Among my more controversial essays is my series on the differences in interpretations of love as specific to each gender. As I’ve elaborated before Men approach love from idealistic foundations, while due to their innate hypergamy, women’s approach to love is rooted in opportunism. The easy rebuttal to this that often comes from women is to presume that either sex’s life experiences are going to necessarily be different. Women cannot fully appreciate the male experience (much less validate it) unless they can actually become men and live in a lifetime of their experiences, their upbringing, their biology, their acculturation and societal conditioning.
Yes, I am aware that it works both ways, men cannot fully appreciate women’s existential experiences either and for the same reason, however that doesn’t excuse either gender from making an effort to better understand the other’s experience. In a social environment where the feminine perspective has primacy, it has been women who have been the arbiters of what should universally be the socially agreed upon definition of what love means to both sexes.
However, this hasn’t stopped men from trying to define love for themselves, and make efforts to make women see how they would like their love to be in idealistic terms. History is rife with examples of men, in every culture, venturing to make women understand and really grasp their idealized notion of love. From ancient love poems, to epic stories of one woman launching a thousand ships, to Romeo and Juliet, Men have attempted to educate women on how they would be loved, and how they would like to love.
As I’ve detailed before, once a man really unplugs from his feminine conditioning he becomes more sensitive to the world that’s been pulled over his eyes. Hearing common terms in conversation that belie a feminine mindset, listening to songs that drip with male self-sacrifice for women, understanding why certain themes in popular media resonate with culture is all part of this new sensitivity. One thing the red pill has has made me keenly aware over time is the difference in storytelling that applies to each gender.
It would be too easy an assumption to say that I have a better awareness as to which gender is telling a particular story, but rather, I have a keener sensitivity to which gender perspective a story is originating from now – and particularly when that story involves specific gender approaches to love. I could single out the stories of Emily Bronte and compare them with the formulaic themes of modern romance novels or romantic comedy movies, but that would be easy and expected. Any women’s studies major could tell you this. What I’m interested in is how the genders interpret each other’s idealized concepts of love.
Example 1
Titanic, 1997. Arguably one of the greatest love stories ever put on film. I can remember adult women of the time who literally were incapable of going to work or doing much of anything else the day after watching this movie. I can remember women I dealt with professionally bursting into tears because they were so wracked with vicarious imagined grief – this is the psychological impact Titanic had, don’t even get me started on the teenage girls of the time.
A lot went on in Titanic from a feminine-romanticized perspective. It’s definitely an epic fairytale, and one that has all of the formulaic elements of a classic love story. Rich beautiful girl, scrappy-poor-but-Alpha-and good looking hero who draws girl into his reality. Tragic, but sacrificial death of said hero to save her and ensure her a better life.
I’ve linked the last few minutes of Titanic here because it’s really the summation of the entire story. The former beauty, now old woman, Rose still pines for her Alpha she lost so long ago. This scene epitomizes the concept of the Alpha Widow — As the heart that was given to her by her Alpha sinks to the bottom of the ocean, we pan across photos of all of her life experiences afforded to her by Jack’s sacrifice; the beauty queen, the mother, the Amelia Earhart-esque (have it all fantasy) pilot, horseback rider and finally she can return to her Alpha in death.
Example 2
Saving Private Ryan, 1998. Released just one year later, Saving Private Ryan debuts. Also, arguably one of the greatest, heroic and epic stories put to film from an unarguably masculine perspective. Where Titanic relies on a clever retelling of classic and tested romantic themes, SPR explores distinctly male themes of honor, duty, courage, service and also sacrifice. Captain Miller’s sacrifice is of a decidedly different nature, but the premise is the same — self-sacrifice for the betterment of another individual. As Captain Miller dies his last words are “Earn this.” Merit this, be worthy of this.
Granted, more men than just Captain Miller die on Ryan’s behalf, but he’s the protagonist and the one we really care about as his death is personalized for us. In an almost analogous ending to Titanic (linked) we see the elderly Ryan contemplating his life and wondering if he’d “earned it” with what he’d done with his life. And in classic form he seeks that affirmation from a woman, his wife.
“Tell me I’ve led a good life. Tell me I’m a good man.”
We can tell there’s no connection, no familiarity of Ryan’s experience shared with his wife. Her response is just this side of a patronizing dismissal of the imagined concerns of an old man. We can presume Ryan has led a somewhat good life, he’s still married, probably has kids, but nowhere is the have it all fantasization that an elderly Rose enjoys. We still don’t know if Ryan had ‘earned it’, if his life’s performance was good enough; the pat on the cheek from his oblivious wife doesn’t confirm it, but that’s the operative difference between Ryan’s character and Rose’s — Rose’s good life was never expected to have been earned.
Almost serendipitously Mac commented on my Sorry,.. post this evening:
I was picked on as a boy and decided at a very young age to fight back by outdoing all my naysayers. All the people that tell you your not good enough, smart enough or talented enough… So I became the antithesis of their projections and surpassed all my personal goals. It’s more than just getting the girl… It’s about conquering “your” world!
Men are expected to perform. To be successful, to get the girl, to live a good life, men must do. Whether it’s riding wheelies down the street on your bicycle to get that cute girl’s attention or to get a doctorate degree to ensure your personal success and your future family’s, Men must perform. Women’s arousal, attraction, desire and love are rooted in that conditional performance. The degree to which that performance meets or exceeds expectations is certainly subjective, and the ease with which you can perform is also an issue, but perform you must.
There is one final movie that I would use as an illustration of gender-differential love approaches and that is the movie Blue Valentine. I would link some clips here but I think it’s probably best to watch it in its entirety to really understand the principle differences between men and women’s idealized love.
October 17th, 2013 at 5:31 pm
Tin Man, here’s a couple for you:
http://therationalmale.com/2011/11/16/sorry/
http://therationalmale.com/2011/09/08/rooting-through-garbage/
October 17th, 2013 at 5:49 pm
@hoellenhund2
The notion that “you have to scale the curves so that the area under each one is the same” is utterly ridiculous. People don’t have a finite amount of sexual value to distribute across their life. There is absolutely no basis whatsoever for claiming that the area under the man and woman’s curves should be the same.
Sexual value is simply how much a person is desired for sex and has no direct relationship to the area under their curve over their lifetime.
To see this more simply, some women and men can reach their peak value and then drop off quickly due to getting fat or aging quickly. Others will hit their peak and plateau for a long time. There’s no uniform SMV curve shape for men or women (though you can draw rough averages) so there is no area under the curve that can be required to be held equal, either between men and women, or between different men, or between different women.
This supposed PhD, Kelly, sounds like an ignoramus and a fraud, more of a troll than anyone with something serious to say.
The fact that Susan used that as some sort of proof is highly amusing and shows she has no understanding of stats or math.
October 17th, 2013 at 5:51 pm
She cites a statistician who says:
If you looked at the curve and said to yourself, “I am going to be a 10 at age 36!” you are probably only going to be a 7.5 because your whole curve has shrunk, due to you competing with a whole lot of men. There is a giant tranche of men who are 6′s and 7′s who are going to be competing for a much smaller tranche of 6-7 level of sexual attractiveness in women. Many will have to either settle or be alone.
So that’s the red pill for you. Enjoy it!
I’m curious what type of response Manospherians have for this.
I’ve got something in draft….need to work a bit more on it and do some editing
October 17th, 2013 at 5:54 pm
@morpheus, same here, can I see your draft before you publish?
October 17th, 2013 at 5:59 pm
Clarifying this part of my comment a bit:
“Sexual value is simply how much a person is desired for sex and has no direct relationship to the area under their curve over their lifetime.”
Should read:
The sexual value function versus time is simply how much a person is desired for sex at a given time and has no direct relationship to some supposedly fixed total amount of sexual value that they can allot in a rapidly peaked burst or in a lower-peaked more gradual hill-like shape.
Rather, the area under the curve of a persons SMV over time is not fully predetermined but depends on both the genetics and environment the person lives in and how well they take care of themselves.
October 17th, 2013 at 6:31 pm
There is absolutely no basis whatsoever for claiming that the area under the man and woman’s curves should be the same.
Claiming they are the same assumes that attraction cues for men and women are exactly the same. Given a safe environment, even most blue pill people will disagree with this.
October 18th, 2013 at 6:41 pm
“The fact that Susan used that as some sort of proof is highly amusing and shows she has no understanding of stats or math.”
I doubt it. What it does show in my view is that she’s a liar, a sharlatan and a pundit.
October 18th, 2013 at 6:42 pm
*charlatan*
October 18th, 2013 at 8:27 pm
I’m done with Susan.
I’ve always given her the benefit of the doubt. I wasn’t a particularly prolific commenter there, but I did participate and had a good thread going from time to time. I enjoyed that HUS was at the very least an alternative perspective to RM and I followed it closely. I thought it was good to participate in a blog with often clashing opinions to get a fuller understanding.
Once she moved to Disqus I got banned after posting ONE comment. One. I can’t even tell her now that the quote from her Ph.D quote is complete hokum because he made up the parameters and then just said they prove his point. I can accept that the dynamics of the space under the curves can affect dating pools but he just threw out a scenario that said “well, if 50 men that are 7.5s are dating a pool of 30 women that are 7.5 they’re going to have a hard time.” Well, no shit. And I can just flip the numbers around on your hypothetical situation and say the complete opposite, and until you can provide some sort of sociological data that backs up your scenario my stance is just as valid as yours.
All I’ve learned is you simply cannot debate a woman when they themselves control the mechanics of conversation. If they cannot disprove you or debate you they will merely silence you.
October 18th, 2013 at 9:00 pm
@bmckeag
By your gravatar I can see you were Bully on HUS, I believe.
The thing that finally and completely drove me away was when Susan allied with the disingenuous feminists that were crucifying Hoinsky for the “whip out your dick and stick it in her hand” comment, as if he were telling men to just go around doing this with random women or without enough escalation so that you could tell the woman would welcome that.
So I looked into the source of that quote and, lo and behold, he describes a whole host of escalation steps that happen before, including her coming over willingly to your place, making out, more and more fondling, and then the man fingering the woman, ideally to orgasm. Only then does the next section begin where the man should whip out his dick.
Sorry, but that is a completely reasonable escalation trajectory.
So I left a comment, basically saying what I did above, and she deleted it.
That was it for me. There was no more sense in staying at a place where 1984 tactics are used to silence the debate. Only complete allegiance to Big Sister was acceptable. Any deviation would bring the threat of the ban hammer and she’s gotten much worse. Whereas she could at times be reasoned with and at times not, she gradually became more and more intolerant and more and more totalitarian. Her logical skills are awful and she is a disingenuous charlatan who puts up strawmen, then dodges and deflects, then shames if one persists in revealing her contradictory positions and flawed reasoning, and then finally bans.
And for all her talk of rebooting and leaving the sphere behind, she and some of the commenters rant on and on about the sphere in nearly every post. She loves the conflict and to take cheap shots at the sphere but only from the safety of her walled, comment-moderated disqus fortress. She sure can dish it but she sure can’t take it.
October 18th, 2013 at 9:44 pm
Again, I’m still dumbfounded that Vox still takes her seriously.
October 18th, 2013 at 10:04 pm
Again, I’m still dumbfounded that Vox still takes her seriously.
Rollo, I’m not sure that is still the case. I have reasons to believe that not too long ago he moved towards a more “neutral” view towards Aunt Giggles. And this is before really the last several posts of craziness (really manifested in some of the comments). I would think if he has been following some of the latest stuff she is putting out, that his views might be shifting again. But who knows for certain, unless he clearly clarifies where he stands.
Given his past support of her on his blog, I would hope he would update at some point his position.
October 18th, 2013 at 11:10 pm
Does it pay to take any women seriously?
October 19th, 2013 at 8:43 am
“Again, I’m still dumbfounded that Vox still takes her seriously.”
Well, at least he deleted that nasty twat’s site from the blogroll of Alpha Game. I’ll give him that.
October 19th, 2013 at 9:41 am
I thought the whole debating women is futile thing was established long ago. It rings true for me in my everyday life, almost without exception. It’s even worse doing it online in their domain because they’ll either turn comments off, mod you out or ban you. It’s never worth the effort.
October 20th, 2013 at 4:06 am
The situation is actually worse than that. It’s not that some men believed that debating Walsh is a good idea. It’s that they thought that she’s their ally.
November 1st, 2013 at 6:32 pm
@donalgraeme Yes, the concept of a woman sacrificing her life, at least being willing to sacrifice her life for the sake of a man, has happened twice:
1. Madam Butterfly
2. Pocahontas
Now, Pocahontas did not actually get killed but she did physically put herself in between her man and harm’s way. So it still counts.
December 6th, 2013 at 3:55 pm
I watched Blue Valentine. That movie was confusing as hell for me.
I honestly see gossling playing that character like a proper alpha. Sure he stays with her when she has another man’s baby and without context that would be construed as cuckolding or even being the definition of beta.
But the was he acts through the whole thing..
1. When he sees her , he IMMEDIATELY approaches, assumes the sale and did not act in any way beta during that interaction.
2.Then when he happens to run into her on the bus the interaction was flawless. The only beta act is when he calls her a super model and says he’s not worthy but all this is said with a cheeky grin and almost sarcastically.
3. In the scenes with the daughter he’s always playful and spreading good feelings. He doesn’t concede frame to the wife, ever.
Either I’m interpreting the acting wrongly or the script is completeley unrealistic. I don’t know of any female that acts so rejectfully to such a man. I don’t even understand what she doesn’t like about him. She doesn’t like him because he decided to support her and her child and her ‘hindbrain’ is telling her he’s a pussy? I don’t find it realistic at all.
May 6th, 2014 at 11:03 pm
[…] is, before who he is. For a more detailed explanation of this I’ll refer you to my post Love Story. This is the root of the intersexual hierarchy of […]
September 10th, 2014 at 12:18 am
[…] Love Story […]
September 23rd, 2014 at 1:00 am
[…] From Love Story: […]
October 6th, 2014 at 8:50 pm
[…] Love Story October 8, 2013 link […]
January 2nd, 2015 at 1:49 pm
[…] Women in Love Men in Love Of Love and War Burden of Performance Love Story […]