The Miseducation of Young Men, part two

by Seth Joseph

This is part two of a series about the ways we as a society lie to young men about dating, women, and relationships. Part one can be read on the Honey Badger Brigade blog here, and also where it was originally published here. Now, on to the lies.

“Women Like Sensitive Guys.”

Women can be complicated and emotional. So can men, for that matter, but confusion arises when we start to imagine that male and female emotions, thought processes, and expressions can and should be pretty much the same.

The rise of feminism is largely responsible for some of these ideas, and for the concept that men are just sort of ‘emotionally stunted women.’ Some feminists posit that “toxic masculinity” and other vague, ill-defined social forces push men to be stoic and not to cry. You heard that right: these people actually think than men, in 2016 America, are being socialized to be more masculine, and that this is what is stunting male development. Anyone who has been through the female-centric academic system will know that the exact opposite is true. Masculinity is tempered and watered down by almost every institution in modern, Western life.

But we keep hearing that we should be sensitive, that women love sensitive men, and that it is just some patriarchal conspiracy that makes men prefer sports to the Lifetime Network.

Cognitive dissonance effects both genders, and here is a prime example.

If you listen to a lot of women talk about their ideal mate, they all say the same thing: they want a sensitive guy. But the dirty little secret is that men learn, at a young age (if they are lucky), that showing too much emotion is a huge turnoff to many women. That’s correct, women program men to be less sensitive while telling them to be more sensitive.

And this is how it should be. The human species probably wouldn’t be where it is today if women actually chose to sleep with sensitive guys as a rule rather than an exception. Like with much else, we are putting way too much emphasis on socialization and not really seeing ourselves as we have lived for most of our history. Men have needed to be tough, stoic, to make snap unemotional choices. And women have needed to choose tough, stoic, masculine men for protection in a brutal world. So really, tough men exist because women have been sexually selecting tough men for all of human history.

Try talking out your feelings to a hungry saber toothed tiger. See if a water buffalo will just lay down and offer its meat to you after you discuss your emotions with it for an hour. See how fast crying about an earthquake destroying your village will get you a new warm and dry place to live. Emotion is about survival through relationships, stoicism is about physical survival. This is the symbiotic yin and yang of the human species which helped us stay alive for hundreds of thousands of years.

But women are still telling me they want me to be sensitive? Are they lying?

Lying isn’t the right word. Women are natural diplomats, and very good at saying things subtly in the hopes that you will pick up on what they are really getting at. Other times, they don’t even realize they are confusing men, because female communication often revolves around how she feels at that moment rather than on the blatant reality.

In truth, what women really want is not sensitivity, it is emotional exclusivity. It’s just that saying the word “sensitive” sounds better than “emotionally exclusive.” Women want you to open up not for the sake of you opening up, but for them to be the special person who finally caused you to open up, indicating a very exclusive sort of bond. Male emotion, in that way, is almost a kind of Oath. By being vulnerable, you are committing— the sort of commitment that women are hardwired to want, as it ensures they will be taken care of. This is why when women say they want a sensitive guy, what they are really saying is that they want a bad boy who they, and only they, can pry open. He needs to be iron on the outside and inside, with a soft spot for only her. And even then, sometimes women lose interest after getting what they were chasing all along. Men do the same thing with sex all the time.

See the plot to nearly every romance novel ever written for females if you don’t believe it. Maybe I’ll try my hand at plotting one right now. Hmmm. Let’s see. Oh, I’ve got an idea: Rugged, knock-about bad boy is sooo bad until he meets a unique and special lady, who he then softens for and is tender to. Can I get my check now?

“Women are ‘Better People’ Than You”

In a recent survey by the Pew Research Center, scientists proved what any young man has already subconsciously absorbed: Women are wonderful. Men, on the other hand, are dangerous, creepy, and responsible for most of the world’s ills, modern and historical.

You should, like, totally apologize for having a penis. Don’t walk near women after dark. Stop trying to flirt with women in the coffee shop, pervert. In fact, it would be better if you just didn’t exist.

But facts don’t really support this. Who are we kidding, of course they fucking don’t. Just about any shitty thing than men do can be found in the female population as well. The perception is what is wrong, and the way certain commentary about gendered problems is allowed, while others are silenced. We hear things like “teach men not to rape!” shouted from the rooftops, perfectly socially acceptable. What about teaching women not to murder their children? Nope. You’re a misogynist if you bring that up. Female specific crimes are forbidden topics of conversation, while male specific transgressions are the stuff of college courses, seminars, and social justice dogma.

In fact, men are about the only demographic that we are allowed to group up and condemn for statistical transgressions. Liberals are pretty comfortable throwing out statistics about white males, but that is where they draw the line— at the only group it is socially acceptable to belittle, demean, ridicule and generalize.

And for young men growing up in this environment, the temptation to actually drink the cool-aid and start to believe all this nonsense is hard to overcome. There is so much male guilt out there arising out of absolutely nothing, so much fear of being overt about sexuality, so much pandering and acceptance for anything and everything that women do because, according to what they’ve been told, women can do no wrong.

Women are just people. While there are a myriad of differences between male and female, both physically and mentally, the current moral hierarchy of women good, men bad, is ridiculous and arresting the development of young men all over the West. Dispel the notion whenever you can – it doesn’t make you a misogynist to refute the dogmatic teachings of feminism.

“You Get Out What You Put In.”

Humanity has this hang-up where we absolutely love to believe in just deserts. Where does it come from? I can see wanting things to work out fairly. But expecting it? Believing in it? Telling it to your children for Christ sake? If you’ve been on planet earth for long you know that the notion is precisely contrary to reality. Most of the time, what people “deserve” has nothing to do with outcome.

But we persist. Be good and you’ll go to heaven. Be yourself and meet your soul mate. Study hard and be a success. And on and on ad nauseam. The lies we tell ourselves are like opiates in their own way. They soothe our pain at the expense of clarity.

Which is why young men just getting into the dating market often end up with a brutal reality check. They’ve been told to expect love and affection from women in direct proportion with how much effort, kindness, and support they put into their relationships. These young men soon find that this is a very poor approach to dating life, not only because it is myopic, but because women are all about things “just happening” and resent any other reckoning of romance. Women say they want the organic “connection,” often ill-defined and capricious. But all of this talk about things just happening organically, about finding a connection, about feeling it— they are all just really nice ways women tell you that they want someone hot. Remember that hot means different things to women than it does to men, but it certainly has nothing to do with how nice you are, what a good person you are on the inside, or how much you’ve supported her, or helped her, or loved her etc. Nobody cares. Learn to live in that realization and you’ll do much better. It is almost odd how it works out, but women will actively resent you for thinking that you can put in work, effort, and affection and get love in return. A lot of feminists even consider it misogynistic to think that doing things for and being nice to women should have any expected result whatsoever. “I’m not a machine you can just put your ‘nice’ tokens into and get sex in return!!”

You are supposed to just do, give, support because that is your job as a man, or so the popular thinking goes. You “be a good person” by giving and never insinuating that you deserve a single thing for the sacrifices you make. You need to pretend, at least, that life is not transactional in nature. It is, but don’t ever say it or act it.

The wonder of it all is that women need so many things. She needs support, validation, rides, love, commitment, brunch, and so on and so forth. But if you ever insinuate that you need sex, well. Even just reading it you can tell how off-putting it sounds. But the unspeakable truth is that men actually do need sex. Sex is how men feel wanted and loved and respected. So ask yourself, what are you getting out of all of this chasing around and pedestalization and friendship? If you are putting your time, energy, emotion, and support into a relationship with a woman that you want to sleep with, but who doesn’t want to sleep with you, you are doing life wrong. You are not going to negotiate or barter her attraction. You are not going to get what you deserve. Sex is something we’ve decided to strike from the balance of favors and debts, and its inclusion in such a leger is considered dirty, crass, and sick.

So remove it from your scale as well. Ask yourself, would you show up on Saturday to move her couch if she was just some frumpy dude you had a philosophy class with? If yes, then you have an honest to god Female friend. Congratulations. No, you wouldn’t? Great, now wise up and realize that you aren’t going to get what you deserve from the situation with her, and quickly back away.

Be friends with whoever you want. But don’t be friends with a girl thinking, hoping, and putting work towards a relationship happening and then be surprised when she instead ops to go with some jerk she just met. Because fair has nothing to do with it kid. Stop the train of bitterness before it even has a chance to leave the station and just fucking don’t.

“Her Partner Count Doesn’t Matter!”

Oh my God, what a double standard! Men can sleep with whoever they want and are applauded while women get called a slut for doing the exact same thing!

You’ve heard someone say this kind of thing before yes? You might even believe it yourself. I apologize in advance if I offend you, but you simply need to be offended. The level of stupidity here, the lack of understanding of human nature, the willful blindness to reality is staggering in the above sentiment.

Of course the two things are different. Men and women have vastly different experiences with sex because their relative sexual values are insanely different, polar opposites even. I repeat, it has nothing to do with socialization.

As I explained in Dating for the Human Animal, the physical reproductive realities of the sexes are a black and white dichotomy, and it is this, and not some arbitrary socialized “gender roles,” behind the reasons why humanity places value on female purity, and on male virility.

To use crass phrasing, the world is full of sperm – it is common, it is cheap, and offers for it are basically the equivalent of spam mail. It is not something that has to be worked for. As an attractive woman, you’ll spend most of your life figuratively dodging dubious gifts of it.

On the other hand, the number of fertile eggs in the world at any given time are limited to the number of fertile women in the world. They are rare relative to sperm.

It doesn’t take a genius of economics to realize the supply and demand scales are enormously on the female side in this equation and always have been, which is why female sexuality is valuable just for existing, while male sexuality is basically worthless on an individual level. It is a biological truth at the heart of our “women and children first” mentality.

To simplify, getting laid as a decent looking woman is incredibly easy. Not so for 90% of men.

And so, we think highly of a man who can do the difficult thing and sleep with multiple women. It is a challenge, a competition, and a feat to be able to pull off. A woman sleeping with a bunch of men? It is basically as easy as her just saying “OK.” The equivalent to just waiting for your inbox to fill up with spam. Of course we don’t look at the two things the same.

Now, that doesn’t mean a woman being a slut is in any way morally wrong. Don’t misinterpret me here. Any moral argument, when it comes to female purity, is a ridiculous one. Sex and morality have little to do with one another – the connection is nothing but a vestige of the church’s ancient attempts to control human sexuality.

And yet we must firmly refute the popular feminist advice that men who are looking to get into a relationship should not care at all about a woman’s sexual history.

Fuck that. You absolutely should care. Realize that a woman with a lengthy sexual history is probably not the best long term partner for you. Because one of the most important things a man gets out of his long term relationship is physical fidelity, a woman with a past which has very little fidelity in it should bring out a few red flags, purely in terms of whether you choose to date her or not.

But here is where feminists grow irate, and start yelling about slut shaming.

And just like so many feminist talking points, they purposely skirt the most important nuance of the whole discussion. Yes, it is a dick move to shame or criticize a woman for sleeping around, it does not make her a bad person – but that does not mean you should date her.

Promiscuity is a character trait. People who fucked around an inordinate amount in their past are likely to be tempted to do the same in the future. Just like a failure to pay your bills for three years will wreck your credit for life (you know, because it cast dispersions on your future willingness to pay them), so too does a past of sluttiness cast dispersions on a woman’s potential as a long term, loyal relationship partner.

Stop lying to young men about this. Dating a slut is like loaning money to someone with terrible credit. There may be situations where you do it out of the kindness of your heart, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t still a sucker.

There is still more to come in part three. Until then, check out my book: Dating For the Human Animal on Amazon.