"Our Sister's Keeper"

So, Tomassi of Irrational Male fame has written a post called, Our Sister’s Keeper.  Yikes. Ai yi yi, where to start, with hip waders and goggles I suppose, and a big shovel so we can cut through all the rhetoric, ideology, and hostility, and try to get to the heart of the matter.

Men are their sister’s keeper. We are our brother’s keeper. Whether in the context of faith or simply in the context of biology, it is what it is, total and complete symbiosis between the two genders. We can all attempt to squirm our way out of that truth, but truth it remains. No man is an island and women, well we give birth to men, and the hand that rocks the cradle in many ways, does rule the world.

Tomassi goes on to say, (of Beta game) “Play nice, respect a woman by default, be supportive of her self-image and ambitions to the sacrifice of your own, don’t judge her and do your utmost to identify with the feminine, was the call to action that, deductively, should make a man more attractive to a woman.”

Oh, the sheer horror! Play nice, respect women, be supportive, sacrifice, what a bunch of chumps men are, huh? The next thing you know women will actually demand men get girl cooties on them or something and when that happens you know she has truly harvested your organs and feasted on your very soul.

In the narcissistic, solipsistic soul of the wounded male ego, it never even occurs to them that women are actually also making sacrifices in the equation. Let me tell you, nothing makes you feel like a “beta chump” faster than finding yourself abandoned after the prime of your youth has faded, left behind with a pack of kids to feed because some wanker has decided he needs to go find himself. Naturally the first place he goes seeking himself….. is in another woman.

In fact if you want to get technical about it, hypergamy is actually the male sexual strategy projected onto women, an attempt to both reject the nature of yourselves and to blame women for it, an attempt to excuse and to justify your own dual sexual strategy. Men want security, families, respect, but they do want to sow their wild oats, too. Have modern women learned how to imitate this male biological strategy? Oh yes! Oh yes, and it is the oddest thing to witness, both tragic and funny at the same time. This is why you have college girls hooking up and the morning after saying “Wait, why am I having casual sex with dudes I don’t even like for reasons I can’t even fathom?? Did I even consent to this? Why, there outta be a law! A consent law! I couldn’t possibly have agreed to this kind of stupid, it’s just all wrong.”

It is just “all wrong” and girls are often aware of this on some level, but when you have grown up in a culture where women’s value is  presented as an exclusively sexual one, where you have been taught your empowerfulness as a female revolves entirely around your sexuality, it is very confusing. Combine this with normal hormones and the male sexual strategy which usually involves trying to storm the castle gates, or climbing over them or under them, or convincing you to open the drawbridge in some way, and you have questionable female agency. It’s a bit like demanding a woman stand tall in the face of a battalion of armed men coming over the hill. She is expected to not only know the nature of her own self, but to know the nature of men too, to understand the cultural deceptions going on in our world, and to stand there unarmed, deflecting all those arrows flying in her direction.

You know what the average age a woman is when she is expected to show this kind of emotional maturity and deep understanding of the nature of the world around her? 13 years old. It’s rather astounding, but while boys are still splashing around in mud puddles and sneaking off to look at dirty pictures in  Nat’l Geographic, 13-year-old girls are trying to navigate the world of so-called sexual agency. They have already encountered those words “slut” and “prude”, “bitch” and “whore.” They have to just learn to pick their poison too, because I assure you which ever persona they chose, it will be the wrong one.

Alas, women are not Batman either, and what you often wind up with is a dead soldier, a bit of collateral damage, full of sexual confusion, trying to make sense of what’s left of the the world around her.

“I’ve always found it fascinating because for all my dealing in cold harsh observable facts I’ve never paused to consider that women might have some excusable reason for their ethically challenged behavior..”

With all due respect, that usually is the position men take when they cannot face the truth of their own “ethically challenged behavior.” Do you know that I have spent years researching men’s ethically challenged behavior? Why? Empathy. A desire to understand why some insist on destroying themselves. To understand the nature of male/female relationships. To try and grasp the nature of the world around me. Can you even imagine trying to do that without ever bothering to understand and empathize with the other gender’s “ethical challenges?” Half the human race?? That’s so narcissistic it’s enough to make me laugh.

He continues, “In my own estimate Hypergamy isn’t inherently bad or good – it just depends on whether you find yourself on the sharp end of it….”

Complete moral relativism, rather astounding actually. See, I don’t believe hypergamy rules women at all, but suppose I did? In that case, what kind of a sociopath would simply say, “whatever, just as long as I don’t end upon the sharp end of your stick, it’s all good?”

“The problem I see in assigning the blame of women’s behavior to men’s lack of control is that, presently, men have no real control nor does men’s concept of justice align with that of women…”

Ah, and now we get to the heart of the matter, the blame and shame game. Men whether they want it or not, have a very protective nature towards women. Their sense of self-worth really is motivated by a desire for respect from women, respect that often comes from having a sense of honor. What really knocks men off base? Shame. Men have a fascinating and profound relationship with shame. You can hear it hinted at in Tomassi’s words, we have no control, it’s not fair, we can’t possibly be to blame… You can hear it all those derogatory remarks about women frequently found in Tomassi’s comment section, those attempts to make her smaller, more devious, more evil than you perceive yourselves to be. That is how we dehumanize an enemy, how we detach in order to try to justify our own behavior towards them. That is what men do when they are feeling weak and powerless, burdened with all of the responsibility and yet none of the authority or control. Full of shame about what is going on in the world but completely unable to do anything about it.

“On a final note here, whenever I delve into the ethical implications of Red Pill awareness I invariably run into the personal responsibility equation. I do my best to make as coldly rational an observation of dynamics I see and allow my readers to make their own judgements. However, those observation are never intended to excuse the behaviors men and women find themselves prone to acting out.”

Well, that’s something at least. Some kind of awareness that perhaps some people may subjectively receive your words and take them as permission, as justification and validation for what I sometimes refer to as wankerhood, no gender designation intended. All in good humor here, but oh, speak to me of the sins of Adam, about how his words just flow like milk and honey, not my fault Lord, not my fault, see this woman you gave me…..

Speak to me of men and their perceived ability to be rational, the great pride they take in allegedly being so coldly clinical, so detached from human emotion, that the first man actually took it upon himself to try to explain the nature of sin to God Himself. Quite sweetly even, so rationally, so logically….and so totally full of coconut candy that he found himself tossed out into the wilderness, too.

Anything, anything at all to try to avoid that awful shame, that sense of responsibility, that deep seated fear that just knows within itself, to whom much is given, much is expected…

Tomassi concludes with,“So are men to blame for the conditions they find their women in? Are we our sisters’ keepers, hamstrung by our own culpability to actually help them be better women? Or do they bear the responsibility to conform to our perspective of justice and police the worst impulses of a Hypergamy most are only peripherally aware of?”

Again, that blame/shame dichotomy I write so much about. What an evident and powerful example of that desire to claim no agency, no responsibility, and yet to reap the rewards, the fruits of having done so. That really is the human condition, something both men and women always struggle with, we tend to want all of the authority, all of the power, all of the control, and yet none of the blame. The buck stops here, what a quaint and outdated idea.

Ironically, the “hypergamy” women are expected to police is not really our own, but actually men’s! Men off running wild with it about the ‘sphere and saying, “meh, not my problem, I ain’t my sister’s keeper.”

Tomassi asks the wrong question because he is trapped in that pride/shame dichotomy, the one devoid of love, the fear based response that first demands to know, just who’s fault this all going to be? Who is to blame?

Like it or not you cannot have it both ways, that is a deception. If you wish to claim your own genuine power and authority, to step fully into those shoes, then you will embrace your own responsibility. The question should not be whether or not women have any personal agency, but whether or not you do. If you chose no, then you will forever be “hamstrung by your own culpability.”

Another name for “hamstrung by your own culpability,” is trapped in your own shame. It needn’t be that way. There is a much  better way of being in the world. Now, I may well have a very romantic and idealistic expectation of men, but that is neither a delusion nor a fantasy, it is based on truth and the example set by so many men who rise to the challenge, who actually perceive themselves precisely as I do.

I am my brother’s keeper, rather shamelessly not “hamstrung by my own culpability.” That is what it means to walk fully in faith and love.