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The Red Pill subreddit, as longtime readers of this blog know all too well, teaches a particularly backward and repugnant form of “game” — that is, pickup “artistry” — that relies heavily on manipulative techniques designed to help men get what they want from women by preying on their insecurities.
Not that Red Pillers see themselves as the villains here; in their minds, they’re just giving women what they really, if secretly, want. They’re not exploiting women. If anything, the women are exploiting — or at least trying to exploit — them.
In a post from a year ago that was recently resurrected by another Red Piller, a fella calling himself bsutansalt made the mistake of suggesting to his comrades that in a good (straight) relationship there is — or at least there could be — a certain synergy between man and woman. When they “join together to face the world, they have the potential to be so much more than the sum of their strengths.”
Suggestions that women are anything other than overgrown, narcissistic babies tend not to go over very well on the Red Pill subreddit. And so it’s no surprise that bsutansalt’s post — or at least that small portion of it that dared to suggest that women and men could cooperate to make their relationship better — inspired a vehement rebuttal from one of his Red Pill brothers.
As MattyAnon sees it, the potential for synergy is just that, potential, a lovely theory that falls apart once one takes into consideration the fact that, as that old Led Zeppelin song has it, the “soul of a woman was created below.”
Take it away, Matty:
A partnership. Two people working together. A man and a woman with complementary skills and emotions working together. It sounds so beautiful but this is not how women work.
Yes, please, anonymous dude on the internet, explain to us how women work.
Women do not partner with men. Women exploit men, while men think they are building something together. Your commitment is used against you. Your voluntary reduction in your options is used as leverage to get what she wants.
Yes, that’s right, women exploit men using a devious technique known as “being in a monogamous relationship with a guy who willingly entered into this monogamous relationship.”
It’s been said before: women are dream killers. Why? Because when you’re in a long term relationship with her, it is now your job to support her dream. And you can bet that dream is boring as fuck.
Men’s dreams are inherently so much more fascinating than women’s dreams.
There is no relationship equity. There is no gratitude. There is no partnership. There is only the man doing stuff for the woman, and the woman doing the bare minimum required to maintain the flow of commitment and resources.
What sort of resources? Coal? Iron? Guano?
“Behind every great man is a great woman”… bulllshit. Every great man achieves what he achieves despite women. We can achieve so much more if we’re not also having to support women.
So posting crap to the Red Pill subreddit is actually some kind of glorious achievement? Some men are born great, some achieve greatness, and some bash women on Reddit.
Women claim to be the strong, independent equal of men. I say great: let’s give them exactly what they ask for. All the equality and independence they can choke down.
Somehow I doubt that the women of the world are quaking in their boots over this oft-repeated, er, threat.
H/T — r/TheBluePill
@kupo
I’m not sure if I’ve had sleep paralysis, but my brother has told me of some absolutely terrifying experiences of his.
These are my experiences with possible sleep paralysis:
I see something related to bugs or spiders, either very large bugs or very many bugs. This has only happened a few times. Once, I was staring down at the floor next to the bed (but the nightstand wasn’t where it’s supposed to be, so I could see the floor in a normally concealed spot) and it was just crawling with bugs.
Another time, when my Significant Otter first visited me when we were still just ‘dating’, I woke up in the middle of the night and thought I was seeing a giant spider in the window above our heads. And when I say giant, I mean possibly the biggest spider in the world. When I could move, I woke my Otter up and mumbled “uuhhhh giant spider! there was a spider!” while looking up at the window. Then I realized there’s no way I could’ve seen a spider that big, so I just went back to sleep. Otter stayed up all night searching for a giant spider.
These are things my brother have told me:
In his old apartment, he could see out to the hall from his bed (no door). During sleep paralysis, he saw a man walking around in the hall, humming to himself. The man was impossibly tall, so that my brother could only see up to his chest because of the angle.
Another time, he woke up and thought something was in the room. The headboard of his bed was up against the wall, but he felt like someone/thing was standing behind the headboard (inside the wall?) whispering unintelligible things in his ear in a very strange voice.
I guess I’ll take the spiders. :/
Alan:
Those would be incubi, not succubi. Succubi are evil feeemales who prey on innocent sleeping men.
I’ve never had a succubus dream. The nearest involved my evil twin. I dreamt that evil me was sitting on my chest, strangling me. He laughed an evil laugh and said “this is a dream, but you’ll never wake up!”. Then I woke up… and I couldn’t breathe for a few seconds. Very scary. I never saw evil me again.
I used to have really bad nightmares, so I did a lot of reading about the science of dreams as a way to help myself cope with it (and also so that I didn’t have to go to sleep.) I am not, however, a neuroscientist so I claim no authority on the matter.
The sensation of “someone else being there” is extremely common when in an altered state of mind such as waking from a dream or being near death. In extreme athletics it’s known as the Third Man Effect, and is generally felt as a benevolent presence; when waking from dreams it’s often experienced as malevolent. When combined with sleep paralysis it leads to the classic “imp on the chest” experience that kupo and Alan describe. When combined with space anxiety it produces the “monster in the closet” effect that WWTH describes.
It’s been tied to bicameralism: that is, to the phenomenon that humans will externalise parts of our internal dialogue when we’re in a more primitive mindstate. I’m not aware of any neurology on this but I love bicameralism so I want it to be true.
If there are strange noises or oddly-shaped shadows then I can see how the human mind’s pattern-seeking nature would combine the two. I’m not aware of research on this particular facet of the Third Man Effect, but I’ve experienced it vividly myself.
We can now produce it in labs, which is awesome.
I went through most of my youth with my bed pushed into the corner so that I would have an absolute uninterrupted view of the entire room, knowing for a fact that if there was any space that I couldn’t see then it would have dead people standing in it. Weirdly I never had any recurring characters, and I never thought of any of my dead relatives as being the dead people in particular: it was always just an abstract, depersonalised malevolence.
I was a very scared child. Even today I’m scared of the dark, but I think that’s unconnected.
Years ago I had a boyfriend (he’s an ex now) who gave me no attention at all. I don’t think he had any attention to give himself either.
I would spend the night at his place, and he would get up early to go to work. Sometimes I’d stay and let myself out later. Twice while at his place, sleeping alone in his bed, I dreamed that I was trudging across the Sahara by myself. Sand blew all around me. Everywhere, as far as the eye could see, there was sand and nothing but sand. Dry. Barren. I would wake up so sad.
Luckily, I am a resilient person! And now I have cats to protect me.
I’m not entirely certain what I talk about with my dead friend in my dreams just that he and I are talking in the dream. The s/o says that what he hears me talking about is like…normal conversation with a couple bits where it sounds like I’m telling my friend where some of our social group has moved to and that’s why they’re not where my friend remembers they had lived before. Like, “oh he moved to Texas in 2011” kinds of stuff. And I wake up sitting up in bed when I usually sleep on my stomach.
We’re all different, of course, but as someone who suffers from lower back pain, I’d advise against sleeping on your stomach, since it puts stress on your lower spine. The best sleep position, for back health, is supposedly to sleep on your side, with your knees and legs together (possibly with a pillow between the knees for comfort). For me, this is the best way to achieve a pain-free night.
I can’t seem to fall asleep in any other position than on my stomach. My mom would put me in my crib on my back and from the time I could roll over she’d come in and check to find me on my stomach again every time. Laying on my side is hell for my shoulder.
But I’ve managed to keep a good degree of flexibility thanks to Pilates and ballet barre.
@ kat
Over here we have something called The Cat Protection League.
I used to think they were an animal charity but thinking about it, with a name like that, they’re obviously a group of feline bodyguards.
… with superpowers.
(I mean more superpowers. Cats can already do invisible-stealth-mode, teleportation of food items and a certain amount of mind control, obviously.)
I get stress dreams before work fairly regularly: either it’s a trucks backup beep that becomes a medical alarm I cannot troubleshoot, or I dream i’ve been given a patient I dont know how to treat, while everything goes to hell in a handbasket and everyone refuses to help me…it’s…not fun
“League of extraordinary supercats”
Urgh, stress dreams, you guys just reminded me of a dream I had recently where I was back in high school in the cafeteria and having to deal with 17 year old kid politics again and felt like I had assignments due.
I also had a dream where I was back living at my parents place and it was like 3am but I needed to get up and go to work… at the terrible fast food job I had when I was 15.
My dreams can also turn really stressful if they get invaded by alarm clock noises. My SO uses this horrible alarm that’s just a beep but it gets louder and more insistent as time passes, so it’s particularly good at slowly seeping it’s way into my dreams and instilling a sense of panic into whatever was already happening.
About ‘room geometry’ in dreams: Since childhood, I have had dreams about being in buildings that are familiar to me (including my childhood home) but in the dreams, they have all sorts of secret rooms and passageways and I do a lot of exploring. I still have these from time to time.
Another thing I dream (that I haven’t seen mentioned here) is people in dreams that I know, but in the dreams they look completely different yet I know who they are anyway. This even happens with animals sometimes. I have also dreamed about animals I am familiar with being white (three times, so far), and they always end up dying or dead in real life when I didn’t know they’d died. These I chalk up to seeing things about the animals I didn’t register consciously at the time, since all of them died of illnesses and not accidents.
“I say great: let’s give them exactly what they ask for. All the equality and independence they can choke down.”
This totally doesn’t have any creepy sexually-violent subtext at all. No sir…
@Alan Robertshaw
And bodyguards are actually my (day)dream.
I would so love to have several bodyguards, say three to five of them. One on each side, one in front, and one in back.
Large and armed.
It’s entirely possible that my fear-o-meter is turned up a little too high.
My cats are working with me to turn it down just a bit.
@Dave King
You put my feelings into words. Thanks.