Incels? Porn? What do you think?

[dalin55738]

Now he's mocking people who would actively enable his past self staying obese.
[...]
But, this is a guy getting painted fatphobic just for getting himself in shape.

Right, so you literally agree he's fat-shaming people. I don't see how his reasons for doing so are relevent to the discussion.

Does he go around calling people fat just because they're fat? No.

He literally did, though. He shows a fat woman dancing underwater and he goes off for no reason except that she's fat.

If by "go around", you mean "walk around his neighborhood", then probably not. But he absolutely does on TikTok and that's what I was talking about.

That's not a community, nor is it anti anything, much less anti HAES. That's about as threatening as cat-girl filters.

It is, though, and I explained why. If you disagree, use reasons that actually address what I say about decentralized communities instead of making assertions with no argument to back it up.

which creates a whole lot of opportunities to cut his more edgy quips into outrage videos.

"Edgy" just means "offensive". The only difference between Butterfield and someone like George Carlin is the target of the offense. While Carlin punched up, Butterfield punches down. He's a bully.

Second up, I think you have a blind spot around HAES. You give a logical structure against fat-shaming:
"But because you can "promote" <something> without giving explicit verbal or written support, I would argue that "excusing" <a behavior> is a passive form of promotion."

Without acknowledging it being exactly what people criticise HAES for:
"But because you can "promote" <being fat> without giving explicit verbal or written support, I would argue that "excusing" <being fat> is a passive form of promotion."

HAES people want public health policy to be less focused on "weight loss", since doing so has not had the positive results we expect. Fat-shamers want individuals to feel bad about themselves in the hopes they will change despite a lack of evidence demonstrating they will.

You are comparing a public policy group to bullies. One is attempting systemic change while the other engages with individuals.

On the flip side, I would not defend people dogpiling Butterfield on Twitter and I would defend the ACLU. I don't like bullies and I believe in free speech – which includes the right to freely criticize people with whom you disagree.

sounds like a poor role model.

In this aspect, sure.

But you can't judge a person solely on one negative attribute while ignoring their entire life history, relationships, and influence in society. I was the last child in his second marriage. Before he died, he opened up about having affairs in his first marriage and being sexually assaulted in the Air Force. He liked stand-up comedy and made a mean martini. He went into debt so one of my sisters could remodel a rental home. He taught me to work hard (he always had at least 2 jobs) and to enjoy the present while you can. He was, overall, a good role model for me, but maybe not for all of his kids.

People are complex. I'm sure Isaac Butterfield has plenty of admirable qualities, too, but that doesn't prevent anyone from criticizing one thing he does, nor should it.

[book_guy]

Lots of smart stuff in this thread. Thought I'd just put a pointer out there, that I'm hoping to reply in long-form soon enough. But right now I don't have time to address things carefully, so, I'm not going to get started until I get a better opportunity to take more care. Probably after the holiday weekend? But meawhile, hope you guys keep commenting! :)

BTW just noticed this was my post number 1776 patriotic number I guess

[spaisin]

Now, you live in plywood and gypsum boxes and sit for 90% of your waking life. Your heavily processed food is brought to you on trucks, packaged in containers with microplastics that limit your ability to produce testosterone. You don't live near your family. All your friends are on a message board online. They're filling your head with ... <snip>

Well, if you put it like that, the phrase "first world problems" gets a little different tone. Agreeing on most, it is kinda pretty grim; but well laid out

Right, so you literally agree he's fat-shaming people. I don't see how his reasons for doing so are relevent to the discussion.

Reasons are everything.
What's the difference between a surgeon and a murderer? One cut an artery by mistake, the other intentionally. One gets a quick investigation and maybe a slap on the wrist, the other life in prison.

For Isaac's reasons, he has actually done what HAES deems 'impossible', lost the damn weight. That points to "why" he deems them ridiculous, and why he does what he does. You can disagree with his methods for sure, but it actually works for some people; his comment sections are pretty positive about that.

In this aspect, sure.

But you can't judge a person solely on one negative attribute while ignoring their entire life history

Indeed, but you gave your readers exactly one attribute to judge him on. YOU reduced him into a fat-shamer. Unintentionally for sure, but .. that's also what is done by media to Incels; you'll NEVER hear of anything other than their mass murderers, maybe misogynists in suitably trigger-happy publications. So it becomes synonymous with "something evil".

This is quite a common theme.. as I've been trying to demonstrate with our discussion.
Choose a good guy, focus and publisize the good side
Choose a bad guy, focus and publisize the bad side

Pick a team, start fighting in the streets. It's a good tactic, whatever your goal is. Heck, people fight over soccer teams.



Butterfield is a fatphobic bully and HAES is just trying to fix people's mental health
Butterfield is trying to get people to heal themselves, while HAES is just glorifying obesity to push more Pharma drugs*.

Incels are just lowlife misogynistic men, egging each other to commit horrible acts.
Incels are depressed men in an effed up world, grasping at any straws; sometimes that isn't pretty to watch.



But, it's a bit useless to focus on either side. Most importantly, no solution to the problem of "incels" can be found at the "they're just a breeding ground for mass murderers" - level. You'll have to look at things at a stupidly detailed level to actually improve anything. A random "we can change people's preferences" isn't a solution. We can't, and we shouldn't if we could. That's what the randomly mentioned christian fascists would love to do. (OK, I'm still giggling about that one, but you get the point.)



* Sure, that's a bit of silly hyperbola, but as far as weight loss failing, and at least as an example of how to try to actually fix a problem:
(In a spoiler, since it's quite off topic)

Spoiler: show

The reason weight loss doesn't work, is because the current advice is simply Wrong. Bold claim? Sure, but proven by the exact crappy track record of weight loss. It HAS to be wrong, the trial has been done. 6 small carb-heavy meals/snacks a day is the usual baseline advice, which directly leads to permanently elevated insulin levels. "Activated" levels of insulin lead to a reduced ability to utilize fat stores, and anyone following that advice can be predicted to be tired and hungry, all the time, until they give up and binge. And thus, the advice fails, with the great excuse of "you just didn't follow my simple advice, it's your own damn fault." It isn't, the advice is terrible.

Simply getting insulin to remain low for extended periods of time lets the body to release energy from fat stores. The released fatty acids are used for fuel and that often leads to improved mood even while losing weight. Whatever means one uses to achieve the lower insulin, will lead to some results.
- Stupidly hard excercise works, the second wind of runners is basically that; you're past your carbs and your liver is pushing alternatives. But no-one wants to repeat that with any frequency if they're not into it already.
- Fasting works, that's why the third day is often a turning point after which people are quite happy with not eating.
- And a restriction on carb intake and sweet tastes works.

Can also be combined freely. And if you take that as medical advice and kill yourself by injecting basal insulin while fasting... well. Don't. I don't want THAT to be the reason for getting cancelled.

But it's most definately NOT just "eat less, move more". Just eating less, you won't have the 'available' energy to deal with your daily life, let alone an increase of excercise.

Now, if an organization like HAES exists only because the current dietary advice is nonsense; well, the intent may be good, but now we have two problems. One group making people sick with crappy advice, and another trying to get them to accept their sorry state. Which is why the "pushing Pharma" bit isn't entirely ridiculous, just hyperbolic. That's just the end result.

But hey, Reasons are still everything; I'm absolutely willing to give HAES the benefit of the doubt, and NOT assume they're trying to actively push chronic diseases on people. They're very likely good people.

[dalin55738]

Indeed, but you gave your readers exactly one attribute to judge him on. YOU reduced him into a fat-shamer.

No, bruh: that was you. You literally saw one aspect of my dad and said he "sounds like a poor role model." You seem to think you can label someone after knowing a single fact. That is entirely on you.

But anyway, it's kind of annoying you keep ignoring what I actually spend time writing and then go into tangents, so I'm just not responding anymore.

[samfishercarl]

My opinion of porn is, if it is actually harming/interfering your daily life it is a problem and by that I mean if you feel the need to jack off to porn in moments that are either inappropriate or you are leaving/not doing other more important activities (IE work, studying, doing chores, taking care of family, hanging out with friends, day to day key activities, ect) then its a problem. But if you are alone and horny and you are not putting something else more important off and you decide to masturbate with or without porn then it is fine no true side effects of masturbation have been found (the whole lowering testosterone thing is very temporary, lasting less than 24 hours, and many people mistake the ejaculatory refractory period for ed (for those who don't know when you first go through puberty it is ~30min-1hr and increases as you age all the way up to a maximum of 48 hours, where you experience decreased sensitivity to sexual stimulation at or below the level of sexual stimulation that caused ejaculation which is why if you perform any form of sexual act to ejaculation more frequently than your current refractory period it raises the level of stimulation you need, which causes the progressive need of more stimulating activities and if you use exclusively porn regular sex is not stimulating enough (until you take a break from porn long enough to reach your refractory period end. So just like the suggestions in many cock heroes it is a great idea to abstain from ejaculation for 24-48 hours if you want to have "true fun". As far as younger men not having lots of sex these days and having lower testosterone then prior generations at the same age I think it has a lot more to do with modern lifestyle, education, religious beliefs, environmental stressors and especially environmental toxins than Porn. For me when I was 18-25 I had ED and it had nothing to do with porn the real issue was I was 300lbs, extremely stressed, depressed, socially isolated due to the depression, along with being on anti-depressants (side effect is ED, medication for high blood pressure due to the extreme obesity(double wammy ED cause), and on top of all of that I never went and did anything due too all the shit I had wrong with me(inactivity).
a couple years before covid I turned my life around, went to therapy, got active, started lifting weights, started hanging out with friends more both in person and online, lost 100lbs, put on lean body mass instead of pure fat, moved out of the super stressful job that I hated.
And wow now my ED is completely gone, back to getting random boners and all the fun jazz that goes with that. Porn consumption changed a little bit went from masturbating every day sometimes multiple times a day to 3-5 times a week, that change was only do to the fact that now instead of having a boring depressed anxiety filled life I now had an enriched life with other things to do to bring me pleasure. I will admit sex life didn't change went from not having sex because I was depressed stressed and socially isolated too we are in the middle of a pandemic and soon to be a full blown economic crisis, I had 3 family members die to covid and a brother who now has 20% reduced lung functionality due to it so my personal choice right now is to avoid large groups and social settings.
IMO life shouldn't be measured in your average sex sessions per week there is far more to life than sex. Having someone(sexual partner, child(blood related or adopted) friends, family) or something(pets hobbies jobs ect) that gives your life meaning and completes you is important, just because the societal norm is for a sexual partner to be that thing doesn't mean it is the thing people should be working toward first. The order you choose to go in in life is entirely up to the individual, some people focus on sex/love first, some people careers, some people life experiences like travel, the only person who should tell you how to feel, think or act is yourself. Everyone these days is so worried about what everyone else is doing, how everyone thinks and now wants it so everyone acts a certain way and that conform to their ideals and ways of thinking. People are losing their individual ways of thinking now that the internet connects >80% of the planet, everyone wants to fit in with other people with similar ways of thinking and they get upset when others don't want to do the same. IMO there have always been people watching lots of porn or masturbating too much and both men and women who didn't participate with the opposite sex, the difference is 40 years ago that shit this wasn't common knowledge, not to mention people didn't have access to reach out to the masses to talk about sex and kept their sexual activities too themselves (not counting gossip and boasting). these days is people make their personal lives much much much more public(cough cough this post) for everyone to see so now it's way more visible for mass media and the general population to get upset over because they are told by someone else it's a problem.

[A Ghoul Editor]

For me when I was 18-25 I had ED and it had nothing to do with porn the real issue was I was 300lbs, extremely stressed, depressed, socially isolated due to the depression, along with being on anti-depressants (side effect is ED, medication for high blood pressure due to the extreme obesity(double wammy ED cause), and on top of all of that I never went and did anything due too all the shit I had wrong with me(inactivity).
a couple years before covid I turned my life around, went to therapy, got active, started lifting weights, started hanging out with friends more both in person and online, lost 100lbs, put on lean body mass instead of pure fat, moved out of the super stressful job that I hated.
And wow now my ED is completely gone, back to getting random boners and all the fun jazz that goes with that.

THIS

I've discovered the same from personal experience. When everything else is working well, porn is more fun too.
The best way to enhance your enjoyment of pornography is to get the rest of your life in order and get fit.

[figroll]

If you lived any time before ~10,000 BCE, you physically labored to feed your tribe. Your hormone production was not marred by microplastics, it was bolstered by a diet of red meat, greens, nuts, and berries.

You fucked your second or third cousin, and did not have any idea or preference otherwise. You probably fucked multiple cousins during a ceremonial orgy. You had no concept of individual privacy or propriety. Your parents probably fucked in front of you. You probably didn't even know who your father was. And it didn't matter because your mom probably fucked everyone in the village before having you.

This was the norm for millions of years.

I am not an anthropologist but I am pretty sure that's not how it worked for a number of reasons.

See here for example : https://leakeyfoundation.org/2015grandm ... air-bonds/

[spaisin]

You literally saw one aspect of my dad and said he "sounds like a poor role model."

You can read my reply in the text you quoted. If you can't see the "dirty trick" I played there, then fair enough, you have the right to be upset. I did indeed dad-shame you. But _why_ did I do it?

As we can't even agree that reasons matter, I can't expect much common ground to be found.

But hey, in the spirit of fairness, as you feel like I've just gone on tangents:
If I have missed some important points, ask me a question or a few. I promise I'll reply directly to a couple. The simpler the better of course. Grill me like a Heard-Depp sandwich.

[edger477]

get the rest of your life in order and get fit.

if your life is in order, you will not have problem with porn... and vice versa, if you have problem with porn, then your life is not in order, it is not only problem and it is not casual relation (because is far more complex), but porn can be that source of dopamine which reduces your willpower and makes you infinitely delay the day when you will start working on getting your life in order.

And a nice quote
"...ejaculation frequency is simply one aspect of man's overall health and vitality..." from https://youtu.be/RyP9TqAubgc

[edger477]

Good listen:
https://youtu.be/cojJ6fOwVKk

[A Ghoul Editor]

Good listen:
https://youtu.be/cojJ6fOwVKk

I love Dr. K! But sometimes I find myself watching too much and then I'm looking for more hardcore streams where they talk about very serious mental issues that don't necessarily apply to me. So I try do balance my Dr. K addiction with actual yoga. Enjoy responsibly.

[PrimeSwitch]

Good lord. I know everyone has thrown in their two cents, but I think it's worth me putting mine in too.

My Cock Hero's were made with the intention of helping people indulge in fantasies, while also educating them about enthusiastic consent and the exciting partnerships between one person and multiple romantic partners.

I am in my 30's. My private life over the past 10 years have consisted of me dating some wonderful people in a polyamorous setting. Granted, I'm probably the one who loves live-action porn the most, but porn is respected as a tool to titillate the mind. And many things qualify as porn, it just so happens that women (in general) tend to prefer fanfiction, hentai, fanart, etc. Granted, it took me a lot of time to learn how to appropriately act in spaces with people who were open to non-monogamous dating, because there are a LOT of ways a typical horny guy can fuck it up. They can mindlessly insult a broad group of people (specifically queers, trans, etc), not have anything interesting to say at all (to which, why would other people want you around if you're not going to contribute anything to the conversation), or metaphorically take up all the space in the room (as men in generally often do).

I found that properly taking care of myself, always being open to learn new things, and above all else, being kind and generous to my broader community... has gotten me laid. Not that hard. AND, getting laid was always JUST the bonus. The real reward was caring and nurturing those closest to me, even when times got hard.

It just so happened that we all liked each other enough over the years that we realized orgies were a fun way to spend a Friday night.

And there are times when I'll have a date with one of my wonderful people and she'll say that she's having a rough time and hasn't had a sex drive lately. And that's okay. There's hundreds of opportunities for fucking throughout the year. I know she'll probably send me an unsolicited nude at some point in the future. She trusts me enough that we can have a fun night together.

Incels upset me because they think they're entitled to fuck or that they're losing the game, when they just haven't worked to earn the intimacy of others. It's fucking work, but it's absolutely rewarding.

I know that the artist's intention is dead as soon as the art is released, but I still hope that my Cock Hero's have helped people explore fantasies that I've had the fortune of living out in real life, vicariously enjoying the joyful nature of sexual interaction when they figure out they can have that too.

[doremi]

but I still hope that my Cock Hero's have helped people explore fantasies that I've had the fortune of living out in real life, vicariously enjoying the joyful nature of sexual interaction when they figure out they can have that too.

It's not your productions that do what you are hoping for, not for me anyway. It's your conversations!

By the way!

[book_guy]

Well so I let the topic lag for literally a month ... sorry about that ... I had intended to reply earlier on, to many of the threads in this conversation. Since I was the instigator, I feel some responsibility for addressing some of the questions that were raised, especially when they directly inquire about me personally. But thanks to work's travel requirements, I didn't really have good internet (well, I had good WORK internet, but not internet at free times in free non-trace-able locations, yadda yadda, etc.) so I ended up having to let it lie for a while. Not that I actually HAD responsibility to reply, but I FELT responsibility to reply ...

So, as best I can remember, here are some things I figure deserve mention.

First, war in Ukraine. Yeah, people on this thread who point out, that the plight of the incel is really a lame whine of an excuse, if compared to the plight of people in Ukraine, have a great point. Whining about having to be an incel, is something that deserves the hashtag "white people problems" or "first world problems" or "privileged people problems" in almost all circumstances. I agree with that point very much, and, in fact, that point's revelation could trickle through to all these discussions -- basically, an incel can get off his duff and move into the "real" world at any time, should he just so choose. Nuts to him!

That having been said, however, and agreed, to; nevertheless, I think that investigating the incel can lead to some further understanding about "the condition" of the average male in the average (non-war-torn) Western nation, anyway.

I never thought of myself as an incel. I asked "am I an incel" only rhetorically. I know for sure, that I have had good dating opportunities and took advantage of some of them. I probably "scored" at approximately an average rate; I probably wasted opportunities at roughly the same level as most guys. I probably got as much sex as I "deserved" (using these loaded terms advisedly, don't go off all neurotic about how they're wrong-headed or misleading, I get that concept already) in the process. I'm in my 50s now, and I do look around and notice the advantages that I have, of NOT being locked into a long-term committed pair-bond. I see other guys have partners who don't necessarily support them, or who have relied all their lives on sexual with-holding as a means of controlling their male partner, and I'm glad that I'm not in that difficult situation. It's "standard" among Western dating societies to assume that much of that "adjusted" behavior is just "normal" and I'm glad I don't have the disadvantages which would come from such "normalcy."

Sometimes I observe the incel phenomenon from the point of view of the hunter-gatherer. There is no such thing as a hunter-gatherer who does, or does not, get "enough" sex. There is no such thing as "enough" or "too much" or "too little" in that context. We've taken away from a male the opportunity to forcibly demand sexuality from any human female who is alone and smaller than himself; rape and coersion are basically illegal in the West; and yet that's probably biologically the means by which at least half of all pregnancies in the prior hominid species were brought about. (OK OK I admit, we don't know this for a fact -- maybe Homo Erectus was extremely pacifist, or something, so, don't quibble, I'm just generalizing.) In a world where it's still OK for females to engage in "emotional rape" but not OK for males to engage in "physical rape" there's a type of power-imbalance which most people aren't very good at navigating. Not that the people who could NAVIGATE it would necessarily BENEFIT from it, but at least if they could understand it then maybe they'd accept it as "the way of the world" rather than ranting on the internet against it. Maybe the incel phenomenon simply highlights this imbalance of power.

In fact, on that subject, I often noticed it happening when I was in dating circles. For example, I watched young women interact with young men when I was in college, including watching myself and my interactions; or when I returned to graduate school with an age significantly higher than most of my classmates, watching them interact. Talking strictly of "standard" heterosexual interaction here. What I saw was an extreme licentiousness among the females, most of whom seemed willing to engage in "immoral" self-serving behavior MUCH more than most males; whereas the males were shackled with the requirement not only to (a) try to convince someone to engage in an interaction and/or relationship with them; but also (b) have to try to do so DECENTLY. The women weren't required, by social norms and the "expected" way to do things, to be DECENT about it. Catty manipulativeness, fraud, deceit, all were considered OK, not something low-down which would entirely eliminate one's entire social circle. It's just a generalization, but, essentially, what I saw was that young women weren't required to be GOOD PEOPLE, but young men WERE.

The difficulty for the young men, then, was multiple. They had to figure out which of the BAD PEOPLE would turn into a GOOD PERSON only after the initial phases of interaction were taken care of -- let her be a manipulator, at the outset, and, in fact, learn to handle and accept the manipulation, only on the understanding that LATER, she would stop manipulating. (Translation: you have to want to be in a relationship with a person who doesn't act decently on her own accord, but only does it in the interests of self-preservation. I.e., she has no moral guiding principle except selfishness.) Also, they had to figure out how to be DOMINANT and MASCULINE while also NOT engaging in the most natural dominant masculine acts that their biology would lead them to do -- going ahead and TAKING the woman regardless of her (perhaps feigned? or perhaps real?) objections.

This conundrum leads to only a few people understanding the game and therefore benefiting from it. That's the power imbalance I'm talking about. Humanity doesn't "naturally" want only a few males to have access to all the reproductive resources. We wrongly tell ourselves this falsehood to justify the current power imbalance. So, Desmond Morris tells us all that women act like the 20th Century norm because of biology. No, women act like that because of our predominant culture, and he's inadequately educated (as most science writers are) to understand that he stands within a predominant culture and therefore his analysis is tainted with its preconceptions.

Note as well, I don't necessarily agree with the above generalizations. They simply alleviate the incel problem in one potentially useful way. There may be other alleviations available. (But I haven't seen any in this thread, aside from the very valid Ukraine point.)

OK well this is all rather complicated. Summarizing isn't possible, either, since I'm just dashing out various unrelated points.

I'd like to go back and tell my young self a few of the things in this thread. The biggest thing I'd say is, DON'T ASK and SHE WANTS YOU TO LEAD. I had the misconception, which is probably still foisted upon many young men, that TAKING the woman and insisting on being the dominant male, is somehow the WRONG thing to do. I therefore pro-actively sought to NEVER demand anything, and I went out of my way to let her make the decisions. (Gee what a surprise, the women didn't respond well.) I resent the hypocrisy by which a society could say "What part of 'no' don't you understand!" angrily (i.e. never ever chase a woman who says 'no'), meanwhile presenting me with attractive young women who also said, "No doesn't mean 'no' it just means 'not right now'" (i.e. always chase a woman who says 'no'). That's overt social hypocrisy. I think if I could have articulated these concerns, and therefore navigated them better, I would not have ended up vaguely disappointed with all the girls I was dating. I would have known a bit more of what was going on. Now, however, given the fact that I didn't get laid by the super-hotties, I realize, well, there are (see earlier paragraph) advantages to not having done so.

Today it's a mildly different power imbalance. I see a lot of this thread talking about how women choose ON THE BASIS OF PHYSICAL APPEARANCE, which is something I really didn't see during my time in the dating pool. It was choice on the basis of "coolness" or "who understands women" and the girls (now ladies) whom I was addressing, would be surprised to hear that young men think that Swipe-Left apps actually appeal to females at all. "I don't care what he looks like" was the excuse pandered at the time -- though of course that could either be because of the utter lack of self-awareness the women had; or because they lied, knowing they did care about looks, but also knowing it was socially inappropriate to admit that they did. Either way, I find the prevalence and comfort of analyzing female actions as visually biased, is a new comfort, not applicable to my generation. Women are more looks-oriented now than then, either in fact or at least in theory and in accepted wisdom.

So, that's where I'm at. If only I had "known," if only I had gotten the concept about masculine leadership and dominance. There's a point in this thread earlier when one respondent notices me being non-masculine, and points out (rightly) that my interests were totally contrary to the female way of thinking. I had said something like, "I asked and she agreed, to initiate sex, but then she never did it," and the respondent replied with something equivalent to, "this ain't gonna work!" Yeah, true that. But I DIDN'T HAVE ACCESS to that knowledge, and was really out on a limb without the internet (dating in the middle 1990s or before) and without some dominant male to lead me.

Which suggests to me, what I have in common with the incels -- I've been raised without dominant males in my life. I love my dad and older uncles and so forth, they did a lot of positive things for me, but they're milquetoast. They're good at knitting (really). And so they have no nephews or grandchildren, largely because I was trying and trying, very much against my natural inclinations, to be more milquetoast in order to please women. This was a mistake. I should have stopped listening to women, or to the milquetoast men, and started being much more aggressive, even to the point of risking the commission of a "date rape" (though I do not approve of any such illegal action, I think many many times in my own past, I was worried about it when in fact aggression would have been welcomed by the women; and now I'll never know ...). I was told by my target females that I had to be a good boy; they also didn't have to be good girls; and now I resent that I got misled so drastically. Hence my sympathy with incels, though I do not claim to be one of them. I simply see that they, too, misunderstand "the game" (yeah yeah stop quibbling about my vocabulary you know what I mean) and are receiving great lifetime detriment due to the falsehoods which they are trying to adhere to.

Slavoj Szizek says that every culture has two sets of rules -- those that were are supposed to live by, and then those that we all actually KNOW are the rules that are in place. I think incels, and myself for slightly different reasons, are all laboring under the misunderstanding (if Szizek is right) that they're living by the proper set of rules, and missing the other more "real" set of rules. (*This misunderstanding may also account for their wrong assessment of females as interested in Swipe-Left dating apps, thus compounding their misunderstanding a further step). Just one possible interpretation, but it certainly helps me to understand what I did "wrong" and also what incels may be doing wrong, and what makes me wish to sympathize with them.

By the way, I don't sympathize with any program they may have. (I don't even know what programs they might be advocating for. I don't read their stuff, I'm totally unfamiliar with them, mostly.) When I say I "sympathize," all I really mean is, I feel sorry for them for the fact that they're (obviously) living with a lot of unnecessary pain. I would want to mentor them, if I were their high school gym coach, take them aside and say friendly stuff and invite them to a cook-out on a holiday weekend and tell old war stories about trying to pick up girls and so forth -- in the hopes of hinting about the dominance-game that's necessary, to dispel the misconceptions aligned with the idea that boys have to be "nice." That's where I'm at with the sympathy thing -- I'm not in alignment with their wonky wrong-headed ideas about the world, I don't want them to think they "deserve" sex any more than anyone else does; I just want them to alleviate their pain. (In fact, getting sudden fuck access to the hottest girls in school, probably wouldn't make them feel any better about "the game". It would just be, "see, she's a slut" and nothing would be solved for the incels anyway!) And wanting them to alleviate their pain is, I suppose, a vicarious desire for me to alleviate something of my past frustrations and misunderstandings.

Oh if only someone had furkin' bothered to TELL me. Geez. :)

Well, I'm sure most of you won't read all that wall-of-text blather. I don't mind. It's been a good thread anyway.

[edger477]

Good post, good thread.

DON'T ASK and SHE WANTS YOU TO LEAD

When talking about things to tell to younger self... yeah, understanding women was hard, but this is not the whole story, and yes I did read your post but as you wrote,

Summarizing isn't possible, either, since I'm just dashing out various unrelated points.

But I'd like to try to condense one of points with my experience into something brief that is maybe providing both some understanding of the women's motivations for engaging men and insight into the process of the experience of mating.

She wants you to lead because she wants (maybe not realizing this particular thing herself but the result is below) to have a man who is capable getting out of his comfort zone, who is capable of proceeding into unknown teritorry, figure out the rules of apparent chaos and game these rules to become the ruler. It is that combination of courage and capability for facing the unknown that I came to believe are reasons why women like the leaders. That also ties in to the feeling of safety and security these men can provide them with, and that is extremely important, as long as woman feels anxiety about any issue in life she will never be able to be completely feminine and to give you exclusive focus of her attention. She wants to be able to give you full control, but for that to happen you have to be able to remove all anxiety from her. You don't need to solve all the issues, but you need to be confident and to show you are capable enough so that all her doubt any current and future issues will be solved is removed. And that doubt will return from time to time (falling out of walled garden is cyclical process), it is by overcoming the obstacles that you build more of her trust and feeling of safety.

Ideally, all women want men who are at top of the societal hierarchies (because that is how we - the men - compete with each other, they just observe the game we created ourselves and want the best, whatever is the game we choose to engage in and progress in its hierarchy - sports, money, power, fame, or just plain strength). In this sense we are not much different than animals who have more or less brutal mating competitions between males, but in animal kingdom natural selection plays major role, while with humans it is sexual selection - the women choose men that will have access to sex based on above criteria, which might not be same as natural selection criteria. This has as consequence that men evolved the urge to play games and compete, since those who did not participate in competitions and climb social hierarchies weren't selected in sexual selection and were removed from gene pool.

Above might be a bit harsh realization, because by definition hierarchical structures have the most members at its bottom. But life is not fair and you have to choose to participate in it and live your best life despite its tragic precondition (death is ultimate outcome). For sure you can become good at something, and more important that something is, the better (i.e. swordsmanship was more important than knitting in middle ages, but not anymore today), but as you become expert at one thing, you will learn patterns of universe and life that can then easily be applied to other areas and allow you to become good at other things. To get started somewhere, I'd recommend reading and learning about Samurais (it is a good starting point to realize mindset needed to become proficient at something while not turning into an asshole).

And as last, the answer to why the women like nice guys (but in most cases won't mate with them): You have to remember that women did not evolve and don't have or try to create similar hierarchies like men (for the most part). So, once you have achieved the above, you have gained a position in hierarchy and have gained access to sex, you got your woman, the same that got her and keeps her also allows you to have others. It is the act of choosing her over the others, showing her that she is important by always including her into decisions, investing your time and energy to take care of her (basically showing her that she is your exclusive partner) that is elevating her to same level of societal hierarchy that you gained. That is when "nice guy" actually means something. She will not feel special if you choose her when you can't have others anyway. It means nothing if you don't have access to sex anyway, because you don't get to elevate her or to dedicate anything to her. It is when you can have others but you choose to be hers, and to be nice to her, that will make her feel like a goddess.

So to condense that last paragraph - there is nothing to gain from being nice until after you are able to gain access to sex and able to choose a woman. Only then being nice is a virtue and is a signal to her that you have choosen her because she is special. You can't do that with every woman, and there is no point in doing it if you don't have access to sex anyway - there is no reason for them to provide access based on your nice behavior, it means nothing.


There is so much to expand on this topic, this is not even warmup, but this is more subject for a podcast than writing walls of text, and even what I wrote already feels like too much, it is necessary to have balance between having useful information and making it short enough that someone will actually read it with today's attention spans.

EDIT: yeah, I forgot to mention porn. I think porn is here to placate those who are at bottom of hierarchy. This is why it is needed to keep society functioning and provide escape from reality. I don't think it is wrong to consume it but it is important to realize its balancing effect in your life is against willpower, motivation, achievement. But you can turn that around. You should strive to consume it according to its balancing effect, i.e. as a reward for achievement, turn it into motivation by deciding to consume it once you have managed to accomplish something.