A Mountain Out Of A Molehill

This post is an opportunity for my readers to help my out. I am concerned that I might have made something out to be a bigger deal than it really was. Or perhaps misunderstood the point that was being made. It began when I read this post over at Leane’s blog. This paragraph in particular caught my eye:

Men left to themselves too long tend to become rough, brutish, and even evil. I saw enough of this in the Army during the two years overseas with the same outfit. There was something vital missing in the lives of these soldiers. It was the influence of their mothers, their sisters, their wives, and their sweethearts. The deterioration of the soldiers overseas was slow and gradual but still very definite. The great mass of mankind finds it pretty difficult to climb very much above its environment. An all-male environment is not good for a man over a long period of time. God never intended for the average man to so live. Eve appeared on the scene soon after Adam.

I reacted… rashly to this message. Here is my response:

I don’t know how to describe this paragraph other than as vile. The central argument is that without women (presumably good women) in their lives then adult men will become uncivilized savages. To the best of my knowledge there is zero support for this in Sacred Scripture or Tradition. A great many monastics lived lives which stand as a strong testament against the proposition advanced here.

Furthermore, even if this were true, and I contend it is not, this is an awful thing to include in advice supposedly directed at women. It is the worst kind of pastoral care. More than a few women will read this as saying that their presence is the only thing keeping the men in their life from being “ough, brutish, and even evil.” This feeds into the worst parts of female nature. It is especially poisonous for wives who have rebellious tendencies- which happens to be all of them, as all human beings are rebellious at heart. Simply put, there is no good reason to include this paragraph in this particular work.

Additionally, if I or another man was to write something similar, only with the roles reversed- describing the awful things women will do if left too long to themselves, would anyone simply leave it be? Or would it be called out?

I am going to stop here. I am sorry for hijacking this comment thread, but I could not remain silent.

This drew, as expected, some opposition from female commenters, as well as the blog hostess herself. What I hope to hear from my readers is whether my reaction to that paragraph was on target, and whether I over-reacted or not. As a quick recap, and to help folks better understand what I was saying, here are the three general points I was making:

1. The argument which the author made is not supported by Sacred Scripture or Tradition.
2. It was bad pastoral practice to include this paragraph in the book it was found in.
3. A similar paragraph or statement with the roles reversed would not be ignored like that paragraph was.

If anyone thinks I was wrong, please indicate where I screwed up. And if you have any problems with my response, besides the bad proofreading, please let me know. Don’t hold back, let me have it. [Although I will say that I think the response of one of the female commenters to a piece of red meat I left in the second point justifies my third point.]

So, did I make a mountain out of a molehill?

[Update: It wasn’t clear from my post, but Leane did not write that paragraph. Her post was quoting from a book called The Wife Desired. The book was written by a Catholic priest back in 1951.]

Out Of The Picture

[Warning: This post contains will contain a great deal many film spoilers, including, but not limited to, the Taken series, How to Train Your Dragon, Interstellar, Transformers, The Incredibles and Super 8. The comments will almost certainly contain more. You have been warned.]

I had the opportunity, recently, to watch the second installment in the How to Train Your Dragon series. As far as such films go, it wasn’t bad. But what struck me, besides some of the other PC garbage in there, was the dynamic involving the father.

As many who frequent these parts know, the way that Hollywood treats fathers in movies is very predictable. If a movie contains a strong father, then one of three things usually is the case:

1) The father is either revealed as not as strong as he appears, or otherwise suffers from some significant defect

2) The mother is just as strong and kick-ass as the father, or even more so

3) The mother is dead or killed off early in the movie

The Taken series involves the first scenario. I recommend reading this post by seriouslypleasedropit for a good review of that particular series. But basically, the dad is divorced, due to various deficiencies on his part. This is necessary to balance out the fact that the dad in that film is very dominant and powerful.

The Incredibles is a movie which features the second scenario. The father is a superhero with super-strength, which naturally makes him dominant in a number of respects. Of course, that naturally has to be balanced out by various flaws on his part. The mother, meanwhile, is also a superhero, whose super-elasticity makes her quite powerful. She is also a very skilled pilot. I should note that The Incredibles is not a great example of scenario 2, but was the only one I could think of on the fly. The mom is a stay at home mom and in a deleted scene (for obvious reasons) defends being a homemaker against a professional woman type. So apparently it had to be trimmed to fit the narrative even more.

Scenario 3 has been discussed a number of times in the ‘sphere. The Widower is a trope among strong father types in Hollywood. Interstellar, Super 8 and the latest Transformers movie all feature strong fathers and dead mothers. I cannot remember any of the posts on the subject, but the general consensus (from what I recall) is that this trope exists because Hollywood is afraid of showing strong fathers. It can only be allowed when the mother isn’t around, in order to demonstrate the man in question is upping his game to compensate for the mother being dead. The idea being that if mom is still alive then a dominant father will overshadow her, pushing her into a submissive role (unless she fits Scenario 2).

I mentioned How to Train Your Dragon before because that provides a new twist on this particular practice. Again, spoiler alert. Seriously. Spoilers.  The first movie showcases a hero whose dad is the chief of a village, and his mom is, you guessed it, dead. Now, the father is shown as a strong figure, although lacking in wisdom to trust his son. But definitely strong and IN CHARGE. Well, in the second movie it turns out that the mom isn’t dead. Rather, she was just hiding for 20 years because she didn’t think her husband would trust or believe her about something important. Naturally, the father/husband forgives her and they are all a happy family for a very short while. Of course, this cannot last. Remember, the father is the chief. He is in charge. That means he would need to be giving orders to mom, and we simply cannot have that. Of course, mom is also strong and powerful in her right (so a bit of Scenario 2). But still, the dad is so dominant that she cannot possibly match him on that. So what is the solution? Kill off the dad. There, problem solved. I’ll admit, that surprised me. But it shouldn’t have. I should have realized that a strong father figure couldn’t be allowed to have a mother/wife around.

All of which makes me curious… is that movie unique? I invite my readers to submit other movies which have featured this particular dynamic- the strong father dying when the mother returns or is saved. Also, any thoughts about why Hollywood does this- whether they are different or merely better articulations of what I was going to say. The only thing that I would ask is that my readers put a spoiler tag at the front of their comment naming the movie(s) which they discuss.

In Search Of Something… But What?

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

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

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

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

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

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

and then there is this:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bringing Men Back to the Church

Reader mdavid alerted me to the following article concerning evangelization and men in the church: Bringing Men Back to the Church. The first sentence:

Here’s a simple formula, tried and true, for getting families into church: If the fathers come, the wives and children will come, too.

The article is short and worth a read in its entirety. Here are the stats which lie at the heart of its argument:

• If a child is the first in the family to become a Christian, there’s a 3.7 percent probability that the rest of the family will become Christians.
• If mom is the first in the family to become a Christian, there’s a 17 percent probability that the rest of the family will follow.
• If dad is the first in the family to become a Christian, there’s a 93 percent probability that everyone else in the family will follow his lead.

I can attest to personal anecdotes which firmly support this. A follow-up post will touch on that story more. The article itself is short on solutions, so I invite my readers to take this opportunity to offer their thoughts on how to address this problem.

In the meantime, here is another good blog post by Beefy Levinson which touches on why the priest shortage in the US is artificially created.

Cardinal Burke Is Getting There….

As many of you may have seen through links on other blogs, Cardinal Raymond Burke gave an interview recently in which he addressed the Church’s “Man Crisis.” You can find the full interview here. Reading the interview made me tentatively hopeful. There were definitely some good things said by the Cardinal, and a few that could seemingly be drawn from some Catholic “Red Pill” blogs around these parts. A few of his statements, however, showed that he still has some ways to go in understanding the present crisis. I cannot help but feel, however, that he is on the right track, and hopefully this is a harbinger of further understanding by him and the Magisterium in what is truly going on.

I’m going to use this post to very casually dissect his post, by highlighting what he gets right and where he could use further enlightening.

What Cardinal Burke got right:

• First, he understands that there is a serious problem right now with men in the Catholic church. A crisis even. Further, he doesn’t indicate a belief that the problem is temporary or in the process of being solved.
• He correctly identifies that radical feminism has caused a huge number of problems for men in the Church and throughout the general culture
• The Cardinal recognizes that the Church has been “feminized” in the last 50 years and this feminization of the Church has significantly impacted men in a negative way.
• He seems to recognize that Catholic men are not as “manly” as in the past, and that manliness is no longer taught or encouraged.
• The awful state of catechesis in the church is recognized and declared to be the severe problem that it is. I’ve seen first hand, and many of my commenters can attest to, the terrible teaching that many Catholics or Catholic converts receive.
• As part of the above, present Catholic teaching about marriage, outside Traditionalist circles, is terrible.
• He understands the essential and irreplaceable role of a father in the development of children.
• Cardinal Burke’s mention of how men in the 70’s were afraid of marrying the women around them was extremely potent.
• The home life for many Catholics now is lacking. He doesn’t say it directly, but I gather he recognizes that most Catholic parents don’t really ensure that children live their faith.
• His language concerning the Novus Ordo Mass makes me think that he recognizes that it is not very appealing to men. It can be satisfactory, as he notes, with good music and proper reverence. But this is often lacking.
• On the other hand, the Traditional Latin Mass is usually more appealing, as it lacks the bad music and is extremely orderly and reverential.
• He recognizes that there is a rampant denial of sin in the present environment.
• While he doesn’t go outright and say it, its clear that he views Vatican II as having caused some serious negative side-effects.
• His words about encouraging priests to be more manly were quite good.

Here is where I think improvement needs to be made:

• Cardinal Burke denounces radical feminism, but apparently fails to see that “soft” or “traditional” feminism can be just as damaging to men, and has been. Frankly, any “ism” can be dangerous, and the toleration of “good” feminism is ultimately more dangerous than radical feminism will ever be.
• He does not really talk about divorce and divorce laws and how they helped influence and set up the present “man crisis.” I suspect he does not fully understand the present divorce environment.
• Some of his language about men and service to the family is troubling. It very much seems to fit the “married man as a mule” approach that has been a core part of Churchianity for quite some time. In particular his mention of chivalry concerns me. I have every reason to believe that he doesn’t understand what it really is.
• Connected to the above, he doesn’t discuss or mention how fathers have lost authority and respect in the family- key incentives in encouraging this vocation among men.
• While he acknowledges how important fatherhood is, he doesn’t address how it is mothers who often sabotage it in the present environment.
• He talks about various things that push away men, yet commits one of them throughout the interview: he constantly reaffirms that he hasn’t forgotten women or their issues or their feelings. He even throws in some flowery compliments. This is something that almost never happens in the reverse, and is a powerful message to men that they don’t matter as much as women.
• When it comes to pornography the Cardinal gets is nearly all wrong. Yes, its a sin and a major problem. But pornography is a symptom of a greater problem, and reflects the distorted view of sexuality in the present environment; it doesn’t create it.
• One of the most important things that he doesn’t touch on, which is essential to understanding the state of men in the Church, is the role of women in shaping them. Men and women shape each other all the time. You cannot understand the “man crisis”, or fix it, without understanding the role women play in influencing men.

While I know I didn’t touch on everything, the above two lists are, I believe, fairly comprehensive. I invite my readers to offer their own thoughts on Cardinal Burke’s interview. Did I miss something in my post? Did I get something wrong? Have a different take? Feel free to voice your thoughts. As always, I ask folks to be respectful and civil to other commenters.

As an addendum, here is an additional article that is old and probably familiar to most of my readers, but worth re-reading- Young men giving up on marriage. It sort of ties in to the OP, and I may explain why in the comments later if time permits. Hat tip Mrs. ktc.

The Gift Of Advice

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

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

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

As Don explained it to me:

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

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

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

Analyzing Attraction- Part 3

This is Part 3 of an ongoing series concerning sexual attraction. Part 1 can be found here, and part 2 here.

Subjective Considerations

In the last post on this subject, Elspeth sought clarification about the objectivity of attraction factors versus their subjectivity. I’ve attempted to cover such subjects before, but not to great success. So here is an attempt to try again.

My original argument was that the LAMPS factors are objective factors, in that each women’s evaluation of a man’s sexual attractiveness is controlled by them. However, a better way of describing them is that they are universal. They apply to all women, regardless of individual characteristics. In that sense it is objective. However, past that point there is a lot of subjectivity involved.

As a general rule, the PSALM model is the arrangement from the most to the least important attributes: Power, Status, Athleticism, Looks and Money. However, even there you will find some variation. Some women are much more focused on a man’s appearance, while others don’t really care much at all. So while generalizations are possible, they are not perfect. Subjectivity matters here.

Furthermore, inside the individual factors subjectivity can play a significant role. Looks and Athleticism are the most subjective of the 5 sets of attributes. Some women prefer men with dark hair, some with light hair. Eye color preferences vary. As do other features. However, there are still certain general masculine features in the Looks category which are almost universally preferred. This is especially the case with facial features. Height is an interesting twist to this. The general preference is for a taller man, however the exact height preferred can differ between women. The ideal range, from what I can tell, seems to be around 6’0 to 6’4. Athleticism also has some variation- some women prefer a man with a swimmer build, others prefer the lean look of a runner, while yet others prefer the bulk of a weight lifter. Yet even in this the overall preference is still towards the ideal of each particular build.

Status and Money are the most objective of the LAMPS factors. Here it is pretty safe to say that the more, the merrier. More money and a greater status are always more attractive. Status might leave more room for subjectivity, in that some positions might be seen as higher status than others for some women. But overall there tends to be a lot of conformity here.

Power is hard to analyze here. There are a lot of subjective factors when personality is concerned, yet certain things (confidence, assurance, dominance) seem to be universally attractive. I’d be curious of folks’ thoughts on this.

Our Ideals Are Not Necessarily Ideal

The Daily Mail, not normally a news source of mine, had an interesting article recently. Essentially, a survey was conducted which asked questions related to sex and attraction. An interesting result of this was that when women were asked to name the ideal female “beauty”, they gave Cameron Diaz (presumably when she was younger). Men, on the other hand, listed Kate Upton. When men were asked to give the ideal male physique, they gave Hugh Jackman, while women listed Ryan Gosling.

What I found interesting about the choice of Diaz was the mention in the article of her “slim, boyish shape.” I’ve heard a few women I know, and attractive women at that, mention that they wish they were possessed of a thinner and taller profile or body shape. I am kind of curious why women would prefer this. While I have a few ideas of my own, I would like to hear what my readers think.

As for the men, I think I understand why men picked Hugh Jackman over Ryan Gosling. Since men are primarily driven by physical appearance, they selected a high-status man who seemed to best fit the peak masculine physical look. However, as the PSALM model points out, both Power and Status are of greater significance to a man’s sexual attractiveness than his Athleticism or Looks. Which makes me wonder if Gosling is considered higher Status right now. Or perhaps, if not necessarily purely higher status, if he is considerable more desirable by women right now. Which ties into my next point.

A Short-Cut To Status

Pre-selection is a feature of female behavior wherein women find men more attractive in relation to how many other women find that man attractive. The greater the number of women who seem to be attracted to a man, the more attractive he will tend to be in female eyes. This behavior is tied to Status  and is a “short-cut”, women use it to quickly and easily gauge a man’s position in the overall market.

It is a behavior that gets quite a lot of play in Game circles, as it can be truly potent in driving attraction. While I’m not really interested in their particular “trade”, the behavior has an impact in the Marriage Marketplace just as it does in the Sexual Marketplace. As more than a few Christians have attested to before in this particular section of the internet, if a man in church manages to “invoke” this female behavior it can almost completely shut out other men.

In his latest post Rollo quotes from an earlier piece by Heartiste explaining an “experiment” which relied on this phenomenon:

Basically, the guy had a few friends follow him around the mall, one guy filming him and the other two guys (I can’t tell if any of his hired guns were women) acting as his “groupies” or entourage. He goes around identifying himself as “Thomas Elliot” when people, mostly women, ask him his name. Eventually, he begins to pile up admiring and gawking female attention, which only snowballs into more female attention. Apparently, not one of these starstruck chicks thought to question if Thomas Elliot was a real celebrity. That’s the power of preselection and fame; so powerful, it can disengage a woman’s neural logic circuitry.

[For those who want the link to the original post, go to Rollo’s post- as a general rule I don’t linke to Heartiste.]

Rollo then comments on how pre-selection plays the dominant role in the insanity which we know as “teen idols”:

Preselection is a very powerful motivator of women’s hypergamous decision making process. Even the perception of fame (or even the potential for it) is a prime motivator and incentive to lock down a man who presents the hypergamous optimal ideal – a guy who satisfies the sexiness her Alpha F—s hypergamous needs require and the long term security of provisioning potential from status-confirmed Beta Bucks.

Whether this “famous” guy actually embodies this ideal is irrelevant to a woman’s Id-centric psyche. When women are younger, tweens and teens, this self-convincing is much easier since girls lack any real world experience to reference with respect to what the guy really represents. A capacity for abstract thinking is something that develops as we mature, but the desire to optimize hypergamy is a limbic, instinctual drive for girls and no amount of reasoning can compete with the fantasy of a pre-fabricated idealized Hypergamy.

They want to believe it.

[DG: I wonder if this might be the female counter-part to men pedestalizing women. Thoughts?]

Thus we have hordes of girls and young women willing to go to behavioral lengths they would never consider with the mundane men they’re familiar with in order to just brush with the possibility of  that hypergamous ideal. They will literally climb over one another to realize this.

The thing is, many older women can experience this behavior as well. They tend not to be as extreme about it, but I’ve seen it expressed before. SO it definitely seems to be an innate female behavior. Perhaps experience tempers it, as Rollo implies. Or maybe a woman’s drop in SMV, and her knowledge of his, makes her realize that she doesn’t have a real chance of pulling off this kind of “coup.”

Naturally, many Game practitioners and PUAs try to find ways to capitalize on pre-selection. I’ve heard of some hiring escorts to provide the appearance of female attention. Others will use female family members or co-workers for this purpose. It can be a huge card to play, and frankly any man looking to attract women should keep it in mind. If not for his own use, but to be wary of other men using it.

What I am curious about is how, or if, this could be ethically used by Christians within the confines of a church. Assuming that you cannot, or should not use it, what steps might be taken to counter-act its effects? Or is that even really possible? From what I’ve seen, the only thing that can surmount a man with pre-selection is another man with an even greater perception of pre-selection. I invite my readers to chime in with their thoughts on this subject, and all the others broached in this post.

 

Analyzing Attraction- Part 2

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

Why Are We Talking About This?

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

Isn’t this supposed to be a Christian blog?

Which is invariably followed by:

If so, why are you talking about sexual attraction?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Analyzing Attraction- Part 1

This is the first in a series of new posts on the subject of attraction. My life is quite busy at the moment, and I’m deliberately restricting the time I spend online right now as a result. So most of the posts in this series will be shorter rather than longer. Today’s post is mostly review.

I. Back to Basics

Attraction was a principal focus of this blog in the beginning, with a special focus on male attractiveness. Even before this blog was created I wrote a guest post for Sunshine Mary wherein I set out what I perceived to be the different categories that women evaluated men for in terms of their attractiveness. And by attractiveness, I mean sexual attractiveness. More about this clarification later. This was my original LAMPS formula:

• Looks
• Athleticism
• Money
• Power
• Status

As I noted in that original post, not all categories (which I called vectors then) are equal. Some were valued more highly than others by most women, and individual women could vary in their preferences as well. In terms of overall importance, they are (in descending order of importance) Power, Status, Athleticism, Looks and Money. This is sometimes referenced as PSALM. I often refer to them together as LAMPS/PSALM. A man with a high LAMPS/PSALM score is attractive to most women, and a man

I later clarified this theory bit by discussing the overall categories that women look at: Appearance, Personality and Externalities (also known as APE). The LAMPS factors all fold into that system, which is even simpler and pretty much catches everything there is to catch.

One of the major components of my LAMPS/PSALM theory and model was that it focused purely on sexual attraction. I deliberately excluded any “comfort” traits from it, because those ultimately have no bearing on female sexual attractiveness for all or nearly all women (possible exceptions to be discussed in a later post). I sometimes reference their effect on women as “creating Desire.” Desirable traits or “Retention” traits influence women in so far as elevating some attractive men over others. But unless a man meets a woman’s high threshold for sexual attractiveness (thank you Hypergamy), they don’t help a man.

Or do they?

II. Attraction v. Arousal

Rollo Tomassi has written plenty about his own views on attraction. So far as I can tell he hasn’t formulated a system or model as specific as mine. What he has done is use different terminology and approach attraction from a different light. Rollo uses the terms arousal and attraction to describe what I call attraction and comfort/security. Here is a sample of his use of those those terms from his post Alpha Tells:

In a social environment where men are conditioned to believe that women are as equal, rational agents as men, the belief men put their faith into is that women will appreciate their intrinsic qualities and base their sexual selectivity upon a man’s virtue, bearing, intelligence, humor, and any number of attractive intrinsic qualities. However, the truth of what women base their sexual selectivity upon (arousal) is far more evident in their instinctual, unconditioned behavior when around Alpha men – as well as men’s instinctual sensitivity to that behavior.

While Rollo uses the term arousal, and I use attraction, I believe that they both get to the heart of the same thing: female sexual affinity for a man. Essentially, a primal urge to want him sexually and to mate with him. Where Rollo and I perhaps differ is Rollo’s use of attractive to describe what I call desirable traits. Rollo gives them far more credit than I do in terms of generating female attention. As I understand his thinking, women are affected by two forms of attraction: sexual (what he calls arousal) and comfort/security (what he refers to when he mentions attraction). What happens is that women start out mostly driven by sexual attraction/arousal. As they get older, comfort/security attraction start to take precedence. This switch roughly coincides with a woman’s Epiphany phase- the point when her SMV starts to drop enough that both she and the men around her notice it, and react accordingly.

What Rollo has argued, and what is different from my original take on comfort/security/desirable traits, is that women are actively attracted to these traits. Women notice them and will seek men out based on them. And they will do so even if a man is not sexually attractive.

My own take on desirable traits was that they didn’t grab attention from women. Women aren’t drawn to them and they were only considered after a woman found a man to be sufficiently sexually attractive.

Having seen Rollo further develop his Epiphany line of thought through his Preventative Medicine series, I am now inclined to agree with his view on comfort/security traits. Women can and do appreciate them irrespective of a man’s sexual attractiveness. However, whether a woman does such a thing is heavily influenced by where she is on her “life script.”

Rollo’s female SMV timeline

Unfortunately, women being attracted to these traits doesn’t really help marriage-minded men much at all. This is because most of the women who are focused more on attraction rather than arousal are looking to settle. They are older and are desperate to cash in what remains of their SMV. This might make them appealing to PUAs and others of their ilk who can use this desperation for their own sexual gratification, but not to men looking to marry. Such women are not apt to make good wives. They are more likely than not to be or to become frigid during marriage. Also, they have lost much of their fertility already. Finally, it should be noted that their looks will have started to deteriorate, else they would still be in their Party Years phase.

So where am I going with all of this? That is for the next post to explain.

Random Musings and Links- #6

It is another one of those posts filled with links and random (and not-so-random) thoughts on my part. Given time restraints, I won’t be able to respond much to comments for the next day or so, but feel free to chime in despite that. I will try and keep things orderly at least.

I’m going to begin by address something that Deti said in my post Meager Options:

In the past, around 60 or so years ago, [what earlier comments said0 describes how it went down. Typically it was the man requesting (P in V) sex after a few months of dating or courtship, and the woman saying “Ok, but marriage first.” And typically he was giving up more and more resources (time, money, etc.) in exchange for more and more “sex” (kissing, making out, petting, oral, but reserving P in V for marriage). (Let’s not kid ourselves – lots of women were doing “everything but” P in V before marriage, for men they were “seriously dating”.)

What Deti is describing is an attitude held by most everyone in the MMP (yes, that’s right, the Marriage Market Place), including most “Christians.” That attitude is one of bending the rules as much as possible to favor one’s interests. The rules are simple: a woman exchanges lifetime sexual access and exclusivity with a man who in turn gives her resources, protection and status (which we might call “commitment”) for life. And the exchange is supposed to be at the same time. But neither men nor women really want that. Men want sexual access (and even better, exclusivity) without having to provide commitment, while women want to receive commitment without having to provide sexual access or in some instance, sexual exclusivity.

This ties in the whole concept of boyfriend/girlfriend. As Dalrock has explained, the terms were invented in order facilitate this bending of the rules. The whole notion of the celibate boyfriend is a means for Christian women who don’t want to provide sexual access to receives the commitment they want from Christian men. Likewise, many Christian men will use their status as boyfriend as a means for sexual gain for themselves. All of which goes to show why devout Christians should reject those ideas and the mindset behind them.

For those of you who haven’t been paying attention, Deep Strength and Ballista have been involved in a spirited debate about headship and authority in marriage. It starts with this post by Ballista and was followed by this post, which Deep Strength responds to here. I don’t exactly agree with either, but I think many of my readers will find them interesting. Here are both sets of posts:

Ballista- Anarchy in the Marriage; Negating Authority in Marriage; Headship in Marriage Implies Authority; Confusing Status with Action- Creating Supplicating Betas

Deep Strength- Headship is not authority in marriage; Headship is not authority in marriage Part 2; Headship is not authority in marriage Part 3

Dalrock explains why women are compelled to take over the Gaming world.

NSR brings the humor. And the beat.

Rollo explains how Yes Means Fear.

As always, Maeve has your baking needs covered. This time, Blueberry Muffins.

Chad discusses Falling on Your Sword.

Dropit delves into the nature of Ambiguity.

Free Northerner hosts a guest post about how men can avoid sex starvation in marriage. He also exposes some of the hypocrisy and ignorance of those decrying the “campus rape epidemic.”

Martel, who is busy writing his book, asks for some help increasing his knowledge of children’s literature and other media directed at them by the popular culture.

Allamagoosa looks at The Time and Place for Hierarchy.

I also want to address this comment left at her blog by someone named Ashley:

I’m in this situation with my significant other. Both of us are in professional school and in our twenties and the way our lives are scheduled, we couldn’t even get married until one of us graduates or after one of us takes our board exams for medical/dental school. But that’s like another 2-8 yrs and we would both be ~30 yrs old. And I want to have children so we’d have very limited time to enjoy each other sexually as a married couple. What is our solution? We don’t really have one. Either we push to get married early on or “foreplay” to relieve sexually tension. I know we aren’t suppose to “foreplay” but its very very unlikely going to lead to sex because besides the whole Christian ideal, an unwanted pregnancy is 100X feared with our schooling.

 First off, “foreplay” is probably not acceptable Christian behavior based on what she is hinting at. The way I look at it, if you aren’t comfortable explaining in graphic detail everything involved to all your friends and family… God probably doesn’t approve (at least, until marriage). This approach is a surefire way to come to sin, and in fact the mindset hints at a sinful attitude already (finding ways to “cheat the system”).

Second, delaying children is not a wise plan. It really isn’t. Mrs. ktc explains why you should Have Children.

Also, she has responded to my post Proposing A Question with her own post, Proposals. This brings me to the topic of marriage proposals on bended knee. I have yet to hear a good reason why men should do them. Mere expectations or custom at this point are not enough. This alone is reason enough for a man not to do it. But even more than that, bending the knee is a sign of supplication and (as those familiar with Game of Thrones will recognize) surrender. For all the talk about how essential it is for a man to start off strong by proposing to a woman, this runs entirely counter to that. Who the woman in question is doesn’t matter- as a custom it just has no merit. I invite my readers who disagree to explain otherwise, of course. But at this point proposing on bent knee is not something I’m ever going to do. And I will tell any woman I court as much. If she cannot accept that, then in my view it demonstrates she wasn’t a good candidate to begin with.

Be Feminine Not Feminist tells women: Don’t rob your children of their Daddy.

At Peaceful Single Girl this post demonstrates the damage caused to children by divorce.

Apparently Sigyn is having some real trouble with depression and could use your prayers.

Stingray explains yet another reason to homeschool.

At the same time, homeschooling isn’t easy, as Elspeth will tell you. Much of the problem is that we aren’t aligned as a community towards supporting homsechooling and mothers who stay at the household. The old support networks are gone, and were an essential part of the process.

Elspeth also discusses the difference between being unmarried and being single. I describe myself as unmarried, not single, and my reasons match up with those expressed at her blog.

Eviscerating the faith through decrying “Paulinity.” I’ve seen some of that applied here in the ‘sphere before. Mostly by men who want to engage in fornication. But I’ve seen a few women argue it as well, often to escape any requirements or duties placed upon them (especially in marriage).

I’ve argued before about the risk associated with women with tattoos, and here is yet more support for my concern.

Update: Red Pill Set Me Free talks about how a woman, any woman, however high-value, can become Ruined.