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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
@Imaginary Petal – In fairness, before I had a family, with some editing that’s what would have made me happy, too.
Menmockingbird needs very little to be happy. A mattress on the floor, a futon or something. A ludicrously large TV. A bike in the corner. One cool lamp. A computer with a ridiculously fast internet connection. All good videogames ever. A home gym? A home gym couldn’t hurt. Access to nice walking and biking trails. Oh, and books. Lots of books. A cat? And coffee.And all the games need to be designed specifically for them. And cash. And sexbots. And a car. And a butler. A sexy female butler. And a gun. And respect. RESPECT!Though, in fairness, I’m pretty lazy when I’m at my most HedonismBot-esque…if we’re going all out, a robot butler / maid would be sweet. Oh, and the free time to enjoy it all and/or the ability to not have to sleep. And, hell – why not go for broke? A passport, free international flights, and a universal hostel pass.I’m a simple soul, really.
*squints*
You know, if I’d somehow become convinced that I was entitled to all of that and the world – that damnable world – hadn’t yet spit it out and there was a community that told me that my having not achieved my Rightful Place in Life was all the fault of one particular subset of the population, I’d probably be pretty pissed off and bitter, too.
Luckily for me, I’m not an almost unimaginably entitled prat.
Too late to edit my first post.
To clarify: “punctuated by the fact that he really didn’t like kids” is meant to mean “punctuated by her assertion that he really didn’t like kids.”
He’s also playing a long game on them.
He’s currently in the “being an awesome, doting, involved father to my first two – the youngest of which can’t remember a time without him in her life – as well as to our child together” phase of his Master Plan.
(Spoiler: I think the end game with them, too, is to eventually die.)
This is a man whose retirement plan seriously includes volunteering to do this, but, yeah – he hates kids.
Didn’t Scott Baio do a whole series about how he was an aging bachelor who suddenly realized that while he’d accumulated material wealth, he couldn’t enjoy it because of the loneliness of bachelorhood, so proceeded to whine about wanting to get married but not wanting to be exploited financially?
Ah yes, here it is.
@Alan
Okay, I can manage to kill one of your dreams.
You’ll never have one of those oh-my-God-did-I-leave-my-pants-at-home-and-where-is-my-shirt! nightmares again.
If you’re like most people, none of the people in your dreams even notice that you’re naked. What’s up with that!
@ kat
Ha yeah, you’d think they’d have the decency to at least comment that I’ve been working out. Maybe the people in my dreams are Scandinavian and just cool with that or British so too polite to make a fuss?
So… if, hypothetically, a woman dreams of an equitable relationship, and her partner then supports that dream, and he also dreams of an equitable relationship, does that count as a relationship hack?
…also, why hasn’t my boyfriend put his life on hold in order to make my dream of being a Victorian monster hunter his new priority? Has feminism achieved nothing?
And finally, has nobody yet commented on what an absolutely great name Dream Killers would be for a nu-metal band?
@Alan
Well if you were going to have that sort of dream again I’d say you should try to pay attention to who else is there and perhaps what language they’re speaking. Of course it could be a room full of ducks and all they do is quack – for all we know it could be translated by duck-to-English technology as “he’s been working out lately hasn’t he? Never understood why humans bother with coverings so ugly as pants. Nice change to see one without them.”
If you’re going to call people useful idiots, you should probably learn how to spell useful first.
@mockingbird
There’s a short story–or possibly a novel–in the narrative of you, your husband, his ex, and his “long con.”
You two sound like a cool couple.
Regarding the claim that some terrorists are motivated by sexual frustration (something most can figure out how to alleviate for themselves pretty handily), it seems to me that it might be more about trying to make oneself feel important by degrading or dehumanizing others.
This blog post put me in mind of how many manospherians try to take credit for others’ achievements, puff up imaginary grievances, brag at one another about their prowess, and cast themselves as heroes…
THIIIIIIIIIISSSSSSSS. I was just going to write this down. It’s a phenomenon I’d like to call ‘track the Tracy’ (sorry Tracies of the world). Most of their generalised bloviating can be tracked back to one bad relationship. And either said ex was indeed a nasty piece of work, but chances are that at minimum the relationship was bad because said TERPer lacks all people- and communication skills.
A second phenomenon that underpins a lot of manosphere nonsense, is of course: “praise, not truth”. These men don’t write to tell the actual ‘troof’, much as they claim to, but they write to get praise from their fellow TERPers, which might very well be the first friends/praise they’ve ever had in their life. So it’s reward over actual ideology. I first came across this idea when I read about a woman who used to be a vehement anti-vaxxer. She said that the attraction wasn’t so much in the ideas, as in the support & praise from the other women in the crunchy community.
@ msexception
Well if Donald Duck is representative then it does seem they’re not keen on pants.
I do like the weird dreamscape existence. It’s quite fascinating how it all works. Like how you can construct a full narrative that ends with the alarm clock going off. I read somewhere that people either dream in colour or monochrome. I know I dream in colour because I’ve had dreams when that’s been an issue. I also have a lot of “anti” anxiety dreams. Like the classic ‘something is chasing me’; but I have no problem getting away; even within the dream that’s a bit bewildering (“Oh, that was surprisingly easy” etc)
@Alan
Ducks need free and unencumbered movement of their feathery butts and flippered feet to fwip-fwip their way to the edge of the ponds I can see out my back door whenever the dog and I go out on the patio and she scares the ever-quacking crap out of them with a rushing lunge and much barking. So yep Donald Duck is clearly evidence that ducks despise pants. ?
@proudfootz
That makes a lot of sense to me.
@Alan Robertshaw
As a person who has more than her fair share of anxiety, I’m jealous.
You are a lucky duck!
@ msexception
I have of course fallen into the typical trap of assuming one duck represents all ducks!
#notallpantlessducks
@ kat
Really sorry to hear that. I could come out with all the platitudes about exercise, rural living, green tea and sharing try your life with a dog you love; but realistically I’ve found the best way to a relatively stress free existence is to be a privileged straight white male. Er, have you considered trying that?
Hello.
Why, when i read about women exploiting men, do i always have this scene of Monty Python Holy Grail with the peasant yelping “Help ! Help ! I’m being oppressed !” coming in my mind ?
Have a nice day.
@ occasional reader
He, I love that whole scene.
Mind you when I look at the US system of primaries and the electoral college, choosing your leader based on being given a sword by some “watery ****” doesn’t seem so daft after all.
Talking of dreams:
Nowadays, I rarely remember my dreams. The exceptions are mostly when something wakes me during the night: I’ll usually remember what I was dreaming at that point, since the dream was interrupted. Annoyingly, the way that usually works out is that the thing which woke me is the need to pee, and that finds its way into the dream. So what I mostly remember about my dreams is randomly micturating on rugs etc. It’s not a very appealing dreamscape.
I’m always peeing on recliners in my dreams, and I don’t think I’ve sat on one in over a decade. Dreams are weird.
Can any of the excellent neuro scientists on here explain what the mechanism is that ensures that, even when we’re bursting for a wee so much we dream about it, we don’t actually wet the bed?
Well I’m no scientist, let alone neuro-scientist, but I remember wetting the bed at about age 5 I think. Every time, I was dreaming I was peeing. I gradually learnt to stop earlier and earlier, until eventually I stopped. Now I’ll keep dreaming that I’m actually sitting on the loo, peeing, but still feeling like I need to go. My toilet visits interrupt the narrative until I wake up and actually go.
Maybe most of us learn to do this at age 2 or 3, and don’t remember the process. My mother informs me I was reliably dry at night at 2, though, which is weird.
All three of my kids had bed-wetting problems until they started sleeping for fewer hours. Apparently a significant percentage never learn to wake up, but are too embarrassed to openly talk about it.
Usually when the bladder is sending the sleeping brain some pee signals, in my dreams I start to look for a loo, but all of them are either broken, horribly disgusting, or terrifyingly public (so far: missing stall doors, a wall of glass, ginormous holes in walls or doors), or all three. All of them. Without a fail.
In one case, there was a tiger on the loose and nobody knew where it was. (I think that was a pretty poor Stephen King short story rip-off or was it Clive Barker?)
On the other hand, these days, if I have a dream that I’ve forgotten my pants, I tend to go “Well this is a problem for everyone else but me” and just proceed to go on about my way. Although once, I was peeved because it was pretty cold and there was snow, and pants would have been warm while I queued for lottery tickets at a kiosk, but I decided “fuck it” and just waited for my turn.
I know my anxiety is going overloaded if I start to have dreams of endless hallways, doors, staircases, rooms and having to run through all of them to escape something, usually undead.
Some of the best dreams involve me being a superhero. That’s really awesome, especially if I have powers of flight, because that means I can enjoy high places without real life fear.
Sleeping is complicated! I’m not a neuroscientist but I’ve brushed across some details in the past.
When you’re in deep sleep, the pons (part of the hindbrain, right on top of the spinal cord, pretty much the connection between spine and brain) inhibits signals. This is how you can have a dream about running and stay still in bed!
I believe that, at the same time, cholineseterase is distributed through the body. Muscles rely on acetylcholine to respond to motor neurons, and cholinesterase blocks it from reacting. This is why your body is weak when you’re just waking up, and it takes a little while to get your strength back – your blood has to wash away the cholinesterase so that the acetylcholine can do its thing.
Some muscles are obviously not affected by this – your heart keeps beating, your intestines keep intestinin’, your intercostals keep, uh, intercostallin’. I’m not at all sure on it, but I do believe that the sphincters involved in excretion are smooth muscle and not technically part of the voluntary muscle system, even though we do have some control over it. We just have to learn that control, which is why children (and occasionally adults) will at times wet the bed. Sort of ‘teaching the brain to keep that particular set of smooth muscles closed by default, instead of open”, followed by it not reacting to the cholinesterase.
That is a guess, I’m not a biologist! I do hope someone can correct me, it’s an interesting question!
@Alan Robertshaw
No, no.
But my dog and I are enjoying a nice pot of green tea this morning.
Later we plan to go for a run through local farmlands.
@ kat
Oh that sounds heavenly; enjoy!!!