a storm.” Otherwise stated, women can experience a “Ruthless Pragmatism” which will find that any acceptable man (and that can be very generous indeed) will do and try and lock him down as swiftly as possible.

These two… forces… are naturally opposed to one another. And as a general rule a woman is guided by either one or the other at any given time. However, there is usually still some “play” or flexibility. After all, the other force is still there, even if suppressed. Also, I suppose it is possible that a woman might fall somewhere in the middle for some reason or another, but I believe this to be a temporary state. Given any appreciable period of time she will revert to one of them.

My personal belief is that while genetics likely plays some role in where a woman falls on this spectrum, the primary guide is the environment. The environment that a woman lives in will shape her perceptions and beliefs, and possibly the deep seated neurological functions which control her mating behavior. Some environments will naturally favor Ruthless Idealism, and other environments will favor Ruthless pragmatism. My educated guess is that a forgiving environment with plentiful resources and a great deal of safety will encourage a woman to favor the Ruthless Idealism force. On the other hand, an environment which is unstable, or has limited resources, or is dangerous will likely cause her to favor Ruthless Pragmatism.

Now, because of changes both in herself and in the environment, a woman will not be stuck in one direction forever. It is possible for her to favor one most of her life, and then to move to the other and stay there. Or she could shift back and forth several or even many times. It all depends on the particular woman, and the environment she finds herself.

This can be very problematic if one supports lifetime monogamy, as it means a woman’s perception on what men are “acceptable” mates or not can shift over time. This means that she might marry a man while she finds him acceptable, and then later when she shifts he is no longer acceptable- meaning of course she will want to dump him.

A common trope in the ‘sphere is the former carousel rider who gets close to the Wall, develops Baby Rabies and then tries to lock down a nice, pliable Beta. In that example, we have a woman who was riding the Idealism train for years, only for the environment (featured in her fading looks and fertility and possible social cues) telling her she needs to settle, and fast. She then switches over to a Pragmatism mindset, during which she tries to lock a “good man” down. And she succeeds, only for her to divorce him a number of years later. My speculation is that she has switched back to an Idealism mindset, perhaps guided by the fact that she has a few kids now and so can afford to be more reckless (after all, her genetic future is now relatively secure). Also, her financial status and security are likely much better than they were before marriage.

In the past, the general layout of society was to create an environment which fostered the Pragmatism force within women. A good example was ancient Israel, which was no favorable towards unmarried women in its economics or laws. Given that kind of environment, it isn’t shocking that the writer of the Book of Sirach might note that for a woman, any man will do. After all, the alternative to having a man is to be a social nobody with basically no rights or power. That kind of environment would naturally encourage a Ruthless Pragmatism.

In the present age, however, the environment has changed dramatically. Women have financial and political and social power on a mass scale they have never experienced before. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that they are guided by Ruthless Idealism. The risks to them are relatively low, and the potential gain of locking down a top notch male, or at least bearing children by him, are great. One might go so far as to say that this is the default  setting for women these days, and only certain factors will push them towards Ruthless Pragmatism- and that only for a limited time.

I will try and wrap this post up by noting that men must understand this feature of women if they are actively trying to find a wife. Marrying a woman who is in the Ruthless Pragmatism phase is dangerous. After all, that pragmatism is bound in desperation, and desperate people do stupid things. Not to mention, that her “attraction” to you is bound up in a perceived pragmatic need. If she no longer feels that need, than any prior feelings towards you are likely to disappear. Unless you have managed to meet the expectations of her Idealism, she will reject you as a possible mate. This means, at best, a miserable marriage, and at worst adultery and/or divorce. So my advice is simple: men need to avoid women driven by that force.

Of course, that leads to the question of how one determines whether a woman is driven by Idealism or Pragmatism. But that is a subject for another post.

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.

The Knowledge Base Spreads

A long time reader and commenter has clued me in to a series on the Orthodox Blog “Russian Faith” concerning attracting a spouse. The first post in the series is “How to Attract a Christian Spouse-Marriage Advice from a Christian Dad.” The author cites my LAMPS/PSALM model favorably at one point, although he adds on a final S to include Spirituality. I think I will respond to that point sometime later, as it is good to understand what my model is, and what my model isn’t.

He then wrote a follow up post, title Attractiveness: Beauty is Not Just On the Inside. It is very Un-PC in all of the right ways. A snippet from it:

A woman’s physical attractiveness is the most immediate and pressing point of interest to most men. Morally and spiritually, this can be quite dangerous — we all know very attractive women whose spiritual lives are a mess — but attractiveness itself is central to attraction by most men (whether godly or not).

A young lady may be a devout Christian, but if she is not physically attractive, the vast majority of men will pass her over.

This is absolutely true, and something which unfortunately is not taught enough in Christian circles (of any faith tradition). The reverse is of course true for men as well, and is one of the reasons why we have the Christian side of the ‘sphere.

One thing I found very striking about the second post is the photos. They showcase beautiful women who are very feminine and modest in appearance. Not the vulgar “sexiness” the world loves to push out.

I will be curious to see where the author takes the remaining posts. At the same time, I am already pleased to see this kind of article happen. Especially because it showcases my LAMPS/PSALM model and the understanding that goes with it. Hopefully more Christian outlets will take advantage of those kinds of resources in the future.

Just How Universal Is the 80/20 Rule?

Deep Strength had a post up a few weeks ago where he looked at how Tinder reaffirmed the 80/20 rule. The post is short, so go there to read it in full. I was not surprised by this result, in fact I would have predicted it if asked given the OKCupid numbers.  What led me to create this separate post is the following comment by Deep Strength:

The ‘most attractive’ men have a disproportionate amount of female attention and can pretty much pick and choose who to bang (if secular) or to marry (if Christian).

I happen to agree with that statement. But it got me thinking about the assumptions involved in it. What I would like to know is this:

Is the 80/20 rule truly universal? That is, does it apply to every “market?”

Tinder and OKCupid are specific markets. They cater to specific (and somewhat different) crowds. Those crows would be secular in nature, and with Tinder especially, focused on those looking for casual sex. So I would expect people to argue that the numbers apply only to those markets.

But my own experiences back up the 80/20 rule. I see which men in Christian (specifically Catholic) circles the women crush on. And it is the same handful of men. I hear this same thing from other Christian men- especially here on the sphere.

Everything leads me to believe that the rule is universal one, and doesn’t depend on the particular market in question. I invite my readers to offer their own take on this. Am a right? Wrong? Somewhere in between?

 

A Lofty Double Standard

Vox over at Alpha Game has a great new post up today. Post being a somewhat loose term, as it is just an image. But as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. And boy does this 1k worth of words say a lot:

 

I have seen and heard women be vicious about a lot of things. But without a doubt my experience has been that women are the most consistently savage when it comes to critiquing a man’s height. If you are of below average height… lets just say this: most women these days wouldn’t care if the average guy lived or died- but if you are short, well, many would rather you were dead.

Fortunately I’m not below average in height, much less short. But I have a lot of sympathy for men who are. A man needs to bring a lot more to the table to compete in the present SMP/MMP if his height is lacking.

Short Digression: One of the critiques aimed at my LAMPS/PSALM model was that there was no real place for height. I lumped it in with Looks, but given how much value women place in height, that moves Looks up way ahead of where I normally allocate its value. A few commenters have suggested I add Height as a separate attribute, and part of me is tempted. It is just that Looks is where it would fit naturally. Of course, in the simplified “APE” model it fits better into Appearance overall.

That aside done with, the response of the guy in that chat was the right one. There is a huge double standard out there when it comes to height. Women, for all their talk about not judging by appearance, will judge men unmercifully on that particular trait. And of course they blow up if men try and flip the tables on them. Imagine if that guy above had started by asking the woman’s weight. It would be the 4th of July. But her asking his height? Totally acceptable- or at least seen that way.

I am curious if any of my readers have been involved in conversations, discussions, debates, arguments where this particular topic has come up. If so, I would ask them to talk about how it all went. I don’t recall having been in one myself, so I am curious what would be said. And of course, I would like to prepare myself for that argument ahead of time too. So comment away if you have anything to add.

Leaden Weights

Apologies to everyone for the lack of posts these past few weeks. Free time has been sparse, and I have been trying to spend it wisely. Which usually means away from my computer. One of those activities as of late has been dancing. I’ve written on it before, when talking about the importance of a good smile for women. Now there are a few things I want to talk about: weight and following

One of the first things I noticed after taking up social dancing was how much of an impact a woman’s weight had while dancing. It is more difficult to lead around a woman who is overweight. And much more difficult to lead a woman who is significantly overweight. Not to mention, it is also less fun as well.

And being so close, I cannot help but notice that a woman being overweight is a huge turn off (pun intended). Weight has a significant impact when it comes to a woman’s SMV/MMV. A few dozen or so pounds really can be the difference between several points on the 1-10 scale (Deep Strength’s post here includes good example).  At the same time, a woman who can keep a healthy weight (18-22% body fat or so), can usually rate at least somewhat attractive for most men. All of which means that single women who want to have a chance of grabbing a good man should take care to keep their weight at a healthy level. As for married women, keeping the weight as close as possible to that level will help keep your husband attracted to you.

Another problem is when your follow doesn’t, you know, follow. I don’t mind so much when it is due to inexperience. In fact, if she is open to learning and improving, then I don’t mind teaching at all (in so far as I am able). That can actually be an enjoyable thing, and demonstrates the right kind of mindset. However, I don’t care much for a follow who wants to do her own thing.

Even if I can adapt to her “technique”, it is a lot more taxing than it should be and takes much of the fun out of dancing. If I can’t adjust quickly enough, then the dance both becomes awkward, and would look bad to anyone observing it. And again, the fun is gone. Perhaps someone with more experience and skill with me wouldn’t mind as much, but for someone trying to leave beginner status I’d rather not deal with it. All of which means that I keep a mental note of who is a good follow and who isn’t, and will dance accordingly.

 

 

Compatibility And Failure

A two topic post today. The first topic is this post over at Deep Strength’s blog. In his post Biblical prescriptions with no bible, DS examines an ostensibly Christian article which discusses sex and marriage. As DS points out, actual scripture doesn’t show up very often in the article, and the most important parts (at least of the New Testament) are missing. The key part I want to talk about is his response here:

One would think that those who burn with passion and get married would have “great sex,” especially with lots of practice. If they’re burning with passion, they’re going to have lots of sex. Of course, it’s not guaranteed there will be “great sex,” but if the each spouse is focusing on the needs of the other, then it will definitely improve significantly over the course of time.

Then you have garbage like “sexual incompatibility” which is just a “lack of practice” and “lack of focusing on the other’s needs” and/or “lack of attraction.” In other words, selfishness.

Given how it is used, “sexual incompatibility” is a concept which means both everything and nothing at the same time. It is a catchall term that means whatever the user intends it to mean at any specific point in time, without necessary reference to how it is used elsewhere, or even before by the same person. Thus, it is basically worthless.

The way I see it, most sexual problems in marriage are rooted in one of these problems:

• One or both spouses is not sexually attracted to the other spouse
• One or both of the spouses has some sort of mental hangup with sex
• One or both of the spouses has some sort of medical condition which is tied to sex (perhaps something that causes pain during the conjugal act)

Now to talk about each.

Sexual Attraction is one of those elephants in the room that most Christians will just ignore. And I suspect most “compatibility” issues are tied to this. I’ve written on the subject numerous times before, but it never hurts to repeat myself here. Unless the situation is truly extraordinary, a couple should NEVER marry unless they share at least some sexual attraction towards each other. It is never certain that this will change in a positive direction after marriage, and even then, it won’t make for a fun wedding night. Solutions to a problem here are for another post, but this is definitely a problem.

Mental hangups can come from a number of sources. Perhaps one of the spouses was the victim of sexual abuse in the past, and this has colored his/her view of sex. Maybe one or both of the spouses engaged in sexual sin in the past, and this has interfered with their ability to be one flesh with their spouse (say, because of a lack of bonding or an inability to be aroused normally). Or maybe one or both spouses was raised and taught an improper view of human sexuality which has had a lasting impact on them. For example, maybe they were taught sexuality was inherently “dirty” or evil, and thus they tried to repress their sexuality (rather than discipline and control) it in the past. Finally, there are issues of heart and attitude- normally based in how one spouse views the other. This is mostly a female problem, as it is tied to attraction, which is based in part on how a woman views a man.

Medical conditions are another possibility. Some might not have solutions, but many do. As so many commercials say, see your personal physician about the matter.

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The second topic has to do with failure, and relies on this post over at Alpha Game. Vox uses the example of a “Gamma” to explain this important point:

What [the “Gamma”] has to do is adopt the philosophy “fail faster”. The more you try and fail, and the faster you can speed up that process, the more likely it is that one or more of your future endeavors will meet with success.

This is a tough thing for some men to accept. We can grow up with a sense that failure is to be avoided at all costs. That was me growing up (I definitely had Gamma tendencies). But failure is a necessary part of life. Without failure there can be no growth. Everyone fails at some point. Everyone. If you aren’t failing, it means you aren’t really trying. And if you aren’t really trying, you won’t ever get anything of important done in your life.

This is especially true, and especially difficult, when women are concerned. Rejection and failing with women isn’t easy for a man. At least at first. But it is part of the process of becoming good at interacting with them. A man just has to learn to deal with the frustration and feeling of failure. Like death and taxes, it is just part of life.

And yes, I know it is easier said then done. I flopped recently, and it was damned frustrating for a while. But I got over it. And I am still going forward. Self-pity of self-loathing might appear to feel good at the time, but you always regret them in the end. Remembering that helped me overcome any sense of failure, and instead try to look at it as a learning experience. It is always good to remember what Vox has to say in his closing lines:

Don’t be afraid to fail. Don’t be afraid to be seen to try. Even the most successful people fail, badly, most of the time.

Overt Versus Covert

Short post today. I hope that my readers will really drive the discussion with this one.

I have been doing some thinking lately how the whole process of actively trying to “woo” someone. There are two main models which are proposed, one of them the more widely accepted model and the other more common around the manosphere. They are:

• Men are the pursuers and Women are the pursued
• Men display and Women choose

I would like to examine these two models, because I am wondering if they are necessarily mutually exclusive. One way of reconciling these two is the following:

Men Display –> Women Choose –> Men Pursue –> Women are Pursued

All of the potential models involve men starting the process. Not really a surprise, I guess. Now to get to the title of the post.

One way that I have been looking at this is that men generally are overt in their actions, and women are covert. For example, men display overtly- they are proactive in their masculine endeavors, for example. Or in their gaining of status/money. And of course, when it comes to actual pursuit, they are definitely overt.

On the other hand, women tend to be covert when they are pursued. They lead men on with IOIs and reciprocal behavior, much of it subtle. The interesting question then, is whether women are overt or covert when they “choose.” A covert approach would be to show subtle interest in a man, such as display IOIs or spend time near him. An overt approach though… I doubt it would look exactly like a man’s.  Probably much less subtle IOIs.

What I would like is my reader’s input. What do you think tends to happen? Which model? And is it usually men are overt, women covert? Or are women just as overt? And does it look different from how men act overtly? Please give your thoughts below. Feel free to throw personal stories and anecdotes around all you want.

 

 

Dressed To Impress

Women like to get dressed up. They like to look their best.

But for whom?

One of the interesting surprises of “the Red Pill” was that women don’t really dress up for men. Or at least, men as a whole. Reader/Commenter Ame had this to say in my post Tissue-Paper Walls:

a woman can pick another woman apart in a nano-second with one eye covered and the other only half open. women dress for other women more than they dress for men. as has been stated in the manosphere … women compete with other women – some much more fiercely than others.

Women dressing for other women [over dressing for men] was something that I had no clue about before finding the ‘sphere. And what is interesting about this particular tidbit of RP knowledge is that it was a woman who passed it on to me shortly after I found the ‘sphere. She of course thought it was common sense. Which just goes to show the gap in understanding that exists between men and women.

What is interesting to think about is the motivation behind this behavior. What we have is women dressing the best, but not to try and attract men in general. Instead they are trying to show off to other women how attractive they are in order to one-up other women. Otherwise stated, they are showing off how they could pull a quality man, without actually aiming to do so (at least as their primary interest).

Let’s add together a couple of things: 1) The vast majority of men are normally of little concern to women. 2) Women compete fiercely with one another over sexual attractiveness. From this we can extrapolate a significant amount about female behavior, especially socio-sexual behavior.

For one, we can see that women are clearly able to evaluate each others attractiveness in the eyes of men.

Second, we can see that the hierarchy

among women is dominated by their sexual market value, or at least their perceived value.

Third, we can see that this isn’t an objective value by any measure, at least as men evaluate it. The 1-10 scale, for example, is subjective between men. But for an individual man he will generally rate women independent of one another. That isn’t how women do it, however. Instead, women rank each other on their attractiveness as much as gauge their actual SMV value. So it isn’t enough to be an 8, you have to be a higher 8 than the woman over there.

Nothing I’ve said is an kind of revelation, naturally. However it is a good thing to remember. Plus I will try and work it into my next Selected Sunday Scriptures post.

Splitting Eros Leads To Disaster

One of Dalrock’s recent posts examines the consequences of the elevation of romantic love to a moral force:

The simple fact is the moment you attribute moral value to romantic love you are creating a rival to biblical sexual morality.  In biblical sexual morality it is marriage that creates a moral space for sex and romantic love (with romantic love not separated from sexual passion).  We have overturned God’s order here, and are now claiming that romantic love is the moral space for marriage and sex.  This is deceptively subtle, and at the same time demolishes the moral meaning of marriage.

…

Passionless duty sex was for marriage, and passion was for adultery.  Courtly love built upon this idea with a twist.  It added a new concept of romantic love, separating out the emotional aspect of sexual passion.  This newly separated concept of romantic love was worshiped and seen as sanctifying.  CS Lewis summed up the concept of courtly love as (emphasis mine):

“The sentiment, of course, is love, but love of a highly specialized sort, whose characteristics may be enumerated as Humility, Courtesy, Adultery, and the Religion of Love.”

What Dalrock is examining here is a situation where Eros has been split in two. As a reminder/refresher, the ancient Greeks believed in several different concepts of  “love.” The three principal loves were:

• Eros- sensual love associated with the body
• Philos- love in the form of friendship that is associated with the soul
• Agapos- the self-sacrificing love that comes from God and is thus associated with the Spirit

Now, Eros is a bodily love. However, emotions are as much of the body as the actual “rubbing together of bodyparts.” Which is my way of saying that Eros properly contains both Romance as well as the actual physical acts of intercourse. Passion and Romance go hand in hand, if you will. Dalrock is making a mistake by calling it “Romantic love.” It is really just the emotional aspect of the love we know as Eros. It is not something separate.

What has unfortunately been going on for centuries now is an attempt to split Eros up into a “dirty” part, sex, and a “pure” part, “romance.” However, no matter how many games you play with this, it cannot be done. Eros encompasses both. Any attempt to separate the two is inherently insane. We should expect that craziness will follow from it. Thus, to me it is no surprise that efforts to separate Eros have helped “break” marriage in the west. We have gone against God’s plan for human beings- disaster is to be expected.

God created Man as a union of body, soul and spirit. Marriage, as an institution/sacrament coming from God, relies on a healthy state of that union. If they are unhealthy, or there is discord, then marriage will suffer accordingly. Marriage encompasses each of these loves, because marriage affects and is affected by all parts of that union. Trying to remove the physical component of Eros from marriage effectively breaks that unity and creates disorder in that man or woman- and thereby brings disorder into the marriage. It affects both husband and wife because in marriage the two become one.

Remember, Man was made for marriage. And by marriage I mean what God intends by marriage. Trying to fit man into anything other than what God intended is like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. It doesn’t work. Alas, we are seeing the proof of that all around us in the West right now.

Update: I should make it clear that the mistake that I think Dalrock was mistaking was calling it “Romantic Love.” I don’t think he failed to grasp the other parts of my post. One of his older posts in fact notes that courtly love is always sexual.