Social Commentary

We've had some rather heated debates on the discussion boards quite recently - and what better job can a forum do than to stimulate thought-provoking debate? - with one debate in particular centering on a report from one of the readers on a sexual encounter he had with a married woman.

In the report, the reader - The Byronic Man, a younger guy who's fairly new to seduction and still more or less getting his footing down - details an encounter that took place over several days with a late-30s married woman who wanted to sleep with him, but had some reservations. He persisted, slept with her, and she seemed to have gotten what she wanted... though also seemed to have dealt with a bit of inner turmoil.

And here's where things get interesting. Another of our readers, Landlord, in his early 40s and experienced, weighed in to let Byronic know he was out of line, and had crossed a line, sleeping with a married woman - whether she wanted it or not, that was beside the point. This is simply not something you do.

Various commenters weighed in on one side of the debate or the other; some in favor of, a larger number against.

This post, however, is not about the morality or ethics of sleeping with married women. I'll leave that for the boards to decide.

What's more interesting to me than the moral debates themselves (which you can debate forever... if two parties' value systems fail to match up, or their empathy levels are dramatically different, they will argue past each other for 100 years and never sway the other) is a set of questions posed by Landlord, asking for more opinions on "what game means" and "what does it mean to be a man"?

I'd like to veer a little deeper off that topic and talk about what makes the difference between a civilized man... and an uncivilized one.

The prospect of a girl fight holds a very special place in the minds of most men. We believe that if you voluptuous vixens start going at it, eventually their angry passion will be converted into sexual energy and they will start to make out, and even invite in a nearby man for a threesome.

But as most men who are in the know are aware of: this is very far from the truth. In fact, even if two women are fighting over a guy, the fight itself isn’t really about him. Rather, it’s about their instincts, and enacting the desire to snuff out competition in every way possible.

That’s what every form of female competition comes down to: protecting pride and destroying the competition. And today I’m going to delve deeply into the concept of female competition: where it comes from, how it plays out, and much more importantly…how you fit in.

Over the past month, 340Breeze, one of our members and commenters here, has made a couple of insightful comments and asked a few thoughtful questions about a subject that can be fairly boiled down to "the wrapping and the present".

His first comment was in the article on specialness (comment here).

And his second was in the piece on reversing poor precedent (comment here).

The first comment discussed his experiences meeting women who seemed outwardly impressive at first, but lacking in substance after he got to know them; in the second comment, he asked whether it was better for a woman interested in capturing a good man to focus more on playing coy and drawing things out with men (what I'd term "game" and "fundamentals", or style), or on becoming such all-around awesome people that they were simply naturally already in very high demand (who you really are as a person, friend, and mate - your substance).

In fact, this dichotomy - of fundamentals and game vs. who you are, style vs. substance, or the wrapping vs. the present - is one that underlies all of social dynamics, whether mating and dating, or choosing whom you want to be friends with, or hiring employees, bringing on consultants, or selecting the company you want to go work for.

The key here, and what everyone's trying to do, is to avoid being suckered by nice wrapping that isn't backed up by an equally impressive present underneath... but also not miss the great presents hiding under crummy wrapping paper.

Yet, that isn't so easy to do.

Much like Alek's article on the Secret Society, this will be a theoretical entry, meant to improve your understanding of large-scale gender dynamics.

Let’s begin with a definition:

The Sexual Market Place, or SMP, is the invisible battlefield on which intrasexual competition is constantly waged, in order for every individual to maximize the chances of passing their genes onto the next generation successfully.

Both men and women are in constant war with the other members of their respective sexes in order to fulfill their genetic prerogatives, which are to survive and replicate. This underlying warfare drives nearly all of human competition and progress in the world.

For both genders, there are only two ways to improve one's standing in the Sexual Marketplace:

1. Raise your own Sexual Market Value (SMV)

2. Lower the SMV of competitors
   

And that's literally all there is to it. For the remainder of this article, I'm going to point out common ways that each gender utilizes each option, highlighting certain social norms and forms of intrasexual aggression meant to facilitate those ends.

Let's start with the men.

Weighing in on "You’re Not That Special (and Neither is She)", 340Breeze made a great and perceptive comment on the emotional inhibition and sexual repression rampant in Western English-speaking countries, particularly in America. His comment was a long one, but it's a good one, and I'll repost it in its entirety here:

“There needs to be a solution to dealing with the culture and its influence on women's mentalities...and a discussion on how those influences make seduction more difficult than it should otherwise be. Here in America we men have to deal with, among other things: the slut-shaming phenomenon, and other inhibitions that emanate from commodity status. I am glad that you guys have pointed out some of these detrimental mindsets. Would be nice to see an article or at least a page that summarizes these inhibition inducing mindsets, and a solution or two that a man can use to empower the women he fancies.

One issue (among many) with commodity status is how the observers/players treat commodities. If a woman thinks a man is a commodity, and thus expendable, why would she spend much time forgiving slights and looking for value in him as a person? The path of least resistance is to get bored and easily replace the commodity with something else. But you can quickly see why a man would (a commodity) be hesitant to treat any particular woman that he meets as special as she thinks she is, especially if he fears that he would open up himself to potential hurt/pain given that she would replace him in an instant. But that's inhibition.

I think this commodity concept stems from capitalism in part. Commercials, movies, etc make things/products appear effortless like there is little hard-work involved in creating a superior product/service, which of course is an illusion. Another issue with capitalism's influence on people's mentalities is the ease of acquiring the goods that you most value. If you have the money/credit then you simply buy it/get a loan for it. Simple. But getting the people you most value to remain incentivized to come back for more isn't always easy or effortless at all (until you become more attractive than most). Some girls I've met who think they're superior just don't understand how they stack up against other 'outlier' women that I've met before. Some are unaware or don't care all that much about what qualities an 'outlier woman' possesses vs an average woman who thinks she is superior but lacks most of the outlier qualities. Yet these average women feel entitled to be treated as special as a woman who possesses (in my view) superior qualities and abilities. Qualities such as feminine charm, grace, ambition, uninhibited (and thus not lukewarm) when it comes to her sexuality, smarts, good body weight, independence, good looks, humility, living a passionate life she truly enjoys, can tease/take jokes adequately, knows how to touch me to excite me, can dress the part well (casual vs sophisticated), high emotional intelligence about people's needs/wants other than her own, and so on.

The problem with dating is how some people respond to the dreaded commodity status. Some become somewhat inhibited (if they feel they may replaced at a moment's notice by inadvertently triggering autorejection in someone they like). Others might overcompensate and become an asshole (who negs other people to pop the bubble of superiority and bring others down to earth). I've met girls who refuse to compliment, who refuse to charm, who refuse to do anything to make a new, unproven man, feel special..at all. And at first I couldn't understand this mentality (like how could you like somebody but refuse to make them feel good??) But I've asked some women why, and they've later told me they fear being charming at all to a new guy because they don't want to inflate any egos of any man who might drop them on a dime...Hmmm.

But the point of seduction is to treat another human being special. Unfortunately, inhibition is a killer to seduction. Much of what you guys teach bears this out...you guys teach how to respond to inhibited women who worry about slut-shaming, which causes inhibition. You guys also teach how to avoid auto-rejection and the inhibited/cold behavior that results from it. Again, inhibition. And plus women are attracted to confidence like moths to a flame and by definition the confident aggressive seducer doesn't present himself in an inhibited way.

So I've been thinking about it recently, trying to put words to my actions, and I conclude that what has resulted is my response to women's behavior that follows from 'commodity status.' I have to spend much of my time in the beginning around certain women having to empower them and subtly encourage them (excite them even??) to become less inhibited around me and to open up and to trust me...on a deeper, non-superficial basis. I have to instill confidence in them first that it is okay to be sexual, or to tell deep secrets that they hold inside. But if I am successful, then the floodgates of emotion flow out from within. Other girls are relatively uninhibited from the start and need little, if any encouraging on my part to spice things up really nicely. Have you ever noticed a similar phenomenon?

Cheers,

340Breeze.”

I agree with Breeze, that this is one worth addressing - so here's my shot at explaining what this is and how to deal with it.

I was talking to a friend last night who'd been railroaded by a cluster B girlfriend of his - a girl with borderline personality disorder (he hadn't realized until years in), which, if you're not familiar with it, is a real crazy-making personality profile that makes the affected individual completely mistrusting of everyone, causing her to undermine her long-term relationships by focusing on getting concession after concession after concession, wearing down the people around her and inflicting a reverse-winner effect on them that depletes their testosterone, willpower, and energy reserves and causes them to crash emotionally.

The silver lining of being around people like this, though, is it makes you realize exactly where your weaknesses are: it shows you the chinks in your armor that others can use to gain leverage over you, to whittle you down, and to take control of you in ways you didn't realize you could be controlled.

I've gone through it, and it's been among the most educational periods of my life - because what was previously a vague awareness that you were just a little "too nice", a bit too much of a softy, and a little too much of a pushover, suddenly gets thrust into focus as exactly how dangerous small weaknesses like these can be around people determined to get things from you.

And, eventually, it leads you to the ultimate realization that nice people need hard rules.

One of the things you don't start picking up on until you've spent much time out of the West, then rotated back into it, then out of it, then into it again, is the "epidemic of specialness" the West has going on.

When you visit Asia, some parts of South America, and some parts of central or Eastern Europe, for instance, most of the people you meet will describe themselves as "just an average [nationality] girl/guy."

Part of this is humility - everybody believes he's special to some degree - but part of it is just down-to-Earth honest-to-goodness realistic-ness. The guy knows he's just another human being, and merely one of very many.

But travel back to the West, and you're quickly smacked in the face with the order of the day here: that is, everyone is special.

Not just special, but unique. And, deserving of your utmost adoration, and respect.

Only, because we're not all that special or unique, a great many people in the West are living in a constant state of vast cognitive dissonance, ready to explode at a moment's notice as soon as anyone suggests they are not as special as they'd like you to think they are.

They're living a lie - an illusion - and the only way that illusion is maintained is if they can make everybody else around them subscribe to it, too.

And if anybody around them doesn't... well, look out.

I'll explain.