Commodifying Love

Dalrock gave me something to chew on recently:

In my first post of 2014 I introduced the topic of the ugly feminist.  As I explained at the time, this is an old charge but is typically aimed at the superficial instead of the core problem.  Feminists are ugly because the philosophy of feminism is ugly. It is based on avoiding caring for others and being miserly with love.  Several commenters pointed out that this is a devastating charge against feminism, as they could see no viable counter argument for it.

I’m not going to try to offer a counter to Dal’s assertion because in essence I think he’s correct. However I will suggest that this ugliness is the result of a commodification of love (and with it sexual access) that’s resulted from the unfettering of women’s Hypergamy. Love and caring is the commodity women’s Hypergamy uses to fulfill their dualistic sexual strategy.

To this day my most contentious post (and chapter in the book) on RM is Women in Love. This is primarily due to first time readers taking my assertions to their literal extreme. Women’s concept of love stems from opportunism, men’s concept stems from idealism. Most women and Blue Pill men take this to mean that women cannot actually love a man, and absolutist men angry with themselves for having never understood it think much the same thing, “My God! I knew it all along, women cannot actually love a man.”

I assert neither of these positions (really the same position) in that post, nor any of the followup post (that no one seems to want to read once they make up their minds), but what I do assert is:

Men believe that love matters for the sake of it. Women love opportunistically.

Iron Rule of Tomassi #6
Women are utterly incapable of loving a man in the way that a man expects to be loved.

In its simplicity this speaks volumes about about the condition of Men. It accurately expresses a pervasive nihilism that Men must either confront and accept, or be driven insane in denial for the rest of their lives when they fail to come to terms with the disillusionment.

Women are incapable of loving men in a way that a man idealizes is possible, in a way he thinks she should be capable of.

In prior posts I’ve also made the case that men’s idealistic perspective of love stems from an unending need for performance to merit a woman’s opportunistic love. It’s not that men want an unrealistic, unconditional love, but rather they want a woman’s love to be a refuge from having to perform up to, above and beyond the requirements of satisfying an unending optimization of her Hypergamy. It’s not unconditional love they idealize, it’s a love that’s not predicated on their burden of performance.

What frustrates this love idealism is that men are popularly sold the idea that women’s love is based on a mutually similar model. From Disney movies to romantic comedies, to Shakespeare and epic stories, to popular music and the daily talk shows, the message is that love (if it’s real love) is omniscient, conquers all and overcomes all odds. It’s a very seductive message of hope for men whose lives and existences are evaluated on constant performance.

“Could she really love me despite all of my glaring inadequacies?”

“Does she love the real me or is it my money and the lifestyle I provide for her?”

The fact that these themes are a constant in human history illustrates the subconscious, peripheral awareness we have of the differing models of love each sex bases their understanding of love on.

The Commodity

What this selling of idealistic love does for men is keep them in a state of perpetual hope that this idealism is shared by both sexes and they can realistically achieve that ideal goal of a love not founded on his performance. It’s important to note here that this performance isn’t necessarily something a man must make a constant effort to maintain (though this is the usual case), but rather what he represents, not who he is personally. It may be that his effortless looks or inherent status represents a cue for a woman’s optimal hypergamous satisfaction, or it may be the result of years of dedicated performance effort – either way it’s what that man represents; remove the factors a man possesses that satisfy a woman’s Hypergamy and her opportunistic model of love will reveal itself.

Feminists are ugly because the philosophy of feminism is ugly. It is based on avoiding caring for others and being miserly with love.

Dalrock’s observation here is profound in that it illustrates exactly the state of opportunism on which women base their concept of love. On some level of consciousness women understand the inherent value their love, concern, attention and caring has for men. It’s repression or expression is a commodity that has reward value for men who also have an awareness that their performance is what merits a woman’s love.

The popular criticism is that this want for an idealistic love is really a man’s preoccupation with his need for sex, but this is to be expected from a fem-centric culture that needs women to ration love and caring for men in order to ensure its social dominance. And God forbid a man express his desire for a performance-less based love and caring; he’s ostracized for wanting a mother’s love (Freudian), being necessitous (thus powerless) and revealing his deficiency in performance.

As Open Hypergamy becomes more proudly embraced and normalized in society, so too will women’s sexual strategy be laid more bare. And in laying that strategy bare, so too will women’s opportunistic model of love become more apparent to men. This new apparentness is already conflicting with the old-order messaging that kept men hopeful of realizing their idealistic love state.

Women cannot sell Open Hypergamy and the love-conquers-all ethereal ideal love at the same time.

Dal is correct, the philosophy of feminism is ugly, but it’s important to consider that feminism is just the current social operative of the Feminine Imperative today. For the moment women can be miserly with love and caring. They can even express resentment for having to be so with men who they doubt are meritorious of it, or for those who don’t measure up to the rigors of an increasingly open and increasingly demanding Hypergamy.

They can do this because they understand that the hopeful, idealistic love they have men convinced can be achieved is still a commodity to men.

Before I close, I’m going to give you a bit of Red Pill hope (again). Men and women can and do love each other intensely and genuinely. They can and do see past each other’s deficiencies and their love endures. My point with this essay is to reveal how this love develops and the conditional environments it comes together in. In spite of the strongest bonds, there is a threshold at which men’s loving idealism and women’s performance requirements can test, stress and break that bond.

Men’s idealistic love can be strong, as can women’s opportunistic love – the two models are not mutually incompatible, and it’s my belief that the two are even complementary to each other. Neither is a right or wrong way to love, and neither is the definition of real love. Bear in mind these are models that predicate a condition of love, what happens after that is up to the individuals.

Where these models become incompatible is when one commodifies and exploits the condition of love that the other holds. In an era of unapologetic feminine primacy and unignorable open Hypergamy, this commodification undeniably rests with the feminine.

For further reading see the Love series of posts:

Women in Love
Men in Love
Of Love and War
Burden of Performance
Love Story