Men on Strike and the SSH

A video review of Helen Smith's forthcoming Men on Strike, which I'm told contains some discussion of the socio-sexual hierarchy which Dr. Helen references in her book.

Roissy revels in the hate

The Chateau observes an increase in critical hostility:

We here at CH have noticed an uptick lately in game and sexual market denialist hate. The shrillness of the hater crowd has reached fever pitch, and that’s a strong tell that they know their carefully cultivated worldview is coming under attack. Good. There’s nothing like the smell of desperation in the morning.

Here’s a suggestion for the perspiring haters who find themselves scampering into this happy hating ground: First, know that you are up against an enemy the likes of which you have never encountered before. Second, learn to distinguish between is and ought. The Chateau revels in the fun of laying bare the clanking gears of reality and observing the result as the crisis of a thousand consciences unfolds, but that doesn’t necessarily mean we like the world this way, or would want the world, if we had our druthers, to be this way. CH simply gives you the Word; what you do with the Word is your prerogative.

I, too, have noticed a small, but increasing amount of hostility in the comments here, although less from feminists who have largely learned to give the superintelligence a wide berth on the Internet than from white knights, blue pillers, and dubious deltas and gammas.  I suspect this indicates that awareness of Game is on the verge of reaching a new plateau, as the insanity of the extremes to which the Female Imperative is driving institutions and individuals alike is becoming more and more apparent to even the most determinedly myopic men.

It's also worth noting that Roissy et al clearly understand what so many inept critics don't.  Pick-up artistry is merely the tip on the iceberg of Game. The same elements that the pick-up artists utilize are, necessarily, present in all other inter-sexual relations. So not only does it make perfect sense for Game to be of utility in other applications, it is entirely illogical to claim that it is even theoretically possible for Game to be limited to the art of picking up women.

Roissy is underlining something I have repeatedly attempted, with varying degrees of success, to explain to the skeptical: "what you do with the Word is your prerogative".  Game is like gravity, and gravity doesn't care if you use it to launch satellites or smash skulls. It simply exists, and one denies its existence at one's peril.

The Book of Deti

And The Philosopher did labor under the sun, until at last he brought forth a Book, in which the various Tribes of Game and their histories were chronicled, and lo, the Genius looked upon it and saw that it was, if not, strictly-speaking, accurate in all of its details, it was more than a little amusing:

In the beginning was Game. And the game was with the natural alpha, and the Game was alpha. And the natural alphas created the world of pickup, and they saw that it was good.

And they said, “Let us make men in our own image.” And took they some words and swagger and attitude and nuking shit tests, and formed they men; and breathed into their nostrils the breath of cocky-funny, and they created men.

And alpha placed men into the world and told them to dress and keep it; and they did.

And alpha looked upon the men, and said “It is not good for the Men to be alone. I will make him a companion and a helper.” And alpha caused the man to become drunk with wine, and caused him to fall into a deep slumber, and while he was out cold, alpha created women of all shapes and sizes, colors and hair styles. And alpha presented the females to the men, and they said “Whoa, man!” And so this is how women were named, and it is so to this very day.

And the men and the women were together. And alpha looked upon them and said, be fruitful, bang, and multiply. And they did, with great gusto and enthusiasm.

And one day the women were walking in the garden, and a serpent with the face of Betty Friedan slithered up to them, and said; “Did alpha really say to you never to eat the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Feminine Mystique? For he knows that in the day you eat of it, you will become like alpha and men, knowing men and women.”

And the women did eat, and they found that it was pleasant to the taste. And then they offered some to their men; and the men said “but alpha told us never to eat from the Tree. What is this you have done?” And the women said “The Friedanosaurus offered the fruit to me, and I ate, and it was good.” And the men ate.

And then alpha saw the men and said “where are you? what have you done?” And the men answered “We were hiding, because you said not to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Feminine Mystique, But the women, whom you gave to us, they tasted the fruit, and gave it to us, and we also ate.”

And alpha said to the men: “Because of this thing you have done, cursed is the ground you will walk on. You will no longer be able to pass shit tests. You will become beta pussyboys. No longer will you be permitted to tend the world; for the women whom I gave you have taken it from you. Your women will become unhaaaaaaappy and will divorce you or marry you nevermore.”

And to the women alpha said: “From this day on you will be miserably unhappy, for there are none to lead you and tell you no. You will do what is right in your own eyes, and satisfaction you shall never know all the days of your lives.”

This may appear to be a vaguely blasphemous parody, but as Rollo very well knows, there is considerably more truth in it than many readers will likely understand.  While in the scientific sense, Game is the development and testing of hypotheses produced by observing the social and intersexual behavior of men and women, in the spiritual sense, Game is merely the application of Genesis 3:16 and The Curse of Eve.

The evolution of Game

Rollo has an excellent post on the intellectual development and broadening spectrum of Game, as well as some thoughts on its continued evolution:

For all its marginal efforts to shame Game back into obscurity, the feminine imperative found that the Game movement wasn’t being cowed as easily as it might have been in the mid 1990′s. The Imperative was falling back on the reliable tropes and social conventions that had always pushed the masculine back into compliance. At the apex of fem-centrism in the 90′s these social constructs worked well on an isolated, shamed and ignorant masculine imperative, but with the evolution of the internet, by the late 2000′s Game was snowballing into a threat that required new feminine operative conventions.

Game evolved beyond the behavioral sets, and beyond the psychological and sociological mechanics that underlined women’s psyches and larger socializations. While still encompassing all that prior evolution, Game was becoming aware of the larger social meta-scale of the feminine imperative. Game began to move beyond the questions of why women are the way they are, and into piecing together how the intergender acculturations we experience today are what they are. Game asked how did we come to this?

Game branched into specific areas of interest in its scope to answer these broader questions and solve more expansive problems. While we still have all of the prior iterations of Game, we have expanded into christianized Game, married Game, divorced Game, socialized Game, high school Game, etc.

However, underpinning all of these areas of specialization was still the need to internalize and personalize Game in a Man’s life. Game was the path to male re-empowerment; an empowerment that even women today still feel men should Man-back-Up to. Game required a reinterpretation of masculinity towards something positive, beneficial and competent – something entirely apart from the negative, shameful and ridiculous archetypes 60 years of feminization had convinced women and men of. Call it Alpha, call it Positive Masculinity, but Game necessitates the reimagining of the importance of the masculine imperative. Game needs Men to change their minds about themselves.

Needless to say, even in its most positive of contexts, the male re-empowerment that Game led to was a Threat too great for the feminine imperative to allow. Controlling the intrinsic insecurities that the feminine imperative is founded upon has alway depended on men’s ignorance of their true value, and true necessity to women. Men have to remain necessitous to women in order for their insecurity to be insured against, and the feminine imperatives control to be insured of.

This is a very good post because it helps to understand where one has been if one is to figure out where one is going.  This blog is one of the many third-generation Game blogs that addresses only a small aspect of Game, but as I have said many times, we all have our part to play in its continuing development.

While his distinction between Evil Game and Good Game being based on what serves - or at least does not too openly conflict with - the Female Imperative and what does not is a potentially useful one, I do not believe it is a serious problem.  Any attempts to coopt or divert Game that are not in line with the truth will rapidly fail, and make the parts that are legitimate stand out in contrast with it. In the meantime, those efforts will continue to publicize it.

Consider Helen Smith's new book.  She's not a theoretician of Game. She's a woman. And while she specifically makes the case for men's rights per se, not merely as something beneficial to women, she openly admits that she can only be a voice speaking up for men, she is not a male voice.  And yet, Men on Strike contains a section on the socio-sexual hierarchy and will likely do more to bring attention to Alpha Game, and by extension Roissy, Rollo, Dalrock, and other blogs featured here, than anything I've ever done.

The reason there is no cause for concern about cooption is because like Biblical Prophecy, if it doesn't reliably work, it is not Game. Even the transmission of adulterated Good Game is potentially useful because Game is also like a virus.  Very small doses are all that are required to inspire even the most abused, brainwashed male mind to ask that vital question that all of us finally asked ourselves at one point or another: why is the female behavior I am observing so different than what I was told by my mother, taught at my school, and preached at my church?

Once that question is asked, it is only a matter of time before the matrix of the Female Imperative is exposed to the questioner, never again to go unseen.

Game and homo economicus

Rollo brilliantly cuts to the core of what it is to be a man in the most pragmatic sense:

I was recently reading a forum thread I got a link back from and the topic was the timeless classic, “what make a man a man?” The predictable responses were all present: Confidence, Responsibility, Integrity, and all of the other subjectively definable esoteric attributes you’d expect. I thought about this question in terms of the difference in consumer influence of both men and women. I’m not an economist, but I am an ideas guy, and it occurred to me that the nuts and bolts of being a man is to produce more than you consume.

To maintain a wife, children, even a dog, a man must produce more than his consumption. Once you’ve lost that capacity (or never developed it) you are less of a man – you are a burden. You must be provided either by charity or guile, but you’re not producing.

On a limbic level, women’s hypergamy filters for this. You see, while women have the societal option to provide for themselves, there is no onus on her to produce anything more than she herself consumes. For all the fem-centric male professions of how rewarding being a stay-at-home Dad is, what eats away at them is the hindbrain awareness that he is not producing more than he consumes. This is the same awareness etching into a woman’s psyche when she’s the one doing the provisioning.

At the very least, it is a simple and straightforward concept with the potential to considerably clarify the issue.

Alpha Mail: Alpha is relative

In which the metaphorical apple strikes PA on the head, inspiring thoughts of gravity:

Let me quickly tell you how much I appreciate your thoughts at Alpha Game, and how they have profoundly influenced me since I began reading your work and realized, well, that you're spot-on correct, before I get on to personal nonsense. Over a couple of pints today I was meditating on the issue of ALPHAs and concluded (entirely anecdotally; no science involved whatsoever) that ALPHA-ism is both relative and circumstantial.

On "relative", here's what I mean: Within a limited circle of available males, the most ALPHA among them will be the "effective" ALPHA, regardless of his actual socio-sexual standing in the world at large.

An illustration: After high school (during which I was manifestly the most pedestal-worshiping gamma of gammas), I became (largely by accident) the de facto leader of a Christian/churchian youth group. Surrounded by males who were invariably gamma, delta or omega (at best), and in a proscribed circle in which everyone was pairing up and nobody was looking outside the group for partners (because partnership with unbelievers was frowned on and not many other Christian groups were in the immediate area), I was absolutely treated as ALPHA, without having to change my behaviour patterns at all. The eligible girls in the group were in competition with each other to earn my favour and I was surrounded at all times with women. It couldn't have been more different from my high school experience. I hadn't changed, but my competition had.

On "circumstantial", here's what I mean: When a natural beta or gamma is not particularly attracted to a woman and is just using her, he behaves like an ALPHA and is treated like an ALPHA.

An illustration: (I was going to get into my failed marriage here and realized, while entirely on point, talking about my experience would: (a) make me look like a heartless ass, which I was; and (b) demean somebody who was probably far less at fault than I.) Suffice to say that when a man is just looking for sex (or just adulation and an ego boost) and has no real, personal interest in the specific woman he's after apart from his own immediate gratification, he becomes an "effective" ALPHA even if it is not his natural mode. Women get that you can take or leave them at any moment, and respond to that with a willingness to please. Sad but true.

This is all correct.  Roissy has made it clear from the start in observational terms, and it is logically inevitable as well given that socio-sexual status is hierarchical.  This is why all the idea of any chest-pounding about "I am X" is pointless, because where we stand in any given hierarchy completely depends upon the particular hierarchy.

That being said, what defines us is how we rank in our normal daily work, school, and family hierarchies.

That would explain the fantasies

This is a surprising and not-often reported aspect of rape that may, or may not, be related to some basic Game concepts:

This is a topic that has been discussed a great deal in the past with counselors, rape victims and other online forums. It is however still a taboo topic for Survivors to admit.  It is usually thought of as not being PC or polite and people start getting very defensive about it. Well, exploring and trying to find out the truth is not helped by closing one's eyes to things we rather not believe.

I think that the answer to the question as to why do some females orgasm during a sexual assault or rape is that all of the various explanations have some validity, but none of them tell the entire story in the case of every individual victim of the crime. First of all, orgasms in women being raped are not frequent, but they are not uncommon either. In the study you cite, about 5% to 21% of women interviewed in the studies surveyed reported having an orgasm when they were raped.  Researchers have hypothesized that the actual figure is probably a bit higher in reality due to victims being understandably embarrassed both by the rape and by having achieved an orgasm during unwanted, forced sexual relations. Around 20% seems to be a likely, real-word figure.

I think 5 percent would be remarkable.  Around 20 percent seems absolutely astonishing to me, considering that it is estimated that only 30 percent of women climax via intercourse alone.  Now, I very much doubt we'll ever get any reliable scientific data on the phenomenon, although I suppose it is remotely possible, given the current appreciation for EL James's literary adventures combined with the potential for forcibly administered pleasure, that a number of women might agree to be raped in the interest of scientific progress.  It seems even less likely that rapists just happen to regularly target the minority of women who are capable of intercourse-only climax, even though that indicates some women must be more likely to have an orgasm from rape than from consensual sex.

If that is true, this would have some astonishing implications for intersexual relations as well as the apparent reliability of the average woman's capacity for understanding the complicated intricacies of her own sexuality.  It might also explain the otherwise inexplicable popularity of certain SF writers among the female SF/F readership.

The fascinating thing, of course, is the way that those considering the phenomenon are resolutely to avoid the obvious, which is that women respond in a sexually positive manner to male dominance, including violent male dominance.  The idea that some rapists must engage in foreplay only demonstrates the intellectual panic aroused by the statistical observations. That women would respond positively to extreme sexual dominance should be no surprise, as it is very much in line with what Game Theory would logically suggest, and yet it is due to the fact that even the most experienced Game theoretician is steeped in decades of anti-scientific equalitarian propaganda.

Sexual response is a continuum, not a circle.  So, it makes sense that the more extreme the input, the more extreme the output.  Now, for the benefit of the cognitively challenged and the terminally offended, I will trouble to point out that no amount of orgasms can be used to justify rape anymore than an instinctive  mouth-watering response to chocolate justifies force-feeding someone hot fudge sundaes, but it is both gutless and pointless to play ostrich and pretend that the reported phenomenon simply does not happen.

Steel on target!

One has to admire an author who understands her audience so well: His to Dominate 01 - Spanked by the Billionaire by Ava Joy.

I can't help but notice the book isn't called Treated Well by the Nice Man, the first in the hot-and-heaving romance series, A Series of Mutually Respectful Relationships.

Rapey groks no Game

John Scalzi proves he doesn't care what people think about him by writing yet another post explaining his opinion concerning what people think about his position on the socio-sexual hierarchy and why he is not insulted by being identified as a "beta male":

 I would note as a matter of clarification that I think they are less concerned about insulting me than they are reassuring themselves that there is no possible way they could ever be beta males, whatever their definition of ‘beta male’ is. By all indications their definition is something along the lines of “a man who sees women as something other than a mute dispensary of sandwiches and boobies” and/or “a man who does not live in fear of everyone else not continually affirming his internal assessment of personal status,” gussied up in language that allows them not to have to deal with these essential facts of their own nature. But inasmuch as insulting me is part of the mechanism of reassuring themselves, I am offered the insult.

I’m not insulted because, a) I consider the source, b) I don’t mind being seen as someone who does not view women through a tangled bramble of fear, ignorance and desire, c) when I step into a room, I don’t neurotically spend my time tallying up who in the room has higher status than I do, and who doesn’t. I am a grown-up, for God’s sake. Paranoid status anxiety is tiring. Also, you know. I’m pretty happy with my life and who I am, which makes me rather less vulnerable to the presumed snipings of others, particularly those who don’t have any notable participation in my life. Yes, yes, I’m a beta male, the worst of all possible males. Fine. Moving along.

While John is a BETA by Roissy's binary sexual hierarchy, he is a delta with strong gamma tendencies in the socio-sexual hierarchy.  But Rapey McRaperson shouldn't be insulted by being identified as a low delta for the obvious reason that it isn't an insult.  It is merely an observation of his behavioral tendencies and an identification of his place on the normal human hierarchy.  And since John isn't merely comfortable with, but proud of, his passive-aggressive snarkiness, his suppliant behavior towards women, his white knighting, his discomfort with traditional masculinity and his lack of confidence in his own right to define himself, it would be all but impossible for him to consider such an accurate identification as an insult.

John is, by his own admission, happy with his life.  I think he's done very well for someone with his various handicaps.  It is not at all a bad thing for anyone that the low deltas and gammas of the world can find mates, find satisfaction in their lives, and procreate.  Civilization depends upon it.  However, it is deeply unfortunate that John is using his success to tear down civilization and support the very forces that will render future men of his rank miserable.  By constantly pushing for feminism and "equality", John is promoting a future where more men are raised in fatherless poverty like he was, only they will not get the support from the more stable elements of society to lift them out of it that he did because people like John and his readership are actively attacking those traditional elements and attempting to eliminate them, or at the very least, reduce their societal influence.  Like an ungrateful dog, John is biting the hand that fed him.

Like most men with no Game, natural or otherwise, John doesn't understand any of it.  The idea that any ALPHA fears and doesn't understand women is risible on its face.  We don't fear women in the slightest and we understand them so well that we have to overcome the instinctive habit of making use of them whenever and wherever it pleases us.  John doesn't understand that in the world he is promoting, the alphas and sigmas will maintain actual harems instead of the virtual ones we now possess, and the low deltas and gammas will be forced to go without entirely, as only omegas now do, because the elimination of the traditional strictures on female desire permits women to pursue their natural inclinations, which has never, in the entire history of Man, been to have sex with short, chubby, feminized men of low social rank.

But his biggest failure of understanding concerns the purpose of men like me and others in the androsphere.  John is again projecting his own status anxiety and other-focused mindset in asserting that anyone is attempting to bolster their own Alpha credentials by insulting him.  It is social and sexual dominance that makes a man ALPHA, not the metaphorical dunking of John's head in the Internet toilet.  Given that John is himself, contextually speaking, a lesser alpha in the SFWA community, and considering that he could no doubt exert an amount of sexual dominance over the women of that, shall we say, differently-attractive, group if he wished, he really shouldn't have too much trouble grasping the basic group dynamics involved.  Alphas need no more reassurance of their rank than to walk into a room containing women, just as John doesn't need any more reminder of his position in the SFWA than to simply show up at a science fiction convention.

Men and women alike are better off when they have an understanding of the male socio-sexual hierarchy and their current place within it, or in relation to it.  John's rank, my rank, and any other individual's rank, for that matter, is wholly irrelevant except in that they happen to provide concrete and observable examples which may help people better understand the concepts involved.

Alpha Mail: Game and female development

A woman named KT presents a rather ironic request:

What the hell is Game?  You are so dead spot on regarding a variety of subjects, I can't help but think you might know something about relationships as well, but I simply fail to understand how the information at the Game blog promotes marriage.  Granted, the blog is not geared towards women and our unique set of problems, but I still don't think I understand men or the male/female dynamic any more today than I did 6 months ago.  As a recovering feminist, vegan, radical environmentalist, Dead Head, I feel like I missed a MAJOR part of my development as a woman, and hence my personal life has been tweaked slightly as a result, but I still don't know how exactly. 

Again, I know the blog is geared towards men, but if ever you or Spacebunny feel the urge to address what you perceive as some of the consequences of modernity on the female psyche, and how that makes us deficient as a spouse, the information might be useful to more than just me.  The area I (and probably other females as well) still struggle with is how these nutty ideologies have warped our ability to relate to men in a meaningful and fulfilling way.  I should be the one perhaps to give the advice, having lived through such lunacy, but I never really had a normal model to begin with, so I don't know what I should be returning to.

Gotta thank you for the time you take to educate us.  Cyberspace has been a TOTAL BLESSING for those of us brainwashed by establishment schools.  Between the Bible and the Internet, there may be hope for this generation after all.  

To paraphrase my previous definition, Game is the conscious and synthetic adoption of the attitudes, behaviors, perspectives, strategies, and tactics of men with high socio-sexual rank by men of lower socio-sexual rank with the objective of raising their socio-sexual status and increasing their success with women.  This is not the definition that most Game bloggers would utilize, but it is one they would recognize as being closely related to their definitions.  Since I take a more abstract and analytical approach to the subject, it should not surprise anyone that my definition is less focused and practical than most.

My purpose is not to promote marriage.  My purpose is to understand and expose the truth of intersexual relations, to oppose the equalitarian and feminist ideologies, and to defend traditional American society and Western civilization.  While marriage has historically been a major pillar of both American society and Western civilization, the perversion of the institution by Western governments has actually rendered it a force for societal and civilizational decline, if not collapse, in many aspects.  This is why I cannot unilaterally endorse marriage for all men in all cases, but rather, insist that under the present regime, it can only be risked by Christian men marrying genuinely Christian women, since this group at least has the potential for placing the traditional spiritual element of the sacrament above the legal element of the government-licensed relationship.

I find the request for more information on female deficiencies from a woman to be both encouraging and a little ironic.  I've tried to be circumspect about not always hammering on that particular subject; some would probably say that I haven't been circumspect enough.  But I'll think about it, particularly the way in which feminist ideology has rendered women less capable of marrying or sustaining happy, successful marriages, and post on the subject in the coming weeks.  And perhaps I can better explain the male perspective in a manner that women can readily grasp; there is somewhat of a fish-water problem for which I will have to consciously correct.

However, I  can assure KT that even if she feels she doesn't understand men yet, she has taken a massive intellectual step forward in identifying what she does not know.  This is the first and foremost step towards knowledge. It's rather like learning a language.  You learn a few words here and there, and you're very pleased with how well you "speak" French or whatever simply because you can say a few words and exchange a few pleasantries.  But as your ability increases, you suddenly hit the point where you stop paying attention to what you have learned and recognize how much more you don't know.  That's the point at which you truly begin to learn the language.  And that is the point at which KT is with regards to men and the reality of intersexual relations.

The utility of rhetoric

This one is for Ted, who has moral qualms about the use of rhetoric.  I'm not going to appeal to Aristotle's authority, but will simply caution against blithely dismissing the man's reasoning... and note that he seems to have anticipated at least a part of Ted's objections by a few thousand years.  Note that he defines rhetoric as: "the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion."

Rhetoric is useful because things that are true and things that are just have a natural tendency to prevail over their opposites, so that if the decisions of judges are not what they ought to be, the defeat must be due to the speakers themselves, and they must be blamed accordingly. Moreover, before some audiences not even the possession of the exactest knowledge will make it easy for what we say to produce conviction. For argument based on knowledge implies instruction, and there are people whom one cannot instruct.

Here, then, we must use, as our modes of persuasion and argument, notions possessed by everybody, as we observed in the Topics when dealing with the way to handle a popular audience. Further, we must be able to employ persuasion, just as strict reasoning can be employed, on opposite sides of a question, not in order that we may in practice employ it in both ways (for we must not make people believe what is wrong), but in order that we may see clearly what the facts are, and that, if another man argues unfairly, we on our part may be able to confute him....

[I]t is absurd to hold that a man ought to be ashamed of being unable to defend himself with his limbs, but not of being unable to defend himself with speech and reason, when the use of rational speech is more distinctive of a human being than the use of his limbs. And if it be objected that one who uses such power of speech unjustly might do great harm, that is a charge which may be made in common against all good things except virtue, and above all against the things that are most useful, as strength, health, wealth, generalship. A man can confer the greatest of benefits by a right use of these, and inflict the greatest of injuries by using them wrongly.

It is clear, then, that rhetoric is not bound up with a single definite class of subjects, but is as universal as dialectic; it is clear, also, that it is useful. It is clear, further, that its function is not simply to succeed in persuading, but rather to discover the means of coming as near such success as the circumstances of each particular case allow.

Therefore, I conclude that the wise man who is capable of dialectic will not restrict himself to its use, but will also utilize rhetoric when that is a form of communication more suitable to both the audience and the situation.  As for morality, it is worth noting that the first kind of rhetoric depends upon the personal character of the speaker.  It is neither moral nor immoral in itself, its morality depends upon how it is used.

A graceful concession

As she promised she would if the case could be made, Susan Walsh has graciously declared her acceptance of the concept of "female solipsism":

As a female Boomer, I will undoubtedly continue to exhibit robust self-esteem and a somewhat emotional view of the world, processed through the lens of my inner experience. I’ll happily cop to female solipsism, or whatever the guys are calling it these days

On the one hand, it doesn't matter in the slightest if Susan, or anyone else, deigns to accept the concept.  She isn't the Conceptual Police, solipsism either exists or it doesn't, and it doesn't actually matter what anyone, including me, happens to believe.  On the other hand, the discussion has been a very useful one, as concepts that survive this sort of critical refinement only become stronger and better understood.

The discussion also got me to think about the concept in a different way.  I don't know that I would go so far as to describe female solipsism as "a feature, not a bug", as Keoni Galt did, but his perspective did remind me that it exists whether I like it or not, exhibitions of it are not indicative of female failings so much as feminine attributes, and there is nothing I can do about it except accept it and potentially make productive use of it.

And how does one make use of it?  By looking for opportunities to frame the discussion with a female interlocutor in terms of her self-perspective.  For example, if for some reason you want to convince a woman that Volvos are better than Toyotas, female solipsism suggests it will be less effective to appeal to her sense of logic by presenting a set of objective metrics that make sense, and more effective to appeal to her self-perception.  Simply saying "I think you're the sort of woman who can really pull off a Volvo" will likely prove much more interesting to her, and get her thinking about the car much more deeply, than a comprehensive set of performance reviews from Car and Driver and other automotive magazines.

As with all material and scientific concepts, the proof is in the predictive model.  So far, female solipsism appears to be useful in this regard.  I hope to complete the first draft of the Solipsism Quotient test before the end of October; but one need not wait for it in order to test the basic concept in real life.

I would be remiss to fail to point out that this has also been an example of Susan's value to the androsphere as well as showing her genuine openness to our ideas.  Does she tend to have an immediate emotional and negative reaction to anything that promises to offend Team Woman?  Yes, and it is certainly fair to point that out.  But it must also be admitted that she can, and observably has, risen above that immediate reaction to consider a conceptual case on its merits.  Furthermore, if we cannot convince her, whose mind even her more committed critics must admit is at least relatively open in comparison with other female bloggers, then what hope have we of ever convincing women who are more instinctively hostile to the ideas and concepts we are continuing to develop?

There is no question that the vast majority of women, and perhaps the vast majority of men as well, will have to be instructed by rhetoric.  But the more we can convince through dialectic, the better, as they will become our allies in developing the required rhetoric that is not our native language.

The appeal of female intelligence

One of the primary challenges of explaining the rules of attraction to the opposite sex is that both sides have a natural tendency to project their own attraction factors to the other one.  So, men can't figure out why women aren't attracted to loyalty, responsibility, and sexual purity while women can't figure out why men aren't attracted to university degrees, good jobs, and intelligence.  This last matter is one of particular importance to a certain group of women, as women who identify themselves as intelligent find it especially difficult to grasp that what they consider their primary attribute, and what they tend to find tremendously attractive in men, is of relatively little value to men as an initial attractant.

As I have previously pointed out, the fact that nearly all women are attracted to smarter men and desire them as mates does not mean that most men feel that way. This should be obvious, and it is a very good thing too, otherwise it would be almost impossible for men and women to pair off.  After all, both sides of the couple can't be the smarter one any more than they can both be the taller one.  Most women understand that dumb men aren't attracted smart women - such men feel "threatened" is the usual line - and they aren't concerned about that because, being hypergamous, they usually aren't attracted to less intelligent men.  What they don't understand, unfortunately, is that most intelligent men aren't attracted to their intelligence either.

That doesn't mean that smart men don't value female intelligence in a relationship, only that they tend to do so in the way that a woman values loyalty in a man.  But it means that men don't, by and large, find themselves instinctively drawn to displays of female intelligence in the same way they are drawn to displays of large breasts, well-formed posteriors, or long hair.

But even when female intelligence is valued, the value isn't necessarily what the average smart women thinks it might be.  This is because intelligence, like height, is relative, and +1SD is +1 SD. The "smart" 120 IQ girl looks even dumber to the 150 IQ guy than the "dumb" 95 IQ girl does to the "smart" girl. And once the intelligence gap passes a standard deviation, it can be difficult to distinguish between the various stupidities being expressed, so for the highly intelligent man, it doesn't much matter if she's got an IQ of 85 or 135, because it all looks pretty much the same to him.  The lower IQ may even be preferred by some men, since intelligent women tend to be much less agreeable and more prone to instigating verbal conflict than their less intelligent sisters.  One is unlikely to see a woman with an IQ below 116 launching into a pedantic fighting withdrawal every time she is caught saying something materially false, just to give one example.

Height is a useful proxy here.  If you're Shaq, can you even tell at first glance if a woman is 5'2"or 5'8"?  Does it really make any difference to you?  Then consider that to a man with the lowest possible Mensa score of 132, a woman with an average IQ of 100 is proportionately to him what a 5'4" woman is to the 7'1" Shaq.  It's even worse at the so-called genius level of 145 IQ; the average woman looks proportionately like a 4 foot-something midget.  For most tall men, anyone below a certain height is simply "short".  And for most intelligent men, anyone below a certain level of intelligence is simply... let's just say "ünfiver".

However, there is one area where intelligent men tend to value female intelligence, namely, their offspring.  Very few smart men can bear the idea that their children might be grinning idiots incapable of any intelligent discourse with them.  However, note that children are an intrinsically LTR-related subject, which shows why attempting to use one's intelligence to initially attract a man in an STR context is a basic category error.  It no more works for a woman to attempt to attract a man by displaying her ability to bear him smart children than for a man to attempt to attract a woman by displaying his agreeability as well as the high probability that he will always remember her birthday and the correct toilet seat position.

So, female intelligence does have an appeal to the sort of men that smart women want, but it has to be utilized correctly, and in the proper context.  (Of course, this is also true of the appeal of male intelligence to women, but we'll save that for a future post.)  The key thing to remember is the vital distinction between I (initial attraction) factors and R (relationship) factors.  For men who value it, intelligence is almost always an R factor, not an I factor.

Crushing a male hamster

As I have often had occasion to point out, Man is not a rational creature, but rather, a rationalizing one.  And in his post "Rationalizing Fornication", Elihu at Freedom Twenty-Five shows that he is in possession of a rationalization hamster capable of spinning as furiously as any woman's:

I am presently withholding judgement on the question of whether or not the bible actually condemns pre-marital sex. Depending on how you interpret various scriptures, and which Greek-English dictionary you happen to have lying around, the bible may or may not give contemporary Christian men some wiggle room that allows some compromise between God and Game.

In this post, I offer my best attempts to rationalize the peaceful coexistence of the two. If I’m right: Christian men, go forth and seduce. If I’m wrong, I hope learned men such as Dalrock, Bruce Charlton, Koanic Soul, Vox Day, Bonald, The Gentleman Poet, Patriactionary, Ulysses and ballista will set us straight.

To put it succinctly, he is wrong.  I will address each of his five rationalizations to demonstrate why.

1.  Banging a non-virgin woman with a condom doesn’t violate the biblical injunction against adultery, because you’re not actually going to adulterate any of her children. Non-procreative sex upholds the spirit, if not the letter, of the biblical injunction against adultery.

The relevant Biblical injunction is not the one against adultery, but rather those against fornication and sexual immorality.

2.  You are free to assume that any woman you bang is a virgin. If you make the (shocking!) post-coital discovery that she is not, let Deuteronomy 22 be your guide and divorce her.

This advice is applicable to Jews.  Not to Christians, whose perspective is further refined by Luke 16.

3.  In the time of Christ, marriageable women abounded. Those men who sought, found them. The world we live in is different, and requires different coping strategies.

 Jesus Christ is the Alpha and Omega.  He is eternal.  The world is different, but human nature has not changed on iota.  It may require different coping strategies, but that does not condone sin.

4.  Since most contemporary American women are best viewed as whores with poor negotiating skills, we have a free pass to occasionally taste their wares, so long as we don’t let our pursuit of them cross the line from idle hobby to all-consuming obsession.
 
The Old Testament warns against prostitutes.  The New Testament bars fornication and sexual immorality.  Christians have no such free pass.

5.  Christian sexual morality only applies to Christian women. Outsiders are fair game

Christian sexual morality applies to Christian men as well as to Christian women.  Outsiders are not fair game, indeed, their outsider status is totally irrelevant with regards to the sexual morality of the Christian.

It is understandable why some Christian men, facing religious contempt from non-Christian women and seeing nominally-Christian women indulging their hypergamy by chasing non-Christian alphas in preference to them, desperately wish to carve out some sort of exception to the Christian morals imposed upon them by God and His Son.  But Christianity is not the easy way, it is the hard and narrow way.  One can no more rationalize fornication than human sacrifice or demon worship, it is a complete impossibility.

The SMP is part of the world that Christians are called to be in, but not of.  Being in the world means it is important for Christian men to understand the reality and the principles of Game, but the existence of Game does not mean that all of the uses to which Game can be put are compatible with the Christian life.

Why solipsism matters

There are a number of issues that have been raised by Susan's challenge to the concept of female solipsism and my response.  First, I'll begin with citing a comment by Dr. Jeremy at Dalrock's place:

[I]f the concept of Female Solipsism is an important one, further clarity is required. Some questions to consider:
1) What are the range of behaviors and concepts we are trying to explain and define? When one uses the term “Female Solipsism”, what specifically do they mean? What is the definition and operationalization of the term?
2) Can the behaviors/concept above be fully encompassed within a more commonly-used, already existing term? Having a full view of the behaviors involved, would a different term choice be more clear and informative to convey the set of ideas?
3) Is the desire to claim power and meaning internally for the group by coining a “unique” word, or to convey a set of ideas to those outside the group?

It's not my intention to address the follow-on questions at this point, but rather the primary one.  Is the concept of Female Solipsism an important one?  To which I answer yes, because mastery of the concept has the potential to be a tremendous aid in anticipating, understanding, and manipulating female behavior.  Consider Ian Ironwood's tremendous adventure in female solipsism, which he explored by the simple device of writing in a notebook in the presence of a number of women.

The lesson of the story is that every single aspect of the response from a group of 14 women (13 co-workers and a boss) was based on a) her solipsistic belief that I was writing about her based solely on the fact that she didn't know WHAT or WHOM I was writing about  b) her belief in the absence of evidence that my stubborn silence was proof that I was writing about her and c) the belief that every other woman in the group was conspiring against her over the imaginary book for some reason.

Read the entire thing.  It may sound absurd, but speaking as a published author, I assure you that you could easily replicate his experience in very nearly any group of women today.  And this is where the hypothesis becomes provable, as unlike Milton Friedman's ideal rate of money supply growth or anthropogenic climate change, it is easily put to the test by the individual.  I'm still working on a Solipsism Quotient test, which is designed to distinguish between the solipsistic, the narcissistic, and the less self-absorbed, but in the meantime, here is a little pop quiz that can be easily applied to the women of your aquaintance in casual conversation.

1. Bring up the evil consequences of the 19th Amendment, including the national debt, the economic crisis, and the housing bubble, to a woman.  Does she a) challenge the legitimacy of the linkage of the 19th Amendment to one of the consequences, b) agree and express her opinion that women should not be permitted to vote, c) question the practicality of overturning the amendment, or d) immediately start talking about how the prospect of not being permitted to vote makes her feel?
2.  Make critical comments about a behavioral trait that you know the woman possesses without making any reference to her.  E.g.: telling a fat woman that obesity costs the healthcare system more than $150 billion every year.  Does she a) question your data source, b) point out a flaw in your reasoning, (for example, how the system also saves money due to the shorter lifespans of the obese), c) ask if you are indirectly criticizing her, or d) immediately start explaining why she possesses that trait?

Answers in the vein of (d) indicate that the woman is probably egoistically self-absorbed to such an extent as to merit the label "solipsistic".  She literally cannot imagine that the topic does not concern her as the central subject. The angrier her reaction, the more strongly solipsistic she is.  Not all women will answer in such a manner, but I would estimate that three in every four women will.  I expect that similar male-oriented questions would get solipsistic reactions from one in five men or less.

But don't take my word for it.  Test it out in casual conversation and report your results here.  This isn't scientific methodology of the sort that will stand up to professional peer review, but it is a fundamentally scientific approach of testing the hypothesis and could prove the basis of a useful predictive model of female behavior applicable to a broad variety of intersexual scenarios.

Susan challenges a concept

While she accepts a number of Game concepts, Susan Walsh is still dubious about female solipsism:

What evidence can you offer that “female solipsism” is not just another manosphere circle jerk?

The concept is only recognized by a handful of manosphere bloggers. Surely, a sound, tested and observed concept would be known outside the ‘sphere? As I said, there are many pages of results discussing solipsism as a philosophical concept without regard to gender. I daresay that when it was conceived, it strictly described men.

I have made a habit of digging into the source of certain claims in the ‘sphere, and what I usually find is a complete absence of intellectual rigor. Instead, there is a sort of high-fiving among male bloggers on principles that are completely unsubstantiated.

Unless someone can offer me some rational explanation for saying that women are especially solipsistic, I don’t accept it.

Metaphysical solipsism is the “strongest” variety of solipsism. Based on a philosophy of subjective idealism, metaphysical solipsists maintain that the self is the only existing reality and that all other reality, including the external world and other persons, are representations of that self, and have no independent existence.

Can you name a single instance where a female commenter disavowed the possibility of an experience different from her own? That her reality was the only possible reality, and that your reality did not even exist? That is what solipsism is.

First of all, I have to note that Susan is being a wee bit pedantic here when it really isn't necessary. Her definition of "solipsism" is accurate, taken as it is from Wikipedia, but is merely a subset of the entire meaning of the term and ignores the dictionary definition, which the Oxford English Dictionary provides as follows:

the view or theory that the self is all that can be known to exist. the quality of being self-centred or selfish.

Dictionary.com also provides both philosophic and prosaic definitions:

1. Philosophy. the theory that only the self exists, or can be proved to exist.
2. extreme preoccupation with and indulgence of one's feelings, desires, etc.; egoistic self-absorption.

Now, since we are talking about female behavior, it should be readily apparent that we are not talking about metaphysical, methodological, or epistemological solipsism, but rather an observed predilection for egoistic self-absorption which occurs to such an extent that the woman's behavior makes it appear as if she subscribes to some form of philosophical solipsism. This is not to say she actually subscribes to it, as I doubt one woman in ten thousand, or one man in ten thousand, for that matter, would even recognize the concept. The point is that most women tend to behave as if they do.

The rational explanation for such behavior is easy enough to identify. Most Western women are coddled from childhood and are very seldom held to the same standards of accountability and responsibility that boys and men are, whether one considers sports, societal norms, or the law. This lack of accountability and responsibility, combined with their heightened biological susceptibility to emotion, causes most of them to behave in a self-centered manner which makes it appear they believe that their interests are the only ones that exist, their opinions are the only ones that can possibly be correct, and their observations are definitive of reality. This self-absorption also causes them to assume that the actions and comments of others are always directly related to them, a concept which is encapsulated in the popular feminist phrase "the personal is political", and often inspires them to assign the worst possible interpretation to the statements of others.

Now, none of this proves that women are actually solipsistic in the prosaic, rather than the philosophical sense. That will be demonstrated in a future post. But it should clarify what is meant when I, or other Game bloggers, refer to "female solipsism".

As for recognition of the concept, Game bloggers are hardly the first to observe significant differences in male and female behavior. After all, while Aristotle did not specifically note solipsism per se 2,360 years ago, he did mention the following: Woman is more compassionate than man, more easily moved to tears, at the same time is more jealous, more querulous, more apt to scold and to strike. She is, furthermore, more prone to despondency and less hopeful than the man, more void of shame or self-respect, more false of speech, more deceptive, and of more retentive memory.

My suggestion is that the solipsism concept helps explains the impotence of the dialectic for most women and their strong preference for the rhetoric. And, given the current state of hostilities on the part of various parties, I should underline that this is not a criticism of Susan, but rather a defense of an articulated concept. One need not always agree with someone to respect and be on good terms with them.

Renaissance Game

I compare her [Fortune] to one of those raging rivers, which when in flood overflows the plains, sweeping away trees and buildings, bearing away the soil from place to place; everything flies before it, all yield to its violence, without being able in any way to withstand it; and yet, though its nature be such, it does not follow therefore that men, when the weather becomes fair, shall not make provision, both with defences and barriers, in such a manner that, rising again, the waters may pass away by canal, and their force be neither so unrestrained nor so dangerous. So it happens with fortune, who shows her power where valour has not prepared to resist her, and thither she turns her forces where she knows that barriers and defences have not been raised to constrain her....

I consider that it is better to be adventurous than cautious, because fortune is a woman, and if you wish to keep her under it is necessary to beat and ill-use her; and it is seen that she allows herself to be mastered by the adventurous rather than by those who go to work more coldly. She is, therefore, always, woman-like, a lover of young men, because they are less cautious, more violent, and with more audacity command her."

- Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince

It is perhaps worth noting that one of the men who influenced Machiavelli's classic work, Cesare Borgia, was famously successful with women and is known to have fathered at least 11 illegitimate children. And it will not escape the Game-savvy reader's attention that this is essentially Roissy's Thirteenth Commandment: Err on the side of too much boldness, rather than too little.

A failure to grasp Game

Cane Caldo lays a false foundation, then attempts to build upon it in a guest post at Dalrock's:

1. Game isn’t what you think it is.

2. Game means more than you think it does.

3. Christians don’t need Game.

My short response: 1) Game certainly isn't what Cane thinks it is. 2) It most certainly does. 3) Yeah, they do. But there is no more reason to accept my naked assertions than his, so let's peruse his argument.

Game Isn’t What You Think It Is

When we remove the tautologies and self-references from the my definition (which I think is very fair, and in keeping with the spirit of Roissy’s more compact ones), all we are left with is the concept of hypergamy. Even that is severely crippled with the lack of evidence that is founded upon the now-very-unstable Game. What we really see is that women want what they want, and that they want more and better, and there seems to be no end to their appetite.

Cane goes awry from the very beginning by failing to understand that Roissy does not, and does not pretend to, represent Game in its entirety. He is its foremost advocate, but he does not claim that his perspective is definitive, let alone conclusive, and he is perfectly aware that there are aspects beyond the one upon which he focuses. Game is not a lifestyle or a philosophy, it is nothing more than an analytical tool, moreover, it is a tool that can be broadly applied to a broad spectrum of human behavior. Cane isn't looking deeply enough, he is too focused on the particulars of what Roissy is advising to understand what Roissy is doing.

A much better definition of Game is this: the conscious attempt to observe and understand successful natural behaviors and attitudes in order to artificially simulate them. In Roissy's case, this is usually limited to imitating men who successfully have casual sex with attractive women. The famous 16 Commandments are the commandments of Poon, after all, not Game. Cane is confusing the subset with the set. And by further reducing it to hypergamy, he has reduced the subset to a single variable.

Game Means More Than You Think It Does

It’s the most likely fate of the Christian man that follows Game. It’s not the only possible fate, and not the worst. You could get taken over by an agent. (This is what I suspect of Roissy.) Roissy knows the Matrix isn’t real–just as Neo, Morpheus, and Cypher do–but he is intent upon using the Matrix to get pleasure. You can find it here, here, and here. Above all, you can find it in the Sixteen Commandments of Poon. Game writers all work from the point of view that the sensory experience of steak and vagina is so good, that whatever you have to do to get it, you should. And whatever betrayal you have to commit to yourself or others is just effective Game. This is being in the real world, but taking the Blue Pill.

Cane contradicts his own previous point here. How can "the concept of hypergamy" lead a man, Christian or otherwise, inevitably to hedonism? This is simply incoherent. And to claim that what everyone understands as the red pill reality is really just taking the blue pill simply underlines Cane's basic confusion here. Not only has he built upon a false foundation, but he has built badly upon it.

Christians Don’t Need Game

This isn’t what Game says! It says that it’s natural for wives to be driven by their hypergamous biomechanics to be attracted to the available alpha in their proximity. If Game is true, then a man should NEVER marry. Game writers whole-heartedly agree with that sentiment. If you’re already married, you’re simply meat waiting to be processed by the Feminist machines.

No man can serve two masters. Serving women–that is, Feminism; that is, the Matrix–is what Game is all about. Understand her desires. Fulfill her desires. Reap pleasure from her desires. This is Feminism twisted back on itself. Game attempts to use the Matrix to get in Feminist pants. Christianity means to send Feminism to Hell.

Here Cane demonstrates that he understands the Biblical view of intersexual relations as poorly as he grasps Game. Both Christianity and Game recognize women as being dynamic and malleable. Both Christianity and Game teach a man that he has to be capable of exerting authority over a woman if he is to have successful relationship with her. Not only is Game not feminist in any way, but it is simply false to claim it is "to get in Feminist pants". Even if we limit the concept of Game to the particular PUA application, its primary use is to get into "non-Feminist" pants; there are very few men who are observably less interested in getting into "lantern-jawed, hairy-armed" Feminist pants than Roissy.

Finally, in response to Cane's last question, the reason Game cannot possibly be considered "a round-about method of telling Christian men to Man-Up and Marry These Sluts" is because manning up and marrying sluts is patently not behavior of a successful natural.

The sex appeal of IQ

Roissy considers it:

You’ve got two schools of thought. The first insists that smarts, like any other positive attribute, can only raise a man’s dating market value because women are hypergamous and appreciate a smarter man than themselves. The other school says that women are put off by men who are too much smarter than themselves, and that experience shows women fall for lunkhead jerks all the time, perhaps because these types of men are less introspective and more unthinkingly assertive about hitting on women.

The science I’ve read on this subject has been all over the place, but the consensus seems to be that having some smarts is a net plus to a man’s desirability.

Where do I come down on this perennial issue? I stick by the Dating Market Value Test for Men at the top of this blog. A better-than-average IQ is beneficial, but the benefits to picking up women begin to dissipate past a certain degree of brainpower, because very high IQ seems to be associated with a lack of social savviness and other off-putting personality quirks.

I agree with Roissy to a point. My perspective is that intelligence is a major plus in two circumstances. First, it is a huge DHV when dealing with women who place value on intelligence. These tend to be educated women in the 1 SD+ category; it's easy to spot them because they will mention a) their academic credentials, or b) how smart they are, within the first five minutes of meeting someone new. There is nothing that turns them on faster than being corrected or seeing a man intellectually humiliate someone. Second, it can be a very useful tool for both social and sexual dominance.

That being said, one should never confuse the tool for the consequence of its use and that is the problem that most smart guys face. Most smart men think that displaying their intelligence, usually in some hopelessly dorky manner, will make them more attractive to women. This is not the case. Whereas women are attracted to muscles and strong bodies for their own sake, and not merely because they can indicate social and sexual dominance, the first group aside, they are not attracted to intelligence for its own sake, only when it is used to dominate others.

For example, if the science geek takes an arrogant attitude and openly disrespects less intelligent men as barely evolved chimpanzees, women will be attracted to him. Of course, he has to be able to back it up and few science geeks can. That's why men who are balanced, who honor the Greek ideal of developing mind, body, and soul, will tend to clean up with women, because there are few things that women find more attractive than a man who can dominate them and others both physically and mentally. However, mental dominance isn't as readily apparent as physical dominance, which is why this takes us back to the "chicks dig jerks" theme. A smart asshole doesn't hesitate to exert his mental dominance, whereas the average smart nice guy will do everything in his power to refrain from demonstrating it in any way. Needless to say, women will be attracted to the former, not the latter. Think of the "apples" scene in Good Will Hunting. That is a clear demonstration of mental dominance driving attraction; it may not be as much of a turn-on as a physical beat-down, but make no mistake, it's a beat-down and it's going to turn on most woman who witness it, especially if they happen to have any brains of their own.

It's not that women are any more interested in football games and motorcycles than physics and philosophy, it's just that they usually can't understand the latter.

Game penetrates the mainstream

Slowly, and against its will, but the various concepts of Game are definitely getting into the mainstream consciousness:

During a recent discussion of the Rihanna–Chris Brown case on NPR’s Tell Me More, Arsalan Iftikhar pronounced himself “bumfuzzled” that the singer would continue to associate with a man who, in his evocative description, “didn’t only hit Rihanna, he made her look like Buster Douglas.” I like Mr. Iftikhar, but his clutching at his pearls seemed to me insincere. It is possible that he was in this case unwilling to confront certain ugly truths about human realities, and also possible that he simply never has encountered this particular ugly truth, expressed eloquently by the late Bill Hicks: “Chicks Dig Jerks.”

Normally, the NPR demographic is receptive to the wit and wisdom of Bill Hicks (another ugly and seldom-spoken truth: Bill Hicks had neither wit nor wisdom). Not so much in this case. When I shared Hicks’s observation, the host, Michel Martin, said my remark found her “trying to contain violent impulses” of her own. When I attempted to explain to her that there is a significant body of scholarly work on the subject of the relative sexual success of men with certain personality characteristics — aggression, narcissism, manipulativeness: jerkiness, in a word — she dismissed the assertion as being “based on, I don’t know, some novels that you read.”

The interesting thing here is that the mere idea that something that has been reliably observed by objective witnesses for decades, if not centuries, would provoke a female journalist to thoughts of violence. I tend to doubt Ms Martin would have gotten upset if Williamson had suggested that women are sexually attracted to nerds with acne and dual-GPUs; she would have merely laughed.

The reason women get so upset when various pick-up artists and Game theoreticians mention the easily demonstrable fact that at least some women are inordinately attracted to jerks and assholes, especially violent ones, is because they know it is true but they wish it was not. As Camilla Paglia noted more than 20 years ago, sufficiently hot sex obviously serves as adequate compensation for coming out on the short end of the violence stick every once in a while.

One needn't claim that violence is good in order to observe that some women find it desirable. After all, there are no shortage of men who regularly risk injury and even death because they enjoy violent past times such as football, hockey, boxing, and the martial arts. So, since the violence of sport is intrinsically enjoyable for the winner and loser alike, who is to say that the violence of a chaotic sexual relationship cannot be?

Even women who observe this phenomenon tend to shy away from accepting it, attempting to categorize the attractiveness of the Dark Triad as the appeal of confidence. And while male confidence is attractive to women, that can't possibly explain the appeal of violence, which tends to be rooted in a lack of confidence combined with one or more of the Dark Triad traits.