Because most philosophies that frown on reproduction don't survive.

Monday, February 20, 2012

The Unmanly Bitterness of the Manosphere

Sin has the tendency to inspire sin. The abused becomes the abuser, the person who believes himself oppressed begins to take on all the least likeable characteristics of his oppressor.

This has always been struck me with particular force when I've stumbled across the writings of the "manosphere", a region of the internets in which men wail about how in the post-feminist age women are all money hungry cheaters with inflated senses of entitlement.  The solution to this is, allegedly, to use to the rules of "game" to dominate women by proving the practitioners to be "alpha males". A highly technical process with all rigor of a pseudoscience behind it (perhaps some enterprising gamester can introduce the taking women's head measurements into the process) practitioners council each other on how to deliver "negs" (negative compliments) which will cut women down to size by informing them of their SMV (sexual market value).  Then once the women feels like she needs to pursue since she isn't being pursued, she melts when given "kino escalation" (he touches her).

You get the idea. I always get the sense of a couple rather mangy looking lions hanging around outside the pride talking about how they're really more alpha than the lion who actually has all the mates and cubs. For all the acronyms and specialized terminology, you can tell that these boys' manes are more than half weave.

As with most wrongheaded worldviews, there are some insights buried in there. The Sex-in-the-City feminist manifesto "from now on, we're going to have sex like men" (which in feminist speak apparently means without thought or commitment) is most certainly something which has managed to make a lot of women (and men) unhappy -- potentially for life. Once having correctly diagnosed this as seriously messed up, however, the manosphere solution appears to be that men should retaliate by turning into a bunch of whiny Carrie Bradshaws themselves. A group of guys supposedly outraged by the fact that many modern women demand special treatment and aren't interested in marriage spend their time whining about how mean girls are and generally advocating an approach to dealing with women that seems guaranteed to make them singularly unattractive marriage material.

Betty Duffy wrote a moderately good piece on this whole mess over at Patheos, cutting through all this sex war silliness with the eminently Christian point that the sexes are created to be complimentary, not in competition. The answer to the war between the sexes proposed by secular feminism is not, "No, we will dominate you," but rather Christ's description of marriage which looks all the way back to the Genesis account of the creation of man:
“Have you not read that from the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female’ and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, no human being must separate.”

They said to him, “Then why did Moses command that the man give the woman a bill of divorce and dismiss [her]?”

He said to them, “Because of the hardness of your hearts Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. I say to you, whoever divorces his wife (unless the marriage is unlawful) and marries another commits adultery.” (Matthew 19: 4-9)
Interestingly, this got quite a backlash even in highly traditional 1st century Israel:
[His] disciples said to him, “If that is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry.”

He answered, “Not all can accept [this] word, but only those to whom that is granted. Some are incapable of marriage because they were born so; some, because they were made so by others; some, because they have renounced marriage for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Whoever can accept this ought to accept it.” (Matthew 19: 10-12)
The internet being what it is, Betty's post soon attracted the ire of manosphere inhabitants, including one "Dalrock", who wrote an airily dismissive counterblast:
New commenter thule222 shared a link the other day to a blog post on the “balanced”* “religion and spirituality” site Patheos by Elizabeth Duffy titled Complementarity, Not Competition. I’m alarmed at the emotionalism of Ms. Duffy’s post along with the lack of intellectual rigor it displays. It contains a number of vague statements, a quote from the Pope about how some men are bad and others are good, and a picture of a man who appears to be taking the risk of launching a new business venture. After reading the post several times, my best take on what she is trying to get across is Shame on you if you read (or write) blogs in the manosphere. She could of course have had another point in mind entirely. Instead of my take on her blog post, she may have actually meant I like pizza. Her lack of specific assertions backed up by facts and logical argument makes this impossible to know. This is tricky business, and I’ve learned recently that you can’t take a woman’s own written claims as indicating her own opinion. It could even be the case that I need to tell her what she meant before she can decide if she will or will not back up her own assertions.
Now, with an opening like that, you might think that you're going to get a thorough evisceration of Betty's post. You might think that you'll see clearly reasoned arguments, citations of evidence, etc. After the huffing and puffing, however, the post turns out to be a rather glancing blow. Mostly, the post wanders off into Dalrock's musings about how he thinks women are not capable of behaving like adults (adult men, one presumes) but want to be taken seriously anyway.
Aside from being about a general sense of unhappiness, feminism at its core is a rejection of the patriarchal view that women at times behave like children, and a deep desire of women to be taken seriously. With this in mind, I can only assume that Ms. Duffy very much wants us to take her seriously when she tells men not to take women too seriously.

Women have demanded and been granted the right to have their finger on the nuclear button and the unchecked power to destroy the nuclear family. How can we not be alarmed at the thought that they might not have the capacity to keep their emotions in check?
I don't know if it's his emotions that are out of check or merely his prose writing ability, but Dalrock never seems to be able to come around to any kind of a point, though he has a lot to say. Much of it, curiously, seems to have virtually nothing to do with Betty's post:
The first feminists felt (and many women still do feel) that they needed to keep their emotions in check and perform up to high male standards in order to blaze the trail for other women. However, they either never figured out how to transfer this ethos to the larger population of women or never really intended to deliver on this promise. What has made this much worse is newer generations of feminists don’t consider themselves feminists, they consider themselves traditional conservatives. This gives us women who have post grad degrees in women’s studies who also expect men to at times afford adult women the understanding and protection granted to an eight year old.
From this, we can learn that Dalrock thinks feminists are devilishly clever, and that he really likes to link to his own posts, but what objection he has to Betty's description of how relations between men and women (and marriage in particular) should be complementary rather than competitive is unclear. We get a rant about how feminists have ruined everything, but the connection of those paragraphs to his (never clearly stated) objection to Betty's post is tenuous at best. Near the end, he tries to tie it all together:
For her part Ms. Duffy appears to absolve herself of any responsibility for the great harms of feminism while both defending it and enjoying the benefits of it. At one point she uses standard feminist language to shame men who raise concerns about it (emphasis mine):
There is a corner of the internet known as the “manosphere.” In a backlash to perceived cultural bias against men due to the mainstreaming of feminist principles, some men, feeling oppressed and trampled into submission by strong women…
Elsewhere in the post she writes:
The married portion of the manosphere has gained traction among some Christian and Catholic men, who—perhaps raised in broken homes—are looking for male role models as they strive to build a marriage and a family that will last.
Not only does she ridicule and belittle those who voice concerns with the immense damage caused by feminism without seriously addressing the actual issues, in the subtitle of her post she washes her hands of any responsibility for the harms of feminism. In truly childish form, if there are any negative outcomes to the changes women have demanded she decides that it must be men who are to blame:
For feminism to have gained a foothold, men had to collude with it, and it has been in their interest to do so; this leaves the message of the manosphere ringing hollow.
Yes, that's the end of the post (except for a footnote). It goes out with more a whimper than a bang, and one never really is clear what the author's substantive critique of Betty's post is. Perhaps the key issue here is that Dalrock is so busy defending the honor of the manosphere and describing the evils of feminism that he doesn't really seem to ever grasp what Betty is saying with the quote that he chooses to end his response with. She is not saying, as he claims she is, that "if there are any negative outcomes to the changes women have demanded she decides that it must be men who are to blame". Far from it. Rather, Betty points out that the blame for the moral and societal breakdown is shared. Feminist thinkers latched onto divorce, sex outside of marriage, abortion and contraception as means to allow women to enjoy "equality" with men in society and the workplace, and to free themselves from "oppressive" moral and social structures. Sex takes two, however, and it clearly was not the case that men were all saying, "Whoa there! Let's not break up this great social order we've got. If you sleep around for fifteen years before you feel like getting married, things aren't going to work out so well!" (And, come to that, the idea that marriage was oppressive and people should all go try the Sex In The City life arguably wouldn't have been so salable if a certain portion of men and women hadn't labored to make their marriages convincingly oppressive.) Our society got messed up (in the particular way our society is -- in a fallen world all societies are messed up in one way or another) through the sins of both men and women, and it's certainly not going to get healed if all the members of one sex sit around saying, "No, you shape up first!"

If there's a dark amusement in all this, it's that there's a symmetry between the feminist and "manosphere" views of the world: In the first, men are at fault for everything and they need to be cut down to size and tamed so that women can lead full and fulfilling lives. In the latter, feminists are at fault for everything, and they need to be similarly tamed so that men can be happier. In both views, dominance is the necessary prerequisite for happiness and fulfillment.

In point of fact, gender struggle is no more likely to lead to a happy society (or a happy marriage) than is class struggle to lead to a happy society. Even if the "manosphere" has been right in identifying a few of society's problems, its one-sided solutions and antagonistic attitude provides no solutions.

[Administrative Note: Having seen how the comments at Patheos went downhill fast, let me assure anyone wanting to vent that I intend to maintain standards in my comboxes. Think before you post, and understand that the man of the house has no hesitations here about showing people the door to maintain order. And put the coffee down. Coffee is for closers only. (full David Mamet strength language warning on that link)]

48 comments:

Big Tex said...

It appears the response of the manosphere to feminism is to be utterly opposite. They've taken their pendulum, and swung it to the opposite extreme. Yet as you point out, this sort of behavior isn't going to solve anything.

Rebekka said...

Having read some of the comments on the original post, I have to say, oh, no, not the pendulum! Apparently these spherical men are convinced that The Pendulum is out to make some kind of epic backlash and drag society back to the patriarchy and the feminists are Gonna Get It. They remind me of people who believe in peak oil.

Love the post label. Ha! And the image of the d-baggy lion outsiders hanging out validating each other in their playerness. Basically I just agree with the whole post.

MrsDarwin said...

Rebekka, everything about your comment is making me laugh. "Peak oil!" "Playerness!" Nice.

Rebekka said...

So glad to entertain!

Julia said...

Totally random reply:
http://tinyurl.com/6whj8ax

I think the conclusion of science is that we are complementary.

Emily J. said...

Good points. Even though the title of Dalrock's blog is "Do not be alarmed," judging by the vituperative comments, he and his cronies are alarmed. They complain that Duffy didn't do her research, but then fail to understand her context. They also are angry at her for lumping men's rights activists in with pick-up artists, but they are happy to categorize all women as feminists, except perhaps whatever they consider the "good woman," who apparently is the woman content to be a slave. And their "logic" seems to consist of a lot of ad hominem attacks.

After reading a few of these bitter diatribes, I can't help but feel sorry for these guys, though. Their anger just alienates the people they want to convince.

Peter and Nancy said...

My brain hurts right now because of the contradictory nature of Dalrock's blaming Betty for not backing up her assertions with studies, etc., and then doing the exact same thing himself. And also because he refers to certain women trying to be unemotional and live up to "high male standards" in logic. I'm left wondering when everything became a competition between men and women, and why we don't strive instead for the highest standard of all humanity, as embodied in Christ -- any other Christ-like role model (Mother Teresa springs to mind), regardless of gender.
Nancy

Ian Ironwood said...

Time to correct some of your misconceptions about the Manosphere. Because your characterization is about as fair and accurate as describing all Christians as “ritual cannibals”. Indeed, your grasp of the Manosphere in general and Game in particular is about as accurate and sophisticated as my seven-year-old Pagan child’s understanding of transubstantiation. And your characterization of our justified anger as “unmanly” is a shaming attempt to attempt to bring us back into control, which we resent. Christianity has lost the right to determine what is and what isn’t masculine or manly. That’s one of the reasons that the Manosphere exists in the first place. Of course, you want to reduce it to a couple of angry old dudes and a bunch of horny young dudes so you can ridicule them safely and feel smugly superior to these poor deluded men. But that’s not what the Manosphere is, or how it works.

So allow me to fill you in.

The Manosphere is a collection of blogs and newsgroups centering around male issues, like masculinity, marriage, divorce, children, sports, videogames, cooking, and, among many and diverse other interests, sex. Sex is a male issue. We talk about sex. A lot.

But both the PUA communities and the MRA communities are legitimate and valued voices within the greater Manosphere, particularly since their interests often overlap. Since most of us have sex with women (but not all – plenty of Gay folk in the Manosphere) a lot of the talk about sex concerns women. And since feminism is a powerful force in the lives of many women, and decidedly within the culture of women in the West, we do discuss feminism and the impact it has had on men and masculinity.

If we seem bitter, it is because we have a right to be. Feminism has levied a constant assault against masculinity far beyond the stated ideal of establishing equal rights for women. The result has been a pattern of misandry, divorce and hypergamy that has devastated the lives of countless families, and damaged the development of two generations of children. In addition, the culturally-established (and tacitly Church-approved) erosion of respect for men and masculinity in our culture has left us with little recourse and few options. So we built the Manosphere.

But what should really concern you is not the PUAs, or the MRAs; what should concern you is that the techniques of Game developed to pick up drunk college girls and tipsy career women been refined, now. Thanks to the diligent work of a few enterprising men, Game has been adapted to be employed in a marriage . . . without recourse to scripture.

To what end? To get our wives to have sex with us more. By employing the skills detailed in Athol Kay’s MMSL and the blogs associated with the Manosphere, a married man can learn the skills needed to manage his household and his wife without appealing to her spirituality or her pride in her independence. Instead of relying on her to recognize her divinely-ordained role through prayer or appealing to the ideals surrounding her image of herself as a strong, independent woman ala feminism, Married Game is a tool for a man to effectively manage his homelife and his sex life without threats, violence, coercion, begging, pleading, bribing or an excess of deference.

The results are astounding. Even strong marriages have flourished through the consistent application of Married Game, while many on the edge of divorce have come back powerfully. The strength of the skill set lies in the way a man develops his Game personally, to work with his own sense of masculinity – masculinity that Christianity and the Church have conspired with feminists to undercut and disrespect for four decades or more. And when a man embraces his masculinity, shares the intellectual company of other men, men who do not judge or reject, then the skills and perspective shared across the Manosphere enrich us all.

Brandon said...

For those who have difficulty following Ian's profound insights, I provide a handy paragraph by paragraph summary:

Par. 1: The Manosphere is a lot like a religion.

Par. 3: The Manosphere has to do with men.

Par. 4: Because of that it talks a lot about women.

Par. 5: If the Manosphere seems bitter, this is because it is.

Par. 6: Thanks to refinement, men interested in Game can now treat their wives like drunken college girls, without regard to the Bible.

Par. 7: This is useful information for men who have difficulty getting their wives to have sex with them without resorting to threats and violence.

Par. 8: In short, the Manosphere is a lot like a gym locker room.

Thanks, Ian!

Ian Ironwood said...

You're welcome.

And I'll remind you that the gym locker room has been a figuratively and literally sacred realm of masculinity for over 6000 years. And your attempt to shame me over it is ungentlemanly.

And the point isn't to treat our wives like drunken college girls. The point is to treat them like hot sexy MILFs instead of future ex-wives. If you can find a MILF chapter in the Bible, love to hear about it.

Considering that the prevailing data indicates that most men in and out of marriage want to see an improvement in their sex lives, I have a hard time seeing how them actually working to improve them is a bad thing. I take it you do?

Brandon said...

Oh, no, Ian; I just think it is funny that you think your comment showed that Darwin's post had an understanding of the Manosphere that was as bad as calling Christianity ritual cannibalism, given that almost all you did is reiterate half of his points in pompous phrases that make the Manosphere sound more like a collection of clueless losers than anything he said.

Rebekka said...

The Song of Songs.

Darwin said...

Ian,

Nice of you to drop by. I appreciate your attempt to engage, and I have to say your comment comes off as significantly better written than Dalrock's wandering piece -- though admittedly that's rather faint praise.

I'll respond piecemeal.

Because your characterization is about as fair and accurate as describing all Christians as “ritual cannibals”. Indeed, your grasp of the Manosphere in general and Game in particular is about as accurate and sophisticated as my seven-year-old Pagan child’s understanding of transubstantiation.

After this opening, I was kind of expecting to get some sort of explanation as to what, in particular, was wrong in my (intentionally brief, cursory and mildly derisive) description of game, but this does not seem to have been forthcoming.

The description of Christians (or, at least, Catholics) as "ritual cannibals" would certainly be simplistic, but there is at least a certain rough, literalistic accuracy to it. I'm unclear whether you mean to suggest that my summary is merely overly literal and simplistic in its description of game (which, in that case, is merely what I intended) of if you think it's actually wrong.

And your characterization of our justified anger as “unmanly” is a shaming attempt to attempt to bring us back into control, which we resent.

There's no attempt to bring anyone back into control, because I don't think I do or should control "you" (whoever that is) but frankly my number one reaction any time I've spent any time reading manosphere/game blogs has been: these guys are bitter, pathetic, and unmanly. Is, what it is.

Christianity has lost the right to determine what is and what isn’t masculine or manly. That’s one of the reasons that the Manosphere exists in the first place.

To be blunt: Says who?

Christianity gives an account of what the human person is (made in the image of God), and what its purpose is (salvation). And, yes, because we are male and female, that means that the Church has a certain amount to say about what the nature and responsibilities of manhood is. That can change in cultural specifics, but certainly it hasn't changed in substance in 2000 years.

If you think Christianity is not an accurate account of what the world is, then naturally your ideas may differ. Different beliefs about what the good life are lead to different ideas of what good masculinity is. That's why to most modern eyes, Hector reads as the far more admirable character in the Iliad, while Achilles comes off as a whiner. To the Greeks, at least the early ones, Achilles seemed more admirable.

The Manosphere is a collection of blogs and newsgroups centering around male issues, like masculinity, marriage, divorce, children, sports, videogames, cooking, and, among many and diverse other interests, sex. Sex is a male issue. We talk about sex. A lot.

This strikes me as drawing things rather wider than they are. There are plenty of sites written mostly by and for men whether specifically (such as the Art of Manliness site) or due to largely gender segregated interests (just to list the things I follow: a lot of political and economics sites, and even more so sites focused on guns, homebrewing, Scotch, classic cocktails, etc.)

The "manosphere", on the other hand, seems to fairly specifically be comprised of guys who think that "game" theory (not the mathematical/logical theories that are properly called by that name, but the process of "gaming" women) is something other than simplistic relationship advice hokum, and who also take an unusually adversarial approach to women.

Darwin said...

[...continued]

If we seem bitter, it is because we have a right to be. Feminism has levied a constant assault against masculinity far beyond the stated ideal of establishing equal rights for women. The result has been a pattern of misandry, divorce and hypergamy that has devastated the lives of countless families, and damaged the development of two generations of children. In addition, the culturally-established (and tacitly Church-approved) erosion of respect for men and masculinity in our culture has left us with little recourse and few options.

And yet the analysis provided by the manosphere seems almost simplistic and chest thumping enough to fulfill all the worst stereotypes peddled about men by modern society. Frankly, as a man, I find myself pretty appalled.

Yes, modern feminism gets a lot of things wrong -- among other things an idea of Marxist class struggle applied to the sexes. At the same time, the manospheres answers seem about equally wrong-headed, and thus unlikely to solve the problems which you allege are its motivations.

what should concern you is that the techniques of Game developed to pick up drunk college girls and tipsy career women been refined, now. Thanks to the diligent work of a few enterprising men, Game has been adapted to be employed in a marriage

Color me unimpressed. I've read a couple posts on married "game" and it strikes me as, at best, a clumsy set of rules for faking one's way through the motions of acting like a more interesting husband -- the while couched in such self satisfied tones as to be seriously off-putting to any self aware wife. (For those without self aware wives... Well, I dunno what to say.)

a married man can learn the skills needed to manage his household and his wife without appealing to her spirituality or her pride in her independence. Instead of relying on her to recognize her divinely-ordained role through prayer or appealing to the ideals surrounding her image of herself as a strong, independent woman ala feminism, Married Game is a tool for a man to effectively manage his homelife and his sex life without threats, violence, coercion, begging, pleading, bribing or an excess of deference.

See, here's the thing: I already manage my homelife and my sex life very, very well without "threats, violence, coercion, begging, pleading, bribing or an excess of deference". And so my thought in reading posts on "married game" is that if the advice being given is to behave in a way which strikes me as stupid (and doubtless also in such a fashion as to get very bad results from my wife) and if, moreover, the authors seem to have a lousy attitude towards women and a very confused set of notions about sexual morality and marriage, then the advice is most likely bad.

I think a fairly logical way to proceed is: If you are getting very good results, and someone else (who doesn't seem to be getting good results, given his general attitude) tells you to behave in a very different fashion, assume he's wrong. So that's what I'm doing.

MrsDarwin said...

MILF verses from the Song of Solomon 4:12 - 5:5.

Groom: You are an enclosed garden, my sister, my bride,
an enclosed garden, a fountain sealed.
You are a park that puts forth pomegranates with all choice fruits;
Nard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon, with all kinds of incense;
Myrrh and aloes,
with all the finest spices.
You are a garden fountain, a well of water
flowing fresh from Lebanon.
Arise, north wind! Come, south wind!
blow upon my garden
that its perfumes may spread abroad.

Bride: Let my lover come to his garden and eat its choice fruits.

Groom: I have come to my garden, my sister, my bride;
I gather my myrrh and my spices,
I eat my honey and my sweetmeats.
I drink my wine and my milk....

Bride: I was sleeping, but my heart kept vigil;
I heard my lover knocking:
"Open to me, my sister, my beloved,
my dove, my perfect one!
For my head is wet with dew,
my locks with the moisture of the night."
I have taken off my robe,
am I then to put it on?
I have bathed my feet,
am I then to soil them?
My lover put his hand through the opening;
my heart trembled within me,
and I grew faint when he spoke.
I rose to open to my lover,
with my hands dripping myrrh:
With my fingers dripping choice myrrh
upon the fittings of the lock.

Anyone who can't find any innuendo in that hasn't gone through adolescence.

Darwin said...

Hmmm. I guess one could posit Sisera considered Yael to be a MILF, but in the end she just turned out to be a big headache...

Ian Ironwood said...

Thanks for responding, Darwin. My rebuttal:

After this opening, I was kind of expecting to get some sort of explanation as to what, in particular, was wrong in my (intentionally brief, cursory and mildly derisive) description of game, but this does not seem to have been forthcoming.

I actually went into it in detail, but cut it due to the comment length restrictions. Let's examine how you defined Game:

. . . to use to the rules of "game" to dominate women by proving the practitioners to be "alpha males". A highly technical process with all rigor of a pseudoscience behind it . . .

First, the goal of Game isn't to "dominate women" -- it's to present a dominant subtextual presentation designed to engage a woman's attraction triggers. Subtle difference. We're not talking whips and chains, we're talking social dominance. And we're not trying to become Alpha Males (and once you understand properly what an Alpha Male is, you'd know why), we're merely adopting social techniques from them.

Secondly, the "pseudoscience" involved includes the work of a lot of highly respected biologists, anthropologists, behavioral scientists, endocrinologists, sociologists, and other professional academics. If you'd care to pinpoint just which of the above sciences qualify as "pseudoscience" (okay, maybe sociology), I'll refer you to the specific researcher credited with adding to Game Theory.

Is that a sufficient explanation of your error?


I'm unclear whether you mean to suggest that my summary is merely overly literal and simplistic in its description of game (which, in that case, is merely what I intended) of if you think it's actually wrong.

A little of both. You miss both the scope and the purpose of Game. A little research would have gone a long way.

but frankly my number one reaction any time I've spent any time reading manosphere/game blogs has been: these guys are bitter, pathetic, and unmanly.

And I thought your peevish dismissal of human beings in emotional pain -- the sort of thing that might cry out for some sort of ministry -- was a little pathetic and unmanly myself. Men complaining . . . oh, they're bitter and pathetic. Women complaining . . . oh, they're insightful and outspoken. These are your fellow men, they have real issues, and you dismissed them out of hand with only the most cursory of investigations. I found that unmanly. Is, what is.

To be blunt: Says who?

Says most of the former Christendom.

Christianity failed to either stop or put into perspective the three great horrors of the 20th century: industrialized warfare, the Holocaust, and Atomic weapons. Had it taken a strong moral stand and led our civilization away from these horrors, then it would have justified men considering its input when it comes to revalorizing masculinity. As it is, it stood impotently by while millions died, and afterwards it concerned itself with petty matters of theology.

If Christianity had done its job as moral guardian, then the churches in Europe would continue to be filled and the incessant infighting amongst American denominations would have lessened. Instead we're seeing dramatically declining numbers of people who identify with the faith. Yes, I understand the cultural relativity involved with the revalorization of masculinity, but I would also argue that Christianity has purposefully distanced itself from robust masculinity for so long that its perceptions are no longer significant for the majority of men today on a personal spiritual level.

(to be continued)

Ian Ironwood said...

Continued . . .

The "manosphere", on the other hand, seems to fairly specifically be comprised of guys who think that "game" theory (not the mathematical/logical theories that are properly called by that name, but the process of "gaming" women) is something other than simplistic relationship advice hokum, and who also take an unusually adversarial approach to women.

Well . . . you're assuming it doesn't work.

Indeed, your entire set of assumptions revolves around the idea that Game doesn't really work, when in point of fact it does. Nor does the Manosphere always take an adversarial approach -- there are plenty of female bloggers in the Manosphere. We love women. We just don't like what they have done to men. We can separate the sin from the sinner, so to speak. I, myself, have been happily married for 20 years, and I have plenty of female friends and co-workers. How is learning to manage my wife "adversarial?" And how is Game hokum if it really works?

And yet the analysis provided by the manosphere seems almost simplistic and chest thumping enough to fulfill all the worst stereotypes peddled about men by modern society. Frankly, as a man, I find myself pretty appalled.

Have you seen the vitriol and misandrous, hate-filled vilification that has been leveled at men and masculinity for the last 40 years? THAT'S what should be appalling you, not the fact that some men are actually pissed off about it. You may see it as simple and chest-thumping, we see it as a healthy and important expression of our dissatisfaction with the status quo.

And the "worst stereotypes" include being a good husband and father, by the way. Those are the things that feminism wants to remove from the equation -- adult men in positions of power and authority. Your answer is to capitulate and share their disgust -- fine. Ours is to find a way that allows men to thrive as well as women. That may piss off feminists, but what has a man done that hasn't pissed off feminists?

Ian Ironwood said...

At the same time, the manospheres answers seem about equally wrong-headed, and thus unlikely to solve the problems which you allege are its motivations.

Mostly, we don't have answers. We're just asking each other a lot of hard questions and exchanging the pragmatic things that worked for us. That's the thing: Christianity and Feminism are ideologies. The Manosphere is a living community.

The "answers" vary from man to man and situation to situation, the Manosphere merely provides a safe and non judgemental environment in which a man may ask for advice and counsel about real problems and expect a pragmatic solution. Yes, there are extremists who are, indeed, misogynists. Yet would you want me to judge Christianity based solely on its extremists?

Also, the Manosphere encompasses much, much more than Game blogs. Those are the ones that get attention. Dig a little deeper and you'll find that there are a whole host of masculine issues represented there.

Color me unimpressed. I've read a couple posts on married "game" and it strikes me as, at best, a clumsy set of rules for faking one's way through the motions of acting like a more interesting husband -- the while couched in such self satisfied tones as to be seriously off-putting to any self aware wife.

I've read a couple of posts on transubstantiation -- should I therefore make broad judgements about Catholicism based on those posts? If you're serious about investigating the Manosphere, then at the very least you should read Athol Kay's Married Man Sex Life before you make pronouncements about Married Game.

And to give you some context, I've been running Game on my wife for several months now. She's a professional woman at the top of her field (medicine and pharmaceuticals) with several advanced degrees -- she's about as "Self Aware" as you could ask for. She'd be a poster girl for feminism if she actually believed in feminism. And yes, she noticed some changes in my demeanor and actions after a few weeks.

Do you think that she called me out angrily for manipulating her when I told her what I was doing?

No, she asked me what the hell took me so long, and why didn't I do it sooner?

So dismiss Married Game if you wish (although it sounds like you're using some of the techniques already) but the fact is that it is helping thousands of couples fix their marriages without recourse to professional counseling. You obviously haven't investigated it in detail, or you've already made up your mind, but it's clear you haven't given it enough consideration to make an informed decision on it.

think a fairly logical way to proceed is: If you are getting very good results, and someone else (who doesn't seem to be getting good results, given his general attitude) tells you to behave in a very different fashion, assume he's wrong. So that's what I'm doing.

Bully for you. The thing is, most of us weren't getting very good results. MOST of us were getting divorced and only seeing our kids on the weekends. MOST of us were utterly at the mercy of our wives controlling our sex lives. MOST of us were told that we were evil just for being men. MOST of us didn't fall into Happily Ever Afterland like you did.

And for MOST of us, we did exactly what we were told by the Church and feminists to do before we found the Red Pill: "Be yourself!" "It doesn't matter how much you make!" "To death do us part!" and we got righteously screwed. Sounds like your marriage is great -- you don't need Game. You don't need the Manosphere.

But if you're reading this and you're wondering why your wife isn't having sex with you and why your kids aren't talking to you, come by the Manosphere, learn some Game, see what other men are talking about. You'll be glad you did.

Darwin said...

Ian,

Again, I appreciate both the engagement and the civility. (I'm sorry about the comment length limit. Blogger applied that as a while. As you can see, it cramps my style as well.)

Some notes -- though since we've gone a couple rounds at this point I'm only touching on some items.

First, the goal of Game isn't to "dominate women" -- it's to present a dominant subtextual presentation designed to engage a woman's attraction triggers. Subtle difference. We're not talking whips and chains, we're talking social dominance.

Um, yeah. I meant social dominance. The other simply isn't on the radar around here.

Secondly, the "pseudoscience" involved includes the work of a lot of highly respected biologists, anthropologists, behavioral scientists, endocrinologists, sociologists, and other professional academics. If you'd care to pinpoint just which of the above sciences qualify as "pseudoscience" (okay, maybe sociology), I'll refer you to the specific researcher credited with adding to Game Theory.

I do not think that those fields are pseudoscience and in of themselves, but I do think it's a common feature of pop pseudosciences to take real scientific work and use it to spin a popular narrative that explains how people behave. One sees this in everything from creationist "science" to feminist accounts of how people interact, and it seems to me that it comes into play in a lot of the pop-psych explanations of gender dynamics which I'm seeing from manosphere types as well. Unless I'm much mistaken, researchers are not actually out there doing work on "game theory" (manosphere meaning), rather, manosphere writers are taking articles they see about scientific findings and spinning explanations based on that.

And I thought your peevish dismissal of human beings in emotional pain -- the sort of thing that might cry out for some sort of ministry -- was a little pathetic and unmanly myself. Men complaining . . . oh, they're bitter and pathetic. Women complaining . . . oh, they're insightful and outspoken. These are your fellow men, they have real issues, and you dismissed them out of hand with only the most cursory of investigations. I found that unmanly. Is, what is.

Actually, I find bitter whining unattractive (and uninsightful) whether it comes from women or men. That's not the same thing as dismissing human being in pain. It's certain ways of using pain that I have no time for. As I said, what I find offputting about the manosphere is that it strikes me as so similar to secular feminism -- which is to say, I find secular feminism and it's sex war view of the world equally offputting.

Darwin said...

Christianity failed to either stop or put into perspective the three great horrors of the 20th century: industrialized warfare, the Holocaust, and Atomic weapons. Had it taken a strong moral stand and led our civilization away from these horrors, then it would have justified men considering its input when it comes to revalorizing masculinity. As it is, it stood impotently by while millions died, and afterwards it concerned itself with petty matters of theology.

One of the things I find very clear about history is that human beings are very much the same now as in the past. The Church too is very much the same now as it was in the past. The Church did not, by its mere existence, halt the Napoleonic wars, the French Revolution, the War of Spanish Succession, the 30 years war, the 100 years war, on, and on and on back through history. Humans fight wars. Humans sin. The only surprising thing about the Church is that it tells us that, if we are willing to reach out towards the God who created us, there is anything else out there in the world. Prior to Christianity, there was not even that. Look at when Aeneus visits the underworld in the Aeneid -- a classical pagan view of the afterlife. The shades of the dead are half-substantial things eager to gather round and drink the blood of a sacrificed animal in order to feel, for a moment, the touch of life. If you find little form or purpose in the Christian world, be assured there was less before. Christ offers not perfection in this world (that will never be while this sinful world persists) but something beyond it if we will follow Him.

Nor does the Manosphere always take an adversarial approach -- there are plenty of female bloggers in the Manosphere. We love women. We just don't like what they have done to men. We can separate the sin from the sinner, so to speak. I, myself, have been happily married for 20 years, and I have plenty of female friends and co-workers. How is learning to manage my wife "adversarial?"

Well, it's adversarial if "we love women" hangs in tension with "we don't like what they've done to men". This is the key place I differ with a manosphere view and the feminist view. I don't think men are the sinners. I don't think women are the sinners. I don't think there's a good sex and a sinned-against sex. I think we're all human beings and that we all sin against each other in ways both unique and similar. But I don't think there's one sex more at fault than the other. What is at fault, I think, is a false view of sex, or the purpose of life, or morality and of marriage which many people in our secular world have. Until people abandon that and get an accurate idea of what the purpose of life and of marriage and of sex is, I don't think any degree of tactical managing of sex relations is going to solve anyone's real problems, and thus create any real happiness.

Darwin said...

Have you seen the vitriol and misandrous, hate-filled vilification that has been leveled at men and masculinity for the last 40 years? THAT'S what should be appalling you, not the fact that some men are actually pissed off about it.... And the "worst stereotypes" include being a good husband and father, by the way. Those are the things that feminism wants to remove from the equation -- adult men in positions of power and authority. Your answer is to capitulate and share their disgust -- fine. Ours is to find a way that allows men to thrive as well as women. That may piss off feminists, but what has a man done that hasn't pissed off feminists?

This is a false dichotomy. I think that the view of marriage which it seems to me is reflected in the manosphere stuff I've read (such as Dalrock's site) is wrong. I also think the ideas of worth and freedom and power circulated by feminists are wrong.

I do, clearly, believe in marriage, and I believe that the husband is the head of the family. But I don't think that game is a good way of understanding how a marriage should work. And I don't think that the answer that the manosphere offers to the feminist heresy is any better than feminism itself. But I'm okay disliking both sides. I think the Spanish republicans were a bunch of bloodthirsty anti-religious Stalinists. And I think Franco was an SOB.

That's the thing: Christianity and Feminism are ideologies. The Manosphere is a living community.
The "answers" vary from man to man and situation to situation, the Manosphere merely provides a safe and non judgemental environment in which a man may ask for advice and counsel about real problems and expect a pragmatic solution.


I'll leave feminism alone for a moment, as there are a lot of things that go by that name and many or most of them I think are quite wrong, but Christianity is a religion, not an ideology. What it seems to do is to provide a truthful description of what the world is and why it is. It seems to me that that is what is needed. You can't solve the question of how to make a marriage work better until you answer the question of what a marriage is supposed to be. There can be no tactics of you don't have a clear end.

Now as it happens, I don't really find it very convincing, at least from what I've seen, that there's not an implicit set of beliefs as to what marriage is for and what sex is for built into a lot of the manosphere discussion that I'm seeing. Those assumptions may be implicit and unstated, but I think they're there, and I think they're wrong. (Needless to say, I think feminism is wrong on these issues too.)

This is why I don't see the whole thing as harmless and a good idea for someone whose marriage is not going well. There's a lot of good Catholic writing I would suggest on marriage to a guy having problems who wanted a perspective I consider true on the matter. And with that come solid beliefs: That marriage is truly until death do us part. That both spouses owe each other sexual consideration and sexual satisfaction. That both the husband is the head of the family and that husband and wife owe each other mutual submission, to each others and the family's good.

Believe me, there's nothing feminist (in the secular sense, at any rate) about a proper Catholic understanding of marriage. But it's also a long way from this "game" approach.

Anonymous said...

So, I'm new to the manosphere, and have only been reading in it a few months. The sites I've visited include Dalrock's, The Social Pathologist (a practicing psychiatrist if I understand correctly and a Catholic), and Chateau Heurist (a nihilist pick-up artist). I myself am an orthodox Orthodox happily married father of two and my parents aren’t divorced. Preamble done.

I gave that information because you don’t seem to dispute Duffy’s claim that if you are religious and involved in the manosphere at all you must be an emotionally wrecked son of divorce. This, is the seat of Dalrock’s complaint an entirely justified one.

Also I'm not keen on shooting down Game as such. _If_ women have a natural tendency to find some sorts of behavior attractive and _if_ that behavior makes them happy then I would think it would be incumbent on husbands to practice that behavior. This would simply be the male equivalent of losing a few pounds to appear more attractive. This post for example should cause little in the way of qualms: http://www.marriedmansexlife.com/2010/03/dominace-and-submission-in-marriage.html

It uses words we are uncomfortable with (dominance) but I don't think we would have been uncomfortable with them even a little while ago. Are you positing that men shouldn't be dominant? Your post and comments seem to say otherwise. If women are attracted to that are you positing it is bad? I'd argue that it’s natural and in every way Biblical.

---CONTINUED---

Anonymous said...

The only thing that really struck me as new from my brief reading of Game was what is called "The Shit Test". Looking back on life it hit me that there were a lot of those tests and that I'd failed them by being the wrong kind of nice. I had deferred rather than taken action and that had caused hurt feelings all around. Feminism teaches us that we should pander while the Bible with its strong description of men teaches us that we should decide and that women will test, as in the case of David and his first wife, over truly odd things.

As to “neging” it is a behavior that sadly works well. I don’t know why but I’ve seen it used and I’m thoroughly depressed by its effectiveness. I think it explains a lot of really bad relationships.

I'd agree with your comments about a loss of a sense of "what a marriage is for" in the manosphere and particularly Game oriented sites. But that brings us back to Dalrock who is anti-marriage game. He's been very explicit about it. His position is that if you have to game your wife to keep her from breaking sacred vows then something is horribly wrong. This is something both of you can agree on.

So this brings us back to Mrs. Duffy and her article. Dalrock is right that she attributes the worst to the manosphere and writes an article that if it had been pointed at Catholics would have caused you serious concern. Consider her characterizations of those who are Catholic and involved in the manosphere as being essentially broken men. In this her discussion of men can be seen as a close parallel to Nietzsche’s description of Christians as being needy weaklings.

What’s worse I think Mrs. Duffy is unsure of her own positions. I commented on her own blog, since she’s on the periphery of my social circle, under “anonymous”. Those comments and her original comments have since been deleted. In them she defended a general right of divorce, which is not allowed at all in Catholic theology, as well as the feminist movement in toto. Neither of these were wise, which is why she deleted them, but represent a weakness in her own thinking on the subject.

While Mrs. Duffy is correct that men are complicit in the feminist movement I think she doesn’t examine at a deep level how much feminism has colored our thinking and how dangerous that is for conservative thinkers. For example, while she attacks the role men have played in feminism’s growth she seems unable to discuss the role of women. She uses “us” but never once says anything about women. This tendency has, as discussed by Dalrock and others, infected social conservative thinking. The easy response is, “she wasn’t discussing that in her article,” and that to some measure is true; but it’s a general problem with us as social conservatives. We don’t like discussing women behaving badly and we will work very hard to come up with excuses for them. If a space alien descended he would have to assume from modern Christian writing that women don’t sin. This is distinctly different from classical Christian writing.

I think a by far better introduction to the frustration is Dalrock’s post on “Serial Polygamy” as can be read here:
http://dalrock.wordpress.com/2011/12/30/marriage-lite-mistaking-no-sex-before-monogamy-for-a-moral-statement/
Dalrock and Duffy are not true enemies however they are doing a darned good job of making themselves such. Both have read far more into each other’s work than they should. However, I hold Duffy especially to blame since she tossed the first grenade. I think Dalrock should calm down his rhetoric and I think Duffy should take a real hard and long look at how many feminist presumptions she is carrying around.

Mr. Anonymous

Anonymous said...

Also, could you post links to specific articles in Darlock's site that you view as antithetical to a Christian view of marriage? It might help in the discussion.

Mr. Anonymous

Darwin said...

Mr. Anonymous,

Thanks for the polite reply. I'm going to start working through some responses. My apologies if I have to leave off for a lengthy period part way through -- I'm using the internet a lot less during Lent and I need to head out to Ash Wednesday mass in a bit here.

I take it my background is somewhat more assumed, but just to provide where I'm coming from: I'm a fairly conservative orthodox Catholic in my mid 30s, married for ten years with five kids. My parents were happily married for 30 years until my father's death.

Moving right along...

[Y]ou don’t seem to dispute Duffy’s claim that if you are religious and involved in the manosphere at all you must be an emotionally wrecked son of divorce. This, is the seat of Dalrock’s complaint an entirely justified one.

Well, I think it's worth looking at what Betty actually said:

"The married portion of the manosphere has gained traction among some Christian and Catholic men, who—perhaps raised in broken homes—are looking for male role models as they strive to build a marriage and a family that will last."

She doesn't say that anyone "must" be an emotionally wrecked son of divorce, she doesn't even say they must be emotionally wrecked, she just says that they're "looking for male role models as they strive to build a marriage and a family that will last" and provides one possible reason why they might be doing this on the internet rather than among their real world friends and family.

I suppose one can complain it's a slightly pat kind of assumption as to why someone would be seeking that kind of guidance in that place, but given the prevalence of divorce in mainstream society I don't think it's necessarily a bad guess. However, it also doesn't seem to be a major part of her understanding of the thing, more a toss-off than anything else.

[more in a bit]

Darwin said...

[okay, mass over, kids down]

I want to pick up on the point where I left off, because it's striking me that there's something else I want to touch on here. Let's look at that Betty quote again:

"The married portion of the manosphere has gained traction among some Christian and Catholic men, who—perhaps raised in broken homes—are looking for male role models as they strive to build a marriage and a family that will last."

Or how about this one:

"Like most reactionary philosophies, an undercurrent of anger informs its theories and practices. The manosphere is not just pro-man; it is really mad at women."

Now let's look at a couple Dalrock quotes:

"After reading the post several times, my best take on what she is trying to get across is Shame on you if you read (or write) blogs in the manosphere. She could of course have had another point in mind entirely. Instead of my take on her blog post, she may have actually meant I like pizza. Her lack of specific assertions backed up by facts and logical argument makes this impossible to know. This is tricky business, and I’ve learned recently that you can’t take a woman’s own written claims as indicating her own opinion. It could even be the case that I need to tell her what she meant before she can decide if she will or will not back up her own assertions."

Or this Dalrock quote:

"I do have some concerns about her assertion that men shouldn’t be concerned about women’s lack of control of their own hormonal cycles. I don’t mean this from a game perspective; proper game form in response to a woman behaving irrationally is often a posture of amused mastery. But this frame of mind is specific to a context where the woman’s emotional whims can safely be disregarded."

Or how about this:

"Aside from being about a general sense of unhappiness, feminism at its core is a rejection of the patriarchal view that women at times behave like children, and a deep desire of women to be taken seriously. With this in mind, I can only assume that Ms. Duffy very much wants us to take her seriously when she tells men not to take women too seriously."

Now it sounds to me like the person who is insecure and angry at the opposite sex is Dalrock, not Betty.

There are plenty of times when I don't think a woman's writing lives up to my expectations of reason and understanding -- Betty's piece did not fail in that regard. However, there are also times when a man's post falls way, way short of what I'd expect of a man, and Dalrock's post fits that criteria just fine.

That's why I don't have a problem with Betty's post, but my response to Dalrock's is, "Man up, punk."

Now on to the the next issue...

Darwin said...

[continued]

What’s worse I think Mrs. Duffy is unsure of her own positions. I commented on her own blog, since she’s on the periphery of my social circle, under “anonymous”. Those comments and her original comments have since been deleted. In them she defended a general right of divorce, which is not allowed at all in Catholic theology, as well as the feminist movement in toto. Neither of these were wise, which is why she deleted them, but represent a weakness in her own thinking on the subject.

The only exchange I can recall (and obviously, this is trick, since you say it was deleted) that could be even loosely so construed would be the one in which Betty said something along the lines of "each divorce has its own story with two sides".

This seems fairly obvious and true to me. I've seen some occasions in which women have behaved really horribly in a divorce. I distantly witnessed one a couple years ago in which the wife first left, then came back, falsely accused the husband of assault, got a restraining order against him, occupied the house, and then had the police keep him away from the house. Yes. Really bad stuff, and a case in which a woman who wanted to be "free to have fun" appeared to mess a guy up for no good reason at all with the complicity of the courts. On the other hand, I knew a case (sibling of a college friend) in which an angry ex husband demanded a chance to talk one-on-one about visiting schedules, and when the wife agreed to go meet him her body wasn't found until several days later -- and in that case the courts also failed to provide any conclusive punishment.

So yeah, I think divorce is terrible. As a Catholic, I don't think divorce is even valid, and if you civilly divorce after being validly married you aren't aloud to marry again. Period. On pain of damnation.

Clearly, I don't buy the feminist line on this. But I also don't buy the manosphere line that men are strictly the victims in all this. Plenty of women end up immiserated as a result of divorce. Indeed, for all the MRA complaints that child support is "ass rape", single and divorced mothers are, as a group, poorer than divorced men.

Darwin said...

[continued]

While Mrs. Duffy is correct that men are complicit in the feminist movement I think she doesn’t examine at a deep level how much feminism has colored our thinking and how dangerous that is for conservative thinkers. For example, while she attacks the role men have played in feminism’s growth she seems unable to discuss the role of women. She uses “us” but never once says anything about women. This tendency has, as discussed by Dalrock and others, infected social conservative thinking. The easy response is, “she wasn’t discussing that in her article,” and that to some measure is true; but it’s a general problem with us as social conservatives. We don’t like discussing women behaving badly and we will work very hard to come up with excuses for them. If a space alien descended he would have to assume from modern Christian writing that women don’t sin. This is distinctly different from classical Christian writing.

It seems to me fully acceptable to write about the manosphere when one is writing about the manosphere, rather than writing about feminists. I'm sure you know the all-too-true joke about feminists:

"How many feminists does it take to screw in a light bulb? That's not funny!!!"

But it seems like the manosphere version is, "How many manosphere writers does it take to screw in a light bulb? Oh yeah? How many feminists does it take? Huh? Huh? Why are all the jokes about men? Why no jokes about feminists?"

I can't guarantee what circles others move in, but having lived in social conservative circles all my like (heck, I even when to a conservative college) I have never run into this alleged idea that women never sin. Indeed, if anything, once you get really far into conservative circles you get back to the idea that only women sin. Because, you know, women are TEMPTRESSES.

One of the things that Betty did in her article is that she is unable to align herself with feminism because secular feminism is deeply based on contraception, sexual immorality and abortion. I don't exactly see how saying that feminism is based on immorality and murder fits with saying that women never do anything wrong.

Darwin said...

Also, could you post links to specific articles in Darlock's site that you view as antithetical to a Christian view of marriage? It might help in the discussion.

For starters, in his "Interviewing a Prospective Wife" pair of posts, Dalrock effectively says that marriage is a fallback if you aren't already enjoying yourself too much being a PUA. Needless to say, from a Christian point of view, there is no acceptable place for a PUA. Sex is intended to exist only within marriage. The idea that one would only bother to get married if one wasn't already getting plenty of sex outside it is antithetical to any sane or Christian view of marriage or society.

Now, maybe the response here would be that Dalrock is just being polite to a sector of the internet which PUAs pioneered and in which they still have a prominent place.

Honestly, I think that'd be a bad excuse, though. If one's view of marriage and relationship was pioneered by promiscuous jerks, it just might be that it's a deeply flawed analysis of marriage and relationship. I notice that just the forth comment down on Dalrock's response post closes out, "Don’t commit, don’t cohabitate, and stay independent. That is what men need to do today. Use them for sex when required, and that’s all."

Frankly, if that's an attitude that fits in well with one's view of relationships, then one is very far from having a Christian understanding thereof.

At the more general level, the whole view of relationships and marriages as existing in a state of tension in which the woman is constantly "shit testing" the man, and he's having to show dominance in order to win her respect strikes me as contradictory to a really Christian understanding of married relationships.

Yes, the husband is most definitely the head of the family, and he needs to exercise (as well as earn) that authority. But not working authority relationships is subject to constant testing and striving. Marriage is complementary, not competitive.

What's described by the "game" as "shit testing" strikes me as simply being bad behavior. I would not have continued in a relationship with (much less married) a woman who was constantly behaving badly just to see what I'd do. To accept that as a normal or even healthy aspect of a married relationship strikes me as just crazy.

And now I'm hitting the point of irretrievable verbosity, so I'll stop.

Anonymous said...

Please read this article at Touchstone magazine. The things described are a part, but only a part, of the anger that is building among men.

http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=22-01-019-f

Darwin said...

Meh.

Like I said: I'm against divorce. I don't know what sub-segment of society you could point to as being more against divorce than the orthodox Catholic sub-culture. I get that people routinely treat each other badly and sin terribly during the course of divorces.

The thing, however, that distances me from the cheap outrage of the manosphere on the topic is that:

a) I don't think that men are only the victims in divorce. I think that men and women manage to sin against each other petty equally. (Indeed, the tiny world of conservative Catholicism was rocked by its own local no fault divorce soap opera when Bud Mcfarlane, who ran a "ministry" left his wife and secured custody of the kids. Her complaints in trying to fight that were pretty similar to the ones outlined in the Touchstone article.)

b) I will think about taking manosphere complaints about divorce seriously when those who make those complains completely banish and denounce the PUA element of their community. As long as the two mix in relative amity, I'll take the whining about as seriously as I take Cosmopolitan readers and women who who say "you go girl" when watching Sex In The City when they then turn around and complain there are no good husbands available.

Anonymous said...

Ok, I get it. Your response to injustice, so long as you are not personally affected, is indifference.

Thanks for clearing that up.

Jack Lord said...

What makes no sense to me regarding the "Manosphere" is why all these guys are so angry that women like my wife exist. My wife is a gorgeous, brilliant atheist, is career-focused, enjoys sex like many guys do, and has never wanted children. We're a perfect match for all those reasons and more. Many of the Manosphere guys mock women like her, while simultaneously accusing them of ruining the dating market.

My wife and women like her are very, very clearly not suited to men in the Manosphere. It would be nothing but mutual misery and a quick path to breakup. But plenty of women DO desire a traditional lifestyle with the husband as head of the household, so why don't they just find and date THOSE women, either in America or, if American women are the hideous pigs they claim, overseas? Every minute these men waste complaining about the existence of women like my wife is a minute they aren't spending finding their conservative virginal dreamboat chicks. It's like a vegetarian going to a steakhouse and whining that there's no pasta or salad on the menu...or an atheist getting angry that he has no matches on a Christian singles site.

Darwin said...

"Jack Lord",

You seem like you're trolling for a reaction.

Anon,

Ok, I get it. Your response to injustice, so long as you are not personally affected, is indifference.

I'm not indifferent to injustice -- I just don't like it when people use one-sided accounts of injustices to get themselves riled up.

So, for instance, I think that there's been plenty of injustice in the Middle East. I think that people who support Hamas can successfully point to lots of real grievances in which real people suffered real injustice. That does not, however, cause me to have any affection for Hamas.

I see that Dalrock has another post up in which he basically says: Oh yeah, you think we seem like a bunch of angry, rabid jerks? Well, we've got reasons to be angry!

To which my thought is: Women often treat men badly. Men often treat women badly. I would like to do anything possible to remedy all of that -- but I'm not interested in rabid jerks and I'm don't think people who are only interested in helping one side of a problem are likely to be useful to a long term solution.

Also, between the tacit acceptance (even admiration) of "pick up artists" and the frequent wallowing in gender war language, I honestly think that the manosphere is feeding into the culture of divorce just as much as secular feminism. I would strongly counsel anyone wanting to strengthen his marriage not to spend much time in such toxic waters.

That doesn't mean I'm indifferent to the real social problems which are occasionally dredged up as justification for a toxic attitude towards women and marriage, but I don't think what truth there is in the message makes the messenger any less unacceptable.

GeekLady said...

"How is learning to manage my wife adversarial?"

Ian,

The answer to your question lies within the question itself. Your question presupposes two ideas. First, that your wife requires your management in order to meet your needs. Second, that manipulating your wife to accomplish your ends is an appropriate use of your authority. These are inherently adversarial assumptions.

The idea that a wife requires management implies she either cannot or will not of her own volition. This creates conflict, either of her will opposing yours, or her incapacity failing your needs. The idea that your authority permits you to manipulate your wife is just one stratagem in an attempt to win this conflict.

Christianity, by comparison, says there should be unity between husband and wife. Not two wills opposing each other, not one will dominating the other, but one united will in which man and woman both fully participate.

(Darwin, on a technical note:  I've been through the captcha with OpenID a couple dozen times now and it won't take it from my iPad, even when I'm sure it's correct.)

MrsDarwin said...

GeekLady, I've turned off word verification for comments for the time being, so I hope that will help. I know there are certain sites on which I simply can't log in using my phone, but I hope we've made ours more accessible now. We'll keep word verification off as long as we don't get deluged with a quantity of spam.

Anonymous said...

You'll excuse me if I don't buy that. Her rhetorical positioning is similar to the famous, "when did you stop beating your wife?" question. She is posing a scenario and I have to take her seriously on that proposed scenario. Let's even go so far as to say she's right, that the vast majority of these men have been in some way targeted by feminism and are bitter because of it, is the right response really man up by being silent? I'd propose that the _opposite_ is true. The manly response is take up arms (at least rhetorically) as we've done since God made us.

It is reasonable, if targeted, to be angry. God gave us that emotion and _properly directed_ it is a good thing (my biggest beef with the manosphere is the vague direction). I think Darlock does that.

Duffy's post evidences a serious concern amongst the "Christian" (and I use that loosely here as there are few of them outside of Darlock and Social Pathologist) manosphere that the Church actively supports reminders of duties for men but only reminds women of rights. For those of us in the manosphere her post positively reeks of that attitude. Men are blamed for feminism but there is no acceptance of a woman's responsibility. That does indeed make me mad even if I don't harbor her any personal grudge. Maning up would even imply we _should_ be angry with a state of affairs that reduces the value of marriage. However that was a very small part of my post and I await the answers, even in blog format, on the rest.

As I said in my previous post her own later comments on her personal blog indicate an uneasy truce at best and possibly even a longing for feminism. I see this as problematic since feminism as such is antithetical to the teachings of the Church. Again, I don't fault her much for this personally, as its a pop culture phenomenon. But it is something that people should react strongly to.

Mr. Anonymous

Anonymous said...

There are at least two folks posting with anonymous, I'm using "Mr. Anonymous" at the end. Less we cross that up...

At the more general level, the whole view of relationships and marriages as existing in a state of tension in which the woman is constantly "shit testing" the man, and he's having to show dominance in order to win her respect strikes me as contradictory to a really Christian understanding of married relationships.

Ideal or real? Remember we are reminded of Adam's sin in the garden was, "you listened to your wife's voice" and that the curse for women was that she would be dominated. Eve sinned by not following her husband but Adam _actively_ sinned by listening to that. I hate the term, but Adam got "poo tested", and failed. That we in our weakened state repeat the scenario shouldn't be surprising.

Yes, the husband is most definitely the head of the family, and he needs to exercise (as well as earn) that authority.

I think most men (even say Dalrock) are ok with that parenthetical thought _as long as_ that is understood as a duty of _men_ and not _women_. That is, a wife doesn't get to judge a man's competence to lead _anymore than_ a man gets to judge his wife's desirability to be _loved_. This is key to many of Darlock's comments.

But not working authority relationships is subject to constant testing and striving. Marriage is complementary, not competitive.

Ideally yes, in reality no. We are accursed and for that reason men have to be warned by our Lord to not glance about at other women and _women_ need to understand that they have a natural propensity to buck their husbands which they are actively warned about in Scripture. Which one do you hear more about from the pulpit? I'll go further, as heads of families, as the responsible party, as the dominant I'm ok with men hearing about the first part _more_ but I'm not ok with the near silence of women's responsibilities.

What's described by the "game" as "shit testing" strikes me as simply being bad behavior. I would not have continued in a relationship with (much less married) a woman who was constantly behaving badly just to see what I'd do.

The assumption is that women do that just to irritate men which is a misunderstanding of the phenomenon. I can't outright reject my wife when she does that anymore than she can dump me for having an increased heartbeat when a gorgeous woman walks by. Married game also indicates that the better you react to every test the less likely the next test will be difficult.

[continued]

Mr. Anonymous

Anonymous said...

Also, between the tacit acceptance (even admiration) of "pick up artists" and the frequent wallowing in gender war language, I honestly think that the manosphere is feeding into the culture of divorce just as much as secular feminism. I would strongly counsel anyone wanting to strengthen his marriage not to spend much time in such toxic waters.

I actually agree. There's too much acceptance of the Pick Up Artist/PUA. Way, way too much. To be fair, Social Pathologist, also part of the manosphere, isn't accepting of these folks. Dalrock is somewhat accepting which is problematic.

Also, to the article you site which I believe (having trouble finding it right now) explicitly calls out PUA's as wrong behavior in the opening paragraphs.

However overall I find the advice incredibly useful. Chief amongst that advice is to not marry women who are have slept with other men. If they are willing to violate their conscience, risk pregnancy and dependency they are just too unstable as a marriage partner.

There is a strong, even in me, visceral reaction amongst social conservatives to such a response. But bit-T Tradition and Scripture both evidence this view. The Law allowed for virginity tests for women and Tradition, as you point out, is rife with warnings against temptresses.

Mr. Anonymous

MrsDarwin said...

However overall I find the advice incredibly useful. Chief amongst that advice is to not marry women who are have slept with other men. If they are willing to violate their conscience, risk pregnancy and dependency they are just too unstable as a marriage partner.

There is a strong, even in me, visceral reaction amongst social conservatives to such a response. But bit-T Tradition and Scripture both evidence this view. The Law allowed for virginity tests for women and Tradition, as you point out, is rife with warnings against temptresses.


Actually, I believe the words of Christ to the woman caught having sex with a man not her husband were "Go, and sin no more" -- words that certainly don't preclude marriage, especially if one consider's Paul's advice that it's better to marry to burn.

Also, I believe that the Old Testament holds men to a fairly strict standard as well: "When a man seduces a virgin who is not betrothed and lies with her, he shall pay her marriage price and marry her. If her father refuses to give her to him, he must still pay him the customary marriage price for virgins." (Ex. 22:15-16)

"If a man comes upon a maiden that is not betrothed, takes her and has relations with her, and their deed is discovered, the man who had relations with her shall pay the girl's father fifty silver shekels and take her as his wife, because he has deflowered her. Moreover, he may not divorce her as long as he lives." (Deut. 23: 28)

Anonymous said...

Actually, I believe the words of Christ to the woman caught having sex with a man not her husband were "Go, and sin no more" -- words that certainly don't preclude marriage, especially if one consider's Paul's advice that it's better to marry to burn.

That is an honest misunderstanding of the text. Christ does not encourage the harlot to marry. In fact tradition holds that she didn't ever marry. This would be consistent with every former prostitute turned saint that I am aware of. If you can cite a saint I'm not aware of I'd love to hear her story.

As to Paul's advice I'm assuming you are discussing 1 Tim 5:11 which is addressed to widows this doesn't cover Darlock's discussion nor mine of out of wedlock sex.

Also, I believe that the Old Testament holds men to a fairly strict standard as well: "When a man seduces a virgin who is not betrothed and lies with her, he shall pay her marriage price and marry her. If her father refuses to give her to him, he must still pay him the customary marriage price for virgins." (Ex. 22:15-16)

"If a man comes upon a maiden that is not betrothed, takes her and has relations with her, and their deed is discovered, the man who had relations with her shall pay the girl's father fifty silver shekels and take her as his wife, because he has deflowered her. Moreover, he may not divorce her as long as he lives." (Deut. 23: 28)


Indeed it does and you are quite correct to cite these texts. Of interest though is like most things in the Bible there is no equality in how this is dealt with. In fact these scriptures go a long way to supporting Darlock's and my own case.

These women, by male action, were viewed to be harmed in perpetuity. By losing their virginal status they were deemed unfit to marry. The only way to restore their status was to give them the option to enter marriage with the man who had taken them.

The opposite was not true. As your cited Scriptures point out the punishment for the rake who seduces women was to marry them. He was stuck and lost the freedom to philander that he desired.

Mr. Anonymous [continued]

GK Chesterton said...

Leviticus 20:10 establishes the maximum extent of the Law for this offense (one I'm not at all upset by) allowing for the death penalty in the case of lying with a married woman. Deuteronomy 22 versus 22 and 25 reinforce this; instating a death penalty for men who take another man's wife. This is the only time both parties are given the same punishment.

Women have a couple of alternate punishments available. One is found in Numbers 5 and proscribes enforced bareness. It is interesting that this section of the law gives no equivalent punishment for the man (just for a jealous husband).

Now that we've established all of that we can look at your point. First be aware that you are focusing on the male punishment rather than the male right that is being protected, that is, marrying an unblemished maiden.

Consider the Bible's description of Rebekah and why she was alluring and valuable match (cf. Gen 24:16):
"The young woman was very attractive in appearance, a maiden whom no man had known. She went down to the spring and filled her jar and came up."

This isn't considered in the case of Isaac at all.

Priests are an excellent example of the holy desire for a virgin. Consider Lev 21:10-15 which establishes the requirements for priests:
“10 “The priest who is chief among his brothers, on whose head the anointing oil is poured and who has been consecrated to wear the garments, shall not let the hair of his head hang loose nor tear his clothes. 11 He shall not go in to any dead bodies nor make himself unclean, even for his father or for his mother. 12 He shall not go out of the sanctuary, lest he profane the sanctuary of his God, for the consecration of the anointing oil of his God is on him: I am the LORD. 13 And he shall take a wife in her virginity. 14 A widow, or a divorced woman, or a woman who has been defiled, or a prostitute, these he shall not marry. But he shall take as his wife a virgin of his own people, 15 that he may not profane his offspring among his people, for I am the LORD who sanctifies him.””
He violated his vows if he took anything but a virgin. It is also no mistake that Mary is a virgin. Nothing else would be worthy of the Lord. Nor is it a mistake that St. Paul says:
“For I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ.” – 2 Cor 11:2

There are a host of things that men get specifically punished for in the Law and the Gospel. We get called on the carpet for a host of things. However, the scriptures acknowledge an unequal approach to sex and stress the importance of virginal status prior to betrothment. This doesn’t let men off the hook sexually, our eyes can damn us, but it does place a special burden on women who think they want to ever marry and warns men against those who are “wanton” women.

Mr. Anonymous

Anonymous said...

So much for anonymous...I HATE defaults.

Darwin said...

Mr. Anonymous,

You'll excuse me if I don't buy that. Her rhetorical positioning is similar to the famous, "when did you stop beating your wife?" question. She is posing a scenario and I have to take her seriously on that proposed scenario. Let's even go so far as to say she's right, that the vast majority of these men have been in some way targeted by feminism and are bitter because of it, is the right response really man up by being silent? I'd propose that the _opposite_ is true. The manly response is take up arms (at least rhetorically) as we've done since God made us.

I'm unclear what you're referring to here.

Duffy's post evidences a serious concern amongst the "Christian" ... manosphere that the Church actively supports reminders of duties for men but only reminds women of rights.

I'm not clear where one would get this sense. What rights does the Church suggest that women have but men don't? What duties does it teach that men have that women don't?

I'm far more used to defending the Church against charges of misogyny, since:

- We won't allow women to be priests.
- We don't allow women to use contraception.
- We don't allow women to get abortions. (these two being interpreted by many feminists as attempts to keep women pregnant all the time and deny them the control over their bodies that men have)

Heck, in the conservative Catholic circles in which Betty and I move, most wives don't work and people like me are considered "modern" because I don't think that women must wear veils in church or that it's immodest for women to wear attractive clothing.

Now, the manosphere types have been hanging around Reverend Sally's House Of Divine Love and Acceptance, maybe I could see where they could get such an idea. But in reference to the Catholic Church? If anyone has a history of making feminists' blood boil, it's us.

For those of us in the manosphere her post positively reeks of that attitude. Men are blamed for feminism but there is no acceptance of a woman's responsibility.

Okay, if someone labels feminism itself as being a problem, one would think that the name itself is a pretty good hint that it was invented primarily by... not men. It goes without saying that feminism is the product primarily of women and that feminists are virtually all women.

Betty's point, a relevant one given that the manosphere seems hesitant to separate itself from its PUA roots, is that feminisms embrace of "sexual freedom" and rejection of marriage would not have worked had there not been plenty of men eager for consequence free sex.

And, ironically, one of the big beefs of the manosphere seems to be that sex is not always as consequence free as promised -- because first the feminists announced they were going in for sexual liberation, and then the next generation of feminists discovered that a lot of women were stuck as single mothers and so supported hitting up the deadbeat dads for money. And while I do recognize that this system gets abused (and that it takes some of the economic risk out of pre-marital sex for women, and thus could be encouraging immorality) my level of sympathy for guys who are sleeping around in the first place is pretty low.

Anonymous said...

God doesn't allow women to be priests. God doesn't allow contraception. God doesn't allow women to have abortions. I hate to berate the point but what the Church does is preach the existing Divine law.

I am clear on head coverings, you should wear them. The East also traditionally forbids women who are menstruating from helping with the preparation of the communion bread. Also see my response to your wife on the scriptural injunction on whom priests (still upheld in the East) can select for marriage.

Okay, if someone labels feminism itself as being a problem, one would think that the name itself is a pretty good hint that it was invented primarily by... not men. It goes without saying that feminism is the product primarily of women and that feminists are virtually all women.

I'm not sure it does. For example, I believe it was primarily the product of men (mostly of the PUA persuasion as many of the manosphere agree) because I firmly believe patriarchies are impossible to destroy as we naturally tend towards them. However that doesn't mean women didn't contribute to the system. It would have been an easy bone to throw to her potential audience and she avoided it.

And, ironically, one of the big beefs of the manosphere seems to be that sex is not always as consequence free as promised -- because first the feminists announced they were going in for sexual liberation, and then the next generation of feminists discovered that a lot of women were stuck as single mothers and so supported hitting up the deadbeat dads for money. And while I do recognize that this system gets abused (and that it takes some of the economic risk out of pre-marital sex for women, and thus could be encouraging immorality) my level of sympathy for guys who are sleeping around in the first place is pretty low.

Whoa. Slow down that's a lot of ground to cover. First, it is entirely reasonable for a married Christian man to expect sex as long as he is also willing to expect its ends, "do not be denying one another" (cf. 1 Cor 7:5).

that a lot of women were stuck as single mothers and so supported hitting up the deadbeat dads for money

No. No. No. No. These women just happened to hop into bed with these men randomly? Married them perhaps? The stats agree with me that they did not marry them and in the vast majority of cases jumped in bed willingly. This illustrates the point. Women, if we are to consider them moral actors, should be held responsible for being sluts. Scripture is very free to label these sorts of women but the structure of your comment shows the modern Christian males have difficulty in discussing sluts as such.

Another example, you discuss the "risk" for women but not the sin involved in those actions. That's a real problem. Rakes can't feed without sluts to supply them satisfaction. You need both but the way we discuss the problem creates this false and completely modern picture of women as morally pure. I argue that your level of sympathy, especially as a complimentarian Christian, for the women should be lower than that for the man. I could site dozens of saints, as you have effectively admitted that speak of the weakness of men related to their sexual appetites and the wantonness (that is the willingness to abuse this weakness) of women.

They by being sluts are violating a fundamental part of their God given nature in the same way that a man who does not provide for his family is, "worse than one of the unbelievers" (cf. 1 Tim 5:8).

Mr. Anonymous

Darwin said...

Mr. Anonymous,

I thank you for not taking GK Chesterton's name in vain on this blog again. Chesterton was Catholic and a gentleman, something you are not, and I do not like having your words attached to his name on this blog.

By blogging tradition, it is wrong to rebut someone and not allow them to answer back. However, since you are, it the phrase of the milieu in which you have chosen to place yourself, "shit testing" me, I am choosing to set the rules as my preference and inclination see fit.

God doesn't allow women to be priests. God doesn't allow contraception. God doesn't allow women to have abortions. I hate to berate the point but what the Church does is preach the existing Divine law.

You make a distinction without a difference. The Catholic Church is God's one, true and united Church on earth. Its teachings are God's teachings. It teaches these things because the Holy Spirit guides it to proclaim God's truth. And those who dislike the truth dislike the Church for that reason.

The East also traditionally forbids women who are menstruating from helping with the preparation of the communion bread. Also see my response to your wife on the scriptural injunction on whom priests (still upheld in the East) can select for marriage.

Yes, you do seem to have an especial affection for the "ew, girls" elements of the Old Testament.

For example, I believe [feminism] was primarily the product of men (mostly of the PUA persuasion as many of the manosphere agree) because I firmly believe patriarchies are impossible to destroy as we naturally tend towards them. However that doesn't mean women didn't contribute to the system. It would have been an easy bone to throw to her potential audience and she avoided it.

Don't play dumb -- it's unbecoming even among knaves. Feminism is a women's movement, developed and led by women. Though certainly enjoyed and supported by the manosphere pick up artist types for all their unmanly howling.

Whoa. Slow down that's a lot of ground to cover. First, it is entirely reasonable for a married Christian man to expect sex as long as he is also willing to expect its ends, "do not be denying one another" (cf. 1 Cor 7:5).

The comment you're responding to is clearly talking about sex outside of marriage.

Darwin said...

[continued]
No. No. No. No. These women just happened to hop into bed with these men randomly? Married them perhaps? The stats agree with me that they did not marry them and in the vast majority of cases jumped in bed willingly. This illustrates the point. Women, if we are to consider them moral actors, should be held responsible for being sluts.

My remark that you took exception to was that women should face economic risk when engaging in extramarital sex -- but also that men should. You seem to have this pattern of repeatedly demanding to know why consequences are not visited upon women while squealing every time anyone hints that consequences should be equally visited upon men. You may have a fetish for imagining the punishment of women (as well as a fear of men being punished for their own actions) but neither God nor I suffer similar qualms.

Let me lay this out very clearly because your delicate manosphere sensibilities seem to have difficulty grappling with this fact: The ten commandments, and all of God's law, apply to both men and women. Equally. Your PUA associates risk damnation just as much as the "sluts" you seem so eager to discuss. Indeed, if their sin is, like your words, more full of viciousness than misplaced love, they may well be damning themselves much more severely. Dante showed correctly that the panderers and seducers inhabit a far lower circle of hell than the lustful or sodomites. You work yourself into a lather imagining how "sluts" must be punished, yet you choose to spend your time in the company of man-sluts and are angry when their misogyny is called out for what it is.

Keep in mind too that those who bind up heavy burdens for others to carry, those who are while whitened sepulchers concealing the rot within them, those who are eager to say "I thank God that I am not like these" -- all of these are condemned by Christ in far harsher words than he ever used against women caught in sexual sin.

Does this mean sexual sin is not serious, or is not serious in women? Of course not. Fornication and adultery are mortal sins -- though they are sins of misplaced love. Maybe someone who had thrown herself or himself on God's forgiveness, and received it, would feel conflict or regret in responding to your preening insults. However, having "done it the right way" I have no hesitations or doubts in calling your lack of any sense of charity what it is. You say that God gives us, particularly as men, the gift of righteous anger? Well, you're welcome to a nice dish of it. Neither women nor men who have sinned and sought God's forgiveness are denied marriage, nor should they be -- even if it would satisfy some twisted appetite you have to think of women who have sinned sexually as uniquely wretched in a way that men are not. That you are so excited about Old Testament notions of ritual purity and so uninterested in Christ's notions of forgiveness of sins suggests a problem -- if what you want to be is a Christian. So no, I don't think it's scriptural, I don't think it's Christian, and I think that woman who have had sex before marriage but truly seek God's forgiveness and commit themselves to a Christian marriage are far more likely to be successful and happy in their marriages than the creatures who seem to inhabit the "manosphere".

Now, I'm done with you. In your initial comments, you seemed like you were open to reasonable and polite discussion. Your last few comments have become increasingly insulting and, frankly, suggest some rather perverted obsessions. Take them elsewhere. You've shit tested one too many times here and it bores me. If you comment again on this blog, I will delete it.

And I'm closing comments on this thread. I'm not impressed with the level of thought coming over from manosphere blogs, and I'd rather spend my limited writing time talking about something interesting.