Make every day a hot day.

I don’t know if I’m just getting punchy before the holidays or what, but lately I’ve been feeling really irritated at how frumpy so many women are.  Frumpy clothes, frumpy hair – and then they wonder why no guys are paying attention to them, or they’re only getting attention from the guys they don’t want.

It’s not just frumpiness of style, either; it’s also plain old being plain.  Timid.  Unimaginative.  If you look like the personification of beige yet remain stumped as to why a guy can’t see the beautiful personality that your mom, grandma, and all of your female friends see, wellllll.

Sometimes you got to help a brother out.  Men are visual creatures.  Make it easy for him, not harder.

In other words, make every day a hot day.  Don’t wait for an occasion to look hot; make looking hot your regular look.  If you wait for a perfect occasion for looking hot, chances are it’ll never happen.  Stop looking for excuses, and just do it.  You feel a little fat today?  Doesn’t matter, make it a hot day.  Got a zit?  Doesn’t matter, make it a  hot day.  You’re tired?  Doesn’t matter, make it a hot day.  You’re not going anywhere special?  Doesn’t matter, make it a hot day.  You don’t think you’re pretty?  Doesn’t matter, make it a hot day.

Just to clarify – a hot day doesn’t mean dressing like you’re going to the club.  It means looking attractive, on top of things, classy, intelligent, and interesting.  Aim for smart-sexy, not club-trampy.

Do you need a style revamp?  Consider your answers to the following questions:

Do people regularly compliment your outfits?

If you are not getting regular compliments on what you wear, then you probably need to step it up a notch or two.

Has anyone complimented your haircut when you’ve just gotten it cut?

If no one has told you that your hair looks good after a haircut, then you’ve been paying someone who doesn’t deserve your money.  Find someone new to cut your hair, and keep going to someone new until you start getting compliments.

Do you read any fashion magazines or blogs?

If you don’t, I recommend People Stylewatch.  Its specialty is accessible (read:  normal person) fashion, not couture, and showcases clothes at a variety of price points.  I also recommend the TLC show What Not to Wear.  Stacy and Clinton tend to style everyone the same, but it’s good for middle-America office-worker fashion and tips on how to put together outfits, and most of the people they make over are average-looking.

If you don’t have anyone in your life whose opinion your trust about your appearance, feel free to send me some pictures for a critique.  I will give you an honest assessment and won’t share your photos with anyone.

P.S.  This is most likely my final blog post of 2012, as I am leaving for my hometown on Friday and won’t be back until the new year.  Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all.  Thanks for reading!

Angles of the side hug.

I have been meaning to write about side hugs since practically the inception of this blog, but I never found quite the right angle to write from.  However, a recent side hug experience gave me (literally!) a good angle, so here goes.

First, let’s define the side hug.  If a regular hug is a full embrace, then the side hug is a half-embrace.  It involves one arm and one shoulder of each participant.  However, just as regular hugging has gradations of intimacy, I have found that the side hug does as well.

Second, side hugs are pertinent to discussion because they run quite rampant in Christian communities.  Average self-respecting (beta) church guys usually face the dilemma of not wanting to be seen as the pervy creeper (or borderline gay) who hugs all the girls in a big embrace, but also wanting to be seen as a friendly and encouraging guy (who also gets to touch women).  A regular hug is often too much, especially with jittery 20-something women.  This is where the side hug comes in:  a method for touching and conveying camaraderie and care, but not in a creepy way!

There are basically three different levels of side hugging.  Below I have listed the types and the associated romantic prognosis for each.

180-degree side hug:  In the 180-degree side hug, your shoulders and the hugger’s form a straight line.

Romantic prognosis:  Never going to happen.

Obtuse angle side hug:  The obtuse angle side hug shows a little more rapport between hugger and huggee.  This is the category into which a lot of church side hugs fall.

Romantic prognosis:  Getting warmer, but either the girl is putting on the brakes, or the guy is still too big of a beta.  Alternatively, the girl wants the guy, but she’s too chubby/frumpy/hasn’t otherwise passed the boner test…but he does think she’s a nice person.

Acute angle side hug:  The acute angle side hug is more or less just a second arm away from being an embrace.

Romantic prognosis:  Her hamster will go crazy wondering WHAT IT MEANS.  If you’re a guy who goes around giving acute angle side hugs to women, you probably have options.  Also, you could probably flip the acute angle side hug into a regular hug, and the woman would not object.  Works best if preceded by kino.

I hope this breakdown is beneficial to the readership.

ETA:  Have a good or bad side hug story?  Share it in the comments.  It’s almost Christmas, we can be a little social. :)

Church guys who lack alpha AND beta.

The manosphere usually talks about alpha and beta as an inversely proportional continuum, meaning that if a guy doesn’t have a lot of alpha, he must have a lot of beta, and vice versa.  For most practical intents and purposes, this model works.  Most guys need to tone down the beta traits and up the alpha, and then there are some who need to tone down the alpha in order to reassure their women that they do, in fact, care for them.

But one type of man not commonly talked about is the man who lacks both alpha AND beta.  He’s neither dominant with his wife, but he’s not sweet and cuddly with her, either.  He’s just sort of…there.  Doing his thing.  And being neither romantic nor sexy doing it.

My latest idea is that this alpha-less, beta-less man is the one that a lot of Christian relationship books are written for.  These are usually the books that encourage men to “love” their wives more by doing more and more beta things for them, and the reason for this encouragement of beta is that the authors mistakenly think that being a distant, cold husband is “alpha.”  So they instruct their readers to pour on the beta, and then the advice fails because beta in the absence of alpha isn’t attractive.

What a woman with that kind of man wants is not more flowers and more acts of service, it’s a man who will flirt with her and make her feel attractive.  THEN, once that has been established, he can do the sweet things.  But jumping right into the sweet stuff is NOT the way to go about rectifying a marriage that lacks both alpha and beta.

 

Best of Boundless: “Man Enough to Love a Real Woman.”

This is quite possibly the greatest article Boundless has ever published.

In this article, author Joshua Rogers describes how he gave up aspirations to have an attractive, non-needy, intelligent, and spiritually mature wife who was also fun to be around, and instead learned how to love a “real woman.”***

I really wanted to quote basically the whole thing, but I’ve listed the money quotes below.  In the article, they appear beneath the sub-headline Are You Man Enough?.

To those single guys out there who are trying to find the ideal woman, do the world a favor and give up. You’re not the ideal man — not anywhere close. And you would never get married if women held you to the same standard you apply to them.

But maybe you insist that you’re not going to settle for a woman who’s not everything you’re hoping for in a wife. Settle? Whatever the circumstances, believe me, she will be the one who settles for you and all your deficits. And until you realize this — through humbling circumstances or otherwise — maybe you should take a break from dating for a while and spend some time asking God to make you man enough to love a real woman.

This is the Boundless mentality in a nutshell:  (a) that men are the misguided ones, clinging to unrealistic standards and depriving worthy women everywhere of husbands, (b) that men will never equal women in moral worth because men are just too stupid, and (c) that having high standards is a spiritual failing and men must seek reprogramming from God to make them be attracted to the women around them.

Meanwhile, women are Daughters of the King who deserve to be loved for who they are, not what dress size they wear (or whatever other measuring stick is being held up to them).

It’s a good thing women are so gracious as to marry men!

***Not that Rogers ultimately deigned to marry a woman who failed to meet his standards for beauty, intelligence, and spiritual maturity.  In another article (which reads like a clinic in how to remain an involuntary bachelor for life, complete with kissing dating goodbye, beta orbiting, and scaring a girl off by talking about marriage on the first date), he describes his then-future bride thusly:

She was bright, attractive, fiercely devoted to Christ, and – in light of my recent failings – I thought she was far too good of a woman to be spending time with me.

Standards for me, but not for thee!

Should Christians think James Bond is sexy?

In a recent Boundless article, Matt Kaufman opined that in his boyhood he found James Bond greatly disappointing as a hero because Bond beds women.  While he could respect some of the things that Bond did (like fighting villains), he could never like or respect Bond because of Bond’s promiscuity.  He goes on to add that he can’t root for immoral good guys whose vices are not presented as vices.  Basically, it’s boilerplate Christian media-sighz.  (Hate is too strong a word, so Christians typically sigh and shake their heads sadly.)

Most of the comments agreed with Kaufman, with male commenters proclaiming that Captain America is a better hero than Bond because, I guess, Captain America didn’t bang chicks, and with female commenters proclaiming that James Bond is in no way attractive to them because he objectifies women.  (Never mind that in all of these movies the women come willingly to Bond without demanding marriage first.  No, that these women are willing to fornicate with Bond must be All Bond’s Fault and but for his objectifying ways, they would remain pure as snow.  Or:  if the man sins, it’s the man’s fault.  If the woman sins, it’s the man’s fault.)

What entertained me most in the thread was the spiritual one-upsmanship going on.  After a while, it wasn’t enough just to disapprove of Bond and approve of Captain America:  you had to disavow movies in general as bad, or prefer movies where a married man turns away another woman by sticking his ring finger in her face or something, or accuse James Bond of being riddled with STDs, or prefer Dietrich Bonhoeffer to Captain America (yes, one woman actually wrote this).

One brave soul tried to red pill bomb the place by pointing out that Bond treats women the way they would like to be treated (Jacob M, if you’re out there, swing by!).

“How to treat a woman.” Did it ever occur to you that James Bond knows exactly how to treat a woman? How to give her what she wants? James Bond isn’t exactly depicted as raping these girls. They go willingly with him. Man, the church is several generations behind the world in understanding what drives female mating behavior. The adage “chicks dig bad boys” is decades old by now, and yet Matt Kaufman and several of the commenters here keep talking about “respecting” women or treating them “uprightly.” Do you have any indication that that’s what women actually want or like? Other than Glenn Stanton’s pronouncements from on high that women are more “naturally good” than men and automatically desire traditional family life? Look, just like men are attracted to traits in women that aren’t necessarily the “right” ones, women are attracted to traits in men that aren’t necessarily “right”–i.e., quick, cheap, flashy displays of dominance and power, rather than reliability, trustworthiness, or any characteristics that would make him a good husband and father after 20 years of marriage. Women like and are attracted to men like James Bond, and therefore enjoy sleeping with them because it feels good.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not defending any of this. It’s hugely problematic. But until the church comes to grips with the depraved nature of femalesexuality as well as male, it will just continue sliding further and further into cultural irrelevance.

For his pains, he ruffled the feathers of some very healthy hamsters.

Kim:

Whoa, Jacob #18, I had to re-read your post to make sure you weren’t being sarcastic. While I’m glad that you don’t defend the behavior described, I am concerned that you believe women want to be treated that way. At least you could have modified it to “some women”

Without placing the blame on one gender since we are all sinners, my experience has been women complaining about being treated with such disrespect, myself included. A man like James Bond is not at all what I am attracted to. A man who respects and protects me? Definitely a winner.

Mrs. Ashley:

Oh Jacob M. :P That’s a pretty broad accusation you’re throwing around there. You’ve got a thread full of women here that seem more interested in character than suave here and instead of being interested in knowing what shapes their character and where to find them you instead throw them under the proverbial “All Women Want Bad Men” bus.

In my experience, women don’t prefer men who throw them under said bus.

;) Just a little dating tip.

Guys want to talk about how all women want bad men and then they keep chasing the women who want them. Now, there are women out there like that, but if you’ve been attracted to so many of them that you’re jaded about it then the odds are pretty good that 1) your picker is busted or 2) they aren’t actually all after “bad” guys, they’re just not after *you*. I know lots of decent Christian women who have married decent Christian men, and probably you do, too. I don’t think all men are smooth-talking womanizers who are skulking around trying to take advantage of whoever they can — assuming that all women are just waiting around for the right jerk to talk them into bed is just stupid.

The cries of NAWALT will echo into the past and future of a thousand generations.  Also, note the shaming language – “I had to re-read your post to make sure you weren’t being sarcastic” – “I am concerned that you believe” – “That’s a pretty broad accusation.”  And let’s not leave out Mrs. Ashley’s parting shot that if men believe women like bad men, then it’s the man’s fault for seeking out bad women.

I’ve pointed out many times on this blog that women miss that women don’t want to be treated in Bond-ian fashion by just any man.  They want to be treated in Bond-ian fashion by a man with the sexual allure of Bond.  Maybe not Bond himself, but someone who has the confidence and swagger of Bond.  (The nice suits, sophisticated gadgets, and hot cars don’t hurt, either.)  A boring man with a mediocre salary who promises he will NEVER LEAVE HIS WOMAN EVER?  Of course they don’t want him to walk up to them and whisper seductive nothings in their ears.  Until men and women get this, they will continue to be losers at love.

I also think that there’s a certain amount of projection going on.  A woman who finds a man of Bond’s basic sexiness caliber unattractive probably has never experienced attention from a man that attractive or been in the orbit of one; therefore, it’s easier for her to dismiss the idea of such a man as attractive to herself, partially because she knows she could never attract, much less receive commitment from, such a man.  And for women with this kind of sexual insecurity, the promise of commitment can be very powerful because it is not easy for them to obtain.  I think there is also some conflation going on between raw sexual attractiveness and commitment attractiveness.  The other explanation:  her hamster is lying to her.

As for Bond himself, the whole point of Bond is to be an idealized fantasy character and to be sexually attractive.  Bond movies are not character studies; they are meditations on a fantasy of mid-century masculinity wrapped up in an upper-crusty package.  He’s like a Brit mid-century Indiana Jones (another fantasy character).  What both characters offer is escapist adventure, where reality and consequences don’t intrude.  Maybe this is a bad thing, I don’t know.  But stories like this resonate with us because on some level, we want to believe that we have adventure, ingenuity, and resolve inside of us, and that these things make us more attractive people.  Most people will never live lives anything similar to Bond’s.  Is it bad to step into his shoes for a couple of hours?

Regarding Bond’s womanizing:  all I have to say in addition to what I’ve already said on the matter is that Bond would seem gay if he refused every attractive woman who came on to him or if he didn’t pursue any attractive women in his orbit.  If Cherry McPoppin (whatever the female du jour’s name is) came on to Bond and he said (AND ACTUALLY MEANT IT), “Actually, I’m saving myself for my future wife, and I respect you far too much to try to talk you into having premarital sex with me,” audiences would outright reject the character as completely unrealistic (in a movie where fantasy is the name of the game!) and as, well, in complete denial of his homosexuality.  If a woman accepted without disappointment such a claim, audiences would also reject that as completely unrealistic.  A woman pursuing Bond who received such a rejection would only be more motivated to have him.

 

What women mean by makeup vs. what men mean by makeup.

I’ve been meaning to do a makeup post/series and have just been procrastinating on it, but since Heartiste just did a makeup post, I figured that was motivation enough.

I think it’s obvious to any woman that men who claim they like women with NO MAKEUP WHATSOEVER don’t really mean that.  Unless they’re a true blue granola worshiper or truly get turned on by armpit hair or whatever, most men want to see women wearing some makeup.  They just don’t want to notice it.  (Maybe that’s the man hamster at work; if he doesn’t notice it, then the woman is genuinely that beautiful, meaning he has great taste, aims high, can land hotties with no trouble…as opposed to the ego-crushing truth of “that girl is just average.”)

Basically, a normal woman looks like this with zero makeup:

She has blemishes, uneven skin tone, and dark circles under her eyes.

Now, if she wears makeup, she can look like this:

Her skin tone is evened out, her blemishes and dark under-eye circles are concealed, her brows are defined, and her lips and cheeks are a pretty pink.  Her eyes are defined with mascara and liner, along with some neutral eyeshadow.  This look is what women typically call “subtly enhancing your features.”

MOST MEN WILL NOT IDENTIFY THIS LOOK AS MADE-UP.  MOST MEN THINK THIS IS A “NATURAL” LOOK AND SOME WOULD NOT BE ABLE TO TELL THE GIRL WAS WEARING MAKEUP.  Even if the girl used foundation, concealer, highlighter, translucent powder, eyeliner, mascara, multiple eye shadow colors (possibly including a primer), false eyelashes, brow pencil/shadow, lip liner, and lipstick and/or lip gloss, many men would swear she looked completely natural.  (A skilled makeup artist can use all of these items and produce a fresh, natural look.)

The reason men think that this look is “natural” is because men typically identify THIS as “makeup”:

Then they swear up and down that they HAAAAATE makeup (perhaps it makes them unhaaaaaaapy?) and that NO WOMAN OF THEIRS shall ever be caught dead wearing makeup!11!1!!1!!!!11  Because only ugly, desperate sluts wear makeup or something.

QED.

 

Young girl has crush on older guy at church for 3 years; he finally asks her out; she discovers he’s beta and now feels revulsion for him.

Or, Why the Church Desperately Needs the Red Pill.

In the latest “Boundless Answers,” a 21-year-old female reader asks for advice about her current dating relationship with a 33-year-old man.  According to the reader, she had a crush on this guy for three years and has never dated anyone before.  Oldie finally asked OP out after getting the green light from other adults at church.  Oldie is moving slower than molasses in the winter and since January has taken OP out on about six dates and “really likes [her] but doesn’t put any pressure on [her] to like him back.”  On paper, he is everything OP has ever wanted or prayed for.  Consequently, OP has completely lost all attraction for Oldie and is distressed at this development.  Why doesn’t her heart match her head?

Enter Candice Watters to give textbook bad Christian advice to the rescue.  First, Watters decides that the only reason OP liked Oldie in the first place was because it was Oldie was someone she couldn’t have.  Not only that, but OP imagined onto Oldie all sorts of qualities that Oldie couldn’t live up to in person.  So basically, Watters is claiming that OP Edward Cullen-ed Oldie in her mind.

Next, Watters declares that the age gap is an “added reason for caution and concern,” reminding OP that only two years ago, she was still a teenager.  (My analogy:  you know, kind of like how when you are 18 and can vote, you should realize that only two years earlier, you were 16 and couldn’t vote, so you should realllllly think seriously about voting.  I mean, are you even ready for that?)  Watters is right that often there is a big gap in maturity when there is a large age gap at that age, but she seizes on the age gap issue like Oldie is an alien to young women, even though OP’s parents and the adults at her church overwhelmingly approve of Oldie and his (slower than a tortoise) pursuit of OP.

Just to make sure that the situation is spiritualized as well, Watters equates OP’s “intuition” with CONSCIENCE.  Yes, biological feminine intuition that a man is unattractive is now given the stature of biblical conscience, and Watters reminds OP that it is a sin to violate your own conscience.  Somehow this is twisted into the (correct) conclusion that if you have serious doubts about marrying someone, you shouldn’t.  Finally, Watters concludes with a reminder that God will never forsake OP.

This whole article had a giant neon WTFWTFWTF light scrolling above my head.  The assumptions that Watters makes are astounding.  Unless substantial portions of OP’s original letter were edited out, there is nothing in OP’s letter that indicates either OP’s crush being out of place, or that age is an actual issue.  Yet Watters assumes that it is wrong for a young girl to have a crush on an older guy, and then, when that guy has been vetted, approved, and encouraged BY THE ADULTS IN THE CHURCH to pursue OP, who is now a legal adult, that the age gap is cause for added “caution and concern”  – even though OP states that she has been praying all along to have a guy very like Oldie!  Then, to make sure that no one can dispute her reasoning, Watters uses the old “listen to your feelings conscience” escape hatch.  Because obviously the Lord would use a woman’s conscience to tell her that a man isn’t the one to marry.  Why attribute anything to biological fact when you can put a spiritual spin on it?  (And what about all the women who marry “the wrong guy” even though they felt on their wedding day that he was the “right” guy?  Did the conscience kick in late, or did the conscience just change its mind?)

Watters has no clue about the true mechanisms of attraction – that much is evident by the wild grasping of straws in her advice.  Her reasoning was so full of unwarranted assumptions and twists of convenience, that the possibility that anyone could read it and believe it sound (or even follow it) just kills me.

OP, if you are out there and you happen to stumble across this blog, please listen:  there is nothing wrong with you.  What is going on is that on a fundamental biological level, your body is rejecting Oldie as a mate because he has not been sufficiently alpha.  He sounds like he is a good man who is boring and has no game.  If he were exciting and playful – if he knew how to tease, if he didn’t capitulate, if he showed he could lead you instead of letting you determine the progression of your relationship, if he made you feel safe and secure but still kept you on your toes – in addition to all of his other good qualities, you would probably not have any qualms, and Candice Watters’ “concerns” about the age gap would be completely irrelevant – the only reason Candice is even “concerned” about the age gap is because she can’t explain why an otherwise good man who you were initially attracted to would now be unattractive to you.  Having no way to explain this phenomenon, she has turned to the age gap as a last resort.  Trust me, she would be urging you to the altar if you hadn’t said you were repulsed by this guy.

When you’re young, crushes usually revolve around the following three criteria:  he is cute, he would be nice to me, and he gets along well with other people/other people like him.  Then you get to know the guy and realize he is boring or has personal traits that are ladyboner-killing (e.g., indecisive, cares too much about what other people think, won’t touch you at all because he defers to the virgin forcefield surrounding you and/or seems uncertain about how to proceed in your relationship, likes you more than you think he has reason to at the moment, has social awkwardness, etc.).  My guess is that your crush was based on his good traits, but then you got to know him up close, and he killed your ladyboner with betaness.

Do both you and Oldie a favor and break up with him.  Until he learns to be the driver, you’re going to feel more and more revulsion for him and ultimately start treating him like crap to try to get him to show some alpha traits, and then start feeling contempt at his weakness.  Avoid that ending and break up now.  You’ll never be able to love a man you can’t instinctively respect.

Guy gets strongarmed into proposing to girlfriend of nine years; no one blames the girlfriend for sticking with him so long.

In a current Boundless discussion thread, Amir Larijani talks about how he and a bunch of other guys from his church staged an intervention with a peer, basically forcing him to propose to his girlfriend of nine years after she finally gave him an ultimatum.  I think we’re supposed to cheer that the men strongarmed this guy into fessing up to his commitment fears and volunteering  for lifelong financial servitude becoming the man God wants him to be, but the girlfriend is totally off the hook for sticking with a guy for NINE YEARS when he clearly had no intentions of proposing?  Did she think she had NO OTHER OPTIONS?  Was he THAT much better than everybody else?  (Or were they having sex the entire time and so she had hamstered herself into thinking he was ~the one~?  Because if they weren’t having sex, a nine-year celibate romantic relationship is just weird.)

No dating relationship should last nine years, unless you’re both widowed senior citizens who need someone to go to dinner at 4:30 with.  Especially for Christians, it sounds completely unhealthy.  Either you’re having sex, which is sinning, or you’re having almost-not-quite-sort-of sex, which is also sinning, or you’re not having sex at all, which is highly unnatural in the long term for two people who presumably are looking to have a future together where they WILL be having sex.  I can see a Christian couple putting off sex for a year or two – but nine years?

I think I’m just having a knee-jerk reaction of mortification at the thought of marrying someone who more or less had to be pinned down and forced to say “uncle.”  Sure, the woman in this sort of situation will always get cast as the angel who believed in his true, hidden self and showed biblical perseverance, faith, and loyalty in helping the man get past his fears, but….ugh.

Basically, I’m just here to reiterate my opinion that people should only date when they are prepared to enter into a marriage, and that the dating period and engagement should be short.

Don’t worry about that other person’s feelings when:

Christians usually try to care about other people’s feelings, which is why Christian criticism of non-gay, non-abortion things tends to be pretty toothless.  No one wants to run the risk of turning a potential away from the Lord FOREVERRRR by hurting that person’s ego feelings, so there are a lot of roundabout and sometimes passive-aggressive comments instead.

However, there is at least one situation where you really shouldn’t care about the other person’s feelings, and that is when there is sexual chemistry between you and someone where at least one of you is married.  Getting married doesn’t mean other people cease to be attractive.  Sometimes that just means the other person becomes MORE attractive, just like people on a diet find cake that much more enticing.

But basically, if you find yourself in a situation where a married person is attractive to you (and especially if you sense that you are attractive to that other person), you should just walk away and not worry if the other person thinks you’re rude or uncaring or whatever.  It’s more important to honor that person’s marriage (and spouse) than to try to keep up some facade of friendship.  The bottom line is that you can’t have that person, so why invest any more time in him (or her)?  Why make it more difficult to extract yourself?  It can’t lead to the place that you want it to go…at least, not without a lot of destruction in its wake.

I mean, don’t be intentionally MEAN, but don’t make that person a point in your life.  That person should be a non-point.

When guys advise girls to put out to prove marital worthiness, they really mean “only put out for betas.”

Obviously, as a Christian, I believe that sex should be reserved only for marriage, but since I operate in a corner of the internet that isn’t exclusively Christian, I figure it’s worth talking about why premarital sex is such a bad deal for women overall.  This is not to say that some women haven’t put out and ended up in good marriages anyway.  It’s more that if you look at society as a whole, it’s a bad thing.  It’s worth pointing out that the manosphere seems mainly geared toward upper-middle and upper-class (white beta) men (if not in raw income, then at least in education/social class/taste), and so a lot of advice is filtered through those lenses.  Many social pathologies have not (yet?) come to the upper echelons of society because of money and a stronger adherence to traditional social strictures.

The basic gist that I see all over the place is that women should have a low partner count but should put out for guys they’re serious about who could also be husband material.  The problem is that the same guys who advocate this strategy also believe that women have no control over their hamsters and will be ~forever ruined~ for marriage by sex with an alpha.  So basically, they are advising women to be crazed sex freaks only with betas.  This sexual performance will prove to the man that the woman is a good bet for marriage.  So somehow women are tasked with finding betas to treat like alphas within, like, three tries, lest they be branded for eternity as ruined slags who will cheat cheat cheat cheat cheat cheat cheat and make you raise someone else’s secret baby.  Also, they need to divine the man’s fitness for marriage within 3-5 dates – so within 12-20 hours of time spent with the guy, approximately.  This is because no self-respecting man is going to waste time on a chick who won’t put out.

This “strategy” seems like no strategy at all.  Men are banking on the premise that the two guys who came before him were horrible at sex, but she had significant relationships with them anyway (because only big ol’ whores would have one night stands or flings).  Women are banking on the much riskier premise that she will find someone who is willing to commit to her in marriage within three tries that she can also be a crazed sex freak for for the rest of her life.  It’s like playing Super Mario Bros. with three lives and you have to get to the flagpole before you die three times or time runs out.  Also, I feel like there is a presumption that the girl is always the one ending relationships, because what guy would dump a “nice” girl who is a crazed sex freak only with him, right?  But girls get dumped all the time, and not just by alphas.  Every girl, if it hasn’t happened to herself, knows girls who in good faith entered into dating relationships that ended in getting dumped for whatever reason.  The guy just stopped being attracted, the guy decided he wanted something else, the guy decided it wasn’t working out – even if the guy had also declared his love, talked about a future/marriage, often went the extra mile.

So what does a girl gain from a failed sexual relationship?  Nothing.  The guy gets sex and an ego/status boost.  The girl just loses time and gains a notch that will work against her chances of getting another marriageable guy, because guys don’t care so much about the quality of the relationship, they just care about the number.  She can also then expect the next guy to expect her to do everything sexually for him that she did for the previous guy, unless she lands a suuuper beta with a forgiving heart.  But landing a suuuper beta with a forgiving heart makes it even harder for the girl to be a crazed sex freak for him, so it’s just a downward spiral with no end.

It’s just a very bad strategy.

Recently conservative comedian/commentator Steven Crowder got married, and both he and his bride were virgins on the wedding day.  He recounted in a subsequent op-ed that he thought their wedding night was “perfect” and “nothing short of amazing. ”  Whatever kind of sex they had that night was surely not perfect or amazing by experienced sexing standards, but by coming to marriage as virgins, Crowder and his wife got to have a wedding night that they could consider perfect and amazing and that will remain a cherished memory.  More interestingly, the next day he and his wife were eating breakfast and they overheard another newlywed discussing her new marriage and opining that “nothing’s really changed.”  (Also, the groom had gotten so wasted at the reception that he wasn’t even eating breakfast with his new wife.)  Presumably this woman had cohabited with her now-husband and had used up all the perfect and amazing sex of new love long before her wedding night.  It made me sad to read about it.  At the one table were Crowder and his bride giddy with the freshness of lives newly entwined, while at the other table were people who had been there, done that so long ago that the marriage was hardly registering with them.  And people wonder where romance went and why marriages don’t last…but darn it, they got the receipts from premarital sex!

P.S.  Only three people have responded to the podcast idea.  Please weigh in if you would like to see this project move forward.