A Response to GrifterShifter’s Comments

Consolidating one’s Masculinity requires a man to be responsive, knowledgeable, and get the facts straight.

Readership: All
Theme: Consolidating Masculinity
Length: 2,500 words
Reading Time: 14 minutes

The Rabble Rouser

GrifterShifter is a new commenter.  She first appeared on 2023/1/20, criticizing Kevin Samuels as a grifter.  Over the next few days, GS left a few comments under several posts, all having the same flavor of criticism.  When she started commenting on the most recent posts, she brought up many inflammatory ideas (e.g. immigration, monasticism, tr@nsmaxxing, vaginismus, etc.) that were waaay off topic and effectively derailed the discussion.  To top it off, her comments were disdainful towards Red Pill lore and took on a condescending tone towards men in general, especially Incels, MGTOW, et al.

I posed four questions to GS with the intention of eliciting a more solid and reasonable response out of her.

1. How is the secular monasticism you described any different from the Black Pill, MGTOW, or other similar men’s movements?
2. How should vaginismus be addressed in order to set proper expectations for a LTR?
3. What do you think the church should be doing differently to help young people set proper expectations for sex and marriage?
4. Finally, how does all this relate to Consolidating Masculinity?

The majority of this post will review GS’s flimsy responses to these questions and offer a better informed and more reasonable assessment, followed by a summary statement at the end.

Re: Secular Monasticism

GS wrote,

“I think if monasteries were made attractive enough and provided real brotherhood, incels would gravitate to them.  True, most aren’t religious, but the religious ones would.  The non-religious ones could join secular communes of brotherhood, which men should be building to help each other.”

I’m not someone who would know much about this, but on its face value, what GS describes seems like it might be of interest to a number of younger men who are disappointed with what they’re finding in life.  However, I think it would be a hard sell to convince younger single men to come live in an all-male commune or on a farm and work for little more than basic sustenance and the experience of it all.  As I stated in SMP Paradigms Compared, there needs to be a purpose, and in this case, it would have to be a shared purpose that would unite and motivate single men.  GS played the violin on the necessity of “not being alone”, but as Rowena pointed out, this is not a sufficiently motivating purpose.

The problem with this whole idea is that GS is trying to micromanage what she considers to be a problem with someone else, or a group of people in this case.  Stuff them in a comfortable cage, saying, “Here you go.  Problem solved.  Now, BE HAPPY!”  It would be like someone telling a group of lovelorn women, “Can’t solve your problems with lurrve and finding a man who will commit?  OK.  Be a sugar baby, or go join a rich man’s harem.  You can F one day a month and have the leisurely lifestyle you desire while your benefactor is busy with 29 other women during the rest of the month.  All expenses paid.  Go post photos of your bedroom escapades and lavish lifestyle on FB, IG, and OnlyFans to get the attention you need.  But if you don’t put out, if you mouth off, or fail to produce an heir, you’re back out on the street.  Now shut up and BE HAPPY!”

The reason this doesn’t work is because it removes agentic free will from the equation.  This approach essentially excises Christ and imposes a worldly solution contrived by man (or a woman in this case).  If one is to be assigned, coerced, or forced into doing something, then one cannot be forced to be happy in doing so.  It violates the integrity of the soul.  It is essentially an imposed anesthetic that will produce more ħɘ11 than heaven.  This is not to say that a monastic life is not the answer to some men’s struggles, but it cannot be imposed.  It has to happen organically and by the power of God.

LastMod was the first to recognize this as a dead end “solution”.  He took a step back and considered what might be GS’s purpose in making this suggestion… ???

Re: On Becoming a Monk / Nun

GS wrote,

“One of the great failures of Protestantism is the lack of a monastic option.  As a Protestant, if I want to remain single to serve God exclusively my whole life, I will be looked at as a failure simply for not marrying.  That goes for both women and men.”

I agree that there is pressure on young people to marry and procreate, especially within the church.  There always has been, especially from mothers and fathers who wish to see their family lines continued and to enjoy having grandchildren.  From an evolutionary viewpoint, one is a failure if he/she does not procreate.  From a moral standpoint, one is a failure if one is sexually active and refuses to procreate.  This is the Catholic stance on sex in a nutshell.  From a Christian viewpoint, it all depends on whether it is within God’s purposes for one to be married and to procreate.  If God calls them to do so, and they do not, then maybe those who know them best are correct in their assessment of them as a failure.  Of course, only they themselves would know if God has truly called them to be married / have children or not.  But if a person is sexually active, it’s a good indication that they ought to be married.

Re: Men’s Movements

GS wrote,

“[The Black Pill / MGTOW] aren’t movements.  Nobody’s moving.  They are sitting online all day, every day.”

This is a tangent from the main topic, but I should explain my reasoning.  I would regard these sociological phenomena as a movement — not a social activist movement, which GS is probably thinking of, but a cultural movement — a fundamental shift in the life choices of a large number of men.  MGTOW is currently estimated to be 10-26% of men.  There are no demographic estimates available yet on the Black Pill, but I would guess it’s in that same ballpark, with some overlap.  There was no Black Pill nor MGTOW, nor men calling themselves such more than a decade ago.  Now there are.  I would call that a movement.  That doesn’t mean they aren’t doing anything, as GS says.  What GS means is that they aren’t doing anything for the Feminine Imperative.  In reality, it means they’re doing their own thing and going their own way, just as the name implies.

Re: Vaginismus

In response to my second question about how vaginismus should be addressed, GS wrote a generic and unsatisfying answer.

“Google it, research a bit, then seek treatment.”

I am getting the impression that GS is someone who suffers from vaginismus.  She’s told us a lot of information about this — waaay off topic — but yet she has not given us any transferrable knowledge on the subject, probably because it would be humiliating.  At some point, she’ll need to start quoting solid research, or else establish herself as an expert on the subject (i.e. someone with first-hand experience), in order to gain any further traction with readers on this subject.  (That is why deti et al. were asking for her age, sex, marital status, etc.)

Anyway, I did just as GS said.  I Googled “vaginismus” and found some information.  Then after doing some reading, I realized that she had probably never done what she was asking others to do — to Google it.

About vaginismus, GS wrote,

“It’s actually not that rare, just un talked about.”

How rare is “rare”?  Is below 5% rare?

“The prevalence of vaginismus in the general population is 1-6%, and this ratio rises to between 5% and 17% in sexual dysfunction clinics (Konkan et al., 2012).” [1]

GS said that the problem is underreported and misdiagnosed.  As a high water mark, can we assume that the prevalence in the general population is similar to what appears in sexual dysfunction clinics?  Or can we say that every woman who defrauds her husband out of regular marital relations is suffering from vaginismus and they just don’t know it?  In that case, that’s about 10-26%,* which is slightly higher than the frequency of those going to the sex clinics.  At any rate, it offers a very clever excuse for women who apparently don’t know what they’re missing out on.

I also learned that it’s aggravated by familial dysfunction.

“The family structure in which the individual is raised is a significant factor for the development of several problems, including sexual dysfunctions.  Repressive, frightening, threatening and extremely moral loveless parents, alcoholic father, serious arguments that can even lead to violence, and extremely protective merciful parents are common in women with vaginismus…” [1]

Poor relationship with her father; Not experiencing God through her parent’s marriage — More stuff we’ve covered here before.

According to the research paper [1], the success rate for women undergoing treatment for vaginismus (using Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and vaginal penetration exercises) was 63.8%.  Success largely depends on the woman’s willingness to undergo treatment, practice CBT, and do the penetration exercises as a habit.

Patients who were reluctant to perform the vaginal penetration exercises had a lower rate of recovery.  The researchers noted that it was common for these patients to perceive vaginal penetration as a “violation” of their bodies.

“In conclusion, patients with vaginismus are aware of their condition and treatment is possible if they want.  There is no difference between treatment methods in terms of success rates.  However, the patients are more resistant to treatment if they have a history of vaginismus in their relatives or in the presence of a partner who say it is his or her fault.”

Note the last part of the last sentence.  Translation: Self-consciousness aggravates vaginismus.  IOW, a lack of self-confidence and trust, which we already know will put the brakes on the beaver.

GS wrote,

“…if she’s young, healthy, hormones are balanced and has at least a moderate libido, and has a healthy sexual self-esteem (despite anti-sex Church indoctrination), if she does not show interest in sex I would question my bedroom skills as a husband.”

That’s not what the medical literature says.  Granted, there’s not much research on this, but the paper I cited above [1] suggests that the biggest issue with vaginismus and the treatment thereof is more or less psychological – a cold family upbringing coupled with a fear of vaginal penetration and seeing it as a violation of the body.  To this, I would add, that “violation of the body” is the defiling and humbling aspect of sex (for a woman) which is what makes marital sex validational and contributes to sanctification.  IOW, women with vaginismus are women who have a psychological block and don’t want to be defiled and humbled in the bedroom.  The reasons for this might vary from one woman to the next, but we can all take a guess as to why…  Insufficient Tingulation.  (Deti is always right, dadgummit!)

* It is interesting to note that the percentage of women with vaginismus is exactly the same percentage of MGTOWs. Coincidence?

Re: Faulty sex education within the church

GS repetitively mentioned the failure of the church to educate young people about sex and marriage.  This is a topic that is covered rather frequently here.  I and most readers here would agree that the church has dropped the ball concerning Christian education about sex and marriage.  There are many problems in changing this, including…

1. Not having anything better to teach.
2. Current leadership is not willing to teach or even rejects what we’ve already identified as being beneficial.
3. Things that are beneficial are difficult, embarassing, or unpalatable to women, and church leaders will not address these issues because the majority of churchgoers are women.
4. Building the momentum of a “new and improved” social environment that is free from the corrupting spoils of feminism.
5. Cultural indoctrination has hypnotized and blinded the majority of young people, including those in the church.  As a result, they are not “hungry” enough to seek out anything better.

On this problem, GS did not offer any suggestions other than monasticism.

Re: Expectations for LTRs

GS wrote,

”Satisfying sex is an expectation people have for marriage.  Sexual expression is very closely tied to masculinity and femininity.  If our bodies (or anything else) prevent us from fully expressing ourselves sexually in our marriage, it will prevent us from “consolidating” our masculinity or femininity.”

GS should have stated this at the beginning of her first comment about vaginismus, and she would have received a much warmer response.  But again, she hasn’t offered any transferrable knowledge here.  The larger issue with her comment is that she is assuming that masculinity / femininity is dependent on one’s sexual function.  I suppose to a small degree it is, especially for the married, but it is a mistake to make this blanket assumption because it would imply that all Black Pillers, incels, and MGTOWs are excluded from ever being masculine.  Men deserve more respect than this.

Final Statements

Stuff like this makes me certain that GS is a female, because this sounds just like a woman’s viewpoint — light on facts, heavy on Feeelz, half-baked logical assumptions, and always leaning towards the Feminine Imperative.

GS left 10 additional comments that I did not “approve” for posting, mainly because they were excusing women’s sexual sin, misinformed, petulant, solipsistic, dancing from topic to topic, and disrespectful to men in general.  I grew tired of the tiddlywinks and decided that GS had had sufficient air time to make her position and disposition clear.  Interestingly, not more than 10 minutes after I decided to stop approving her comments, not one but two other women popped in to resume the fray!

Coincidence?

Afterwards, I reflected on all this fracas and realized something deep.  The past two posts were encouraging men to find their Mission and Purpose in life through knowing God.  And riiight on cue, some stranger shows up to pose a messy distraction from the Message.

Coincidence?

I’m proud of the many commenters who were able to quickly and accurately size up GS.  Of note, Deti and Rowena left excellent responses to GS’s hamsterbations.

I need to apologize to the regular readers.  I often state that men should not admit women’s arguments, but that’s essentially what I/we did here.  And look at the mess of confusion it has resulted in!  Granted, it was not clear that GS was a woman in the beginning, but as soon as this was apparent, I should have nipped GS’s comments in the bud and kept the focus on the recent topics.  But…  I was on vacation, I didn’t have a computer, I didn’t have the proper mindset, and I wasn’t in the mood to deal with it.  I usually view life as an adventure and a continual discovery, but this is one of those times when urgent action was necessary and should have been taken.  Because of my inaction, I’ve had to do more work to address all the issues that have come up and settle the confusion, and I can only wonder about how much my laxity has allowed attention to be drawn away from the main message of men finding their Mission and Purpose in Christ.

OTOH, maybe THIS IS the larger takeaway for us.  Perhaps taking action in a timely manner is one of the most important lessons we can learn about Consolidating Masculinity.

References

1. Anğın AD, Gün İ, Sakin Ö, Çıkman MS, Eserdağ S, Anğın P. Effects of predisposing factors on the success and treatment period in vaginismus. JBRA Assist Reprod. 2020 May 1;24(2):180-188. doi: 10.5935/1518-0557.20200018. PMID: 32301599; PMCID: PMC7169926.  [Read online]

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