The irrational fear of no

Too many men and women alike are afraid of the word "no". Men are afraid to hear it, and therefore avoid behaving in any manner that might cause them to hear it. Women, on the other hand, are afraid to take responsibility for saying it.

Twenty-five years after I registered for college, we're still searching for an alternative to the stark simplicity of "No."  And unfortunately, there's just no substitute. If you want to "teach men not to rape" -- a formulation that floated around the Internet a lot in the days after the Rolling Stone story was published -- then you need to give them a rule that can be clearly articulated, and followed even if you've had a few.

That's why "no means no" worked so well, even if it wasn't perfect. It's a heuristic that even a guy who's been sucking at the end of a three-story beer funnel can remember and put into practice. The rule obviously needed some refinement, by adding other equally clear rules -- like "if she's stumbling drunk or vomiting, just pretend she said no, because she's not legally capable of consent." But the basic idea, of listening to what the woman is saying, not some super-secret countersignals you might think she is sending, is exactly the sort of rule that we need in the often-confusing, choose-your-own-adventure world of modern sexual mores.

Compare that with "we're in the red zone." What does that mean? It seems to me that a guy can take this one of two ways: either as "no," or as something less than "no," something which means that there's still hope and he should consider asking again in 15 minutes. If it means "less than no, but maybe more than yes," then we haven't fixed things; we've just added another layer of confusion.

But I don't think that's what Dominus is after. I think what she's actually seeking is a way to deliver a definite refusal without having to say the word "no." And being of that same generation of women, one that often goes to absurd lengths to avoid even mild refusals, such as declining to purchase goods or services we don't want, I certainly wish that there were a reliable way to deliver the message without saying the words.

But as millions of time-share owners can attest, there is no substitute for a clear "no."  My generation has spent decades trying to make things sound less unpleasant by coining new words to replace the older, harsh-sounding ones. The result of this "euphemism treadmill," as Steven Pinker has dubbed it, is not that everyone moves to a new, higher plane, free of the old unpleasantness; it's that the new word takes on all the disagreeable connotations of the old one, and then people start looking for a new euphemism.

For women, there is no substitute for the word no. To refuse, you must take responsibility for the refusal. One cannot act without acting, and without an actor there is no action. You cannot be a strong or independent woman without being able to both say no and accept the responsibility intrinsic in doing so.

Remember, the only woman who doesn't need to say no from time to time is the woman who is unwanted and ignored.

And for men, there is no substitute for taking the risk that may lead to you hearing the word "no". It is nothing to be afraid of, and the faster you hear it, the faster you can proceed to other, more promising situations where you will hear "yes".

Bride/First Mate vs Wife/Woman

Rational Male explains the danger in the attitudes behind certain forms of marital address:

Whenever I read or hear a man consistently refer to his wife as his “bride” it alerts me to his Blue Pill state of mind as well as his conditioning. This is a relatively new colloquialism for the Christian set (“christianese”). Generally I hear and read this from Evangelical Christian men because their context (or domain) is one of a self-enforced reverence for their wives. Usually it’s meant to be a not-so-veiled attempt at pedestalizing their wives in casual conversation with people they think will appreciate it (and hopefully earn cookie points with the wife), but what it reveals in my Red Pill lens is a guy who believes his “voluntary” deference to her makes him more respectable to her.

Before you think I’m unfairly highlighting “Christian Beta Game” there is a similar, but more pervasive dynamic in the married-man set of the manosphere. Whenever I read a man (I’ve never heard a guy verbalize this) refer to his wife as the “First Mate” or “First Officer” it similarly sets off the same sensitivity I get with the “brides” men – and for much of the same reasons.

Any man with a cursory experience in the manosphere recognizes this buzz-term from Athol Kay’s Married Man Sex Life. The principle of the term stems from the idea that a husband needs to be the ‘captain’ of his marriage, his family and the director and decision maker of where that unit will go, what their goals are, etc. On the face of it, this male headship positioning stresses what men (and wives) interpret as an old-order conventional complementarity between the sexes.

A strong male leadership role is very appealing to both men and women, and I’ll be the first to cosign the need for a man’s ‘captaincy’ as it were in his marriage and his life in general. This ‘Manning Up’ into a headship of his relationship hits the right buttons for a man predisposed to Beta complacency (not to mention it gives him a faint hope for resolving a sexless marriage), but also for women who are encouraged by the ‘new’ Alpha-ish husband they hope will take the lead (usually from her) and potentially generate the tingles he’s never quite been able to do for her.

Unfortunately, this push for ‘captaincy’ is self-defeated by the equalist-mindset compromise of allaying a woman’s inherent insecurities by giving her assurances that she will be the “first mate” in this new arrangement. Even in a position of instated headship (relinquished or otherwise), men predisposed to an egalitarian equalism still want to ‘play fair’ and offer an appeasement for being allowed to be the head of the home.

Her voice will be heard, her input will be considered, because he just “loves her that much”; this is the self-satisfying rationale for being allowed to direct the course of his marriage and family. The problems inherent in this are rooted in the compromise of his assuming all accountability for the failures of that arrangement while still granting her his magnanimous assurances that he’ll always have her best interests in mind.

I have much the same reaction that Rollo does to those two terms. Even worse, of course, is "Milady" or "My Lady" or "My Better Half" (oh, you rogue!) or "She Who Must Be Obeyed". But the problem with both "Bride" and "First Mate" is that they are terms which are chiefly meant to pedestalize (in the case of "bride") and appease (in the case of "first mate") women. Both are problematic in this regard.

How a man refers to his wife is a surprisingly significant indication of his level of control over the relationship. For example, what would be your reaction to a man who refers to his beaming wife as his "fucktoy"? Sure, you'd find him uncouth and appalling, but that alone would have the women around the happy couple either a) sexually melting or b) physically assaulting him. There would be no doubt at all about who was wearing the pants in that relationship. Better yet, imagine the consternation if she introduced herself as his fucktoy....

The converse is also true.

Men who habitually say "my wife" or "my woman" are intrinsically stronger in relationship terms because they are not concealing the possessive aspect of the male-female relationship. And remember, women desperately want to be possessed. They want to feel owned. Denying them that feeling makes them feel rejected and alone when it doesn't make them feel contempt for the man who does not have the strength to possess them.

Symbols matter. Titles matter. So sit at the head of the table, address your wife as "my wife", not some weaselly construction, and be the master of your house. Your wife will appreciate you all the more for it.

It's not just gamma males

Who don't understand human socio-sexuality:

In her latest Pottermore update, Rowling writes how she's often forced to crush the dreams of fans who nurse strange feelings for Hogwarts's sexiest Slytherin. "Draco remains a person of dubious morality in the seven published books, and I have often had cause to remark on how unnerved I have been by the number of girls who fell for this particular fictional character," she writes. "All this has left me in the unenviable position of pouring cold common sense on ardent readers' daydreams, as I told them, rather severely, that Draco was not concealing a heart of gold under all that sneering and prejudice and that no, he and Harry were not destined to end up best friends."

The more people try to deny the reality of Game, the more they are forced to blind themselves in order to prevent themselves from seeing the obvious. Draco's appeal is not in spite of what Rowling sees as his shortcomings, his appeal is his what she calls his "dubious morality"; to young female readers, all of Harry's life-endangering, world-saving heroics are a boring turn-off in comparison with Draco's alluring arrogance, cruelty, and Aryan superiority complex.

When it comes to sexual attraction, women don't give a damn about saving the world or keeping the lights on. Unless you're a rock star, an actor, or a CEO, no woman wants to have sex with you because of your livelihood or your positive contributions to society.

Sound familiar?

Who does this sound like?

One day, [he] would be jovial and generous; the next, cold and dismissive.... [He] had a reputation for being thin-skinned: “He could have an auditorium full of people applauding him, but if he goes out into the hall and somebody says, ‘You suck,’ it eats him alive. He’s a narcissist, very self-involved.

[T]here’s now concern that the [media platform] as a forum for socially and politically relevant topics—rape culture, queer-positive stories, trans stories, anti-racist stories—provided cover.... "It was obvious to many of us that he was strategically using that kind of sensitive, new-age guy, feminist guy. He was playing the role. He really, really needed a lot of attention."

It's not actually a description of McRapey, but is part of the scandal about the man with whom McRapey was discussing me, former CBC broadcaster Jian Gomeshi. The similarities are more than a little creepy:

At York, Ghomeshi “wanted to be the champion of women’s issues,” says Mitch Blass, a council vice-president. Ghomeshi’s election promises included increasing funding to the Women’s Centre. He spoke out in support of increased safety measures for women on campus, and co-founded a pro-choice network. Under him, YFS boycotted and published names of companies that have “ties to, or engage in racist, sexist, or homophobic activities.”

But then, as in more recent years, it could be hard to separate the politics from personal, less ennobled ambition. Ghomeshi could be a “shameless self-promoter,” says Chris Lawson, who was on staff with the Ontario Federation of Students during Ghomeshi’s presidency, and is now a communications officer with the Public Service Alliance of Canada.

When a man is excessively devoted to being a champion of women's issues, the odds are that he's either a) hiding something or b) trying to atone for his behavior. And if he's the sort of man that other, more masculine men instinctively despise, you can be almost certain that he is hiding major creep tendencies. 

For Alphas Only

One could not find a better description of hypergamy and the Female Imperative in action than this female-designed dating app:

While they have helped thousands find both long-term love and short term flings, dating apps have created almost as many problems as they have solved. From a constant barrage of seedy messages (and pictures) from shady characters, to meeting up with people who clearly took their picture when New Kids On The Block were still in the charts, navigating your way through the world of dating apps can leave you feeling rather sour.

But a new app, created by two women, promises to put an end to these dating woes by putting women in control of the dating scene. Two Cambridge graduates have invented a dating app called Antidate that makes women invisible until THEY decide to make a move. They can also use the app to locate a hot man geographically

Antidate allows women to remain anonymous, entirely unseen by the men in their vicinity until they choose to contact them. Women can look at the profiles of men near their location and decide who is their type while staying completely invisible.

This means they can avoid both creeps and wasting time talking to people who you will never 'click' with.

Look for Antidate 2.0 to arrive in about eighteen months, featuring the ability to complain about those "hot men" who banged a user and moved on as "an immature, misogynistic man-boy with no respect whasoever for strong independent women" and tag them to disqualify them from continuing to use the service.

It's fascinating to see that the female imperative is so engrained in women that they can't recognize the fact that a dating app, by definition, has to be useful for both sexes. Antidate is an appropriate name, as it turns the conventional dating mechanic on its head and puts the entire onus for pursuit on women.

And "dating app" is really a misnomer. This is nothing more than a harem app for high-status men.

The rank of writers

See if you can correctly identify the average socio-sexual rank of writers on the basis of this advice from Neil Gaiman:

Mister Gaiman, you’re kickass. I was just wondering, what do you think is the best way to seduce a writer? I figured your answer would be pretty spectacular.

In my experience, writers tend to be really good at the inside of their own heads and imaginary people, and a lot less good at the stuff going on outside, which means that quite often if you flirt with us we will completely fail to notice, leaving everybody involved slightly uncomfortable and more than slightly unlaid.

So I would suggest that any attempted seduction of a writer would probably go a great deal easier for all parties if you sent them a cheerful note saying “YOU ARE INVITED TO A SEDUCTION: Please come to dinner on Friday Night. Wear the kind of clothes you would like to be seduced in.”

If you said "Gamma" you are correct. The weird thing about Gamma males is that for all their obsession with romance - one reliable tell is that when they do have a wife or girlfriend, they refer to her as "milady" or some similarly ornate construction - they tend to be rather reluctant lovers. I suspect that they are always thinking that any expression of interest in them must be a joke, or perhaps they are reluctant to descend to the dirty, dirty sexual depths of the higher-ranking men they both envy and despise.

But I don't actually know. Perhaps some of the Gammas who read here could explain it. As far as I can tell, it seems to be a magnified version of the normal man's aversion to taking advantage of an excessively drunk girl, only minus the alcohol. I've heard Gammas say they don't want to "take advantage" of perfectly sober, perfectly unincapacitated women, and when, incredulous, I asked them what they were supposedly taking advantage of, the answers ranged from the young woman's emotional state to prospective changes in her geographic location. Incredible.

Of course, we already knew most writers were gamma males on the simple basis of reading their novels, in which no man except the villain ever pursues a woman with sex in mind. The typical protagonist goes about his business with no thought of romance in mind until a beautiful, large-breasted redhead jumps into his bed without any warning whatsoever. After which unanticipated event, they are a couple forever and ever.

Seriously, it's like a window into gamma psychosexuality, to see the same form of relationship described over and over and over again in literature. One could write vast quantities of literary criticism on the basis of socio-sexuality alone. In fact, I believe I will introduce that as a regular feature here.

Who are some of the writers, and what are some of the novels, you would like to see analyzed through a sociosexual perspective?

WARNING: Gaiman's advice should not be heeded if you find yourself attracted to a writer who is either a Sigma or an Omega. In either case, you may well find yourself greeting someone at the door in either a) an animal costume, or b) full leather bondage attire.

No wonder they hate Christmas

Dalrock on the special Hell that is Christmastime for feminists:

As I explained in my first post of the new year, feminists are ugly because they are miserly with love.  But the year is almost over, and as the seasons change so do feminists.  This is the time of year when a feminist’s thoughts turn from resentment of the toil and drudgery of everyday life, to resentment of the toil and drudgery of Christmas.  Jessica Valenti at The Guardian speaks for ugly feminists everywhere with her heart felt Christmas missive "No, I will NOT wrap all the presents. Why are women still responsible for the holiday joy?"

    …jingle bell time aside, it’s a goddamn clusterfuck.

Of course Christmas is a special Hell for feminists. It is the celebration of the triumph of hope, joy, and love over their father, the devil. Christmas is, like the Word whose birth it celebrates, the great divider. As long as a man or a woman loves Christmas, there is hope for him. As long as one's soul, however withered and grey, feels even a modicum of the season's good cheer, there is an ember of joy that is a reflection of the Eternal inside.

Evil and all its servitors and minions hate Christmas because it is a constant reminder that although the night is dark, men are sinful, and the world is fallen, hope and joy remain, in the symbol of the little child in a manger, who is Christ the Lord.

Il verbo si fece carne e venne ad abitare in mezzo a noi.