Some men—mostly young men—who have “taken the red pill” and woken up to the “reality” that all women are stupid, lazy, blood-sucking whores have decided that the most logical course of action is to turn the tables on women.
How?
By getting as much as they can out of as many women as possible, while giving as little as possible in return.
And what do they want out of women?
Sex, of course.
The main goal of a Red Pill “pickup artist” (PUA) is to have as much sex as possible with young, pretty women while avoiding any obligations or strings attached. These men have woken up as male animals, whose key drive is to mate with healthy, fertile females of their species and reproduce. Except mostly without any actual reproduction.
Here is my nomination for theme song of the Red Pill PUA community (Warning: contains crude sexual innuendo and imagery):
Bloodhound Gang: “The Bad Touch,” 1999.
Chorus:
You and me, baby, ain’t nothin’ but mammals;
So let’s do it like they do on the Discovery Channel.
“Pickup artists”
As with the first article in this series, “The Red Pill Movement (MRA): Men Waking Up as Victims,” we won’t spend time describing the “pickup artist” movement. You can get the basic idea from Wikipedia’s article on the seduction community. PUAs are also a strong component of The Red Pill subreddit on Reddit.com.
Perhaps the flagship website of the PUA community is Return of Kings. To get a flavor of how PUAs play the “game” of seducing women, see its article, “11 Fundamental Guidelines For Solid Game.”
It’s not as though everything in the article is wrong. “Red Pillers,” as they call themselves, have noticed and paid attention to some biological, evolutionary, and cultural realities about men and women that much of contemporary Western society prefers not to pay attention to.
However, their particular slant on those realities has led to PUAs being called sexist, misogynistic, racist, homophobic, and so on by mainstream and feminist commentators. And there is truth to those charges as well. But there’s no need rehash all of that here. This is a spiritual blog, not a cultural blog.
And looking at it from a spiritual perspective, what strikes me about the PUA community is that its goals are entirely physical, bodily, and animalistic.
Yes, there is a “psychological game” to be played in seducing women. But for a PUA, the purpose of that “inner game” is to get an attractive woman into bed so that he can fully enjoy her female body and have lots of great sex with her. While the above-linked article does make some sensible points and suggestions (while dishing up some serious Red Pill dogma), this is the core of its advice:
Your mind-set should be focused on having fun and having sex. That’s it. I will say it again: having fun and having sex.
Everything else in the article—in fact, in the entire PUA community—revolves around this goal: having fun and having sex.
It’s all about physical pleasure
The goal is definitely not to make any kind of intellectual or emotional connection with women. Consider another article on Return of Kings: “Young Girls Are Better Than Older Women.” Right off the bat it (rather weakly) brushes off the idea an older woman has gained some maturity and conversational ability that might make her more interesting to a real, grown-up man compared to a younger woman.
No, the article assures us, it’s all about the bodies of young girls (yes, “girls” seems to be the preferred term) being “tighter, firmer, and aesthetically more pleasurable to look at.” The author waxes rhapsodic about various female body parts and how much better they are in young girls than in older women. (Oh, and an “older woman” means one who’s heading out of her twenties and into her thirties.)
About as “psychological” as the article gets is to say that young girls have much more “innocence and energy” than older women. And the examples quickly get to—you guessed it!—how much easier it is to get young girls into bed (that’s apparently the “innocence” part) and how much more energy a young girl has for sex, sex, and more sex within hours of getting picked up. In comparison, an older woman might insist on waiting until the third date <gasp!> to have sex.
Another article, “The 15 Magical Years of Womanhood,” provides a detailed, chronological accounting of exactly how and why a woman’s worth is limited to when she is fifteen to thirty years old. The article laments that after those “magical years” a woman’s physical beauty quickly fades, and she becomes as desirable as “a used car with the odometer rolled back.” Her only hope is that she may swindle some “blue-pill beta” man (that’s a terrible insult in the Red Pill community) into a doomed “marriage trap” with her.
Why is a woman’s worth measured by her physical beauty or lack thereof?
In reality, it has nothing to do with the women themselves. It has to do with the fact that these Red Pill PUAs are totally focused on physical things. The worth of a woman is in her physical attractiveness. The pleasure of interacting with a woman is all about getting her into bed so that you can enjoy her body and give her a good poke. Being friends with a woman is strictly for blue-pill losers.
And, the worth of a man is also entirely tied up in his physical health and his sexual prowess. Any man that is not having sex with one beautiful young “girl” after another is a loser.
Because life is all about the physical pleasure of physical sex with beautiful women.
(Which is why, for most of these men, their life of enjoyment ends somewhere in their thirties or forties, when they themselves become “a used car with the odometer rolled back.”)
Human male animals
What, really, is the difference between these human males and the males of any other species?
It is true that physically, we humans “ain’t nothin’ but mammals.”
What distinguishes us from the lower animals is our higher intelligence, both intellectual and emotional. We are able to think and love in ways that lower animals can’t. In particular, we are able to think about God and about spiritual and moral life, and pursue spiritual loves and goals, which no other animal on this earth can do.
And yet, it is precisely the things that distinguish us from the lower animals that PUAs consider worthless when it comes to interactions with women. If you could lobotomize a woman in such a way that she retained her “innocence and energy,” she would be just as good as a woman who has a fully functional brain. Her body would be just as “tight, firm, and aesthetically pleasurable to look at,” and it would be just as fun to have sex with her.
Really, it’s just mating. It’s just “doing it like they do on the Discovery Channel.”
Failed males
Except there’s a crucial difference.
For the mammals “doing it” on the Discovery Channel, there is a purpose to all that sex. It’s how the species reproduces itself. Both the males and the females are passing on their genes while perpetuating the species.
But for a PUA, getting a woman pregnant is a problem. In fact, the whole idea is to have sex with a woman without getting her pregnant, and thus without creating any strings that would attach the “alpha male” to her and her babies, and instantly transform him into a beta loser.
But in nature, real alpha males are alpha in order to make sure that it’s their genes, and not their competitors’ genes, that get passed on to the next generation. From an evolutionary perspective, the strongest males do the most mating in order to maintain and improve the health and fitness of the species.
In nature, being alpha has a purpose not only for the males, but for the females—who also want their genes to survive and thrive through their offspring—and for the species as a whole.
Meanwhile, the ideal PUA would sleep with hundreds of women without getting a single one of them pregnant. This puts the lie to their ubiquitous use of the word “stud” to describe the ideal PUA. A stud is a male animal kept for breeding purposes.
For all of their reliance on evolutionary theory to support the idea that men should be dominant and women should make themselves sexually available to these dominant men, PUAs have missed the whole evolutionary point of sex. In nature sex is all about having babies.
In evolution-driven nature, these PUA “alphas” would be failed males.
Although they claim to be very successful at having lots of sex with lots of women, they almost always fail to get those women pregnant. (Of course, this is possible only because of the recent arrival of effective birth control. But that’s a whole subject unto itself.)
By evolutionary standards it is precisely the “blue-pill betas” that PUAs despise—those men who marry women, father children, and raise them to adulthood—who are the successful males. It is their genes that will be passed on to the next generation and perpetuate the species.
The irony is that from the perspective of nature, biology, and evolution—which supposedly provide them with their intellectual framework—these PUAs do not become alpha and successful as men until they abandon their “seduction community” and do what they’ve been avoiding like the plague and berating other men for doing: settle down with a woman and raise a family.
A man’s evolutionary role
It could be argued that even in nature, if we take birth control out of the equation, an alpha male should still have sex with as many young, healthy, fertile women as possible and father as many babies as possible.
But in reality it doesn’t work that way.
It does a no good for a man to father dozens of babies if they all die in childhood. For him to successfully pass on his genes, his offspring must reach sexual maturity and continue passing those genes on to future generations. And compared to most other species, human babies take a long time to reach sexual maturity.
What this means is that for a human male to be successful from an evolutionary standpoint, he must not just father children, but stick around and make sure they reach adulthood. This forms the evolutionary basis of the human family and tribe.
It’s no accident that humans developed societies in which men and women form strong bonds that last for decades. It’s no accident that there is a tendency toward monogamy among humans. Lifetime pairings are a very successful strategy for raising human infants to adulthood. The man who provides for and protects his wife (or wives) and children will be more successful from an evolutionary standpoint than the man who “pumps and dumps” women—to use Red Pill slang.
Did you know that when new male lions take over a pride of females, they will often kill any cubs fathered by the previous alpha males? They’re interested in perpetuating their own genes, not another male’s genes.
Similarly, among humans, evolution dictates that the most motivated male in providing for and protecting children until they reach adulthood is the children’s own biological father. Impregnating lots of women and abandoning them is not a good evolutionary strategy for human males.
The real point of alpha manhood
So although evolution may have given these so-called “alpha males” in the PUA community their sex drive, these men have robbed that sex drive of its evolutionary meaning and purpose. They have abandoned the natural role of a real alpha male.
A real alpha male doesn’t just “have fun and have sex.” In nature, such a male would be a total failure.
A real alpha male fathers children, and then sticks with them right on through until they reach successful adulthood. And the best way to do that is to form a stable relationship with their mother.
Of course, there is more to human beings than nature, biology, and evolution. Sex and marriage are not only about having children. They also have meaning and purpose on a social and spiritual level. For more about that, we invite you to read the articles linked below.
For the third and final article in this series, see: “The Red Pill Movement (MGTOW): Men Waking Up as Loners.”
For further reading:
- How does Marriage Fit In with a Spiritual Life? Is There Marriage in Heaven?
- What are the Roles of Men and Women toward Each Other and in Society?
- How to Attract the Opposite Sex—and Keep ’Em
- What Do Women Really Want?
- A New Model of Manhood
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Lee Woofenden is an ordained minister, writer, editor, translator, and teacher. He enjoys taking spiritual insights from the Bible and the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg and putting them into plain English as guides for everyday life.
Spiritual Insights for Everyday Life 
Hi Lee
While going through Swedenborg’s writings (I having purchased all of his works on my kindle), I came across his perspective on evolution.
According to it, Man is the goal of evolution. God being the Divine Man is the perfect Man (not male or female but both), though he is not a product of evolution. Therefore some humans are closer to animal homosapiens and some closer to Divine Man. So Swedenborg alludes that some men are indeed primarily driven by carnal animal desires that are observable in the animal kingdom (e.g. like the Lions in the above post). Hence such men are not concerned by the social consequences of rape or promiscuity.
I also read a very interesting part on hereditary. Apparently some of the evil desires of the parent is passed over to the child and is awakened gradually as they come off age. Therefore the demonic desires of a parent affect their children. I would believe that many of those in the PUA community are affected by such demonic inheritances.
I do rememeber that when I was in university, a friend of mine was knee deep into the philosophy of the PUA community. It was only later on that I found out that his father had abandoned him as a baby (his father was a short-term ‘tourist’ on holiday in his mother’s native country). Swedenborg suggests that the internals of the father are passed on to the child whilsts the externals are of the mother.
Not suggesting that all in the PUA community come from such backgrounds but that the PUA community is infested with the demonic in some way or form.
Hi Rohan,
Thanks for your thoughts. Glad to hear you’re digging into some Swedenborg. I would be curious to know which particular books and sections you’ve been reading about evolution and heredity.
About evolution, Darwin didn’t come along until the next century, so Swedenborg did not have the concept of the evolution of the species in his scientific quiver. His belief—common in those pre-Darwin days—was that God created the species directly by spontaneous generation, giving them the ability to reproduce themselves from then on. However, his views on spiritual rebirth as a lifelong process, and of the spiritual development of humanity as happening over periods of ages, made it fairly easy for the more liberal followers of Swedenborg, at least, to adopt biological evolutionary theory as compatible with Swedenborg’s theology.
A couple of points about your comments on evolution and different human beings.
First, it’s important to understand that in terms of evolution, though different races and individuals may be different, no race or individual is inherently less likely to go to heaven than any other. So there is no evolutionary “predestination” of some individuals or races to hell, and others to heaven, even if some individuals, and even some cultural groups, may face more accretion of human evil than others, and therefore may have a harder life individually or as a culture. For more on this, see my article, “Can Gang Members Go to Heaven? (Is Life Fair?)”
Second, in Swedenborg’s view, the differences in the various races, between the genders, and between different individuals is best seen, not from a framework of one being “better” than another, but rather from a framework of strength in diversity. He saw every individual and culture as having a unique, important, and different role in making up the overall community of humanity, which he called the “Universal Human” (“Grand Man,” in the traditional translations of his works). So any use of evolutionary theory to paint one race, gender, group, or individual as “better” than another would not be particularly useful from the standpoint of Swedenborg’s theology. For example, Africans were commonly seen by white Europeans as a race inferior to their own. But Swedenborg considered Africans to have an especially “heavenly” character, and to contribute something to the overall community of heaven that was different, and very valuable, compared to what white Europeans such as himself could contribute to it.
Of course, Swedenborg did have his flaws and prejudices. He was not the ideal modern politically correct theorist transported back into the 18th century. But his theology and his perspective on humanity does provide a solid basis for those today who wish to value the various races, genders, cultures, and so on for their unique contributions to society without attempting to erase all the differences between them. In effect Swedenborg said, with the French, vive la différence!
Hi Rohan,
About heredity, it is likewise important to understand that Swedenborg lived in the century before Mendel came along and laid the foundations for the modern science of genetics. In Swedenborg’s day, inheritance of acquired traits from parents was still a very live theory. And Swedenborg certainly seems to have subscribed to that idea.
However, this was also long before DNA and genes were discovered, so the very idea of “heredity” and how it was transmitted was much more fluid. My general sense is that when Swedenborg speaks of “heredity” it is not exactly “genetics” as we understand it today, but a broader concept of “traits passed down from parents to children.” And that could include much of what we today would call early childhood environment.
I say this as a caution not to make too strong a connection between what we today think of as heredity and genetics, and what Swedenborg meant when he wrote about traits inherited from parents.
Having said that, I certainly do agree with you that many people, including probably many men in the Red Pill PUA community, find themselves where they are because of “heredity” in that broader sense—meaning because of the influence of their parents and family, whether they were physically present or absent. An absent father does have an influence on his biological children by his very absence, but also in other more subtle ways such as his influence, and the influence of the circumstances of the conception, on the child’s mother. So the overall point that acquired psychological traits are passed down from parents to children remains quite valid even if today’s genetic theory rejects the transmission of acquired traits.
What this doesn’t mean is that those men who got the short end of the “hereditary” stick are doomed to the demonic. Rather, it means that they have some serious struggles with a particular type of demonic influence that other men who didn’t “acquire” those particular “hereditary” traits don’t have to deal with so much. We all have our particular struggles. So once again, these hereditary influences don’t mean that any particular person is spiritually, psychologically, or socially doomed. Rather, it means that they have some serious work to do.
My sense is that most of these PUAs are still fairly young: in their twenties or thirties. That is a time of life when most people, including most men, are struggling to overcome any bad start they may have gotten, and to get themselves established as self-responsible and reasonably stable adults. And that’s a tough job.
The twenties and thirties are also a time when the ol’ hormones are still churning pretty strong, so that a man’s brain commonly resides in a part of his anatomy that is at some distance from his cranium. I suspect that when many of these PUAs move on into their forties and fifties, they’ll mature a bit, and start to see things a little differently than when they were young testosterone-driven guys. It’s all part of our process of psychological and spiritual maturation.
Oh boy I’m feeling something. Something really is stirring. It’s similar to anger. But there is some sorrow also. My jaw is shaking and my eyes are a little wet. I had to look it up to make sure. The first hit takes me to a collection of Swedenborg’s writings describing anger and zeal. And the difference is awesome.
Though closely related in outward expression, anger comes from evil and involves a desire to harm and punish, think of revenge. Zeal comes from love and involves a desire to protect and amend, think of justice. I definitely have some growth ahead of me, since I’m still rooting for the angels to go “weapons free” on this issue. Coincidentally that term popped into my head on today of all days, Memorial Day in the U.S.
Thankfully, searching for and understanding what I was feeling has brought a peace over me that 10 minutes ago would have been unfathomable. Thank the Lord. Now I can type.
There is nothing that sets me on fire like innocence in peril. The topic of this article was bad enough. What got me riled up was reading the comments praising the advice at the end of the linked pro-PUA articles. Truly sickening. I keep feeling like I might let out an involuntary primal roar. Akin to a surprise barf when you have the stomach flu.
Hard not to digress into pure anger.
I do not think these PUA’s are men. They are selfish immature bipedal creatures who are trying to prey on innocence as young as 15 years old. And to me this is one of the most wicked things. I can’t consider anything else to be worse right now… other than shifting the victims age to a decade younger, or somehow adding Hitler to the equation.
These creatures do not represent us men. No no no. I knew this phenomenon was bad but didn’t know that they had organized, that there was a population of people that loved this selfishness to the extent that they were teaching it, promoting it, and injecting such narrow mindedness that any attempt to disagree is met with a McCarthyesque bullying aimed at anyone that doesn’t see the light. Yeah, one of the authors of an article closed his comment on a seperate thread by reminding his followers to “be the light.” After reading that – all the angels I like to surround myself with had to take 5. That was Quintus Curtius. What a lovely righteousness he must feel in order to have chosen that name.
I looked up Swedenborg’s conversations with Luther after reading the faith alone article (maybe part 4 or 5?). So it’s on my mind and can’t help but wonder what happens to people being taught bad behaviors.
Luther is quoted as saying in True Christian Religion 796 [4] “…I do not wonder, therefore, that I erred; but I do wonder that the folly of one man should make so many others foolish…” and then in [5] Swedenborg explains (and I’m doing my best to summarize here) that Luther is able to start rejecting his wrong ways because he had charity in his heart at a young age, before he went with faith alone. ES goes on to write about Luther’s followers: “It is different with those who, in their youth, confirm themselves against the spiritual character of charity”
Can you draw a comparison between the rejection of charity above and the fate of those who blindly follow out of selfish desires, especially adopting these evils during their impressionable years?
For those of us who need to take a little breath, and lighten it up, I’ll quote the best thing Obi-wan Kenobi ever said “Who’s the more foolish? The fool or the fool who follows him?”
Regardless of the fate of the fools, reading about zeal definitely helps temper my… temper. As does my trust in the Lord that, once in hell, He will only allow people like that to victimize each other with their little… meatless… wieners…
-Adam
Hi Adam,
Thanks for your thoughts.
When I first decided to write an article on the Red Pill movement (originally it was going to be only one), I planned to be much harsher on it. I amused myself by making up satirical alternative wordings for the acronyms of the different segments of the Red pill movement. But as I let things percolate in my mind, I had to remind myself that “Red Pillers are people, too.” So I took the more measured approach that you see in the articles. Many of these men have suffered hard things. A blanket condemnation does no good.
Of the three main segments of the Red Pill Movement (MRA, PUA, & MGTOW), I do find the PUAs most distasteful. But most of them, I think, are just young, testosterone-driven men who are still idiots, just as I was an idiot when I was that age. (I’m not saying I’m not still an idiot, but I think I’m a slightly less idiotic idiot now that I’m in my mid-fifties.) I think most of these PUAs will eventually grow out of it when their testosterone levels decline a bit and their brain begins its scheduled migration to its proper place in their anatomy.
Another way of saying this, as I said in the previous article, is that we all start out stupid and selfish, and our job here on earth is to grow out of it. Some of us take longer to do that than others. If a man is fifty or sixty and still thinks like these “seduction community” guys, he’s seriously slow in the growing up department. Really, young men still stuck in that mindset should start growing out of it some time in their thirties, or in their early forties at the latest. (We do have a rather slowed-down growing-up process in today’s Western society.)
As long as we’re still here on earth, we are still in process. Though these PUA guys are currently mired in some seriously warped animalistic muck, the end of their stories hasn’t yet been written.
This is an indirect way of answering your question (if it wasn’t meant just to be rhetorical) about what will happen to those who are taught bad behaviors in their young and impressionable years. That certainly does to a lot of damage to a person’s life. But it is not irreparable, nor is it an eternal death sentence. God keeps working on every one of us throughout our lifetime, seeking to bring some good even out of the evil events and circumstances of our lives.
The acid test is what these men actually do with their lives in the long run. Do they devote themselves to some sort of work that provides some benefit to their fellow human beings? If so, there is a platform for spiritual reform and rebirth even if their heads are filled with hateful and fallacious ideas about women and about contemporary society. “You will know them by their fruits” (Matthew 7:20).
Further, the men’s rights movement is not entirely without merit. Along with their rather extreme and inflexible dogmas about women and feminism, they are also tackling some real social wrongs and injustices that should be righted. If they can, over time, leave behind the bitterness and think more about the welfare of the human community as a whole, both men and women, while they pursue justice in their particular causes, then the movement can still make a positive contribution to society in the long run. Whether or not it does is in its members’ own hands.
This was a great response and a great article, Lee.
Ironically, many of the men who started the PUA community find themselves struggling to have meaningful relationships later in life. They realize that getting a girl into bed is one thing, but ultimately, it doesn’t lead to full relationship satisfaction after repeatedly over-dosing on the sexual drug.
As you mentioned, some mature, find their way out of this, and actually develop something meaningful. It is very true, that in today’s world of dating, we need to be able to successfully attract our mate; however, we must use that attraction to develop something meaningful that embodies love and respect rather than simply objectifying the opposite sex.
The sad thing is that when both boys and girls are inundated with the PUA mindset, it takes them a lot longer to correct the errors, and unfortunately, some never do.
Rex
Hi Rex,
There certainly is a dearth of good teaching and knowledge about healthful romantic and sexual relationships.
Yes, the public schools have sex education classes, but these focus mostly on the physical and biological aspects, and provide little or nothing about the psychological and emotional aspects. And of course, including anything about any spiritual aspects of marriage is strictly verboten. Meanwhile, religious schools tend to have very conservative and outdated views of sex and marriage, making their classes not very helpful to their students either. Parents may or may not be helpful to their children and teens in this regard, since sadly, parents often don’t have a good grasp on what love and marriage are all about either.
The result is that teens and young adults generally learn by trial-and-error. With an emphasis on error. It really is a shame.
When I was the teen religion class teacher at our Swedenborgian summer camp in Maine, I made sure to do a week-long class on sex and marriage every few years, to make sure each group of teens who were regulars at the camp got it at least once on their way through. I don’t know how much good it did, but at least these teens got something about sex and marriage from an adult, spiritual point of view. I like to think it made some difference in their lives and relationships.
That’s because many who got into in the PUA community did to get girlfriends. There is a mismatch for what the men want and what PUA, seduction community, or whatever you want to call it teaches.
Hi Pale,
Thanks for stopping by, and for your comment. I think you’re probably right.
Rather ironic isn’t it? Today, there are many young females of the species who behave the same as these men (you discuss above) behave. The whole “hook-up” culture is made up of such young adult males and females. Perhaps, that is one of the bitter fruits of feminism – that it has encouraged women to adopt some of the worst traits of men.
Hi larryzb,
As I said in the first article in the series, women can be just as bad as men.
There’s a mythical idea that’s been around since long before the feminist movement that women are somehow morally and spiritually superior to men: more innocent, less tainted, and much more likely to make it through those Pearly Gates.
But that’s a myth.
We’re all human beings, both women and men. We’re all subject to corruption. The fact that women’s corruption in general tends to be different than men’s corruption doesn’t change the fact that both women and men start out in life self-absorbed and thinking that the world revolves around themselves. This may manifest itself as major pride and ego, including the idealistic notion that if the world just worked the way I think it should, all our problems would go away. Or it may manifest itself as a feeling that the world is there to serve my needs, or even as a feeling that the entire world is conspiring against me. Whichever way it shows itself, the common thread is thinking I am in some way the center of the universe.
That’s something we have to grow out of. And it isn’t easy to grow out of it. And, unlike growing up physically, growing up emotionally and spiritually requires us to make a conscious choice to grow out of it.
The simple fact of the matter is that young men and young women are psychologically immature. And for many of them, as covered in the above article with regard to men, this means behaving more or less like animals with a veneer of higher human virtues laminated onto the surface to cover over the poor quality of the wood underneath.
And women are generally better at hiding their inherent character flaws than men. Men’s flaws tend to be overt and easily seen, whereas women’s tend to be more subtle and harder to discern. And yet, both can be devastating.
Men tend to fight “clean” (but will break that code if it serves their purposes), while women tend to fight “dirty.” This can be seen from an early age in schoolyard fights, where boys will almost always stick to the code of fists only and only above the belt, whereas girls will kick, bite, scratch, pull hair, go for the groin, and use every other weapon and means at their disposal to hurt and incapacitate their opponent. When a woman’s claws come out—physically or psychologically—you do not want to be on the receiving end.
So yes, women can be just as animalistic and just as morally corrupt as men. The fact that they tend to express their spiritually immature and even evil character in a different way than men does not change that fact.
Hi larryzb,
About feminism, I agree that there have been some negative effects, such as condoning casual and promiscuous sex. However, I suspect that most of these “evils” are more in the nature of letting out something that was formerly suppressed rather than actually creating an evil thing. People throughout history would have engaged in casual and promiscuous sex if there hadn’t been harsh legal and social penalties for doing so. And many did so anyway, attempting to fly under the radar.
What’s happening today, I believe, is that legal and social strictures against many old human evils are being relaxed so that we can see what’s actually there.
And that’s both good and bad.
It’s bad, of course, because it leads to social chaos, in which norms of behavior that had formerly kept society on track break down, and people don’t know how to behave. And of course, many people get hurt in the process.
But it’s good because when evils are suppressed, it’s hard to see them and deal with them at their root. Having a heavy and harsh code of laws does impose social discipline on people, but it’s largely external. Internally, the people who live under those harsh laws are rarely transformed from the inside out because their internal evils are never allowed to surface.
When the legal and social suppression is relaxed, those inner evils come out and show themselves. And at that point we can face and deal with their inner causes rather than just desperately keeping the lid on Pandora’s Box while those evils writhe away within.
My belief is that the reason the heavy laws that formerly imposed an external appearance of humanity and civility are now being relaxed is that we have entered a new era of human spiritual development in which we are ready to face and overcome many of the deeper evils of the human heart, mind, and spirit. And for us to face and overcome them, we must first see them.
So although it is uncomfortable to live in a time of relaxed laws and standards, and there is much social chaos as a result of it, I still believe that it is a good and necessary part of our spiritual journey as a race. And that would be a fine topic for a whole new article!
Back to feminism, though I don’t agree with all of its tenets, I do believe that both women and men should be free to live as they wish, as long as what they wish is not to harm and destroy their fellow human beings. I do not believe there should be laws and social strictures preventing women (or men) from doing certain jobs, wearing certain clothes, and behaving in certain (non-aggressive, non-destructive) ways. These things should be a personal choice, not something society imposes.
However, unlike some parts of the feminist movement, I believe that the long-term result of this personal and social freedom for both men and women will be to bring into greater light the real differences between men and women—not just physical, but psychological and spiritual as well—and lead toward a society where those differences can fully express themselves in a way that makes us stronger rather than weaker.
One of the biggest differences is that men and women will be different, not because society says they must be, but simply because they are different, and they are acting freely from their real differences.
So although, once again, there is a great deal of chaos due to the changes brought about by the feminist movement, I continue to believe that when the dust settles, feminism will have brought about major positive effects on society, even if those effects aren’t all exactly what some elements of the feminist movement intended.
And no, I don’t think this means that men and women will all just revert back to their traditional gender roles. That would be a real waste of a whole era of social change and chaos!
Lee,
I cannot say that I share your optimism here.
“So although, once again, there is a great deal of chaos due to the changes brought about by the feminist movement, I continue to believe that when the dust settles, feminism will have brought about major positive effects on society, even if those effects aren’t all exactly what some elements of the feminist movement intended.”
Thus, things will get worse before they get better, that is if things do eventually get better. Let’s not gloss over the fact that man has a fallen or flawed nature. Revolution is costly and does not always bring about improvements to society (just look at the hellish 20th century).
What we need to focus on is what is both moral and what works. Single parent households without both parents in the home have not worked out very well. Out of wedlock births have condemned children to poverty as well. Tens of millions of abortions in the US – how do you or I or anyone else calculate that human toll? Lee, let’s not deceive ourselves here. Humans have a great ability for doing harm to themselves and to others. We ought tread carefully here and be sure we work to counter destructive behaviors and moral outrages around us today.
Hi larryzb,
Don’t get me wrong. There are still great evils in human life and society, and they’re not going to be overcome easily. What’s different now is that for many of them, we’re beginning to see them and their effects clearly for the first time as they break out into society and we reap their bitter fruit.
It is, I believe, the fact that human evil and dysfunction is destructive in its effects that will finally cause us to clearly identify them as evils, and do the hard and painful work of rooting them out.
Second wave feminism didn’t start the sexual revolution. It started in the 40’s. If you look at the divorces it was rising and the number of single mothers. People were simply not honest about it because it was a shameful. So much for social engineering it already began before the 1960’s but we have conspiracy nut jobs who claim the elites engineering people do to certain things.
Hi mikekto,
Yes, the cultural revolution of the 60s was simply the surfacing of forces and changes that had been in play under the surface for several decades, if not several centuries. Sooner or later, hidden trends and movements come to the surface where we can see them. It’s like traveling through a long tunnel and then suddenly coming out the other end.
And yeah, conspiracy nut jobs are gonna be . . . nuts. 😛 I don’t think the elites are smart enough to figure all these things out and orchestrate them. Mostly, they’re just out for money and power. And when people are motivated primarily by money and power, bad things happen systemically even if that wasn’t what the rich and powerful elites intended.
The hookup culture with women is due to single mothers raising them. It’s been proven single moms was likely to raise daughters that will be sexually promiscuous.
http://www.doctorwendyoconnor.com/the-impact-of-sexually-promiscuous-mothers/
Hi mikekto,
Thanks for the link. However, the title of the article is, “The Impact of Sexually Promiscuous Mothers,” not “The Impact of Single Mothers.” If a mother is single, but not sexually promiscuous, she is not modeling sexually promiscuous behavior to her daughters. It’s when single mothers are sleeping with one man after another that they model that to their daughters.
The linked article beats around the bush and avoids saying straight out what needs to be said.
Here’s what needs to be said:
If a single mother wants not to model sexual promiscuity to her daughter, she shouldn’t have sex with one man after another. And she certainly shouldn’t bring one man after another home to her bed. Whatever her daughter sees her doing, that’s what her daughter is going to think of as normal. Modeling good behavior for her daughter means either remaining single or finding a good man, sticking with him, and ideally marrying him.
Going out on dates with different men looking for the right one isn’t the issue. Almost every person, teenage or adult, who is single but wants to be in a relationship does that. But if “dating” means “sleeping with,” that’s what’s going to be modeled—like it or not. You can’t behave one way and tell your children to behave a different way. If a mother (or father) sleeps around, s/he can’t turn around and tell the kids not to.
One of the most disgusting examples of the entire Red Pill PUA community in WordPress is the blog from Artisanal Toad
I had a run in with him and I tried to correct his blatant mishandling of scripture, especially Genesis 3:16, but to no avail….they are blind, sick and disgusting men who will label me and this blog from Lee as weak beta males, but the truth of the matter is, it is him and all his deluded followers who are the fools
I find your balanced approach more in line with scripture, Lee
Hi kratos75,
Thanks for stopping by, and for your comment. I won’t get into the middle of your conflict with Artisanal Toad, whom I know nothing about. But it is very true that like true believers in any movement, men in the Red Pill movement can be highly dogmatic and highly insulting to anyone who doesn’t accept their particular dogma.
Beyond having clear principles to think and live by, the key to dealing with their slings and arrows is to realize that it doesn’t matter what they think of you. Their attacks and insults are most likely more about them than they are about you. They have to uphold a particular view of everyone who doesn’t agree with them, not from moral strength or spiritual breadth of understanding, but in order to maintain their own sense of self and integrity—which, underneath it all, tends to be quite shaky. That’s why they’re in a radical, dogmatic movement in the first place.
So yes, I’m well aware of what they’ll say about me and my blog. I’ve already summarily deleted comments from a Red Pill man on one of my earlier articles as he spewed the standard Red Pill insults at me for not agreeing with standard Red Pill dogma. It was actually very funny how he managed to pack just about every insult in the Red Pill vocabulary into a single sentence. Turn the crank, and out it comes!
If you’re going to say anything important at all, people are going to attack and insult you. But if you’re confident in your knowledge, beliefs, and principles, you can let it roll off your back. Sure, it’s unpleasant. But it’s their unpleasantness, not yours.
Meanwhile, I’m glad you’re enjoying the more balanced approach that we take here on this blog.
Hey thanks for your understanding
I related so much to what you are saying about Red Pill men and how nasty they can get if you disagree with them
I look forward to more of your comments in your blog here
This PUA philosophy seems demonic, selfish and spiritually self destructive. that type of lifestyle can’t be good for the long term health of there souls, and bodies (with the risk of contracting STD’s.) we should pray for these men and woman that live this lifestyle.
Hi Foster,
Agreed. The hope is that most of them will grow out of it. It’s a dead-end philosophy that can’t last more than a decade or two at most in the life of a man. And then what?
The whole red pill culture disgusts me, but I find the pick-up artists, on account of the undertones of pedophilia and date rape, to be perhaps the most revolting faction, though the bitter hatred towards women demonstrated by the incels, which has occasionally boiled over in the form of mass murders as in the case of Elliott Rodger, makes that segment a close contender for that dubious distinction.
Hi Griffin,
Yes, it’s a very toxic segment of humanity. I have some sympathy for the MRAs and MGTOW. Many of them have gotten burned by gold-digging women (though some are just complainers). However, the PUA are just animals in human bodies.
Pastor, good insightful articles. I am 61, single, and a man of faith. I’ve experienced hateful and seething animus from the mostly nihilistic and atheistic MGTOW/Red Pill/PUA/Manosphere/Return of Kings ilk, simply for being an older man, and a man of faith. Often, young disengaged men, worshipping at the altar of these Red Pill gurus, loudly vocalizing a narrative of victimization and lack of accountability for making bad life decisions. It’s frequently the older men’s fault that there’s misery and dissatisfaction in their lives.
Hi Tubal Cain,
Thanks for stopping by, and for your comment.
It’s good to keep in mind that most of these “Red Pill” types are young men. They do not have so much experience in life, and they are often not very self-reflective. If there are problems, it must be somebody else’s fault, because it certainly couldn’t be because of my character, choices, or actions. Besides, it’s so much easier to blame other people for our problems. Taking personal responsibility for them requires distasteful work.
One hopes that as more years pass and these men gain more perspective on life, they’ll come to a more balanced and realistic perspective.
Really well written article, thanks. I disagree with just one point: you say the biological father is the most motivated male to help parent the young.
I’ve almost finished a book on pre-patriarchal societies, which are the oldest societies and are very similar across Eurasia, Africa, and the Americas: the central role played by the mother’s brother. These were of course matrilineal so kinship was reckoned from mother to daughter, and paternity was not a thing. Because of course, a man can never be totally certain he is the father. So the uncle was the main man in the lives of kids. Anthropology referred to this as “the avunculate” — it was all about the maternal uncle. These were the men, for at least 100,000 years of human evolution, most motivated to raise children. Because they were definitely related to them.
In matrilineal societies, most of the psychobiology narrative we take for granted did not apply.Women were not looking for mates to protect or hunt for them; men, and women too, hunted for the whole clan, and men as whole protected women and children (from predators, since back then human males were not yet predatory). The whole clan was fed. Women played a huge role in leadership. No one needed a mate in order to eat. Children always had a home with their grandmother’s clan — not dependent on whether their parents still had sex or got along. Without the burden to track paternity, no need for sex-shaming or body-shaming, hence, freedom of the psychopathology of demonizing our natural urges. Promiscuity and group sex was the norm. Good times. Fatherhood is a recent invention, that brings with it war, oppression, and psychopathology. Of course, nowadays it’s far better to be a good father than not to be. But in our evolutionary environment, uncles were the thing.
Hi Me,
Thanks for stopping by, and for sharing your thoughts. Glad you enjoyed the article. If this is a book you’re reading, and not one you’re writing, please post the title and author. I would be interested to get a copy.
For several decades now the academic and social pendulum in the West have been swinging heavily away from men and fathers, and toward women and mothers. This was probably inevitable, given how far it had swung the other way for the last several thousand years.
However, in my view, neither patriarchy nor matriarchy is the ideal state of human society. Rather, I believe God originally intended men and women to relate to one another on an equal basis, neither ruling over the other. See:
Man, Woman, and the Two Creation Stories of Genesis
What Do Women Really Want?
If there are or have been any matriarchal societies anywhere in the world, I wouldn’t necessarily consider that an ideal to strive for.
As for patriarchal societies, and fatherhood, I would suggest that the causation is the reverse of what is commonly stated today. Rather than war, oppression, and so on being caused by patriarchy, I would say that these and other diseases of the mind are the cause of patriarchy. Once people’s minds become acquisitive and violent, men will take over, if only due to the simple fact that men are physically bigger and stronger than women. (And no, women aren’t just innocent bystanders. Women are full-fledged human beings, who have just as much capacity for both good and evil as men do.)
In short, patriarchy didn’t cause evil; evil caused patriarchy.
If early humans were more tribal and less individualistic, much of what you say about their social organization may be true. But I suspect that fathers still played a role even back then. Our early ancestors were not blind. They would be able to see resemblances in children, and identify likely fathers even if, as you say, promiscuity was the norm. (Do you really mean group sex–i.e., sexual encounters involving more than two people at one time? I doubt that was a thing back then.)
Still, it’s a good point that child-raising among early humans was more of a communal thing. Even today, in societies where tribal groups still exist, such as Africa where I now live, there is more of a sense of community child-raising than in the West, especially in the rural areas that are still heavily tribal.
And yet, our earliest ways as we rose up from being animals to being humans do not necessarily represent the best state of humanity. In the animal kingdom there are all sorts of arrangements, some of which involve packs or “tribes,” and some of which are more individualistic. Some are quite brutal, such as female spiders eating the male after they mate. I would not take as an ideal the state of early humans who, in evolutionary history, were halfway between an animal state and a human state.
Specifically, I believe that a healthy monogamy is a far higher and more spiritual state for humans to live in than earlier polygamy and polyamory. Yes, those early humans seem to have had some rudimentary sense of an afterlife, as shown by the discovery of burial sites going back, so far, about 78,000 years. But if I had to choose to live as an early human or as a modern human, I would choose today’s human society hands down. Despite all of its flaws, and its evident need for improvement, today’s humans are in a far higher mental and spiritual state than early humans of the era that you are referring to.
Thanks again for your thoughtful comment. I would be happy to continue the conversation if you wish.
Thank YOU so much for your thoughtful reply! It’s a book I’m writing, almost finished, taking into account linguistics, archaeology, anthropology, genetics, and more.
There is no hard evidence that there has ever been a matriarchy, as defined by a society where women dominate men the way that men have dominated women in patriarchy. Perhaps Minoan Crete was a matriarchy, based solely on their images that depict women in fancy dresses and men naked in worshipful poses. But there is no evidence for violent oppression. The evidence is for a partnership civilization through the Neolithic where men and women were equal. Also for equality in the paleolithic hunter gatherer societies.
We are told the lie that “primitive” cultures were nasty and brutish. This is corrected by the evidence. Neolithic cultures were extremely advanced in their metallurgy, construction, and craft, and ritual. Hunter gatherer cultures also had advanced spiritual cultures. They were not half animals, but fully human. Also Neanderthals were very advanced humans. There is much evidence for high technology that we can’t duplicate today.
It is for sure that group sex took place. This was witnessed by ancient Greek historians in the areas that surrounded them, such as Strabo. It was witnessed in Tahiti a few centuries ago by French travelers, as the Pacific cultures remained untouched into the modern age. We cannot place our own patriarchal value systems on this. Our value of monogamy is all about paternity. There is nothing inherently better about it. Perhaps they commented upon resemblances, but it was of no importance. As Native Americans told white settlers, they regarded all the clan’s children as their children. This was much healthier as there was no psychopathology in these cultures.
You are right, patriarchy is the result not the cause. It’s nobody’s fault. It was caused by trauma: ancient climate change, the desertification that occured very rapidly 5 millennia ago, from North Africa through the Middle east and central Asia. It’s maintained by both men and women and causes great harm to both. It’s linked to limited resources. Now, with our access to resources, we have the choice to heal from it.
Hi Me,
Let me know when your book is published, and I’ll be your first customer.
I have heard the same about the likely lack of matriarchal societies. In general, women seem less interested in competition and more interested in cooperation—which means also less interested in being dominant and more interested in being equal. Still, I think you are probably right that in the earliest eras of humanity in which we could be considered humans rather than animals, there was a general equality between men and women.
As for group sex in cultures in the past few millennia, I don’t doubt that. But I also don’t necessarily accept the idea that those cultures are representative of the earliest human cultures. I would presume that those cultures also went through changes over the tens of thousands of years they existed. Humanity as a whole, I believe, has gone through various ages or eras, and this has been a global phenomenon, even if not all cultures have followed the same path, or followed it at the same pace.
On that subject, I would be curious to hear your take on this book:
The Five Ages: Swedenborg’s View of Spiritual History, by P.L. Johnson (the link is to its Kindle edition on Amazon)
This is an attempt by a British Swedenborgian to link Swedenborg’s schema of five ages of human spiritual history with our current knowledge of the earthly pre-history and history of humanity. I do not have enough knowledge of early humans to have a clear idea of how well-founded it is.
About monogamy, though it has certainly gotten corrupted, I view monogamy itself primarily through a spiritual lens.
It is true that from an earth-bound, material and biological perspective, monogamy, and also polygamy (one man, multiple wives) have historically been all about paternity, and inheritance. But that is a low-level form of marriage—one that isn’t even marriage from a spiritual perspective. That sort of external legal and social marriage is about biology and property, which have nothing to do with the inner relationship of marriage.
From my perspective (and my church’s perspective), real marriage is first and foremost a union of minds between two people who have common loves, values, goals, and so on. Such people may or may not be married in an earthly, legal sense. Their legal, property, and inheritance status has nothing to do with the actual marriage, which is an inner, psychological and spiritual connection and union between them.
In other words, I see spiritual marriage as real marriage, whereas legal and social marriage are matters of earthly issues and customs. And I believe that the deepest inner spiritual connection can exist only between two people—i.e., only in a monogamous relationship. This, and not any matters of paternity, inheritance, and so on, is why I believe that monogamy is a higher state for human beings than polygamy and polyamory. Unfortunately, that sort of marriage has been rare to non-existent in recorded human history. It is only now beginning to re-emerge into the world.
Some of these ideas are covered in my three-part series on Jesus’ words about marriage in the resurrection, which starts with this article:
Didn’t Jesus Say There’s No Marriage in Heaven?
Circling back to ancient humans, I do think there was an earlier, more spiritual time for humans, known to mythology as the Golden Age. Even apart from my particular religious beliefs, there certainly does seem to be a great body of wisdom that has come down from ancient times in many cultures all around the world. However, I don’t have a clear sense of exactly when that Golden Age took place, and what it looked like outwardly. The booklet by P.L. Johnson is one attempt by a person of my faith to address that question.
Thanks for the dialog! And for your interest in my book!
As a side point, what makes us human? I think that making art ,clothing, jewelry, and burying the dead all qualify. And we’ve been doing that for at least 120,000 years. They used red ochre in burials to signify menstrual blood, the most holy substance on earth for all that time until patriarchy. For this long era, there were no gods. Naturally, since females create life, the divine was female.
Marriage, monogamy, and patriarchal churches, are recent phenomenons in the human story that have nothing to do with our true nature. The evidence clearly shows that promiscuity for females shaped our evolution (and was therefore a characteristic of early cultures), because of sperm competition. The male genitals of our species are evolved to scoop semen from the female, and humans have far far more sperm (and “killer” sperm” designed to destroy rival sperm) than do polygamous species like gorillas (tiny genitals) or serially monogamous ones like gibbons. Clearly our female ancestors had many partners in the course of one menstrual cycle like our bonobo cousins (who are the only other mammals with concealed estrus, a very significant trait).
I think it’s a beautiful idea the spiritual marriage, and I salute you for choosing it. Of course lifelong monogamy has health consequences, since very few couples can maintain vital attraction beyond 5 years, and that is what keeps us healthy and vital. But still it’s a beautiful idea esp. if freely chosen and not compelled by an institution, and I’m all for it!
Indian texts talk a lot about the yugas, or ages, the Satya yuga being the golden age, and what that looked like. We were far more long lived (Bible talks about this too) and did not need to eat to survive.
Hi me,
What is “our true nature”? Is it what we were a hundred thousand years ago? Is it what we are now? Is it what we were a million or a billion years ago? Picking some time in our earlier history and saying that this is “our true nature” is an arbitrary assignment. It doesn’t account for the reality that humans are evolving creatures. We aren’t the same as we were even a hundred years ago, let alone a thousand, ten thousand, or a hundred thousand years ago.
From my perspective, though there has certainly been a devolution of humanity in the past ten thousand years or so, over long time-scales humanity is getting better, and reaching higher, than we did in the past. Even if we were promiscuous in the past, that doesn’t necessarily mean it was better. On the contrary, I believe that our long journey toward monogamy is been part of an overall elevation of humanity.
What makes us human? I would say that art, clothing, jewelry, and burial of our dead are only outward expressions of what truly distinguishes us from animals. They are what we do based on our humanity.
What makes us human, and not mere animals, I believe, is our higher faculties of our mind and heart. Yes, we can think rationally, which animals can do in only rudimentary fashion, if at all. But more than that, we can be aware of the spiritual realms of reality, and of God, which no animal can do. And we can set as the centerpiece and motivation of our life love for God and love for our fellow human beings, and for the “other” generally, including the animal and plant kingdoms and the earth itself. This is also something animals cannot do. Animals are fundamentally motivated by issues of their own survival and reproduction, even if this may be pack or species survival rather than individual survival.
As for monogamy having negative health consequences, that is true only for mismatched or low-level, external marriages. Mismatched marriages obviously have mental health consequences, and that tends to lead to physical health consequences as well. Low-level, external marriages are not much different from animal matings, driven by biology rather than by an inner spiritual connection. Under these circumstances, our natural—meaning earthly and biological—promiscuity tends to assert itself, the couple will get bored having sex only with their marital partner, and the relationship will grow cold.
Not so in spiritual marriages. In such marriages, the oneness of physical sex is a seamless expression of the oneness of spirit, mind, and heart between two people. The very thought of having sex with anyone else leaves such couples cold to the bone. However, although there are of course ebbs and flows, the warmth for each other does not wane over the years because their physical affection and intimacy with one another is an expression of an inner relationship that continues to grow closer and stronger year after year.
These two types of marriage are utterly different from one another, even if they may look the same externally. But one will last—to eternity, I believe—whereas the other will not.
I’ll be curious to take a look at Swedenborg’s treatment of the yugas. Obviously western thinkers are babies on prehistorical topics compared to older cultures such as the Vedic, but is interesting to compare.
Hi me,
The book on the Five Ages that I linked for you is probably the most accessible presentation on Swedenborg’s view of the five “churches,” or spiritual ages, of humankind. This material is scattered throughout Swedenborg’s voluminous writings. That book brings together many of the key quotes, and adds some commentary of the author’s own.
Hi Lee, I just happen to stumble upon this red pill thing, I was curious if the “red pill movement” is any where near the same context of what this pastor is mentioning here – I just thought it was odd to see anything with “red pill” next to a pastors video. Thanks
Hi Ben,
Thanks for stopping by, and for your comment and the video link. What the pastor in the video is saying doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the “red pill movement” my article above is talking about. Unfortunately, a certain segment of men’s rights activists and associated groups have taken over the “red pill” theme from the Matrix movies and pressed it into service for their own purposes. Now this has become the most common association of “the red pill” in the culture.
The Matrix movies themselves don’t tie the red pill to men’s issues. This pastor seems to be using it in the broader sense of waking up from being lulled to sleep by modern technology and culture and thereby missing the greater human realities of life.
Hi Lee, I am curious if my previous post got through with the video? thanks.
Hi Ben,
It got tagged as spam by the system. I’ve restored it now.