A couple of you have been asking me what I think about the #MeToo movement and the sexual harassment allegations flying around. I know it’s a hot topic, and I probably should have said more on it earlier — content 101 is discuss what’s relevant. Yet for the most part, I’ve avoided giving comment.

The reason is simple.

Unnecessary risk.

I walk a fine line in my work, as I must be honest, yet I also need to consider the impact of my words on the crowd. Most people today are searching for their outrage fix, and I don’t want to be their dealer.

**So unless you’re someone interested in looking at this topic from a different angle, leave now.**

The first thing you must understand before we explore “sexual harassment” is that society is under immense cognitive dissonance concerning sex. There is a lack of conscious acceptance about what men and women are attracted to and how they act when they are attracted, as well as confusion about appropriate response.

This dissonance is then layered upon conflicting mores, one libertine the other puritanical. Have casual sex… but don’t express interest in sex. Sex is not a big deal… but if soliciting sex makes someone uncomfortable, it’s predatory behavior.

People are understandably mixed up. Because they are accepting the wrong assumptions.

They think the narrative of sexual harassment is fundamentally about determining “right vs wrong” behavior. Men just need to learn how to act “appropriately” and then society can move forward.

The truth is far more complicated.

Why Some Men Can “Harass”

Years ago SNL did a Sexual Harassment Training Video featuring Tom Brady — a clip I find myself returning to again and again as culture becomes increasingly clueless on the topic.

(**Watch the clip now, I’m about to ruin it for you**)

The skit’s theme is simple. Brady and an average-looking guy (Fred Armisen) both ask women out in the workplace. They use the same lines, but as might be expected, Brady gets positive responses; Armisen negative. The skit progressively becomes more absurd: by the end scene Armisen is reported for saying “hi” to a woman, while Brady, wearing a jockstrap, is asked out by the girl herself.

The scene is over-the-top, but it acknowledges an uncomfortable truth: If a woman is attracted to you, you can pursue sex or make sexual innuendo with little to no consequence. But if a woman isn’t, expressing even mild interest is a problem. “Appropriate” is dictated not by universal laws but by what the subconscious desires.

Once you understand this, the confusion behind sexual harassment policies begins to make sense. The rules are not designed to stop all men from pursuing women, they are designed to stop unattractive men. The dissonance of the laws / culture with reality is not only due to some degree of attraction being subjective, but that unattractive males will always exist; you cannot legislate them away.

The Crux Of Attraction

This raises the question of what makes a man attractive, since many powerful, even decent-looking guys who appear attractive are often perceived quite differently by the women who spend time around them.

It’s a misconception that clears up, however, when you view the situation through The Pillars of Attraction. Most of society confuses Preselection, which markets the man, with Personality, the “product” that tells us who he really is.

Personality encompasses your individual traits, mindset and overall psychological health. Each woman has her own subjective standards when it comes to Personality — some people click, others don’t — but there are also objective criteria all women consider. Some things just repel women on a biological level.

And perhaps the largest of these is sexual shame.

Sexual shame is a problem because it is fundamentally based on suppressed need. Men who possess it crave female attention. They depend on sex for their internal validation; all thinking revolves around how to get it. If women don’t like them, they simply don’t like themselves.

This belief is expressed through various male behavioral patterns. “Nice guys” — the most benign version — generally reflect their need through passivity and supplication. Next down the line are the “creepy guys,” marked by their uncalibrated forwardness. Sexual predators — the most nefarious — lie at the end of the spectrum: they use intimidation, manipulation, and force.

Understand, while these men all differ in their approach, in their relationship to women they are more or less the same. Each are “beta” males in the mind; the predators simply have the will to sexually coerce.

Indeed, the moving of the goal posts on what constitutes “sexual assault” shows women, despite their overall dissonance on the topic, are beginning to sense this psychological parallel. Most men — including many of the publicly influential — are fighting the same hopeless war, they just have different tactics to win it.

Tits For Tat

Many men become incredulous when they hear assertions like these. After all, “how could a powerful man be beholden to normal women?” But you would be mistaken to think money and power solve everything. Such illusions are in fact what drove these elite “nice guys” into the realm of sexual predation; their disappointment was the seed of their resentment. Indeed, when it comes to curing psychological malaise, financial assets often function as liabilities — they are bandaids, allowing pathologies to fester and consume their host, rather than be addressed and resolved.

Which is why you must always look beyond appearance and towards root intentions. The Harvey Weinsteins and Jorah Mormonts of the world may act inversely on the surface, but they and every other “beta” male are unified by the same fundamental belief: sex and affection from women are transactional; you must do or give something in order to get it.

The only difference between the nice guy and the sexual predator are the terms.

With the “nice guy,” his approach is one of generosity — flowers for an uninterested girl, compliments that put her on a pedestal, risks to gain her affection. Some men may proceed futilely like this forever. But in the absence of reciprocation, most will, as is natural, begin to hate the thing that rules over them — even though they chose that ruler themselves.

Most who reach this stage, thankfully, fear retribution so much they lack the agency to exact their revenge, and are reduced to pouting online — helpless children in the face of their oppressor. But if they stop caring about the consequences — or if they have the power and means, and the shadow feels enabled — a shift occurs. They make the leap to predator, finally feeling justified to take what they “deserve.”

This predation has different levels; depending on how far such a man has gone, he may continue to offer a veneer of negotiation before extorting his victim. Old habits die hard; cajoling is more instinctual than coercion — and kindness not only softens a target’s defenses but “justifies” the coming abuse. Given time though, most get so used to having their terms rebuffed they eventually stop mentioning them, and proceed from the outset as though they must take their target by force. Eventually, this expression of power — making a woman submit under threat of destruction — becomes an end itself.

(This is why, in situations with a violent sexual predator, a woman might be able to survive — or for the truly machiavellian, even gain the upper hand — by offering herself to the man willingly, or at least appearing to do so until he lets his guard down. Such men crave this sort of submission; remember their aggression is a defense-mechanism against rejection. Many are far more fragile and easy to manipulate than they look.)

It is for these reasons women should be suspicious of men who seek to ingratiate themselves with female movements. If a man is seeking approval, he is seeking sex, and thus will have expectations even if he is unconscious of them. Yes, most “male allies” police their emotions and are otherwise too cowed to act, but the more their frustration festers, the more their intentions become predatory. And the more power they have, the more likely these intentions become a reality.

Indeed, this is part of the reason why you are seeing such rampant abuse revealed among the influential. It’s not just headlines: these men are in fact more inclined towards predation. When you control most of your environment and get nearly everything you want, the things that evade you stand out in importance.

For many of these powerful men, the unconditional desire of women is perhaps the only thing they can’t have.

The Curious Case of Aziz Ansari

Once you understand the above, it’s really no wonder women find nice guys off-putting: it’s an instinct that many are just one step away from predation.

But we must be careful not to paint with too wide a brush. The “beta” male makes up easily 80% of the male population, and only a small sliver of these are malicious and dangerous. Even most of the guys that make women uncomfortable — the “creepy” cohort — are just struggling to reconcile their insecurities with their attraction. They have not chosen their evil side; most are just becoming aware of its existence. Pursuing their sexual needs in the only way they know how — awkwardly — does not make them terrible people.

Such was the case with Aziz Ansari. Like many others, I came away from the Aziz Ansari accusations not seeing a sexual predator, rather an anxious, creepy guy who was far from the man a star-struck girl had hoped. Aziz doesn’t make the cut of Matt Lauer not because of his psychological neediness towards women — which is more or less identical — but because he didn’t use force, manipulation, or intimidation to get his needs met. Indeed, by the girl’s own account she was the one who pursued him.

This doesn’t mean it’s a mystery why the girl wishes the whole thing hadn’t happened. For a guy who wrote a book on dating, Aziz sucks with women (anyone who can read subcommunication is not surprised by this revelation). But the fact is, Aziz’s mindset is relatively garden-variety when it comes to men — no wonder why so many women, using his sketchy behavior as a benchmark, are now also claiming to have also been sexually assaulted. When a majority of the male population has sexual shame and low confidence, your chances of accidentally dating a guy and regretting it after is pretty high.

But when it comes to claiming predation, regret is simply not good enough. If we are prosecuting the opposite sex for awkward experiences and dashed expectations, I have plenty of women I can file charges against. What people forget is while shame and insecurity are rampant among beta males, they are also descriptive of most women who date them — an inconvenient fact that cannot just be swept under the rug.

The un-PC truth is that, in this story, the female “victim” was the real predator. She didn’t like Aziz, she liked what she thought he could give her: self-esteem. She wanted a famous, high-status dope to treat her like a queen so she could feel good about herself for once. She was sneaky, entitled, and lacked self-respect; the female equivalent of a “beta” male on his way to abusive behavior. No wonder when he treated her for what she really was — a discardable groupie — the slight was so close-to-home she still wanted revenge years later. Nothing hurts a bad person more than the truth.

When The Pitch Is Good But The Product Sucks

The story of Aziz isn’t uncommon; it happens to lesser “celebrities” every day. A guy learns some game, acts a bit cocky, and takes a girl home from a bar only to become weird in the bedroom. A woman has a bit too much to drink and spends the night with a dude who she finds some bad things about in the morning. Bad sexual decisions are the norm today, not the exception.

Which presents a dilemma.

Women have to make choices in the dating market. But like consumers who don’t know their product until they try it, they unfortunately have limited information about who a guy is before they get intimate with him. The best they have to go on is his Preselection and Persona — his marketing and sales.

The real question of today is who is responsible when this advertising is deceptive.

Traditionally, society’s mantra had been caveat emptor — women were encouraged not to put themselves in compromising situations with strange men, lest something regretful happen. But as discernment and responsibility have declined, such roles have become increasingly outsourced. One might look at our not-so-dearly departed Title IX as little more than an aggressive consumer protection bureau: “Miss Bureaucrat, he tricked me into buying this and I can’t get a refund. Do something about it!”

It’s a great example of good intentions having disastrous consequences.

Yes, you can sympathize with a disappointed consumer, but absolving her of any role in her own decisions is not only disempowering but dangerous. The “defective” product being discarded isn’t a cheap trinket made in China, but a person. Take this impulsive regulation too far and you have a market where “companies” see fit to stop selling their product all together… as evidenced by the growing numbers of MGTOW.

But that doesn’t mean the pro-regulators do not have a point, and moreover, that guys should not be prudent. Men need to be very careful about building their exterior without working on their core. Personality development is the key not only to personal happiness, but deep satisfaction in relationships. You can’t ignore it; put pressure on an empty vessel and it will crumple.

Which is why the overdevelopment of Persona in particular is a problem. Preselection is by its very nature passive; a man can hardly be guilty for looking so good that women accidentally throw themselves at him. But Persona is a different beast. Persona is active, and when out of alignment with Personality it is deceptive — a trait that almost guarantees a woman’s regret.

Hence the fatal toxicity of the PUA brand. Despite claims of “feminist censorship,” most people didn’t really have a problem with men helping other men attract women, it was that too many PUAs were running what amounted to a boiler-room. It was all “push push push,” create pressure, and most importantly: close. “Inner game” was cheapened to tacky mantras, relevant only in its derivative aid in how you came across. The emphasis was always on how to sell the product; never to improve it.

Which is why it’s no surprise most of the guys I know who were lived by it have since seen their lives ruined, often under sexual assault charges. Play with fire enough and you’ll eventually be burned.

Conclusions: The Predator Within

Some may consider this article unbalanced; after all, while I’ve delved deep into the twisted psychology of men, I’ve hardly examined that of women — nor the proclivity of some of them to not simply be “confused” about sexual encounters but to fabricate them entirely.

This is not because I don’t care. It’s a fact, albeit a publicly inconvenient one, that some women lie about abuse, particularly the psychologically unhinged who a) see sympathy as a means to fame and validation, or b) seek revenge against the men who ironically rejected them.

But such women will always exist, and until the laws prosecute false claims of rape as harshly as actual rape, this risk will remain. In the meantime, you can complain, or you can do the simple and wise thing: stay away from messed up women and build a reputation so unassailable other women will line up to defend you.

The point here is to not whine about what’s unfair, but to understand the complex psychology of the sexual predator.

Because chances are, that psychology also lurks inside you.

The truth is, in the heart of every man — beneath all the positive platitudes you claim as your identity — there is a very sick, bad part that wants nothing but pain for yourself and others.

And usually chief among those “others” is women.

It’s no surprise why, either. As the great Jordan Peterson has noted, women are a mirror to men about their biological value. They are evolution, judging your worth. People blame conditioning for so many men being “beta” today, and no doubt that has a role, but the truth is “alpha” has always been the aberration among males — not the other way around. Few men are born with the gifts that draw women to them effortlessly, and so few experience the luxury of natural sexual abundance. Most men’s genetic lines are from birth designated for extinction. This evolutionary pressure is so strong that even when a society is communist about distributing women, like our nuclear-family culture used to be, men still had to battle, beg, and break themselves just to get a decent option.

So given how deep all of this goes, what can you do to change? How can you kill the predator within?

The answer is simple — though not easy.

Remove your identity and self-worth from women and sex.

I know this is not a natural principle. That is why it is so hard to do. Everyone says “don’t put women on a pedestal,” as if doing so were unnatural, but the truth is you are programmed to consider sex as important as food. You are, at the core, a hungry animal who wants to eat.

But that is not all you need be.

As has been known since the ancients, there is another way. You can transcend your base nature. You can transmute the energy and direct it into something greater. You can abstract your sex drive towards a deeper purpose.

And indeed — you should.

Because really, women are not that special. They do not deserve power over you, certainly not power unearned by actions, which is what they receive when you adjust your orientation simply because you want to sleep with them. For all the crying about dastardly female solipsism, it is men and their tendency to dole out approval too lightly that has caused it. Physiology may be your first box to check when choosing a woman, but it cannot be the last.

Which is why the guys who remove their focus from women — not out of defeat, but indifference — have no problem controlling the frame when with them. Frame control comes from submitting to your values above all else. The game of frames is the game of values; make women yours and you’ve lost the mental battle before its begun.

Understand, the reason why so many guys who “spin plates” and date multiple girls transform their attitude from “beta” to “alpha” is not because of the abundance of women in their lives. That is a façade; getting attention from one girl to compensate for another is like passing your debt from credit card to credit card. You are not dealing with your neediness you are just diluting it among multiple parties so a single one won’t get overwhelmed. It’s a house of cards that always collapses.

No, the reason these guys evolve is because they eventually date enough women to realize how unimportant they are. How many of them are self-absorbed, mendacious, have terrible personalities. How many are boring and have nothing to give beyond their bodies. And moreover, how even with the wonderful girls who are sweet, curious, and playful, how predictable the entire game is of attracting them.

As a result, they decide they no longer see women, and what they biologically offer, as a worthy master to serve. So their master changes. Women stop being a goal and become an ancillary, occasional reprieve along the journey.

And until they find a girl who matches their values and fits perfectly with their path, that’s how things remain.

I know men enslaved by the female form lack the capacity to understand what this mental shift feels like. I also know many make the common mistake of assuming just because a guy didn’t bang 100+ women he’s really “settling” when he decides to settle down. But wisdom comes through many paths, and not all of them lead through the gutter. Though many do indeed rationalize their lack of options with moral preening, do not presume someone is “incel” because they realized early on there were more important things than sex. While I have no regrets about my own often-filthy journey, I would have avoided a lot of pain if I had stopped letting women define me sooner.

And ironically, I would have had a lot better sex too.

Transcending women not only allows you to see women more clearly, but yourself. It shows you the layers of your intentions you avoid acknowledging. It shows you your shadow and how the part of you that needs sexual validation might just turn you into a monster when it is no longer freely given.

And that’s a day that’s coming — perhaps sooner than you think.

Men may age like wine, but even the finest Bordeaux eventually turns to vinegar. Charm and status can’t make a pretty 20 year old girl desire a 70 year old man. What you value will have to change, or you will have to pay women to pretend for you. It’s a road that leads to resentment… and if you’re not careful, the predator within.

Don’t invest your identity in a game you’re guaranteed to lose.

Time turns betas into us all.

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