Vulnerability

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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.

Intimacy

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Bad Painter had a great question a few months ago:

What exactly is intimacy? What does that look like in a Redpill context?

I used to think I knew what intimacy was, in a blue pill way at least. And I have come the realization that intimacy is either not worth shit, or I simply don’t get it. What I do know is that those times were I was informed intimacy had been achieved were not correlated with my feeling comfortable, more secure or less anxious rather it was the opposite.

This is a good question.

In my writing I use the term ‘intimacy’ as a sort of confirmation of a woman’s genuine interest, but I don’t think I’ve ever really defined it.

Strictly from a PUAs sense I would say intimacy is a woman’s sexual availability – in no uncertain terms it’s confirmation of her intimate interest and acceptance of you, but then again, in my own sexual past I’ve had more than one fuck-buddy with whom I really didn’t share any real intimacy with.

In those instances I was (at least perceived) a point or so above these women’s SMV and enjoyed all the Alpha benefits that arrangement afforded me, but beyond the sexual, I had no real interest in any kind of intimacy, shared or not.

In a sense, I actually had a much deeper intimacy with the three fuck-buddies I would bang in my 20’s than the women with whom I’d invested myself with in more “meaningful” relationships. You see, with my fuck-buddies all pretense of caring about what they thought of me personally (and certainly from a long-term investment) was simply a non-issue. I was free to express as much or as little of myself as I wanted because I wasn’t actively qualifying for their future investment in me. My Frame was dominant from the outset – sex-on-call is a pretty strong indicator of dominant Frame.

When I was writing the final edits of the Wait For It? post for the Rational Male book I felt that I needed to add a caveat towards the end of that section to account for a sense of intimacy for red pill men, who by conviction or otherwise, weren’t comfortable with actually fucking a woman to confirm genuine desire.

The point of that being that sex isn’t necessarily a determinant of intimacy, but rather the real desire for that person and the want for a mutual connection (to be consummated by sex) creates a condition of intimacy.

Zenpriest on intimacy:

“When one considers that one must “game” a woman, even your wife, in order to keep her around, then it also means that you must always be operating at a “higher level” than her. It totally negates the whole notion of having a “soul-mate” and means that on many levels, a man will always be alone.” 

That is probably the most important lesson a man can ever learn.

Intimacy with a woman is impossible if you have any interest in being her lover. If you are fine with being one of her grrrlfriends, and don’t mind the stupid messed up games women run on them, then you can share to your heart’s content – and will always be on the LJBF ladder.

The fundamental problem with today’s concept of marriage is that it seems both men and women expect their spouse to be all things to them – lover, confidante, helpmate, “soulmate”, co-housekeeper, and co-wage-earner. With so many role demands, it is inevitable that everyone will fail at some of them. That is why the old division of roles worked fairly well for most people – each could concentrate on a few things they were good at, and leave the rest to the other person.

Zenpriest outlines one of the fundamental differences between a forced egalitarian equalist approach to relationships with the natural complementary approach – intimacy between two autonomous, self-sufficient, self-reliant individuals is an impossibility in a sustained relationship. If there is a complete self-sustaining independence between both partners (an eqaulist idealized state) then there is no true purpose for intimacy between the two.

Buena Vista:

I have been the Alpha Fucks, the Beta Bucks, and I have been both at the same time. Civil marriage requires a man, as Deti notes by inverse example, to commit to permanent Game. Permanent Game rarely involves true intimacy. This is the reality of the Plan B Nice Guy in marriage.

Eon:

It seems that intimacy, like love, is only possible if you are greater than (and thus truly independent of) the object of your love.

Softek:

In my opinion, intimacy is unchanged by the red pill. It’s the ideas and perceptions about it that are changed.

There’s a lot of dichotomy: sex, attention, and affection are all thought of as needs, but at the same time, if you’re not getting any of those things, the only way to get them is to take on the mindset of having an abundance of them.

And the guys who seem to have free access to all of those things have access to them because they don’t care if they have access to them or not.

I have to consider these perspectives of intimacy and cross reference it with the Cardinal Rule of Relationships:

In any relationship, the person with the most power is the one who needs the other the least.

Although in an extreme this may seem manipulative to the uninitiated, this balance exists in every relationship irrespective of whether one party is intentionally using that power or not. In fact the most frustrated men you’ll ever meet are those whose women aren’t intentionally using the power his qualifying for her intimacy bestows upon her. He wonders why he can never merit her intimacy, while she, obliviously, wonders why he keeps trying to merit it.

As I illustrated in my fuck-buddies example, I was free to be as intimate as I chose with them because I literally had nothing to lose by doing so. And in that state of outcome indifference they wanted those occasions of intimacy far more than any woman I’d held in a high enough esteem to think I needed to qualify for their intimacy.

However, from a Red Pill perspective, I think the idea that “real” intimacy requires a constant effort of Game is in error. I’ve shared an enduring intimacy with Mrs. Tomassi for 19 years because Game and Red Pill awareness are simply part of who I am now. Game, if that’s even the right word for it, becomes effortless once you’ve made Red Pill truths an intrinsic part of who you are.

I still think Buena’s right though, permanent Game rarely involves true intimacy, but only if that Game is a constant act a man feels he needs to make believable to sustain his relationship. This then comes full circle to wanting to fulfill Blue Pill idealisms of intimacy with applied Red Pill awareness.

Learn this now, you will never achieve contentment or emotional fulfillment in a blue pill context with red pill awareness.

Most men’s concept of intimacy, like love, is shaped by his Blue Pill conditioning. The key to real intimacy is understanding how it can grow and be sustained in a Red Pill context. Chasing after an intimacy defined by the feminine suffers from the same misdirection of presuming women’s concept of love (opportunism) agrees with men’s (idealism).

So, weekend discussion questions:

How do you define intimacy?

Do you think men and women share the same concept and definition of intimacy?

Is ‘true’ intimacy only achievable when you have nothing to lose and nothing invested in a woman?

 

End Note: I’m well aware that intimacy has far broader inferences than just the relations between men and women, and I’m not attempting to pigeonhole the entire concept. There is intimacy with your family, your God, your pets, yourself and a variety of other things. However, even in those instances there is still a power dynamic at play.

Boundaries

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The Mate Guarding topic of last week’s post made for some lively debate. It usually does because it’s this behavior, and the root motivators of it, that gets to the heart of dynamics such as an Alpha / Beta mindset, the Scarcity Mentality, Hypergamy, issues of morality and maybe an uncomfortable realization that your LTR has been subject to those motivators.

The purpose and approach men have with regard to mate guarding usually comes down to two positions.

The first being a moral high-ground idea that women do in fact have a moral or rational agency and thus have an obligation to keep their own Hypergamy in check. This may be from a religious perspective, but more often it’s based upon men’s idealistic equalist hopes that a woman can rationally be expected to parse her own investment in what men think should be Relational Equity.

Or in other words, women should know better, and be expected to cooperate with a male imperative by self-regulating their Hypergamous impulses as a matter of personal and social responsibility.

On a limbic level Hypergamy doesn’t care about Relational Equity and openly appealing to a woman’s reason, rationality or sense of responsibility a man believes she should be beholden to is counterproductive in influencing her genuine desires. However, this is usually a self-guided hope that women will recognize and regulate those behaviors at the risk of being socially ostracized in an already feminine-primary social environment.

Again, this can be couched in a religious expectation, but in a secular-equalist sense it amounts to putting the burden of mate guarding on women by presuming their ‘equal rationality’ will result in women mate guarding themselves by policing their own Hypergamy in men’s best interests. Anything less either makes them convictionless or the nebulous “low quality woman” who wont play by the old-order rules and expectations.

The second approach is a proactive mate guarding based on the presumption that mate guarding is a ‘defense’ against mate poaching by other, presumably (but not necessarily) more Alpha men than the one doing the guarding.

Within that context it’s understandable why men would want to protect their personal investment in a woman. What woman wouldn’t be aroused by the prospect of being fought over by two men she perceives as Alpha rivals? It’s a strong affirmation of her desirability and SMV.

Where it turns into a Beta Tell is when a man’s lifestyle revolves around ‘keeping’ her in a possessive sense for fear of losing her because she’s his only viable option for sending his genetic material into the future. That kind of mate guarding is the kind inspired by a scarcity mentality, but it’s also due to long evolved, subconscious sensitivities to her behavioral inconsistencies at or around her time of ovulation.

This is what Dr. Hasselton was getting into in her studies – ovulatory shift in mate preferences created an evolved sensitivity of them in men which in turn produced contingency behaviors (mate guarding) to ensure he wasn’t wasting his parental investment efforts with a child that wasn’t his own.

An evolved mate guarding sensitivity and contingent strategy was basically insurance against men’s cuckoldry risks.

I would argue that a contingent mate guarding strategy evolved not as a direct response to Alpha (or even Beta) competition stresses, but rather due to women’s innate Hypergamy, their sexual pluralism and the potential for parental investment deception when women were left with their Hypergamy unchecked.

If a woman’s predominant perception of you is Alpha, if her mental point of origin is one in which she recognizes her own SMV as being subordinate to your own, she wont be asking your “permission” to go to Vegas with her girlfriends for a weekend because her desire for her Alpha will be stronger than her peers influence on her during her ovulation week.

In theory, no woman who sees you as her perceived Alpha and Hypergamous best interest will want to ‘cheat’ on you – so the idea wont even occur to her. I realize this sounds simplistic until you consider the readiness with which most men will similarly isolate themselves socially, putting off friends and family in preference to spending his time with what he believes is a high-value woman.

Demonstrate, Never Explicate

From The 48 Laws of Power

Law 9

Win through your Actions, Never through Argument

Any momentary triumph you think gained through argument is really a Pyrrhic victory:  The resentment and ill will you stir up is stronger and lasts longer than any momentary change of opinion.  It is much more powerful to get others to agree with you through your actions, without saying a word.  Demonstrate, do not explicate.

There is no greater demonstration of higher value for a man than walking away from a woman. Even a woman’s strongest perception of higher value cannot compete with the self-certainty of value a man has when he disconnects himself from a woman who’s already accepted him for her intimacy.

While Dread (even passive dread) is a strong signal of a man’s higher value, removing your own intimate acceptance from a woman and confirming the value her Hypergamous nature questioned about you is the last word in DHV.

For the first half of their lives, even the most mediocre of women become accustomed to men qualifying for their attention, intimacy and sexual access. Women quickly learn the utility of their first, best, agency with men – the power of sexual control.

So when that agency is proven useless with a man, that control is eliminated and she begins to question her capacity for that control. By removing himself from dependency on that agency he confirms that his SMV is more valuable than her own.

A lot of men report that their unprompted disinterest in sex with a woman, a wife, a girlfriend, often provokes a woman’s imagination with regard to her control and/or inspires a greater sexual determination to please him in order to reestablish this control when they next engage in sex.

There’s precious little that’s more effective at reestablishing Frame for a man than the demonstration of higher value walking away from a woman’s accepted intimacy represents. Some of the best sex you’ll have in your life will come after a reunited breakup.

Now, the reason I’ve detailed this is because the foundations of a man maintaining Frame within a relationship are rooted in limiting or removing this sexual agency and demonstrating higher value as part of that process.

Establishing Boundaries

London Towers on the SoSuave forum started a fairly contentious debate on how a man ought to establish boundaries within a relationship last week:

In my last LTR I never set boundaries, let her hang with her ex, guys, never got jealous, just didn’t give a fuck…because my life was going well and I had no insecurity she wouldn’t do anything because I was the shit. She even wanted her ex to hang with us, just so she could show me off. This actually seemed to work for me as I had some natural alpha state for the first 1 year due to life success and she could feel this, thus other guys were just orbiters. I would even joke to her about who she found attractive in the bar, that’s how self confident I was. This would actually make her want me more.

Then cracks in my game came out, I was going through a rough patch with life and suddenly the game shifted. She would start to compare me to other guys including her ex in a negative way. I suddenly became insecure because I didn’t feel Alpha anymore due to life not going well and suddenly started enforcing boundaries which she would constantly test because she knew I lost my game unlike when I was Alpha and didn’t give a shit. Enforcing boundaries was actually coming from an insecure place and I don’t think your words mean shit if you ain’t got your game tight.

Now, I’m not too sure how I would handle my next LTR. I’m in the process of becoming alpha again, but now truly alpha as in my inner game this time. But would I now still have the not give a sh1t attitude if my girl still hung out with her ex/guys?

Part of me thinks if my game is tight, I give her great sex, pluck at her emotional spectrum, she rides on the magic carpet of my exciting life (which comes from knowing my life mission) she will be hooked on me in a multiple of ways and if she knew I would drop her cold and can easily replace her if she doesn’t provide me with the affection/sex that I need.. she will enforce her own boundaries.

This is the only true boundary I can provide. A girls attention will drop if she starts even emotionally to involve someone else. At that point you just freeze immediately. So the only boundary you can ever enforce is through your attention and her subtle awareness you have options and will walk away with ease at the very beginning of her not providing for your needs. That loss is something she could not deal with.

I’d encourage readers to take the time to read through that discussion and the various approaches to establishing boundaries within a relationship (or even non-exclusive plates you may be spinning). After picking through the differing perspectives I made the connection between establishing boundaries and men’s natural predilection for mate guarding behaviors.

Most of the expressed perspectives tend to side with either of the two mate guarding approaches I mentioned at the beginning of today’s post; one, in which women are rationally expected to police their own Hypergamous impulses, and the other, where an active (and equally reasoned) explicating of boundaries are overtly declared as an ultimatum in an effort to protect a man against the parental investment risks of being cuckolded by a woman he knows can’t be expected not to otherwise succumb to her Hypergamous impulses.

If you notice how London Towers’ story unfolds here he essentially proceeded by demonstrating his higher value, secure in the confidence of it, only to have that DHV eroded due to his life’s circumstance.

This is when the boundary of Alpha indifference he’d organically set (albeit unknowingly), based upon his value, was challenged in his drop of status and esteem. I’ve elaborated in the past about a man’s burden of performance or how women’s concept of ‘love’ is based on a passive opportunism of what a man is (rather than who he is), but you get the picture illustrated for you here.

Next, commenter Soolaimon picks up the opposite end of the extreme:

These boundary guys have it ass backwards.

They are judging women by their words instead of judging them by their actions.

Judge women by their actions and not their words.

Agreeing to a boundary is only her words that these guys think will keep her from cheating.

Women who cut out other men from their lives on their own is a woman who understands what an exclusive relationship is.

Those are her actions you judge her on.

Not useless words she can go back on at any moment.

[…]

Smart classy intelligent women already know what exclusivity means they don’t need to have it defined when they are defining it for you by removing other men on their own.

Women do that for Alphas and not betas who need to set a boundary out of fear.

Women that are really into you will agree to what you want with no problem.

When they lose interest they will still cheat on you making your boundary useless.

If your woman knows what exclusivity means and has the same values as you why are you so terrified to put a ring on her finger and marry her?

There’s a lot to consider when you establish boundaries with a woman. Essentially those boundaries men wish to establish and have respected by a woman really just amount to a codified form of mate guarding.

When you think about it, this is what (at least in an old social order) the marriage contract was meant to insure from a male-beneficial perspective – an assurance of fidelity, but also a contractual insurance against Hypergamy.

Considering the contemporary risks involved, in the current social environment there are any number of reasons men are wary of marrying a woman, but what marriage has become is really a challenge to what a man believes about mate guarding and his confidence in controlling a woman’s Hypergamous nature based upon his degree of desirability to her.

Though I don’t disagree in principle, Soolaimon’s exaggeration is founded on the idea that there’s always going to be a bigger fish; another AMOG to seize your woman’s interest should your combination of Game, material and emotional provisioning, or ambition for such be lacking.

Like most absolutists, he does little to contextualize the preconceptions a woman may have with a particular man they’re already involved with. A woman may fantasize about sex with a more Alpha male during her ovulatory phase, but that doesn’t mean she has the opportunity to realize it – even for “smart classy independent women”.

That said, and after London Towers’ example, it’s impossible not to come to a conclusion that implied, demonstrated boundaries – ones that have actionable consequences of intimate and invested loss (i.e. Dread) – are preferable to explicated, but ultimately appealed-reason declarations of boundaries that are negotiated insurance policies to limit her Hypergamy.

While I do believe boundaries are a necessary part of a relationship, it’s far better for women to discover them for what they are, and the consequences of them, by demonstration rather than overt explanation.

The hand burned by the stove teaches better than any warning.

The only person who’s behavior you can control is your own, but that behavior can have a significant impact on the behaviors of others.

 

Mental Point of Origin

PoO

I’m working another contract gig for the next few months, and recently I had an interesting encounter with a new girl on my team. She’s 34, Japanese (dual citizenship) maybe an HB 6.5-7 and over the summer she hooked up with a guy here who she had a somewhat monogamous relationship with until he transferred to Australia last August.

This girl is ‘in love’ with this guy who’s not aloof to her, and not fully indifferent, but he sets himself as his first priority and never considered turning down his transfer in order to continue anything with her. The guy is nothing special to look at. No muscle definition, kind of fat-thin if you know what I mean, but pasty white, ginger, not out of shape but not in shape, maybe 5′ 11″.

She cannot shut up about what a ‘real man’ he is. She bought a $2,200 ticket to visit him for a week and a half in January and has made a personalized calendar as a gift for him that has photos all of these events they shared together over the summer, every month with a heartfelt description of some thing she loves about him included.

To her, this guy is Alpha as fuck. On Tinder, this guy would be a left swipe 100% of the time. His attitude is indifferent Alpha, but he’s self-concerned. This girl idolizes him.

Granted there’s a lot more going on here to consider; her being well past the Epiphany Phase, necessitous and urgently wanting to consolidate on a long term monogamy makes this guy into an idealized prospect. Thus he became her Alpha, if not anyone else’s. Granted, it’s mostly situational; she thinks she wants to have kids with him and at 34 that clock is about to expire, but she has to come to him, literally and figuratively.

However, although the guy is definitely a ‘contextual Alpha’, he’s got a genuine Alpha-ish bearing that translates into his being self-aware of his condition and really not giving a damn what anyone else might think. He’s got total Frame control, but it’s not an intentional control, and that natural casualness of indifference only makes her want to please him that much more. There may be a cultural element to this as well, but to hear her talk about other, lesser men, it’s apparent she’s been very much westernized in her sense of entitlement.

Self-Concern Without Self-Awareness

People think I’m crazy to hold up a guy like Corey Worthington as the example of an Alpha Buddah, but this guy has the same unpracticed, self-unaware, mojo as Corey.

Personally, I was at my most Alpha when I didn’t realize I was. That’s not Zen, it’s just doing what came natural for me at a point in my life when I had next to nothing materially, only a marginal amount of social proof, but a strong desire to enjoy women for the sake of just enjoying them in spite of it.

I’ve mentioned before, the most memorable sex I’ve had has been when I was flat broke (mostly). It didn’t matter that I lived in a 2 room studio in North Hollywood or had beer and mac & cheese in the fridge – I got laid and I had women come to me for it.

It didn’t take my doing anything for a woman to get laid or hold her interest. All I did was make myself my mental point of origin. It’s when I started putting women as a goal, making them into more than just a source of enjoyment, that I transferred that mental point of origin to her and I became the necessitous one.

A lot of guys will call that being ‘needy’, and I suppose it is, but it’s a neediness that results from putting a woman (or another person) as your first thought – your mental point of origin.

I’ve used this term in a few posts so I thought it deserved a bit more explanation.

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.

For most of us our understanding of that point of origin develops when we’re children. Kids are necessarily “selfish”, sometimes cruel and greedy because our first survival instinct is to naturally put ourselves as our mental point of origin. Only later, with parenting and learning social skills do we begin to share, cooperate, empathize and sympathize as our mental point of origin shifts to putting the concerns of others before our own.

Young boys are generally very Alpha because of this unlearned self-importance. This is the source of the almost zen-like, mater-of-fact Alpha bearing of Corey Worthington. As I said, he’s not a ‘man’ anyone ought to aspire to, but he is an Alpha without intent or self-awareness.

There is a ‘first thought’ balance we have to maintain in a pro-social respect in order to develop healthy relationships. The problem we run into today is one in which boys are (largely) raised to be the men who provide more than they need in order to establish a future family. That learned, conditioned, mental point of origin is almost always focused outward and onto the people he hopes will reciprocate by placing him as their own point of origin.

Natural feminine solipsism makes this exchange a losing prospect. Women are both raised and affirmed by a vast social mechanism that not just encourages them to put themselves as their mental point of origin, but it shames and ostracizes them for placing it on someone or something other than themselves.

By now I’m sure that much of this comes off as some encouragement towards a retaliatory selfishness or narcissism, but putting oneself as his own point of origin doesn’t have to mean being anti-social or sociopathic. It requires a conscious decision to override an internalized understanding of oneself, but by placing yourself as your mental point of origin you are better positioned to help others and judge who is worth that effort.

It often requires some emotional trauma for men to realign themselves as their own point of origin, and I feel this is a necessary part of unplugging, but the real challenge is in how you deal with that trauma in a Red Pill aware state. If you are to kill the Beta in you, the first step is placing yourself as your mental point of origin.

So my weekend discussion questions are this: Are you your mental point of origin?

Is your first inclination to consider how something in your relationships will affect you or your girlfriend/wife/family/boss?

When men fall into relationships with authoritarian, feminine-primary women, their first thought about any particulars of their actions is how his woman will respond to it, not his own involvement or his motivations for it. Are you a peacekeeper?

Do you worry that putting yourself as your own first priority will turn a woman off or do you think it will engage her more fully?

Are you concerned that doing so may lead to your own form of solipsism, or do you think ‘enlightened self-interests’ serves your best interests and those with whom you want to help or become intimate with?

Beta Tells

couple-talking-3

 

TRP poster, needathrowawayplease from the Red Pill subreddit has a timely question / observation:

Knowing your SO’s menstrual cycle can be extremely powerful. [Indeed]

During the fertile stage of her cycle, thousands of years of evolution mean her body is screaming at her to get knocked up by an alpha male. A simple test to determine is she sees you as her alpha fucks is to not initiate during the fertile period of her cycle and observe her behavior: does she come to you to get fucked? Does her body language or physical behavior change when she’s fertile. Maybe she touches you more often or more intimately or plays the role of the seductress: things like coming to bed wearing lingerie where she usually wouldn’t? Even if she’s relatively low-sex drive and doesn’t initiate, does she at least respond more passionately to your sexual advances or orgasm more easily or intensely when she’s fertile?

You obviously can’t draw conclusions from a single cycle but you should eventually see a pattern – and the more she values you sexually during her fertile period the better. If she isn’t doing anything differently or reacting to you differently when she’s fertile, something’s up.

This test can have false negatives but not false positives. There’s no false positive case where she suddenly starts riding you while you’re watching the Packers game but she doesn’t see you as her alpha. But it can have false negatives where she doesn’t initiate but still sees you as her alpha. If she isn’t initiating when she’s fertile (and you aren’t initiating in order to test her reaction), it could be due to stress, lack of time, being too used to you doing the initiation, etc. But at the very least she should be demonstrating increased passion and sexual ecstasy during her fertile period.

At a high-level:

The best case: She initiates during her fertile period if you don’t. She gets cravings for your D.

The OK case: She responds more passionately and orgasms more easily during her fertile period.

The uh-oh, something might be wrong case: No observable change during her fertile period.

The beta case: Dead bedroom, what the fuck are you even doing (sorry if you got married and you can’t get out).

Of course if she’s an extremely sexual being and all of the above describes your sex life 24/7, then none of this should even concern you.

Disclaimer: Once again, this test is a tool that works best for women with higher sex drives (who really wanna get fucked when they’re fertile). If your 37 year old wife of 15 years fucks you when you want and isn’t cheating, you’re fine. I don’t think test applies to all women (LOL, broke /trp/ rules oops) but it’s useful nonetheless.

Lets presume for a moment that neither a controlled experiment nor an uncontrolled, but documented, correlatively scientific, sociological field study has ever been performed to test the principle of feminine Hypergamy. For a moment, as a man, imagine yourself living in a period of time prior to any formalized school of psychology; pre-turn of the 20th century. There is no Pavlov, there is no Skinner, there is no Freud.

Using only personal observations, observations of learned behaviors related by your father and brothers, male friends and the intergender experiences of a very socially isolated (by today’s standards) group of  people who make up your peers, and a restrictively limited access to any classic philosophical literature beyond the Judeo-Christian Bible – what would you presume would be the nature inimical to women and the feminine?

Would your observations, intuition and the education proffered by your father, brothers and other influential male friends and relations lead to an insight to know what Hypergamy is, how it motivates women and how to control for, or capitalize on it?

Not only do I believe it would, but I would argue that, up until the sexual revolution and the past 60 or so years, men have had an innate and learned understanding of Hypergamy, how it functions, and how to control for it.

To be sure, it didn’t have the formal name of ‘Hypergamy’ – in fact that term was until recently, strictly defined and reserved for “women with the tendency to marry above their socioeconomic level” in polite, pop-psychology circles – but men knew Hypergamy before the manopshere (re)exposed its true definition.

Waging Hypergamy

Resistance to the uncomfortable truths innate to the female experience is to be expected from women – until the advent of Open Hypergamy, the Feminine Imperative needed the sisterhood to be united and its secrets jealously guarded to the point of cognitive dissonance.

My guess is that most of my female critics would still agree with the basic parameters of Hypergamy, but what I doubt they’re aware of is that in denying the inherent biological nature of female Hypergamy women must also reject the sociological, psychological and (observably) behavioral aspects of Hypergamy inherent (and largely subconscious) in women.

Commenter Mookie:

“As women approach the Epiphany Phase (later the Wall) and realize the decay of their SMV (in comparison to younger women), they become progressively more incentivized towards attraction to the qualities a man possesses that will best satisfy the long-term security of the Beta Bucks side of her Hypergamy demands.”

Did your woman say, “you’re (so much) different than the guys I used to date.” Or, “I finally got smart and found a good guy.” If so, this is clear evidence that you are her Beta Bucks guy. Maybe she used to date DJs, NFL players, drug dealers, whatever. If these guys are different types of guys than you, do NOT continue the relationship. She has no clue, but she is rationalizing her choice in her mind. You will pay a severe price later, as in cheating, nonstop bitchiness, or sudden divorce. Find a girl that always dated guys like you. She may have swooned for the lead guitarist, but if she didn’t devote her early 20s to chasing him, you’re okay.

Beta Tells

One of the more common questions I’m asked in consults is whether something a guy did was ‘Beta’ or not. Usually it was a situation wherein the guy was instinctually sensitive to his own behavior in context to his Frame and how the woman he was dealing with perceived him. In most cases a man knows when he’s slipped in his perception of dominance with a woman, they just look for a third party confirmation of it – which is then followed by more rationalizations for why his behavior shouldn’t be considered Beta because they believe women are equally rational, equally forgiving, agents as men (really he is) are.

From Gut Check:

Whenever you feel something isn’t quite right in your gut, what this is is your subconscious awareness alerting you to inconsistencies going on around you. We tend to ignore these signs in the thinking that our rational mind ‘knows better’ and things really aren’t what they seem. It’s not as bad as you’re imagining, and you can even feel shame or guilt with yourself for acknowledging that lack of trust. However, it’s just this internal rationalization that keeps us blind to the obvious that our subconscious is trying to warn us about. Humans are creatures of habit with an insatiable need to see familiarity in other people’s actions. So when that predictable behavior changes even marginally, our instinctual perceptions fire off all kinds of warnings. Some of which can actually effect us physically.

It’s at this point most guys make the mistake of acting on the “good communication solves everything” feminized meme and go the full disclosure truth route, which only really leads to more rationalizations and repression of what’s really going on. What they don’t realize is that the MEDIUM is the message; her behavior, her nuances, the incongruousness in her words and demeanor (and how your gut perceives them) is the real message. There is an irregularity in her behavior that your subconscious is alerting you to which your consciousness either cannot or will not recognize.

I began the Alpha Tells post with the intent of recognizing how a woman behaves when she’s in the presence of a Man she perceives to be Alpha. A lot of men get hung up on trying to ‘act’ Alpha; wanting to ape (and hopefully internalize) the behavioral tells a more confident Alpha displays.

Consequently there’s a lot of debate about how men posture and how they naturally display these Alpha cues, but I think the best gauge of what defines those cues is not in men’s displays, but women’s behaviors and attitudes that are prompted by a perception of Alpha-ness.

And just as women will respond viscerally to an Alpha perception, they will also manifest behaviors which indicate her subconscious knows she’s dealing with a Beta aligned male.

It’s easy to pick apart what a guy thinks are his own Alpha tells, but it’s far more uncomfortable to dissect women’s Beta tells when they’re in the presence of men they perceive to be Beta. Much of what I’ll outline that follows will be hard to read for many guys, and as always you’re free to disagree.

My purpose here isn’t to bash Betas, rather it’s to increase awareness of women’s behaviors toward them. As I’ve explained above, try to put these behaviors into a Hypergamous context and how they would be perceived by women who’ve evolved to have an instinctual sensitivity to these Beta behaviors, as well as expressions of Beta attitudes in your words and emotional emphasis.

I could very easily compile a list of behaviors that are simply the reverse of the Alpha Tells I noted in the previous post, but it’s much more important to address the root reasons for these Beta Tells:

  • Does she initiate sex or affection spontaneously?
  • Does she entertain a large pool of “male friend” orbiters with the expectation of you being ‘mature enough’ to accept it?
  • Does she keep a core peer group of ‘girlfriends’ she insists on prioritizing over being with you? Frequent GNOs?
  • Has she explained to you how she was so different  in college and how she’s glad those days are behind her now?
  • Is she experiencing her Epiphany Phase?
  • Does she cite “mismatched libidos” as a reason for her lack of sexual interest in you now that you’re married or living together (even after she’s had better sex with you or a former lover when single)?
  • Is she averse or repulsed by your ejaculate being on her skin, in her mouth or overly concerned with soiling a bed sheet?
  • Will she have sex with you anywhere besides the bed?
  • Do you perform oral on her to get her off more than you have intercourse?
  • Is she a wide-eyed lover or does she squint her eyes closed while having sex? Is sex a chore for her to perform?
  • If you’re married, did she assume your last name, or did she insist on a hyphenated surname for herself?
  • When you’re together does her regular, unpracticed body posture indicate an openness or are you always having to break into her intimate space?
  • Is she preoccupied with her side of the family or a certain pet in preference to being concerned with your well-being?
  • Is she consciously aware of being 1-2 points above your own relative SMV? Is she overt about it?
  • Does she presume authority in your relationship? Do you accede this authority as a matter of (equalist) belief?

There are many more tells of course, and I hope more will be presented in the commentary, but it’s important to understand that these behaviors and attitudes are manifestations of a woman who on some level of consciousness understands that she’s dealing with a Beta man.

I should also mention that, as with Stephen’s case in Moments of Clarity, there are particular phases of a woman’s life when she becomes more attuned to dealing with Beta men due to perceived necessities on her part. A clear understanding of how these phases predispose women to convince themselves to be more accepting of Beta behaviors and a Beta mindset is imperative to avoiding the common pitfalls men encounter with regard to issues of Frame in their relationships.

Beta men are all too eager to believe they’ve matured into being a self-defined Alpha when a semi-attractive 29 year old in the midst of her Epiphany Phase is giving him wide-eyed indicators of interest in him. Only after she’s consolidated on that long-term security does he realize the plans her sexual strategy had for him.

Predisposition for Mate Guarding

One of the best Beta tells is how defensive a guy gets about the subject of mate guarding.

An Alpha has little preoccupation with mate guarding because subconsciously he knows he has sexual options. That applies both within and without monogamy. I’m presenting this here because the majority of what motivates Beta tells (and really a Beta mindset) is rooted in how men deal with a scarcity mentality. Beta tells are almost always indicators that a man believes he needs to guard his paired woman and thus telegraphs a Beta status to that woman as well as other women in her peer clutch.

Mate guarding, and its intrinsic set of subconscious suspicions and behaviors, is an evolved adaptation of ensuring paternity for a Beta-provider. These men must rely upon exchanging resources and external benefits for women’s sexual fidelity. In essence, it’s an unspoken awareness that Beta men must negotiate for what they hope will be a woman’s genuine desire in exchange for his provisioning, parental investment support and emotional involvement.

Beta men are aware on on a limbic level that Hypergamy dictates an Alpha Fucks / Beta Bucks trade-off in women’s sexual strategy – thus a subconscious ‘mate guarding’ mindset evolved from Beta men’s heightened awareness of women’s preference for Alpha Fucks particularly around the proliferative phase time of women’s ovulation.

Paradoxically, the best assurance you have of fidelity with a woman is simply not to allow yourself to become exclusively monogamous with a woman and rather, have her make the efforts to pair with you under her own auspices you being Alpha. Romance is not required from a lover a woman perceives as Alpha, only his sexual interest – this represents a confirmation of Hypergamous optimization for a woman. The fuck-buddy dynamic – all sexual interests with no reciprocal expectation of emotional investment  – is a strong Alpha tell for a man.

The best gauge for determining a woman’s perception of you as either an Alpha or Beta type is examining yourself and your feeling a ‘need’ to mate guard her, to appease her, or an impulse to correct yourself in order to align with her terms for intimacy. A scarcity mentality is the mental point of origin for a Beta mindset – and that internalized mental model will manifest itself in a predisposition for Beta behaviors.

There’s a common belief that even the most Alpha of men will at times slip into a Beta behaviorism. You can’t be ‘on’ your game all of the time, and while that’s true it doesn’t invalidate that women have a mental model of your overall, predominant condition being either Alpha or Beta. A predominantly Alpha frame and mindset (and yes, looks), plus an acknowledged (real or perceived) SMV primacy will cover a multitude of Beta sins, but the predominant Beta has the sisyphean task of convincing a woman he’s more Alpha than she pegs him for.

So to answer the man asking whether or not something he did was Beta, your answer really lies in your motivation for behaving ‘Beta’ as you did in comparison to how a woman perceives your predominant character.

 

Alpha Tells

Alpha Tells

For as long as I’ve been writing in the manosphere, the definition of “what is Alpha?” has been the number one point of contention I’ve had to state and restate the most often. I’m not going to rehash this now as I have several posts on the nature of Alpha already linked in the sidebar, so if you’re looking for my take on Alpha that’s where to find it.

However, to lead in to today’s post I need to address the basis of what I believe are the most common misunderstandings about the term Alpha.

Well before the inception of this blog, in the early beginnings of what would evolve into the manosphere there was a need of terminology to describe the more abstract concepts developing in the ‘community’. Some of these analogies and terms are still with the manosphere today, others have morphed into more useful abstractions; Alpha Widows, Hypergamy (in its true nature), the Feminine Imperative, even Red Pill awareness are all examples of established terms or analogies for understood abstractions. Among these are also the concepts of a man being Alpha and Beta.

From The Unbearable Triteness of Hating at CH:

5. Etymology Hate

Hater: Your definition of an alpha male is false. In the animal kingdom, the alpha male is leader of the pack, not a cad/badboy/jerk who pumps and dumps women.

Isn’t it just like a nerd to get hysterical over the appropriation of a narrow-sense scientific term to conveniently illustrate broader truths about men and women.

One of the most common disconnects men encounter with the Red Pill for the first time is equating the term Alpha with its usage in describing the mating habits of Lions, Wolves or Silver Back Gorillas. It’s easy to ridicule or simply dismiss a valid, but uncomfortable, Red Pill truth when you’re simplistically comfortable in defining ‘Alpha Male’  in literal etymological terms.

This is the first resistance blue pill men claim they have with the Red Pill. They have no problem understanding and using abstractions for blue pill concepts they themselves are ego-invested in, but challenge that belief-paradigm with uncomfortable red pill truths and their first resort is to obstinately define Alpha (as well as Hypergamy) in as narrow, binary and literal a sense as they can muster.

“Get in Touch with Your Feminine Beta Side”

The next most common misunderstanding comes from conflating the abstractions of Alpha and Beta with masculine and feminine traits. In this (often deliberate) misdirection, the concepts of being Alpha or Beta become synonymous with being masculine or feminine. This is the personal basis of Alpha and Beta many Purple Pill advocates (really blue pill apologists) comfortably redefine for themselves, to suit themselves.

This purple pill conflation is really just a comforting return the the curse of Jung – anima & animus – if the complete man is an even mix of Alpha and Beta, masculine and feminine, then all the worst aspects of his “betaness” can’t be all bad, and he reinterprets what really amounts to a complete androgyny as “being the best balance”.

Unfortunately, and as blue pill chumps will later attest, the feminine expects to find its paired balance in the masculine, not an equalist idealization of both in the same man. Thus women, on a limbic level, expect men to be Men.

This one of the missives of an equalitarian mindset; that an individualized, egalitarian balance of masculine and feminine aspects in two independent people should replace the natural complementary interdependence of masculine and feminine attributes in a paired balance that humans evolved into.

What purple pill temperance really equates to is a 21st century return to the 20th century feminized meme “men need to get in touch with their feminine sides”… or else risk feminine rejection. 60+ years of post sexual revolution social engineering has put the lie to what an abject failure this concept has been.

What they fail to grasp is that an Alpha mindset is not definitively associated with masculine attributes. There are plenty of high-functioning, masculine men we would characterize as Alpha based on our perception of them in many aspects of life, who nonetheless are abject supplicating Betas with regard to how they interact with, and defer to women.

Whether that disconnect is due to a learned, Beta deference to the feminine (White Knighting), some internalized fear of rejection, or just a natural predisposition to be so with women, isn’t the issue; what matters is that the abstraction of Alpha isn’t an absolute definitive association with the masculine.

Likewise, Beta attributes are neither inherently feminine. As has been discussed ad infinitum in the manosphere, 80%+ of modern men have been conditioned (or otherwise) to exemplify and promote a feminine-primary, supportive Beta role for themselves and as many other men they can convince to identify more with the feminine.

The Beta mindset isn’t so much one of adopting a feminine mindset as it is a deference to, and the support of, a feminine-primary worldview.

The reason purple pill (watered down red pill) ideology wants to make the association of Alpha = Masculine, Beta = Feminine is because the “get in touch with your feminine side” Beta attributes they possess in spades can be more easily characterized as “really” being Alpha if it helps make him the more androgynously acceptable male he mistakenly believes women are attracted to (if not directly aroused by).

Alpha Tells

From jf12:

The sexual alphaness of a male towards a female is exhibited by her wanting to please him, and the sexual betaness of a male is exhibited by him needing to please her. A man’s alphaness obviously and definitionally does not cause her to more require him to please her (i.e. alphaness does not rub off like that). And also, betaness is not transferrable, no matter how much we betas wish that our women-pleasing caused women to want to please us.

Moreover, the social dominance of a male in a male hierarchy is barely correlated with his sexual alphaness, and certainly not causal. There are far too many counterexamples, such as Bill Gates, Napoleon Bonaparte, Horatio Nelson, and the list is very very long.

However, and this is a key sociologically empirical point, the social dominance of a *female* human (the best kind!) in a *female* human hierarchy is extremely correlated, in this precise way: A woman to whom women cater to will 99.9% of the time demand to be catered to by her man. This is why women believe man-pleasing women (I admit there are some) are “lesser”. It is also why men (e.g. me) who have tended to be mated to females who are socially dominant in a female hierarchy are invariably betas. It’s simply false that female-dominant women tend to choose men who demand pleasing.

What critics of an Alpha/Beta dichotomy conveniently sweep under the conversational carpet is that the dichotomy they want to debate only exists in their convenient, personal interpretations of Alpha or Beta mean to them.

From a male perspective we can endlessly debate (from our own personal biases) what we believe constitutes an Alpha state (remember, an abstract term, stay with me here) and the expectations of which we think women should respond to according to those expectation. But it’s women’s instinctive behaviors around Alpha men (or men they contextually perceive so) that provide us with the tells as to how she perceives a man’s Alpha or Beta status.

For as much as we believe women should respond to our definition of Alpha – and despite how women will explain they agree with those self-prescribed definitions – as always, it is their behaviors when in the presence of, or in a relationship with men they perceive as being Alpha (or of higher sexual market value than themselves if you prefer) that they bely their true, instinctual recognitions of Alpha.

In a social environment where men are conditioned to believe that women are as equal, rational agents as men, the belief men put their faith into is that women will appreciate their intrinsic qualities and base their sexual selectivity upon a man’s virtue, bearing, intelligence, humor, and any number of attractive intrinsic qualities. However, the truth of what women base their sexual selectivity upon (arousal) is far more evident in their instinctual, unconditioned behavior when around Alpha men – as well as men’s instinctual sensitivity to that behavior.

There are many examples of this Alpha reactive behavior. I’ll make an attempt to illustrate a few of them here, but I expect there’ll be many more offered in the comment thread an I’ll encourage a discussion of the behaviors that serve as Alpha tells. Rossy/Heartiste has made a sport with his ongoing “spot the Alpha” series of posts in which he analyzes a picture or video of a woman’s reaction to a man who she is obviously has an Alpha interest in as her body language and subcommunications suggest. (h/t to CH for today’s image)

The common criticism of these images is that red pill men would read too much into these displays, but the underlying message in that criticism is rooted in understanding and willfully ignoring what our instinctual perceptions of them are. We know Alpha when we see it, but need an explanation to protect our own ego’s Alpha assessment of ourselves.

The Real Selection

For all the delighted ego ’empowerment’ of women boasting they are the sexual selectors in this life, there is still a nervous uncertainty about being found acceptable themselves to an Alpha lover of higher SMV status than they might otherwise merit. This is where the illusions of an assortive mating model break down for women. If feminine-primary sexual selection were the only element to mating there would be no need for the behaviors women are subject to in seeking the approval from men they perceive as Alpha.

There’s a look, an attitude and a presence women will give to Men for whom they have a natural deference to. I don’t just mean blatant sexual subcommunications like casually biting her lower lip, or the hair twirling that’s almost cliché now. It goes beyond the sexual into a kind of meta-attraction/arousal. While the sexual urgency for an Alpha is strong and manifests in a woman’s forwardness toward him, the meta-attraction is both of submission and a subconscious desire for his approval of her.

Men predisposed to a Beta mindset also display many of these same behavioral cues with the women they hope will appreciate them in the same fashion a woman does for a Man that her hindbrain instinctually knows is of a higher SMV. In Beta men we see these behaviors as evidence of “clinginess” or “neediness” and is an identifiable Beta tell; but in women this natural and unprovoked leaning in to a Man, this desire to submit for his approval, is a positive indicator of Alpha attraction.

This is why, as third party observers, we instinctually find such behavior in men distasteful; we subliminally sense a complementary imbalance between the man and woman.

When a woman makes an unforced effort to please a man with subtle words, unintentional wide-eyed contact, and body positioning / posture you’re dealing with a woman who is compelled to defer to you as Alpha.

That isn’t to say this can’t be faked. In fact strippers, good ones at least, are not just physically arousing, or more sexualized, but are in tune with the deficit most men feel when it comes to this Alpha deference. Beyond just the sexual aspect, one thing that makes strippers so enticing and seductive is that the majority of men are simply unused to the fawning affections and Alpha interest (albeit feigned) of any woman, much less an attractive one.

This is also one reason men become so prone to ONEitis both inside and outside this contrived, transactional, sort of attraction. Men are the True Romantics, they want to believe a woman’s sincerity in her Alpha deference to him.

Does the girl you’re interested in come to you, or do you go to her?

I’ve emphasized the importance of establishing and maintaining Frame for years now, but I sometimes wonder if the importance of holding Frame isn’t lost on most men.

To an equalist mindset this Frame establishment seems like I’m advocating men be domineers of their relationships and a man rely on some dark manipulative psychology to enforce his will in that relationship. That’s not what I’m suggesting for the simple reason that it’s too effort consuming, and genuine desire is unsustainable within that constant effort. Maintaining Frame demands a voluntary, uncoerced, desired compliance.

What I’m suggesting is that men simply not invest themselves in women whose Alpha interest in them is mitigated by doubt or an obvious SMV imbalance. This is difficult for most men as it conflicts with our want for an idealized romance with a woman – a want for a love that requires a mutual definition with a woman lacking the capacity to realize this with him. And it’s within that idealized desire men lose Frame and excuse the behaviors of Alpha deference.

The Medium IS the Message

As I’ve written in the past, the Medium IS the Message with women. On some level of consciousness men instinctually understand their relative status with a woman based on the behaviors she directs toward him.

Is she affectionate without being prompted or only when circumstance makes your comfort needed for her?

Is Amused Mastery an easy default for you, or does she resist even playful attempts at it?

Does she initiate sex with you, or is your provocation only ever the precursor to sex?

Is sex even a priority for her (with you)?

Does she make efforts to make things special for you (you both) or is your relationship one of her grading your efforts in qualifying for her Alpha approval of you?

What most guys think are ‘mixed messages’ or confusing behavior coming from a woman is simply due to their inability (for whatever reason) to make an accurate interpretation of why she’s behaving in such a manner. Usually this boils down to a guy getting so wrapped up in a girl that he’d rather make concessions for her behavior than see it for what it really is. In other words, it’s far easier to call it ‘mixed messages’ or fall back on the old chestnut of how fickle and random women are, when in fact it’s simply a rationale to keep themselves on the hook, so to speak, because they lack any real, viable, options with other women in their lives. A woman that has a high interest level in a guy has no need (and less motivation) to engage in behaviors that would compromise her status with him. Women of all ILs will shit test, and men will pass or fail accordingly, but a test is more easily recognizable when you consider the context in which they’re delivered.

Are you making psychological concessions with a woman who’s never displayed an Alpha deference to you?

Validation Hunting & The Jenny Bahn Epiphany

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About three weeks ago I was made aware of Jenny Bahn’s article, 30 is the New 50 which I thought was timely as it went beyond the xojane pablum where it first appeared to wider readership being picked up by Time. It was timely (heh) because it was right around the same week I published Alpha Agents of Righteous Karma and, coming from a fairly attractive woman, it highlighted many of the points I’d made in that post.

Commenter myreality asked me:

To what extent, if at all, do you think that validation hunting is part of male preference for large age differences when a man is in his late 30’s and beyond? It is definitely not 0%…

I think this is presuming a truth that isn’t.

The idea that men “seek validation” for their earned status or to ‘right’ past wrongs to their egos while they were working their way to that status is a social convention. The Feminine Imperative relies on memes and conventions which shift the ownership of women’s personal liabilities for their sexual strategy to men.

When men are blamed for the negative consequences of women’s sexual strategy it helps to blunt the painful truths that Jenny Bahn is (to her credit) honestly confronting in her article at 30 years old and the SMV balance shifts towards enabling men’s capacity to effect their own sexual strategy.

Have a look at my Sexual Market Value Graph. (click to enlarge)

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Although I’ve gone into explaining the loose metrics I’ve based this graph on several occasions, I’ve added some arrows here to illustrate a point that often gets missed or simply blown over because the truths it represents aren’t very flattering. Women would rather men not be aware of their own SMV potential prior to women being able to consolidate upon her sexual strategy.

Popular culture never presumes women are ‘validation hunting’ when they’re enjoying their peak SMV potential at 23 and (by order of degree) indulging that opportunity with men while at their peak. Women are acculturated to feel “empowered” by their sexuality, and really, no guy who wants to bang a hot 23 year old woman is ever going to rebuke her for it, much less develop social conventions to limit their odds of doing so.

However, men enjoying peak SMV in their mid to late 30’s are (by default) presumed to be vindicating themselves and validating their “fragile egos” by dating the younger (and in Jenny Bahn’s case an SMV peaked 23 year old no less) women they naturally find more attractive.

If there is any ‘validation’ for SMV peaked men it’s less about the sense of deserving a hot piece of ass or vindication for the women of his peer age who found him sexually invisible until he hit his peak, and more about validation in a new self-awareness that he finally is in a position of choosing and qualifying women for his intimacy rather than being filtered for his own acceptability for so long.

It’s not about turnabout or fair play now that the sexual selection shoe is on the other foot, but simple deductive pragmatism for a man who is aware of his own SMV and, assuming he’s hasn’t hamstrung his ability to maneuver, wants to exercise that value at (presumedly) the top of his game.

It’s not (usually) that he’s made a conscious effort to make himself an Alpha Agent of Righteous Karma, but that he steps into that role by default when the SMV balance shifts to his favor, and he naturally prefers sexual access to the best physical, and most sexually available woman his newly recognized SMV will afford him. That may not be a 23 year old coed, but it might be with a necessitous 29 year old looking for a solution to her long term investment.

About Those Arrows

One very common (or deliberate) misunderstanding about this chart is the presumption that like should necessarily attract like. A lot of critics claim indignation over the idea that I was suggesting a 23 year old woman should be attracted to a 36-38 year old SMV peaked man. I’ve never proposed this scenario in any post I’ve ever written about SMV, but it’s important to understand the prioritizations of attraction women make during the later phases of their maturation.

Critics who like to presume that this attraction is only based on looks, prowess and virility often don’t take this attraction prioritization into account. Obviously a more youthful man is in better physical shape when he’s younger, and if all we were considering was short term mating prospects and the Alpha Fuck side of feminine hypergamy this graph would look much different. However, once a woman has reached 30 (thank you Ms. Bahn) those attraction (not arousal) priorities look much different.

The primary reason I placed men’s peak SMV in his mid to late thirties is because, if he’s made the most of his potential, this is when he is most likely to have established himself in his status, affluence and achievements while (if he’s maintained himself) still retaining the looks of a more mature man.

It’s exactly women’s sexual prioritization at their most necessitous which puts men at the top of their SMV game. As I’ve detailed in many prior posts, hypergamy wants optimization (Alpha Fucks / Beta Bucks). Women’s pluralistic sexual strategy is optimized when a woman can consolidate a monogamous commitment from a man who can deliver a better genetic benefit and a better personal (providership) investment than her own SMV should realistically be able to warrant her.

In general, at no other point in a man’s life does he possess the a better potential to optimize women’s innate hypergamy.

If you follow the pink arrow, from about women’s 30th year that established SMV peaked man has the best potential to satisfy both aspects of the dualistic nature of hypergamy. It’s important to consider that when a woman reaches her 30s her sexual prioritization is affected by her own capacity to attract and hold male attention. What happens is a sort of subconscious establishing operation – as her capacity to attract becomes diminished, and as the next generation of SMV peaked women comes into their own, the urgency to cash out of the sexual market place increases.

So it’s not that the expectation should be one of 23 year old women wanting to get after it with 38 year old men (though this is exactly the scenario in Jenny Bahn’s story), but rather that 38 year old men increase exponentially in value to 30 year old women at a time when what he possess is what she needs the most.

Back in May a data set was released on Twitter from OKCupid founder Christian Rudder is his book Dataclysm: Who We Are (When We Think No One’s Looking)It’s a fascinating read actually and reinforces much of what I speculate about with regard to my own SMV graph.

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It’s important to remember that this data is based primarily on looks, but it illustrates the point of my adding the blue arrow to the graph. Men’s arousal and attraction triggers are virtually static. While men’s attraction value variates for women, it is a locked value for women.

While in her SMV peak – as we can see averaged her to around 22 – women enjoy the benefit of having the most sexual selectivity of their lives. However, the power of this selectivity declines as she ages and is further stressed by sexual competition as she does. And while men compete for sexual access to women, the sexual market value of the woman being competed for is still rooted in her capacity to attract attention and arouse men.

When in her SMV peak years, women’s preferences and sexual strategy supersede those of the men who would compete for her, however as she moves towards maturity, and as men ascend to their own SMV peak, a man’s preferences gradually take precedence over women’s.

Jenny Bahn, a reasonably attractive (former model) woman provides us with an excellent example of this transition.

Alex is 38. I’m 30. Technically, there are no “people our age.” But I’m starting to feel that a 30-year-old woman might as well be a 40-year-old man, though infinitely less desirable, culturally speaking.

At 40, a man is well into hitting his stride, something the guy I’m arguing with is all too aware of, as evidenced when he professes on multiple occasions, “I’m an amazing guy.” “We’re killing it. KILLING IT,” he tells me, while explaining that he’s been caught up in his rapidly expanding architecture firm.

[…]A 30-year-old woman is an undertaking, and it’s the real reason Alex has been putting me on the back burner for the past two months, telling me that I’m amazing and that he’s interested and then disappearing to hang out with a 23-year-old instead. Age ain’t nothing but a number, until it’s a number someone else doesn’t want to deal with.

As I mentioned in The Threat:

Nothing is more threatening yet simultaneously attractive to a woman than a man who is aware of his own value to women.

Jenny, like most women in their Epiphany Phase, is now coming to terms with the transition of sexual selection power from what she once no doubt enjoyed to a man who’s made the most of his maturity and potential she wants to consolidate on in long term monogamy.

Jenny has a rare honesty and insight to recognize this, but naturally the ‘validation’ social convention is there to assuage her predicament. Even in her self-acceptance of her situation Alex is colored with an uncooperative attitude. His perspective is ‘incorrect’ in a fem-centric social order. If he were really ‘mature’ he would be dating and marrying Jenny (a victim of her own past decisions) instead of seeking ‘validation’ with a 23 year old hottie.

The presumption of Alex validating himself with a hot 23 year old makes men his age, in general, more shallow or manipulative, or uncooperative with the mandates of a feminine-primary social order. A mature, established man shouldn’t want to date women in their 20s, he should cooperate with the Feminine Imperative and validate Jenny’s sexual strategy by becoming monogamous with her.

What Alex is doing isn’t seeking validation, it’s simple SMP pragmatism – the power of sexual selectivity (though by no means unilateral) has switched in degree to his favor. Alex is enjoying his peak SMV and a large portion of that value comes from his desirability from women like Jenny; women who delayed capitalizing on their SMV peak and now, at 30, find themselves on the necessitous side of that sexual selectivity.

The Burden of Performance

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From Love Story:

Men are expected to perform. To be successful, to get the girl, to live a good life, men must do. Whether it’s riding wheelies down the street on your bicycle to get that cute girl’s attention or to get a doctorate degree to ensure your personal success and your future family’s, Men must perform. Women’s arousal, attraction, desire and love are rooted in that conditional performance. The degree to which that performance meets or exceeds expectations is certainly subjective, and the ease with which you can perform is also an issue, but perform you must.

One of the most fundamental misconceptions plugged-in men have with regard to their intersexual relations with women is the issue of performance. Back in late March of this year I read an interesting article from Roosh, Men are nothing more than clowns to the modern woman and it struck me that although I certainly agreed with him in the context he presented it, there was more to the ‘entertainment’ factor than simple amusement on the part of women.

Women don’t seek out comfort or stability in men anymore—they seek entertainment. They seek distraction. They seek hedonistic pleasure. This is why provider men (beta males) are so hopelessly failing today to secure the commitment of beautiful women in their prime, and this is why even lesser alpha males fail to enter relationships with women beyond a few bangs. Once the entertainment or novelty you provide her declines—and it inevitably will—she moves on to something or someone else. In essence, the only way you can keep a girl is if you adopt the mentality of a soap opera writer, adding a cliffhanger to the end of each episode that keeps a woman interested when being a good man no longer does.

After reading this I tried to imagine myself being a recently unplugged man or a guy just coming to terms with the uncomfortable truths of the red pill and learning that all of the comforting “just be yourself and the right girl will come along” rhetoric everyone convinced me of had been replaced by a disingenuous need to transform oneself into a cartoon character in order to hold the attentions of an average girl.

That’s kind of depressing, especially when you consider the overwhelming effort and personal insight necessary in realizing red pill awareness. Roosh later tempered this with How to be a good clown and Clown Game vs. Good Man Game, and although he clarifies things well in Game terms, the root of the frustration most guys will have with the ‘clown factor’ is that, in these terms and in this context, their performance isn’t who they are.

In this environment it’s easy to see why the MGTOW option seems like an understandable recourse for red pill men. It’s a very seductive temptation to think that a man can simply remove himself from the performance equation with regards to women. I’ll touch on this later, but what’s important here is understanding the performance game men are necessarily born into. Like it or not, play it or not, as a man you will always be evaluated on your performance (or the perception of it).

I think what trips a lot of men up early in their red pill transformation is sort of a sense of indignation towards women that they should have to “be someone they’re not” and play a character role that simply isn’t who they are in order to hold a woman’s interest. I covered this idea in Have A Look and developed how women are like casting agents when it comes to the men they hope will entertain them.

This was really about a sexual context when I went into it, but as I read Roosh’s original article I began to consider that women’s “character” role they expect men to perform changes as their own phases of maturity dictates and their SMV can realistically demand for that phase. In other words the “characters” they want performed in their Party Years will be different than the ones they want after their Epiphany Phase, which may be different than the character they want for their mid-life years.

How realistic it is for men to be that character becomes less and less relevant as women are socialized to expect disappointment from men actually living up to the characters they’re conditioned to believe they should realistically be entitled to at various stages of their maturity.

Living Up

Right about now I’m sure various male readers are thinking, “fuck this, I’m gonna be who I am and any girl who can’t appreciate me for me is low quality anyway.” This will probably piss you off, but this is exactly the blue pill mentality most ‘just be yourself‘ Betas adopt for themselves.

It’s actually a law of power to despise what you can’t have, and deductively it makes sense, but the fact still remains, as a man you will always be evaluated by your performance. So even with a ‘fuck it, I’ll just be me’ mindset you’re still being evaluated on how well ‘you are just you’.

The simple fact is that you must actually be your performance – it must be internalized. In truth, you already are that performance whether you dictate and direct that, or you think you can forget it and hope your natural, undirected performance will be appreciated by women (and others), but regardless, women will filter for hypergamous optimization based on how well you align with what they believe they are entitled to in a man in the context of their own perception of their SMV.

Looks, talent, tangible benefits and other core prerequisites may change depending on the individual woman, but to be a man is to perform. Even if you’re a self-defined man going his own way who enjoys escorts to fulfill his needs, you still need to perform in order to earn the money to enjoy them.

It Doesn’t Get Easier, You Get Better

For Men, there is no true rest from performance. To believe so is to believe in women’s mythical capacity for a higher form of empathy which would perdispose them to overriding their innate hypergamous filtering based on performance.

Women will never have the same requisites of performance for themselves for which they expect men to maintain of themselves. Hypergamy demands a constant, subliminal reconfirmation of a man’s worthiness of her commitment to him, so there is never a parallel of experience.

Women will claim men “require” they meet some physical standard (i.e. performance) and while generally true, this is still a performance standard men have of women, not one they hold for themselves. There simply is no reciprocal dynamic or prequalification of performance for women, and in fact for a man to even voice the idea that he might qualify a woman for his intimacy he’s characterized as judgmental and misogynistic.

Social conventions like this are established to ensure women’s hypergamous sexual strategy is the socially dominant one. Expecting a woman to perform for a man is an insult to her ‘prize status’ as an individual.

From a humanistic perspective there’s a want for a rational solution to this performance requirement, but as I’ve outlined in prior posts, appeals to women’s reason are no insulation against the subliminal influences of hypergamy.

I read many a ‘dating coach’ who’s approach is complete honesty and full disclosure in the hopes that a like-minded, rational woman will naturally appreciate a man’s forthrightness, but this presupposes a preexisting equal playing field where subliminal influences are overridden by mutual rationalism.

The real hope is that women will drop their innate hypergamous performance requisites in appreciation of this vulnerable, inadequate honesty.

What they sweep under the rug is that you cannot appeal to a woman’s reason or sentiment to genuinely forgive a deficit in a man’s performance. Love, reason, both demand a preexisting mutual appreciation in a common context, but neither love nor reason alleviate the necessity of performance for a man.

Women simply are not motivated to compromise hypergamy on their own accord. They will not be reasoned into accommodating a situation of mutual needs by overt means.

It is a Man’s capacity to perform and demonstrate (never explicate) higher value that motivates women to accommodate mutual needs in a relationship – whether that’s a same night lay or a 50 year marriage.

Demonstrating Higher Value

I get the impression that DHV tends to get a bad rap both from blue pill critics as well as red pill aware men. A lot of that gets wrapped up in technique and practice. It’s easy to dismiss this concept as posturing or bluster, but DHV, as a principle isn’t defined by egotistical measures or how well a guy can ‘showboat’ himself around women.

A lot of DHV is unintentional. In fact the best most genuine forms of DHV are exhibited when a Man doesn’t realize he’s actually performing in a way that demonstrate his higher value. This can be as simple as walking int a room in the right context or environment. Even humility can be DHV in the proper context.

What I’m driving at here is that after reading all of this you might think I’m saying you need to be superhuman to qualify for women’s performance standards, and again that’s kind of depressing – that’s not what I’m getting at. A woman’s performance standards are dependent on many varied contexts and according to the priorities she places on the type of character she finds both arousing and attractive and according to what her conditions dictate for her.

It’s not how you perform so much as that you perform. Ambition and personal drive to perform and be the best and most successful you you can be may have absolutely nothing to do with your intention of attracting a woman, but you are still performing and you will be evaluated on that performance.

DHV or DLV is performance whether intentional or not. You cannot remove yourself from this performance equation. You can cease to direct your part in this performance, but until you die you cannot exit the game.