And I Just Can’t Contain This Feelin’ That Remains

 

I was reading through Ace of Spades most recent post, and came to an epiphany:

 

Solomon was an addict.

 

Every woman he added to his harem was yet another attempt to chase the dragon.

 

And every temple he built to a foreign god was a payment made to his dealer.

 

All to ensure he always had his fix.

 

Like many an addict, his addiction eventually led to the point where it brought to ruin everything he had built up in his life.

 

In his desire to take the edge off, he ensured that the pain only increased.

 

And that is because no drug, whether the kind ingested, injected, smoked… or welcomed into ones arms, can ever fix the pain.

 

It can only numb it.

 

There is only one cure to the pain.

 

And that is Death.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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.

Different Room, Same Building

[Or otherwise called “Different Faith Tradition, But Same Culture”]

Reader and Commenter Patrick recently left a link to a Catholic blog which goes by the name Traditional Catholic Femininity. The link was for a post titled “Shortage of Marriageable Prospects Among Traditional Catholics.”

To warn everyone, it is a long post. Too long even to even just cut quote from. So I will make an effort to summarize it, if only poorly. All the same, it would be best to read the whole thing. Here is my attempt at a TLDR version:

First off, we have the quotes from another post that are the foundation-

• Too many Catholic women cannot marry, or at least marry well, because there is a real shortage of good, marriageable Catholic men.
• This shortage is because Catholic men think they are ready but are not, and need to seriously up their game.

At this point the proprietress of the blog chimes in, and offers the following:

1. The solution to the problem is for Catholic women to marry older men, preferably 10-15 years older and at least 35.
2. Because women mature faster than men women will find men their age to be immature, so to find mature men they need to look at older men.
3.  All of this means that men are just not ready to be married before their 30s in any way.
4. If you marry an older men he will love you more for it, and be less likely to cheat/abandon you, etc.
5. Men choose mates based on youth and beauty, and women chose mates based on the physical and material security he can provide.
6. This dynamic is proven to work! Look at Joseph and Mary! And see what happened with Adam and Eve!
7. Don’t marry a man just because he is hot, marry because he is able to provide, otherwise don’t marry at all
8. Younger men need to work hard, build themselves up, become leaders, etc.
9.  If you are a younger man and you think you are ready for marriage, you are fooling yourself. You just want a housekeeper you can have sex with.
10.  Only a handful of men who are young are there. Most of the rest of you are losers. Fix yourselves up.
11.  If you are concerned about sexual sin, that just means you are weak and lack self discipline. Learn to control yourself. If you can’t then you are just basically a sexual predator.
12. Oh, and women are attracted to a disciplined and self-controlled man.

That is gist of it.

So what do I think of the post? Well, I think that Elspeth, in her comment to that post, said it well: “This whole screed is filled with bad logic and inconsistencies.”

It is bad. Really, really bad. I mean, where to begin?

You have the standard men bad, women good trope. It disguises itself somewhat by saying it is merely about younger men being immature, but really, it is

You have a misunderstanding about the maturation rates of women and men. The author seems to think it simply means men are slow- rather than understanding it means that men can continue to mature past where women do.

You have a misunderstanding about what women find attractive in men, in a bad way. All of the focus on “Beta traits”, while completely ignoring or down-playing the “Alpha” or Attractive traits.

You have a misunderstanding of both Mary and Joseph’s marriage, as well as Adam and Eve’s.

The author takes time to repeatedly trash younger men. I don’t know about my readers, but I sensed real disdain here. Like visceral disdain.

Oh, and of course a complete misunderstanding of, and a downplaying of, male sexuality.

And did I mention that none of this is founded in Scripture or the writings of the Fathers of the Church or Saints?

So yeah, bad.

Mind you, the advice for women to marry older men is well-intentioned, so there is that. Unfortunately, few will actually listen to this advice, so it doesn’t accomplish much. Instead this post, rather than coming across as advice to women, seems much more like an exercise in bashing men.

And that is where the post’s title comes from. Not that there was ever any doubt, but Catholics, even Big T “Traditional” ones, still swim in the same culture as other Christian faith traditions. And that culture carries with it some of the things I mentioned above. The particular expression might vary, but the ingredients are the same, if you will.

Of course, my readers might have their own thoughts on the subject. I encourage them to off their ideas in the comments below.

Those Who Really Get It And Those Who Really Don’t

One of the things that I have noticed over the years, but haven’t really addressed in this blog, is how certain professions seem to be rather extreme in their “red pill” or “blue pill” viewpoints. By that I mean that members of this profession are rarely “in the middle” when it comes to their understanding of human nature. They either really get it, or they are completely clueless about it. The two that come to mind right away are cops and priests.

I have a few friends who are police officers, or are otherwise connected to law enforcement, plus some I know through church. And they fit this profile perfectly. There is one former cop whom I am familiar with who, to best of my knowledge, has never heard of the ‘sphere. And yet he gets women better than almost any non-Spherian I have ever met. Correct observations, correct analysis. The works.

At the same time I have encountered cops who were the biggest White Knights you would ever encounter outside works of romantic fiction. Always blame men and defend women? Check? Pretend women aren’t running wild? Check. And the list goes on. The messed up aspect of all this is that they often would make correct observations. Or at least be exposed to events which should show the truth.

With priests I have noticed the same. Some are very much attuned to “real” human nature, especially of women. And others are the biggest excusers of it that you can find.

I am curious what my readers, if there are any of you left, that is, think of all of this. What are you theories?

My own theory is that people like cops and priests, since they are exposed to the nittiest and grittiest of human behavior, can’t really ignore everything they are exposed to. They have to try and make sense of the madness of it all. But for many, the conclusions reached by a “red pill” analysis are too bitter a pill to swallow. They don’t want to accept everything that comes with a full recognition of reality. So they retreat to the mental and emotional safety that “blue pill” thinking provides. Say what you will, but that kind of mentality demands much less of a man than acknowledging the truth does. At least, that is my operative theory.

 

The Knowledge Base Spreads

A long time reader and commenter has clued me in to a series on the Orthodox Blog “Russian Faith” concerning attracting a spouse. The first post in the series is “How to Attract a Christian Spouse-Marriage Advice from a Christian Dad.” The author cites my LAMPS/PSALM model favorably at one point, although he adds on a final S to include Spirituality. I think I will respond to that point sometime later, as it is good to understand what my model is, and what my model isn’t.

He then wrote a follow up post, title Attractiveness: Beauty is Not Just On the Inside. It is very Un-PC in all of the right ways. A snippet from it:

A woman’s physical attractiveness is the most immediate and pressing point of interest to most men. Morally and spiritually, this can be quite dangerous — we all know very attractive women whose spiritual lives are a mess — but attractiveness itself is central to attraction by most men (whether godly or not).

A young lady may be a devout Christian, but if she is not physically attractive, the vast majority of men will pass her over.

This is absolutely true, and something which unfortunately is not taught enough in Christian circles (of any faith tradition). The reverse is of course true for men as well, and is one of the reasons why we have the Christian side of the ‘sphere.

One thing I found very striking about the second post is the photos. They showcase beautiful women who are very feminine and modest in appearance. Not the vulgar “sexiness” the world loves to push out.

I will be curious to see where the author takes the remaining posts. At the same time, I am already pleased to see this kind of article happen. Especially because it showcases my LAMPS/PSALM model and the understanding that goes with it. Hopefully more Christian outlets will take advantage of those kinds of resources in the future.

Incentive V. Motive Force

I recommend that my readers, if they haven’t already, read Dalrock’s two most recent posts: “Headship makes all the difference”  and “Incentives matter.” There is an important point or clarification that I think should be made here, especially with regards to the first post.

People like Gilder believe that women civilize men. Another way of putting it is that they feel that women are the motive force which pushes men to become civilized. Women push, and men are moved. This is not at all how it works.

Rather, women can act as an incentive to men to civilize. However, it is men who civilize other men. [And women too, while we are at it- but that is for another post.] And the approach used, if one wants to succeed, is always the tried and true method of the carrot and the stick.

The stick takes the form of punishment and discipline. Discipline must be taught, must be encouraged, and perhaps even beaten into a man growing up. Without it he will revert to his “factory default setting” and become a thug. [At the same time it is possible to go overboard and beat out the masculinity from a boy- in which case he doesn’t truly become a civilized man at all, as he is not a man.]

The carrot, however, can be a couple of things. Respect being one of them. Access to a good job and position in society being another. But the most powerful carrot is the promise of a woman… and with her a family. The promise of locking down a loyal woman, and the attendant sexual access that comes with it, is a powerful incentive for men. The kind of incentive which will make them endure the “stick” and become civilized.

However, as others have pointed out, that only works if the carrot is edible. When women are no longer seen as marriageable, when men no longer see them as ‘worth the effort’, then it all falls apart. Without the carrot, men won’t finish the “civilizing” process. It seems that there are two primary outcomes from this: they resist the discipline, and becomes thugs, or they  simply endure it as long as they have to and then become the so called “grass-eaters.” Either way, the fail to live up to their potential and the civilization they live in suffers for it.

This is something that used to be understood in the past. Unfortunately our society has thrown it out, along with so many other necessary bits of knowledge. As things continue to fall apart, I anticipate efforts will be made to try and address this. There might even be an effort to seek out what was lost. But I do not anticipate any actual solution happening- society won’t want to give up what it has “gained” for itself.

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.

Toxic Femininity

These days we hear plenty about so called “Toxic Masculinity.” The phrase is naturally enough a ruse- the whole point of it is to tar all masculinity as toxic. Its goal is nothing more and nothing less than to eradicate all signs of masculinity from the public sphere.

Rather than go into a full on rebuttal of this distorted thinking, I want to take a different tack today. I want to talk about the possibility of a “Toxic Femininity.”

What would such a thing be? What would it look like? How would it manifest?

---

As Dalrock and many others have pointed out for years, there is a massive wave of female rebellion going on in the West. Such a rebellion has likely not been seen in all of recorded history. And this rebellion is manifesting itself in some truly ugly ways.

What I want to explore is which feminine behaviors have become toxic in the west today as a result of that rebellion. And I hope that my readers can chip in and help out too. There is a lot of truth to the old saying that many hands make light work. So hopefully my readers will offer their thoughts in the comments below.

The way I see it, there are a few steps to all of this. They are:

• Identify what constitutes female nature
• Determine those parts of female nature which either are, or can be, destructive if left unchecked
• Identify which of those are now running rampant in the West today

Some things are easy enough to identify- hypergamy, for example, is a major and obvious one. But there is more to be found. I’ve written other posts before which have covered some of these behaviors, but I want this post to be a sort of compilation of all of them. A go-to resource in the future, if you will. Hopefully it will be useful to more people than just myself.

---

Examples of Toxic Femininity:

Hypergamy-

[To be updated as time passes]

 

How Hard Is It To Miss The Point?

This post is a response to Dalrock’s latest, Missing the point is hard work. In that post Dalrock pokes fun at a certain Trevin Wax of the Gospel Coalition. Mr Wax apparently was stupefied as to why young girls were taking Frozen and its song “Let it Go” as encouragement to be immoral. He was expecting a toxic message, seemingly found a decent message, and yet the toxic message seems to seep through. How can this be?

Well, let me be the Devil’s Advocate for Mr. Wax.

You see, I think the key is understanding levels of communication. As an adult Mr. Wax is picking up the (apparent) deeper message of the story. Namely that “letting go” is a disaster of an idea. This deeper message is not surface level- it requires analysis. Maybe not a lot, but analysis nonetheless. And it also requires a certain level of critical viewing skill as well. Guess what kids don’t have? Yeah, that.

The problem is that the toxic message is surface level. This is what children are picking up- especially through the music. The song celebrates rebellion, and all its accompanying sins. That is what the children listen to, that is what they sing, and that is what they memorize. They don’t do any of that for the deeper messages of the story (which I assume are present).

This is why Disney and similar products are so insidious. An adult watching them might think that the message of the story is ok- that it teaches that being rebellious and selfish and whatnot is a bad idea, and will leader to disaster. But the children are getting an entirely different message- one that is reverberated again and again, especially thanks to music.

Is all of this obvious- well, to some degree. But I suspect many miss it. A singular problem that I have noticed in my life is that many adults have forgotten what it is like to be a child. Especially parents. This only contributes to their often foolish behavior as parents. I suspect that some of this is going on as well.

But whatever else, this is how people “miss it.” It doesn’t even require willful blindness- just a healthy dose of folly and a lack of perception. And unfortunately those are in abundant supply these days.

Power And Control

Zippy has a new post up which demands a follow-up: With great power comes great incontinence. Short and to the point, I am tempted to repeat all of it. Instead I will merely quote what I see as the key parts. They are:

 

• The most primal power of men is violence

• The most primal power of women is sex

• [O]ur society is willing to punish crimes of violence but is not willing to punish crimes of sex

I think it should be readily apparent to all my readers, but I will repeat it all the same-

Society and Civilization can only exist when there are structures in place which control the base, primal natures of human beings. Failure to control that primal nature leads to savagery in the end, and that means chaos. Towards that end, the building and the maintenance of civilization requires that the primal nature of both men and women alike must be strictly controlled and regulated.

For men our most primal power is violence. Thus, to control our primal nature requires the strict regulation of male violent tendencies. Fail to do so, and you have disorder.

For women, their most primal power is sex. Thus, to control their primal nature requires the strict regulation of female sexual tendencies. Fail to do so, and you have disorder.

The problem right now is what Zippy notes- we regulate violence extensively, but not sexuality. The result is that women are now the primary source of disorder in the “Civilized West.” This will not change until sexuality is regulated with the same fierceness as violence is.

Unfortunately, what we see now is that efforts are being made to double down on the regulation of the male capacity for violence. And further efforts are being made to double down on the deregulation of female sexual tendencies. Rollo has a new post  where this is discussed in the context of The War on Paternity. While most previous efforts to ensure paternity in the past have been dismantled, new technology has changed the field. DNA testing means that a man really can be certain, for the first time in history, that a child is truly his. That naturally conflicts with female sexual power. Thus, it has to go. Hence we are seeing increased efforts to limit when paternity testing can take place, and when it can be used to change a man’s situation (legally, at least).

I have some more thoughts I may add to this post as I develop them. In the meantime feel free to comment below.