Category Archives: Manosphere

Purging Roosh

Continuing on in my run of alt-right posts.Yet another intra-alt-right battle has begun. The WN’s (mainly) are trying to purge Roosh because he’s a degenerate and not white.

First, Roosh is a part of the alt-right. You may not like that he is, or his part of the alt-right, but the alt-right is a catch all-term for dissident rightests, and Roosh is a dissident rightest.

Second, he can not be purged from the alt-right because there is nothing to purge him from. The alt-right is a loose alliance, not an organization. You could possibly ban him from the next NPI conference, because the NPI is an actual organization, but beyond that what exactly do you plan to purge him from? His own website? Twitter? You can’t purge someone from the alt-right because there is nothing there to purge someone from. The best you can do is ignore someone.

If you want to purge somebody, you have to establish your authority, create an organization, and establish legitimate ownership over the alt-right through that organization. After all that, then you can purge someone. Until you do that, talk of kicking someone out of the alt-right is meaningless.

Third, the white-knighting is pathetic. Why are WN’s going crazy about protecting white sluts from him? He’s not raping these women (and no, whatever feminists may say, drunken sex is not rape; stop acting like feminists), they are sluts who are willingly going to bed with him. If you view him as invading foreigner, you should be disgusted with these women, not white-knighting for them. If he is your enemy, you don’t defend women who “collaborate” with them, you shame them:

All that being said, Roosh is a degenerate. I read his book in which he makes it clear that he is, and I doubt he’d even deny he’s a degenerate. He’s a unhappy, lonely, empty person (that comes through quite clearly in his work) who has sacrificed everything for the pleasures of the flesh. He is not a model of behaviour anyone should follow and he should never be given a position of leadership in the alt-right beyond what he has carved for himself as a PUA. If you do have an organization, you probably shouldn’t let him influence it.

But as I’ve stated before, the PUA’s aren’t the problem, they are a symptom. I again reject the war people are trying to brew between the alt-right and PUA’s. In any decent society, they’d be run out of town with a bull-whip, but we don’t live in a decent society and our allies are few. The PUA’s are useful tools for reaching disaffected young men and inducting them into the alt-right. There has probably been no greater recruitment for the alt-right than then the red pill.

Strategically, we should just leave him and the other PUA’s alone and let them do their thing. The right people will filter through them into us. The rest can keep spreading herpes to club sluts until the restoration, after which we can suppress them like other degenerates. Until then, they’re too useful to go attacking for no good reason.

End Gun Violence

We need to end gun violence.

Almost two-thirds of gun deaths are suicides. 80% of firearms suicides are white males. This means that about half of gun deaths are suicides by white males. If we’re serious about ending gun violence, we need to focus on preventing white males from wanting to kill themselves.

White male suicide rates peak in middle age, a group that used to have relatively lower risk of suicide.

What drives white male suicide?

Two of the biggest risk factors are not being married and being unemployed.

So, if we want to stop gun violence, we need to make it so that white men can get married and have a job.

If you’re serious about ending gun violence, you need to oppose the war on the family and the hook-up culture. You also need to oppose immigration, bureaucracy, regulation, high taxes, and out-sourcing which are destroying which destroy American jobs.

Stopping the denigration of white males and ending the false idea of white male privilege also wouldn’t hurt.

It’s the only way forward to a reduce gun violence.

H/T: CM from VP for the idea.

Male Physical Intimacy

In their continuing efforts to destroy itself, Cracked has an article up on being in the closet while in other countries. It’s a low effort post consisting of 5 “facts” that are mostly blindingly obvious (Some geographic spaces have people more accepting of homosexuality than people from other geographic spaces! Surprising!) and a complete absence of humour. But there was one thing in it I wanted to comment on (aside from it being just another note on Cracked’s continued decline).

In Botswana, it’s customary for men to hold hands while chatting and walking. (No, the irony of such a homophobic country being filled with men skipping down the street holding hands was not lost on me.)

This is not irony. It is in fact the definitional opposite of irony, it is exactly what you’d expect.

These men are friends, engaging in male bonding. Touch is and always has been and important part of bonding and there is absolutely nothing implicitly homoerotic about men engaging in physical male bonding. In past, intimate physical contact between men was normal, and in other parts of the world that have not been homoeroticized it still is.

Take a look at this picture (one of a hundred similar ones from Art of Manliness):

Are these guys gay? Probably not. Yet it probably looks gay to you. In a healthy culture, intimate physical contact between men is normal and healthy. There would be nothing untoward or sexual about this, it’s just some friends hanging out. In our homoeroticized culture, this  kind of intimate contact between males is gay. We can see this difference from the Cracked article:

I didn’t even have to hide my boyfriend, whom I met at the gay underground party. He came to visit me for a weekend in my tiny village, and no one seemed to notice or suspect anything unusual about two dudes quietly holing up in a house together and sweating a lot. They must be great friends who love to work out!

As was pointed out in the Way of Men, men want to be recognized as masculine, as men within their gang who have attained the masculine virtues. Gays are effeminate, not masculine, and exist outside the gang. Normal men don’t want to be seen as effeminate or gay as this represents a failure to attain manhood and puts one outside of the gang.

In a “homophobic” society were homosexuality is proscribed, men can be physically and emotionally intimate with each other without being gay, because this intimacy is simply a normal, close friendship. So King David can say of his best friend:

“Jonathan lies slain on your high places.
I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan;
very pleasant have you been to me;
your love to me was extraordinary,
surpassing the love of women.

And it’s not gay, because it isn’t gay. A man can have and signal intimacy with other men without it signalling gayness, because homosexuality doesn’t exist outside the occasional condemnation in a religious sermon. Male intimacy is normalized.

But, in a society where homosexuality is normalized as an accepted alternative lifestyle, and homosexuals publicly display their sexual proclivities through displays of intimacy, you can no longer safely display intimacy. If you do, there is a significant chance that other men around you will think you are signalling gayness, you will lose your masculinity. Through this, homoeroticism colonizes male intimacy. When homosexuality becomes normalized, male intimacy becomes denormalized.

In a gay society, you can not be homosocially intimate without being gay.

There are some modern attempts to bring non-sexual male intimacy back into normalcy. Both bromance and no homo try to explicitly counter-signal hetorosexuality and masculinity while engaging in male intimacy. But even then, our society is so gay that bromance is seen as “an increasing openness of society in the twenty-first century to reconsider gender, sexuality, and exclusivity constraints” rather than an attempt by young men to close the gaping spiritual and emotional wound that the lack of intimate male friendship has left in their hearts. These attempts have mostly failed.

In a non-gay society, you could slap your friend on the ass after the game, and walk to the showers with your arms around him. In our gay society, this sounds gay to you (and to me) because male intimacy has been colonized by homosexuality. This is one vague, virtually invisible, unquantifiable harm the homosexual movement has done to the majority.

Tending Your Garden

Not everyone can be above average, half of all people will be below average (more or less), and very few are special in any practically meaningful sense. These are truths that are self-evident, yet, inpractice, they are often forgotten.

Athelron has remarked (recently, when I began writing this post) on the save the world mentality he finds among his Silicon valley friends. The manosphere is full of people decrying “average” men and calling for men to become their own particular idea of a superman. Since Don’t Waste Your Life became a big hit, evangelicals have adopted the ‘don’t waste your life’ ethos. Throughout life, everybody seems to want to get involved in the big causes: poverty in Africa, violence in the Middle East, national politics, etcetera, etcetera.

Now none of this is necessarily bad in moderation: you should try to do good for the world around you, you should work to be a better version of yourself, and Christians should work to advance God’s kingdom, but it’s gotten to where the normal life is actively impugned. The family man is painted as a sucker wasting his life in a dreary cubicle, while the mother is painted for wasting her life on her children (rather than, ironically enough, spending it in the cubicle). Everybody has to be the best, to achieve more than their neighbour.

Yet this should not be. While yes, some people have to work on big things, on saving the world, on foreign missions, on becoming ubermensch, most people are not, and there is nothing wrong with that. In fact it is good that most people will not.

Throughout most of history, a man’s world would consist of his tribe or village, he would know about a Dunbar’s number’s worth of people throughout his life. A man could have a significant impact on this world. If you brought down a deer, everyone in your whole world would be fed for a day or two. If you were a blacksmith, you were probably the only one, the best one, in your village. It was easy to save the world when your world was a couple dozen people, it was easy to be (one of) the best at something when only a few other people in your entire world did what you did.


But, as the comic above illustrated, it’s not so easy. Saving a million, a billion, people is a lot harder than saving 50, it’s almost impossible. Being the best in a field is rare when there your field consists of tens or hundreds of thousands, rather than a handful. Yet we still try, we’ve even made an ideology of it, to our own ruin.

Look at the consequences of when everybody tries to do big things: Young people waste years and huge dollars in college to “pursue their passions”, men turn from family and productive work out of frustration of ‘not accomplishing anything’ or in hopes of pursuing ‘greater things’, men think of themselves as losers for doing honest work and raising a family, women turn against family formation to pursue “accomplishment” and become miserable and childless working to achieve that coveted high-impact job, people get parasitical jobs in the ‘non-profit’ sector, billions are wasted on ineffective foreign aid, wasteful status competitions ensue over who is the best or the most impactful, short-term missions waste valuable resources, ineffective Twitter campaigns provide an illusion of dogoodery, etc.

This is the wife of the “leader of the free world” who controls the strongest empire in history and a million-man military. If the most she can do is a selfie, how will you save “our girls”?

The simple fact is, outside of a handful of exceptional individuals, most people will not be able to have any real impact on the world as a whole, but that is fine. You don’t need to.

The Parable of the Talents

“For it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted to them his property. To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them, and he made five talents more. So also he who had the two talents made two talents more. But he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master’s money. Now after a long time the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them. And he who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five talents more, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me five talents; here I have made five talents more.’ His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’ And he also who had the two talents came forward, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me two talents; here I have made two talents more.’ His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’ He also who had received the one talent came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed, so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.’ But his master answered him, ‘You wicked and slothful servant! You knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I scattered no seed? Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest. So take the talent from him and give it to him who has the ten talents. For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

(Matthew 25:14-30 ESV)

Not everyone has been given ten talents, most people probably haven’t even been given five. Most people have one or two. But you don’t need have ten, you simply have to use what you have to do what you can. The demand is not even for doubling, but just to collect interest. You don’t have to be the best, you don’t have to save the world, you just have to invest what you have to do what you can.

Looking back at the above, what if, instead of trying to save the world through the useless #BringBackOurGirls Twitter campaign, each tweeter had instead donated $10 to their local homeless shelter? what if, instead of wasting tens of thousands so a youth group can feel good about themselves, the money was given to an actual missionary or directly to local Christian missions? What if instead of pursuing their passions, their greatness, their high status job, their large house, etc. men and women were content to raise work a modest job, raise a family, and engage with their community? What if instead of protests for foreign aid, people spent that time volunteering in their local community?

Wouldn’t that be better? Wouldn’t that actually be far more useful? Wouldn’t people be happier?

The problem is, too many people try to think globally and act globally, too many people spend too much time on issues which they can’t effect, while they ignore the people and issues near them which they can effect. Remember who your neighbour is:

But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.’ Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” And Jesus said to him, “You go, and do likewise.”
(Luke 10:29-37 ESV)

While usually this is interpreted to mean: your neighbour is the person who needs help whoever it is, there’s also the other way to interpret it: the neighbour is the person who’s there needing help. The Good Samaritan did not travel to Sudan for missions, he did not start a charity to help robbed, he didn’t run a political campaign to make safer streets, he did not send $100 to Tibet to help the mugged, all he did was stumble across the guy at the side of the road and help him out. Even Jesus does not demand more from everybody. Some have special callings, most don’t, your calling is probably just to help the guy at the side of the road. All that is demanded of you is to help those around you.

Finally, great men are not solitary. Alexander the Great was only great because of the support of thousands of men. Genghis Khan conquered Asia with the help of a nameless horde. Jesus’ words spread because of 72 unnamed disciples. Every missionary requires monetary support, every general requires troops, every titan of industry requires workers. Great men are great because they’re leading and supported by many more average men. In our modern hyper-competitive society, a lot of people shit on those average men, but they’re the ones who get shit done. Being that average man supporting the great men is valuable in its own right.

You don’t have to be special, it’s impossible for everyone to be. You don’t have to save the world, you can’t. Some people are called to do great things, most aren’t. You can do average things and still have a meaningful, impactful life. You don’t have to save the world, be the best, or become a super alpha male, instead, focus on something meaningful you can do and do what you can where you are.

Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’
(Matthew 25:34-40 ESV)

Nobody Cares About You

I’ve written on this before, but here’s a little reminder, what you as a man think, feel, and desire don’t matter. Society doesn’t give a shit about you and expects you to take its shit happily.

A recent letter to an advice columnist (h/t: RPR) is from a slut who got alpha widowed hard. After getting alpha widowed she swore off sex outside of marriage. She meets a nice beta, who she lies to about her past through omission. On their wedding night, I’ll repeat: their wedding night, she calls out the name of the alpha who widowed her. Understandably, and thankfully for himself, Rick acted like a man and dropped her hard, setting up a divorce lawyer, calling her parents, abandoning her at the hotel to go to Europe alone, and cutting off contact (if you’re Rick and happen to stumble across this, good for you BTW, allow me to be the one voice of encouragement). So, the the lying slut wrote a woe-is-me letter about how to salvage her relationship as her lies caught up to her.

The story itself is not overly important. The ending was as happy an ending as could have occurred given the situation the lying slut created. The man can annul before the marriage is consummated and he probably won’t be divorced raped given that the marriage didn’t even last the night.

The practical take away there is to make sure you understand your wife-to-be’s sexual history. Do not assume she’s a virgin because she tells you she’s waiting until marriage, get her to explicitly say she is one. If she’s not a virgin, get her number, and weigh the odds. She may lie, but at least then she’s the one deceiving you rather than you deceiving yourself.

The other practical take away is to make sure that one of her previous relations was not “intense” or anything else similar. That’s in indicator of an alpha widow. You do not want to marry a woman who’s relationship with another guy was more intense than your own.

Beyond that fairly obvious advice, the part that matters is the response from Carolyn Hax, syndicated advice columnist published in 200+ papers. So know that she’s not some lone voice, she’s the mainstream of how modern relationship’s are supposed to work. Here’s what she wrote:

Your honeymoon and marriage are in tatters because Tom reacted with absolutely stunning hostility to a quirk of the human brain.

Lying to your husband(-to-be) and calling out another man’s name on the wedding night are “a quirk” and reacting poorly to it is stunning. But she gets worse from here.

But. For this to obliterate all of his supposed love and trust, plus any inner mandate to be kind? His commitment to you — as a human being, vs. as a bride or presumed virgin — can’t have been deep.

What love and trust? She lied to him for their whole relationship and used him. Where was her kindness as she was deceiving him and abusing his trust? Where was her kindness as she called another man’s name on their wedding night(!)?

She could hardly have shivved his soul and humiliated him worse had she spent months planning it. But when you think about it, she did spend months planning it, she just hoped he’d never find out.

Here’s the kicker:

He didn’t just get sad or angry, or yell, or cancel the honeymoon — he went for your emotional jugular and hasn’t let go. He called your parents to shame you. Making mistakes, that’s life. Living in fear of his reaction to your next mistake, that’s Hell.

This glimpse of his true character is a gift. Accept it and annul the marriage.

Out of all this the man is evil. The man is deceived, used, and betrayed on his wedding night by the woman who (deceitfully) professed to love him and reacts by annulling the non-consummated marriage and Hax calls him the evil one.

She doesn’t call out out the slut on her absolutely despicable behaviour other than to mention it was a mistake, not evil, just a mistake, which she immediately apologized for, but she’s fast to condemn the man as evil for reacting naturally and logically to this betrayal.

The commenters agree, but go even farther (at least until the red piller’s brigaded the comments). Here’s a collection of how much normal people hate men and sympathize with lying whores:

you got rid of someone who was going to do this to you somewhere down the line anyway. So much better to know he was a mean, abuser now than two years form now when you are more committed with maybe a mortgage and maybe kids.

What an arrogant *** this (hopefully soon to be ex husband) is. I guess he has never made a mistake in his life.

Run! Run as fast as you can AWAY from this probable abuser!

Yeah Tom’s a whiny little baby that doesn’t deserve a single look back from the LW. The immaturity of his reaction is only reinforced by his calling mommy and daddy to set up a divorce attorney for him. Set up your own stupid attorney! What a tool.

Your life, and the lives of any children you may have had with this person, would have been sheer Hell. Down the road, he would have found many other things about which to throw tantrums. You are very lucky to bid rid of him. If he changes his mind and wants to renew things, run as fast as you can.

yer better off without such an immature reactionary… imagine what kind of hell you’re going to have to put up with if something big happens… move on with your life… without mr. immature…

Get the marriage annulled, report hubby to the police for stealing your passport, next time be honest with your beau about how you don’t want a premarital sexual relationship now but have had one in the past, and learn to use the term “darling” when you’re in the throws of passion.

The commenters called him a (potential) abuser, an arrogant ass, immature,  and even said she should call the cops on him for “stealing” (ie. taking his own luggage, which happened to have) her passport. Barely any of the (pre-RP brigade) comments had even the tiniest amount of sympathy for the man or the slightest hint of criticism for the duplicitous slut.

This may be outrage porn, but I’m going to continue ramming modernity and progressivism down your throat until you vomit it out, because this is important for you as a man to understand.

In our society you don’t matter, your preferences don’t matter, your emotions don’t matter, your well-being doesn’t matter. Healthy marriage and healthy family doesn’t matter. Everybody believes you should be forced to eat shit so that the present dildocracy can roll on and if you object or protest to the shit-eating, you will be painted as the devil incarnate.

Don’t eat their shit. Don’t believe that are obligated to eat their shit. Don’t believe that it is moral to eat their shit.

If you can, find a good girl to marry and raise a prosperous, productive family with. If you can’t find a good girl, don’t marry a slut, or it might be you being pilloried for objecting to your wife calling out someone else’s name on your wedding night.

Repost: Pleasures of the Flesh

Given the recent spat between NRx and the manosphere, I thought reposting this from 2013 may be of interest. (You can also check out this on reaction and PUAs).  Hopefully this is my last repost for a while and I can go back to posting regularly.

I’ve been noting in my Lightning Rounds that a few experienced players have been reaching the end of their run on the hedonic treadmill and are finding the whole experience unfulfilling. Last week, I wrote of how neither hedonism nor meaningless LTR’s will leave a man fulfilled. Now it seems Frost is suffering from player burn-out as well.

Except for a few men, playerdom will never be fulfilling in the end. Shallow pleasure does not bring contentment, only momentary happiness. Meaningless sex is simply the same effect as drugs, except one step removed (or more accurately, drugs are simply artificial inducements of effects similar to that which meaningless sex will bring). As with drugs, it will not satisfy, but it will become increasingly consuming as it becomes increasingly less pleasurable.

You will have sex, feel pleasure, then have but feel slightly less pleasure, and each time you will require more sex, more kinkiness, hotter women, and yet still feel slightly less pleasure each time. Meanwhile, you never feel the contentment you seek. The hedonic treadmill continues to roll until you either die or get off.

So, why not just ride for a while and get off at the right time?

The treadmill takes its toll even after you get off. Just as a carousel rider suffers as an alpha widow, so to does the ex-player suffer from the player’s curse.

A man who limits himself to one sexual partner has, by definition, the best sexual partner of his life with whom he is having the best sex of his life. The player, not so much. Any long-term relationship he may try will always be haunted by the ghosts of better sex and more beautiful partners of time past. The more partners he had prior, the more likely and stronger the hauntings.

There is no purpose to be found in hedonism, only emptiness.

I bought male and female slaves, and had slaves who were born in my house. I had also great possessions of herds and flocks, more than any who had been before me in Jerusalem. I also gathered for myself silver and gold and the treasure of kings and provinces. I got singers, both men and women, and many concubines, the delight of the sons of man.

So I became great and surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem. Also my wisdom remained with me. And whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart found pleasure in all my toil, and this was my reward for all my toil. Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun. (Ecclesiastes 2:7-11, ESV)

Other men go make a different, but no less mistaken, extreme. Rather than pursuing meaningless sex from multiple women, they pursue meaning in a single woman. They find their identity and purpose in loving and serving another fallen person. This is as almost as empty as the meaningless sex, and will leave a man almost as hollow in the end. How is her value more than your own?

A man’s purpose of life can not be found in women or a singular woman.

If a man fathers a hundred children and lives many years, so that the days of his years are many, but his soul is not satisfied with life’s good things, and he also has no burial, I say that a stillborn child is better off than he. For it comes in vanity and goes in darkness, and in darkness its name is covered. Moreover, it has not seen the sun or known anything, yet it finds rest rather than he. Even though he should live a thousand years twice over, yet enjoy no good—do not all go to the one place? (Ecclesiastes 6:3-6, ESV)

So, where can purpose be in life be found?

For this, we can turn to Genesis:

And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

This is the first commandment; this is for what God made man.

Man’s purpose is to be found in filling and subduing the earth. Work was what man was created and/or evolved for. Man is meant to tame the land and to build from that which he needs and desires and to fill his tamed land with his own.

Man’s purpose is in building something greater than himself and then to create future generations to enjoy it.

Yet, there is a problem:

“Because you have listened to the voice of your wife
and have eaten of the tree
of which I commanded you,
‘You shall not eat of it,’
cursed is the ground because of you;
in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life;
thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you;
and you shall eat the plants of the field.
By the sweat of your face
you shall eat bread,
till you return to the ground,
for out of it you were taken;
for you are dust,
and to dust you shall return.” (Genesis 3:17-19, ESV)

I have read this verse many times in my life, but only recently did I realize the full measure of agony contained within these words.

It is only in his work that man can find meaning, yet rather than something pleasurable, work is something difficult, bitter, and wearying.

How bitter this cup, that man’s purpose is to toil, yet his toil is naught but pain to him. To his even greater agony, when his toil is through and he surveys the work gained by through the sweat of his brow, he always knows that from dust it came and to dust it will return.

To find purpose, a man must always be working, always in bitter toil, yet know that all his work will eventually crumble in ruin.

I hated all my toil in which I toil under the sun, seeing that I must leave it to the man who will come after me, and who knows whether he will be wise or a fool? Yet he will be master of all for which I toiled and used my wisdom under the sun. This also is vanity. So I turned about and gave my heart up to despair over all the toil of my labors under the sun, because sometimes a person who has toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill must leave everything to be enjoyed by someone who did not toil for it. This also is vanity and a great evil. What has a man from all the toil and striving of heart with which he toils beneath the sun? For all his days are full of sorrow, and his work is a vexation. Even in the night his heart does not rest. This also is vanity. (Ecclesiastes 2:18-23, ESV)

What is a man to do when all is vanity? How can man continue on, when all about his is rust and decay

Here is all for man to do:

Go, eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart, for God has already approved what you do.

Let your garments be always white. Let not oil be lacking on your head.

Enjoy life with the wife whom you love, all the days of your vain life that he has given you under the sun, because that is your portion in life and in your toil at which you toil under the sun. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might, for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going. (Ecclesiastes 9:7-10, ESV)

A man accepts that life is vanity; he accepts that life is toil, but he continues. He finds what joy he can, knowing joy is illusionary, while working to build, knowing that his works will fade and decay.

A man’s purpose is to continue to build and enjoy the fruits of his labour even when he can not find meaning in the building or its fruits.

Musings on Romance

Donal has some musings:

The basic strategy which many (most?) women employ right now, which is regularly known as AF/BB (see Rollo’s post for more), is one that requires two distinct elements to pull off: deceit and desperation. Many, if not most, men would not be content to marry a woman whom they realize is choosing to marry them solely as a meal ticket, and effectively a sperm donor as well. It should surprise no one that men don’t like to be used in that way, and will balk at it if they realize that is what is happening. Hence the importance of hiding what is going on from them.

Maybe I’m odd, but I honestly wouldn’t mind taking a wife who was wanting to make rational deal upfront. I’d be quite willing to go along with a young woman who proposed an honest, straightforward marriage deal: ‘you provide for me, protect me, and father my children, and I’ll bear you many children, keep your house, and provide regular sexual access.’

If she met my list and I had some positive feelings for her, I’d jump at the chance for such a rational young girl.

That’s not to say I’m willing to be the beta bux for a woman who’s already had her alpha fux, but that’s something quite different a family-oriented girl with a low time preference rationally planning her future. In fact, that kind of future-time orientation would be rather attractive in its own right.

My problem with being the beta bux is not that a woman would want “a meal-ticket” but rather that she is not offering a worthwhile value in trade by trying to sell damaged and/or decaying goods for full price through deceit.

If a young woman wanted to make a fair and honest trade on the marriage market for a meal-ticket, I’d be game.

But then again, I’ve always been rather emotionally-detached and bloodlessly rational, so I’m probably the odd one out here.

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Which leads me to further musings on romance.

The slow, agonizing death of modern marriage did not start with gay marriage nor did it start with no-fault divorce. It didn’t even start with the creation of ‘marital rape‘ or mass contraception.

It started well before that: it started with the acceptance of romantic love as the basis of marriage and the conflation of romantic love and Christian love.

Romantic love is a feeling and feelings change, for this reason romance and romantic love are a horrible basis for marriage.

Christian love is not a feeling, it is a series of purposeful attitudes and actions adopted.

‘Love’ is not love.

If you accept that romantic ‘love’ should be the basis of marriage, you are the problem.

J.F. Sargent Sucks at His Job

Moving away from the marriage talk that has dominated the last few weeks, JF Sargent wrote an article for Cracked, supposedly on the men’s rights movement, which was, of course, non-flattering. The article was ludicrously stupid and was also unfunny. JF Sargent is obviously incompetent at his job and failed to do even the most basic research.

This left-wing nonsense is part of a pattern at Cracked, which has been sliding downhill for the last couple years, it’s sad because at one point they were my favourite site on the internet. Cracked has made the same mistake as many other forms of entertainment and decided the message is more important than fun. The great humour of the past is being replaced with boring SJ-stuff and snark.

Anyway, I’ll point out a few of his mistakes:

First the title: JF, it’s not uncomfortable to say something that’s the mainstream opinion. There’s no edge to attacking something most people either don’t know about or hate already and then parroting the mainstream opinion about said issue. Pretending there is, is just kinda sad.

I spoke to Frank Meeink, a former white supremacist, and Michael Kimmel, a professor of sociology, about the men’s rights movement, and I found out that it has less in common with any civil rights or equality movement than it does with goddamn neo-Nazis.

I assumed the movement was like neo-nazis, so I asked a neo-nazi about this movement, and we concluded it was like neo-nazis. Am I ever a genius.

JF, there is a thing called confirmation bias, you should read about it.

If you want to learn about a movement, why not ask someone in the movement rather than someone in a completely different movement or a feminist academic known for his hatred of the movement? I’m sure Paul Elam would be happy to talk to you. Or, given that, despite the title, your article is all about the Red Pill rather than men’s rights, I’m sure Rollo would be as well.

But it’s a trick, because that’s not what these places are really about. Check out the very first sentence on a list of the Red Pill’s “fundamental beliefs”:
…
Yes, this shit is internally contradictory and sexist as fuck, but more importantly, it has nothing to do with men.

JF obviously didn’t do even the basic research an average 3rd-grader would put into his C+ book report.

The MRM and the Red Pill are different. The MRM is about men, or more accurately, how men are mistreated by modern society, particularly the government, and possible solutions to this.

The Red Pill is (primarily) about intersexual relations; it is about helping men understand women, so of course the basics are going to be about women. A man can’t understand intersexual relationships without understanding women.

He then goes on with cherry-picking quotes, I’m not going to address all of them, because hey, some members of any given group in an anonymous forum say stupid things (shocking). Quoting people only matters if they are some recognized leader in said group (which random /r/TRP commenters are not).

But I will point out a couple times where JF writes like an idiot.

Overall, I’ve found that their complaint about women is … that they exist. It’s the old dichotomy: If they’re too selective with whom they sleep with, they’re “hypergamous” (they only sleep with people of a higher social standing), and if they sleep around, they’re “sluts” and lack any worth as humans.
…
Notice how that description is internally contradictory enough to cover every woman ever: saying someone is a “hypergamous slut” is like saying they are “elderly infants” or “freezing hot” or “a tasty light beer” or holy shit you can’t be “slutty” and “too selective” at the same time that makes no fucking sense.

You can be both too selective about how you engage in something, yet engage in that something too much.

For example, I could be a glutton who overeats but be so picky my food intake is limited to pizza. I could masturbate 12 hours a days, but limit yourself myself to German BDSM porn.

JF, the only reason it doesn’t make sense is because you lack basic reasoning ability.

I said I was going to address more, but while writing this I simply got bored. I simply don’t care enough. It’s not worth continuing and it won’t make a difference, so, I won’t continue. He’s being willfully ignorant and I’m sure anybody who takes his drivel seriously won’t care either.

I just considered not posting this, but it’s been written and I don’t have much time this week to make another post, so here it is. Bleh.

The Recent Dustup

By now you’ve probably heard about the fight between SSM and her supporters and Lena and LGR and their supporters. If you haven’t my two most recent Lightning Rounds have the just of it. Other than posting the links, I’ve stayed out of it, and I still plan to. This is a catfight, why would any man involve himself in unrelated women’s conflicts?

I won’t take a side, but I will point a few things out:

1) To those Christians fighting this, what kind of witness are you being?

There are six things that the LORD hates, seven that are an abomination to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers. (Proverbs 6:16-19 ESV)

Christians should be unified and avoid division. Rivalries, dissensions, and divisions are the fruits of the flesh. If you have grievances, keep it in the church and follow the biblically-established procedure for settling intra-church conflict. Our dirty laundry shouldn’t be aired for every non-Christian to see and mock.

How is any non-Christian in the manosphere/DE reading of this supposed to take Christians seriously if we engage in petty bickering over, what exactly?

I still have no idea what the actual issue at hand is.

2) This, as with most internet drama, is generally pointless and fruitless.

Has anybody taking sides in this mess actually met any of these people?

I’ve been reading SSM since her first blog, we’ve e-mailed once or twice concerning stuff on my blog; she seems nice, and in what she writes I’d say she’s right enough about 90% of the time. I’ve been reading LGR since her Salt blog and she also seems mostly on point. I don’t know much of Lena, but I did read 7Man’s blog before it went out a couple years back and I think she had something to do with that. I’ve been reading Matt since his IMF days; often disagree, but he’s entertaining and has a unique take on things.

But I’ve never met any of them. They could all be liars; they could all be saints. I don’t know and you don’t know. Matt’s sum total of evidence is anonymous commentary from anti-Christian, feminist nutjobs and a random obituary. The only particularly damning piece of evidence is SSM’s comment threatening to contact CPS, which SSM says was not written by her.

So, essentially, the entire debacle boils down to the words of anonymous commenters I’ve never met versus the words of a semi-anonymous commenter I’ve never met.

I’m sure further debate of this would be fruitful.

3) This demonstrates why women must be quarantined out of the manosphere. There can be no manosphere women, only women adjacent to the manosphere. If you let women be apart of a male space drama happens.

4) I am staying out of the SSM/Lena/LGR fight, but I will ask of Matt Forney, what the hell?

Other than the CPS threat, your entire article is based on the unsourced claims of feminist crazies. I know you’re a self-described troll, but really? What’s the point? Why get involved in women’s bickering? Especially when the evidence is so pathetic?

This seems to be a low-point for your blog.

So, y’all should stop your bickering.

Not Dead Yet

Both D&P and Matt are distancing themselves from the manosphere. I’m not going to bother with Matt’s criticisms, which focus on two particular bloggers, other than to say, why would a man get in the middle of a cat fight? But I would like to comment on two of the reasons Mike cites, not out of disagreement, but because it provides a springboard for my thoughts.

Secondly, there are too many frauds in the manosphere to count.

There are probably frauds in the manosphere, as in any other internet community. For reasons I don’t understand, some people like to lie to strangers on the internet.

But I think another problem is people thinking bloggers have some kind of great insight on what they write about, when they probably aren’t. “Authorities” on subjects usually have better distribution channels than small blogs in marginal internet communities.

Since the beginning, I’ve tried to be as honest as possible about myself (of course, everyone’s self-image departs from reality to some degree, although, I try to be as objective as possible regarding myself), but even so, I do still try to paint myself in the best light the truth will allow. This blog started as a self-improvement blog because I was an unhappy loser; I still struggle with self-improvement, but it has since moved on to other topics, because if it didn’t this blog would simply become a log of my progress on squats.

My blog is mostly me figuring things out for myself or sharing ideas I’ve thought of.

I’m use it’s the same for many in the manosphere, or elsewhere.

In some cases, the perception of fraud could just be some people attributing more authority to a person than they’d claim for themselves.

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Third, there are too many articles complaining about feminism.

This complaint and the related complaint of “everybody keeps rehashing the same things” are frequent around the manosphere.

We’ll deal with the latter first: the manosphere is primarily about self-improvement, but there is only so much you can say about self-improvement. How many different ways can you repeat buy Starting Strength and start lifting, eat better, and don’t be a pussy. At some point there’s simply nothing more to say that hasn’t already been said.

The manosphere’s well past the point of diminishing returns. Everything that needs to be said, has probably been said by someone else already. Each individual blogger is going to reach the point where they’ve shared all the knowledge of self-improvement they have.I most of my practical advice into a series of a dozen posts. Now, I’m sure I’ll probably be able to add small things in the future, but I’ve mostly blown my wad in that area.

After that point, it’s mostly repetition, but that doesn’t matter. The hard part of self-improvement has never been knowing what to do, everybody knows what to do: eat better, exercise, read more and better material, get some hobbies, and nut up and talk to that girl. Every blue-pill beta, every omega, knows they should do that. The problem isn’t knowing what to do, it’s doing it.

The repetition is necessary, because it motivates. I read the manosphere for a year and half before I started to life. I heard the message to lift uncountable times; but it wasn’t until the uncountable+1 times I read it that I actually got down to it and lifted.

All this repetition is needed more for encouragement and drive than for the actual knowledge itself.

In addition, new people are always cycling in and out of the manosphere. New people need to hear the basics just as much as those who’ve been here; what’s a repetition for some, may be new information for others.

As for the attacks on feminism, the answer is the same: you might have seen dozens of arguments concerning feminism, solipsism, the feminine imperative, hypergamy, and so on, but for most people, soft feminism is in everything they do and see; they have not been exposed to alternatives to it. People new to the manosphere need to discover these things as well.

Not to mention, that if we want to accomplish something for society rather than just getting our own, a sustained attack on false ideologies is necessary. We need to keep building our ideas, not just ourselves.

As well, sometimes you just need to vent and there’s nothing wrong with that.