Is Attraction limited to carnal SMV indicators?
Readership: All; Christians
Theme: Perspectives on the Topic of Attraction
Length: 1,600 words
Reading Time: 9 minutes
The Limitations of the Exceptionality Model
I’ve been following along with what Deep Strength (DS) said in his post, Objective and subjective attraction measures and what the Church can do about it (2022-8-18). DS is pointing out how Christian men can bump up their attractiveness by developing PSALM traits and taking a leadership role at church, and then urging Christian men to do this in order to enhance their service ministry and attract more and perhaps better women. (More posts about the nature of attraction, including DS’s assessments, are listed below under Related.)
However, I’m having trouble putting together the details of his viewpoint in light of what I’ve been writing about in the last couple posts, On Curating a Christian Culture of Attraction (2022-8-18) and On Clarifying a Christian Culture of Attraction (2022-8-24).
I see DS and Thedeti as having basically the same assessment — that sexual attraction is the primary and indispensable vehicle for achieving a sanctified marriage. Where they differ however, is that DS believes a man can fill the drill by having a decent paying job, having a sublime purpose for living, maintaining chastity, working out at the gym, getting down below 20% body fat, serving in church, and so on, whereas Thedeti thinks this is a hopeless endeavor because of the inherently broken nature of females.
In my last two posts, I’ve been arguing that most of this is not much more than an appeal to what women find attractive according to their fleshly nature. In The Delusion of the Good (2022-8-19), Thedeti went a step further to point out how making efforts to assuage or fulfill feminine fleshly lusts is an anti-scriptural and hopeless ordeal.
Putting this all together, I think it might be easier and clearer for DS to simply say that a man must make himself exceptional in the eyes of God and in the eyes of man (and women too if he hopes to have regular marital sex). IOW, a man would have to be a very fit, handsome, successful, and wealthy saint, or like an Alpha version of Jesus himself, or more jokingly put, a hunky monk.
This would be an ideal goal for Christian men to have, but it does little to change the scenery on the ground. A similar misassessment (concerning respect) was observed by Dalrock in his post, Is Christian marriage only for elite women? (2019-1-14), in which he wrote,
“Pastor Foster explained that for a Christian man to be respected by other Christian men he needed to prove himself to be exceptional…”
“I pointed out that only elite Christian men would be able to marry under this model, since he had also argued that earning the respect of other men was essential to finding a wife. We can’t make the average man extraordinary, we can only improve the average.”
In our present discussion, the goal is not about earning respect, but finding marital sanctification, but DS is recommending the same approach — stand out from the crowd; be exceptional.
But it is still like Dalrock said; not every man can be extraordinary, so DS’s approach is limited to be an individual solution for those men who can make themselves exceptional. Even if we could improve the average, this would be followed by a corrective adjustment in the sexual market due to comparative hypergamy, leaving most men in the same place where we are now.
And yet, we do see some men who are less than exceptional who are relatively more successful in love and marriage than what the exceptionality model would predict (e.g. Derek Ramsey, Ed Hurst, Juliana’s, Juliana’s sister’s, and Rowena’s husbands, and others you might think of). Perhaps we should turn our attention to these types of men and their communities to find out what they’re doing right (or what they’re not doing wrong).
Yes, we could easily write this off as being due to the grace of God (or having a unicorn wife which is kind of the same thing), but I am thinking of the majority of men (and lots of women too) who cannot create a visceral sexual attraction but still hope to avail of this grace. I think the selection process is the key.
Thedeti is well aware of the latter men’s predicaments, but he believes there is no hope for grace. DS, OTOH, seems to be focusing on men who are on the cusp of being a top tier man, but who need a little more oomph to reach the playing field by becoming “visible” to women, or IOW, exceptional.
Is the Exceptionality Model Limited to Vectors of Sexual Attraction?
DS has attempted to shore up his position in some comments under the latter post. But I still think he’s arguing that attraction must appeal to the desires of the flesh (i.e. women’s hypergamy) to be effective towards marital sanctification.
So then, I was a bit confused when DeepStrength wrote,
“Basically, what I am driving at is that most of the things I recommend at least are not an effort in the flesh.”
In his earlier response post, he recommended men to develop PSALM traits – Power, Status, Athleticism, Looks, and Money. I’m having a hard time imagining these things are not of the flesh. He also listed Masculinity, and it’s easier for me to see how that could be a godly trait, but as Adam pointed out, Masculinity does not lead to Godliness.
“They are just natural side effects of being driven with a Spiritual purpose.”
PSALM traits are things that men must work hard at to achieve. Masculinity is a discipline that is presently persecuted where it is not lost altogether. How are these things “natural side effects”? I think DS means to say that generating attraction is a natural side effect of having PSALMs, as we already know. I agree that having a purpose can be a motivator, but it doesn’t need to be spiritual in nature to generate attraction or even to attain marital contentment. Granted it’s rare, but not necessary. Sex and marriage are perhaps the only areas of the human experience in which God grants grace to unbelievers.
“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 disciple others are doing a good thing…”
OK, so once a man develops PSALM traits, he should use these traits for God’s glory and His purposes. This is good, but even those who don’t will be able to generate more attraction compared to other men with less PSALMs. So how is it spiritual in nature? Isn’t this basically the same as urging Christian men to do what it takes to compete in the secular SMP (short of having sex) and then whitewashing it by placing it under a higher purpose for serving and glorifying God?
“…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).”
Here, DS is assuming that godliness is attractive. I believe it is in some respects but yet rather unattractive in others. This is why the idea that godliness is attractive still remains a highly contested postulate in the Christian Manosphere.
“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.”
DS should correct me if I’m wrong here, but I assume that “the baby” in the idiomatic analogy is either sanctification or the sexual pleasures of the flesh. Or maybe he’s assuming that both of these are inseparably concomitant according to either a sex-centric reckoning or the Biblical ideal. Earlier, DS said, “the things I recommend at least are not an effort in the flesh”, intimating that he believes attraction is not merely of the flesh, which is what Juliana, Rowena, Elspeth and I have been pecking at. But here, DS is saying that the flesh is the most essential part.
Again, I can follow DS’s main point that putting God first can yield other blessings along the way, but the details are not very clear about how this relates to attraction and intersexual dynamics.
Epilogue
The main vacuity in our understanding here, is that so far, the current Red Pill lore about attraction hasn’t really established a compelling argument that attraction is anything other than the flesh. (The question of whether there is more to it than this is what I am investigating here.) That is to say, the Red Pill has given us an obscenely vivid understanding of the biological, carnal, and evo-psyche aspects of attraction, but we do not yet have a conceptual framework for the moral, metaphysical, and spiritual components of how attraction works. (I have identified certain elements, such as giving women attention, women’s need for attention, bonding, Csíkszentmihályi Flow, desire, ego, feedback loops, headship authority, humility, incentives / motivation, sexual authority, and trust, but how these factors interact to produce attraction and sanctification is still unclear.)
If DS had offered a convincing argument that enhancing one’s attractiveness is not an effort in the flesh, then Thedeti would have to agree to Juliana’s earlier claim that there must be something more to attraction than merely nubile T&A (for men) and LAMPS (for women). But so far, DS hasn’t, and Thedeti hasn’t.
Gentlemen, we still have work to do.
Related
- Donal Graeme: The 5 Vectors of Female Attraction- A Restoration (2013-3-10)
- Donal Graeme: Going APE- What Attributes do Women Find Attractive in Men? Looks, Athleticism, Money, Power and Status (LAMPS) (2013-7-21)
- Christianity and Masculinity: Understanding Attraction (2014-1-31)
- Christianity and Masculinity: A Christian understanding of attraction — Part 1 (2014-6-15)
- Dalrock: Don’t blame Heartiste for the equation of Alpha with virtue. (2015-6-13)
- Christianity and Masculinity: A Christian understanding of attraction and the role it plays in marriage — Part 2 (2016-6-29)
- Σ Frame (NovaSeeker): Deciphering Concepts of Attraction (2021-4-19)
- Christianity and Masculinity: A Christian understanding of attraction, and the role it plays in marriage — Part 3 (2021-7-11)
- Truth and Tolerance: Godliness is not Attractive? (2021-8-10)
- Σ Frame: How is Godliness Attractive? (2021-9-1)
- Adam Piggott: Masculinity does not lead to Godliness (2022-1-11)
- Catacomb Resident: Desire versus Desire (2022-8-25)
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Agree Jack, this is the conundrum, exactly how do they interact, and it is unclear; despite the terrific efforts of the men on here attempting to provide clarity.
Here’s one little thing I’ll add, and it is not really insightful, and it certainly doesn’t clear the fog away. I’ve noticed the young men in my church, which is not a large church, but sizeable enough to give me a sample size. When I look at the individual younger men, whether they are on stage playing an instrument, working the sound system or parking cars, I think all of them have a chance of getting a Christian wife, IF they address certain aspects of themselves, so I guess I lean toward the self improvement camp.
When I look at these guys through an older man’s life experience and an RP lense, it seems to me that if they work on at least ONE THING, it would enhance their chances in the Christian SMP finding a girl of comparable rating on the 1-10 scale.
For instance, the tall, handsome guitar player… “Hit the gym, add a bit more muscle tone.” Now this guy can probably get a Christian girl already, but if he hits the gym, I think he’s got a shot at one of the really attractive Christian women. If he doesn’t hit the gym, maybe because of his status being on stage with an electric guitar, but if he adds just that ONE THING, I’ll bet he could land a 7 or an 8, maybe a 9.
The cool looking IT/sound guy with the red beard… “Lose some weight buddy! You’re 75 freakin’ pounds overweight, come on man, screams K-E-T-O diet or something along those lines. Right now you can only get a 3 or 4 at best, lose the freakin’ weight and you can land a 6, maybe a 7. After all, you are skilled at what you do, and I bet you can get a good paying job at many of the companies in the area, this tells the women you’re potentially a catch… BUT the weight has to come off dude, if you want one of the cute girls in the church. Come on man, your weight is totally within your control. Lose it!”
The parking lot guy… “You’re a handsome late thirty something man… But come on man, you walk around the place like you’ve got the weight of the world on your shoulder, a bit of an Eeyore effect you got going on there. You’ve got a good job, you’re handsome, fairly masculine, but come on man, what Christian women wants to be around someone that seems melancholy all the time? One THING, work on that disposition of yours, get some therapy if necessary, show up with more positive energy.” If he does that, he’s looking at a 7 or an 8.
I could go on, but I think you get the point. Oh, interestingly, one of the young, married Pastors (in training I think), he’s like 5′ 6″ at the most, decent looking, very confident (almost too confident for my tastes, although he’s taken it down a notch or two lately making him more palatable). BUT, BUT, BUT… he’s a leader in the church, I mean CENTER STAGE leader… and guess what, he’s got a babe for a wife.
You three above, you have the edge on him in every way, HOWEVER you negate your advantages in the SMP. Fix that ONE THING, and your prospects will improve! RPB your RP coach gives you this RP lesson free gratis! Get to work men!!
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One of my rules for online is not discussing negative marital specifics. I won’t talk about them for our privacy, creating a biased perception. With that in mind, most people on the manosphere would be deeply unhappy with my marriage if the expectations commonly listed here were their requirements. It is no secret that I consider myself — roughly — a Complementarian and find most of the marital advice on this forum to be crazy, but you guys do what you guys want to do.
I’m not particularly attractive, but I’m not overweight or unattractive, just invisible. In college the body fat detector they used didn’t work on me because I fell below its threshold of detection (which I believe was 5%). I weighed about 120 pounds. I’m below average in men’s strength, but of course I’m still stronger than she is (as most men are stronger than most women). I can count on one hand how many women have ever been remotely interested in me as more than a friend, all of which are because I’m good at building male-to-female friendships. Without that, it would have been zero.
My wife married me in large part because of what she could extract: my future projected income, the promise of children, and the emotional support from our deep friendship.
I’m also an extrovert and she’s an introvert, and I think that matters a lot. I don’t envy the introverts trying to find a wife.
My wife has low divorce risk: a well above-average IQ, Masters-level education, our parents are not divorced, we’re not of a race that has a high divorce rate, we’re practicing Christians, she didn’t sleep around, we didn’t cohabitate, we don’t live in the Bible Belt, and we both come from families with at least 3 children each.
I don’t think my marriage is exceptional at all. I can point to dozens (or hundreds) in my peer group like it. I did specific things to make it a successful marriage, and many of those things could be emulated, but nobody (1) wants to emulate those things and (2) wants the kind of marriage I have. Expectations matter.
I didn’t get a happy marriage because of visceral sexual attraction. I don’t even know what it is like to have women falling over you because of how you look. Far as I know, unless you are a 8, 9 or 10, it just never happens at all.
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No. You and your wife married because of what the two of you could exchange; not because of what she could extract. She was looking to actually give you something in exchange for what she would get from you.
I have no problem with exchanges. I have a problem with women taking and taking and taking and never giving anything back; and I have a problem with Churchianity endorsing this and calling it “good”.
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‘Exchange’ is one possible meaning of ‘extract’ (which has a wider lexical and semantic scope). The problem is that she told me why she married me.
Had I not been a solid negotiator on my own, I have no doubt that there would not have been a meaningful exchange that benefited me. When both parties seek to and succeed at extracting something from another, you have an exchange. When only one party succeeds, you don’t have an exchange. But you still have extraction, regardless.
Traditional partriarchy is inherently extraction-based. Arranged marriages, dowry’s and bride-price, children, political/familial power all make marriage extraction-based by nature: none of those things require a fair exchange and often didn’t. Moreover, patriarchy—in particular ancient Hebrew patriarchy—had the dual concepts of free- and bond-wives. This is all very Biblical, which is why I said that opposing this is a “modern, anti-hypergamy, egalitarian take”.
Paul had to tell husbands to love their wives because this was largely a weird and unexpected concept. It wasn’t that husbands never loved their wives, it was that it wasn’t considered essential or a necessary requirement.
I believe what Jack calls “Biblical patriarchy” is an amalgamation of Hebrew Patriarchy with Jesus’ command to love. It is neither pure Hebrew Patriarchy nor modern lovey-dovey anti-Patriarchy. Whether it should be extraction-based, I don’t know. IMO, you can’t really avoid that, but YMMV.
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Come to think of it, I don’t think I have ever defined “Biblical patriarchy”, but I would agree with your description. Old Testament patriarchy combined with New Testament teachings on marriage.
Your discussion of exchange / extraction is very nuts and bolts, and yes, that would be part of a covenant marriage, not only between the man and wife, but also between their families too. Dowries and bride-prices were aspects of this, and were usually intended to even the exchange or provide an indemnity. But if exchange / extraction is the whole or even the primary aspect of the interaction, then that’s not a covenant. It’s basically a transaction, which is a neo-modern approach that has developed in response to the overarching gynocracy, or as Derek said, a “modern, anti-hypergamy, egalitarian take”. Transactional interactions also include mothers-for-hire, OASIS, prostitution, sugaring, etc. I suppose the next development will be transactional marriages. Prenuptual agreements are a step in that direction, but these are not enforced sometimes, in which case the gynocracy dominates.
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It is ironic that I often criticize Patriarchy and claim to have a Complementarian marriage (“up to half my kingdom”), but I’m AFAIK the only one on this forum to have ever publicly claimed to have negotiated the terms of my marriage before getting married, just like in an old-school patriarchy. I even had to effectively dower my wife, or my future father-in-law wouldn’t let me marry her. Yes, there was love and friendship, but there were also terms of divorce: lines that, if crossed, were understood to be grounds to end the marriage.
I had to negotiate without the legal systems usually in place in a patriarchy, but at least I had most of the cultural systems. But the point is, I did do those things. Want to know how many followers I have who strive to emulate that approach? None. There are plenty of people who don’t want to though.
Don’t get me wrong, Ed Hurst’s marriage is a miracle, and probably the approach you should all go figure out how to emulate. But I remain curious why my approach isn’t popular.
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Man, this is a critique I’ve had about the Red Pill in general for about as long as I’ve been reading about it! Just couldn’t articulate it very well. Seems like a true effort in futility for every man to try to be a top 20% man. That’s truly impossible, by definition!
I agree with DS — every man individually should be making an effort to become the best man he can. But I also see the truth in what Scott says about adding “if she thinks you’re hot” to whatever statement you’re making. And RedPillBoomer’s comment lends credence to that idea as well.
And for those who like Country music, there’s even a song about it! Some Girls Do — Sawyer Brown
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Actually, it appears I just completely failed on the formatting for the whole comment! Hopefully Jack can figure out what I meant and help me out…
[Jack: Gotcha! How’s it look now?]
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That’s it, thank you!
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I love Sawyer Brown’s music. IMHO they are one of the more underrated country bands of the 1990s. I lived in Nashville in the mid to late 1990s and early 2000s and I still enjoy that era of country music.
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From Liberal, Kansas of all places.
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Waging a cultural and legal offensive is just as important. Since its not possible for all Men to be exceptional.
We must somehow claw back power to restore proper Laws governing marriage that has been eroded since 1839 that set up this “Family Court”:
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Sanctification is making something sacred or holy. In the early church, a fraction from the tithe was selected to be “sanctified” in the Communion meal. But wasn’t the tithe itself sacred? The tithe, or thanksgiving offering (what was corrupted into ‘The Eucharist’), was an offering, but only the portion taken out for Communion (the Love Feast) was for God alone.
None of the things on the list above are dedicated to God, and so none contribute to sanctification.
Studies have shown that if a father attends church with his children, his children are much, much more likely to attend church when they leave the home (something like 70-80% likely). If only the mother attends church with her children, it nearly guarantees that her children will never attend church.
The role of a father in the sanctification of his family—giving it to God—is unambiguous, and it starts with his own actions.
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Derek,
I think you are talking about consecration, not sanctification.
That said, I disagree. I am convinced that bonding, Csíkszentmihályi Flow, Headship authority, humility, trust, and faith (added to the list), contribute significantly to sanctification. Desire, incentives / motivation, and feedback loops are what keeps the ball rolling.
In this statement you have confirmed the importance of Headship authority in both consecration and sanctification.
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That’s precisely what sanctification is and it is tied up with sacrifice. Strongs defines it as “to make holy, consecrate, sanctify”, the means of which is the act of offering (Hebrews 10:10; Psalm 51:16-17; Hebrews 13:15; Romans 12:1-2).
Jesus spoke to that very issue:
The object of the sacrifice isn’t what sanctifies—the mere giving of the tithe—but it is the consecration to God that makes it sacred. Regarding [list of things], “you should have practiced the latter”, but they are not what makes one sanctified.
…and…
So…
…I have confirmed the importance of sanctification through sacrifice and love. What you call “headship authority” includes baggage that does not contribute to sanctification and sacrifice, so I’m not including it.
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Derek, I can’t follow your reasoning. What is the significance of the passages you quoted?
How does your concept of consecration / sanctification relate to attraction and/or marriage other than as a formality and as an ongoing discipline of offering one’s self to one’s spouse? I assume “swearing oaths” in the passage you quoted refers to the marital vows. What are the gifts and sacrifices in this context?
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Correction: Regarding [list of things], “You should [not have neglected] the former”, but they are not what makes one sanctified.
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“Sanctification/consecration/to make holy” are all synonyms for the same thing. There is no meaningful distinction. Sanctification is making holy, pure, and without blemish: an offering or sacrifice to God. The very purpose of sacrifice is sanctification.
Hebrews 10:10 says we are sanctified by the sacrifice of Jesus’ body.
Psalm 51:15-17 says that sacrifices of praise and a broken and contrite heart please God, not physical sacrifices.
Hebrews 13:15 says confession to Jesus is a sacrifice of praise.
Romans 12:1-2 says our bodies are to be living sacrifices, sanctified to God.
Ephesians 5 says to love our wives as Christ loved the church and sacrificed himself to sanctify it (as in Hebrews 10:10). We love our wives and sacrifice ourselves so we to can present our wives as pure and blameless before God.
In Matthew 23, Jesus said it is not the gift that is most important, but who it is offered to (whose altar it is laid at) by saying “Which is greater: the gift, or the altar that makes the gift sacred?”. But the gifts do matter: your list of ‘certain elements’ are akin to the lesser things (offerings of mint and dill) (“You give a tenth…But you have neglected the more important matters of the law. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.”).
Sanctification and sacrifice go together. The gift of sacrifice itself is usually just a token and often not even required (what is offered is subservient to how it is offered which is subservient to who it is offered to).
You talk of sanctification of your wife, but most of these techniques…
…do not sanctify as Christ sanctified the church. They are like mint, dill, and burnt offerings, techniques (‘offerings to God’) that are only good if they don’t miss the point.
I mentioned a father going to church and taking his children, which is ‘merely’ doing the will of God as laid out in the ten commandments. I don’t speak of secondary things like Game or authority or ego or desire or attention, which are at best the means to an end. None of those things can sanctify on their own and if done for the wrong reason will have the opposite effect.
The emphasis on sanctifying your wife (and your family) must be love and sacrifice to God.
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I’ve been thinking lately of the guys I’ve known who did the best with women.
In high school, the hottest girl in class was dating this kid who was a little short and pudgy. I remember he had a bunch of plastic earrings that went around his ears as well as gauges. He was one of the cool kids and a druggy.
I had a summer job at the lake. One of the lifeguards was an absolutely stunning 16 year old girl. She didn’t yet have a license and would be dropped off by her mom. One of my co-workers started “dating” her. He was at least 21 possibly a little older and was of average build and looks. He would visit friends on weekends and sleep with other women their too. He would show up to his lifeguard job hungover and pass out in the chair.
In the military, one of my buddies was engaged to his fiance back home and would pickup attractive women at the clubs every weekend. He wasn’t anything special to look at either. I would work out religiously to get buff and attract women but was still invisible. I saw this kid in the gym once (once!) doing light cardio because he “was getting a little soft” in his words and he could pull women like no ones business.
The only common denominator I can find is they were all scum bags. If that is what attracts women what are Christian men to do? Maybe it is not men who need to improve themselves or change their behavior.
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Unfortunately, scumbag magnets are hardwired into women, so there’s no realistic prospect of them ever changing their tastes and preferences in men. I’m coming to the conclusion that this hardwiring is part of God’s punishment for men, post-Fall.
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A lot of hot chicks are raging scum bags themselves. Beauty does not equal godliness.
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@Bwana Simba.
Its good to get them all to reveal their true Characters. So that the beautiful in bodily form and godly in Spirit may be chosen as wives. Or connected with eligible Men other than oneself.
Lets help more men connect with Rebekah’s, Esthers and Ruth’s.
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John, nobody really wants to hear this. I’ve said it before… the biggest pieces of crap get rode off into the sunset by women. I do not get it.
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IDK. I think you can juke and jive, bob and weave and try as hard as you want to ignore attraction, but nothing happens unless there is attraction, and I mean sexual attraction.
Even a woman with alpha-regret who is looking for resource extraction purposes to get married, is still not going to just grab the first guy she meets. She’s still got standards and pecking order amongst her peers.
I don’t know any guy who would marry if he couldn’t stomach the thought of getting naked with his new wife.
It just doesn’t happen in the modern world.
Also, in the modern world, it’s not that hard to stand out. You call it being exceptional, but you don’t have to be in the top 0.1%. It’s enough to be in the top 25%, and I just don’t see that as a bar too high to clear.
Power?
— Sorry, but the heroin addict worship leader has no power. Frankly, 99.99% of men don’t have any power, so that’s pretty useless as an attribute about which to worry.
Status?
— OK, the worship leader has status. You know who else has status? The manager at Denny’s. The hispanic lawncare guy amongst his social group. Status doesn’t have to be a top tier status. And, maybe confidence and self-assurance can fill in status.
Athleticism?
— The country is morbidly obese. It’s not that hard to not be obese. You don’t have to look like an IG influencer who is on drugs. Just don’t be fat.
Looks?
— Not being fat goes a long way toward fixing your looks. But, also put a modicum of effort into how you dress, how you carry yourself etc. My eldest daughter went to France in high school. When she came home, she said one thing she noticed is that in France compared to the US, the men seemed to care about their looks more. Maybe they wore a cool belt, or a nice shirt, but it was obvious to her. It doesn’t take that much effort to dress a little nicer.
Money?
— Not going to lie. You can’t really fake this one, but you can also choose not to spend all your money trying to keep up with the Kardashians. You can cook at home instead of using door dash all the time. You can wear Vans instead of Nikes. But also, you can push yourself to earn more, for yourself and then decide if you want to share with the women around you.
These things don’t make a marriage successful. They’re the things that elevate your opportunities to date, and like I told my kids when they were little the purpose of dating is to establish whether or not this person is suitable for marriage.
The purpose of your resume is to get an interview, and the purpose of the interview it to get another interview or an offer of a job, and the purpose of the offer is to begin the negotiation leading to a new job.
The purpose of the first date is to see if you want to have a second date, and the second for the third, and so on with each date adding information to help you decide with this person is someone worth marrying. As soon as the answer is no, eject.
Godliness etc, are important things, but they are things for the middle of the process and forward. They are not part of the beginning of the process.
TL;DR
— Character, personality, Godliness, ethics, morals, etc are important during the marriage. Lack of same can, or should short circuit things before a marriage can happen. But, none of these things are what brings someone to the race. Physical attraction gets you to the starting line.
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People who are at binary extremes (knock your socks off sexual chemistry vs. can’t stand the thought of being naked) are the minority in marriage. The average American couple is somewhere in between, having sex once per week. This is perhaps because it is scheduled for whatever evening is convenient on a weekly basis, in between raising kids, working, and all the other duties and hobbies of life. For most, sex is a fun activity, but not the center of their lives.
Attraction doesn’t have to be a burning passion. It just needs to be something that supports having sex here and there, perhaps reserved mostly for special occasions when the mood is right.
Now when you are very young and/or dating — especially if you are not promiscuous — you almost certainly don’t view it that way. But once you are married, it can change really fast, as many in the sphere have attested to.
I’m not convinced that dating-level sexual attraction is a key factor in divorce risk or marital satisfaction for most people, but I could be wrong.
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No, no, no, NO, NO, NO!! I do NOT want to be in a marriage where we just have sex now and then and mostly on special occasions when the mood is right. This sounds like “we don’t have sex after we had our kids.” This sounds like “basically we don’t have sex.” If that’s all I have to look forward to in marriage, for the task of controlling my sexuality and directing it into monogamous Christian marriage, for tying myself down and putting limits on what I can and can’t do, for providing for a wife and multiple children for multiple decades, I’d rather not be married! Forget it! I cannot understand this.
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Caterpillar,
If it’s any consolation, this is not what I’m pushing. Maybe this works for some people, but if it doesn’t work for you, then you’ve got to find another way to deal with your desire according to God’s provision. With God, all things are possible, but it’s up to you to figure out how to find it. I urge you to pray and listen to what God is telling you about this, and go with that, in spite of what others might say.
The theme for next month will be about how men can find redemption and community, and I’ll also address how the mating mismatch and marriage fits into this as well. So stay tuned.
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The only way to escape this fate is to marry a woman who is so incredibly hot for you she can barely stand it. Otherwise, that’s what you’ll get.
My advice for you is to avoid marriage, unfortunately, because unless you’re a top 5% man, a woman just will not feel this for you.
What Derek discusses there is the fate of most married men.
Most men will never, ever have marriages like SAM/Elspeth or Scott/Mychael. Never. Sorry, but them’s the facts. Read them and weep, then move on.
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Then you’ve made your choice, which should be honored.
There is a difference between what you want and what is. I’m describing what is. Whether you like it or not is no matter. It does nobody any good to paper over reality.
You can’t live with average sex, which is what the average married person gets. Perhaps you are not called by God to marriage. But if God called someone to marriage and they declined to do so because of the desires of their flesh, what should we say about that?
…are an unspeakable joy — a gift from God — a thing that makes life worth living.
I’ve had to ‘involuntarily’ give up sex on a number of occasions because of the choices in my life to have children: I have five. Twice now my wife and I have had forced separations (up to 5 months in length) due to required out-of-state medical treatment for my daughter. There have been other personal events that have impacted this as well, all a direct result of my own choices: I knew what I was getting into.
Had I taken the selfish route and prioritized sex (e.g. over children), I wouldn’t have my daughter (or most of my other children). But, if I had done that, I would have been disobedient to God. Coming to terms with this has not been easy, but in the end I didn’t really have a choice if I was to serve God in the way he wanted me to serve.
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Derek,
This is a slight of hand in changing what most men who comment here describe in their marriages. The common factor is little to no sex, but the cause is so, so different. There is a world of difference between “haven’t been able to because of life’s circumstances” and “there is nothing stopping us but her unbiblical attitude”.
Also, we need to be clear on what desires of the flesh mean here. Typically amongst believers referring to something as a desire of the flesh means that it is sinful in nature. At the very least the reference has a negative connotation upon whatever action has been deemed “of the flesh”. That means sex outside of marriage is all sorts of fleshy. But sex within marriage is nothing of the sort.
Marital coitus is ordained by God for the knitting together of two separate people as an integral part of human marriages reflecting Christ and the church. Biblically, sex is prescribed as a guard against extramarital sexual temptation, as a means of enjoyment and one of the primary ways of building bonds with your spouse. Married sex is so important that we’re commanded not to deny our spouse sex, to be sexually satisfied with our wife all our days and that God gave his people laws about sex including that newly married men are not to be sent off to war the first year of marriage. This wasn’t so they could bond over arts and crafts. They were getting to know each other and “know” each other, frequently.
There is little sense in the bible of a ‘ho hum’ attitude towards your spouse regarding sex. Sex is to be passionate between husband and wife and we’re left with the freedom to determine what passionate looks like to us as long as we stay within biblical guidelines.
The views on sex here have a very St. Augustinian tone to them, which is not necessarily a good thing. For those red blooded men who are attracted to their wives attraction does support having sex here and there, and it helps if the kids are spending the night somewhere else because it would be awkward for them to catch you on the couch or in the kitchen or in the office. Those same red blooded men consider most every day that ends in ‘y’ a special enough occasion to share some intimacy with the Mrs.
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Yes! The churchian interpretation has the connotation that “flesh” = sin. It is not, but it is usually a source of temptation to sin. This is why I wrote a section in the previous post about how Jesus came in the flesh, hoping to erode this impression.
Yes, I don’t know where this came from, but I hope it wasn’t from me. I suppose the Augustinian view is correct for some men, but not for the married man.
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The tone is because I’m focusing on what is and what is attainable, rather than what is good and proper.
Except for exceptional cases, men have the following choices: (1) Do not marry; (2) Have an average marriage with average sex; (3) Hold out for an exceptional marriage. If (3) is effectively impossible, then it collapses to (1), a binary choice. Let’s get back to that in a moment.
RPA said:
Jack said:
Paul said, in Romans 7,
Fleshly desires go against God’s will, including — and especially — thoughts that do not result in direct deed (as in the hyperbole of the Sermon on the Mount). Sin does. The Bible defines this explicitly: “For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit [..] to keep you from doing the things you want to do.” Sin are wrongs you do. Fleshly desires stop you from doing what you should do and may also lead to sin, or “works of the flesh”.
Now, back to the tone. Marrying someone knowing that you will get average sex is not sin. Whether or not you should marry depends on God’s call on your life. You are not sinning if you receive average (or no) sex.
Jack’s thesis is here:
If God calls you to marriage, but you reject that because the quality of sex isn’t good enough, then you are following fleshly desires.
If God asked you to marry an unfaithful woman, would you do it?
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What is attainable is most often limited by what we think is possible or impossible which is a common human condition. It’s most likely why you missed #4. (4) The average man who wants better than average sex with his wife works to lead his wife to what he wants for them as a couple. This is another biblical way of approaching sex in marriage and in my opinion is the best of the options listed.
So this is an interesting sentiment because of how limited the concept is. A man is called to marriage or he is not. This is the only binary option in the equation. When is he to be married? What personality characteristics should his wife have? What physical characteristics should she have? Are those aspects of a woman he finds attractive God given (hint, they are) and if so is ignoring his God given feelings about attraction going to be God honoring in the marriage? I could keep going with the questions, but y’all get the point.
So short of God having a Hosea moment with a man, those desires a man has for his future wife and family are a good indication of what will be required of a wife to more easily honor God in marriage. If you want crazy monkey trapeze lovin’ you need to find a girl that wants that too. If you have a robust sex drive you should not marry a woman who only wants sex when she’s ovulating. There is nothing, and I repeat nothing, “of the flesh” for rejecting a woman for marriage because her idea of crazy sex means the lights are on, when the man is thinking more along the lines of blindfolds and handcuffs.
Your question about if God were to ask a man to marry an unfaithful woman is basically irrelevant. A much more pertinent question is one that has plagued men since Adam. If we are to lead our wives in all aspects of the marriage but don’t lead the area of sex in marriage and settle for something less than satisfactory, are we not acting of the flesh in our fear or laziness?
Being a husband is hard work. It’s why in the Christ : church analogy, Christ is the pearl of great price and why his commitment makes the husband the prize in a marriage. When a man makes that commitment to a woman he is signing himself up for a life of effort and responsibility for others.
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I’m talking about options for the unmarried man. I agree that a man may need to choose option (2) and use that as a platform to attempt — and possibly fail — to do (4).
These are fundamental questions of obedience, not probability. Relevance points to the latter. Can you say “yes” if God asks you to enter into a deeply sub-optimal situation, even though you want to say “no”? I picked a hard, less-likely scenario possible, because if you can say “yes” to that, you can probably say “yes” to anything.
If I was concerned about probability, I’d ask this question: “If God wanted you to enter a sexless marriage, would you do it?”, as the probability of a sexless marriage is 10%-20%. This is more likely than marrying an unfaithful woman and less likely than a marriage with average sex, but those are distractions from the point: obedience.
When someone says, “I do NOT want to be in a marriage where we just have sex now and then and mostly on special occasions when the mood is right”, this may not be something the unmarried man can control. Perhaps the unmarried man is not called to married. Perhaps he is called to wait. But perhaps also he is called to marry sub-optimally. I don’t know, but God does, and if he can’t answer the question, no amount of blog articles will answer that question.
Let’s say that 5% of marriages will have near-perfect sexual satisfaction. That means any advice to hold out for a better marriage will be unsuccessful 95% of the time. Unless the Spirit has specifically told you to do so, you cannot categorically tell the vast majority of men not to get married.
Let’s say 5% of marriages can successfully transition from average sex to a God-honoring level. That still leaves a 90% failure rate. Men have to be told that if they are called to marriage, even with their best efforts they may likely be stuck in sub-optimal marriages, because that is where God wants them.
In order to avoid deception, you must tell people that if God call a man to marriage, it probably means accepting average sex. It doesn’t hurt if you also tell them that doing so is not always the end of the world and that there is grace in obedience. I also fully realize that this is considered “cucking” by many.
Yes, there is a huge practical difference, but in the restricted context of obedience to God and sanctifying your wife, there is no meaningful difference at all.
Long before I married, I asked myself whether I’d be willing to marry even if sex was impossible (e.g. due to physical deformity or pain), if I’d stay with a spouse if they became brain damaged or otherwise medically dependent, etc. God heard those answers, and though his response was not what I expected, I saw his hand in it.
Sometimes you just have to be willing to pay the cost, no matter what comes. We are told we won’t be given a burden that is too hard to bear, but you also don’t want to be Jonah, so it is important to work that out with God.
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There’s a big, BIG difference between foregoing sex because of forced physical separations for medical reasons; and being forced to do without sex because your present, able-bodied spouse flatly refuses to have sex with you. And you’ve been around these parts long enough to know the difference.
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There’s also a big difference between no sex with a wife who has become physically debilitated such that sex is not possible; and no sex with an able-bodied, able-minded wife who refuses you. And you know that.
You essentially demand that men Hosea themselves, willingly, even when not called to that. No. I can’t get on board with that. Now, if a man is called to a Hosea existence, OK; but I can’t fathom that most men are called to that. That’s a place I cannot and will not go; nor will I insist that other men toss themselves into that maw.
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No, only if called to it.
God said “Be fruitful and multiply” and instituted marriage for that purpose. Jesus talked of those who do not marry “for the sake of the kingdom of heaven”. Paul emphasized that the unmarried man is concerned with the affairs of the Lord, his attention undivided.
One’s calling will fit into one of those two. We either tell men to marry or to concern themselves with the Lord’s work, but we don’t know which it is (see: Christian mysticism). If it is marriage, then most are going to have to willingly enter into average marriages.
I asked if a man would refuse God’s call to marry a prostitute or enter a sexless marriage, because that would mean there were limits to his obedience, not because it was likely. If there are limits to obedience, then nothing else is relevant, including sex quality or the reason for infrequent sex (voluntarily or involuntarily).
If a man is not called to celibacy for the sake of the kingdom of heaven, then he is almost certainly called to an average marriage. One can obey God’s command to “be fruitful and multiply” in an average marriage with average sex.
God commanded that his people be fruitful and multiply. If 5% of elite men can enter an elite marriage and 5% of men can build into one, that means 90% of men can never achieve the kind of marriage they desire. Christians cannot fulfill God’s command if 90% of men opt-out.
I’m fine with any man who God has called to celibacy or God called to wait for someone specific in the future, but it is not acceptable to say “I will not marry if I can only have sex once per week” if God has called you to marriage.
That’s fine. If you genuinely believe that few men will be called by God to average marriage, then it behooves us to tell unmarried men that they are almost certainly not going to ever marry or have sex, that they should not waste a moment’s time on what isn’t going to happen, and to instead to focus on the Lord’s work. Is this truly what you believe?
My opinion is that the average man is called to marriage, and that obedience to that requires sacrifice and a very likely okay-sex marriage.
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No. “Marriage” today means sacrifice and very likely a poor- to nonexistent sex life. Men are not called to that. The average man is not called to that. No man is called to that.
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Derek,
Do you believe women are called to marriage like the men, as you mentioned above?
If they are called, I’m unable to reckon why God would then allow their marriages to fall into the 90% failure rate due to less than a God honoring level of sex which is completely under the woman’s control. It seems that God would be giving women a pass.
I think the 90% failure rate is due to marriages where the women were not called to marriage, but got married anyway for other reasons.
A man who is called to marriage has to be certain that the woman he plans to marry is also called to marriage which means she desires a God-honoring level of sex. Otherwise, he will be stuck with a woman who was either not called and should not be married or not be married to him.
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Joe2,
I disagree. I think anyone with a supercharged libido is called to marry for the simple reason that if they don’t, then they’ll end up fornicating. This is exactly what we see happening. Marriage is being postponed for ~10 years while that time is spent on the carousel under the guise of “finding one’s self”, “getting an education”, “season of singleness”, etc. The 90% failure rate is due to women fornicating with HV men for an average of 10 years before marriage, and then getting married as a last resort. They all missed the boat of marital bliss.
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Joe2,
There are times when I consider my own experience in marriage, how it was influenced by feminist ideas and how the microcosm of my family fits into the macro view of marriage as God designed it. When I think of marriage as God’s institution that is to reflect his relationship with us and look at its current state, I can’t help but think that God is allowing the troubles as the punishing impetus for us to enact change. He’s let the natural consequences of our sin, i.e. Isaiah 3:12, hit us squarely which we should take seriously.
Derek’s argument for men being called to marriage and then settling for average comes across as the mediocre acceptance of the status quo. Maybe he does not mean it that way, but from the response from some of us it is what he’s communicating. Here’s the issue with that approach. God spits those status quo accept the average churches out. He loves us deeply and passionately, with His willingness to put His Son to death just to restore His relationship with us serving as the only indication of how great that love really is. We don’t understand it and probably never will, not even in heaven.
Those of us in Christian marriages are not called to “average” marriages and “average” sex lives. So if a man is married God has called him to marriage and has given him a wife to be his helper which includes using her body to satisfy his desire for sex and children. This means that the standard for sex is “any time either spouse wants to”, the standard for the wife is submission and obedience to the husband God put over her, and the standard for the husband is to love, provide for and protect the woman God gave him. This is how God designed marriage as the means of reflecting His love for us through Christ’s relationship with the church.
Nothing about how God designed marriage is even remotely close to average in today’s western society. In fact if you consider how rare a biblical approach to marriage by husbands and wives is these days you have all you need to know about why thedeti references Elspeth and SAM’s marriage as if it’s a unicorn sighting. Men need to walk from women who expect average in marriage and look for women who will honor God with their commitment to whomever their husband ends up being.
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Not settling, but acceptance, yes. Let me see if I can explain.
When Paul sent the slave Onesimus back to Philemon, he merely requested that Onesimus be freed. Paul could not command—in the name of God—that Philemon to do so. Onesimus was obligated to accept slavery if that’s where is life took him.
When Paul talked about couples where only one person was a believer, he stressed that the couple should stay together if at all possible. A Christian husband was not to cast aside his marriage no matter how bad it was, so long as she was willing to stay with him. Paul certainly understood that he was telling people to stay in potentially very difficult marriages. He keyed in on love and sacrifice as key personal behaviors towards one’s spouse, sanctifying (but not salvation) that unbelieving spouse.
We live in a deeply fallen world. We must accept that others will sin and that those sins will impact us. This is no less true in marriage. It’s a seemingly trite statement, but true nonetheless: no marriage is perfect.
Settling implies giving up. My focus on obedience is to point to acceptance, not surrender. I don’t think men should give up the idea of marriage, especially those with supercharged libidos.
Both of these are failures: celibacy for someone called to marriage and a poor or sexless marriage. If you are unmarried and not very young, you may already have reached this point and your life’s path will be one of personal sacrifice and, yes, suffering. If failure is the only option, can you accept your lot in life without grumbling so that you can be sanctified? (Philippians 2:14-16)
Jesus promised quite a bit of suffering. Not being allowed to fornicate to satisfy your desires is one highly relevant example, but there are many more. The relevance to marriage is that if you are in the worst case—a sexless marriage—it is not you who sins. You remain holy, blameless, and sanctified in the sight of God. You should remain committed to not giving up: to continue seeking the perfection of God, whether or not your marriage ever reaches that point.
Acceptance, but not surrender.
Other points:
(1) A man has many ways to improve his chance at a good marriage, but nothing guaranteed. I make it sound hopeless to avoid deceiving, but that I actually think it isn’t all that impossible. Others may disagree.
(2) An average marriage is tolerable and often better than that. I could cite facts and studies, but let’s skip that for now. Many people can and do enter into marriages and are happy with them, despite the fact that they that would be considered horrible by the men on this forum. A tolerable marriage ain’t great, but it is an option and if it comes with children, it may be worth it for that reason alone. Don’t reject an average marriage out of hand. Perfection is for heaven.
(3) Most marriages—including the average ones—have higher happiness indexes than most single people. God literally designed men and women to couple and very few people are happy single.
(4) Marital satisfaction varies over time. This is true for every marriage of any significant length. This is normal.
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@Derek
I agree – God said to be fruitful and multiply. But that is NOT the full extent of the marriage relationship.
If you want to pull out scriptures, how about:
or
I think I would be willing to accept a Hosea marriage if that’s what God ordained for me. But that seems quite uncommon and I would hope God would make it pretty clear to me if it was His will. That seems normal for Biblical characters that God had a very specific mission in mind for (e.g. Moses at the burning bush and Saul’s Damascus road experience).
I’m also totally understanding of prolonged abstinence due to medical issues or the like. Neither spouse has much control over that. That’s part of “in sickness and in health, for better and worse”.
But this is much different than being married to a perfectly able-bodied woman and just not having sex because… reasons? I mean, you’re sleeping in the same bed every night for pity’s sake! I can imagine times in life when once a week might be as much as can be managed. But if sex is on birthdays, anniversaries, and the occasional date night (which is what I’m hearing when I hear “now and then and on special occasions”), that is beyond absurd to me. Why be married?
If you want to look at it from a transactional/extraction point of view, maybe the woman IS marrying for the sake of the resources she can extract. But there are TWO parties in a marriage. If that’s the case, the man should expect to extract something from the woman and for most men that would be a reasonable amount of sex (where “reasonable” is certainly more than a handful of times a year).
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To me, an “average” marriage means I probably don’t get to marry a 9 or 10 (but a girl who is similar in SMV to me who I still find attractive, though she might well be somewhat “plain”), and we probably won’t have electrifying swinging from the chandeliers sex every single night of the rest of our lives (but she’ll still be enthusiastic about having sex with me often).
I understand what you’re saying about average marriage in the sense that, by definition, most people will be in “average” marriages. And if you tell them to not accept that, they just won’t be married. I would be happy to be married to an “average” looking girl as long as we both understand we can’t pine after being exceptionally attractive and focus our sexual interest on each other and seek to please.
Dunno if that is clear. I sense there is a quibble in this thread over what “average” means. Average amount of sex? Average subjective “quality” of a marriage? Average adherence to Biblical marriage principles? Lots of different things in the equation…
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When I’ve been talking about ‘average marriage’, I’m referring to the amount of sex. An American married couple has sex once per week. Half of all married men can expect to have at least that much sex.
Abraham was willing to sacrifice his son. He didn’t have to go through with it, but he had faith and he was considered righteous for it. He had faith that God would work it out, even if he didn’t know precisely how it would happen.
There isn’t a single man here who would wish that kind of marriage upon you, but knowing that you’d sacrifice if God asked you and trust him to choose for you (whatever the cost) is proof that you could love a wife as Christ loved the church, sanctifying her.
Because marriage has many more benefits than sex. If my wife were to die, I’d probably choose to be single rather than enter a sexless marriage, but I think I’d consider even that slightly better scenario you gave. You probably think I’m insane, but it depends largely on her reasons.
I think some men have in mind marriages where the core issue isn’t really just sex. Presuming there isn’t a problem with the husband (e.g. abusive), underlying a sexless marriage is probably a woman who has many more problems with obedience to God than mere refusal to have sex. Such a woman often disrespects, if not completely hates, her husband. She almost certainly is clinically depressed or has some other mental health diagnosis. You see these bitter women post on social media all the time. If such a woman suddenly had sex with her husband every day, it wouldn’t fix the relationship (although women are such fickle unpredictable creatures, it might actually flip some kind of switch in her brain, so who knows).
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Average is average. The thing about the phrase “average sex” is that it fondles both men’s and women’s FOMO panic button. I think that is what we are seeing in this thread. In principle, few people are willing to settle for average, even though most are unwilling to do the work to be exceptional. I described the other shortcomings of the exceptionality model in the OP. That’s why I think the best standard for anyone to adhere to is in the continual self-improvement (or “growth”) in the direction God leads. Each man is accountable to himself and to other men, and ultimately to God.
That said, “average sex” is not so bad. Panties are dropping, cherries are popping, poon is sopping, @sses are hopping, tits are flopping, and there’s no stopping until the man is done copping! Then there’s the mopping. Men orgasm nearly 100% of the time. Women orgasm 40% of the time, and more if the man has “skills” and learns her buttons. The average frequency for marital sex is one time per week, more often for younger people, and less often for older people. Of course, all these statistics vary by individual.
The thing is, even the most spectacular sex marathon may not contribute towards sanctification, whereas for others, the average once-a-week may be blissful. This is why I have emphasized sanctification as the proper goal for married couples to have, rather than any metric on attraction or sexual performance. Most of the debate here is about how a lack of attraction leads to a lack of sexual performance.
Many of the problems and issues covered here at Σ Frame concern the below average and less than ideal situations, e.g. disrespect, lack of bonding, sexual withholding, ignorance about the habits and benefits of Headship, and so on. We need to compare our individual situations with the ideal, identify what is lacking, work towards completion, and pray for healing and restoration.
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I think some issues of physical attractiveness can also be solved by making sure you got the right nutrients for your body aside from exercise and proper sleep.
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You don’t understand the meaning of the word “power”.
Here are the definitions that are relevant to this discussion
1a(1): ability to act or produce an effect
…..
b: legal or official authority, capacity, or right
2a: possession of control, authority, or influence over others
…..
3a: physical might
b: mental or moral efficacy
c: political control or influence
In other words, the “heroin addict worship leader” does have power, because he has “influence over others”. He shouldn’t. He should be removed from his position, and excommunicated if he remains unrepentant, but that’s a subject for a different post.
The point is that there are many ways a man can seek authority, or influence over others. By which I mean that a man can seek to take responsibility for others, and he should.
A man can seek to be effective, authoritative, influential, and/or physically mighty in business, academia, the church, the military, government, sports, charity, civic organizations, and lots of other spheres, depending on how God gifted him, and on his calling.
— The worship leader has influence over the congregation. That’s power.
— The bible study teacher has influence over his students. That’s power.
— The manager who effectively leads a team at work has efficacy, authority and influence. That’s power.
— The police officer has legal authority. That’s power.
— The military NCO or officer has legal authority. That’s power.
— The business owner has authority and influence over his employees and contractors. That’s power.
— The guy who runs a local charity has influence, and hopefully efficacy. That’s power.
— The husband and father who “governs his household well” has power.
Some of those men are more powerful than others, and their power is very context-dependent, but it’s still power.
Men sabotage themselves by thinking that only 0.001% of men have power. That causes them to think “can’t win, may as well not try”, instead of looking for ways to use their God-given talents to exercise dominion like God intended them to do.
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In addition to what Oscar said, Men have power that they’re not aware of.
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Jack,
Other than “don’t pander to women” (good advice), everything those women said was vague, nebulous, and/or confusing. That’s a big part of the problem.
The things that make women attractive to men are simple and straightforward.
The things that make men attractive to women (other than raw physicality, and wealth) are a lot more difficult to define.
Take charisma, for example. What the heck is charisma? You recognize it, when you see it, but can you really define it, much less teach it, or learn it? I could be wrong, but I doubt that one can.
That’s the negative. The positive is that men have a much wider range of qualities (tools?) to use to make themselves attractive to women than vice-versa.
For example, the funny fat guy can be very popular with the ladies. I’ve see it happen more than once.
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They’re talking about something that cannot be put into words, but you can tell by the looks on their faces that it’s real. That’s the effect of masculine presence on women. Women see men as “gods”, but men don’t know it. If a man becomes aware of this, it greatly enhances his charisma.
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Jack: “In addition to what Oscar said, Men have power that they’re not aware of.”
Oscar: “The things that make men attractive to women (other than raw physicality, and wealth) are a lot more difficult to define.”
Take charisma, for example. What the heck is charisma? You recognize it, when you see it, but can you really define it, much less teach it, or learn it? I could be wrong, but I doubt that one can.”
Thinking on what Jack and Oscar wrote, I realized that there is a common principle regarding what women find attractive. Men do have power over women because of how men can make women feel. That ability to make women feel is what can make or break men regarding attractiveness to women as men can influence those feelings in either direction.
The concept of attractiveness being linked to the power of influence appears to fit with the greater female tendency towards solipsism and their feelings based emotional nature. Any man who has based arguing with a woman solely on a factual basis has run into the following. The facts of the matter are indisputable, but the subject of the argument derails because she argues based on how the facts make her feel and how those feelings influence her view of the situation instead of what they actually are.
The definition of charisma is — “compelling attractiveness or charm that can inspire devotion in others” and the definition of charm is “the power or quality of giving delight or arousing admiration”. So we have the power of giving delight that can inspire others, which is why charisma influences both men and women but is especially effective with women. Other aspects of men in the LAMPS acronym can all be viewed as attractive based on how a man makes a particular woman feel about herself, him, life in general, and who knows what, as long as her feeling is “good”. Tying this in with Oscar’s observations of hefty humorists, we can see that these men have a means of accessing women’s emotions and making women feel good, because that is what laughter does.
Her feelings are the common denominator in attraction, which is why Oscar very accurately pointed out that female attraction is very hard to define. This is the result of a feelings driven filter on experiencing the world that makes each woman’s view unique (solipsism). It is also why women themselves have trouble defining what is attractive even though they can offer situational examples and know what attractive is when they experience it (notice I didn’t say “see it”).
The common denominator for female attraction to a man is how he makes her feel about herself and by extension how he makes her feel about the world around her. It’s simultaneously that complicated and that simple.
On the other hand, I can define attraction for men in one line: Cindy Crawford’s 1992 Pepsi commercial. Every man who was a teenager in 1992 knows what I’m talking about.
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I forgot to include this in my prior comment. Watch the YouTube video in Jack’s comment keeping in mind that attraction for women is how a man makes her feel. All the talking in circles is based on how a guy makes her feel. Neither can put their finger on the concept because of how fickle and inconsistent their emotions are.
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Jack,
I agree that it’s real, and difficult to define.
RPA,
“Hefty humorists”. Ha! I like that!
Confirmed.
Agreed. This is why working on his LAMPS is so important to a man. Just being in the presence of a man with a high LAMPS score makes a woman feel good in multiple ways, much like being in the presence of a sweet, pretty, young woman in a sundress makes a man feel good in multiple ways.
Also confirmed.
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@ Jack
This a misinterpretation of what I have said so far.
~ I’m one of the ones who initially pointed out that Game does not produce sanctification. One cannot rely on attraction to produce sanctification either. One must deliberately do it. E.g. Be the head, love her for the purpose of sanctification, etc.
~ I’m advocating that men should consider increasing their attractiveness if they want a wife and are having trouble getting dates. This includes any man not just men on the cusp. A chunk of this is by actually doing what the Bible says anyway.
~ I’m advocating that Church communities help improve men’s status and other factors that can help relative hypergamy and affirm men and women flee sexual temptation.
~ I’m not advocating attraction is “all that.” But it helps. Most men and women can’t get a date from the opposite sex if they don’t find them at least somewhat attractive. At least get your foot in the door.
None of these are mutually exclusive. Not sure why you’re trying to pigeon-hole my opinion into some type of works of the flesh and ignoring my agreement with building Church communities or putting words in my mouth saying only attraction matters.
Sigh. Let’s try again.
Godly activities expressed in a certain way (PSALM + masculinity) is attractive.
Godliness by itself is not attractive. It has the capacity to be so if expressed in a certain way.
Again, Pastor, worship leader, Bible study leader vs Church janitor, parking lot coordinator, etc. In most Churches, all of these men are doing all they can for the glory of God. Only some are sexually attractive to women.
Another example. Prayer at home is not attractive. Prayer in a group where you’re leading it? Some. Prayer at a Christian conference? Yeah. It’s the leadership and status associated with the context that makes it attractive.
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Being an attractive man is the carrot side of the equation. It helps my wife respect me the way that her cultivation of beauty helps me love her. I think the answer Jack is looking for lies on the stick side of the equation. The criminal penalties for adultery and incest that the Bible calls for. The excommunications for the same that the Bible calls for. The governments and the church of old used to enforce those penalties, as info’s video points out, and marriage for the unexceptional was better. But bringing that system back is largely outside of my circle of control. So the carrot is my only option.
There is one aspect to bringing back the stick that is within my circle of control. My church suspends people from communion when they are found in a serious sin. I agree with this in my head. But damn was it difficult to see one of my friends go through that process. I should have listened to my elders who said he was unrepentant, and encourage him to repent. Instead I listened to his whining and gave credence to his denial. He’s gone from bad to worse, and now we are no longer friends. If I am in that situation again I want to do better.
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I recently moved my family, and before attending a new church, I asked the pastor about church discipline. They’ve excommunicated unrepentant men and women for sexual sin.
Yet another supposed impossibility proved possible.
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^^^ Me, when I attend churches full of married couples in their 20s with arm loads of toddlers, which everyone keeps telling me is impossible.
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Sampling bias. The successful is self-selected in your area. But not always true everywhere.
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I never said anything about “true everywhere”. My point is that people are doing the supposedly impossible.
Hint: That means it’s possible.
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@Oscar
If there are eligible women. Then it certainly may help connect them to the right Men.
Then there will be fewer complaints of this nature.
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They’ve announced a wedding and/or a birth every Sunday I’ve been there. Those toddlers grow up, become eligible young men and women, and they perpetuate the cycle.
It’s almost as though it’s supposed to work that way.
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It’s like the Mennonite and Church of the Brethren churches I grew up in.
Shake the dust off your feet.
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I’ll have to agree with Oscar on this one. I’ve said from the start that my marriage is a miracle. We surely have a lot to discuss about standing in the place where miracles like that are common, as the Bible promises they should be, but I testify that it can be so. I knew before I met my wife that the Lord was in charge of the process. The answer to the common man’s Red Pill conundrum is the same answer to every other faith issue we face in this life. It’s not just a question of how we ready ourselves for marriage, but standing in the place where He provides the things we could never do for ourselves.
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A similar thing happened to me with my marriage. In looking back on how it all happened, I realize that even though I was Blue Pilled to the core, God was not. He was operating from a “Red Pill Lense.” For instance, while I didn’t really have a grasp of Eve’s fallen nature and feminine wiles so to speak, He most certainly did; and I can see how He steered me accordingly, which by the way was NOT the way I was going to steer myself. If it had been solely up to me, I would have married one of the two church CC riders I was enamored with.
I think the thing that made a difference in some way was my obedience to Him and trust in Him with the opposite sex; not perfectly, not saintly-like Trust, however I avoided a few things that I could have taken advantage and I think God honored it. I really do in looking back on it now.
Things like having sex with the church women. I had clear cut opportunities with three of them (my LTR I’ve written about before, her good friend and one other in the singles group), and possibly two more that I dated a couple of times (not sure on this one as I only went on two dates with each of them, not the magical three dates and F-ing that the Sphere recommends). However, I treated all of them like sisters-in-the-Lord instead of trying to F them by the third date, and I think God honored it.
Oh, and the girl I did marry, she has shared with me her thoughts of me at the time. They’re flattering, but more importantly, they lined up with much of what we talk about here on this blog in terms of attraction cues.
The other thing I did back then that followed what we talk about on this blog, is that I threw myself into my mission, my Air Force Officer work, and I worked on improving myself: the gym, my education, etc. BUT not to get chicks, BUT to excel for myself and I guess you could say as a man. All this factored into getting the girl I married and have been married to for 33 years now. So there is something to all this we talk about here on this blog.
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That’s true, and also irrelevant. The fact is that 60% of American men are fat and weak.
Only a tiny percentage of the obese have the will and self discipline to ever lose their beer gut, so the vast majority of them never will. No one can help a man who won’t help himself, so there’s no point in worrying about what can be done for “every man”. It only matters what can be done for the men who are actually willing to help themselves, which the empirical evidence tells us is a very small percentage of men.
In a country full of fat, weak men, the man who isn’t fat or weak is – by definition – exceptional, which means that it’s never been easier to be exceptional, if you have the will and self discipline to not be fat or weak.
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We have someone who calls himself “naturallyaspirated”. Now we need someone to call himself “forcedinduction”.
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So Jack, I agree with you on this post. The idea only hunky monks will make it or even becoming one will get you a great wife is inaccurate from what I’ve seen. What will get you a great wife is getting inside a sphere with eligible women and get lucky. At my church and many of the local churches, the men I talk to seem to agree there are highschool girls and married or engaged, but not a lot in-between. I know many men that in no way are attractive with very attractive and seemingly godly wives.
I have no problem generating attraction with women but I can’t get into that sphere and that’s about it. Online dating is a used meat market I refuse to b a part of. I go out to eat and drink alone all the time and many women take passes at me. They are not who I’m looking for. On the other hand, it seems inevitable that I will meet one and she’s gonna think, “How in the hell did this guy not get taken?”
From my observations, getting a great wife young and not doing the dating hookup, winner-take-all grinder, helps guys’ self-esteem. The first girl I had out of highschool was great, just stacked, motherly, soft. Then her parents divorced and she just broke. It really hurt my confidence for a long time. I was lucky to just walk out of the gate and grab a girl with her proportions and attitude. I wasn’t good. The guys don’t know anything other than early success and what they don’t know doesn’t hurt them.
The Christian dating sphere is not an exact replica of the world’s dating. It seems to end much earlier and the women are more content with average men, much less looking back. The attractive married women at church don’t show me much attention which is good for them and their husband’s, the married women in the rest of the world show me more. I’ve seen many very pretty girls with several children before 25. I’m not witnessing a lot of hopping around looking for the 1,000th and perfect option.
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That’s no better than being a hunky monk. Just hang around places with eligible women and “get lucky”? Yeah, I’ll pass.
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Well, you’re already married, so…
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What I was trying to get at is men who are around qualified women are the ones who get a great wife. Not men who are the most qualified 1-10 if they don’t get around women. And you can’t pick a Christian woman out of a crowd in our society. Many wear crosses and don’t go to church and many attend but wear nothing. All the married guys I know met wives in some Christian community.
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The story of John C. Wright’s conversion experience perfectly highlights Christian mysticism and marital sanctification (in this case a wife sanctifying her husband). In my opinion it should be required reading for anyone interested in either thing. For further reading, here is his follow up account.
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