male perspective

Can’t Buy Me Alpha

Buy_Alpha

I can’t imagine most of the manosphere, to say nothing about MRAs, haven’t read about the latest feminist triumphalism in a recent Pew study that’s determined that 23% of women now out-earn men. The ironic inconsistencies are an easy mark for most red pill men, but I imagine they’re particularly galling for MRAs:

Moms now earn more than dads in almost a quarter of all U.S. families, the highest level in history. It’s a huge leap from 50 years ago when only a handful of moms were bringing home the bacon, according to a study released Wednesday by the Pew Research Center.

Overall, women – including those who are unmarried – are now the leading or solo breadwinners in 40 percent of U.S. households, compared with just 11 percent in 1960, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau analyzed by Pew.

Cue the MRA rage posts about unmarried women receiving uniquely feminine social benefits and entitlements men have no access to, not to mention state enforced male child support for unmarried mothers and remarried mothers. I get it, really I do, but my emphasis here isn’t so much about the factual information being skewed by the feminine imperative, rather its neurolinguistic delivery of  those distortions.

That’s both good news and bad news, depending on which end of the scale you examine. At the top level, educated women are catching up with men in the workforce. But at the bottom rungs, there are more single mothers than ever and most of them are living near the poverty line.

Bear in mind this report by Amy Langfield was what hastily replaced this report by Bill Briggs – For Richer or Poorer?, When wives make more, some men’s health suffers – on NBCs frontpage. As I’ve written before, the feminine imperative will never allow even its own message to be sullied with a male perspective.

When wives bring home more bacon than their husbands, household budgets surely may sizzle but in some cases, men may pay a price. Some guys who lose their role as primary earners are known to lose sexual steam and may deal with insomnia and other issues, researchers say.

In relationships where women’s wages become slightly fatter than what their spouses pocket, scientists have determined that men are about 10 percent more likely to require prescription pills to combat erectile dysfunction, insomnia and anxiety, according to a recent study by Washington University in St. Louis’ Olin Business School.

Naturally the comment section is rife with feminine ridicule and accusations of men’s masculine insecurities being made manifest in not being able to get it up when wifey makes more money. The apex fallacy is a helluva drug for the feminine imperative.

“There is a powerful social norm for many men that it’s important to make more than their wives and, essentially, when that social norm is violated, what this does is make them feel emasculated,” said Lamar Pierce, a professor of strategy at Olin who completed the study in February, working with colleagues in Denmark. Other research has shown that men with wives who earn more are more likely to cheat. 

It’s going to be important to read that linked 2010 article about men who’s wives earn more being more likely to cheat, because this is the crux of who gets to decide what emasculation feels like for men. Lamar Pierce’s assertion, as with most blank slaters, is that masculinity is the result of “powerful social norms”  and not the result of a culmination of what millennia of biological and psychological evolution physically made of men. The nuts and bolts get discarded when the feminine imperative defines the terms of what men feel and why they do.

The problem here is that the nuts and bolts are about the physical male sexual response. What is it about women earning more money (excluding for single mother bonuses) that makes them less likely to pass the boner test? If the feminine imperative is to be believed, it’s due to men’s fragile egos and masculinity being defined by his ability to provide. No mention is made of women’s lack of femininity, physical sexual attraction or simple logistics when she’s the one tasked with bringing home the bacon. No mention is given about women’s desire to even be in the position of being the sole or majority breadwinner.

Buying Alpha

The main problem with women earning more than their men is far more hardwired into both gender’s psyches than the experts consigned by the feminine imperative will ever be allowed to relate. It’s not very complimentary to the imperative because it reveals far too much of its real inner workings and exposes its social engineering to effect them.

On the feminine side we have the cruel reality of feminine Hypergamy that’s constantly reminded that the man she’s paired with (or would pair with) isn’t capable of, or is less capable of, the provisioning her Hypergamy ultimately demands of him, and which she can provide for herself. For the single professional woman this imbalance results in their constant search for a man they consider “her equal”, and is the cause for many post-Wall women’s common lament of not being able to find the guy she thinks she deserves.

By this distorted logic, professional women subscribe to the social convention that they can ‘buy Alpha’; that their credentials, financial and social status ought to be the deciding factor for men’s intimate estimations of them, and any man not abiding by these conditions is by definition “infantile”, has a “fragile ego” and is “threatened by successful women”.

Feminine Operative Social Conventions are the meta-hamster of the gestalt consciousness of the feminine imperative.

On the masculine side the problems are twofold. The first comes from men’s evolved subliminal understanding about how being a provider is his last, best, resort of securing a mate who will send his genes on to future generations. Once this capacity is removed, he becomes conscious of his vulnerability to the predations of his wife’s Hypergamy.

If men met their future wives when the women already were the bigger breadwinners, “they never have any problems later on,” Pierce said. “The problems are all coming in marriages where the guys are making more, they get married, then their pay slips (below their wives’ salaries).” The study was published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.

Since mass media is rooted in a fem-centric reality, we’re spared the gory details of women’s Hypergamic re-estimations of their husbands. Rather, we’re left to believe that it’s the husbands who have an inability to cope with their wives making more money (due to fragile egos remember?) and suffer from a masculine insecurity that’s making their cocks go soft. No mention is made of men’s now-impassable Hypergamic shit-tests women demand of men affecting their previously stable marriages.

For the majority of Beta men, their cow-eyed confidence and reliance on being able to at least provide an equal contribution to a woman’s wellbeing as part of his Beta-Game sexual strategy gets flushed down the toilet when she out earns him. For Beta men, men’s primary sexual market value is derived from performance – unfortunately Betas are beginning to be outperformed by women and their wives. Once that outperformance is actualized for women, only Alpha dominance defines men’s SMV since it’s the other remaining side of women’s Hypergamy and their pluralistic sexual strategy.

The Bought Alpha

The second masculine issue is the bought Alpha. When a woman is in fact capable of her own provisioning all that’s left wanting for her hypergamy is Alpha dominance. Most breadwinning women are condemned to being frustrated by this dynamic. The majority of elite earning women simply lack the feminine grace and physical appeal to attract this Alpha dominance. Fewer still have the capacity to surrender to that Alpha, but the upper 1% of elite earning women can, and they illustrate the dynamic here. I realize it’s an old article but have a quick read – Guys more likely to cheat on high-earning women.

In fact, men who were completely dependent on their partner’s income were five times more likely to cheat than men who contributed an equal amount of money to the relationship, according to research presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association.

You’d think such men wouldn’t want to risk their meal ticket. But lower-earning men may be self-medicating their inner macho guy, says Cornell University sociology graduate student Christin Munsch, who conducted the study.“Having multiple sexual partners may be an attempt to restore gender identity in response to these threats,” she writes. “In other words, for men, sex [outside their relationship] may be an attempt to compensate for feelings of inadequacy with respect to gender identity.”

Despite the masculine shaming threaded throughout the article, what’s not being addressed is women who make substantially more money, or all the money, in their relationships have flipped a dangerous gender script. As elite earners, women tend to want to pair off not with the the guy who’d otherwise be a loyal, respectable Beta provider under other conditions, but rather the men they feel they ‘deserve’. The provisioning part of their Hypergamy has been satisfied, so the visceral part is all that’s left wanting. Thus they gravitate to the Alpha cads they’re aroused by, and they ‘deserve’ by virtue of their earning ability and status. These women’s Game is a reflection of Beta men’s Game – they believe that their provisioning alone will be the lynchpin in keeping their spouse loyal.

An Alpha guy (like Jesse James from the article) grows tired of being his wife or girlfriend’s accessory, and as is the Alpha nature, he’s happy to have the financial backing to fund his infidelity. An inverse of this would be Tiger Woods’ marriage and his indulgences. The marriage becomes a means to an Alpha end (or a hinderance for Tiger), and our rich, empowered wife duplicitously loves and hates that her Man is so desired by other women, but can’t balance her Hypergamic nature any other way.

First Man Awake

As most readers know I rarely engage in political discourse unless it has relevance to intergender dynamics. This video is an exception. If you need a clear example of a feminist controlled state, this is it.

I actually went through Women’s/Gender Studies course when I was in college. The main reason I took the class was because there were only 2 classes being offered on campus that completed a Capstone, Humanities and Diversity requirement in a single class – Holocaust Studies and Women’s Studies. That’s basically the estimation most women want you to think their ‘sufferage’ is on par with; the Holocaust. I chose Women’s Studies because I basically wanted to put my money where my mouth has always been (literally and figuratively ) and also get inside what popular media, and the feminization that it’s gone through for the last 40+ years, has been selling both men and women. I enjoyed debating these ladies as I was one of 2 guys in the Women’s Literature class.

I didn’t know it at the time, but one of the beacons of positive masculine hope I had back in the days before the internet, before understanding Game and even the term ‘red pill’ was reading Why Men are the Way They Are by Dr. Warren Farrell. It opened my understanding of intergender relations in a way I’d never understood. If I had a red pill moment in my past reading this books was it. It was published in 1986 so the specifics might be a little dated for a modern reader, but for an overall perspective of how our gender landscape has evolved it will always be on my ‘must read’ list for guy just now taking the red pill.

My phone-it-in feminist stepmother and beta-confused father had picked up the book in order to eviscerate it in some proto-SWPL home book club they belonged to at the time. Oddly enough it ended up on their bookshelf after that (replete with my stepmother’s penciled in margin notes), and I remember picking it up in the hope that it would give me some self-effacing insight into how I could be a more accommodating beta schlub for my BPD girlfriend who was slowly eroding the last vestiges of my former Alpha self.

What it did was enlighten me.

Farrell is anything but a rape apologist, I would compare him with the first man to wake up in the Matrix. Most of his insight, research and writing were prompted by his involvement in the early 70’s feminist movement. He even self-identified as a male feminist back then, but it was this experience that brought him to a fuller understanding of the feminine imperative.

Intellectual Lethargy

What offends me about this protest isn’t the actual protesting, but the sheer ignorance behind it. If it were the easily digestible blatherings of Rush Limbaugh they were protesting I could understand it, but Dr. Farrell isn’t even in the same universe. All this is is an example of intellectual lethargy, which is really a shame because I would expect that the young men and women involved in the protest, all students at U of T, would be acquainted with research and critical thinking skills necessary before formulating such strong opinions and visceral reactions.

To be educated takes a constant effort. Most people in modern society simply do not have the time, inclination or motivation to be in any way knowledgeable about more than a peripheral understanding of the world around them. The ridiculously ironic part is that we live in an era when communication of information has never been more easily accessible to us.

Now add to this that we’re expected to be at least somewhat well informed due to this access. Our ego-investments with regards to politics, religion, social dynamics, gender relations etc. all depend upon a belief that we’re actually well informed enough know what we’re talking about and draw our own conclusions. We would have to be, right? It’s expected of us as intelligent human beings.

The truth of the matter is that unless we are immediately benefitted by educating ourselves about a particular subject (i.e. as short term a profit as easily manageable), for the vast majority of modern society, educating oneself is a hobby at best. We live in a fast-food, fast-information society. We can’t be bothered to, or in some cases really afford to, develop critical thinking skills – particularly when they might challenge our own ego-investments. This is why the feminine Matrix flourishes today, it’s easier not to think about things that are counter to our social conditioning.

But we want to be right, and to be right we have to believe that we have these critical thinking skills. In fact our personalities and well being depend upon being correct in our beliefs. This is an age of ego-investment. Ego investments are beliefs we associate with, and internalize, so strongly that they literally become elements of our personalities. So to challenge that belief is to literally attack the personality of the person with that ego-investment. It would make no difference how empirical your evidence to the contrary of that belief might be; you attack the belief and you attack the person. Religion, racism, political affiliation, gender dynamics, social dynamics, world view, all find their roots in individual ego-investments in those beliefs.

Needless to say this has an extremely polarizing effect upon lazy people who’d rather not put forth any effort to objectively educate themselves in ways that would ever challenge their core ego-investments. So we see a factionalizing of people into camps where those ego-investments are reinforced in spite of any controverting evidence. Thus a team mentality evolves; our red team is better than your blue team irrespective of any factor that might be contrary. So long as my team wins and your team loses my ego-investments remain validated. It becomes a clash of who’s ego-investments get validated and any value the “other’s” might have had are never acknowledged.

This is a shame because Dr. Warren Farrell has dedicated his life –most of it spent in the feminized cultural wastelands of the late 80’s and 90’s – to researching, understanding and revealing the uncomfortable truths of intergender dynamics. He’s the godfather of the manosphere that most red pill men aren’t even aware of.

Shouting in the Wilderness

Hat tip to reader BoxerRearZenith for bringing this to my attention:

Rollo, I’ve been a reading your blog since it’s inception. I love how eloquently everything is written and presented; therefore, I’d like your written opinion on this following Youtube video, if possible. It’s from ESPN First Take that was shown yesterday and Stephen A Smith was discussing Red Pill rhetoric (Being Anti-Oprah, lol) on a national platform. It was based off Chad Johnson and his wife Evelyn Lozada. And I had this similar discussion with friends who are also fans of this show and they couldn’t understand Stephen A’s point; even though, he illustrated and demonstrated his points so well. I tried to explain his position and why he went off but I got berated so I let it go. Is there anywhere to simplify his point of view to where my guy friends would somewhat understand? Btw, these are blue pill guys trying to figure why women are the way they are. Basically trying to find the red pill but not knowing to look for it if that makes any sense.

I’ve used the end summation of Stephen A Smith’s opinion here just for brevity’s sake, but if you have 15 minutes the entire clip is well worth watching, I’ll start by saying that it’s good to see even a marginally red-pill aware Man make a statement like this. We’re told all the time how football is really the last refuge for masculinity, but I’ve never agreed with this, and Smith’s bold and confrontational words here illustrate exactly how deep fem-centrism has saturated into even the most male of arenas. Smith is attempting to provide just a marginal consideration for a male perspective here and the reactions by Skip and his female co-host Cari Champion are an excellent example of how efficiently the feminine imperative shuts down that perspective. While Smith is obviously agitated and raises his voice, not once is he fumbling for words, nor does he slip and use expletives. He knows his perspective, has done his due diligence and is ready to express it.

And express it he does, but like most Men making public declarations attempting to bring awareness to fem-centrism, Skip and Cari, both obvious Fem-Matrix plug-ins, look at Smith as if he were speaking a foreign language. They can’t believe what’s coming out of his mouth. So saturated into our social fabric is feminine primacy that the thought of expressing a male-centric consideration, even as measured as Smith’s, is alien to those steeped in it.

Even Smith is guilty of this conditioning in his feeling it necessary to constantly footnote his perspective by repeating that he’s not endorsing violence against women. He has to do this because, like any other Man attempting to vocally expose fem-centrism, he’s learned that the first, reflexive response plugins will acuse him of is misogyny. So he must preface his words repeatedly or be dismissed as an evil patriarch. This constant qualification is necessary because the first resource of fem-centrism is to associate any perspective counter to the feminine imperative, no matter how remote, as an act of violence against women itself. Even women expressing a male perspective critical of fem-centrism are subjected to this association.

White Knights of the Feminine Imperative

For all of Smith’s intensity his message is entirely lost on an avowed white knight like Skip Bayless. Skip’s reaction is that of a well conditioned male in the feminine Matrix. As I wrote in Enter White Knight:

Every random chump within earshot of your conversation about Game, about your ‘changed’ way of seeing inter-gender relations, about your most objective critical observations of how women ‘are’, etc. – understand, that chump waits everyday for an opportunity to “correct” you in as public a way as he’s able to muster. That AFC who’s been fed on a steady diet of noble intent, with ambitions of endearing a woman’s intimacy through his unique form of chivalry; that guy, he’s aching for an opportunity to prove his quality by publicly redressing a “villain” like you for your chauvinism.

If you watch the full clip, Skip’s calling Chad Johnson to the carpet about his domestic violence and impending divorce is exactly what I’ve come to expect from white knight Beta Game. Skip’s provocation of Chad isn’t about his desire to ‘get to the bottom of things’, but rather to establish himself as a champion of the feminine imperative – and by association make himself more attractive to women by being the tough male advocate for women everywhere. Guys like Skip look for opportunities to appear like upstanding responsible Alpha men by scolding true Alphas like Chad in as public a way as possible. Essentially they use the same shaming tools of the feminine imperative in an effort to better align and identify themselves with the women they subliminally hope to impress – and yes, even the married ones.

A beta game response is what I’d expect from this mentality, but I think what red pill viewers of this clip need to understand is the subconscious fluidity with which this reflex occurs. Chad was ready to lay Skip Bayless out on the studio floor, but this doesn’t even occur to Skip until after he’s embroiled in the confrontation. White knights seldom realize the real danger they put themselves in until that white knightery backfires on them; that’s how internalized the mentality is, it overrides a capacity to see danger cues.

Redirect

Cari Champion’s reaction is also a predictable, feminine-centric response. Where Skip will fall back on the convenient excuse of wanting to ‘get to the bottom of things’ Cari will do what most women will – presume that any man declaring a male-centric counterargument to the feminine ‘has issues’ with women. He’s “expressing a lot of anger” about women, even when the issue isn’t about women, but the societal circumstances of men. Then, as is the standard feminine reflex, Cari makes attempts to reframe Smith’s point to be individually specific to women. Smith makes a good effort of not allowing this reframe, but notice that in order for him to stay on point he must once again reiterate that ‘he’d never harm a woman’ just so he can get back to it.

Recently there’s been some great discussion over at Sunshine Mary’s blog regarding the validity of the feminine imperative as a concept in and of itself. Unfortunately it’s easier to show examples of the feminine imperative than it is to definitively describe it. I think Smith’s efforts here are an attempt to make plugged-in people understand just what the feminine Matrix is. But no one can tell you what the Matrix is when you’re in the Matrix. So when you see the lone man shouting truths in the wilderness, it isn’t what he’s saying that’s important, but who is listening.

To answer Boxer’s question, I’m not sure there is a way to simplify Smith’s message. Your friends aren’t going to understand it because they have no frame of reference to relate his message to. Everything is fem-centrism for plugins, and the feminine imperative already has long established social contingencies (like the one’s observed in this clip) to dissuade any real awareness of it. I have no doubt that Smith’s inbox was filled with the hatred of countless plugged in men and women arguing for him to seek therapy for his misogyny – which ironically was exactly the point he was trying to make. One of the most effective social conventions the feminine imperative ever established was disqualifying those critical of it from ever having credibility about it.

Unfortunately Boxer, your friends, like most men, will have to learn from harsh experience to ever be open to seeing the feminine imperative as Smith does.

Of Love and War

As might be expected yesterday’s post regarding the love differentials between men and women drew a lot of commentary. I probably should’ve added the caveat that readers have a look at Women in Love as a prelude to reading Men in Love before posting it, but by far the most disconcerting part of Monday’s revelation was in my outlining exactly how men expect to be loved prior to actually entering into a love relationship with a woman.

Generally people of either sex don’t like to have love defined for them. The concept of love is loaded with subjectiveness, and not unsurprisingly you’ll offend people’s interpretations and sensibilities by trying to contain their idea of love in a defined box. This is one of the reasons love is such a great and human idea, but its ambiguity is also the primary cause of much of the human tragedy and suffering we experience. We see love in religious contexts, personal interpretations, philosophical essays, biological dynamics and a whole slew of other arenas, so it’s very easy to understand how universally convoluted, manipulative, and yet also how binding and nurturing love can be according to how well, or how ill our concepts of love aligns with that of others.

In outlining (not defining) a male perspective of love in contrast to a female perspective it’s necessary to understand how a man’s understanding of love shifts as he matures. A lot of commenters wanted to find the base root of that concept in their relationship with their mothers. As Freudian as that rings I wouldn’t say it’s a bad start. Men do in fact learn their first impressions of intimate, physical and nurturing love from their mothers, and this then forms the foundation of that expected love from their potential wives (or lovers). Even as children are unable to think in abstract terms, there is an innate, base understanding of the conditionality that must be met in order to maintain that motherly love. Yohami posted a great illustration of this with the still face experiment.

Yohami breaks this down thusly:

That circuit gets printed before we learn to talk = before we are able to form abstract and concepts. It’s a basic four piece, emotional / behavioral circuit.

There are many ways that circuit can be imprinted “wrong”. One is to have the mom (or dads) on the receiving end, making the kid the giver. Other is having him owning the frame. Other is to have the mom (or dads) respond only when the kid acts out. Other is making the kid act out and then silence him / punish him for it. Etc. Shortly, the kid understands the game and starts to play it.

And then you build everything on top.

Your experiences from ages 12-21, of course helped forming you, because you’re 35 now and this is a sum accumulative game. But honestly, what happened to you from 12-21, are the same mechanics that were already happening, only adding more external world influence, sex drive, and additional pressures.

Im trying to locate the source of the pain, and is this: like a compass or a geometrical piece that wants to find equilibrium, the pain wants to find the “good” again (from the good the bad and the ugly), but it only knows to reach that “good” by balancing violently between the bad and the ugly and episodes of rage and if that doesnt work, splitting / self mutilation ( cutting out the undesired parts of you, your past, identity, emotions, people, relationships, blocking stuff out, etc)

It’s a constant look out for the elusive “good” part of the dynamic.

Yohami continues (emphasis mine):

[But] you werent confident / self reassured about your needs and wants, because you were still negotiating how to even feel “good” and safe, so you didnt develop game nor saw girls / relationships for what they were – but you just added this to the previous unresolved mix, like, seeking the “good” (basic, maternal, paternal love where you’re defenseless and you’re intimally loved and taken care of and safe) from girls, mixing the defenseless and the sexual aggressive drive and the long time affection longing and the sense of dispair of never feeling safe, etc.

From the moment we’re born we realize love is conditional, but we want for it to be unconditional; our idealized state is unconditional love. To be a Man is to perform, to excel, to be the one for whom affections are freely given in appreciation and adoration. On a base level it’s this constant striving for that idealized love-state that helps us become more than we started as, but it comes at the cost of a misguided belief that a woman is capable of, much less willing to love us as we think is possible.

A Place to Rest

Peregrine John summed it up best on Jacquie’s blog comments recently:

We want to relax. We want to be open and honest. We want to have a safe haven in which struggle has no place, where we gain strength and rest instead of having it pulled from us. We want to stop being on guard all the time, and have a chance to simply be with someone who can understand our basic humanity without begrudging it. To stop fighting, to stop playing the game, just for a while.

We want to, so badly.

If we do, we soon are no longer able to.

This is a realization that men don’t make until they are in a ‘love relationship’ with a woman. For men this is (should be) the catalyst for maturing beyond that want for an idealized unconditional love. At that point they come full circle and understand that the conceptual love they’d hoped they could return to (or could be) with their mother doesn’t exist in the woman he’s ‘in love’ with, and ultimately, never really existed between he and his mother from his infancy to adulthood.

There is no rest, there is no respite or reprieve from performing, but so strong is the desire for that unconditional love assurance that men thought it prudent to write it into “traditional” marriage vows – ‘for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love, cherish, and obey, forsaking all others until death do you part’ – in other words, a pledge of unconditional love in spite of all circumstance. Those vows are a direct plea for insurances against a female hypergamy that would otherwise be unfettered were it not made in the context of being before God and man.

In my post What’s Your Problem? I mention a 65 y.o man whom I used to counsel who’s wife had emotionally blackmailed him for over 20 years. He’d been married once before and divorced from his first wife after 12 years due to “not living up to her expectations” of financial provisioning. He never made the connection that the women he was ‘in love’ with had different concepts of what love meant to him. Rather, he evolved his previous concept of love wholesale to match that of women he ‘loved’, and thus his idea of love was one based upon an endless quest for qualifying for that love. In the first year of his second marriage he lost his job, and was unemployed for about 5 months, leaving his wife as the only revenue source for them. At the end of month 4 of his unemployment, after returning from an interview, he came home to find the locks changed on his home and two duffle bags “full of his shit” were waiting by the door. On top of them was a note written by his 2nd wife which, to the effect, read: “Don’t come back until you have a job.”

I remember him proudly recounting this story to me at the time, because he said, as pissed off as he was at the time, he was ‘grateful’ for her kicking him in the ass to be a “better man”. By this point his concept of love had been completely altered from his almost identical experiences with wife number one into a model that was entirely dependent upon his capacity to earn his wife’s love. Gone were the idealizations of unconditional love for the sake of love, to be replaced with the tactical, opportunistic concept of female love of his new wife. And, he was grateful for it.

After 20 years, at 65 (now 69) and in failing health he had come to realize that his efforts to secure her ‘love’ indefinitely had never been appreciated, only expected; so here he was facing the very cruel reality that he was losing his health and thus the means to maintain that incessant qualification for her love and affection.

The Reconciling

I get a lot of email and correspondence about the ruthlessness of my, I guess seminal, War Brides post. Guys have a hard time accepting the amorality of women’s inborn capacity to bond with their own captors as a psycho-socially adaptive survival trait, and how this evolved into women’s pronounced facility with which they can ‘get over’ former lovers so much faster than men seem to be capable of. Women don’t like me detailing this phenomenon for obvious reasons, but I think men dislike the notion of their easy ‘disposability’ because of that same inconsistency in gender concepts of love. Even as martyrs, even in death, that unconditional male concept of love is rebuked by women’s, by-necessity, fluid and utilitarian concept of love. As I stated yesterday, coming to terms with this is one of the most difficult aspects of taking the red pill.

I get that this seems overly nihilistic, but that’s the point. All of the very positive, very beneficial aspects of accepting a red pill reality come at the cost of abandoning the blue pill idealisms we’ve been conditioned to for so long. Leaving behind that polyanna, expectant, blue-pill dream seems like killing an old friend, but unlearning that old paradigm allows you to benefit from a far more hopeful red pill existence.

I’m not debating the genuineness or sincerity of women’s capacity to love. What I’m positing here is that women’s concept of love isn’t what men would be led to believe it is.

The Origin of Alpha

“Safe sex, safe clothing, safe hairspray, safe ozone layer,…too late! Everything that’s been achieved in the history of mankind has been achieved by not being safe.”
– Lemmy Kilmister, Mötorhead

In the Think Like a Woman post comments Rational Reader Jeremiah presented me with a well worn question:

My question is, Tomassi, do you think alpha traits are usually learned or genetically inherited? What percentage of modern men “get it” and of the men who “get it” how many of them have always “gotten it” and how many of them learned to adapt? It is hard to believe there are still naturals out there when feminism is being rammed up the anus of every man before he sprouts his first tooth.

As I’ve illuminated in past posts, I don’t think distilling the essence of Alpha ‘presence’ in a Man is as subjective as most people feel compelled to qualify, enumerate or otherwise yammer on about in as personally identifying a manner as they can muster. In this humble blogger’s estimation Alpha is a state of mind, not a demographic. The manosphere will endlessly debate the qualifications of what is Alpha, but I think for the most part, the influence of an Alpha mindset (whatever the qualifiers) is more or less agreed upon.

However, with this in mind, I think it’s a perfectly valid question to ask whether an Alpha is born that way or molded into his Alpha mindset. This is actually the classic debate psychology has always always put to its various schools of thought; Nature vs. Nurture – is a dynamic influenced by inherent, biological, environmental prompts or is that dynamic a learned, socialized and acculturated phenomenon? And of course the equally classic conflict comes from people attempting to define various dynamics in terms of absolutes, when to greater or lesser degrees a dynamic is influenced by both nature and nurturing elements.

While the Tomassi school of psychology is firmly planted in the nuts and bolts of behaviorism, it’s also important to take into account that external influences can and too often do modify innate, inborn predilections – even inborn self-preservation instincts.

So with this in mind, my perspective on the origin of Alpha is that biology determines the starting point for Alpha, what happens to it from there is modified by a man’s environmental conditions. Alpha ‘energy’, for lack of a better term, is to varying degrees, part of a male human’s biologically determined “starting package”; from there, through social feedback, it’s either refined and developed by his upbringing, acculturation and social affirming, or it’s repressed, constrained and mitigated by his social environment.

When I was in art school one of my most influential teachers told me, “There are two types of artists; those who were born with a natural, innate gift for art, and those who lack that gift, but possess such a passion for art that it drives them to be good at it. The true masters are the artists that combine both natural talent and the drive that comes from a passion for it.” I’ve always referred back to this model in my creative efforts, but I believe this model can be extended beyond just the artistic sense.

The Learned Alpha

Roosh has an excellent breakdown of The Myth of the Natural that perfectly encapsulates the learning theory of Alpha. The premise behind this is that Alpha behavior, and consequently facility with women, comes as a set of modeled behaviors based upon trial and error.

If I were forced to agree on what a natural is, it would be a man who’s a prodigy of sex—someone who gets laid way above other men with no formal instruction in game. This means he was not exposed to any 12 DVD “Cocky Humor” sets or seminars in a hotel room with three dozen other guys. You look at him and think, “Wow, he gets laid automatically. He was born to get laid!”

But he wasn’t. Just because he didn’t read a book doesn’t mean he didn’t learn through trial and error like you did, practicing his game on a large number of women. It doesn’t mean that he wasn’t conscious and deliberate with his behavior, incrementally improving his moves and tactics over a long period of time. He has experimented like you have experimented, and he has also connected his attempts with results to figure out what works and what doesn’t.

He may not be obsessive about it enough to log his data into a spreadsheet, but he’s mindful and aware of what he’s doing. He understands the mechanism behind charm and can often turn it on or off depending on what he wants. He has learned the type of humor and story-telling that gets a positive response in women. The last thing you can say about him was that he was born into the world with the “automatic” ability to fuck a lot of girls.

Essentially what Roosh explores here is a very basic behavioral psychology premise – macro-psychological dynamics to micro-psychological schema are developed, deliberately or unconsciously, through a process of deductive trial and error management. Whether you’re aware of it or not, everyone has Game to varying degrees. Every man you know has some concept of behaviors and mental attitudes he believes will best help him arrive at sexual intimacy with a woman. Even the worst Blue Pill Beta believes he has some idea of how best to get with a girl.

All of this proto-Game has been in a constant state of trial and error management since you were five years old and had your first interaction with the opposite sex on the kindergarten playground, right up to the point when you discovered the Red Pill. And you will continue to modify your old behavior and mental sets based upon the new information available to you after you adopt formalized Game. In fact, in its rawest sense, the PUA community, the manosphere and all its permutations are really a meta-effort in behavioral modification by way of experimentation and information feedback.

For some this learning process comes easier than it does for others. Again Roosh:

The reason he blows you away isn’t because of his genetics, but because of how early he started. A unique set of circumstances threw him into the sex game years before you, during a time he was lucky enough to be surrounded by giggly schoolgirls. By the time you did your first approach, he had already practiced his game on hundreds of women.

While I do agree with this from a behavioral standpoint, this is where I have to depart from accepting Roosh’s theory entirely. There are far too many biological and environmental determinants involved in developing an Alpha male to ascribe an Alpha status based solely on learned behavior. The simple, observable, fact is that a genetically better looking, more physically arousing male is going to statistically have more opportunities to experiment and develop his Alpha Game prowess than a less physically impressive male. In theory, a man with a more advantageous physical presence will “start earlier” in his process of deductively evaluating behaviors since his efforts will be more frequently encouraged by the women who are naturally attracted to his physique.

Unfortunately all of that assumes developing a behavioral set in a vacuum. There’s literally a world of environmental conditions and variables that would predispose a man towards behavioral development of Alpha status or (more often) limit him from it. Roosh touches on this:

At this point you may be thinking, “Well, there have to be guys who were born with it. Look at Mozart!”

Nobody questions that Mozart’s achievements were extraordinary compared with those of his contemporaries. What’s often forgotten, however, is that his development was equally exceptional for his time. His musical tutelage started before he was four years old, and his father, also a skilled composer, was a famous music teacher and had written one of the first books on violin instruction. Like other world-class performers, Mozart was not born an expert—he became one.

I don’t think this example excludes for a natural, innate talent, but it does help to illustrate the environment’s role in molding a person by limiting or encouraging his behavioral development and ultimately his personality. In the Mozart example we see the success story (the story of a master artist) of a natural talent encouraged and developed to potential by favorable external conditions. Mozart was the perfect storm of natural talent and an ideal environment for nurturing it, thus giving him the advantage of an “early start” in his behavioral trial and error efforts.

Jeremiah laments, “It is hard to believe there are still naturals out there when feminism is being rammed up the anus of every man before he sprouts his first tooth” and of course this is a negative example of an environment (deliberately) averse to nurturing an Alpha mindset. There’s no shortage of examples, but feminization from a behavioral psychology perspective, is nothing less than a socialized effort in deliberate behavioral modification of men’s natural drives and predilections to better fit the feminine imperative. As men socialized in an all-encompassing, pervasive, fem-centric reality, we tend to see “Natural Alphas” as outliers because somehow, through some combination of innate gift and external development, these Men have developed themselves into an Alpha state despite the meta-environment we find ourselves in.

The Natural Alpha

A lot of people call my credibility into question when they read my holding Corey Worthington up as an example of an apex Alpha. Guys who believe that Alpha should necessarily mean “virtuous leaders of men” are understandably insulted by Corey’s indifferent Alpha swagger. As I started in this post, the ‘Qualities of Alpha’ debates aren’t going away, but I think there’s an overall consensus among the manosphere and legitimate psychologists alike that there is an innate (probably testosterone fueled) Alpha drive that manifests itself in human males.

No one has to teach the average, healthy, five-year-old boy how to be Alpha – he gets it on his own. In various contexts that ‘lil’ Alpha’ wants to explore his surroundings, take risks, see what works and see what doesn’t, even when the consequences may be endangering himself or destroying the thing he took apart to see how it worked. It may manifest as a boy attempting to ride wheelies on his bike or a kid tinkering with his dad’s computer, but that unrefined, irrationally confident, Alpha swagger, is by order of degrees, an innate element unique to the male condition.

When a boy is unencumbered with an adult capacity for abstract thinking (ages 3-21 progressively) he is as Alpha as he will ever be. He is unapologetically Alpha and it takes a lifetime, and an entire world of feminized social conditioning to repress and/or crush that Alpha vigor and turn him into the pliable Beta the feminine imperative needs to insure its social primacy. This is precisely why the raw, irresponsible, irrepressible, obliviously un-self-aware Alpha energy of the Alpha Buddah/Corey Worthingtons of the world offend our sensibilities so well.

All of the Game theory, PUA techniques, even feminine-serving appeals to Man-Up! or any other effort designed to help men better mimic or internalize an Alpha behavioral or mind set, all of those efforts’ latent purpose is to return a man back to that primal Alpha energy the five-year-old you had in spades.

Ultimatum

A comment on the Iron Rule of Tomassi #4

Rollo mentioned that once a woman gets into a cohabitating situation, that her sexual availability markedly decreases. It seems to me that so long as the man is able to give and act out the ultimatum that “either I get a sexually satisfying relationship or I’m out (or you’re out, if it’s my place)”, then there should be no problem.

Sure, there are financial and legal entanglements, but this would be akin to dead money on any investment – sure it hurts, but that’s the risk one takes. And in the case of a lease, the man could always take the attitude that he wants out, and is only living in the apartment because he is on the lease (he could always go back to his available bachelor days.)

Interesting you used the word “ultimatum” here. It’s important that you understand what an ultimatum implies. Whenever a person delivers an ultimatum, always understand that this is a declaration of powerlessness. In other words, “I am so out of control in this circumstance you must do this or I will remove either myself or you from the circumstance.”

First off, in this particular instance it’s far more likely that you’ll be the one leaving considering the preference modern legalities give women today with regard to evicting them from such a situation. Secondly, it only confirms for her what she wants to know, that she is your one and ONLY source of sexual intimacy and by you cohabiting with her, emotionally, financially and logistically it makes it almost impossible for you to really make good on your ultimatum. You only consolidate her sexual monopoly by living with her.

I’ve already gone into all the practical reasons as to why a guy should never move in with a woman in Iron Rule #4, but I think it may be better to ask yourself why you do want to move in with her. What are you benefitting from in this situation that you aren’t by remaining independent of each other? For most guys the fantasy is more accessible sex, but if you’re living as you suggest here already, how is living together any different? And even if this were the case, that you had more sex with her by living together, you are still assuming a greater degree of responsibility, accountability and liability in your relationship and in your day to day life in exchange for that sexual accessibility. How is that an advantage? How is that not like marriage anyway?

As I’ve stated in the prior posts, when you commit to ANYTHING – women, career, education, family, etc. – you necessarily lose options and your ability to maneuver in taking advantage of them.

Ultimatums

Ultimatums are declarations of powerlessness because you are resorting to a direct threat to get someone to do what you want them to, and in doing so you OVERTLY confess your weak position. If you were in a genuine position of control it wouldn’t be necessary to resort to an ultimatum; you’d simply use that control. There are many ways to effect a change in another person, but ultimatums will never prompt a genuine change. If they change behavior it’s prompted by the threat, not unprompted, organic desire.

One of the primary tenets of my Game philosophy is that true desire cannot be negotiated. A natural, unsolicited desire state, unmitigated by obligation or concerns for resources exchange, is the ideal basis for any intergender relationship. Any factors that introduce elements that hinder this genuine desire – exchange, negotiations, obligations, reciprocity, etc. – weaken this desire and weaken the relationship. Delivering an ultimatum is the most direct, overt way to introduce exactly these elements into a relationship.

Now you might say that an ultimatum is implied in how you stated this it to her, or the context it was in. If this was your intent, you are still in a position of powerlessness since you are still trying to get this person to do what you want. It’s not what you can do to her (i.e. withdrawing your attentions) that’s the power issue, but the actual desired result, getting her to genuinely have a desire to do what she has no desire to do.

I should also add that ultimatums are, ultimately, self-defeating. You can keep your dog from running off by chaining him in the yard, but that dog still wants to run off. You cannot effect a genuine change of desire with an ultimatum as your relationship will be founded on that threat. And this is the real power issue; that you’d want a person to conform to your desire so badly that you’d use a threat to effect it in spite of the foreknowledge that it can never be a genuine conformation because they didn’t orginate it and did so only under duress.

So from your standpoint, yes you do have the power to affect your own actions (like walking away), but you are powerless to force her to do what you want (prompt a genuine desire in her), thus you resort to an ultimatum and only illustrate this OVERTLY.

Boundaries

It’s very important to make the distinction between setting boundaries and delivering ultimatums. Men with a head for absolutisms seem to think that avoiding ultimatums is the same as spinelessly avoiding laying down the law and setting the frame for a relationship (or even a particular plate they’re spinning). Establishing boundaries and assuming frame requires exemplification and demonstration. As with the 9th Law of Power: Win Through Your Actions, Never through Argument – demonstrate, do not explicate. There is no more overt an explication than your delivering an ultimatum. Ultimatums only lead to behavioral shifts based on the fear of repercussions, never a genuine desire for that behavior.

However, a continuous demonstration of what you necessitate in a relationship is vital to its health and your continued primacy of frame. Telling a woman what’s what or else often smacks of insecurity and childishness, but a firm discussion-less enacting of what is important to you and necessary for any future relationship viscerally teaches her what is expected by experiencing the very repercussions you ultimatum would only advertise to her.

Point, Counterpoint

For women it’s the story of Me.

As I’ve mentioned in past essays, the communicative methods characteristic of each gender primarily stem from differences in both brain function and acculturation. Women tend to rely on emotive and experiential instincts to develop an opinion or belief; men tend to rely on deductive reasoning from generalized facts to specific premises to come to an opinion.

This then is reflected in either gender’s preferred method of communication – women in the nuanced and covert, men in the blunt and overt. Using this as a premise, I’m of the opinion that the vast majority of failings to come to what should be an easy, logical consensus among both genders is frustrated by each gender’s interpretation of a problem or a social issue.

From a male perspective there is an assumption that a well reasoned, well cited establishment of point will be understood and respected as fact for a general purpose of resolving a debate. Statistics, analysis, correlation of fact and connecting related ideas and information should all serve to make a cogent argument. This isn’t to say that men wont use personal experience to illustrate a point, but the purpose in doing so is rooted in making his example an easy to understand version of his reasoned perspective. For the greater part, men’s reasonings are derived from extrinsic sources, while using intrinsic sources to embellish or illustrate a specific premise.

Women on the other hand almost exclusively rely upon personal experience and anecdotal evidence to form a premise; only using extrinsic information to support their personal interpretations when the source agrees with that premise. The innate solipsism of women promotes a self-centric primary position as the beginning of forming a premise and then progresses to extrinsic sources for ancillary support.

Case in point: Careers and Marriage. This linked article is from a 2006 opinion piece published by Forbes Magazine. Bear in mind that this is roughly six years ago; well before the current ‘Man Up’ frenzy that the Hymowitz and Bollick’s articles inspired. As you read, notice the argumentative positions each author begins with. Michael Noer’s piece begins with a concise statement of premise and then followed by reasoned extrinsic data:

While everyone knows that marriage can be stressful, recent studies have found professional women are more likely to get divorced, more likely to cheat and less likely to have children. And if they do have kids, they are more likely to be unhappy about it. A recent study in Social Forces, a research journal, found that women–even those with a “feminist” outlook–are happier when their husband is the primary breadwinner.

Elizabeth Corcoran begins her counter opinion from her own personal perspective:

OK, call me a cougar. I’ve been working since the day I graduated from college 20-odd years ago. I have two grade-school-aged children. Work definitely takes up more than 35 hours a week for me. Thankfully, I do seem to make more than $30,000. All of which, according to Michael, should make me a wretched wife.

In spite of those dangerous statistics, my husband and I are about to celebrate our 18th wedding anniversary. You’ll see us snuggling at a mountain-winery concert this month, enjoying the occasion. I don’t think I’m all that unusual–so it seemed like a good time to test Michael’s grim assertions.

Peppy, sassy, and containing all the elements of indignation that women crave to hold their interest while wrapped in a personalization that puts women (her deliberate target readership), into an associative role. Essentially she’s inviting women to live vicariously through her exceptional experience to prove a counterpoint.

Many factors contribute to a stable marriage, including the marital status of your spouse’s parents (folks with divorced parents are significantly more likely to get divorced themselves), age at first marriage, race, religious beliefs and socio-economic status. And, of course, many working women are indeed happily and fruitfully married–it’s just that they are less likely to be so than nonworking women. And that, statistically speaking, is the rub

Here Michael reasons from statistical evidence and even makes a slight point of contrition to allow for exception to those statistics. Elizabeth then opts to redirect the debate:

The experts cited in his story think that professional women are more likely to get divorced, to cheat and to be grumpy about either having kids or not having them. But rather than rush to blame the woman, let’s not overlook the other key variable: What is the guy doing?

Note to guys: Start by going to the gym. Then try some new music. Or a book. Or a movie. Keep connected to the rest of the world. You’ll win–and so will your marriage.

It’s easy to see this as the shaming tactic it is, but it’s also an attempt to reframe the debate by focusing on what women always return to as preeminent in any debate – satisfying the feminine imperative. If Michael’s pont is in fact valid then the fault lies with men, not women. And how does a woman establish this premise? By casting herself and feminine primacy as the operative goal.

Nobel laureate Gary S. Becker argued that when the labor specialization in a marriage decreases–if, for example, both spouses have careers–the overall value of the marriage is lower for both partners because less of the total needed work is getting done, making life harder for both partners and divorce more likely. And, indeed, empirical studies have concluded just that.

Again, Michael provides expert witness to fortify his premise. Elizabeth continues with the story of Me:

For us, the list starts with taxes, vacation planning and investment management. My husband likes that stuff, and it leaves me yawning. Bless him for doing it. Give me the wireless Internet system, the garden or just about any routine home repairs, and I’m suddenly the savant. Tear us apart, and we’d both be pitiful idiots trying to learn unfamiliar routines.

Michael is right that longer work hours force two-career couples to try harder to clear out blocks of family time. When we do, though, we get to enjoy a lot more. We understand each other’s career jokes and frustrations. We’re better sounding boards on what to do next. And at dinner parties, we actually like to be seated at the same table.

Feel free to pick through the entire article, but you get the illustration here. Such as it is, I haven’t drawn attention to this to put women’s argumentative approach or opinion formation into a bad light. Rather I’ve done so to give Men a better perspective of what to expect when a difference of opinion arises. There is in fact some merit to calculating personal feelings and experiences into both sides of a debate. A feminine approach may help to buffer a man’s more cold understanding of fact, while a masculine rationalism serves to buffer women’s emotionalist perspective.

The problem with appreciating both of these approaches is that in the present feminine-centric environment we find ourselves in, feminine primacy takes precedent. A woman’s feelings and interpretations are the de facto correct ones, and statistical analysis or a more rational approach is an impediment to this. You’ll see this played out in any forum or blog comment thread in which there is disagreement between genders. For Men their position comes about by objective consensus and aggregate data; for women it’s the story of Me.