Running Game - Should You Reveal Your Vasectomy?

In general, the less truth about yourself you reveal to the women you see/date, the better, because anything you say can and will be used against you, meaning it could turn her off or be used to track you down when you're done dealing with her.

If she wants children (no matter how far into the future), and especially if she's looking to get pregnant soon and/or by you (which she might not reveal), you being snipped is NOT something you want her to know, at least not at first.

On the other hand, if you have good reason to be certain she really, truly, sincerely doesn't want to get pregnant now or at any time in the future (and remember, women change their minds on this sort of thing, especially if they don't have any children), you might want to let her know.

If you don't tell the women you've had a vasectomy, and you know for sure you're shooting blanks, there may come a time when one of them tells you "we're pregnant." If that happens, you might want to get tested again if it has been a while. Once confirmed that the vasectomy is still effective, it is up to you how long you wait to tell her, but DO NOT pay for anything or sign anything that would imply you are the father. Do not buy any baby items. Do not pay for prenatal care. This will likely force the issue, but either way, when the time is right, produce a printout of your lab results and something indicating when you had your vasectomy. You should probably ghost her after that, and you may even need a letter from a lawyer or a restraining order against her.

Keep in mind, if she's trying to get you to think you're the father, it is because whomever really knocked her up isn't as successful as you (or, as she thinks you are), or she doesn't have any way to track him down. She's trying to get you to put your time, money, and sweat into raising someone else's kid for twenty years. So don't feel bad about shattering that game plan by confronting her with the facts, and then having nothing more to do with her.

Vasectomies are highly recommended for any man who wants to run game.

If you know anyone who has been subjected to paternity fraud, or attempted paternity fraud, or bogus pregnancy tests, comment below. Or comment if you have anything else relevant to say about this entry.

Good Luck With That

The Institute For Family Studies needs to promote marriage. So Alysse ElHage has this blog entry touting a new book that attempts to address marriage problems through churches. [This entry was bumped up.]

A few years ago, I was scrolling through Facebook to catch up with friends and family when I stumbled upon some news that made my heart sink.

As I've said, Facebook is a front row seat to a train wreck.

A married couple from the church my husband and I had attended for about 10 years had apparently split up since we moved away. Both the husband and the wife were popular leaders in our church and seemed to have a vibrant marriage that everyone admired. But now she was building a life with a new man in another state, while he raised their two children alone. As I was trying to digest this news, I discovered that at least five other married couples with kids from the same church had split up over the past few years. Two of the couples had been married for several decades; one couple less than five years. When I asked our pastor what happened, he was as brokenhearted as I was over the news, but he had no answers. He’d tried to counsel with some of the couples, but the spouse who wanted out (most often, the wife) was dead set on divorce.

Pay attention, men.

1. These were supposedly dedicated, churchgoing wives.
2. They seemed to have a vibrant marriage. You have no idea what's going on behind closed doors.
3. Decades of marriage can mean the wife gets set with alimony for life. In California (I don't know how many other states are the same), ten years of marriage sets her up for life.
4. The women are the ones leaving. YOU CAN'T STOP THEM. And, quite often, the more you try to treat them well, the more likely it is they'll walk all over you and leave.
5. The pastor claimed to have no answers. Most likely, he had answers, but doesn't want to say them.

You Can't Tell She'd Make a Good Mother

If you're looking for "the one," and you shouldn't be, you might ask "Will she make a good mother?"

Now, there are some red flags that indicate she definitely wouldn't be a good mother. But just because you don't see certain red flags (yet) and think she's compatible with you and on the same page when it comes to parenting does NOT mean she will actually be a good mother.

There really isn't any way to know for sure.

In the good ol' days, she didn't have much choice. She'd better do things your way. Things are very different now, with a culture that undermines parenting.

She might SAY she wants to raise children, but just like you, she really has no clue. Being an older sibling, or babysitting someone else's kids can cause someone to legitimately realize they don't want children, but they're not a good way to decide that one DOES want to parent. How can things work that way? Because if children irritate, annoy, exasperate, or otherwise bring you down, that's enough to know you shouldn't raise any, but even if you enjoy being around them, that's far different from being their parent, who is financially, socially, morally, and legally responsible for them 24/7/365 for 18 or more years.

Having a dog isn't being mom to a human child.

There are some definite signs, other than not liking kids in general, she's not mother material. She wouldn't make a good wife. Her career comes first or she has a highly demanding career (long/odd/extra days, frequent travel, instability/having to hop from company to company, emotionally draining/stressful, leaves her exhausted); she's misandrist; she's impatient or easily angered; she needs everything neat and orderly; she's unhealthy; she's mentally ill; she's a substance abuser; she's irresponsible; she's abusive; she isn't nurturing or affectionate.

Other things are harder to discern.

If she already has children, you shouldn't be with her, let alone making more with her or bringing your kids around her and her kids.

You can't tell with reasonable certainty a woman will make a good mother, and frankly, you probably shouldn't marry.

So you probably shouldn't have kids, or if you are going to have kids, you might want to consider not having a wife and keeping control by using a donated egg and a surrogate for gestation.

It’s Not Too Early to Form Your Holiday Game Plan

Free Men, and men who want to be, it's NOT to early to think about the holidays, and by that, I mean Halloween, Thanksgiving, Hanukah, Christmas, New Years, and Valentine's Day. 

There are two main considerations for you:

1) Dealing with family and "friends" who will be asking you (or pestering you) about your status as a free man. You know how it goes. "When are you going to get married?" Questions like that.

2) Avoiding spending those special days with a woman who wants to take away your status as Free Man, or will be expecting you to spend a lot of time, money, and effort on her.

Don't do something something foolish and start thinking there is "the one" to whom you should hand over your freedom. Don't be so ignorant, delusional, or masochistic that you're thinking you want to be exclusive with a woman.

It Is NOT a Public Health Crisis

The latest tactic (or, at least, the latest that I've noticed [this entry was bumped up and was published a couple of years ago]) of "anti-porn" activists is claiming it is a "public health crisis" and seeking to have it declared as such by governments. Doing things like this might rile up the people who already agree with them, but it makes them look extremely foolish and lessens their credibility. It's also feeds a problematic trend, as David Boaz of the Cato Institute points out so well here.

Tactics matter. The tactics used  to get what you want can also be used by others to get what they want. Live by the sword, die by the sword. Hmm, here have I heard that expression before?

Boaz leads off with what prompted him to write:

A Republican National Convention platform committee has declared pornography “a public health crisis.” Committee members don’t seem to know what “public health” means.

Lately it’s been liberal Democrats who have applied the “public health” label to everything they don’t like — smoking, obesity, venereal disease, motorcycle accidents, and more. They see “public health” as a blank check for government action.

Exactly. By claiming it is a "public health crisis" the people who pushed for this to be in the party platform are hoping they can make this an exception to the desire for smaller government. Here's the danger to the party: Millions of people view porn and then don't perceive there to be any problem as a result, so when a party platform calls it a public health crisis, they think the party leaders are being stupid.

More Fun With Statistics - Body Count and Marriage

"People who have no or fewer sex partners before marriage are more likely to be satisfied with their marriage and less likely to divorce."

Have you heard that or some variation of that?

Even if true, it would be completely useless to you if you've already married. If you've had "more" sex partners, then it would be all the more reason to avoid that terrible state contract! Or if she has. If you both have, that's EVEN MORE reason not to marry.

But some will find that statement useful in telling younger people to or anyone who has has "fewer" sex partners why they shouldn't have (more) sex outside of marriage.

It won't deter anyone who doesn't want to get married.

And it might not deter people who are good at analyzing data and statistics.

Let's look at a couple of graphs that are being used to push this message.

As Panscan points out, we're not seeing the entire graph. There's a 5 percent difference between people who have had 2 partners and people who've had eleven, twelve, or scores of partners. But it looks more dramatic when you remove all of the graph under 50 percent.

Also, if we're going to take the graph seriously, men who've had 6-10 partners are better off than men who've had four or five partners, and women who've had 11 or more partners are better off than women who've had 4 partners.

Even if a man "waited" for sex, there's still a 27 percent chance - more than 1 in 4, he will admit to not being very happy in his marriage. And for women, that's 35 percent - more than one in three!

Finally, notice that the husbands are happier than wives. Guys, don't be selfish by asking a woman to marry you!

Now let's look at the second graph.

This graph uses months.

Notice that people are divorcing a couple of years in. Guys, if you're foolish enough to marry, refuse to spend much on the wedding and related events.

80 months in (so a little over 6 and a half years in), the lowest rate of divorce is still 10 percent, meaning 1 in 10 couples. Most people will have had a 25 percent divorce rate! 1 in 4 couples!

Also, if we take this graph seriously, if you've had one premarital partner, you might as well have had countless, at lease as far as six years or so down the line.

What is really going on here?

Is It Really Sacred?

Since I listen to every (new) minute of the Dr. Laura Program, I heard her give this monologue recently. It has been posted on her website as a blog post. I still don't see an ongoing blog tab anywhere on the site, but this was tweeted out (by her staff, since she doesn't touch Twitter). It is titled "Respect Your Marriage Vows by Not Shacking Up First".

As regular readers of this blog know, I think shacking up is a generally bad idea; it's almost as bad as legally marrying.

But Dr. Laura promotes marriage and is against shacking up. Dr. Laura maintains that her program is a secular, non-religious program. But if you pay attention, she invokes religious concepts sometimes.

If someone isn't planning to marry, shacking up can't possibly disrespect their marriage vows. And now, many, perhaps most people, who do want to marry will refuse to do so without first living with the person they are considering as a possible spouse. The secular world has made it clear that they see shacking up as a normal part of relationship cycles. Without invoking religion, it is extremely difficult to explain how this would disrespect their future marriage vows. Dr. Laura has tried to teach that it is objectively detrimental to shack up, which I address here. In this blog posting of hers, she tries to explain why shacking up is bad a different way.

If you call anything a ‘piece of artwork’ or if you call something sacred, don't you immediately look at it differently from everyday objects or experiences? It doesn't matter if you're religious or not, I think when we say something is sacred, everybody lowers their voice and shows more respect. It's not accidental.

So, playing a mind game with oneself? Then someone could call shacking up "sacred" and this is all over.

Use This Neat Trick to Have More Free Time, Money, and Happiness

DO NOT MARRY! Don't live with a woman. Do not promise exclusivity to a woman. Do not spend money on women (at least not more than $60 per date.)

That will leave you with more free time, more money, and happiness as you'll have a peaceful home and get to do what you want, when you want, how you want.

Stay free. Stay a Free Man.

You can have a full, happy, productive life without ever marrying.

Most men shouldn't marry.

You weren't born with a wife.

You don't need a wife.

There's a lack of marriageable women. Red flags abound.

Marriage is a bad deal for most men.

Most marriages fail.

Here's my open letter to Dennis Prager countering his encouragement of men to marry.

Dennis Prager’s Status

Dennis Prager suffered a spinal cord injury in an accident in November 2024.

He has now stated he’s paralyzed, which I think was something left unsaid until recently.

I listened to every minute of his radio program via the paid subscription when it was on the air. It has been off the air since his accident (he had guest hosts at first, if I recall correctly, until his company shuffled the lineup).

He was fairly busy in addition to the radio program, with writing books and columns, his PragerU, public speaking and appearances, endorsements, and other video and audio media he’d do (the Dennis and Julie podcast, Fireside Chats, etc.).

I expect he will not be returning to doing a daily radio program. Not because a paralyzed person can’t do radio - they can, although for all I know he has difficulty breathing - but because even before the accident he was feeling the limits of his time. Based on things he’s said over the years, I’d think completing his Rational Bible series and other writings, along with planning the future of PragerU, take priority.

I pray he has many good years still ahead of him.

While I agree with most of his opinions and positions, I contend his highest priority is telling men to marry and have children; I have many posts here arguing against many of his claims in that area and my position is most men shouldn’t legally marry.

I have been reluctant to make new posts along those lines referencing him, and bringing past entries referencing him that are still relevant back to the top of the blog.

I might only focus on what others in the public square are saying, or I might resume referencing Dennis Prager’s fixation. But if I do the latter, I didn’t want to do so without first pausing to offer my prayers for him here and acknowledging that he’s not in the same position he used to be to clarify and defend his positions.

Time

 
Time is limited.

Life goes by fast.

Memento mori.

I knew this from an early age. Unlike many other people my age when I was a kid, I wasn't always looking forward to being older. I knew that I was only going to be 11, 12, 13, etc. once. I knew that time moves in one direction. I suppose part of it is that I had a generally good childhood. My parents, for the most part, were really great parents. It wasn't all a bed or roses. But I look back on it mostly fondly, and I think my parents generally gave me a better childhood than my kids are getting.

Ask any lucid old person who isn't in constant unbearable pain, even someone on their death bed, and they'll tell you that life is short.

I'm at the age where I most likely have fewer years ahead of me than behind me.

I bring this up because it is one reason I encourage men (and women!) to be, stay, and enjoy independence. Enjoy life. Stay free. Don't waste your time.

There are things we must do even if we don't want. Others, not so much. For most men, what we now call marriage isn't what they really want to do, and they shouldn't. But this doesn't have to be about marriage. It can be about staying in a job when you are able to survive without it. Or putting up with a "friend" who brings more bad than good to our life, or trying to keep a relationship with a relative who isn't a good person, or continuing an activity that has lost overall benefit to you.

It's why you shouldn't put give scam calls/texts/emails or door-knocking salespeople or a movie you find lacking in purpose to you a second more time than absolutely necessary.

Time is slipping by. Each of us has less time in this life every second that goes by.

Life is short. Time is precious. Don't waste your time.

Unpaid?

"When someone is selling something, they don't like it when other people sell the same or similar product or service for much less." - Me [This entry has been bumped up.]

On Dr. Laura's Thursday, June 18, 2020 show, she took a call from a woman who has had a boyfriend for three years and she called about the possibility of talking marriage. Dr. Laura asked her if they were having sex. Of course the answer was yes. Dr. Laura called her an unpaid whore, which is a term she tends to apply to shackups, which the caller noted because they weren't living together. Dr. Laura went on to say that women like the caller are "giving men sex for nothing."  (I may be conflating the call with another one from the same episode, during which a man challenged the wisdom of marrying without having lived together.)

Aren't they giving each other company and sex? What exactly is he getting out of the relationship that she is isn't?

Again, we see the principle that men are expected to pay for sex, or that women don't enjoy sex.

And, we have no idea what bills of hers he's paying, or what gifts he's giving her. If he's taking her to nice dinners and paying for her vacations, entertainment, recreation, etc., then she is getting paid.

Dr. Laura brought up the white wedding dress and how it's not fair for women who aren't virgins to wear them. Except the truth about white wedding dresses says otherwise.

Being Older and Childfree

Ever obsessed with getting other people to marry or remarry and have children and completely baffled that there are people who want a different life from his, Dennis Prager asked (rhetorically, not as a call-in topic) during Hour 1 of his Wednesday, May 22, 2024 radio show what childfree people think as they get older.

I’m not childfree. I invite anyone who is “older” and childfree or has heard from someone who is, to leave a comment.

I’ll give a few examples of what I’ve heard:

Wow, I am enjoying retirement so much. Staying childfree allowed me to retire, and do so with enough money and freedom I can do the things I want.

Thank goodness I don’t have to deal with problematic children or grandchildren, like my classmate, who’s always talking about the drama she’s going through.

It’s great having the house I want and having it the way I want. It’s clean, orderly, set up for adults, and not all run down and dirty.

So glad I didn’t have to pay for college and weddings for kids and grandkids like my coworkers did. They’re still working while I’m retired.

Go ahead and add what you’ve thought or heard.

Is That Really in the Good Book?

I added a link in the right column of this blog. It's for a website called Biblical Sex. Maybe you don't consider the Bible an authority on matter of sex, but you probably interact with people who do. Some people try to base laws on it. We often hear people appeal to what they think the Bible says about sex, erotic media, erotic fantasies, and looking at the bodies of other people.

The Biblical Sex website tries to clear up what the Bible actually commands and doesn't command, in doing so, the website often disagrees with that is taught in certain conservative religious organizations and movements. I'm not saying I agree with everything the website says, just that it is worth reading the articles there.

Continue to read this entry if you have any interest.

The Importance of an Emergency Fund

Less politely, they are called "F--- You Funds."

You need a minimum of six months, ideally a year, of liquid funds. This would be enough to cover your hard expenses if all of your income stopped: mortgage/rent, utilities, vehicle/transportation, clothing/laundry, medical/health visits and costs, groceries, necessary memberships and subscriptions, etc. You can get an over-estimate by looking at every outgoing payment out of your bank or credit union account for the past year, and totaling that up.

Why? Because your employment might change. Life changes. Emergencies happen. Disasters happen.

You want to have the fund in place so that if your employer(s) disappear, or become too much trouble, or decide they don't need you anymore, you can walk away and be OK. Do you know what it is like to be at a job mostly for the fun of it, knowing that if things are no longer fun, you can walk away and be OK? I had a time in my life like that. (Unfortunately, I made the mistake of marrying, so that changed.) Having an emergency fund doesn't turn a blah or lousy job into a fun one, but it does give you peace of mind and a lot of flexibility.

If you're truly living paycheck to paycheck, without an emergency fund, something is wrong. You need to change that somehow. Cut expenses. Get a raise. Get more work. Change jobs. Sell some of your stuff. If you have debts, pay those off, starting with the debt with the highest interest rate first.

You need to put aside as much money as you can on a regular basis until you have a full fund. Have it automatically move from your checking account to your savings account, if you can. Or into some relatively safe, liquid account like brokerage account. Once you do have that fund in place, consider continuing the diversions, to an investment account. Unless you're elderly or terminal, you should be investing and saving up. Think of it this way: plan, budget, save, invest, and insure.

Guys, this is much easier to do if you don't have a wife and kids for which to pay. If you have an emergency fund and you make the mistake of marrying, at least ensure, with a lawyer, that your emergency fund stays separate. It will help you if there is a divorce. Do what your lawyer says: Do not co-mingle that fund, do not spend it on stuff for your marriage, or for your wife. ALSO, if you get an inheritance, work with a lawyer to keep that separate as well. THAT can be your fund if you don't have one already.

You Don't Need a Girlfriend

Boys and men need to know that they don't need a wife and don't even need an exclusive girlfriend.

When I was growing up, what I learned from media - everything from advertisements to movies to television shows to books and especially music - was that "everyone" had a girlfriend and then a wife. If there was a breakup with the girlfriend, you had to find another girlfriend. This was how to be happy. Guys who didn't have a girlfriend or a wife, if they weren't gay or Catholic priests, were losers. My parents didn't tell me that, but they had each other. I didn't have an older brother to show me any differently.

It wasn't until I was heading into my mid-twenties that I finally realized what a load of crap that message was.

A really awful engagement was ending and I realized I'd rather be alone the rest of my life than endure any more of that.

I could have saved myself all sorts of trouble, all sorts of negative thinking going all the way back to sixth grade, if I had learned that it is OKAY, even preferable, to NOT have an exclusive girlfriend. Ever!

If Enough Churchgoing Men Refuse to Marry, Polygyny Will Be Encouraged

"What's next? Polygamy?"

That was often heard, especially from Religious Right people, during the successful battle to extend, nationally, state marriage licenses to same-sex couples. For a long time, religious conservatives (Evangelical Christians especially) have insisted heterosexual, married monogamy is the ideal and the only acceptable sexual relationship.

The way the marriage-and-family ministries have talked about polygamy, or anything that isn't monogamy, you'd think the Bible emphatically condemns anything that isn't monogamy. 

But it doesn't.

The Biblical case that "monogamy is the only way" is a very weak one. It is based on trying to say that polygamy (polygyny, really) in the Bible led to problems. You won't find any passage in the Bible that actually says monogamy is the only acceptable relationship. On the contrary, many heroes of the Bible had multiple wives (and more). 

I have a prediction.

If more and more men, including churchgoing men, go on a marriage strike, some of these religious organizations that have warned against polygamy will switch to encouraging it. For the LDS church, that would be familiar territory. These organizations will encourage it because they want women to marry and have babies, and lots of babies, and if there aren't enough men, they will break down and encourage women to share husbands. 

Just wait.

Grandpa Lived in a Different Era

I’m so tired of people asking why husbands and fathers today aren't like their grandfathers or great-grandfathers in terms of leading their homes, tempering their wife when she's way out of line, and keeping their kids in line, etc. The embellished memories of how those men of yore kept everything hunky dory without losing their cool can be entertaining and even amusing to hear once or twice, but the constant extolling of this imagined past familial utopia is irritating.

There are very important things that aren't included in this praise of these "real" men.

Those men could literally beat their wives and children, rape their wives, and kick any of them out of home without giving them a dime in walking money. If some punk was horning in on one of the girls in the family, the dad could run him off the property with a gun. And none of it was against the law or, even if it was technically against the law, nobody would arrest these men, let alone prosecute them or convict them. Now, not all men actually ran their homes like that, but the general cultural understanding that they could was enough to keep their families in line. Wives and children did run away, facing destitution in doing so, especially when relatives were unwilling to take them in. Many of their relatives would side with the husband/father. Yes, a woman might find that her own father would side with his son-in-law. Just about everyone else did, too... employers/customers, clergy and congregations, mental health providers, doctors, banks, newspaper editors... just about anyone. Wives were told to go back and obey and please their husbands, with maybe doing something on the sly behind his back (like squirreling away some savings if the husband would spend too much or wouldn't let his wife have enough money).

A married woman couldn’t get a credit card or engage in many other financial actions without her husband’s agreement. This is the real reason some women had secret stashes of cash the home. They couldn’t put it in a bank without their husband knowing.

Unlike now, a marriage license was an actual license to live together, have sex, and have children. There could be serious legal consequences if you did any of those things without a marriage license. That license gave a man access to his wife’s body, whether she felt like it at the moment or not. If she cheated on him, not only could be beat her, kick her out, and divorce her, but she could be criminally charged and she certainly wouldn’t get half of everything plus lifetime alimony.

Is that how things should be run? I'm not saying these were good things. But they "worked" in that they 1) kept children from being a disobedient presence in the family home, and 2) kept wives from emasculating their husbands or acting significantly in contradiction to what he wanted. If you can find an acceptable way to achieve those goals now, please share it with us. We’d love to know the secret. And sorry, telling men to “be like your grandfather” ain’t going to do it. You might as well tell someone to fly on a magic unicorn. Grandpa lived in a different era.

The men of today have different dynamics to deal with in the home. They also have different dynamics to deal with outside the home. Every workplace, every institution has been feminized, and most of them have been integrated with women. Most media and most businesses and other organizations seek to cater to feminine sensitivities and priorities when there is a conflict with masculine. Grampa didn’t have to compete with both other men and women in selling his labor. He didn’t have to worry that having a normal conversation with another guy at work could get him fired for “harassment” because someone overhead something they didn’t like.

Sorry, everything else has been changed. You can't expect men to behave as though nothing has changed.

Running Game - When She Starts Getting Lazy

When you're running game at expert level, and you have a full roster with extra players waiting in the bullpen, one reason to drop a member of your roster is if she drops any one thing you like off the sexual menu or her sexual repertoire. You should have made it clear you like it, and since you did when she did it, and she's done it for you before, she shouldn't have dropped it.

Dropping it means she's either getting comfortable and thinks she has you locked in - meaning she was doing it to reel you in with no intention of continuing to do it, or she's on her way out/favors another guy to the point she doesn't care about doing what you want anymore.

Either way, don't talk with her about it. Don't complain, don't whine, don't demand, don't argue, don't pressure. Don't "negotiate." What's the point? If she wanted to do it, she would have. Desire can't be negotiated.

Don't say anything at all to her. Simply ghost her. If she tries to talk with you after you ghost her, it's because she thought she had you locked in, or the other guy didn't work out. (You should always assume they are seeing other guys; don't indicate you want to be exclusive.)

"Dropping it" would be on a three strikes or less basis. For example, let's say it's fellatio. There can be legitimate reasons she won't want to do it once or twice, like dental work, cold sores, etc. But when it is three times in a row (meaning, over three or more weeks), it means she's dropped it off the menu.

Guys who fall into the trap of thinking they want an "exclusive" relationship tend to end up simply accepting this stuff, because they aren't seeing anyone else and don't want to "start over" with someone else. That is a very common way men end up having a terrible sex life. Early on, she's trying to hook you in. She's auditioning. Don't stick around for it when she stops doing what you like.

One Sign It is Time to Move On

The Modern Workplace and How It Relates to Marriage

Men are expected to "provide". It isn't just traditionalists like Dr. Laura who say this. Most women seek out and marry men they think do, or will, earn more than they do, even if they claim to be liberated, feminist, independent. Notice Oprah's lack of legal marriage. It would be difficult for her to attract a man who earns more than her.

In order to pay for a family, men generally need stable, well-paying jobs that provide a reasonable level of security. However, our economy has changed.

Oh No! Not Lower Fertility Rates!

If you don't know what "fertility rates" are, it refers to the average number of children born to a group.

There are people freaking out that certain populations are having fewer children. Who? Well:

• People who want more taxpayers around to support the government-run ponzi schemes like Social Security
• Government agencies (and their unions) that rely on saying they need to serve children in order to keep their funding
• Businesses that sell a lot of overpriced, quickly consumed or outgrown stuff for children
• Businesses that "serve" children, such as day orphanages
• Racists who are afraid the "wrong" people will outnumber their descendants

Now why are people having fewer children? Here are the reasons I can think of right now, in no particular order:

It's Just Like Cheating!

Matt Walsh, apparently feeling that the countless anti-pornography ministries aren't enough, decided to score points with the uptight ladies by chastising men for liking depictions of female flesh and sexuality. From his column at The Daily Wire, "How to Betray Your Wife, Destroy Her Self-Worth, And Implode Your Marriage In One Easy Step": [This entry is bumped up from December 2017]

I wrote an article last week about a husband’s great need, and right, to be respected by his wife.

Yeah, good luck with that. Our culture and our laws make that nearly impossible.

But one theme seemed to emerge from many of the messages I received: a lot women have trouble respecting their husbands because their husbands spend so much time watching porn.

Those were probably women who spend all day feeding confirmation bias about how terrible their husbands are.

I maintain, porn or no porn, that husbands should still be treated with respect in their homes.

Uh oh!

But that does not justify porn, nor does it mitigate the impact it has on a marriage. A man who laughs at the very idea that he may be hurting his wife by watching porn only proves the point. He has become so intensely self-involved that his wife's needs are a joke to him. Even when she tells him that she is hurt by it, still, he blows her off and returns to the naked people on the screen.

Why does it hurt her? Usually, it is because she's been TOLD it is hurting her. If she was instead told that she shouldn't be jealous of pixels, she'd probably, in most cases, be just fine.

Home Security

I previously wrote an entry on managing danger that focused on being out and about. What about home security?

Like so many other things in life, if you remain a Free Man, home security is less complicated. You only have to worry about your own protection and you don't have to worry about protecting anyone else, save your temporary guests.

If you have the means, having 24/7/365 armed security on-site is going to provide the most security. Few people can have that, though. Likewise with living in a walled, gated compound.

The bad news is, if someone really, really wants to get into your home, they can, especially if they are people of means. The good news is it is becoming easier and easier to increase your home security, which will discourage potential malefactors, buy you some time to protect yourself if they are getting in, and can capture evidence for prosecution.

What you should do depends on things like where you live, what is in your home, and who might try to get into it and why. If you live on a rural farm it's a far different matter than living in a major city or an adjacent suburb.

Running Game - You Have a Right to Remain Silent

....or say very little.

Anything you say can and might be used against you.

When running game, you’ll usually find the less you say, the better. Anything you say can be used against you as a reason NOT to do what you’d like. It could be anything from your birth date (= astrological sign), your political party, or your favorite band.

Pick up lines or “opens” should be avoided in a place like a bar. Wait for her to come to you. On a date or any other time it’s the two of you, encourage HER to talk as much as possible. This does three main things: 1) It gives her positive feelings/impressions about you; 2) It reduces the chances you’ll say something that turns her off; and 3) It clues you in to how to move things to what you want.

Dr. Laura tells the story about how, when she was a student working in a lab, another female student there was having a tough time with a guy and ended up crying all over Dr. Laura’s nice blouse, spilling her guts while Dr. Laura basically just patted her on her back. That other woman recalled the incident as being one in which Dr. Laura had just the right words. Except Dr. Laura hadn’t said much of anything to her.

Similarly, in employment interviews, if the interviewee has gotten the interviewer to talk a lot about themselves, that tends to give the interviewer a favorable impression of the candidate.

Like most tactics, this won’t work with every woman. There are women who are determined to give you the third degree and are paying enough attention to know what you’re doing when you avoid giving her information to be used against you. But this tactic does work for a lot of women.

If they ask you questions about yourself, try to keep the answers short and deflect back to them.

Example:

Her: Do you like dogs?

You: There are so many breeds! How about you?

Notice, you never actually answered. You’ve deflected it back to her, and hopefully, she’ll keep talking. She’ll likely tell you about her dog, or the breeds she likes. There’s a slight chance she’ll tell you she’s allergic or has a phobia. That’s all information you can use. If you have a dog, and that would be a problem for her, you don’t even have to reveal that. She's not going to be meeting your dog anyway.

You might even be able to avoid answering direct questions with jokes or “funny stories” her question “reminds you” of. You have to be careful, though, as you don’t want to inadvertently hit one of her turnoffs. But if it goes well, you get her to laugh (big plus!) AND she’ll not even realize you dodged answering a question.

Another way is to say something like “I’ve been talking in meetings all day, tell me about your…(day, hobby, pet...)”

Saying as little as possible and paying close attention to her (while giving off the vibe that you're in demand and have better things to do than her) helps. In my wayward youth, I was starting to date a woman who didn’t want to tell me her birthday. I narrowed it down from things she’d said. Then she ended up revealing it to me because she’d mistakenly thought I’d figured it out. This allowed me to mark the occasion with a gift, card, etc. (This was before I knew about running game - I now tell men to get scarce around her birthday.)

If you do this right, most women aren’t going to notice you didn’t actually answer their questions. She’ll feel connected to you because you listened so well as she rambled on and on. They’ll fill in the gaps with their feelings, hopes, wishes, delusions, and their own preferences, like a script or casting sheet she has in her head. Women do this with celebrities they think are hot. “I bet he likes the beach, just like me!” There are celebrities the woman you’re dating would have sex with within two minutes of meeting him, even though the only things she knows about him are what he’s said in publicity interviews, which aren't real life. That’s because of his fame, his perceived wealth, and her made-up thoughts about him. She doesn’t really know if he wants kids. Or if he wants to get married. Or if he wants to live on a farm or in a skyscraper.

This isn’t just in-person talks. It applies to phone calls and texting as well. Keep what you say limited.

Remember, this isn't about finding a life partner or a spouse with whom you can "be your true self." This is about keeping dates casual and fun, and spending as little time, money, and effort on your dates as necessary. The less she really knows about you other than what turns you on, the better. The less you can actually say to her that has any meaning to it other than telling her what you want her to do, the better. Your words should be few and should support your presentation.

Marriage Material Men

As anyone who has skimmed through this blog can tell, I'm a huge fan of the Dr. Laura Program and the hostess herself. As such, I listen to every minute of the show and thus I think I've discerned what she would consider the basic requirements of marriage-material men; in other words, what she tells her female callers to look for when it comes to finding a husband.

In no particular order, here they are:


1) He is 28-35 years of age. That might slip down to 27 and slip up to 38 or so, but guys in their earlier 20s are not considered marriage material and men in their 40s or older who have never been married (see below) aren't married because either they really don't want to be or there is some serious flaw with them. Now, she doesn't oppose people remarrying when their children are grown and there is a prenup to protect those adult children and they meet all of the other criteria. However, the focus of this entry is on first marriages.


2) He is the same age or slightly older than the woman.

3) He has no minor children and has never been married before (with the possible exception of widowers). Even if he doesn't have kids, having been married before makes things more complicated and can make divorce more likely. Remember, we're talking about guys in their late 20s and early 30s.

4) He is done with his education and training.

5) He is not in debt.

6) He doesn't abuse substances and is physically and mentally healthy.

7) He doesn't play video games and has no Facebook or social media account.

8) He is Alpha, not weak, and not a momma's boy nor does he allow a problematic mother (or anyone else) to control or negatively impact his life.

9) He earns enough to be the sole support of wife and children in a nuclear family home without others (and he wants to), to pay for private school or homeschooling plus activities, to pay lawyers to "go to war," to pay to care for elderly or disabled relatives to have the care they need, to pay for you both to avoid ever being burdens on your children, and many other things.

10) He has a job that pays as much as described in #9 and is steady, stable, and secure, and yet it doesn't require moves, frequent travel, semi/pseudo-social situations with women, working/commuting long or odd hours or extra/odd days that would intrude into family time, communicating outside of work hours, nor has dangerous conditions, and will allow him to be home for dinner every night.

11) He has a compatible religious background to the woman. Saying "neither one of us is very religious" doesn't count if the religions are in conflict. For example, Jewish (non-Messianic) and Catholic. This is only a must if there is a possibility, however slight, of having children.

12) He is otherwise fundamentally compatible with the woman (major goals, raising children, personalities, etc.)

13) He is willing and able to be completely monogamous for life (no threesomes, swinging, swapping, group sex, polyamory) and would never ask the wife to have sex where others might see nor to watch others have sex in-person.

14) The woman is strongly attracted to him, including physically.

15) There are no red flags in addition to anything covered above, including things that would be red flags if they happened more often or on a larger scale. (You can't come back later say, "It wasn't this bad!")

I personally disagree with #7. I think it is simply something she didn't grow up with and she has an unreasonable bias against such technology. Otherwise, I think these are very good rules for a woman looking for a husband.

In today's world, the combination of #9 and #10 is increasingly rare, especially fitting into the criteria of #1. However, since the priority is family and children, these are necessary things. This is why she frequently gets female callers who say that they "have to" work, or whose husbands aren't home enough or the right hours/days, or whose (potential) husband is older. But remember - "everyone", deep down, wants to be with someone.

UPDATE: It has become painfully apparent with COVID-19 shutdowns that #10 is exceedingly rare in the sense that very few jobs are secure, steady, and stable. They can be removed by government fiat at any time.

Staying a Free Man as a Churchgoer

Some of you attend a church or an equivalent. If you don’t, or you don’t care about staying a Free Man, skip over this entry.

Some of this might be adaptable to you if you attend a synagogue, temple, mosque, stake, Kingdom Hall, or some other congregation, but I’m most familiar with Protestant churches, especially of the “evangelical” variety.

"Marriage Matures Men"

How often do we hear that crap?

Age and life experience mature men. Of course you're more mature now than when you got married. You're older!

Think about people who say that marriage matures men and that's one reason they want men to get married. They want women to marry immature men. Go ahead, ladies! Pair up with an immature man.

Men can be unmarried and mature. How about we focus on how to make that happen, if it really is so important that more men get more mature? Just like I tell men to go to their doctor, why not cut out the "middle man" (the terrible thing that what we now call marriage usually is) and go for the ultimate goal, if that's really what you're concerned with?

Marriage can actually keep men immature. They never figure out how to be independent and make decisions. They marry because someone else will tell them what to do and they think she will pick up after them.

When someone says "marriage matures men," it is fair to ask them what they mean by "mature." It might mean "does what I want them to do."

Depending on how they define it, other things that mature men include:

• Being tortured in an internment camp
• Natural disasters
• Poverty
• Battling cancer
• Combat
  

No thanks!!!

Marriage kills the dreams of men and turns them into beaten dogs. It sucks the fun out of their life. People mistake that, or the natural effects of aging or life experience, for marriage maturing a man.

"Marriage matures men" is one of those things said to try to shame, trick, or pressure men into marriage. Don't fall for it. You can be a great, productive, happy person without ever marrying.

Explain What You Mean in Telling a Husband to Man Up

I've posed this question before, directed at Dr. Laura, but a lot of people tell a husband to "man up" or "grow a pair" or "use your balls" or something similar in dealing with his wife, usually when there is a disagreement or the wife is behaving in some way that is immoral, irrational, unfair, or destructive. I'd very much like to know what someone who says such a thing means by it. What do you they expect the husband to actually do?

He can assert his opinion or demand. His wife can easily ignore or dismiss it.

Then what?

He can't force her to comply, and even if he can physically take unilateral action, she can use the force of law to stop him. He can't withhold his earnings from her (at least in Dr. Laura's scenario, a first marriage wouldn't have a prenup keeping finances separate). Anything he refuses to do for her, she can pay someone else to do using his earnings.

Attention Newlywed Men

Hello, Gentlemen.

June is wedding season. Did you just get married?

Are you already regretting it?

Maybe you think it is the best thing you've ever done. Yeah, that's what you think for now.

Especially if you do not have children with this woman, you need to keep something in mind. How much alimony you'll have to pay her often depends on how long the marriage continues. For example, there are states that say if you were married for six years, you have to pay alimony for three years. Eight years of marriage means four years of alimony. In states like California, ten years of marriage can mean lifetime alimony.

So, the clock is ticking.

Don't let embarrassment, or thinking of it as "failure" or "quitting" if you get out now, or the sunk costs (how much you spent on the wedding, honeymoon, etc.) stop you from getting out sooner rather than later. It would be better to be free, and free sooner, than live a life of quiet misery. get stuck with years and years of alimony, and spend far more money on things she wants as the years ago by.

Things aren't going to get any better than they are now. Likely, they will get worse. People say things got better over time are usually saying that they stopped caring about what they needed, wanted, and their dreams, and developed tolerance to the misery. Guys often forget what freedom was like. Don't let that happen to you!

If you don't have children with her, do not get her pregnant if you're having doubts that marrying her was a good idea.

Much of the advice in this post applies to how to get out. But you definitely need to consult with a family law attorney, since you signed a state legal document (most likely).

Running Game - Do Not Care

Running game isn't just about saving money, time, and effort. It is also about reducing "emotional labor," as the younger generations like to say.

Recently, a young man went to the front door of the house where his ex-girlfriend was. He ended up literally breaking in, and was immediately and fatally shot by the father of his ex. This was recorded on video.

Why was he so determined to gain access?

I don't know any the history of that relationship, nor do I know what personality or mental disorders he might have had, or his history of violence.

What I do know is that some people who have otherwise had stellar behavior have lost control of themselves when it comes to relationships, especially when there are arguments, disagreements, or breakups.

Cult of the Cubicle

The lockdowns associated with the 2020 pandemic widely revealed something that some people had already discovered:

Thanks to technology, many office jobs can now be done entirely or almost entirely from home, or some other "remote" location.

Some employers embraced this for the long term, significantly reducing the office space their company leased or owns.

Others, steeped in what I'll call the Cult of the Cubicle, have been trying to get everyone back into their cubicles, or even worse, their "open" workstations.

If responsibilities can be handled through telephones and computing devices (smart phones, tablets, laptops, desktops, etc.), they can be done through "telework" or remotely. Presentations done on screens can be presented and experiences remotely. Meetings can be done remotely. Trainings can be done remotely.

There are tasks, there are personalities, there are home situations which make it preferable for some people to work in the common office. Some collaborations are going to be better that way.

But for others, why not let them work from home/remotely full-time, permanently, if that is what they want? Either they can do quality work at the quantity needed or they can't. If they can, what is the problem? I can't think of any except for a desire to have a feeling of control over people.

Commuting has costs and risks. For many people, their residence and their employer aren't going to be close, or the commute is going to be slow and stressful even if the physical distance isn't all that far. In the greater Los Angeles area, it isn't unusual for people to have commutes that are over an hour one way, and that's without an accident that stops a commuter train, or closes lanes on a freeway or tollway. The saving grace for people in those commutes is usually radio, podcasts, or audiobooks, or they might do phone calls as they move slowly along the roadways.

But that's about the employee's quality of life. How does allowing more people to work work "from home" more of the time benefit employers? There are many ways. In no particular order:

What Should A Rejected Spouse Do?

What are the options when one partner wants sex far more often than the other?

There are people, including women, who point out that spouses are entitled to sex from each other and that one spouse should not deprive the other except temporarily for mutual consent. As such, one account on Twitter cited an instance in which a wife declined her husband's request for sex, only to wake up later in the middle of the night with him doing things anyway.

The law and our culture both say that this is rape.

The person describing the instance says that the wife should give her husband grace.

(I want to make it clear that it is a major turn-off to me if she doesn't want it, so I wouldn't be in this guy's position even if I believed it was OK.)

In the Biblical framework, spouses owe each other sex. General consent to sex is part of getting married. Don't like it? Don't marry. Of course, people who don't consider the Bible an authority can, with integrity, ignore what the Bible says. But someone who claims to care what the Bible teaches can't.

As far as the law, our laws will force the higher earning spouse to financially support the other spouse, no matter what. By marrying, the higher earning spouse is giving general, ongoing consent to this, and crying "slavery!" later or saying "I don't feel like it" won't change it. And although our laws, in some places, still allow a spouse to sue for "alienation of affection" in the event of an affair and "loss of consortium" for any number of things done to their spouse, other than that, the law does not say one spouse owes the other sex. Think about that. If your wife doesn't feel like sex because her employer committed illegal discrimination against her, you can claim "loss of consortium" as one of the reasons her employer owes you money. But you're not owed sex. Laws aren't always consistent.

The woman who said the wife should give her husband grace, and people like her, would also say a husband viewing porn is a terrible sin, even masturbating without porn would be. In their beliefs, a person's sole sexual stimulant or outlet should be their spouse. No sex outside of marriage is acceptable.

When a caller to Dr. Laura presents the situation of a husband wanting more sex and the wife not wanting to meet him at his level, Dr. Laura usually will provide the options as follows:

A) Wife has sex more often with the husband
B) Husband leaves
C) Husband hires sex workers
D) Husband gets a girlfriend on the side
E) Husband masturbates to porn

She says the wife can pick one. Of course, most of the wives don't want any of those. They want option F, which is just that the husband just be completely sexually frustrated. But in Dr. Laura's mind, even though she isn't a Christian nor a Bible believer in the conventional sense, a husband is owed sex because he's paid for it by laying down his life and signing a state contract that financially obligates him.

While sometimes the wife wants it more than the husband, it is usually the husband who wants it more. The norms of various cultures have dealt with this throughout history with polygyny (multiple wives), prostitution, and mistresses. Most American women reject that. Some of them encourage or "allow" their husband or boyfriend to use masturbation, porn, and toys. Other women don't.

Culturally and legally, there is no shame applied at all to men who stay free and run game, who can have sex any night they want. If one women isn't in the mood, he just moves on to the next woman in his phone's list of contacts, until he finds one who will welcome him. He doesn't need to share his earnings, or run errands, do chores, romance her, go on long walks, listen to her ramble on, or even buy her dinner. He doesn't need to care for her when she's sick, or deal with her parents or siblings, or even her friends. Nope. All he needs to do is text her when he wants some, and show up. He can repeat this with a different woman every night. Meanwhile, the Good Husband can go night after night, for weeks, months, even years, being rejected and going sexless no matter how good of a husband he is. And if he decides he can't take it anymore, he'll have to give up at least half of everything, pay for two legal teams, and likely pay ongoing alimony, maybe even for life.

Which one of those two guys will most men choose to be, if they really grasp that they have a choice? Of course there's always the "monk mode" choice, too, of staying free and not bothering with the sex. We are seeing men make these choices.

I urge men not to assault or harass or otherwise burden women. Only see them when they want you.

Why Married Men Should Have an Affair

To Whom Does Your Body Belong?

Is It OK For a Spouse to Withhold Sex?

Rejecting Your Man

When A Wife Rejects Her Husband

One Flesh or Not?

How To Avoid Single Women With Kids

Someone came here by searching "how to avoid single women with kids."

The most popular entry here is a warning not to date single mothers. You can see for yourself there are hundreds of comments on it.

Of course, you can avoid single women with kids by avoiding women entirely. That fail-safe solution isn't for everyone, though, especially if your a self-destructive masochist who actually wants to get married.

So how does a guy avoid single women with kids (single mothers), especially since more and more women are mothers the older they get?

Hang out in the pet store by the cat supplies.

But seriously, simply pay attention. Most single mothers won't stop talking about their kids, or will badmouth "the father of my kid(s)". In online dating profiles, their kids will often be in their pictures, even though there really isn't a good reason to show complete strangers pictures of their kids unless they're trying to attract pedophiles.

Any woman who hides the fact she has kids is definitely bad news. If you're just looking for sex, there's a chance a woman who hides or omits that she has children is also just looking for sex, and so you might think that's a good thing. But ask yourself... how did she become a single mother in the first place? By other men who were just getting together with her for sex? Stay away, unless you have had a vasectomy, and even then, you should probably heed the warning against dating single mothers.

How do you smoke out a single mother who is hiding the fact that she's a mother?

Perhaps by moving things to her place as soon as you can. You don't want her coming back to your place, anyway. If she's reluctant to let you see her place, she might also be thinking about her safety and convenience, or it might be a mess, or she might live with her husband(!), or she might have kids.

It would take a lot of work for her to remove signs of being a mother from around her place. She could try to pass off the other bedrooms as roommates' rooms.

It doesn't matter how things are going, or how attractive you find her. Once you realize she has kids, especially if she hid it, and especially if you haven't had a vasectomy, you need to drop her immediately. Leave. Ghost her.

If you have any tactics that work for you, please do share them in the comments.

Being Free Isn’t Being Deficient

 

You are a complete person.

You’re sufficient.

You don’t need a spouse, a partner, or whatever anyone wants to call another person to be a complete person and to live a great, productive, honorable, worthwhile life.

Yes, we’re all flawed. Yes, we all have our limitations. Yes, we all need other people to do things or we won’t have food, shelter, etc. (And yes, I believe we all need Jesus.)

But you are a complete person. Having Jesus + a wife won’t save you. The wife doesn’t factor in to your salvation.

You can have a residence, contribute to society, have a great career, be a good friend, and all of that without a wife, a partner, or a girlfriend.

You don’t need someone living with you, having any control over how you live, what you do, how you decorate, what you eat, what you watch, when you go to bed, when you wake up. You don’t need someone there costing you money, taking up your time, nagging you, criticizing you, arguing with you, interfering with your life.

You’re sufficient.

"Is It OK For Spouse to Withhold Sex?"

Someone came here by that search. [This entry is bumped up because it is still relevant.]

It used to be cultural and legally understood in this country that sex and marriage went hand-in-hand, so to speak. We can go all the way back to the Puritans, and if a wife told her friends her husband wasn't giving it to her as often as he should, word would inevitably get to other men in the community and that guy would be confronted. Withholding can be seen as a form of cheating. You're cheating your spouse out of something they should have.

Up until recent times, this concept of sex and marriage being necessarily intertwined continued. Unrelated men and women had no right to live together or even share a hotel room together, and in some places could be prosecuted for doing so. Marriages could be considered null if they were never "consummated" with intercourse. Husbands could rape their wives without violating a law, because her body, or at least her sexuality, belonged to him (and his to her... people forget that part). Adultery was grounds for divorce and could impact the outcome of the divorce. Affair partners can still, in a few places, be successfully sued by the scorned spouse for "alienation of affection". To this day, when a married person is a plaintiff in a lawsuit, their spouse can join in, depending, claiming a loss of consortium (less or no sex because of wrongs done to the spouse by the entity being sued).

The question about whether it is OK for a spouse to withhold sex has to be addressed to someone, though.

How to Break Up

So you're a guy dating a woman and you want out of the relationship.

This is about a situation in which you don't have any serious entanglements other than social: you're not married or engaged, not living together, you have no kids together, she doesn't have minor children who have bonded with you, you don't own anything major together. You're boyfriend-girlfriend or some equivalent. When Running Game, you don't need to break up - you simply stop seeing her. Breaking up is for when you haven't been running game, at least when it comes to this woman, so you've allowed the situation to get to the point you're a couple. That's the situation you're in now.

The point of breaking up is for freedom and personal protection. Maybe you want to reclaim your freedom. Maybe you're being proactive in protecting yourself. Maybe she's trying to move the relationship towards financial transfers or entanglements, living together, marrying, or having children. Maybe you want to be a Free Man. Maybe she's done something for which you have zero tolerance, or she's reached strike three. Maybe she's withdrawn or denied affection.

PLEASE NOTE: If you haven't had a vasectomy, you might want to wait for her period to make sure she's not pregnant, then never give her access to your sperm again as you commence the breakup plan. "Oopsie" pregnancies seem to happen a lot when a relationship is on its way to ending, and some women use fake pregnancy tests or tests shared or sold by pregnant women to mess with a man. ALSO, you might want to safely retain any media or communications with and from her that would disprove any false allegations against you of assault/rape, harassment, or any other forms of abuse.

Which way or doing a break up is best?

A) Dump her cold turkey with either 1) an announcement or 2) going ghost?

B) Get her to dump you?

C) Break routines and get more distant?

Running Game - Get Them Competing

Most women want men other women want.

Any man who pays attention has noticed how more women will flirt with him if they see him with a woman, or know that he has a girlfriend, or see him wearing a wedding ring.

Most women ultimately want the same ten percent of men, but most have to "settle." You want her to think either you're in or heading to that top ten percent, or that you're her stepping stone to reach those men, or a good consolation prize. You do that by letting her know she has competition, even if she doesn't yet.

Why Dr. Laura Should Go on Howard Stern and Why She Won’t

Recently, Dr. Laura relented on her avoidance of virtually all interviews. It was because she was trying to get people to buy tickets to her two live, in-person shows in a theater. [This entry has been bumped up from late 2024.]

She had trouble selling seats.

It must have been a wake up call to her that she doesn’t command the same audience interest and response as she used to.

Until she “stooped” (my word) to the publicity appearances, she had been abiding by a self-imposed avoidance of interviews. There was only one exception I can think of during her avoidance: she’d talk with Megyn Kelly, who is on the same SiriusXM channel. She’s done that twice, I think.

But, to sell seats she had to go on other shows. She has avoided that because she wants people to have the impression of her she crafts and tightly controls on her program, and the related podcasts, website, videos, and social media posts.

Indeed, on at least one show during this promotional stint, she was asked about her first (as far as we know) marriage. She did her best to quickly get away from that topic.

Both she and Howard Stern are primarily connected to SiriusXM. Both she and Stern are in far different places than they were at the height of their fame, with smaller audiences. Her program has changed a bit; his much more so.

Stern, for all of his flaws and all of his changes, can still do a great interview. But Dr. Laura doesn’t want a great interview, at least not one that is truly great in pulling up explanations of things she’d otherwise not discuss on-air, like her first marriage, getting pregnant out of wedlock (apparently twice, at least), her affair with Bill Ballance and his later revenge after his perception she unduly snubbed him, her relationship with her mother and her mother’s death, her affair and shacking up with married father Lew and interactions with his children, her sister, and the state of her relationship with her son.

There’s a lot she doesn’t want to talk about.

Stern was vicious to Schlessinger when she was a target of activist groups and revenge nudes.

There are also serious political differences, and she doesn’t want to debate.

But if she’d go on Stern’s show, it would be memorable, and she might possibly gain some listeners, especially since they already use SiriusXM. If she humanizes herself, and dispels misconceptions, it would be positive. She could say something along the lines of, “Yes, I’ve been there and done some of those things. And I learned better, which is why I preach against those things now. And I’m trying to help people, especially to make life better for children, and the feedback I get says my program is helping people. My personal life has never been perfect. Whose personal life is? Life is complicated. But I have important experience, insights, and skills that help people.”

She and Stern could also commiserate about growing up in NYC when they did, dealing with radio station program directors and syndicators, television executives, activist groups, writing books, and book tours.

I’m fairly certain from what she’s said on-air that people around her have recommended she go on Stern’s show. She didn’t say his name so there’s still a bit of doubt, but if I had to wager I’d assume it was Stern being referenced. But she was emphatic that she wouldn’t and she’s always been negative at the mention of his name, like when a caller says he listens to both on SiriusXM.

She should do his show. But she won’t.