blue pill

Domain Dependence

domain_dependence

I received the following email from a reader this week:

Hi Rollo, I ran across the below thread on the TRP discussion on Reddit. I’m not normally a big follower of reddit but this one was good and is something that I’ve thought for a long time. Online Dating really, really, really sucks for men. And turns women into bitches. And has changed the world from an 80/20 market to a 95/5 market. The average male and actually for most above average males too … like SMV 6s and 7s have been completely shut out. And learning Game does little good for these men.

Was wondering if you’d care to discuss such things.

One of the founding Red Pill principles I explored over a decade ago was the tendency for men (and women) to create Buffers against rejection for themselves. I’ll still argue that men being the ‘initiator’ sex are subject to the consequences of rejection far more than women ever will be, but left unchecked, and if we’re honest, deliberately ignored, these rejection Buffers often develop into psychological schemas men internalize as a specific “preference” when it comes to interacting with with women:

Buffers are generally the paths of least rejection that become ego-invested “preferences.” Buffers aren’t so much about those “preferences” as they are about the motivations behind them.

At this point you might be thinking, “well, what the hell, I don’t want to feel rejection, why not employ buffers against it?” The main reason for embracing rejection is that rejection is better than regret. Scan back through this short list of buffers; how many of these have become greater, longer term problems for you than a briefly painful rejection would’ve been? Buffers also have a tendency to compound upon themselves in that one tends to dovetail into another, or more, until you no longer realize that they were originally rejection prevention methodologies and gradually become associated with your genuine personality. After a long enough period, these buffer become “just how I am.”

In the past Roosh has gone into some speculation that there will be a narrowing of the already harsh 80-20 rule of the SMP the closer western society gets to a total consolidation of feminine social primacy. Certain bloggers will debate the numbers, but I tend to agree with his proposition, though I’d say that a starting point of 80-20 might be a bit generous. However, considering the comfort with which women and popular culture are embracing open Hypergamy, I think I would actually step up his timetable for ‘Peak Hypergamy’.

For now, men are being presented with some very simple and pragmatic choices:

  • Learn Game, stay in the Game. Make the most of what they have to work with in their given circumstances and focus on self-motivated self-improvement. In a sense it’s a form of MGTOW, but with the expressed purpose of actively engaging in the SMP as it’s accessible to an individual guy. In other words, don’t wish it were easier, wish you were better – play the game better but always with yourself as your own mental point of origin.
  • Exit the Game. No one truly exits the Game, but they can minimize their active involvement in it. For the most part this doesn’t have to be a complete capitulation to one’s sexless, intimacy-less fate, but it does imply a degree of self-imposed indifference to women’s interest. Unfortunately this option seems the most pragmatic for men who either haven’t the patience or circumstance to opt for improving themselves and succeed at the Game, or they simply don’t see a commensurate reward for the investment they’d need to make in assuming the liabilities that come with dealing with most women these days.
  • Continue on in a Blue Pill ignorance. Although this ‘choice’ is the most common (i.e. at least 80% of Beta men) it will be the one to disappear the most rapidly. Even without a growing Red Pill community, Red Pill awareness is becoming more difficult for even the most plugged-in of men to ignore. Women’s flaunting of Open Hypergamy and blatant admission to a sexual strategy of Alpha Fucks / Beta Bucks combined with a widespread Red Pill awareness will challenge even the most ardent of White Knight’s and idealistic ‘average frustrated chumps’. Still, there are diehard self-righteous Betas who’s dedication to the path that the Feminine Imperative has set before them has made any deviation from it unthinkable. They build a life of dependency on the untenable Blue Pill goals and the means to realize them.

The problem inherent to all of these options is that to a lesser or greater degree they rely on a static state of a particular environment, condition or domain.

Domain Dependency

Just for the record, yes, I’m quite familiar with the anti-fragile doctrine proposed by Taleb with regard to domain dependency. I do see a parallels in this with regard to Red Pill awareness, but this is in no way an endorsement of the book – I simply don’t have enough familiarity with it.

For Red Pill purposes though, Domain Dependence is being good at what you do in one setting, but completely unable to transfer that ability to another setting. I think this dependence is one of the more overstated preoccupations Game critics have in really accepting the validity of greater Red Pill truths.

A cheetah is a deadly and effective predator when he can use his speed to run down prey on the wide-open African plains, but put him in the Brazilian rainforest, with its dense jungle, and he’s probably going to sleep hungry more nights than not.

Translated into predictable Red Pill critique, the idea is similar – “Yeah, sure, game works well for picking up low self-esteem bar skanks, but I’m looking for a Quality Woman.” What’s implied isn’t necessarily incorrect; the most ridiculed, stereotypical examples of Game came from the trials and errors of early PUAs making observations and applying what they’d learned in a contextual domain – night clubs, bars, etc. While those observations were, and still are, invaluable information to a greater meta-understanding of Red Pill awareness, for the most part those early successes were dependent on that specific (club style) domain.

Game has branched out from that beginning to be applied in broader domains. Thus we have specific areas of application dependency based on what can produce at least somewhat replicable results in those settings. Nick Krauser writes the book on day Game, Roosh the book on South America and Northern & Eastern Europe, while other authors ply their trade writing about Game in marriage or under the auspices of religion(s).

And while I have a great deal of respect for the most of them, a creative mind doesn’t work like this. The creative mind has the ability to migrate from one realm to another without even thinking about it. It’s what allows us to connect this dot with that dot. There is a certain applied reasoning and science behind a Red Pill awareness, but it’s important to remember what the ‘A’ in PUA stands for – Artistry.

Crossing Domains

I’ve known a number of guys in my time who swear that there’s nothing hotter than a woman 15 – 20 years their senior. Others love to explain to me how behind the times I am by pointing out the inherent dangers and liabilities of dating single mothers (for anything more than a one time bang). Still others tell me how enthusiastic a lay the obese women they regularly bang are. All of these guys express a preference for the type of women they can reliably get into bed with and will staunchly defend and praise their preferred type of woman.

Their domain dependency became their internalized, ego-invested preference.

I’ve touched on this dynamic in a few of my earliest posts, but I think it’s important to realize that domain dependency isn’t just about the type of woman you’ve developed a preference for, but rather how you’re predictably rewarded (in this case with sex) within that particular domain. You can semi-reliably do well with Goth girls, fat girls, older women, single moms? It’s important to understand the specifics and motivations of the women within that domain. You went on a sex safari in Southeast Asia or the Philippines, yet get flaked on by every western girl you approach? There are (obviously) specifics that influence those domains.

After all of this, the Red Pill is universally applicable, or it’s not. The same fundamental Red Pill dynamics, operating within the context of a specific domain, are applicable with the correct art necessary for that domain.

Red Pill truths are domain independent. Hypergamy is the same to a girl in Brazil as it is to a girl in Vegas. The domain changes, and with it the necessary art based on a woman’s incentives and the priorities for that given domain, but the underlying purpose and requisites of Hypergamy is unchanged. Yes, cultural, religious and familial limitations of that Hypergamy may apply within that domain, but root level Red Pill truth is still the prime directive for women.

Within a man’s lifetime he will have no choice but to cross into, and adapt to unfamiliar domains many times. These domains are not just locales or social settings, but the specifics of a particular stage of a woman’s life as well as his own life. Marriage is a domain. Single man sex life plate spinning is a domain. Online dating, a dependency on impersonal texting, really any of the Buffers I’ve elaborated on in the past are all examples of a domain men develop a dependency on, and later a rewarded preference for.

While it’s vitally important for a man to have a solid grasp of the elements of his own, temporal, domain it’s equally important to understand how and why he came into it. What rewards did he receive or hope to receive that led to his developed “preferences”? Were those preferences dependent upon a Blue Pill condition for reward?

This is key in avoiding domain specific dependency. That’s a pretty tall order for most men, and actually it’s one of the prime reasons most Blue Pill men never come to Red Pill truths. The Blue Pill is itself a meta-domain that men are largely conditioned to be dependent upon. Coming to Red Pill truths requires the self-realization of a domain dependency on Blue Pill idealisms, their promised rewards and then letting them go.

It’s important for a man to develop a fluidity of transitioning from domain to domain. Red Pill awareness prepares him for fundaments that will be applicable in all domains, but accepting that those domains exist and influence (sometimes adversely) his ‘preferences’ is the first step in developing the art necessary to excel in a new domain.

Isolation is dangerous. The presumption that conditions will never change and / or the preoccupation with security is a woman’s realm. Men must accept that they must adapt themselves to adequately perform in changing domains.

Estrus

 

Thomas_Doherty

Last week saw the publication of the latest paper by Dr. Steven W. Gangestad and Dr. Martie Hasselton titled Human Estrus: Implications for Relationship Science. Anyone who’s read the Rational Male for more than a year is probably familiar with my citing Dr. Hasselton in various posts (her catalog of research has been part of my sidebar links since I began RM), but both she and Dr. Gangstad are among the foremost notable researchers in the areas of human sexuality and applied evolutionary psychology. For this week’s post I’ll be riffing on what this paper proposes with regard to a condition of estrus in women.

In the introduction section of The Rational Male I relate a story of how in my Red Pill formative years I came to be a connector of dots so to speak. While I was studying behavioral psychology and personality studies a great many issues jumped out at me with regards to how many of the principle of behavioral psychology could be (and were already being) applied to intersexual relations. For instance, the basic concepts of intermittent reinforcement and behavioral modification seemed to me an obvious and learned practice of women in achieving some behavioral effect on men by periodically rewarding (reinforcing) them with sex ‘intermittently’. Operant conditioning and establishing operations also dovetailed seamlessly into the Red Pill concepts and awareness I’d been developing for several years prior to finishing my degree.

Since then the ideas I formed have naturally become more complex than these simple foundations, but what I only learned by error was how thoroughly disconnected both students and my teachers were with what I saw as obvious connections. I met obstinate resistance to flat denial when I wrote papers or gave a dissertation about the interplay between the foundations of behaviorism and interpersonal relationships. It was one thing to propose that men would use various aspects to their own advantage, but it was offensive to suggest that women would commonly use behavioral modification techniques to achieve their Hypergamous ends.

This peer resistance was especially adamant when I would suggest that women had a subconscious pre-knowledge (based on collective female experience) of these techniques. I never thought I had brass balls for broaching uncomfortable considerations like this – I honestly, and probably naively, assumed that what I was proposing had already been considered by academia long before I’d come to it.

I was actually introduced to the work of Dr. Hasselton during this time, and along with Dr. Warren Farrell, she’s gone on to become one of my go-to sources in respect to the connection between contemporary behavioral ‘dots’ with theories of practical evolved function in intersexual dynamics. I owe much of what I propose on Rational Male to this interplay, and while I doubt Hasselton would agree with all of what I or the manosphere propose, I have to credit her and her colleague’s work for providing me many of the dots I connect.

I understand that there are still evo-psych skeptics in the manosphere, but I find that much of what passes for their piecemeal “skepticism” is generally rooted in a desire to stubbornly cling to comforting Blue Pill idealisms. That said, I’d never ask any reader to take what I propose here on faith, but personally I’ve found that the questions proposed by evo-psych reflect many of the observations I had in my college days.

Hypergamous Duplicity

For the social theater of the Feminine Imperative, one of the more galling developments in psychological studies to come out of the past fifteen years has been the rise of evolutionary psychology. The natural pivot for the Imperative in dealing with evo-psych has been to write off any concept unflattering to the feminine as being speculative or proving a biased positive (by “misogynistic” researchers of course), while gladly endorsing and cherry-picking any and all evo-psych premises that reinforce the feminine or confirm a positive feminine-primacy.

Up until the past two years or so, there was a staunch resistance to the concept of Hypergamy (know as sexual pluralism in evo-psych) and the dual natures of women’s sexual strategy. Before then the idea of Alpha Fucks / Beta Bucks was dismissed as biased, sociologically based and any biological implications or incentives for Hypergamy were downplayed as inconclusive by a feminine-centric media.

However the recent embrace of Open Hypergamy and “Sandbergism” of the last two years has set this narrative on its head, and the empowered women who found the idea of their own sexual pluralism so distasteful are now openly endorsing, if not proudly relishing, their roles in a new empowerment of Hypergamous duplicity.

Your Beta qualities are officially worthless to today’s women:

For those of you that aren’t aware, women now are often out earning men and more of them receive college degrees than men. As of now there aren’t really any programs to help guys out. Assuming this trend continues what do you think will happen to dating? I think that attractive women, will have their pick regardless.

However, for a lot of women, trying to lock down a guy in college will be more of a big deal. I don’t think hook up culture will disappear, but will definitely decrease.

With the exception with my current boyfriend, I have always earned more than any guy I have dated. It has never been an issue. I just don’t have to think about their financials, my attraction is based on their looks and personality. I am guessing the future will be more of that.

I thought this TRP subred was an interesting contrast to the Estrus theory proposed in the Gangstad-Hasselton paper (comments were good too). Yes, the woman is more than a bit gender-egotistical, and yes her triumphalism about the state of women in college and their earning is built on a foundation of sand, but lets strip this away for a moment. The greater importance to her in relating this, and every woman embracing open Hypergamy, is the prospect of better optimizing the dual nature of her sexual strategy.

In many a prior post I’ve detailed the rationales women will apply to their sexual pluralism and the social conventions they rely upon to keep men ignorant of them until such a time (or not) that they can best consolidate on that dualism. Where before that strategy was one of subtle manipulation and pretty lies to keep Betas-In-Waiting ready to be providers after the Alpha Fucks decline at 30, the strategy now is one of such utter ego-confidence in feminine social primacy that women gleefully declare “I’m not just gonna have my cake and eat it too, I’m getting mine with sprinkles and chocolate syrup” with regard to Alpha Fucks and Beta Bucks.

The Estrus Connection

For all of the ubiquitous handwringing the manosphere imparts to the social implications of today’s Open Hypergamy, it’s important to consider the biological underpinnings that motivate this self-interested conceit.

From Human Estrus: Implications for Relationship Science:

In the vast majority of mammalian species, females experience classic estrus or heat: a discrete period of sexual receptivity – welcoming male advances – and proceptivity – actively seeking sex – confined to a few days just prior to ovulation, the fertile window. Only at this time, after all, do females require sex to conceive offspring. The primate order is exceptional. Although prosimians (e.g., lemurs, tarsiers) exhibit classic estrus, the vast majority of simian primates (monkeys and apes) are sexually active for at least several days outside of the fertile period [2]. Humans are an extreme case: Women may be sexually receptive or proceptive any time of the cycle, as well as other nonconceptive periods (e.g., pregnancy).

Do Women Retain a Functionally Distinct Fertile Phase?

Graded sexuality. Women’s sexual activity is not confined to an estrous period. But are women’s sexual interests truly constant across the cycle? Many female primates (e.g., rhesus macaques and marmosets) are often receptive to sexual advances by males outside of the fertile phase, but they initiate sex less [2].

In fact, women’s sexual interests do appear to change across the cycle. Women exhibit greater genital arousal in response to erotica and sexually condition to stimuli more readily during the follicular phase [5-8].

A recent study identified hormonal correlates of these changes by tracking 43 women over time and performing salivary hormone assays [9]. Women’s sexual desire was greater during the fertile window, and was positively related to estradiol levels (which peak just before ovulation), but negatively related to progesterone levels (which rise markedly during the luteal phase).

Changes in the male features that evoke sexual interest. Since the late 1990s, some researchers have argued that what changes most notably across the cycle is not sexual desire per se but, rather, the extent to which women’s sexual interests are evoked by particular male features – specifically, male behavioral and physical features associated with dominance, assertiveness, and developmental robustness. Over 50 studies have examined changes across the cycle in women’s attraction to these male features.

The importance of behavioral features? Whereas preference shifts of major interest early on concerned male physical features (e.g., facial masculinity; scent), several recent studies have focused on women’s reactions to men’s behavior and dispositions. Previous research had found that women find male confidence, even a degree of arrogance, more sexually appealing during the fertile phase [e.g., 15-16]. Recent studies replicate and extend that work, finding not only that fertile-phase women are more sexually attracted to “sexy cad” or behaviorally masculine men (relative to “good dad” or less masculine men), but also that, during the fertile phase, women are more likely to flirt or engage with such men [17,18]. Females of a variety of species, including primates [2], prefer dominant or high ranking males during the fertile phase of their cycles. These males may pass genetic benefits to offspring, as well as, potentially, offer material benefits (e.g., protect offspring). Women’s fertile-phase sexual attraction to behavioral dominance appears to have deep evolutionary roots.

Much of what’s explored here I laid out in Game terms in Your Friend Menstruation over two years ago, but the implications of the behaviors prompted by women’s menstrual cycle and biochemistry strongly imply an estrus-like predictability. This estrous state is a foundational keystone, not just to developing Game, but a keystone to understanding the dynamics behind Hypergamy, women’s dualistic sexual strategy, Alpha Fucks / Beta Bucks, and can even be extrapolated into the drive for ensuring feminine social dominance in both overt and covert contexts.

When women embrace a social order founded upon a feminine state of openly revealed Hypergamy they confirm and expose the reality of this estrous state.

Whereas before, in a social order based on concealed Hypergamy, this state could be dismissed as a social construct (and a masculine biased one at that), or one that had only marginal influence to reasoning women with a “higher” human potential. No longer – the confirmation of a true estrus in women via open Hypergamy literally confirms virtually every elementary principle Game has asserted for the past 13 years.

Dual Sexuality

Within the dual sexuality framework, fertile-phase sexuality and non-fertile-phase sexuality possess potentially overlapping but also distinct functions [22,23]. In a number of primate species, extended sexuality – female receptivity and proceptivity at times other than the fertile phase – appears to function to confuse paternity by allowing non-dominant males sexual access [e.g., 24]. These males cannot rule out their own paternity, which might reduce their likelihood of harming a female’s offspring. In humans, by contrast, extended sexuality may function to induce primary pair-bond partners to invest in women and offspring [e.g., 22].

I found this part particularly interesting when you contrast this dynamic with the social resistance that standardized paternity testing has been met with. In a feminine-primary social order based on open Hypergamy, the Feminine Imperative can’t afford not to legislate a mandated cuckoldry. If Beta provider males will not comply with the insurance of a woman’s long-term security (as a result of being made aware of his place in Open Hypergamy) then he must be forced to comply either legally, socially or both. The old order exchange of resources for sexual access and a reasonable assurance of his paternity is replaced by a socialized form of cuckoldry.

Some studies have found that women’s sexual interests in men other than partners are strikingly rare during the luteal phase, relative to the fertile phase [25,26]. Other research has found moderating effects; for example, women who perceive their partners to lack sex appeal experience increased attraction to men other than partners, less satisfaction, and a more critical attitude toward partners, but only when fertile [27,28]. Fertile-phase women in one study were more assertive and focused on their own, as opposed to their partner’s, needs, especially when attracted to men other than partners during that phase [29].

Most research on cycle shifts has been inspired by theory concerning women’s distinctive sexual interests during the fertile phase. One study explicitly sought to understand factors influencing women’s sexual interests during the luteal phase, finding that, at that time, but not during the fertile phase, women initiated sex more with primary partners when they were invested in their relationship more than were male partners [30]. This pattern is consistent with the proposal that extended sexuality functions, in part, to encourage interest from valued male partners. Others have proposed that women’s estrus phase has been modified by pair-bonding.

Initiating sex or being receptive to a primary partner’s sexual interest during the luteal phase (the Beta swing of the cycle) follows when we consider that a woman being sexual during this phase poses the least potential of becoming pregnant while simultaneously (rewarding) reinforcing that primary partner’s continued investment in the pairing with sex (intermittent reinforcement). This is a very important dynamic because it mirrors a larger theme in women’s socio-sexual pluralism – it’s Alpha Fucks/Beta Bucks on a biological scale.

Compare this intra-relationship predisposition for Beta sex and contrast it with the larger dynamic of open Hypergamy Alpha Fucks during a woman’s prime fertility window in her peak SMV years, and her post Epiphany Phase necessity to retain a comforting (but decidedly less sexually exciting) Beta provider.

Women’s sexual strategy on a social scale, mirrors her instinctual, estrous sexual strategy on an individual scale.

Cues of Fertility Status
Females across diverse species undergo physical and behavioral changes during estrus that males find attractive: changes in body scents in carnivores, rodents, and some primates; changes in appearance, such as sexual swellings, in baboons and chimpanzees; changes in solicitous behavior in rodents and many primates [2,31] Because women lack obvious cyclic changes, it was widely assumed that cycle shifts in attractiveness were eliminated in humans, perhaps with the evolution of
pair bonding [32].

In 1975, a pioneering study documented increased attractiveness of women’s vaginal odors midcycle [33]. A quarter century later, research revealing other detectable fertile-phase changes began to accumulate, including increased attractiveness of women’s upper torso odors, increased vocal pitch and attractiveness, and changes in women’s style of dress and solicitous behaviors [34]. Meta-analysis of this literature confirms that changes across the cycle in women’s attractiveness are
often subtle, but robust (K. Gildersleeve, PhD dissertation, UCLA, 2014).

A notable recent study demonstrated that hormones implicated in attractiveness shifts in non-humans also predict attractiveness shifts in humans [35]. Photos, audio clips, and salivary estrogen and progesterone were collected from 202 women at two cycle points. Men rated women’s facial and vocal attractiveness highest when women’s progesterone levels were low and estrogen levels high (characteristic of the follicular phase, and especially the fertile window).

Emerging evidence suggests that these changes affect interactions between males and females. During the fertile window, women report increased jealous behavior by male partners [25,29,36]. A possible mediator of such changes – testosterone – is higher in men after they smell tshirts collected from women on high- than on low-fertility days of the cycle [37; cf. 38]. A recent study examined related phenomena in established relationships by bringing couples into the lab for a close interaction task (e.g., slow dancing) [39]. Following the interaction, male partners viewed images of men who were attractive and described as competitive or unattractive and noncompetitive. Only men in the competitive condition showed increases in testosterone from baseline – and only when tested during their partner’s fertile phase.

What remains less clear is how we can understand shifts in attractiveness from a theoretical perspective. It is unlikely that women evolved to signal their fertility within the cycle to men [22,34]. In fact, the opposite may have occurred – active selection on women to conceal cues of ovulation, which could help to explain weak shifts in attractiveness relative to many species. Concealment might have promoted extended sexuality with its attendant benefits from investing males, or
facilitated women’s extra-pair mating. Possibly, the subtle physical changes that occur are merely “leaky cues” that persist because fully concealing them suppresses hormone levels in ways that compromise fertility. Behavioral shifts, by contrast, may be tied to increases in women’s sexual interests or motivation to compete with other women for desirable mates [e.g., 40].

Usually after first-time readers have a chance to digest the material I propose in Your Friend Menstruation the first frustration they have is figuring out just how they can ever reliably detect when a woman is in this estrous state. On an instinctual level, most men are already sensitive to these socio-sexual cues, but this presumptuousness of sexual availability is rigorously conditioned out of men by social influence. In other words, most guys are Beta-taught to be ashamed of presuming a woman might be down to fuck as the result of picking up on visual, vocal or body posture cues.

Beyond this perceptiveness, there are also pheromonal triggers as well as behavioral cues during estrus that prompt a mate guarding response in men.

I would however propose that the evolved concealment of an estrus-like state and all of the attendant behaviors that coincide with it are a behavioral mechanic with the purpose of filtering for men with a dominant Alpha capacity to “Just Get It” that a woman is in estrus and thus qualify for her sexual access either proceptively or receptively.  Women’s concealed estrus is an evolved aspect of filtering for Alpha Fucks.

In addition, this concealment also aids in determining Beta Bucks for the men she needs (needed) to exchange her sexual access for. A guy who “doesn’t get it” is still useful (or used to be) precisely because he doesn’t understand the dynamics of her cyclic and dualistic sexual strategy. Her seemingly erratic and self-controlled sexual availability becomes the Beta Bucks interest’s intermittent reinforcement for the desired behavior of his parental investment in children that are only indeterminately of his genetic heritage.

Evidence of this intermittent reinforcement can also be observed in what Athol Kay from Married Man Sex Life has described as wives “drip feeding” sex to their husbands. The confines of a committed monogamy in no way preclude the psycho-sexual influences of estrus. Thus placating a less ‘sexy’, but parentally invested man with the reinforcer of infrequent (but not entirely absent) sex becomes a necessity to facilitate the prospect of a future sexual experience with an Alpha while ensuring the security of her Beta.

In closing here I think the importance of how this estrous state influences women on both an individual and social level can’t be stressed enough in contrast to the social embrace of open Hypergamy. The Hypergamy genie is not only out of the bottle, but women are, perhaps against their own interests, embracing the genie with gusto.

Just today Vox posted a quick hit article about how men are discovering that pornography is now preferable to relating with the average woman. In an era of open Hypergamy I don’t believe this is a rationalized preference so much as it’s simply a pragmatic one. Men are rapidly awakening to a Red Pill awareness, even without a formal Red Pill education, and seeing the rewards (the intermittent reinforcement) simply aren’t worth the investment with women who blithely express their expectations of them to assume the role they would have them play in their sexual strategies.

Socialized Hypergamy

2

This weekend’s discussion post was inspired by commenter Johnnycomelateley

Rape hysteria also has a deeper motive, equalitarianism (high taxes and social distribution) has changed the economic ecology and altered the incentives for female bonding patterns.

Several economists and anthropologists contend that society is transitioning from monogamy to serial monogamy (serial polygyny).

For serial polygyny to be facilitated women require absolutely unfettered, unrestricted, unconditional, uncommitted, unrestrained, unmoralizing, independent and completely free and unqualified safe access to sexual free choice. Unbounded by contracts, agreements, social norms, moral restraints, religious injunctions, social ties, aesthetic norms, maternal obligations, infanticide (abortion), selling progeny (adoption) and economic restrictions.

Anything that is deemed as restrictive is seen as limiting this choice, male spaces, employment obstacles, undesirable attention, unsafe neighbourhoods, male aesthetic standards, religion and of course rape.

What we are seeing is ‘choice hysteria’, anytime someone somewhere restricts female sexual choice it is met with unbounded fury. Even centuries long legal precedents and wrongful imprisonment must acquiesce to facilitate free choice.

Here are some quotes showing we are transitioning to serial polygyny.

Murdock’s (1967) Ethnographic Atlas categorized just 16% of 862 cultures as exclusively monogamous, with polygamy being found at some level in the rest.

A 2011 study from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control found that just 23% of women and 14.7% of men aged 25-44 had one (or zero) opposite-sex lifetime partners.

Frank Marlowe, Biological Anthropology – Cambridge
When males provide all the income but some have much more than others, richer males achieve polygyny, while ecologically imposed monogamy prevails in case of moderate inequality. When males provide an intermediate level of investment with little variation, females are not excessively dependent on males and serial monogamy may arise.

David de la Croix, Professor of Economics
In a society with few rich males and virtually no rich females, polygyny is supported by rich males, who can naturally monopolize a larger number of partners, and poor females, who prefer to be the n-th wife of a rich male rather than marrying a poor male monogamously.

Eventually, however, the number of rich males increases enough, and poor females prefer to marry monogamously.

Serial monogamy follows from a further enrichment of the society, through a rise in either the share of rich males, or the the proportion of rich females.

Monique Mulder, Anthropology
A key finding here is that while men do not benefit from multiple marriages, women do. Although the data are very variable (large standard errors), women appear to gain more from multiple mating than do men.

I’ve written more than a few posts about equalism here, but one thing that needs to be made clear is that a true state of egalitarian equalism among the sexes is neither tenable nor sustainable in any realistic measure. There is always a dominant / submissive dynamic in all human relations (not just intersexual ones), even in same sex pairings. While that dom-sub relation may be flexible in various circumstantial instances, the meta-relationship dynamic tends to place the more dominant personality at the top of an intersexual relation.

For the better part of human history this dominance has been expected from a Man, and I daresay as a species we evolved into that dominant role both physically and psychologically. But for the past 60+ years, since the advent of ubiquitous, unilaterally female-controlled hormonal birth control, the social and physical constraints of women’s innate Hypergamy, that had been kept in check by Men’s default dominance, has been unfettered.

When I wrote Owed Sex I went into detail about how women’s perception of their hypergamous choices have been contained by men:

The premise that a man would ever be ‘owed’ sex for anything is offensive to the feminine imperative because it offends women’s self-entitlement to being filters of their own hypergamy, plain and simple. Women’s hypergamy dictates whom they will and will not fuck according to their sexual strategy’s most urgent needs.

To presume a man is ‘owed’ sex for services rendered, or due to his own self-perceived prequalifications for a woman’s intimacy, is to remove women’s control of the decision making / filtering process of their hypergamy.

The offensiveness doesn’t come from the notion that men would need to perform in order to get sex, but rather that a man might forcibly assume control of a woman’s hypergamous determining of his sexual suitability for her.

When I wrote that post it was before the Yes Means Yes law had been enacted as well as before the “rape crisis” hysteria we find ourselves in as the result of the machinations of a feminist writer who actively hunts for pulp fiction rape stories to embellish. All now proven a complete and calculated fabrication.

However the base motivation is still the same, and I agree with Johnnycomelately, the social press for equalism is a suitable mask for socialized Hypergamy.

The Feminine Imperative isn’t interested in anything like an idealized state of egalitarian equalism between the sexes; it is only interested in unilateral, uncontested, and socially assured optimization of women’s Hypergamy.

Equalism is an anathema to Hypergamy.

So long as women are subject to innate hypergamous influences there can never be a socialized state of egalitarian equalism between men and women. By its very nature the Feminine Imperative will always seek an unequal state – maximal restriction of male sexuality and maximal unrestriction of optimized feminine Hypergamy. The persistence of pressing the idea that equalism between the sexes is a realizable goal state is necessary to achieve those maximized / optimized conditions.

For men, the end result of that optimized state is really a form of normative, accepted, socialized cuckoldry. However, the efforts to achieve this state are in social evidence all around us now.

Milo Yiannopoulos has an excellent two-part article, Sexodus, on Breitbart London outlining the cultural impact socialized Hypergamy is having on men today and how they are “checking out of society”.

In part two Milo explains:

Men, driven, as many of them like to say, by fact and not emotion, can see that society is not fair to them and more dangerous for them. They point to the fact that they are more likely to be murder victims and more likely to commit suicide. Women do not choose to serve in the Armed Forces and they experience fewer deaths and injuries in the line of work generally.

Women get shorter custodial sentences for the same crimes. There are more scholarships available to them in college. They receive better and cheaper healthcare, and can pick from favourable insurance packages available only to girls. When it comes to children, women are presumed to be the primary caregiver and given preferential treatment by the courts. They have more, better contraceptive options.

Women are less likely to be homeless, unemployed or to abuse drugs than men. They are less likely to be depressed or to suffer from mental illness. There is less pressure on them to achieve financial success. They are less likely to live in poverty. They are given priority by emergency and medical services.

Some might call these statistical trends “female privilege.” Yet everywhere and at all times, say men’s rights advocates, the “lived experiences” and perceived oppression of women is given a hundred per cent of the airtime, in defiance of the reality that women haven’t just achieved parity with men but have overtaken them in almost every conceivable respect. What inequalities remain are the result of women’s choices, say respectable feminist academics such as Christina Hoff Sommers, not structural biases.

And yet men are constantly beaten up over bizarre invented concepts such as rape culture and patriarchal privilege. The bizarre but inevitable conclusion of all this is that women are fueling their own unhappiness by driving men to consider them as sex objects and nothing more, because the thought of engaging in a relationship with a woman is horrifying, or too exhausting to contemplate.

I don’t see men as ‘checking out’ of society so much as I see them being  forced to develop personal and cultural contingencies to adapt to a feminine-primary social order that’s based on socialized Hypergamy. The obvious comparisons to Japan’s culture of “herbivorous” men is nothing new to the manosphere, but what is new is the increasing awareness of the consequences of socialized Hypergamy.

The MGTOW movement (such as it is) is a good example of this adaptation, but even men going their own way are still directly and indirectly subject to the social pressures created by feminine social primacy and socialized Hypergamy. Irrespective of how insulated a man may think he is with regard to interacting with women, he’s still subject to the correlative impact of the societal changes that mandate maximally restricting his sexuality while legislating women’s right to optimal Hypergamy into law.

Imagined “rape crisis” hysteria, affirmative consent laws, politicians attempting to redefine rape as men ‘misrepresenting’ themselves in order to have sex with a woman, and defining domestic abuse as “restricting of finances“, higher divorce rates, marriage rates at an all time low, are all evidence of a feminine-primary socialization of Hypergamy that hides behind an egalitarian ruse.

The more men refuse to cooperate with socialized Hypergamy, the more the Feminine Imperative will legislate their compliance with it. But at some point it will reach a state of critical mass. The UVA gang rape hoax, the fem-centric maliciousness of Sabrina Rubin-Erdely and the blind, ego-invested adherence to an unassailable feminine correct narrative of its ‘believers’ was a good primer for this critical mass.

Most of what I’ve delved into here has been manosphere staple for more than 13 years now, but the mainstream exposure from the likes of Milo and even the national dialogue generated from the UVA gang rape hoax (as deliberately distractive as it is), is evidence that the previously hidden social machinations of feminine social primacy are becoming unignorable.

As Open Hypergamy and the Sandbergian embrace of women’s sexual pluralism becomes more normative, so too will Red Pill awareness become more mainstream. Men aren’t dropping out of feminine-primary society, they’re adapting contingencies for it, learning workarounds, comparing notes, and a growing Red Pill awareness is at the heart of that adaptation, even for men who’ve never heard of it.

Intimacy

intimacy

Bad Painter had a great question a few months ago:

What exactly is intimacy? What does that look like in a Redpill context?

I used to think I knew what intimacy was, in a blue pill way at least. And I have come the realization that intimacy is either not worth shit, or I simply don’t get it. What I do know is that those times were I was informed intimacy had been achieved were not correlated with my feeling comfortable, more secure or less anxious rather it was the opposite.

This is a good question.

In my writing I use the term ‘intimacy’ as a sort of confirmation of a woman’s genuine interest, but I don’t think I’ve ever really defined it.

Strictly from a PUAs sense I would say intimacy is a woman’s sexual availability – in no uncertain terms it’s confirmation of her intimate interest and acceptance of you, but then again, in my own sexual past I’ve had more than one fuck-buddy with whom I really didn’t share any real intimacy with.

In those instances I was (at least perceived) a point or so above these women’s SMV and enjoyed all the Alpha benefits that arrangement afforded me, but beyond the sexual, I had no real interest in any kind of intimacy, shared or not.

In a sense, I actually had a much deeper intimacy with the three fuck-buddies I would bang in my 20’s than the women with whom I’d invested myself with in more “meaningful” relationships. You see, with my fuck-buddies all pretense of caring about what they thought of me personally (and certainly from a long-term investment) was simply a non-issue. I was free to express as much or as little of myself as I wanted because I wasn’t actively qualifying for their future investment in me. My Frame was dominant from the outset – sex-on-call is a pretty strong indicator of dominant Frame.

When I was writing the final edits of the Wait For It? post for the Rational Male book I felt that I needed to add a caveat towards the end of that section to account for a sense of intimacy for red pill men, who by conviction or otherwise, weren’t comfortable with actually fucking a woman to confirm genuine desire.

The point of that being that sex isn’t necessarily a determinant of intimacy, but rather the real desire for that person and the want for a mutual connection (to be consummated by sex) creates a condition of intimacy.

Zenpriest on intimacy:

“When one considers that one must “game” a woman, even your wife, in order to keep her around, then it also means that you must always be operating at a “higher level” than her. It totally negates the whole notion of having a “soul-mate” and means that on many levels, a man will always be alone.” 

That is probably the most important lesson a man can ever learn.

Intimacy with a woman is impossible if you have any interest in being her lover. If you are fine with being one of her grrrlfriends, and don’t mind the stupid messed up games women run on them, then you can share to your heart’s content – and will always be on the LJBF ladder.

The fundamental problem with today’s concept of marriage is that it seems both men and women expect their spouse to be all things to them – lover, confidante, helpmate, “soulmate”, co-housekeeper, and co-wage-earner. With so many role demands, it is inevitable that everyone will fail at some of them. That is why the old division of roles worked fairly well for most people – each could concentrate on a few things they were good at, and leave the rest to the other person.

Zenpriest outlines one of the fundamental differences between a forced egalitarian equalist approach to relationships with the natural complementary approach – intimacy between two autonomous, self-sufficient, self-reliant individuals is an impossibility in a sustained relationship. If there is a complete self-sustaining independence between both partners (an eqaulist idealized state) then there is no true purpose for intimacy between the two.

Buena Vista:

I have been the Alpha Fucks, the Beta Bucks, and I have been both at the same time. Civil marriage requires a man, as Deti notes by inverse example, to commit to permanent Game. Permanent Game rarely involves true intimacy. This is the reality of the Plan B Nice Guy in marriage.

Eon:

It seems that intimacy, like love, is only possible if you are greater than (and thus truly independent of) the object of your love.

Softek:

In my opinion, intimacy is unchanged by the red pill. It’s the ideas and perceptions about it that are changed.

There’s a lot of dichotomy: sex, attention, and affection are all thought of as needs, but at the same time, if you’re not getting any of those things, the only way to get them is to take on the mindset of having an abundance of them.

And the guys who seem to have free access to all of those things have access to them because they don’t care if they have access to them or not.

I have to consider these perspectives of intimacy and cross reference it with the Cardinal Rule of Relationships:

In any relationship, the person with the most power is the one who needs the other the least.

Although in an extreme this may seem manipulative to the uninitiated, this balance exists in every relationship irrespective of whether one party is intentionally using that power or not. In fact the most frustrated men you’ll ever meet are those whose women aren’t intentionally using the power his qualifying for her intimacy bestows upon her. He wonders why he can never merit her intimacy, while she, obliviously, wonders why he keeps trying to merit it.

As I illustrated in my fuck-buddies example, I was free to be as intimate as I chose with them because I literally had nothing to lose by doing so. And in that state of outcome indifference they wanted those occasions of intimacy far more than any woman I’d held in a high enough esteem to think I needed to qualify for their intimacy.

However, from a Red Pill perspective, I think the idea that “real” intimacy requires a constant effort of Game is in error. I’ve shared an enduring intimacy with Mrs. Tomassi for 19 years because Game and Red Pill awareness are simply part of who I am now. Game, if that’s even the right word for it, becomes effortless once you’ve made Red Pill truths an intrinsic part of who you are.

I still think Buena’s right though, permanent Game rarely involves true intimacy, but only if that Game is a constant act a man feels he needs to make believable to sustain his relationship. This then comes full circle to wanting to fulfill Blue Pill idealisms of intimacy with applied Red Pill awareness.

Learn this now, you will never achieve contentment or emotional fulfillment in a blue pill context with red pill awareness.

Most men’s concept of intimacy, like love, is shaped by his Blue Pill conditioning. The key to real intimacy is understanding how it can grow and be sustained in a Red Pill context. Chasing after an intimacy defined by the feminine suffers from the same misdirection of presuming women’s concept of love (opportunism) agrees with men’s (idealism).

So, weekend discussion questions:

How do you define intimacy?

Do you think men and women share the same concept and definition of intimacy?

Is ‘true’ intimacy only achievable when you have nothing to lose and nothing invested in a woman?

 

End Note: I’m well aware that intimacy has far broader inferences than just the relations between men and women, and I’m not attempting to pigeonhole the entire concept. There is intimacy with your family, your God, your pets, yourself and a variety of other things. However, even in those instances there is still a power dynamic at play.

Mental Point of Origin

PoO

I’m working another contract gig for the next few months, and recently I had an interesting encounter with a new girl on my team. She’s 34, Japanese (dual citizenship) maybe an HB 6.5-7 and over the summer she hooked up with a guy here who she had a somewhat monogamous relationship with until he transferred to Australia last August.

This girl is ‘in love’ with this guy who’s not aloof to her, and not fully indifferent, but he sets himself as his first priority and never considered turning down his transfer in order to continue anything with her. The guy is nothing special to look at. No muscle definition, kind of fat-thin if you know what I mean, but pasty white, ginger, not out of shape but not in shape, maybe 5′ 11″.

She cannot shut up about what a ‘real man’ he is. She bought a $2,200 ticket to visit him for a week and a half in January and has made a personalized calendar as a gift for him that has photos all of these events they shared together over the summer, every month with a heartfelt description of some thing she loves about him included.

To her, this guy is Alpha as fuck. On Tinder, this guy would be a left swipe 100% of the time. His attitude is indifferent Alpha, but he’s self-concerned. This girl idolizes him.

Granted there’s a lot more going on here to consider; her being well past the Epiphany Phase, necessitous and urgently wanting to consolidate on a long term monogamy makes this guy into an idealized prospect. Thus he became her Alpha, if not anyone else’s. Granted, it’s mostly situational; she thinks she wants to have kids with him and at 34 that clock is about to expire, but she has to come to him, literally and figuratively.

However, although the guy is definitely a ‘contextual Alpha’, he’s got a genuine Alpha-ish bearing that translates into his being self-aware of his condition and really not giving a damn what anyone else might think. He’s got total Frame control, but it’s not an intentional control, and that natural casualness of indifference only makes her want to please him that much more. There may be a cultural element to this as well, but to hear her talk about other, lesser men, it’s apparent she’s been very much westernized in her sense of entitlement.

Self-Concern Without Self-Awareness

People think I’m crazy to hold up a guy like Corey Worthington as the example of an Alpha Buddah, but this guy has the same unpracticed, self-unaware, mojo as Corey.

Personally, I was at my most Alpha when I didn’t realize I was. That’s not Zen, it’s just doing what came natural for me at a point in my life when I had next to nothing materially, only a marginal amount of social proof, but a strong desire to enjoy women for the sake of just enjoying them in spite of it.

I’ve mentioned before, the most memorable sex I’ve had has been when I was flat broke (mostly). It didn’t matter that I lived in a 2 room studio in North Hollywood or had beer and mac & cheese in the fridge – I got laid and I had women come to me for it.

It didn’t take my doing anything for a woman to get laid or hold her interest. All I did was make myself my mental point of origin. It’s when I started putting women as a goal, making them into more than just a source of enjoyment, that I transferred that mental point of origin to her and I became the necessitous one.

A lot of guys will call that being ‘needy’, and I suppose it is, but it’s a neediness that results from putting a woman (or another person) as your first thought – your mental point of origin.

I’ve used this term in a few posts so I thought it deserved a bit more explanation.

Your mental point of origin is really your own internalized understanding about how you yourself fit into your own understanding of Frame.

If Frame is the dominant narrative of a relationship (not limited to just romantic relations), your mental point of origin is the import and priority to which you give to the people and/or ideas involved in that relationship. It is the first thought you have when considering any particular of a relationship, and it’s often so ingrained in us that it becomes an autonomous mental process.

For most of us our understanding of that point of origin develops when we’re children. Kids are necessarily “selfish”, sometimes cruel and greedy because our first survival instinct is to naturally put ourselves as our mental point of origin. Only later, with parenting and learning social skills do we begin to share, cooperate, empathize and sympathize as our mental point of origin shifts to putting the concerns of others before our own.

Young boys are generally very Alpha because of this unlearned self-importance. This is the source of the almost zen-like, mater-of-fact Alpha bearing of Corey Worthington. As I said, he’s not a ‘man’ anyone ought to aspire to, but he is an Alpha without intent or self-awareness.

There is a ‘first thought’ balance we have to maintain in a pro-social respect in order to develop healthy relationships. The problem we run into today is one in which boys are (largely) raised to be the men who provide more than they need in order to establish a future family. That learned, conditioned, mental point of origin is almost always focused outward and onto the people he hopes will reciprocate by placing him as their own point of origin.

Natural feminine solipsism makes this exchange a losing prospect. Women are both raised and affirmed by a vast social mechanism that not just encourages them to put themselves as their mental point of origin, but it shames and ostracizes them for placing it on someone or something other than themselves.

By now I’m sure that much of this comes off as some encouragement towards a retaliatory selfishness or narcissism, but putting oneself as his own point of origin doesn’t have to mean being anti-social or sociopathic. It requires a conscious decision to override an internalized understanding of oneself, but by placing yourself as your mental point of origin you are better positioned to help others and judge who is worth that effort.

It often requires some emotional trauma for men to realign themselves as their own point of origin, and I feel this is a necessary part of unplugging, but the real challenge is in how you deal with that trauma in a Red Pill aware state. If you are to kill the Beta in you, the first step is placing yourself as your mental point of origin.

So my weekend discussion questions are this: Are you your mental point of origin?

Is your first inclination to consider how something in your relationships will affect you or your girlfriend/wife/family/boss?

When men fall into relationships with authoritarian, feminine-primary women, their first thought about any particulars of their actions is how his woman will respond to it, not his own involvement or his motivations for it. Are you a peacekeeper?

Do you worry that putting yourself as your own first priority will turn a woman off or do you think it will engage her more fully?

Are you concerned that doing so may lead to your own form of solipsism, or do you think ‘enlightened self-interests’ serves your best interests and those with whom you want to help or become intimate with?

Beta Tells

couple-talking-3

 

TRP poster, needathrowawayplease from the Red Pill subreddit has a timely question / observation:

Knowing your SO’s menstrual cycle can be extremely powerful. [Indeed]

During the fertile stage of her cycle, thousands of years of evolution mean her body is screaming at her to get knocked up by an alpha male. A simple test to determine is she sees you as her alpha fucks is to not initiate during the fertile period of her cycle and observe her behavior: does she come to you to get fucked? Does her body language or physical behavior change when she’s fertile. Maybe she touches you more often or more intimately or plays the role of the seductress: things like coming to bed wearing lingerie where she usually wouldn’t? Even if she’s relatively low-sex drive and doesn’t initiate, does she at least respond more passionately to your sexual advances or orgasm more easily or intensely when she’s fertile?

You obviously can’t draw conclusions from a single cycle but you should eventually see a pattern – and the more she values you sexually during her fertile period the better. If she isn’t doing anything differently or reacting to you differently when she’s fertile, something’s up.

This test can have false negatives but not false positives. There’s no false positive case where she suddenly starts riding you while you’re watching the Packers game but she doesn’t see you as her alpha. But it can have false negatives where she doesn’t initiate but still sees you as her alpha. If she isn’t initiating when she’s fertile (and you aren’t initiating in order to test her reaction), it could be due to stress, lack of time, being too used to you doing the initiation, etc. But at the very least she should be demonstrating increased passion and sexual ecstasy during her fertile period.

At a high-level:

The best case: She initiates during her fertile period if you don’t. She gets cravings for your D.

The OK case: She responds more passionately and orgasms more easily during her fertile period.

The uh-oh, something might be wrong case: No observable change during her fertile period.

The beta case: Dead bedroom, what the fuck are you even doing (sorry if you got married and you can’t get out).

Of course if she’s an extremely sexual being and all of the above describes your sex life 24/7, then none of this should even concern you.

Disclaimer: Once again, this test is a tool that works best for women with higher sex drives (who really wanna get fucked when they’re fertile). If your 37 year old wife of 15 years fucks you when you want and isn’t cheating, you’re fine. I don’t think test applies to all women (LOL, broke /trp/ rules oops) but it’s useful nonetheless.

Lets presume for a moment that neither a controlled experiment nor an uncontrolled, but documented, correlatively scientific, sociological field study has ever been performed to test the principle of feminine Hypergamy. For a moment, as a man, imagine yourself living in a period of time prior to any formalized school of psychology; pre-turn of the 20th century. There is no Pavlov, there is no Skinner, there is no Freud.

Using only personal observations, observations of learned behaviors related by your father and brothers, male friends and the intergender experiences of a very socially isolated (by today’s standards) group of  people who make up your peers, and a restrictively limited access to any classic philosophical literature beyond the Judeo-Christian Bible – what would you presume would be the nature inimical to women and the feminine?

Would your observations, intuition and the education proffered by your father, brothers and other influential male friends and relations lead to an insight to know what Hypergamy is, how it motivates women and how to control for, or capitalize on it?

Not only do I believe it would, but I would argue that, up until the sexual revolution and the past 60 or so years, men have had an innate and learned understanding of Hypergamy, how it functions, and how to control for it.

To be sure, it didn’t have the formal name of ‘Hypergamy’ – in fact that term was until recently, strictly defined and reserved for “women with the tendency to marry above their socioeconomic level” in polite, pop-psychology circles – but men knew Hypergamy before the manopshere (re)exposed its true definition.

Waging Hypergamy

Resistance to the uncomfortable truths innate to the female experience is to be expected from women – until the advent of Open Hypergamy, the Feminine Imperative needed the sisterhood to be united and its secrets jealously guarded to the point of cognitive dissonance.

My guess is that most of my female critics would still agree with the basic parameters of Hypergamy, but what I doubt they’re aware of is that in denying the inherent biological nature of female Hypergamy women must also reject the sociological, psychological and (observably) behavioral aspects of Hypergamy inherent (and largely subconscious) in women.

Commenter Mookie:

“As women approach the Epiphany Phase (later the Wall) and realize the decay of their SMV (in comparison to younger women), they become progressively more incentivized towards attraction to the qualities a man possesses that will best satisfy the long-term security of the Beta Bucks side of her Hypergamy demands.”

Did your woman say, “you’re (so much) different than the guys I used to date.” Or, “I finally got smart and found a good guy.” If so, this is clear evidence that you are her Beta Bucks guy. Maybe she used to date DJs, NFL players, drug dealers, whatever. If these guys are different types of guys than you, do NOT continue the relationship. She has no clue, but she is rationalizing her choice in her mind. You will pay a severe price later, as in cheating, nonstop bitchiness, or sudden divorce. Find a girl that always dated guys like you. She may have swooned for the lead guitarist, but if she didn’t devote her early 20s to chasing him, you’re okay.

Beta Tells

One of the more common questions I’m asked in consults is whether something a guy did was ‘Beta’ or not. Usually it was a situation wherein the guy was instinctually sensitive to his own behavior in context to his Frame and how the woman he was dealing with perceived him. In most cases a man knows when he’s slipped in his perception of dominance with a woman, they just look for a third party confirmation of it – which is then followed by more rationalizations for why his behavior shouldn’t be considered Beta because they believe women are equally rational, equally forgiving, agents as men (really he is) are.

From Gut Check:

Whenever you feel something isn’t quite right in your gut, what this is is your subconscious awareness alerting you to inconsistencies going on around you. We tend to ignore these signs in the thinking that our rational mind ‘knows better’ and things really aren’t what they seem. It’s not as bad as you’re imagining, and you can even feel shame or guilt with yourself for acknowledging that lack of trust. However, it’s just this internal rationalization that keeps us blind to the obvious that our subconscious is trying to warn us about. Humans are creatures of habit with an insatiable need to see familiarity in other people’s actions. So when that predictable behavior changes even marginally, our instinctual perceptions fire off all kinds of warnings. Some of which can actually effect us physically.

It’s at this point most guys make the mistake of acting on the “good communication solves everything” feminized meme and go the full disclosure truth route, which only really leads to more rationalizations and repression of what’s really going on. What they don’t realize is that the MEDIUM is the message; her behavior, her nuances, the incongruousness in her words and demeanor (and how your gut perceives them) is the real message. There is an irregularity in her behavior that your subconscious is alerting you to which your consciousness either cannot or will not recognize.

I began the Alpha Tells post with the intent of recognizing how a woman behaves when she’s in the presence of a Man she perceives to be Alpha. A lot of men get hung up on trying to ‘act’ Alpha; wanting to ape (and hopefully internalize) the behavioral tells a more confident Alpha displays.

Consequently there’s a lot of debate about how men posture and how they naturally display these Alpha cues, but I think the best gauge of what defines those cues is not in men’s displays, but women’s behaviors and attitudes that are prompted by a perception of Alpha-ness.

And just as women will respond viscerally to an Alpha perception, they will also manifest behaviors which indicate her subconscious knows she’s dealing with a Beta aligned male.

It’s easy to pick apart what a guy thinks are his own Alpha tells, but it’s far more uncomfortable to dissect women’s Beta tells when they’re in the presence of men they perceive to be Beta. Much of what I’ll outline that follows will be hard to read for many guys, and as always you’re free to disagree.

My purpose here isn’t to bash Betas, rather it’s to increase awareness of women’s behaviors toward them. As I’ve explained above, try to put these behaviors into a Hypergamous context and how they would be perceived by women who’ve evolved to have an instinctual sensitivity to these Beta behaviors, as well as expressions of Beta attitudes in your words and emotional emphasis.

I could very easily compile a list of behaviors that are simply the reverse of the Alpha Tells I noted in the previous post, but it’s much more important to address the root reasons for these Beta Tells:

  • Does she initiate sex or affection spontaneously?
  • Does she entertain a large pool of “male friend” orbiters with the expectation of you being ‘mature enough’ to accept it?
  • Does she keep a core peer group of ‘girlfriends’ she insists on prioritizing over being with you? Frequent GNOs?
  • Has she explained to you how she was so different  in college and how she’s glad those days are behind her now?
  • Is she experiencing her Epiphany Phase?
  • Does she cite “mismatched libidos” as a reason for her lack of sexual interest in you now that you’re married or living together (even after she’s had better sex with you or a former lover when single)?
  • Is she averse or repulsed by your ejaculate being on her skin, in her mouth or overly concerned with soiling a bed sheet?
  • Will she have sex with you anywhere besides the bed?
  • Do you perform oral on her to get her off more than you have intercourse?
  • Is she a wide-eyed lover or does she squint her eyes closed while having sex? Is sex a chore for her to perform?
  • If you’re married, did she assume your last name, or did she insist on a hyphenated surname for herself?
  • When you’re together does her regular, unpracticed body posture indicate an openness or are you always having to break into her intimate space?
  • Is she preoccupied with her side of the family or a certain pet in preference to being concerned with your well-being?
  • Is she consciously aware of being 1-2 points above your own relative SMV? Is she overt about it?
  • Does she presume authority in your relationship? Do you accede this authority as a matter of (equalist) belief?

There are many more tells of course, and I hope more will be presented in the commentary, but it’s important to understand that these behaviors and attitudes are manifestations of a woman who on some level of consciousness understands that she’s dealing with a Beta man.

I should also mention that, as with Stephen’s case in Moments of Clarity, there are particular phases of a woman’s life when she becomes more attuned to dealing with Beta men due to perceived necessities on her part. A clear understanding of how these phases predispose women to convince themselves to be more accepting of Beta behaviors and a Beta mindset is imperative to avoiding the common pitfalls men encounter with regard to issues of Frame in their relationships.

Beta men are all too eager to believe they’ve matured into being a self-defined Alpha when a semi-attractive 29 year old in the midst of her Epiphany Phase is giving him wide-eyed indicators of interest in him. Only after she’s consolidated on that long-term security does he realize the plans her sexual strategy had for him.

Predisposition for Mate Guarding

One of the best Beta tells is how defensive a guy gets about the subject of mate guarding.

An Alpha has little preoccupation with mate guarding because subconsciously he knows he has sexual options. That applies both within and without monogamy. I’m presenting this here because the majority of what motivates Beta tells (and really a Beta mindset) is rooted in how men deal with a scarcity mentality. Beta tells are almost always indicators that a man believes he needs to guard his paired woman and thus telegraphs a Beta status to that woman as well as other women in her peer clutch.

Mate guarding, and its intrinsic set of subconscious suspicions and behaviors, is an evolved adaptation of ensuring paternity for a Beta-provider. These men must rely upon exchanging resources and external benefits for women’s sexual fidelity. In essence, it’s an unspoken awareness that Beta men must negotiate for what they hope will be a woman’s genuine desire in exchange for his provisioning, parental investment support and emotional involvement.

Beta men are aware on on a limbic level that Hypergamy dictates an Alpha Fucks / Beta Bucks trade-off in women’s sexual strategy – thus a subconscious ‘mate guarding’ mindset evolved from Beta men’s heightened awareness of women’s preference for Alpha Fucks particularly around the proliferative phase time of women’s ovulation.

Paradoxically, the best assurance you have of fidelity with a woman is simply not to allow yourself to become exclusively monogamous with a woman and rather, have her make the efforts to pair with you under her own auspices you being Alpha. Romance is not required from a lover a woman perceives as Alpha, only his sexual interest – this represents a confirmation of Hypergamous optimization for a woman. The fuck-buddy dynamic – all sexual interests with no reciprocal expectation of emotional investment  – is a strong Alpha tell for a man.

The best gauge for determining a woman’s perception of you as either an Alpha or Beta type is examining yourself and your feeling a ‘need’ to mate guard her, to appease her, or an impulse to correct yourself in order to align with her terms for intimacy. A scarcity mentality is the mental point of origin for a Beta mindset – and that internalized mental model will manifest itself in a predisposition for Beta behaviors.

There’s a common belief that even the most Alpha of men will at times slip into a Beta behaviorism. You can’t be ‘on’ your game all of the time, and while that’s true it doesn’t invalidate that women have a mental model of your overall, predominant condition being either Alpha or Beta. A predominantly Alpha frame and mindset (and yes, looks), plus an acknowledged (real or perceived) SMV primacy will cover a multitude of Beta sins, but the predominant Beta has the sisyphean task of convincing a woman he’s more Alpha than she pegs him for.

So to answer the man asking whether or not something he did was Beta, your answer really lies in your motivation for behaving ‘Beta’ as you did in comparison to how a woman perceives your predominant character.

 

Malice and Forethought

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After the engaging conversation in this week’s comment thread, there’s something I’ve been contemplating and I think it might make for a good weekend discussion.

With regard to this new comfort women have with open Hypergamy now, proudly laying bare their Alpha Fucks / Beta Bucks sexual strategy, to the degree that advertising agencies are making blatant commercials about it, I’m starting to think that women hold (or are progressively developing) a subconscious level resentment for those men who would willingly accept her intimately in spite of that foreknowledge.

I realize this reads like a “well, duh Rollo” moment, and I get that a deductive, lesser respect for a Beta man impulse resides in women, but what I’m considering here is this lesser respect in a new, open Hypergamy social context. Whereas before a Beta man might be excused for his ignorance of women’s sexual pluralism (AF/BB) due to women’s secrecy or marginalizing it, now women discover that the Beta men they need to consolidate on in the long term are such hopeless romantics and so sexually optionless that they’ll willfully ignore that open Hypergamy and accept them intimately in spite of it.

It’s an interesting conflict; on one hand the urgency of consolidating on a long term prospect leads her to the Epiphany Phase rationalizations for wanting to do things ‘the right way’ with the Beta provider, but on the other hand, there’s the fact that he accepts his pro-active cuckolding with full knowledge of not just her own prior Alpha ‘indiscretions’, but open Hypergamy on whole.

She needs the guy for provisioning and parental investment impulses, but now the buffer of convincing herself that this Nice guy is simply naive to how Hypergamy functions is gone, thus leaving her more resentful that the type of man she at least figuratively would spend her life with is this pathetic.

Commenter, salemsuwareh had an excellent observation from the last post  that I didn’t want to be lost in the pile:

 I just went to HUS’s article and the explanations given by the women and white knights there actually impressed me because they conveniently demonstrate so many things:

– The most important point is that the whole scenario is defined by the feminine imperative, this point really overrides and defines all others. It’s a form of thought control. If you define what was, what is and what could be according to your imperative then you can make yourself look right. It’s like a way more sophisticated version of 1984’s thought control.

– Women keep chiming in with their stories of how they too enjoy more attention from the other sex now that they’ve fixed some aspect of themselves (and they’ll try to clutch at Stephan doing the same thing to support their argument). What they don’t mention is the difference in SMV between men and women. Women START OUT being arousing to men and go downhill from there. A woman who made herself look better would’ve had at least as much attention when she was younger if she weren’t ugly then.

– Stephan describes himself as not having changed but the women say that is what he has. They are literally conjuring up the idea that Stephan is now more alpha out of thin air.

– They accuse men of doing the same thing women are doing if they can’t make a point or they accuse men of starting it. For example they say MEN who perpetuate the “beta bux” myth. In the next sentence, Susan says that only one of beta bux or post-wall women overestimating their SMV can be true, which coming from her can only be a case of willing, studied ignorance. She’s trying to take pieces out of Rollo’s words and put them against each other but she’s changing the context that the words were made for in the first place, for example – her comparison is false because post-wall women are DEFINED BY (other than visible outer signs ie. fading looks) a realisation that their SMV is under fire, that doesn’t put that in opposition to beta bux, it supports it. By now I’m thinking women have a natural talent for projection and rationalization.

– Men who fear being single like women do are beta men. They are so because a man with options by definition cannot fear being single, since he has options. If you’ve never had any success with women and you’re a plugged-in blue pill, of course you will fear being single! the leaps and haphazard logic she’s making here are just astounding, and that’s before I even begin talking about what she’s implying by saying/implying that men and women have the same problems.

– Susan is selecting the cases that support her point. The two ugly ducklings who find each other at age 28 and live happily ever after.

– Susan talks as if women have no idea what they’re doing with men. If epiphany-phase women are giving signs of being hooked on you, they must genuinely want to fuck you! because women are warm, fuzzy creatures and would never do something like try to push someone’s buttons to get what they want.

– It’s made out like Stephan can turn into a winner if he takes one of these leftover women, or rather that he already IS one because they want him now. They’re trying to prop up his ego to get him to go along with their imperative. Don’t worry Stephan, these girls finally understand that the person they really felt their tingles for was you all along! they were just confused by biker-Rob with the skull tattoo, but I’m all yours now baby.

Overall It’s pretty cool to see the three female weapons as I see them – the anointed trinity of Female Imperative, Rationalization and Projection – in action. They do it so well that you wouldn’t see it for what it is unless you’re familiar with something like Rollo’s blog, which is what’s going on with most men. Unfortunately for these women we have a failsafe, which is to observe what choices women make instead of listening to why they themselves say they make them (assuming she’s a rare woman who holds herself accountable for her own choices, that is).

The problem with convincing Stephan he’s on the right path (of Beta assimilation) is that this feminine-primary advice mistakenly presumes an old order, closed-Hypergamy social paradigm. The ladies at HUS presume Stephan is ignorant of this new-order open Hypergamy (or just initially questioning it), and as with women of their age, they cling to the idea that they can put the Hypergamy genie back in the bottle, reapply his Beta blinders, and thus re-prepare him for a 27-30 year old woman necessitous of his provisioning potential.

This is where their resentment stems from. Any man with the visceral knowledge of women’s dualistic sexual strategy who would still pardon their own participation in it is a man even less respectable than the forgivable Beta without that foreknowledge.

He’s a guy who Just Gets It, yet is so pathetically optionless he willingly chooses to participate in it, since to him the prospect of being manipulated is preferable to the threat of perpetual loneliness; which is the very same threat these women level at him in their advice.

The ‘better’ Beta they think can be built isn’t ego-satisfyingly believable if he’s already aware of and participates in the schadenfreude they have for him.

Moments of Clarity

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Even for the most abject Beta man there comes significant points in his life when he makes a Red Pill connection – a point at which, despite his feminine-primary socialization and for all his own participation in a system that deceives him, his circumstance or a trauma rattles him into a state of clarity.

As I wind my way through the Preventive Medicine timeline in the second draft of the next book I come to understand the periods at which these moments of clarity most commonly occur for Beta men.

Early in life that prompt may be the sting of having a high school sweetheart break up with him before she goes off to college. In or after college it might be the undoing of a long distance relationship he thought for sure his soul-mate would help him dutifully preserve. Later it maybe the realization of how much of his personal potential he truly lost after investing so much in a wife who divorced him and separated him from his children.

Not all of these events are as traumatic as this, but it’s during these Red Pill moments of clarity a man begins to see a hint of the code in the Matrix; a suspicion that maybe what he’s believed about how intergender relations should be really haven’t been directed toward his best interest.

So it was with a certain amount of interest I took notice of a man named Stephen when he petitioned advice from a mouthpiece of the Feminine Imperative this week. Though he doesn’t yet realize it, Stephen is at a Red Pill moment of clarity in his life, and as most Beta men are won’t to do, he seeks answers from the same feminine-primary trough that’s kept him in a state of patient stasis until his yet unrealized potential has now become useful to the Feminine Imperative.

Rather than simply allow the feminine crabs drag him back down into the barrel (until his next Red Pill moment of clarity), I’m going to re-post his plea for understanding here and give him (with the help of my esteemed commenters) the Red Pill truth he deserves at so critical a juncture in his life.

Lately I’ve been thinking about my college dating experiences. I’m 28 years old now and I’ve noticed a very odd phenomenon lately. I’m getting noticed (and approached) by women that never would’ve given me the time of day when I was in college. Successful, accomplished women! One in particular is incredibly hot, but they all are attractive. I am baffled by this. You may laugh, but this is making me extremely frustrated and stressed out.

Reading your blog has offered some explanations. I’m an analytical guy, so I’ve been very impressed with the social science you weave into your writing, and the research about how 28 is the ideal male age for women helped to explain what might be going on. But I still can’t figure out what’s going on, with me or with them. I feel emotions like resentment and suspicion, as well as desire, but I’m not at all flattered. I find myself unable to respond in any way, positively or negatively. I feel paralyzed.

Sometimes I think I’m just offended. These are the very same women who rejected me time and again in college. I mean, I know they’re not the same but…they’re the same. I wanted relationships (I tried casual sex…EPIC FAIL), they didn’t want me. My one serious college girlfriend cheated on me with her professor. I was really, really hurt, felt like a chump, etc. 
To put it in a HUS context, the [college girls] preferred alpha males (I’m definitely a beta, introverted, overly intense, with a baby face.) Or maybe they were reluctant to get involved during college because they wanted to be free to move on after graduation and not be tied down.

The thing is, I don’t think I’ve changed all that much. Frankly, I couldn’t change if I wanted to, even if it meant getting these women. I may have come out of my shell a little, but I honestly don’t think it’s me that’s different. It’s them, and I don’t think I like the difference. I think I’m the consolation prize. I think they still want the alphas but they’ve given up. Time to settle. I’m offended. I don’t trust these women.

Am I too proud? Getting my revenge? Guarded from past humiliations? Or have I just grown up and learned from my experiences?

Stephen

Stephen, the moment of Red Pill clarity you’re now experiencing is coming from your newly realized status. The women you describe being attracted to you (different than being aroused by you) are entering what I call The Epiphany Phase – the point at which their sexual market value begins to decay in earnest while a man’s begins his greatest potential to capitalize upon his own SMV as it steadily (should) increase.

This is a precarious time for women, usually the years between 28 and 30, where she makes attempts to reassess the last decade of her life. Women’s psychological rationalization engine (a.k.a. the Hamster) begins a furious effort to account for, and explain her reasonings for not having successfully secured a long term monogamous commitment from as Alpha a man as her attractiveness could attain for her. Even women married prior to this phase will go through some variation of self-doubt, or self-pity in dealing with the hypergamic uncertainty of her choice of husband (“Is he really the best I could do?”)

It’s during this stage that women will make radical shifts in the prioritization of what prerequisite traits qualify as ‘attractive’ in a man and attempt to turn over a new leaf by changing up their behaviors to align with this new persona they create for themselves. Since the physicality, sexual prowess and Alpha dominance that made up her former arousal cues in a Man aren’t as forthcoming from men as when she was in her sexual prime, she reprioritizes them with (presumed) preferences for more intrinsic male attributes that stress dependability, provisioning capacity, humor, intellect, and esoteric definitions of compatibility and intimacy.

Where you find yourself now, Stephen, is in the midst of these women coming to terms with their waning SMV and the increasing effort it takes women of that age bracket to effectively compete in a sexual marketplace where younger women simply outclass them with every new year that she doesn’t consolidate on a man who represents a good long term provisioning prospect.

As you suggest, these are the same women who found you sexually invisible when they were younger and enjoying the same SMV peak with the relatively more Alpha men they wanted to have short term sexual experiences with. These women were the younger competition they now find threatening their sexual selection today.

Are they exactly the same individual women? I don’t know for sure from your outline, but even if they aren’t, the Schedules of Mating script women follow is so common and predictable that they may as well effectively be the same women to you – and this is precisely what your subconscious instinct is attempting to relate to your conscious-self now.

…I honestly don’t think it’s me that’s different. It’s them, and I don’t think I like the difference.

Unless you’ve made a drastic improvement to your physical appearance or you’ve become more Game aware and have changed your intersexual outlook and behavior the obvious answer is, it is these women who’ve changed.

Now the question remains, why?

What has changed in these women’s lives that prompted this dramatic shift in how they’ve re-prioritized what they now find sexually acceptable? What is it about you in the now (and not back then) that makes you ideal for that acceptability?

Aunt Giggles wants to convince you to let bygones be bygones and follow along with the script the Feminine Imperative expects of you by shaming you for not forgiving a woman of her past indiscretions…

No doubt the girls at college rewarded the males who were early developers and exhibited masculine qualities then. Why take that personally?

I’ll tell you why, because the men they were interested in short term sexual prospects with then weren’t being asked to make anything resembling the life changing personal investment in these ‘reformed’ women she hopes you’ll man-up and be a ‘Better Beta’ for. Those men got the milk for free because the cow milked herself and gave it to them, gladly.

Now that’s a hell of a proposition for a guy who’s played by what his prior feminine conditioning would have him believe were the ‘rules’ for as long as you have. Is it really that far a stretch to want to protect the investment of your personal potential, not to mention your yet unrealized peak SMV potential, with women who now hope you’ll be sex, love and desire starved enough for the past 10 or so years to look past all the short term sex they had with more Alpha men in the Party Years of their early to mid 20s?

Maturation of Beta Bucks

Aunt Sue has always ridden the fence when it comes to acknowledging the Alpha Fucks / Beta Bucks nature of women’s sexual strategy. When it suits her narrative she agrees with Hypergamy, when it doesn’t, well, you’ll never know because those posts get scrubbed from her blog.

Fortunately you don’t need her input on Hypergamy to understand women’s pluralistic sexual strategy – there are many, much higher profile women than Susan Walsh who openly and publicly endorse exactly the strategy these women (who are suddenly attracted to you now) are using:

“When looking for a life partner, my advice to women is date all of them: the bad boys, the cool boys, the commitment-phobic boys, the crazy boys. But do not marry them. The things that make the bad boys sexy do not make them good husbands. When it comes time to settle down, find someone who wants an equal partner. Someone who thinks women should be smart, opinionated and ambitious. Someone who values fairness and expects or, even better, wants to do his share in the home. These men exist and, trust me, over time, nothing is sexier.”

― Sheryl Sandberg, Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead

And since we’re interested in the research perhaps we can ask Aunt Sue why it is nearly half of women in relationships retain a ‘Plan B’ guy:

Whether he’s the one that got away, the office husband, or a gym partner, chances are he is the “Plan B” man you fantasize about running away with. Like an insurance policy, this man is the handpicked boyfriend or husband replacement you have on standby once “plan A” starts to break down on you. According to a survey conducted by OnePoll.com, an online market research company, half of women who are married or in relationships have a Plan B man on standby who is “ready and waiting” because of “unfinished business.”

You see Stephen, it’s not those “Red Pill, Dark Triad cads” who perpetuate the “Beta Bux” theory; we don’t need to, it’s modern women who proudly, triumphantly, openly confirm their own Hypergamy and blatantly expect you to comply with it by default. In fact they’ll shame you, as all the commenters on HUS are doing now, for even questioning your expected role in affirming their sexual strategy.

So, with the knowledge of this new Red Pill truth, openly confirmed by the very same women who are ‘attracted’ to you now, how do you intend to benefit from it? Will you stick your head back in the blue pill sand of HUS, or will you become curious about the broader truths of the Red Pill. Just remember, now you’re aware of a Red Pill truth, there’s no going back.

However, bear in mind, you’re 28, the women you’re dealing with now have had a lot longer than just the 4 years they may have spent in high school to decide if you were attractive to them – these women have had the better part of the past 10 years and the benefit of experiencing the peak of their SMV potential up to this point in life.

Aunt Giggles’ would have you believe your new found SMV is the result some maturation process or change in your personal conditions when in fact it’s the very calculated result of an proudly confirmed, pre-designed sexual strategy. And it becomes really insidious when the operative feminine social convention in play accuses you of wanting “revenge” for acknowledging the same strategy that these women do openly already; you could be cowed into the fear of remaining alone, but that’s a myth to bust in another post.

Commenters, perhaps I’ve missed something here.

Please, feel free to post your advice for Stephen in the always open, never moderated and entirely uncensored comment section only here at The Rational Male.