Category Archives: Sex/Gender

Violent Crime and Gun Ownership: Stats

Number of guns: 260 million

Number of gun owners: 80 million

Number of Homicides using firearms: 8,775

Number of white persons: 241,747,756

Number of homicides by white persons: 4,849

Number of black persons: 40,445,666

Number of homicides by black persons: 5,770

Number of males: 151,781,326

Number of homicides by males: 9,972

Number of females: 156,964,212

Number of homicides by females: 1,075

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Odds of any particular gun being used to murder you: 0.0034%

Odds pf any particular gun owner murdering you: 0.0110%

Odds of any particular white person murdering you: 0.0020%

Odds of any particular black person murdering you: 0.0142%

Odds of any particular male murdering you: 0.0066%

Odds of any particular female murdering you: 0.0007%

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Draw your own conclusions.

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(All numbers for in the US and, where applicable, per year: most numbers for 2010)

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.

Women, STEM, and D&D

Yesterday, I briefly mentioned the topic of women in the math and sciences.

It’s well known that post-secondary education is predominantly female. It is also well known that this is not true of STEM fields, where women are a minority.

Some chock this up to differences in intelligence or that women aren’t gifted at math. It’s not differences in overall intelligence, as the difference in average intelligence between men and women has always been small, and might even have reversed in the last few years. Even so, men have always held generally have held a small advantage in spatial reasoning and mathematical reasoning, but these differences are not great enough to account for the massive disparities in math-based subjects.

Greater male variability may explain some of it. High-level mathematics requires high intelligence, and due to greater variability there are a greater number of high-intelligence males than females (just as there are greater number of low-intelligence males), but as we can see from IQ by intended major, even those intending to enter the hard sciences have an average IQ of only about 110. Even factoring in variability, a requirement for an IQ of 110 should not lead to such large disparities in the STEM field, but fewer women pursue STEM fields at this point.

Feminists will argue that it’s all about discrimination and whatnot, but with the predominance of females throughout the rest of universities and the large number of programs dedicated to attracting women to STEM its hard to see how any can argue this with a straight face.

Not to mention, that females are well-represented in the physical and life sciences. Is there somehow less discrimination in the life and physical sciences than the harder sciences? Unlikely.

Notice instead that the STEM fields women are involved in are the less math oriented sciences. Across the board, women avoid fields that require lots of math.

So the problem is mathematics, but it is unlikely due to differences in intelligence and the explanation of discrimination is ludicrous.

So the answer: in general, women simply don’t like math. Shocking, I know.

Now, this is the point where feminists cry sexism, women do like math  (say the female gender and polisci students).

Now, you know from personal experience women don’t like math; ask most women, and they’ll readily admit they don’t like math. The available data seems to support the assertion women just plain don’t like it, but proving that women generally don’t like math  is difficult. You can’t really see into women’s minds to show they don’t like math and anecdotes that all your female friends don’t like math is no more proof positive of a statistical trend than the one female friend you have who loves math is proof negative.

So, how can we know?

The answer is simple: Dungeons and Dragons.

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See, the thing is, most guys don’t like math either. Only a small minority of men, and an even smaller minority of women, enjoy math. These men are generally referred to as nerds.

(When I say nerd, I don’t mean the recent trend of “LOL, I watched Dr. Who once, I’m such a nerd” hipster teenagers. I mean the actual nerds, the guys who will spend their Saturday nights imagining themselves swinging around +2 Swords of Shining Light or who will actually go outside and throw around lightning bolts.)

These nerds are the ones who dominate the STEM fields.

Why they’re (or more accurately we’re, as I’m a bit of a nerd myself) like that I don’t know, but I kinda like Half-Sigma’s idea that nerds are simply men with a very mild form of Asperger’s, something also kind of touched on by Susan Pinker.

But that’s beside the point, which is that nerds dominate the STEM field, because they are an abnormal sort of people who actually like math.

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So, how does that help us prove that women dislike math?

Simple, look at D&D.

D&D, for the uninitiated, is essentially what happens when you combine Tolkien, tactical wargames, improvisational theatre, and mathematics. Nerds get together and each creates a character, which is essentially a large block of statistics and math made of options from a large, complicated rule book. He then gives this block of math some personality (sometimes the personality comes before the math, but most nerds know which usually comes first). One nerd, the GM, gets the especially complicated job of creating a world out of blocks of statistics and math. The nerds then takes their blocks of math which interact with (and kill) the GM’s blocks of math, so their blocks of math can grow larger numbers to defeat more powerful blocks of math. Along the way there is some roleplaying: which is essentially improvisational theatre concerning the blocks of math.

D&D is essentially what people who enjoy math do for fun. It’s making math a game.

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It’s a simple fact that few women play D&D, it is largely the domain of males. The game is open for all to play and most players would love to have more females players who share their hobby.

Yet, women don’t play.

You go to any improvisational theatre group, there’s tons of women, women like theatre. Women also like Tolkien, and fantasy in general for that matter. So, why don’t they like D&D?

Math.

Most women, and most men, don’t like math, so making a game of complex math is not something they would consider fun.

If women, on average, liked math as much as men, they would be as involved in D&D as much men. There is no discrimination or institutional barriers preventing them from enjoying D&D, all it requires for entry is $20 for the rulebook. You don’t even really need that as most GM’s would be happy to lend you their copy if you join their game.

They are not though.

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It doesn’t have to be D&D. In the above D&D can be replaced by complex board games, science fiction, Magic cards, war games, or pretty much any nerdy math-based activity. No matter what the math-oriented hobby, men vastly outnumber women.

Women simply don’t see the enjoyment in spending free time doing math. Most men don’t either, but the minority of men who do is larger than the minority of women who do.

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That’s why there’s a STEM gap.

The minority of females who are nerds is smaller than the minority of men who are nerds.

So, next time a feminist says that there’s a STEM gap and it’s caused by sexism, ask her if she plays D&D and how many of her female friends do?

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Edit – Post-Script – 3/08 2012:

Seems this got posted at Reddit under the misleading title “Apparently, ladies don’t like D&D because they can’t Math.”, leading to a larger influx of people than my little corner of the internet has had before. It also seems a lot of them are confused by what I have said. I can’t answer every post individually and I do not have a Reddit account, so here’s a little post-script that will count as a reply to everyone.

1: My argument was not women can not do math (and, hence, play D&D). In fact, I specifically ruled out intelligence and mathematical capabilities in the fourth paragraph. My argument was not even that women do not enjoy math at all (and, hence, D&D). My argument was that nobody enjoys math (and, hence, D&D), except a small group of abnormal people (often referred to as nerds) and that more of these abnormal people are male than female. So, before y’all get your knickers in a knot: PLEASE READ WHAT I ACTUALLY WROTE BEFORE WHINING ABOUT WHAT I DID NOT SAY.

2: A number of people are focusing solely on D&D. As I said, you can apply this argument to the nerdy, math-based hobbies from board games to war games to RPG’s to hobby programming to whatever: anything where interaction is largely defined by basic mathematics. D&D was the specific example used, but do not get

3: If you are a women that either plays D&D, board games, video games, or enjoys math, that is wonderful. I wish more women did, I’d like to share my hobbies with others. But because you personally, and a couple of girls you know, enjoy them does not statistics make. I always thought that the preponderance of males in D&D and other such nerdy hobbies was a well-accepted, so I didn’t bother posting any proof. So here’s the proof: males are about 80% of games as per a WotC survey, so yes, more males play D&D. (The data is old, but this does not seem like something that is measured very often and I doubt it’s changed too significantly).

4: I noted the relationship between D&D (and nerdy hobbies) and STEM. This is not an absolute, just a relationship. In particular, I am not STEM myself, so generalizing me to STEM as a whole is silly. I do enjoy the low-level maths of economics and games as a hobby though.

5: Addition, subtraction, and the statistical blocks that make up characters and the (often violent) relationships between them are math. I didn’t say they were complex math, so I’m not sure where the comments about there being no math come from.

6: Yes, I make some typos; I write as a hobby with no editor. If you’re that anally retentive about typos in a blog post, well…

7: I have never had a beard, let alone a neck-beard. I’m not sure what the point of personalizing counter-arguments to a non-personal argument and insulting some random jackass on the internet is, but I hope the venting was stress-relieving.

No, We Are Not All Feminists

Lindy West argues at Jezebel that we are all feminists and those that aren’t are horrible people.

How does she do this, by (snarkily) arguing that:

To identify as a feminist is to acknowledge that women are people, and, as such, women deserve the same social, economic, and political rights and opportunities as other styles of people (i.e., men-people).

This is of course complete bollocks.

The label of feminist has far more meaning than women are people. Not to mention that what feminists mean by “the same social, economic, and political rights and opportunities” is far different from what most people consider “the same”.

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Now, most people do accept most of first-wave feminism’s objectives: woman should be allowed to vote, own property, and be equal under the law. Even a reactionary curmudgeon like me doesn’t disagree with that (although, I’m not sure about Will).

But, feminism has evolved since then through the second, third, and post-waves and the term feminist has expanded far beyond the original goals of the suffragettes.

Accepting the goals of first-wave feminism no more makes a person a modern feminist than opposing slavery and absolute monarchy makes one a neo-liberal.

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So, what does modern feminism mean beyond “women are people?”

Most obviously, modern feminism has irreversibly tied itself to unlimited abortion-on-demand, something the majority of people oppose. The abortion debate revolves around whether the unborn are persons or not and has nothing to do with the the personhood of women.

Affirmative action, the preferential treatment of women, is another major plank of modern feminism and has nothing to do with the personhood of women. In fact, it gives women rights that men do not have.

Other feminist tropes and goals beyond “women are people” include: the personalization of the political, anti-patriarchy, male privilege, “free” childcare, “free” birth control, “equal” pay, etc.

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The second half of West’s definition of feminism is “women deserve the same social, economic, and political rights and opportunities.”

This, is essentially as what she means by “the same rights and opportunities” is unclear and likely not agreed upon by most.

The first problem is the distinction between “negative” and “positive” liberty.

Under a classical liberal approach of “negative” liberty, “the same rights and opportunities” means that everybody is allowed to live their lives without undue external coercion. This is the standard conception of rights and liberty in the English liberal and liberal-conservative tradition that have defined (or at least  until the last couple of decades) politics in the Anglosphere since Locke and Burke.

Under the progressive “positive” liberty approach, “the same rights and opportunities” means there can be external coercion if it helps an individual overcome internal constraints on their ability to act.

West talks positively of affirmative action and Title IX, so she obviously falls on the “positive” side of liberty, and she links these two strongly to feminism. She also talks derisively of those who have declared equality because legal discrimination has ended.

It’s obvious there is no room for “negative liberty” within her definition of feminism.

Yet, somehow we are all feminists now, even though “negative liberty” is the dominant (but declining) political thought in the US and the Anglosphere.

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The second problem is the distinction between equality and equity.

Equality requires that everybody be treated the same.

Equity requires that people be treated differently to achieve the same outcome.

In an equal regime, hiring would be based solely on qualifications.

In an equitable regime, hiring would be based comparable results.

Affirmative action is very much equity based and is anti-equality, yet it is linked heavily to and is strongly defended by the feminist movement.

“Equal pay”  is a a primary goal of modern feminists. Yet, the “wage gap” disappears when you account for hours worked, job type, specializations, and family arrangements.

Again, West strongly both affirmative action and Title IX to feminism. I’m also pretty sure where she’d stand on the “wage gap.” Is there any room for equality in feminism?

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These first two debates can be seen in feminism itself between the liberal feminists who generally take the “negative” liberty and equality approach, and the other types of feminists who take the egalitarian, “positive” liberty approach.

So there is some room for them.

Sadly, liberal feminists tend to be few and far between and they tend not to be the drivers of feminism, but rather the PR people.

The ones dominating the agenda are the “positive” liberty, equity feminists. Hence, why feminism pursues the “wage gap” so strongly, why Obamacare has “free” contraception, why there was so much feminist rage when religious organizations did not want to pay for contraception, etc.

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The third  problem is that women and men are not the same. This leads to situations where “the same” is simply not possible.

The most obvious difference is that women can give birth, men can’t.

So, how do you give equal rights?

Is abortion only a women’s decision because it’s her body? Is it “equal” for men to have no say in the life or death of their unborn child?

If a man gets no say in the abortion decision, then would it not be fair to allow him to opt out of child support obligations? On the other hand, is it fair to expect a women to take all support for the child on herself?

There is no way the rights of persons in a situation like this can be “the same” because the decisions are not equivalent.

What of maternity/paternity leave? If we give them both similar time off, when the man isn’t even pregnant is that “the same”? But if we don’t give them equal time off, isn’t that differing opportunities?

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Statistical differences in natural aptitudes or interests between the sexes leads to the equity/equality distinction.

Men are physically stronger and and bigger than women. So, when hiring, say, police, do we have “the same” physical requirements for both sexes with different outcomes, or do we “the same” outcomes by having differing physical requirements.

Women are less interested in math and math-based subjects. Do treat the sexes “the same” and just accept there will fewer female engineers or do we try to have “the same” amount of engineers for each sex by incentivizing and strongly encouraging women to enter engineering when they don’t really want to?

Most feminists I’ve read fall into the latter category of each. How does this fit into “women are people” and “deserve the same social, economic, and political rights and opportunities?”

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Slate, that bastion of modern liberalism, explains why feminists want everybody to be a feminist:

So as we adopt West’s definition of “feminism,” perhaps we can also start phasing out the term itself. Perhaps we can instead focus on labeling the outliers who are not feminists: the misogynists, chauvinists, and sexists. That would go a long way towards clarifying that feminism is now mainstream, obvious, and self-evident.

By defining feminism as the norm, they can then define anybody who doesn’t swallow the feminist agenda whole as “outliers”.

Oppose unlimited abortion on demand paid for by the state: you’re a misogynist.

Believe women should pay for their own birth control: you’re sexist.

Believe that the personal should be kept private: you’re a chauvinist.

Now, feminists already call anybody who doesn’t agree with their agenda misogynists, so that’s not the point, in itself. Rather, by having people accept feminism as the “mainstream, obvious, and self-evident” norm, they can force society as whole to accept that anybody who doesn’t engage in feminist group-think is a misogynist.

The point of normalizing feminism is to use it as a ideological weapon.

It’s a con-game: have society accept that the feminist label because they believe the uncontroversial statement that women are people. Most people don’t oppose the goals of liberal feminism all that strongly.

Then once society accepts the  feminist label, move the goalposts. Feminism now means supporting unlimited abortion, or affirmative action, or “free” childcare. You must support us, you don’t want to be misogynist, do you?

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In conclusion, we are not all feminists.

We almost all agree that “women are people” and should be given “the same social, economic, and political rights and opportunities” as men, but feminism goes far beyond that. In addition, what most feminists mean by the same rights and opportunities is usually contradictory to what most people mean by that phrase and what the English classical liberalism which defines our political and economic culture mean by that phrase.

Normalizing the feminist label is nothing more than an ideological weapon.

CS Lewis was a Prophet

Well, not literally, but read this from Screwtape Proposes a Toast:

Democracy is the word with which you must lead them by the nose. The good work which our philological experts have already done in the corruption of human language makes it unnecessary to warn you that they should never be allowed to give this word a clear and definable meaning. They won’t. It will never occur to them that democracy is properly the name of a political system, even a system of voting, and that this has only the most remote and tenuous connection with what you are trying to sell them. Nor of course must they ever be allowed to raise Aristotle’s question: whether “democratic behaviour” means the behaviour that democracies like or the behaviour that will preserve a democracy. For if they did, it could hardly fail to occur to them that these need not be the same.

You are to use the word purely as an incantation; if you like, purely for its selling power. It is a name they venerate. And of course it is connected with the political ideal that men should be equally treated. You then make a stealthy transition in their minds from this political ideal to a factual belief that all men are equal. Especially the man you are working on. As a result you can use the word democracy to sanction in his thought the most degrading (and also the least enjoyable) of human feelings. You can get him to practise, not only without shame but with a positive glow of self-approval, conduct which, if undefended by the magic word, would be universally derided.

The feeling I mean is of course that which prompts a man to say I’m as good as you.

The first and most obvious advantage is that you thus induce him to enthrone at the centre of his life a good, solid, resounding lie. I don’t mean merely that his statement is false in fact, that he is no more equal to everyone he meets in kindness, honesty, and good sense than in height or waist measurement. I mean that he does not believe it himself. No man who says I’m as good as you believes it. He would not say it if he did. The St. Bernard never says it to the toy dog, nor the scholar to the dunce, nor the employable to the bum, nor the pretty woman to the plain. The claim to equality, outside the strictly political field, is made only by those who feel themselves to be in some way inferior. What it expresses is precisely the itching, smarting, writhing awareness of an inferiority which the patient refuses to accept.

And therefore resents. Yes, and therefore resents every kind of superiority in others; denigrates it; wishes its annihilation. Presently he suspects every mere difference of being a claim to superiority. No one must be different from himself in voice, clothes, manners, recreations, choice of food: “Here is someone who speaks English rather more clearly and euphoniously than I — it must be a vile, upstage, la-di-da affectation. Here’s a fellow who says he doesn’t like hot dogs — thinks himself too good for them, no doubt. Here’s a man who hasn’t turned on the jukebox — he’s one of those goddamn highbrows and is doing it to show off. If they were honest-to-God all-right Joes they’d be like me. They’ve no business to be different. It’s undemocratic.”Now, this useful phenomenon is in itself by no means new. Under the name of Envy it has been known to humans for thousands of years. But hitherto they always regarded it as the most odious, and also the most comical, of vices. Those who were aware of feeling it felt it with shame; those who were not gave it no quarter in others. The delightful novelty of the present situation is that you can sanction it — make it respectable and even laudable — by the incantatory use of the word democratic.

Under the influence of this incantation those who are in any or every way inferior can labour more wholeheartedly and successfully than ever before to pull down everyone else to their own level. But that is not all. Under the same influence, those who come, or could come, nearer to a full humanity, actually draw back from fear of being undemocratic. I am credibly informed that young humans now sometimes suppress an incipient taste for classical music or good literature because it might prevent their Being Like Folks; that people who would really wish to be — and are offered the Grace which would enable them to be — honest, chaste, or temperate refuse it. To accept might make them Different, might offend against the Way of Life, take them out of Togetherness, impair their Integration with the Group. They might (horror of horrors!) become individuals.

All is summed up in the prayer which a young female human is said to have uttered recently: “O God, make me a normal twentieth century girl!” Thanks to our labours, this will mean increasingly: “Make me a minx, a moron, and a parasite.”

Meanwhile, as a delightful by-product, the few (fewer every day) who will not be made Normal or Regular and Like Folks and Integrated increasingly become in reality the prigs and cranks which the rabble would in any case have believed them to be. For suspicion often creates what it expects. (“Since, whatever I do, the neighbors are going to think me a witch, or a Communist agent, I might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb, and become one in reality.”) As a result we now have an intelligentsia which, though very small, is very useful to the cause of Hell.

But that is a mere by-product. What I want to fix your attention on is the vast, overall movement towards the discrediting, and finally the elimination, of every kind of human excellence – moral, cultural, social, or intellectual. And is it not pretty to notice how “democracy” (in the incantatory sense) is now doing for us the work that was once done by the most ancient Dictatorships, and by the same methods? You remember how one of the Greek Dictators (they called them “tyrants” then) sent an envoy to another Dictator to ask his advice about the principles of government. The second Dictator led the envoy into a field of grain, and there he snicked off with his cane the top of every stalk that rose an inch or so above the general level. The moral was plain. Allow no preeminence among your subjects. Let no man live who is wiser or better or more famous or even handsomer than the mass. Cut them all down to a level: all slaves, all ciphers, all nobodies. All equals. Thus Tyrants could practise, in a sense, “democracy.” But now “democracy” can do the same work without any tyranny other than her own. No one need now go through the field with a cane. The little stalks will now of themselves bite the tops off the big ones. The big ones are beginning to bite off their own in their desire to Be Like Stalks.

He knew the way it was going decades before it went there.

Defender of Abnormality Attacks the Abnormal

I came across this post by some “social justice” blogger named Renee, where she complains about demisexuals, otherkin, transethnics, transabled, transfat, and other such abnormal people.(h/t Clarissa).

Now, I’ve never heard of any of these abnormalities, so it’s possible you haven’t either. So, I’ll give some definitions in the abnormals’ own words:

A demisexual is a person who does not experience sexual attraction unless they form a strong emotional connection with someone. It’s more commonly seen in but by no means confined to romantic relationships. The term demisexual comes from the orientation being “halfway between” sexual and asexual.

In other words, they’re sexually repressed.

Otherkin is a collective noun for an assortment of people who have come to the somewhat unorthodox, and possibly quite bizarre, conclusion that they identify themselves as being something other than human…  By far the most common explanation from those who fit the definition (even if they don’t claim this specific label) is that whilst their physical forms may be human, their essence, soul or equivalent term is not.

In other words, furries who take the creepiness even farther.

I can’t find a gathering place for transethnics other than a private Reddit, most of the sites I came across were “social justice” types whining about them, similar to Renee. So I’ll just tell you that they’re simply people who think they are of a different race than they actually are. (I’ll note that transethnicity was used to identify a real thing experienced felt by adoptees adopted by a family of a different ethnicity).

“That ‘thing’, transabled, just exactly what is it?“. It is hard to define in just a few words, the best way to learn is by going through the site, but in a nutshell, someone who is transabled “wants” to be disabled.

But it is not so much a “want” as much as a “need“. Our “desire” is more a reflection of the fact that our self-image is that of a paraplegic (or amputee, or blind, or any number of other disabilities) than that of an able bodied man or woman.

Unlike the others, these guys at least seem to somewhat recognize there “condition” is pathological.

I’m too lazy to search through a million pages on transfats to find a transfat community, but basically it’s normal people who identify themselves as fat. Sounds like the word anorexia would already cover that, but, anyway…

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So, why am I posting on these abnormal people?

I’m not really posting on them. I think it’s interesting, in an academic sense, that people actually believe these things and I think they should probably see a psychiatrist for these disorders rather than try to justify them to themselves on the internet, but, honestly, I don’t really care. If people want to delude themselves, that’s fine with me. As long as they don’t try to force me to accept their delusions, don’t hurt other people, and don’t demand tax funding for their delusions, it’s no skin off my nose. They should be free to do what they want.

What I’m really posting about is Renee, and other such “social justice” types, who support some of these abnormal delusions, but not others.

If we read Renee’s post, it is very clear she supports transsexuals and her criticism of these abnormalities, is not that they’re abnormal, but rather that the abnormal are appropriating the “social justice” language and arguments that other “oppressed” people use.

What is fundamentally different between a man who thinks he’s a woman and a caucasion who thinks he’s black?

How is the transgender person who wants to mutilate himself because he thinks he’s a woman when biologically he’s not, different from the able-bodied person who want to mutilate himself because he thinks he’s disabled, when biologically he’s not?

It’s logically contradictory.

If you accept that one group’s self-identity that spit in the face of biological fact is real, you have to accept the other groups’ self-identities that spit in the face of biological fact are real too.

If you call one group’s self-identity fake, you have to call the rest of them fake as well.

They are equivalent.

It’s ridiculous to defend one, then at the same time deride the others.

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The reason I think they don’t accept the obvious equivalence is three-fold:

1) Transablism, transfat, otherkin, demi-sexual, etc. are clearly either self-delusions and/or pathologies. They are obviously abnormalities that should probably be looked at by a professional, so much so that even “social justice” types who otherwise can not not support any group thinks they’re oppressed can tell it’s delusion/pathology. These groups have not had years of academics, activists, and “social justice” types trying to normalize their abnormalities enough that people will deny plain biological fact; without that ideological haze muddying the issue it’s obvious these people are denying biological fact. If they were to admit the equivalence of transsexuality to transablism, otherkin, etc., it would become plain to all that the groups they support that deny biological fact are also delusional/pathological.

2) By appropriating the language of the “social justice” types, these otherkins et al, show just how ridiculous a lot of this “social justice” stuff is.

3) Competitive victimhood. For some reason I don’t understand, people seem to really like feeling like victims; they compete over who has the greater victimhood. This is just one more battle in that war.

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All this to say, I don’t care what you do in the privacy of your own home. I don’t care what self-delusions or abnormalities you self-identify with as long as you don’t try to force them on me; we all have our own self-delusions and constructed identities.

But if you’re going to attack the self-delusions or abnormalities of another group, make sure that they are not exactly the same as the self-delusions and abnormalities you have spent your life defending. It just looks ridiculous.

White Male Privilege and Identity

I previously wrote about white privilege, but Apocalypse Cometh and a few others have brought up a university white privilege campaign, and I feel like commenting again.

If you’ve seen “anti-sexism” and “anti-racism” propaganda, you’ve probably noticed something: it is always males that are sexist and it is always whites that are racist.

The white male is a free target to be sexist and racist against, because if it’s anti-white male it’s not discriminatory because he has “privilege”.

Another thing you may notice, is that most white males don’t care, they accept this. When they do care (such as in the manosphere/alt-right blogosphere) they are usually driven to either analysis (such as Steve Sailer) or anger (such as AC above).

What you almost never see is the white male be personally offended. Occasionally, they may be “offended” on behalf of the group, but more as an abstract concept of offense. Very rarely do white males have a personal emotional reaction.

The white male does not generally take attacks on his gender or race (or attacks on him because of his gender or race) personally.

On the other hand, females and, to a lesser degree, other races often take extreme personal offence or become emotionally pained to non-personal things they deem sexist or racist.

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Test this.

Next time you’re around a group of mixed company friends, make derogatory jokes about crackers or rednecks (or some other group of white people) and males.  Later make derogatory jokes about females and other races.

I can almost guarantee you no one will be offended by the jokes about males and rednecks. Someone (or multiple someones), most likely a female someone, will be offended by the jokes about females and non-whites.

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Why is that?

The primary reason would be identity. The white male doesn’t usually identify himself as a white male foremost. He’ll generally define his identity through his nationality, his “the old country”, his religion, his job, his relationships, his politics, his hobbies, etc. well before he’ll identify himself as white or a male. People who use “white” as a primary identity are rare, and only a few extremists politically organize as whites. When identifying as male, it is generally a statement of fact, rather than a point of personal identity and no one politically organizes as males (despite the attempts of the MRA’s).

On the other hand, females, in particular feminists, and non-whites have their femaleness or race as one of their primary identifying characteristics. They will also often organize politically as females or their race.

So, when white male are insulted, the white male doesn’t care because he doesn’t really identify himself as a white male anymore than he identifies himself according to his hair colour or eye colour. He is a white male as a point of fact, but it’s not really something he emotionally connects to.

On the other hand, females (particularly feminists) and non-whites identify and emotionally connect with their femaleness or race. So an attack or insult on their identity is seen as an attack or insult on them.

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Communists call this identification consciousness. In marxist analysis, for the workers to revolt they have to identify themselves as workers; they have to develop class consciousness. Only when they see themselves as proletariat can they come together as a class and overthrow their capitalist overlords. Any other identity the worker may have, such as his religion, race, or nationality, are a false consciousness which distract him from his true identity as a worker.

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The problem with anti-racism, anti-sexism, white privilege, and all that other crap is that it creates the identity of whiteness or maleness in the white male. It raises the consciousness of the white male.

Generally, the white male doesn’t emotionally identify himself as a white male, he has other consciousnesses. Anti-racism and anti-sexism require the white male to become aware of his white privilege or male privilege. By becoming aware of his privilege he also becomes aware of his identity as a white male. He is raising his own race consciousness.

This is dangerous and it should be the last thing that any person who dislikes white racism or misogyny should want.

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Why?

It’s simple, as the white male’s consciousness of of himself as a white male rises, he will be more likely to identify himself as a white male.

That means he will be more likely to organize himself as a white male.

When white males have organized themselves as white males, it has almost always gone badly for everybody else.

I’ve already written of how the human male is the apex predator.

The white male in particular has shown himself to be particularly destructive when organized, or even on his own.

When the white male identifies himself as a white male he will organize and take action to advance the interests of his identity.

As the last few centuries have shown, when white males organize to advance their interests, they “win”, usually violently.

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Won’t knowing his white privilege prevent him from being racist?

Sure, when a white male examines his privilege, he may become an Uncle Tim, but the thing about Uncle Tim’s is that they do not identify as white males they identify according to their “anti-racist” ideology. They may talk about being aware of their white male privilege, but the emphasis is on the privilege, not the whiteness or the maleness. They are not aware of being white or being male, they are aware of their self-identified ideological “privilege”. They do have white male consciousness, rather they have ideological consciousnesses.

This is unlikely to happen for most. Identity is a powerful thing. As one becomes conscious of being something, one begins to identify with this something. By examining his identity as a white male, even in the context of “anti-racism” or “anti-sexism”, he begins to identify with being a white male.

His white maleness becomes an in-group. An in-group necessitates an out-group. In this case, that would be non-whites and non-males.

The very act of becoming aware of white male privilege creates within most white males an identity in opposition to non-whites and non-males.

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North American society has spent a long-time destroying the racial and gender awareness of the white male. They have pushed it under other identities, in particular civic religion and nationalism; the end result is that the white male consciousness is that of an American, not a white male (prior to thinking of himself as a white male he though of himself an Englishman or WASP;whites of non-Anglo descent were in the out-group). Non-whites and non-males can become American, they can never become a white male (or WASP).

Keeping the white male thinking about himself as an American is essential to the continuing functioning of America in relative non-racism and peace.

“Anti-racism” and “anti-sexism” though are in danger of undoing this; they are causing white males to think of themselves not as Americans, but rather as white males.

The choice is either colour-blindness or white male consciousness.

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The majority of modern white males are unused to identifying s as white males. The alt-right blogosphere, including the manosphere, is the beginning of the rise of white male consciousness.

Currently, the alt-right blogosphere is fairly benign as even here, white males still, mostly, think of themselves primarily as Americans (or whatever country they are from) and decry the collapse of America or Western civilization. Most have not yet internalized their white male consciousness.

Hopefully, they will not internalize it.

For if white males develop white male consciousness, they will act on their identity as white males.

Feminists can act on their identity as females with only moderate consequence, as females do not have the violent will to power males have.

Non-whites can act on their identity as their own race with only moderate consequence, as they are limited in number.

White males though are the majority and they have the violent tendencies of males. If they organize based on their identity of being a white male, the consequences could be disastrous.

If “anti-racists” and “anti-sexists” continue to push their ideological thesis on white males, white males will develop their own antithesis of identity, and the synthesis could be unpleasant.

Economic Analysis of Casual Sex – Prostitution vs Game

I previously mentioned I would I would do an economic comparison of obtaining sex through both prostitution and game for casual sex.

Essentially, which of the two mating strategies obtain the best bang for your buck. (Pun most assuredly intended).

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Prostitution

Starting with prostitution (it’s the easiest):

I’m going to assume a mid-range escort. We’ll ignore low-quality street prostitution, which would be cheaper, but risky and the high-quality escorts, as most people can’t afford that regularly. Our assumption will be a clean, fairly attractive prostitute.

According to this intro to escorting guide on a business blog for escorts (I guess escorts need business advice too; the weird things you find on the internet) costs about $250-500/hr depending on the city.

So, we’ll say $300 for sex from prostitution. Adjust upwards if you live in a high cost area or if you’re looking for higher quality.

Given the transactional nature of the interaction, there are no time opportunity costs.

Depending on your jurisdiction, prostitution, or aspects related to prostitution, is likely illegal, so there would be a cost attached to the . Every year, about 8,000 johns are arrested and about 45 million Americans (15%) use prostitutes, so the odds of getting caught are extremely low (about 1 in 5000), especially if you are using escorts rather than streetwalkers. The average fine for a first-time offender is about $250, so the economic costs of the risk of getting cost are negligible (about a  nickel).

Cost for Sex: $300

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Game

I’ve been reading Bang and am almost done (review to come). Near the end of the book Roosh has a little bit on the costs and successes of an average player (someone who goes out to clubs on Saturdays and Sundays with competent game). I’ll assume Roosh knows what he’s talking about (he did write the book on the subject), so we’ll use his numbers.

He does the math in the book, but essentially you are spending $300/month on going to the club, going out on dates, etc. ($3600/year)  for 3-8 notches per year (p. 135 if you want to see). We’ll assume each “notch” leads to an average of three sexual encounters, as some might be one night stands, but a couple might become short- or longer-term relationships.  We’ll give our player 6 notches a year, so 18 sexual encounters at a cost of $200 each.

In addition, each sexual encounter requires time, the nights out, the dates, etc. is time spent in the club, on a date, etc. running game rather than another activity.If you spend an average of four hours clubbing each of Friday and Saturday for a month, that’s 400 hours a year (assuming 2 weeks off).

In addition, from Bang, it seems you can generally expect sex on about the third date and you can expect sex from about half the women you date. So if we assume 2 hours per date for each notch and dating ending in a failure to obtain a notch, we get 72 hours (6 notches *3 dates *2 hours *2 for failures) spent a year on dating.

So, at 472 hours a year at a modest wage of $10/hour, comes to an opportunity costs of spent time is $4720, or $262/sexual encounter.

You would add this to the costs, assuming that you do not enjoy clubbing, game, or dating for their own sakes but are solely in them for the sex. I personally hate clubs, as do many others, and from reading 30 Bangs it was my impression like Roosh only barely tolerates the game so he can acquire sex, so me, Badger, and Roosh would have to add this.

If you enjoy clubbing, gaming, and dating for their own sakes and would engage in these activities even if there was zero chance for sex, you would not have to add these to the calculations, but I’m assuming most wouldn’t, so…

We can conclude that the cost of getting sex through game for the average player is about $460. You could reduce this by becoming better than average, finding a niche like Roosh suggests, running day game, or otherwise reducing your opportunity or real costs.

Cost for sex: $460 ($200 is you enjoy clubbing, gaming, and dating for their own sake)

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For casual sex, a mid-range prostitute is cheaper than game.

On the other hand, most of game’s costs are in the form of time opportunity costs, so if you have a lot of free time and little money or you enjoy the activities of clubbing, game, or dating  even without the promise of sex, then game might be a better deal.

In addition, the higher your average wage, the more expensive game becomes relative to prostitution, as the opportunity costs of game increase the more potential earning you sacrifice.

Conclusion: For obtaining casual sex, game is the better option if you are paid low wages and have free time or if you enjoy game and related activities. Prostitution is the better option if you are middle-class, don’t have the free time, or dislike engaging in game.

In the future, I’ll have a post on the economic costs of sex in marriage and relationship game.

Feminism Does Not Represent Women’s Interests

We here in the manosphere often condemn feminism, and rightfully so, but usually our condemnation is based on how feminism works against the interests of men. This is important, but only half the story; feminism also works against the interest of the majority of women as well.

In essence, radical feminism* is a coterie of like-minded women who are trying to enforce their preferences on other women.

Feminists advocate that women have careers so they can be independent and they shame them for being a housewife, but the majority of women do not want a full-time career.

Feminists decry the restricting nature of the hausfraus and traditional family structures and advocate delaying marriage or forgoing it altogether, but the majority of women would prefer to be stay at home full-time with their children while their rich husband works (if money were not an issue) and the large majority want to be married by 25.

Demands for the “right” to unlimited access to abortion is the litmus test for feminism, but the majority of women favour restricting abortion more than it currently is. In fact, women are more inclined to stricter abortion laws than men.

Feminism argues that traditional religion is patriarchal (it is) and oppose traditional religion. In reality, the majority of women are religious and women are more religious than men.

They decry traditional male-led romance and are “sex-positive”, but the majority of women desire traditional chivalry and hate the hook-up culture “sex-positivism” has created.

On every issue important to feminists, radical feminists line up opposed to the desires of the majority of women.

Feminists dominate the media and academia in relation to “women’s issues”, so their views are often the only one heard. They are using this to pressure women into lives they do not want and have created a political, economic, and social environment against the interests of most women.

Is it any wonder that women’s happiness has been declining along with the growth of feminism.

Feminists do not represent women and they do not represent the interests of women. Radical feminists represent a minority population of women intent on forcing their lifestyles and unhappiness on other women.

Women, if your values and desires are not represented by feminism you need to start fighting against this, for your own good. Just because feminists claim to represent your interests, doesn’t mean they do.

But what do I know of women, I’m just a man.

*Note: I know not all feminists are exactly alike and that there are ideological permutations and disagreements among feminists. I also know I’m painting with a broad-brush; this is a blog post, not an academic essay. No NAFALT please.

Patriarchy: Restraining Males

I came across this today, a discussion about patriarchy by a feminist (named Clarissa). She’s discussing a post from another feminist (named Soraya) at Alternet.

Soraya believes that nasty, old, religious men hate and fear young women for some unspecified reason and instill patriarchy because of this fear.

She’s wrong in that the patriarchy is designed to oppress women; any control occurring over women in patriarchy is only incidental to patriarchy’s primary purpose of controlling men.

Clarissa notes the obvious, that the non-religious and women are just as interested in maintaining  patriarchy as the religious. She notes that the patriarchy “oppresses people who can’t or won’t conform to traditional gender roles.”

She’s more right. In a later post she clarifies what she means by patriarchy.

The patriarchy is a system of social relations where… people accept and enforce strict gender roles in order to perpetuate the system where men castrate themselves emotionally and psychologically in order to be able to purchase women and women castrate themselves sexually and professionally in order to be able to sell themselves.

She believes this to be a bad thing.

She’s right, in that patriarchy is designed to psychologically and emotionally castrate men, she’s wrong in that this is necessarily a bad thing.

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Let’s start at the beginning.

The male human is the single most ruthless, deadly, and dangerous predator ever brought forth by nature. A single male human is capable of wreaking terrifying damage. A group of male humans can execute almost unfathomable levels of destruction.

In addition to being capable of mass destruction, the male human is naturally inclined towards violence.

The male human is the apex predator.

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In addition to being a predator, the human male is also a creator, capable of building wonders beyond imagination.

The human male is also capable of extreme laziness and hedonism.

The average male, is  generally neutral in his inclination to his choice between hedonism, destruction, and creation.

Hedonism is easiest and is enjoyable, but scarcity makes it impossible but for those living in abundance and safety. Hedonism also does nothing to benefits society; rather it simply consumes resources.

Creation requires the most effort and is the least enjoyable (at least in the short-term), but it creates value for society and meaning for the male human.

Destruction is enjoyable and is easier than creation, but it does not create value, it either value and/or takes value from someone else.

Society requires males humans to engage in creation to advance, but out of the three creation requires the most effort out of the male and is (often) the least enjoyable.

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So, how does society encourage a male human to create?

There are really only three ways: force, access to resources, and sex/family.

Force is problematic. It requires other male humans to threaten this, so you have to encourage them to do so (so it doesn’t really solve the problem, only transfers it). It is also only moderately effective: a human male will usually counter with his own force when threatened and will often die before submitting, especially if the male has nothing to lose. Even if force works, an enslaved man will generally only work the bare minimum necessary to keep the threat at bay. The incentive structure for slaves is not set to maximize their creative potential.

Access to resources works, but only to a point and can be unreliable. Human males don’t require much to be happy: food, shelter, some entertainment (ie. destruction), and sex. He will create to get these basics, but attempting to bribe more creation out of him will likely be fruitless, he will often prefer his leisure to more resources. Also, if resources are withheld, he may simply respond with destruction to gain the resources.

The third option is sex/family. A male human will willingly create and undergo hardships he wouldn’t otherwise for the benefit of his mate and his children, and their futures. He will try to create (or destroy) to attain more resources than he would normally need or want simply to give to his family.

The third option is the only stable and reliable option where the majority of males will willingly create rather than engage in leisure or destruction. It is also the only option for society where the male doesn’t have a decent chance of responding with destruction.

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The problem with the third option is a male human can not know if a child is his or not. The human female knows exactly which children are hers and can invest in them secure in that knowledge, the male does not and can not.

The male will rarely create for the sake of children not his own and will often attempt to destroy those children not his own.

For the male to create, he needs reassurance that his children are his own.

Also, if sex is freely available to a male, there is no need for him to create to access sex.

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Hence, patriarchy.

Under patriarchy sexual access is highly controlled by social mores and/or force.

Because sex occurs only in marriage, the married male human knows that the children of his wife are his and his alone. He will then be induced to create as much as he can to provide for them and ensure their future.

Because sex is restricted solely to marriage, the male can not go outside marriage for sexual access, so he needs to create to win and provide for a wife.

These restrictions on males force the male into creation to gain sexual access.

The patriarchy castrates his destructive impulses. His desire to rape, his desire to murder, his desire to burn, his desire to loot, his desire to laze about in leisure, they are all controlled, because if the male engages in this behaviour he loses his ability to engage in sex and reproduce. He loses his future.

Monogamous patriarchy goes further: by restricting sexual access for each male to a single female and ensuring that all but the greatest losers have sexual access, it decreases the likelihood of violent competition for sexual access by lowering the stakes and ensures that each male will have a family and children, ensuring he is invested in the future.

The patriarchy is essential to controlling male humans’ destructive impulses.

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Isn’t castrating a male’s natural impulses under patriarchy wrong?

No, it is a necessary element of civilization. Marriage is the basis of civilization.

Civilization can not come into being without it.

Without this castration, society will either be chaos (as male humans fight for sexual access) or very primitive (think lost tribe in the jungle).

Everybody suffers.

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Any controlling of female humans in a patriarchal society is incidental. The controlling of women’s sexuality, by having social mores limiting her from having sex outside marriage, is a necessity for controlling males, but it is not the purpose of patriarchy. It is a by-product of controlling the males.

People who condemn the patriarchy are missing the bigger picture.

They live in a culture where the patriarchal castration of humans males is the norm and has been for millenia. They do not think outside it, so they see only the bad (the control) not the good.

They see only the castrated males, those males who have been inculcated for generations to create, not to destroy.

They assume all males are naturally like this. They do not realize that the mass castration of males through patriarchal mores has throughout history been what has suppressed their natural predatory instincts.

They react in horror when males engage in the violence that is natural to them. They seem to believe that this is somehow abnormal.

They do not realize that rape, murder, burning, looting, war, and violence are the norm.

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The breakdown of the patriarchy can have will lead the male to either hedonism or destruction:

1) Male disengagement: As males’ desire for sex can be accessed outside of patriarchal marriage, they will contribute less to society. They will let laziness take over.

As our current patriarchy is breaking down, we can see this occurring in our society in two inter-related movements: the child-man and MGTOW. The child-man and MGTOW realizes that sex can be gotten outside the patriarchy (or forgoes sex altogether) and has no family to create for, so he creates only enough to sustain himself. He no longer creates what society needs to advance. If these movements become big enough, they could significantly impact the society’s production and continued health.

2) Violence: As males’ become less engaged they may engage in violence either in rage, to obtain resources, or for entertainment.

This is unlikely to occur on mass scale anytime soon, although it might. The destruction of the patriarchy in the black community has resulted in high criminal rates. The rest of society could follow.

The prevalence of porn and video games will leave most males too sated in relation to both sex and destruction, for a number of males to have enough inclination to engage in socially and legally proscribed violence, which should prevent a mass movement towards male violence.

Incidences of violence from individual males can be expected. Notice how among the examples of violence I posted, the perpetrators were single. Anytime you see a mass murder, a terrorist act, etc., check the relationship status of the male perpetrator; he will almost always be single. Patriarchal marriage reduces a male’s inclinations to violence.

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Neither outcome is good for females.

Male disengagement means less resources for women, less resources for their children, less resources and progress for society as a whole, and a lack of fatherly involvement in their children with the attendant social problems.

Being less inclined to violence and less physically capable women are at the mercy of males should males decide to engage in violence.

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The patriarchy exists to control males; control of females is incidental.

The patriarchy is good for both females and males and for society as a whole.