In contrast to the “pickup artists” (PUA), some men have “taken the red pill” when their relationships with women went sour and have chosen what would traditionally be called the bachelor route.
The MGTOW symbol
These are the MGTOW (pronounced MIG-tau): “Men Going Their Own Way.” The singular is MGHOW: “Man Going His Own Way.”
If you spend any time reading MGTOW websites and forums, you’ll find them populated largely by men who have had hellaciously bad experiences in their relationships with women, and who have decided to opt out. Some continue to have one-night stands with women or use the services of prostitutes in order to satisfy their sex drive. Others “go monk” and become celibate. In this community, men actually brag about being virgins.
Needless to say, PUAs despise MGTOW as Dorito-munching, mother’s-basement-dwelling losers who are sad and lonely because they could never get a girl. And MGTOW despise PUAs as preening, hormone-driven pretty boys whose whole life revolves around the women they despise.
And MGTOW as a group do despise women.
These Red Pill men have woken up, not so much as losers, but as loners.
Most of them had their brush with women, got burned—sometimes quite badly—and decided that it’s better not to play with fire.
And if a man wants to be single, that’s certainly his choice. There have been single men throughout the ages. Some of them have done great things.
The problem is not so much in their deciding to become single, but in their intense disdain for and even hatred of women, and in their blaming women for all of their problems as men.
MGTOW
Once more, as with the first article in this series, “The Red Pill Movement (MRA): Men Waking Up as Victims,” and the second, “The Red Pill Movement (PUA): Men Waking Up as Animals,” we won’t spend time describing the MGTOW community. You can get the basic idea from Wikipedia’s MGTOW article.
The MGTOW movement has also gone through some changes over the years since it first identified itself in the early 2000s. For the “old school” view, see the blog “NO MA’AM” (now apparently inactive) and the original “MGTOW Manifesto”—which lacks the later hostility against women and the “marriage strike” that characterizes much of the MGTOW community today. Today’s MGTOW community is represented in the blog and forums at MGTOW.com and in the MGTOW subreddit at Reddit.com.
For men in the MGTOW community, these websites are breezy island havens from a hostile, gynocentric, man-hating world. For people not in the MGTOW community, they commonly look more like festering swamps of misogynistic bigotry.
AWALT?
In fact, one of the core dogmas of the Red Pill movement generally, and MGTOW specifically, is represented by the acronym “AWALT.” Here’s how it is defined at the RationalWiki’s slightly satirical “Manosphere glossary” (which is worth reading for its entertainment value alone):
All women are like that
Abbreviation: AWALT
In direct opposition to not all women are like that, the assertion that all women are like that means that females are hard-wired to respond to certain situations in a certain way; and that, more specifically, if given the opportunity, they will tend to behave as manipulative, abusive, sociopathic, destructive, drama-oriented liars. To the extent that women differ from one another, it is in how and to what extent (rather than whether) they manifest these traits when they are allowed to do so.
If you go into a MGTOW forum and say, “Not all women are like that!” (which has its own acronym: NAWALT), you will quickly be shouted down as an infidel and a heretic. AWALT is ex cathedra. It’s an established article of faith. You’re not allowed to question it.
And the MGTOW sites and forums are full of fervent testimonials to AWALT.
See, for example, the article “Comments from Married Men” at MGTOW.com. It extracts comments from one of its forums on that subject, arranging them in nine sections that have no immediately discernible thematic organization. But the overall theme and message is crystal clear: DON’T BE AN IDIOT LOSER AND GET MARRIED! You’ll regret it every single day for the rest of your life!!!
You’ll regret it because the very second you slip the wedding ring onto her finger, your fun, intelligent, gorgeous, sex-loving soulmate will instantly transform into a fat, lazy, whining, nagging bitch who will never have sex with you again. The day after the wedding she will quit her job and flop down on the couch in front of the TV with a Dove Bar in each fist while simultaneously spending all of your money on plastic crap at Walmart and threatening to clean you out of everything you own if you don’t work 80 hours a week to feed her insatiable desire for clothing, shoes, jewelry, and a much bigger house than this hovel we live in.
Read ’em and weep!
Of course, it’s a self-selecting group. Men in happy marriages don’t go to MGTOW forums on the Internet and recount in lurid detail exactly how execrably atrocious their wife or ex-wife is.
But for those men who do have the misfortune of marrying a captivating young beauty who in the harsh light of the morning turns out to be a lazy, gold-digging harpy, the experience can be so traumatizing that when they see or think “woman,” that image of woman completely fills their field of vision. Nothing else exists.
And so they console one another: “AWALT, man!”
The fully realized MGHOW
Here is the abridged testimonial of a successful MGHOW from the above-linked article:
Thanks to going to bed at 5:30AM after a relaxing night of surfing the internet and watching porn, I slept in a little bit late this morning. It was actually the afternoon – 12:25PM to be exact – when I finally sat up in bed, yawning and scratching my big bachelor nuts. . . .
So, anyway, I’m up at half-twelve. I had a nice cigarette whilst checking my e-mails. Then I had a coffee and another cigarette whilst playing a bit of Soldier of Fortune II until I got bored of shooting virtual people’s virtual brains out. A nice big fry-up followed. Mmmm… sausages and bacon. . . . Come two o’clock and I’m down at the local supermarket. I bought some booze, hamburgers, potatoes, bacon and waffles. I also bought some pizza that, right at this moment in time, I’m currently stuffing into my mouth. Munch munch. I’m also currently watching Beavis & Butthead. I downloaded a few episodes via BitTorrent the other day. It’s not even six and I’m pleasantly drunk, eating pizza and watching some great comedy. What’s planned for this evening? I’ll probably have a nice relaxing bath and read Viz whilst I’m soaking in the tub. Then I’ll probably have a few more glasses of wine and watch some of the many South Park and The Simpsons episodes that are lying around the Hard Drives of my five computers. Also, I’ve just reinstalled Deus Ex and I’d like to play some of that too. Who knows what the future may bring? Whatever I want it to, that’s what.
Are we supposed to be impressed?
As I was reading through this rambling Paean to the Modern Neanderthal Man, it actually started to get funny. I started thinking: This is just too perfect! Maybe the joke’s on us. Maybe this was written as a satirical caricature of a MGHOW. Maybe it will end with the punch line, “Hello, my name is ____, and I’m a MGTOW loser. But at least I don’t have to deal with a nagging bitch of a wife!”
But no, he was serious. He ended with this:
If I was married I would probably be standing in a stupid department store right now, looking at my watch and tutting whilst the wife decides which dress she’s only going to wear once she wants to buy with my money! But I’m not married. I’m an eternal bachelor. To put it another way, I’m eternally happy and free.
“Eternally happy and free” to do what? Totally waste your life?
Yes, my subheading is satirical. I’m well aware that there have been and still are many single men who do great things with their lives. And I’m sure there are many decent and productive men in the MGTOW community.
But with “testimonials” like that, is it any wonder that MGTOW have gotten a reputation for being Dorito-munching, mom’s-basement-dwelling losers?
AWALT is no excuse for LOSER
Okay, “LOSER” isn’t really an acronym for anything in the Red Pill movement.
But many of these Red Pill men, including a disproportionate percentage of MGTOW, have come to the conclusion that their life sucks and that it’s all because of those horrible, horrible females.
So once again I’ll say to Red Pill men: Stop blaming women for your problems. It’s not manly. And it gets you nowhere.
If you’ve hitched yourself to a woman who tears you down and sucks you dry, then by all means do what’s necessary to extricate yourself from the situation. Or if that’s not possible (due to children, etc.), then take whatever steps you need to keep yourself sane.
But you still have to be a man.
You still have to take responsibility for your own life.
You still have to follow your own goals and ideals, and work toward accomplishing something you believe in.
There are many men who are stuck in sucky marriages but who still do great things. They have drive, ambition, and a vision of what they want to accomplish.
Of course, they would prefer to have a good marriage too. But they don’t let their bad marriage stop them from accomplishing their goals. For such a man, the focus is on accomplishments in the world of business or finance or politics or art. Where the money that flows from those accomplishments goes is a secondary consideration. So even if their gold-digging wives or ex-wives are bleeding them dry financially, they keep right on going.
I’m not saying this is a good situation. I’m not saying it’s right for women to leech off of men. Quite the contrary. Some women are indeed blood-sucking gold-diggers. And that is to their great shame.
Rather, I’m saying that if your focus is on money, possessions, and property, then a gold-digging wife is a life-ending disaster for you. But if your focus is on accomplishing something good and worthwhile in the world, you can keep being a winner as a man even if you are the loser financially in marriage or in divorce court.
So do what it takes to make your life work. Extricate yourself from a bad marital situation if you can. Protect what assets you can protect. But don’t blame your terrible wife, or that terrible, blood-sucking female race, or those terrible feminazis, if you are a failure as a man. That’s on your shoulders.
Men must take responsibility for themselves
So to the MGTOW specifically I say: If you want to be single, no problem. That’s your choice.
But take responsibility for your own life. Do something good and productive with your time, energy, and talents. Don’t let your bad experiences with women be an excuse to check out of society and waste away your life in some isolated man cave.
Once again, I speak from experience. I’ve been through the whole thing. When I was young (24, to be exact) and even more foolish than I am today, I married the wrong woman (we were not the best match for each other), and proceeded to have a marriage that was fine at first, but gradually went downhill until it ended in divorce twenty-four years later. By the time the divorce was final, I had spent half of my life in a deteriorating marriage.
Was that my former wife’s fault? It would be nice to be able to blame her. But the fact of the matter is that I was the headstrong young male who pursued her for nine years until she finally agreed to marry me. And though she is, of course, responsible for her own decision to marry me and for whatever she did during the marriage, I can’t avoid responsibility for the fact that I made and pursued the decision to marry her despite many indications that it wasn’t such a great idea.
And when the mismatched marriage finally broke up, it was my job to pick up the pieces of my own life and continue on to accomplish what I am here on earth to do.
That’s what it means to be a man. And the original MGTOW philosophy was not about dissing, denigrating, and blaming women, but about achieving one’s best potential as a man, regardless of what women do.
For some men this will mean being single. For others it will mean being in a relationship or a marriage with a woman.
Either way, a man is responsible for his own life. If you make bad choices or get yourself into bad relationships, that is still your responsibility.
So although I know the men in the Red Pill movement hate to hear it, I’ll say again, as I said at the end of the first article in this series:
Man up, quit complaining, and do the hard work.
If you want to be a man, you have to act like one.
For further reading:
- Response to a MGTOW Critique
- A New Model of Manhood
- Self-Esteem is Made to be Broken
- Spiritual Growth 101 with Mike Tyson: “The Virtue of Selfishness”
- What are the Roles of Men and Women toward Each Other and in Society?
- Heaven, Regeneration, and the Meaning of Life on Earth
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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
Good articles about the whole red pill movement, on MGTOW you know that there are several acronyms that are used and one that was not in this article was “red pill rage” this refers to men waking up to society and that it’s not all sunshine and rainbows and this is where men can sometimes falter by staying in this phase.
This is obviously not good because these men are still letting others have power other them they aren’t really MGTOW, and they need to move on and make something of themselves just like you have stated in this article and not continue to believe that women are these sweet angels that are the centre of their world.
Anyways good balanced article I am tempted to post these articles on a MGTOW comments section on youtube to see what they think these.
Hi Tony,
Thanks. I’m glad you liked the articles—especially since you were one of the people who prompted me to write them.
I agree with you 100% that as long as men let others (in this case, toxic women) have power over them, they aren’t really MGTOW. That’s my biggest problem with the MGTOW movement as it now exists: It’s still heavily stuck in blaming women. And as long as you blame someone else for your problems, you are not taking responsibility for them yourself—and you are also taking the power out of your own hands to do something about your life.
You’re welcome to post links to the articles if you like. I don’t expect men in the movement to appreciate them, but maybe it will give a few of them something to think about. Someone did link to the first article in the series on the MGTOW subreddit, which led to a spike in hits that lasted for about 24 hours.
No, MGTOW as a philosophy does not “hate women” or “blame women.” The MGTOW point of view is more like “nature hates men.” This is explained in several videos by prominent MGTOW like Barbarossaa, Spetznas and RazorBladeKandy and in a post by yours truly here: https://www.quora.com/Is-it-true-that-most-of-the-Men-Going-Their-Own-Way-MGTOW-guys-hate-women/answer/Richard-Wheybrew
Reading MGTOW posts on forums and Reddit and saying you understand MGTOW is like reading letters from 3rd graders and saying you understand literature. Most of the guys on these forums are new to MGTOW and, like you said, are just getting over a string of horrible experiences with women. They’re in the process of reshaping their identities and it’s not pretty, but it is necessary.
Your an ordained minister? Some men who find MGTOW have lost their houses, their children, their wife and half of their property all in the same week. If you were counseling them would you say “hey man, I know you had a bad week, but you need to get over it?”
If you’ve never been through a situation like that, bully for you. But for people who have lived through something that forces them to confront all of the assumptions they had about men, women, family, society and relationships, words can’t really describe how awful it is to have your identity eviscerated in that way — or how painful it is to rebuild yourself from the rubble.
Instead of mocking these men, you would do well to try to put yourself in their shoes. If you can’t do that, you’re just part of the misandry and gynocentrism MGTOW fights and you’re every bit as bad as the feminists.
Hi Dick,
Thanks for stopping by and taking the time to respond, and for the link.
As a matter of fact, I did go through all of that, and I did have to rebuild my life from the rubble.
It took longer than a week, but within a fairly short time I lost job, career, property, and everything else you mention except for my children—whom, as I said in the first article in the series, I was able to continue to be an active father to for the rest of their growing up years. Other than that, nearly everything from my former life, which had been stable for over a decade, is now long gone. I was able to walk away a free man who still had a relationship with his children. But other than that, in the end I lost everything. Not half. Everything but some personal possessions. This was not only because of my ex-wife and the divorce, but due to the whole circumstance of my life at the time based largely on decisions I had made myself. So once again, I don’t blame my ex-wife for it. And this isn’t a self-therapy blog, so I don’t spend time talking about it here. But it took me years to claw my way over the rubble and out of that bomb crater.
In short, I’m not just talking out of my ass. I know exactly what it feels like, because I’ve been through it myself.
And of course I don’t know as much about the MGTOW movement as you and others in the movement do. However, it was months ago that some of my readers asked if I would write something about the Red Pill movement, so I started paying attention to it and researching it. I’ve read many articles by MGTOW leaders and by standard news outlets about the Red Pill movement, as well as spending time reading the forums at Reddit and MGTOW.com. Does that make me an expert on MGTOW? No. And I don’t claim to be one. But it was enough to give me the gist and flavor of the movement. And in my articles I focused on what seemed to me to be most important to say about it to my readers and to any Red Pill men who happen to stop by here and read the articles.
You could say that as a philosophy MGTOW does not hate women, and perhaps that’s true. But as a practical reality, MGTOW articles and forums are dripping with disdain for and yes, hatred of women. AWALT by itself is an example of caricaturing the worst aspects of women and tarring all women with the same biased brush. So you can quibble about whether or not it is “hatred” of women, and whether that is part of the “philosophy” of MGTOW, but the effect is the same: women are seen as defective creatures who are inferior to men, and as a major component of men’s problems, if not the major component—and are treated as such.
Nor am I particularly impressed with blaming it on nature rather than blaming it on women. My response to that is the same: suck it up. You’re still a man, and you still have to take responsibility for your own life. Everyone faces difficult circumstances. What separates the men from the boys is that the men recognize the circumstances and don’t use them as an excuse for paralysis and inaction. Men have been facing these circumstances for hundreds of thousands of years now. And we seem to have survived as men.
If circumstances have changed and what worked for thousands of years no longer works, then by all means go ahead and work to change the societal situation to the extent that it’s possible. We live at a time in human history when a massive paradigm shift is taking place, starting several centuries ago with the Age of Enlightenment. I have no quarrel with Red Pillers and MGTOW working to make the world a better place for men (though that seems to be mostly an MRA thing). But I do have a quarrel with their saying, “Women, nature, and the whole world are against us! Woe is us!” Feminists say the same thing about men, nature, and the whole world. So how is the Red Pill perspective any different from the gynocentric perspective than Red Pillers see as the enemy? It’s just a mirror image of the same thing they’re fighting against. And that makes it a zero sum game. It’s not a workable perspective on the problem. It doesn’t provide a real solution, but only perpetuates a battle of opposing forces that results in stalemate, not progress.
Despite my use of some light satire, the purpose of my articles is not to denigrate Red Pillers in general, and MGTOW in particular. Rather, it is to give a kick to the butt and say, “Quit complaining, quit blaming everyone and everyone else, take responsibility for your own life, and get to work. And by the way, quitting society is not a real solution.” I have no quarrel with those in the movement who are already taking responsibility for their own lives and doing the hard work. But it’s impossible to spend much time in any kind of contact with the Red Pill movement without getting a serious dose of, “My life sucks because of everyone and everything else—especially those damn women.” How is that different from Hillary blaming everyone and everything else for her election loss (those evil Russians, Comey, even the DNC) while claiming to take full responsibility for it? The same inherent contradiction suffuses the Red Pill movement. That’s my main quarrel with it.
But to answer your your question more directly, I certainly would not say “get over it” on Monday of the next week. That would be heartless, and the wrong time to say such a thing. But over time, yes, that would be exactly my message. It happened, and there’s nothing you can do about that. You can’t undo history. And you need to move on with your life. Yes, you’ll still have to deal with the fallout. It’s not going to be easy. Speaking for myself, I’m still dealing with stray fallout to this day, even though ground zero in my life was a decade ago. But you can’t let your past cripple your present and your future. You have to leave it behind and move on with your life.
You also have to pick your battles, and decide what’s worth fighting for, as compared to what you’re fighting about mostly from hurt, anger, and a desire to win and for your ex to lose. I made the decision that my relationship with my children was worth fighting for, but the money was not. And I remain happy with that decision to this day. Once the initial bomb has dropped and the initial rupture is over, being a man means regaining your balance and thinking strategically rather than emotionally, assessing the situation, and determining what, exactly your goals will be going forward, what’s worth expending your energy on, and what you just need to let go of. That is also the counsel I would give over time to a man who has been through the type of devastation I went through.
You may have thought you read all you need to know but you still don’t get it, do you? You think we WANT to do “something meaningful” with our lives. That’s for the sheeple like you who just blindly follow the herd off the cliff. We’re opting out of life completely, working only as much to sustain ourselves and our simple lifestyles. We are no longer willing to contribute to the anti-white, anti-male society that hates us. And you know what? We’re happy! Yes, happy! That may surprise a herd-follower like you but you’re not “going your own way” are you? And no, I don’t blame women at all. I blame the enablers like you who treat them like Queens when they’re nothing but wicked witches of the West. You are like those perpetual morons who hold up those “Refugees Welcome” signs, inviting in the filth of the world to rob, rape and murder us because it makes YOU feel good, consequences be damned. So now these witches prance around thinking that they’re worth more than the contempt they deserve, preying on yet another sad sack chump and ruining his life. I suggest you grow up and grow a pair. Women are not angels and their corrupt morals have been, and will continue to be, the downfall of many a great man.
Hi The Ghost,
Thanks for stopping by, and for your comment.
Your insults are standard MGTOW boilerplate, so I’ll pass them over for now and focus on the substance of your comment. But please do see our comments policy.
As I said in the article, if you want to be single, that’s certainly your choice.
Further, if you want to live subsistence-style, that is also your choice. However, if you work at all, you are still contributing to society in one way or another. Humans as a species are social animals, not loners. It is very difficult to entirely unplug from human society and still survive. If your choice is to contribute only minimally to society, at least you are contributing to society at that minimal level.
Notice, though, that the celebrated scientists, mathematicians, inventors, and philosophers featured on the MGTOW.com History page were not men who withdrew into their shell and contributed as little as possible to human society. They are great men precisely because they made great contributions to the advancement of human science, mathematics, technology, and philosophy, thus raising the level of humanity as a whole. If you choose to live at a subsistence level and contribute as little as possible to a society that you see as corrupt, once again that is your own choice. But in making that choice for yourself and your life you are ensuring that you will never join the ranks of those great men.
You say that you don’t blame women, but then you go on to call them wicked, moronic, morally corrupt witches who are the downfall of many a great man.
No, women are not angels.
Neither are men.
All of us here on earth are in process.
Considering all women to be utterly corrupt and unsalvageable monsters is no more rational than considering all women to be spotlessly pure angelic beings standing high up on pedestals. Here on earth we humans, both men and women, are neither angels nor devils. We all live on a spectrum somewhere in between—some closer to the angelic end of the spectrum, some closer to the demonic end of the spectrum, and most in the vast, mixed middle.
I am truly sorry that you and your fellow MGTOW have had such bad experiences with women. Women can indeed be horribly corrupt, just as men can be. And for those men unfortunate enough to get tangled up with a corrupt woman, the results are often horrifying.
However, just because you and your fellow MGTOW have experienced those particular women, that does not mean every man’s experience with women is the same as yours. It is not rational to ignore the facts and realities of human life. Contrary to AWALT dogma, the fact of the matter is that there are many happily married men who are doing great things and whose wives are supporters of and even equal partners in their great accomplishments. Just because you and your fellow MGTOW got the short end of the stick with women, and have not experienced that reality for yourselves, that does not mean it doesn’t exist.
Your life is in your own hands. You can do with it what you wish. If your experiences with women have been so scarring that you can never consider being with a woman again, I can understand that. Just understand that your experience with women is not every man’s experience with women.
And realize that if you want to be a great man, you have to do great things.
MGTOW.COM is the garbage can of MGTOW. I used to go there for over a year. The infighting. The division of group think and if someone disagrees with you they call you a tradon or something. I got banned from there because I had a huge disagreement. They had the nerve to ask me to apologize to them.
I thought I could trust these people but they ended lying about me. It just shows some of these men don’t even deserve a decent woman because it’s all the women’s fault. Personally I take my responsibility for my choices and I refuse to let some woman trying chop my balls off.
I used to be a nice guy. Not a push over nice guy but treat women with respect but these women feared me.
I remember one woman ended going out with an assholes and then complain about him to me. She didn’t want a relationship with me because she feared getting close again. With an asshole she knows won’t get as close.
Same thing happened with another woman. She used to come to my work and flirt at me for several months. Then she asked me why i never asked her out and I told her I didn’t have her number. I called a few days later and she ended the call very quickly and acted like I was a creep. I saw her a few times cross the street. She wouldn’t even look at me. I found it odd since she was the one who approached me. A year later she comes to me and ask if I wanted to be with her and that was pregnant. Naturally I said no, since treated me so rudely. I was never mad at these women but a lot of men are avoiding decent men because they fear getting close again.
I remember a tourist acting strange. He acted as if a war was going on. He told me that women in the city didn’t respect men at all, treated men rather poorly and suggest go to my homeland (I’m Asian btw) to get married. It was one or two women it was a lot of women.
This is what is going on with women these days no respect for me. It is literally women kicking men in the balls. This is something I will never tolerate from a woman.
Hi mikekto,
Thanks for stopping by, and for your various comments.
In my experience, every movement has its infighting. And in many of them, the faithful spend more time fighting each other than they do working toward their common cause in the wider world. Looking in on the MGTOW movement from the outside, it looks like it’s no exception to that common pattern.
About your experiences with women: People, both men and women, tend naturally to be selfish jerks, even if they’re skilled at covering it over from other people and from themselves with a veneer of civility and concern for others. For most people, it takes a lifetime of conscious effort to grow out of that. And many people just never bother to make the effort. That’s the primary reason why relationships are so hard, and fail so often. For a riff on that theme with a touch of satire, see my article: “How to Attract the Opposite Sex—and Keep ’Em.”
Further, it’s all too easy to blame the opposite sex, but be blind to our own jerkiness that gets in the way of developing good relationships. But complaining about and blaming the opposite sex really doesn’t accomplish anything, because we can’t personally do anything about other people’s shortcomings. Only about our own. So although it’s much harder to take responsibility for our own contributions to bad experiences with the opposite sex, it has the potential to be a lot more effective in finding and creating better relationships for ourselves.
In general, I think men should be men, and not try to accommodate themselves to what everyone else, including women, think they should be. However, that’s not a license to be a prick. It’s a man’s job to be a good man. And that includes not just the traditional male attributes of physical and mental strength, etc., but also honesty, respect for others, personal integrity, and so on. The best way to attract a good woman and avoid all the divas is to be a good man, and stand on your own integrity as a man. Women who are drama queens will quickly dump a man who doesn’t put up with their BS. And that’s a good thing. But women who have a solid character of their own will appreciate a man who has strength of character but isn’t a jerk about it.
And yes, fear of closeness and intimacy is a real thing. The more a woman (or man) opens up, the more vulnerable s/he becomes to being taken advantage of and hurt badly. It takes time and a lot of thoughtfulness on both sides to develop a level of trust that allows for real closeness and openness between two people.
YESSSSSSSSSSSS!!! Thank you so very much, Lee!!!! I stumbled on your article while doing some recon work on the blue pill and I cannot thank you enough for your article on MGTOW and the Red Pill. It was kind of funny, because I read that posting on MGTOW about the person playing Soldier of Fortune II, tutting at his wife at the department store, etc. I found that article several years ago and I loved it!!
Myself, I went MGTOW many years ago and swallowed the red pill. I like your article because you are not, in my opinion, lashing out at men, MGTOW or the Red Pill philosophies. Rather, you are challenging men who already are MGTOW to truly live up to the real meaning of MGTOW and not blame women for all their problems in life. I agree with you wholeheartedly on this. Personal accountability needs to be the refrain of everyone on Earth, but sadly, this is becoming a rare commodity indeed.
Personally, I have gone monk on my MGTOW journey. That has been a difficult decision, but, in companion to this, I also declare the name of Christ in my life and therefore I believe that sexual union should only be practiced in the bonds of marriage, and I understand the restrictions Christ has placed on sexuality and the reason behind those restrictions. I do not like using women just for my sexual pleasure and for no other purpose. Now, some MGTOW’s would disagree with me on this, but with a chosen lifestyle, as you mentioned, comes accountability. If I declare the name of Christ in my life, then I will be held accountable to that name and how I treated creatures that he created in his own image.
I agree with the Psalmist when he says to find a righteous woman is more valuable that rubies! I know some men that have Proverbs 31 women as wives and to be very honest, it kind of makes me jealous in a way! I esteem those women highly as they take after such giants as Hannah, Deborah, Ruth, Hagar, Sarah, Leah, Rachel and above them all is the Mother of our Lord, Mary.
Thank you again, Lee for getting to the heart of MGTOW and what it truly means!
God Bless you, Lee and keep declaring the truth!!
Steve Timm.
Hi Steven,
Thanks for stopping by, and for your good thoughts. Yes, my purpose in writing the article is not to attack anyone, but rather to offer a spiritually-based perspective on MGTOW, and to give a kick in the behind to MGTOW who have retreated to their own private island where they’re going nowhere fast and blaming women for their withdrawal from society and their lack of any real goals or accomplishments in life.
That sort of thing I have little respect for. But your view and commitment to what it means for you to be a MGTOW I can respect.
Thank you Lee for your article. I recently discovered Swedenborg. I am a practicing Buddhist but appreciate Christian Mystics as well. It is ironic that Swedenborg never married and may have been MGTOW himself.
Lee, MGTOW is about men feeling valuable within and feeling worthy as human beings. Society gives men messages from love songs and movies that to be complete as a human being you need to have a wife or girlfriend. I realize women get the same messages. MGTOW should not be about hatred of women at all. However some men have had as you had stated have had some horrific experiences with woman and need a safe space to vent. Society has encouraged men to hold in their feelings and be like a macho tough guy. It is not healthy for men to hold it in and many MGTOW men are very hurt. Eventually, as MGTOW men heal as I have don, they begin to take responsibility for themselves and see the pointlessness of blaming women for their problems.
MGTOW is some ways has some similarities to feminism in that feminism has told some women that a woman needs a man like “a fish needs a bicycle”. MGTOW is saying the the same things to men. MGTOW is about men valuing themselves as human beings not contingent on having a female significant other. MGTOW is about men redefining their gender roles as just be strong and don’t feel. MGTOW has allowed men to get in touch with their feelings-it is helpful to feel your emotions at times in a healthy way. Yes I hear what you are saying Lee, the misogyny coming from some MGTOW is excessive and uncalled for. However, these men are hurt and angry. It is better they vent on the internet than hurt themselves or others. Remember most of the angry MGTOW’s are in the beginning stages and raw. Eventually, these men learn how to be independent and happy being single. Healing takes time. In fact MGTOW is sort of like men’s liberation from their societal and gender roles as feminism is for some women. MGTOW has helped men get started on some type of spiritual path. Isn’t it interesting that Swedenborg never married- I am not sure he had girlfriends. But he certainly “went his own way” as an independent thinker and didn’t conform to society’s gender roles. Back then for people to be unmarried-you stood out more than today where it is more common. Lee check out this video
Hi samuel2112,
Thanks for stopping by, and for your thoughtful comment. I think there is much truth and reality to what you say. And I do hope these early stage MGTOW will eventually heal from their awful experiences with women and focus more on developing themselves both as men and as human beings.
When Swedenborg was a young man he did make an effort to woo and marry a woman. Unfortunately for him, the object of his affections did not return them. When he realized this, he released her from the written pledge of marriage to him that her father had given him. That experience seems to have taken the wind out of his sails, though there is some indication that he may have made one or two further unsuccessful attempts at courtship before settling into the life of a bachelor. So perhaps he was, in a sense, a MGHOW.
However, unlike today’s garden variety MGHOW, Swedenborg continued to have a great affection for women throughout his life, and clearly longed to be married. So if he did “go his own way,” it was due to his circumstances rather than to his own inclination or choice. And it certainly never involved any rejection of or distaste for women.
Later in life, during his theological period, he wrote an entire highly evocative (and highly controversial) book about marriage. In that book he states that marriage is the ideal God-given state for men and women to be in, and far preferable to celibacy—which he describes as an unfortunate and much less spiritual state.
Some of his personal writings indicate that he believed that a particular highly intelligent woman known to him would be his eternal marriage partner in the spiritual world. However, a relationship with her was impossible in this world because she was already married—to a man ill-suited to her character.
As I say in the above article, it’s entirely a man’s choice whether he wishes to have a relationship with a woman. And if a particular man wants to be single, that is his prerogative. However, I continue to believe that for those who are able and willing, being married is ultimately a more satisfying and more spiritual way of life.
Thank you Lee for your excellent explanation of Swedenborg and his “love life”. I thin your blog is magnificent. I have been involved with mens groups and mens liberation for a while. Your blog needs to be in a book eventually-you have a very authentic, and balanced view on gender relations. I think one of the biggest problems for our society now is the horrific relations between men and women but rarely is it discussed inasmuch as it makes men and women uncomfortable.
I do disagree with one opinion you have. You wrote “However, I continue to believe that for those who are able and willing, being married is ultimately a more satisfying and more spiritual way of life.” This is why MGTOW (without the misogyny) is so needed. Men have gotten messages through love songs, holidays like Valentine’s day.” that to feel complete they need to have a female significant other. I would say that for some men being single can be a more satisfying and spiritual way of life. I think the Apostle Paul mentioned that being single can be superior in some ways than being married. In today’s time where more and more human beings are single more than ever given the nature of our society and gender relations, single men need to be encouraged that they are valuable being single. Single men need to be encouraged that they are complete within themselves. Single men need to be encouraged that being single is not weird, or makes a man an outcast-that in fact their are advantages to a man being single. Single men for example, have more time to do service work for our society and are not limited in any way by having a partner and/or family.
Here is my point Lee. You mentioned Swedenborg writing highly of marriage as superior to being single. I had read that Swedenborg had a view of marriage where a person does not necessarily have to be married to another person. I had read that Swedenborg mentioned you could be married to yourself. is that so?After all although Swedenborg had unrequited love, he still was single his whole life so it would not be unusual for him to say this. What Swedenborg meant by being married to yourself is having a relationship with your inner essence-your inner soul and spirit. So while I agree with you Lee that Swedenborg wrote highly of marriage it did not necessarily mean one has to be coupled. According to Swedenborg you could be married to yourself.
I respect your view as marriage being superior to singlehood for men and you have it appears a very healthy marriage. I just want to say that men choosing to stay single maybe equally as valuable and some men may actually evolve spiritually and emotionally being single than being married. Our culture is fascinated by being couples that it makes single people feel sort of left out or bad. For example, so many songs on pop radio stations are about being in a relationship. Many movies especially romantic ones have a theme of somehow meeting Prince or Princess charming as one’s salvation. But thankfully much Christian pop music has lyrics relating to the love of God and man. I just want to close that I think it is important for single men to value themselves in their singleness and know that if they desire a life without a woman by their side in a marriage or relationship, that their life can be just as happy and fulfilling. Keep up the great blog Lee.
Hi samuel2112,
Thanks for continuing the conversation. I do appreciate and enjoy the open-minded and open-hearted spirit in which you write.
And thanks for your kind words about the blog. We recently passed 300 posts, which probably amounts to fifteen or twenty books’ worth of articles. And I do plan to turn some of this material into books in the future, not to mention writing some books from scratch. For now, though, this blog is where I (together with my wife) express and develop my thoughts on matters spiritual and practical.
To respond first to your further thoughts on Swedenborg: I would say that Swedenborg mentioned that we could be married within ourselves rather than married to ourselves. More specifically, Swedenborg said that achieving a marriage of good and truth, or love and wisdom, or head and heart, within ourselves is the whole point of the path of “regeneration” or spiritual rebirth. Until both our head and our heart are fully “partnered” with each other and engaged in whatever work or activities we do to benefit and care for our fellow human beings, we are not fully developed as a spiritual (and thus true) human being.
I cover this idea a little more, together with its relation to interpersonal marriage, in the article, “Marriage in the Resurrection: The Deeper Meaning.” In particular, the sections titled “Becoming married within ourselves” and “Inner marriage is necessary for interpersonal marriage” deal with this subject.
So yes, I do believe, based on my understanding of Swedenborg and my experience of human life, that single people, both men and women, can grow and develop spiritually just as married people can. My preference for the married state does not mean I think single people are left out in the cold, or are somehow lesser human beings. We are all beloved of God, and God has a path forward and upward for all of us, whatever our relationship circumstances might be here on earth. (And honestly, it’s hard to imagine Swedenborg accomplishing what he did if he had been married here on earth.)
I also suspect that many people who do not marry here on earth due to unfortunate experiences or circumstances, but who do the work of achieving that “inner marriage” or “spiritual marriage,” may in the other life find that the barriers to being married here on earth fade away, and find a partner to spend eternity with. However, I also believe there is room in heaven for those who continue to choose a single life.
Yes, Paul said he wished people would remain single as he did. And that has heavily influenced large segments of the Christian Church, which consider celibacy to be a superior and more spiritual state than marriage. However, Paul also expected Christ to return very soon—within his lifetime. His general advice was for the married to stay married and the single to stay single until Christ came, when he thought everything would be reshuffled anyway. Of course, Christ did not come soon—at least, not in the way that Paul and many of the other early Christians expected. And that puts a different light on Paul’s sayings about being single or married.
Back to the earlier subject, I do agree with you that people who buy into the popular cultural message that getting married will fix all your problems, make life instantly wonderful, and cause you to live happily ever after are in for a major letdown and crash if they get married with these pie-in-the-sky ideas running around in their head. The reality is that if you don’t do the hard work of developing yourself as a thoughtful, moral, compassionate, and spiritual person, you will never be able to sustain a good, deep, and happy relationship with another human being, especially within a marriage. Along these lines, see my article: “How to Attract the Opposite Sex—and Keep ‘Em.” (It gets better. I promise! 😀 )
So even if you and I may be standing across the fence from each other on the issue of being single vs. being married, I think we agree that no matter which life we choose, developing our own self, and the “spiritual marriage” within ourselves, is a critical task without which the rest will ultimately not have much meaning or effectiveness.
As is the usual case, the elephant in the room is completely ignored. What is it, you ask? It is the law and the plethora of industries that have grown up around it. In America, it is the Violence Against Women Act and its evil progeny. To quote Charles Dickens, “The purpose of the law is to create business for itself”.
The number of vultures that feed off the carcass of failed relationships is legion. As always, follow the money and it will lead you to the truth. Watch the documentary “Divorce Corp” as your primer to the new (now growing old) reality.
“Divorce Corp” is just the tip of the iceberg. Did you know the VAWA finances a womens shelter in every county in the country? And who do you think staffs them? Do some research on Title IV-D of the Social Security Code. It gives judges financial incentives to award child custody to the lower earning parent (almost always the mother).
And then there is the reintroduction of debtors prison. The marriage contract is the only civil contract that upon disolution can, and will, be criminalized with imprisonment penalities (almost always the man).
The list goes on and on and on. In essence, the legal system now encourages a woman to destroy a man for any whim as they gladly hold him down at the point of a gun to transfer his current wealth and future wealth to the woman and the legal community. Just that simple.
So, no, we MGTOW do not hate women. We understand them. You can love women or you can understand them, but you can’t do both. And yes, their behaviour is genetically based (read up on Dawkins’ Selfish Gene Theory and do a logical extrapolation) . Hating an animal for what it does naturally is stupid. Respecting its power and avoiding it in the wild is wise.
What we do hate and fear is the awesome and destructive power of the state and its gun toting enforcers. Only an absolute fool would expose himself to such punative power. So, no thanks, we’re going our own way. This system cannot last and it cannot be fixed. So we make a drink, kick back, and enjoy the show. Cheers.
Hi John,
Thanks for stopping by, and for your comment.
As I said in the article, if you want to be single, that’s certainly your choice. But others of us make a different choice, and we don’t necessarily get destroyed by that choice, as so many MGTOW seem to have been in the past.
Are there bad laws on the books that need to be amended or repealed altogether? Yes. Legions of them. I’m no friend of the metastasizing power of the state. And I’m in support of those groups whose purpose is to repeal or amend various bad laws.
However, there are bad laws everywhere on earth. Pending the reform or the collapse of the various governments, we still have to live with them. And except in highly corrupt countries, it is possible to live a reasonably self-directed and workable life.
That includes men who wish to be in a relationship with or married to a woman. As I also said in the article, I speak from experience. I’ve been through the divorce mill. And I didn’t go to debtor’s prison, nor did I have my life destroyed. Sure, it was no fun, and it knocked me down for a while. But although the divorce was not my choice, I was able to achieve my primary goals in the terms of the divorce, which were to remain an active father to my children and to sever all financial ties with my ex-wife. Not every man gets fleeced in the divorce court, and not every woman sucks the man dry. A decade later, I have a very good life, and my ex-wife is merely a past memory for me.
Further, the “selfish gene” doesn’t apply only to women. It applies to men as well. We all start out selfish, men and women alike. And many of us never grow out of it. The Violence Against Women Act does deal with a particular type of harm that the selfishness of men inflicts upon women, even if in the opinion of the Red Pill community, it goes too far in dealing with that selfishness. But the fact of the matter is that many men do perpetrate violence on their wives and girlfriends. And one of the proper purposes of the state is to protect people from violence perpetrated by other people. As long as men perpetrate violence against women, the state is going to intervene—and properly so.
It does no good for the Red Pill movement to ignore this reality, and attempt to paint women as the evil aggressors and men as the innocent victims. That’s the same thing that the more radical end of feminism does, only the other way around. And neither one of them is a realistic or balanced picture of men, women, and the relationships between them.
The Red Pill movement would do well to take domestic violence seriously, and to work toward stopping the violence that many men perpetrate against women. If it did so, then it might have a greater voice in reforming VAWA, because people not in the movement would have more respect for the Red Pill movement, rather than viewing it as yet one more unbalanced movement based on a wild conspiracy theory.
Are some women blood-sucking gold-diggers? Yes, of course. Are all women blood-sucking gold-diggers? No. The reality of hundreds of millions of happily married men who remain happily married for the rest of their lives demonstrates that the AWALT dogma of the Red Pill movement is simply false.
But if you choose to believe that dogma, you will see nothing else, because you’ll see everything through its filter, meaning you will simply not see the fact that many women do not conform to your particular conspiracy theory about women.
So if you’ve had a bad experience with the wrong woman, and want to remain single, that’s certainly your choice. But there’s a much bigger world out there, and it’s filled with all kinds of different people. Including women who are good, loving, thoughtful, intelligent, and decent people.
Lee, I will only address a few of your counter arguements. First, I will address your defense of VAWA.
On its surface VAWA appears to be a shield of protection enacted with the best of intentions. But as the saying goes, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions”. It has morphed into a sword of agression. Or was that its intended purpose all along? Evident says that it was intented to be a weapon from the get go. It is based upon the Duluth Model whose authors openly admit was written, enacted, and enforced to be anti-male. Look it up.
While looking up the truth about the Duluth Model, also look up Lisa Scott Law. She is a family law attorney in Tacoma. She describes the issuance of restraining orders as so commonly used as the opening salvo in a divorce it has become a “sport”. A TRO not only ejects a man from his home, it has the effect of placing him in a legal straight jacket from which there is no escape. TRO’s are given out like Halloween candy. What judge in his right mind is going to deny one? Answer, none. Been there, done that.
The man’s legal right to his property is denied without due process as the TRO process is ex parte. He has no chance to defend himself before gun toting enforcers forcibly remove him from his home. This is clearly unconstitutional but still has been blessed by SCOTUS.
The unconstitutionality of this legal abomination gets worse. The Lautenburg Amendment denies a man possession of firearms or ammunition if there is a restraining order against him. He has committed no crime but is yet again denied his property without due process and a clear violation of the 2nd Amendment. And yet again, SCOTUS has blessed this slap in the face of the Founding Fathers and Constitution.
I could go on and on about how the so-called justice system is so heavily stacked against a man in a legal contest with a woman. The ethos is “man bad, woman good”. And lets not forget the aforementioned financial incentives to crucify the man. For a man, the carving above the courthouse door should quote from Dante’s Inferno; “Abandon all hope ye who enter here”. The process is a passion play where everyone in the courtroom knows the predetermined outcome except the poor schmuck who is the object of the exercise. Been there, done that.
Second, I will address the AWALT versus NAWALT argument in a legal context. Your experince in court was determined solely by your ex. Either she did not possess the vindictive streak so many women have or you didn’t have enough assets to make it worth her and her slime ball attorney’s time to go after. That would make her a NAWALT not by her alturistic nature but by the high degree of rational self-interest all women possess in spades.
To close my counter arguement with the facts and the truth: Are all women like that? No, but enough of them are to make the risk far out weigh the reward.
Lastly, you are obviously what we call a blue pill tradcon. And there is no chance of having you change your beliefs. You may or may not reply to this post but if you do I request a favor. Do your own research on the links I have given you and then try a logical fact based arguement to me, not blue pill tradcon dogma myths that no longer apply.
BTW, MGTOW saves lives. It pulled the pistol out of my mouth and I am sure countless others. For that reason alone you should be supportive of us. Cheers.
Hi John,
My argument really isn’t about the VAWA. You may be right. It may be a travesty that should be repealed.
Rather, my argument is that there are always bad laws, and we have to either get them changed or learn to live with them. Mostly the latter, because bad laws are rarely repealed. Laws—even “temporary” ones—tend to live forever, until the nation making them collapses under its own weight. And then the process starts all over again. This cycle has been happening for thousands of years, ever since humans first began to organize themselves into kingdoms and nations.
Further, my argument is that violence against women, perpetrated by men, is a real thing, and should be taken just as seriously by the Red Pill movement as it is by the feminist opposition. The Red Pill movement would then be in a much better position to have a seat at the table in influencing the direction of future legislation. Opposing everything intended to deal with domestic violence just isn’t a viable position to take. Taking domestic violence seriously would also be men taking responsibility for the wrongs of men, and not just blaming everything on women. When men are bad, Red Pill men should recognize that.
In other words, “woman bad, man good” is not a viable alternative to “man bad, woman good.” Sometimes women are bad, sometimes men are bad. Sometimes men are good, sometimes women are good. As long as the Red Pill movement sees women (and feminism) as the enemy, and as generally or wholly evil, it will continue to be engaged in a losing battle. It will be philosophically no better than the feminist opposition, except that it won’t have the power that the feminist opposition currently has politically and socially. And it will gain no traction with the wider society, which just isn’t going to buy its “man good, woman bad” philosophy.
I’m glad MGTOW saved your life. I don’t oppose MGTOW as such. Rather, I critique it from a position of greater objectivity, having experienced both the bad and the good of both women and men. Besides my personal experiences with marriage and divorce, I used to be a pastor. I was privy to many domestic situations. Sometimes the man was the bad guy and the woman was the good guy. Sometimes the woman was the bad guy and the man was the good guy. Sometimes they were both good guys, but just had some practical and relationship issues. And sometimes they were both bad guys. The AWALT dogma is wrong because it sees only what it wants to see, and not the complex reality of men, women, and their widely varying characters and relationships as they actually exist out there in the real world.
I have done funerals for both men and women who lived in long, happy marriages, sometimes lasting 60+ years, and who were good, solid, contributing members of the community. I have seen how the husband and wife loved and supported each other through those years, to the point where, as the Bible says, they were no longer two, but one. My own parents were an example. And having seen that, no, it won’t be possible for you to convince me that your anti-woman dogma is the “rational” and “realistic” view of women, men, and their relationships. I know from experience that there are many very good women who simply don’t conform to your AWALT dogma.
I understand that MGTOW generally are MGTOW because they were on the wrong side of the gender complexity that exists in society, and got tangled up with the wrong women. But that doesn’t make the whole world that way, and it doesn’t make all women that way. If you’ve been burned too badly to ever engage with women again, I can understand and respect that. But not every man has your terrible experience with women. Generalizing from your experience with women, together with the experience with women of your fellow MGTOW, to draw the conclusion that that’s how all, or even most, women are is not objective or rational. And aren’t men supposed to be better than women at being objective and rational?
As for my being “obviously a blue pill tradcon,” that’s just standard Red Pill name-calling. And in my case, it’s not only wrong, but ridiculously wrong.
I believe in freedom and self-determination for both men and women. I don’t think men should rule over women, nor do I think women should rule over men. I’m opposed to both traditional feminist values and to what has now become traditional men’s rights movement values. Both, in my view, are unbalanced reactions and pendulum swings to real and longstanding gender problems. But neither has a very good answer to those problems, because neither takes a balanced view of men and women.
We are in a time of massive cultural and spiritual change. Changing gender roles are a key part of that change. I don’t advocate going back to the old, traditional roles, as a tradcon would. Rather, I advocate leaving both men and women free to determine their own roles, believing that the inherent differences between men and women will, in time, given freedom, settle down into a new and better pattern of gender relations than we have ever had in recorded human history.
As an Australian MGTOW I’d like to make a few points: There are different levels of MGTOW and factions within the movement. I’ve been married before, had GF’s, but now I am not interested in any serious relationship with a woman, I have been MGTOW for two and a half years now. I had been a MGTOW for a while without realizing it.
Basically, I just live for myself. spend all my money mostly on myself. I’m nearly 50 and reasonably financially secure.I only work part-time. I like to buy gold and silver and expensive watches, go to the beach, go fishing sometimes, go to coffee shops,pat my dog, check out a movie sometimes. I find I don’t need women at all really apart from sex sometimes. I have always given some money to certain charities and still do.
I am a regular visitor to Pattaya, I love the place, not just for the sex. My ex-wife is Asian, all my GF’s have been Asian ( I’m white ) I am just living a fairly simple life now, no stress.
There are some men in MGTOW and the MRM ( Men’s Right’s Movement ) who really do hate women, I’ll admit that. Whilst not being a hater I’ll say though that nearly all relationships between men and women ( nowadays ) are based on expediency: Getting seriously involved with a woman is generally a waste of time, money, and resources. Women are hypergamous, that means their main goal and drive is to obtain money/resources or some sort of gain from men. A lot of blue pill men fail to understand this, or they are are just stupid beta male cucks who don’t care .Many MGTOW have talked about this on You Tube.
I will even admit that some women are ok, but finding them is the proverbial needle in a haystack thing. Just have ONS, be a PUA. or use hookers. It is the best way.
As for that guy you talked about who likes to stay at home, sleep, and eat pizza, play video games and have a BBQ or “cook out” or “fry up” as you say in USA, who is to say he is loser? If he is happy and content and doing what he wants he is a winner. Not my sort of thing his lifestyle, but each to their own.
Why should anyone “contribute” to “mainstream society”, or worse still, get married? Marriage is just the road to devastation, slavery, and ruin. I encourage all young men not to marry and have kids. Do not waste your life on a marriage!
Hi Shaun,
Thanks for stopping by, and for your comment.
Once again, if you want to be single, that’s certainly your choice. Nobody should be pressured or guilted into marriage when they aren’t crazy about the idea. Whatever else it is, and for all its joys and satisfactions, marriage is also a lot of hard personal work. Doing that work has to be freely chosen by the people involved.
It sounds like you haven’t been totally swallowed up by the Red Pill echo chamber. AWALT starts to sound true when everyone around you is loudly shouting it in a camp-revival-like atmosphere.
The reality is that pretty much all of us, men and women alike, start out in adult life fairly immature and self-absorbed in one way or another. It’s just that women tend to be immature and self-absorbed in different ways than men do. And for men, their own form of immature and self-absorbed looks okay (because they’re embedded in it, and therefore have no perspective on it), whereas women’s way of being immature and self-absorbed looks terrible and inexcusable (because they’re seeing it from the outside). For women, it’s exactly the same, except in the other direction.
The reality is that it takes time, intention, and a lot of hard work for anyone, man or woman, to grow up and become a thoughtful and mature human being. Unfortunately, by that time a lot of people have gotten burned in their relationships with the opposite sex, and have gone sour on the opposite sex. Hence all the AWALT males and man-hating females.
But not all of ’em. Some of ’em grow up and get a better perspective on themselves and the other sex. Some are able to get over it and form actual healthy relationships with the other sex. And for those who can do this, it is a very happy and fulfilling thing. Whether you ever decide to do that in the future is, of course, 100% your choice. But since you at least do understand that NAWALT, I would suggest not entirely closing the door on a future relationship, even if it may be a decade or more down the road. It’s your own choice, but I would suggest keeping your options open.
As far as living for oneself, that, also, is people’s own choice. But it’s rather a small, circumscribed life. We humans are a social species, not a loner species. Even if you don’t believe in the greater good and that sort of thing, being engaged in the wider social scene and building strong interpersonal relationships is just part of our genetic and social character as homo sapiens. Attempting to cut off all relationships that have any depth goes against our very nature.
Having said that, if you regularly contribute to charity, then you’re not actually living entirely for yourself. And that, in my opinion, is a good thing. Contributing to something greater than oneself gives a satisfaction that goes beyond just taking care of one’s own animal and emotional needs, as important as that is to our overall wellbeing.
Thanks again for stopping by, and for your thoughts.
I would say that Ive taken the “Red Pill” but that largely means that I’m aware of societal traps for the modern male. This is what it means was to me…
1) I’ll never be legally married again. I may declare in front of all my friends and family to stay w my partner (commitment ceremony)but will never delve into an undeniably skewed legal system which favors women at every turn. We can derive some sort of contract for property division (ie an escape clause) but I refuse to sign and contract which isn’t fair, marriage or otherwise.
2) Women demand equality, I demand equality. Thanks to the red pill I’m fully aware of the current double standard. Women want equality as long as men die in wars for them, police the streets in much higher numbers, work much more dangerous jobs, are largely expected to pay for dates, etc
3) I will have a custody agreement in place prior to having children. Child custody laws favor women period. I get my kids 11 days a month and I had to spend 18 months in court and over 10k to do that. I’ll just add that I have zero history of abuse and no criminal record. The unequal balance was due to my irregular work schedule ie I work more than ever to pay $1300/month child support. So my advice to guys, just expect to not see your kids a lot if you aren’t subservient to your partner.
In conclusion, I have moved on from bitterness and now focus on practical methods to live well. Why, I LEARNED FROM MY MISTAKES! I still love women,but will never give a woman a key to my financial kingdom. I’ll fully expect her to pull her own weight and practice equality. So until I meet that woman, I have a great job, a lovely relationship w my girls, vacation well w my bros and lady friends, and just live life. Yes, I’m guarded, it’s not ideal but I’m stable and my mental health has never been better. C’est la vis…
Hi Jay,
Thanks for stopping by and telling your story. I’m glad your bad experience with divorce didn’t totally sour you on women, as seems to be the case with so many MGTOW.
Personally, I don’t think the State should have anything to do with marriage. However, despite the negative aspects of getting the law all tangled up in people’s personal relationships and finances, there are some benefits of legal marriage that are useful as long as we live in a society focused on money and property—which will likely be a very long time. Most couples would also prefer their partner to have the right to visit them in the hospital and make medical decisions for them if necessary rather than that defaulting to some possibly estranged or hostile biological family member. Still, I believe that securing specific legal rights should be a separate thing from making a personal or religious commitment recognized socially and religiously as marriage. In this as in other matters, I believe in a separation of Church and State. For an interesting sidelight on this, see my post:
Real Marriage vs. Legal Marriage
My own experience with divorce, while not pleasant, was nowhere near as hellish and biased as what many men have recounted on the MGTOW websites. I was able to gain effective 50% physical custody of my two children who were still minors (my two sons). Under the laws of the state of Massachusetts where I then resided, this meant there would be no child support flowing either way. There was also no alimony. For his last two years of high school my youngest son lived full-time with me and my wife by his own choice (I had since remarried). While I could have pursued child support from my ex-wife during that time, I never did. Besides my lack of interest in getting my family all tangled up in the courts again, one of my primary goals in the original divorce settlement was to have no remaining financial entanglements with my ex-wife after the divorce. Yes, that meant I got stuck with all of the marital debt, which sucked. But severing all financial ties avoided many future conflicts and headaches, and it was well worth it. So although I know many men get screwed by the courts and effectively lose their children, my experience was different. And that was with a female judge presiding. All women are not irrational and evil, MGTOW dogma to the contrary notwithstanding. 😉
For me of that is all now well in the past, thankfully. I’ve had no contact with my ex-wife for many years now, and I have a good relationship with all three of my adult children. So life is good. Not all divorces end as disasters for the man.
Finally in response to your thoughts and resolutions, I have come to believe through these various experiences that ultimately, full equality between men and women, especially in marriage, is the ideal. And this means not just legal and social equality, but also financial equality. I.e., women will no longer be able to simply expect men to support them as if it were their God-given right. While many traditionalists and religious folks bemoan the breakdown of the old pattern of marriage in which the man was the boss and breadwinner and the woman was his servant and homemaker, I say to that old system: Good riddance! If some couples want to engage in a division of labor for the purposes of raising children in which the man works while the woman raises the children, that’s certainly their choice. But it should be a choice made between the two of them, not something that is simply expected by society or by the woman. And if some couples want to reverse the traditional roles such that the woman works and the man raises the children, that, too, is their business, not mine or society’s or the State’s.
Meanwhile, best of luck in finding the woman you’re hoping for, and good on you for not waiting until then to live your life!
A man who does not get married stands 0 chance of getting divorced.
A man who does not date stands 0 chance of spending his hard earned money dating .Or spending time energy and money negotiating a relationship.
A single man who does not date has a reduced chance of being falsely accused of Domestic Violence. Or of getting into an argument with a woman hes involved with .I’m very sorry but a lot of women have cyclical hormonal changes that negatively affect their disposition. Especially behind closed doors.
According to the Duluth Model, in domestic violence situations the man is always at fault. If she hits him it was in self defense. If she accuses him Always believe the woman .
Always believe the woman comes directly from left wing ideology and feminism. Which is in itself a left wing ideology.
Those who subscribe to Left wing ideology always blame someone or something else for their problems. Weather it’s the PATRICHARY or Capitalism or the Kulaks of old Soviet Russia who were liquidated in Stalins “reforms”.
The left alway seeks to “reform” . What usualy happens is disaster and mass famine.
Feminism also seeks to reform society and and laws.The “Pay Gap” is a great example. It has been debunked over and over again but feminists insist that huge numbers of women in the West are earning less than men because of sexist discrimination and demand “reform” to correct it .
People who are not blinded by Left Wing propaganda know this.Why would you pay a man $20 an hour when you could pay a woman $10 an hour and save $400 a week with a 40 hour work week to reinvest into your business? Absurd . But feminists and all other left wing people cling to this kind of absurdity with disastrous results .See Venezuela or the fall of the Iron curtain for examples.
Feminists deny and obscure how much domestic violence is committed by women. People who have done research into this and spoken the truth like Murray A Straus and Erin Pizzey faced severe repercussion.
MGTOW are men who after much introspection have done a cost and risk to benefit analysis and decided for themselves that certain levels of interaction with women do not pay off.
Marriage is the first of these .
It’s not that AWALT . It’s that enough of them are and putting yourself at risk for what might happen and all too often does happen is not worth the potential risk and cost. .
It much easier to not have to concern yourself with whatever a woman is doing, thinking or feeling and just eat, drink and be merry .
And ignore what ever society and women are saying about it .
This is nothing new as evidenced by Batchelor taxes that have been imposed on men throughout the ages.
You mention MGTOW being angry and hateful or misogynistic. People my friend who find themselves burned and learn that everything they believed to be true was false have a normal and healthy reaction in being angry. As another example.
A business owner maby a construction business owner who believed that the police and courts are unbiased and loses all of his equipment to being seized by court order after the neighbors hear an argument and call the police. While the man is removed from his home and the woman files for divorce. He thought the court would give him a fair shake .Yes there is the impression that the man is always wrong.
Wow you know . Everything hes worked for, for so long it’s all gone .Back to square – 100 .
Do you understand what I’m saying at all ??
Then bereft of a means to make a decent living he has to pay alimony.
Robin Williams learned this . With a decreasing demand for his acting and comedy he was still saddled with alimony payments and his income was not nearly what it had been.
Robin wanted to leave money to his children and saw no other means to do that besides suicide.
See the movie Divorce Corp to get a hint of what I’m talking about. Now that some women are being ordered to pay alimony, demand for alimony reform grows.
You said so yourself. Some of what happened in your marriage and divorce was your fault . Congrats for taking responsibility. But many many men were simply faithful hard working husbands and fathers when she decides to play out her own version of Eat Pray Love. BIG big difference between a man like you who screwed up and knows he screwed up . And 1 that really tried his best . So you cannot fairly compare yourself to all other men who have been through the divorce grinder.
There are a lot of serious issues that men can avoid just by not getting married.
Not getting married is very often the responsible thing to do.
In a real sense NAWALT and AWALT are irrelevant.
It costs me nothing to not ask a woman out. It costs me nothing to avoid being alone with a woman in an elevator.(Or an office) It also costs me nothing to not be in an elevator alone or not alone and ask a woman if she wants to go out for coffee. Which is what touched off the whole #ElevatorGate scandal. It costs me nothing to avoid sitting near a woman at a public venue . It costs me nothing to avoid sitting near a woman at a public venue where she might hear me making a joke with my friends that she might not understand and assume it’s all about her which triggered the DongleGate scandal.
I dont need a woman.
I have no physical need to be around women .
I wont die or catch some horrible disease because I’m not around women.
Being around women is not a life and death issue.
But what issues can I avoid by not being around women to the best of my ability. ? That is the REAL question my friend.
Hi Mwave,
Thanks for stopping by, and for your comment.
If you don’t want to be in relationships with women or be around women, that’s your choice. There are no laws saying you have to.
But we’ve got Red Pill men on one side saying that women and feminists are the source of all of society’s ills, and all of men’s ills, and we’ve got feminists on the other side saying that men and patriarchy are the source of all society’s ills, and all of women’s ills. Neither side of that debate is objective.
There have been messed up things about society ever since society began. Some of them have hurt men. Some of them have hurt women. Some of them have hurt both men and women. The idea that either men or women are especially downtrodden is mostly just dogma. For many people, both males and females, life sucks at times and you just have to deal with it.
If your solution is to stay away from women, that’s your choice.
You are clearly exaggerating.
It is men who are discriminated against whenever the law and society stands in judgment between a man and a woman or men and women.
See the videos of social experiments where a woman is hitting a man .
Woman hits a man .
Meh
Shoulder shrug .
Or maby good for a laugh.
That’s pretty much the way it has always been.In centuries past a man who was beaten by his wife might just be run out of town .Or forced to ride a donkey backwards.Then run out of town.How really well read are you in history besides what you were taught in school?
Who cares?.Hes only a man .Utterly disposable
As all human behavior this is both nature and nurture.
The courts.
The police.
Accusations .
A woman can make an accusation about something that happened 30 years ago. And tie up the courts to the cost of millions. With no proof.
What man can do that ?
You are claiming that. MGTOW and feminist women are the same .
But
Feminist women have the government and tax dollars to support them .Even to the extant that tax dollars earmarked for abused womens shelters get spent on propaganda.
How many tax dollars are spent on feminist initiatives?
Can you even spend 1/4 of the time you claim to have spent researching MGTOW researching this ?
So you dont like our tone ?
You would like us to tone it down? Yup just stifil it.Dont speak evil bout our women . No matter what certain of them do .Dont deign to think you can express your hurt and anger. Because your only just a man.If you kill yourself people will object less than if you vent to your friends online. A feminist woman can say anything including #KillAllMen and her tax funded group will never be listed as hate group. Men commit suecide especially after divorce at a ratio of more than 4 to 1 when compared to women . But nobody really cares .There will be no tax supported or publicly funded initiative to curb male suicide after divorce. It just does not rate as newsworthy.
Are you even aware that the point of feminist rhetoric and tone is to get their “reforms” anacted?
Like Duluth model? Like feminist Womens studies “degrees teaching our unsuspecting young people their left wing psudo intellectual propaganda?Like making it look like the vast majority of DV is perpatrated by men while nothing could be further from the truth ?So from your perspective men have no right to complain .And women wont or like or marry these men .If that’s what your thinking then your really missing the point.Do you get it that these are men who are not seeking relationships and marriage?
How irrelevant when you consider that there are women who flock to get into relationships with men like Ted Bundy and Richard Ramerez.
Are you really that clueless?
Heres the kicker . Feminism and its endless drive to reform would not be so appealing to women if it werent for a very basic thing about human and female nature .A thing that ancient peoples of the past, like the Greeks well knew about. This is not something that usually rises to the level of concusesness but from the unconcusesness.Not something that women often willingly think about every day .And also, to be fair a driving force behind the rise of civil society and technology.
Women are never satisfied the way men are.
As your first poster said . Hes happy doing a Bbq and hanging out with friends etc.
Women are different in this respect. They will not, by and large be content with what their husbands provide for them and with what the government provides for them .
There will always be demands for males even boys and men and the government for reform and change.
A boy who chews a cookie into the shape of a gun in the lunchroom will will find himself in hot water.As happened .
Playing cowboys and indians pretending that your finger is a pistol. Boys going out to recess and being rough and tumble .All that’s out!!!
Boys expected to sit quietly in a seat like their female classmates.
Micro aggressions, man spreading ,man splaining.
Demands for changes in how much women are paid.
Increased funding for womens shelters while not a cent is spent on men in Domestic violence situations.Schools brain washing children and our youth with leftist propaganda blaming free markets and the west for all the worlds problems.Making sure that women have more opportunities to have a career in law enforcement and the military with decreased physical standards created just for women.Men automatically being labeled as the perp in a DV /IPV situation when the police come.
That’s in!!!
Have you ever heard of something called the Long March Through the Institutions?
Where leftists saw they were losing to they decided to plant their people all throughout academia, the media,Hollywood and the government?? Frankfurt school ring a bell?
People who know know that women are especially vulnerable to Marxist ideology. Thats why Chairman Mao said “Women hold up half the sky.”
Do you know about the feminist leftist hierarchy where men ,especially white men are considered to be the worst human beings walking the earth. Blamed for colonialism slavery and supposed mass rape of minorities?
This perspective is especially prevalent with feminists.
Improverished minority single mother (who made bad decisions) is a saint while a man who is a corporate executive and worked 90 hour work weeks to get where he is is the devil incarnate .A personification of the Patrichary. Through sacafice good decisions and dedication.
There are things that appeal to the hindmost parts of womens minds.Its just human nature.Men preferring STEM fields as a career and women preferring a “Helping field” ? And earning differently ? Have to get some kind of reform or law to address this! It’s not fair! Its discrimination! Against women and feminism Up up women up .I am woman hear her roar.
Despite unprecedented rise in living conditions in the west . Diseases that plagued humanity being since time immemorial all but wiped out .Never in the history of the world has food production been at the level it is now..Medical technology.Labor saving devices in the home.The fact that most Americans own a vehicle. Never in the history of the world have women had it so good.Never have so many had so much.
This is something that Betty Fredan noticed when she wrote her book “The Feminine Mystique”
Women were then and are now not as happy as they want to be.In fact women are less happy now than 50 years ago . Go figure .
Women are very difficult to satiate. Politicians are constantly trying. So tax dollars continue to flow to things to please women voters.
A continuous and vain effort.You will never satisfy women . They will continue to blame men and charge the government to make changes. And more changes.As they have always done all throughout history.
So women especially feminist women will continue to poke and prod and cajole
.Their demands for men to change and
government reform are and will continue. endlessly.
As has always been .Things that boys and men naturally like to do will receive condemnation.Demand for cessation of anything that offends the delicate sensebilitys of women will never end. .Prepare yourself because to keep women happy is a fools errand.
.Men now and as they have done in the past will get wise to it.
Men will confer with eachother,comerisate, point out all of this and more.And complain. They will say Ef this and Ef that and walk away.
But unlike women . They will get no support from society or government.
You should understand this about women . The majority would trade security for liberty. And look longingly at those who are tasked with providing that security and those who act against it .Even those who vehemently put security at risk. Hybristophilia.
Preferring their own personal security to that of everyone elses.
So you want us to tone it down .Somebody has to be the Tone Police right ? Somebody gotta tell those angry hurt men “Hey buddy tone it down . You might offend the womenfolk.”
Am I right?
Dosen’t matter that it never rose to the extent of #KillAllMen like it did on social media a few years ago. Dosent matter that it never rose to girls going around with tshirts saying Boys are stupid throw rocks at them”
(Sold in a store near you)
Dosnt matter that a respected feminist wrote a book calling for violence towards men. Society For Cutting Up Men .SCUM Manifesto. And her works are taught in Universitys to this day.
O but not all women are like those women ?
Right?
Well where are the women who oppose “those”women?
Where are the women who have stood against “reforms” to the court system that discriminate against men ?
Tender years doctrine.
There was a man just recently was jailed because he spoke against a judge who awarded custody of his child who later died in the mothers care. Where are those women who are supposedly “Not like that” In this case? Where are the women out in the streets protesting demanding for equality in the courtroom? Where are the women demanding that women receive equal punishment for women for the same crime? Where are the women demanding that their feminist sisters tone down the #KillAllMen type of rhetoric?
Women who do say anything are a tiny damn minority.
But if the reverse happens? If a man, a father awarded custody were to cause a child to be harmed??. Oooo watch and see what happens.
There is a well known psychological phenomenon known as Women are wonderful.
Women prefer women over men and men prefer women over men .Women have an in group bias and men have an out group bias.
Perhaps this is part of the reason you are writing about mgtow?
And you just want us to tone it down ?
For the women right?
Because the women wont like it ?
Right? Reminds me of the time when a woman slapped me about 50 times because she wanted me to be quiet. To hush my mouth. Therr were about 10 women all within about 3 arm lengths. Not a 1 said a word.
And you want MGTOW to just tone it down .Stop btching. Stop saying so many mean things about women .
MGTOW is already classified as a hate group.
So they need to tone down their speech.???
Right ? Because women or some women will be offended?
But men who talk about things women do . They are just bad men who need to tone it down. They can be angry. They can be hurt. But dont go expressing it online to your online friends. And for Pastas sake dont get together some where and speak like that .Might just get Swatted .
Women were protesting for the right to vote while men who didn’t have the right to vote were dying in droves in trenches and battlefields during WW1 .Talk about ungrateful. Not protesting to end the war or end the mass slaughter by guns and bombs but 4 the right to vote.
Women dont really want equality. That’s just a buzzword. They demand equal representation in board rooms but not in digging ditches. Or cleaning sewers or roofing in 100 degree heat . You dont see women demanding en mass to have to register for the draft.You dont see women demanding to get into dirty dangerous jobs where the rate of workplace death and injury is far higher than average but you do see them saying its because of unfair and illegal discrimination that keeps them from executive positions in fortune 500 companies. It’s the Patrichary.
Yes MGTOW do complain .But our complaints are not going to be answered in any favorable way by the government. Or any one . Unlike women and feminists .
Can you see the difference? At all or are you totally blind ?
We arent trying to make change .We complain amongst ourselves. We bitch we fuss about the way things are .At the end of the day we go home and go to work the next day.We dont bother the government or anyone for funding.
Women on the other hand cost more in tax dollars than they put in .
Feminists go around and talk about killing men and your supposed NAWALTS do Nothing!! Squat!
Their ideology had spread to the police and the courts .
But we need to tone it down ?
Heres some research 4 u
Karen Straugn.
She is much more eloquent than I. Hear what SHE has to say about MGTOWs
Hi Mwave,
This is not a political blog, so I won’t respond on all of your political issues. Suffice it to say that I am well aware that government, politics, and society are very messed up. I used to be politically active when I was young. But through banging my head against that brick wall for many years, I realized that government has been irredeemably corrupted, and is not going to be fixed. Trying to fix it is like running your Ferrari into the wall of the Pentagon. They’re just going to fix the hole in the wall, and junk the car. People are going to have to learn the hard way that government will not fix their problems. Kingdoms and empires rise, become corrupt, overextend themselves, and fall. This has always been the case. Our fancy democracies are no exception to that rule. But this is something people will not learn except by the experience of having their government fail. And that can take a while.
As for the rest, the pendulum swings. For much of history men ran the show. Now women are running the show in certain areas of government, and men are squealing about it. That’s their right. In time, the pendulum will swing back in the other direction, until we reach some sort of balance.
Meanwhile, the idea that women are running society in general is ludicrous. In business, men still hold the overwhelming number of positions of wealth and power throughout the world. A few women have managed to join that club on their own, but not many.
As for the rest, non-wealthy men and women have always been oppressed in one way or another, either by the wealthy elite or by one another. That’s because we humans start out self-absorbed and selfish. We start out wanting wealth, power, pleasure, and control for ourselves, regardless of who we have to step on to get it. We become non-selfish only if, in our adult years, we make a conscious choice and put out the effort to do the personal work required. Many people do not make that choice, or do that work. And so we screw each other, regardless of gender and all other factors.
And yes, women and feminists have their own litany of complaints about men and patriarchy that is every bit as shrill and offended as that of Red Pill men in their various forms. So these radicalized men and women shout at each other across the chasm that divides them. And very little gets better as a result of all the shouting.
You can shout all you want. It may make you feel good. It may serve as a venting and a catharsis of all the rage and bitterness pent up inside. So go into a MGTOW chatroom and scream. But it’s not going to fix the world. The world is going to be a screwed up mess for a long time to come. Injustices are corrected over time, but it is over a long time. You and I will not live to see the perfectly just world that we long for.
What we can do is fix our own self and our own character, and redirect our own life to a more sane, stable, and constructive path. Shouting at women and feminists is just a distraction from the real work of being a man. Sure, get it out of your system if you need to. Shout and yell all you want. But then get your mind re-focused, stop blaming women, society, and government for all your problems, and do the work of being a man. Being a man means taking responsibility for our own life, despite all the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, and building our own character and life into something worthwhile.
A MGTOW blogger whose screen name is Neroke recently wrote a response to the above article here. Though he invited me to respond in his comments (“You have a problem with me you take it to my comments”), when I did so my comment was promptly deleted.
Here is the response I wrote there:
Hi Neroke,
Thanks for taking the time to respond to my MGTOW article. I’ll ignore all the standard Red Pill name-calling and personal attacks and focus on a few of the substantive points you make.
But first, I’m a little surprised that you think my article is so terrible. I read a whole lot worse while doing the research for my three-article series on the Red Pill movement. Having gone through a milder version of what a lot of Red Pill men have gone through in their relationships with women, I’m far more sympathetic to MGTOW than most outside critics. And if you can’t take a little satire . . . well, that’s your problem, not mine.
But what really struck me in reading your article is that for the most part, you’re telling MGTOW the same things I am, except from an insider’s perspective rather than from an outsider’s perspective: Get yourself out of bad relationships if you can. Be single if you want to be single. Don’t blame it all on women. Take responsibility for your own self as a man and move on with your life.
As for all of the things you say I’m avoiding, I had already dealt with most of them in the first two articles in my Red Pill series, on MRA and PUA.
Now I’ll respond on a few points:
“I’m an atheist”
Doesn’t really matter to me. I don’t care if you’re theist, atheist, agnostic, buddhist, rastafarian, or pastafarian. And I don’t think God does either.
Within a few short centuries after Jesus, Christianity got seriously off track, thinking it’s all about believing the right thing rather than about living a good life—which is what the Bible focuses on. Yes, there are statements in the Bible about believing in Jesus. But traditional Christianity has totally ignored what Jesus himself taught. Read Jesus’ own clearest statement about who goes to eternal life and who doesn’t in Matthew 25:31–46 (The Parable of the Sheep and the Goats, AKA The Judgment of the Nations). There’s not a word in it about belief or about faith in Jesus. It’s all about how people treat their fellow human beings. And it applies to people of all nations, not just to Christians.
It’s because I’m a Christian that I care far more about how people live than about what they believe. I wrote a whole article on my blog about how atheists can go to heaven just as easily as theists as long as they live a good life with some care and concern for their fellow human beings according to a decent set of principles.
So I don’t really care much if you’re an atheist. I care about whether you live a decent life according to some set of principles that says, at the most basic, that you should treat other people the way you would want to be treated. Even if you don’t believe in God and an afterlife, that still makes life better both for yourself and for humanity as a species.
Of course, it’s your business, not mine, how you choose to run your life. You’re the one who has to take the consequences for whatever choices you make, and whatever actions you take. And no, I’m not talking about being roasted over a spit in hell. I don’t believe that either. I’m talking about making your life a lot harder than it needs to be if you do stupid, selfish, and greedy things.
But you seem to be a decent person despite all the bluster. I suspect you have all of that fairly well under control by now.
Which leads to:
“We’re just venting”
I get that. And I do deal with it in the articles.
But reading the Red Pill and MGTOW forums, it was hard to find the “adult” Red Pillers in the room. Where are the men saying, “Don’t get mad at all women. Get mad at the one who screwed you over”? Where are the men saying, “Let it all out! And then get over it and move on”?
Yes, you can find these things if you dig into some of the MGTOW websites and video channels. But you can find a whole lot more about how terrible, selfish, and destructive women are, and how men’s problems today are due to the feminism and gynocentrism that have taken over modern society.
Bullshit.
But that’s the next point.
To finish up with this one: If you’re going to do your group therapy for new Red Pillers in public, and the adults seem to have left the room and buried their more mature perspectives where most casual observers of the movement never find them, what do you expect your movement to look like to outsiders?
And you can say all you want that you don’t care about what outsiders think of you. But if you want to bring about change in society, it isn’t going to work very well to project an image of screaming victimhood. The people who might otherwise work with you to make those changes will just distance themselves from you and tune you out.
“Today’s society is anti-male”
First of all, objectively, this just isn’t true. Men still occupy most of the top positions in government, industry, and society. Men still make far more money and wield far more power than women do. We are very far from a society in which women rule and men grovel at their feet.
When outsiders hear Red Pillers yell about how women are running the world and oppressing men, it makes the Red Pill movement look ridiculous, because looking at the big picture, it’s simply not true.
However, there certainly has been a pendulum swing on the gender front in recent decades.
Given that throughout recorded history men have been ascendant over women, that’s not too surprising. If anything, the current pendulum swing against all that history of men being on top and women being on the bottom is rather mild.
And as always, the pendulum will continue to swing until society reaches a new equilibrium on gender roles and relations.
I predict that in another fifty or sixty years today’s sitcoms in which men are bumbling idiots and women are smart, savvy achievers will look like dated period pieces just as TV shows from the 1950s now look like dated period pieces. And more seriously, the current imbalances in the divorce courts will be a thing of the past as well. It takes time and a lot of very hard work to correct the wrongs and the overreactions of society and the legal system.
Meanwhile, men in today’s society can still live a good life. Yes, some men will get screwed over by women. And some women will get screwed over by men. Lots of people screw over lots of other people. Welcome to reality.
Personally, about all I have left from my first three decades of adulthood is my beliefs, my relationship with my adult children, and my rather extensive personal library. Most of the rest is gone. I had to rebuild my life from scratch. So don’t tell me I don’t know what I’m talking about. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt.
It may surprise you to hear that all your shouting aside, I agree with most of what you say in your “rebuttal” to my article. I’m just a little mystified that you seem to think I’ve made a terrible attack on MGTOW. In fact, even though I engaged in some satire along the way, I’m basically telling MGTOW the same thing you’re telling them: Don’t blame women. Take responsibility for your own life.
(Edit: This has now been posted as an article on this blog here.)
Hi Lee,
Well done. My question is I constantly hear from mgtow that we “live in gynocentric society”
They tend to generalize like crazy, so it’s difficult to get a clear handle of what they mean exactly. Is it true?
I’ve been married for over 20 years — it’s means something. To me at least.
But after stumbling/watching mgtow videos, all the input about the “modern” hypergamous women I don’t see them quite as innocent as I used too. Don’t get me wrong, I know there’s crazy women out there, but I always thought they were the minority. At least in my own experience. Heck, my friend, is even thinking about calling off his engagement of a few weeks after watching mgtow videos.
The messages Making him believe he’s good only as long as he’s producing, etc. (and sadly.. some of it, at least to some extent is true. The “love” of the wife dwindles or becomes distant not long after the man gets injured, or losses his means of income) Plus women initiate divorce 65-90% of the time, which Is certainly eye raising.
So.. I’m at a point to where I’m not sure what to teach my son about relationships.
Many seems awfully negative about marriage too. From what I understand the marriage rates are declining. But at the same time, there’s a part of me that would hate to shoot that part in him down, as that could be such a special part in a mans life. I also don’t want to give him a negative connotation towards women and relationships either.
Especially being the relationship with my wife has meant much to me, I can’t imagine what life would be like without a meaningful relationship, (or at least the “option” of it) .. but I am a bit concerned.
Next, mgtow seems to blame feminism for the ‘change’ in women. Especially over the last 10 years. (Yet, most of the women I know hardly know what feminism is past basic equal right for women lol)
Anyhow, do you think mgtow has a point? Are the woman of today totally different? Do they take men for granted for providers? Some of them may not be blatant “gold diggers”, but if the majority of women today are using money (instead of love) as fuel to the relationships, I’d rather have him pass.
Personally, I get the sense of bitterness and irrational thinking from the men of mgtow. Their going thier own way, but yet stay to mock husbands, and fathers. Some things many of them say are just revolting. I was raised to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, and trying to see the good, but hey, maybe they have a point I’m somehow missing. Maybe times have changed. Maybe feminism along with tinder and social media has changed things up so drastically, that it is asking to hit the lottery with a decent women, unless you have piles of money.
Again, I have no idea what to teach my kids when it comes to relationships anymore. It seems that so few have morals, values, especially towards relationships and marriage these days. So any input would be appreciated.
Hi Henry,
Thanks for stopping by, and for your comment and questions.
First, let me ask you a question: Does your own wife of twenty years fit the profile of the MGTOW woman? Do your other women friends, acquaintances, and coworkers fit the profile of the MGTOW woman? What is your experience of women?
In general, MGTOW are MGTOW because they’ve had one or more bad experiences with women. And don’t get me wrong. There are self-centered, gold-digging women out there. But does the fact that a certain relatively small segment of the male population has had such horrendous experiences with women, and now they’re getting together and talking about it, mean that all women are self-centered, gold-digging prostitutes?
I don’t think so.
MGTOW represents a self-selected group of men who have had such bad experiences with women that they’ve become sour on women as a whole. Men who have wonderful, or even so-so, marriages with great, or at least decent, women don’t go to MGTOW forums to say how terrible women are, nor do they make YouTube videos blaming all of the world’s problems on those terrible, terrible feminists. The vast bulk of the male population of the world are not MGTOW. And the vast bulk of the female population of the world are not self-centered gold-digging bitches.
Now consider whether, if you were a woman, you would want to be with some of the men whose MGTOW videos you’ve watched, and whose MGTOW blog posts you’ve read. Does a decent, well-centered man who has a bad experience with a woman turn around and spend his life making vitriolic statements about women and hurling insults at any man who has anything to do with them?
I don’t think so.
I’ve had conversations with a few thoughtful, reasonable MGTOW. But most of the ones I’ve encountered are so busy screaming at women and blaming feminists for all their problems that you can’t even have a rational conversation with them. Do you think that such men have a sound, balanced view of women, or of life in general?
I don’t.
The reality is, as I say in this series of articles about the Red Pill, that we all, men and women alike, start out in our adult life somewhat self-absorbed and stupid. It takes time, years, and experience to mature emotionally into a really good, decent, thoughtful person. Do women do stupid, selfish, hurtful things to men? They certainly do. Do men do stupid, selfish, hurtful things to women? Yes indeed. We all have, and we all still do sometimes.
But women also do wonderful, thoughtful, selfless things for men. And men also do wonderful, thoughtful, selfless things for women. We’re a mixed bag, we humans. It takes time and effort to set aside the worse parts of our character and to strengthen the better parts of our character.
Some women, and some men, never choose to do that, and never put in the time and effort to become decent people. And for those who have the bad fortune to get tangled up with such a person in a marital or sexual relationship, it certainly can be hell on earth. But in that case, the thing to do is to extricate yourself from that relationship whenever you can, dust yourself off, learn from the experience, and move on just a little bit wiser.
Don’t be afraid to teach your son about love and marriage. Give him the benefit of your own experience with women, relationships, and marriage. Teach him what love and marriage are all about—not about getting pleasure for yourself, but about giving love and joy to another person, and feeling the joy that comes when it is mutual. There is nothing greater in this world than a good, healthy, loving marriage relationship. It’s hard to achieve, but if both partners are committed to it, and work on it every day, the joys and satisfactions it brings are unmatched by anything else we humans do.
Here are a few articles that cover some of the basics of love and marriage. The second and third articles are addressed more specifically to men:
And there are plenty more where these came from!
Yes, it’s good for young men to be smart about their relationships and do their best to make sure they don’t get hooked up with a selfish woman who will suck a man dry and spit him out. But those women are indeed in the minority. Most women are just doing their best to live their lives. Some are just ordinary women, and some are really exceptional women. The best way for a man to get a good woman is to be a good man.
As for feminism taking over the world . . . well, it hasn’t happened yet. And considering that men have run the world for thousands of years now, even if the pendulum did swing a little too far the other way for a while, it would just be part of humanity rebalancing itself as we move into a new and more equal era in human social and spiritual evolution.
Personally, I don’t have any fear that women becoming stronger will make men weaker. If anything, it’s a challenge to us men to stand up and reach our own full potential as men. A man who is secure in his own identity and in his own principles and purpose in life has nothing to fear from women throwing off their old traditional shackles and reaching their full potential as women and as human beings.
If anything, being married to a strong, self-assured woman who can be a full partner with her husband is much more exciting, invigorating, and satisfying than having a traditional meek, submissive wife who is more like a dependent or a servant than a partner.
Hi Lee, thankyou for the thoughtful reply.
I was that ‘bad boy’ before I was married, so I’ve lived on both sides of the track. With this experience, I tried to speak to mgtow men to let them know that a meaningful relationship is more than possible (at least to ‘consider’ at some point) But as you noted, (outside of a very select few) it’s very difficult to have a sensible conversation with them.
I delved deeper into mgtow being that I simply couldn’t believe what I was seeing. In fact, one of the very first videos I saw I thought he (sandman) was joking. while certain points about men respecting themselves, etc were agreeable..
The overall feel of it, the way they spoke about women and relationships just didn’t seem normal or true for that matter. Some of it could easily be taken out of context, I e “don’t make a women the center of your life” uh.. well, when you truly love someone, that sort of what happens, and visa versa, but that also doesn’t mean I can’t focus on goals, myself, as well. I noticed in the comment sections many of the critiques and attempts at other viewpoints were being deleted too.
I also couldn’t help but to think what if a normal innocent man was say looking for dating advice, stumbled into any of that.. Geez. They also talk about “red pill rage”, and I’m thinking to myself what could be so bad to cause a “thing” like that. Nothing good should be causing anger and rage.
They talk about spreading these messages.. even teaching it to little kids, and I’m sorry but those videos, forums, mgtow community, etc are not the definition of empowerment for men. A man can focus on himself, respect himself, without mgtow, or metaphorical “pills” He can and should be open to the possibility relationship if it comes his way. I never understood why they viewed relationships as some sort of a “burden”, in fact going at it alone through life is not easy ir fun as it seems either.
Its good that blogs like yours help to comb through and buffer some of this to offer men a much more balanced perspective.
Last thing men need is to be pushed/steered/shamed toward being a loner, and this simply is NOT natural in any sense of the word for majority of men. They make this odd assumption that being in any kind of relationship (or married) automatically equates to being a door mat or unhappy- when the exact opposite is the case for millions of couples who are blessed, grateful, and couldn’t imagine life without each other.
I asked about feminist, etc. because there seems to be such a hate towards them. At least the 3rd wave. Not just with mgtow, but others, even women, saying it’s destroying marriages, and relationships as a whole.
If anything, the main thing I see effecting relationships are both men and women,
and…
smart phones.
And the abuse of social media on those smart phones lol But that’s for a different topic.
As far as the other links thankyou. I will surely read them.
Hi Henry,
You’re welcome. A few semi-random thoughts in response:
1. I had the same reaction in reading the account that I partially quoted above under the heading, “The fully realized MGHOW.” I could hardly believe that this guy was even taking himself seriously. I thought maybe he actually was just joking. But people get off on major mental tangents. Often they have no perspective at all on their own life and their own opinions. People can believe the most crazy, insane things in the world, and think that it is perfectly normal, and that everyone who disagrees with them is crazy and insane.
Still, that’s why it’s good to check your own experience against that of other people. A lot of the MGTOW stuff may be nuts, but it gets a guy thinking about what he himself thinks, believes, and accepts about women, men, and the relationships between them. We see the light more clearly when it’s in contrast with the darkness. Hearing people spout crazy stuff about women, and then comparing it to our own experience with women, helps us to be more confident in our own conclusions about women and men.
So although I disagree almost entirely with the MGTOW perspective on women, I don’t think it’s a bad thing for it to be out there.
2. It’s also good to keep in mind, as a more seasoned MGTOW said here in the comments, that many of these men have been burned fairly recently, and are just venting. I suspect that if you talked to some of them in a decade’s time, they would have calmed down, gotten over it, and moved on—and probably gotten married again.
3. If they don’t get over it and move on, and if they still think that women are the Devil incarnate, then it’s best that they stay single anyway. ‘Nuff said.
4. I actually agree that it’s best not to put a woman (or a man) at the center of your life. That’s where God is supposed to be. One’s husband or wife is, ideally, the next closest relationship.
By that I don’t mean that we’re all meant to be super chummy with God. Rather, I mean that we should always be focused on living according to God’s commandments and example and values first and foremost. If our husband or wife is urging us to do something that’s not right (it happens!) then our first loyalty is to God and to what’s good and true and right. Living with this kind of integrity is, I believe, the only way to have a really good and healthy marriage.
A more secular way of saying this is that husbands and wives should live according to a code of right principles and right behavior, putting that before spouse, family, and friends. For men in particular, this ensures that no woman will appeal to his ego or his emotions and pull him and his life off track. Of course, the same thing applies to women as well.
Far from damaging a relationship, this commitment to God, or to truth and principle, is attractive to any partner who is a person of truth and good character. And that’s the sort of person we want to be married to, isn’t it?
5. About feminism, we’re in the midst of a major upheaval and paradigm shift in human society. Many patterns that have been fairly stable for thousands of years are now breaking down, and new patterns and relationships are emerging in their stead.
Every time there is any major shift in society, there is always a certain amount of chaos in the transition. To traditionalists and the old guard, it looks like the whole world is falling apart. And in fact, their world is falling apart. (See: “The Evangelicals are Right: The World IS Coming to an End!”) But what’s really happening is that a “new world” is taking the place of the “old world,” and there is a lot of messiness in the transition.
For thousands of years, it has been taken for granted that men are meant to run the show, and women are meant to be submissive to them; that men are to be dominant, and women recessive; that man’s intellect is superior, and woman’s emotion is inferior; and of course that God is a man.
Now all of these societal certitudes are coming under fire, and are breaking down. The feminist movement is on the forefront of breaking down those old social patterns and gender relationships.
Is this a bad thing? I don’t think so. I think that God originally created man and woman to be equal. (See: “Man, Woman, and the Two Creation Stories of Genesis.”) However, for men (and women) who still mentally live in and look to the old paradigm, the breakdown of the old male dominance looks like the end of men and the end of marriage. Hence all the lamentations over the “breakdown of marriage,” and in Red Pill dogma, the new “gynocentrism” of society.
In my view, what’s really happening is a fundamental change in the relationship between men and women from a relationship of inequality, dominance, and subservience to a relationship of equal partners. And though it took me a few decades to wrap my head around it, I’ve become more and more convinced that this is a very good thing.
I don’t agree with all of the positions put forward by various feminists and feminist organizations. Some of them are beyond the pale. All men are not rapists. All men are not evil and the enemy. But what I do agree with is that ultimately, God made man and woman to be equal partners with one another. And though in the transition to achieving this there has been a lot of social chaos and carnage, I believe that once we’ve successfully made that transition, both society in general and marriage in particular will be a whole order of magnitude better than it ever was under the old system of gender inequality.
As far as the MGTOW information being out there..
Apparently, youtube is demonetizing MGTOW content. Facebook and Twitter banning as well.
CNN did a special on a top MGTOW creator who claims to be destroyed by divorce.
https://www.reddit.com/r/MGTOW/comments/9xle1j/cnn_hit_piece_on_mgtow_that_is_responsible_for/
In the end, I do think they have ‘some’ valid points, as mentioned above, and this one:
When a woman stands up and proudly says “I don’t need or want a man”, the audience applauds and treats her like a hero. If a man stands up says the same thing, the audience get hostile, attacks him, and treats him like a freak.
….but it’s the way those points are presented overall is what’s killing them. Hopefully, one day men and women will take the time to truly understand and respect each other. It’s hard for me to imagine a life of selfish people, who mock, love, god, and treat marriage as if it’s nothing more but a meaningless social construct.
Hi Henry,
The pendulum swings one way and it swings the other. Men used to rule the roost, and women were supposed to shut up and listen. That faulty pattern is now breaking down. While it’s happening, yes, there is some backlash against men. But that’s to be expected. It will all even out in time.
In general, people who live thoughtful and considerate lives will not be attacked and vilified. Yes, there are certainly exceptions. Anyone who bravely stands up against the tide when the tide is going in the wrong direction is going to get hammered. But a virtuous woman or man today will, under ordinary circumstances, get just as much respect as they ever did, and probably more.
And as for the mockers and the scornful, they are digging their own graves.
Hi Lee,
There is also one thing that stumped me. I read that when after woman has 3-5 sexual partners that it changes her brain, which (supposedly) according to scientic studies makes it very difficult for her to remain loyal, or a viable mate for marriage. I’m no expert researcher, so I’m not sure if this is accurate?
“once a woman has been sexual with 3-5 men (depending on the woman), her brain neurology is re-wired synapsis in the neuronetwork. No long-term pair bonding is possible for a female after oxytocin depletion increasingly with each male whose DNA stays inside her DNA strands forever. Pair bonding for females no longer works even if they try to force it, they will self-sabotage it, or commit adultery”
A pastor himself hinted on this. You seem very intelligent. So I was curious if you had thoughts about this?
Hi Henry,
Sounds like junk science to me.
But more specifically, it sounds like materialistic determinism. There are many materialists who reject free will, and believe that everything is deterministic. When it comes to human behavior, they believe it is all determined by evolution, environment, genetics, and brain chemistry.
I think they’re wrong. Humans have free will. And though there certainly are limits on what we can do, we can choose what our beliefs and values will be, and how we are going to live our lives within our particular circumstances.
As for women sleeping with multiple partners having their brains wired so that they can’t engage in a faithful, committed marriage, I say hogwash. More likely they’ve simply decided they’re going to sleep around, and they have no particular reason to change their mind.
It is true that continuing to think, feel, and behave in a particular way tends to reinforce that way of thinking, feeling, and behaving. And the longer we follow that habit pattern, the stronger the habit becomes, and the harder it is to break it.
But it is still possible to break it. It’s just that it is going to take a conscious decision to change our life, together with the willingness to do the work of making the change. Many people simply don’t want to make that change, or they don’t want to make it enough to do the work required.
Brain chemistry and neural wiring may have a role in ingraining the habit patterns. But we are still human beings, and we can still change who we are and what direction we’re going in if we make a conscious decision to do so and commit ourselves to doing the hard work of personal change.
Hi Henry,
Now about the video:
The guy is plain-spoken and entertaining, and he does make some decent points. But for the most part, he seems to have swallowed the Red Pill line whole, and does not have any real perspective on the situation with men and women.
A dead give-away is his big riff on sex dolls, and how they’re competing with real women for men.
Any man who would substitute a sex doll for a woman and think he’s getting a good deal is not a man that any decent, self-respecting woman would want to marry. The idea that a sex doll is a reasonable substitute for a woman shows that the man who thinks this way is altogether physical-minded about marriage. He thinks marriage is all about sex. Any man who thinks that way deserves to get stuck with a sex doll in his bed instead of a woman.
Real marriage is, first and foremost, a union of minds and hearts brought about by common motives, loves, values, and beliefs. All the rest, including living together in the same home and the physical union of sexual intercourse, is an expression of that inner union. Real marriage goes from the inside out, and from the top down.
Men (and women) who focus on the physical in a relationship, meaning on sex, and put that first, have gotten it exactly backwards. They will never be able to have any real, loving, and stable marriage. For men who think this way, a sex doll probably is better than a real woman. If such a man gets together with a real woman, sooner or later that relationship is going to crash and burn.
As for the courts always ruling in favor of the man, I can tell you from personal experience that that simply isn’t true. I’ve been divorced after a 20+ year marriage. The judge in the case was female. And I was able to walk away from the marriage with everything I wanted, which was 50% custody of my children, and the cutting of all financial ties with my ex-wife. No alimony. No child support. I did take on the marital debt, but that was an acceptable price to pay for getting everything I wanted in the divorce. Most of that debt was resolved within a few years. Now I am completely free to live my own life as I see fit, without any contact or entanglements with my ex-wife. She is also free to live her life as she sees fit. I am completely out of her life.
I talk about the divorce courts in the first article in this series:
The Red Pill Movement (MRA): Men Waking Up as Victims
Patriarchal men who think the man is supposed to rule the roost and work to support the woman while the woman pops out babies, cooks, and cleans will get exactly that when they hit the divorce courts. They’ll still work and support the woman while she takes care of the children.
Yes, be careful about the attitudes with which you go into marriage, because the same pattern you set in your marriage is going to continue after the divorce, except you’ll no longer have the woman to cook, clean, and have sex with you.
In short, you get the kind of divorce that you set yourself up for by your beliefs and attitudes about men, women, and marriage.
Hi Lee,
_Still, that’s why it’s good to check your own experience against that of other people_
Yes. Well that’s the interesting part. While mgtow does go to extremes… I also can not say that I don’t partially sympathize with their concerns about marrying.
They have noted many times in countless ways the overall “mentality” and mindset of today’s women (in the last 10 or so years) has changed drastically. More so Shallow, and Superficial vs looking into the heart of a man. I honestly can’t help but to feel a deep sympathy for the humble men rooted with morals, values, spirituality looking to date or marry in this day and age.
Tinder is seen as the norm. It’s piled with single mothers too. Dating apps, being used for the sole purpose of getting the perfect man/with unrealistic superficial requirements (6 foot tall, 6 pack, high income, etc) and… with social media, and exposing yourself all over social media being the “norm” with women borderline “marketing themselves” opening the door to old “friends” and co-workers. They’ll say finding a loving, humble, low-maintenance type women in this day and age is like finding a big bag of money in a parking lot. So I guess, all of that sort of threw me for a loop being that I grew up around semi-conservative women who’s mindsets were nothing like this.
I must admit I do see married conservative appearing women, semi-flirting everywhere, and esp social media. Using it in a way that could certainly create unnecessary problems down the road. Social media also makes it very, very easy to “check out” with a plethora of other options/distractions during tough times In relationships. In the old days, if you split, you might feel the sting more. While naturally taking the time to reflect, learn, and miss each other.
It’s very normal and common to see women Advertising their lives to thousands of people (who can contact them privately at any time). Constantly showing off their lives. In the last 5 years, I can’t tell you how many people (who were in otherwise good relationships) I’ve heard mention that after their relationship ran into a “tough patch” and it wasn’t long after their s/o had an affair with an “old buddy” on Facebook. Even the statistics show that women cheat (almost) as much as men.. I hear many of husbands feeling a lack of respect, or appreciation, and a general feeling of being unwanted within just a few years of marriage. When I’m out it’s rare to see women without a phone in their face. Its very common to see married women wearing leggings see-through and air tIght. Now I’m no boyscout. But what man would want to be married to women who now think it’s ‘normal’ to walk around in public half-naked practically advertising.
Of course we know men can be just as guilty. But again, with all this said.. I can at least ‘sympathize’ with the concerns men have with getting married in this day and age.
Also, MGTOW seems to be mad at men for feeding into/enabling this behavior (giving non-stop attention to women on social media) and they do have a point there.
I also can’t say I blame them for not wanting to marry a woman who’s slept with dozens of men (which is also very common these days as well) While virgins before marriage hardly exist these days, at least women once seemed to not hand it away like candy. I had a colleague of mine randomly mention sex with 60+ men.. and she says “what? That less than 1 guy a month..” She says it as if that’s just what women do now.
If anything the aggressive MGTOW message, could at the least be a huge wake up call for men to be more careful and selective with whom they invest in. (But not to completely give up and go MGTOW)
One thing that particularly saddened me was a post from a man who felt lied and let down. He mentioned; “before I swallowed the red pill, I was taught my entire life that women wanted a good hearted man, who would open the door for them, romance them, take it slow, and treat them like a queen. We would feel like we can work through anything. That love and kindness were of the utmost importance, that those things came before anything else..”
In fact… I’ve seen many many posts similar to this. Sadly, this then seem to shift a mans mindset from seeing women as sweet, humble, gentle, faithful, nurturing, etc, to nothing else but a “pump and dump” object not worth getting close too or investing in.
For the ‘red pillers’ in relationships, their taught manipulation tactics, and forms of emotional abuse known as “dread game” sheesh. Just vaguely browsing some of it on reddit..(red pill trp) gives me somewhat similar vibes as a man by the name of…
Osho.
https://www.dailydot.com/via/time-reddit-dump-red-pill/
Honestly.. I thank god I was married young when I did. Not sure I’d want to date or marry in this day and age either.
Hi Henry,
Well . . . it’s hard to be 100% wrong. Falsity is not an entirely different species than truth. Rather, falsity takes the truth and twists it into something that is no longer true.
All the things MGTOW say about women are true of some women some of the time. But they are not true of all women all of the time. Not by a long shot.
MGTOW, and the Red Pill movement in general, takes a group of men who have had bad experiences with women, puts them into an echo chamber with each other, and then inflates those particular experiences of a particular group of men with a particular group of women into grand universals and generalizations about all women. This is just one of the many ways that falsity is hatched out of truth.
It’s not that MGTOW are completely wrong. It’s that they think everyone’s experience of women must be like their experience of women, and all women must be like the women they have had relationships with. It’s like having a speck of mud on the pupil of your eye. That one little fleck of contamination causes the whole world to look dark and distorted.
Now to respond to a few of your specific points:
I don’t think women, or men, are any shallower than they ever were. Rather, I think what’s happening is that the shallowness that was always there is now coming out clearly into the light.
The reality is that marriage as a deep relationship of love uniting people’s hearts and minds into one hardly existed in society until very recently. That ideal of marriage has been around for few hundred years at most, and only in the last half century or so has it become a dominant view of love and marriage in society. This may seem unbelievable to people today, but the fact is that in previous centuries marriage was mostly about social, cultural, family, and financial benefits. Love, if it existed at all, was just a pleasant add-on. And even the “love” that did exist was mostly about superficial appreciation of a “prize” partner who had more money, or more physical attractiveness, or better social connections than other possible partners.
The common idea that women (and men) have “gone superficial” shows a lack of perspective on where marriage and relationships are today compared to where they used to be. The “solid marriages” years past were mostly based on external social, financial, and legal pressure that made it ruinous for people to get divorced. Adultery was common, but mostly hidden, as were all of the other sexual and relationship evils, such as spousal and child abuse and sexual abuse of minors.
Today, the external restraints that used to keep people in superficial marriages are being rapidly relaxed and removed. What’s happening is not “the breakdown of marriage,” but the revealing of what the quality of marriage, and of men and women, has been all along.
The real difference is that today many people actually do marry for deeper reasons of love and commonality of values and outlook, rather than the almost entirely superficial reasons for which people used to marry. And the surprising thing is not all the divorces, but that without all the external social, financial, and legal pressures that used to keep mismatched or superficially matched people together, so many marriages do last rather than breaking up.
There are initial indications that millennials are marrying later and less, but that when they do marry, their marriages last longer. I believe we are seeing the beginning of a new attitude and approach to marriage that is less superficial and more equality-based. It’s a lot more work than marriage used to be when the penalties for divorce were swift and severe, and that kept mismatched people together in dead marriages. But the marriages that do survive today have a far deeper and more solid foundation than those old, externally-bonded marriages.
As far as women “advertising themselves,” they’ve always done that, as have men. Now there are just more powerful tools to do it with. I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. Superficial women will find it easier to find the particular types of superficial men that are a good match for them, and vice versa. More thoughtful and principle-driven women will also have more powerful tools for finding more thoughtful and principle-driven men.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but men who are seeing superficial women everywhere may very well be seeing those women because that’s what they’re looking for. Personally, I don’t see superficial women everywhere. I have deep, thoughtful conversations with women on a weekly basis here on the blog. And in my daily life I also interact with many good and thoughtful women who are working to make this world a better place. Sure, I see superficial women also. But in general, you see what you’re looking for. MGTOW will see every superficial woman out there, even while more thoughtful women are passing right by them.
If a MGTOW sees a sexily clad woman in a crowd of ordinarily dressed women, what is he going to focus on? The ordinarily dressed women all fade into the background as he gets his boxers all in a knot about the woman showing all that cleavage, top and bottom.
As for women in skimpy clothing “showing their wares,” though I’m not a big fan of sexualized clothing, I will also say that younger generations are less hung up about the human body than older generations. In a culture in which showing an ankle or a wrist is seen as lewd and racy, women must completely cover themselves. But in a culture in which the beauty of the human body is accepted and appreciated, women can wear bikinis, or less, and nobody’s getting a hard-on.
The whole idea that women “deserve” what they get because of their skimpy, “suggestive” clothing is as much a function of the men who are looking as it is of the women they are looking at. Men who have lewd thoughts about women will see a woman as “showing off her wares.” Men who see women as human beings rather than as sex objects will appreciate a woman’s beauty without getting a headful of wanting to get into her pants.
For young people today it is common to get together wearing little or no clothing. In previous generations this would have driven the guys wild. But today there is a level of body acceptance that didn’t previously exist. Young people just think of this as normal. Sure, many of them are still on the make. That’s always been true, in every generation. But many of them are just enjoying each other’s company, and not thinking the lewd and lustful thoughts that their parents would have been thinking if they’d seen each other with so little covered.
Of course, it’s messy because we live in a mixed society. But it’s good to keep in mind that older generations are looking at younger generations from the perspective of the older generations’ norms and practices, and reacting as if people of their generation had dressed and acted that way. That’s simply not how people of the younger generations see and act around each other.
I remember as a teenager going to England and thinking that all of the people were dressed funny and had funny haircuts. But to each other, they looked completely normal. It’s just that styles in the U.S. were different from styles in Britain. They probably thought I was funny-looking.
In short, you have to judge a particular generation and culture by its own norms and standards, not by outside norms and standards.
Personally, I think we need to get over our hangups about male and female bodies so that we can focus on what really matters: inner connections of love and common values and goals in life. And I do believe that in the midst of all the relationship chaos, that is the direction things are going.
As for rampant sex, sure, some people are doing that. And they’re the ones who get all the press. Women and men who live rather modestly, and don’t sleep around, aren’t out there trumpeting their non-conquests. They’re just quietly going about their lives. The media reports what’s lurid and shocking. It doesn’t report the ordinary lives of everyday people. That wouldn’t sell papers, TV programs, and websites.
Is it bad for women to sleep with 60+ men? I think so.
Is it bad for men to sleep with 60+ women? I think so.
It used to be that men would brag about sleeping with 60+ women, but if they came across a woman who had slept with 60+ men, they’d call her a slut and a whore. In my opinion, a man who sleeps with 60+ women is just as much a slut and a whore as a woman who does so. Why do men get to brag about the same thing women are supposed to be ashamed of? That makes no sense whatsoever, morally speaking.
What’s happening is that the tables are gradually being evened out. Men are beginning to be held to the same standards as women. We still have a long way to go on that. But I think that’s a good thing. Why should women be shamed and men praised for doing the very same thing?
And as for affairs . . . well, every heterosexual affair involves both a man and a woman. The idea that women used to be more virtuous and less likely to have affairs than men, and that this makes today’s women worse than those wonderful women of yesteryear, is just plain silly. In the “good old days” a century or two ago, for every man who was having an affair (and there were lots of them), there was also a woman having an affair. It’s just that it was more likely to be hushed up and ignored. The social consequences for the cuckolded husband would be disastrous. Public exposure and divorce was a desperate last resort.
Today, what’s been happening all along is out in the open, studied by scientists and reported on in the media. Women, and men, have not gotten worse or more promiscuous. Rather, the promiscuity that existed all along is now out in the open, and seen for what it is.
In the long run, that’s a good thing. You can’t correct society’s ills until you see them. Now we know exactly what’s going on with men and women sexually. This makes it possible for us to make real, information- and experience-based decisions on how we want to run our lives.
In the midst of all this, people who want a good, stable, committed relationship can still have that kind of a relationship. It may take some time and effort to find the right partner, but for every man who is of that character (as compared to men who loudly complain about slutty women, but are sluts themselves), there is a woman out there who is looking for that man of good character.
If MGTOW don’t find those women, it’s not only because they’re looking in all the wrong places, but also because they’re looking with jaundiced eyes. How do you find a good woman if the fundamental article of your faith is that there are no good women?
For good men looking for good women, they are out there. And for good women looking for good men, they are also out there. Seek, and you shall find.
Very interesting point you made about women not being different these days. I was under the impression that they more conservative sexually in the past 20+ years than today. I grew up in the 90’s (and at least where I’m from) the ‘majority’ of those women made you wait months, and usually you would be bf/gf.. whereas now, I’m hearing that with the “hookup culture” women are having casual sex like it’s no big deal. But hey, it’s not to say that there aren’t plenty of conservative women too.
I’ll give it to you. Your certainly able to see the good. I was always that way myself, I could find the silver lining in anything. But, I must admit, it’s been a bit of a struggle as of late as I’ve stumbled into some very odd places. Especially on the internet. It’s even rattled my faith a bit.. but I think we all go through this from time to time.
“MGTOW will see every superficial woman out there, even while more thoughtful women are passing right by them”
Yeah,this is a good point. In fact, I have heard women personally tell me this as well.
“In the midst of all this, people who want a good, stable, committed relationship can still have that kind of a relationship. It may take some time and effort to find the right partner, but for every man who is of that character (as compared to men who loudly complain about slutty women, but are sluts themselves), there is a woman out there who is looking for that man of good character.”
That’s good to know. As you mentioned, I think it may just take some extra effort from some of these guys. I think perhaps many of these guys want to it be easy, or just fall into their lap. I think a big part of that is having faith that it can exist..
“In short, you get the kind of divorce that you set yourself up for by your beliefs and attitudes about men, women, and marriage”
Man, that’s deep. Simple but so profound.
As far as the pastors video, It’s what my instincts told me. What’s odd in some of his videos he seem biased against women. I’ve never seen a pastor speak that way. Glad someone agrees with me 😊
In my spare time I also try to help others who may be lost, or in need of a positive message as well. Hope you don’t mind but I think I’m might have to steer a few this way. They need to read some of this. Heck, I wish all MGTOW, and RedPill would see this. I’ve yet to meet one who seems genuinely content.
Hi Henry,
Just to be clear, women are behaving differently today than they did several centuries ago or even several decades ago. But on the negative side (such as sexual promiscuity), that’s not because women have changed, but because external circumstances have changed.
Several centuries ago, and even several decades ago, few women who were not prostitutes slept around freely because doing so would have been socially and financially ruinous to them. They were not any more virtuous or less superficial than today’s women. It’s just that external circumstances prevented them from being promiscuous. Men, meanwhile, commonly were quite promiscuous because there were nowhere near the social and financial consequences for men being promiscuous as there were for women. In fact, men were often rewarded socially for being promiscuous.
Today, in liberal Western society especially, the external strictures that kept women “chaste” are being dismantled. More and more, women are not being held to different standards than men. As a result, women are more and more free to be promiscuous, just as men have long been fairly free to be promiscuous. The result is what we would expect: women are behaving more like men have long behaved in this regard.
But not all women.
Just as has always been the case, some women have morals, beliefs, and values that they follow that involve not being immoral and promiscuous, but reserving sexual intimacy for a loving, faithful, committed marriage. Some women are more strong-minded about this, some less so, but in general these women are not interested in shallow sex just for the sake of pleasure. They want something deeper. Even if they may make some missteps along the way, these women will continue to look for something deeper in a relationship.
Some men are the same way—and that has always been the case. Not all men have been, or are today, promiscuous, seeking to rack up as many sexual conquests or sleep with as many women as they can. Some men, also, seek something deeper in life and in marriage, and are not interested in the hookup culture.
In other words, internally it is the same situation it’s always been: some women and men are of good and strong character and morals, others are less so, and others are very loose and immoral. The difference is that now, when it comes to sexual morality, those who are immoral or amoral feel much freer to express it because there are far fewer negative consequences. This is especially true for immoral or amoral women, because unlike men, women who weren’t prostitutes were kept under the thumb of a heavy external “morality” that punished them severely for being sexually immoral, whereas now that heavy thumb is being lifted.
(But it never really was about morality. It was mostly about men making sure than when they married and had sex with a woman, the offspring was his own, and not some other man’s. Unlike women, historically men could not be sure that a child was their own unless they controlled sexual access to women. Today, DNA tests are changing that.)
Whether you see this relaxing of external restraints as a good thing or as a bad thing, what’s happening is not that women are getting more immoral, but that the immorality or amorality that was there all the time in some segment of the female population can now express itself, just as the immorality or amorality of men has long been given license to express itself.
I say “amoral” as well as immoral because having loose morals does not necessarily mean that someone is an evil person. It can also mean that a person simply wasn’t brought up with any strong moral compass. This is why we can’t necessarily judge women, or men, who sleep with many partners as being evil and sinful. In order to violate one’s conscience and act sinfully such that one is spiritually culpable and in danger of damnation, one must have developed a conscience in the first place. Many people today are simply not being brought up with the idea that sleeping around is a bad thing. And if such people do it, they are not spiritually liable for it as would be someone who has been taught and knows very well that promiscuity is wrong and against God’s commandments, but is promiscuous anyway. That’s why it is good to withhold judgment, and not condemn people whose background, upbringing, and conscience we don’t know.
Regardless of whether a person, man or woman, believes that sex with many partners is wrong, promiscuity does have negative effects. But that would be a whole new discussion. I do believe it’s important to teach and inculcate morals. It’s just that the idea that people, and especially women, are much more immoral today than they used to be is true only externally. It is not true internally. People have long been sexually immoral internally. Now those who are internally immoral are expressing it instead of suppressing it.
Even that is not necessarily a bad thing. Once again, we can’t cure society’s ills, or our own personal ills, until we see them. External suppression may keep people in line, but it is at the cost of their never facing their true internal character, and therefore never growing and developing spiritually. Today, with the relaxing of many external restraints, we can see more clearly where our internal morality or lack thereof leads to, and make a conscious decision about what sort of life we want to live. As disconcerting as it is to see so many people living in sexually immoral ways, I still think it’s better for the inner reality of human hearts, minds, and spirits to be seen clearly so that we can make up our own minds what sort of people we want to be.
No one is forcing anyone to be sexually immoral (though of course, sexual assault does victimize and severely harm its victims). Anyone who wants to live a sexually moral life is still free to do so. And despite the fact that there are no longer the severe social and financial penalties that used to control people’s, and especially women’s, sexual lives, many women and men continue to choose morality over immorality. And those who choose to live a moral and spiritual life continue to seek one another so that they can have good, loving, faithful monogamous relationships and marriages.
Hi Henry,
Of course, you’re welcome to refer people to this series of articles on the Red Pill. Just be aware that they’ll read them through whatever glasses they’re wearing.
I do think there are some long-term MGTOW and Red Pillers that are more philosophical and are content with their lives. But I tend to agree, based on what I’ve seen around the web, that the bulk of them are not at all happy with their lives. That’s not surprising, since the dominant idea in the Red Pill movement (whether or not it was its original idea) is being mad about women.
In all Fairness, MGTOW philosophy is spreading like wildfire and you know it, much to your dismay though.
Hi Funaholic funny guy,
Thanks for stopping by, and for your comment.
Do you have any actual data to back up this statement?
Funaholic funny guy,
Sandman appears to have the largest base. His videos get decent amount of views, but I often wonder if many of those views are from true mgtows vs “curious viewers” mgtow men tend to spam/Disturb other large relationship based comment sections “advertising Mgtow” In fact that’s what prompted myself to go check out a mgtow video myself. I too am curious to know where you are deriving your data from.
Hi Lee,
Thank you for reply and I will be sure to reply. In the meantime, I was curious as to your thoughts about why the marriage rates are declining.
In this MGTOW video it shows the decline, along with numerous other rates of decline. Of course it ultimately blames the last 50 years of feminism but it does list stats.
Hi Henry,
Thanks for posting the video.
My first reaction is that everything in the video is about biological, physical, and material things. Testosterone and estrogen. Sex drive and having sex. Earnings and finances. Clearly this particular MGTOW—and my sense is that this is true of MGTOW in general—has a completely physical and materialistic view of relationships and marriage. There is nothing whatsoever about people seeking a partner to share their life with, to pursue common goals, to make the world a better place. Not a single word.
The MGTOW view of marriage is purely about biology, sex, and money. Only they’re trying to fight what biology and sex are all about: reproducing and perpetuating the species. That’s the irony of it. They want to believe they’re all about science, biology, and evolution, but they’re fighting against the primary drives of biology and evolution. And they’re going to lose. The world will be populated by the people, men and women, who reproduce, not the ones who don’t. And people are going to keep reproducing. In the long run, MGTOW is a self-limiting movement. The Shakers aren’t doing so well either.
As far as the statistics, if you look at sex and marriage as a purely physical and biological thing, some of what he said makes sense, though I noticed that at several points he placed his turning points at the wrong place on the chart. For example, the chart shows testosterone in men starting to decline in around age 25, whereas he for no apparent reason places the turning point at 35 instead. Also, the decline is rather gradual, unlike the precipitous decline of estrogen levels in women after their mid-30s. He’s trying to make the charts say something that they don’t really say. That’s what happens when you don’t believe in having kids.
As you say, he also blames feminism for the decline in marriage. And while feminism might be one factor, I seriously doubt that it is the main factor. I even doubt that it is one of the major factors. MGTOW have this great big huge hairy bogey-woman of feminism stuck right in front of their eyes. It becomes the whipping-girl and scapegoat for every bad thing that happens in society. It’s not rational. It’s an emotional reaction that has no sound basis in science or statistics.
There are many factors that affect when people marry, and how many children they have. For example, people who are more financially secure tend to marry later and have fewer children, whereas people who are less financially secure tend to marry earlier and have more children. It’s not so much that immigrants are having more children, as that poorer people are having more children, and immigrants and minorities tend to be poorer than whites. Feminism has very little to do with it.
As for the decline in marriage rates generally, that doesn’t necessarily mean people aren’t in marriage-like relationships. That’s a decline in legal marriage. Many people who are in committed and monogamous relationships are simply deciding not to get legally married. What the real rates of singleness are I don’t know. But I suspect that if you included stable unmarried couples, those statistics would look quite different.
In short, this MGTOW, like most whose articles and videos I’ve looked at:
Hi Lee,
Thankyou, and yes, Im seeing this more and more from this group which to me is a red flag within itself. There is nothing whatsoever about people seeking a partner to “share their life with, to pursue common goals, to make the world a better place. Not a single word” as you put.
about feminism, that is the thing I am still sort of stumped or at least the way they harp on it lol where did this come from? I would think women (with any sense) do what they want based on their own beliefs. Not because of feminism or what a feminist “believes”. Sure there may be influences, and I even see women speaking out against feminism, (which I find interesting) but yet… it doesn’t seem ‘so bad’ that I should forever sware off even the possibility of intimate relationships with a woman.
It’s like this thing with AWALT briefly explained by a MGTOW.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gowmpLdN-tM
Im thinking why would anyone need to go through some process of rage, anger, despair, even suicide, as illustrated in that video? Wow that’s pretty dramatic lol My goodness nothing should do that to a man.
Is it really that big a deal that women (can) and do cheat? Or that want/find it attractive to be with a man to support or provide? Yeah sure women do marry men who can provide/a nice lifestyle, but how women marry JUST for that? I’m starting to believe that these guys never witnessed a good through thick and thin relationship between a man or women. Either that or terrible at picking women or emotionally available, etc.
Sandman: ALWAL’T’
My question to you is: If your daughter is beautiful and a doctor, would you want her to marry someone who is moreso her ‘equal’? financially (Or close?) Of course providing he truly loves her, is committed to the relationship, etc) For me, as a man, does it help knowing he’s a guy with a job, looking to at least genuinely better his life. It does seem odd when a man doesn’t work or have some level of ambition. Personally, I’m encouraging my kids to get their life together first (college, etc. ) before kids/anything too serious.
Its her choice. But I especially wouldn’t want my daughter to be an uneducated mother/housewife without the abiliy to provide for herself if needed. Nothing worse than being in a relationship, with a person who uses that to be more important because they are the “breadwinner”
Hi Henry,
MRAs and MGTOW seem to think that all of men’s problems are because of, or made worse by, women. Feminism, to them, represents all of the evils of women. They have this nutty idea that women are now running the world. Reality doesn’t agree with them. Men still hold most of the positions of power and wealth in this world.
What is true is that men increasingly can’t get away with mistreating women anymore. MGTOW and MRAs speak as if all of the sexual abuse allegations that women make against men are false. But the fact of the matter is that most of them are true. (Yes, some are false, and that is a real problem.) While there has been some collateral damage to men who didn’t actually do what they were accused of doing, most of the men who have been toppled from high position were guilty of what they were accused of, and cannot be allowed to remain in positions where they will victimize and abuse women.
Men have to learn to respect women, and have to learn how to respect women. It this day and age, those men who don’t, or won’t, deserve to be taken down. Women are human beings. They deserve basic human respect. In any regular workplace, the fact that they are female is not their primary attribute, nor should it be treated as such.
The first video you posted, by “The Inconspicuous Man,” is probably about the mildest and most thoughtful statement that could be made about AWALT. But it still falls short of convincing me.
I raised children, and I told them not to accept things from strangers, get into a car with strangers, etc. But I didn’t tell them, “All Strangers Are Like That.” I told them not to trust strangers because they don’t know them.
Further, MGTOW are grown men, not children. Parents must take responsibility for their children. Grown men must take responsibility for themselves. Part of taking responsibility for oneself is not blaming other people for your problems. Sure, new MGTOW should stay away from women. But that’s not because all women are evil. It’s because “baby” MGTOW don’t know how to deal with women, and they don’t know how to tell a good woman from a bad one. So the thing more mature MGTOW should be saying to them is not, “All Women Are Like That,” but, “You are in no position to be going out with a woman. Get your own $#!& together first.”
But the fact is, MGTOW in general (with some exceptions) do think all women are selfish and evil. It’s a primary article of their faith. And the second video you posted, by Sandman, underlines that. He does not have the perspective, or perhaps restraint, that Inconspicuous Man—who actually uses the term “good woman”—has. Sandman thinks MGTOW are just telling the truth about how terrible women are, and that’s why women don’t like MGTOW.
Sandman seems to be the flip-side of the feminists he hates. Some radical feminists think women can do no wrong and men can do no right. Sandman seems to think that women can do no right, and men can do no wrong. He doesn’t even consider the possibility that maybe some of those powerful male executives were actually sexual predators, and they should not only not be in positions of power, but should be in jail. Apparently, according to Red Pill philosophy, there is no such thing as a sexual predator; men can do whatever they want to women because women are just T&A walking the streets. What assholes! Men who think that way deserve to have no good women in their lives. And they deserve to have a pack of angry feminists ripping them to shreds.
Oh, and I notice that the visuals on Sandman’s video are almost entirely beautiful women. What’s up with that? All women are gold-digging, soul-sucking whores, and I’m going to dress up my video with lots of sexy women? These guys are a pack of contradictions.
I would like to know whether Inconspicuous Man advises mature MGTOW that now they are ready to go out, find a good woman, and have a relationship with her. It would be a bit of a contradiction, wouldn’t it? A MGTOW in a relationship with a woman? Is Inconspicuous Man a MGTOW, or is he not? Does he actually believe that there are good women out there, that are worth being in a relationship with? And that maybe he himself would get into a relationship with such a woman?
As for beautiful and competent women, yes, I would advise them to find a man who is a match for them in character and accomplishments. I have no sympathy whatsoever for men who want to sit on their fat butts all day smoking joints, drinking beer, eating pizza, and playing video games, and expect that some beautiful woman is going to drop into their lap and think they’re amazing just because they have a penis. If a man wants a decent woman, he’d better be a decent man. And not in order to get a good woman, but because that’s what a man does. A real man does something with his life. It doesn’t really matter what it is, as long as it’s something good and constructive that contributes to the overall well-being of society in some way. Then, and only then, is he in any position to be wooing and winning a woman as his partner in life.
And yes, I have come to believe that women should be able to support themselves, and not just depend upon a man to support them. I don’t think it’s wrong for women to devote their lives to raising their children, especially in their children’s younger years, if that’s something she and her husband believe in. But if a woman is so dependent upon her husband that she’d have to go on the welfare rolls if she ever lost him, that’s not a good and confident position to be in. A woman should be able to stand on her own two feet. From that basis, she can attract and connect with a good man to be her partner in life.
Once again, for more on this please see this article:
What Do Women Really Want?
You kinda prove you truly are a BETA MALE…by assuming MOST “allegations against women are true”….so you believe all the allegations from Kavanaugh, the President, and the “me too” are true…You are a very naive person…if they were true why not REPORT IT IMMEDIATELY…nowadays an allegation is all a woman needs to be believed and BETAS like you are the ones that enable it….
Hi Adrian,
Thanks for stopping by, and for your comment. I’ll ignore the STANDARD MGTOW NAME-CALLING and deal with the substance.
I didn’t say “all.” I said “most.” And yes, I believe that most allegations of sexual abuse, whether made by women or men, and whether against men or women, are true. Some are false, and yes, false accusations of all sorts, and especially of sexual misconduct, can be very damaging to an innocent person.
Why haven’t people reported such offenses immediately? Because up until very recently there was little chance that any action would be taken against the perpetrators, while the accusers would be publicly humiliated, fired from their jobs, shunned by society, and so on. This applies not just to women who reported sexual abuse years later, but also to men who waited many years to report sexual abuse perpetrated upon them by clergy or sports coaches when they were children and teens. It’s the same dynamic regardless of the sex of the victim or the perpetrator. Though it is far less common, women are sometimes the perpetrators, and men are sometimes the victims.
Today, such accusations are finally beginning to be taken seriously. That’s why more women and men are stepping forward with them.
But even now, they have little to gain from making such accusations. Rarely is there any kind of compensation for the victims. Their names still often get dragged through the mud. They may still lose their job, and be marked as “problem employees” who will have difficulty finding a new job. Meanwhile, though a number of men have been toppled from their positions, others continue in their positions despite the allegations made against them. And despite all the government regulations and all the HR departments in the corporations, sexual harassment and abuse is still common in many companies, schools, and churches.
It is you, my friend, who are naively burying your head in the sand if you refuse to recognize the reality of the situation. MGTOW doctrine practically requires its adherents to consider women to be inferior beings, deserving of whatever abuse may be heaped upon them. And MGTOW doctrine practically requires its adherents to consider all men to be poor, abused victims of those terrible feminazis.
The fact is, for every gold-digging woman there is a man who is an abusive jerk. Not all men are like that. And not all women are like that either. If you choose to view the world in stark and deceptive blacks and whites, you’ll be just as blind to the human reality as the radical feminists that you revile.
Hi Lee,
You nailed it. Especially the part about “baby mtgow” – when the smoke clears.. that really is the accurate way to put it.
About sandman absolutely as far as the women pics. That whole show he does is odd and even creepy. The guy dedicates his life making hundreds of videos about women and for what, I ask? He seems to purposely want to stir his viewers up.
I’m curious though what do you specifically think this rage, grieving, and even suicide, to self actualization. “process” is that was mentioned in the first video. Do you think their implying that when guys figure out how bad women are, it’s so bad that they go through a process that’s like the death of a loved one? Lol.
As for AWALT.. there seems to be different definitions. But from what Ive seen.. it’s not that all women are bad. But it’s in their bad “nature”, to screw you, leave you, etc. or that they “can” screw you.. so steer clear of them. But by that logic.. we also say that men that “could” beat or rape a women. It’s senseless.
Sometimes I wonder if mgtow would be happy if all men were in the same with them. The fear-mongering with marriage, hypergamy, women’s nature, alwalt, etc I’ve never seen anything like it.
I’m sure some of those of guys have a legitimate gripe. But there’s another part of me that isn’t surprised that many of them had such problems with women. I’ll surely check out the article.
Hi Henry,
About the rage and grief, keep in mind that MGTOW commonly become MGTOW because they’ve had a bad experience with women. Or several bad experiences women. Or a truly hellish experience with a woman.
Men are not emotionless rocks. They have hearts, and their hearts can get ripped out and stomped upon. And that is a crushing experience. It’s not surprising that many of them come into the movement in states of rage and grief. It may not be the death of a loved one, but it’s the death of love, and that can be almost as bad. Some of them have been burned so badly that they may never be able to trust a woman again. And though generally I think that MGTOW have a superficial, physical-minded, immature, and self-centered attitude toward women and relationships, it’s also true that some women will indeed rip your heart out through your throat and trample upon it if you’re unlucky enough to get tangled up with them.
In short, the rage and grief part does make some sense. But it still doesn’t justify demonizing all women.
As for AWALT, the first video is basically saying, “Well, it doesn’t really mean that ALL women are like that.” If that’s so, then why say “All Women Are Like That”? There are other things you could say that are more accurate, but that have the same force of keeping men who shouldn’t be with women temporarily or permanently away from women.
Further, the “that” that they’re all “like” is pretty bad. Read the descriptions of AWALT. They’re saying that functionally, all women are self-centered bitches who will suck a man dry and then walk away when he’s of no more use to them. How is that functionally any different from saying that all women are evil? Evil is as evil does.
About Sandman, is he MGTOW or PUA? If he’s PUA, all the sexy women in his videos make some sense—though in that case, he’s basically an animal. But if he’s MGTOW, then all the sexy women mean that he’s still highly attached to women. And that’s a bit of a contradiction if you’re supposedly MGTOW, isn’t it?
“it’s the death of love, and that can be almost as bad”
Oh absolutely. I’m certainly sympathetic of that. But I do not recall them linking the rage process in the context of an actual “personal event” with a woman.
They often times use rage and even the term “red pill rage” to describe a “process” i.e: after swallowing the metaphorical red pill they wake up to the reality of… xxx and xxxx.. become self actualized and see the “real” truth the “light” (I don’t get what’s ‘so’ bad that they would go through an usual rage process, unless what red pill/Mgtow is teaching is false)
Wherever unusual rage is I think it’s starting to become clear (or at least clearer) after reading through certain comment sections that MGTOW men always seem to invade.
Here’s just a sampling of a story I read today in a comment section. (I’m sparing some very explicit details.. but it was hard to read)
“I slept with a girl who was in love with another puerto rican man. A Russian girl who was engaged. I drove her so wild (went into explicit details) that she broke up with her fiancé and wanted to be with me. I didn’t know she was engaged. He found out and committed suicide. this is ‘true nature’ of women”
Now imagine reading stories like that.. pile on the rest of the red pill/mgtow campaign: hypergamy, unfair divorce laws, feminism, horror stories, male suicide rates, “they only want sex with a ‘bad boy’, but later on settle with nice guys to be their “beta cuck providers”, wrap it all up with “ALWALT”
“…women can never love you the way you love them… they often times divorce men, and are on to the next man.. while the man is left broken”
uh… that would make me angry too. Hell, it makes me mad and I’m in a 20+ year marriage, and know better! LOL
Anyhow, poke a man enough (esp a man already vulnerable and angry) with all of that.. You’ve now all but stripped his ability to love a women, or see any “hope” that he can be loved by a woman in any sort of meaningful relationship with a woman. And that’s where it’s sad.. you can literally see it in them too. Some even advocate beating women.( I invite you to visit one of sandman’s comment sections and you’ll see what I mean)
That has to be one of the most hurtful things a man can ever be taught or led to believe by red pill/MGTOW teachings. Especially, when he’s been told his entire life that women are sweet, kind hearted, loyal, loving, more emotional than sexual, wants a man for his good heart not the resources/sacrifice he could provide for her.
And it’s lies.. half truths, but most of all… severely lacking in a deeper understanding /perspective, that could potentially change his outlook on women, himself, and future relationships. In fact, I wouldn’t doubt if the story above was made up — or Greatly exaggerated just to rile men up. Most all women are emotional/relate emotions to sex. If this were actually a true story, I could guarantee you that;
A: she was young/has issues
B: or was severely neglected/emotionally disconnected from her partner.
C: or the man was foolish and didn’t see obvious red flags.
Point being. No way does a healthy mature women do something like that out of the blue in a reasonably sound relationship. Nothing like what he’s portraying.
And also.. (to some of your other points) nothing about how to better yourself in potential future relationships. Very little to Nothing about empowering men on a deeper level whatsoever.
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Further, the “that” that they’re all “like” is pretty bad. Read the descriptions of AWALT. They’re saying that functionally, all women are self-centered bitches who will suck a man dry and then walk away when he’s of no more use to them. How is that functionally any different from saying that all women are evil? Evil is as evil does
Absolutely!
As for as sandman that is a good point., I can only guess he uses the sexy women images to make fun of them or be appealing to the eye for his videos, or as you said he’s still attached. It’s probably all of the above. But he advises to just use women as objects here and there. “Pump and dump” as they call it. He’s actually against PUA’s, as they spend their life chasing tail/female validation.
Hi Henry,
Whether you look at it from a biological/evolutionary standpoint or a psychological/spiritual standpoint, the sexual/marital relationship is wired very deep into human beings, both male and female. “Taking the red pill” is not only a matter of having bad experiences with women and realizing that the marriage or relationship the guy thought he had, or was going to have, is a train wreck. It’s also “realizing” that he’s never going to have the sort of close relationship with a woman that he always thought he’d have, whether he thought of it physically, socially, or spiritually—or all of the above. Red Pill rage is about broken dreams of love and companionship with a woman. It’s terribly wrenching because those dreams come from a very deep place in the human psyche and in the evolutionary biology of the human animal.
Part of the problem is that women have been put on a pedestal for so long. The whole “women are sweet, kind-hearted, loyal, loving, more emotional than sexual,” etc. thing. Ironically, feminists hate the women-on-a-pedestal thing. They want women to be seen for who and what they are, not as some imaginary idealized being that doesn’t exist in real life.
The reality is that women are not any better than men morally, spiritually, and so on. Women are simply one of the human sexes. They have all of the usual shortcomings that human beings have, only with a female slant rather than a male slant. This often means that women are not as obviously selfish jerks as men are. But women, especially young women, are just as often selfish jerks as men are. It takes them just as long to grow and mature into decent, thoughtful people. It’s just that girls and women are commonly brought up to be pleasing, fun, and ingratiating around other people, and especially around men, so it’s easier to miss the reality that they’re no better than men—who are more often brought up to be assertive, brash, demanding, and so on. And these tendencies also seem to be in the evolutionary psychology of women and men as well. It’s like the difference between male and female genitals. Men’s are right out there. Women’s are hidden.
When boys are brought up to believe that women are demure, delicate, chaste beings whose life is all about making men happy, and then those boys grow up into men, get into relationships with women, and eventually discover that women’s *$%^ stinks just as much as men’s does, it feels like a “revelation” about women—that they’re selfish, dirty, immoral creatures . . . nothing like the dreamy, ethereal women that were supposed to be out there just waiting to make them happy. Then the shortcomings of women look huge exactly because they so blatantly don’t match what he was brought up to believe. And now the pendulum swings all the way the other way, so that the “truth” is that women are HORRIBLE.
But that’s not true either. Women are mixed, good and bad, just as men are—especially young women and young men. If boys and girls were brought up with a more realistic picture of who we are as men, women, and human beings, discovering that women have real and serious flaws would not be such a shattering experience, and “taking the red pill” would not feel like such a revelatory experience.
Beyond that, my general experience of MGTOW (not all MGTOW, but an awful lot of them) is that they’re sorta jerks. They tend to be angry, insulting, bigoted, intolerant types. And I’m not going to let them get away with the excuse that it’s just “red pill rage.” A jerk is a jerk. Not everyone whose world is shattered turns into an asshole. But MGTOW as a group have concluded, “My life is all effed up, and it’s all women’s fault.” So then they think they have a license to be assholes to women. (Sorry for the crude language, but it is metaphorically accurate.)
MGTOW who don’t go monk, but do the “pump and dump” thing, are a case in point. They’ve concluded that women just want to use a man, and will dump him once he’s of no further use to them. So what do they do? They turn around and do exactly the same thing to women. It’s an immature and jerky response. “You hit me, so I’ll hit you back even harder.” What kind of a world does that lead to?
Sooner or later, a man needs to grow up, take responsibility for his own life, and act like a decent human being instead of a retaliatory jerk. A decent, thoughtful, self-respecting and self-responsible man (or woman) doesn’t spend his life getting back at and using the people he thinks have wronged him. This is what Jesus was talking about when he said:
It’s not about making yourself into a doormat. It’s about breaking out of the retaliatory cycle and building a better and more thoughtful life both for yourself and for the people around you. See:
Can Christians be Hardass?
Most MGTOW seem to be stuck in blaming other people (women) for all of their problems, getting back at them, and not taking responsibility for their own lives. It’s not going to get them anywhere except mad, sad, and lonely.
“So then they think they have a license to be assholes to women”
Absolutely, it’s hardly even adult behavior. And not just toward women, but other men. They go as far as to tear other men down for simply being in relationships or marriages. Calling married men “enslaved mules” Even worse, is accusing others of “shaming” them, when they are first to do this themselves. I have little tolerance for that.
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“The reality is that women are not any better than men morally, spiritually, and so on”
When you say ‘pedestal’, what do you mean exactly? As if they are perfect and can do no wrong? In my experience, women ‘are’ alot like good things I was taught (as described above) above actually. Especially, when they are treated with respect themselves. They do dream of a “soulmate” / good man, having children, etc But are they perfect. Of course not. Can they admit fault? Of course not. (Lol kidding)
But most all the women I see loose and promiscuous also come from a lack of self worth/self respect. Some are calculating gold diggers as well preying on men. So why not just steer clear of those, and if a good one comes along, hey why not? The relationship is what you make it. For the more mature married women- the ones who do cheat do so for the reasons of emotional disconnect/neglect as me mentioned. (And not one month or two months of it.. but years.) Which makes it understandable.
But the majority, (not all) of mgtow I think the bigger unrealized problem is picking women, or women not matched for them. The women they all describe have narcissist like traits. Ironically their “great leader” Sandman happened to date— 4 women and 3 of them were narcissist as well. THREE narcissist! Hmm
Anyhow, heres where Red/Pill MGTOW crosses a serious line to me.
-AWALT
-the claims that women who have had 5 sexual partners are incapable of maturing into a desirable mate capable of love or marriages. (Pair bonding) isn’t true. (I know women who were full blown free lovin’ hippies, who later settled down and weren’t cheaters and had stable marriages, kids, the whole 9. )
-Don’t ever say that you shouldn’t ask a women about dating advice, saying they ‘don’t know what they want themselves’. that’s terrible. With that mindset.. It shuts down room for understanding and growth which is what women and men should be doing.
By saying these things its needlessly hurting other men and potentially creating more pain and anger in them.
I’ll check out the link.. and love that Mathew script btw. Have read it many times 🙂 so very true. If only we all could remind ourselves of that!
Hi,
There are certain stereotypes of women, which usually make them either much better or much worse than they actually are. There’s the “femme fatale” stereotype: the vampire woman who will suck your blood in your sleep. And there’s the virtuous woman who thinks of everyone but herself, and is the sweetest, meekest being on earth, who, of course, never has a sexual thought because she’s utterly “chaste.”
I suppose there may be a few women that fit each of these stereotypes to a T. But very few. Most women are mixed, just like men. And most women do think about sex, and have a desire for sex just as men do, even if it is a female variety of sexual desire rather than a male variety of sexual desire.
Also, if a woman has been trained to be good, that doesn’t make her spiritually good. Women who have been well-trained in the social graces can use that to get their own way, while appearing to be the sweetest, nicest beings on earth. That’s how they were trained to appear. But it doesn’t make them unselfish beings. That requires women, as well as men, to decide to be unselfish. And to work on it.
Women who have been trained to be “nice” may not even realize they’re just in it for their own benefit. As long as they’re nice, people treat them nice, and they think everything is wonderful, and the world is full of sweetness and light. But they’re still often angling to be the center of attention, or to have some man take care of them so they don’t have to lift a finger, or some such thing. Not all, of course. But many women who know how to be a “good” woman, because that’s how they’ve been trained, have a self-absorbed heart underneath it all.
Usually it comes out sooner or later. And it can be a rude awakening. Sometimes it’s when they realize they hate their marriage and they hate their husband and they hate their house and they hate their life. And then they have a woman’s version of a midlife crisis. That’s when a lot of them have affairs. It may be the husband’s fault, if he’s a real jerk. But it’s just as likely to be the woman’s own inherent character finally coming out and becoming visible.
The husband often doesn’t know what hit him. All of a sudden his marriage is falling apart when he thought everything was fine. She just hit her limit of being “nice” and not expressing her own actual feelings and living her own life, and now she’s outta the marriage, even if her husband really is a decent guy. But if the husband doesn’t have the emotional maturity to handle it, he may wash up on the shores of the Red Pill movement raging about “crazy women.”
Oh, and yes, I think a lot of the guys that end out as MGTOW attract narcissistic women because they themselves are narcissists, and birds of a feather flock together.
Hi Lee,
Oh and I’m just gonna say it..
When a man comes of age (30+) when does the ‘pump and dump’ lifestyle get old? Not to mention the serious consequences on its own. Maybe I’m a bit old fashioned but isn’t the body supposed to be sacred and the act supposed to be .. uh somewhat special?
To make a “lifestyle” of that, seems empty and shallow, many catch STD’s, accidental pregnancies, no matter how much they try to protect themselves from it.
Plus, children everyday are being born without fathers.
I don’t understand how anyone sustains a lifestyle like that for very long.
Hi Henry,
No, it’s not a sustainable lifestyle. And it’s a young man’s game. At 30 or 40 the looks start to fade and the babes stop looking. Unless you have money. Lots of money. But even with money, eventually all the other problems you mention start crowding in, and there’s a crash of one sort or another.
Hi Lee, you brought up a great point about marraige, connection, being “hard wired” inside of us. This is critical for men to understand this (and esp) men who run across mgtow as well. Why? Well…
The better points of MGTOW, do teach men ‘they are the prize’, and they shouldn’t allow women to dictate their worth. Hmmm ok.. thats good. Many men do have no clue what their worth is, and often times women don’t what a truly good man is much less how to treat them. So this message, while important for men, can also be tricky. Especially, when they say, you are the prize” and oh.. btw, “don’t prioritize women”
Hmm.
It’s not breaking news that half of what men do to be attractive, is to attract a women, or a woman to spend their life with. And so do women.
You wouldn’t be human if you didnt want to feel loved, wanted, etc. The man also works hard, because he wants to feel Accomplished within himself, but ultimately someday take care of a family, necessities, fun times, great memories, etc.
But this is just because a man should love himself, focus on his goals, does not also mean that he should not strive for love, relationship, marriage, etc. again many men do this instinctually.
I personally believe that women naturally motivate men to strive to be even better men. (In fact, many married men speak, as if they couldn’t imagine life without their wife, or loved ones.) Personally, as much as I like “me time” work, sports, reading, etc it still could never outright ‘replace’ my wife/family.
Maybe I’m wrong. But mgtow appears to sell a story that men should live to be so selfish, that they “should” be comfortable alone with their own company. This includes living alone/without women. (Do no cohabitate/marry is the idea.) Not for days. Not months. But a lifestyle.
You’ll often hear: “Nothing compares to fishing, vacations, I’m Retiring young” As if to imply all these ‘fun things’ ‘replaces’ a life with love, a wife, family, etc )
Now, I realize some men prefer no relationships. I personally don’t understand it, but if that’s what works from them, great.
However, it is a completely different thing when they push, persuade, and even shame men into being MGTOW. That is not the innocent defensive “reaction” to feminism as they try to portray. Some don’t realize but mgtow messages don’t only target scorned men. The goal also seems to recruit, and even push ANY man to go mgtow mode.
===
Also, mgtow content can easily pop in your YouTube feed which is likely how many men stumble into it. I think Mgtow hook men into it because plenty of good men do at times feel taken-for-granted-ATM’s. And women often times will roll their eyes at men, when they start about not feeling appreciated. Not gold digger types… but it does seem common for women to expect/see men providing for them as a mandatory “job” and make the advances, without much appreciation for it.
One of my acquaintances called off his engagement due to this. He believed he was a very good man who went out of his way, to show appreciation to his woman but that it wasn’t returned in nearly the same way. He was already mildly feeling this way for awhile. But the mgtow messages pushed him over. He mentioned that she wasn’t treating him bad or abusive.. but that she also didn’t care much either, and that all the good things he did didn’t seem to really matter much. Says he didn’t want to end up like most men do and agreed mostly with mgtow saying that the majority of American women these days are moreso entitled with expectations. He said he doesn’t hate or resent women. He’s just accepted it.
Sort of the way this video briefly describes. (Note: contains some foul language.)
Actually my apologies I didn’t realize the video had a few crude words. Not sure how to edit or remove it.
Hi Henry,
Thanks for your further thoughts. I added a warning before the video to take care of your concerns. (WordPress doesn’t allow users to edit their comments after they’re posted.) The occasional expletives are incidental to the main message of the video, which I think is good.
Ok, again my apologies. I hope it doesn’t offend anyone. I do think the message is very much worthwhile.. Thankyou for taking the time with such thoughtful detailed replies to my posts. I read a few of those links you posted and they are very unique and enlightening as well. I hope for the discouraged men out there, that may find these posts help them to gain a better clarity.
Hi Henry,
You’re welcome. No problem. “Colorful” language doesn’t really bother me as long as it’s not intentionally insulting. And the warning will let people know in case such language is offensive to them.
Annette and I put these articles out there specifically so that there will be some thoughtful and helpful material for people who are struggling with some of these big issues in life. At least some people are finding them, since we’ve been averaging about 1,500 hits per day for several years now.
Yes, I agree and thats excellent. I did have one more question.
Do you think men these days should go as far not to ‘prioritize’ women and instead focus on themselves.
The context, is tricky being that both Men and women naturally strive for a marital type relationship when they come of age as you mentioned.
In fact, much of what men do, is to prepare himself for that sort of relationship. I try to imagine a life where men truly deep down feel fufilled long term (only) working on goals, taking vacations, single life without a loving companion/meaningful relationship.
I was always taught not to be selfish. Take responsibility. That it’s about more than just you. Which is also what marriage, and family, is about. I don’t see what could be more important than that.
Hi Henry,
There are several issues here:
On Point 1, yes, we are preparing ourselves for marriage. We’re also preparing ourselves to be useful in the world. Doing the best job of both of these means developing our own best potential. This means not only gaining skills and knowledge, keeping ourselves healthy, and so on, but also enjoying R&R to let our mind and body relax and de-stress, and to build good times of enjoyment and fun that become part of a positive character.
On Point 2, as I said previously, doing God’s will should always be primary in our life. And specifically, doing whatever it is that God put us here to do. That will involve doing something we are well-suited for, that we enjoy, and that contributes to the overall well-being of the human community. No romantic relationship should pull us away from that. If it does, it’s not a good and healthy relationship (see Point 4).
On Point 3, among human relationships, our relationship with our spouse should be at the top of the totem pole. Going out for a beer with the guys does not trump taking care of a sudden situation with our spouse. Of course, if our spouse is continually creating drama that disrupts all of our other relationships, once again, that is not a good and healthy relationship, and it needs to be shut down. Most likely by getting out of that relationship.
On Point 4, if a marriage isn’t building up both partners and making them better at what they do, and at being their own best self so that they can excel at their calling in life, once again, that is not a good and healthy relationship. Married partners are meant to be partners, helping and supporting one another. Sometimes this may involve friction when one or the other or both are heading down a mistaken path or doing something stupid. But keeping one another on track is one of the purposes of a marriage. The best ideal of marriage is that the two become one in mind and heart, and pursue common goals together, or with one another’s support.
In short, I don’t think a man should wrap his life around a woman, nor do I think that a woman should wrap her life around a man. Those relationships can work. It is very common for a woman to wrap her life around a man. If that’s what floats their boat, I’m not going to stand on the sidelines and snipe. But the best ideal, I believe, is for a man and a woman to be equal partners in life, traveling forward together on a common path.
I know I’ve referred you to these articles before, but here are a couple that cover some of the above points:
Many of us good single men are forced to go MGTOW because of these low life loser women nowadays unfortunately.
Hi brad,
Thanks for stopping by, and for your comment. However, if you’re continually connecting with “low life loser women,” I would suggest that you examine your own character and attitudes.
Well in case you haven’t noticed which you should take a good look around you since the women of today have really changed from the past unfortunately. Feminism is all over the place today, and it is getting much worse since there are so many women that are real feminists and hate us men so very badly as well. After all, i really don’t expect women to Curse at us men for no reason at all when many of us single men are looking for a very serious relationship today. Just by saying good morning or hello to a woman now has become so very dangerous for us,especially when we see a woman that we would really like to meet. Most women today just really hate us men since i had been Cursed at already by quite of few of them, and even other friends that i know as well. Gee wiz, it is really getting very difficult for many of us good single men just to find love today. Why is that? Most women in the past were never ever like this at all, and most women in fact were Real Ladies and the very complete opposite of today altogether. They really are the ones that have no manners and personality at all these days, and i really think that a lot of these women have been very badly hurt by the men that they were with at one time. And now they really think that all of us men are no good at all which isn’t true.
Hi Brad,
Once again, if these are the types of women you are continually meeting, I would suggest looking in the mirror and assessing your own character and personality. There must be some reason why you’re continually drawn to that type of woman. I talk to women all the time, and they don’t curse at me, and they don’t hate me, and they have plenty of manners and personality. If you’re not meeting good women, it may be that you’re not as good a man as you think you are. Correct your own attitudes and behavior, and sooner or later you’ll find the good woman that you are seeking.
“Once again, if these are the types of women you are continually meeting, I would suggest looking in the mirror and assessing your own character and personality. There must be some reason why you’re continually drawn to that type of woman.”
Sounds like victim blaming to me. Funny how, according to feminism, if X woman meets Y sample of men with Z selection of personality traits, the fault lies men. But if X man meets Y sample of women with Z selection of personality traits, the fault once again lies with men.
Hi Mario,
Thanks for stopping by, and for your comment.
But “victim blaming”? If a man makes advances on a woman, and she responds negatively, the man is a “victim”?
Wow. Such pampered men.
But to your main point, no, Red Pill and feminist dogma to the contrary notwithstanding, it doesn’t matter what sex an abuser or an abuse victim is. Abusers are responsible and culpable for their behavior whether they are male or female. The abuse is not the fault of the victim.
Meanwhile, victims need to take steps to protect and defend themselves from abuse whether the victims are male or female. This includes asking the question, for repeat victims of abuse, “Why do I keep getting involved with this sort of man / woman?” And then taking responsibility for making the personal and life changes required to break that pattern of falling into the hands of abusers time after time.
However, getting rejected by women is not being a “victim,” nor is it “abuse” for women to reject men they’re not interested in. Men do not have some sort of “right” for women to love them, such that if a woman fails to love a man who approaches her, she is “abusing” him.
If a man keeps getting rejected by every woman he’s attracted to, he can:
These changes may involve looking elsewhere for women who are more compatible with him. And they may involve becoming a better man, and not being such a crybaby about women.
In my experience, too many Red Pill men are self-centered and immature. They think they’re God’s gift to women, and they can’t understand why women don’t love them. Sure, some of them actually are victims of devious, gold-digging women. But even those ones would do better to look in the mirror and consider what changes to make in their own life so that they don’t get involved with that sort of woman again.
You’ll never get anywhere by blaming women for all of your problems. Take responsibility for your own life. It works better, and it’s the right thing to do.
Hello Lee. This is a fiery subject. No? O.o
I am one whom is currently going MGTOW. But I am not new to the idea of it, nor how it started. I visited its sites years ago. Back when it was fairly new. And it was indeed a sight for what was known as “Confirmed Bachelors.”
They had no hate for women, but also had no interest in them either. What they fought against is one of the statements you have given. “Be a man.”
However each person may have a totally different view of what being “a man” is. On a flip side to your statement, “Be a man,” some are quite sick of others pandering to them on what to do and why. I use “pandering,” for there is a level of self indulgence by some to tell others how they should live their lives, as if they got the right answers, and those not doing it that way, is wrong.
Again, those whom started MGTOW are sick of that. They don’t care what others think on what makes a man, a man. Or even if they should be seen as a man at all, in the eyes of others.
And part of what others have told them is, they are no man if they can’t snag a wife for themselves, and start a family. It is said by many, that a guy is not a man if he doesn’t contribute to society, and he is not doing that if he don’t have a wife and kids.
But that is not the case. Not by the views of those that started MGTOW. Many of them can get a wife and afford to have kids, they just don’t want all of that. They would rather enjoy what they work for, rather than give it up as others may tell them to. That is, giving it up to some wife and kids.
Those whom started MGTOW also stated they don’t want to see those that are crying over haven been in bad relationships to say they are MGTOW, when in fact they wish they had a girlfriend but feel they can’t, or are just bad at it. Sadly for those who stared it, that is what many new guys are doing.
It is much on how modern feminists has hijacked the name “feminist,” but don’t support the original ideals behind it. It is sick how the new “feminist,” misuse the word they took. It can make some men hate women in return, and that is not right. That is not what the original feminists wanted at all.
Modern MGTOW are not like those whom stared it either, and have their own agenda. That is also how the term “Red Pill,” came along and was added to it. Not the Idea of the original MGTOW. They would never have started such a thing.
I will admit I am partly part of the newer MGTOW group, taking my “Red Pill.” But I don’t hate women. I fully support the old feminist ideals, wile hating the new man hating ideals of the new so called feminists, whom are not real feminists at all, in my eyes.
Yes, I don’t hate women at all, nor do I blame them for my problems. Part of my problems is how I feel at times, and much of that has a lot to do with me being strait male. So, what I hate, if anything, is my own developed desire for having a women in my life. Not women personally. I know that they are not in any way at fault for me having desire. It’s just how I am.
But I don’t like how I am treated by them at times either. That is not the same as hating them, so don’t say I do hate them.
How I have been treated by them has been a constant pattern by each one I have been in contact with for the sake of getting to know them. One pattern I wish to avoid in my life from now on. I have seen it for about the past 25 years by well over 200 women I have tried to interact with. I just don’t appeal to them enough, for them to care about me as I may wish them to.
The last one I was with I broke up with twice over the same thing. And she told me things have changes, and would be better the second time. No, it was still the same as before.
My past experiences with them, have left a bad taste in my mouth, so to speak. And being in my 40’s I don’t crave them as much anymore, and can better see how I am better off without them in my life as a personal companion. Working with or for a woman is just fine to me. I just no longer wish to be with one as a companion.
One thing I see as troubling with your post, is how you generalize MGTOW, and those whom are in it, far too much. It is a bad-bad, and shameful thing to do.
But considering what has been posted about it of late, I’m not surprised at all to come across such a post as this one. The internet is not exactly a strait forward path to truth about much of anything. Mostly with all those pesky personal opinions popping up everywhere, mucking up the hunt people may have for any real info on a given subject. >.>
Truth is important to look for, as hard as it can be to come across at times.
Just try to remember why MGTOW started. It’s was not for those whom feel they can’t get a women, it’s for those whom was not interested in having one in the first place. There hate is not for women. It is of being called “not a man,” for not having a wife and kids in his life, and hate being made to think he should be a man in the eyes of others, in how others think a man should be to, be a man.
I would say, part of that is why many have adopted the name MGTOW as I am. You and others can say I am “no man” in your eyes as to how I choose to live, spend my free time, and my money. But by me going MGTOW, is just me saying, I don’t care about such opinions, and am not letting such opinions influence any part of my life anymore, as I had for a time.
Opinions on such a subject will vary, person to person, after all. Everyone has theirs. And I know I have mine. ^.^
Hi CDK,
Thanks for stopping by, and for your comment.
I agree that being a man does not mean snagging a wife and having kids. It’s every man’s own choice whether or not he wishes to be married and have children. Some choose to be single. As I said in the article, I have no problem with that.
What I have a problem with is men blaming women for their problems. The heading of the final section of the article, in which I say “be a man,” is “Men must take responsibility for themselves.” That is true whether or not a man is married. Being a man means taking responsibility for your own life rather than blaming everyone else and making your life everyone else’s responsibility.
If, for a MGTOW, that means not being in a relationship with a woman, no problem. Forget about women, stop bellyaching about evil feminists, and live your life the way you want to live it.
Is it going to be easy? No. When has living on this earth as a true man ever been easy? No one is going to hand you your dream life on a silver platter. If you want a good life, you’re going to have to man up and do the hard work. That’s all I’m saying.
Feminism is cancer today caused by women, and MGTOW is the cure.
Hi JM,
If you want to blame women for all of your problems and all of the world’s problems, go for it. But a real man doesn’t blame his problems on women, or on anyone else at all. A real man takes responsibility for his own life and his own problems, and does the hard work of dealing with them himself. That is true whether or not he chooses to be in a relationship with a woman.
You have to understand that many of us good single men that are trying to meet a good woman to have a serious relationship with, and now we have to be very careful of sexual harassment since most of these single women today are just looking to get many of us men in trouble for No Reason. So just saying good morning or hello to a woman today is very risky now for many of us men unfortunately. A lot of these women today are certainly a lot different from the past. So we really have No Reason to blame ourselves for this mess since i know friends that are very much having the same problem as well. You really aren’t that smart at all if you keep blaming many of us men for these type of women that are the real problem today, and Not many of us men that keep meeting the Wrong Women all the time unfortunately.
Hi JM,
If that is how you view of women, then you might as well give up trying to find a “good woman.” You apparently do not believe that there are any good women anymore. So why do you keep trying to find one?
Once again, a real man takes responsibility for his own life, and doesn’t blame his problems on women.
And the MGTOW AWALT dogma is bullshit.
Lee, i have just one more honest question. Why are you protecting many of these women today that aren’t that innocent at all? And now that many of these women today have a career which they really believe they’re all that too. Well guess what, they’re not all that since they really will only want the very best of all and will never settle for less. Another question, How come back in the old days most women were Real Ladies and the very complete opposite of today altogether? Most women back then were very old fashioned and raised by good parents as well, so it wasn’t all about money in those days since both men and women hardly had any money at that time and were struggling just to make ends meat. This is why our family members had no trouble at all finding love with one another in those days since it was a very different time back then as you can see. This is why feminism is cancer today caused by these women in the first place. It really amazes me how much different most women were back in the old days which today unfortunately they really do suck. If women had been just like the old days which many of us men would have definitely found love ourselves with no problem at all either. As i can see that you were very lucky and blessed when you met your wife looking at your picture above since your wife was nothing at all like most of these women are today. So most of these women are the very real excellent reason why so many of us single good men can’t find a good woman today that will be able to Accept us for who we really are. And notice that i said the word Accept, which most women can’t do at all these days unfortunately. That is why the women back in the past were the very best of all compared to these real awful ones that we have everywhere now. Just telling it like it is since the times have really changed today, especially with all these reality shows that we have on today as well as the media that has really corrupted many women now to really hate us men altogether thanks to feminism.
Hi JM,
That’s really more of a statement than a question. But I’ll respond anyway, with another question and statement:
What makes you think that women were so much better in “the good old days”? Were you actually alive then to see how “wonderful” things were then between men and women? Or did you get your idea of “the good old days” from old movies, which romanticized a very difficult and brutal past by having movie stars play idealized characters?
If you read history instead of watching old movies, you’ll find that men and women back then weren’t any better than they are today. In fact, in general, there are far more good men and women in the world today than there were in the past.
There is a nostalgic fantasy of “the good old days” among many men today who never actually lived in those times that they think were so great. But the reality was that the past was full of oppression, racism, sexism, and all of the other evils that we are today finally beginning to face and overcome.
It may look externally as if women were “Real Ladies” back then, and men were “Real Men,” but that’s because society had degenerated so far that women were considered only slightly higher socially than slaves, they were generally not given much, if any, education, and they were blocked from most honest means of supporting themselves, so that they became dependent upon men. They “stayed in their place” because not doing so generally meant either being killed or being forced into prostitution. Their character was no better than the character of women today. They just had to “behave themselves” due to external strictures that in fact, prevented them from developing into “Real Women.” But behind the scenes they schemed just as much as women do today in order to assert their own will despite their low and dependent position in society.
Even in the Bible, women never really conformed to today’s conservative Christian ideal of meek, demure, obedient “Ladies” who were subject to their husband’s will, and lived only to serve him. Yes, that was what they were supposed to do. But the wives of powerful biblical men such as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were anything but “Real Ladies.” They were, in fact, forceful characters who asserted themselves and changed the course of biblical history. About that, see:
Is the Bible a Book about Men? What about Women?
The halcyon past in which all women were good, loyal, loving servants to their husbands is just a myth in the mind of men today who can’t deal with the fact that women are finally becoming real women, because the social and religious strictures that held them down in the past are being swept away.
The other thing that kept women down in the past was that divorce was socially and religiously frowned upon, making it very difficult to leave one’s husband (or wife) once the marriage was recognized. This meant that even people stuck in bad marriages usually stuck it out anyway, because the alternative was social and financial ruin. But those marriages held together by external pressures were not any better than marriages today. In fact, in general, they were considerably worse. Men continued to beat their wives with no repercussions unless they were feckless enough to break a bone or cause serious damage to their wife’s face, in which case the community would punish the man. But as long as nobody saw the results of his beatings, he was free to brutalize his wife without penalty. Both men and women also committed adultery fairly often, but they kept it hidden and pretended it didn’t happen due to the same social and religious strictures that would make it disastrous for the adultery to become publicly known. Meanwhile, contrary to the ideal of the pure virgin young women of marriagable age, it was very common for girls and young women to be molested and raped, or given away as child brides. In the Bible, if a woman wasn’t already married or pledged to be married to another man, the “penalty” for raping a woman, even if she were only a child, was that the man must marry her and pay her father the bride price, and he was not allowed to divorce her. There was nothing like the “purity” that Christian conservatives attribute to biblical times. See: “Is Sex Before Marriage Forbidden in the Bible?” These same biblical “ideals” of sex and marriage continued throughout many cultures around the world, and are still practiced in some backwards cultures today.
The whole idea that there was some wonderful time in the past when women were “Real Ladies” and men were “Real Men” is just a myth.
The reality is that women today are generally far better than they were in the past. Now a woman can get an education, have a career, and develop herself as a woman. She doesn’t have to put up with a mean and brutal man beating her up because she doesn’t serve his every wish and whim. She can become a true equal partner to a man, because finally she has the same opportunity to develop herself, her character, and her abilities that a man does. In fact, men also can become far better men than they could in the past, because the old social and religious restrictions that kept men down as well are now being removed.
Now, whether a woman or a man becomes a good person depends mostly upon their own choices and actions. Despite idealistic notions that we are all born good, the reality is that we are all born mostly wrapped up in our own self and our own desires, pleasures, and pains. If women seem “selfish” today, it’s because that’s how we’re born. Men are the same way. To become a good man or woman, we must make a conscious choice to leave behind that old, natural self-centeredness, and develop ourselves into a good, thoughtful, self-responsible person. If we don’t make the effort to do that, both men and women will remain selfish jerks, each in their own way. See:
The irony is that “women today” are also very often looking for “a good man,” and are having trouble finding one. That’s because the “good men” today are just as self-absorbed as the women. These foolish men think that just because they have a penis, women should be fawning all over them, and tripping over themselves to “love” them, which, for these silly, undeveloped men, means serving his every wish and whim, never contradicting him, and of course, giving him all sorts of great sex. In other words, these “good men” are living in a fantasy land in which they think they can have a “Real Lady” without doing the work of being a “Real Gentleman.”
If you’re having trouble finding a good woman, what you need to do is look in the mirror, and then do the hard work of becoming a man who has the character to be worth the while of a woman of good character. I could extend this reply much longer with explanations about this, but instead I’ll refer you to two more articles. If you don’t read any of the other articles I link to above, I would highly recommend that you read these two, and begin the process of extracting yourself from the nostalgic fantasy world in which you are now living. Then do the hard work of becoming a Real Man so that you can be a true match for a Real Woman.
There are plenty of good women out there. But you’ll never be able to have a relationship with one of them as long as you continue in your current faulty attitudes about men, women, and relationships. Here are the articles for you:
Oh, and about the mistaken notion, popular among conservative Christians, that the Bible commands women to obey their husbands, please see: “Wives, submit to your husbands.”
To Lee: Very interesting threads and points here.
Im a little iffy though of your defense of modern times. I respectfully disagree.
Even the elders of today in their (70’s+ ) will tell you how different women and relationships are now vs then.
When you hear men say he would wants more a humble “traditional woman” there’s reason for that.
I’m not saying there weren’t plenty of bold/tough/ crazy then women too. Or that it was all a bed of roses and perfection.
But It’s widely known, and accepted that there once a greater emphasis on morals, values, loyalty, appreciation, gratitude, character, and family unit. It was widely taught to “save yourself” for marriage and stick it through. Of course I’m sure many didn’t follow this. But some did. My mother did. Her mother had only 2 with boyfriends in long-term relationships before marriage.
Now? Many qualify as prostitutes before leaving college.
At this point, I’ve heard far too many stories from elders. “A couples love was seen as sacred with great meaning.. “marriages were sacred” sex was sacred”
The avg half way decent looking women of today can jump on Instagram, and with nothing more but a shower, makeup, and click of a button, have droves of men at her feet. Not judging. But Let’s not pretend that these little advantages aren’t impacting men, especially young men, and men’s views on relationships with them.
My next door neighbor admitted she slept with dozens of men within a period of 1 year, after divorce. It started within weeks of the separation. Most of them were guys from her Facebook, and social media accounts. The guys were “chipping away” at her… randomly throughout the course of her marriage which she never bothers to disclose to her husband. She said if her mother ever knew what she had done it would “hurt her immensely” She said: “It was not how I was raised” “my mother came from the old school”. “I was taught that my body was sacred” “Not that im a perfect saint. But to not hand my body out like candy” “My girlfriends encouraged me” said.. “I deserved this”
Many of these men are also locals in her town. Many know her husband. 28 years of marriage, and sacrifice… for that. Well, she eventually texted her mother, some of the truth, and her mother replied: “it’s your life, your no longer married, but your actions are a disgrace. You are a reflection of your husband. How do propose this makes him look? He was a good man, who loved and took care of you for all these years. He believed in marriage, and marriage to you meant something. This is a great dishonor fo him, yourself, and your family”
It’s not uncommon for Women now to have dozens of random hookups, even into the hundreds before 25. Ok fine. But the kicker is:, It is often seen* as “empowering” to a woman. Her girl fiends cheer her on. I seen a post somewhere about single mothers on tinder. It’s true. Its is a sad sight to see. Men were once shamed as pigs, dogs, players, perverts, etc. A women acts like this: “you go girl!” “You deserve it!”
No way, were these behaviors seen as “normal” or anything in the realm of acceptable 30+ years ago. If a women mindlessly slept around like that, she was a slut. And I have a hard time believing it was some common for the very women who teaching their daughters morals, values, and the sacredness of love and marriage, to be hanging out on the block, having numerous affairs, or loosely goosey sex lives in any way ‘comparable’ to today.
With all respect to women Im generalizing here. Im not implying there are no good women. Im not saying all women are like this. I’m not saying men are any better. I sympathize with the odd struggles that good humble men-traditional spirited men of today face. All I know is if this sort of thinking continues to be promoted, and accepted, you can pretty much kiss anything that would remotely resemble meaningful relationships and family unit goodbye. What lovely examples for our children.
Hi B Herald,
Thanks for stopping by, and for your thoughts.
You and I can agree that sleeping around and being promiscuous is not a good thing. However, if we’re going to have a standard of chastity and non-promiscuity, then it should apply to men just as much as it does to women.
The common complaint among MGTOW is that women today are “sluts,” unlike the “virtuous” women of old, because they sleep with many men before getting married. But where is the outrage that this has long been a common pattern for men, who are almost expected to “sow their wild oats” with as many young women as they can get into bed before settling down with a “virtuous” woman who did not engage in such “slutty” behavior? Shouldn’t these men also be called “sluts”? After all, their promiscuous behavior is exactly the same as the promiscuous behavior of the women whom they slut-shame.
If men are going to require women to have few to no sexual partners before marriage, they must impose the same standard on themselves. But you can bet your bottom dollar that there are just as many slutty men as women today. The difference is that men have been playing the whore for thousands of years, whereas for the bulk of women it is a fairly recent phenomenon.
In short, the double standard must end. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.
And once again (as I said in the comment you are replying to), the “good old days” really weren’t so good.
First of all, the “old-timers” you speak of tend to have a nostalgic and unrealistic view of the past. They remember the good, but not the bad. Today the world is going to hell in a handbasket, but in their day everyone was good and virtuous. Funny thing is, their grandparents said the same thing . . . about their generation. The reality is, it never was as good, nor were people as good and virtuous, as the old-timers “remember.” As they get old and approach their time of death, they are looking at their own past through rose-colored glasses.
Beyond that, the “virtuousness” of people in past generations was mostly imposed by external social standards and by certain biological realities—such as the reality that without birth control, sex leads to pregnancy. It was not true inner virtue of character that kept women from sleeping around in past ages.
It’s easy to forget that up until very recently, there was no reliable, widely available birth control. Any teenage girl or woman who had sex, especially if she had sex regularly, was going to get pregnant. However, in most cultures no man would marry a woman who was not a virgin—and if she were pregnant or had a child, she was obviously not a virgin. And women had very few legitimate means of supporting themselves apart from a man—usually either a father or a husband. If she did get pregnant, and the father of the child didn’t marry her, most commonly she was disowned by her family and forced into prostitution. She might even be executed for adultery by her family and community. This was not only a disaster for the young woman, but also a blow to her father, who lost the bride price for the daughter whom he had supported and raised to adulthood.
There was no particular virtue in “women of old” not having sex outside of marriage. They didn’t have sex outside of marriage because doing so would destroy their lives. Women in previous ages were not more virtuous than women of today. They simply understood that having sex outside of marriage would be disastrous for them. If that had not been the case in their culture, they would have had sex just as much as women today who live in wealthy liberal cultures where safe and effective birth control is easily available and women can hold a wide variety of jobs and support themselves without being attached to a man.
Real virtue is not doing the right thing when the alternative is having your life destroyed. Real virtue is doing the right thing when you could do the wrong thing and get away with it, but you do the right thing anyway. And though many women and men are sleeping around today with impunity, many others, both women and men, have chosen not to do that. These women and men are far more virtuous than all of those women from earlier ages who didn’t have sex before marriage because that’s what their culture required them to do, and because having sex before marriage would have destroyed their lives.
As for men, although there have always been a few “good, humble” men who applied the same standard to themselves that they applied to women, I would say that there are far more “good, humble” men today than there ever have been in the past, when men could get away with all sorts of bad sexual behavior because the culture turned a blind eye to the same behavior in men that it condemned in women.
And once again, if you’re having trouble finding a good woman, I would advise you to look in the mirror, and correct your own attitudes. There are many, many good women out there looking for a good man. If you truly are a good man, one of those good women will find you sooner or later.
Lee, thanks for the response.
You and I will agree that “male whores” are no better. Although I do think it’s far more difficult for men to restrain temptation 🙂 And it often gets the better of them.
I’m just having a hard time wrapping my mind around the idea that sex, relationship, marriage was not genuinely seen as more sacred and special (by larger comparison) as it is today.
I mean wow. If this mentality is acceptable promoted as norm, what are the majority of non/male whores to do? lol
Maybe MGTOW does have a point.
I have no problem with women. Many of the younger more conservative men today in the under 30 bracket, I know are really having to grind finding women who haven’t been ran through.
Hi B Herald,
Yes, due to their differing roles biologically, sexually, psychologically, and socially there is a difference between men’s sex drive and women’s. However, that difference is not as radical as once thought. Women are not “pure, chaste” creatures with no interest in sex. Women are sexual beings just as men are. Otherwise, who would all those adulterous men have available to commit adultery with?
About sex, marriage, and relationships, it’s only been fairly recently that these were seen as spiritual and based on love. In earlier centuries, marriage was largely a business relationship, a means of creating alliances among families, clans, and kingdoms, and a means for men to have male heirs who would carry on their name and inherit their wealth and business. Love had very little to do with it. And even when the word “love” was used, it referred mostly to sexual desire and to seeing a woman as socially desirable, not to what we today think of as romantic or marital love. For much more on the history of marriage, I recommend this book:
Marriage, a History: How Love Conquered Marriage, by Stephanie Coontz
Further, though I do not agree with the common feminist idea that women were mere property, they were in no way considered equal to men socially or legally. There was not a partnership between a married man and woman (or women) as we think of it today. The woman was more like an underling. Not a slave, and not a servant—she had greater social standing and rights than either of these—but she was still bound to obey her husband. And in many cultures her husband was free to take additional wives if he could afford it.
All of this means that the kind of romantic or marriage love that we see as an ideal today simply didn’t exist in earlier centuries—or if it did, it was exceedingly rare.
Today, it is different, especially in Western and Westernized countries. Today women are gaining equality with men legally and socially, so that men and women can actually be partners. As equals, they can also have a relationship of love with one another, which is very different from the old relationship of dominance and submission that used to characterize marriage. That is why real inner spiritual marriage is possible today, when it was virtually impossible and nonexistent in previous ages of humanity.
Here are several articles that throw more light on all of this:
Meanwhile, hang in there. Focus on developing yourself and your own character as a good man. If you do this, sooner or later a good woman will come along who will recognize your good character, and love you for it.
Hello Lee, Thankyou again for the reply. I can see your about as well versed on the subject, as anyone I’ve seen, and thank you for the kind words as well. I will peruse the additional material.
Just browsing around Mgtow forums and such I notice they tend to throw their weight around with marriage, using statistics and laws which often tend to favor women.
By your estimation would you advise men not to marry, or would you sympthasize with their views? The term often used is men get “divorce raped” and the kids often taken. As if that’s the fate that most men can look foreword too and opting out is only a rational decision. I did read your own story. But would you say this is unique vs the norm? Unsure what to make of it. I’ve known quite a few couples who divorced reasonably and amicably. Most times the fathers gets the kids on weekends. But they prefer it that way.
Are the current laws truly that unfair to men by your own estimation?
Hi B Herald,
You’re welcome.
I don’t think my relatively reasonable divorce is all that uncommon. You have to understand that the men in the MGTOW forums are the ones who got the short end of the stick. I don’t doubt their experience or their feelings. But I also don’t think their (former) marriages are representative of most marriages, nor do I think that their experience of divorce and its aftermath is the norm.
It’s sort of like relying on Google’s reviews of a restaurant or other business. People who had a bad experience at a restaurant are much more likely to give it a (bad) review than people who had a decent to good experience, and have no particular motivation to leave a review. That’s why, although online reviews aren’t useless, they do tend to be skewed toward the negative compared to people’s overall experience of a restaurant or other business.
Similarly, men who had an amicable, or at least reasonable, divorce don’t go onto Internet forums and make a big fuss about it. And men who are in a good long-term marriage also don’t go onto Internet forums and make a big deal about it. They just quietly enjoy their good marriage relationship.
Meanwhile, men who are in a bad marriage or who had a bad divorce are feeling burned, and they’ll seek out other men to complain and gossip about how terrible women are, as a (not particularly effective) way of dealing with their pain and sense of loss. Once again, the feelings of pain are real. But deciding that all women are evil and from the Devil is not a healthy way of dealing with that pain. However, that’s already covered in the above article.
I would only add that given the extremely negative frame of mind of so many MGTOW, it’s not very surprising that their marriages and relationships failed. Many marriages and relationships are going to fail no matter what the man (or woman) does, because they’re just not right. And many MGTOW really are relatively innocent victims of conniving women. But others, I think, have shot their own relationships in the foot by being, not to put too fine a point on it, real jerks. If I were a woman, I would not want to be anywhere near some of the @$$holes that spew their toxic venom in the MGTOW forums. Such men will never be in a good relationship with a woman, not because all women are evil, but because the men themselves are so toxic and sexist that no decent woman would ever want anything to do with them. If they corrected their own attitudes, then and only then would they be able to be in a healthy relationship with a woman.
This is why I advise men (and women, too), to work on their own character and integrity first of all. If they’re not willing to do that, they might as well forget about being in any good, healthy, and loving relationship. For a light-hearted look at this, please see:
How to Attract the Opposite Sex—and Keep ’Em
As for the current laws being unfair, in some cases they may be. Justice is not always perfect in this imperfect world. But keep in mind that for thousands of years, the laws and the cultural norms heavily favored men over women in almost every area of life. When MGTOW and MRAs look back at “the good old days,” they’re looking at a time that may have been good for men, but it was not very good at all for women. What’s happening today is not that women and feminism are taking over the world, as MGTOW assert, but that we are moving toward more balance and equality between men and women. (As for women taking over the world, the fact of the matter is that men still hold the vast majority of wealth and positions of power in this world.)
Yes, sometimes the pendulum swings too far in the other direction. But that is to be expected as part of the long-term progression toward a new balance. In this new era of humanity, we are in the process of righting many old wrongs. That process can get messy at times. But the resulting society will be better than those of previous eras. I hope we never go back to the “good old days” when men could beat women, cheat on women, and abandon women and children with impunity. Today, it is more and more necessary to take responsibility for our own life and relationships, in an atmosphere of respect for the rights of women (and children) as well as for the rights of men. And that, in my mind, is all to the good.
Would I advise someone to get married in this day and age? Yes, if they are willing to do the hard personal work of growth in moral and spiritual character within themselves, and if they find someone who shares their goals and values in life.
In my view, for those who want real marriage, and not just some legal and social arrangement with an advantageous match, there has never been a better time in the history of the world. Today, unlike in all previous eras in human history, we have an ideal of true, inner, spiritual marriage that simply didn’t exist before. At the same time, legally and socially men and women are gaining an equality with one another that never existed before. This makes it possible for men and women to have deep relationships of united hearts and minds—meaning shared loves, values, beliefs, and goals—that were nearly impossible for men and women of any previous age to achieve.
In short, I believe that there has never been a better time in the history of humanity to get married.
But only for people who are willing to do the internal work on their own character so that they can become people who are capable of real, spiritual marriage. For another look at this, which also starts out tongue-in-cheek, please see:
What Do Women Really Want?
I hope this helps.
Yes, this “pendulum” you speak of I believe they blame as modem feminism “pushing too hard”. Unfairly making the men of today pay for the sins of our grandfathers and great grandfathers past lol
Ive seen posts refer to MGTOW as modern day feminism fighting back for men, in the way feminism does for women. Interesting. Aside from the obvious women haters, a few have tried to clarify, that it’s not necessarily women MGTOW hate, its the biased system in which encourages, enables, and supports women’s behavior in relationships, marriages, etc (Gynocentric society/marriage laws)
Surprisingly, I’ve seen some of them admit that there is bad men, and women, on both sides, but ultimately women have the supreme advantage with gynocentrism on their side. That Women in general do not carry the same risks as men do by comparison. That seems to be the primary issue why they trash marriage.
The stance is even a ‘good woman’ can change with time, or anytime. She may decide one day her life is better without you.. maybe she cheats. At that particular point, its far easier to pull that plug, instead of working on the Marriage as she has the backing to do so. Ultimately she is given that loaded gun advantage, to wreck his life, his assets, the house, the kids, etc if she so chooses too.
Particularly, the no-fault divorce ruined marriage is popular in these forums. One asked.. “would you buy a mortgage if the bank could take your home, even if your doing your part by paying” Wow.
Listening to all this it seems odd to me though. I get the sense that they don’t see themselves as able to read a womans deeper character. I guess people can change, but I simply wouldn’t marry a women who I didn’t have a very strong handle of what that woman is capable of.
The point of marriage is love, vows, partnership, family, etc. your either all in, or not, and that includes sharing things. Never understood prenups, postnups. It’s like saying “I trust you”, (but not really) if you don’t truly know and trust their heart, intentions, their character, why even bother to begin with is my thinking.
Some MGTOW claim to be in long term relationships. They don’t co-habituate and call it “friends with benefits” I try to imagine the limitation and awkwardness of relationships like this, as you become of age. If your engaged, sleeping together, etc. (eventually) one or both parties, will likely get deepened feelings and want more. So what now? End the relationship and just move on, to the next women? What if one of these women get pregnant and needs a place to raise the child? What if she wants more time with you?
Hi B Herald,
Any time you enter into any relationship with another human being, you’re taking a risk. People are complicated, and not entirely predictable. People have free will, and can change who they are. Plus, we start getting into relationships when we’re young, foolish, and headstrong, and our character isn’t settled yet. Mismatches or broken matches are bound to happen. By being careful and having some level of perception and awareness of people’s character, not to mention of our own character, we can lessen that risk. But we can’t eliminate it altogether.
MGTOW in general have gotten burned by bad relationships with women. It may have been their own stupidity and undeveloped character, or it may have been that they got hooked up with a problematic woman, or it may be both. Men are, of course, free not to marry, and these days they can have a “friends with benefits” relationship if they want to. And if they were burned too badly, and also if they have a negative attitude about women, it’s probably best for them not to marry. But by avoiding the risk, they are also ensuring that they never gain the rewards of a good marriage—which, when it is good, is the deepest and most satisfying interpersonal relationship we humans are capable of. But still, it’s their choice.
“Friends with benefits” relationships are, as you say, unstable. They also tend to be superficial. They’re mostly about having someone available to have sex with. Certainly there is physical pleasure in sex regardless of whether there is any emotional connection. But sex is at its best when it is the expression of an inner connection of heart and mind between two people. The sex in “friends with benefits” relationships will always be relatively superficial, and its enjoyment largely physical. It will lack the emotional component that makes an intimate relationship really good and satisfying.
As for “gynocentrism,” I believe that’s largely a bugaboo of men who long for the “good old days” when men ruled the roost and women had to serve them. It’s a rich irony that after thousands of years of patriarchy, men complain bitterly about an imagined matriarchy that doesn’t exist in reality. There is simply more balance now between the rights and social standing of men and women than there ever was before. And men who still think men should be running the show perceive that as “gynocentrism.” The reality is, as I said in a previous comment, that men as a group still have far more money and power than women do as a group.
Divorce may be hard on men, but it is hard on women also. Divorce just isn’t pleasant, no matter how you slice it. At best the two agree amicably to a divorce, but it still leaves its scars. It is a hope and a dream failed, and that’s hard for anyone to digest. When money gets into the picture, and both the man and the woman have their heart set on money, then things get really ugly.
However, the divorce laws aren’t as unfair as MGTOW and MRAs claim. In general, money and property that was carried into the marriage by one or the other remains with the original owner. It’s money and property acquired during the marriage that becomes subject to division. How that division happens depends upon a number of factors, including whether there are children that the woman will have to largely raise by herself. (That’s the usual situation—most men getting a divorce don’t actually want to be full-time dads, or even half-time dads. They want to keep focusing on their work and their career. Or they’re just plain dead-beat dads.)
Certainly there are cases in which there is a miscarriage of justice. And yes, some women marry primarily for a man’s money, and are out to peel as much of it away from him as they can. But it’s not uncommon for such women to be “trophy wives” that the man married because she looks good and raises his image socially, or gives him good financial connections. In other words, he married her for reasons other than love. He then pays for that when the divorce happens. That’s not always the case, of course. But it is the case in some of the ugliest and most contested divorces among the financial upper classes, where there is enough money that the man feels he’s been “divorce raped.”
In marriages in which there is not so much money, the man commonly thinks that he should just walk away with all of his money and income. But it is likely that his wife has spent her years with him raising their children instead of developing a career, or that even if they have no children, she has devoted much of her time to taking care of his needs (cooking, cleaning, and so on). And though raising children and taking care of the household while the husband works doesn’t generate income, it is a thing of value. And it is a thing of value predicated on the expectation that the relationship will be permanent, not temporary. Given all this, when the marriage ends, is it really fair that the woman should walk away with nothing when, apart from that marriage, she could have developed a career and been able to support herself when instead she devoted critical years of her young life, when people normally build their careers, to raising the couple’s children and doing most of the household work so that her husband could devote his time to developing his career?
I’m not saying every divorce settlement is fair. Some men truly do get the short end of the stick in divorce court. But I am saying that if a man thinks he can have a woman for x number of years, in which she does most or all the work around the home, and most or all of the child-raising, and then if the marriage fails he should walk away without giving her a dime in consideration of all those years of service that she put in, foregoing her ability to develop a solid, income-producing career of her own, that’s just not right.
I understand that she might be the one initiating the divorce. But if she’s getting a divorce, it means that in one way or another, the marriage wasn’t working. And the man is a part of the marriage not working as well. MGTOW are all about how terrible the woman was, and all of the terrible things the woman did in the relationship and in the divorce. And in some cases, maybe her name did start with a “B” and end with “itch.” But MGTOW rarely talk about their own faults and their own self-centeredness and their own contributions to the breakdown of the relationship and the marriage.
That is precisely the problem, on their side. They were, and still are, unwilling and unable to take responsibility for their own life and their own contributions to the breakdown of their former marriages or romantic relationships. Instead, they blame it entirely on the woman, and think of themselves as innocent and blameless. They think of themselves as “good, humble men, who just want a good woman.” But mostly, they lack the self-awareness and maturity to properly assess their own character. It is very likely that the “terrible woman” they were hitched to is telling all of her friends what a totally selfish and sexist jerk she was hooked up with, and how glad she is to be rid of him.
Regardless of the particularities of the relationship, as long as MGTOW blame women and refuse to take responsibility for their own contribution to their failed marriages and relationships, they’ll never have a true view of themselves and their own character, they’ll never become a true, self-responsible man, and they’ll never be capable of engaging in a real, deep, stable, and lasting marriage relationship.
That’s why I think that for most of them who are still butthurt about how terrible women are, and how atrocious their woman was, it’s probably best for them to Go Their Own Way.
Even men who are willing to do the work on their own character and attitudes are going to have struggles in their marriages and their relationships. But assuming they didn’t get themselves into a badly mismatched marriage in the first place, if they’re willing to do the work, and their wife is as well, then they can work through their struggles and conflicts, and the marriage will grow closer and deeper as a result.
Personally, I did get into a mismatched marriage when I was young and foolish. Nothing I could have done would have saved that marriage. We just weren’t right for each other. The second time around, I was older and somewhat less foolish. And though there are no guarantees in life or in relationships, this time there is a mutual inner connection that didn’t exist in the previous marriage.
If you keep your senses about you, gain a somewhat objective understanding of your own inner character, and get to know a woman’s inner character and whether it meshes with yours before you hitch yourself to her, then you’ll have a pretty good chance (not a guarantee!) that this marriage will work long-term.
This is also why I recommend not jumping right into bed with someone, but spending ideally a year or two getting to know that person before becoming sexually involved. Sex gets all sorts of bodily drives engaged, which tend to cloud the mind so that we don’t have an objective view of who this person is that we’re sleeping with. It’s much better to make a solid inner connection first. Ideally, the sex would wait until after the two are married. But it should at least wait until they really know each other inwardly as well as outwardly. Then the sex becomes an expression of an inner connection, rather than a physical connection that drives the relationship and clouds the minds of the two into thinking they have a strong connection with someone who really isn’t a good match for them in character. For an article that covers this in a little more depth, please see:
Beyonce and Jay-Z Reveal the Secret: How to Start a Lasting Marriage
(Yes, not everyone is a fan of Beyonce and Jay-Z. I’m not one of their fans myself. But their story does illustrate the point. And so far, they’ve worked things out with each other and stuck it out, unlike many celebrity marriages that start with two people hopping into bed with each other and end with a messy divorce.)
Hello Lee, the part about not taking ownership, behavior, and contributions to the problems in relationship struck me big time as well. All of that is conveniently glossed over. I find this particularly irritating because many of them claim the aim is to empower men so they don’t get bulldozed. Having a balanced view into what breaks down these marriages is about as empowering as it gets for man if you ask me.
You also hear alot of how men are expected to ’be always be there for the women’ but women aren’t given the same expectation for men. Although presented in a brash manner I can’t say they don’t have a point and I do think men should more than know their own worth before entering into anything serious. Im all for a man being a man. But if relationships are to thrive balance is key, accountability is a 2 way street.
Hi B Herald,
I think many MGTOW are living in a dream world of their own making, in which men are victims and women are perps. It is parallel to some feminists’ view of the world, except with the genders reversed. Yes, there are victims and perps. But living in a victim-world is not a path to empowerment, whether you’re male or female.
As for men being expected to always be there for the women, but not the reverse, that is richly ironic. In ages past, women were required to be there for their husbands. In many cultures women were not allowed to divorce their husbands, while men could divorce their wives at will. Although once again, this idea among MGTOW is, in my view, their own dream world, not the reality, if they are living in that dream world, it is “karma” for all of the centuries in which the reverse situation was the reality, and not just a victim-fantasy.
Well here’s the thing. If many women now have this sort of mindset due to the situation of “centuries past” is that productive in today’s times?
It’s like blacks thinking their entitled today for the oppression that happened centuries ago. Coming at the tab / expense of others who played no part in that.
Generally speaking a man is expected to provide, be loyal, and always be there for his women. A women, decent looking, loyal, and feminine.
And … that’s where it ends. : )
Couldn’t agree more about the victim mindset. No more what the equally a victim mindset does us no good. We should always aim to be the bigger man. If we seek change for the better be objective and compassionate.
Hi B Herald,
Well . . . that’s not where it ends. (Maybe you’re being facetious?) There are all sorts of expectations of both men and women. Men experience the expectations on them, and women experience the expectations on them. It’s not easy to put yourself in someone else’s shoes. And the grass always looks greener on the other side. That’s why feminists and men’s rights activists yelling basically the same things at each other, except with the genders reversed.
Hi B Herald,
Oh, and about the present generation paying for past generations’ sins, I generally agree with you. However, there is still a great deal of racism (and sexism) happening today, and blacks and others are still suffering because of it. I understand the frustration that leads to wanting to be paid reparations for the wrongs of past generations. However, I think that if present-day racism were overcome, those calls would subside as blacks and other currently non-favored people were able to make a better life for themselves without all the obstacles that are still blocking their progress and causing great frustration and damage to them.
Yes, I agree about blacks and in those days I couldn’t imagine what that must of been like. I think it’s ridiculous to walk around with a chip on your shoulder taking it out on others/innocent people. I despise that sort of thinking and in my eyes makes you no better.
Growing up I watched many non-racist white kids get bullied in unimaginable ways, it was very hard to watch at times. They were white, so they were seen as easy targets to take advantage of. Thank god I was tough, charismatic, and athletic, so they took to me.
Anyhow, it probably wasn’t the greatest example to use. But I see your point.
fatuous? Well, just a little.
What does get me though is the years men were stereotyped as “pigs” and “shallow” yet the modern women of today, are no different. In fact, studies of online dating (albeit controversial) have shown women to be far more shallow than men. Overwhelmingly, more likely to exhibit the type of superficial, objectifying, sexism typically attributed to their male counterparts. Research confirms what I’ve witnessed with plain site, not to mention have heard myself from many, many men.
This may sound harsh. But what kind of soulless degenerates outright dismiss a man simply because he’s not 6 foot? Or not model / exceptionally handsome. You can’t change your height, or look like Brad Pitt. Men can be shallow too of course. But generally are more realistic, and don’t need a women to look anything in the realm of Angelina Jolie. That kind of narrow/minded mentality repulses me.
Growing up it was one thing for women to recklessly sleep around. But again, the big difference was they weren’t “proud” or overly-accepting of it.
And… even if she was sleeping around, still the aim was to find a good man she relates with, to settle down with, have kids with, a monogamous relationship, etc.
For women sleeping around, it was thought to be that she was looking for love “in all
the wrong places”, had low self worth, etc. That sort of thing was not encouraged by their peers, and for good reason. I think men, (especially the decent young men) seeking genuine relationship are taken way back by the mentality of the common Modern American Women. I also agree with the poster above regarding women have become more abusive, and abusing power due to sex appeal.
These are just a few of many, many reasons why I believe that in today’s time men need to be extra careful. Sorry, you and I will have to disagree. Things are very different now. Women aren’t the same. Why that is I don’t know. Some Blame it on feminism, I don’t know. Maybe it’s poor upbringing/bad examples. Maybe it’s technology giving women way to much power. I don’t know. It used to be about finding a ”soul mate” or “the one“ patiently waiting. Now it’s about the.. (well I don’t know how many)
Ask any man, how often he runs across women who speak like that anymore.
Only way I see marriage, or anything remotely “meaningful” working anymore is if he is to find a women with deeply rooted morals, values, loves and respects him for him, isn’t materialistic, high maintenance, respects her body, and understands what marriage is about. Anything less and there will be a lesson he will never forget. Just ask those MGTOW guys.
Ideally, wait until the age of 30-40, as most younger women these days are taking a stroll through Instagram and Tinder lane.
From a mans perspective the vast majority of modern women today, (even the soccer moms well into their 30’s) are posting selfies, walking around half naked, with a phone glued to her face. Has a seemingly endless roster of old buddies, colleagues, co-workers, who wouldn’t think twice about pouncing if and when they could. Sooo much attention, and opportunity at the click of a button hyper-inflating their egos. For existing relationships, its a big distraction. Makes it 100x easier to cheat. Particularly when the relationship gets into a bad patch vs taking time to reflect.
In the last 7 years, dating apps have transformed the once stigmatized world of online dating into a way of life. Tinder as mentioned is a popular tool in that digital arsenal.
http://www.collegiatetimes.com/opinion/fueling-the-fire-how-tinder-leaves-men-burned/article_d966ca34-1239-11e7-828b-9b271da3b9b9.htm
Some have related the new dating world to polygyny, practically Barbaric. For women the avg life-time partners statistically were once around 4…
Now? I’ll let you figure where that number is at by the times she’s 22.
They may not of been more virtuous then. But I do not recall promiscuousty being embraced or ignored to this degree for crying out loud.
Men are probably scratching their heads wondering if they should be nice, kind, and sweet and caring, or more like a PUA.
I remember a time when women were mysterious and played hard to get, that sort of thing. No way did men cheerfully bring home these sorts of women to meet their mothers. Most decent men want a good hearted, humble women of substance, nurturing, with remote feminine qualities to marry, and or commit exclusively too. I don’t mean a 1950’s style maid, or pushover either. Men need wives, not mothers.
I have met people from all walks of life, and among those who have had the fortune to live abroad, it’s fairly common knowledge that the modern American women have become quite unfeminine as well.
Hi B Herald,
Thing is, women are saying the same sorts of things about “men these days.” It’s all generalizations.
You don’t need many women to be interested in you. You only need one woman to be interested in you.
Other than the general superficiality, behind the Tinder article you linked, as with many other complaints by men and women about how tedious and unfair dating is, is the idea that you have to grind through many women, or many men, in order to find a “good” one.
Personally, I was never interested in “dating.” In fact, never did date. I just kept my eyes out for someone compatible. I sorta got it wrong the first time, but the second time’s the charm for me. Basically, I did the things I was interested in, and talked about the things I was interested in talking about, and in that way connected with people who thought in similar ways and liked similar things.
Tinder may be good for hookups, but it’s not the best way to find an inner connection and a long-term satisfying relationship.
Oh, and by the way, the word I used was “facetious” (joking), not “fatuous.”
Well the challenges mentioned seem common enough that I thought it was worth mentioning. The main message is that men should be extra careful with marriage and or who they invest in these days. For all the reasons listed above. I also couldn’t agree more that each couple should spend ample time together building an inner connection before physical. If the other isn’t willing to take that time, move on.
With that said… If I were looking for a serious relationship these days, the first thing I would do is avoid women who walk around with a phone glued to their face. No party girls, no trophy wives. The next deal breaker would be women who spend any great length of time on social media. (Facebook, Instagram) Past partners, relationships, high school buddies, past lovers, etc. deleted. I absolutely would stay away from apps like tinder, or anyone that has a history on tinder, and ideally most dating apps if at all possible. Some of the specific complaints from groups like MGTOW, come from the very same behaviors commonly seen on these apps. (Hypergamy, superficial, shallow, judgemental, etc)
Now some might say, if a person will cheat they will cheat “anyways”. (With or without tools/technology/inordinate exposure) Well that could be true. But it’s not that simple. There is a reason why those in serious relationships or marriage tend to avoid bars, getting skunk drunk at parties, or activities that can create unnecessary problems or distraction in a relationship. Too much Temptation can and often does get the very best of us.
Hi B Herald,
Both men and women should be extra careful with marriage, and who they “invest in” these days.
In past ages, marriage was mostly an external and social affair. Most people lived in smaller communities where everyone knew each other. This made it much easier to know what you were getting with this or that person. And love was only a minor factor in marriage.
Today, both marriage and the community are very different.
Marriage now is all about love, inner connection, “soulmates” and so on—which was never the case in past ages. Women especially, but men also, want a deep connection with their partner. If that is lacking, the marriage most likely won’t last.
Meanwhile, the community has broadened, people are mobile, and we are connected with people all around the country and the world via the Internet and other communication technologies. It used to be that most people grew up with the people they would marry, and the whole community knew both people and their character. Now, we commonly don’t meet our partner in marriage until adulthood. There is not the community knowledge and memory of potential partners that there used to be.
In other words, today marriage can be much better and deeper than it ever was in the past. But it is also much more of a challenge to achieve that real and deep connection of marriage. That is true both for men and for women.
The irony of the MGTOW complaints about women being “hypergamous” is that this is exactly how men used to be, with impunity. Now men are complaining that many women do the very same thing that they themselves used to do. And they thought it was all A-OK when men did it. There’s just a wee bit of hypocrisy in the “hypergamy” complaints. Evolutionary arguments about men sowing their seed far and wide are not going to cut it anymore. If men want monogamous women, they’re going to have to be monogamous themselves.
Further, MGTOW who do decide to sleep with women commonly do so on an entirely superficial basis. It’s all about getting sex. What sort of women do they expect to find if all they’re interested in is some T&A? Due to their purely physical interest, of course they find superficial, uncommitted women who like to sleep with many different men. Duh!
As you suggest, men who want a deep and long-term relationship with a woman are not going to find it if they’re in the bars or on Tinder looking for women who are interested in quick, uncommitted sex. That’s not where women with more substance to their character hang out. More likely you will find such women in the workplace, or at the gym, or at church, or doing volunteer work at a hospital or local non-profit.
As I have said previously, and in various articles here, the best way to find a good and sympatico woman is to be a good man yourself, follow your own interests, and do good work at your job and in the community. It is in the course of being a good man that you will find a good woman.
Hello Lee,
Men were once hypergamous? How is that?
“Due to their purely physical interest, of course they find superficial, uncommitted women who like to sleep with many different men”
To be fair, actually many of the men in the MGTOW community started off as committed hard working, husbands.
Not all of them are physical interest. They would love to marry or remarry, but have been hurt to such a degree that they simply do not have it in them to do it again.
A common story I’ve seen is how they were working hard, 2 jobs, etc to make ends meet. They would return home, (sometimes early) to find another man in his bed, home, or property. Or, they find evidence of an affair.
Or the marriage starts off well.. but after some time, maybe a few years, the wife grows emotionally, and or physically distant. The attention starts to lean more towards friends, Children, anything-but-him.. (all the while he’s expected to work, provide, and be monogamous) And even the best of women are notorious for rolling their eyes when a man complains about feeling neglected, desired, etc. Some therapist label unprovoked emotional/physical distancing as a form of abuse. Which many women are guilty of, but is rarely ever mentioned.
Another is men feeling like ATM’s. They are desired moreso based on what they can provide. This is particularly most evident when for instance a job is lost, perhaps a struggle to find work. She may not leave. Or right away. But her level of desire or attraction in general dwindles.
Some MGTOW’s have seen their mothers sleeping around on their hard working fathers as children. Divorce, and do it again, and again.
The fact that women divorce 70-80% of the time, isn’t helping their case much either. Sure there’s alot of jerks who deserve divorce. But we can only explain away but so much. If this stat were reversed women would conclude that men are “dogs”, who “cant commit”. But because it’s women we tend to seek excuses for their behavior. I believe the main reason given was “I wasn’t happy”
So all these families get broken up, because the woman “wasn’t happy”
Reality is no one can make you happy. At least not in a general sense. The grass is rarely greener on the other side. Marriage is about so much more than another person making you happy. That doesn’t sound like love to me.
Due to these circumstances these men can not see an alternative, to a friends with benefits style relationships. Some do have long term relationships. They find women who are ok with not living together, marriage, etc.
Hi B Herald,
Oops, sorry, scratch that. My fingers were typing “hypergamous,” but my brain was thinking “polygamous.” Men were not hypergamous, but polygamous in the past.
However, the two are related. In the past, women were seen as socially inferior to men. Basically, it was always a case of women “marrying up” to someone who was her social and financial superior. And polygamy involved a man having a harem of women who were his social inferiors. The fact that women did not have the same right as men to take multiple spouses further demonstrates the imbalance.
In other words, the historical pattern required women to “marry up,” whereas it was nearly impossible for men to do so. This set a pattern that still persists today. Blaming this on women makes no sense whatsoever.
Hi B Herald,
I agree that we can’t expect others to make us happy. In any workable marriage relationship, both the husband and the wife need to be able to stand on their own two feet, have goals and plans of their own, and have activities that give them satisfaction. These may dovetail with those of their spouse, but one can’t lean on the other expecting the other to provide happiness and fulfillment without contributing equally to that happiness and fulfillment in the life of the marriage.
Having said that, marriage is not just a pleasant add-on to an otherwise full life. My view is that we humans are designed to be in a marriage relationship, even if some people opt not to be for various reasons. For most people, having a close and fulfilling marriage-type relationship is an essential ingredient to full happiness in life. This still doesn’t mean that it’s our partner’s job to make us happy. But it does mean that for most people, if a warm, close, and loving relationship with another human being is lacking, there will not be full happiness in life.
Right up front, I will say that I do not condone adultery under any circumstances. If a man or woman is unhappy in his or her marriage, the proper thing to do is either to repair the relationship, or to get out of the marriage via divorce. Only after the marriage no longer exists is it acceptable to sleep with someone else. Women who sleep with other men while they are still married are in the wrong, just as men who sleep with other women while they’re still married are in the wrong.
Realistically, though, if one or both spouses are sleeping with someone else, the marriage is almost certainly already dead. And when a woman feels disconnected enough from her husband to be sleeping with someone else, or thinking seriously about doing so, she probably does not feel connected enough to him to share her true feelings with him. If she says she is “not happy” in the relationship, it probably means she is miserable in the relationship, and has just been trying to put the best face on it, because that’s what women do.
Her husband may think she’s just flighty and is lightly tossing the marriage aside. More likely he is completely oblivious to the reality that she has been depressed and desperate in the marriage for a long time, has tried to subtly or not-so-subtly communicate that to him, and he has not gotten the message (men can be very thick-headed when it comes to relationships), or has brushed it aside as unimportant or as a passing “woman thing.” Perhaps there are some women who lightly toss aside a marriage because they are lightweight, superficial women. But most women do not give up on their marriage unless they see it as a hopelessly lost cause that can never be fixed.
Yes, women initiate the majority of divorces these days. That’s because women are much more aware than men are when a marriage is dying, or already dead. And women are no longer willing to live in dead marriages, even if men are. Men will absorb themselves in their work, and that will give them meaning, purpose, and satisfaction all the while their marriage is slowly dying and they don’t even know it.
In short, though I understand the feelings of MGTOW who have had a woman divorce them “out of the blue,” that is the man’s perspective. The woman’s perspective on what has happened is usually a whole different story.
Hello Lee,
“For most people, having a close and fulfilling marriage-type relationship is an essential ingredient to full happiness in life. This still doesn’t mean that it’s our partner’s job to make us happy. But it does mean that for most people, if a warm, close, and loving relationship with another human being is lacking, there will not be full happiness in life”
Well I could not have said this better. I have always believed this myself, but… as I’ve grown older and found my way around the Internet, that belief seems to have been put into question. The need to be alone and with your own company, marketed under “self-love” seems to be the thing.
The message: To only need and depend on yourself. Marriage/partner is just the desert that you should be ok to live or live without. I would say we are hardwired for a deeper connection with another which in turn gives significant meaning for most. Its good obviously to enjoy your own company, and have a connection to oneself but that only goes so far. Some will admit feeling flat out admit feeling an emptiness from long-term bachelorhood. Although there are a few historical figures such as Einstein who never married, etc. Others brag about the “freedom” they have, and I can understand how having different women can be tempting. I can’t say I don’t sympathize with certain men who are tied down who would begin to rationalize this as there is nothing worse than a women who decides that intimacy is now the last priority in that relationship. Then what. You can’t just leave, and bounce from relationship to relationship. At least serious ones. So for men in that particular boat, I truly feel for. Ask married men what their lives have been like after their wives had children lol. The women shifts most of the focus to the kids and forgets that there was once an actual relationship. Its as if men are seen as these blocks of meat, with no feelings, or needs of his own. The best relationships are those that have that awareness. A women should know difference between being an intimate partner and mother, and visa versa.
Reality is if we keep apologizing for these behaviors than we will continue to have high divorce rates and broken families. I know many young adults in this generation who want nothing to do with the mortgage and the ring, based on both statistics and the examples provided to them from married couples. That’s sad.
Also, if its true that cheating is the sign of an already “dead marriage” my friend it’s probably best to avoid marriage, or any form of committed relationship. Cheating is common. The couples can work through it if they so choose. Sometimes affairs are plain ole wake up calls, because the other party often is so completely dense.. Dismissing the countless warning signs/complaints of neglect, that came long before an affair. Doesn’t mean the relationship has to be dead though. 80% of people cheat. Sometimes great lessons are learned. One being don’t take your partner for granted.
If I was a marriage counselor, the first I thing say to the couple is: Don’t want someone else touching your spouse? Act like it. Sooner you get that through your head the better.
I also think it is generally worse when women cheat. As when they cheat, there is typically emotion involved whereas men it’s mainly physical. If I seem biased I’m not. I hate double standards. I’m all for accountability. But that’s a two way street. I just get tired of men being told to man up, while women take no accountability for their abusive behavior that breakdown marriages, home, and family. Why not look at ourselves and try to better understand eachother for the sake of better relationships and family? We will never make progress until that happens.
Hi B Herald,
I’ve been single, and I’ve been married. I like married better. However, I’m well aware that a bad marriage can be worse than being single. I’ve been divorced, too.
About cheating, if the two are married, the word for that is “adultery.” Adultery is always wrong, whether a man does it or a woman does it. I don’t think women should be let off easy just because they’re female, nor do I think men should be considered more culpable just because they’re male—and vice versa. Adultery kills marriages. And if the marriage was already dead, adultery puts the last nail in its coffin.
Can a dead marriage or unmarried relationship be revived? Yes. But only if both partners make a major commitment to reviving it. Yes, adultery or cheating can be a wake-up call. But it’s not going to be easy to rebuild trust in the relationship. Both partners will have to be highly motivated to do so. And it’s most likely to be successful if the adultery or cheating was a one-off, or very short-term, and the one who did it regrets it.
If the adultery or cheating is an ongoing thing, the likelihood of salvaging that relationship is slim to none. Ongoing adultery or cheating shows an underlying lack of dedication to marriage. That would require serious repentance to overcome. Most people engaged in ongoing adultery or cheating simply aren’t going to do that. They don’t regret what they are doing. They don’t think there is anything wrong with it.
However, it is also fairly common for people who are in a struggling relationship to “slip up” and commit adultery or cheat, and then feel terrible about it afterwards. In that case, it can be a wake-up call both for the person who did it and for the other partner. If they want this relationship, they’re going to have to do some serious work, and give it much more priority than they did before. And the one who was unfaithful is going to have to commit to faithfulness to his or her partner from now on.
Perhaps your stat that 80% of people cheat is correct. I’d have to see the source. However, there’s a big difference between ongoing cheating and cheating that is a one-off. If the stats don’t distinguish between the two, then they’re providing only a superficial understanding of the situation.
About women giving priority to the children over the marriage, I agree that this is not right, though I also understand that it’s complicated. Children do require a lot of time and attention, and the greatest burden of caring for them day-to-day almost always falls upon the woman. Still, I believe that the marriage should come first in priority. That goes for men (and these days women, too) who use the excuse of the all-consuming nature of their job, and it also goes for women (and these days some men, too) who use the excuse of the all-consuming nature of their child-care responsibilities. If you want to be married, you need to give priority to the marriage, while recognizing that other responsibilities are going to make that a challenge.
It is also unfortunately true that quite a few women get married primarily because they want to have children. Especially when they feel their biological clock ticking, they may “settle” for a man they don’t really love. Single motherhood is a possibility, but being a single mother is hard, and women know it. Still, marrying in order to have children is a devil’s bargain. Once her husband realizes it, he’s likely to start checking out of that relationship. She may end out a single mother anyway. And yes, it’s very hard on men who are unfortunate enough to find themselves in this situation. This is one of the wrongs that women commit against men.
The parallel for men is marrying a woman for sexual or social reasons when he doesn’t really love her as a person. This is also very common, and is also likely to lead to a dead marriage, adultery, and divorce. It is one of the wrongs that men commit against women.
In short, men commonly wrong women by viewing them as sex objects, whereas women commonly wrong men by viewing them as wallet objects.
The right way to go into marriage is by making an inner connection of love, friendship, and common goals and values first, and making these primary in the relationship. Then all the rest—marriage, children, mortgage, and so on—can follow by the couple’s mutual choice, without objectifying, using, and abusing each other.
Thank you for pointing things out from both sides. It’s honestly not often I see this. Much of the frustration you see from many Mgtow- is the problems men face with little acknowledgement of the other side. It at least partly explains the angered responses. They simply do not feel heard; or acknowledged themselves. Being as futile as it may seem, they then react by going to extremes to make other men aware. We of course see the mess created over the Reddit’s and YouTube.
Where it gets tricky though is women have this mindset of seeing men mainly for children, bills, mortgage etc (without even realizing it.) It wasn’t until my late 30s did I realize how common this was. Simply by observing, reading, seeing many marriages, and doing a little research myself. Long before I even knew what mgtow was about.
It’s drilled in men’s heads that a man is to find a woman, support her, his family and so on. While I certainly think that having a family is wonderful, and deeply rooted in purpose, this message (as many other well intended messages can go to far) and or be taken out of context. It’s not often that we hear how men should be treated in relationships and marriage. The do’s and the don’ts. What marriage and relationship must be like from a mans perspective. I will say that women down south, and women overseas, raised with traditional morals and values, tend to have a better idea of how to see a man, and treat a man, and appreciate and value a good man when they see it, and have it. As indicated by actions, which ultimately helps both the relationship and family to thrive. While men are known to be cheaters, and ridiculed as cheaters, it does make one wonder how many naturally do so out of desperation, when the women diverts most if not all of her focus to the children. I understand raising children can be complicated as well. I’m totally sympathetic to that especially during the first few years when children need the highest of amount of care and nurture. It becomes an issue when after so long a man gets placed at the bottom of the totem pole, feeling brushed aside.
Wether he, himself is aware of it on the surface.. he knows it and feels it down inside. Few men are equipped to properly argue with women about their feelings too. Women need to understand that men aren’t here just to go through a short honeymoon phase of romance, have children, and live to be an atm. Men have dreams, goals, emotions, feelings, needs, and desires, and they deserve the same exact care, and respect. And those needs are just as important as a women’s needs and childrens needs. It’s not enough to say or agree to it. Actions, consistent actions, need to reinforce those words. The reasons mentioned in your final paragraph. Please understand that I emphasized this as this is as common as common gets in marriage. Yet it’s rarely spoke about and swept under the rug. Sometimes it makes me wonder if women and men should somehow learn to be ok with having children, and being friends after that if it comes to that. Certainly seems that men end up in these situations anyways, where they are seen/treated more as “friends/provider” rather than a desirable mate. The hundreds of married men I’ve spoken with over the years confirm this. Some are able to work through it, and I’m happy for those that do. But it’s often a lengthy process in which may involves marriage counseling as women once married, are naturally clueless to men and their needs. Some men are just not wired to deal with a women who becomes complacent for years on end. Especially, if he’s in any way sexually vital, or has much to offer more hungrier or appreciative women who have been through hell, have been humbled, know a good thing when they see it. I like what marriage represents and what it’s supposed to mean. But the one thing I’ve never like about “committed” relationships is once someone knows they “have” you, it’s as if they don’t see you in quite the same manner. There is exceptions. (exceptionally attractive, well off, etc.)
The 80% stat — I seen on a random show about relationships and fidelity years back. The claim was that monogamy was unnatural and few people can actually do it. The stat however did not mention marriage stats. I’ll also agree that it’s a far different thing to slip up and cheat during hard times in relationships, as opposed to an ongoing thing. For this reason I don’t get too hung up on stats. Just thought it was worth mentioning.
Hi B Herald,
I do know about women wanting a man mostly to support them so that they can have children. You’re preaching to the choir on that one. The unfortunate reality is that people in general, both men and women, are pretty messed up, especially when they’re younger, and often even when they get older. People, both men and women, use other people for their own purposes, and throw them away when they no longer serve those purposes. This happens in business, it happens in community and political life, and it happens in marriages and relationships.
In relationships, since men and women are different, they use and abuse each other in different ways. The ways men use and abuse women are often blatant and obvious, whereas the ways women use and abuse men tend to be more subtle and harder to see. (Sort of like their respective genitalia, eh?) This means that men are more likely to get called out on and penalized for their abuses of women than women are to be called out on and penalized for their abuses of men. It’s not fair . . . but life isn’t fair. And women certainly do suffer at the hands of men as much as men suffer at the hands of women.
The reality is that both men and women do use and abuse each other, and suffer the pain of being used and abused as well. For those doing the using and abusing, a long path of introspection and personal work on one’s own character and life is required to stop being the kind of person who does that. Many people have no interest in doing all of that work. And for those being used and abused, a long path of healing is often required to get sufficiently free of its effects upon the life and psyche to move on to a good and happy life. And we’re doing it to each other all the time.
That is why I devoted my life, not to politics, nor to the physical healing arts (both of which I considered in my younger years) but to people’s spiritual life. Only by becoming spiritually aware, and from that perspective engaging in self-examination and spiritual growth, can we overcome the rampant use and abuse of one another in all areas of life that causes so much pain and suffering for men, women, and children alike.
This is also why as a middle-aged man pushing 60, I would never want to hook up with some young hottie, as some older men do. Sure, they’re easy on the eyes, and probably a lot of fun in bed. What’s missing is the maturity of mind and the well-grounded decency of character that can come only from several decades of conscious work on growing up as a decent human being. Young people may mean well, but they’ve got an awful lot of learning and growing to do.
The problem is, if you want to have kids, you have to do it when you’re young—especially if you’re a woman. And that means either being a single parent or getting married to someone who is probably still quite rough around the edges, and still rather self-absorbed. Personally, I wanted children. And my adult children are indeed a great joy to me, and one of the few really good things left from the previous chapter of my life. It’s not just women who want children. But sometimes you have to pay a heavy price for the great treasure of having and raising children. Sad, but true.
And sometimes, people get married young, have children, and also have a long, stable, happy, and loving marriage relationship with one another. It does happen. Just not to as many of us as we might wish.
“What’s missing is the maturity of mind and the well-grounded decency of character that can come only from several decades of conscious work on growing up as a decent human being”
I couldn’t of said anything you said any better.
Honestly, who I’m most concerned for is the younger generation overall. There’s a disconnect I see that is difficult to explain. I started noticing this maybe 7-8 years ago, and for the longest I thought maybe I was just old school, but within that time others have made the same observations.
I had an interesting discussion with my mother about this. I consider her to be balanced, wise, and fairly in tune to things. I told her that I felt like marriage, family and all things centered around it once seemed to have a greater significance and value. Whereas now not so much. Asked her if it was just me. She believes the growing absence of religion has made others a bit more morally loose and selfish in some areas. She’s not necessarily religious herself. But she did attend church for the greater part of her life and was raised in a family like that. She made a heck of a wife too. I don’t think you could ask for better. Everyone mentions how lucky my father is and he doesn’t disagree. The majority of women in my family are good, kind, caring people. They take pride in their marriages as well.
So this was interesting to hear. I was curious what you thought about that.
As far as the “hottie” / trophy types, my friend, while
I appreciate beauty.. I purposely tend avoid those types. I was fortune enough to realize this very early on. I never understood the guys that chased them to hard either. The character and substance of a women to me is what ultimately makes her desirable.
Hi B Herald,
The younger generation commonly looks problematic to people as they get older. That’s been going on since ancient times. (See: “The World is Going to Hell in a Handbasket!”) I think it’s hard for us to remember just how stupid and foolish we ourselves were when we were young. We compare young people’s character with our character as young people seen through the filter of our present-day character. It’s not a fair comparison.
Personally, I have great hope for today’s young people, particularly when it comes to gender and relationship issues. Millennials are the first generation that is growing up with the experience of women having considerable equality with men in society. They’re not as stuck in the old gender inequality as older generations. They’re better able to form relationships that are real partnerships in which both partners, and their contributions to the relationship, are equally valued.
Yes, Millennials have their problems, too. Like nearly all Western children for the past fifty years or more, they are brought up pampered and indulged. They tend to think that the world revolves around them, because their parents did revolve their lives around them. They often have a rude awakening when they get out of school and enter the working world, and discover that the world doesn’t give two hoots about them, or think they are special in any way. It can be hard for employers to deal with them as long as they retain the sense of entitlement that they were brought up with.
But like other generations, they grow up, and most of them grow a bit wiser and less self-absorbed in the process.
Hello. You haven´t adressed some critical points in my opinnion.
1) Porn. Constant, unlimited by the virtues of internet, this has many men living unfocused, with low drive, but at the same time more lustful than ever, wanting to mate with every women (or every women they consider attractive) in the world. This last point obviously leads to frustration, as in reality, you just can´t mate and have sex that easily. There´s also the reality that porn induces men to solitude (for masturbation purposes), which alienates them, turning them into beta men, afraid of women, awkward around them, etc.
2) Women are becoming entangled with conflictive and negative masculinity traits themselves. That is: they are being corupted the way men were when they had all the power by themselves. They will lie, retaliate, fight, attack like men, but with the added dose of their own negative femenine traits (manipulation, playing the weak victim, mind games, gaslightning, etc).
3) Marriage (monogamy) is obviously not working like it used to. It is creating a toll in mental health around the planet. You are just being naive if you think there are tons of 60+ years marriages that just were happy all the time. All of them have times of tension, and that tension is “infelidelity, cheating”. My point is the expectation of trad monogamic marriage is unrealistic and that causes the main conflict.
4) Men nowadays are isolated, shamed in ther masculinity and laugh about their problems. The culprit is both men and women (culture, I should say, then), A typical example is that a too close male friend, starts the whole “homosexual” suspicacy and according shaming, when in reality, male need brothers to talk about their emotions or their doubts or their sufferings as much as any women. Women are men are not that different in this department: human beings going through trials. Mgtow and similar movements are finally becoming a support for the male trials.
5) Women (and this is connected to point #1) are becoming way to empowered just because of their sex appeal. This along with financial independence and a society that (besides crimininals) “protects” them viciously is making women a lot more abussive than before (again, similar to abussive men). Indeed, is beta men the culprit of giving that much attention and power to women just because of their looks.
6) This connects with narc/borderline personality disorders, which again, you completely ignore, when in fact are crucial to understand the modern situation: these disorders are becoming much more typical in women, and it has, again, a lot to do with the poor mental health of humans in general. Mentally ill parents lead to mentally ill children.
So, while Mgtow and RedPill movement, obviously includes a lot of reports and anecdotes that tells us about a growing hate towards women, their main points against marriage, increasingly bad spoiled self entitled abussive women, and critique against the legal system is very valid.
Having said that, I think we agree in that , yes, every man should take women out of a pedestal and start living their own life the fullest. Sex and relationships with women should be a side effect, of how much we men love ourselves in the first place.
Good luck with your marriage (have fun not looking at other women, or manouevering through your natural desires to mate with someone else, also have fun mantaining your woman with you if, God forbid, you happen to lost your financial and social power).
Hi Jacob,
Thanks for stopping by, and for your comment.
Yes, you and I can agree that men should not put women on a pedestal, but should see and treat them as regular human beings, with both virtues and flaws, just as men are regular human beings with both virtues and flaws.
And yes, we can agree that each person should live his or her life to the fullest. This is the only way that any relationship with another person can achieve its fullest potential. If we stand around waiting for someone else to make our life good, exciting, fulfilling, and so on, then we’ll either be standing around forever, or we’ll be sorely disappointed when other people fail to make our life great. It is our job to make our own life good. And if we can then find and partner with another person who has the same attitude about life, then together the two can accomplish much greater things than they could alone.
Thanks also for your well-wishes about my marriage. I am of an age and attitude that even when my wife and I are having our conflicts and struggles—they happen in every marriage—I have no interest whatsoever in being with anyone else. But that’s an issue to take up in response to your third point. So let’s dig into your particular points:
1. Pornography does not consume men. Men consume pornography. Any man who has a serious problem with pornography taking over his life has some serious work to do in breaking his porn addiction and changing his life. Pornography does not make our choices for us. We make our own choices, including about using pornography. Any man who blames his problems on pornography is just making excuses. He is not being a man. Being a man means running our own life and making our own decisions. For more on pornography, please see:
What does the Bible Say about Pornography? Is Pornography Sinful?
2. Yes, now that women have more power, they are showing more corruption, just as when men had far greater power than women, men also showed far greater corruption. It’s not that power corrupts, as the common saying goes. It’s that people who are morally corrupt will show that corruption in far greater measure when they have power than when they don’t. This applies to women just as much as it does to men. Meanwhile, both women and men who are not morally corrupt are not corrupted by power, but use greater power to accomplish greater good. For more on this, please see:
Power Corrupts? Absolutely Not. Arrogance Corrupts Power.
3. As a matter of fact, I have seen numerous 60+ year marriages that were good, close, and loving, including the marriage of my own parents. (See: “When Death is a Celebration.”) This does not mean there was no conflict in those marriages. Where there are human beings, there will be conflict. The issue is how we work out our conflicts. In a good marriage, the conflicts lead to change and growth both in each partner and in the marriage. And no, not all married people engage in “infidelity cheating” when they are in conflict with their spouse. Some do, of course. But others simply feel a great pain and sadness at the sense of separation from the one they love. This motivates them to do the work of overcoming that separation and moving even closer to their partner in marriage. For a related article, please see:
How to Attract the Opposite Sex—and Keep ’Em
4. Does it really matter what other people think about you? If you want to be an “alpha,” forget about what other people think. Forget about their “gay-shaming.” Just get on with your life. If you’re not gay, who cares if people think you are? You know who you are. Besides, fewer and fewer people today think it is shameful to be gay. See:
Hugh Jackman Battles . . . Gossip?
5. Any man who marries a woman just for her looks deserves whatever he gets. Sure, many women use their sexuality to get what they want. And many men have made Faustian bargains with such women in which the man gets the sex he wants and the woman gets the stuff she wants. Such relationships generally don’t end well. I have nothing against female beauty. In fact, I’m all for it! But if you want a good relationship with a woman, you’ll have to see beyond her looks into her character. You’ll have to make an inner connection with her as a person rather than a merely external connection with her physical appearance. Physical beauty fades with age. Good character gets better with age. For a related article, please see:
How to Know if Mr. or Ms. Right is Right for You: Pointers from Gloria and Emilio Estefan
6. There is no evidence of an increase in narcissistic personality disorder among women, and it remains the case that it affects slightly more men than women. See:
Narcissistic personality disorder -> Epidemiology on Wikipedia
Thanks again for your comment. I hope these responses give you some food for thought.
Have you heard of “the black pill” and the rising issue of inceldom in the West? I believe the “black pill” essentially claims that “women only care about looks” and “want ugly men dead,” and “women really desire promiscuity.”
Hi K,
All of this is yet another fine example of how we humans can convince ourselves of the most ridiculously false things if only we put our minds to it.
The irony is that the “incel” community started out as support forums for teenage boys and girls, and young men and women, who are awkward about romantic relationships. Unfortunately, over the years it got kidnapped by a virulent anti-woman crowd that has now ejected all the girls and women, and made the term “incel” so toxic that no one else wants anything to do with it.
In general, the current toxic “incel” community is made up of males who are:
Though it’s still a relatively young movement, the general pattern is that young men grow out of “inceldom” in their 30s, if not before, as they begin to gain some maturity. Yes, there are some holdouts. Some people never grow up. But for the most part, this is a movement of young, immature men who have drunk the kool-aid of blaming women for all of their problems. It is a more virulent mirror image of the unbalanced parts of the feminist movement that blame men and patriarchy for all of the problems of women, and view all men as rapists.
Spiritually speaking, today’s incel and black pill community is a function of self-absorption (“self-love,” in traditional Swedenborgian terminology) and physical-mindedness, together with an unwillingness to engage in self-examination and self-correction, or in traditional Swedenborgian terminology, “repentance” and “shunning evils as sins.”
Part of it is just a function of being young and immature. We do not start out spiritually oriented, thinking of others first. Rather, we start out self-absorbed, thinking of our own comfort and pleasure first. The process of “regeneration” is the process of growing out of this state of self-love and “love of the world” (another traditional Swedenborgian term), and replacing it with a state of love for the neighbor and love for the Lord. This process is not instantaneous; it takes many years of self-examination, repentance, reformation (re-forming ourselves), and regeneration (being reborn as a new person).
For some people this process of growing up spiritually starts at a young age. But for many, if it starts at all, it doesn’t start until well into adulthood. Meanwhile, the bulk of teenagers and young adults, whether male or female, are generally focused on themselves. This doesn’t necessarily mean being a narcissist. It can also mean focusing on one’s own troubles and woes, or engaging in continual self-flagellation. It may not look “selfish” in the usual sense of that word. But whatever form it takes, the focus is primarily on one’s own self, one’s own experiences, one’s own feelings, and so on. The world revolves around me and my greatness or my terrible woes. That’s why I’ve come to prefer the term “self-absorbed” as a more generally descriptive term for this spiritually immature state.
When we’re young, being self-absorbed isn’t necessarily a bad thing. During our childhood and youth we do need to focus on our own growth and development. And before we are able to take care of ourselves, we do need to let our adult caregivers know when we’re hungry or tired or hurt or sick.
However, once we reach self-responsible adulthood, our focus is supposed to begin a shift from thinking primarily about our own health and well-being to thinking more and more about the well-being of others, and about God’s purpose for us.
For people who are not ready or are unwilling to make this transition (it happens only by conscious choice), it is necessary to find some outside object to blame all their troubles on. An unwillingness to be reborn spiritually is also an unwillingness to take responsibility for our own lives, and an unwillingness to engage in self-examination to identify our own faults and character flaws—which we would then have do do the hard personal work of correcting. People who are not ready, or who are unwilling, to engage in this hard work will find something outside of themselves to blame all their problems on, in order to avoid taking responsibility for those problems themselves. (Taking responsibility for our own life is a necessary condition for being a mature adult.)
In today’s incel community, the chosen “whipping boy” is a girl. Women and feminists are, in this distorted worldview, the cause of all the problems of the males of the species. And with the magnifying power of the Internet, for young males who drink this particular kool-aid, there is a very serious rabbit hole that swallows their brains and turns them more and more virulently and violently anti-woman. This continues until one day most of them come to their senses, and re-start their arrested process of growing up to emotional maturity.
As for being ugly and awkward, certainly that is a challenge to be overcome. But men (and women) who have grown up to mature adults take a realistic view of their “challenges,” and do the work necessary to have a good life anyway. Many of them even get married and live happily ever after.
The primary antidote to all of this, besides the aforementioned process of personal repentance, reformation, and regeneration, is to adopt principles and goals in life that involve loving and serving one’s fellow human beings. These two—leaving our self-absorption behind and focusing our life on loving and serving others—go hand-in-hand. As we stop focusing so much on our own greatness or on our own woes, and start thinking about how we can do good things for other people, whether in our job or in our household, neighborhood, and community, the immaturity and self-absorption begin to fade away, along with the blackness of the black pill that we may have swallowed earlier.
Though people who engage in this shift of focus from self to other may not be intending to get a partner, and may not even think they will ever be able to engage in a romantic relationship, it is quite common for people who do the hard work of growing up and becoming emotionally mature to somewhere along the way, as if by chance, find someone to love, who loves them in return.
Self-absorption is far uglier than an ugly face.
Love and concern for other people is far more beautiful than a beautiful face.
Thanks for the reply. Even without knowing how Western society works, one can tell the “black pill” isn’t exactly “the hard truth,” as it relies on the belief that “all women are like that.”
Going off on a tangent here, you mention that youths are in a state where they’re naturally more “self-absorbed” than adults. I assume this “self-absorption of youth” does not necessarily prevent youths who pass away from being able to reach higher heavens — like the 2nd and innermost — right? Otherwise it’d be not unlike the old Catholic belief that unbaptized infants are condemned to Limbo.
Hi K,
No. In fact, Swedenborg says that the bulk of the inhabitants of the highest heaven are infants and young children who have died. Though they are self-absorbed, this is not intentional on their part, so it is not held against them. It is overridden by the state of innocence in which they are. And the highest heaven is the heaven of innocence.
As we grow up, we pass from that state of simple, heart-centered innocence to a state of learning and developing the mind. This begins roughly at the start of our elementary school years. Children who die between five or six years old and the teenage years will likely settle in the middle, “spiritual” heaven due to their immersion in thought and learning.
Meanwhile, teens, especially older teens, are moving toward the practicalities of how to get along in this life, as they approach adulthood and the imminent need to support themselves. They are therefore, I think, more likely to settle in the lowest “natural” heaven, where the focus is on practical concerns and outward right living.
However, this may vary according to the character of the particular person.
Only when we reach self-responsible adulthood does our self-absorption begin to be charged against us if we persist in it rather than growing up and thinking of the well-being of others as much as of our own well-being.
Lee, in an above reply you mention that marriage is not merely some addition to an already happy and fulfilling life. That we are hard wired for a marital relationship when we come of reasonable age and maturity.
But do you think that marriage too early before you have an established career, and set up, etc could be a problem for men? Especially in a time when women are far more independent with the I don’t need a man, (or just ‘one’ man) attitude that comes along with it. In this thread there are other well made points about technology, and the supreme advantages it enables women on the opportunities for endless choice and prospects. We live an age of selfishness, grass is greener on the otter side. checklist mentalities. I know MGTOW and Red Pill take a lot of heat, but they do say that young men should first focus on themselves, their goals, and not allow women to be a focus, or allow them in any to tamper with that. This way a man can learn his true value and depend on himself, without needing it or relying on that from another. In one way it makes sense, and in another way it’s depressing to live with that sort of mindset as you mentioned most would not be fully happy without the relationship of another human being.
But it’s also funny to me how those who once saw eachother as their entire world, with complete devotion for another… all it takes is life circumstance to happen, and they can become like strangers. Just like that. It’s crazy how 2 people who once loved eachother can become enemies. Marriage/divorce is almost the only time this happens.
Obviously pain and risk is a part of life, but few pains are like divorce, it can be utterly ridiculous to such a point that you may wonder if marriage-type relationship and all the vulnerabilities that come with it are worth it anymore. Let’s not forget what it can also do to innocent children. Sure sometimes divorce is agreeable in both parties and couples can be friends, and move on and do it again. But what blows me away is how close 2 people can be, even for decades on end, share such a life, memories, family pictures, etc And then… treat eachother as if they their experience in life together meant nothing, once it over. It’s truly sad, and putting that into perspective can be difficult to do.
If marriage is actually still a legitimate union I do think more perspective needs to be put in place, so that couples aren’t setup for failure. If it ends, it doesn’t have to be so much of a disaster for life and children either. The statistics on marriage and fidelity aren’t exactly inspiring either as mentioned throughout this thread. Of course MGTOW and red pill advocates use those statistics as a weapon to reel others in. I see no one much defending it either.
Hi D Jargon,
Good to hear from you again.
About marrying young vs. marrying when we are a little older and more stable personally and financially, I would say that marrying young would be ideal if people were raised to get to know themselves as a person, and develop their own character, their own beliefs, and their own loves, from an early age. Then two young people could recognize kindred souls from an early age, and spend a happy life together with someone who shares their character and their interests.
Unfortunately, children are more likely to be raised to meet their parents’ and teachers’ expectations, regardless of whether those expectations are harmonious with the character of the children themselves. So it is common for people to reach adult age without any clear sense of who they themselves are as a person. Marriages are then formed based on this lack of self-understanding and lack of clear personal goals in life. Some of these marriages may be fine for a while. The couple may be totally in love with each other. But eventually, when the two start to figure out who they are, they realize that they are nothing like a good match for each other. Then the marriage breaks up, and the two go their separate ways.
Because children are not commonly brought up to see and develop their own character, it probably is better for most people today to wait until they have been an adult for a while, and have begun to figure themselves out, before looking for a partner in marriage. Becoming financially stable may also be an issue, but that is a secondary consideration. People who are truly one with each other in heart and mind can weather financial difficulties.
It is marriages that do not have a real inner connection that are most likely to break up when the husband loses his job, times get tough financially, and the wife loses respect for him and loses interest in the marriage. This, of course, is assuming that the husband has a decent work ethic and isn’t out of a job because he has serious character flaws that he needs to correct. A decent woman is not going to respect or stay with a man who is emotionally immature, and needs to grow up.
In short, marrying young would be the ideal, so that young people don’t have to spend all those turbulent years alone, but would have mutual support. But practical reality is that most young people today are nowhere near ready for marriage. The result is that many young newlyweds get divorced within a few years of their wedding day.
For most people today, then, it’s better to spend the young adult years getting a clear sense of one’s own character and goals in life. Then the person can seek out a partner who shares those goals and has a compatible character.
Not sure if my last post got through but one of my questions is do you feel that People should wait until they
It’s said fear of being alone is not a good reason to be in relationships and that we’re supposed to be financially and emotionally independent enough on our own before enter into a healthy relationship. Do you concur with any of that?
Would we perhaps have better marriages and long term relationships if we only married people with established savings, careers, etc. etc. women are well- known to dump/emotionally disconnect from men after they lose jobs as well, so it does beg the question.
I often wonder if this is what hurting a ton of marriages. Additionally, we also seem to be moreso living in a selfish “me, me” environment as to where it’s embraced and not frowned upon as pointed out in various ways throughout this thread. Where as doing our own thing I.e (lifetime singledom) seems to be embraced as well. Perhaps this is a contributor to the message mgtow tries to warn men about.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/10/psychology-single-people-more-fulfilled-relationships
Hi D Jargon,
For some reason your previous comment was sent to the spam folder. I dug it out and responded to your question about marrying young vs. marrying when a little older and more settled in a comment just above.
The article you linked is an example of someone who did not gain a clear sense of her own self, character, loves, and goals before looking to form a relationship. Relationships that are based on neediness and a lack of self-assurance and self-esteem are bound to have serious problems, and often turn out to be abusive relationships. I don’t know how the author was brought up, but clearly she hit her teenage and adult years in a state of needing to develop her own self and her emotional maturity before she would be ready to be in a good and healthy relationship.
This is not a knock on her. Most likely she was not given the love and support she needed by parents, teachers, ministers, and so on during her growing up years. She was not given space in which to develop her own sense of self, build her own character, and set her own direction in life. So she looked for someone to fill that void in her life. That is not a sound basis for a good relationship.
Toward the end of the article she suggests that she would be open to a relationship in the future. She even says she tried to sign up for an “enlightened” dating app. I suspect that if she does form a relationship in the future, it will be a much healthier one precisely because she is taking time to develop herself as a person. She is no longer desperately seeking a relationship with someone else in order to fill the void in her own character. Having taken the time she needs to become her own woman, she will be able to enter into a real partnership with someone who is a good match for her, and who is also emotionally mature and stable.
Hello there Lee, its good to hear from you as well. quite a thought provoking thread you have going here. 🙂
When you say a clear sense of “who you are” what do you mean exactly? And “personal goals” can you elaborate. Do you mean in terms career, hobbies, etc.
Isn’t loving a person, spending time with that family, and being grateful for all the little things family gives you enough? There is obviously much sacrifice to be had am I right? I mean I see families in India.. close. They all live in one room. Very poor with hardly a pot to piss in. Happy just to eat and survive. And yet they feel grateful and blessed just to have eachother. Many fathers put family at the center- and seeing them grow strong, and strong in character is the goal and his ultimate desire.
To me marriage your spouse, and family should come #1. (Outside of god of course) In fact many times you will compromise and put them before you, and if you truly love them you will be glad too.
If for instance I had a job that required me to uproot family, I would selflessly pass on it, if I thought it would be too disruptive to family life.
Now I believe a couple should also respect each other’s space, and take time for themselves (as given of course) but not everyone has great passions, or personal pursuits.
But to me a strong couple with a true inner connection as you speak, forgoes their own selfish desires in favor of the other. The focus isn’t about you. It’s more as a team. So as you can see I have a hard time relating to the self-absorbed, crowd that condemns marriage, and pairing.
As if one is flawed for not choosing lifelong singledom and “freedom”, traveling, etc.
Children are spoken by these individuals like some sort of worthless burden. It can make you question if these people are even human beings.
It’s a bit confusing when you see what appears to be so many grown adults speaking as if they are enlightened — yet with the mentality of a 14 year old child.
As far as marriage I do think it’s true test is for one to get married while young, (maybe early to mid twenties) and grow into life facing its ups and downs together.
The problem sometimes with 2 already-established people coming together… is it’s too easy and cozy. They endure no life struggles together to really test the chin of that marriage. Plus, it seems so rewarding and inspiring when two can grow from the bottom together. It’s hard. But that what’s make it memorable. At least you know they value you, for you. All the things money can’t buy. If you meet when already well established that’s ok obviously. I just don’t get how so much emphasis is put on it.
Hi D Jargon,
At the deepest level “who you are” is determined by your ruling, or dominant, love: whatever you love more than anything else, such that it becomes the center of your life.
Though there are as many different ruling loves as there are people, the basic categories into which they fall are love for God, love for fellow human beings, love for worldly things, and love for self. All of these are fine if they are in their proper order of priority as listed. But if the bottom two rule in us instead of serving love for God and our fellow human beings (“the neighbor,” in Bible terms), then they become evil.
A good ruling love means that we are serving God and the neighbor in a specific way. For me, for example, it is a love of teaching biblical and spiritual truth, and in this way leading people toward God and spiritual life. For other people, it will be other things. Our ruling love determines who we are as a person. And it should be focused at least on the well-being of other people, and ideally on doing God’s will, which also involves loving and serving other people (see Matthew 25:31–46).
In other words, finding out “who you are” does not mean being self-absorbed and selfish. It means understanding, at least at a basic level, what God put you here on earth to do for other people, and for God. In worldly terms, it means what job or career you will pursue, but that is really about the particular way you will help and serve others.
This is important for finding a partner in marriage because if your ruling loves are incompatible with each other’s, the marriage cannot last. Partners in marriage who are bound together by common, or at least complementary, ruling loves have the inner spiritual connection and union that is the inner reality of marriage. This will then express itself in a married life of supporting one another in pursuing and achieving common goals in life.
Thanks Lee. Very interesting. What baffles me though is those who lived in the 50’s that I’ve met do not speak of it quite that harshly. In fact, in years past, I’ve listened to accounts of women being just as abusive and especially neglectful to their hard working husbands. My grandmother would chuckle as she recounts hitting my grandfather with a frying pan.. cans were thrown, etc. you make it sound as if women were just a step up from slaves, or animals. My uncle was grew up in the 50’s, and recounts many men getting beat up for disrespecting, violating, abusing, (even minor verbal abuse) towards women for the basic reason of being the weaker sex. None of the movies, (from that time) etc seemed to portray outright control for women either. It certainly was never the impression I got. Men sure did use respectful gestures for those who thought of women or wives as a step up from animals that need to be controlled.
The part of this being common or the norm, is what is tripping me up. What I never understood is if it was that bad or unreasonable, why women had such a romantic fantasy with getting married, having families in the first place, if the accepted ‘norm’ was getting controlled or abused like an animal in front of your own children. To think that grown adults mindlessly lived like this, and believed it was “ok” to live this makes me ashamed to be part of my own kind. It’s either that or I’m greatly missing reason here. I remember being a child and knowing right from wrong – and plain sense, compassion and respect for others before being taught much a thing. Was I a genius? Did none of these morons go to church and we’re taught to treat others as you want to be treated. Geesh. Wonder how they had such intellect to create and invent such miraculous things, but still couldn’t understand the basic premise of dignity and respect for all.
Hi D Jargon,
I’ve lost the thread of which comment of mine you’re responding to, so this reply might not be as on-point as it could be.
Of course, not all of the marriages in the 50s were bad ones. Good people will treat each other well even in less-than-ideal cultures and circumstances. Yes, there were many happily married people in the 50s. And yes, there were also women who abused their husbands then, just as there are today. Fortunately, most wives did not go the frying pan route with their husbands. They were more likely to outmaneuver their husbands emotionally in order to get what they wanted.
However, if a woman got a bad and abusive husband, she was in a bad way. The standard advice from clergy and police alike was to go back to him and try harder to please him. But you can’t please a man who gets his kicks out of beating you up. So yes, there were many good marriages in the 50s. But hidden away were the bad marriages in which the wife commonly had no way out. And unlike today, these things weren’t talked about in polite company. So there was a social veneer of perfect domestic life that often covered a very different reality in the home.
Interesting the mention of others who go as far as to say that polyamory is “spiritual”
A poly women I once knew insisted that love was boundless and that no relationship structure was right or wrong. She believed in coupling up, and long term relationships. She bounced around from both, but also thought that monogamy long-term wasn’t entirely necessary.
But anyhow, it was nice to know about the hippies who settled on monogamy. Most hippies Ive ever known are hell bent on “free love” and I have no idea how they deal with and out maneuver the strong emotions and feelings you get that makes the 99% of us want a person all to ourselves. What they tell eachother, etc I’ve sometimes wondered if they even have real deeper feelings and emotions, or the ability to connect emotionally with another. So, I am curious to know the reason why they chose monogamy.
Aside from that.. overall the main idea of marriage and much of romance in general is surrounded around soulmates, becoming *one*, etc. Not 2, or 3.
Now its certainly understandable if someone clearly isn’t right for you. You move on. As in your case.
But what really raised this question moreso in my mind is the situations where 2 people are together for many years, and seem to have a great deal of love and respect for eachother. But then something unfortunate happens and one moves on and finds love with another person. To see this reality occur, in most all instances, is tricky to me, and in my view, sort of cheapens the deeper ‘meaning’ behind marriage. Maybe it shouldn’t. But it does. It is beyond rare that any person meets one person and stays with that one person, without moving on, and remarrying. In fact, no matter the genuine ‘inner connection’ between two people, its perfectly accepted… heck even ‘encouraged’, to move on to another at some point. In my view, (and maybe Im missing something here) but this greatly contradicts the idea of loving only one, and the deeper meanings associated with loving only one, fully committing, etc.
With that said, one must conclude that if soul mates are truly a real thing, (or at least the significant meaning, and idea of what we commonly understand soul mates to be) it must then be awfully rare to find them on earth. It’s also weird to me when I see a spouse tell the other spouse to remarry, for the sake of their happiness.
I remember long ago, one of my aunts telling my uncle he’s ‘the one‘. ‘I couldn’t imagine life without you, and *only* you’ ‘God made you just for me’ etc. he said the same to her. (And those words are deeper meanings, are the words that most of us want to hear, before considering marrying, and to grow with and stay committed to that person) They were together for some 20 years, and before she passed she told him to remarry. I want you to ‘be happy’. Huh? as big and selfless of her as that may seem that sure Is not what she said when they first met.
I have never understood how anyone who actually loves another person, and sees that relationship as beyond the physical, meaningful, and beyond this realm.. and the ‘very big and special deal that it’s all said to be’ .. would then be ok with someone moving on and replacing them.. recreating that bond, the intimacy, etc. what they shared that was supposed to be special and reserved only for the couple.
I’ll check out the link, thanks.
Hi D Jargon,
My sense of why that hippie commune went from group marriages to monogamous marriages is that the group marriages just didn’t really work all that well, and that over time, they just tended to couple off with the one whom they were closest to. And from my perspective, as I said before, monogamy has the potential to be spiritual, whereas polygamy is inherently worldly and physical-minded.
About people who feel they are soulmates, but then go on to couple up with someone else under various circumstances, here is another thing to consider:
As long as we are in this physical world, we are subject not only to spiritual forces, but to biological ones. Reproduction of the species is one of the most powerful driving forces behind animal behavior. It commonly overrides even the powerful instinct to live, such as when a mother bird will feign an injury and run in front of a predator that is getting too close to her nest, or when the males of some species will battle one another, sometimes to the death, to secure females for breeding purposes.
As long as we humans are living on this earth, in addition to being spiritual beings, we are also biological beings. We have all of that evolutionary history of putting reproduction ahead of just about anything else. That history and drive is in our blood and in our bones. As a result of it, many people, even spiritually oriented people, are going to couple up, even in instances when it’s fairly clear that the person they’re coupling with is not quite the right person for them.
Very few people on this earth are able to master their sexual drives and impulses, and get them entirely under the control of their rational and spiritual mind. And so, when a person who has normal sex drives and the normal desire for closeness and intimacy is facing the prospect of years of being alone, it is quite common for them, after grieving the loss of the previous partner, and often after quite a moral struggle within their minds, to find another partner in marriage.
In the afterlife, however, we will have left our physical body behind, along with the biological drive to reproduce. There, our spiritual nature comes to the fore, and determines all of our friendships and associations. And especially, it determines who we will share our home and bed with as married partners. Any marriage or marriages that we may have contracted here on earth for more earthly than spiritual reasons, or because a person who truly meshes with our mind and heart simply wasn’t available, will fade away. There, oneness of mind will determine who lives in the same house and shares the same bed.
Hi D Jargon,
Oh, and about women wanting to get married and have children, for most of them that was just about the only realistic option. Many careers were not open to women, or if they were, there was limited advancement for a woman in them. Women were expected to get married and have children. That’s what they got social support for doing. And many of them did indeed enjoy being wives and mothers. Once again, it wasn’t all bad. But if a woman aspired to something else besides motherhood, she could have a very frustrating life.
I see. Well let me then throw this at you.
What are your views from those who wish to be single for the sake of “freedom”
To come and go as they please, without having to answer to anyone. To fill the void of connection is with friends, family, etc.
Everything and anything but a committed relationship.
Many in the redpill and MGTOW crowd say marriage is those who are afraid to be alone, and people seem to be into it. I never understood that.
It would be hard for me to imagine even having a sexual relationship long-term with “protection”. which is the reality if one was single not wanting children, or children with random strangers having friends with benefits type relationship.
Do you feel those who choose career, friends, worldly pleasures, etc first is as selfish, or even immature? I would personally not condemn a man or a woman for their choices, as long as they were not hurting anyone. At the same time I don’t understand that sort of thinking from a grown adult. It would seem inhuman and hollow not to want to share life’s up and downs with another. To give and receive love.
Certain psychologist even promote living life single.
Some will argue that they are stronger or somehow better, being that they have no need for a relationship.
Intrigued to get your thoughts on this.
Hi D Jargon,
It is up to each person to decide whether he or she wishes to be in a committed, long-term relationship (aka “marriage”), or even in a relationship at all. Relationships must be entered into freely, by choice, and not under compulsion, including social compulsion, or they are not real marriage relationships, from a spiritual point of view. It is not our job to judge someone else’s relationship choices. We are not in their shoes.
By the same token, it is not their job to judge our relationship choices. Just because a MGTOW or Red Piller doesn’t want to be married or in a committed relationship, that doesn’t give them standing to condemn as “weak” other men who do choose to be in a relationship and get married. Some marriages are healthy, some are not. Men in healthy marriages can do great things, and have great strength, which is augmented by having a partner who shares and complements his goals in life. We humans are not naturally solitary animals even biologically speaking. And we are certainly not solitary creatures spiritually. Even single people have many relationships with other people, and those relationships are part of the fundamental fabric of their lives as human beings in human community.
Personally, I believe that being married is the ideal state for human beings. However, by marriage I mean primarily inner, spiritual marriage. Being legally married is secondary, and not, in my opinion, entirely necessary. It does provide certain legal rights and privileges to couples, and those rights and privileges are valuable for life in this world. But legal marriage should not be confused with marriage as an inner relationship between two people. See:
Real Marriage vs. Legal Marriage
People who view marriage as a restriction on their freedom are, generally speaking, stuck in a physical and materialistic view of marriage. They think of marriage as a legal and sexual relationship more than as an inner connection of soulmates. And when we think of marriage as mere mating, or a mere social and legal creation, and our own mind is focused primarily on our own pleasure and well-being, then marriage does indeed feel like a ball-and-chain that restricts our freedom. But the type of “freedom” we want when we’re stuck in that mindset is the freedom to sleep around and be promiscuous without taking any responsibility for the results of our actions. This is why MGTOW, and especially PUA, avoid fathering children like the plague.
It is very different for men who think of marriage as an inner connection and a spiritual relationship. For men who think this way, finding a partner is not about getting sex, but about making a connection with someone who is traveling a similar path in life. It is about finding someone to share that path with, so that he’s not walking alone, but has companionship and a deep human connection along the way. For men who have this higher mindset, marriage does not feel like bondage, but like freedom. It is the freedom of freely sharing one’s life with a fellow traveler who is heading for the same destination. The sexual relationship then becomes the physical expression of that inner connection and oneness.
Consider climbing a mountain alone vs. climbing a mountain with a friend. Yes, it may be “macho” to go it alone. And I’ve done that. But sharing a climb with a sympatico friend who is just as committed to getting to the top as you are adds a whole new dimension to the climb. There is no lack of freedom in this. Rather, it is two people freely traveling the same path together.
Oh and here is another article about gen x seeing marriage as obsolete. And of course you can see the general tone towards men.
https://www.bolde.com/women-getting-married-less-less-reason-might-shock/
Rather enjoyed the way you put that last paragraph.
I am seeing a growing trend of “individualism” others who say that being single (lifelong by CHOICE) is no different, no better, than being in a good relationship. I was curious how you felt if this sort of thinking/lifestyle ever became a norm in society? Would it be a good thing or bad thing? In fact, some are teaching others to “celebrate” this way of thinking.
To me this way of thinking is terribly odd.. at least in terms of a mature adult. What you described above clearly demonstrates a mature, spiritual, giving, human being, who can think outside of himself for the sake of worthwhile relationship. It makes me wonder if this sort of thing is just a fad, for the young, or an attempt to not just rid the stigma of being single, but embrace selfish behavior and the avoidness of responsibility. My aim is not to judge, but to understand how one would could *choose* to throw away quite possibly one of the greatest joys and meanings in life merely because compromise would be just to much to bare.
Does it baffle you how an emotionally mature adult, would ever *choose* that? To forgo marriage and or children. I can understand their are monks, and the Mother Theresa’s of the world- who feel they have a higher calling for of sorts for the betterment of mankind. But everyday people? From my experience we are biologically hardwired to depend on relationships, and romantic relationship are a big time part of that. Another big reason for marriage is to have someone in the event that you really need someone. Sure you may have friends but they have their own lives too, and it is in no way comparable to the support you would get from a life partner.
Hi D Jargon,
I also lean heavily toward the view that we humans are hard-wired to be in relationships of the marital type. And I think there is a strong tendency toward monogamy in the species, even without the spiritual element.
However, there is also a tremendous amount of variety in human character and culture. Some people do choose a lifelong single life, and that’s not necessarily bad. You mention priests, monks, and nuns. These people have devoted their life to the church. And though I think the celibacy requirement is unbiblical and wrong, you can’t say that they’re selfish due to their being single. One of my colleagues in ordained ministry has also made a definite choice to remain single, having been briefly married earlier in life. This is a lifetime commitment to serving other people while being single.
In short, it’s not a back-and-white issue. While I strongly favor monogamous marriage as the ideal state for human beings, much of this life in this world is far from ideal. There are far worse things than being single. The important thing is having a commitment to loving and serving one’s fellow human beings. Everything else is optional.
Hi D Jargon,
A friend of mine just sent me a link to an article that perfectly illustrates, here in this material world, how someone can live alone and still be of service to society. Give it a read:
Need Tips On Social Distancing? This Guy’s Been Doing It For Almost 50 Years
Hello Lee, Haha wow. Nice to see it from that perspective.
I was speaking moreso to the
individuals who wear singledom like some badge of honor while attempting to shame others who prefer relationships.
You may often see this tone in some feminist with the, ‘I don’t need a man or relationship attitude’ They often cite shoddy research stating single women are Happier. (Yeah, ok.. we’ll just completely ignore biology)
Which is also why I am curious as to why you believe (modern) feminism plays no role in impacting women, marriages, family.
It’s not only the Mgtow’s. Plenty of women don’t agree with it.
Suzanne Venker for instance, did a piece on Fox News and outright stated the ideals of feminism put ‘women are at war with nature’ Shes a relationship expert, author, who speaks out about feminism, marriage, parenting, and the effect she’s seen it have on women, and hookup culture. She’s conservative, some of her correlations are a bit of a stretch. But I can’t say disagree with what she states about biology, our differences, and many points she makes overall about many of the relationships of today.
In an article here she speaks about long term relationships as the “most pressing issue of our time”
https://www.suzannevenker.com/dating/how-to-have-a-successful-long-term-relationship-is-the-most-pressing-issue-of-our-time-part-1/
This part really stuck out to me, and is exactly what I’ve come to observe myself..
My parents’ generation: dating, marriage, sex.
My generation: dating, sex, marriage.
Now: sex, dating, marriage (maybe)
Feminism effect on millennials:
https://www.suzannevenker.com/dating/we-have-greatly-underestimated-feminisms-harmful-influence-on-millennials/
She makes other points that one may not totally agree with. But I do think it’s good that others such as herself are pushing back the other way, fighting for family values, and shedding light on what keeps marriages and families together, and she’s not afraid to address women.
What I’m Leary with is fem being the main villain at play, with these issues. Is the lash against feminism overblown? Do you believe (modern day) feminism in any way influences the avg person? Mgtow, and many others seem to think feminism is brain washing women, or that at least its roots run deep into the psyche of women, which in turn can greatly effects the way women value, treat, and view men. I know one thing. If I’m a man getting married I simply would not marry a woman unless she had a mindset like Mrs. Venkers. She gets it. She respects the good men for the often overlooked contributions and luxuries they bring to the table. You can tell she takes pride in her husband and relationship. She’s not afraid to call *both* men and women on their bs which is something I can appreciate as god forbid women are given constructive criticism as others have pointed out.
I’ll be interested in 10-15 years to see how much relationships and family have changed. I know one thing this idea of ‘independent self’ taken to extremes, lack of morals and family values, single mothers raising multiple children from different fathers, grass is greener on the side mentality, surely will come to a head and blow up in our faces.
Hi D Jargon,
Basically, MGTOW and the “radfems” they love to hate are the male and female versions of the same thing. Each has decided that the other sex and its movement is the enemy and the cause of all their problems. Neither is very balanced or rational about it, to put it mildly.
And yes, of course feminism has an impact on marriage and family. But it’s not as black as Suzanne Venker paints it. Yes, she has some good points. But she also has an ax to grind. And she’s seeing only one side of the picture.
Stats do indeed show that more young people are single now than in the past. But stats also show that while young people marry less often, and later, when they do marry, their marriages are generally more stable and long-lasting than their parents’ marriages were, and also generally happier. So it’s just not as black a picture as Mrs. Venker paints.
As for feminism, it is not a monolithic force. There are many different perspectives within feminism, from segments that basically hate men and blame men for all their problems to segments that love and appreciate men and simply want the same economic and social opportunities for women that men have long enjoyed.
Every generation messes up its children in one way or another. It’s up to the children to work their way out of it when they become self-responsible adults. If the Boomers are as terrible as Mrs. Venker believes, how did they get so terrible? Presumably it was because of what their parents, the so-called “Greatest Generation,” did to them when they were growing up. And so the chain continues backwards to grandparents, great-grandparents, and so on.
Of course, I disagree with the more radical wing of the feminist movement, just as much as I disagree with the more radical wing of the men’s movement. I agree with Mrs. Venker not only that men and women are intrinsically different, but that men and women complement each other and are at their best when they’re working together with each other while appreciating what each brings to the table.
Unfortunately, that’s not what marriage was like it “the good old days” that Mrs. Venker and similar nostalgic thinkers look back to as the “golden age” of marriage. In those days, women were not respected and valued as contributing equally to human society. They were seen as secondary to, and subservient to, men. As much as men loved to eat their food and were happy to have children by them, men thought of themselves as much more important than women. This commonly resulted in men using and abusing women at will, often including physically beating them if they didn’t sufficiently “obey” their husbands. (And incidentally, the Bible doesn’t say one word about men disciplining their wives.) There was no “golden age” of marriage.
Feminism arose as a reaction against women being in that secondary and subservient position, and against the disrespect and abuse that men commonly heaped upon women in “the good old days.” Yes, some husbands were better and some were worse. But even the good ones still generally saw their wives as a pleasant add-on to life, whereas their own career was what was really important.
My own mother, who was part of the “Greatest Generation,” loved her parents, but chafed at how her younger brother was the golden boy and got the best of everything, whereas she and her older sister were considered secondary, and were primarily to be prepared for marriage—though an education was also nice. As was common in those days, she and her sister were not given middle names. It was assumed that their last name would become her middle name when they got married. Boys, however, were given middle names. Did my mother have a terrible life as a result? Not at all. She lived the life she wanted to live. But like every generation, as an adult she had to overcome things her (very good) parents did in relation to her when she was growing up.
The Boomer generation, for all its flaws, was the first generation in which a significant number of the people in it began to think seriously about men and women as actually being equal in their worth and value to society. Feminism may in some of its segments have been an overreaction, but at its best, the goal of feminism is that women should be viewed and treated as equal to men. And with that I am in agreement, even if I don’t necessarily agree with everything feminists have said and done pursuant to that goal.
As much as some people today may want to look back with nostalgia on the “good old days” when sex was for marriage and marriage was good, the reality is that marriage really wasn’t all that good. There was plenty of sex outside of marriage. It’s just that it was mostly men having sex with prostitutes and “loose women.” And if a teenage boy could get into a teenage girl’s pants, he would certainly do so—and she would instantly become a “slut,” while he was considered a hero. There was nothing good about it. If marriage was so good in the “good old days,” why did a whole generation of women protest against it? The reality is that many women were wasting away as “housewives,” not using their talents, and not contributing to society as much as they were capable of doing because it was assumed that their primary, and even only, role was to be wives and mothers.
And don’t get me wrong, being a wife and a mother is a wonderful thing! But women are capable of doing other things as well. My own mother, who in many ways was a Supermom, also (among other accomplishments) wrote a wonderful four-volume set of illustrated Sunday School Activity Books to accompany the wonderful six-volume set of Swedenborgian Bible Study Notes that her mother had written while my mother was growing up.
If a woman wants to devote her entire life to her husband and children, there’s nothing wrong with that. It is her own choice. But many women have other things they want to do with life. And what happens when a mother’s children are grown up and out of the house? What does she do then? For my mother, as much as she loved being a mother, the empty nest was not a problem. She had many, many projects to devote her life to once we were all grown up and she was not an active mother anymore.
It is not good but harmful to insist that women must confine themselves to certain traditionally accepted roles, such as wife and mother. Women, like men, must be allowed to make their own choices and follow their own paths in life, even if the traditionalists “tut tut” about the choices they make. If a woman doesn’t really want to be a mother, for goodness sake, she shouldn’t be a mother! Her heart won’t be in it, and she’ll most likely be a bad and inattentive mother who raises neglected children. Better for her to follow a career, and let other women who do want to be mothers take on that blessed challenge.
Ditto for women who don’t really want to be married. The “dutiful wife” is overrated. These days, young men generally want a woman who will actually love him, not one who marries him just because that’s what society expects her to do.
Right now, marriage is in flux. But it’s not going from a better state to a worse state as Mrs. Venker seems to think. Rather, it’s going from a lower state to a higher state—as messy as the path is from one to the other. The lower state is a relatively external and superficial view of marriage in which woman served man with a lot of labor, and especially by producing sons and heirs for him. The higher sate is a deeper view of marriage in which marriage is seen as in inner connection of minds and hearts between two like-minded people, and is based primarily on love for each other. All the rest flows from that.
There is much more I could say in response to your excellent questions, but this is getting long. So I’ll conclude by referring you to a few articles (which I have probably already linked for you before) that go into more detail on the devolution of marriage in the past, and the current evolution of marriage:
Unfortunately, that’s not what marriage was like it “the good old days” that Mrs. Venker and similar nostalgic thinkers look back to as the “golden age” of marriage
Wow. Just when you think you’ve seen everything lol
Virtually all my life, I’ve heard the 50’s described as none other than a time of heaven (in comparison) to any other era. It wasn’t perfect, but (overall) Pound for pound the greatest era. I’ve been told to just listen to the music of the times. A symbol of what the 50’s represented. I’m not the greatest fan of oldies, but I can see how uplifting to the spirt it could be…
“Oh Donna” sure didn’t sound beneath Ritchie Valons to me.
My own grandmother was married in the 50’s. My grandfather worked, cooked with her, cleaned, and treated her like a queen. No one dared disrespect her in his presence. Nothing like the marriages you hear of today. Was she just of the rare lucky few? Was it that bad? How about all the others who say the same? They freed slaves, but seen women as dogs who were to obey? Why are so many “nostalgia thinkers” fooled?
I’ve heard it was common for Men to step aside, with impeccable manners, opening doors for women, tipping their hats, as they were greeted as “mam” working long days breaking their backs while women got to sit at home and the comforts of home cooked apple pies, and the joy of their children.
You also mention ‘marriage is in flux’ and on the upswing. May I ask what brings you to that conclusion? The rest of the Internet seems to disagree, so I would love to hear why. Or if that’s explained in the posts you referenced I’ll just read that.
Hi D Jargon,
About your final question, yes, please do read the articles I linked for you.
Certainly some 50s marriages were very good. But keep in mind that the people passing down that nostalgic view of the 50s were people who were young and full of life in the 50s, and look back on the 50s from a position of being old and worn with years. The 50s were their glory days.
But their memory is selective.
The generation that were young marrieds in the 50s didn’t actually free the slaves, of course. That happened a century earlier. But the 50s were a time of virulent racism and segregation, which led to the civil rights movement of the 60s.
And not all marriages quite fit the Norman Rockwell mold. It was believed that “a man was king in his castle,” which included the right to override his wife’s will, including about her own financial, social, and personal activities, and to enforce that right through disciplining her as and when he saw fit.
It is true that many men were gentlemen, and treated their wives well. But if a man happened not to be a gentleman (which wasn’t always obvious about the handsome, sweet-talking man who courted her), then marriage could be very bad for the unfortunate wife. If her husband decided that she needed a hiding, or even an outright beating, to impress upon her the virtues of instantly and unquestioningly obeying his every whim, then there wasn’t a lot she could do about it. Divorce was a social death sentence, and difficult to get in the courts. Police and clergy alike were most likely to tell her to go home and work harder to please her husband. And of course, sex-on-demand was a basic requirement for a “good” wife. But an abusive man is going to berate and beat his wife no matter how much she tries to please him.
It was all well and good for a woman if she managed to get one of those good and gallant 50s men as her husband. But underneath the social masks that it was necessary to wear out in the community, behind the closed doors of the man’s “castle,” the situation was very different for many unfortunate women. And given that women did not have equality with men, either socially or under the law, if a woman got stuck in marriage with a less-than-stellar man, her options for dealing with the situation were very limited. Usually she just had to suffer in silence.
And incidentally, marital infidelity was actually quite common. However, it was usually kept tightly under wraps if it were found out, because the social and financial repercussions would be disastrous for both husband and wife.
If marriage had been so great and wonderful for everyone in the 50s, the feminist movement never would have gathered such steam in the 60s, 70s, and beyond.
Yes, I remember. I’ll be sure to re-visit them.
Venker advocates moreso for mothers being available for the first 5 years of a child’s life. After that maybe a job, or part time work she says. But not heavy Careers that leave little room for family. She doesn’t believe that the avg women really wants to take on the role of a man. She says what’s tricky about this is often times women will go the career route, but when 30 hits she may come to the realization that this isn’t what she wanted all along. An even bigger problem with that is at 30-35 it’s much more difficult for women to settle down, start families, etc.
Also, if a women’s career driven and has day care raising her babies, it’s a problem. A serious problem. I applaud Venker for having the guts to call those mothers out. We see children being raised on tablets, snapchat, youtube, (and later on social media) which may have something to do with the fact that many kids nowadays lack attention spans, basic manners, empathy, compromise, communication, and respect.
But there is more to this argument. Husbands can easily lose jobs, and sometimes can’t find work for long stretches of time. And just look at what happened to marriages and homes after the collapse of the economy in 2008. Few professions grant job security anymore. So I wish she would have better addressed that. She mentions day care typically eating up a second income anyway. But yet doesn’t consider if that perhaps is a big reason why women may choose careers that make higher incomes in the first place. And careers that make higher incomes, typically require degrees, years of debt, and long hours. As married parents it can be very tough to find balance between it all, or to even know what that balance looks like in the first place if it’s never been shown to them.
I do wonder if women choosing careers, or even working long hours, is moreso an economic issue than a feminism issue. In fact, a few have criticized her. One says if she truly cared about marriages, why not fight for affordable housing, higher pay, work from home opportunities, etc. All the sorts of things that help couples get ahead.
Another thing. Men do have a nice bit of history dumping women with children on the side of the road. A heart-broken single mother raising children by her self is no picnic to say the least. For just this reason alone, I cant say I blame women for feeling the need to create some sort of safety net before entering into marriage.
Another scenario is where a women has been a stay at home mother for say 10-15 years, has no degree, little skills, or resume. She’s 35, and for whatever reasons she has to now support her family.
So, its a tough call. Whats a women to do if she wants to marry and make marriage and family a top priority? lol
A hard truth though about women marrying too young, is the risk of her regretting it later down the line. She may feel as if she didn’t have time to live it up, gain experience, get to know who she is,what she wants, etc Some women with good men have no idea what they have, if they’ve had very little to compare it too.
Venkers case against millennial women settling down later Is that too much dating and casual sex in your 20’s (which is very common) often times brings a ton of baggage into a serious relationship later on, not to mention – regret. certainly a fair point.
But I still lean toward waiting.
Marriage. Isn’t for the weak. The type of maturity it takes for marriage often doesn’t come until 27-30. We also know that most marriages never make it past the 10 year mark, (90%) so no point, in rushing. I just think Venker gets irritated listening to the message that shoots down or down plays marriage and family, in favor of careers, and devoting years to dating, sex, and all the sorts of baggage one can collect along the way. She believes women are influenced into this. In her experience, that’s not what (the avg) women truly wants, and often finds this out around 30.
She believes feminism should have fulfilled its roll a long time ago, and that it went south in a hurry. She notes that the pendulum has swung too far in favor of women. Would have been nice if she went into specific examples. Very Interesting though to hear a woman say these things about women.
Hi D Jargon,
All of this is why people, both men and women, are best left free to make their own choices in life. Life is complicated. The economy is complicated. Relationships are complicated. Marriage is complicated. Each person must make his or her own decisions about how to proceed on these very personal and personalized issues.
And yes, people commonly get up into their thirties or forties and realize that choices they made when they were younger were a big mistake. But we humans learn from experience. We have to be allowed to make our mistakes, even big ones, so that we can learn from them. Otherwise it’s second-hand knowledge, and it doesn’t become a part of our character and our self.
For people who believe that this life is all there is, and then you die, that is a real problem. But for those who believe that life goes on after we are finished with this life, it is all a learning experience to prepare and develop ourselves for something better. And even for those who don’t believe in an afterlife, the long-term view is that we learn things through experience, and teach them to our children so that they have a leg up when they encounter these situations and questions in their own lives.
As for sex before marriage, I do agree with Venker that it is not a very good idea, especially lots of sex before marriage. But many, if not most people are going to have sex before marriage, and it’s not a marital death sentence. For more on this, please see:
Is Sex Before Marriage Forbidden in the Bible?
I see, and thanks for the added clarity. The impression I had that wives may of been abused by certain husbands, (usually a violent/alcoholic) husband. But striking a woman of all things was not condoned or frowned upon. Would you say these beatings were a common thing? Im trying to Imagine grown adults with any level of sense seeing abusing another human being would be seen as “ok” or in any way normal. When I hear stories like this, the ignorance from grown adults astounds me. As a young child I had a built in sense of right and wrong, respect, compassion, etc. I’m also lost as to why the 50’s would ever been seen as the “golden age” of marriage of women had no rights.
Hi D Jargon,
Unless a man bruised his wife’s face, broke a bone, or caused other serious physical harm, it wasn’t seen as “abuse.” It was seen as discipline. Similar to the attitude toward spanking a child. A wife was supposed to obey her husband. If she didn’t, he had the right to punish her and make her obey. A good wife simply obeyed her husband. A good husband wasn’t unreasonable in his orders.
How widespread was it for men to physically “discipline” or beat their wives? Hard to tell. It wasn’t considered important enough to keep track of.
But even in good marriages of those days, there was an inequality of power. His views, and his word, were primary. Hers were secondary. Even good husbands assumed that it was their wives’ duty to serve them, and to wrap her life around his. Wives who did so willingly were good wives. The model of a dominant husband and a submissive wife was not seriously questioned. Women who did question it were “uppity women”—and no one wanted one of those women!
In other words, in the 50s model of marriage, even good marriages were not true partnerships. A true partnership can exist only between people who are on an equal footing. Although some marriages were indeed good marriages, they were good marriages on a lower level than what is possible under the new ideal of marriage, which is that of two fully equal people in equal partnership with one another.
Hi D Jargon,
I should add that not only was a man beating his wife not frowned upon, but quite often, if a man didn’t beat his disobedient and uppity wife, he was considered not to be fully a man, and was looked down upon. A man was supposed to be able to control his woman.
For one dramatized version of this, see the movie “The Color Purple,” set in the early 1900s, in which abuse and wife-beating are heavily woven through the storyline.
“It is very different for men who think of marriage as an inner connection and a spiritual relationship”
Well Lee, I like the idea of marriage and family. The closeness, the meaning it brings into our lives. Being a ‘good parent’ often defines us.. is tied into our identities and how we are remembered as we get older. Choosing to put something bigger before ourselves.
But what also stumps me is how couples can be genuinely passionate about eachother, yet due to any innocent circumstance, I.e an Injury, death, etc the partner then is often left, and or replaced within a year or so. Women too — being the “soft” and “sentimental” creatures that they are, or are said to be, often get right back to business.
When one sees how common this scenario is, it makes one wonder how so… many get hung up on the “one”, “soulmate”, I’ll always love you” and “only you” forever, etc
It was always odd to me what a big deal and how so many made marriage out to be.. the ‘sacred union of 2 people’ becoming ‘one’, but yet in reality it often looks nothing like that, even after some of the best relationships end. Not to say it doesn’t for some. Just that I notice how reality often doesn’t match the story I’ve been told.
As we know most ultimately end up just up sharing their either their heart, intimacy, and at the least almost always their body with another. All the things initially deemed as ‘sacred and special’ tied to one. So if this is the case why are people so loyal, and invested in just “one” if most just end up with more than one anyways. I’m no advocate for polygamy or polyamory. But it is nothing but sharing love with more than one. Which is what most of us end up doing (one way or another)
Some will say: If I die, I want my partner to be “happy” and “find love with another”
It sounds mature and selfless on the surface, but I doubt deep down anyone truly wants to imagine their spouse, whom they’ve grown so close too, with another person. Sharing the same bed, intimacy, etc.
The best answer I ever got to this question was that In those particular instances, we love each person differently and for different reasons. Therefore what you share is still significant. Although you may be sharing the same person, your never truly “replaced”
Not a bad answer. But still why get so caught up with vows, monogamous, or being completely devoted to only “one” when it is beyond rare that, that scenario ever pans out in ones lifetime. Heck many couples cheat at some point, (statistically), or.. at some point wouldn’t mind if they could even in they were in a generally content relationship. Don’t get me wrong, I’d much rather believe in a soulmate, the monogamy that comes with it, giving my all to that one person, etc. But now that I ponder on the above mentioned and seen realities as I age.. I just do not understand what makes it so special, significant, sacred, and so on.
Hi D Jargon,
There are a lot of issues here, some of them, as you suggest, quite complicated ones.
First, polygamy and polyamory involve having multiple partners at the same time. This is not at all the same as having one partner, then another one when the relationship with the previous partner ends. Some people blur the distinction by speaking of “serial polygamy.” But the quality of a monogamous relationship, even if it is not the only one the person ever has, is, or at least can be, entirely different from the quality of a polygamous or polyamorous relationship.
Specifically, monogamous relationships can be spiritual (even if many of them aren’t), whereas polygamous or polyamorous relationships are physically-driven in nature. I know some people will dispute this, but I stand by it. A spiritual marriage or romantic relationship is an inner connection and union between two, and only two, people. Once divided among additional partners, it becomes fractured, unspiritual, and physically driven.
This, according to Swedenborg, is why polygamy was allowed to the ancient Israelites, but is not allowed for Christians. The ancient Israelites, and other similar cultures, were entirely external in their thinking and in their worship practices, which mostly revolved around sacrificial worship and various rituals of cleansing. That’s because they didn’t think spiritually, but materially, focusing only on this world, and life in it. For them, since they were not spiritual anyway, it was allowable for a man to have more than one wife. But for Christians, who are supposed to think spiritually, and act from an inner love and faith, polygamy is not allowable because polygamy is an earthly, non-spiritual type of relationship. It is not about inner oneness, but about producing children, especially sons, for the husband, and for various other external and worldly things, such as the labor that women provide and the status of being wealthy enough to be able afford more than one wife.
So although it is true that many people have more than one spouse “serially,” or one after another, that just isn’t the same as having more than one spouse, or more than one romantic and sexual partner, at the same time. And despite the claims of a certain wing of New Age spirituality, I do not believe at all that it is “more spiritual” to be “open” romantically and sexually to more than one person at the same time. I know of one spiritually oriented hippie commune founded in the early 1970s that started out practicing group marriage, but before long settled upon monogamy. If you dig under the surface of the people who think that polyamory is more spiritual than monogamy, you’ll likely find someone who is being driven more by the little brain than by the big brain, and is dressing up a desire for sleeping around with a veneer of “enlightened spiritual openness.”
Meanwhile, people who are committed to monogamy will not take more than one partner at a time, whether or not the relationship with their current partner is actually a spiritual relationship. They would not only think of it as wrong, but they would find it very uncomfortable to be having a romantic and sexual relationship with more than one person at a time.
If one or both partners has an affair, that is almost certainly a sign that the relationship is not a spiritual one, and that the two do not have a real inner connection. There may be some exceptions, in which an episode cheating makes a person realize what he or she has, and value it more. But mostly, adultery is driven by physical sex drives and by a desire for excitement and pleasure. And if these are given rein over faithfulness to the husband or wife, then that is indicative of a worldly and self-absorbed type of mind and attitude toward relationships.
I’ll continue in a separate reply on your main issue of people going from one relationship to another even though partners are supposed to be “soulmates,” “one true love,” and so on.
Hi D Jargon,
Now about people who believe in “soulmates” and “true love,” and even believe that they have such a relationship with their current partner, but then go on to take a different partner after that relationship ends through death, divorce, or breakup:
Of course, relationships are highly individual, and it would not be good to generalize, and then think that those generalizations apply to every specific relationship. We humans are all different, and our relationships are all different as well. Nevertheless, there are certain patterns and principles that tend to thread their way through human minds and relationships.
One of these is that we seem to be hard-wired to seek out an intimate relationship with someone of the opposite sex (or for gays and lesbians, with someone of the same sex). Whether this is primarily due to biological factors or to mental and spiritual factors can be debated until the cows come home. But vast experience indicates that we humans have a strong drive to couple up, have sex, have children, and so on. And somewhat less common experience indicates that we humans are capable of great depth of inner love for and an inner sense of oneness with another person.
Meanwhile, reality in this material world is fickle and changing. People live, and people die. People go through experiences and changes, and become a very different person than they were before. People make bad choices that cause upheavals in their own life and in the lives of the people around them. What we thought we could trust and be assured of turns out not to be so trustworthy after all. This world is a world of change, and of death.
What happens when that reality interfaces with a relationship of “true love”? What happens when, through death or anything else that terminates a relationship, a person is left alone? The same drive and desire to be in a close relationship with another human being is there. But the human being with which that relationship had existed is no longer there. This puts many people in an intolerable situation. And after a period of grieving the past relationship, they commonly solve it by seeking a new relationship.
Does this mean that the previous relationship was not what it seemed to be? A relationship of true, eternal soulmates? Probably. Due to the strength of our drive to unite with another person, we commonly project onto the person we’re with that belief in and desire for an eternal union, and sincerely believe that our eternal union will be with the person we are currently with. Compound that with the reality that most of us humans walking around on this earth really aren’t all that self-aware, and it’s easy to take the inner theory of and desire for eternal union with another person, and fully believe that we are currently with that person, when the reality might be very different.
Speaking personally for a moment, I had this belief, induced upon myself, with regard to my first marriage. This was despite many indications from very early on in the relationship that I was mistaken. It was only when my first wife left me for another man, then divorced me, that the scales finally fell away from my eyes. After over thirty years of knowing her, and nearly a quarter century of marriage, within one short week I realized that the two of us were not and never had been right for each other. My belief and desire was in and for eternal marriage. But after the breakup of that marriage, it became crystal clear to me that I had focused that belief and desire on the wrong person. This doesn’t mean that true love and soulmates don’t exist. Only that we aren’t always clear-minded about whether we are actually in such a relationship.
Swedenborg says that in the spiritual world, couples who had been married on earth commonly get together and resume their life together. And if they had been married more than once, they commonly get together with each one they had been married to in turn. But also very commonly, they find out that their spouse or spouses on earth are not a true match for them in spirit, and they therefore leave each other, and in time, find a person who truly does match their spirit. That is the person they live with to eternity. For more on this, please see:
If You’ve been Married More than Once, Which One will you be With in the Afterlife?
In short, our marriages here on earth may or may not be true spiritual marriages, and we may or may not have a realistic view of our own romantic and marital relationships. But in the end, in the spiritual world if not before, it all gets sorted out. And if we are of a character to be able to be in a true and loving marriage, we will find the person we truly belong with, if we haven’t already found that person on earth, and we will be happily married to that person to eternity.
There is more that could be said about this, but I’ll leave it at that for now.
Hey Lee,
Not related to this topic but it made me think of humor. Does Swedenborg say anything about how humor works in heaven? I may be overthinking but do “crude” jokes work there? As long as the intent is okay?Or will we even want to tell such jokes? I don’t know if this is even worth asking but I’m curious, haha.
As always, thank you for taking your time to help out!
I really believe God lead me to your website, as he has a lot of people!
You don’t have to answer that one. I suppose I’ll know if I’m able to be there! 🙂
Hi Moore,
It’s a reasonable question. Swedenborg does occasionally mention people joking around, sometimes in heaven, sometimes in hell, and sometimes in the area between heaven and hell that he calls “the world of spirits.”
In one instance, some male angels were joking around and laughing at Swedenborg’s expense because he asked them, “What does a wise man, or wisdom, have to do with a woman?” This struck the angels as very funny. Their general response was, “What is a wise man, or wisdom, without a woman?”
In another instance, Swedenborg pokes fun at some evil spirits because from a distance they look like satyrs or animals instead of like human beings. Even their evil spirit friends think this is very funny!
But more directly on your question, at one point Swedenborg talks about how angels judge the character of different people who behave similarly outwardly, including telling dirty jokes (though he uses more delicate 18th century language). He says that the angels condemn some of them, but not others, based on the character and intent behind their words. Basically, if they actually are lecherous, promiscuous, and adulterous in their attitudes and desires, the angels consider them guilty, but if they do respect marriage, are faithful to their partner, and so on, then the angels don’t consider them guilty even if they are making jokes about sex.
In short, as you say, it is the intent behind the jokes that matter.
Having said that, I suspect that most angels wouldn’t find the average dirty joke told here on earth very funny. Most of them do involve promiscuous and adulterous behavior—and angels find such behavior horrifying, and not funny at all. But, not all “dirty jokes” are really dirty. Some of them are just about the ironies of marital and sexual relationships, and how men and women think differently about things. I don’t see why these type of jokes wouldn’t continue in heaven among people who enjoy them.
I should mention that heaven isn’t a monolithic place. There are many, many different areas and levels of heaven, and the angels living in those different areas and levels can be quite different from one another. Some communities of heaven are presumably more into laughing and joking around than others, just as some people and groups here on earth are more into laughing and joking than others.
Ministers against MGTOW not surprised in the least bit. Sorry pastor but that genie ain’t going back into the bottle. Men have figured out the marriage racket:
One Less Wedding
One more ring left in the display case
One less marriage retreat attendee
One less weekend full of wedding ceremonies
One less person in the pews
One less child to become a future attendee
One less dollar in the passing plate
Want to prevent this with real solutions? Address the needs of men attending your church. Stop seeing things only from the female prospective. Stop giving a pass to female sins. Stop trying to guilt trip men and discounting legitimate consequences and the divorce rapes their suffering at the hands of the court.
Hi John,
Thanks for stopping by, and for your comment.
Unfortunately, you picked the wrong minister to use those old, tired arguments with. I haven’t been pastor of a church in over a decade. In fact, I don’t believe the existing Christian church institution will survive—including my own denomination. See:
The Christian Church is Coming to an End
If you want to be single, I have no problem with that. It’s your choice. Given your attitude toward women and children, it’s probably better for you to be single anyway.
Want real solutions? Stop blaming women for all the world’s problems, and take responsibility for your own life as a man.
And you might want to actually read the article and pay attention to what it says, instead of just giving the standard knee-jerk reaction that MGTOW seem to vomit up whenever they encounter anyone who doesn’t buy their “poor me” line.
Well Lee I’ll give you this you don’t lack gusto. A little about me I have been married twice. The first was unfaithful with a man while I was serving overseas. The second unfaithful with woman and someone I knew. What could I do nothing I’m not going to punch a woman. Many assume all were just single losers who could never get a girl crying over spilled milk or just socially awkward neck beards hiding out in cabins in some mountain woods. First three paragraphs of your response were fair game. Just as my initial post was abrasive. Divorce is a massive problem in the church and I think we all get married never thinking it would fail certainly not wishing for it. I did get my only child from marriage so despite the difficulties of both break ups it certainly taught me it wasn’t going to be as simple as my parents who were married 65 years.
Please accept my apology I guess what I want christians to understand is we men struggle with life and at times may not deal with it right. So even though I went through a rough period doesn’t mean I hate women and hunt them down to spit in the eye or steal kids lollipops.
Part of our societal ills are men aren’t being men and making their lives focused on their self improvement is a good thing but ripping back isn’t.
I do not take a totally down note on churches. Yes their in trouble but as you stated to me it’s caused by them not meeting their responsibility. The church needs men, good men and responsible men. Men who are men as God expects us to be.
In closing my temper tantrum is over. Making me better and responsible to myself is good. Holding anger over past is not good especially when there is nothing that could have been done about on my end.
Hi John,
Thanks for your reply. I do get a little too annoyed with some of the MGTOW who come here with an attitude. My apologies for lumping you in with them.
When my first wife ran off with another man, I figured I’d be single for the rest of my life. I did my own fair bit of complaining about her and what she did. But then you have to move on. God had other plans for me. I met the woman I am now married to not long after the divorce that my first wife filed against me was final. Though that first marriage was a mistake of my youth, I did gain three wonderful children from it, and two grandchildren so far, and I have a good relationship with all of them. God brings good out of bad.
I do understand that the bulk of MGTOW are men who have had bad experiences with women. And I understand the anger. Been there, done that. But you have to put it behind you and move on with your life. Sounds like that’s what you’re doing, which is a good thing.
As for the church, when it comes to marriage, it shot itself in the foot by misreading the Bible and thinking of marriage as only an earthly relationship, and not a spiritual relationship. How can the church have a healthy view of marriage if it thinks it is only “till death do us part” (something the Bible never says)? So the church tells women to go back to abusive men, and men to go back to immoral women. No wonder people are increasingly ignoring the church’s contradictory messages about marriage and divorce.
I could give you links to articles here on the blog about spiritual and eternal marriage, but since you seem content to remain single, those articles might not be of much use to you. I haven’t yet written an article about divorce, but I’m getting closer to doing that. It’s not as simple as the church would have you believe.
In general, women are just as flawed as men. They are not to be put on a pedestal, nor are they to be demonized. They’re human beings. Some of them are terrible human beings, others are great human beings, and many are just average human beings. Just like men.
Part of the problem is that since we have to marry young to have a family and all that, we marry when both men and women are still immature and rather self-centered. As the old saying goes, “We get too soon old, and too late smart.” As for me, I’m glad I’m beyond all the drama of young adulthood, and in a more settled state, with a woman who’s past all that youthful drama as well. We still have our issues, but we’re able to work through them reasonably well.
Meanwhile, thanks for your further thoughts. I wish you well in all your endeavors.
please, Marriage was a religious vow, it’s now hijacked by the state. If the church cares so much about marriage and families they should step-up when bad laws are written and they should defend men in divorce rape, and women too. The truth is the church is lacking in many areas, mostly because it affect their bottom line of taxes. When the church no longer cares about money, it will be free.
Any man that gets married today is either ignorant or dumb. It’s not that she will divorce rape you, it’s that she can. The good thing is nowadays fathers, sons, uncles are educating all the men to the dangers of marriage. If you’re not educating your son, you’re doing him a big disservice.
If you think women are so great these days, look at the single mom rates from 60’s till now, look at the stats for single kids, look at the rates of abuse for mother vs fathers 40% vs 20%. Suicide rates of men. The truth is nobody cares about men, and no one holds women accountable for anything especially marriage.
I truly feel sorry for young men today, especially men who are not 6′ and handsome.
Hi Eric,
Thanks for stopping by, and for your comment.
On your first paragraph, you’re preaching to the choir. I do not believe that the state should be involved in marriage. And it hasn’t been until relatively recently in human history. However, what is now incorrectly called “marriage,” meaning legal marriage, could be continued as civil unions. Either way, it is a contract with the state giving two people various rights and privileges in relation to one another on matters of money, children, inheritance, medical care and decisions, and so on. For people who want those rights and privileges, I have no problem with the state making them available. I just don’t think it should be called “marriage.” It is a legal contract, not a marriage. See also:
Real Marriage vs. Legal Marriage
As for the rest, clearly the men in the MGTOW community have had bad experiences with women. But that’s not every man’s experience. Many men are happily married, and remain so until the day they or their partner dies. Just because MGTOW have gotten the short end of the relationship and marriage stick, that doesn’t mean every man does.
As for young men today, I think they’re in better shape for making the decision of whether or not to get married than any previous generation. And when they do get married, statistics show that their marriages tend to be more stable than those of previous generations. Not getting married is an available choice these days in the more liberal countries. This means that both men and women have a choice. And they’ll make that choice based on their own experiences, beliefs, and circumstances.
*The good thing is nowadays fathers, sons, uncles are educating all the men to the dangers of marriage*
Yep. This has been long overdue.
And yes Eric I do feel sorry for the men of today.
In the end, it doesn’t matter how good or well intentioned a man is, or has been, a woman can ‘change’. Leave, a marriage, family in half, and the worst part… see nothing wrong with it, and take absolutely no accountability for it.
You think women, their morals, values, family values, history, sacrifices made, mean ‘everything to them’ which then in turn gives a man a certain level of appreciation, and security… nope.
My uncle for instance was married for nearly 2 decades to be today’s standard would be a “good woman” she was down to earth, loyal, etc. he would have done anything for her. They were always close. But he got injured, he couldn’t provide the lifestyle he once did, and shortly thereafter, she was angry, (after he needed more of her help) and she made him feel even worse than what he already did. She then left him, was merciless about it. Her main reason? people change, it’s just how I feel, and I want new things.
Wow. He was a good man, gave her everything he ever had. Which in the end left him quite vulnerable. Stuck by her, through her own issues, and certain health issues, all for her to leave him in for his own. But in the end none of that truly mattered. Absolutely shattered him. And not simply because she left him. But also because of what he was taught about women, marriage, and what he believed in and was given every reason to believe in by her. But In the end he was only as good to her as his circumstances all from which were no fault of his own.
She left him, and the worst part, treated him as if she didn’t even know him. And never saw a thing wrong with it. He’s never been quite the same, and has told me many times that he could never trust, or even view women the same. He regrets getting married, and wishes he knew what he knew now.
It’s a mentality thing that is indeed common amongst women. As another poster mentioned: This sort of mentality simply does not benefit spiritually strong men looking to raise families with core family values, selflessness, and standing for something bigger than yourself.
And another key point mentioned: even the ‘good women’ are highly susceptible to being taken over from either social media, or their friends ‘living it up’ after having cashed in on a divorce. And yes the phones, social media, dating apps, tinder, etc etc indeed enables, encourages, and conditions many many of them to be entitled, picky, shallow, selfish, see men as a commodities, rather than a human being, for who he is, not what he has, or what he was gifted physically.
Hi Ben,
Thanks for stopping by, and for your comment.
Of course there are bad, and selfish, and shallow women. There are also bad, shallow, and selfish men who dump their wives for a younger, prettier woman. We hear all about these bad women and men because their story gets told by the jilted man or woman, and it circulates all around.
What we don’t hear about are all the happy long-term marriages. Men and women in long-term faithful marriages don’t tell of their woes as they cry in their beer, precisely because they are happy. They just quietly live their lives, and no one pays any attention to it.
That’s why the MGTOW picture of women is false and inaccurate. It’s not that there aren’t women like that. It’s that there are lots and lots of women who aren’t like that, but their story doesn’t get told.
If all men were judged by the worst men, men would look pretty bad. That’s the mistake the radical feminists make. MGTOW makes the exact same mistake as the radical feminists. It judges all women by the worst women. It looks pretty bad, but it’s a false picture, because it’s a false generalization.
To Ben – Women’s infidelity may be at least partly to do with biology. Search it up on Google or Bing or Yahoo! I’m embarrassed to talk about this, but in the fertile phase of the menstrual cycle, that’s when women are most likely to cheat. Dual sexuality.
Hi WorldQuestioner,
Women are most likely to be interested in sex during the fertile part of their menstrual cycle, whether it’s faithful or unfaithful sex. If they cheat, it’s not because of their menstrual cycle.
Women have stronger attraction to men other than their partners, but not to their own partners, during the fertile phase. Dual sexuality hypothesis – ever heard about that?
Hi WorldQuestioner,
Both women and men have all sorts of biological drives. Both women and men also have rational minds that can make decisions, and override the biological urges of the moment. That’s what makes us human.
What about the Black Pill?
Hi WorldQuestioner,
The Black Pill is not a place that anyone would really want to go. At least, not any decent person. But some do get sucked into it.
Is the black pill science legit or reliable?
Hi WorldQuestioner,
Ideologically-driven “science” is not legit or reliable.
Do you trust Wikipedia and Researchgate, Pubmed, and such?
Hi WorldQuestioner,
I link to Wikipedia articles here because it’s a widely recognized source of information covering a wide array of topics. But I’ve seen inaccurate information there. No source is perfect. People should not uncritically accept everything they read. I haven’t used the other two sources you mention in any significant way, so I can’t comment on them.
What about eugenics? Artificial sexual selection? Eugenic sexual selection? Eugenic romance?
Eugenics to select against the genes of infidelity? AVPR1A and DRD4 or what?
Genetically modify men and women to be less promiscuous? Genetically modify them to the ideal? Escalation?
Hi WorldQuestioner,
Eugenics may be able to modify people’s physical attributes, but it cannot modify our spiritual attributes. That requires doing the work of being born again spiritually.
I’m a MGHOW (man going his own way). I don’t despise women. I just don’t want to get a girlfriend, or get engaged, or get married. That would be stupid. I don’t want to give up half of my stuff. If you want to get married and have a boatload of kids, then I say go ahead and go for it, but it’s not for me. God bless.
Hi Vid Bid,
Thanks for stopping by, and for your comment. In short, you’re a bachelor by choice. Nothing wrong with that.
Just for the record, most people these days don’t have “a boatload of kids.” One or two. Maybe three. The era of the big family is over.
And in general, people are more careful these days about getting married, there are fewer divorces, and not so many men “give up half their stuff.”
These are fine MGTOW talking points, and it does happen to some men, but it is not the usual result of marriage.
Still, nothing wrong with being a bachelor by choice.