A premature proclamation?

Suzanne Gosselin recently wrote an article at Boundless called “Recognizing the One,” in which she recounts that she knew her now-husband was “the one” when the Holy Spirit told her so (which just so happened to be at a moment when Kevin, to whom she was already attracted, was alpha-ly going on about his passions and plans for life…funny how that works).

In the comments, someone named Andrew3 wrote of his criteria for a future wife:

This is my criteria for knowing if a woman is “The One” for me:

1. She believes in Jesus Christ as her Saviour.

2. I can imagine her bearing my children through the method designed by God at the beginning of creation. (Genesis 4:1)

3. She wants to marry me.

That is it! The first woman who fulfills all three of the above criteria will be my wife for the rest of our years on earth.

Now, maybe he really means this, but I highly doubt that these are his only criteria.  What if the woman also…

…had three kids by three other guys?

…pole-danced not for Jesus?

…had $50,000 worth of credit card debt?

…had two ex-husbands?

…had a lot of male Facebook friends who liked to message her?

…liked to post pictures of herself in a bikini on Facebook?

…had no female friends?

…made more money and/or had more education than he did?

Maybe Andrew3 is just really young and therefore hasn’t thought any deeper than his three criteria.

 

Pole dancing for the lover of your soul.

Okay, so, apparently there is a fitness studio in Houston that offers a free “Pole Fitness for Jesus” workout on the second Sunday of each month after church.  Only Christian music is played, and to get in, you have to show your church program.  The proprietor, Crystal Deans, is a former dancer who decided to bring the parts she liked about dancing into the studio.  Judging by Deans’s quotes in the article, she’s encountered a lot of criticism (which I would expect, being that she is in Texas):

“Just to get past the whole stigma of the whole thing, I’m very Christian. I go to church every Sunday and I pray. I talk to God things like that I think there’s nothing wrong with what I do. I teach women to feel good about themselves, to feel empowered and we get in really good shape. God is the only person that judges so anybody who wants to judge me, feel free to but I’m good with God, so that’s what’s important to me and I really don’t care what people think.”

Two points on this.  One, while I think the idea of pole dancing to Christian music is…incongruous (I mean, are they working the pole to a techno version of “My Jesus, I Love Thee”?), I don’t think there’s anything wrong with Christian pole dancing classes.  The classes appear to be women-only and fitness-oriented, and Deans isn’t encouraging the women to go out and get hired.  And, more generally, anything that (a) promotes fitness and (b) helps women feel sexier is a good thing.  I know the manosphere likes to get all up in arms about how women these days have too much self-esteem and fat 5s think they’re slender 9s, but the average woman constantly compares herself to women in TV and film.  That is why you have things like the fat acceptance movement (women who have surrendered to futility) and widespread plastic surgery (women who refuse to give up).  Telling women “Hey, fatty, just go on a diet” isn’t very helpful because most women tie their value to their looks, and therefore rejecting a woman for her looks means rejecting her wholesale.

Second, Deans’s statement that “God is the only person that judges” is the kind of statement that makes the hairs on evangelical ears stand on end for traces of impostor-ism.  Deans may be relatively new to the faith and therefore has not yet become fluent in Christianese, but the proper way to say what she said is, “I felt God calling me to this ministry to other women, to help them heal their self-image issues that they are burdened with in this culture of superficiality.”  Saying “only God can judge” is tantamount in Christian circles to saying, “nyah, nyah, you’re not the boss of me!”.  It’s much better to frame anything controversial as a “calling,” which is very personal and therefore nearly impossible to refute.  Plus, by labeling something a “calling,” you get irrefutability PLUS Christian cred by the implication that you and god are tight.

 

Game With the Wind.

I’ve been re-reading Gone With the Wind lately, and there is no character in literature more skilled at the neg than Rhett Butler.  Given that Rhett is dealing with one of the most self-absorbed and vain females in all of literature, his frame is (and must be, by necessity) concrete and the negs are fairly charged.  However, Rhett’s negs succeed because (a) he is able to deliver them with charm and humor, and (b) he never breaks frame.  He never backpedals or apologizes, but he never crosses the line into bitter insult.  Here is a good example from early in the novel, when Scarlett discovers that Rhett has overheard her conversation with Ashley in the library and witnessed her throwing a vase against the wall in rage.

“Sir,” she said, “you are no gentleman!”

“An apt observation,” he answered airily. “And, you, Miss, are no lady.” He seemed to find her very amusing, for he laughed softly again. “No one can remain a lady after saying and doing what I have just overheard. However, ladies have seldom held any charms for me. I know what they are thinking, but they never have the courage or lack of breeding to say what they think. And that, in time, becomes a bore. But you, my dear Miss O’Hara, are a girl of rare spirit, very admirable spirit, and I take off my hat to you. I fail to understand what charms the elegant Mr. Wilkes can hold for a girl of your tempestuous nature. He should thank God on bended knee for a girl with your–how did he put it?–‘passion for living,’ but being a poor-spirited wretch–”

“You aren’t fit to wipe his boots!” she shouted in rage.

“And you were going to hate him all your life!” He sank down on the sofa and she heard him laughing.

Scarlett’s accusation that Rhett is no gentleman is a classic shit test designed to make Rhett apologize for his behavior and establish Scarlett’s control of their encounter.  But instead of behaving like a gentleman, Rhett agrees and then drops the neg:  in the form of a compliment, he congratulates Scarlett on a poor quality – not being a lady.  He also AMOGs Ashley.

Negging, often in combination with Agree and Amplify, is a strategy that Rhett uses continually against Scarlett’s shit tests, which she doles out with regularity on account of his impudence.  That she cannot control him both infuriates and excites her.  Especially worth noting is that Rhett’s negs are often not upfront; he works them in as asides, or they are implied due to word choice and tone.  The following passage from chapter 17 demonstrates a barrage of game. My comments are bolded in brackets.

“…Never pass up new experiences, Scarlett. They enrich the mind.” [Neg.  Subtext: “Your mind needs enriching.”]

“My mind’s rich enough.” [Qualifying herself.]

“Perhaps you know best about that, but I should say– But that would be ungallant. And perhaps, I’m staying here to rescue you when the siege does come. I’ve never rescued a maiden in distress. That would be a new experience, too.”  [Neg.  Subtext:  “You’re helpless.”]

She knew he was teasing her but she sensed a seriousness behind his words. She tossed her head.

“I won’t need you to rescue me. I can take care of myself, thank you.” [Qualifying herself.]

“Don’t say that, Scarlett! Think of it, if you like, but never, never say it to a man. That’s the trouble with Yankee girls. They’d be most charming if they weren’t always telling you that they can take care of themselves, thank you. Generally they are telling the truth, God help them. And so men let them take care of themselves.” [Neg.  Comparing her to unfeminine women.]

“How you do run on,” she said coldly, for there was no insult worse than being likened to a Yankee girl. “I believe you’re lying about a siege. You know the Yankees will never get to Atlanta.” [Shit test.]

“I’ll bet you they will be here within the month. [Agree and amplify.] I’ll bet you a box of bonbons against–” His dark eyes wandered to her lips. “Against a kiss.”

For a last brief moment, fear of a Yankee invasion clutched her heart but at the word “kiss,” she forgot about it. This was familiar ground and far more interesting than military operations. With difficulty she restrained a smile of glee. Since the day when he gave her the green bonnet, Rhett had made no advances which could in any way be construed as those of a lover. He could never be inveigled into personal conversations, try though she might, but now with no angling on her part, he was talking about kissing. [Rhett always controls the frame with Scarlett.]

“I don’t care for such personal conversation,” she said coolly and managed a frown. “Besides, I’d just as soon kiss a pig.” [Shit test.]

“There’s no accounting for tastes and I’ve always heard the Irish were partial to pigs–kept them under their beds, in fact. [Agree and amplify in combination with a neg.] But, Scarlett, you need kissing badly. That’s what’s wrong with you. All your beaux have respected you too much, though God knows why, or they have been too afraid of you to really do right by you. [AMOG in combination with a neg.] The result is that you are unendurably uppity. You should be kissed and by someone who knows how.” [Neg.]

The conversation was not going the way she wanted it. It never did when she was with him. Always, it was a duel in which she was worsted.

“And I suppose you think you are the proper person?” she asked with sarcasm, holding her temper in check with difficulty. [Shit test.]

“Oh, yes, if I cared to take the trouble,” he said carelessly. “They say I kiss very well.” [Agree and amplify.]

“Oh,” she began, indignant at the slight to her charms. “Why, you . . .” But her eyes fell in sudden confusion. He was smiling, but in the dark depths of his eyes a tiny light flickered for a brief moment, like a small raw flame. “Of course, you’ve probably wondered why I never tried to follow up that chaste peck I gave you, the day I brought you that bonnet–” [Neg.]

“I have never–” [Qualifying herself.]

“Then you aren’t a nice girl, Scarlett, and I’m sorry to hear it. All really nice girls wonder when men don’t try to kiss them. They know they shouldn’t want them to and they know they must act insulted if they do, but just the same, they wish the men would try. . . . Well, my dear, take heart. Some day, I will kiss you and you will like it. But not now, so I beg you not to be too impatient.” [Neg, Neg, Neg.  Also, all girls want men to put the moves on them.]

She knew he was teasing but, as always, his teasing maddened her. There was always too much truth in the things he said. Well, this finished him. If ever, ever he should be so ill bred as to try to take any liberties with her, she would show him. [Hamster alert.]

“Will you kindly turn the horse around, Captain Butler? I wish to go back to the hospital.”

“Do you indeed, my ministering angel? Then lice and slops are preferable to my conversation? Well, far be it from me to keep a pair of willing hands from laboring for Our Glorious Cause.” [Neg, neg, neg.] He turned the horse’s head and they started back toward Five Points.

“As to why I have made no further advances,” he pursued blandly, as though she had not signified that the conversation was at an end, [controlling the frame] “I’m waiting for you to grow up a little more. You see, it wouldn’t be much fun for me to kiss you now and I’m quite selfish about my pleasures. I never fancied kissing children.” [Mega neg!]

He smothered a grin, as from the corner of his eye he saw her bosom heave with silent wrath.

When broken down, it’s easy to see that the male-female dynamic is that of alternating shit tests and either negs or agree/amplify.  In order to control the frame, the man can never submit to a shit test and – this is key – he should always view the shit test with some amusement.  Without a dose of humor and amusement, a man’s attempted negs will seem mean-spirited and/or defensive or – worse – clumsy.

It’s worth noting that Rhett’s industrial-strength game is probably too much for the average joe running day game or church game.  The strength of Rhett’s game was made necessary by the enormity of Scarlett’s ego and vanity.  Most men will not meet such a foe on the battleground of dating and mating.  Then again, the characters of the novel were constrained by the social mores of their time, and Scarlett, no matter how enraged she became at Rhett, never insulted him the way women today are prone to insult men.  So maybe industrial strength game should at least be in every man’s arsenal, should he need to use it.

One other somewhat unrelated note:  Kids LOVE negs.  Pretty much the fastest way to a child’s heart is to neg them with gleeful abandon.  Telling a kid (playfully) that you don’t believe whatever they’re telling you, and they will start qualifying themselves until they’re blue in the face.  Playfully insult their hero, and you will blow their mind.  (Of course, you have to be careful with this or you’ll end up with a sobbing child.)  When I used to work at a tutoring center, one of my students was in love with Nick Jonas from the Jonas Brothers.  So I took it upon myself to insult Nick Jonas constantly.  (“Nick Jonas isn’t cute.  He has squinty eyes.”  “Isn’t Nick Jonas younger than you?  You’re a cradle robber!”  “You call that singing?!” “Hi, Mrs. Jonas, what algebra homework do you have today?”)  But I knew that my student enjoyed having me as her tutor.  Done properly, kids, especially younger ones, will come back and practically beg for repeated negging.  That’s how you know they love and respect you.

 

Amanginican Idol.

American Idol has had its share of effeminate and (secretly, or not-so-secretly) gay male contestants in the past, but this season’s Paul McDonald is the height of effete indie SWPLism.  Is there anything about his performance that projects strength, determination, gravitas, control, command, or power?  All I see is some guy with a wispy voice traipsing around the stage like he’s afflicted with a muscle control disease and not caring that he’s presenting himself this way because this probably passes for “cool” in his music circle.

Here he is from last night, singing “I Guess That’s Why They Call It the Blues.”

Defenders might posit that Paul’s not caring how he comes across actually makes him alpha, but that usually requires either a certain amount of self-awareness and IDGAF-ism, or so much ripe masculinity that it can’t be denied.  Paul, on the other hand, seems to be laboring under the delusion that what he is doing is charming and cool, a delusion that is likely buoyed by the alpha attractors of being in a band prior to the show and now being famous thanks to television.  Whatever masculine personal traits Paul may possess disappear when he gets on that stage to perform.

Unfortunately for me, there are some worse contestants who need to get voted off before Paul, and the largely female, middle-aged voting base has a greater tolerance for male contestants than female (I know, what a surprise), so I expect Paul to live to sing for at least a few more weeks.

Other related thoughts:

The show is deeply feeling the loss of uber-alpha Simon Cowell.  Steven Tyler is useless on these live performance nights, and Randy Jackson lacks the swagger to pull off meaningful criticism.  And from a performance standpoint, Cowell was just better at delivering a sharp, 30-second critique in the heat of the moment.  They really should have gotten another music executive for the panel, someone who knows what qualities a performer will need to survive in the pop world, rather than going for two celebrity performers loath to judge the contestants because they feel too much empathy for them.

No, thou shalt not let thyself go.

Recently Boundless blogger Suzanne Gosselin highlighted an article on Rachel Held Evans’s blog entitled “Thou Shalt Not Let Thyself Go?“, in which Evans puts Mark Driscoll on blast for the following 2006 statement:

“At the risk of being even more widely despised than I currently am, I will lean over the plate and take one for the team on this. It is not uncommon to meet pastors’ wives who really let themselves go; they sometimes feel that because their husband is a pastor, he is therefore trapped into fidelity, which gives them cause for laziness. A wife who lets herself go and is not sexually available to her husband in the ways that the Song of Songs is so frank about is not responsible for her husband’s sin, but she may not be helping him either.”

Evans then says:

I fear that the sentiment behind these remarks—that the Bible holds women to a certain standard of beauty that must be maintained throughout all seasons of life—remains pervasive within certain sectors of the conservative evangelical community.

She then calls out Christian authors Dorothy Patterson and Martha Pearce, as well as unnamed pastors in her own life, for telling women that they should remain beautiful and sexually satisfy their husbands to the point where the husbands will have zero temptation to stray.

Evans warns:

The message is as clear as it is ominous: Stay beautiful or your husband might leave you.  And if he does, it’s partially your fault.

Evans goes on to say that nowhere in the Bible are women commanded to remain physically beautiful for their husbands and instead highlights the usual verses about how beauty is fleeting, yada yada yada.  But Evans then goes one step further and labels the advice to stay attractive misogyny.  She contends that Scripture affirms that beauty decreases with age and childbearing, and – SHAMING ALERT! – “frankly, the suggestion that men are too weak to handle these realities is as emasculating as it is unbiblical.”  (Anytime someone starts a sentence with “frankly,” it’s an alert that condescension and/or shaming is imminent.)

Evans ends the article with this hamsterrific, projection-tastic piece de resistance:

Rather it is to help set women free—from the lie that God is disappointed when our bodies change, from the lie that it’s our fault when men cheat, from the lie that we become worthless as we grow older, and from the lie that that the Bible is just another glossy magazine whose standards of beauty we will always fail to meet.

While reading this article, I questioned whether Evans knows anything about men, or about women.  I don’t know anything about Evans, but it seems like she’s projecting her own insecurities onto men at large, and in trying to defend herself is actually propagating more garbage.

Very few men expect their wives to remain as physically attractive over time as they were on their wedding day, so Evans’s contention that there is some sort of churchian imperative never to age just seems totally bogus.  What men do expect, however, is that their wives care for their looks.  There is a big difference between showing natural signs of aging and packing on fifty pounds and wearing sweatpants all the time.  A wedding ring isn’t a license to start eating Ho-Hos to your heart’s desire, or shoving all your makeup in a drawer that will never again see the light of day.  So yes, this means that a woman who completely neglects her appearance and expects her husband to “just deal with it” is a woman who enables her husband to stray.  She doesn’t cause him to stray, but in neglecting her appearance, she makes it easier for another woman to catch his eye.  The reality that Evans seems to be most ignoring is that to a man, his wife’s investment in her appearance is a sign of respect for him.  And a man usually interprets his wife’s respect as love.  So man whose wife doesn’t care for her appearance tends to think that she doesn’t love him.  And a man who feels unloved is an unhappy man who is a prime target for temptation.  It’s up to your man to stray, but you can make it easier for him not to.

Does the Bible contain positive commands to women never to age or to work as hard as they can to retain their beauty?  No.  But the Bible doesn’t contain positive commands NOT to do so, either.  When the Bible tells women that their greatest beauty is in their spirit and demeanor, it’s not a permission not to care about their looks; it’s a reminder that the true beauty of a person comes from within, not that their looks have NO place of value.

But even if you buy everything Evans is selling, consider the shoe on the other foot.  Would Evans ever consider it okay for men to stop caring about making a living?  Would she be okay with a man deciding, “Well, I’m married now.  That’s a lot of responsibility, so I just can’t work as much as I used to.  I don’t think I should be expected to keep making more and more money, anyway.  That’s an ominous lie of materialism and there is no biblical command to make a lot of money.  So, yep, I think my wife should be okay with me not making $100,000 a year and keep loving me the same now that I’m only bringing home $20,000.”  Yeah…I don’t think so.

All I’m saying really boils down to one thing:  do things that make it easier for your spouse to love you.

P.S.  I glanced at the comments.  Oy, vey.

[ETA for reference: Suzanne Gosselin’s referring article, “Thou Shalt Not Become Ugly.”]

Boundless: Charlie Sheen >>>>> Kanye West.

Boundless blogger Glenn Stanton recently took Kanye West to task for his tweets on abortion, while somehow throwing in a comparison to Charlie Sheen, in his post “He Makes Charlie Sheen Look Downright Gentlemanly.”  How Sheen’s recent antics have anything to do with West’s tweets is a giant non-sequitur to me.  But, this being Boundlessworld, that Sheen has avoided speaking about abortion is enough to earn him pity and a moral free pass:

Charlie is obviously deeply and sadly troubled. As a human being, he deserves our sympathy and prayers.

But for West there is no pity!  For making the following observations,

an abortion can cost a ballin’ n**ga up to 50gs maybe a 100.  Gold diggin’ bi**hes be getting pregnant on purpose. #STRAPUP my n**gas!

West is relegated to the scrap-heap of humanity.  Stanton then clutches his pearls and asks us, in italics, “What does one say?” Stanton continues with what may possibly be the most white-knighting, mangina-tastic, hand-flaily rant to grace Boundless in months:

Does our culture have even the most liberal criteria for a gag-reflex where we can collectively say, “This guy deserves to never be heard from again!” This guy is an offense not just to women, but to men as well who believe that women are perhaps — just maybe — much more than sexual objects that need fixing when they become mothers.

Kanye at least reveals what most women should realize, that abortion is not a feminist sacrament, but rather a predatory male’s plan B — a way to keep his woman in the sexual market for maximum access.

Neither Charlie nor Kanye are men. And it would be an insult to boys to call them boys. Charlie is pitiable. Kanye is not. He should be forced, like a man, to take responsibility for his misogynistic offensiveness. Will his market demand this of him?

So, let me get this straight:  Charlie Sheen, the proudly drug-addicted client of prostitutes and father of children by three different women, who once (accidentally?) shot then-fiancee Kelly Preston in the arm, who has slandered his boss Chuck Lorre with an anti-Semitic slur, deserves our pity and prayers.  But Kanye West, who spoke truth about abortion and gold-digging hos, is an evil misogynist the world should strike down?  Stanton seems to have no concept of the world that West lives in, which is one where many women, driven by both tingles and shrewd practicality, see powerful men as banks.  No, in Stanton’s world, a woman who sees an opportunity to extort resources from a man by bearing his child does not exist.  Instead, it’s the men who shoulder all the blame for using innocent women as sexual objects and using abortion as a means to keep women as slutty as possible.

And people wonder why gender relations in the church are so messed up.

West’s tweets are not the problem, and attacking West for his tweets will solve nothing.  Screeching against West is about as effective as putting a Band-Aid on a leg full of gangrene.  If the folks at Boundless (and elsewhere) want to see real social change, then they have to embrace the reality of female sexuality.  But what is the likelihood of that happening?  And what is the likelihood of anyone at Boundless ceasing to be so myopic as to understand that abortion is not a cause, it is a symptom?

 

Taylor Swift can teach you about romance.

Of all the popstresses on the radio these days, none captures the girlish heart (and hamster) better than Taylor Swift, probably because she’s only 21 and writes all of her own music.  Her song “Fearless” greatly reminded me of Point IX in Roissy’s ever-so-tastefully named “Sixteen Commandments of Poon“:

IX. Connect with her emotions

Set yourself apart from other men and connect with a woman’s emotional landscape. Her mind is an alien world that requires deft navigation to reach your rendevous. Frolic in the surf of emotions rather than the arid desert of logic. Be playful. Employ all your senses. Describe in lush detail scenarios to set her heart afire. Give your feelings freedom to roam. ROAM. Yes, that is a good word. You’re not on a linear path with her. You are ROAMING all over, taking her on an adventure. In this world, there is no need to finish thoughts or draw conclusions. There is only need to EXPERIENCE. You’re grabbing her hand and running with her down an infinite, labyrinthine alleyway with no end, laughing and letting your fingers glide on the cobblestone walls along the way.

“Fearless” is all about a girl falling in love with an alpha who takes her for a drive in his car after it has rained, but the emotions Swift describes are right out of this Roissy post.  Sample lyrics:

We’re drivin’ down the road
I wonder if you know
I’m tryin’ so hard not to get caught up now
But you’re just so cool
Run your hands through your hair
Absent mindedly makin’ me want you

And I don’t know how it gets better than this
You take my hand and drag me head first
Fearless
And I don’t know why but with you I’d dance
In a storm in my best dress
Fearless

Also note the hat tips to aloofness, taking charge, a hint of danger/the unknown, and the woman not knowing the why of her feelings.  In contrast, here is a song Taylor Swift will never write:  one where she’s in the car with a guy and he’s constantly asking her where she wants to go and if he’s driving too fast and if she’s comfortable or not.  Just some food for thought.

You should just kiss her.

I was talking to my brother on the phone tonight and found out that his first college girlfriend had never let him kiss her even though they dated for a (school) year.  This was because she was one of those girls who had decided not to kiss anyone until she was married.  This was also before my brother had read The Game three times and Mystery Method twice.  And this was also in part due to the sterilized Christian college atmosphere of “even the slightest male sexual forwardness is akin to date rape.”  Ultimately, the ex-girlfriend’s unwillingness to kiss my brother led to their breakup.

But, as I learned, he should have just gone ahead and kissed her.  Years later she apologized to him for never kissing him and then confessed that she had gotten drunk and made out with some random stranger and felt awful about it.  I don’t think this made my brother feel better about all those kissless months.

All women, no matter what they say, want the men they’re dating to put the moves on them, or at least try.  If you’ve been dating a non-kisser for a while, and you have good chemistry, and you’ve just had a really great date, you may as well go for it.  She may honestly believe that she wants to save her lips for “I do,” but what her subconscious really wants is to know that the man she is dating finds her so irresistible that he can’t help but kiss her.  Irresistibility is key, though.  Anything less will seem calculated or lustful.  Another caveat:  bring your best game in case you get rebuffed – not so that you can then con her into changing her mind, but to show her that her refusal to kiss you does not affect you.  (If you have really wicked game, you should let her know how attractive you find her, and then inform her that you will not kiss her under any circumstance.  She will be dying for you to kiss her.  Hey, it worked for Rhett Butler.)

I’m not writing this to try to get men to get women to abandon their kiss-free standards.  Some women are very resolute and sincere and do make it to the altar with unbesmirched lips.  I commend these women.  But I think that a lot of young women adopt a kiss-free stance in a fit of idealistic romanticism, rather than as a result of sober contemplation.  It’s the idealistic romanticizers, therefore, for whom no-kissing often amounts to a sanctified shit test – a test that men should recognize and treat as any other.  The truth is that under amenable circumstances, a woman will kiss whom she wants to kiss.  Very, very few women can fight off the hamster for long when it comes to kissing the men they are deeply attracted to.

P.S.  This blog post should not be interpreted to mean “ASSAULT HER WITH YOUR SLOBBERY, OVEREAGER LIPS JUST BECAUSE THERE WAS A SPLIT-SECOND PAUSE IN THE CONVERSATION.”  Timing is always of the essence.

If it weren’t for sex…

If it weren’t for sex, it would be so much easier to be single (Christian-style, anyway).

If it weren’t for sex, it would be so much easier to find someone to marry.