Office Game: A Primer (Part 1)

Vox Day had an post on Business Game, and that inspired someone to write me an email with a question, which inspired this (series of) post(s).  The basic question is, "Can you and should you use the Game techniques you learn as a mating strategy to forward your career in a female-dominated industry?

The answer is yes.  Let me tell you how. 

Mrs. Ironwood works in a heavily female-dominated field.  Most of her colleagues are female, skewing heavily toward older women on their second or third careers.  That means that most of the offices she’s worked in have been overwhelmingly female, with just a smattering of males.  It’s also a profession which attracts its fair share of lambdas, so the few straight dudes who work in that field are swimming in a sea of estrogen.

So this is the worst place possible to practice Game, right?  A sexual harassment suit waiting to happen?  And endless horizon of diversity-training classes ahead of you?  Or is it merely a place for white knights and manginas to overdose on Blue Pills until they hit menopause?

In fact, a female-heavy environment such as a female-dominated workplace is often an outstanding opportunity to practice Game . . . with a few caveats.  And the first one is going to be confusing.

You don’t practice Game at work with the intent to seduce anyone.

Allow me to explain, Gentlemen.  As I've discussed in detail elsewhere, women who associate together form the Female Social Matrix, regardless of what the context might be.  The FSMsurrounds us all, even at work.  So using Game to seduce someone at work has the strong possibility of entangling you in a Machiavellian maelstrom of competing loyalties and petty infighting of titanic proportions – hence the should-be-a-Game-law rule “don’t shit where you eat”. 

But that doesn’t mean you can’t practice your Game there, and – and this is important – actually use Game to improve your work performance and social dynamic.  Game is, after all, designed to influence social dynamics, and in the service-oriented economy we live in, social dynamics are key to any serious professional ambitions.  Therefore, utilizing Game to further your career goals isn't just not “unfair”, it is in your best interests to do so.  Because despite what they say (remember the difference between what women say and what they do) they do NOT have your best interests in mind.  You are there as a useful tool or an obstacle to them, and adopting any other posture in return is career suicide.

If Game is used to counter the typical female traits of Solipsism, Rationalization, and Entitlement (and the Shit Tests that arise from all three) in dating and romance, there is no reason why you should not also exploit the power Game gives you to challenge and manage the females at your workplace.  And while these suggestions won’t all fit into every workplace, you’ll get the gist of it quickly enough.

The Blue Pill Office Strategy:

The problem is, most dudes take a brow-beaten approach to an all-female office.  They’ve been so poisoned by feminist ideology that even if they reject it, it colors their perspective in unhealthy ways.  For instance, a fairly dominant single dude who is used to hooking up four or five times a week might see the sea of cubicles, feel the estrogen in the air, and resign himself to a kind of bitter quiet lest he rouse the wrath of the Personnel Gods.  One careless remark, and he’s toast and he knows it.  And he always seems to make that remark in front of the exact wrong person.

She might not even report it, but she will talk about it – he knows it, too.  And he knows he has trouble coming.  At that point he uses the ideology of feminism as such a profound negative that he becomes embittered, and gains a rep in the Matrix as an angry, sexist introvert that bears watching.  He reacts in turn to the Consensus formed against him and merely confirms their assessment by his sarcastic and biting response.  This leads to the Matrix marginalizing him for his “unproductive” attitude, and his work performance suffers even if his work product remains good.  But because he responded churlishly, they treated him collectively like a disapproving mother, the go-to attitude for the Matrix in that situation.

The result?  He gets passed over for promotion because he’s not diverse enough.  He starts slinking around the edges of the office, effectively socially ostracized, his continuing displays of petulant behavior and petty feuding making him appear less manly in the eyes of just about everyone there.  His co-workers are de facto opponents and competitors who just happen to have boobs.  They also resent his attitude and are immediately wary of his presence in their midst.  Before long he’ll either get labeled “creepy” or “angry”, and either way he’s not getting promoted.

Sound familiar to a few of you?  How many dudes have screwed up their jobs because they went to work every morning prepared for battle, playing a perpetual game of quoting employee handbook regulations and puerile mocking?  At that point you couldn’t hit on anyone at work if you tried – the Matrix has formed such a strong consensus against you that any woman who dares to break it risks losing position.  Your only options are to sit tight and hope the company lays off  half of your department, or to pretend to be a white knight mangina in order to weasel your way back into their good graces.  Sucks to be you, dude.

That is, pre-Game.

The Red Pill Strategy

Consider again what Game is: a social strategy.  One designed ultimately to get you laid early and often, but the basis of Game is to manipulate social situations to your advantage through use of a knowledge of human psychology . . . specifically human sexual psychology.

So can you apply human sexual psychology at work and have it affect your job performance without getting your penis directly involved?

Oh, mais ouis!

 The basics of Game presentation apply to work situations just as they do in mating situations.  While feminism has trained you to treat your female co-workers like fellow comrades who just happen to have boobs, and not women whose boobs you can’t stop thinking about, that’s a Shit Test. If you play along, you’ve lost. As you attempt to suppress your strong feelings on the matter, grit your teeth and soldier on with the burden of daily emasculation on your shoulders, your attitude craps out. 

So back that shit up and re-frame.  Forget that your female co-workers are co-workers, for a moment, and approach them as you would women in a bar – by controlling the frame, first and foremost.  Every interaction with your female colleagues should be pro-active and on your terms, ideally.  When you go to a meeting, don’t just zone out – have your own private agenda in hand, and pursue it respectfully but aggressively.  When you go see your boss about something, always have something else that you want to discuss above and beyond whatever it is she wants to discuss. Always control the frame.

By controlling the frame, you control the conversation: “I understand you’re busy, but I just wanted to know if you were leaning more toward Barbara or me to head up the new office?” (where Barbara is a total idiot).  Or if you've been called to account for someone else’s screw-up, present the entire thing as if you’re thrilled that someone is at last getting to the bottom of this.

Next, dress the part.  If you’re the only dude in an office full of women, don’t slob out because you know you aren't going to get laid, so why put in the effort?  By taking care with your appearance and clothing, you distract women from far more weighty concerns about business.  I once wore a beautiful bright yellow silk tie, hand-painted, to an important presentation where I was pitching some pretty impressive bullshit to a panel of middle-aged female executives.  My (female) boss had me dress appropriately, and even selected my tie.  She wasn't an idiot – she knew how women’s minds work.

Because I had on expensive shoes (bought second-hand from a shoe repairman), a tailored suit, and had that glorious tie on, during the meeting their eyes and attention were on my threads, not on the crap I was piling up on paper.  Afterward the each asked more questions about the tie than they did about the presentation – and yes, we got the contract.  Not because of the yellow tie, but the tie gave them something to both focus on and admire, which kept them from looking at our figures too closely.  A panel of dudes would have completely ignored what I was wearing.

Next, remember the fundamental Red Pill truths: Never trust what a woman says, trust what she does. 

That may seem difficult in a workplace setting, because it’s entangled in all sorts of protocols and regulations governing behavior.  If you have a female boss in particular, however, this is a vital thing.  You can try to do the letter of what she says she wants and still fail, in her mind.  You have to do what she actually wants, even if she doesn’t know what she wants. 

This implies communicating with her (or any other woman) on two different channels.  The officialoffice communication channel, and the emotional channel.  When working in an office full of women, how they’re feeling is as important as what they are saying.  This is important to you not because you need to emasculate yourself and play the Matrix games, but because knowledge is power, and knowing who is feeling bitchy that day can be as important as not getting a memo.

In fact, the more you recognize the Matrix games and how to avoid them, and the more you Game the women therein, the more personal power you will accrue in the office regardless of the number of women working there.  That’s essential.  I’ll explain why in a moment.  Until then, just . . . be dominant.

Wait!  You can’t be the dominant male at work in an office full of women, can you?  Not without being the boss?

(To Be Continued . . . )

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Go Where The Fish Are

I'm not much of a fisherman, unfortunately.  That's not because I'm not interested, but because I'm impatient.

My grandfather tried in vain to instill a sense of patience sufficient to allow five whole minutes to pass in silence while we fished from his boat.  An enthusiastic if unremarkable angler, my grandfather was one of those guys for whom a bad day drowning worms beat a good day doing just about anything else.  It was the process, not the fish, that he enjoyed.  But as a kid I just couldn't hold still for very long, so he figured out early on that in order to engage my interest enough to permit him to enjoy himself, I had to get a fish every now and then.  So when we'd go for more than five minutes without a nibble, he'd sigh, start the engine, and move to another part of the lake.

Eventually I asked him why we kept going further into the wilderness  and why we changed spots so quickly.   He looked at me sagely.

"Ian, if you don't have the time to be patient, sometimes it's just easier to go where the fish are."

 My grandfather's advice came back to me when I was sitting at a penny-slot machine, waiting for Mrs. Ironwood to get out of her conference.  I was at the Rio in Las Vegas, which is a pretty impressive (if in need of renovations) casino resort complex.  For one thing, it has Penn & Teller, two of the funniest magicians in the world.  It also has the World Series of Poker every year, and hot-and-cold-running Texas Hold'em tournaments four times a day.

But it also has Chippendales.  And it's one of the cheapest shows in the joint.

Chippendales are, of course, the internationally renown group of male burlesque strippers.  They were Magic Mike before there was a Magic Mike.  Featuring a constantly-rotating cast of buff young men, the Chippendales are perhaps the most socially-acceptable all-male hetero revue a woman could attend.  The fellas strut and dance, work the ladies up into a frenzy, and then pose for pictures afterward while the ladies are basking int he afterglow.

Only, the ladies don't actually have an afterglow.  Indeed, the ladies-only show has a tendency to keep them in a frenzy.  With that much raw testosterone and musculature flexing in their faces -- not to mention the large, economy-sized slabs of penis these fellas carry just a scrap of nylon from the noses of said ladies -- you can just imagine what kind of raw Alpha inspiration they've been exposed to.  By the time they get to pictures, some of these women (who apparently haven't been touched by a man in a long, long time) are near to quivering with anticipation.

If there was ever a place where the fish were, so to speak, this is it.

Seriously, for my single male readers who are trying to round out their idea of Game over here in the married parts of the 'sphere, remember that if you're fishing scant waters you'll likely go home with an empty basket -- whether your fishing catch-and-release or you plan to eat it.

I talk to plenty of single dudes who are eager for Game advice, and then get bitter when the same crappy bars and book clubs are introducing them to the same small pool of pussy.  Pussy often requiring far more Game than it's worth.  But hanging outside of the Chippendales show and watching everyone from a nineteen-year-old bridesmaid to a sixty-nine year old spinster leave slug trails across the casino after that show suggests that finding a large pool of pre-seduced women is like my grandfather and I stumbling across a school of starving fish.

Remember, fellas: women have responsive desire, which means that they don't get hot without a reason, usually.  Women are also more-likely to seek out such stimulating entertainment as the pecs and abs of the Chippendales when they are close to ovulation -- prime sexy time -- and when they go in groups, the FSM mandates that they take a sluttier approach than, perhaps, they are used to.  Throw them into a vat of Primal Alpha, pheromones, cheap drinks and What Happens In Vegas, and the result is -- excuse the expression -- like shooting fish in a barrel.

As I've mentioned in the past, it doesn't really matter who is the perpetrator of the Alpha is -- if a woman witnesses an Alpha performance of any kind, it's going to start the tap running.  You can take advantage of it or not, but once it's running, it's pretty damn hard to shut off.  Put a horny chick in a room full of other horny chicks and stick the biggest dick they've ever seen three inches from her nose, and that's enough to make a nun gush.

Nor were the ladies in attendance uniformly old spinsters with cobwebs in their coochies: thanks to Vegas being a popular spot for bachelorette parties, and Chippendales being a mandatory stop on that circuit.  There were plenty of young, hot, and single babes panting and flushing after the show.  A blind homeless dude could have gotten laid with those odds.

Chippendales isn't the only venue you can take advantage of.  Women find themselves aroused after any number of exciting and sexually-stimulating displays.  I've had good reports following football games, NASCAR events, Ultimate Fighting Championship, and other brute displays of naked competition.  Rock concerts, as I've mentioned in the past, are particularly noteworthy for turning up the seat-heat in a woman.  The vibrations, the crowd, and the in-your-face sexuality of most male rock stars is more than enough to make her want to fuck someone . . . and that might as well be you.

Professional sports is another great place to find pre-horny women.  Everything from roller derby to professional football can give women the visceral excitement they need to keep the panties moist.  Witnessing a naked display of aggression and competition is hot-making for most women.

Another serious vein of wet panties is -- I shit you not -- the firing range.  An older friend of mine goes every Sunday morning, and after wasting $50 of 9mm ammunition he takes a break and susses out the possibilities.  Especially for the mid-30s crowd, Sundays seem to be a popular time for women to shoot, and he makes plenty of pick-ups there.  He's often said that the bigger the gun a woman fires, the easier time she'll be to get in bed.

Yet another good external cue is motorcycles or horses.  Many women still have a latent sexual association with horses left over from their little-girl My Little Pony phase.  Seeing a powerful animal, so graceful and beautiful, as well as the smell of horse, straw, and manure that accompanies them, is often enough to get a woman hyped up.  And my brother Lester once had a girlfriend with a motorcycle fetish -- not uncommon.  If they were driving down the road and a sport-bike whizzed by, her panties got wet just at the sound of the muffler.  If they got passed by a convoy of motorcycles, she would make him pull over and give him head.

Some dudes might feel threatened by the idea of their woman getting hot and bothered because of some 25 year old muscle-bound stud.  She should be getting hot and bothered over you, after all.  But the plain Red Pill fact is that women like to look at hunky guys gyrating their junk and sweating all over the place, yet the vast majority would never dream of hooking up with the dude in whose g-string they just stuffed $25 in ones.  Nor is it likely that the dancers are popping wood over the generally-rotund audience -- word on the street that many, if not most, of the dancers are Lambdas.  (Hell, if I looked like that, I'd probably be gay, too.  Women just don't know how to appreciate that much gym time on a man.  Gay dudes, on the other hand, can look at a guy that women find orgasm-inducing and wrinkle up their nose about how 'fat' he is.)

Romance novels are another horny-making device.  If your woman likes them, don't try to interfere . . . but pay close attention to her visible responses while she's reading, and if she starts to squirm and press her thighs together while she's reading, it's time to pounce.  And ten minutes with Christian Grey and his sex toy collection can work decidedly in your favor.  Indeed, if you see a woman reading 50 Shades of Grey openly, then consider her pre-primed and potentially even consciously looking for dick.

It's important, of course, to not come to rely on this kind of stimulation, should you be married or in a LTR.  Couples who regularly have to find their erotic inspiration outside of the bedroom are on the path to divorce, more often than not.  Going to Chippendales in Vegas and getting keyd up is one thing . . . stalking the local college ROTC so that she can find a good place to park while the young shirtless men can jog by five times a week is quite another.

In extreme cases it can lead to the cuckolding lifestyle, with the wife entering a Bull Alpha's harem while the mild-mannered Beta looks on, films his woman's antics with the "real man", and hopes like hell she'll still want to throw him a pity fuck afterward.  It's as bad --actually, probably a lot worse -- than being "addicted to porn" and requiring to view it before you can fuck your wife.  If she can only find satisfaction in the arms of a Bull, then your relationship has some issues.


Of course, if she's just lusting over a 25 year old muscular gigolo who's getting paid for the service, you don't have too much to worry about in terms of cheating.  You may, however, get the message that she'd like more Alpha in her diet if she's eager for such entertainments.  You may also want to come up with your own little dance routine, complete with props and banana hammock, with the caveat that it must be delivered with utter confidence or you'll probably just look fruity.

But if you're single, horny, and looking for an easy strike, go where the fish are.  If you're enterprising enough you'll ferret out where all the bachelorette parties go, what clubs have a ladies' night, etc.  Find the places where the horny women hang out, and maximize your potential for the evening.  If nothing else, it allows you to practice Game on a receptive audience, and gives you lots of experience in approach and confidence.

As far as my own Chippendales experience, you'll be interested to know that Mrs. Ironwood skipped it -- not because she doesn't enjoy rock-hard chiseled abs (they're a welcome change of pace, I imagine), but because she didn't want to get three-drinks-minimum drunk and horn-out in front of professional colleagues, nor did she want to witness her (mostly single and perpetually aroused) colleagues freak out over the idea of fresh cock.  It's not that she gets offended but . . . well, there are just some things you can't un-see.

So I entertained her myself, after the conference and dinner, back in our suite.  I won't mention the props or costumes, and I damn sure wasn't as hot as a Chippendale dancer, but the fact she got to do me without putting a wad of ones in my thong first -- and didn't have to worry about catching anything or getting rejected -- was worth it.  And I didn't even have to finish my routine -- I'm not the only one who gets a little impatient.

Sure, I felt objectified, cheap, and a little used afterward . . . but isn't that what Las Vegas is for?

Good luck fishing, fellas!

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Alpha Move: Be Hungry Like The Wolf

I apologize in advance for all of the errors I'm going to make in this post -- I got three hours of sleep last night between landing at the airport from a long weekend in Las Vegas and getting up this morning to get the kids off to school.  And yes, I may very well be suffering through the tail end of a hangover.  It's certainly within the realm of possibility.

A long weekend in Las Vegas has the potential to be life-changing if you do it right, and while that sort of thing didn't happen this weekend, I did make several very intriguing field observations about Game in the wild, untamed, anything-goes erotic landscape of Las Vegas.  I like Las Vegas, if you can't tell.  It's like Disney for adults.  While they used to call it Sin City, I prefer the more accurate term the "City of Id".  If you've got a sexual itch to scratch, Las Vegas is like a premier buffet.  

But before I expound about my Single Game in Vegas observations, I want to cover the Married Game advantages to a weekend away in this most decadent of environments.  Some couples fear the idea of Vegas, too insecure in their relationship to be tempted by the fleshpots of Nevada.  Me, I just needed a vacation, and Mrs. Ironwood had a conference there, so we killed two birds and while she was being all noble and saving the world I was getting wasted around the clock and spending my kids' inheritance on penny slots and fruity rum drinks.

This was my third trip to the burgh, and after Mrs. I's conference was over and I was able to sober up enough to go and be social with her, we decided to blow off the closing  session for something a little more . . . intimate.  

"Intimate" in this case meant dirty dancing with my wife in front of a crowd of drunken strangers.

Look, everyone wants a hot sex weekend in Vegas, and as you get older your expectations for such events go up even as they become more infrequent.  And there was plenty of sex -- but that wasn't the draw for either of us.  We already have plenty of sex, thanks to the Red Pill.  But what is often missing from the lives of middle-aged married couples is that sense of excitement and intensity that may have faded over the years as you get used to each others' personal sexual idiosyncrasies.  The stuff that turns into hypergamy and/or infidelity if you aren't careful.  There is real danger in relationship ennui, and as Athol points out in yesterday's insightful post, you just can't count on a regular Date Night to keep things spicy and interesting.

But a drunken weekend in Vegas ...

We hit the buffet at Harrah's and pigged out, which did both of our stomachs good.  We were actually planning on heading over to the Erotic Museum, which I've planned on attending each of the three times I've been in Vegas and never quite making, and this time was no different.  We were even headed to the taxi stand to splurge on a cab there when we walked passed the open-air Carnaval bar at Harrah's and decided to stop inside for a smoke and get our bearings. We ended up staying there for over six hours.

The reason was the band.  Now, you can find every kind of entertainment known to man in Las Vegas, from transvestite lounge acts to comedy to acrobatics to a donkey show, if you know where to look.  The entertainment options are truly limitless.  But the mid-Sunday-afternoon band at the bar, an 80s tribute band called the Nancy Rayguns was free, enthusiastic, and actually quite good.  Throw in some drink specials, a flair bartender named Flippy, and a crowd of middle-aged Gen Xers who actually remember the songs that the band played, and you have one hell of a pink-and-teal acid-washed party.

But I had the nascent beginnings of a plan.  The point of this exercise wasn't merely to be entertained: it was to pay some very public attention to my wife in a way she would be reluctant to see if we weren't in the land of the 24 hour hooker, surrounded by a sea of Asian tourists and drunken old farts. The point was to show her that I'm still hungry.  Like the wolf.

I think that's a trap too many Blue Pill dudes fall into: once they are safely in a relationship, they forget the need to publicly express their desire for their woman.  Mrs. Ironwood and I went into that bar as a middle-aged husband and wife, and while that didn't change ostensibly, in actuality it was far more like a boyfriend taking out his girlfriend to a show than a husband and wife enjoying a quiet afternoon of entertainment.

Simply put, the moment I heard the first rockabilly strains of "Goody Two-Shoes", it was like it was 1987 all over again.  Sure, there was an element of nostalgia for my lost youth -- but it was far more a reminder of how far I've come in my life.  In 1987 I was overweight, underconfident, and mired in Blue Pill ideology that saw me get my heart handed to me by a series of women.  Hearing that band brought me back to my youth, sure.  Only this time I knew what the hell I was doing when it came to girls.  And I had conveniently packed my own.

So it was SHOWTIME for Ian.

Back when all of these songs came out, I had been stunted by insecurity and brow-beaten by the Blue Pill: it made me either a sullen wallflower or an over-the-top spaz when it came to girls.  It was the Age of AIDS and date rape seminars, the height of the cultural purge of masculinity the feminists waged throughout the Age of Teal.  I had been awkward, ugly, low-value, and sullenly embittered by the unfairness of it all and the hopelessness going forward.  You know, Teen Stuff.

Now . . . . not so much.  It took that nostalgic, painful flash of teenage angst associated with that music to make me appreciate just how far I have come.  The dude I was would never have dared to nuzzle a chick's neck in a public place without three pieces of signed and notarized documentation stating in advance that said neck-nuzzling was an acceptable and mutually consensual act agreed upon before hand that in no way obligated either party to any further activity not covered herein.

But now, I brazenly nibbled and more or less felt her up in an affectionate-and-socially-acceptable way in front of a crowd of drunken strangers.  I knew now what all of her Indicators of Interest were, and how I could arouse them through a combination of brazen cockiness and bold Alpha displays, especially in the social context of fellow adults engaged in similar pursuits.

I knew that the ragged strains of Joan Jett and the smooth crooning of Boy George, not to mention the naked , raw sexuality of Oates (sorry, Hall not so much) triggered a similar sexual nostalgia for her, taking her back to when sex revolved around cute boys and marrying someone rich and famous, not the titanic interpersonal struggle it evolved into as we matured.  I knew, without a shred of doubt or a hint of insecurity that I looked good, I was out with my chick, I could exhibit my social prowess through a series of increasingly-humorous and sexy displays, and, with a degree of certainty usually reserved for a cash transaction, that Ian would be getting lucky in Vegas that night.

The band played "Lets Get Physical" and I cavorted around Mrs. Ironwood's chair like a drunken teen, up to and including borderline obscene pelvic thrusts.  Then we had another drink and the time of our lives.  A drink later, I hit the jackpot.  They played Duran Duran's Hungry Like A Wolf.

Now, while I really didn't know Mrs. Ironwood back in the 1980s, I've picked up enough about her personal history to know which songs and performers elicit specific memories.  And I know for a fact that there has always been a certain damp spot in her panties for Duran Duran.  Something to do with a middle school crush, perhaps, I'm not sure of the details but based on memorabilia and previous response, Duran Duran -- Simon Le Bon, Nick Rhodes, John Taylor, Andy Taylor and Roger Taylor -- just does something to Mrs. I.  Live Duran Duran, after three rounds of fruity rum drinks and a free pour-in-your-mouth shot courtesy of Flippy the flair bartender, and I could only imagine what was going on in her libido.  And I knew just how to turn it up.

All the way to 11.

(It's like everyone else just goes to 10, but ...)

When Hungry Like The Wolf came on, I got up in front of everyone and started dancing with the two drunk chicks who were celebrating their 40th birthday and reliving their own nostalgic moments on the dance floor. Mrs. Ironwood giggled girlishly as I paid them some nasty (but tasteful) attention, and got some solid preselection points in return.  Then I went back to the table, grabbed her by the hand, and led her out on the dance floor.

Now, Mrs. I, as a rule, doesn't dance.  She's still recovering from breaking her heel and other foot injuries, so the entire trip revolved on her walking as little as possible.  But three drinks drunk, with her husband boyfriend insisting that he wanted her -- her and only her -- so much, so publicly, that he was willing to risk looking utterly ridiculous in an effort to impress her with his manly strutting.  But I owed it to her.

 No one puts Baby in a corner. 

So strut I did.  I pulled every 80s dance move but the Robot (even I have some pride) my tired old body could manage.  I put on my my my my my boogie shoes.  There was moonwalking involved.  There was more funky pelvic thrusting . . . and drop-to-your-knees grinding in a most indecent fashion, my face making scenic detours through her cleavage on both legs of the round trip.  There was gyrating and spins.  There was Footloose-style white people dancing.  I even attempted a half-split that didn't end too badly.

 I dragged Mrs. I out of her safe chair near the stage and into and out of my contortions on the dance floor, never loosing eye-contact, never letting my full intention waver from her and her alone.  There was macho struttery and arrogant posturing.  There was lurid movements and gratuitous crotch-grabbing.  I was on like Donkey Kong, putting it out there, working hard for the money.

And Mrs. Ironwood ate it up like Pop-Rocks.

That's when I went to 11.  I popped my collar.  Like The Outsiders. For real. And I meant it.

You could almost hear the gush, and not just from her.  The horny birthday girls (with mommy bobs -- sorry ladies, thank you for playing) were visibly envious.  The crowd, already watching my antics, went wild.  The band called it to everyone's attention.  Flippy flipped out.  I'm not great-looking, but comparatively speaking I was on the high side of the Sex Rank at that club, and I knew it.  I was one of only a handful of guys dancing, and by far the most flamboyant and arguably the most enthusiastic.  I worked it.  Dance-wise, I was AMOG.  

Me. Nerd Boy.  Damn.

In 1987 I never would have considered being that, in any venue.  In 1987 every glance at a woman was plagued with Betacized doubt and cowering fear.  Dance in public?  With women?  With a girlfriend?  Not me, man.  I'm not that dude.  I'm the nerd, over in the corner.

Now I'm the nerd at the center of attention.  I'm the nerd boldly going where I never would have dreamt I'd go.  I was a nerd with Game, and that made me mighty.

It also made Mrs. I terribly, terribly enchanted with my display.  For one brief shining moment, the kids, the house, the jobs, the career track, the money issues and all the responsibilities were gone, and it was just me showing my chick how badly I wanted her in front of the whole world, without pause or reservation (or, apparently, any sense of propriety).  Just me demonstrating how badly I wanted to do wicked things to her body and delight her soul.  How I was hungry like the alpha wolf I was.  The Red Pill kicked into Extended Release, and I commenced to do nasty things to her leg while I nibbled on her ear while the crowd cheered us on. We concluded the song with a heartfelt public kiss with tongue and my hand on her ass and everything, and we got a round of drunken applause from the crowd that I'd never have imagined I'd be getting back when leg warmers walked the earth..

Thanks to a timely royalty check, we'd been able to do Vegas without looking at our bank balance for once. Which meant I hemorrhaged money over four days.  I haven't even figured out how extravagant I was yet, because I'm afraid to total up the receipts.

But honestly, I don't care how much it cost, or how much energy I devoted to making the trip happen, dirty dancing with your wife girlfriend in a crowd of drunken strangers and making every woman there envy her your devotion and attention, that, Gentlemen, made it worth every fucking penny.  It was pure, primal Game. It slashed through years of accumulated bullshit and brought us back to the primal boy-meets-girl that got the whole thing started.  It was Game made manifest.

It's all right there in the 16 Commandments, Number 2 (Make Her Jealous), Number 6 (Keep Her Guessing -- no one expects a popped collar . . . until it's too late), Number 9 (Connect With Her Emotions), Number 11 (Be Irrationally Self-Confident -- I told you I went to 11), Number 12 (Maximize Your Strengths - goofiness and gratuitous displays of ego, check!) . . . and especially Number 13.

Ah, Number 13.  Always Err On The Side Of Too Much Boldness, Not Too Little.

Too often we married dudes forget that.  There's a timidity that can arise from long acquaintance, a mix of boredom and familiarity that needs to be regularly washed away like a bad stain on your Members Only jacket.   Blue Pill dudes don't get it at all -- it might as well still be 1987.  But as far as Married Game goes, this is a tricky but essential way of keeping your woman's interest high.  You must be bold.  You must find some way to reach beyond the mundanities of middle-age and grasp the essential testosterone-poisoned, horny-enough-to-screw-a-goat teenage libido and all the reckless abandon it represents . . . without doing something stupid like cheating on her.

You Must Boldly Go, if you want her loins to ache for you.  Show her, in public if need be.  Fuck propriety. Fuck mature wisdom.  Fuck middle age reserve. (And while you're at it, remember Number 14). Show her that you're still the same horny, groping teen you were back in the day.  Show her how she makes you throb, and do it unashamedly, without reservation.  That she's sweeter than wine.  Bust a move on her behalf.  Show her that you have that wolfy hunger that made you do awkwardly stupid things in your adolescence . . . but now you have the wit and wisdom to boldly display every nasty shred of Alpha in your aging body.  Show her that you're the MAN, and that she's damn lucky to have found you, and damn special for being the center of your personal universe.

And if you do it right, you'll never have to worry about Number 16.  Because you've got Game, son.  That's the key.  Game.  Understanding the complex interplay of heterosexual dynamics that leads to high-quality interpersonal and physical encounters with an ever-increasing level of satisfaction, and being able to play those emotional notes like a Moog synthesizer until she's practically begging to do simply nasty things to you once you get back to the hotel room.  Like a virgin . . . only not so much Madonna as whore.

The rest of the evening was eventful, but I'm going to stop the narrative here.  We made it back to the hotel after a few adventures -- Vegas is a hell of a town.  Once we recovered sufficiently, and we were far from prying eyes (they're watching you), I continued a display utilizing good old Number 14.  I don't need to relate the details here, for dramatic reasons.  Use your imagination.

Let's just say . . . I was hungry like the wolf.  And there are other things I've gotten much, much better at since 1987.

More later.  Must sleep soon.

Ian out.

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Your Alpha Presentation: It's About The Sex. And That's . . . Okay.

I wanted to address an issue someone brought to me in an email (with their permission).  It went, basically, like this:

"Hey, Ian!  All these Alpha Moves are great, but what if you aren't a 'true' Alpha?  Isn't this just wasting time pretending to be what your not?  I thought that's what Game was trying to get away from?"

The truth is, Game is not about becoming an Alpha, or at least not a Bull Alpha, with a harem and spinning plates and that other family in Reno.  Alphas are complicated, driven, often dysfunctional individuals who, while successfully playing out their mating strategies, are often destined to a long, lonely life in the wreckage of their own poor decisions.

Why would you want to be an Alpha?  For the poon, right?  I mean, you're here because you wanna get laid (bless your heart!).  And Alphas get laid.  Therefore we should all be Alphas, right?

Not right.

Ferd at Mala Fide tackled this same sort of issue today in a post called Can You See The Real Me?  It's about a common criticism of Game (both Single and Married varieties), that is, that a man who is "forced" to alter himself in order to attract a mate is somehow "degrading" himself by not presenting "the real me" for women to see . . . and reject.  Because that's what happens, the heart of the Feminist Beta Fallacy: "Women Like A Nice Guy, So Being A Nice Guy Will Get You Laid!"  In truth, being a Nice Guy doesn't get you laid, at least not consistently.  Not even with your own wife. Not if she's a normal woman.

But that doesn't mean you have to transform yourself into a Primal Alpha, living on whiskey and raw squirrel meat while you track down terrorists in Afghanistan and screwing six girls a week when you're on leave.  You don't have to be a corporate CEO or internet billionaire or sports star or celebrity dickhead.

Look, the world can't exist on Alphas alone.  They make great leaders, great organizers, great guys to have around in a crisis because their high stature often means that they are expendable for the good of the group.  The male lion defends the pride against danger while the lionesses escape with the cubs . . . but if he gets taken out, there will be another Alpha Cat along any time.

The world can't exists on just Betas, either, or Gammas, Deltas, or any of the other Greek letters.  The goal of Game is NOT to turn yourself into a Bull Alpha -- it's just one of the possible outcomes, for some latent Alphas who just need a nudge.  For most of the rest, it's where we turn when the best efforts of our "real selves" keep swinging and missing every time we're at bat.  Game is the secret we've been  missing, the magic we were never taught in our youth for fear of offending the Matriarchy:

The goal of Game is to affect an Alpha presentation in order to elicit the powerful sexual response in women that Alpha's enjoy, and take advantage of it.

"Affect an Alpha presentation" means, yes, not being the poor dumb schlub that you want women to love you for.  It means making yourself into the kind of men that women naturally love -- you're still you, just a "you" who knows the nuts and bolts of getting laid and staying laid.  It's like learning a martial art.  Knowing Kung Fu doesn't make you a Kung Fu master, it makes you a dude who knows Kung Fu.  It doesn't mean giving up your identity, it means taking responsibility for your identity and taking steps to improve areas in which you are inadequate or in need of development.

And for most guys (and this might come as a surprise to some of you ladies) the metric they use to determine whether or not they are in need of personal improvement is how much pussy they're getting.  Or not getting.

That's why Game is not a betrayal of yourself.  Learning Game doesn't mean you're abandoning the noble ideals and dreams and essential sense of self you've had all of your life.  It does not mean ditching your own moral code because you want to (gasp!) have a lot of sex.  It doesn't mean that you have to ignore your passion for ice dancing or your commitment to finding the perfect cup of coffee or the fact you cry at romantic comedies when no one else is around or any other legitimate emotional expression.

Learning Game simply means being able to use the tools and techniques that Alphas and the various Game gurus have perfected to pursue your own interests.  And we're not the ones who started this "affecting a presentation" bullshit, either.  Women did. Learning Game is no more a betrayal of your inner self than wearing makeup and high-heels is a betrayal of a woman's inner self -- she's just improving her presentation.

The Hamster runs double-time when you challenge a woman on her cosmetics, hair, and wardrobe.  Her rationalizations for why she goes through all of that trouble are complicated and obscure, but only the most sex-avoidant woman with no concern for her social placement would dare eschew basic make-up and wardrobe.  Whether it's because they "want to look attractive", "want to look cute", whether their "bowing to cultural expectations" or "I don't want to get shit from my girlfriends", whatever lame excuse they want to offer, women enhance their appearance -- essentially affecting a presentation -- every time they reach for the base.  Does a woman therefore "betray" her inner self?  Or is she simply taking advantage of a cultural idiosyncrasy to improve how much influence she has in her profession?

"As soon as I'm done putting on make-up and fixing my
 hair I'll explain to you why Game is inherently deceitful
and dishonest!"  

Properly understood and practiced, Game is like the masculine equivalent of a push-up bra, high-heels, and Spanx.  It's how we can best manage our own assets to affect as attractive and commanding a presentation as we are able to.  For some it's the most superficial of changes.  It doesn't mean changing who you are, after all, just how you do things and how you say things.  Would you consider yourself "unacceptably changed" by taking a Public Speaking course, like Toastmasters?  Would you feel demeaned by investigating and investing in a new wardrobe for a new job?  Would you feel that your very core of identity was challenged by knowing how to Win Friends And Influence People?  Of course not.

Still not convinced?

Remember your first job out of school?  You went in with a lot of misconceptions about employment in general and the crappy entry-level job you had in particular, and for the first few weeks your dumb-ass naivete quickly soured into the proper jaded outlook on life.  In other words, you learned the basic work-related culture and the proper cultural response.  It's the same with any new institution.  They all have their own internal rules, and until you learn them you're a fish out of water, awkward and fumbling.

Game is like that.  You need to learn and understand how the rules work, and once you do you won't be instantly transformed into a testosterone-poisoned Bull Alpha.  But you will understand how the Bull Alpha uses his natural Game to remove panties, and you will be able to use those same techniques yourself -- without that extra family in Reno or a six-figure income.  Because it's not yourself that you're changing, it's your presentation.

When you went to work that first time and wore that god-awful tie you got for graduation, you felt like a sham, didn't you?  A boy pretending to be a grown-up, or you worried that you were becoming your father, or you hated the thought of being a corporate drone, etc. etc. the point is you wore the shirt and tie and showed up and no one said shit to you about it because that is what is expected of you in your new context. You merely learned a new presentation, you didn't revamp your soul.  You were the same dude . . . you were just a dude that wore a tie five days a week and got a paycheck for your trouble.  All thanks to your effective presentation.

Some dudes new to the Red Pill worry that they're learning all this "manipulative psychological crap" to trick women into sleeping with them, and that makes them feel bad and deceitful because they've been on the Blue Pill for so long.  they have been told by women that they want you to "just be yourself" for so long that it has kept them second-guessing just who that was, and they were made to feel guilty about their sexual desires and how they might be wrongly interpreted that they naturally rationalize any proactive attempt at getting laid as "base" or "disrespectful to women", not to mention a betrayal of "the real you".  But as Ferd so pointedly observes, "the real you" is up to you, not anyone else, and who sees "the real you" and when is also up to you.

Your identity is just who you are at this particular moment in time. You’re not the same person you were ten years ago, and you won’t be the same person ten years from now. You won’t even be the same person six months from now. Oh sure, you may have the same name and see the world through the same set of eyes, but events in and out of your control permanently and slowly change you. Getting married and having children, losing your job, moving abroad, graduating from college, the death of your parents — all these and other events leave lasting marks on your soul. Game, along with self-improvement methods like the Paleo diet, are nothing more than ways of guiding your intellectual development in productive directions, taking charge of your life instead of just letting things happen to you.

Once you take control and responsibility over "the real you" and you recognize Game is a tool, not a betrayal, you can start to relax into the idea that it's perfectly okay for an adult male to seduce an adult female and not necessarily imply that he wants to spend the rest of eternity with her.  Or even call her the next day.  And that's perfectly in-line with the common masculine pursuit of sex in general and sex with multiple women in particular.

That same pursuit that feminism has repeatedly attacked and demonized, while it has also fully taken advantage of it in the trenches to facilitate hypergamy, is the one you are validating with Game.  Dudes want to get laid.  A lot.  It's one of our prime motivating functions, and in aggregate it seems far, FAR more important to dudes than it is with women.  Learning Game means accepting that without shame or fear.  And then pursuing it without regret or guilt.  Because it's still YOUR dick on the line, not anyone else's, and at the end of a long life you can imagine which provides more solace, the knowledge that you remained pure to your lofty ideals or the knowledge that you had just a ridiculous amount of sex.  Whichever one appeals to you most, go for it.  But it doesn't mean you're a bad person for wanting it and going after it.  Only the feminists and the archaic moralists think that.

Nor is discovering Married Game somehow a betrayal of the man your wife married.  In truth, as Ferd pointed out above, you're already no longer the man she married -- you've both grown and matured over the years.  Affecting an Alpha presentation (backed with a comfortable layer of Beta skills) isn't you suddenly "changing", it's you taking a different approach to an issue that was not responding to earlier efforts.  Some women are going to be hard-pressed to accept that -- once you stop being automatically deferent to them and start standing up to their shit-tests, resistance is natural and expected.  Accusations of "You've changed!" and horrified looks like you're a pod person who secretly replaced her pet Beta, just when she got him trained up right, are common.  Indeed, for many marriages such a period of confusion and instability over your new presentation is quite necessary before you begin truly feeling the effects of the Red Pill.

Once you understand that affecting a different presentation is something that you've done again and again over the course of your life, and that Game is just one more, albeit powerful, presentation in your toolkit, you can relax into the fact that telling your wife you want to bend her over and take her to pound town isn't disrespecting her in the slightest -- it's exciting her.  You didn't become an asshole to get sex, you affected a bolder presentation in order to entice her into it -- and if you do it right, she'll be eager, as well.  If she doesn't respond well, then you adjust your Game until she does, and if she resists ALL attempts at enticing her with Game, then you may have picked the wrong wife and might need to start over.  Which Game is great for.

Ferd also observes another important point:

Justifying your unwillingness to improve your life by claiming to be “authentic” or “being yourself” is just a lie you tell yourself to protect your ego. 

In other words, arguing for your limitations is the surest way to keep them.  An essential element of the Red Pill upon which all forms of Game are predicated is the idea of seeing things as they are, not as how we wish them to be.  "To be, rather than to seem", esse quam videri.  You can't learn Game and still see all creatures with vaginas as inherently Good and all creatures with penises as inherently Evil.  You must accept that yes, women can be heinous as hell when it comes to the hearts of men, and that assuming they are acting in good faith is the surest way to profound disappointment.

Telling yourself that your crappy presentation and poor social skills are just you being "authentic" is an argument in favor of your own ignorance and sloth.  Which in turn increases the Blue Pill fallacy that all women are special little snowflakes and that you are inherently Not Worthy of her vagina.  It's a self-fulfilling prophecy of loserdom that gives men reasons to hate other men.  And that's just . . . unmanly.

So don't see Game as "trickery" or lessons in how to fake your way into a girl's bed.  You aren't tricking her.  In fact, a core principal of Game is to say as little as possible, and keep your answers vague.  You are merely using her own sexuality against her, the same way a big pair of juggs can be used against you as a woman presses for advantage.  You're still a Nice Guy . . . you're just a Nice Guy who's determined to get laid, because getting laid is important to all guys, nice and otherwise.  You might not be a natural Alpha, but I wasn't a natural tennis player either -- I had to take lessons.  Now I'm a mediocre tennis player, but I haven't betrayed my "inner tennis player" or felt degraded because I wasn't naturally talented at tennis.

And that's the whole point: it's just a skill, just a tool, just a social technology used to secure something important to your well-being.  There's no shame in that, and there shouldn't be.

So brush up on your Game and go fuck someone.  C'mon, you know you want to.  Go ahead.  I don't judge. Or if I do, it's purely on technical terms.

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The Feminist View Of A "Good Man": What's Wrong With This Picture?

This is the promised address to the other Sex Nerd, Emily Nagoski’s blog postingabout what constitutes “a good man”.  Here is an excerpt, emphasis mine.

Lesson: we need our good men. Not because we rely on men's approval or even because they're the gatekeeper allies, but because men bring an important and different energy.I must acknowledge that for most of my life, most of my friends have been guys. I really, really enjoy not having to worry about hurting someone's feelings, and for a long time my experience was that girls were terribly fragile, guys were made of rubber, and I am a bulldozer. And the good men were the ones who valued honesty over diplomacy. 

Now one of my favorite things about good men is the extent to which they recognize their privilege, the extent to which they listen to women in the same way they listen to men, the way they keep their (inevitable) thoughts about how sexy a woman is to themselves. The good men are alert for the ways that a woman's physical appearance might be impacting how they interact. They pay attention to making sure women feel comfortable in a social environment - not in a chivalrous way, but in a plain old polite considerate way. 

(BTW, if you're a good man and looking to learn what makes you good, the above list is a pretty decent summary.) 

There are a lot of good men in the world. In fact, most of them are good. And only a minority of the ones who aren't good aren't good because of their own psychology, rather than some interaction between their psychology and their culture. 

Kiss your good man tonight, if you have one. (I can't kiss mine, I have this fucking virus.)

It’s as sweet, heartwarming, and impressive list of (Beta) male characteristics as you could ask for.  

But while I appreciate Emily’s sentiment – there’s no denying that her intentions are noble, and she does have a Beta Male fetish – I do have to take issue with her list of what makes a “good” male.  Go back and read the bolded parts again.  Notice anything in common?  Here, let me help:

A “Good” Man (feminist version):

“…not having to worry about hurting someone's feelings …“

Can take abuse (from a woman)

“…And the good men were the ones who valued honesty over diplomacy.”

Values honesty (from a woman) without being expected to disagree

“…is the extent to which they recognize their privilege,”

Realizes that being a man is so much better than being a woman and feel appropriately guilty about it in a kind of feminist version of Original Sin . . . no matter what your personal experiences. 

“…the extent to which they listen to women in the same way they listen to men,”

Listens to a woman (and presumably does what she says) regardless of their willingness or ability to earn the respect a man must earn before he’s accorded that level of thoughtful consideration.  I won't listen to just any man about any subject just because he's a man, until he's earned my respect on that subject and by the nature of his character.  But women, feminists in particular, have a long history of insisting that their views be given the same credit and validity as all men, regardless of whether or not they have earned sufficient respect, simply because they had vaginas.

“. . . the way they keep their (inevitable) thoughts about how sexy a woman is to themselves.”

Doesn’t express his sexuality (to a woman).  The implication is that he should feel ashamed of his sexual feelings and thoughts unless he is given permission to have and voice them.

“…are alert for the ways that a woman's physical appearance might be impacting how they interact”

Doesn’t respond to a woman’s sexuality, even if she's aggressively using it against him. 

“They pay attention to making sure women feel comfortable in a social environment - not in a chivalrous way, but in a plain old polite considerate way.”

Extends special consideration to women just because they are women – not out of the grace of masculine Chivalry, but out of a sense of social obligation. And I'm assuming that she means in all venues, even places where women are not necessarily supposed to feel comfortable.  Sounds like a doormat to me. 

Now, I’m positive Emily didn’t mean to phrase things in a demeaning or sexist manner – she’s not feeling well, and it might be affecting her writing – but if you haven’t spotted the commonality above, it’s essentially this: in feminist ideology, Men only are “good” based on their relationship and utility to a woman.

I can already hear the gasps of exasperation by my feminist readers.  “That’s not what Emily meant!” they’re saying, “she was speaking of what she likes in a man, not what she thinks are the inherent qualities of good masculinity!  You’re purposefully mis-interpreting her words to suit your own nefarious purposes!”

Well, perhaps.  But perhaps not.  Since its inception feminism has viewed males almost entirely as either a) oppressors or b) servants.  If you weren’t one, you were the other – but both conditions depended entirely upon your relationship to a woman.  Indeed, I don’t think I’ve seen a hardcore feminist assessment of positive masculinity that isn’t utterly dependent  on how a man interacts and relates to women.  It’s as if masculinity were a dependent condition, unable to exist (at least in any meaningful way) in the absence of a woman.

Only it’s not.  Masculinity can and does exist in men who have little direct relationships with women.  The MGTOW movement, for instance, often emphasizes the development of a personal sense of the masculine without consideration of an individual woman in any important way.  

That’s one of the reasons why feminists in general can’t stand the MGTOW movement.  To them, a bunch of men who aren’t working on behalf or in the interests of one or more women is a waste.  They call them “commitment-phobic” (without mentioning the dangers of hypergamy), they call them “Peter Pans” because they “refuse to grow up" (and subjugate themselves to a woman), or at the very least they're “willing participants in Rape Culture” (because all men who watch porn and whack off are willing participants in Rape Culture, according to feminism).

But that’s not the real reason I’m writing this.  It isn’t really about MGTOW.  It’s about the idea of masculinity in general.

You see, when feminism exploded in the 1960s from an intriguing intellectual exercise into a culture-tipping social ideology, women were essentially using it to make broad societal readjustments to the rise of the industrial (and later post-industrial) economy.  There are a lot of other issues that came into play at the same time, derivations of Humanism, Marxism, and Enlightenment philosophy as well as some unique thinking by early feminist thinkers, but absent the birth control pill and the assembly line feminism would have remained in the academic ghetto.  But it didn’t, and it allowed women the unprecedented opportunity to re-define their femininity away from the roles of the Agricultural Age and something much more to their liking – and fitting with the 20^th century.

Fair enough.  Women redefined femininity away from their roles as mother and wife and towards a more equal participation with men as “workers”, “taxpayers”, “consumers”.   They redefined their sexuality, they redefined their vision, they redefined their relationship to men.  “To Death Do We Part” became “Until I Get A Better Offer”, for instance.  Considering how hidebound and archaic the social rules were, after the heroic effort women made in WWII it is easy to see how they would want to flex their newfound financial, social, and academic muscle.  Mission accomplished: femininity was redefined, assumptions were overthrown, the old patriarchal order was challenged at its core and men never looked at women the same way again.

But during this intense process of feminist introspection and redefinition, feminism did not solicit – nor accept – input from men on what it meant “to be a woman”.  They did not ask permission nor seek our insights about what we thought the feminine should be.  Indeed, they bristled at every suggestion we had, were all-too-willing to condemn us for our ignorance, our atavism, our sexism.  To feminism Men – and masculinity – were the enemy.  After all, you can’t have a Patriarchy without masculinity, and without the Patriarchy (at least in theory) feminism falls apart.

So Women didn’t ask Men just what we thought made a woman a “good woman” when they were redefining femininity. 

I’m afraid we’re going to have to insist on the same right.

You see, masculinity is in just as much a state of flux now as femininity was in the 1960s.  Partially in reaction to feminism and its effects, and partially due to our own responses to the change from an Agricultural to a Post-Industrial economy, men are seeking to redefine the Masculine – what it means to be a “good man” – and, frankly, women in general and feminists in particular don’t get to tell us what that is.

I can’t take issue with any particular thing on Emily’s list, in the proper context.  I’ve been known to do all of those things in the course of my relationship.  But they are such a minute portion of what it takes to be a “good man” as to be laughable – like saying that the hood ornament is more important than what is under the hood.  And to place them all in the context of “a good man is only good in relation to a woman” is sexist and insulting.  A better title would have been “Qualities That Make A Man Good . . . For A Woman”.

And it’s ironic that some of the qualities that Emily points out concern things that feminists have traditionally been against, when put into other contexts.  “Not having to worry about his feelings” is a simple way of saying that it’s OK to hurt boys feelings because boys are encourage to repress them, and therefore girls can hurt their feelings without feeling guilty.  Yet a major part of the feminist revolution was an insistence that men bare their feelings in a decidedly feminine manner.  

And “valuing honesty over diplomacy” sounds like a very diplomatic way of saying that it’s okay to be rude or obnoxious to a man as long as you are being “honest”, again because men’s feelings don’t matter.  Yet a few sentences later Emily points out that she likes men who don’t honestly share their sexual feelings about a woman, or even respond to a woman’s sexuality.  So much for “honesty over diplomacy”.

The fact is, none of those things she talks about make a “good” man.  They are a few qualities that “good” men can manifest, obviously, otherwise we wouldn’t be awash in broken-hearted Betas that women leave at the first sign of authentic masculinity they get from someone else.  But without the context of a more mature, more sophisticated – and utterly male-derived – masculinity, they’re just a pantomime of legitimate “male energy”.  

Feminist can proclaim how much they love Betas from the highest mountaintop (while simultaneously acknowledging that all men are part of the problem, even their pet Nigels, and no man will EVER rise to the level of “equal” with women) but that doesn’t stop them from divorcing their Beta asses the moment they quit getting the tingle and some Alpha comes along and incites it in them.  Then it doesn’t matter how much a man listens to her, how much he keeps his damn mouth shut about being a sexual man, how much he “recognizes his privilege”, his Beta ass is in divorce court.  Thus goeth the Blue Pill.

And of course if we tried to define what a “good” woman was – and were honest about it – I seriously doubt feminism would recognize either the validity or the reasoning behind the approach.  Feminism alone reserves the right to instruct us what a “good” woman is, according to the ideology.  The male opinion doesn’t matter and is not wanted.  Indeed, masculinity is the last thing feminism wants to deal with.  Our attempts to redefine masculinity are mostly being ignored, where they aren’t being met with outrage and frustration. 

Here’s the brutal fact of the matter, Ladies: men are indeed redefining masculinity, in response to feminism.  Parts of it you’re really going to like.

Parts of it . . . not so much.

But regardless of whether or not you like what we do with it, it is OUR masculinity to define the way WE see fit.  A wish list from feminists about the qualities they desire in their ex-husbands is just kind of insulting, after what they’ve done to masculinity over the last four decades.  We will (and are) revalorizing the masculine, and the feminists will either accept it gracefully (unlikely – not a lot of grace or room for compromise in that ideology) or they will stamp their feet and keep complaining even if we aren’t listening anymore.

Part of the new masculinity is formal Game.  Men have decided that Sex is a major issue for us, and a large part of how we run our masculinity.  While Women desire security, and make it a fundamental aspect of their femininity, Men desire sex and make it a fundamental aspect of ours.  That means a lusty and authentic unapologetic appreciation for the vagaries of male sexuality, in all of its hairy, sweaty glory.  A lot of that abuts what feminist speak of as “rape culture” (porn, prostitution, Playboy bunnies and pretty much any expression of male sexuality, including missionary-style intercourse in the course of a marriage) is considered an unacceptable participation in “rape culture” by some feminists).  

A new masculinity doesn’t accept shame or blame for our sexuality, we’re proud of it.  That doesn’t make us “bad men”.  That just makes us men.  Feminists have complained that men have let our sexuality define us for too long.  It's time we embraced that, without guilt and shame. 

Men like sex.  Men like violence.  That doesn’t mean we always conjoin the two, or approve of it when it does happen.  But we’re sick of having every pair of boobs on our computer being compared to keeping an unwilling teenaged sex-slave in our basement.  We’re sick of being seen as sexual predators simply because we have a penis.  We’re tired of being lambasted for the perfectly reasonable enjoyment of sex – casual sex, married sex, kinky sex, solo-sex with a side of porn, one-night-stands or a lifetime commitment.  Enjoying sex, and our very visual exercise of our sexuality through porn, is something that isn’t going to get guilted out of us.  That doesn’t mean that we’re all rapists, or enjoy hardcore dungeon porn, or secretly want to oppress all women as part of a global misogynistic cabal of sexists.

And that’s just part of it.  There’s a lot more to “good” masculinity than talking sweet to a woman the way she wants.   Believe it or not it is possible to be a “good” man without the permission, advice, or consent of any woman.  In fact, that’s likely the best and most appropriate way to become a “good” man – but even if it isn’t, that isn’t for a woman to say.  Men alone should construct masculinity, and feminists and other women will have to adjust accordingly.  Because we’ve let them tell us what a “good” man is for forty years, and all it’s gotten us is confusion, frustration and heartbreak. 

What does constitute a “good” man, according to men?  Gosh, that sounds like a rich topic for a future post.

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Alpha Move: Initiate Sex. A lot.

I always know that I've got a good idea for a blog post when one of my comments gets too long for the blog's limitations.  This happened today over at MMSL to Athol's answer to a question about initiating sex and making a move.  So here it is, in expanded form, because it's worth another glance.

Actually, it's pretty fundamental to Game.  Perhaps one of the most important aspects.  But let's start with the initial question of whether or not you should initiate or wait for her to initiate.

It's interesting, once you get this down, just who is "initiating" becomes cloudy.

Athol's point about female sexuality being responsive to male sexuality is dead on, and that's a foundation of Game Theory.  Especially within a marriage or LTR, once you understand this point instinctively you become far more aware of the subtleties leading up to actual initiation.  And once you do understand it, and your wife begins reacting to you more regularly, then patterns evolve in which SHE will let you know that she's interested in you initiating sex through some small symbolic gesture, phrase or mannerism.  It might be as mild as a playful dig or discussing someone at work's sex life, but if you carefully observe her behavior then you'll start to pick up on these cues. 

That's one thing that the feminist revolution really messed up.  In promoting the idea that women could initiate a sexual relationship and have sex without it having been initiated by men, it spread the erroneous idea to men at the time that since these fully-empowered, sexually active women could initiate sex without being condemned for it, that they would naturally start initiating sex roughly half the time.

That took a lot of pressure off of dudes, because the less they initiate, the less they get rejected.  But after the novelty of early sexual exploration wore off and young couples had to face the intricacies of a day-to-day sexual relationship in a long term relationship, men continued to expect the more aggressive sexuality of their woman's single years, i.e. she initiates sex about half of the time, whereas their women usually lapsed back into the monogamous pattern of waiting for their men to initiate, as Nature programmed in us.  And when the menfolk just didn't, because they took the feminists at face value and backed off dominant tactics, frustration and anxiety set in on both sides.

The problem is that feminism has put such a stigma on male sexuality that women are brought up to both desire male sexual attention and fear it.  That sucks for them.  And we dudes were brought up being taught that aggressive sexuality -- which included attempting to initiate sex -- was inherently disrespectful of women, and that the proper thing for a good little boy to do was kiss your woman's ass until she decided she was ready to have sex with you (the Betaization), because to manfully initiate sex like your forefathers was an affront to the inherent spirit of independence and person-hood of women as human beings, and yadda yadda yadda after that we just kind of stopped listening.  We got the message.  

Oh boy, did we get the message.

Between the fear of divorce, sexual harassment suits, and diversity training classes, the men of Generation X were taught to fear and respect female sexuality.  They were also taught that women could initiate sex and not be considered sluts.  In fact, they were pretty much instructed exactly what hoops had to be jumped through in order to have a pristine, politically-correct sexual experience complete with two condoms and a signed indemnification form.  For all practical purposes, we were taught that Nice Boys didn't initiate sex . . . they stood there and waited for it to happen by the grace of womanhood alone.

Big problem with that, though.  Sex doesn't work that way.  Because it's pretty clearly understood that women are designed to be sexually reactive, and men are designed to be sexually proactive.  Even Emily Nagoski the Sex Nerd, noted feminist scholar of human sexuality, is perfectly willing to admit this.  She pretties it up by demanding that women tend to have "responsive desire", while men tend to have "spontaneous desire", but it comes down to the same thing: men are proactive about sex, women are reactive.  If a man doesn't act, the woman can't react.  She hedges her bets by pointing out the usual NAWALT argument that spontaneous and responsive desires are not gender-dependent and vary greatly from individual to individual -- all perfectly true -- but as my old physics teacher always said, "the race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong . . . but that's the way to bet."  So if you want to qualify the statement, you can always get away with "Men, in aggregate, tend to manifest Spontaneous Desire more often and more easily, while women, in aggregate, tend to manifest Responsive Desire more often and more easily."

In other words, "In general, women don't start getting hot and thinking about having sex until a man comes along and gives them a reason to."  That doesn't mean that she won't have lusty, nasty thoughts at any given hour of the day . . . but in terms of acting upon those thoughts, it's  less likely even in this egalitarian day-and-age that she will initiate sex of her own accord without first being approached by a man.

An ironic point about Emily's post is that she pitches this idea as a feminist demand for acknowledgement that women are different and special creatures by pointing out that she's tired of sex researchers using the language  and standards of male sexuality to evaluate and judge female sexuality.  And while her point is well-taken -- male and female sexualities appear to be very different in make-up and mechanism, and sex researchers have traditionally been male and used male paradigms for evaluating female sexuality -- it also undermines the feminist approach to sex in which male and female are theoretically equal in all important ways (which leads to the pragmatic result of women becoming more dominant in their personal relationships by default, as men ceded the initiative under the blistering attack of feminism on their masculinity).  

It's a feminist axiom that men and women ideally enter into a marriage or relationship as an "equal" partnership.  In the feminist marriage, there is no implied obligation or expectation of sex on either party's part -- under feminism, sex cannot be institutionalized in any way without damaging the independence of women as individuals.  If it happens, it is by the grace of the woman to bestow it, regardless of the man's behavior, and she alone controls access to it by custom, if not by law.  Any less than enthusiastic and willful participation by the woman is tantamount to a non-consensual tryst, goes the theory.  In some extremes, she can even change her mind about her consent after the fact, and let the hamsters fall where they may.  

But all of that lovely ideology falls apart when the rubber hits the well-traveled road.  If biology demonstrates that women tend to have "Responsive Desire" -- and that is held up as a proud difference between male and female sexualities by one of the noted feminist researchers -- then it's really very difficult to argue any pretense that the goal of "equality" in a sexual relationship, especially in a marriage, is contrary to our biology.

That may make little difference to the "gender is a social illusion" crowd, who push to have gender concepts in general stripped away from our culture in the interest of fairness.  But for the rest of us, the ones who are actually going out and trying to get laid, this is a vital and fundamental fact that cannot be ignored by pretending it would be better if we all just acted like it didn't matter to anyone if we were boys or girls.  Because when you do that . . . well, you stop getting laid.  Androgyny occasionally slips into our culture as a novelty, but when it comes down to it we persist in recognizing the pretty clearly-established fact that there are bigger differences between men and women than our choice of position when we urinate.

Just take a look at the phenomenon of "Lesbian Bed Death".  It's a truism that lesbian couples in long-term relationships often just . . . stop having sex, even if they were fairly lustful at the beginning of the relationship.  The "Reactive Desire" idea, applied in this sense, demonstrates that if two people who are both "reactive" are in a relationship, you get a lot of "so do you want to have sex tonight?" "I dunno, do you want to have sex tonight?" "I dunno, it depends on whether or not you want to have sex tonight?" "I could have sex, but it's totally up to you." "Hey, isn't there a This Old House marathon on tonight?" 

Similarly, gay men in relationships tend to have a lot more sex than straight people or lesbians, especially in the heady days of their early 20s when testosterone turns every male into a horny slab of testosterone-poisoned sex-zombie willing to bang anything that doesn't run away fast enough.  When both partners enjoy "spontaneous desire", you can bet that there's a whole lot more DNA flying around.

So the science says women are reactive, men are proactive.  Feminism says to ignore that and focus on human rights issues and universal deference and respect for vaginas, letting them do as they will of their own accord.  After ignoring the custom that supported the science for three decades, and suffering a societal retrenchment of mating customs the likes of which human history has never seen before, eventually the damage got bad enough so that a couple of dudes said "hey, all that stuff about us waiting until the woman says she's ready for sex on her own?  It's really all kinda bullshit!".

And then they went and developed Game, because they realized that if they, as men, didn't take responsibility for attempting to initiate sex 100% of the time, then they got a lot less sex.  When you wait around patiently for the one in the relationship with "responsive desire" to suddenly generate interest in "spontaneous desire", then you're going to be waiting a lot.  And then your woman will quit being attracted to you and start to cultivate other options.  Welcome to Blue Pill Betahood, where they put the 'blue' into 'blue balls'!

Indeed, for most dudes in the Manosphere you can trace back their realization that they just took the Red Pill when they realize that the same sexuality that has been castigated and demeaned all his life is evolutionarily designed for him to try to initiate sex all the damn time as an inherent expression of his masculinity -- it's not a sign of a character flaw or a medically treatable condition.  Dudes are horny, they try to have sex with girls, and that has nothing to do with their deeper political beliefs about the role of women and gender in our society.  And once they realize that -- and accept that if they want sex, they and they alone are responsible for initiating and managing their sexual relationship -- then they can relax, safely ignore all of that crap about the politically correct method of coitus, and get his freak on like Nature intended by initiating sex without fear of judgement.

And yes, he might get judged . . . but the next step on the Red Pill journey is ceasing to give women the power of judgement over you.  Yes, once you realize that to screw them you have to ignore what they say and pay attention to what they do, then what they say even about you gets a lot less credibility.  Case in point: college girl I knew absolutely hated the whole macho Alpha image thing with a passion, to the point where she  would confront jocks and d-bags in the college cafeteria about their alleged douchebaggery and lack of respect for women by these oversexed walking phalluses . . . and then at the end of the semester she was the FB of three dudes on the wrestling team who could care less what she thought about them.  It wasn't her opinion that they were trying to get into.

So the best thing a dude can do is suck it up.  Accept the fact that despite what our popular culture might be saying, in fact the female sex drive tends to be reactive, not proactive, and that you will have to put forth more effort than you'd probably like if you want to improve your sex life.  Deal with it.  Because if you wait for your reactive-desire wife or girlfriend to suddenly develop spontaneous desire, you're going to be there for a while.  With blue balls.  You have to step up and aggressively pursue a consistent strategy of seduction and pursuit or you're locked in Blue Pill Betahood until the divorce.

It's possible to be sexually proactive and not be a douchebag.  Indeed, a lot of happily married couples with long histories figure out ways to do just that, and end up enjoying a long and lusty sex life.  The ideal Red Pill goal is to get to a place where your ability to initiate gets distilled down to a comfortable, easy-to-recognize signal that immediately dampens panties.  

That's the beauty of Married Game, and the difference between it and Dating Game.  In Dating Game, the goal is to establish a relationship that leads to sex with the least amount of effort and expenditure of resources as possible.  Married Game's goal is to establish a pattern of sexual behavior in a relationship that encourages an interpersonal intimacy in which sex is not "if" but "when", with the least amount of effort and expenditure of resources as possible.  In Dating Game you're hunting wild pussy.  In Married Game, you have domesticated pussy available.  But if you don't husband it properly by consistently and aggressively initiating sex with your woman (paying particular attention to her menstrual cycle) and giving her the opportunity to react favorably, then no matter how well the initial domestication went, you're going to have problems on your hands and more porn on your computer.

It can be hard.  Once you take the Red Pill, and understand the realities of the situation instead of focusing on some theoretical ideal of  sexual equality your relationship is supposed to measure up to, then you can accept the idea that initiating sex is your responsibility as a man, not your (plural) responsibility as a couple.  If her sexuality is reactive, and you aren't being proactive, then she's going to sit there in neutral and start doubting her own attractiveness, and therefore the strength of your relationship, and that way lies madness. 

So suck it up.  Forget about how nice it would be if she just came in, dropped her panties, bent over and said "do me, please".  Because the fact is, if you want to cultivate that kind of response the only way it can be done (without recourse to pharmaceuticals of dubious legality) is by cultivating a proactive pattern of sexual behavior in which you do initiate often and enthusiastically enough that she feels confident and secure enough to initiate sex herself without fear of rejection (which women handle and interpret entirely differently than we do) secure in the knowledge that yes, you do find her irresistibly attractive because why else would you be trying relentlessly to nail her all the time?

So suck it up and go make out with your wife.  If you do it right, she'll forget all about who started it.  

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