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“Perhaps all philosophy boils down to the simple fear that the universe has no need for us: men. I mean, because women are, in a strange sense, more essential to Being than we are…We build machines, create tribal languages in philosophy — like little boys with secret codes in their clubhouse — to get back at the universe because she has failed to give us a function. All our works, male works, will perish in history — history, a male concept of time, will vanish, too, but the culture of women goes on, the rhythms of birth and destruction, the Way of absorption, passivity, cycle and epicycle.” – Charles Johnson, Oxherding Tale

“The weakness of men is the facade of strength; the strength of women is the facade of weakness.” – Lawrence Diggs

“I believe every word that man said because it’s exactly what I wanted to hear.” – Space Ghost

Introduction: ‘The Red Pill’ In The Feminist Context

Of all grating human tendencies, I’d argue that the wont towards simplification to be among the most retrograde. Forget violence- it’s been on the outs for thousands of years now, and will be quite unrecognizable in the next few centuries. Forget bigotry- it’s little more than personal immaturity made visible, and at times rewarded. Forget whatever -ism that happens to be ‘in’ right now, for people are too fickle — and their attentions too limited — to celebrate or deride a cause for more than a few decades at a time. Yet simplification is a human constant, splitting, as it does, political spectra into a neat (and illogical) 50/50 divide, corralling ideas into contrapuntals, and apportioning the whole world, really, into the dullness of ‘sides’. To get this to work, you only need one thing: myth. And to get it working for a while, you need to have myths on both sides, as well as people dumb and insecure enough to believe them.

Just think, for a moment, of all the deeper truths such systems occlude: how the vast stores of human ignorance have kept the big picture (whatever it may be) from materializing. This is to be expected, for there’s something in the brain — a survival mechanism, perhaps — that encourages human beings to simplify even when it’s inappropriate. Sure, black and white is great for the jungle, where quick decisions rule, but consciousness did not evolve for higher-order thinking: this is merely our proximate use of something with far more distal causes, thus entangling logic, instinct, and emotion into thinking patterns that have the imprint of none of these things, but share, by being so diluted, all their weaknesses. Thus, in recent decades, there’s been a backlash against the least credible of these innovations. And, unsurprisingly, one of these is the excesses of gender/sexual politics, and the odd, asymmetrical demands this has placed on human conduct.

So what’s the problem, exactly, and what have been the proposed solutions? It’s simple, really- to borrow that abused word. Feminism began as a reaction to sexual inequality — in jobs, politics, home life, and basic issues of interaction — but given the movement’s incomplete successes on this front, it has morphed into something else altogether. There’s an intangible feeling of disrespect now; the fact that, even as the gross numbers are closing in on each other, that a gap still exists, and that not every gap- to the feminists’ chagrin- is so easily quantifiable. So they’ve picked up the pace, choosing to forego equality as equality, but, in many circles, attempting to change the definitions of words (like ‘beauty’), denying biology (gender as purely social construct), denying women’s free choice (even as they privilege some choices over others), shaming the body, shaming feminine powers, inducing victimhood, and trying to erase the clear differences between men and women as a whole. This last part is especially galling, for many of these differences are innate– evolving, as they did, over a billion+ years of eukaryotic differentiation. Obviously, a billion years of different- sometimes irreconcilable- mating strategies, on top of sexual dimorphism and a division of labor, WILL impact human behavior in profound ways. Compound this with a society that provides thousands of outlets for self-expression, and you’re bound to run into differences that tend to snowball, even as they mask and blend into others in ways that they really weren’t meant to.

Now, there’s many reasons for the silliness, above, but a basic motive is insecurity. It is said that the clear differences between men and women have historically been used against women, and, ‘therefore,’ the best course of action is to deny these differences altogether. This is akin to race activists arguing that there is no biological basis to race (bullshit, of course), out of the illogical belief that any biological difference implies something deeper- social, political, or otherwise. Likewise, in the gay community, there’s the insistence- nay, the demand!- that homosexuality is something one is born with, as if it being a choice can somehow justify all the bigotry they’ve endured. Notice the pattern here — the ways in which the SELF is negated for the sake of a belief? Shit– were Nietzsche around today, he’d diagnose this as slave morality in full swing, yet turned- strangely enough- against the oppressed instead of being re-directed at the oppressor. Ironically, then, the myth-makers on one side end up arguing from the turf of their avowed enemies, thus damaging their credibility with both. In short, they tend to adopt the same tactics, internalize the same beliefs, then try to fight against them all the while playing fast and loose with the facts, for it is assumed — in their endless well of self-loathing — that ANY crack in their ideology implies that it’s entirely bunk.

“How noble.” – Brendan Cole

Yet for all the sympathy that they win over, there’s the discomfiting reality that these people- no matter how well-intentioned- are lying. And lying, in this case, means they’re substituting a temporary win, in some minor, ridiculous battle, for truth, which is by definition unyielding. Nor does it help things that lying is quite literally sacrificial, leaving a trail of hurt, myopia, and downright stupidity in the quest for something- anything!– that only gets more and more hazy with each ‘success’. Don’t believe me? Then why was the lying Emma Sulkowicz allowed- that is, by her university- to publicly shame and destroy the life of one man, despite the fact that he was exonerated by Columbia’s own investigations, with Sulkowicz, herself, refusing to press charges? The goal is what, exactly- to shed light on rape by shedding light on ‘a’ rape that never occurred? Yet Sulkowicz was rewarded all around, thus encouraging the misogynists to snarl: ‘I told you so!’ Why do Third Wave Feminists- out of sheer entitlement, really- feel the need to plaster their bodies for the world to see, in the knowledge that the world will go on to compliment them for their poor life choices? Why is the opposite of self-loathing- in this new sense for malapropism- to change the definition of beauty, rather than to transcend its clear and inviolable existence? Why are feminine powers so defamed- do they really not EXIST? And if there is nothing UNIQUE to women- if they’re all victim, zero substance- then how in the fuck are we- the ‘patriarchs’!– to respect them, anyway? I reserve my love for the deserving! As for male privilege? It’s still here, alright, but with quite a few ignored corollaries. It is men who have- and are typically asked to have- the larger financial obligations. It is men who are the overwhelming victims of violent crime. It is men who approach women for romance, thus enduring a cost of rejection that- while formerly balanced by a woman’s risk of pregnancy, on her end of the gamble- no longer serves an equal biological function. It is men who protect women for social as well as evolutionary reasons. It is men who get much harsher sentences for identical crimes. It is men who suffer the highest rates of suicide, take the worst jobs out of a perceived ‘need’ to provide, and must- at home, at work, with peers, friends, and the like- in all senses perform. And it is therefore men who work more, fight more, risk more, and ultimately die more, meaning that while they’ve typically had the freedom ‘to,’ they’ve never had ‘the freedom ‘from,’ a distinction that’s too important to ignore.

There’s been many reactions to this, and not all of them have been useful. While I agree with some of the issues raised by Men’s Rights Activists (MRAs), they are, as a whole, not the answer. That’s because the riposte to ONE set of myths ought not be yet another mythos- to return to my original point. After all, there’s a clear difference between a good set of precepts and the movement which inevitably supplants them, as the latter’s infected- and parasitized- from within. Indeed, all sorts of guys flock to the Manosphere, from the careful and intelligent, to the loony, deluded, hateful, and — of course — the sex-crazed: the ‘alpha’ baby, if you will, in a world that the child THINKS he understands merely by way of unlimited access to his pacifier. It is this last group that interests me, for they’ve dropped out of the political question altogether- at least they’ve got that right!– to focus exclusively on sex and male/female interaction. And no where is this more obvious than Reddit’s The Red Pill, which, while fatally flawed, as a theory and community, nonetheless raises a number of important issues that ought to be addressed if they are ever to be transcended.

‘The Red Pill’ As The Alpha Child

The Matrix (1999). Image via FreeFromHarm.

The Red Pill is, basically, the sexual side to the above, although I’m loath to even call it a part of MRA due to the fact that it’s less about changing the status quo than adapting to it in a way that’s biologically sound. If done correctly- it is claimed- men can ‘game’ this sexual asymmetry in a way that benefits them, thus limiting some of their traditional disadvantages. Prior to going any further, however, I must zero-in on one little thing: one tangle of thought, one simple confusion- one ball of yarn– that will serve as a metaphor for The Red Pill and ultimately prove its undoing.

Its adherents call their sexual philosophy ‘amoral’ — partly because it’s not even a philosophy, but simply 1) a description of the way things are; and 2) a blueprint with which to navigate said reality. Yet you don’t need to be a logician to see the impending quagmire. For #1 to be ‘amoral,’ it’d have to really be a mere descriptor, as opposed to prescriptive. And it is- at a price. Global warming, after all, is a descriptor. Yet any RESPONSE to it- pro, con, indifferent- enters the ethical realm, for ethics, as a whole, are predicated upon the power to act, the ability to ‘make do’ with information. Remove this little detail and you’re back in the world of physics and inertia. This directly leads us to #2, which is prescriptive to the extreme- a ‘truth’ (a la The Matrix) delivered by fiat, and one quite counter to The Red Pill’s own stated evolutionary context. In short, despite the claim that ancient reproductive rules are amoral, most of TRP has taken reproduction- that is, risk, reward, and the billion-year interim these rules were founded upon- out of the equation, thus engineering a NEW playing field all the while going by the assumptions of the Ancestral Environment that the mind hasn’t fully outgrown. And, let me tell you, it takes some GALL to change the rules mid-game: to strip the players’ advantages of all context- a thing that, from all my years on the playground, I’d watch only the alpha children do. And just as TRP has its own peculiar adage for responding to women- treat them like children!– we’ll have our own for TRP: treat them as delinquents, for a child striving in the wrong way probably has some reason for doing so. In short, you don’t get angry. You listen. You see what can be salvaged, what’s justified, for that proverbial kernel of truth might bloom to things that only a child can come to accept.

Let’s begin with TRP’s best parts- and I don’t mean the lame ‘be confident, hit the gym’ bullshit that anyone with a modicum of sense already knows. I mean the underpinning philosophy, and how- ever so slowly- it’ll veer off to the deep end as the propositions start to accumulate. One of TRP’s better posts unwittingly explains The Red Pill far better than the hundreds- if not thousands- of combined pages one will find dispersed all over the Internet on the subject, deftly capturing both its strengths and flaws in one go. It does this merely by asking a few questions that the world refuses to answer, as if it’s somehow beneath its dignity:

1. Many men have trouble finding physical and emotional intimacy

Men cannot obtain emotional support from each other as women do – society teaches us not to. We want a woman to open up to.

Men cannot obtain sex as easily as women. Most guys like me consider some 90-95% of women their age to be attractive. But getting sex as a man requires much more work and effort (unless you’re a model or Brad Pitt).

To be fair, point 1 is not merely about society: it’s the simple baggage of being male, and- therefore- not showing weakness. Men do not wish to show emotion, and for many, it’s not even important- a point that TRP stresses or ignores, depending on the argument being made. Clearly, this has to change, but change won’t simply occur due to a shift in social perception. It will also be a fight against men’s inner natures, for which the reward must be greater than the potential cost. This is an overlooked corollary, because while I believe that fighting against one’s biology is a noble act- an act that drives civilization towards what’s worthwhile- there still needs to be a sense of reward; of something beyond mere altruism, which men can readily grasp. Feminism has not offered this, partly because it has left behind arguably the most vulnerable part of society: its bottom-quartile men, who have neither sex appeal nor traditional forms of male power, and cannot, therefore, be so easily convinced re: another’s ‘liberation’. Point 2 is without a doubt true, for men usually take the romantic initiative even as the risks for accepting them are now much lower for both sexes. If one understands this, one also understands why men are willing to manipulate, cheat, and generally fuck their (and others’) lives up for the sake of fulfilling a need- I use the term loosely now- so easily accessible to women. Sure, I find the complaint obnoxious, tied up, as it often is, with demands for ‘easy access’ and similar whining. But to simply ignore its origin, in toto, won’t get you any closer to the ‘why’ of such resentment.

That said, point 2 makes a curious assumption: that men’s inability to get sex also means that women, by contrast, are getting something of equal value for little to no effort, which is then claimed as an unfair benefit. Yet ‘value’ is in part a decision- a way to create meaning– not an innate part of life, and women, as a whole, have a significantly milder sex drive. This makes sense, as women can- at most- pass their genes only a few times over 9 months, while men can theoretically do so as often as they’re able to ejaculate. Yes, one may object to this argument in a few ways, such as by pointing out that in the Ancestral Environment, men- contrary to popular belief- had very little access to ‘free’ women, even as, in general, sex was probably more equitably distributed. This, alongside a woman’s need to bait AND keep an invested parent, might- at least to some degree- ensure that their desires match. Yet the numbers, above, trump all theory and speculation. The fact is, while sex is at a premium for men, they are nonetheless willing to pay for it- often at the risk of destruction. Women- for whom sex comes quite cheap- can abstain far longer, since its perceived value is MUCH more contextual, as opposed to men’s more omnivorous sexuality. In other words, men and women think about sex in very different terms- and frequency/availability are only a small part of this equation. Yet while we’re able to point to women’s access as a ‘strength,’ there are, probably, a hundred different analogues of (and tangents to) sex, for BOTH sexes, that are reaping benefits the other side can only imagine. In short, I suspect our complaints about sexual asymmetry is, to a woman’s ears, like their need for emotional validation is to ours. “I’m busy,” we’d say- “You need to learn how to tough things out.” “I’m tired,” she’d say- “wait till tonight.” In both cases, the ripostes are both logical AND wrong, for while they answer ‘a’ question, they assume there’s some deeper equivalency at play. There isn’t. Sex is not a need– at least not to the extent that TRP claims. Nor, for what matter, is emotional validation. This is why we’re searching for a synthesis.

2. Men are given terrible advice to fix this:

“Just be yourself! Girls love that!” Clearly this is wrong, as it is not already working.

“Treat every girl like she is special and she will reciprocate.” This abhorrent thought is imprinted on guys at a young age by society and their mothers, and is the cause of the ‘nice guy’ trope. These guys are doing what they thought is how to get someone to like you in return, and then they are villainized.

Point 1 is debateable, as ‘being yourself’ assumes a man is in touch with himself, and knows what that self really is. This is almost never the case, and thus cannot be said to ‘not work’. In fact, I’d argue that both men and women tend to go through life without even a basic understanding of who they are and what that means. Yet self-knowledge often brings genuine confidence, which is attractive to both sexes. Point 2 is correct since basic decency is merely a foundation for healthy long-term relationships, NOT for human attraction. This is a reality that’s missed by young boys and even men who’ve never learned proper sexual conduct, nor know how to align this conduct with their sexual goals. And, to be fair, women haven’t been very responsible either, as they stray too far in the other direction, often choosing the wrong partners as they conflate eroticism with eros. In short, if easy sexual access is a feminine strength, then over-investment- particularly in the wrong partner- is the concurrent weakness.

Interestingly, however, the more that it’s pointed out that women opt to chase assholes, reform ‘bad boys,’ and the like, the more this charge is resisted- made fun of, even, as a fantasy concocted by males searching for an excuse for why they’re still single. Yet it’s clear that the chase is part of erotic identity, is hard-wired into sex, for both men AND women, as are cravings for an affection that’s dangled higher and higher until it’s finally out of reach. This is a phenomenon that’s been studied in quite a few patients, but admitting this, it seems, is yet another feminist insecurity: that it’ll make women look manipulative or self-destructive, when the mature response is to consider how it affects both sexes, and to find logical workarounds. In this way, #’s 1 and 2 are best seen in a temporal context, especially since #1 is great advice delivered at the WRONG time- for NO ONE has prepared ‘the self’ to really emerge in the 21st century — not the least of which are men’s more fractionated selves. To be sure, the ‘Nice Guy’ will react to his failures- will grow bitter, and probably fail more and more since no one’s around to slap him into reality. Yet no matter how obnoxious he is- how whiny, how pathetic!- he’s not SO different from the typical woman (or the typical person, really). It’s just that his peculiar brand of ‘annoying’ is more visible, even as, in an objective world of genetics and procreation, he is likely more deserving of offspring, and would be the better care-taker of both child and spouse. That world has never existed, however, and sexual gambles are mostly a male risk these days- not women’s. And so:

Many men in similar situations have realized this. Western women are now empowered with being the ‘gatekeepers’ to sex and relationships. If a woman wants sex, she can find a guy and have sex. If a man wants sex, he has to figure out how to become attractive and how to properly navigate these encounters.

This is why game exists. This is why men are taking the red pill.

Why are we here?

1. We don’t want to isolate ourselves from women, we want to understand women

2. We want to have sex

3. We want to understand why ‘game’ works in our society and discuss the ramifications of it

And this brings us to Game: the rules by which sex is divvied up, and the reasons why some men get so much more of it than others. Yet it’s clear by the tone, above, that Game is not exactly instinctual- in most cases, it needs to be learned. Sure, there are those on TRP who’d point out that Game is not mere Pickup Artist (PUA) stuff, but even the most common Red Pill suggestions — maintaining ‘frame,’ being cold/distant, and even emotionally abusive to the point of sociopathy — insist on a mode of being that is quite energy-demanding for a world that mostly lacks threats. So why is something that’s outside of the way that normal, healthy adults interact with one another the best way (for TRP does work, objectively) to get sex, despite the fact that society has long moved into a kind of hyper-abundance? The short answer, of course, is that 1) men- even most ‘alphas’- weren’t ever meant to get much sex in the first place; and 2) we are still in a Stone Age mentality even though our material conditions aren’t. And if that’s the short answer, then the implications of such are far longer, and affect things far more interesting than mere sexuality.

The Red Pill has a number of subsets to their theory, ranging from sound, to arguable, to downright wrong, and yes- simplistic, binary, and wholly unable to cope with the shift in consciousness that’s been occurring ever since the first human being decide to ignore ‘survival’ for more abstract concerns. They are as follows, as gleaned and re-combined from some of the most popular TRP threads and comments:

Feminine Imperative: The tendency of media and culture to put women first, excuse their misdeeds (see also: rationalization hamster), and criticize any holding of accountability or pointing out of double standards as being “anti-women”.

The greatest threat to the Feminine Imperative is men becoming self-aware of their own sexual market value and the dissemination of information about how the imperative uses this lack of awareness to perpetuate itself.

True, at least to some degree. Men will treat prettier women better- will give them a bit more slack- and the beautiful, as a whole, report more happiness, better wages, and an overall improved quality of life. Yet the real question is how far the ‘dissemination of information’ can take the world in its entirety, by way of men, and not just how far it’ll take men. See the difference? In short, while TRP- in its pretense to arcana- argues quite a bit what makes for women’s happiness, it tends to forget that things like White Knightism are just as biologically ingrained in men. Men WANT to put women first. This isn’t just the media, nor culture, as any man instinctively putting himself into harm’s way to protect a woman will attest to. And if TRP’s alleged ‘self-centeredness of women’ is the feminine imperative, the opposite- self-abnegation- is the masculine one, assuming we’re still dealing in TRP’s gross biological terms. Yet TRP refuses to even consider this as a possible male purpose, despite the fact that they’re keen on offering biological justifications for the things that they do wish to pursue. It’s even worse that, in denying the social benefit of one biological drive that benefits women, TRP instills Game as a biological imperative for men without noting the potential social costs of this inversion. This is a great example of ways in which one can be 100% right, yet still miss the deeper point due to wishful- and emotional!- thinking.

Friend Zone: Mental frame used primarily by women to disqualify certain men as sexual prospects. [Cp. with ‘Orbiter’- a man that’s kept around for a variety of reasons, usually without romantic allowance. -AS]

Image via QuickMeme.

Ah- a personal favorite of mine, for it’s quite galling- and a touch obnoxious- to see men and women deny the obvious. For those who don’t get the reference, the Friend Zone is a phrase that was coined in the 1990s to describe what happens when a woman loses interest in everything but a man’s friendship. It spread via the Internet, mostly as a complaint by men at what they perceive to be a woman’s lack of logic. ‘I’m smart, nice, and good-looking. Why won’t the bitch give me a shot?!’ Of course, they were rightfully pilloried for their sense of entitlement, as well as their laughable ignorance re: how sexual attraction works. To its credit, TRP doesn’t bitch and whine about the Friend Zone- they merely point it out as an observable fact, and one that offers insight into the female psyche. Yet just look at the query I linked to. It is so inane that I can’t believe it’s anything more than a middle-schooler trying to get to the bottom of typical adolescent ‘mysteries’. Still, the query- as well as its assumptions- is taken seriously by hundreds of Redditors who don’t even question its ridiculous underpinnings. In short, the Friend Zone is routinely denied not merely as a sexist lens through which to view things, but denied- negated, even- as a genuine construct. But it’s not that men are emotional retards, as claimed. It’s just that, friend or no, a good lay is a good lay– a fact that’s as axiomatic as any rule underpinning the cosmos! No one wishes to admit the dilemma, however, as if a stated human tendency will somehow turn men into unabashed rapists, or women into lovelorn cunts, pining for all the ‘wrong’ stuff when Mr. Right has been there all along, staring into her tits.

I mean- Christ! The Friend Zone exists- it’s not a myth!- for the same reason that women are sexually selective: there’s a tough set of criteria mandated by sexual dimorphism. In other words, while women have boundaries, it is men’s general mode of being that decides where such boundaries fall. Yet for all the complaints, there’s still an angle to this that has never been examined. Consider the fact that there are men who’d do anything- anything– to be denied, to be on the wrong end of a woman’s boundaries, for their sexual identity, at this point, is so mired in rejection that THIS is the only way they’ve learned to express the ‘erotic’. In short, while men complain of women’s tendencies towards Dark Triads and unrequited love, they still go on to set themselves up for the same dilemma, due to the same exact craving. After a while, this asymmetry becomes a turn-on, wherein the slightest bit of affection is something to latch on to in the hopes of more. No one really wins, but with enough self-flagellation, the man becomes addicted to the same kind of chase that he looks down upon in women. Indeed, it’s almost as if the woman is holding up a mirror to his own folly, and folly, as a rule, is always less visible in oneself than in another. This is why the ‘bitch’ who rejects him is, well, a bitch, while his own losses become a source of self-pity, thus erasing ANY attractiveness he might have still had. In this way, the two, for all of their mutual hatred, run quite parallel to each other. They are stuck in an eroticism that negates them both, and lets them share, if not each other’s bodies, then at least each other’s voids.

Dark Triad Personality, aka why “chicks dig jerks”: A catchall phrase that describes the personality types MANY women are naturally attracted to…narcissistic, Machiavellian, psychopathic…[They are] power-driven, extroverted, challenging, and not needy… In other words, being an aloof, uncaring asshole — an amalgamation of all the above traits — makes you optimally attractive to the greatest number of women (in the short term). However, these traits are NOT conducive to emotionally healthy long-term relationships.

This is perhaps the chief bete noire of feminism- the denial that power (and evil!) often works on a sexual level, again due to the silly belief that an admission of such might turn women into psychopaths. It doesn’t, but for reasons that TRP refuses to articulate. In short, while the above is quite true, the Dark Triad Personality does NOT merely apply to women’s sexuality, and while the Dark Triad is by definition rare, its individual parts are quite common, working as aphrodisiacs upon both sexes for reasons I’ve already limned. Just read this woman’s tale of how she manipulated a Red Piller using masculine TRP tactics, and how- despite his outward confidence- he became as needy and emotional as a woman who’s fallen for a typical user. In short, TRP entertains the notion that power is responded to- power is respected- and that scarcity (in many forms) increases one’s sexual market value. This is correct, but 1) men love women’s power- especially masculine power- as much as the reverse; and 2) the sexual and non-sexual marketplaces have been merging for decades, to the point that what CAN be responded to in sexual terms has broadened far past the limits of the Ancestral Environment, and will only continue to change exponentially. Thus, if a woman’s power is now frequently given a masculine outlet, it is- in many cases- infused with sex because men respect men’s power, to begin with, and are now given the opportunity to sublimate this respect into romantic love in an ‘acceptable’- i.e., heterosexual- way. Ironically, while this must be true according to TRP’s own model, it also makes TRP’s rules of engagement quite limited, and thus limits the quality of women (read: ambitious, intelligent, self-aware) they’ll ultimately attract. In this way, TRP’s stated goals- positive male identity; poon- are undermined by things they’ve only partially understood, as they prop up half-truths in an answer to feminist lies, but go on wearing the same blinders.

If a woman thinks she is better than you she can’t respect you, if she can’t respect you she can’t love you.

Same as above, alongside a dash of semantic games and an inability to either parse or provide good definitions. This is Stone Age love- much of which is likely unrecognizable to us, anyway, as well as being applicable to both sexes from the very beginning. Respect cuts both ways, and while a woman might leave a partner she cannot respect, the male who cannot respect his partner will grow toxic, subtly or no, yet remain ‘stuck’ to something that will eventually destroy him. Now, I can’t love without respect- partly because, unlike TRP, I do not hold my women to the standard of children, and partly because the deepest love is limited to respect for both partners. A ‘good match,’ therefore, will simulate the role which base concerns (the ability to hunt, rear children, work, etc.) once played in mutual survival, only to be replaced by things that are only tangential to survival outside of the Ancestral Environment. In effect, this is the difference between maximizing fitness and executing an adaptation- a concept I will return to later, for it has deep implications for TRP and all sexual theories. Yet as soon as the brain is tricked- as soon as human purpose is re-defined, and is believed to be re-defined, the adaptation begins. Ever notice the way that so many people tend to confuse needs and desires the more than society becomes a kind of accumulation- the more that, bit by bit, they ‘learn’ that they simply can’t do without, even as ‘doing without’ was the norm for 99.9% of human history? That’s the deceit- albeit a useful one- a noble one, even- that I’m talking about. In short, TRP’s adage applies to both sexes, and in ways that don’t fit TRP’s simplifications.

Women are hypergamous. They feel entitled to a superior mate.

Yes, but #1 is true for both sexes, in spirit, while #2 is true for both sexes in reality. It’s not so much that women are hypergamous. It’s more accurate to say that people feel entitled- with the word ‘entitled,’ by definition, referring to the good that’s NOT explicitly earned. And if it’s not earned- if it’s outside of one’s bounds- the thing is either superior or perceived as such. In fact, both men AND women typically demand an above-average mate (intellect, looks) for dating, and even more so for marriage: that is, all of them, despite the fact that they themselves are by definition average. In other words, had men been on the weak end of sexual dimorphism, and thus controlling sex, they’d typically go for the best and most attractive mates: precisely as they already do, except that men- being men!- typically enjoy the ‘privilege’ of rejection far more often. In other words, if a woman has the advantage, she’ll take it- and a pretty woman, as TRP knows, does not need to fear rejection. Add intellect, ambition, and masculine passion to the mix, and you’ve someone that any self-secure male will pursue even as the vast majority will fail to do so. They’ll still want her, however, for the will — the human element — is desirous of all good things, irrespective of who deserves what. To argue otherwise is akin to saying that it’s only the rich who like to make money because the poor aren’t investing in hedge funds! Yet this is the sort of inversion that passes for insight at The Red Pill, even though, to be fair, The Blue Pill– a subreddit that pokes fun of TRP’s antics- sometimes goes on to deny hypergamy altogether instead of seeing things for what they are.

Women rely on men to be emotionally stoic, we often call this “holding frame” you have to be mentally strong so she can lean on you, she finds that attractive. You cannot lean on her, there is a double standard, if you lean on her the relationship will fall apart, she will not be able to handle your problems and she will no longer find you attractive.

False, and quite destructive if taken to its logical conclusion. In fact, studies- actual studies, not TRP’s experiences with one-night stands- show that while the dark, stoic, and mysterious male is a great fantasy-piece, the strong but open partner is overwhelmingly preferred as the real long-term option, depending on how this emotion is negotiated. In short, there are 2 possibilities: that the emotionally distant superman will become a Dark Triad, in part or whole, and force the woman to beg for crumbs of attention, or that familiarity will breed emotional openness (if it already hasn’t), which can either be done skillfully or pathetically. The success of that ‘skill,’ of course, depends much more on the male’s self-esteem than it does on some categorical refusal to show vulnerability- a confusion TRP exacerbates with its wont for hyperbole and simplification. A whiny pussy is just that- a pussy. A vulnerable MAN, however, is simply realistic and refuses to live as an imago, constructed, as it is, by others for the man, thus wresting control away from his own life to more fully satisfy another. Yet TRP encourages imago for the same reason that it so frequently rants against love- because TRP is a system designed for sex– for pedestaling women, in its own twisted way- to the exclusion of some equally important drives. Of course, the goal is up to the individual, but to pretend that’s there a real basis behind such choice — as opposed to a mere preference and ad hoc rationalization — is TRP’s version of the hamster-wheel. Ironic, for it is men, in TRP’s system, that ‘need’ to be the rational ones.

Women do not care about male weakness and neither does society, if you are weak, depressed, small, poor, uneducated, unconfident, not powerful then nobody cares.

True, and- as noted- their neglect to bring weak men into the fold is a chief failing of feminism. But note the telling omission: if a woman is all those things and unattractive, to boot, no one will care about her, either. Yes, it’s correct to say that pretty women are able to avoid the worst fates, but those with mediocre looks? Or those that are downright ugly? In fact, I’d argue that she’d be in a worse position, partly because the way a woman is assigned value is through appearance, first, irrespective of any deeper qualities. The man IS able to change- is, despite the odds against him, able to be a kind of Ubermensch, and is in fact expected to be precisely that, wherein appearance doesn’t matter at all, and his past struggles are irrelevant. A weak woman, however- with no physical value? Or a sexual past, as opposed to the pardoned baggage of an Ubermensch? It is THIS sort of mobility that feminism has (rightly) tried to address. And in this TRP measure, both are at a near-equal disadvantage. The male, perhaps, can sell himself into a kind of physical slavery, as many laborers do. In the end, it will destroy him. The desperate woman, however, must sell her sex, which will be cheap- and this will destroy her, especially if she has any aspirations other than being another’s shadow. The history of human exploitation is one in which men are killed- sometimes wholesale- and women spiritually impoverished and perpetually humiliated. Logically, #1 is the worse choice, but many- if not most men- would still choose it over #2, indicating an odd gender equilibrium that pops up in unexpected ways. Yet in its gender monomania, TRP does not comment on this predictable dynamic, for while the words ‘power, power, power’ are said to be its real fruit, gender always seems to hang much lower, obscuring a thing that- at essence- can even change the ‘cement’ of the Stone Age brain. Power, in these new, unorthodox forms, is still interpreted as power, even as its expression (as will be shown) is 100% counter to TRP’s theory of who finds what attractive.

Social market value is everything, something a low value man says which is “creepy” when said by a high value man is “flirty” or “sexy.”

Correct. I’ve often imagined what would happen if Brad Pitt would be the one to approach a random woman on the street, and sleazily call her baby. She’d laugh- not merely because he’s attractive, but due to the ‘comic’ asymmetry of a rich, well-known, and good-looking man approaching a peon. Sure, there are limits to this, but it’d be ridiculous to assume that they don’t change in ways that men- who earn as opposed to receive sex- find cumbersome and unfair. TRP does well in reminding its readers of the asymmetry, even though the end result is so often misunderstood by all camps, including TRP.

Feminists claim they want equality but what they really want is power without responsibility. They desire both male and female privilege consolidated into one, thus upsetting the gender balance. They want the privileges of being women (privilege such as being economically provided for, getting opportunities based on their beauty and protection from physical harm by others) as well as male privilege (authority, respect for having a career, to not be judged so harshly based on appearance etc) which is neither pragmatic nor realistic, it ignores the biological basis for how the genders perceive each other in the ignorance that “everything is a social construct!” and we are mostly “the same” when quite evidently this is not the case.

This is arguable, and much of it false. ‘Power without responsibility’ is a huge assumption that TRP is only halfway right about. Yes, much of feminism has been a power-grab at things that are in the logical territory of neither men nor women, but there is also a crosscurrent of feminism that wishes to opt out of the provided-for role that TRP insists upon. In fact, I’d argue that the bulk of middle class Western women (really- feminism’s targets) do NOT wish to be provided for in the overt sense. Yes, extremely poor females do benefit from polygyny- that is, the most extreme form of being ‘provided for’- but monogamy is a contract among men, with today’s serial monogamy unusually amenable to both sexes. The assumption, however, is that the ancestral desire for polygyny has not been diluted, even though it’s been diffused by- and into- so many directions: work, hobbies, leisured abstractions, the ability to use men for sex and a temporary sense of power. In short, there is now purpose- and fun. In fact, this idea reveals more of TRP’s subjective desires than any kind of biological imperative. The Red Pill claims women feel entitled, but is this entitlement unique? TRP men demand sex as per tradition- but how do they expect to purchase it when this ‘money’ has changed so much? Indeed, TRP is so focused on acquiring the 19 year-old sorority girl stereotype that much of its advice revolves around THIS type of woman only, as if everyone else is the exotic, while the stereotype- a fairly narrow group to begin with- both the norm and the feminine aspiration. Finally, the ‘protection from harm’ adage is mere sexual dimorphism and pretty much unavoidable, while ‘opportunities based on beauty’ are just that: opportunism. Given the nature of human survival, any advantage will be taken, whether it’s beauty, race, or resources, and to expect a tectonic shift in this way of thinking while also insisting upon a biological status quo is irreconcilable.

The Lotus-Eaters. Image via WarriorsOfMyth.

It is clear, then, that The Red Pill engages in a kind of gender monomania that ends up positing sex as the chief human identity AND biological drive, as if other identities don’t take precedence. They complain of ‘upsetting the gender balance’ as if this is unthinkable- as if it’s the first time that human biology has been up for sacrifice. In short, while I 100% agree with TRP’s claim that there are obvious differences between the sexes, it is undeniable that their particulars– alongside their malleability- are mostly unknown. And that’s because, in between sex, personality, quickly diverging notions of survival, and literally hundreds of other human constants, there is also an axiomatic self: the ‘thing’ that a given person is capable of, by way of a number of parameters that lock them to a given purpose. These parameters by definition do not change, and are quite murky upon analysis. Yet their expression does change according to circumstances, not because society necessarily shapes human behavior by way of pattern and education- a TRP strawman– but because the OUTLETS for these drives multiply, and one’s will-to-power merely fills the vacuum. In short, outlets- porn, boxing, art, stamp-collecting, Redditing, hiking- diffuse human tendencies over time, amplify others, and allow for niches that are only tangentially connected to them. I mean, just imagine the sort of ‘scientific’ conclusions that a Red Piller might draw if he were thrown into a violent, pre-Neolithic society with murder rates exceeding 60%. Or went foraging with a hypothetical band of lotus-eaters in a steamy, super-abundant paradise, where laziness- nature’s means of conserving biological energy- was actively encouraged. Logic, to him, would dictate human universals that were anything but, all due to marked differences in the way these cultures negotiate such drives.

I’ve spoken of cultural sublimation, and perhaps need to define it now. However, let us first get an important concept out of the way. There’s a scientific myth that organisms are “fitness maximizers.” In fact, we are really “adaptation executers” (John Tooby; Leda Cosmides), a subtle but important difference if one wishes to go beyond TRP-level thinking. The issue, as I see it, is the following. “Fitness” refers to adaptations that occurred- specifically- in the Ancestral Environment, a time and place that is simply not our own. Yet these adaptations have not disappeared, at all, but wormed their way into places they technically had no right to be. This creates a number of surprises, and not all of them pleasant. One example is stress. An impetus to ACT in the Ancestral Environment has been replaced by a chronic, low-grade anxiety that comes at the wrong times and affects so many today. This is not “fitness” any longer, but the exact opposite, for the context has changed.

And what of other, less definable things? Take survival, for instance- or even the simple act of passing one’s genetic information. This (we hear) is the ultimate goal, of ANY organism, but how true is this when the organism is ripped out of its original context? There’s a good number of adults- artists, especially- that refuse to have children, and even more that seriously consider the option. Still others have kids and regret them. Others, of course, go on to adopt. In other words, a sizeable, ever-increasing chunk of the world is opting out of a basic imperative, merely because ‘survival’ has either been turned into something else- has, in effect, duped the mind- or replaced by other drives altogether. In the case of the artist, for instance, while it is true that no genetic material is being passed on, something of the artist’s deeper self is. They become part of the human race in a FAR more profound way, so that survival, in the abstract sense, is guaranteed. Another theory is that the artist is- at least in some ways- a perpetual child, and therefore without a ‘need’ for progeny. Yet something has arrested him- what is it, and how could it be so powerful in the face of evolution? Or is it that the drives, themselves, are not what we think they are? And what of other outlets, such as careers, power, and hobbies- once aphrodisiacs, perhaps, but now respected on their own terms even without the concurrent gift of sex? Can human pleasure- curiosity- frivolity!– truly replace what was always permanent, by a kind of ‘proximate’ trick of the mind? If so, this means that a biological drive has been sublimated into a cultural one, by way of biology, which is really how civilization has always progressed in the first place- by the suppression of the baser, naturally lazy self. And if this is true of the biggest concerns- say, of life and death, to the point of utter, irrevocable change- then this is certainly true of far smaller ones that TRP is based upon.

The point I’m making is that human beings have resolved societal quandaries FAR deeper- and much more seemingly insurmountable- than gender dynamics, which plays, at best, a secondary role in survival-based identity, and drops in value the higher the human animal ascends. Just as peace was dormant in a murderous culture, and Moby-Dick somewhere in the minds of lotus-eaters, one must remember that the ‘gender balance’ might not be what we think it is, in the same way that, tens of thousands of years later, we are not quite what we thought we were, either. The parameters for what is possible were set a long time ago. Fighting against them is worse than futile- it is destructive. Yet exploring them and pushing against their bounds- given all of the above- seems hardwired into the parameters, themselves. To assume that sex and gender will somehow be exempt from this trajectory is wishful thinking.

Feminism is a sexual strategy. It puts women into the best position they can find, to select mates, to determine when they want to switch mates, to locate the best DNA possible, and to garner the most resources they can individually achieve.

…Or it could simply be the consequence of a survival-based society transitioning to an abundance-based one, teeming with the kinds of sublimations TRP is too limited to even consider. In short, the above argument is more gender monomania, literally turning EVERY human ambition into a reproductive one, as if there aren’t a good 4 or 5 other drives and identities that often take precedence as the outlets multiply. Really- it’s like monism all over again, applied by people who extrapolate their own obsessions unto the world, assuming ‘that’s that!’ merely because they’ve made themselves a part of it. I mean- how like a woman, as per TRP’s own mindset! How fixed the thought- unable to follow its own threads back to where they’d first unspool!

Women need men more than men need women. Men generally want sex and perhaps a family so they have a genetic lineage to leave their worldly goods and knowledge to once they die (so they may live on through their offspring) however women need men for their logical minds and stoic consistency, to make her emotionally stabilised ‘being the rock in her storm’, and also need a partner just to ‘feel complete.’ Just look at single mother households and all the older women who are single, they are miserable. These women NEED a man to be happy, men DO NOT need women to be happy, men need SEX to be happy. A bachelor is a not an unhappy guy, a bachelorette is.

All of this is arguable, but — as with much of TRP — still has the boon of being completely unprovable, even as studies indicate similar rates of happiness across the board. Misery increases with age for married people- including women– as it’s a function of existential lacks, which, of course, TRP’s proposed biological roles can never resolve. There are so many potential stipulations here, so many what-ifs, that it’s useless even as a generalization. It’s unable to explain the gross numbers of men who, anecdotally, wish for a long term, monogamous pairing (even more so than women, in some studies), or become sex addicts- that is, addicted to their own loneliness– and violates the evolutionary conception of love simply because it needs to. In short, while TRP posits a need for ‘completeness’ for the woman (again- arguable), it ignores a similar imperative for men- an imperative because there’s no good evolutionary reason for a woman to take on all the reproductive, and lack of protections for the child, if the man would have no real compulsion to stay: no need for ‘completeness’, himself. Yet love evolved as an imperfect work-around for the highly divergent mating strategies of both men and women, NOT as a mere ball-and-chain without deeper benefits. The fact is, both men and women ‘needed’ each other equally- TRP simply changes the male portion of this equation altogether, in order to rationalize some of its less excusable desires. Recall my initial claim re: TRP’s need to change the rules mid-game, saddling women with ALL responsibility yet escaping with none? If one looks close enough, many of TRP’s silliest claims are based on this very inversion.

In explaining the ‘why’ of TRP, there is both an explicit and implicit adage that runs through most of The Red Pill, damaging both its stated goals and long-term credibility:

Maximizing happiness is the goal of every living creature on this planet.

This, to me, is TRP’s biggest blunder- the thing that helps it move from a mere descriptor to an enabler by way of an assumption that is surprisingly modern and PC. The fact is, happiness has little innate value, for it is nothing but a value to begin with — and probably one of the lesser ones, at that, if one takes the adult view of things. Let me explain. While I agree that happiness is a decent aim, as far as some of the alternatives go, it’s certainly not “the goal of every living creature” (Christ- that’d be survival, both in the physical as well as sublimated sense), and one of the things that people are least efficient at achieving. And if happiness is a value rather than an imperative, what of other values- values that do, in fact, deepen and co-create civilization rather than act as one of its endless carrots? What of wisdom? Character? Talent? Strength? Do they contribute to ‘happiness’ as defined by TRP? Perhaps. In many cases, however, they don’t, and in some, they won’t even overlap- see Abe Lincoln’s depression, the suicides of great artists, and the general malaise that afflicts even the best time in cosmic history: today!

Yet TRP doesn’t get this, for while it denies being a means to better the world, in one breath, it complains of “gender confusion” on the other- of social consequences of the status quo, of women’s selfishness, and then, in a turn-around that’d budge even the largest hamster-wheel, goes on to posit its own peculiar brand of me-me-me’ism as a higher good. In short, TRP’s sense of human productivity is geared towards sex: one of life’s basest concerns, even as it produces some of life’s greatest short-term exuberance. That the two are so easily confused by men in ‘need’ of a pick-me-up is a shame, for one of TRP’s best ideas is the celebration of masculine principles, even as TRP, itself, can only pay lip-service to such. It doesn’t understand what creation is- the traditional bedrock of masculinity- nor could it appreciate men’s deeper concerns on a higher level. Like it or not, a typical TRP thread will reveal hatred, bitterness, manipulation, flirtation with rape, fetishism, and all-around stupidity, more often than ‘a positive identity for men’ (which is its explicitly stated promise)- inimitable wit that gets upvoted to no end, if not by TRP’s elite, then by the peons who export its wisdom and application. That it’s only a quarter of the way there- at best– means TRP fails both as a theory and community. It is more accurate to say that TRP is a grouping, without real goals or the discipline and intellectual wherewithal to achieve them.

And perhaps that’s the point: TRP is less about principles than a means to equip oneself for the sexual fray. Men throw themselves into it, and attempt to game it, for while a select few TRP’ers might see better than average folk, their general mediocrity- of principles, intellect, and so on- does not permit them to transcend it. In a sense, they are little more than feminism’s apparatchiks- Stalin’s useful idiots, or (if you prefer) Andrea Dworkin’s legbeard! Indeed, for all the talk of becoming ‘better’ — usually discussed in the most vague terms possible — I am still waiting to see a good book, painting, or- fuck!– even a well-written post from its 120,000+ subscribers in search of that ‘positive identity’. I will not, however, because the alpha-children are too chin-deep in pussy that they’ve manipulated out of fuck-ups even more infantile than they. Remember those “rhythms of birth and destruction” at essay’s start? Ironic how TRP has pedestaled the pussy- one of their favorite insults!– and created, quite wilfully, a system that revolves around nothing but women, all the while creating NOTHING of lasting import to men, in ways that Man has ALWAYS created. Ironic- indeed!- how, in the midst of trying to ‘game’ a loaded deck (for it is loaded- TRP is right about this), stacked, they argue, against their very existence, they fall into a self-negation FAR more profound than their worst feminist fantasies could ever inflict. Yes, the TRP elite tries to suppress the worst of this, but doesn’t seem to realize that the lunatics they attract are a function of TRP’s half-assedness– of its carelessness as a theory. For TRP, as I’ve shown, is responding to myths by way of its own myths. And while myth is little more than a logical hole, a counter-myth is simply a patch-work over the first. In this way, TRP is vaginal- is ever-yielding. The estate is still not Man’s, as true empowerment is too difficult- too adult.

Yet for all of TRP’s flaws, the responses to it have not been very fair, filled, as they are, with the sort of emotionalism and manipulation that TRP (rightly) accuses its opponents of. I’ve preambled on the ‘why’s’ and ‘wherefores’ quite a bit, so let’s go straight to the articles to analyze these strategies. The first article appears on The Daily Dot, demanding Reddit “flush the Red Pill,” thus playing- rather nauseatingly- on Reddit’s desire for financial profit by encouraging outright censorship. In a way, this is Liberalism’s most noxious contribution to society over the last few decades: to sugarcoat, deny, and make the world antiseptic- or rather, to depict it as such, for Liberals, as a whole, have been too cowardly to deal with Conservative destructiveness in a truly meaningful way. I mean, just look at how the article begins:

The discussion sparked by the death of six UCSB students at the hands of 22-year-old Elliot Rodger has, at times, become very heated. The shooter’s frantic rantings against peers—and specifically women—who have refused him has spawned a pouring of outrage by women and men alike at the hidden culture of harassment, entitlement, and violence that is a daily part of women’s lives.

Ah, yes- the tired conflation of Elliot Rodger- a sick fuck- with sexism. It’s almost as if the argument implies that here was a normal guy corrupted from within, and NOT a textbook psychotic who merely expelled his inner detritus into whatever ideology was at hand. Had he been born in a trailer in Alabama, to racist parents, best believe he’d join the local shooting range, then take his ills out on the ‘niggers’ who always seemed to get in the way of things. This is how the article ends:

It is impossible to say whether Elliot Rodger ever visited TRP or sites like it (and even more absurd to attach the community to his violent acts), but his worldview screams of the same self-aggrandizement thousands of men are currently being hypnotized by within Reddit’s thicket of communities.

Did you catch the hypocrisy? The article begins with an attention-grabbing reference to Rodger, as if he had anything to do with TRP, then goes on to (half-heartedly) denounce its own beginning, only to come full circle and make one more irrelevant ‘connection’. Despite the title, however, there is remarkably little information on The Red Pill except 1) a few pin-pricks at the most egregious content; and 2) outright lies about the TRP discussions being linked to, such as connecting the word “rape” to things that aren’t, or claiming domestic abuse apologia when, in fact, it isn’t. In other words, TRP is- clearly- guilty of myths and stupidity. The writer’s answer? More myths, more stupidity — and not a single word for TRP’s more worthwhile claims, simply because in ANY religious system, whether it’s feminism, racism, MRA, etc., the acceptance of even one fact from the opposing side is akin to diluting the word of God. Logically, it is either the word of God, or it ain’t- and in this case, both sides claim an identical privilege. To any rational being, however, censorship is counter-productive: it aims to STOP depictions of potentially harmful things, but, due to the censorship itself, has no proper means of de-fanging it. In the case of TRP, many men- who do have legitimate concerns- will not be given an alternative, for the discussion’s over; their issues are steamrolled, their worst fears of ‘neglect’ are confirmed yet again, and they’re inevitably pushed further into the worst aspects of MRA, thus making them even easier to marginalize.

Then, there’s an article that claims to debunk to “pseudoscience” of PUA (pick-up artists), and, to a lesser extent, The Red Pill group. It begins- predictably- with more references to Elliot Rodger, even as it hammers one wing of MRA for expecting “models of human interaction that they paid money for” — in other words, for buying into the survival-based conception of human interaction, as opposed to the FAR more complex motives and behaviors that are the norm today. Yet the argument starts to unravel from there. First, the writer takes PUA to task for their ‘alpha/beta’ distinction, claiming it can’t really be based on any primate model merely because primates are, as a rule, quite diverse in their arrangements- we’re not, for instance, as rigid as gorillas. Yet this does nothing to combat parallels, for we might very well be hierarchical- just in a different, less predictable way. To address this, the writer points to a couple of articles indicating that pre-Neolithic tribes were rarely stratified, with less ‘leadership’ than we’re accustomed to. This might be true- and there’s much evidence indicating these groups were quite violent, too- but it does nothing to address the ‘alpha/beta’ dichotomy as it applies to sex, and ignores the fact that traditional equality more or less ended with Neolithic society. In other words, the advent of civilization could have tapped into our potential for this sort of thinking, on top of the fact that we’re now grouped into far larger numbers (not mere bands), and dealing with more complex social phenomena that require unique leadership- as well as specialization in ‘smaller’ ways. Finally, say what you will of formal stratifications within tribes, but it’s obvious even to a child that confidence, aggression, body language, and power-plays have a definite, universally understood effect upon people, and that there are those who CAN play this game quite well, and those who always seem to have trouble speaking up, taking initiative, or defending themselves. Like it or not, we have too much of a capacity for such to merely be explained away by culture. I agree that many Red Pill deductions are little more than pseudoscience, but the author’s decision to tackle one claim, in a fairly non-specific way, while denying the obvious, is ineffective and lazy. A bitter but above-average intelligence male- an emotional male- would be able to see through this, and still be at risk for swallowing TRP whole.

One popular article (from Business Insider) is- I guess- more balanced than most, but is primarily descriptive, not analytical. This is a common pitfall of trying too hard to be ‘fair,’ by ultimately not taking any position at all and assuming this is a service. Another goes into TRP tactics and the emotional abuse inherent within. Salon’s treatment is- as with most articles on this subject- quite superficial and PC. And Flavorwire argues against The Red Pill’s blatant trans-hate by pointing out that one of the creators of The Matrix is- I kid you not- a transgender woman. But while that’s pretty much the end of TRP coverage in the mainstream press, other outlets have covered MRA as a whole- including one piece on Paul Elam, probably the most infamous of MRA types, who is painted as a deadbeat, absentee parent, user, racist, and possible crook. And although I usually find ad hominem arguments to be nauseatingly childlike, one wonders- after PUA’s Owen Cook admits to rape; after Julien Blanc is banned from Australia; after articles like the one, above, profile MRA men as frightened, insecure, and obsessed with victimhood- where character ends, and objective analysis begins. Clearly, SOMETHING is amiss in their world- and it’s not enough to always say that it’s the world at large. They’d call the invective a conspiracy against men, as well as proof of a general refusal to engage the issues at hand. In a way, they’d be right. But it’s just as true that a flawed, needy, and intellectually bankrupt movement will draw equally flawed men who’ll simply fall in line ideologically, and likely produce nothing of value themselves.

The Blue Pill satirizes TRP’s ‘rationalization hamster’.

In fact, the most balanced takes on TRP have been on Reddit’s The Purple Pill Debate– which features Red Pillers, Blue Pillers, ex-Pillers on both sides, and those on the fence- as well as select parts of The Blue Pill– a satire site that has its own issues, for it can engage in the same sort of manipulativeness that they (rightly) accuse TRP of. To see this in action, one could look at a good chunk of The Blue Pill’s posts and comments, and see — as if looking through a funhouse mirror — TRP’s own problems in reverse. Responding to a Red Piller that wanted to engage with them, one user asks re: TRP’s claimed differences between men and women:

Which differences would those be?

If that sort of denial- that casual imbecility (35 upvotes)- wasn’t enough, there’s still more fodder for MRA types to pick through- more ‘evidence’ of their own righteousness vis-a-vis others’ refusal to engage:

Why should we give you the time of day instead of mocking you, again?

I laugh my ass off when proud misogynists/racists demand simple human respect from other people.

Chile, please. Best get used to being ‘mocked’. Everything you believe in is laughable. So laughable that it involves blind hatred of half the planet’s population based almost COMPLETELY on lies and debunked/dated horseshit about women because I guess they intimidate you that much. All while somebody told you that you were owed a second mother after college who’s hot like fire and will wipe your ass for you. Don’t know how to talk to women? Just convince yourself they’re all idiots and children! Mistreat them like the Red Pill told you to! Get angry when it doesn’t work…complain to the community/MGTOWs and continue the self fulfilling prophecy!

Sorry, Neo. The Red Pill’s a hallucinogen. Come back when your testicles descend.

That’s 72 upvotes- more than any other in that thread, with virtually every other comment pretty much laughing at the guy instead of asking questions when they have the opportunity to do so on their own turf. To me, The Blue Pill is best when aping Red Pill stupidity or accumulating its most damning comments and posts, thus allowing TRP to self-destruct without comment. Yet even here, not everything is honest; there is still the sense that they NEED their myths in order to combat others’. In one peculiar list of TRP ills, for instance, they claim to show the ways in which TRP thinking has ruined relationships by zeroing in on examples of failed romance from The Red Pill’s own users. Let’s go through some of these, at random, and see who’s to blame- and whether The Blue Pill’s characterizations are apt:

Man gets Christmas bonus, expects his wife to fuck him then and there. Instead she laments how he’s been treating her for the past 2 months. He sets her straight.

True. The story is a pathetic example of TRP in action, wherein a needy, insecure man comes home with cash and expects validation- and sex. She ignores him, however, because TRP has made him emotionally distant. Still, she reminds him that she didn’t marry him for money, but for the man he is- or was. Uh-oh- the guy’s hamster goes spinning, and instead of owning up to his mistakes, he decides to ‘purge’ himself by reading The Red Pill for the rest of the night, thus rationalizing away his actions as lapses in applying TRP, rather than lapses in judgment. It’s troubling, too, that the ultimate validation- that you’re a mensch irrespective of whether or not you’re a provider– isn’t enough, as TRP would call this a ‘shit test’ rather than feminine honesty. Then, as a Blue Piller points this out, he ripostes with ‘my wife spent an hour giving me head tonight,’ thus ossifying himself further into the sexual void. Still, this is an obvious ‘x’ against the claim that TRP does not work for its stated aims. It does- albeit for one partner only. The guy is getting what he wants: more sex, less emotional investment. The woman gets to suck more dick.

Man cheats on wife of 15 years, who he fathered 3 children with, because she was too busy with work to give him blowjobs on demand.

False. The Blue Pill asserts ‘15 years’ and ‘3 children’ as if these were the important parts, and ignores the fact that he was forced into becoming a provider, as the wife refused to work, went on shopping sprees, emotionally abused him, and flaked out on promises, thus forcing her husband to shoulder even more responsibilities. After admitting that she provided little of worth to her husband, she is ‘shocked’ that he wants regular sex (oh no!) and a clean home after 15 years of entitlement, passivity, and neglect. Perhaps there was a way out of this other than the ‘nuclear’ option, but after a decade and a half of such abuse, it’s hard to blame him for leaving. In fact, I’m shocked he stayed for as long as he did- that (and having children in such a toxic environment) was his worst mistake.

MeRPer throwing away a 13 year marriage because he felt like a ‘beta’.

False- and ridiculously false, at that. The story in fact refers to 13 years of self-hatred, a refusal to stand up to another’s emotional abuse, and feeling ‘scared,’ with ‘no one to turn to’ — practically a textbook example of the way that men (particularly weak men) feel that they don’t have a good support system. And- notice those scare-quotes over the word “beta”? Just imagine if everything he described was described by a woman: being “bullied” and “belittled,” and the like, to the point that one can’t even face one’s spouse in person? No doubt that women- and men!- would call it domestic abuse, while The Blue Pill decides it’s something to make fun of merely because the roles are reversed. Ideology dehumanizes precisely because it suggests a kind of ‘quest’ that MUST be followed- one that zeroes-in on a specific goal while excluding all others. If anything falls out of bounds- no matter its importance to the rest of the world- it is simply neglected. Yet the typical Red Piller, who absolutely NEEDS validation- despite what they’ll say!- will see evil in the way their issues are being sidelined. They will see the ‘feminist war on men’ instead of being brought into the feminist fold.

Woman’s SO wants out of 8 year relationship after reading TRP.

True, I guess, but dishonest. The two were in an open relationship, to begin with, and the woman had a number of dangerous fetishes that could wreck ANY relationship. The fact that she went on to lie about this to TRP by deleting her posting history indicates quite a bit about her character as well. Again- this is evidence of what, exactly? Are there no good examples of TRP abuse that The Blue Pill needs to grasp at straws?

Man begins dread-game on wife of 4 years, relationship starts to squander.

Yep. This motherfucker needs therapy, not TRP. I’d argue a number of TRP concepts are useful for long-term relationships, but his wife is generally described as sane, thoughtful, and a good partner overall. He calls himself ‘tired’- primarily of doing a “man’s” work. Ironically, if he were to take TRP advice and still insist on being the leader of his marriage, instead of- quite logically- sharing responsibilities, it would just wear him down further. He would become unhappy, the relationship would suffer, and TRP would claim that he didn’t know how to apply their ideas. If he ripostes that the burden is too much, they’d call him a beta- and note that he should go ‘spin plates’ instead of committing. Nothing could be challenged, because, well, all’s anonymous- all must be taken at another’s word. In short, this is a good example of TRP’s limits as a modern theory, failing, as it does, to account for so much human variability in both men and women, as well as the unique arrangements we must all eventually come to.

‘Has RP theory made you want to get a divorce’’ General Consensus: Yes.

Indeed– and why the hell not? Here’s a strategy- a viable strategy!- for feeling better about oneself and getting laid, a lot. Given that men are men (or rather, that people are people), and usually have little to no real purpose in life, nothing to attach themselves to, nothing to mold, nothing to BE, it’s predictable that- with this new carrot in front of them- they’ll wish to go and define themselves in the only way they know how. Nor does it help that TRP encourages them to view masculinity as their chief source of identity, as opposed to far deeper concerns that can never be fractured along gender lines.

Yet there’s more. The Blue Pill’s sidebar- a place meant for useful, worthy information- lacks even TRP’s silly underpinnings, refusing to supply a counter-argument to the bullshit, or even a rational statement of purpose re: TRP’s claims. Indeed, for all of Blue Pill’s ‘superiority,’ it doesn’t even pretend to justify it- it’s merely there, and is correct by fiat due to the fact that it’s so much preferable. Sure, one might argue that Blue Pill is little more than satire, but that really hasn’t been the case for a while. Most posts are quite serious, and even those explicitly complaining of TRP’s poor understanding of evolutionary psychology offer NOTHING in its stead, much less a fair response to TRP’s key claims. Indeed, I sometimes wonder how much of Blue Pill covertly believes their enemy’s propaganda- how much their fixation on TRP is like TRP’s obsession with women: a means to an identity, at a time when most lack a real purpose. For while The Red Pill’s tagline complains of the world’s denial of a MALE identity, they are, as always, only halfway there. No one seems to know what one ‘must’ do. And it’s precisely this word- must– that confuses, as they’ve eliminated real freedom for the comforts of ONE narrative- one conniving little ought, irrespective of what a human being really is.

The solution? Let there be gaps, schism, alienation until the thing’s so broken that it finally can be put back together again. No, it will not look how it was first intended. Nor will it look exactly like what 7 billion people all selfishly desire. It will be better, nobler, somehow more civilized; difficult, and rough- for that’s civilization- but fairer- for that’s civilization, too. It will be a synthesis of two distinct tones.

Cues For An Intended Future

Let us now review the known, unknown, and the purely hypothetical:

Man and Woman are sexually dimorphic. To deny this is pure mythos. To overstate it is a counter-myth.

Sexual dimorphism is not merely about appearance, but implies different sexual strategies, ways of thinking, and even- at times- human values. Much has been said about these differences, even as many of their specifics are unknown, and their long-term repercussions poorly understood.

The net balance of sexual dimorphism is a rough equilibrium in the Ancestral Environment.

Both sexes are primarily monogamous, with the male’s (slightly) larger size implying a natural history of mild polygyny as a direct response to the Ancestral Environment. But:

We are no longer in the Ancestral Environment, nor do we have any true examples of the EEA today.

We are not fitness maximizers. We are adaptation executers.

The above directly leads to cultural sublimation, from which nothing is excepted.

This is the basis for civilization, and civilization is, at bottom, a synthesis of drive and override.

Woman has finally received the freedom ‘to’- that is, she can now be a part of the historical process.

Man- for all his supposed choices- has not yet earned the freedom ‘from’.

And so, this is where we are, and is in a sense where we’ve always been, where we must go, and the means by which we’ll inevitably get there. As I’ve said, although there’s been much argument about what our nature truly is, there are, as I see it, only 2 certainties worth noting: 1)  there is a human nature- an inviolable nature, even though it’s constantly being sublimated upwards; and 2) challenging this nature is hardwired into it- is, in short, one of its basic parameters, the thing that gave us an adaptative edge over other animals, and is now giving us an edge over ourselves. Any sexual theory worth listening to needs to consider this in full, and not merely cherry-pick whatever slice of reality ‘seems’ advantageous in the short term. Feminism has not brought the world into its fold. In fact, it’s safe to say that it doesn’t really want to- at least not yet. There is a victim complex that prevents a true synthesis from occurring, and men- rather predictably- have responded by painting themselves as victims, too.

Although The Red Pill is (in a minor sense) a step in the right direction, its intellectual limits and subtly PC nature will keep it from being anything but a fringe theory, to be replaced by yet another fringe theory, until there’s something disciplined- something adult– to contain all the childlike qualities of modern sexual thinking. And as much as TRP is loath to admit it, TRP is in fact unabashedly PC- from its ‘feel-good’ emphasis on happiness as life’s ultimate good, to the rampant me-me-me’ism that twangs on every fiber of the modern world, to the outright denial of science- via pop psychology- for an ideological purpose. That TRP happens to add a dash of sociopathy into the mix is beside the point. Indeed, for while TRP prides itself on its logic, as well as men’s ability to interpenetrate the mind without getting stuck on bullshit, it is a theory that is so dependent on everything from cherry-picking, to avoiding the big picture, to stopping just short of the ‘right’ conclusion in order to justify the incompleteness that comes before. This makes it, as TRP might quip, a vaginal sort of theory- some meat, perhaps, but one hole too many.

It’s always struck me as appropriate that The Red Pill takes its name from a schlock film defined by poor writing, juvenile symbolism, and an inflated sense of its own truths — a series of what-ifs that, because they’re so badly worded, end up capturing one slice of reality to the exclusion of others, all the while exaggerating the little bit of good that’s left until it’s no longer recognizable. It’s the perfect set-up, really: a ‘beta’ hacker with nothing to live for gets the chance to reinvent himself and save the world. Sure, it is a banal tale, and Neo’s inner change so childlike, so silly, but why should it matter to The Red Pill? The betterment of their targeted men is not towards depth, but power. And power — especially of the interpersonal kind — tends to warp reality around it rather than adjust to its demands. This is why TRP is so hell-bent on manipulation- on getting men to act in ways unnatural to them; in ways that are counter-intuitive to normal, healthy relationships. And so, while TRP claims to wish to adjust to biology, their aim, as I’ve shown, is really to transcend it, albeit in ways that are geared towards one relatively minor part of the human experience. They have the drive and they have the override. The problem, however, is that the drive telescopes the fullness of the world, while the override wishes to obviate even that illusion.

It is undeniable that Man and Woman are both wholly separate as well as wholly linked. To be sure, it is a separation that’s been manipulated for personal advantage, by every side, and it is an integration that has been wilfully- maliciously, even- confused for the very same reason. This is a shame, for while I can empathize to some degree with the emotional needs on both sides of the spectrum, it is people who must recognize the divide and appreciate the difficulties in bridging it. Recall that there is a clear difference between the freedom ‘to’ and the freedom ‘from,’ and that neither men nor women have had a sufficient dosage of either. In this way, our so-called choices are a joke- they are simply not real. Then again, even in a state of total freedom, some choices will not be made; some things- alas- will fall beyond the parameters that we’ve unconsciously established for ourselves so long ago. Let us go bridge the gap, yes- but let’s remember to keep a few boundaries where they belong.