In “Chateau Bullshit,” Paul Elam of A Voice for Men jams a crowbar into the fault line that has always existed between MRAs and practitioners of Game – aiming his quiver at the centerpiece of the Game-MRA nexus.
There are many things wrong with Elam’s article. It tilts at windmills, it mischaracterizes, it generalizes, it oversimplifies, it shames, and it preaches. By gunning for Roissy, it unqualifiedly lumps those who discuss Game into the corny PUA camp. It creates a “with me or against me” dichotomy, and above all, it is defeatist – embracing a cop-out MGTOW tail-tuck strategy that deals with women by not dealing with them at all.
Boiled down, Elam’s argument is that Gamers wrongly assess their own value through women’s reactions to them. But Elam’s only concrete criticism is leveled through the weight of his own voice. He never shows us why a man gaining value through varied means is necessarily a bad thing. Mens’ value-assessments are gleaned through all sorts of filters. Women, jobs, wealth, peer-esteem – men value themselves through status hierarchies. Elam’s criticism focuses on women and becomes “Because I said so” – an argument that has never held water in any forum. And he levels this criticism all while trying to come off as a proponent for men’s “self-improvement.” But in my time reading AVfM or any other MRA outpost, I can’t say that “self-improvement” has been a focal point – more so anti-feminism and other forms of activism. So it strikes me as odd that Elam would now venture to discuss the proper allocation of value-adding endeavors.
What Elam misunderstands about Game is that it is a process of growth which lays the groundwork for further development and helps a man transition from overvaluing one single woman. Game leverages “other fish in the sea” in order teach men greater perspective. Essential to humankind, men and women will interact – men might as well learn how to gain better terms. In this sense, Game is the only game in town. MRA has nothing at all to teach men about performing essential endeavor. The movement accepts the terms and instead of trying to improve them, throws up their collective hands and runs from the problem.
Most men don’t forego pursuing women on the off chance that they’ll get screwed over just as people don’t forgo driving on the highway on the off chance that a semi runs them off the road. Men learn how to interact with women, and folks learn to use their side mirrors.
MRAs/MGTOWs, in order to steel their nerves against wanting to stick their toe back in the water, have to develop all sorts of rationalizations – a sort of protective armor – for why interacting with women is detrimental to the soul.
Elam starts with a parody of Game wisdom:
O.K., so you want to get laid? Here’s how you do it. Smell clean, get in the proximity of women, and then ignore them. When they come to fuck you, and they will, shut up and let it happen.
Being a hobby of varied focus, we can compare Elam’s characterization of Game to golf. Would Elam suggest that being good at golf only requires “washing your balls, getting near a golf course, and then swinging various types of golf clubs”? Not bloody likely.
Elam begins by characterizing Game a certain way in order to do heavy work on an emaciated sparring partner. He assumes that picking up women is an inherently easy endeavor which allows him to question why anyone would need to discuss something that is so simple. The discussion of this simple task shows the monomania behind it. All of which, sorry to say, begs the question – what does the track record for MRAs look like in this regard?
Foregone Questions
Elam tries to detract from larger questions that should have been asked up front. How do we determine ends versus means? Debate rages over which category women and sex fall into. At what point is the pursuit of a certain end too much? When is a person misguided in seeking value through certain means? At what point would a guy like Paul Elam write an article suggesting that too much time is spent at a career or on fantasy football or on writing a blog? Imagine AVfM’s response to a man-shaming polemic of unknown color-code from Jessica Valenti taking men to task for their various pursuits. Any feminist-scrawled porn critique rallies MRAs from all corners. Why the double-standard? These boundaries need to be defined before a meaningful discussion can take place. To continue without terms is to traverse through a mine field.
At the heart of this, Elam disdains Game because it requires women. With that attitude, he paints himself as the male analogue to those women who argue about men and fish and bicycles. Elam thinks that men are misguided in gaining any sort of value through women, but if he grants men who gain value or satisfaction through other means or focus on other ends, he can in no way single out value-bestowing vaginas.
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t have anything against the high profile PUA’s and Gamers. I also have a healthy respect for people who can sell designer lint removers when a patch of masking tape and some common sense will work just as well. But it has to be said, must be said, that both of these kinds of sales people are targeting a similar demographic; ignorant, gullible customers. And I have to admit, making a living at that could be called an art, and probably should.
This is what Elam’s article gets down to: the products that some men choose are not the products that he himself would choose. He is basically writing a Consumer Reports article about Game. But Elam’s silly analogy does require a silly response. First, I own a furry cat; I’ll take a high-fallutin’ lint remover over a roll of tape any day. Second, Elam sets up a false dichotomy. Being an anti-feminist himself, Elam should recognize that many men aren’t even equipped with that primitive roll of tape that he posits. The concept of a fancy lint remover doesn’t even enter the picture. This is China. If tape is involved, it has been used to tie men’s hands behind their back – forcing them to de-lint some other way.
Enter Game. Game provides men the tools to participate in this endeavor that men are programmed to want to succeed at. This is even more essential to us than a low golf handicap. Game is an open-source codified system of seduction – a guideline to improve men’s social lives, something that Gamesters have used their big boy brains to decide to pursue.
Then Elam’s elitism:
Not much to work with, is it? And I am not really suggesting that anyone try. The men that end up here after being introduced to the Manosphere via PUA and Game sites don’t need to be fished out of the cesspool. They tend to walk out of it on their own, as would anyone who would not be Gamed by Gamers forever.
For me, there is nothing more elitist and grating than older men arguing that younger men should hold the same set of values and goals as older men. Younger men have different life circumstances, experiences, and prospects. We have a different balance of hormones running through our bodies. How ridiculous it is for an older man – Elam is in his mid 50s – to preach to men younger than himself about what they should or shouldn’t do with their time and their bodies. But the pursuit of women often does lose its luster. At such a point – which can hardly be foisted on someone – men will develop other interests. But such a migration has nothing to do with Game being a swamp and MRA being noble. These particular men make these particular journeys at particular points in their lives. Best to let them find their own path.
The Value of Men’s Rights Activism
I’ve often asked myself, which has been a more valuable to me, MRA or Game?
MRAs have opened my eyes to certain political realities that I’d never considered. It has taught me to keep a skeptical eye on the legal and penal system which undervalues men vis a vis women. It has taught me that gross injustice will go unaddressed as long as the victims are men. But while MRA has heightened my awareness of processes and pitfalls, it hasn’t improved me as a person.
On the other hand, Game has had a more personal and profound impact on my life. Game – developing a better internal valuation system and learning about what causes women to act and merely knowing that there is a proper way to handle this very important aspect of life – has freed up a vast reservoir of psychical energy for me. MRA is more of an academic endeavor, but Game is real. By my guess, more men are better-served by Game in facing the treacherous journey that many are ill-equipped to make on their own.
Cross-posted at Gucci Little Piggy.
{ 78 comments… read them below or add one }
With his divisive dismissal of a large portion of the manosphere, Elam has shown that he is just another crab in the bucket, pulling down any other crab he sees trying to escape in order to advance himself. It is indicative not of a true leader, but of someone who wants to become a leader by demeaning the efforts and achievements of others. Disappointing, to say the least.
Afraid you are off track there GL. Have a look at one previous post Roissy or some other author stated on his site where he made the comment that the MRM or Mra’s (forgotten already) were just some type of bug or equivalent. Those comments pissed me off as well as a few other prominent MRA’s and there was no need to take such an attitude. When I and Fidelbogen made an attempt at explaining what it was that MRA’s do, we were ridiculed (not that it bothers me, I couldn’t give a rats arse) but it did demonstrate what a bunch of ignorant sods they really were. I suppose when you spend all your time chasing pussy and make that some type of major effort in your spare time then I would think that we in the MM are just about wasting our time at even bothering to get any pussy beggar interested..
I look forward to that debate, purely because it is a subject that needs to be looked at in different ways. But at the end of it all, each to their own. I will do my thing and you do yours. We will agree to disagree obviously, after reading this post..
I really like this synopsis. You did a great job with distilling his lengthy article into that one point.
I also agree with it.
You never get far by making your actions depend on what your opponent does. It’s a basic principle of warfare that applies here.
If MRAs want to be taken seriously, they will achieve that goal by finding a path of their own, not following meekly (but defiantly!) in the footsteps of feminists and sluts.
All gamers will become MRAs if they live long enough.
There’s an experience gap. You can see little cracks of it when VK got accused of rape. All it takes to stop their joyride is for one of their sluts to open her mouth. Then come the police, jail and they enter the legal system.
It’s like a 30 year old talking to a 10 year old. That’s the age difference between Elam and most of his readers. The child doesn’t believe what the adult has to say. He knows better. He is the exception. He’s a special snowflake and women would never screw him over. That only happens to stupid, foolish men like Welmer and millions of others.
Two years ago the PUA sphere was pro-feminist and didn’t know anything about men’s rights nor did they care. It was also a province of young macho fools who were, at the time, being gamed by an industry (a pro-feminist industry).
That’s changed largely because of the Roissy forum and there are now tons of older men who are both PUA and MRA. Paul Elam would be foolish not to recognize the hard won alliance of the two schools PUA and MRA. There is no reason for anyone, except feminists, to try to split the two fields.
I, and other MRAs, put a lot of work into helping to change the pro-feminist memes on that blog.
Ways in which the PUA scene has changed over the past two years from its pro-feminist roots:
1) PUAs once believed that any open that didn’t work and any relationship that didn’t last was entirely the man’s fault. He just didn’t push the right buttons. Walk away. You blew it. If she flakes, it’s because you weren’t worthy.
That attitude has changed drastically in the past 2 years. It was pure feminism to accept that frame.
2) PUAs once believed that you shouldn’t lie or fib to women even when it’s necessary to get laid under certain circumstances (feminists wouldn’t like PUAs if their leaders advocated that).
Roissy helped change the meme to one where everything a man says about dealing with women is supposed to infuriate feminists. He established the new idea that, to be a good PUA advice giver, you have to say things that women would rather you not tell other men to do.
Paul Elam should praise that development in what had, theretofore, been a pussified PUA sphere. He should know that one of the biggest agenda items of at least right wing feminism is to box us in and make it illegal or impossible for men to lie to women (IMBRA law carries a $5000 penalty if a man fails to tell a foreign woman the ages of his children and every state he has ever lived in before he gets to say hello to her).
3) PUAs were once deeply hateful of men who didn’t retire from game at 35, and get married to the best woman they had gamed. Feminists were cool with this idea. The conversation on Roissy’s blog has smashed this bullshit over the past two years, with no help from his original commenter base, which was almost all men under 35 two years ago.
What happened? There was an infusion of older MRAs into the mix who, being over 40, over 50 and even over 60, had ZERO intention of stopping their pursuit of younger, hotter, tighter women to enjoy.
It is entirely relevant what type of sex life Paul wants including what type of variety. If he’s not interested in pursuing his own college students (undergrads) then he is possibly following the feminist meme that this would be “sexual harassment”. If his libido is low for undergrads, he certainly doesn’t represent a lot of older men who are often not the least bit interested in toning down their interest in sleeping with college girls. My uncle died in bed with a sorority sister at age 75.
MRAs need to remember that the #1 drive of feminists is to stop older men from dating younger women. It has nothing to do with stopping a patriarchy unless patriarchy is defined as a world where husbands slept with their secretaries and told the wife to keep the dinner warm. The reason why feminists want young women to ride a cock carousel with men their own age is so the older husbands of the feminists don’t get the younger women for themselves.
If Paul doesn’t realize that the feminists are particularly gunning to stop him from getting laid with nubile young women now that he is in his fifties, because they want guys like him not to abstractly abandon them as potential partners, how can he be a serious MRA leader?
And it’s not easy for a man to date across a massive age difference simply by smelling good. ;-)
The debates can be won on this point alone. MRAs have to understand that almost all feminist laws are meant to keep older men from straying toward younger women (Examples: Sexual harassment laws are mean to keep hubby from cheating on his wife with the young secretary or intern. Divorce theft is half motivated by the desire to keep the ex from replacing his wife with a much younger model).
MRAs don’t just want to be left alone by feminists, they want to be left alone to pursue the younger women the feminists are determined to stop them from getting.
4) PUAs once deeply hated all men as “betas” or worse who would pay for sexual activity (or tip a bartender $20 for texting him about the presence of a hottie at the local bar and playing the tipper up in the target’s mind – the paid wingman idea).
Only two years ago, young PUAs were crying foul on that, saying it was unethical to compete with them using money and using every epithet to downplay the idea that an older man could or should win the hottie with cash.
Roissy finally agreed with guys like me that a proverbial alpha could, in addition to keeping a free harem, pay for sexual activity if he wanted to. His being alpha was entirely dependent on whether he could get a hottie for free but that didn’t stop him from paying someone “to leave” before his main hottie girlfriend arrived for a free session.
This point was critical because it is a major MRA issue that men should not be arrested for solicitation or use of prostitutes. Until two years ago, the PUA scene couldn’t care less what happened to “betas” and “gammas” who got arrested by decoy girls. At best, PUAs were only concerned about the legal rights of Alphas two years ago and they weren’t even on top of that. Feminist trolls on the Roissy blog were pissed to high Heaven when guys like me, Xsplat, ItsMe, N/A and Dirk forever changed the attitude around there.
Now PUAs understand MRA issues like this better.
PUAs, over the past two years, have come to realize that their “Options” are important to legally preserve, even if those options are sometimes “beta”.
5) Finally, PUAs two years ago, openly scorned men who would go overseas to date or court women.
That changed when Roissy wrote his famous article condemning IMBRA in September 2009, as well as other articles praising foreign women.
Now it’s understood across the PUA/MRA sphere that condemning a guy for not “preferring” to date American women as being “socially inept” is equal to condemning a man for flying to Italy to buy a Ferrari at the factory as being “a bad driver”.
So, Paul Elam, if you’re reading this, recognize that you would have been correct 2 years ago in condemning the PUA scene. Like the Libertarian Party before 2007, they were once controlled by pro-feminist memes. But not anymore.
You could still find major pro-feminist memes among PUAs. An example would be the one that believes the feminists were the ones who drove the sexual revolution (this false concept alone keeps tons of sex loving males in their court). I can think of a few others where Roissy still has some MRA reading to do in order to shake off some legacy feminist framing.
But you would not have then, nor now, been correct in not recognizing that the PUA scene is a natural ally of the MRA scene and we will be lumped together as the PUA/MRA scene as history progresses.
Being younger than Elam and older than Roissy, I can see both points and, IMHO, both have a point but both are too extreme.
I don’t think it is either-or. I am a MRA and I apply Game (now in the context of a relationship).
There is nothing bad in applying Game to get laid. Game is a very positive force for both younger and older men alike. Knowing the feral nature of women and how to manipulate it for your own gain is something very useful.
There is nothing bad to be a player when you’re young and your blood is full of hormones, the same way there is nothing bad in play WoW for hours to have fun
But, for sane people, this a phase to get over. If your only goal in life is to bang the 546-th female (à la Roissy or Roosh), if you devote most of your free time to learn new Game techniques, you have put more value to pussy that what it is worth. You only live for the validation of females. This is the Elam’s point, but I think it is only applicable to people who make of getting laid and Game the center of their existence.
Ryu:
No, it’s like a 55 year old talking to a bunch of 25-40 year olds (not to be non-inclusive on the age range; you get my point though). Further, it’s like a 55 year old who has told us all up front that he really wants little to do with women telling a cohort of men who actually do go out there and interact with women that he knows better how to handle women and how to place them in a properly-lived life.
Now, Elam and other MRAs could play an integral role in all of this. They can relate their ‘teachable moments’. But they have to realize, those teachable moments came after their experiences, certain experiences which the men they are hoping to influence may not have and may never will experience. Enter someone like Roissy and other Game advocates whose sole purpose is to teach men how not to fall prey to the wiles of women *while they are in the process* of interacting with women.
I mean, the analogies between MRA and Game keep piling up. Another one worth making is that of MRA as professor – what with the teaching but not doing – contra the man who is learning all while doing.
So maybe I agree with the gist of your point, but to make it seem as if Gamers are 10 year-old children who can always glean pertinent life advice from MRAs and other skeptical men, I don’t think that flies.
I am 30 and I have been peppering my sociosexual interactions with Game nuggest for the past few years. *Tremendous* improvement. I’ve placed sex and women in their proper perspective, and shit tests fall off of me like water off a duck’s back. A little bit of up-front knowledge and awareness has gone a long way; I don’t spend my days contemplating how to interact with women, fretting over how they value me. The template was laid a while back. Now I’m on auto-pilot.
imnobody:
But as I ask in the piece, what is inherently wrong with that? What is wrong with women as a hobby? Golf is a hobby. How many times do we hear men complain that their wives crack down on their golf hobby, and how many MRAs do you think would sympathize with men having to deal with their harpy wives?
I mean, MRAs are in the (noble) business of teaching us about political truths and raising awareness of misandry. Now they’re in the business of making value-judgments?
Which gets back to the larger questions that had not been asked until I pose them above. Are women means or ends? How much is too much focus on either – regardless of if the ends are women or they are some other hobby? I mean, honestly, hearing Elam rail against men who like pick-up reminds me of my girlfriend railing on me because I spend too much time blogging. If having sex and picking up women and developing that muscle is of value to a man, then how is it any different than any other hobby? Where MRA could come in – and pity that they aren’t just keeping it this simple – is in pointing out that this hobby can be dangerous. Just like hunting. A man can hunt, but someone had better tell him not to clean his gun while staring down the barrel and they better let him know to wear bright orange.
Good article. You get extra points for using the word “monomania” and for discussing the ethics through the consequentialism/deontology dichotomy.
If tape is involved, it has been used to tie men’s hands behind their back – forcing them to de-lint some other way.
This visual imagery was excellent, as well. I immediately had a mental image of men, with their arms tied behind their backs, licking themselves like cats.
How ridiculous it is for an older man – Elam is in his mid 50s – to preach to men younger than himself about what they should or shouldn’t do with their time and their bodies.
Aristotle wrote a chapter in The Rhetoric concerning this tendency of older men to disdain the passions and interests of younger men. I referenced it in my Old People Suck article.
There is the same issue between older and younger women among traditionalists, as they wonder why we’re so preoccupied with our sexual prowess and appearance, not realizing that the men we’re dealing with — yes, even the traditionalists — are also much more preoccupied with those topics. Yes, they want us to be pleasant and obedient, but they also want us to look like models and act like porn stars in the bedroom. This isn’t an easy game to play, which is why we’re constantly debating the rules and techniques. They consider this superficial but it is essential to maintaining the health of our relationships. The game has changed for everyone, and the simple prescriptives of a previous era:
Be upright and aloof, and they’ll come to you and stay with you.
Be pretty and modest, and they’ll come to you and stay with you.
simply don’t apply anymore. It’s dog eat dog out there now, and you need all the help you can get just to stay in the game. Hence Game.
Why is there no longer a Twitter button, FB?
Piggy’s good hobby reference didn’t need to be about older wives harping about the way he wants to play golf with his buddies and how MRAs would defend the husband.
MRA’s know that most feminist laws are about stopping or discouraging the husband from having a hobby of porking the interns (sex harassment laws are meant to discourage/punish him on that).
Most feminists would go home and cook if older men were only interested in golf as their main hobby.
Think about it.
Remember what motivated the Christian Women’s Temperance Union to get female suffrage.
“It’s dog eat dog out there now, and you need all the help you can get just to stay in the game. Hence Game.”
The fact that all this stuff which should be held sacred has been turned into a competitive dog eat dog “game” is reason enough to hate and oppose modern liberalism, capitalism, democracy, feminism, and just about everything associated with them.
Before that article I used to respect Elam, but I really can’t do that anymore.
He just doesn’t get it, which in my experience is very common with older men and is terribly unfortunate because they can be an invaluable source of wisdom for the young. As an illustration, witness the 2007 SF craigslist article “Advice to Young Men from an Old Man,” which is a powerful message to anyone seeking to learn about life. Google it if you’ve never read it. It’s worth the time.
Personally I’ve given up trying to explain to most older men about modern sexual relations and the other realities that older generations have forced up us. At most I might point them to a few books and concepts like those expressed in “The Mating Mind,” “The Red Queen,” or IMO the nuclear option of “Sperm Wars.” Overall though life is too short to waste the time trying to help those with no interest in being helped: they seem intent on dragging you down with them like a drowning swimmer and it’s just not worth the risk or the time.
For me at least the non-cartoon essence of “Game” is simply improving oneself in whatever areas one wants to improve: getting in better shape, learning more, earning more, improving your golf handicap, or whatever. The fundamental message that I learned from Game is all about self-improvement and directly attacking your greatest fears.
Everything else follows from those simple facts: increased confidence, decreased reliance on everyone else and their opinions, a more critical eye cast on all social and economic relationships, the willingness to stand up for oneself in every aspect of life, etc. etc. etc.
And, due to understanding and utilizing the results of the natural selection and sexual selection processes inherent in the evolutionary development of men and women, all of that self-improvement results in a more knowledgeable, active, and fulfilling social life with more sex with Real Live Women, which was ONE of my goals in the first place. In short Game has made me a happier man.
Oh well. C’est la vie.
On the last two paragraphs:
Reading and believing the MRA arguments have made me very bitter at some point in my late 20s, partly pushing me into a very misogynistic world view (real misogyny, not as feminists define it). This bitterness impacted my private life in a very real way. I got out of it, because my thoughts on women etc reeked of “loser”, despite having a hot girlfriend, a good social life and whatnot.
Understanding the reality of how the system works is important, becoming bitter and full of rage without doing anything about it just stinks. But what can we do then to change “the system”?
I believe that MRA as it is now does not help build strong and healthy responses to the very real plight of men. Whining and lurking on forums does not help change reality. It does not make people want to join the cause either.
Instead of building up an actual defense (lawyers, associations, invading academia, propaganda, lobbying, impactful research, defining and beating enemies… raging psychological warfare), I believe that many MRAs are just wallowing in their pain.
Now, the range of men who have suffered from the system includes: politicians, scientists, college professors, CEOs, lawyers, lobbyists, psychologists, advertising execs and creative types, military personnel, doctors, consultants, bankers etc. All the talent and power you need to make a difference is there.
Why hasn’t there been any fruitful attempt at forming a coherent strategy to change the system and propaganda, using all these men’s talent and know how to really kick some feminist ass?
Living in France at the moment, I can tell you that things are changing very fast. Women in France are becoming less and less feminine in their attitudes (bitchy, demanding, intolerant, wanting power, rude…). The legal system is also skewed to favor women, although exceptional crimes are still severely punished (killing babies etc).
But as your culture is dominant, the war front is the US and Canada. And the UK to a lesser extent, although any strong US MRA movement would quickly be mirrored in a UK equivalent.
As for the ultra-feminist northern countries (Denmark, Sweden etc), I believe they’re lost for the next generations.
Anyways, game also had a profound impact on my life and my outlook on the world. It gives actionable strategies etc. But there is also a very bitter side to gaming (getting to know women’s true nature, and your own not-so-pretty faults). It is a very, very egoistical way to live. There’s a strong nietzschian aspect to game. And an antisocial one. Gaming is not, for the majority of men, a healthy way to go through life. It takes its toll. Even if the upsurge of game were mostly due to the “feministing” of our societies, a gamer’s conscience will stare back at him in the mirror. If feminism produced skanky bitches, that doesn’t mean we have to behave like horny dogs.
If you analyze our societies you come to realize that the feminization is a top-down push. There’s no other reason for it to have become so strong a trend in recent decades. From then, you can identify who is behind that push, the strategy and techniques used. Then you can plan a counter attack.
I don’t see anything of the sort in MRA blogs or forums.
Problem is the contradictions. Can’t game women then whine about false rapes. Can’t game then then wonder why they are unstable. Can’t game them then complain about the welfare state. Can’t game them then complain AWALT.
If you want real improvements, gaming women over the long run isn’t it. Even Roissy knows that. And while his blog offers advice on dealing with women, it doesn’t give solutions on fixing them. And women truly are in a state of disrepair merely because they’ve been ingrained with the notion of always being able to acquire better and better. Yet many of them never realize that they could always do a lot worse and until that is brought up, men will continue to be chewed up. Nor will game be a long term viable solution for it.
It’s relevant to add here that, when Marc Rudov was at his peak as an “fifty something MRA on Fox News” four years ago, he was determined to tell everyone that he wanted to date women his own age who were “accomplished CEO types”. He was assigned to debate a forty something feminist lawyer on TV (the “He Said She Said” series of 2007).
After he reiterated this personal preference over and over in debates that he ostensibly won for the MRA cause, she was the one who was hired as a Fox News Commentator (the male audience had voted that he won the debates but they apparently kept wanting to see her breasts). He was invited back a few times to complain about Valentine’s Day.
While I’m suggesting that his feminist-influenced personal preferences knee-capped him in the already harsh white knighting environment of Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News, Marc was very much Roissy’s predecessor in mixing the concepts of PUA and MRA.
Marc made it very clear that he was a single guy who dated different women.
While he represented himself as an MRA, Marc’s rhetoric about Valentine’s Day was very much in synch with the modern (post 2006) PUA idea that women should not be pampered too much because they won’t appreciate the guys who suck up to them.
Despite some rather heavy self censorship on TV and the promotion of female CEOs as sexual ideals, MRA/PUAs owe Rudov a debt of gratitude and I’ll bet a dollar to a donut that he influenced Roissy a lot.
MRA’s know that most feminist laws are about stopping or discouraging the husband from having a hobby of porking the interns (sex harassment laws are meant to discourage/punish him on that).
I’m sure the young men reading this are completely thrilled with your viewpoint, Jerry, as men are always really enthusiastic about men poaching from their dating pool. You’re just sort of emphasizing the fact that older men disdain younger men’s interests by harping on this point.
I think its a given that when you write a snarky, intended to be less than exhaustive piece, geared to be more provocation than substance, that it makes it fair game for what would appear to be easy dismantling. I take the hit for that with no complaints. I didn’t intend to be any more thoughtful when I wrote that piece than the underhanded shots I have seen from Gamers and PUA’s for some time now.
Hell, look at Frosts “analysis” of the MRM placed here on this site. It was thoughtless; banal, reflecting such a poor understanding of what is happening in the MRM that it didn’t even warrant a response. But it was still a shot.
What I see happening in his response isn’t altogether simple, but part of it clearly reeks of dish-it-out-but-can’t-take-it-ism. And at the risk of being even more inflammatory, is pretty much the kind of reaction I would expect from someone with underdeveloped perspective and ideals.
Of course, GL, that also means that what you just attempted to fisk was just a footnote, a relevant but incomplete scrawling in the margin of a much larger paper. It’s an easy target that means little in the end, but that has opened the door for an exchange of ideas that will being next week, and will provide much more meat for anyone that chooses to dissect.
Much better than sinking your teeth into thin air and calling it a sandwich, which is pretty much what you accomplished here.
Ivan:
I agree with much of what you wrote.
Game does have women and sex as a focal point, but it also aims to learn how to handle women and sex. It isn’t only about chasing pussy, and it certainly isn’t about pedestalization as some MRAs argue. It is about chasing pussy on proper terms and not getting burned in the process. It is measured and rational pussy chasing – something that is an adaptation from old school cad pussyhound behavior – which was a vestige of a bygone era where laws and social codes were quite different than they are today.
MRAs should embrace their roles as canaries in the coal mine, soothsayers and prophets. They shouldn’t turn into moralizers.
Paul Elam:
I wouldn’t call your piece thin air Paul. More like a Trisquit.
Perhaps a Trisquit is right. I will go with you on that one, especially as it confirms the analogy I was making.
@Alte
It’s a fake argument, and would be part of a right wing feminist’s main agenda, to say there’s a natural split between the interests of young men and older men in that the younger men don’t want the competition from the older guys.
I can see why your agenda is to see a split between young men and older men in the MRA and PUA scenes. Won’t work.
I explained above in detail how the PUA community used to be like that but no longer is. It was one of the main memes I personally changed over at Roissy’s with the help of some other over 35 males.
You, Alte, are now the main purveyor in these parts of the idea that younger men should join with older women to discourage older guys from dating the younger women that the older guys used to date (paid or otherwise) in the days of the “patriarchy”.
Remember, the “patriarchy” was soft monogamy which accommodated alphas and betas quite well. Older alpha husbands were getting a lot on the side and many babies born to young beta husbands would not have had beta genes.
You are on record as implying that young men naturally see women their own age as “their territory” when, in historical reality, 16 year old caveboys certainly did not expect to be allowed to have sex with 16 year old cavegirls when the older tougher cavemen decided to take a mate.
It’s a modern feminist construct that a male college student should expect all the female college students should be his territory that shouldn’t be “poached”.
I should know: I was raised by feminists and I was furious when older men took the best looking college girls “away from me”. I had been raised to believe that men and women were equal, which would mean the girls my age would prefer me over an older male.
Still, in reality and even under feminism, an American frat boy would be pissed at a successful competitor of any age and the numbers of older men who are capable of dating “their women” would be so small, especially where young women are trained by feminists to reject older men, that I’ll bet most college-aged males have never had to think “Hands off our women”. Young men also often have such low self confidence and expectations that they’d never think of women their age as “belonging” to them.
The few times I’ve seen this “hands off our women” idea expressed in films, the director was ridiculing the young man for not having the skills of the more experienced guy.
Since everyone knows that women’s greatest fear is of abandonment for youngr women, it’s logical that you, a female, think that way but you’re still trolling here: You are a female whose interest it is in that men won’t abandon you for younger women as you grow older.
So why keep proving the point?
You’re transparent.
Do you think Paul Elam will agree with you, like Marc Rudov did, that it’s best for men to date their own age? Maybe this is his personal style and I’ve argued above that this could hurt his ability to represent even guys his own age.
But he isn’t going to argue in your female interest that it’s a bad thing.
I have never seen an MRA argue that feminism isn’t primarily motivated by a push for the self interest of females, the main one of which is stability as they grow older. Sexy females under 23 are seldom feminists unless they’ve been courted and caught by the local Women’s Studies faculty. Feminism isn’t just a wish to be married to the State. It’s a wish not to be abandoned by the providers as they, the women, lose their natural power over time.
OK, we’ve agreed that your article lacked substance and depth. Curious why it was written and published in the first place then. But that’s your call.
The other problem is that your article was partly fueled by your resentment at PUAs and Gamers who take pot shots at MRAs. But you didn’t really single out any PUAs or Gamers who’ve leveled such attacks. I wonder where Roissy enters the picture and where he has made statements that you found offensive. I’d really like to see the ones you’ve been so offended by as I suspect that the men who occupy the Game-MRA nexus (which Roissy glues together) wouldn’t hold those PUAs and Gamers in very high regard either. We’d like a little habeus corpus I guess.
And besides all of that, regardless of how lightweight you intended your article to be, I did write a substantive piece that wasn’t intended to be consumed in half bites. Questions about what standing you or anyone else has on dictating what men do or don’t do with their time and energy. Questions about women as ends or means and what is inherently wrong with focusing on women to any degree at all.
@Alte
Long answer stuck in moderation. Short answer: The supposed antipathy between younger men against older men for “poaching their territory” has been fueled by you alone here. The splitting of younger men and older men into two separate camps who should date their own age is one of your agenda items as a female monitoring her interests as she gets older. If this ultimate non-equality of dating wasn’t such a big problem for you and the feminists, you wouldn’t harp on it (when Human Stupidity discusses it often) and feminism wouldn’t exist.
The supposed antipathy between younger men against older men for “poaching their territory” has been fueled by you alone here.
Well yes, that’s true. Here. But this is also the place that posts the Human Stupidity stuff, so that’s not very surprising. At any rate, I’ve always dating older –sometimes significantly older — men, so I’ve heard younger men griping about it often enough to know that it is an issue for some of them.
@Paul
Are you seriously implying that you aren’t aware that Roissy is going down in history as the main blogger who brought the PUA and MRA scenes together, which means millions of men coming together in a common interest?
Are you trying to say that most feminist laws are not meant to interfere in relationships between men and women?
Just like Marc Rudov before him, for better or for worse, he’s the single guy who is actively dating women while slamming feminism.
He’s the horse out ahead in the race at the moment.
Are you aware how much web traffic the Roissy blog alone gets every day?
Don’t you want that traffic reading the MRA material that Roissy regularly publishes?
Have you posted at the Chateau? Your blog is well respected there.
Is there any specific trend going on at the Chateau that you feel runs counter to MRA interests? I’ve been recently satisfied enough that it’s going the MRA way over there that I haven’t commented in a month.
I’ve already published above a list of 5 ways in which the commenters on his blog were going the wrong way until things changed in favor of the MRA point of view (not to mention the older male POV) two years ago.
Is it possible that you don’t think his blog is socially conservative enough?
Is that the reason?
I’m sure you’d be glad to know that the White Nationalist influence over at the Chateau is not as overwhelming as it was awhile back, when half the commentariat were WNs.
I’d agree with you if you said that it’s amazing that Roissy hasn’t posted at all about the VAWA renewal efforts in Congress, etc.
But he’s still a major traffic generator who is on the MRA side.
Alte
Not to go too far off topic, but I’ve always been intrigued by the impact of a sort of unnatural floor that hampers the dating market. Because of educational system tranching-by-age-instead-of-maturity and laws which set age of consent floors for young women, men’s dating options are limited. Men in the 18-20 age range who would normally be dating younger girls are pretty much left high and dry. They develop a resentment against older guys who get the girls in the age cohort they grew up with.
I don’t know if this substantially impacts men or whatever, but it is an interesting thought, I think.
Just saw your longer post.
You are a female whose interest it is in that men won’t abandon you for younger women as you grow older.
Actually, I’m a younger woman more at risk of having my husband poached by an older woman, but that’s the peculiar dynamic of my current situation. I am definitely transparent, which is part of my ethos.
Anyone who can do math will have realized that polygamy — essentially what you’re advocating, either the hard or the soft kind — results in a stark imbalance among men’s ability to gain a fertile mate and strongly favors the older men over the younger men. The idea that older men can “have their cake and eat it too” and the younger men will do the same, is the sort of illogical, self-serving tripe that the feminists foisted on young women. Same motive, same tripe.
At any rate, I was just pointing out that your insistence upon pressing that point in a thread promoting Game using an ethical argument was a bit of an own-goal. I can’t tell which side your argument was supporting: that older men don’t give a crap about younger men and offer them bad advice for self-serving reasons, or that men who use Game are all sleazy and preoccupied with the acquisition of poontang.
GLP,
I wrote some posts about it before:
http://traditionalchristianity.wordpress.com/2011/09/26/why-young-men-dont-marry/
http://traditionalchristianity.wordpress.com/2011/10/07/is-monogamy-stupid/
Stuck in moderation.
Alte:
Moved it to underneath the “Sharing is Sexy” bar.
Men’s liberation is limited by economic conditions.
Our civilization runs to a significant extent on the willing self-sacrifice of men and boys in exchange for cheaper resources, infrastructure, manufacturing, defense, and so on.
Because of those standing economic conditions, people — including men and boys themselves — will continue to install and reinforce dehumanizing and devaluing attitudes towards men and boys — again, including such men and boys themselves — so that a sufficiently steady resupply of self-sacrificers will continue to risk their well-being, safety, health, and lives.
The general, common, consistent, and normalized abuse of men and boys will continue as long as people are economically better off because of it.
Which is fundamentally why, AFAICT, you two are locking horns with each other — you’re ginnng up an irrelevant, wasteful controversy and conflict in order to pander to the worst natures of the lowest common denominators among your audiences and thereby exploit their emotional vulnerabilities and limitations for your own personal benefit.
Suicide, for just one example, is the 8th largest killer of men in the usa — so just how much higher does it need to be on that list before addressing it takes priority and precedence over these kinds of self-serving, anti-male-prejudice-reinforcing fake dominance displays?
Does it need to be 6th largest killer?
Or the 5th
Or how about in the top 3?
Does it have to be the #1 killer of men before you’ll address that and try to get something done about it ahead of picking a fight with each other over this kind of petty nonsense?
Priorities, guys — what are your most important goals, and how is this behavior helping you achieve them?
Because by my standards, you’re both behaving like just another couple of exploiters trying to use not only me but the rest of the men’s issues community for your own personal benefit — i.e., you’re behaving just the exploiters at the women’s sites, picking a fake fight in order to profit off their audience’s susceptibility to poutrage.
- I enjoy learning about female psychology and male/female relationships, I also read about and support the MRM. I do both, what a concept.
- supposedly Roissy made one single comment disparaging of MRAs. One, in four years, with the rest being game advice helping men for free, mixed in with good anti-feminist writings, but let’s just toss him away. Makes sense.
- Paul Elam wrote one article that even he now admits wasn’t that serious or thorough, and now we have guys throwing Elam away ignoring the 1000 other great things he does.
- the Spearhead has some annoyingly ranty and “whiny” comments, guys dismiss the entire website ignoring the good articles.
- In Mala Fide annoys me sometimes to be honest, I’m still glad it exists.
This is the problem with guys. Stop drawing lines in the sand and instead disagree and debate. I want to throw my hands up like Seinfeld reading about it, but I don’t though!
http://i39.tinypic.com/20j68o2.jpg
I see the bar, and the Twitter button under “Subscribe”, but I don’t see a Twitter entry in the “Sharing is sexy” bar.
“OK, we’ve agreed that your article lacked substance and depth. Curious why it was written and published in the first place then. But that’s your call.”
Because, as you said, it was my call. I wrote a brief piece without any intention of investing serious energy in dissecting every detail of Game-PUA. It happens. But I don’t agree that lack of substance and depth is any indication that there are not significant, prevailing truths underlying the text. There are, and they will be included in the debate, which is a much better place to drive them home. :)
“The other problem is that your article was partly fueled by your resentment at PUAs and Gamers who take pot shots at MRAs. But you didn’t really single out any PUAs or Gamers who’ve leveled such attacks. I wonder where Roissy enters the picture and where he has made statements that you found offensive.”
I actually didn’t cite Roissy. I used “Chateau Bullshit” because he is iconic, but if you insist, read here:
http://whatmenthinkofwomen.blogspot.com/2011/07/roissy-and-manifesto-wrong-about-mra.html
Or, if you prefer the short script: “MRAs express a female-like neuroticism because they whine and focus so much on what could happen.”
Smells like a shame sandwich, because that is precisely what it is, feminista style. MRA’s get called whiners all the time, and that falls by incidence into three camps. Feminists, white knights, and to a much lesser but documented degree, Gamers.
That explains why Game-PUA has gotten about .05% of my attention in the form of a toss-away piece, and why when the debate with Frost is over, I will return to more pressing and infinitely more interesting matters.
“Questions about what standing you or anyone else has on dictating what men do or don’t do with their time and energy.”
(chuckle) Wow. I write all the time with opinions about what men do or don’t do with their time and energy. White Knights, male feminists, socons, pussy beggars, MGTOW’s and MRA’s. It is called opinion writing, and referring to it as “dictating” is a complete straw man; headpiece full of alfalfa.
For that matter, who are you here now chastising me for my opinion and writing about it? The question was rhetorical. You don’t need a reason to say what you are saying other than the desire to say it, in my book. I have the choice to take it or leave it, and not react as though I think you are really trying to dictate anything.
But if I am in the role of moralizer, then so are you and anyone else with an opinion about the conduct or interests of anyone else. To that degree the whole world is populated with nothing but moralizers. We all have opinions.
“Questions about women as ends or means and what is inherently wrong with focusing on women to any degree at all.”
And there you actually do get to a very good point, which I will address in the debate. I actually wish it had been you that issued the challenge. Your a much stronger analyst than Frost, and a more compelling writer.
Law 36: Disdain Things You Cannot Have: Ignoring Them is the Best Revenge
By acknowledging a petty problem you give it existence and credibility. The more attention you pay an enemy, the stronger you make him; and a small mistake is often made worse and more visible when you try to fix it. It is sometimes best to leave things alone. If there is something you want but cannot have, show contempt for it. The less interest you reveal, the more superior you seem.
Chuck, how come you never post comments at the Spearhead or A Voice for Men if your support some of the things the MRA are doing? Is it because someone attacked you at the Spearhead a few times? So what, you’re a good writer and have good things to say, why not spread your knowledge and wisdom? If I could express myself in writing as well as you can, that’s what I’d be doing.
I don’t get why many talented guys in the manosphere stay in their own little box.
@ Jerry
I am glad you asked those questions. In the midst of the disagreements it is easy to overshadow what I have said before, and will say again, that BLOGGING about Game, particularly on a high profile site like Roissy’s, has had great benefit as a source of agitation to feminists and in popularizing a reaction to the current sociosexual zeitgeist.
That is why in spite of seeing some rather harsh statements about MRA’s I have previously not paid it any real attention.
But there is another matter here is also of significance. And when I say this I am only speaking for myself. There is a problem with Game and its relative value in an environment where the government uses women as instruments of oppression and where women are largely happy to let that happen.
It does not mean that where there is Game-MRA confluence that we cannot coexist peacefully. But peace at the expense of closed mouths is not really peace, but denial.
GLP just pointed quite accurately to the fact that there is a long existing fault line that marks the boundary between Game and MRA. I did not put it there, but it is there, just the same. And who from the Game community is doing anything to repair it?
???
What I did was just what GLP said. I put a little pressure on it. Sure, some men on both sides will go ballistic over pointing to the elephant in the room. We are all familiar with that scenario in dealing with feminists and other agents of stupidity.
But eventually, if there is to be any real significant unity, it will come only after differences have been vetted.
For some people, that will result in taking their toys and playing elsewhere. We know this from debating with feminists as well. But in the end I think (and of course we are talking in terms of a very slow moving tide of social change) there will be a real congealing of ideas.
CastleD:
thanks for the compliments.
The short answer is that I found TS a little restrictive for my tastes.
And i’ve contribued to AVfM, which I was thankful to Paul for allowing me to do. I respect his voice on issues regarding feminism, misandry, and laying out potential pitfalls that men might face in their dealings with women and various justice systems.
But the rubicon is crossed when their argument turns into something other than awareness-raising and turns into shaming. Calling men who value sex with women “pussy beggars” is one such example. It is a pejorative label that I don’t think Paul or MRAs have given much thought to and haven’t really explained who they describe with such a term.
As for whatever value I might add to the Manosphere…I think I’m best served posting stuff at my own blog and when a big issue or a specific lead that I can tackle comes up, farming it out to bigger blogs like TS and AVfM. The beauty of the Manosphere, and what I hope (and I am hopeful) won’t be lost in any MRA-Gamer debate is the wide array of venues for men to pick and choose various opinions from. Most men pick a little from AVfM and a little from Roissy. The result is synergesic.
So I see Game as the practical arm and MRA as the political arm of the Manosphere. In my mind, they really should leave each other alone, and it is merely my opinion that the leading light from MRA (contra lesser lights from PUA forums) is the one disrupting the peaceful coexistence between the two. That’s all.
http://toysoldier.wordpress.com/2011/10/26/yet-another-slap-on-the-wrist/ , but PE and GLP would rather continue their own rendition of the classic femelitist street performance artivism known as OMG DID YOU HEAR WHAT THAT BITCH JUST SAID ABOUT ME!?!?
I think the point of the MRAs is that there are values higher than getting laid.
If getting laid means doing things that are not consistent with male self-respect, then is it worth it? Is getting laid worth becoming a contemptible human being?
Posed like that, the question becomes whether game is actually a set of behaviors that are characteristic of people with low self-respect. More, it is about the very concept of game – changing your behavior in ways that you dont necessarily approve of in order to fit in with what women desire you to be. Can such a thing ever be consistent with male self-respect?
Of course the argument is you do it to get laid, but so what? – the slave might argue that he becomes a slave in order to put food on his table. The bully might argue that he submits to the bully to avoid a beating.
Just because you do something in order to get something you want does not mean you are not acting contemptibly.
The point is, the guy who submits to the bully does so for an obvious reason, to avoid a beating – but he sacrifices his self-respect. The slave who submits to his master does so to eat – but he forfeits his self-respect. Entire nations have died rather than submit to slavery, because self-respect was seen as a supreme good.
That is a point that stands all on its own, but there is a second, deeper point as well.
CAN changing your behavior to fit in with what women want POSSIBLY be something that is attractive to women, since it obviously is a form of supplication and a lack of self-respect on the part of men?
And if it can be shown that women really DO like men who change their entire behavior to be liked by women, must we not then conclude that women do NOT like high status men or confident men, because the last thing a high status or confident man does is change his entire behavior in order to be liked by others?
Would we not then have revealed a massive contradiction at the heart of game?
Now, of course gamers say they change their behavior in the direction of being confident. However, this is palpably false. Confidence IS not giving a shit what women want. It is doing what YOU want. The moment you stand a certain way because women like it, you lack confidence. The moment you are aloof when you are feeling cheerful, you lack confidence. The moment you are mean when feeling kind, you lack confidence.
What gamers do is change their behavior in order to SEEM confident, not BE confident. The problem with this is that this is a contradiction in terms. Confidence is doing what you like regardless of what others think. The key point is that there *congruence* between what YOU like and what you DO. What people look for when to see if someone is confident is this congruence, and nothing more. Thats why for some guy being aloof and cold is confident, while for another guy being charming and garrulous is confident. The behavior is not the point, the congruence IS.
So *faking* confidence seems to be a term with no meaning since confidence is DEFINED by not faking. A subtle point, but a crucial one.
One more point, GL – you say men seek esteem through hierarchies and various ways. What you fail to consider that seeking esteem through others responses – ANY others, work colleauges, women – might be something that is not consistent with self-respect.
The idea that one should seek esteem from inner sources, and not others, is something so strange and radical that you cant even seem to imagine it! You claim MRAs are merely inconsistent, because they allow seeking esteem through some others responses, just not womens responses. But it has never occurred to you to question that idea that it is legitimate to seek esteem through ANY source other than your own mind and own approval.
THAT is what is masculine self-respect.
@GLPicci
I mean, MRAs are in the (noble) business of teaching us about political truths and raising awareness of misandry. Now they’re in the business of making value-judgments?
Well, first of all, I am not speaking on behalf of MRAs. I am not a representative. I only say my opinion as a person, which isn’t more or less valid than anybody else’s. I think any person can make value-judgments, the same way any other person is free to care about these judgments or not to care at all.
If I can ask you a question, why do you care about Elam’s or MRA’s agreeing on your life? If you are happy with your lifestyle, why do you care what some guy on the Internet think about it? I don’t think your choices have to be validated. And, in addition, Elam or imnobody are only names on a screen.
Which gets back to the larger questions that had not been asked until I pose them above. Are women means or ends?
As much as pop evo-psych and Roissy present women as ends, women are means, like anything else. Golf is a mean. Blogging is a mean. Having a beer is a mean. Work is a mean. Fucking is a mean. Studying is a mean. Money is a mean. All objective things are a mean
The only ends are subjective: positive emotions, like pleasure, happiness, peace of mind, contentment, etc.
But as I ask in the piece, what is inherently wrong with that? What is wrong with women as a hobby?
I don’t see anything wrong in that. If it makes you happy, go for it.
I only think there are better ways to spend my time than to bang the n-th slut who thinks she is a princess. Although my number is not high (30-something), I don’t care to meet new pussy as much as before. I don’t think pussies are so different one from another. And the work involved does not compensate me, since it is only another pussy for me.
When I was a kid, I used to eat candy all the time. Now I see it pointless and I want pleasures with more substance, because I am tired about candy, but this is a personal opinion and a personality and you can think otherwise.
“Gamers” have embraced the current dating dynamic.
MRAs refuse to accept this and are working towards a new dynamic; one that goes beyond current constraints.
I accept that game will assist the younger men in navigating the current climate. But there should come a point when he moves beyond that to embrace something more meaningful, should that be his disposition.
So in other words, both sides have merit and purpose and this debate should reflect that.
“Instead of building up an actual defense (lawyers, associations, invading academia, propaganda, lobbying, impactful research, defining and beating enemies… raging psychological warfare), I believe that many MRAs are just wallowing in their pain.
Now, the range of men who have suffered from the system includes: politicians, scientists, college professors, CEOs, lawyers, lobbyists, psychologists, advertising execs and creative types, military personnel, doctors, consultants, bankers etc. All the talent and power you need to make a difference is there.
Why hasn’t there been any fruitful attempt at forming a coherent strategy to change the system and propaganda, using all these men’s talent and know how to really kick some feminist ass?”
^^^THIS.
And the higher % of women we deal with, the more likely we are to get falsely accused.
Tim, So you gain nothing from external sources, everything is already built in? Self esteem and self respect doesn’t come from just your inside self. I could tell myself I’m a Greek god, but that’s what we call delusional.
everything you think about yourself, self respect included, depends on external sources. Some get great self respect and esteem for building something, some by conquering. You may have self respect, but with out other people you wouldn’t even understand the concept of that.
Strength of character can come from within, but it has a lot to do with your experiences and your mentors and relationships with people.
self respect relies on much more than yourself.
PUAs are mostly young men. Their T levels have not taken the huge drop that older mens’ has. That’s the main difference here and the difference between our interests and hobbies.
The way to defeat feminism is not attacking or convincing females, it’s converting the beta, white knight supporters who prop it up. They are the pawns, win them over and you beat feminism.
game is going to attract and influence more men, because pussy is what they want most of the time… building off that and teaching men that girls actually love strong masculine men, is what’s gonna beat feminism.
here in lies the core difference between mra’s and gamers. I don’t think mra’s agree with this core concept. They think womynz are just all cunts regardless of what you do. Its simply not so, and game teaches you this.
I’d rather be a man, secure, confident, trailblazing, with a lot of pussy than the same man with out pussy.
A final point, it’s like never owning a dog again because your training of said dog started to lag, and the dog acted up. MRA’s say they’re inferior creatures, and therefor lack any time and effort, but so are dogs, if you don’t train em, they act up.
First time posting in any of these types of forums, but If I may add:
About 6 years ago I was in a bad way with women and I found PUA type websites that lead me to more detailed ones like the chateau. However I found these sites at the age of 32 so my interest in women was strong still, but not absolute in my day to day thoughts.
What game did for me at an older age was instill a sense of confidence. It allowed me to value myself as “the prize” it empowered me to feel good about my future prospects.
Game doesn’t need to be an offensive weapon, in fact you can learn game and be aware of its principals and use it in a purely defensive nature. I’m no pick up artist, but I am no longer any woman’s hapless fool. That is enough for me to say that Game has value.
anon:
nice concise testimony.
running the risk of being overly charitable to MRA, MRA has to realize that the road towards higher illumination and increased self-valuation runs through Game. without Game, a road straight to MRA will lead to a certain bitterness among those men. so, again, i’m not sure why MRA wouldn’t openly embrace Game while holding those specific individuals who go overboard in their pussy-centricism as non-representative of Game as a whole.
I am too old to care about “game” — I care more about staying in shape (financial and otherwise), having interesting conversations, continuous learning, etc….Hovering around some female and trying to outwit her just to get her into bed strikes me as a juvenile, lower-chakra activity.
“Hovering around some female and trying to outwit her just to get her into bed strikes me as a juvenile, lower-chakra activity.”
Heh. The beta orbiter. The most game can do is upgrade you to an alpha orbiter.
The big deal is that MRAs and Gamers have like 10+ years of difference in age. That’s it.
“blah blah confidence, real men don’t care about what any others think”
It sounds like a bunch of bullshit to justify throwing your hands on the air and say “I just can’t control it”.
And it also sounds like the same broken record of “I can’t believe that guys that don’t fit MY idea of being a man are getting laid.”
The pre-1960 world is DEAD. Game is an attempt to deal with the current sexual marketplace. Deal with it.
MRA has to realize that the road towards higher illumination and increased self-valuation runs through Game
That’s what a lot of Christian men have told me, so it seems to be true. And Game is useful outside of sexual encounters. It’s an entirely different mindset; an attractive one, but also valuable in its own right.
“MRA has to realize that the road towards higher illumination and increased self-valuation runs through Game”
It’s by no means the ONLY way, unless you are using the word game to mean self empowerment in general.
Regardless of who drew it first, a dividing line has been drawn between MRA and PUA/Gamers, and Elam’s article simply reinforced said line. It divides rather than a unites men dissatisfied with the current situation, and as such deserves whatever lashing it received. Paul, if you were unhappy with relations between two sides of the men’s movement, you could have taken a unifying approach and tried to to deepen understanding of how the two sides can and do complement each other*, but instead you decided to increase the discord. Real big man there. Just what the movement needs.
Well, good luck with your activities anyway, and I say that in sincerity since I do believe that you help to inform and spread awareness of legal and other issues that men need to be aware of in western society.
* Hint:
MRA = Full frontal assault = Man the canons! WAR!! GRRRRR!!!!
PUA = Intelligence, infiltration, subversion and other Black Ops
“Paul, if you were unhappy with relations between two sides of the men’s movement, you could have taken a unifying approach and tried to to deepen understanding of how the two sides can and do complement each other”
I have no investment whatsoever in unifying two camps that have very little in common other than a distaste for feminism. Rush Limbaugh hates feminists, too, and he’s a blue pill fuck-knuckle from hell.
Oh and this: “Real big man there”
Go fuck yourself. Like I said, learning about aspects of the masculine and feminine is what I think holds some answers for men, provided it is studied with more than pussy in mind. One thing I have learned, for instance, is that shaming tactics, like “Read big man there,” are the province of either 1) women who want to shame you into service of some kind or another or 2) morally unemployed men who attempt to use that kind of shame for a different kind of control.
It’s useless on me, and renders the person attempting those things useless TO me.
My interest is in exploring ways that understanding the masculine and feminine can be used to benefit men as a survival tool in a hostile zeitgeist. To that end, I find game lacking and PUA utterly retarded.
If people want to take that personally and pout, I think they are welcome to that. It’s dumb, but they are welcome to it.
Paul:
But Game – in the main and especially the one you singled out – trumps MRA in actually providing tools to deal with women. MRA offers no actual advice on how to interact with women. The MGTOW set suggests avoidance or very heavy doses of skepticism. Game, on the other hand, or at least the version of it I have in mind, teaches men how to hopefully not let it get to the point where MRA teaching has to kick in.
So it’s not “don’t play with guns” like my mom chastised me to not do, it is “learn how to handle a gun properly” like my dad taught me.
See, this is what I don’t get. You talk about shaming language but then use it quite a bit yourself. I mean, hate to go all “you started it”, but you leveled the “pussy beggar” and “shit eater” shaming language that got all of this started. I interpreted that as an attempt by you, speaking on behalf of MRAs, to corral the sexuality of men through shame tactics – something that feminists often try to do.
So a moratorium on the shaming might go a long way in not having your future arguments misinterpreted. It it wasn’t all of that rhetoric, honestly, I wouldn’t have a problem with your piece as it makes something of a point worth discussing.
“I have no investment whatsoever in unifying two camps that have very little in common other than a distaste for feminism.”
This is not true. MRAs and Gamers have lots of things in common.
Firstly, MRA and Game are not incompatible. MRAs fight for the rights of men. Gamers try to use techniques to get laid. Why should they be incompatible? One is about the public area, another is about the private area.
Secondly, the goal is the same: improving the situation of men, both in the public and the private area.
Thirdly, MRA and Game share the same worldview: evolutionary psychology. They believe in the need of patriarchy. They use the same concepts. Read, for example, “The Garbage Generation”, a MRA brilliant book from Daniel Amneus. It is full of evolutionary explanations. These are the same explanations that Gamers used to get women attracted.
As I said before, I am only giving my opinion. I support MRA fight and I use Game. But the extreme form of Game (banging hundreds of women) does not appeal to me (I don’t like pussy so much).
And I think one of the reasons why MRA movement does not make an impact in the public area is because men are not used to rally together and forget small differences, the way women do with feminism.
We are always saying one another: “I am better than you. I know the truth and you are a loser”. Competition is in our genes. It is easier to divide than to unite.
This is why separating MRA from Gamers seems a bad strategy for the MRA movement to me.
@Paul
You asked who was looking out for the MRA interest at Roissy’s. I’d just written an essay showing how I and others (especially Roissy himself) worked hard to change the attitude that prevailed among the young macho commentariat two years ago that MRAs were a bunch of whiny old men losers. You can read again the detailed account of how I and others helped change 5 major pro-feminist memes.
These are just examples of attitudes most PUAs had two years ago:
1) That if a woman rejects a man, it’s his fault and shows his lower value.
2) That men should never lie to women even if it’s the only way to seduce her
3) That men should date their age and retire from the single life at 35
4) That men must never pay women for sexual activity even if there’s no other way for him to get laid, at least with her and on that moment
5) That men must not chicken out by leaving the feminist west for “desperate low value women” elsewhere
Roissy now preaches the opposite of the above 5 old PUA memes.
All five are closely related to MRA memes and I believed it was harmful to the MRA cause if the PUA community were allowed to keep believing them:
Agreeing with meme #1 helps convince judges to believe all divorces are because the man wasn’t worthy.
Agreeing with meme #2 helps laws like IMBRA to be made that say men can be fined up to $5000 for lying to a woman about his background (foreign women at that).
Agreeing with meme #3 helped white knighters agree with a Delaware law that says that an entire football team of under 30 males can have a gang bang with a 16 year old female, but if the 30 year old coach watches the proceedings, he goes on the sex offender list. It would also cause young PUAs to feel a natural split between themselves and older males, which would be in the feminist interest. Two years ago, most young PUAs wouldn’t care about sexual harassment laws because they weren’t in positions of management over hot females they might want to sleep with and hadn’t been educated by PUA leaders like Mystery about how they might soon be in positions of power and they deserve to have their patriarchal right to seduce interns kept in place.
Agreeing with meme #4 helps states and cities pass laws criminalizing men for agreeing to have coffee with a female decoy cop posing as a prostitute. It would also cause “PUA trained men” to not care if the local Women’s Christian Temperance Union banned all local strip bars. I ran into some serious resistance from PUAs on this point because the PUA community two years ago was mostly unemployed males who deeply resented the idea of men using money to outclass them. Roissy saw the arguments and finally came down on the side of those who would use any legal means necessary to win the female. MRAs know that feminists are working hard to make it completely illegal to use money to seduce a female.
Agreeing with meme #5 is why the IMBRA law hasn’t been challenged by even one male since it was passed by the US Congress in 2005. Roissy has written an excellent piece condemning IMBRA and he works hard to convince young American men that they can probably find better wives overseas.
So, yes, MRAs have been monitoring the Chateau and working to make sure the community there doesn’t grossly violate MRA goals.
Things have changed a lot in two years over there. PUAs generally regard MRAs as being out for their interest.
@Paul and Alte
The bottom line is that, for years, female commenters on PUA blogs did a very, very good job of creating a false split between younger men and older men and successfully got the younger men to believe MRA issues were for older male losers, such as betas who get divorce raped. They had successfully gotten young men to believe that such things wouldn’t happen to them if they had “game”.
So, Paul, this can be your main point next week: there was a false split deliberately created between younger men and older men by women commenters looking out for their own interests (and I don’t blame those women – I blame the young men for not noticing for years what was going on).
Experienced MRAs do need to monitor PUA blogs but, thankfully, the hard work is over now.
Jerry,
I tend to be more focused on the interests of young men and young women in general because I’m rather young myself and I have kids. And I think you won’t find much support here for your hypothesis that I’m uninterested in justice, or that I think men with Game of any age are immune to getting screwed over by feminist policies.
I’m much more interested in the decline of our civilization than in protecting the interests of hedonists. Being pro-Game isn’t the same thing as being a nihilist.
@Alte
The point I was making was that MRAs didn’t pay attention to the PUA-sphere until about two years ago, leaving it open to the agendas of everyone else. The poor young men, sopping everything up, had no clue whose agenda they were being taught and when.
I certainly didn’t mean to address you in that last post in order to be sarcastic, especially after you explained your POV in the earlier part of the thread yesterday.
In fact, I addressed you because I was noting that you were absolutely correct that it is quite easy to split the male “vote” between young and old.
Anyone can divide and conquer men that way. It’s a piece of cake. It’s also fairly easy not to let this happen as long as there is a group of men who are conscious as opposed to the typical American male who is like a frog in slowly boiling water.
Most have observed that the Democrats get an inordinate amount of young male voters in the US and I’d note that this is because Republican strategists simply don’t know how to reach these guys (mainly because GOP strategists haven’t used either PUA or MRA rhetoric in anything they’ve said in the past 15 years).
Oh okay. I entered the Manosphere through the Spearhead, and I don’t really read any PUA blogs, so I wasn’t aware of any of that.
“Oh and this: “Real big man there”
Go fuck yourself.”
Heh, must have hit a nerve there, especially since, as G.L.P. pointed out, you use the same tactic that you decry. FYI, it wasn’t shaming, it was just calling it as I saw it, and I even gave you a tip of the hat for your activities. But, hey, if that’s the way you want things between the two camps, Pauline, then go fuck yourself, too, you mangina.
Men dont go into pickup forums to discuss divorce, & child court cases, they go in there to learn how to get laid
Pickup forums cannot do justice to mens rights, in the same way MRA’s cannot do justice to game
Ironically pickup theory if adopted by the mra could benefit the movement greatly, as shown by the likes of dalrock & athol
As a self help movement for men, ie the points of inner game, & understanding the psychology of women as a group
Apply MRA to pickup would only dilute pickup forums, the last thing most men want to read picking up women, is about divorce & how men are wronged in the media
Maybe this is what Paul Elam is really writing about, the one way application of pua to mra
Essentially Paul Elam is saying is, why should mra’s pay attention to pua, when game theory doesnt pay any attention to mra’s
My problem with MRA’s is this: They think they can win the war of the sexes by bringing awareness? and leading attack against the laws that hurt men. What’s the end game? In order to make real changes that are essentially cultural shifts, you need to have popular opinion on your side. Tossing aside the game half takes away your power to persuade people, think of the MRA as the hardline, and the game way a recruiting tool. Game dangles the carrot of pussy, teaches men to get it, ignoring the fact that most men are really focused on pussy getting isn’t going to change no matter how much you scream and stomp your feet for them to change it. It’s not going away.
So how are you going to change things? Awareness with the advice of don’t get pussy, is simply not gonna win over a major population of men. Game has a much better chance to do this. Feminism has actually been great for players, but I know a lot of players that eventually want to settle down, and it would be nice to have to not worry about getting ass raped in divorce courts. We both tell guys to not do it, except game gives you a strategy on how to do it, if you want to risk it.
The last comment by Paul, says its more of a survivalist strategy. Are you just going to rape women for offspring? Men aren’t going to survive anything without procreating and certainly not without input to our sons and daughters lives. Other than awareness, I see no logical conclusion to the MRA’s – and game gives you tools to battle, rather than sit from the sidelines and rant and scream.
If I’ve missed the point of the MRA, please enlighten me, because you won’t get any laws changed without some popular opinion. That’s how feminism did it.
@ GLP
“speaking on behalf of MRAs”
To put a fine point on it, and I think you know this is true, I don’t speak for anyone but myself. Every time someone has questioned me about a role as a “leader” I have shot it down. I hope that is, and remains, clear.
I also note that when it comes to shaming language that “MRAs express a female-like neuroticism because they whine and focus so much on what could happen,” would also seem to qualify. You asked for a concrete example of what I was talking about, and when provided, you have just faded out on that part of the conversation.
So, in every sense, if you want to play the “you started it” Game, then start with the source, not the reaction. Otherwise you appear way too selective in what you are willing to face and address.
Now, as to this “I wouldn’t have a problem with your piece as it makes something of a point worth discussing.”
I see this as leaving you with two options. One, you can just focus on MY rhetoric, or you can acknowledge that the rhetoric comes from both camps and move on to the “point worth discussing,” part that SHOULD be at the heart of all this as we settle in to what could be a constructive discussion.
That choice is yours alone, GLP. This is my last post here about this. I will come out with my response to Frost on Monday, which I assure you will be totally without rhetoric, though it won’t be without very deep cuts into his ideas.
I am also doing a show on this Tuesday, where I will also lay everything I have to say out on the table, as clearly and fairly as I can.
Those that are going to join that dialogue successfully will just brush off the dust from what amounts to some minor head butting. Others won’t, and I have no say in who that will be.
The “old man vs young man” dichotomy intrigues me, but it doesn’t completely satisfy me as to the conflict between PUA and MRA. Or, more accurately, as to why there would need to be a conflict between the two. The easiest explanation to my mind is that some people like a good fight better than anything, and if they don’t have something to fight about, they’ll invent something to fight about.
It really only takes one such aggressor to pick such a fight, especially if the chosen opponent is one who can’t ignore the attack and won’t back down. (I am most carefully not going to hold an opinion as to who’s the aggressor in this dispute.)
So which invites more of your attention, PUA or MRA? I think it’s fair to say it depends a lot on your age and life-experience. But certainly it depends on what you hold as important to your life.
I’m over 55. When I was in my wolf-howlin’ years, the only book I remember on the pick-up-arts scene was Eric Weber’s How To Pick Up Girls. I bought it and read it, but the circumstances of my life gave me little scope and less hope to use it. I learned instead to cope with life as it was for me, and I watched a goodly number of my friends and colleagues “crash and burn” in harsh divorces or “molder and smolder” in unhappy marriages. By the time Neil Strauss brought out The Game, I was old enough and set-enough-in-my-ways to see no real value in it for myself. Those grapes were surely sour.
Men’s Rights, though – they had a fascination for me. I can look back at my life and see how I’ve been harmed by Femintern (word-play on “Comintern” or “Communism International”), the unreasonable expectations of those women who had been around me, and the injustices meted out upon men. Well, here I see it – I was really lucky that I hadn’t been pinned down by those harpies! And, of course, I’m old enough to “suffer” from the combination of experience and low testosterone; getting laid simply wasn’t worth playing the Game, any more.
If you’re a man in your twenties, your perspective on “the importance of getting laid” is JUSTIFIABLY different from the perspective of a man who’s past 55. If you can “scratch that certain itch” through Game, in whatever of its permutations, congratulations. I’d like you to have some awareness of “Men’s Rights” issues,though, just for your own protection, that’s all.
And I would prefer not to be dissed for my own MRA-friendly bent, or just because I consider myself too old to chase tail. You may benefit some day from the “covering fire” directed by people like Paul Elam, and laid down by old farts like myself….
Paul:
You wrote that I ignored your point about Roissy saying that MRAs whine. I didn’t ignore because I wanted to read the primary source myself. Good thing I did.
You linked to a post of a guy who read Roissy as siding with blogger OneSTDV’s assessment that MRAs are whiners. One wrote as part of his “Traditionalist Manifesto”:
“7) MRAs express a female-like neuroticism because they whine and focus so much on what could happen.
But Roissy didn’t wholly agree with that assessment. Roissy wrote in response to that point:
It seems that you wholly misunderstood and misquoted Roissy which may have led to your unfair use of “Chateau Bullshit” to describe whatever Roissy is cooking.
PUAs love Feminism and the sexual revolution because both have sexually liberated women. MRAs on the other hand are more traditionally minded and want society to be more sexually restrained.
Roissy is an MRA deep down. He just can’t be bothered and always takes a meta, outside-looking-in approach. Shame he doesn’t put his influence around these parts to better use by writing about issues that effect men besides Game. He does occasionally, though, so that’s something.
@Pete
Maybe some of the Spearhead MRAs are socially conservative, but I’d imagine the majority of MRAs (and especially MRA recruits from the PUA sphere) care more about all the feminist laws against male sexual activity (sexual harassment laws, false rape claims, anti-john laws, the outrageous way US states are raising the age of consent to 18), which means the last thing most MRAs and (more importantly) potential recruit MRAs would be against would be the sexual revolution.
And, to the 55 year old guy who said he wasn’t interested so much in women anymore, you spoke just for yourself of course. There are plenty of men over 50 who are as much interested in sex with beautiful young women as younger men are, and there are still plenty of outlets for them to get it (including very strong game).
Since 80% of the general male population is OK with premarital sex and the percentage would be even higher for men under 65 who still have a functioning prostate gland, the only future for the Men’s Rights Movement is one that takes the focus off of whining about the sexual revolution, which will only cause an internal civil war anyway.
In fact, socialcons need to start being honest around here about where they stand vis a vis pro pre-marital sex articles like Human Stupidity or Glenn Sacks writes (or any number of writers including Roissy). If anyone here is in favor of America being the place where 18 is the age of consent while the rest of the world sticks with 16, please speak now or forever hold your peace.
If any socially conservative male is OK with the Delaware law that would arrest the 30 something football coach for watching his 20 something team gang bang a 16 year old, speak now or forever hold your peace.
If there is anyone who claims to be an MRA who was OK when the Florida police arrested that 80 year old man last year for agreeing to “do something” with a 20 year old decoy policewoman who was flirting with him, then please speak now or forever hold your peace. And, no, I don’t mean letting him go (but not letting a 40 year old go) out of pity because he was “too old to be bad” or provably couldn’t get it up (which was apparently the outrageous reason why they let that particular guy go free – setting the precedent that only men who can get erections should be punished by the matriarchy).
If any MRA here was OK with Rick Perry joining the Texas chapter of NOW to put a $5 tax on men going to strip clubs in order to pay for rape awareness programs, speak now. Please, speak up. (The Texas courts struck down Perry’s strip club law as unconstitutional and then he had the nerve to run for President as a Republican)
The sexual revolution wasn’t created by feminists anyway; it was created by alpha males whom the young women of the 60s wanted to sleep with openly instead if discretely, which was the previous “soft monogamy” mode.
Basically alphas, and the women who wanted them, chose to “come out of the closet” in the 1960s.
Reactionary SocialCon MRAs need to ask the gays to go back in the closet before they ask the alphas to do so. Seriously. Stop gay sex before you stop any other type of sex.
The 60s feminists were relatively cool until they reached menopause in the 80s, when they turned against the alpha males who had driven the sexual revolution and brought on the current anti-sex feminism which is responsible for most of the anti-male lawmaking and which is closely aligned with the “Christian evangelical movement” (hence the dislike for Perry and Bachman among average Republican males).
This doesn’t take away from the correct observation that most men on the manosphere have made that the sexual revolution having happened should never have given any young woman an excuse to act against her own interest by riding a carousel of more than 2 or 3 men and past the age of about 22.
The feminists’ worst crime was giving young women the idea that they would be beautiful to men (8s would remain 8s and 9s would remain 9s) for more than an average of 7 or 8 years of adulthood. If a woman is going to have pre-marital sex, it is in her interest that this happen only a few times and before age 25 at most.
But we’re speaking of her interest here. We don’t need to go all socialist about how it isn’t in the interest of “society” that anything consensual happen between a man and a woman at any time. If you take away feminist funding and women’s studies courses, women will revert back to acting in their own self interest and trying to get an MRS degree in college.
It was made clear this past week on another IMF thread that the #1 reason why the MRM is doomed is because we’re split between social conservatives and normal guys (those representing the 80% of men who don’t have a problem with premarital sex), where there is a disproportionate amount of socially conservative males in the MRM (disproportionate to the general population by a factor of 2 I’ll wager, meaning 40% of MRAs are socons).
I became an MRA about 5 years ago when I heard about the IMBRA law and I did so because it was a law that prohibited the free process of men and women introducing themselves to each other online. The right and left wing feminists chose “marriage agencies” in order to go after a politically weak group of men: the type of politically unpopular socially conservative beta who would quickly marry a “mail order bride” (apparently only about 5% of the guys who used these services wanted to date around with foreign women and get laid).
They knew these guys would not launch a challenge to the law because socially conservative betas are incredibly weak people when they don’t have butch Christian wives to help them (remember that married male socialcons gave women the right to vote 100 years ago so their nagging wives in the Christian Women’s Temperance Union could ban brothels, alcohol and cigarettes).
And, with 4 or 5 notable exceptions, conservative US women were nowhere to be found when conservative single men complained about IMBRA, a law that hindered introductions to foreign women. In fact, it was found that 200 Christian women’s organizations wrote letters to Congress asking their representatives to vote yes on IMBRA.
A single socialcon male is a political weakling and nobody cares about him and everyone knows this, especially not the other men whose lives he’s implied he’d like to regulate.
Such a creature will never gain political power without the help and platform leadership of the married conservative female vote. That’s why these guys gave women the right to vote in the late 1800s and early 1900s. In the age of the Internet, they even get females to argue for them on the manosphere.
They shouldn’t be arguing with other MRAs about a dream patriarchy utopia when all we really need to do is smash feminist funding and get the “Illuminati” back on our side, while working together to actually challenge all anti-male laws and get them overturned by the various national Supreme Courts.
“Man derives value.”
No. Man does not derive value. Man values. Man is the beast with red cheeks.
Roissy is an MRA deep down. He just can’t be bothered and always takes a meta, outside-looking-in approach. Shame he doesn’t put his influence around these parts to better use by writing about issues that effect men besides Game. He does occasionally, though, so that’s something.
It’s really that Roissy sees it as futile, and therefore a waste of energy. He agrees with the symptom diagnosis and he also agrees, in many ways, with the cure(s), but he thinks that the latter are not feasible in any way, and are therefore a waste of energy. Cynicism, true, but not really unfounded cynicism.
Jerry, the people who want 18 to be the age of consent are parents.
@Brendan
About “the cure”:
http://heartiste.wordpress.com/2009/06/01/sexual-dystopia-a-glimpse-at-the-future/
“Now I will tell you how to save America from this fate. The answer will surprise some of you:
More PUAs.
America is beyond saving in the traditional ways. The rot has metastasized. There will be no glorious beta male uprising. Like one of the commenters from yesterday’s post pointed out, the first cute girl to bat her eyelashes at one of these revolutionary Che Betas will have him betraying the brotherhood faster than you can say “just the tip”. Nor will there be a repeal of the 19th Amendment, though there should be (and, no, I am really not kidding about that. Exhibit A: Cuntrag).
No, the solution is to give the New Girl Order *exactly* what it wants: Game, and an army of cads that practice it. Force feed the beast until it is choking on its own gluttony. The emissaries of the Great Lie must have the consequences of their ignorance and treachery shoved down their throats. In time, the unabashed pursuit of hedonism and the embrace of Darwinistic nihilism (two potent forces which, coincidentally, happen to have truth and pleasure on their side. Exhibit B: God is dead) will raze the neoliberal monolith to the ground, and from the ashes the eternal human cycle will begin anew, strengthened and revitalized. A complete reconciliation with our tragic destiny gives us the only chance to avoid it.”
And may us females must promote and defend our men from the illogical brainwashing that is out there. I would do a post about this on-going PUA/MRA debate but its really not my place – I am waiting til next week to tackle it. I need to read up on a few sides of the issue.
I try to side with both the PUA/MRA b/c I have great compassion for their content, their struggles and their positions on things. They are right often and if their messages got out – men BEING the leaders they were meant to be, our America would be a better place….
Here is to hoping for the best but knowing, the best or the happy times are over.
Roissy may be using this rhetoric to undermine social conservatism by getting socons to shut up about what other men are doing at least in our lifetime. So, for instance, as Hermain Cain is now being accused of “sexual harassment” and Ann Coulter is defending him.
This Cain sex scandal is only going to help him with the male vote.
Hermain Cain’s brilliant quote from yesterday “What man hasn’t been accused of sexual harassment?” (Talking like that can get him a lot of the male vote)
But the beast Roissy also feeds with this unfortunate rhetoric (that he doesn’t really mean) is the hopes of the 6% of socon reactionaries who end up in the mentally unhealthy and unstable position of tacitly agreeing with the idea that “cads” (anti-male term) can operate “now” but some sort of hard patriarchy should come as some sort of cyclic phoenix, kind of like when Christianity conquered the Roman Empire and young women were soon getting molten lead poured down their throats for doing something sexual before marriage.
Pouring molten lead down a girl’s throat is one of the cruelest things you can do. These Roman “Christians” clearly didn’t understand what Christ was all about.
The natural order of things without feminism is that girls will be hypergamous until approximately age 22 and then they will marry a beta provider. While a father can be strict with those who live in his household, short of keeping molten lead boiling, when you mess with what girls can and cannot do between 16 and 22 outside your own family, you start pissing other men off big time and you become a worse problem than the feminists were.
Roissy admits now and then that he doesn’t want to see hard monogamy enforced in his lifetime because he personally likes things this way. Does one really believe he wishes a tyrannical reactionary patriarchy on his great grandsons that won’t let them get a few notches under their belt before they settle down?
I doubt it. He just wants to trick socons into stopping any arguments about male behavior in the hear and now.
But if guys like @Pete are really, mostly silently, hanging around the Manosphere while support things like 18 as the age of consent, it means that Roissy’s strategy/tactic is backfiring.
Despite the rhetoric about how many of civilization’s great producers were allegedly beta males (allegedly is the operative term here) the best men over 30 in any civilization will always need to be able to get the hottest young women or they will go elsewhere.
Remember that the western Roman Empire collapsed under the “Christian” watch that supposedly “inevitably” followed all the previous Roman debauchery. I assume part of the reason for the collapse was that all the alpha males moved elsewhere, including joining the “Barbarians” during the phases of the Christian regime when hard monogamy was enforced as opposed to the soft monogamy (not rigidly enforced) that makes for a strong civilization.
But the Collapse of Rome is a long and drawn out subject. One can only agree that it wasn’t because of “debauchery” that the western empire fell.
@Pete
No. It’s the female vote that wants the age of consent raised to 18.
I know many fathers over 40 who want sex with hot young women, often younger than their adult daughters. A healthy male mind doesn’t disqualify his sexual interest because a female is below a daughter’s age or “is young enough to be his daughter”.
Alpha Fathers and especially alpha divorced Dads have always wanted hot mistresses on the side and they would never agree to the outrageous unprecedented measures that feminist America has recently taken to raise the age of consent in some states (but not all yet).
During the Victorian Era, when “fathers” were at their peak political power in history, what was the age of consent? Case closed.
Beta White Knighters and Manginas who would never be able to personally get a 17 year old, are OK with these unprecedented new laws, never before made in 6000 years of civilization, because of sour grapes.
These guys are feminized. Without the female vote they would be marginalized.