Dude . . . Got A Minute?

Dude.

Can I call you dude?  Do we have a 'dude relationship'?  You know, that kind of dude-at-the-next-urinal relationship where I can tell you something, one dude to another, without the bullshit?   Will you trust me -- just for the next couple of paragraphs -- to give you the straight shit?  I don't know you, you don't know me, we're just a couple of dudes, both doing our thing, and I have no vested interest in your relationship.

I'm just a dude.  Like you.  So, if you have a few minutes, let me lay some cosmic wisdom on you.  But let me distract you with an image of a tastefully sexy girl doing something refreshingly domestic to maintain your attention, first.

Did that help you focus?  I thought it might.  After all, we're both dudes.

If you are reading this, it is because your wife, girlfriend, best friend, brother-in-law, sister, or someone else close to you, who both cares for you and who has a good working knowledge of your relationship (and who may have used a dummy e-mail address), thinks that it would benefit you to read this particular blog post on this particular blog.  Why?  It could be any number of reasons, but let's assume that a good friend who doesn't want to be gauche enough to say it to your face thinks you and your relationship would benefit from the following piece of advice:

You're doing it wrong.

That is, the relationship/marriage you are in, which at casual inspection seems "perfectly fine", is suffering, and someone you know can see that.  That may come as a shock to you, or it may not.  Why is it suffering?  More than likely,the root of the problem is the fact that you aren't being All That You Can Be in the whole manhood department.

Whoa!  Don't freak out -- this is (probably) not a prelude to divorce or a relationship ultimatum.  This is a gentle reminder, a casual hint, a wink-wink-nudge-nudge dude, you need to pay attention to this! sort of thing.  The relationship that you think is so stable and mutually beneficial and strong?  Someone thinks that it could be better.  Someone thinks that you would benefit from learning something important about your relationship that, perhaps, you just weren't aware of.

You're doing it wrong -- but it's really not your fault.  I mean, how could it be?  People have been telling you how you're supposed to be doing it for years -- but they were wrong, and so now you're doing it wrong.

You see, when you got into your relationship with your current woman, she was HOT for you.  I mean, when she thought about you, her stomach flip-flopped, her eyes got all dreamy, her ladyparts got all dewy, and there was nothing -- nothing --that she thought about more than you.

But . . . well, it's been awhile, and while you're still a perfectly good dude -- don't get me wrong, in places you probably border on greatness -- there's this one area where you're just not quite getting the job done.

It's actually not one certain thing -- it's a bunch of related things, but they all come down to you needing to step-up, "man up", grow a pair, and quit acting like such a pussy when it comes to your woman.

Seriously -- it pains me to say it, but that's the fact, Jack.  You wouldn't be reading this otherwise.  When your woman does something, wants something, says something . . . you fold like a cheap card table and do your damnedest to make it happen, no matter how difficult or unreasonable.  You're whipped.  Maybe not even in an obvious way, but it's there.  Everyone knows who's in charge of your household, your relationship.  Even your woman -- and it's killing her.

No, really.  Every time she gives you an unreasonable ultimatum and you don't call her on it, her love for you dies a little.  Every time you kiss her ass so that she'll like you, despite what she says, the opposite is true.  Believe it or not, she likes it when you show some backbone.  In fact, that makes her panties wet -- and when was THAT ever a bad thing?

The truth is, YOU used to make her panties wet, just by being you.  And that was great -- really.  The infatuation, the courtship, the maelstrom of feelings that compelled you to go after this particular girl, she felt it too.  It wasn't fake.  It wasn't your imagination.  You had a real connection, some chemistry.  You were a manly man, and she found great value in that.

Only now . . . not so much.  

Oh, sure, she still likes you.  She even loves you.  But is she breathlessly checking her phone every five minutes to see if you've texted?  Is she still making mistakes at work because she's thinking about you?  Of course not.  You're past that point now, aren't you?  You're in the comfortable part of the relationship, when you can both just "be", without pretense or illusion or obfuscation.  She can "get to know the real you" and appreciate and love you just for being you.  And she is.  Only . . .

. . . well, you know that infatuation stage?  It's amazing, isn't it?  You've probably been coasting along on the strength of that for years -- if you're married, certainly since your wedding day, haven't you?  And that's cool -- you aren't a kid anymore.

But now you have to keep in mind that the woman who made you giddy with desire the moment someone mentioned her name is also remembering those times fondly, and she's wondering where the fuck they went?   I mean, things have been fine, sure . . . but things have been "fine".  Maybe even a little friction, a fight, a "discussion", something . . . but the fact is, "fine" isn't what she signed up for.  She signed up for "amazing", and she's dealing with "fine", but the first time she see's "amazing", you have to wonder . . . is she going to be happy enough with "fine" to not even consider pursuing "amazing"?  How about the second time?  The third?

Dude, not trying to scare you here, just trying to give you a clue.  Your woman, whether she knows it or not, whether she's the one who sent you here or not, your woman wants you to step up and take charge.  She wants you to lead her.  She wants to be in awe of your masculinity.  She wants to gush to her girlfriends -- not about the manly way you take out the trash or pick up her dry-cleaning, but how you dazzle her on a daily basis with your wit and charm.  She wants to feel the chemistry that attracted her to you in the first place.  But she can't say that.  It sucks, but the fact is, if she has to ask you to take charge, then you aren't really "taking charge".

She can't give you permission to take the lead.  You have to just take it, on your own initiative, or it doesn't count.  Forget for a moment whether or not she's going to get pissed off, because if you do it right, she just might be a little pissed off at first -- and that's not a bad thing.  You have to understand that, that's essential: you may have to piss her off a little to keep her engaged in the relationship.  Why?  Because, to paraphrase Feris Bueller, "you just can't respect a man who kisses your ass all the time".

And you're getting dangerously close, Dude, or you wouldn't be reading this.

Let's pause for a moment, look at another sexy, tastefully erotic picture of a pretty girl, and marshal our resources before we move on.

See how well that calms your mind and improves your focus?  Now back to the message.

It's not a lost cause -- there's still some time to turn things around before someone does or says something stupid and things get fucked up.  Nobody wants that.  All you need it step up your game a bit, take command, and start remembering who the fuck you were before you started being blinded by her puss--- ah, her femininity.

That's key: finding the masculine Dude in your soul.  The Dude who once looked across the room, sized her up, and said, "yeah, that's worth hitting", and you went for it.  That's the dude she wants to see.  The dude who struts, who thinks he's hot shit.  The dude you were before you met her.

So show a little backbone in the future.  If you aren't having sex with her at least once every five days or so (that's six times a month, for you liberal arts majors) then she's probably not really intrigued with you the way that's ideal.  If you aren't kissing her at least once or twice a day -- not a bullshit peck on the cheek, but a sudden, come-from-behind, press her against the wall, and plant a good ten-second smooch with tongue and dry humping and hard nipples, then you're doing it wrong.   If you aren't the dude all of her girlfriends want to sleep with in a moment of drunken weakness, then you're doing it wrong.  If you walk across the room naked, fresh from the shower and Mr. Happy bouncing around in front of her and she doesn't at least look up and bite her lip . . . you're doing it wrong.

Look, I know it's not all you.  You got complacent, she got complacent.  You both relaxed into a mutual comfort zone while you enjoyed the emerging fruits of your relationship, and . . . stuff just sort of slipped away.  On your side, you probably aren't getting laid as much as you like, and when you do get laid it's nothing to blog anonymously about.  Hell, you might be whacking off more now than when you met her.  She's just not responding to you the way she used to, but you've just . . . accepted that.

And that sucks.  Because both of you want essentially the same thing, you just don't know how to go about it.  You've been told for your entire life about how you need to respect women, listen to women, treat women as equals.  And that's great, as far as it goes, but when it comes to your relationship, believe it or not, your woman doesn't want you to treat her as an equal when it comes to certain aspects of your relationship.  She wants you to be strong, firm, and decisive.  She wants you to know what you want, and go after it -- even if she doesn't approve.  She wants you to be the dude every chick in the room wants to bang, but the one she's lucky enough to be going home with.

That's a tall order, I know.  I mean, how do you go from "I respect you too much to do that" to "Hell, yeah, I want a blowjob baby!" without sounding like a complete idiot?  The fact is, it isn't easy -- at first.  But either is realizing that your woman's panties don't get wet because of your decent job and neatly-trimmed yard, your willingness to watch chick flicks or buy tampons for her.  All the things you've been doing for her so she'll like you enough to fuck you, those are BETA skills, and while they're important for a long term relationship . . . well, Betas don't get much play.  Nice guys don't get wildly fucked by passionate women.

This looks like another good spot for a Pretty Girl break.  Just bear with me . . . we're almost done.

Now that's how they did it in Grandad's day!

And that's something to consider, as well: your grandfather likely had an entirely different take on how to manage his relationship than you do -- and while the rules of the game have changed dramatically since then, the players -- men and women -- still desire the same basic things.  Your grandad knew how to handle himself around women back then, and it wasn't by kissing their asses.  You don't have to completely dick out -- don't get me wrong.  But here are a few things that your granddad probably would tell you that you need to change, and right now:

Don't apologize unless you are genuinely at fault, or there is a dead animal involved.  Seriously, if she has a bad day at work, don't say "I'm sorry you had a bad day".  Say "that really sucks, baby.  Why don't you tell me the high points, and then we can take steps to help you forget about it?"

When she makes an inherently unreasonable request -- say, calling you from across the house to hand her a pair of scissors that's less than four feet away -- then refuse to do it on general principal.  I mean, if you don't value your time enough to get upset when she pulls some unreasonably flaky shit like that, then what's stopping her from doing that all the time. . . and loving you a little less for how willing you are to kiss her ass?   You have to respect yourself before she can respect you, and if you're kissing her ass all the time in the remote hope for pussy, then that demonstrates a lack of self-respect.

Sure, every woman wants a devoted man in her life, but they don't want to be in a relationship with a pussy.  Being devoted means that you bring her flowers unexpectedly, you check her oil without being asked, and you'd rather take her out on Saturday night than any other girl in town . . . not that you wait on her hand-and-foot and make her every desire manifest.

Seriously, Dude, even if you've invested heavily in the "equality" meme, then recognize that you two can't even be equals if you're deferring to her constantly.  Tell her NO when she makes an unreasonable suggestion.  No elaboration, no "I'm sorry, Honey, but . . . ", just tell her "no, that doesn't work for me."  Put yourself back into the equation of your own relationship.  She's not going to give you permission to disagree with her -- that defeats the purpose.

Here's something you need to try out: be decisive.  You know what kills your chances of nookie probably more than anything else?  The words, "I don't know, Honey, whatever you want to do is fine."  That's it.  Sure, you're trying to be deferent  and considerate, putting her needs, wants and desires before yours, out of your deep and abiding respect for the dignity of her womanhood blah, blah, blah, but the simple fact of the matter is that she wants you to take a fucking stand and tell her where you want to go -- no equivocation, no second-guessing, no picking what you think she wants.  Just.  Pick. A. Fucking. Restaurant.  Seriously.

And don't just hesitantly pick it -- when she asks you "so where do you want to eat tonight?" you tell her "I want Golden Corral tonight.  I'll meet you there at 7:30.  Order me a Coke if you get there first."  Done and done.  Don't worry about picking the "wrong" choice -- be a man and take the risk.  In fact, when it comes to your relationship it's far, far more important to be certain than it is to be right.  Really.  Trust me on this.  Take a stand and stick by it.

What if she doesn't like it?  Tell her, "well, can you make a compelling argument for that decision?" and then shut up and let her talk.  Give her an opportunity to persuade you, instead of direct you.  Put the issue in doubt, and if she feels strongly enough about it, she'll speak up.  She's not your mother, and she hates feeling like your mother.  She really wants you to be the Man, in that rugged, traditional, rugged and determined sort of way, despite what you may have heard her say to the contrary.  She wants you to be a Rock Solid Authority -- but open to her suggestions.  Hell, if you really do have no opinion on the matter, pick something at random and defend it dickishly until she does persuade you.  Make her work for it a little.  Don't over-do it, but nothing says "dry panties" like "I dunno, whatever you want is fine, I guess."

And that brings us to the subject of the sex . . . yes, you like that part!  I bet that got your attention!  Sex was like, one of the best things about your woman, back when you met her, remember?  You LOVED the sex.  So does she, at least theoretically.  But can you honestly say that your sex life now is as hot as it was when you first met?

How about another girly pic while you're considering that question:

I mean, just between us dudes . . . when was the last time you really rang her bell?  Is there a certain complacency, a certain habitual nature of how you two knock boots?  Ten minutes of foreplay, three positions, twelve and a half minutes, she cums twice, you do your thing, God that was great, snore . . .

Sound familiar?  Sound depressing?

Or does it actually sound a lot better than things actually are?

Let me tell you about something my father told me about: the Penny Jar.

When a young man marries a woman, for the first year of their marriage he should quietly put a penny in a jar on his dresser for every time he and his new bride make love.  Then, after their first anniversary, he should start taking a penny out of the jar every time they have sex.

If you  have a typical Blue Pill marriage . . . the jar never gets emptied.

("Blue Pill"?  That's a Manosphere expression that means "the idealistic and mistaken way you think things work; illusion", like in the Matrix (the good one).  "Red Pill" means "the pragmatic way things actually work."  We use this term usually in connection with relationships and over-all male-female gender relations.   And if someone sent you a link to this blog post, then someone thinks you have a typical Blue Pill marriage.  Your Penny Jar, in other words, will never get emptied.)

Why?  It's pretty simple, actually -- all that bold shit you did to attract your woman and persuade her to get humpity with her in the first place?  That went away once you and she started being "serious".  It's not entirely her fault -- the fact is, you wanted to "make her happy" and so you started doing whatever you thought she wanted you do so she would still hump you silly.  Only . . . well, all that nice stuff you did to make her feel comfortable and happy also made her . . . well, kinda bored.

God, she'd never say anything -- maybe send her dude a link via anonymous email account, at the most -- but she'd never want to hurt his feelings by telling him that he's not, y'know, the Man.  That would be awful -- even she knows that!  And maybe she's dropped a few hints you haven't picked up on, but the end result is the same . . . Dude, you really need to step it up.

And that goes for the bedroom, too.  Quit being so . . . gentle.  I mean, she's already decided to screw you -- you don't have to worry about her scampering off (unless you try to surprise her with something . . . y'know, too kinky without prior notice).  So if she's there, she's ready, she's naked, as soon as you think it's right you get on top of her and you go CONAN on her ass.  Do her like it's the night before your four-year prison sentence begins.  Do her like they're revoking your cock for thirty days.  Do her like you fucking mean it . . . because if you don't, then she thinks you don't.  And that's never a good thing.

Another babe, while you think about that:

Sweet, huh?  But not very "respectful".  But then, the idea that women value respect over admiration and desire is a relatively new phenomenon, and despite some claims to the contrary, there are plenty of women who want less respect and more passionate desire in their lives.  Even if that means accepting the fact that you are the Man, and forgetting all about equality for a while.

Consider, Dude: what's the most popular book on Amazon.com?  It's not "How to gently make love to your lady wife", it's 50 Shades of Grey -- and if you haven't been paying attention, this little trilogy of mommy porn books isn't filled with tender moments and hand-holding . . . it's filled with raw, poorly-written, highly unlikely emotionally charged Bondage & Discipline and Sado-masochistic sex between a dark and handsome billionaire (of course) and his sweetly submissive -- I mean, pathologically submissive -- beautiful college student chew toy.  The "tender moments" usually involve neckties and spanking.  There is a lot of really raunchy, poorly-written sex.  Believe me, I write erotica, and the sales of this book are not based on its literary merit.

But this thing is selling like batteries at a convent -- so the idea that your woman wants gentle, mutually-pleasurable, overly-consensual sex all the time is crap.  If current marketing trends are any indication (and when are they not?) then there is a deep, often-hidden vein of submission within the soul of the American woman that is screaming to get out.  There is a part of her that wants to feel owned, possessed, commanded -- and if you aren't the commander, someone else eventually will be.  Pay attention to what she does, not what she says, and you'll start tuning into just how much she wants you to -- occasionally -- just throw her on the bed and rip her clothes off.  Heck, get some neckties from Goodwill and go all-out.  The point is, she's fucking bored with the way you're doing it, and if she doesn't get interested soon, there's no telling

Of course there's a lot more to it than that.  If light bondage and a few extra grunts were enough to fix the problem, then it would be easy.  But it's not.  What you need to do is TAKE CONTROL of your life, and your relationship, before you find it out of control.  You can't do that with a few casual tricks.  It takes dedication, willpower, courage and devotion to the idea that you -- yes, you, Dude! -- are a masculine prize worthy of contention, a champion striding the earth, the Captain of your own destiny . . . and she is with you because of that, not because of how sharp the lawn looks this week.

Time for another picture.  Focus:

So wake up, Dude.  Someone is trying to tell you something.  You're doing it wrong, and now is the time to correct your course, before you steer into the iceberg.  You need to seriously look at your relationship and decide whether or not you are an "equal partner" in all things, or if you are the Man who takes charge, gets things done, and appeals to his woman on the basis of his masculinity, not his income potential.  Don't be the dude who finds himself listening to his wife tell him "You know, this just isn't working out.  I'm just not happy" a few years down the road.

Oh, sure, that would never happen to you and your devoted woman . . . but I could list a hundred guys off the top of my head who thought the same thing, and ended up single because of it.

There are resources out there to help you -- a collection of blogs and discussion groups known as the Manosphere, filled with your fellow dudes trying to work this shit out just like you are.  There are tons of places where you can learn how to manage your woman and your relationship in a way that will benefit you both in the long run.  You can learn how to handle her emotional outbursts, interpret what she's saying, and learn how to appeal to her sexually without resorting to expensive gifts or whining.  You should, of course, take much of what you find in the Manosphere with a grain of salt, because all of these dudes have slightly different issues than you do, so their solutions might work for them but not for you.  But on the other hand, there are lots of dudes who have tons of insight on how the female mind works.  Really works, that is, not how they want us to think it works.  That's one of the points of the Manosphere, to help you learn how to deal with the woman in your life without considering the benefits of the monastic life.  We're here to help.

But even if you don't want to jump into the deep end of the Manosphere yet, you need to realize that someone thought you were doing it wrong, and needed a "word to the wise".  So consider it given.  You might not get another.  Believe it or not, this isn't a slam -- there are plenty of dudes in your boat.  And there's still hope, and room to fix it.  Just don't ignore it.

One last picture, to kind of clean up:

I'm glad we could have this little talk, Dude.  I hope you took it how it was intended. We need to watch each other's backs, after all . . . because it's not like our woman will do that for us.

Don't forget to flush.

signed,

Ian Ironwood,

A FELLOW DUDE

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Our Masculine Power Part One: The Power To Order and Create

"Masculine Power"

That's not a phrase that has been heard much in a positive sense for many years.  When feminism talks about "masculine power" and the "power of the patriarchy" they speak of it in alarming, sinister ways.  Masculine power, after all, brought us Industrialized Warfare, the Holocaust and the Atom Bomb, the three great horrors humanity unleashed on itself in the 20th century.  Masculine power, as feminism tells us all too often, is the power to destroy.

Or, conversely, when you point out that not only did the mind of Man build the ovens at Auschwitz also built the Parthenon, the Taj Mahal and the Interstate Highway System, feminists try to say that the male power of creation and ordering is only used to oppress women, that the very structures that give order and purpose to our mighty civilization are there expressly and for no other purpose than to keep women down, while we stand back, twirling our stereotypical mustaches.  Feminism has attacked masculine power wherever they have found it.  It is anathema to them. In combating it, they attacked the very foundations of "the Patriarchy" -- fathers -- through divorce and hypergamy and crappy visitation and custody laws.  You take away the fathers -- boom, no Patriarchy.

Along the way many men lost sense of those powers, as they were told they were evil, wicked, and that they should be ashamed of them.  And for a time, we were.  We believed that the power to destroy is always evil, the power to order always oppression, the power to lead always dictatorship.  We grew up in a world where if we did not just repudiate those powers, but demonstrate our shame at ever having them (and the penis they rode in on) and our collective guilt in the oppression of all women, for all of history.

But even if feminism estranged us from the fathers who could teach us how to use them, they could not banish them altogether.  They keep cropping up like a patch of kudzu.

As Men, our masculinity grants us these traditional powers:

The power to Order and Create.
The power to Destroy and Defend.
The power to Know and Do.
The power to Bless and Love.

Stay with me here . . . I'm going somewhere with this.

Within our relationships, within our marriages, within our families men have traditionally, as the feminists like to point out, have been the political and social leaders of our communities: the planners, the directors, the commanders, the leadership.  When our fathers became estranged we saw that only through there eyes, in a negative light.  The fact that women can lead effectively transformed into the meme that women were naturally better leaders than men, and that if a man beat a woman in competition then it had to be because of the Patriarchy, not because he was better than she was.  The men in my life who were leaders led almost apologetically, as if they were doing something wrong.  It made an impression.

The male power to Order and Create is the power to decide.  There's nothing particularly mystical about it -- as men, we all know how to make a simple checklist and formulate a simple plan and create what we need to get a particular task done.  The masculine power of Order is the power to establish a firm set of rules to cover a given situation.  It provides the wherewithal to separate and prioritize items and issues into meaningful and manageable pieces.  While the exact way we go about doing this varies from man to man, it is a defining characteristic of masculinity that a man be able to order, create, plan and build.  To set policy and make decisions.

When women asserted their "independence" in the 1960s -- essentially their desire to have the vaunted privileges of masculinity without their attendant responsibilities -- they had a point to make.  With the means of production shifting from agriculture to industrialization and a dramatic increase in higher education among women, women had earned the right to re-write the rules somewhat.  Legal and social equality wasn't a matter of women getting "uppity", thanks to some flatheaded jurisdictions and snake handling denominations this became a matter of human rights.  And a country who had waged total war in commitment to that ideal could not walk away from the very real need to reform.


However, when this shift was made it essentially yanked the traditional male leadership role in the family away.  You can see this pointed up pretty dramatically in the contemporary television of the time, specifically the sitcom All In The Family.  It followed an older couple, in which the father was an old-fashioned patriarch, who had living with them their daughter and son-in-law, who practiced the newer model of marriage equality.   Of course hilarity ensued -- that was the point.



But after that men lost the power of Order in their own families.  Policy decisions that used to be made by fiat were now made by consensus.  And thanks to an aggressive feminism, ALL marital policy decisions were suddenly up for discussion and debate . . . and veto.  If a man tried to Order, he was accused of being a chauvinist and shamed away from the power.  Even if the policies and decisions he made were the correct ones.  Of course, once he stopped being able to be decisive and bring Order to the household, a kind of chaos set in.  Children not only lost respect for paternal authority, they lost respect for parental authority as they saw Mom cut Dad's legs out from under him over and over again.  Worse, when a man cannot assert his power to Order, and defers to consensus, he also loses Gina Points to his woman.  She may have won the battle to decide how the money was spent, but in doing so she lost the attraction she had for the man who once made that decision (with her advice) to spend.  In gaining the power to Order, women diluted it so much with consensus as to make it meaningless.





Part of taking the Red Pill is recognizing your own masculine power, as anemic as it might be.  All of them, from Ordering and Destroying to Discovering and Blessing, lie within your masculine soul.  We often stumble across them by accident, in the military or in college or even in the course of our relationships, but we rarely get them introduced to us by our fathers, and the other men of our community.  Far too controversial now -- how could something like "masculine power" not be misogynistic, after all?

But in order to make a strong Alpha presentation, you have to be able to access those powers -- and not just one or two, but all of them, in balance.  Think of the power to Order as the Power To Keep Your Shit Together.  Is your car insurance paid?  The cable bill?  Is your lawn mowed?  Do you know your social security number and driver's license number by heart?  Did you change out your smoke detector batteries on Daylight Savings Time?  Did you check your oil this week?  Tire pressure?  How's your 401k looking?  Is your resume up to date?  Behind on your credit card bills?

 DO YOU HAVE YOUR SHIT TOGETHER, MAN?

One of the common complaints against the Puerarchy is that these irresponsible guys aren't taking life seriously.  I tend to disagree -- live it up, fellas! -- but the perception that these guys are not, in fact, Men, despite their age, is based on the fact that most of them don't know how much toilet paper is in the house at any given moment, their cable keeps getting cut off even though they have the money in the bank, and their laundry is perpetually backlogged.  In other words, they don't have their shit together.  They have no Order in their lives.  Raised by mothers who discouraged the kind of paternal discipline necessary to develop that power, instead these Puerarchs got indulgence and politely-worded, consequence-free suggestions.  No wonder they don't have their shit together.

To illustrate this point, I am reminded of an instance over fifteen years ago when my community-minded family volunteered to help with the first-ever hospice camp for children who had lost someone close.  A lot of these kids were from working class neighborhoods and many had lost their family members by violence.  Needless to say, they weren't particularly well-behaved.

When we arrived there were about thirty kids on the front lawn, mostly running around and screaming, while the three female camp counselors kept trying to gently persuade the children that they should really stick with the published itinerary . . . and of course the kids couldn't care less what three middle-aged, middle-class white ladies had to say.  My dad and I watched this for about five minutes, until he'd had enough.  He put on his hat, waded into the middle of the chaos and started pointing fingers and directing.

"YOU . . . line up over here.  YOU . . . behind him.  YOU . . . over there.  YOU . . . between them.  Now everyone else, pick someone to stand behind.  Next kid who talks eats a hand full of sand.  Okay, we have four groups now."

The kids responded to his authoritative-sounding voice, his commanding demeanor, and his expectation that stuff would get done when he said so . . . and within three minutes there were four neat little groups of inner-city kids standing quietly in line, waiting to be told what to do.  Even the ladies looked at him expectantly -- gratefully, but expectantly.  He turned to them and said, "Now what do you want them to do?"

Afterwards, they all were gushing about how well he'd handled the situation that clearly had been too much for them.  One of them even asked, "So, who put you in charge?"

My dad shrugged.  "I did."  End of story.  After that, they constantly deferred to him because he had slapped his power to Order on the table with authority.  By the end of the day he got a toilet fixed, three day camp sites built, the kids organized by age and gender for activities, ensured that there was someone available to wait with the kids in case of a late pick-up, ensured that the first aid tent was adequately supplied and that there was plenty of ice and water for the camp . . . all without leaving his lawn chair or putting down his guitar.

It was magical.

When a man unleashes his masculine power to Order, great things can happen.  Shit gets done.  People listen.  They may not agree, they may argue, but they do listen.  It's not about their feelings, it's not about their self-esteem, it's the command to sacrifice a little of your personal will for the good of the community at the direction of a central ordering authority.

But by implication, issuing policy means being dominant.  You are the authority, and they are the directed.  You are dominant and they are submissive.  You are the manager, they are the managed.  And some women take offense to that.  I've seen women freak out if there was a man in any kind of authority position -- there's a particular kind of female who seems to live for this challenge.  I can only ascribe the motivation as sexual.  Regardless of the quality of leadership he displays, a male in a position of authority is always a target for these ladies.  They have such a belief in their own infallibility and in the innate ineptitude of men that they chafe at the very idea -- consider them the true masters of the Shit Test.




That's the down side to the power.  When you accept your own authority and start Ordering, you also open yourself up to the responsibility for that ordering.  If shit goes wrong, it was your decision.  In Hamsterland, the existence of consensus allows a rationalization to naturally pop up and keep anyone away from actual responsibility, because there was never any actual authority.  I've seen groups of women freak out in the face of failure, each receding into their own protective Hamster bubble, desperately trying to point out that it wasn't their fault.  Men, on the other hand -- real Men, not Puerarchs -- take responsibility for the decisions they've made.  It's implicit in the power.  Once you accept it, there's no going back.  YOU are the responsible party.

That's a heady thing for any Red Pill Dude to fathom, but it is vitally important.  Some freak over the weight of the responsibility, paralyzed by the prospect of making the wrong decision.  Some avoid the responsibility of Ordering out of laziness.  Some are still shamed by the idea that their leadership somehow inherently oppresses all womankind.  But when the rubber meets the road, being able to lay some Order down on a situation is an incredible power.

Ordering isn't just barking orders, it's barking the right orders.  It isn't being dictatorial, it's soliciting advice from the people best able to give it and then making a decision you can be accountable for.  Athol's Captain/First Officer model includes the phrase "Options, Number One!" when he wishes for his wife's input.   That's an important consideration -- but ultimately you have to make the decision, or yield to her up front -- and let her know you are yielding -- and live with the consequences of her decision as if you had made it yourself.

Ordering isn't easy.  It includes the ability to sort, to list, to plan, to conceive of contingencies, to estimate, to allocate resources, to follow through, and to hold everyone accountable, yourself most of all.  Sometimes known as the power of the King or the Captain, it is a primal masculine ability, necessary for nearly all else to follow.  The confidence to Order must come from within, which means you have to know what your own capabilities and weaknesses are before you can asses the situation.  One of my favorite quotes is "To Know Thyself Is The Ultimate Form Of Aggression."  And from that self-knowledge comes self-confidence.

Part of Ordering is maintaining discipline and holding your subordinates to account.  That's not always easy.  Raised as I was in Blue Pill land, I cringed at the thought of disciplining my children, and the idea of disciplining my wife wasn't even on the radar.  But after I took the Red Pill and gave a good hard look at my life, I realized that if I wasn't the one to hold her accountable and keep her disciplined, then the Hamster is the one in charge.  All of our failures wouldn't be our fault, but gosh they'd start piling up.

Maintaining discipline implies the power to punish, but more important is the power to correct and explain.  When your kid screws up, you correct them and explain it to them until there would be no reasonable doubt in any jury's mind that you communicated with him effectively.  Then if he screws up and does it again, you are morally obligated to punish him effectively and repeat the lesson, or you haven't lived up to the duties of your command.

"Dear, don't you think this is a little excessive for forgetting to TIVO
"Dancing With The Stars"?  Or is this foreplay?  Just curious."

With a wife things are more difficult, of course.  If your wife refuses to follow the  Ordering of the house or a situation you have established, then you are obligated to ask for her VERY COMPELLING REASON she decided that your WELL-THOUGHT OUT AND EXECUTED PLAN was inadequate and needed to be changed.  Then make her explain it over and over again until you can both see the logic.

You might be there a while.

I'm not suggesting that wives, or women in general, can't make plans, establish Order, make lists, delegate, act with authority, or any other of the qualities usually associated with good male leadership. ( Mrs. Ironwood, in fact, is adept at that very thing . . . in her professional life.) And women bring a host of other advantages to the table that are not native to men, such as empathy and communication.  I've learned a tremendous amount from my female mentors, and some of the best businessmen I know are women.

It's not female leadership that I discount, it is the tendency for females in aggregate to substitute issues more pertinent to the female social matrix than important to the completion of the goal at hand -- say, "Marge didn't get a turn as an officer last year -- let's make her the treasurer!  Her dyslexia won't hold her back . . ." or "Well, Stacy really is the best one to take point on this, but after I heard she was seeing two guys at the same time I just don't feel this is the best time to cut her a break" (both of which are actual quotes I've heard from females in leadership positions).

Women can and do make good and effective leaders -- but only when they master some of the important elements of male-style leadership.  Order.  Command.  Creativity.  Adaptability.  Compliance.  Discipline.  Accountability. And on and on.  These are specific skills that can manifest naturally in individuals, but they are also elements that can be learned by anyone, given enough time and patience.

It's not that women lack them, they just are not their forte -- they have other considerations that are less mission-focused and more people-focused.  Men Order, define, and create structures that allow huge increases in efficiency when done properly.  By contrast, noted feminist Camille Paglia famously noted "if we had left civilization up to women, we'd all be living in mud huts".  For women, the dictates of the female social matrix outweigh the needs of the mission far too often.  And the indirect manner in which power and authority is delegated and dispersed in such groups detracts from efficiencies.

I have also noticed that women seem to lead better when they themselves are well-led.  I don't have any studies or statistics to back this up, but I have witnessed an entire department undergo an enormous turn-around when a good leader,( man or woman, it didn't seem to matter) was installed over a competent female manager.  I've seen this happen a few times, in fact.

Of course often the credit is given to the new leader, when in fact it was the same manager who had made the difference and nothing had other wise changed.  But the fact was that without that firm leadership above her, she did not feel the confidence necessary to do the job and manage her subordinates as well as it needed to be done.  An Ordering authority gave her the support and delegated authority needed to do it, as well as the need for accountability to compel a good job.

It's amusing -- Mrs. Ironwood served as the head of a small industry-related non-profit group for a while, in which she did simply amazing things in terms of membership and fund-raising.  She did it with basically the same set of resources all of her predecessors had, but somehow when she was in charge people just naturally started doing things the right way, and prosperity resulted.  Her peers in the organization were always very impressed at how well she did at leading the group, how she delegated, held them accountable, communicated and evaluated, and grew the organization -- without anyone getting too pissed off at her. Even the crazy people.

One by one they told me how impressed they were.  I, of course, took credit, because I'm not about to pass up that kind of opportunity to invite a little harmless preselective admiration -- goddess forbid!  But after I admitted that I secretly did all of the work behind the scenes while raising three kids and succeeding at my own career, I pointed something out to one of them she hadn't considered.

"Before, you were all waiting around for someone to tell you what to do.  You were enthusiastic, you were talented, but you were without a direction.  All Mrs. Ironwood did was come in and tell you to do it, and then made sure you did.  Y'all need to take the credit."  Which is all very sweet and charming, but it's only part of the truth.  Mrs. Ironwood doesn't have any particular talent to lead, she's just diplomatic and good with people.  But what she is is accountable, and in the absence of authority to guide and validate her, she kinda . . . makes one up.

Sure, it's a cheap trick, but by pretending that there is someone to whom she is accountable, even when she has the "freedom" to run it the way she pleases, allows her the mental space to assume authority on behalf of another, even when there is no "other". Having a fake boss isn't too bad, even if he's a mean fake boss.  The trains ran on time, didn't they?

 I sure as hell aren't telling her what to do -- running a non-profit sounds like hell to me.  I'm a for-profit kind of guy.  I wouldn't know where to begin.  But I was willing to listen to her talk out her organizational problems and offer my insight, when invited.   And that talking-out process felt -- to her -- like she was being accountable to someone.  She said it helped.  And I didn't really know what the hell she was talking about anyway.

A Well-Ordered Female Social Group

Just an observation, as I said.  But women respond well to Ordering, even when they resist it.  Indeed, flouting your Ordering is a classic passive-aggressive shit-test, and one they crave being called on even if they complain bitterly while they are forced to comply.  Enforcing Order on your personal world gives her a sense of stability that acts as an anchor, sometimes.  It also gives you the self-confidence that comes from control.  Yes, it may appear to an outsider that you are being domineering over your wife and needlessly rigid with your lifestyle . . . but, fuck 'em.  This is your house, your life, your wife.  You're the one who has to live with her.  You either try to bring Order to situation and bring it under your control, or you cede that authority to her by default by becoming a passive part of the consensus.  Remember, consensus is the absence of leadership.

So examine your life and discover the areas which cry out for a good dose of Order: set some policies, some house rules, and stick with them.  Hold yourself accountable first, then her, then the kids.  Start with little things at first, if you need to stick your toe in.  You'll become more confident in no time, and with confidence comes mastery.  Even if you aren't an "organized" person, you can address this issue within yourself first, and find a way to project that onto the rest of your life.  Ordering is getting your shit together.  And having your shit together is sexier than not having your shit together.  Don't be afraid of the power to Order . . . embrace it.  Fight for it, if you have to.  But use it.

We'll cover the other Masculine Powers another time.

And yes, I'm making this shit up as I go along.

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The Difference Between Leading And Dragging

A very revealing post over at MMSL ("Our House, Is A Very Very @#$%ing House")

inspired this.  The question concerned the all-too-common issue of a young couple in the early part of the "Oughts" investing in more house than they could afford.  

Essentially the wife presses for a bigger house and presents all sorts of compelling reasons why, and the husband relents under the pressure, Beta-outs, and five years later someone’s laid off and they’re fighting foreclosure.  This happened to millions of folks, and with a mortgage industry that was feverishly talking everyone into upgrading (appeal to the wife with a nicer house, appeal to the husband with a sound investment) it was very easy to let the Great Rationalization Hamster talk us into it.  Something like that happened to Athol.  Hell, it's happened to about half of the people I know.

I’m going to bat for Athol on this, because it seems in his particular case that the upgrade in question wasn’t too terribly unreasonable, the reasons were compelling, and the world looked a lot different eight years ago.  I give him tremendous credit.  When faced with a hard, stressful situation he handled it.  He doesn’t blame his wife for pushing for a better home.  She doesn’t blame him for not being a super-provider.  They handled it like grown-ups.  Together.  As Captain and First Officer of the same ship.

And that points out an essential difference between Single Game and Married Game.  In Single Game the focus is the acquisition of short-term sexual partners through using a bold Alpha presentation and being able to close and move on without serious entanglements.

But in Married Game, the goal is much different: to work in a high-sex functioning partnership that promotes the happiness and well-being of all involved.  That requires significant changes to Game.  For one thing, Beta becomes very important to the process.  But so does leadership. 

It’s one thing to lead a woman to drop her panties and squeal with delight.  It’s quite another to lead a woman through the morass of everyday life, the mountain of bureaucracy, budgeting, and financial worries that every adult in our modern society is heir to.  Single Game is focused on being the captain of your own little dinghy and letting a girl ride for a while.  Married Game means you’re the godsdamned CAPTAIN of the leaky-ass ship with a permanent crew that is utterly dependent on your ability to get shit done.

The difference will be recognized instantly by any married man – even if he shrinks from the responsibility and flakes out, letting his wife take control.  When you are the Captain of not just yourself but a whole crew, you not only have the authority to order and decide policy, you also have a personal responsibility for the safety and well-being of everyone in your crew, beginning with the First Officer.  This is the “burden of command” that is so prevalent in military literature.  Because the fact is, as Captain, when the ship hits an asteroid or the crew is unhappy regardless of whether or not it’s your fault it is still your responsibility.

The analogy is not inappropriate, when used to represent a marriage and a home.  The great R. Buckminster Fuller called houses “Machines for living in”, not unlike a space ship.  When you, as Captain, are deciding on whether or not to upgrade to a bigger ship, the needs and desires of the crew should be taken into account, of course.  But first the needs of the Mission need to be seen to.  And while you might be Captain and she the First Officer, the Red Pill reality is that the Mission is decided by consensus.

In my marriage both Mrs. Ironwood and I have busy, successful, interesting careers.  We’ve both devoted communal resources and made sacrifices on the basis of those careers.  But our careers are not the Mission.  The Mission is to successfully create three happy, hyper-capable, highly competent adult human beings who will successfully give us lots of grandchildren.  That’s the mutually-agreed Mission we both signed up for, and our careers are means to that end.  A sacrifice for a career or any other reason that has an effect on the Mission is a cause for suspension of the regular Captain/First Officer roles and mutual re-assessment of the Mission parameters.  Call it a Red Alert, if you want to be dramatic.

The ship (house) we currently have is vitally necessary to fulfilling the Mission, so when we went house-hunting when we discovered that Baby Ironwood #3 was coming, we very calmly and rationally had what could be termed (to torture the metaphor further) a “Mission Assessment”. 

We figured out how much we could afford to spend based on our jobs at the time.  We made a detailed list of requirements, desired amenities, and luxuries, as well as a list of deal-breakers.  And we made certain that neither one of us would push for a house the other did not find acceptable.  We listened to the glowing recommendations of the real estate people who pointed out just how much we could profit from buying and then selling in a few years (and their rosy figures were embarrassingly optimistic).  They gave us a number they told us we could afford.  We dropped it by a third and told them to look in that region.  Our requirements were far more important to the Mission than potential investment return.  We had to raise our kids there, for goddess’ sake, not fund our retirement. 

We lucked out and a friend of my mother-in-law’s who was an agent found us the perfect place, well within our price range, that fit 99% of what we wanted (no hot tub . . . yet): stately Ironwood Manor.  But the point of the story is that Mrs. Ironwood and I together agreed what the Mission would be, and then we pursued it together, as a team.  Had we been foolish or unfortunate enough to get in over our heads, we would have dealt with the consequences as a team – based entirely on what was best for the Mission.

Which brings me back to my title: there is a difference between Leading, as the Captain, and dragging your wife through your marriage.  Leadership is providing an ordered set of options for consideration, soliciting practical input, and then making a decisive policy choice that allows your First Officer and rest of the crew to cheerfully follow.

Dragging is when you make a decision with little or not consultation with your crew, you refuse to listen or take under consideration objections and concerns, and then forcing the issue past the point of dominance and to the level of dictate.  Dragging is when you see any resistance to your will as a Shit Test, and respond with stubborn authority.  And Dragging is when you refuse to acknowledge that you, as Captain, royally fucked up something important and refuse to deal with it.

There are times when such forceful tactics are helpful: earthquake, hurricane aftermath, fire, zombie apocalypse – but they are temporary assertions of absolute authority in an emergency situation.  When the Klingons are blasting away is no time to have a committee meeting on Mission Assessment.  But when you’re cruising along, day-to-day ship operations require a more artful hand.  Part of leadership is knowing when to relax and let your First Officer do what she needs to, and not get in her way as she does so.  You have to lead . . . and give your wife the time and room to follow.

Consider it in sexual terms: if you present an active Alpha presentation all the time, and keep stimulating your wife’s desire to have sex with you . . . but then you don’t give her time to respond before you pile on yet more Alpha, you will end up frustrating her.  Stimulus-response is a great thing, but you have to let her give the response before you give her more stimulus. 

And when you do make a mistake that imperils the Mission (say, buying more house than you can afford) then blaming the First Officer for a decision that you, as Captain, made is poor art and bad Red Pill practice.  She may have persuaded you to buy it, and you may have accepted her rationalizations for any number of reasons.  But it’s your name on the damn mortgage, and blaming her for the situation – even if she nearly bullied you into it – is no excuse for you trying to avoid the moral responsibilities of leadership. 

One of the reasons I so dearly love Mrs. Ironwood is that one of her favorite phrases is “It Is What It Is.”  I usually geekify the expression myself, saying Takada Na Gai (“it can’t be helped”, Japanese from the Red Mars trilogy.  Made my Nerd Roll!)  It’s her Red Pill mantra, an acknowledgment that blame and recriminations are inherently non-constructive, and that facing the realities of the situation is the only pragmatic and responsible course forward.  It’s a repudiation of her Rationalization Hamster.  It’s one of the things that makes her an outstanding First Officer, as well as an adept administrator, outstanding mother, and delightful wife. 

But it also means that she won’t let me get away with any bullshit, either.  While the Captain has a responsibility to set policy and then hold the First Officer to account, the First Officer has a responsibility to point out when the Captain has Really Fucked Up About Something Important, in a constructive way.  “Constructive” meaning without wholesale blame, without name-calling, without expressing anger (even when felt). 

“Constructive” also means offering suggestions for corrective action, agreeing that the problem is a mutual problem, and offering whatever support or resources possible to aid in that correction.  And “constructive” means, ideally, offering support by voicing confidence in the Captain’s leadership even in light of the Important Thing that got Fucked Up.  As in, “Honey, we’re screwed.  But I know that we’ll find our way out.  I have every confidence in you.”  That one phrase can do more to help the situation than a spontaneous blowjob.

Okay, perhaps I exaggerate . . .

To summarize, the Captain/First Officer dynamic is not a simple “Me Alpha, You Jane” play, like Single Game.  Married Game requires a more sophisticated application of Alpha and Beta, and in general a more complex tool kit than Single Game.  Both are Red Pill roads: they require an awareness of the realities of the situation and a willingness to take needed action, even when unpleasant.  But Married Game in its ideal form also requires you to work in concert with your wife as part of a team on the same Mission, leading, not dragging her through life.  And that takes patience, art, and humility as much as confidence, authority and discipline.

It's the difference between being Fred and Wilma . . . and Fred and Ginger.

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