Complex and Reflected

I.

One of the subjects that has interested me for a while is the so-called “Madonna/Whore Complex.” A number of male bloggers have covered it in the past, including me, in large part because it connects with a number of “red pill truths.” Several recent discussions that I’ve had with a few “red pill” aware individuals has made me wonder about its origins or source, and if it has a female counter-part. Some further discussions has led me to believe that there is indeed a female counter-part, and it is surprisingly similar in its origin to the male equivalent. Before I talk about the female version of the complex, I will explain some thoughts on how men develop it.

II.

One of the striking things about the Madonna whore complex is how it strictly divides women into two camps: one sexualized and one de-sexualized. It is striking in that there isn’t really any room for a grey area- women are mentally forced into one category or the other. I think this binary division is connected to the natural male filter for determining the investment quality of a woman.

Men have an innate instinct to divide (attractive) women into two groups: (attractive) women who are worthy of long-term investment, and (attractive) women who aren’t. Now, neither group is de-sexualized in either way- rather, it is that the women in the second group, while regarded as possible sexual partners, are not considered worth investing time or resources in. To use the vernacular of the modern day Pick-Up Artist, they are only good for a “pump’n’dump.” For men, sex may be cheap, but investment/commitment is not. Hence the need for an ability and inclination to assess women as being commitment worthy or not.

What I theorize, and others may have done the same before me, is that the Madonna/Whore complex involves a corruption of this natural filter. Whereas the normal filter includes women who are possible sexual partners on both sides, the filter is distorted so that you get sexual women who aren’t worthy of commitment on one side, and non-sexual women who are worthy of commitment on the other. I believe that this complex develops as a result of environmental triggers, specifically involving a man’s interaction with women. The Madonna/Whore complex seems to develop the most frequently amongst cultures and environments where men spend a long time unmarried and around loose women. It can occur in other situations, but that seems to be the most common.

What I think happens is that men who spend a long time with loose women come to associate female sexuality with unworthiness of commitment. This is because slutty behavior is one of the hallmark indicators that a woman isn’t worthy of commitment. Over time, men will be conditioned to associate them together, and eventually they will become inseparable. Since loose women tend to be fast paced and “exciting”, this association is intensified and exacerbated because of the strong emotions that men will develop during their time with such women. Men will have a fun, exciting time, and yet the filter doesn’t go away. It will be sending constant messages to these men that the women they are with are unworthy of commitment. For men, this manifests in a feeling of disgust and repulsion hinders the development of any lasting emotional bond. Over time, this disgust and repulsion will probably take on moral qualities, and so men will see loose women as disgusting (and maybe even evil) harlots.

Commitment worthy women, on the other hand, will be mentally associated with the opposite kind of emotions and sentiments. They, not being harlots, will be good and pure and wholesome. Men will instinctively assign to them all the positive traits that loose women lack, and none of the negative traits that loose women have. The problem for such women is that men will instinctively de-sexualize them. Partly this is because “good women” don’t act the same way as loose women do, and so don’t generate the same kind of excitement and “fun” that men with the complex associate with loose, and thereby sexual, women. The other part of it is that men instinctively recoil against thinking of “good women,” Or “Madonna’s,” as sexual. This is because their minds associate female sexuality with a whole host of traits that make women unworthy of commitment. So when a man considers a good women in a sexual way, it threatens to shake his mental image of her as a good or commitment worthy woman. Since he know she isn’t like that, he is apt to react by rejecting any sexual behavior or attitudes on her part. In fact, it is likely that if she acts that way he will react forcefully, in an angry or possibly even violent manner. His own sense of security and order and mental image of the woman in question would demand as much.

III.

This brings us to the female counter-part. I think that the basis is much the same, although the mechanic is a bit different. This is because women don’t divide men into the categories of commitment worthy and non-commitment worthy. Of course, women don’t give commitment in the way that a man does (via resources/time), but rather receive those. Instead, female commitment is expressed by having a man’s children. The primary characteristic women use to assess a man as a mate is whether a man is attractive or not, not whether she will give commitment, or even receive it from him. In fact women seem to be inclined to try and receive as much investment from as many men as possible (sensible in terms of helping her offspring survive). Certainly any man who she considers attractive is one that she would want to receive commitment from. This would seem to suggest that women wouldn’t fall into their own version of the complex.

Things get somewhat complicated, though, when we consider the phenomenon known as “Alpha F—s, Beta Bucks”, or AFBB. This seems, at first glance, to be a female behavior wherein women will sleep with one sort of man and seek commitment from another. However, this isn’t a full picture of what AFBB is. AFBB is a strategy that women adopt as a result of male behaviorisms; it is reactive in nature. It isn’t what women really want, at least, not as their first choice. What they want is commitment from the guys that they sleep with (and want to sleep with). However, the simple fact of the matter is that  without significant social pressures the most attractive male members of a social group (“Alpha’s”) will not offer exclusive commitment to a woman. Instead, because of the copious attention they receive from women, such men have the power position in any relationship and will offer little to no commitment to women.  Thus women, if they want to have a relationship with such men (which they do), have to comply with their rules. However, women still need male commitment in order to support themselves (especially during pregnancy) and their offspring. So they will seek out men who are more likely to offer commitment (“Beta’s”), and offer a relationship with them in exchange for commitment in return. Such relationships are merely a matter of convenience, though, on the part of women.

AFBB is a coping mechanism, if it were. I think the fact that it is reactive, and not active like the male binary perception of women means that it has less of an impact on female behavior. However, the same kind of environmental factors which might precipitate a man acquiring the Madonna/whore complex might also create a similar effect in women, even without that kind of base.

For example, take women who spend a lot of time in the company of exciting, handsome men, with whom they have sexual relationships. Have this last a number of years, the length of which is determined by how well the women age and what their relative beauty is. Over time, their minds will associate positive (as in desirable) male sexuality with men who display those traits. These impressions will be very potent, because the female brain is more emotionally connected than the male brain. With enough time and conditioning, women will only be able to associate male sexuality in a positive way coming from these kinds of men. Less exciting, “safer” men won’t generate the same kind of emotional responses in women with this kind of background, and so women will de-sexualize them. And if the men do act sexual, then because it isn’t associated with a positive form of male sexuality, women will see it in a negative light, which we around these parts refer to as “creepy.”

I was originally planning on calling this the Bad Boy/Nice Guy complex, but that isn’t really accurate. After all, it isn’t a binary division because the men who aren’t Bad Boys fall into two groups themselves: sexual and therefore creepy, and non-sexual and therefore safe. The latter are basically resource dispensers in the eyes of affected women, sad to say. So its more of a Stud/Creep/Drone complex than anything else. Not a great name, I know. If someone can think of a better one please feel free to mention it.

 IV.

I’m curious what some of my readers think of this theorizing on my part. Taken together, both versions of this problem stem from prolonged lifestyles that are hedonistic and promiscuous. Over time the brain is re-wired to the point where healthy long-term relationships become difficult, if not impossible.

Something I didn’t talk about in this post, but am curious about, is the reaction that people have to those who live these kinds of lives. What kind of impact is there on good women and nice guys living in a system where this is commonplace?

One thing that I am sure of is that this kind of sickness in society is what we can expect when sexual immorality is the norm.  Now, if only we have some kind of guide-book which would help us as a society to avoid perils like this….

Wearing Thin

[This post was one that I was working on before Easter but had to put on hold because of a lack of time. I’m finishing and uploading it now, roughly a month later.]

I.

Elspeth posted a satirical video a few weeks back which advises women to “Put it on“, and in this case “it” happens to refer to clothing. Stingray “stole” the video to use with a post over at Girls Being Girls called “Tweezing Out Femininity.” A small sample:

We’ve all written about how, as women, we should strive to be pretty, wear modest makeup, but wear it well, have long hair, dress well and so forth.  But as we all know, femininity encompasses so much more than that and trying to write about all it entails in one or two posts is nigh impossible.

With this in mind, I thought it best to simply just pick one small aspect of femininity and write about it.  My hope is that it will inspire questions, comments, and further ideas for myself and the other writers here to spin off of and therefore continue the conversation of what it means to be a feminine woman.  It’s not a simple thing and it goes very deep.  However, the outer covering is a very good place to start in one’s journey to becoming more feminine.  It’s why I love the video above so much.

Women today seem to go to either end of the spectrum, even in the course one day, in their dress.  For the day it might be sweatpants and sneakers and for the night heavy makeup with a very skimpy dress or skirt.  There is little in between.  It is in this in between that we start to find what is feminine.

I think that my female readers would enjoy the rest of the post, and I would recommend it to them. In addition, those men who are fathers of daughters might also find some value there as well. And since I’m on the topic of female attire, I should also mention that TempestTcup has two new somewhat recent posts up concerning Corsets and Tight-lacing. You can find part 1 here, and part 2 here.

However, the primary subject of this post is modesty. I haven’t touched on it in a while, so I thought I would give a few thoughts on the matter. A major impetus is a post titled “Against the ‘Modest Swimsuit'” over at a blog called The Catholic Lady (whose tagline I very much like). A comment in that post stated this:

To really know what is modest when swimming, I think we’d probably have to ask truly virtuous men for guidance.

Now, I won’t be so arrogant as to claim to fit that description. But I do have a few thoughts I would like to mention when it comes to modesty, although extending beyond just swimsuits.

II.

When we talk about modesty, we need to understand that there are really two components to it. The most obvious one concerns lust and sexuality- this is the modesty that most of us think of when the subject is brought up. For swimsuits especially, this is what modesty entails. The other kind of modesty involves envy and jealousy; this is modesty in the sense of being humble and not showing off wealth and status. I explained this a while ago in my fifth Selected Sunday Scriptures posts:

As I thought on it, I realized that there are really two different forms of modesty, one in harmony with chastity and the other in harmony with humility. To be somewhat clearer, one form of modesty is about dressing and acting in such a way so as to not call unnecessary sexual attention upon oneself. The second form of modesty is about not dressing and acting in such a way so as to flaunt one’s influence, wealth and station in life.

The thing to keep in mind about modesty is that its purpose is to avoid inciting sin in others. Whether that sin is lust, or avarice, we are not to become stumbling blocks for our brothers and sisters. When we talk about modesty, it is important to remember that.

This particular observation is important because there are a number of people out there who “believe” in modesty, and preach it, but don’t get it quite right. One of the more common manifestations of this is when people say they don’t want to wear “too modest” of clothing, otherwise they would draw attention to themselves. This sentiment demonstrates a complete misunderstanding of modesty, and especially how it relates to the world. Modesty is not simply about not drawing attention to oneself, it is about not drawing particular types of attention to oneself. Specifically, sexual attention and jealous attention. Remember, we as Christians are supposed to be noticed. People are supposed to recognize us: by how we dress, by how we act, and by what we say.

¹⁴ “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hid. ¹⁵ Nor do men light a lamp and put it under a bushel, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. ¹⁶ Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

(Matthew 5:14-16)

If people notice a Christian, especially a Christian woman, because she is wearing modest clothing that is far afield from what other women are wearing, then guess what? That is a good thing! Yes, really, it is! As Christians we are called to not conform to the world; that will invariably result in us standing out. So the lesson of all of this is that when it comes to whether a particular outfit is modest, the question isn’t whether it draws attention to us or not. The question is whether it draws the wrong kind of attention towards us. With that out of the way, I will turn to what I suppose we can call “chaste modesty.”

III.

While there are certainly immodest outfits that men can wear, when the topic of modesty is concerned female attire is what is talked about 99% of the time. Towards that end I will be addressing only modesty when it comes to women. A post on male modesty might be worthwhile later, although I think it would be relatively simple.

There are two components of “chaste modesty”, which I call skin and shape. The first refers to just how much bare skin an outfit shows, and where it shows it. It also includes any transparency effects in the clothing. The second refers to how much of the woman’s body shape or form is highlighted and emphasized by the outfit. An outfit might be perfectly acceptable in one area but fail utterly in another. An example would be a skin-tight black leather outfit that shows very little skin, but hugs to the body. Men can be tempted by a woman’s body shape just as they can be tempted by bare skin. Both are problematic.

Whether for swimming or another purpose, the amount of skin shown by an outfit cannot go too far without being immodest. Some areas it is easy to draw a bright line, while others can be a bit hazy. The following is my personal thoughts on it, based on my own nature and inclinations as a man, as well as what I understand about other men.

Overall I feel fairly confident in saying that most of the torso down to just above the knees should be covered up. Personally, I don’t think that bare shoulders are a problem, for me at least they don’t incite lust, and I don’t think they do for most men in general. But dipping too much below the collar bone does get to immodest territory, although the exact location where it becomes immodest depends on the body shape of the woman wearing it. Coverage would then extend down through the midriff, as skin showing there directs a man’s gaze to that location, which is between two area’s on a woman’s body quite apt to incite lust. The upper legs and thighs would need to be covered as well, because they also have a strong sexual correlation to them.

The problem with swimsuits is that their nature lends them towards showing a lot of “shape”, even if they don’t show a whole lot of skin. They tender to be tight fitting, as that makes for better hydrodynamics. So even if they cover up all of the torso, they still tend to hug the skin and show off any curves that a woman might have. Thus they are still in many cases immodest, even when they don’t show a whole lot of skin. The key to making a swimsuit more modest, in my opinion, is not simply to cover up skin but to break up the woman’s body shape. This means an outfit that uses some kind of ruffling or loose fabric that would cover up her curves, at least when she isn’t swimming (as when swimming shape is less of an issue).

That same line of thinking applies to other clothing as well- whether dresses or skirts or blouses. If something is tighter on the skin, then something to break up the pattern is required. A second layer or something similar can achieve that effect. Looser clothing will probably need to cover a bit more, though, in order to not show off as much skin when bending over or being in a position other than standing up.

The funny thing (to me at least) is that what I’m describing fits clothing that existed decades before. Old-fashioned swimsuits and dresses alike both tended to show less skin and less of a woman’s curves at the same time. The thing is, they did/can still look very good on a woman; they just don’t look as sexy on her, that’s all. But that is the entire purpose of most of the modern attire- to emphasize a woman’s sexual appeal in order to draw male sexual interest and attention towards her.

At this point I should note that I understand the practical advantages of a two piece swimsuit to women when it comes to using the restroom. But there is no reason you couldn’t have a two-piece that is also modest along the lines I’ve described above. It simply would need to have some overlap, that is all.

IV.

Those are my quick thoughts on modesty in female attire. If anyone has any other suggestions or thoughts to add, please feel free.

 

Update: Deep Strength has added his thoughts to the subject in this post here. I recommend reading it, as he goes beyond the external aspects of modesty, which is all that I have covered, to address the internal ones as well.

Charting Out Your Life

I.

Starting over a month ago Rollo Tomassi over at The Rational Male began a series of posts he called “Preventive Medicine.” The series revolved around understanding how hypergamy and other aspects of female behavior manifested themselves during different parts of a woman’s life. His goal was to educate men about how women acted during different parts of their life, and how to respond accordingly. As he explained in the first post in the series:

What I’ve constructed is a loose and generalized chronology of how women effect their hypergamy over the course of typical woman’s life between the ages of 15 and 50. I’m fully prepared for the same outcries of generalizations and NAWALT that the infamous SMV graph inspired, but understand this, before any woman or femen comes up with those predictable objections, this is an outline; variables like culture, ethnicity, moralism, socio-economic status and outlying circumstance are all factors to consider when evaluating the motivations of any woman. This timeline however is intended as a roadmap to follow to get a better understanding of what motivates women at particular phases of their lives and hopefully help men to better prepare themselves for the strategies women will use to optimize hypergamy during those phases.

You can find the individual posts through the following links: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4.

To help his readers understand his posts Rollo created a new chart or outline which provides a visualization of the different stages/concepts that he explains throughout the posts.  I’ve always been a big fan of Rollo’s various charts, most especially his famous/infamous SMV graph which I’m sure most of my readers are familiar with:

His new chart is also valuable, especially when paired with the SMV chart above. Here is is:

I suggest that my readers open it in a separate window so they can read it clearly, as it is quite detailed. In my opinion it is the most valuable contribution he provides in his series, although I suspect many readers will find some value in the other parts as well. In line with this, most of my post today will focus on this chart and the ideas its presents. The next section will include some of my observations of the chart and its surrounding subjects, along with some critiques and suggestions. The third and final section will cover ideas and thoughts that derive from the chart, Rollo’s posts and what I’ve commented on.

II.

Overall I tend to think that Rollo was spot-on in terms of assigning the various stages to the proper age points for women.

One suggestion that I would make is that there should be a marker at the beginning of the “Teen Stage”, as there is a major transition point (at least in the US) when women enter high school. Its been many years since I was at high school, but I can still remember the effect entering HS had on women. This would also suggest an expansion of the teen bracket from 15-18 to 14-18, which encompasses the high school years.

Also, I would slightly tweak the “Break” bracket. First off, I think it is a bit long. Two years is probably too much, from what I observed it was closer to one year. For those entering college the “freshness” of it all usually didn’t even last one year, often it was just the first semester/quarter, but for the sake of generality lets keep it at one year.

Perhaps my biggest disagreement with Rollo centers around the various attributes or factors that women focus on during their lives. That is the lower part of the chart. Rollo has women begin by being drawn to Physicality at first. Then, starting at age 25 or so, they include Status as something they consider. Finally, starting around age 30, Affluence and Provisioning start to enter their matrix. Translating these terms into my APE or LAMPS/PSALM analysis, you get Looks and Appearance first, then Status, and then Money. Power/Personality is not factored into Rollo’s chart (or is assumed, impossible to tell which).

While I would agree that certain factors might become more or less important over a woman’s life, I don’t think that they develop in the manner that this chart indicates. I maintain that the LAMPS/PSALM attributes are always “present” and important. This is something that I believe can be observed in women even in the beginning stages of this chart.

For example, take Status. Even in high school those young men who had higher status usually had better success with women. That might be limited to being captain of the football team, but it gave them something of an extra edge. The reason why it isn’t noticed as much, and why Appearance seems to override is because in high school most Status markers are also associated with Athleticism. This continues onward into college as well, where athletics is still higher status than nearly any other endeavor. However, once outside of the (undergraduate) college context, other Status markers start to come into play, like in the workplace or social circles that develop. In addition, as women get older, and leave the college context, they come into more contact with men whose primary attractive attribute is Status. This time period happens to match when Status becomes a factor on Rollo’s chart.

For those uncertain about my arguments above, keep in mind how young women are drawn to famous stars, especially music stars. While movie stars often have Looks, the same isn’t always true for musicians. Often they will have only Status going for them- as more than a few are anything but handsome. And yet they are incredibly attractive to women, even young ones. Hence, Status always matters.

Rollo merges Affluence and Provisioning together, which is an interesting choice. In a way they are a breakdown of the Money trait into two components: the wealth someone has on hand now, and their ability to provide in the future. Either way though, I think that Rollo is incorrect to consider it only relevant at the 30 year mark or so. Women do care about wealth before then, and wealthy men are definitely more attractive than their otherwise identical counterparts. The thing is that they rarely encounter such men when younger. But even then you can still see Money as something women find attractive. I can recall even back in high school that the handful of guys with wealthy parents always had a bit of an edge. It also was present in college, although got mixed up with Status because they were often part of the same frats or other circles.

I do think that Rollo was on the right track by separating Money into Affluence and Provisioning though. This is because when you consider it Affluence is of greater value/influence when a woman is younger, and Provisioning more important when she is older. A younger woman, who is less likely to have children, or, in this culture anyways, feel the immediate need for them, will probably be more entranced by the pull of immediately available capital. It means more fun. But for a woman with children, or a somewhat older woman who feels the urge of biology pressing down upon her, well, the ability of a man to provide resources in the future has some pull. In this sense, Affluence is more likely the major driver of Money in the  LAMPS/PSALM model as an attraction component, while Provisioning is something else. It is more likely to be a “Beta” trait, or comfort trait, or something that women value as a desirable trait.

One suspicion that I have is that Money is the weakest of the LAMPS/PSALM attributes right now because of the overall affluence of our society. Here in the West, starvation is next to unheard of. Very few live in the abject poverty that was the norm for most of our history. Since resources aren’t scarce as they were before, women don’t feel compelled to seek them from a man like they have in the past. Hence, its overall lowered value.

III.

A.

Something that I had noted in one of Rollo’s posts was that a whole industry has seemingly developed to “support” women who follow this lifeplan. In fact, each “stage” has its own particular set of supporting cultural institutions. Think magazines, TV shows, websites, the works. Women start with magazines like 16 and move on up to Cosmo and the like. Shows on the Disney channel supporting “You Go Guuurrrrllll” messages are replaced by Girls which eventually are replaced by other shows. For example, the show Sex and the City seems to me to have been designed especially for women in the Development and Redevelopment stages of their life.

What I’m curious about is whether the development of this industry was a case of supply meeting demand, or whether the industry itself has helped shaped how this “life-cycle” has turned out. I suspect that there is a little bit of both at play. Also, if I had to guess, I would say that this cycle is also a logical manifestation of how various impulses and triggers play out in the female mind, all depending on age and station in life, in combination with the present environment. That would explain the universality of much of it. Of course, not everyone  follows this path, but enough do that it cannot be coincidence. I wonder if attacking/undermining that support structure would translate towards undermining this chronology. Part of me thinks it would have to help.

B.

Another one of the things that struck me about this timeline is that it applies, with only minor correction, to Christian women as well as secular ones. Or at least to Churchian women. I know because have seen, and see, it in action.  For the more virtuous ones, you can replace “Party Years” with Mission work, or the like. But many of the same behaviors or stages manifest themselves in most women (at least, American ones) irrespective of their beliefs. Just like their secular sisters, the wiser ones will pursue marriage quicker, but plenty will follow the script laid out by Rollo.

The only exceptions being those women from especially traditional/conservative backgrounds. I know a number of women growing up who didn’t follow this particular path, and pretty much all of them were religious. But they were a small minority, and none of them really came from one of those kind of backgrounds. In fact, most of those who married early (which seems the most obvious early break with this path) were those who had high-school sweethearts that they married right out of college. One thing I have noticed is that nearly all have put off having children, although I’m not sure if that is because of finances or because they want to be free to live their lives as much as possible.

It really is a sad state of affairs when the general life path of Christians isn’t any different from that of secular individuals or those who belong to other faiths. We are called to not conform to the world, but that is what nearly all of us have done these days. Our lives are little different from those who don’t share the faith, except perhaps for different schedules on Sunday. Now that I can see it all so clearly, it is incredibly disheartening.

C.

One last thing that interests me is what the male equivalent of this chart would be like. One difference I would foresee would be the replacing of the first Security stage with the Development stage, which would move up. The second Security stage would simply disappear. This is because men don’t have a need for security in the manner that women have it. Redevelopment would likely fold into the first Development. If anything, I think that there would be far more variation for men in how a chronology would work. A number of different factors would be responsible for this:

• The industry that is centered around reaffirming women in their life journey doesn’t exactly have a male counter-part. In many ways part of the industry is geared towards suppressing the male equivalent.
• Given the different percentages of men versus women who are considered attractive, whether a man has success with women or not would have a huge impact. Because of the nature of male SMV, some men might not have early Party Years, but gain them later. Others might never have them. And others could have them for a very long time indeed, like many PUAs seem inclined towards
• As alluded to above, because male SMV follows a different pattern, it gives (most) men more options later on in their lives than women experience. This, plus the experiences they have gained along the way will produce more divergences in outcome.

I suspect that any male chronology is heavily influenced by whatever the prevailing female model is like. Men are highly responsive to female behaviors, and will shift ours to adapt to any changes that women make. They aren’t always good shifts, but that is just how we act. Also worth pointing out is that the chronology for Christian men also tracks fairly close to that of secular men as well. Some of this is due to the female model for Christian women being nearly identical. But the same kind of pressures to conform are also present as well for Christian men.

IV.

And that concludes this post.  Given the direction shift in my blog, I’m not sure when this new chart will show up next here. Until then, I think it is another valuable tool that can help men understand how most women act, depending on what stage of their life they are on. To echo Rollo, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, so best to know this all beforehand.

Objective And Subjective Attraction

I.

The subject of Attraction was widely discussed in one of my Lenten password protected posts, Picking On Me (now private, like all its kin).  I found that some of the ideas mentioned in that post were especially insightful, in particular the discussion over “objective” versus “subjective” attraction. Since that post is now locked up, those ideas are effectively hidden away, constituting a loss in my book. I am creating this new post because I want to highlight them for all my readers, and to both save some of what was discussed as well as hopefully continue the conversation from before.

As far as structure goes, I’m first going to recreate some of my post below. Then I will rephrase some of the better comments out there so that their origin is unrecognizable. Finally I will add my further thoughts on the subject.

II.

My commentary on “Types” was a major driver in the discussion of of “subjective” and “objective” attraction. Here is most of what I wrote:

Everyone has a preferred “type”, or possibly more than one. I think that “type” is a combination of features that we like which add together into a pleasing package. I know that I have a set of features in women which I prefer, which added together gets close to an “ideal” for me in terms of physical appearance. Some variations are acceptable in this, but overall I think that I have a clear set of preferences.

In the past there was a large enough pool of marriage-worthy candidates that most folks (although admittedly not all) could satisfy at least some of their preferences. But nowadays only those with a really high value can afford to be so picky.

I think that for most guys, and I admit to speculating here, that if a woman meets enough of the features we care most about, we are willing to give a lot of leeway on the others. Essentially, we have a sort of “good enough” level not unlike what I talked about in Romantic Architecture. So if a guy cares about X, Y and Z, in that order, then if he finds a woman with a high X, but the Y and Z aren’t high, he might not mind any deficiency in those features that much. But the opposite, a woman with only a high Z, might not cut it. Again, this is rampant speculation.

That led to some other observations and thoughts:

• Women have types just as much as men do. And like men, the pool is restricted given the current marriage marketplace.
• A preferred “type” can be personality based as well as physical based. Although for men, for whom physicality determines most of attraction, a woman’s personality has little to no impact on her attractiveness. Rather, it impacts her desirability.
• There is such a thing as “sexual draw.” Difficult to define or explain. Basically when a person feels a pull towards someone much stronger than would be expected from their apparent attractiveness. It is unique, between an individual man and woman.

At this point I offered the following:

1) Objective Attraction- the man finds a woman attractive on an objective, impersonal level. This is the “rate me by my photo” level of attraction. It is non-dynamic, meaning it requires seeing a woman at a distance or not in person.

2) Subjective Attraction- this is where a man finds a woman attractive on personal, even visceral level. This is what we mean by “chemistry.” This is heavily dynamic, and probably relies on body language clues, smell and maybe pheromones/hormones. As such, requires close proximity.

3) Personality Compatibility- this is where a woman’s personality matches up with a man’s, such that they “get” each other. This is what we mean by “fell for one another.”

More comments followed:

• Someone expressed the belief that subjective attraction might be a learned behavior. The possibility of it developing during the bonding that comes through sexed being one example.
• The dynamic of men being drawn to women like their mothers would be a possible manifestation of “subjective attraction.”
• The converse could also be true. Both in that this 3-step process would apply to women and their attraction to men, and that women being attracted to men like their fathers would be a subjective attraction example.
• A preference for a woman/man of a certain race is another manifestation of “subjective attraction filters.”
• Someone mentioned the role of smell and immune systems, and posted the following link: Major histocompatibility complex and sexual selection.

And that wraps up the discussion of the subject in my old post.

III.

A.

As I hinted at earlier in the comments of the older post, I see attraction as a three step process:

1. Objective Attraction
2. Subjective Attraction
3. Personality Compatibility

Objective Attraction is based on universal criteria. For male attraction to women, this would include features like waist-to-hip ratio, breasts, lets, etc. For female attraction to men, this would be along the lines of the LAMPS/PSALM factors. These are criteria that all men and women have to one degree or another, although individuals will have preferences and might favor one feature over another.

Subjective Attraction is entirely personal. A combination of genetics, learned behavior and environmental factors might all play into it. Most of the subjective attraction factors are based on “triggers” that require close proximity to someone. My suspicion is that subjective attraction is heavily influenced by subconscious or unconscious triggers in our brain, which are hardwired to filter for specific traits as highly desirable (or the reverse). . This might be due to certain traits/features being ideal to combine with one’s own genetics in order to maximize the benefits to any progeny. While it is possible that at some point in the future we might be able to understand this for individual persons, at this point it is far outside our capabilities. As such, subjective attraction is a series of unknowns.

Personality Compatibility is also individual in nature. Although it is not, in my view, quite so occult as subjective attraction remains. Rather, using concepts like Myers-Briggs, we can get an estimate of what personality types we might be more or less compatible with. However, MBTI isn’t perfect, and doesn’t explain all the “deep” connections out there.

B.

Now, this particular pattern might only apply to men. For women, where personality plays into attraction in a way that it doesn’t for men, it might be simpler or more complicated. My suspicion is that for women Personality Compatibility probably folds into Subjective Attraction, leaving just a 2-step process. Given the monogamous nature of women, and the desire for male commitment (preferably from a single man who encompasses all the positive male attributes), it makes more sense for this kind of arrangement. For men, on the other hand, who have polygamous instincts (albeit on a sort of sliding scale), it makes sense that there would be a separate personality component. After all, if we are going to stick to a single woman and invest in her (and our offspring), we need to be able to tolerate her presence.

One consequence of this formulation of attraction is that it highlights the inherent weakness of any kind of objective classification system. The “1-10” scale or my LAMPS/PSALM formulation are based only on objective criteria. Adding in personal, subjective criteria makes them much less accurate and effective at describing the attraction process. Of course, this doesn’t have to be a bad thing. In fact, there is a strong argument the other way.

If subjective attraction is something that can elevate a person’s attractiveness beyond what their “objective” measure would indicate, it means that a person should never consider themselves “out of the running.” Individualized and hidden preferences might mean that that you trip someone’s subjective triggers despite the fact that they would normally not be attracted to you on a purely objective level.

An interesting point is that usually we don’t differentiate between objective and subjective attraction. That is because most of the time we become familiar with someone through in-person contact. This close proximity allows that subjective measurement of attraction to take place. So most of the time we don’t realize that there is a difference. It is only when we get a non-personal image of a person- like through photos and video for example, and then later meet someone in person, that we can appreciate the distinction.

This has the greatest impact in online dating. That is a medium where objective attraction is established at first, without the subjective components being tested. Because of this, it is possible that someone might seemingly meet the objective criteria of another person and have that person convinced that they are attractive, only for that to be dashed when personal contact occurs. On the other hand, it might also mean that someone might be on the fence about another person’s attractiveness, but meeting them in person triggers their subjective qualifiers and pushes that person into the attractive category. Because of this phenomenon, it is best for folks engaging online to meet in person as soon as reasonably possible.

IV.

The major point to draw from this post is that nothing beats personal, face-to-face contact. However much your personalities might mesh, and despite whatever reactions photos and video might bring, meeting in person trumps everything. It also means that someone should never consider their cause hopeless. The occult nature of subjective attraction means that you just might be what someone else is looking for, even though they don’t realize it. And that brings this particular post to a close. If I forgot anything, or anyone has anything to add, please mention so in the comments.

A Thousand Words, Poorly Spoken

In Vox Day’s latest post at Alpha Game, Delta Face, he treats the subject of Brandon Eich, the former CEO of Mozilla. Vox is anything but complimentary. Including a picture from wikipedia of Eich in the post, this is what he had to say in his initial paragraph:

No one who saw this picture and understands Game was even remotely surprised by the way the Mozilla debacle played out over the last week. Human socio-sexuality is visible to the naked eye; just look at the soft features, the large, teddy-bearish frame, and most important, the uncertain, ready-to-please smile.

Vox continues to go on about how Eich is a Delta in Vox’s own socio-sexual hierarchy, and how other ranks would have reacted in the same situation that Eich faced. While interesting as speculation, that isn’t what drives this post.

Rather, I wanted to briefly echo the old saying that “a picture is worth a thousand words.” It really is true, and in fact pictures might be worth far more than just a thousand words. They can convey an awful lot, whether we intend to or not. This is something I have become particularly aware of since I found this part of the ‘net. If you aren’t careful, a poor picture of oneself can make those who view it believe you are something other than what you are. Or it can reveal a truth about you that you didn’t intend to reveal.

Here is the photo that Vox was using as the basis for his post:

Now, I have never met Brandon Eich. At least, that I can remember. I’ve met a lot folks over the years, so who knows? I certainly don’t recall any meeting though, so will treat him as an unknown. So I don’t know what he is really like in person. But if all that I had to go on of him was this picture, well… it just isn’t very favorable.

Its not that he is ugly or anything. Or that he seems like an unpleasant person. Or lazy or a bum or anything like that. But his smile is simply awful.

It is tepid.

Weak.

Unmanly.

That really gets to the heart of it. Eich’s smile here is completely unmasculine. Without knowing more about him, I would evaluate him as the kind of guy who would buckle when the going gets tough. Of course, I knew that about him before I saw the picture. But if I had seen the picture beforehand, I would have guessed that he would do what he eventually did.

Of course, he might not have been that way at all. He could have just been at the dentist earlier, and so his mouth was sore and his smile was awkward as a result. Or maybe the picture was taken in some other circumstance that would explain away such a weak smile. But I don’t know that, and neither does anyone else who sees that picture. It conveys weakness, whether he realizes it or not, and whether he intends it or not.

Compare that photo with this one:

[Edit: This has been suggested as a better picture. I included it originally in the comments, but have moved it here:

For those curious, it is Sean Connery as James Bond.]

Quite a bit of difference, right? Does anyone get that same impression of weakness and indecisiveness that was present in the first photo? I don’t. Again, I don’t know this guy. Never met him, probably never will. He could be the very worst White Knigh to ever live. But this photo conveys the impression of a suave guy who is in control of his life, and won’t bend or break easily. And  this is due not to his looks, but the expression on his face. For those inclined to use the word “Alpha” when describing a man, this would fit the bill. He carries himself as an “Alpha”, whereas Eich carries himself as (in Vox’s terminology) a “Delta.”

So what is the point of all of this?

Well, I have had some pretty awful pictures of me taken in my life. Some that I hope are lost and gone forever. Because as I look back on them, I realize how utterly unmanly I was in them. This is something that I think all men need to be careful of. If we want to provide a good impression of ourselves, good photographs matter, a lot. You will be judged by your demeanor, and you shouldn’t forget that.

So if anyone tells you to smile, and they don’t like the cocky grin that you give in reply, too bad for them. Hold your ground, and tell them that it is how you smile. If they have a problem with it, it is their problem, not yours.

If  pictures are going to speak for you (and they will, whether you like it or not), don’t let them speak poorly.

Picky, Picky

This blog post is dedicated to a couple of phenomena that I’ve heard about from some of the female commentators around these parts, and from some of my female readers who reach me via e-mail. The first has been explained to me as a scenario where a man finds a woman objectively attractive, but feels no sense of passion for her, i.e. he doesn’t “burn for her.” As for the second scenario, that involves a situation where a woman receives or picks up Indicators of Interest from certain men, but the men giving them otherwise ignore her and instead direct their efforts towards other women. To quote one commenter, oft times the women receiving male attention are those with a “slut aura.” In this post I will give some thoughts about why these situations might happen, supplying some of my theories on the matter as well of those of a few people I’ve talked with. I’m going to address them in reverse order, starting with the second scenario.

Low Hanging Fruit

There is a very simple explanation why most men will focus on women who exude a “slut aura.” They are making a simple, rational decision, although not a moral one, that they shouldn’t pay full price when they can “have the milk for free.” I explained this more fully in my post “Why Does My Boyfriend Pressure Me for Sex?“, but it essentially comes down to men taking the least costly path that leads towards sex. Most men, if they perceive a woman as not being “easy”, will ignore her because the perceived cost of sex from here will be great. On the other hand, a woman with a “slut aura” is perceived as “easy” and a low cost means of getting what they want more than anything.

Negative Feedback

Another thing that might be hurting women who don’t have a “slut aura” is the fact that their own aura might be pushing men away. Whether you want to call it an “Ice Queen” aura or something else, women can send off vibes that will keep men away. Approaching a woman can be a difficult experience for many men, and if given a reason not to do it, such as cold, rigid body language and behavior on the part of the woman, many men avoid it all together. Women with a “slut aura”, on the other hand, give off the impression of being easily approachable. My suspicion is that many women who don’t adopt that aura will go too far the other way- in their desire to appear modest they actually create an impression of being unapproachable. Much of the problem arises because women aren’t taught the kind of feminine attitudes and behaviors that they were in the past. Part of that included advice on how to both seem modest and yet approachable at the same time. That knowledge is largely forgotten these days, and so women must learn to fend for themselves. For a Christian woman who doesn’t want to give off a “slut aura” or some other brash set of behaviors, it is probably easy to fall unwittingly into the trap of cold modesty. That cold modesty can go beyond behavior, too. Poor dress, short/bad hair and bad makeup skills can also be included here.

Bad Read

There is another explanation, one that is somewhat cruel to say but needs to be acknowledged. It is always possible that women who think they are being passed over because they lack a “slut aura” are misjudging their own attractiveness. They might be misinterpreting men, thinking that they are picking up IOIs, when instead men are merely being friendly. I’ve written a post or two which discussed the trouble women have evaluating their own attractiveness (and whether they should get help for it), and that problem might be manifesting itself here. As cruel as it sounds, a woman who isn’t attractive will be passed up by a lot of men. Of course, she can mitigate this somewhat through healthy diets and exercise, in order to maximize her “physical assets.”  But she will need to understand that the pool of men interested in her will necessarily be smaller, and that she will have to adjust her expectations accordingly. That does it for the second scenario, for the moment at least. Turning now towards the first one again.

Cost/Benefit or Risk Analysis

[This isn’t exactly an explanation for the behavior in scenario one, but is something that I should point out, as it goes along well with the overall purpose of the post. ] Something else that can be at play is that a man might be running a cost/benefit analysis in his head and deciding that a woman just doesn’t rate high enough in looks. That seems kind of callous to say, but it is important to acknowledge the reality right now that marriage is a risky proposition for a man. He is completely exposed during marriage, with essentially no protection any longer. Society and the courts will not only not protect him, but will actively encourage the worst of behavior by women. The church even is of little help at best, and in some instances is as much of a problem as any divorce attorney. With this kind of hostile environment, men will be hesitant to marry. They will want the perceived benefits to be worth the potential costs. And yes, this applies to even Christian men. Perhaps especially Christian men, as Jesus reminded us of the importance of counting costs. As I indicated in my previous post, a woman’s beauty/looks/attractiveness is something that matters a lot to men. Of course, men can easily take this too far. Marriage shouldn’t be a selfish thing, otherwise it just becomes another idol. And beauty alone is a foolish measure of whether a woman is marriageable. But the truth remains that in the present age women who are less attractive might get passed over because a man isn’t sure the reward is worth the risk.

Filter Distortion

Another idea that I have bounced around in my head centers around “floors”- attraction and arousal floors, specifically. I discussed them at length in my post Romantic Architecture, and recommend to those reading this that they review that post before continuing on. Using that post as a baseline, I have basically argued before that normally the male “arousal floor” is lower than the male “attraction floor.” Referencing back to Romantic Architecture, a man’s arousal floor (the point below which women cannot arouse a man) is found at the threshold between “Unattractive” and “Not Unattractive.” Meanwhile, the attraction floor is the boundary between “Attractive” and “Not Unattractive.” The theory I’ve been thinking about revolves around the idea that a man’s arousal threshold might not be fixed. Instead, depending on environmental factors, it might move up or down the “Scale”. In terms of explaining what caused scenario 1, I speculate that a number of different environmental factors might have pushed a man’s arousal floor above his attraction floor. The result of this would be that a man could find a woman objectively attractive, and yet not be immediately/easily aroused by her. What could cause this?

Well, one possibility might be that old Churchian bane, pornography. A man who views sufficient amounts of it might rewire his brain such that he can only be aroused by a high level of sexual conduct by women. Mere sight and normal interaction with a woman who is attractive but not greatly so just might not arouse him like it used to. The same impact can possibly be had outside of pornography, with women that a man encounters in everyday life. If a man has a lot of experience (not necessarily sexual experience, just time spent around) with women who dress and act provocatively, then that might adjust his “baseline” for what to expect from women. If the women are very attractive then this resetting of the baseline might be even more likely.

Under this framework, a woman who dresses and acts modestly may not trigger a man’s passion, even though he can objectively evaluate her as attractive. This meshes well with scenario 2, actually, as men, after sufficient exposure to women with a “slut aura”, might not be able to get easily excited by a woman without. Just like how women can assign a guy to the “friendzone”, and no longer see him as sexually exciting, perhaps men can also lose their ability to view certain women in the same light.

Typing Without a Keyboard

Another possibility, one that was brought to my attention by one of my more astute readers who I communicate with via e-mail, has to do with types. You see, men have certain “types” of women that they prefer. In some of my past post I have referred to archetypes, but this is somewhat different. By “type” I mean that each man has a set of features that he looks for and prefers in women. Some are universal (symmetry, for example), while others vary from man to man. Some features are rated higher or lower, and others a man might not care about at all. As applied to scenario 1, a man might be able to objectively rate a woman as attractive, but if she isn’t his type than he might not feel that immediate passion that he would for a woman who was his type. This is because it is those features he rates highest in his “type” which arouse him. Even though her overall physical appearance might be attractive, if it is sufficiently far from his type it just won’t get his juices flowing. At least, that is the theory.

Another component to this is psychological. A man might not want to commit to a woman who isn’t his type, perhaps because “type” is genetic, or maybe something that he developed as a result of environmental conditions. Either way, because he is so strongly compelled towards his type, he will have trouble committing to a woman who doesn’t fit that. And this mental block might lead a physical block as well.

The present marriage market exacerbates the problem that the male preference for a certain type already adds. For a devout Christian woman, finding a devout Christian man who would make a good husband isn’t enough by itself. You have to be his type as well, or at least attractive enough so that you can overcome that. Likewise for men, the problem is that even if you find a devout Christian woman, who meets most or all of your non-physical criteria, if she isn’t your type then you might have trouble committing to her. In the past this wouldn’t have been as much of a problem, because there were enough marriageable men and women out there that you were likely to find someone who was your type (or whose type you were) while also meeting the other criteria. With so few good candidates these days this may not be the case.

Of course, women have “types” as well, and that might complicate matters from the other end. Then you have personality types and compatibility issues there as well, which makes things even worse on both ends. All of which adds up to the whole situation being a terrible mess right now.

Conclusion

So, that pretty much sums up my explanations/ideas/theories for the time being. I invite my readers to offer their own thoughts and commentary. Feel free to rip them to shreds, goodness knows that I’m in need of an ego check on a regular basis. Oh, and for those who have been participating in my password protected Lenten posts, I will be writing a short one that will act as a counter-part to this post in the next day or so. If you haven’t been participating but would like to, feel free to shoot me an e-mail or leave a comment requesting access.

Predicting Marriage

A sociology professor at the University of Miami has recently published a study in Social Science Research where he explores the different traits that make someone a marrying type. The Atlantic has an article on the study, providing a broad overview of it. If I get some free time later I will dig into the study, but the overview provided in that Atlantic piece validates certain ideas that I (and others) have advanced. The highlights:

Michael T. French, a sociology professor at the University of Miami, and his team looked at longitudinal data of more than 9,000 adolescents as they became young adults—starting in 1994 when participants were in high school and middle school and ending in 2009 when they were aged 24 to 34. Interviewers were asked to rate the participants’ looks, personality, and grooming on a scale of one to five, five being the most attractive. So this study doesn’t get into the nuances of personality, and how one person’s “sarcastic and abrasive” might be another’s “charming and adorable,” but instead just looks at whether someone’s personality is generally “attractive.”

Of those three traits, the only statistically significant interaction was that men with an above average attractive personality were more likely to get married. Taking each of the factors individually, no other significant trends emerged. But those three factors in aggregate (what the researchers called “the personal traits index”) were linked to likelihood of marriage. Someone who scored more highly on the index overall was more likely to walk down the aisle.

The fact that men with an “above average attractive personality” tended to marry more often would seem to indicate that my LAMPS/PSALM model has some merit to it. Since Power/Personality stands out among other factors (like physical attractiveness), that supports my contention that the P component of male attraction vectors is the most potent of them. Also, since Power/Personality is a huge component of male MMV, and not just SMV, it would/should translate into a greater ability to marry (for men). And that is exactly what seems to be the case here.

There are a few other points worth noting about the study:

• Its focus on attractiveness fits in well with the overall state of marriage, in that it is largely hedonic in this day and age. Although as I study more on the subject, it looks like that isn’t an entirely new thing. Rather, it is just more prominent now.
• There doesn’t seem to be as strong of a correlation between an attractive female personality and marriage. Part of me wonders what they meant by “attractive personality” for women. Since personality is a factor in female MMV, does it simply mean agreeable, or something more?
• I was a bit surprised that grooming was thrown in here, although in retrospect it makes sense. Since it seems to have an effect, in aggregate, it is something that marriage minded men and women shouldn’t ignore.

That does it for now.

Independence And Random Observations

I.

Chad has provided us with an interesting tale from when he went dancing last:

All the single guys in our group figured the dancing that night was going to be a bunch of couples. We couldn’t have been much further from the truth. Some women had ‘dates’ whom I’m not even sure they went on a date with, but simply came to the dance with. I say this only because several of the women with ‘dates’ told me that they didn’t want to dance with anyone besides myself all night. Some of them in the same group of friends.

At a couple points I had women I’d never seen before approach me not to dance, but to introduce themselves as they were heading out the door, say they were sad I didn’t ask them, but that they wanted to give me their name and dance with me next weekend. Some women I’d known for weeks suddenly seemed more interested. While I can write a good deal of it off to V-Day, there were certainly both better looking men and better dancers out there.

So the whole thing was bizarre at first, until I realized that with my decision to pursue vocational possibility I’d altered my behavior. I’d talked and stopped caring as much about what I said, but just saying it and having fun. I’d avoided, purposefully, some of the women whom there’s more a lustful tension than a healthy tension in the dance. I’d talked about my faith and the writing at Depths to Wilderness with a couple of them. I’d taken some beginners, and showed them how to really follow and enjoy themselves out of a place where I didn’t care if we connected or not, I simply wanted them to have fun and I wanted to dance. Nothing more. I’ll admit that I did ask one girl’s number, but it was out of reflex. As soon as I asked, I realized she instantly could tell the difference, got lukewarm, and I avoided doing so any more.

Chad, by adopting an attitude of not caring what was going on around him, achieved what some folks call “outcome independence.” When a man achieves that state of mind, he seems to be above it all, at least, so far as women are concerned. They (women) find this highly attractive, and will be drawn to a man who can display it. I suspect that is because it is an attitude that normally manifests in men who are extraordinarily confident in themselves. Or otherwise stated, men with the highest levels of the Power attribute.

I bring this up because his story clued me in about some of my past experiences with women. One thing that always, always frustrated me is that I always seemed to receive far more attention (and more favorable attention) from women that I was not interested in than women who did interest me. This started in high school and continued through college and beyond. At the time, I didn’t understand. Later, after finding this part of the web, I briefly examined my past to try and solve this. My attempts to answer the question revolved around the fact that the women who interested me were Christian women, and the ones who didn’t interest me (yet were throwing IOIs at me, including ones I could pick up) were not Christian. I wondered whether Chuchian attitudes were to blame, but that didn’t seem quite right to me. So I just let it go.

Now I can see what my problem was: I was treating Christian women differently than non-Christian women. I was completely natural, completely myself when dealing with non-Christian women. I didn’t care what they thought of me, and it showed. [DG: In case I wasn’t clear- this isn’t about “being yourself”. It is about not caring what women think of you.] As a result, I demonstrated outcome independence towards them, and they found it attractive. On the other hand, for Christian women I was on my best behavior- I was every bit the “nice Church boy” that I was raised to act like. In short, a Beta White Knight who put women on a pedestal. And it showed. And it drove those women, women who I considered marriageable, away from me.

Since then, I have taken women off of my pedestal, and placed God there, where He belongs. But the temptation to replace them there still lingers within me. Part of me wonders if this is a problem that all men have faced from very beginning. The best defense against this, I should think, would be a good offense- adopt an attitude towards women that is playful and teasing, one that resists placing them on a pedestal.

II.

Below are a few other things that caught my attention recently:

Here is a great comment by JDG delving into feminism and its incompatibility with Christianity.

Reader Don R. has clued me in to a great quote by Thomas Sowell:

“When people get used to preferential treatment, equal treatment seems like discrimination.”

This applies just as well to relations between the sexes as it does between the races, I should think. Women have received boosts for so long they are apt to shriek if one mentions leveling the playing field (for example, by aiming for equal college admissions).

Also, Joseph of Jackson is back.

This comment at JustFourGuys is one that I found fascinating. The ideas that it broaches bear further examining at some point.

III.

Lastly, here are some of the search terms people have used to find my blog lately, along with some commentary:

are men with power and status attracted to women who are attracted to power and status?

Yup. Since all women are attracted to power and status, by definition men with power and status are attracted to such women.

what are women attracted to some men and not attracted to other men?

Well, you might need to go elsewhere to improve your English, but I can at least answer the question. See here.

christian marriage is the same as secular marriage?

Sadly, this is often the case. It is not supposed to be, of course. But nowadays its hard to tell secular and Christian marriages apart.

my boyfriend and i are chrisitans – no sex until marriage but he booked us a hotel room

Ok, clearly the lady who asked this needs to read this post. Then leave him, and start courting, not dating.

how do i know what i rate on a scale of 1-10

There were a few of these. My advice is to consult a male friend who will be brutally honest with you. Actually, several, just to even things out.

And that does it for this random post. Thanks for sticking through it everyone. I may update it over the week if I find anything else interesting, as I suspect my posting will be light until then.

Reclamation

This post constitutes my (for the moment anyways) closing thoughts on the Game debate. Deep Strength has given his own, which you can find here. I am prompted to write this because of the following comment left by Novaseeker over on Dalrock’s blog:

As far as I can tell there are three main perspectives that are coming out of this discussion so far:

1. Game is a tool which can be used for good or ill, and can be a practical help for men in pursuing Christian relationships (i.e., marriage). Joseph of Jackson, Hawaiian Libertarian, Deti, Dalrock (I think?), Slumlord (and me).

2. Game is bad for Christians because it was developed by immoral people to further their immoral acts.. Further, it isn’t needed because the bible has all the information you need in order to learn how to attract a mate and maintain a healthy relationship with them. Cane, Donal, Northerner, Elspeth (1/2).

3. Game is morally illegitimate in its provenance and also superfluous because it teaches nothing new. But neither is the Bible a manual of female sexual psychology and inter-sexual attraction. Rather, what you need to do is free yourself of the cultural assumptions arising from living in a liberal democracy, and then figure it out. It’s not hard to just figure it out — and if it’s hard for you, there’s really a lot more wrong with you than we can mention in a blog post. Zippy, SSM, Elspeth (1/2).

====

While I understand that Novaseeker was using broad strokes when he categorized everyone, I think his assigning me to category 2 is a mistake. Of course,  my posts on the matter have been less than clear (You can find them here, here and here). So it is entirely understandable that he might be confused about my position. I guess that I would fall into the middle ground between 1 and 2. To clarify things a bit:

• I don’t think that the Bible has everything a man “needs” to find, attract and keep a good mate. I think that may be Cane’s position, but I will let him speak for himself on that.
• My concerns about Game are not so much centered around the fact that evil people created it (and yes, the PUAs are evil). Or that they created it for evil purposes. After all, God can turn evil towards good.

As Cane himself has noted, in the past a lot of the knowledge and skills needed to find, attract and keep a good mate were things that a man could count on his father and other male relatives teaching him. Unfortunately that skill and knowledge has mostly been lost over the past few generations, and even worse, many men grow up without a father or other strong, positive male relatives. Those ancient conduits of understanding have been denied to several generations of young men, who are thrust out into a world that often gives them false teaching instead. The Bible only tangentially addresses these points, in large part because the way marriage was entered into in most of the Bible is vastly different than it is now.

Given all of this, it is important to try and replace that lost knowledge and repair the damage done. Some say that Game is the fix. Others say it isn’t.  My argument is that Game is a partial and problematic solution. For one, much of Game’s tools and knowledge are geared towards STRs, not marriage. Some of it does work there, but not all. In addition, a man who starts to use Game can, if he is not careful, come to adopt Game. As Deep Strength has noted, part of the problem with analyzing Game and Christianity is how people approach the matter. One approach advocates grabbing individual tools and them adding them into an existing  framework. This is using Game. Christian men can grab some of the tools and use them safely. Joseph of Jackson has done so with considerable success, and even I have done this. The other route is to take Game, the whole framework of it, and then try and “Christianize it.” This is adopting Game.  I think this is a huge error, because a man without a strong moral/ethic framework and without a lot of wisdom runs the risk of having the secular aspects of Game overcome him. It puts his soul at risk.

[This paragraph was not in the original version posted, but added from a version which was never uploaded] Something worth covering real quick is the idea of Game as a toolbox. Even if one accepts this analogy, keep in mind that a tool is not useful without instructions. The truth is that Game isn’t merely a set of tools, but a set of tools plus instructions. Now, a tool might be morally neutral, but instructions are another matter entirely. After all, they teach you how to use something, and that necessarily implies a moral choice on how that something will be used. Either one learns to use it for good, or for evil. The parts of Game that concern me are those instructions, because learning how to use things like Agree and Amplify is about more than just knowing what they are. I guess what I am trying to say here is that when a guy learns how to use the various tools that Game artists teach, they pick up (pun intended) a lot more behaviors and mental processes than they realize.

Recognizing this and other pitfalls, my goal (and that of several other bloggers like Chad and Deep Strength) has been to create the “alternative” to Game that Free Northerner asked for. Right now a Christian man really has no place to learn any of this, aside from Game, if he didn’t learn it growing up. I (we) aim to change that. A simple explanation is that we are setting about creating an entirely different set of instructions for a different toolbox in order to create something new restore something old. Some of the tools inside this book might be familiar to Game advocates, and others might be new (or old).

I see myself, and the other men working on this project, as following in the tradition of Ezra and Nehemiah. We don’t intend to stand on the shoulders of Heartiste and Roosh. Instead, we are working to rebuild and reclaim what was destroyed and lost over the course of the last few generations. Along the way we will look over our shoulders at the Game advocates, to see what they are doing and to glance at their schematics. Anything of value that can be used ethically we will reverse engineer and integrate into our structure. When we are finished we won’t have to debate the morality of using Game, because we will no longer need it.

A Word Of Advice… or An Inadvertent Admission

Today’s post is inspired by an article that was linked over at Dalrock‘s blog. The article, found at a website called Girls Ask Guys, is a real gem. Without further ado:

I see a TON of guys on here who are so depressed over not having a girlfriend and are so pissed at the guys who seem to get all the girls. the reality is, you will find some one, most of you are young and you have SO much time before you actually find “the one.” Also, the guys you are all jealous of are generally not good guys. I have generally dated “bad boy” types that I am always attracted to because they’re really attractive, exciting, and don’t fawn all over me. Unfortunately, the majority of them have lied, cheated, and manipulated the shit out of our relationships. I have no doubt that I will end up with a “nice guy” and I can tell you with a fair amount of confidence that most girls will because no girl with self respect sticks around with a “bad boy” in less he reforms himself. I have to say I hope for the reformed bad boy, but he is a rare bird and once he’s reformed, who’s to say he’ll be exciting anymore? Anyway, keep hope alive you guys, most of you sound like very caring, kind, and interesting guys who have a lot to offer.

Update: update: you guys are hard to please. I am trying to say girls make mistakes with ‘bad boys” but the good guys win out in the end. I thought that got through, but for some of you I guess it didn’t and I’m sorry. I was trying to encourage you to be good to women.    3 days ago

Update: I really hit a nerve! I apologize! I would also like to clarify though: I am not a gold digger, I am not a liar, and I am not trying to change any guy that I date from the person who he is. I guess I am drawn to guys who are a little edgy and that can be tough, but hopefully I’ll end up with a guy who suits that and is also a mature and loving human being.    2 days ago

Update: YIKES.    Yesterday

I must admit, my initial reaction was pleasant surprise. It is rare to see such honesty these days, especially from a woman in the context of relationships. Even though I am revolted by her actions and her philosophy, I have to respect the chutzpah that leads her to pull back the curtain and let guys know what is really going on. One of the chief problems with women playing the AFBB (Alpha F—-, Beta Bucks) game is that they usually deny doing it. That kind of deception can sucker in and deceive naive but otherwise good men who think that these women really care for them. Honesty like this can save a lot of men from making what would probably be the worst decision of their life by marrying a former carousel rider. She is doing a public service by warning men about what is really going on in the “dating” world.

On a related note, women like this put me in a difficult position. As Denise noted here, we should be careful about confusing subjective evaluations into objective statements about another person’s worth. I believe in repentance and redemption. I believe, no, I know that people can turn their lives around. Yet I don’t see how I could ever recommend that any man ever marry this woman. As in ever. The risks associated with this woman, and those like her, are astronomical. Yes, I know she could honestly and earnestly repent. But how can any man ever know this to any reasonable degree of certainty? When a woman’s avowed life strategy is to dupe some “nice guy” into marrying her after the Bad Boys are done with her, I don’t see how she could ever be trusted in this respect. At least, not in the present environment. Perhaps a “reformed Bad Boy” would fare alright, but given her statement about him possibly no longer being exciting, even that is suspect.

So, how out of line is my thinking here? Am I being too fearful? Does it make me a hypocritical Christian? Or is this just a necessary precaution in today’s world?