Emerald

Again... you're focusing on conforming to old-school values from the 40s as opposed to influencing others with your own values. And it's a show in unsavvy weakness and submissiveness to the conservative paradigm. That's the difference between someone who asserts their power and wins... and those who conforms to the other side's framing and reasserts the normalcy of the other side, even as the other side is certifiably cuckoo crazy.

The bold above is exactly where you assert your position and the normalcy of your position. And then, you put your opponent on defense and having to defend their own neuroticism. The whole game is to put the opposite side on defense.... and you do this by going on offense and press people about "Why are you so obsessed with trans people?". NEVER play defense. It's a losing strategy.

100% People on the Left forget that we have that power too... and they act like everyone's mindset is already set in stone. But people are so malleable and prone of the forces of normalization regardless of where it's coming from or what their starting point is. And Right wingers are the only ones actually molding the clay... while Left wingers are like 'the clay is set in stone' and we have to work around it and avoid imposing our will at all costs.

At least that walk she's going to take will only take an hour.

I'm not saying to frame it as the "culture war"... because that too is right wing framing that we've conceded on for far too long. It isn't a culture war at all! It's normal people who want to live their lives in peace... while others are neurotic and controlling about it and want to be busy-bodies and stop them from living their lives in peace. And frame it as the Golden Rule... and minding your own business... and not being a neurotic weirdo asshole who obsesses about what's in people's pants or what goes on in people's bedrooms. And frame it as a pro-freedom stance... while demonstrating how anti-freedom the opposition is who tries to control the lives of strangers. It's honestly not that difficult to frame these dynamics in a normal light... because normal people tend not to obsess about gay and trans people. And normal people tend to be unphased by these types of differences and have a live and let live attitude. Then, frame the majority of your message around working together towards an economic populist vision without letting petty neurotic hatreds divide us and get in the way of our common cause to fight against the corruptions of the powers that be.

People are actually quite malleable and easy to influence, if you know how to wield power and you give them repeatable narratives that normalize a certain point of view and de-normalize and stigmatize its opposite. All you have to do is convince people that anti-wokeness is abnormal and associated with strange socially maladapted people... and people will run from it at 1000 miles per hour. And luckily, anti-wokeness is associated with many socially maladapted people, so it isn't that difficult to find examples. And the entire reason why wokeness has the stigma that it does... is because the right wing understand power and has brand-jammed basic concepts like "accept people who are different from you" and made that which used to be a mainstream reasonable viewpoint seem unreasonable by associating it with ugly blue-haired freaks who shout at the top of their lungs. Also, politicians on the left are almost never focusing on these identity politics issues... and they still get tarred and feathered with it because the right wing has imposed its frame so thoroughly and imposed their power onto society so well. And now, even a Joe Biden gets viewed as an extension of weirdos with blue hair shouting at the top of their lungs. That's what power is... you get to set the tone for what's normal. And all this "the left need to distance themselves from wokeness" talk is just more right wing normalization... and just adds more and more power to those narratives. People on the left need to stop playing defense and trying to fit into people's current paradigms (which have been both subtle and overtly influenced by the well-oiled right-wing propaganda machine)... and start recognizing that we have the same power to influence people's paradigms. We just refuse to wield that kind of power... and instead feel like we need to work around and work with the right wing propaganda. But we don't have to do that. We can actually wield power and impose our frame on reality instead of conceding on everything all the time like little philosophical cucks.

Kamala did abandon all identity politics. She was VERY careful to avoid it. And she lost. So, we already know that that's a losing strategy. The reason why Trump is getting people over to his side is because he is demonstrating certainty... and influencing people into his way of thinking and he isn't giving concessions to anyone. Stop conceding to the right wing on these things and stand firm with conviction. It just adds more fuel to their fire when you're acting responsively to whichever way the wind is blowing... as opposed to imposing your own vision. And we don't need to create a lukewarm vision where we concede to the right wing framing on social issues.

That's a misread of the situation based in the belief that everyone's paradigms are fairly set in stone and must be conformed to and never influenced. And that misread will keep Democrats losing the power game, over and over. Regardless of who the candidate is, you need a strong economic populist vision and the right power-based tactics.... and you need to be able to assert a dominant paradigmatic frame and assert that that paradigmatic frame is just normal and that disagreeing with that frame is fringe and wacky. The right wing does this all the time... and that's why they have an outsized influence of people's paradigms. I've seen lifelong hippies who were anti-racist in the 60s go Facsist! That's how powerful it is to assert a dominant paradigmatic frame onto reality. So far, every single Democrat candidate has been weak-sauce... including Bernie Sanders because there is a tendency to avoid imposing their paradigmatic frame onto reality. Instead, they try to play defense and fit their economic vision (or lack thereof) like a puzzle piece into people's current paradigms without trying to influence the paradigmatic center of the Overton Window. And there is no way to win if we're aren't challenging and influencing the Overton Window.... and brand-jamming every single shred of anti-woke propaganda as neurotic and embarrassing.

None of that would have helped her cause. Taking time to state "Don't worry. We're anti-trans too." isn't going to be a winning strategy as you'll just push away more progressive members of the base without energizing anyone else to vote for the Democrat. The only thing that will work is a statement of unity and an acceptance of differences... and then putting forward a Social Democrat Populist vision for our economy.

I've seen that too in my research into OCD that I've done for my daughter where there can be a particular person we're trying to avoid harming or to maintain a relationship with. There was one woman who has Homosexuality OCD, where she has to check and check and check to try to be sure she isn't gay. And it's because she fears that she will realize that she is gay and have to end her relationship with her boyfriend... or that it means she doesn't love her boyfriend. So, hers is about avoiding the dreaded outcome of hurting her partner and losing her relationship. I also had a client who had the same thing, who had a fear of disappointing a family member... as this family member would sometimes make homophobic comments. And there is the compulsion to check and re-check and re-check to make sure that the dreaded loss won't occur.

My daughter has OCD. She takes Prozac for it, and it's really helped her as her intrusive thoughts aren't quite as paralyzing as they were before. And since looking into OCD more deeply for her sake, I've realized that I have it as well (the Pure O version of OCD)... though I haven't sought diagnosis. I wish I had known that as a teenager because I didn't know what was going on with me because I had this crippling fear of harming people emotionally and physically... either accidentally or on purpose. So, I had Harm OCD as a teenager... and then I also had Religious Scrupulosity OCD as a child. And there was also this sense of needing perfect knowledge of good and bad to ensure that I'm good... and a checking and re-checking to seek truth. And it was all based around having to check and check and check to make sure that I'm not a bad person... which came to me in different forms over the years. And I still have it now... though it comes up in different ways. My experience has been that OCD attaches itself to whatever the most feared outcomes would be... and there's this anxious checking to try to make sure that those feared outcomes don't come about and to even give a sense of control over things outside of my control through checking when intrusive thoughts arise. Like my major fear was about being bad person and being rejected socially because of it... and having to check and check and check to make sure I wasn't bad. But it can be different for different people. Is that something that you've experienced as well, regarding using the checking to try to avoid certain dreaded outcomes or to get certainty that the dreaded outcomes won't arise? And do you think the avoidance of dreaded outcomes relates to the anxiety you experience when you're around people in public? Also, I used to get a lot of panic attacks when I was a teenager and I used to smoke weed... which really exacerbated my OCD tendencies and put me in this really paranoid and fearful state, even when I wasn't smoking. I haven't smoked weed in 16 years or so because it really messes with me. But I currently work with Hapé a couple times per week. Hapé is a ceremonial tobacco that grows in the Amazon rainforest, and it helps to disconnect from the constant mind-spinning and grounds you more in 3-d, physical relatity. It makes me wonder if you're using the tobacco for the same effect... but from a different frame of mind, more like a self-medication.

You're welcome! One thing that can help in these repeat dynamics is to understand that you're repeating it to put yourself back in the emotional state that an unconscious part of you has stayed in since those chaotic events in childhood. And that's because, when we experience traumas and chronically unmet needs, we fragment our personality to cope with it... and we relegate those fragmented off parts of ourselves to the unconscious (the Shadow). And those parts stay frozen in time in the Shadow... and they keep looping around like a broken record, forever stuck in those vulnerable and painful feeling states. And it allows the rest of your personality to move on and grow... while that fragmented off part of you stays stuck in a state or arrested development experiencing and re-experiencing the pain on repeat on an ongoing basis until you become conscious of and resolve the pain this part of you is constantly dealing with. So, this part of you in the unconscious has its NUMBER ONE GOAL to put you (as the conscious personality) back in the same painful experiences from childhood to get you to reconnect with it. And it does this so that the unconscious repeat pain cycle can finally resolve and this fragmented off part of you can be reintegrated and grow past that moment. But the issue is that the conscious personality is fairly numb to these unconscious dynamics... and so it's much easier to stay in that less vulnerable state, using coping strategies to avoid the pain that your Shadow Aspect is constantly feeling. So, this Shadow Aspect is likely unconsciously manipulating you into getting into relationships where the same pattern will play out... with partners who are dealing with the same pain but the opposite coping strategy. And in order to get this pattern to stop playing out, you'd need to allow yourself to be present with the pain this Shadow Aspect so yours (which has bore the brunt of the traumas around the chaos from childhood) is going through. It keeps using this relationship dynamic as a means of attempting to get you to face it and to be with it in its pain by making you feel the way it constantly feels. So, you would need to consciously and deliberately feel the feelings associated with the chaos. Here's a video on made on this topic...

@integration journey If I rule out the general dynamics on dating apps... which seem to create these types of dynamics because people can treat dating like shopping... Then, I would wager that there may be some kind of internal dynamic with the OP that's playing out externally. What I've noticed in working with people over the years is that there tends to be these repeat patterns that happen based on early experiences... and there's a tendency to unconsciously reconstitute the same type of childhood familial dynamic in facets of adult life, including but not limited to romance. So, what I would ask the OP is @Hugo Oliveira 'Did you ever experience this kind of 'on-again-off-again' pattern in childhood relative to connection with your parents or care-givers?' Almost synchronistically and inexplicably, we can find ourselves caught up in the same painful cycles from childhood.... which we have unconsciously and subtly reconstituted in order to bring us back into the original pain.

Yep. Every accusation is a confession.

I have personally made the first move in most of my romantic dynamics, as I get very specific crushes... and that's one way to make things happen with the guy you like. I tend to find myself attracted to more introverted reserved guys... sexually and otherwise. And when that's the case, you kind of have to give some pretty strong indicators of interest, or they'll just hold back from making a move to be polite and fear of causing discomfort. (which is a green flag in my book and also incredibly endearing) And the majority of the time, I have had feelings for men who would qualify as average in the eyes of society. And I've been rejected plenty of times... and it's always difficult because, if I'm indicating my feelings towards a guy, it's because I really like him in particular. And there's only one of him. So, if he rejects me... those strong feelings will be forever unrequited. So, it is harder in that sense... because it's not like being rejected by a random guy, where you can just move on and approach another random guy. Instead, it's being rejected by the guy you've already had feelings for for the past 3-6 months. But as a young teenager (like 13 years old) when guys first started showing attraction towards me, I had a 3-6ish month phase where I was really (overly) flirtatious because I was adjusting to the new dynamic of many guys taking a sexual interest in me. And it was before I realized the social norms that made it okay for guys to be forthcoming about their sexual interests but not socially acceptable for me to do so. And I was rejected by plenty of random guys during that time who I showed interest in... often times in a harsh way. Like, I remember once that I was at a school dance (age 13), and I didn't have someone to dance with. And there was this quiet shy nerdy guy who was also there being a wall flower. And I approached him and asked him if he wanted to dance... and he looked at me with disgust and like I had two heads and defensively said "No!" And I was always VERY unpopular in years before, so nerdy guys were always my type. But I had just gotten a new wardrobe and was dressing in the "hot girl" style at the time and I had just developed a nice figure. So, I had just had this big glow up and my social skills got better that year. So, I sometimes wonder if he thought (because of my appearance) that I was joking or being mean to him or something and doing a prank... or if he was really just disgusted at the thought of dancing with someone... or dancing with me in particular. But during that time, I had plenty of guys reject my advances and even insult my appearance when I showed them interest.

Stop playing defense and take a principled stance. Kamala took your advice, and she lost. She very deliberately stayed away from identity politics of any kind, and they still accused her of all of this despite her being your average run-of-the-mill Neoliberal. The right wing will accuse any Democrat... or really anyone left of the far far right... as being some radical blue-haired SJW out of touch leftist because they know it strengthens the dominance of their paradigmatic frame. It allows them to define what "normal" is... and Democrats keep believing them and submitting to their frame instead of taking a principled stance and defining the frame of what is normal and put these right wing politicians on the defense. So, if they're going to accuse you of it anyway, you might as well own it and stand on principle and say, "That's right! We're the party of normal people and non-assholes who mind our own business and accept people's differences! And they're weird and neurotic for being so obsessed with trans people. Identity politics is all they ever think about." That's how you take power and dominance over the frame of things instead of trying to concede to their framing... and being like "Sure, we're economically left... but don't worry... we hate the transes and gays too!" So, please stop submitting to right wing framing and trying to divide the working classes by trying to chuck certain groups out of the movement.

I think this is a big part of it. Of course, the most attractive women will naturally be attracted to the most attractive men because they are their match... and statistically couples are typically of equivalent levels of attractiveness across many dimensions. Beyond that, my thought is that the type of men who would tend to believe this narrative are men who lack relationship experience and only fantasize about wanting the top 20% of physically attractive women. And that's mostly because they haven't had a real relationship or real feelings for a woman beyond just being turned on by the most objective components of a woman's appearance. And so, from their perspective, it's all about wanting to seek validation through having sex with ideal-looking women. And it's observable statistically and otherwise that many men seek to do this... which is evident on this forum. And so, they would tend to project their own objectifying tendencies to want to most attractive women onto women as a whole group, believing that women only want the most attractive men... and that women are similarly objectifying men and deeming them as 'male refuse' if they are average or below in the same way they might judge women who they don't consider to be attractive. But it's really just a reflection of how they see women who are of equivalent attractiveness to themselves. So, they believe women are doing that to them. It's really just the cycle of projecting one's own qualities onto a scapegoat and then going into victim's mentality about it because "The scapegoat is brazenly objectifying men and devaluing less attractive men! Gasp!"

This is all just a way of saying... 'There are no objective facts here. It's all a matter of opinion. So, if you say the claim that 'women only go for the top 20% of guys' is false, then that's just an opinion. And furthermore, you're bullying and invalidating people who believe that women only go for the top 20% of guys because you see your opinion as more valid and true than their opinion.' But there are objective facts here! It's NOT a matter of conflicting subjective opinions. Either it's true that women only go for the top 20% of guys or it's false. (Either the grass is pink.. or it isn't) One of us is correct and the other is incorrect. And anyone who believes that women only go for the top 20% of men is just observably incorrect. Go to a Walmart or an airport and you will see that this narrative doesn't match the facts of reality.

I suppose I understand if you're specifically targeting your advice to Manosphere guys... but I wouldn't target it towards anyone else as there really must be some kind of mutual benefit. But I've seen plenty of cases where the guy wants a traditional marriage where he is the leader... with a woman who also pays half or more of bills. In these cases, for women, it's the worst of both worlds... putting in 50-75% of the responsibility while getting none of the freedom and power that would typically be associated with taking on that level of responsibility. But the reality is that guys who think like this aren't usually Stage Blue traditional guys values-wise themselves. They're usually just a bunch of Stage Orange guys who don't care about tradition. But they want the woman bound to the limitations and responsibilities of the traditional Feminine role while they skirt the limitations and responsibilities of the traditional Masculine role, while claiming the level of power and freedom associated with Stage Orange for themselves. So, it's just a power play... and an over-pornographized version of what it's actually like to operate in a traditional relationship. On that basis alone, I think your advice will fall on deaf ears because their whole desire is minimizing their responsibility and maximizing their power... while minimizing the woman's power and maximizing her responsibility.

What is pornographic veganism?

Anticipation is the nature of sexual tension.

No one should be getting married just to serve the other person as that just isn't going to work. There has to be a mutual benefit for the marriage to work out. And there have been studies that have been conducted and men actually seem to benefit more from marriage than women do as there are many social, emotional, and lifestyle needs that men tend to struggle to meet when they're not in a relationship/marriage.

Am I the "she" you're talking about here? If so, I don't quite know what you mean about making metaphysical claims as I'm really just talking about Occam's Razor relative to the statistics someone else provided. I was just explaining the different facets of where the relationship statistic discrepancy likely comes from. It's just observably not the case that women only go for the top 20% of guys and that the top 20% of guys are in secret or known polyamorous relationships with multiple women. That kind of cheating or polyamory dynamic happens but is relatively uncommon... and certainly isn't the rule. Most women are not okay with being in a poly relationship regardless of who the guy is. And while cheating happens, it wouldn't be on a scale that gobbles up all the female prospects on the market. That's just the fear that men have... which is that women aren't capable of loving them unless they're on top of the value Hierarchy. And they can use these stats to re-inforce that narrative that makes their feelings of anxiety and loneliness make logical sense. But it's really just a victim narrative parading itself as truth. And it isn't good for men because it will defeat them before they ever give themselves a chance to meet a woman. And it will degrade the quality of connection because he will projecting all these skewed narratives onto her. As with anything, let go of these narratives, and just interact with women with a beginner's mind. And if you show up unburdened by the propaganda and you're a normal guy, you will see that these narratives aren't accurate.

I'll have to look into this source as I would need to look at how they're doing their sampling. But even if true, that doesn't mean that women are all go for the top 20% of guys and that these top 20% of guys all have 5 girlfriends a piece... even in the most intensely hypergamy-related way of interpreting that data. The way that I could interpret the data is 66% of women are dating 37% of guys. So, on your logic the top 37% of guys is dating the top 66% of women.... and everyone else is single. So, if we think of this being out of 100 men and 100 women... That means that each man in the top 37% of men gets 1.78 girlfriends on average. So, that would mean every guy in the top 37% has either 1 or 2 girlfriends. I'd say it's more likely that there's a mixture of things going on... Young men are less likely to look for a serious committed relationship than young women. Most young men want to do pick up and have fun and don't want to get locked down in a relationship. About 10% of Women are lesbians or bisexual and in committed relationships with women. Perhaps gay men being less likely to report being in a relationship compared to lesbian women as lesbian women tend to want to couple up while gay men might have more of a tendency to want to live the single life where he meets and sleeps with many men. Women dating men who are older than them by 1-12 years who don't get accounted for in the age ranges mentioned (The average age difference between men and women in a relationship is 2-3 years, with the man being older) Women over-reporting situationships and friends-with-benefits as "being a relationship" Men under-reporting situationships and friends-with-benefits as "not being in a relationship" Women being in throuples and polycules with more women than men (not sure if that's a more common polyamory structure though, in the poly community. I'd have to look it up.). Women who get cheated on by trashy player guys or men who start multiple families unbeknownst to the wife. (men are more likely that women to have affairs... but my experience is that these player guys don't tend to be top 20% kind of guys. I'm from a redneck town and I've know some unemployed drug addicted players, most of whom are nothing special to look at either.) Now, the latter elements of that do have to do with more women with fewer guys... but those guys aren't really cream of the crop kind of guys. So, it doesn't fit on that basis. Plus, that probably accounts for like 5-10% of that discrepancy, while the other instances likely weigh in a lot more.

@Tenebroso It's that same narrative playing out again and again. What statistics do you have that show this? If what you say is true that only the top 20% of guys get women... then it stands to reason that each of those top guys have 5 girlfriends on rotation and everyone else has none. Do you have any stats to back that up? And have you even anecdotally witnessed it (as a rule and not as an exception) that each attractive guy from the top 20% has 5 girlfriends who are committed only to him... and furthermore are fine with sharing him just to be able to have him? Also, if you look around the world, you'll see plenty of men of all different levels of attractiveness with girlfriends and wives. How does the ubiquity of partnered up average men square with your theory?