Category Archives: Relationships

Baby Rabies and a Traditional Wife

I’ve talked of finding a good wife and mother before and the blessings of having many children. One of the things I talked about was finding a women who wanted children and as good with children.

The simple fact is that if you are to be a patriarch, finding a wife who wants a full quiver is essential.

Despite the grinding, remorseless slog that is online dating, I still have a couple profiles, and invest a minimal amount of time in them (about once or twice a week I login, check who’s new within my parameters, and send a short message or two if anyone’s interesting).

Like most men, I do most of the primary messaging, but I do get a small amount of messages (about one every month or two) from women who I did not contact beforehand. The women who send me unsolicited messages always came in one of two categories:

  1. She is overweight/unattractive and reeking of desperation. Often women in this group don’t even seem to have read my profile. (Hint: If a guy says he is looking for a Christian wife and wants lots of children, he will not respond positively to messages from an atheist who doesn’t want marriage or children. Exception: She is offering very easy sex, in which case he might be tempted into entertaining thoughts of carnal sin).
  2. She is in her late-20s or early-30s (ie. older than me) and her profile shows her as being very interested in having children.

After initially trying to be polite by replying to these, I’ve since stopped replying to both groups after a bad experience where some polite responses to a girl I was not interested in broke down into receiving lengthy hysterical messages outlining how awesome she thought she was, along with an extended detailing of her life story after I declined her advances.

Anyhow, moving away from my digressions, the second group is what I am going to write about today.

Before I dipped my toe into the manosphere, I wondered about these women. They often seemed as desperate as the overweight women, but there didn’t seem to be any reason for it. They were fairly physically unattractive for their age and didn’t seem to have anything in their profiles that would obviously disqualify them from finding a decent man. Yet, here they were, hitting on a much younger guy, with an obvious tinge of desperation in their profiles and messages (even in my blue-pill days I was cognizant enough to know women generally preferred older men and vice versa).

I wondered why, if they were so family-oriented and wanted children so very much, they were unmarried in their late-20s or early-30s when there wasn’t any reason they shouldn’t have been able to find a decent husband much earlier.

Reading the manosphere, I’ve since realized that these women are suffering from what is often derogatorily referred to as “baby rabies”. They have lived it up in their 20s, are now hitting the wall and realizing their fertility is waning, and are desperate to get a bun in the oven before it’s too late.

(I will continue to use the term baby rabies, despite it’s moderately derogatory nature, as I can not remember another simple term for this phenomenon while writing this post).

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So, these women suffering baby rabies are loudly proclaiming how family-oriented they are and it is very apparent how much they desire to have children.

For the MTGOW or PUA, the obvious response to the desperation of these past-their-prime women is either ignore it or take advantage of it, respectively, but how should the patriarch-to-be* respond this kind of women, when her stated goals so closely align with his own?

The same as the MGTOW’s: ignore them.

There is a fundamental difference between a traditional women looking to raise a large family and a women in the grip of baby rabies.

A traditional women will plan her life around her desire to have children; raising and maintaining a family will have always been a priority for her. She will have prepared herself for this goal and learned the virtues necessary to meet this goal.

On the other hand, a women in the grip of baby rabies has not made raising a family a priority. She is merely responding to an emotional impetus pushed on her by her changing hormones and has not prepared herself for the demanding task of raising children.

There is a fundamental difference between a women whose goal is to be a wife and mother and a women who is experiencing baby rabies.

Do not mistake the two.

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The question then becomes, how does a young man distinguish the two?

The most obvious and easiest to observe answer is age.

A women in her late-teens/early-20s who is desiring a husband and large family is very unlikely to be in the baby rabies stage; assuming she meets the other requirements you should have for the mother of your future children.

On the other hand, a women in her 30’s(or older) has very obviously not made raising a family a priority, otherwise she would already be married and raising children. If you want to be a patriarch, do not marry a women this old, whatever her potential virtues, she does not have the same goals as you.

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Now, you may have noticed I didn’t include women aged 25-29. That’s because these women are not so cut and dry.

They aren’t as obviously in the throes of baby rabies as older women, but at that age, you wonder why, if a family is of such a priority to them, they have waited until past their prime fertility to get serious about marriage.

I would say to generally avoid them, but would not categorically reject a woman in that age range as I would those in one in her 30s. If they have enough other virtues and their reason for not getting married earlier is not silly, they may be worth considering.

But be cautious, use your judgment.

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Now, some may raise objections to my eliminating women in their 30s out of hand and advising against women in their late 20s, but the patriarch is looking for a particular type of women, one for whom marriage and children are a high priority.

A women who waits until her late-20s or 30s to pursue marriage has amply demonstrated that marriage and children are not a high priority for her.

What of her education and career?

A bachelors can be achieved by the age of 21, so that’s not really an excuse.

Even if it was, a women who pursues an education and career above a marriage and family, self-evidently puts the former as a higher priority.

That’s fine, it’s her choice, but it does mean that she is not a good candidate for a patriarch looking for wife whose highest priority is family.

But what if she didn’t have the opportunity to marry?
What if she couldn’t find a good man?

She did have opportunity; she didn’t take it. She did find a good man, she rejected him.

Women have a lot of options of the marriage market when they are young; most men would be surprised (and jealous) of how many they do have. Even a woman with below average marriage market value will have far more opportunities to pursue marriage handed to her with minimal effort than even the highest value men will get through huge outlays of effort.

You average women will have met a large number of decent guys throughout her late-teens or early-20s. If she has not married one of them that shows that she either:

  1. Puts a low priority on marriage and children, in which case she is not what a patriarch is looking for.
  2. Had some flaws that were strong enough that no other decent man  pursue he and propose to her, in which case sound judgment would warn any other man to avoid her.
  3. Has far too unrealistic standards of her husband. Anybody who marries her will not be able to live up to them (that includes you, you’re not special), setting the stage for a bad marriage.
  4. She has been open to many suitors and either dated a large number of them or simply had one or two long-term relationships that went nowhere. She didn’t end up marrying them because, for whatever reason, none of the men she dated were of sufficient quality for marriage. In this case, she has shown that she has a history of poor choices regarding the type of men she has allowed into her life. These poor choices shows that she has poor judgment in men, which likely means poor judgment in other areas of life. Poor judgment is not something any patriarch should want to attach themselves to. (Either that or see #3;they were of sufficient quality, she just had unrealistic standards).

A women who is still single by her late-20s is simply not the kind of women any patriarch should be looking to marry. She may be a good women, but she is not the type of women a patriarch should choose.

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Even if we assume that, somehow, her failure to be married and raising children already are not due to her own choices, there are other considerations that are simply unavoidable at that age.

There is, of course, the biological fact that a women in her 30s is rapidly losing her fertility and there likely won’t be enough time to raise a large family before infertility and/or a high risk of mutation strikes. Even for a women in her late 20s: if you take the time to court her (say a year), then have a child every two years, you’re approaching her 40s by the time you get to child five, which is a bit late to be having children. The amount of children you will be able to have will be limited.

As well, simply living independently for a decade or so following high school/college is itself a problem. By that time, a women will have adapted to her situation as an independent, single adult with little responsibility. Re-adapting back to the interdependence of a marriage will likely present a challenge for her (and her husband). In addition, adapting to the responsibility of a child (let alone many children) at that age following so many years of a lack of responsibility may prove problematic.

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What of men in their 30s; should young women looking for a patriarch avoid them? It’s kind of sexist to have a double standards.

First, I am writing for young men, not for women and am focusing on what young men should concentrate on. Women have their own things to look for, which I might write about at another time, but this post is not aimed at them.

Second, it’s not a double standard, it’s two different standards. Men and women have different priorities for potential mates. Stop trying to force women’s priorities on men.

Third, a man has not likely had the same opportunities as a women for marriage. As the pursuers in the marriage market place, men do not have the same overwhelming array of options handed to tham from which to choose that women do. They have to work very hard simply to have a small fraction of the options open to your average young woman. (Take heart young man, the situation reverses itself sometime in your 30s). He may have pursued many women who he thought might make good potential wives, without being overly picky, and been shot down by all.

As well, his fertility will last him well into middle/old age, so that worry is off the table.

That being said, there are a couple problems a young women might face with a man in his 30s (or older). He may be approaching the age where his children may be at higher risk of mutation. Also, he has likely gotten used to living independently, just as women have, and will face the same problems settling down.

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Age by itself is not a perfect guide. For a younger women, rather than being a traditional women wanting to be a patriarch’s helpmeet, she may simply be a gold-digger or someone who believes raising children and being dependent is easier than working. I’m not going to get into that at this time, but will give you this link (which I’ve already used thrice above; read it is essential to this post) once again.

Other things you can look for two distinguish between the two:

  1. Desperation: A traditional women will be looking for a husband, but in a calm, sensible manner. A women with baby rabies will have a tinge of desperation to her.
  2. Singular Focus: Is she focusing on the marriage, you, and children more or less equally, or does her primary focus seem to be having children, while marriage and her potential partner seem secondary?
  3. Particularity: Related to that, does she want your children (or at least a good man’s children) or does she not seem to very selective about who fathers her children?
  4. Preparedness: Has she prepared herself to be a good wife and mother (see previous link) or does she seem to just be acting impulsively?
  5. Timing: Has she always wanted to be a mother, or is this something that just recently appeared for no good reason?
  6. Number: Does she want just one designer baby to fulfill her itch or is she looking to raise a whole family?

That’s probably not a complete list; I’m sure others will have things I missed in the comments. The thing is to recognize that there are potential pitfalls and that just because she says she’s family-oriented and wants children does not necessarily make it so. Use your judgment and consider things rationally to come to the choice that fits your life goals.

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Just to head off some objections I’m sure will come up.

Aren’t you being judgmental?

Why, yes I am. Thank you for noticing.

Anybody who is not extremely judgmental in choosing the person to whom they are swearing a solemn oath before God, the state, and their family to spend the rest of their lives with is a fool. Anybody who is not even more extremely judgmental in choosing the woman who will be the mother of their his children is an abject fool.

This goes for women as well. If you aren’t extremely judgmental about the kind of man you consider marrying and fathering your children, you are a fool.

This is not to say young men and women should make a large list of stupid superficial requirements for potential mates. Use your reason. Judge on the important things: loyalty, reliability, judgment, shared values, work ethic, shared morality, religion, family attitudes, sexual attractiveness, etc., while being forgiving on the superficial/small things.

This is probably the most important earthly decision you will make in your life. Do not be too compromising.

Aren’t you being unfair about *******? What of *******? Isn’t ******* an exception?

Life’s unfair. Get used to it.

Also, NAWALT, I know.

I am giving young men some rules of thumb to help them make the best decision they can. It is up to them to apply them using their own discretion and judgment.

Rather than whining about how others are unfair and judgmental and how you deserve something just because, look at your own choices and try to change them so you are best able to achieve your goals.

If having a family is important to you, make choices that reflect their importance.

You’re an asshole.

Probably, but that’s irrelevant.

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Despite my prior dismissal of exceptions, I will note one.

There is the rare exception of the early widow. A women who married (or was engaged) young and was a loyal, loving wife (or fiance), but whose husband (or husband-to-be) died tragically early, is a special circumstance. A widow will likely come with some extra emotional needs (and possibly previous children), but if you are willing and able to comfort and emotionally support her (and raise her children), she could make an excellent wife for the young future patriarch (assuming she meets the other basic requirements you should have).

A faithful widow would also probably make an ideal marriage candidate for an older widower or man who’s been cheated on and/or abandoned by his wife. All things being equal, she would likely would be a much better potential wife (and mother) than either a divorcee or a women who has put off marriage to much later in her life.

Consider it. Think of the example of Ruth and Boaz.

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* All of the above advice is written particularly for young men in their 20s/early-30s looking to become patriarchs, but anyone else looking to marry should take heed.

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This post inspired by (h/t: M3):

Financial Analysis of Sex: Relationship vs. Marriage

I previously did an economic comparison of obtaining casual sex through both prostitution and game. I said I would do the cost of sex in marriage and relationship game in the future, so, here it is (much later than I originally anticipated).

The following is a financial analysis of the costs of obtaining sex through a relationship or game. For simplicity’s sake, it ignores the greater economic costs beyond financial and benefits beyond the sexual (both material and immaterial). I will likely analyze these more in the future in their own posts.

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Relationship Game

If you convert game to a relationship, the cost per sexual encounter goes down.

The original 3 sexual encounters would be $460 each (as calculated in the game for casual sex post), but once the initial costs of picking-up a women have been met, converting a short-term fling from game to a relationship can change the costs of sex.

According to Roosh, each date costs about $35. We’ll assume you enjoy dating your partner for its own sake (hence why you’re in a relationship), so there’s no foregone cost. So, assuming each date leads to sex, each sexual encounter in the relationship past the first 3 would cost only $35 each. If you don’t enjoy dating your partner (for whatever reason), then you can add $20/date, if we assume 2 hours per date (at a foregone wage of $10).

We’ll assume a date/sex an average three times a week in a one-month relationship (for a total of 12 times, plus the 3 encounters he had in the fling), and two times a week in a 6-month (for a total of 48 times, plus 3) and 1-year relationship (for a total of 104, plus 3) (The same caveats would apply here as in Game for Sex).

Cost for Sex (1-month relationship): $120

Cost for Sex (6-month relationship): $60

Cost for Sex (1-year relationship): $47

This could, of course, be reduced by paying less for dates, or forgoing dates altogether in favour of less costly activities.

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Marriage

The average married man gets sex about once per week.

The average length of marriage prior to divorce is 8 years, but 60% of first marriages do not end in divorce. In the case of no divorce, we’ll assume the average marriage lasts 40 years (about 60-75 years old) until the male is either dead or are either incapable of or not desiring sex.

In that case, the average marriage lasts about 27 years.

Over that period, the average male can expect to get sex an average of about 1400 times. (1500 if he had sex in a 1-year relationship prior to marriage as per relationship game above).

The cost of dating and a one-year relationship prior to the marriage are almost $5000 (we’ll assume he enjoyed dating the person he chose to marry). The average cost of a wedding is about $27000.

We’ll also add in the 40% chance of $37,383 loss due to divorce (assuming the man will be the primary, but not sole breadwinner).

Cost for Sex (Marriage): $50 ($46 if you slept together before marriage)

This could of course be significantly reduced by not having a wedding that costs $27,000. It could also be reduced by minimizing chances of divorce. Only 1/5 of marriages have weddings that cost more than $30k, so it’s likely that really extravagant weddings are really pulling the average up, so it shouldn’t be impossible.

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This analysis assumes that your wife will be pulling her own weight in the marriage or relationship and is not being a freeloader. This can be by either earning her keep through paid employment, by raising your children (in which case the costs of supporting her would be added under the costs of raising a child), or providing companionship commiserate with your upkeep of her. If you are in a relationship or marriage with a women and supporting her solely for sex with no other gain for yourself, then the costs of sex would be much higher (but why on earth would you do this?).

This also ignores the many non-material and/or non-sexual benefits, costs, and risks for being in a relationship. This analysis assumes these are overall a wash in relation to material costs and the cost of sex.

I may try to economically analyze these factors more in-depth at another time.

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Conclusion

In the end, the final costs for sex are:

Prostitution: $300
Game: $460 ($200 if you enjoy clubbing and game for their own sakes)
Relationship (1 month): $120
Relationship (6 months): $60
Relationship (1 year): $47
Marriage: $50 ($46 if you slept together before marriage)

Overall, a long-term relationship and marriage are, financially-speaking, the cheapest methods of acquiring sex. Prostitution is the most expensive, but game without relationship costs more if you dislike clubbing.

The Squeeze and the Surrogate Family

I came across this article (h/t: Instapundit) about the squeeze middle-aged folks, particularly women, are under as they are stressed caring for both their children and their aging parents. According to the article, it is supposedly difficult and stressful to care “for both their children and their aging parents while also managing their income-generating jobs and keeping their partners happy–all at the same time.”

To which the only possible response is: no duh.

It is difficult, if not impossible, because nobody was ever meant to do all that at once. People simply do not have the time and energy to deal with children, old people, a career, and other activities at the same time.

Traditionally, there have always been societal and biological mechanisms to deal with this, but, over the last few decades, we’ve decided to spit in the face of both.

Throughout history, these mechanisms have varied. Tribal structures, villages, and the like made raising children and taking care of old people a community thing for most people. Combined with the typical “low” age of average death, “early” child-bearing ages, and large families things mostly worked themselves out.

When people started living longer and tribal and community ties began to die due to the mass dislocations caused by industrialization and urbanization, society adapted by adopting what we now know of as the traditional nuclear family in the early 20th century. Combined with some help from local churches and community organizations this worked fairly well, reaching its apex in the decades following war boom.

In the nuclear family model, the family adopts a division of labour to help the running of the household. The husband works and the wife takes care of the family. Families have many kids and they have them at a young age, so when they get old, the children can care for their parents.

Given the realities of modern, mass society, this structure works.

Having children young (in your late teens/early 20s) provided future children to take care of you and makes it so that by the time you need to take care of your elders, your children are already nearing self-sufficiency. It means that you have your youthful vigor to raise your children when you need. (Did you ever think of why you are able to go with minimal and erratic sleep when you’re young? It’s because it lets you physically handle the realities of a squalling infant unable to tell time. You are not built to naturally be able to take care of young children in your 30s and 40s, you lose the vigor necessary to do so as you age.)

Having lots of children meant that there would be enough people to take care of you when you aged without it being an undue burden on any single child.

Having the wife stay home provided the family with a person who had the time to take care of the children. She had time to take care of elderly relatives. She had the time to take care of sick family members.

There was no generational squeeze, because the division of labour and proper family planning inherent in the nuclear family model gave each individual only what they could actually handle and there was no undue burden on any single family member.

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When feminists, and others, criticize the “housewife”, they miss the importance the housewife has for modern, mass society. Absent the traditional bonds of tribe and villages, anomie was destroying people in an urbanized, industrial environment.The development of the housewife held this back.

The housewife may not contribute to “GDP” but she contributes something just as important, she socially bonds the family together and bonds the family to the rest of the community. She has time to take care of dependent family members. She has time to develop meaningful relationships in the neigbourhood and the family’s social circle. She had time to support local organizations and by taking care of the household, she gave the husband time to support them.

The bread-winning husband is economically productive, while the housewife is socially productive.

In a modern, urban society, social productivity is as essential to the health of society as economic productivity, as the natural social relations and community of a tribal or village lifestyle simply do not exist. But building community takes time, something people working full-time, while taking care of children, simply do not have. The housewife had this time.

She has time to get to get to know Edna down the street and develop a meaningful relationship, which would then transfer into a meaningful family relationship, building community. If Edna’s husband, Bill broke his leg and couldn’t work, her neighbour, the housewife, would have the time to comfort them; she would prepare meals, look after Edna’s children, provide emotional support, run errands, etc., which she was able to do because she had time. She would know that Edna would do the same if something happened to her family.

The housewife would build community where community did not naturally exist.

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But, some sections of society (read: leftists and feminists) were unhappy with this adaptation to modern society and set out to destroy it.

The traditional, nuclear family was “oppressive” and being a housewife was unfulfilling, so patriarchy had to be destroyed. (Because working 40 hours in a dead-end office job simply to expand your ability to mindlessly consume was somehow more fulfilling than meaningful community).

And destroyed it was.

People started getting married later, had children later, and had fewer children overall. Family became less important.

The housewife was replaced by a second provider. The traditional family replaced by the broken family. Social productivity was exchanged for economic productivity, with little real benefit.

The result: anomie.

The social capital the traditional family, particularly the housewife, created began to disappear. As Robert Putnam has documented this decline in social capital and social trust. As one example, over the last 25 years the average adult has gone from having 3 friends to having only 2; half of all adults have one or fewer real friends.

The squeeze occurred, as no one is able to work full-time, raise children, care for elders, and develop community. There is simply not enough time in the day and peopel simply do not have that much energy.

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So, how was the squeeze handled?

The traditional family was replaced by the broken family and the surrogate family.

The broken family lost the husband and father. Of course, raising a child, while also providing for this family is brutally hard work, almost impossible. So, the husband and father the broken family did not have was replaced by the state, which became a surrogate husband and father. The state would offer provision through welfare, mandated leave, tax breaks, funded child care, public health care, and a wide array of other benefits.

The housewife was working and could no longer raise her children. Instead, families gave them to a surrogate mother: subsidized daycare and the public school system.

The housewife no longer had the time to take care of elderly or ill relatives and the relatives had forgone having enough children. The work of supporting them became overly onerous, it simply was impossible. So, families entrusted their elderly and ill to a surrogate child, the state. Social security, subsidized senior housing, public health care, and a wide array of government benefits replaced the family.

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The problem with using the state as a surrogate family is twofold.

First, the state can only provide bread, but man does not live on bread alone. People need community, friends, family, and social interaction. The state is incapable of providing this; it is a cold, faceless, bureaucratic institution. The best it can do is hire a paid nurse or teacher to tolerate your company for a few hours.

The state can not build community. It can only replace community with economic transaction or destroy it.

The state can not end the squeeze, as personal relations are still necessary for the elderly, the infirm, children, and the building of community. It may alleviate is somewhat, but the squeeze remains.

Second, is the cost. The state’s coffers are not bottomless and when the benefits of social capital that were previously built by unpaid labour, now has to be built by labour paid by the state, the costs become onerous.

The state goes broke.

Greece is experiencing it. Other part of Europe will experience it soon. North America will experience it in time if her course does not reverse.

When the state goes broke, it can no longer replace community, but people have lost the community to replace the state. There can only be a void, with people left to their own devices. Those unable to repair community or provide for themselves suffer.

Without the traditional family, the squeeze is unavoidable.

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The traditional family, particularly the housewife, was essential to building community. The state as a surrogate family has replaced the traditional family. Mindless economic production and consumerism replaced community. The bureaucratic state expanded and replaced community.

For what benefit? A squeeze on the middle, a dubious increase in material well-being, and the end to an amorphous concept of oppression.

I hope those who did this feel it was worth it. Do you think it was?

The Consequences of Sluttiness

I was gonna post this in tonight’s Lightning Round, but it took too much space, so it gets its own short post.

This is what happens when a women is slutty prior to marriage. Be warned:

Q. Disconnected From Husband After Orgasm: Please help. I love my husband. He is affectionate, interesting, smart, and even does his share of the housework. The only problem is in bed. Although I usually orgasm during sex with him, instead of feeling emotional satisfaction and closeness afterward, I feel sad and disconnected. With past boyfriends, I always felt the rush of “bonding” chemicals, even when I didn’t want to. What could be going wrong now? And please, don’t bother to suggest couples counseling. My husband would be crushed if he knew.

A: Fake it. Not your orgasm, because you’re fortunate to have one, fake those bonding feelings. Reach out to your husband, hug and stroke him. Engaging in this ritual could reorient your feelings and lift you out of your temporary sadness. What you’re experiencing is not at all unusual. The French call it “la petite mort,” describing the feeling of melancholy that sometimes descends post-orgasm. Just knowing you are not alone, and that you can act close even if you don’t feel it, might be enough to get you past this.

Social Pathologist has some stats/science here, here, here, and here.

Edit: Highlighting something I almost missed, but should really emphasize: “What you’re experiencing is not at all unusual.” This is not just one women, this is a pattern.

Solipsism in Action

Slate (always a good place for blog material) had an article on a comment from Quora asking: Why Are Women So Negative About the “Pickup Artist” Community?

Quora has numerous other responses which, along with the comments on this particular answer at both Slate and Quora, vary between pro- and anti-game and which will mostly be familiar to those with experience in the Manosphere. I’m mostly only going to comment on this one because Slate published it, it’s the most upvoted on Quora, and it’s amazing how hard the hamster is running.

I read The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists (which I still think is a really interesting book) and ended up meeting a lot of people who were in the pick-up artist community (not a goal—it just happened).

I even ended up helping out with one of their weekend seminars, to be a “female test dummy,” essentially. Far from the stereotype of sleazy guys who want one-night stands, 24 of the 25 guys in the class were just awkward, nerdy guys who just wanted a girlfriend (the 25th wanted to bring home a girl for a threesome with his girlfriend). But that’s not the instruction of these classes. The classes are about getting laid, not getting a girlfriend.

This was my first big hint that something was wrong. There was a mismatch. They were taking guys who wanted girlfriends and teaching them how to pick up girls in bars.

She’s correct that’s exactly what game generally does (Dalrock, Athol, et al. being the minority), but in her self-absorption, she doesn’t even question why there’s a mismatch.

The reason there is a mismatch is simple: 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)?

The second thing she misses is this: yes, we want a relationship, but, failing that, getting laid is a nice second place (religious convictions aside) for most men.

If you don’t want awkward men to settle for the second prize, make it possible for them to attain the first.

How many relationships do you know of that started in bars? Do you know any? If you want a girlfriend, go sign up for an online dating site. Start dating! Statistically speaking, bars don’t work.

Solopsism starts here at its finest and continues throughout. (We’ll ignore the fact that a lot of relationships nowadays start in bars). Dating sites may be good advice for women, but, statistically speaking, online dating sites are a horrible option for men, particularly for socially awkward men.

Online dating work for most females (the lower quintile is in much the same position as most men); they can revel in the attention of dozens of men for little cost and choose their pick with minimal effort, but for your average male, online dating is a vicious, slogging grind of inanity, rejection, and flaking with with minimal chance of success.

The problem here is that touching can be flirty, but it can also be really creepy when the touching isn’t natural. And when you’re telling an awkward, nerdy guy who has no idea how to flirt “OK, now, touch a girl here,” it’s almost always creepy. (Personally, I don’t like random guys at bars touching me. It makes me really uncomfortable.)

In other words, women like being touched by guys they are attracted to, but keep those awkward nerds away from them.

And she laments awkward nerds trying to learn how to attract women.

And then you’re telling the guy to criticize the girl, which is just plain mean.

That criticism would probably be more effective if the neg didn’t work. It’s simple really:

If women don’t want men to use negs and “be mean”, they shouldn’t respond positively to it.

And then, when the girl isn’t interested, the guy is now being told, “Oh, she’s just trying to play games with you.” He doesn’t back off. Eww.

Guess what? The awkward nerd has no idea how to tell if the girl is interested or not. That’s why he’s at one of these workshops in the first place. To learn to gauge interest so that he doesn’t get the “eww” response.

And all of this is ridiculous because sometimes, the girl is out of your league or at least just isn’t interested. I’m 5-foot-9, and I’m just not going to go home with a guy who is 5-foot-3, goes by the nickname “Snake” (seriously?!?), or is overweight, pimply, or won’t just answer a direct question about what he does for a living.

Remember to know your place you creepy nerd. Don’t you dare try to improve yourself or better your chances with women.

With this kind of harsh judgmentalism from women (especially a woman pretending she cares about guys), is it really a surprise the awkward go to PUAs for advice?

Also, there’s some internal contradiction here. If the women is already rejecting the guy because she thinks she’s out of his league, what could he possibly lose for being “creepy”? She’ll reject him either way; at least if he hits on her there’s a small chance of success.

Once upon a time, this guy might have been a perfectly normal but nerdy guy, who could have dated online, met someone nice, got married, and been perfectly happy.

Once upon a time this guy could have waited until his mid-30’s to meet a hard-used, bitter women trying for her hail mary attempt at a  baby and who will later divorce him. Now he’s being twisted so much he may no longer be available as a post-wall, last-ditch relationship.

PUA instruction turns awkward, nerdy guys who just want a girlfriend into creepy guys who harass and insult women. And that’s not OK!

How dare they steal away my beta-orbiters and my fall-back plan for when I leave the carousel.

PUA instruction teaches guys these mechanical ways of interacting with women that don’t really work and fails to recognize that every woman is different. Some women just won’t go home with you. Sorry. Maybe she’s out of your league. Or maybe she’s just not interested in you. Or maybe she just doesn’t go home with random dudes from bars.

If it didn’t work, it wouldn’t be near as popular as it is.

The things is, game works for enough men with enough women that men will continue to use it. The specifics don’t matter; the general trends of it working for many men on many women is all that is necessary for game to continue.

The words coming out of a woman’s mouth? It’s not all a game.You can have actual conversations with us.

If the awkward male could have an actual conversation with women leading to a relationship, he wouldn’t be looking for advice from PUA’s.

But he can’t, so he does.

When I say “What do you do for a living?” it’s because I actually care. Because I’m looking for someone to build a relationship with, and someone with no career goals is not a good match for me. Answer the question.

Hurry up and let me judge you so I can get back to those alpha males.

Conversation is not all a giant game.

For the awkward, nerdy male it is. It has to be.

He doesn’t naturally know how to have a conversation, that’s the entire reason we call him awkward.

For him to learn how to have a conversation, he has to treat it like a game with rules, because it’s the only way he will understand it and have a conversation.

When I’m not interested, it’s because I’m not interested. Not because I’m putting some sort of girl test in front of you.

And yet, you, like most women, will judge him on his awkwardness anyway.

So that’s why I’m against it. Because, beyond just giving men the courage to approach women, the instruction is harmful to the guys.

Yes, that’s why you are opposed to it.

Are adult males not capable of deciding whether it is harmful to them on their own?

Some of my friends who were involved in the community got out of it OK, but they were probably more normally adjusted to start with. Another friend, well, he got his taste of one night stands and “can’t understand the point of girlfriend.” And other guys I’ve met are so uncomfortable to be around that, well, we never really became friends.

Translation:

Some of her beta orbiters have remained beta orbiters. Other beta orbiters have succeeded with game and are enjoying their success enough that they no longer pine after fantasies. And other beta orbiters are no longer willing to be beta orbiters.

As I said, the hamster was strong with this one. She has absolutely no sympathy for or understanding of the plight of your average socially awkward male. This is why those opposed to game are going to continue to lose men to game; they refuse to consider why awkward young men are turning to game in the first.

If you don’t like awkward young men turning to game: offer a viable alternative.

Socially awkward males will take it if available. All you have to do is understand their frustrations and give them something that helps them ease them.

****

The best response I saw (from Quora):

I’m just as disappointed in women for having low standards. When I can be a nerd and talk about something intelligent and be nice without socially neutering myself because I choose not to talk loud and put other people down and be polite, then the world won’t need pickup bootcamps.

That’s exactly it. If your average beta male could find a half-decent girl to settle down with in his early twenties, there would be no demand for game. There would be PUA’s (probably under a different name), as there have always been and always will be guys who want nothing more than some casual sex, but there would be no demand for game.

You look at a lot of guy on the manosphere, such as Mentu, had met a decent girl to marry while young, they would never have learned game and would never have needed to.

****

Another interesting answer at Quora was this.

He describes game as cheating.That’s an interesting way to think of it.

If you think of the sexual marketplace as a game, then game is simply violating the traditional rules to win. Nothing overly profound, but an interesting way to look at it.

Feminism and Homemaking are not Compatible

TC linked to this article in the Atlantic on feminism and homemakers by Wurtzel.

While the original article has its inaccuracies and slip-shod thinking, it is absolutely correct in its main point:

Let’s please be serious grown-ups: real feminists don’t depend on men. Real feminists earn a living, have money and means of their own.

A women can not be both a feminist and a stay-at-home mother; the two are mutually exclusive.

And there really is only one kind of equality — it precedes all the emotional hullabaloo — and it’s economic.

Modern feminism (with the possible exception of certain forms of liberal feminism which I am going to ignore for this post, but would probably be easier categorized as libertarianism rather than a form of feminism) is based on the application of marxian methodology to sexual relations. In marxian analysis, all power is, at base, economic power and varying groups are in competition with each other for this power. When marxian analysis is applied to sexual relations, the inevitable conclusion is that women and men are in a power conflict and women are economically oppressed. Only by by gaining economic power can women no longer be oppressed. Hence feminism.

Women are oppressed because they are not financially independent; only the financially independent woman can be free of oppression.

The traditional home-maker and the stay-at-home mother is economically dependent on the male breadwinner and is therefore oppressed.

Economic self-sufficiency is feminism.

****

The augmentation of her main point is dead on as well:

Being a mother isn’t a real job
…
something becomes a job when you are paid for it — and until then, it’s just a part of life.

A job is a relationship where money is exchanged for labour. If you are not getting paid, you do not have a job.

Homemaking is not a job because the homemaker is not being paid.

****

There is one specific way in which being a homemaker can be a job.

If there is a written contract between the homemaker and the breadwinner, in which the breadwinner is contractually obligated to pay the homemaker a clearly defined sum for clearly defined, contractually obligated childcare duties independently of the state of the marriage and marriage contract, the homemaker can be said to have a job.

****

Some guy named Friedersdorf had a response to the original article.

When questioning the main point of the original argument, that being a mother is a job, he pisses all over such petty things as logic. (On the other hand, his destruction of Wurtzel’s analysis of electoral politics is not bad, but her analysis was rather shoddy, so that’s not exactly something to brag about).

His argument essentially boils down to: being a homemaker is a job because it costs a lot to hire a caregiver and because raising children is both important and somewhat difficult.

Just because something requires effort, costs a lot to replace, and is important does not make it a job.

The fallacy of this is obvious. It is important that I fry myself a sausage and the alternative of eating out can be costly, that does not mean I have a job as a chef. Under his argument almost any activity can be considered a job, making the whole concept of a job meaningless.

Something is only a job if you get paid. Homemaking is not a job.

He then goes on with a tale about his mother, of which I’ll only quote a portion:

To describe her as dependent on my father for income is accurate only insofar as my parents decided together that she’d forgo working, plus the wage premium she’d gain from those lost years of work experience, to raise my sister and me, and to do other uncompensated labor

In other words, it’s entirely accurate. That’s very much being dependent; she voluntarily chose to be dependent, but she’s still dependent on a man to provide for her.

One other thing. Contrary to his assertions, his mother was not acting like a feminist. She may have had all the right cant, but she did not live them.

****

As a side note, he then makes this asinine assertion:

The legal recognition of community property was a major, rightfully celebrated feminist victory.

It was not a feminist victory. It was a form of marital law developed from civil law (as opposed to common law) and Catholic social teaching so that children were provided for if the husband died, not because of what it did for women. It preceded feminism by centuries and has only been adopted in less than a dozen states. It was, at most, a partial victory of civil law over common law in some jurisdictions (which is still not good, but that’s currently irrelevant). It was neither feminist, nor anything resembling a victory.

****

Of course, near the end of the article he actually almost begins to stumble upon the reality of the situation, seemingly by pure accident:

GDP is evidently her bottom line.

Ding, ding, ding. We have a winner.

Although,not GDP per se, economics is feminism’s bottom line. The economic power and independence of women is the central point of feminism. (Other forms of power/independence, such as political power, which are critical to feminism would flow from naturally from economic independence/power).

The notion, implicit in Wurzel’s piece, that men and women should set aside the work arrangements that best suit their families in order to further an ideological agenda

He hits the nail on the head. Feminism is an ideological agenda. It requires that men and women set aside “best suited” work arrangements in favour of the women being economically independent.

That’s exactly the damn point Wurzel was making.

If a family is not willing to do this, they are not feminist.

Feminism may require sacrifice so that a women can be economically independent.

****

The paragraph before that he stumbles upon another truth. Friedersdorf states this:

If anything, society benefits from a diversity of arrangements being tried all at once, both because variety is more conducive to fulfilling diverse individuals, and because stay-at-home parents and working parents can likely learn something from their analogs using a somewhat different model.

He is right, society does benefit from a diversity of family arrangements.

****

So, if he understands both that Wurzel is arguing that feminism requires women be economically independent and he understands that society may benefit if not every women is economically independent, what’s his problem?

His problem is that he is unable to connect the two ideas. That is why he makes up all sorts of half-baked justifications for why a homemaker somehow has a job, even though she is not getting paid, and is somehow independent, even though she depends entirely on someone else’s income for sustenance.

He is not able to connect the two ideas because he wants to be labelled a feminist (or supporter of feminism, it’s unclear which from the article and the difference is irrelevant for our purpose) without actually adhering to feminism.

As soon as he connects the two ideas his thinking will become clear and he wouldn’t have to make such logical contortions to continue to hold his own ideas, but then he would have to make a choice.

He would have to choose between feminism and his support for multiple family arrangements, because homemaking and feminism are mutually exclusive. This, of course, presents a dilemma.

If he chose feminism he would have to *shudder* judge other people’s decisions.

If he chose the acceptance of multiple family arrangements, he would *gasp* no longer be supporting feminism.

He is like the liberal Christian deciding whether he wants to follow the Bible or follow worldly wisdom. The “Christian” can’t make choice, so instead he decides to contort the Bible to fit worldly wisdom. Friedersdorf can’t make a decision so he contorts the English language and logic so that independence means dependence and a job includes any activity that requires some skill, effort, and someone somewhere gets paid for.

****

Friedersdorf’s confusion is not solely his own. Many seem to have this confusion; it is often called choice feminism.

Feminism has become very popular; most women want to be identified as strong and independent feminists. Most liberal men want to be seen as supporting female equality and feminism (which are not necessarily the same thing).

Yet, most women do not actually want what feminism is selling. They want to be dependent and have a man upon whom they can depend, they want to stay at home with their children, they don’t want to have to work at a job. Even when they work, a significant number of women choose to work in fields no different from what they would be doing as a homemaker anyway (ie. teaching, non-registered nursing, child care, etc.)

They don’t want feminism, but they want the label of feminism. So, what do they do?

They contort. They twist feminism, the English language, and logic so that they can somehow define themselves as feminist while doing things that are a denial of feminism.

They contort until somehow they have convinced themselves that being a homemaker, totally dependent on a man for income and devoted entirely to children and the home, is somehow a feminist act.

But it can not be. A women can be a homemaker or she can be a feminist. She can not be both.

Trying to be both is nothing more than self-delusion.

Choice feminism isn’t.

****

All this isn’t to say homemaking is a bad thing. In fact, I am opposed to feminism and I am in favour of woman staying home as homemakers and, if I marry, I will marry someone who wants to be a homemaker.

I support families who decide the wife should be a homemaker. I’m not going to say that it’s the hardest job in the world, because it isn’t particularly hard and it’s not a job, but I will say it’s a respectable and worthwhile life path.

But there has to be a choice: feminism or homemaking.

If homemaking is your thing, repudiate feminism. If feminism is your thing, then live it and be economically independent.

If you don’t like that feminism requires economic independence, perhaps you may want to reconsider your attachment to it.

Lessons from Dating a Fashion Model

From Slate, “What is it Like to Date or Marry a Fashion Model? (No, I didn’t date a fashion model, sorry to disappoint). It’s an interesting article and there are a number of things to be learned from it.

First, the obvious for women (and for men):

I met her when she was 25, and we dated nearly four years until finally breaking up just a couple months before she turned 30. I know I’ve sounded pretty negative in this answer, but in the first couple years the relationship was so good that I thought she was marriage material, but her insecurity and negativity became such a problem later on that despite my attempts to be supportive and make it work, we eventually had to part ways. I really thought we were meant to be together so I probably let things go on for much longer than was wise, in retrospect. At one point, I thought maybe we could make it work as a joint venture, with her doing the modeling and speaking and industry relationships, and I would handle the finance and “business” pieces, but her negativity and insecurity about everything had totally poisoned things between us so much by then that I just couldn’t handle it anymore.

For women, just because you’re hot doesn’t mean you are attractive for long-term relationships. Physical beauty gets you in the door and it will definitely get you random sex; it will not, by itself, get you love or commitment. If you want either, concentrate on things more worthy (without abandoning the former).

Also, negativity and insecurity are unfeminine and horribly off-putting to men. Be positive and be secure in yourself (which does not mean be bitchy; bitchiness and confidence are not the same).

For men, remember the Biblical proverb:

Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. Give her of the fruit of her hands, and let her works praise her in the gates. (Proverbs 31:30-31)

Do not let a women’s beauty blind you to her faults. This guy didn’t, but if he had he’d be in for one doozy of a rough ride.

Second lesson:

Not only this but they are, by dint of their profession, an expert in terms of how to dress and apply makeup, so you are basically dating a walking Photoshop commercial. Despite this, she would obsess about what I could only perceive to be completely invisible fat on her thighs and just-as-invisible wrinkles around her eyes. She would literally ask me, “Do I look fat?” or “Don’t you think I look old?”

Women are naturally insecure about their looks. Even a women who’s so objectively attractive she gets paid solely for being beautiful is insecure about her looks.

For women, this means don’t obsess over your looks; you’ll feel insecure, but if you’re thinking overly negatively about yourself, there’s a good chance it’s probably just in your head. Note: This does not mean you should not take proper care of yourself; if you are actually overweight as measured by a somewhat objective source, then take care of that. Be objective about your beauty.

Men, learn how to handle a women’s insecurity for both your benefit and her benefit. Athol has shown much better than I could how to handle insecurity for mutual benefit, while Roissy has outlined how to exploit it. I would recommend the former, but your moral choices are up to you.

Which leads directly into lesson three:

She would literally ask me, “Do I look fat?” or “Don’t you think I look old?” and of course as a man with a good sense of perspective about what I’d managed to snag, at first I would enthusiastically answer, “Of course not! You’re the most beautiful woman on the planet!” which as far as I could tell was 100 percent the truth. The problem was, none of these really assuaged her insecurities (of course) so she would keep asking over and over, and there is a limit to how many times you can enthusiastically exclaim about how beautiful your girlfriend is, even if you do believe it to be the truth. Obviously, she noticed this difference in the enthusiasm of my answers, and it didn’t help her insecurity about her supposed fading looks.

Betaness doesn’t work. I have no idea how alpha this guy is, but he did date a model for four years, so probably more so than me, but his answer to this particular fitness test was very beta, as per both Athol and Roissy. The result: his women was perpetually dissatisfied with his answer, remained insecure, and continued repeatedly testing him to exasperation.

But then again, he did date a model for four years, so who am I to criticize his game.

Fourth lesson:

Finally, I met someone when I was home for Christmas when my mom, before I could stop her, introduced me as “my son, who is dating the supermodel” to a girl I’d been friends with in high school, which of course got her to talk to me. She now says she was impressed not because I was dating a supermodel, but because I was helping her with her finances and “good with business,” and now she is my fiancee.

More confirmation that pre-selection works and that women naturally know this. Also confirmation that women (and often men)will rationalize to themselves and others so as not to appear shallow.

Fifth lesson:

Dating a model is pretty interesting. As a couple and as a man, you are immediately accorded utterly absurd amounts of social consideration. Any time we were out, we’d get special treatment. Not just from service people but just regular people. People would regularly offer to let us cut in front of them in lines at restaurants, grocery stores, even once at the DMV(!) when we happened to go together… Airlines look for well-dressed people to offer first-class upgrades to when seats are open, and dating my girlfriend had led me to up my game in terms of dress so I always wore a jacket and tie when flying, so we were a pretty good-looking couple (well, she was—I was a chump in a nice suit), and we would always get offered the first-class upgrades.

He goes on a bit more about specifics, but this is enough for our purposes: Looks matter. No matter what well-meaning relatives and friends may tell you, they matter a lot. More for women, but also for men (note the suit).

If you are beautiful you will almost always have a strong social advantage. It’s not fair, and it may not be “right”, but it is reality. However much you may not like it you cannot deny reality.

If you are beautiful be aware that you have this advantage. If you are not, be aware that you don’t. And whatever your looks, you can always try to capitalize on this reality by looking your best.

Sixth lesson:

I dated a model during what you might call her “declining” years. I put that in quotes because to a normal person the idea is absurd. Models have a shelf-life of maybe 10 years, 15 if they are lucky. Once a model hits 30, the modeling industry considers her old and used up, and there is no shortage of eager 15- and 26-yearolds from Eastern Europe who are willing to work longer hours, fly more places, and get paid far less.

Again for women. Looks fade with age: modelling illustrates that well. As for looks in dating, modelling is simply a harsher model of the reality for most women. If you’re young and at all attractive, you have a strong social advantage, but only for now. By your mid-20s it will start fading, the time you’re 30 it will start declining rapidly. Most younger girls who will be more attractive then you, not matter how good you looked in your youth (some subjective conditions apply).

This leads into the seventh lesson:

Almost every model in her late 20s (including the woman I dated) begins to worry incessantly (when she isn’t worrying about nonexistent eye wrinkles) about how to make herself into a “brand” and transition into being a supermodel, which is pretty much the only postmodeling career available to you in this line of work.

Your beauty fades; so when you have it, use it to the best long-term advantage you can. Also, develop yourself as a person even though people will like you even if you don’t because of your beauty.

If you are hoping to get married and have a family, start now. Your youthful looks will allow you to snag the best mate you are capable of landing. If you wait, you only hurt your chances in the long-run. Developing yourself as a person will allow you to provide value to yourself and others after your looks fade.

Then you become like the model in the story: alone, broke, and with less of a hand then you held.

Which then goes into the eighth lesson:

As a result of this, she became gradually more demotivated, insecure, and would complain often that she was “over the hill,” which is pretty absurd at 28 or 29 (although I hear it sometimes from Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, which I consider equally absurd) and it became a continual source of negativity in our day-to-day interactions.

While the author denies it as absurd, being an entrepreneur past your twenties is difficult. Entrepreneurship requires vigor, drive, ambition, freedom of action, the ability to go on little sleep, etc. Essentially, it requires a ruthless single-mindedness you only truly have when you are young.

A lot of this is tied to biology, hormones, and testosterone production. As a male ages the production of testosterone fades, so you lose your drive. Commitments of adulthood begin to wear at your freedom of action.

So, for all you men, re-read all the earlier lessons and replace beauty with vigor. (For women, all the warnings I gave to men about watching out for beauty, heed the same warning for young men with ambition).

Do not waste your youthful vigor.

Ninth lesson:

After being together for a couple years, I got a good sense of how much she earned over time, and I tried to explain to her what she should try to think of as her average income stream over time and to keep weekly expenses in line, but it was something she just wasn’t very interested in. Instead she would go on partying and shopping binges in the weeks following getting paid and the rest of the time scraping by when she wasn’t. Luckily, I made the wise decision to keep our finances completely separate even when we started living together and “splitting” the rent, which more often than not turned out to be me footing all of the rent for that month and her paying me back months later when she got paid.

Never, ever join financially with someone incapable of handling finances responsibly. If you plan to get married, make sure your potential spouse is responsible with finances. If you do not plan to get married, do not become financially entangled with your paramour.

The article was very blue pill, but very informative. Even through the blue pill sheen put on everything by the author, the red pill realities leak through quite clearly.

Edit -2012/09/20: Seems I couldn’t count yesterday. Lesson numbering changed.

Evolutionary Psychology, Politics, and Bad Science

Came across a Slate XX article from last week on evolutionary psychology.

The article essentially boils down to: evolutionary psychology research that supports my preconceived biases is good, evolutionary psychology that argues against my ideology is bad.

The article starts with the author complaining about evo-psych, leading into this:

There’s nothing inherently wrong with evolutionary psychology—our thoughts and behaviors have been shaped by millions of years of hominid evolutionary history, and it’s worth studying how natural selection acted on traits that we still express today. But too often, evolutionary psychology is a force for social conservatism.

The reason evolutionary psychology is usually a force for social conservatism, is because social conservatism is the inherited wisdom of thousands of years of adaptation by human society to biological reality.

Evolutionary psychology will inherently be socially conservative, because (true*) social conservatism is inherently about man controlling its biological nature so society can function. (Religious conservatives will refer to man’s “fallen nature” and political philosophers will refer to the “state of nature”, which are the same thing for all practical purposes).

Left-liberalism (from which most of feminism springs) is not about managing the biology of man, it is about using reason and/or morality to overcome the “state of nature” for the benefit of all.

Left-liberalism usually derives from either (or a combination of) Rousseau’s amoral, self-interested, animal-like state of nature or from Marxian ideology where human nature does not exist as a fundamental concept, but comes from social relations and man’s relations to his work. (Conservatives usually work off Hobbes’ violent and warlike state of nature; libertarians and classical liberals generally work off Locke’s  anarchic, fully free state of nature and of war.)

From the Rousseauian state of nature, men come together in cooperation and submit to the general will as designed through a social contract for mutual benefit. By uniting under the social contract a man can be ennobled, and his corruption comes only through failures of the social contract. By bettering the social contract, man may be further ennobled. Under a human nature based on social relations, the improvement of social and economic conditions will lead to an improvement in human nature and behaviour.

Left-liberal thought is essentially about the perfectibility of man through changing social conditions so he can better himself beyond the limitations of human nature.

In social conservative thought man cannot be perfected and will always be controlled by his human nature. His nature can only be constrained by social instructions, but never altered.

This is the essential and primary difference between the two ideologies.

This is political theory 101. If our education system even remotely resembled a traditional classical liberal education, the author would know this.

If she knew this, she would not be arguing against evolutionary psychology (when it supports social conservatism) or for it (when it supports feminist ideology). She would know that her ideology is one where social and economic relations are shaped through cooperation (the general will ) to create a society based on the common good, overcoming the limitations of man in a state of nature.

Know this: evolutionary psychology will always support (true*) social conservatism, because social conservatism is simply the attempt to control the state of nature so society can function.

To the liberal or leftist, this should not matter. Whatever evolutionary psychology will say, it can neither support nor discredit left-liberalism, because left-liberal ideology exists independently of human nature. It exists as an ideology of social relationships overcoming the limitations of human nature (or it simply rejects human nature, and therefore evolutionary psychology outright).

The only way evolutionary psychology can matter, at all, to left-liberal ideology is if it eliminates the possibility that changing social relations can possibly be used to improve mankind’s lot. If this occurs, the entirety of liberal-leftism will be intellectually unsustainable and void of any claim to truth.

In other words, the only way evolutionary psychology can have any impact on the truth claims of left-liberalism is to entirely overthrow it.

By even considering evolutionary psychology’s impact on the truth of ideology, the author is fundamentally undermining her own.

****

Researchers identify a pattern of behavior, usually some stereotypical sex difference (in part because it’s easy to measure whether men and women score differently on a standardized test), construct a scenario in which that behavior would have been adaptive in the distant past, and say the behavior is therefore evolutionarily selected and encoded in our genes.
…
It’s tricky to disprove the notion that some human trait is the result of evolution. The logic is circular: if some trait exists, it must not have been fatal to our ancestors and it may have helped them reproduce. To critique a claim of evolutionary privilege, you have to show that the trait has no genetic component and therefore can’t be inherited, or demonstrate that the trait is instilled by culture, not necessarily biology.

Partially correct: it’s impossible to disprove the notion that some human trait is the result of evolution (if it’s genetic in origin).

To show that a trait is not a result of evolution requires that the trait is not genetically based.

If a behaviour is genetic in origin (and is not a random mutation or transcription error, such as Down’s Syndrome, or exceedingly rare/recessive, such as Tay–Sachs) it must have not have been fatal to humans prior to reproduction and, in highest likelihood, either is beneficial to reproduction or is linked to a trait that is beneficial to reproduction.

Any genetic trait is a product of evolution and therefore, evolution must have produced said genetic trait. Any genetic trait evolution produces must have been adaptive; the explanatory reason of why it is adaptive may not be correct, but it is impossible that the trait was not adaptive (or at least not harmful).

It may be somewhat circular, but, if you hold to Darwinian evolution, it is logically necessary. The only way to not accept evolutionary psychology is to deny Darwinian evolution.

****

You’re supposed to want someone stronger, smarter, and richer than you. Someone who would sire healthy offspring and protect them from saber-toothed cats on the Pleistocene Epoch savanna.

Not “are supposed to”: “do”.

Evolution (and evolutionary psychology) is not prescriptive, it is descriptive of the large statistical trends of human society.

Just because evolutionary psychology says that something evolved in most humans does not mean you have to follow it (although, you statistically will) and it does not mean it applies in every case (some individuals will always be genetically aberrant and display behaviours and traits outside of what is statistically normal).

This is the kind of logic used by fourth-tier intellects arguing creationism in Youtube comments (IF EVALUTIAN IS RONG, Y U NOT SUPPORT HITLER AND SURVIAL OF TEH FITIST!?! HIPOCRIT!!!… durr). How a middle-brow publication like Slate allows this kind of stupidity through is beyond me. If it was somebody from the Discovery Institute arguing like this, he’d be laughed out of the room.

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The first few paragraphs of her post are complaints about what she believes to be “bad” science in evolutionary psychology. So, what does she list as the study that redeems evolutionary psychology:

And that’s why my favorite paper of the week is “Stepping Out of the Caveman’s Shadow: Nations’ Gender Gap Predicts Degree of Sex Differentiation in Mate Preferences.” Marcel Zentner and Klaudia Mitura of the University of York, U.K., asked more than 3,000 people in 10 countries what they valued in a mate. On a four-point scale, people rated the importance of various qualities: chastity, ambition, financial prospects, good looks, etc.—all identified by Buss and his likeminded peers as being qualities that only men or only women are evolutionarily predisposed to seek out.

Wonderful. A self-selected internet survey based on self-identified preferences somehow overturns all the carefully designed studies using brain scans, monitoring of biological functions, priming, and so on that support the conclusions of evolutionary psychology. That’s some good science.

The researchers used a World Economic Forum measure of gender equality to rank the 10 countries as (a) relatively gender-equal, (b) backwards but improving, or (c) screamingly sexist (my  terms, not theirs). And the results were clear: The more egalitarian the country, the less likely men and women were to value traditional qualities that Buss and co. believe to be innate. In Germany, women said they’d very much like a man who is a good housekeeper. In Finland, men were more likely than women to prefer a mate a bit smarter than themselves. In the United States, women ranked chastity as more important than men did. At the other end of the scale, in Turkey and South Korea, women wanted mates with good financial prospects and men valued good cooks.

Essentially, the survey finds that when asked about sensitive and potentially controversial topics over the internet, a self-selected group of people will give strangers the socially-approved answer. Thank you Slate for pointing out this stunning observation.

In case your sarcasm detector is malfunctioning, the study is complete and utter crap and drawing any conclusions about evolutionary biology from it is idiotic.

As the manosphere says repeatedly and consistently, look at what people do, not what they say.

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So, in conclusion, this article is mostly bunk. It’s a mishmash of a person’s ignorance of her own ideological underpinnings, wishful thinking, fourth-rate logic, and a person determining “good” science based on her own ideological biases.

In other words, it’s typical feminism.

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* I say true social conservatism, because a fair amount of what we call social conservatism now, is simply the repackaged liberalism of the last century. Actual social conservatives would generally be called paleo-conservatives. ie: Being against gay marriage, but believing in marriage for love does not a social conservative make, it only makes a liberal who doesn’t like homosexual marriage; to be a social conservative requires a traditional view of marriage as an economic, sexual, and (possibly) religious relationship based around the creation and raising of children.

Really? Women need a guide to be a decent person?

Hooking Up Smart had a post entitled “25 Politically Incorrect But Effective Ways to Make Him Your Boyfriend.”

Now, I know that some of the manosphere have differences with Walsh, but just read the piece, the advice is mostly good.

Despite the advise being good, the post also makes me kind of sad. Almost the entire list can be summed up as “be a decent human being” and “don’t be a neurotic bitch”.

Do women really need to be told this, likes it’s some sort of secret?

Is “don’t be a neurotic bitch” really politically incorrect?

Look at some of the things on the list:

1. Actively support him.
2. Have his back.
3. Appreciate him.
4. Physically care for him.
5. Have eyes for no one but him.
8. Be unconditionally generous.
10. Remember his favorites.
12. Be a pressure relief valve.
13. Do not compete with family and friends.
15. Avoid controlling and possessive behavior.
16. Maintain privacy as a couple.
17. Respect his privacy.
18. Suppress your neuroses.
20. Resolve conflict without emotional excess.
25. Never go into a relationship with an idea of changing a man into what you really want.

Really?

I’ve been accused of misogyny before, but unholy hell, how low an opinion of women must Walsh have to think that women actually need to be reminded to be a decent human being and to spell out how to be a decent human being in bullet form?

What kind of women does Walsh have at her blog?

The even more pertinent question is, do women actually need this kind of advice? Really?

But the final and far more worrying question: is this advice really politically incorrect?

Has our culture and its gender relations degraded to the point where it is politically incorrect to tell a women not to be controlling and possessive and to support her man? Is “don’t be neurotic” really advice that is culturally discouraged?

I don’t know what to say.

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Also, this is an odd counterpoint to game. Game advice often boils down to telling men to be more of an asshole to attract women. Walsh’s advice to women is to not be a total bitch.

I don’t know which is more screwed up: that men need to be bastards to attract women or that women actually need to be told not to be bitches to attract men.

Discussion on Game

I posted a review of Bang yesterday and this prompted me to think on if I will apply game in my own life.

I’m still on the fence about game. I’m a Christian, so casual sex is not something I plan to pursue, this seems to take away the most immediate reason to learn game.

Right now I plan on being a patriarch, not a player, so I am looking for a wife, and do not want to ruin that prospect with the player’s curse.

On the other hand, I do want to be an alpha male patriarch, not a whipped beta schlub. So, MMSL-style marriage game is something I want to pursue when I get married to keep my marriage happy and my wife attracted to me.

But for the mean-time prior to marriage I’m not sure.

Mentu’s advice on Christian game creates a really convincing argument for Christian men to learn game.

On the other hand, I do not want game to be necessary to attract my future wife though.

So, the conclusion I’ve come to for now it to slowly learn the basics of game over time, in particular confident movement and posture, outcome independence, and social/conversational skills. The kind of basic, underlying attitudes that will enhance my life apart from picking up girls, and will not require me to continually monitor myself and my techniques to keep my wife I gamed from leaving me.

I also plan to get myself into shape.

Apart from that, I won’t meet a girl to be my wife if I don’t get over my approach anxiety, so I plan to practice approaching women, not really gaming them, but simply to get over the anxiety.

Next month I’m going out of the country for a few weeks with family. I plan to practice some approaches to get over the anxiety then, when I have opportunities, as there will be less, but still some, social risk to (awkwardly) approaching women from another country who I’ll never see again. We’ll see how that goes.

The goal is to have the base attitudes of game by 30. Then depending on what I choose for my life, I can add on to the base as necessary.