The alpha addendum

DP sends news of what is apparently an unspoken coda added to some women's marriage vows:

I recently married and should be bathed in newlywed bliss, but a rock star in a famous alternative band wants me to have an affair with him. I’m shocked and thrilled, to say the least. My conscience says, “Are you insane? You love your husband and chose him for a reason. Don’t jeopardize that!” But I’m also hearing “You only live once, and thousands of women wish they had this guy’s attention.”

This sums up female hypergamy in a nutshell. She's just gotten married, but simply because a man whom she only imagines thousands of women want has expressed sexual interest in her, she's genuinely considering attempting to trade up. The thing that is truly twisted about hypergamy is that she probably doesn't even have that much genuine interest in the rock star, she's more interested in being able to tell everyone that a rock star in a famous alternative band wants to have sex with her.

Of course, here is the ideal solution. She tells her husband the guy is sniffing around, they arrange for her to be alone with him for a few minutes, then she texts her husband, who comes in, "discovers" them, and kicks the guy's ass. She gets what she actually wants, the rock star gets what he deserves, and the husband scores some serious dominance points for beating down a sexual alpha. In reality, the husband should probably consider dumping her as soon as he finds out about this - and he probably will since it's clearly not the sort of thing about which she is likely to keep her mouth shut - since if she's this inclined to stray so soon after the wedding, it's only a matter of time before she does.

Dogs are easy

Wives rather less so. Or so it would seem, given Cesar Millan's divorce. JB sends in a guest post:

Men are dogs, women are cats: a $400k lesson for Cesar Millan

Mexican delta (with strong alpha energy, as South American men tend to exhibit in LTRs) marries hot young thing in the old country. Moves to America. Finds success, becomes a fame-powered alpha. However, deeply invests in a basically beta (in Vox's sense) philosophy of social interaction.

Wife gets long in tooth and claw, a combination of America's noxious feminist fumes, middle age, and the carte blanche of US divorce laws. Husband makes rational concessions, moderates alphaness, and eventually goes all the way - adopting a "calm submissive" attitude towards his wife, who becomes the dominant partner. Peace within the pack is restored.

Pysch. Women are cats, not dogs.

As soon as I saw the video of Cesar Millan interacting at home with his wife, explaining his philosophy of calm submission, and read her bug-eyed, tense, fake-happy body language, I knew. It was over. Maybe she would stay with him for the gravy ride, maybe she would dump him and take him for everything; but the vag was now drier than the Sahel. Poor Cesar.

Well, things have taken the course of least resistance, and now Cesar gets to pay $400k plus $23k monthly for his obtuseness.

Shoulda bought a cat.

Christianity 1, Pop Pseudo-science 0. Calm submission is for women, not men. Men want submitted wives. Women don't. They want leaders, whether they consciously realize it or not.

Alpha Mail: cultivating assertiveness

DD asks about how he can become more assertive:

How do you go about cultivating assertiveness with women? I attract a woman, date her a few times and at some point it always comes down to either I make some sort of move (kiss her etc) or it's done. I always feel like I need to ask permission to do so...you know how that ends. I DESPISE this and want to fix it... I just have no idea how.

Let me explain by means of an analogy here. You're in a similar position to the guy who asks how to do a flip off the diving board who is afraid to jump off it. The problem is that no amount of coaching in proper diving technique is going to conquer the fear. The only way to conquer the fear is to be brave, which means doing what frightens you in the full knowledge that you're afraid. Until you have jumped off the board so many times that you become accustomed to it, your fear will prevent you from being able to pull off the flip.

Assertiveness comes naturally to some men, but not to most. So, it's usually a learned behavior, which is good news because it means that you can learn it. The first thing to do is to recognize your fear. When you start to tighten up and your heart begins to beat faster, that's a sign that you've triggered your fear. That's good, that's what you want. That's the point at which you have to simply jump off the board, trusting that the water will be there and that it won't hurt too much.

The great thing is that regardless of how it turns out, good or bad, it's almost never going to be anywhere nearly as bad as you feared. The monster in our imagination is almost always bigger than the real thing. So, test yourself. Each time you start tightening up and the fear begins to swell, do exactly the opposite of what will relieve the pressure. Every time you do this and successfully fight through the fear and act, you will reduce the amount of fear that will appear the next time. It will never disappear entirely, but it will become manageable and easily overcome.

And on a more specific note, never ask permission of a woman who doesn't have a material claim on you. She hasn't merited that right nor can you legitimately lay that responsibility on her. With women, it is almost always more effective to ask forgiveness than permission. And most of the time, since men are supposed to be the pursuers, she's waiting for you to make your move anyhow.

Some women never learn

Keep this woman's story in mind if you're a delta or gamma considering a relationship with a woman who is finally ready to step off the carousel and settle down:

I'm childless at 42 and haunted by the baby I aborted at 18.... The best way to answer the question: ‘Should I have been a teen mother,’ is by asking myself how I would advise a young girl in a similar situation. If my beautiful, bright 17-year-old god-daughter, who longs to work for an economic think-tank, came to me, as I went to Helen all those years ago, and asked what she should do, I would advise her to have an abortion.

This also illustrates why so many women are completely unable to mentor other women. She's haunted by her murderous actions and her childlessness, so naturally, she would tell her god-daughter - and there is no way she "longs" to work at an economic think-tank - to do exactly the same thing that has caused her so much misery. As we see in the Game blogs, men try very hard to prevent young men from making the same mistakes they made in their youth. Women, on the other hand, often urge young women to repeat them as some sort of bizarre rite of passage.

This suggests that many of the women who are finally ready to settle down haven't actually learned anything, they just aren't able to stay in the game anymore.

The training of a Delta

Deti provides an accurate summary of the propaganda to which most of the men of my generation were subjected by every authority figure, male and female alike:

Here’s how I (and a lot of men coming of age in the 1980s) were told how to “find, attract and keep commitment-minded women” by pastors, parents, teachers, Scout leaders, and persons in authority over us (men and women):

“Be nice. Be yourself. If you cannot find or keep a commitment minded woman, it is because you are not being nice enough. If girls are breaking up with you or you can’t get past one date, you are not being nice enough. You have to be nicer.

“When you go on a date, it is your DUTY to pay for EVERYTHING. You are to do what she wants. You are to ask her what she wants and then do that. You are not to do anything that she does not want to do. You are to ask her for permission before doing anything.

“With sex — DON’T. Keep your d**k in your pants. If you want to kiss her, you must ask her first. If you want to hold her hand, you must ask first. You must never, never, NEVER escalate to anything physical unless you ask first. You are not to take anything sexually. You must ask for it.”

“Sex is a Beautiful Experience for a woman. You must never do anything to ruin it for her. You must make sure she orgasms and if she is not it is YOUR FAULT. Women do not like rough, vigorous sex. They like slow, romantic sex with candles and soft music. You must always have sex the way SHE wants to have it.

“Women are always looking for husbands. You are being evaluated all the time for your suitability as a husband. You must show that you are husband material. The way you do that is through immediate investment and commitment. You must go all in immediately on a woman you like.

“You must tell her everything about yourself — your likes, dislikes, hopes, dreams, plans and desires. You must not hesitate to show your emotions, that you are in touch with and understand your emotions, and that you will come to her for emotional support when you need it. Women love that. You must reveal, be an open book so you have no secrets from her. In this way she will know that it is safe for her to show her emotions, and that you have shown the requisite level of commitment to her and her alone.

“Do all this, and the women will be beating down your door to date, marry and have sex with you. Now go forth, be fruitful, and multiply.”

Now, I was fortunate in that authority held no credibility for me ever since my first day of kindergarten, when my teacher complimented me on my "triceratops" name tag. The problem was that it was an allosaurus, and while I could have forgiven her mistaking it for a tyrannosaurus rex, as it was, it was abundantly clear that there was no chance she had anything to teach me. I'm not saying the relentless propaganda didn't have its effect on me, but then, being nice was always somewhat of a struggle anyhow. So, for me, there wasn't so much any taking of the red pill, but rather, seeing my friends gradually come around to my terrible, awful, very bad perspective on intersexual relations.

The question is, will we do better by our sons?

Why credentials are unattractive

It's not the only reason, but even the most skeptical woman should be able to wrap her overeducated mind around the concept:

Between the ages of 18 and 22, Jodi Romine took out $74,000 in student loans to help finance her business-management degree at Kent State University in Ohio. What seemed like a good investment will delay her career, her marriage and decision to have children. Ms. Romine's $900-a-month loan payments eat up 60% of the paycheck she earns as a bank teller in Beaufort, S.C., the best job she could get after graduating in 2008. Her fiancé Dean Hawkins, 31, spends 40% of his paycheck on student loans. They each work more than 60 hours a week. He teaches as well as coaches high-school baseball and football teams, studies in a full-time master's degree program, and moonlights weekends as a server at a restaurant. Ms. Romine, now 26, also works a second job, as a waitress. She is making all her loan payments on time. They can't buy a house, visit their families in Ohio as often as they would like or spend money on dates. Plans to marry or have children are on hold, says Ms. Romine. "I'm just looking for some way to manage my finances."

In other words, the possession of education credentials is increasingly likely to come hand-in-hand with debt, older marriage, and a reduced likelihood of having children. Since men primarily value youth, beauty, and fertility in a mate, and because people seldom advertise the extent to which they are in debt, it shouldn't be too hard to understand why a woman waving around her degree(s) is not merely a turn-off, but a material strike against her. Of course, there is an easy solution for a woman with a degree to neutralize this red flag, and that is by always being careful to point out her lack of student loans whenever her education is discussed.

Young men are noticing

I've written before about how women tend to treat those to whom they are close much worse than they treat complete strangers. This, of course, is one reason why female friendships seldom tend to last as long as male friendships do. I've never quite understood myself why women will make the effort to get all dolled up for the office or a girl's night out, only to swap it all for a bare face and the usual sweatpants when they get home in order to ensconce themselves in front of the television more comfortably.  Of course, it could be worse.  At least she's not out running around in lingerie or a bikini, right?

So is it just attention-mongering? Female competition? Taking the sure thing for granted? It's clearly not "dirty ovulating whore syndrome" as some male pessimists would have it, not when they're getting back at a reasonable hour instead of coming home in the early hours smelling of some other man's aftershave.

I should mention that I got this image from Rollo's blog, but I'm taking it in a different direction than he did with his discussion of how enthusiastic marital sex appears to have recently become a porn niche.

What I'm interested is the way in which the combination of changes in the sexual marketplace and increased exposure to the risks and realities of marriage through the medium appear to be significantly changing young men's objective's concerning marriage. Consider this recent article from the New York Times:

In 1997, about 35 percent of young men and 29 percent of young women said that having a successful marriage was “one of the most important things” in their lives. Today, for some reason, the shares have reversed. These attitudinal changes have occurred alongside a delay in age of first marriage, which is now at a record high.

Fewer than a third of young men, 29 percent, now believe that having a successful marriage is one of the most important things in life. I suspect this is because they see it as being akin to deciding that "riding a unicorn" is your primary objective in life; one is doomed to disappointment in pursuing the nonexistent. The fact that "66 percent of women 18 to 34 years old said that being successful in a high-paying career or profession was “one of the most important things” or “very important” in their lives" compared to 37 percent who now put a similar priority on marriage may also be a factor in the declining interest in marriage among young men.  But it's particularly interesting to see that young women's belief in the desirability of a successful marriage has increased, and I wonder what could be behind that in light of how women are still the driving force in ending most marriages today.