Emerald

The most common non-utilitarian perspective on human relationships is the perspective that most people operate on when they're connecting deeply with another person. They aren't thinking, "Hey, this is a nice value exchange with this person. I'm getting a lot from this transaction." They are just enjoying their time connecting with the other person without focusing on transaction or value exchange. And you can reduce that down and analyze the situation for value-exchange and boil it down to pure value exchange if you wanted to look form that angle. And that's true from one vantage point But you'd miss so much only operating only from a reductive utilitarian angle. Similarly, it is also true that a connection between two people is just a collection of atoms and neutrons operating together in a certain way. But it is a reductive angle of truth that misses the full breadth of what's happening. Consider that it's true that value-exchange is a component of all human relationships. But that reducing human relationships down to utilitarian value-exchange is a falsehood borne out of hyper-rational reductive utilitarian thinking.

As long as it's coming from that place, I see no issue in it. I just have experienced that sometimes the driver towards NoFap or anti-porn perspectives comes from shame in the sexual instinct.

Transaction implies one person giving up something of value for another thing of value. So, transaction is a type of value sharing... but it is a specific kind of value sharing. But like I said, value-sharing is an angle that you can interpret human relationships through. And you could reduce everything down to value-sharing if you wanted to look at it from that angle. But it isn't the only angle... and seeing it as such will block you off from non-utilitarian perspectives on human relationship. Careful not to get locked into a particular paradigm for interpreting relationships.

Rites of passage are necessary in society. And these rites of passage do require struggle and the crossing of thresholds. And there are already plenty of them that most people experience (first kiss, driving, graduating, etc.) We just don't think of these are rites of passage because they're so mundane and baked into our society... as all rites of passage tend to be. But some are more specific. I'll share one that I've participated in personally that was a lot of fun. For example, there's a fun and common rite of passage in the South where the adults take the kids out in the woods to go "snipe hunting." And snipes aren't real. But the kids don't know that. And the adults tell you about how scary the snipes are and how they're attracted to the color red. And in the middle of the night (prime snipe hunting hours) they lead the kids out into the middle of the thick of the woods where there are no clear paths. And the adults tell the kids that they're going to go to another area of the woods and scare the snipes their way, leaving the kids totally alone in the middle of the dark woods. And they usually have the kid either having a red shirt in their hands or some other red sack to try to catch the snipes. Then, the adults start shouting and acting like the snipes have gotten to them... and that the snipes are coming. And my Uncle Joseph and my 2nd cousin Tim took me, my cousin Tyler (my uncle's son), and my 3rd cousin Colby (Tim's son) out deep into the woods to go camping and snipe hunting. Colby had already been snipe hunting, so he knew what was going on... and just kept his mouth shut. But my cousin Tyler and I were led out into the dark woods. And Tyler was made to take off his red shirt and use it as a snipe catching sack. And I was a bit older... like 12. And Tyler was 9. So, I was scared myself but Tyler totally freaked out because he was a little kid. But his fear put my mind more on consoling him than on the snipe attack (and I was just imagining them as little kiwi birds that live in the bushes anyway). My fear was more about being in the middle of the dark woods and not seeing the spiders that might be crawling on me... as I had already had to brush 3 off of me earlier that day. But it's little things like this... or even more universal rites of passage that help a kid face with the requisite hardship to strengthen themselves for adulthood.

I can understand and relate to wanting challenges and pressures to prove your toughness and increase your stress and pain tolerance. But putting it through the lens of this conformity to societally prescribed Masculine values seems to lead to less resilient, more socially stunted men who feel fragile in their Masculine identity because they are being expected to conform to a stereotype of Masculinity that's unrealistic and isn't even a communal pro-social stereotype... and often extracts value from community instead of adding to it. If you can show me any evidence that men trying to conform to the socially prescribed Masculine standards in modern day adds value to society more than it detracts, then I'll reconsider. But for now, I see this drive to create a Masculine hive mind as a net negative for community that prevents male individuation. Just look around you and you'll see the scourge of Masculine social conformity at play... squelching the real thing, which can only be found in true individuation from the herd. You can even find this on this forum, where the attachment to conforming to Masculine standards is preventing many of these guys from being authentic and developing themselves. But there are some values that guy friends hold each other to that are valuable. When I was an older child and younger teenager, I went through a 5-6 year phase where I would challenge myself to match up to many of the standards put on boys around tolerating pain and remaining stoic because I saw it as a necessary challenge if I wanted to be treated with respect. It was easier to be respected and valued back then if you had a Feminine appearance but had a Masculine personality... as women were seen as superior-looking and the male personality seen as the superior-personality type. So, there was a lot more social respect in coming across for a woman if you were a pretty girl with Masculine preferences. But despite the protective reasons why I was doing this, it strengthened my resolve in many ways in holding myself to these standards of stoicism. And when I was about 11 years old, I had this whole phase where (at summer camp) I would challenge other kids to scratch their nails down my arms as hard as they can in order to prove to them and to myself that I wouldn't flinch. And it was a matter of great pride to show that I could tolerate any amount of physical pain unflinchingly. And it was a very physical summer camp with lots of physical activity. So, I was getting hurt often (accidentally). But each wound gave me an opportunity to show my toughness and stoicism. Like once, this really mean kid named Calvin and I were playing indoor four square or something like that with other people in the summer camp group. And we both ended up jumping for the ball and we ended up colliding with each other and falling and sliding for many feet on a hard linoleum floor. And it hurt SO bad... worse than any of the other injuries that I ever sustained there. And Calvin was crying his mean little eyes out. And I wanted to also. But instead out of pure resolve, I swallowed the pain and pretended I was impervious to what happened... and took the opportunity to rub it in Calvin's face that he was "crying like a little girl when it didn't even hurt". Then, when I was about 13, my friend Cecilia and I invented this pain-tolerance game that we called "Buddy, Friend, Pal." And in the game, one person would start and say "Hey Buddy" and punch the other person on the upper arm (hard) but pretending like it's a light and playful punch that you'd give to a friend that you haven't seen in a while. Then, the other person would answer back and say, "Hey Friend" and punch back on the arm. Then, the original person would say "Hey Pal" and punch back. Then, we'd just go back and forth coming up with as many synonyms for friend as possible... like "Chum!" "Dude!" "Bro!" "Partner!"... landing a punch with each new synonym for friend until we ran out and started saying insults. And Cecilia and I would do this as a pain-tolerance competition... where we had to go along with the ruse that we're just old buddies lightly punching each other in the arm as a gesture of endearment. And the challenge was not to flinch or let on about pain. And whoever flinched first was the one to lose. Our upper arms were totally black and blue after a day or two of playing the game. And our parents got upset, so we had to stop playing. So, I can see the value of guy friends putting these types of pressures on each other... as it helps you push the boundaries of tolerance and face into pain and fear with the help of social pressure. And if all this Masculinity driver was only towards things like this, it would be fine. But all I see when I look around is a ton of insecure men who feel like they have to mold themselves into being someone else. So, I think it's time to evolve past the driver towards socially performing an external gender role for the sake of social conformity... and instead to tap into the real Masculinity and real Femininity underneath all these rules.

But Orion's primary target audience is Incels... and other Manosphere guys. The perspective he shares is tailored towards men that feel disempowered with women to give them comforting narratives about men's power over women... and to give men empowering intellectual narratives to operate through to give them a greater illusion of control and to insulate them from feeling vulnerable about women. So, any guys who are here that are self-admitted Incels would probably enjoy his work because it is targeted at making them feel safer and comforted so that they stay in that intellectual hug box where they can live in the cold comfort of that paradigm and in a state of solitary superiority and invulnerability.

Yes, there's plenty of value-sharing in relationships that doesn't operate transactionally. For example, if two friends go to watch a movie together, they're both getting the value of shared company. But it isn't a transaction. Also, value-sharing is just one angle through which to look at relationship from. There's also a love perspective within relationships that doesn't operate transactionally... nor does it operate with regard to value-sharing. For example, a person who loves someone can sacrifice their own happiness and even their connection with the other person just to know the person that they care about is better off for it. Similar to what @Consept said, if you love your dog... you're not going to just trade your dog because there's another dog who can do more tricks.

Very well said. That's exactly the impression that I've gotten from Orion from the few videos that I've watched... as his perspective really panders to men who feel disempowered around women. But it just creates a mechanistic way of operating, such that it brings connection into an intellectual zone where everything works like clockwork... when actual human connection doesn't operate that way.

There's a world of difference between making note of the value-exchange component of a relationship... and sliding into an ideology of transactional thinking and only seeing relationship as transaction.

Very well said. Like you said, it's not as to say that there isn't a value-sharing component to relationships. And being aware of value-sharing can make sure that everyone is getting what they want and need from the friendship/relationship. But overly focusing on relationships from a transactional point of view tries to bring relationships into a colder, utilitarian, and more logical framework... like a business transaction of trading value for value. And this framework will keep a person in rational mind-mode rather than arational heart-mode in interacting with other people... which will block any sense of vulnerability or intimacy from being given or received. (Which ironically, will make them come up short in the value exchange with someone who's seeking the value of connection and intimacy. And they will instead have to trade with others who want to trade objective utilitarian secondary boons, like money, opportunity, status, etc.)

Now, I'm not trying to minimize your addiction at all, if that's the way you think about it. And of course, it's probably not healthy to consume pornography every single day... even if daily masturbation is perfectly fine. But based on my sexual relationships with men, it's quite normal for a man to ejaculate once a day or once every other day. That's probably about average for most men to ejaculate like 3-7 times per week. And if you don't have a partner, then it makes sense that you would find another outlet for sexual release because that instinct is still there. From the way you write about it, I have a sense that you believe you should just be able to fight these natural instincts... and that you feel shame when you give into them. But that would be akin to feeling shame in giving in to the drive to eat, sleep, or go to the bathroom... even if sexual release isn't seen in the same light as these other bodily instincts. I bring this up because, every now and again, I'll get on a discovery call with a young male prospective coaching client who wants to do NoFap. And 100% of the time so far, the guy is dealing with shame issues... about human sexuality, about how his body operates, and for very normal human urges. So, if you're sure that it's an addiction, then I respect that. But framing it this way could obscure a deeper issue about shame in the body... and getting into binge and restrict cycles with regard to sexual pleasure because of the resistance to the sexual instinct.

I have reasoned that it's a hold-over of an adaptation from an earlier phase in human history where these types of inter-male pressures to conform to certain standards of Masculinity served an important function within a small tribe or a village. Sort of like how there are certain rites of passage where men have to prove their manhood by going through some kind of trial. For example, there is a particular tribe where the rite of passage for a boy to become a man is to stick his arm in a sheath full of large ants. And the ant bites have a particular type of toxin that creates extreme pain and swelling. So, to become men, these boys must endure the intense pain of the ant bites. And this makes sense as an adaptive rite of passage within that context... because if someone's kid lands in a pile of those ants, you're going to need men who are willing stick their hand in the ant pile to fish out the child. These rites of passage also make sense in these small villages and tribes because the men there live with their mothers in the mother-land for their entire lives. So, they have to find a way to separate from the mother when they must live in proximity to their mother. And they do this through the rejection of the Feminine... since between their own mother, the mother-land, and Mother Nature... they must find some way to individuate from these layers of the mother. So, all sorts of social rituals were created to differentiate men from the Feminine. But with industrial and post-industrial society where danger is rarer and we are living separate from our mothers, the mother-land, and Mother Nature... these inter-Masculine pressures to conform to certain standards of Masculinity don't have much of a practical function anymore. But the desire for the respected identity of "the man who has stripped himself of Femininity and earned his manhood" is still romanticized and yearned for by many men who want to use it for the sake of securing social status... despite its limited usefulness in the context of the contemporary post-industrial world. But it's more of an ego/identity thing around proving one's self man enough in our current era... as opposed to something constructive and adaptive towards the outcomes of community building and maintenance like it used to be in more communal eras. It's kind of like if there was a rich tradition of ditch diggers who were really well-respected by society because ditch-digging was REALLY helpful for survival in tribal and agrarian times... such that the echoes of respect given to those ditch-digging identities echoed into modern-day pop culture. And men who have never HAD to dig a ditch in their lives would all start clamoring for the "good old days" before digging machines. They may even start the practice of vanity ditch-digging as a life-style choice and to try to be seen as higher status. And they'd have all sorts of special insults for men who failed to live up to ditch-digger status. And all these ditch-digger fetishists who treat ditch-digging as a religion would start pressuring each other about who would be the better ditch digger if they were in a past fantasy world where they needed to dig ditches. And they'd start trying to destroy society and progress so that the lost glory of ditch diggers could rise again. And they'd beat up other guys who didn't prefer ditch-digging... but instead preferred other activities.

I wasn't meaning you in particular want porn to be banned. I just notice that people who are heavier porn users tend to have very negative views on porn while other people feel more neutral about its existence. So, I was rebutting the claim that coke users would think coke is a net-positive to society... and that regular porn users would be more likely to think porn is a net-positive to society. With coke users, my impression is that they're under no illusion that coke is a societal net positive. And with heavy porn users, they tend to be the most anti-porn crusaders out there.

It's still going to be a turn-off because of the vibe of a man always trying to escalate things sexually. And that's true regardless of how much of a sex fiend the woman is. It's like the vibe of Quagmire from Family Guy when a guy is like this. And an unattractive vibe is just an unattractive vibe... and it will kill her libido dead. Men have a more attractive vibe when they are more in control of their sexual impulses and fairly detached from them. This communicates a sense of stability, maturity, and a lack of desperation. And it also communicates that a man has a higher degree of trustworthiness than a man who's all horn-balled up all the time. But to get even more specific, women don't like it when men are needy. And sex is... a need. So, a man who's always scrounging for sex every chance he gets comes across as a needy desperate man. It's much better to take a detached but willing frame and only escalate like once a week, and leave the rest to her. It's similar to how, if you ask someone if they want to get something to eat but they're not that hungry yet. And so they say, "Sure, I could eat." This would imply that they're well fed enough that they are not needy or desperate for food. To take this analogy into sex, take the detached frame of "Sure, I could fuck."

Thank you