Alpha Mail: the awakening

EO belatedly realizes that he has been lied to by the Church:

As a 28 year old Christian man who just now stumbled across the concept of "game," I feel like I've been lead astray. I now look at those that surround me in my local church and see them as the Gamma/Delta men that they are. It's a disappointing thing to see. Since it dawned on me that I wouldn't follow any of them. As for relationships, it's funny to see the same old advice of "just be yourself" or "be that nice Christian doormat." My personal favorite is of course "Just wait for the Lord to reveal the 'perfect one' for you." Since I'm just touching the surface of all this (sadly) I was wondering where one should go next in regards to developing this? I will admit to not caring much for the PUA community since it comes against my beliefs. Sleeping around for instance. I'm not sure if that even matters or not since your view of game isn't at odds with the Christian way of life from what I have been reading.

Honestly I wish I would have found out about this years ago. Would have stopped a cycle of loneliness and anger towards a system I didn't even know existed a long time ago. Thanks for shining a light on a difficult subject.

Churchianity is as evil and far more pernicious than the worst Dark Game played by the most sinister sigma. As EO notes, how can these church-neutered half-men claim to be imitators of Jesus Christ when they are manifestly unworthy of being followed, either by men or by women.

Game is one of the many aspects of the truth, and as such, it is intrinsically a part of the Christian perspective on the fallen world we inhabit. And one need not take my word at face value to accept that Game is far more than pick-up artistry, as the Prophet of the Crimson Arts himself has declared that Game is even more important for relationships than it is for casual sexual gratification.

EO needs to learn to distinguish between the principles of Game and the tactical application of those principles. One can learn the former from even the most pick-up oriented Game theorist while making no use of those applications which are not in keeping with your religious faith. Since even the most secular Game theorists carve out an exception to their definition of ALPHA out of respect for the religious-minded, it should be readily apparent that there is no good reason to dismiss whatever wisdom they possess. Truth is truth, regardless of the source, and after all, it is said that God works in mysterious ways.

Trained to hate

Cracked lists five ways men are trained to hate women:

• We Were Told That Society Owed Us a Hot Girl
• We're Trained from Birth to See You as Decoration
• We Think You're Conspiring With Our Boners to Ruin Us
• We Feel Like Manhood Was Stolen from Us at Some Point
• We Feel Powerless

This is, of course, complete nonsense. The fact that it's written in a breathless "Things We Love This Summer" style remniscent of a women's magazine was the first clue that it might as well have been written by a single, bitter, thirty-something complaining that men hate women because they are intimidated by female strength, intelligence, and overall wonderfulness.

It's interesting that for all the millions of words written by pick-up artists and theorists of Game, no one has ever complained about any of these five factors with the exception of the one about feeling powerless. The five reasons men really do tend to regard women in a negative manner - hate is much too strong a word - are as follows:

• When women refuse to be held accountable for their words and actions.
• When women treat those close to them worse than they treat complete strangers.
• When women cry about being badly treated by men then chase alphas.
• When women hold others to a higher standard than they hold themselves.
• When women advocate legal inequality in the name of sexual equality.

Alpha Mail: obedience and patriarchy

KG asks about paternal ownership:

I was wondering what your perspective is on patriarchy as it relates to the father/daughter relationship. This has become a very personal issue for me in the last couple of years. Ill try to spare you the details, but my father in law believes his children, and especially his daughters are obligated to obey him. Regardless of age, circumstance or physical location (living at home or not). The only exception is if he has "released" them or given them away in marriage. And I do mean literally given, as in property transfer. If not properly given, the daughter is then said to be stolen, and must be returned.

What is your perspective? Is this kind of thing Biblical? Are children required to obey their parents regardless of age or circumstance?

My view is that the father-in-law's perspective is reflective of an ancient Mesopotamian tribal law that is no more valid today than the Roman custom of the paterfamilias who had the legal power to execute any member of his family who disobeyed him. The custom is from the "eastern peoples" of Paddam Aram in northwestern Mesopotamia and although it is described in the Bible, it is not Biblical in the sense of Mosaic Law, much less the New Testament Christian teachings.

While the Bible teaches that a father has a property right in his daughters, it is not an immutable one. Consider Deuteronomy 22:28.

If a man happens to meet a virgin who is not pledged to be married and rapes her and they are discovered, he shall pay her father fifty shekels of silver. He must marry the young woman, for he has violated her. He can never divorce her as long as he lives.

So, clearly KG's father-in-law is wrong, even from a literal Old Testament perspective, as his permission for marriage is not required and even a "stolen" daughter need not be returned so long as compensation is duly paid. Given that a silver shekel is 8 grams of silver, or .257205 troy oz, and silver presently goes for $32.80 an ounce, KG can simply write a check for $425 to the old man and tell him to keep his nose out of his family's business. Or, alternatively, he could simply point out that they are not living in northern Mesopotamia circa 1850 BC.

And no, adults are obviously not required to obey their parents regardless of age or circumstance. One can make a reasonable Biblical case for daughters being required to be obedient to their fathers until they marry, or for sons being required to be obedient until they leave their father's house, (and indeed, one can make a strong secular and practical case as well), but in either case, there is a clear Biblical limit to the extent of paternal authority.

Hypergamouse 006

The crude and binary question

Sigrid, who is almost, but not quite, credentialed, tries to get an early start on waving her credentials around at Susan's place:

Your argument(s) (and I use “argument” loosely) about female promiscuity and its correlation to a litany of negative individual/societal outcomes notwithstanding, I find your tacit (0r perhaps not so tacit) support of “slut shaming” deeply disturbing. As a PhD student at a large university with two two nieces and one nephew in their first years of college (representative of your primary audience), I cringe that their earnest navigation (whatever that may look like) through the inevitably disorienting and murky terrain of their sexuality and sociality should be so crudely measured on a loaded and psychologically damaging binary of shame vs. exaltation. And I would posit that, indeed, it is the rhetoric and discourse emanating from that binary that exacts the profound negative toll on all of us. To “shame” anyone (although in your case you have a particular penchant for females, it seems) is cruel and counterproductive....

Maybe if I include a photo, you can size me up and further illuminate me on my “spinster” status with some added commentary based on my haircut, fashion sense, posture, or general appearance, in the same way you did my colleague, Extragiraffe, who, far from a “douchebag” or “frat boy,” is a kind and incredibly decent human being, a respected and decorated academic-in-training who is well-read in feminist theory/praxis, and a thoughtful discussant on a range of issues pertaining to gender and sexuality. If I wasn’t already put off by your crude category-building and your amateur sociology, your sophomoric, evasive, and baseless response to my friend solidifies that I will discourage everyone I know (but particularly my nieces and nephew and their peers) from ever taking your web site or its logics seriously.

To which I commented: You’re a maleducated twit, Sigrid. Slinging around that half-baked academy-speak suffices only to demonstrate you don’t understand supply and demand or the burden of debt. It certainly doesn’t cut any ice here. Babbling about “feminist theory/praxis” on this or any Game blog is about as impressive as asserting one’s Keynesian credentials at the Mises Institute. Perhaps if you weren’t so intently posturing on the basis of credentials you don’t even possess yet, you wouldn’t have missed Susan’s core point, which is that due to a surfeit of women being unwilling to man the sexual gates they are biologically charged with keeping, all women are negatively affected by the consequent changes in the sexual marketplace regardless of their behavior.

Your status as a spinster is obviously the result of a combination of your own decisions and your environment since everyone’s status always has been. Susan has merely provided the service of pointing out the potential consequences of the former while commenting upon the observable changes in the latter. And it’s worth pointing out that “the earnest navigation” of your nieces and nephews, as well as your own, will be judged in the same crude and binary manner as everyone else’s. To fuck or to not fuck, that is the initial question, followed eventually, in some cases, by commit or not commit. And no appeal to “the inevitably disorienting and murky terrain of their sexuality and sociality” is ever going to change that stark reality.

The herpes simplex virus doesn’t give a damn about the earnestness of one’s navigation. Nor does a future prospective husband or wife. And absolutely no one gives a damn about your almost-degree. As a kind and incredibly decent human being, I will, out of the angelic goodness of my astonishingly generous heart, favor you with a suggestion that may help prevent you from being perceived as the usual academic ass: anytime you begin writing a sentence with the word “As” that refers to yourself in any way, shape, or form, stop immediately and write something that might at least have a remote chance of being relevant instead.

Sweet Oxford and Cambridge, but how I despise academics in the larval stage. Not that I'm loath to kick around the odd professor here and there, when necessary, but as a general rule, even the most obnoxious academics can't compete with the pretentious poses being struck by the useless grubs still in the process of working on their PhDs.

A triumph of the will

Susan talks with a college woman who has been hooking up stupid and is now attempting to kick the habit:

Recently, I was talking with Emileigh, a female college student who’s gotten into the habit of hooking up at school. Freshman year she had a regular hookup that eventually turned into an official relationship, though it was fraught with drama and suspicion of his cheating. Looking back on it, she said, “I know he didn’t love me.”

When that relationship burned and crashed over the summer, she returned to school figuring she’d follow the same path. This wasn’t entirely insensible – hooking up is the pathway to relationships in college, though it happens only 12% of the time. (Hayes, Allison, McManus, Brian and Paul, 2000). Two and a half years later, she’s had many hookups, none of which made it to the relationship stage this time around. She’s a senior now and feels miserable about it. I asked her why she kept doing it. Her answer had several elements.

Guys give her attention knowing she hooks up on the reg.
The girls who don’t hook up get zero attention from guys, which she fears would be even worse.
Her number has gotten so high she doesn’t see why it matters anymore. :(
It’s awkward to say no.

Regarding that last point, 12% of women say that it is sometimes easier to have sex with a guy they don’t know than to make conversation (Glenn, Norval and Marquardt, Elizabeth, 2001).

Emileigh was clearly wrestling with the fact that she’d become one of the most promiscuous girls on campus. Hooking up was a habit, and she no longer gave any thought to the decision before making it. She had forfeited her power to reflect, ponder and choose. She feels terrible about her choices – she was very upset while telling me this – and she wants to stop. She’s not sure how.

The problem is that one only ever stops by stopping. There are any number of various psychological tricks one can attempt to play upon oneself, but in the end, one has to simply resist that seductive voice of temptation that says: "this makes sense, this is the right way to do it because it feels good, this time it's different and it's going to work." It doesn't matter if one is attempting to break a habit of eating too much, smoking cigarettes, smoking pot, playing Battlefield 3 instead of writing, or engaging in casual sex, unless and until the activity actually stops, it won't stop.

It's a tautology... but tautologies are, by definition, true.

Emileigh's example should serve as a powerful warning to young women who are just reaching the age where they are permitted - wisely or not - to make decisions concerning their sex lives. Her cautionary example will be ignored by those who insist on making their own mistakes, but it is of great potential benefit to those who are intelligent to learn from the mistakes of others. The schadenfreude being expressed by many low-rank men at her expense is misguided, because it is only through the example and testimony of women like Emileigh that a return to more reasonable societal restrictions on female sexuality will take place barring the customary societal, and in this case, possible civilizational, collapse.

Alpha Mail: Sigma spotting

Nate spots the shy and retiring sigma in the wild:

So I spent last week on cruise ship... hokey I know... but hey... the food was awesome and well... SEC spring break girls. Nuff Said. Anyway... during all the fun I came across something a true rarity. I ran into what I conclude is a true sigma in the wild.

Now I know that per game theory I am supposed to have some problem with Sigmas. Of course... I believe Game Theory is still in its infancy... and like so many other assumptions that one is wrong. I am not the least bit concerned about another guy getting a hot chick. God bless him. He's not a threat to me. Regardless... on with the story.

So there are bars all over the ship... and I have found a favorite. Its a bluesy type piano bar with a rowdy piano player that makes elementary school jokes at cute buzzed college girls. It was beautiful. I have 4 bama girls to my left... and to my immediate right are 4 UK girls... two of which can't decide who they want to make out with more... me.. or each other. Two bama girls are solid 9s... two are 8s. One of the UK girls is a 10 sent from Hell itself... two 9s and a 7. There was one other notable girl in the bar... a ginger 10 ... there with her sister...

Wait... what was I talking about? Sorry... the Sigma. Right.

So in walks this like... 350 pound... 6'1" lard ass. Pale as a ghost... introverted as all hell. He sits at the very end of the bar... and is quiet the whole time. He participates in the name that tune contest and such... but only in the most insignificant manner. My initial impression was... omega. Hard core omega... only here on a dare... He seemed shy... down right scared... I felt sorry for the guy.

Because he was so big... he was easy to spot on the ship. I ran into him several times and I remembered his name so I would always make a point to go see him and say hi. He remembered me... and every time met me with a smile and seemed to enjoy talking about the bar and the girls there. He was not what I expected... so I suppose this was the first hint I had that I was trying to jam a square peg into a round hole. Delta maybe?

So then... the third night of the trip... again I am in the piano bar... this time listening to the Bama girls complain about how slutty the UK girls are for making out with each other in public. (The bama girls only did that back in their cabin. cell phone cameras and facebook... you know...) when in walks the big man. And low and behold... he has with him the blonde 9 dressed like a stripper that nobody has ever seen before. And she is clearly.. with him.

Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot.

The Bama girls were mystified and the UK girls seemed genuinely offended.

They hang out for a while... then she leaves and he hangs out longer. He lets her go. Cool as the other side of the pillow. He's not fawning over her. She's fawning over him...and when she tries to lead him... he sends her away. None of the other girls show a ton of interest in him... but a few of them are shooting him glances which he seems totally oblivious too.

So omega, delta, and gamma are all out.... now what?

Later that night at the comedy show it was all tied up nicely with a ribbon and everything. The comedian pointed the Big Man out and asked what the wildest thing he ever did was... and he said "sex in a movie theater." The comedian said.... sure.. ok... respectable but nothing special...

Then Big Man pointed out... it was a Disney Movie.

See?

See... there you have your very own... "no it gets worse" story... Everyone was slightly disturbed. Sigma. All day long and twice on sunday. This is the only time I can think of when I've run into what can be genuinely described as a sigma. All that shyness.. wasn't. It wasn't shyness... it was "I don't give a damn and I still have the hot chick anyway." It was bizarre. I mean we all watch the fat dude with the hot wife in the cartoons and think.. "this is stupid." and yet here it is. Except in this case Big Man wasn't acting like an idiot. He had what many describe as "tight game"... be it adopted or natural.

By the way. A great way to know where you are on the list...

You're in a bar and the piano guy shouts, "everyone kiss the person to your left!" and the person to your left is a single hottie. You...

A) Kiss her.. and the girl next to her too... because he didn't say how far to the left. (this is the alpha answer)

B) Playfully punch her in the arm or hug her (beta answer)

C) Laugh and look awkwardly at her then quickly down at your drink when you make eye contact. (Delta!)

D) Safely at the back of the room alone you roll your eyes and act offended that anyone would suggest such a thing because you are way to cool for these stupid games. (GAMMA!)

E) Going to the bar never crossed your mind. (Omega)

F) You didn't notice because you were getting a bj in the theater during The Little Mermaid (Sigma)

This is precisely the sort of thing I was describing. Because he operates most comfortably and happily outside the social hierarchy, the sigma is at least vaguely unsettling to everyone, from alpha to omega. And that is a form of social domination all its own, and one to which women respond very readily.

The one thing that Nate is missing here is that an alpha isn't bothered by the sigma when the sigma scores a girl, but rather, when he refuses to submit to the alpha's social dominance. In the context he provided, there is no reason why he should have been anything but vastly amused by the sigma. And, of course, the fact that Nate is one of the most Dread of the Ilk tends to indicate that he's a bit more Sigma-friendly than the average alpha.