Category Archives: Manosphere

Entryism in the Manosphere

It seems Tucker Max (of fratboy asshole fame) and Geoffrey Miller (who wrote Spent) are creating a male dating and self-improvement site. LaidNYC and D&P have detailed how they think Max and Miller are just going to rip off pre-existing manosphere bloggers and try make them politically correct.

That the new site will be politically correct is nigh indisputable given Max has written this:

@runsonmagic not just honest. Also scientific, actionable, ethical. Most sites in that space don't fit the bill. They're dressed up puas

— Tucker Max (@TuckerMax) March 17, 2014

It is highly unlikely that by ‘ethics’ he is referring to a rooted morality derived from religious principles. It will almost assuredly be shallow progressivist ethics in nature. I would bet a decent sum the ethics will primarily be focused on creating a kinder, gentler carousal. “Leave her better than when you found her.”

But somebody trying to profit off the manosphere by stealing ideas and making them more acceptable to liberals is not terribly surprising. It was bound to happen at some time and Max Tucker is well positioned to do so. In retrospect it seems almost inevitable.

Instead of lamenting the inevitable, which laidnyc and D&P did a good enough job of that, I would like to instead point to a comment by aramaxima:

From a paranoid reactionary perspective, it looks to me like the Cathedral is about to turn the Manosphere into controlled opposition. Stealing all its ideas, rebranding them to a “wacky pair of a bestselling author and an Ivy researcher!” and then (of course) ignoring that the Manosphere at all ever existed is exactly how I’d do it.

Some reformed asshole stealing ideas is, in the larger scheme of things, not that big a deal. What manospherians should be worried about instead is entryism:

Entryism is a small team of conspirators trying to manipulate and control another organization – usually a larger organization with a bigger mailing list and more funds. Thus for example a small group of political extremists, a team of half a dozen or so people, would naturally like to take over an big organization involved in some big money, moderately leftist, politically progressive task such as funding housing for the poor, if lots of funding for the poor flows through the housing organization.

In this case, the ‘big’ organization is the manosphere and its ‘funds’ are lost knowledge of the SMV and influence among disenfranchised young men. The mainstream progressives would definitely like to bring the manosphere to heel to work for its agenda.

How I foresee this working:

1) Max uses softened versions of red pill concepts (let’s call this the purple pill) that are more acceptable to polite society. These ideas will still be outside of the mainstream, but only slightly so. Max will become the David Brooks of dating advice; still kind of icky but acceptable enough for the NYT.

2) The purple pill is still more effective than the blue pill, so it still gets a following. Many disenfranchised, but liberal, young men who would be scared off by the harsh truths of the manosphere accept this new politically correct purple pill.

3) A new purple pill community for young men with its own set of blogs develops with Max being a key player. Maybe the community links up with existing purplish-pill dating sites like the Good Men Project, Hooking Up Smart, and Mark Manson, maybe not.

4) The purple pill community begins to link to and get links from some of the more “acceptable” manosphere sites like the Art of Manliness and MMSL. Overlap between the manosphere and the purple pill community begins.

5) The purple pill community begins applying the the manosphere and/or red pill labels to itself; either that or it develops its own label and beings applying that itself and the manosphere as a whole. Either way, the two communities begin to fall under similar label to most outsiders. (The same way those in the manosphere are still called MRA’s by a lot of outsiders). We’ll call this the new manosphere (NM).

6) Extreme feminists will attack the purple pill NM for some reason. Some red pillers will defend them (he’s one of “us” being attacked by one of “them”) and ties will grow within the NM.

7) As the feminist attacks happen, the NM will distance themselves from the “extreme” red pill community. They’ll post a few apologies and some politically correct claptrap to satiate their opponent’s bloodlust. This, of course, won’t work.

8) Purple pill types will start to concern-troll the NM, trying to dilute the message, purportedly for the good of the message. “Look how we’re upsetting others. We’re driving people away. We need to soften our language and maybe talk less about mean stuff so we can get more people into the red pill.”

9) Eventually, the NM will start cut themselves off from the red pill community and denounce them. “Those guys aren’t part of the real NM”, “the NM would never have anything to do with sexists like that”, etc. Red pillers will be shunned and excluded from the NM.

10) At this point the manosphere will have become completely controlled by the purple pill. The purple pill will be called the red pill, Max (or someone else like him) will be the centre of the manosphere, and Roissy will be that crazy crank who hasn’t evolved with the red pill. Old red pillers will either have to rebuild the community that was destroyed by the entryists or leave altogether.

Now it probably won’t be exactly this way, and will almost assuredly not be in the exact same order with such discrete steps, but the general thrust of the movement will be the same. The result will be the same, the conquering of the manosphere by the purple pill.

Also realize, Max and Miller do not have to be doing this intentionally. Maybe all they want is some easy cash from stealing others ideas. They may even be opposed to some of the steps. They may end up being simply tools of others. In fact, it wouldn’t even require anyone doing this intentionally, it may simply happen because that’s what tends to happen to large, unstructured organizations. They go left.

Also, even if Max’s site goes nowhere, which is possible, they are not the first (HUS) and definitely won’t be the last. There will be other entryists and the pattern will be the same.

****

So, how to stop it?

Entryism can only be stopped by vigilance. To keep the red pill from being subverted current people of the manosphere have to stop them from doing so.

Here’s some things that can be done:

1) Aggregates and other gatekeepers, such as RP Reddit and manosphere.com, have a special importance. They must make sure not to put Tucker Max’s site or other similar sites, into their rolls and must keep content from purple pill sites from infesting them. If some gatekeepers allow themselves to be taken with purple pill stuff, they should be abandoned for other gatekeepers.

2) Important manosphere figures must make sure to distance themselves from purple pill types sites. Mockery, such as Aunt Giggles, can work well for this. This already being done.

3) If a men’s dating or self-improvement group or community outside the current manosphere starts to take the red pill or manosphere label upon themselves, the manosphere needs to vocally reject their usage. As well, if purple pill communities create their own labels and try to apply them to the manosphere, the manosphere must reject those labels.

4) Concern-trolling must be ignored. Anybody who starts to campaign for making the red pill more accessible by enforcing language codes, political correctness, sensitivity, etc. needs to be shunned and delinked.

5) Avoid linking to purple pill sites for purposes other than mockery, rejection, or rebuke.

6) If purple pill commenters start concern-trolling your blog, make sure to either answer and reject their concerns or delete their comments.

7) Mockery works wonders against entryists. Use it.

8) Those manospherians who become to cozy with purple pill sites need to be warned, then shunned.

Those are some ideas I can think of immediately. If anybody else has others.

It should be noted to be careful not to go too far in enforcing over-rigid ideological control. It is counter-productive as the manosphere thrives on open discussion. There is a difference between keeping entryists out and keeping everybody out. A line needs to be drawn between acceptable disagreement and questioning and entryism.

****

The manosphere can listen, or not. It can take steps to protect itself form entryism or not.

But if it doesn’t, don’t be surprised to hear: “No true red-piller thinks hypergamy exists”, “every red-pill person knows the Dark Triad is unattractive to women”, “those sexists aren’t a part of the manosphere”, etc. in the next few years.

The Slut Event Horizon

Discussing my last post on Twitter, some objected to the following:

Only sluts will succumb to them [PUA’s], and the sluts they are hurting would have simply slutted it up with someone with ‘natural game’ (or less game) and been hurt anyways.

When posting this I thought it was almost tautological. If a women is sleeping with a man within the PUA’s 3-date rule she’s most definitely a slut. If a women is in the PUA’s natural habitat, the club, looking for love, it’s almost guaranteed she’s a slut. As I’ve already noted, when the PUA moves outside the club into daygame, his success rates are very low (even accounting for only selecting girls in the top 11-23% of women), so the gaygamer is only getting the sluttiest girls.

The question then became, what of good girls that go bad due to incentives. These aren’t natural sluts, but only sluts of circumstance. Aren’t the PUA’s ruining them?

To which the answer is, maybe in a few exceptional rare cases yes, but the PUA is using a number of selection filters, the two most important fo which for this discussion are the club, alcohol, and the 3-date rule.

A woman having sex within 3 dates is already ruined. A women in the club or getting blitzed around strange horny men is either already ruined or will be ruined in very short order whether there’s a PUA present or not.

To describe the ruining of girls, I coined the term slut event horizon. If you aren’t familiar with TV Tropes (or astrophysics), an event horizon is the point of no return, past which something/someone is irredeemable.*

So, in this case, past a certain point of sexual activity a certain women is most slut, no question.

A women having sex within 3-dates is already past the slut event horizon. A women at the club or frat party getting wasted is almost assuredly past the slut event horizon, and in the rare case she isn’t she is willingly putting herself so close to going over the edge that for any practical purpose you should treat her as such (ie. a slut is not a wife).

The PUA’s natural fodder is the woman already past the event horizon, or, rarely, so near the edge of the event horizon that to say the PUA ruined her is to blame the straw for breaking the camel’s back rather than the 400-lb obese man.

****

Here’s a chart on lifetime number of sexual partners:

About a third of women have had 0-1 partners, we can safely say these are good girls. About a quarter had 7+ partners, we can safely say these are sluts, they’ve passed the slut event horizon. Less than a tenth of women had 2 partners, we’ll call these the oops women, the ones who have probably not passed the event horizon, but made a mistake or had a boyfriend before marriage. About a third of women had 3-6 partners, we’ll call these marginal girls, they may or may not be past the slut event horizon.

69% of women are virgins at 18, that number drops to 15% by age 21. So, over half of all women lose their virginity from 18-21 years of age.

Something major happens between 18-21.

Some can be chocked up to marriage, a bit under 20% of people marry by age 21. Given that women generally marry about 2 years younger, we could estimate that about a quarter to a third of women are married by age 21. But some of those would not have been virgins at 18.**

But even given that some women are marrying, that is a lot unmarried women losing their virginity in their college-age years. Many of these are among the marginal women.

As well, over half of women aged 17-40 have had one night stands. We’ll assume nearly all n>7 women had a one night stand, which means about that a good portion (about two thirds) of the marginal women and a few of the oops women have had a one night stand, as well.

(I’m not going to get into trying to figure out how many ONS’s are caused by PUA’s, but remember, PUA’s are a very small minority of men, I would be surprised if they made up even a large minority of ONS’s).

****

When men speak of a women being ruined by PUAs, they are talking of the oops and the marginal women. The ones with a premarital sex partner or three, possibly a one night stand.

A marginal women having a one night stand, has not been ruined by the PUA, she’s either had a number of ONS’s, making the choice to repeatedly ruin herself, has had other sexual activity besides an ONS and stopped when the ONS showed her how far she sunk, or she had a one night stand and decided to continue on, choosing sluthood and ruining herself (depending on where the ONS falls).

The only group that could be said to be ‘ruined’ by the PUA would be the oops woman whose oops was a one-night stand or short-term fling. Oops women make up less than a tenth of women, and I’m betting the large majority of oops women lost their virginity to a boyfriend rather than a PUA.

So, in all, maybe, about 3% of women could be honestly considered ruined by a PUA rather than by their own choices. Not good, but hardly a major problem that must be solved right now.

On top of this, almost a third of women have sex before they are even old enough to legally be fodder for a PUA; 85% of women have had sex before they are even of age to legally allowed to be in the PUA’s natural habitat, the club. To say the PUA’s are responsible for sluttiness is asinine.

Blaming the PUA’s is, at best, scapegoating. Focusing on PUA’s will be destroy any attempt to establish a proper reactionary view of sex and the sexual marketplace before it even begins.

****

A woman does not just see a PUA then become a slut. Taking it from a PUA may be her final fall over the slut event horizon, but PUAs do not have some sort of magic power to turn women into sluts. Rather sluts come from circumstances.

There are two types of slut, the natural slut and the circumstantial slut (similar as the to the two types of slave). Keep in mind this is not an dichotomy, but a sliding scale.

The natural slut is an r-selected woman who is naturally inclined, whether by genetics or childhood environment (ie: sexual abuse or father absence), to be a slut. She will slut it up unless there are very strict societal controls over women’s sexuality, and even then she might become a harlot outside of proper society. You can not ruin this women, she is pre-ruined; she is beyond the slut event horizon. She is bad marriage risk no matter what and nothing but the overwhelming grace of God could ever make her wife material. Most of the n>7 sluts are of probably some degree of this type.

The circumstantial slut is a woman who may be slutty if the circumstances or incentives are right. Some of the sluts and almost all of the marginals and oops are of this type. Many of the good girls could become this is the circumstances were wrong.

The reason the circumstantial slut becomes a slut is because she is in the wrong sexual culture providing the wrong incentives.

In the reactionary society holding the positions on sex I outlined in my last post, these girls would never become sluts because circumstances would never be such that they would want. They would all be wife material.

She does not just fall over the slut event horizon she moves to the verge of the event horizon through small slutty behaviours and eventually one of those behaviours throws her over the edge.

Those small slutty behaviours are mostly not ONS’s, ONS’s are often the final leap over the horizon. Rather they are trained in a women through long- and short-term sexual relationships.

She loses her virginity to her boyfriend, her friend-with-benefits, or the man she wants to be her boyfriend because she sex outside of marriage is a societally accepted. She does this a few times with a few different boyfriends and maybe with that man she just met who’s really hot and at some point she, more or less accidentally, crosses the slut event horizon.

She may not start out intending to be a slut, but once she starts moving along that path it is very easy to go over it without noticing. There is no clear social line of sluttiness.

At what number does it become sluttiness? Most men and women would overlook a mistake or two. What about three? four?

If it’s not slutty in a long-term relationship, then it shouldn’t be with a short-term one? Three dates is a short-term relationship, right?

Is an ONS an automatic cross over the horizon, or can one ONS count as a mistake? two? What’s the difference between three dates and one?

There is no clear threshold of where the horizon is. Hence why some women are good girls, some are sluts, but the plurality are marginal and oops.

They’re trying to stop before the slut event horizon, but many are still turning into sluts because it is not clear where the slut event horizon sits.

This is why I say PUA’s are less destructive than LTR’s and STR’s. What a PUA does is clearly degenerate and an ONS with a PUA is clearly over the slut event horizon. Only those women already over the horizon or so close to it it doesn’t matter for any practical purpose will be a PUA’s +1, and the circumstantial sluts who do so will have been lead down this path by slippery slopes and an unclear slut event horizon.

Meanwhile, as soon as you accept the validity of STR’s and LTR’s there is no clear line of sluttiness and degeneracy. The slut event horizon is not something seen until it has already been passed. These relationships are simply training grounds for sluttery and ruin far more women than PUA’s ever have or will.

If you want to preserve women, if you don’t want women being hurt by a brutal sexual marketplace, if you want women to be wives rather than sluts, you must make the culture so it is not so easy to slide over the slut event horizon.

You have to culturally keep sex in marriage and marriage alone. Some natural sluts will still slut it up and there will still be oops women, but if you make clear that sex outside of marraige is the slut event horizon, you will have less sluts, more wives, more marriage, happier women, and more productive men.

The only reactionary attitude for sex is to confine it to marriage alone.

Anything else is degeneracy.

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* I should note that I don’t believe in the concept of absolute irredeemability. Every person no matter how fallen can be redeemed by Christ’s blood and have a regenerated new self. So, no matter how much you have sinned, God will forgive you if you repent. Do so.

In this case, irredeemability is used to simply show someone who has allowed themselves to act in a way that would permanently mark them a material and objective slut.

** Good news for men looking for a virgin wife. About a fifth to a quarter of unmarried 21-year-olds are virgins once you take out the quarter to a third of women married at 21. 20-25% is better odds than 15%.

On Reaction and PUAs

This post on the nature of women has made the Twitter rounds and some, such as Anissimov, are calling for a war on the manosphere and/or the PUAs. (I’m not sure how many see the distinction between the two).

Before I begin, I read the story emashee posted a week or two back, and felt no pity for the subject of the post. I still feel no pity. She’s a moral agent who has made her moral choices. She’s choosing to live the life of a whore and receiving a whore’s wages.

That being said, she does seem somewhat on the verge of repentance, so I did pray she finds Jesus. She can’t change her own nature, but God can.

The only person I feel any pity for in that story is the man who’s the intended target of her story. You just know she is going to shred his heart and soul in the future, and he’s walking into it blindly (the letter is unsent). If something does come of it, the decent man will likely find a cold bed or hot divorce in the future. Dealing with girls like that is like sticking your member in a meat grinder.

As the Bible warned many a times, the path of the adulteress leads to death.

****

Now, onto my main point. I must reject the war between reactionaries and PUAs some are trying to brew.

PUA’s are not the problem; they never were the problem. They didn’t create modern society and they are not the ones maintaining it. They are simply immoral men taking what they can from the decaying ruins. They’ve been handed a bag of complete shit and been told to enjoy eating it. How can you blame them for not wanting to?

If I wasn’t a Christian, you can bet I’d be out there taking what I could myself.

In addition, Dalrock has already established shaming PUA’s won’t work.

Finally, PUAs are not hurting anyone innocent. Only sluts will succumb to them, and the sluts they are hurting would have simply slutted it up with someone with ‘natural game’ (or less game) and been hurt anyways.

There is no social cost to PUAs, casual sex was a norm before PUAs. Mystery didn’t build the clubs he practiced game in and the club sluts were already looking for sex before he first sarged. It’s not like club sluts would magically have become wives if Mystery had decided to play video games instead.

Does anyone honestly think that PUA’s were at fault for the woman’s problem in emashee’s post?

Day game might be worrisome, as it extends the reach of the PUAs beyond club sluts and might intrude on women who may be marriageble. But given that a day game conversion rate of 2.7% and a number close rate of 25% are considered great, it’s pretty clear that only the sluttiest sluts will be taken in that way. So little chance of a decent women being ruined there.

PUA’s are not ruining marriageable women; they are using sluts.

Sluts are sluts, wives are wives, and the two should not be confused. Those complaining about PUA’s ruining women miss this point and doing so leads to Sheol.

Don’t mistake me, I’m not lionizing PUAs. PUAs are degenerate scumbags.

But, except for some of the deluded “left her better than when I found her” types, they’ll usually cop to that. Acknowledging their own guilt makes them closer to repentance than the sluts and progressives who stand sanctimonious.

Putting the blame for modern sexual relations on PUA’s misses the reactionary point and allows other, more insiduous forms of degeneracy to destroy society.

****

PUA’s are not the enemy. So who is?

The enemy is the adviser counseling young men to be nice guys and wait to marry used-up sluts.
The enemy is the father who pays for his daughter to live on campus.
The enemy is the mother who protects her son from struggle.
The enemy is the preacher that teaches God will bring that perfect soul mate if you just wait.
The enemy is the college becomes a place of partying signalling rather than strict academics.
The enemy is the journalist who glorifies premarital sex.
The enemy is the aunt encouraging her daughter to date around and delay marriage.
The enemy is the person who expresses disgust at the thought of a 16-year-old marrying.
The enemy is the person who calls a 15-year-old a child.
The enemy is the public school that infantilizes young people.
The enemy is the person who encourages long-term relationships.
The enemy is the person who encourages marriage based on romantic love.
The enemy is the person who encourages delaying child-birth.
The enemy is the organization encouraging ‘family planning’.

In case you don’t realize it yet, the enemy is you.

The enemy is the culture which has been completely taken over by the long march.

It is the culture that has separated sex, romance, procreation, and marriage from each other.

It is the culture that infantilizes young men and women and encourages them to avoid responsibility.

It is the culture that has destroyed the family.

You are a product of that culture. You are that culture.

****

This is the question to those other reactionaries condemning PUA’s, have you had sex outside of marriage?

If so, you are just as strong a degenerative influence on the marriage market as the PUA’s. In fact, you are probably are more degenerative influence than the PUA’s.

The PUAs are obvious degenerates. Nobody thinks the PUA’s are doing good, not even the PUA’s themselves.

On the other hand, there are many subtle forms of degeneracy that are widely accepted and hardly noticed. By being so they are far more potent forces of degeneracy.

A healthy society rests on the family unit.

Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

A healthy society rests on a man leaving his parent’s household, taking a wife for himself, and raising children.

But you say, “Why does he not?” Because the Lord was witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant. Did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union? And what was the one God seeking? Godly offspring. (Malachi 2:14-15, ESV)

Any healthy society will be structured so as to encourage responsibility and independence in young men, so they can take wives, build a life together, and create the next generation of responsible adults.

Anything that takes away from this prime societal focus is degenerative. Small deviance will build on small deviance and eventually corrupt and destroy the civilization.

I am sure many reactionaries intellectually hold to and practice deviancies which destroying our society. We should eradicate these before we start hypocritically pointing out the degeneracies of the PUA’s.

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So, what should a reactionary, non-degenerative view of sexual relations entail?

We must first understand that sex belongs in marriage and nowhere else. Romance belongs only in the path to marriage and marriage itself and nowhere else. Children belong in the married family and nowhere else. Marriage is for life and nigh unbreakable.

Without rock-solid marriage as a societal foundation, paternity is always in question and sexual access comes without investment. Men who don’t know the paternity of their children and have easy sexual access have no incentive to invest in the future of society, leading to the degeneration of society.

Any minor deviance from combining these four is entryism and will lead to more minor deviance, inevitably leading to our current disordered sexual marketplace.

If you accept or practice anything else, you are a degenerate and just as bad an influence as the PUA’s, maybe even more so, because you’re reinforcing existing accepted degeneracy rather than being an unaccepted outsider.

Although romance is confined to marriage and the path thereto, marriage should not be based around romance. Eros is poor foundation for marriage. Marriage is a social obligation to your spouse and to your community to provide for each other and for your children, the future of the society.

An LTR is not marriage as it rejects the social obligations marriage entails. Nothing is marriage but marriage.

Next, we must accept the biological fact that people physically become adults at puberty. God and/or evolution designed humans that way. If marriage is delayed more than a few years beyond puberty, young adults will generally engage in sex and romance outside of marriage. Only those with the lowest time preference (or the most sexually unattractive) will delay, and a society can not function if it depends on everybody to have low time preferences.

Anything but young marriage* will inevitably lead to our current sexual marketplace.

By young I mean actively considering in their early teens and anybody not married by their early-20s is considered an old maid or eccentric bachelor.

If you discourage teen marriage, if you think the 14-year-old a child, if you show disgust towards marriage between 15-year-olds, etc. you are encouraging degeneracy.

Once married, marriage should be nigh unbreakable: divorce should only be granted for adultery and, maybe, persistent physical violence and it should always be at-fault.

Anything else, encourages divorce, encourages the dissolution of the family, and discourages marriage, along with all the negative effects those entail. To accept anything else is to accept degeneracy.

Artificial birth control should be disallowed for the unmarried and strongly discouraged by society for the married. ‘Family planning’ should be shunned. Married couples should be encouraged to give birth to many children.

Anything else seperates sex and romance from procreation, which will inevitably lead to the speration of sex and romance from marriage. This will lead to the current sexual marketplce. It is degeneracy.

This is what society must enforce for a stable family, the building block of civilization. Anything else will lead to the decline of the family, and thereby the decline of the nation and its civilization.

****

The PUA’s are degenerates. In any functional society, they would be hunted down, exiled, whipped, and/or hanged. Cold, casual sex is harmful to the participants, to the family, and to society at large.

Engaging in short-term and long-term sexual relationships apart from marriage is also harmful. The hook-up engenders sex and separates it from marriage, romance, and procreation; relationships separates both romance and sex from both procreation and marriage, which is just as harmful.

The sexual STR is nothing more than an extended hook-up.

The LTR creates relationships not based on mutual commitment before society as a replacement good for marriage. Discouraging both marriage and stable family formation. They replace the societal commitment of marriage for the selfish pursuits of individuals. Without unbreakable commitment before the community, the relationship unit is not a stable way to raise children and it reduces the surety of paternity, which is necessary to encourage men to invest in their children.

These are particularly more insidious than hook-ups, because no one except a few damaged individuals think hook-ups are a good and beneficial way to live their life. But many people think the serial monogamy of STR’s or LTR’s are positive and acceptable. It’s a form of degeneracy we don’t see.

But most harmful of all is divorce. It destroys that marriage which is already built, ruins families, hurts children, and strongly discourages marriage.

All are destructive to society and engender the decline to our current broken sexual marketplace. We should be encouraging a return to traditional sexual mores.

But we should not be making a fight between reaction and the PUAs and should not be taking a harsh purging line for sexual degeneracy (at this point; come the restoration, we can decide what to do with degenerates).

As it stands, the PUA’s are potential allies. They see some of the truth and are effective at spreading it. The PUA sections of the manosphere function as an excellent dark enlightenment gateway. I came to Moldbug and neoreaction through the mansophere and I’m sure many others first taste of the red pill was through the PUA’s.

On a more pragmatically harsh note, the PUA’s strip the modern sexual market place down to its roughest and dirtiest and display it openly for all to see. A few years of reading of the PUA’s pillagings will likely turn many naive young men towards a more patriarchal society. A couple decades in the brutal hands of the PUA’s and I’m sure many women will be more willing to support a return to the loving, protective embrace of patriarchy.

Railing against the degeneracy of PUA’s, while accepting other sexual relationships apart from marriage is hypocritical and counter-productive. PUA’s are not the problem, they are not harming the innocent, and they are performing some minor pragmatic positives. They are the symptom of a larger problem.

We should focus on the root problems rather than the symptoms.

We should intellectually bind sex, romance, procreation, and marriage into each other and fight the infantilization of young men and women.

****

* The combination of later marriage, strict society-enforced sexual mores on women, harsh anti-divorce laws, and socially acceptable prostitution may also potentially function, but would not be optimal.

The Bookshelf: Shoot Deer

Manosphere-affiliated blogger Tim, has created an introductory ebook on hunting deer, called, in blunt style, Shoot Deer. He gave me a copy to review.

I am a beginning hunter; I went out by myself this fall for the first time. For my first hunt, I simply drove out to the nearest crown land, parked at the side of the highway and walked a few hundred meters into the bush til I found a small clearing. I then sat on the ground in small dip leaning back against a tree and waited, shotgun in hand. Probably not the most effective way of harvesting anything, but it was a learning example for next time (while hoping not to get lost in the woods), when I plan to prepare a bit better.

As could be expected, I didn’t catch anything, which was somewhat frustrating as I could hear scraping/crunching within shooting range, but couldn’t see anything through the trees. I would move a bit closer, wait 5-10 minutes, then move again, but it always was just out of sight. In retrospect, it was probably just another hunter and we were simply spending a few hours hunting each other.

Other than that attempt, I’ve never hunted and I don’t really know anybody who hunts, so the topic of this book really appealed to me. Learning a few tricks of the trade would be handy.

And that, this book provided. It had a lot of information on deer hunting. I can’t tell you if its correct or not, as I don’t have the proper experience, but what he writes makes sense and he seems to give due consideration to methods of which he disapproves.

There a lot of things in here I simply would never even have thought of. As one small example, he talks of finding special detergent to wash camo, as most detergents make clothes brighter, something you do not want for your camo.

The book cerainly delivered on its main purpose of providing solid information for beginners on deer hunting. I plan to re-read it again closer to the next deer season.

The major problem I had with the book is Tim focuses a lot of the book on maintaining private hunting property, especially in the first half of the book. He devotes 8 chapters to the topic and only two to alternatives.

For a beginner, its quite the expense to purchase a decent chunk of land for hunting. I live in an area that’s not overly expensive, but checking Kijiji, the cheapest hunting land is $12k for 40 acres. Although, that might be cheap for real estate, that’s quite a bit of upfront investment for a beginner. (I wish I had $80k to spare, there is a lot of beautiful land I could get on Kijiji).

I think the book would have been better for beginners if it had a bit more on hunting on public land (although, maybe public land isn’t as abundant in the US as it is in the western Canada). It would also have more flow if the property chapters were more towards the end of the book rather than right near the front.

That being said this book is excellent and I wish I had had it this summer. There’s a lot of information, and it all seems good. The book is written in a conversational, first-person tone which fits well enough. It also looks well edited for self-publishing; there were few typographical errors and none that interrupted the flow of the book.

At $8 for about 200 pages, the price is good for the amount of information presented.

Recommendation:

If you’re thinking of starting deer hunting, this will be a gecent book to helping you get started or to give you a some information on what’s involved in hunting. Pick up Shoot Deer, but skip the chapters on property ownership (unless of course, you plan to purchase property right off the hop).

If you’re not interested in deer hunting this is obviously not going to be all that useful.

If you’re interested in more information on deer hunting, check out Tim’s blog, Shoot Deer.

Also, Tim, I would suggest putting up an easy to see link to your book on Amazon on your blog; I didn’t see one.

Game, Attraction, and Morality

Sarah’s Daughter asks of those anti-game Christians:

I’d be interested to know if those who find it somehow not Christian for men to learn and apply techniques that stimulate a woman’s attraction to him find it as non Christian when women learn to do the same. And if not, what makes it different?”

An interesting question. One made even more interesting by her example of making herself more attractive for RLB:

I remember learning that how I wear my hair matters to my husband. I had not thought of it before, I just did my hair the way I liked doing my hair. When we first met, I liked wearing it long, highlighted, sometimes curly, sometimes straight. When RLB told me he wanted me to color my hair platinum and was willing to pay whatever it took to get it that way, it dawned on me that this is something that is important to him. The same is true about my weight, my physical condition, my attitude, and my submission to him.

From this my mind immediately went to a particular Bible verse:

Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives, when they see your respectful and pure conduct. Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear—but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious. For this is how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves, by submitting to their own husbands, as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord. And you are her children, if you do good and do not fear anything that is frightening. (1 Peter 3:1-6, ESV)

And to another related verse:

I desire then that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling; likewise also that women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire, but with what is proper for women who profess godliness—with good works. Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet she will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control. (1 Timothy 2:8-15, ESV)

So then, the question becomes is SD’s point the exact opposite of the one she is intending to make? Rather than proving men should learn attraction techniques, is she simply proving that both men and women should avoid attraction techniques?

Is SD sinning by ‘adorning’ her hair in ‘platinum’?

I think that by looking at the morality of girl game, we could probably gain some insight into game.

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No braids, no gold, no stylish clothes; it seems harsh doesn’t it.

Harlot!

Very few outside the most extreme of fundamentalists forbid women from braids, yet this command is given not just once, but twice, and by both Peter and Paul. This would make it seem to be of some import.

Are almost all Christians sinning in this regard?

If we focus just on clothes for a second: “Do not let your adorning be external…the clothing you wear” and “not with… costly attire”. An exacting, literal reading of the former would be not to dress, yet that would be obviously incorrect. While the latter would be against any costly clothes, yet in Proverbs 31, the virtuous wife “makes bed coverings for herself; her clothing is fine linen and purple.”

If we look to jewelry, there are a number of times in the old testament where it is spoken of neutrally, even positively.

So, a contradiction? By no means.

As in all Biblical interpretation, context is of the utmost importance.

Reading the verses, the focus is not on the hair, jewelry, or clothes rather the focus is on modesty, respect, submission, self-control, and good works.

The attitude is what is important, the attitude is what should be focused upon.

I think this passage from Isaiah illustrates nicely:

The Lord said:
Because the daughters of Zion are haughty
and walk with outstretched necks,
glancing wantonly with their eyes,
mincing along as they go,
tinkling with their feet,
therefore the Lord will strike with a scab
the heads of the daughters of Zion,
and the Lord will lay bare their secret parts.

In that day the Lord will take away the finery of the anklets, the headbands, and the crescents; the pendants, the bracelets, and the scarves; the headdresses, the armlets, the sashes, the perfume boxes, and the amulets; the signet rings and nose rings; the festal robes, the mantles, the cloaks, and the handbags; the mirrors, the linen garments, the turbans, and the veils.

Instead of perfume there will be rottenness;
and instead of a belt, a rope;
and instead of well-set hair, baldness;
and instead of a rich robe, a skirt of sackcloth;
and branding instead of beauty. (Isaiah 3:16-24, ESV)

The daughters of Zion lived in pride and purposefully incited the lust of man. The finery was not the problem, the finery was a symptom of a malaise among the women.

So to the NT verses. The gold, the braids, the clothes are not the problem, the problem is women focusing on their external appearance, their vanity, their pride, their ability to incite lust, rather than on living modestly and in submission.

That is what women are to avoid.

****

Back to the original question, is SD sinning by ‘adorning’ her hair?

I would say not. She is displaying (on the internet, I can say nothing of her in real life) the attitudes Paul and Peter demand: modesty, a quiet and gentle spirit, submission to her husband, respectfulness, and pure conduct. (Good works can only be judged in person).

She is focusing on the important matters. She is not using her platinum adornment (at least according to herself) to incite lust in men, to draw attention to herself, or as a crutch for vanity. She is doing so in modesty and respectfulness.

So too with girl game.

Is a woman practicing girl game doing so in pure conduct and modesty? Is she developing in herself a submissive and respectful attitude? Does she practice self-control and good works?

Or is she trying to incite the lust of men? Is she seeking attention? Is she girl gaming to satiate her pride? Is she being wanton? Is she causing her brother to stumble?

A woman who develops and practices girl game within the former attitude will will bear good fruit. Her game is pure. Whether she has braids or jewelry is irrelevant; if she wears them, she does so in right heart. If she doesn’t wear them, her attitude and inner beauty* will still attract the right type of man.

A woman of the second type’s game will bear bad fruit. She will attract the lustful (or no one at all). Whether she wears braids or jewelry is irrelevant; her pride is still her undoing and it will be readily apparent, repelling all but the wrong kind of man.

Girl game should be focused on the internals, the attitudes, first and foremost.

****

From this we can analyze game. The tools and techniques of game (posture, social skills, dress, masculine confidence, etc.) are morally irrelevant. Rather, we need to ask from where are these tools gained and to what ends are they used?

Are these tools being used out of rebellion or out of submission to God’s will? Are they developed from the lusts of the flesh or from godly motive?

Is your masculine confidence born of pride or does it come from faith in the Rock?

Are you learning these techniques so you can further the kingdom or so you can engage in sex?

Do you secretly hope young women lust over you or do you wish to promote modesty, pure conduct, and right-thinking among young women?

Does your physical training supercede your spiritual discipline?

Are you learning social skills to manipulate others or to build others up?

Is a woman (or women) your goal or is God your goal?

Do you wish for a wife as a status marker or for selfish reasons, or are you truly looking to devote yourself to developing her and your family spiritually and ministering to them?

Do you wish to lead your wife for her and the family’s benefit and the glory of God or for your own prideful needs?

****

Chad has said repeatedly that game is based in pride. Secular game is run through with pride and the lusts of the flesh. The entirety of secular game is based on pride.

While game itself is not sinful, it is was developed from pride and the flesh, most of the conversation comes from a place of sin.

Some men of strong faith, such as Vox, may be able to learn and practice Christianized game without falling to temptation. Others, such as Keoni, may be struck by the truths found in game, leading them to explore further truths. But for many, the pride and impure motives of most proponents of game will be a stumbling block.

While reading the flurry of activity on this topic the last few weeks, I was convicted. I have found that for myself, my motives for my self-improvement were often misedirected and occasionally sinful. The impure attitudes was seeping into me.

For this reason, I embrace the (re)development of masculine Christianity that the Christian manosphere has embraced.

I hold nothing against those who practice Christianized game and don’t think there is an inherent moral conflict between Christianity and game, but I think a Christian masculinity based explicitly in Christian values will be better than repurposing or Christianizing game, especially for younger and weaker brothers.

But even as we do so, we should avoid sniping each other too much. For all the enemies of Christ, masculinity, tradition, and civilization out there, those of us who support those values should focus on our enemies rather than on our friends with whom we disagree.

****

* The concept of inner beauty exists, yet I use it here not as it is usually used, as it has been much abused. That’s another topic for another time.

Alternatives to Game

Lately, discussion of game and Christianity has been occurring in the Orthosphere, led by GBFM, Donal, Zippy, and Cane. I don’t disagree with many of the conclusions of the anti-gamers. There is probably a lot of the placebo effect to “game”. Although, there is also evidence that dark triad traits, which game attempts to mimic, are attractive, while being a nice guy isn’t.

I do find though, that a lot of the Christian, “is game acceptable?”, debate really boils down to defining “game”. Nobody comes to terms before discussion, so the conversation almost always turns into a bunch of people talking past each other.

I myself have gone back and forth on game.

Either way, chasing flags and notches is an empty, joyless, if sometimes pleasurable, way to live. Roosh’s personal reflections over the last year or so provide ample example of that. No Christian should participate in it, and, even according to game advocates, even most non-Christians are simply not suited for it and would be better of finding an average girl and marrying. “Game” in the gimmicky, manipulative, player sense is something to avoid; at best it is a stop-gap.

But, men should instead focus on building themselves up. Instead of focusing on gimmicks, men should focus on improving themselves and being the kind of man who would have the kind of life they desire. Focus on the core, what some call inner game, and you will be attractive to the type of woman you want in your life.

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This being said, I don’t think all game is a placebo. While I avoid the immoral and gimmicky parts of game, some of the more straightforward and practical social skills and body language advice is useful. One of the earlier posts which made me take Roissy seriously, was this post on contraposta. Simply standing differently, and having a way I could purposefully stand, did wonders for my confidence. Just off the top of my head, other such tactical posts that helped me immensely include Simon Grey’s eye contact post and Roissy’s statement-statement-question.

Little practical things like these can work wonders and give socially awkward men like me something firm to hold onto.

****

All this being said though, whether you are pro-game, or anti-game, there is something you can agree on. So, what if, as Zippy says:

Game (understood as the pickup artist’s toolkit specifically) is actually pretty lousy in terms of effectiveness, right on par with placebo. Doing something (and learning from the experience, and being persistent, and building confidence) is far better than doing nothing; but once you extract taking action at all, persistence, confidence, and learning through experience from the equation, the part of Game that is left over (that is, Game itself) – at least according to the “best of the best” PUA themselves – doesn’t do much for your percentages.

Let’s say game is mostly a placebo. Let’s say that its only real effect is to give awkward guys something to latch onto so they have a place to start developing confidence and acting. Let’s say, game is simply doing something.

This leads directly to the question, what else is there? As I’ve said before:

There is nothing else.

If you are an awkward, nerdy male, the only people willing and able to teach you practical advice for attracting women are the PUAs. I’ve checked. There is simply no one outside the manosphere teaching men how to meet a pleasant, moderately pretty girl for a stable long-term relationship.

I’ve read a number of Christian books and articles on dating, but they all assume a woman is attracted to you. They are either discussions of what kind of dating is appropriate and exhortations against sin or man up articles on how to avoid sex in relationships, how to avoid leading women on, and how to be firm in your intentions. There is almost no practical advice on how to actually attract a girl in first place so that the other advice has any relevance.

(For any Christian manospherians reading this, here’s a great book idea: write a guide to help awkward Christian guys attract a Christian wife. Market it in the Christian culture industry and you’d make a killing. I’d write it, but I’m not qualified at this point.)

Going outside the Christian stuff, everywhere else you look the socially awkward male is given the same advice: be yourself and be a nice guy, she’ll come… eventually.

Guess what?

We already do that: it doesn’t work. If it did work, we wouldn’t be looking for advice.

For women (and church leaders and others who may care): if you do not want awkward guys going to PUA’s for advice on attracting women, offer a viable alternative.

The only reason I started taking guys like Roissy or Roosh even remotely seriously was because they were the first people I found anywhere who gave enough of a shit to give some practical, useful advice. I haven’t adopted either game or playerhood, but I have tried some of their more morally neutral advice and it has been useful. (I’m now more influenced by the Athol/Dalrock approach).

How royally screwed up is it that self-proclaimed assholes like Roissy and Mentu are the only ones honest and selfless enough to give practical advice to the awkward guy looking for companionship (even if they mock us while they do it)?

Zippy, GBFM, Cane, and the rest can criticize game all they want, they might even be, probably are, right. But it doesn’t matter.

There is no alternative.

If I, as an awkward, nerdy Christian man, want practical, actionable advice on finding and attracting a nice Christian wife, game is the only place to go.

Without the game advice of these “low value dirt bags and sexual garbage collectors”, I never would have been able to approach this girl. I never would have gotten this date. I’ve had more dates in the last year than in my whole life prior, and a lot of it comes down to the advice and help I got from these “dirt bags.”

Without the advice and encouragement of them, without the practice from my previous dates, I probably would have awkwardly blown out the first date with the girl I’m currently courting.

None of these dates or approaches involved gimmicks, sleaze, or even anything resembling the popular perception of game. They were all simple, straightforward, well-intentioned interactions that nobody would or could think ill of.

But game advice gave me something to latch onto. It gave me practical steps I could take to improve myself. Was it a placebo? Possibly. But some of it was real. (The simple advice to not follow around a girl you like like a love-sick puppy alone was worth its weight in gold).

It was something practical I could do to improve myself and become better at social interactions with.

Roissy, Roosh, et al. may be self-professed degenerate scum but what is Zippy* providing?

This is the problem. What are the Christian man’s alternatives?

My Omega’s Guide was a start. I tried to make a practical guide to self-improvement anyone could use while avoiding “game”. Donal puts out a lot good theory, Chad’s stories are excellent sources of some Christian attraction principles put in practice, Vox throws out a fair amount of Christian game, and Athol puts out good, but non-Christian, advice for married men. A few other Christian blogs from my roll put out the occasional advice post.

Of these, Vox and Athol are the only names even remotely well-known and the only ones who have successfully found a wife and there sites is the gamiest and least Christian, respectively, of them all.

The awkward Christian man’s sources of information for attracting a wife without game are few unknowns who have plucked the pearls from the vast library of information the degenerates put out and have tried to apply it, but haven’t even found a wife for themselves.

So, give us something. Where is the church? Where is the help from the pro-marriage, anti-game moralizers to help us?

I don’t need another exhortation to man up, I’ve had enough of those. I don’t need another post telling me the greatness of marriage. I don’t need another lecture on servant-leadership; I’m drowning in those. I don’t need another sermon on avoiding fornication; I’ve been listening to those since before I knew what sex was. I don’t need more don’t do this, don’t do that; I need more do this.

Where is the practical Christian advice that will help me find a wife? Where can I find advice so the good Christian girl’s description of me to her friends isn’t “ew”?

Without that, all the rest of this debate over game is just noise and thunder signifying nothing. Awkward Christian men will go the degenerate dirt bags, because our choices are either try to pick the occasional nugget of truth from the hedonists and hope we don’t become corrupted by them or live the rest of our lives in grinding loneliness and sexual frustration.

If you don’t like game, give us an alternative.

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Being opposed to complaining without providing a solution, I will point any Christian men reading this and looking for answers to my Omega’s Guide. It should provide some good advice I’ve painfully learned through the last 7 or 8 years. At some point, I’m going to arrange it into a self-published ebook for easier distribution.

Once I’m married and can speak with real authority on the subject, I plan to write a book on finding and attracting a Christian wife (probably cribbing heavily from the Omega’s Guide). I might even try hocking this to the various Christian publishers.

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* I realize this is unfair to Zippy, and mean no offence, he’s not making a relationship blog and he isn’t professing to, but neither is anyone else.

The Bookshelf: 10 Laws and What is Neoreaction

Today, we’ll look at two tracts created by people from the masculine reactosphere, the 10 Laws of Finding Your Mission by LaidNYC and What is Reaction? by Bryce Laliberte. Both works are rather short, respectively 14 and 59 pages, so one post should cover an overview of both. We’ll start out with the 10 Laws because I read it first because it’s shorter (I’m pragmatic that way).

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The 10 laws of Finding Your Mission

The 10 Laws has the unbeatable price of free, but Laid is asking for donations to help his puppy. Dogs are awesome, so help him out.

The first thing I noticed was that there were actually 11 laws, because there were 2 Law #3’s. So, you actually get more for your moochery than advertised. Despite this minor mistake, there are relatively few typos or grammar errors; it’s well-edited for a free online book.

The book essentially reads like an extended series of blog posts combined into a single document. Each law takes about a page and is mainly independent from the rest. The writing is mostly straightforward and competent with the occasional bit of humour. It’s functional.

But that’s not why you care, you’re reading this for the laws, not the writing style. In that the book is good. He outlines why you should have a mission and gives you some hints on how to go about finding your mission. He is both optimistic and realistic at the same time, which is a nice combination to have.

The book gives an excellent amount of value for the price of free, At the very least, I suggest giving it give it a skim; the page headers make it very easy to do so.

Recommendation:

If you are trying to find your mission, I would recommend the 10 Laws; it won’t take much time and could be very useful. I would especially recommend it for younger men who may not even know they are looking for a mission. If you are still in high school or college, make sure to read this; it could save you a lot of stumbling and regret later in life. It’s good value for money; if you like it, send LaidNYC a donation.

*****

What is Reaction?

Bryce Laliberte at Anarcho-Papist came onto my radar in July after writing a lot of insightful posts in a short period. It took effort to keep up, but keeping up was worth it. He’s since slowed down, and in a period of blog downtime he wrote a tract with the academic-sounding title of “Ideology, Social-Historical Evolution, and the Phenomena of Civilization Or What is Neoreaction?” as overview to neoreaction. He asked me to review and I was looking forward to reading the essay since reading the teaser, so I agreed and here it is.

At first, I thought this would be an introduction to neoreaction, but it is not, it is more an overview and is probably not for the beginner to neoreaction. As well, this is written at a very high level; it is mostly high theory and is written in very academic language. Do not be fooled by the short length; this is not a simple read.

In the essay, Laliberte examines starts with some examination of what ideology is and what is required for an ideology to succeed. He outlines the difference between the occult motivations of and the vagaries/superstructure of an ideology. He posits the reactionary occult motivation as order (protestantism/liberalism’s being equality), while the various manifestations of neoreaction (capitalism, nationalism,futurism, monarchism, anarchism, etc.) are vagaries of this motivation.

He then examines the main concepts of reactionary philosophy: the ascendance of modern spiritual egalitarianism (the Puritan/Protestant hypothesis), hierarchy and stability, the social determinism of biology, the importance of time preference, patriarchialism, anti-modernism, futurism and the effects of technology on man, hedonism, race, capitalism, monarchism, nationalism,and tradition.

I’m not going to critique the analysis of the essay, as most of it is not particularly novel; if you’ve read a fair amount of neoreactionary blogging you’re probably familiar with most of the concepts. But his explanations of the concepts are good ones; as just one example, I’ve read about the benefits of patriarchy many times already, but I still very much liked his explication of the issue and his explicit linking of it to societal time preference.

There are some smaller quibbles I could make; for example, he seems to implicitly posit nazism as a virulent form of reaction, when I see it more as more of a demotist movement, but for the most part his analysis of neoreaction seems sound upon first reading.

My one problem with this essay is the academic-style writing. I’ve always hated the self-important bloviating and purposeful obfuscation of the academy and this essay seems to drop into it at times. I understand that complex topics may require complex terminology and writing and mostly Laliberte sticks within these reasonable bounds, but, especially closer to the beginning of the essay, it seems he is being unnecessarily complex and obfuscating in that particular way academics are. On the other hand, writing in the academic style might be necessary to push neoreactionary ideas into mainstream academia, so this might not necessarily be a bad thing. (When the restoration comes, I hope one of the things we do is destroy the idea in the liberal arts that writing should be complex for complexity’s sake).

I think this is a good encapsulation of neoreactionary ideology. If you are new to neoreaction, I’d suggest reading Moldbug first, this is not something that will convince you. On the other hand, if you are an outsider want an academic look at neoreaction, this is probably a better analysis than Moldbug’s work, which tends more towards argument for than analysis of.

If you are already a reactionary, this is worth the read. It’s priced affordably and solid value for money.

Recommendation

If you’re a neoreactionary or knowledgeable of neoreaction and looking to explore it more academically, I’d drop the $3 and get What is Neoreaction? If you’re new to neoreaction, read Moldbug first.

If you’re an academic outsider researching this new neoreactionary ideology, this essay would be an excellent place to start.

If you don’t care about neoreaction, this would quite obviously be a waste of time and if you hate academic-style writing, you may find the essay annoying to get into at first.

Guest Post: Friends and the Red Pill

Today we have another guess post from Daniel on the red pill and your old friends. Remember, we accept guest posts on blog-related content; check our contact page for guidelines. If you have something you want to say, feel free to send it in.

Once in a while you realize how you need to change, how your life sucks and how wrong is everything around you. Then you go looking for something, some way to turn this all around, and you arrive at the manosphere. You find all sorts of useful advice, examples and inspirational tales that help you build the will and courage to finally set foot on the road of change. Unfortunately, they only rarely show you how to deal with the luggage of your previously life. How to deal with friends, memories and all sort of things that will eventually drag you down and back to the very hell you’re trying to escape.

I have currently this problem myself, so I thought I could write some lines about it. First, friends will be your major challenge in becoming an upgraded version of yourself(second only to yourself); not only they are used to the present you, but also will probably think they own you (talk about materialistic idiots who are defined by what they own and own what defines them). If you’re lucky you’ll have one friend with whom you can talk about it, but, generally, talking will just make things harder. So, don’t talk, and refrain from showing any major signs of change in the first moments, they’ll only resent you for that – for challenging their world view, for bringing discomfort to their lives. Look for a more distant group of people who either don’t know you well enough or just haven’t been around that much to care. They will be your training ground. But that is just one minor problem in the whole thing, the major one will be retaining all you’ve learned when you’re with your group of close friends.

As you grow to be a man, you’ll build some habits and lose others. But since (if you are like me) you lived pretty much stuck in the same level for the majority of your life – and shared this time with these friends -, you’ll have very old ingrained habits that are almost impossible to let go. Now, once you are in another place with other people, you will notice – correctly – that these die-hard habits are easier to forget, why does that happens? Well, first, I believe novelty brings forth novelty, that means, as you are with other people in different situations you’ll naturally act different, but, more important, is that your old friends and acquaintances will act so as to maintain the old you in you, hell, just the environment will do it. It’s harder to let old habits die if you are constantly in situations where these same habits first evolved. So, the sad truth is that you may think you’ve overcome your vices, but as soon as you’re brought back to the old setting, you’ll realize that was not the case.

But fear not, not everything is lost. Your new habits are still with you, only the older ones are stronger – if that term applies in this context, but you get it. There is where the will comes in and you, consciously, can choose how to act, and, at first it’ll be difficult, but as you go out, train and come back it will become easier. One day, they’ll be gone for good. Now, some friends may not be threatened by small changes in you – if they see the improvements you’re making and not only agree, but support you, you know what friends to keep -, but as I said, the majority probably will. I would like to say that there is an easy way out, but that is not the case. If they are serious about holding you back, cut them loose, tell them to fuck themselves and forget them. Friends are important, but quality always comes before quantity. And if you see one trying to do the same – improve himself – help him.

That’s it. I know it isn’t much new, as some things have already been said, but I still think they weren’t said enough, and, also, it is a problem more common than thought. It isn’t much, but it is what I learned in my experiences in the last years(some of it is just “get the hell away from where you are” and “do new things”, but I thought I could explain it a little more). I hope it helps somebody, as I once also needed this kind of advice. God be with you all, and, as we say here, Servus.

Marketing Marriage

f you follow Dalrock you’ve seen is recent posts on this little advertisement on Mark Driscoll’s new man-up and marry series:

Dalrock has already pointed out the moral problems with the ad, I’m going to focus the advertisement aspects. Dalrock argues that the ad is aimed at churchian feminist woman, and I agree because otherwise, the proponents of marriage suck at advertising.

Instead of making marriage look like something men would want to pursue and would be willing to sacrifice for, they make it look horrible.

In the little skit in the middle, the man is the thoroughly henpecked, seemingly unhappy husband of a fat, dumpy, controlling wife. He’s so thoroughly beaten down that he’s afraid to have a little masculine bonding time with his son, with the video implying that there’s something wrong with him wanting to do so.

Watching this, my main thought was”is this really how they want to advertise marriage to men?”

I’m lean more towards the more pro-marriage part of the manosphere, but this would drive me away from marriage more than any other possible effect it could have. What kind of man would desire to become that husband?

What young man could possibly watch that and say, “yeah, I want to man-up and marry so I too can be a the ball-less husband of an ugly, dominating shrew who’s afraid to play pool with his son.”

C’mon guys. If you want men to man-up and marry how about making marriage look good? How about making marriage seem like a rewarding experience?

In fact, I’ll give you guys an awesome marketing campaign. A marketing idea this good would generally cost thousands of dollars from a slick New York agency, but I’ll give it to you for free because I love western civilization and we need working marriages to keep the remnant chugging.

Here’s my ad campaign for a man-up series:

It starts with an average-looking man in a suit, someone most guys could identify with, coming home from a day at the office. He looks kind of worn-out and stressed. He parks his car, sighs a bit, then walks up to his house. He opens the door.

The first thing seen when the door opens is his non-offensively pretty wife dressed femininely. She looks up from working in the kitchen and sees he’s stressed, so she comes up to him with a smile on her face and gives him a hug and quick kiss on the lips. She takes his bag and says, “Dinner is almost ready, why don’t you sit down?” He gets into his recliner and leans back, his stress visibly fading away. She joyfully brings him a small plate of freshly made cookies and some milk. He thanks her with an expression of mingled gratitude and relief and takes the cookie. While he snacks she says, “How about later…” and bends over and whispers something in his ear while brushing her hand up his leg. The man responds with a large, expectant smile.

Cut to her calling out that dinner is ready. The man goes to the table to find a delicious home-cooked meal of steak and potatoes, his cute, happy children run up to the table. His wife wipes the dirt smudges off of one of the rascals as they sit down. The man looks on proudly as he sits at the head of the table. His wife sits to his right. She looks at him with an expectant smile, her hand on his arm, and he proudly says grace for the family.

During the prayer fade to black and end with the tagline: Worth being a man for.

Boom. I’d want buy that product. I don’t know a man who wouldn’t.

I’d happily man-up to come home to that; I’d happily work 70 hour weeks to come home to that; I would happily sacrifice quite a bit to come home to that. So, would most men. Most men would willingly sacrifice their left nut for that.

So, some marketing advice to Mr. Driscoll. If you want men to man-up and marry, make marriage seem like something rewarding for men.

McDonald’s doesn’t sell cheeseburgers by having a fat, ugly man eat them in his dingy basement while playing WoW and sobbing to himself. They sell cheeseburgers by showing groups of realistically attractive people having fun together while eating cheeseburgers.

Likewise, you don’t make men desire to man-up and marry by showing marriage as a demasculating process of having your pride, virility, and freedom slowly drained from you by an ugly, domineering shrew. You make men want to get married by showing marriage as a refuge from the cares of the world occupied by a pretty, loving, nurturing woman.

Then again, my campaign might be false advertising for most men. Driscoll might get sued.

1-10 Scale: An Analysis

Last week I wrote about the Archetypical Modern Women. It was my most popular post ever by views and was also one of my most commented posts as well. Most manospherians liked the post, but there was one common criticism that seemed virtually unanimous: I overrated the woman, she was not a 7. The consensus seemed to be she was a 5, although a couple commented she was a 3 or even lower.

I explained my reasoning in the comments: “she’s thin, young-ish with a moderately cute face. She’s not beautiful, but a youngish, plain sort of pretty with a slim build would fit my definition of a 7.”

I generally don’t use the scale in real life; in fact, I can not remember ever having using it in RL, but there’s a small possibility I have. In normal conversation, the scale is kind of silly; the descriptors of beautiful, cute, unattractive, etc. are usually more than good enough and are more humanizing. (That and a numerical scale sounds sort of spergy, and I have enough problems with that as it is).

On the other hand, I occasionally use it on the blog as it is a simple comparative method; more human descriptor cans be open to interpretation and can have different meanings. While a numerical scale at least gives the illusion of objectivity.

But after the criticism of my assigning the label 7 I wanted to figure this out, my inner data nerd was aroused, so I’m going to analyze this more. I’ll warn you now, this is going to get spergy and is going to be dehumanizingly analytical.

Oh, and before I begin, Truthmosis at RotK has a post up on the scale that I came across while writing this. Check it out.

I’d also like to point out that, to some degree, beauty is subjective, so a numerical scale is not the be-all-end-all of female beauty. There are certain objective metrics of beauty: a 0.7 hip-to-waist ratio, symmetry, and other such indicators of fertility and health, that (almost) all men are naturally drawn towards. These can be a basis for an “objective” 1-10 scale.

But outside of that, there are numerous subjective factors on which men disagree. For example, I really like fair-skinned, light-haired, innocent-looking women (ie. cute women) and detest tattoos and piercings. A tongue piercing disgusts me and is an automatic 3-point drop. So, if I were to rate a woman with a tongue piercing a 5, others who don’t find it disgusting, might rate that woman an 8. Another example: I’ve never figured out why the Captain likes Jennifer Aniston or many men like Angelina Jolie; never seen the appeal.

Anyway, with that caveat out of the way, here we go.

****

The first thing to do when creating a scale is decide the system the scale will use. The two major ones are the bell curve and the decile system. Men as a whole tend to use a bell curve system (on a 5-point scale), but I’ve tended to think in a decile system.

In a normal bell curve system (and looks would be normally distributed) a scale would be related to standard deviation. In standard deviation, 68% of all women would fall within one standard deviation from the mean, while 95% of all women would fall within two, and 99% would fall within three.

In a 1-10 scale 5 would be the mean. Most like we’d use 2 sigma (SD:2.5) above the mean to signify a 10 and 2 sigma below to signify a 0. 1 sigma would make far too many 10s, and 3 sigmas would mean only 2% of woman are above a 7+.

A 2 sigma scale would mean means that about 2% of woman would be 10s and 2% would be 0s. About 14% would be 7.5-9.5s and another 14% of woman would be 0.5-2.5s. The vast majority of woman (68%) would be 2.5s-7.5s.

We could also use a 2 sigma to signify 1s and 9s (SD:2). On this scale 2% of woman would be 9+ and another 2% would be below <1. 14% of woman would be 7-9 and another 14% of woman would be 1-3. The large majority of woman (68%) would be 3-7s.

If I were to use a bell curve, the latter is likely the one I would use because no one uses 0 on the 1-10 looks scale and many think (and I agree) that there are no 10s. Limits could easily be put at .1 and 9.9 without negatively effecting the rest of the scale. Not to mention the use of whole numbers rather than decminals greatly simplifies the scale.

So, if we’re scaling women’s looks on a 1-10 (Mean:5, SD:2) we can use a stanine scale to find the proportion of woman at each number.

On the other hand, if we use a decile system 10% of women would be 1s, 10% would be 10s, etc.

The former is more useful for statistical calculation, the latter is easier to use for everyday talk. It is a lot easier to calculate: she’s a 10 because she’s in the top 10% of people, she’s a nine because she’s in the 80-90% range, etc. than it is to calculate: she’s a 9 because she’s 2 SD above the mean and is in the top 4% of woman.

In more practical immediate effect, the former will result in a lot of 4-6s and few 1s and 9s, while the latter will result in an even distribution of all types of woman.

****

Knowing this, how can we systematize the calculation of where an individual woman falls on this scale. That”s likely impossible because beauty is to some degree subjective, but we can give it a shot. This analysis will focus on adult women of child-bearing age because menopausal women are no longer sexually attractive.

In the US 32% of women aged 20-39 are obese. If we used the decile system, that would mean the obese take up all of 1s through 3s. If we used the bell curve, the obese take up 1-3 and most of the 4s as well.

But obesity is not the only indicator of unattractiveness, some women just have the bad luck to be born with a deformity of an extremely unattractive face. If, for simplicities sake, we estimated that 8% of women are simply born deformedly ugly (not unattractive or plain, just ugly), that means that on both scales 1-4s are made up of the deformed and fat.

So, simply not being obese or deformed would immediately make a woman a 5 in either scale.

Back to weight, in addition to the the obese are the overweight. 64% of adult women are either obese (BMI >= 30) (36%) or overweight (BMI of 25-29.9) (28%), so we’ll assume the 28% overweight rate hold for women 20-39. So, we now have 60% of women aged 20-39 who are overweight or fat, but let’s remove 5 percentage points because the BMI does sometimes classify fit people with muscle as being overweight. So about 55% of child-bearing age woman are unattractive due to be overweight or obese.

I can not find any numbers on the percentage of woman that are unattractive due to face alone, so I’ll have to make up some assumptions. Let’s assume, for the sake of ease, that 10% of women who are not fat, have faces that are unattractive enough, that a moderately fat woman with a decent face would rate higher on a scale.

With that assumption we now come to 65% of women are either fat or as unattractive as a fat woman.

(Check out this BMI visualizer to understand what is meant by overweight and obese).

In a decile scale that means that a woman who is not fat or equally unattractive is automatically a 7; in a normal distribution scale a woman who is not fat or equally unattractive is automatically a 6.

This gives us a starting base.

I do not have the time or ability to start messing around with the ins and outs of symmetry, eye size, distance between the eyes and mouth, and all the other micro-variations that distinguish beauty. Suffice to say though that most men can tell objective beauty of these micro-variations fairly easily.

So, we can assume they’d mostly agree.

****

Based on this here’s a 1-10 scale we can use based on the decile system.

1-4: Obese and/or deformedly ugly
5: Fat or ugly
6: Chubby with a cute face or unattractive
7: Plain, not fat
8: Somewhat attractive
9: Slim and pretty
10: Curvy and beautiful

Here’s on based upon normal distribution:

1-4: Obese and/or deformedly ugly
5: Fat, chubby with an unattractive face, or ugly
6: Plain, not fat or chubby with a cute face
7: Slim and pretty
8: Curvy and beautiful
9: The best of the best (very rare)
10: Does not exist

The normal distribution lumps the middling and moderately attractive categories together but allows for the distinguishment of the really beautiful from the beautiful, while the decile scale allows for more distinguishment from the middling, but lumps all the beautiful together under 10. The decile system leaves more distinguishment in those of middling beauty, but lumps the good looking into 2 categories.

From the impression I get from people write on the manosphere, they seem to use the normal distribution system. If we go back to Truthmosis’ discussion of the topic we can see that his scale more or less matches the normal distribution, as does his picture scale.

So, I guess I should start using the normal distribution scale to match up with others around here.

****

Anyway, back to the women who started this discussion:

As we can see, she’d probably be plain, not fat. So, my initial impression of her as a 7 on the decile system was correct. If we used a normal distribution she’d be a 6.

Someone ranking her a 5 is implying she’s ugly, which I do not think this picture supports. Whoever ranked her as a 3 is just dead wrong; she’s neither obese nor deformedly ugly.

****

A few last notes:

I knew the obesity crisis was bad, but I was surprised that 64% of adult women and 74% of adult men are overweight. That’s just plain nuts.

Also, only about 40% of women would be attractive enough to be worth even considering marrying (not even including other factors). So, if you’re looking to marry, make sure you’re in the top 40% of men or you’re going to end up with someone fat or unattractive.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my spergy little analysis.

Free Northerner

Iron Sharpens Iron

Category Archives: Manosphere

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1-10 Scale: An Analysis