plate theory

The Marriage Game

As a few of my readers know my daughter is presently a sophomore at college. Every time she reaches a new milestone in her life I have a tendency to mentally go back in time in my own life and consider how utterly different her experiences are in comparison to my own. At 19 the thought of being as organized and honestly well off as she is in life now would never have occurred to me. For a very brief moment in my life back then I’d kept a journal of what it was I was doing and thinking at the time. My first ‘real’ girlfriend had given me this blank journal (she was one of those girls who wrote diaries) to write my thoughts in and being the Beta I was then most of it was filled with my Blue Pill frustration with girls. She’d gifted me this journal, I found out later, as an effort to absolve her of all the guilt she knew was coming her way for having cheated on me and deciding that, at 18 herself, she wanted to move on into her Party Years without the baggage of a dutiful Beta who thought he was going to marry her.

This was 1988 and the then 19 year old Rollo Tomassi was very much a typical Blue Pill Beta. I sometimes read back through the dozen or so pages I actually took the time to write back then to remind myself how I thought back then. I was very much and idealistic Beta back then, but I had several other friends who subscribed to the same Blue Pill delusions; and now with hindsight I realize this phase in a Beta’s life is one that was around long before and long after I went through it. This was the ‘Break Phase’ I outline in Preventive Medicine.

As it turned out, the girl who I predictably developed ONEitis for, the first girl to spread her legs for me (‘enthusiastically’), the girl I thought had to be “quality” if she appreciated a guy like me, was every bit the ‘play the field’ skank I would’ve never called her because it was what a “typical male” would say about her. At one point I had thought I’d want to marry her. My Blue Pill conditioning had taught me it would be the right, “supportive” thing to do; marry her and support her ambitions and goals (it’s what good Blue Pill boys ought to do) at the sacrifice of my own. And as directionless as I was then, that was an easy decision to make.

My daughter recently informed me that her boyfriend’s best friend just proposed to his girlfriend at 19. Both this guy and his girlfriend are also sophomores at the same school and this is what triggered the reminiscing for me. At 49, and having lived the life I have and the experiences I use on this blog today, I’m very glad my first girlfriend dumped me. That’s hard to say sometimes, particularly when I think back on the pit of misery years I spent with the BPD girlfriend I’d gotten involved with later, but I’m thankful for those bad experiences as much as the good ones. So, it’s really difficult for me to tell my daughter’s friend “oh, congratulations”.

It’s very difficult for me to endorse anyone getting married at so early an age these days or when I was 19. Modern marriage is a menagerie of horrors for today’s men. People say, “Rollo you’re married, how come you’re so hard on marriage?” It’s either that or they presume my marriage is a shit show and I’m venting like a petulant boy. When I’m critical of marriage it’s in spite of my own (very happy for 21 years) marriage. But I cannot condone it for men today – not in its present state. Hardline MGTOWs and PUAs agree on one thing, if you ever consider marriage you’re Blue Pill. I’ve written in many prior posts that I don’t necessarily agree with that assessment, but I do understand it. The risks today far outweigh the rewards, but still there are men who, even with Red Pill awareness, will still take it on.

There’s a running debate I have going on with Hunter Drew (The Family Alpha) and Tanner Guzy (Masculine Style) about how marriage is a lifestyle decision, and depending on how informed a man is about the risks he assumes and when he decides to get married, this decision is literally a question of life or death for that guy. Both these guys married early in life, both have kids, and both will have far different experiences than myself in this respect. Both of them and myself have assumed the risks and sacrifices this entails. I’m fully aware that my wife can detonate the marriage at any time. I’m sure both Hunter and Tanner are well aware that their wives also have the right to have them removed from their home and take their children away from them for any reason. But we’re all married, and as I wrote in Surrender, we have all willingly put ourselves in the most vulnerable position a man can be in; we’ve bet our lives, livelihoods and the future health and happiness of our kids and families on what today is the ultimate suckers bet for a man. And what’s worse, we cannot ever expect women or our wives to ever relate with just how dangerous a position we willingly put ourselves in.

So I’m thinking about all of this after my daughter tells me about this 19 year old kid proposing to his girlfriend. Statistically his marriage will end before he’s 28. I would also bet that, like myself at 19, he’s making a decision that will affect him and his fiancé’s based on Blue Pill idealism – an idealism that’s informed by the Feminine Imperative and delusions of egalitarian equalism. Naturally I can’t possibly think this is a good idea. If I were this boy’s father I’d strongly advise against it, but there are others in the manosphere who would encourage this.

“Grown” Men

There’s an old saying that goes “marriage is our last, best chance for growing up”. I also disagree with this from the perspective of today’s version of marriage, but I understand how homey platitudes like this are appealing to a social order of men who it seems don’t want to grow up. It’s becoming a new way of AMOGing (particularly in religious circles); if you’ve got your shit together enough to see the wisdom in being married and starting a family you’re a “better man” than the ‘boys’ who they believe want to extend their adolescence. It’s really nothing new.

According to strategic pluralism theory (Gangestad & Simpson, 2000), men have evolved to pursue reproductive strategies that are contingent on their value on the mating market. More attractive men accrue reproductive benefits from spending more time seeking multiple mating partners and relatively less time investing in offspring. In contrast, the reproductive effort of less attractive men, who do not have the same mating opportunities, is better allocated to investing heavily in their mates and offspring and spending relatively less time seeking additional mates.

This is one half of strategic pluralism theory for men. Men who invest themselves in the long term aspect will always look for ways to validate their inability or unwillingness to pursue multiple partners. It’s easy to think that these men make their necessity a virtue, and that may or may not be the case, but what’s undeniable is that investing themselves in a one-mate strategy necessarily selects them out of experiences with women that would otherwise aid them in vetting a woman as a good long term prospect. The Blue Pill has always subjugated men to be predisposed to the one-mate investment strategy while simultaneously encouraging women to adopt a multiple mate strategy. That may seem counterintuitive, but when we look at the Sheryl Sandberg plan for Hypergamy we can see that what they believe is prudence is having a large selection of potential husbands from which to choose.

In Trad-Con manosphere thinking it seems like conventional wisdom to encourage men and women to marry younger. Look at where we’re at today; women forestall marriage – ostensibly to further a career, but really to falsely extend their Hypergamous decision making years – until their Epiphany Phase (29-31) or even beyond by freezing their eggs. Men take much more time to mature into their peak SMV potential, but what’s the common complaint? These men aren’t “being men” by preparing themselves for a life of family and marriage. They aren’t catering their lives’ decisions to fulfill women’s sexual strategy, and really what incentive do they have to when women are following the Sandbergian path of Hypergamy? Men and women marry later and later – if at all. Women unmarried by the time they’re 34-35 are likely to never marry in their lives.

Marrying Early

So it seems like wisdom to tell this kid, “good on you”, in spite of all the odds staked against him and despite the Blue Pill idealistic delusions that are prompting him to propose. Trad-Cons love the idea of a return to something resembling “traditional values” in order to save western culture from itself, but it’s important to remember that those old books values are really just leverage in a new books world.

Marrying early, as I said, is usually the result of Blue Pill naiveté. Both young men and women are still ignorant of who they are or who they have a potential to become. I see a lot of early-marrieds originating in religious circles because this is their only means to “legitimate” sex, but there are the guys who see marrying early a better way to ensure ‘permanent’ sex for themselves. In some respects it’s almost a blessing that women at this age are so anti-marriage – most young men on the investment side of strategic pluralism are far too willing to kill their own dreams to accommodate their investment.

Marriages that begin between 20-24 are almost 39% more likely to end in divorce. A lot of this, I speculate, is due to women feeling like they need to make up for missing out. The idealism of young Blue Pill men marrying early has one big obstacle and that’s the influence of Hypergamy on their wives. In Preventive Medicine I made the case that no matter the woman’s choices she makes or has made for her in life, it will not negate Hypergamy’s influence on her. Yes, that influence can be mitigated culturally (laughable in western societies) or personally, but it doesn’t remove the evolved influence. By the time that 20 year old mother and wife is 30, she’s had ten years to develop the resentment of her choice by living vicariously through her single girlfriends’ experiences. The context may change, but Hypergamy doesn’t.

Early marriage limits a man’s potential. Trad-Cons will fight me on this one, but the responsibilities of marriage and parenting will necessarily limit a man from opportunities he would otherwise have were he single. Aristotle said, “The Ideal age for marriage in men is 35. The Ideal age for marriage in women is 18”, not unlike my sexual market value graph, but the reason for this is because it takes much longer for a man to establish himself as a man. The simple truth is that part of the sacrifice of being married means a man will not be able to capitalize on opportunities he would have were he single. Some opportunities may never even be made available to him because of him being married. This isn’t something most early-marrying men consider.

Men who marry early and stick it out through their peak SMV years often feel the mid-life crisis (epiphany) years much more acutely. This is kind of the man’s making up for missing out resentment a wife may feel as she becomes more and more aware that she can’t compete in the SMP for a better Hypergamous prospect. I don’t believe men have a “crisis” per se around this time, but what they do experience is a sense of introspection that’s colored by their now better capacity to understand the game they’ve been a part of with regards to women. When a man’s married well this is less of an issue, but there is a definite remorse over the “life he could’ve lived” if only he’d known better. This is an assessment of the sacrifices he’s made, how they paid off (if at all) and a sort of survey of his life up to that point.

The biggest ‘con’ to early marriage is that it’s always going to be a learn as you go prospect while trying to establish a world that a his wife of the future will want to defer herself to. This worked far better in a culture and time when women would be compelled to defer to a man’s mastery due to religion, social norms and respect. We do not live in those day anymore and women have actionable ‘outs’ of any commitment that doesn’t suit them, while men have more responsibilities to qualify themselves to suit women.

Advantages?

Early marriage has a few advantages, but all of these depend on the personal nature of the woman a man marries. That sounds kind of obvious, but if you go into a marriage with a solid Frame and a woman who expects to defer to your dominance, I think young marrieds might have a better shot at long term success. If a woman is a virgin, yes, this can be a real source of attachment for her if her husband imprints on her as solidly dominant Alpha. I always advise men not to get involved with a virgin girl if his only plan is to spin her as a plate. There is far too significant and imprinting with virgin women and sex with an Alpha man, or even a guy who seemed Alpha. This is the recipe for an Alpha Widow, but in a marriage it can make for a strong bond.

As has been mentioned countless times, the most stable and healthy way to raise children is in a committed marriage. This might be the only advantage marriage may have for a man today. In an early marriage I would think that a woman being at her sexual market value peak, combined with following her true biological clock (her prime fertility window 22-26) the odds of having happy healthy children are improved. I have a cousin who spent more than half his life building himself into a millionaire architect, but at my age (49) his children are 5 and 7. I can’t imagine living this life now. I suppose money might make it easier, but evolutionarily speaking he and I should effectively be grandfathers by now. I married at 28 and there are advantages and disadvantages to this as well, but I cannot imagine having young children at my age.

Finally, for the “well, duh” moment, it goes without saying that a young wife/mother should necessarily be playing on your team. The only possible successful prospect for a younger marriage to have any stability is if that woman understands what it is she’s sacrificing. Women likewise sacrifice their own personal potentials and later this becomes their source of resentment. The stakes are high for men, particularly if they aren’t Red Pill aware, but women too must understand her own sacrifices; I think this is the most difficult thing. Women’s solipsism, Hypergamous nature and a social order that ‘fempowers’ them to believe not only can they “have it all” but are entitled to it all makes this the bridge too far for young marriage.

In the Trad-Con sphere today there is a constant droning for personal responsibility on the part of men. There is little to none about the responsibilities of women. We’re constantly told that women are only the way they are because men have allowed it. I’ve written before that this is a cop out and an absolving of women’s complicity that mirrors what the Feminine Imperative has put forth. Women are taught not to do anything “for a man” and anything a woman does that might be expressly for a man is is conflated with subservience. Consequently we get generations of women who only indulge their natural solipsism and expect men’s sacrifices as part of the utilities. This is one of the primary reasons all marriages fail; there is no complementarity. Marriage becomes nothing but a naked exchange of resources on the part of the man and anything a woman might do ‘for’ him is frowned upon. And don’t think this is just limited to those blue haired feminists, you can find it at your church.

Women can only willingly want to please a man whose Frame is the dominant one. You’ve got to have that world established that she wants to enter and become a complementary, supportive (of you) and willing participant in. This world-building takes time. Women evolved to seek competency in men. Hypergamy cannot afford to bet all of a woman’s genetic legacy on a guy who has “potential” – they want the proven commodity. This is one reason women look for men older and taller than they are. More importantly, you need a woman who is playing on your team, not against you. And sadly this is the state of marriage promoted by the Feminine Imperative today. Egalitarianism doesn’t promote complementary cooperation, it promotes an adversarial state of competition between husband and wife.

The Reconstruction IV

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The Red Pill shows you the dark side of women. Not so that you will hate them but so you appreciate them for what they are, not what they’re not.

I think one of the harder aspects of the Red Pill for men who get awakened-while-married (or while monogamous) to accept is the disillusionment of their Blue Pill idealism about women confirmed for them in the behavior and mindsets of their wives. Breaking the Blue Pill ego-investments of single men who unplug is a difficult task, but their investment risk in women (real or imagined) they believe might make acceptable long-term mates is far less than a man who’s been married for more than 4 or 5 years.

For the single Red Pill guy with the option to simply walk away from a less than optimal situation, his conflict becomes one of potentials and weighing them against his Blue Pill ideals – ideals his unplugging should rid him of. His struggles is one about the “what ifs” and disabusing himself of the scarcity mentality that the Blue Pill has conditioned him for. While Hypergamy inherently instills in women a persistent doubt about a man’s quality, the Blue Pill instills in men a doubt about “quality” women’s scarcity and his capacity to find and maintain a ‘soul mate‘.

However for married men, with a considerable amount of emotional, social, financial and familial investment at stake in his marriage, there’s a natural resistance that comes in the form of denial. What’s tough is that, within this initial state of denial, a husband accepts the Red Pill truths about women and then has those truths confirmed for him by the woman he’s been sleeping next to for a number of years. All of the awareness about men and women’s differing concepts of love, the truth of women’s Hypergamously motivated opportunism, her confirming her open Hypergamy, all of the events that led up to his committing himself in marriage to her while he was still effectively Blue Pill – all of that gets confirmed for him when he puts into practice the concepts he learns from the Red Pill.

For all of the ‘anger’ that profiteering critics would like to wipe off on Red Pill thought, that anger finds its base in men’s confirming their own role in what was (or would’ve been) a life-long strategy for him to fulfill the dictates of women’s Hypergamy as well as the larger scope of the Feminine Imperative. When we put this into the perspective of a married man who unplugs, you can see why this is such a threat to the imperative. That man must reassess his life from the position of his being an unwitting participant in his Blue Pill conditioning, but furthermore, he becomes a constant caution, a warning, for men who have yet to make the same uneducated decisions he has.

There is nothing more depressing to me than to listen to a married man parrot back all of the tropes the Feminine Imperative has taught him to repeat about why he’s in the subservient role in his marriage. These are the guys who’ll laughingly tell single men how they must “clear everything with the Boss” before they are allowed (or will allow themselves) to participate in anything remotely masculine or self-entertaining. These are the men who prattle about their ‘honey-do’ lists, the men who count themselves fortunate to have such a ‘great wife’ who’ll allow him to watch hockey or football on a weekend. I wrote a more detailed post about these men in The Abdication Imperative.

These husbands are depressing to me because, in their Blue Pill ignorance, they represent the summation of their roles according to the strategies of the Feminine Imperative. They’ll gladly White Knight for their wives’ right to the Frame of their marriage (under the pretense of equalism). They’ll laugh and commiserate with other husbands sharing their position of powerlessness-but-with-all-accountability. They’ll chirp with funny little Facebook memes that share their ridiculous, married state, but for all of that acquiescing to their ‘fates’ what they really represent is the goal-state of men in the Feminine Imperative’s plan for their lives.

Men generally come to the realization of their appointed role at some point in their lives. Whether it’s Red Pill awareness or coming to a mid life crisis epiphany, men get ‘woke’ in some respect. The few who don’t are men whose existence literally depends on their not coming to terms with how the Blue Pill has made them what/who they are. The most common way for men to come into this awareness has been that mid-life epiphany, but in order for men to reconcile that awareness with maintaining a comfortable sense of self they become the men I describe in The Abdication Imperative. They really don’t know anything else but what the Blue Pill has created them to be, so they go into denial and add some self-deprecating humor to it to cope with the dissonance of knowing they’ve been played by the Feminine Imperative for the better part of their lives. So you get the ‘Yes Dear’ husbands; the men who realize the truth too late, but that same scarcity mentality forces them to go along to get along.

The rise of Red Pill awareness of intersexual dynamics on the internet has made for a community of men who find this denial distasteful. Rather than abdicate to the imperative and their wife’s Frame they look to the Red Pill and Game for a remedy to that state. Sometimes that’s getting their wives to have sex with them more frequently or they’re looking to better themselves in a Red Pill context to gain women’s (their wives’) respect. As I’ve mentioned many times before, the Red Pill represents a threat to the Feminine Imperative keeping men ignorant of their roles in women’s Hypergamous plans. Now that threat comes to fruition in the context of men’s marriages.

One way or another, men will become aware of their role, how that man goes about dealing with it is another story. Most (being Blue Pill) abdicate and accept their powerlessness in their relationships. It’s the other men who choose not to just cope, but to reconstruct themselves that the Red Pill will have answers for.

Break Up with Your Wife

Not too long ago in various comment threads on this blog readers had a discussion about how any marriage (at least in the contemporary sense) is always founded on a Beta status for the husband. I don’t entirely agree with that assessment, but considering how the large majority of marriages are the culmination of Blue Pill conditioned men fulfilling their role as cuckolded provider for women cashing out of the sexual marketplace it’s certainly an understandable presumption. I won’t elaborate too much on the particulars, but the very act of committing to a woman monogamously implies a man (even one with an Alpha persona) is leaning towards a Beta perception. Alpha’s don’t commit to anyone but themselves, Betas are eager to commit from necessity and scarcity. The act becomes the confirmation.

If we follow this binary logic, the only solution to a man’s condition within his marriage – the only way to institute a real change – is to reject and break that commitment. Personally, I have lived out what most men would envy in my marriage for over 20 years now, so the idea of leaving Mrs. Tomassi would only seem like a good idea if I weren’t satisfied sexually, psychologically and life-wise with her. But, as I always repeat, don’t use my marriage as a benchmark. There was a point where I needed to break up with her, if only by adopting my own mental point of origin above that of hers or women in general as my own Blue Pill conditioning would expect of me.

I mentioned in the beginning of this series that married (committed) men seeking to reconstruct themselves within that context ought to read the post for the Iron Rule of Tomassi #7:

Iron Rule of Tomassi #7
It is always time and effort better spent developing new, fresh, prospective women than it will ever be in attempting to reconstruct a failed relationship. Never root through the trash once the garbage has been dragged to the curb. You get messy, your neighbors see you do it, and what you thought was worth digging for is never as valuable as you thought it was.

I mention this as a starting point because when you’re making the decision to reconstruct yourself you must ‘do it for you’. Once again, any real change always beggars the question about who you’re really changing for. Nothing is an act of unguided, unbiased, self-initiated change – there is always some ancillary influences as well as consequences. This is the crisis of motive.

However, if you find yourself awakened-while-married and you want to remake yourself, know that this change must be for yourself and not for your wife. This decision to reconstruct your life, your persona, your belief set, etc., and reject what the Blue Pill has made of you must come as a result of making yourself your mental point of origin. This ‘new you’ precludes any consideration of your wife’s interests. It must be in order for your transformation to be genuine to both yourself and those who know the ‘old’ you. As I mentioned in the last installment, the likelihood of your wife accepting your new persona is dependent on what Frame you entered that relationship with as well as what you’ve surrendered of your self-respect to her.

This is the most difficult part for Blue Pill men wanting to reconstruct themselves. Their mental point of origin doesn’t change, they want to change because they want to be “more Alpha” for their wives, not themselves. The idea is to adopt just enough Alpha that their wives turn the sex spigot back on for them, but never really internalize the Red Pill to the point that is fundamentally changes who they are. Thus, it becomes an act not unlike newbie PUAs aping the behaviors of their mentors, but never internalizing the deeper meanings of why they work or making them part of ‘who’ they are as a person.

This is what kills a man’s reconstruction before it ever starts. That change must be a self-first proposition. Your Red Pill self-work must be intrinsically rewarding because there is absolutely no guarantee that a man’s wife / girlfriend will ever reimagine him from a different perspective. Particularly if that woman entered into that marriage/LTR because she’d hoped to maintain Frame indefinitely due to him abdicating to it.

You must become Red Pill aware for the sake of knowing the larger truth, internalize it and then apply it without the pretense of believing it can be used to achieve Blue Pill ideals.

With this in mind, you must presume that you are breaking up with your wife / girlfriend. It is far better to approach your reconstruction from the idea that the Red Pill you would likely have nothing to do with a woman like your wife. If you were single man, Red Pill aware and Game savvy, would you even approach your wife knowing what you do now about her personally as well as what you know about the Feminine Imperative and how it influences her?

Your reconstruction requires a radical shift that is only possible for you by breaking up with your LTR, at least in a subconscious respect. It is important to assess what, if anything, is worth rooting through garbage for. If you approach your reconstruction by first making yourself your mental point of origin, the next step is to assume you will be breaking up with your wife. It may never come to that, but this is the gravity with which a man must come to his reconstruction. The same reasoning I mention in Rooting through Garbage applies to your reconstruction:

Even if you could go back to where you were, any relationship you might have with an ex will be colored by all of the issues that led up to the breakup. In other words, you know what the end result of those issues has been. It will always be the 800 pound. gorilla in the room in any future relationship. As I elaborated in the Desire Dynamic, healthy relationships are founded on genuine mutual desire, not a list of negotiated terms and obligations, and this is, by definition, exactly what any post-breakup relationship necessitates. You or she may promise to never do something again, you may promise to “rebuild the trust”, you may promise to be someone else, but you cannot promise to accept that the issues leading up to the breakup don’t have the potential to dissolve it again. The doubt is there. You may be married for 30 years, but there will always be that one time when you two broke up, or she fucked that other guy, and everything you think you’ve built with her over the years will always be compromised by that doubt of her desire.

You will never escape her impression that you were so optionless you had to beg her to rekindle her intimacy with you.

It is always time and effort better spent developing new, fresh, prospective women than it will ever be in attempting to reconstruct a failed relationship. This is the same rationale you will need to adopt when you transition into a new Red Pill aware persona. This is necessary because once you’ve become aware there is no going back to that previous state of ignorance. You will know what can be possible with or without your wife/LTR.

Thus, it is important to zero everything out and treat your old wife as a new prospective woman. This perspective may mean she becomes someone not worth your effort, but it might also mean she likes the prospect of a new husband. This may mean she too will have to undertake some kind of transformation in relating to a Red Pill aware husband, or it might be that this is something she never foresaw. Dread works best when a man understands the Cardinal Rule of Relationships: In any relationship, the person with the most power is the one who needs the other the least.

By adopting the mindset that you are breaking up with her you reclaim this power – you have nothing to lose and have no way of going back to unknowing the Red Pill awareness you have now. For single men I often point out that breaking up with a girl is one of the best ways to demonstrate higher value (DHV). The downside to that is that by the time you get to the point of leaving DHV isn’t what you really care about. For the reconstructing man, adopting the position that you are breaking up (or have broken up) harnesses some of this DHV.

Most women (wives) will interpret your new self-importance as some kind of phase or your reclaiming your independence (rather than her co-dependence) as some childish sulking behavior. Anticipate this. She will presume you’re ‘going your own way’ within the marriage to force her to fuck you more or to get her to comply with your Frame. This is to be expected, but watch what her initial reactions to your takeaway are. This will give you an insight into how she perceives you. If you’re predominantly Beta her response will be that you’re pouting or sulking by removing your attention. If she sees you as Alpha her response will be much more serious and you’ll get the “what’s wrong baby?” reaction. This is a good starting point in determining her genuine perception of you.

You will effectively be NEXTing your wife so be prepared for her post-NEXTing behavior-set (extinction burst behavior) in the same way you would if you dropped a plate. This will be a tough transition for men who have invested themselves emotionally in their wives. You’ll want to come back to that place of comfort, but always remember that place is one of disrespect and sexlessness.

Most men will go half-way in their reconstruction and this is usually the result of having played a game of relationship ‘chicken’. They have their bluff called because it was always a bluff to them – they never made themselves their mental point of origin so they go back to the safety of their Blue Pill disrespect. Their wives respond to the takeaway of their attention, but never really connect with being attracted to his new self-respect and self-importance. Once that woman even marginally steps up her sexual frequency – motivated by her wanting him to return to her Frame – the guy gets comfortable and wants to go back to his comfy wife while feeling validated by thinking he made a genuine change that she responded to.

You must go all the way. If you don’t, the next time you attempt to exercise your Red Pill awareness in the hope that she’ll accept the new you, you’ll be that much more laughable to her. In fact, you’ll only further cement her perception of your whiny Beta status. The first time it’s Dread, the second time it’s you being pissy.

SMV and the Aging Process

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A comment from a woman on enotalone.com:

I am 31 years old, and not looking for anyone, but I have a lot of guy friends/acquaintances my age and the trend I see is a bit disheartening. There’s about 8 different ones that I know who are between 29-32 and EVERY SINGLE ONE IS DATING A 21-23 YEAR OLD.

I just don’t get it. There are plenty of women closer to their ages and single, but yet they all go for the young women. I feel kind of sad for women entering the dating market, at least where I’m from because it seems women my age have no hope in competing with these younger, perkier women.

Just a rant I suppose. I don’t have anything against younger women of course, but I can’t help but feel a bit unnerved by the trend I see here.

This is an overt observation of what women understand from a very early age – women’s sexual marketability declines with age, while men’s (should) increases as they age. This woman’s concerns should come as no shock to any Red Pill aware man. It’s the clarion call of a woman who’s aging out of the SMP and on the tail end of her Epiphany Phase.

All women have conditions (prerequisites) for men in order for them to become intimate (sexual) with them; he’s got to be good looking, he’s got to be financially stable (surplus resources), he’s got to have some status, respectability, ambition, be confident, he has to be the initiator, he’s has to be decisive, he has to make an emotional connection with her, he’s got have ‘provider’ potential,..etc., etc. And the list goes on and on for any individual woman and according to her ability (i.e. looks) to demand each condition. Each of these personal conditions for intimacy is set in a priority order depending on her ability to demand them and this demand is mediated by her age relative to her attractiveness to men.

It’s no secret that a woman’s sexual marketability declines as she ages and men’s increases as he ages. As a woman ages she progressively loses her ability to physically attract a mate (his one condition for intimacy), thus her conditions and their priority order shift accordingly because she is forced to compete with younger, more attractive women for the same pool of eligible men.

These men tend to be the ones best able to provide for her long term security and any resulting offspring. Thus, well established men (with status, money, hopefully good looks, etc.) in their early 30’s are the prime targets and the more they exemplify her conditions for intimacy, in their existing priority order, the more suitable he becomes for that intimacy and the harder she will compete with other women to achieve his long term commitment.

Pop-psychology would have us believe that women in their late 30’s to early 40’s are in their sexual prime. This may serve to increase the self-esteem of women finding themselves unable to command the male attention they did in their youth, but nothing could be further from the truth. While pre-menopausal women do in fact experience a spike in their testosterone levels and a resulting sex drive increase prior to the last of their eggs dropping, it is women between the ages of 18 and 26 that are in fact in their prime fertility stages. Women’s bodies in this age range are far better prepared for the rigors of pregnancy. At no other phase in her life is she more sexually active and most capable of commanding the attentions of the best male meeting her conditional criteria and in their most strict order. However these conditions are still mediated by her physical attractiveness – thus, if she’s fat her conditions (and their priority) will be adjusted accordingly – but she is nonetheless at her personal prime in this phase.

Unsurprisingly we see in most cultures older males striving for the attentions of the younger and more attractive females, but in western culture he becomes vilified and shamed for this – or at least that’s what western feminized women would like to be the case. The most common complaint women in their mid-thirties bemoan is that “There’s no good men” or they can’t understand why men just can’t “grow up” and find them more attractive than the young women they used to be themselves.

Increasingly, ‘careerist women’ desiring to finally start a family at age 35 find that men – particularly the ones that meet their conditions – in their age range (33-38) are not interested in women (to say nothing of ‘careerist women’) of their own age range. They’re interested in the 22 year olds who wouldn’t give them the time of day when they didn’t have the status (or maturity) that they’ve just discovered they now have. And of course the 35 year old career woman was one of these 22 year old girls, only 13 years prior, who was doing precisely the same thing the 22 year old girls are doing today.

But that doesn’t stop 30 something women from complaining about how men their age are ‘infantile’ for wanting to breed with ‘little girls’, rather than mature, intelligent, respectable career women such as themselves. They are incapable of conceiving why men ‘wont live up to their responsibilities’ and commit to a lifetime with them. They write article after article about how men are in fact threatened by their ‘successfulness’ or their ‘status’, when the simple fact remains that his breeding choices are dictated by one single condition – she’s got to be hot. Unlimited access to unlimited sexuality. The mid-thirties woman is (with a few notable exceptions) simply not as attractive as younger women.

So as an unspoken reaction to this predicament we get to see the popularity of the idea that “You can be 40 and still ‘have it'” among women. “Those men and their fragile egos just don’t know what they’re missing. How dare they be aroused by, and date younger more attractive women, we’ll show them”, they’d have them believe and pander to this dynamic while encouraging the fallacy that ‘men ought to be ashamed of their sexual impulse.

And finally we encounter the 40+ woman looking for what she couldn’t get in her 30s. Her priorities and conditions for intimacy have been altered radically now. At 40, the career woman has abandoned the idea of long term commitment; she may make up some sort of internalized blame for men not accepting her, but the truth comes that time has or is running out.

Perhaps she’s divorced, perhaps she’s a single mother, but at 40+ the importance becomes sex as empowerment for her. She still wants to know she’s ‘still got it’ and since none of the men of the age she’d like to be in an LTR with are biting she’ll be more than happy to get with a 22 year old ‘hunk’. They’re easy pickin’s since none of the girls their own age are interested in them.

They’re virile, young, dumb and full of cum. That’ll show those immature older men who don’t know how to commit! She’ll beat ’em at their own game. “Look at what I’ve got! A hot guy (relative, actually) who knows how to pleasure an older woman”; again shaming and insinuating older men’s sexual performance isn’t up to ‘women’s standards’. All conditions for intimacy and the priority orders she had before are out the window with the exception of physical attractiveness now, which, interestingly enough, has been a man’s only condition since he hit puberty. She’s come full circle, only now she makes an effort to enhance her appearance in the gym, with plastic surgery, Botox, breast augmentation, anything that will increase the attraction for young guys.

And of course the young guys are all too happy to ‘fill that hole’ (pun intended) since the effort required to get after it with the 40+ is practically nil and the rejection ratio is far lower. In addition most 22 year old guys know an LTR is more or less out of the question; they may be a booty call for her, but that’s an ideal situation for him, sex on demand with no expectation of any form of security for her. They like to make up reasonings like “she’s more experienced in bed” or “we’re both in our sexual primes”, but this just serves to justify him being a booty call, as if he’d have a problem with that.

The real irony of the whole situation is that 40+ woman is now doing exactly what she mercilessly criticized these ‘immature’, problematic 30-40 something men for doing. However, we don’t see any articles telling women to grow up, or to do the right thing or how infantile they are for sexually desiring younger men. On the contrary, they’re applauded for ‘bucking the system’ and embracing their sexual natures (as if they were formerly repressed) and “You go girl!” using isolated celebrity examples like Demi Moore fucking Ashton Kutcher as a role model.

The SMP After Marriage

For a long while I’ve been content to let bloggers like Athol Kay address sexual dynamics post-marriage (or LTR). I don’t think it’s any real secret that Married Man Sex Life has been more than compromised by a feminine-correct influence and the discussion is now directed by women’s imperatives there. This has been the forum’s state for some time now. So as such, I feel it’s kind of incumbent upon me to open myself up to addressing Red Pill issues within marriage (or LTRs) for the foreseeable future. This is just an avenue I’ll be opening up here, not a particular focus, don’t worry.

The following was a comment from YaReally in last week’s thread. I thought this more or less summed up the disconnect he believes exists between Old Married Guys (OMGs) and Young Single Guys (YSGs) who both have enough Red Pill awareness to want to employ it in their marriages as well as the plates they’re spinning as a PUA:

Keeping your 70yo wife attracted to you simply doesn’t come with the same obstacles modern men trying to keep a <25yo 8+/10 in 2016 attracted face. This is just objective reality. Again we’re happy for you and your wives that you find them attractive still, that’s awesome, but no one over at the RVF is posting your wives’ pics in the “post your idea of a 10” threads…they OBJECTIVELY have low SMV, and lower SMV than you super badasses as they age, and it’s simple logic that a a man keeping a low SMV woman is a different situation than a man keeping a high SMV woman.

This is an interesting paradox for OMGs, but I think it’s also not accounting for how sexual priorities and Frame shifts as a couple matures. The most glaring shift is of course maturing men’s SMV comparative to their wives’ will almost always be an order of magnitude above that of their wives’. As I laid out in Preventive Medicine, at this stage of maturity the task for wives becomes one of keeping that husband in the dark about his real SMV status; the concern being his sexual disinterest in her and him coming to a realization of his SMV and he leaves her for ‘younger, hotter, tighter’. Whether this is an actual threat is often inconsequential – unless that guy is so thoroughly Beta and ridiculous he’ll overtly acknowledge it – what occurs at this phase of a woman’s maturity is either a passive form of Dread or a feeling of regret for not having better optimized Hypergamy for herself so late in life.

Most men (i.e. Blue Pill Betas) never make this connection and blunder through their peak SMV years with a wife whose late-life competition anxiety sounds like nagging most of the time, or else it’s a possessive Frame grab with the latent purpose of keeping him focused on “her needs” rather than coming to understand he’s in the best position to capitalize on his SMV in his lifetime. This is actually part of the Blue Pill, feminine-correct plan for maintaining an optimal Hypergamy (or at least the impression of it) for women.

I’ve mentioned countless times on this blog that men’s peak SMV years are generally around the age of 34-38 depending upon how well he’s established himself in a variety of ways that contribute to it. As Red Pill awareness grows I (hopefully) expect more men will be able to capitalize on their moment of clarity as well as use this peak moment to enjoy and choose what’s best for themselves and their futures with regards to women. When men reach this peak it is generally a point at which women are also at their most necessitous (i.e. the Epiphany Phase). This simple matter of logistics also contributes to that man’s peak SMV in the form of making his commitment a valued commodity – presuming he’s built himself into that peak in the years prior to it.

My hope would be that men simply forestall any and all monogamous commitment until this phase, but for the men who find themselves in this peak phase while married, it is the most opportune time in which you can push the envelope with your wife from a Red Pill perspective. One grave error I think Athol Kay has made is in his “mindful attraction plan” – a feminized, feminine-correct watering down of his previous version’s attraction plan – his emphasis is to not go too overt or exaggerate a husbands SMV or make a Red Pill Alpha impression so threatening that it causes dread in his wife. I would argue that this is precisely what he needs to inculcate in his wife, and particularly if, up until this phase, she’s firmly dictated the Frame of their relationship since marriage.

I should add that this advice isn’t meant as some form of punishment or a big ‘get even’ with a man’s wife, but rather, a man pressing his SMV advantage at this point, to the point of instilling dread, will form a more solid attachment with his dominant Frame being the primary one – which is something his wife has likely craved for their marriage since the outset.

What YaReally (probably inadvertently) is revealing here is that women of lower SMV are far easier to attract and keep attracted than high (peak) SMV women. As women age that SMV advantage decreases, but the majority of men – and particularly married Beta men – still believe that their older wives and lower SMV women require the same or more attention to maintain that attraction.

Feminine-primary social conventions build this into a man’s Blue Pill conditioning so he believes that a marriage “always requires a lot of work” before and after he’s been married. This is why Athol’s Blue Pill advice of not overdoing the Alpha is so in error; it proceeds from the same sentiment that women need security during the part of a man’s life where he’s at his SMV peak and she’s at her most necessitous. A man’s “Burden of Performance” is then distorted by the Feminine Imperative to be defined as how well he will can quell his wife’s insecurities about him being in the best SMV status of his life.

Pop culture likes to call this effect “wife goggles”, but that’s a euphemism for how feminine-primary social conventions have conditioned men to feel a need to pander to their wife’s insecurity. In doing so they self-defeat any positive effect that this natural dread would benefit him and his relationship with his wife. If a man makes a conscious choice to limit himself in the phase of his life where he can best capitalize on his peak SMV this lifts the burden of a woman being the focus of him having to do so to make her feel secure.

And all of this has been about married men; feminine-primary social conventions have a whole set of social dictates intended to get a single man in this phase of life to willfully limit his own options. This is why we get shaming tactics and presumptions of ego-centrism for men in this demographic. This is why they’re called commit-o-phobes; because the hope is that these men will feel some measure of inappropriateness about their natural sexual impulses and choose an older women as a choice of mate. A woman who, again, is at her most necessitous and insecure about her future in the SMP or her long term prospectives.

The Red Pill Monthly – Frame

If youtube isn’t your thing you can get the audio archive here.

 

I managed to get some time with Niko once again yesterday. He was kind enough to stay up late and get a talk in for another installment of our semi-regular podcast The Red Pill Monthly (more like bi-monthly recently).

I really liked this one because we delved into some new stuff about Frame and the importance of establishing and maintaining a solid sense of self and purpose in all aspects of a man’s life, but focusing on the interpersonal and intersexual importance of Frame.

The concept of Frame is not my original idea, it’s actually derived from interpersonal psychology. However, way back in my early days at SoSuave I made the connection to the psychological principle and what PUAs of the time were advocating as a means to control in seduction. I begin my Iron Rules of Tomassi with Frame because I’ve always felt that everything else in seduction, and life in general, hinges upon the realities we create for ourselves.

The pop-cultural term for it today is ‘mindset’, but I feel the concept of Frame extends beyond what’s generally a retreading of The Power of Positive Thinking that’s being promoted as mindset now. It certainly plays a part in the entirety of holding Frame, but the overall establishment of Frame with a woman, with other men, with your family or with your employer requires an art that extends past just how one thinks of himself.

Iron Rule of Tomassi #1

Frame is everything. Always be aware of the subconscious balance of who’s frame in which you are operating. Always control the Frame, but resist giving the impression that you are. 

The concept of “frame” is yet another ephemeral idea that had need of a term in the very beginnings of the great masculine awakening that’s become the ‘community’. If memory serves I think it may have been Mystery who first picked up on what’s really a very rudimentary and well established psychological principle. In psych terms, frame is an often subconscious, mutually acknowledged personal narrative under which auspices people will be influenced. One’s capacity for personal decisions, choices for well-being, emotional investments, religious beliefs and political persuasions (amongst many others) are all influenced and biased by the psychological narrative ‘framework’ under which we are most apt to accept as normalcy.

Rather than go into too much depth here I’ll just encourage you to listen to the podcast and we’ll have an open comments thread about Frame. I think it’s good to review some older principles, not just for the benefit of newly Red Pill aware men, but also because I think it’s good to reconsider these ‘standards’ from a perspective of time and where we are as a Red Pill community today.

Frame, and understanding its importance, is the foundation of dozens of other Red Pill principles and applications. As most of my readers know, I try to avoid specific prescriptive advice. I’m not in the business of telling men how to live their lives with formulaic step-by-step Red Pill templates. The Red Pill isn’t one-size-fits-all and men need to interpret their Red Pill awareness according to their personalities, cultural context, social situations and personal beliefs.

That said, in the coming months I will be offering some more generalized, prescriptive ideas or suggestions as to how I feel men might apply certain Red Pill principles in their lives. The 9 Iron Rules are about as close as I come to prescriptive advice, and while I’m not in the business of making ‘Rational Male Men’, after reviewing them with Niko I think that some generalized advice according to Red Pill awareness might be something in the offing.

So, let me know what you think about this ideas as well as any questions or input you have about Frame once you’ve listened to our talk. It runs about an hour and a half. I’m also toying with the idea of discussing each of the Iron Rules in the coming RPM podcasts. Let me know if that’s something you’d be interested in listening to.

Enjoy!

rollo_t

The Cardinal Rule of Sexual Strategies

monogamy

When I first began writing on SoSuave over a decade ago I used to get into what I consider now some fairly predictable arguments about monogamy. It was an interesting time since it was around then I was getting into some heated arguments in my behavioral psychology classes in college.

I had just written what would later become my essay, There is no One and a good majority of my classmates and all of my teachers but one were less than accepting of the theory. I anticipated most of the women in those classes would be upset – bear in mind this was around 2001-02 and the Red Pill was yet to be a thing – what I was surprised by was how many men became hostile by my having challenged the soulmate myth.

I got a lot of the same flack from women then that I get from uninitiated women when they read my work now; “Aren’t you married? Isn’t she your soulmate? Don’t you believe in love? You must’ve got burned pretty bad at some time Mr. Hateful.” Those were and are what I expect because they’re the easy subroutine responses a Blue Pill ego needs to protect itself with. There was a time I probably would’ve mouthed the same. That’s how the conditioning works; it provides us with what we think ought to be ‘obvious’ to anyone. And at the same time, we feel good for ‘defying the odds’ and believing in what we take for granted, or common sense.

This is how deep the subconscious need for assuring our genetic heritage goes. For women this assurance is about optimal Hypergamy, for men, it’s about assurances of paternity. In either case, we need to believe that we will reproduce, and so much so that we will attribute some supernatural influence to the process of doing so. The fulfillment of your own sexuality is nothing less than your battle for existence, and on some level, your subconscious understands this. Thus, for the more religious-minded it gets attributed to fate and faith, whereas for the more secular-minded it’s about the romanticized notion of a soulmate.

Monogamy & ONEitis

I contemplated the idea of ONEitis for a long time back then. I’d most certainly been through it more than once, even with the BPD ex-girlfriend. By then I understood first hand how the belief absorbs a Beta and how it is an essential element, effectively a religion, for a Blue Pill life experience. I didn’t realize it then, but I was maturing into a real valuation of myself and I had the benefit of some real-world experiences with the nature of women to interpret and contrast what I was learning then.

Honestly, I had never even encountered the term ‘ONEitis’ prior to my SoSuave forum days. I referred to the soulmate myth in my writing as best I could, but it wasn’t until (I suppose) Mystery had coined the term. Outside the ‘sphere people got genuinely upset with me when I defined it for them.  Back then I attributed this to having their ego-investment challenged, and while that’s part of it, today I believe there’s more to it than this.

The old social contracts that constituted what I call the Old Set of Books meant a lot in respect to how the social orders prior to the sexual revolution were maintained. That structuring required an upbringing that taught men and women what their respective roles were, and those roles primarily centered on a lifetime arrangement of pair bonding.

It’s interesting to note that the popular theory amongst evolutionary anthropologists is that modern monogamous culture has only been around for just 1,000 years. Needless to say, it’s a very unpopular opinion that human beings are in fact predisposed to polyamory / polygyny and monogamy is a social adaptation (a necessary one) with the purpose of curbing the worst consequences of that nature. We want to believe that monogamy is our nature and our more feral impulses are spandrels and inconveniences to that nature. We like the sound of humans having evolved past our innate proclivities to the point that they are secondary rather than accepting them as fundamental parts of who we really are.

Women, in particular, are far more invested in promoting the idea of ‘natural’ monogamy since it is their sex that bears the cost of reproductive investments. Even the hint of men acknowledging their ‘selfish gene’ nature gets equated with a license to cheat on women. This is an interesting conflict for women who are increasingly accepting (if not outright flaunting) of Open Hypergamy.

I’ve attempted in past essays to address exactly this duplicity women have to rationalize with themselves. The Preventive Medicine book and posts outline the conflict and how women internalize and ‘hamsterize’ the need to be both Hypergamously selective, but to also prioritize long-term security at various stages of their lives. Ultimately a woman’s position on monogamy is ruled by how she balances her present Alpha Fucks with her future prospects of Beta Bucks.

Seed and Need

It might be that women would rather share a confirmed Alpha with other women than be saddled with a faithful Beta, but that’s not to say that necessity doesn’t eventually compel women to settle for monogamy with a dutiful Beta. In either respect, the onus of sustained, faithful monogamy is always a responsibility placed upon men. The indignation that comes from even the suspicions of a man’s “straying”, a wandering eye, or preplanned infidelity is one of the most delicious sensations a woman can feel. Women will create syndicated talk shows just to commiserate around that indignation.

But in an era when the likes of Sheryl Sandberg encourages women to fully embrace their Hypergamous natures and expects men to be equally accepting of it, it takes a lot of psychological gymnastics to reconcile the visceral feelings of infidelity with the foreknowledge that a less exciting Beta will be the only type of man who will calm her suspicions.

It’s important to also contrast this with the socialization efforts to make women both victims and blameless. As I mention in the last post, men who lack the appreciation of the necessity to prepare for a sustained monogamy with a woman are considered ‘kidults’ or prolonging their adolescence. They are shamed for not meeting women’s definition of being mature; that definition is always one that centers on the idea that men ought to center their lives around being better-than-deserved, faithful, monogamous potentials for women’s long-term security and parental investment.

On the other hand, women are never subject to any qualifications like this. In fact, they are held in higher regard for bucking the system and staying faithful to themselves by never marrying or even aborting children along the way to do so. So once again, we return to the socialization effort necessary to absolve women of the consequences that the conflict Hypergamy poses to them – they become both victims and blameless in confronting a monogamy they expect from men, but are somehow exempt from when it’s inconvenient.

Pair Bonding

Arguably, pair bonding has been a primary adaptation for us that has been species-beneficial. It’s fairly obvious that humans’ capacity for both intra- and inter-sexual cooperation has made us the apex species on the planet. However, the Feminine Imperative’s primary social impetus of making Hypergamy the defining order of (ideally) all cultures is in direct conflict with this human cooperativity. A new order of open Hypergamy, based on female primacy (and the equalist importance of the individual), subverts the need for pair bonding. There is no need for intersexual interdependence (complementarity) when women are socialized and lauded for being self-satisfying, self-sufficient individuals.

Add to this the conditioning of unaccountable victimhood and/or the inherent blamelessness of women and you get an idea of where our social order is heading.

Both sex’s evolved sexual strategies operate counter to the demands of pair bonded monogamy. For millennia we’ve adapted social mechanisms to buffer for it (marriage, male protectionism of women, etc.), but the cardinal rule of sexual strategies still informs these institutions and practices:

 

The Cardinal Rule of Sexual Strategies:
For one gender’s sexual strategy to succeed the other gender must compromise or abandon their own.

In this respect, it is men who are expected to make the greater compromise due to an evolved sense of uncertainty about paternity and the social mandate to accommodate women’s sexual strategy.

The counter to this is that women have always borne the responsibility of parental investment if they chose a father poorly (or didn’t choose), but in our post-sexual revolution social order, the consequences of this responsibility have been virtually eliminated. In fact, those consequences are now viewed as evidence of women’s independent strength.

Even aborting a child is a source of pride now.

Men bear the greater effect of compromising their sexual strategies to accommodate and resolve the strategy of women. When we account for the normalization of open Hypergamy, soft cuckoldry, and the legal resistance to paternity testing (ostensibly centering on the emotional wellbeing of the child in question) it is much clearer that men bear the most direct consequences for compromising their sexual imperatives.

From Warren Farrell’s book. Why Men are the Way They Are (h/t to SJF):

Why are men so afraid of commitment? Chapter 2 explained how most men’s primary fantasy is still, unfortunately, access to a number of beautiful women. For a man, commitment means giving up this fantasy. Most women’s primary fantasy is a relationship with one man who either provides economic security or is on his way to doing so (he has “potential”). For a woman, commitment to this type of man means achieving this fantasy. So commitment often means that a woman achieves her primary fantasy, while a man gives his up. — P.150

Men who “won’t commit” are often condemned for treating women as objects — hopping from one beautiful woman to the next. Many men hop. But the hopping is not necessarily objectifying. Men who “hop from one beautiful woman to another” are usually looking for what they could not find at the last hop: good communication, shared values, good chemistry. — P.153

The meaning of commitment changed for men between the mid-sixties and the mid-eighties. Commitment used to be the certain route to sex and love, and to someone to care for the children and the house and fulfill the “family man image.” Now men feel less as if they need to marry for sex; they are more aware that housework can be hired out and that restaurants serve meals; they are less trapped by family-man image motivation, including the feeling that they must have children. Increasingly, that leaves men’s main reason to commit the hope of a woman to love. — P.159

Dr. Farrell is still fundamentally trapped in a Blue Pill perspective because he still clings to the validity of the old order books/rules, and the willfully ignorant hope that women will rationally consider men’s sexual imperatives as being as valid as their own.

That said, Farrell’s was the germ of the idea I had for the Cardinal Rule of Sexual Strategies, he just didn’t go far enough because he was (and still is) stuck in Blue Pill idealistic hopes of monogamy. Bear in mind, Farrell’s book is based on his intrasexual understandings of everything leading up to its publication in 1986, however, this does give us some insight into how the old order evolved its approach to monogamy then into an open, socially accepted form of Hypergamy now.

He relies on the old trope that men are afraid of commitment by reasoning that men only want to fulfill a fantasy of unlimited access to unlimited sexuality – all shallow, all superficial, while women’s priority of commitment is correct, selfless, valid and blameless. Farrell also reveals his Blue Pill conditioning by making the presumption that men only Game women in the hope that they’ll find a unicorn, and they’re endlessly fucking women for no other reason than to find a woman with good communication, shared values, good chemistry, etc.

I sincerely doubt that even in the mid 8os this was the case for men not want to commit to a woman, or essentially compromise his sexual strategy to accommodate that of women’s. Farrell never came to terms with dual nature of women’s sexual strategy and how it motivates women over time because he believes men and women have, fundamentally, the same concept of love and mutually shared end-goals.

Mandates & Responses

In the decades since this publication, the normalization and legal mandates that ensure men will (by force if necessary) comply with this compromise is something I doubt Farrell could’ve ever predicted. Legal aspects, social aspects, that used to be a source of women stigmatization about this compromise have all been swept away or normalized, if not converted to some redefined source of supposed strength. Abortion rights, single parenting (almost exclusively the domain of women), postponing birth, careerism, freezing women’s eggs, sperm banks, never-marrying, body fat acceptance and many more aspects are all accepted in the name of strong independence® for women.

Virtually anything that might’ve been a source of regret, shame, or stigmatization in the old order is dismissed or repurposed to elevate women, but what most men never grasp (certainly not Dr. Farrell) is that all of these normalizations were and are potential downsides to a woman’s Hypergamous decisions.

MGTOW/PUA/ The Red Pill, are all the deductive responses to this normalization, but also, they’re a response to the proposition of the compromise that the Cardinal Rule of Sexual Strategies presents to men in today’s sexual marketplace.

In all of these ‘movements’ the fundamental, central truth is that they all run counter to the presumption that men must compromise (or abandon) their sexual imperatives – long or short term. Thus, these ideologies and praxeologies have the effect of challenging or removing some of the total control of Hypergamy women now have mandated to them. Even just the concepts of MGTOW/PUA/TRP are equatable to removing this control.

However, it is still undeniable that there is a necessity for monogamy (even if it’s just temporary) or some iteration of pair bonding that ensures men and women raise healthier, stronger, better-developed children. We are still social animals and, despite what equalism espouses, we are different yet complementary and interdependent with one another. Mutual cooperation, tribalism, monogamy and even small-scale polygamy have been beneficial social adaptations for us.

Gynocentrism and the respondent efforts against it defeat this complementary cooperative need.

Gynocentrism / egalitarianism defeat this cooperation in its insistence that equalism, self-apart independence, and homogeny ought to be society’s collective mental point of origin in place of the application of differing strengths to differing weaknesses.

So we come to an impasse then. It’s likely it will require a traumatic social event to reset or redefine the terms of our present social contract to ever make monogamy a worthwhile compromise for men again. We can also contrast this ‘raw deal’ compromise against the Cardinal Rule of Relationships: In any relationship, the person with the most power is the one who needs the other the least. It’s easy to think women simply have no need of men when their long-term security is virtually assured today, but fem-centrism goes beyond just separating the sexes by need. It wasn’t enough to just separate male and female cooperation, fem-centrism has made men’s compromise so bad that they must be made to despise their sex altogether. Men had to be made not only to accept their downside compromise but to feel ashamed for even thinking not to.

Always Default to Game

default_game

In the last comment section a very old Game conundrum got reheated. It’s the old confusion on when to “run” Game on a woman and when not to. This concern used to be debated quite a bit in my early days at SoSuave. Occasionally it comes up now and then with guys who’re new to the Red Pill and, still in the process of disconnecting their Blue Pill ideals, want to know when it’s appropriate to use their new Game superpowers for good.

It’s kind of good to revisit the fundamentals; it gives you a better perspective on how you came to a more advanced idea so I’ll get a little remedial here. Essentially the idea guys were talking about then was how Game was something they were turning on or off as situations dictated. Guys would come up with various hypothetical or actual situations where they were unsure if using Game was appropriate. Sometimes these were ethical dilemmas, other times it was just a want for avoiding bad consequences.

  • Should I use Game on the woman at the office?
  • Should I use Game on the fat chick I honestly have no interest in?
  • I find myself using Game on my overbearing Mother and it works, should I feel bad?
  • When I apply Game / Red Pill aware practices in other areas of my life I find I’m better able to enjoy the results I want, is this manipulative?

These are a few of the more common ones, but there are many others. However, the base assumption in all of these is that Game is an act and separate from that individual’s personality or “who he really is”. While I might advise against actively, overtly “gaming” women in your workplace, the Frame you establish by applying Red Pill awareness practices (i.e. Game) will be invaluable to you.

Every time I’ve dealt with this question/presumption it’s usually the case that the guy asking about the situation is still thinking in the same Blue Pill mindset he’s been conditioned to, but has more or less accepted the realities of Red Pill awareness. He may have even killed the Beta for the better part, but the process of changing one’s Blue Pill programming, to say nothing about placing himself as his own mental point of origin is a time consuming one.

The answer is a very simple one: Always default to Game.

Law 14
Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy

Knowing about your rival is critical. Use spies to gather valuable information that will keep you a step ahead. Better still: Play the spy yourself. In polite social encounters, learn to probe. Ask indirect questions to get people to reveal their weaknesses and intentions. There is no occasion that is not an opportunity for artful spying.

Although this Law is really directed towards one’s power rivals it is also an apt illustration of how Game is applicable in situations that you may have no real intimate interests in. In this instance that artful spying takes the form of learning to read a particular woman even when you have (or wisely shouldn’t have) no real intimate interest in her.

There was (is?) a school of Game thought that a guy new to it should apply it with “less than optimal” women in order to perfect the practice. Furthermore, for the newly Red Pill aware, it’s a relatively low investment way to evaluate proof of concept and build upon it. For as much as I’d like newly aware guys to be able to go from zero to sixty with Game, I can see the logic in this.

I say that with a caveat though; you’ve still got to consider the complications and attachments that will result from your Game actions. Not just this, you even need to be at least peripherally conscious of how your Frame control, Command Presence, Amused Mastery, etc. will impact non-intimate women’s disposition and attachment to you. Bear in mind that most men, Beta men, don’t leave the mental imprint on women that a Red Pill aware, self-MPO man does, to say nothing of a more Alpha man.

Case in point: In my line of work (liquor and gaming) there are many times when I’m working a promo with my girls, or I’m meeting random women I’ve never met before, where I have to make a mental effort to be self-conscious of how I interact with them. It’s sort of the reverse situation to constantly making an effort to stay in Frame to effect Game; it’s become such a part of my nature and personality now that I default to Game.

In fact it’s not even Game to me anymore, it’s just who I am, and particularly when I’m ‘on’ and I need to interact in a social context. It flows so naturally for me I sometimes have to make an effort to dial it back when I see IOIs or I get kino from the women working for me. When women are hitting me up to come party with them after my setup time is through, that’s a reminder that I’m making an impression on them I don’t really want to follow up on.

From Mental Point of Origin:

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.

From Recursive Game:

While it is of course vital for a man to internalize the various fundamental truths about the nature of women (hypergamy, solipsism, Alpha Fucks / Beta Bucks, love based on opportunism, etc.), these fundaments need to become an ambient condition for you in your dealings. This understanding needs to become an internal – under the surface – part of your interactions with women.

Too many guys think that all of this requires some endless capacity to psychologically micromanage every aspect of their interactions, not just with the women they become (or potentially become) intimate with, but also women they work with (or for), their mothers, sisters or daughters. A common reason men initially reject the practice (not necessarily the concept) of Game is due to some imagined expectation that they’ll need to cognitively account for every variable a woman may or may not be subjecting him or herself to.

When you think of Game as some act you put on or some cognitive fencing match between you and a woman it’s easy to believe it’s just too exhausting. That’s when one of two things usually happen; Game-awareness either sinks in and becomes part of his personality, or he relaxes and/or abandons what he’s learned of Game.

And from Artificial Joy:

Once this awareness is internalized and becomes a part of a Man’s personality there is no vigilance, just awareness. There is a subconscious understanding of the order of things from a red pill perspective, but that doesn’t mean I suspect the female bank teller I’m making a deposit with is ready to rob me blind the moment I turn to walk out the door.

Neil Strauss hinted at ‘social robots’ in The Game; guys who were nothing but Game all the time and were unable to make real emotional connections. I would argue just the opposite. The real danger inherent in Game and Red Pill awareness is a man using it to fulfill his former blue pill idealisms – that does require a constant effort.

A healthy red pill awareness requires not only a Man’s reassessment and recreation of himself, but also that he abandon his former blue pill paradigm and learn to live in a new, positive, red pill paradigm. It seems like a daunting task when you first come to terms with it, but ultimately your awareness becomes an internalized part of who you are. You can allow that to consume you with a paranoia  rooted in your former blue pill frame, or you can learn to create hope in a new system – one that you not only have more control over, but one that requires you to assume that control.

I’ve quoted these here to give you a better feel for what I mean when I say always default to Game. With that comes a practiced learning and internalization process of Red Pill awareness and a confirmation of its fundamentals. Once your personality becomes one that defaults to Game you’ll discover that Game is not just for picking up women. I’ve personally used Red Pill awareness and Game practices to close business deals, convince people with money to go with my creative ideas and even get out of a traffic ticket.

So that said, the discussion questions for the weekend (yes, I’m bringing them back) are:

Do you hesitate to use Game in different situations, and if so why?
Do you think Game is only applicable to your intimate interactions?
Are you hesitant to use Game because of ethical or Blue Pill considerations?
Have you ever applied Game and/or Red Pill aware ideas to women below your own SMV?
Do you think it’s advisable to “practice” Game with such women?

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.

Vulnerability

achilles_heel-1

One of the most endemic masculine pitfalls men have faced since the rise of feminine social primacy has been the belief that their ready displays of emotional vulnerability will make men more desirable mates for women.

In an era when men are raised from birth to be “in touch with their feminine sides”, and in touch with their emotions, we get generations of men trying to ‘out-emote’ each other as a mating strategy.

To the boys who grow into Beta men, the ready eagerness with which they’ll roll over and reveal their bellies to women comes from a conditioned belief that doing so will prove their emotional maturity and help them better identify with the women they mistakenly believe have a capacity to appreciate it.

What they don’t understand is that the voluntary exposing of ones most vulnerable elements isn’t the sign of strength that the Feminine Imperative has literally bred a belief of into these men.

A reflexive exposing of vulnerability is an act of submission, surrender and a capitulation to an evident superior. Dogs will roll over almost immediately when they acknowledge the superior status of another dog.

Vulnerability is not something to be brandished or proud of. While I do believe the insight and acknowledgement of your personal vulnerabilities is a necessary part of understanding oneself (particularly when it comes to unplugging oneself), it is not the source of attraction, and certainly not arousal, that most men believe it is for women.

From the comfort of the internet and polite company women will consider the ‘sounds-right’ appeal of male vulnerability with regard to what they’re supposed to be attracted to, but on an instinctual, subconscious level, women make a connection with the weakness that vulnerability represents.

A lot of men believe that trusting displays of vulnerability are mutually exclusive of displays of weakness, but what they ignore is that Hypergamy demands men that can shoulder the burden of performance. When a man openly broadcasts his vulnerableness he is, by definition, beginning from a position of weakness.

The problem with idealizing a position of strength is in thinking you’re already beginning from that strength and your magnanimous display of trusting vulnerability will be appreciated by a receptive woman. I strongly disagree with assertions like those of various Purple Pill ‘life coaches’ that open, upfront vulnerability is ever attractive to a woman.

The idea goes that if a man is truly outcome-independent with his being rejected by a woman, the first indicator of that independence is a freedom to be vulnerable with her. The approach then becomes one of “hey, I’m just gonna be my vulnerable self and if you’re not into me then I’m cool with that.”

The hope is that a woman will receive this approach as intended and find something refreshing about it, but the sad truth is that if this were the attraction key its promoters wish it was, every guy ‘just being himself‘ would be swimming in top shelf pussy. This is a central element to Beta Game – the hope that a man’s openness will set him apart from ‘other guys’ – it is common practice for men who believe in the equalist fantasy that women will rise above their feral natures when it comes to attraction, and base their sexual selection on his emotional intelligence.

The fact is that there is no such thing as outcome independence. The very act of your approaching a woman means you have made some effort to arrive at a favorable outcome with her. The fact that you’d believe a woman would even find your vulnerability attractive voids any pretense of outcome independence.

Hypergamy Doesn’t Care About Male Vulnerability

When I wrote Women in Love and the followups, Men in Love and Of Love and War, I described men’s concept of love as ‘idealistic’.

Naturally, simple minds exaggerated this into “men just want an impossible unconditional love” or “they want love like they think their mothers loved them.” For what it’s worth, I don’t believe any rational man with some insight ever expects an unconditional love, but I think it’s important to consider that a large part of what constitutes his concept of an idealized love revolves around being loved irrespective of how he performs for, or merits that love.

From Of Love and War:

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.

The concept of men’s idealistic love, the love that makes him the true romantic, begins with a want of freedom from his burden of performance. It’s not founded in an absolute like unconditional love, but rather a love that isn’t dependent upon his performing well enough to assuage a woman’s Hypergamous concept of love.

Oh, the Humanity!

As the true romantics, and because of the performance demands of Hypergamy, there is a distinct want for men to believe that in so revealing their vulnerabilities they become more “human” – that if they expose their frailties to women some mask they believe they’re wearing comes off and (if she’s a mythical “quality woman“™) she’ll excuses his inadequacies to perform to the rigorous satisfaction of her Hypergamy.

The problems with this ‘strength in surrender’ hope are twofold.

First, the humanness he believes a woman will respect isn’t the attraction cue he believes it is. Ten minutes perusing blogs about the left-swiping habits of women using Tinder (or @Tinderfessions) is enough to verify that women aren’t desirous of the kind of “humanness” he’s been conditioned to believe women are receptive to.

In the attraction and arousal stages, women are far more concerned with a man’s capacity to entertain her by playing a role and presenting her with the perception of a male archetype she expects herself to be attracted to and aroused by. Hypergamy doesn’t care about how well you can express your humanness, and primarily because the humanness men believe they’re revealing in their vulnerability is itself a predesigned psychological construct of the Feminine Imperative.

Which brings us to the second problem with ‘strength in surrender’. The caricaturized preconception men have about their masculine identity is a construct of a man’s feminine-primary socialization.

The Masks the Feminine Imperative Makes Men Wear

To explain this second problem it’s important to grasp how men are expected to define their own masculine identities within a social order where the only correct definition of masculinity is prepared for men in a feminine-primary context.

What I mean by this is that the humanness that men wish to express in showing themselves as vulnerable is defined by feminine-primacy.

For the greater part of men’s upbringing and socialization they are taught that a conventional masculine identity is in fact a fundamentally male weakness that only women have a unique ‘cure’ for. It’s a widely accepted manosphere fact that over the past 60 or so years, conventional masculinity has become a point of ridicule, an anachronism, and every media form from then to now has made a concerted effort to parody and disqualify that masculinity. Men are portrayed as buffoons for attempting to accomplish female-specific roles, but also as “ridiculous men” for playing the conventional ‘macho’ role of masculinity. In both instances, the problems their inadequate maleness creates are only solved by the application of uniquely female talents and intuition.

Perhaps more damaging though is the effort the Feminine Imperative has made in convincing generations of men that masculinity and its expressions (of any kind) is an act, a front, not the real man behind the mask of masculinity that’s already been predetermined by his feminine-primary upbringing.

Women who lack any living experience of the male condition have the calculated temerity to define for men what they should consider manhood – from a feminine-primary context. This is why men’s preconception of vulnerability being a sign of strength is fundamentally flawed. Their concept of vulnerability stems from a feminine pretext.

Masculinity and vulnerability are defined by a female-correct concept of what should best serve the Feminine Imperative. That feminine defined masculinity (tough-guy ridiculousness) feeds the need for defining vulnerability as a strength – roll over, show your belly and capitulate to that feminine definition of masculinity – and the cycle perpetuates itself.

“The Mask You Live In” by director Jennifer Siebel Newsom (dual surname noted) is the perfect example of this perpetuation. You have a woman deciding for a larger public in a documentary what the male experience is and then solving the problem (i.e. the tired trope of men needing to get more in touch with their emotions) for men.

Men are ridiculous posers. Men are socialized to wear masks to hide what the Feminine Imperative has decided is their true natures (they’re really girls wearing boy masks). Men’s problems extend from their inability to properly emote like women, and once they are raised better (by women and men who comply with the Feminine Imperative) they can cease being “tough” and get along better with women. That’s the real strength that comes from men’s feminized concept of vulnerability – compliance with the Feminine Imperative.

Ironically Newsom is still oblivious to the fact that she can only create such a documentary in an environment of feminine-primacy. No man could produce this and be taken seriously in our contemporary social climate.

It’s indictment of the definers of what masculinity ought to be that they still characterize modern masculinity (based on the ‘feels’) as being problematic when for generations our feminine-primary social order has conditioned men to associate that masculinity in as feminine-beneficial a context as women would want.

They still rely on an outdated formula which presumes the male experience is inferior, a sham, in comparison to the female experience, and then presumes to know what the male experience really is and offers feminine-primary solutions for it.

From The 16 Commandments of Poon:

IV. Don’t play by her rules

If you allow a woman to make the rules she will resent you with a seething contempt even a rapist cannot inspire. The strongest woman and the most strident feminist wants to be led by, and to submit to, a more powerful man. Polarity is the core of a healthy loving relationship. She does not want the prerogative to walk all over you with her capricious demands and mercurial moods. Her emotions are a hurricane, her soul a saboteur. Think of yourself as a bulwark against her tempest. When she grasps for a pillar to steady herself against the whipping winds or yearns for an authority figure to foil her worst instincts, it is you who has to be there… strong, solid, unshakeable and immovable.

True vulnerability is not a value-added selling point for a man when it comes to approaching and attracting women. As with all things, your vulnerability is best discovered by a woman through demonstration –never explaining those vulnerabilities to her with the intent of appearing more human as the feminine would define it.

Women want a bulwark against their own emotionalism, not a co-equal male emoter whose emotionalism would compete with her own. The belief that male vulnerability is a strength is a slippery slope from misguided attraction to emotional codependency, to overt dependency on a woman to accommodate and compensate for the weaknesses that vulnerability really implies.

I know a lot of guys think that displays vulnerability from a position of Alpha dominance, or strength can be endearing for a woman when you’re engaged in an LTR, but I’m saying that’s only the case when the rare instance of vulnerability is unintentionally revealed. Vulnerability is not a strength, and especially not when a man deliberately reveals it with the expectation of a woman appreciating it as a strength.

At some point in any LTR you will show your vulnerable side, and there’s nothing wrong with that. What’s wrong is the overt attempt to parlay that vulnerability into a strength or virtue that you expect that woman to appreciate, feel endearment over or reciprocate with displays of her own vulnerability for.

A chink in the armor is a weakness best kept from view of those who expect you to perform your best in all situations. If that chink is revealed in performing your best, then it may be considered a strength for having overcome it while performing to your best potential. It is never a strength when you expect it to be appreciated as such.