sexual market place

The Global Sexual Marketplace

Before I launch into today’s essay I want to throw out a few caveats. The first is a reminder of my long-time policy of dealing with issues of race, politics and religion; and that’s to say it’s my practice leave these topics to other blogs and other writers unless those topics cross over into intersexual dynamics that are pertinent to Red Pill awareness. I feel like I need make this clear as I’m going to get into issues of race and how intersexual relations are modified by these issues today. It’s always been my belief that the shared input and related experiences of men of all races, cultures and nationality is one of the greatest strengths of the Red Pill. So it’s with this in mind that I think we need to address some of these experiences.

What got me on to this topic was the video I’ve linked above here today. As most of you know I’m not a proponent of the idea of a “Black Pill”. That is the ‘black’ part of understanding the harsh realities of what Red Pill awareness opens men’s eyes to. Accepting the uglier nature of intersexual dynamics and how it plays into today’s sexual marketplace is often something that drives some men to a kind of despondency. It can be really depressing to have Red Pill awareness destroy your long-held Blue Pill ideals – particularly when those ideals helped to give you a sense of hope in spite of your instincts telling you something different.

When I was at the 21 Convention last October I had a discussion with Dr. Shawn Smith about the nature of the Blue Pill. His question to me was something like “Don’t you think that some guys need at least a little Blue Pill to keep them going?” I’m paraphrasing here, but I’ve actually touched on this in a few prior essays. In essence, it should follow that human beings can’t handle too much ‘reality’. This is why we look for escapisms and turn our otherwise rational minds to something like faith. The human mind tries to remain hopeful in the face of dire realities; which also follows evolutionarily. Those humans who stayed optimistic in the face of crushing reality didn’t off themselves in despair and consequently passed on their genes.

That’s the nuts & bolts of it (yes, I know there’s more to it), but is this a feature or a bug in today’s realities? Willfully choosing conscious ignorance while your rational mind knows the truth can lead to despondency and depression. It’s the observer effect – observing a process will change that process – only, you’re playing that game with yourself. So, is a little bit of our Blue Pill conditioning a good thing if it gives us a hope that keeps us alive?

I’d have to say no. Because once you unplug from the Matrix going back to that ignorance is really impossible. Something in your hindbrain knows the truth about the fantasy you construct for yourself. Again, it’s playing the observer effect on oneself. And it’s just this simple truth that makes a lot of guys who are unprepared for the anger and nihilism that comes from Red Pill disillusionment to come up with things like a ‘Black Pill’.

But this essay isn’t about dealing with that despondency. I’ve already written that essay in A New Hope. This essay is about one of those ugly truths that Red Pill men have to evolve new adaptations for. You see, there is no ‘Black Pill’ – there is only the space in between a man dealing with his despondency about a harsh Red Pill truth and his crossing the abyss to accepting that truth and doing something with that information to better his life.

Local vs Global SMP

Watch the video I linked here. It’s by Black Pill 101, a channel that specializes in exactly the harsh realities of Red Pill awareness I mentioned above. It doesn’t pull any punches and for that I’m in agreement with them. Men deserve the unvarnished truth; without it they founder. This video outlines the innate difficulties Asian men face in the Global Sexual Marketplace. One of the most common requests I get for counseling is from Asian or Indian men asking me to help them improve their game. Many of them believe I have some Game solution to their getting laid with an SMV 6-7 they know from work. Many of them think they might have a chance with a modest SMV 6 if they either had some specialized technique or they could simply earn another $250K annual salary.

I honestly feel for Asian/Indian men in this respect. When I read about Aziz Ansari’s #MeToo’ing I read with morbid fascination watching his story play out with another ‘cute’ (SMV6-7) white girl. This is the stereotypical interaction. With my Red Pill Lens I saw a girl conflicted by her attraction to Aziz’s social proof (celebrity) with her visceral reaction to becoming intimate with a guy she simply wasn’t all that aroused by. This is just my personal experience, but I’ve counseled Indian (and a few Asian) men who all share a very similar frustration – they really want to get with a white American girl but they are sexually invisible to the vast majority of them.

Black Pill 101 lays out this frustration from Asian men’s perspective. If you happen to be an Asian or Indian man I’d encourage you to add your own experiences in the comments here. But from my own interactions with these men the story revolves around their investment in locking down an average white woman. They aren’t looking to spin plates. They want an LTR with a girl and most of them tend to fixate on one they know from work or a friend of a friend. Maybe that lean towards monogamy is a cultural thing, but they all seem to set their sights on the average, seemingly attainable, American girl. And almost universally they are relegated to the ‘friend zone’ or the go ‘Black Pill’ in frustration.

I’m going to look at the bigger picture here while I try to answer why this is so commonly case. In our tribalist, hunter/gatherer ancestral past our naturalistic sexual marketplace was limited to what a very localized group of individuals had to offer. We might’ve lived in groups of 100-150 ‘natives’ of our tribe. In that tribe maybe there were 10-12 females who would’ve been potential breeding/pairing candidates for a young man.

There are general arousal cues that are universal to all humans across cultures. Natural cross-culture beauty standards is something that’s been widely studied since the mid seventies – globalized beauty standards and physical prowess cues – however, the context in which those cues are expressed are (were) buffered by whatever that localized sexual marketplace (SMP) can realistically manifest.

Example: Height in men something universally agreed on as attractive/arousing for women. This is a globalized attraction cue in women. Girls all over the world overwhelmingly prefer a man to be taller than they are. This is an evolved preference because the survival implications are that a taller man is (generally) an easily identifiable aspect of physical prowess. Height implies a capacity for protection, an imposed dominance, and is a signifier of presence in a male dominance hierarchy. Whether this is the actual case is irrelevant. All that matters is that a woman’s preference for tall men to breed and pair with.

The average height of a Filipino man is around 5′ 4″. Prior to the Spanish colonizing the Philippines all Filipino women knew of men was that 5′ 4″ man. And to the 4′ 11″ average Filipino woman that was attractive. A 5′ 6-7″ man was a giant by the local SMP standards.

But the global SMP standards are simply ‘taller men are more attractive’. So when the Spanish/Western peoples came to the island it introduced Filipinas to a new standard: the 5′ 7″ Spanish man. Now the globalized SMP began to modify the local SMP. Then, eventually, along came the first 6 foot tall Caucasian European guy. Then the first Black man, etc. Gradually the localized (previously tribally-defined) SMP to include the new possibilities of women breeding/pairing with men outside their own tribe.

Localized Contingencies

This is only one easy example of how a globalized standard of what defines the whole of the sexual marketplace redefines, and often replaces, the localized standard of attraction/arousal for women. There are many other ways this out-tribe influence introduces a new global standard for the SMP. This can include force as well as by invitation or local social norms shifting to accommodate the new global SMP. When a tribe is conquered by another it forcibly alters the other’s sexual marketplace standards (War Brides).

As such, societal standards shifted to favor social practices that defended the local SMP integrity of that tribe. This is nothing groundbreaking – tribalist humans have been creating social and religious contingencies to buffer agains women’s Hypergamy, and to solidify the integrity of the local SMP for millennia. And these norms affect both the men and the women of that culture.

Cultural norms that forbid intermarriage (really interbreeding) of women with out-tribe men are common, but there are also:

  • Prearranged Marriages
  • Guarding/Prioritizing Virginity
  • Buffering Against Hypergamy
  • Socially Enforced Monogamy

I should also add that there is the Samson Contingency which is a buffer set against (powerful) men taking out-tribe wives. It may’ve been acceptable to have sex with out-tribe women (rape or prostitution), but for the integrity of the tribe, that man was only to form lasting bonds (via marriage) from within that tribe. This kept vital resources within that tribe.

A Modern SMP

In an upcoming essay I’ll be exploring the deeper reasons why Blank-Slate Equalism is so difficult to purge from our present-day social order. However, I need to detail a bit of this now. We live in a feminine-primary social order (the Gynocracy), but without the Blank-Slate much of the preconception of it collapse. One reason Blank-Slate Equalism remains a social norm (despite a world of empirical proof that destroys it) is because it serves to disguise the ugly realities of a sexual marketplace defined by human evolution. Particularly so in an age of expanding SMP globalism. It’s not just culture, politics, ideology and socioeconomic considerations that are tied to globalization; a global scale sexual marketplace is following among all of this.

In the age of global mass communication our localized (tribal) SMPs are replaced with a global standard. That global standard destroys the old local SMPs, but it also selects-out the men who don’t measure up to its standards. This is something I think most MGTOWs and all Incels instinctively know: according to the global SMP selection criteria there are some men who will simply not be selected-for. If the Black Pill 101 video about how Asian women don’t select Asian men for mating opportunities is any indicator, I think Asian and Indian men are facing this head on today.

Now, I expect the first rebuttal to this proposition will be that the present, global SMP is a reflection of Westernized beauty standards and horribly distorted expectations. Asian/Indian men seem to want nothing to do with the native women who are ruthless in expressing that they want nothing to do with them. What globalized demographic is really left for these men? The same might be said about socially inept white men seeking an easier sexual marketplace in Asian women. All of this is simple deductive adaptations men will naturally resort to when it comes to solving the problems of sex and reproduction.

I’m totally accepting that there is a societal influence in all of this. However, I think the incentives to look into the opportunities that a larger global SMP offers is still based on Darwinistic principles. Even Western romanticism is still founded upon natural female arousal cues that define the larger SMP. The global SMP is rooted in the naturalistic, evolved (not socialized) elements that trigger arousal, incentivize parental investment and play off women’s dualistic sexual strategies (Alpha Seed/Beta Need).

The Global Social Order

Finally, I want to point out that while our expanding globalization has given rise to a global SMP, that expansion is rooted in Gynocentrism. Since the time of the Sexual Revolution an unfettered, unconstrained Hypergamy has dictated this global sexual marketplace. The world-scale SMP is driven by women’s prime-directives, not men’s. As women are afforded more authority to direct society, their reproductive interests are what defines the global SMP. And all unchecked and unbalanced by any male interests. This is important to consider when we see the old tribalist, local SMPs decay to extinction. The checks and balances on Hypergamy that existed in the past were the creations of a smaller localized SMP. One that was familiar with the risks and results of allowing men and women of that particular tribe to reproduced without thought to the integrity of the tribe.

This is why Blank-Slate Equalism, as big a lie as it is, is so necessary to maintaining the unfettered Hypergamy that the global SMP is based on. Without its social constructionism, without its presumption of coequal agency, the Gynocentric power base is replaced with conventional, evolved gender norms that would favor men’s influence in the global SMP. Gynocentrism needs Blank-Slate Equalism to disguise its authority and influence. Notions of ‘Equal Value’ and social constructionism are needed to cover the ugly Darwinsim that unchecked Hypergamy thrives in.

Little Big Head

One of the dichotomies I consistently see in the manosphere is the differences in how men approach the importance (or feigned unimportance) of sex. I got a bit sidetracked in last week’s essay. I was planing on writing about this phenomenon when I saw the need to explore how it impacted a larger social narrative. So, let’s consider this essay an addendum to The New Polyandry.

How men publicly and privately prioritize sex is always something that leads to a judgement call about that particular man, how he lives his life, and what it says about his integrity. If you openly make sex a “big deal” in your life, or you acknowledge its importance in intersexual relationships, you open yourself up to men’s Beta Game virtue signaling. The presumption is that if you were a real Alpha sex is just something you should have mastery over. If sex is at all important to a man, and he expresses this, that guy runs the risk of being seen as “obsessed with sex“, a “pussy beggar” or in someway less of a man for allowing sex to control his decisions.

Why is this the perception?

Two weeks ago I had a lively debate with the producer of Pat Campbell’s morning show. While we did have other topics to hit on that morning, she and I dug in and talked about how “sex is the glue that holds relationships together.” You can listen to the full segment here if you like.

As I mentioned last week, the notion that men need sex is nothing I haven’t covered in the past. In You Need Sex I made a case for the importance of sex and how it was, until recently, something that constituted part of a man’s life experience. Now it seems that being a sexless virgin at age 40 should be considered an accomplishment by certain factions in the manosphere: 

One very common dismissal of Red Pill awareness I read from Blue Pill men is this feigned, blasé indifference to sex.

For the most part this false-indifference is really a conditioned, response couched in Beta Game. The idea is for the Blue Pill guy to promote the public perception that he’s above his sexual impulses in the hopes that any girl within earshot (or reading his comments online) will recognize his uniqueness in not letting his cock do his thinking for him. From a male deductive logic standpoint it makes sense to the feminized male – women have all told him how off-put they are with guys who only think about sex, so he’ll identify with the women he’d like to get with and “not be like other guys.”

“All that Red Pill, PUA shit is for guy’s who obsess over sex. They only go to the lengths they do to get laid and never see the bigger picture. You don’t need sex you know? You wont die from not getting laid.”

[…]Thats the Beta Game behind the “you don’t need sex” Buffer, but there’s more to this rationale than that. Technically the Beta reasoning is correct; physically, you’re not going to die if you don’t get laid. You could probably masturbate to relieve yourself or live a sexless existence due to a physical disability and live a productive life as satisfying as you can manage it. If you don’t know what you’re missing or if a sexual substitute does the job, what’s the difference, right? The line of reasoning is that if it isn’t food, water or oxygen it isn’t really a necessity for existence.

You’re All Obsessed!

Self-righteous Blue Pill men always look to make their necessities into virtues. It also helps the men who fall on the 80% side of the Hypergamous Pareto curve to convince themselves and others that their sexual strategy – one that follows enforced monogamy – is the moral one; or the logical, common sense one absent the moral context. If you cannot get laid yourself, at least you can make getting laid into an ‘obsession‘ for the 20% of men who can. By doing so you encourage the 20% of men, who women desire to fuck, to police themselves and women by adopting your own, self-superior, one-woman-per-man sexual strategy.

Pretty much every MRA I’ve listened to, most Traditional Conservatives and a few MGTOWs, like to qualify men who can get laid as being in some way obsessed with getting laid. We’re told how morally superior they themselves are for essentially thinking with the big head instead of the little one, thus confirming their own part in a monogamous sexual strategy. As I mentioned in the last essay, a majority of men tend to fall on one side of the Strategic Pluralism Theory with respect to their sexual strategy.

Low SMV (sexual market value) men are basically forced to invest in one woman at a time if they are to successfully reproduce. This is the basis of a socio-sexual order founded on enforced monogamy. The larger pool of men benefit reproductively if the majority of men can be relied upon to follow the dictates of socially accepted, socially enforced, form of monogamy.

In the past this emphasis also had a culling effect on the worst aspects of women’s Hypergamous tendencies. If all men – including the 20% who could enjoy many women – agreed to play by the old social contract and adopted monogamy as their sexual strategy (in spite of being able to reproduce outside it) then more men would have the opportunity to reproduce. Furthermore, women’s Hypergamy would also be forced to accept lower SMV men’s monogamous strategy as a buffer to worst aspects of their own.

In the past, religious and social mores used to act as a buffer against Hypergamy, but the compromise for women was that they could expect to have the Beta Bucks provisioning aspects of their Hypergamy more or less provided for by the majority of men who adopted this strategy. In an evolutionary sense, protection and provisioning are already an integral part of the male mental firmware. But all of that went out the window after the Sexual Revolution, unilaterally female-controlled hormonal birth control and the socio-sexual/socioeconomic landscape that sprang from the Fempowerment narrative.

Today there is a radical imbalance between the old social contract upon which enforced monogamy was a key element and the new social contract dictated by a gynocratic social order that places women’s sexual strategy well above that of men’s. So it’s small wonder that men would revert back to 80% of low SMV men insisting on, and shaming, the 20% of high SMV men comply with a sexual strategy that women readily confirm isn’t in their best interests. 

On the male side of the strategic equation a majority of low SMV men cannot afford to have Alpha men playing by the rules of polygyny.

That polygyny is really a form of female-directed polyandry (see last week’s essay), but to the 20% of men who enjoy the benefits of falling on the enthusiastic consent side of Hypergamy it just makes sense to go with it. As such, low SMV men are compelled to find ways of discouraging these Alphas from following their r selected sexual strategy. They realize women will want, and pursue, Alphas. And in a polyandrous socio-sexual order based on the Alpha Fucks side of Hypergamy low SMV men drew the shortest straw.

Intrasexual Combat

When Beta men shame women for wanting to fuck Alpha men it has the effect of making those Beta men seem more insecure. In a feminine-primary social order one of the highest crimes is to attempt to challenge Hypergamy in any way. Even in a religious context, to challenge Hypergamy is to be guilty of repressing women’s sexuality. Today, just this impression is conflated with ‘toxic’ masculinity.

In truth, it would never occur to most low SMV men to shame women for their sexual strategy because they know that in doing so they reduce their own chances of reproduction. Women simply deem them ‘losers’ in the SMP (sexual marketplace). They become scolds, or worse, they become men who are “insecure in their masculinity” because they confirm their low SMV status in doing so. In today’s socio-sexual environment men policing women’s Hypergamy is a lost cause.

The solution then becomes an effort to disqualify the Alpha men they compete with by changing the rules that “real men” are supposed to play by. If you can’t win the Game, change the rules to better fit your strengths.

The ‘Real Man®‘ becomes the guy who exclusively invests himself in one ‘Quality Woman‘ – just like they do.

The apex of masculinity becomes whatever definition best aligns with what they believe they represent.

The’Real Man®‘ is the guy who best fulfills a woman’s, often duplicitous, sexual/life strategy by adopting the K mating strategy of socially/religiously enforced monogamy – just like they do. Oh, and the Quality Woman becomes whatever woman whose necessity compels her to agree with and adopt that strategy (Epiphany Phase).

The Real Man®‘ is the guy who plays by the old social contract rules of enforced monogamy, so more Betas might have a better shot at reproduction. True ‘Manhood‘ becomes a title Betas now feel qualified to bestow on other men; just as women also do with men who help complete their Hypergamous life-strategies. 

Trads vs. The Playboy Lifestyle

In order for Beta men to effect this reigning in of the Alpha men women want to tame and breed with, the high SMV man must be demonized and disqualified from the SMP for following his sexual/biological imperatives. The most common way to do this is by conflating his strategy with a degenerate hedonism. he must be made to seem as if he’s not in control of his sexual nature. So the effort becomes one of building an archetype around the ‘Playah‘ – A man who would be a bad long term bet for women’s Hypergamy because he lacks self-control. For this straw man character his little head does the thinking for the big head making him unreliable as a prospect for parental investment.

If enforced monogamy defines the accepted SMP, and women are presumed to be coequal, co-rational participants in it the ‘Playah’ needs to be cast as the outsider. The latent message is the same intrasexual combat method women use with ‘slut shaming‘; the ‘Playah‘ is a bad bet for long term security even if he is the guy women want to fuck.

However, that Playboy is a cruel reminder to low SMV men that they’ll never be able to fully exercise their own masculine imperative – unlimited access to unlimited sexuality. The closest the majority of men will ever get to this is online porn; which of course is why it’s so popular. There is a reason why 68% of Christian men watch porn. They understand that it’s the only viable substitute for their sexual imperative that they’re likely to experience in this lifetime.

While MRAs and MGTOW tend to reserve a special hate for ‘Playahs‘, it’s the Trad-Con mindset that is the most vocal against the Playboy lifestyle. There’s an overarching need amongst Trads to confirm their ego-investment in locking themselves into  enforced monogamy. 

There’s two complications to this:

First, Trad men (and women) tend to superimpose their religious and social belief set on their own sexual strategy. It’s a sin if they don’t accept monogamy as the standard. Today, this belief is a vestige of the old buffers that used to guard against either sex getting too far into their primal sexual impulses and strategies. It’s much easier to impose your sexual strategy on other men, effectively policing their strategy, if it’s ‘God’s Will’ that everyone behave according to that old social contract. I should add that this is the primary reason most Trad men suffer the worst from having their belief in the old set of books destroyed by Red Pill truths. It is galling for men who’ve invested their whole lives in the old social contract to have it vividly disproved by ‘Playahs’ (and women’s behaviors that confirm it) who understand the new social contract well enough to make it work for them.

Second, there’s the self-fulfilling idea that a man who opts for the traditional monogamous lifestyle is in some way more progressive or evolved, or life-satisfied than the ‘Playah‘ with the option to enjoy his non-exclusive sexual strategy. These are the guys who play up the ‘sour grapes’ Law of Power:

Law 36 – Disdain the things you cannot have

If there is something you want but cannot have, show contempt for it. The less interest you reveal, the more superior you seem.

MRAs and Trads alike don’t like being reminded that sex has always been an integral part of a healthy life experience for the majority of men who’ve ever lived on this planet. However, to them, sex is almost always a reward for desired behavior that they believe women expect of them. For most of them sex is always transactional so they never live out any frame of reference of having sex with a woman in a validational sense. It’s likely that they will never experience sex in any other context than the transactional. This is simply one of the visceral realities of a Darwinian sexual marketplace. As such, this pretext colors all of their understanding about what is, or should be accepted as, a legitimate sexual strategy – which unsurprisingly is his enforced monogamy strategy.

“Meaningful” Sex

The low SMV majority have many contrivances to corral uncooperative Alphas to adopt their sexual strategy. However, there’s also an involved necessity to convince themselves that their Blue Pill conditioning is the best sexual strategy that would benefit everyone if we’d all just see the validity of it as they do. To effect this they apply a subjective “meaningfulness” to their enforced monogamy (K selection) and “meaninglessness” to pursuing men’s biological imperatives (r selection) or the Alpha sexual strategy.

As a result, low SMV men tend to deemphasize the importance of sex in life. I asked this in the introduction; why is there a perception that a man who enjoys many women is somehow having sex that is less ‘meaningful’ than a man whose sex live is dependent on his relationship with one woman – or, a man who is ostensibly celibate?

The tactic involved here is the control over what constitutes meaning in sex. Low SMV men need this control to direct a meta-Frame that foments their sexual strategy; sex is only valid if it’s ‘meaningful’ in a way that aligns with an enforced monogamy sexual strategy. Thus, they can disqualify high-SMV men by delegitimizing his sexual experience. The higher the notch count, the less meaningful the sexual experience – and the likelier he can be seeen as “obsessed‘ with (meaningless) sex.

“Meaning” is deliberately ambiguous to better salve the egos of low SMV men, but meaning only aligns with what better promotes the enforced monogamy strategy. This strategy conflict actually serves Hypergamy in the long run as well. Women will endorse the importance of meaningful sex since it helps to convince the r selected Alphas that they should (eventually) shift to K selected commitment and parental investment with them. To the Beta moralist, any sex that doesn’t implicitly lead to marriage, children and the formation of families it’s always ‘meaningless’.

For the less moralistic low SMV man the idea that sex is something easily had, something inherently cheap, serves in devaluing Alpha men’s sexual experience. A popular idea among MRAs is that meaningless sex is something any guy can realistically achieve in a random club on a Friday night. This also serves to debase the value of learning Game; something MRAs never seem to have any facility with. By unrealistically cheapening the process of Game the same ‘meaninglessness’ imperative is created.

If any guy can find a worthless club slut with minimal effort then the low SMV man can raise his value by appearing to have higher standards than to lower himself to doing so. See how that works? This is a variation of the ‘sour grapes’ strategy I mentioned earlier. The Alpha who can easily get women becomes common. And by enjoying what Beta men believe should be a common sexual experience that man is reducing himself to his baser instincts. They say he’s “obsessed with pussy” or a “pussy beggar” because he’s applied himself to learning, in the most marginal way, how to have sex on his terms. And if he plays by a rule set that doesn’t align with the “correct” rules all his efforts become “meaningless”.

I should add here that MRAs and some Trad-Con men also like to foment the idea that because they eschew all that easily-had “meaningless” sex that Alpha men and Low Quality women are engaging it frees him up to pursue more esoteric, philosophical and creatively productive pursuits. Again, this helps to boost their esteem while presenting the appearance of uniqueness in spite of the fact that few of them ever have anything concrete to show for it. Along these lines they also love to imply that famous celibate men of antiquity were somehow more accomplished because they had the forbearance of mind to understand sex was a hindrance. When no one believes you aren’t making your necessity a virtue it’s sometimes necessary to paint men more famous than you with the same false-virtues.

The common refrain is that they’ve reached some Nirvana state of higher purpose or that they’ve evolved above the common need for sex. They shame the Alpha’s intelligence by claiming they allow their sexual nature to dictate to their rational nature. This too is a sexual quality signaling (or they believe it should be). They hope that their coequal, co-rational, Quality women will respond to it because they presume they’re using the same enforced monogamy rule book. Most Beta moralists are egalitarian blank-slate equalists. If they are evolved above their sexuality, then evolved, rational women should be too – but only if they are quality.

The Key Masters

keymaster

In last week’s comments Not Born This Morning dropped this comment in the last thread:

It has been said and it seems fairly well established as a presumed reality that “Women are the gate keepers to sex and men are the gate keepers to commitment”. This model of gender specific “gatekeeping” seems to be the most widely accepted model in the red pill community and the general culture accepts it readily. This model seems rational enough, it significantly forms our frame of understanding about gender dynamics upon which we base our interpretations of behavior & intents, and our decisions to act. But is it the best model to explain what is really going on? Could this model be inferior in that it fails to account for an underlying more fundamental motivator? Is there a more accurate explanation for women’s intents and behaviors? Could this model be potentially deceptive?

The sex side of this model is simple and easy to understand. It is very clear and specific to the fundamental biologic. It is inarguable, not negotiable. The primary drive motivating the sexual aspect is not political or social. It is biological. This is not the case with the commitment side. The commitment side is primary to the political and social realm. “Commitments” are always components of contracts written or otherwise.

To comprehend what I’m about to explain, we must first agree on the primary definition of commitment. As I understand it, a commitment is a pledge to do something, a proclamation to perform certain action (or inaction) within a specific context for the benefit of another usually in exchange for some consideration. In the sexual context women seek “commitment” from a man primarily for provisioning and sexual exclusivity. The man “commits” to the woman that he will abandon his freedom and not enter into sexual relations with other women. He pledges himself financially and sexually to her exclusively. Realistically, this form of “commitment” includes the man abandoning his options. If he becomes sexually involved with another woman, it is widely considered that he has “broken his commitment” and he is dishonored by her and society for “breaking the commitment”. But, has he really broken any commitment other than a self denigrating pledge to forgo his freedom and abandon his options? Since obviously the male imperative is polygamy and spreading his seed, then isn’t the imposition to “commit” in the first place really a dishonor of his sexuality and a dishonor to him? If so, isn’t “commitment” in this context nothing more than a form of enslavement?

So by saying men are the “gate keepers of commitment” aren’t we really saying that men are the “gatekeepers of their own enslavement”?

I’ve read this line of thought from various MGTOW hardliners in various iterations and I’ve even written a post on the concept of commitment  and what it does or doesn’t mean to a man. The idea is to equate committing to a woman with some irrational agreement to self-induced slavery. However, the problem most men have with commitment is that the old set of books has a social mandate for men to keep their word or honor an agreement. It’s what men do. Say what you mean and stick to it, but as with most every uniquely male custom, Honor among men has been one more useful distortion of the Feminine Imperative.

As I mentioned in the Paradox of Commitment, men don’t have nearly the fear of commitment our feminized social order would have us believe. Men aren’t “commit-o-phones” when it comes to military service or dedicating themselves to a business. These are the areas the women’s magazines conveniently overlook when it comes to comparing men’s commitment with committing to women in monogamy. I’m bringing this up because it’s important to see how men commit to things other than fidelity to a single woman.

If we’re going to equate monogamous fidelity to a woman with slavery we also need to see how other commitments can be viewed as being, or not being, slavery. Is the commitment of military service slavery? Particularly if you know have a pretty good idea of what to expect from that commitment? Are you volunteering for slavery if you start a business and become financially beholden to it?

From  the Paradox of Commitment:

You can even take marriage out of the equation; if I’m in a committed LTR with a GF and over the course of that relationship I realize that she’s not what I’m looking for (for any number of reasons, not just sex), even though she’s 100% faithfully committed to me and the LTR, should I then break that commitment? If I do, am I then being unethical for having broken that commitment irrespective of how I break it? Should the commitment to my own personal well being and future happiness be compromised by another commitment?

What’s my obligation; neglect myself in favor of a bad commitment or to the principle of commitment itself?

It’s my take that commitment ‘should’ be a function of genuine desire. Ideally, commitment should be to something one is so passionate about that the limiting of one’s own future opportunities that come from that commitment is an equitable, and mutually appreciated trade. This is, unfortunately, rarely the case for most people in any form of commitment because people, circumstance, opportunity and conditions are always in flux. A commitment that had been seen as equitable sacrifice at one time can become debilitating 5 years after it depending upon circumstance.

Under the old social contract, the idea that a man would compromise his sexual strategy to fulfill a woman’s (Hypergamy in the long term) had a presumed exchange – sexual access, parental investment, companionship, a good, supportive feminine role example for the kids, etc. – that made the commitment of marriage at least somewhat appealing, if not entirely equitable. I supposed a case could still be made that even under the old order of conventional gender roles and expectations men were still committing themselves to a downside bargain. But in our new, feminine-primary social order, with our broader communication, it’s certainly signing up for slavery of a sort in comparison to the options available being single.

A lot of guys think that by my advising men to spin plates and remain as non-exclusive as possible that its sole purpose is to free them up to indiscriminately bang as many women as possible. While sexual variety maybe an upside to non-exclusivity, there are many more freedoms and options that a non-exclusive man can invest himself in where committed men cannot, or wouldn’t even think to.

So yes, from a male sexual strategy perspective, and considering the terms of that commitment and consequences of breaking it are all glaringly apparent, signing up for that commitment might be assigning yourself to a kind of slavery. Under our present social conditions, staying single might be as good as it gets for men.

However, that said, there is still an undeniable, idealistic, hope that men can make the best of a marriage. Most men (see the 80% Beta men) still remarry in far greater margins than women, even after horrific divorces. We can attribute that to the sustainability of men’s sexual market value lasting longer than women’s, but the desire to want for a lasting monogamy is what I’m getting at. Even in light of the fact that women are hardwired for Hypergamy, and in light of women’s inability to appreciate the sacrifices men must make to facilitate their realities, men still, sooner or later, have a desire to lock down or otherwise wife-up a woman he idealizes. I have read the testimonies of men who will go to any length to stay in a marriage if even the outside hope of it improving exists.

I think this desire might be both a conditional and innate drive in men.

In Mrs. Hyde I quoted a study by Dr. Martie Haselton from Why is muscularity sexy? :

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.

It’s entirely possible that a man’s sexual strategy is the simple result of his adapting to his circumstance.

Under the old social order, prior to the upheaval of the sexual revolution and feminine social primacy, investing heavily in one’s mate made good sense if the guy wanted to procreate. As men, I think we still want to apply more value to our commitment in this respect. I think it gets back to the fallacy of relational equity, but because most Blue Pill men believe that there is value in their committing to a woman, and they falsely think that women have the capacity to appreciate it, we tend to build more into it as some kind of mutually understood relationship leverage.

Gatekeepers

Back before Roosh began making his necessities into virtues, he had a pretty good insight about women being “gatekeepers” of both sex and commitment:

A popular manosphere saying is that women are gatekeepers to sex and men are gatekeepers to commitment. I wish this was an absolute truth, but it’s not. As a collective, women are often gatekeepers to both sex and commitment. Most men reading right now can surely attest to their failed attempts to secure commitment from women they slept with, and if you poll the entire population of men, you may find that they are the initiators of monogamous relationships more often than women. It only makes sense for this to be true: it is way more damaging for a man to have his woman sleep with another man and get cuckolded than the other way around. The 0.5% of the population who are skilled players and have more say with commitment don’t put a dent into this common reality. As a sex, men have very little say in determining the relationship dynamic.

[…]It would be a nice fantasy for us men to believe that we have a say in relationships and sex. It’d be nice to think that our “alpha” behavior and our game determines how a relationship can proceed, but often it doesn’t. We’re just giving the girl what she has already decided on. Do you really think you’re selling televisions to customers who came into the store with the intent to buy bicycles? The girl who falls in love with us wanted to fall in love with us, the girl who had fun with us wanted to just have fun with us, and so on. And even when a girl wants a bicycle, she still wants a certain kind of bicycle. This is why game is a numbers game, because girls are incredibly picky even when they are sexually available. The horniest girl in the club who decided on having sex will still have her pick of the litter and opt to get the best that she can.

From the perspective of men using Game to secure some kind of commitment with a woman, I’d agree, it is a numbers game. But, in general, most men aren’t learning PUA/Game to settle into an LTR and most Red Pill aware men (should) understand the nature of women well enough to leverage Game if (ever) they do look for commitment.

Roosh was correct about men not really being gatekeepers of commitment though. I think there’s a definite want on the part of guys to believe that they have some sort of leverage in the ultimate scheme of things. The Feminine Imperative constantly conditions men to think that their commitment to a woman is something insanely valuable to women. Thus, we see shaming tactics designed to call men out for avoiding commitment irrespective of men’s reasons for wanting to take precautions. This has the effect of conditioning men to think that they are the gatekeepers of something valuable.

In a sense, commitment is something valuable to a woman, however, in the age of Open Hypergamy and Strong Independent Women®, the writing is on the wall for men with regard to the convenient need for that commitment at the end-game phase of a woman’s sexual market value. So yes, a man’s commitment to monogamy with a woman has inherent value, but men are hardly the gatekeepers of it when it is a woman who does the deciding as to whether any one guy’s commitment makes any difference to her.

So, we come to a question of comparative equity with regard to men “signing up for slavery” and how inherently valuable his commitment (as convenient as it’s needed) really is to a woman. I have no doubt there are several women reading this right now who are in “relationship limbo” with a guy they desperately want to commit to them in some official capacity. And no doubt they’ll drop a story in the comments personalizing it to be typical of men, but I would argue Roosh’s point that men are the initiators of monogamous relationships far more often than women. Ironically, commitment only has value to a woman when it’s denied to her by a man who’s SMV outclasses her own.

For obvious reasons, highly desirable women, women at the peak of their sexual market valuation, are always the least concerned with men’s capacity to commit. They largely have the luxury to be selective, but furthermore the time at which women are at their highest SMV is usually the point at which men are still building upon their own. Eventually, commitment only has an appreciable value to a woman when she is most in need of it; when her SMV is in decline.

I should also point out that men, the majority being Blue Pill Betas, are the most necessitous of a woman’s commitment when she is at her highest, his is an unproven commodity, and he appreciates the value of a woman’s commitment. Thus, most men look for a stable monogamy in their early to mid 20s, while more mature men who’ve had time to build their SMV into their mid to late thirties tend to be less concerned with monogamy. This is why we hear the constant drone of women bemoaning that highly valuable, supposedly peer-equitable men’s unwillingness to commit and settle down with women aging out of the sexual marketplace. Women are far less concerned with the commitment-readiness of young, unproven men who themselves would commit to even a women in the mid-range of her SMV.

At the end here, I think it’s time Red Pill men disabuse themselves of the idea that they are the ‘gatekeepers’ of commitment, and rather employ their internalized Red Pill awareness and Game to be the ‘key masters’ of women. While I have no doubt that commitment can be a carrot on the stick for some women, the problem really lies in how that commitment is in anyway valuable and balance that knowledge with the fact that commitment, once given, becomes valueless and taken for granted when it’s established. The fact that you’d commit to a woman isn’t something that carries a relationship, no matter how badly she wanted it from you before.

There really is no quid pro quo when it comes to commitment or value in believing you’re a gatekeeper of it.

Law 20
Do Not Commit to Anyone

It is the fool who always rushes to take sides. Do not commit to any side or cause but yourself. By maintaining your independence, you become the master of others – playing people against one another, making them pursue you.

Sex, Lies and Statistics.

iamaten

Ok I’ll admit it, I had originally intended to go a bit off brand and write a take down piece about Aunt Giggles’ ludicrous post last week about how my infamous SMV graph wasn’t statistically viable, but the ABC 20/20 hit piece that never aired on Friday had the lion’s share of my attentions. To call that post flimsy would be an understatement, but when her site traffic starts heading south consistently enough she always resorts to taunting the manosphere to increase views and comments she’ll only delete. It must be a lot tougher a gig for her now that the HuffPo owns Hooking Up Betas and she’s expected to drive site traffic for revenue regularly. Gone are the days of the 1,000+ HUS comment threads when you’re only interested in hearing your own voice.

The abject stupidity of Susie quoting a single, unverifiable “PhD in statistics” comment on Dalrock’s site (from April of 2011 no less) to build a post refuting sexual market evaluation should be enough to tell the story about HUS’s commercial rebranding; not to mention Giggles’ desperation for viewership in an already saturated demographic. In other words, when your rebrand is essentially 17 Magazine for the 55+ female demo, you’ve got your work cut out for you. Advice for you Suz; go back to pretending to be red pill — there’s a hundred other bloggers on Jezebel, and a hundred HuffPo ‘psychologists’ who’ve been doing your schtick longer and better than you.

Print

All that said, I can’t help but recognize the nerve that my SMV chart has struck throughout the internet. I’m not just talking about the manosphere proper here; from recognized psychology sites (generally for comparison) to BodyBuilding.com, this chart is easily the most linked-to picture from Rational Male. Whether it’s about refuting its accuracy or comparing how my instinctual understanding of SMP valuations gel with more scientific studies, that graph has become a benchmark, or at least the starting point, for a better understanding of comparative SMV over the course of a subjective lifetime.

A lot of that original post’s intent gets misconstrued, usually as the result of bruised egos still invested in blue pill social conditioning, but also women who are understandably threatened by the prospect of having their long-term sexual strategy chronologically laid bare for men to prepare themselves for. I’ve restated this repeatedly, but this graph was never the result of some scientific analysis, rather it was the result of observation and correlation. And I daresay (even to my surprise) that my graph lines up scarily close to most ‘statistical’ studies.

Nonetheless, Aunt Sue’s plea for site traffic prostitution made me aware that I should address some of the most common criticisms of the Tomassi SMV graph. So lets start with ‘Doctor’ Kelly’s assertions:

Those graphs are wrong because, with a fixed number of people in the world, equal between the sexes, you have to scale the curves so that the area under each one is the same. E.g. the top valued man is not a “10,” ever. He’s some relatively lower value scaled by the fact that men’s sexual prime lasts longer. Why is this, for the non math geniuses out there? Because if there are 50 men who are 7.5′s, and there are only 30 women, then men’s actual score and actual value on the dating market is downgraded because he can’t just choose a 7.5 and take her. He is downgraded by competition in the market.

You can read Kelly’s entire comment at Dalrock’s, but her analysis is fundamentally flawed for the same reason the 3 year old OK Cupid graphs are flawed (or statistically limited). This flaw is the assumption is that SMV evaluation is in anyway relatable to whom a person is actually pairing off with in the short or long term. As I’ve stated many times before, “wants” got nothing to do with it. Desirability, and peak sexual market value (and capitalizing upon that peak) have nothing to do with monogamy – however this is exactly the context I would expect from solipsistic women relating any and every detail of the SMP to how it fits into a feminine narrative. Though it might be a tall order I’d love to see a study done of how women’s menstrual cycle influences their short term breeding with who they pair off with in long term monogamy.

This was from a couple of comments he made on the Curse of Potential:

…with regards to the SMV graph–are you saying a 40 year old guy is gonna have an easier time picking up a 22 year old girl (at her SMV peak) at a bar than, say, a 27 year old? I dunno if I’m reading it correctly, but it appears to show a man of 40 as having almost twice the SMV as a man of 27, which doesn’t sound right to me. Almost all the hot young chicks I know are with other, young (maybe couple years older) douchebags, not forty year olds (or even 38 or 35 year olds). I mean, unless you’re Leonardo DiCaprio or something…obviously there are exceptions, but–even outside my circle friends, when I go to the beach, the movies, bars, etc. I don’t see a lot of young girls with way older guys, as your graph would suggest. Advising us to wait till we’re in our late thirties to settle down, and promising we’ll land 22 year olds if we keep up our Game, seems like bad advice–not to mention, you’re giving a lot of single dudes in their 20s false hope–like, hey, can’t pick up a girl at 29? Just wait till you’re 40! They’re gonna be all over that. Girls definitely hit the wall harder, and sooner, than guys, but if men really peaked at the age you say, then–again–most, or at least a sizable minority, of the hottest, youngest chicks would be with them, and they’re not.

SaladDays misunderstands the premise of men’s potential here. One of the most common criticisms I get, especially from disgruntled women, is Salad’s observation; “as a mid-20’s girl, there’s no way I’d ever be attracted to some older guy.” Once again, pairing and mutual attraction has nothing to do with SMV, and especially so when a woman is experiencing her peak sexual market value. The feminized-thinking presumption here is that like should attract like. The 22 year old SMV peaked hottie should be attracted to and interested in settling down with the 37 year old, in-shape, potential maximized, Game-aware man.

SaladDays continues:

If SMV is indicative of one’s ability to attract the most desirable members of the opposite sex, then presumably those in the upper echelons of SMV would want to pair with other, equally sexy mates–and, according to the graph, we infer that the hottest 23-year old girls will generally hook up with 38-year old men.

And, as much as I would like that to be true, 27 years of experience tells me otherwise. Girls that age don’t tend to date men that old (there are exceptions– they have father issues, or the guy is really wealthy & some girls dig that, though they’re certainly not my type).

I believe it was Aristotle who said the best years to marry were 18 for women and 38 for men. In a vacuum, this might be an idealized situation, but the mistake is comparing female peak SMV with male peak SMV. A woman of 22-23 has nothing like the benefit of life experience a potential-optimized man of 38 will have. The comparison shouldn’t be made between peaks, but rather within the peak SMV span between the sexes. Even Aunt Giggles concedes that when polled, most women will say they want to marry between 27 and 30 years of age. Conveniently this is exactly the point at which men’s SMV is (should be) on its ascendancy and women’s SMV drops to an equitable level.

What’s ironic is that for all the handwringing about how a female 23 year olds should or shouldn’t be attracted to older men, no one has anything to say about 28 year old women being attracted to or wanting to settle down with men of 36-38 years old. They titter and giggle about the Half Plus Seven rule while it’s advantageous to their sexual strategy in their phase of life, but only insofar as it benefits women’s sexual pluralism:

When the age ratios of the ½+7 formula are strategically favorable to the feminine sexual strategy, the response by the feminine is one of enthusiastic embracement. Once that ratio progresses to the point it becomes a sexually strategic liability, or even the source of anxiety, the response is one of scorn and shame for men.

When a 28 year old woman declares she’d like to marry an older man, her intellectual and financial status equal, we applaud her for her prudence, but when a 38 year old man declares he’d like to marry even a 27 year old woman to have children with he’s accused of ‘trophy-bride’ hunting and is scared of the Strong Independent Woman® of his own age.

The point is that SMV, in as rough a form as I illustrate with the graph, is that monogamy or even desire has little to do with actualized SMV. Hot, 22 year old coeds with big boobs will always sell more beer than comparably hot 32 or 42 year old women. What gets lost in the translation is that SMV for each sex is determined by the opposite sex, not what that sex would like it to be for themselves. An SMV peaked 22 year old has so much opportunity to capitalize on that peak it becomes distraction. She’s not (as) interested in monogamy with a 37 year old SMV peaked Man, because she has very little motivation to pair off with anyone during this phase of life, much less having the life experience to know a great long term catch when she sees one.

However, when a woman is properly motivated by a more pronounced need for long-term provisioning (be it emotional, financial, etc.) and begins to acknowledge her decaying SMV and lessened capacity to compete in the SMP (i.e. the impending Wall) we conveniently see 27-30 year old women preferring and pairing with men who are, or are just, experiencing their SMV beginning to appreciate. This is a pretty remedial lesson when you consider women of this age’s popular frustration in finding and pairing off with men they deem “their equal”. This is really just a euphemism for ‘man who can provide long term security’, but I’m focusing on the mechanics of the SMP here.

While it might be a popular concept to think of cougars as women looking for idealized, younger, lovers, the reality is one of women seeking men of equitable maturity, and certainly the same, or preferably more, means and status than herself to support her idealized lifestyle. At 27 and older women are motivated to seek the Man who’s realized his potential most fully, while men of 37 who’ve become Game-aware and have in some way capitalized on their slower burning SMV are still attracted to the youth and physicality that they were in their 20’s. The question isn’t about who’s SMV is making them more acceptable for pair-bonding, it’s about which sex’s motivation takes priority when their SMV is peaked and the phase of life the other sex finds themselves in.