Ashamed Of The Faith

Escoffier, who sometimes posts at Veritas Lounge, left a superb comment recently over at Dalrock’s blog, in the post Worse than fear. Worse than malice. His comment can be found here. The comment, like the original post,  addressed why so many Christians, especially Christian men, are willing and eager to set aside scripture when it comes to matters such as marriage. I am going to repeat his whole comment as a block, both because it is that good, and for ease of reading; my comments will come afterwards:

I want to add a supplementary / alternative reason to explain this embarrassment over the text of the Bible. It’s been touched on but not really fleshed out.

That is, that these nominal Christians under discussion are all moderns first and Christians second (if second). Worse, they don’t even know they are moderns, or what it means to be a modern, or what modernity is.

Modernity, to say the least, conflicts with the Bible. It was designed to, on purpose. Yet it has been so successful in taking over nearly all conscious and sub-conscious thought that hardly anyone any more recognizes it for what it is. That includes most contemporary Christians, to whom “modernity” is simply synonymous with “reality” or even “morality.”

There’s a particular strand of modernity that’s particularly relevant here, namely historicism, and specifically rational historicism (as opposed to radical or irrational historicism). This is the idea of “progress.” “Progress” is cooked into the original conception of modernity, but it came to take on a different meaning much later. Originally, it more or less just meant “We can improve the material condition of man on earth; human beings have a lot more power than either the Bible or classical philosophy will admit.”

Rational historicism takes this idea much further and posits a unidirectional progress, which is worked out through impersonal forces (the so-called historical dialectic) over which man may be an unwitting instrument, but which he didn’t design, doesn’t direct, and can’t control. “History” is nonetheless rational, moving “forward” (with occasional, necessary steps back) to ever-“better” states and eventually to an end state in which all dialectical conflicts are resolved, all moral and political problems solved, and final wisdom achieved (if not necessarily accessible to all). In pop-culture terms, the Star Trek universe is basically the cartoon version of this end state.

Nearly everyone today believes in this “arc” at least in a simplified way. The present is believed to be inherently more enlightened that the past. We Don’t Do That Anymore Because We Know Better. And the future will be inevitably more enlightened than the present.

The source of this impression is ultimately perverted or corrupted or mistaken philosophy, but one does not need to have studied philosophy at all to have been affected, even “convinced.” The astounding success of modern natural science and its offspring, technology, serves to “prove” to such people that “progress” is real and that the present is superior to the past. Technological progress is assumed to be coeval with moral and political progress.

But it is never explained why this should be so. Actually, certain modern philosophers did try to make such a case, but they hardly proved it and their case is open to serious theoretical difficulties which have been pointed out by other philosophers. However, that whole dialogue may as well never have happened as far as the average modern person is concerned. He is simply unaware of it and takes on faith that the present is morally superior to the past.

This, then, is a significant source of the embarrassment. The modern Christian (modern first, Christian second) is embarrassed by the evident conflicts between his nominal faith and his actual, if unconscious, modernity. Modernity trumps. So the offending Scriptures have to be dealt with one way or another. There are many possible ways: insist that it doesn’t say what it seems to say, come up with Rube Goldberg interpretations to square it with modernity, call it “metaphoric,” say that it was right for that time but not our time, and so on. The latter is a kind of “Living Constitution” framework for the Bible. It assumes that God has left to us the task of “updating” Scripture as the “times change.” The changing of the times is held to be the true constant, and really the true God, but only implicitly.

To begin with, Escoffier’s use of the word “moderns” can probably be translated quite accurately into “liberals”, in the sense of the word as I used it in my post The Sound of Inevitability. As for which word is better or more precise/accurate (they aren’t the same thing), I think that is a matter of semantics. Both can work, although for the remainder of this post I will use moderns and modernity instead [the same applies to liberalism and modernism as describing the same over-arching philosophy].

Escoffier is also on the mark when he states that most people “don’t even know they are moderns, or what it means to be a modern, or what modernity is.” Most people adhere to all sorts of philosophical beliefs without realizing it; they lack both the knowledge to categorize their beliefs as well as the introspection to observer them. This double barrier makes it especially difficult to explain to people their own beliefs, as even if you correct their ignorance they might still not get it. All of which means that for most people understanding what they actually believe is probably not feasible.

Escoffier is also correct that most people in the West are moderns first, and Christians second (assuming that they are Christians). There are a number of reasons for this:

• Training (or indoctrinating) of someone to be a modern begins at a very young age, often before matters of faith
• Everyone is immersed all the times in modern thinking and modes of thought, whereas overtly Christian approaches are much more rare
• Modern thinking has already infiltrated a significant amount of Christianity, and corrupted a number of critical fields of doctrine
• Modernist thinking is baked into everyday assumptions of “how things work”, as well as our understanding of history and our present place in it

And the list goes on. Now, I’m not sure if modernity was in fact explicitly designed to subvert Christianity. Escoffier might be on the right track here, but whether he is or not determining whether this is the case would take up a post by itself. So I will leave it be for now.

“Historicism” is an interesting strain of thought. From my experience most people are just like Escoffier describes: subscribers without realizing what they are subscribing to or even that they are subscribing to something at all. It is the dominant paradigm of the present age, and as Escoffier notes, pretty much everyone buys into it. I think these two sentences are a perfect summation of what most people believe:

The present is believed to be inherently more enlightened that the past. We Don’t Do That Anymore Because We Know Better.

Most people really do buy into the idea that we know better now, and it shapes their thoughts and beliefs when it comes to anything historical. And yes, that includes Scripture. And nowhere does this manifest more than when Scripture concerns women in some way:

• Wives required to submit to their husbands? Barbaric.
• Women not allowed to teach or hold authority over men? Outdated.
• Women required to cover their head while praying? Oppressive.
• Women advised to maintain a quiet, gentle spirit? Misogynistic.

As far as I can tell, pretty much every part of Scripture (or Tradition) that addresses women in some way is now interpreted through the modernist filter. And that means if it doesn’t agree with modern thinking and beliefs about women, it must be discarded.

This brings us to the final paragraph of Escoffier’s comment, which I will repeat again for ease of reading:

This, then, is a significant source of the embarrassment. The modern Christian (modern first, Christian second) is embarrassed by the evident conflicts between his nominal faith and his actual, if unconscious, modernity. Modernity trumps. So the offending Scriptures have to be dealt with one way or another. There are many possible ways: insist that it doesn’t say what it seems to say, come up with Rube Goldberg interpretations to square it with modernity, call it “metaphoric,” say that it was right for that time but not our time, and so on. The latter is a kind of “Living Constitution” framework for the Bible. It assumes that God has left to us the task of “updating” Scripture as the “times change.” The changing of the times is held to be the true constant, and really the true God, but only implicitly.

There are a couple of key points here. The first is that people are embarrassed by what Scripture says. And by people, I mean “Christians.” They really are ashamed of what the Bible has to say about things like marriage, divorce and “the role of women.” Those teachings are incompatible with modernist thought, and in fact scandalous nowadays. To be associated with them is to be a social pariah. As Escoffier points out, modernity trumps Christianity in terms of their values hierarchy. They have either forgotten, ignored or never learned the admonition of Saint Paul: “Do not be conformed to this world.^“ No, they have conformed, and in many cases do so with gusto.

Yet, for reasons which only they know, they don’t want to give up all of Christianity. They still want to keep some of it- usually the happy, nice, fun parts like the resurrection and grace and forgiveness. But the hard parts, and the parts that conflict with modernity? Those must be “dealt with.”

Ultimately, I think Escoffier is correct when he says that “the changing of the times,” that is, the belief in “Progress”, is the real God of most “Christians”, not the God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob. They do not keep the Great Commandment and “love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.” (Deut 6:4-5). It is the world, and its empty philosophy, that they truly love.

Update: Novaseeker has created a post highlighting Escoffier’s comment, and Dalrock has created his own post as well.

I Feel Like I Forgot Something

[Slight change of plans. The post I alluded to on Sunday is being pushed back, to accommodate this shorter post and a future one on Game. Not sure when I will finish it.]

One of the various proverbs that sometimes appears around the Manosphere is that “Women are True to Themselves.” I prefer a slightly different take:

Women are True to their Feelings

Given what is known about female nature, I think this more accurately conveys the scope of the female psyche. Women are guided by, and defined by, their feelings. This extends to every aspect of their lives. Including their memories.

In his latest post, Ace over at 80 Proof Oinomancy talks about how social media sites like Facebook help women develop a special type of amnesia:

An electronic Lethe, in which the constant immersion imparts forgetfulness that there are many more reading their confessions, rages, demands, diatribes, attacks and cuts than they believe.

I think that this phenomenon goes further than just social media though. Or that men might be watching.  It is my belief that the centrality of feelings to the female mind lets them forget nearly anything.

What do I mean by this?

Simple: A woman’s memory is largely tied to her feelings at the time of that memory. A woman will actively remember something if she feels an emotional connection or stimulation similar to what she experienced when the previous event took place. Furthermore, it is the emotions connected to the event that resonate the most with her, and the two are inextricably linked in a woman’s mind. If a memory is forced to her mind, but her present emotional state differs greatly from that in the memory, then something special happens. The woman develops a unique form of amnesia that conveniently allows her to “forget” that memory, or at least, the important parts of it.

This explains why women are true to their feelings, and not their word. Especially in the context of a promise. Or a vow.

A married woman who decides to blow up her marriage because she is unhaaaaaaapy doesn’t really remember her vows, at least, not in the sense that a man would. This is because her present feelings (unhappiness, discontent, unease) do not match the emotions that were associated with her wedding (happiness, joy, excitement, contentment) when she gave those vows. So when someone reminds her of her vows, the disparity in feelings between now and then are such that she forms a mental barrier to that past memory. Amnesia clouds her mind, and those sacred vows just fade away into the mist of forgetfulness.

Thankfully I have not seen that particular example myself. But I have seen others.

I have had women make promises to me, promises born of feelings. And then, when those feelings were long gone, the promises were too. They disappeared into the rabbit hole of their minds. Of course, I can remind women of these promises. Sometimes I do. But they only remember the words they said, not the intent behind it, because that is wrapped up in a feeling long gone. Unless I keep harping on them, they will continue to forget. No matter how “important” those promises were at the time.

Because it was never the promise that was important. It was the feeling the promise imparted in them.

[This seems especially common when the promise was made when the woman wanted to feel good about my feeling bad. Or to be more accurate, when she felt bad about my feeling bad. ]

Truth is, if you want a woman to actually remember something, to really remember it…. Fully…. Clearly…. Then you must not only remind her of what was said or done, but how she felt.

She is a creature of feelings.

Recreate the feeling… and you recreate the memory.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMAe31FFHbo

Update: Elspeth has an post that touches on managing emotions in marriage which is relevant: Managing our Emotional “Needs”. Another post can be found here.

Ace also touched on something similar in a different post as well.

Thoughts on Marriage and Game

I. Introduction

I don’t talk about Game much on this blog, as I consider this to be more of a “Red Pill” Christian blog. Game, in all of its various forms, tends to be centered on specific behaviors and actions; whereas I tend to focus on the bigger picture, primarily the general nature of men and women. In a way my blog is more “Macro” whereas Game blogs tend to be more “Micro”. I bring this up to provide some measure of understanding, because I will be talking about Game in this post, although from that “Macro” perspective that is my usual style. In particular, I will be talking about Game and how it relates to Christian marriage. Also, I will spend some time talking about how Christian marriage and the legal system interact.

[Note: Game is a multi-faceted subject. When I talk about it, I am being inclusive, ie., I mean the overall field. Some types of Game are necessarily not going to be included here. ]

II. Game

While I have been meaning to write a post like this for a while, I was spurred to do so by a recent post by Great Books For Men, True Christian Women Do Not Need To Be Gamed By Men (Warning: link is NSFW, profanity and obscenity abound). GBFM takes the position that Vox Day and Dalrock are preaching falsehoods when they expound the value of Game in Christian marriages. In GBFM’s view:

A true Christian woman does not need to be gamed.  A true Christian woman follows the Law of Moses which Jesus came not to abolish but to fulfill…

There is more, of course, but rather than simply quote the profane and often all but unreadable language of GBFM, I will translate some of his major arguments. They include:

-1) Women no longer follow God but rather their primal instincts.

2) Instead of trying to “resurrect the Christian Soul in the churches, schools, universities, and family court system and reform women”, men like Dalrock and Vox instead advocate that men Game women.

3) Game necessarily involves men becoming slaves to the primal instincts of women.

4) Serving the primal instincts of women above the laws of God is the heart and soul of Game.

I agree with GBFM that #1 is the case with most women these days. When it comes to #2, I’m not sure that is the position that Dalrock and Vox take, but I will let them account for themselves on that. As for #3 and #4, I disagree strongly with GBFM. I think that he misunderstands Game, and much more besides.

The first error that GBFM makes is failing to understand the true nature of women. To begin with, his argument that “A true Christian woman does not need to be gamed” gives every appearance of being a variant of the “No True Scotsman Fallacy”. He is trying to create a distinction where none exists. What GBFM does not appear to acknowledge or understand is that Christian women, “True” or not, are still women. And no amount of proper parenting, instruction or wishing really hard will ever change that. There is a certain base set of behaviors and instincts that all women possess. A woman embracing the message of Jesus who becomes a Christian will still have those base set of behaviors and instincts. The only difference between her and a secular woman is that the Christian woman is instructed to restrain those primal behaviors, and has an incentive to do so. Those instincts and behaviors do not disappear after she becomes a Christian. For as Jesus explained:

Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.

This weakness in women is a weakness of the flesh. Though a woman might be a “True Christian”, she is still a flesh and blood woman, and thus prone to weakness. When you consider all of the negatives influences which are pressing upon Christian women these days, it becomes very easy for them to give in to temptation. Of course, Christian women should avoid these influences, but often don’t because they fail to realize them for what they are.

GBFM’s second error lies in declaring that Game is all about men becoming slaves to the primal instincts of women. The foundation of this argument seems to be that when a man Games a woman he is in fact catering to her selfish wants and is effectively making himself subservient to the woman. The thing to understand here is that Game is all about manipulating women (through controlling their attraction to a man). While doing so involves giving women attention, which is something that they do want (and often selfishly so), it is only a byproduct of the manipulation process. And manipulation, as any Red Pill aware man should know, is merely one form of exercising control. Here the control is over the woman’s perception of the man: Game makes him more attractive in her eyes, which gives him greater power over her, and thus more control over her. Knowing this, we can see how Game is not about serving women per se, but about controlling them.

What seems to confuse a lot of people (GBFM apparently being one of them) is that controlling a woman also involves serving her. This is because women need and want to be controlled. Now, this probably seems counter-intuitive to most folks who haven’t really delved into the quixotic nature of the female mind, so bear with me for a bit.

A key thing to understand about women is that what they want and what they think they want can be, and often are, two very different things. Such is the case for women and control. Perhaps the easiest way to understand this is to separate female wants into conscious wants and unconscious/subconscious wants. Consciously a woman might want to be “strong, proud and independent.” She might think that she wants to dominate a man, and buck any form of control of her actions. But her subconscious has another idea: it wants her to be submissive to a man and for her behavior to be fiercely controlled. This split between the conscious and unconscious of a woman’s brain is why it is so essential to watch what a woman does, and not listen to what she says. It also explains the War Bride phenomenon.

To summarize, Game is a form of manipulation. Manipulation is a form of control. Women want to be controlled, although they do not consciously recognize this and may consciously reject it. So when you Game a woman, you manipulate her, and when you manipulate her, you control her, and when you control her, you give her want she wants. From just this perspective, GBFM’s argument that when you control a woman you become a slave to her primal instincts seems rather silly. After all, it amounts to an assertion that when you control a woman you become her slave. But there is more.

GBFM’s central argument is, after all, that “True Christian Women” don’t need to be Gamed. This assessment is based in large part on an implied assumption that Game is a recent invention (it isn’t) and that it wasn’t necessary to Game Christian women in the past to get them to honor their marriage vows. While his initial assumption is incorrect, GBFM is correct that Christian wives didn’t need to be Gamed in the past in order for (most of them) to honor their vows. Of course, that is not because women (Christian or otherwise) were any different back then (they weren’t), but because the environment they lived in was very, very different.

Since GBFM loves to talk about the law of Moses, lets discuss it briefly. The law of Moses set up an impressive amount of social and legal controls over women. Women were in most cases under the authority of their father or husband, they had limited legal standing outside of the men in their family. A woman who committed adultery was stoned to death, and a woman who fornicated but pretended to be a virgin, likewise. In short, women were soundly controlled by general society, and prevented from acting up their primal instincts.

Those laws were not unique. In most civilizations women faced significant legal and social restraints that controlled their behavior. As for those civilizations which failed to establish that kind of order and structure for women, they usually didn’t last very long. Or never became civilizations in the first place. America was no exception to this. For a good part of our early history women were subject to an array of controls, some social, some legal. Divorce was especially difficult to go through. The doctrine of standing consent meant that a husband couldn’t rape his wife; furthermore a wife denying a husband sex was actually one of few things which permitted divorce. Women got little to nothing out of divorce unless the husband was grievously at fault, and they still faced huge socials costs. Because the consequences to women of misbehavior were so drastic, they were compelled in most instances to behave. As such, men could live a married life without having to Game their wives into staying married.

This is all gone now. The social and legal restraints that used to exist, the various controls in place that kept women in check, have been removed. A man who is married can no longer rely upon the mechanisms of the past to protect his marriage, he must do so himself. In fact, the situation is even worse that that. You see, the social and legal climate is such that it encourages women to act destructively in marriage, a complete reversal of how things used to be. The State, which used to have a man’s back, now has the woman’s back. And she, by her very nature, is inclined to use that authority when convenient.

In case that wasn’t clear enough: True Christian Women didn’t need to be Gamed in the past and followed the Law of Moses because we actually had laws that matched up with the Law of Moses. The Law of Moses was obeyed because it was the Law of Moses. It was designed to keep women in line, and largely succeeded at that task. Remove those kinds of laws, and women will revert to their feral selves. If a wife has no checks at all on her behavior, if there are no controls in place on her, then the odds are good that she will blow things up; that is simply her nature as a woman. Women need to be controlled. Few, if any, can do this themselves. They need social, religious and legal restraints on their behavior if they are to behave.

Hence the need for Game. Game is perhaps the only method available to most married men to bring some measure of control to their marriage. The State no longer provides that control. The general culture no longer provides that control. And increasingly religion, Christianity itself, no longer provides that control. Married men (most of them anyways) need Game in order to combat an environment that encourages self-destructive behavior in women. Should they need it? No, of course not. If our civilization was sane Game wouldn’t be necessary. But it isn’t sane, and men need every tool at their disposal to make marriage work. This includes Game.

Not everything that is included under the umbrella of Game is necessarily proper in marriage, mind you. “Negs” are an example of something that might run afoul of several commands in scripture. But other ideas, like “Agree and Amplify”, would be fine.

The reason why the early Fathers of the Church never talked about this is because they lived in a culture where the notion of giving women the kind of power they enjoy now would have been considered madness. In the Roman Empire women could divorce men (hence Mark 10:12), but the encouragement of divorce we see now is unprecedented. We tread new ground now, and must find our own path now.

I should also point out at this point that Game, as we understand it, is merely a modern version of what we could call “masculine wiles.” The art of seduction and manipulating women is an old one, probably as old as humanity itself. In the past it largely wasn’t necessary to ensure that a marriage stayed together. Indeed, when it came to marriage early Game was probably mostly employed by men to get married in the first place. However, Game was still valuable because it helped make marriage more tolerable for men, even enjoyable.

III. Marriage

I also wanted to briefly talk about Christian marriage and how it relates to legal marriage. Many folks around the sphere use the term Marriage 1.0 to describe traditional marriage, before the changes in divorce law, and Marriage 2.0 to describe what marriage is like today. I happen to like these terms, as I think they help differentiate the legal development of marriage in the West. Something I have noticed, though, is that some bloggers and commenters confuse Marriage 1.0 with Christian Marriage (or Biblical Marriage).

Marriage 1.0 is not Christian Marriage, it was a legal regime which established how the State treated and recognized marriage back in the day. Christian Marriage is an ideal, a spiritual construct, something that exists outside of any legal context. The various “versions” of Marriage, starting with Marriage 1.0, moving on to Marriage 2.0 and now with a nascent Marriage 3.o in development, provide a background and context for Christian Marriage, they do not set it. For example, the State could theoretically outlaw marriage all together. Under those circumstances, Christians could still marry, because marriage is set by God, not by earthly authorities. Yes, it would make you a criminal to go ahead and marry anyways, but isn’t that a consummately Christian thing to do? Certainly it is in keeping with the spirit of the earliest Christians in the Roman Empire, who suffered persecution and death for their beliefs.

The confusion probably arises from the fact that Marriage 1.0 was the state of affairs for so long that bloggers/commenters in the ‘sphere mistake it for having been the background for all of Christian Marriage. But it wasn’t. For example, in the time of Jesus “Christian Marriage” was not a legal reality. And Jesus makes note of this:

³ And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?” ⁴ He answered, “Have you not read that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female, ⁵ and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one’? ⁶ So they are no longer two but one. What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder.” ⁷ They said to him, “Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce, and to put her away?” ⁸ He said to them, “For your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. ⁹ And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for unchastity, and marries another, commits adultery; and he who marries a divorced woman, commits adultery.”

Here is an example of the law of man and the law of God not matching up. However, it was still possible to live in accordance with God’s laws under the system at the time. How? Simple: a husband could refuse to make use of the legal tools at his disposal to put away his wife. When St. Paul was instructing Christian communities in the Roman empire during his evangelical missions he faced a legal regime that also didn’t match up with God’s laws. In that time period both men and women could often initiate divorce, and it was usually a fairly simple affair to manage. Just like Jesus, Paul was teaching people that their obligations to God required them to set aside the power given to them by the existing legal authorities. As Christians, we are required to live our lives in accordance with God’s will, and that often involves us living under a legal regime that doesn’t match up with our beliefs.

That doesn’t mean that we should ignore the legal environment. But it does mean that we need to learn to accept that living as Christians entails living in a world which hates God and His laws, and consequently, us as well. Because of this, the “system”, the legal and social environment in which we must live, will often be against us. And the sad truth is that when the system is as bad as our is, then marriage is a huge risk. It empowers the worst of female behaviors, and cripples the most necessary of male ones. Given all of this, it might indeed be better for many Christian men to not marry. Unless they are willing to assume the risk, or buck the system and possibly become an outlaw in order to adhere to their faith, marriage may just not be in the cards for most Christian men right now.

I mention outlaw because we still don’t know where Marriage 3.0 will end up. At this point it seems all but certain that same-sex marriage is going to happen across the country, and polygamy is probably only a decade or so away as well. I don’t imagine that laws against incest will survive either. In all of this, part of me is concerned that feminists will seek to criminalize patriarchal marriage as well. The exact mechanics of how they would do this are uncertain, but I can think of several possibilities. The first, and perhaps easiest, would be to change DV laws so that abuse includes anything resembling male headship, for example any attempt by a man to get his wife to submit to his authority. Another might be to require that those who file for a marriage license swear an oath to live an egalitarian marriage. However it turns out, I wouldn’t be shocked to see this coming in the near future.

Ultimately, I think that for Christian men the choice comes down to two things:

1) Which path is the least likely to lead to sin

2) What are the results of a cost/benefit analysis of the non-spiritual aspects of marriage

There is no universal answer, Christian men will need to decide for themselves. A man who is able to control himself and avoid sexual sins, and sees little benefit to marriage, or that the costs are too high, would do well to not marry. But a man who has trouble controlling himself, and who might see the costs of marriage as bearable, would do well to marry. Wisdom, discernment and prayer should all be relied upon.

As for myself, I know that I am constantly evaluating where I stand. Right now my position is peculiar- I am reasonably confident I can avoid most forms of sexual immorality without having to marry, reducing my “need” for marriage, but on the other hand I very much would like the various benefits that come along with a healthy/happy marriage. All of which means that I am near a tipping point of sorts, and therefore very particular when it comes to a potential wife. In fact, I may write a post in the next few days giving some insight into my thought process on how I evaluate a woman as “wife material.” [A short post.]

IV. Conclusion

It cannot be denied that before the advent of Marriage 2.0, it wasn’t necessary for Christian men to have to Game their wives. Nor did they face an environment which was set up to ruin marriage as much as possible. Unfortunately, we do live in the Marriage 2.0 regime now, and Christian men must adapt to the times. For some men, that means a decision on their part not to marry. For others, that means marrying and accepting the possibility that their wives may blow up their marriages at any time, and they have no means of recourse. Those Christian men who take their chances in marriage must use whatever methods of maintaining control in their marriage are available, with Game being one of the few things still left in the toolbox.  Should any of this be necessary? Of course not. But these are evil and desperate times, and desperate times call for desperate measures.

[I realize that this post could have been more comprehensive. However, the length would have been too great to provide for a practical discussion and debate if I really let myself go. As is its one of my longer posts. I suspect that I will flesh out some of the gaps in further posts in the subject down the line.]

Update: The debate continues in my next post- Godly Masculinity Versus Game

Knowing When To Escape

The topic of Moral Agency in women is among the first subjects that I discussed on this blog, in part to preserve a post and discussion that took place on Sunshine Mary’s old blog. Since that first post, I left the subject fallow for a long time, until a comment left on that post led me to tell the commenter’s story in Confessions of a Good Christian Girl. After reading her story, I thought long and hard on the subject, and went back through my previous post and the comments there. Rather than write a long post trying to hash out new ground, which wouldn’t really be new, I instead decided to briefly state some of the more important ideas that have emerged as a result of those posts, and then develop them further.

Flee Temptation

¹² Therefore let any one who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall. ¹³ No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your strength, but with the temptation will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.

(1 Cor 10:12-13)

This verse has been quoted often by those who disagree with my assertions on moral agency. And I can understand why, from a simple reading of it one could easily gather that we can always resist giving in to temptation. But that simple reading fails to take into account the most important word in verse 13: escape. Other translations of course provide different interpretations, although escape is common. While a few use “bear it”, most make some sort of reference to moving or getting through it. This distinction is important, even essential, as it gets to the heart of my theory.

You see, a woman simply cannot face the temptation of a Dominant Alpha Male and resist his charms forever. If her goal is to resist temptation, to not give in, then she must escape, she must move through or past that temptation. In essence, she needs to get away from him. As long as he is nearby, and without other sources of moral authority to guide her, she is vulnerable. This is the central message of Jesus in Matthew 5:29, to remove from our presence those things which lead us to sin.

The Good Christian Girl (“GCG”) who lost her virtue foolishly believed that she could hang around that Bad Boy and escape giving in to temptation, to giving in to sin. What her pride and arrogance blinded her to was that she had already given in to temptation by letting herself get too close to him, and then staying near him. She knew before then that he was trouble, but despite this chose not to escape. What came next was pretty much inevitable.

The Die is Cast

Another major concept that these discussions have explored is the “moment of decision.” That is, when exactly you give in to temptation. My argument is that the moment when most women give into to temptation around a Dominant Alpha Male is much sooner than they, or anyone else, thinks.  These easiest way to think of this is as a series of concrete steps, rather than just one big event or a point on a scale. So, instead of saying:

A Good Christian Girl agrees to go out on a date with an Alpha and ends up sleeping with him.

You get this:

1) GCG agrees to go out on a date with an Alpha

2) GCG goes out on the date with the Alpha

3) CGC doesn’t drive, but lets Alpha pick her up and drive her to the date

4) GCG drinks some wine while out on the date with the Alpha

5) GCG agrees to let Alpha take her back home

6) GCG invites Alpha into her home “just for a coffee or something”

7) GCG and Alpha start to engage in “kino”

8) GCG make out

9) GCG and/or Alpha start to remove clothing

10) CGC loses virginity to Alpha

When you break it all up like that, you can start to see the problem with saying that the woman can resist. Until you get to point 9, there is nothing that makes it obvious that the woman is going to engage in fornication. And yet, when you examine the overall context of the situation, you can see that each point involves giving in to some measure of temptation. Certainly by point 6 the GCG has already given in to enough temptation that what comes next seems only natural. The problem is that because each point is so minor, the obvious temptation so seemingly insignificant, it becomes very, very easy to give in along the way. By the time you get to the “point of no return”, the GCG has already given into so much temptation it is probably too late for her to realize what is going on, especially when you factor in the next idea.

There’s too much Confusion…

The last major idea I broached concerns the mental state of women in these kinds of situations. As I explained it in my original post:

The essence of the theory is this: the female brain might work in such a way that if a woman were to find herself in a position where she was under the influence of a man with a dominant, masculine frame, the rational part of her mind stops working properly. She can’t think straight. The only things running through her head are base instincts, with desire for the man being the most paramount.

Every straight guy around can tell you that we have trouble thinking clearly when a beautiful woman is around (except perhaps those men who are so successful with women they are no longer fazed by them). For women it is probably worse. We men must become accustomed to our sex drive. It is pretty much always active, and always interfering with our ability to think clearly. Women, however, do not have that active of a sex drive. Theirs is less potent, and “flares” much less often than a man’s. This means that women do not have the same experience in overcoming the effects of their sex drive in their thinking that men do. As a result, women will be less likely to act rationally in a situation where they have become sexually excited.

Also, I have talked with some folks familiar with PUA concepts and the lifestyle, and they have relayed to me similar thoughts. One explained that for women the “mental aspect” of sex begins much sooner than it does with men, and the result is that they stop thinking clearly sooner than men. That same man explained that one way women manifest this is when they go “Doe Eyed”, a sort of dreamy stare directed at a man which is indicative of unfettered attraction for the men. While that man didn’t take advantage of the situation, he explained that he would have had no problem doing so; once a woman enters the “Doe Eyes” state she has essentially surrendered her agency to a man.

Conclusion

The most solid advice to be offered to women who want to maintain their virtue is to never allow themselves to get into a position where there isn’t someone else around to stop things from getting out of hand. Use the buddy system. Don’t drink if it will affect your thinking. Never invite a man whose integrity you are uncertain of into your home at night, or enter his home at night. Most important of all, never assume that you can always resist. Flight, not fight, is your best option when temptation is concerned.

So, to the “Good Christian Girls out there, remember this: as a woman, you were meant to be conquered. When alone with an attractive man, every cell in your body will scream for you to yield yourself to him, to be conquered by him. So guard yourself, guard your virtue. Ensure that when you are in a situation where you might yield, it is a situation where you want to yield, a situation otherwise known as your wedding night.

Confessions of a “Good Christian Girl”

The following story was originally left as a comment on my post concerning Moral Agency in Women. The author of the comment asked that I take it down, but later graciously allowed me to use it in a post. My thoughts will come after the story, which is a tragic one:

I think that you could set up a confessional…

Recently discovering the “manosphere”, I quickly became fascinated by it if only because I sensed that I could learn something not only about men, but about myself as well. Suffice it to say that this blogpost in its entirety is *truth* and has been borne out in my experience. Let’s see:

–made it into my mid-20s without so much as a kiss; I was often approached by men, but I accomplished this by not entertaining unsuitable men and not being alone with men. Had made the “true love waits” pledge while quite young and 100% believed that’s what I would do.
–found myself by happenstance in the middle of nowhere for a school assignment–middle of nowhere meaning that even a Wal-Mart was an hour’s drive away. No friends, family or church around.
–before leaving on the trip, experienced frustration and disappointment from a man I was interested in –> emotional vulnerability
–Limited housing meant I had to stay in an apartment with other students–young men. I was initially uncomfortable with it, but it was clear to me that nothing whatsoever would ever happen between me and those 2 guys (beta and lower beta). Nothing did.
–One fine day, Lower Beta says his friend is going to join us for the summer. He does, and when I meet him I immediately start praying for an “out” to this situation…every alarm bell is ringing within me. Tall, muscular, immodestly cocky; and Alpha is clearly interested. I mostly avoid him.
–One night, Alpha wants to play cards and chat. Seems friendly enough. He quickly hones in on my relationship history, and then, surprise surprise, sexual history. In my naivete, I admit to being a virgin and inexperienced in even *other* forms of sexual play. Like a shark smelling blood, his flirtation becomes more overt and the evening ends with a kiss. He wants to come to my room. “No.” Yet, my curiosity and his boldness together produce a very heady and honestly exhilarating feeling. I know all the more that I have to get out of there.
– Prayer answered! Someone in the community offers me alternate housing. I pack and leave with a quickness the next day. Alpha asks for a proper date. I say OK. [I should not have done this. I think this is the part where self-deception started kicking in. I mean, really, I knew what he wanted–so why would I be going out with him?]
–We spend more time; he acts and talks as if he’s genuinely interested, though I tell him I don’t think we really have anything in common. I’m not falling for him, but am highly attracted. He pushes physical boundaries in ways I am not prepared for—never had to resist at all before (avoidance method), nevertheless resist with such forcefulness. But curiosity again, attraction, boldness, the feeling of being desired, and buttons being pushed that were never pushed before—I’m drunk on all the feelings and my mind races to take it all in. My attempts to talk to him about not going too far ring hollow even to myself.
–He takes no pains to hide his intent to seduce me and truly goes all out in doing so. He succeeds. For a period of time as this “relationship” continues, I recognize within myself that I cannot process what is happening between us on a rational level. My actions are other than what I think I should do. I find myself acting without intention.
–It’s not romance, and it’s not friendship. I don’t believe it’s love, but now I have to try to “make good” on virginity lost. So I attempt to play out a relationship with Alpha (he asked, not me) though in my right mind I still doubt any longterm compatibility. It doesn’t work and fizzles. I’m not heartbroken, but disillusioned with myself.

I shared all of this because I think it lays out step-by-step with a very real example exactly how “good Chrisitan girls” can end up compromising. And I hope that other Chrisitian women can avoid the same. I think it also shows how women do respond differently to alphas than betas (for instance, living with the betas was inappropriate to me, but not at all a temptation). *And to the point of your post in general, I 100% agree that the temptation we are to flee is to be in the situation in the first place.* I do not believe that we can reliably count on being able to resist once those instinctual physiological responses start kicking in. I completely agree that this is why most societies in human history have prevented unrelated men and women from being alone together. I do think that such avoidance is really the only guarantee of chastity when it comes to pre/extra-marital sex.

There are some women and couples who claim that resisting sexual temptation really isn’t that difficult for them. Prior to that experience, I (pridefully) thought that I would never do something like that, that saying no should be so easy. God *did* provide my way of escape. But I chose to go back—and choosing to go back to the place of temptation was the first sin that made way for the second. I told myself that I could enjoy the thrill of being around Alpha without anything else happening. Many women either do not have high enough libidos for sex to be a great temptation at all, or they are mainly experienced with men who are easy to brush off and have just not encountered the type of man (Alpha) that really sets things off in them.

This unfortunate story supports the general trust of the theory I advanced in that post. After a certain point, women do lose their ability to resist an Alpha Male’s advances. That is not to say that they don’t have moral agency, but their agency is not without its limits. Or stated another way, they make their moral decision much sooner than they (or most people) realize. As I explained in the comments:

What I am arguing is not that women can’t resist temptation, but that the temptation comes sooner than we might think in the process of seduction by an alpha male. The temptation comes not when the alpha male is making his final moves. Rather, the temptation to be resisted by the woman is to place herself in an isolated place, without additional moral support, with the alpha male. That is where the temptation is to be found. And that is where she can resist. My theory is that if she gives into that temptation, it is past the point of no return. She knows, deep down inside, what it really means, and has decided to follow that path nonetheless.

Stories like this sadly show that I am on the right track. I wish I wasn’t, but we deal with the world as it is, not how we want it to be. Seeing as I haven’t addressed Moral Agency in a while, I think its time that I address it again. Expect a post in the next week or two on the subject.

Belated Advice

I have been busy lately, and so I couldn’t participate in most blogging affairs over the last few days. Fortunately, I have some free time now, and would like to devote it to writing a few posts. This first post is a response, of sorts, to Sunshine Mary’s post “Is it ever advisable to marry a woman who has had previous sexual partners?” Most of the other commentators in the thread covered much of the advice that I was going to give, but there were some points which were stronger than others which I would like to restate, as well as throw in a few ideas of my own.

To begin with, I think that the overall answer to the question is Yes. There are situations where it is advisable for a man to marry such a woman. As a Christian, I would be remiss if I failed to mention Hosea as one instance. Of course, that is a fairly extreme example where God Himself felt it necessary to inflict a punishment on Hosea in order to teach a lesson to the Israelites. A less onerous example would be that of Ruth, who was a God-fearing widow.  For other men, there were also occasions where it was advisable, or at least, not disastrous, for them to marry such a woman.

At heart, this question is over-broad. It really comes down to the man and the woman in question. A man who himself has fornicated in the past is, in my opinion, someone who has less overall to worry about marrying an non-virgin. For the man who was the inspiration of the post, with an N=1, then a potential dilemma is avoided by him. As Sunshine Mary noted in the post, I have expressed a view before that there are four types of marriages:

1. She is a virgin. He is a virgin.
2. She is a virgin. He is not a virgin.
3. She is not a virgin. He is not a virgin.
4. She is not a virgin. He is a virgin.

Now, I would like to clarify that I think my original assertion used “chaste” rather than virgin, but it probably applies. And chastity has no doubt some effect as well  if separated from virginity (meaning there are more kinds of marriages, but I like the simplicity of this, so I will keep it for now).  But applied to this fellow, he has available to him the second and third options. I’m not sure how close they are to one another, but I will say that I believe that the largest gap is between three and four. From what I can tell, option 4 marriages are extremely risky for the man. They require a truly grateful and repentant woman in order to be sustained. So because this gap exists, he doesn’t have to worry about being stuck in the riskiest category of marriages.

Instead, this comes down to two elements: one psychological, one risk-based.

The first element is whether he is alright with other men having had sex with his wife. This is something up to the individual man. Only he can know. My suspicion is that it applies more strongly to men who are chaste than men who aren’t. A guy who hasn’t fornicated will naturally react differently to this situation than a PUA turned serious.

The second is whether he thinks she is worth the risk of marrying. This is an almost economic/utilitarian analysis. And once again, depends on the man and the woman. Essentially, it comes down to determining how much of a risk she is, and balancing this against whether he thinks he is likely to find a better match out there, and what the consequences to him will be of remaining unmarried for the rest of his life.

Again, only the individual man can answer this question. To help this man further, I would need to know more about the both of them. But right now I spotted a couple of red flags that worried me:

– One is the rebellious streak in her. Sounds like she was raised right, and then went off to live a life of sin. This is always worrisome. Now, there are prodigal daughters as well as prodigal sons, but that same personality trait might still be present. And unless she has changed that, it bodes ill.

– Her age. While she has yet to hit the wall, it is still possible she, because of her background, is entering a form of “baby rabies” or “marriage craze”, early. So it is important to understand when she left her sinful life behind her and how long she has been trying to live a Godly life.

Otherwise, more specific answers would require more info. If he wants further advice, he can contact me using the information on my about page.

Oh, and by the way, to answer Rollo’s question: No. I would not marry this woman. Most important is that she was unchaste. As I’ve explained before, that is a deal-breaker for me. Nothing besides a divine command from the Almighty would convince me otherwise. Besides that, those red flags worried me. Marriage is such a risk now I am going to insist that I get as much value from it as I can now, while also minimizing that risk as much as possible.

The Weaker Vessel

Lady Sigyn over at His Lordship’s Domain has written an excellent post examining the concept of women being the weaker vessel, and how it pertains to female moral agency. I highly, highly recommend it. Her diving into the Greek is certainly a refreshing break from some of the shoddy biblical scholarship we see from the Churchians. A small sample:

The word for the phrase “with weaker [thing]” is asthenesterō.  It specifically refers to infirmity; it can be translated to mean “lacking physical strength”, “lacking masculine qualities”, and sometimes “lacking moral fiber”—a word, in its declensions, used heavily throughout the New Testament to speak of the general human condition (which includes men).  In other words, its use here is a call to remember that women are not perfect, and that it is unreasonable to expect us to be, so husbands should live “according to knowledge” (kata gnōsin) of this—aware of it, mindful of it.

But at the same time, Peter goes on to say that husbands should be “rendering honor” (aponemontes timēn) to their wives.  This is a strange turn of phrase here.  Aponemontes specifically means “apportion or render to the object what is due”, and timēn references a perceived value or worth appointed to it.  Who gets to appoint the worth?  Why, Who else but He who made her a “joint-heir” (synklēronomois): a “participant” alongside Him?

I think that the ultimate conclusion which Sigyn reaches meshes with my own views quite nicely.

Making the Music Stop

Background

In the comments following my “Woe is Me” post titled All Alone in the Dark, Sunshinemary (honestly, I’m not picking on you, its just that your comments make for great blog fodder) left this comment:

I really, really think men should refuse to marry non-virgins. Women are not total idiots. If they realize that no one will marry unchaste women, they’ll close their legs pretty quick.

While I think that this will help, to some degree, I don’t believe that it will be a complete solution. In my reply I said that:

I’m not really convinced this is the case. As I’ve argued before, I think that if you give women a choice between sex with hot men and no marriage on the one hand, and sex with only one man (who may or may not be hot) in marriage on the other hand, that many, many women will choose the first option. Whether it is their true nature, or the inexperience of youth, or whatever cause, many will take that path. Enough that you will end up with a large number of women outside the marriage pool. And far more men inside the pool who now have no marriage partner available.

Let me explain what I meant. If you give women the choice of marriage where they must be a virgin, or no marriage and they can pursue sex to their heart’s desire, a large percentage of women will choose to pursue “free” sex. How many? It is tough to say. But I believe that the percentage of women who choose that path will be greater than the percentage of men who choose that path. In part this is because the percent of men who can eschew marriage and still get regular sex is much smaller than the percent of women who are attractive to those men.

While no one can agree on a single number, a rough estimate that is widely accepted is that about 20% of men are found to be attractive to women. So let us take a sample of 200 youths, 100 men and 100 women. About 20 of the men are considered attractive to the women by virtue of their LAMPS factors. Some are better looking, some are more athletic, some might have inherited money or come from a respectable family, and a few just have a boatload of charisma. Now, depending on who you ask, between 40 to 60% of the women will be considered attractive (or at least, not unattractive). That means that 40 to 60 women will be attractive (or at least, not ugly). For the sake of this hypothetical, lets assume that half of each attractive cohort decides to forgo marriage, and that we split the attractive female cohort to the right side of the curve, or 50 women. That leaves us with 10 men and 25 women who eschew marriage. They have all the sex they want, and everyone else waits for marriage. Unfortunately, that leaves us with 90 men who want to marry, and only 75 women (of course, the 10 men enjoying the 25 women on the carousel could always decide to marry later, making things even worse). Fifteen men cannot marry because there aren’t enough eligible women. Given that skilled “players” can spin several plates at once (that is, to maintain a harem of sorts), a small number of men can claim a much larger number of women. Thus, there will still be men who cannot marry because there aren’t sufficient marriageable women for them.

More troublesome though, is whether women even want to marry. Dalrock has been exposing for years now how the ideal female sexual strategy is not life-time monogamy (marriage), but instead serial monogamy. If we give women the choice between marriage as virgins or a single life with the possibility of unlimited sexual access to alpha males, we run the risk of women choosing en masse to follow their natural sexual strategy. In the past women were very much supportive of marriage because it was highly beneficial to women and the costs of avoiding marriage were great. Remember, women have three primary impulses which drive their behavior:

1) Have sex with the most attractive man possible (in order to have his children)  [What Deti refers to as the Female Prime Directive]

2) Secure Provision

3) Secure Protection

Those three impulses are still with us, but our civilization is very different from what it was, say, two centuries ago. Back then, in order to secure both protection and provision, women had to get married. A woman’s husband would be the source of those things. She did her best to satisfy the first impulse by marrying the best man she could. Contrast this with today. Nowadays, the State provides Protection to women, and the cost is paid by the taxpayers, not by an immediate figure in her life. In fact, in many places because of gun controls laws, men are much less able to protect their wives and children then they were even a hundred years ago. Furthermore, Provision is much easier to acquire in the present age then in the past, when a woman might have been able to support herself, but would have trouble supporting children. Thanks to changes in labor laws and the labor market, in many cases women don’t need the help of a man to support themselves and children. And even if they can’t do it all by themselves, the State is always willing to lend a hand.

With both the third and second impulses satisfied without the need of a man (husband), that leaves women with just their first impulse. Unless a woman is attractive enough to snag one of the top-tier, high-value, attractive men for herself in marriage, then marriage means that she will be stuck with an unattractive man for her whole life. But why would she want that? She doesn’t need him to protect her, or to provide for her, after all. Marriage is mostly a status marker these days, a valuable one, but still just a status marker. All of which means that for many women, they may not feel compelled to seek marriage. Instead, they will ride the carousel with whatever attractive men decide to take part in it. More is needed than just making marriage for the chaste.

What will it take?

Sunshinemary’s idea is a good start, but I think more is needed to really end the carousel, or at least, to cut down on the number of women riding it. So what are some potential ways to stop the music, and restore balance to the SMP/MMP? Here are a few:

1) Convince men to only marry chaste women. Sunshinemary’s original idea is still helpful, as it will motivate those women for whom marriage is a status marker.

2) Reduce or eliminate the massive amount of state support to unmarried women with children. Single mothers receive a lot of government support, and since the taxpayers ultimately support this, it means that single mothers are able to draw provision from multiple men at once, not just a single man. If this support were to be curtailed, there would be some initial hardships, but women would be forced to adjust their behavior accordingly.

3) Encourage early marriage. The truth is that Christians who don’t promote young marriage don’t actually care about chastity. The longer that women are single adults, the greater the chances of them becoming sexually active and joining the carousel.

4) Slut Shame. That is right, we need to start ostracizing women who take part in that culture once again. While it may seem cruel, in the long run it will be beneficial to women by discouraging them from taking part in a lifestyle that trashes their ability to bond with a future husband.  While the idea of “the ends justify the means” is oftentimes used for ill purpose, the consequences of the carousel are grave enough that such tactics are important.

5) Restore Masculinity to its proper place. Women despise weakness in men. Unfortunately, our society has done its best to emasculate men. This is especially prevalent among Christians. If we want women to consider marrying, especially marrying young, we need to stop making men unattractive to women.

Conclusion

The five steps mentioned above are just a few of the steps we can take to fight against the carousel and our depraved culture. They will not be easy steps to take; feminists and their White Knight supporters are sure to actively resist. However, I am not one to just sit by and watch the world collapse all around us. On the Day of Judgment, I want to be able to stand before the LORD and tell Him that I did my best, that I tried my hardest, and that I put all of my talents to good use.

If anyone else has any additional ideas on how we can turn around the culture and stop the music for good, feel free to leave them below in the comments. I will add them to this post as time permits.

Teaming Up

I wanted to expand a bit on a point that I made with my last post. After explaining that women have a ONE OF US mentality which is commonly known as “Team Woman”, I stated that:

Look at how quickly these Christian women were willing to set aside their ethics and their faith to help another woman. It should be obvious to everyone by now why Paul explained that women had no place in Church leadership. That command is necessary because women will set aside wisdom, reason and faith to help ONE OF US.

One thing I should clear up is that women are not excluded in participating in the Church and church ministries. Phoebe was a deacon(ess) in the early church, and was commended for her works by Paul. But a deacon in the early church was not a leader, but rather a servant or minister for the leaders or elders of the church. The first seven deacons, among them Stephen, the first Christian martyr, were called to minister food to the hungry in order that the leaders of the church could focus on prayer and worship. But that role of leading prayer and worship was not to be filled by women:

⁸ I desire, then, that in every place the men should pray, lifting up holy hands without anger or argument; ⁹ also that the women should dress themselves modestly and decently in suitable clothing, not with their hair braided, or with gold, pearls, or expensive clothes, ¹⁰ but with good works, as is proper for women who profess reverence for God. ¹¹ Let a woman learn in silence with full submission. ¹² I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man;she is to keep silent. ¹³ For Adam was formed first, then Eve; ¹⁴ and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. ¹⁵ Yet she will be saved through childbearing, provided they continue in faith and love and holiness, with modesty.

Here we see the Curse of Eve emerge once again. Paul explains that the reason women are not hold authority over men in the Church relates to deception, and that may well be true. But I think it goes deeper. It is my belief that women have a default setting to “Team Woman.” For an excellent example of this, see here. Something that has been emerging in this sphere of of the internet has been the idea of “Team Her Man.” This involves a woman  altering her mindset so that instead of subconsciously favoring all woman, she instead subconsciously favors her man (ideally her husband). My suspicion is that “Team Her Man” is also a possible setting for a woman who is attracted to a man and respects him. But I think that those are the only settings for women. Which means that they are either “Team Woman” or “Team Her Man.”

It isn’t necessarily a bad thing that they have these “settings.” A woman who favors Team Her Man is an advocate for her man, and fulfilling her role as helpmate to her husband. Even women favoring Team Woman can be advocates for the cause of women, and make sure that male leadership doesn’t forget the women of the Church.

What is a problem in the setting of the Church is if a woman were to be given power and authority over men. If that were to happen she would either sub-consciously favor women (Team Woman) or she would favor her man (Team Her Man) when she exercised her authority. This will only serve to divide the Church, by either promoting women at the expense of men (which is happening now in Churchianity), or by favoring the husbands of women with power. Now, I think that this inclination by women is not borne of evil intent. As I indicated before, its sub-conscious. Women do it without thinking.  They cannot maintain an attitude of favoring the whole community of believers for long before they start favoring one of those teams.  My previous post highlighted an excellent example of Christian women sub-consciously favoring another woman, at the expense of unknown, nameless men. Once they were confronted with their wrongdoing, they apologized and repented. But only after they were confronted with their actions.

In the setting of the Church, it doesn’t make sense, nor is it efficient or wise, for women to be given authority over men when it would be necessary for men to constantly scrutinize their decision to ensure they don’t favor women at the expense of men, or favor her man. Women can serve the Church. But they can’t be trusted with power over men, as they will invariably begin to wield it for their team. It is this natural tendency of women which makes them unsuited to hold authority in the Church.

A Gross Indecency

(Alternate Title: ONE OF US)

Free Northerner has alerted me to a column at the Red Pill Woman sub-reddit over at Reddit. The subject of the column? I think that the author’s words speak for themselves:

I hate lying, but I’ve had a few boyfriends, so at 26 I’ve now slept with 12 men. I’m thinking seriously about marriage now, and I know many men find women with a double-digit partner count not marriage-material, so I’ve been telling the last couple boyfriends that I’ve only slept with 3 people. I was wondering if RedPillWomen has an opinion on this. Will this help?

That in itself is not surprising. Women know deep down inside, whether they admit it or not, that men will judge them when it comes to commitment based on their partner count. Deception on their part is only to be expected. At least, to be expected if they aren’t Christians. You would expect Christian women to tell that woman to come clean, right? To advocate honesty? Superficially, you would be correct:

Exactly. A quality man may or may not care about partner count. He will most certainly care about honesty.

Or:

Honesty is the most important thing. Lies destroy relationships.

On the face of it, those statements seem to be in the right direction. They emphasize honesty and the danger of lies. But as the thread progressed, this semblance of honesty is shown to be as hollow as a reed. First is this statement by The Ringmistress:

Don’t lie. Reveal on a need to know basis, but don’t give a hard number unless it is the real number.

Here we have an interesting dichotomy. On the one hand, we have “don’t lie.” But on the other hand we have “Reveal on a need to know basis.” The first sentence advocates honesty, the second does not. How so? Honesty defined according to Merriam-Webster:

“fairness and straightforwardness of conduct”

Can anyone square away “reveal on a need to know basis” with “straightforwardness of conduct?” I sure can’t. But that statement is mild compared to this one by Sis:

12 men is a lot for a guy to swallow, but honesty is important in a relationship. I would try to avoid the question. If he asks, look down bashfully like you are too modest to talk about sexual things. Realize that once you tell him, it is a burden he will have to work through, forgive you for, and repeatedly let go throughout your marriage. When you do have sex with him, let him lead, learn what he likes, and appreciate and enjoy what he does. Don’t try to impress him with your skills.

The part in bold says it all. Sis isn’t just advocating that the woman not bring up the subject here. Sure she says that, but then she goes a step further and encourages the woman to create the impression that she is too modest to have engaged in sex with other men. Is she telling the woman to lie? Not really. But she is telling the woman to deceive men. As I explained over at Free Northerner’s blog:

All lies are deception.

But not all deception is lies.

And what we have here is deception. Sis encouraged that woman to “give a false impression” to any man who asked her about her sexual past. We are talking about something as fundamental and important as marriage, and Christian women were encouraging deception by a woman they didn’t know. Some might argue that deception doesn’t matter, that what you don’t know can’t bother you. So lets examine it from a different light…

Suppose you are on the market to buy a house. You see an ad in a paper, and visit an open house. While there you manage to spend some time with the owner, and ask a variety of questions. You ask:

“Is the house in a safe area?”

The answer:

“It has been safe enough for me.”

“Well, have any houses in the neighborhood been burglarized in the last few years?”

“Burglarized? How horrible! I shudder at the thought of it.”

Not mentioned is that a dozen homes have been burglarized in the last five years. Did the home owner lie? No. He gave an answer which said that he shuddered at the thought of houses being burglarized. That is almost certainly the truth. But it is a truth arranged so that the listener would walk away with a false impression of the situation. That is deception. It is not honesty. How would you feel about being deceived here? I imagine most people wouldn’t take it well. And that kind of deception is nothing compared to what a woman lying about her N is to the man who marries her. There are many more metaphors or analogies where that one came from. All speak to the same thing.

Ask yourself this…

Now ladies, in your haste to rush to the aide of this [sinful woman], did you ever stop to consider the man she was hoping to snare? Did you ever consider the effect on him from this deception? Did you ever stop to consider his welfare and well-being? Did he simply not matter to you, because he would be some nameless man?

Did you ever stop to consider whether this man being duped could be a friend of yours?

Or a cousin?

Or a brother?

What if it was your son she was hoping to marry?

Would that have changed your mind any? Would you be perfectly alright with your son marrying a woman with an N of 12, thinking it was 3? Even knowing the risks that he would face? Or do you have no problem with your own blood ending up as a statistic? Somehow I think that if the man in question was related to our advice givers, that they wouldn’t be so quick to aid a harlot in ensnaring said man into being a Beta Provider.

So this begs the question, why would these Christian women go out of their way to advise a [sinful woman] to deceive some poor man into thinking she wasn’t a [sinful woman]?

Why? Because she was a woman in need of help, and they were women. To them, she was ONE OF US.

Why? Because “Us ladies need to look out for one another.” She was ONE OF US.

Why? Because she was one of The Herd. A member of Team Woman. ONE OF US. (skip ahead to the 40 second mark)

Look at how quickly these Christian women were willing to set aside their ethics and their faith to help another woman. It should be obvious to everyone by now why Paul explained that women had no place in Church leadership. That command is necessary because women will set aside wisdom, reason and faith to help ONE OF US.

This post, and the research and reading that lead to it, has left me with a cocktail of emotions. But one has emerged as dominant in that admixture: disappointment. I am disappointed that so many “Red Pill Women”, including several Christians, were willing and eager to aid a woman in deceiving men about something which would have a huge impact on a relationship. Not all failed the test, TempestTCup as near as I can tell never engaged in the encouragement of deceptive practices.  In response to this story Deti left this comment over at Free Northerner’s site:

I didn’t want to believe it donal, but I think I’m going to now.

Even Christian women have a lesser sense of honor, justice, fairness and integrity than men do. These women’s status as Christians — even that does not overcome the female tendency toward emotions, fudging, gilding the lily, and doing what must be done to serve one’s self interests.

Even Christ’s commands and His Word are insufficient to overcome the feminine imperative which burns in the minds and hearts of every woman.

Astonishing. These women would jeopardize their eternal salvation to help a woman feel better about sexing up a few too many men.

Un. Be- freakin – lievable.

I have never been a supporter of the theory that women are “morally inferior” to men, a theory which often finds its home in the MGTOW side of the manosphere. But occasions like this make me sometimes wonder if there is some truth to that line of thought. However, I think that ultimately it all comes down to the ONE OF US mentality that is part and parcel of a woman’s mind. Women are, by default, part of Team Woman. Even if she is also a member of Team Her Man, that instinct is still present.  Sis seems to have later apologized for her “slip up.” But the episode has me worried. I’ve always liked Sis, but if someone like her is able to fall into the trap of aiding and abetting a [sinful woman], then what does it say about women in general? She apologized, yes, but only after Free Northerner called her out on her behavior. Until he did that, I’m sure that it never entered her mind what she had actually done. Her instinct to aide ONE OF US proved the greater.

In Conclusion

I know that many of the Red Pill Women out there have daughters of varying ages. I assume that they would like for their daughters to get married some day. Elspeth over at Traditional Christianity has remarked that her young, chaste Christian daughter is having trouble finding a husband. I suggested that part of her daughter’s problem might be that many of the “good Christian men” out there have been so emasculated by Churchian culture that they now lack the confidence and will to approach a woman like her daughter. However, there is another possibility. Perhaps all of the “good Christian men” out there that her daughter would like to meet aren’t interested in marriage at all. Perhaps they have taken Paul’s advice to heart and decided not to marry, that the risks and costs aren’t worth the benefit. Perhaps they have become convinced that marriage in this day and age is a trap, a snare set so that men can support women living lives of sin at the expense of men. And with incidents like this, who can blame them?

Red Pill Women, do you want your daughter’s to marry? If you do, then you need to stop giving men a reason to think that marriage is a bum deal for them. Do you have any idea how much incidents like this cause Christian men to question the faith they have in Christian women?  If you want your daughters to find men who are willing to marry them, then you need to demonstrate that women can be trusted. That they won’t discard their faith out of convenience, or to serve Team Woman. I can think of at least a half-dozen men in the manosophere off the top of my head who fit the bill of being devout and chaste [N=0] Christian men, including, but not limited to, myself, ar10308, Earl, Seriouslypleasedropit, and possibly even Free Northerner himself. I can’t speak for them, but I can speak for myself. And what I have to say is this: When I can’t trust Christian women to avoid helping unchaste women deceive unsuspecting men, marriage loses much of its appeal for me. I am not a MGTOW. I want to get married. But how can I avoid despair when this is what I can expect from my sisters of the faith?

[I had another section here which I edited out. It didn’t really contribute to the point of the post, and as Deep Strength has pointed out, was foolhardy in its suggestion.]

Update: Ringmistress created an apology thread over at the RPW reddit, found here. It is a good step towards calling women to think about whose team they are playing on. There were some good responses, and I encourage my readers to take a look. But I want to take the time to address  a comment left by commentator Amissmiss:

Okay, I read the blog post, and I’d like to address two points:

I think he is right to call out the advice to deceive through omission.

I think he’s wrong to judge women unfit for church leadership or morally inferior simply because this advice was given, or, as he puts it, we have a ‘one of us’ mentality.

Let me explain.

Becoming a part of church leadership should be a process that requires a great deal of study and growth regardless of gender. You must learn and strive to be the best version of yourself. This is a process both men and women must go through.

For a woman, this may involve learning to resist the temptation to have a hive mentality and protect ‘one of us.’ For a man, it might be learning to judge not less ye be judged, which would mean stepping away from dubbing a woman a ‘harlot’ because that is St. Peter’s call Instead, he must learn to act more like Jesus and realize that the vulnerable, sick, and fallen are the one’s that need care and consideration the most.

We both have to learn to overcome our nature.

Before I address the heart of this, I want to say that I don’t “judge women as morally inferior.” If you read above you will see that I said I have never believed that. Also, my comments were directed at the Christian women who were dispensing advice.

Now that we have that bit out of the way, lets examine this section:

Becoming a part of church leadership should be a process that requires a great deal of study and growth regardless of gender. You must learn and strive to be the best version of yourself. This is a process both men and women must go through.

I would like to point out that Paul is clear that women aren’t to speak in Church, which means they cannot hold a position of leadership (outside of administrative functions). While I am not a sola scriptura supporter (Novaseeker has a good post on this), that doesn’t mean I think we should simply tear out and ignore sections of the Bible that we don’t like. While the advice given is solid, scripture makes it clear that it is a process for men. [What I have done is try and explain why that might be the case; that it wasn’t merely the product of some “oppressive patriarchal culture”]

For a woman, this may involve learning to resist the temptation to have a hive mentality and protect ‘one of us.’ For a man, it might be learning to judge not less ye be judged, which would mean stepping away from dubbing a woman a ‘harlot’ because that is St. Peter’s call Instead, he must learn to act more like Jesus and realize that the vulnerable, sick, and fallen are the one’s that need care and consideration the most.

And here we see the standard line of “Judge Not Less Ye be Judged” come up. It is a trope at this point that when the topic of female sexual immorality shows up, this line from Matthew 7 shows up. Of course, the whole section on sin and judgment doesn’t get brought up, because the actual meaning of what Jesus was teaching is quite different. Here is the full text on that subject:

“Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. ² For with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. ³ Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? ⁴ Or how can you say to your neighbor, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ while the log is 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 neighbor’s eye.

Once we have the full scripture before us it is clear that Jesus was warning about hypocrisy, not about the act of calling out others on sin. He was telling us that whatever measure or set of rules we applied to others, would also be applied to ourselves. That if we accused others of sin, then if we committed the same sins we ourselves would also be accused. And you know what? I am fine with that. I am not without sin. I’ve disrespected my parents, I’ve taken the LORD’s name in vain, and at times coveted that which wasn’t mine. But I am not accusing that sinful woman of something I have done myself. We are all sinners, and I am not different. But fornication is not one of my sins. So let me be judged, because there is no log/plank/beam in my eye to interfere with my judgement. Does my judgment mean that the sinful woman who started this is going to hell? No. That is not within my power.

What I am doing is pointing out to Christian women who were advising that sinful woman, that the woman was unrepentant. She didn’t express guilt about her sins. Instead, she was worried that they might impair her ability to ensnare a man into being her meal ticket… er, husband. She was unrepentant, and she was being advised, by Christian women,  on how to cover up her sins. And lest you think that I was not acting as Christ did, perhaps you have forgotten this episode:

⁷ A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” ⁸ (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) ⁹ The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) ¹⁰ Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” ¹¹ The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? ¹² Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?” ¹³ Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, ¹⁴ but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” ¹⁵ The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”

¹⁶ Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come back.” ¹⁷ The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; ¹⁸ for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!” ¹⁹ The woman said to him, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet.

Jesus didn’t call the woman a slut, he didn’t need to. By reminding her of her sins, he accomplished the same thing. While calling the original author a harlot was inaccurate (see below), calling her a sinful woman is appropriate. Jesus called people out on their sins, He never  pretended that they hadn’t happened. How can you act as a doctor to the soul if you refuse to recognize that there is illness? Unless you recognize sin for what it is, and call it out, repentance cannot happen.

When I wrote this post, I originally referred to the woman as a harlot. While writing this update I looked up the definition and its etymological origins. And what I found is that harlot is more accurately used for a prostitute or a whore, as compared to a promiscuous women. Since the original author of the reddit column wasn’t a whore (or at least didn’t confess to being one), it wasn’t appropriate for me to label her as such. So in that case I apologize for that mislabeling. As a result, I have removed the previous references to “harlot” and replaced them with [sinful woman], as that is more Biblical in nature.

Update 2: Free Northerner has a response to this post, addressing the question of how a repentant woman with an N>0 should react to being asked her N count. His post reminded me a sinful woman from the Bible who sought to repent for her past:

³⁶ One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee’s house and took his place at the table. ³⁷ And a woman in the city, who was a sinner, having learned that he was eating in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster jar of ointment. ³⁸ She stood behind him at his feet, weeping, and began to bathe his feet with her tears and to dry them with her hair. Then she continued kissing his feet and anointing them with the ointment. ³⁹ Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw it, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what kind of woman this is who is touching him—that she is a sinner.” ⁴⁰ Jesus spoke up and said to him, “Simon, I have something to say to you.” “Teacher,” he replied, “speak.” ⁴¹ “A certain creditor had two debtors; one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. ⁴² When they could not pay, he canceled the debts for both of them. Now which of them will love him more?” ⁴³ Simon answered, “I suppose the one for whom he canceled the greater debt.” And Jesus said to him, “You have judged rightly.” ⁴⁴ Then turning toward the woman, he said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has bathed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. ⁴⁵ You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not stopped kissing my feet. ⁴⁶ You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. ⁴⁷ Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.” ⁴⁸ Then he said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” ⁴⁹ But those who were at the table with him began to say among themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?” ⁵⁰ And he said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

(Luke 7:36-50)