Damaged Goods

damaged_goods

As a part of my line of work doing liquor branding promos, I’ve frequently had to do spots with (terrestrial) radio talk shows for events and such. I’ve had to familiarize myself often with these personalities; some I became long time friends with, others kind of burned out or became victims of what they thought was a greater social proof than they actually had.

One thing I’ve noted in working with the men who host these shows is that more often than not they suffer from deeply invested Blue Pill mindsets with regard to women. Many of them eventually invited women into their male space as co-hosts to help with appealing to the female demographic, and like all other “female friendly” ventures, the character of the show shifts to promoting the same feminized boilerplate we see in Purple Pill forums and blogs that began with a more Red Pill tone.

Almost invariably there develops a segment or some call in bit where the host and hostess(es) attempt to suss out the romantic problems of a caller or emailer. If you listen to any semi-popular local morning commute show you’ll get this segment at least once or twice a week. All of them follow the same format. All of them rattle off the same Blue Pill tropes even those without the aid of a Red Pill Lens are familiar with – open communication, keep it fresh, meeting (her) needs, be supportive, etc. and all the standards you can expect from a society that doesn’t question the rote memorization of Oprah or Dr. Phil’s idioms.

If you do have a reasonably attuned Red Pill Lens you’ll just grind your teeth at all of it, but it confirms and highlights the Beta inside the host despite all his other blusterings on the show. It also serves to highlight the saturation of the Blue Pill’s conditioning reach into society.

So it was on one of these shows I was listening to this week that the ‘morning zoo’ decided to take a stab at one emailer’s very common problem. It was the typical Dead Bedrooms problem you’ll find in the subredd of the same name; “My wife is frigid, how do I get her to want to fuck me?” However, the story had a slight twist that nicely dovetails into a topic I’ve wanted to explore.

In this man’s story, he’d married a woman for all the right Blue Pill reasons. He loved her, “connected” with her on what he imagines are deep emotional levels, was supportive, dedicated, but was only able to have sex with her in as limited and as lackluster a way as she felt ‘comfortable‘ in having with him. After a year and a half of marriage, she’d completely “shut down” on him sexually. Anytime he initiated she would recoil from him and begin to cry.

There was no elaboration on her part as to why she was crying and up to the point of his seeking advice she’d offered no reason for her reluctance to fuck him. Fast forward to now and it’s been almost a year for him without sex with his wife, no explanation, and his ‘needs‘ are being unmet. He’s emotionally invested in her in the way you’d expect a Blue Pill, dutiful Beta would be, so his inner turmoil is one of the Paradox of Commitment conflict with his ‘need‘ and expectation of having sex with his wife.

As I said, this is standard Dead Bedrooms fare for the majority of men who married while fully immersed in a Blue Pill world. Unfortunately, we don’t have much more to go on – there were no descriptions of background, histories, family particulars, etc. given, however, my guess would be his wife is experiencing  the very common post-marriage Beta ‘buyers remorse’. However, this is why I thought the analysis and advice on the part of the hosts (1 male host, 1 male, and 2 female co-hosts) were very telling about the state of the Blue Pill world.

Presuming Abuse

The first reflexive interpretation on the part of the women was that this wife had some form of sexual abuse in her personal history and the husband’s initiating sex was triggering some unresolved sex issues she’d never dealt with and apparently never revealed to her husband when they were having sex in the years leading up to it. Again, there was no information about this from the emailer, but this was the first presumption the female co-hosts jumped to whenever a woman is described as crying about having sex.

We don’t really know if this is the case, but I found it interesting how useful that presumption is for women. In almost every social infraction we are expected to presume a blameless state with women. Whether that stems from rape allegations, ‘slut shaming’, past sexual history, red-handed infidelity, or, in this case, the presumed possibility of sexual abuse in a woman’s past, we are expected, on whole, as a society to presume that even the possibility is the actual fact.

Even when the actual fact is disproven, and the fault or choice blatantly falls upon the woman in question, the rationale and after-the-fact absolving of that woman of her own culpability is still expected to take precedence over the actual fault. For example, when I first detailed the situation of the woman and her husband in

For example, when I first detailed the situation of the woman and her husband in Saving the Best the reflex on the part of virtually all women responding to this story (as well as the relinks to it) and most Blue Pill men was to presume she had some damaged past where she was trying to find some emotional connection with the men she was having amateur porn orgies with in her college years. The acceptable, socially reflexive presumption was to give this woman a plausible reason – and one designed to evoke feminine victim sympathy – for her actions rather than consider that she was simply living in the moment and following her Hypergamous imperatives at the time.

Of course, the simple answer was that the husband was put into the same Dead Bedrooms scenario most men in his situation are placed in. He was the dutiful Beta in Waiting and “married a slut who fucks (him) like a prude”. There are over 30,000 subscribers on the dead bedrooms subreddit, this is not an uncommon occurrence, but just as common is the social convention of redirecting the fault on the part of the husband for his ‘selfish concerns’ for ever having been upset by this revelation about his wife. He was the bad guy for feeling ‘underserved’ with regards to his wife’s genuine, unobligated, sexual desire.

He’s the bad guy for not being understanding and supportive of the reflexive rationale that his wife must’ve been damaged goods (and damaged by other, equally horrible, men) before he decided to marry her. He’s responsible for coming to terms with it on his own. So it’s either face that or risk being perceived as the same kind of ‘typical’ asshole man who brought her to this by abandoning her in divorce.

‘Abuse’ as a Tool

‘Abuse’ is easily one of the most generic and utilitarian of catch terms and social conventions available to women living in a feminine-primary social order. It’s ambiguous, but also carries enough associative horror to get others to accept it at face value while killing any need for the uncomfortable explanations that would qualify it. A woman says “I was abused” and it ends the discussion regardless of any mitigating factors or particulars about it – and despite the particulars of what she claims ‘abuse’ to avoid. There simply is no qualifying it. If she feels abused it is abuse, and don’t worsen the situation by asking her to qualify it.

Claims of prior abuse are the perfect tool for women to explain past sexual indiscretions as well as to explain frigidity with a husband or a boyfriend, even those with whom she’d been sexual with before. Needless to say, this is a very useful tool for explaining and excusing women’s Hypergamous impulses and concurrent behaviors, however, I should note that the ‘abuse’ social convention will become less and less tenable as Open Hypergamy becomes more widespread and embraced.

For Beta men – Blue Pill men plugged into the narrative of unqualified female victimhood – there is a very real risk of becoming trapped in a cycle of White Knighting against the evils of ‘typically masculine’ men who would ‘abuse’ his princess while simultaneously reinforcing his Beta status in avoiding the perception of being an ‘abuser’ himself.

Knights Against Abuse

The men and boys I detail in Promise Keepers are prime examples of this looping presumption of abuse. For the most, these men had, or understood that they had, “abusive” fathers whom they swore never to emulate in their adult lives. While that abusiveness may or may not be factual the impression of it is what molds that man’s life, but at the same time predisposes him to the Savior Schema that only cements him into a personal life founded in Blue Pill White Knight heroics.

There develops an internal conflict for these heroes of abuse because their dedication to themselves as their own Mental Point of Origin will always be compromised by a Blue Pill conditioned responsibility of supportiveness for women. For the patient, waiting Beta, the man who’s played by what he believes are the rules for the better part of his teens and 20s, there is a unique anger he experiences when his ‘dream girl’ (or one that closely aligns with that ideal) isn’t sexual with him in the way he’s imagined women are with men during their 20s.

She’s come to him in her Epiphany Phase and after all the sexual indiscretions and self-discovery of her 20s, she finally wants to “do things right” by making him wait to have sex (so he won’t think she’s easy) and when they do it’s inhibited or becomes so once he’s locked into emotional or marital commitment with her. Now add to this the presumption of, or stated account of, ‘abuse’ she’s experienced in the past with the ‘typical’ men she was discovering herself sexually with.

You might even add the child of one of her former ‘abusers’ into the mix with whom he’s expected to form a paternal bond with. That Beta now hates those ‘abusers’ with more passion than when he was brooding about them banging the girls he wanted to fuck in his 20s because they ruin women in both the short and long term to him. They’ve ruined his girl for him now that she’s come to her senses and chosen him to pair with “forever”.

Now she’s a mess, a mess he’s expected to untangle and heal and reconstruct into something resembling the sexual dream girl he’s convinced she used to be, and all because of that “Bro”, the abuser, they guy(s) she had to discover for herself she ‘really didn’t need in her life’.

She’s damaged goods, but to that Beta, she’s blameless in her having been “abused” because she didn’t know any better that ‘typical’ men, the ones she chose, would abuse her. Now their abuses are his problems and he’s reminded of that every time she cries when he initiates sex with her.

The Utility of Damaged Goods

In this context, the social convention that is “abuse” becomes another form of insurance of Hypergamy for women. That presumption of blameless abuse locks Beta providers into a Dream Killers schema to the point that they will prioritize the healing of their ‘abused’ princess, the one who would otherwise be his dream girl, above his own imperatives, aspiration and goals in order to prove his quality as a supporter of women.

For women, the assurances that the social convention of ‘abuse’ represents also comes with a measure of internal conflict. From the Alpha Fucks side of Hypergamy, her subconscious hates the idea of being obligated to fuck her Beta Bucks provider, but again, subconsciously, she needs (or feels she needs) his support, provisioning, and emotional availability. However, for all of his self-evincing support, comfort and emotional investment in being a “better man” than the nebulous ‘abusers’ of her past, those anti-seductive aspects only serve to remind and confirm to her that he ‘doesn’t get it‘ and she’s obligated to be intimate and affectionate in a seemingly genuine way if she’s to maintain the provisional relationship.

The default presumption of ‘abuse’ fills the need for a buffer between reconciling the Hypergamous want of an Alpha lover and the provisional, emotional need for a Beta’s resources and comforts. The DeadBedrooms and MarriedRedPill subredds (not to mention the MMSL forums) are littered with the stories of men who discovered (sometimes secretly) how sexual their ‘abused’ wives were in their Party Years or what their wives’ real sexual appetites were for other men after their divorce.

Now, as I close here, let me state that I’m not discounting the real possibilities of actual cases of abuse among women. I have no doubt I’ll generate a slew of disgruntled comments from women relating their personal tragedies in today’s comment thread, but my point in this essay isn’t to question women’s legitimate claims of abuse. Rather it is to lay bare the utility invested in presuming the legitimacy of abuse whenever a woman even hints at the possibility of it by crying before sex or any number of other behaviors or mental states that would be affirmed or excused by just the claim.

The ‘Real’ Nice

fake_nice_guy

I once posed this question to the SoSuave forum:

Let us say, in a strange alternate world, women would LOVE you if you were a Nice Guy. In this world, you could do all the things you wanted to do. You could be sappy. You could write her poetry and SHE WOULD LOVE IT. The more of a Nice Guy you were, the more women in general would love and appreciate you.

And in this alternate world, the jerks and players would be the ones sneered at by women. If you were a jerk in this world, no woman would like you. If you were cocky, they would dismiss you immediately.

Would you remain a Nice Guy if you were in this alternate world?

I got a variety of answers ranging from the want for clearer, but no less useful terminologies,…

First off, I object to the labels. I know they’ve been used here and in the seduction community for a long time, but I don’t really believe in the stereotypes. I’m not a ‘nice guy’ or a jerk or a bad boy. Having said that and cleared the air, let’s go back to the stereotypes:

How many guys came here to this forum as “nice guys”? They were probably perfectly happy with themselves and only decided to change so they could do better with women. So they became assholes. Just to please women. I don’t see why they wouldn’t do the opposite in this “alternate reality”. I don’t care for the stereotypes. Half the guys on this forum think a “jerk” or a “douche” is a desireable thing to be. Something’s wrong with this picture. Somehow a “jerk” has become a guy with backbone who stands up for himself. 

The definition of a “nice guy” should just be a man who respects others as well as himself. But instead, in dating circles, “nice guy” means wimp.

…to the hope for Relational Equity and an appreciation for being ‘nice’…

I don’t think it’s that simple. You can be compassionate and kind without supplicating–and the whole “nice” thing isn’t really about kindness, it’s about supplicating and expecting something in return. “Nice” is really just synonymous with needy, unattractive behaviors, as I see it-it’s not even GENUINE kindness, as when you expect nothing in return.

To me, being an alpha “bad boy” just means going after what you want. It means pushing the envelope and being aggressive in pickup. It doesn’t mean being antisocial or violent, or being a dick to people. It often happens that an aggressive guy has these tendencies, but I don’t think they contribute to his success with women unless they bring him some fame, too. I think women DO have a capacity to appreciate kind gestures, and will certainly judge a man by how he treats his family, etc. The “protector of loved ones” is an attractive archetype to women. 

The guys that lose out are the ones that do “nice” things in the hopes that a woman will grow attracted to them. They let the women control the frame in this case, and act like children trying to please their mother. This is always an attraction killer–it doesn’t matter if they’re a jerk or an alpha in every other aspect of their life. Lots of really tough dudes are complete wussies around women. 

It is truly one of the cosmic ironies of the universe that women should completely lack the capacity to truly appreciate the niceties of men – yet still perpetually claim to desire those niceties.

With the notable exceptions of natural born Alphas, I believe most men would overwhelmingly default to being compassionate, empathic souls, steeped in romantic notions of chivalry, dedication and honor. Whether this sentiment is the result of a genuine dedication to principle or inspired by a hope that women will appreciate his sacrifices to principle and reciprocate with her intimacy is really a Crisis of Motive.

That was really the gist of my question – are guys just playing nice to get laid or is “niceness” (for lack of a better term) something deep rooted that they have to necessarily repress in order to be taken seriously as a sexual competitor because women would despise him were he to be as ‘nice’ as he really has the capacity for.

Most guys make lame attempts to redefine raw, natural, Alpha masculinity to fit into accord with all these noble qualities. Tragically women and reality prove them wrong at virtually every instance, but their fallback denial is an easy one (ironically provided for them by the Feminine Imperative) – “those women who don’t appreciate your niceness are just Damaged Women®, no quality woman would value an asshole above a real Nice Guy.”

Men are simply never rewarded for displays of these higher-self aspirations with genuine appreciation of women. They certainly appreciate them on a by-need basis, and as a ‘value added‘ benefit, but the esoteric, self-actualizing concerns men believe women should prioritize as primarily attractive aspects of themselves are never what they hope women will appreciate. If anything overly ‘nice’ men are punished for it, either in the instance or progressively over time.

The only way to garner true appreciation, true valuation, truly inspired displays of affection, from women is to covertly imply the risk of losing a high-value Man. Whether the man is even truly of a higher value is irrelevant, only the perception needs to be reinforced for her. Risk of loss is all that factors. Risk of losing an investment in optimizing hypergamy is weighed against her own perceived sexual market value and the effort needed to reinvest in another, potentially higher SMV man. Risk of loss is why her imagination furiously spins the wheel in her head.

That sounds horrible, but the truth often is. Women’s lack of appreciation for the more compassionate natures of men, and their consuming regard for rewarding men that appease their hypergamy is so well proven it’s become predictable enough to develop techniques and behavioral modifications to exploit it (i.e. Game). Most guys would like nothing better than to honestly play the loving, white knight, romantic who women bemoan a lack of in the world. Yet for every sonnet composed, every provision met, every compliment delivered and every well planned candlelit dinner conversation, there’s a woman feverishly fucking her Alpha bad boy in his low rent apartment for fear of losing him to the competition.

Attraction and Arousal


Occasionally we return to a common theme of debate with self-proclaimed ‘red pill women’ in various manosphere comment threads about how women may be attracted to certain characteristics men would like to identify as being ‘nice’, but no woman is aroused sexually by these qualities. As I’ve argued in the past, attraction and arousal are two separate elements of hypergamy. Alpha Fucks is arousing, Beta Bucks is attractive.

A couch surfing Alpha will be arousing enough to bang women indiscriminately despite his impoverished condition. He has no relational equity, and so frustrates the efforts of men who believe that the definition of Alpha ought to be based on the equity they hope women will appreciate. Women will return (even if just mentally) to the callous or cavalier Alpha because he arouses her, but she will stay faithful to her well-providing husband because what he offers is attractive to her.

This is why I say, by and large, women love most men for what they represent – once they cease to represent that, once they stumble in maintaining that, hypergamy is free to run. On a personal level this may be you losing a job or how you failed a shit test, on a meta scale it may be women’s social capacity to provide for themselves.

A lot of guys get lost in these definitions. They believe a woman at her word in what she finds attractive in a man, but then conflate this list of qualities (read any woman’s online dating profile) with what a woman finds arousing. While there may be attraction without arousal, there is never arousal by way of what makes a man attractive. Your respectability, sterling character and being good with kids doesn’t make you look any better when your shirt comes off.

The New Nice

There’s an interesting social convention that’s developed as Game-awareness has become more widespread. As with all social conventions it provides a convenient rationale for women to cling to in order to alleviate uncomfortable truths, but the dilemma of the Faux-Nice Guy has picked up a lot of steam in the feminist / feminine-primary set of women. I covered this a while back in Play Nice, but since then I’ve been reading more about how this convention is dovetailing into the re-imagining of a so called Rape Culture.

As women become more aware of Game (even if just peripherally) there’s developed a convenient distrust of men’s ‘Nice’ qualities. The dynamics I put forth in The Savior Schema all become suspect for what in essence is really a tit for tat exchange of services rendered for intimacy at a later date (once his niceties have proven his worth).

The problem with this is twofold, first, the guy’s relying on Beta Game, convinced that what women say they are attracted to is what they are also aroused by, believe that faux Nice Guys are blowing their chances with the women they believe will eventually come to love them for their earnest Niceness. If all these charlatan Nice Guys are jading their pool of prospective nice-appreciating women it ruins their Game. Consequently they get agitated by women doubting any man’s sincerity and by extension their own. This then leads to Nice Guy infighting and greater, more sincere displays of a Niceness that really only ruins their Game that much more.

Second, women’s doubt of a Nice Guy’s sincerity and unsolicited ‘niceness’ is really a red herring meant to distract men employing Nice Guy Game away from the point that they simply don’t find them all that attractive (and certainly not arousing). Being nice, supportive, dutiful and possessing all the intrinsic characteristics on her list of attractive traits in the hope of proving his worth and qualifying for her intimate acceptance is really one long Appeal to a Woman’s Reason. It’s very convenient for a woman to enjoy (and often become dependent upon) the services a Nice Guy renders to her, but when that Nice Guy is discovered to have a sexual interest in her the “you weren’t really nice, you just expected something sexual in return” social convention finds its use.

Women have been aware of this Nice Guy Game, prequalification schema for generations, because it used to actually work in a time and culture where the Beta Bucks / parental investment side of women’s hypergamy was the predominant factor for determining of a man’s intimate acceptability. The problem now is that the deductive reasoning men use – find out what women want in order to become intimate, become it and solve the problem – in order to achieve a woman’s intimacy comes from an old set of books that no woman is still using. However the reliance on the responsibilities outlined in that first set of books are still useful when it comes to control the intents and actions of men.

Chivalry is an anachronism in a post-feminist society, particularly where equalism is concerned, but it’s a liability when it’s useful to the feminine imperative. It may be a man’s duty not to expect sex in exchange for his niceties and services, but when his chivalry is useful to her then it becomes his responsibility.