The Way We Met

[See update at the bottom of the post.]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I realized how perfectly we fit together.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Avoiding Sacrifice

Deep Strength has a new post up wherein he argues that Women hate suffering:

I was trying to think of ways to make the this post into something elaborate, but the title really just explains itself. Women hate suffering, and by extension women don’t handle suffering well.

Examples:

• Divorce rate is 70% women initiated. Because women are unhappy.

• Husbands persist through contentious and shrewish wives in marriage taking on more responsibilities (e.g. choreplay, childcare), while women can’t handle being unhappy.

• Pastors and wives with unbelieving husbands will go out of their way to make up stuff like “intelligent submission” so they don’t have to submit. Then the sad part is when “intelligent submission” is defended instead of admitting it is being used to rebel against husbands and against the Scriptures.

• Christian men and husbands would rather cave to women when they are unhappy rather than to tell them it is a normal part of the Christian walk. “All who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” 2:Timothy 3:12. Suffering is normal for Christians. We do a lot of things in this life that we don’t want to because they should be done.

• Women are coddled by society, praised and pushed for college and credentialism. Men are put down and no on cares about them. When women fail they are helped as much as possible, especially by white knights. When men fail no one really cares that they are suffering except perhaps their parents.

I agree with a lot of what Deep Strength has to say in his post. Women are indeed coddled- more than men, anyways. There are plenty of women who aren’t coddled out there, of course. Men cave all-the-time (hence “mancaves”). And so on and so forth.

At the same time, I think he is a bit off when he says that women hate suffering. In fact I have written a post on this subject before. A few snippets from that post:

You see, healthy women “like” suffering.

I put quotations around like because it is not a conscious desire, but an unconscious one. Something deep down inside them recognizes that a certain amount of suffering is to be expected, is natural even. As Ace alludes to, this draws from Genesis[.]

…

Women expect suffering in their life- it is the natural thing. [Think about the vast majority of human history- filled with suffering for pretty much everyone.] When women are too comfortable, when suffering is absent from their life, then it sends a message to their unconscious mind that something is wrong, that what they are living is an unnatural life. That message of unnaturalness will only be repeated over the years as they grow up. They will know, somewhere deep down inside, that something is wrong. Unfortunately, because this is unconscious, they won’t know what it is, exactly, that is wrong.

This will, naturally enough, lead them to feel miserable. The misery is only made worse because they won’t understand it. It will gnaw on their mind incessantly, like an itch you can’t quite reach.

I suspect that part of the reason that women act so crazy in the west today is because of this. Using that itch analogy I just mentioned- women act crazy because they are trying to scratch that itch. Only they don’t quite know how- so they do so in extreme ways. Again, deep down inside they know they should be suffering, so they go out and make themselves suffer (without every truly understanding that is what they are doing).

I think a better word, one that fits what Deep Strength is driving towards, is sacrifice. Women hate sacrifice. They don’t want to have to sacrifice anything to get what they want. A few examples:

• They say they want a family, but they don’t want to sacrifice their youth, and an education and/or career, to get one.
• They don’t want to sacrifice their comfort and easy lifestyle for the pain and burden of children, so they opt for birth control and abortion.
• They don’t want to have to sacrifice their happiness (and time, etc.) for a man whom they find unattractive, and so they opt for divorce.

And so on and so forth.

Later in his post Deep Strength says this:

Christian wives hate suffering and putting their own will aside to display Christ-like behavior. They would rather manipulate the situation around them to be better by their own volition than try it God’s way.

Again, putting aside their own will is a sacrifice. And one they don’t want to have to make. Further, it is one they all too often refuse to make.

Of course, that isn’t really any different from men. Men don’t want to have to sacrifice either. That is just general human nature. The thing is, this is where Deep Strength’s statements about coddling are important.

Women are, on average, far more coddled than men in today’s society. It is far more common for men to be taught and told that they will have to sacrifice to achieve what they want in life, than it is for women. And even then, for women, the scale of the sacrifice they are told to expect is likely to be less.

What does this means? It means that women are less inclined to sacrifice in general. When they must sacrifice, they are inclined to sacrifice less. And of course, they try and shift as much of that burden of sacrifice onto men as they can get away with.

The solution requires confronting this problem head on. Women, of all ages, need to be reminded that we all must sacrifice. Especially as Christians. Our faith is one of self-sacrifice. Without a willingness to sacrifice, well, our Lord and Savior explained what would happen:

¹⁸ “Hear then the parable of the sower. ¹⁹ When any one hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what is sown in his heart; this is what was sown along the path. ²⁰ As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is he who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; ²¹ yet he has no root in himself, but endures for a while, and when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away. ²² As for what was sown among thorns, this is he who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the delight in riches choke the word, and it proves unfruitful. ²³ As for what was sown on good soil, this is he who hears the word and understands it; he indeed bears fruit, and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.”

(Matthew 13:18-23)

Beta Farming

In my post Of Fighting And The West, blogger Rollo Tomassi left a comment which included the following gem:

The modern church is a Beta farm and only exists to produce the same masculinity-confused men that the secular world has perfected today.

I want to touch on that issue of “Beta Farming” today.

To start with, I agree with Rollo’s first contention- that the “modern” church is a “Beta farm.” What is taught and enforced in most churches these days is a theology which wrings the masculinity out of men. Most of the time this leaves the young men growing up in church as hapless, servile “Beta” males who exist to do whatever women want.

However, I disagree with the second part. I don’t think that most churches exist to produce these kinds of men. They have other purposes, and not necessarily good ones at that. For example, they often preach a theology which provides moral cover to women and places moral blame on men. All the same, some might have good intentions. Some of those within might genuinely intend to serve the Lord. All the same, the modern church’s purpose has been hijacked. While these churches don’t exist to create “beta males”, that is their functional end purpose at this point (or one of them, anyways).

This all leads to the interesting question of how this all came to be. Reader Lost Patrol left this speculation:

I wouldn’t say the modern church “only exists” to produce hapless men – I see it more as an unintended consequence of having ceded so much ground to secular feminism.

My view is somewhat different- I would argue that this has come about because we have ceded so much ground to women.  As I explained:

The more power women were given, the more natural this outcome was. Once you understand female nature, it is easy to see how this outcome was inevitable once women were given the power and control they were in our present system.

Lost Patrol responded by reaffirming that women were given this power. They could never have taken it from men. The why of men gave women that power I will discuss in another post. But before I close this one I want to cover why this ceding of power to women lead to our present troubles.

My theory is that the present “Beta farms” inside modern churches is a natural result of women influencing matters to reassure their native insecurity. This insecurity is something that I believe most men have no idea about, and even those who have some inkling of its existence usually fail to grasp its extent. I have covered this before, but to briefly sum it up:

Women are far and away more insecure in their lives than men.

Much of this insecurity comes from the gap in physical prowess between men and women. We men are much more capable of defending ourselves and imposing our will on our environment than women are- at least at the individual level. But whatever its source, it has a profound effect on female behavior. Women are constantly, and often at an unconscious or subconscious level, trying to alter their environment to make it feel more secure.

I believe that this behavior is responsible for the “Beta farms” in modern churches. As women were given more power inside the church and its environs, they began to exert their influence. This influence was used to shape how men were raised, and what they were supposed to be as Christians. The goal, whether realized or not, was to create the hapless Beta nice guys who populate most churches these days.

Why? Simple- “Betas” are far less threatening to women. They are safer and do things on women’s behalf. So women reinforce this system to create more and more of these “safe” men. As long as they have any degree of power in a church, they will keep it this way. [Of course, this has the effect of leaving those men as unattractive, but female nature is known for wanting two opposites at once.] If we want to shut down the “Beta farms,” we need to reassert masculine control over the church. Otherwise this wicked cultivation will continue, and likely only get worse.

Thoughts On Love In Marriage

[My post Background on the Nature of Man will be helpful to understanding this post.]

I have had a long-standing theory about how love works within marriage, although I am not sure that I have ever devoted a post to it on this blog. I doubt it is a new or novel theory, in fact I would be surprised if it was. All the same, I think it is finally worth getting down.

My theory is simple: the best marriages are those which encompass all three major types of love- Eros, Philos and Agapos. When all three are present in marriage- when both husband and wife  express all three towards their spouse, I believe that a marriage is at its healthiest.

To me, this makes sense because the relationship would then extend to all aspects of our being. Eros is connected to our Body. Philos to our Soul. And Agapos is the love of our Spirit. When all three are present, the fullness of our nature is in play.

At the same time, when one of these loves is not present, it is a sign of serious trouble in a marriage.

No Eros? Well then, that means no passion from one of the spouses (or both). [The phrase “I love you but I’m not in love with you” is a sign of a marriage where Eros is gone.] That can mean denial of sex, and the frustration inherent in it. An absence of Eros also leads to greater temptation and danger of leading to all kinds of immorality.

Philos not present? Well, that means there is no friendship and amity in the marriage (or at least from one side of it). Both spouses will likely quarrel, and if not, it will only be because the other is trying to preserve harmony. There will be a lot of hot and cold in this marriage- it will move from moments of great passion to indifference or even enmity.

Agapos missing? Well, for one, that means that the marriage is no longer Christian. Without the self-sacrificing nature of Agapos the marriage will not be able to endure all the trials and tribulations of the world. At least, not unless society gives the spouses no choice on the matter. But in our present age? Without Agapos it will fall apart, sooner or later.

Of all three loves, Agapos is the most important. Only it can withstand everything the world has to throw at a married couple. But just because a couple stays together doesn’t mean the marriage is as healthy as it could or should be. All three loves should be present for a marriage to be as strong as God intended it.

At least, that is how I see it. I invite my readers to offer their own thoughts.

Pulling The Plug #1: Sounding Off

This post is the first in my series on how help “unplug” Churchians, as well as Christians who are simply misguided. I am going to try and keep these posts narrowly focused, in order to save myself some time as well as get the most out of ideas developed therein.

For today’s post I start with the beginning-

How do you start to “unplug” someone? How do you convince them to “put on the glasses?”

I think the best foundation is to determine where they stand. Get them to sound off on what truths they already recognize, and what lies they hold dear. Of course, it shouldn’t be an interrogation, or a real demand that they list every single thing they believe which is connected to the ideas discussed in the ‘sphere. Rather, try and figure it out over several conversations. Ask about related subjects, or RP subjects, and carefully get a feel for what someone believes.

The reason I suggest this is because you need to know where someone is already good, where they are really bad, and where they need improvement, but perhaps are already moving in the right direction. Once you know where they stand, you can begin in earnest.

I recommend beginning your “active unplugging” by reaffirming with them the truth that they already accept. Focus on it at first. Emphasize how you both agree on this matter. Get them to involve themselves in discussions on it, so that they feel invested in the topic. Once invested, it will be harder for them to reject the implications those truths point towards.

Also, getting someone to agree with themselves is usually not terribly difficult (shocking, right?). But in all seriousness, this makes it a good and easy way to start. You can start to get a feel for both your own knowledge, as well as what techniques work best to convince someone. Once you have built a rapport with someone, then you can move to the next step with a greater likelihood of success.

Pulling The Plug

[Alternate title: Putting on the Glasses]

In my post Never Enough reader/commenter Coastal suggested that I write a post “helping Churchians’s ‘unplug’ would be great, along with examining how swallowing the ‘pill’ tends to change your relationships with others in a church setting.” It is quite a good idea, and one that I intend to pursue.

However, that is a lot to cover. More than would reasonably fit in a single post. And it would be difficult to have the comments flow together. So I am going to start a new series about how to help men accept the “Red Pill” or unplug or put the glasses on. [Use whatever analogy suits your preference.] At the same time I  will have a side post (or series), which focused on how unplugging affects Church relationships.

I hope to have the first post up soon.

Marital Competency

{Bit of a stream of consciousness post tonight.]

I had an interesting discussion with a friend recently about the difficulty of living a Christian marriage. Our faith, our God, demands a lot from us. I don’t think I am alone in thinking this either…

His disciples said to him, “If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry.”

(Matthew 19:10)

After discussing the difficulty of living up to marriage, we briefly talked about how few are up to that these days. Which leads me to this post.After giving it thought, it occurs to me that what is going on is as simple as most people these days not being competent enough to marry.

Marriage, successful marriage, that is, requires a lot of life-skills and disciplines. Traits such as patience, strong self-control, charity and kindness all go a long way towards making a marriage succeed. An absence of those traits, and more, makes it more and more likely a marriage will fail (divorce), or will end up miserable for one or both spouses.

It seems to me that, assuming they were quantifiable, one could make a score of each of these core traits. Then you could create an Index of them, to get a rough value for how well someone scores overall. This would lead to a Marital Competency Index, or MCI score, that you could use to measure someone’s marriageability.

Of course, I recognize that a really precise way of measuring the MCI is impossible- quantifying different traits is either impossible or arbitrary. All the same, as an abstract concept I think that it has some worth.

For example, one could use a theoretical MCI score to explain whether or not someone was “marriageable.” By marriageable I mean a score which was high enough to represent that they possessed enough of those essential traits for them to be likely to live a successful marriage. Certain traits, being so essential, would be so heavily weighted that they naturally fall in line with the overall score. Others would have much lesser values, and so might not be “make or break” in terms of meeting the threshold.

Another advantage to this concept is that it helps to understand the role of culture and the surrounding society. This is because the MCI score which represents the threshold for “marriageable” would not be fixed. Rather, it would fluctuate with the culture. A healthy culture that respects and promotes marriage would have a lower threshold. People would be able to marry with less traits and yet still have successful marriages. On the other hand, in a sick culture that actively works to undermine marriage/marriages, such as ours today, the threshold increases. People need to bring more to the table in order to make marriage work these days.

Also, the MCI concept would help explain why someone “turning to Jesus” doesn’t simply make them marriageable. After all, these traits take time to build and develop. Many require years of development. A sudden conversion would not instantaneously cause someone to grow skills that have been stunted for years or decades. To provide a metaphor- a fruit tree that has been sick for a while will not instantly produce good fruit the moment a cure is applied.

[In addition, this highlights how important it is to raise daughters right. They have far less time to correct deficiencies than men, given that their fertility window is far more limited.]

I could probably continue, but at this point I think I’ve covered enough for a single post. Now, I know that I’ve covered this topic in different ways before. But having thought on it, I don’t think I have had a post which is as (hopefully) clear and specific as this one.

The Escape Plan

I.

I have read with interest Deep Strength’s latest posts on submission and marriage. In chronological order we have:

Intelligent submission is not required

Submission is a test of faith

Women’s sin nature in marriage and contentment

Unfortunately, time restraints kept me from responding in detail until now. Since DS has written several follow-ups to the first post, some of what I was going to say is now dated. Some now ideas developed, however, and so I will try and flesh out this post as best as I can.

I should note that I don’t agree with all that DS has to say- sometimes for theological reasons and sometimes practical reasons. But those disagreements can be worked out in other posts (and in some cases already have)

II.

To begin with, I want to explore the notion of “intelligent submission.” As some alluded to in DS’s post, such a term is highly disingenuous. Not because there is anything wrong with either word. The problem is when they are combined together. The addition of “intelligent” is meant to apply a condition to submission- in other words, to limit its application.

Frankly, whenever anyone proposes limiting any expression of faith, be it submission, or charity, or compassion, etc., massive red flags need to be raised. Has anyone among my readers heard of “Intelligent Compassion” before? I can’t say that I have. And if I did, you better believe I would be looking for the con. I rather suspect I would not be alone in this.

Intelligence, or better put, Wisdom, is a trait that all Christian women should posses, or strive to build. Married women are no exception to this:

She opens her mouth with wisdom,
    and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue.

(Proverbs 31:26)

However, when people start talking about “Intelligent Submission” they aren’t referring to a woman exercising wisdom and submitting to her husband at the same time. No, they are saying a woman should intelligently decide when and where and how to submit to her husband. The gap between those two notions is as vast as that between Lazarus and the Rich Man. No bridging that gap.

All of this drives to my main point: beware of those who try and applies conditions to how they live out their faith. For most, if not all, their intentions are not benign. What they are trying to do is limit how much work they actually have to put into their faith. An example from our Lord:

Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, ² “Why do your disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat.” ³ He answered them, “And why do you transgress the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? ⁴ For God commanded, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘He who speaks evil of father or mother, let him surely die.’ ⁵ But you say, ‘If any one tells his father or his mother, What you would have gained from me is given to God,^[a] he need not honor his father.’^{[b] 6} So, for the sake of your tradition, you have made void the word^[c] of God.

[Footnote b: By dedicating his property to God, i.e., to the temple, a man could avoid having to help his parents, without actually giving up what he had. The scribes held such a vow to be valid without necessarily approving it.]

(Matthew 15:1-6)

They want to have their cake and it eat it- to appear righteous, without having to live a righteous life. Which leads to the next part.

III.

This idea of appearing righteous without having to actually be righteous is what Deep Strength covers in his most recent post:

That’s ultimately what it comes down to: women want to let their husband lead instead of following his lead. I had thought that twisted rebellion like the complementarians espouse was the main sin nature of women. However, I believe I am now wrong about that. Covert rebellion which is “I let my husband lead” is probably the main sin nature of women because it’s under the guise of righteousness (e.g. the husband is leading) but it gives her all of the power (e.g authority) in the relationship.

This is the true essence of virtue signalling. Grabbing power while maintaining the moral high ground. It’s not enough to grab power. It must be done with the moral high ground.

In other words, a woman must look good while rebelling or sinning. As Looking Glass likes to call it: Vanity. Vanity rebellion. Women’s sin nature in marriage is Vanity Rebellion.

DS is very close here. He is spot on about the specific behavior that women are exhibiting here. Although I think the name “Vanity Rebellion” is a bit clunky, I can’t think of a better name myself, so VR it is.

This VR phenomenon is quite prevalent in Christian circles, and is something I think we can probably call endemic to human nature. Nor is it necessarily limited to women, although I think women are more prone to it.

As DS points out, can also see this virtue signalling when it comes to divorce- women always try to have the moral high ground when they initiate a divorce. It is never because the woman is just tired of marriage. That might be part of it, but there is always some major failing on the man’s part.

At the same time, however, I think that this specific behavior is just a particular manifestation of a much broad behavior that women are prone to engage in. I call it “The Escape Plan.”

It is as simple as it sounds- always have an escape plan in place in case something goes wrong. Whatever the situation is, always have an out for it. You can find this behavior everywhere:

Don’t like what your husband is telling you to do? Claim it wouldn’t be intelligent to submit to him, and that is what God expects of wives.

Don’t like being married to your husband? Divorce him and claim it is his fault, that the moral blame lies on him because he failed as a husband and God wants you to be free.

Don’t need an abortion but want to be free to get one if need be, and at the same time appear righteous? Say that you are personally against abortion but don’t feel the state should intervene in women’s lives/bodies.

Rollo’s Plan B is an example of this. Keep a “Plan B” man around… just in case.

Heck, you see this in domestic violence cases all the time. The woman calls the police, but then tells them she doesn’t want the man arrested. Why? Lots of reason, but a major one is she wants them there to cool the situation down, at least at first. But then she can decide whether to keep the relationship or not. If she decided to keep it, she says she doesn’t want to press charges. If she decides to ditch her man, say she wants charges. You can also see this with women who will stick with a man, but then tell their friends or family they are “in fear of their lives.” This gives them a great out- they can stay if they want, but once they want out they can call the police and point out they warned people in the past. [This is nothing, mind you. Having friends who are cops can provide all kinds of stories- but this isn’t the place for that. ]

Again, the goal is setting up a situation where the woman can bail at any time if she wants to. It is all having options.

This explains Vanity Rebellion- women want to appear to be a good, righteous woman. But they also worry about what the cost of that could be if they actually lived up to everything. So they gain power… just in case.

Now, men do this too. But women, who are more naturally covert than men as owing to their nature, are far and away more prone to this. So prone to it I would argue that it is a standard procedure for women- they will default to it unless they actively resist. For men I think it is much more likely to be an active choice, and thus less common.

IV.

And that wraps up my commentary for today. To recap:

• People who add conditional modifiers to expression of faith, such as submission, are almost always (and should be presumed to be) acting in bad faith.
• Vanity Rebellion is just one example of a larger phenomenon, The Escape Plan- whereby a woman tries to get some perceived good but at the same time leaves an option available to her to bail or escape if the cost should prove too high.

My readers are of course free to disagree and/or add their own thoughts.

Masculine Monday- #11

*Men Only*

I disagree with the PUA wing of the ‘sphere in a number of ways, nearly all of them significant. One area I want to touch on with this post is the way that most PUAs give women power over their lives. They will deny this, of course. Many will point out that they advocate taking women off the pedestal- if not smashing that pedestal outright. But pedestalizing women and giving them power over you is not the same thing.

This power transfer comes about when a man makes his notch count a metric to use in determining how much he “succeeds in life.” When a man does this, he gives women the ability to determine his level of success. It is women who hold the key to the treasure vault, as it were. He is reliant on them to become a success. This gives women power over you.

That a man can become astute at convincing women (or certain types of women, anyways) to sleep with him doesn’t change this. Sure they might be poor stewards of that power (nothing new, really). But they have that power all the same.

I would argue that an essential component of masculinity involves not being reliant on women to “succeed in life.” Boys are the ones who rely on women (mothers specifically) to tell them how great they are. Being a man means not needing a woman to tell you (whether in words or actions) just how great of a man you really are.

² What, my son? What, son of my womb?
    What, son of my vows?
³ Give not your strength to women,
    your ways to those who destroy kings.

(Proverbs 31:2-3)

Think Of The Children

Reader and occasional commenter A Visitor recently alerted me to this post over at Vox Day’s blog: N Matters, a lot.  The key point of the post is this graph:

The study, and graph, reaffirm similar findings in the past about how a woman’s N (her sexual partner count) affects the odds of divorce. Studies and charts like this have been discussed before, both on this blog and plenty of others, so I won’t go into depth on it. I do like this one part from Vox’s post, though:

The interesting thing about this study is the way that it shows how the second-greatest risk is marrying a woman with only 2 partners; the researcher’s theory is that this might be the result of over-emphasized comparisons; the woman has just enough experience to realize that there is something else out there, but not enough to realize that most of it isn’t an improvement.

While not sold on it, it is a pretty solid theory. But I digress.

The reason for this post, and the reason for this post’s title, is to emphasis the importance of visual cues. This chart is a powerful visual aid to explain to others the perils of marrying non-virgin women. It is bright, simple to understand and gets the point across without the reader needing to have any skill with statistics.

So for the time being, I will probably use this graph as my primary visual explanation for why I insist on marrying a woman with an N of 0. Setting aside all other concerns (of which I have plenty), the divorce angle cannot be ignored.

Most especially, I cannot ignore the impact divorce might have on any children that arise from the marriage before hand. If I am stupid and marry poorly, knowing that I should do better, than that is on me now. I will deserve it. But my kids don’t deserve to be put through the wringer. They deserve to have a stable and loving home- not one that is ripped apart. In addition, I would never want them exposed to a myriad of “boyfriends” and “step-dads” that their mother (whom I should have never married) will bring into her, and their, life.

Men, there are many ways to respond to someone who tries to shame you into marrying a non-virgin. But few will have quite the punch as pointing out that it greatly increases the chances of divorce, and the impact that will have on your children. Flip their shaming right back at them, and ask them why they want to make it more likely that your children will be put through the horrors of divorce. Ask them how they could be so callous. And remind them to think of the children.