One of the most endemic masculine pitfalls men have faced since the rise of feminine social primacy has been the belief that their ready displays of emotional vulnerability will make men more desirable mates for women.
In an era when men are raised from birth to be “in touch with their feminine sides”, and in touch with their emotions, we get generations of men trying to ‘out-emote’ each other as a mating strategy.
To the boys who grow into Beta men, the ready eagerness with which they’ll roll over and reveal their bellies to women comes from a conditioned belief that doing so will prove their emotional maturity and help them better identify with the women they mistakenly believe have a capacity to appreciate it.
What they don’t understand is that the voluntary exposing of ones most vulnerable elements isn’t the sign of strength that the Feminine Imperative has literally bred a belief of into these men.
A reflexive exposing of vulnerability is an act of submission, surrender and a capitulation to an evident superior. Dogs will roll over almost immediately when they acknowledge the superior status of another dog.
Vulnerability is not something to be brandished or proud of. While I do believe the insight and acknowledgement of your personal vulnerabilities is a necessary part of understanding oneself (particularly when it comes to unplugging oneself), it is not the source of attraction, and certainly not arousal, that most men believe it is for women.
From the comfort of the internet and polite company women will consider the ‘sounds-right’ appeal of male vulnerability with regard to what they’re supposed to be attracted to, but on an instinctual, subconscious level, women make a connection with the weakness that vulnerability represents.
A lot of men believe that trusting displays of vulnerability are mutually exclusive of displays of weakness, but what they ignore is that Hypergamy demands men that can shoulder the burden of performance. When a man openly broadcasts his vulnerableness he is, by definition, beginning from a position of weakness.
The problem with idealizing a position of strength is in thinking you’re already beginning from that strength and your magnanimous display of trusting vulnerability will be appreciated by a receptive woman. I strongly disagree with assertions like those of various Purple Pill ‘life coaches’ that open, upfront vulnerability is ever attractive to a woman.
The idea goes that if a man is truly outcome-independent with his being rejected by a woman, the first indicator of that independence is a freedom to be vulnerable with her. The approach then becomes one of “hey, I’m just gonna be my vulnerable self and if you’re not into me then I’m cool with that.”
The hope is that a woman will receive this approach as intended and find something refreshing about it, but the sad truth is that if this were the attraction key its promoters wish it was, every guy ‘just being himself‘ would be swimming in top shelf pussy. This is a central element to Beta Game – the hope that a man’s openness will set him apart from ‘other guys’ – it is common practice for men who believe in the equalist fantasy that women will rise above their feral natures when it comes to attraction, and base their sexual selection on his emotional intelligence.
The fact is that there is no such thing as outcome independence. The very act of your approaching a woman means you have made some effort to arrive at a favorable outcome with her. The fact that you’d believe a woman would even find your vulnerability attractive voids any pretense of outcome independence.
Hypergamy Doesn’t Care About Male Vulnerability
When I wrote Women in Love and the followups, Men in Love and Of Love and War, I described men’s concept of love as ‘idealistic’.
Naturally, simple minds exaggerated this into “men just want an impossible unconditional love” or “they want love like they think their mothers loved them.” For what it’s worth, I don’t believe any rational man with some insight ever expects an unconditional love, but I think it’s important to consider that a large part of what constitutes his concept of an idealized love revolves around being loved irrespective of how he performs for, or merits that love.
From Of Love and War:
We want to relax. We want to be open and honest. We want to have a safe haven in which struggle has no place, where we gain strength and rest instead of having it pulled from us. We want to stop being on guard all the time, and have a chance to simply be with someone who can understand our basic humanity without begrudging it. To stop fighting, to stop playing the game, just for a while.
We want to, so badly.
If we do, we soon are no longer able to.
The concept of men’s idealistic love, the love that makes him the true romantic, begins with a want of freedom from his burden of performance. It’s not founded in an absolute like unconditional love, but rather a love that isn’t dependent upon his performing well enough to assuage a woman’s Hypergamous concept of love.
Oh, the Humanity!
As the true romantics, and because of the performance demands of Hypergamy, there is a distinct want for men to believe that in so revealing their vulnerabilities they become more “human” – that if they expose their frailties to women some mask they believe they’re wearing comes off and (if she’s a mythical “quality woman“™) she’ll excuses his inadequacies to perform to the rigorous satisfaction of her Hypergamy.
The problems with this ‘strength in surrender’ hope are twofold.
First, the humanness he believes a woman will respect isn’t the attraction cue he believes it is. Ten minutes perusing blogs about the left-swiping habits of women using Tinder (or @Tinderfessions) is enough to verify that women aren’t desirous of the kind of “humanness” he’s been conditioned to believe women are receptive to.
In the attraction and arousal stages, women are far more concerned with a man’s capacity to entertain her by playing a role and presenting her with the perception of a male archetype she expects herself to be attracted to and aroused by. Hypergamy doesn’t care about how well you can express your humanness, and primarily because the humanness men believe they’re revealing in their vulnerability is itself a predesigned psychological construct of the Feminine Imperative.
Which brings us to the second problem with ‘strength in surrender’. The caricaturized preconception men have about their masculine identity is a construct of a man’s feminine-primary socialization.
The Masks the Feminine Imperative Makes Men Wear
To explain this second problem it’s important to grasp how men are expected to define their own masculine identities within a social order where the only correct definition of masculinity is prepared for men in a feminine-primary context.
What I mean by this is that the humanness that men wish to express in showing themselves as vulnerable is defined by feminine-primacy.
For the greater part of men’s upbringing and socialization they are taught that a conventional masculine identity is in fact a fundamentally male weakness that only women have a unique ‘cure’ for. It’s a widely accepted manosphere fact that over the past 60 or so years, conventional masculinity has become a point of ridicule, an anachronism, and every media form from then to now has made a concerted effort to parody and disqualify that masculinity. Men are portrayed as buffoons for attempting to accomplish female-specific roles, but also as “ridiculous men” for playing the conventional ‘macho’ role of masculinity. In both instances, the problems their inadequate maleness creates are only solved by the application of uniquely female talents and intuition.
Perhaps more damaging though is the effort the Feminine Imperative has made in convincing generations of men that masculinity and its expressions (of any kind) is an act, a front, not the real man behind the mask of masculinity that’s already been predetermined by his feminine-primary upbringing.
Women who lack any living experience of the male condition have the calculated temerity to define for men what they should consider manhood – from a feminine-primary context. This is why men’s preconception of vulnerability being a sign of strength is fundamentally flawed. Their concept of vulnerability stems from a feminine pretext.
Masculinity and vulnerability are defined by a female-correct concept of what should best serve the Feminine Imperative. That feminine defined masculinity (tough-guy ridiculousness) feeds the need for defining vulnerability as a strength – roll over, show your belly and capitulate to that feminine definition of masculinity – and the cycle perpetuates itself.
“The Mask You Live In” by director Jennifer Siebel Newsom (dual surname noted) is the perfect example of this perpetuation. You have a woman deciding for a larger public in a documentary what the male experience is and then solving the problem (i.e. the tired trope of men needing to get more in touch with their emotions) for men.
Men are ridiculous posers. Men are socialized to wear masks to hide what the Feminine Imperative has decided is their true natures (they’re really girls wearing boy masks). Men’s problems extend from their inability to properly emote like women, and once they are raised better (by women and men who comply with the Feminine Imperative) they can cease being “tough” and get along better with women. That’s the real strength that comes from men’s feminized concept of vulnerability – compliance with the Feminine Imperative.
Ironically Newsom is still oblivious to the fact that she can only create such a documentary in an environment of feminine-primacy. No man could produce this and be taken seriously in our contemporary social climate.
It’s indictment of the definers of what masculinity ought to be that they still characterize modern masculinity (based on the ‘feels’) as being problematic when for generations our feminine-primary social order has conditioned men to associate that masculinity in as feminine-beneficial a context as women would want.
They still rely on an outdated formula which presumes the male experience is inferior, a sham, in comparison to the female experience, and then presumes to know what the male experience really is and offers feminine-primary solutions for it.
From The 16 Commandments of Poon:
IV. Don’t play by her rules
If you allow a woman to make the rules she will resent you with a seething contempt even a rapist cannot inspire. The strongest woman and the most strident feminist wants to be led by, and to submit to, a more powerful man. Polarity is the core of a healthy loving relationship. She does not want the prerogative to walk all over you with her capricious demands and mercurial moods. Her emotions are a hurricane, her soul a saboteur. Think of yourself as a bulwark against her tempest. When she grasps for a pillar to steady herself against the whipping winds or yearns for an authority figure to foil her worst instincts, it is you who has to be there… strong, solid, unshakeable and immovable.
True vulnerability is not a value-added selling point for a man when it comes to approaching and attracting women. As with all things, your vulnerability is best discovered by a woman through demonstration –never explaining those vulnerabilities to her with the intent of appearing more human as the feminine would define it.
Women want a bulwark against their own emotionalism, not a co-equal male emoter whose emotionalism would compete with her own. The belief that male vulnerability is a strength is a slippery slope from misguided attraction to emotional codependency, to overt dependency on a woman to accommodate and compensate for the weaknesses that vulnerability really implies.
I know a lot of guys think that displays vulnerability from a position of Alpha dominance, or strength can be endearing for a woman when you’re engaged in an LTR, but I’m saying that’s only the case when the rare instance of vulnerability is unintentionally revealed. Vulnerability is not a strength, and especially not when a man deliberately reveals it with the expectation of a woman appreciating it as a strength.
At some point in any LTR you will show your vulnerable side, and there’s nothing wrong with that. What’s wrong is the overt attempt to parlay that vulnerability into a strength or virtue that you expect that woman to appreciate, feel endearment over or reciprocate with displays of her own vulnerability for.
A chink in the armor is a weakness best kept from view of those who expect you to perform your best in all situations. If that chink is revealed in performing your best, then it may be considered a strength for having overcome it while performing to your best potential. It is never a strength when you expect it to be appreciated as such.
December 3rd, 2014 at 4:59 pm
@eon
«Furthermore, you create the absolutely most damaging stress by dumping your problems on someone who depends on you, and who can’t do anything to help the situation. »
Is talking to her about your problems sometimes, equivalent to dumping your problem on her?
If so, doesn’t that mean you shouldn’t have the problems anymore and she should have them all? What is the meaning of “dump”?
Can you dump something and still have it in your possession?
«This stress is like when your boss gives you responsibility and accountability, but without any authority.»
what responsibility does she have when she listens and provides emotional support? Does the husband expect her to find a solution or does he expect her to transform into him and replace him at work?
Is it really too much for him to expect some emotional support from a person he provides for?
I’ll ask you then,
What is the value of her “house work and care-taking” in this day and age when all appliances are available?
Care-taking of what or who? How do you take care of human being without providing any emotional support?
You are pedaling so hard to avoid the reality in front of you, rationalizing your behaviors to avoid facing what your actions imply in terms of basic human decency. You are not even fooling yourself.
“Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.”
December 3rd, 2014 at 8:33 pm
@ J.J. [December 3rd, 2014 at 3:38 pm]
Either the capabilities of men and women are what has been observed and discussed throughout history, or they are not.
If they are, then these capacities and limitations determine what is possible, and define rational responses.
In a way, it simply comes down to cause and effect.
If you accept the validity of the elements that comprise the cause, then the masculine response is to deal rationally with the inevitable, and equally valid, effects.
Acting as if women are capable of being more than they are capable of being, is neither rational nor the masculine complement of the feminine.
If a child “absolutely irrevocably demands equality [and the keys to your car] (maybe not realizing there’s responsibility involved)”, and you (who understands what is involved) give her those keys …
.
.
@ Chester [December 3rd, 2014 at 4:59 pm]
“Is talking to her about your problems sometimes, equivalent to dumping your problem on her? If so, doesn’t that mean you shouldn’t have the problems anymore and she should have them all? What is the meaning of ‘dump’? Can you dump something and still have it in your possession?”
I was using the word “dump” to mean “reveal”, but also to imply something more.
Carrying a burden is not necessarily damaging, when you have the capability of achieving resolution, when you are carrying it to change it.
But if you duplicate this burden and place it upon someone who cannot do anything except wait to be crushed under its weight, unless and until it is removed by someone else, then that is inevitably damaging and necessarily cruel.
.
eon: “This stress is like when your boss gives you responsibility and accountability, but without any authority.”
Chester: “what responsibility does she have when she listens and provides emotional support? Does the husband expect her to find a solution or does he expect her to transform into him and replace him at work?”
By using the word “like”, I was indicating that this was an example of similar or equivalent stress that is experienced by men, to enable clearer understanding of the form that I was discussing.
.
“Is it really too much for him to expect some emotional support from a person he provides for?”
It depends on the form of the emotional support being expected, and the effect that it could have on the person for whom he provides.
Would you tell your six year old son “I lost my job, and now we might end up starving on the street”, and then start to sob on his shoulder?
.
“Care-taking of what or who? How do you take care of human being without providing any emotional support?”
She does provide support (including emotional support), but she can only provide the form of support that women are capable of providing.
.
“You are pedaling so hard to avoid the reality in front of you, rationalizing your behaviors to avoid facing what your actions imply in terms of basic human decency. You are not even fooling yourself.”
My actions and behaviors? Have you lost track of whom you are addressing?
“Basic human decency”, as defined by your needs and preferences, does not trump the psychological and physiological realities of what is actually possible.
And while a weak male, who places stress upon those who cannot do anything except wait to be crushed under its weight, is unlikely to damage his woman in the same way as an attention-whore mother whose behaviors include telling a trusting young child to pray for her because she is dying (from a migraine headache!), they are fundamentally equivalent, in several ways.
.
“Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.”
And the fact that some (many?) women are bad and do bad things, does not mean that you can ignore everything else, or lump everything together, especially if you want to improve yourself or become more than you are now.
December 4th, 2014 at 1:20 am
@ Eon
Have you ever heard the expression:
“Why A Great Woman Is Behind Every Great Man”?
Where did this originate from? Did it not originate specifically due to the support that women *used to* proved for their men?
Here’s a recent article exploring that:
http://www.askmen.com/money/successful_100/147_success.html
The idea that women are incapable of providing emotional support IS A FALLACY.
“Either the capabilities of men and women are what has been observed and discussed throughout history, or they are not.”
Indeed – and you are wrong – women have not been observed to be incapable of providing moral and by extension, emotional support.
We live in an age of narcissism (an epidemic of narcissism and entitlement). Empathy has been the first casualty and selfishness rules the day – to the extent that we are now expected to accept this as the new normal…
I won’t and if there are no women around any more who can be A WIFE (who is capable of being supportive) I will simply GMOW…
What on earth would be the point of marriage or LTR???
December 4th, 2014 at 3:00 am
@J.J.
Rollo has already described ASKMEN as
blatantly girl world propaganda advice articles over at AskMen
For extra fun, look up what other ‘girl world’ properties the parent company now owns. There’s unlimited funding for the WRONG advice for men, but Rollo writes from his heart based on the experiences of his life, his education and millions of people around the world. He receives no funding for this blog.
She still exists. My girlfriend stuck with me when the doctors gave up on me, through loss of mobility and speech, through spending most of 2014 in 24/7 inpatient care.
Though I lost so much memory, I learned so much from Rollo and other men that I chose as friends here that are constantly improving.
Stuff I learned from ASKMEN got me dumped in the past.
What I’ve learned from Rollo Tomassi had an amazingly beautiful, wonderful woman stick with me through this ongoing recovery. And, no, she doesn’t read this blog or its comments. She only hears me speak some of Rollo’s words in the home studio now that I can talk again thanks to the hours of speech therapy five days per week, every since early this year.
December 4th, 2014 at 3:03 am
December 4th, 2014 at 4:03 am
@ J.J.
“Have you ever heard the expression: ‘Why A Great Woman Is Behind Every Great Man’ ”?
Heh, have you ever heard the expression: “A woman nurturing her Alpha man nurtures his strength, not his weaknesses.”? [Brody, /2014/11/02/alpha-tells/comment-page-2/#comment-65437]
.
The point that you seem to be missing is that, when you were a child, your mother could nurture your weaknesses, on an ongoing (but temporary) basis, because that was her natural role, because she was superior to you in relevant ways, and because she was not depending on you for emotional, or physical, security and stability.
On the other hand, you were dependent upon her to provide emotional and physical support and stability, or at least to not damage or destroy the security and stability provided by someone else.
This is why role reversals perpetrated by mothers who are “narcissistic and entitled”, and who “lack empathy”, can be so damaging to a child, whose well-being is dependent upon the presence of a stable environment.
However, as an adult, your role, with respect to the previous example, is that of the “mother”, while your woman is the “child”, because she is not normally capable of being “strong and independent”, as has been observed throughout history, irrespective of the present bullshit propaganda.
A woman (or wife) is capable of being supportive, as your personal cheerleader (among other things), as I wrote before:
“Nevertheless, when women are in relationships that provide the support and security, and dominance and leadership, that are prerequisite both to their well-being and to enabling their complementary capabilities, they can function happily and superbly as emotional and physical helpmates, as well as eager and enthusiastic fuck-bunnies, and provide “feminine energy” (for lack of a better term) that can be both an enjoyable intimacy, and a catalyst for beneficial (and even essential) mental and mentally mediated processes.”
[http://therationalmale.com/2014/11/21/intimacy/#comment-69591]
Furthermore, women can and do rise to the occasion, even under extraordinary circumstances, to nurture the strength of their Alpha men, as LiveFearless has described.
However, relationships that last, and that enable and inspire them to rise above their normal limitations, are not the ones that start with the expectation that they will be wife-mothers.
December 4th, 2014 at 5:41 am
Here’s a recent study that has been done on this subject – I’ve not read it yet, but if it contradicts my opinions, then I will reassess my view-point. This could be interesting reading as the study was published in 2012:
http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/11904/2/Ciccocioppo_etd2012.pdf
December 4th, 2014 at 5:53 am
This excerpt from the report above report:
http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/11904/2/Ciccocioppo_etd2012.pdf
“There may also be changes in the amount of emotional support that men now provide to their partners. Previous blueprints for romantic relationships emphasized separate roles for men and women (Cancian, 1987). According to this traditional idea of relationships, women were responsible for providing emotional support to their partner, but men were not. Today, both men and women expect their partner to provide them with emotional support. In fact, failure to meet this expectation has been cited as one of the primary reasons for divorce in married couples (Riessman, 1990). It may be that young men are now providing more emotional support to their romantic partners than they have in the past because this behavior is necessary in order to establish and maintain a relationship.”
December 4th, 2014 at 7:16 am
@J.J. You’re at the right place to learn that peer reviewed studies are often funded because of the expected outcomes. What you’ve cited is a dissertation by
Melinda Ciccocioppo
for approval by:
Elizabeth Votruba-Drzal
Martin Greenberg
Brooke Feeney
Irene Frieze
What do most of these names have in common?
In the dissertation, Ms. Ciccocioppo cites Deborah Tannen three times.
I had a male professor in college that thought all men are quite evil that was obsessed with Deborah Tannen, so I learned her works.
Chateau Heartiste answered commenter Anonymous (about D. Tannen)
Anonymous
I must, at least in part, disagree. Deborah Tannen has researched women and men’s conversational style, and found women love to beat topics into the ground, while men like to change topics more often. My experience backs this up.
[H: When women talk among other women, perhaps this is true. But when women are in conversation with men, particularly men who could be potential lovers, the dynamic is exactly the opposite.]
Thanks to Rollo Tomassi and the other role models like him I’ve chosen as friends, I’ve learned that becoming like her best girlfriend is NOT what creates the genuine desire Rollo Tomassi is famous for explaining with a clarity so wise it’s almost spiritual.
Prior to the hit & run accident, I was always the man, without apology for being a masculine male with drive, focused on my path which is pretty exciting to me.
Being like one of her best girlfriends is what the industry I’m in tells men to do in every popular source. If I had followed that advice, I would have learned to walk and talk again, from the amazing people in inpatient care, but with the embarrassment, shock, constant pain, dizziness (list is longer-believe me, you don’t want to know) alone.
But, I have NOT been alone. She’s stuck with me because even during the scariest times (much of it I do not remember) the stuff I’ve learned from MEN like Rollo Tomassi was somehow not lost. It was engraved on my soul. I did not lose that frame.
December 4th, 2014 at 7:20 am
Mrs. Gamer acquired a couple of major weaknesses a few years back. Those haven’t diminished her beauty one iota. Hence, the stiff-o-meter hasn’t changed a smidgeon.
Women and men have different responses to weaknesses in their mates. Women who mother their mates have trouble sexing them up. Men who nurture their mates don’t have that trouble.
December 4th, 2014 at 8:05 am
@J.J., in response to the well-funded ASKMEN piece and the thesis from Melinda Ciccocioppo…
From Rollo Tomassi’s book, “The Rational Male”
the “communication is everything” meme has been responsible for the demise of more relationships than anyone will ever admit
It’s not that you communicate, it’s what you’re communicating and how you communicate it
I’ve counseled more men than I care to recount who’ve sobbed from the depths of their souls, “IF SHE’D JUST TELL ME WHAT I HAVE TO DO TO MAKE HER LOVE ME I’D DO IT!” not realizing that their very verbalization of that, and a belief in open, rational communication, is the very thing that’s killing (or killed) their woman’s desire for him
A cardinal truth of the universe is that genuine desire cannot be negotiated
The moment you tell your wife, your girlfriend, that you will exchange a behavior or attitude or belief or any other compromise for her desire you fundamentally change her organic desire into obligation
December 4th, 2014 at 8:32 am
“However, as an adult, your role, with respect to the previous example, is that of the “mother”, while your woman is the “child”, because she is not normally capable of being “strong and independent”, as has been observed throughout history, irrespective of the present bullshit propaganda.”
Yes, poor little things… not at all capable of anything at all… they are so innocent and child-like… Big bad alpha must nature and protect them and be their mommy – and shield them from those annoying beta’s who consistently demand that they take responsibility for themselves… and for their roles as wives or partners.
Big Bad old Alpha supports the female imperative
December 4th, 2014 at 9:00 am
I don’t remember who wrote it, but someone made a claim about the insignificance about “doing things around the house” in the time of appliances.
My response to that is: A) I, and many women, work full time. So there are only a few hours in the day to complete what still amounts to a great deal of work, in the form of cooking a meal, cleaning up after that meal, laundry, tidying up bathrooms, grocery shopping, etc.
But more importantly, is B) the creation of a calm and pleasant atmosphere that is conducive to re-charging. If I am simply alerted to the existence of a particularly high period of stress or vulnerable period (and reassured that there is a plan in place and not to worry), I can not only make sure to do things in A) without asking for help, but I can also make sure not to bring up silly complaints of my own that my husband might be able to easily absorb during other periods and just generally be warm and sweet. I personally find a dynamic like this very bond-enhancing and optimal for both parties.
Another important point I would like to make: It sounds like many men on the board feel like only their wives or girlfriends can be a sounding board and source of emotional support (or at least this is how I explain the extreme vitriol at the idea of not being able to lean on her in this way). Maybe THAT is the problem. I don’t see why it isn’t actually preferable to seek council from someone who ideally has been in your shoes previously and can offer unbiased advice and emotional support. (Such as a mentor, male relative, friend etc.)
December 4th, 2014 at 9:40 am
@J.J.
Most feminine-centric ideology revolves around the idea of “separate” roles forging the narrative of conventional gender roles. What is conveniently overlooked is the complmentarity between those “separate” roles, and how they interact together to create what up until recently has been the foundation of our very successful species’ mutual survival, if not intergender harmony.
Notice how the emphasis is on “emotional” support. This is characteristic of a feminine-primary mental point of origin. No where is “material” support or protection security mentioned because “emotions” are the only valuable commodity worth mention or valuable in an egalitarian exchange – not a complementarian balance of mutually valuable support.
The reason men expect this equatable exchange of “emotional” support is because the past 5 generation of men have been conditioned to seek that “emotionalism” as being valuable from their feminine conditioning.
Egalitarian equalism has taught men that women “are just the same as men with different plumbing” and are rationally capable of meeting the emotional needs of men – the needs they’ve been taught to value above anything else they can exchange them for – if they themselves emote more with women and balance that equal exchange.
Men have been conditioned to believe that need more emotional support because they’ve been taught to begin their mental point of origin from a feminine-primary perspective. Due to this they believe that this ’emotive’ behavior is necessary to maintain a relationship, rather than connecting with the complementarity that their inherent strengths represent to women.
December 4th, 2014 at 11:47 am
@Glenn
Your entire comment was great but I want to speak on one thing…
I have long suspected those ED meds (Viagra, Cialis) were really for men with wives too old/unattractive to give them a boner, and that true erectile dysfunction is a rare condition. The meds basically make it easier to achieve an erection with less stimulation. An older male with decent cardiovascular health really shouldn’t have issues with the plumbing.
So does sex with a drug-induced erection count as rape these days?
December 4th, 2014 at 12:18 pm
On the subject of emoting manginas:
One day my wife told me that she really hates all the manginas she sees at work, all sobbing like babies. I was like, “oh, you know the word mangina?” She said yes, it is what her and her co-workers call the men “who cry like little girls.”
Then she added, “And thank God you’re not a mangina–you’re so damn stoic I could just strangle you sometimes–but I couldn’t handle you being a mangina!”
I took this little conversation as an indicator of what frame I must maintain. It isn’t that I am expected to be invulnerable, but rather that I don’t make open displays of vulnerability. Everyone has vulnerabilities but displaying them is submissive, just like when a cat or dog roles over and displays his belly as a sign of submission.
She’s never seen me cry. Once she asked me if I have ever cried and I said, “probably when I was a little kid.”
December 4th, 2014 at 12:27 pm
“I don’t see why it isn’t actually preferable to seek counsel from someone who ideally has been in your shoes previously and can offer unbiased advice and emotional support. (Such as a mentor, male relative, friend etc.)” [kateandluca, December 4th, 2014 at 9:00 am]
In addition to it being more likely that you will get useful and accurate information from someone who has been in your shoes, and thus actually understands your situation completely, this also avoids the problems of dependence.
Other men do not depend on you for support and stability, so that type of vulnerability will not influence their perceptions and advice, and their well-being will not be degraded by having to absorb the stress of knowing about a serious problem that affects them, but which they have no way to fix.
When your male friends provide empathy and support, they do so as independent beings who can go back to lives that remain unaffected by your revelations.
December 4th, 2014 at 12:31 pm
Rollo said:
I agree that the emotional support concept is of a feminine-primary mental point of origin. But it is relevant to point out that it is also the by-product of modern luxury. When facing a food shortage because of a crop failure, something like “emotional support” sounds like a joke. These days, even if you lose your job there is unemployment benefits and food stamps. Material support is being doled out by Uncle Sam.
December 4th, 2014 at 12:53 pm
While it is true that the ‘provisioning’ aspect of women’s security-side needs of Hypergamy are more facilitated for women now, it still doesn’t eliminate the psychological need or desire for it from a man.
It’s like porn for men. From a logistical standpoint, men’s need for sexual release can be facilitated by what’s now an ubiquitous supply of free online pornography. He can get off in a matter of a few minutes with only a cell phone, but the satiated release doesn’t satisfy the need to experience ‘real’ sex with a real woman in the flesh that is part of his own neurological firmware.
The same applies to women’s security-side hypergamy. The material support is provided by legislation or her own capacity to provide for herself, but a woman’s evolved psychological firmware still expects men to have a superior capacity to provide it for her.
December 4th, 2014 at 3:01 pm
@ kateandluca
“I don’t see why it isn’t actually preferable to seek council from someone who ideally has been in your shoes previously and can offer unbiased advice and emotional support. (Such as a mentor, male relative, friend etc.)”
It IS preferable. We all know that and we all do revert to that kind of advice, but you have a role to play too – as a life partner or wife. Your role in this is the following:
Say to him… you understand. You are sure he can deal with it… (meaning you believe in him – that’s what he really wants to hear). Say to him…we lived in a stressed-out world… Many people are facing struggles. Fortunately there are men who can find a way… who make it anyway… regardless. No matter the challenge… Tell him you don’t know the solution or answer to the problem, but you are confident in him. No need to provide an actual (specific) answer or solution.
All he needs is support.
December 4th, 2014 at 3:15 pm
Of course, if you are not sincere about it… your’e on your own…
December 4th, 2014 at 4:34 pm
Makes sense. And this is why women rarely marry below their own station in life. Sex with the gardener, yes, but not marriage.
December 4th, 2014 at 5:22 pm
@J.J. Maybe I was not clear in that I DO do that. (And by the way, i am the same person as “myrealitle” – sometimes wordpress logs me into a different account). I just want the conversation to end there. I don’t want to have detailed discussions about all of the potential obstacles, mistakes, and hazards of his path. (Today so and so gave me a dirty look and then x,y,z happened and now I feel crappy). This minutia sucks the life out of me.
And I tell my husband, very sincerely, I believe that if anyone can win the game he is playing it’s him. He actually believes this about himself as well, and I am sure that has contributed to my attraction to him.
So, the important take home message here is: I believe rationally that my husband will do amazing in the long game (he has done amazing so far and he is a truly gifted person), but his day-to-day complaints and pointing out errors that he has made or little paranoias that he has STILL have a strong negative impact on my feeling of safety and also my attraction. I feel that if he needs to perform a mental sweep of his day and work through all potential threats in his mind, he should do that at the gym or with a male relative/friend/mentor.
Anyway, because this issue has been dealt with in my relationship (for the time being at least), I am losing interest in this topic :)
I’m sure I’ll be back commenting on other posts sporadically, but for the time being I wish all of you well.
December 5th, 2014 at 12:33 am
[…] post because it encapsulates precisely what I was describing towards the end of my post on Vulnerability, that our modern normative social consciousness is one that is defined by a female-correct, […]
December 5th, 2014 at 6:33 am
@ kateandluca / myrealitle
“I just want the conversation to end there. I don’t want to have detailed discussions about all of the potential obstacles, mistakes, and hazards of his path. (Today so and so gave me a dirty look and then x,y,z happened and now I feel crappy). This minutia sucks the life out of me.”
Fair enough – as someone else here suggested I think you should tell him this, because he doesn’t realise that he’s doing it (sharing too many details) – explain this to him – it’s preferable to communicate it to him – rather than allowing it to fester and eventually to cause you walking away, without trying to solve / resolve it.
December 5th, 2014 at 6:58 am
Rollo, thank you for your reply. I just want to point out that the extract I cited from that report implies that women have always been expected to provide emotional support – traditionally:
“Previous blueprints for romantic relationships emphasized separate roles for men and women (Cancian, 1987). According to this traditional idea of relationships, women were responsible for providing emotional support to their partner, but men were not.”
This report indicates that support from women is dwindling and emotional support from men is increasing. My issue is with men being asked to give up any expectation of support, because apparently it is / has not ever truly the case that they were proving such support and this is what I am refuting. What I explained earlier on was that this is “a duty” (perceived as a duty by some) which women would like to absolve themselves from.
Yet no matter how we rationalise it – mutual support, albeit in different ways, is the foundation of relationships. Your opinion that this need on the part of men is due to the feminisation of males, I disagree with, but I respect your opinion and this is your blog. This is a human need.
If I don’t need any emotional support I would simply remain single, and / or GMOW (Which I am doing – no problem).
If I am purely meant to be a support system (basically, a host for a parasite) for a/any woman – with little to zero benefits, except for a bit of sex now and again – if I’m lucky – I would be… nothing less than a host for a parasite. I don’t and I won’t host parasites.
December 7th, 2014 at 9:39 am
Vulnerability done RIGHT is very attractive done wrong very unattractive. This texts explain in detail how to do it right and what is the wrong way to do it and why it works:
http://authenticmanprogram.com/new/downloads/AMP_POI_TrainingManual.pdf
December 10th, 2014 at 11:08 am
Rollo:
“Notice how the emphasis is on “emotional” support. This is characteristic of a feminine-primary mental point of origin. No where is “material” support or protection security mentioned because “emotions” are the only valuable commodity worth mention or valuable in an egalitarian exchange – not a complementarian balance of mutually valuable support.”
Could it be that there is no other type of support a woman would provide to a man anyways. Even in a complementary relationship, what woman would provide material support or protection to a man? Most men don’t even see it as a possibility. If a woman does provide material support, it is very temporary and the man will have to pay it back with interest unless he is the “alpha” who fucks her without any type of commitment.
All that is to say that “emotions” are the only commodity any specific woman has to offer. Sex and children you can have with most woman. You don’t need to “love” her or be in a relationship with her because she is “special” to you
January 22nd, 2015 at 8:45 pm
Keep the vulnerability for your guy friends -never for your girl. She does not want to be your emotional tampon
March 1st, 2015 at 8:23 pm
[…] I touched on this in Vulnerability: […]
March 13th, 2015 at 3:38 pm
[…] I covered this reprogramming effort in Vulnerability: […]