“The cost of sexual liberation” for women

“The cost of sexual liberation” for women fits right into the player dynamics commonly discussed around here, my favorite bit is…

Meanwhile, the female sexual emancipation Greer pursued has delivered a bonanza for every live-in-the-moment modern-day Dean Moriarty with the looks to enjoy it. In the world of online dating, sex is even more abundant than it was for Dean Moriarty: one twentysomething friend tells me that “photogenic” male friends find female attention so abundant that some are “quite sick of the attention.”

The agency of women is little discussed, of course… if women wanted to, they could choose steady, reliable guys instead of exciting players. They don’t, though, not at least until the “epiphany stage” that Rollo Tomassi writes about. Women love competing for hot, high-status men… any time an individual woman decides not to do that, she’ll avoid the “Dean Moriarty” men (no idea who Dean Moriarty was).

As a young teen I remembered hearing older people say that girls want a “nice, good” guy who will take care of them. This troubled me, because everyday life readily demonstrated that girls liked jerks and jocks (not much has changed between then and now). Guys interested in pickup and being players reconcile what is commonly said about women’s desires with what (and who) real, live women do. Women strongly prefer hot, tall, exciting guys. This is observation, not value judgment. Most of us have seen how women behave around men they find hot.

It’s still (somehow) amazing to me that the top things a guy can do to sleep with more women are work out, practice his social skills, and get a gig like bartending. Hot women prefer buff guys with social skills over the guys building civilization and society. At one point in the development of civilization, I think there was a higher degree of consilience between “guys building civilization and able to care for women and children” and “guys women sleep with.” Today that consilience is mostly absent. That may be bad, but top guys can f**k an unbelievable number of attractive chicks. Speaking of that, I need to go deadlift and do shrugs, stop pussyfooting around on the keyboard. Some chads are born, many are made.

In human sexuality, women are collectively the choosers, men the chosen. Who women choose speaks to them. Every hot woman has a phone full of guys who’ll wife her up, but she doesn’t want them. I’ve been both the guy she wants and the guy she doesn’t. I know which is better.

As men, we can study the mechanism that is female biology and psychology and figure out how to access more of what we want. That is the game. Welcome.

Transsexualism, bodybuilding, anorexia: body dysmorphia’s many forms

Thinspo and Gender Goals: Musing on two internet subcultures is about attention and the failure to create effective identity: I read it as, when young people, specifically girls, say, “I am a man,” they really mean, “I want to look x way. And all my problems would be solved if I looked x way.” This desire will never be completed, and reaching the “goal” will never make the desirer actually feel whole, happy etc. The way the brain is malfunctioning in an anorexic state can give us some help understanding the transsexuality trend, which isn’t so different from grunge or witchcraft or other teen girl trends. What people (and especially teen girls) say is often not to be taken at face value; it’s part of some other ploy, usually related to status, insecurity, etc. Girls are more susceptible to social contagions.

With anorexia, the body dysmorphia is clear: showing how the origin of all this stuff (Tumblr) is the same, and the memes around it, the imagery, the feelings are all very similar. Somehow, we can’t see the obvious when we introduce the idea of gender, maybe because after a long period of discrimination against gays, we falsely analogize transsexuals to gays. “I hate my body, it’s the wrong one. I’ll never be happy until I can change it to be something else.” The language is so similar, the thoughts, all of it is really powerful to a small number of people. Like many things, the left might wake up 50 years from now and be like, “holy shit were we in a dream? Did we really think this shit was healthy?” No, it isn’t, and we’ll deny we ever thought it.

Transsexualism being like anorexia is interesting in part because it seems to get the essential idea that there’s no end game. Let’s say the teens who are “transsexual” achieve their body “perfection” or whatever. Then…what? What’s the point? It’s like bodybuilders (another topic discussed around here), you get the things, and then…you show it off, I guess? You search for adulation, or something else? And then, once you get that, then what? Whatever problems drive body dysmorphia are not solved by whatever body mods people think they’re feeling. With bodybuilders, some amount of lifting and being fit is good for you, but becoming obsessed and overly optimizing on “being fit” has negative repercussions. Most people want social and romantic connections: but transsexualism is unlikely to facilitate either.

EUPHORIA, it’s a conservative TV show, didn’t you know?

EUPHORIA is a conservative show, telling us parents should stay together and take care of their children, opioid drugs are bad, being an involved parent is good, parents who don’t watch out for their children are doing their children a disservice, dads are a positive influence. Talking out your feelings is good, repressing them is bad. Self-obsessed narcissism is everywhere, to the point no one bothers fighting it (bad). Too much TV and too little parenting creates problems, which is a funny message from a TV show. Women need to be protected from men, an idea nineteenth century Christians would have strongly endorsed.

Doing sex work is bad or at a minimum undesirable, better to work in the real economy. Parents should work hard at their jobs so their kids don’t have to do sex work or sell drugs. Sexting is bad, as is pr0n. Geting off your phone is good. The teens have lots and lots of feelings, but they are unable to form proper intimate relationships with each other, mirroring in this their parents’s inability to form intimate relationships with them. The drama revolves around taking or not taking drugs, and being able to form or not form successful relationships with another human being. That’s it. The most radical act possible for any character on this show isn’t MDMA or sex, it’s a committed relationship, and most of what they do instead of committed relationships is what Gen Z internet writers call “cope.” Radicalism today is the conservatism of yesterday. Drugs and sex are easy, the substitutes for substance. Don’t trust most of what’s written about this show, because the writing is mostly garbage. Critics denounced THE JOKER for its conservative subtext (just text?), few seem to have done the same with EUPHORIA.

The show is hugely high style, colors! camera work! look at us, we fancy. Style > substance, we believe in narrow field of view, lots of bokeh, it’s very moody. The actors and acting are good, the casting is good. But! OMG! The kids, they are doing the sex! And the drugs! Can you believe it??? Neither can I, except that in every generation there is worry about the youth and their erotic ways, not least in the way they offer erotic temptations to those somewhat older than them. How bad they are, for being tempting. Very, very bad, Very, very naughty. Wicked, naughty, evil. Now, the youth can record themselves doing the sex in HD, how scary, OMG. Were the old days better? EUPHORIA invites that kind of reading… in the old days, when mom and dad stayed together and the HD, self-filmed sex wasn’t feasible, let alone sharing the self-filmed sex with others. Pot + LSD > heroin + phenyl-2-propanone (P2P) meth. In mom & dad’s days, the obesity epidemic hadn’t happened yet, either.

The underestimated power of scent

Naturally Selective: Female Orgasm and Female Sexual Selection,

However, the strongest predictor of female sexual response was none of these—it was attractive partner smell.

This will come as no surprise to, say, Jennifer Aniston, who is on record as saying that there is no better smell than that of the man you love, but it was an interesting finding to us. This is because smell appears to advertise your genome to potential partners. The science is complex, and some of it is in dispute, but there is credible research that immune system compatibility—what would make your baby healthy if you were to have one together—is signalled (both ways) by how attractive you find your partner’s smell. That women’s olfactory bulbs, the part of the brain that processes smell, are fully 40 percent denser than men’s would fit well with the knowledge that their decision-making here needs to be keener than men’s.

So, in brief, it seems that Darwin was right when he said “The power to charm females has been more important than the power to conquer other males in battle.”

Most men and women image match, that is, find someone who is fairly like them, in terms of obvious sexual market value (SMV). Sometimes, though, there’s no image match in a couple… if the higher-value partner is a woman, she might really like the man’s scent. Sounds minor but might not be. If you get a woman who’s preternaturally into you, your scent might drive her mad. Contrastingly, if she seems keen but doesn’t like the first kiss, you might be getting the reverse. That is one reason why a woman you’ve been flirting with might back away after the first kiss, she finds the fullness of your scent unappealing, through no fault of your own, unless you are fat or otherwise not taking care of yourself.

You don’t know until you try. Online dating is often rubbish because if the woman takes the time to match, banter, meet you in real life, and then doesn’t like your scent, she’s wasted a bunch of time, as have you. Hormonal birth control can affect a woman’s scent preferences, and some divorces stem from the couple marrying, the woman getting off BC to conceive, and then finding herself less attracted to her husband… and more attracted to her colleague Greg, yes, what is it about him that’s so different than it was a few months ago? She doesn’t know, she only feels “something has changed.” Her husband isn’t the same man any more.

There is a very large amount of randomness in the game, I and many others have written, and noticed. Scent compatibility is one small, yet critical, variable in the mix. I’ve also been more “scent compatible” with some women than others: women’s scents can range from intoxicating to arousing to neutral to so-so, and occasionally to negative, although that’s rare on an otherwise attractive, healthy woman.

The ignorant learn only from slow experience, the wise learn from augmenting experience with reading.

“Why I Left Feminism”

“Why I Left Feminism.” She recounts her erroneous thinking: “I was also under the impression that children would ‘get in my way,’ and therefore I must achieve my career goals first and foremost,” when it turns out children are the point. She “Realized Men and Women Have Different Interests,” on average.

An obsession with independence and freedom is poisonous to women… and to men. Something to be aware of, given the over-prioritization of independence among some guys I read and some readers of this work.

It’s pretty rare to read something this graceful. Much of what passes for feminist “thought” online reads like cope.

The time horizon question

Lately I’ve been talking about time horizons and how there’s frequently a tension between what’s optimal in the short term versus the long term: when you’re thinking about an action, set of actions, program, program of study, etc., it’s useful to consider “tonight” “this week” “this month” “this year” “this decade” “these two decades.” Some guys can have great days, or great weeks, that don’t add up to anything, a topic that arises due to The curious, cautionary fates of many of the guys who go deep into game and Internet. The question is, can guys get different time horizons in alignment, despite those time horizons being in tension with each other?

A great night tonight might mean this, but if you do that every week, that’s catastrophic. A great decade might mean a lot of grinding work, but without any of the things that can make life worth living. Many top guys figure out how to balance their time horizons, and many ineffective guys focus exclusively on the short term (girls of course do the same, but girls face a different set of game constraints than men do). Sugar is short term, measured in seconds or minutes, as are video games, measured in hours. But developing special and unique skills might take years, and yet you won’t develop them if you don’t put the work in every day. On a day-by-day basis, it might be fun to f**k around, and then watch as months or years pass, that time put into a video game machine or bong, instead of something lasting, sustainable, and meaningful.

When I speak of how there is no easy way, there is only the hard way, I’m saying that top guys usually have to focus on doing this today that might not bear fruit for months or years. It’s easy to misinterpret red quest as a work and philosophy because you only see the tip of the spear: you read a work that’s the result, often, of decades of work. Top guys manage to think short and long term: a great experience right now, but also a set of activities and strategies that’ll help guys “build wealth slowly” as xbtusd likes to say. What’s great in the short term may be poisonous long term. I can’t tell you how to optimize your life, but I can tell you you should be aware of this principle. In sexual terms, I’ve tended to optimize for short-term activities: hours to months. In the last year or two, I’ve been trying to change that, and instead focus on years to decades… which may mean moving against my feral player instincts. Can I lay the foundations for a good life, long term, or will I be waylaid by my desire for carnal sluts? Tune in next year to find out.

Some Internet can be good, too much is bad. I’ve been doing too much. What? I’m not perfect, I make mistakes.

If there’s a message in red quest besides “group sex is fun and people should try it out, and here’s how to do it” it’s “things are complex and resist simple / easy answers.” Most of us want easy answers, most of us have limited attention spans, most of us are ineffective… with the results seen everywhere. This post isn’t immediately actionable in a universal way, like “lift” or “don’t eat sugar” or “call your mom” is, but it applies to many of us, if not most.

Cocky funny with two girls in a bar [FR]

Xbtusd comes with a spicy field report straight from the streets.

Girls can be self defeating, an idea best explained through a story: I’ve been holed up for around a month due to getting COVID, and then with everyone I know going back into lockdown hibernation mode I was craving some social energy, so a friend and I headed to a local bar. It’s a great spot, designed to look like the inside of a log cabin, with a working wood stove in the back room. It’s cozy and was poppin last night. As I’ve said before, my bar game is pretty bad, but I’ve committed to approaching every time a certain set of conditions is met (“committing to doing something” and then doing it is how you get better at anything). As I entered, I noticed two reasonably cute girls (6/7s) sitting at the bar facing each other; the tall one faced and stared at me like she knew me. I often meet people and forget them, so I started racking my brain as I paused to figure out if I knew her—and not snub her if we had met. Like most dudes, usually my memory for cute girls is better than my memory for people in general. 

I couldn’t remember her, so my buddy and I just kept walking. We grabbed some drinks and settled into a spot against the wall and were just hanging, having a good time. I wanted to approach those two girls but also was slightly wary they might be either doing “girl time” and would get pissed if I approached, or that they were maybe on a date with each other, which can get you killed for interrupting where I live. I wanted to avoid that mistake so I figured I’d try and do some recon. Eventually a spot at the bar opened up next to them so I grabbed it (proximity can count as flirting), and tossed my jacket onto the bar and tried to get the bartender’s attention. As I did that, the girl on my left (“Lauren,” as I later learned) said, “is this your jacket?” and we both kind of bumped arms. I said yes, and then she smiled and said, “I was just looking for a way to start a conversation with you.” These two girls were not only NOT on a date with each other, NOT looking for girl time, but wanted to get fucked and were at the bar with the explicit intention to meet dudes. Okay, I’ll bite.

Reading THE GAME, the original, by Neil Strauss

THE GAME, the classic memoir, is still a fun read, maybe because, at the expense of truthfulness, it follows a very classic structure, in which the hero (Neil) gets an almost literal “call to action” or “call to adventure,” meets helpers (Mystery) as well as challengers and temptations (bad chicks, liars, also Mystery), undergoes severe challenges on his quest, descends into the abyss, atones, and finally returns bequeath us with the game. What’s it most missing? In my view, regular readers will not be surprised to learn, non-monogamy… these guys want to sleep around but haven’t figured out how to structure their relationships and lives to enable women to be congruent and consistent with that desire. Much of the silly drama in THE GAME could be resolved or lessened through a non-monogamy structure, though I also think most of the guys described lack the maturity or intellectual framework to put it into practice.

Mystery has a problem when he sleeps with some chick, and then “she e-mailed Mystery’s girlfriend, Patricia, and told her about her boyfriend’s extracurricular activities. The fallout nearly destroyed his relationship, and in the process taught him that there was a downside to being a pickup artist: getting caught.” Solution, tell the chicks you’re into non-monogamy, make them part of that structure, help the threesomes flow.

When I first read THE GAME, I thought, “Cool, a guide to sleeping with more chicks, more effectively.” Now I read it and think, “There are things these guys get, but they are immature and miss so much.”

The curious, cautionary fates of many of the guys who go deep into game and Internet

Tom Torero has died, and he is said to have died by suicide. RIP. I don’t recall when or how I first started reading him, but it was many years ago, and I bought some of his books. I remember finding both DAYGAME and BELOW THE BELT (neither seem available on Amazon right now, sadly) amusing and at times inspiring: though, like many guys interested in these matters, there seemed to be a thread of darkness running through his soul + writings. He was smart, and I’m saddened by his passing.

There is a line of intellectual descent running through many guys interested in pickup or seduction, and it seems many guys found his work. Right now, the TomTorero.com domain seems dead, and I wonder if anyone has a backup of his material.

A few years back, Torero asked if I’d be on his podcast: for reasons of anonymity, I said no, though I listened to some episodes. If he’d been born centuries ago, he might have been a priest, or a heretic, the line between those two positions being thin. Heresy attracts me.

I’m saddened, and have read some of the memorials devoted to Tom, and I’m also thinking about others who have trod, if not his path, then paths adjacent to him: Roosh found god and has become… a curious personage, to be polite, although many less-polite descriptions are possible. If you wish to have him exhort you to find god yourself and stop sleeping with hot chicks, you can do so, though I don’t personally wish to.

Another guy, Goldmund, tried to monetize game and being a game coach for a number of years, before disappearing for a while and then coming back around, apparently also in some kind of spiritual/religious cast, after family tragedy. I find his recent work and exhortations… not compelling. That he’s done a 180, though, is notable. Why should we believe he won’t randomly change again? He is scientifically and technically illiterate, something he shares with others in this space.

“How did you figure all this out?” On women and dating

A guy at reddit asks that rarest of things, an interesting question, which got started from this post. The guy says, “I was the outsider for a long time (I box professionally) so I had this idea that it doesn’t matter what the average person says or think, I can do whatever I want. I was super disagreeable and would keep grudges (and of course I lost friends like that). This was my most recent realisation, after finishing my study abroad year in Madrid. Having (the right) friends give you an unwavering amount of confidence and motivation, whether it’s picking up a girl or starting a business.”

Furthermore, “the contrast thing is also very true. A lot of my friends think I get girls mostly because of boxing plus I study at a top university in the UK, but the reality is because I paint and post it on Instagram.” Yet he says grew up in poverty. He asks, though: “how did you figure all this out?” It took me a while to figure out how to answer him, because to answer it with any level of honesty demands detail. So I took a shot:

Getting hit in the face (figuratively, mostly, took boxing lessons but never fought), failing, flailing, struggling, reading Peter Thiel (one of the great geniuses of our age, even when he’s wrong), reading broadly + deeply (the people who tell you fiction is a waste of time are dumb), observing, practicing, feeling humiliated by rejection from chicks, realizing some chick is saying “ljbf” before she goes off to get railed half an hour later, trying to figure things out, reading pickup / game / red pill blogs (for too long now, though I’ve learned much from these guys, even some of the crazy ones), studying Bayesian statistics, studying statistical thinking more generally, talking to guys. Some of the “how did you figure all this out?” is just an interest in puzzles, of which human social life presents many. A lot of guys are stuck in an overly simplistic mindset, where they think “iff a, then success” when in reality “a” may be helpful, but success is rarely, if ever, monocausal. That overly simplistic mindset is evident in many comments online, many of which are so incomplete as to be effectively wrong. Many aspects of success in social life are not only not monocausal, but they’re a matter of balancing opposites: an idea many Internet users reject.