HughRistik of Feminist Critics left these comments on Saturday:
“Auster also seems to have forgotten God’s curse on Eve: “your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.†Far from enjoying a higher position in the world, women enjoy one of subordination to men. The very reason why game works on women is because God ordained that part of the curse on the entire gender through Eve would be domination by men.â€
Interesting perspective, but does this quote bother anyone else?
I want to sleep with attractive women, connect with women, and have relationships with some of those women. Dominance in the bedroom is all well and good, but don’t want to rule women outside the bedroom. That sounds like far too much work, and I have better things to do with my time and energy.
Furthermore, for an actual relationship partner, I do NOT want someone to rule over. I’m very individualistic and I admire women who are, also. I want a woman who is her own person.
In terms of practicality, leading is virtually always required, and often some level of sexual dominance in the bedroom. Yet I don’t consider a relationship characterized as me “ruling over†a woman in general as either necessary or desirable. I do grant that due to the nature of some women’s desires, a relationship of equality might not be possible with them, but I don’t know how typical that tendency is.
When I was growing up, the message drummed into my head was that men and women should be “equal†in relationships. Of course, the feminist notion of equality (where women are liberated from their gender roles and leverage sexual power over men, but men are not and must repress their sexuality), turned out to be bunk. Yet I still like the idea of a relationship with a woman who is my equal (in a general sense of the distribution of power and respect).
Perhaps I’m just projecting from my personality, but I’m skeptical that men in general particularly want to dominate women, contrary to what feminists claim. Men want women who are hot and have pleasant personalities, but ruling women? I’m not convinced.
I’m suspicious of expectations that men “rule†over women, whether they come from religious sources, or from women themselves, and I wonder whether such expectations are really in men’s best interests.
Oh, and one more thing: One reason that I like what is called “game†here is not that it gives me dominance over women, but because it is the way (at least, the way I practice it) to get the best approximation of equality in sexual interactions between men and women.
This gets to something I’ve wanted to discuss: the role of dominance in game and relations with women. I’ve held that dominance is the natural outcome of good game, the result of taking its principles to heart. People frequently confuse being dominant with being controlling – the two are not the same in my opinion. Being controlling is an active process, and is the tool of a weak man. Dominant individuals don’t consciously act to control others – people are drawn to them by the force of their personalities.
I’m not the only one who holds that women want dominant men. Roissy took his pseudonym from the chateau in Story of O, which he explained as follows:
but roissy is not about torture or sadomasochism, except inasmuch as it serves the metaphorical purpose to illuminate how even outwardly successful, powerful, intelligent women yearn to be dominated by strong men. and that this dominance, personified by the classic jerk sir stephen, is the key to unlocking a woman’s uncompromised love.
a peek behind the crimson curtains at roissy is a peek inside a woman’s head and what truly turns her on.
Additionally, Aoefe argued at Girl Game that women are naturally submissive:
I believe the desire for a woman to be submissive to her man is innate, plus I believe women are wired to be submissive to proper authority in general.   Submissive, as I see it, is described as agreement, respect, duty, or deference. I don’t personally view it as meek, passive or tameness.  I believe submissiveness is a feminine trait and I believe women have lost touch with this inborn need.
I’d like to get the commentariat’s view on this. Are men supposed to dominate women? Do women want to be dominated? What constitutes dominance in regards to game? The floor is yours once more.
PROGRAMMING NOTE: I have a report that will be published this afternoon at The Spearhead. Stay tuned.
{ 69 comments… read them below or add one }
Ferdi,
Excellent post.
Of course, Solid, well executed Game is all about an Alpha Male selecting the Target of his choice, then seducing her for his purposes-all with her tacit, implicit and express consent. Guys who attempt to “control” Women are NOT Alphas.
At this juncture these kinds of things shouldn’t even be up for debate, and please allow me to suggest, that for anyone to do so, is almost always coming from one of two places-rank ideology, or gross naivete’, sometimes both. As we both know, this can and does happen a lot wrt Males, who tend to have far less experience in sexual matters than do most Females.
Very, very few Women truly wants to lead. The stronger their personality, the more they will need a Man who is even *stronger* to successfully deal with her. This is why it has often been said that tight Game works best with “together” Women-the best and the brightest if you will-because in order to successfully seduce them, you, as a Man, by definition, have your own shit together, and usually on multiple levels.
There are many ways to assert dominance over a Woman, and often the best ways are the more subtle and indirect ones, because they’re a lot more imtimate and “special”, something that, to her mind, is more between you two, and less a kind of crass Silverback style display to the world. On occasion such “caveman” moves have their place, but they should be used sparingly for the best effect.
The very fulcrum of Game lies in understanding what an Alpha Male is and why he exists. There is no Game without this. And Alpha Males by definition, are Dominant.
And the Female would have it no other way.
The Obsidian
Female arousal depends largely on the stimulation that comes from either being dominated or dominating. Of course, being submissive comes much more naturally to women, given their passive nature. They also prefer it because it allows them to play the role of victim and demand compensation—monetary or otherwise—while getting their rocks off, thus killing two birds with one stone. But if the only alternative to a vapid equality with men is domination of them, women will pick up the dominatrix’s whip with a gusto. Unlike men, however, who can dominate women and still love and respect them, women who dominate men lose all respect for them. As the novelist Thackerey put it, women are either “timid or tyrants.â€
So even though most men have no innate drive to dominate women per se and could handle equal relationships with women if only the “fair sex†would oblige, they end up taking charge when they realize they have no other choice: it’s either dominate or be dominated. Male dominance used to built into our culture and codified in law, as still is in most parts of the world, so individual men didn’t have to go around trying to reinvent the wheel. Betas didn’t have to try to be alpha. As long as they upheld a minimum standard of masculine behavior, women deferred to and respected them.
You know Ferdinand, the first question you’ve got to ask is, why does game actually work? Why does the confident cocky guy elicit a positive response in a woman? What’s going on in their heads?
The answer to that question needs more space than a combox but the bottom line is that women are hard wired to respond this way. They respond pleasurably to displays of assertiveness, high social value, etc in a potential mate. This is why love is not a cognitive function, it seems almost brainstem.(sub cognitive) They don’t rationalise these features, they just feel good when exposed to them. ” I know he is bad for me but he makes me feel so good”. Some non-cognitive portion of their brain gives them a love-chemical rush every time they’re around a male who pushes the appropriate buttons: It’s involuntary and reason is overwhelmed by emotion.
Being nice doesn’t flick the switch, as it appeals to her conscious brain and not her animal nature; there is no love-chemical rush.
The woman doesn’t actually submit to such a man rather she hangs around a dominant man because she is happy with that state of affairs. It shouldn’t really be seen as submission(which implies coercion), rather as a state of voluntary subordination.
With regard to your question:
Are men supposed to dominate women?
I don’t know, but dominant men are going to attract women to them.
Do women want to be dominated?
There is no “want” involved, women are just simply turned on by dominant men despite what they want. It’s all in the hard wiring.
It’s also why women who “wear the pants” are unhappy in their marriages. The brain is acting in a way contrary to the “hard wiring”, there is no release of love-chemical. Her Beta man doesn’t push the subliminal buttons.
In other words, I want to fuck the hell out of her to the point she reflexively screams my names like a kid with Tourettes everytime she hears the word “daddy,” but I don’t want to have to take charge in the mundane day-to-day things where she might find that I am not good at leading much of anything…
This is an interesting topic, and I hope a few women will stop by and share their opinion.
I haven’t researched this issue enough to have a definitive opinion, but I’ll offer a few thoughts…
Whether because of biology or culture (or both), it does seem that the vast majority of women (even in a “modern” society like America) prefer their men to “take the lead” in their relationship, as opposed to having “true equality” in the way that feminists have advocated for generations.
Having said that, I don’t see much evidence that most women (at least those women worth spending time with) wants to be “dominated.” Dominated is a pretty strong word. “Take the lead” is more subtle, and dare I say, accurate. To the extent that Gamers advocate that women should be (and want to be) “dominated,” that strikes me as poor advice – especially when we consider one last point I’d like to make.
The whole point of living in society is to overcome our base urges on behalf of a greater good, so even if women want to be “dominated” on a biological level (which I’m not convinced of), it doesn’t necessarily follow that we – as men – should encourage this instinct, and adjust our lifestyles to accomodate it – anymore than we might encourage a child to urinate in public because that’s its “instinct.”
The good life is about overcoming “instincts.”
The word “dominate” is one which has a lot of baggage. It connotes a kind of “oppression” that is not necessarily helpful when discussing some of these issues.
I would say, rather, that women generally speaking want (in a deeper sense than sometimes their cognition permits them to realize) men who are confident *leaders* — and not just when the bedroom door is closed. Male leadership, done properly — which is not domineering, but effortless and follows from a persona that is both strong and confident — is something that virtually all women are viscerally drawn to when they come across it. The issue in contemporary society is that women (and men) are being cognitively programmed to desire equalist relationships — so the “thinking” part of mate/partner selection is focused on equalist criteria, while the “visceral” part of the process is on a completely different wavelength. This leads to disaster in many relationships and marriages, because as it turns out while many men are more or less “happy” in equalist relationships (because men, generally speaking, seem to have a higher threshold than women do for relationship cooling off and doldrums as long as there is still sex happening), women are often dreadfully unhappy in them but paradoxically can’t put their finger on why, even when it is staring them in the face because, again, their cognitive programming regarding equalism prevents them from seeing how this is the problem in the relationship. So instead, she finds other issues in the relationship to blame instead of simply saying “I want a stronger man who can lead” — because admitting that is one of the most heretical things a woman can think or say in our contemporary culture.
Again, this is not to say that women prefer to be “dominated”. I do think, however, that they viscerally prefer a man who can effortlessly and without fanfare simply lead, in big and little ways, without making a big deal of it. There are, in our culture, relatively few men who can do so, however, both because (1) men are also being relentlessly socially programmed to be equalists, and to see male leadership as being retrograde and sexist and (2) women have much more real, tangible power today, meaning that it takes that much *more* from the male side to even be credible as a leadership figure of any kind. So the number of men who have those kind of non-domineering, effortless leadership qualities relative to the women they meet is small — something which stokes the flames of hypergamy, and feeds the rise of things like Game.
This social experiment will not end well. Fucking with natural inclinations in the key area of human mating was as dumb an idea as our culture has ever come across. But in the meantime, the advantage is to the men who can, in whatever way, find the ability to exercise effortless leadership in an age where doing so is difficult.
You are either in control, or she is.
End.
of.
Story.
Women like to be lead, but hate being controlled.
I’m weird, so I like being lead, being controlled, being owned, being dominated inside and outside of the bedroom.
“) women have much more real, tangible power today, meaning that it takes that much *more* from the male side to even be credible as a leadership figure of any kind.”
This is true. It’s very difficult to find a man as dominant as what I prefer. Well, not *that* difficult, but it does require hanging out on bondage sites because regular bars don’t quite do the trick on a steady basis.
On the flip side, guys as dominant as I like have no trouble getting girlfriends. They have their complaints about the women they date, but on the whole it seems easier for them to make a submissive out of women than it is for me to make a dominant out of a guy.
Most women probably prefer a guy who is somewhat dominant in bed, but not dominant in outside of that. Outside of the bedroom, it’s better when the dominance is demonstrated to other people, not the woman. Other than the guy’s posture and presence, I don’t think an average chick wants much dominance from her boyfriend.
Anyways, I absolutely prefer the way things are now, where a guy does need serious chops to out dominate a girl. It’s utterly stupid to make dominance easy for a guy. It doesn’t mean anything if it’s handed to them. It does not make it harder for me to find a guy. In fact, without feminist sexual liberation, it would be impossible for me to find a guy.
The whole meaning of the word Alpha is getting distorted in discussions of game. In nature the Alphas are the males who dominate the gene pool through the creation of offspring. And so to properly “dominate†a woman, a man should impregnate her with his sons and thus have her raise them to adulthood.
There are two general approaches true Alpha males use in the human world. Low caste Alpha males use game to impregnate as many women as possible and afterwards make little to no investment in their children’s upbringing. Call it a “spray and pray†strategy, given the culturally corrosive ghetto environment these children are raised in, any heavy commitment a low caste Alpha would make to his children would be wasted energy; most of these offspring will end up in jail or shot in drive-by’s but every now and then they will hit the jackpot and produce an NFL or a pop music star. The low cast Alpha is better off spending his time impregnating more and more women. It’s a little like fish who have hundreds of offspring in the hope a couple will survive.
High caste Alphas use game to attract and repeatedly impregnate a genetically high status woman in order to have a large high status family. He then continues to use game to inspire his wife to be the best mother she can be. The high caste Alpha male invests heavily in his children since, given his high position in life, such an investment is very likely to result in his offspring becoming high cast Alpha males or high status women.
Men who go through life producing no offspring are Omegas – no matter how many times they get laid. The dude who hits twenty homers in batting practise but none in the game does not go to the Hall of Fame and neither do genetic dead-enders who are unable to sire children.
The problem with discussions of game is that they focus heavily on the getting laid part (fair enough, everyone wants that) but simply ignores or denigrates the idea of producing children. Instead of seeing the Alpha-Beta-Omega spectrum as linear, where Alphas have to pass through the Beta stage to get to Omega, it is better to see it as a circle. That way you can see that the extreme Alpha who is so good at getting the panties to drop, but unable to impregnate women, is with each fruitless encounter slowly tipping into biological Omega-hood.
Kevin: Just out of curiosity, where did you get the idea that “Alphas use game to attract and repeatedly impregnate a genetically high status woman in order to have a large high status family?”
It doesn’t logically follow that there is much we can do about the female instinct here. It is also not particularly helpful to confuse types of instinct. A child urinating in public is not the same sort of instinct as sexual attraction. It is easily overcome with instruction and discipline. Sexual attraction is so basic to what human nature is that only in a world where tabula rasa is actually true could it be trained out of someone successfully without severe trauma.
MT: “It doesn’t logically follow that there is much we can do about the female instinct here.”
TW: There is a great deal of variety when it comes to sexual customs throughout the world and throughout history. This suggests that culture matters and the problem is at least partly solvable.
MT: “Sexual attraction is so basic to what human nature is that only in a world where tabula rasa is actually true could it be trained out of someone successfully without severe trauma.”
TW: Again, sexual attraction is diverse on every level – on an individual level, a global level, and an historical level. Our values shape our sexuality (and vice versa).
The good life is about overcoming “instincts.â€
Some instincts are so strong that it requires extreme levels of coercion to counteract them.
Thursday: “Some instincts are so strong that it requires extreme levels of coercion to counteract them.”
TW:…Or just changing the values inside you.
there is a more subdued dominance in men/women relationships that i think most alphas adopt. insecure is the man who must always have control. a true alpha lets his girl decide most things, most unimportant things of which he is not concerned. the alpha though will not do things he does not want to do or does not value. the alpha is always WILLING TO WALK AWAY over certain lines in the sand in the relationship. this is dominance. the willing to say “my way or the highway” on terms of importance etc.
Todd,
By game I mean the skills and confidence Alphas have with women. An archetypical high status Alpha that I am trying to describe would be the first George Bush (or his father, or his grandfather, a whole line of high status Alphas). I live in a high status area of Brussels and almost every family here is headed by an Alpha male (aristocrat or high level professional) and they all have at least four children (I’m considered a little lacking in the sack juice for only having three). This is the historic model for high status males.
Sexual attraction is more than looks, especially for women. Show me a culture that has evolved past the hunter-gatherer stage where weak-willed men who meekly let women run the show and women regard that as desirable. Hint: you won’t find it because the basic traits that most women find desirable are universal.
The difference that you ascribe to culture is mainly in the form of variation along a sliding scale.
If that were true, then feminism would have been a resounding success for marriage because it would have created an environment in which changed female values opened women up to boundless opportunities to have relationships with non-dominant, respectful, considerate men lower in the social hierarchy who would just consider themselves lucky to have a woman at all.
As it currently stands, the divorce rate is through the roof despite the fact that these changed values have resulted in a more nurturing, egalitarian relationship culture than what previously existed.
Talk about changing values is cheap. My values are Christian, my nature barely is. My value is to turn the other cheek, but as my wife can tell you, I have to restrain my natural urge to beat the tar out of some of the drivers out here in Northern Virginia who, at least once a month, seem hell-bent on trying to do several thousand dollars worth of damage to my car.
**One last thing, to add onto that last point. You are correct when you say that values do matter. The values that the Church has given me, combined with God’s grace, keep my temper under control and have actually lessened it, but that only goes so far. You cannot educate away the foundational nature of humanity; you cannot make women not want a more alpha-like male in favor of a totally different type of male anymore than you can make me a bona fide pacifist.
Kevin: Yes, that’s fine but do you observe those “Alpha males†using Game to “to attract and repeatedly impregnate a genetically high status woman?†That’s what you said in your original post, and I’m curious where you got that from.
MT: “The difference that you ascribe to culture is mainly in the form of variation along a sliding scale.”
TW: Yes, for the most part.
””””””If that were true, then feminism would have been a resounding success for marriage because it would have created an environment in which changed female values opened women up to boundless opportunities to have relationships with non-dominant, respectful, considerate men lower in the social hierarchy who would just consider themselves lucky to have a woman at all.””””””
Feminism didn’t empower woman though. Woman had an advantage in not having to work. They could develop their families network in community and volunteer to help make the world a better place. Feminism makes every woman supposed to work a steady job and support the family and try to raise kids. Woman in america had a dream life of doing whatever they wanted basically while their husbands worked whereas undempowered woman before had to also work in the fields and support their families just to eat. There has been no empowermeant if you have to work.
MT: “Talk about changing values is cheap. My values are Christian, my nature barely is. My value is to turn the other cheek, but as my wife can tell you, I have to restrain my natural urge to beat the tar out of some of the drivers out here in Northern Virginia.”
TW: (laughing) But you DON’T beat them up! And that’s my point. Culture/values matter a lot. And to say that such “talk is cheap” strikes me as inaccurate and counterproductive.
MT: ” You cannot educate away the foundational nature of humanity;you cannot make women not want a more alpha-like male in favor of a totally different type of male anymore than you can make me a bona fide pacifist.”
TW: That’s complicated. I would say, yes, “you cannot educate away the foundational nature of humanity.” That’s fine. But I can neither agree or disagree with the rest of your post unless there’s a consensus definition of “Alpha” (for example, my definition of Alpha is quite different from most folks here in the online Game community).
Dominance basically does come with some bedroom skills and then if the woman loves you. You don’t have to micromanage her. When you talk though she listens. You talk about your desires for certain things and she makes those things reality. She comes up with stuff to please you and make you happy. You are the center of her universe.
Novaseeker–
Brilliant comment. Just spot on.
slumlord was spot on too
feministx–
It’s utterly stupid to make dominance easy for a guy. It doesn’t mean anything if it’s handed to them. It does not make it harder for me to find a guy. In fact, without feminist sexual liberation, it would be impossible for me to find a guy.
This is thoroughly wrong. It obviously comes from your feminism. There may have been a time in the West where it was too easy, but it’s now much too hard to make the most marriages happy ones.
Your male leadership doesn’t have to seem effortless all the time.
It should seem natural though that you take that role.
You don’t have to be better at everything than she is, though it helps to be better at some things she considers important.
Personally I never fell for dominant men. The relationship becomes a power struggle. I prefer men who are my equals though, and even slightly less than. Less fights, more peace. I like peace. Lots of peace.
Your a chick lol
“but it’s now much too hard to make the most marriages happy ones.”
I’m not talking about most marriages. I am talking about me. If sexual liberation were not encouraged, I’d have a fat chance of ever finding satisfaction since I like things like bondage, bisexuals, fetish parties…
A lot of women are happier with feminism. The butch dykes can be public about who they are, and they can be respected for who they are. The housewives can avoid men who take advantage of them because there are domestic violence shelters and communal property laws. The FemXs can avoid all betas/herbs in favor of seeking out true alphas.
As for the women who think they are less happy with feminism for whatever reason, I could give a shit. I’m happy to throw them under a bus if it helps my feminist posse. And as for men, puleez. I’m only concerned with men having enough status so that they don’t revolt against women out of spite and that the right ones are willing to get married and have kids. Granted the latter requires some changes to the law like the abolition of alimony, no fault divorce etc. I can support those measures since it would ultimately help a gal like me.
I think most women want and need male leadership. Part of what’s gone wrong in our society, and why a lot of women are unhappier, is that they’ve strayed from their natural feminine roles.
@Novaseeker- excellent comment. It’s difficult for women to say they want a “dominant man” because they may then be viewed as weak.
Part of regaining your femininity is admitting this without shame, which is not easy now.
Game is an excellent way to reinforce the power dynamic between men and women, instead of the dynamic being a sort of unusual expectation or feeling.
If by dominant you mean a man that earns for himself and can make decisions for himself, then OK.
Otherwise, I’ve never been attracted to the popular, super-assertive alpha male type.
An intelligent, responsible, personable yet not overly popular type is the best for keeping peace. More than that, he’d be in too much competition with me.
What about a guy who expects his women to earn the money?
Is that wrong?
DADT
If by dominant you mean a man that earns for himself and can make decisions for himself, then OK.
Otherwise, I’ve never been attracted to the popular, super-assertive alpha male type.
There is no one size fits all approach to dominance. I get the impression that you want a dominant male, but not a crudely dominant male. The type of dominance a man exerts must be tailored to his woman, so a more refined woman–not necessarily more educated–will
respond to subtle displays of dominance, while the coarser woman will respond to more primitive displays.
I think the core impressions a man must leave with a woman is:
a)he is no pushover.
b)he can lead.
c) and that the man is in the relationship by choice and not by necessity; he has other options.
The refined man is going to exert a subtle yet sure dominance. He will not boss his wife around or degrade her, yet she will know that he is “the man”: She can’t push him around. This is the type of guy who is supportive of his wife and wants to see her happy: he’ll even support her career. But when the line is crossed, he’ll lay down the law.
Novaseeker:
I agree, the word “submission” is a bit like the word “gay”; it seems to have acquired a semantic content that wasn’t there when the phrase was first coined. A lot of women are repulsed by the idea because of the of loss of identity, choice and control implied by the modern usage of the term.
I think a better term is assertiveness rather than dominance as it has less baggage associated with it. It also carries with it the implication of the man leading rather than the woman submitting.
I agree, the word “submission†is a bit like the word “gayâ€; it seems to have acquired a semantic content that wasn’t there when the phrase was first coined.
As I’ve noted ad nauseum, when I think of dominance, I think of a brutish, uncivilized, wife-beating male, and since I’m black, it brings implications of being a criminal and/or ghetto thug with traits that basically scare off or anger white people. Since I have no desire to be “dominant” or even assertive despite the fact that female friends have expressed their desire for assertive men, I’m rather understanding of why women crave such men, and I have no bitterness toward their choices.
The type of dominance a man exerts must be tailored to his woman, so a more refined woman–not necessarily more educated–will
respond to subtle displays of dominance, while the coarser woman will respond to more primitive displays.
Which is why not all women respond well to thuggishness or asshole game.
Nova:
This social experiment will not end well. Fucking with natural inclinations in the key area of human mating was as dumb an idea as our culture has ever come across.
“Fucking with”? That’s a but strong. Unless you openly advocate keeping women uneducated, unemployed and unsophisticated, a wealthy civilization will ALWAYS end up running afoul of your Point 2:
2) women have much more real, tangible power today, meaning that it takes that much *more* from the male side to even be credible as a leadership figure of any kind. So the number of men who have those kind of non-domineering, effortless leadership qualities relative to the women they meet is small
The fact no one wants to admit is that “improving womens’ lot” has had the effect of reducing the number of men they can feel attraction and respect for.
It sounds so good at first, doesn’t it? Lets educate women! Lets give them more freedom, more wordly experience! And then they end up ignoring or cheating on the men who gave them that oppourtunity in the first place, by standing on their backs to reach for the top of the pyramid of ability.
I’m sure it would make a Randroid proud.
Randroid:
Thursday: “Some instincts are so strong that it requires extreme levels of coercion to counteract them.â€
TW:…Or just changing the values inside you.
Should in one hand and shit in the other. See which one fills up first.
Tell me Todd, what do you tell the young idealist who overcomes his instincts in order to treat women as equal beings, but the evolutionarily designed sexual instincts in the women he encounters continue apace, leaving our poor young idealist lonely, celibate and sad?
“Well, at least you did the MORAL thing”?
Fucking Randroids.
Gunny:
What about a guy who expects his women to earn the money?
Is that wrong?
I think that’s called “pimping” ;)
Thursday–
I think only a small minority of women respond well to truly thuggish game.
However if we define asshole game the way that Talleyrand does, I think nearly all women respond to some version of that – or even in degrees to most versions of it:
http://seasonsoftumultanddiscord.wordpress.com/2009/11/02/on-being-an-asshole/
Tupac
I definitely had some secret, very secret adolescent fantasies about playing that role. Or some version of it.
if we define asshole game the way that Talleyrand does
Tallyrand is an idiot. If you define asshole game so broadly as to include perfectly innocuous behaviour then of course almost every woman responds to it.
Too be fair Roissy often has an overbroad definition of asshole game too:
http://roissy.wordpress.com/2009/01/14/a-hole-game-day-3/
Make sure to scroll down for the comments.
Thursday–
You overstep yourself.
I think Talleyrand, and certainly Roissy have much more to teach than you do re: 1) without quetion effective seductive game; 2) deep understanding of what makes women tick – it motives their passions.
Doug, Thursday is right.
There is asshole game and there is Asshole Game
What Talleyrand wrote on his blog is not being an “asshole”, unless one was a total meek beta/omega to begin with.
“Real” asshole game is the sort of thing that can potentially either get you slapped by women or verbally/physically attacked by other men in the vicinity.
Definitial Tupac
IT’s a matter of degree. I think Talley did a pretty good job of stating that spectrum. With maybe not enough emphasis that it is a spectrum of intensity.
The words Dominance and Submission have too much negative connotation to be of much use for many. I was quite surprised at my posts lack of female agreement, and I think it was due to the word submission alone. I could use the word leader as a substitute for dominance and the word deference for submission – it works for me too.
aoefe just use:
First you get the money
Then you get the power
Then you get the woman
Got to say it with a thick accent though.
Words have certain limits to their meaning. You can’t just define words to mean whatever the hell you want them to mean. Tallyrand’s examples and Roissy’s described behaviour weren’t actually assholish by any reasonable definition of the term, so they can’t be demonstrations of asshole game working.
Roissy and Tallyrand doubtless have greater skills than I. In Tallyrand’s case, being able to do something well and understanding how the theory behind it actually works appear be completely separate abilities. Tallyrand may be great with women, but he has nothing to teach anyone.
In Roissy’s case, getting too close to something can blind one. That he believes asshole game works on all women may be what he needs to psyche himself up, but that doesn’t mean his belief is actually true. Note that in that link, it wasn’t just me, but most of the other commenters who thought Roissy’s assholishness wasn’t particularly assholish.
aoefe–
Yeah. True.
But you know and I know that it’s hotter when it’s full bore, undiluted, getting worse even …
In my opinion, God’s curse on Eve may have been modified in the New Testament, but it is not completely reversed. The man is still the “head” of the woman and the wife should “respect” her husband.
On the question of leadership, I was just thinking of this when I found this discussion. I have found that – unless she is in a very bad mood – my wife responds well to a firm approach. Most women prefer some measure of leadership. My wife is actually pretty volatile and seems to like a firmer hand than I would naturally have provided. I find I have to make a bit more effort to lead and not be swayed by her moods and petty demands. But the approach I have developed, informed by blogs like this, has been amazingly successful.
I wish I had come across these ideas ten or fifteen years ago.
I tend to agree though that women like being led rather than dominated, in the sense that they have an instinct to follow. It is better to lead and have them choose to follow than to spend time chivvying and controlling them constantly. The latter is too much like hard work and makes you look desperate.
Julian–
Yes, lead most of the time rather than dominated. It’s gold for example to help a girl “be all that she can be”.
It’s just that the ability to switch to dominance particularly in the bedroom is gold.
I shall come for a place where I’ve had the chance of making some crosscultural observations; both leadership/submission to men being expected in a traditional Arab society. It varies across different sections of Arabia, which I’ve had a small chance of observing.
Women seem naturally blessed as well as culturally imbued with a lot of power. They have the natural power of controlling people through a) their sexuality and gatekeeping reproduction b) their beauty/aesthetic appeal and cultivating it c) positive conditioning (they addict you via good food, good company, generally consistently activating you pleasure centres) d) their plays on vulnerability and the male chivalric instinct e) their proficiency in social dynamics. They are the ones with the power advantage in intimate relationships. They are the masters of not doing something themselves, but getting someone else to do it for them (including other women!) and believe it is their idea.
The composite of everything is that no, the relationship is not equal. She has power over you in various different ways and she automatically, unknowingly uses it.
You need to show some degree of independence, then. You need to correct this balance. You need to show that she doesn’t control you. You need to show that you are equal, that you are not oppressed by her and that she does not hold tyranny over you via either her sweetness or displaying her bitch.
The genders are different. A man needs to exercise the variable powers available to him and his gender the same way she exercises hers. This makes you complementary and not ‘equal’. Equality is impossible.
Of course she has her freedom and her will. She always does. But, do you?
”””’Of course she has her freedom and her will. She always does. ””””’
I do believe that is an incorrect assumption.
Have you ever been in love with a man?
he he he
“I get the impression that you want a dominant male, but not a crudely dominant male. “……….
No. I absolutely loathe being dominated. I just don’t want to have to pay his bills, that’s all. (And if I’m payin’, I’ll be the one dominatin’!) As long as he can manage that, he’s good to go.
If paying your own bills makes you a “dominant male” in today’s world…. then we are really in trouble as a species.
DADT:
Single, not married or divorced.
Doug1.
I’m afraid I’m going to have to agree with Tupac and Thursday. The posts they linked to didn’t strike me as being too “arseholey”. Being an arsehole implies a certain degree of objectionable behaviour, though I agree that where the line is drawn is up for grabs.
Slumlord, I didn’t ask about your status. But thanks for informing us, I guess.
(don’t know if there would be any women surfing this blog looking for available men though, and I’m officially off the market, might try your luck elsewhere, like an Oprah forum or something….)
A highly intelligent and classy man who has been exposed to a highly intelligent and classy woman has his number of women he can feel respect for decreased as well.
Clio. ;)
DADT:
Press the button and you get the response.
Call me clueless, but what button did I press?
DADT:
You’re too predictable.
Enjoy your singledom.
“Enjoy your singledom.”………….
I am!
Enjoy your’s!
DADT:
“Enjoy your singledom.â€â€¦â€¦â€¦â€¦.
I am!
Hitachi Magic Wand?
The genders are different.
Then maybe we should “fix” that problem with genetic engineering and other technologies.
Ferdinand said:
In my experience, all the factors you mention in that post are more important in attracting women than dominance… but wait! What exactly do we mean by “dominance”?
The word “dominance” is thrown around a lot by feminists, pickup artists, and in scientific literature. In the seduction community, “dominance” is often used to encompass high social status, confidence, social dominance, sexual dominance, and leading… all of which reinforce each other, but they are not the same thing, and you don’t necessarily need all of them. (E.g. you can have high-status celebrities who aren’t socially dominant.)
The context of the original discussion was Mike T’s reference of Biblical rule of men over women. I made two objections to this notion: (a) an objection from my own preferences in my interactions with women, and (b) an objection from the interests of men (I think there are valid objections to that notion from the interests of women, but that is another subject).
To put aside the word “dominance” for a sec, the behaviors I dislike manifesting are: to assert power/ownership/possessiveness over someone, to attempt to restrict their agency, to attempt to lower their status, or to act from a parent-child frame. I’m not currently arguing that those behaviors are immoral (though they definitely can be), but that I generally dislike manifesting them because they feel inauthentic, uncomfortable, or make me respect the woman less if effective. Unless there is evidence that these behaviors are necessary to have decent choice with women, I would rather just can them. (And note: my complaint of inauthenticity is based on experience and expansion of my comfort zone, unlike some skeptics of game who write things off as “inauthentic” when they haven’t explored the bounds of their personality and what it is capable of.)
Here are the aspects of game that I wasn’t objecting to:
Leading: In my experience, it is virtually impossible to be successful with women without leading. Leading an interaction is not the same thing as ruling over someone, however. I decide where we are going for dinner and what we are doing on a date, but in principle I wouldn’t mind if we had a more mutual decision-making process or even if she chose 50% of the time. The reason I am deciding is primarily due to her preferences, not mine: I usually don’t really give a shit where we go for dinner, which path we take in the park, whether we get together or Friday or Saturday, or who initiates the kiss.
Leading isn’t the same thing as ruling or dominating, though it can feed into those things. For example, a manager might make most of the decisions in the a career of a celebrity and lead it, but we wouldn’t necessarily say that the manager rules over the celebrity (though that could be the case). Actually, the manager is usually the subordinate of the celebrity. As Warren Farrell I believe points out in Why Men Are The Way They Are, the role of initiator (which would be a form of leading) is a form of uncompensated work that disproportionately is performed by men. If a woman wants a man to be in charge, and he doesn’t really give a shit about who is in charge but takes charge anyway, who is really in charge? The man? Or the woman’s preferences?
I’m also not objecting to self-assertion. Standing up for yourself isn’t the same thing as standing over someone else. Furthermore, resisting control by someone else is not the same thing as attempting to control them.
Neither am I objecting to cockiness. When I’m in the right mood, I’m actually quite cocky and humorously narcissistic (Her: “Humble, aren’t we?” Me: “Yeah, I’m exceedingly humble, in addition to all my other good qualities!”). This behavior is mainly about building myself up, rather than putting her down.
Leading, decisiveness, self-assertiveness, and confidence are all very important in success with women, and in personal development. Yet I don’t think that these masculine qualities are the same thing as “ruling over” women. Nor do I think they are necessarily the same thing as “dominating” women, whatever that means, unless we give “dominance” a very broad definition. I’m more interested in breaking down attraction into its components, rather than trying to shoehorn everything attractive into words like “dominance,” or “alpha”.
Asserting my will over someone else’s will is counter to my personality, and a woman who wants to start drama where she wants me to “put her in her place” a lot, or who consistently acts like a child and treats me like an authority figure, is a poor match from my perspective.
My ideal relationship partner would be as confident, assertive, and individualistic as I am. Neither one of us would be unilaterally in charge of the interaction all the time. Even if I’m the one who decides where we have dinner, initiates things physically, or is dominant in the bedroom, I don’t think those factors necessarily imply a relationship of inequality, or characterized by me “ruling over” her. Whether or not most women are capable of a relationship like that, I do not know, but I am not try to date most women. I am trying to date women who fit my criteria, and I think there is at least a large minority of women who fit my criteria in this area and.
I’m at a level of skill and choice in women where instead of just thinking of how I can develop the traits in myself that women want, I am also thinking of the traits in women that I want, and the types of interaction I want to have with them. I would encourage other guys to do the same, once they get the basics down.
If you (general you) have a naturally dominant personality where you enjoy holding authority over women, and you like dating women who genuinely prefer that type of relationship out of their own free will, then more power to you (literally, perhaps?). But, that’s not my preference, and I don’t want other guys with preferences like mine to think that ruling over women (or dominating women in the sense of holding authority over them, going beyond mere leading, decision-making, and assertiveness) is something that they should want to do, or need to do to be successful with women, because it isn’t.
People take Bible stories literally in this day and age?
Begeesus, what next? The Earth is flat?
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