Pulled Every Which Way

One of the points I have made on this blog before is the following:

~Women live in a perpetual state of contradiction~

It isn’t a unique claim, other bloggers have made similar statements before. But it is still an important point to make, because men do not grasp this at first and need to in order to truly understand women.

In today’s post I want to explore one dimension of this crucial aspect of female behavior: that Mate “Idealism” versus Mate “Pragmatism.” You see, women have two opposing natures which are always fighting against each other when it comes to selecting a mate. I don’t think I am going to cover any new ground here, but if anything I hope this post will serve as a bit of a recap.

The first of these is what I will call “Idealism.” This is expressed in the female desire for the best mate possible. Sometimes this is called Hypergamy, but that isn’t really an accurate descriptor of the behavior involved. Rather, what women experience is a sort of “Ruthless Idealism” which screams for the best possible man possible, compromises be damned. They will ignore the good or even the great in a mad desire for the perfect.

On the other end of the spectrum we have what I will call “Pragmatism.” This can be summed up by the expression “any port in a storm.” Otherwise stated, women can experience a “Ruthless Pragmatism” which will find that any acceptable man (and that can be very generous indeed) will do and try and lock him down as swiftly as possible.

These two… forces… are naturally opposed to one another. And as a general rule a woman is guided by either one or the other at any given time. However, there is usually still some “play” or flexibility. After all, the other force is still there, even if suppressed. Also, I suppose it is possible that a woman might fall somewhere in the middle for some reason or another, but I believe this to be a temporary state. Given any appreciable period of time she will revert to one of them.

My personal belief is that while genetics likely plays some role in where a woman falls on this spectrum, the primary guide is the environment. The environment that a woman lives in will shape her perceptions and beliefs, and possibly the deep seated neurological functions which control her mating behavior. Some environments will naturally favor Ruthless Idealism, and other environments will favor Ruthless pragmatism. My educated guess is that a forgiving environment with plentiful resources and a great deal of safety will encourage a woman to favor the Ruthless Idealism force. On the other hand, an environment which is unstable, or has limited resources, or is dangerous will likely cause her to favor Ruthless Pragmatism.

Now, because of changes both in herself and in the environment, a woman will not be stuck in one direction forever. It is possible for her to favor one most of her life, and then to move to the other and stay there. Or she could shift back and forth several or even many times. It all depends on the particular woman, and the environment she finds herself.

This can be very problematic if one supports lifetime monogamy, as it means a woman’s perception on what men are “acceptable” mates or not can shift over time. This means that she might marry a man while she finds him acceptable, and then later when she shifts he is no longer acceptable- meaning of course she will want to dump him.

A common trope in the ‘sphere is the former carousel rider who gets close to the Wall, develops Baby Rabies and then tries to lock down a nice, pliable Beta. In that example, we have a woman who was riding the Idealism train for years, only for the environment (featured in her fading looks and fertility and possible social cues) telling her she needs to settle, and fast. She then switches over to a Pragmatism mindset, during which she tries to lock a “good man” down. And she succeeds, only for her to divorce him a number of years later. My speculation is that she has switched back to an Idealism mindset, perhaps guided by the fact that she has a few kids now and so can afford to be more reckless (after all, her genetic future is now relatively secure). Also, her financial status and security are likely much better than they were before marriage.

In the past, the general layout of society was to create an environment which fostered the Pragmatism force within women. A good example was ancient Israel, which was no favorable towards unmarried women in its economics or laws. Given that kind of environment, it isn’t shocking that the writer of the Book of Sirach might note that for a woman, any man will do. After all, the alternative to having a man is to be a social nobody with basically no rights or power. That kind of environment would naturally encourage a Ruthless Pragmatism.

In the present age, however, the environment has changed dramatically. Women have financial and political and social power on a mass scale they have never experienced before. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that they are guided by Ruthless Idealism. The risks to them are relatively low, and the potential gain of locking down a top notch male, or at least bearing children by him, are great. One might go so far as to say that this is the default  setting for women these days, and only certain factors will push them towards Ruthless Pragmatism- and that only for a limited time.

I will try and wrap this post up by noting that men must understand this feature of women if they are actively trying to find a wife. Marrying a woman who is in the Ruthless Pragmatism phase is dangerous. After all, that pragmatism is bound in desperation, and desperate people do stupid things. Not to mention, that her “attraction” to you is bound up in a perceived pragmatic need. If she no longer feels that need, than any prior feelings towards you are likely to disappear. Unless you have managed to meet the expectations of her Idealism, she will reject you as a possible mate. This means, at best, a miserable marriage, and at worst adultery and/or divorce. So my advice is simple: men need to avoid women driven by that force.

Of course, that leads to the question of how one determines whether a woman is driven by Idealism or Pragmatism. But that is a subject for another post.

Trust Issues

Today’s post will tag along with my previous post, found here. It was prompted by the following comment, left by a man named Cem:

A lot of perspectives in this particular site revolve around Christianity while other RedPill venues focus on short term gains such as “bang”, “lay” etc. I want for myself to apply a moral but also sharp RedPill understanding in order to secure a marriage with a worthy girl. For religious reasons, I refrain from sex since it’s before marriage forbidden in my belief. I am Muslim and 30 y/o. That being said I study RP for more than 5 years tracing it back to the Mystery and Neill Strauss’ book, and have considerable experience of day-time pick-ups and dates. Only difference is that my efforts don’t lead to bed, as my choice. While some argue that this is not game at all, I can say that I garnered enough understanding about the ways of women (not just in intersexual dynamics but also other social areas) and that this discipline opened my naive eyes. Five years ago, I’d never have thought that taking an engaged woman home would be so easy. However, now I see every woman as a conniving covert-whores who spread their legs after enough gaming, and can’t trust any woman’s loyalty. How does a man get past this?

To begin with, I am glad to see my readers come from a variety of backgrounds. Different perspectives add a lot to the blog.

A few thoughts came to my mind after reading Cem’s comment. The first was that it was interesting to see a Muslim back up the writings/reports of secular, Christian and Jewish men (I don’t know of any major ‘spherian’s who are Muslim, if one is let me know in the comments below. The second was to note that Muslim men can, just like Christian men, choose to learn without giving into sin. The final bit was that distrust of women is universal- which really shouldn’t have been as surprising to me as it was. But enough about all that. What I want to talk about is this part here:

However, now I see every woman as a conniving covert-whores who spread their legs after enough gaming, and can’t trust any woman’s loyalty. How does a man get past this?

This is tough. Real tough. It doesn’t matter what your faith tradition is, women are still women. And when they are allowed to act as they are in the West, the vast majority will choose to use that liberty for license. That is the thing about the modern era: we have allowed women to act like they’ve always wanted to act throughout history. Women haven’t really changed, or at least, their nature hasn’t. What has changed is the social environment in which they find themselves.

This is my fancy way of saying this simple and ugly truth: Women weren’t really any more trustworthy in the past than they are now. My previous post showed some examples of 2000 year old+ thought on how far you could trust women to keep their legs shut.

So how do you deal with it? Well, here is my advice to Cem, and to other men who worry about trusting women.

• The possibility of betrayal is part of the human condition. Only God is trustworthy, everyone else can betray you and one shouldn’t be surprised to find oneself betrayed. Family, friends… it can be anyone. Accept it, and don’t let fear of it get you down. Instead vow to be stronger than your fear.
• Not every woman is a harlot. There have always been some who have showed restraint, whether in permissive cultures or restrictive ones. Even today some women don’t sleep around. The goal of any man intending to marry is to look for those women. And don’t marry if you don’t find one.
• You can reduce the chances of betrayal by being in an environment which discourages and penalizes such behavior. Stack the deck in your favor by leveraging whatever you can against her betraying you.

Will this resolve the uncertainty forever? No. But it will help give some peace of mind. The truth is that this world will always carry with it risks and disappointments. That cannot be stopped. Instead we must do what we can to get the odds in our favor.

Just How Universal Is the 80/20 Rule?

Deep Strength had a post up a few weeks ago where he looked at how Tinder reaffirmed the 80/20 rule. The post is short, so go there to read it in full. I was not surprised by this result, in fact I would have predicted it if asked given the OKCupid numbers.  What led me to create this separate post is the following comment by Deep Strength:

The ‘most attractive’ men have a disproportionate amount of female attention and can pretty much pick and choose who to bang (if secular) or to marry (if Christian).

I happen to agree with that statement. But it got me thinking about the assumptions involved in it. What I would like to know is this:

Is the 80/20 rule truly universal? That is, does it apply to every “market?”

Tinder and OKCupid are specific markets. They cater to specific (and somewhat different) crowds. Those crows would be secular in nature, and with Tinder especially, focused on those looking for casual sex. So I would expect people to argue that the numbers apply only to those markets.

But my own experiences back up the 80/20 rule. I see which men in Christian (specifically Catholic) circles the women crush on. And it is the same handful of men. I hear this same thing from other Christian men- especially here on the sphere.

Everything leads me to believe that the rule is universal one, and doesn’t depend on the particular market in question. I invite my readers to offer their own take on this. Am a right? Wrong? Somewhere in between?

 

A Lofty Double Standard

Vox over at Alpha Game has a great new post up today. Post being a somewhat loose term, as it is just an image. But as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. And boy does this 1k worth of words say a lot:

 

I have seen and heard women be vicious about a lot of things. But without a doubt my experience has been that women are the most consistently savage when it comes to critiquing a man’s height. If you are of below average height… lets just say this: most women these days wouldn’t care if the average guy lived or died- but if you are short, well, many would rather you were dead.

Fortunately I’m not below average in height, much less short. But I have a lot of sympathy for men who are. A man needs to bring a lot more to the table to compete in the present SMP/MMP if his height is lacking.

Short Digression: One of the critiques aimed at my LAMPS/PSALM model was that there was no real place for height. I lumped it in with Looks, but given how much value women place in height, that moves Looks up way ahead of where I normally allocate its value. A few commenters have suggested I add Height as a separate attribute, and part of me is tempted. It is just that Looks is where it would fit naturally. Of course, in the simplified “APE” model it fits better into Appearance overall.

That aside done with, the response of the guy in that chat was the right one. There is a huge double standard out there when it comes to height. Women, for all their talk about not judging by appearance, will judge men unmercifully on that particular trait. And of course they blow up if men try and flip the tables on them. Imagine if that guy above had started by asking the woman’s weight. It would be the 4th of July. But her asking his height? Totally acceptable- or at least seen that way.

I am curious if any of my readers have been involved in conversations, discussions, debates, arguments where this particular topic has come up. If so, I would ask them to talk about how it all went. I don’t recall having been in one myself, so I am curious what would be said. And of course, I would like to prepare myself for that argument ahead of time too. So comment away if you have anything to add.

Market Analysis: Penny Stocks

This post is a continuation of my Market Analysis series, which began with my post Market Watch. Today I want to cover a topic which was brought up by Elspeth in a couple of comments. Here is the first:

I’m just done, done, done, with pretending that Christ cannot change people deep down and for real. Suppose Paul had been deemed of no earthly use to the Church because of his previous persecution of it.

Which is followed by this:

None of that changes my original assertion that people can and do have sincere changes of heart, and that any person’s decision to reject a certain group of people as mates is fine but let’s kill the “even real and true Christians are damaged beyond any kind of repair as potential mates”.

The issue here is whether some people are so “damaged” that there is no realistic hope of recovery, and thus, eventual marriageability. In the past the word “ruined” might have been used of such cases- as in, ruined for marriage.

First to define “damage” in this context.  A simple explanation would be strains or burdens on someone’s physical/mental/emotional well-being which impair his or her ability to have a successful/stable marriage. [If someone has thoughts on a better explanation please mention below.] I mention all of these because they can and do all affect one’s capacity to be a good spouse.

It is also worth mentioning that these factors- these burdens- are not necessarily the fault of the person in question. Some are- the products of sin, for example. But others might simply be the product of nature (think certain illnesses) or the willful actions of others (the trauma created by abuse, for example).

The way I see it, what we are talking about here is a spectrum of “damage.” Everyone has at least some damage- small things which would get in the way of their being a good husband or wife. However, there is a spread which takes place. Some people have relatively little damage (a few bad habits), and others have a huge amount of damage (think of some stories from the ‘sphere). Now, somewhere on this spectrum is a point where someone is too damaged to be considered marriageable. That is, they are too burdened, as they are at that time, to make a good spouse. [I suspect this point is not fixed- it is heavily influenced by culture and the overall environment- thoughts for another post.]

Now all of this needs to take into account that where people fall in this spectrum changes over time. Sometimes damage is “healed.” Sometimes it gets worse or new damage takes place. So the real question is whether some damage cannot “heal” or get better.

Well, having thought it over some, I think there are some people who are beyond simply “damaged.” These people are broken. I suspect most of my readers know people like this. People who have experienced terrible trauma and struggle with it daily. They are enduring burdens which go beyond the need for ordinary healing- they need out and out miracles. And not the everyday miracles we often overlook- I mean the the kind which are unmistakable.

Now, these miracles do happen. Perhaps my readers know of some instances, either with people they know or have heard of through the grapevine. But all the same, without such miracles those people would not have improved.  Thankfully they are not common. But they do exist.

At the same time, all of this has gotten me thinking about how exactly people “heal.” And how Christian transformations work. I know they work- I have seen them happen first hand. But I have been wondering about the process. Since Elspeth mentioned St. Paul, I think this seems appropriate to ponder:

I must boast; there is nothing to be gained by it, but I will go on to visions and revelations of the Lord. ² I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows. ³ And I know that this man was caught up into Paradise—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows— ⁴ and he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter. ⁵ On behalf of this man I will boast, but on my own behalf I will not boast, except of my weaknesses. ⁶ Though if I wish to boast, I shall not be a fool, for I shall be speaking the truth. But I refrain from it, so that no one may think more of me than he sees in me or hears from me. ⁷ And to keep me from being too elated by the abundance of revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan, to harass me, to keep me from being too elated. ⁸ Three times I besought the Lord about this, that it should leave me; ⁹ but he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” I will all the more gladly boast of my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. ¹⁰ For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities; for when I am weak, then I am strong.

(2 Corinthians 12:1-10)

Part of me wonders if the transformation is not always about healing. That is, it isn’t about removing the harm or burden. Instead, it is about lending strength to the person in question such that they are able to carry on despite the burden. If so, this is important to understand because there is a marked difference in how they operate.

If the burden is gone, then it should hopefully not come back to haunt someone in the future. But if the burden remains and is covered by grace, then a lapse in faith by the person means that it comes out full force again.

Perhaps my readers have some thoughts on this they would like to share. I am curious to hear what you folks have to say.

Market Analysis: Stock Imbalance

Today’s post comes as a follow-up to a debate between Zippy and Deti in my post Market Watch. Given the amount of talking past each other, and the fact it was derailing that post, I decided a new one was appropriate. This post will let them, myself  and others answer the questions that were raised. At least, that is my hope.

I will begin by quoting a question that Zippy was trying to address:

What I am interested in is whether women who are trying to do the right thing have an easy time of it compared to men who are trying to do the right thing.

This was, in my view, the best example of that question which he raised. He put it several different ways, but I think that version is the easiest to understand.

Deti had his own set of questions:

• if women really aren’t satisfied with all this casual sex they’re having, why are they having it?
• If the casual sex they have is so unsatisfying and they want something else, what are they doing to change such that they don’t have to have all this unsatisfying casual sex (but continue to have, nonstop)?
• And if casual sex is so unsatisfying, then what would satisfy them?
• And if something other than casual sex would satisfy them more, why don’t they go get it? Or at least, why don’t they NOT do things they claim are so unsatisfying?

Any other questions they have, which they would like people to try and answer, they can mention in the comments below. I will bring them up here and mention them in the main post if I feel it appropriate.

With all of that out of the way, let me try and answer these questions myself.

Let’s begin with Zippy’s:

What I am interested in is whether women who are trying to do the right thing have an easy time of it compared to men who are trying to do the right thing.

His is fairly simple. I think the answer is that both of them have such a terrible time of it that it is impossible to tell who, if anyone, has it worse.

Something important to note is that Zippy is looking at the market as a whole, which effectively moves the real question to moral agency and the ability/likelihood of choosing what is good over what isn’t. It isn’t about who can marry, or even marry well. Just how easy it is do to what is right- which can include marrying or not marrying. With those parameters, I think men and women are on equally awful footing.

Now, if one were to alter Zippy’s question (and it would be an alteration), towards asking whether men or women have an easier time when it comes to marrying right, then my answer would change somewhat.  In the past I have said that women had it easier. However, as time has passed I’ve reconsidered this. Originally it was a more significant advantage comparatively, although insignificant in an objective lens. it lessened over time, with teh advantage mostly owing to the lower number of marriage-worthy women as compared to men (again, comparatively- absolute numbers are something else). Nowadays I am not sure this is true. Enough men might be dropping out of the market entirely that this has changed.

Now to try and answer Deti’s questions. I will tackle them in order.

1. A lot depends on the meaning we attach to “satisfaction”. And of course, who we are talking about. However, if we assume just temporary sexual gratification, and women as a general aggregate, then women probably are getting some satisfaction. However, it is not to the level of what they want. They want more satisfaction. Remember, they are women- only the best will do (I jest, I jest). As for why they have it- because they are fools, and to borrow a metaphor, they are throwing good money after bad. They don’t know where else to look for true satisfaction/fulfillment.
2. They are trying to weed out as many unworthy men as possible from the SMP. Oh, and they are also trying to sabotage each other, too.
3. Fried Ice. No, in all seriousness the answer depends on who we are talking about again. If it is women as an aggregate, it would be to have a top tier men all to herself. And to be able to toss him if bored or he loses top tier status.
4. Many possible answers. Perhaps they are lazy. Perhaps they don’t know, or cannot think of anything other/better. Maybe I should let this one go…

And with that, I leave the floor open to others to take there stab at these questions, and related ones.

Who has it harder in the marriage market: devout and serious minded Christian men, or devout and serious minded Christian women?

Can we even tell? And does it even matter?

Go ahead and add your own.

Set Up To Fail

Today I would like to revisit this comment from “Hungarian Girl,” one which I have addressed already in my post Tissue-Paper Walls. Here is the same money paragraph again:

it’s very difficult to have high self-esteem when you do everything “right” but still have poor luck with the opposite sex, and it creates a very lonely feeling when you follow your values but end up getting victimized for it. Our society is simply set up so that selfish people appear to get ahead–that goes for Chads sleeping with hundreds of women, and the slutty girls having “fun.” Eva is the equivalent of the beta male looking on confused, and just because you can’t imagine a woman sharing that experience with you, doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. In fact, most women are profoundly insecure. The ones who are open about it–like Eva–haven’t learned the lesson that YOU perceive all women to be adept at–hiding their feelings and vulnerabilities.

I have put in bold those parts of the paragraph that I want to go over this round- most of the beginning, as you can see.

Before I go further, let’s break this comment down into its constituent parts:

• A lack of success with the opposite sex + doing everything right= lack of self-esteem
• Following your values + being victimized for it= extreme loneliness
• Society is set up for the selfish folks
• Women can experience the same kind of confusion that “Betas” feel when the market runs over them

Now to tackle each of those points in order.

The first point is something that many men, especially the young ones, in the sphere completely understand. Anyone who has spent time as a “Beta”, or whatever point in Vox’s model that you think applies, knows the confusion that this system creates. We have been told many things which, when applied, fail utterly. Or when we compare what see with what we have been told, nothing adds up. And over time, that just crushes your confidence and spirits.

The second point is again pretty easy to understand. That is just human nature. We will just naturally feel lonely when we do what we think is right, and get blasted for it.I am sure the Prophet Elijah felt that way after he fled Ahab into the desert.

As for the third point, I think our society goes beyond just being set up for the selfish. It is also set up for the short-sighted and the short-term focused. It benefits those looking for immediate gratification (pretty much always sexual), and punishes those who try to plan or optimize for the long term. Otherwise stated, short term relationships are favored (and the shorter the better), and long term relationships are disfavored. We have set up a SMP/MMP which is an enormous version of the Prisoner’s Dilemma, only this one is far more likely to end in betrayal.

The fourth point is one that I think many, if not most, men in the ‘sphere have trouble with. However, if we look back to the first point here, they can see there is nothing which really restricts the principle of crushed self-esteem to men. Women can experience it too, although the circumstances might be different. Now, their confidence won’t affect their attractiveness like it does for men, but it will impact their desire to play the market. So there is a strong negative effect, even if it is less direct that men feel.

Now that is just self-esteem. There is nothing which makes it so women cannot face a similar kind of confusion that men feel. Do I think it is less common for women to experience that confusion? Yes. But some will no doubt experience it.

So where does all of this take me? It goes back to a simple conclusion that I made in my post Market Failure:

However the Marriage Marketplace worked in the past, one thing is abundantly clear about how it works today: it doesn’t. The current Marriage Marketplace is broken, and is almost completely subsumed into the greater Sexual Marketplace (“SMP”) which has largely taken its place. This process has been a complete and utter disaster, whose consequences will be felt for generations

The present Market does its very best to set up for failure anyone who aims to “do it right.” In fact, it goes even further than that. It attempts to hide what “doing it right” actually is, and also creates confusion about what constitutes “doing it right.”

The end result is that the present Market is really great for short-sighted and selfish people who are only looking for immediate gratification. They benefit while everyone else suffers.

Dressed To Impress

Women like to get dressed up. They like to look their best.

But for whom?

One of the interesting surprises of “the Red Pill” was that women don’t really dress up for men. Or at least, men as a whole. Reader/Commenter Ame had this to say in my post Tissue-Paper Walls:

a woman can pick another woman apart in a nano-second with one eye covered and the other only half open. women dress for other women more than they dress for men. as has been stated in the manosphere … women compete with other women – some much more fiercely than others.

Women dressing for other women [over dressing for men] was something that I had no clue about before finding the ‘sphere. And what is interesting about this particular tidbit of RP knowledge is that it was a woman who passed it on to me shortly after I found the ‘sphere. She of course thought it was common sense. Which just goes to show the gap in understanding that exists between men and women.

What is interesting to think about is the motivation behind this behavior. What we have is women dressing the best, but not to try and attract men in general. Instead they are trying to show off to other women how attractive they are in order to one-up other women. Otherwise stated, they are showing off how they could pull a quality man, without actually aiming to do so (at least as their primary interest).

Let’s add together a couple of things: 1) The vast majority of men are normally of little concern to women. 2) Women compete fiercely with one another over sexual attractiveness. From this we can extrapolate a significant amount about female behavior, especially socio-sexual behavior.

For one, we can see that women are clearly able to evaluate each others attractiveness in the eyes of men.

Second, we can see that the hierarchy

among women is dominated by their sexual market value, or at least their perceived value.

Third, we can see that this isn’t an objective value by any measure, at least as men evaluate it. The 1-10 scale, for example, is subjective between men. But for an individual man he will generally rate women independent of one another. That isn’t how women do it, however. Instead, women rank each other on their attractiveness as much as gauge their actual SMV value. So it isn’t enough to be an 8, you have to be a higher 8 than the woman over there.

Nothing I’ve said is an kind of revelation, naturally. However it is a good thing to remember. Plus I will try and work it into my next Selected Sunday Scriptures post.

Tissue-Paper Walls

A few days ago a first time commenter left a comment on an old post of mine, A Must Read Story. There is a small part of her rather longish comment that I want to examine. The key part is in bold:

it’s very difficult to have high self-esteem when you do everything “right” but still have poor luck with the opposite sex, and it creates a very lonely feeling when you follow your values but end up getting victimized for it. Our society is simply set up so that selfish people appear to get ahead–that goes for Chads sleeping with hundreds of women, and the slutty girls having “fun.” Eva is the equivalent of the beta male looking on confused, and just because you can’t imagine a woman sharing that experience with you, doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. In fact, most women are profoundly insecure. The ones who are open about it–like Eva–haven’t learned the lesson that YOU perceive all women to be adept at–hiding their feelings and vulnerabilities.

Most women are profoundly insecure.

That little tidbit is the subject of today’s post. I’ve written on it before, in my post Beta Farming. I explained my reasoning at the time of why women might be insecure. Some of my reasoning:

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

Having thought about it more, I can think of additional reasons for female insecurity.  One of them is that women know (mostly at an unconscious level) how vulnerable pregnancy and child-raising makes them. Another is that women, again unconsciously, realize how limited their peak fertility and SMV window is. They worry about optimizing that time, and covering for when they are no longer at their peak. There is plenty of room for speculation there, and my commenters can feel free to contribute.

However, I want talk about how the insecurity should be handled. One of the problems with that insecurity is that ill-intentioned men can exploit it. Often times quite easily. And course, it usually isn’t entirely unwillingly. But exploitable it still remains.

At the same time, I think that this insecurity is something that good men can relieve or buttress. They can, in the right scenario, build up women’s confidence in a positive way. This can help women resist that lure of exploitation or build up a wall against it. Men can supplement the tissue paper or paper mache walls that women may have with walls of stone and gates of iron.

Unfortunately, our society isn’t exactly eager to see this happen. Fatherhood has been trashed, both as a social as well as a legal force. Fathers are essentially powerless to protect their daughters these days, especially when they are older. Likewise, our society does its level best to keep women away from actual good men, who though few in number still exist. Certainly it tries hard to keep women from marrying such men when they are young.

Now, what I am saying gets awfully close to white knighting. I will admit that gives me pause. All the same, I think the argument is potent indeed that strong men are needed to protect women- from themselves. But for that to happen men need actual power to go with that responsibility. Our present cadre of White Knights, especially in Churchian circles, is what you get when you take that power away from men. Men become modern caricatures of Don Quixote, assaulting windmills left and right and ignoring the real threats all around them.

I will leave with two questions I want to pose to my readers.

First, what methods can be used to protect women, assuming the necessary social structure was in place?

Second, if that structure is not in place, how can it be created, or what workarounds can be used if it cannot?

 

Masculine Monday- Sympathy And Understanding

[Men only]

One of the hurdles that men face today in navigating the Marriage Marketplace is the widespread ignorance of most people where the MMP is concerned. For a variety of reasons most of the people that a man interacts with don’t have a clue how the MMP really works. This applies as much to married men as to men seeking to marry. Most people just don’t get it.

Which drives me to the subject of this post- men shouldn’t expect much in the way of understanding from those around them re: the MMP. In fact, the only ones who might understand are men in the same position (or who recently occupied it). I don’t know about most of my readers, but I find this to be a terribly frustrating matter. On more than one occasion I have been asked why I’m not married yet. And no matter how much or well I explain it, I can see in people’s eyes that they don’t understand. I find this quite isolating at times- it creates a climate of being cut off and without aid.

Now, at this point I should mention that one of Rollo‘s little “laws” is that women are ultimately incapable of understanding the male experience. In this area I agree- the disconnect in experience and thought patterns means that women just can’t “get” what it is like to be a man. My advice is to not even try to go into detailed explanations with women when it comes to this field. You will be wasting your time.

At the same time, while understanding isn’t possible from women, and from most men too (they are too bound up in their “Blue Pill” worldview), sympathy is still possible. Even those who don’t understand why your life is the way it is can still be sympathetic. Personally speaking, I don’t find that nearly as much of a relief as understanding. But it is something, at least. So if you do find those who are sympathetic, appreciate that sympathy for what it is- the best connection you can hope to make with most people you encounter, even the good ones.

I write all of this to perhaps save some man out there the frustration that comes from trying to explain to someone what they cannot hope to understand. Accept that you will never impart that understanding, and the connection that comes with it. Take what sympathy that you can get, and keep moving forward. Such is the burden of being a man in this day and age.