Communication

Fidelity

I was recently asked by Die Hard to add my personal input regarding fidelity on SoSuave. Rather than post an overwritten essay on the forum I thought the broader readership might be interested in the discussion:

So you guys are married… Rollo recently told me he has never cheated on his wife and I’m pretty sure Slick and Back haven’t either.

My question is: Why?

Before you guys were married, you had (or would have had) absolutely no problem with spinning plates and banging several chicks at the same time. So why do you have a problem with it now? What ADVANTAGE does it bring you to be monogamous with your wife?

I constantly get asked this, “how can you propose the ideas you do and still be married?” It’s actually because of my marriage that I feel qualified to do so. On this blog and in my SoSuave posts I generally make a point not to include too much personal details about my individual experience; first because it contributes to bias in analysis, and second because it always comes off as self-aggrandizing in some respects. However, to answer your question I have to give you some background about myself, so I apologize in advance if it sounds like I’m glossing myself here.

A Brief History

I was a stereotypical, but extroverted beta in my adolescence. I got played and/or rejected constantly until my senior year. I got laid for the first time at 17 with really the first girl who’d be my “girlfriend”. I literally rearranged my life to accommodate us having regular sex, to the point that I would travel from one end of L.A. to another by bus over a weekend. I wont bore you with the beta details, but suffice to say it didn’t end well.

It was after this that my 20 y.o. mind decided I liked getting laid more than I liked playing up to the Nice guy bullshit that got me raked over the coals with my “girlfriend”. I was already playing in bands at that stage and the Hollywood metal scene of the late 80’s and early 90’s was just begging me to come play and at 21 I was finally old enough to realize it.

I was a kid in a candy store. Rail thin, long blonde hair down to my ass, playing in two very popular bands and opening for national acts, doing session playing for Paramount TV shows occasionally; by 22 it was so easy to bang women I didn’t even consider trying to get with them. I had Game at the time, but it was the unpracticed default Game that comes from the confidence in knowing you have instant social proof and women will approach you. Which was funny because for most of it I was flat broke, but somehow managed to have women buy me drinks and all kinds of ‘gifts’ to offset that.

Of the 40+ women I’ve banged, about 38 of them were during the times I was between the age of 21 and 25. And there were all kinds of women; mostly the club sluts that guys in the community like to complain about, but also some nice Latinas, two MILFs (one was a manager for the band I was in), one brief single mother, two strippers, a nice church girl, even a Vietnamese girl who could fuck like a Tasmanian Devil. I had them as young as 17 and as old as 45 . Blondes, brunettes, redheads, big tits, small tits, one fatty, one coke addict, a girl with an MBA, and several from community college. I didn’t give the girls who’d rejected me in high school an afterthought. I was doing naturally what I later came to understand was spinning plates.

It got so easy I could walk into a club in another state, where no one even knew me and could still pull top shelf ass that most guys only whacked off to porn over. But all that came crashing down when I met the BPD psychotic girl I mention here. This was the real test of my true beta-ness, I wanted her to be my ‘dream girl’ but she was the daughter of Satan. Every high I was experiencing at that time turned into the lowest misery I could’ve imagined. It was a living hell, but one I wanted to be in. I had opportunities to get away, I had other women still throwing themselves at me for a time, but I wanted that BPD to be ‘the ONE’.

It was at that lowest point that I knew what it was like to be lower than a beta, I was an abject omega with her.

It wasn’t until mercifully after 4 years that I extracted myself from her web of neurosis, that I gradually transformed myself back into an adult Alpha mindset. I changed my mind about myself and got back on my feet by putting myself first.

Afterlife

In the time before I met Mrs. Tomassi, I’d been the cheater, and the cheated. I banged other guy’s women on GNOs, I’ve had sex with girls within 2 hours of meeting them. And I got cheated on and LDR cuckolded by the BPD girl. I’ve done all of that. A lot of guys drop the line that they’re monogamous because they’re sick of the game, but they never really experienced that game. They settle because they’d rather trade mundane ‘sure thing’ sex for risking more real rejection. From my personal perspective I laugh at this rationalization – especially when I hear a guy married for 3 or 4 years tell me how he’s tempted to cheat on his wife or wonder what banging this new girl would be like if only he hadn’t married so early. They can’t escape the nagging doubt that their lives could’ve been something different if only they’d held out longer.

I think it’s vitally important for guys to ‘get it out of their system’ and experience women in as visceral, emotional and practical a way as possible before even considering monogamy. A lot of my critics like to say, “well we can’t all be like Rollo and get everything right” but I profess what I do because I got more things wrong. I attribute the success of my marriage to having gone through what I did in my 20’s.

When I was considering proposing to Mrs. Tomassi the one overarching concern I had wasn’t about pre-qualifying her for some laundry list of wifely qualities I had in my head. My first thought was “is she someone I can remain faithful to?” That was my primary concern, is she someone I’ll just cheat on? I know me, I’ve seen me do it. I got lucky in that for 15+ years she’s been a great wife, mother and companion, but honestly I wanted a woman who would keep my sexual interest in perpetuity. She’s much more than this, but in all honesty I wanted a woman to stay as hot and sexually available as possible for the longest time possible. Call that shallow if you like, but I’ve never cheated on her in over 16 years because she has, and in my line of work the opportunities are always there.

Infidelity

What most people don’t understand about infidelity is that, for cheating to occur two primary elements must be present – cause and opportunity. Women tend to get caught up in the minutiae of cheating because it stokes their need for indignation; even vicariously through their girlfriends they’d rather wallow in the chemical rush that jealousy, suspicion and betrayal induce for them. Guys do too to an extent, but I think they focus more on the loss of the investment, especially the emotional investment. What both fail to see is the reasoning behind that act of infidelity.

Most men never cheat simply because they don’t have an opportunity to do so. Either they’re not in the correct environment or they just lack Game or aren’t attractive enough to really be a consideration for cheating with. These are the guys who’ll self-righteously declare how proud they are of their convictions in remaining faithful to their wives, when in fact they make their necessity a virtue due to circumstance. When you look at how most infidelity progresses it’s often prompted by the proximity of a willing partner. Opportunity is circumstantial.

Cause to cheat is much more complex. For men it’s often a feeling of not being appreciated, but more so than this is their wife’s lack of sexual interest or their own lack of interest in her because she devolved into something they never thought she would. As I stated before, if you don’t know what you’re missing, you’ll think you’re missing out. I know a disproportionate number of men who’ve cheated as the result of having cashed in on their potential in exchange for the ‘safety’ they thought marriage offered.

There are plenty of men with ample cause to cheat, but never do because they simply lack any real option to do so. That may not be enough for some men and they’ll extend that cause into creating their own options to do so; they hit up a prostitute, or put themselves into situations where they could cheat. Then there are guys like me who have plenty of opportunity to cheat as part of their work, but don’t because they don’t have any real cause to motivate them.

I’d love to speak from some Pollyanna, Promise Keeper’s moral high ground, but I really don’t have a reason to cheat.  That isn’t to say I haven’t been tempted, but in the back of my head I know I’ve nailed some comparative girl in my past. I don’t dwell on wondering what it would be like to bang one of my ‘pour girls’ or the hot receptionist at one of our distributors, because I fondly recall fucking a girl who looked like her 20 years ago. For me, one of the benefits of having lived plate theory (albeit inadvertently) is knowing I climbed that mountain a while ago.

Yes, I love my wife, we have a mutual respect, and were are a good fit, but I don’t feel crushing guilt for finding some other woman attractive. In fact Mrs. Tomassi tells me that when I stop looking at hot women, that’s the day she’ll start to worry. For the last 16 years she’s been someone I could be faithful to. My wife trusts me implicitly; in fact she’s been the inspiration of, or planted the germ of an idea in me about a lot of post topics most of my readers would find surprising. In 2010 I left for a product launch in Aruba. I was surrounded by stunning women, not one of which could be rated lower than an HB8.5. They had put me up in one of the best suites in the hotel. When I told Mrs. Tomassi I’d be gone for 4 days in Aruba she said, “if you’re gonna do any fishing there you’ll need to bring extra cash”. How many married men do you know whose wives would’ve gone ballistic over even the consideration of doing that? How many men’s wives would “forbid” him to go?

Advantages

You also asked if  there’s a particular advantage to monogamy that can’t be achieved in spinning plates, and besides having raised a whip-smart, beautiful, honor-roll-student, 13 y.o. daughter, not really. Does that sound odd or callous? It probably does because I don’t think a comparison of advantage to disadvantage in either lifestyle is really an issue. I think they’re two different ways of living and one is not necessarily better than the other – just different for different people at different phases in life. For the record I’m not anti-marriage, I’m anti-never-saw-it-coming-pollyana-how-could-she-do-this-to-me?-hypergamy’s-a-bitch marriage.

Do I know that marriage is a racket and puts a man legally and socially at an extreme disadvantage? Yes. Am I aware of the divorce fraud industry? Yes. Do I understand that for a woman to achieve her sexual imperatives I necessarily must sacrifice my own? I’ve written volumes about it. Do I know that women fundamentally lack the capacity to appreciate the sacrifices a man makes to ensure her sexual imperatives? You need to ask? So why get married?

Before he died, I can remember a conversation I had with my father where I was asking him about why he married my mom. I could never get a straight answer out of him, but he wasn’t being elusive. I was younger and unmarried then, now that I’m older I think I understand that he was telling me the truth when he said “It seemed like a good idea at the time.” He honestly thought he and my mother could make a life together when they got married in their mid 20s.

The reason I asked him was because I knew virtually nothing about their courtship and how such disparate personalities could come together and thus have me. He passed away back in September of 2010 and I rooted through his old photo albums with my mom. Here was this life my father lived in these photos that I had no inkling of. Shots of my parents years before my brother and I even came into existence. Lots of shots from their sailing days in the early 60s, friends whom I had never heard mention of, and an early life where no children were present. Just from perusing these shots I got a whole new perspective of my old man. He was in love with my mom, my mother who’d left the family in the mid 70s. They divorced when I was about 8 I think, and since then I’ve only ever known them as separate entities.

I think if most guys are honest with themselves, on some level they buy the idea that they and some idyllic woman can live out a plan or be happy together for a lifetime. I honestly couldn’t tell you why I proposed to Mrs. Tomassi. I wasn’t forced by pregnancy or emotionally coerced by some BPD’s neurosis. I can only echo my Dad’s words now, “It seemed like a good idea at the time.” I still do, and I’m not naive to knowing what could happen, and that women are fully capable of betraying a man after 20 years of marriage. There is no security in marriage.

Men are the true romantics, not women. They talk a good game, but it’s men who are the real slaves to romanticism. It’s men who conceive every romantic gesture. Mrs. Tomassi wears the wedding ring my father picked out for my mom all those years ago. The back story is kind of lost on her, she just loves the ring and life goes on. We want to believe in the fairy tale. We want to believe we’ll be the exception against all odds and every horror story. My father was probably the most uninspired man you’d ever meet when it came to women. He was very analytical, he was very ordered in his life, but he was also a hopeless savior for the women in his life. I wouldn’t call him a White Knight; he was much too rational for chivalry, but he did what he did because even he, the staunch atheist, believed marriage could make you happy. At some point my old man looked at that ring in the jewelry store and thought “yeah, that’s a good one, I could see that on my wife.”

Man’s Last Stand

TV is for women.

It’s that time again gentlemen, all the splendor, the fanfare, the pomp and circumstance that makes the NFL one of the last bastions of American manhood – Super Bowl Sunday! You’ve earned it boys, today is YOUR day, ordained by the divine creator himself (why else would it be on a Sabbath?) to be reserved for beer, brats and belly-bucks. A day dedicated to unapologetic testosterone fueled manhood. We are MEN hear us belch,..pshhhhhhhht,..click,….

Hey, woah! Wait a minute,.. I WEAR PANTS! What the fuck? Who are these neckbeard herbs singing to in the middle of nowhere? These aren’t men they’re,..schlubs,.. Howie, Terry, Shannon, somebody, tell Dockers that the Super Bowl is for MEN,..no more of this crap OK? We need something masculine like a car commercial, yeah hit us with a muscle car,…pshhhhhhht, click,..

Yeaaaah,..nice sound of horsepow,.. Heyyyy,..wait a minute,…what the hell was all that crap about putting the toilet seat down? Clean up the sink after I shave? Carry your lip balm? Hey, I’m starting to get a funny feeling that maybe I’m being pandered to here,…lets see,…how about another car?…pshhhhhhht, click,..

Yep, definitely being pandered to here. It’s almost as if these advertisers know my wife is watching the Super Bowl with me,……pshhhhhhht, click,..

Wow,..I can’t take it anymore,..can someone just get me a beer? Please? A beer? They can’t possibly ruin a good T&A beer commercial,………pshhhhhhht, click,..

The above dramatization, while humorously inspired, was meant to illustrate a point that many in the manosphere will already be sensitive to, but far too few men are even aware of. One, perhaps unavoidable, problem advertisers have faced since the rise of overt feminization is the difficulty in reaching a male-centric audience in a female-centric society. Women are universally known as the primary consumers across virtually all demographics that matter to modern marketing efforts.

Women buy shit, and they buy shit in such volume and with such predictable patterns and frequency that it eclipsed men’s purchasing habits – and specific marketing efforts – over 2 decades ago. There are literally generations of advertisers and marketers who’ve never known a culture that wasn’t solitarily focused on and directed by the feminine imperative.

This has created a unique challenge for advertisers in this century in tapping into that male-centric marketing. Advertisers see untapped dollars in a male market, but how do they reach the male demographic in a media culture that’s ridiculed them for the last 40 years and praised the feminine above all else in that time? The natural answer is not to market to men at all, but rather the women they’re dependent upon to make the purchasing decisions for them.

You will rarely have a more blatant opportunity to experience this female-as-male purchasing dynamic than by watching the multi-million dollar commercial buys during Super Bowl Sunday. I would caution against Men in the manosphere simply attributing these spots to an ignorant misandry rampant in the advertising world. That’s the easy answer. Even your average plugged-in guy can see the male ridicule, but what’s more important is to recognize the method in the misandry. For instance in the Dove For Men commercial, we have a uniquely male, parodied experience coupled with a call to action to purchase Dove body wash – a product few men would buy for themselves. However the target audience for this commercial is the wives and women – the primary purchasers – in men’s lives to buy the product for them. Can’t reach the male demo? Get his Mommy wife to buy him what he needs.

Advertisers are also cleverly making plays to a shame based  Male Catch 22 – Man Up or Shut Up dynamic. As in the Dodge Charger ad, men are uniquely EXPECTED to suffer through a lifetime of servile misery to benefit women, but his reward is her allowing him to drive the car of his choice. Most women aren’t going to directly purchase a car for their husbands, but the inflection in this commercial is that her influence is what makes this car a reward for him.

If you ever had doubts about the veracity of the female-centric social Matrix we live in today, pay attention to the commercials you watch during the game on Sunday. Don’t take the content of the commercials at face value; that’s what women will do. Instead, ask yourself why did the producers choose that particular type of male to play in the spot? What’s the social message behind the commercial? What gender dynamics do the producers assume will resonate with their target audience? You may think this is over-analytical, but trust me, when a company drops $2M on a Super Bowl spot, they’ve put far more analysis into it than I can cover in a blog post.

Setting the Rules

From SFS on SoSuave:

Been with my GF for 18 months now , tonight she tells me that we have a dinner with her family to celebrate her cousins B Day at a restaurant on Saturday.

At first I agree, then remember that my SF 49ers are playing a huge game, I tell her dont think Im gonna be able to make the supper because of the game.

She gives me a weird look shrugs her shoulders and give me the sarcastic do whatever you want babe.

To me this is a not brainer, staying home to watch the games.

Thoughts ? I wonder if she will really be upset.

Her cousin is like a brother to her.

I should probably set these rules early on.

Real simple, what do YOU want to do? Who’s frame are you living in?

You can rationalize a reason for either choice: 49ers playing a game that will never be repeated vs. her cousin’s B-Day that will, in all likelihood, come again next year, or you can make the case that football is frivolous compared to the cousin’s B-Day – it make no difference. It doesn’t even have to be football, it could be anything you have a passion for. What matters is that you set a precedent for controlling the frame of any future relationship.

Self-love is not so great a sin as self-neglect. She serves at your pleasure. That’s not to say you’re a callous inconsiderate asshole, just that your sacrifice (which will never be appreciated in girl-world) for commitment demands that you be the primary partner. Consider the magnanimity of you choosing not to watch football in order to do something for/with her in the future after having put her and the cousin off in the past. If you had caved in and went to the B-Day, she would never realize the future importance of you putting off watching a game. She could never appreciate the significance of your passion if you demonstrate that it doesn’t mean that much to you in the first place.

A lot of men who find themselves in relationships where they feel unappreciated by their committed partner are often there because they simply lacked the balls to make their primacy real for her in the beginning. As the majority of men are optionless Betas it comes as no surprise that most will readily sell themselves out in the beginning to keep the peace and keep the pussy open. Only later do they discover that their early supplications are precisely the reason she lacks respect and loses the lust for him. Men think, “she’ll love me more because I’ll do anything for her” while women think “he’s spineless and weak because he’ll do anything for me.”

Demonstrate, do not Explicate

In the greater scope of things, women can never appreciate the sacrifices men make in order to satisfy women’s socio-sexual imperatives. However, Men do possess the capacity to impress upon women the importance of their purpose or passions. In fact, when done with the appropriate art and intensity, impressing this upon women can be a fantastic tool of Game to stimulate genuine interest as well as ‘gina tingles’. Competition anxiety is a powerful force in the sexual marketplace for women, but within the confines of an LTR this stress tends to subside into a relaxed comfort and familiarity which is the antithesis of the lust-fueled sexual urgency prompted by the imaginings of losing a high value man to another competitor in the hypergamic arms race. To counteract this future situation, what needs to be established early in an LTR is a man’s genuine passion for something other than her. From the 16 Commandments of Poon:

III. You shall make your mission, not your woman, your priority

Forget all those romantic cliches of the leading man proclaiming his undying love for the woman who completes him. Despite whatever protestations to the contrary, women do not want to be “The One” or the center of a man’s existence. They in fact want to subordinate themselves to a worthy man’s life purpose, to help him achieve that purpose with their feminine support, and to follow the path he lays out. You must respect a woman’s integrity and not lie to her that she is “your everything”. She is not your everything, and if she is, she will soon not be anymore.

Since women fundamentally lack an appreciation for a Man’s experience, convincing a woman of your purpose or passion requires breaking a few eggs. You cannot be afraid to let things get messy. Demonstrating this purpose to her, early in the relationship, and particularly at the risk of destroying the relationship, is the lynchpin to authoritatively defining the future frame of any relationship. This applies equally to both LTRs and/or nonexclusive plates you’re spinning.

When she enters your world, she has to experience it first hand for it to have any legitimacy for her. This requires that you demonstrate what it means to live, or be in love, with a Man who’s purpose is NOT dependent upon her. You cannot explain to a woman what things are like to be with you – it only resounds with a puffed up rationalism that she cannot relate to, and thus has NO legitimacy for her. You have to make it real for her; your passion, your purpose, you direction and vitality must become the ‘other woman’ in the relationship. If that amount to something as simple as putting her off to watch an NFL Playoff game, so be it. If it requires you to be on an extended deployment in the middle east, or if you can think of nothing else but climbing K2, so be it.

Once a woman understands the gravity and legitimacy of your purpose / passion, only then can she come to appreciate the significance of you foregoing or postponing the dictates of that purpose for her. She will never feel more important to you than when you (occasionally) lift her above that legitimate, verified purpose.

Women will never appreciate a relationship that is a Man’s greatest ambition. For a very gritty depiction of this watch the movie Blue Valentine.

Mr. Perfect

Rational reader Edger had an interesting question:

“Rollo, I don’t get it. Why would a woman stay with a guy she knows is a chump?  I find it interesting how women will stay with their boyfriend’s/husband’s regardless if they’re AFC. Yea, there will be those guys who will say they get with these men for their money, or stay with them for financial security, but come on, we all know women will generally ONLY give their intimacy to men who have their game down tight and fit the profile – doesn’t matter how much they make. We know you don’t need to make a lot of money to get laid or to develop relationship with a woman. I have seen many many dudes who have had shit, develop long term relationships with hot women. But to be more specific, how do these AFC’s get with these women in the first place if they’re AFC’s to begin with? This is where it gets confusing..”

Why would a woman stay with an AFC? A lot of reasons actually, but there are some commonalities.

First, there’s the guy that was once the Jerk, who had been attractive enough, or played the role well enough, to get involved with a woman who successfully “changed” him. And in an effort to better identify with what she’s convinced him (and herself) that he ought to be living up to, he reverts to being an AFC in the relationship. She can’t complain because he’s changed into what she thought she was supposed to want in a guy, but he’s turned into the kind of guy she’d never have been attracted to if she were to meet him while single. So she stays with him up until the point that she meets another Jerk who she wants to fuck and eventually ‘fixes’ him too.

Second, lets not forget that some of the most wealthy and physically attractive men also happen to be the biggest AFCs you’ll ever meet. I realize that sounds odd, but the wealthy man and the attractive man have little to prompt them to re-think their own behaviors. Because they are more readily rewarded with female intimacy, there’s less reason to question the framework of intergender relations, and / or their own predispositions and conditionings that would make them AFCs.

I once worked with this guy named Jake who was model quality good looking. He had no trouble with attracting women, and most would simply approach him, but Jake was probably the biggest AFC tool I’d ever met. He used to constantly complain that he couldn’t get a girlfriend or keep a girl interested in him, even though he was tapping beautiful women every other weekend. Once he opened his mouth and spilled his life story out on the restaurant table on the first date these girls would run for the hills. He literally had ONEitis for ANY girl he was dating at the time and swallowed hook, line and sinker the soul-mate mythology. He tried to be friends, tried to be sensitive, tried to be funny, tried to be savior and every other AFC technique in the book, but all this did was push these women away from him. They enjoyed being fucked by the guy, but when he started up the ice cream cones and puppy dogs, cuddle-bitch mentality, they moved on to other guys.

In other words AFCs aren’t all dorks and geeks, and being attractive doesn’t insulate you from internalizing stupid, feminized romanticisms. Nice Guys may finish last, but that doesn’t mean they don’t finish at all, and some manage to get laid occasionally along the way.

Mr. Perfect

The problem with guys like Jake is that they strive to fit a feminine-centric idealization. They want to be perfect for her.

Quoted from Mr. Right Does Not Exist:

Three in four women believe there is no such thing as the perfect man, with most seeing their partner as only 69 per cent perfect.

The poll of 2,000 women showed more than 75 per cent believed the perfect man did not exist.

It seems that women are actually quite realistic on what they look for from their partner.

“While they might happily overlook a few common flaws from their guys, there are certain behaviors that men just won’t get away with.” The results showed one in five women think their partner only pretends to listen to them while leaving clothes on the bedroom floor and snoring were among other gripes. The perfect man would be expected to make an effort with his partner’s friends, avoid using her toothbrush, stay clean-shaven and not be lazy.

Feel free to read the rest if you can stomach it. I realize this is a sugary breakfast cereal of an article, but it serves to establish a point,…

Perfect is Boring.

Say that again, Perfect is boring. It seems counterintuitive, but it’s your imperfection that makes you attractive. There’s an implied, ambient confidence that’s radiated from a Man who knows what a woman’s stated ideal of perfection would be and yet refuses to embody it for her. That underlying message to her is “I know you hate having the toilet seat left up, but I’m supremely confident enough in your attraction, and other women’s attraction,  to me that I’ll ignore your silly pet peeves rather than pander to them.” It’s the guy who engages in this pandering by attempting to be a woman’s stated ideal who sends the message that he is really optionless. It’s essentially a failed meta-shit test. It says to her that he’ll be a willing participant in his own manipulation.

As I’ve written in prior posts, women will never substantively appreciate the efforts a man makes to facilitate her reality. A feminine-centric reality means that any extraneous attempt he makes to appease her will be interpreted as the normative. It’s just expected that he’ll do her bidding, because that’s just what guys are supposed to do. Yet it is the Man who refuses, either consciously or as a matter of course, to engage in trying to appease her who holds women’s attentions the most. If there is a categoric Alpha trait it’s just this obliviousness to the wants of a fem-centric norm.

Mr. Perfect doesn’t get extra points for being perfect because the aspects of that “perfection” is the expected norm. It’s boring because it’s mundane. The problem of a feminized norm is that it makes feminine similarities between the genders the ideal state. It ignores, willfully or otherwise, that biomechanics has evolved an appreciation for the differences in the genders to be primarily attractive to the other. The more like we become – men becoming feminine, women becoming masculine – the more we lose that innate attraction. This goes for the aspects we both love and hate about the other gender.

In defying this inborn attraction, and making attempts to socialize it to better fit the feminine sensibility, we grate against what is really characteristic of each gender. In the natural world Men will be Men and despite the protestations, women really don’t want it any other way.

Qualities of the Prince

You know, I’m not quite sure if my readership is aware of this, but I’m a Prince. No really, I’m a Prince (stop laughing), or at least that’s the expectation I’ve come to have others recognize in me after sifting through women’s online profiles on such fantastical dating resources such as Plenty of Whales Fish and OK U-Bid Cupid. But don’t think I’m such a rare bird, because amazingly enough, if you’re reading this blog, you’re probably a Prince too! And you didn’t even realize it did you?

You see, virtually all the women you encounter on these Buffers online dating resources are simply undiscovered, under-appreciated jewels in the rough. They’re Princesses, and goddammit they deserve to be treated as such. Just reading through each profile is like going on safari and encountering a virtual cornucopia of rare and exotic animals (kind of like a zoo), each meticulously described in encyclopedic detail of their uniqueness and rarity of finding. What mere mortal man could possibly deserve to touch such feminine refinery?

A few years ago the denizens of the SoSuave forum accidentally conducted one of the most humorous social experiments ever performed. A member by the handle of Bonhomme was a frequenter of Plenty of Fish and noticed an interesting trend in women’s profiles. Though most of the women using online dating run the gamut from hopelessly fat to 2-drink fuckability, the one thing most had in common was an entirely overblown sense of self-worth to compliment their grossly overrated self-impression of their sexual market value (SMV for those of you playing the home game). This is nothing shocking for unplugged Men; the ‘community’ has long held that social media and online Buffers work in tandem to convince a woman she’s 1 to 2 degrees higher on her SMV scale. What hadn’t been studied up to then was the descriptors and qualifications that online women used in both their “list of demands” and their own self-evaluations, or “the brochure of value added features” any man with common sense (see fem-centric conditioning) would ever be considered a ‘Man’ for appreciating in a woman.

The following is an example pulled from a typical profile:

Here is a well thought out idea of what kind of guy I am interested in… 5’10” or taller, lives near by, compassionate, intelligent, giving, VERY Attractive (someone other than your mother or sister has said so, lol) and in shape, prefer self employed, FAMILY orientated, open to new spontaneous things, likes to camp, likes to golf, wants children, would be a good father and faithful husband, a gentleman, gives me my space when I need it, not a nerd or too sarcastic, can take a hint, social, calls for no reason, remembers sending a note or a nominal gift IS romantic and necessary, respectful, sense of humor, and thinks the world of me. I am not interested in anyone older than 41 and anyone who makes less money than me since I do not plan on changing the lifestyle I have grown accustom to and hope to one day be a stay at home mom and furthermore… my children will never want for ANYTHING (but of course will not be spoiled brats either lol). You should also love animals  I am not attracted to red heads at all lol sorry.

Wow! A rare find indeed. Thank heaven for the internet in providing men such a valuable resource that we might encounter such rational and strong women as this. This is one common example, but by far the most common self-references women made involved the word “Princess” – “I’m a Princess waiting for my Prince” or “I’ll admit it, I’m a Princess, I just need to find a man who can appreciate that and treat me right.”

Well, far be it from Rollo J. Tomassi to deny these undiscovered royals their due! Quickly I began to craft a cunning profile of my own; one which these pouting Princesses would surely recognize as that of none other than the Crown Prince of Man-dom. Using their own profile’s jingoisms and idioms as a template, I established an idealized persona, one that any woman worth her equalist “common sense” salt would instantly be irresistible to,…

Here is a well thought out idea of what kind of gal I am interested in…5′ 5″ or taller, but not over 6 feet (because while I don’t mind being eye to eye with you, I won’t ever be looking up to you), lives close enough to be at my house within 10 minutes after I make the call, genuinely passionate, intelligent enough to be good company, sexually available (preferably insatiable) and VERY attractive – we’re talking Jessica Alba, Keyra Augustina attractive – women with a body-fat percentage higher than 8% need not apply. Must be employed but not so well as you’ll interfere with our sexual activities, FAMILY oriented, but only after you’ve hit 30-33, open to spontaneous sex (you know, like outdoor stuff or a surprise 3 way with one of your hot girlfriends after our 2nd martini), likes to camp (in the nude), knows not to complain when I go play golf with the clients from work.

She must want children after 33 years of age if at all, and only after she’s proven to be a good mother and faithful wife, must be a lady with class and know when the right time is to speak and not to speak, not a prude or bitch, can take the first hint, sociable, unexpectedly texts me pictures of her wearing something new from Fredericks of Hollywood, understands that the best gift she can give me is expressing her desire to fuck me like a wild animal, and also understands that gifts for her are treats or rewards for desired behavior.

Must be respectful of my decisions being final, can’t take herself too seriously and thinks the world of me. I’m not interested in anyone over 31 (since this is most women’s expiration date anyway), she cannot have exorbitant spending habits or a credit debtload in excess of $1,000 since I do not plan on changing the lifestyle I have grown accustom to and hope to one day be able to send my own children to college (rather than pay for your student debt), and furthermore… my children will be taught to reasonably earn their achievements on their own and respect the decisions of their Father and mother (and absolutely will not be spoiled brats either). I’m very attracted to redheads, blondes, brunettes, Latinas, Asians, African-Americans, Pacific Islanders, etc., pretty much any woman that meets my physical requirements. I am not attracted at all to even slightly fat women no matter how much “inner beauty” you think you may possess. Hope to meet you soon, your Prince.

There! What woman could possible fail to appreciate all of the qualities of a Prince based on their very own template? Insidious, clever and witty. All I had to do was await what could only be a landslide of returned affection and positive responses. I contemplated how I would have to let down the poor cast off Princesses who failed to meet my humble criteria as the first response came in,…

“I read your profile, and is any of it serious?????”

A bit perturbed I reply,

Why do you think it’s not serious? Am I not allowed to be a bit specific?

“Sorry not about to put up with your kind of shit.”

Strange and yet strange again. Here I’d learned that self-confidence and assertiveness were traits women admired in the land of gender-equalism. Ah, perhaps this Princess was a bit jaded by such a dearth of qualified Princes at her disposal. I waited a bit more and was rewarded by a Princess called ‘Lil Sweet Heart’ who’d randomly read my glowing self-description,..

“what a profile
see iam a strong willed person!!
i speak when i want to say what i want and when i want and the way ur profile sounds i dont we;d be a match and the part about raising a spoiled brat thats a hard one to over come depends what u see as spoiled sure my boys r a bit spoiled well a lot but thats the way i was raised and it did me no wrong my kids know that they have to work to earn their spending and treats but no reason why a parent cant buy something just because so maybe ur profile can off wrong but my feeling is not some one id wanna meet hmmmmm”

Egads! I respond,

“Honestly, I really tried to read your message to me, but all of the bastardized English and the run-on sentences made it virtually impossible to understand what you were trying to say.”

I do say. Whomever this royal child’s au pair was is deserving of a public scourging! The thought of so ill-preparing a Princess for courtly discourse with the Man who will one day be her King is inexcusable. Bah, the blazes with this one, I’ll be patient on another,..

“uh, yeah, i don’t think so. maybe your profile’s a joke (which would make it less sad), but i don’t find it amusing, not my sense of humour at all.and the fact that i’m even bothering to reply to say no, rather than just ignore you, should tell you how distasteful it is.happy hunting. (though you’d have better luck if you went back in time 100 years or so, have fun finding chics like that today)

After checking out your profile, you are one of the rudest people i’ve even encountered. In your dreams…”

Hmm, I was beginning to see a flaw in my profile design. You see I had simply reworded the profile of my original Princess’ profile and changed the gender specific terms to the masculine, while adding a bit of my own desires to the outline of the ideal Princess I’d like to meet. After all, they all want to be treated like Princesses, I’m just asking to be treated like a Prince. But,..perhaps I’d been remiss in my waiting for the Princesses to respond. How unmanning of me – I would seek out my prize and pursue her. This profile caught my eye,…

“I am friendly, outgoing, generous, loyal, honest and adventurous. I work in a hospital. I also drive and have my own car.
I love to get my nails done every two weeks. I love fashion and style. I care about pop culture and social issues.
I have an IQ of 146. I am extremely intelligent and educated.

First Date: I dont want to meet Cheaters, users, players, haters, crumb bumbs, guys who want booty calls or fuk buddies… ya’ll dont let the door hit cha on the way out… I guess Im looking to meet someone around my own age, who is taller than me preferably caucasian, attractive, who likes to work out, has a unique, ghetto and sarcastic sense of humor like me.”

Well, not the ideal prize I’d been seeking, but perhaps this was another jewel in the rough that just needed a bit of spit and polish. I respond in the affirmative to her brassy, assertive equalist nature. After reading my profile, she responds,..

“i mak emy own moneya nd pay for own 5hit.. and for someone with such high standards take a good look in the mirror becuz these girls aka jessica alba are way out of ur league… if u want someone who is hot at least BE hot urself!”

I found this confusing since I had no picture on my profile at this point. I’d have to address that, but strange that the assumption was that my physical stature would necessarily be inadequate for her. I respond,..

“Dear woman, for someone with such a high opinion of her intelligence your grammar, punctuation and syntax are far from reflecting this. You type like shite.”

What I’d found most entertaining of this whole affair is that these women somehow feel compelled to respond to the profile. As if it were some personal affront to their sensibilities that it should need their attention to correct, rather than simply move on to the next profile. Judging from the frequency and intensity of the responses, how many men do you suppose responded to the original woman’s profile with the same fervor?

One of the best ways to illustrate how insaturated feminization has become in society is to flip the gender script on certain gender-specific dynamics. As funny as all this was, it serves to show that women live and operate in gender assumptions that they simply take as normalized conditions. Were a Man to publicly expect the terms and demands for his own provisioning and intimate access that women demand without an afterthought, he’s instantly accused of misogyny at worst, comedy at best. There are many more dynamics that illustrate this fem-centric normalization. My critics get fits of hysteria when I describe the acculturated, feminine-centric undercurrent operating in society. Girl-world is the only world for them, so pulling back the iron-veil of the feminine reality like this is usually a hard revelation. Ironically it’s the vitriol engendered in the responses to my reworded profile that prove the point.

Command Presence

A few years back I went to a popular martini bar for a mixer event that one of our agencies was throwing for my company. It is a very upscale bar, all the waitresses were easily HB 8s & 9s and the bartenders looked as if they got the job based on how close they resembled male models. If you know any about Central Florida and the sordid details about Tiger Woods’ affairs, this was one of his primary spots for a hook up. Whenever I’m in a professional / social outing such as this I tend to pay attention to social dynamics and take mental notes. I’m almost always in behavioral observation mode (which sometimes bugs me I’ll admit) and I apply these observations to what I know. I sometimes feel like Jane Goodall in Gorillas in the Mist when I’m at promo events. This night was one of those instances.

At the time I’d been studying what is called Command Presence. If you work in law enforcement, emergency services, or served in the military you’ll know this term. My brother was formerly in law enforcement and he explained it as taking control of, by appearing to have, authority in confrontational or high stress situations. When a cop stops you for a speeding ticket he is trained to instinctively adopt a Command Presence when approaching your car. This is what makes people think cops, generally seem egotistical or arrogant, but it’s this ‘presence’ that leads them to this. Google search ‘command presence’, there are hundreds of articles on it.

I decided this evening to experiment a bit with Command Presence. Rather than wear my usual club crawler attire I wore well tailored suit and tie with some very expensive dress shoes. I never wear a tie, even at work. I’ve always felt a good physique is the best form of peacocking and this met with a lot of success in my past, but a man in a well tailored suit projects a different presence and prompts different (though favorable) responses, not only from women, but men as well.

Command Presence is founded on the associations with an appearance of authority, so it helps when you actually do own that authority. I’m the art director for a major brand of vodka and liquor import company and this place had the full line of bottles I designed, as well as their proprietary vodka being my creation. I am the ‘authority’ in this regard and this is always an easy ‘in’ with club people. Within the first 5 minutes of being there I’d gotten multiple IOI and AIs from an exquisite brunette (HB 8.5 easy) after a deliberate push to use Command Presence and taking with her.

Next was the HB 9 waitress that led me up to our VIP section. Maybe 24 y.o. and absolutely stunning, she pulls me away from the bartender and kino-walks me to where our party was meeting. This isn’t a stripper, or a paid hostess, she fetches drinks. She initiates convo with me and I use my art director routine that worked with the bartender. All time I maintain an air of authority and take the fatherly role with her. She’s visibly impressed, more IOIs, and goes off to bring me a martini.

Later I’d met up with some web agency people and some coworkers from my office. We’re launching a new micro-website that I worked on with them. I worked with most of the creative team, but I hadn’t met the PR or research people. One of these was a fantastic blonde named Tawny. Maybe 25, an unbelievably hot HB 8.5, had a boyfriend, but not present. Our logistics girl was a squat, Puerto Rican lesbian and she whispers to me that she could get her before I could. I reminded her I was married and wouldn’t take her bait, but it was game on from that point. She already knew who I was so that angle was done. I got good eye contact from her and caught her looking twice before I introduced myself formally. I then went Dean Martin on her and added the Command Presence to my ‘knowing all about her’ attitude. She ate it up and it was at this point I had to dial it down because she was talking about sticking around after the party had broke up and I wasn’t about to consolidate anything.

One thing I think older single guys miss out on is exploiting the maturity and wisdom that younger women expect them to have. Think Rat Pack guys, Dean Martin, Sinatra, Hefner, these guys were PUAs well into their 60s (even when they were married). Sure they were celebrities, but modeling that attitude into your 40s can take you a long way with younger women.

Fortunately (or unfortunately) the Command Presence thing was working almost too well. At about the point I was trying to separate my attention from Tawny the waitress brings me a martini. This engagement made for one of the more fascinating observations of female communications I’ve seen. Tawny was sexy and in a busness casual outfit that certainly made her hot, but waitress (never got her name) is in tight black form fitting pants and a tight halter displaying a great rack and a perfectly flat stomach with navel piercing.

I’ve previously gone into about how women communicate on levels that men are rarely aware of and here I had the perfect opportunity to see this in actions. Facial gestures, applied kino, innuendo, subcommunication, you name it was all there. Tawny of course has the high ground because waitress is on duty and thus is in a service role, but wow.

I still have to pry myself out of the Tawny predicament and lead a bit about the boyfriend, to my surprise she says he’s not really her boyfriend anyway, “more like a friend.” Now I’m in trouble, but I hold the Presence and give her the principled opt out “it’s a Tuesday night and I probably shouldn’t even be drinking because it messes with my morning workout” Oops, shouldn’t have added the last part, but that was my non-Presence slipping in. I excused myself around 8:30pm, but not without her letting me know she hopes I’ll drop by their studio sometime soon. Pfeww,..

I posted this to encourage older guys to adopt a Command Presence as a means to interact, but it doesn’t have to be an act for you. The part of the story I ommitted is that while I got a lot of female attention this night, I also got solid in networking with some very influential men who picked up on this. They sought out my association. I could say it was an Alpha thing, but I think it’s about the application. I have legitimate confidence and I expressed it with my attitude, expression and appearance. Yes, I have legitimate authority in this instance, but I owned it in a way that was respected. Too many, tragically older, men are afraid to own their authority and/or confidence.

Amused Mastery & Command Pressence

As I began with, this experiment was from a few years back, and since then I’ve seen how Command Presence dovetails very well into Roissy’s principle of Amused Mastery. Amused Mastery is a good compliment to Command Presence. It tempers the ass-holish impulse that can result from taking Command Presence too far. It smooths down what can be taken for arrogance.

I think a lot of guys get hung up on the term “aloof”. The word conjures up the idea that a guy has to pretend to be looking down his nose at some girl he’s interested in in a lame effort to get her to qualify to him. When people read how a guy needs to perfect being “aloof” they tend to think “haughty” or feigned disinterest. Throw that term away right now, because you don’t want to be “aloof”. What you want is Amused Mastery.

Amused Mastery puts you into a position of maturity while still remaining playfully approachable and forcing a woman to qualify to you by acknowledging your mastery of her (really all women by association) and your surroundings. An attitude of Amused Mastery implies to women that by virtue of your maturity and/or authority you’ve “seen it all before”, you already know what women mean when they say or do what she is doing, and it’s amusing to you. You’ll play along, but only so far as to cleverly poke fun at her attempts to get you to qualify to her. It means you never take her seriously, like a bratty sister.

I’ll admit I never fully appreciated the potential of Amused Mastery until I had a daughter. I find myself naturally using it with her because that’s the actual, unforced relation I have with her. Especially now that she’s 13. However, I also notice my wife finds Amused Mastery just as appealing, to the point that she includes herself in my Mastery over my daughter. Command Presence is useful when others are only peripherally familiar with you, Amused Mastery is what you need to employ when you’re dealing with people who have familiarity with you.

It’s particularly effective for older men / younger women Game. Assuming you’re in reasonably good shape and have some degree of affluence, being older gives you a degree of authenticity. With maturity comes an expectation of knowledge and experience for Men. I’ve used Amused Mastery with my “pour girls” at promo events and it’s like cat nip for them. You become that Father figure to them (FILF?) that they crave, but can’t seem to get from younger guys.

The Beta Hamster

I’ve never had meaningless sex; I meant to bang every woman I’ve ever banged.

It’s endlessly entertaining to read the rationalizations men will create in order to better identify with what they’ve been conditioned to think is expected of them to achieve the ‘precious gift’ of a woman’s intimacy. They get quite creative sometimes. Aunt Susan has (yet another) anecdotal analysis of Casual Sex highlighting exactly these anonymous stabs at male pre-qualification courtesy of Reddit. And once again, in classic feminine form, the thread becomes this echo chamber circle jerk of male identifiers qualifying themselves to the equally anonymous women – parroting the ‘right thing to say’, and we all renew our faith in humanity and the hope for men who really ‘relate to what women want’.

I think I covered this identification motive as a primary element of Beta Game fairly adequately in Identity Crisis, but lets look under the hood at this specific dynamic. The inherent problem with doubting what is intended as the noble motives of a guy to eschew casual sex is that you risk appearing shallow for doing so. Betas generally love to wallow in preconceptions of nobility and delusions of being more ‘deep’ than the general mass of men that they hear women complain of. They think it gives them an edge. It’s an integral part of the beta mating strategy; the more alike you are with women the more they’ll appreciate you as being unique and reward you with sex.

The Spinning Wheel

For beta men this mindset also has the added bonus of giving the perception that he is unique among men in his ability to place the importance of relationship above his natural impulses. In publicly confirming his stance on placing relationship (women’s first security priority, i.e. wait for sex) above his ever-present physical need for sex, his subconscious hope is to appear so in control of his feelings and so above his feral nature that women will have to appreciate him as a paragon of female identification. That’s some REAL pre-fucking-qualification there Mr. Alpha. This guy not only has the capacity, but also the depth and conviction to turn off his sexuality in order to better comply with the relationship security priority women need to enable their own sexual strategy. This is the ultimate in pedestalization of womankind – to put women’s emotional criteria above his physical need for sex. And the god of biomechanics laughed atop his throne of genitalia.

The Beta Hamster

It’s very difficult to criticize social dynamics rooted in personal feelings. All one need say is “it’s just how I feel” and the discussion grinds to a halt because who am I, or who are you, to doubt the veracity of what they’re telling me? Add to this that it’s men who are the true romantics of the sexes and it gets even harder to be suspect of an underlying self-serving motive. In fact it may not even be a conscious effort on the part of a guy to express this. Feminization has conditioned into society a greater, almost default validity for personal feelings. As men have become increasingly adaptive to a feminized culture, placing primacy on identifying with, becoming more like, women, so too have they developed their own version of the female imagination – the feminized-male version of the mental Hamster that spins the wheel in women’s heads. The doubts, suspicions and anxieties caused by the male Hamster are directed towards an idealized female-centric goal state which they mistakenly believe is a male-centric goal state.

Behaviorism

Self-reporting has always been an unreliable measure in psychological analysis, particularly when the one doing the reporting isn’t aware of the latent purpose of the psychology behind those ‘feelings’ they’re sharing. The only truly reliable, provable means of demonstrating motive or intent is observable behavior. It’s kind of a cliché in the community now, but bears repeating: never believe what a woman says, believe what she does. We use this meme more liberally with women because men make the mistake of wanting to believe that women are more rational agents than they are emotional agents, but this should really apply to men as well, and particularly when men are predisposed to women’s mental models.

From a behavioral standpoint, we’re going to see a lot of incongruent behaviors vs. the Beta Hamster’s rationalizations. To begin with, I’m not going to deny that there is some base element in men that desires a real emotional connection with a woman. However, sex is a man’s priority, it’s a biological imperative, and actively denying that it isn’t or creating mental schemas that attempt to sublimate this imperative are disingenuous at best, psychologically retarding at worst. Sex is the glue that keeps a relationship together, and it’s sexual arousal that prompts a relationship in the first place. Deemphasizing sex, actively desexualizing yourself in the hopes that it will make you more sexually arousing is an effort in self-defeat.

To paraphrase Joe Rogan, men will blow themselves up for the very unlikely possibility of sex in another dimension. That’s the degree to which men place a value on sex, any sex, meaningful, a fuck buddy, a hooker, any sex. Pornography isn’t a multi-billion dollar industry because guys are concerned with adding some nebulous ‘meaning’ to sex. Women are concerned with applying meaning to sex because it is integral to their long term mating strategy and locking down a commitment of male provisioning. The men who claim to share in this importance (at least initially) are listening to the Beta Hamster and repeating what it says to them back to the women they hope to fuck. Even anonymously on a Reddit thread, they can’t let the pretense drop for fear that they’d miss a potential opportunity to prove themselves as ‘deep’ meaning oriented guys.

I have to laugh when men make these self-effacing claims to be seeking more ‘meaning’ after they tire of their long string of ONSs or ‘cheap sex’. Statistically, most men never even approach a lay count that could validate such a claim. According to the most recent studies I’ve read, most men have an average of 7 sexual partners over the course of a lifetime. That may be changing, but even if it were an average of 10 or 12 it would still make the rationale for seeking ‘meaningful’ sex as a result ridiculous, as well as suspect of a feminine-identifying mating strategy. Add to this that 80% (a conservative estimate) of men are plugged-in betas, hopelessly lacking the social skills and motivation to rack up a lay count that would ever justify this reasoning. So what is it that compels them to concoct these self-convincing rationalizations? The Beta Hamster.

It’s a far healthier mentality for men to embrace their own sexuality. God forbid a woman actually might think you find her sexy and want to fuck her. Despite their protestations, women want guys to want to fuck them. Women often complain that the reason they don’t feel sexual is due to their not feeling sexy, and they wont feel sexy if you approach sex from an asexual starting point because you think it adds ‘meaning’. Of the 40+ women I’ve had sex with, not one do I regret banging. I most definitely regretted some of the ensuing drama as a result of a few of those relationships, but I thoroughly enjoyed the sex. Sex for the sake of sex is OK. Trust me, after the one thousandth time you’ve had sex with your wife or LTR, sex for the sake of sex is fantastic. Stop writing poetry about sex and get fucking.

The Honor System

“An unfamiliar feeling for one of you, but a horribly familiar feeling for the other.”

The concept of Honor that men began has been made to serve a feminine purpose. I have no doubt that the principle of honor dates back from as long ago as we can track human civilization, but like so many other social foundation Men have instituted, the feminine will covertly position them to their own purpose.

In the introduction to the Art of Seduction author Robert Greene explains why there was an original need for seduction to be developed into an art. For this we can look back to ancient civilizations where women were essentially a commodity. They had no OVERT external power to control their fates, but they excelled (and still do) at COVERT psychological internal power, and this of course finds a parallel in men and women’s preferred communication methods. The feminine’s primary agency has always been sexuality and manipulating influence by its means.

Much in the same way that each gender communicates, so too is their method of interacting within their own gender. As Men we’re respected when we keep our word, sacrifice ourselves for a worthy cause (even to the point of disposability), solve problems rationally, our word is our bond, and a whole host of other qualifiers that make us respectable and worthy of integrity. We must be OVERT and above board; and when we encounter a man who is COVERT in his dealings we call him ‘shifty’ and think him untrustworthy. Even for the most noble of purposes, practicing the art of misdirection is not something men are respected for – at least not publicly.

It’s just this overt masculine interactive nature that women are only too ready to exploit. In combination with their sexual agency and influence they use this overt male social interactive dynamic to position themselves in places where they can use indirect power. Cleopatra was an excellent example of this – sending armies to war by appealing to powerful men’s pride and honor, while reserving her sexuality as a reward. Virtually every Feminine Social Convention is rooted in appealing to, or attacking male social institutions – a dedication to an idealistic sense of honor being chief among them. The obvious example is of course “shaming” and the “do-the-right-thing” social contract.

In fact to be a “Man” has become synonymous with living up to a feminine imperative that’s cleverly disguised as masculine Honor. It’s not that women created Honor, but rather that they’ve recreated it to serve their purpose. In the Biblical Ten Commandments we’re told not to commit adultery – don’t sleep with another man’s wife – which probably wasn’t too hard to abide by when polygamy was the norm. In fact multiple wives was a sign of affluence, it used to be the conspicuous consumption of the epoch. Why then is polygamy a social perversion now? What changes occurred that made polygamy honorable (even enviable) into a very evil taboo?

Along with language and culture, social conditions evolve. What we think of as Honorable today are the result of centuries molding. It’s very easy to romanticize about times when Honor among Men reigned supreme, and then lament the sad state of society today in comparison, but doing so is a fools errand. Honor in and of itself is, and should be, a foundation for Men, but it’s only useful when we understand it in the perspective of how it can be used against us.

Man Up or Shut Up – The Male Catch 22

One of the primary way’s Honor is used against men is in the feminized perpetuation of traditionally masculine expectations when it’s convenient, while simultaneously expecting egalitarian gender parity when it’s convenient.

For the past 60 years feminization has built in the perfect Catch 22 social convention for anything masculine; The expectation to assume the responsibilities of being a man (Man Up) while at the same time denigrating asserting masculinity as a positive (Shut Up). What ever aspect of maleness that serves the feminine purpose is a man’s masculine responsibility, yet any aspect that disagrees with feminine primacy is labeled Patriarchy and Misogyny.

Essentially, this convention keeps beta males in a perpetual state of chasing their own tails. Over the course of a lifetime they’re conditioned to believe that they’re cursed with masculinity (Patriarchy) yet are still responsible to ‘Man Up’ when it suits a feminine imperative. So it’s therefore unsurprising to see that half the men in western society believe women dominate the world (male powerlessness) while at the same time women complain of a lingering Patriarchy (female powerlessness) or at least sentiments of it. This is the Catch 22 writ large. The guy who does in fact Man Up is a chauvinist, misogynist, patriarch, but he still needs to man up when it’s convenient to meet the needs of a female imperative.

In contemporary society we have a very different understanding of what Honor was, or was intended to be initially. One of the psychological undercurrents I see in most AFCs is a strong, self-righteous dedication to a very distorted conviction of Honor. A main tenet being an unearned, default respect for women; essentially an unearned Honor placed on a woman for no other reason than she’s female. We learn this (usually) from the time we’re children, “never hit a girl”. Naturally, this has only been ferociously encouraged by the feminine since Victorian times because it served a latent purpose right up until on demand (feminine exclusive) birth control was offered, and then prompted the sexual revolution.

Today, we still have women using the anachronism that is male Honor in a manner that serves their interests, but it’s contrasted with a sexually emphasized opportunism. A Man’s responsibility should be “Honoring” her as ‘the fairer sex’ while recognizing her ‘independence’. The AFC gobbles this stuff up and in an effort to better identify himself with her ideals he begins to convince himself that he’s unique in that he better exemplifies this false-virtue, this feminine defined sense of Honor than “other guys”.