Alpha Status

Obama and Bush Are the Same Person

2011-04-03T02:57:00.000-07:00

I wrote this email to a friend earlier tonight. Shared here for your amusement:

I can't believe we're in another fucking war in another fucking Muslim country. What kind of crazy fetish does our government have? Was there a single regular American who wanted this war? No. It's only the DC policy-makers who ever thought this was a good idea. I'm seriously wondering what the difference between Obama and GW Bush is. One wants universal health care controlled by the government while the other wanted upper class tax cuts and school testing? Is that seriously the only difference? One is brown and half-Kenyan and the other is pale and a fake-Texan... is that all? What in God's name are we doing flying jets over Libya and bombing? I have to believe that if anyone other than Obama was ordering this (imagine if John McCain was ordering the same action), people would be out in the streets protesting left and right. All the lefties are huge hypocrites as far as I see it. They don't really care about war, they only want to rag on the "bad guys".... if their own guy does the exact same thing, they look the other way. It really makes me see how much politics is all about tribe. Red tribe versus blue tribe. Both tribes hate the other tribe. Each tribe defines itself as being NOT THE OTHER TRIBE. But the actual content of your own tribe-leader's actions apparently don't matter. War in Libya for no apparent reason? Sure! As long as that privileged Yale frat boy Bush isn't the one ordering the bombings, it's somehow this magical freedom project and we are "helping democracy." Barack Obama is black and a Democrat, so it's totally cool when he starts a war for no reason at all. Poor children who get bombed in Iraq are considered American war crimes (which I agree they are); but poor children who get bombed in Libya are just regrettable, unintended consequences, and Barack Obama is still some magical beautiful angel? Both sides disgust me utterly.... Republicans and Democrats. I knew George W. Bush didn't have an ounce of regular humanity in his body; I'm pretty sure Barack Obama doesn't either. But all the "YES WE CAN" people around me seem not to notice, because their team is winning right now. They don't really care about dying children; they just want the blue team to beat the red team. Shameful.

A guy burned a Koran in America and several dozen people were killed in Afghanistan in response. The proof that "Islam is a religion of peace" is apparently to kill innocent people. Way to prove your point, asshole Muslims. And apparently the best way to "encourage democracy" in Libya, Iraq, and Afghanistan, is to bomb the fuck out of the people living there. Way to go, America.

Our country has exactly two neighbors. One is completely and utterly harmless, and has always been a loyal and trustworthy friend, and shares basically the same culture as us, with some minor humorous variations (Canada). The other neighbor, Mexico, is a bit more different. It's culturally and linguistically different. It's poorer than we are, and as a result we have issues with Mexico about immigration and trade. But our only war with Mexico was more than a hundred years ago. Despite some very important and serious issues between the US and Mexico, it's clearly a basically friendly country. Our messed-up step-brother to the south. No one thinks Mexico or Canada is literally going to invade the USA (other than the band Rush, William Shatner, and George Lopez). France and Germany are best friends these days, and they have the oldest record of killing each other of any two countries in the world. As recently as 60 years ago, they were at each other's throats. So the idea that the USA and Mexico have "ancient rivalries" is true but also really, really retarded. There's no reason we can't just get over it. Mexico is not an enemy to us.

We have *no* military enemies. NONE. If any country in the history of the world wanted to just chill out, and spend time and money developing the well-being of its own citizens, it should be the modern USA. We have absolutely no reason to fuck around in international wars except out of our own choosing.

Our conventional military is huge and basically unbeatable. We have the world's dominant nuclear stockpile. No one fucks with our strategic allies (NATO countries, Australia, Japan).... no one would even ever *dream* of fucking with them, not even Russia, not even China. They know the USA is a big, bad, ass-kicking military motherfucker. It's the safest major power in the history of the world, and we happen to live in it. There is *zero* threat of foreign invasion. We are extremely lucky for our geography, but that's the way it is. We have as enemies: two huge oceans and two friendly neighbors.

So why... why... WHY... on EARTH.... are we involved now in a military engagement in fucking LIBYA??? What the hell??? What are we doing in Iraq? What are we doing in Afghanistan? FUCKING AFGHANISTAN!!! The whole Michael Moore plot line about petroleum and corporate profits is not wrong. It's true. But it does not have the explanatory power that neo-Marxist thinkers want it to have. There's something else going on. At some point we have to admit it's just the fucking government. The Kings of America. George Bush and David Frum and Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. It's a lust for power. It's just like the old Roman emperors. They fuck with other people just because they can. I mean, the anti-Khadaffi forces in Libya are OPENLY supporting Al Qaeda. The people who most openly want to murder us and blow up our intestines. They openly admit they are extremist Islamists. And we are helping them??? Why??? Apparently in the name of "democracy," we must empower these shitheads. It makes me batty.

I don't think there's some big conspiracy. I don't think Obama is a secret Muslim or some such nutty theory. But I also don't think the conventional university professor theories work either. The basic boring theory that is taught to every single college student in America, like the manufacture of chicken mcnuggets, is that it's all about exploitation and corporations and oil. Certainly, the powerful exploit the weak. Welcome to Planet Earth. But that simply leaves too many gaps to explain the way things are now. I think that basically Americans are mad. Not mad-angry, but mad-insane. We have this insane theory that every society on earth has to be like our own, and if they don't act like us, they have to be either bombed or immigrated to the USA. So if Mexico is not like the USA, we need to get more Mexicans in the USA. And if the country is too far away and too small, like Libya, well then bomb the motherfuckers until they start acting like Americans. This is where Bush and Obama are basically the same guy. The whole world must act like Americans or else. It's absolutely insane. It's a religion, except there is no salvation and no grace and no beauty and no God. Only the ugly side of religion: eternal feelings of sinful guilt and eternal religious wars. "We must repent of our sinfulness by bombing Libya." Fucking nuts! Totalitarian humanism. Count me out, dude.

I Hate The New York Times With Every Bone In My Body

2011-04-01T01:22:00.001-07:00

Gahhhhh!!!

These fucking people! Everything is fucking twee! Everything is a fucking lifestyle choice. God!

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/31/fashion/31Typewriter.html

For the record, I compose all my long pieces on a typewriter. If I feel like editing them or sharing them online, I scan or retype them in digital format.

The third most-emailed article on the NYTimes website, as of March 31. Just look at that URL: Backslash FASHION backslash TYPEWRITER.

And I quote:

“I’m in love with all of them,” said Louis Smith, 28, a lanky drummer from Williamsburg. Five minutes later, he had bought a dark blue 1968 Smith Corona Galaxie II for $150. “It’s about permanence, not being able to hit delete,” he explained. “You have to have some conviction in your thoughts. And that’s my whole philosophy of typewriters.”

These people have NO FUCKING SOULS.

Die die die. Die in hell. Choke on your twee fucking "lifestyle choices."

Assholes.

Fear of Flying

2011-03-21T08:04:00.000-07:00

Have you ever been afraid of something that you knew was harmless? I've never been afraid of rats or spiders, or speaking in public, or getting in fights. I am afraid of heights sometimes; when I lean over the railing of a freeway overpass, I get vertigo and have to step away from the edge. It doesn't matter if I'm in a situation where I wish to be looking tough, or if I am feeling otherwise happy or carefree... it doesn't matter. I still get a rapid heartbeat and feel light-headed.

A lot of people have a fear of flying. Smart people. They know perfectly well that flying is orders of magnitude safer than driving. It's probably even safer than walking, depending on how you measure these things. One might as well have a fear of being struck by lightning in broad daylight. And yet, as the engines power up and the plane turns the corner on the tarmac, first in line for takeoff, hands grip the armrests with knuckles white and stomach queasy.

Flying is unnatural. Getting inside a big aluminum tube and jetting quite suddenly up to several hundred miles an hour and leaving the surface of the earth and ascending to a height five or six miles : this is not "natural." So it's not crazy at all to feel a quaver in your stomach.

Now I personally happen to love flying. I'm one of those people that enjoys turbulence. It feels like Disneyland to me. And when a big jumbo jet is ladling itself belly-down at landing, and a gust of wind makes it rock and dip like a baby's cradle, I get a big smile on my face. I just think jets are cool, I guess.

Still, I can't claim I've never felt afraid in a plane. Small planes in Africa or South America can be pretty dodgy. And most people have had at least one flight in a jumbo jet that was pretty freaky. When the jet drops a dozen feet in a split second, it's hard not to grip the arm-rails.

***

Even the most practiced players get a little knot of stomach-quease from time to time when approaching a smoking hot girl.

It's simply not natural to see a pretty girl that you've never seen and then start talking to her out of the blue. What I mean by "not natural" is that it never happened in the ancestral environment of humans, and it almost never happened even after the dawn of civilization. Most people lived hunter-gatherer lives, until the point at which most people lived agricultural lives. In neither case did one suddenly see a beautiful, fertile woman that one had never seen before.

Approaching a woman and getting shot down can be fatal for a man who lives in a band of 50 people, or a village of 300. The damage it does to one's status and reputation could scare away potential friends and potential mates. When your body gets all clammy or tight when you try to approach a beautiful girl, that's perfectly natural. That's your body, trained by generations of living in small groups, telling you to eject, eject!

But just because something isn't "natural" doesn't mean it isn't good. Airline travel is not "natural" either. And you can get pretty damn far by overcoming your fear of flying. A journey that took months by wagon, or 7 days by car, can be over in one evening. You can go places you could never have gone without the plane, if you just bite the bullet, get on board, and strap in.

If you overcome your fear of approaching a beautiful woman, you can do and see and achieve things that would never be possible if you had heeded your merely physical sensations of anxiety. It's natural to feel uncomfortable, just like it's natural to feel uncomfortable in an airplane. But you're a man and you suck it up and reap the rewards.

One of the biggest lies is that players never feel nervous or anxious. Not true. Players simply know how to confront their own fears, face them down, and reap the rewards. If you want to be a true master, you will learn to enjoy the fear. The fear tells you that you're doing something. You're going somewhere. People who sit on the ground don't feel the fear of flying. Only people who fly feel that sensation. If you feel the fear, the anxiety, the nervousness... you're on the right track.

Eventually, you come to enjoy the feeling. It's still vaguely traceable back to its roots as anxiety, but it becomes more of a thrill, more of a feeling of excitement, more of a rush. Like when my plane is rocking around in the air madly and I have a shit-eating grin on my face, because it's actually pretty fun.

You want to be that man with women.

What the Hell?

2011-03-14T17:20:00.000-07:00

This is either deadly serious or completely tongue-in-cheek.

What on earth was this graffiti "artist" implying with this?

Girl on the Train #2 (with guest appearance by Crack Lady)

2011-03-08T09:04:00.002-08:00

Sitting across from me, a mediocre-looking white girl, about age 27. A black lady, a crackhead, got on the train and hung to the pole between us. She was a textbook crackhead, complete with sunken cheeks, hollowed-out eyes, and powdery lips.

Fidgeting and knitting her fingers over and over on the metal of the pole, the crackhead called out in a creaky voice, "Anyone please help me with some money so I can get some food for my baby." She rattled it off with the practice of someone who has said the exact same line thousands of times, though she still managed to slur the words together.

Again, exactly the same she called out: "Anyone please help me with some money so I can get some food for my baby."

Nobody reacted. The white girl glanced up and looked around at the rest of us, as if in despair and disdain. She dug into her purse and took out a bill and handed it to the crackhead. The lady muttered thank you and waddled on down the car. The white girl looked after her with an exaggerated look of "compassion." It was as if she was witnessing herself being "kind," and was also conscious that other people were witnessing her being "kind."

She sighed wistfully, then picked up her book again and frowned in exaggerated concentration. The book was Savage Inequalities, by Jonathan Kozol (who can be seen publicly trumpeting his own hunger-strike here).

I went back to my book.

The crackhead, presumably, went off to get high.

Girl on the Train

2011-03-07T08:20:00.000-08:00

New York City. I'm sitting on the uptown 1-train on a Saturday morning. A pretty girl comes in and sits down directly across from me. I take note of her, but it's really nothing worth more than a glance. I go back to my book. Pretty girls on the train in New York City are literally all around you. If you took a train from the far end of Brooklyn to the far end of the Bronx, on a single car of that train, at least 5 pretty girls between age 20 and age 30 will get on and off. Sometimes, depending on the train and the time of day, it can be upwards of 20 girls. I'm talking all 7's, 8's, 9's and even the occasional 10. (Of the honest-to-goodness, real-life 10's that I have interacted with in my life, at least 50% were in New York City, though I've spent less than 10% of my life there.)

When I glance back up at my surroundings a couple of stops later, my glance takes note of the pretty girl again, and this time something makes me pause. It's her expression.

Her dead-eyed, miserable expression.

She was about 22 or 23, though it was hard to tell because she wore a quilted black jacket with a deep hood pulled down over her forehead like Emperor Palpatine's cloak. Her ethnicity was hard to peg, too. At first glance I assumed she was Russian or Ukrainian. She had light hair — though it could have been dyed, of course — and light eyes. But her skin had an olive tinge to it, and she had big, shapely lips that made me think she maybe had some Central Asian mixed in (like Mongolian or Kazakh or something... not that far-fetched for a Ukrainian girl). Another glance and I could have sworn she was mixed Anglo and Puerto Rican. A lot of Puerto Ricans have light colored eyes, and with a little white blood in her and a trip to the hair salon... voila, we have this girl on the train. In any case, it was a bit ambiguous.

Nothing ambiguous about her beauty, though. The point is not her ethnicity, but rather her beauty. She had perfect skin, a lovely-shaped nose, and big eyes, and a sensuous mouth. Her jacket was too bulky for me to really get a good look at her body, but from her jeans I could see she had nice curves and no extra fat. My personal ranking for her would have been an 8 — a possible 9, pending a better look at her. In any case, easily in the top 5% of good-looking women in the world. An elite club.

And this pretty, pretty girl, looked so miserable. It wasn't sadness or physical pain. She didn't look like someone who had just suffered a death in the family, or who was dealing with a debilitating or fatal disease. These things can of course happen to anyone, including hot girls, and they can make anyone feel horrible inside.

No, her expression and body-language betrayed something else. I can only describe it as complete inner deadness. Here eyes were lidded heavily over, but she didn't look sleepy at all. Her pretty mouth was curled ever-so-slightly into an indifferent sneer... not the sneer of the bitch who thinks she is too good for the world, mind you. It was more like a mask of total, empty indifference. She looked like if you hit her with a hammer, it would bounce off with a dull clang, and no change at all in her expression.

For a moment, our eyes met. I've never seen someone look away so quickly. Lightning fast, before I even realized we were looking at each other, she looked away, back at the empty seats. Immediately she glazed over again. Glazed; that's the best word I can come up to describe this girl.

So miserable and dead and empty did this girl seem to me that I started working my mind, trying to come up with reasons for her to be like that. I ran through the usual list of things that make people unhappy, like the circumstances I listed above: sickness, grieving, tiredness. Plus: heartbreak, poverty, boredom. But nothing seemed to fit with this woman. Boredom might have come the closest, but there was an ugly desperation in her emptiness that went beyond mere boredom or stupidity.

I came up with a wild scenario. Perhaps she was a Russian sex slave, imported by a mobster who promised her the good life in America. And she got here only to find herself repeatedly raped and abused. But a girl like that would probably not be allowed to ride the train by herself on a Saturday morning like that. It's quite possible, though, that she was a sexual moll of some kind. Maybe a low-class call-girl on her way home after a night with her johns in Manhattan (she got on in Manhattan and the train was Bronx-bound). That kind of thing could make a human dead inside, to be sure.

But what inspired me to write about it wasn't the sick fun of speculating about the misery of this pretty, young girl. It was another thought I had: what are the chances that this girl could ever be so stone-faced and miserable in a non-feminist, non-liberal society?

Surely, young women suffered in "olden times." Humans of all kinds have suffered in all times and in all places. (One of the more laughable assumptions that SWPL liberals make is that misery can somehow be eliminated permanently from the human condition... if only those evil rednecks would get out of the Magic Obama's way!) But it's nearly impossible for me to imagine this expression on a pretty young woman's face in a small, medieval, agricultural village.

Let's assume she is Ukrainian. Born 500 years ago with the same body and features (assuming that nutrition and medicine went smoothly in her life... a big assumption, I know, but this is a thought experiment so play along), she would have been the princess of her village. She might have been married off at age 14 or at age 20... I don't know medieval Ukrainian traditions and I'm too lazy to look them up. She might not have loved her husband very much or at all. Maybe he was some thick-fingered, bad-smelling, old drunk bastard. Maybe he would even have beaten her sometimes.

Of course, this is a worst-case scenario, based mainly on the feminist interpretation of history, in which all women were perfect angels and all men horrible, abusive brutes. Anyone who actually thinks this is welcome to go and actually read some historical documents from those times and visit some of the few remaining traditional, agricultural villages in the modern world. When you see how straightforward and, yes, fair these places can be to their denizens, try not to let the mental whiplash damage your neck muscles.

It's equally plausible she could have been very happy with her husband. She might have had 8 children in life, of whom, say, 5 survived birth and childhood. As she aged and her beauty faded, she would become a respected member of the matriarchal class, shaping the lives of her children, caring for her husband and being cared for in return. When she died, she would have been buried next to her ancestors, and people would still remember her and tell stories about her and put flowers on her grave. Her own granddaughter — another beautiful young girl, let us imagine — might have a keepsake of hers on her own mantelpiece.

But in neither situation, happy marriage or unhappy, can I imagine such dead-to-the-world eyes. It's more or less unthinkable.

There's one other possibility I haven't mentioned, of course: drugs. This girl could have been completely fucked up on heroin or God knows what. I fully accept that this was a possibility. Honestly, she just didn't look that strung out, and her eyes didn't have that glassy cracked-out look, either. Her skin was soft and rich, and there were no bags under her eyes and no other indicators of drug abuse. But I guess it's possible she just started getting fucked up recently, and still retained her physical health even as the drugs were allowing her to mentally check out.

Still, it's a moot point. Pretty young girls don't become junkies because they feel happy and fulfilled and loved. They don't become junkies because they feel they fit into their world in a profound way. No one every lit a crack pipe out of humility, gratitude, or deep inner happiness.

The last thing I want to say is also obvious. Many people these days have the same expression as that pretty girl on the 1-train. Middle-aged business men, single mothers, teenage kids staring blankly at their iPhones. I don't have hard evidence that this kind of soul-death is strictly limited to our own times, and it seems to me an overly broad assertion. History is richer and deeper than even the most dedicated student of mankind can fathom.

But there was something so poignant, and at depth, evil, about seeing this pretty girl so dead to the world. It makes a man think. Or at least it should.

The Crowd is Untruth

2011-03-05T20:42:00.000-08:00

There is a view of life which holds that where the crowd is, the truth is also, that it is a need in truth itself, that it must have the crowd on its side. There is another view of life; which holds that wherever the crowd is, there is untruth, so that, for a moment to carry the matter out to its farthest conclusion, even if every individual possessed the truth in private, yet if they came together into a crowd (so that "the crowd" received any decisive, voting, noisy, audible importance), untruth would at once be let in.

—Søren Kierkegaard, The Crowd is Untruth, 1847

18-year-old Honduran Girls

2011-03-04T09:42:00.000-08:00

Couple weeks back I was in Central America again. All week I was quite busy with work, and working mainly in a small town (an ex-United Fruit Company banana town... those are interesting places these days). It was nice enough, a pleasing amount of hard, interesting work to do, but not so much as to be exhausting. After work each day we raided the coconut trees for yellow coconuts, which we drank dry (about a liter of liquid), then cracked open to eat the soft flesh inside. That's a meal in itself.

But after five days of that, of that and the sunlight and the motorbikes going by on the roads nearby, it was nice to be back in a larger city, where there was a dance club next to the hotel.

In Latin America (in the cities, at least), it's perfectly normal to go up to girls and start dancing with them. Of course, this can be done in the US, too, but there's just a different feel to it down south. You can casually dance with a girl, then with a different girl, then back to the first, then to a third one. And they don't get all defensive and bitchy; nor do they get slutty and embarrassingly drunk.

The music at the club was atrocious, of course. But after a couple beers you barely notice. A pretty young thing kept making eye contact with me at the bar — or rather she kept looking back at me after she seemed unable to process the way I calmly stared her down when we first noticed each other). (Repeat after me: eye contact, eye contact, eye contact). I waited for an opening and went and talked to her. She and four girlfriends were out with two guy friends. That's five girls, all attractive, all between the ages of 18 and 22, with two guys with them.

The guys were slightly wary of me, but basically cool and friendly. They didn't mind me dancing with their girls. I noted that one particular guy was really into one particular girl, and so I mentally wrote off that girl and danced with her only very loosely and casually — signaling that I wasn't going to move in on his territory. No sense into getting into some cock-size confrontation with a perfect stranger when there were so many delicious gazelles on the savannah.

"Casual" dancing of course means dancing very closely, hands on each other's hip or side or lower back. If it's been a while since you fucked an 18 or 19 year old girl — or even danced with one — it's hard to describe just how intoxicating they are. Even an average-looking girl that age is a pleasure to be around. An actual beauty can be such a powerful presence it knocks you off your game. Her smell alone is dizzying.

Of course, one easy way to avoid being knocked off your game is to be surrounded by such creatures. Not just the five in the little group of friends I made, but of course assorted others all over the club. Don't get me wrong. Not all the girls in the club were attractive. There were some heifers, and some of those freakishly overly made-up girls you see in Central America. But the general atmosphere was quite nice, ladies-wise.

One girl named Rosanita danced with me for over an hour. She was slender but not skinny, with a little layer of female softness over her hip-curves. She had a smallish chin and big eyeballs that made her look a little like a Disney princess in a charming way. When we danced, she got very close and moved very well, but she looked elsewhere, side-to-side with a pouty expression. I can't think of a nicer way to spend an hour of one's life than dancing late at night, mildly intoxicated, with a girl like that.

Well.. ok, I can think of one thing.

When Mystery talked about the "Secret Society" made up of hot women and guys with game, he was talking mainly about getting laid. But there's a whole beautiful set of moments and emotions and experiences that go along with it. Being someone who lives life to the fullest, who spends time with beautiful women (and yes, has sex with them), comes with a thousand little moments that are lovely in their own right.

The hard work, the warmth and sunlight, the coconuts at the end of the day — all this was part of the texture that led up to Saturday night and the cold beers and the warm señoritas.

When I got off the plane in Houston the next day, I looked around and wondered how many of the people around me had enjoyed — truly enjoyed — their Saturday nights. Not to mention the other 6 days and nights of the week.

AF

Dehumanized

2011-03-03T10:46:00.001-08:00

Passing through security this morning at SFO (a particularly Soviet-style security regime in that particular city), I felt for a moment the intense dehumanization and strangeness of the whole farce. A crowd of white passengers being waved through, berated, treated like garbage, ignored, and intimidated by a staff of non-white "security professionals." (there was not a single white person among the 20 or so TSA employees).

A huge, sweaty, fat Latin man joked around with his buddies instead of looking at the x-ray screen he was supposed to be monitoring. Meanwhile the line of people got longer and longer. Of course, no one dared to say a word. We were all completely cowed, like castrated mongrel dogs begging to be let inside. I went through the new body-scanner where a hugely fat black lately rudely directed me with hand motions without even deigning to look me in the eye.

Putting my belt and shoes back on, feeling a bit flustered and angry about the whole thing, I took a deep breath and looked up at the light streaming through the skylights in the terminal (not everything about SFO is terrible). Though the whole thing is dehumanizing and infuriating, there's nothing anyone can actually do to dehumanize me. I'm untouchable.

It is the TSA people themselves that turn into non-humans through their constantly engaging in their petty power, their lack of dedication and kindness, and their participation in a basically corrupt, absurd system.

Sitting down to eat my breakfast, waiting for my flight to New York, I notice I have a metal spoon, a metal fork, and a plastic knife. What a strange time to be alive.

This Charming Young Lady is the Future of America

2011-02-28T08:10:00.000-08:00

What a lovely world we live in. I can't think of a single reason a man would want to move out of the country and date foreign women...

<a href="http://www.bing.com/videos/browse?mkt=en-us&from=en-us_msnhp&vid=24217faa-4823-4f2a-9b9e-12673836acaa&from=en-us&fg=dest" target="_new" title="Little Girl Needs A Job">Video: Little Girl Needs A Job</a>

It's so nice to know the natural sweetness of children can be sucked from their beings as young as five years old. Who needs all that pesky normality and humanity when we can have empowerment?

Good luck, America.

Even With a Part of a Woman's Body

2011-02-26T10:30:00.000-08:00

"A man will fall in love with some beauty, with a woman's body, or even with a part of a woman's body (a sensualist can understand that), and he'll abandon his own children for her, sell his father and mother, and his country, Russia, too. If he's honest, he'll steal; if he's humane, he'll murder; if he's faithful, he'll deceive."

--Fyodor Dostoevsky. The Brothers Karamazov. (1880)

Stealth One-itis

2011-02-24T19:18:00.000-08:00

Once I talked to a really cute girl at a grocery store. She was my checker, and I had a lot of items, a random assortment of truly odd things I was buying. I was buying them for an unusual project, and I joked with her and teased her a bit trying to make her guess what it was. Eventually I told her and she had the "Wow you get paid to do that?" reaction I was going for. What a sweet, pretty girl.

Thing is, I was just visiting that town, and was in fact on my way out of town. I wasn't even thinking of getting her number. I was just enjoying a fun conversation with a pretty, young woman. (If you don't already live your life this way, incidentally, my question to you is: why not?)

This girl made quite an impression on me, though I didn't realize it at the time. It was her eyes, I think. Anyway, a few days later I was working on a story, and this girl's face came to my mind as clear as day, as the face of the female character in the story. So as I wrote, I kept picturing, and then describing in detail, her face. And not just that, but the way she moved, the way she laughed... and I made up all kinds of details about her, of course. She became a character, and the character I created was charming, and beautiful. I wrote about her day after day, and even described sex scenes between her and the male protagonist.

Much to my surprise — back at my day job — I found myself back in the same town, back at the same store, a month and a half later. I certainly remembered the girl that worked there. I spied her when I was headed to the check out counter. She must have spied me too, because she was acting as the floating bagger, moving from register to register according to perceived need, and she was definitely at my register when I came to the front of the line.

I joked around with the old guy who was ringing me up as she stood there and put things in my bag. (Never underestimate the power of letting a girl do things for you, whether it's her job or not.) After a few moments I locked eyes with her. "Aren't you that guy who [does that one weird job]?" she asked me. "I remember you."

I smiled and chatted her up a little as she finished bagging my things. She left the register before I was done paying and when I walked to the exit, she followed me pushing a stack of carts. I turned around and intercepted her at the parking lot, and asked her out for a drink. She said yes and I asked for her number.

"Oh that's a problem. I don't just give my number out."

______time out______

Pop Quiz.

What should Master Dogen have done?

A) Given her my number instead.

B) Told her that was too bad, and walked off.

C) Told her maybe I'd see her around then.

D) Told her I don't give my number out either, and that we were at an impasse, and smiled.

______time in_______

The correct answer is D). Or if you have a better idea, leave it in the comments. I should have said I didn't give my number out either. Or I should have said, "Oh you aren't giving it out. You're giving it to me." And then smiled like a cocky son of a bitch.

The worst thing that can happen is that it backfires on you and she refuses to give you her number. Big deal. It's just a girl.

But I said, "Alright" and gave her my number instead. And trying to think of something cocky to say, as I walked off, I gave her a shit-eating grin and said, "Don't forget now."

"I won't."

Ugh. Not an epic fail, but a fail nonetheless. I was actually trying, at that point, and I'm sure it came through. Letting her shoot me down and then giving her my number as soon as she asked was very beta. And then adding that needy "Don't forget!" just made it worse.

Why did I act like that? I had a sneaking fear of losing that girl. I forgot she was just a girl. Some part of myself was convinced she was really important. You see, I'd built up this girl in my mind, the same as if I had been pining over her as an actual potential serious girlfriend.

That way lies beta, my friends.

It goes to show how powerful your own mind can be over ... well, over your own mind. Even though I was just writing a story about some imagined character, using this girl's face as a template to help me imagine the character, I was subconsciously building her up in my mind. I had no conscious desire to long for this woman, but my mind didn't care. The power of imagining it was enough to train my brain into adopting a lovelorn, beta posture with her.

I know my transgression doesn't sound that bad, and indeed it really wasn't that bad. At least I chatted her up. At least I asked her out. But I was pretty disappointed in myself afterwards when I reflected on it. I don't make those kinds of basic mistakes very often. It was almost a trick of fate that it happened, but I'm glad it did because it reminded me how strong mind-conditioning can be.

I can't really endorse the Think and Grow Rich method of positive self-reinforcement. Only because the only reinforcement people feel if they read aloud to themselves some list of goals is the reinforcement of seeing themselves as weird, desperate, pathetic people who have to resort to tricks like that.

But I don't doubt that it has worked for some people. And I absolutely believe that "fake it till you make it" is a powerful philosophy. I've made it work for me not only with women, but in business, in speaking foreign languages, hell, even in playing chess. If you train yourself to believe you can do something, you will find that belief coming true very often.

On the other hand, negative training can be equally powerful. If you mope, if you pine after a certain girl, if you convince yourself you are a loser in some way or another, guess what? It comes true even faster. Nothing is more self-defeating.

Little Glories

2011-02-23T09:25:00.000-08:00

... or part two of Being Comfortable With Women.

Thalia, my lesbian roommate, knocked on my door late one night. It was nothing unusual. She seemed a little drunk. She had just come home from being out with friends, and she was wearing a smudge of dark lipstick and Cleopatra eyeliner. Her long, long hair was done up in a ponytail, and she was wearing a snug black, bare-shoulder top, and A-line skirt.

She plopped down on my bed and lit a cigarette and handed the pack over to me. I had my window open and fan on already. It was an early July New York night, already the worst swelter of summertime had set in, coating every person in that city with a fine layer of sweat and grime. — the ugly ones wear it like a grease stain; the beautiful people just seem to glow a little more. Thalia, one of the beautiful people, exhaled a long draft of smoke at the window and said at last, "Dude, I don't want you to leave here!" She always called me dude.

I had already announced to the apartment that I would be moving into my own place at the end of the month. Living with three women was something I was comfortable with, as I have explained, but the very fact of having roommates at all was always a temporary fix in my mind. I belong alone, unless the person I am not-alone with has a special invitation.

Thalia sat nearer and nearer to me as we talked. She started with jokey comments about how I was abandoning her with "those two," i.e. our other, lamer roommates. But then she tucked her chin under her knees, and started to talk about how she would miss our late night chats and smokes, how I had to promise to come see her at the bar she worked at.

She reached up in a moment of silence and slowly undid her hair, letting it fall across one shoulder. Her other shoulder glowed softly in the diffused orange light of the streetlights beyond the window. The fan hummed away with a throbbing insistence. I reached up and put my palm against the side of her head, feeling how soft her hair was, and slowly slid my hand all the way down the tress to her elbow, her locked elbow that propped up her whole body as she leant on her palm. It was like petting a horse. She blinked twice, very slowly, like in a dream, and fell forward at me, kissing me like a lover.

Thalia and I fucked on my bed that night, my crappy mattress-on-a-floor bed, with the ashtray pushed away, slid halfway across the room. With the fan droning it's one note song. With the orange light streaking Thalia's olive flesh, first her dull shine of sweat and then her running beads of sweat. With all those millions of people out there, all around us, all drenched in the same palpable summer night. I remember looking up at her and thinking she looked like a painting of Venus as she fucked me with her gyrating hips, my hands on her slick back and that long, impossible cascade of perfect hair draped over one shoulder once more, bouncing and sticking to the pouty swell of her lower abdomen.

Afterwards, she told me how long she had wanted that. I felt the same way, but I didn't tell her that of course. She said she had lobbied the other two girls to let me move in because she thought I was cute, not because I had three sisters. We lay there for a while and I lazily drew patterns on her sweat-slick back with my finger, staring out the window. She didn't need to be told to go back to her room, and after a sweet while, she got up. There was no sense in alarming the other girls at this point. Hopefully they didn't hear us (for Thalia's sake; she had to go on living there), but walking out of my room in the morning as they cooked eggs would be out of the question.

I probably don't have to tell you the lessons here. I hope it's obvious. Thalia lobbied to have me as a roommate because she was attracted to me, but she never would have done it if she didn't also feel comfortable. Indeed comfort is just as important as attraction, which is Mystery Method 101. Neither would the roommates have allowed it if they didn't also feel comfortable.

Also, Thalia had presumably heard me with other girls in there. She had certainly met a few. Never underestimate the massive power of preselection. And having her her a girl crying out in the grips of an orgasm is the equivalent of letting her see me at the bar with 20 different pretty girls on the arm.

With my moving-out impending, she realized she had nothing to lose. A few weeks of "awkwardness" (AKA sex) was worth the pay off in pleasure (AKA sex). Add together a long standing comfort, a feeling of shared secretness (our late night cigarettes), a mutual attraction, alcohol, and a lack of serious consequence and the results are practically inevitable.

I saw Thalia on a recent trip to New York. Her lesbian lover (not attractive.. seriously unattractive) and her now share the room I used to have, the room Thalia and I fucked in like sweaty animals. She's put on a little weight, not a lot, but enough to break your heart just a little. It's pretty obvious where she's headed.

I do wonder though, on a hot summer night maybe, with the fan running, as she looks past her snoring girlfriend to the window, what she thinks about.

Being Comfortable With Women Pt 1: just me and the cat

2011-02-14T06:59:00.000-08:00

After last week's little tragedy, a palate cleanser for y'all.

One of the most important things for a man to be able to do is to turn off the inner pussy-calculator. That is, turn off the horndog and interact with women — even attractive women — with no sexual overtones at all.

Hopefully, for most of you this goes without saying. Probably the first thing that springs to mind is the workplace environment. That's a dangerous place to spit game. Although, of course, a great many women are dying for you to do it; and game properly executed will decrease your chances of awkwardness and sexual harrassment suits by about 95%. [And it always helps to remember: 1) Be Handsome, 2) Be Attractive, and 3) Don't Be Unattractive.] Still, in today's climate, one can never be too careful.

Sometimes you need to turn off your inner player for the sake of your greater humanity. I suppose you could be the kind of person who is thinking about getting laid when consoling a woman over the death of her brother (or some such tragedy), but I'll pass. I get laid enough without having to stoop to being a chitinous shit-heel.

A few years ago I lived in an apartment with three women and no other males except the cat. (That cat and I used to bro down.) I grew up with three sisters and no brothers, in a pretty tight-knit family, so I don't feel strange being surrounded by females. In fact it feels quite natural to me. The girls who put out the craigslist ad mentioned that they preferred a female or a gay man but that they were "open to anyone cool."

After seeing the apartment and deciding it was where I wanted to live, I simply explained to them that I grew up with three sisters, and that living with three women seemed perfectly mundane to me. They called me the next day to offer me the room.

Now, I'm not claiming I was blind or on complete auto-pilot while I was there. The girls were a 5, a 6, and an 8, and I noticed them (especially the 8, natch). But I had already decided that I was going to live there, and the sanctity of a man's castle is worth more than a couple of blow jobs. It's a simple metric: by avoiding drama in the home, I was freeing myself to get more sex, not less. There were three women inside my city apartment; but there were approximately 4.1 million outside of it. If I was to be able to bring those girls home, I needed a home life free from drama.

All three of the girls were nice people, and easy to get along with. The 5 had a boyfriend across town and so I almost never saw her (the ideal roommate: pays the rent and is never home). The 6 was pretty uptight about her career and usually disappeared into her room at 8 pm after cooking her all-natural vegan dinner. The 8, however, was younger — about 24 — and liked to drink and hang out. I'll call her "Thalia" because her extremely long, pretty hair reminded me of a Greek muse or nymph. Women who aren't dirty hippies or club skanks with extensions rarely let their hair get as long as Thalia's was. But hers was about as lovely and silky and thick as you can imagine, and it was nearly down to her ass. Also, she was pretty.

Thalia and I became friends, often dropping by the other's room with two beers in hand, to sit and chat and smoke cigarettes out the window. We had a mutual understanding. We both liked each other, and we secretly teamed up against the other two, more uptight people in the house, though more in an esprit-de-corps kind of way than out of any real malice or bitterness. We smoked and drank beer and they didn't, so we had fun being "the bad ones." Harmless, friendly camaraderie.

I was never overtly sexual around Thalia for the reasons I just mentioned. But I do have a certain amount of natural game, mainly in the form of body language, self-confidence, and generally not caring what women think of me. So even though I never started calculating how best to game Thalia, it wouldn't be quite accurate to say I never gamed her. I just never tried.

Today's lesson is merely a reminder to keep yourself under control and keep your humanity. There are people out there who recommend you should basically be thinking about game 100% of the time. These people are assholes. They are boring to be around, and they tend to reek of desperation. Part of being attractive to women is being a well-rounded person. And part of being a well-rounded person is enjoying friendships without sex.

Since my "Little Tragedies" post was about a lesbian, I should probably mention that Thalia was also a lesbian.

But more about that in Part 2 of Being Comfortable With Women, to be subtitled, "Little Triumphs."

Being Comfortable With Women Pt 1.5: A digression on hair

2011-02-14T03:27:00.000-08:00

In my last post, I promised a post called "Little Triumphs." But I realize that that's a little too militaristic for my sentiments. And it's my freaking blog. So we're calling this "Little Glories" instead. Actually, we're calling it a digression on hair. The Little Glory is soon to come. Those of you just looking for war stories, come back in 36 hours or so.

Thalia: picture her. Young, beautiful. Not mesmerizing, not perfect, not a 10, but very beautiful. The kind of woman we should all love and appreciate. The classic 8. She had full lips, dreamy dark eyes, and a mild, constant expression of sweet irony. Her breasts were medium sized, but young and high, and she had a classic, Greek slope to her waist, hips, and thighs. No man would call her Helen. But every man I have ever met would call her beautiful, and eminently fuckable

I already mentioned her fantastic hair. Hair shouldn't be undervalued. There are reasons men like luxurious long hair. Basically, your hair is a record of your health. Hair is dead, but it comes from a living follicle. Long, beautiful hair is physical proof of something that is otherwise very difficult to prove: a record of luxurious health.

If a woman suddenly starts taking massive amount of methamphetamines, for two months, and consumes only vodka and Cheetohs in that time, her hair will grow brittle and stringy as a result. It's very rare that a woman (or man) goes from full health, to two months of meth-headedness, directly back to full health. I do not deny that this is technically possible, but I have never seen it in real life and I don't expect to see it, ever. But if it were to happen, and the woman never cut her hair, you would see a distinct band, about an inch and a half long, of stringy, nasty crap that represented her time as a meth head.

This is why men (and women) appreciate lovely hair. I actually happen to have thin hair. I'm a devillishly handsome fellow, to be sure, and my regally thin crown only screams my masculinity, but I never chose the male curse. I surely wish it was otherwise, and that I were Alec Baldwin, follicularly speaking. But actually (factoid for the day, dear readers) it is the very presence of men like me that makes men like me love long haired beauties.

There is such a thing as female baldness. And it's profoundly unattractive. There is, of course, such a thing as male baldness, and it's about 10,000 times more common than female baldness. It's somewhat attractive, to some people at least. But it's a marker of maleness, to be sure. No one ever looked at Patrick Stewart and proclaimed, "Dude looks like a lady!"

And this is why long flowing hair is generally associated with women. Some men are capable of long hair. But no woman (except the genetic reject) is capable of baldness. The male-female dynamic when it comes to hair is especially noticeable when you factor in age. A young woman, stunningly beautiful, who shaves her head, might actually still be really hot. She's like the young hipster who wears a disgusting rat's nest hairdo, relying on her youthful skin and tight body to advertise her beauty. No fifty year old woman who isn't a cancer patient would ever shave her head. Ever.

Likewise, we all can think of young men who look sexy and desirable despite their long hair. Clay Matthews or Mick Jagger or a Jonas Brother. Maybe you ladies object to one or the other of these fellows (Clay too roided out and cavemannish, Mick too preening and scrawny, Jonas too babyish), but probably it's not the hair that does it. The hair is actually kinda hot. The way super boyish hair is hot on a pretty young girl. Oh man, dont' get me started on that one girl with a buzzcut in my freshman dorm. Yowza. (Blog material! I haz it!)

But no one — NO ONE, I say — thinks long hair on a 50-something guy is hot. 50-something guys can totally be hot to younger women. But it better be money or status or game or personality. Even a nice tan. It better not be your Fabio locks, holmes. A 55 year old guy with a ponytail is exactly as hot as a 55 year old woman with a shaved head. Ick.

Why? Because baldness (short hair) is male and flowing locks is female.

Long hair is a pain in the ass, I know. I fully understand why women get sensible haircuts. I have no beef with a woman who colors her hair or goes for funky cuts or whatever. It's not easy, I know. Trust me... my genetics, awesome and scary and Viking as they are, keep me from doing every rad thing I wish I could do with my hair.

But. If you women at all have the ability to grow long hair, and if you at all can manage to grow it for a couple of years without becoming a meth-head Cheetoh-eater, my personal advice is do it. It's freaking sexy. When in doubt, grow it out, ladies.

By the way, Roissy is hit and miss these days and he's lost the automatic endorsement I used to give him. Too much crap mixed in with the gold. But he's still one of the best out there, as you all know. On the subject of hair, here's one of the single best things that ever appeared on that blog.

So then... where was I? Oh yeah! Lesbians! Sex! Fun and games. Just hang on one more post, you jackals. I'm getting there. Sex.... hair... lesbians....

First Principles

2011-02-10T17:02:00.001-08:00

I hadn't written anything about sex for public consumption in a long time. When I posted something last weekend, I was happy to see it got an immediate response. People always appreciate well-written, thoughtful commentary on the issues they are most interested in.

Amazing at it seems, I forgot about the flip side to the positive response... the hater. The hater is everywhere, of course, not just in blog comment sections. And I don't particularly hate the hater, as the hater is part of the grand ecosystem of the world. He's like the cockroach. The cockroach is disgusting and lives in the nooks and crannies, feeding off of garbage and old food. No one likes to see the cockroach. But the cockroach is not bad, in the sense of evil. I mean, someone has to eat all that trash, right?

Also, the hater, like the cockroach, comes with certain territory. When I'm on the West Coast, I don't see our friend the cockroach so much. When I'm in New York, he's a more constant companion.

Likewise, if I were to write on something anodyne, like gourmet hipster chocolate bars, probably the hate wouldn't flow (unless I wrote as acerbicly and hilariously as the blogger over at Die Hipster). Or if I picked a mainstream topic and endorsed the official, mainstream, correct opinion. (Example topic: Egypt. Example of proper official mainstream opinion to have: "Oh those freedom fighters are so courageous!")

But if I write about sex relations, and if I write honestly, I can expect the haters to come, occasionally. 11minutes and I tend not to write with too much bitterness or venom. I generally avoid insults for the sake of insults. Occasionally, something is just too absurd for me to handle. Like this. Or this. Usually, though, you'll find me pretty respectful.

But hate — as I said, like the cockroach — does have its proper place. Haters remind us when we aren't being clear. Haters think one-dimensionally, so they are quick to point out what you sound like to a one-dimensional person. And this is important information.

So then, the most common brand of hate I used to get on this blog, was either, "You're an asshole; you exploit women," or the closely related, "You're a phony; you should be yourself." Both these complaints, in my opinion, reveal more about the plaintiffs than about me, but I don't want to get into a hate-the-haters post just now.

Instead, anticipating these kinds of comments to start popping up again (as they already have), as I write more on this blog, let me take a moment and state some of my first principles.

First of all, I have written a great deal about some of my foundational principles when it comes to women. See the following posts:

In Praise of Beautiful Women

Don't Just Feel... Do.

Mystery Does Not Equal Worth

Why I Love Difficult Women

True Romanticism

The Two Kinds of Assholes

In addition to what I have written in those posts, I will add the following statements. Each could be deserving of its own post, and perhaps I will write some of those posts in the coming weeks. For now, let me just state them as clearly as I can:

Truth and Falsheood exist, independent of whether we like it or not. The fact that different people have different perspectives does not alter the fact that Truth exists; it simply means we must explore many different perspectives before we can be confident that our picture of the truth bears a reasonable resemblance to the actual Truth.
Gender is real. Gender is not a social construct. Gender exists prior to society; all society does is take gender and express it in different ways, using different value systems and different kinds of presuppositions. Ironically, it is modern society's pieties about genderlessness that is "constructed." Gender is far more foundational than feminism.
Humans evolved living in small bands, and the way we think and act today is largely a result of evolutionary pressures that applied in the ancestral environment. Some of the resulting adaptations are still adaptive today; many are obsolete, yet nevertheless remain very powerful.
Truth and morality and goodness exist independently of evolution. There is meaning to life beyond the scientific. Science investigates and explains measurable phenomena; it is not the plenum of human knowledge. Nihilism is a false and pitiable reaction by modern people, who have lost all touch with profound silence and with the spiritual imagination.
Human beings have worth that is independent of their role in society. It's easy for me to assert that women aren't as good at higher mathematics, on average, as men are. Because, you see, I don't see a woman's worth as a human being tied to her ability to do math; neither do I see a man's worth tied to any such thing. They are both valuable and worthwhile completely independent of their ability to do math (or bear children, or arm wrestle, or whatever). In old times, this was called the belief in the soul. If you can't believe in a soul (or some modern equivalent), if your worldview is completely meritocratic and technocratic, then you can't value a person as a person; you can only value their abilities. I categorically reject this soulless way of looking at humans; and therefore I have no problems acknowledging obvious differences between people's natural abilities.
Feminism is a joke.
Modern marriage is completely broken. This does not stop me from wishing it were otherwise. I do not consider monogamy to be "unnatural"; but it has always been difficult and requires the support of inner morality and outer society, both of which are in sad shape today. The modern man marries at his own risk.
Feminism hurts women far more than it helps them. Women living under feminist pretenses are basically miserable. Then they blame their misery on men, rather than on feminism. Like how Stalin said the reason for the death of 5 million Ukrainian farmers was not enough communism.
Women like strong men. Acquiescing to a woman's every whim is the surest way to make her feel empty inside. This is one reason so many women feel empty in modern society.
People should live their lives basically in service to other people. It's the only way to really be happy inside. Loving other people and thinking of others is fundamental. The self-obsessed person is fundamentally miserable. The most interesting people are the ones who look out at the world and want to talk about it. The most boring people are the ones who gaze in on themselves and what to talk about me. Living for others does not mean being a doormat or working at a soup kitchen seven days a week (though it may mean that for certain people). It means being excellent. It means being the best person you can be; not being afraid to look reality in the face, to look yourself in the mirror, and to cheerfully take on every challenge life throws your way. Enrich the world with your presence. Think of yourself as a gift to the rest of the world... then give them a really great gift. Not some miserable, self-obsessed, weak, mealy-mouthed, resentful gray thing; but a serene, boisterous, cheerful, contemplative, hard-working, and fun-loving self. That is kindness.

I merely assert these values here, without attempting to prove them or explain them very much. Like I said, each statement could merit an entire post (or several). For now, I'll leave them as they are.

I've noticed two bad trends in blogs that treat the same topics that Alpha Status treats. One, the hedonist; the other, the resentful. The hedonist wants to learn about women to extract sex from them, devouring more and more, like a vast empty stomach that can never be filled. The resentful wants to see women suffer, because he has been hurt in the past.

These are two sides of the same nihilist coin. The hedonist beckons to the resentful man, saying, "Come this way brother. Here be pussy! Enjoy yourself!" And I have seen many resentful losers become cold-hearted players, who at least are enjoying their hedonism (a step up, in a way, from merely hating all life).

But resentment beckons to the hedonist too. It whispers in his ear, "Life is meaningless. Beauty fades. You will die old and alone, and then ... the black void." How can this not make one rage — however ironically — at the emptiness of the world. Every sunset, every loving moment, every exquisite orgasm, is tainted with emptiness. The hedonist and the resentful man are one and the same.

I can't convince any of my readers that nihilism is wrong just with a single blog post. It's a long journey, much of which cannot be put into words. All I want to do here is tell you that I, for one, reject it.

Writing a gender-realist blog in this day and age is like living in a tenament in New York City. There are bound to be some cockroaches. Let this post be a roach motel then, where I can direct them in the future. What say ye, me hearties?

Overqualified

2011-02-09T13:10:00.000-08:00

When a girl perceives that you are out of her league, she requires a different approach. This perception could be accurate (you simply will never be attracted to her or interested in her in any way), or it could only be the result of a temporary situation (she perceives you to be out of her league because your status is so high).

Women are just like men in that they jealously guard their own status. If they make an inner calculation that something is going to cause them embarrassment, they will immediately shy away from it. We all know that men feel this intensely when it comes to talking to pretty women — classic approach anxiety. Half the posts on PUA blogs are about this topic, it seems.

Well, women have an equivalent mechanism. It's rarely a conscious thought process. It's rather more of an instinctual, self-rationalizing knee-jerk.

Imagine a social group with 14 women and three men. Two of the men are gay. This could be a community theater group, say. Now if that last remaining straight man is at all attractive, at least a few of the women will be attracted to him. But of those women, some will naturally be hotter than the others. Women are constantly calculating their social status... constantly. And if you hear a woman claim that's not true, she doesn't even think about that kind of thing, ask her if she has to think in order to make her heart beat.

If one of those women perceives that she has very small chances with the man, she will often go out of her way to disqualify herself. This could be in the form of coldness, sarcasm, aggression, or simply keeping as unseen as possible. She can tell herself that the reason the man didn't choose her was because of her own actions. This story is also a plausible story for her to present to her peers. She saves face in the social group and she keeps her ego intact within.

A man may also end up "overqualified" in the eyes of a woman in a different kind of situation. It doesn't have to be a skewed sex ratio that does it. For example, if a man has a very high status within his particular industry. I'm thinking here more of a high "cool factor" or "wow I wish I had your job" factor; not necessarily power or money. Both Anthony Bourdain and a junior VP at a big bank make a lot of money. But Anthony Bourdain's job is way cooler to a girl who is into cooking and traveling.

It's very possible for grown women to get awe from afar, just like a schoolgirl. Some signs of this are self-deprecating remarks, and she seems embarrassed to talk about your work but can't seem to stop asking questions, etc.

Rock stars get this all the time. Losers never get it. Men somewhere in the middle will get it from time to time. The more interesting and active your life is, the more often you will get it.

What to do when a girl has overqualified you and disqualified herself in her mind? Be nice. The initial work of attraction was already done for you. Or rather, you did it, but you did it when she wasn't even looking... building your career, becoming an awesome guy, etc.

So you don't need to neg. You don't need to be arrogant and overconfident and dominant. She's already attracted. You are already in the comfort stage with this girl; or you should be. The key is to make her feel like there's some shared conspiracy going on. In the case of the one girl among many, seek her out, plop down beside her and start venting your frustrations about something random. Ask her for her insight. Make her feel that only the two of you understand the world in just that way.

In the case of the girl who admires you from afar, find out something about her that makes her unique (anything, it could be the smallest most insignificant thing). She played the clarinet in 4th grade. Whatever. And talk about that. Make her feel special. Really, this is comfort stage 101. The important thing to realize is that you have attraction out of the way. Don't act like a beta chump, of course. But you definitely need to tone down your game significantly.

Little Tragedies

2011-02-07T19:29:00.000-08:00

A few years ago I had a position for a local company that involved training the employees of our clients. I hate being so vague, but you know, anonymity.

Most of the people I trained were pretty young. Once I walked into a client's place of business and saw a pretty, young girl sitting at a table, waiting. Being the fine, upstanding gentleman I am, I immediately started thinking about how I would strike up a conversation before my work was over. I talked to the owner of the place, and he said, "We only have one person for you to train, actually... she's sitting out front." Awesome.

She was 17 or 18, she was extraordinarily pretty and let's call her "Rowena." Rowena had dark eyes, elfin cheekbones, and a luscious mouth that showed a row of beautiful straight teeth when she smiled. She was a bit on the short side — positive points in my book — with a natural curve in her spine that made her lower abdomen push out in front and her rear in back. It's the kind of physique that screams sex without huge breasts or long legs.

I'm not sure how I kept it together so well during that training session. Because when she came into our place of business for the customary follow-up session, I almost totally lost my cool. I was showing her how to perform some basic operations, and I kept leaving off mid-sentence, totally unable to remember what I was trying to say. It went like this: Looking her in the eyes and seeing her looking up at me with that "teach-me" expression, looking back to the work and beginning my explanation, then suddenly forgetting everything I was trying to say, stammering for a moment, then looking back at her and saying... "Um..."

I did this at least three or four times. The training lasted a couple hours. It was afternoon on a bright, sunny summer day. I told her I was gonna go walk around in the park with a coffee and that she should come with me. She agreed, and after a while we ended up sitting on the grass. I can't quite remember exactly how I made the move, but I know it came naturally at the time. We kissed there on the grass, and after a while, strolled to my place (nearby), where we made out in the kitchen and on my couch.

She was a strikingly attractive girl, one of the three or four most naturally beautiful women I've been with. It didn't hurt, of course, that she was so young, spilling over with charm and sparkle and freshness.

I never saw Rowena again that summer. It was, in fact, a little over a week before I was to leave that job and that city to move to New York. I had already told her my situation (i.e. I didn't just up and leave without a phone call or anything like that). I contacted her once when I was home visiting my family for Christmas but she never got back to me.

Flash forward four years. I'm back in that city once again. I go into a local business — in fact, that same local business I used to work for — and there she is behind the counter. I recognized her, but couldn't place her at first. Her hair had changed, four years and many women had gone by in the meantime...

Many women. You, dear reader, don't yet realize how true that is. I'm getting there.

One thing I noted with dismay was her awful hipster hairdo. She still looked very cute, cute enough for the hipster pigeon's nest to be the self-handicapping of the natural beauty. But there was a general rattiness about her appearance and an incipient general slovenliness.

Back to many women. You see, on a return visit, I finally placed her. (Is your name Rowena? ...Yes, and you're Dogen). I pointed out a charm she wore on a chain around her lovely neck.

"That's a nice charm."

"Thanks. My partner gave it to me." She paused and gave a slow nod, as if to say, Yes, that's exactly what it sounds like.

"Ah! I see," I said. We both smiled and she seemed to blush a little.

"She has a matching one," said Rowena, just in case I didn't get the picture. After a moment, finding myself flat-footed again (what was it about this girl?) I ended by smiling and saying, "Well, it's lovely."

I see Rowena from time to time, but never in a social setting. Once I had a chance to get over her new-found lesbianitudishness, naturally I reverted to my default charming self. You know the drill (or you should): eye contact, a smile, teasing, general friendliness paired with the occasional withdrawal of my approval. I saw the flame of attraction in her eyes, but the opportunity to act on it never came up, and her self-proclaimed lesbian taken-ness complicated the whole thing.

Just the other night, I ended up having drinks with Rowena and some mutual friends. It wasn't a planned outing, just happened to run into each other. We spent some time talking one on one. We went outside for a cigarette. She mentioned casually her girlfriend, to which I said, "Oh yeah, how's that going?"

"It's ok. I mean, it's still going. I just, you know, it's not that serious."

I nodded, offering nothing.

"What about you?" she said after a moment. "You have anybody special."

"Nah, not really. I mean, it's complicated." I smiled.

"Ahhhh! You're giving me that look again," she said and laughed nervously, and looked back. That was the moment, the moment to go in for the kiss. But to my shame, dear readers, I didn't.

You see, I left out one complicating factor. Among our little group that night was her co-worker. This woman, somewhat pretty but nowhere near Rowena's league, is a true-believer ACLU, feminist, suspicious of all happiness or success. She always gave off a vibe of monitoring Rowena's behavior, making sure she didn't break with the sisterhood or anything. Classic cockblock.

Here's my read: Rowena had invested a lot of social capital in her "identity" as a lesbian. It's the kind of thing that is met with wild approval in towns like this one. People call you brave, forgive your every shortcoming, and generally fall over themselves to be friendly to you, if you simply announce you are gay. By not just fooling around with girls, but getting a "partner" and wearing her partner's charm, Rowena had publicly claimed a gay identity.

Here she is now: 21 years old, having doubts about her "partner", most likely having doubts about being a "lesbian," but surrounded by waves of people that call her brave for being gay, by people who show open bitterness and resentment of mainstream culture (like her coworker), and also surrounded by waves of the most mewling, pathetic, shoegazer betas you could imagine (those of you who have spent time on the West Coast or in North Brooklyn know what I mean).

And here she is now, one of the crown jewels of American women. An easy 9, only 21 years old, with an easy laugh and a naturally friendly personality. America may not have many truly worthwhile women left in her decaying corpse. But it's a big corpse, and there are bound to be a few. And here's Rowena... the 21 year old beauty, with her mixed blood, her bright eyes, her friendly demeanor, her sweetness, her wonderful little body, her attraction to men.... and she's chosen this cocoon-like lesbian existence from which there are few escapes. And everyone is telling her she's done the right thing, happiness be damned.

I may not be the right guy for Rowena, she may have only a casual and passing interest in me. Obviously she's attracted to me (we did make out, after all). But the way is very nearly cut off for her. Me, a guy who normally loves to charm women and make them happy in the push-and-pull of seduction — I was hesitating and temporizing because of the various roadblocks she has thrown up and now probably regrets. It's like the institutionalization of beta. You can fight it, but you better damn well pick your battles well.

I may run into Rowena alone tomorrow... we may get tipsy and get kissing and get naked for all I know. Or it may never happen, and she may become more and more entrenched in her social role, throwing away the most beautiful years of her existence as a female (she's 21 now), getting fat, getting covered in tattoos, getting bitter and becoming more and more reliant on the "community" of people that really just wants to claim her as one of their own and not offer anything back in the form of lasting happiness or love. If it's all an act (and that's only my suspicion, not an established fact), she'll realize it when she's already ruined goods, and start fishing for a beta to take her in before she completely hits the wall.

It's a little tragedy for me to not have kissed that girl the other night. It's another little tragedy — slightly bigger but still a blip in the big picture — that she may have very few chances to turn back before it's too late.

Back

2011-02-05T02:45:00.000-08:00

Before I moved to NYC, I met this little girl.

She's half Filipino, half white. Very pretty, cute little butt, and surprisingly full little boobs. Sparkling, dark eyes. Black hair. Can you picture the girl yet? I could go on....

She's about 5'3" if that helps you picture her.

I wasn't sure if she was 17 or 18 when we hooked up. But that's in the past tense... Now I know she was 17 at the time. Earlier tonight (here in February, 2011, because I just ran into this chick) she debated me (she's 22 now) about whether it was 16 or 17. I knew it wasn't 16. I would have remembered that. So we settled on 17. I wish I could tell my loyal readers that I slept with her, but it would be a lie. We only kissed in the park in the sunlight and the grass, and made out in my apartment an hour later....

Back tomorrow with more...

Sex and Philosophy

2010-03-31T13:06:00.000-07:00

"In her I live, a mote minute
Dancing a moment in the sun:
In her I die, a sterile shoot
Of nightshade in oblivion."

[A. Crowley - At Sea]

Some years ago I sat naked, barely draped with a thin paper towel, in a white fluorescent light-lit room and stared in utter panic into the eyes of a calm woman. She had just old me that I might have a cancer.

I have had stomach problems ever since early childhood, but I had always tried to cure myself with over the counter medication. When I finally made the step and got a gastroenterologist look down my throat, large parts of my internal tissue had suffered enough damage to require a more thorough investigation.

The visual impression gave my doctor much concern. I either had an acute inflammation causing multiple ulcers, or something more serious was at work. I had to wait several days for the histologist to report back.

Several days with my mind on nothing but the big what if. A stomach carcinoma leaves little hope, and my doc left little doubt - I was just one of many she had seen this week who might not make it to the end of the year. I had to be become mentally prepared. And I did.

There are lots of cliches about the brevity of life. And even more platitudes about people who ditched certain death. The truth is, if you have never experienced what it is like if you have serious reason to assume a high probability of impending death, no words will ever get you in the mental state of a true survivor.

There is a big difference between knowing about life's finiteness and feeling it. Every breath you take, every sound you hear, every taste you ever had, everything takes on a new meaning when you feel that from now on you can count the times they occur. Life itself becomes so precious, anything else pales compared to its magnificence. The deepest love and the most excruciating pain - they become alike in value. Because they will be gone once you are.
Everything will be gone for you, with you, when you are gone.

There is enormous freedom in that state of mind. Your entire ambition becomes to live just for another moment. Nothing else counts. The people around you become strangers, possessed by an evil invisible force that drives them to not enjoy every single moment as you are. If you care enough about them, you want to shake them, tell them to stop worrying about their petty little worries and go and live! But you know that you now talk a language they will never understand.

But the state of mind of a survivor state of mind is short lived.

Soon after I had been told that my ulcer was benign, I slipped back into my old life. As soon as your time horizon fades back into a foggy future, you start worrying the human worries again. You need money. You do not want anyone to steal your stuff. You do not want to risk serious injury or disease. You do not want to fall behind your peers. The evil invisible force gets you under its control again.

Except, not quite.

Once you took a sip from the spring of wisdom, it is hard to forget its taste. And in my case, there is a constant reminder of that day in the white room with my butt on that cold examination table. The cells in my esophagus have suffered irreparable damage. My chances of them developing into a carcinoma within the next decades are akin to flipping a coin. I will not live as long as my peers. And I know that this is just one sword of Damocles dangling above my head.

Yet, you cannot live all the time like any day is your last.

If you do, it soon will be. If you want to enjoy the little time you have to taste, hear, feel, move, love and think, you will also have to eat a lot of shit.

So what is the solution?

There is one aspect of sex we all can learn.
It is all about the moment.

Seducers know that for sex to happen, there are brief "windows of opportunity" that shut forever once past. Women select for men who have the ability to seize the moment in a literal sense.

But even if used, a woman can lose interest any moment. Getting to have sex is like jumping from moment to moment like across a set of slippery stones across a shallow, but fierce river.

And sex itself is nothing but a race for the ultimate moment. All the words and touches, kisses and moans. They all lead up to a single brief moment. It is within the split second at the height of ecstasy that we see ourselves the most fulfilled sexually. But as soon as it arrives, it passes. Leaving us in bliss, but with a mere memory of the brilliant light right after the explosion of the giant cosmic bomb in our head.

Life is not a parade of great experiences, one after another. It is trite, mundane, often boring, exhausting and insignificant. But then there are the brief flickers of exception The amazing moments. And it is those that we live for. And the art of life is not to miss out on them. Once you miss the moment, it is gone forever.

Don't try to seize the whole day. Seize the best parts of it. Use the rest of the time to recharge for the next great event that makes your life.

It ain't over 'til the fat lady sings

2010-03-27T14:54:00.000-07:00

"Yo' woman is easy when you know the way"

[Bess]

How come the entire canon of Western literature seems to be off when it comes to women and their sexuality? Why did we have to wait for Evolutionary Psychology and some socially awkward nerds to come along for our eyes to be opened?

The answer is that the truth is suppressed. Blogs like this and the ones on the sidebar still get viciously attacked for certain parties because there is much at stake. Our society is based on the idea of women (and their sex) being a scarce commodity. Take that away and you take away the drive and ambition of common men that we all live off.

Yet, there were always men who were "in the know" (or the "secret society" as some like to call it). And they were spreading their insight. Once your eyes are open, you will see it all over the Western literary canon. The reason you might have missed it before is that it is but whispers here and there in order to escape the sure punishment initiated by the censorship that is public opinion. Master Dogen has written an insightful post about this interesting phenomenon, and hinted at the fact that the self censoring that kept writers carefully silent throughout the centuries has anything but disappeared. in fact, it might have gotten worse.

As someone who loves opera, I get continuously reminded of the occult undercurrent whose justification of existence seems to be the education of men with open ears, eyes and minds about the dark side of female sexuality in Western art. It is interesting that, while most operas are overly romantic, there are hardly any operatic dramas that adhere to the common sexual stereotypes of virtuous women and philandering men.

Some of the greatest operas out there deal with the devastating effect female infidelity has on men.

Pagliacci is about a clown who discovers that his wife who works with him has a lover right before the show. He is forced to go out, smile and be funny for the audience while meeting his adulterous wife. It is hard not to get the chills when listening to a masterful performance of his heartfelt despair.

Mozart's Cosi Fan Tutte goes a step further. The title translates into "Thus do all [women]". And what he means by that is the fickle nature of their love and affection (aka inevitable cheating when the chance arises). the dark subject gets presented as a funny opera (opera buffa) and nobody really gets hurt since the women get seduced by their own fiances in disguise.

But it is Gershwin's Porgy and Bess that really tells it all (it is one of the few operas based on a true story).

"Don't you never let a woman grieve you
Jus' cause she got yo' weddin' ring.
She'll love you and deceive you,
Take yo' clothes and leave you
'Cause a woman is a sometime thing."

The protagonist, Porgy gets portrayed as a White Knight who saves the “liquor-guzzling slut” (actual lyrics) Bess from police persecution. He is an easy going nice guy who seems incapable of hurting anyone. And he falls hard for that woman and showers her with affection and presents. He has a disability which symbolically cripples his manhood even further in that he literally cannot stand up for himself.

What we learn about Bess is that her former boyfriend is a bad boy par excellence. His life is characterized by drugs, booze and violence that does not stop short of murder. He is courageous and "the only man" who is willing to face danger when it comes to saving a woman's life during a hurricane. Bess describes her time with him life this:

"These five years I been yo' woman,
You could kick me in the street,
Then when you wanted me back,
You could whistle, an' there I was
Back again, lickin' yo' hand."

According to her peer's judgment her sexual value is in decline ("Dat girl's thirty if she's a day!"), and it is no surprise then that Bess is ready to give up her bad boy Lover with his "hot hand" that he uses to "handle me and hold me so; it's going to be like dying." She'd rather be with Provider male Porgy. And for a while things work out great.

The trouble starts as her bad boy Lover returns and pushes for her affection ("I knows you' ain' change"). Bess is unable to resist and has sex with him within minutes.

Her sweet Provider husband Porgy forgives her quickly, but rightfully believes that his only way to secure her is to kill her previous lover. Bess approves. So he does. And almost gets away with it. But there is no happy ending. As he returns from the police station, he finds out that the woman he has killed for left him for another bad boy who enticed her with sweet talk and drugs. Bess has left South Carlina with her new lover to follow him to New York.

There has never been a more symbolic act for oneitis than Porgy leaving the final stage, hardly able to walk on his crutch (or goat cart, depending on the set) to get back to the woman who has betrayed him twice and almost completely destroyed his life.
"Oh, Lawd, I'm on My Way"

Relationship Game (III) - Veteran Mode

2010-03-16T12:41:00.000-07:00

Getting women anxious to sleep with you requires some skill.
No man gets born a seducer.
Some men pick up those skills early on in life and therefore aren't even aware about the mastery of their actions.
Others need to be more systematic in their approach of study. But it all boils down to one thing: It is a set of behaviors that gets women to swoon. And behaviors can be learned.

Being in a mediocre relationship requires almost no skill.
It happens naturally.
Women have an inherent need for both, naughty sex that frees her inner slut as well as a stable guy on their side. But only the latter gets full social approval. Thus, once you had sex multiple times with the same woman, she is likely to gravitate towards "wanting more".

Having great sex repeatedly with the same woman requires a lot of skill.
The key to a great relationship is great sex.
There is an uphill battle to keep things hot and steamy. In order to get to the endless hot sex Nirvana without rotating partners, a man's skill required to get laid plus additional requirement. There are two main enemies that increasingly nag on a man's enjoyment of repeated devouring of a woman's flesh, if he does not take massive action to prevent them from happening:

1) The Coolidge Effect:
Most of us have encountered this famous phenomenon before: In short, with increasing amounts of time with the same partner, things start to cool off sexually. The name stems from an amusing anecdote:
One day American president Coolidge and his wife were touring a farm. The farmer bragged about a rooster that could copulate with hens all day long. To which the first lady wittily responded with "Oh. Tell that my husband". The president thought for a moment, then asked "With the same hen?". The farmer replied "Oh no. A different hen each time". And Coolidge said "Well, tell that my wife."

2) Beta-ization
While the well studied Coolidge effect affects both genders, the lesser known phenomenon of "betaization" is entirely gender specific. It arises from a conflict between social monogamy and women's emotional needs:

As stated above, the ideal sexual strategy for women is to secure a "Provider" while seeking children from men with higher sexual success rates ("Lovers" who do not invest in a single female but spread their genes among the population instead). As a result, women will feel warm and comfy for men who share their resources and hot and raunchy for men who refuse to do so.

Men want a good girl they can corrupt.

Women want a bad boy they can tame.

Every woman's dream is to gain a Lover type of man and turn him into a Provider. And evolution seems to have provided them with an instinctive set of tools to do so. And men often are rather susceptible to these techniques. "Giving up your balls" is just an extreme case of what can happen if guys don't resist betaization. Things typically are much more subtle. And start right after the initial sex (after-sex cuddling is a good example of the general phenomenon).

There are many problems that come with betaization, and one of them is that it hampers your sex life. Women continuously test a man where he stands in the Lover-Provider continuum. The response to these "shit tests" decides whether she will feel sexual attraction or not.

But while there is ample advice out there on how to handle shit test in order to get a woman to bed (see links on the right hand side), there is little advice on how to deal with betaization. One great exception is "Practical Female Psychology for the Modern Man". I will draw heavily from this book in the upcoming posts on more practical advice on handling sexual relationships with females.

Relationships are just a continuation of seduction. But there are some subtle differences in how things play out after the first bodily fluids got exchanged. When shit tests are concerned, for example, a man has already proven a certain Lover-status if she opened her legs. From now on, her tests will be much more subtle to figure out nuances and persistence given her betaization attempts.

A friend of mine once mused that most guys think they're out and give up their seduction attempts right at the point where a woman's emotional portal opens wide. The same type of guys tends to think that they are in when they have already lost the battle and are safely placed in friend of clown zone. When it comes to relationships it is similar. Right at the point where most guys believe they reached safe haven, the game has just actually become much tougher.

Relationship Game (II) - The Basics

2010-03-09T08:43:00.000-08:00

Imagine a world without any research, books, videos, web sites and blogs about seduction. Without any of the existing knowledge that we have, how do you think would the ideal educative material for men look like?

I believe it would take the form of a technical manual. A step-by-step guide, focused on the issue with clear concepts and a formalized, algorithmic problem solving. Just like one of these books that help you fix your car. Except it would be about women.

And this is precisely why Erik Markovic's Mystery Method has been so tremendously successful (it is fair to say that most other "schools" of seduction are just variants of his original approach).

Erik integrated the combined wisdom of the then small seduction community into a simple scheme. On the practical side, he divided the process of seduction into separate phases that dealt with two seemingly opposing theoretical concepts:

ATTRACTION + COMFORT = LAY

Over the many years that I have spoken with women about these topics, not a single one has ever questioned this fascinatingly simple concept. A woman needs both attraction and comfort to have sex with a man. On the flip side this means that the only obstacles to having sex with a woman is that she a) either isn't attracted to you, or b) not comfortable with the idea.

The important realization when it comes to relationships is that this law still applies.

This is the whole reason that using the techniques designed for quick seduction work even after the first sexual encounter. Everything a man does or doesn't do has an impact on the equation above. And if either the "attraction" or the "comfort" part approaches zero, the woman will stop being interested in sex.

Just like with the initial approach, there are too common problems man face in handling their partners:

attraction < comfort -> no interest or nonsexual friendship

attraction > comfort -> woman will be frustrated and move on

Striking the perfect balance between attraction and comfort is what great seducers and men in happy relationships excel at equally well. The only difference is situational. Building attraction with a stranger at a bar is superficially different from keeping it up with someone who shares your bed. And while holding attraction may be harder in a relationship than with someone you just met, it is often the lack of comfort that kills bar pick ups. Yet, at the core there still are those two variables only. And any "pick up" advice focused on the core principle rather than the situational implementation will serve a man well with women he meets on the regular.

As an example, here is an (altered) excerpt from Erik's new book ("The New and Improved Art of Seduction"):

Indicators of Interest:
- Proximity
- Self-grooming
- Giving Attention
- Giggling
- Trying to Impress
- Showing Appreciation
- Allows Sexual Escalation

Indicators of Disinterest:
- Avoidance
- Impatience
- Crosses Arms
- Hand toss
- Drops Conversation
- Pushes away
- Disinterested

The original context of this exercise in cold reading a woman's body language was to educate men when to go for a kiss. But it should take little for any man who has ever been in a relationship to see how it relates to women in that context as well.

A man's behavior should always lead to the first list of responses with strange women he speaks to at a bar or coffee shop (it is a sure indication that he is an Alpha Male). Likewise, none of the reactions listed in the second paragraph should ever occur in the women he is with over longer time scales. Reading these two sets above with that in mind one immediately sees the amount of relationship problems that most men face.

Importantly, reprimanding a woman for any of these negative signals is but poor damage control. Indicators of Disinterest are a symptom and not a cause. If a man does well in a relationship, his woman will remain on the side of Interest. In the next couple of posts we will delve deeper into the techniques a man can use to keep her there.

Late Night Conversations

2010-03-08T10:45:00.000-08:00

"If you call woman
African woman no go ‘gree
She go say I be Lady o

I want tell you about Lady:

She go say him equal to man
She go say him get power like man
She go say anything man do
Him self fit do

African woman -

She know him manna Masster
She go cook for am
She go do anything he say
But Lady no be so

Lady na Masster"

[Fela Kuti - Lady]

"This is my dream. Have you ever had [a] Chinese woman?" I see his eyes light up in the rear mirror. "I want [to] try [a] Chinese woman." What would be life without moments like these: Listening to an Ethiopian cab driver philosophy about women.

He had just finished praising the beauty of the women of his homeland, and now gets ready to marvel at the greener grass on the other side. Or so I thought. "What do you like about Chinese women?" I ask, to keep the conversation flowing.

He raises his hand, two of fingers outstretched, slowly, while leaving his eyes on the road. "They [are] not cut." He snaps his fingers as if they were scissors. It took me a while to understand what he was getting at. I cringe. It had never occurred to me that female genital cutting ("genital mutilation") is still employed frequently enough for me to encounter men who could tell me about their experience with women who underwent the procedure.

"Are Ethiopian women usually cut?" I ask naively (later I should find out that it still is the norm for this and many other countries.). I wanted to learn more. He had somewhat reacted to my surprise and I was afraid he would stop talk openly about the matter.

"Used to. Now less. Big problem, you know." He went on linking the cultural changes associated with that to the exploding divorce rate in his home country (I was surprised to find out later that it was 45%, in 2000 and climbing - with war and poverty accounted as main contributing factors).

"So you do like a woman cut?" I ask after he finished his diatribe. "No. I like [to] touch woman uncut. You can tell, [that] woman [is] hot."

Women hold a certain power over men that is equal to the death penalty on a cosmic scale: Women can eliminate a man's genes from the gene pool - without his knowledge.

Life is nothing but the progression of one generation to the next. The meaning of the whole dance is to keep the dance going. Just as any other living being, we are primed to do just that. And this means that the male instinct is hypersensitive to the possibility of getting tricked into putting a life's resources into the offspring of a competitor.

The extreme measure this African man described only makes sense if one takes this is into account. Men monopolize women, stone adulteresses to death and veil them in tank like clothing under the dessert sun. They even mutilate the very organs that cause sexual desire in women - for one reason only. They fear paternity theft. And what this cab driver described is that the certainty of having children of their own is worth even the decreased sexual pleasure that comes with frigid partners (interestingly this might not have been a problem before Westernization).

And it doesn't stop there. In Ghana, for example, it is the mother's brother (or uncle) rather than her husband who are the most important men in their lives. Men literally care more for their sister's families than their own. And this system is not unique to African culture. As an avid reader of this blog you might know, it also emerged in regions as remote as the polar caps. And again it is the chance of paternity theft that seems to give the best explanation for this bizarre cultural construct:
A tribal man can never know for sure whether the kids of his wife are his own. But the kids of his sister are definitely related to him, as she stems from the same mother's womb and her kids are definitely hers.

No matter what your political opinion is about these cultures, they all demonstrate one thing: The Power of Biology. As much as we like to see ourselves as rational beings with a free will that sets us apart from animals, a good look at how we live proves otherwise.
Our genes don't just impact our personal decisions, they even influence our cultures.

Relationship Game (I): Taken in Hand

2010-03-04T07:57:00.000-08:00

"For a woman qua woman, the essence of femininity is hero-worship—the desire to look up to man. “To look up” does not mean dependence, obedience or anything implying inferiority. It means an intense kind of admiration; ... It means that a properly feminine woman does not treat men as if she were their pal, sister, mother—or leader."
Ayn Rand (About a Woman President)

Monad from MGTOW posted a link to an interesting web page at advocatus diaboli's blog the other day. Monad left no further comment. I was intrigued and clicked the link. On first sight, takeninhand.com seems like a web page for advocates of "traditional marriage". There are even links dedicated to Christian readers. But as one spends some time browsing through their material it gets increasingly clear that actually is about something entirely different.

There is little surprise that conservative minded people share the anti-feministic stance of certain parts of the seduction community (with some interesting exceptions). A good examples of this are the essays by Roger Devlin. Another would be the zeitgeist-opposed slut shaming of British tabloid Daily Mail. I even vaguely remember a link to a catholic web page to an essay about seduction theory.

Despite large agreement on the damage that feminism has caused to our lives as well as about the roles that women and men should have in relationships, there is also a point of disagreement. Conservatives are not interested in enabling men to live like Hugh Heffner. They push for monogamous, heterosexual marriage. And at first sight this web page is just that. But there is one interesting oddity that pops out:

"takeninhand.com" actually is a site about hot sex. It is about the ultimate achievement of satisfying sex for "attached" women, to be precise.

The fact that a conservative platform for traditional gender roles turns into the unlikely meeting point for women to celebrate their orgasms is another piece of evidence for the generally submissive nature of female sexuality. Or, to rephrase it, the genital moisturizing effect of socially dominant alpha males. It also does away wit the notion that male dominance is something that women enjoy within the confines of the bedroom only. A good seducer knows - sex always starts outside the bedroom.

The fact that these women seem surprised, and even ashamed, for their exploration of a patriarchal lifestyle, and the effect it has on their libido is telling about the state of our society. "Taken in hand" relationships are far from the Master/Slave sex games of BDSM. Yet, these women act as if their desire for a husband with leadership qualities was a naughty kink. The reason for that may be partly due to the powerful sexual effect that these women experience. But it is more likely that they fear that their return to "traditional" gender roles will be seen as anti-feminist and therefore politically incorrect.

There is certain irony in the fact that as feminism has grown from a movement demanding "gender equality" in every sphere of life into a society with cherry picked benefits for women while conserving male obligations under the disguise of gender sameness. And the number one benefit modern women gained from the women's movement is sexual liberation. In a way it is like women were trying to create a society that caters to their sexual needs and in the process they unknowingly eliminated some the most powerful stimulants.

Not every woman enjoys male dominance and leadership in this way. The fact that most do, however, proves the submissive nature of femininity. Sex lives of the contrast between two opposing poles, such as the feminine and the masculine. A lot of what Relationship Game is all about is to keep up this tension that makes for good sex. And with most women this means that a man needs to make sure he does not give up his masculinity. It is not the flowers and romantic dinners that will keep a committed woman coming back for more sex. No. What we can learn from the women asking to be taken in hand is that all it takes for that is to be a man.

Who Enjoys Sex more - or why Women are so Loud in Bed

2010-03-02T08:52:00.000-08:00

I just came across Christopher Ryan's blog over at Psychology Today, and I truly enjoyed reading a dozen or so of his posts. Ryan got his Ph.D. in Psychology and is about to publish a book on prehistoric sex lives that he coauthored with his current life epoch partner. He is an evolutionary psychologist, and his blog focuses on how our ancestors' choices impact our lives today. Especially when to comes to sex.

One of the recurring themes on his blog is the scratching, jerking, moaning, screaming and cursing that characterizes sex for women. He seems to share the curious wonder that scientists sometimes feel when the evidence they gathered blatantly contradicts mainstream belief. In this case, it is the common notion that men are ever horny "pigs" with nothing but sex on their mind versus the naturally coy, inhibited, self restraint women who merely "give" burdensome sex as a present of love to their life time mates.

Ryan rightfully wonders: "If females are so "coy," why do they announce sex to the neighbors?"

He goes on to note that female primates like to get noisy across a wide range of species, with "females of promiscuous primate species emit more complex mating calls than females of monogamous and polygynous species."A finding which makes perfect sense given our knowledge about sperm competition. By letting other males know that she just had sex, a primate female will increase her chances of collecting semen from multiple partners and let each mates sperm fight over the egg in order to ensure insemination from the fittest individual.

While this may be the ultimate reason, the proximate reason surely has more to do with what sex feels like for the two genders. Given a mutually pleasant sexual experience,women usually still are louder in bed than their partners because they cannot keep from doing so. This seems intuitive enough that even the ancient Greeks wrote about it (they even quantified women to have nine times more fun during sex than men). Ryan hypothesizes that the mainstream opinion about female libido differed drastically during those times. in other words, women are not inhibited in their sexuality. Women are inhibited to openly express and talk about their sexuality:
"Before we come to any conclusions about the weakness of female libido, we should consider ... the impact of thousands of years of cultural indoctrination on the free expression of female desire."

Why is that? Don't men and women alike suffer form a distorted public image of female sexual desire?

Yes and no. While women (and men) both profit from realizing the female naughtiness potential when it comes to having sex in the bedroom, there was ample reason to create a society in which bottomless female lust was a well kept secret.

As much as women enjoy men who know hows "what to do" in the bedroom and thereby allows for the guiltless expression of the slutty side that lingers deep inside her, there is even more to gain from a myth of sex being more pleasurable (and therefore of higher value) to men. Only if men believe that they profit more from sex than the women will they be willing to put in an effort and pay for dates - and not ask to get invited for dinner dates instead!

And there is a benefit for men as well. Event though the prevailing myth of the Puritan female soul robes the majority of men from enjoying limitless, wild crazy porn-star sex with their partners ("I am sure she wouldn't like that..."), it is that myth of low libido women which also prevents from realizing the Sword of Damocles above their heads. I will join Ryan by hinting at it using the words of a master:

"Now there you have a sample of man’s 'reasoning powers,' as he calls them. He observes certain facts. For instance, that in all his life he never sees the day that he can satisfy one woman; also, that no woman ever sees the day that she can’t overwork, and defeat, and put out of commission any ten masculine plants that can be put to bed to her. He puts those strikingly suggestive and luminous facts together, and from them draws this astonishing conclusion: The Creator intended the woman to be restricted to one man."
Mark Twain, Letters from the Earth

Relationship Game - The Prelude

2010-03-01T14:03:00.000-08:00

As promised a while ago, starting with this post, I will start a series on the use of Game within relationships. This will be mostly relevant for guys who are interested in achieving more than short term sexual escapades as well as girls who are puzzled about men and their behavior when it comes to relationships. We will even touch on the issue of homosexual relationships, as their social dynamics are telling about our general human needs when it comes to long term mating.

In this prelude I will first investigate the need for Relationship Game. This relates to the question when a man can stop worrying about the things he learned during pick-up (tl;dr: never), as well as the question as to why a high status male might decide to spend more time with one and the same girl while he could go and meet many new ones instead. We will touch slightly on the overlap between between pick up game and relationship game, but delve deeper onto this issue within the next post of this series.

To start off, here is a quote from a recent post at roissy's blog about pick up and relationships that gets right at the heart of the issue:
"A sneering accusation often heard from the arid, anti-seduction crowd is that the self-professed pickup gurus are never seen with a girlfriend, or otherwise have trouble keeping a girl for longer than a few weeks. Pay it no heed. It is the feeble bleat of the envious and the insecure."

I believe that that he is right in that good seducers do not even manage to have fulfilling relationships, but make for the best partners in romantic relationships. The reason for that is that it takes a man to truly understand how women tick to avoid the many pitfalls that come with extended periods of time spent together. More than that, it takes an almost intuitive insight into social dynamics for a man to be prepared for what happens when a woman decides she want more than a one time shot from a guy:

"Relationships are merely a continuation of pickup by other means."

The reason that there is the lingering notion that men who use Game are men who stay outside/cannot keep up with relationships is two-fold:
1) Men who are good at seducing women will be far more selective than regular men (lacking options) in their decision of whom they enter a relationship with.
2) Aspiring PUAs often lack the skill to keep a woman interested for extended periods of time.

Both these cases illustrate a somewhat surprising point: In order to pick a woman up, you merely need to have social status than the other available men. It is relatively easy to be "alpha" for a few hours. But, in order to have her faithfully stay on your side, you will need to up that initial value substantially since the commitment alone lowered your social status from alpha to beta, and she will instinctively try to beta-ize you even more.

So, ironically,with regard to the amount of work you put in to game the women, it is easier to have one night stands than to be in a relationship.This is important since many men hearing about Game say they “just” want a monogamous relationship. Yet, what they seek is the hardest of all possible options:

If you lack Game, you are almost guaranteed to fail in your relationship (think: maternal frigidity, paternity theft, divorce etc).

If you have some Gaming skills, you can have more sex than most married men but you still might fail (think: the initial successes of PUAs, just to end up being dumped after a short time)

You need Game at the mastery level for initial attraction and long term attraction to avoid fail (think again about “just” having a girl friend)

There is almost no material out there on how to use what we learned as men about the female psyche for pick-up purposes within relationships (we will talk about the glorious exceptions in this and following posts). Yet, many men seek relationships (whether it is one or many; serial or in parallel). And this includes some of the greatest "Ladies Men" on the web. No wonder then that one of roissy's most popular posts was on relationship game. The success story roissy recounts of his reader "Dave in Hawaii" who turned around his ailing marriage thanks to what he learned about Game really is worth a read.

And Dave in Hawaii is not the only one. The other day I stumbled up a post by The Real Assanova wholinked to this blog on "Married Man Sex Life". I share Assanova's enthusiasm. This site is sheer excellence, even for us non-married guys. The author's autobiography sounds like that of Joe Average from Everytown, USA:
"I’ve never been overly excited about the idea of marriage... She always seemed to like the idea, and honestly I never really thought about what I was doing getting married. I just wanted to sleep with her. All. The. Time. So I just got married to her. No question of whether it was really a good idea or not."
The crucial difference to the standard story of Modern American Life is this:
"We’re hitting 15 years together, and apparently that’s twice the national average."
And how does he think he did that?
"My approach to marriage is part a married spin on Game, part Evolutionary Psychology, part Sex Ed, part Self-Help. Mostly it’s about learning what it is about you that unlocks the Holy Grail between your wifes legs."

The secret to his success is:

"Staying sexually attractive ... is a life long requirement."

And this is achieved via the Golden Rule of Relationship Game:

"Alpha Male traits build sexual attraction. Beta Male traits build relationship comfort.

A male failing to supply either of these two generalized needs, will cause a female to become unhappy, and likely seek satisfaction outside the marriage, or simply become depressed and cut sex down to the minimum to sustain the relationship."

This really sums it up. While the easiest, fastest and most promising way of getting into a woman's pants is to come across as High Status Male, this is not sufficient for keeping her around. Likewise, it is easiest to default into a Provider Male role during relationship, but it will get her to gradually lose any sexual interest. In order to have mind blowing sex with the same woman over and over again, a man needs to be able to juggle both opposing forces.

This is why there is need for Relationship Game. It is the most desirable of women only who a man of options would like to see (and do) more than once. And it is the most desirable women who demand the highest degree of this kind of double-satisfaction.

Is Evolutionary Psychology an Ideology?

2010-02-25T10:33:00.000-08:00

I get increasingly worried about a tendency on some of blogs related to modern gender roles, dating and sexual dynamics to bash Evolutionary Psychology. We are talking about the dismissal of a whole academic discipline here. Worse than that, the arguments are not just mostly based on intuition and moral upheaval, but take on an anti-scientific slant in general.

Studying human behavior in a biological framework never had it easy. The first attempt at doing so was Darwin's controversial "The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex", in which he, fittingly, introduced the paradigm of sexual selection. You all know the reaction at the time.

Not unsurprisingly, then, it took almost a full century before someone attempted to study behavior inside the framework of biology. It was an Austrian scientist called Konrad Lorenz, who became most influential in demonstrating how evolution has not shaped body forms, but also behavior. Despite his huge successes in studying instinctive behavior, he was not an uncontroversial persona as he got accused of using his scientific authority for political purposes (I have blogged about this before). Lorenz was actually rather careful in making claims about human instinct (although he made some great points about cuteness). He had a disciple, who went on to extend Lorenz studies towards humans. He went all over the world and managed to collect a tremendous database of film about the gestures and lives of indigenous tribes that often just had gotten in contact with Westerners, but he is not well known outside of Germany.

Shamed twice, it took another quarter decade until someone dared to publicly advocate evolutionary roots of human behavior. E.O. Wilson, an ant specialist, writer and famed conversationist published a book called "Sociobiology", and in the wake of it become the "only scientist in modern times to be physically attacked for an idea" (a member of the International Committee Against Racism poured a pitcher of water over his head at a science conference in 1978 to protest the book). The controversy nixed "sociobiology", and the only way to continue these studies was to rename it. This is how Evolutionary Psychology was born.

What we are witnessing now is the next wave of the same old fight between scientists and the widespread refusal of accepting some of the harsh realities that stem from evolutionary theory, in particular where biology seems to set limitations to our intuitive idea of a "free mind" (see evolutionary theory and the political left). Accordingly, it is often among the humanities' part of campus where people joke that "Evolutionary psychology is the department where old professors come up with justification for having sex with their students."

So is Evolutionary Psychology an ideology, a movement even?

The short answer is: No.

The causation goes the other way round. Evolutionary Psychology does not cause anything, it explains what people measure, regardless whether they believe in evolution or not.

Evolutionary Psychology does not suggests any of the things I post on this blog such as:
- Women cheat at least as much as men, and are inherently promiscuous (and on average, more so than men)

- Women prefer sex with promiscuous men

- Men, however, prefer to commit to sexually inexperienced women (esp. so, intelligent men)
(Which, taken together, explains why we have the stud/slut standard in society and always will, no matter how much people try to fight it.)

These are truths in the sense of statistical facts. They stand whether or not one believes in Evolutionary Psychology. All the latter does is add explanatory power.

Now, this does not mean that Evolutionary Psychology is without problems. I have blogged about its danger of coming up with just-do stories before. There is also the problem of using EvoPsych explanations to justify behavior (it is called naturalistic fallacy in moral reasoning). But none of that invalidates Evolutionary Psychology as a scientific discipline. The potential for abuse does not take anything from the powerful insights we have gained thanks to this kind of research.

Whether you like the revelations that come in the wake of studying human nature or not, closing your eyes to these realities won't help. Mankind has often tried to suppress our primordial urges, and thousands, if not millions of people have paid a price for that. If we want to succeed in our common pursuit for happiness we will fare best by taking a good look at ourselves, including the spots that we deem less pretty than others, and start manufacturing a system that works given these constraints (especially now that we have lost a system that had worked rather well throughout centuries).
It is time to accept ourselves as what we are.

Shaming Men

2010-02-22T17:21:00.000-08:00

Why is it that the media is full of shaming stories about cheating husbands, and there is little coverage about cheating wives?

One thing we can rule out right away: The myth of the ever cheating male.

Women cheat at least as much as men (in fact it is female infidelity that defines the rate of cheating for biologists since it provides the only measurable result - cuckold offspring).

So why do we need to see a man like Tiger Woods on his knees? Why is there so much outrage about Clinton, Duchovnik, Edwards, Letterman, Spitzer (the list is endless), and we hardly ever hear of a woman cheating on her man?

1) Is it because men are in the majority of high societal positions?
Well, it is true. Despite women now being the majority of the work force, the top of the Fortune 500 CEOs are still male. Likewise, most politicians are still male.

But when it comes to sports and entertainment, all bets are off. There are equal amounts (if not more) of female athletes, news anchors, pop stars and actors. And since it is not just politicians but celebrities of all kind that get ostracized for extramarital bliss this just can't be it.

2) Is it because women are better at covering up their tracks?
If you read Roosh V and roissy's V-Day posts on how to cheat, you might have picked up on their struggle with bad conscience. They advise men not to act out on those feelings, as women get suspicious if they suddenly get showered with affection and presents. Guys get caught by being too loving, out of regret.

From my limited experience, I feel like that things are different for women. Cheating girls don't seem to have any bad conscience at all (other men with experience share that assessment). Instead, they tend to produce a reason for their morally questionable act. And by not even feeling bad, women certainly manage to avoid one of the pitfalls for men - the tell of bad conscience.
Scientific studies on that subject support the notion that women are better than men at hiding their infidelities. The explanation for that discrepancy is that the consequences of getting caught are way worse for a pregnant woman than for a providing man who went for a night of strange. For the same reason men are better at detecting an affair.

If we assume that men are losing this evolutionary arms race between the genders, the female ability to be sexually cunning might well be one of the reasons for why we see more apologetic husbands on our evening TVs than sobbing wives. Yet, we all know men who found out that they got betrayed by their significant others (count me in). It is not like men are just to stupid to catch on. No. The lack of reports on female infidelity in the media simply doesn't seem to match the frequency of private revelations. There must be something else at work.

3) Is it because women do not get shamed?
Have you ever wondered how it happened that women can openly bitch about their classic gender roles, their husbands, the low quality of lowers, the inability of men to commit and so on and so forth, end up being called "feminists"?
Yet, if men are complaining about their gender roles, their spouses and the declining quality of potential mates due to an explosion of hypergamous sexual escapades during their most attractive period, they get branded "misogynists".

Our society has different standards when it comes to sex and genders. And part of that is that philandering men get shamed ("His poor wife") while cheating women get pitied ("He must be a terrible husband"). So, no matter who initiated the affair, women tend to get victimized while men get the blame (another, related, reason why we might hear less about cheating wives that comes with that is that men get shamed as "unable to satisfy her" if they were the victims of infidelity).

This moral norm held up against married men made sense in a society where women needed protection and reliance on a man's vow. What we have forgotten is that there also were norms for women that counter balanced this demand on men.

My father once told me a story that when he grew up brides were supposed to wear a ring of flowers in their hair. Tradition demanded that if anyone in the church knew that the bride was not a virgin, they had to step forward, take the flowers of her hair "and rip it apart", as my father said. This seems shocking, even laughable to us now. Yet, most men, if given the choice, would prefer their wife to be a virgin. Very few men pride themselves in the fact that women nowadays routinely out-do men in terms of notches on the belt by the time of marriage (which, btw significantly increases the likelihood of her cheating at some point during the marriage).

When it comes to casual sex, many people proclaim that we live with a double standard: promiscuous men are studs while promiscuous females are sluts. For that being a double standard (rather than a different standard), however, you need to assume a given which is not: gender equality.

There is no argument for anyone with scientific education - the two genders are different. They differ in both their physical and mental bauplan. And one of the differences between men and women is that women find promiscuous men sexy while men do not feel the same about promiscuous women (hence sluts and studs).

Likewise, jealousy is a handled differently across genders. On a practical level, in front of the law, there is no equality (see this). But aside from the sexist societal realities, we are also hardwired differently. Women tend to forgive even multiple occasions of infidelity while men are know to kill when finding out about the betrayal (see this post about how most men prefer to be raped over a cheating spouse).

For women and men, jealousy is a different emotion altogether: Studies reveal that women fear the loss of their providing man (because he might fall for the person he has an affair with), while men go bananas at the idea of another man's penis (and semen) getting inside the woman he cares for.

A woman loses no resources if the guy fucks someone else and stays. But if the woman fucks someone else and stays, the guy might lose his chance at having kids of his own, plus a whole lot of money. No wonder then, that suffer more from infidelity.

But if men suffer more from infidelity, shouldn't the societal standard be that women get punished more?

As traditional marriage is about to die, does our society still gain from shaming philandering men? Psychologist Roy Baumeister (the guy who wrote the fantastic essay "Is there anything good about men?") argues we don't. Hew wrote in an excellent blog entry posted at Psychology Today:
"My thesis is that the American people and their chances for good government are the ones most harmed by these scandals. ... As a social scientist, I think all we can say is that it is likely to continue happening, especially among politicians, and that whether someone does it or not - likewise whether he gets caught or not - is a poor basis for judging someone's ability to perform the duties of an elected official."

But even if people other than politicians are concerned one has to ask, what do we (still) gain as a society from shaming men for straying while sympathizing with adulteresses? Why is it that people watch this public witch hunting at all?

For men, I believe that the main driving force for men is jealousy. Many men want "it all" - the loving wife (the kid even), plus an endless stream of young buxom women. But society doesn't allow for that. Most men who follow the societal code will have to chose. Says Baumeister:
"The bride may be utterly beautiful and sexy and desirable, and perhaps he thinks he can desire only her forever. But then what happens? She ages, gains weight, maybe loses interest in sex. ... The option of having a bit of extra sex and remaining with his family is perhaps not available to him, though that might be what he most wants. Society does not approve. His wife may not tolerate. The law requires him to choose."

If a man, trapped in this way, decides to live according to the societal code of "love over lust", he will feel like a moron if others just do what they want keeping a harem of more than a dozen beautiful women while also having a loving knockout wife. The only way to handle that cognitive dissonance is to treat the offending guy like a pathological criminal.

For women, I the driving force may be different. It is more emotional. Almost romantic. The idea of the uber-alpha male becoming a loving and caring provider for The Chosen One is what fills shelves after shelves at Barnes and Nobles.

And for women, Tiger Wood was granted tremendously high social status - even by their very own husband - they followed each of the guy's movement religiously as he literally did nothing else but hit tiny white balls with a stick!
And now that there is proof that other, very attractive, women went all out for the guy, he is even more sexy (see this recent cover of Vanity Fair).

Women are taken by the teary eyed apology of this guy. They secretly fantasize it is them he apologizes to (and why would he apologize to us? isn't it just something he should do to his wife?). It is no wonder then that "Amy Reynolds, of Nike, cried through the speech."
Tears. Just one of the ways of how alphas get women wet.

Testosterone does not what you think it does

2010-02-19T14:48:00.000-08:00

During the past couple of days I enjoyed this video series of a fascinating, yet funny lecture on primate sexuality by Robert Sapolsky.

Technically, Sapolsky is an neuroendocrinologist (i.e. studying the link between brain activity and hormones), but he is even better known for his primatological work since he wrote a popular (and highly recommened) book of his life among baboons.

Interestingly enough (given the context of this blog), he studied the hormonal difference between alpha males and subordinates.

There is plenty of interesting stuff in this lecture (I will deliberately not go into his emphasis on the human specialty of mixing aggression and sexual arousal - just listen to it yourself), but one in particular sticks out: when it comes to testosterone, common opinion might have it all backwards.

As an example - let's assume the cartoonish extreme of two kinds of men:
One type of men is only interested in short term mating (think: one night stands), thus avoiding commitment and child rearing activities. Let's call them Lovers.
The other kind has a preference for long term relationships and family life. Let's call them Providers.
Which of these groups do you think has higher levels of testosterone?

Interestingly, the answer is not that simple. In monogamous species, it actually is the latter who is flushed in testosterone. This is not true for promiscuous mammals. But according to Sapolsky no one knows as of now where humans belong in that spectrum.

This is fascinating. There are studies that prove that married men have lower levels of serum testosterone than bachelors. If one assumes that the bachelors of equal age are single by choice and able to enjoy their freedom, the idea fits the assumption that humans are just like the promiscuous species, with the most promiscuous individuals having high testosterone.

Yet, the same study also demonstrated that "married men who are considered aloof spouses and provide minimal parenting", in particular men with more than one wife had even lower levels of testosterone. To be fair, while there is consensus that committed men have lower testosterone, there are other studies that completely contradict the harem result.

But given its consistency, the fact that committed men have lower testosterone is worth further consideration.

One explanation is that they are the "natural betas" (or low status specialists as Johnstone would call them). This would sit well with the picture that biologists got from promiscuous species.

In this theoretical framework, low testosterone males might give up on sexual variety in order to increase their paternity certainty - by watching over the female, thus keeping her from copulating with others the possibility of sperm competition can be decreased. Scientists call this phenomenon "mate-guarding" and it has been demonstrated to occur in primates when "males are unable to monopolize multiple females at one time" (i.e they are not alpha males).

Sapolsky also hints at the fact that unlike other primates, women do not show any obvious signs of peak fertility ("hidden ovulation").

This mechanism disables the targeted mate-guarding observed among apes:
Chimpanzee beta males stay with their females for a few days and part again once the obvious signs of ovulation have passed.
In contrast, romantic relationships among humans seem to last about four years on average. Some people believe that it is not a coincidence that this corresponds to the time it takes to rear a baby to autonomy (Sapolsky calls it the "inter-birth interval").

[Note, however, that there is some interesting new evidence suggests that there is no such thing as hidden ovulation for us humans.]

There is good evidence that humans are rather polygamous. To quote Sapolsky:
"What you wind up seeing in about 90% of human societies the dominant mode is a monogamous marriage [system], despite fact that a lot of these are polygamous societies ... What the genetic studies suggest is that anywhere from %- 40% of kids in Westernized societies are not the offspring of the man who believes he is there father. Those numbers are fairly consistent"

Sapolsky refers to the "social monogamy" that characterizes humans despite the hard scientific evidence to the contrary (the "genetic [trace of] polygamy").

Citing from David Barash and his wife's(!) book "The Myth of Monogamy", he goes on:
"Social monogamy is the whole societal sing and dance about how monogamy exists and how great it is and that it is one of the things that our society loves, and at the same time there is lots and lots of cases where there is no genetic monogamy. ... The conflict between those two is the driving force between at least three quarters of movie plots out there."

But, there is another important factor that correlates with a man's testosterone (which affects the finding that married men have less T). Sapolsky quotes some studies which found that:
Men with a more active sex life have higher levels of serum testosterone.
[Although it has to be noted that these results are not entirely conclusive; see this and this for example].

Again, this might seems to nicely fit the idea that there are some high testosterone alpha guys out there who bang chicks left and right while the low testosterone betas stick to the mate guarding strategy. After all, we all know the jokes how marriage (and especially kids) kill a man's sex life. But, of course in reality things are not that simple. The comparisons do not really make sense. One cannot divide men into Lovers and Providers based on their marital status alone. To quote from the roissysphere: "In aggregate, of course, married men get more sex than unmarried men do. But that's because the latter category is dragged down by men who are unattractive or uninterested in women."

The interesting story that Sapolsky is getting at, however, is that when it comes to what testosterone does to men the causality may be reversed.

He recounts a story about a paper in Nature written by an anonymous author. This is astonishing as a paper in Nature literally makes a man's career in science. Doing all the work without claiming any credits shows quite an admirable motivation (to be fair, Sapolsky admits that the identity of the author is well known within the field).

The reason why the author preferred to stay anonymous is intriguing:

"The anonymous scientist had been living and working for weeks at a time on a remote island; no women were on hand to distract him ... He soon noticed an intriguing phenomenon: his beard was growing less rapidly than normal." He knew that the rate of beard growth depended on serum testosterone. So he decided to weigh the remains of his daily shaves and compared the difference over days.

And what he found was that his beard would start growing more rapidly as he expected to come home to his lover, and declined after the deed was done. In other words, sex (or the prospect of it) triggers testosterone and not the other way round.
"Males have high levels of testosterone because they are having lots of sex!"

Sapolsky cites more studies making similar points, and even predicts what has has been confirmed by a recent study that was all over the news:
High testosterone does not lead to increased violence. Increased violence leads to higher testosterone.

Whether or not Sapolsky is right (note my caveats and concerns), the lectures are great to watch. I think it was him who once started an after dinner talk with a slide showing a cartoon depicting a missionary inside a big boiling pot of water, surrounded by what seems to be wild cannibals. The caption went:
"Guys, you have to believe me - I am actually a great after dinner speaker!"

Beauty is NOT in the Eye of the Beholder

2010-02-18T14:15:00.000-08:00

If you followed my series on how women are all the same when it gets to decide on which men are attractive or not, you might have picked up that there were several paragraphs where I eliminated the gender barrier and included men. I had planned to extend this into a whole nother post, but Alibiades beat me to it.

The issue at hand is that women are less concerned about the physical beauty of their partners as men.

Instead, women select men by a conglomerate of features that I like to summarize as "high status" (which is best described as "a dominant way of doing things"; read more about what I mean here). And since status is attributed in a hierarchical fashion, there are few men in each population that are deemed desirable to women.

Speed dating data reveals (accordingly) that the desirability of men falls of nearly exponentially over the population (which directly mirrors the relationship between rank and copulation rate in other primates).

What this means is that if you plot desirability on the y-axis against the number of men in the population it will look like the graph on the left: the farther you go away from the most attractive guy, the quicker the decline in desirability.

So women all swoon for the same few guys (as a group they are highly likely to have sexual events with the same few men - see: this study on sexual networks).

But what about men? If they go for "beauty" - isn't that a rather subjective measure? If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, isn't there a chance that different men will go for different females?

Well, as it turns out this is not the case.

Scientists have been fascinated with the study of facial beauty since decades, and if there is one thing that pops out it is how much we all agree on who is hot or not.

To quote from a large scale meta-analysis of dozens of academic papers on the subject:
"Raters agree about who is and is not attractive, both within and across cultures; [and] attractive [individuals] are judged more positively than unattractive children and adults."

So we do not only agree on who is more attractive, we also think they are better people. this was studied in greater depth by another meta-analysis:
"Physically attractive people were perceived as more sociable, dominant, sexually warm, mentally healthy, intelligent, and socially skilled than physically unattractive people."

We do make judgments about the personality of people just based on their looks? Oh yes we do. Is this just another cognitive bias? You betcha:
"The correlational literature indicated generally trivial relationships between physical attractiveness and measures of personality and mental ability"

Note that it is true that more beautiful individuals differ from the rest of the mere mortals:

"good-looking people were less lonely, less socially anxious, more popular, more socially skilled, and more sexually experienced than unattractive people."
No wonder given how other people react to them (presumably since childhood).

Now, what is it that makes a woman beautiful?

Again, there is a multitude of studies on the subject, all converging to the following cross-study summary:
"The "ideal" face has an average profile with slightly protrusive and full lips. Attractiveness increases with average features and symmetry. Moreover, particular features such as the scheme of childlike characteristics combined with aspects of maturity and expression make a female face appear especially beautiful."

Aha. We like the average girl the best. This makes sense to a biologist. The more you deviate from the norm, the more likely there is something severely wrong with you. And what men want is healthy (and trustworthy) fruit bearers.

What I find more interesting, however, is that beauty is unlikely to fall off exponentially over the population. It is much more likely that it follows a bell curve ("Gaussian") distribution.

In other words, there will be many girls with average attractiveness, and a few of stellar beauty (as well as of unbelievable ugliness). If you plot beauty (on the x-axis) against the number of girls in the population, it would look like the graph on the left.

The result is that there is a much less steep follow-off from the most desirable women towards the ones that nobody wants to touch (an S-shaped cummulative Gaussian rather than an exponential decay). This is one of the reasons why men seem "less selective" in finding mates than women.

Wait a minute! You might say, what about men? Don't these studies investigate beauty across gender?

Well, believe it or not: women do not care about what a man looks like. As stated above, women do not select men for their beauty. they select them for how they do things. If a woman cannot see this attribute of a guy, she is left with a guess (as to who would be attractive or not). And different women will guess differently. For scientists who are trying to unravel what makes men handsome, this expresses itself in the following result:
"Which attributes contribute to attractiveness of a man's face are controversial."

Stay Alpha, bro'

2010-02-17T14:18:00.000-08:00

The question of what is alpha or what is beta is an ill posed one.

Yes, there are alpha males among mankind. And, yes, there are things they commonly do or traits they share. But none of them, by themselves, is neither alpha, nor beta nor iota. They are but empty shells.

A man can posses high or low social status, and expresses it accordingly.
Status is something you do. But it is more about how you do things than what you do.

[edit: For those of you unfamiliar with my definition of social status, please read this first. I am not talking about socioeconomic status. In my primatologist-biased view social status is equal to dominant behavior.]

There are many different ways to achieve high social status, and any of them would not have the same effect if acted out by an individual who does not consider himself top dog. The actions themselves don't count. It is the whole of what a man represents that affects whether something is alpha or beta.

Say, someone is holding open a door for someone behind. Imagine this person is the room cleaner and he hold the door open for the CEO of the company. The room cleaner smiles respectfully and waits patiently until the CEO has walked up and passed the door. What do you see? It is obvious:
If you are a low status guy, holding open a door will be an obedient, serving, submissive gesture. You give a gift of your own effort to someone you deem of higher social status.

Imagine now, the person holding open the door is the CEO of a big company and the person supposed to walk through is one of his assistants. The door seems to lead into the assistant's office. The CEO might have a "serious talk" with him in there. The CEO has impatient look on his face, and the assistant rushes to make it through the door so the CEO can close it behind him. You see the difference?
If you are a high status guy the very same gesture can be interpreted as a gesture of dominance.

It is not the gesture itself that defines the social hierarchy. The dominance/submission relationship between humans (and even objects) is not defined by something simple as a set of acts (or lack thereof). Rather, we sort out who is on top of whom by taking into account as much circumstantial evidence as we can.

If a man wants to climb up the ladder of social hierarchy there is much he needs to learn.

But simply trying to act like a high status guy will not just fail but have the opposite effect as long as it is incongruous with the rest. An artificially created domineering posture gives away more about a guy's insecurities than the lower status body language that comes natural to him. This is why women cringe when they see "strong men" at bars. This is why everything falls into place once one is "in state".

The most important step for a man to gain high status is to change his own mindset. If you do not feel like you are "up there", all your attempts at pretending will easily be seen through.

[So how do you get up there? By attempting to do so. It is a painful but necessary process.]

The worst this misunderstanding about "what is alpha" can lead to is excessive obsessing about "masculinity". It is just like small dick complex - if you feel confident in what you have you never even think about the issue.

It is especially wrong and detrimental to believe that alpha males are nothing but sociopathic, Machiavellian narcissists. While these are male traits that certainly help to quickly establish high social status, it is but one way to get there (and with anything but guaranteed success).

Machos are not equal to alpha males.

Since we are using biological terminology when referring to alpha males, it does make sense to listen to what scientists have to say on the issue. The idea that humans follow the same sexual patterns as other primates is plausible, but if so, it follows that we also share the way we deem individuals "alpha" or not.

I have blogged about this topic before. I based my musings on the following quote by leading primatologist Frans de Waal:
"There are basically two sorts of alpha males. There are males who are physically so strong and hyper-aggressive, they become sort of like dictators. ... And then there’s a completely different situation, where you have males who are much smaller than the other males, but who are nevertheless the alpha males, because they are diplomatic, and they know how to make friends.”

It is true, women respond to things that are not deemed courteous and nice. But it is not the assholery per se that does the trick. It is the position of high status that it comes from.

Women do not care about what a man looks like

2010-02-15T13:21:00.000-08:00

In the whole of Germany, there is just one professor of psychology left who teaches and defends Freud's Psychoanalysis. The poor guy, last of his kind, is the target of frequent criticism and laughter from his academic colleagues. How come this "school" has lost most of its appeal to professional researchers of the mind? Did it not dominate psychology to the extent that it almost was synonymous with it for a while? One of my previous mentors once gave me an answer to both these questions with a bon mot that stuck to my mind:

"Freud's thinking became so successful because he gives us the illusion that we are complicated little beings. And nobody wants to be told that they are simple minded."

We are not just surprised each time somebody reveals our ways as steered by an invisible but primitive force, we outright hate it. And this is particularly true when it comes to our love life.

Yet, the force is too strong to deny. Society has come to terms with the fact that male taste in women is nothing but a base instinct craving signs of health and high fertility: youth, beauty, slim bodies, buxom breasts, and tight labia.

The one and only thing that men want from a woman is the prospect of healthy offspring.

Thus, magazines and billboards feature girl of this kind and not old post-menaupsal women in order to entice the male mind. If anything, we joke about this one dimensionality of the male mate preference.

For some reason, however, there is a lot of resistance each time someone points out that women are not any more complex either. Worse than that, by lacking a proper understanding of the one and only factor that women seek in a mate, both genders hurt themselves in the love seeking process: women find themselves in bed with guys "who are not even their type", while many men try to improve their attractiveness in the most ineffective ways.

The one and only thing that women want from a man is (the prospect of) high status.

Men and women alike want "sexy kids", but we have different strategies to achieve that. And for women, all that counts is a man's ability to influence things for the better. "Status" is something a man does. It is the magic of influence that allows some men to get more out of life, and women know that on an instinctual level.

But what does that mean on a practical level?

What a man looks like does not matter. All that matter is his appearance.

In other words, women do the exact opposite of men when it comes to select people for sex. Men care for the physical attributes of a women, women care for the non-physical attributes that men radiate in their behavior.

But what about things like muscularity and height (as some of you have noted dutifully)? Don't they count?

Well, yes and no.

Women prefer taller (and more muscular) men. That is true.
But that does not mean that they are attracted to a man's height!

The problem is that taller (and more muscular) men tend to get something from all of us that shorter men don't get: high social status. And it is this tight correlation between height and other people's respect that makes things confusing.

To find out whether women are attracted to a man's looks (such as height) or his social status, one thus needs to look at cases where the two are dissociated.

And the answer is appalling:
As a man, you can literally look like a gnome and score girls that make most men salivate.

What about the opposite? Just go to a club and compare the insecure guys, liquid courage in front of chest to the few men who actually talk with women. Does their tallness matter?

Women are not attracted to tall men. They are attracted to high status males. It just happens to be that their chances of a guys being of high status are disproportionately increased if the guy is tall. Thus, if women are robbed of the means of evaluating a man's high status (by checking his body language and response to shit tests), they will default to anything that correlates with these things. This is why showing photographs of guys is such a poor way to evaluate female mate preference.

As a guy, you can train yourself by trying to see the world through a woman's eyes. Judging each person's status, as communicated by body language, at any moment in time will give you the power of perfect predictability of which men are seen as attractive by female consensus. It will reveal to you what it is in you that women respond to positively as well. For women, realizing the above is not quite as hard as for men, but still helpful when seeking an interesting man.
Mankind's success and doom relies on how well we understand our own motives and actions. Gnotis auton!

The Alpha Spark

2010-02-11T10:34:00.000-08:00

By mere chance I came across the recent PBS series "The Human Spark". To be frank, I only watched one single episode of that series while lazying in a hotel room. But that one episode was marvelous, factually accurate and very inspiring. The main point of the series is the age old question that Charles Darwin burdened us with (and which still is the basis of any primatologists career):

"What makes humans special?"

There are many attempts at answering the question, typically including tool use and language, moral reasoning and other things that we like to pride ourselves in. And to cut a long story short - none of them holds in the strictest sense. But while language and tool use were falsified decades ago by the rather eloquent use of sign language demonstrated by all main ape species as well as the frequent tool use observed in wild monkeys (and even birds), "moral reasoning" managed to linger around for quite a while.

The episode I watched was centered on that question, embedding it in a more general approach on "social networks". You can watch an excerpt of that episode here.

The take-home-message of the main experiments shown in the series is that when it comes to altruism, humans seem to act differently compared to any other primate species. It is that difference might enable us to live in the overwhelmingly large societal structures that have changed the surface of the planet.

This idea is based on a large variety of observations, some old and some new. One of them is that there is a close correlation between primate brain sizes and the size of the groups they live in. And one idea is that this is not a coincidence, but rather has a causal basis (Dunbar's number): Larger brains enable individuals to keep track of all other group members, and that allows us to keep track of our favors.

And keeping track of who owes to whom is important: Altruism in animals occurs only between related individuals (kin altruism) or if the favor is likely to be returned (reciprocal altruism). And for the latter, you need to be able to keep track of who did what do to whom.

The idea that larger brains have something to do with sociality also sits well with the idea that larger groups come with an increasing risk of scams, fraud and deception. The "Machiavellian Intelligence" hypothesis states that primates gathered increasingly large brains to deal with the inflating number of tricks and intrigues that come with larger social groups. And of course, related to that, for monogamous species, a larger brain also helps to manage the increasing risk of cheating mates in larger sexual markets.

The series claims that only humans have acquired a lose form of altruism that allows us to be nice to total strangers, and therefore limits the aggression in our species. Thanks to that, we went ahead and populated all climate zones while our closest kin is about to go extinct.

What is most interesting are the repercussions:
Larger social groups come with new laws of social hierarchy and dynamics.

And this is true in particular for social status.

[Note that social status is something entirely different than societal status.
The two often get confused.
Social status is something you do.
Societal status is something you get.]

While monkeys spend their entire lives in a well defined cohort, they can establish stable social hierarchies. For monkeys (as for many other animal species) the rule: once an alpha male, always an alpha male really holds true. At least for rather large amounts of time.

I do not believe that this is the case for humans. I (again) recommend reading the important book "Impro" and what these actors found out about the important sub-communication of social status in human interactions. There are many important points made in that chapter, but one of the most striking is the incredible speed with which things can change:

Humans can go from alpha to omega in a heartbeat.

Actors call it "status swap".

Actors know that we all love to watch these social dynamics; it is the very basis of drama. Movies feed off these moments: A mighty super villain, invincible seeming, and full of confidence threatens the weakened hero that we all sympathize with. Yet somehow things change, and moments later the villain begs for mercy, crawling at the feet of our beloved main character.

We have seen it many times like that on screen, but to a lesser, much more subtle degree status swaps happen around us all the time. For a moment one man might seem more submissive to another, just to become more dominating in the next. Status often fluctuates so quickly, one sometimes cannot even say who is dominating whom, although interactions always imply some sort of hierarchy.

Our ability to swap status at any moment, and never cast someone's status into stone explains a lot of what we observe in human social and mating dynamics. Whereas other primates quickly establish rank orders that last for significant amounts of time, humans are rather flexible in whom they grant higher and lower status. This allows us a degree of flexibility in social interactions that is unprecedented. It also allows us to deal effectively and efficiently with anonymous strangers.

The aloofness of human social status is also why societal status is so irrelevant for mate selection. The position you got thanks to your education, hard work or your family's connections does not tell much about how other people perceive you in direct social interaction. And it is the latter that was important in the stone age when our brains and the constraints they impose on our behavior were formed.

As everything else when it comes to social status (or what makes a man an "alpha"), things are subtle. Status gets communicated by tonality, gestures and body language via a separate, unconscious information channel while our minds are focused on more overt things such as the content of speech.

But you can train your skill of conscious status detection. By querying yourself: "Is this person more dominant or more submissive?" in any particular moment, you will gain astonishing revelations.

Learning how a person's status fluctuates over time will transform your ideas of what constitutes and "alpha male". You will get to understand that no man is "alpha" per se. Instead, each of us are alpha in some moments, and far from that in others. It is just that some people are better at spending more time in a higher status.

One of the most surprising insights one can gain by constantly evaluating status, is that a person's status does not even need other people to exist (and fluctuate). We practice status with inanimate objects, too. And even in those situations, our status is not cast into stone:

Women are all the same - Part V

2010-02-09T11:56:00.000-08:00

In the previous four posts in the series, I went from personal anecdotes to scientific evidence gathered at speed dating events to prove my point that when it comes to sex and love, all women want the same (men) and hence behave like they're all one and the same.

Today, we will take a broader look and delve into anthropological evidence gathered in various cultures around the globe (click here for the scientific reference that I'll be drawing from).

Biologists like to compare people across different cultures for commonalities. Anything that humans share across the vast variety of environments that we populated is a strong hint at a genetic predisposition. And this is particularly true for tribes that no contact with Western civilization, such as the the Ache in Paraquay.

Researchers found that in the "pre-contact era", love life in this tribe consisted of love marriages by female choice. They were classic serial monogamists, with women accumulating up to ten marriages over the course of a lifetime. And if you read any books on human evolution, you might know that this what most scientist believe life was like during the early tens of thousands of years of human evolution (you know, the time when the genes that influence our behavior today have been selected).

So what fancies women that have never read an issue of Cosmo or marveled at a movie staring Clooney or Pitt? Here is an interesting excerpt from an interview by one of the anthropologists who visited the tribe (referring to the pre-contact era):

Q: What kind of man could get many women, what kind did women love?
A: A man needed to be strong. ... Women don't like men who love to hit others. I mean a strong man. ... a small or a large man, but he had to be strong. ... A "good man" is a man whom women love."

It is clear. She doesn't like a weak man. No insecure guy (who needs to prove something in fights) or wuss, please. It doesn't matter what he looks like, but if he is desired by other women, that is just perfect. Sound familiar?

Here is another interesting case: China.

Why? China instantiated a marriage law in 1950 (revised in 1987) that "stipulates the criteria by which ... to chose mates: personal compatibility, political attitudes, and judgment of character."
Sounds good, doesn't it? It has the words written "romantic love" written all over it.
"Criteria deemed inappropriate, in contrast, are wealth, good looks, sexual attractiveness, and family connections."

If you have ever been to China, you will have noticed that this law has far reaching implications. It is arguably the only country in the world where women do not seem to care about their looks (don't even bother telling me about the one exception you might have experienced). In the words of the researchers this is due to a "society where governmental structures and regulations support equality for women, suppress the glorification of female beauty ... and devalue the notion of wealth."

So, do Chinese men care less about female youth and beauty and select women for their smarts and charm? Do Chinese women care less about a man's status and more about his personality?

Not so, say the people who studied their actual mate choice. Chinese men were found to rate "good looks" as nearly all important in women, while Chinese girls preferred a man's job and income, class label, family and social connections and pretty much anything else higher than what he looked like. In the eyes of the researchers this "parallels the sex-differentiated rank-ordering of these characteristics reported for college students in the United States and, indeed, for samples of participants from around the world."

Are we really all the same? What about the level of education or socioeconomic class? Don't these things matter when it comes to selecting partners? It turns out they do. But not as you might have expected. When richer college kids are interviewed, the data points in one common direction: "an exaggeration of the expected sex differences". In other words, richer guys shoot for even more beautiful women while women with material resources want even higher status males.

Take a moment to think about what this means for our society. When feminism came along in the sixties, people believed that "the more sex-egalitarian our society becomes, and the more resources are held by women, the less interested women will be in status."
And the exact opposite is true!
Instead of enabling women to find "true love" by focusing on a man's character, they now feel even more gina tingling for the few men at the top of the sexual food chain while remaining ice cold for the common foot folks that once made the staple of their marriage market.

So, women all over the world agree: "the least physically attractive man [is] more acceptable than the most physically attractive man to have coffee with, to date, to have sex with, to marry ..., as long as he was depicted [of high social status]."
In other words, status is king.
The looks of a man are less than secondary. They do not matter. At all. And neither does his personality or zodiac sign. What women really care for is what he stands for (and as one night stands are concerned - researchers found that "requirements for status ... either remain the same or increase" when short term mating is concerned).

The divide between the genders when it comes to sexual preference is so deep and universal, that we all share disbelief as to how important these things are for the other sex: Men worry about their hair loss while women are bragging about their social status and desirability. It shows that time and again, there is only one good dating advice:
Don't listen to what people say, observe what they do.

Comfortably Numb

2010-02-08T16:23:00.000-08:00

"I thought you would find that interesting" she says and shows me this article on sexless relationships in ELLE Magazine.

I take a short glimpse. There is a name that pops out: David M. Buss, PhD.

That David Buss? One of the (arguably) most eminent evolutionary psychologists? In ELLE magazine?!?

My guess about an article on sexless relationships in a woman's magazine would have been that it is all about blaming the guy.
You know, how he should be more considerate. Bring flowers and make time for romantic dinner dates. Put down the toilet seat. And there like.
Buss doesn't sit well with that.

And indeed, after skimming through the anecdotal intro (you can't coerce female readers into a fact-loaded article without giving something to hang their feelings on), the article did none of the above.

So who's to blame for the cold sheets in contemporary marital beds?

"Well, it's possible that sexual liberation is in some way to blame."

You don't say.

It gets even better:

"Monogamy becomes tougher if your single years conditioned you to expect different kinds of sex with different kinds of people. Newness, mystery, and novelty have always been an essential part of the turn-on; after a while, coming home to hubby, even if he's Mr. Right, may leave you cold."

Yes, that is an actual excerpt from ELLE magazine, written by a woman for women. Telling women that their sex problems are not just due to their careless hubbies, but too their own undoings in their autobiographical past. Something they need to blame themselves for. Something that cannot be undone.

By the way, ELLE defines as "sexless" a relationship with less than 10 times of intercourse a year (!). The frequency of such relationships is reportedly more than 10% (although I would add some to that given that people are not honest about things that make them look bad even in anonymous surveys).
So what is a man to take from all that?

"He told me, 'I'd rather be with you and never have sex for the rest of my life than not be with you.' " Five years on, she believes he's been true to his word ... He says he just wants to be with me; he loves me," she says. "Honestly, I'm kind of shocked by it," she says."

Yeah, betas don't get sex and the contempt for their willingness to stay celibate from their wives - all at the same time. So much to the role of love.

[There is something a man can do at this point other than run away (if he deems it worth it). We will discuss relationship game in one of the upcoming posts. Most Provider type of guys, however, will feel comfortable in their effortless role of following her demands. After all, it's what says she she wants, right?]

Well, if he's okay with it, why bother? Because it doesn't stop there. If a Provider fails so utterly in keeping his wife interested, the inevitable will happen: Cheating. And it won't be him (even if he wanted to, no woman in her right mind would a man like that get into her pants).

"Ironically, her husband wasn't the one who strayed. A month after they returned from their honeymoon she found herself entangled with a married man, feeling something she had all but given up on: turned on... It was really, really fun."

Given the last quote it is understandable that ELLE readers do not feel quite as depressed about their fate as you would expect them to. The article ends with another glimmer at the end of the tunnel: Flibanserin. Yeah, that's right. A drug to restore some libido. The message is clear: anything, literally anything, but a return of the clock to the well functioning system we had before the sexual liberation that is really to blame.

In the long run, truth always wins. So, I am not surprised that we are witnessing a transition of evo psych knowledge from obscure internet forums and blogs into the mainstream media (some more recent examples are currently being discussed over at Talleyrand's and roissy's). But what women seem to fail to see is that every time that happens there will be a few less men willing to tie the knot. You see, while nobody really cared about the staggering number of sexually unsuccessful guys given women's preferred choice of the few chosen, but now that there is an increasing number of frustrated ex-sluts failing to attract both the harem-keeping Adonises and Joe Average alike, things are about to change (see the excellent discussion at In Mala Fide).

The situation that sexual liberation created is one of two male populations that are unwilling to marry: The alphas who enjoy their freedom and variety.
And the betas who either become hypo-attractive given the experiences of women in their teens and twenties or who refuse to pay for something that had been given away so freely.

In the end, it is women who will suffer the most. Women are not satisfied with endless sex flings. They want a long term relationship (at least in addition), and they undermine their chances at that - on the personal and the societal level. Given all that, I find it amazing that an article like that does not end with a pledge to raise a "smarter" generation of girls but rather tells their mums to swallow pills (or to cheat, if you know how to read between the lines). Women should be aware that with all that knowledge coming out into public inspection we certainly will soon face a smarter generation of men.

Women are all the same - IV

2010-02-04T11:17:00.000-08:00

The previous three posts of this series were all about some personal experiences backed by scientific data on an interesting, yet common illusion:

We do not decide on a particular partner because (s)he is special.

Which can even be taken one step further:

We do not fall in love with people for "who they are".

Instead, we find some people more sexually attractive than others, and try hard to make a good deal in getting the best we can. Over time we will get increasingly attached to the other person. And we then tell ourselves that there are many reasons other than sexual for why we decided on that particular partner.

The best proof of the above is the vast discrepancy between what we think we like in a partner and what we actually like. As one fascinating study on this subject finds:
"Participants’ ideal preferences, assessed before the speed-dating event, failed to predict what inspired their actual desire at the event."

In the words of the authors:

"Even regarding such a consequential aspect of mental life as romantic-partner preferences, people may lack introspective awareness of what influences their judgments and behavior."

This in itself is quite remarkable. Yet, there is an even greater upshot to this: Since we do not select mates on their "unique qualities", but simply try to max out our ability to get the most attractive partner, we are essentially all looking for the same (few hyperattractive) people. The only reason we find "matches" is that we compromise by accepting that our own attractiveness is limited.

Now, as reader Poetry of Flesh has noted, this all seems to suggest that: "not only women are all alike, but so are men". This is true in that we all want attractive partners. The crucial difference, though, is that for men there are far more attractive women than there are attractive men for women.

It follows from that that women really are much more the same than men in their sexual and romantic tastes.

Scientists have a word for that phenomenon. It is called mating skew:
"A few males meet with a great deal of success, whereas others have little or even no success."

Women go so far in agreeing on which few men are the bedroom-worthiest that they do not just ignore men are already "taken", but even prefer that option when given the choice. Scientists have word for that, too: mate poaching.

The overwhelming agreement among women as to who is hot or not comes at a high price. The competition is immense.

While the naive eye sees men approaching women in day and nighttime settings, the trained observer sees so much more. Women are fighting subtle fights over the few guys who stand tall above the uninteresting rest: Every body part that comes to close to the beauty ideal gets emphasized while the flawed parts get masterfully hidden. Clever tactical positioning is used to signal interest and availability. Body language speaks volumes about the hidden intentions. What cannot be said out loud is said in silence. The tension is so high, it can even turn into physical violence. The last couple of bar brawls I have witnessed were almost exclusively performed by frustrated females.

It is for that reason that there will never be an equivalent of the "seduction community" for women. For this to happen it would need a type of solidarity that is prohibited by the laws of the sexual market place. While the few men who have "a great deal of success" with women do not mind to give up a part of that to the men who struggle, few women are willing to "share a man" if they believe they hit the jackpot - the risk of losing the valuable asset is simply too high.

Women are all the same - Part III

2010-02-02T12:25:00.000-08:00

The previous two posts in these series have caused quite a bit of stir and controversy (as expected). Most readers took issue with my suggestion that we have a cognitive bias for overestimating individuality and uniqueness. Others suggested that my personal experiences are marred by selection bias and other confounding factors.

Before hardening up my admittedly weak anecdotal evidence by getting more into the science that help shaping my opinion, I would like to avoid some more confusion.
Here are the two points I tried to make, in full clarity:

1) We tend to think that we are more unique in our preferences than we actually are
Note that I do not say that we are all the same (as some commenters took it). To quote myself:
"We all want to be special little snowflakes. And to some extent we are. Of course, there is truth to our uniqueness. Yet, it is far more limited than we think."

2) Especially when it comes to mate choice, we are almost all the same (and women even more so than men)
In other words, we all agree on what is sexy.
And that has many surprising repercussions.

It is at this point that I need to make an important disclaimer. What I am referring to as mate choice is essentially sexual desire.

Women get most sexually aroused by alpha males (who fit the "Lover" bill), yet yearn for long term romance with more reliable "Provider" males. Discussions on the topic of mate choice often get muddled by this diametrical female emotional need of men. In other words, when women close their eyes and think about their "ideal man", they think of husband material and not the guys she hooks up with in her youth.

Likewise, men tend to be more selective when committing to a single female. While few single men would abstain from flings with highly attractive, yet promiscuous females, nobody wants to marry a whore.

So you might think that my focus on attractiveness is misleading (at least for those who are more interested in long term dating than one night stand). Yet, (somewhat surprisingly) despite everything mentioned above - our long term mate choices are not entirely independent of our short term mate preference.

In other words, while (the vast majority) of men are unwilling to fully commit to highly attractive girls if they deem them too promiscuous, they will not marry unattractive girls either. It is more like: men want attractive women.
And if they are too commit, they will sub-select the ones that do not completely destroy their hopes of raising their own (rather than another man's child).
And then there are other factors, too, of course. Smart men know that it takes more than sex to have a family and thus women get screened for their companionship prospects in addition to what I described above. This is where men start to think about how a woman's intelligence, education and political opinions match his own.
But, be as it may, attraction needs to be there in the first place.

How about the opposite sex? One could argue that women do select two non-overlapping populations for short term mating and long term relationships indeed.
The former consists of the few alpha males, who are desirable not despite but because they are desired by many other women. emotionally cold and inaccessible, risk taking and aloof in nature. They are shitty husbands but great lovers.
The latter are the more reliable men who are less prone to live out the male drive to serial promiscuity - either because they drank the societal Kool Aid or simply because they lack the options. These men are stable, responsible and kind. They are great husbands and more often than not boring lovers.

And indeed, some women follow along these lines and differentiate men in this way. They marry ("settle for") men they are not strongly physically attracted to after a youth full of alpha flings. After all, a woman can easily quench her thirst for premium sperm by having a "girl's night out" while her nice, reliable, unsuspecting husband is busy amassing what it needs to "provide".
Yet, the ultimate female fantasy is to unite Lover and Provide in one partner. Romance for women is to win the Lover and gain him as a Provider. This is the stuff that chick flicks are made of. This is why women chase bad boys even if they are not in the mood for one night stands. There is always the hope that this could "turn into something more".
So, for women, too, when it comes to long term partners, attraction needs to be there in the first place.

The result of the above may be surprising to some:

When it comes to actually choosing a mate your guess about your own preferences is way off.
(The study I link to is a citation classic, and absolutely worth a read. It puts an end to all discussions on "what women want in a man" based on introspection. Actions simply speak louder than words.)

As a result, researchers find that even in speed dating events, where people arguably look for long term partners rather than one night stands, sexual attractiveness is king: Men want sexy women while women look for high status males. To quote some of the (highly significant and often reproduced) key findings:
"Many traits had surprisingly little effect on people’s desirability ... including education and income, previous marriages, having children, concordant desires for future children, religious compatibility, appetites with respect to casual sex, and having similar habits with regard to smoking and drinking"

What this all means is that what we mean by "love grows" is getting used to the flaws and mismatches between our wish list and our partner's actual traits because they are sexually attractive rater than the other way round.

There is one more important repercussion.

While we might all have different "wish lists" for long term partners, we arguably agree much more on who is "hot or not". As a result we all rival for the same few attractive/desirable partners.

The tremendous difference between the genders is that men are attracted by looks (low BMI accounts for almost a third of the variance in female desirability!), and beauty is ubiquitous.

Women, however, are attracted by high social status, and there can only be one at the top. Thus, women seem to be "more selective" than men. So selective they truly all want the same. Or, to to tie it back to the original headline: "When it comes to choosing men, they are all the same".

It follows from that "there are few sexually attractive individuals and lots and lots of compromise".

You might not like seeing yourself, or your partner this way, but telling yourself that you found love because it is "such a good match" is denying the truth that you simply are out of options. Things tend to get murky if a more attractive person becomes available (men tend to divorce their wives for younger women. n'est-ce pas?). And what is attractive or not is much less in the eye of the beholder than scientifically quantifiable:

A Revolution in Paradise

2010-01-27T15:57:00.000-08:00

On my most recent trip across the Atlantic, I was flipping through the free newspapers provided by the flirtatious flight attendants when the following train of thoughts started rushing through my mind.

The Economist had a front page piece on "woman power", commemorating the fact that women are about to become the majority of the American work force (they already are in several other Western countries).

The commentaries on the subject were surprisingly bearable, if not mildly interesting. Apparently, even within feminist circles it now gets noted that the original strive for gender-equalization conflicted with the reality of gender specificities. So far so good. What I had not fully realized is that this notion has flipped into a rather common movement of female supremacy, with women using "biological findings" to support the notion that some "feminine" qualities make them better suited for high profile positions.

The main economics course at the university I attended started with a professor stating (only half jokingly) that you could either make it to the several hours of lectures every week, or save the money on textbooks and subscribe to the Economist. It's a no b.s. news magazine. And that is because when money is on the table, even the biggest ideologue becomes rather rational real quick. Not surprisingly then, the commentary regarding female supremacy more than devastated that argument.

Given the strengths of the phenomena we are dealing with, I have no doubt that a hundred years from now, there will be little understanding for our society's struggle with the obvious:

Men and Women are different.
Our natural gender roles are largely complimentary. There is no better or worse.

(before you object - read on; I will deal with the issues you probably have in mind down the line)

It is fascinating to see that women increasingly realize that the original ideology of feminism isn't their actual cup of tea. Instead of following along with the feminist codex, women have decided to go cherry picking. The modern woman wants all the plus sides of "emancipation", such as her own income and free reign over her sex life. What she doesn't want is clothes that don't make her look and feel sexy, man hate and some other things that got promoted by the first generation of feminists.

And as a result of that - FANFARE! - feminists start thinking and writing like realist/masculinist/roissysphere/MRA/MGTOW bloggers!

Take these excerpts I got an article on "what went wrong" with feminism from The Telegraph (the other newspaper I read that day):

"It started with Girl Power and has sunk into mindless hedonism. ... has sexual equality backfired?"

Sound familiar?

Yes, women have cherry picked their "new rights" . To quote:

"In previous generations many women had to repress their physical needs and experiences in order to fall in with social conventions, and feminism was needed to release them from the cage of chastity,"

That was then. Women fought that successfully. Now we have:

"A generation of young girls is interpreting liberation as the right to ... no-strings sex, celebrating one-night stands as notches on their designer handbags. For them, STDs are almost a badge of honour, eating disorders commonplace and men who talk of love and commitment are sneered at for "going soppy".

That is British for "silly"/"sentimental". Take that beta males!

Women now slut around happily (with guys who are not "going soppy). Until they reach the late twenties and panik for husbandry that is. Women want money to buy stuff and are willing to work hard for it. Women want the studs and are willing to work hard for that, including eating disorders and plastic surgery.

So, young women want the no-commitment hotties. Lots of them. And they don't want any of that other crap that the old school feminists had in mind. But, of course, what the feminist author takes away from seeing what we all see, is a deep concern for "The Return of Sexism" - and thereby entirely drops the ball.

The point she is missing when contemplating modern slutism is the same point that feminism missed as a whole:

How does all of this affect men?

As I wrote above, the gender roles were there for a reason. The system worked. Each side brought something in, and got something out of the deal that is any social interaction.

One could argue that the deal was always biased in favor of women (as masterly done in the must read Dr. Farrell's "The Myth of Male Power"): Men in the role of bread givers were forced to work harder, fight more and die earlier. They also have no biological certainty in their offspring and therefore run the risk of investing all their resources (materially and emotionally) into another man's child - an evolutionary suicide. Men were as powerless as women (or had it even worse).

The fact that there was a "Rebellion in Paradise" - not by the weaker (male) side, but by the side that felt the most sexually repressed is telling about the powers of biological drive.

To be fair - women were sexually repressed and reliant on men for resources. And they did away with that dark side to their gender role.

But nobody did away with the dark side of the male gender role. Men are still expected to pay for dates (and children, and even their ex-wives), which results in men still choosing more profitable jobs and stress related disease. Women now are the majority of the work force while men are still the majority of the armed forces. The list is long.

And now women even did away with the sentimental men (until their late twenties that is). But the problem is not that they voluntarily subject themselves to sexism.
The problem is that they thereby cut off another slice of the ancient gender deal. As Lupo put it so eloquently:
"In ye olden days of yore, the post-30 woman would actually have given you the best years of her life: the pre-30 years. Instead, they generally give the best years of their life to the dong-carousel, and take it out on the poor saps who date them later in life."

The Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon

2010-01-25T12:39:00.000-08:00

The Baader-Meinhof phenomenon is one of the most interesting internet memes I know. There is a common definition floating around the web. And it is very successful - as most people can relate to what it describes:

"The Baader-Meinhof phenomenon occurs when a person, after having learned some (usually obscure) fact, word, phrase, or other item for the first time, encounters that item again, perhaps several times, shortly after having learned it."

However, as much as we all seem to be able to relate to it, there is no actual scientific basis to it other than just another cognitive bias: selective attention. While we tend to ignore information that we cannot relate to, we are eager to connect any newly incoming data to the existing semantic network of personal knowledge that is our brain. As a result, there is no actual research on the topic and the wikipedia regarding this lemma entry gets repeatedly deleted.

The term "Baader-Meinhof" stems from a group of German communist terrorists that was active from the late sixties until the late nineties. Despite their rather respectable death toll, they never managed to get any fame outside the borders of Germany. thus, for Americans, hearing about "Baader-Meinhof" for the first time resembles one of these moments where we get in touch with a large chunk of knowledge that we never even knew before existed.

As of late, the "Baader-Meinhof" has popped up on several web pages again. The main reason for that is that a 2008 movie on the events surrounding said terrorists has been made available on the Netflix instant movie list. It is done well enough (and the competition bad enough) that it propelled into the top ten within weeks. Thus, the number of people who experience "Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon" by actually learning about "Baader-Meinhof" has reached an all time high.

For me (having grown up with Baader-Meinhof on the daily evening news), the true "Baader-Meinhof phenomenon" is something entirely different.

And the movie portrays it quite well:

What the Baader-Meinhof story reminds me of, is the magnetic effect of outlaws on women. More than that, it is the willingness of women to go all the way out, and even kill when under the influence of an uber-alpha male.

[I am not saying that men are not susceptible to the charisma of demagogues. What I am referring to is a sexual component that makes matters more complicated - and fascinating.]

To the left you can see a photograph of Anrdeas Baader, the leader of the original group (of mostly women), who started it all.

It is this exact photograph that instigated my thoughts on this matter (long before realizing the connection between female attraction and male social status). It was back at college when I shared an apartment with a female friend of mine. We were platonic friends, but pretending to be a couple increased our changes of getting an apartment significantly (people were afraid of renting out to groups of young, single men).

I had known her for a while, and I was aware of her liberal tendencies (no surprise), but I still was flabbergasted when she put up a life size poster of said terrorist's profile next to her chich crack-y New Age paraphernalia. When I asked her why she would put up a mass murderer, her immediate response was that "he is hot".

And she did not stop there. Soon, I would be initiated to the "hotness" of Che Guevara, Charles Manson and other "bad boys" of political recent history. In each of these cases, she had some "political" reasons to justify her admiration, yet it really all boiled down to one: These men were rebels. Living life "without compromise" and "with a passion". A passion mostly for themselves, but disguised as a higher moral motif to drag others along.

While the German movie about the Baader-Meinhof terrorists unveils this very mechanism with which Andreas Baader hypnotized the women who followed him into his grave, one has to dig a bit deeper into another cinematic attempt at a similar story. In "Public Enemies", the story of John Dillinger and "Billie" Frechette is told as a true love-y life-long romance.

Which it was.

For her.

The web site "dillingerswomen.com" (note the plural), which advertises a book on the "Women of the John Dillinger Gang." draws a slightly different image than the lovey-dovey movie. one that fits way better into the alpha status world view. One that describes my own personal version of the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon rather well.

In her own words: "I'm not sorry I loved him. That part I couldn't help. I'm sorry what happened to me and what it cost me after I was caught."

It is important to note that women are not attracted to evil. They do not really care for what reason the man they fell for kills. They are attracted to policeman and thugs alike. All that counts is the high social status (behavior) that comes with these societal roles: "I like John's kind. I don't mean because he was a criminal and carried guns around, and wasn't afraid of police or any one. There was something else. John might have been a soldier or something else besides what he was."

That "something" is essence of what draws women to men of this kind like moths into the flames.

It is expressed in how these men walk, talk and act. It is reflected in the reaction of those around them. It is an invisible force in the social universe. That "something" that women sense in these guys is the high social status that we ascribe to men with a fearless will to gain power.

A woman will always prefer to be number two to a strong man than the number one of a weak man.

Strawberry Fields Forever

2010-01-22T15:18:00.000-08:00

"Franz may be strong, but his strength is directed outward; when it comes to the people he lives with, the people he loves, he's weak. Franz's weakness is called goodness.

Franz would never give Sabina orders. He would never command her, as Tomas had, to lay the mirror on the floor and walk back and forth on it naked. Not that he lacks sensuality; he simply lacks the strength to give orders.

There are things that can be accomplished only by violence. Physical love is unthinkable without violence...What if she had a man who ordered her about? A man who wanted to master her?"
[M. Kundera - The Unbearable Lightness of Being]

This post is destined to fail, but I will still give it a try. I have previously bragged about a routine I had developed years ago that has revealed to me the ubiquity of female sexual responses. I have been asked to post a description, and after some hesitation I have decided to reveal it in its entirety.

I have two aims in doing so. First, I want to analyze why and how it works. I am curious for your input. Second, I want to enable female readers to test themselves. What I describe below worked on any woman I tried it with. I claim, it would work on you, too (when I say "worked on", I refer to a positive emotional response). Be honest in your response. Keep in mind, it is hard to put yourself into the actual situation when you are reading this from your arm chair. I will try to add as much situational information (such as about my tonality and body language) to enable the reader a "feel" for how this goes down in reality.

background:
I strongly believe that congruency is important when working with routines. The stuff below really is based on my life and has many truly autobiographical elements to it. I have shared the routine with other guys before and the overwhelming response that this "is so you". Note, for example, that I have a slight European accent. I can not imagine this routine to work for guys who are of the calm, serious kind (this routine is meant to be fun).

Thus, while this might work on any woman, it might not work for any man.

homework:
I have used this routine in a diverse set of contexts (it does not require a bar-type of situation). It is designed to work even if you open a group. yet, if you aim "for the kill", your chances go up exponentially if you do your homework:

Instead of just screening girls for their attractiveness, use the same glimpse to check for "where she is at". Is she happy or sad, energetic or tired, alone or with friends? As I will outline below, one can use the same routine (as in the words that get spoken) to almost opposite effect. What seems funny when delivered one way will be sensual when delivered another. Calibration is key.
There are many more small things one can do to transform the environment into an ideal situation.
Just as an example - since the routine leads to rapid isolation of the girl, group management is key. One way to achieve that simply is to sit on a bar stool, removing the stool next to you, effectively creating a gap. In a crowded bar situation this will lead to girls ordering drinks right next to you. They will be away from their friends and in need of conversation while waiting to be served. You start from a great vantage point since you are comfortably seated and she is literally approaching you already.

the routine:
An ideal way to launch into an opener is to be as casual as possible. A stranger watching you from a distance should assume that you know the girl since years.
So here goes:

"Do you like strawberries?" (friendly, expectant smile)

[This works because it is brief, asexual, socially acceptable and highly unexpected. It will make her curious as to why you would ask that and is almost impossible to shoot down. Note that it is a question and hence an open loop.]

Wait for a response, but keep in mind that her response doesn't matter (I got "I am allergic" once or twice in reply - it didn't change things a bit).
"I freaking love strawberries. You know why?" (smile, slowly shake head with raised eye brows)

[It's brief, likely to mirror her positive response and ends with a rhetoric question. "Freaking" sub-communicates that you are gentleman-y polite, nice and savvy enough about social rules thereby lowering her anxiety to get socially embarrassed by your approach. The hook starts forming.]

"Where I am coming from, we have these fields. All summer you can go there throughout the day. They give you a small wooden basket. You can eat and collect as many strawberries as you like. You pay by the weight. It is awesome. But you know what is best?" (slowly get more intense, focusing in on her. The open friendly smile gets slightly impish)
[As boring as it sounds, it evokes pleasant imagery and she will still be hooked. She knows you got a point, but can't quite figure out why you are telling her all that. And it is very hard for a woman to just walk away from an open question. Again, note how her answers don't matter at all.]

"Nobody watches the fucking fields at night!" (almost whispered, so nobody else can hear; end on a seductive smile)
[This is a key moment. The word "fucking" is essential and needs to be stressed in a non-aggressive way. She gets your intention now, and her surprise primes her for some excitement.]

"So, if I really like a girl. You know what I do?"
[It is essential to refer to a third person ("a girl") and use present tense. You start forming a fantasy/daydream now.]

"I take her by the arm, just like that..." (offer your arm, in a gentleman-y way)
[This is very light (reverse!) kino, your first sub-communication of dominance/leadership - and a compliance test which will help you calibrate. If she does not take your arm, you made a mistake at any point above. Be insistent for a moment, but make sure the social awkwardness does not turn against you if she really refuses to go along with that. Don't forget to reward her with a smile if she does what you want her to do.
If you don't have her isolated just yet, do it know by walking away with her to a safe, but secluded spot.]

"... and then, we jump the fence. It is slightly illegal, you know, but so much fun. And we sit down in the dark and eat as many strawberries as we want." (laugh and free your arm again)
[That little bit about breaking the law takes care of the bad boy vibe. Remember that pacing is important. You do not want her to destroy your spiel by asking you questions or firing up shit tests already. Don't rush, but lead her along, always giving her a slight piece more of what turns into an actual role play fantasy.]

"So we sit there in a warm summer night, watching the stars, eating strawberries - and you know what I do if I really like you?" (smile)
[This is hidden qualification. She wants you to like her, of course. We all want to be liked. Even by the people we don't feel attracted to. The story got fun and exciting. You surprised her before, she wants more of that.]

"I would have a backpack on me. And in there... I'd have a bottle of good, tasty red wine. Did you ever try strawberries with red wine?"
[The sensuality is key. But this is getting cheesy. We deal with that by breaking the intense focus and teasing her a little bit.]

"Well, just imagine. It is dark. How do you tell the good strawberries from the bad ones? Once in a while you bite in a berry and it is awful." (laugh loudly and break the tension by adjusting your body language as if you would not be sexually interested in her any more; the overall effect should be as if you were disappointed by her silly lack of thinking about this problem)
[This part is deliberately anti-climatic. I often give the girl a slight push on her shoulder at this point (the "you should have thought about this!' kind) as contrast to the increasingly close connection that was formed before. Things had moved too fast up to this point. You give her a break and demonstrate your willingness to walk away. Your intention should get a little bit more ambiguous at this point again. A nervous laugh on her side is the best reaction at this point.]

"So this is where the wine comes in. You get a bad berry, you take a sip of wine and everything is great again. And if I really, really like you and you have been a good girl... I would have another surprise. You have any idea?" (get close to her again as you say this; lower your voice)
[You just pushed her away, so open the loop to hook her again.]

"Well, we sit there under all these stars and get a little tipsy from that wine, and all those smells and tastes. I would have something else in that backpack for you." (smile a lot; get away from her a little bit again)
[This needs to be delivered in the genuine fun, pleasant way that it promises; it contrasts directly with the short shocking break that reminded her of the bad berries.]

"I have this red satin tie that I use to tie women to my bed frame." (no smile; demonstrate the action)
[There is a moment of shock after all this cheesiness, but she will not be entirely surprised. This is when you get "The look". She will glance at you from the corner of her eye'; secretly, knowingly, expectantly. She is preparing for a make out and it most cases you could go in for a kiss right there and then. Better is to use that sexual tension by amping it up some more.]

"... but for you, I have something else in mind." (impish smile)
[Needless to say, by this time your bodies should almost touch.]

"I would use it as a blindfold. ---"
(relax, lean back, then:)
"Do you like chocolate?"
[This is the silliest question of all, but, again an important break from the intensity and sexual spell. Lean all the way out. Make it seem like you changed the topic.]

"Have you ever had chocolate and red wine?" (get in again)

"I'd have a selection of different kinds of chocolate. Good European chocolate. White, dark and bittersweet. And I'd break it into tiny pieces, and take that blindfold and put it around you..." (pretend that you have a satin tie that you put around her head; do not touch her until the very end where your arms are at the back of her head, then slightly touch her hair as if you would "by accident" when tying the tie. It will send shivers down her spine.)
[This is a big compliance test. You can never touch a woman's hair if she does not trust you. Touching a woman's hair in public is like touching her thigh or butt. Strangers and creeps are not allowed to do that. If her friends are around somewhere, they will keep an eye on her and this moment always sends off an alarm. They will gauge her reaction closely. Do not attempt this move if you sense resistance!]

"... and I would keep my head right next to your ear, just like so. Because this is not about kissing. This is about so much more. I have now robbed you of your most important sense. All that remains is smelling, tasting and touch." (whisper in her ear; the last words need to be said in a very sexual way.)
[Never mind the logic. We do not care about hearing, we are getting to the climax of sensuality, and she is about to swoon.]

"... and I would take the chocolate, piece by piece and tell you to stick out your tongue - like that."
[Final compliance test. Bite your lower lip as she does it.]

"... and put on that tiny piece and tell you to take it in your mouth. And - uh, uh - don't be greedy! Do not swallow!" (fatherly, as if she is a silly girl. Do not fear to ruin it by building up some tension or breaking the spell by making her laugh)

"... instead let it melt. In your mouth." (slow, seductive speech; move your head from her ear towards her mouth)
[It is easy to go for a kiss at this point. For good effect, you can remind her to close her eyes "since she is blindfolded". If you are really good, you let her do that and go in for the kiss, but stop short at her mouth. She will kiss you when she opens her eyes.]

There are many ways to follow up on that. Remember that a bar make out significantly reduces the chance of a same night lay (you gave her what she wanted). So, if this is not about winning a bet about scoring a make out within 5 minutes, simply let her ask her questions ("who are you?"/ "where are you from?" / "do you always do that?") now that she is attracted to initiate the "comfort phase". If you need more attraction, it is easy to follow up the above with Captain Jack's "strawberry fields" routine.

Although it is entertaining, I have not used this routine in more than two years. There are significant downsides in using long routines when meeting girls. It is good to have a bunch of standard answers to standard questions, but a long routine stifles any spontaneity (which is the fun part) and will hold you back in your personal growth. What it can do, however, is reveal the uniformity of human reactions to well crafted parts of social engineering. Just like we have predictable (emotional) reactions to great movies, music and other trigger pulses, a good routine will yield predictable reactions, too.
No need to feel bad about getting attracted to me, ladies. :-p

Women are all the same - Part II

2010-01-20T08:23:00.000-08:00

"She had come to him to escape a world where all bodies were equal. She had come to him to make her body unique, irreplaceable. But he, too, had drawn an equal sign between her and the rest of them: he kissed them all alike, stroked them alike, made no, absolutely no distinction between [her] body and the other bodies. He had sent her back into the world she tried to escape."

[M. Kundera - The Unbearable Lightness of Being]

I had two epiphanies in my life as to the question of individuality and uniqueness.

The first insight I gained into the reality behind the comfy illusion of "self" that we bathe ourselves in I got thanks to amazon.com. More specifically, the recommendation system they set up for anyone who is crazy enough to rate his purchases.

At the time I was your typical hip, early twen who prided himself in his exquisite and eclectic taste in the fine and not so fine arts. I was surrounded by and surrounded myself with geeky nerds, fashionsitic hipsters, rowdy jocks and music snobs. And it rubbed off on me, of course. I prided myself in being neither of the above but a little bit of all of them at the same time.

I was particularly proud of the very out-of-the-ordinary selection of music that would constantly blare in my apartment, car and headphones. My friends and I were on the constant quest for the rarest gem that we could show off to each other. My mix tapes (and later mp3 CD's) sported Viennese A capella groups from the late thirties next to Russian high school bands improvising on self-built synthesizers. Given that even within that group I found my own taste in music, I felt like the uniquest being on the planet. Who else would enjoy the weird mix ranging from classical and fold music to modern mainstream all the way into obscure metal, experimental noise and cutting edge electronica?

My literary taste was similar eclectic. I was one of the few who commuted between the humanities and tech-y parts of campus, proud to be able to discuss the problems of postmodern deconstructionism with one set of people and the latest progress in magnetic resonance spectroscopy with another. And my young show-offy self felt the need to let the whole world know by uploading all my irrelevant opinions on the individual elements of my private library to the amazon.com rating system (well, there also was a free book coupon for every ten reviews submitted).

It was then that it happened.

After literally registering more than a hundred books in my possession, I returned to the home screen one day and felt compelled to check the recommendations produced by the vast database exploiting similar users.

I was intrigued to find out that all of the ten books that got recommended to me by amazon.com after it had learned about my reading habits were books that I had already read or was about to read.

But what really blew my mind was that all of the then top music CDs that were selected for me - based on my book selections alone! - were bands in my current playlist.

It was amazing. I had not rated a single song and I had never bought a CD at this retailer.
All that the amazon.com system knew about me was my taste in literature.
And that of others, of course.
And as it happens, there are many, many guys out there who share my interests and tastes. To the degree that they also like the same music.

It was then that my idea of being a unique individual crumbled. If there was anything that I would have used to "prove" that I am different form anyone else around me, it would have been the one way in which I (thought) I expressed my youthful individuality: my eclectic collection of music.
And it had failed.

But accepting that you are just one of the many, replaceable as any other individual that lives and has ever lived is just part of the realization. The even bigger, more shocking insight is gained by realizing the lack of uniqueness by those who surround you.

When I started out "picking up" women, my biggest obstacle was the most basic social skill of all: Holding up a conversation of small talk.

I remedied that problem by crafting a routine that I would use time and again on the girls I got interested in. It started out as a couple of sentences that I stole from other guys that posted their successful use online. But over time, I transformed them into my personal life story and added detail and effect to it.

I repeated the routine dozens of times, sometimes altering small nuances of what was being sad and done, and I soon had a feel for what resulted in positive reaction and what better got dropped from the little play I put on for the object of my desire. After more than a year and literally hundreds of approaches, I had it perfected.

The routine I had developed consists of approximately 3-5 minutes of constant talking. It ends with a kiss. I almost always made it to that end. What is remarkable about the experience of "running it" is that virtually all women react the exact same way when they encounter it. The predictability of reaction enabled me to win lots of bets (I have not used that routine in almost two years). But what is more than any online bragging or cheap bar makeouts I got thanks to its invention and perfection is the philosophical insight it gathered me: I still remember the shock when I first realized this, and part of that feeling never went away.

Experiencing first hand that any woman will give you the exact same look at the exact same moment in your spiel is outright frightening.

I realize that all I have achieved is a little glimpse into what social engineers do on a daily basis. I have found some buttons to push. Buttons that we all share.

And just like the guys at Walt Disney accidentally found out how they can exploit our natural tendency to like faces with big eyes, a big protruding forehead and a small nose and mouth, I tapped into a natural tendency of women to feel positively about certain male traits.

And just like we all fall for artificial and caricatured cuteness thanks to the genetic programs that are part of our human condition, women fell for some of the cheesy lines I whispered in their ears. Thanks to the power of our biological determined mind, the (emotional) result was entirely predictable.

There is a flip side to the female lust for alpha males.

By wanting "nothing but the best", women get drawn to the same few men in hordes. All their uniqueness and romantic ideas about individuality falter as the sexual tastes of women of all colors and ages align.

It is right there and then when women become all the same.

Women are all the same - Part I

2010-01-19T13:23:00.000-08:00

I am not shy to stand up for the wisdom I share (and receive) by maintaining this and following other blogs in real life. I believe that much of the contra-intuitive and surprising insight that (a subgroup of interested) men have found in the past decade or so about female sexuality is eternal truth in the form of biological rule, nature's almighty law - and therefore of utmost consequence to each and every member of our society.

Using a massive database of systematic experimentation and a free flow of the resulting empirical knowledge (field reports) combined with critical thought (thanks to the intelligence of the masses), we have learned that female sexuality had been stifled throughout the ages - for a reason.

Society has lifted the veils and stigmas that men had put upon women under the assumption that these restrictions were morally questionable and ultimately obsolete - and now face a new reality. We have the unique opportunity to study female mating behavior in the near absence of social control. And for those who believed the old myths of "horndog men" versus "virtuous females", the effect is mind blowing.

There are good reasons, however, to discuss these things in anonymity. Putting a face, titles and biography to a publication tends to bias the reader's view. The lack of credentials forces the lazy mind to investigate the value and validity of someone's scribbling by form and content of the text at hand alone. The lack of personal endorsement has the added advantage that there is no need for self censorship. While any text that bears a name is ridden with that person's need for praise and approval, the only justification of existence of an anonymous text remains the dissemination of a thought "that needed to get out". This is the reason we enabled the option of anonymous commenting on this site (which is the most popular option used), and post using pseudonyms.

The last and saddest reason for the demand of anonymity is that the ideas we are discussing are not just contrary to mainstream belief - they threaten the entire status quo. The seducer's insight into female desire is powerful and dangerous. Those of you who enjoy the selection of blogs we list as friends (and related blogs), know what I am alluding to. Once anonymity is lifted, the quality of shared insight declines thanks to the inevitable kick in of self-censorship and fear of legal ramifications.

Anonymity provides protection for ideas that are ahead of their time. Ideas that would get shot down in any conversation outside the veil of fake identities. Ideas that are truly revolutionary. Ideas that come with too much of an emotional baggage. Hurtful truths, who by virtue of being are powerful enough to instantenously right kill the p(r)etty lies that we tell ourselves.

Some of the insights that the diverse Pick Up Artists, Men's Rights Activists, Evolutionary Psychologists, Seducers, Free Spirits and Critical Observers of the Zeitgeist in our blogroll share are more controversial than others. And I believe that the reason they get attacked with utmost fervor is that they insult the female idea of self.

You see, for women, the idea of "being different" is quintessential. Two idiosyncratic puzzle pieces fitting together is is the very basis of the female dream of monogamy (with an attractive male) - the ultimate emotional need of any woman. Two matching individuals. The ultimate idea of romantic love. The heart of any romance novel or chick flick.

Without the belief in inner beauty and the importance of "character" and "personality" for relationships, any woman will be ripped of her ability to sleep calmly. If "inner beauty" doesn't count, there is little hope for even the most attractive girls given the certain rapture of outer beauty by father time.

So maybe it does not come as a surprise that, when I went back to our own comment section and compared it with those of others, I realized that the strongest reactions by (mostly female) commenters followed posts related to one of the deepest unspoken, paradigmatic assumptions of "Game" are discussed:

For sexual attraction personality doesn't matter.

All the seduction techniques we have at hand work on this assumption (and do so well):
There are (almost) no "type-specific" techniques. The things we discuss work "on women" and not on just a select few. We even go so far to assume that if sex doesn't happen it was due to the man's (and ultimately the technique's fault)!

And I postulate: rightly so! The old clitoral joke "under the hood they're all the same" is true when it comes to female sexuality. Just like it is true for male sexuality (ever wondered why "Playboy" magazine works?).
After all, we are dealing with the raw, unchangeable laws of nature here.

The belief that "each pot finds its lid" is not just a romantic idea, but the base of our society. The harsh truth - there are few sexually attractive individuals and lots and lots of compromise - is a deadly blow to the ideal of monogamy.

We all want to be special little snowflakes.

And to some extent we are. Of course, there is truth to our uniqueness. Yet, it is far more limited than we think.

And completely irrelevant for the sexual marketplace.

A woman's youth and overwhelming beauty as well as a man's earth shattering power are enough to short-circuit any one of our brains. Sexual attraction works in a one dimensional universe.

The result may be painful to bear for us (and women in particular), but taking of the pink tinted glasses to stare into the gory face of reality is the only way to act rationally. And time and again it has been proven that acting rationally is the winning strategy in life. It might be another addition to the list of insults that humans had to endure during the past century such as the realization that we are descendants and part of the animal kingdom and the realization that we are not in control of our actions:

We get loved for what makes us sexually attractive and not for what makes us unique.

Today's Male Writers are Pussies - UPDATED

2010-01-02T16:44:00.000-08:00

Comments were particularly good for this entry so I've copy and pasted some comments and my response below.

I'm frankly astonished to read this article in the New York Times. But, of course, the books section has a separate editor.

A woman [I think many men underestimate how key women will be in restoring sexual balance in our culture... many of them crave a return by men to real masculinity] writes about how the last generation of famous, male, American novelists (Updike, Mailer, Bellow, Roth) were lusty, sexually aggressive and sexually interested fuckers. And how the current generation of famous, male, American novelists (Franzen, Wallace, Chabon, Eggers, Safran Foer), are like wounded little pussy boys who would rather wallow in their own sensitivity than fuck a girl hard like she really wants.

So these things go in cycles. I predict there is a generation now writing, about 15 years younger on average than Jonathan Franzen and David Eggers (God I hate him), who will write some of the most sexually aggressive, testosteroney literary fiction in history. I might even know someone who's doing that right now. Wink wink.

The Naked and the Conflicted

--end original post--

selected comments and my response follow.. —Dogen

John Smith said...: it's nice to think that we're some type of vanguard...mayhap one day some well-known chap might perchance mention his blogroll as having been influential in pursuing a forgotten literary tradition of masculinity. one can only hope...it is after all the beginning of a new calendar year.; January 4, 2010 8:47 AM
Charlie said...: Doesn't one of the characters in Jonathan Safran Foer's Everything Is Illuminated have sex with his wife through a glory hole because he somnambulantly beats her if they're not separated by a wall? And I think there's another character who has prodigious amounts of sex, starting at like 11 years of age. Some of these guys are far more interested in sex than the article implies. JSF wasn't so much not interested in sex as his characters had to deal w/ puritanical repression of the sex act, which makes complete sense given contemporary attitudes.; January 4, 2010 7:55 PM
Anonymous said...: I don't know if I can agree with this. You can clearly pick out a few male writers that aren't pussy whipped, which would make your whole point moot. Example Tom Clancy or Brett Easton Ellis. "Sabrina don't stare at it. Eat it" Awesome fucking line.; January 5, 2010 7:10 PM

John Smith: I can't tell if that is sarcasm or not. But at the risk of seeming foolish, yeah, it is nice!

Charlie: That's a good point, and one I should have addressed if I wasn't such a painfully lazy blogger. You are absolutely right, some of those writers (Franzen and DFW for sure) have some pretty sex-obsessed characters. I haven't read the Safran Foer scenes you reference (or don't recall them). But I do remember that famous scene in Franzen's "The Corrections" when Chip masturbates himself using the chaise longue in his apartment, and of course he has sex repeatedly with his attractive younger female student.

On the surface, this refutes the point of this post. But I think the NYTimes author does a good job of pointing up the difference between a zesty, lusty obsession with sex (earlier generation) and a hinky, self-recriminating obsession with sex (current generation). And I think this is the key difference. Certainly Bellow and Updike take on sex unblinkingly, and happily, even when it leads to pain or suffering for their characters. And the remarkable thing about Portnoy's Complaint is that features one of the most self-conscious, sex-obsessed and confused narrators in all of fiction, and yet you never get the feeling that Roth really has a problem with any of the sex. Contrast Eggers or Franzen, who may mention sex and even wallow in it, but with whom you always get the feeling that they hate themselves for being sexual men.

I recognize that I'm probably splitting hairs here, but such are the joys of literary criticism. No one can ever definitively prove me wrong! Anything goes! Huzzah!

((And we have completely left out the entire school of white, male, extremely influential literary fiction writers that have been called "American Paranoid"... specifically Thomas Pynchon for the earlier group, Don DeLillo for the mid-term group, and Chuck Pahlaniuk for the current generation, but this comment is long enough already... and it's an Evo-psych/Sex blog, not a litcrit blog, right?))

Anonymous: That's another good point. Any era will have plenty of writers on any side of a given issue. I could name also, to further your point, Chuck Pahlaniuk and Michel Houellebecq (though he's not American, of course... anyway, there are others). But I think that just further proves the point. Bellow, Roth, Updike, and Mailer were/are the GODS of their generation, according to people like the New York Times (all I mean by the NYT is the "cultural arbiters of the day... politics is irrelevant here... or it is only secondarily relevant; my point is, WHO do the current arbiters of good taste consider "great"?).

Today the GODS (as far as white, male Americans) are considered to be Franzen, Wallace, and Chabon (I don't think Eggers really pulls rank with these people at the same level, and thank goodness... I think Eugenides is working his way into this group, but if you have read "Middlesex" you understand how this only strengthens my point). It's immaterial whether these writers deserve their elevation. The point is... these are the writers that get elevated these days, the ones that rise to intellectual prominence in our era. These are the writers that reflect our times. Tom Clancy sells a hell of a lot of books, but very few people will read a Tom Clancy novel in 100 years, whereas lit-crit scholars (only a few, of course, but some) will still read David Foster Wallace in 100 years. I love Tom Clancy and I don't mean to rag on him, but it's fucking true.

Finally, incidentally, I have to say, I really really think David Foster Wallace was the best American writer of the last 20 years or so (white, black, male, female, purple, green, transgendered, vampire, hippopotamus, leprechaun, upside down, or inside out). Yes he has huge, gaping flaws. Yes "Infinite Jest" is almost unreadable. Yes, the NYT woman is right to say that he suffered from his generation's (and ours) unfortunate neurosis about male sexuality. But he alone of contemporary writers that I have read (and I humbly submit that I have read a LOT), DFW combines...

1) blinding, raw, scary, native intelligence of the Dante/Shakespeare/Rain-Man kind

2) a deep love of writing, the written word, the sound of words, the effect words can have

3) respect for the emotional experience of the reader; a desire to reach out to the reader and humbly engage him/her in emotional communication; an aversion to lecturing the reader or preaching to him/her (Pahlaniuk for all his talent lacks this). A humble and somewhat bewildered LOVE OF OTHER HUMAN BEINGS

4) the cojones to try new and weird stuff in his writing. Much of which doesn't work at all. Much of which does. The bizarreness that Harold Bloom marks out as the true mark of an all-time great (and yes, I am talking about the Milton and Melville kind of great here).

Combine #4 with 1-3, and you get some spectacular failures along with some of the most intense, evocative, generous, and astonishing writing of modern times. DFW was GENEROUS, that's the best word I can think of.

Anyway, no one is reading this comment at this point, but my point was that it pains me to group him with Franzen, Chabon, and especially Eggers, and ESPECIALLY that fraud, Safran Foer, because I consider DFW about five cuts above those others. But it's true, on the charge of being scared of his own masculinity, I think DFW was guilty.

God only knows how many such sins I myself am guilty of. I'm aware of about 87 myself, and I'm sure I'm blind to another 900. DFW was a better writer than I'll ever be, and might have been a better man (though how do you measure that? and the poor bastard offed himself with a wife and kid in tow, which is a black mark if you ask me, mitigated as it might be by his clinical depression). Anyway... DFW was a big-hearted enough son-of-a-bitch that I feel somewhat guitly even criticizing him. Ironic, I know, for those of you used to me pontificating on why this or that girl's hair did or did not meet my criteria for being properly yankable. What can I say? I'm a softie underneath it all.

Thanks for the comments, y'all.

The Regret Brought on by Feminism, in the Eyes of a 60 Year Old Woman

2009-12-14T16:41:00.000-08:00

I hadn't spent time with my parents in a long time up until very recently. We're not estranged or anything. We have a very loving and friendly family; simply I have been busy being an adult and living my life. My parents are fucked-up people, like most people, and like most Boomers parents they gave me some weird notions about men and women, but they are good at heart and I am way past the point in my life where I worry about things like that.

Anyway, in the course of spending a couple weeks in close proximity to my beloved family, I had some interesting discussions with my dear mother. I think she has always assumed that I would get married... certainly in the past I talked about it from time to time. Well, several years have passed since we truly talked about that kind of thing, and I think I surprised her with how much I have changed. I surprised myself, actually. Having a discussion with a long-lost family member is almost like having a discussion with a past version of your self.

Having just returned from Africa and Europe recently, I dropped a casual remark about how American women move like battleships. She said, "You mentioned that the other day, too."

"Really?" I said. I genuinely didn't recall saying that, though I don't doubt I did. It's become such a casual, throw-away observation for me that saying it in no way stands out in my mind. But my mother is used to the classic pedestalizing that's only functional in a patriarchal society, that such comments stick out in her mind, I suppose.

But she's not totally blind to how things have changed. My mother may be in her 60's, but she's not stupid. She recently told me a story about a girl I went to high school with, let's call her "Heather." Heather was pretty hot back in the day, if I recall. I fully expect that she turned out to be a good-looking adult woman, but I haven't seen a picture. My mother brought her up because she's "going through a divorce."

(Incidentally, you have to love the shameless dodging of all responsibility inherent in that passive voice construction, "going through a divorce." As if it were something thrust upon you by an outside entity. You "go through" an IRS audit. You don't "go through" a divorce. You choose it.)

Heather and her husband have been married for less than two years. She's taking the house they bought with his money and, of course, alimony. When my mother told me this story I couldn't hide my contempt. I basically spouted off about how marriage was a terrible, terrible idea for a man in the United States for precisely that reason.

My mother gave me a somewhat concerned look, as if she agreed, but did not want to fully confront what I was saying. "But, Dogen, don't you think it just shows how important it is to pick the right woman?"

I shook my head sadly. I didn't want to lay the full force of my opinion on my poor, aging mother. I just told her that everyone thinks they have found the "right person," and it's foolish to assume you must be the exception. Besides, I do believe my mother once encouraged me to ask this Heather girl out because she "seemed sweet." And besides, I told her, American women don't know how to cook or clean; they don't know how to be sweet and genuine; and they are generally sluts (I phrased that part a little more gingerly); and yes, they move like battleships.

She countered that it's because "women in this country have more equality," (implying of course, that women in other countries must live under the boot of patriarchal tyranny).

I said, "No, not more equality. That's the official version. But really, it just means that they are more like men and less like women."

"Well," she said, "women are expected to act like men. They have to. They have to work in the business world and stuff. People need two incomes to get by today." (My mother worked full time most of her adult life in addition to raising four kids — of course my Dad worked and raised the kids, too.)

"They brought that on themselves, Mom. That wasn't the case for most of Western history up until about 30 years ago. Women wanted it to be this way, so they got it."

My mom got that miffed expression I know so well that means she doesn't want to talk about it anymore. But she added, "Some women wanted that. The loud ones. A lot of us would have been perfectly happy to raise our kids and love our husbands."

I let the topic go. I didn't want to make my mom any sadder than she was. But the way she said it nearly broke my heart. This is the awful world we have created, where people are afraid to make the choices that should make them most happy, because it's not "equal" enough. My mother's own generation victimized her — though to a degree, of course, she took part in it. It's never totally black and white. But to hear my mother say that, to see the sad expression in her eyes, filled me with sadness and with contempt for all the misery brought about in the name of "equality."

Vee must all suffer in zee name of eqvality. YOU VILL BE EQVAL!!!

Are Confident Girls Sexy?

2009-12-11T16:19:00.000-08:00

Time and again I hear girls bragging about their high self esteem and tell other girls to work on their level of confidence as dating advice (if you care, go read some online ads at dating sites and you see what I mean).

There is no doubt that a man's "confidence" as one of the most obvious outward signs of male status/power has a profound effect on women. But is the opposite true as well?

If you ask most guys, including those who are obsessed/cerebral about meeting women, the answer will be a clear "no". The only think that makes a woman attractive is her looks.
The dating market follows two simple laws:

Women judge by Appearance

Men judge by Looks

Or, as biologists express it:
"male preferences typically focus on direct indicators of female fecundity such as body size, and rarely result in the evolution of ... sexual displays in females."

Could it be, then, that women mistake their own preference as that of the other sex?

This is almost certainly true. Men often fall victim to the same fallacy and obsess about their looks instead of working on their "sexual display". Most men have a hard time accepting that their looks do not matter at all. So it is not too surprising that women do the same mistake. Given the profound gender difference when it comes mate selection, we all fail at putting ourselves into each other's shoes.

Yet, it is also conceivable that the story is not that simple when it comes to male selection. Most women I talk to can easily produce anecdotes that seem to prove their point. According to these stories, even some of the most gorgeous girls can fail to "score" when they are depressed or needy - not unlike guys.

I tended to be skeptical about these claims, but having had the unique opportunity to "coach" women in meeting men, I realized that there is truth to that. Women who smile a lot and happily engage in conversations at the bar seem to invite more approaches by guys than the same girls sitting broken heartedly in a remote corner with obvious sadness in her eyes. Surprisingly, neither her choice of clothes, nor the amount of approach invitations seem to matter in that situation. Guys shy away from a woman who radiates "not being in the mood".

Even more surprisingly, I have witnessed many times how even the most attractive girls can ruin their chances by becoming openly aggressive, "needy" and too direct in their approach to men. Women who openly become sexual and try to score make outs with any guy who is brave enough to not run away from their ravenous display of peaked libido, consistently go home alone. They typically launch (each other) into an escalating display of man hunt that eventually prevents guys from approaching (at least the guys they are actually competing for - the horde of drunk guys that mistake this situation as a unique opportunity to score a cheap drunk fuck get rejected accordingly).

More so, while the female preference for male dominance/status displays is as ubiquitous in nature as the male preference for direct signs of female fertility, there is an increasing amount of controversy among evolutionary biologists whether or not males might also judge females by more indirect behavioral cues (in any case, there is increasing appreciation for a profound role of male mate choice).

Taken from that angle, there might be reason to doubt the simple assumption that all a woman needs to be hot are a cute, face, great tits and ass. While a slim body, a voluptuous rack, full hair and a smooth symmetrical face all indicate female health, youth and fertility, there are more factors to guarantee a man's sperm to meet a fertile egg.

Certain ailments will express themselves in behavioral differences due to physical and mental discomfort. And given the lack of significant changes in a woman's physique during ovulation (estrus), all a man has to go by to dissect the girls that promise the highest chance of instant insemination success are subtle cues in her behavior.

It does not seem to be too far fetched, then, that women claim that they do not only care about their looks based on past experience. A woman's appearance can conceivably boost her sexiness (think pole dance). This can be contrasted with the observation that a man's looks do not matter at all. So, when it comes to choosing mates, men might be the more complicated (and choosier) sex after all.

How to make sure you sleep alone on New Year's Eve

2009-12-11T11:08:00.000-08:00

My first contact with the seduction community went awry. To this day I wonder what difference it could have made had I listened any earlier.

It was just days before New Year's a few years ago when a friend of mine called and asked me about my plans. I hadn't any. He hung up, and arrived at my doorsteps a few hours later with a big smile on his face.

"No excuses" was all he said, and minutes later I sat in his car on my way to NYC.

His plan was to visit friends of his and stay there for a couple of nights, including the big one, to finally get a chance to actually see the all drop. I was not sure what to think about that.

It was late that night when we arrived in Brooklyn. The flat was located in one of those "upcoming" areas that people in their late twenties like to populate. We knocked on the door, beers in hand.

A petite Asian girl with shoulder long hair opened the door and smiled. She was tomboyish, but cute. We went inside and met the other people. A young Chinese girl, rather pretty despite her bad teeth and a guy with long blond hair pulled back in a pony tail. He was the one my friend knew from his college days. We sat around a table and started to banter. There was an instant connection. We went out to Harlem that night - and had a blast. We went for breakfast the next day - and had a blast. We all reassembled for dinner at night, just to go hit the bars again.

The next morning my friend's buddy took me aside. He had rightfully sensed my naivete with women, and was poised to take those goggles of ignorance off my eyes. His initiation was well set out. By talking about evolution, he had caught my interest. He showed me a copy of "The Game" and proudly flashed his black fingernails. What I thought was just another trendy, hip, artsy, New York metrosexual fad turned out to be a gimmick to attract women!

I was captivated for a bit. I smiled nervously at his obvious accusation of being unattractive. I flipped through the book which looked like (and he called) the Bible, shaking my head in disbelief. It all seemed so - out there. Guys running around laying girls as if it were a sport. Isn't that what you stop doing once you leave the frat house? What's wrong with just having a girl friend?

Yet, everything he said seemed to make sense. My curiosity turned into excitement when I realized that he basically suggested a practical application to the evolutionary theories floating around academia. Could it be true that one can use the knowledge about our biological roots - something I strongly believed in - into your own advantage? There would be a certain irony if you could prove it to work on those very same people that deny the instinctive nature of human behavior.

But the black fingernails...

I just couldn't get my head around the black fingernails. It just didn't seem to make sense. It didn't seem right. Did he really do it just to get laid? I just couldn't take it seriously. He sensed my skepticism and gave up.

My friend and in ended up staying longer in NYC than originally planned. On New Year's the girls lead us over to one of their friend's places in Queens. It was an apartment close to the river. The fire stairs were rigged so that one could get up on the roof, where she actually put some furniture for lazy summer afternoons. We were promised a party, but there were only two drunk girls lingering at that place who looked disappointed when they realized that our group made for a total female-to-male ratio of 5:3 (with one of the guys being too close a friend to serve as walking sausage).

The social dynamics shifted accordingly. When we got (heavily drunk) on the roof around midnight to watch the fireworks taking off across the river, the girls had lost all ability to hold back. I felt like a naked supermodel walking into a hardware store. The New Year hugs became thinly veiled attempts at making a physical connection. Later on, one of the girls even stripped down to her lingerie "to get ready for bed". Each time a girl showed interest in one of us, the other ones got even more interested. I soon realized that none of them had planned to sleep alone that night.

But, amazingly, we all ended up doing just that.

Sometimes I think back to that trip in disbelief. What happened that night was the result of (everything that is wrong with) the "nice guy" mindset. I had cockblocked myself by believing societal norms. I had actually believed that these girls were not interested in casual sex. If they were, so I thought, they would send a clear signal. And lacking social calibration and an understanding of sub-communication I had completely missed that they were basically screaming it right into my face.

What I didn't realize that night is that girls cannot go around and loudly proclaim that all they want to do tonight is put their mouth on the member of the guy with the least amount of kindness in the room.Unless a man demonstrates that he is not "judgmental", women will always behave as if they the only way to their happy trail is through a series of dinners, flowers and poems.

And if a guy clearly shares this mainstream belief, girls are forced to adhere to that stereotype even more in order not to lose their face. Now I know that the girls that night had thrown around nonreciprocated signals to the point of frustration. They were stuck between their urge for rough steamy sex and the need to play along as pure angels in search for a husband. And one of the most important differences between frustrated chumps and successful men is that the latter are able to see through that scam.

This is a perfect example of when what many think of as acting "friendly" is not only stupid but really an asshole move. I did not just frustrate myself that night, but more so the women who had brought themselves to the brink of publicly declaring their slutty fantasies - just to be turned down by a "judgmental" guy.

And that is what it looks like from a female perspective, as women cannot fathom that many guys act this way out of ignorance. The men they lust for under any normal circumstances are not the type of guys who are confused about a woman's sexual desires. It is only when average frustrated chumps get into an extraordinary situation such as the one described above that women are forced to face the reality of (and pay for) their own selectivity.

Ego Boosters

2009-12-09T11:52:00.000-08:00

The better beta (aka Mark Baachman) put up an interesting post about the female tendency to come up with pseudo male ego boosters, typically at the early stages of a relationship.

We all know them. Here are some classic examples:

"No one has ever made me cum like you do."
"This was the best sex I ever had."

"You are so big."
"You and me have the perfect physical fit."

"I've never done this before."

All of these lines are obviously designed to stroke the male ego (and as Mark lines out rather clearly all of them are easily dismissed if you really think about it).

Just think back to the time of your own initial experiences, or read the posts on internet boards by insecure, inexperienced guys who are striving to become better with women:
Guys with little sexual experience often get plagued by enormous doubts about their erection size and duration, sexual performance, or whether or not she orgasmened.

All of that stems from one and the same fear:
Has any of my predecessors achieved to induce similar or greater pleasure to my girl?

Of course, all of this goes away once a man climbs up the sexual hierarchy. Increased experience proves any man that what he really should focus on during sex is his own pleasure, not hers. After banging a barage of chicks in rapid succession a man will also realize that worries about "technique" and "performance" are male concepts and irrelevant to girls. Great sex for women is defined by their emotional experience before during and after. And when it comes to penis size - as a good friend of mine once put it: "It's like worrying whether your mouth is too small for talking. Once you give speeches regularly the whole idea just seems absurd."

So who is the target when a woman pretends to be inexperienced and overwhelmed by the sexual prowess of her current lover? The fact that the occurrence of these lines is strongly linked to relationships might be a clue. While the ultimate female fantasy is the paradox of having a beta-ized relationship with an alpha male, most girls do not succeed in tying down the top dogs. Most long term relationships are held by guys who fall in the middle of the "Fuck, Marry, Kill" trichotomy.

It is conceivable, then, that women use these lines in relationships with the (unconscious) assumption that they are dealing with a rather inexperienced man. And in order to achieve commitment she will have to deal with his doubts (on paternity certainty), especially if it is clear that she has experience. A man might be more likely to stick with a woman if he believes that she is unlikely to find a better sexual experience somewhere else. There is a reason that men throughout cultures world wide prefer to marry virgins.

But, how come women say these things even if you obviously are a highly experienced man?

There are two clues for that. The first is that women seem to really believe these lines when they say them. It is a classic example of the female "what I feel is what is real". Women in relationship often describe their previous sexual experiences as "faded away". Female promiscuity does not arise from a desire to have many partners in rapid succession. The female mind is able to absolutely focus on the man at hand (no pun intended).
The other clue is that pretty much every guy I know has heard one or more of the above at least once in their lives. This consistency across women and circumstances suggests a deeper, presumable biological (instinctive) root. Just like shit tests, there might be a genetic basis for this type of behavior.

Taken together, there is reason to believe that when in a relationship, women will go through an emotional phase where they fantasize about the sexual prowess of the man they are about to "get more serious with". In my experience this happens at the exact transition from (ir)regular "sexing" to "seeing" each other. More so, women will do so regardless of the type of man they are with, thereby inducing the feelings that are well described in Mark's post if the man is experienced enough to cut through the bull. The ultimate reason for this strange behavior is to soothe a man into a state of higher (assumed) paternity certainty.
It therefore is just another shit test.

The Other Enemy of Masculinity

2009-12-07T21:42:00.000-08:00

Some weeks ago, reader el chief left a comment about his suspicions on the link between pollution and the seemingly increasing trends in gender abnormalities.

As a professional biologists I have learned to be skeptical about environmental doomsday scenarios, yet skepticism always goes both ways. However, a quick google search at the time revealed less data than interest group propaganda, along with controversies surrounding some of the most straightforward, simple questions.

It all came flashing back when I flipped through an issue of "Men's Health" while doing cardio at my gym (Despite its tabloid makeup, MH often surprises with very insightful and well written docus on general health issues such as the alarming decline in NIH funding and the massive problems arising from the profound irrationality of the animal rights lobby - all of them recommended reads).

To my great surprise (given the pc/feminist brainwash we encounter daily in the mass media) the editorial of the December issue closely mirrored some of the complaints we know from anti-equalist/men's rights blogs: Men of all ages are much more prone to health issues (men are designed as the expendable sex), yet somehow women seem to get first when it comes to fighting gender-specific disease.

If you have the time, I urge you to read the piece entitled "The Lost Boys of Aamjiwnaang" for yourself (or at least the brief summary on their blog). But in either case, keep on reading. There is much to say about the suggested link between polluting chemicals and lowered levels of testosterone in young men given the context of this blog.

The article title refers to a reserve of Indigenous Canadians that borders on a region so heavily industrialized it is nicknamed "Chemical Valley". As you might expect, there is quite a bit of pollution around there. At least there are much higher concentrations of man-made chemicals in the water and soil of this region than the doses that we all are exposed to. And that sandbox-scenario allows scientist to get harder data on possible links between these substances and changes in human physiology.

And this is where it gets interesting.

There is a whole bunch of studies that show that there is a troubling trend in industrialized nations, including the US, Japan and Canada: Women give birth to less and less men.

Nature has an efficient way to deal with the fact that men die more easily than women: It produces more male babies. Normally, there are 105 baby boys for each 100 newborn baby girls. Thanks to their frail genetic makeup, the higher susceptibility to diseases and the testosterone-caused accidents stemming from increased risk-taking behavior, most of these boys will be long dead when the baby girls enjoy their retirement. But by producing more male babies, there are at least enough men around to inseminate the stronger sex. Yet, this effect is about to disappear.

The problem is that nobody really knows why. The effect is still rather small, and there could be many external factors contributing to the overproduction of girls (just think about it: women often take hormonal contraceptives for years and generally get kids later in life than they used to). And then there is the problem that "correlation does not imply causation". Not surprisingly then, there is quite a bit of controversy surrounding the interpretation of these data in the scientific community.

So how can you find out whether one factor might be more causal than the others? The best way is to perform measurements where the factor under scrutiny gets altered while everything else remains constant. This can be done in the laboratory (using animals). And the results of these experiments point at the pollutant toxins: many of the substances that permeate our environment in never before seen concentrations act as feminizers. By blocking testosterone and/or mimicking estrogen these "endocrine disruptors" have shown to gender transform a whole variety of species that get exposed to them (estrogen and testosterone are not restricted to humans or even mammals; they act the same way in fish and lizards and many other animals).

But how can you show that this is also the case for humans? This is where the Native Canadians in the Chemical Valley come into play. Given that they are even more exposed to these chemicals than the rest of us, they should suffer more from the consequences. And when it comes to the ratio of newborn males, it couldn't get any more clear: While researchers found the expected overproduction of baby boys during the eighties, things have changed drastically in the late nineties. Now only 35% of newborns are male (you can imagine the consequences for those communities).

But, while this is not the only heavily polluted area that features a decrease in the ratio of male offspring (there are interesting parallels to at least two incidents in Italy and Taiwan), there still remains quite a bit of controversy if chemical pollution is to blame for the worldwide decline in men. Yet, even the spokesmen who were hired by the chemical corporations dare only say that the data is not yet conclusive and that "there needs to be more work" done. That does not sound to me like they are convinced of the opposite, let alone be willing to relocate their own families into this region and voluntarily restrict their fluid intake to the water in those rivers.

As the article lays out - the chemicals under suspect tend to accumulate with age in male bodies, and have the additional property of being extremely potent in rather small doses. And while the article focuses on a single effect - the decline in male offspring - one can but wonder what other changes these feminizing chemicals might have on the male body and mind (cancer is one of them). After all, low testosterone is known not to do anything good to men:

•   fatigue / lethargy / depression
•   impotence / loss of libido
• loss of muscle / weakness
•   gynecomastia ("man boobs")

So, what are these substances that researchers list as main suspects?

[Note: I am no expert and all of this consists of second hand information]

BISPHENOL-A:

- found in 92.6% of Americans

- AVOID (likely source): drinks from plastic bottles and canned food (any packaging marked with a '3' or a '7' inside a triangle)

DIOXINS:

- large class of chemicals; produced during incineration and other industrial processes

- they're now part of our food chain and literally almost everywhere around us

- AVOID: fat (choose lean meat and low fat dairy instead); cigarettes (no brainer); microwaving, scrubbing and dishwashing plastics

DDT/DICOFOL:

- found in 73.8% of all Americans over age 12

(99.7% of us carry the breakdown-product DDE, which has similar feminizing properties)

- likely source: banned pesticides; still lingering in the soil

- AVOID: non-local produce, unwashed produce, unpeeled root vegetables (i.e. carrots and potatoes)

PHTHALATES:

- used as plastic softener (increasingly phased out)

- AVOID: fatty foods, certain personal care products, packaging labeled with a '3' inside a triangle (some might contain phthalates), rooms recently covered with PVC tiles

HEXACHLOROBENZENE:

- found in 99.9% of all Americans over age 12

- likely source: pesticides that got banned globally decades ago; yet still in our food chain (esp. fish and wild game)

So there you have it. While not uncontroversial, it is possible that we are exposed to feminizing agents potent enough to induce measurably impacts our physiology. Whether any of these chemicals (or their combination) could have an effect on hormone-regulated behavior is pure speculation. Yet, it would be surprising if anything strong enough to alter our gonads would spare gender-specific behavior. When it comes to a population wide decline in masculinity and manly behavior there might be more factors at hand than the cultural impact of feminism.

He said, she said

2009-12-04T12:30:00.000-08:00

I can well relate to the feelings that Marquis describes when he, sitting in a boring business meeting, smells a woman on the fingers of his hand, and wonders while scanning the room what life must be like for the other people. Staring into the bored and boring faces of lifeless men who radiate a general lack of interest, passion and masculine spirit, it becomes blatantly obvious that their world is not yours. And your life entails events they only know from cable TV - far removed from what they believe is possible for a man like them to achieve. And since this is the majority of people that we are surrounded by there is a sense of strangeness to oneself. You're a wolf hidden among sheep.

The masculine mind craves to be daring and explorative. Men need risk and adventure. It is literally part of our DNA. And it is not like these guys would be able to deny their nature. What these men do is substituting the kick of living out wild inner urges with stale, fake, second hand experiences. Marquis mockingly refers to "Halo" as the unthinkable alternative to his action packed life of danger and debauchery. There is a reason that we think of "gamers" as pathetic underdogs who trade a wild youth for lonely late night couch sessions, unproductively interacting with other creepy guys. Video games are the lesser man's adventure porn.

Having said all that, I just bought an Xbox. And I fucking love it.

My apartment reflects the various (admittedly geeky) projects I have going at all times. Cameras and lenses for my amateur photography. There's my geeky 8'' telescope that provides me with night time motives. The keg in which I brew my own beer in. A guitar. A MIDI keyboard for my sorry attempts at creating music. I was obsessed with rare plants for a while, which I paired with some Monarch butterflies that I raised as pets. The art on the wall, while exclusively from friends, are testament to my attempts at drawing. My books and classical music collection are stored away, so most room gets taken up by my sports equipment. I can't remember the last time I was bored. I have no need for a TV.

And it is because and not despite all that that I love this machine.

Yes, it can be creepy and sad to get your stereotypes confirmed by checking out an online multiplayer game avast with the the forlorn chat of ever adolescent guys who think that "cool" is equal to using swear words during virtual shoot outs. And while you wonder whether your impulse buy made you one of them, there are flash backs of that feeling of estrangement you had during the meeting.

But for me, the console basically acts as a geeky central media device that wirelessly links my music library or internet radio to my surround sound system. I stream free movies and occasionally rent a good TV show or two. It is easy to browse facebook and MSNBC news clips (well, both ain't that great, but still...). I linked the toy drums that came with the box to my music set. And I love the concept of an interactive trivia show. It's addictive to test your general knowledge against 100.000 other people simultaneously while a moderator comments live. And if you watch these clips, it quickly gets clear that the Xbox will soon evolve into an interactive telecommunication device that households won't go without.

And to my big surprise - women love it, too. Granted, I tend to be surrounded by ambitious, high achieving girls that are in competitive jobs, but the passion that a plastic guitar can unleash in these girls is astounding. No wonder, apart from the "classic" first person shooters, games become increasingly more attractive to women as they combine increased physical activity with social aspects (the online trivia features a "He said, She said" episode that is designed to pit guys against girls). House parties can turn into even greater fun with a set of plastic guitars, drums and some microphones. Some games appeal to women as much as men. If you still are caught in the early phases or male betterment and look for ways to invite women over to your place, here is a hint.

The reason I write this post is the comment an anonymous reader left the other day. Whether he was trolling or not, there is a point in noting that having a passion - any passion, even if it is video games - can reduce your neediness towards women.

Of course, as noted above - if that passion turns into your sole activity in life it will turn against you. But I see many friends repeatedly do the same mistake over and over again with their girls - they give up too much of their own lives to make space for the relationship. But by letting their partner become a hobby, they essentially lose the independence that women need to see in a man to keep up their interest. In these rare occasions, it is conceivable indeed that a man's new found passion for something other than the woman he sees could rekindle an ailing relationship.

In any case, and importantly, an Xbox can be a lot of fun. And just that.

I still haven't played Halo yet.

Would you rather?

2009-12-03T15:15:00.000-08:00

Inspired by roissy's post today, I have decided to step out of the Ivory Tower of Evolutionary Psychology that I commonly use to veil my personal stories and share an experience that is private enough to me to make this a first.

The experience I am going to share relates to the question as to whether the betrayal of a woman you (literally) cared for "only hurts because of dishonesty" or whether it is comparable or even more damaging to the male psyche than physical assault of the worst kind.

I honestly cannot relate to the latter, but here is a first hand account of what it is like to find out about a woman's disloyalty after more than half a decade of a picture-book (beta) relationship. As to how the magnitude of such experience compares to the potential impact of physical assault - you be the judge.

It was in my early twenties when I moved in with a girl that I would spend more than the next six years with. I had plenty of experience by that time, including short flings and the heart break following long(er) term relationships. What made this relationship different is that it closely resembled married life.

I did not actually marry this woman, nor did we have children together, but by any other standard we lived the life of newly weds. There was mutual respect and virtually no fights between me an her. There seemed to be an ideal mix of overlapping and distinct interests as well as a match in temperament and personality that made for a successful team in life. For many we were "an ideal couple" with a seeming lack of relationship problems. We seemed inseparable.

I found out about her infidelity after heading to work early one morning. There had been a build up of changes in her behavior that had made me increasingly suspicious. But I still was not prepared for the undeniable physical evidence I encountered this morning.

My body's first reaction was an intense rush of adrenaline. The only time I had ever felt a kick of similar intensity was after slipping and nearly falling off a slim ridge into certain death during a hiking expedition in the Alps.

My hands started shaking. My heart started beating strong enough that I became aware of it despite the shock. I was unable to move. My mouth went dry. And my thoughts started racing. It is easy to fool oneself into believing something that ain't really there, but I can easily relate the thought processes ensuing this event to the Kubler-Ross stages of grief - in much more rapid progression.

The next thing I remember is extreme nausea. My blood pressure must have dropped since I felt very cold all over sudden. I started trembling and put on my jacket again, but still felt as if drowned in ice water. This sensation would not go away for the next couple of hours (my loss of appetite would last several days).

Just to be clear about it. There was nothing I could do about any of that. I was at work and in no way interested in showing any external sign of my inner mental state. I tried to "man up", and mentally put my feelings aside to deal with it at a more appropriate time and place. My body did not obey my will.

I had an appointment that morning which proved difficult to cancel. I tried to show up at the meeting as if nothing had happened. To no avail.

The moment I entered the room, I was asked to sit down, and given a glass of water together with anxious questions whether everything was alright. It was embarrassing since we were in the presence of clients. I tried to joke off my colleagues' concerns and asked everyone to focus on the task at hand. It didn't work. I clumsily rushed to work - and ended up screwing everything up within a matter of minutes.

Next thing, I was asked to sit down and this time I had to confess that I was troubled by something that "had happened earlier this morning". I assured everyone that I am okay again and we went back to work, but only minutes later my colleague suggested that he could finish it by himself and I should take a break.

I walked out of the building, and the next thing I remember is driving aimlessly around in my car. I must have done that for hours. I ended up confronting that girl, packing some stuff and sleeping at a hotel near work. I felt extreme anger. At the girl. At the guy who she was with. At myself. More so, I felt deep humiliation.

Part of the thoughts that run through a man's mind at that point is how deep the betrayal could have possibly went. Who knew about it? How long were you left in the dark? How could that happen to you?

What seemed to hurt the most was that I had believed that what I did was everything I was supposed to do. I had worked hard on being a perfect partner. And it was from her (and other women) that I had heard that this is the least I could do since women in happy relationships (supposedly) do all that and more. The full extent of a lie does not need to be explained to someone who suffers its dire consequences.

[Little did I know that it would have been better had I just done what I wanted. By following her wishes and needs and acting along the societal code of how a boyfriend behaves I had made a fool of myself.]

The reason for the massive physical and mental changes that I lived through at the time are obvious. Our animal instinct will invoke panic in anyone who is about to leave this planet without leaving a biological legacy behind.

A man has to decide whether he wants to sacrifice the joys and excitement of a never ending pussy-parade in his life for the ease and comfort offered by a stable relationship, and (often) vice versa. So for the male psyche going down the relationship route, finding out that the time, feelings and money invested in a woman were not reciprocated (as her part of the deal is to ensure high paternity certainty) is like finding out that your hard-earned 401K was raided.

This needs emphasis. When this (admittedly rather mundane) episode happened to me, all I could lament about at the time was that I had lost a good part of my "wild twenties". But I was still young, childless and unbound by any financial repercussions (such coming from a marrital contract). My 401K was not needed for retirement yet. I was in the green, yet my brain went amok.

Given that, I cannot imagine what it must be like for a man to find out about a woman's disloyalty when it has actual repercussions on his prospects to procreate (not because I have the strong desire to procreate, but because the reaction triggered by his reptile brain will be way, way more brutal).

Cuckolded men stare into the abyss of a negative 401K account balance on the day of their retirement. They literally fucked up. On the great tree of life that has continually branched from the first DNA on earth up to their existence, they are a mere dead leave that is about to fall off. All they worked for. All they ever believed in. All of it - in vain.

Indirect Effects of Mass-Betaization on Society

2009-12-02T12:00:00.000-08:00

Instead of another elaborate long post lamenting about what has already repeatedly been said before ( and much more eloquently so), here are just some quick (recent) links to illustrate the point.

Men giving up I: Omega male escapism
There is an increasing trend among young men to skip chasing skirts for extended hours on the web. This has been most thoroughly documented among young Asian men, where adaptation to masturbation has caused an endemic of "vaginal ejaculation disorder" (that is, even if these men get sex they can't enjoy it). So, no surprise, then that a size able number of Japanese men has petitioned their government to pass a law legalizing marriage to manga comic characters. And now one of them couldn't even wait for that to happen, he just does it.
This is a (considerable) step forward from prolonged adolescence, porn-addiction and mere social isolation. The otaku/gamer culture has found its own ways to deal with sexuality involving an abnormal ratio of trans-gender fantasies and extreme forms social anxiety.
During on of my trips to Tokyo, I have visited one of the infamous internet cafes in Akhibara that have literally become home to some of these guys. Each floor sports several lockable booths that entail nothing but a comfy chair and a internet-linked computer (as well as as some handkerchiefs). There is a shower and a vending machine and a 24/7 concierge that sells anything from tooth paste to ties. People actually live there. Close by are "maid cafes", where guys can engage in harmless flirting with girls pretending to be sailor moon. A popular offer of theirs is to let a guy rest his head on their thighs for a while (a "knee cushion"). You can also "hire" women for a day to go shopping with you. All of them are dressed manga-style and none of them allows as much as a kiss.

Men giving up II: No sex means no need to make money.
Herbs are on the rise as a direct consequence. Guys who are happy with living in a fantasy world just need the bare minimum of existence. A men without any hope for getting laid will find it difficult to convince himself that he should work his ass off for that big house and the sports car. Often times the burden of paying for food, shelter and internet access falls on parents (who naturally rebel against their unnatural burden of providing for a man in his prime). Unthinkable just a few decades ago, you can now find men in their thirties still living at mom's.

Men giving up III: Rage-induced killing sprees.
Remember the guy who went on the killing spree in a Pennsylvania gym some months ago? He had a blog, where he made things crystal clear:
“Why do this? It seems many teenage girls have sex frequently. One 16 year old does it usually three times a day with her boyfriend. So, err, after a month of that, this little [expletive] has had more sex than ME in my LIFE, and I am 48.”
He is not alone: Seung-Hui Cho, who killed 32 people in a rampage at Virgina Tech in 2007 once claimed to have seen “promiscuity” when he looked into the eyes of a woman on campus.

Yes, these are extreme examples (especially those intermingled with a different culture), but my point is that there is a general trend upwards. And this will continue as long as the causing factors keep going upwards, too.

If I am right, this is just a hint of things to come.

Woman Who Want to Want Purely Selfishly

2009-11-30T01:16:00.000-08:00

I'm sure that plenty will be said about this article in the New York Times among various sex and gender dynamics writers. It's a long article describing the coming "clinicalization" of low sex drive among women in the upcoming version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

My first thought upon reading it, though, is that it is astonishingly free from any mention of men. Sexual desire is treated by the writer — and apparently by the people described in the article — of being something wholly internal. Only on the last page of the six page article is the idea of sex as a partnered activity come up, and then only as a "conundrum" that "cannot be solved."

So this is where we have come to. People, especially women, are so convinced that individual empowerment is the end-all, be-all, that they have placed into isolation one of the few things that by definition requires another person, or at least the desire for another person. For a while, I suppose, these women got by on pumping their dildos mechanically, with no thoughts of love or lust. Now they can't even manage that.

Maybe these women can't feel arousal because they have no idea what it's like to be a natural woman. They can't feel sexual arousal — can't feel anything at all — because they are so sold on the idea of gender equality. The prospect of the natural, exhilerating, and fulfilling act of submitting to a worthy, dominant male has been completely swept off the table by the twin demons of the masculinization of females and the complete betastasis of the males.

The hilarious/sad part isn't that these women exist. It's that someone can write a six page article on the phenomenon without once considering the role of the male. Either he never even thought of it, and he's a brainwashed moron. Or he did think of it but opted not to mention it for fear of enraging the harpies of feminism, in which case he's a weakling and a bitch-boy.

Other than that, life's grand! Anyone see that drive by Vince Young on Sunday?

Why the omega males we all know are still desirable

2009-11-25T13:58:00.000-08:00

This might be a boring and repetitive point for some, but since it keeps popping up:

Yes, there are some actors, singers and other celebrities that are commonly seen as "hot" despite their obvious impersonation of what evolutionary theory deems unattractive to women. Does this disprove the core assumption of seduction theory: a man's non-verbal indication of high status is the ultimate aphrodisiac?

Of course not.

As we have repeatedly pointed out on this blog, fame equals pre-selection. And research shows that social proof is the ultimate indication of high (alpha) status.

Moreover, being on screen or stage means total reign of attentional territory (the alpha males ultimate kingdom):

A man can literally look like a gnome, or be a wavering loser who bites his finger nails, constantly cries and still lives with his mom but be hot as hell - as long as there is total control of the scene.

Brain scans reveal that people watching movies are literally synchronized in their brain activities. This is mostly due to the fact that each observers eye movements get drawn to the same spots on the screen at the same time (an amazing byproduct of good movie making).

In other words, actors in a movie (and singers on stage) have the power to direct the eye movements of all people present at the time. To the female (unconscious) mind ever screening for the top dogs among men, this complete control of other people's minds, this absolute reign of attentional territory will be proof enough of desirability.

More than that, if you watch movies carefully, you will notice that the screen writers (consciously or not) play with the female psyche by adding high status behavior to low status males in order to render them more attractive.

Typical examples include the frequent "transformation" of shy guys into ballsy heroes the moment their oh so adored girl gets into danger. The fact that such a drastic change of character would never happen in real life seems to be completely oblivious to most women (personal communications). Once you become alert to that motif, you will notice this pattern (a moment in the movie where the lead guy has to "proof" his "hidden" masculinity and thereby become attractive) in almost any movie that is not exclusively targeted at male audiences.

To find out how women truly feel about weak-seeming men, try your local bar. Observe the combined female reaction to the guys in "death row": the guys standing with their back to the walls, liquid courage in front of their chest, desperately ogling at the skank fest unraveling in front of their eyes. If you ever witness anything but complete disregard from the girls in attendance, drop me a line and I will edit this post.

If that observation alone is not sufficient, grab a girl and play "Fuck, Mary, Kill" with her. But be prepared for shocking revelations.

I have tried this exercise dozens of times when I was bored during a night out. The result always is the same. If you are atuned to social dynamics, you will be able to make out the few alpha males who the girl selects as shag-material before she even opens her mouth. It is even easier to spot the relationship-worthy betas (which, by the way, still get ignored by even the most desperate boy-friend seeking girls in favor of the few assholes in the audience). The true eye opener for the unitiated is the "Kill" category. It will unlock a passionate hate in the most sweet looking girls you can imagine. If you ever doubted if women truly loath omega males, don't listen to their words, watch their actions.

Can you pull it off?

2009-11-24T13:07:00.000-08:00

One of the last posts instigated an interesting discussion in the last's posts comment section:

What works better in getting 'ginas tingly - a perfectly tailored suit, or a tight shirt revealing pecs and guns?

The answer is, of course, context-dependent (and - that neither really matters since it is all about subcommunication when it comes to female attraction).

The accessories that help signal "alpha male" to women in a biker's bar are not the same as the ones that indicate "high status male" in a professional setting. More so, however, a man needs to be able to pull it off. Not every man can wear a suit and really look good in it. And a tight shirt might work against you rather than help if you are void of any muscle.

Just like stagetwo once said:

"Arrogance is a guy’s miniskirt. (You have to be able to wear it — but the effect is amazing.)".

The key to being well calibrated is to having what it takes to pull it off.

I learned this as another lesson from Pierre, who pulled a lot of things of that most men can't. And the most impressive of them was the ability to be incredibly cheesy.

Pierre's approach to seduction was heavily infused by mainstream thinking. What he he took from the immense library of romance novels the he read was both, dominant behavior and an idealized sensuality akin to cheesy Hollywood "romance" that is often looked down upon by modern day seducers as "supplication".

Pierre woes women with food, wine, flowers and poetry. He is not afraid to tell them how beautiful they are (before they had sex). Pierre opens doors, pulls back seats, takes off jackets and even makes sure he walks on the side of the street that faces the cars. In other words, Pierre treats women as a gentleman in the book, even in situations where it seems an unnecessary favor to a woman. He does it simply for her being a woman.

In other words, Pierre seems to put women on a pedestal - and he gets away with it. Contrary to common belief, Pierre's kindness does not put him in the friend zone. Pierre manages to be a nice guy and a lover at the same time.

It is not despite Pierre's beta male gesturing that he is so successful, but because. Sometimes it is the opposite of high status displays that demonstrates real strength - such as laughing at yourself. A tyrant's most impressive demonstration of power is to be merciful to its fiercest enemy.

Pierre's success lies in the fact that his kindness does not get misinterpreted as weakness.

Pierre does not really supplicate. He is not trying to trade favors for sex. He is signaling that he has enough sex and the choice to walk away at any moment. His gentleman-y behavior is just a playful facade that he puts on to let women know that he can become their romance novel come true - for a night. It is a way to sub-communicate his deep understanding of female sensuality that promises her intense sexual experience.