How Does a Woman Solve a Riddle With No Answer?

Sue,

My guess is that previous generations dealt with it by the woman leading the man on, yielding to him incrementally, until she knew “his intentions were honorable.” Since this was SOP, men hung around with one interesting woman. Why bother starting over with another and having to wait even longer? they probably figured.

It can’t work like that today, because:

a. Price discrimination. The moment a girl lets it go easily, there’s a suspicion on the part of the man that he must not rate as high if he waits.

b. Lack of SOP. Even if a woman does stick to her guns and take it slow with every man, the man has options and doesn’t have to wait. And since relatively quick sex is the norm (or at least the perceived norm), men are getting suspicious of price discrimination even in cases in which women really are “chaste.”

And then, of course, some men just don’t want to wait if they don’t have to.

The solution of this riddle is:

1) The woman yields by showing affection, honesty, maturity and emotional investment in him, but waits for sex until he shows the same.

2) The man is discerning and judges her carefully, and since she shows good character and emotional investment, he waits and soon becomes emotionally invested.

3) Both parties, after mutual agreement to solve the riddle, end the waiting period.

This can only work between men and women of quality, but a marriage between two such individuals has a strong likelihood of lasting.

“Her yielding proves her weakness, her lack of selectivity, and disqualifies her as the potential mother of his children. All at a very subconscious level, you understand. Once she has disqualified herself, he is relieved of the burden of obligation. He owes her nothing, certainly not respect.”

A lot of men don’t feel that way.  In fact, part of feels what  you are describing is mostly a composite man based on the feelings of one set of guys who take an early no as a sign of disinterest and a (generally) separate set of guys who disqualify her for a relationship based on early sex.  There may be some overlap (guys who feel both ways), but I don’t think they are anywhere close to a majority.  But maybe I don’t have a handle on the mind of the today’s 20 year old guy.  Part of me thinks the first group is probably more betas and the second more alphaish (combined with some betaish guys who have weird conflicting feelings about women).  These alphas are just looking for  reason not to commit, so they will grasp at whatever they can. The answer is to pick the beta guy, sex him up good (assuming you want sex), and make him feel like your sex god.  Riddle solved.

Also, part of the problem is this concept of “obligation”, as in sex obligates him to her.  Shouldn’t he be in the relationship because he wants to?   If you frame it as an “obligation”, it’s a loser proposal in today’s SMP,  because he hasn’t really taken anything from her when they have sex (assuming she’s not a virgin), and guys also understand that women feel zero obligation to them once they no longer have a use for them.

Very simple solution to this!  But of course it’s the one everyone will say “That has no chance of working in this day and age” even though it is the ONLY think that has any chance.

@Susan, the same strategy has worked on a number of guys, from 15 to 30 year olds. It’s not rare to find guys who respond to affection, honesty, and emotional investment. The SMP has not changed guys’ fundamental attraction to a cute girl paying him attention, talking to him a lot, and telling him, “you’re really cool. I like you a lot.” No sex needed. I guarantee it.

@Hope

It’s not rare to find guys who respond to affection, honesty, and emotional investment.

This is true.  It’s a good point to make, and very helpful to keep in mind.

However it’s clashing against three very large SMP issues:

1. Kicking betas to the curb vs. giving in to cads is the public perception.
2. Women no longer have incentives to be honest or invest emotionally (or more importantly, no consequences when they don’t).
3. Men who desire relationships are treated poorly in the SMP, and either stop indicating this or retreat.

Got to finish up some work; I’ll check back later.  Interesting discussion already.

This is just a restatement of the madonna/whore complex.  Men want to marry a madonna but they want to screw whores.  However, it’s more complicated than that.  Men who want to marry actually want to marry a madonna AND a whore.  Sorry to be sleazy, so maybe we should at this point substitute “whore” for “sexually energetic woman.”  The thing is, they want her to be energetic ONLY FOR HIM.  Showing such energy is indeed a sign that “she might be a slut” and “Can I really trust her?”  Plus it makes him wonder, “Wow, who else has she done THAT with?” and that is not a pleasant thought.  But he also doesn’t want a lifetime of no sex or boring sex.

It may sound very unfair to you, girls, but there are ways in which you are unfair to us.  And in any case, the way around this problem is obvious.

….AND, men who compromise their dominance for the sake of character turn women off a bit.

If you believe your spouse is the best possible women, no matter women’s nature, for you, what’s the problem? It’s just more settling. The Salomon II link is great with nothing for me to argue with. Doesn’t change the fact that my wife was far hotter at 20. I was there. And thanks for calling me a beta (scarcity). I am beta since I’m not cheating or looking to replace my wife even though my smv is up and her’s down. She has loved me, I love her. I commited. I just didn’t lose my memory or my eyesight.

I envy you not believing you settled. I can’t imagine a life without billions of dollars and a revolving set of 20 year olds that doesn’t involve settling. Bill Gates settled in my opinion. Monogamy is settling. Even if I married the most beautiful woman in the world as she won’t stay that way.

I don’t see what point you are trying to make. What do you think people should do in a quest to never settle?

Just because a person changes or becomes more/less attractive down the road does not mean that their partner settled. Unless you know a way to stop time, stop the aging process, and keep people in their 20s indefinitely, there is no way we all don’t settle by your definition, which seems a bit off.

If a person finds a partner that they love, how is that settling?

This: “It’s just more settling” does not seem to follow from this: “If you believe your spouse is the best possible women, no matter women’s nature, for you, what’s the problem?”

Seems like the exact opposite of settling.

Kinda makes me think of that old Woody Allen quote (though I think it appears originally in Freud’s “Wit and Its Relation to the Unconscious” ):

“I would never belong to any club that would have someone like me as a member.”

@Escoffier

At the very least, no sex until you know you have found the person you are going to marry and he agrees.  Yeah, you might still get burned if he walks, but marriages end in divorce too.  So, waiting until marriage is safer, but since I am so often told that I am unrealistic, how about just waiting until the engagement?

I actually already agree with you, but I get that this is going to be a hard sell to those who don’t.

@Susan:

But so do men who compromise their character for the sake of dominance. Not strangers, but the women who know them, who see them make pussy the Holy Grail. A man’s ability to get it is attractive, but his decision to dedicate his life to it is repugnant.

That’s because dedicating your life to external validation in the extreme (i.e. bowing down to pussy as a life advocation above almost all else) isn’t dominant. That’s a compromise of both your character and your dominance.

@ Orig. Anon

I think the two attitudes are at a crossroads, so to speak.

To love someone is to want and accept them for who they are, accolades and faults included. It seems counterintuitive to me to say that you love someone, yet that you settled for them. By settling, it refers to not being fully invested in what you currently have because you covet something else that you have not obtained. You are never fully satisfied with what you have because it isn’t what you truly want. In short, how can anyone love someone and also claim that they are not what they truly want?

It doesn’t add up to me. If I love, want, and marry someone, I don’t see how I could also say I merely settled for them in the same breathe. I chose who I thought was best for me, regardless of the other options out there in the world.

That’s the cartel approach, and it won’t work. The few women who remain virgins until marriage already have a very difficult time in this SMP. That’s even been clear on the threads here. We’ve heard reports of men recoiling at this news, because it spells celibacy for him, and sexual cluelessness for her.

Who said that they had to be virgins?

The more rigid one’s policy, the smaller the pool of potential mates.

The higher her standards, the fewer options she will have…that is correct.

As we’ve seen here in the last few weeks of posts I’ve been writing, there are many men of good character who will not wait, because there are so many sluts girls out there willing to give them what they want. There is a real and quantifiable (roughly) opportunity cost to avoiding them. The woman who is the lone holdout in NYC doesn’t change male expectations, she just stays single.

Susan, then we are in complete agreement. If you care about the modest girls then you must start shaming the sluts.

@Escoffier, times are different. The progression is no longer date -> kiss -> heavy petting -> engagement -> marriage -> sex. Now it goes kiss -> sex -> cohabitation -> engagement -> marriage (if all goes well).

You say that the virgin girls have high value for marriage. Let’s see a show of hands. How many good men are willing to do the old progression and wait for sex after marriage? Let’s hear from the single guys who want to sign up for no sex until marriage, with the 20-something HUS virgin girls.

Virgin girls are very precious and rare, and thus they play their hand like an Ace of Spades. But those girls are looking for husbands with a “high bid,” while girls like me are “weak bidders” holding maybe a Jack of Hearts. I can afford to take a chance on a man. I wasn’t a virgin, although I never had casual sex. I had a few LTRs. I was a cute 20-something with a sweet demeanor and demonstrated loyalty to this guy with great husband potential.

I was going all in with my weaker hand. I was willing to have lots of sex, live with him, cook and clean, and take care of little things for him. After a while he sees that I’m easy to live with, I’m fiscally responsible, I don’t fight with him, I’m pretty good wife material, and I make life better for him in general in this “trial marriage.” So he asks me to marry him for real.

Don’t forget that marriages take two people, a man and a woman. These days, even marriage-minded men want to test the girl out, see if she’s for real, and weed her out if she’s not good marriage material. The virgin strategy is seen as too big of a risk in most cases, and so it is no longer widely practiced.

The biggest risk for the woman is that she won’t pass the wife test, but that is why I think we should educate young women on how to be wife-worthy rather than tell them “being a virgin will solve everything.” Men aren’t stupid, and they are no longer operating under the old assumption that virginity automatically qualifies a girl for a lifetime commitment.

@Chris, most men who don’t want to get married can still get plenty of sex (see: Clooney, George). There’s also Vegas, for the guys who are omegas. Most true betas do get married, although many regret it. What I want is for women to behave better so that men actually want to get married and are happy to be married. My husband seems pretty happy.

@Dogsquat

I’m not miserable at all. Quite the opposite, as a matter of fact.   I’m in a perfect storm  – in a good way.  I’m not super-attractive, especially when one considers my career choices.  I’m okay looking, but there are a lot of guys who are better looking.  I’m smart, but not a genius.  I have no idea if I am alpha or beta, charlie or delta – nor do I care.

With some rewriting and polishing, so that they’d scan better, these could be song lyrics.

Sue,

PUAs are every bit as smitten by the Holy Grail of pussy as the whitest white knight.

However, there are plenty of dominant men of low character who do not put women on a pedestal and I think it’s the suspicion of a lot of nice beta men that even the women who choose healthy relationships with decent guys are still struck by sudden shocks to their attraction switches in the face of such guys. They may be going home every night to their arugula salads, but they’re still yearning for White Castle when they pass it on the way.

@Escoffier,

Here’s my thought on the no sex before engagement bit. And BTW this is coming from someone who used to buy into No Sex Before Marriage and waited a year to have sex in her current relationship (though I don’t think I could wait a year if my BF and I broke up and I started dating someone else. I don’t think that someone else would want to wait a year, knowing that I’m not a virgin).

Sex is happening outside of marriage because marriage is happening later. Biologically, people are ready to have sex when they hit puberty around 14, and logistically speaking, it’s easier to have sex around 18, when the average middle class American leaves his/her vigilant, helicopter parents and goes to college.

It’s a fact we need to accept: marriage will not be happening earlier. The vast majority of people are not going to college married, but most people in the demographic at which HUS is aimed have gone or will go to college. That’s just the way it is in a society that encourages higher education. My grandmother didn’t get married at 19 because she was madly in love and committed to my grandfather… she wanted to get the hell off the farm, where she was obligated to obey her parents. In the past, people gained independence and left their parents by marrying. Now they do it by going to college.

Meanwhile, sex won’t be happening later. People are not going to ignore their biological urges, as “moral” as that might be. Take my high school friends. All of them rode the No Sex Before Marriage train in early high school, then all of them had sex before 20, many of them before we graduated high school. I was the last one to lose my virginity, and I wasn’t even a religious zealot like they were.

I honestly agree with you; I really like the idea of waiting to have sex until you think you want to marry someone, and that’s actually what I did. But other people won’t. I don’t think sex outside of marriage is a product of “amoral society.” It’s a product of the changed expectations for young adults.

@ Susan:

“The contemporary male believes that if a woman is attracted to him (a far lower standard than feeling romantic love) she will yield.

Her yielding proves her weakness, her lack of selectivity, and disqualifies her as the potential mother of his children. All at a very subconscious level, you understand.

Once she has disqualified herself, he is relieved of the burden of obligation. He owes her nothing, certainly not respect.”

She solves this riddle by demonstrating complete loyalty to him, and making clear that he is the only one special enough to deserve said loyalty.

I didn’t bother reading this whole thread so I do not know if this was already said, but men have a latent maddonna/whore complex. They want a woman who will be madonna to everyone else and a whore only for him. Like Ludacris said, “A lady in the streets and a freak in the bed”.

If she is too easy to get (read: yields quickly at the sign of an attractive guy), then men will start to suspect that she will not be only his whore, but also other guy’s as well. He values her sexual loyalty, and can thus disqualify her for this. Why commit when there is a risk that any other attractive guy can get into her pants just as easily as you can? No guy wants a girl that every other guy gets to be with (or has already been with) as well.

This is what a girl has to go up against when trying to secure any guy, and she must attack this perception in her man directly. Her goal must be to go above and beyond and demonstrate clearly to him that she will offer him sexual loyalty, and that her act of yielding to him is not a sign that just any other guy she is attracted to can get into her pants. She must show him that he is in fact, not just another “hot guy” to her, and clearly demonstrate that her actions in yielding to him are a result of her particular attraction to him, and him alone.

She has to dispel the fear that any other attractive dude could get the same results, and show that he will get more from her than any other guy could because he is himself, not just “another hot guy”. Her goal must be to build certainty in his mind that the results he is getting from her yielding to him cannot be easily repeated by any given good looking bro coming along down the line.

How exactly is a girl to do this? That’s the challenge.

Just my two cents.

As far as the “changing face” of western society is concerned (colour and creed) its likely to be a slow process.

Whatever the prevailing social norms are, I’m sure I’ll adapt to them.

If they introduce Sharia Law over here I might consider getting married.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/features/3718799/London-suburb-put-under-Sharia-law.html

@Chris #19

3. Men who desire relationships are treated poorly in the SMP, and either stop indicating this or retreat.

Even if they haven’t been mistreated, the information gained on HUS and CH, make it highly discouraging to put yourself out there for relationship. i have joined MGTOW.

@Jesus Mahoney

I think ultimately the way out of the catch 22 for men is to work on themselves so that they can get to the point at which coming up with an answer is no longer that important.

Sounds like the David DeAngelo 77 laws of dating. Work on Yourself, rather than trying to change women.

@ Orig. Anon #49

Morality only comes in so far as necessary to erase the doubts far too often.

and

@Chris

She looks like Barbara Eden by way of Elizabeth Montgomery with a Body by Fisher. As a baby boomer, I have something to say to the next  generation (x2):

I am sorry-we fucked up. Growing up I hear how tough my dad had it, and I know he heard from his dad how hard he had had it, and probably so on. So when I was around 18 or so, looking at the history, I figured if I ever had a kid I’d lecture him about how the tough times etc. I went through, how easy he had it, blah blah yada yada my fave “Seinfeld”). No way. When I was ready to go to college, you had to be an idiot not to be able to find $, most of it Nat’l Defense Student Loans that everyone scammed (assuming mom & dad couldn’t’ pay-mine did for a while). When my parents got pissed and refused, i put myself through school; ok not Harvard, but I did it on minimum wage, ate ok, had laughs AND got out of undergrad debt free. You could do that because my fees and costs per semester were less than one book costs now, and I know adjusted for inflation it was still a real deal. Reading here, I know this is supposed to be about guys/gals etc,, but underneath it is this terrible economic fix we created. You’re so casual and accepting of it you don’t even comment; one of you said getting married in college “while you’re being crushed by debt”-it was said in passing. No one talked like that in my day-NO ONE! I ahve no opportunity to address en masse this group you belong to-accept this apologia from an old man. And you’re taking this very well-Occupy Wall Street? hell, you should grab all these rental storage buildings, convert them to concentration camps, and throw us all in (many already have concertina wire). You’re to young to remember “Wild in the Streets” but rent it it has a nice interlude where the kids do this. Don’t give us LSD though-I think X would keep us calmer plus we might get laid. Spare me though-I’m on your side. Use me for the Potemkin village you set up to keep the geezers (I know-that means me) calm. Deal?

I got a PhD.  It wasn’t a waste of money because I didn’t pay for it. 

Seriously, there are not that many good reasons for getting one.  The most obvious is to become a professor, which is what I thought I was going to do but did not.  The degree certainly did not hurt me later though it’s an open question how much it helped.  I cherish what I learned but I seperate that from the degree since all the important work must be done by you alone and much of the actual work for the degree was drudgeristic crap that I pushed out of my head as soon as I could.  Idiotic course requirements and reading lists are frustrating.  Learning important things for their own sake is priceless but you can do that without graduate school.  Then again, a critical mass of good profs and students is also priceless.

So, I have no firm advice either way except DON’T PAY ONE THIN DIME FOR IT, INCRUE NO DEBT, FINISH ON TIME, and HAVE ANOTHER CREDIBLE PLAN IF ACADEMIA TURNS OUT TO BE A PIPE DREAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!

@ Susan. Escoffier

Anecdotal evidence for virgins not being a bad thing. My fiance was a virgin when we met I have “trained” her to do exactly what I like. The training took all of a month really wasn’t that difficult and was actually quite fun.

Her strategy, she slept with me on the first date. I was looking for a relationship at the time so it was probably a lucky gamble.

@ The article.

Its not just women who have an unbeatble riddle.

Men who want a relationships have to figure out the most ridculously perfect balance of alpha and beta traits to have a “good” relationship.

That being said, its not so much that either group has some horrid disadvantage. The entire SMP is rigged against relationships not one specific sex finding relationships.

@ Susan, Orig.Anon

Swallowing the red pill can be either good or bad depending on how you use the knowledge. I chose to use it to

a) find a better LTR partner (this is what I have always gone after)

b) eliminate LTR issues using game

c) about a zillion other benefits that have nothing to do with women and everything to do with inner-game and confidence.

That being said theres a few issues that make it hard difficult to make “real love and admiration” possible.

1. Hypergamy, every women wants to trade up. Makes it very hard to trust that someone actually loves you.

2. A carousel rider finally giving up and settling.

3. Most divorces intiated by women not men.

I see red pill/game as map to navigate sexual dynamics and not get my dick clipped off along the way. Game used properly can enhance a relationship by fulfilling a womans hypergamic(?) urges. Screen the number twos. Number 3 is similar to number one now that I think about it.

That being said the hardest thing I have had reconciling is the hypergamy thing. Knowing you have a plan to beat the system doesn’t mean I love the system.

Any suggestions on that one?

@SW

Once she has disqualified herself, he is relieved of the burden of obligation. He owes her nothing, certainly not respect. This is the underbelly of today’s SMP. We go round and round, but this is the essence of the dilemma.

Sorry, late to the discussion tonight. Very thought-provoking quote that really sums up the dilemma. A woman will never know exactly what a man’s intentions are unless they level with each other before intimacy. Many young guys actually start out assuming the relationship will be short term, probably because they’ve been burned in the past. They’re already planning their exit before things even get serious. I found this quote about a certain character that captures this mindset perfectly:

With most women his manner was a mixture of taciturnity and passion. The lengthy approaches to a seduction bored him almost as much as the subsequent mess of disentanglement. He found something grisly in the inevitability of the pattern of each affair. (Casino Royale, 1953)

They like women, but are too cynical or jaded to want them for very long. Any romantic qualities are pretty much gone. They’ve been replaced by utilitarianism run amok.

Every woman who wants to marry needs a strategy to minimize her risks, not eliminate them. The more rigid one’s policy, the smaller the pool of potential mates. As we’ve seen here in the last few weeks of posts I’ve been writing, there are many men of good character who will not wait. There is a real and quantifiable (roughly) opportunity cost to avoiding them

Enough men (maybe 1/3) are much less willing to commit, let alone marry, than used to be the case, and they’re expecting early sex. It’s a problem for the ladies who want to settle down. So, how happy will women be assuming they can corral these kinds of guys into relationships? I only ask because, for the guys looking to hookup and check out, their actions speak for themselves. But these men of good character aren’t distinguishing themselves from the rest of the hyena pack. If everyone had honest intentions, all it would take is for a man to announce, “I’m willing to commit to the relationship if we have sex right now.”

I’m not saying these guys aren’t good catches, but there’s nothing stopping them from deciding sometime after doing the deed: “You’re a great person, and the sex was great, but we’re really not that compatible. Good luck in life.” If women are writing off the majority of guys willing to wait and build compatibility first, that seems like a much bigger opportunity cost than gambling for love in the niche market.

Part of the problem is that marriage and family have declined in importance in the U.S. I’ve read that Israeli society (by and large secular but still traditional) still views dating as a more or less logical way to find a marriage partner to raise a family with. There doesn’t seem to be a hookup scene there at all.

Anacaona…”’m good at writing??! I don’t remember ever posting anything I had written”

I was referring to the comments here themselves.

@HUS,

You know it seems to me guys out on HUS (i am guy, that’s reason) are afraid of living a life completely as single. That’s the message I am receiving, there is the hug desire to get into a relationship. May be I am misinterpreting, but somehow I feel guys on HUS  afraid of living a single’s life for the rest of their lives.

@Susan #148

Therefore, an LTR might be the perfect solution for a man who does not wish to marry.

The solution seems to be surfacing finally.

@HUS,

I have said, the last couple of months have been a soul searching experience for me. I pulled out an email i had written to “myself” when my relationship had failed back in 2005. I posting the email, I think life is coming back to me in full circle. Here is what I wrote to cope up with the breakup.

________________________________________________________________

I think this is what you should do. go to Wal-Mart or any other departmental store and buy yourself a  mirror. If you have all her emails then pick the one that you love the most. that could be or should be the most romantic of all of your email exchanges that must have taken place between you and her. pick another of her email that you hate the most , which obviously involves you and her in a big fight where you have ended up saying bad things to each other. if you don’t have any emails then try recollecting both of those incidents. sit down on a table ,place the mirror in front of you, and grab a blue pen , a red pen and 2-3 sheets of paper. Don’t use her picture; in fact at this point you shouldn’t be having any pictures of her. Otherwise the face will emerge in front of your eyes and you will start to look for that face in the crowd. And that is not something you want.

Divide the paper into two halves and on the left write with the blue pen STRENGTH and on the right with the red pen write WEAKNESS.

now read the email which has most romantic moments exchanged between you and her and write down the good aspect of your relationship. When you find the first one STOP. Now read the bad email and do the same i.e. the bad aspect of it. For every good thing try to see if there exists any bad points and there will be some and that is ok. In the end you may/maynot have equal numbers but that’s fine.

Put it into perspective

The Best Case – all strength and no weakness

The Worst Case – all weakness and no strength

The Average Case – equal number of both.

the point that i am trying to make here is that look whether the good aspects of your relationship can outweigh the bad aspects, i.e. did you optimize the good aspects i.e. did you optimize the strength of your relationship so that the weakness were negated to the maximum possible level, if yes then there is no reason why the relationship failed, however if that is not the case you should be in a position to do decipher what went wrong.

In life one must do a RUTHLESS, CRITICAL, OBJECTIVE Analysis, of his/her own personality, it gives us the wisdom to differentiate between

what we appreciate (weakness) vs what we admire (strength)

what we can compromise (weakness) vs what we can adjust(strength)

what we like (weakness) vs what we LOVE (the Ultimate strength).

_________________________________________________________________

Men who are the type that can easily bed women are also the type to not hang around.

Men who would commit are the type women do not allow to bed them.

The apex fallacy is at work here.

Overall, men want women who only give it up to them.

T:

“I was surprised, and frankly disappointed, that no one took up my call to arms to wage war on us Boomers. Susan called my remarks ‘colorful’…”

Whining about your parents generation with no understanding at all at the tradeoffs they had to make is a boomer thing to do. The opposite of love is not hate. It’s indifference. Coldness. What us genx’ers are doing to your posts

Susan:
“Orig, Anon.

Saying I’ll stay with my wife is a DLV. Not alpha. Saying I want to get married is a DLV. Not alpha.

I was out last night and throughout the evening kept thinking back on your comment. I’m marinating it for a post.”

I’m looking forward to your post. I pushed and got into a relationship with my wife by saying, I couldn’t and wouldn’t be friends. We could be more or nothing. (She doesn’t remember it that way. ) So, alpha to push/force a beta relationship? I don’t know how to explain this as well as it should be and hope you do. How you balance? What women should do if they want a beta trait from a man? Or is that just the old why won’t he commit question already done to death?

@Megaman #170

Instead of compromising on when to have sex with men who aren’t marriage-minded, maybe women should think about relocating to places where men are marriage-minded?

Do you suggest any particular geographical area in the US?

@SW

Yes, I’ve written about this. I think it’s a totally worthwhile thing to consider, but few people will do it, for a variety of reasons. For women not tied down to one geographic area, though, it should be easier to find a mate in TX or CO, for starters.

Well, with the economy in the dumps, relocating for love where there are no jobs is a non-starter. But I’m not even sure it’s necessary to move to another state. I don’t know how it is in New England, but out here there are literally dozens of small cities and towns amidst the suburbs around the Bay Area outside of S.F. I know a fair number of hard-working single guys who tend to stay where the cost of living is lower. Some even own their own homes already. It seems like a lot of women believe that the most eligible bachelors can only be found in the big metropolitan areas. These guys are only eligible for STRs (if that), from what I’ve seen.

I’m ignorant of the geography, but maybe Ms. SayWhaat should seek her fortunes in upstate New York?

Esc,

As usual, you’ve said it better than I.

This is what the 1% are already doing. If the 2-20% would follow, assortive mating all the way down would become much easier.

@DogSquat #181

That’s an interesting point.

I’m certainly not afraid of being single – I’ve been single for years at a stretch before.

Same here, I have been single since my relationship broke down at 1^st year of my grad school. Since I never had much time and  my focus was on establishing my career. I not yet satisfied in terms of where I am since I want to move up the chain.

In fact what I am yet to convince myself is that I will be somewhat happier if I am in a relationship. My late 20s has been some of the toughest time in my life in all aspects professionally, financially and family wise. I never had a woman then standing besides me, thus I don’t see a reason why I need it now. I had vented a lot on HUS in prior article and I realized I am making a huge mistake of trying to change women instead of changing and improving myself. As I have said before I don’t hate alphas or women, in fact thanks to alphas for pointing out the reality. I mean it thank you.

I’m fairly self contained.  I’m not worried about getting old alone – I have no compunctions about offing myself Hunter S. Thompson style if it comes to that. 

I concur as along as I work I know I will have a paycheck and I can survive, I am aggressive saver and thus should be fine financially.

I don’t particularly care if I have children (I like little kids but I effing hate babies), either.  None of those hoary, formulaic admonitions causes the tiniest uptick in my heart rate.

I don’t think I can have one, I am 32, the possibility of me getting married is remote, taken into consideration that I live in big east coast city, experiencing the SMP here, my chances of getting married is to faithful wife is next to impossible. Additionally I don’t want to marry right a away which means the longer I wait for the girl, difficult. I have given up on my being a father, not to mention if 8-10 years into marriage our relationship sours, she can take me to cleaners using DL.

For me, being single is kind of my “average” state.  I have a good life.  I do good work, I have a few good friends, and many interesting acquaintances.  There are still many things I want to learn, see, and do that don’t require any sort of relationship at all.  Hell, I’m content with a good glass of scotch and a semi-readable sci-fi novel, anyway.  I intend to happily finish many of each in my old age, single or not.

For me it’s an above average state, no commitments no drama. I like this “few good friends”, my PhD advisor is one of my best friends. Cool person to talk to always, always provides a sound perspective and practical advice. I want to travel a lot, being a STEM major one of the limitations is the company expects you to be in the lab all the time, I am building bridges with marketing team so that I can travel, which allows you to meet more people. Scotch, my favorite is Johnny Walker Black Label, blue is too expensive thus only for special occasions. What’s your favorite?

But being in a bad relationship sucks.  It’s worse than being single.  If I had a choice to be single or paired with some degenerate soul-sucking harridan – well, chum…that’s no choice at all.

I can’t even add more comments to that, what you just said is like the sermon from god.

A good relationship, though…even one at which you have to work from time to time – that is sublime.  I’m happy as hell right now. 

I realized after venting on HUS, I asked myself am I unhappy about life? No, I’m happy as hell.

Stuff that would send me into a rage a year ago barely registers now. 

Yes, I believe it is part of growing up, the last 3 months have been quite a soul searching experience for me, the more I think about it, I find I am putting too much emphasis of not having a woman in my life, rather than enjoying my freedom and independence.

This time of year is the anniversary of some of the worst days of my life, the crucible in which so much ugliness I grok was formed – and I don’t care so much.  I get laid all the time. 

I need to change that about my life about getting laid. The transition from beta to alpha will eventually happen.  

 Somebody laughs at my jokes and listens to my stories.  Somebody gives me backrubs after I spend a shift on the bariatric ambulance.  Somebody makes me laugh and gives me warm fuzzies.  Somebody inspires me to achieve, and many doors are opening as a result.  My average daily grin-to-scowl ratio is heavily weighted towards the toothy side.  It’s nice here.

Am I afraid to be single?  Not at all.  It’s fine.  Where I am now is better, though – and if things don’t work out for whatever reason, I will work to get back to where I am.

To be honest, I’m more afraid of being stuck in a bad relationship than I am being single.  I can’t imagine being stuck for very long, though.  I’ve learned better than that.

To put it another way:

I’m not working to avoid something by being in a relationship.  I’m working to achieve/maintain something I like.

I agree, in fact it is reassuring that men like us exists out there who belives in MGTOW. I have joined the movement, need to get laid will complete the picture. Marriage word will be written out off from English dictionary by 2030.  

I agree that women should be open to marriage possibilities early. I think I startled TheFemalePerspective on an earlier comment section with my “Do you want to have his babies?” question. That is really the Gold Standard of attraction. If a women isn’t open to the possibility of marriage I bet most will shy away from using it.

@Sassy6519

There is no point in putting bitterness and resentment onto an unsuspecting human being just because they happen to be the same gender as a past relationship partner.

I am not putting out bitterness, i am in the same boat, of trying to use the information to screen out bad stuff.

@Sassy6519

That’s why I suggest people who haven’t fully gotten over past grievances with romantic partners to take a time out from the dating scene.

how much time do you suggest?

@Prof. Escoffier

So why don’t we try this. Go ahead and hunt for a LTR in your early 20s.  But think of him first and foremost as a potential husband. Purge the “I’m too young” meme from your brain. Since you’re going to treat him more or less like a husband anyway as long as the relationship lasts, this seems reasonable to me. Then you might not only choose better, you might actually get married to someone you love and be happy. If it takes 3-4 years from first date to wedding, so what.

Astute and excellent advice. This really is the best strategy for young women. And half of them know this and have already gone through the motions. ~ 30% are married by age 24. Another ~ 20% are married by age 26 (median). I’m betting most of them are from suburban and rural parts of the country, with much more traditional priorities. Good luck preaching to the other half, mainly professional urbanites. They’re swimming in a shrinking pool of men who will be extremely reluctant to commit for any length of time.

@Sassy6519

Thank you putting a good list of options. Somehow these don’t apply since i stayed away from it. However thats’ not the point, the reason i ask for time, is to get a measurable idea. Some people idea of time is 3 months and for some 3 years. My previous relationship ended back in 2006. After that never had an opportunity for dating. Was completely focused on career and went through some tough time. I am not bitter or resentful, but i realize my writing comes off that way, will there you go an opportunity and reason to improve my writing skills.

Good luck preaching to the other half, mainly professional urbanites. They’re swimming in a shrinking pool of men who will be extremely reluctant to commit for any length of time.

LOL speaking of which, I met THE MOST hypergamous girl last night. She’s not all that attractive (maybe a 5 or 6, plus she’s the obnoxious kind of outgoing) and she actually admitted she’s picky about guys (something I’ve been hearing a lot lately). She also talked about how she wants to join the Peace Corps, then go live in a developing country, so she doesn’t think she’s headed towards marriage anytime soon. And THEN she said this: “But I feel like if I’ve done the Peace Corps and [done all of this glorious shit] by the time I’m 35, I’ll be quite the marketable woman.” HA.

To which I replied “Actually I read this article by Kate Bolick, a woman who thought she’d get married but probably waited too long and she might never find a hubby now….”

Her reaction? “I don’t think I want to hear this….”. It’s the cold truth girl. If you want to get married, better find a husband, then do the Peace Corps with him. But seriously, if she’s looking to fuck around (literally) in Tanzania or whatever, she’ll be shit out of luck when she returns.

Yikes. You probably ticked her off by describing reality. Some people never let facts get in the way of his or her preconceived idea of how the world works.

Haha yeah I have a bad habit of speaking the truth no one wants to hear. Oh well, I didn’t have much to lose. Judging from other things she said, she’s not to be trusted, and certainly not to be sought out as a friend.

Also, going overseas and having sex with strangers in other countries, that’s a very scary proposition. Safe sex in the U.S. should go without saying. Elsewhere, it’s absolutely essential.

Yeah this is interesting. Actually I’ve been hearing a lot of American girls say they loooove foreign guys. It used to be limited to Europeans (you know, hot French/British accents) but now I often hear Latin American and African guys are catches as well. There’s a racial component, of course: many girls say they’ll go for white Africans (like, in South Africa) over black Africans. I wonder if it’s another case of going crazy over something you can’t have/something rare.

Actually I’ve been hearing a lot of American girls say they loooove foreign guys.

Compare how many of them actually marry foreign guys with success and stay long with them. Men are men, there is a reason American women are considered sluts pretty much everywhere they go, aside maybe in France.

@lovelost

Now comes the most important question, Are Women on HUS getting afraid of the Beta becoming Aware, Enlightened, joining the MGTOW, seeking sex before commitment, making women do all the work for getting dates? I have feeling that is happening, especially as more and more men are coming out and saying it they are happy being single.

The point you raise reminds me about the time the beloved dog of an acquaintance died and he started wondering whether he would see his dog again in heaven. His wife said (and I paraphrase), “I won’t care if we never see Buckley again, but if that’s the case, then I want to know now.” It was the uncertainty, more than the arguments that animals don’t have souls, that was really stressing her out.

I’m the same way about my marriage prospects. I won’t be devastated if I never get married, but if that is to be the case, then I’d like to know now so that I stop stressing out looking for someone who isn’t there.

Like Dogsquat, I’d say that being single is my average state. In fact, a few years ago, I was committed to being single forever (if nuns who live in community count as “singles”). Now that that door is closed, I feel a little guilty to be among those women for whom finding a good husband is “Plan B”. I may not have messed around in my youth, but the convent got some of my “best” years, and there’s nothing to be done about that.

@Lokland,

The difference in respect between them and North American women (regardless of race) was incredible. Probably also explains why I chose to ask one of them to marry me.

Could you elaborate on what was different? I’m really just curious.

Lovelost said:

“However thats’ not the point, the reason i ask for time, is to get a measurable idea. Some people idea of time is 3 months and for some 3 years. My previous relationship ended back in 2006. After that never had an opportunity for dating. Was completely focused on career and went through some tough time. I am not bitter or resentful, but i realize my writing comes off that way, will there you go an opportunity and reason to improve my writing skills.”

I used to travel a lot – sometimes for a year or more at a time. There is a tendency people (myself included) have to imagine that time stops at home while you are gone. It was almost an affront to my sense of reality to come home and discover a new shopping mall, or that my favorite restaurant closed, or the new stoplight at a familiar intersection. On some level, I expected everything to be just the same as I left it.

In a way, relationships are like that. If you have a shitty breakup, and then nothing happens in your love life for years, you’re right back where you started emotionally when you think about getting back on the horse o’ bajingoes.

Sure, you’re older and wiser, and you’ve advanced in other areas, but as far as “Lovelost and Women” goes – well, that context hasn’t changed at all. Don’t focus so much on time limits and defined end-points for stuff. Look at the context of your life in that area. If you wall off an area of life that’s particularly painful, you aren’t changing the context, you’re just ignoring it.

I put tourniquets on people who are bleeding to death quite frequently. Tourniquets are great – sometimes I don’t even go “lights and sirens” to the hospital after a tourniquet if the patient is stable – they’re going to live and the added risk of hauling ass isn’t worth it.

I didn’t fix them, though. They’re still fucked up, just not actively dying. I kicked the can down the road a bit. Focusing entirely on work/family/school/model trains/whatever and avoiding relationships is like using a tourniquet on your emotions.

I agree with Sassy that it’s unfair to rebound on someone. You should try not to, but that’s a risk we all take when we get close to another human being. Goes with the territory.

A good interim step is to make friends with a cute girl. Decide before hand that you’re never, ever going to see her naked. Put that possibility out of your mind forever, then just enjoy her company. Go do stuff together – little “pseudo-dates”. That will go a long way toward changing your context WRT women. It’s not perfect, and at some point you ought to just take the plunge, but it does help.

I just read over that and I sound like a fucking hippie. Feelings, context, emotional tourniquets…..Kum Bah Ya, my Lord….Kum Bah Yahhhhh…..Let’s all hug each other and project LOVE into the WORLD.

Hey, Sassy Brainshrinker!

I’ve been bugging Susan about exploring transference and counter-transference since I started posting here.

I use those concepts as tools daily.  When I’m dealing with a drug-seeking patient, there’s no more reliable tool/indicator for me than how I “feel” about them.  Not what they say, how they look, how they act – nothing has proven more accurate than listening to that accumulation of subconscious cues that add up to elicit certain feelings in me.

I’ve learned to do the same thing with women, as I used to be quite the Sergeant Save-A-Ho.

I think a basic understanding of those concepts would help a lot of people avoid a lot of dumb decisions.  If you have the time, perhaps you’d post a primer?

Save-a-ho. This is why people need God: He requires real change, and doesn’t see people as charity cases or hopelessly broken products.

@M. Lokland

The difference in respect between them and North American women (regardless of race) was incredible. Probably also explains why I chose to ask one of them to marry me.

I think I understand what you’re getting at. I had a number of Asian and Asian-American friends in college. Some were foreign students, some first generation, some not. Women who aren’t significantly removed from their traditional cultural roots tend to have much more honest and realistic views of men, marriage, family, etc. And they’re not forgoing their career paths, just trying to balance it with other considerations. However, some of the third generation Asian girls I ran into from L.A. and the O.C. were indistinguishable from the standard airheads and bimbos (I use those terms with affection).

FWIW, when I was trying to date (with little success) in college and shortly thereafter, the girls who gave me a chance more often than not tended to be Hispanic and African-American. And I was a thin, average-looking, white guy. Can’t really explain why that was the case. I ended up marrying a tall, fair-skinned, blonde a little younger than me. If there’s a pattern there, I don’t know what it is : )

@DogSquat

In a way, relationships are like that. If you have a shitty breakup, and then nothing happens in your love life for years, you’re right back where you started emotionally when you think about getting back on the horse o’ bajingoes.

I am trying to kick start the process, but success is eluding me. let’s see how it goes.

Sure, you’re older and wiser, and you’ve advanced in other areas, but as far as “Lovelost and Women” goes – well, that context hasn’t changed at all.

That’s the reason it is ‘lovelost’, will change it too foundlove. if i find it.

I agree with Sassy that it’s unfair to rebound on someone. You should try not to, but that’s a risk we all take when we get close to another human being. Goes with the territory.

i will tone it down, I am not being bitter or resentful but point taken.

Lovelost, I wasn’t implying that you’re bitter or resentful.  I took your question to mean,”Hey, this sucks.  When does it usually stop?”

I think you ought to go out and approach women.  Get into a relationship.  Get laid a whole bunch.  Don’t be a dick about it, and do your level best to treat each girl fairly.   Nothing fixes heartbreak quite like as falling in love again.

Also, go read this post and comments over at Danny’s if you haven’t.

Plus, I think there is a “sweet spot” for men WRT experience.  If you’ve only had one or two relationships and they ended badly, it’s easy to believe that “all women are like that”.  If you get to know several women very well, though, you can internalize the fact that every one is different.  There may be overarching themes and things that’ll torpedo your chances with every woman ever born, but there are good human beings with fallopian tubes out there.

Another solution, from Athol Kay, is learn to combine alpha and beta quailites and dial up (or suppress) the one or the other as circumstances warrant.  Reminiscent of Machiavelli’s discussion in Prince 17 recommending that to be successful, a prince should combine the natures of the fox and the lion.

@Jennifer #238

Thanks for the compliment.

Lovelost, if you start reading some Game, using it, and seeing it work, please be careful.  This, of course, is my opinion only.  Others may disagree – hell, even you might after awhile.  I hope not.

Some of the mindsets can be taken too far.  It’s helpful to realize that 99.9999% of women have some common, overarching attraction triggers.  It’s not realistic to conclude that 99.9999% of women are amoral, dirty sluts that put out for anyone, anytime, all the time, if you just hit some magic combination of techniques.  Stuff is more complicated than that.

The other thing about Game I think hurts men in the long run is a male version of the Cock Carousel.  It’s tempting to ditch a girl as soon as she turns out to be imperfect.  If you’re in shape, have a good frame, are semi-interesting, and understand a bit of Game, it’s pretty easy to meet new girls.  There’s always that cute nurse in the Pediatric Emergency Department, or your buddy’s new secretary who are making eyes at you.  Maybe they won’t drool on your chest while they sleep like your current main squeeze does….

Just so you know – all girls are imperfect.  No girl ever born will live up to the society issued fantasy you had in your head at age 18.  Figure out what your dealbreakers are and stick to those.  If you’re generally happy with a girl, don’t be afraid to do a little work on the relationship.

I know that seems like advice to settle, and in a way I guess it is.  It’s also about looking at what is, rather than what you wish it was.  It’s not as bad as it sounds, though.  My preference is for tall, leggy/lanky blonde women.  I’m “settling” for a shorter, dark-haired girl – who has everything else I value and expect.  Perhaps a true Player would keep looking for that blonde who’s just like my girlfriend in all other ways, but I think that’d be wasted effort.

Paying attention to the balance between TWABAW vs. being realistic and giving your relationship an honest effort is very important.  Start thinking about it now, even as you get better at your Game and learn what makes women tick.

I’ve already recommended Dannyfrom504 to you.  Take a look at some of his stuff – see how he’s always out there flirting?  I think that should be your first step.  Take a look at Badger for a more cerebral look at the mechanics of Game, and Athol for how it’s done in a relationship.  The Private Man is good for the older ladies, and Byron will larn’ you about things to watch out for.  I also enjoy Kane and The Tao of Dirt.  Use Roissy only sparingly.  I think of Roissy like I do epinepherine – it’s powerful and undeniably saves lives, but will kill you very easily if you get too much.  Some of the MGTOW and MRA sites are like that, too.  Reading them too much affects your outlook, and I think those guys will end up miserable. They have a lot invested in being victims – a sure way to end up a victim.

Good luck, dude!  I think you’re about to have a shitload of fun. I think this is a good place to get advice. There are some really smart guys (I do not count myself among them) with all different viewpoints who post here. Lots of us have been in your shoes.

The way Susan presents this, the riddle really seems not to have a solution… but that’s not true.

The contemporary male believes that if a woman is attracted to him (a far lower standard than feeling romantic love) she will yield.

You’re talking about alphas and higher betas here. The rest do not have the luxury of this thinking.

Her yielding proves her weakness, her lack of selectivity, and disqualifies her as the potential mother of his children. All at a very subconscious level, you understand.

There’s nothing subconscious about it, it’s the standard male fitness test. Most men will test women on this, so females better learn how to pass: It’s not about the fact, that she yields, this is what complicates your thinking, Susan, it’s about how* she yields. There’s no weakness in yielding from a male point of view, it’s how you do it, that get’s you thrown in the slut pile as described in this:

Once she has disqualified herself, he is relieved of the burden of obligation. He owes her nothing, certainly not respect.

*How, of course, is about a reasonable timeframe. And about what she brings to the table during that timeframe before sex. It’s realy not that hard, and certainly no riddle with no answer.

lovelost,

Byron posts here often and his name links to his site. But its: http://triggeralert.blogspot.com/

Listen to Dogsquat. He knows whereof he speaks.

@SW

I’ve never thought of it before, but Game becomes a religion for some men. Only, they’re not followers, but one of the gods.

Just taking the mindset to its logical conclusion. It’s ironic that cult leaders tend to have prodigious sexual compulsions (Jonestown comes to mind). Every woman in the group has to submit to him at one time or another.

Something else you mentioned here a few days ago…

But so do men who compromise their character for the sake of dominance. Not strangers, but the women who know them, who see them make pussy the Holy Grail. A man’s ability to get it is attractive, but his decision to dedicate his life to it is repugnant.

Judgmental, but I like it anyway. I suppose women need to think very hard about how much of this they’re willing to accept and tolerate from men. After all, it’s having an effect on whether men will ever commit to monogamy. I remember reading somewhere that, while women prefer some sexual experience in the men they marry, they also prefer fewer past partners for him, as well. In that sense, they’re idential to men. If only people would apply the standards they expect of others to themselves.

Admittedly, I’m not too clear on what “game” is all about. But you seem to endorse it to some degree. From what I’ve read, I’m very ambivalent about blindly prescribing it to any guy who’s lonely for a girlfriend. It seems like a very double-edged sword, almost like walking a tightrope. That’s very difficult for sensitive human beings to balance. We’re not talking about some quantifiable formula that’s guaranteed to work every time. If it was, we’d probably see a lot more guys transforming from Dr. Jekyll into Mr. Hyde and running amok throughout the SMP (maybe we’re already there).

That being said, I’m a strong proponent of building up some confidence, staying optimistic, and learning from one’s failures. I don’t like the term “game” to describe this. Self-improvement combined with a better attitude worked for me. I didn’t have to radically change my personality or how I viewed women. 90% of me stayed the same, but after years of failure, 10% needed refinement. Maybe “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” describes this best.

My main concern about trumpeting “game” as the solution to all men’s ills is the unintended consequences. For every passive, shy, or non-aggressive guy that is able to land the girl of his dreams, how many end up going down the player route? And there’s an opportunity cost for that, too. I’ve run into numerous women in their late 20s and early 30s who completely write those guys off for relationships. They’re as harsh on guys for sleeping around as guys are on women in general.

The only problem I have with kindness+empathy+strength is that it can very easily lead a man onto the path of the white knight. A man also needs principles and a purpose. Too much kindness and empathy without purpose and principles to balance it out and a man is liable to make his woman his purpose. And that’s bad.

David Foster,

You can’t go wrong with a little Leonard. Mahoney’s line

The only problem I have with kindness+empathy+strength is that it can very easily lead a man onto the path of the white knight. .. Too much kindness and empathy without purpose and principles to balance it out and a man is liable to make his woman his purpose. And that’s bad.

makes me think of his entire book ‘Death Of A Ladies Man’. The pull between following your calling & the shackles of domestic love is a major theme in Cohen’s 70’s & 80’s work.

You saw her [Bathsheba] bathing on the roof
Her beauty & the moonlight overthrew you
She tied you to a kitchen chair
She broke your [King David’s] throne & she cut your [Samson’s] hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah.

Megama: “I’ve been running around tonight trying to deal with a pipe that was ready to bust upstairs. Is that alpha behavior? : )”

Only if you were smoking it!

Megaman,

Here’s a simple game:

Girl says something innocent.

You intentionally misinterpret it so that it sounds a bit dirty. “Hard?” you ask. You don’t say it lecherously. You just hone in on the word “hard.”

She understands the joke, then giggles and blushes.

You hint at a smile of approval.

Or

You: Cute purple eyes. What side of the family did you inherit those from?

Her: (Laughs) My mom’s of course.

You: And you’ve got those pretty little eye liner wings at the ends of each eye. You’re so vain. How do you stand it?

Her: ……

Nobody was manipulated. You haven’t resorted to dark triads. You’re happy. She’s happy. You move on to another game. Or play another round of that one. If she’s really fun, she’ll come up with a few games of her own.

Confidence, integrity, honor and all that will help you maintain a dominant frame throughout the conversation. People like to play games. Nothing wrong with it.

Now, let’s say you fall head over heels for this chick with the purple eyes right away.

1. You might feel the urge to agree with everything she says. She’s great so everything she says sounds great. Resist that urge, game will tell you. Not because you want to be disagreeable, but because a. a little tension is good and fun, and b. if you’re too agreeable, the subtext of all those little agreements is going to be that you’re willing to defer to her opinion; i.e. that you’re not dominant.

2. You might feel like she merits a dozen roses and a 5 star restaurant right away. Game will teach you to ignore that impulse. Keep things casual in the beginning. NOT because you want to get her into bed faster (though it could help that) but because a. she hasn’t merited that investment yet and you’ll look like a chump spending that dough on her, and b. she’ll feel super awkward if you do.

Game will also teach guys about shit tests and how to pass them. This isn’t manipulation either. If anything, the shit tests themselves are more manipulative than what gamers teach guys in order to get past them. Getting past them is just a matter of having the confidence to make a decision to keep your self respect.

I could go on, but it’s late… Point is, game itself isn’t bad.

And it’s settled, Leonard Cohen has jumped to the top of my must-read pile.

Jennifer,

I’m not saying women need men to have a measure of wickedness. I’m saying that Light Triads on their own aren’t sexually attractive. That’s all.

My Machiavelli reference wasn’t to indict “game”, just to point out that one of the reasons I am interested in game is that I see in it a reflection of lots of things I’ve read in various philsophers over the years.  So the idea that this is all new I do find somewhat amusing.

I dunno, I sympathize with some of these guys who say that the PC culture brainwashed them and they had to learn the Terrible Truth from Roissy et al because no one else would tell them.  And yet.  If anyone should have been brainwashed to be a feminist it should have been me.  I grew in a lib town, lib state, lib part of the world, working mother, reasonably high-powered in her profession, etc.  Also, it was the age of the “sensetive male” and everyone was talking about Alan Alda as the ideal.  But it was plainly obvious to me that actual women held men like that in total contempt.  My mother certainly did (and does).

I’m all for Burke and Tocqueville.  What I’m really for is The Truth, which is inconveniently spread around a lot of sources.  If you focus on Burke and never read Nick, you will insufficiently understand the seamier side of life.  As Nick says, “one who wishes to make a profession of good in every respect must of necessity come to ruin among so many who are not good.”  But if you only read Nick, you will become jaded and a cynic.

BTW, he wrote two plays, Mandragola and Clizia and both are about “love”, or at least sex.  I still think Measure for Measure should be the Official Play of HUS, and I may write something about that at some point.  So, so apt.

Edward is totally beta

Is he? Again, I have never seen a single scene.

Think of a Total Beta.

• The smiling
• The Head Nodding
• The Deference
• The Compliance
• The “Yes, sir…Thank you, sir…No, you first…etc”

Is he “totally beta”?

Without having read a word, I am guessing that he isn’t. I am guessing that he has the Alpha Looks, Alpha Frame (i.e. Vampire) and Beta traits (i.e. Loyal and Understanding). IOW, the prefect High School boyfriend.

Again, I have never read a single word…pure guessing.

Susan: “We are on a spectrum, though. The biggest shortcoming of Game that I have found is the assumption that all women will respond in identical ways to it. I don’t believe that’s true. Everything from Indicators of Interest to Anti-Slut Defense to Last Minute Resistance – it all varies a great deal by individual. So does the taste for preselection, while I’m at it.”

Umm, why is this a shortcoming of Game, per se?  Even if what you say is true, that there’s a great deal of variance by individual, how is this information actionable?  I’m not a Gamer and never have been, so I’m not an authority here; but it was my understanding that, while it may be technically incorrect to believe that AWALT, it is _useful_ to do so in that it will most quickly bring the Game student into “productive” habits that get results (unlike, presumably, what he was getting before).

Yes, after the basic orientation is in place, then one could argue that recognizing the differences between individuals can lead one to being even more effective; but as a matter of technique this is just a refinement, no?  Seems to me that the basic comes before the advanced, and the general before the specific; and AWALT is the basic and the general, a useful first approximation even if it’s not the whole truth.

@J. Mahoney

All your advice is generally good. The example seems a little contrived, but maybe that’s because I’ve never been “tested” like that by a woman. My wife isn’t the transparent seductress type. That’s probably a benefit of being married to a tomboy. Our bedroom activities don’t involve game playing like that (no point, IMO). When I think of sticking to one’s principles, poker night with the boys doesn’t come to mind, though I enjoy those kinds of things (board games, too). I think of things like, putting in the time to finish that big project on the house or at work. Making time to visit with good friends who are visiting from out of town. Everybody should have a life outside of his or her relationship. Reminds me of the that Seinfeld episode where George’s “two worlds” were colliding : )

I probably place a little more importance on empathy because it seems so rare these days. Conspicuous displays of strength and aggression are everywhere. Trying to understand how other people feel from their own perspective, that’s what I mean by empathy. Maybe there’s a better word for it. I’ll never be able to walk in someone else’s shoes, but that doesn’t mean I can’t try to see things from their POV. That doesn’t make me a spineless pushover.

Bellita is right-on, the term is competent, not necessarily dominant of all others in the field.

You know Esau, the kind of feminist dogma that says men should be in touch with their feminine side, really sensitive like women are, not REALLY different from women, and put women on pedestals? That kind of dogma.

“In real life, there is no omniscient narrator, and if you’re not overt in your ability to be bad, women will assume you have no possibility for it.”

Oh for God’s sake.

Anacaona is going to be sorry she missed this.

I would for sure. I never expected this discussion here. But I guess it makes sense it will happen at some point.

Jesus, Anne did need her own time. But Gilbert wasn’t quiet in his needs either.

Ana, I don’t think Edward was going Mystery Method on purpose to attract Bella.

 

Well I never meant he knows what he is doing when I say he has to be a pussy I meant Smeyer writing him.

I think femmies call him creepy because he’s a vamp who beats her up in sex. But I love that people disagree whether he’s beta or not; shows we don’t live in boxes.

Mm no they don’t have sex till BD feminists were hating on him since book one and he doesn’t beat her up in sex, she gets some bruises but she felt no pain at all, she is pale she bruises easily and always did they just exagerated this for proselitism purposes, YMMV.

However, there is a caveat….we will disrespect this pussy behavior in anything more than very small glimpses.

Which is not being pussy whipped at all. Dedicated? Loyal? Attentive? Possibly all of those things? But not pussy whipped.

Edward does indeed have the smiling, nodding, deference and compliance, in everything related to Bella.

No, in relation to Men. Again, “Yes sir… no sir…right away sir… Thank you”. Is he smiling and nodding to Men?

I haven’t read the Twilight series…but re alpha and beta, ruthlessness and kindness, I recommend an essay by C S Lewis on the idealized medieval concept of chivalry:

The important thing about this ideal is, of course, the double demand it makes on human nature. The knight is a man of blood and iron, a man familiar with the sight of smashed faces and the ragged stumps of lopped-off limbs; he is also a demure, almost a maidenlike, guest in hall, a gentle, modest, unobtrusive man. He is not a compromise or happy mean between ferocity and meekness; he is fierce to the nth and meek to the nth…The medieval ideal brought together two things which have no natural tendency to gravitate towards one another. It brought them together for that very reason. It taught humility and forbearance to the great warrior because everyone knew by experience how much he usually needed that lesson. It demanded valour of the urbane and modest man because everyone knew that he was as likely as not to be a milksop.

The whole thing can be found here.

Best Wes Anderson for me would most likely be The Life Aquatic, with The Darjeeling Ltd not far behind. I love his films.

“His appeal is that he could be all of those things, but rises above his nature to be good.”

When all female choices are validated (i.e. not judged), she is robbed of the opportunity to do so with her own life.

So she lives vicariously through a man, even an imaginary one.

Interesting stuff. Something I’ve been pondering lately is how all the ‘girls kick-ass’ movies are almost entirely created by men – all Joss Whedon’s stuff, Kill Bill, Kick-Ass, all the superheroey ones. These are often sold to us as ‘empowering role models’ etc for girls & yet it’s not women that are writing & directing them, it’s men. The women  would much rather be home watching Twilight.

So I puzzled over this & the conclusion I came to is that, under the system we have had the past 30 years or so, which denigrates masculinity so much, male creators have resorted to using female protagonists to play out their heroic ideals, ideals which, in the real world women would not think to carry out (think army, police, fire service).

In the Alien films, Ripley – the first real female action hero – sacrifices herself to save the human race in a very chivalric, christlike way. I find it hard to imagine a female author coming up with that, a woman laying down her life for strangers. It just wouldn’t occur to them. And in the past it would never have occurred to a male writer either. Women’s bodies are a precious rare resource to be protected at all costs by the men, even at the cost of the mens own lives. That sacrificial role is a male burden, & a male fantasy, but one is now rather strangely being projected onto a female canvas.

Feminism has really messed with our heads.

Actually a lot of smart women appreciate strong femaale role models and protagonists, myself included; I know of three wonderful women in the military. Immature women tend to be the ones who become obsessed (not who merely like, but are obsessed) with Twilight.

The last time I saw something like this was “Titanic”. I was working at a department store c. 1997, and boy did I get tired of hearing Celine Dion music piped in 24-7.

Heh and is getting a re-release next year. Can Jack reclaim his place in female fantasies from Edward Cullen? The world can’t wait! Or care! :p

No, in relation to Men. Again, “Yes sir… no sir…right away sir… Thank you”. Is he smiling and nodding to Men?

Well he worships the ground that Carlisle stands to and he is probably aside from Bella and Alice the only one that can change his mind and he respect, Bella changes his mind being humble, demure and sweet (crying also) Alice annoys the hell out of him but Carlisle just say “son I don’t think we should do this” And he just does it. In fact he is his role model but Carlisle is the type of man who commands respect just by showing up.

Really, Ana? He didn’t hurt her? Well well, I guess Vox Day exaggerated. No surprise.

Heh I’m starting to think that American reading skills are worst than I heard off. Edward did a good show of guilt over the bruises but Bella spent at least four pages remembering everything to try to find any moment she felt pain or uncomfortably (and they both agreed that if she felt any pain she will stop him at once she didn’t) For some reason no one remembers those pages, the whole meme is that she passed out and woke up bruised but unless they received edited copies I have my Spanish and English books who probe otherwise. So I have no idea why this image keeps lingering around in the interwebs, is not true.

Just wanted to say that I LOVED Anne of Green Gables as a kid. : ) although L.M. Montgomery basically turned her into Michelle Duggar at the end. -__-

What is with people that hate lots of babies in this country? Having lots of kids was a blessing less than 50 years ago. She was blessed with a big family.

I did get the point you were making about Twilight, but this line stuck out for me for an additional reason. Someone once told me about an analysis of Romance novels that said that women don’t want to be the heroine as much as they want to be the hero. I shared that with a huge Twilight fan and was surprised when she agreed that, given a choice, she would rather have the chance to be Edward than the chance to be Bella. (Of course, she’s just one reader.)

Interesting idea I really think is more complicated than that, I ship both because I identify with both. Bella’s stubbornness and willingness to start a life with the man she loves away from her world (says the expat bride) and Edward because it took me what it looked like centuries to find a person I could truly love and I would protect him for as long as I live. But I think women in general want to be loved by the hero. Look at that abomination called Lost in Austen and you can see where the fantasy is steal poor Lizzie’s happiness for her own, stupid bitch that I hate whoever her name is…Sorry shipper rant.

Maybe the books are different, but based on the movies I would have pegged Jacob as the classic beta orbiter who gets LJBFed.  (Only in Twilight fantasy land would beta orbiters come with those abs though.)

The thing is that Smeyer used two tropes Jacob starts as the beta orbiter trying to win Bella during the rebound in New Moon, but he could afford be like that because he didn’t had any competition, the moment Mike showed to the movie theater he was willing to sent him to the hospital and once Alice was around he also was peeing testosterone like rain in May. Then of course Edward’s name was mentioned and came and full Alphadom arrived with forced kisses and manipulation included. The typical beta orbiter keeps orbiting till he gets sick of it or the girl does, regardless of the suitors. He attacked like an Alpha not taking a no for an answer and bashing Edward and the Cullens as much as he could even after she was married. Smeyer kind of used both traits but in different ways there are moments of betadom and alphadom and even Bella has a “my jacob” his sweet friend and the other in wich he is willing to manhandle her in her wedding dress because she dares to have sex with her husband, of course some say it was the wolf transformation and could be, but the level of jerkiness reached levels that no Beta could resist. This is one of the few fictional examples were the Alpha loses the girl to the Greater Beta, but don’t confuse underdog (no pun intended) with Beta that is like calling Wolverine a Beta because Jean Grey still loves Cyclops or Mary Jane didn’t cheated on Spiderman with him.

The difference with Edward is that he looks Alpha out of the vampire traits and because he said Bella right away his feelings, but then he again couldn’t just pretend that he saved her life all this times just because he wanted be friends could he? No to mention Bella was panting over him, he had to be an Omega to say no to a IOI’s the size of Jupiter. In any case trust me if I can’t stand him chances are he is an Alpha.

Best Wes Anderson for me would most likely be The Life Aquatic, with The Darjeeling Ltd not far behind. I love his films.

Oh my that is a wonderful movie and Murray was amazing in it. Isn’t it could when an actor gets better with age? I don’t think he ever convinced me in any character till he got older.

Actually a lot of smart women appreciate strong femaale role models and protagonists, myself included; I know of three wonderful women in the military. Immature women tend to be the ones who become obsessed (not who merely like, but are obsessed) with Twilight.

I’m obsessed with Twilight, like midnight premiere four hour lines, I cosplayed as Bella at the convention in L.A (which I’m going with gold tickets next year and I want to go to Tent City too). Ask Susan and SayWhaat they had seen the pics at Facebook. But then I dressed up as Buffy, and as Callisto (I was pissed of at Xena I dressed up as her later), then I wanted a Star Ttrek wedding, and a Pushing Daisies civil ceremony (Hubby didn’t approved) Obsession is my middle name. The thing is when I say that I have a low level of cattiness I’m not kidding I love women of all size and shapes and I don’t have this “for my to like a woman she has to be strong in this fixed set of ways”. I consider Bella strong in her own way (I’m actually quite proud of her, ovaries of steel she has), and she is in my gallery of favorite females along with the other mentioned, Scully (which make me buy my first power suit to dress like her and a crucifix), Ripley, Agatha Heterodine, Chloe Sullivan… I don’t really have “standard strong woman” trope in my fandom likes, I’m mostly want my female characters to be passionate, whatever is it (a career, a dream,a mission, a man…) I don’t care. Maybe that makes me immature but I’m happy with being like that.

Bellita at 320 above: “I certainly don’t have specific advice, and I phrased that awkwardly to begin with. (If I had to edit it, I’d probably change “dominant’” to “competent.”) All I meant was that I got what the people on the thread were saying about what women are attracted to and how a man can put himself in a setting that works to his advantage.”

Sorry, even as re-stated I think you’re just digging yourself in deeper.  The idea that competence in a man is a primary attractor for women is false, a “pretty lie”, and really just so much hamster chow.  There are patches, swaths, concentrations and entire inland seas of competent men to be found everywhere in the world — MIT is my favorite example, but you don’t have to go that far; even middle management at any successful company will have a good proportion of people (including men) who are extremely good at their jobs.  And yet it is clear that these women aren’t particularly interested in mining these rich veins of competence at all.  When was the last time, as you imagine it, that one toothsome young woman said to another, “I’m tired of jocks and pretty emo boys; let’s go find some men who are good at their jobs!”, to which the other replied “Yeah, that’ll be hot!”?

Admit it: plain competence, even mastery, is not generally an attractor in itself: it depends strongly on the field of endeavor — competence in some fields is actually a net negative — which means, definitively, that “competence” is not the right concept that you’re trying to home in on.  Really, I think the much better explanation is that women keep saying they are attracted to competence is either to make themselves look better by appearing less shallow, or to rationalize their attraction to dominance in a better light (and *squeak* goes the wheel).

So, what’s really going on here?  I don’t claim to have all the answers, but the sainted Yohami wrote a good deal recently as to how male competence was attractive to women if and only if it allowed the man to demonstrate dominance over other men; competence in a solo performance or in a non-competitive environment didn’t do the trick at all.  I’m not certain I agree; but if you differ strongly then you can take it up with The Yohamster directly.

Maybe Bellita’s speaking of her own preferences, Esau; please don’t obnoxiously write that off as hamsterizing, or imply that another man knows her better than she knows herself. Of course women love captains in a job workforce, but mastery at a job can be a BIG attraction; majorly. Susan wrote a post on it, how a man she didn’t even generally find attractive turned her on when she saw him working his craft. A man who’s master of his craft is a huge plus.

You are making as big an assumption about women as the two WOMEN here are, Esau, and that can be a tiring thing to see men do. If you went by the manosphere or even the uglier gamospheres, you’d think most women wanted rude men, rough men, men who bossed them and other men/women around, and snubbed good men like ugly harpy bitches, but actually, that’s a grossly exaggerated factor, like the one you’re describing now. I, and generally Bellita, speak of not only ourselves but the women we actually know, which may or may not be what you’re doing as well. In MY experience, of course, women dig, say, the army general. But the grand majority are every bit as happy to go with one of the hot, clearly strong and masculine regular soldiers as well.

I know, Megaman; a guy doesn’t need to look like Micky Rourke or the polished Colin Firth to have a good, healthy manhood.

@Esau

Sorry, even as re-stated I think you’re just digging yourself in deeper.

You know what? I think you’re right. I’m going to go back to what I said about dominance. But in that case, I don’t know what to say to make you feel better.

Honestly, I only restated my original comment because of what you said about the men who have to scratch and claw. Don’t you think I feel bad for them, too? But I can’t control other women’s attractors any more than my own. A few months ago, when I hinted on my blog that I was considering (as a strategy) staying with a man whom I felt only strong platonic affection for because I didn’t want to be the shallow girl who dumped someone because he didn’t make her “tingle,” I was told (by Dogsquat) that “martyring myself” for a man because I don’t want to hurt him will only cheat both of us out of real love.

So now what can men do? I have no idea. I don’t even know what women can do. On Badger’s blog, a woman recently admitted that she broke up with a good looking, intelligent, affectionate man with good career prospects and a desire to start a family in the near future because she wasn’t attracted to him. And a couple of male commenters agreed that she shouldn’t be with a man she’s not attracted to, no matter how much she knows, on an intellectual level, that he’s a real catch.

I don’t even know what women can do.

Stop consuming female emo porn like Twilight and True Blood for a start. No living man can live up to the fictional ones served up to women in the MSM. That’s why most women can’t even tingle for men at similar SMV.

@Susan

He asked her to be his gf after one date. This is indeed a massive fail. Why? Because she knows it’s not about liking her. As she put it, he’s got the scenario down, he’s just painting her in.

A month ago, someone made an interesting comparison between men who are ready to be exclusive really quickly and women who are ready to sleep with a man really quickly. Individual cases aside, it just doesn’t seem sincere, as if the woman would be willing to sleep with any man who showed up and the man willing to commit to any woman who showed up.

Susan: “Right. He asked her to be his gf after one date. This is indeed a massive fail. “

But, by common consensus, asking her to be his sex partner after one date would be unremarkable, even recommended, right?  When you quote and agree that, “As she put it, he’s got the scenario down, he’s just painting her in.”, wouldn’t that be equally true if he were pushing for early sex, as much as for an early relationship?  And yet you think it should be obvious that the former is a likely win, while the latter should be a total loss.

I don’t have a big point to make here, I just find it a bit head-spinning to see how much things have changed from the Pleistocene Era of my and Abe Simpson’s youth.  Back then, it was universally understood — at least during daylight hours — that having sex was a much bigger commitment than being in a relationship; boyfriends and girlfriends came and went, month by month, but sex was put off until you could be really, really sure about someone.  The complete inversion between that and the modern SMP — sex on a whim, relationship only if you’re serious — is still something I have a hard time getting used to.

Susan,

“In the new movie, Jacob is shirtless most of the time. It’s as if the script was written around his physique. Meanwhile, we never see Edward’s naked torso, even during the honeymoon sex scene!”

I’ve got a hammer and everything looks like a nail, but is this not a perfect example of the base female desire I’ve argued for?

Alpha for the seed (or, post-birth-control, it’s stand-in hot sex/fantasies thereof), utterly emasculated beta for the need (for validation/support/protection). Is Adam player or beta? No other choices allowed; nor alas monogamous desire.

It is unfortunate that I’ve gotten roped into condemning the former so often (as in the Jhane thread), as I believe the latter (the emasculation/slumming with the Herb) does far more damage overall.

Esau,

If one is determined to attract women with competence alone, with no help from her natural drives, then one should be content to find attractive competence in women, apart from her appeal to the natural drives of men.

There is no shortage of frumpy women who would make good wives and are very much drawn to your competence.

You want some hot sauce, bring some.

Mike,

“I have an eerie feeling that my marriage fell apart in no small part to my wife’s over infatuation with ALL things vampire.”

Last month I observed a class of high school seniors watching the 1931 Dracula with Bela Lugosi.

His Dracula is utterly unglamorous – his castle is a complete ruin, with cobwebs, rats crawling out of his coffin, etc… and he’s easily pushing 60 and shows it. The look on his face is more desperate/deranged than seductive. And yet when he goes to bite the innocent female lead (he raises his cape to cover the action, and the camera cuts away before he reaches her neck in any case), I noticed that the four most attractive girls in the class are all twirling their hair.

The (by a good margin) most conventionally attractive girl, complete with skin-tight yoga pants and bare mid-drift, waist-length hair, perma-arched back, perfect face, the whole nine-yards, was twirling the most furiously, soon after joined by a bouncing knee and hand to inner thigh.

It is a testament to the power of society’s control of male desire that I was not aroused myself, but the remarkable thing was that the boys around her seemed not to notice either. But that’s a topic for another thread. The subtext of the whole movie was the threat of (older) alphas to young women and their desire for their future life-partners (in the movie, the female lead’s desire for her fiance was understood to be ruined). It was a bit unnerving to have that alpha appeal so starkly illustrated.

Hi Susan, thanks for the comment. To be fair let me state:

1. i do not hate my (ex)wife. We’re not divorced yet but i’ve paid enough in legal fees to feel comfy calling her my exwife.
2. i just want to place it in the context that Vampire Diaries / True Blood were actually a big aspect of involvement in her career choice (which i initially supported wholeheartedly) so that has to be taken into consideration
3. i’m not saying Vampire Diaries was the death of our marriage, of course it’s more complex than that. yet i do feel it played a role

She would probably give you a different take and i don’t want you to assume what i say is correct because it’s very one sided hearing my side. I can only tell you that as the months dragged on before i finally got the ‘i love you but am not in love with you’ comment from her, i actually felt like i was being discarded for a tv show. I was never jealous or possessive of her around other men, i trusted her implicitly, and still believe to this day she didn’t/isn’t leaving me for another man (wishful thinking?) but i did feel a pronounced seething jealousy over a tv show. I feel stupid even saying it but that’s how i felt.

It seemed to bring out the teenager in her and perhaps she’s in a midlife crisis and would rather remain in a state of youthful exuberance rather than slog it out in marriage in tough economic times. I can’t give you her reasons for ending it, only she knows. I just feel it in my core that she would ultimately tell you that the highlight of her life was getting her picture taken with Ian Sommerhaulder on the set of V.D… whereas the highlight of my life, even to this day, was my wedding day.

That horrific part of Dracula with the infant was the most horrid aspect I’ve seen of vampire films. UGH! So glad I never wasted time with that trash.

What is with people that hate lots of babies in this country? Having lots of kids was a blessing less than 50 years ago. She was blessed with a big family.

I wouldn’t call it “hate”, more like disdain. And having a lot of kids wasn’t considered a blessing.

There’s a reason families in lesser-developed, uneducated areas will tend to have more children; the likelihood of one child reaching adulthood is small due to disease and a harsh environment, so to ensure at least one child will grow up to provide for you when you’re old, you would play the odds and have multiple children. The cost of having and providing for children is low anyway.

That’s not so in developed and educated areas. Children are an investment, and one child will cost about $250k until he/she turns 18. So it makes more economic sense to have fewer children and focus on their upbringing until they can take care of themselves (and you in old age). Having more children than you can afford to take care of is grossly irresponsible (not to mention that you’re contributing to an overpopulation problem). If you can afford to foot the cost of many children, you still run into the problem of dividing your finite time and personal resources among them. That’s a problem even if you are a SAHM. That’s why big families are considered to be a sign of lower class in the West; having many children means that taxpayers are footing the bill (as in the Duggars’ case).

To illustrate this better, my father was one of 6 (the 7th died), and my mother was one of 3. When they immigrated to the US, they only had me and my sister. You’ll find a lot of Indian-Americans with humongous extended families (numerous cousins and in-laws), but usually only one other sibling max.

JM at 400: “But the male slut for commitment doesn’t usually get sex, which is what he wants. And the female slut doesn’t usually get a relationship, which is what SHE wants.”

They’re both losers.”

Technically correct, I suppose.  But it is also technically correct, to observe that the guy sleeping one night off in the drunk tank, and the guy doing 20 to life while bunking next to Big Louis, are both currently in prison.  A true statement, but a highly misleading one that obscures how incomparable the two situations really are.

Personally I’m way past tired of having this argument over and over again; but it appears to be my burden to bear.  So, here it is again, in three-part harmony:

1) The female “sex” slut who has little or nothing to offer besides pleasing-enough sexual access, gets sex but not commitment.  The male “relationship” slut who has little or nothing to offer but a willingness to commit, gets neither sex nor commitment.  Economically speaking, the person with the opportunity/means to obtain A but not B is strictly not worse off than the person who can obtain neither.  To the extent that A is at all useful to the first person (see below) then she is strictly better off than he, and their deprivations are not comparable — zero is not the same order of magnitude as any positive number.  (Put that in your book of aphorisms.)

2) One way to judge between whether two classes of people are in comparable or incomparable situations is simply to ask them if they’d switch places with the other given the chance.  If people from one class answer yes and no in proportions similar to those in the other, then it’s reasonable to say that their situations are comparable; but if the switching preferences are very different, then it’s strong evidence of the contrary.  Now, if you offered the male “relationship sluts,” who, as described above are currently getting nothing, the chance to trade places with the female “sex sluts”, how many would take it?  I’m going to say most to all; do you differ?  And, if you offer the “sex sluts/relationship deprived” females the chance to switch to being a male loser who gets nothing at all, how many will take it?  I’m going here with few to none; do you differ?  So by this very simple, very natural and very unbiased test, it is clear that the two groups of “deprivees” are not  at all in comparable straits.  QED.

3) I’ve had this argument before with Susan, and she has demonstrated a truly awesome degree of near-religious devotion, to defending the claim that young women have it at least as bad in the modern SMP as young men do (though when she’s losing the argument she’ll always fall back on saying that comparisons are impossible, or manifestly unhelpful). The “female slut” of our example here doesn’t get devotion or commitment, but what she does get includes (1) sex (duh), (2) some amount of human physical contact, (3) some degree of approval, (4) some degree of human involvement, even if it’s only Game plays and booty call texts.  Her “male slut” counterpart, however, gets NONE OF THIS; NOTHING: no sex, no physicality, no approval that he’s in any way better than an animal or a rock, and no human involvement or contact; he may as well live on the moon.  Do these two situations sound comparable to you?  Yet Susan, in her bottomless zealotry, went to the absurd lengths of claiming that women (yes, all women) get NO benefit WHATSOEVER from items (1)-(4) above if they’re not accompanied by a loving commitment.  Yes, you read that right: sex, physicality, approval and involvement have ZERO VALUE in themselves — not just low, but ZERO — for relationship-minded women.  I let the absurdity of this claim stand as its own refutation.

Circling back to the poor boy described in the Badger thread, assuming you’ve done all the reading: aside from the original author Butterfly Flower and commenters Hope and Bellita, have you seen any female writer express a single iota of sympathy for the boy?  No; his crime of over-eagerness is punishable by celibacy and human isolation, sentence to be served on the moon until he learns better.  Really, he brought it on himself, you know, and so got what he deserved; why should anyone lose a wink of sleep, when justice was so obviously done?

I do feel terrible for the boy; he’s treated unfairly, and almost every over-eager person gets burned. Justice, my ass; I suppose men who have enough balls to not act like jerks in order to win sluts should be punished too? But I’ll still say that the woman who gets pumped and dumped is far worse off; what the hell did she gain? Some extra emotional baggage and one more notch against her in her sexual history? If she’s like most women, what the devil is a little extra confidence from a horny player when it gets blown up the next day? What’s an hour of physical contact (if that) if it becomes one more time she’s disappointed and rung out? There were plenty of times I could have lowered myself to sleep with jerks in my teen years, and had that temporary high. Instead I was without a boyfriend my whole highschool term, and I still greatly prefer that, sleeping alone, to sleeping with an unworthy bed mate.

There you go, smart women sharing their feelings and POVs.

@SayWhaat

I will state less agree to disagree in the matter of blessings and kids this disdain is cultural ingrained here. The reason people have less children now is true is because is considered low status so its not a practical reason is about “being in the winners” side. The whole population issue has been explained that is not the amount of people but how much they consume the same parents that are competing for having small families are also buying new dolls and spending money on vacations and toys, so a small first world family impacts the environment as big as a big one in the third world. As far as I know the Duggars make enough money to pay for all the children they have. They are not in welfare or asking for money so they are not a burden for society. Any proof of they burdening the tax payers with their family planning?

Re: large families

I know some families with many children (five or more) that don’t depend on welfare at all. Perhaps they’re not completely self-supporting because the extended family chips in and the nuclear family can’t afford to stand on its own, but grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins all helping out is very traditional, healthy and even fun.

But I can see why it’s considered low status because larger families just won’t be able to afford the material things smaller families can easily pencil in. And I don’t just mean luxuries like a personal computer for every child, but increasingly reasonable investments like homes in “better” neighborhoods and private school tuition.

The status thing is interesting, though. I know a woman who read something about letting young children go barefoot as much as possible for the first few years of their lives. (Too many details to explain.) To her surprise, she got a LOT of resistance from complete strangers when she took her toddler on the bus, or to the park, or to the library, or to church, or wherever, without shoes. Her husband’s interpretation is that their new neighborhood used to be very working class and the people there are still trying to be perceived as “gentry.” So the sight of a barefoot child would be extra uncomfortable for them . . . an implication that there was one family that in the neighborhood that couldn’t afford shoes. Not good for the neighborhood image.

(I personally found it really odd because, In my experience, “no shoes” is the sort of “faddish” thinking that you’d expect from the upper classes, who have the leisure to do that sort of research.)

If there was nothing between you, Bellita, you were right anyway. In the long run, you both would have been unhappy. I think you’ll both end up fine

@Esau November 23, 2011 at 11:45 pm #423

+1

I’ve had this same line of thought virtually my entire adolescent life and then some. Me and one of my lady friends discussed this at length years ago and i did get her to agree to the fact that life for guys would be harder. If a girl needs a pick me up or a fix for a dry spell, it’s not so hard, even if the consequences down the road aren’t worth it. For a guy trapped in a 10 year dry spell, (tens years of thinking you’re worthless, you’re ugly, no one wants to touch you, you’d be better off dead < real thoughts) breaking out of a vicious circle of desperation feels like climbing Mt. Everest using your bare hands while wearing only a speedo.

It all boils down to the fact that our view of sex, it’s role, and the need to have it, along with all its social significance… are fundamentally viewed upon differently by the genders. And feminism sought to erase that view with all the turmoil it now brings to bear on women who feel they must do it like a guy to be empowered, only to end up feeling used by guys who have adapted to use their high status above all the cast aways to have a buffet at the trough of the sexual marketplace, leaving only the castaways to find something else to occupy their time in a sex driven world, or avoid the temptation to blow their brains out. Been there, done that.

@Isabel November 24, 2011 at 9:54 am #442

I agree. You’re right that it’ll never be viewed ‘eye to eye’ or in the same way by the sexes.

You’ll find it very hard for a poor individual scraping away to make their payments and find food at the end of the month feel much sympathy for the millionaire who has money to burn, who laments that his vast wealth is not bringing him happiness.

Is the millionaire not entitled to happiness? Of course. But even if he isn’t finding happiness driving around in his Ferrari Enzo, filled with premium gas which he never has to worry about it going up 3 or 5 cents per litre/gallon, or where he’ll find the money for his next car insurance payment… i’m sure he will get very little sympathy from the guy who’s freaking out because his beater is in the shop and needs to go begging his immediate family for money or take out a loan just to survive.

It’s not a perfect analogy, but it emotes the guys perception well.

To reflect on this, I do know that a life of loneliness is a terrible thing, a horrible thing (sex aside, what about lack of companionship?). Maybe it is equal to false happiness. But I think that a man who requires social refinement has a softer road ahead of him than one who’s sexually lost and can never change her past. Not that she can’t change herself or have a good life, but that’s a lot of baggage.

@Olive
“If girls are going to start forgoing casual sex, guys have to be ready for the grand change… otherwise it’s going to be a long painful process.”

I was prepared for that since my teens. All i ever wanted was lifelong LTR.. i even tried marraige. I was never part of the casual sex scene. I don’t think i had the stomach for it, nor felt compelled to attempt it, nor had the courage to try. Probably too late for me, but if the above change happened, I’d imagine there will be a lot more happy teens going through the old traditional courtship process without the pressure of having to have sex to be seen as socially acceptable.

“that just sets us up for a Grand Battle of the Sexes”

Not what i was attempting to do. I do realize there are cons from a womans point of view. I was only relaying the fact that my early years took me to the brink of suicide, so you can understand that from my point of view it was a very painful experience.

@ Megamann
“The better question is, how much casual history are women willing to accept in the men they settle down with?”

PERSONALLY i think you can learn everything you need with only one partner, providing that you are willing to learn what your partner enjoys and willing to work and communicate with them. And also be aware that the if its the guys first time, you’ll have to be patient with him to build up some stamina. I don’t think anyone needs multiple partners to become ‘experienced’. All your experiences could end up being wrong for the person you end up with at the end so it’s vastly overrated.

Women should be as discerning as men when it comes to promiscuity, but i think in a woman’s mind they think that because he’s been with more women, he knows what he’s doing in the sack (pump n dumpers thrive on this). If women started punishing the promiscuous men with the same standard, instead of trying to emulate them.. perhaps balance would return to the force.

@Anacaona

I must say reading class warfare into Bram’s classic seems a little off to me. The real Vlad the Impaler, upon whom Stoker based his character, would certainly fit as the nobility versus the people. His idea was of social welfare was to take the poor, invite them to a banquet, feed them, then close the doors and set the place on fire, burning them all to death, In “Dracula” the Count makes a veiled reference to his havign been cursed by the Church for his depredations, although the real Vlad’s father was appointed by the Pope to fight on the Church’s behalf. Indeed, it was Vlad’s father who bore the Papal insignia, which had a dragon, which to the peasants was synonymous with the Devil. “Dracul” means devil in their language; when they saw his father with the flag, they thought he was proclaiming his allegiance to the Devil, and began referring to his as Dracul. “Dracula” means “son of the devil”, and it was the name given to Vlad Tepes, the historical Count Dracula.

Your analysis of the scene is a tad baroque. His daughters are unable to bring themselves to attack Harker; the female vampires are always weaker. They’d been with him a while when  Dracula finds them and scolds them when he finds them steeling themselves for the attack (Harker has discovered them as I recall; anyway, there’s 3 against one and they are immortal but haven’s taken the shot). Dracula then gives them the baby. By contrast, when Dracula is on board a ship on its way to England, he takes on and kills the entire crew. Whatsherface (I ain’t googling-I’m going from memory; his first female victim in England) is only able to bite children, just as Renfro starts with spiders and moves up to rats.

Back to the girls: when Van Helsing et al arrive at the castle they first find the girls in their coffins. VH knows what to expect; he tells the young guys to back off before he opens. He is nearly overcome by their beauty and realizes no man except him could resist them. He imagines many have stood right where he is, transfixed, until they awoke and gang sucked them off. He, as the smartest man alive, is able to steel himself, and dispatches all 3.

Zombies do have some real world connection. Read “The Serpent and the Rainbow”(the movie didn’t do it justice”. But zombies got no style, although as a kid I loved “The Zombies of Mara Tua”or something like that.

Oh and Happy Thanksgiving! Enough of the mush, have a good evening..

@Jennifer
Thank you for the kind words of understanding. It is appreciated more than you know. Happy Turkey day to you as well

@LokLand
“Just not sleeping with people all the time is easy.”
This is probably the one area  where I will disagree. It’s easy on paper to say that, BUT (and i don’t know how old you are but i do still remember the terrible days of highschool i endured) in a world that is consumed by sex, where it’s shoved in your face by media, ads, magazines, etc, where your hormones are raging, and where all your buddies are picking on you because you haven’t gotten laid yet, and the girls look at you like you’re a pariah because you’re a virgin OR you’re a girl and you want to be with the popular boy because it elevates your status and you know he’ll only see you if you put out, or all your peers are calling you a slut even if you never kissed a guy, so if they’re calling you it you feel compelled to act on it, or you believe in feminism where they bitch about a double standard and that you can sleep around (while at the same time calling men who sleep around pigs, dogs and assholes) etc….

This world is just one big sex consumption pile where everyone thinks everyone is doing it and you’re lower than dirt if you’re not. No one has a proper sense of what should be done anymore because everyone is acting off false assumptions based on the crap we’re being sold. And we fall for it hook line and sinker, especially in the early years when we can’t help but think with our sausages and clams.

I think i’m ready to shoot myself.. because i never thought i’d hear myself saying i agree with George Bush’s teach abstinence in school instead of sex ed. (snark)

Feminism has to step up to the plate and admit to itself that it’s screwed up the SMP for all parties by throwing civilized courting practices under the bus and assuming both genders could swap evolutionary traits without so much as batting an eyelash.

I will use a quote Jeff Goldblum from Jurassic Park which i will modify with one word to demonstrate:
“Yeah, but your scientists feminists were so preoccupied with whether they could that they didn’t stop to think if they should. ”

And yes, men everywhere need to man up too. I only did after my world fell apart and i had to choose between gassing myself in the garage or soldiering on to a new future. I chose the latter. It would also help if men had more real role models and father figures to look towards AND be told from an early age what real female behavior is instead of the pack of lies I was taught about being ‘nice’ and getting in touch with my feminine side.

@Anacaona

I had a wonderful Thanksgiving, thank you, and hope you had the same.

I think as a Dominican you would very much like the book “The Serpent and the Rainbow”. It is very deferential to the culture, and places the “loa” in a solid anthropological context, showing its richness and heritage and stripping it of the sensationalism that surrounds it in the Americanization of the concept (your terms, and good ones). The author is not into pop culture at all, is serious, and the implications from the issues he raises are also serious> I cannot do him justice and will not attempt to. But go read him. And also read Stoker’s “Dracula”. You will be surprised by the latter; it is challenging in ways far beyond the Friday Night Creepshow to which we have relegated it.

Anacaona…thought you might want to see this critique of Twilight and maybe respond to it there or here.

@Mike

My future’s looking bright so far.

Good to hear you’re back in the saddle. Monogamy and marriage don’t have to go hand in hand. But if you do want children down the line, that’s another discussion. I’m a couple of years younger than you, and my wife is couple of years younger than me. Women typically go for a guy a few years older than them. Some are mature enough for a 5+ year difference. Some may even share your view of marriage vows being hollow if they’ve been through the same thing. I don’t you’re restricted to the 5% club. Good luck!

Anacaona…thought you might want to see this critique of Twilight and maybe respond to it there or here.

Thanks for the link but as mentioned before I’m kind of done with explaining Twilight I mostly placed the timeline bit to add some real info about the books.It would be very shitty of me to pride myself of being a Twihard and ignore everyone HERE when addressing the issue.I do agree with the porn for women of course, but he is against totally missing the point about the triangle not that I blame him the movies make it look like it did existed. Now when some hater take over the threads my usual answer is. Instead of bashing Twilight why don’t you watch this video better? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3G1PFLuTrgM&feature=player_embedded  cuteness to fight hate!

What is the Alice In Wonderland Warrior thing? I’ve not read Hunger Games yet, will have to check it out.

In the new movie with Johnny Deep as the mad-hatter Alice ends up fighting the Jabberwocky sword and armor in hand, no to mention how rebellious she was against the oppresive Victorian society. That was the idea of a woman.

Isabel,

“Are women really that flaky? And is this what the typical guy goes through in uni? Feck, there is no way I could stomach that many knockbacks and still remain heterosexual.”

Believe it. Hypergamy and flaking have both skyrocketed in the past 5 years or so. I didn’t get many flakes when I was younger, I got mostly rejections or acceptances with a few date bombs (http://badgerhut.wordpress.com/2011/10/15/date-bombs/) which were indirect rejections. Lately I’ve been getting mad flaking and so have my friends. I think flaking is a reflection of attention-whore mindset, once the guy has stroked her ego enough she’ll let him go, and of course a princess complex where people are disposable means to her ends.

And they are brutal to deal with. Women need to get on top of the self-policing and fast, because every time a woman flakes she comes close to creating another converted asshole who has decided women aren’t worth the time, or are only good for sex because they can’t be trusted to keep any kind of a commitment.

Hello! I see that my story has percolated to HUS. Some notes for analysis:

1) I am 23 and have had two sexual partners. When I say “sexual partner,” I mean someone’s genitalia came into contact with my bare skin. Both partners were LTRs.
2) I do not and never have hooked up. Make out, maybe. But there ain’t no clothes coming off.

Consequent to 1 and 2, I can confidently say that if he had pushed for sex first, he’d never even get the time of day from me. I don’t do casual sex. One may argue that if he had been “alpha enough,” my panties would have dropped on the first night. Sure, maybe, for David Tennant. But David Tennant is a major outlier. Most men are not David Tennant, and never could be no matter how much they dial up the alpha/dominance/whatever manosphere term. Since they are not David Tennant, most men therefore have zero chance of casual sex with me.

Re: Beta Lawyer Kid. He is also 23. At the time we met, he had never done anything relationship-wise, by his own admission. (This includes first date, holding hands, and kissing. I gathered that everything with more physical investment than that was also a first.) He’s been in a desert of physical touch, and I did what I could to show him that he’s valuable in and of himself, that his work is valuable, and that there’s someone out there for him. It’s just not me. Entirely aside from the DLVs and overeagerness for a relationship, he wants to work in Big City, own a condo downtown, and eventually become a partner in his father’s practice in Major Suburb. I want to work in Smaller City, Different Province, live where I can actually see vibrant plant life, and eventually become a doctor in Small Tight-Knit Community. It’s really too bad for him. But it’s patently not my duty to have sex with him so that he can know he’s Gonna Be Okay.

Re: Timeline. I met him 3 weeks ago. By the end of week 1 (after a coffee date, but on the way to our first dinner date), he had asked the girlfriend question. Long story short, I said yes when I should have said slow down. Over the next two weeks, in varying settings: he offers to go grocery shopping with me instead of meeting for coffee because he “doesn’t want to waste my time,” he wants to go to a third world country with me this summer and “be an orderly so I can walk you to work because it’s too dangerous for you there,” and he says that he’s going to skip a law-student house party because he’s “off the market now.”

4 days ago: I break up with him. After I told him, he said he’d gathered the idea from how I asked to meet him. He reached into his bag and pulled out a teddy bear. He said, “I was going to give you this on Friday, but I guess I have no use for it now.” I thank him and apologize. By the time I get home, I’m pretty sure this is the Teddy Bear of Ultimate Guilt.

This may seem to be all about what he did that diminished attraction. Counterpoint: I’ve spent a lot of time elsewhere analyzing my mistakes in this sequence of events, and I won’t rehash them here unless it becomes necessary.

Happy Thanksgiving, you American folks!

One day, while we were talking, he shared with me how hard it was for him to grow up in a very rigid religious community, with two best friends who were secretly sexually active (good church boys by day, players by night–and with the same church girls, too). Not being a hypocrite like them, he watched a lot of girls he would have been a good boyfriend to reject him and fall for his friends every time. And so he spent years simultaneously loathing them and envying them, while remaining close to them and drinking in the stories of their conquests. I believe he told me all that because he knew I was religious like the girls who got played by his friends and thought I would sympathize with him for being the good guy.

I”m somewhat surprised at the castigating this guy got in follow-up comments. There is alot going on in his psyche here. Firstly, bros are bros regardless of what they do short of maybe really heinous stuff. I think loyalty to friends is definitely more of a male thing that many women don’t get.

Secondly, no doubt this guy’s base impulses were to emulate his friends. But he took his religious upbringing seriously and was perhaps very conflicted about what he was taught versus what he really wanted. It is disconcerting that doesn’t get any “credit” so to speak. Pile on top of that his confusion and negative feelings to seeing the “good churchgirls” respond to them.

Anyways, the real moral of this anecdote is for guys to be particularly guarded about what the reveal especially in the initial getting to know you stages. Truth be told, most guys are too forthright and revealing….I know in my beta days I certainly was but once you understand women and female psychology better you get a better sense of how certain things you say could convey certain interpretations. The follow-up comments are testament to that.

@Mike C
Another result of the conversation, and again, this isn’t speculation on my part, this is straight from the horses mouth so to speak, that some women/many women? ultimately do settle down with good provider types that they feel either little or no attraction to whatsover.

You will not find many who will disagree with you on that.

Jumping in way late after rapidly skimming comments…but this is interesting because either:

1. It is inaccurate that it has ZERO value or

2. Someone must be profoundly stupid to repeatedly engage in something that has ZERO value for them, or in fact actually has negative value

Susan gave a response, but that response was fitting for the person who knowingly goes into a P&D situation.

However, there are a lot of women/girls who unknowingly get P&D-ed either naively, through deception, or through “lies of omission”. When a guy retells that story, often, he is not going to be completely honest about the ways he deceived to get sex, because it’s considered pretty crummy to do so. So there’s a lot of wordplay that makes someone seem like they understood the situation fully and agreed to it, when in reality, there was greater or lesser deceit involved.

There will always be a minority of women who will be down for anything, but if guys straight out said “I just want sex now I have no intention of continuing contact afterwards” you’d see a drastic change.

@Jesus #499

I’d love to. Is it too much to ask for that it be with someone I care about? If i just wanted to get my rox off, i will rub one out, or throw a bill at a woman to have her pull it out for me. More to the point, for me to really enjoy sex, i really need to care about who im with. The drive to please, to be a casanova if you will, is 50% of the appeal of sex for me. I don’t think i’ll get that from a hookup.

Besides.. i’m still waiting to finalize my divorce. Counting down the weeks.

Mike,

Here’s the thing.

1. Your soon-to-be ex sounds like a shit head. Why wait for the divorce papers? Show up at the house with a woman and have crazy sex while she’s alone watching David Letterman in the other room.

2. If you really, really don’t want sex with a woman you don’t care about, then let sluts be sluts and be content with who you are. Don’t frame yourself as the one who was a “have not” when you were a kid. You were a “have.” You had decency and respect and integrity. If a girl was willing to blow some douche bag for attention, then she is the one who grew up as a “have not.” Long story short, value what you have (and had) rather than regretting the things you don’t (and didn’t).

@ Saywhaaat

I don’t discout the need for the tingle. It is very important for a relationship.

Its also the ONLY thing thats important for a hook up. If you follow ONLY the tingle then expect to be P&D’d. You went for what you wanted (sex) and then blame the guy for not committing and call him a liar. Doesn’t make logical sense. Sex is not worthy of commitment.

Maybe I run with a different crowd I don’t think most of my buds would stoop that low. They might do some stupid shit but outright lying is typically seen as next to hiring a prostitute.

I would think these kind of guys are rare.

I don’t know why men insist on stating what kind of men are rare. Unless you date men, you have no idea. You only know what the males you know decide to share, you don’t actually know what happens.

If you’re going to lay the blame solely at the feet of women, then why do you expect anyone to have empathy for what men endure? Everyone for him/her self and whatever goes wrong is your own fault. Problem solved all around.

@Mike

I like ice cream. I get a tingle when i taste it. I eat healthy food, because i don’t want to turn into a cow.

Are you saying that attraction is no better than junk food? If you mean “attraction skills”–or the more gimmicky elements of pick up artistry (which women have their own version of as well)–then I’d agree with you. But attraction itself seems to be an entire food group in the nutrition pyramid of romantic relationships. Why else are women told to keep the weight down after marriage?

whenever tingle gets into the conversation, it seems that it rules over common sense and leads so many women off a cliff, and it’s not that they don’t know that they’re doing it, they simply justify it to themselves as something that shouldn’t be overcome.

If you mean women who choose sexy jerks over not-so-sexy decent guys (especially those they are married to), then, yes, they’re shallow and selfish. But the original scope of this digression was whether or not a woman should continue dating a man she has decided she is not attracted to. Would he want that?

As I’ve said earlier, women likely feel just as guilty about rejecting a man for want of a “tingle” as the men here seem to think they should. That’s why we have rationalizations like, “He was too needy” or “He was acting like a creep” (obviously I can’t write good satire, sorry), when there was probably nothing wrong with the guy except that he wasn’t attractive to the woman he was courting. It just seems more honest for her to say that she just was not attracted to him. That’s a good enough reason in the dating stage, despite being the worst sort of excuse after a couple is already married.

Malia,

According to this post a few weeks back, 56% of guys in bars would fake interest in the girl and 44% of guys would fake interest in a relationship to secure sex, so not far. I’m lost on the “in bars” part though. I know it’s a key venue in the SMP but I don’t know if it’s actually a skanky place to meet someone (as opposed to clubs?). There’s a difference between bars and clubs right? IDK, I stick to social circles and avoid both so my word is shaky. Thought you’d find it interesting anyway.

@Byron 4:27

I was actually referring to something entirely different, namely why it is so “wrong” for a woman to stop dating a man if she finds him unattractive.

@Lokland

If the fact that you can get burned scares you in some way, please go back to your play pen.

Well, of course the possibility of being burned is frightening. (I speak as someone who has a very literal burn scar on her leg.) It’s true that bad things happening are a part of life, but your own metaphor casts men as housebreakers and women as householders who are obligated to lock their doors.

So no matter how much screening a woman does, even to the point that her own father will vouch for the man, if he still ends up deceiving her, her faith in him (supposedly a good thing) will be a mark against her while his lies to her (traditionally a bad thing) will not be a mark against him.

Query?

“up until the point where I mentioned the V-card.”

Are we talking a valentines day card or virginity?

All kidding aside, I could only dream to end up going out with a virgin. I’d relish the opportunity to teach her about the wonders of her sexuality and all the pleasures to be derived from. Both for her own physical and emotional enjoyment, and as a blank canvas to learn everything about me that makes me tick sexually, with no preconceived ‘i thought all guys like that’ nonsense. Sex is about mutual exploration, not mindless assumptions.

Why others are running away from it I haven’t the foggiest.

@Mike
I’d relish the opportunity to teach her about the wonders of her sexuality and all the pleasures to be derived from. Both for her own physical and emotional enjoyment, and as a blank canvas to learn everything about me that makes me tick sexually, with no preconceived ‘i thought all guys like that’ nonsense. Sex is about mutual exploration, not mindless assumptions.

This is one of those things men really enjoy with women, introducing her to sex, however they are rarity now. I always want to enjoy the emotional enjoyment of introducing my LTR to this, but i guess being a beta, the reverse will happen.

@ Susan

Totally get what you’re saying about dominance and female attraction. But the things you cosigned were things that could very easily cross over into controlling or abusive. When I look at “what makes sense” I think about how it would typically play out under most circumstances, not how it may play out under idealistic circumstances, with the right guy, who is great in all these other ways.

Even if you say that is only for you and only your opinion, you have a platform and it is presumed that you speak for others (or else why would people bother reading). You’re, (based on your platform) giving tacit approval to certain behaviors in men that really end up playing out problematically rather than being attractive.

THEORETICAL QUESTION TOSSED OUT TO THE ORDER:

How many onanisms equal a loss of virginity? C’mom, there has to e a formula. You people are so serious.

@MikeC

Just curious, whose position is this? I know of only one commenter who has potentially implied this. This certainly isn’t my view. A woman should not date a man she finds unattractive. It isn’t fair to her OR the guy. The intractable math problem here though that I am growing increasingly convinced of is that female 5-6s basically don’t find their male counterpart 5-6s attractive at all. Not sure how you solve that one.

It was my understanding of Esau’s comment at 486, reinforced by (the other) Mike at 505.

The context was stories Ribbon Butterfly and I shared about men who killed attraction in the courtship stage by doing things that weren’t inherently bad. We both rejected them for it (and in case it wasn’t clear, both felt bad about it). Esau said that what we did wasn’t “respectable” and Mike said that the “tingle” is simply the worst excuse to use for bad behavior. This is where I took issue because I don’t think what RB and I did counts as bad behavior, while the only alternative, which was to continue seeing men we weren’t attracted to, would have been even less respectable.

I believe there was also someone else who said that if we excused women for rejecting men who don’t get them attracted, then we should excuse men for betraying their partners whenever they feel attracted to someone else, but I can’t find that comment again. I thought that was a bit much, when RB only knew her guy for several weeks and I hadn’t even gone on a date with my own guy.

Having said that, your question about whether she and I compounded our respective situations by holding men in our league to the standards of a league we’d never be able to play in, is fair. (I think Deti implied something similar in the Badger thread where RB first shared her story.) But even if we did, it’s as much an intractable math problem to me as it is to you–which I’ve admitted a couple of times in this thread as well.

@Susan
There are many female virgins, though not as many as male virgins, at least in college. Still, nearly 40%….

This is a real challenge for me since I am not in YP category, left college. The only thing that i accept the fact that I lost the opportunity to date while in grad school, can’t change that now.

26 Escoffier wrote:

I’ve written this elsewhere but it’s worth repeating: one of THE major goals of feminism and the SR has been to smash and shame the male desire for a virgin or at least very low count GF/wife.

SR = Sexual release ?

/ Kari Keeper-of-Acronyms

@ 564 Kari Hurtta December 31, 2011 at 3:16 pm ;

New Year on here.

Drinking cava.