Juxtaposing the Carnal and the Spiritual through Attraction.
Readership: All
Theme: Perspectives on the Topic of Attraction
Length: 2,200 words
Reading Time: 13 minutes
Introduction
My last two posts, Respect makes all the difference! (2022/8/17) and On Curating a Christian Culture of Attraction (2022/8/18) have attracted a lot of attention, confusion, and controversy.
- DeepStrength wrote a response about Objective and subjective attraction measures and what the Church can do about it (2022/8/18).
- Thedeti has written a large number of comments and a post, The Delusion of the Good (2022/8/19), arguing for the immutable paramountcy of “natural” evo-psyche attraction.
- Juliana wrote another email to me with some additional thoughts.
- Update: Catacomb Resident has voiced his evaluation of this discussion in Desire versus Desire (2022/8/25).
Here, I’ll respond to Thedeti’s comments and DS’s post, report some relevant comments from Juliana, and summarize the main points of the discussion around the topic of a “Christian Culture of Attraction.”
Ironing out the Issues
DeepStrength wrote,
“There seems to be some confusion and possible disagreement on various objective and subjective attraction measures…”
Yes. Some readers have latched onto the idea that my last post was largely concerned about somehow changing the nature of “natural” evo-psyche based attraction. I agree that it isn’t possible to change the visceral effects of the basic SMV vectors of attraction which have been exhaustively discussed around the sphere. But this wasn’t my point.
One of the big postulates in my last post is that much of what we call sexual attraction is primarily of the flesh. Men’s obsession with T&A and sowing their wild oats is fleshly in nature. Female hypergamy and women’s attraction to bad boys is fleshly in nature. The Bible calls us not to be fleshly minded, but to set our sights on the things of the spirit (e.g. Romans 8). (I know this is easier said than done.) Would this not also apply to how we regard attraction?
My argument in the last post was not that sexual attraction can be changed such that women are not hypergamous, not attracted to bad boys, and so on, but that it can be regulated and guided to some extent, for both men and women, at least enough to allow sanctification in marriage. It must be possible, otherwise Christian marriages will be held hostage by the fleshly nature, as well as the secular world’s systems of values, and therefore doomed to fail. The concluding point was that we as Christians should understand how to do this, develop methods for doing this (readers have already contributed several actionable steps), and then do what we can.
You Breed What You Feed
DS wrote,
“I think Jack errs a bit in using his own experience for saying that “You Breed What You Feed” and using his own example.”
It is an error to apply my own case study to model the nature of women’s attraction. Deti and I discussed this error in the comments.
I don’t think “You Breed What You Feed” contains much of an error.
- A guy who jerks off all the time will succumb to lust.
- A guy who watches cuckold p0rn will develop a taste for the same.
- A woman who hates and distrusts men will be rejected by them and learn to hate them more.
- A woman who bangs Chads will develop a strong affinity for Chads to the exclusion of all non-Chads.
- A woman who remains a virgin until marriage and cultivates love and respect for her husband will find more satisfaction in marriage than one who does not.
- My own story (in my last post) was offered as another example of this. I had more positive interactions with Asian women, so I learned to appreciate it and got more of the same.
And so on. This should be common sense, but apparently it is not.
With attraction, we can chase after the desires of the flesh, and stoke up our sinful passions until we are either acting them out or are frustrated for not doing so, or else we can focus on the things of the Spirit and learn to place our hope and faith in God. I realize that this is an unsatisfying dilemma, and that it is hard to face this truth. But this is the same choice that Christians have faced since antiquity, hence all the suffering for the sake of righteousness.
This brings up the question, how are we to concentrate on the things of God in spite of our own fleshly desires, and make this a self-supporting habit even while we are constantly inundated by the world’s influences?
Sex me up with Sexy Sexed up Sexualized Sexuality! Gimmee SSSEEEXXX Baybeee!!!
Another issue of confusion is that it is extremely hard for us to break free from the secular sex-centric thinking and value system that has engulfed Western society and has become prevalent even within the church. From my observations, Western readers are wholly incapable of comprehending just how deeply this is embedded in their psychology and values. This completely ubiquitous preoccupation with everything sexual (culminating in 74 gender identities, a high divorce rate, gender dysphoria, polysexuality, widespread immorality, and so on) is the cathartic idol of our age, and women’s behaviors are the proof. It is like a blinding obsession that must never be violated in principle.
Juliana wrote,
“I wonder if it’s even possible to completely understand the depth of sexual wounding we’ve all suffered, and to explain how entirely obsessed we are, seems even more difficult. It is, however, something we must attempt if we are to survive.”
I have no doubt that many people (maybe most of us around these parts) are in the habit of ruminating over some aspect of the self (e.g. desire for companionship, loneliness, marriage, masculinity, sexual expression, sexual temptation, supercharged libido, etc.) in the hope of finding contentment, fulfillment, healing, peace, and restoration. Our sexuality is an integral part of this.
All these factors make it difficult for us to take off the sex colored glasses.
Aren’t we Overemphasizing the Carnal Component of Attraction?
When Thedeti argues for the immutable paramountcy of “natural” evo-psyche attraction, I read this as him saying that the flesh is more powerful than any faith in the Spirit and that it is useless for us to think otherwise. IOW, we are all slaves of sin, subject to the market dynamics of the SMP, and faith in Christ makes no difference. Hoes gonna hoe, and God doesn’t care if you find a wife! This reckoning is anathema to the gospel.
DS’s post emphasizes the individual man’s development of the “natural” evo-psyche qualities of attraction (e.g. staying physically active, lifting, looksmaxing, losing weight, etc.). DS finishes his post with this.
“These are things that can be implemented in various Churches and the wider community, as well as teaching men and women that some of their feelings/desires in the opposite sex are flirting with disaster…”
“Preparing young men and women for that is critical, and it needs to be followed through.”
Yes! This conclusion agrees with the purpose of my last post. However, although these habits are helpful and maybe even necessary towards mastering the flesh (1 Corinthians 9:24-27), it is still an effort in the flesh. For the grand majority of men, this is an uphill climb with limited benefits, and many men have already come to the conclusion that this is not enough.
Juliana reached the same conclusion, but for different reasons.
“The idea of sexual attraction so you can’t “see straight” is nonsensical and removes female agency. God would not hold us accountable for sexual sin if we were unable to see straight when doing it. Women know exactly what they are doing when they give themselves sexually.”
I’m flabbergasted!!! Do women have agency?!? /S
UPDATE: I examined this question in depth later in the year. Here’s the summary of What we’ve learned about Female Agency (2022/12/20).
Jesus Came in the Flesh
2 By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, 3 and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God.
1 John 4:2-3 (NKJV)
14 Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, 15 and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.
Hebrews 2:14-15 (NKJV)
The perfect incarnation of Christ is a mystery that we accept on faith. But attraction, bonding, marriage, sex, and trust are avenues through which we may better understand how the carnal and the spiritual are intertwined.
Of course, sexual attraction is an integral part of a sanctified marriage, and so it must be included and accounted for, but it should be noted that the fleshly desires (e.g. male lust, female hypergamy, etc.) are the prime motivators behind a “natural” evo-psyche style attraction. Furthermore, we cannot rely on attraction as a blanket reason for justifying the demands of the flesh and the deeds of the sinful nature. Even if a man or woman succeeds in making himself more attractive, enough to find a mate, then it doesn’t mean that he has made any spiritual progress in sanctification or in mastering the sinful nature. The latter will lie dormant until a time when circumstance and opportunity let it emerge to do its damage. Getting himself together, losing weight, working out, and so on, might make him more attractive to women, but unless there are marriage worthy women available and willing to tie the knot, it also exposes him to more temptation and more opportunities to screw around. Real spiritual growth and a bit of Red Pill awareness, OTOH, will attract better quality women who would be more likely to marry.
Remember DS’s Rule of Reciprocality: Like attracts like; Birds of a feather flock together.
Also remember, our eternal goal is our sanctification and to glorify God, not to satisfy our insatiable sexual appetites and our desire to be humbled through aesthetic and visceral attraction.
Isn’t there a Spiritual Component of Attraction?
In her letter, Juliana said DS is correct in saying those pictures of men’s ideal body types (on DS’s post) create attraction for women, in the same way similar pictures of women create attraction for men. But what he doesn’t explain is that if you take away the character and personality, then of course everyone would choose a particular range of body types. For this reason, she says,
“I object to the idea that visceral attraction explains everything about attraction.”
“One of the reasons I read everything Zippy wrote is because he opened my mind to the errors of nominalism and reductionism. I’m not nearly as smart as he was and so I don’t totally understand the ways modernity has damaged us, but I do know that reducing people to only their sexual attractions is very bad. The long tradition of monasticism should at the least inform us that it is possible to rise above our appetites with the help of God.”
In a couple comments, I described a little about the role of mythos in attraction. This will be the subject of an upcoming post. I don’t think mythos can completely account for all the metaphysical aspects of attraction, but it is certainly one important piece of the pie.
Case Study – Juliana’s Story
Juliana wrote her own testimony about how this all worked out for her.
“It looks like supporting Zippy’s point by using my story has ended up with the post being highjacked. To clarify: I was sexually attracted to my husband, [even though he was not at all like one of the ideal body types in DS’s post], and he is not what some of your commenters would call alpha. (I intensely dislike the reduction involved in the Greek letter system, so please don’t read this as saying anything at all about my husband.) I chose a man I was both attracted to and who would pass my dad’s requirements. My sister also chose [a man who didn’t have the ideal body type]. These men were on our radar because they were held up as examples of husband material, which by definition was a good man. They were normal weight, but otherwise didn’t match [what is purported to be an ideal physique]. We now have enduring marriages, but not as a result of sexual attraction; rather, as a result of our total commitment to marriage as a sacrament. Personally, I have found that attraction increases as oneness increases.”
Make of it what you will, but I see this as evidence of metaphysical attraction. I suppose the male equivalent would be wife goggles.
Conclusions
In addition to personal development, we need to foster a family / community environment that is not so much focused on gratifying the desires of the flesh, but is instead marked by (1) a Biblical / Red Pill awareness of the fleshly nature, (2) protecting women from becoming slores, and (3) guiding young people to make conscious decisions and wise choices in order to achieve sexual contentment and marital sanctification. This is why a supporting community is necessary.
Juliana wrote,
“I believe the way forward is catechesis, not some “meet cute” magic, because God has given us what we need. His remedy of marriage isn’t culture dependent, but right now most Christians just don’t understand what marriage is – [the church’s] reduction … of marriage to nothing more than a remedy for burning is not terribly compelling, especially given the nonstop negative assault on it. It is most especially not compelling to the feminine mind.”
In my previous post, I called this Christian Red Pill catechesis + family / community environment a “Christian Culture of Attraction” for lack of a better description. I suppose it is my fault that many readers have jumped on the word “Attraction” and ignored the words “Christian Culture”. I should be more apperceptive of our sex-centric thinking.
The challenge for us now is to identify ways to do this, and to then carry them out. More on this will be forthcoming.
Related
- Σ Frame: The Feminine Dilemma (2018/10/27)
- Σ Frame: Sexual Compatibility is dependent on Sanctification (2020/3/2)
- Σ Frame: Humility and Defilement (2020/6/17)
- Σ Frame: Sanctification and Sexual Compatibility (2020/6/19)
- Σ Frame: The Masculine Dilemma (2020/12/13)
- Σ Frame: The Christian Marriage Dilemma (2021/2/26)
- Σ Frame: How is Godliness Attractive? (2021/9/1)
- Σ Frame: Elements of Spiritual Maturity (2021/9/15)
- Σ Frame (Red Pill Apostle): Dating in the Lion’s Den: Relying on Faith when the options are daunting (2021/12/13)
- Σ Frame: Towards a more complete appreciation of Sanctification (2022/1/10)
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Julianna is right, and to the extent that the particulars of my own story have been used as a distraction, I regret that.
Also, I could see straight and clearly when I met my husband. We had a long friendship before we got together, so some characterizations have been misconstrued anyway.
That’s all I have to say on the matter
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I know you and Juliana have to put the best faces on it that you can. I get that.
That doesn’t prevent me from seeing the truth.
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Julianna is — based on her testimony — 1000 times better a woman than I, so please do her the courtesy of not lumping us together, LOL. If she and I were reversed, I would likely cringe at the thought.
I get all that you are saying, but I can guarantee you that more than sex has kept this relationship together for nearly 30 years. We have been touched by heaping doses of God’s grace and His word. Lots of chemistry, to be sure. But not only that.
I also think the ability to be satisfied in life rests in large part on what parts of our nature we feed. A gal who eschews the nonsense that breeds discontentment with her man isn’t nearly as tempted to rebellion and wanderlust as one who doesn’t.
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The more women talk about this, the more hamstering they do. It’s all just hamstering and post-hoc rationalization at this point.
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Largely agree with the first part. I think I misinterpreted your intent in “You Breed what you Feed”, but I agree with the examples in this post.
This seems too reductionist for me.
Most of the people in leadership positions in actual Christian Churches seem to be there for the right reason. Obviously, you can point out various charlatans here and there, but the ones who are truly there to serve God through their gifts of the Spirit.
The attraction women have for that leadership and ambitiousness for the gospel is the side effect from the mission and not the primary cause. Making men aware that they should strive to use their gifts of leadership in the Church to serve God is a good thing… and also brings the side benefit that can help their dating life.
I don’t really see this as an exercise in the flesh, especially since God created attraction in the first place. In fact, i would see this as optimal. Spiritual purpose aligns with the Creation mandate’s seeming description (e.g. attraction) of what women look for in a husband.
Largely agree, but this is not something that is mutually exclusive with the prior paragraphs. To paraphrase Ephesians 4, “Take off the old an put on the new.”
The former paragraphs focus on putting on the new such as using spiritual gifts in leadership positions in Church (thus being simultaneously attractive) but we ALSO should be taking off the old nature at the same time by learning self control, fleeing temptation, how to become more sanctified, etc.
I think this is conflating some different things both correct and incorrect.
Men’s attraction is generally more physical related, so how a woman looks is plays a huge role in determining if he wants to be with her. However, as we know not all of a woman’s attraction is based solely on a man’s appearance.
Attraction can be variable depending on a woman’s proclivities toward particular attractive traits. For instance, we know of tons of women will be with “ugly and fat” celebrities because of their fame, money, or charisma. All things being equal though they would probably prefer the “ugly and fat” celebrity to also look like a Brad Pitt, Chris Hemsworth, or Chris Evans.
The main point is that there was enough “other” attraction factors (e.g. PSALM without the “L” and masculinity) to ensure that these Christian woman were satisfied enough (e.g. hypergamy was satisfied enough) to marry him even though he may not be her “ideal Christian man.” Men do the same as well. Most are not holding out for the “Christian swimsuit supermodel” but have some ‘marriage attraction floor’ to where any woman above it would be marriage material. Maybe crass stating it like that but true.
The caveat is that we are only talking about Christian marriages that are based on mate pairing through sexual attraction. Many marriages in the past have been arranged for various reasons (family obligation, treaties, subsistence, etc) and those in them have ended up happy and holy.
To the latter point “oneness” is generally true, albeit is usually for two different cases in men and women.
For Men: Husbands have wife goggles.
For Women: (1) I believe Juliana said they were virgins (?) which means they have stronger pair bonding and thus oneness. (2) I would not necessarily expect the same effect for wives who have had more sexual partners prior to marriage, unless the man is fairly consistent with PSALM+masculinity traits through the marriage. At least according to the Teachman statistics on divorce rates with virgins vs many marital partners.
In the case of #2 with prior sexual partners, the wife must fight against her hypergamy if she is tempted to be dissatisfied with her husband and/or is tempted to branch swing. It helps if the husband is fairly consistent with PSALM+masculinity as well as helping her be more sanctified.
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DS,
Those paragraphs were offered as comprehensive assessments. Could you explain why you think it is reductionist?
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@ Jack,
Basically, what I am driving at is that most of the things I recommend at least are not an effort in the flesh. They are just natural side effects of being driven with a Spiritual purpose.
Obviously, there is the intention of the heart that can make one’s true intent good or bad but that is for God to judge, but those of us who are rightly seeking to use our gifts of the Spirit to lead and disciples others are doing a good thing and it’s natural that those things are also attractive (given God created purpose and attraction both and they synergize when you do the right thing).
If we reduce things that are “attractive” to be an effort in the flesh then we’re essentially throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
I also tend to find that deti and some others are overly pessimistic on most men’s chances for dates and marriage. Perhaps that colors arguments too much
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DS – from my conversations with thedeti, his take is less about men’s chances for dates and marriage and more about women’s motivations for dates and marriage. It is irrelevant that a majority of people end up married at some point in their lives. What is very relevant is that a small percentage end up in what they say are good happy marriages. It is a hard pill to swallow that the woman a man loved enough to commit his life to will never love him the way he loved her nor desire him the way he desired her. But that is the reality for the vast majority of men.
That is the basis for thedeti’s bearish outlook on dating and marriage. Based on his experience with his own marriage, as he’s shared with us, and what he’s observed from marriages around him, we should be cautious to dismiss his observations as overly pessimistic. Do his observations and experiences paint modern marriage in a good light? No, they don’t. Does this mean he’s inaccurate? No, it does not.
My feeling, based on anecdotal evidence, is that if men were being honest and you took the kids out off the equation that less than 50% of married men would marry their wives again if they had it to do over. I don’t think this is because men changed as protector/provider, I think it’s because women changed as nurturer/helpmeet.
There’s a reason that truly submissive/helpmeet type women are referred to as unicorns gentlemen.
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@ Red Pill Apostle,
Again, I think this is too pessimistic. Let me first say that I agree with everything you’ve stated, but that’s not the type of marriage I am talking about.
If a man was able to “do it over” BUT with knowing what you, Jack deti, or I know now, then there’s obviously a significantly higher chance of having a successful, godly, and happy marriage.
If you start when dating knowing that you are the head, act like the head, and walk the walk that Christ’s love is for the purpose of sanctification, then you won’t get to relationships with rebellious women. You’ll just dump the ones that want to do their own thing and won’t follow your lead. You’ll eventually end up with a woman that wants to be with you that you can teach and train in righteousness.
As we discussed in prior posts, other women including your wife are interested in you now. And that’s with being old(er), mature, and having a lot of things going for you. How much more would a strong leadership frame be effective if you were able to take that back to your 20s? Especially now that men are more effeminate than ever?
I’m no chad but once I started walking the walk I got much more interest from women than I thought an average to below average looking guy would get. Of course, I still had women that wouldn’t give me the time of day either. But there’s enough interest.
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Yes. Exactly. More to the point, most women are marrying for reasons other than “want to have lots of sex with you and actually care about you enough to want to stay with you and build something with you even though I know it’s going to be really really hard sometimes”. Most women are marrying because…
— They want the status points.
— All their friends are marrying.
— Baby rabies!
— Parents, friends, relatives, etc. are pressuring them to marry.
— They want/need resources/improved standard of living.
They don’t care about the men they’re marrying; they care about what they’ll be able to extract from the men.
THAT is the problem.
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That’s a very modern, anti-hypergamy, egalitarian take. It critiques one of the few primary — if not only — reasons that women have married for millennium.
The flow of resources (and not just financial ones) in a marriage has never been evenly balanced. One of the biggest divorce risks is a wife making more money than her husband. Your marriage is far, far more likely to succeed if she is trying to extract from you, rather than you trying to extract from her. And again, it’s not just financial extraction.
Paul’s writings on loving your spouse were culturally revolutionary, because that era of arranged marriage was so heavily focused on sex and babies. After all, the term “making love” doesn’t refer to deep affection, acts of kindness and caring, cherishing, or romance. It doesn’t even necessarily include lust: ‘getting biblical’. A wife liking her husband just wasn’t important.
Why were Hannah and Rachel so unhaaaaappy? It wasn’t because their husbands didn’t love them. Of course Leah was unhaaaaapy, because you know what? Wives require an unbalanced extraction of emotional resources too. Water is also wet.
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Opponents of polygamy will say these women were unhappy because of the inherent competition between the wives. But I think the reason is more fundamental to the nature of all women. Betty Friedan called this “the problem with no name” and successfully played off of this phenomenon to kick start the sexual revolution. I’ve also heard it called “generalized female disaffection”. I’m sure there are other names. I believe this is part of the Curse of Eve’s “longing for your husband”. This is something that women must learn to deal with or overcome if they are to have satisfying marriages.
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Men and women are not “extracting” anything from each other, if they each are getting something in return for what they’re giving (or what they’re allowing to be taken). In that case, when both people get something, we call that an “exchange”. I have no problem with exchange. Exchange is how it is supposed to be.
What I have a problem with is women taking and taking and taking while giving nothing back. That is extraction.
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Secular and satanic forces seek to sever. The enjoyment of sex away from reproduction.
Hence the Romans having legal wives where they have children as a duty (often the result of arranged political marriages) and prostitutes for sexual pleasure.
When God, as per the Song of Solomon, would have love of beauty, sexual desire, pleasure, and procreation be united as one.
Likewise marriage is designed with multiple dimensions of love, including: Eros, Philia, Storge, and Agape. Especially when children are involved.
Sin severs those loves from each other. As well as sexual desire, sexual pleasure, and procreation from each other.
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I’ve simplified things in my mind on how this should work, if it wasn’t so distorted by “fleshly thinking” that comes in part from our fallen nature, but also in large part from our cultural conditioning and cultural saturation with all things sexual. It looks something like this:
1) Initial Physical Attraction: This is primarily a “brain thing,” meaning it is primarily a subconscious operation, but we have some, and at times even quite a bit of awareness of it going on consciously. For a either guy or a girl, our brains are continuously scanning the environment and telling us (for the guys), “Her… Not her… Her… Not her… Her… Not her…”, for EVERY female in the room. Why? For mating / reproduction purposes (the subconscious operation). At a conscious level, it occurs as, “Wow, she’s hot!” or “Hmm, I like that!” or “Meh, not really” or “Ugh, not that.” Where all this goes off the rails is when we allow the flesh to then proceed and try to have sex with him/her based on this physical attraction thing. (Hook-up culture anyone?) What’s missing at this point is any real awareness of his/her personality (the chemistry thing), and even more importantly, no real awareness of his/her CHARACTER (the red flag/baggage thing).
2) Personality: If the couple slows things down a bit and begins to get to know one another, they can see if they mesh at all. For a guy it might look something like this, “I like how she looks AND I like her! We get along well, we seem to have something in common, we enjoy being around each other, and being with one another when alone together, etc.” This is the chemistry thing. Again, at this point, the process can get truncated if they decide to go get it on because they “like one another”, but don’t know yet about his/her CHARACTER. Why? Because this early in getting to know one another, both parties are putting their best foot forward. They’re on their best behavior possible to present the best picture of themselves possible. It’s an aspect of who they are, yes, but as the cliche goes, “There’s the rest of the story.” And, that “rest of the story” thing is critical.
3) Character: Here’s where the discernment thing begins to kick-in. What type of person is this, REALLY? What kind of red flags am I seeing here?
What kind of baggage does this person have? The point of all this discernment is, can I possibly form a lasting relationship with this person or not? Is it worth the risk? And so on and so forth. Additionally, with all or most of the societal guardrails having been neutralized and even done away with entirely, how often does it get this far in the process? The number of social media postings related to “dating” seems to indicate rarely anymore. And the results are telling with the state of relationships these days.
I structured it this way in my thinking just to simplify (for me) what seems at times to be a very complicated, and in some ways convoluted process, this whole male-female coupling thing, both in real life and in the discussions/examinations we have on this blog and throughout the ‘Sphere. Feel free to shoot holes in this 3 step/phase thing I created, it’s just a working construct for me, subject to modification, that’s for sure. However, so far it makes sense to me.
Oh, also this construct is for the early stages of a relationship. LTRs require additional phases as the couple settles into the longer term aspects of the relationship, and begins to deal with the reality that we live in a fallen world, our relationships reside in a fallen world, and “there’s no such thing as living ‘happily ever after’.” There’s just making it work DESPITE all the forces against making it work, e.g. cultural attitudes, cultural mores, hypergamy, lust, etc. etc.
This is where the Christian marriage has an advantage, at least in theory, if the couple allows Christ to be at the center of their marriage and not the flesh.
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Juliana and Elspeth are talking about things other than attraction. They are not talking about attraction as we commonly understand it to be. They have enduring marriages in part because of sexual attraction and in part because they are willing to obey, submit, and do as their husbands direct despite the stinging in the flesh this sometimes causes. But they would not be willing to to do any of that were the sexual attraction not present. Sexual attraction from wife to husband is absolutely necessary for any marriage to work.
Where Juliana goes wrong is in thinking that because her husband did not fit some sort of male physical ideal, sexual attraction cannot be present. A woman’s sexual attraction is either/or, but some men are more attractive than others, and a woman can be more sexually attracted to some men than others. I am sure there was some sexual attraction there. Some sexual attraction, along with an intense desire to get that man’s money and resources, is enough to get a marriage started and keep it going long enough to reproduce. And most of those marriages eventually go into failure.
The problem here is modeling everything on what women want/need/desire, with absolutely no attention whatsoever paid to what men want/need/desire. All that’s being talked about here is how women approach these things, with no attention to how men do so. That’s no help to men.
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I didn’t get this from reading her words. But supposing it is true that she was attracted to a man who was less than physically ideal, but she thought she wasn’t sexually attracted to him, but she married him anyway for other reasons, and then discovered later in life that she was actually attracted to him, then wouldn’t that undermine your point and support mine?
It’s interesting that you get that impression. I’m not really focused on analyzing the object of what men or women desire, leading to attraction (this is already well known), but rather, I’m regarding desire itself as a fungible commodity that can be channeled into obedience to God, thereby leading to contentment and marital stability, viz. sanctification. Perhaps you’re getting this impression because I’ve assumed we’re already fairly familiar with the male point of view, and so I’ve glossed over the male perspective and just given my own case study as an example. But I also believe that for us to have a complete functional understanding of the interaction, it’s important to consider women’s ability to manage their own desires. After all, women are the weakest link in the chain, so to speak, and women need sanctification as much as men do. “Dwell with them in understanding” and “Washing her with the Word” and all that. IOW, I’m adopting a broad frame in considering what is best and what works for both husbands and wives (and therefore also marriages, families, and children), and not only men.
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Thedeti,
I am convinced that it is some kind of attraction. If you think we are talking about two different aspects or kinds of attraction (for example, arousal, hormones, metaphysical attraction, reciprocal attraction, sexual attraction, spiritual attraction…), then what term would you use for what Juliana et al. are describing here?
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It isn’t any kind of “attraction” that really matters to men. The only kind of attraction that matters is sexual attraction because that’s the only kind of attraction that really keeps a woman with a man. I need only point to the women of the Manosphere Ladies’ Auxiliary as proof. I need only point to men’s general experience with women today as proof.
I would use the term “wants to exploit”.
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Look. Women can stay married to men where there’s a little bit of sexual attraction. I’m not saying there’s none at all. I am saying there’s some, there’s a little bit, there’s enough for her to justify marrying him in exchange for immediate lifetime access to all his resources anchored with at least one kid.
There is not anywhere close to enough sexual attraction to keep her there AND happy AND satisfied AND submissive for 40 years. There’s not anywhere close to enough sexual attraction to keep her attracted during the rough times that happen in every marriage. And putting this all on men is a mistake, because there’s only so much men can do to make themselves more sexually attractive, and just the fact of his commitment to her will reduce his sexual attractiveness. The fact is that most women just aren’t all that sexually attracted to most men, and what attraction is there is not enough to keep her with him.
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One thing I’ve noticed about attraction for me personally, it’s not perfectly aligned with the 1-10 scale. Not all 8s-9s-10s “attract” me. It’s not that I don’t enjoy their beauty, they certainly are nice eye candy, just about every last one of them; however for some reason many of them do not trigger the “Her… Not her…” thing I mentioned in my earlier post in this thread. Some of the 8-10s do for sure, but SURPRISINGLY most don’t. I’ve found this phenomenon most curious. It’s probably where the “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” truism was came from way back when.
I’ve wondered about this in my musings at the gym because the place serves as kind of a RP think tank, if you will, for me. I see quite a few of these 8-10s there, but most do not trigger the attraction impulse; the “I enjoy beauty” impulse for sure, but not the brain’s “I want her” impulse. On the other hand, a 6-7 can trigger it.
I ask myself, “RPB, why that one and not the 9 working out nearby her?” I can only conclude it’s that brain chemistry thing at work in my subconscious.
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This is an important comment from thedeti.
Men were not designed to chase women’s emotional whims in an attempt to keep her attracted to him. Men were designed for purposes bigger than women and forgetting that women were designed by God to be the help is no bueno.
Adam failed at this concept when he ate the apple at Eve’s prompting. I have written this before in another post, but your wife is at best 4th on your list of priorities. God/faith, family (overall), life’s purpose including occupation, then wife. The secret is that if you find a wife who is, or train a wife to be, submissive to you, then she is helping with numbers 1-3 so you do them together. This way she doesn’t feel like the 4th priority. It’s only when she fights you for control that she feels being 4th.
The unintended effect of a man working according to his priorities is that women tend to find him attractive, including his wife. There are exceptions, but this is generally true. PUAs tell men to be indifferent around hot women because the indifference mimics the appearance of having more important things to do. There is a Seinfeld episode that demonstrates the concept of mimicry, except instead of purpose it’s to display being busy. George gets a promotion and doesn’t want to do the extra work, so he walks around the Yankee’s office looking annoyed, because when you have an annoyed look on your face you mimic the appearance of what people think a busy person looks like.
It’s a good day when Seinfeld can be worked into a comment.
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Agree! I like the current euphemism for this, men being “thirsty.” It’s a turn off to both women and MEN. I run across it occasionally in my men’s work. Most of the thirst is expressed subtly, like in, “I’m getting some attention from a woman on Bumble (or Hinge, or whatever app)!”
Other times, less often but more often than I’d like, it occurs as a thirst for women in the form of chasing them. When I hear this coming from a man, it turns my stomach. The more subtle form of thirst always leaves me thinking, “We (RP men) have some work to do educating the BP men about priorities for their lives.”
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I will just circle this back to the original point Jack and Juliana were trying to make, which is this:
I submit the answer is NO.
Everyone here is trying to support their “yes” responses with evidence that doesn’t speak to sexual attraction. It gets to all sorts of other things like submission, obedience, compatibility, and a host of other things, but those things are not sexual attraction.
You’re also trying to deflect to “Can a woman be trained and/or taught to have a relationship/marriage to a man she’s kind of sort of sexually attracted to?” The answer is YES. The issue, though, is her level of satisfaction in that marriage. She is bound to be dissatisfied most of the time, even if she was a virgin before marriage.
The marriages that succeed and that everyone here holds up as succeeding are marked by extremely high sexual attraction from wife to husband, which was present from the very beginning of the interactions.
Does Juliana’s marriage to her “kind of sort of sexually attractive” husband work? I am sure it does, but not because of sexual attraction. It works because she has to make a concerted, hard, conscious effort, every single minute of every single day, to submit to and obey a man when absolutely everything in her screams rebellion. And that is most marriages. Most marriages are not Elspeth/SAM where she thought, “He was beautiful” from the very first time she saw him. And you absolutely MUST have that or your marriage isn’t going to work well, to be honest. I stand 100% with Scott on this. And it doesn’t matter if she’s a virgin — our churches are littered with virgins who left their husbands for more attractive men.
I am still not convinced.
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Such a situation creates an atmosphere of tension and stress in the marriage. And children can sense this tension and stress even though they may experience love from both parents. Often children will blame themselves as the cause and will fail to confide in parents out of fear of making the situation worse.
Thus, children grow up not really having a happy well developed childhood. Sure there may be happy times here and there, but the overall childhood experience is enveloped by this sense of uneasiness.
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That’s most marriages.
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This is an excellent point. This may be why deacons are to be selected by how well behaved their children are (1 Timothy 3:4). To explore this angle any further, it would be necessary for us to know how well Juliana’s and Rowena’s children turned out. The character of Mychael’s and Elspeth’s children could be used as an experimental control. This is turning mighty personal, and I’m not sure it would be very ethical to request this information nor to post it publicly for our scrutiny! Perhaps readers could do some reflection on couples they have known, the nature of attraction between them, and how their children turned out, in order to draw some conclusions about this.
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Children may pick up on the tension of parental dynamic, but my experience is that they don’t have to. The tension is directly applied to the children by a parent or both parents.
Me forcing the issue of obedience and submission on Mrs. Apostle and the Holy Spirit convicting and working on her about them, is directly related to being better parents of our children. Tense parents are not the most gracious understanding humans in the world and the kids often parented with the skew that marital tension creates.
When Mrs. Apostle obeys what I tell her, my sons see the correct position of a wife in a marriage and there is no tension of two people fighting for control. The boys understand that the family does what dad says and this puts order and boundaries on their world, giving them the safety to experience the largest amount of age appropriate freedom. This is the healthiest environment for them to grow and learn.
For my boys, they have had 2 separate childhood experiences, although they were probably too young to understand or remember what was actually going on prior to Mrs. Apostle getting in line.
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I am going to submit that the level of marital satisfaction for a woman can grow. The growth is in proportion to her willingness to obey and submit to her husband or his willingness to force these upon her, and his willingness to love her enough not to put up with her garbage and to confidently direct her on how to be the wife he wants and needs.
I will also submit that no matter how sexually attracted a woman is to her husband initially, if he does not exert his authority as head over her and his household she will lose attraction for him. This means confidently telling instead of asking and taking what is rightfully his in marriage. Heartiste’s commandments XI “Be irrationally self confident”, XIII “Err on the side of too much boldness”, and XV “Maintain your state of control”, are all applicable to a man’s household and wife. The more he applies these in love the way Christ does to the church, the more her sexual desire for him will grow. The opposite is also very true, which is why blue pilled, wife worshipping husbands eventually end up drinking too much and on the Dead Bedrooms reddit.
The reality is that with marriage, men are signing up for a lifelong work of managing an emotionally driven creature, and his job performance will largely dictate her level of attraction for him over time. This is my personal experience.
This in no way invalidates thedeti’s thoughts on initial attraction, as a man must pass her minimal filter on physical attractiveness. As long as the other areas of a man’s life are in good standing being just over her attraction floor can be overlooked. When the other areas are not in good standing the level of physical attraction becomes an issue. The amount by which he surpasses her physical attraction filter is the amount of grace he gets in the other areas of PSALM when it comes to her attraction for him.
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Regarding how steeped in sexuality our modern world is, during Lent, I dropped off of social media, and I already don’t watch television.
The thing I noticed is that when I first started doing this, it was glaringly obvious how sexualized life is in the modern world.
As I was less exposed to sexual content, commercials, magazine covers, etc., the less sexualized I became to the point where, in the modern world, eschewing sex seems nearly impossible, but without the constant tittilation, it seems only difficult.
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Ultraorthodox Jews managed to get women banned from ads. In China when I travelled there, I noticed the advertising was remarkably wholesome and free from titillation.
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Ha! Y’all both worked “titillation” into your comments.
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@RPA,
It’s a very fitting word.
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Why this is even a point of contention mystifies me. Not only is it painfully obvious to most men, increasing numbers of women openly admit that it’s true.
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The more this is unmasked the better so that Men would avoid coupling with women who don’t actually love them.
This unmasking needs to have every generation from now on.
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Is the feral nature of women a point of contention here? There is no question that deti has a legitimate perspective. The question is whether there are other paradigms of attraction that are different from that which we are most familiar with in Manospherian lore.
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Jack,
Attraction is initially physical. The minimum threshold of appearance has to be met. What qualifies as an acceptable minimum threshold of physical appearance is probably broader than what is typically talked about in Manospherian lore, but it’s still there. So in my humble opinion the paradigm holds on female attraction to men.
The questions we are wrestling with are the secondary and tertiary qualities that validate and grow the initial interest and the motivations of female nature surrounding relationships and marriage. If there is a study about attraction and blind people that might add interesting data to the discussion.
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Christianity did not properly take into account the role of government in these matters. The founders of the religion assumed that all governments would honor patriarchy because no government had yet existed to their knowledge that did not. Since the Romans honored it, they assumed that’s just how governments work. They were wrong. It is as simple as that. Unlike Mosaicism (i.e. Moses Law, because Judaism is a post-Christian creation) which coupled a government with the religion, they thought unwisely that religions don’t need this and can be just a cultus that can exist within ANY government. And that worked FOR THE TIME, because no government was stupid enough to implement democrazy AND give women the vote! For all their prophetic powers to foresee sea monsters and bottomless pits and second comings and millennial reigns, they couldn’t even foresee that a government would arise that would give women the right to vote, and this is the downfall of the religion from which it cannot ever recover, unless it recovers only by acknowledging a new prophet who adds books to the Bible to fix this — but this it cannot do. A new religion has to arise. A religion that couldn’t even foresee the coming of feminism cannot be the true. Even Buddha foresaw the coming of feminism and there is a passage in the Jitaka I think about a day coming when women will not honor their husbands but the husband will say, “Bring me my robe”, and the wife will say, “No, go get your own robe.” But that is probably because the monk who wrote that text experienced this himself in his own day before becoming a monk. And yet, he had the foresight to write that down as a prophecy of the future — and how can a prophecy of the future that ALREADY happened ever fail to happen AGAIN? Yet the New Testament writers did not write such an OBVIOUS prophecy about women rebelling against husbands. Sons vs. fathers, daughters vs. mothers, but not wives vs. husbands! That’s unforgivable oversight!
Now someone quite “orthodox” will cite 2 Timothy 3:1.
A true prophet would not have used the male gender here exclusively, nor the masculine “men” as a genderless noun for “humans” but called out women specifically too. And not only “disobedient to parents”, but “wives disobedient to husbands” and “women who refuse to marry but sleep with each other and when they sleep with men they kill their children” would be mentioned. If it were a true prophet.
Now there is, in verse 6-7,
But this one also shows the prophet is incapable of understanding that a non-patriarchal society will arise, because just like cuckservatives he sees the silly women as victims of bad men, rather than that women are the cause of that bad man even being bad. Further, the poor sap thinks that bad men need to “creep into houses” to find bad women!!!! HAHAHAHAHA! Dude can clearly NOT foresee the future.
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Nothing about wife rising up against husband and turning him in to the government for not getting vaxxed. Only brothers betray each other and children betray parents.
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It could be that these prophecies were not meant to last till today, but to only foretell the coming hundred years (for they all thought Jesus would return quickly). But that is just as much a problem. The anticipation that Jesus would return quickly and yet he didn’t is something Christianity can never solve, and what leaves it without moral vigor. Because everyone today (even those who say otherwise) realizes somewhere deep down that waiting 2,000 years to return when it says, “Behold I come quickly”, invalidates the religion on some level. And this is why cuckservative Christians have given in to feminism — They don’t really believe their own religion! How could they? A book that says, “Behold I come quickly” and a church that says, “He meant thousands of years as quickly” is in absolute cognative dissonance. If you can make that work, then you can also make work, “husband is the head of the wife” and “wife gets to boss husband around and control him by withholding sex” — because if one abject contradiction can be pretended to not be a contradiction (and one as big as “Behold I come quickly” and 2,000 years later, “I could wait another 2,000 years to come bro” then why not “husband is the head” and “husband is the ass” at the same time?
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Jesus did say the Anti-Christ must come first. No World Emperor has come yet. So Jesus cannot come.
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I think your statement of “managing an emotionally driven” woman, combined with the idea of sexual attraction being so important and barely changeable leads me to believe that is what the Bible is talking about when it tells us not every man is made for marriage. If the church had taught that when I was single, then I may have had a stronger motivation for being content and throwing myself harder into a mission and not dating or looking. That’s because I am not cut out for that type of daily gaming, disciplining, and fighting.
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@RPA – This is an important comment from thedeti.
And from RPA,
Damn, this hit hard. I spent 18 years trying to manage my ex-wife’s emotional state. It was emotionally exhausting, and ultimately futile.
Also, thedeti’s comment is really good, and means you need to find a woman that wants to have sex with you, AND who also has the character to not frivorce you when she’s not feeling it as much.
Also, IMO, the modern world rewards passivity and submission which is anathema for a successful male/female relationship unless one desires to be the sub. Thus, IMO, most men would do well to explore that side of themselves and learn to be more dominant in life, but especially in the bedroom.
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anonymous_ng,
The exhaustion is real … even when you save the marriage. It takes a toll mentally and the stress then works its way into a man’s physical well being. I had stress related health issues and so did thedeti.
Common issues of dealing with a sex starved marriage and a contentious wife (same thing really) are: difficulty concentrating especially at work, lack of motivation, being more on edge which shows up as being short with people, anxiety, withdrawing to yourself (to garner some time of peace). I’ll add that I got sick with greater frequency too which I would attribute to stress killing my immune system.
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Yes to contentious wives leading to health issues. Very much yes. Proverbs 21:9 was and still is an excellent summary of my marriage. It occurred some years before I returned to the Church, but even knowing what I know now, I probably still couldn’t rescue that train wreck. She was and still is that contentious.
I see thedeti’s main point, but I think it’s a bit more nuanced than he makes it out to be. I’ll leave that debate (and my observations) for another time. Just glad to see this kind of writing in the Christian manosphere that gets deeper and further beyond Dalrock et al during the 2010’s. Still have to remember at every point that the greater glory always belongs to God and we should have gratitude for the things we do have in our lives.
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Leaning too much on alcohol. Don’t forget that one.
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naturallyaspirated –
I thought drinking alcohol to make her more tolerable was self evident. That’s why I didn’t include it. 🙂
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