Articles from July 2012

16 Years On

On July 20th my wife and I celebrate our 16th wedding anniversary. It’s no secret to my readers that I have a very good marriage and I’m constantly asked what my ‘secret’ is for keeping things positive, or the Oprah classic, “what do you do to ‘Keep It Fresh™‘?’. The manosphere is littered with stories of guys and their divorces contrasted against the stories of single guy’s decaying LTRs or dealing with recovering from them. I try not to make a habit of personalizing things that gloss myself, but when I do just understand it’s more from a sense of being a wild card. Guys with successful marriages (a dubious term at best) don’t really have the motivation to come to forums like the manosphere and share their insights. Why bother if that area of one’s life is more or less taken care of? So in light of this, I’ll share a few things I’ve learned in the last 16 years that make for a good marriage from my perspective.

Let me begin by giving you all some background; Mrs. Tomassi is my first marriage and Bebé Tomassi is my one and only daughter. As I’ve said before, by society’s current standards I’m a freak. I’m a freak in that I met my wife and we dated for 8 months (non-exclusively for 4) before I proposed to her. I was 28 when we married. After 2 years being married we decided to have one child – by design. My wife expected me to be a Man and I in turn expected her to be a Woman. I did not knock her up and then marry her. She was not a single mother, nor did she have excess baggage from previous relationships.

This is important to know, because when I relate stuff like this I often get the “well, you did everything right” response, when in fact every bit of what I enjoy with my wife today is due to me doing much more wrong. I had to unlearn what 26 or so years of feminized and emasculated teachings had taught me up to that point. Admittedly unaware, I had come across a unique situation – a woman who actually wanted a Man to be a Man, and in all honesty I was completely unprepared for it. I was an AFC (really a recovering AFC by that point due to a psychotic  relationship prior to all this) and there was no community back then to inform me otherwise. I had read some of Dr. Warren Farrell’s books, but that was the extent of my own self-understanding with regard to my own gender conditioning.

Being the Driver

Now I had come across a woman who on our first date insisted that I drive HER car. My truck was a piece of shit of course , but after years of this gender equalism brainwashing, a woman, upfront, wanted me to take control. Since then I’ve always been the driver (with the exception of her driving us home after I had my wisdom teeth pulled). This was symbolic of how the next 16 years would play out.

Mrs. Tomassi is no push-over and she most certainly gives me shit tests even to this day. In fact I’ve described marriage as one life long shit test and I still hold to that, but from the begining she expected me to be positively masculine – to be the decider, to be the initiator, to have the ideas and to confidently execute them. Even in my worst failures, the fact that I attempted honestly was more important than the outcome. This may not have been the case in the short term, but in the long term is where you can see the appreciation in the behavior. We compliment each other in our understanding of our gender roles.

When we met my wife was dating two very rich men (we were non-exclusive, remember?), I had 2 nickels and a beat up pickup truck to my name. Mrs. Tomassi is a medical professional and the men she’d dated prior were E.R. doctors and specialists; guys making well over $300K annually. They had boats, cars, large homes, status, dispoasable wealth, and yet despite all of that I’m the one she pursued and locked in with (her Mom thought she was insane to marry me at the time). They had it made, but for all that wealth they were still clueless when it came to being Men – they were uncomfortable in their own masculinity. A lot of guys mistakenly believe that having a large bank account is the key to getting women, and while that might help in the short term, in the long term it’s to your own detriment (she’ll end up with half after the divorce) if you don’t ultimately kill the inner AFC and fearlessly embrace the postiveness of your own masculinity.

The Ingredients

There are so many aspects I can detail about what makes for a good marriage, but all of these really boil down to two things, genuine desire and mutual respect. Too many couples become complacent and comfortable in their marriages and this leads to a decline in both of these areas. A certain degree of subtle anxiety and constructive discontent is necessary for a good marriage. That comes off as negative to the plug-ins of the Matrix, but it’s really what makes each partner want to be better for themselves and each other. Taken too far it becomes abusive, but none at all and the marriage becomes stagnant which is equally dangerous. In the right proportion, this anxiety makes for a marriage that retains it’s mutual desire (which is really analogous to Interest Level) and mutual respect.

So how does this anxiety manifest itself? An easy example is staying in shape together. I can honestly say my wife is still hot (if not more so since the boob job). I want to bang my wife as often as humanly possible; how many men married for 10 years can make that statement? My wife is a piece of ass and I see guys eye her all the time. Likewise I’m a bodybuilder and keep myself in peak condition. I get women in their 20’s flirting with me often enough, and this confirms for her and myself that we are both desirable people – this is one example of this anxiety, and we both recognize it and respect each other for it.

There are other ways this anxiety can be applied, for instance C&F (cocky & funny) goes a long way in marriage. Mrs. Tomassi loves just enough C&F attitude from me to reaffirm her perception of my confidence. As I said earlier, marriage is a life long set of shit tests and carefully used C&F is a tool that can be used to diffuse a lot of these before they even happen. Confidence is still the thing that makes a woman want a man, even in marriage. Generally a shit test IS a test of confidence. Prior to marriage, it’s latent purpose is to help a woman determine whether a guy can provide for her long term security. After marriage, a shit test is used to reassure a woman that she married the right guy.

I’ve come to find that Game is even more necessary in marriage than when you’re single – there’s far more at stake when the commitment is intended to be for a lifetime.

I have a lot of rules I pop off with about LTRs & marriage. I emphasize that a man not even become monogamous until he’s 30 and that he shouldn’t consider marriage until his mid 30s. Again, I state this not because I did so myself, but from my side of the fence I can see the huge advantages to doing so now. Marriage should be a last resort, something to be forestalled until a Man, by virtue of years of experience, has the ability to recognize with measurable accuracy, a woman who deserves what he provides her. The PRIZE mentality is essential. A man must be a Prince first, before he can be a King when he marries.

After 16 years of marriage I can honestly say there are no appreciable advantages (outside of raising children) that a man cannot enjoy single that he can married. That’s not meant to be pessimistic, but rather a caution to emphasize how important it is to disabuse yourselves of this AFC, romanticized, marriage-as-goal mentality. It’s also not to say marriage is never worth it – just that marriage is complete advantage for women with negligible, if any, benefit for men. Marriage will either make a man’s life or destroy his life; enter into thinking about it like this and you’ll make a better decision. Is this person deserving of what I provide? Women will NEVER, even in the best of marriages, fully appreciate the sacrifices a man has to make in order to fulfill his commitment of marriage. Entering into a life-long binding commitment of fidelity that offers a man very little appreciable advantage, and knowing the totality of the risk he’s assuming in accepting that sacrifice will never be fully understood or appreciated by the woman he marries. This is why you have put your head into thinking whether she’s deserving of your provisioning, security, confidence, attention, etc. even when it goes against what you think is your kind and good-hearted nature. If you’ve come to a point where in spite of the acknowledged risks you still want to make that commitment, you must be as self-concerned about marriage as you would be in saving your own life.

Pathologizing the Male Sexual Response

Rollo, I just saw the movie ‘Shame’ starring Michael Fassbender and felt the need to recommend it on here.

The main character is addicted to sex, it’s basically the main focus in his life. He is constantly pursuing it one way or another, picking up women he meets in his daily life, getting behind his laptop to engage in internet porn, ordering an escort girl, or just jerking off on the toilet.

He’s good with women, runs pretty solid game. But it’s all superficial, he just knows how to push the right buttons and make their ginas tingle, then fvcks them. He’s unable to establish something like a “connection” with them, fvcking is a purely individual experience for him, just as masturbation. Only, instead of using his right hand, he uses a woman’s body.

It seems as if the guy is empty inside and is trying to fill his inner emptiness by engaging in sexual activities all the time. Of course, it doesn’t get him anywhere, but he can’t help himself. He just keeps repeating his cycle of sexual activities, he’s a slave to it. The moment he would stop doing it, he’d become very uneasy, like a drug addict going through withdrawal.

Fassbender’s portayal of the main character is quite brilliant. Nothing of what I wrote above is being told explicitly, you just deduct it from his actions and body language while the movie lets you be a spectator to the main character’s daily life (so, in fact, you might disagree with certain parts of my analysis of the main character and give a slightly different meaning to his behavior, although I’m sure you’ll agree with it for the most part).

Anyway, it’s a pretty raw and engaging movie, and upon viewing it, I realized I have more in common with the main character than I’d like to admit… I suspect many of you would feel the same upon watching it. It also reminded me of Squirrels and the problems he spoke of in many of his posts. Squirrels could be this guy, lol. So if you could relate to the things Squirrels was struggling with, you’ll probably find this movie interesting.

Love to hear your thoughts if you watched it!

One of the most common themes in human storytelling is the quest for meaning in what’s essentially meaninglessness. This story has been retold for centuries in different contexts, but it’s essentially the same plot; the person with the unfillable void inside that prompts them to great acts of creative passion or horrible deeds of self-destruction. It can be a tragedy or a comedy.

Sex addiction is just the meme du jour of this century. Feminization has taken this cliché for its own purposes. Every romantic comedy, every ‘love story’ in the past 50 years, all revolve around men’s inability to fill the hole in their heart that only a special woman can. Literally, everything else in the world is just a cheap, superficial substitute for the inexplicable magical element a woman completes a man with. He literally cannot live without her piece of his puzzle.

Sex addiction is simply the new pathology of the male condition so we make the leap from Pretty Woman and the Hooker with the Heart of Gold in the 80’s to the more sinister sex addict of the new millennium who’s so hopelessly flawed he’ll burn away to hell before he sees the healing light of submitting to the feminine imperative’s medicine.

Women like it because they feel superior in their capacity to control themselves sexually (dubious, yes) in comparison to men, but also because it provides them with a self-righteous sense of pity; “If only men would just see us for our beautiful insides and be less obsessed with our bodies they’d find peace.”

Men like this narrative because it gives them a feeling that as bad as they are, they’re not THAT bad. There’s a self-righteous sense of qualifying to women based on how much better they are in controlling themselves, and again this contributes to their “not-like-other-guys” sense of uniqueness they hope women will recognize, appreciate and want to ƒuck them for. That sex addict in the story can’t make a human ‘connection’ with women, but I can, so fuck me instead.

The fact that a thought about a movie about a ‘sex addicted’ man occurred to someone and was created is proof enough of its cultural relevance for our time. The zeitgeist of this period is evidenced in what we think others will find relevancy in, regardless of any intended purpose. The story wouldn’t exist if the cultural interpretations weren’t already pre-established to make it relevant.

The Cure

One of the more insidious social narratives that the feminine imperative has convinced us of is that the inherent flaw(s) of maleness can only be ‘cured’ by uniquely female means. This is an easy narrative to follow since most modern storytelling (TV, movies, books) revolves around women’s influence being the only solution to men’s moronic, uniquely male, self-inflicted problems.

As with most other social narratives embedded into our collective consciousness, even Beta men pick up this ideology and attempt to use it to their Beta-Game-feminine-identification advantage. Convince men of an innate incompleteness, and sell women’s mystical element, women’s home-spun wisdom, women’s presumptive intuition as the completing factor he’s unable to comprehend he needs due to being a male and therefore ignorant of his deficit. Every romantic story, comedy or tragedy, has revolved around this narrative for centuries. Only recently has it been used as a social tool of feminization, as well as a commercialization of men’s presumptive inherent lack.

Women, on the other hand, are portrayed as self-contained, self-sufficient entities, and even when the story develops upon a woman’s flaws it’s never due to her ‘femaleness’, and the solution to her conflict is usually resolved through the influence of other women. There is rarely, if ever, any contrition that a man might solve a woman’s problems – and when he does, it’s usually through employing feminine means to do so (i.e. he “gets in touch with his feminine side” to resolve the conflict). Feminine primacy needs this narrative to ensure its lasting predominance as a social influence.

The first thing Tiger Woods did after his sexual appetites came to public attention was to commit himself to therapy for his ‘problem’. To the feminine imperative, the male sexual response is a ‘problem’ requiring therapy, medicalization, a cure. There has been no better means to maintaining feminine primacy than to collectively convince society that the effects of testosterone and male sexual response is aberrant social behavior. Men being men is vulgar, lewd and often violent – this is the meme. When men such as Tiger’s first response is to agree with that meme and institutionalize himself, he adds one more affirmation to the feminine social narrative of men’s ‘problem’.

The 5 Stages of Unplugging

I read an article this morning about the 5 stages of grief (confronting death) and how they apply to coming into acceptance of a previously rejected truth. Yes, I know, there’s no end to the ridiculous interpretations of this played-out pop-psych list, but I was curious about how this might apply to an AFC coming to grips with unplugging from the Matrix, so I did a bit of searching and what did I find on my blog roll search but this:

1. Denial – Still Plugged -In: “These game guys are a bunch of clowns, there’s no way this works on women. Women aren’t stupid. What a bunch of misogynists.”

2. Anger – Post-Red Pill: “This is ridiculous! Why should I have to jump through all these hoops for women? I just want to be myself. Why couldn’t I have been a Natural Alpha®? I blame my parents/siblings/teachers/God/liberals/feminists/media/society, maybe George Sodini, Andres Breivik, James Holmes wasn’t so crazy after all.”

3. Bargaining – Unplugged: “Well maybe it does have some good points…but, forget the hot girls, they’re way outta my league. I’ll give it a try if it can help me get around the bases with a plain Jane. Do I have to wear the fuzzy hat and black nail polish?”

4. Depression – Bitter Taste of the Red Pill: “Wow, women really respond to this puffed-up act? And guys spend big bucks on it and wind up with more ass than a toilet seat? And I just joined up for this? The world is sad and so am I…”

5. Acceptance – Game Awareness: “Maybe this IS the way things really work. I guess I should give up the gender relations mythology I’ve been holding onto…hey, what do you think of these negs I came up with?”

6. Jaded* – MGTOW Permutations: “Fuck learning all these rules. Sex isn’t worth it and women aren’t that fun anyway. The last thing I want to do is learn routines or the 5 stages of pickup. There’s too many websites, too much to read, I can’t remember it all much less sort it all out. Who has all that time to go out and chat up women anyway? It’s not like I see any women under 40 at work at my engineering job to practice on. Video games and porn are more fun and more available. I just haffta look good and let the women come to me”

* This is a late addition to the list, hardly original and arguably relevant, but I added it for precautionary measures.

Before I get the predictable howls of “someone did this before you” (h/t Badger) allow me to put my spin on it. I get a ton of PMs from forum members, and read threads about guys with friends or relatives in, or just getting over, horrible relationships and how they’ve tried to unplug them only to run into stiff resistance. Looking at this process to acceptance it’s no wonder why.

So my discussion question for today is this; how did you unplug? Was there some moment of clarity that opened your eyes? Did you go through a process like the one described here? Are you maybe still struggling with a certain phase?

Case Study – Wanted: New Daddy

I love Post Secret. Anytime I have humanitarian doubt about hypergamy or the twinges of sentimental wishes for a kinder, gentler, fem-centrism all I have to do is read the current week’s offerings of anonymous ‘secrets’ and, without fail, all doubt fades away to callous certainties. Ahhh, le sigh...

I’ve delved into the single mother cottage industry topic before, but in light of a recent PM and last week’s Wall discussion I thought I’d entertain this comment:

Wow. I have read some very interesting posts. I need some help and since most of you seem to be honest and not out to hurt anyone, here goes…

The Facts: 29, Female, Divorced mom of two toddlers, works full time, working on building self-esteem, being happier. Not seeking permanent relationship; however, not interested in whoring out.

I have met several men I am interested in and we talk and possibly hang out. What I am scared of is them thinking I am daddy shopping. I also don’t want to be left and laid. I am willing to “buddy up” but I do expect a friendship beyond the sex. How do I approach or have a discussion with a man telling him my time is rare, but still communicate my expectations of casual hangouts and fooling around? I am a woman and yes there are nights where he would need to engage with me in mind blowing sex. There may be a bad day at work where I just need a beer buddy. It is difficult for a woman with self respect to blow and go so thats not my intent.

I tried the honest approach, but never heard from him again. I gave it one more shot (different guy) and time will tell. Ive never been in this type of relationship before. I respect myself too much to engage in a one night stand only. Any ideas?

From what I read ut sounds like I am pretty much screwed. Im not single resulting from some kind of feminist movement crap. I like a guy to challenge me etc. I am a single mom because I am divorced from a bad person (cheater, abusive). I don’t seek a relationship because I know the majority of men don’t want the “baggage” of my babies. Additionally, I don’t want to risk hurting my kids. They are first. I am all they have and in a way they are all I have. All I want is an adult. If it progresses to more so be it. If not then that’s cool too. I don’t want to be viewed as just a piece, that is where the honesty comes in.

A lot of what gets offered for women in her position is usually the standard fare about single mommies and how guys perceive them. Baby-daddy issues, scheduling, substitute father interviewing and how single guys are “supposed” to react to them. All of this is valid of course, but after reading her own take of her own situation, I’m not so sure she’s really aware of (or is in denial of) her own conditions.

This woman is a textbook example of what I call Proactive Infidelity. According to her longer account she’d knocked it out with the Bad Boy (abusive, cheater) who was a “challenge” and got her excited. I’m going to do her the favor of assuming both her children were by him and if one is now 4 y.o. this would mean she was at oldest 24 y.o. when she became pregnant. Now that the Bad Boy has proven himself unreliable in sharing parental investment responsibilities, the guy she does end up in an LTR or marriage with necessarily MUST assume the Bad Boy’s responsibilities and liabilities.

New Daddies and Independent Women®

It’s essential to the single-mother rationale that they convince themselves they aren’t shopping for a “new daddy”. The fem-centrism of today’s social structure already has a long and well established framework ready to enable the most predictable of hamster spins. She’s an “Independent Woman®”, she “makes her own damn money” and ‘walks like da boss, talks like da boss,…” etc. The Independent Woman® brand is one of the most versatile social conventions because it covers so many situations. Blanket rationales like epithets of ‘Misogynist’ or ‘Homophobe’ pale in comparison to the usefulness of the Independent Woman®.

The Independent Woman® is unassailable and any contrary deviation from it leads back to the circular argument of patriarchal men’s selfish oppressions – feminism’s favorite trope. She “don’t need a man”, but she needs a Man. The real tragedy is the desperation apparent in the false pride. The truth is she needs a Man, her children need a Man, in spite of the pretentiousness fem-centrism has conditioned into her. But her decisions have left that Daddy position open to the lowest bidder.

The undeniable, unavoidable truth is that whether or not this is a conscious effort on her part, this is what the next guy, usually the Nice Guy, MUST deal with. Mr. Dependable, Mr. Loyal supporter/provider has no other choice but to assume parental investments that were never his. She bred with the Bad Boy and the Nice Guy raises her children. Any woman who can pull this off hits a bio-evolutionary jackpot.

The good news for her is that there are countlessly reinforced social conventions specifically designed with the latent purpose of making such a Nice Guy (essentially a proactive cuckold) think he’s a martyr and held to be in the highest regard of manhood for “looking past” her situation and “loving her for who she is.” Rest assured she’ll eventually attract a beta so conditioned to forgive her past indiscretions (essentially justifying and rewarding them) in exchange for the sexuality he’s been deprived of for so long. Her marginal intimate acceptance will only affirm his AFC beliefs and his “stepping up” to parent her kids will make him tolerable when he’s not as exciting as the Bad Boy was.

Now all that may sound harsh, but it’s important to understand just how tough a road single mothers have to hoe. If laid out in harsh realistic terms, most women don’t willingly want to be saddled with an AFC marriage of convenience, and neither do they want to be locked in with an abusive Bad Boy, so what do they do?

First, they need to understand where they’re at and how they got to be who they are now. They’ve hit the Wall by default.

Own your indiscretions ladies, own your mistakes. Being a single mother, despite the feminized social conventions, doesn’t make you a hero; it makes you a statistic. As I stated originally, any guy that accepts you intimately MUST deal with you as a single mother. This means he MUST accept your schedule, your children’s schedule, their father’s schedule, both family’s schedules, and the emotional fallout from all this. The feminine imperative has taught you to believe you’re entitled to expecting him to want to be with you (even if this is just as a fuck buddy) in preference to a single, childless, generally younger and more sexually available woman. She’s your competition. And in spite of all this he’s expected to still be the Man, by denying his sexual predilections in favor of your circumstances.

Your fundamental acknowledgment and showing a constant genuine appreciation for the sacrifice he makes to accommodate your past is essential to any LTR you have in the future. I’m not saying that your kids shouldn’t be your first priority – they absolutely should – but it is imperative that you know and demonstrably appreciate ANY guy who’d make the concession to still entertain you intimately after knowing this.

A lot of women love to gnash and wail about how they’ve become undateable after they’ve acquired single-mom status. Actually, no. There’s a whole modern world that’s teeming with AFC providers, with Cap’n Save-a-ho Martyr Mentalities just itching to get at the reverent pussy they missed out on for most of their 20’s and are more than willing to follow the feminine meme and convince themselves that single mommies are just victims of the Jerks they knocked out their kids with.

Daddies & Buffers

Understand, single mommies are another form of Buffers. The deductive logic is that they’re ‘easier’ due the their conditions and the risk of rejection lower (particularly when rejection-phobic or in a dry spell), but the potential long term ramifications are never worth the effort incomparisson to childless women. Rejection is better than regret.

The problem with actualizing your fantasy encounter with a MILF is in the ‘M’ part of the acronym – ‘Mother’ – ergo, a single mommie with all of the very “real world” baggage that goes along with that. I’ve tapped my share of older women when I was in my 20s and I can tell you that the sex was no more or less extrordinary than the younger women (at least in terms of performance) I’ve been with. The only major difference? I never had to worry about 22 year old single girls finding a babysitter for a night or had to be concerned with her making too much noise during sex so as not to wake up her son in the next room. Nor was I concerned about it being “her weekend” to have the kids.

It’s very easy to assume single mothers are victims by default – some are, most aren’t. Trust me, a majority of single mothers are single for a reason – and it’s not always because of their Jerk BFs or deadbeat husbands. The common belief is that MILFs encourage an idea that they are more sexually available; you’ve got to ask yourself, why would they be motivted to be more sexual while single than when they we’re married or in an LTR? They become motivated to be sexual and hit the gym when single, but wouldn’t make the same effort when married, why? Because the guy wasn’t worth it OR because she became comfortable, he lost interest, became fed up, and she’s prompted to be more concerned with all that in order to achieve a long term security with another man that necessitates she do so?

Don’t get me wrong, there are attractive women in their 30s & 40s but these are uncommon exceptions to the rule. The social reinforcement of the MILF fantasy is just a modern extension and evolution of the “she’s still got it” social convention with the latent purpose of leveling the playing field for 30-40 something single mothers unable to sexually compete for the same calibre men with 18-28 y.o. women. The harsh truth is that a beautiful, sexually available, single woman in her mid 20’s is at a decided advantage for sexual selection than a single mother entering her 30’s who’s encumbered with all the responsibilities of being a parent. Schedules of Mating issues aside, even when both women are equally attractive and equally sexually available, the childless woman is still at an advantage because she comes with less liabilities and represents a “fresh start” in comparison.

Women’s sexual value naturally declines as they ages – it serves an older woman’s purpose if she can redefine sexuality as her conditions change through life, and convince herself and society that she’s correct and genuine. Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore may epitomize this fantasy, but in reality, there are thousands of women filling gyms across the country for every Demi Moore convinced that they “still got it” while every year a new crop of 22-24 y.o. hotties commands the attention of the same men they’re competing for. This is just the natural extension of the ‘Have It All” lie that women have been sold for the last 50 years. Men only too eagerly buy this convention as well because it facilitates a Buffer for them and (presumedly) presents an easier route to getting laid. Therefore it is also in their interest that the myth and the Buffer be reinforced.

The Wall

Not to belabor the fresh input contributed by new Rational Reader ‘S’, but her recent comment regarding The Wall has made me aware that I haven’t yet gone into too much detail regarding the Wall and its socio-psychological effects upon women:

Yeah, it’s a term I have seen before arriving at this blog but have never heard in reality. I always attributed it to a woman losing her looks but to place it at exactly 30 seems to me to be too precise a calculation…as there are many variable to be taken into consideration I would imagine. For example, a party girl, serial tanner and smoker could probably lose her looks long before she reaches 30, whereas a clean living late bloomer might not even realize her potential until her mid to late twenties. I’ve seen women from my school..the most popular girls (with guys) changed the most in a negative manner and the nerds or just the most unexpected girls have become more attractive over the years. It’s freaking odd.

The infamous Wall a woman reaches (or slams into as the case may be) is somewhat of an ambiguous term that was actually coined by catty women long before the manosphere came into existence. It used to be a relatively less combative term that women used for one another in an effort to disqualify a sexual competitor. A woman implying another woman had “hit the wall” was marginally more polite than calling her a slut, but the latent purpose is still the same – disqualifying a sexual competitor from men’s mating considerations.

The Fear of Decay

Underneath the obvious utility of the Wall as an epithet is a more painful truth; the inevitable decay of women’s sexual appeal – their first, and for most, only, real agency of power they’ve ever actualized over men to ensure their long term security needs. In the heyday of 2nd wave feminism, the sisterhood’s message was all about collective empowerment and solidarity, but beneath that was the intrinsic hypergamic need to compete for the best mate their looks and sexual availability could attract. As I’ve written before, women prefer their combat in the psychological and there are few fears women harbor as deep and as long as losing their sexual agency with men. They know the Wall will eventually come, and they don’t like to be reminded of it.

Women’s intrasexual combative use of the knowledge and fear of the Wall did not go unnoticed by men. Therefore the feminine imperative found it necessary to make the truth about the Wall as socially and individually subjective as possible. As with most uncomfortable truths unique to women’s weaknesses, the feminine creates social conventions and ambiguities to misdirect men from becoming aware of women’s eventual powerlessness over them (i.e. the progressive loss of her sexual agency). The Threat of having men become aware of women’s Achilles’ heel before they could consolidate long-term commitment with their best hypergamic option was too great a risk not to form social conventions about the Wall.

Implications of the Wall

Thus, in an intergender social context, the Wall became individualized and subjective for women, and it’s within this framework that women like S are most comfortable in addressing the reality of the Wall. “Not all women are like that” (NAWALT), the go-to mantra of feminized subjectivity, is a direct result of subjectivizing the inevitability of the Wall. In fact, virtually every operative social convention women rely upon for empowerment and self-esteem finds its root purpose in avoiding the fear of the Wall. The Myth of Sexual Peak, the Myth of the Biological Clock, the social convention that Women are just as Sexual as Men, are all very complex social rationales with the latent purpose of convincing the majority of men and women alike that post-Wall women can still be equally effective sexual competitors with pre-Wall women.

It’s important to bear in mind that all of these complex social conventions are rooted in a fear of the Wall. I’m repeating this point to emphasize the importance this has in a feminized society that’s subjected to feminine hypergamy as its most operative doctrine. When enough women, through cultural forces or personal circumstance, can’t capitalize upon what they think is their due, optimal hypergamic male option, then society must be acculturated to believe that women past their Wall expiration date can and should be just as desirable as those in their prime. Think of it as a retroactive social moving of the feminized goalposts. This is the gravity and extent that the fear of the Wall plays for women – feminized society is literally structured around avoiding it.

Defining the Wall

When I wrote Navigating the SMP, the reason I used 30 as the general age women typically hit the ‘Wall’ is really a combination of factors. Most importantly it represents the threshold at which most women realize their lessened capacity to sexually compete with the next generation of women in their ‘actualized’ sexual peak (22-24). However, there is a male part of the Wall equation that needs to be understood. 30 is also the general age at which men (should) become aware of their own, longer-lasting sexual market value and potential. This affects women’s interpretations of the Wall. Once a Man is aware that he has the capacity to attract the sexual attentions of the younger women he’d previously had limited access and understanding of, his actions and imperatives define the Wall for women who are approaching that threshold. And unsurprisingly this is the point at which Wall-fearing women begin their accusations of men’s infantile ego issues, shaming, etc. for preferring younger women than themselves.

When we (and as women in particular would have us) view the Wall in terms of physical attractiveness we don’t see the full picture and relevancy the Wall has for women. It’s very easy (and often fun) to compare pictures of girls we knew in high school with their current FaceBook profile shots at 40+ years old and get a laugh at how bad she hit the Wall. It’s also easy for women to point out the notable exceptions to the rule and find a hot 38 year old woman with 3 kids competing in the Ms. Fitness USA pageant. It gives them a sense of hope about their own decay.

However the Wall is much more than just the physical; it’s the conditional that accelerates or decelerates a woman’s date with the Wall.

Single mother? Acceleration.

Consistent, bad personal habits? Acceleration.

Careerist obsessive? Acceleration.

Obesity? Acceleration.

Do notable exceptions to these exist? Of course, but they prove the rule. And that rule comes in the form of such an overwhelming fear that contemporary society needed to be restructured to help avoid it. The 38 year old, careerist, single mother of 3 competing in fitness pageants is only a hero because of the fear of the Wall.

Value Added

There’s nothing more refreshing for me than to read the insights of new Rational Readers. Generally it’s not that most offer anything terribly novel (some do), but it’s the predictable, persistent, feminized societal interpretations that keep reusing the same tired rationales which gives me hope that positive masculinity is cracking that shell. In other words, girl-world isn’t really coming up with anything new; it’s just retreads of old tropes.

One new Rational Reader, ‘S’ (maybe for Susan?) decided to take me to task for my graphically detailed essay on Navigating the SMP. Have Hamster, will spin.

While S suffers from the common female malady of reverse rationalizing her ‘circumstances’, she does provide a perspective on a topic I have yet to cover here in her followup response:

Fine, I read that. I just don’t agree with you philosophy that women somehow have no purpose after the age of 30. What if say there were circumstances outside of her control that prevented her from getting married at what a simpleton might deem as an acceptable time…what if she never partied and slept around? There is more to a woman than physicality and it pisses me off that there are men like many of the above (bitter much?) who don’t appear to see worth in a women once her..what’s it called..sexual market value declines…it just strikes me a scarily misogynistic..like some creeped up from of American Psycho shit and it makes me scared for our society.

There is a lot to be said for developing true companionship with someone, having a kind of partner in crime relationship that endures…A woman of any age is appropriate for this.

To paraphrase Roissy’s inimitable words, the closer you get to the truth the louder the feminine will screech. As odd as this is going to sound I actually agree with most of S’s point here. You see, when I was detailing the timeline of men and women’s respective sexual market values, my intent was to provide a raw and unvarnished view of how, in contemporary social dynamics, men and women’s sexual market values differ over the course of time. I made the efforts (loose as they were) to reveal the slow-burn valuation of men’s SMV in contrast with women’s quick-burn SMV.

Emotional Response

Exposing uncomfortable truths is kind of a mixed bag when it comes to the emotional response to those truths. For instance when I read articles about feminist triumphalism regarding how much more ‘advanced’ women are over men today, or I read reviews like ‘The End of Men‘, the analytical portion of my brain gives way to the more emotive response. Why try right? If I’m obsolete, if the cards are stacked in women’s favor before I even get dealt a hand, why not go my own way? There’s a certain hopelessness to that initial emotional response, especially when there’s no hint of sympathy or contrition forthcoming from ‘powerful’ women and all the women aspiring to that empowerment. This is just how the game has shaken out, too bad for you men, you’re fucked now.

I imagine S probably feels the same way when she sees the landscape of the sexual marketplace on display in such Darwinian, graphic terms. Once you’ve hit the Wall ladies, your value begins its decline in earnest, so The Threat then becomes men becoming self-aware enough of their increasing SMV to capitalize upon his increase and your decrease accordingly. This is the nasty part of hypergamy; the countdown to the Wall is ever-present, but so is the subconsciousness-level doubt about having made the optimal hypergamic mating choice before the clock reaches zero. Every SMP opportunity after that point will always be colored by what opportunities she could’ve consolidated upon before it.

I often get called a cynic or uncaring in the delivery of my observations, but try to understand my approach is always about pragmatism. Should women’s overall value mean more than just her physicality and sexual availability? Yes, of course, just as Men’s intrinsic value ought to be more broadly appreciated for the qualities of his character and the sacrifices he makes to facilitate a woman’s reality. I would love nothing better than to think that the human spirit combined with mutual good-will and understanding could lift us above our base, innate drives. I would love to live in a world where men could get a hard-on based solely upon his estimation of a woman’s respective “worth”, and where women swoon for a humble, noble, loyal and devoted overweight and underemployed man with a negative balance in his bank account.

In the manosphere, every day I read about the conflict between what our higher selves should want in a woman. There’s no lack for articles and blog/forum responses making impassioned pleas for women’s fidelity, loyalty, intelligence, grace, femininity, appreciation, and a long list of other ephemeral qualities as being ideal for an LTR prospect. In fact I’d argue that the majority of men’s misreading women comes more from seeing past the red flags and attributing more importance to these qualities than a woman actually merits. For every divorced man who uttered the words “I never thought she was capable of this” I’ll show you a guy who rationalized his attraction to his ex based on what he thought were her ‘value added’ qualities.

Relationships – Nature and Nurture

I would never argue that a man or woman NOT aspire to be better than they are as human beings. There are always going to be human elements to any relationship that transcend what we’d expect the nature of the Game to dictate to us, but underneath that compassionate understanding, behind the flowery sentimentalism, is still the base drives, the feral hypergamy, the cruel reality of the Wall, etc. that we will never be exempt from. On Friday I’ll have been married for 16 years to a beautiful, loyal, feminine, woman. Mrs. Tomassi embodies a great many of the ideal qualities that most men would put on their LTR vetting list – she’s a great partner in crime for me, but my initial attraction to her had far less to do with those qualities and far more to do with how much she turned me on. However, as comfortable as I am with her, as intimate as we are with each other’s identities, warts and all, I still understand the base framework necessary for all of this to take place within.

A relationship based solely upon physicality and sexuality is every bit as weak as one based solely upon esoteric appreciations of ‘higher‘ value-added qualities.

The strongest, healthiest relationships are those in which both parties have a mature, mutual understanding and embrace of both the natural aspect and the nurturing aspect of the SMP. Women will never come to appreciate men’s intrinsic sacrifices made for them without coming to terms with naturalistic side of Game and the SMP. Likewise men need to come to terms with the reality of their conditioning and the fem-centric Matrix in order to appreciate the gravity of their decision to commit to a formalized monogamy / marriage. They need to appreciate the risk of the situation they find themselves in, but have hitherto ben unaware of. For both genders, coming to this understanding is often an ugly prospect.

Likewise it’s important to develop an appreciation for, and an embrace of those value-added qualities which move beyond the naturalistic side of the SMP. While being of primary importance, sex and the feral aspects of the SMP aren’t the only aspects of a healthy LTR. When it comes time to make the transition from spinning plates to informed, committed monogamy, you still have to live with that person and this is when those value-added attributes make or break the LTR.

I understand S’s and so many other women’s frustrations with the Game as it applies to women’s deficiencies. I’ve written at length about how women would rather have the Game changed to better suit their capacities to play it. In this instance S repeats a common moan in that she expects men to appreciate the ‘value added’ elements of a woman’s persona in priority to her base attractiveness. Her fears that men might adopt some policy of neglecting “quality” women in favor of “arousing” women, while understandable in terms of feminine competition anxiety, are really unfounded. If anything it’s the majority of beta men conditioned to believe that “it’s what on the inside that matters” who’ve borne the brunt of women’s social dissatisfaction for the past 40 years.

Guys don’t seek out the community because they’re getting too much pussy from being ‘Nice’ and appreciative of women’s ‘deeper’ qualities and they don’t know how to let down all these women easy. If anything compromises self-respect (assuming an AFC even has a concept of that) it’s a Scarcity/Sniper mentality. Worry less about the guys tapping their “harems” and more about the chump crucifying himself to be the martyr for his singular “dream girl”. He’s far more common.

Is Seduction Real?

From a SoSuave regular:

This has been driving me crazy for awhile so I got to post this question. Can you REALLY, honestly, seduce a girl? When I say “seduce” her I’m talking about taking a girl that just wants nothing to do with you at all for whatever reason that you might have no control over, and literally saying this or saying that and changing her mind?

Here’s what I’ve experienced:

1.) My “presentation” is mostly the same with every girl and really there’s no presentation at all. I’m about all personality. Most girls that I meet say that I’m “cute” (you know how girls talk) in the looks area, I always present myself wearing high fashion and my car is nice.

2.) But here’s the thing, the results I get depend upon the girl. There are girls that will love me, some that will just “go with the flow,” then some that will flat out say boy get lost. But here’s the WEIRD thing. I would have some average looking chick reject me to turn around and have a total dime accept my offers lol. Looking at it, it doesn’t make any sense, but I think it’s coming back to what I’m starting to see in the field and that’s the result of the interaction with the girl has more to do with the GIRL in question rather than you. I mean of course you need to work your Game, look good and do your thing, but what I’m finding is that the results often depend upon the state of the girl and her life and her background, etc.

I mean are guys here seriously whipping out “lines” and player shit to turn girls that are just totally not interested to being interested? I guess from reading the manosphere I’m more in line with the focus on the girl being interested when I show up rather than believing I can create interest.

Are you really seducing the girl or did the girl find you sexy when you walked in the door and already decided that she would fuck you JUST AS LONG as you didn’t come off as a loser, creep, etc?? Which means all this shyt comes down to is having the balls to go up and spark interesting convos, have an interesting personality, and knowing WHICH girl in the room to go up to and which ones not to?

There’s a PUA idiom that states 80% of seduction is simply not fucking up what’s already there. Attraction is not a choice – however, what you do from there is entirely up to you.

I think people get hung up on the word “seduction.” It conjures up melodramatic associations of doing something nefarious to tempt someone into doing something against their own interests. In some instances that may be the case, but far more often seduction is really just selling yourself effectively by manipulating the emotions and psychologies of others. Politicians, religious leaders, salesmen, etc. are all seducers of varying shades. There’s a very blurry line between influence and seduction, but in both cases there’s a willing participant always present. No seduction, or call-to-action was ever consummated with a person who wasn’t already somewhat desirous of being seduced.

Advertisers have known this for years; the best seductions are the ones where the target isn’t aware of being seduced, plays a willing part in their own seduction and are so rapt in their own involvement that they’ll prefer pathological denial when confronted with having been seduced. To varying degrees, people have an innate, limbic level ego-preservation mechanism that protects them from the damages that humiliation might injure them with. No one likes to think that they could be so inured or naive (i.e. suckered) that they’d fall for a seduction, yet whenever they buy a lottery ticket their heads are filled with fantasies of what they’ll do with all that money.

So, given all of that, naturally no one is going to ever get any concrete, totally verifiable feedback as to what produced an effective seduction from the target that was seduced. That’s the subjective nature of all seduction – you can only draw your conclusions from what worked and what didn’t according to your own observations of your own goals, not the target’s.

For instance, I’d argue that it’s a rare woman who’ll admit to having been seduced by a man. It’s a point of pride for women to think that they have some preternatural ability (feminine wiles) to seduce men (really by virtue of having a vagina). And for those women who would admit to having been seduced, it’s always couched in a sense of complimenting herself for being a woman of such value who could attract a man capable of seducing her.

Bear in mind, everyone has Game. Even the worst beta AFC in the world believes his supplication, pedestalization and outright prostration for a woman will separate him from the rest of the herd of “other guys” and increase his appeal to her. Everyone of us, learned or not, has a Game in that we approach our sexual interests in the way we believe will best produce the desired result – sexual response. The average chump wouldn’t think to call it “seduction”, but his ‘Game’ that’s evolved, misguided as it may be, is still an effort in influence and persuasion over a girl to get to sexual response.

Learning from Failure

In terms of learning seduction, failure is more beneficial than success, and this is exactly what guys fear because failure comes in the form of rejection, or in the case of the already committed chump, a fear of rejection. The young AFC will rely on a deductive reasoning (as most males do) which plots something like this:

I have a physical need for sex -> Women have the sex I need -> I must find out what women require for their sexuality -> I ask women what prerequisites they require for this exchange -> I must model my personality, behavior and ambitions to best exemplify these prerequisites -> I must perform these behaviors for her approval -> I get sex.

This is simple male logic and ultimately self-destructive because the women he petitions find it easier to require the dictates of social contrivances that they feel should be expected of him (and modified by their own set of contrivances) than to actually give him the honest truth which would likely set him on his ass in rejection, but moreover would help him better learn how to genuinely develop his own identity.

It’s this failure that teaches most accurately. On several occasions I’ve advised guys to be more wary of their successes than thier failures. Men meticulously pore over and analyze the minute details of why a date went sour or why a woman cheated on or LJBFed them, but the moment they F-Close for the first time, the minute they taste that sweet successs they’ve been aching for so long to achieve, the story changes to “OK Rollo, thanks for all of your help, I can take it from here.” I can think of at least 4 recovering chumps I’ve personally counseled that aped the behavior well enough to get their “ONE” dream girl then crashed and burned in exactly the way I warned them they would because they never paused to question why they succeeded.

The goal of their ambition was more important than the process of understanding how they came to achieve it.

When I was counseling, the single most common complaint I heard from older AFCs was how they got a “raw deal” for doing everything that was expected from them. They did, to the letter, everything that they thought women expected of them. They were “good guys”, they played by the rules (women had set for them), they weren’t ‘Players’, they paid their bills, they were “Supportive®”, sacrificed their own ambitions to benefit their wives and children, they fed the dog and took out the garbage; but these guys were miserable because the fear of rejection, the “I’d lose her for sure if I rock the boat” scarcity mentality was more powerful than recognizing a deficit in appreciation from their wives for the life-sacrifices they made in order to keep the peace and ensure a steady supply of mediocre sexual exchange.

However, for all of their complaints and commiserations they never stopped to look at the process of events that brought them to their condition. The ‘success’ of having found a woman who’d marry them was all that was important to them at the time. Much of that “don’t question it” mentality was due to them having a Scarcity Mentality, but as their relationships decayed the focus became more about repairing it and themselves rather than untangling the process of events that contributed to it. The car was running, the TV came on when they hit the power button, and that’s all that mattered – it’s only when the car breaks down and the TV wont come on that they finally get to the nuts and bolts.

Romantic seduction has never been one-size-fits-all. In fact this is expressly spelled out in the introduction of the Art of Seduction by Robert Greene (required reading for Rational Readers). A lot of men forget what the ‘A’ means in PUA – artist. You can’t just blindly expect one style of seduction to work for all types of women – that’s why it’s called an Art. Being a good artist of any sort requires time, discipline, an ability to improvise, creation, adaptation, attention to detail, etc. There are certain basic foundational principles women adhere to (hypergamy being the most universal) either due to social convention or biology, but the good seductive artist uses these as a basis for an individual seduction. For instance, the seduction of a church mouse and a goth chick require two separate seductive approaches, but they’ll both be influenced by the underlying influences common to all women (i.e. hypergamy, dominance, etc.). A Man’s Alpha prowess will appeal to those biological foundations, but his approach in seduction needs to be measured by the conditions presented by his target.