Two other manosphere pieces converged with something I'm currently writing for the book, and at the risk of blowing some of the freshness out of it I thought I'd chime in.

Specifically, Badger's excellent Educated Women's Contempt For Men, in which he follows the feminist attempt to mainstream the war on masculinity and how it's not exactly working out the way they expected, and Dalrock's How The Destruction of Marriage Is Strangling The Feminist Welfare State, in which he examines the demographic fallout from the smoking crater feminism created at the center of the social state.

Why are these two articles particularly interesting, when taken together?  Well, part of it is the third blogger Dalrock riffs on, The Social Pathologist, when he quotes this:

The social, sexual and economic liberation of women in the latter half of the 20th Century has meant that for the first time women were able to compete with men in society without restriction. The result has been spectacular if not particularly beneficial to the happiness of women. Whilst not all degrees are created equal (men still overwhelming dominate the "hard" fields of knowledge) the fact that there are now more degree credentialed women than men is simply astonishing. As income is broadly correlated with economic well being,  its safe to assume that women have been able to achieve a economic parity with men. The manosphere may not like this result but the fact is that women have been able to effectively compete with men when the shackles of social convention have been removed.

Emphasis mine.  I reprint the quote because it underscores my point (and the point I'm currently trying to make in the book): that women cannot declare this a true "victory" of feminism over the patriarchy, or even women over men, or even realistically as "economic parity", because while the fact is that women have been strongly incentivized toward college both culturally and bureaucratically with four decades of feminist affirmative-action and aggressive anti-male policies. The "shackles of social convention" have been transformed into the "shackles of anti-male sentiment", and the "level playing field" is a sham, as Dalrock points out:

Feminism didn’t demolish a barrier between two seas and let the water levels adjust;  it is a massive pumping operation.  Turn off the pumps even for a little bit and reality will come flooding back.

That is, the economic system that allows women economic advantage (industrialism and post-industrialism -- which was, coincidentally, invented and developed by men) exists in a network of social governance and a vast government bureaucracy (also, invented and developed by men) in which the taxpayer (heretofore majority male) provides social and economic support for the impoverished, particularly single mothers and their children (mostly female, of course) while artificially fiddling with the "rules of the game" to favor one particular side while punishing the other side.

That's the "level playing field" that they are "winning" on.








So what happens when one team just fails to show up?  Is that still a "win"?

One thing that the smug little "end o' men" articles we've been seeing so many of lately love talking about is how the fact that more women having advanced degrees than men means that women have finally "out-competed" men in the workplace.  Now that they have declared where they are "the top" of the social and economic structure men created and developed, they are quick to dismiss the men who can't seem to compete successfully on the "level playing field" as losers or worse.  Badger amply demonstrates the dripping contempt that educated women feel about their male professional peers, much less their mates and males in general.  

Only, is it fair to judge the "success" of women competing in the workplace when the dis-incentives provided to their male peers are so severe as to discourage competition?

One point I'm making in my book is that the "success" of women in advancing careers has to be seen in the context in which men who would ordinarily have been competing for those positions have effectively "dropped out".  They didn't get on the bus to begin with.  The women "won" by default, because the best possible person for the job never interviewed for it in the first place.  

Feminists will bridle at the suggestion, but it's true.  MGTOW didn't precisely begin with Freedom Twenty Five; men have been walking away from societally-prescribed ambitions for almost two decades now, in the face of penalties and disincentives relating to their unfortunate ownership of a penis.  

There's a case I cite in the book, anecdotal, of course (I also make the point that you can't hang a metric on the lack of someone's ambition, which is pesky from a statistical perspective) of my neighbor, Sid.  Sid was a business-school graduate and an RN, and had spent ten years and a marriage climbing the ruthless corporate ladder of the American pharmaceutical industry.  He was good at what he did, and consistently out-performed his peers, male and female, and seemed to have a lock on a solid middle-management position with stock options and bells and whistles, every MBA's dream.  His last year was his most productive, and he logged millions of dollars worth of business for his company (now bought out by an even bigger company -- Sid would have been loaded).  

But when Sid looked at the competition he faced, he realized he was doomed.  Women were getting special seminars on leadership, mentoring opportunities, and other career-advancing perks.  Sid was getting assigned diversity training courses and being set up to fail by being assigned a "mentor" who had a pronounced dislike of men and especially manly men like Sid, who refused to kiss her ass just the way she wanted.  He was boxed in: he couldn't proceed further in the company without getting this woman's approval, and he couldn't get this woman's approval while still maintaining his Y chromosome. 

So Sid . . . dropped out.

He "Went His Own Way" long before it was called that.  Sid turned his back on his advanced degree and his education, his ex-wife and his expensive car, and Sid found a third-shift job working in a county hospital ER that paid him just enough to survive comfortably upon.  He turned his back on a decade of learning one of the most intricate businesses and regulatory systems ever invented, on the lucrative prospects that could have made him a millionaire, and he walked away.  The "level playing field" contains a fifteen-yard penalty for having a penis, so Sid walked away from it and accepted -- for now -- a far lower status job in return for personal happiness and fulfillment.  He didn't drop out because he couldn't hack it, he dropped out because the juice wasn't worth the squeeze.  

Now, someone got that next management spot Sid walked away from.  Sid could have had it, had he stayed on and fought for it.  Did the person who get it (it was, indeed, a woman) get it because she was the best qualified for the job?  Or did she get it because she was the most qualified candidate (under the adjusted rules) who was willing to show up and interview?  Did she get that office and that name plate and the parking space and the "Director" title because she was superlative?  Or did she get it because the other team just didn't get off the bus?

It's been over a decade since Sid dropped out -- close to two, actually.  But in the early 1990s, when feminism was throwing its weight around with reckless abandon, it knocked a lot of highly talented men out of the way in its quest for a "level playing field" that ensured no real competition.  Feminism's attempt at "fairness" in the corporate world became a hymn to mediocrity as the men who would have competed against them decided to resign the game rather than subject themselves to unfairness, emasculation, and professional humiliation in the name of "equality".  

Sid wasn't the only one who left back then -- as feminist-inspired corporate cultures sought to punish men and traditionally masculine endeavors, plenty of dudes dropped out and pursued other interests.  Sid enjoyed the fast pace of a late-night Emergency Room to the prison of an office, and so his vast talents and knowledge about the business end of the pharmaceutical industry never got put back on the table.  The women at Sid's company who survived their flight might gloat at their "victory", their high earning potential, their wealth and power.  But they'll never be "the best" because Sid didn't come back and give them real competition.  

Sid was smart, educated, and very astute -- you don't follow nursing school with an MBA and land a high five figure entry-level job by being cute -- and he was smart and astute enough to know that his career options in a corporate world where Personnel regulations overcome fair competition is a losing proposition.  No future in it.  Why bother?

This isn't just a few isolated losers, disheartened by competition in general and angry at their loss of "male privilege  -- this is a talented group of men who have no real social or financial incentives to pursue the societal roles that feminism desires for them.   The female insurance executive may very well be there because she worked hard, did her job, and made money for the company.  But she may also be there because the dude who would have been even better in her position decided that being an insurance executive really just didn't sound like a lot of fun, after his divorce, so why stuff his wife's alimony check with extra dough when he can take a job at half the pay that can support a lifestyle that suddenly doesn't include fancy suits and shoes designed to impress female insurance executives?

In a way, I almost feel sorry for these feminist "winners".  What they have won is what men in their positions have earned in the past, earned in earnest competition against the best their industry had to offer.  If you were the top salesman in your district, you knew that it was because all the other sharks weren't quite as hungry as you.  Now if you're the top salesman in your district, you have to wonder if it's because you really are the best . . . or if the competition just decided to forfeit because there were five-foot breakers at the beach that day?

I'm not just blowing smoke rings here.  I used to work in the personnel industry (bargain-basement headhunter and temporary placement), and I still keep in touch with some of my old colleagues.  One of whom just had a boy graduate from a decent college . . . and demonstrate not a lick of ambition, despite a lifetime of being primed for it.  Meanwhile, his younger sister (who was always a little slower academically than he was) was already lining up summer internships a year in advance.  My former colleague was despairing about his utter lack of ambition and angrily confronted her son when he revealed he hadn't even bothered to apply to graduate schools this summer.  

He gave a litany of damned good reasons why pursuing his chosen professional career path (including a graduate degree and another four years of student loans) was a losing proposition for him.  Why kill yourself to get to the top of your class when your female colleagues are just going to cut your knees out from under you with affirmative action and such?  So he can find a good ex-wife who can bleed him dry and not let him see his kids someday?  

At 22, this young man is jaded and bitter and unambitious . . . and there's not a damn thing my friend can say to him to dissuade him from a life spent working part time and playing Disc Golf professionally (slightly more lucrative than playing WoW professionally) and NOT preparing for a life as a husband and father . . . because she knows everything he is complaining about is exactly true.  She can't deny it. She's in Personnel, where the rules that punish male performance and push female mediocrity are forged.  She's pushed underqualified female candidates in with overqualified male candidates into interviews herself -- and was fiercely proud of it . . . when her son wasn't involved.

But her son is absolutely right.  There's just no good future in it for men. "Climbing the corporate ladder of success" only makes sense if there's a reward at the top, not a punishing ex-wife, a battleaxe of a feminist boss above you and a constantly-eroding sense of your own masculinity.  Better to throw little plastic discs around and enjoy life for a decade or so in the beer-soaked bosom of the Puerarchy, than subject yourself to that kind of punishment.

Is it a "waste" of good masculine intellectual capital?  That depends on whom you ask.  To women, of course, these men are "losers" because they have withdrawn from the competition they cannot win.  They have made the conscious effort to make themselves the men they want to be, not the men women want to be, and feminists in particular can't allow that to have positive social standing.  

But there is a silver lining to this, for dudes.  As more and more women assume the tax burden required to fund a female-oriented husband-replacing welfare state, their sensitivity to the unfairness of such things will rise.  What happens when the 40 year old spinster has to write a tax check in the thousands before trudging her way to the office, no hope for romance or reproduction in sight, while watching the 20 year old single mom down the street take her three kids to the park through the window?  What happens when men drop out to the point where it is busy, single female workers who are left holding the bulk of the welfare bag . . . while being denied the benefits of romance and motherhood that they are subsidizing in their sisters?

Had Sid stayed in his career-track, he could be senior management by now making in the high 6 or low 7 figures -- your Viagra dollar at work.  He didn't.  He makes just over fifty grand as the senior nurse on shift at his hospital, and spends the weekends he doesn't work hunting, fishing, or (if his neighbors don't shoot him first) zipping around the neighborhood at 4:00 am blasting Skynnard from the radio of his vintage 1974 VW microbus.  Instead of paying tens of thousands in taxes, he gets a refund.  Instead of working for his ex-wife, he works for himself.  Instead of spending thousands and thousands a year on new suits and shirts and ties, he spends a couple of hundred on scrubs he wears both on and off the job.  

Meanwhile, the woman who got the job he could have had, he tells me, is getting her second divorce, is being sued by a competitor for unfair practices, and is miserable with her "success".  

That's what happens when the other team just doesn't show, ladies.  You end up holding a trophy devoid of meaning.  A forfeit isn't a real win, no matter how you rationalize it.

It’s rare that I run across anything Red Pill friendly over at HuffPo, but  the other day I came across a very telling post from a blogger, Martha Lyles.  She is essentially writing a letter to herself, from her modern perspective as a wife and mother and grandmother to the 20 year old woman she was, who was so excited about her Big Party.  Ironically, this was in the “Religion” section, not the “Women”, “Weddings” or “Divorce” sections (and note there is no “Men” section...and the Democrats wonder why more men don't vote for them...) It’s entitled “Letter To A Young Bride After 43 Years Of Marriage”, and it’s a wonderful retrospective on her marriage (as opposed to her “wedding”).


 I’ll let you read the whole thing – it’s quite poignant – but there is one quote I want to hone in on:

“...The same goes for being a wife. You'll marvel at Dick's unswerving commitment. You'll learn to put him first and -- believe it or not -- you'll delight in doing so. You'll see your role as his helpmate and cheerleader. You'll pack his bags for business trips, tucking love notes under ties. You'll view all the joys in your life as gifts from above, like the six wide-eyed, rosy-cheeked grandkids who clamor for your cookies and your kisses. And you'll sense, time and again, the grace conferred in your wedding Mass sustaining you as husband and wife.”

Religious sentiment aside for a moment, consider the perspective: “You’ll learn to put him first and – believe it or not – you’ll delight in doing so.”

This is not, as you might think, a “see, I toldya so!” about male dominance in a relationship.  This is a “see, I toldya so!” about how you don’t get divorced.

It's also a glimpse into the real, Red Pill reality of Happily Ever After (HEA), the romantic nirvana that inspires romance novels, mommy porn, and soap operas.

When you want to study how to do something, the two areas you focus on are “successes” (to establish a base-line metric) and “failures” (to determine how deviations from protocol derail successes).  Athol spent a considerable time in marriage forums preparing for his book, and if you have to then you can see how learning from other people's failures can be valuable for avoiding hasty divorce.  However, if you want to know how to keep your marriage going, it's a good idea to not just focus on the failures but spend some time looking at successes to inform your marital toolkit.

After all, what is a “successful marriage”?  Certainly, one in which you aren’t getting divorced has to be held as a basic standard.  That doesn’t mean that your marriage is a success if you aren’t divorced, it just means that it’s “failing”, not “failed”.

When women in their youth begin to form their True Love inspired Happily Ever After fantasy, it rarely includes things like packing suitcases for their husband’s business trips or struggling through childbirth alone while your husband is on deployment.  Or the ugly reality that is early childhood development.  For many modern young women, the idea of “having kids” is so abstract and glamorized and sanitized for them by our culture that they don't understand the level of involvement necessary to keep them from becoming willfully ignorant drains on society.



To young women today, it's as if children were a status symbol, not a new life, merely an option like a new car with leather interior, and not a life-long personal commitment.  They are allured by the feminist ideal of “equality” and "equal opportunity", which means that they see family and children (and eventual divorce and remarriage) as part of the expected checklist -- and their dedication to "equality" means they expect that whatever poor Beta chump they marry will handle all the details.  (Or, conversely, that she will marry well enough to have servants to care for them like her favorite celebs.)  "Happily Ever After" is a gauzy  vague cloud of ill-defined bliss that follows the Honeymoon to them, the natural and inevitable conclusion to "True Love".

But True Love, Red Pill style implies a host of boring, mundane, petty little compromises that do little to empower you as a woman or see you reach “your full potential” in the feminist sense.  I recently read another screed at HuffPo (not important enough to hunt down the quote) about how Michelle Obama shouldn’t have said “Being a Mother is my most important job”, because that put too much pressure on everyone to reproduce and emphasize their children over their career elements.   She offered instead “Being a Woman is my most important job”, with motherhood and relationships and such secondary to her solipsistic “all about me” perspective.  She didn’t even mention a husband, except as an annoyance that got in her way.  Motherhood, to feminism, is a bother, a needless distraction away from the self-indulgent achievement-based Matrix climb for fame, cash and prizes. 

And the term “wife” is anathema to feminists.  When a feminist reflexively uses the term, it’s almost apologetic.  “Husband” is often used with a proud sense of ownership, like she just got a great lease on a car, but a feminist woman rarely describes herself as a “wife” unless she’s in trouble.  And a feminist has very little, if any, ideological instruction on being a wife save how to end the practice.   Feminism celebrates divorce and punishes success when it comes to marriage.

Now, if you’re a long-term carousel rider with a fat trust fund, then sure, a string of wealthy ex-husbands while you assert your feminist privilege doesn’t hurt anyone but those poor chumps.  Such childless, often sexless unions in the UMC have been a social bloodsport for decades.  But once you start getting kids involved, shit gets real. You aren’t just splitting up the CD collection when you divorce, you’re splitting up a family with people who depend on you, and that’s got jack to do with your self-important career goals.  The feminist approach to "family" in general is little better than their approach to "marriage".  Gentlemen, you are warned.

But back to the successes.  As I was saying, it’s important, if you want to avoid divorce, to study what goes right, as well as what goes wrong.  This wonderful article is by a woman with a 43 year track record willing to impart some cosmic wisdom on you, ladies.  Listen up. This is what Happily Ever After looks like, not three ex-husbands and a lonely condo full of cats in Miami.

Feminists can often manage to get married . . . they can rarely manage to stay married.  And very, very few can be said to be in "happy" marriages (marriages in which both parties can consistently say that they are happy with the way things are going).  And part of the reason has nothing to do with ideology -- it's because they don’t know how to be married.  In attempting to re-write the social rules of marriage, feminism's built-in escape hatch made the effort to work on a marriage a lot harder than ending it.  Feminists can become brides pretty easily, thanks to the power of pussy.  They can just as easily become ex-wives, with a stroke of a pen.  They rarely become "wives" (under the Rectification of Names).  So for all of their vaunted empowerment, it seems that feminism insists that an empowered feminist woman can do ANYTHING . . . except be a good wife.

That, of course, fuels hypergamy and divorce and other crap, but the plain fact is that feminism has rejected the Happily Ever After in favor of the EPL divorce, and now we have a nation of women bellyaching that they STILL aren't happy, despite getting everything their heart desired for 40 years.  They want their Happily Ever After, but they aren't willing to do the work required.  And Happily Ever After requires a lot of work.  Just ask Martha Lyles.

This woman was a wife.  She had a husband.  She didn’t have a co-equal partner in her relationship, she had a captain of her ship to whom she was loyal and respectful. She did things for him that a feminist considers demeaning: packed his suitcase, quit school, ended her career aspirations for his benefit, raised his children, cooked his meals.  She deferred to him in important ways, and often in unimportant ways, not because the custom or religious rite demanded it, but because that’s how successful marriages work.

She doesn't write about the sacrifices her husband may have made -- that's his story, not hers.  She doesn't write about how hard it was and how regretful she is of her missed opportunities.  She writes of the sacrifices of a woman in her marriage, but she also writes of the rewards.  The Happily Ever After.  Grandchildren, a big happy family, and a great husband she adores and looks up to.  And she doesn’t just mention he’s a “great husband”, she describes an important attribute of his greatness in his devotion and thoroughness in helping her fight cancer.  No mere domineering chauvinist is likely to do that.  He repaid her sacrifice and devotion with his loyalty and steadfastness, not merely providing practical support during her struggle, but being her unwavering rock to which she clung as she wrestled with her own mortality.


Any of your weak-willed Beta future ex- husbands going to do that, feminists?  Good luck.

The important thing to take away from this success story is simple: the author was not merely extolling the virtues of marriage, but she was demonstrating the necessary dedication to fulfilling Happily Ever After.

You don’t ever plan to get cancer in Happily Ever After.  But you do get a strong and resilient Prince Charming willing to stand over your wounded body with a sword, keeping the monsters at bay.  You don’t imagine that you’ll get piles of diapers and bills and bad report cards and problem children in Happily Ever After.  But you do get a strong, disciplined father to keep order and enforce policy among your children until they can do it on their own.  You might conceivably envision grandchildren in your Happily Ever After, sitting around rosy-cheeked and respectful of you.  But you probably don’t understand how to get to that point – and truly appreciate it – because you have to first raise your own brood to adulthood and steer them toward their own productive relationship before you get rosy-cheeked grandbabies.

 For those feminists who feel they can have a “co-equal partnership” with a man, while secretly exerting feminine privilege as a means of manipulating and controlling your husband until you lose all respect and desire for him, you are forever denied this Happily Ever After.  Because you refuse to do the work and be a wife to your husband.  You get the EPL version, in which you marry a billionaire after spending your ex-husband’s money on eating, praying, and loving.  Oh, and good luck with that billionaire – I hear there are simply scads of them around.

(Or was that cats?)

But it's not just a bust for single feminist career gals.  It works both ways.

For those men who have eschewed the possibility of marriage in the pursuit of a permanent ticket to the Puerarchy, letting your bad experiences and fear of rejection give you a rationalization why you shouldn’t be required to invest in a 50-50 shot at success, please believe me when I tell you sincerely that I appreciate your willingness to Go Your Own Way.  But you, too, are exempt from this Happily Ever After.  In truth, you may change your mind at some point, when you are older and your perspectives change.  Our sperm is viable into our 70s, and a mid-life family has a lot of advantages.  But if you are committed to being uncommitted to a woman, then expect a long, slow decline with fewer friends alive every year, until you are alone, babbling incoherently to robots in some distant future retirement community.


Marriage is by no means for everyone.  But it is not, as some would contend, not for anyone.  It’s a trade-off, an exchange of commitments and obligations and sacrifices and dedications and courtesies and fears and delights and secrets and trusts and weaknesses and power and – yes – financial considerations and sex, and if you are not prepared to indulge in that kind of personal commitment and dedication (and few 20 year olds of this generation are) then I encourage you to avoid the issue entirely.  Believe me, it will take the pressure off to not have to worry about marriage and family.

So put “Happily Ever After” away in your mind not as "mythical" but merely as forever out of reach. Substitute some government-subsidized retirement plan at a tropical resort where you’ll expire on the golf course or in your sleep . . . alone.  Imagine a world in which you are by yourself at age 50 and the doctor mentions cancer and you realize that since your sister died you have no one in the world to call and talk to about it.  That’s the "swinging single" alternative to Happily Ever After.  When you’re writing up your last will and testament, and you realize that everything you own and collected and cared for will go to your niece in nephew who live in another state and who might pass you in the grocery store without recognizing you, that’s what you get when you’ve lost Happily Ever After.  The real Happily Ever After.

Because Happily Ever After doesn’t mean a blissful paradise of champagne and strawberries and anniversary dinners in four-star restaurants.  It doesn’t mean kinky hotel sex and romantic walks on the beach as a matter of course.  There are few diamonds in for-real HEA.  You want the truth?  Happily Ever After can be brutal, as anyone’s life can be brutal.  But Happily Ever After softens the brutality with a thick protective layer of humanity, wherein the love you pledged at the altar has grown between the two of you and expanded and transformed until it supports a web of such love that echoes across generations. 

When you’re surrounded by your wife and your children and their spouses, all deeply concerned about your well-being and quality of life when your body betrays you, that’s Happily Ever After.

When your sons, grown men all, and your grandsons drop everything in their busy lives to rush to your bedside and then spring into action to build a wheelchair ramp you didn’t think you’d need, that’s Happily Ever After.

When your daughter-in-law enlists the aid of experts and researches the furthest reaches of medical science on your behalf, motivated by love and pure, unadulterated respect for the only father she has left, that’s Happily Ever After.

When an entire community floods your house with calls assuring their support, based on their deep respect for who you are and what you’ve done to touch their lives, that’s Happily Ever After.

When your wife holds your hand and cries so you won’t have to when you tell the doctor to go ahead and take the leg, that’s Happily Ever After.


This month, Papa Ironwood got an up close and personal look at the stark nature of Happily Ever After . . . and compared to the alternative, he considers himself a very blessed man.  I think it made the decades of sacrifice and effort and toil to keep his marriage and his family a going concern worthwhile.  Whether or not you agree with him, well, let's just say that he's got the benefit of experience to support his position.

But then, he's always been wiser than the rest of us.  He wanted Happily Ever After . . . so he built it for his wife and kids, one hug, one kiss, one drop of sweat and one tear at a time.

I can pinpoint, almost to the day, when I started chugging Blue Pills in my youth.  It was the day I saw Free To Be You And Me in elementary school, back in the 1970s.  It was the pro-feminist brainchild of Marlo Thomas, a project of the Ms. Foundation for Women, and it was designed to make everyone feel it was okay to be different things: girls could be construction workers, boys could be nurses and carry dolls, black kids and white kids could play together, etc.  The basic concept was to encourage post-60s gender neutrality, promoting values such as individuality, tolerance, and comfort with one's identity (as long as you were a girl or a gay guy). A major thematic message was that anyone—whether a boy or a girl—can achieve anything.  But mostly girls.  It was notable for catchy pop tunes and lyrics, and for having the (young and black) Michael Jackson, Mel Brooks, Alan Alda, Diana Ross, and Rosey Grier, among other stars.  Rosey told us "it's all right to cry".  I was cool with that.

I was also cool with the emphasis on boys looking forward to being fathers, and encouraging them to think of child care and interaction with their future kids as positive male things (okay, "positive things", they essentially downplayed the whole "male" idea).  But the subtext was clear: dudes will enjoy being good fathers to their kids, and it's something that you should look forward to.  And I did.  It made me use fatherhood as one of my prime motivating factors in searching for a bride, and I had and continue to have a very close relationship with all of my kids, just as my Dad did with his sons.  That's not where I take issue with the program.

I take issue with the program because it was loaded with anti-masculine imagery and took the approach that, basically, all things patriarchal were evil and oppressive, and all things feminist were inherently good.  It told me, in other words, that I was Free To Be pretty much anything in the world I wanted . . . except a masculine Man.

I can see trying to move past Agricultural Age stereotypes that no longer fit the socio-economics of the post-War period, much less the coming Post-Industrial period.  I mean, after Rosie the Riveter it was damn hard to make a case that women were incapable of working most of the same jobs as men, and the post-war need for expansion and industrialization almost required a doubling of the existing pre-war workforce, just to keep the paper moving.

But Free To Be You And Mefucked me up.  Bad.  It taught me that it WAS NOT OKAY to be a "boy", that MEN were universally overbearing and insensitive jerks whose only role was to dictate and oppress, and that my ONLY HOPE for moral and social acceptance in this brave new plastic world was to hand my testicles over to Marlo and forget I ever had them.

Because that's what FTBYAM represented to me: a clear choice between whether to become a feared and hated MAN, or a gentle and caring boy who eschewed violence and oppression in favor of fat-free yogurt and kittens.  FTBYAM probably contributed the most to my fucked-up ideas about women and men.  Because while Marlo And Friends were singing about how you could be anything you wanted when you grew up, I was looking around me at the time (mid-70s) and seeing that what most boys and girls apparently wanted to be when they grew up was DIVORCED.

FTBYAM made me ashamed of my gender, ashamed of my culture, ashamed of my history.  It made me ashamed of my father for not deferring to my mother in all things.  It gave all the credence the young feminist teachers in charge of me needed to castigate me for the slightest boyish infraction.  It gave all my young feminist peers all the ammunition they needed to not just reject me, but call me "creep" and other male-bashing tripe, and the sad fact was that if I reported them, it was I who got sent to the Principal's office.

Any attempt at asserting any kind of "traditional" masculinity was stomped on (by the younger teachers -- the older ones still remembered Segregation, they had other issues).  The younger teachers, the ones with feminist fervor in their eyes, seemed to delight in correcting a boy if he said he wanted to be a fireman or a policeman or a soldier or a race car driver, telling him instead that it was perfectly okay to be a nurse or a daycare provider instead.  Funny, she didn't mention the wonderful starting salaries of those perfectly okay positions, or how to raise a family on them.  The subtext was clear: such passively Beta, overly-feminized career choices were the only ones they were going to promote.  To boys.

The fact is, FTBYAM may have promoted "freedom", but in the process to make children who were "unencumbered by stereotypes", FTBYAM ended up merely creating new ones: the timid Beta (and soon to be divorced) dad, the overbearing Alpha (soon-to-be-step) dad, the successful marital "partnership" that was about as useful a guide to actual marriage as a bicycle manual is to a carp, the "empowered" young woman who could do anything, the "understanding" young man who was expected and obligated to let her do anything, and absolutely no room within the feminist pantheon for a dude who wanted to be free to be a dude.  You took the Blue Pill or you got kicked out as a troublemaker.  Period.

I bring this up today because I read over at HuffPo a lovely little post from Marlo about bullying.

You see, bullying is what happens when one kid is mean to another kid, and it really is a bad thing.  My son has been bullied.  My daughter has been bullied.  Both have witnessed severe bullying.  And it's clear that, for some individuals, the emotional strain of bullying is too much.  Pointless suicides or runaways have resulted from bullies and inattentive parents.  I have to agree with Marlo, this is a majorly important topic to discuss with our kids.

But the irony is killing me.

Thanks to FTBYAM and its clones, adherents, and attitudes, I and thousands of boys like me were institutionally bullied by feminists throughout our childhoods. Our schools and our teachers were working with the intention of removing the dangerous "masculine" characteristics that might interfere in the feminist paradigm -- say, like getting married and wanting your wife to stay at home with the kids, or pursuing a "typical" and "traditional" male career path that might block some enterprising young woman from having that job.  FTBYAM epitomized feminism's subtextual message to men: YOU ARE USELESS AND EVIL AND IN OUR WAY.  

Not "equality", not "level playing field", regardless of their intentions the result was a generation of self-loathing boys who resented girls and women for their perceived privileges  even as we felt powerless and at the mercy of the whims of the adult women in our lives.  Moms who didn't give a damn what you thought about your new step-dad after a hypergamous divorce.  Teachers who -- no lie -- told my six-year-old brother Lester in kindergarten that "it doesn't matter if your mommy and daddy love each other, they're just going to end up divorced".  (That fucked Lester up for decades.) Neighborhood ladies, mostly divorced themselves, who kept trying to give my mother good reasons to leave my dad even though they admired his fathering skills (he was the only intact father in the neighborhood) and discouraged her from getting us boys involved with Scouting because it was "sexist".

And then there was school.  Female, feminist teachers who "lost" my applications for special programs, or failed to recommend me or other male students for honors in favor of girls.  If it hadn't been for my History teacher, bless her heart, I never would have won my first essay contest.  My English teacher was a feminist who told me, to my face, that despite the fact that my essay was chosen blindly (no names or other identifying characteristics) that the school didn't feel comfortable submitting so many boys and not enough girls.  So out of the five boys and two girls who were selected locally, one boy and two girls were recommended by her.  But my History teacher didn't like her, she did like me, and she recognized talent.  She submitted me on her own and I won.

And then there was the feminist guidance counselor in high school who desperately tried to use my boyish teenaged angst as leverage to get me to go to a small private liberal arts college instead of the local, internationally-known public research university nearby I favored because (as I found out later) her gender-based numbers were off: she had too many boys were going to big State and technical universities, while too many girls were going into the small liberal arts colleges and "traditionally female" schools.  She went so far as to call my folks and try to persuade them that I'd be "better off" someplace less challenging.  Of course, if that meant that another woman could take up my spot at the university, that was just gravy, but . . .

The upshot is that between my third grade year, when we had a school-wide assembly featuring FTBYAM, and my first year of college, I and my brothers were subjected to what can only be described as pervasive, gender-based institutional bullying.  And we did tell our parents.  And they did complain.  And no one cared one bit, because we were merely male.

FTBYAM was followed up with Free To Be A Family, which took the anti-masculine bias of FTBYAM and mixed it with some massive rationalizations about how much fun it was to be a kid from a divorced household.  In Marlo's own words, "I also wanted to dispel the idea that there is such a thing as a "broken" family. A family is a place that you come home to where people love you and support you and miss you and can’t wait to find out what you did today."

Well, that's great . . . except it was directly counter to the experiences we were having in the 1980s, when she was promoting the Murphy Brown, UMC Professional divorcee ideal of family and we were seeing kids our age becoming alcoholics because of the stress divorce, hypegamy, infidelity, and all the other wonderful hallmarks of feminism brought us.  Oh, what bounty!  My friend Marty shot himself at 17 because his mother had refused to let him even lay eyes on his father in three years. My friend Chris had four step-dads in five years and eventually got into heroin.  My friends Mark and Tony were exiled to the shed in the back yard so their new stepsisters could each have their own room (in defense, it was a very nice shed).  Their sisters went to college, their mom and step-dad paying for it all.  Tony went to one semester of community college his grandmother paid for, and then joined the Army, and Mark ended up working retail for decades because their step-dad didn't want to pay for some other man's kids' college . . . and didn't think his wife should either (she felt it was more important to give the girls a head-start, since life was "against them" just because they were women).

Families in the 1980s were a post-apocalyptic disaster, and worrying about whether or not a kid felt "accepted" by his peers for his family life was laughable.  We were all just trying to survive the feminist-inspired wave of "I'm not HAAAApppy!" divorces, or the mid-life crises-inspired cheating that wrecked our families.  Kids in general, to the Baby Boomers who fueled the idealistic and unrealistic FTBYAM and FTBAF, were accessories and status symbols, mere points of contention in a divorce settlement and a useless and ungrateful waste of child-support money -- believe me, we knew that.  We got told that by our culture every day.

Especially if you were a boy, the consensus opinion of the women in your life (and in popular culture) was that you were either effeminate and ineffectual to the point of terminal Betatude (which they despised but accepted) or that you were an angry, violent male chauvinist intent on perpetuating the oppressive nature of the Patriarchy and therefore merited their disgust.  And if you tried to claim to be the former, they did everything but demand you castrate yourself before they'd admit it.

FTBYAM and FTBAF taught two generations of boys to loathe themselves and hate their own gender.  It taught us that that women were smarter than men, women were better than men, that women had better promise and better sense than men, and -- most importantly -- women were just more important than men . . . and particularly young men who weren't even cute boys anymore.  Yech.

By the time my generation hit our teenage years, crawling into a popular culture of disaffected youth and wailing androgyny was all we could do to survive this pervasive, intentional attack on masculinity.  The institutional bullying by "tough, smart, independent women" in our public and private institutions, not to mention the culture at large, taught us to fear women, not trust them in the slightest, and it didn't do a damn thing to make us less resentful.  It just showed us that, for men, feminism was about revenge and suffering, not about equality and fair play.  We could take a look around at the social carnage of divorce and hum a few bars of one of the songs with tragic irony and KNOW that it was bullshit . . . but bullshit that was Industry Standard.  The families we saw were chaotic messes who mostly just argued, drank, fought, and went to counseling until it was time for a divorce.  Few of the kids I knew ever had a place that you come home to where people love you and support you and miss you and can’t wait to find out what you did today."  That was a sick fantasy, compared to what was actually happening to "family" in America in the 1980s.  Mostly their parents yelled at them about homework, asked them pointless questions and didn't wait to hear the answer, and then went off on their own little head-trips about their own failing relationships.

Of course there's been a lot of water under the bridge since then.  We've had two generations of catastrophic hypergamic divorce to look back on, two generations of weekend-or-absent dads, two generations where men didn't feel comfortable trying to talk to their sons at all, lest they be accused of "spreading sexism".  The original children of divorce have overcome the stigma enough to rack up three or four divorces and step-families of their own, now.  The Patriarchy has well and truly fallen, and now only the Puerarcy remains.  Two generation of anti-social Betas too battered by feminist combat dating and no firm social rules has had an effect someplace other than the Glass Ceiling.  I have seen Scout troops filled with boys from single-mom homes, and gosh, they didn't look nearly as happy, secure and fulfilled as those from two-parent households.

Because almost thirty years after Free To Be, we can measure its results, and those results are mixed at best.  While it's true that you have empowered, intelligent, highly-motivated young women willing to devote a decade and a half of their best reproductive years to climbing the corporate ladder, at the end of that climb they discover that their reproductive options (what we use to call "husbands") don't want a thing to do with them.  Feminists may make decent bosses and great co-workers, but they make cruddy wives and mediocre mothers, with a few notable exceptions.

You can chalk up at least a bit of the "marriage gap" (the age at which couples get married for the first time -- it was about 19 in 1960, it's 28 and rising here and now) to women focusing more on career interests . . . but you can explain a lot more of it if you consider that the dudes out there just don't want to get married at all, anymore, and particularly not to women who are more concerned with corporate bonuses than childcare.  Dads (and potential dads) are, indeed, a lot more involved and sensitive to their reproductive issues today (thanks, feminism!), and because of that those men who do put thought and effort into their fatherhood, including good wife selection, wouldn't marry a feminist on a bet.  The likelihood of catastrophic failure is just too high, especially when there are plenty of better options out there.  Foreign brides, "traditional" girls, or women who see themselves as mothers and (gasp!) wives rather than employees or competitors are all better bets than your average feminist, for the men of America.

(Free To Be . . . A Spinster!)

As for me, I'm going to take Marlo's advice: I'm going to be Free.  To be.  Free to be . . . a Man.  A big, hairy, thoughtful, considerate Patriarch far more concerned about my children's emotional welfare than whether or not my daughter can make partner before she's 30.  A Man, unafraid of women and disdainful of feminist shaming rhetoric.  A Man who understands that violence, power, money, and ingenuity are all tools at my disposal, not reasons to loathe who I am.  A Man who feels no shame at looking and lusting at women for fear of offending their "rights" not to feel afraid of me.

I was afraid of women for thirty years.  Female fear is just not a high priority for me.

But, thanks to Marlo, I'm Free.  Free to Be.

I'm free to be a Man who takes a wife (who knows and understands that "wife" doesn't mean "equal and temporary domestic partner", but WIFE) and raises his kids without fearing Marlo's ire.  A Man who feels no pity at the struggle of young women trying to find a job in this economy because there was damn little pity demonstrated to me during the last economic recession    I'm free to be a Man who can stick his tongue out at the gigantic shit test that is feminism and ignore it, because it just isn't working for me anymore (and, I see, it never really was).  I'm free to be a Man who doesn't feel compelled to sacrifice the futures of my sons in order to elevate my daughter's.  Sure, they're free to be whatever the hell they want . . . but they also understand that that freedom is dependent, partially, on their accepting my guidance, or they'll be free to slug it out on their own. I'm free to be a Man who delights in the sight of naked boobs and the hum of precision machinery, who doesn't consider the expression of my sexuality an attack on femininity, who demands respect -- yes, demands it -- or I won't play anymore.

And that's where Marlo And Friends really went wrong for half of the audience they were shooting for.  They managed to inject the idea of gender-free economic and social empowerment, but they did so in such a way that promoted the active and willful disrespect of masculinity and male authority.  And while that would make any real feminist cream her jeans just hearing about, the sad, Red Pill fact is that when you promote disrespect for masculinity in a culture, you do not automatically increase respect for femininity.  You just get a lot of sullen, pissed-off, uninvested men who can't wait until the feminists are out of the room so that they can tell that joke.

And a lot of strong, independent, empowered women who can't get two dates in a row with the same dude, much less a commitment, a ring, or a family.  Women who traded in their reproductive future and betrayed their genetic destiny for the promise of a respect that never was fulfilled.  Those poor women, thanks to feminism, are Free To Be single for the rest of their lives and die alone, childless, and unloved by men.  They get to stamp their feet in rage as the dudes they once dated and tried for years to get to commit end up getting married to much younger women (often in a matter of months) from the Philippines or Korea or Brazil or Siberia and start popping out kids like it's double coupon day.  These strong, independent women who were told there would be PLENTY of dudes waiting for them when they were done Being Free To Be are now realizing, to their horror, that they've been sold a bill of goods.  They're Free To Be a corporate drone with a vagina that's increasingly losing the attention she craves and increasingly getting frustrated at all of the guys who are just not real damn impressed with how well they've done.

But that's okay, Ladies.  Because it's all right to cry.  We should know.  We've been doing it behind your backs since 1974.

Y'all may have noticed I haven't been posting like clockwork lately.  This is due to several things: work deadlines, Papa Ironwood's amputation, building a deck/ramp for his house, and me grinding away at the Manosphere book to try to make my self-imposed deadlines.  It's not that I've not been writing, you see, just that I'm saving it up for the big Happy Ending in the form of a book.

I don't like to get political any more than I like to get religious on this blog, due to the fact that I'm in the minority in the Manosphere on both counts, but of course the more I try to stay away from those subjects, the more they seem to come up.  But as masculinity and men have both religious and political context in our culture, it becomes unavoidable.  Below is my as-objective-as-possible assessment of the election, minus any gloating, hand-wringing, or other overtly political crap.  I'll also note that I've written political blogs (progressive and libertarian) before under other names, so I'd like to think I know my ass from a hole in the ground, but that's not why I'm posting.

Considering the US Presidential election in purely Red Pill terms, the Ironwood Observation holds true: in an electorate in which women are the majority, the male candidate with the highest subjective and objective Sex Rank wins. This has held true at least since the Nixon-Kennedy election.  In every single presidential election, the dude who came across more Alpha and caused more wet panties won.

In this case, you had exotic Barack Obama up against wholesome Mitt Romney.  Both candidates were handsome men on the surface, with slightly exaggerated features and strong charisma.  Objectively, both were strong Alphas in the 7-9 range.  Add preselection points for being happily married, positive beta assessments for being visibly active fathers who put family first, and its easy to see why the polls showed a virtual dead heat going into the race.

But the devil is in the details, and when it came down to it, Obama just had better Game than Romney when it came to courting the female voter.  Not only is he a proponent of what are traditionally seen as "women's issues", he presents more strongly than Romney.  That is, when a woman's subconscious "tries on" the idea of sleeping with a choice of Romney or Obama, there's a huge appeal to the latter and not much enthusiasm from the former.  Here's why.

First, let's handle the issue of race, because it's the most obvious and blatant factor.  While many women fantasize about affairs with rich, powerful, handsome men -- and Romney certainly fits the bill in all three departments -- Mitt is the kind of dude you'd hook up with at a golf course groundskeeping supplies sales convention, drunk-and-on-the-road, a decent screw but hardly anything to jill off to later.

Barack, on the other hand, has the exotic-sounding name ("Mitt" is just too country club) and the chocolate skin.  That has automatic appeal to black female voters, of course, and plenty of Latina, Asian, and white female voters.  There is of course what some have cynically called the "Mandingo Effect", which some Republican commenters blamed on Obama's first victory in swing-states North Carolina and Virginia, that is, the much-ballyhooed secret desire amongst white women to have affairs with (presumably) more-alpha, sexually superior black men.  Obama's poise, oratorical skills, and high social status permit the "Mandingo Effect" even in the subconscious of the most conservative women, it is argued.

Liberal women?  He had them at "hello".

Couple that with his deep, sonorous voice, and suddenly he's the tall, hot black dude with the doctorate you meet on vacation in Martinique and bravely bring home to your parents, ala "Guess Who's Coming To Dinner?".  Or he's the hawt black dude who helped you get your groove back.  Either way, I contend that Obama had the race sewn up the moment he sang a few bars onstage at the Apollo with that voice.  It was the gush heard round the world.  A fantasy experience with exotic Barack would come complete with illicit cigarette smoke (which is enough "bad boy" for a family man of his age to make him daring), intellectually stimulating conversations about the philosophical underpinnings of Western Civilization in light of modern industrialization and liberalization of social mores, slow, sensual dancing and soft, cool jazz in the background to augment the taste of your mojito.

But lets move on to the preselection issue: both candidates are happily married.  Mitt has a good Mormon wife who has bore him a huge litter of strong, handsome young boys doomed to follow in their father's footsteps.  Mrs. Romney is the picture of the great Mormon mom: wholesome, outspoken, deferent, devoted, and openly respectful to her husband.  She's an adept political wife, perhaps not on the par of Hilary Clinton, but certainly better than Laura Bush.  Preselection is based in part on the Sex Rank of the partner, but also on her position.  And when you put Anne Romney up against the First Lady, Michelle comes out ahead on the Female Social Matrix.

First, she's already First Lady, which gives her automatic, nearly unassailable AFOG status.  After all, she sleeps with the POTUS, who is already reigning AMOG.  But her personal charisma, unusual beauty, height, and undeniable intelligence make her a personally powerful woman.  While arguably less-feminine in presentation than Romney, thanks to her size and style of dress, Michelle's charisma and warmth soften the amazonian image significantly, and she does have quite an engaging smile.  In comparison, Ann Romney just doesn't have that same Alpha appeal to men, and therefore her devotion to Mitt, while laudable, just doesn't have the same level of passion that a union of strong Michelle and strong Barack has.

Both get points for motherhood, and in this Romney has an edge by sheer volume and wholesome maternal devotion.  Subjectively speaking, this raises her SR amongst the country folk and westerners who see her as embodying the American maternal ideal of devoted wife and loving mother.  Mitt gets points for his pure virility (that's a mess o' Romneys) and his fidelity, which are a reflection of Ann's devotion.  Further points for their mutual religious devotion -- it's easy to see why women in the Heartland were less seduced by Obama.  They were partially put-off by Michelle's more in-your-face relationship style, even if they were somewhat envious of her apparent passion for her man.

Michelle gets higher subjective SR from moms in suburban and urban zones, as well as massive points for her proto-feminist, be-all-you-can-be style.  Her devotion to Barack is nearly palpable on stage, and her utter lack of personal political ambitions makes her appear a genuinely supportive partner, not a scheming colleague (lookin' at you, Hill).  There is no doubt in anyone's mind that Barack and Michelle love each other and -- more importantly -- are in love with each other.  There's observable passion, there.  Indeed, some folks get pissed off at the regularity of their PDAs.  But that kind of observable devotion (and presumed willful submission) of a strong woman to a strong man gives Obama CRAZY preselection points.

(In the Gore/Bush race of 2000, I was genuinely fearful of a Bush victory . . . until Tipper and Al made out on stage at the convention.  That brief, passionate display humanized The Tin Man more than anything else, and gave me a little hope that he could overcome the willful machismo of C-student GWB.)

If Ann had been more Alpha in her presentation, and had treated Mitt more like a seething tiger of raw animal lust she could barely restrain herself from attacking at every public appearance, then it would have raised her profile and therefore his numbers.  Treating him like the perfect husband and father is great, politically speaking, but she failed to communicate the subtext that he's hung like a circus pony and does her at every available opportunity.  It's clear that they're devoted to each other . . . but you don't hear news stories about Mitt skipping majorly important events in order to quietly celebrate an anniversary with his wife.  When you think about them as a potential first couple, you think "Weekly, lights out, missionary position, was it good for you too, dear?", not "Give me that manhammer harder this time, Stud, I'm going to squirt!"  

As attractive as Ann is (and she gets extra MILF points with that lightly-padded, devoted PTA soccer mom style) she just doesn't have Michelle's charisma, despite her wholesome charm.  She's just not an alpha-enough psychological rival for a woman to contend with -- therefore her mate isn't as high value.  If Mitt was caught in an affair, there would be horrible scandal and prayers and Ann would be the dutiful but indignant wife, conducting herself as Caesar's wife as she very publicly and tearfully forgave her husband and then very publicly began marital counseling.  "The other woman" would not even be referred to in her speech.

On the other hand, if Barack was ever caught in an affair, there's no doubt in anyone's mind that Michelle Obama would be perfectly capable of cutting a bitch. Unrepentantly.  She's a visible lioness in her physical presentation, her power and devotion and willingness to mate-guard a tangible symbol of her quality . . . and therefore Barack's worthiness.  She's a well-respected woman who lavishes respect and praise on her man.  She shows her passion for him and for their relationship with undisguised enthusiasm.  And it's not difficult to imagine that she's making sure he's getting laid like linoleum to keep the Lewinski's from hiding in the closet.  You know she's rocking his world not out of wifely duty, but because she's doing the POTUS and more importantly she's doing the POTUS that every other woman in the country wants, and so Barack has a titanic preselection bonus to her.  She's doing the dude that every other girl wants to do.  That puts Barack's preselection bonus in the highest tier.

In the final analysis, Mitt just wasn't as tasty jillfodder for the mass of femininity as Barack was.  He made a good run at it, but when it comes to selling a brand to women you have to know what they respond to, and the Romney brand was just too . . . bland.  Obama's was still exciting and exotic, and let's face it: that gray in his hair only makes him look hotter.  With Mitt . . . not so much.


But there's one last point I want to make about the Red Pill and politics, and this is to the Liberals and Progressives out there who might stumble over this blog.  One reason that Mitt did as well as he did is that the Democratic Party made huge strides in wooing the vote of women, but toward men they appealed only to them by ethnicity or sexual orientation.  If you were a dude and you voted for Obama you did so either as a Liberal, a Latino, an Asian-American, a Union man or as a gay man.

Male issues and masculine interests were ignored or disparaged by the Democrats in favor of seeking the all-important women's vote, and they continue to do so at their peril.  A lot of men voted for Romney who would have been happy to vote for Obama, had they been reached out to and persuaded.  When you focus a party platform so overwhelmingly on female interests and issues, you leave men little room to join you, and the opposition, no matter how fruit-cakey, is the only place for them to go.  I give Obama's people credit for not actively antagonizing the electorate on some prominent male issues such as gun control and the like, but there is little allure to the Democratic agenda in purely masculine terms.  A few pro-male initiatives, some genuine outreach and discussion with men as men, and some visible support for masculine endeavors and the Democrats could woo a decisive section of the all-important independent moderate swing voter. As it is, they are too enslaved to the ideologies of feminism to make the attempt without risking their coalition.  By virtue of ignoring the subject entirely, the Democratic party might not be actively anti-male, but there isn't much pro-male to suggest them.

Hell, if Obama had re-legalized internet gambling, it could have gotten him another 50,000 male votes nationwide.

Similarly, if the Republicans would tone down the religious rhetoric, stop the rampant homophobia that is alienating wealthy gay male Republicans, admit that science is a real thing now, and appeal to black and Latino male voters as men, and not by their ethnicities, then it's possible that the results in Virginia and Florida would have been much different, and possibly in Ohio, too.  There's a difference in being a place for rejected men to go when the other party disappoints and the place made enticing because men are valued and celebrated as men, pursuing male issues above issues of race or class.  But thanks to their anti-gay, anti-science, and anti-intellectual stance, the GOP tends to alienate that same moderate independent male voter.

While the GOP tends to pick up some male issues like gun control and national defense, their patented cowboy rhetoric stopped being an effective tool after Reagan -- you can blame GWB for that.  Because while Bill Clinton's bull alpha persona won him huge Bad Boy panty-dampening status for daring to get a hummer from a chubby intern in the Oval Office, W. suffered from being a wolf alpha who was not the AMOG, thanks to Cheney and Rove's overt manipulations during the Iraq and Afgan wars.  That emasculating kingmaking made W. appear as a macho tool, a useful idiot for shrewder minds to control, which undermined his AMOG status significantly.  There's a reason that GWB wasn't mentioned hardly at all during the race.  He's like a bad relationship everyone wants to forget about.

But that's my assessment.  What do y'all think?

Just got the rough draft of the cover design for the book and I thought I'd throw a low-res version up here for comment.
It's hard to see at this rez, but the black letters in the Mars sign say "XY-XY-XY".

Tentative release date (dependent upon a number of factors including approval from Adam & Eve editors) is set for December 9th.  Which means that when the rough is done and ready for comment, there will only be a week or so for revisions before press date.  Of course, that date CAN be moved . . . but I'd love to get it out by then. Not only is it in time for Christmas, but that's both my eldest son's and Papa Ironwood's birthday -- the two most important men in my life. This book is dedicated to them.  Even if I won't let my 13 year old read it yet.

Here is the proposed copy for the "back cover" promotional blurb.

I'm just barely starting to recover from finishing and submitting the rough of the Manosphere book, but I glanced at the blog and realized how delinquent I've been.

For those interested in an update on the book, I'm fairly happy with it.  I think I want to back-over the PUA section and flesh out the sections on Roosh and Roissy better (I wrote them more than 8 months ago), and maybe add a list of the current and past great Manosphere blogs, but apart from that I'm pretty happy with it, atrocious spelling and grammar and all.

The book is broken down by sections, and each section comes complete with a Mythopoetic Moment, a Recent History of Intergender Relations for background, and then an exploration of one chunk of the Manosphere.  Currently, I have sections on Traditional Conservative and Christian blogs, Pick-Up Artist/Game blogs, Wise Old Men, Men's Rights Advocates, Men Going Their Own Way, and Married Game blogs.  I also have two sections devoted to groups that don't explicitly have formal connection to the Manosphere, but represent powerful social trends of masculinity: the Puerarchy and Single Fathers.  Before you jump on me, the "single fathers" actually includes all post-industrial fathers, considering how many of them are taking a more active role in both parenting and fathering.

That's 167,000 words worth of prose, but I do have to admit not all the words were mine.  I reprint Roissy's seminal 16 Commandments of Poon as well as Rollo Tomossi's Iron Rules and Vox Day's Socio-Sexual Hierarchy.  Dalrock figures prominently  as does Athol Kay, Deti, and a host of others.  I cover the subject of masculinity from Camille Paglia to Warren Farrell to Jack Donovan.  I look at the different waves of feminism and what they imply for men and masculinity.  I examine popular culture representations of masculinity important to the Manosphere, including Eat, Pray, Love, 300, Fight Club, and Porky's.  And I do some creative things with the Greek Gods, because, well, they were in the Public Domain.

I look at the future of men, from the separatists amongst the MGTOW to the excesses of the Puerarchy to the dedication of the Red Pill husband.  I discuss the Japanese "herbivores", men who have permanently given up on romantic or sexual relationships in order to pursue a quiet life of videogames and masturbation . . . and comprise roughly 60% of the below-40 male population. THAT'S what we're looking at if things don't change, ladies.  Men who not only don't want to commit to marriage . . . they don't even want to date.

The book is openly provocative, and invites criticism.  It challenges feminism to take a good long look at itself (it won't) and invites it to take responsibility for what it has done -- even accidentally -- to men.  I'm not expecting any accolades from that quarter.I even added some helpful negative reviews, in case the feminist reviewers can't be creative enough on their own.  It also requests more outreach to Latino and Black and Gay voices, because feminism frequently seeks to divide men along racial or ethnic or sexual preference lines, and the simple fact is that gay men have to deal with custody issues just like straight men, black men deal with divorce just like white men, and Latino men are just as concerned about the feminization of men in our society as Anglos are.

And Asians?  I try to end the myth that they all have short dicks.  Google Keni Styles and STFU.  Oh, and I point out that they are the perceived as the most feminitized and "non-threatening" men by our society.  Asian dudes suffer from Harold Syndrome (Harold and Kumar), and they need to break out of that and get their Cho (The Mentalist) on.

I mention most of my Red Pill Rangers and as many prominent voices in the Manosphere as I could, but I'll be the first to admit that there are TONS of great bloggers I didn't get to . . . this time.  The fact is, I had to stop writing at some point.  Major works are never finished, they are only abandoned.  Or continued.

That's right.  Depending upon the success of this first book, it's safe to assume that Manosphere II: Revolt Of The Betas or somesuch might be here in two years.  Stay tuned. In the meantime, my next book in this vein will be The Red Pill Experiment.

But as soon as I get the firm yea or nay from my boss, I'll do the final corrections and edits and get it sent out to my pre-release reviewer list.  That includes virtually every blogger I mention, as well as some feminist sites, Maxim, and other media outlets, just to stir up some buzz.  Also, should have a new cover coming soon.

Sweet slumber, as yet, eludes me in any quantity.  'Tis the season.

 She’s single, a single working mom with a grown son, and she is drop-dead gorgeous.  She is about as far from the Wall as a woman can get at her age – from two feet away she can pass for 20.  Italian features, beautiful fair skin, long curly hair with a distinguished touch of gray.  She knows how to dress, how to present herself, and she wears her femininity unashamedly on her sleeve.

All right.  It's New Year's Eve.  You've been reading this blog for a while, now, or blogs like it, and you're considering taking the Red Pill.

That's a scary proposition, I understand.  The Blue Pill is so much easier . . . all you have to do is sit back, develop a thick skin, and hope that intentions count for more than performance.  The Red Pill is hard, hard work.  It's hard to start, it's hard to keep going, and (eventually) it's hard to stop.  Transformative shit is like that.

Perhaps you've just been reading, thinking about it, pondering how your life would be different if you took the Red Pill for real . . . instead of just thinking about it.


Maybe things aren't so bad for you.  Maybe you're just feeling discouraged because the missus is more involved in her 50 Shades of Grey book than she is you.  Maybe you're staring at middle age and are wondering if you could have done things differently . . . and realize that this might be your last opportunity to do anything differently.

Perhaps you've felt badgered and ordered-around and softly dominated in your marriage under the banner of "equality", and you've just had enough and want a change . . . but not too much of a change.

And that's the challenge of the Red Pill for the Blue Pill Beta: do you put at risk everything you have and everything you have built for the possibility of something better . . . or the possibility of losing it all?

I was in your shoes a little over a year ago.  That's when I started my own Red Pill experiment.  I read Athol Kay's Married Man Sex Life and the other Manosphere blogs, and I decided that I would take the Red Pill and plunge ahead, even though my marriage was solid and my sex life was far above average.

It's been a year now.  Tomorrow marks the first anniversary of the first real dose of Red Pill in my house.  How are the results?

First, the sex: married sex went from "far above average" to "plentiful"; sexual style went from "boring married people sex" to "bells and whistles".  Strength and security of the relationship: increased dramatically.

Second, the subsidiary effects on my household: children do chores more readily and easily, now that they know "Daddy doesn't play".  Grades for two of my little geniuses went way up.  The third is a work in progress, but I expect he always will be.  Think Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory, only with a much stronger libido (for a 13 year old).

Third, the subsidiary effects on my work performance: team is above goal, personal performance review improved, bosses generally happier with me (not that they were ever unhappy with me -- I'm quite charming).

Fourth, the subsidiary effects on my other interpersonal relationships: stronger bond with male friends and relatives, less tolerance for female friends and relatives' general bullshit.  Increased position within the Male Social Matrix, accordingly.

That's four damn good reasons to consider the Red Pill.  A year on, it's been one of the best decisions of my adult life.

So consider it.  Buy a copy of MMSL and Athol's other book(s), memorize the key points, and start re-inventing yourself for 2013.  Start tomorrow, with some Red Pill resolutions.  And if you've had a hard time figuring out just what you can do to up your Alpha and break your Beta chains, here's a jump start.  I've been asked many times to re-post this list, from a comment I made about my 50 Shades post, and I think this is the best place for it, augmented and edited.




If you want to swallow the Red Pill and inject some more Alpha into your life, here's a place to start:

Happy New Year!

A few of my readers wrote me after my last post with various questions about my own Red Pill Experiment, and I thought it might be good to share my thoughts with everyone, because I'm lazy like that.


What are the big differences in life post-Red Pill and life pre-Red Pill?  They are subtle, and honestly a lot of them come from the fact that the person the Red Pill has affected most is me, not my wife or family.

Let's keep with the metaphor of the Red Pill as an actual pharmaceutical for a moment, and pretend that this last year has been a first-phase clinical trial (technically, under FDA rules I think it would be a Phase II, since Phase I deals with a drug's use on animals, but apparently me  being more Alpha didn't impress the family cat one bit, so for the moment we'll pretend that this first year was "Phase I" and 2013 will be "Phase II".  Clear?  Good.).  Pretend I "took" the Red Pill for the last year.

Just what does that entail?  See yesterday's post for a taste, but essentially the Red Pill (for me) has been a re-assertion of my positive masculinity; a glorious embrace of the masculine and celebration of its role as the lynchpin for our society, community, civilization and culture.  Of course, I wrote a book exploring all that stuff along the way, so you could say I was just doing "research", but the fact is I was at a point in my life where I needed some resolution to old baggage and the development of a conscious masculine maturity.  The Red Pill was that answer.

Some would argue (and Mrs. Ironwood leans in this direction) that this is all just a big "mid-life crisis", and then dismiss it disparagingly as a "misogynistic phase" (Mrs. I is NOT in that camp -- she takes this shit seriously.).  In all fairness, I'll cop to some of this -- but this isn't a "typical" mid-life crisis.  I'm not certain there is a "typical" mid-life crisis.  I don't hate my dad, we have a great relationship, I love my job, my kids are great, and I have an outstanding wife -- what do I have to take issue with?

But the fact is I'll be 45 soon, which even optimistically puts me at the half-way mark in my life, and the man who can face that without reflection and consideration either has his shit together far more than I, or he has his shit together far less than I do.  Regardless, it was time to assess and take stock, and chart a new direction in my life.

I know that sounds all Oprah, but part of recognizing a mature masculinity, I've realized, is being able to be give thoughtful consideration to your inner dialogues and express them to the world in a meaningful way.  Life is too short to be lived in quiet desperation -- our passions are what guide us and challenge us, not what handicaps us.  To be able to express and experience those passions within the context of our society and culture is among the most fundamental elements of the Red Pill I can name.  Thankfully we have the medium of the internet and its protective anonymity to shield us during the process, but even without it the goal of giving life to your innermost voice is the most basic of masculine values.

Just try not to get all girly about it.

And that brings me to my first Red Pill Observation: Girls and Boys are different.  And that's . . . okay.

Overcoming the baggage of the dreaded word "equality" was a major effect of the Red Pill.  I had no idea just how insidious it had become as a concept until I wallowed in it for a while, but the idea that men and women are "equal" in all ways and in all things is one of the largest shackles around the collective ankle of masculinity.  Not because men and women should be valued differently -- I haven't abandoned the Humanist ideal of every human being having a unique and  irreplaceable value to the universe -- but that after making that assumption, just about every other aspect of humanity is innately colored by our gender.

Boys and girls are different.  They think differently.  They work differently.  They talk differently.  They have very different values and constants and variables, and they change differently over time.  That doesn't make boys or girls inherently "better" at anything not requiring sex organs (sperm donor, wet nurse, host mother, etc.), it just makes them different.  Apples and oranges. And the assertion that apples are equal to oranges as an axiom of daily living is one of the hideous side-effects of the Blue Pill.

Further, extending the equality meme to try to cover all situations is a recipe for madness. The fact is that 10-15% of the people in the world are not straight. That doesn't mean they aren't men and women, that they aren't entitled to the same legal rights, etc. that everyone else does.

But it does mean that they are a minority - an exception to the rule.  And the rule is that 85-90% of the people in the world are straight, more or less (that time in college/camp/prison didn't count -- just 'cause you build a couple of shelves doesn't mean you're a carpenter).  That means that the general rule of boys-are-different-from-girls applies to them.  For the other folks, they get a different rule. Accept that.  It doesn't mean you're a homophobe or tolerating sin, it means you are accepting the Red Pill reality of the matter.  Boys and girls are different . . . and gay boys and lesbian girls are even more different.  Accept it.  Move on.

Boys and girls are different.

Boys and girls -- men and women -- are also complementary.

That means that where one doesn't have the skills or the abilities to do something or get something done, the other often does.

If my explorations of masculinity have taught me anything this last year, it's actually how appreciative I am of true femininity.  Saying I'm a misogynist because "I hate women" is utter fallacy --I love women.  I love femininity.  Just because you don't like the way I love women, don't accuse me of hating them.  They complement the masculine existence and enrich it immeasurably. Whether you believe in Genesis or Evolution, the complementary nature of the sexes is a miraculous and wondrous thing to behold. There is an art and a beauty to the whole reproductive/social dance that is awe-inspiring.

Femininity is undergoing a big change right now, a cultural shift akin to social menopause.  The primal sexuality of the neolithic woman gave way to the robust sexuality of the Agricultural Age, but now that the "productive" period of womanhood in our culture has transitioned into the post-Industrial age, femininity is still struggling to find an expression that works.  Feminism, unfortunately, tried to hijack this, and actually had several good contributions to the process before it went batshit crazy and started blaming men for everything.

But even without feminism, collective womanhood is still in the process of making the cultural adjustment to the post-Industrial world.  That means men are in the process of finding a complementary masculinity to complete this adjustment.

Or you can turn that around: men are making the adjustment to their masculinity in response to the post-Industrial world, and women are finding a complementary femininity.  It works both ways.  Increasingly this makes men and women competitors in ways they've not culturally experienced before . . . and it confuses the hell out of our mating patterns.

For men who are having a hard time dealing with this adjustment period, may I remind you that the last time we went through this sort of thing (the Neolithic-to-Early Agricultural period) one of our dudes, Alexander of Macedon, conquered the Known World in a fit of boyish impetuousness.  If we get out of this with just Gloria Steinem and Andrea Dworkin as a result, we're still waaaay ahead.

So the Red Pill is, in part, an attempt to re-define that complementary balance between the genders by first recognizing the ineffectiveness of the "equality" meme.  While equality might be great for the business world, when it comes to running a family the best way to ensure it's prosperity and security is to manage the equilibrium between Mommy and Daddy, not try to make sure that they are always equal.  Sure, they are both equally valuable to the relationship, but someone has to be Captain.

Let me rephrase that.  Someone will be Captain.  Whether or not they claim the title, one of the two of you is going to be the one making policy and holding people to account.    Now, if you've studied even a little Married Game, by now you should understand that women in a hetero relationship often (usually) tend to prefer a strong dominant mate, regardless of their political beliefs.  If you, the dude in the relationship, aren't willing to step it up and take the lead, then she will do so by default . . . and she will not be overcome with a wild attack of the hornies for assuming that responsibility.

Men and women are complementary, but someone has to lead.  In relationships where men take a leadership role, there seems to be more stability and more sex involved than when women take a leadership role.  Indeed, it is rare to find a woman in the role of head-of-household of a family with a husband who doesn't eventually admit that they treat their spouse more like a child than a mate.

Sure, women can lead . . . but it is far, far better for the long-term health and stability of a family when the couple adopts the Captain/First Officer model.  Especially when you put sex in the equation.

When a woman is forced to follow a man out of respect for his authority and competence, she can become among his most steadfast admirers . . . whereas a woman who finds herself forced to lead her family will come to resent and despise her Beta husband, no matter how nice she is to his face.  Women and men are complimentary, but where men lead most women are eager to follow.  Lack of leadership from the men in their lives, on the other hand, throws the sense of female security needed to have a robust and healthy sex life into the toilet.

Which brings me to my next point:  Men need to be the dominant party in their relationship in order to ensure it's long-term survival.

That's not to say if you have a typical Beta relationship - a "full and co-equal partnership" between the two of you - that you're destined to crash and burn the relationship.  More than likely you can muddle through with a well-negotiated "equitable" partnership that manages not to blunder into divorce when one or both of you are thoroughly frustrated by it.

But it rarely thrives the way you want it to unless your expectations for love started out artificially low - and that's rare.  Most people want True Love and endless passion.  You don't get that by committee.  If you want passion in your marriage, then "full and co-equal partnership" is NOT the way to go.  If you're a dude, it is in your best interest, and the best-interest of the marriage, to step up and start leading, without worrying if your wife and family will follow you.  And without her permission.

(Why?  Getting her permission to lead violates Solomon's Paradox: by granting you her permission for you to lead her, she has actually assumed the leadership role herself, which utterly undermines her desire to see you lead.  This is one of those major Red Pill lessons that a lifetime of stubborn Blue Pill exposure makes difficult to absorb: You cannot ask her permission to be the Captain.  You just have to DO IT, and see what happens. Either she'll follow you or she'll rebel, but either way she'll have to make a decision that commits her to a course of action and behavior regarding you.  She implicitly gave her permission for you to lead when she got married, even if she didn't vow to 'obey'.  She may not realize that, at first, but the key to making this work is not discussing it to death.  Announcing your newfound desire to be the Captain and be treated like it, while making her the First Officer, is highly counter-productive when you are first taking the Red Pill.  And it makes you sound like an arrogant ass.  Assume the leadership role without discussion or permission.  Don't demand pointless symbols of respect unless you have earned them through your actions.  Trust me on this one.)

I didn't truly appreciate the necessity for male dominance in a marriage when I started this experiment -- I saw it as a tool, as an interesting and intriguing change of venue, but I had been floating along Beta for so long that when I began I actually downplayed the idea of "male dominance" as a potentially unnecessary element to the Red Pill.

I now stand corrected.  Men need to dominate their relationship.

(Remember, I said men need to dominate the relationship -- not necessarily dominate their wives.  Being the dominant party in the relationship, the leader, the Captain, gives her the opportunity to follow you . . . which most wives relish.  Once she sees you are the dominant factor in the relationship, then more than likely she will be far more comfortable submitting personally to you.  But that's not the goal.  That's just gravy).


How important is this factor?  Well, about three months in I started to get slack, and backed off the Red Pill a mite.  The reaction was quick and decisive.  Mrs. Ironwood was not happy with my sudden willingness to negotiate and conciliate, she did enough of that shit at work.  For my personal situation, at least, my undertaking the responsibility to lead the family made me incredibly attractive in my wife's eyes.  Far from being concerned I would attempt to "dominate" her with a bunch of self-serving BDSM crap, or how I would become a hard-assed abusive control freak, she saw my assertiveness as a huge bonus to both her and the family.

When I slacked off, we almost got into a fight.  After nearly three months of being handed directives and agendas in which she'd had virtually no say, when I started trying to include her in the discussions she got pissed off . . . like I was purposefully being a dick because I was "forcing" her to make decisions.


Seriously, when I finally started volleying stuff back at her, after three months of seeing the Captain she got upset that I had 'abandoned' her.  It gave us a wonderful opportunity to discuss things, at the time, but when it came down to it she was far, far happier with our marriage when I made the decisions and she reacted to them -- good or bad -- than when I left the decisions up to her.  Once she was exposed to my assertive assumption of authority, she resented the idea that I would back away from it.  After that incident I didn't have any more qualms about being the dominant force in my marriage.  Hell, if I tried to go back to the Blue Pill now, she'd have my balls for a hood ornament.  Mrs. I enjoys the position of First Officer at home after being CIC at work all day.

And if that means she occasionally has to work 'sex kitten' into her job description, I try to ensure she finds the effort worthwhile.

I've got dozens of great observations about the complex interplay of the male-female relationship under the auspices of the Red Pill, but I thought it would be best to start with a list of good Red Pill attributes I found I needed to develop in myself, to help dominate my relationship and be the leader my wife desires.

I've tried to come up with a good Red Pill list of attributes I had to focus on this last year, and while Athol's book and the other Manosphere sites are outstanding resources, my own personal experience with Mrs. Ironwood suggests that the personal development I've had to do has really been about making changes to myself.  Being dominant doesn't actually come naturally to me (like many men), but once I understood that it was not a natural condition but a learnable skill I was able to concentrate on a few key factors.  They ended up coming out in a neat list of 26 attributes I could peg to the alphabet -- who knew?

I've discussed how to begin to be dominant in my Male Dominance: A Beginner's Guide post, but in essence my experience suggests that you begin to develop the following qualities:

Assertive - say what you want to happen.  Then make it happen.  Because you said what you wanted to have happen, and you aren't entertaining any other possibility.

Bold - If you're concerned that what you might say might offend someone, then consider it carefully . . . and say it anyway.  Yeah, you might piss someone off.  That's the chance you take.  Be willing to be an asshole, sometimes, or even fail utterly.  But timidity is not sexy.

Committed - The chicken who provided the egg for your breakfast was invested in the outcome.  The pig who provided the bacon was committed to the outcome.  When you decide on a course of action, be more pig than chicken.

Decisive - to that end, when you have to make a decision, pick the best option and go with it without second-guessing yourself.  It is a Red Pill axiom that it is better to be wrong than to be indecisive.  "If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice".  Yeah, I quoted Rush.  I went there.

Enthusiastic - women, in general, like dudes who express enthusiasm in what they're doing, even if they don't relish it.  If your default mode is quiet disapproval or pessimism, you're only cheating your penis.  Men who take an enthusiastic approach to life, and even life's most difficult problems, are more attractive than reluctant men.  So start smiling, saying 'yes' when you can, and expressing anticipation of what lies ahead of you.  It's easy.  The world doesn't fall apart if you start being hopeful.  Promise.

Fatherly - even if you don't have kids, don't avoid the opportunity to act fatherly toward your wife.  That might sound patronizing or demeaning, from a feminist perspective, but then again how many old married feminists do you know whose husbands are blissful in their relationship?  I thought so.  Just like every now and then you need to bathe in the restorative power of the maternal caritas of your wife h, there is a need in a woman (most women -- YMMV) to be fathered some times.  If you're wondering just what the hell I mean by that, there are certain things that daddies do with daughters that your wife might crave from you, but would not feel comfortable asking for in that context.  For example, when she has a fight with her BFF or a disappointing performance review, a trip to the ice cream store for a medicinal cone while she tells you about it is just what her Daddy would do.  Or if she accomplishes something she's particularly proud of, then assuming the posture of approval by displaying it or talking about it proudly gives her the contextual affirmation her father provided in her childhood -- or at least that's what she's probably craving.  Examining your wife's relationship with her father can be revealing, but the upshot of this element is to 'be the Dad she never had' if she had a bad relationship with him, or 'be the Dad she always had' if she had a positive relationship.  But all chicks got Daddy issues.  Don't be afraid to confront them . . . and gently use them.  Just don't call her on them.  They hate that.

Game - The Big G.  You must Game her.  Every day.  If that's too much of a hassle for you, you need to rethink the whole idea of marriage.  Even when you don't initially feel like it, or are yourself not particularly aroused, getting into the habit of passionately Gaming your wife is one of the best Red Pill prescriptions I can name.  Foreplay starts when your feet hit the floor, and your sexual and marital relationship are always happening within a context.  If she has Reactive Desire (and most women do) then Mr. Happy isn't having Sexy Time unless she feels attractive, interested, cherished, and has been thoroughly Gamed.  Make it part of your complete breakfast.

Honest - A no-brainer, but there's a subtlety here.  All women value honesty.  That doesn't mean they necessarily want you to be honest about everything.  And as a dude your initial inclination is to NOT be honest, because we gain power from what we make secret.  But we also often shoot ourselves in the foot by doing so.  So how do you rectify the two?  You simply have enough self-awareness to hold yourself to account, first, before you try to hold anyone else to account.  "Fooling yourself" makes you a fool.  Fooling your wife makes you an idiot.  If you are ashamed of something, or are worried about how she might react to "the real you", you aren't doing anyone any favors by hiding it. On the other hand, confessing your sexual attraction to a well-crafted pair of pumps is unlikely to be properly understood, unless she has a complementary attraction.  Be honest . . . but don't be stupidly honest.  Like I said, subtle.

Intelligent - I know perfectly decent dudes who turn into knuckle-dragging neanderthals the moment their wives challenge them on something.  Whether they don't want to "appear like they know everything" or they don't want to correct their wives if they know they're wrong, they shift into a laconic, non-committal mode the moment someone - particularly a woman - asks them to display their intelligence.  You don't need to be a bossy smart-ass to demonstrate your intelligence, but 'acting dumb' is not sexy.

Jack-Of-All Trades - Some women get a thrill out of how deeply their husband is invested in his work, which may be of a highly specialized nature.  Most don't.  They don't value your mastery of a specific subject nearly as much as they value your adaptability and ability to cope.  A $250,000 a year CEO is going to look like a putz to his wife if he has to hire someone to change a tire because he never learned how (as opposed to just being well-off).  I'll be the first to admit that there are a lot of things I can't do, but I take pride in the manifold abilities I do have, and my ability to cook a tasty meal, navigate cross country, install a new sink, change a baby, build a shed, negotiate a better deal and plan a wedding have all been factors in Mrs. Ironwood's verbal admiration of me.

Kind - No, really.  Kindness does not come naturally to all men, because male society doesn't reward it the same way female society does (which over-rewards it).  Kindness is cutting someone a break when you don't have to, lending a hand unexpectedly, soothing hard feelings in those around you through displays of generosity and affirmation.  Men frequently underestimate just how "sexy" kindness can be.  Or they over-estimate it, and look like a sappy sucker.  The key is graciousness and restraint.  Being kind when it's expected is no big deal -- being kind when you could be screaming is.

Lusty - Yep.  Lusty.  Lust gets a bad rap, thanks to its unfair inclusion in Christianity's hit Seven Deadly Sins.  But lust, in and of itself, is a healthy thing.  While its axiomatic that uncontrolled lust rarely leads to good things, well-controlled lust is a positive boon to your marriage.  If you do not express your lustful feelings as a man, then you provide little inspiration for your wife to react to. Women generally have responsive desire, and if all they get is "I dunno, I could  have sex or eat or just crash early, your choice" then you can bet that you won't be getting much sex.  You have desires.  Express them, even if they make your wife slightly uncomfortable. "Slightly uncomfortable" is still "interested".  Apathy is not sexy.


Managerial - When we talk about things like "dominance" and "leadership" and "Alpha", we rarely talk about the administrative necessities of the Red Pill experience.  But if you can't competently manage your own business and bureaucratic affairs, then how can you expect your wife to respect you enough to follow your lead and be held to account? The fact is, as Captain you are responsible ("able to respond") for a mountain of managerial responsibilities.  If you do not handle them, then you will personally spend most of your time in damage control mode instead of making progress toward your personal goals.  So manage yourself.  Get your records under control.  Make sure your calendar is up-to-date.  See what bills need to be paid, what debts you have outstanding, what paperwork you have to contend with.  Taxes?  Permits?  If you were your own boss, how would you rate your performance?  Then consider your wife as someone in need of management, and don't be afraid to assert your management of her by asking her questions about specific issues on her plate.  If you are having questions about just how you do that, consider reading some books on corporate management and efficiency and such and incorporating those ideas into the business-end of your marriage.

Noble - Huh?  Did you read that right?  How does a man be "more noble" in this decidedly non-noble universe?  First you have to understand just what "nobility" means in this context: Possessing and demonstrating excellent personal qualities or properties including superiority of mind, character, ideals and morals. That is, don't be a sonuvabitch.  When you make a promise, you stand by it, failing compelling circumstances.  When you give a gift, you give richly and lavishly.  When you praise, you do so effusively and without hesitation.  When you are asked for advice or opinion, you give it as usefully and as succinctly as possible. The Red Pill encourages a man's inner nobility, and the expression of that nobility is an indicator of you character.  The goal isn't to fit in or to be a part of your community or be compliant -- the goal is to be exceptional, in a very positive way.  It doesn't come easy to a lot of dudes, so think about it awhile before you embark.  But acting more nobly on a consistent basis is a proven panty-dropper.
Open - This might sound like a contradiction in terms, but even as you become more assertive and decisive, you also have to become more Open to possibilities beyond that. When you are the Captain, you are expected to make decisions and stick with them.  But if the situation changes and you need to display some adaptability, then it is in your best interest to be Open to suggestions for alternative actions.  Athol has a great take on this -- when he hits a roadblock to his Captaincy, he says he sometimes turns to Jennifer and says "Options, Number One?" (from Star Trek: The Next Generation).  It is an active solicitation of advice and perspective without the implicit surrender of the ultimate command decision. Being the one who is in charge doesn't make you a dictator, it makes you responsible for everything that you do and don't do.  If you aren't adaptable enough to be open to an outside opinion -- and actively solicit that opinion when you are stuck -- then you are failing as Captain.

Punctual - Heh.  This is hard.  It's part of the Ironwood Curse that all Mrs. Ironwood's are a minimum of  fifteen minutes late . . . for everything. My mother was almost an hour late for my wedding . . . and she was my ride.  One of the biggest adjustments I made in the last year was doing my best to be punctual, and insist upon that in others.  Or at least express my displeasure when they weren't.  Most dudes feel like they have spent more time waiting on women than they have, say, shaving in their lives by the time they're my age.  I know I have.  This year I cracked the whip, stared at my watch, and was sharply disapproving when the women in my life tried to make me late.  But what I found, to my surprise, was that after a few months of grumbling, they began to expect me to keep them on track and started planning accordingly.  We started getting to places on time . . . or at least less-late.  But being a visible timekeeper was a great way to augment my authority and hold everyone to account on time -- myself included.

Quiet - at the right times.  I see plenty of Blue Pill dudes who are willing to weigh in about just about any topic and then natter away like hens at a sewing circle (ladies, check historical references to explain that idiom -- women used to sew.  In circles.).  When a man talks too much, he betrays his confidence and self-assuredness.  Sure, you can expound at length about just about anything, and express your outrage or eagerness with the enthusiasm of a schoolgirl and her Hello Kitty collection.  But it's part of the art of the Red Pill to know when to just shut the hell up and be strong and silent.  Women often talk about wanting a dude who is capable of "being a good listener", which is feminine shorthand for "a dude who will shut the hell up and let me tell him about my day without him making everything all about him".  When in doubt, follow the Golden Mean (h/t Roissy's 16 Commandments): for every three sentences she says, say two or less. And sometimes know when silence is the best answer.

Responsive - Another "Huh?" entry.  But a good Red Pill husband needs to be as responsive to feedback from his wife and family as a good customer-service operator is.  That means that when the Missus tells you that she wouldn't mind getting flowers once in a while, that you actually send her flowers once in a while.  That means that when she mentions that she really likes the way you do X, that you will, in the future, make more of an effort to do X (without doing X so much she gets sick of it).  Good management is always responsive management -- even when the answer is a resounding "no!".  If you need to think about something before you respond, then say that -- don't let her comments, observations, suggestions and complaints linger in limbo too long, or you look slack as Captain.

Successful - This is another hard one, because too many dudes (and too many ladies) think this is all about financial or vocational success.  It's not.  You don't have to make Partner to be "successful", you just have to successfully accomplish something. You can be a successful little league coach, a successful tutor to your kids, a successful member of a community or religious organization, or any non-work-related thing and still get the points.  Sure, everyone wants an independently wealthy billionaire -- but if you rock the hell out of the electric guitar and your weekend band kicks ass, celebrate that.  Indeed, celebrate all of your successes, even the ones she may not understand.  If you get a promotion or a good review, tout it to her in a positive manner.  If you get an award or recognition, make sure to tell her about it and explain the context.  I know a dude who got crazy props at work for some truly amazing insights and accomplishments . . . but never told his wife.  It was only when she went to the company picnic and people she didn't know started gushing about how good Hubby was at what he did that she really appreciated how successful he was.  It's axiomatic that dudes dig trophies -- but so do chicks.  They are tangible signs of success.  If you aren't packing a trunkload of them every time you move, find some other endeavor at which you can be successful and then work the hell out of it.

Thoughtful - That is, you think about things before they become problems.  You consider the consequences of your actions and inactions.  You know how much toilet paper and milk is in the house and you ensure that you don't run out.  You know when your wife's birthday and your anniversary are, and you start planning weeks in advance.  You know the state of the tires on both cars and whether or not there are spares and jacks for them.  You make sure the smoke detectors have batteries, the cat has food, there's emergency chocolate stashed somewhere on the premises, and when the power goes out you know where the flashlight is.  You are thoughtful . . . you think and plan ahead.

Undaunted - You can look this one up, if you missed that day at school, but undaunted means "I don't give a crap, I'm going to go ahead and do it anyway." Undaunted means that you are not allowing challenges and obstacles to get in your way.  I have a personal motto that "I don't let people get in my way", which sounds needlessly aggressive (a nice Alpha boost, if you need it).  But I usually add "Sometimes that means I have to change my way, but I won't let anything get in the way."  That's an important distinction.  Undaunted doesn't mean rigid, it means determined and unwilling to capitulate to misfortune. Keeping on task despite the risks is the mark of a true Red Pill man.

Vigilant - You alone are responsible for your family, regardless of what your wife says.  You cannot relax about this.  You must be vigilant  foreseeing dangers before they happen and undertaking maintenance to ensure that they don't.  You must be situationally aware of the state of your family, and prepared to take steps if there's a problem.  It might suck to feel like you are stuck permanently in the driver's seat . . . but the pussy is way better up there.  Trust me.

Wise - Yep, I said 'wise'.  Like 'noble', this might be confusing on the surface.  For some, this is a minor point.  Due to my religion, it's a serious issue in my life.  Wisdom, in my religious tradition, is defined more or less as "the art and science of doing the right thing at the right time."  That is, knowing Right from Wrong is great . . . but actively choosing to do the right thing at the right time goes beyond mere moral guidance and moves into a proactive position in which you are actively seeking out knowledge to execute.  Wisdom is a subtle, slippery thing.  Mostly it involves not doing anything too obviously stupid.  Sometimes it means doing something to avoid being forced to do something stupid later.  It helps to remember that wisdom is a gradual thing, accumulating like single grains of sand on a daily basis.  We don't start out wise . . . we learn wisdom.  And that implies a lot of observation, intelligence, and forethought.  Remember, any idiot can learn from his own mistakes, and most do or else Evolution handles it.  But a truly wise man knows to learn from other people's mistakes.  That's key.

eXciting - Yeah, I know, I cheated with this one, but I couldn't figure out how to work Xylophone or X-Ray into this list, and "xenophobic" just didn't sound real Red Pill Positive.  So I went with the all-important Exciting, and I stand by this.  As a Red Pill dude, part of your marital obligation to your wife is to provide her  with entertainment and distraction.  It's sexy.  You have to be exciting, and in a way that makes her panties wet.  If she loves motorcycles, rent a bike for a weekend.  If she's into sports, take her to a pro football game in another city for the weekend.  If she's into modern art, hit a museum as a surprise.  Part of the art of marital excitement is the surprise, and the other part is the thoughtfulness.  While raiding a meth lab might be exciting, it's not exactly the sort of experience that makes her loins ache for you . . . I hope.

Youthful - Every woman loves the little boy in her man, but few love the man in a monstrous child she married -- maturity is hot.  Yet Blue Pill dudes seem to often mistake being too tired or unmotivated for "mature wisdom", and flee their boyish loves as signs of immaturity.  The fact is, a woman likes to be reminded that she married a little boy who grew up every now and then.  A man's playfulness is a sign of both his emotional engagement and the psychological willingness to relax and enjoy himself.  Be a little boy every once in a while, both in her presence and out of it.  It will help keep yourself grounded.  In fact, it's an essential (but oft overlooked) aspect of the Paleo diet so popular in the Manosphere: daily physical play, emphasis on 'play'.  In some cases this can just be indulging in a game of catch or pick-up basketball -- but it can also be playfully twirling your wife unexpectedly onto the dance floor, and by extension it can mean playing card games with the kids, in this context, or going to a really horrible movie just because you dig giant transforming killer robots.  Playing with plastic dinosaurs when no one is looking or pursuing a passion for poker are fun, as is toy collecting, baseball cards, and just hangin' out with your dudes.  Being mature is great for leadership, but even Picard got his jollies playing noir detective in the holodeck.  A sense of youthful play is an outstanding way of both demonstrating personal confidence and fun, as well as not taking yourself -- or the relationship -- too seriously. Because when it comes down to it, we're all still just kids on the playground.

Zealous -- that is, "full of zeal".  This goes back to the issue of enthusiasm.  Being zealous about the Red Pill does not -- again -- mean being an asshole about it.  But being quietly confident and determined to make a positive change in your life is difficult to manage if you don't have someone cheerleading for you.  Especially if you're hitting problems with your spouse, it might be tempting to back off the Red Pill for a while, let things cool down, let her get over her snit, and make nice later.  Only . . . don't.  Zeal is a desirable quality in a man, as long as it's zeal bounded by reason and restraint.  When you display your zeal, do it very consciously and with full regard for others' sensibilities.  Manfully boasting about your male dominant lifestyle and gloriously heterosexual marriage at a lesbian wedding is often considered too much zeal.  But getting up every morning and doing a hundred crunches before you get in the shower -- long after your wife noticed and commented on it -- is a demonstration of zeal that will pay big dividends.



Wow.  That's twenty-six attributes, if you've been keeping track, plus a couple of other big-time observations, and it appears I've written another novel in this post.  That's a lot to keep track of, and the fact of the matter is I could have had twenty-six completely different attributes and still been just as correct.  It's important to remember that the Red Pill is a personal response to the realities of human mating, not an easy-to-bullet-point formula for happiness.  Your individual talents and situation will play a big role on what attributes you need to develop, and the skills and abilities you build are the ones you'll need for your own marriage, not mine.

But after a full year on the Red Pill, I'm in the process of refining the dosage.  So much of the above has become automatic now that I can safely move on to more pressing concerns . . . and that which remains will get especial attention this year.  I'm very, very happy with my marriage and myself right now, and while I'm against gilding the lily on general principal, I believe that I can make my life with the Missus even better for both of us, with a little more effort, commitment and intelligence.

There will be at least one more section in this series, but for now I want to leave you with this: YOU GET OUT OF IT WHAT YOU PUT INTO IT.  If you don't do the work, don't expect the benefits.
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Don't believe me?  Try this simple experiment: tell everyone you know that you do five hundred crunches every morning, but don't actually do them.  See if they "notice" your "well-defined abs".  Now wait a week.  Now start doing five-hundred crunches every morning, but don't tell anyone.  See if anyone "notices" your actually well-defined abs.  Compare the differences between the two experiments.  See how putting effort and energy into something pays dividends, but bullshitting everyone does not?

The Red Pill is like that.  It doesn't matter how much of a good game you talk, if you aren't putting in the time and effort, you're not getting the expected benefit.

I didn't intend to write this post today.  I wanted to skate in, clear up some deadlines, dodge some calls, and get out.  But then I read my email, and saw this nasty little piece of schadenfreude-laden vitriol from the fine ladies over at Jezebel   (Sorry, from Resident Delta Mangina Hugo Schwyzer. The tone and writing style make it an easy mistake to make.)

I try to overlook most of the blatant, hate-filled misandry over there, because making fun of it would be a full-time job and I honestly have more important things to do.  Hugo, in particular, is a self-loathing caricature of the "male feminist", and nearly everything that appears under his name reads like a scalding indictment of the welfare system by a Black Republican.  But every now and then Hugo crosses a line, and something Jezebel's token penis says pisses me off.  Chalk it up to "male rage".  Today is one of those days.

The subject is Omegas -- although he doesn't use the term.  In profiling a website known as The Nice Guys of OK Cupid, in which hapless Omegas and Deltas (and others) who have put up a profile on OK Cupid as self-described "nice guys" are held up to shame, ridicule, and bullying for the temerity of wanting to get laid.

I'm no stranger to harshly criticizing a dating profile or two.  I don't take issue with that.  What I take issue with is Hugo's screeching response:

Pathetic and infuriating in turns, the profiles selected for inclusion elicit gasps and giggles – and they raise questions as well. Is it right to mock these aggrieved and clueless young men, particularly the ones who seem less enraged than sad and bewildered at their utter lack of sexual success?

Let's stop right there.  These men are, as Hugo says, aggrieved and clueless.  Enraged, sad and bewildered.  He calls them pathetic and infuriating (mostly because of how many of them prefer women with shaven legs, apparently).  He even actually questions the morality of mocking them. 


 But if you think Hugo's about to show the slightest concern for his fellow men over, say, the obsequious fawning he does over his feminist handlers, you would be wrong.  The rage and pain of these losers -- and Hugo doesn't hesitate to mock them as such -- is, indeed, a fair and moral talent for public bullying according to Hugo . . . because they're just dudes.  And dudes don't matter.  (Until they start buying firearms -- then they matter).

If that last sentence is a little disturbing, Hugo acknowledges that there is a capacity for violence within these men . . . but that shouldn't keep anyone from poking at their open psychological wounds with a stick, humiliating and badgering them until they are at the brink of sanity.  Because it's for the Greater Good.

You see, Hugo, like many feminists, despises male sexuality, and deeply resent the idea that just ANY man might want to have sex with a woman.  Further, as an alleged male, Hugo feels fully justified in lashing out at these sorry souls because they are, apparently, in dire need of the public humiliation he encourages to be heaped upon them.  They deserve it.  Why?  Because Hugo doesn't believe men have a "right" to have sex.  

"NOT FOR YOU, LOSER!"

That's right.  These men don't deserve to have sex, according to Hugo.  They do deserve to be pilloried in public, humiliated and openly demeaned because they want to have sex but are unclear about how to do that. Reproductive rights are for women, not men, apparently.  The right to express your sexuality and sexual desires is for women.  If men do it, it's "creepy".  Women have all sorts of rights to all sorts of things, from the concrete to the nebulous.  (Excluding, of course, the right to be compelled to die for their country -- let's not get unreasonable, shall we?).    But men don't have a right to have sex.  Especially ugly men with no social skills.  You're a LOSER, and Hugo thinks you should suffer for it.  You, as a dude have NO RIGHT to have sex.

He's technically correct, in most jurisdictions.  A legal "right" is something established by law or moral code, and the "right" for a man to have sex was abolished with the liberalization of divorce laws.  And while Hugo thinks it's perfectly acceptable for people to have all sorts of other rights when it comes to living in our grand post-industrial society, including the right to health care, food, shelter, etc., when it comes to something as basic as reproductive and mating rights for men, Hugo feels outraged that these losers should "expect" sex from a woman . . . just because they are Nice Guys.

Now, he doesn't for a moment stop and criticize the feminist movement for promoting the Nice Guy ideal for four decades -- that would be a lot to expect from Hugo, and it would bite the manly hands that feed him.  Instead he blames the Omegas, because they have penises and want to use them . . . and they've been following the only formula that feminism has permitted the average Beta-And-Below to consider when approaching his mating strategy: Be a Nice Guy and Just Be Yourself.

Obviously, in these cases, the feminist advice didn't work out.  Being a Nice Guy and Being Yourself do not actually count for jack shit in the dating universe, and Hugo admits that.  Admits it?  He revels in it.  If a dude can't be a nice guy and get laid like feminism advised him, it's not feminism's fault.  After all, that would be an attempt at accountability, and that offends feminine sensibilities.  Instead, Hugo blames the Omegas.  Stupid, dumb-ass, ignorant Omegas.

Hugo tempts us into thinking he might actually be considering masculinity in a vaguely positive way here:

What's on offer isn't just an opportunity to snort derisively at the socially awkward; it's a chance to talk about the very real problem of male sexual entitlement.

and it kind of got my hopes up.  WHAT?  A REAL discussion about "male sexual entitlement"?  Or, as the Manosphere prefers to call it, "Modern Male Mating Strategy"?  Even with the feminist-oriented lingo, I was tempted to believe that a real, heartfelt discussion was possible.  

But the "chance to talk" Hugo is excited about is actually the chance for feminists and Deltas to lecture the Omegas (and the rest of us penis-bearing humans) about why they are just sorry sacks of shit who need to just die.

The subtext of virtually all of their profiles, the mournful and the bilious alike, is that these young men feel cheated. Raised to believe in a perverse social/sexual contract that promised access to women's bodies in exchange for rote expressions of kindness, these boys have at least begun to learn that there is no Magic Sex Fairy.

(Of course, he doesn't mention that it was feminism who promoted that "perverse social contract" to begin with, that would be "blaming the victim".  But I digress)

Nice Guys of OkCupid provides an excellent opportunity to reiterate a basic truth: there is no right to have sex.

I'll even concede for the moment that poking self-admitted frustrated young men in their most sensitive psychological spots in front of millions of people isn't automatically a ticket to homicidal rage, just for the sake of argument.  But as infuriating as Hugo's bullying is, he's wrong about one thing.

Yes, Virginia, there IS a Magic Sex Fairy.  It's called Game.  Game gets you laid.

That's what these Omegas and their clueless Beta, Gamma and Delta "losers" need to realize, and Hugo as much as tells them.  But he's such a dickless asshat about it, they probably won't listen to him -- he's really trying to curry favor with his handlers, not actually help out any fellow dudes.  So let me go through his rant and speak directly to these hapless "losers", my fellow men who bought into feminism's lie about how to pursue, court, and seduce women.  

Gentlemen, feminism hates you, with a burning passion, and is encouraging all women to hate you, humiliate you, and lash out at you for being creepy.  "Creepy" means feeling a compelling desire to have sex with someone feminism feels you shouldn't (in this case, a woman).    "Creepy" is Being Yourself when Yourself doesn't cut it with whatever chick is rejecting you.  "Creepy" is being a Nice Guy when, as Hugo tells us over and over again in no uncertain terms, women DO NOT respect, like, or want to fuck Nice Guys.  And just so you don't misunderstand your place in Hugo's universe, 

Sex with other people may be a basic human need, but unlike other needs, it can't be a basic human right. 

Here Hugo is telling you directly: BEING A NICE GUY WILL NOT GET YOU LAID.  AND YOU ARE A SORRY SACK OF SHIT IF YOU CANNOT GET LAID.  THEREFORE, BEING A NICE GUY MAKES YOU A SORRY SACK OF SHIT.  AND NAIVELY EXPECTING YOUR NICENESS TO TRANSLATE INTO ANY FEMALE INTIMATE COMPANIONSHIP MAKES YOU NOT JUST A FOOL, BUT A LEGITIMATE TARGET FOR HUMILIATION AND REVILEMENT, EVEN TO THE POINT OF BREAKAGE.

Because you are a dude.  And under feminism dudes don't count.

Of course, that's assuming that the Sexual Market Place is made up only of non-for-profit pussies.  And it's not.  Especially not in this economy. For every hapless Omega Nice Guy with a job and an erection, there's likely a hooker out there who is more than happy to take his trade.  Hugo doesn't want you to know that, Gentlemen, or else you might actually get pussy, stop being Nice Guys, and stop posting piss-poor profiles on OK Cupid.  Hugo doesn't want that to happen.  He wants you to KEEP being pathetic Nice Guys and proving his point: under feminism it's okay to castigate men for their sexuality without regard to the consequences.

But he doesn't mention prostitution, because that's not "legitimate" pussy.  But the fact is, it's easier than ever for a dude to order in for the evening with a variety of friendly and courteous vendors who are more than happy to trade their affections, gag reflexes, and muscular control for financial remuneration   Hell, most of them won't hate you nearly as much as the women who reject you after locking you perpetually in the friendzone -- they're even inclined to be sympathetic.  Whores are in the business of making guys feel good, and the last thing they want you to feel when they leave is that they hate you.  Feminists, on the other hand, want that to be the absolute first thing that you feel.  If you are an ugly dude with no money, feminists want to make it absolutely clear just how eternally unfuckable you are . . . and how DARE you consider yourself worthy of any vagina on the planet?

Luckily, not all women think this way.  Hookers don't.  Hookers think you're fuckable.  They can even hand you an exact metric of how fuckable you are.  Hookers don't want to keep you in the friendzone, they want to keep you a regular client.  They don't do that by making you feel like shit.  They want to fuck you.

You poor, pathetic Omegas should consider that fact carefully.  Tired of being a celibate and frustrated Nice Guy?  There's one certain way to end it: Using the services of a prostitute makes you visibly exempt from the "Nice Guy" category.  So even if you don't have a RIGHT to get laid, by simply stepping out of the fiction of being a Nice Guy, any dude with a couple of hundred bucks can get his freak on, thanks to Craigslist and the internet.   Why humiliate yourself with scorn and rejection -- and then take the chance of finding your profile on some humiliating website where you can be held up to ridicule by everyone who happens across it -- when you can just stay in, figure out which hooker you want to sample this week, and make the call?  Hugo's tacit endorsement of the cynical use of prostitutes is revealing. 

But being a Nice Guy?  As Hugo demonstrates, women DESPISE THAT.  So, again, for the poor fellows who found themselves on Nice Guys of OK Cupid?  



Hugo has given you permission to let your inner asshole shine. Hugo doesn't consider sex to be one of the "necessities for survival", and he openly scorns you for wanting it -- needing it -- as much as you do.  He tells you that "the hideous and clueless" should be denied sex on general principal -- after all who wants to sleep with the hideous and clueless (note: in case you missed it, that's you.)

See what being a Nice Guy got you labeled by feminism?  Hideous and clueless.

Hugo continues, 

NGOKC reminds us just how many young men are outraged at this reality that attractiveness, charm, and fuckability are not and never can be equally distributed.

First, note the understated tone of gleeful smugness at your predicament -- this is how all feminists feel about you gentlemen, always.  If you smell the faint aroma of irony in Hugo's words, then consider it from the other side: if a dude came out and trashed a whole category of women for their romantic aspirations, they'd be labeled a misogyinst scumbag who hated women, not an "enlightened scion of male feminism".  Hugo can say what he does and treat you the way he is because he and his feminist sisters actively hate you and your desire to have sex, and they have constructed the narrative in such a way that they can bash you with impunity simply because you are male.  And dudes don't count.

But again, Hugo isn't wrong.  He's merely describing a reality of the Sexual Market Place, even though feminists HATE IT when we use such a term for the interplay of males and females seeking to mate and reproduce.  As nasty and bullying (but only for The Greater Good) as Hugo feels about you, he isn't wrong.  He's just kind of a misandrous asshole about it, making the whole thing your fault.  If you're just joining us, get used to it.  Feminists will say just about anything to escape accountability for what they say and do.

But a less insulting way to state Hugo's point is: Being a Nice Guy does not make up for physical, social, or structural shortcomings in the Sexual Market Place, no matter what feminism has falsely informed you.  

THAT'S the golden nugget you should take away from this: feminism's answer to the mating dilemma of "what can a dude do to get laid?", the Nice Guy/Be Yourself strategy, is a BULLSHIT MEME.  It's openly false, and it has been promoted by feminism because it helps weed out the "losers" from their own mating decisions -- any pretense at idealism is them just blowing smoke in your face.  

If a dude is dumb enough to buy into the Nice Guy/Be Yourself strategy, then he's too dumb for them to fuck. And if he has to resort to being a Nice Guy in order to try to get laid, then he's clearly too ugly or creepy to fuck. Only real dicks get laid.  Nice Guys are just there to hold purses while it happens.

You, oh Nice Guys of OK Cupid, are what feminists resort to when they need to feel better about themselves.  No matter how much of a loser they, personally, might be in the dating realm, at least they aren't you.  As long as there is a loser like you to reject, then feminists don't have to face their own woeful inadequacies in the realm of mating.

That's just how they think, gentlemen.  And as much rage as you feel about having been lied to like that, you need to put it away.  Rage does not get you laid very often.  Perhaps only slightly more than being a Nice Guy.  It does little or nothing to make up for your social shortcomings, and it isn't going to improve the effectiveness of your strategy.  

GAME makes up for the physical, social and structural shortcomings in the Sexual Market Place.  GAME gets you laid.  Just about anyone, even you.  And you don't even have to kiss anyone's ass or listen to their boring crap to do it.

Back to Hugo, where he rationalizes bullying, public humiliation and mean-spirited social ostracization of you Omega gentlemen, even though he knows you might be unstable, because -- again -- it's for The Greater Good:

But in the case of Nice Guys of OkCupid, disdain isn't rooted in meanness as much as it is in self-preservation. While only a small percentage of these guys may be prone to imminent violence, virtually all of them insist, in one way or another, that women owe them. Mockery, in this instance, isn't so much about being cruel as it is about publicly rejecting the Nice Guys' sense of entitlement to both sex and sympathy.

"Self-preservation", in this case, doesn't mean literal self-preservation, which might entail Hugo not bashing a bunch of potentially unstable, testosterone-poisoned young men who know how to use the internet and could be this close to a complete breakdown -- no, Hugo doesn't mind goading the desperate with no thought to his own safety and well-being.  Brave of him.  No, Hugo uses "self-preservation" in this context to mean "the preservation of the unfettered right of women and feminists to be hateful to young men because they disagree with their mating strategy and feel better when they creep-shame".  

You see, if Nice Guys really did get laid like feminists have told you they would, then none of that stuff Hugo insists you need to get pussy would matter: physical appearance, social skills and positioning -- sorry, "attractiveness, charm and fuckability".  You could really just be a Nice Guy, be a good listener, and the woman who is the object of your affections would naturally see you as a good mating possibility.

Only we all know that is complete and utter bullshit by now, and even Hugo admits that.  Being a Nice Guy doesn't get you laid.  So stop being a Nice Guy.  Learn Game instead.  Game gets you laid.

Wanna know just how much feminists despise you for being nice?  Let's see what Hugo has to say:

Besides the near-universal sense that they've been unjustly defrauded, the great commonality among these Nice Guys is their contempt for women's non-sexual friendship. They rage about being "friendzoned," and complain about the hours spent listening to women without being given so much as a hand job in return for their investment.

So if you want to get in a chick's pants, stop trying to be friends with her.  Stop listening to her.  Stop treating her like you want to be her friend, because she won't fuck you anyway.  Stop being nice, start being a dick, and learn Game.  

Hugo complains that you Omega gentlemen are just upset that your "ruse" of being nice didn't work.  In essence, he's calling you out for a "tactic" that feminism told you would work, and didn't.  Most of you really do want to be Nice Guys, and are genuinely perplexed about the reaction; Hugo thinks you're all just faking it.

So quit faking it.  Quit even trying to pretend to be Nice to women.  They don't respect it, they don't desire it, and they don't fuck you for being nice.  If you want to get fucked, learn Game.  Game gets you laid.

Still not convinced?  Hugo is so sure that you're a completely miserable waste of humanity that he thinks that you should be humiliated even more for the temerity of wanting to mate.  

...a lonely dickwad is still a dickwad; the fact that these guys are in genuine pain makes them more rather than less likely to mistreat the women they encounter. A rage rooted in anguish is no less dangerous because it comes from the Great Big Sad Place. For that reason alone, we shouldn't make men's pain into women's problem to solve.

So solve your own problem: quit being nice to women.  It's not going to get you laid and it's not even going to get you admired, at most it will get you pitied and used and at the least it's going to get you actively despised.  So deal with your pain constructively: by learning Game and getting pussy.  A lot of pussy.  As much as you can, and then go back for more.  Learn Game and then get pussy like it's on sale.  Learn the intricacies of the Red Pill method of dating, and enter the Arena like the gladiator you are within.  Utterly jettison the false ideology of feminism, which has made it clear that you have negative value, and embrace the pragmatic nature of the Manosphere.  Rethink your mating strategy utterly, or continue to face the shame and humiliation feminism has in store for you.

If you are one of the unfortunate Omegas who got singled out for your shameful desire for human affection and erotic intimacy by Hugo and The Nice Guys of OK Cupid, remember Hugo's key point:



You don't get it handed to you.  But if you can listen to some lame chick's fascinating story about the night of the Twilight premiere for two hours and then get rejected, then you can invest half that time learning Game and get far, far better results.

You have to be far more aggressive, far more assertive, and a WHOLE lot less "nice", and the pussy will start to come.  No one is entitled to have sex.  




You may have to pay for it, lie for it, cheat for it, scheme and scam for it, but you aren't entitled to it.  You may have to change your lifestyle and your life, your mode of dress and your method of approach, but you will be richer for it.  You will have to ditch being a Nice Guy utterly -- so utterly, having female friends is unlikely to be fulfilling in the slightest.  But that's okay -- until you are getting laid regularly, female friends are a luxury, not a necessity.  And after you are getting laid regularly, female friends just complicate things.

The Red Pill observable fact is that you are not entitled to have sex, you have to WIN it.  You have to make a herculean effort and be willing to say and do just about anything.  You have to understand how female sexual psychology works and how to exploit it ruthlessly and utterly to fulfill your own goals.  This is no place for Nice Guys, or just Being Yourself.  That's a loser's game, and in this Arena, losers like that get held up for humiliation on a grand scale.  When it comes to women, you, my poor friends, have no hope against the cunning Alphas in the world . . . or anyone who knows anything about Game.

Hugo is right about that.  You have to win sex.  It's a competition, and as in any competitive endeavor there are winners and losers.  Winners get pussy.  Losers get public humiliation and bullying ridicule by human Manginas like Hugo.  Do you really want to get heckled by a dickwad like Hugo because you can't jettison your childhood dreams of true love and respectful relationships with women?  Or do you want to get laid?  Think about that very carefully.

Because as Hugo also points out, most women aren't going to do shit to help you out, either.  You aren't "their problem".  Your pain isn't worthy of their consideration, and your very existence inspires their contempt.  The intense desire you feel for human companionship and intimate embraces disgusts them and they want to actively punish you for it.  How DARE you not be Mr. Perfect?  NO PUSSY FOR YOU, MR. NICE GUY!

The fact is, Gentlemen, you have been criminally misinformed your entire life about how male-female relations actually work.  Feminism has promoted the ideal of sexual equality while ruthlessly exploiting the hypergamous freedom for women our society provides.  YOU, being merely male, don't count as anything but a steaming pile they can congratulate each other for wiping off of the heel of their sensible pumps.

Being Nice almost never gets you laid, and anecdotal evidence to the contrary is statistically insignificant.  If that sounds too cynical for you, then either invest heavily in honest prostitution, porn, or the priesthood, or STFU.  That's the observable reality of the mating universe: the Sexual Market Place is a competition for mating.  For pussy.  And no one is entitled to pussy.


Game is the roadmap to how you win.  Game gets you laid. Feminism is a guaranteed strategy for male unhappiness and how tolose.

If you take nothing else away from Hugo's screed, then remember that feminism wants to see you humiliated for being a sexual loser, and the Manosphere wants to see you getting pussy like a rock star, no matter what you look like or where you work.  Learn Game, and let the Omega melt away.  Dudes don't count to the ladies of Jezebel  some of whom wish to see everything with an XY chromosome safely neutered or eliminated all together.

But dudes DO count in the Manosphere, and no matter how clueless and misguided you might be, we want to see all of the Betas-and-Below thrive in a land teeming with easily-available pussy for you.  We want you to learn Game, and then go forth and start scoring like a power forward.

What is Game?  In a nutshell, Game is a recently-developed approach to dating, mating, and reproduction that focuses on the observable realities of modern courtship (not the zany and ridiculous ideals promulgated by feminism) with the stated desire to secure a sexual partner through conscious and clever use of evolutionary biology, psychology, and social manipulations   Game is, essentially, the distilled essence of hundreds of committed Pick Up Artists who have rendered the art of panty-dropping to a learnable science.

And being "nice" to women is pretty much the easiest way to fuck that up.  Why?  Ever notice how hot girls never date Nice dudes, but always date complete Dicks?   Game teaches you how to be a complete Dick . . . or at least fake it well enough to get pussy.

NOTE FROM FEMINISM: NICE GUYS DO NOT DESERVE PUSSY!

So, where to start?  For a younger man, read and absorb everything you can from RooshV and Roissy/Chateaue Heartiste.  Add in Rollo Tomossi's Iron Rules, skim Mystery's method, and keep exploring.  For advanced students, consider Athol Kay's Married Man Sex Life and the Private Man's blog, both in the Blog Roll, which dispense invaluable advice for the older man in the dating universe.

The Red Pill is the answer to your problems, Gentlemen, not the humiliation you are receiving at the hands of the likes of Hugo. Get pissed.  Get mad. Get mean.  Stop being nice to women.  Learn Game and get laid.

[Updated: I will be doing an "Ask Me Anything" interview over on TheRedPill subreddit this Wednesday at noon, EST.  So if you have a burning question for me, that is the best place to ask it.  I don't guarantee an answer, a right answer, or the truth, but you can bet it will be entertaining!]

Hate to follow one Jezeblast with another, but I saw this and thought it was brilliant: Formal Fridays.

(If you don't want to give J-Bel traffic, the article basically voices their disgust with a bunch of dudes at Facebook who have turned Casual Friday into Formal Friday -- instead of slobbing out, the guys dress up). Someone even set up a website for superformalfridays, in Manhattan, where well-dressed folks (presumably of both genders) congregate to congratulate each other on just how dapper they look.  And maybe look for a date . . . )



I've been an office warrior for over two decades now, and the fascination that corporate culture has with "casual Fridays" is no less than obsessive.  People will fight for the right to dress down on Friday, to express themselves and relax while they pretend to work.  Just looking at the comments at Jezebel demonstrates how truly appalled the comfortable-shoes crowd is with the idea.

But it's actually Manosphere genius, an act of gender-based guerrilla ontology. If you work in one of those tense office environments where male-female interactions are fraught with the potential shout of sexism or such, and particularly if you are a dude in the minority in your office, consider flouting the Casual Friday code of dishevelment and going the other direction.  Dress like you have a court date, and show up smelling like an aggressive rose.

To get maximum effect, coordinate with as many other guys as you can, without letting any of the office ladies in on the secret.  Be sure not just to dress formally, but to maintain a formal presentation all day long.  Formal greetings, formal salutations, and a strict and absolute adherence to the rules of manners and etiquette.  Speak quietly and formally to them, open doors politely, and otherwise embody the traditional male business ideal to the best of your ability.

It will fucking eat them alive.

Casual Fridays as a concept are embraced by corporate feminism as a means to escape the oppression of female formal office wear.  Heels, nylons, make-up, and all the other feminine accouterments expected of a woman dressed for a professional setting , and the additional layer of social/business matrix rules is, apparently, an affront to feminism and women everywhere.  By going with light or no make-up and jeans and a t-shirt on Fridays, corporate feminism can strike back at the Man who is keeping them down.

So . . . ignore Casual Fridays, and institute a voluntary Formal Friday among the dudes at work.  But just the dudes.  Friday morning, all the men will show up looking like pros, with suits, ties, briefcases and the whole bit.  The women walk in the door sans makeup, in jeans or sweats or other light casual wear, looking like bleary-eyed mommies rolling into daycare in the morning.  If you've seen what happens on Casual Fridays in a lot of places, you know just how disturbing that can be.

Of course they will want to know "what's up?"  Hell, they'll be dying to know.  Wedding?  Funeral?  Court date?  Oh SHIT, are they all INTERVIEWING!?!

But don't say anything beyond "What's wrong with a man wanting to look his best?", throw in a cocky grin, and a confident wiggle of your ass as you walk away.  Under no circumstances should you give them a straight answer. If they try to bust you on it, insist it was pure coincidence.  Put nothing in email -- this is word-of-mouth only.

There are two points to this exercise.

The first is fairly straightforward.  By assuming a formal posture while they assume a casual posture, you have effectively taken the socially dominant presentation, regardless of your actual position relative to a particular woman.  The division director might be four levels over you, but just watch the change in her demeanor as she slouches into the tech room in a stained college sweatshirt and ripped blue jeans and has to ask four smart-looking techs in suits to do something for her.

This has two effects: the first is active resentment by those women who desperately cling to the promise of Casual Fridays as the ONE DAY of the week they can relax and take off their feminine corporate armor . . . and you just bitch-slapped that out of their hands.  Because when the VP goes around handing out paychecks or whatever, and he sees a posse of snappy suits and power ties amid a festering cube farm of ponytail scrunchies and unshaven legs, it's going to get noticed, even if it isn't spoken of.

The second effect is more subtle.  By changing the presentation of the core male group from low Beta to high Alpha in appearance, you have collectively thrown your masculinity out on the table for the positive inspection of every woman in the joint.

Women like guys in suits, thanks to a host of cultural factors involving DHVs and money.  But guys like suits because the basic corporate uniform is both simple and almost universally flattering.  Get a shave, a haircut and slap a suit on any given dude and his Objective SR goes up a half a point, minimum.  Coats and ties can convert a beer belly into "stout" or "sturdy".  Bald heads look better over $500 suits.  Gray hair?  Suits and gray hair were designed to go together.

And ties?  Consider what they're pointing to.

You put a bunch of guys in suits, acting all formal, around a bunch of women in sweats, and there's going to be a reaction.  First, the reaction of the guys: men just feel more powerful and more important in suits. A man in a suit around people who are not dressed to his level feels socially superior, and that gives him more confidence and self-assuredness.  A whole group of men feeling that way, and it's likely to get a little . . . cocky in the office.

Then watch the Female Social Matrix at work in reaction to the unexpected suits: makeup gets hastily applied, hairstyles are quickly and quietly shifted, and body language alters noticeably, even if the complaints about the men in suits on hallowed Casual Friday get loud.  No matter how die-hard the corporate feminist, put her in a group around a bunch of nattily-dressed guys and catty-mouthed women and the FSM kicks in, hard.  Suddenly it's not End Of Year reports and account reconcilliations you're working on, it's High School Prom...and everyone wants to be the popular girl.

The second point to the exercise is more subtle: it is the visible defense of the masculine business model, the one that built this great post-industrial society that allows us luxuries like feminism. Women "invaded" the workforce in large numbers in the 1970s -- before that, business was almost exclusively a man's world.  While First and Second Wave feminists were trying to shoulder into the business world, they had to compete, and the female version of the male business suit -- pantyhose, skirt suit, makeup and heels, the very thing that modern corporate feminists hate -- became the acceptable cognate to the professional suit and tie.

Then Third Wave feminists came along, and suddenly those suits were tangible signs of an oppressive Patriarchy, attempting to bind women's feet and keep them in their place by "requiring" an additional hour or so in preparation time that their stupid male colleagues didn't have to go through every morning, just to please the sexual sensitivities of the men in the office.  Hence Casual Fridays.

By establishing a Formal Friday, you are challenging that idea: that corporate professional dress is inherently oppressive, and any reasonable person in their right mind (and just about every feminist identifies herself as such) would want to flee the shackles of formality to focus on Getting Stuff Done.

Only we all know how much stuff actually gets done on Fridays.  Mostly Facebook and Farmville.

Your wall of suits is a sign of subtextual rebellion, a reclamation of the business suit as a point of masculine pride, not a means of subjugation.  It's you saying "Yeah, we're men, and we're working . . . what the hell are YOU doing?" to the women in the office.  It's a tactic designed to be collectively passive-aggressive toward the wall of estrogen in your office, a way of psyching them out by visibly out-performing them.  Women are heavily appearance-based, and that includes even male appearances.  As much as dudes watch boobs with our periphrial vision, women can determine a man's station in life by a glance at his shoes.  Being in the presence of a formal presentation cannot help but make them squirm.  It will make them nervous and it will make them uncomfortable on the day they revere as the most comfy.  And the fact that none of you are willing to tell them why gives you bonus points: the Friday Solipsism Rodeo!

If five or six guys have a Formal Friday but don't explain themselves, then more than likely female solipsism will leech in to helpfully fill that void.  Nervous, anxious women who don't know what's going on will strive magnificently to try to find an explanation that fits.  And of course they will find all sorts of ways to make themselves the reason.  So if you do try Formal Fridays like this, by the afternoon everyone shut up and pay attention to how the womenfolk react, what they say, and how they will try to find a way to rationalize your behavior in a way that puts themselves as the center of attention.

This can be great fun.  Enjoy it.

Lastly, it is only fitting that a bunch of well-dressed, hard working guys break off after work and go have a few drinks together en masse. Once you've conquered your day, impressed the ladies, pissed off some co-workers, and generally spent your day looking more like a CEO than a WTF, there's nothing better than to stew in the masculinity implicit in a bar.  Work it right and you can all end up looking like an expensive vodka commercial.  It might even segue into some post-work sarging.

There will be consequences, of course.  Prepare for them.  Probably just casual questions at first, or maybe a brief conference with a supervisor to assure them you aren't, indeed, interviewing.  You may even get a busybody from HR asking nosy questions about your strange behavior.  Remember, it was all just a coincidence.  You just want to do your best for the company.  And Casual Fridays are not (usually) mandatory.

But there will be consequences.  They might be subtle, at first, but any time a group of men appears to be keeping a secret together, that fact burrows under the skin of the Female Social Matrix and gets infected in days.  You might just get a lot more attention from some of the ladies in the office -- those who admire you, and those who are pissed off you're ruining Casual Fridays (and when they find out all the dudes are congregating and conspiring over icy cold vodka shots without a female co-worker in sight . . . well, that's just one step and a few million dollars away from a sexist, exclusively-male Gentleman's Club, the bane of feminism's existence.  Grrr!)

Keep up Formal Friday's as a regular thing for a few weeks, and watch the women start to squirm.  It's beautiful psychological warfare, and let's face it: we all like to look good.  It gives us a shot of confidence, a bonus to our appearance and self-image, and the casual attention by strange women that a man in a well-cut suit can gather can't help but put a little more spring into your step.

So consider Formal Fridays this week, Gentlemen, and ponder just how it would go down in your particular situation.  Hell, even if you work for yourself, work from home, or are unemployed, go throw on your suit for a day, just 'cause.  Because a shot of formality is sometimes just what your Alpha needs.





 

Once again we return to that most-popular of topics (ironically enough), the issue of Girl Game.  I'll leave the basics to others, but this is a subject which might appeal to the more adventurous among you ladies, if you're looking for something interesting with which to intrigue your husband.  Pray attend.


Glory Holes, for the innocent and ignorant, are the popular name for the penis-sized holes between booths in adult bookstores -- and they are rarely used for mere peeping.  For decades the Glory Hole has been the staple of the underground Gay community, and even in our enlightened times there are still plenty of men who haunt these places, looking for anonymous relief.

The action is usually oral, but the key point to the fantasy element is the anonymity of the experience.  Not being able to see the mouth on the other side of the wall allows the imagination to run wild. That's why plenty of straight men try these booths out, because, gosh, you can't really know if the mouth on the other side belongs to a man or a woman . . . can you?

Their own Rationalization Hamster takes them through the maze of their subconscious and finds a way to an anonymous blowjob in a squalid and dirty porno palace:  It isn't really cheating.  If no one knows, it never happened.  It's just advanced whacking off, right?   It doesn't mean I'm Gay, really . . . does it? I'm just . . . contributing to the local Gay community.  Yeah, that's it!

(Now, before you ladies freak out and think every trip your dude makes to the video store will lead to illicit, anonymous gay sex, let me assure you that plenty of guys never venture back into the back room - they're just there for the boobie flicks.  On the other hand, if you purchase all of your porn DVDs online, say at a reputable company with over three decades of experience, you can avoid that possibility.  But I digress.)



So why bring up the Glory Hole at all if it's so gay?  Let me explain how you can turn the faint allure of anonymous sex into something you can, possibly, use in your bedroom.

You see, like a lot of things in Gay sexual culture, like the Cosmopolitan, hooking up, and and pastels, straight women can't resist stealing it.  Once certain women found out about the secret Gay stash of endless anonymous penises in the back room of the bookstore, well, some of them went a little crazy.  By the 1990s, you were starting to see couples and even single women sneak into the 24 hour XXX stores to get a midnight snack.

Enough of them, at least, so that my Gay friends grumble that they can't hook up on a Saturday night anymore because the straight dudes congregate around the known pussy -- and if a woman (or good-looking transvestite) walks into a booth, you can bet the line will be as long as she wants it to be.  Instead they meet men who want to be with men on Craigslist and invite them to private glory holes in hotels or at their homes like respectable gentlemen.

But when women did start going into Glory Hole booths, of course the porn cameras were soon to follow.  Glory Hole porn has become a new specialty in the pornoverse.

It's easy to see why -- a girl, a wall, a hole, a penis, cheap movie magic.  Anonymous sex becomes adult entertainment.  And guys loved the fantasy element of glory holes almost as much as MILFs and cheerleaders.  Hot girl on the other side of the wall?  Not knowin' who she's blowin'?  How could that not be hot?

The thing is, your hubby might actually be turned on by the fantasy of anonymity, but that's one of those things he probably doesn't even know how to ask for, even if he knows he wants it.  But enough dudes do that I feel comfortable sharing this tip.

The Set Up

First, you're going to want to prepare an utterly private place where you know you won't be interrupted.  What you want is a closet, a spare room, even just a doorway if possible, across which you can stretch some sort of visual barrier like a blanket or a big piece of cardboard.  If you really want to put some effort into it, and have the space, go to your local hardware store and purchase an 8'x4' sheet of easy-to-cut foam insulation board -- and advanced couples might want to make the whole thing out of wood.

But start with the cheap, easy-to-dispose of stuff first, because if you don't get into this (and Athol says about 70% of the stuff you try won't work for you, and I cannot disagree) it's easier to get rid of cardboard or foam insulation than it is to explain the huge plywood sheet with the suspicious hole in it to the neighbors.

The goal, of course, is to build your own glory hole.  The actual hole is likely less important than the feeling of anonymity.  Once he puts his dick through the hole or slit, his imagination should be utterly reliant on what he feels, not what he sees.  Removing the visual component is the exciting thing, and this is a lot more elaborate than a simple blindfold.  It shows you put some effort into it.

Once you have a decent glory hole set-up prepared, stow it away until one night when you want to treat your husband to something a little . . . special.

After preparing him thoroughly (say, ten solid minutes of kissing to get him worked up good and hard) then grab his hand and pull him to his feet.  Hug him.  Grab Mr. Happy and give him a shake or two.  Put your mouth up to his ear.  Whisper . . .

". . . do you trust me?"

If he says no, well, you have bigger issues.  But he'll probably say yes.  Let's assume he does.

"Then I want you to wait here for exactly three minutes.  Then I want you to come into the living room/dining room/observatory/woodshed.  You'll know what to do then.  I've prepared something a little different tonight."  Give him a final peck, a sexy smile, and wiggle your ass out of the room.

If he's not thanking the gods he married you at that point, again, you got other problems.

Slink away to your pre-prepared "Glory Hole Booth".  Make certain during your prep that you've considered all of the logistics of the situation, first.  That is, have a bottle of water, some lip balm, and any other fun stuff you might need at hand, and do grab a pillow or ottoman -- you might be there a while.

Or, if you do it right . . . maybe not.

In any case, when he finally enters the room, he should see a clear indicator of what he should do, such a cardboard sign that says "INSERT PENIS HERE" or "HUSBANDS ONLY (FORM A LINE)" or "RING BELL AND INSERT COCK FOR SERVICE" or "BLOWJOB VENDING MACHINE" or any other sexy, witty thing you can imagine.

If you have followed my instructions to the letter, and your husband is straight and has even the remotest attraction for you, you're gonna see Mr. Happy poking through the hole in record time.

And this is where it gets fun for you: because he really doesn't know exactly what you have planned.  He doesn't know what to expect, or just how far you've decided to go.  You have successfully captured the mystique and allure of the Glory Hole, and his brain is buzzing at a thousand miles a second.

Some women might think of this move as inherently objectifying.  You're right.  That's the point.  You have entertained your husband's sexual brain as well as his dick. It wasn't about you, personally, it was about you, plural.  You both get to indulge a fantasy at the same time.  Remember that.

Now, back to the dick: you can approach this a couple of different ways.  You can just gobble it down enthusiastically like normal, and he will think it is fucking fantastic -- guaranteed.  That might actually be a good bet, the first time around.  It's an Ironwood rule-of-thumb that you should probably only introduce one new element into your sex play at a time, to fully explore it and appreciate it without distraction.  So start with just the basic Glory Hole Experience, if you're feeling hesitant about his response.

If you want to kick it up a few notches, however . . .

This is your opportunity, too -- you can experiment with your guy's penis in all sorts of silly ways.  If you've usually been too into him to really get into his dick, the disembodied-and-could-actually-be-Daniel-Craig-if-the-light-is-low-enough penis of your husband.  Just listen to what he says and the sounds he makes.  This is your mutual opportunity to experiment.  Revel in it.

Besides the Basic Blowjob, which he's fairly familiar with by this point if you've done your wifely duties appropriately, consider a few of these intriguing variations on the Basic Level:

The Hummer
Hum -- Happy Birthday, Christmas Carols, or just hum some scales or your favorite song while you're doing the deed.  It creates all sorts of startling situations and will be noted.  So hum a merry tune . . . because it's hard to whistle while you work with a dick in your mouth.

The Knob Job
Focus exclusively on the head and the first three inches (if he has at least three inches -- and I hope he does, for your sake), and leave everything else alone for he first fifteen minutes.  Suck hard, suck softly, nibble, but don't go any further down the base until he's begging for it.

The Oily Handy
If you have a cold sore, sinus issues, or any other problems that keep you from being able to deliver a good blow job, a perfectly acceptable substitution is a super-slippery hand job to completion.  Use a good thick commercial lube, hand lotion, massage oil, or other slippery stuff.  And if you want to get really crazy, consider olive oil or room-temperature butter.  But if you want the best all-time long-performing lube combo, according to interviews with hundreds of dedicated masturbators, is Petroleum Jelly (not KY) and a cup of water.  That seems to have the best coefficient of friction, but clean-up is hell since it's not water soluable.  Still, you should be able to find something slick to slip on his dick.

For Intermediate Level:

Good Vibrations
Maybe it's time for hubby to meet your toy collection?  Use your faves on the head, base and shaft -- but avoid the testicles.  The Fellas are a little sensitive.

Glove Love
Some dudes really get off on rubber, and slipping on a pair of gloves (the yellow housework kind or the medical kind) and lubing up your mitts to give your mouth an assist as he's poking through the hole is guaranteed to give him some very unique sensations while he's climbing to paradise.  If rubber isn't his thing, consider trying silk or satin gloves, too.  Or maybe a scarf.

Panty Play
If you start out with the Basic Blowjob, you might consider wearing silk or satin panties while you blow him . . . and then half way through, slip them off and start using them to stroke his shaft and head.  Some dudes can really get off on this, and if their silky enough, that's hard to beat.  Which I suppose is the point.

Now, for ADVANCED Home Glory Hole users, consider some potential suggestions from Uncle Ian's Super-Secret Book Of Mind Blowing Fellatio Tips:

FIRE AND ICE
Warm cocoa and ice water.  Take a sip of one.  Give him thirty seconds.  Take a swallow of the other.  Give him thirty seconds.  Repeat until he promises to have your babies if you finish him off.  NOTE: back off a bit if he gets over-stimulated.  And don't use water any warmer than you'd probably bathe a baby in -- it doesn't take much heat to make your mouth feel REALLY hot.

FUR FUN
Buy a scrap of fake fur, or use a similarly fuzzy or furry object to tickle his johnson until he's moaning.  Change up with a slightly different texture for a few minutes, then go back.  Remove loose hair from mouth afterwards (hey, I never said there wasn't any risk).

HAIR DRYER
Give new meaning to the term "blow job" with a little extra heat on his junk!  Whip out your favorite styling tool and blow your man right.  You might only have a couple of passes before it gets too hot, but it's quite a unique sensation.  But skip the curling iron -- the blow dryer is warm and interesting enough.  Speaking of which . . .

POP ROCKS
'Nuff said.

CAST OF THOUSANDS
This is the perfect time to try to fool him into thinking there is someone other than you behind the glory hole.  Crank up some music to cover any noise, and after you start him off more-or-less as normal, step away for a moment, then return and attack his schlong with an entirely different style.  If you're usually soft and mushy, go hard and fast.  If you're usually heavy on the long strokes, flicker the head instead.

OR, you can actually get someone to help out, if you're into that sort of thing or you accidentally wrecked his car.  But even if you're alone, you should be able to create the illusion of a couple of girls (?) taking turns by simply putting your hair up and changing your style and grip.

 If you really want to freak him out, try wearing a fake mustache and/or beard.  Like I said, advanced users.

The key to this is the novelty of the situation.  You both get the illusion of anonymity (after all, are you SURE that was your husband's dick?) and the endless fantasy implicit in he Glory Hole Experience.  Plus you get bonus Wife Points for instigating, planning, and executing the plan until orgasm.  Dudes LOVE that kind of stuff.  We eat it up.

Where in your marriage would you use this?  Not when things are rocky -- if you and the Missus are having problems, then inserting your penis into some unknown variable isn't necessarily the wisest thing, no matter how sweetly she asks.

But if you are just experiencing the desire for novelty, or you want to impress him with a little experimentation but you don't want to break out the ball-gags and paddles just yet, then the Glory Hole Experience is a great way to inject some fun fantasy into your sex life for the price of a piece of cardboard and a little ingenuity.

If you're concerned about what he's thinking while he's thrusting away through the hole, don't be.  You are over-thinking it and you probably don't really want to know, anyway.  But that's the point: this is an indulgence in sexual fantasy play.  It's not a precursor to ten-guy blow bangs in some funky-smelling dive.

Just relax and enjoy the happy prospect of a cock without a man in sight -- and then tell me you haven't dreamed about what you would do if you had that chance.


Give it a shot, try it out, let me know how it worked out for you.  Professional interest.  Really.

Know a Beta who is on the edge of opening his eyes?  Know a dude in a relationship who would really, really benefit from this blog, but "doesn't do blogs"?  Need a concentrated dose of Ian you can keep on your Kindle?

Announcing the release of the Ironwood Collection of Alpha Moves, Kindle Edition!  Cobbled together from some of my better and more-popular Alpha Moves over the last year, this collection of things you can do to raise your Alpha in your marriage without recourse to a gun show is ideal for the man just starting on his Red Pill journey -- and the women who want them!

Featuring 16 outstanding Alpha Moves you can work into your routine without raising a whip or an eyebrow, see how Ian suggests you inject Alpha into your own daily life!

Includes the edited-for-publication versions of Dude, Got A Minute? and the complete de-construction of the Perfect Red Pill Date in eight chapters, for those of you who may have missed it!  But that's not all . . .

, , , the Ironwood Collection of Alpha Moves includes THREE previously-unpublished Alpha Moves, including:


The Ironwood Collection makes an outstanding gift, a valuable Red Pill reference, or just something funny to read while you're in the can!  And just how much is this slender, 50,000 word tome?  Less than the cost of a pack of smokes!  (Aren't you glad I didn't say "a cup of coffee"?  I hate that).  For a mere $4.99 you can start some poor unfortunate Beta on the road toward Red Pill wisdom and a deeper sense of his own masculinity!  Plus, he'll get laid more and stop whining!  Win-win!

It just went up this morning, so tell your friends, tell your co-workers, just don't tell your angry feminist supervisor or your domineering sister-in-law!

Oh, and I totally threw this together in a week, after getting more requests for this sort of thing than I thought were warranted.  But it doesn't suck.  Promise.

Vox Rox, once again, as he hits on a subject I’ve been eager to explore but, alas, I’ve hesitated to, due to the occasional anti-nerd bias that appears from time to time in the Manosphere. I get enough heat over my hyperbole, and the following is going to seem like crazy sci-fi, not a rational and reasonable prediction of the future.  But since the always-well-respected Vox Day has broached the subject, I can get my nerdy little hands on it without looking like the geeky kid.  Here’s the thing:

The Sexbot threat to feminism is real.




No one wants to admit it, but it’s coming.  Indeed, the only people who recognize it as such are the radical feminists and the radical nerds, and rarely do folks take those groups at face value when they speak.  But they both have it right, sexbots are in our future.  Indeed, they’re closer than you think, and their capacity to seriously screw with the SMP is very, very real.

When you think “sex bot”, you’re probably thinking of the Austin Powers’ version, or perhaps just a solid-core doll with a vibrating twat.  The reality of the situation is this: Japan, the undisputed global leaders in male masturbation technology, are investing literally millions in research into this market.  Why?  Because of the herbivores.

The “herbivores” are the adult males (I hesitate to call them men) in Japanese society who have opted out of the dating-and-mating SMP entirely.  In consideration of the exhausting and complex web of social and financial penalties involved, these men have just . . . given up on women.  When they do look for sexual release they either masturbate or (more rarely) visit a brothel.  They do not, for the most part, mate.

The Herbivores are considered the natural result of post-industrial society, so its within the interests of the Manosphere to pay close attention.  They tend to range from 25-35, and they live simple lives pursuing their hobbies and going to work and . . . that’s it.  You think American women feel entitled?  Japanese “princesses” put them to shame.  Their demands and requirements for a husband are often so grandiose or unrealistic that they have turned-off an entire generation of Japanese men to the very idea of marriage, just at the point where their female contemporaries, themselves working in corporate jobs, are starting to consider it.

"Rebecca" Model, complete cooking/cleaning /fellatio software standard, $9,999.99 Today Only!

But when your day consists of going to work in a cube farm and playing the corporate warrior competing with women all day, apparently it saps your desire to deal with them all night, too.  Instead, these men have turned their backs on emotionally investing in either.  Sure, it sounds like one of those crazy Japanese social stats,  After all, the problem can’t be that bad, can it?  How many of the young men between 25 and 35 have self-identified as Herbivores, and do not actively plan on marrying?

Over 60%.

Ladies, think about that figure for a moment.  Even if you subtract a generous 5-10% for homosexual men, that still means that only half – at most – of men in Japan’s advanced post-industrial society will be available for marriage.  And despite Japan’s unique forms of feminism, that issue has become a very, very big one for Japanese women.

Enter the Japanese sex companies.  Long an important part of international sex culture, the last few decades have seen rapid advances in masturbation technology, including the disposable Tenga “egg” stroker you can buy in a vending machine for those long lunch hours.  Japanese dudes whack it a lot, and that’s big business.  So Japanese firms are preparing for, and feverishly developing, the Sexbot for sale in the near future.

At this point they’re still pretty crude, so you ladies can relax for half a decade.  But by 2018, and certainly by 2020, we’ll see animatronic Sexbots available for purchase that you will not be able to distinguish from a human being more than ten feet away.

Every aspect of the phenomenon is being developed: realistic-feeling skin, realistic-looking eyes, realistic-sounding voice, realistic weight and mass, realistic movements . . . the Japanese are highly detail-oriented.  When you see what they offer in a high-end sex doll now, just imagine what they can do when it’s actually a robot.  The Japanese LOVE robots.  When they build them, they build them like works of art.

"Linda" Model, used, some aftermarket parts, 5 years old, $4,400.00 OBO

The current state-of-the-art is still primitive, but that’s changing rapidly.  By 2020 your Sexbot will be able to walk, talk, see, hear, suck, fuck, give you an endless handjob, take it up her vibrating butt and do stuff no mortal woman can.  You will be able to order them in any style, from African to Asian to European to Latin and beyond, any height, any weight, and you will be able to personalize them to suit your particular fetish.  Advanced models will have changeable bust sizes and other options.  Hair, eyes, and accent?  Standard options.

And just how much will dudes have to shell out to get a perfectly-programmed girlfriend delivered to their door?

About the price of an economy car.  Estimates indicate that the best consumer price-point for a Sexbot is about US$7,000.00 (2013).  Leases will likely be available.  So will financing.  But for the average dude, shelling out that kind of cash for the perfect sexual companion is a no-brainer.

Imagine a dude getting home from work in his single apartment.  His Sexbot has been pre-programmed to start his dinner and have it ready on demand.  She greets him at the door, asks about his day, gets his dinner, and then spends the rest of the evening satisfying him any way he chooses.  With a sophisticated AI (one of the major focuses of the effort) she will be able to converse with you on nearly any topic or stay blissfully silent.  And you don’t even have to ask about how her day went.

After two years, trade her in for a newer, more advanced model.  Repeat as necessary.

It won’t be perfect . . . but it will be good enough for most men.  Our children’s generation will look forward to a whole lot of men (if Japan is any indication, over half) depending on Sexbots for their erotic entertainment over actual human beings.  Even whores.  Because sexbots are safer than prostitutes by any estimation.

And just how are the feminists greeting this miracle, this great liberation of women from the sexual expectations of evil, lusty ol’ mens?

Following the recent Ontario/Canada Roundtable on Gender Equality, the below provisions have been proposed for the new Human-Robot Personal Relationship Act, the first draft of which is currently being finalized.The provisions are specifically meant to target the concerns that were expressed at the roundtable that sexbots will negatively impact the pursuit for gender equality and may unduly emphasize the objectification of women as sexual objects.The suggested provisions fall into the larger framework of regulating the emerging service robot industry that will be governed by the Human-Robot Personal Relationship Act and under the direction of the Ministry of Robots and Artificial Intelligence, to be established in Ontario and other Canadian provinces and territories at the end of next year.

…The use of sexbots in the privacy of one’s home is prohibited, unless otherwise permitted by the Ministry of Robots and Artificial intelligence or a relevant regulating agency as per the criteria outlined in the Human-Robot Personal Relationship Act.

"Jessica" Model, barely used, got as gift last year; $6500.00, non neg.

See?  The feminists don’t want . . . competition.

Vox rightly points out the thinly-veiled, incredibly obvious motivation behind this freakish proposed law: feminists are upset because when dudes can buy a girlfriend for less money than an engagement ring, and then have elective temporary vasectomies to cover their bases for the few times they do end up with a real woman, then the future looks an awful lot like a male paradise and a female hell.

What happens when you’re a woman, you want to be a mom, but not only can’t you find a husband . . . you can’t even find decent sperm?  When in order to conceive, you have to convince a dude to commit to providing you with semen, which he can do only AFTER he consciously gets his vasectomy reversed?  No surprise pregnancies, no one-night-stands gone wrong, suddenly the only way a woman can get pregnant is if she can convince a man to commit to her?  If she can even find one who is interested?

Several feminist groups have maintained that “Control over reproduction is a basic need and a basic right for all women.”  That is, the control of who gets to reproduce, according to feminism, belongs exclusively in the hands of one gender, despite all the braying about “equality”.  But what happens when that just won’t be the case?  What happens in our society when a majority of working women can’t find husbands – or even dates, thanks to the Sexbot craze – and end up working and paying taxes to subsidize other women’s childbearing?  What happens when a dude with superior genetics can start a bidding war on his balls?  What happens when a woman has to ask a man – pretty please – can we have a baby?

The Agricultural Age sex-for-security swap is obsolete – I get that.  Women can make their own money and don’t need us for support anymore.  Great.  Knock yourselves out.  Women are in charge of their own bodies and own reproductive health, according to international treaty, and they can have kids anytime they want.  If they convince a dude to donate.  I’m envisioning a pretty lengthy negotiation and paperwork session before he ever gets to the clinic.

"Samantha" Model, replaced CPU and customized vagina and mouth.  Speaks with Austrailian accent but has seven alternate themes.  $8,800.00, firm.

And I’m also envisioning a whole lot of dudes suddenly asking, in very loud voice, just why the hell they should consent to grant a woman their sperm without a dramatic re-negotiation of the socio-sexual contract?  That’s going to happen anyway, naturally, just as it did with industrialization, the pill, divorce, computers and porn.  The temporary vasectomy is literally just a few years away.  Throw in Sexbots, and suddenly men have reproductive power the likes of which they’ve never dreamed, even at the height of the Agricultural Age.  They will decide when they conceive as a conscious choice, not as a whim of Nature.  Have a bad date with yet-another desperate woman who only wants you for your sperm?  Kandi the Asian 19year old Sexbot will make it all better.

And that’s why feminists are trying to ban them.  Not because they “objectify” women, but because they make women largely redundant to men.  Suddenly the allure of their genitalia will pale in comparison to the outrageous sexual bombshells rolling off of the Kyoto assembly lines.  Indeed, by all practical measurements, Sexbots will actually cure a plethora of social ills: STDs, AIDS, unwanted pregnancy, sexual frustration, loneliness, heartbreak, child sexual exploitation, and more.  Far from making men objectify women . . . it will merely make them ignore them.  Men with Sexbots won’t treat women poorly, because more likely than not, once they have the “perfect” programmed girlfriend at home, there really won’t be any reason to interact with women unless you’re at work.

Indeed, Sexbots are so clearly a boon to men that feminist cannot let them be developed.  Consider the advantages to dudes: Men get a life free from rejection or judgment, the two biggest issues for male sexual psychology.  They can indulge themselves sexually with a Sexbot for years, if they desire, before they decide whether or not they want children.  Male sperm is viable until you’re around 70 (and while frozen sperm only lasts a few years, properly harvested and frozen spermatophores, the cells that create sperm, can be frozen indefinitely), so there really is no rush on fatherhood until you’re damn good and ready.  If ever.

Just imagine a society where any man can get his ashes hauled at any time, in any way, without having to ask a live woman to participate.  Just imagine a society where women can’t get “accidentally” pregnant anymore.  Not only is the impetus to marry absolutely killed, but even the impetus to mix with the opposite sex.  And that’s what is scaring feminists, not the potential for objectification.

Sexbots are coming, and the above-legislation is doomed, even if it passes, to languish in court.  Why?  Because the use of Sexbots is protected under  a number of United Nations Treaties dealing with Reproductive and Sexual Rights:

The Cairo Programme of Action clearly spells out the concept of reproductive rights in Chapter 7 which states in part that such rights "rest on the recognition of the basic right of all couples and individuals to decide freely and responsibly the number, spacing and timing of their children and to have the information and means to do so, and the right to attain the highest standard of reproductive and sexual health. It also includes the right of all to make decisions concerning reproduction free of discrimination, coercion, and violence as expressed in human rights documents."

"Brenda" Model, Like New, some issues with house keeping programming.  Low mileage, great starter bot. $5,550.00

The proposed law, above, would be the state directly impinging on the sexual and reproductive freedom of men.  Because if that law isn’t “discrimination and coercion”, I don’t know what is.  Under UN Treaty, the rights of men and women are essentially interchangeable, so claiming special rights for women (such as the right not to have to compete with an android supermodel who can literally suck the chrome off of a trailer hitch for a husband) is unlikely to withstand legal review.  Further, thanks to NAFTA and other international trade treaties, this law may actually violate Free Trade statutes in addition to other international laws.

Just imagine the result if sex with “realistic” Sexbots is actually made illegal . . . why not just pop an alien head on?  Or a animatronic animal head?  Or just a silvery glass sphere?  That’s the real danger for women when it comes to Sexbots: their ability to be customized in ways no woman would ever consent to.  And just imagine a bunch of feminist attorneys standing up in court trying to distinguish (legally) between a woman’s right to buy a realistic dildo (currently protected under Canada’s generous privacy laws) and a man’s right to buy a realistic pussy . . . that just happens to be attached to a $7000.00 human-shaped carrying case.  Like gun control laws, any regulation that seeks to stop the trade will end up producing variations that allow it to be circumvented.

Can’t have a “realistic” full-body Sexbot?  Then just buy her from the waist down.  And then next year spring for a separate torso and head.  You can use them separately, or together!  Cant’ have a Sexbot that portrays a minor?  Get a really, really small model, and no one knows what happens in your imagination.

Rarely has feminism’s hypocrisy and clear agenda been better on display: women get all the sex toys they want, but when men have the one they want, we can’t be allowed to have it because they don’t like it.  That’s it.  Not that it would “hurt the children”, not that it would “spread disease”, not that it would harm . . . anyone.  Just that it would make them feel bad.  Maybe.  Or at least they think it would, so they want to pre-emptively prohibit the technology that doesn’t even exist yet.

My industry will be fighting this type of law tooth-and-nail, because the profit potential in Sexbots is huge – a hell of a lot better than vibrators.  And feminists will come up with more outrageously blatant rationalizations, sent from on-high by the Great Hamster, to tell us why we can’t have them.  But we all know why.

And it’s coming.

It can’t be stopped.

It can’t be reasoned with.

"Connie" Model, bought for light office duty for three-man office. Can double as a receptionist or a word processor.  Nine different Office Fantasy Programs, standard.  We just got a "Alana", and "Connie" just isn't as satisfying anymore.  $700.00 OBO.

All you can do is accept it.  Because the Japanese are going to build these things, and then the 30 million men in China who have no hope of marriage will buy them like hotcakes, and there’s no way we Americans can let a sweet thing like that slip by us – that would be un-American.

So I, for one, will be welcoming our new Sexbot masters.  It’s going to tighten up the SMP worse than gay liberation did.  And it’s going to make shallow, poor-quality women completely and utterly undatable, and leave them little or no options to reproduce.  And the women who do reproduce will do so only with the permission, consent and acquiescence of men.

One other consequence of the Herbivores that no one is considering?  Think about this: the next generation of Japanese will be the product only of the “Carnivores”, the more manly, aggressive, and sexual men in Japanese society.  The Alphas and High Betas, in other words.  That means that a lot of low-performing mediocrity will be bred out or cultured out.  Which means the 21st century looks pretty good for the Japanese.

Of course, you remember what happened last time things looked good for the Japanese, back in the middle of last century . . .

A friend of mine had a red pill breakthrough I’d like to share.

He’s a nice guy, and a Nice Guy, a Beta (actually, more of a Delta or Gamma, but we’ll use the alpha/beta dichotomy in this instance) in his late 30s who has been in and out of relationships his entire life.  He often makes poor choices when it comes to mate selection, and once he’s in a relationship he loses Alpha at a predictable rate . . . with predictable results.

He’s got a sister, whom he’s somewhat close to, and his sister has a friend – let’s call her Candy – who he’s not particularly close to but who has been a part of his life because she’s his sister’s BFF.  As he explained, she’s flaky as hell and irresponsible about just about everything, can’t seem to keep a man or a job (she’s a dog groomer), and spends her life, well, like a 30 something flaky chick usually does.  She hasn’t hit the Wall yet, apparently, but it’s right around the corner, and she’s got no idea.

Anyway, Candy is about a 7 on a good day, a 6 normally, and is headed for Fiveland on the evening bus.  My friend – let’s call him Mike – is comparable, having recently completed a technical degree and started a new job, as well as working out a bit.  Mike was attracted to Candy once, years ago, but her personality and proximity soon made her a woman to tolerate, not to date.  Besides, as his sisters BFF, she was hands-off.

But Mike is a Nice Guy, and over the years he’s been forced to do all sorts of shit for her out of politeness and filial duty to his sister.  At this point, he can’t stand her much at all, but she’s still under the impression that he’s been harboring a secret crush for all these years.

Last month, Candy apparently broke up with her boyfriend – again – lost her job – again – and had to move out of her apartment – again.  Mike lives over an hour away, within driving distance, but his new job makes it hard for him to go visit his sister often.  He thinks it’s a comfortable distance for kin, but apparently not enough to make him Candy-proof.  She called him up one Saturday morning, and he’d just read something I’d written over coffee, and he was feeling . . . rebellious.

The conversation went something like this – the texts are accurate, but I’m paraphrasing and adding my own interpretation of the phone conversation.  But from what Mike said, this is how it went down:

8:00 text from Candy:  need ur help today
8:05 text from Mike: ?
8:11 text from Candy: need to use ur truck. I need to move out today.

Now, Mike had plans that Saturday.  He’d just gotten his first paycheck that didn’t evaporate into bills, he didn’t have a girlfriend, and he was going to go knock out some errands and play disc golf with a couple of buddies and maybe go out to dinner after.  It wasn’t anything formal, but they were plans.

8:13 text from Mike: I have plans sorry
8:15 text from Candy: cancel them I need u!!!!!!!
8:16 text from Mike: to help u move?  WTF?
8:18 text from Candy: YES!!!!!  Need to be out by tonight.  Thank you!
8:19 text from Mike: I didn’t say id do it
8:21 text from Candy: of course you’ll do it
8:22 text from Mike: no.  good luck.


Now, y’all don’t know Mike.  That ‘no’ was right up there with the ‘no’ Caesar screams at a human for the first time in Rise of the Planet Of The Apes (the original version, of course, although they kept it for the modern one).  It was the first sign of defiance toward a woman I think I’ve ever heard him say.  Ordinarily he would have cancelled his plans, raced over to be the hero, gotten two beers and three slices of pizza and paid for a tank of gas for his trouble.

For Mike to say ‘no’ was profound. He had a moment of clarity, he said.  He realized that she was going to use him for his resources and send him on his way without so much as a peck on the cheek – and for a man about to turn 40, that was suddenly . . . unacceptable to him.

8:25 text from Candy: wht do u mean???
8:26 text from Mike: I am not going to help you today.

(note he spelled it out on purpose to make his point)

8:29 text from Candy: just get over here
8:31 text from Mike: no

Around 8:40 his phone rang.  It was Candy.  He almost let it go to voicemail, but like I said, he was a rebellious Beta, and he was making the most of it.  He wanted to speak to her personally.

“Hello?”

“What the hell is your problem?!?” she asked, angrily.

“What do you mean?”

“Why are you being so stubborn?  I need you!”

“No, you need a moving company.  Or a U-Haul.  But you don’t need me.”

“Mike, you know I can’t afford a U-Haul or a moving company!  I need your truck! That's what friends are for!"

"So when was the last time you helped me out with something?"

There was a long moment of silence.  Then:

"Come on, why are you being like this?”

“Being like what?  I never said I'd help you.  Shit, I didn't even know you were moving.  I have plans.”

“Plans more important than helping me out?”

“They’re plans.  They’re my plans.  Candy . . . look, sorry if it’s a problem for you, but this is my Saturday, and I made plans to do stuff.  This is the first I’ve heard about helping you move, using my truck, or anything.  I don’t want to drop everything and cancel my plans at the drop of a hat.  I don’t want to spend two hours on the road just to help you move.” He was trying to be nice.  Of course, she was extremely understanding.

“I thought you were my friend!”

“Remember just a moment ago, when I asked you what you had ever done for me?  Crickets.  If we had any kind of friendship, you should have been able to think of something.  Shit, why isn’t my sister helping?”

“She is!  She said she’d get you to help!”

“You were misinformed.”

“Mike, you’re being a dick!  Just come help me!  Please?”  (At this point, he said, he was tempted to waver.  He really was.  When a woman says ‘please’ like that, it’s hard for a Beta to say ‘no’.  I’m proud of Mike.  He persevered.)

“Why should I help you, Candy?”

“Because we’re friends!  And friends help each other out!” she pouted.

“So when was the last time you helped me out?” he repeated.

Dead silence.  He let it hang there past the uncomfortable point.  He didn’t budge.  I’m proud.

“I don’t need this shit, Mike.  I don’t know what your problem is, but you’re being a dick and I resent it.”

“So you can’t think of any single thing you’ve done lately – or ever, actually – to help me out.  But you want me to drop everything and help you move again.”

“Well you’ve got the truck!” she said, like it was obvious.

“Yes, I have the truck.  I’m still making payments on it.  Why don’t you have a truck, Candy?”

“You know I can’t afford a car payment on what I make!”

“Sounds like you should have made better career choices.”

“Why are you doing this to me?”

He thought for a moment, and then remembered something I’d said in our last pep talk.
“Candy, are you my girlfriend?”

“What?  What do you mean?  No!”

“Exactly.  And either I’m your boyfriend and I help you move, in which case you’re fucking me, or I’m your girlfriend.  And if I’m your girlfriend, then I’m going to weasel out of helping you move just like my sister.”

“What kind of fucked-up talk is that?”

“Look,” he said, only half-serious – he said he was joking.  “The only way I’d come and help you move today is if you paid for gas, paid for lunch, and then fucked me rotten afterwards.  Are you likely to do that?”

“HELL, no!”

“Then good luck in your future endeavors, Candy.  I’m going to grab a shower.”  Click.

I’m so proud!

But it doesn’t end there.  Mike took a shower, got dressed, and was puttering around, watching television when his sister called.

Now, Mike is fairly close to his sister, but they butt heads frequently, just like every pair of siblings.  He figured there would be some blowback.  When he picked up the phone, it was immediate.

“What the hell are you doing, asshole?”

“Hi, Sis!  What’s up!”

“I just got off the phone with Candy.  She said you were a rude asshole to her.”

“I wasn’t.  I just didn’t do what she wanted me to do.”

“I told her you’d help her move!”

“You didn’t ask me.  I have plans.”

“You can reschedule.  Candy needs us.”

“Oh, so you’re over there helping?”

“No, I don’t have a truck,” she explained, patiently.

“My truck is going to be in use today.  Look, the most I’ll do is let you swap cars with me, but I’m not driving all the way over to ______.  You drive over here, pick up the truck, and we can swap back when you’re done.”

“Why are you being such an asshole about this, Mike?  She said you tried to have sex with her!”

“No, I pointed out that we weren’t having sex, she wasn’t really a friend of mine, and that I really didn’t see any reason why I had to help.”

“Because you’re a nice guy!  Come on, everyone knows how nice you are!”

“Not anymore.”

Silence.

“What happened to you?  Is it a girl or something?”

“No.  Maybe it’s just that I’m tired of being used and even loaned out by the women in my life.  What the hell has Candy done for me – not for you, but for me?”

“She’s my best friend!  I’m your sister!”

“So you go help her.  But a man can either be a boyfriend to a woman or a girlfriend.  If I’m her boyfriend, she’s fucking me and I help her move.  If I’m her girlfriend, then I have plans, better things to do, that sort of thing.”

“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard!  You’ve known Candy for years!”

“And she’s never done jack for me.  Look, if it was you moving, I’d be there.  But it’s not, it’s her.  I don’t even really like her.  So you deal with it, if you have to.  But don’t promise my help for your friends anymore.  That’s rude and disrespectful.”

“What the fuck is wrong with you?  Why are you being this way?”

“I’m tired of being used,” he repeated.  “Hey, if she wants to trade sexual favors for moving help, I’d be open to that.  But I leave here around ten, so if she’s going to act on that, she’d better call soon.”

“You want to screw Candy?” she asked in disbelief.

“I’d consider it in return for services rendered.  Or cash.  But my time and energy are valuable, and you need to start realizing that.”

“Valuable?  What the hell are you doing today that’s so important.”

“I didn’t say it was valuable to you.  But I’m done doing favors for Candy.  And your other friends, too.  I’m either a boyfriend or a girlfriend, and I can only be a boyfriend to one woman at a time.”

“What the fuck happened to you?  You used to be such a nice guy!”

“I woke the fuck up.”  Click.

If you knew Mike, you’d know just how big that was.  It was the first sign of a spine he’d shown in years.  Refusing Candy’s inconsiderate request was pretty big on its own.  Actually hanging up angrily on his big sister was a huge move.  He’s still far from finding his Alpha, but he’s moving in the right direction.  And he wouldn’t have done it if it hadn’t been for the Manosphere.

We’ve all known women like Candy: they’re flaky as hell.  They wait until the last minute, they don’t plan, they don’t follow through, and when things inevitably fall apart they try their best to get other people to clean up their messes.  And during it all not only is this kind of flake not grateful, if things don’t go the way she wants them – even if she’s imposing on the kindness of others – she doesn’t hesitate to throw a hissy cow over it.  She feels entitled to your help because she is just so darn special that she deserves it.

It’s important also to realize the scope of such social entanglements of a particular man.  We talked about this in depth, and Mike realized that he had probably a half-dozen women in this non-sexual “antiharem” that he will run off to the moment they need help, use him, and then send him on his way with little more than “thanks!” and “You’re such a nice guy!”.  I know for a fact all but one of these women has rejected Mike in the past.

There are certain women (and there seem to be a lot of them) who feel compelled to fill the hours of any man they deem “unproductive” by imposing on him for such favors.  Often they will talk a great game about equality and fairness, and then beseech you prettily until you acquiesce to help them with their problems.  Then, if you propose anything more personal, you get a “I just don’t like you in that way” and “I think we should just remain really special friends”.

Which is code for “I don’t want to fuck you”.

So the Betas who find themselves frequently in this embarrassing position need to discover the ability within themselves to stand up and defiantly say ‘no’ to even reasonable requests for a while.  A man doesn’t hesitate to do a friend a favor, but when the “friendship” consists of how much work/time/energy/money a woman can wring out of you, then you’re essentially voluntarily grabbing your ankles and asking for more on every occasion you see them.  “What have you done for me?” is a perfectly acceptable response to the kind of “Can you help me out?” request from one of the Eternally Flaky.

But beyond that, resist allowing your time or energy or money to be determined by the women in your life.  Mike’s sister overstepped her bounds because Mike had been a doormat for so long that she expected him to come running when she called.  Only in this case, she didn’t even call – she just presumed that if Candy would ask Mike, then he would naturally help her out because  he’s such a nice guy, her little brother, and yadda yadda yadda.  I know Mike’s sister vaguely, and she’s a lot more put together than Candy.  But covering that fairly solid core is a thick layer of flaky, and volunteering your little brother for moving duty for a woman who’s not even fucking him or related to him is about the extreme limit of sisterly flakiness.

When called on it, neither woman – the flake, or the vice-flake – would take responsibility for their actions, or even acknowledge the imposition on Mike’s time.  They made his unwillingness to pour his time and energy into a rewardless bottomless pit his problem, as if he had somehow attacked them . . . instead of just saying ‘no’.

He got the blowback, too.  This happened just after Thanksgiving, before the holiday season.  By Christmas time a rumor had spread among his family that he was off his medications or he’d had a crisis or he’d otherwise gone crazy.  But when he showed up for Christmas dinner at his mother’s house – with a date, no less – he looked great.  New job, new place, new clothes, and even a date that didn’t eat with her fingers (I told you he had poor selection criteria . . .)

Mike tells me that his obstinate refusal came up at Christmas dinner, too.  His sister was nasty about it and wouldn’t leave it alone, basically trying to rally her other female relatives (and the men, but mostly the women) into a consensus condemning Mike’s behavior.  It didn’t quite go as planned.

I’m not going to do another cute dialogue here (although I’m sure it would be entertaining) but the long and short of it is that Mike’s mom, while initially siding with his sister, eventually decided that her son was within his rights for refusing to help, even if she’d “brought him up better than that”.  His aunts were ambivalent, but tended to side with his sister.

The men in his family, to a man, thought what Mike did was absolutely fine.  He didn’t even need to apologize.  That sparked a brief argument that led to his elderly widower uncle (didn’t catch the name) loudly proclaiming that “you don’t do crap for a woman anymore unless she’s sucking your dick!” at the Christmas dinner table (Mike’s mom makes some killer egg nog, I know for a fact).

Things calmed down after awhile and everyone got friendly again, but apparently it was pretty tense along the gender line for a while.  Mike didn’t care, and he defended himself so passionately and valiantly that he impressed his date.  Enough to get laid.  Score one for Mike.  And after dinner, his sister sought him out and tried to apologize, sort of.

(She also wanted to see if Mike was serious about fucking Candy, because apparently Candy has always had a crush on Mike – even though she didn’t hesitate to reject him – and his “offer” to swap sex for help moving had intrigued her.  Hmm.  I wonder if him being a dick had anything to do with her new-found respect?  Mike told me that while he was still attracted to Candy, physically, her personality was such a negative that it would likely be a struggle for him to get into it, if it ever was going to happen.  But he’s starting to get it.  He snorted scornfully when I mentioned the possibility and said “Maybe a blowjob.  But after that conversation, I wouldn’t fuck her with a stolen dick”.)

This is what Betas, Gammas, Deltas and Omegas all need to realize: women don’t respect dudes who kiss their ass.  Not enough to fuck them.  To most women (and I do recognize there are exceptions, but women in aggregate) the men in their lives fall into a few distinct categories . . . and the eternally unfuckable-but-still-useful-Beta-dude is one of their favorites.

Why?  Because by making him her bitch when it comes to doing stuff, she’s ‘proving’ that men and women can be ‘just friends’.  She might even be proud enough about it to say it to his face.  And he might be dickless enough to agree that, yes, it was purely the power of her personality and sweetness of character that inspired him to sacrifice his Saturday or shell out some bucks or move heavy objects . . . because he’s such a Nice Guy.  He might even get defensive about it.

But what is actually going on is female exploitation of the good graces of the men in their lives.  For all of their robust talk of equality, even Equity Feminists have this nasty habit of trying to rope the men in their lives who aren’t fucking them or related to them to do their bidding and give up their labor for free.  When the tables are turned and suddenly these dudes need favors, these women seem incredibly unhelpful.

Case in point: Perpetual Beta orbitor (a 6) around a fairly hot-but-shallow co-worker (different division)/acquaintance.  He wanted in her pants super-bad.  He followed her around like a puppy and did all sorts of things for a few weeks until he screwed up the courage to ask her out.  She gave him the ‘we’re just good, very special friends’ speech.  He was crushed, stopped following her around so much, and she didn’t even notice.

Then he has a work function (big holiday party for clients) that he needs to attend, and he needs a dinner date.  It’s expected, and he doesn’t have a girlfriend.  He gets a little desperate.  He eventually thinks of his “good, very special friend”.  He asks her, and even though she isn’t doing anything, she “doesn’t think it would be a good idea”.

He pressed her – he needed this – and she still turns him down, forcing him to go stag to the detriment of his career.  He hadn’t implied anything romantic, nothing sexual, just “will you show up and be female for an evening”, no pressure expressed or implied.  But she turned him down cold because “we don’t want anyone to get the wrong idea”.

That’s code for “I find you utterly unfuckable and only good enough to serve me.”

And that’s what “good, very special friends” means to most women when they say it to a dude: you are my bitch.
The question of whether or not men and women can be friends is an interesting one.  It’s been discussed throughout the Manosphere, and while the extremes both make valid arguments, I tend to fall someplace in the middle.  I do think, under the proper circumstances, men and women can be friends.  But they are the exceptions.  The whole “When Harry Met Sally” discussion on the subject is pretty clear that when men and women try to be friends, sex naturally intrudes no matter what else happens.

What are the exceptions?

Well, if you think you’re a Beta and you’re single, stop doing shit for any woman that isn’t a) directly related to you or b) screwing you without some sort of reciprocal agreement in place.  You may develop one (1) hetero female friend who you are NOT interested in sleeping with, and who is NOT interested in sleeping with you, for the direct purpose of helping get each other laid.  A female wingman can be invaluable, if you know what you’re doing, and you can offer her the same service.  A woman who understands Game is a mighty and dangerous thing . . . but if she’s in your corner, it gives you an edge.

If you are married and you’re a Beta, then start uncoupling the assumption your wife makes that you will do what she wants you to do for her friends without complaint or argument.  You have a filial duty to help your unmarried sister-in-law, your mother, your mother-in-law, and your sister.   If you are feeling especially generous, you can extend an annual favor to be used on behalf of your wife’s BFF as well, as a special favor to her.  MAYBE a female neighbor, if her husband can’t help.  But that’s it.

You will, of course, have to accommodate your wife’s agenda – that’s just part of marriage, and you accept that going in – but the moment she starts volunteering you for stuff without asking your permission, you can have this conversation:

“Honey, can you go help Linda move some stuff around?  She needs you to install a dishwasher.”

“Is she going to have sex with me afterward?”

“WHAT?  NO!”

“Oh.  Then are YOU going to have sex with me afterward?”

“(Insert offended comment along the lines of ‘not if your attitude is like that!’ – but anything other than an enthusiastic and positive response should be responded to thus )”

“Oh.  Then I’m not going to help Linda move some stuff around.”

Expect some blowback or explosion . . . the first time.  Maybe even the second.  But telling your wife you aren’t hers to barter with is worth the grief you’ll get initially.  Eventually she’ll realize that promising your attention, time, energy, or money without consultation or permission is extremely disrespectful to you as a man and her husband, and she needs to change.

Men, married or single, really only have a few classes that they lump the women in their lives into.  Understanding that there are widely varying individual responses to the question, most men tend to divide their female acquaintances into these sorts of groups:

Group A: Women I’m Related To
Group B: Women I’m Fucking
Group C: Women I Want To Fuck But Haven’t Fucked Yet
Group D: Women Who I Don’t Want To Fuck
Group E: Women Who Have Made It Clear I Have No Chance Of Fucking Them.
Group F: Women I Am Institutionally Forbidden From Fucking


The “women I’m just friends with and I’m so totally comfortable with that” group is not represented because it is statistically insignificant.

Feminism argues that men and women can and should be “just friends” without regard to gender or sex.  It is this attitude that has allowed countless feminists to poach other women’s husbands under the guise of “being friends”.  Or exploit the labor and resources of their poor Beta orbiters until they are used up – and with as little reciprocation as possible.  Feminism tries to claim that if we ‘just remove the sexual component’ then male/female friendships would regularly grow and blossom just like male/male and female/female friendships.  But we all know what the practical result is.

The practical result is that for most Red Pill men, women should fall under the following categories:

1)Wife/LT Girlfriend
2)Mother/sister/aunt
3)Lesbian neighbor
4)Wife’s BFF
5)Co-workers and Colleagues

That’s it.

(If you can manage to acquire a lesbian neighbor, I highly recommend it. I have a few, and they have never failed me when I’ve needed a power tool or help on a project.  I’ve been more than happy to reciprocate when my own skillset or specialized tools were required.  The lesbians I know do NOT try to take advantage of me or the other men in the neighborhood.  They always make a polite inquiry, ask my permission, and express their gratitude and their willingness to reciprocate.  And I cannot emphasize enough how much fun it can be talking about the pitfalls of a romantic relationship with a woman with a lesbian.    You think I’m misogynistic?  Some of the lesbians I know make Archie Bunker look like Maud.  Lesbians are in a different class of womanhood altogether.  And your lesbian mileage may vary.  But I digress.)

Any attempt to blur the distinction between the above categories is fraught with peril.  It usually leads to an incremental increase in the requests for your assistance, and it is almost never in your best interest.

So take a page from Mike’s book, Betadudes, and start standing up for yourself.  Your time IS valuable, and it should not be wasted on stuff that isn’t going to help you, unless you’re just insanely altruistic.  Don’t let the women in your life set your agenda – that’s YOUR job.  Until you actually have a ring on your finger and a wife in your bed, your time and energy should be as valuable as any professionals . . . and you shouldn’t let it be  exploited by women who have no respect for you.

Just remember: “You’re Such A Nice Guy” isn’t womanly respect, it’s a condescending pat on the fucking head for a servant who has done as instructed.  And it’s the easiest way to kill any erotic feelings a woman might have for you.  So just stop.  They’ll bitch, sure . . . but wait a month or two.  That’s what Mike did.  After the Candy episode, he saw the other areas in his life where women were setting his agenda and making promises on his behalf.  He put a stop to it, and while plenty of them are mad, a couple of them actually got over it enough to call him and ask him out recently.

I can’t quite call Mike an Alpha now, but he’s left his Delta days behind him.  That’s a sign of hope for the Manosphere as glorious as any rainbow.

Red Pill Wifey, among others, have mentioned the seasonal epidemic known variously as "The Winter Blues", "The Winter Blahs", "Janufeb", or just "Winter - Post Christmas, Pre-Valentines' Day".  Whatever title you choose to give it, the result is the same: Stress, sickness, lack of money, lack of patience, and blown expectations frequently turn this fallow period into a smorgasbord of marital dysfunction.  A very good friend of mine who is a Private Investigator, and whose bread-and-butter are divorce cases, takes every December off . . . because his phone will be ringing off the hook in January.

This winter period can be hard to weather, especially if you have children and other stresses on top of your marriage.  Intimacy seems fleeting as we try to get back into our non-holiday routines.  It's a new year, new semester, new season . . . and every fracking bill in the universe seems to be due.  Stress, stress, stress, and almost none of it from how to hide the huge stacks of cash you're hoarding.  Pity.

Red Pill Wifey brings a particularly poignant observation to bear: among other evils, the stress of Janufeb can encourage a man to focus on the mission of keeping his personal trains running on time that he often doesn't have much time even for sex.  And when the Red Pill wife who has been getting a steadily-increasing diet of dick and loving it suddenly hits a spot where hubby just isn't initiating, the result can be perplexing, at best.

As she says, "I guess I’m feeling his lack of initiation as a rejection."

That made me think.  For dudes, rejection is rejection, because we rarely expect our wives to initiate sex and as Red Pill men we have come to understand that it is our role to initiate the majority of the time.  But for women, who are largely reactive in a sexual relationship, lack of initiation on their husband's part is often considered a form of rejection. That's a subtlety that Red Pill dudes need to remember, but often don't.  But try to see it from her point of view.  You not initiating sex with her is like her going out and spending a car payment on her hair and dress . . . and you not noticing. 

It seems hard for a guy to get through his head, that his wife actually wants him to initiate on a regular, if not predictable, basis.  Many times we think you'd rather skip it, considering how hard it can be to persuade you.  But it's a Red Pill fact that women get horny, and when they are deprived of stimulation, sex, and attention they can get downright cranky. And that's a very, very important factor for a lot of marriages.  

The problem is, especially this time of year, a man feels compelled to apply his nose to the grindstone and redouble his efforts, thanks to post-holiday poverty, guilt, new year's resolutions, and the impending tax deadlines.  With that kind of beginning-of-the-year stress to focus your attention, as much as we'd like to think about sex all the time as per usual, the fact is that the most responsible among us are often the ones most likely to ignore sex . . . and just put off initiating until things are more "convenient".

I'm particularly vulnerable to this, because my birthday is just a few weeks after the holidays.  Usually just before people get paid a paycheck that hasn't already been spent, and long before their tax returns are out. So my birthdays tend to be frugal affairs, usually.  This year was no exception.  And with as much stress (trying to publish 4 books at a time PLUS a day job, daddy duties, and Girl Scout cookies, now) as I'm bearing, as much as I'd love to be taking Mrs. I to Pound Town by the most convenient route, the fact is I just don't have the mental or emotional energy to initiate properly.  

So to work with our circumstances and not against them, Mrs. Ironwood has developed a bit of Girl Game I like to call "Nuking The Site From Orbit", after the famous line from the classic sci-fi horror movie, Aliens ("It's the only way to be sure.").  While a good GFE or other exotic move can put pep into hubby's step, those are targeted, surgical strikes on his libido.  There are times when the carpet-bombing method of sexual satisfaction are actually more helpful.

The process has evolved over the years - the first one was for my 33rd birthday, so she's had some time to refine her technique.  Simply put, on the weekend closest to my birthday, Mrs. I arranges to get the kids out of the house for a weekend, allowing us unlimited and uninhibited use of our home . . . and then she dedicates herself on spending no less than twenty-four hours and no more than forty-eight to getting busy as often as humanly possible.

I mean, you clear your calendar, lock the door, turn off the cellphones and computers, and you just . . . scrump. And then when you're done, you catch your breath, get a drink, maybe do some stretches . . . and then dive right back in. Shower as necessary.  Wardrobe changes as desired.  

This year was no exception, and we were actually broker than usual.  A lobster tail special at the grocery store gave us dinner, but I left the entertainment up to her, and I wasn't disappointed.  For my birthday - I'm 45, pretty much "Peak Ian" -- Mrs. Ironwood did her best to exhaust me sexually.  Over and over again.  In every way that she could think of.  Plus some new ones she came up with on the spot.  She went to it with drive and determination, and displayed an eagerness and enthusiasm that bordered on the frightening occasionally.  But hey, I like to live dangerously.

Mind you, this isn't the sort of thing you can do at the drop of a hat.  You need some preparation, planning, and possibly even some training time.  You should have at least three outfits you don't mind slipping into and out of repeatedly, and a variety of non-standard sexual venues is highly recommended: couch, kitchen, deck, garage, living room, bathroom, pantry, doghouse, wherever.  Get plenty of rest and hide snacks and beverages, lube and toys at strategic spots around the house.

It's always been a big hit with me, especially the year she gave me "30 Days of Joy" (In the spirit of Mrs. Yes at I Will Never Say No, we had sex every day for a full month.  It was a sexual adventure that is certainly blogworthy, but deserves its own post).  This year was no exception - indeed, while it was generally no-frills, it was lustfully executed in a thoroughly delightful manner.

It wasn't until I read Red Pill Wifey's post about her big January chill that it suddenly occurred to me just why Mrs. Ironwood's dedication to my birthday shagging always seems so intense. I realized that our nookie-filled holiday season, culminating with our wedding anniversary, seems to lead to a two-to-three week period of low-sex . . . not because she's not interested, but because we're both too stressed to put the time and energy we usually do into it.  And since I'm the one initiating most of the time, if I slow down it stands to reason that my initiations slow down, too.  And looking back at the records, yeah, that seems to be precisely what happens.  

What's worse is that my attention to my mission -- and away from her -- drives Mrs. Ironwood up the wall with the hornies.  The more aloof I am about sex and our relationship, the more she wants me.  The more I'm focused on something that isn't her vagina, the more she feels compelled to distract me. 

Of course this is the time of year I'm thinking about mortality and legacies and death and life insurance and other depressing shit, so I'm just not initiating spontaneously the way I usually do.

So by the time my birthday rolls around, toward the middle of the month, we've have usually been in a trough.  Because I'm too driven and focused and dedicated to my task to initiate properly, she's too tired, getting out of work while it's dark is always tiring, we're broke, the kids are headed back to school, yadda yadda yadda.  There's always a damn good reason why skipping sex and going straight to bed sounds luxurious, especially on a school night.  When birthday nookie rolls around, Mrs. Ironwood's frustration about the lack of quality humpage is simmering, and heading to a boil.

In retrospect I should have seen it.  January is when she seems to be most experimental with hairstyles and clothing purchases, and in hindsight I can trace that to a sense of insecurity about her appearance brought on by me not humping her leg immediately upon getting home, as per usual.  Her darling little hamster rationalizes my inattentiveness as a disinterest in her, sexually, not as a dedication to a bigger cause.  

She's tried to get my attention in other ways too, I see now.  Conversations about friends (" . . . so do you think she's pretty?"), about our friends' relationships, about the hot dude on Arrow and the mildly disturbing homoerotic discussion about Sam and Dean from Supernatural, all of it utterly escaped my clueless ass . . . until this weekend.

What the Nuke The Site From Orbit move is, for her, is the blanket permission to initiate at will.  With the expectation of righteous birthday sex out there, this sudden erotic blank check felt like a real blank check.  For a change she could quit worrying about whether or not I wanted her, sex, etc. and just do me like she wanted to.  And when she was done, we could do it again a different way, as long as my constitution could stand, and I just had to take it.  It was like a Sadie Hawkins dance for her naughty bits, and I was the only boy in the room.

(As it turns out, I'm still fairly virile.  Let's just say I took seven showers in a twenty-four hour period.  Not bad for an Old Married Guy.)

What I saw as wifely devotion and the desire of a girlfriend to really impress her dude was (in part) actually an erotic shopping spree designed to re-assure her feminine soul that yes, I do indeed plan on spending my declining years shagging her rotten and not chasing 25 year old poon.  See it as Reassurance Sex at a very basic level, something every spouse needs from time to time.  Add in the wonder and excitement she got from feeling compelled to push her erotic envelope in the process, and the result was spectacular.  Downright nuclear.  It was an atomically orgasmic experience for both of us, and was well worth the physical toll and the friction burns.  

Turns out, we might not have the stamina and energy we did in our twenties, but DAMN, are we more creative.  The huge advantage of a long term, monogamous relationship is that familiarity breeds comfort, even if it dulls novelty.  When the goal is freestyle marathon sex, being comfortable enough to do that thing you did once and totally blew her mind without making her freak out is golden.  Knowing that that other thing you did, the one that should never be spoken of again, isn't even on the agenda -- likewise golden.  You know each others' shapes, curves, tickle spots, favorite positions, least favorite positions, lube viscosity, sweet nothings, favorite snacks, smells, strengths, weaknesses, pet peeves, power spots, etc. etc. ad nauseum.  When you've been driving that same stretch for twenty years, you know the way enough to slow down and smell the . . . roses.

And the advantage of Nuking The Site From Orbit is the permission to initiate pretty much any kind of wild or tame sex you ladies would like, with the understanding that you both will keep going until one of you just can't, any more, or the kids come home. It's an endurance contest, toward the end, all pretense of romance and tenderness gone as you push your sexual boundaries.  

So, how do you initiate the Nuclear Option with your aloof and distracted hubby, if you don't have a convenient birthday to exploit?

First, make sure you pick a calendar day that is free from both appointments and expectations. Maybe even fill the spot by making him promise to do something annoying, that he doesn't really want to do, but feels obligated to do.  Then, when he starts fidgeting as the supposed shopping expedition with your mother and sisters approaches, you pounce.

Second, get his attention.  You can do this by the simple expedient of stripping completely naked, walking into the room, grabbing his hand, and saying "change of plans" before dragging him away.  Or you can be a little more elaborate.  If you want to get creative, you can try to slip in something like this:

"Honey?  You remember our shopping trip/colonoscopy/bridal show/brunch with my aunt we had today?  Would you be terribly upset if it didn't happen?  I know you were so looking forward to it.  Hey, let me make it up to you my sucking you off for the next hour."

Or

"Babe?  I hate to break it to you, but our plans totally washed out.  And since the kids are over at Mom's anyway, how about you and me get naked, split a bottle of wine, and spend the rest of the day pulling stray hairs out of our mouths?"

Or, you can take the direct approach:

"Hon, I lied to you and I feel terrible.  Here I told you that I wanted to do ______, but what I really want to do is spend an entire day having nasty sex with you in ways that are illegal in this state.  That's the goal: as much sex as possible until we can't do it anymore.  Really just clean those pipes out, make each other cum until you're spurting sawdust and I'm walking funny, and don't answer the phone or door unless it's an asteroid strike . . . in progress."

Or, there's the other direct approach:

Sit him down, crawl in his lap, kiss him for thirty seconds straight -- even if he's reluctant at first.  Put his hand on your boob, grab his crotch, then shake your head sadly.

"This thing is just too fucking hard.  I'd better nuke the site from orbit.  It's the only way to be sure."  Smile sweetly.  Start undressing him.  Proceed to your favorite foreplay.

Sure, it's simple, but not only does his consent give you permission to ride him hard and put him up wet, the additional 'compulsory' element of the marathon can be an exciting novelty in and of itself.  Some (hope I emphasized that enough) women feel guilty about their responsive desires, especially the ones who respond powerfully to aggressive behavior or who have strong cultural or religious taboos about such things.  They want to feel "forced" into what they're doing to salve their feminine conscience, but feel horrible about it because they feel it encourages bad male behavior and devalues their own sexuality or something like that.  


Having a set period in which the Rules of the Game are the thing that is "forcing" you into having nasty, kinky sex with her husband allows them to escape both the guilt over their submissive desires and the stigma of being a woman who initiates.  If things get uncomfortable, after all, either party can declare an end to the festivities. Just make certain your dude understands this before you get started.  

But the big winner is Mrs. Ironwood.  She certainly notices when I'm not initiating, even when she's in a trough herself.  It can sometimes be infuriating for a dude to hear "Oh, I'm not interested in sex right now . . . but I'm worried about why you don't want to have sex with me".  It's okay to her feminine sensibilities if she doesn't want sex . . . as long as I want it with her.  It doesn't matter as much whether or not we actually have sex, but it does matter whether or not I want to have sex.  

To have a day where she can dispense with both of our immediate desires and fall back on our customary "institutionalized endurance screwing" for fulfillment might seem impersonal . . . but since it falls fairly close to her ovulation date, her body could care less.  

And you'd be amazed just how quickly your penis responds to a gentle caress and a "Relax!  For the next 24 hours you don't have to worry about anything but chafing and dehydration."