Evaluating The Intangible

I.

This post is a sequel to and expansion upon my post Settle(ment). In that post, I delved into transactional thinking and whether or not people should “settle” when looking for a spouse. Interestingly enough, the concept of settling drew little discussion compared to transactional thinking. Given that evaluating potential spouses drew more response, it was worth exploring further. [Warning: this post doesn’t really do a great job of that.]

I have two goals with this post. First, I would like to respond to some points raised in Settle(ment), to mention a few comments that I thought were especially insightful and to clarify a few things. Second, I would like to provide a little insight into my evaluation process when looking for a wife.

II.

Before I address anything specific, I would be remiss if I failed to mention that Deep Strength has written a post which is something of a response to my previous one. His post, Life is Transactional, can be found here.

Commenter Ev had a good line when the sacredness of matrimony was brought up: First be savvy, then be loyal.

Maeve mentioned a bit of her marriage story, which can be found here and here. Her story is probably a typical one- two young people meet, get to know each other, fall in love, and then marry. [That is overly simplistic, of course, but carries across the main point.] I found her story to be fascinating because she wasn’t looking specifically to marry, but still had two criteria that she required in a husband. Without intending to be rude by singling her out, I would point to her story as an example of how not to do things. Christians should be deliberative when the subject of marriage is concerned, and should not act aimlessly.

Now to clarify a few matters. First off, a lot of folks seem to be confused by the concepts of SMV and MMV. Lauratheringmistress left a comment which provides an example of this, plus some other misunderstandings. Her beginning paragraph is a good starting off point:

I think I am getting distracted by the SMP valuation model. Fundamentally, what a man values for a purely physical, short term interaction is different from what he values for a long term relationship. Same for a woman.

This is incorrect. I suspect the confusion arises because many people (Laura included) believe SMV and MMV are two entirely different things. They aren’t. Rather, SMV is folded into MMV, so that it is part (but only a part) of MMV. Remember, SMV is based solely on attractiveness. And men are always attuned to the attractiveness of women. This means that what a man looks for in a woman in a physical sense in a short term interaction is still what he values in a long term relationship. The difference is that when evaluating for long term relationship material a man also looks for an additional set of attributes. This is where a woman’s character and other “intangible” qualities come into play.

For women, the process is not entirely dissimilar. Male SMV is based off of the LAMPS/PSALM set of attributes, which are sometimes referred to as “Alpha traits.” These are critical for short term interactions.  Male MMV includes all of those factors, in addition to a number of other character traits (like loyalty, stability, compassion, etc.) which are sometimes referred to as “Beta traits.” These are crucial for long term relationships. The problem for men and women alike these days is that men seem to have either the one, or the other. Not both.

What all of this means is that we cannot ignore the role that SMV plays with MMV. I mention this because I have noticed that women seem to downplay the importance of “looks” when offering advice about marriage. The phrase I hear most often is “looks aren’t everything.” I’ve heard this in many different forms, and Laura herself contributed an example of it:

To put it bluntly, you would be a fool to wife up a 9 unless she was also superior to all other candidates in relevant areas like virtue, good sense, overall femininity, domestic skills, etc. And you might miss a gem of a woman whose appearance is only average but is ideally suited to you temperamentally.

Now, before I go on, I want to point out that Laura is not necessarily wrong in her comment. Marriage is a total package deal. Having said that, reading that paragraph told me that there seems to be a general misunderstanding on the part of women in how men value the importance of attractiveness in women.  So let me clear this up for my female readers: we value it a lot. It is really, really important to us on an instinctual, primal level. And yet, at the same time, we also have much broader filters than women do when it comes to attractiveness. The result is an interesting situation where men value physical appearance far more than women, and yet have such broad filters that we tend to find more women attractive than women do the other way around. That does not mean, of course, that we men are slaves to this instinct. We aren’t. We can and should judge a potential wife on criteria other than just how attractive she is.

But women need to keep in mind that for them, “looks” is just one criterion amongst many when judging a man’s attractiveness. But for men, it is everything when evaluating female attractiveness. It is not something that we can just set aside without a lot of mental discipline and self-control. This desire for attractiveness is deeply rooted in our unconscious mind, and our happiness as men is actually determined in part by how attractive our wife is.  Also, with only a few exceptions, most other attributes can be trained or acquired by women/wives over time, but attractiveness is pretty much fixed without resorting to plastic surgery. I’m telling you this in an attempt to convey just how much we give up when we downgrade attractiveness compared to other attributes in potential wife candidates.

III.

With all of that taken care of, I thought I would provide a brief window into my thought process when it comes to evaluating a woman as a potential wife. Some of the attributes that I am going to cover are easy to measure, they aren’t really intangible. But plenty of them are. How do you measure someone’s faith, after all? Or give it a value? It is often a guessing game, and comparisons are often the only way you can measure some of these. Because none of this is an “exact science”, this whole section is going to be rather incoherent. As I write it out, I realize it is a continuation of what I started with this post.

The Big Four-

This is the name I give for the four most important attributes and qualities that evaluate in a potential wife. These are the “make or break” attributes, or “screening criteria.” A “failure” here removes a women from the pool of candidates. The first two, Chastity/Sexual History and Age, are immutable, that is, they cannot be changed. Then there is Attractiveness, which can be affected to some degree through dieting and exercise, although only plastic surgery can significantly improve it. Last is Religious Devotion, which is mutable. One thing I would like to note about the first three is that they are “core” criteria for all men. Whether they realize it or not, all men consider a woman’s age, her sexual history and her attractiveness when evaluating her qualities as a long-term prospoect. Men are hardwired, for want of a better term, to consider these factors.

Chastity/Sexual History: As a screening criteria, this one is relatively simple. A woman with any kind of real sexual history is out. I am looking to marry a virgin, and unless I transgress myself this is not going to change at any point (barring divine command). [If I had fornicated in the past, this would be a more complicated evaluation process. I would look at the number of partners a woman had, the nature of the relationships, how long they lasted, when the last one was, etc. Also, I would try and evaluate whether she had genuinely repented and whether she was an Alpha Widow.]

Age: This is an especially important attribute for several reasons. For one, a younger woman is more likely to be able to have children, can have more children, and the children are likelier to be healthy. Age also significantly impacts female attractiveness and how long a woman has left at her present level. In addition, the older a woman is, the more likely she is to be set in her ways, and the more negative behaviors she is likely to have picked up. Unlike some men, I don’t draw a line in the sand when evaluating a woman by her age, except when it comes to being older than me. For many 25 seems to be that bright line, after which they won’t consider a woman for marriage. Myself, I use a sliding scale. The younger a woman is, the higher her overall value. Just because a woman is in her mid to late twenties doesn’t mean I will rule her out. Instead, I evaluate women more critically in all other areas the older they are. In terms of how this might play out, what it means is that I might rate a “6” who is 18 and is deficient in feminine virtues to be roughly equal to an “8” who is 28 and has more of those virtues. It is about tradeoffs- the younger the woman the more children she can have and the longer I will be married to her at her present attractiveness. Overall, a younger woman will have a larger margin to work with in other fields. All of which goes to show why women should try to marry when they are younger.

Attractiveness: As far as attributes go, this is pretty straightforward. While it might be fleeting, it is important to help establish “wife googles”, and as the study I linked earlier suggests, affects a man’s mental well-being. I cannot really offer any insight into how I evaluate this attribute, because beauty is one of those things which is easy to point out and difficult to explain. Something which does sort of relate to this though is how well a woman takes care of herself. A woman who eats right and exercises regularly will score higher in this regard than one who doesn’t, even if the latter rates higher on the “1-10” scale. This is because the woman who takes care of herself will age better and maintain her looks for longer.

Religious Devotion: What I am looking for is a devout Christian woman who is committed to living a biblical marriage. I will consider non-Catholic women, but they must be willing to convert. It isn’t enough in my view for the children to be raised as Catholics, I have seen the tension that occurs in mixed-religion marriages. That is something I intend to avoid. As far as measuring devotion, I will look at a number of different things, including: was she born to the faith or did she convert later? How involved is she in Church and in church related activities? Does she spend time on her own accord trying to improve her faith? What I am trying to judge is if she is serious about her faith, or whether she is just in “autopilot”, and is a Christian because she was born one and her faith has never been challenged. Basically, I am trying to evaluate the Fruit of the Spirit to get an idea of the depth her faith. Needless to say, this is very important to me; it is a matter of protecting myself from divorce, as well as ensuring my children are raised well and that I have a positive influence in my life. I haven’t forgotten what happened to Solomon.

Here are some of the “lesser” qualities that I look for in a potential wife. It isn’t so much that they are important, but they tend to be easier to change/fix. These are evaluation criteria, the kind of attributes that would “add value” to the marriage. They are in no particular order.

1) Femininity- How feminine a woman is overall.

2) Temperament- How easy a woman is to get along with.

3) Personality type- Whether she has a personality type that will match well with an INTJ (me).

4) Cooking abilities- Can she cook? How well, and what?

5) Cleaning aptitude- Can she maintain a home, and do so without much prompting?

6) Mothering capacity- Very intangible. Whether she would make a good mother or not. Measured by how well she gets along with children, her overall interest in having children, openness to homeschool, etc.

7) Submissiveness- How accepting she is of her place in the marriage hierarchy.

8) Intelligence and curiosity- Would impact whether or not we could have engaging conversations with each other. Also important for children, both directly and through homeschooling.

9) Earning capacity- An overall measure of her ability to earn money for the household. Can include work at and away from the home.

10) Initiative/Entrepreneurial spirit- Slightly different from above, but measures a woman’s overall ability to improvise, to save, and to think up new ideas to benefit the household.

I could go on and on, so I will stop there.  The key thing to understand is that I am looking for a woman who adds value to my life, a helpmeet. I expect to be able to make most ends meet myself when it comes to finances, so what I want is a woman who fills in other gaps. Someone to provide solace; someone to warm my heart and my bed. Applying the Captain/XO analogy, I am going to be leading the household much of the time, so I am looking for someone to help manage it.

When I evaluate a woman, I will be trying to discern not only where she is in each of these categories, but also her capacity and willingness to improve in areas that need work. In many respects her willingness to improve is the most important attribute she can have. Everyone needs work in at least some areas, and everyone “slips” in their standards over time. I don’t know what life will be like in ten years, so a woman who is willing to make necessary changes is a woman with value.

All of this comes out to a balancing game in the end. As I alluded to earlier, a very young woman who is less attractive, but is willing (eager even) to improve will be high value, just as a woman somewhat older who has perfected the feminine arts and takes care of herself will be high value. Thinking on this, unlike SMV, MMV is very much a matter of comparison when women are concerned. Unlike SMV, I’m not sure now if you can assign it an arbitrary numerical value. While a woman’s beauty can be measured against some abstract ideal (and is thus unaffected by the beauty of the woman next to her), a woman’s value as a wife and mother can only be measured when you have multiple women to compare. During the evaluation process, I will be comparing any potential wife to the other women I know, including both female family and friends to get an idea of her value. And I rather suspect that she will be doing the opposite with me.

IV.

This post ended up being less focused and less informative than I intended. I seem to be making a habit of that lately, and I apologize. Hopefully at least a few of you  found this helpful. My next few posts over the coming week should be better, although I make no promises.

Further Ruminations on Game

I. Introduction

This post is a continuation of my series on Game. It is motivated in part by a desire to continue the discussion started in my previous posts on the subject here and here, and also in response to Deep Strength’s first post and second post on the subject. [In case folks weren’t aware, Deep Strength, a regular commenter here and elsewhere in the ‘sphere, has started his own blog. You can find it here.] This post is going to meander a bit, mostly because I have scattered thoughts and not so much a coherent argument to bring forth on the subject. Everything adds up to reach an overall conclusion, but it won’t be as polished as is my norm. You’ve been warned.

II. What’s in a Name?

One problem that consistently plagues any discussion of Game is what it bloody well means. You know its bad when you realize you’ve said something along the lines of that sentence many times before. Definition is a serious problem, because it sets the scope of debate. It is usually easier to agree on what Game is than what it isn’t. What Roosh does is obviously Game, and no one contests that. I think that most would agree that the various methods employed by Roissy to keep a STR going would also be considered Game. But when someone like Joseph of Jackson adopts some of the things he learned to find a potential wife, is that Game? When Dalrock, Keoni Galt and SAM (Elspeth‘s husband) put their respective wives in their place, is that Game? This is far from clear. Some would argue yes, and others no.

These distinctions are important, because depending on what falls outside the scope of Game, a moral defense of its can become easier or impossible. I think that Deep Strength provided a good summary of some of the different definitions in his first post:

• The first crowd believes that “game” is a specific set of codified techniques that were “pioneered” by the PUAs in order to improve your relative attractiveness to a woman’s in order to use other techniques to get a woman into bed.

• The second crowd believes that “game” is a toolbox insomuch that a tool such as a hammer can be used to do constructive things such as building furniture whereas it can also be used as a weapon to bash someone over the head.

• The third crowd believes that “game” is fundamentally about “charisma” or “self improvement” because masculinity is about building a man who is not just respect by women but by other men, children, colleagues in the workplace, etc. It is the ability to wield influence.

• Finally, there is a fourth depiction of game that Leap has been commenting on which is the one I most agree with having studied the Scripture more in depth. This is the depiction of game that it is inherently worldly in nature, and that masculinity of the positive variety comes from being a masculine man of God as the Scripture define it.

Deep Strength takes the same position as Leap of a Beta, that Game is a worldly thing. My own take has varied since I found the manosphere. For the longest time I held to the “toolbox” view. I saw Game as a series of tools that could be used, like all tools, for Good or for Evil. But Leap’s comments about how Pride is at the heart of Game have caused me to reevaluate this approach.

[I should note that under the first categorization, there are plenty of types of Pick-up Game out there- “fast game” and “slow game”, “day game” and “night game”, “direct game” and “indirect game”, etc.]

In my second post in the series, “Godly Masculinity versus Game”, I considered several different models which tried to explain what Game was. I think that they represented real progress in defining Game, but were still incomplete. My biggest problem was how they treated the base of both systems, “Masculine Frame.” I gave both the same base, but this didn’t set well with me and I explained that I thought there were differences between the two. This is where Leap’s comment on Pride comes into play.

You see, part of the reason why I waited so long before writing this follow-up post is because I wanted to become more familiar with Game. I knew some things about it, but had never really dived into it before in depth. So I did some digging. OK, a lot of digging. And in the process realized that Leap was quite right about the role that Pride plays. Pretty much every Game practitioner that I found, from Heartiste on down, emphasizes the importance of confidence to Game. More than even the importance, the centrality of it. Heartiste has as one of his “16 Commandments” the development of an irrational self-confidence in oneself. And Pride is at the heart of this confidence in self. But past the Pride, past the self-confidence, past even “Frame” you find the real core, the base or foundation of what Game is all about: The elevation and advancement of self above all else.  Or otherwise stated, the Idolatry of Self.

This new understanding leads to another definition of Game: A philosophy grounded in Idolatry of Self that frames itself around prideful self-confidence and revolves around creating a toolbox of methods to advance one’s self-interest in all walks of life.

So Game is not a Toolbox, but rather a toolbox is what Game seeks to go about creating. It is a step in the process of advancing oneself. This leads to a new model for Game:

Idolatry of Self forms the base or foundation of the pyramid, which is the core guiding principle.  This foundation is not visible, you have to dig beneath the surface to find it, which is why many (including myself) fail(ed) to realize it. Above it we find self-confidence, which is the core of the “Frame” that a man carries himself about in. This is visible, and is the basic manifestation of a man’s character. Above that is the Toolkit, a combination of knowledge and skills developed to achieve whatever goal is sought. And at the top is Temptation, the end result of successful Game in a specific endeavor: to bed a woman.

With all of this in mind, the concept of Game being a “way of life” doesn’t seem nearly as far-fetched. When people talks about applying Game to other aspects of their life besides

III. The Placebo Effect

One Game related topic that is getting talked about a lot right now in certain quarters is the “conversion” or success rate of Pick-up Game. A good example of this debate can be found at ZippyCatholic’s blog, in his post How About Earning a Living Playing Slots? His whole post can be summed up as-

Game is a placebo, which is “better than doing nothing at all: there is quantifiable benefit, in general, in just putting in an effort.” The low success rate proves it doesn’t work as advertised.

I agree with Zippy that most Game does in fact provide a placebo effect. Although not quite in the same way that I think he does. The key thing to keep in mind is that a placebo only works when you don’t know that it is a placebo. [Wrong. See here for a better description of the Placebo effect. Thanks to Deep Strength and Zippy for pointing this out to me.]

Most of what Game does for the majority of its practitioners is to bolster their confidence. The various tricks and gimmicks that they use (and they are just that)  to “generate attraction” or “provide comfort” (or the other components of whatever Game system is being used) don’t actually work like that. Let me explain by example: When a PUA thinks up some great new “opener” to approach a woman with that he is certain will work, and it does in fact work, it isn’t the opener that is the reason for his success. Rather, it is his certainty, his confidence that the opener will work that makes it work. This is because the woman isn’t really listening to what he says, but how he says it and the rest of his overall body language.

The placebo effect occurs when the idea is implanted into a player’s mind that if he can use the right moves, then he is guaranteed success. This false impression can give him the self-confidence he needs to act more attractive, rather than generate it through silly gimmicks like clever openers and wearing silly hats.

IV. Lies, Damned Lies and…

This is of course the perfect time to address conversion rates. I’ve seen a lot of people make assumptions when they shouldn’t, and misinterpret the numbers given out by PUAs. So I will take the time to clear a few things up. I will be repeating myself and a few others here, but I think the repetition will be valuable.

When a Player talks about how he has a 2.7% conversion rate, what that means is this: Approximately 2.7% of the women he approached had sex with him. It does not mean that Game works on 2.7% of the female population. It doesn’t even mean that Game works on 2.7% of the women he approached. It means simply that 2.7% of the women that the individual player approached responded by having sex with him.

A different player might have a higher conversion rate. Or a lower one. And he might have success with entirely different women. While female preferences don’t vary as much as male preferences, they do have them.

But why such a low number?

Well, that is just one example. Other PUAs have higher (and lower) numbers. Of course, most of them never really get conversion rates which are terribly high (such as over 10%). There are two main reasons for this, one of which is a short answer that I will get out of the way.

The 2.7% number comes from a guy practicing “Day Game” that sounds pretty direct. Also, he was almost certainly using “Fast Game” as well. For those who don’t understand those terms, a brief explanation: Day Game means using Game on women outside of nightclubs or other hotspots, basically, everyday locations like malls, grocery stores or just walking on the street. This is difficult because women rarely want to be approached in this way while going about their business. Direct Game is where you make your intentions and interest obvious from the very start. Indirect Game, on the other hand, involves hiding or couching your initial interest and attempting to get inside a woman’s comfort zone before escalating. Direct Game is high-risk, high-reward; it is very easy for it to blow up in your face. And “Fast Game” is a technique that includes a very rapid-paced Direct Game that is built towards quickly assessing whether a woman might respond positively to the approach or not.

What this means is that the approaches the PUA was engaging in were difficult, and they were quick paced. So he didn’t actually spend a whole lot of time (or money) to get what he wanted. And apparently he was only approaching very attractive women who were much younger than he was. Under these circumstances, from the perspective of someone wrapped in sin, this isn’t bad at all. I should mention at this point that Cane Caldo has written several excellent responses to Zippy’s various arguments. I would start here, and then read this.

V. A House Built on Sand

²⁴ “Every one then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house upon the rock; ²⁵ and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat upon that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. ²⁶ And every one who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house upon the sand; ²⁷ and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell; and great was the fall of it.”

(Matthew 7:24-27)

This brings us to the second reason why most PUA success or conversion rates are so low: they have built their houses on sand.

As I explained above, Game builds up an artificial confidence in would-be PUAs through a sort of placebo effect. As a result of this, their  self-confidence is hollow and unsteady. This, combined with another weakness I will cover shortly, leaves their Frame weak. If something should go wrong with their approach, then their confidence will wane, and their frame will start to fall apart. If that happens often enough or if they make a serious mistake then the whole approach risk collapse.  In which case they get rejected.  Not to mention, many women will see right through the illusion that is their “masculine” frame and turn them down.

The hollowness comes about because many PUA types advocate a “fake it until you make it” philosophy when it comes to confidence and frame. But the truth is that few, if any, ever truly make it. After their initial foray into Game, most of their confidence is founded on their success with women. But if they should have a dry spell where they enjoy little to no success, then they will begin to question themselves. This of course only increases their angst and further weakens their chances.

It isn’t surprising that for many the pinnacle of Game, tempting women into their beds, becomes the center point of their lives. You can see this in statements like “Every man must learn Game” and in the way that many PUAs pull more and more women, just to be certain that they can. Their Frame, the concept of self they present to the world, demands it.

Another reason for this hollowness is found in the often effeminate nature of much of Games. In his latest post Cane Caldo dissects Game and its origins, focusing on how many Game advocates started to drum up the manliness of it over time:

Wounded by the charge of effeminism (as men should be) the PUAs started to respond with more sophisticated evo-psych nonsense about Game being a covert, esoteric, and ancient manliness. Covert so as not to upset PC sensibilities during the performance of Game; esoteric so as to explain why their knowledge about such tactics aren’t common (When they are by all accounts procreationally necessary, and even genetic! How did all those Alphas spawn all these Betas?) ; ancient so as to cast a glamour over those susceptible to the trappings of tradition.

It should be noted that not all Game practitioners are effeminate. But many are, including a lot of the leading lights. I theorize that the reason for this is found in the gimmicks and tricks that they use. Many of them are quite passive-aggressive in nature. Cane’s description of the Neg (as practiced by PUA’s) as “cattiness with plausible deniability” is spot on. Essentially, using these methods to tempt women is to play their own “game” against them. Passive-aggressive tactics are the go-to weapon for women. And Game as practiced by PUAs is full of passive-aggressive tactics meant to get inside a woman’s head.  The way I see it, if a man uses feminine tactics long enough, it starts to effect him. As he practices female techniques, he starts to become more feminine.

Natural players don’t tend to be like this at all. They are also usually more successful than Game using players. Why? It is because the naturals had to build up their own Frame, isolated from the precepts of Game. And that frame is usually very masculine in nature, because that is what women are looking for in a man. Naturals often end up using many of the same tools, but they acquire theirs through trial and error. Game practitioners never develop this sense of masculinity because their Frame isn’t something they build on their own over time. Instead, it is something that is sort of built for them by whomever teaches them Game. With only the concept of irrational self-confidence to guide their Frame, users of Game are themselves susceptible to the manipulative forces they seek to unleash on women.

V. An Alternative

Given what have I said so far in this post, it is obvious that Game is incompatible with Christianity. Christians worship God, not ourselves; yet that is the central premise of Game. So what is a married Christian man, or a Christian man looking to marry, to do then? Free Northerner has just created a post asking for an alternative to Game for Christians. Why? Because there is none at the moment. And one is badly needed.

The current MMP is a disaster for Christians. Good men and women cannot find one another. And even when they do find one another, neither knows how to go about the process of courtship. Women don’t know how to signal and men cannot recognize the signals that do get made. For decades Christian men and women have been fed misinformation about the opposite sex. Married Christian men are in an especially delicate position, because they face a hostile culture and legal system that has empowered and encouraged their wives to detonate their marriages on a whim.

I have some ideas that I want to work out to create this alternative. Others are already trying to figure this out, including Leap of a Beta and Deep Strength. One of my commenters is working on a guest post with his own thoughts and I like some of what I have heard already. My ideas are by no means complete, but I will voice what I have at the moment.

To begin with, I think that the same kind of model that I applied to Game would work to understand this system (which I don’t even have a name for right now). That means a pyramid.

At the base of the pyramid, the Foundation, is masculine Godliness (as compared to Godly Masculinity). Essentially, a deep-abiding faith in the Almighty which also fully embraces the masculine nature that God intended for men to posses and express.

On top of this foundation we have the Frame, which is built around sophroneo, soundness of mind or sensibility (see here for more). This is what Titus 2:6 urges that young men be taught. Self-control is the name of the game here. Rather than suppress our masculine instincts, we learn to control and harness them. The goal is to manifest a certain kind of unflappability  and sense of control in our lives. To be the rock that women naturally want to cling to.

Above the foundation we have the Toolkit. This is similar in many respects to its counter-part in Game, but is not exactly the same. Game teaches three main things: 1) Behaviors and Attitudes to drop because women find them unattractive; 2) Behaviors and Attitudes to adopt because women find them attractive; 3) Specific techniques to use in order to attract women and tempt them. This Christian alternative Toolkit will use most of #1, a good chunk of #2 and very little of #3.

Lastly, at the pinnacle or cap-stone of the pyramid, we have Adoration. This is the sentiment that we want to kindle in God-fearing women. Attraction by itself is nice and good, but the goal is to become the kind of man that Christian women look up to, the kind of man that they would willingly join their lives to.

That is the graphic representation of it. I think that most of the work on this project will be focused on the Frame aspect, what I currently refer to as Sophroneo (thanks to Lyn87 for cluing me in to that). Creating a foundation of Masculine Godliness is mostly a personal venture that will take time and effort, but not be all that difficult. A good understanding of how feminism has corrupted Christianity will go a long way. The Toolkit aspect is mostly combing through Game teaching and the Classics to find out what is valuable and what isn’t when it comes to attracting women, then sifting for what is compatible with Christianity and weaving it all together. Adoration should come naturally enough when everything else is put together.

If done right, this system should help Christian men who are already married, as well as those looking to marry. It should be especially helpful for the former, because Game as a means of keeping a wife attracted/interested in marriage is rife with problems. As Seriouslypleasedropit notes in his latest post, PUAs (and Game itself) is a short term endeavor. It isn’t built to sustain things in the long run. Running Game in a marriage will grow to be a tiring affair that is likely to make a husband question its worth. Not to mention possibly fall apart in the end because of the possible feminizing nature of Game in the long run.

VI. Conclusion

As I warned earlier, not exactly a focused post. But hopefully one that has some merit somewhere, and can keep the discussion moving.

Mind the Gap- The Conundrum of Male SMV and Marriage

Over the course of my time blogging here in the manosphere I have noticed what seems like a pattern whenever I mention my age and growing older. Fairly consistently, whenever I express alarm at my age and how it will impact my ability to marry well, a Red Pill aware woman will speak up and say that I’m needlessly worrying. She will point out that my SMV is increasing over time and that I have yet to hit my peak. I’ve seen the same directed towards other men as well.

Now, none of what these women said was incorrect. According to Rollo‘s interpretation of SMV, I  am getting more attractive over time. And my personal observations certainly match up with this, although I don’t know if that is simply because I am getting older or because I have unlearned a whole slew of unattractive behaviors. All of that is besides the point, however, because these women are confusing an increase in SMV, which corresponds to the Sexual Marketplace, with the ability to marry well, an entirely different matter.

Before I continue in depth I think it best to re-post the graphic representation that Roll made of male and female SMV, interposed:

…

While I have some minor disagreements with it, I think that Rollo has managed to aptly convey how male and female SMV develop over time. There are a couple of key things to take away from his graph:

1) The numbers that Rollo provides on the side are better understood as a percentage, specifically of the maximum level of attractiveness that an individual man or woman can achieve.

2) Under this assessment women “peak” at 23, and men at 38. That creates a gap of about 15 years.

3) The critical point, where male and female SMV achieve rough “parity”, is at the age of 30. This age, interestingly enough, roughly corresponds with the point where women start to hit The Wall.

With these observations in mind, lets turn back to the intersection of age, male SMV and marriage. The key flaw in the thinking of those Red Pill women is that they confuse the Sexual Marketplace and the Marriage Marketplace.

In the SMP, the only thing that really matters is SMV, or attractiveness. If your only intention is to establish a sexual relationship, then its a game of competing with your peers for the most attractive members of the opposite sex available. The higher your SMV, the higher the SMV you can get in the opposite sex. In this sense, things are definitely looking up for me. My ability to “pull” women for the purpose of sex is only getting better over time. But this isn’t what men like myself are looking for.

In the MMP, there are a large number of factors which determine relationships other than SMV. Attractiveness does play a role, of course, but must compete with other criteria. Age is one of these. It doesn’t matter in the SMP, because most relationships are temporary things, sometimes not even lasting a single night. But marriage is (supposed to be) a long term, for life endeavor, and so a potential spouse’s age makes a huge difference. For men in my position, the central problem is that the closer we get to our “peak”, the greater the age gap between us and the women we want (who are at their peak or before it). And this age gap matters because women these days aren’t necessarily going to marry a man significantly older than themselves.

They might be concerned about being widowed early, and having to take care of children by themselves. Or even widowed late in life, but still having to face a decade or more alone. Also, they could be concerned about the criticism they might face from friends and family from marrying a man significantly older than themselves.  In addition, there is also the significant, perhaps overriding fact that many women these days don’t want to marry when they are young. So marrying a woman near her prime is difficult enough.

If you think I might be off base here, I suggest you ask yourself this question: How many 18-23 year old women do you know who want to marry as soon as possible?

Follow that up with this question: How many 18-23 year old women do you know who want to marry and would be willing to marry a man in, say, his early to mid thirties?

The answer to both questions is precious few. And this small pool of women becomes even smaller when you factor in other criteria to decide if such women are marriageable. I’ve explained my criteria before about what I look for in a potential wife, and I image most other men in a similar position have similar criteria.

When taken together, every day that passes takes men in my age group further and further away from the ideal age range of women that we want to marry. Giving up on younger women and focusing on those closer to our age isn’t a terribly great strategy either. As you look at progressively older age groups of women, fewer and fewer women in each age bracket meet our criteria for marriage (mine already rules out the majority of women by the time they turn 18).

Thus we get the conundrum that marriage minded men face in the present age: The older we get, the more attractive we become to women, but at the same time, there are less marriageable women available to us.

Sometimes What Is Sauce For The Goose Is Not Sauce For The Gander… Or Is It?

The role of male attractiveness in the happiness of marriage has been a topic which has consistently received a lot of attention in the manosphere. As Novaseeker has explained, we live in an age of hedonic marriages, where attraction plays a major role in the contentment and happiness of both spouses. The role of female attractiveness in marriage, however, has received far and away less attention. Fortunately, Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit posted a link to a recent study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. The study concerns how the happiness of a marriage is impacted by the wife’s attractiveness. A few relevant parts from the whole article:

A study of more than 450 newlywed couples over the course of four years found that men with physically attractive wives remained much more satisfied in their marriage than men who did not. However, the attractiveness of a woman’s husband played no part in the satisfaction that women felt from their marriage.

…

The study strengthened support that there is a gender gap for how much physical attractiveness corresponds to (self-reported) marriage happiness.

Husbands with attractive wives in all four independent, longitudinal studies analyzed were more satisfied than their wives at the beginning of each marriage. As the marriage progressed, the husbands with the attractive wives remained more satisfied, and the attractive wives in these couples also reported being more satisfied.

You can read the full article here.

Now, at first glance it seems like this study contradicts the manospherian “wisdom” that husband’s attractiveness impacts his wife’s happiness with the marriage. This part I quoted uses the word “attractiveness” for both men and women, but earlier in the article, in a part that I don’t quote, the author used the word “looks” instead. At this point my regular readers have no doubt picked up on the obvious flaw in the article: the author has confused a man’s Looks with his attractiveness. Needless to say, a man’s Looks are only a single component of his overall attractiveness to women. But of course, this is something that few people really understand, and so male attractiveness and Looks are confused all the time. The unhappy result of this is that we get studies like this, which are reliable in one sense (the wife’s attractiveness), but not in another (the husband’s attractiveness).

Still, the study does seem to support the idea that the attractiveness of one spouse does make a difference in the happiness of the other. Around these parts we’ve long known this to be the case for men, and now it appears to be the case for women as well. This is altogether unsurprising to me, both because of the prevalence of hedonic marriages, and because attraction connects to the deepest and darkest parts of our brains, and so is likely to greatly influence all of our mental functions. Happiness and contentment being just two examples.

 

Update: This also matches up with what St. Paul said in the First Letter to the Corinthians, Chapter 7. If it is “better to marry than to be aflame with passion” than it stands to reason that one should probably not marry unless there is at least some sort of passion between a couple. And attractiveness certainly plays a role here.

Lighting the Fire

This post is a response to Sunshine Mary’s thread titled Is it possible to generate sexual attraction in a marriage where there has never been any? I’m going to try and answer that question, and hopefully clear up a few things in the process. Here is the central question that she asked:

But let’s say there is a situation, however rare, where a woman has married a man to whom she is not sexually attracted at all.  Is there anything that can be done by either the husband or the wife to create attraction where there was none to begin with?

I would say that the answer is yes. Both the husband and the wife can help “create” attraction where there was none before. It is possible to create a spark in order to get the fire started.  Although I would say that only the husband can generate attraction. Before I explain further, some clarification is required.

Clarifications-

I noticed there was a lot of confusion over the meaning and use of words like attraction and arousal. I’m sure that other manospherians have their own definitions of these terms, so I’m going to briefly explain how I use the words in order that the rest of this make sense.

Attraction- Refers to sexual attraction. A good description would be sex appeal.

Attractive- Short for sexually attractive. Signifies an individual whom a member of the opposite sex would be willing to have sex with.

Arousal- A state of sexual excitement.

Desirable- An attractive individual who also possesses certain character and personality traits that members of the opposite sex want in a mate.

See here for ideas on what men find attractive and desirable in a woman.

The Goal

There are two different approaches here: the women making her husband more attractive in her eyes, and the husband making himself more attractive in his wife’s eyes.  The LAMPS formula provides some guidelines on how either process would work, as it explains what features women find attractive in men. Raising the value of one of those categories increases a man’s overall attractiveness to women.

In order to “create” attraction where there was none before, a man needs to move from “unattractive” in his wife’s eyes to “attractive.” In my post Romantic Architecture I provided a graphic showing how this might look:

The goal is for the husband to move from below his wife’s attraction floor to above it. That means increasing his effective LAMPS “score” in his wife’s eyes to a level where she will be sexually attracted to him. Athol Kay’s MAP is one example of how a man can go about this. Working out, getting a higher status, better paid job and becoming more masculine are all critical steps in a man becoming more attractive.

Something from Nothing

Some of the commenters at Sunshine Mary’s blog seem to think that you can’t create attraction from nothing. But this is what happens with every man that a woman encounters. He starts off as a blank slate to her, and as time passes she will evaluate his attractiveness and decide how he measures up. Given the hypergamous nature of women, it doesn’t make sense to presume that men start off attractive in the eyes of a woman. No, the only logical conclusion is that they start off unattractive indifferent[NSR has pointed out that the word Indifferent is a superior choice here, and I agree] and then are rated upward.

The problem that an unattractive husband faces is that his wife has a highly developed evaluation of where he fits on her “scale” of male attractiveness. Essentially, his position has hardened over time. Even if he raises his LAMPS values, he will be fighting against that deep seated impression of him that she holds. This means that he will have to work harder to raise his attractiveness in his wife’s eyes than would be the case for another woman who doesn’t know him as well.

Of course, that assumes there was no attraction to begin with. In the graphic above  there was a very clear line separating attractive from unattractive. I’m not convinced that the line is actually like that in real life. It could be that in reality there is no distinct point separating the two, but instead a blurry region of uncertainty where a man might be somewhat attractive. At such a point he might or might not be able to arouse a woman, with outside environmental factors making the difference (alcohol,  where she is in her cycle). Or it could be that it is the man’s position which is uncertain, with him occupying not a discrete point but falling within a certain region that might nor might not cross the line from unattractive to attractive. At this point I can only speculate.

Attraction v. Arousal

I wanted to really quickly distinguish between how attraction and arousal work for men and women.

The male arousal threshold is lower than the male attraction threshold. A man can be aroused by a woman to whom he is not attracted. For a visual understanding:

The “not unattractive” region would be one where a man might not necessarily find a woman attractive, but might still be aroused by her. Since men can be aroused fairly easily by certain stimuli (especially visual and tactile), even a woman who is below his standard attraction floor can arouse him. In fact, I suspect that you could rename the “not unattractive” floor to “arousal” floor without affecting its accuracy.

Women, on the other hand, have an arousal threshold that is higher than their attraction threshold. This means that, barring extreme circumstances, a woman can only get aroused (think Tingles) by a man that she finds attractive. The more attractive the man is, the easier it is for him to arouse her. This plays into why there are two types of duty sex. There is duty sex where the woman is attracted to her husband, and duty sex where she is not. If she is attracted to her husband than it is just a matter of him arousing her during their conjugal relations in order for her to enjoy it. When she isn’t attracted to her husband, I suspect that he cannot arouse her during intercourse, and as a result she cannot enjoy it. In fact, the experience is probably quite unpleasant for her, because any physical pleasure she receives is more than offset by her mental/emotional distress at having intercourse with an unattractive man. This link between attraction and arousal in women is why duty sex is a “hard sell” to wives who aren’t attracted to their husband.

Submission and Attraction

Here is what Sunshine Mary said about submission’s role in attraction:

  If a woman decides that she is going to train herself to see her man as sexually appealing, what she needs to do is view herself as his subordinate in the relationship.  If she sees herself as being owned by him, as having a duty to obey him and serve him in all ways, including sexually, that increases his relative power in the relationship without his having to do anything.  I am not talking about D/s role-playing, either, a subject about which I know very little. I am talking about a radical transformation in how she views herself in relation to her husband.  Feminine submission to masculine authority generates sexual attraction in the same way that game does – by changing the power dynamic in the relationship.

I think that she is on the right track here. When a wife submits to her husband’s authority, she can alter her attraction to him. It is not so much that she (or he) is generating attraction, but that she is recalibrating her attraction filters to him and him alone. Two things are happening: she is changing her status in relation to his, and she is magnifying the effects of his Masculine Power.

The hypergamous nature of women means that a mans Status value depends not only on his overall position in society, but also his position and authority in relation to the individual woman. By submitting to her husband, a wife lowers her position relative to his, and enhances his Status value in her eyes. This makes him more attractive, which makes it easier for her to submit to him in the first place. As for Power, as a general rule the more submissive a woman is, the more feminine her nature will be. This will contrast more strongly with the Masculine Power of her husband, boosting it in her eyes.

By itself I don’t think that this is enough in most cases. While she can magnify her husbands Status and Power in her eyes, he still has to have a certain amount to begin with in order for it to move him from unattractive to attractive. If he is close to the line to begin with, than submission might make all of the difference. Certainly if she has the opposite attitude it stands to reason it would lower his attractiveness in her eyes, and so fixing it might boost him above the floor. I should note that there is also the risk that a wife who doesn’t submit, when faced with a more attractive husband (who will naturally have to be more assertive as well) will rebel against him. The power shift in her relationship threatens her, and fear may induce her to actively fight her husband in whatever manner she can.

Conclusion

Yes, it is possible to generate attraction where there was none before. It isn’t easy, and will take a long time for the husband to chip away at his wife’s impression of him. But it can be done, both by him improving himself and boosting his LAMPS values, and by his wife adopting a submissive attitude.

Update:

Ballista has challenged my “blank slate” idea of how women rate men as attractive. His words:

The issue is not “creating attraction from nothing” as she frames it, but “creating attraction from disgust”. To clarify the definition, disgust is the exact opposite of attraction. Many marriages exist for reasons other than attraction, namely because women can’t have the bull alphas (or apex alphas as you put it).

In other words, this woman didn’t start with a blank slate (and actually women almost never do – their own perceptions color men they deal with from second one with a man). She came to look at the peon beta with disgust because she couldn’t have her very own apex alpha. But her baby rabies, or the need to have status with the herd caused her to settle for this lesser man that repulses her the moment she looks at him.

What Ballista is proposing is a different idea on how attraction works for women. Rather than being a 1-10 scale, it is more akin to the -10 to 10 scale that Deep Strength has discussed at different occasions. Here is a visualization of this:

While I think that such a model has merit, I disagree with him that once a man enters the disgust phase, he can’t claw his way back out. However, I must acknowledge that both of us are speculating here. There aren’t any studies which have ever covered this to be the best of my knowledge. And as Deep Strength has pointed out, most marriages that enter the negative territory tend to dissolve quickly. So testing out which of us is correct is something that nigh-well impossible to accomplish.

Perhaps Ballista is correct that women who “come into marriages with bitter hearts and that bitterness comes out in disgust towards the sorry victim of her rage,” cannot change their impression of their husband. I’m not convinced he is correct. But I have to acknowledge that he might be. Which again explains why I am very discerning when it comes to a potential wife.

 

Update 2: Ballista has written a post in response to this thread and its comments.

The Righteous Alpha

A number of weeks back a reader of mine sent me an e-mail, asking if he knew of any blog posts that addressed the following two, related questions:

How can a man become a deeply committed Christian and not then become the epitome of all that a woman despises?

Is ‘Alpha’ and ‘Christian male’ a  dichotomy?

I let him know that I would try and answer these questions, although it has taken me far longer than I originally intended.

Let me begin by answering his question: Yes. It is possible to be what van Rooinek once called “the Righteous Alpha.” This post will provide a brief idea on how that is possible.

One note: what is commonly known as “Alpha” in the manosphere can be usually translated as “attractive.” So an Alpha Male is a man who is considered attractive, even highly attractive, to women. The “Righteous Alpha” is a God-fearing man who is attractive to women, and thus in a position to hopefully marry a good Christian woman. Personally, I don’t like “Alpha” and “Beta” as they are used in the manosphere, and try to avoid using them whenever possible. So from now on don’t expect to see Alpha or Beta show up very often.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

In my post Are Women Attracted to Evil? I explained that attraction is amoral; women are attracted to certain key features of men, namely Looks, Athleticism, Money, Power and Status, irrespective of any moral context. I wrote that post to address whether women were attracted to Evil (shocker, I know!), and arrived at the conclusion they aren’t. Attraction, like hypergamy, doesn’t really care about Good and Evil. Of course, how a woman reacts to that attraction does reflect moral choices. That post focused mainly on attraction and Evil, and only tangentially addressed how attraction relates to Good.  Here are a few quick primers on that interaction before I go into depth:

The Good- Being a devout, God-fearing Christian man does not mean that you will be inherently unattractive to women.

The Bad- Unfortunately, being a devout Christian, God-fearing Christian man won’t make you attractive to women either.

The Ugly- A lot of what Christian men are taught in how to act and behave does make them unattractive to women.

As far as the Good and the Bad go, your faith is a wash (with one possible exception, mentioned later). It won’t help or hurt in and of itself when it comes to attraction. Now, I need to make an important explanation here: Attraction is not the same thing as Desirability. As I explained in Attraction versus Desire:

Attraction is a matter of biology, we don’t have much, if any, control over what we find attractive. It really boils down to sex appeal in the end. Desirability is another matter, however. What we desire is based on conscious as well as unconscious preferences for behaviors and characteristics in a mate.

A Christian woman looking for a devout Christian man will find your faith desirable… but only if she finds you to be attractive first. Attraction is the key hurdle to overcome; once you have made your way there the hard part is mostly done with.

As for the Ugly, it encompasses a lot of the behaviors and characteristics that so many Christian men are taught from a young age. The biggest problem lies in many men being taught to be nice, as nice is a sure-fire turn-off for women.

The rest of this post will try and briefly explain how you can build your attractiveness while still being a deeply committed Christian. My response will be divided into three sections. The first covers general rules of attraction outside of any religious context. The second covers how some of what passes as Christian teaching about women is wrong, and how to correct its mistakes. The third and final section covers how you might be able to use your involvement in your church, and your faith, to your advantage in generating attraction. None of them is going to be especially long or detailed, as each could take up its own post.

I. Universal Rules

The basic criteria that women use to judge the attractiveness of a man are universal. All women judge by them, although each woman might (unconsciously) rate the different attributes higher or lower in importance. They fall into three general categories: Appearance, Personality, and Externalities. The sub-categories, which are specific enough to provide working guidelines, are Looks, Athleticism, Money, Power and Status, also known as LAMPS:

Looks- This includes physical attractiveness, such as facial symmetry and strong masculine features in a man’s face.

Athleticism– Here we have the overall physical attributes of a man. His strength, muscle tone, endurance, dexterity and general athletic ability.

Power– This subcategory is a short-hand for Masculine Power, or Masculinity. Aspects of a man’s personality such as confidence, assertiveness, self-mastery, dominance, a commanding presence, poise and posture would fall under the Power sub-category. These are often known as “Alpha Male Traits.”

Money– This sub-category includes a measurement of both the amount of resources that a man can call upon in the present, as well as what he might be able to make or create in the future. However, it takes a LOT of money for it to really affect attractiveness.

Status– This sub-category includes the social position of the man and is principally based on where he is on the social ladder. Any authority that a man can exercise in the community based on his position would fall under Status.

In terms of importance, from greatest to least, they are: Power, Status, Athleticism, Looks, Money.

From this point on, I’m going to offer a proscriptive analysis, using a generic Christian male as the recipient of my advice, otherwise known as “you.”

If you can increase these attributes it should translate to greater attractiveness in the eyes of all women (some more than others). The advantage of this framework is that shows a man how to build attraction outside of the context of faith. For a man who was raised in a Churchian background, this is important, as he can make strides in boosting his LAMPS values while he is still unlearning Churchian behaviors. Of course, how much you can improve each “vector” or category of attributes is different:

Looks- This set of attributes is the one that you have least control over. Most of it is determined by genetics. What little control you do have comes from dieting. Or, if you are willing to take the risk, surgery. Eating healthy makes a difference here, as it can affect your hair and skin. Fortunately, this is not an important attribute. The right clothing might help emphasize your more positive features in this category.

Athleticism- Barring significant health issues, you should have a lot of control over this. Healthy eating plays a role here as well, and is critical for controlling your weight. If you haven’t gone Paleo, or some version of it, start looking it up now. It works. Start working out, if you aren’t already. If you are doing cardio, start lifting weights. The health benefits are great, it boosts your confidence, and it dramatically increases your value here. While women might have individual preferences in the type of build a man might have, the general rule of thumb is that the more muscles, the better. This is the easiest and first area where you can begin to make a difference in your attractiveness. Start here.

Money- It takes a lot of money for this vector to be meaningful, so you probably won’t be able to rely on it. And improving it takes time and effort, and a lot of both. Fortunately, it is also the weakest vector by far. Now, if you actually are rich, or make a lot of money (or both), then don’t hide this. This may seem superficial, but it does attract women despite what many say. Don’t worry about gold-diggers for now, filtering comes later.

Power- This most important set of attributes is the one you will need to work on the longest. Increasing your Power means changing your personality, and how you behave. Needless to say, this takes time and discipline. I can’t explain it fully in a single post, much less a single paragraph. What I can tell you is that you need to become and make it clear that you are confident. You need to be assertive in everyday life, especially around women. I will talk more about this below.

Status- There are several ways to improve this attribute. The first is to take leadership roles, wherever they might be. Authority is an important part of Status, and the more authority you wield, the better. Climbing the ladder in any hierarchy is probably going to help you; women are attracted to the guy at the top, not the bottom. The higher up the food chain, the higher your Status, and the more attractive you become. Now, Status is highly contextual, so be aware that it only helps you if women know or are familiar with it. A highly respected job will help your Status, as will being respected in the community. So community outreach, or engaging in local politics, or anything that gets your name and face in the paper and on television will help you out. Needless to say, that is easier to do in a smaller community.

Those are some quick suggestions on what you can do to improve your LAMPS values. Now, these are only starting points. A real transformation is probably the work of years, although you can make a serious difference in only a few months if you put in the time and effort.

II. Everything You Know is Wrong

A lot of men show up in these parts wondering why they can’t seem to get a date. They are frustrated because their Christian faith is not only not helping them with Christian women, it seems to be hurting them. The reason for their frustration is because many churches (along with parents and the general community) are teaching men to be unattractive. The good news is that it isn’t Christianity that is the reason for this, but instead various accoutrements that are attached to Christian doctrine/teaching but are treated as if they are a part of the faith. I will quickly explain some of the behaviors/attitudes to avoid, and why.

Be Nice: Women are not attracted to nice. Not in the slightest. Whatever your parents told you, whatever the leaders at your church told you, it isn’t true. Nice repels women. While consciously they may like it, their unconscious minds regard nice as weak and servile. It is not the kind of behavior a dominant male will engage in. In other words, unattractive behavior. The lesson here is don’t be nice. This may seem counter-intuitive at first, but trust me, its true. Some quick tips:

– Don’t apologize incessantly. Do it once, if you truly need to. Make it quick and to the point. NEVER GROVEL.

– Don’t let women always go first. If it is your turn, just go ahead.

– Don’t do favors for women who have never done a favor for you. This is a quick path to being seen as a pack-mule, and nothing more.

Be Sensitive: Women are not looking for a sensitive, caring “touchy-feely” kind of man. They want to be able to cry on your shoulder, they do not want you to cry on theirs on a regular basis. You can show emotion, just don’t emote like a woman. In front of women you need to be strong, resilient, unflappable. You can show strong, and especially vulnerable, emotions to a woman after you are already attractive in her eyes.

“Get in touch with your Feminine Side”: You may hear occasionally that men should get in touch with their feminine side. This is possibly the worst advice ever when it comes to being attractive as a man. First off, men don’t have a “feminine side.” Anyone saying otherwise is preaching New-Age garbage. Second off, any attempt to “embrace” your feminine side means casting away the very masculine behaviors which make you attractive to women. Listen guys, if you think you have a feminine side, you need to follow the immortal words of Zippy:

Every man should go deep within himself and get in touch with his feminine side. Then he should strangle the bitch.

Ask women what they want: Most of the time, women don’t know what they want. Even if they say something, they may not mean it. The turth is that they actually expect you to know what they want. In other words, they want you to Just Get It. You can solicit thoughts and suggestions from a woman, but never be as direct as to actually ask her what she wants. Your best bet is to simply act and keep moving forward. If she complains, don’t apologize. If necessary, simply leave or take the gift back or whatever and don’t mention it again. But don’t succumb to any pressure to go somewhere else or get her something else. If she doesn’t like something you did for her, that’s her problem, not yours.

There is more to it than this, of course. The key thing to carry away from this section is that most of the relationship or dating advice that is given out these days is rubbish. Assuming you had anything near a mainstream “education” in such matters, you would do well to question everything you’ve ever learned. If you have any doubts or uncertainties, posts like this are the perfect opportunity to get answers.

III. Be Not Afraid

A.

²⁶ “So have no fear of them; for nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known. ²⁷ What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops. ²⁸ Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. ²⁹ Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. ³⁰ And even the hairs of your head are all counted. ³¹ So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.

(Matthew 10:26-31)

As Christians, we are reminded that we should not fear anything, save the Lord. We should be fearless in all we say and all we do. Once you start to truly take this to heart, it will change your life; fear is one of life’s greatest handicaps. Learning to control your fears provides one of the most liberating feelings possible. Embracing a life and spirit of fearlessness will aid you in all your endeavors, including your interactions with women.

Women are very much attuned to sensing fear in a man. And the aroma of fear is perhaps the most disturbing of all odors to women. Few things are as likely to repel them as much as a man who cannot control his fear. Not so much because the fear itself is unattractive, but because it is often accompanied by hesitancy, uncertainty and paralysis. But the flip side is also true: women are drawn to the strength of will and confidence that a courageous man displays. In fact, there are few displays of confidence as powerful as that of a man without fear.  Your fearlessness, when fully developed, is something that should give you an advantage non-Christian men will have trouble matching. If they do not fear death, it is only because they have nothing to lose. But you, you don’t fear death because you have everything to gain. So don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid of being turned down. Don’t be afraid of women not showing interest. Don’t be afraid of disagreeing with them, or pointing out their errors. Just don’t be afraid.

B.

Consider taking on a leadership position in your church, if you haven’t already. There are several reasons for this. To begin with, this is a chance for you to hopefully grow in your faith, as well as to serve the Lord and others. Also, it is a chance for personal growth, as the responsibility of leadership often serves as a crucible. Learning to exercise authority effectively is a major component of developing yourself as a man. Lastly, as I indicated earlier, Status matters to women. A leadership position in any organization provides some measure of status and as a result women tend find men in leadership positions to be more attractive than those who are not. Unless real fame is involved, it is mostly situation status. But if you take a leadership role in church, the women of your church will know, and it will affect their judgement of you accordingly. So this is a win-win all around: serve God, build yourself up, and become more attractive.

[I never thought to mention this until someone pointed it out, but don’t become a leader just so you can pick up the ladies. I trust that this message is unnecessary for my readers, but still, it bears mentioning.]

C.

[I have a few other, unfinished ideas that I was originally going to include here. They aren’t fully fleshed out, so I am leaving this spot open so that I can introduce them here later. When that will happen I can’t be certain.]

Conclusion

To answer the fundamental question of my reader one last time: Yes, it is possible be a committed Christian and still be attractive to women. It is not an easy task in this day and age, but it is possible. You won’t be able to call on all of the tools that a pickup artist can rely upon, so you will have to dedicate yourself to working harder and smarter than them. Fortunately, unlike the PUAs, you don’t need to continuously worry about finding  woman after woman; you need only find one good woman.

With luck, this post can serve as a starting point for Christian men who have asked the same question my reader did, and wondered about the answer. I hope to follow this post up with others in the future, expanding on some of the points and ideas raised, and adding new ones to the mix. Anyone who is curious about what I meant, or has follow up questions, feel free to post in the comments below. I will try and answer your questions in a speedy manner.

Are Women Attracted to Evil?

[This is part 1 of a two part series, with the second post, The Righteous Alpha, hopefully coming tomorrow out now.]

Since I have taken the “Red Pill” I have seen more than a few manospherians make the argument that women are actively attracted to evil. As this seems to be a theme that bubbles to the surface every so often in these parts, I thought I should address it briefly.

The Dark Triad

It seems that the most common support for the idea of women being attracted to evil lies in the attractiveness of the Dark Triad. For those unfamiliar with it, the Dark Triad is a set of three traits, which are: Narcissism, Machiavellianism and Psychopathy. Here is how wikipedia describes them:

• The narcissistic personality (in the clinical sense) is characterized by a grandiose self-view, a sense of entitlement, lack of empathy, and egotism. Some theories, such as those of Heinz Kohut, associate it with the protection of a radically weak, shamed, or damaged self.^[8]
• The Machiavellian personality is characterized by manipulation and exploitation of others, with a cynical disregard for morality and a focus on self-interest and deception.^[9]
• The psychopathic personality is characterized by impulsive thrill-seeking, and in its “primary” form by selfishness, callousness, lack of personal affect, superficial charm, and remorselessness.

Looking at each of them, it is easy to see how they are amoral at best, and outright inclined towards evil at worst. The whole package together seems to be custom made for conducting evil.

Roissy, who often preaches the importance of extreme confidence, is one of those who especially likes to beat the drum of the Dark Triad traits. The reason is simple: they work. Many women do seem to be attracted to men who display these characteristics.

Of course, plenty of “Bad Boys” are able to attract women without resorting to the full measure of the Dark Triad. But when you peel away the layers you start to see some similarities between their methods and the practitioners of the Dark Triad.

Back to the Basics

To understand why the Dark Triad traits and Bad Boys attract women, it helps to understand the basic attributes that determine male attractiveness to women. I’ve detailed them before in my LAMPS theory, which states that there are five principle attributes which women look for in men to determine attractiveness: Looks, Athleticism, Money, Power, and Status. A truncated explanation of each of them follows:

Looks- This includes physical attractiveness, such as facial symmetry and strong masculine features in a man’s face.

Athleticism– Here we have the overall physical attributes of a man. His strength, muscle tone, endurance, dexterity and general athletic ability.

Power– This subcategory is a short-hand for Masculine Power, or Masculinity. Aspects of a man’s personality such as confidence, assertiveness, self-mastery, dominance, a commanding presence, poise and posture would fall under the Power sub-category.

Money– This sub-category includes a measurement of both the amount of resources that a man can call upon in the present, as well as what he might be able to make or create in the future.

Status– This sub-category includes the social position of the man and is principally based on where he is on the social ladder. Any authority that a man can exercise in the community based on his position would fall under Status.

In terms of importance, from greatest to least, they are: Power, Status, Athleticism, Looks, Money.

Turning the Power On

Look back at the descriptions of those Dark Triad traits, and then look at the Power attribute again. Notice anything? The Dark Triad is all about Power. Narcissism is about confidence taken to its extreme. Machiavellianism features assertiveness and the exercise of Will unbound by social chains. Psychopathy encompasses dominance and a commanding, to the point of frightening, presence.  A man who exercises the Dark Triad is a man who screams Masculine Power to any woman who catches sight of him. This is because the Dark Triad traits don’t hold back, they doesn’t restrain themselves, they represent an exercise of Power that is breathtaking in its forthrightness.

Remember, attraction is amoral. It is based on set biological cues which we have little to no control over, whether we are men or women. Is the exercise of the Dark Triad evil? Probably. Does it attract most women? Undoubtedly. But it isn’t the evil of the Dark Triad that attracts women. Rather, it is the fact that it gives off signals which women interpret to mean an abundance of Masculine Power. Women don’t know why they are attracted to it, there is no conscious choice involved. Their subconscious can only discern that a man with the Dark Triad traits is confident, assertive and dominant to a point to overshadows nearly everyone else. This is translated to mean that he must be the Alpha male of the group, otherwise he couldn’t/wouldn’t act in a such a way. And that trips all of the necessary triggers in a woman’s mind to make him seem attractive to her.

For “Bad Boys”, similar dynamics are at play. A Bad Boy is by definition someone who breaks the rules, who stands alone. Again, this screams confidence, assertiveness and all of the other aspects of Power. In a healthy society men who show these traits but who are actually dangerous (as Bad Boys are) would be weeded out. They would be killed, imprisoned (permanently) or exiled. Unhappily, we don’t live in a healthy society. And even more unfortunately, the female subconscious doesn’t realize this either. So women see men who demonstrate traits that would otherwise indicate suitability as mates, and fall for them accordingly.

Black and White

It is not evil that attracts women, it is the fruit of powerful, unrestrained evil: Dominance, Confidence, Assertiveness, Mastery. These are all intoxicating to the female mind; they ensnare the senses and reason. Do women fall for weak, sniveling cretins? Of course not. They are drawn to strength, to Power. “Weak evil” is no more attractive than “weak good.” The reason why so many women are drawn to evil is because it is so much more common to find “strong evil” than “strong good” in the present age. Women cannot help but be drawn to strength, no more than the moth can resist the flame.

Is this a flaw in our species? Of that, there can be no doubt. But on the other hand, it is a flaw that can be controlled for, assuming society has the Will to do so. Sadly, ours doesn’t. In the immortal words of Spaceballs:

Good is Dumb.

In conclusion…

When it comes to attraction, there is no Good. There is No Evil. There is only Power.

Update: Apparently this post was linked to by a feminist blog. I allowed the pingback, but I suggest caution for anyone who follows the link

Turning the Tables on “The List”

In my previous post, The Dreaded List Again, I examined one of those “husband lists” which so many women seem fond of creating these days. Actually, examination is too soft of a word, excoriation is more like it. Either way, I wasn’t exactly gentle.

As I see it, there are two principal problems with such lists. The first is that they are not grounded in reality, and create unrealistic expectations in women. Very, very few men can ever meet the requirements on most of those lists, even assuming that most men tried their hardest. Second, those lists are almost never accompanied by a counterpart list of what the woman has to offer to a potential husband. This dynamic, sky-high expectations without any concept of reciprocity or need to match performances, leads most women to develop an entitlement mentality. They expect men to give them everything, while they themselves must give nothing. Needless to say, this isn’t exactly a recipe for healthy marriages.

So with this post I have decided to turn the tables, and will try to figure out what a counter-part to the “husband list” would look like. I imagine that many of the points will be the same, but there will be some major additions as well, as they will be driven by scriptural understandings of the role of Christian wives. What I find interesting is that many men do this already, create a list of what they have to offer. Typically they tend to be more “Beta” and less “Alpha” (terms I dislike), or to borrow Vox’s terminology, tend towards “Gamma” tendencies. Less common from men, save perhaps here in the manosphere, is a list of expectations from a future wife. My suspicion is that prevailing feminist tendencies in our culture are responsible for this disparity.

The Log in My Eye

“Judge not, that you be not judged. ² For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. ³ Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? ⁴ Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? ⁵ You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.

(Matthew 7:1-5)

I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge that I have my own “List.” Now, I happen to think mine is fairly reasonable, but it would be hypocritical for me not to address my own list and create a counterpart. So before I go over the counter-part to Mrs. Wolfe’s list from my last post, I will examine the log in my own eye.

My “List” has seen a few adjustments since I created this blog, but I think the latest version, elucidated in Some Assembly Required, works well enough: 1) Chaste, 2) Devout, 3) Attractive, 4) Feminine.

1)  Chaste- A woman who has maintained her chastity her whole life. A virgin in the actual sense of the word, not a “born-again virgin.”

[Side note: I am always struck by how vehement some women get when a man qualifies a woman as a potential wife based on her sexual history. I find it especially amusing, in a dark way, when such women say that a woman is entitled to the same thing from the man, and yet are still indignant when the man does meet that criteria. A correspondent of mine happens to think that there is an aspect of Natural Law in women which causes them to know deep down inside that promiscuity is wrong.  If she is right, and I increasingly suspect she is, this reaction could be a sort of projection on their part of their understanding that they have done wrong, and their fear and self-loathing at that realization.]

2) Devout- A practicing Catholic, or a Christian from another faith tradition who is willing to convert.

3) Attractive- At least somewhat pleasing to the eye. Not as difficult as some think, as most young women who take care of themselves can be at least a “6”. Also, it is relatively easy for men to find something attractive in a woman.

4) Feminine- A quiet, gentle spirit who is pleasant to be around and acts very “girly.”

Well, that is what I expect of a woman who wants my ring and my name. Again, I think these very reasonable expectations. But they do not speak of what I have to offer in turn. What does a woman gain by marrying me? I think that the easiest place to start is to flip those factors around:

1) Chaste- I have been chaste my whole life, which in manosphere terms translates into N=0. For PUA types, this makes me an especially pathetic loser, but I frankly don’t care what they think. What it means to a potential wife is that I won’t be comparing her to another woman. She will be the number one lover in my life, because she will be my only lover. This also means that she doesn’t have to worry about catching a STD from me. Or that I have some child born out of wedlock waiting to cause drama.

2) Devout- I am a practicing Catholic who takes his faith very seriously. That includes all of the verses from scripture pertaining to marriage. So a potential wife don’t have to worry about me thinking infidelity to be no big deal. Or that I will frivolously divorce her when she gets older. I will cherish her, honor her and love her as Christ loved the church. And yes, that means die for her and the children if need be.

3) Attractive- Since masculinity is an aspect of male attractiveness, under the Power category of LAMPS, I will fold it here. I am no Brad Pitt or Channing Tatum; I will freely admit that. I’m not really handsome, but on the other hand I’m not ugly either. While I may not be built like a line-backer, I have been working out regularly for a long time, and have a good BMI plus have been building up a good amount of muscle mass. So a potential wife can count on me being in good shape that continues to improve. I may never win a weight-lifting competition, but I won’t be a scrawny weakling either. I’m not rich, and probably never will be, but I’m a hard-worker. My natural talents and educational background mean that I should be able to maintain a stable middle-class lifestyle through much of a marriage. I’ve ditched most of my unmasculine behaviors, and am becoming increasingly comfortable with being unapologetically masculine. Which means that a potential wife can count on me being a bedrock of steady masculinity to rely upon in the turmoils of life. Lastly, I may never achieve fame or stardom, but I have a solid reputation which I have every reason to believe will only increase as time passes. In addition, my career/professional path is respectable and translates into one that is respected in the community as well.

So, that is my counterpart list. I could create a more detailed list if I wanted to spend the time, and risk the chance that I might ruin my anonymity. But it is a good starting point, and enough that I think I can safely move on to flip the script for the original list.

Mirror, Mirror…

Here are the original 12 “non-negotiable” points from Mrs. Wolfe’s list:

1. He is a practicing believer.

2. God is the center of his life.

3. He has integrity and does not put himself in tempting situations.

4. Seeks mentorship and counsel.

5. He is slow to anger.

6. He holds strong conviction on the sacredness of fidelity.

7. He is honorable of your heart and emotional well-being.

8. He is disciplined in living a life of integrity.

9. Has solid work ethic.

10. He pursues and loves you passionately.

11. Romances you.

12. He is humble and can admit when he is wrong.

A counter-part “List” is about what you have to offer, so it is of necessity a different sort of list. Still, many of these can be flipped around and moved into the first person. For Mrs. Wolfe, this will be from the perspective of a woman trying to convince a man to marry her. Combined with some relevant parts of scripture, and you get something workable. Starting with just the original points that can be flipped, you get this:

I am a practicing believer.

God is the center of my life.

I have integrity and do not put myself in tempting situations.

I hold strong conviction on the sacredness of fidelity.

I am disciplined in living a life of integrity.

I have a solid work ethic.

A good starting point, at least. But using some of the other points as baselines, and throw in some “manosphere knowledge,” and you get these:

I keep my emotions in control and don’t let them run my life.

I will never speak about you disrespectfully in front of other people.

I will never deny you my body unless I am seriously ill.

I will never act like I am better than you.

I am loyal and will never seek to undermine you.

Lastly, let’s throw in some Biblical commands about duties of a wife:

I will submit to your authority as the Church submits to Christ.

I will respect you as my husband.

I am kind and have a gentle, quiet spirit.

I will be loyal helpmeet eager to assist you in whatever tasks God has for you.

And that completes the counter-part list. If anyone can think of anything that should be added to the “Wife List”, please mention it in the comments. I believe that the attitude engendered by creating a list of what you have to offer in marriage is one that is beneficial to everyone, even if you don’t necessarily make it or your expectations public. The effect of examining what you have to give is an important step in grounding yourself in what you can or should expect from a potential spouse. Sadly, in our entitlement culture I don’t expect this to be a trend that catches on.

Romantic Architecture

In this post I am going to discuss the subject of attraction floors and ceilings. While some of my posts have alluded to the subject before, I’ve never addressed it head on.  If I had to guess, this post is likely to generate at least a small measure of controversy. The natures of male and female attraction and preferences are bound to do that. Plus these topics are really touchy for some folks. Because, and lets be honest here, the system is broken and a lot of men and women, good men and women, have been hurt by that. So, without further ado…

Introduction: The Nature of Male and Female Attraction

Before I can go into depth about ceilings and floors, I need to clarify a few things about attraction. For my regular readers, this will be a short recap and summary of everything I have discussed on the subject before, so you can skip ahead to the next part.

Men and women are attracted to very different things. As I have explained before, men are attracted to beauty:

The principle feature which men look for in women to determine attractiveness is easy enough to figure out: Beauty. Age factors into Beauty, as Beauty will diminish over time as age increase. Now, ideal Beauty can vary depending on culture, but there are still certain physical features in women that carry across most cultures: a feminine face with strong facial symmetry, large breasts, a low waist-to-hip ratio, smooth and unblemished skin, etc. Beauty is essentially a purely visual attribute,  indeed well over 95% of that which men use to determine the attractiveness of a woman falls under visual Beauty.  Therefore it is usually quite easy for a man to quickly gauge a woman’s attractiveness on the standard 1-10 scale. The remaining features which determine attractiveness include how the woman smells, what her voice sounds like, and what her body feels like to the touch.

An example of this 1-10 scale, with my own thoughts on what each number means, is found below:

A few notes on this:

One thing to keep in mind is that a woman’s “score” is somewhat subjective. One man might rate a woman a 7, another a 6, and another an 8. Each man has his own preference in what he wants in a woman. But if you average together enough men, you will get a fairly accurate measure of how attractive any given woman is.

Also, there is a difference between a woman being attractive and a woman being unattractive. Anything “6” (cute) and up is attractive. Anything below a “4” (homely) is unattractive. So a “Plain” woman, or a “5”, is not attractive, but also not unattractive. [At least, that is how I use the system] This will be relevant later.

Matters are somewhat different for men:

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

For a more detailed explanation, see here.

Unfortunately, a similar 1-10 chart for men doesn’t really work.  At least, not quite in the same way as it does for women. There are several reasons for this:

1) Assessing male attractiveness is much more difficult than assessing female attractiveness. Because Money, Status and Power aren’t visual in nature, you can’t really assign hard values to them on the fly. Perhaps the best measure of male SMV is the SMV of women that the man can regularly “pull.”

2) Male attractiveness is on weighted curve, while female attractiveness is not. A female “7” is a “7” no matter how the other women around her look. But male attractiveness is measured against the attractiveness of other men, because Status varies for each man. As men are added or removed from any given population, their respective Status in the group will shift. And with it, their attractiveness.

3) Context can impact male attractiveness. Because Status can shift depending on where the man is, his attractiveness is fluid. This makes it impossible to assign him a universal number like you can with a woman.

One possible attempt to create a male 1-10 scale might look something like this:

Its not exactly great, as you can see.

And that wraps up the differences in Male and Female attraction.

Boundaries

While this should surprise no one, people react differently to individuals of the opposite sex depending on how attractive they are. And those reactions differ depending on whether someone is looking for a short term relationship (STR), a one-night stand (ONS), or a long term relationship (LTR), which for the sake of this post I will equate with marriage.

The Floor

One significant manifestation of this is the so called “Attraction Floor.” The general concept is that people won’t choose as a (either sexual or marriage) partner someone who is below a certain rank. As with most interactions involving sex, attraction and desire, individual preferences vary wildly. In addition, men and women are each quite different in where their floors are located.

Lets begin with men. As I mentioned earlier, a woman is not necessarily “unattractive” if she doesn’t happen to be “attractive.” There is that grey zone of “not unattractive” where a woman may not repel a man like a “2” would, but neither does she excite him like an “8” would. Here is a visualization of this dynamic:

To describe the zones more completely:

1) Attractive means that a woman has no unattractive features and a number of attractive features, or that her many attractive features more than offset her few unattractive features.

2) Not Unattractive means that a woman either has no major unattractive and attractive features, or she has some attractive features which are balanced by some unattractive features.

3) Unattractive means that a woman has no attractive features and a number of unattractive features, or that her few attractive features are more than offset by her unattractive features.

Now, how might this “Attraction Floor” work in practice? An example of this might be a man who would not be willing at all to sleep with a woman who is not attractive (which under my system means someone below a “6”). Another man might be willing to sleep with a woman how is “not unattractive”, but only as part of a ONS, and would insist on an “attractive” woman for his wife. A desperate man or a man with a low SMV himself  might be willing to go so far as a “2”. And then you could have an Apex Alpha who wouldn’t associate with a woman who isn’t an “8” or higher. It all depends on the man in question.

So what about women? Well, it has long been argued that women are much more “discerning” when it comes to attraction thanks to Hypergamy. Some manospherians like to bandy about 20% as the percentage of men that women can/do find attractive. Personally, I have no idea if that percentage is right or not, but I do agree that far fewer men fall into the category of attractive than women. An interesting question though, is whether or not there is a similar category of “Not Unattractive” for men. I’m not sure that there is, but the toxic hypergamy which is the norm for most women these days makes an accurate appraisal of the baseline female attraction filter impossible. Be that as it may, here is a graphic representation of the traditional interpretation of the female “Attraction Floor” interposed on my male 1-10 scale:

I need to be honest and admit that my choices about names and where to place the line are completely arbitrary. That applies to all of the graphics, really. But they do serve a valuable purpose of providing a visualization of the discernment that is going on inside people’s minds.

Note: For women looking to marry, they need to understand that unless they can make it above a man’s “Attraction Floor”, they won’t be considered for a relationship. No amount of personality, character or other traits will change this. The same applies to men as well.

Settling Down

One idea that I have been exploring lately is that people might have more than one “floor,” at least when it comes to marriage. There is a “hard floor”, below which someone won’t consider anyone as a potential spouse. Then there is a “soft floor”, above which someone would perhaps agree to marry the first acceptable candidate who came along. In between there is a “Maybe” range, where someone wouldn’t dismiss anyone found there as a marriage partner, but wouldn’t immediately agree to marriage. Rather, it would take either a disproportionately large number of Desirability attributes and/or a belief that a better candidate is unlikely to be found to spur him or her to agree to marriage.  A visualization of how it might work for a man would look like this:

Assuming there is something to this theory of mine, I further speculate that the ranges to this phenomenon are not fixed. My suspicion is that people are more discriminating earlier in their lives, and as they age the ranges drop.  So a man who would have immediately “wifed up” a “9” or “10” when he was twenty years old would be willing to immediately wife up a “7” or higher when he is thirty-five. This certainly seems to be the case with many women, who by most accounts and appearances will focus their efforts only on male “8”s or above when they are younger, but once they approach or hit the Wall will marry a male “6” or “7”. The problem of course is that the woman’s “hard floor” has dropped below her attraction threshold, which means that she ends up marrying a man whom she isn’t attracted to. I don’t think it necessary to remind everyone just how disastrous that turns out to be.

A Ceiling?

I can’t recall having seen someone suggest the idea of an “Attraction Ceiling” before, so it might well be an original thought on my part. But the general idea is this: there might a certain attraction threshold above which someone won’t focus their attention, because they believe that those above it are “out of their league.”  While they might be attracted to someone with that rank, they won’t pursue them because they know they don’t have a chance. Here is how it might look:

This “Attraction ceiling” would be a “soft ceiling”, in that it might flex as a person’s perspective on who they can attract fluctuates.  Also, I suspect that this is something that is more likely to be a male behavior than a female behavior. Hypergamy would tend to drive women towards the top to begin with, and the current brutal nature of the SMP/MMP tends to cure men very quickly of any thoughts of “landing” a woman above their rank.

I haven’t really had time to flesh this idea out, but I wanted to mention it to see what other people think. Perhaps I missed it when another blogger covered this subject before. If so, that would no doubt impact my thinking.

Conclusion

That concludes my thoughts on Attraction ceilings and floors for the time being.

Setting a Matter to Rest

Just in case anyone was curious, no, this is not me.

[As a side note, Prince Amukamara appears to be a perfect example of a Righteous Alpha. Just think of how high his LAMPS values must be. He seems to be decently good looking, is in great physical shape, must make a decent chunk of money every year, and has a very high status position as a NFL player (for the Jets, true, but still, professional football). The only question surrounds his Power value; the article gives some hints of Beta behavior but its difficult to be sure (and I would have to think he has to be fairly confident in himself considering hi station in life). So you just know that this guy has to have been receiving a huge amount of female attention. In fact, he is at least a male 9 in terms of SMV value. His remaining celibate (for now) is clearly a matter of personal choice based on his faith, and not circumstance. So to those who say that there aren’t male virgins out there, or at least ones who actually choose to stay that way until marriage, I offer this exhibit into evidence.]