Thank you for the post. I am presently preparing and will be doing a post on Friday on the subject of pornography.
Paul wrote, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” When we believe in Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord, over time our life is meant to be transformed, so that we can be like Christ. However, the sad reality is that pornography has a vice-like grip on us.
59% of pastors said that married men seek their help for porn use.
57% of pastors say porn addiction is the most damaging issue in their congregation.
69% say porn has adversely impacted the church.
May I suggest these figures are on the low side, as members are too ashamed to come forward for help and pastors don’t want to say that their church is being impacted.
However, the Good News of Jesus Christ, the gospel message for us today, is that we can find freedom from the bondage of pornography.
I will be repeating this announcement on Wednesday.
I hope you will find the post worthwhile. God bless you and have a great day. Robert
I think if we socially reframed pornography as mainly psychological (as you described it), not visual, then we would progress. Because then pornography as a definition could encompass many more things. And we already do say porn in other fields. Food porn, house porn etc., meaning things that look good to consume but that don’t account for the implicit costs (food porn burgers look great on tv but make you fat and bloated for example, which feels gross).
Porn, the visual and story types, don’t account for the jealousy felt at landing someone so above your status. That woman would live with insecurity with such a hero and so would that man with the porn model. Porn doesn’t account for the gross smells, the stds, etc.
It’s especially sad when men and women live with these fantasies even further into middle age and may indicate they are just as “crazy” as the purveyors of porn themselves. Usually experience and maturity wash away any silly fantasies but not always.
Again, porn is sold in different flavors now. You have success porn (buy this course and be successful fast) and popularity porn (a la Kim K, with no skill, but meteoric popularity).
I enjoyed this article, but I think in the last part you're completely discounting instincts clashing with cultural norms.
You're basically telling people to go forth and have sex with attainable partners and multiply, but is this even possible for the majority of consumers? It seems to me that you're addressing single (probably young) people, but when I look at numbers in say SEXUS
(doesn't include romance novels, but still) these do not make up the majority of consumers.
If we look at the numbers in that report, replacing erotic consumption with acting on the instincts for the majority probably requires polygamy or forced copulation.
This is not to say that the erotic media couldn't be improved. But it seems to me that it band-aids a much deeper, extremely widespread problem, that cultural norms do not match actual instincts.
I'll also note that if you look at the data in that report, it suggests that women, and especially women above say 35 years with average (low) female libido at that age with partners with average (high) male libido will be unsympathetic to erotic media (and probably also prostitution) since they will probably have no problem achieving all the copulations they desire from their partner.
Also I guess you can make an evolutionary argument regarding everyone being uncomfortable with partner sexuality not directed toward themselves (mating competition).
Please don't take this personal. As I said, I enjoyed the article. :)
Thank you very much for the link. It is both interest and in Danish! It reminded me to stop slacking off from my routine of five minutes of Danish Duolingo practice every day.
I didn't really mean that everyone should just stop watching pornography. I rather mean that for people who have a choice between pornography and real-world partners, focusing on real-world partners is a good choice. The only thing I'm really against is the idea that every kind of consensual adult sexual expression is always good for everything. I don't think it is. But the world is not perfect and people have to do what works for them.
Being slightly in favor of monogamy, I think a lot about the problem that men, also men in established relationships, tend to see sex as a need while many women in established relationships see it more as a luxury or even something mostly undesirable. Once I read an article about a British couple with eight children who gave their advice how to keep a romantic relationship alive. One of the wife's tips to women was: "Have sex". I think she was right. Probably that is the single most important thing women could do to make their marriages work better. I don't mean that anyone should do anything they absolutely don't feel like, but I think many marriages would work better if it was seen as OK and normal to care about each others' priorities also in sexual matters.
"For that reason I felt a sense of relief when I got to think of an entirely secular reason to dislike pornography: Because it builds on an instinct to search for and use psychologically abnormal behavior among opposite-sex individuals to one's own advantage".
You still need some kind of morality or religion. Else, if you're left with that, it also holds for psychologists, drug companies, medical professionals, and any other making money off treating "psychologically abnormal behavior".
There'a also the matter of proving that the desire to jerk off is "psychologically abnormal behavior". It surely is normal in evolutionary terms (in the sense that it developed through evolution, not that it helps spread genes better). The description seems to be begging the question.
re your PS. consider Richard Walter Wrangham and his suggestion that we became human (ie emergence of Homo sapiens) when coalitions of beta males began to coalesce to depose an alpha male. Maybe coincides with reduction in brow ridges (that function to protect the eyes during inter-male combat). ie if such coalitions reduced the frequency of inter-male combat the presence of pronounced brows would be less selected for.
Compare women's affective response to 'chinless' males relative to males with pronounced brows as a test for this.
Seems as though no young women would want to read this blog, since one of you is female and the other is already married. Perhaps you need to find a handsome young magnate and ghost-write some articles for him -- writing on women's issues is a beta activity, so the signal will be very strong.
Great article! My wife and I have a model for young women (our daughters) we call the mastermind model (thanks to Taylor Swift). Basically, the work a woman does in finding a mate needs to be invisible so the man can feel like he is pursuing her on his own with just the right amount of resistance and opportunity. She needs to make him feel like he is the hero of the story. After obtaining a commitment, she needs to guide him toward making choices that benefit the family. In other words, her ‘investment’ might look very different from her husband’s investment, and would border on being manipulative if it were not in good faith.
That porn exploits psychological weakness is a good observation. But I have to disagree that women who have no-strings-attached sex are always crazy. I would agree that many, or even most, women who do it frequently are, or over time become, crazy.
Here's a few "rational" reasons why women have no-cost (to the man) sex. These are only a few, there are others:
1. It feels good. Sex is pleasurable. Really good sex can be as good as, and possibly better than, any drug. Some women seem to experience something on the level of a mind-blowing, life-altering emotional trip after a powerful orgasm. Even Betas can learn to be good in bed. In fact, Betas are more likely to bother learning how to please women.
2. Jealousy strategy. A woman in a relationship with a man who is not fully committed might use a stalking-horse tactic. The woman is demonstrating that she is valued by other men. She is threatening to replace her non-committal partner, warning him that he better put a ring on it now, or she’s moving on to her next option. Now, you might wonder why the woman wouldn’t just pretend to have an affair. I can’t answer that. You could ask a woman who has done this, but my guess is that she doesn’t know the reason herself. So maybe these women go in the crazy bucket in your model? Still, it is a logical, rational tactic, and seems to work in many cases.
3. Curiosity and adventure. These seem like normal, natural human instincts and not necessarily easily tossed into the crazy bucket. For example, a virgin woman might have no-strings-attached sex just to see what all the fuss is about, possibly with a Beta male friend. A woman on an exotic vacation might have no-strings-attached sex to make the experience more of an adventure. She wants to do this with an Alpha, but will settle for a Beta.
4. Ambition/profit. Some women sleep their way to the top. This doesn’t seem crazy. Although this might not fall into the no-strings-attached category, it often feels that way for the men involved, who are often Betas.
5. Seeking better genes (particularly when already in a long-term relationship). This is the classic PUA explanation, but Betas generally don’t get this option.
6. Loneliness. Sometimes people are just lonely, and sex can relieve that. For example, a woman in a long-distance relationship might occasionally have no-strings-attached sex while waiting for her committed partner to return. Again, she will prefer an Alpha, but will often settle for a Beta.
Yes. Actually, I don't really think women who have casual sex are crazy. Especially not in modern times, when contraceptives and modern medicine have decreased the cost of it enormously. I wrote a bit more about modern female promiscuity here. https://woodfromeden.substack.com/p/a-rational-view-of-female-modesty
But I dare to claim that pornography depicts genuinely crazy women. Not-all-pornography, but enough for a casual observer like me to have encountered them repeatedly. Women that beautiful and that indiscriminate simply don't exist, unless they are beyond their senses due to intoxicants or mental disease.
In general, I don't intend to equal "what was not optimal for people's genes" with craziness. I myself belong to a group of people that I believe have genes that can lead to suboptimal behavior: The tomboys. https://woodfromeden.substack.com/p/the-tomboy-manifesto
And I don't think I'm crazy.
I hope no women who choose to have casual sex and read this post believe I think they are crazy. They are just people making choices.
I imagine porn actresses don't do it with whomever if they don't get paid. I have seen pornography featuring "sluts" who did it with whomever for free.
>> But I dare to claim that pornography depicts genuinely crazy women
A lot of amateur pornography is made by couples. And now with the rise of things like OnlyFans, the line between "amateur" and "professional" is large and blurry.
Many women are exhibitionists, too. They want to be admired, and they love attention.
In fact, a lot of pornography doesn’t even try to hide the fact that the actors are a happy, loving couple. According to the arguments given in the post, there should be no problem with this kind of pornography. Therefore, it sounds like “not your true rejection” (<https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/TGux5Fhcd7GmTfNGC/is-that-your-true-rejection>) to me.
This is a phenomenal article. I have often wondered about romance novels and their appeal to women. I see how these works play into the “alpha” for a “plain Jane” without effort fantasy. A component that I think might be interesting to explore is Alpha men who were previously betas growing up and how that impacts their life strategies. Many top men were raised by negligent or dismissive parents, so they don’t realize they’re Alphas or discount their true level. I believe many of these men later are snagged from their stable marriages by seductive women who rightly see them as Alphas while the men see themselves actually more like Betas. Another feature is how the romance books will poison even the woman who snags an Alpha (in some capacity like looks, charisma, earning etc. while not others). When he can’t deliver everything all at once like Christian Grey due to natural limitations or maybe he is rather young still then the woman is upset as she’s been coached by these romance books or films. Lastly, the only book that I know of that tries to address this issue in girls and how they are better served finding a traditional stable life with a solid man is by the reformed PUA writer Roosh in his book “Lady” (https://www.amazon.com/Lady-Meet-Keep-Good-Marriage/dp/1732865426/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?crid=1W8GXAPJ8LTKG&keywords=roosh+lady&qid=1680972105&sprefix=roosh+lady%2Caps%2C152&sr=8-1). You might like to take a look for his arguments.
I found a great three part article series by another female Substack writer Bridgette from Motherucker about “tonic femininity” in the sense of evolutionary psychology which I’m sure you’d enjoy. Here is the link https://motherucker.substack.com/p/tonic-femininity-part-1
She mentions how the three components of femininity (safe, subtle, and solitary) can be warped into a toxic brew harmful for the woman and for society at large!
Thank you! Since I'm not great at reading I asked an AI to summarize the text for me (I mean, I'm probably worse at reading than many other people). I hope I got the idea anyway. I guess I should do the same with my own texts and control the result before I trust such services too much.
Personally, I often think that there are no male and female virtues. There are only male and female vices. Virtue should be gender-neutral by nature. I mean, how can something be good, but only in people of one sex? If courage and strength is good, then it is good in both men and women. If care and compassion is good, then it is good whoever is caring and compassionate.
But I'm prepared to be overproven. I never seriously discussed that issue with anyone.
I'm a man reading this and agreeing with the male perspective. Also how this aligns with your earlier post on how men might combine the feminist narrative & the porn narrative to expect women to behave much more like a man in potential sexual situations. Neither source tells a young man to expect a young woman to have a substantially different outlook/expectations/needs from his, agreed.
I'm curious to hear if women also feel this post resonates.
I'm a more-or-less neurotypical female reader (though not very young) and can confirm that it resonates well.
One curious thing that I've heard other women say is that their preferences for males change over time (from age 16 to 30), getting more reasonable as they mature. E.g. when very young many women prefer "bad boys" but at some point realize how that's a bad choice indeed, and start genuinely liking good guys. This may mean that hope is not gone.
That's now such a commonly referenced phenomenon that it's much more likely to be true than not, but I've seldom heard women acknowledge it themselves, albeit acknowledgement is the first step towards improvement. Here's another account of that from a women: https://youtu.be/hHZJam2SF4U?t=1853, at the end of a review of the book mentioned above.
As a father of 2 boys and 2 girls all in their 20's . . . my girls have fancied boys who 'stand out' from the other boys ie the ones around them who are best at stuff. Can't recall any 'bad boys'.
I'm very curious too. Unfortunately, I think we have proportionally few female readers, especially young female readers. I know we have had one. Let's hope for her to show up : )
My girls are studying (or studied) CS (math bias) and physics. So very STEM oriented. Still they are more interested in making stuff (not machines) than in ideas/politics.
. . . are you inviting me to expand? Sure, they are in a minority. So are you asking 'unusual' as in rare or 'unusual' as in deviating from a social norm. Its the former. They are pretty typical girls, though one makes virtual models (CS) and the other makes physical stuff (math, phys and sculpture). Their Mum makes stuff too. As do I. Probably 'making' is in the 'blood'.
Partially, it is for marketing reasons. For a year, we had a massive marketing problem here and almost no one, of neither gender, read it. Then Rob Henderson helped us through putting my article called Becky is depressed on Twitter. That turned things around massively because people on HackerNews started to find articles here interesting enough to discuss. Marginal Revolution also linked to one article. I assume both Rob Henderson's Twitter audience, HackerNews and Marginal Revolution are predominantly male places, so my guess is that our new readers, which are now most of our readers, are mostly male.
I came here from a Marginal Revolution link. MR commenters are predominantly single or married Millennials and retired males. A couple of married females with kids.
Indeed, I am one of those who found you through Rob Henderson's tweet and subsequently opted to join Substack for real seeing Elon Musk's most recent acts.
I agree that the source of your audience could be contributing to its eventual composition, and I wonder whether Substack has a truly even gender ratio to begin with. But regardless of those two relatively indirect factors, I think the unique insights and values your writings provide - acknowledging much of the male primal, psychological, and social behaviors and problems, but more importantly also sheding light on the female counterpart and how that's creating the female's different-but-nevertheless-worth-acknowledging issues - repel more female readers than not. No human likes to have his/her problems pointed out, but male psyche may have gained some immunity by the current social consensus, where male problems (towards female both in relationship and career settings) are well known and discussed, but observations, hypotheses, and data concerning females are seldomly mentioned.
Earlier in the month I shared some of you and Rob's articles (e.g. Becky, Ambivalence, Rob's Male Monkey Dance) to both my friend and his girlfriend, and her remarks were, quote "Um feel like this is all rationalizing why women are attracted to jerks when it also has to do with a lot of internalized misogyny. Like usually men who kill children are in jail, not a super hot commodity... think we've come a long way from chimps in what females are attracted to. Idk these articles are giving incel to me. I find it's a lot of externalizing internal problems - this reoccurring belief that it must be society/ women's fault why someone failed romantically rather than anything about their own behavior". Alas, not once acknowledging even the potential possibility of a problem from the female side.
If we could all be a fly on the wall in the opposite gender's lives, maybe we'll come to more mutual understandings. So I hope I could represent a few more of your readers in saying, thank you, for taking an impartial look as a female author at male and female relationships.
>> her remarks were, quote "Um feel like this is all rationalizing why women are attracted to jerks when it also has to do with a lot of internalized misogyny
This is what's called "cope."
That woman's response is a classic version of "if all you have is a hammer, then everything looks like a nail." She's woke and politically correct, so almost everything she encounters she puts into this particular ideological frame, regardless of how accurate or, more likely, inaccurate that frame happens to be.
I'm not at all surprised by your female friend's reaction. I have struggled a lot with the question how I could ever present my ideas to a feminist or even mainly female audience.
This in spite of starting out as a feminist: My perspective has always been that females have the same right to self-knowledge as males. If men can discuss their primal urges and thereby get to know themselves better, it's plain unfair if women can't do that too.
Do we really want a society where men know themselves, primal instincts included, while women do not? Why would women like to be manipulable by men who know more and think more freely about human nature? I really can't see how such a situation can be seen as even remotely feminist. But I also have no plan at all for how to persuade feminists that feminism should mean keeping up with males in terms of self-knowledge.
Do you think that your neurodivergence has a role in how you differ from other women? Like, the idea that autism is "extreme male brain", as Baron-Cohen would say, and that autistic people thus prefer more systemizing traits over empathizing ones. So for women with autistic traits, they may display more systemizing patterns of thinking.
Many autistic women end up wanting to be trans. I don't think that's a coincidence.
Thank you for the post. I am presently preparing and will be doing a post on Friday on the subject of pornography.
Paul wrote, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” When we believe in Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord, over time our life is meant to be transformed, so that we can be like Christ. However, the sad reality is that pornography has a vice-like grip on us.
59% of pastors said that married men seek their help for porn use.
57% of pastors say porn addiction is the most damaging issue in their congregation.
69% say porn has adversely impacted the church.
May I suggest these figures are on the low side, as members are too ashamed to come forward for help and pastors don’t want to say that their church is being impacted.
However, the Good News of Jesus Christ, the gospel message for us today, is that we can find freedom from the bondage of pornography.
I will be repeating this announcement on Wednesday.
I hope you will find the post worthwhile. God bless you and have a great day. Robert
>An alpha to the price of a beta
I think this would make more sense phrased as -
>An alpha for the price of a beta
"to the price" isn't really an expression in english
Ah, that's to bad! Because it was a good expression. How would you that thing in English?
Most people would say "An alpha for the price of a beta".
If I were editing, I would update every instance of the phrase to that version - but you can ask someone else for a second opinion also :)
"You're getting a very good product for the price"
"You're getting a great deal for your money" etc.
Thank you. I asked Apple Pie for a second opinion and he says just like you: "An alpha for the price of a beta."
So an alpha for the price of a beta it is.
I think if we socially reframed pornography as mainly psychological (as you described it), not visual, then we would progress. Because then pornography as a definition could encompass many more things. And we already do say porn in other fields. Food porn, house porn etc., meaning things that look good to consume but that don’t account for the implicit costs (food porn burgers look great on tv but make you fat and bloated for example, which feels gross).
Porn, the visual and story types, don’t account for the jealousy felt at landing someone so above your status. That woman would live with insecurity with such a hero and so would that man with the porn model. Porn doesn’t account for the gross smells, the stds, etc.
It’s especially sad when men and women live with these fantasies even further into middle age and may indicate they are just as “crazy” as the purveyors of porn themselves. Usually experience and maturity wash away any silly fantasies but not always.
Again, porn is sold in different flavors now. You have success porn (buy this course and be successful fast) and popularity porn (a la Kim K, with no skill, but meteoric popularity).
I enjoyed this article, but I think in the last part you're completely discounting instincts clashing with cultural norms.
You're basically telling people to go forth and have sex with attainable partners and multiply, but is this even possible for the majority of consumers? It seems to me that you're addressing single (probably young) people, but when I look at numbers in say SEXUS
https://files.projektsexus.dk/2019-10-26_SEXUS-rapport_2017-2018.pdf
(doesn't include romance novels, but still) these do not make up the majority of consumers.
If we look at the numbers in that report, replacing erotic consumption with acting on the instincts for the majority probably requires polygamy or forced copulation.
This is not to say that the erotic media couldn't be improved. But it seems to me that it band-aids a much deeper, extremely widespread problem, that cultural norms do not match actual instincts.
I'll also note that if you look at the data in that report, it suggests that women, and especially women above say 35 years with average (low) female libido at that age with partners with average (high) male libido will be unsympathetic to erotic media (and probably also prostitution) since they will probably have no problem achieving all the copulations they desire from their partner.
Also I guess you can make an evolutionary argument regarding everyone being uncomfortable with partner sexuality not directed toward themselves (mating competition).
Please don't take this personal. As I said, I enjoyed the article. :)
Thank you very much for the link. It is both interest and in Danish! It reminded me to stop slacking off from my routine of five minutes of Danish Duolingo practice every day.
I didn't really mean that everyone should just stop watching pornography. I rather mean that for people who have a choice between pornography and real-world partners, focusing on real-world partners is a good choice. The only thing I'm really against is the idea that every kind of consensual adult sexual expression is always good for everything. I don't think it is. But the world is not perfect and people have to do what works for them.
Being slightly in favor of monogamy, I think a lot about the problem that men, also men in established relationships, tend to see sex as a need while many women in established relationships see it more as a luxury or even something mostly undesirable. Once I read an article about a British couple with eight children who gave their advice how to keep a romantic relationship alive. One of the wife's tips to women was: "Have sex". I think she was right. Probably that is the single most important thing women could do to make their marriages work better. I don't mean that anyone should do anything they absolutely don't feel like, but I think many marriages would work better if it was seen as OK and normal to care about each others' priorities also in sexual matters.
"For that reason I felt a sense of relief when I got to think of an entirely secular reason to dislike pornography: Because it builds on an instinct to search for and use psychologically abnormal behavior among opposite-sex individuals to one's own advantage".
You still need some kind of morality or religion. Else, if you're left with that, it also holds for psychologists, drug companies, medical professionals, and any other making money off treating "psychologically abnormal behavior".
There'a also the matter of proving that the desire to jerk off is "psychologically abnormal behavior". It surely is normal in evolutionary terms (in the sense that it developed through evolution, not that it helps spread genes better). The description seems to be begging the question.
Of course I need morality to make a point about why something is not entirely moral. The moral reasoning is explained further down in the text.
re your PS. consider Richard Walter Wrangham and his suggestion that we became human (ie emergence of Homo sapiens) when coalitions of beta males began to coalesce to depose an alpha male. Maybe coincides with reduction in brow ridges (that function to protect the eyes during inter-male combat). ie if such coalitions reduced the frequency of inter-male combat the presence of pronounced brows would be less selected for.
Compare women's affective response to 'chinless' males relative to males with pronounced brows as a test for this.
The Goodness Paradox? That's one of the best books I have read.
Sorry, I haven't read his books. For recreation, I pretty much read indiscriminately for information.
Skipped through your writings a few days ago. Found your theses both to the point and interesting.
cheers
Seems as though no young women would want to read this blog, since one of you is female and the other is already married. Perhaps you need to find a handsome young magnate and ghost-write some articles for him -- writing on women's issues is a beta activity, so the signal will be very strong.
Please tell me if you know any magnate who would like to join us.
Great article! My wife and I have a model for young women (our daughters) we call the mastermind model (thanks to Taylor Swift). Basically, the work a woman does in finding a mate needs to be invisible so the man can feel like he is pursuing her on his own with just the right amount of resistance and opportunity. She needs to make him feel like he is the hero of the story. After obtaining a commitment, she needs to guide him toward making choices that benefit the family. In other words, her ‘investment’ might look very different from her husband’s investment, and would border on being manipulative if it were not in good faith.
I’m not really sure where I found your Substack, but I’m happy I did. Really interesting essays! Thanks!
That porn exploits psychological weakness is a good observation. But I have to disagree that women who have no-strings-attached sex are always crazy. I would agree that many, or even most, women who do it frequently are, or over time become, crazy.
Here's a few "rational" reasons why women have no-cost (to the man) sex. These are only a few, there are others:
1. It feels good. Sex is pleasurable. Really good sex can be as good as, and possibly better than, any drug. Some women seem to experience something on the level of a mind-blowing, life-altering emotional trip after a powerful orgasm. Even Betas can learn to be good in bed. In fact, Betas are more likely to bother learning how to please women.
2. Jealousy strategy. A woman in a relationship with a man who is not fully committed might use a stalking-horse tactic. The woman is demonstrating that she is valued by other men. She is threatening to replace her non-committal partner, warning him that he better put a ring on it now, or she’s moving on to her next option. Now, you might wonder why the woman wouldn’t just pretend to have an affair. I can’t answer that. You could ask a woman who has done this, but my guess is that she doesn’t know the reason herself. So maybe these women go in the crazy bucket in your model? Still, it is a logical, rational tactic, and seems to work in many cases.
3. Curiosity and adventure. These seem like normal, natural human instincts and not necessarily easily tossed into the crazy bucket. For example, a virgin woman might have no-strings-attached sex just to see what all the fuss is about, possibly with a Beta male friend. A woman on an exotic vacation might have no-strings-attached sex to make the experience more of an adventure. She wants to do this with an Alpha, but will settle for a Beta.
4. Ambition/profit. Some women sleep their way to the top. This doesn’t seem crazy. Although this might not fall into the no-strings-attached category, it often feels that way for the men involved, who are often Betas.
5. Seeking better genes (particularly when already in a long-term relationship). This is the classic PUA explanation, but Betas generally don’t get this option.
6. Loneliness. Sometimes people are just lonely, and sex can relieve that. For example, a woman in a long-distance relationship might occasionally have no-strings-attached sex while waiting for her committed partner to return. Again, she will prefer an Alpha, but will often settle for a Beta.
Yes. Actually, I don't really think women who have casual sex are crazy. Especially not in modern times, when contraceptives and modern medicine have decreased the cost of it enormously. I wrote a bit more about modern female promiscuity here. https://woodfromeden.substack.com/p/a-rational-view-of-female-modesty
But I dare to claim that pornography depicts genuinely crazy women. Not-all-pornography, but enough for a casual observer like me to have encountered them repeatedly. Women that beautiful and that indiscriminate simply don't exist, unless they are beyond their senses due to intoxicants or mental disease.
In general, I don't intend to equal "what was not optimal for people's genes" with craziness. I myself belong to a group of people that I believe have genes that can lead to suboptimal behavior: The tomboys. https://woodfromeden.substack.com/p/the-tomboy-manifesto
And I don't think I'm crazy.
I hope no women who choose to have casual sex and read this post believe I think they are crazy. They are just people making choices.
"Women that beautiful and that indiscriminate simply don't exist"
Well, which do you think is the pool for porn actresses?
I imagine porn actresses don't do it with whomever if they don't get paid. I have seen pornography featuring "sluts" who did it with whomever for free.
You'd be surprised how much unpaid sex happens outside the screens in those circles.
I really would like to know. Those circles interest me hugely.
>> But I dare to claim that pornography depicts genuinely crazy women
A lot of amateur pornography is made by couples. And now with the rise of things like OnlyFans, the line between "amateur" and "professional" is large and blurry.
Many women are exhibitionists, too. They want to be admired, and they love attention.
A woman who is into a guy will do a lot with him!
In fact, a lot of pornography doesn’t even try to hide the fact that the actors are a happy, loving couple. According to the arguments given in the post, there should be no problem with this kind of pornography. Therefore, it sounds like “not your true rejection” (<https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/TGux5Fhcd7GmTfNGC/is-that-your-true-rejection>) to me.
This is a phenomenal article. I have often wondered about romance novels and their appeal to women. I see how these works play into the “alpha” for a “plain Jane” without effort fantasy. A component that I think might be interesting to explore is Alpha men who were previously betas growing up and how that impacts their life strategies. Many top men were raised by negligent or dismissive parents, so they don’t realize they’re Alphas or discount their true level. I believe many of these men later are snagged from their stable marriages by seductive women who rightly see them as Alphas while the men see themselves actually more like Betas. Another feature is how the romance books will poison even the woman who snags an Alpha (in some capacity like looks, charisma, earning etc. while not others). When he can’t deliver everything all at once like Christian Grey due to natural limitations or maybe he is rather young still then the woman is upset as she’s been coached by these romance books or films. Lastly, the only book that I know of that tries to address this issue in girls and how they are better served finding a traditional stable life with a solid man is by the reformed PUA writer Roosh in his book “Lady” (https://www.amazon.com/Lady-Meet-Keep-Good-Marriage/dp/1732865426/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?crid=1W8GXAPJ8LTKG&keywords=roosh+lady&qid=1680972105&sprefix=roosh+lady%2Caps%2C152&sr=8-1). You might like to take a look for his arguments.
Thank you! I will take a look at that book. (I hope someone writes a corresponding book to Roosh so he can finally settle down.)
I found a great three part article series by another female Substack writer Bridgette from Motherucker about “tonic femininity” in the sense of evolutionary psychology which I’m sure you’d enjoy. Here is the link https://motherucker.substack.com/p/tonic-femininity-part-1
She mentions how the three components of femininity (safe, subtle, and solitary) can be warped into a toxic brew harmful for the woman and for society at large!
Thank you! Since I'm not great at reading I asked an AI to summarize the text for me (I mean, I'm probably worse at reading than many other people). I hope I got the idea anyway. I guess I should do the same with my own texts and control the result before I trust such services too much.
Personally, I often think that there are no male and female virtues. There are only male and female vices. Virtue should be gender-neutral by nature. I mean, how can something be good, but only in people of one sex? If courage and strength is good, then it is good in both men and women. If care and compassion is good, then it is good whoever is caring and compassionate.
But I'm prepared to be overproven. I never seriously discussed that issue with anyone.
I'm a man reading this and agreeing with the male perspective. Also how this aligns with your earlier post on how men might combine the feminist narrative & the porn narrative to expect women to behave much more like a man in potential sexual situations. Neither source tells a young man to expect a young woman to have a substantially different outlook/expectations/needs from his, agreed.
I'm curious to hear if women also feel this post resonates.
I'm a more-or-less neurotypical female reader (though not very young) and can confirm that it resonates well.
One curious thing that I've heard other women say is that their preferences for males change over time (from age 16 to 30), getting more reasonable as they mature. E.g. when very young many women prefer "bad boys" but at some point realize how that's a bad choice indeed, and start genuinely liking good guys. This may mean that hope is not gone.
That's now such a commonly referenced phenomenon that it's much more likely to be true than not, but I've seldom heard women acknowledge it themselves, albeit acknowledgement is the first step towards improvement. Here's another account of that from a women: https://youtu.be/hHZJam2SF4U?t=1853, at the end of a review of the book mentioned above.
As a father of 2 boys and 2 girls all in their 20's . . . my girls have fancied boys who 'stand out' from the other boys ie the ones around them who are best at stuff. Can't recall any 'bad boys'.
I'm very curious too. Unfortunately, I think we have proportionally few female readers, especially young female readers. I know we have had one. Let's hope for her to show up : )
Why do you think that is? As in, what do you think is the reason the Substack is disproportionately male?
The number of young women who are genuinely interested in ideas for the sake of ideas is very small, in my experience.
My girls are studying (or studied) CS (math bias) and physics. So very STEM oriented. Still they are more interested in making stuff (not machines) than in ideas/politics.
They sound unusual...
. . . are you inviting me to expand? Sure, they are in a minority. So are you asking 'unusual' as in rare or 'unusual' as in deviating from a social norm. Its the former. They are pretty typical girls, though one makes virtual models (CS) and the other makes physical stuff (math, phys and sculpture). Their Mum makes stuff too. As do I. Probably 'making' is in the 'blood'.
Partially, it is for marketing reasons. For a year, we had a massive marketing problem here and almost no one, of neither gender, read it. Then Rob Henderson helped us through putting my article called Becky is depressed on Twitter. That turned things around massively because people on HackerNews started to find articles here interesting enough to discuss. Marginal Revolution also linked to one article. I assume both Rob Henderson's Twitter audience, HackerNews and Marginal Revolution are predominantly male places, so my guess is that our new readers, which are now most of our readers, are mostly male.
I came here from a Marginal Revolution link. MR commenters are predominantly single or married Millennials and retired males. A couple of married females with kids.
Indeed, I am one of those who found you through Rob Henderson's tweet and subsequently opted to join Substack for real seeing Elon Musk's most recent acts.
I agree that the source of your audience could be contributing to its eventual composition, and I wonder whether Substack has a truly even gender ratio to begin with. But regardless of those two relatively indirect factors, I think the unique insights and values your writings provide - acknowledging much of the male primal, psychological, and social behaviors and problems, but more importantly also sheding light on the female counterpart and how that's creating the female's different-but-nevertheless-worth-acknowledging issues - repel more female readers than not. No human likes to have his/her problems pointed out, but male psyche may have gained some immunity by the current social consensus, where male problems (towards female both in relationship and career settings) are well known and discussed, but observations, hypotheses, and data concerning females are seldomly mentioned.
Earlier in the month I shared some of you and Rob's articles (e.g. Becky, Ambivalence, Rob's Male Monkey Dance) to both my friend and his girlfriend, and her remarks were, quote "Um feel like this is all rationalizing why women are attracted to jerks when it also has to do with a lot of internalized misogyny. Like usually men who kill children are in jail, not a super hot commodity... think we've come a long way from chimps in what females are attracted to. Idk these articles are giving incel to me. I find it's a lot of externalizing internal problems - this reoccurring belief that it must be society/ women's fault why someone failed romantically rather than anything about their own behavior". Alas, not once acknowledging even the potential possibility of a problem from the female side.
If we could all be a fly on the wall in the opposite gender's lives, maybe we'll come to more mutual understandings. So I hope I could represent a few more of your readers in saying, thank you, for taking an impartial look as a female author at male and female relationships.
>> her remarks were, quote "Um feel like this is all rationalizing why women are attracted to jerks when it also has to do with a lot of internalized misogyny
This is what's called "cope."
That woman's response is a classic version of "if all you have is a hammer, then everything looks like a nail." She's woke and politically correct, so almost everything she encounters she puts into this particular ideological frame, regardless of how accurate or, more likely, inaccurate that frame happens to be.
I'm not at all surprised by your female friend's reaction. I have struggled a lot with the question how I could ever present my ideas to a feminist or even mainly female audience.
This in spite of starting out as a feminist: My perspective has always been that females have the same right to self-knowledge as males. If men can discuss their primal urges and thereby get to know themselves better, it's plain unfair if women can't do that too.
Do we really want a society where men know themselves, primal instincts included, while women do not? Why would women like to be manipulable by men who know more and think more freely about human nature? I really can't see how such a situation can be seen as even remotely feminist. But I also have no plan at all for how to persuade feminists that feminism should mean keeping up with males in terms of self-knowledge.
Do you think that your neurodivergence has a role in how you differ from other women? Like, the idea that autism is "extreme male brain", as Baron-Cohen would say, and that autistic people thus prefer more systemizing traits over empathizing ones. So for women with autistic traits, they may display more systemizing patterns of thinking.
Many autistic women end up wanting to be trans. I don't think that's a coincidence.