In Search Of Something… But What?

Western media is starting to take notice of the fact that a number of western women are joining the “ranks” of ISIS. One such article from the New York Post can be found here. A few snippets:

But why would “straight-A” students from London seek out ISIS, whose brutal MO includes savage beheadings and burning their captives alive?

Some are coerced — but not all, says law professor Jayne Huckerby, head of Duke University’s International Human Rights Clinic.

“Why do they go? In many cases it’s the same reason as men,” Huckerby told The Post.

In case your curious, Jayne is a woman. I wasn’t sure at first, as that name can be used by both men and women. I checked for reasons that will be clear later. But to continue, what are some of those reasons?

Some are alienated by harassment or discrimination against Muslims at home, and want to join what they see as a pro-Muslim movement. Some, according to the ISD, enjoy the shocking violence.

and then there is this:

Others find “a sense of camaraderie and sisterhood . . . in ISIS-controlled territory, in contrast to the fake and surface-level relationships they have in the West,” according to the study.

All very interesting, especially that second snippet. There might even be some truth there. Of course, I have my own theories. As I’m sure do my readers. I very much doubt that most of the reasons these women have are the same as the men. However, they might well be related.

My principle theory is this: these women are seeking out what they perceive to be “real” men. Not the tame men around them, but wild, uncontrolled, unrestrained, authentic men. Perhaps Jayne is too caught up in her Leftist mindset to figure this out. When I first suspected it was a man speaking I thought it was merely blue-pill thought. But nope. Probably ideology getting in the way. Or maybe she doesn’t want to express the truth, assuming she can even understand it. Setting that aside, I think that these women are searching for something they feel they cannot get at home in the West.

However, the “study” does get kinda close to the truth when it talks about “fake and surface-level relationships .” This is something we have forgotten in the West, to our great detriment. No matter how much we indoctrinate women, or men, some things will never change. One thing about female nature that cannot be changed is that women want real men- masculine men. Even when women don’t understand what they want, they will know they want it. And if they cannot find it, they will seek it out.

Of course, if any of my readers disagree, they are free to voice that disagreement below. But I’m not quite done. You see, I have another theory/idea I would like to bounce off folks.

What I wonder is if Christian women would act in a similar manner if Christian men went off to fight ISIS. Suppose that a Christian militia of overseas fighters was formed, almost like a new version of the Knights Templar or Hospitallar, dedicate to fighting ISIS. Further suppose that Christian men in the West joined it to go fight in the Middle East against ISIS and its allies. Would there be that same level of draw amongst Christian women as there is presently among Islamic women?

Feel free to chime in and let me know what you think.

Analyzing Attraction- Part 4

This post is a continuation of my series on attraction. The most recent post in the series can be found here, and the first can be found here.  Today’s post is going to focus on a specific feature of female attraction, commonly referred to as “Hypergamy.” This post is by no means meant to be exhaustive- there is a lot to cover and I won’t attempt to do so in this single post.

An Inaccurate Name for an Accurate Observation

Merriam-Webster defines Hypergamy as “marriage into an equal or higher caste or social group.” For anyone familiar with how hypergamy is used in the ‘sphere, you will realize that this definition is not what most people mean when they use that particular word. In fact, it is hardly ever used in conjunction with castes or social groups. Unsurprisingly, this trips more than a few people up. Those individuals who come across this part of the ‘net, and who upon seeing the word “Hypergamy” look it up, will quickly become confused. This often leads some people (mostly but not always women) to reject any “Red Pill” concepts which are connected with hypergamy.

Here is an example of a post where a woman “rejects” hypergamy. A quick review of her post will reveal that she has a better understanding of the subject than most who come to that conclusion. She knows that it is about more than just “marrying up” to a higher social group.  However, her understanding is still imperfect (more might be said about her post but I’m keeping this narrowly focused here). To help her out, and to help out anyone else whose knowledge of this area is lacking, I will (try to) explain what “Hypergamy,” as used in the ‘sphere, actually means.

The thing to understand is that hypergamy is not about “marrying up.” And by that I mean its not about marrying, and not necessarily about “up” in a social status sense. No, hypergamy is about maximization.

Hypergamy means the female drive to maximize a woman’s access to a man, or men, who can meet her demand for the best genetics, provision and protection possible.

This “drive” breaks down into two specific drives, both of which can be (and often are) independent of one another. As Rollo has explained in the past (and I’m sure he can include a post or two in the comments below as examples), women want “Good Genes” and “Good Dads.” In other words, they have a drive to mate with a man with the best perceived genes, which will be passed on to their children. And they have a drive to secure or “lock down” or get “commitment” from a man who they perceive will be the best possible “dad.” Such a man will protect and provide for a woman and her children. Arousal (or sexual attraction) is tied to “good genes”, and (non-sexual) attraction is tied to being a “good dad.” Often, attraction and a man’s skills or ability as a provider/protector are tied to his social status, but not always.

The female ideal is to get both “needs” met in the same package. Essentially, a man with (perceived) good genetics who will also stick around and care for the woman and her children. However, it is not common (at least in this day and age) to find a man with both sets of qualities. And its even rarer to find that kind of man who is free and is interested in settling down. This is where things get more complicated.

You see, women are more than willing and able to seek out different men to meet each individual “need.”  In fact, I would argue that women who cannot get both in the same man will naturally employ this strategy unless they are reared not to. This strategy entails sleeping with men with (perceived) good genes, and then trying to get men who are perceived as good providers/protectors to take care of them. It is called by some “AF/BB”, or “Alpha F—s, Beta Bucks.” Potiphar’s wife, whom I mentioned in my latest Sunday Scriptures post, was likely trying to employ this strategy. Bathsheba, on the other hand, was (assuming she was trying to get David’s attention) trying to get David to carry out a “relationship coup”- that is, to remove Uriah from the picture so that she could marry David. David, after all, was an upgrade from Uriah as far as both drives were concerned.

My suspicion, which seems borne out by evidence all around us, is that women primarily focus on “good genes” when they are younger, and as they get older and have children, “good dads” take preeminence (Rollo refers to this as the Epiphany phase). This, along with some things I will explain in the next few paragraphs, will explain why a stable-hand might draw the attention that a banker doesn’t.

Now, I’ve used “perceived” at several points in the last few paragraphs because it isn’t always clear which men have “good genes” and which men would be “good dads.” Usually the latter is easier to figure out than the former. Women use various shortcuts to try and determine how well a man rates on both. The primary tool that women use to determine “Good Genes” (aka, arousal) is a man’s LAMPS/PSALM score. The higher a man ranks in LAMPS value, the more sexually attractive he is to women and the more he will arouse them. The stable-boy, who is somewhat mocked in the post linked above, is an example of a man whose LAMPS score is high, at least compared to the banker. The banker’s decent Status value helps him, but if he has a lower Power value then it doesn’t matter, ultimately. Likewise, the reference to rogues and pirates all showcase men with high LAMPS scores, primarily focused on the Power attribute. These are all men who can arouse women, and since young women are primarily looking for arousal (rather than non-sexual attraction), that is why they garner such attention.

Something else tied to all of this is the behavior of “trading up.” This is a natural outgrowth of the drive to maximize access to “good genes” and “good dad” in a man. If a better man is found, then women will subconsciously want to “trade up.” That they don’t all the time is because of a number of factions: socializing, a sense of morality, a lack of opportunity and social penalties. Investing in a man over time can also reduce this likelihood. Remove these and women will often leap at a chance to trade up. Only, their idea of trading up may vary, depending on what particular drive they are trying to maximize at the time. Also, their perceptions of what constitutes “higher value” may not always be crystal clear.

One additional note: hypergamy is one drive among many that women possess. Albeit a powerful drive. But for women who are raised properly, its nastier effects can be limited, or even controlled. Unfortunately this is no longer the case for most modern women.

Hopefully this provided at least a half-way understandable explanation of hypergamy, as it is used by people in the ‘sphere. It is an inaccurate use of a word, that much I will grant. A better term needs to be invented, I think, to really encompass everything that falls under this umbrella. But until then hypergamy remains an inaccurate name for an accurate observation of female behavior.

Good Enough v. The Best

As mentioned above, hypergamy is about maximization and a desire for the best. Its arousal component means that a woman will be drawn, sexually, to the men around her who she perceives as meeting her drive’s demand for “good genes.” More specifically, she will be drawn to the best among them- those men with the highest LAMPS values. However, this isn’t the only behavior in play.

Women also have what is called an “Attraction floor,” which is a point below which they won’t consider a man as a viable sexual partner. This means that in a population where none of the men are above this point, women won’t be able to satisfy their “good genes” hypergasmic impulse (that one never gets old). If they do pick a man, it won’t be based on arousal. Rather, it will be based on his being perceived as a “good dad” candidate, aka, (non-sexual) attraction.  There is no guarantee that they will pick such men; some women would rather do without (just as some men will choose to do without if they can’t find any candidates they consider acceptable/worthy).

What this means for a man is that he needs to make sure that he isn’t simply the best. He also needs to be sure that he is above a woman’s attraction floor. The problem is that there is no clear indication where this floor is. The fluid nature of the LAMPS model makes it difficult to pinpoint values. Furthermore, each women values each attribute somewhat differently, and also has her own floor for that matter. All of which makes it next to impossible to know where this floor is. It is much easier, on the other hand, to know where it isn’t. If a man arouses a woman, he is above the floor. If he doesn’t, then he is likely below it. Consequently, a man should always endeavor to build his LAMPS values as high as possible, to ensure that he is not only the best, but that he is good enough as well.

Toxic Hypergamy

One subject that comes up from time to time around these parts is Toxic Hypergamy. This refers to the notion that some women’s hypergamy “filter” has become so warped that they can no longer (realistically) meet it their hypergamic requirements. In other words, what they find acceptable or worthy in a man is at such a high level so as to be unattainable by all but a few men (or in extreme cases no man alive could ever be acceptable). Naturally enough, there aren’t enough of these men to go around. And often such men won’t have anything to do with women exhibiting this behavior. Further, the women who have this often aren’t high enough value themselves to justify having such standards. In many (most?) instances they are often quite bad at estimating their own SMV.

Toxic Hypergamy seems to be especially prevalent in Christian circles. More than a few posters and commenters around these parts can attest to personal stories of Western Christian women who demonstrated this particular condition. EAPs, or Entitled American Princesses, often have Toxic Hypergamy, and can turn down countless men while they wait for a “worthy” man to show up. This has only exacerbated the problems inherent in the American Church.

What I find interesting about this phenomenon is that it serves as further demonstration that a woman’s hypergamy can be influenced by her surroundings and by how she was raised. In the present age this is a cause of sorrow. But at the same time there is some hope for the future. Parents who raise their daughters right, either now or in the future, can account for this and hopefully take steps to help their daughters rein in their hypergamic instincts.

A Debased Currency

Rollo’s post Loyalty & Hypergamy is an article that I think some of my male readers would find illuminating (I guess women might find it interesting, but it is less likely to be illuminating for them, and would be a difficult read). It delves a bit into the concept of loyalty and how that intersects a bit with hypergamy.

Miscommunication And Further Thoughts On Moral Agency

I.

One thing about the internet is that it exposes, for all to see, the vastly different communication styles that men and women possess. It is especially troublesome over the internet, where mistakes and the limitations of text can amply those differences. This post owes its origin and impetus to an incident that I suspect came about because of the divide in male and female thought and communication processes. I am writing this in response to a comment that was written by a woman who goes by the moniker Spacetraveller over at Dalrock‘s blog. Since it touches on Moral Agency, and because I haven’t written on it for a while, I thought a full post was a proper response.

It started with my comment in response to a few things Spacetraveller said in an earlier comment. You can find my original comment here.I will note at this point that my comment got chopped; several sentences were missing after “The answer would seem to be yes.” The missing sentences, which clarified some of what I was saying, may have tempered Spacetraveller’s response some if they hadn’t gone missing. Or perhaps not. Either way, what is said is said. Before continuing, I would encourage everyone to read my comment fully. Once done, you can read Spacetraveller’s response. The full comment is here, but as she addresses others as well I am quoting the relevant part of her comment below so as to save time:

Donalgraeme,

I am not sure what you are getting at. Is your argument one or the more of the following? Or are these strawman arguments of mine (that I have picked out from nowhere) that in no way reflect your thoughts?

1. I am a chaste man, but that’s only because no woman is chasing me. I do not expect a woman (who has many men chasing her at any given point) to be similarly chaste. It is just impossible.

2. Women have a natural desire to submit. So pre-marital sex is just another form of submission. So there…

3. Premarital chastity does NOT translate into post-marital faithfulness. All that rigorous moral training that young women used to have pre-marriage is unnecessary. All the data which shows that high pre-marital N-count is a risk factor for a woman commiting adultery because she is unable to stay faithful to one man …doesn’t count.

4. Asking a woman to suppress her sex drive before marriage leads to frigidity within marriage. All that self-control pre-marriage will just ensure that she continues to ‘control’ herself in her marital bed. (This one is my personal favourite).

5. ‘Keep your chastity’ is just as non-effective as ‘just say no to drugs’. It doesn’t work, so don’t even attempt it.

Donalgraeme, thank you for showing me the enormity of the problem we face in trying to correct the wrongs of the current SMP.
If a righteous man like yourself cannot fathom the idea that it is even remotely feasible for a young girl or woman to exercise some self-restraint before marriage, we are truly and totally lost as a generation.

You, like many well-meaning men are being hampered by the ‘women have no moral agency’ bug.
Whilst it is alright to note that many women are not doing the right thing with all the promiscuity that is going on, you seem to be resisting me for suggesting that we try to stop this. Because you see it as a ‘mission impossible’.
You make too many excuses for women. I am one, and I can tell you that we really do not need quite so many excuses, especially when it comes to sex. We are the sex that have the God-given ability to stave off sexual temptation more successfully than men (OK, I grant you, this becomes infinitely more difficult at ‘fertile time’, or ‘ovulation time’ when sexual drive in women approaches that of men…did someone say Bathsheba was in her fertile time when she decided to bathe in full view of King David? Um…if she had been in her non-fertile time, I am sure she would have bathed in a different place, away from prying eyes :)).

I am now convinced more than ever, that until this meme of ‘women have no moral agency’ is let go, things will remain as (rotten as) they are.
Which is another depressing thought.

I have just one more question: how does it benefit you to hold the views you do, Donalgraeme? Is it a self-preservation thing (‘it is impossible for women to be morally upright, so I accept that I can therefore never marry one’). Or is it a comfort to you to feel certain that you as a chaste man are morally superior to all women??

If either is the case, hey, that’s fine. I am however intrigued as to how this helps, in real life.
This level of ‘white-knighting’ is neither desired nor warranted though.
Because it gives you and other men more of the same as what you are getting – undesirable women.
I wish for you and others, that you get a better quality woman. I don’t have a younger sister (I am a ‘last born’). So the best I can do is make sure my daughter is a good one. And for that matter my son too. That is how I can contribute to the betterment of the SMP.

But it seems I shan’t be getting any help from you.
Shame, that is…
But no matter, I plough on regardless, with like-minded people.
If you change your mind in the future, please feel free to join us…

The rest of this post will try and answer her comment, and to expand/explain some of the themes connected to it. From Spacetraveller’s response it is clear that she didn’t understand what I was trying to say, much less my actual views. In the spirit of charity I assumed that she had merely misunderstood, in a dramatic fashion, and that prompted her response. Naturally I was concerned that my response was completely obtuse, and asked for second opinions to see if it was really that bad. Novaseeker helpfully chimed in and said that he disagreed with her conclusion about what I said, which has reassured me somewhat. Of course, that doesn’t mean I made sense, only that he came to a different conclusion. Hopefully this post will clear up previous misunderstandings and make my views on the matter a little easier to understand.

I will first begin by addressing each of the numbered points she brings up. Then I will cover some of her other points. Finally I will add a few thoughts of my own.

II.

Beginning with her numbered points:

1. I am a chaste man, but that’s only because no woman is chasing me. I do not expect a woman (who has many men chasing her at any given point) to be similarly chaste. It is just impossible.

In the past I am sure that the lack of women chasing me (or rather, the lack of desirable women chasing me) helped me in maintaining chastity. When I was in college in particular I think it was an aid. However, at present I think I am past that particular hurdle. By that I mean that I have built up my self-discipline to a point where I feel reasonably certain that I could resist any woman chasing me (at least, so long as I was of sound mind, i.e., sober). As for women, I believe that they can be similarly chaste. However, just as it can be difficult for a man to be chaste when he is “chased”, so too can it be for a woman. Being “chased”, especially by someone attractive and desirable, makes it much harder to resist temptation. At a young age this is especially true, when self-discipline has not been fully developed.

2. Women have a natural desire to submit. So pre-marital sex is just another form of submission. So there…

My word choice here was poor. So the misunderstanding here was entirely on me. I should have used the word yield, not submit. You see, its a pet theory of mine that women subconsciously want  to yield (sexually) to a man. But just not any man- the right man. Even as they resist the advances of men they feel beneath them, they secretly long for the man who isn’t so lowly- the man who they can “let through the gate”, if you will.

3. Premarital chastity does NOT translate into post-marital faithfulness. All that rigorous moral training that young women used to have pre-marriage is unnecessary. All the data which shows that high pre-marital N-count is a risk factor for a woman commiting adultery because she is unable to stay faithful to one man …doesn’t count.

There is definitely a link between pre-marital chastity and post-marital faithfulness. Statistics bear that out. However, there is no guarantee. A certain gentleman around these parts count vouch for that. Think of it this way- premarital sex makes the ability to bond and stay faithful weaker, but the opposite is not true. The bonding ability can only be damaged, it cannot be “improved.”

What I was trying to explain is that lumping not having sex before marriage and being faithful in marriage together ignores some significant situational differences. In the first situation, a woman (or a man for that matter) is entirely suppressing their sex drive. She has no outlet for it. In the second situation she has such an outlet, and should be using it whenever possible. A desire to “wander” on her part indicates that something more than just a desire to sate that drive is at play. A woman who has a high sex drive might have trouble being chaste before marriage. But if she marries the man she sins with, and stays with him, then there is only a slightly greater chance she will stray than if she had been chaste. Her problem was not a desire to sleep with lots of men, and be promiscuous, it was not sleeping with the particular man she wanted.

All of which is a way of saying this: I can see no advantage to requiring a woman to wait in order to demonstrate chastity, assuming she hasn’t strayed so far. That delay does not translate into something greater. And I am not the only person who believes this. In my latest Tradition post, St. John Chrysostom advised the very same thing I advise: marry children off when they are young. Help them find someone they burn for who will be a good match, get them married and give them that healthy and proper outlet for their sex drive.

4. Asking a woman to suppress her sex drive before marriage leads to frigidity within marriage. All that self-control pre-marriage will just ensure that she continues to ‘control’ herself in her marital bed. (This one is my personal favourite).

Does it always lead to frigidity within marriage? No. But it can and does. I believe that at least one of my readers and occasional commenters can vouch for the harm that the “purity” movement has caused with its antics. If you read around, you will find and hear stories that say just that. I didn’t come to this conclusion for the heck of it. It is the product of reading stories like that. Of hearing from men who married older virgins who found that they were frigid.

[DG: I am reconsidering this section, and may change my views after reflection. Understand that it may change if I come to a different conclusion]

[Here is the thing: it is not natural for human beings with a healthy sex drive to suppress that drive for long periods of time. It just isn’t. It may be required, for whatever reason, but that doesn’t mean that the consequences don’t exist. There are studies floating around which link men’s health to the frequency of sex they have. I’m not sure if similar studies are out there for women. But the point holds: everything has consequences. And requiring someone, woman or man, to suppress their sex drive for a long period of time will have consequences, whether they be physical, mental or emotional. Honestly, I’ve wondered about how I’ve been affected by my own chastity. I know that some damage has resulted, but I don’t know the extent. It is something that gives me considerable pause when marriage is concerned.]

5. ‘Keep your chastity’ is just as non-effective as ‘just say no to drugs’. It doesn’t work, so don’t even attempt it.

If all that is done is “say no to premarital sex”, then the truth is that it will be just as ineffective as “just say no to drugs” has proven. Emphasis on “all that is done.” My point being that you cannot simply say “be chaste” and leave it to that. As my original comment made clear, you cannot simply tell women to be chaste. You need to provide them the support they need to back this up, and to help them avoid situations where they will face grave temptations. Virtuous conduct is a community affair for everyone. Youth, especially, need people around them who will provide (real) moral support and look out for them.  As I indicated earlier in my original comment, sending young women off by themselves, either to college or to get a job, was not something widely practiced until very recently. At least, among those who could avoid it. When necessity compelled women to leave their homes and go elsewhere, it often did result in them being chaste.

III.

Having concluded the previous section, I will briefly try and address some of her other points.

If a righteous man like yourself cannot fathom the idea that it is even remotely feasible for a young girl or woman to exercise some self-restraint before marriage, we are truly and totally lost as a generation.

You, like many well-meaning men are being hampered by the ‘women have no moral agency’ bug.

Anyone who has read my blog knows that I do not hold such a view. Quite the contrary. I will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you haven’t read my blog and are mixing up some of my comments and arguments with those of other commenters at Dalrock’s blog.

You make too many excuses for women. I am one, and I can tell you that we really do not need quite so many excuses, especially when it comes to sex.

Let me assure you, I am not one to make excuses for women. If anything, I have been accused of going too far the other way.

We are the sex that have the God-given ability to stave off sexual temptation more successfully than men…

I will address that in the last section of this post.

I have just one more question: how does it benefit you to hold the views you do, Donalgraeme? Is it a self-preservation thing (‘it is impossible for women to be morally upright, so I accept that I can therefore never marry one’). Or is it a comfort to you to feel certain that you as a chaste man are morally superior to all women??

That is a good question, or a series of them, as the case may be… if I actually held those views.

This level of ‘white-knighting’ is neither desired nor warranted though.

I am not white-knighting here, trust me. I expect women to pull their own weight, just like men. However, I am also a realist. And that means that simply trusting people, without taking further steps, is not part of my approach to how to fix the problems we face.

IV.

I am going to conclude with two final points.

A.

First, I wanted to address this comment in further depth:

We are the sex that have the God-given ability to stave off sexual temptation more successfully than men…

Perhaps I am wrong here, but I find no Scriptural justification for this utterance. In fact, the Bible seems to take the view that neither men nor women are very apt to be successful here. Some of the early Church fathers do seem to have this view as well, but it is important to note the environment they adopt it in. Back then women did not act or live like modern, “liberated” women do. I will try and explain my thoughts on the matter as best as I can. Bear with me, this is difficult for me to get down to words.

I believe that in a relatively isolated situation without a lot of active temptations that women do have a greater ability to stave off sexual temptation. The primary reason for this is that the male sex drive is far more… predatory… than the female sex drive. Men are inclined to seek out sources of sexual gratification to a far, far greater degree than women. If left to our own devices, we will feel that impulse which will drive us to seek out a means of sating it. And that impulse is very, very powerful. And pretty much always active, with the exception of when we are very tired, or sick or famished. Think of the male sex drive as very pro-active. Whereas the female sex drive is more reactive. Women don’t have that same impulse to seek out sexual gratification. Nor is it as strong or constant. As St. John Chrysostom noted, “the management of them is easy.” But this only applies in an environment like what existed in his time- an environment in which young women didn’t wander the world like they do now.

When women aren’t isolated, their reactive sexual proclivities are less of a benefit to them when it comes to maintaining chastity. For one, they will be presented with more sources of temptation which could get them to react. Secondly, a woman’s sexual arousal state can vary far more than a man’s.

In most instance a man is always “on.” He is always at maximum. This means that a man who learns to control himself pretty much always learns to control himself when his sex drive is at maximum. Naturally, this is by no means an easy thing for a man to achieve. However, when a man does achieve it he is relatively immune- it becomes very hard to shake him when he is of sound mind [alcohol and certain situations might change this].Women, however, are not always at maximum. Their natural cycles affect how powerful their sex drive is. This makes is much more difficult for women to develop the discipline to control themselves when they are at their maximum. What this means is that women might have an easier time learning to control themselves during times when their sex drive is at low or medium. But they will find it more difficult to build the discipline to control themselves at times when their sex drive is a maximum because they will have less experience at it. And of course, their real maximum is not simply when they are at their cycle peak, but also when they are being aroused by an attractive man. Without experiencing both at the same time sufficiently, they won’t be ready for dealing with temptation when they are most vulnerable.

The end result of this is that in situations like today, I don’t think that women are any more suited to resisting temptation than men are. In fact, they might have a more difficult time for the reason just given- learning to control themselves at their “maximum” point is more difficult. Less opportunity means less chance to build that discipline.

B.

Also, I wanted to briefly touch on miscommunication. My suspicion is that Spacetraveller assumed that my comment was part of the larger discussion about moral agency in women that she was taking part in on the blog. It wasn’t- I was merely addressing a few points she raised in one of her comment’s, isolated from the rest of the overall discussion. What I think happened was an example of how men and women think differently. Men tend to compartmentalize ideas and discussions, while women take a holistic approach. In my mind I could see how my comment was merely a targeted addressing of a few select, discrete points of hers. She, on the other hand, naturally folded it into the overall context of the situation.

This highlights the importance of careful communication between men and women. When we talk with one another, we need to keep in mind that what is obvious to us may not be obvious to the opposite sex. While I think this particular explanation of our differences is a bit over the top, they truly are significant. The internet, because it is mostly limited to text, makes these communication problems even worse. Despite the fact that I should know better, I often forget that these differences exist. All of which means that when talking with women, I need to be especially careful in what I say and how I say it. Otherwise gross misunderstandings, such as the one in this post, will inevitably occur.

V.

That brings this post to an end. It could probably use some clean-up, but I want to get it uploaded sooner rather than later. So if anything needs fixing, I will get to it later. If anyone has any thoughts on anything I’ve discussed, feel free to express them in the comments below.

I do have one additional bit though- one of my readers, who doesn’t comment, was curious about a book called The Real Story. Are any of my readers familiar with it? And if so, what are your opinions on the book?

The Gift Of Advice

Long time readers might be familiar with the book A Christian Man’s Guide to Love and Marriage in the 21st Century, which I plugged last year. The author of the book, Don Riefstahl, has edited and updated his book and just released a second edition. Even better, he is offering a free PDF copy to anyone interested. If you want to check it out, or would like to send a quick and easy gift to a man in need, you can download it here. The book is published under a creative commons license and can be freely shared and copied.

The book itself is short (about a hundred pages) and provides a very brief encapsulation of much of what is discussed here and on other Christian monsopherian blogs. Don has cleaned up a lot since his first edition, and the book reads better and gets the point across much more smoothly. One thing that Don deserves a lot of credit for is sourcing – he has lots of footnotes providing all the sources for his quotes and statistics. They definitely raise the credibility of the book significantly.

The book is aimed at the dating crowd, however, even if a Christian man isn’t interested in marriage (or is too young), this book still has a lot of value. Don explores a great deal of male and female nature which every man should know. Truthfully, there is a lot in there for pretty much any Christian man to find something educational and edifying.

As Don explained it to me:

I have yet to find a book this size (or any other size for that matter) that shows how gender relations work in the framework of a contract between the sexes, and how that contract was built upon how God designed men and women. This book also tackles the wage gap myth, MGTOW, and “manning up” – all key topics that men today need to be aware of, whether they are looking to get married or not.The church today largely doesn’t understand these issues, so they are blaming men (and single men especially) for the breakdown in the system. We need to get this message to the men of the church so that change can come from informed believers within.

While this book is not an exhaustive treatise on everything a Christian man should do or know, it does serve as an effective primer and “wake-up call” for the average Christian man. It provides a good, basic explanation of socio-sexual behavior that will be helpful to nearly anyone. So I strongly recommend it to those who are new to this part of the web or who haven’t ever heard this kind of message before.

For those interested in a paper copy as a gift, it is sold via Amazon.

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 2

This is the second part in my most recent series on Attraction. It will be short, as will most posts in this series. You can find Part 1 here.

Why Are We Talking About This?

My various posts on sexual attraction have led many to ask, either in comment or via e-mail, two questions that relate to one another. The first:

Isn’t this supposed to be a Christian blog?

Which is invariably followed by:

If so, why are you talking about sexual attraction?

Both are good questions, and despite having answered them before many times, I will take the time to answer them yet again.

Yes, this is a Christian blog. I am a Christian (a Traditionalist Catholic, to be precise), and that background impacts this blog. And the reason I am talking about sexual attraction is because it matters to Christians. Especially those who want to marry. You see, despite the proclamations of some neo-Gnostics in the last few generations, devout Christians do not suddenly become asexual creatures. With the exception of those with the charism of singleness, humans are sexual beings. Becoming a Christian doesn’t change this. What it does do is require us to control our nature, and to channel it towards righteous ends- aka, marriage.

The thing is, sexual attraction plays a significant role in the marriage marketplace. Even as Christians we are still drawn to those whom we find sexually attractive, whether we realize it or not, and whether we admit it or not. Unfortunately, there have been a lot of lies told about sexual attraction in the past few generations. And Christians have been the ones peddling them more than any other group. Sadly, these lies have taken a considerable toll on many good Christian men and women.

What are the lies I’m referencing? While there are plenty, the greatest set of them have to do with what women find sexually attractive in men. Note that I said sexually attractive, and not simply attractive. As was discussed in the previous post in this series, attraction is a broad enough term to include many different things, including general traits that women like men to have. But those traits are not the kind that arouse women. And whether something arouses a woman or not matters. Because women, just like men, are sexual creatures. Yes, even Christian women. Thanks to their hypergamous nature and strict filters, among other things, women will “overlook” men who are not sexually attractive to them. Such men just won’t show up on their “radar.” Furthermore, Christian women have the exact same tendencies and triggers towards attraction and arousal that non-Christian women possess. As Deep Strength has explained, there are good reasons why women are drawn to them. This problem is compounded by the fact that most women don’t even understand their own attraction filters, or will deny what they know about them.

Christian women will not see sexually unattractive men as husband material (at least, not until they reach the Epiphany phase, but that’s a discussion for another time). Which means that a Christian man looking to marry who isn’t sexually attractive is going to be ignored/rebuffed by the Christian women around him (And that’s assuming that the women have healthy and realistic filters, which is often not the case). Those women who set sexual attractiveness aside are almost certainly bad risks for one reason or another, so they aren’t a real alternative. Those women who are marriageable filter men based on their sexual attractiveness, whether they realize it or not.

If Christian men want to marry, and more importantly, to marry well, they need to learn what women find sexually attractive in men, and what they don’t. They need to know what arouses women, and what turns them off. Without this knowledge Christian men are basically resigned to groping in the dark. In the present MMP that means they have next to a zero percent chance of marrying well. This is, needless to say, a recipe for disaster. We have already seen the effect of this in the last generation or so. Christian marriage rates are plummeting, and the divorce rate is… well the fact that I’m talking about a Christian divorce rate shows the magnitude of the problem.

Towards that end, this blog has explored, and will continue to explore, sexual attraction/arousal in women, so as to help devout Christian men marry virtuous Christian women. As I am one of those men, this is quite self-serving on my part, and I don’t deny my own selfish motivations for exploring this subject. Yet I hope to help other Christian men as well. First, because I consider it my duty as a Christian to do so as a form of loving my neighbor. Second, because in helping others I may well help myself. Third, if I should marry and have children one day, I want my children to be able to find spouses of their own- which means that those good Christian men out there, who will make for good fathers, need to marry and have children as well.

So expect to hear more on this subject well into the future. Which probably means later this week.

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.

An Update And Something For My Female Readers

A quick update post today. I will upload a links and musings post tomorrow, although I’m not exactly sure when. Also, sometime earlier next week I hope to finally get around to writing a post exploring different theories of attraction which I’ve been meaning to write for a while. If anyone is interested in a guest post, I am usually quite willing to host them. Just contact me through the e-mail I have in my About page.

Also, since I know that a number of my readers and commenters are female (roughly 25% from an old poll), and some of them are Catholic, I wanted to let them know about an opportunity that may interest them. Leane of Finer Femininity is hosting a drawing for a necklace set she created that she will give away to someone who comments on her post. The drawing ends tomorrow, so if you are interested check it out sooner rather than later.

Driving The Delay

Dalrock, who has always been very good about using charts and data sources to support some of his arguments, has a couple of new posts that track marriage data. Both are worth reading. You can find them here:

Fewer Men are working, and marriage is dying

and

More remarriage rate charts

The charts that Dalrock uses in those posts point out a couple of things. The one that I’m going to talk about with this post is that women are delaying marriage, even if men aren’t (and I don’t think that they really are). Cail Corishev talks about that subject in his post Who’s Dragging Those Heels? I largely agree with his reasoning, and encourage everyone to read the whole post. But a key part is this:

The truth is, men have always delayed marriage.  In other words, men have never particularly wanted to marry; they’ve been willing to marry when that was the way to get what men really want: exclusive sex and procreation with a woman of their choice.  That’s why the trope is of a woman dragging her man to the altar, and not the other way around.  So while men may be delaying (“avoiding” would be a better word) marriage, men have always avoided marriage, so that doesn’t account for the changes we’re seeing.

The change is in women, in two closely related areas: how long women delay marriage, and how women have detached sex from marriage.

This brings me to how women are delaying marriage. There are a couple of important graphs that I’m going to steal from Dalrock, as well as commenter davidvs, who has been pondering similar paths as I. The first graph is the median age of marriage in the US over time:

Note the separation between male and female ages of first marriage and how relatively even they are. Now observe two charts which detail preferred ages for a partner in men and women:

These graphs point out a couple of things.

The first is that men are relatively fixed about their preferences in terms of age and attractiveness- it is about 21 or so. Women, however, are not so fixed. They prefer older at first and then eventually younger men.

This moves to the second point, namely that Rollo’s SMV chart really is pretty darn accurate. If anything he might have female peak SMV be a little too older, but it is still very close. Men prefer early 20s women, and women prefer men around 38-39 or so.

The third thing that this graph points out is that women are driving the delay in marriage. Or at the very least, for themselves. We know from the charts above what men want- young women. That doesn’t change no matter how old a man gets. Yet we can see that the median age of marriage for both men and women has increased over the last 50 years or so. Now, we might surmise from the data that men are delaying marriage- they are having fun in their 20’s and only later decide to settle down. But that doesn’t affect women. They can still choose to marry young. Its not like men will turn them down when they are younger.

Even if men want to marry when they are older, they will still want younger wives. So if women don’t want to delay marriage, they don’t have to. Men will be there to marry them. But that isn’t what is happening. Instead both men and women are marrying later. And the spread between them has remained fairly constant. And fascinatingly enough, that spread is awfully similar to the preferred age spread for women in their twenties. What is going on here is that women are delaying marriage. And they are delaying it deliberately. I see a few possible reasons for this.

The first, what the manosphere generally talks about, is that women are delaying marriage for as long as possible so they can do everything else in the interim. Whether that is travel the world, acquire degrees, work on a career, or rack up a frightening N-count, women are giving marriage a very low priority in their lives. And keep in mind that men, even if they want to marry, are trapped by this. Marrying older women who want to marry is not a wise or a realistic option for them. No, men are forced to go along with women, no matter what they wish.

Another possibility relies on men delaying marriage. The idea is that women want to marry when they are young, but the men their age don’t want to. If they want to find a large enough pool of men who will marry, they need to look to older men. However, those older men are outside their preferred age ranges in men. So rather than marry them, and despite that being an option, women wait. And they wait. And they wait. Until eventually, women are now old enough that their age filters have changed, and the men who want to marry are now in that preferred age range. And boom, they start marrying.

My readers are of course free to offer their own thoughts on the subject. But I think that at this point that there can be no doubt that women clearly have a hand on the wheel when it comes to delaying marriage.

Update: Another possibility is tied to the second scenario I raised. This one relies on women delaying marriage because the men their age aren’t seen, in their eyes, as worthy mates. Since women have fairly set age preferences, they will not “date up” to the men who are more likely to be attractive. It is only when the men become more attractive as a whole that women start getting serious about marriage.

Shutting Their Eyes

Modern society shuts its eyes easily and willingly. We don’t want to see evil, or trouble ahead. And even for those that do, it must always be in measured amounts. They will squint, so that only some of the light comes through, leaving them with an incomplete picture.

Mrs. ktc clued me in to an example of this, found in this article by Camille Paglia- The Modern Campus Cannot Comprehend Evil. A few choice excerpts:

Wildly overblown claims about an epidemic of sexual assaults on American campuses are obscuring the true danger to young women, too often distracted by cellphones or iPods in public places: the ancient sex crime of abduction and murder. Despite hysterical propaganda about our “rape culture,” the majority of campus incidents being carelessly described as sexual assault are not felonious rape (involving force or drugs) but oafish hookup melodramas, arising from mixed signals and imprudence on both sides.

…

There is a ritualistic symbolism at work in sex crime that most women do not grasp and therefore cannot arm themselves against. It is well-established that the visual faculties play a bigger role in male sexuality, which accounts for the greater male interest in pornography. The sexual stalker, who is often an alienated loser consumed with his own failures, is motivated by an atavistic hunting reflex. He is called a predator precisely because he turns his victims into prey.

…

Misled by the naive optimism and “You go, girl!” boosterism of their upbringing, young women do not see the animal eyes glowing at them in the dark. They assume that bared flesh and sexy clothes are just a fashion statement containing no messages that might be misread and twisted by a psychotic. They do not understand the fragility of civilization and the constant nearness of savage nature.

Ms. Paglia is able to notice the animal eyes which glow in the dark. She can see the male predators out there. What she fails to see [or at least, acknowledge], however, are the predators in her midst.

You see, those women whom Ms. Paglia describes as naive are, in their own respect, just as feral as the men that she warns about. As a society we are quick to decry feral men, the male predators lurking in the dark. But we ignore the female predators who walk among us. We are quick to point out the evil in men, but balk at doing the same in women.

Someone like Ms. Paglia sees “bared flesh and sexy clothes” and worries about “messages that might be misread and twisted by a psychotic.” Her time, and society, would be better served by thinking [and talking] about what messages are intentionally sent with “bared flesh and sexy clothes” and how they are correctly read.

It is no accident that young women dress that way. Naivete has nothing to do with it. Women know, instinctively, the power their bodies have over men, and they use that power to get what they want: male attention and validation. Young women who dress that way are tempting men, they are provoking a sexual response in the deepest recess of the male psyche. Do men want this? For the most part, yes. Men like viewing attractive female flesh as much as attractive females like showing it. But that doesn’t change the nature of what these women are doing- they are tempting men, setting stumbling blocks before them. And even worse, they deny all the while that they are doing any of that. They claim empowerment as their rationale- as obvious a lie as any ever told.

Much is said by a few around these parts about how men push young women for sex in relationships (or push for sex instead of relationships). Yet in the present environment women push for it too (only they will deny it later if confronted). Don’t believe me? Go ask Ballista, he will have a story or two for you. I’m sure that Chad and Martel have similar tales to tell of women who pushed for sex right away. If you have been paying attention to the news lately (especially about female teachers sleeping with their students), you will know that women can be sexual predators too. Yet all together we as a society will ignore or downplay the dark side of female sexuality. We refuse to acknowledge that evil inherent in unrestrained female sexuality.

Message to Camille Paglia:

It isn’t just the modern campus that cannot comprehend evil- it is the whole of society. You see only that evil which you want to see, and nothing more.

Update: In case it wasn’t clear, the main thrust of this post was that we only recognize certain kinds of evil these days. Overt violence being the prime example. But other, subtler evils are not recognized or called out. I wanted to point out that Ms. Paglia was making much the same error that she was accusing college campuses of making.

Update 2: Sir Nemesis has questioned my criticism of Paglia. He argues that just because she hasn’t called out other evils, doesn’t means she doesn’t recognize them. Theoretically this might be true. However, I’m not familiar with her ever having done so. But focusing on what she specifically, has said or believes would be a mistake. This post is about more than just her. I’ve corrected the above post (with some additions and a strike-through), to try and make that more clear. The overall point, once again, was how some evils are recognized and acknowledged, and others aren’t. And there is a pattern to this which should be noticeable to those of us who give it careful thought.