In the past I’ve discussed the hesitancy of young men to refer to themselves as ‘men’ or to really even embrace what might be considered a ‘conventional’ idea of masculinity. You’ve probably read me using that word before. I use the word conventional because I feel it conveys a better understanding of a naturalized expression of masculinity in a way that men evolved into. Occasionally I have a reader ask me why I don’t use the term ‘traditional’ with respect to masculinity, but I’m not sure they really mean the same thing.
It’s easy to think of masculinity in terms of tradition, but whose tradition are we really referring to? ‘Traditional Masculinity’ as a term has assumed a derogatory meaning in a feminine-primary social order. It’s become one of those catch-terms that we’re all supposed to understand as being characteristic of backward mindsets. It’s part of the social convention that seeks to ridicule, shame and confuse boys who later become men about what masculinity ought to mean to them. So, it’s for this reason I use the word ‘conventional’. It conveys the idea that masculinity in a binary sense has evolved aspects that are inherent and unique to men. So while certain cultures may have had different traditions and traditional roles for men, there is a unifying conventionality of masculinity that relates to all men and maleness in general.
Feminine-centrism doesn’t like this idea. It doesn’t like the idea that masculine characteristics or behaviors are the sole propriety of men. The reflex then is to paint any conventionally masculine attribute, way of thinking, aggression, passion or aspiration as either representative of ‘toxic’ harmful or anti-social, or, depending on its usefulness in securing power, it’s cast as something “not necessarily masculine” since some women can lay claim to that trait.
In several prior posts I’ve outlined how boys are taught from a very early age to gender-loathe their maleness. It’s part of Blue Pill conditioning, but more so, I think it’s important for Blue Pill or unplugging adult men to understand the mechanics and reasoning behind why it’s in the Feminine Imperative’s interests to keep conventional masculinity something ambiguous, arbitrary or something men ought to be able to fluidly define for themselves. That last part there is important, because what most men think is their own self-definition of masculinity is always founded in what the Feminine Imperative has conditioned him to believe is correct.
Latent Purposes
In a social order that’s ostensibly founded upon a baseline equalism (in principle) among men and women we have to look at why it might be necessary for boys to be taught that ‘traditional’ masculinity is toxic. The easy answer is a want for control, but not so much in the terms of convincing boys to become men who will loathe their maleness. Remember, there’s a lot of conventional masculinity that is conveniently useful to further the interests of women and Hypergamy – but the conditioning becomes one of selectively classifying the useful aspects as ‘healthy’ and the non-useful ones as ‘toxic’.
The most important thing to consider here is that, for future men, equalism’s purpose in their upbringing is to prevent them from ever internalizing the idea that they should be their own mental point of origin. This I think is one of the fundamental issues most Blue Pill men struggle with in their own unplugging.
One of the old books, traditional, understandings is that men, by virtue of being male, can expect a degree of authority in their lives and in their families. A man may not be the boss at work, but the traditional understanding was that he could expect to be the head of household in his own home. Feminine primacy, under the auspices of equalism, has effectively conditioned this idea out of men over the course of generations. If men and women are blank-slate functional equals, ideally, there will never be a default authority in an intersexual relationship.
From a conventional, evolutionary perspective we know this baseline equalism is not just false, but we also understand that it serves as a control over the masculine nature men are born into. Men and women are different; cognitively, neurologically, biologically and psychologically, but our socialized presumptions with regard to how boys are raised to be men deliberately conditions them to believe we are the same – or at least functionally so.
The Crime of Being Male
There’s been some pushback to this in our Red Pill awakening, and not all of it is the result of the manosphere. As Hypergamy becomes more openly embraced in a larger social respect, more men are made aware of their deliberate conditioning to accommodate it. What they choose to do with that awareness is up to them, but the response from the Feminine Imperative to this awareness is to criminalize or make toxic the embrace of conventional masculinity on the part of men. It becomes a hate-crime to express any conventionally male attribute.
This is a potential danger for Blue Pill men in that the expressions of maleness that they display are on one hand desired by women, but also a risk to their reputation or livelihood if that expression is offensive to women. Red Pill aware men may have the advantage of knowing women’s nature well enough to mitigate the risks, but Blue Pill men will be stuck in a paradigm that puts them at risk for wanting to be men.
Again, equalist Blue Pill conditioning’s purpose is to prevent men from assuming themselves as their mental point of origin, but once a man’s disabused himself of putting the feminine as his primary internal concern there must be an opposite, contingent, reaction on the part of the Feminine Imperative to put him back into compliance. Thus, we see the criminalization of maleness.
Pedestals
For some time it’s been a manosphere staple to tell guys to take the girl off the pedestal if he wants to be successful with women. We call it pedestalization, but one reason that dynamic, to put a woman on a higher order than oneself, is so pervasive in men is due exactly to this “equalist” conditioning. The internalization is one of making that girl, that woman, the centerpiece of a man’s headspace. This becomes who he is and it’s the result of a childhood that taught him he must place the concerns of girls above his own on many different psychological levels.
Once that guy becomes Red Pill aware, no matter who does his unplugging, not only does he remove girls from the pedestal personally, but also on a larger sociological scope. And this scope is what the Feminine Imperative must pushback against.
Blue Pill conditioning teaches boys/men to cast doubt on their own masculinity. What constitutes masculinity? Is it a mask or a performance they put on? Is it something to be proud of or some problem to keep in check? Should boys/men feel insecure or secure about it? These are the consistent ambiguities the Feminine Imperative wants to invest into the next generations of men because it keeps women on the pedestal. Only women possess the solution to their problem of maleness.
But the Blue Pill also conditions boys/men to never presume to consider themselves as a “man”. The joke is that men are never really men, but rather they become ‘bigger boys’. This is a social convention that attempts to keep men in a juvenilized state and thus ensuring women are the only ‘adults’ to make the judgement call. This ridicule has the purpose of denying men their status of ‘manhood’. If men are perpetual boys, they can never assume the default ‘headship’ of being men. It is a control for authority.
This is another reason men are conditioned to keep women on the pedestal; only women can confirm ‘manhood’ from a superior (mental) position in that man’s mind. When a woman is at the top of a man’s mental point of origin – and not even a specific woman, but womankind – she decides his status of being a man. So it follows that men ought to internalize the doubt of understanding manhood or conventional masculinity.
So, the struggle men have in coming to a Red Pill awareness is one of removing women from this pedestal, but also one of giving oneself permission to be a man. This may seem kind of simplistic, but to a guy who’s been conditioned to put women before himself in his own internal, mental, conversations it’s a very tough challenge. Blue Pill conditioning invests a doubt into boys and then men. They are conditioned to self-regulate on many levels, but to generally put their own concerns beneath those of others and largely the feminine. They are taught to self-sublimate by never giving themselves permission to be “men” in a conventional sense.
Never Self-Deprecate under any circumstance. This is a Kiss of Death that you self-initiate and is the antithesis of the Prize Mentality. Once you’ve accepted yourself and presented yourself as a “complete douche” there’s no going back to confidence with a woman. Never appeal to a woman’s sympathies. Her sympathies are given by her own volition, never when they are begged for – women despise the obligation of sympathy. Nothing kills arousal like pity. Even if you don’t seriously consider yourself pathetic, it never serves your best interest to paint yourself as pathetic. Self-Depreciation is a misguided tool for the AFC, and not something that would even occur to an Alpha.
One important reason I made this an Iron Rule was because it’s almost a default response of men to presume their own ridiculousness. The reflexive response is of course to not take yourself so seriously and have an ability to laugh at yourself when it’s merited. That’s all fine and well, a necessity for a healthy sense of self, but few men realize their ease with self-deprecation is a result of their conditioning to find themselves ridiculous as men. “Men” are ridiculous.
It’s very easy for Red Pill aware men to lose sight of what the Blue Pill conditions men for and how this conditioning has evolved over the course of generations. The latent purpose remains the same (preventing men from adopting their own mental point of origin), but the methods and social mores change fluidly with what the Feminine Imperative finds most efficient for the time. For the past 20 years there’s been a concentrated effort to remove men from deciding their own manhood for themselves.
Rites of Passage
From Remove the Man:
Guys vs. Men
I was participating in a conversation just recently with a young woman of 26 and a young man of 18. The conversation itself wasn’t important, but at one point the young man referred to himself as a ‘Man’. He said something to the effect of, “Well I’m a man, and men do,..” At the word ‘man’ she cut him off with the unconscious snigger that’s resulted from years of feminine ridicule conditioning. Just the mention of a man self-referencing as a “man” is enough to inspire feminine ridicule. It’s laughable for a man to consider himself a man.
This exchange got me to wondering about the turning point at which I began to self-reference as a “Man”. In the face of a constant conditioned ridicule, it’s almost an uncomfortable recognition to distinguish yourself as a Man. It’s too easy to just think of yourself as a ‘guy’ and never be so presumptuous as to insist upon your manhood. In girl-world, to claim to be a Man is to admit to arrogance – it’s to embrace a flawed nature.
It’s important to note here that in embracing your status as a Man, instead of ‘just a guy’, you are passing a meta-shit test. By embracing self-referenced manhood, you are rejecting what a world aligned against you would like you to believe about yourself. You’re endorsing yourself as a Man with self-assurance despite the self-doubt the Feminine Imperative relies upon men believing about themselves, masculinity and the dubious state of manhood as a whole. By flagrantly referring to yourself as a Man you are passing the meta-shit test – you’re overtly stating you’re a Man, but you you’re covertly stating “I Just Get It.”
One of the key elements to unplugging is changing your mind about yourself. This is one of the biggest obstacle to guys coming to accept a Red Pill aware reality. This self-denial of their own ‘manhood’, which becomes a resistance to embracing anything conventionally masculine as being positive, is a foreign thought.
As I mentioned in that post, there used to be a time when boys would go through some rite of passage and be considered a ‘man’ by his family and peers. It’s important for Red Pill men to realize how this passage into a state of manhood has been deliberately confused or shamed out of significance to all but the most traditional of cultures.
Most male rites of passage are painted as cruel and barbaric hazing rituals in a fem-centric society. That’s a popularized and easy connection to make, but what underlies this effort to disqualify manhood as legitimate is a push to force men into compliance with the Feminine Imperative and feminine-primacy.
I would suggest that men coming into a Red Pill awareness need to embrace being a “man”. Red Pill men need a rite of passage of some sort. Sometimes we ask about when a guy finally came into his Red Pill awareness. We compare stories about what we were like when we were still living in a Blue Pill paradigm and then what form of trauma (or not) triggered that Blue Pill disillusionment. We discuss going through the various stages of grief for our past Blue Pill idealism, the nihilism, the anger, the disbelief, then the acceptance and the new enthusiasm of being Red Pill aware and the potential that means.
But there needs to be a rite of passage for passing from that Blue Pill state to a new Red pill awareness and part of this should be a conscious acknowledgement of giving yourself permission to be a man. This needs to be part of changing your mind about yourself as you become more aware of the agency you really have in a conventionally male respect. You need a point at which you set yourself apart from Blue Pill men and a feminine-primary social order.
Most (Beta) guys have a difficult time embracing the authority and due deference that being a conventional man should convey to him. They are uncomfortable on an ego-personality level with accepting this dominant male role because it goes against everything their feminine-centric upbringing has taught them to internalize.
However, with that authority comes responsibility. I would argue that many a Blue Pill guy is comforted by the lies of equalism because he believes that egalitarianism and the expectations that men and women are functional equals in some way exempts him from his uniquely male burden of performance. On some level of consciousness, even the Beta men who are comforted by equalism still realize that their maleness, their ‘secure’ masculinity, will only ever be merited and judged by his performance. And that performance is firmly grounded in conventionally male tests.