A lot of guys are pussies, but that means opportunity for the few who aren’t

This post, and all others, are now on Substack. 

A depressing Reddit thread, Why are young men giving up on dating? (not going to link it), is full of guys saying they’re tired and their feelings are hurt. The highly upvoted comments indicate that a lot of guys are pussy… could be that Japanese herbivore culture has come to America. Let’s hope guys posting on Reddit aren’t representative of guys as a whole. But, if they are, their weakness shows your opportunity: if all these guys are so weak that they can’t compete at all, where does that leave you, the guy who’s decided he can and will compete? Jeff Bezos says your margin is Amazon’s opportunity. These guys’s whining, is your opportunity.

The Reddit thread is disturbing because the guys in it don’t think about history… to them, only the present exists. They have been raised by the consumer culture of TV and video games, not the producer culture of men. They are the anti-Elon Musk. Despite their whining, they do not properly realize how they are the results of thousands of generations of unbroken male success. Any guy who is alive today is alive because his father managed to get laid, as did his father before him, as did his father before him. Guys not long ago fought in Vietnam (think also of the guys on the North Vietnamese side, facing American firepower). They fought in Korea, World War II, World War I. Not long before that, most guys were agricultural peasants, barely scraping a living out of the land. They didn’t even have sunscreen. Can you believe it! What about skin cancer? Before that, they were hunter-gatherers who couldn’t even play the latest PlayStation or XBox. How did they even live? Your ancestors took spears in the chest and managed to soldier on. Seriously, read some history. Read SAPIENS. Whatever. The world is not safe. As of 26 February 2022, Ukrainian President Zelensky is refusing U.S. evacuation offers, as Ukraine resists the armies of evil despot Putin, and Zelensky is saying he needs more ammo, not a ride. Seriously, think about that, and think about the guys you hear whining on the Internet about how hard it is to ask out chicks.

Every person alive today has incredible, unbelievable opportunities in the world, if he or she pursues them. There has never been a better time to be a player. The amount of information available about game, nutrition, lifting, and social skills has never been higher. Yet these guys throw that all away, to play more XBox, skim more Reddit. They don’t connect their behaviors with them not getting laid.

Will public and socially acknowledged sex tapes become common and normalized?

An adult film performer has 300k followers on Twitter: it doesn’t matter which one, but I remarked to xbtusd, RPD, and another friend that she got those followers just for being attractive and naked: I said, “we live in an amazing world.” Xbtusd countered, “Attractive, naked, and recording yourself having sex.” He’s got a point, and yet I wonder if we’ll get to a world where recording yourself having sex and that recording being public will be socially acceptable to the extent that it doesn’t cause negative social and economic consequences; removing those social and economic consequences might drive out or down the premium those willing to violate social norms can achieve.

This isn’t as crazy as it might sound: in the 1950s, lots of people had sex before marriage, but it was a disaster for women to let it be known that they had sex before marriage, even though many women, maybe most, were doing it. It took until the 1970s, if not later, for sex before marriage to become common and expected. By today, it’s weird and bizarre for anyone not to have had sex before marriage.

Today, we’re in a situation where it’s extremely common to shoot nude photos and make sex tapes, but it’s relatively uncommon, and still reputationally damaging, for those to be publicly and socially available. We have celebrities (Kim Kardashian, Paris Hilton) whose fame is linked to their sex tapes, and in some sense we all “know” that everybody does it. The vast majority of women let me shoot nude photos. I send them the photos, and I bet many later send those on to others. At what point do sex tapes lose their ability to shock and create negative consequences? It only takes enough women whose sex tapes become public shrugging and saying, “So what? It’s not a big deal. Everyone does it.” Maybe women don’t like their sexual value being foregrounded in this way. Onlyfans is arguably accelerating pre-existing trends. I’ve run into girls who are open about having an Onlyfans account: something I’d not have expected or imagined even five years ago.

Maybe watching other people have sex is losing some of its mystique / taboo elements: watch a show like Mad Men, and observe the etiquette of that time period… like, if you’re a married woman and you’re alone in a room with a man not your husband you better have a very good excuse for that happening. Now it’s like, “Yeah I’m married and yeah I’m going out and getting drunk with the girls tonight, we might fuck a bunch of random dudes, what of it?”

In Mad Men, Don freaks out because Betty tries on a bikini, and he slut shames her (“It looks DESPERATE…”), and Betty immediately changes. That’s representative of the culture of that day; now, thongs are common, and, as mentioned, some famous women got that way because they made sex tapes. And everyone’s fine with it. Very very soon you’re gonna have chicks that are the heads of major corporations, even presidents of countries, they’ll all have sex tapes, no one will care. Italian member of parliament (MP) Cicciolina made erotic films in the ‘80s, prior to being elected to Italy’s governing body. Maybe she’s a one-off, maybe she’s a harbinger. The last American president has more in common with pr0n culture than mainstream political culture. Maybe making sex tapes will be celebrated, an exploration of sexuality, and anyone who criticizes those practices will be ostracized… the exact opposite of what we have today (shaming women for doing pr0n). To use another historical example, recorded sex might be like tattoos; something that was shocking and outrageous decades ago becomes commonplace today (noting that many people don’t have tattoos).

I’ve had female friends whose nudes and/or sex videos have been leaked. And what’s happened has mostly been… nothing. Usually the women in question spend a bit of time trying to wipe the images or videos from the Internet, using DMCA requests, and that works. They’re unhappy for a few weeks, and then whatever fracas might have occurred dies down, and their lives return to normal. What’s most interesting is how minor the event tends to be. Most of their friends are supportive, and angry at the ex who’s done the leaking. Other women are sympathetic, understanding that it could happen to anyone. Guys routinely share nudes of chicks w/ our friends.

Trends tend to persist, similar to how Newton’s first law tells us that objects in motion stay in motion unless acted on by an external force. What external force is going to step in to curtail the growth of women’s sexual freedoms? Or the growth of smartphones, imaging, and connectivity? I wouldn’t want to be short women’s sexual freedom over the next decade. This isn’t my view, but it’s a possible view: if sex has become totally desexualized, and nobody can get hard anymore because of a desensitization to any sexual stimulus, it’s possible women might ask, “What are the costs of an unlimited growth in sexual freedom?” Cancer is unchecked cell growth but most cancer patients damaged their body long before the cancer showed up.

Soon, we’re going to defeat most STIs via vaccination. The social and cultural consequences of this still aren’t appreciated. We’re living in a changing world. Are you ready?

Why are women fascinated with therapy?

Remember the Sopranos scene with Carmela’s therapist? The therapist cuts through all of Carmela’s rationalizations about staying with a monster (which are also, tweaked slightly, the viewer’s rationalizations for liking Tony). The therapist says Carmela has to leave her husband and that Carmela is enabling evil. Carmela thinks she should leave but says, “You’re going to charge the same anyway,” and he says, “I won’t accept blood money.” It’s this incredible fight for values, and Carmela can’t comprehend the therapist’s values: her whole world requires her not to comprehend him, including his statement, “many patients want to be excused for their current predicament.” 

Here’s one of my private theories about why women are fascinated with therapy: Until the post-war era, most women married who their parents told them to marry, or at least someone within their communities, and they lived in communities that effectively directed their lives and major life decisions, at least until the women themselves aged into becoming matriarchs, grandmothers, etc.[1] Camille Paglia likes to talk about how in Italian communities, young wives were bossed around by their husbands’s mothers, and the old women wielded much of the power; today, old women are ignored by anyone not in their families, and young women have all the power, until they become crones, at which point they’re discarded by anyone who’s not their husbands or families. I exaggerate, yes, but by much? Pre-war, women had relatively few choices. The “point” of life was not individual self actualization or pleasure, it was sustaining the community, having enough to eat, putting a roof over the head, raising the children. Low on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and therefore (relatively) easy to accomplish. Expectations differ today.

You can, naturally, contrast the pre-war world with pretty much everything today: women are highly autonomous. They earn their own money and keep their own households. They have infinite freedom and choice–with it the ability to fuck up easily. A lot of people, I think, can’t handle and don’t like choice, but almost no one in the media will write an article about how choice sucks, and having less choice can be desirable to some people. So what’s the female response to total freedom? Often: anxiety, uncertainty, therapy. A lot of women get enormous social and sexual power in their teens or early 20s and wield it how one might expect someone to wield a huge amount of power with minimal guidance (that’s also the plot of every young-adult, adventure-save-the-world story).

Why are polyamory and non-monogamy popular now? The Internet.

Gwen Kansen asks, “Why is polyamory so popular now?”, but I could reframe the question as, “Why have numerous once-minority pursuits, beliefs, and interests spread?”, and the answer is the same, “The Internet.” That’s a true but not completely helpful answer, and it’s more specific to say that anyone with niche interests, unusual beliefs, or non-mainstream pursuits had a lot of trouble and friction finding one another before the ubiquitous Internet, and so niche beliefs stayed very niche. We know that plenty of women had group-sex fantasies, even before the Internet, from books like My Secret Garden by Nancy Friday. What people didn’t have back then were ways of finding one another and spreading ideas about niche interests. Niche interests aren’t purely a sex thing: you can view modern versions of political correctness or “woke” politics as a growth in a niche field, and, while I don’t want to activate people’s political identities with this post, it’s hard to imagine the White House of January 2017 – 2021 without the Internet. The Internet facilitates feedback groups in which persons with niche interests find one another and reinforce their beliefs about their niche, and thus drive more extreme versions of that niche.

Humans really like f**king, a point I’m not going to belabor and, if you don’t believe it, why are you reading this? The ones who really really like to f**k a lot, often want novel experiences, but those novel experiences often come with costs, including search costs, danger, reputation costs, and others I’m not imagining right now. Online, anyone who wants to can write about their sex adventures in a way that’s effectively anonymous, barring the interest of the NSA or someone powerful and snoopy. Anyone who wants to can explore the group-sex scene in their city. Anyone who wants to can download Feeld (today), or, back in the day, use other sites to explore non-monogamy domains. Put those things together, and it’s possible for large numbers of people to coordinate in a mostly anonymous fashion. A woman’s family doesn’t have to know that she’s hoping to get drilled by four dicks at a party. A man’s friends don’t have to know some other guy unloaded in his girlfriend, while he was deep in another guy’s girlfriend. It’s possible to take baby steps in these directions. Once a couple or girl get enmeshed in the network, their friends often learn about it. Probably the most powerful impetus that encourages new people trying f**k parties is friends who are already going. You can f**k and still be friends, but many people go to f**k parties and don’t f**k friends.

Recent additions to the sex club guide book

Two recent revisions to the free sex club guide book, both inspired by conversations with guys who read it.

Breeze wrote to me, “Before I read your book, I thought sex clubs to be drunken, bacchanalian parties filled with drugs. Your descriptions make them seem much more like friendly social gatherings where people have expert manners. That actually makes a lot more sense because there needs to be ‘hidden rules’ in place for this sort of ecosystem to be sustainable.” Exactly. Almost no large and public sex clubs allow drunks or people who use drugs to excess, or to the point that they violate other people’s space and desires. Sex clubs only work to the extent that women feel safe at them and to the extent that men know their dates won’t be molested. Take away the safety and the club will swiftly die, for good reason. People who violate the rules will quickly be ostracized (again, for good reason).

Think of rock climbing. Rock climbing is inherently dangerous. The people who do it successfully (and don’t die) are often very conservative about equipment, weather, and training. They make absolutely sure their safety gear is top notch and in good working order. If they see signs the weather is turning, they turn back, even if the summit is close. They train hard to consecutively reach more difficult mountains, glaciers, or rock faces, and no one smart starts with Everest, K2, or even Denali. Something similar can be said for sex parties: the people who do it successfully often plan their evenings and dates. They decide what their limits and rules are for a given night. If they want to change the rules for their next date or club, they can. They check in with their partners. If something seems off about new partners, they disengage. And the people who do sex clubs successfully look for others who share the same ethic. Drink and drugs that impair one’s ability to function properly and to respect others are not going to work with these needs. Manners and etiquette, however, help people structure interactions. Being too mannered is stultifying, but not being mannered enough is rude or confusing. People who are successful in a given situation learn to operate between those poles.

Another, not connected to the one above, occurred in a private chat and Magnum suggested it be stated explicitly.

Let me also pause to say this book throws a lot of data and ideas at newcomers. Pull back from the barrage of new ideas and remember not to overthink the experience, despite me dumping a bunch of data. the sex club and party are supposed to be fun and relaxed. If you get too in your head, too into trying to decipher every moment and motivation, the club won’t be as fun. Your girl wants to have a fun adventure with you. Think back to high school or whenever you first started dating. If you sweated every detail, every moment, every word said to the girl, you were likely too anxious to achieve flow, and the girl could sense your anxiety. Do enough planning and thinking to make the event happen without driving yourself into over-worry. The first time you try anything new, it’s not going to go perfectly. This book distills ten+ years of the game… I have noticed subtleties that won’t always be important. Harness the excitement and ride that. Don’t let fear be the mind killer. 

If you go enough, you’ll become part of the scene and community: sex clubs and sex parties will become a lot more fun when you make friends who also regulars and connect with people on a level beyond a purely sexual level. Some of my friends and acquaintances have found employees, employers, business partners, climbing buddies, gym buddies, book clubs, and all manner of other, non-sexual connections through non-monogamy. For most of us, meeting tons of strangers is stressful, and trust doesn’t occur immediately upon meeting. It takes time to build, for good reason, since a lot of hours of face time and listening are necessary to evaluate other people (I mention later in the book that players have discovered most women, most of the time, need 4 – 10 hours with a man before sex. Sex clubs can shorten that time, but a lot of swapping happens after two hours of socializing and one hour of people f**king the partner they’ve brought, getting us close to the four hours many women want prior to sex). As you develop bonds with other people, the clubs and parties will become social and sexual events, and they’ll be more enjoyable because of those bonds. Like any scene, getting into it will take some time, but ongoing, repeated interactions are more satisfying than one-offs. People who think the sex clubs are purely about sex may be surprised to find that they’re as much about socializing, if you’re doing them correctly. 

They’re both subtle ideas but I think they clarify a bit of the cultural practices you’ll find, along with popular misconceptions. Lots of people may have been turned on and titillated by that Eyes Wide Shut orgy scene, but it has very little to do with how most real orgies happen. A guy could probably try to re-create that Eyes Wide Shut scene… but he’d probably be paying the girls.

In the real world, young and hot women dictate the dating world (contrary to what shrieking feminist harpies claim), and the whole sex club scene is built around the needs and desires of women. Women need more context and comfort for sex, and sex clubs make those things happen by balancing danger/excitement with comfort/rules.

A lot of businesses are starting to shut down or scale back due to COVID-19, giving me too much time to tinker on the book, which won’t be of use to people during the outbreak, since sex clubs will be among the first venues to shutter.

Hollywood knows exactly what to “do” with childless women

A head-in-the-sand feminist writes, “Hollywood Still Doesn’t Know What to Make of Childless Women.” But that’s not true: Hollywood reflects a lot of society and biology. Older women out of their child-bearing years are of no interest to men, who like younger and fertile women. Younger women aren’t interested in older women except insofar as they’re a warning about what not to do. Older women who have children are focused on their children and families, not on spinsters, who they pity. The audience for movies about childless women is very small.

We all reap what we sow. The writer, Megan Garber, is an overweight woman struggling to make a living writing for a content mill. She’s heading towards spinsterhood, so her interest in the spinster issue makes sense, but it’s a plea pushing against millions of years of evolved preferences. Good luck with that.

Why don’t we ever see articles imploring beautiful women to mate with low-status men? Cause women don’t want to mate with low-status men, and high-status men would find those storylines implausibly ridiculous. The only people who care about what low-status men think are other low-status men.

Older women derive meaning from their families. Those without families usually bitterly regret not having them. The rest of those women are in denial.

Younger women are the key to the future of the race and species, and they also bear the brunt of the costs of reproduction, including the costs of having a child by a poor-quality man. The costs of bearing and raising a child is why parents are obsessed with their daughters’ sex lives. Older women matter to the extent they have control over their extended families (most don’t). In modern society, hot young chicks are free agents, largely unconstrained by their parents’ wishes and desires. Thus, why would anyone care about childless older women? Answer: they don’t, much as few people care about low-status males. Biology drives art.

Yet we never see articles about how “Hollywood doesn’t know what to make of low-status males.” Low-status males aren’t sexually exciting to women and they aren’t an example of how to live your life to men. The only really exciting story is a secretly high-status man who starts off low-status and then becomes a hero. For a menopausal woman, there is no means to becoming high status. It’s over for her, unless she has a family, and then her purpose is her family.

The tragedy of millions of spinsters is real, but rarely foregrounded in the media. They suffer quietly, or one sees articles as ignorant as Garber’s. The interesting part of a spinster’s story is always in her youth; the tragedy is that she didn’t manage to build a meaningful life then. The spinster is an example of what not to do, and how not to live.