So I recently wrote a Tweet about men who are scared of being in love.
As you can see, I called them cowards. I stand by that. However, a lot of people responded negatively to this Tweet (plenty of positive responses too – as is the nature of polarization). I mentioned in the Review for Vizi Andrei’s ‘Economy of Truth’ built within the Twitter model is the need for hot takes and polarization. The phrase ‘don’t hate the player, hate the game’ springs to mind.
As a result of this inbuilt modality, Twitter isn’t the place for nuance; that’s what this blog is for.
So for all of you who take the time to read this article, thank you. I will unpack my reasoning in the hope you will understand my position better.
Love Good; Promiscuity Bad
To start, we need the premise I base this Tweet on, which is as follows: humans are meant to pair bond.
We have the capacity for promiscuity, but it is societally damaging. This is backed up by being traditionally outlawed, both socially and legally, in every period of history aside from today. So, on a societal level I believe in love and pair bonding. This is outlined in greater detail here.
I also believe in love on a personal level as I think that the love between a man and a woman pushes both to become the best versions of themselves by limiting their negative tendencies and encouraging their positive ones. As well as this, it is fulfilling. When you have love – and the support that comes with it, life is bathed in a golden hue. It’s a beautiful feeling which everyone should be able to luxuriate in.
Three Kinds of Men
Despite this, there are those that argue against love. In my experience they dispute its existence out of either ‘rationality’ or fear.
The overwhelming majority of people who argue out of rationality are either playboys, or (more commonly) wannabe playboys.
There are also other immature and incomplete men who believe they are arguing out of rationality, but in reality are arguing out of fear: fear of intimacy, fear of pain and fear of commitment. These individuals are the main focus of this Tweet.
There is a third group, however; men who have been hurt previously and never recovered. We will get to them later.
In essence I believe that playboys are selfish, stunted men who damage society through their actions. A specific branch of hedonists, they prioritise personal pleasure at the expense of societal cohesion. In their case it is especially damaging, as sex always involves another human being. Because of this, there must be a weight of responsibility attached to sexual intimacy; trivializing it into a pursuit of leisure hurts individuals and damages culture. I have outlined these views several times, in different ways in different essays (see here, here and here) but I’ll lay it out again.
Less Sex
In our promiscuous society we are now having LESS SEX THAN EVER. This is BAD. I’m someone who believes a good sex life is integral to personal satisfaction – for both men and women. I want everyone to have more of it – in a safe environment. This means loving and caring relationships.
Now, I’ve seen it argued that because people are having less sex, this means society is not actually promiscuous. Rather, there is a push towards creating the perception of promiscuity. Whilst logically this makes sense, I disagree. I’ll explain why.
First things first, I think there is an internal shame that takes place when we act promiscuously (entirely separate from culturally enforced shame). This is ingrained within our biology.
So when both men and women sleep around – and are encouraged to do the same – this intrinsic feeling of shame eventually becomes associated with ALL acts of sex. This leads to sex being linked with negative emotions. As a result, less and less people have satisfactory sex and, over-time, its regularity phases out.
In turn this damages relationships. Sex is the glue of any loving relationship and if there is a deep-rooted mental hurdle which must be overcome before truly great sex can occur, it can stunt a couple’s intimacy. Obviously this problem is surmountable, but its’ difficulty means many give up before ever achieving it.
Congruent Shame
On average people also have FEWER sexual partners than in recent history – although the lack of record-keeping means it’s probable in the more distant past most had fewer sexual partners. This too doesn’t seem to make sense considering there is a greater acceptance of promiscuity. Again, I would say the internal feelings of shame previously discussed, coupled with cultural encouragement creates a dissonance which also damages sexual relations.
In the past your internal feelings of shame matched up with the cultural feelings of shame. This made the act dangerous and therefore sexually exciting. This created a, generally (all of this is obviously generalisation. Not everyone’s individual experiences match up – we’re talking trends), positive relationship with sex as cultural expectations were congruent with personal feelings. You’re supposed to feel an element of shame for what you did, so it’s ok that you do!
This means the dissonant feeling would never be associated with sexual intimacy. However, after a while the societal shame would become strong. To escape this, everyone would have an eye to settling down so as to be able to have sex acceptably, encouraging marriage. As I argue in this essay, I believe this also leads to a more rounded character.
The increase in sexual partners would also have been in safe relationships, rather than dangerous hook-ups. Consequently, in a shame-driven society people have more sex, more sexual partners and still end up in long, committed relationships.
This is one of the interesting second order effects shame associated with pre-marital sex and explains why it’s necessary and exists within all societies. It’s a (dis)incentive system.
Unconscious Malice
I’m of the opinion shamelessness is far more damaging than shame. Let’s face it; we’re all disgusted by a woman who acts in an overtly sexual manner on the street or in a club. So too are we disgusted by a man who acts aggressively sexually in the same settings. It’s their shamelessness around sex which creates this feeling. When people do whatever they like because they don’t feel embarrassed by their actions, they hurt others and act with (perhaps unconscious) malice. They aren’t taking into account how their behaviour ripples out beyond themselves.
So, to tie this in with my original point.
Many responses to my Twitter post were pointing out that I shouldn’t shame men for feeling fearful of love. I do not agree that we shouldn’t shame people for negative behaviour. I would also argue that whenever these people feel shame (in a shameless society, no less) it is an internal reaction to their own behaviour. If they don’t want to feel shame they need to change!
This is the whole point of shame; it incentivizes positive behaviours by stigmatizing negative ones.
This is directed at the second group of people I discussed previously.
Hard-Hearted
I will now address the third group of people likely to react negatively to my Tweet, men who were hurt and never recovered. Honestly, I do have sympathy for these people. I once heard Roman McClay make the argument that humans can only be betrayed so many times before our heart hardens and cannot recover. I’m inclined to agree with him, honestly.
In fact, he makes the (sourced) argument that betrayal and malice damage the brain by shrinking the hippocampus. This leads to people becoming stuck in time, paranoid and unable to accept or adapt to change.
Sounds horrible, right?
I have a feeling that most of the disagreement comes from people who have suffered as a result of female malice in the past, causing this issue to occur.
Balancing what I believe is societally good (shaming both men and women into committed, monogamous relationships) with what I believe is individually bad (shaming damaged men and women) is a tough ethical conundrum which I still have to fully reconcile.
For the Greater Good?
This boils down to a macro vs micro argument. In this case, I lean towards fixing the macro. Within this is my belief that for societal cohesion we have to occasionally hurt individuals, in this case by shaming them. As unpalatable as that sounds, it’s the truth.
Unfortunately, the people who require hurting are oft-times the very people who have been most damaged by societal promotion of promiscuity. With a hook-up culture, loyalty is diminished and therefore a hurt heart and shrunken brain discussed prior is more likely. Society also currently incentivizes women to act in a poor manner (Divorce Courts, issues surrounding childcare and access to children etc.) leading to damaged men.
If we reintroduce shame we would, in time, go some way to prevent this pain from occurring by shaping culture back into a promotion of loyalty over individual pleasure.
This is a really tough issue to parse out. I’m just trying my best to align some dots. As a result, I would love to open a discussion about this. Tell me what your thoughts are – DM me or comment here.
Fear is the Mind-Killer
Now there’s another important piece of context that got lost within my Tweet. I said it is the ‘fear of pain’ which makes these men ’cowards.’ This is an important qualifier for refusing to love. Anyone who makes decisions based on fear is making poor ones. Whether it’s fear of pain, fear of failure or fear of reprisal, it leads to faulty judgement.
So anyone who takes the decision not to love based on fear alone is a coward. If it’s out of resignation or world-weariness, as comes with the heart-hardening discussed prior, that is a different reason.
I have heard men talk about not wanting to get into a relationship because they might get divorced and lose half their belongings before they’ve ever been in a relationship! That is what I’m talking about. They’re letting the fear of (real) societal trends trump any individual agency they have.
I particularly dislike men who have had bad experiences of marriage poisoning the minds of men who’ve not yet got married. This is the mirror image of sour, middle-aged feminists telling young women all men are pigs.
Not all relationships are made equal, in the same way not all people are equal. Respectively, because one person had a poor experience of marriage doesn’t mean you will. Instead of infecting the minds of other men by railing against love and marriage, these cowards should focus on educating the younger generation about vetting a high-quality partner and improving their character and value in order to attract one.
Red-Pill Problems
This transitions to another point; the idea of Sexual Marketplace Value (SMV). This concept holds some truth, but is oversimplified. Maintaining a relationship is an entirely different set of skills to getting into one. It’s a complexity system which is based in evolutionary and social principles, but varies entirely based on the individual make-up of the two involved.
This is where the sexual dynamics of Red Pill philosophy breakdown. Each relationship is a complex and entirely unique synergy of a pair of individuals. It cannot be compartmentalised into a set of prescriptions and rules.
Red Pill philosophy has a lot of strengths for developing as an individual, understanding what it means to be a man and getting into relationships, but this is where its true (and vital) flaw lies, to my mind at least.
We must all be careful of falling into self-defeating traps, and when men act like a casualty of society and female mistreatment, they are embracing a victim mentality. If you do this, it will hold you back and prevent you from hitting your potential.
This is particularly essential with regard to living a life of contentment. I argue we need to dial in three main areas to live contently, one of which is relationships. The most important of these is your partner, followed by your family and then friends. By refusing to open up to love, these men immediately cut themselves apart from one of the key areas for becoming content.
It is self-defeating to do this based on fear alone.
So I stand by my position.
Cowards.
Thanks for reading.
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