The Formula For a Good Marriage

The Prager U account on X asked for the formula for a good marriage.

My reply was

1. Don’t involve expensive rings

2. Don’t have a ceremony

3. Don’t sign a terrible state contract

4. Don’t live together

5. Don’t claim exclusivity

6. Don’t co-mingle finances

7. Don’t conceive kids

That should make it wonderful.

That still leaves some variety. For example, the same two people can see each other every day, if they so choose. They can act as though they are exclusive with each other. They can buy expensive things together or for each other (just not with a shared loan).

But I'd advise most men stay free, meaning They NOT agree to exclusivity. I'd also tell them not to spend much money on any one woman; certainly not more that $60 per date (zero is optimal), including all expenses, and don't see any one woman every day.

What would be a formula for a good marriage that involved actually living together, being monogamous, and maybe even having kids?

• Perpetually shared or compatible goals
• Shared values
• Compatible personalities
• Ongoing shared chemistry and mutual affection, providing all of the romance, sex, and friendship each other need in a partner
• He could stare at her forever, she always feels protected by him
  
• Both are responsible, kind, quality individuals who can handle life
• Effective partnership with division of labor in which they each put the other first on an ongoing basis
• They turn TO each other instead of AGAINST each other
  

Unfortunately, almost nobody is going to have that. They might have what seems like that for a moment, maybe even years. Almost nobody is going to have that for decades. Even most marriage sellers will admit that; they just think people should suffer through marriage anyway.

People do change. One thing that changes is goals, because either they reach them, they give up trying or are denied, and their priorities and desires change. Compatibility is almost never going to last decades unless at least one of them sacrifices much or avoids what they really want.

There are things I used to do and wanted to do that I gave up on because I have obligations to a wife and children. There are things I thought I'd be getting with a wife and children that I didn't.

Resentment builds, especially in wives. She will remember every...single...thing... he ever did she ever thought was wrong or wronged her in some way. What do you think that does to how she feels about him, as time goes by and the list gets longer? And when she reveals it to him, how do you think it makes him feel?

Bedrooms die. Romance dies. Spouses end up merely tolerating each other, at best they “love the one you’re with” or otherwise stay married only on paper, abusing (even killing!) each other, or divorcing.

And, there’s so much more that interferes with things being good on an ongoing basis.

Here's what marriage sellers really think is the formula for a good marriage:

A man and woman marry (often, young) and crank out babies, maybe as many as they can. And then their whole life becomes about raising those kids and "role modeling" a "good marriage" to those kids so those kids will continue the cycle. The man (and maybe the woman, depending) earn money for their family and to pay taxes and give to their religious institution and charity. Sex matters, but only because it takes sex to make the babies. As such, the man and the woman should only ever have sex with each other. He will bust his butt romancing her, and if they only have sex to conceive children, he'll shut up about it and pretend he's happy. Lather, rinse, repeat with each generation. 

So, the formula for a “good” marriage is essentially castration and dual lobotomies, rendering the spouses too fearful, in a rut, unmotivated, or masochistic to leave it.

What a downer.

But there is hope and happiness to be had. Learn to love being free. Thrive. Enjoy life, and not just for a few years. Enjoy life throughout your life. Enjoy it because you do what you truly want to do. Realize that there is no “soul mate” for anyone, and that moments, even years, of good companionship doesn’t have to mean enduring bad companionship for decades. Stay free and encourage others to stay free, too. Don’t try to tie them down, and don’t let them tie you down.

Don’t Let Thanksgiving Cause Your Downfall

Dear Fellow American Men (or any man who is dealing with the pending American holiday),

(If you’re not, consider this a warning for the December holidays.)

Don’t let the Thanksgiving holiday and weekend lead you to giving up your autonomy, peace, and freedom by sinking into the quicksand of a “relationship.”

You shouldn’t be meeting or spending more time with the family or friends of a woman you’ve been dating. She shouldn’t be spending the holiday with you. You should be scarce this time of year for any woman you’ve been seeing regularly.

Spending holidays like this with such a woman is the path to humiliation, emasculation, and drudgery.

If you have plans with such a woman, it’s not too late to cancel. And you should. You don’t want her thinking of you as husband material.

Let me, a husband, assure you: it would be better to spend this time alone than set yourself for being ensnared in a terrible state contract and the awful social contract culture has attached to it.

Don’t become a beaten dog.

See your family or see friends. If not this year, maybe next year you can plan something for friends who can’t go “home” or prefer not to? If nothing else, I hope you’ve learned to enjoy solitude and can enjoy it now.

Take evasive maneuvers now!

Dennis Prager on the Burned "Excuse" For Not Marrying

Dennis Prager has one of the best talk radio shows and writes some of the best columns and books. [Update: He is recovering from a serious accident and isn’t doing a show currently.] He is generally a social conservative. He's a religious Jew, and if I understand correctly, he aligns most of all with Conservative Judaism. While many social conservatives rail against divorce, Prager does not. Nobody can accuse him of being a "hypocrite" for being twice divorced. (He is currently married.)

I haven't heard him or anyone else explain why he has been through two divorces, and I wouldn't expect him to. For all I know, he was a great husband in both cases and his wives simply decided to leave. I have not heard him talk about the conditions and results of his divorces, either.

Prager unabashedly promotes marrying.

Here's a disagreement I have with him.

He scoffs at the fear of divorce preventing people from (re)marrying, citing that we don't stop driving because of getting into car accidents.

Well, putting aside that some people do stop driving because of an accident, let's explore this analogy. I've heard Prager cite this analogy when addressing that a man who has been burned by divorce himself - rather than citing the divorce of his parents or siblings or friends - and is reluctant to remarry. I've never heard him ask if the person who is reluctant to remarry has minor children. Chances are, they do.

"Second" marriages with minor children have a 70% divorce rate, and that's only counting the ones that end in legal divorce, not the ones where couple is miserable (or the husband is) or separated or the marriage would have ended in divorce if a spouse hadn't died before it could happen.

Let's say that in buying and driving your first car, that no matter how good you took care of it, no matter how much test driving* you did, no matter how well you drove, it didn't stop someone else who was driving it from crashing it. As a result of that accident, you lost custody of your children, you had to leave your home, you had to pay for two legal teams, you lost half of everything you'd earned, you had to make ongoing payments to the person who crashed your car (and rather than being appreciative and apologetic, that person constantly badmouthed you to anyone who'd listen), and you had to pay a percentage of your salary to children who now hate your guts. You can even remove some of these results from consideration.

Let's say there was a 70% chance of  the same thing happening if you bought another car and let someone else drive it (which is what breadwinning men do when they marry). Would it be a good idea for you to do that?

Now add in that you can either 1) get everything you got by buying and driving your own car without doing so, or 2) live a nice life without those things.

Would it really not be valid to be "afraid" or reluctant to buy another car that someone else could drive?

Prager does acknowledge that some men are unfairly screwed over by family law and courts, and he regularly discusses the difficulties between men and women. But he has this thing about how you should fully experience life, and about how marriage makes people better, and that a guy isn't a real man unless he's supporting a wife. This is despite his insistence that dependency, when it comes to government programs, hurts people. As far as fully experiencing life and making people better, there are people who have, intentionally or accidentally, been left in a wilderness and have had to struggle to survive and make it back to civilization. That was a life experience. That made them a better person. Should we all do that, too?

Prager, at least weekly, says that happiness is a moral obligation. For some people, avoiding remarriage helps them stay happy.



Dr. Laura has taken a different approach. She strongly discourages people with minor children from remarrying, But if someone doesn't have minor children and is reluctant to remarry because of being burned in the past, or is already remarried and is not feeling secure in the relationship because of what a different spouse did in the past, she will point out that they aren't with the same person. True, but there commonalities in the laws, and courts and culture. It's a little like saying "Sure, someone stole your car when you were in that other city, but you're in this city now, with different people." It's not irrational to think there's a good chance the car may be stolen. That's one reason we have insurance. When it comes to remarrying, the best insurance is not to do it at all.



*Test driving can mean any number of things: dating, courting, fornication, shacking up. People can "test drive" without fornicating or shacking up, but others do test drive with those things. I don't recall if I've ever heard Prager's view on the moral status of intercourse, other forms of sexual interaction, or literally sleeping together. But let's not deceive anyone. There have been people who've shacked up and later decided to end their marriages, but there are also people who didn't even fornicate who've gone through divorce, too.

It's Like A Vasectomy Advertisement

MISSING THE CLOSENESS wrote in to Dear Abby:

A decade ago, before my wife and I had children, we were deeply in love with each other. Everything was great in the bedroom and outside. After we had children, my wife did a 180. She's no longer affectionate with me at all.

We barely hold hands, we never hug, and kissing is prohibited except maybe a kiss before bed. We kiss like it's an obligation. There's no touching in our relationship.

Why aren't you rushing to get married, men??? I am emphasizing certain words and phrases because a lot of comments accused him of only caring about sex.

In the bedroom we used to be more physical and less restrained. I wanted her to be satisfied, without getting more specific. Now, if we are intimate, it's once a month during the summer and maybe twice a month otherwise. She won't allow me to touch parts of her body, and she's physically and emotionally remote.

Wow, he might be getting more sex than me. How sad for my marriage.

When I addressed this with her, she informed me that other couples are intimate less frequently than we are.

True! And some husbands torture and murder their wife.

Why Do Men Like Lingerie?

Why do men like lingerie?

For men who like women to wear lingerie, there are two basic reasons:

1) It looks more revealing and sexier than baggy sweatpants, granny panties, or just about anything else a woman would wear other than skimpy swimsuits or revealing yoga pants.

2) It signals she's feeling sexual or is willing to get sexual. There are swimsuits more revealing than some lingerie, but the swimsuit signals she's going to hang out by the pool, on the beach, or sun herself. There are yoga pants more revealing than some lingerie, but again, yoga pants don't signal "Let's get sexual."

Most men prefer women to be entirely naked rather than in lingerie. But most men do prefer lingerie to regular clothing or pajamas that don't reveal much.

Some women find lingerie figure-flattering, accentuating certain parts of their body and hiding things about which they are unhappy or self-conscious. We get that. But women do tend to be far more critical of their own bodies than men, especially a man who is with them. But if it helps her feel more confident and helps her to be more enthusiastic, that's definitely a plus.

When a wife surprises her husband with wearing lingerie, especially if he normally has to persuade her to agree to sex, it can be a nice surprise to him.

I plan to write more about why men like certain things when it comes to women. I fully get it that some women, even some women who claim to be heterosexual, don't give a rat's behind about what men like. But there may be a few women who are curious, and I can be honest. Maybe you can put what I tell you to good use?

Also, as with anything else, especially anything sexual, "men like" is a generalization. There will ALWAYS be outliers or a minority of men who think/feel differently. In this case, that means a few men will find lingerie a turn off, or will prefer it to nudity.

Pledging Marriage For Life Doesn't Make Sense

Life is very different than when our marriage laws where written. Life is very different than when our customs about marriage were solidified.

Most people used to live their entire lives in the same place, unless they got traded away in slavery or were sent off to war. Upward mobility wasn't much of a thing. You grew up working the family farm or in the family business, or you got an apprenticeship in someone else's family business. Usually, everyone in the area shared the same religion. Most people lived in farming villages but even if you lived in a city, your prospects for partners were minimal. If you got paired up with someone, either per your family or your own efforts, you stuck with them because there was a little other choice. If you were a woman, leaving was likely to mean destitution. A man could rape his wife and beat her without running afoul of the law or society, and he could beat his children into submission or kick them out of the home. But for anyone who needed to raise his own help, a fertile wife and resulting children were appreciated. Leisure and recreation were limited and retirement wasn't much of a thing.

Today, we can reach around the world instantly with our communications, and travel to anywhere in the world in a matter of hours. We have the potential to interact with millions of people over our lifetime. Education and career training can take decades, we can take promotions offered from the other side of the planet, and changing jobs, changing entire careers, and moving from one residence to another is quite common. Family law can reward a woman for divorcing her husband, and her friends and other cultural elements might urge her to do so. Leisure and recreation play a much larger role in the lives of most of us, and most people expect to retire with decades left to live.

Some Free Women Say They Wanted a Family

Melanie Notkin, an apparently free woman, writes about free women who wanted to marry and have kids, and contrasting their situation with women who did marry.

“I was 22 when we met,” Lisa said of her future husband. “We broke up a few times, but I stuck with it. I gave him ultimatums!”

That's a train wreck.

It took the man, 13 years Lisa’s senior, six years to put a ring on it.

The fool.

“You can’t control who you fall in love with and who falls in love with you,” I added, in my defense.

Chemistry matters.

“Love shmove!” Lisa said with a look of disbelief in her eyes as if someone had pulled the wool over mine.

Lisa's poor husband.

Was it better to have never truly loved and gotten married than to have loved and lost it all?

Best to stay free.

What I’d said was true: I had been in love and had my heart broken. A few times. And as the years passed, each disappointment grew as my hope for children dwindled.

This wasn’t my plan. I was ready to get married at age 21, two years after my mother’s early death at age 52. I yearned to recreate her maternal love with my own children.

Yikes.

While I had grown up in a traditional Jewish home, after she died, I became more observant, believing on some level that religious young men were more likely ready to create a family that would gather around the warm glow of the Shabbat table on Friday nights. (Later, I’d learn at least my instincts were right.)

At age 24, I packed up my life in Montreal, Canada, and moved to New York City to find that great Jewish man, the future father of my children. It was surely the best possible plan. 

This month marks 30 years in Manhattan, still single and no chance of becoming a mother. As the old Jewish adage goes: We plan; God laughs.

Now why is that? Not enough Jewish men in the right age range? Did she not put herself in the right places? Did she not give off the right signals?

My second book, a memoir called Otherhood: Modern Women Finding a New Kind of Happiness was published in 2014. Along with my own story, I share the experiences of Generation X and older millennial women who expected the love, marriage, and children our mothers had, along with greater access to higher education and the careers they didn’t have. It wasn’t that most of my generation chose the latter over the former. We simply expected that we would date and pay the rent simultaneously, just like the men we were dating did.

Maybe men and women are different?

I first chose a low-paying non-profit career with greater flexibility to take care of my future children. I invested time and money in online dating sites in my twenties, matchmaking services in my thirties, and singles events (or big ticket charity events where there would be plenty of singles), into my forties.

We don't know how she behaved during her activities, though.

Now, age 54, I am among the 25% percent of Americans who by age 40 have never married. And I have surpassed the 46.7% of never-married women ages 40-50 who are childless.

Keep up the good work, guys!

It’s not that we did not want to marry. We did.

Wanting to marry isn't the same thing as wanting to be a wife, though.

The breadth of women who did everything they were supposed to do to prepare themselves for the life they imagined now stretches to the younger cohort who land on the college campus of their choice only to have few men to choose from. Or, they’ve graduated and moved to the big city, only to find it just as hard to meet someone. Childless women in their twenties out-earn their male peers in 20 metropolitan areas. For these women, meeting a man who is also ready to meet their match is more challenging than ever.

Why does it matter if she earns more, hmm?

Nonetheless, this narrative assumes women don’t plan well, make poor choices, put our careers first, are too picky, or believe love is a fairytale. And for those of us who didn’t find love in time for the children we yearn(ed) for and who grieve our loss, it’s often assumed we were too naive to understand our fertility would end. We waited too long, they say. Left it too late, they admonish. As if we didn’t have painful monthly reminders. For most of us, it wasn’t our choice.

I can believe that there are women who did "everything" right and still never married even though they wanted to marry. Better they not have married than to have had a bad marriage, though.

While more young women today say they are remaining single and childless by choice, I have my doubts that it’s what most of them truly want.

Believe women.

Perhaps she would have been more likely to marry if family law and courts weren't so terrible? Something to think about. Because we can change laws and courts.

When A Wife Rejects Her Husband

A lot of husbands and now-ex-husbands know the pain of a sexually rejecting wife. By "rejecting" I mean at least one of the following:

1. Refusing to have sex at all.

2. Only agreeing to sex infrequently. "Infrequently" is a relative term. If they were having some form of sex every day for years and now she only agrees to sex once per week even though no changes in their life would prevent her from agreeing more frequently, that's rejection. Other husbands WISH they could get it once per week. They might get it once a month or a couple of times per year.

3. Reducing sexual options to a bare minimum. This could mean rejecting acts she used to do, especially if she did them before they had kids or before they married. It could be consistently restricting sex to intercourse or manual sex even though he has told her he wants to other other common sex acts. It could be her impersonating a corpse (when she knows her husband isn't into that sort of thing). 

4. Transforming her appearance and/or changing her behavior in ways that will kill his attraction. Significant weight gain; shortening her hair and/or changing her hair style/color to something he doesn't like; always wearing frumpy clothes when she used to wear sexy vestments; poor grooming/hygiene; cruel, belittling, or disrespectful statements (when he isn't into that sort of thing); expressing her general dislike of sex when she previously at least pretended to enjoy it - these are all forms of rejection, make no mistake about it. 

5. Starfishing. She might say something, with a sigh of exasperation or contempt, “OK, if YOU really want to!” …if she says anything at all, then imitates a corpse or starfish. She might even tell him to hurry up and otherwise make it very clear she’s only doing this as mercy to him. 

Why I Don’t Call Dr. Laura Schlessinger

Dr. Laura isn’t getting enough calls. Talk radio in general gets fewer calls than it used to, but the Dr. Laura Program is built around calls. As with many other hosts, she can monologue. But she wants calls.

We can tell she’s not getting enough calls because she dropped down to four “live” programs per week, but will still monologue for a while in the middle of the program, read letters, and yet still fill time with playing unannounced repeat calls, some from years ago and some from a few days ago. The screeners sometimes have to put unprepared callers up.

Her program can be heard live across North America. Why isn’t she getting enough callers?

Well, I know why I haven’t called. Maybe Dr. Laura or her staff will learn from me. I’m a paid subscriber to her program, not a general SiriusXM listener. [Update: currently listening to the podcasted hours on SiriusXM] I have thought for a long time that she’s an overall positive influence. I have concerns, questions, decisions, and situations for which Dr. Laura’s focused, experienced, sincere evaluation might help. I can probably disguise my voice enough without sounding weird. But I won’t call her.

Here are the reasons why.

1. She’s not there to help the caller. Callers are fodder for Dr. Laura getting her messages to listeners. She sees this as helpful to listeners. She has repeatedly said as much. I have no interest in being used as essentially an object lesson or warning against something I can’t change now. I already do that on this blog! She has helped many callers, but it's not her primary goal, and I believe she has hurt some callers. She will not take or will quickly dump calls that don’t easily serve her agenda, and spend much time countering a call that she might see as conflicting with her agenda after the caller is no longer able to clarify or defend. She usually won’t help callers who need to know HOW to discern, determine, or elicit something from others, so she gets curt or scolding if a caller says “I don’t know” regarding the reasons behind another person’s behavior. She can tell them how to find out, but she usually won’t. She will, more often, try to get the other person onto the program as well, which almost never happens.

2. Sometimes, she doesn’t listen. Per the point above, she doesn’t really need to listen to the caller in order to make assumptions and pontificate. But it can be a problem for her when listeners who are paying close attention notice, because they want her advice and statements to logically flow from what the caller said. And the caller sure wants that! There are reasons she might not listen to any given caller, other than preparing her retort or daydreaming. She has ads to read, other calls listed on her screen, work going on around her home (she works from home), a really great view, her dog, program staff talking in her ear (every once in a while we hear them when we’re not supposed to), and she eats, unmuted, during the program, while taking calls.

3. She doesn’t accept that crosstalk is a normal part of phone conversations, and reacts angrily to it. The way phones, especially mobile phones, work, there is no good way to avoid all crosstalk. Every other talk program host seems to have accepted that some crosstalk is to be expected, and calmly and politely work around it.

4. She interrupts, and not pleasantly. Related to the above, she will often ask the caller a question, the caller will start to answer, Dr. Laura will interrupt the caller mid-sentence, then be upset that the caller didn’t immediately stop the moment she interrupted. This can sidetrack the entire call. She has had many methods of interrupting, but the one she currently favors is a loud, high-pitched “WOO HOO!!! WOO HOO!!!” No thanks! Maybe try a gong? At least it would be funny. 

5. We have an incompatible worldview. I'm a Theist who believes in miracles, including that the Lord can and does operate in our lives. This does NOT excuse inaction on our part when, where, and how we should act. Followers of Jesus are supposed to do certain things and not do certain other things. Dr. Laura has decidedly dismissed certain things Theists in general and Christians in particular consider part of life. Sometimes her worldview, which appears to be Deistic or Atheistic, conflicts with this. This has an impact on the advice she gives and can cause her to sound critical of Christian theology.

Also, one of the things I'd ask her about is how to handle divorcing my wife in terms of my communication and other behaviors, if I were to do that. But Dr. Laura tends to think men owe women money for sex, whereas I see sex as something people share. Of course the law would force me to pay a lot in a divorce, but I don't see it as immoral to seek how to pay as little as legally possible.

6. Dr. Laura lives in a different world. Most radio hosts and most advice mavens pretty much live in the same world as the rest of us. For a long time now, Dr. Laura has had a net worth of tens of millions of dollars, if not more. She lives in an exclusive estate she tried to sell for 20+ million dollars. She pretty much works a job she loves, with no boss, four days per week, from home, for probably about 4 hours per day mid-day. Good for her, and I mean that, for doing so well. But it has influenced her advice sometimes, when she fails to understand the limitations and demands on her callers. One big thing I’ll be facing includes retirement. She often speaks out against it. I don’t need to be told not to retire.

Furthermore, disapproving of shacking up, casual sex, and making "salad" (blended) families is fine, but failing to grasp what present-day dynamics are, whether we like them or not, and deal with them, is a problem. We hear this when she tells a teen or young woman that the guy they had sex with is telling all of his friends, as if that is still some deterrent. There’s no stigma anymore in casual sex, unmarried cohabitation, and stepfamily constructs, or having a big wedding when any or all of these things have been involved. As my kids reach adulthood, I might be dealing with these things whether I like it or not. 

She has an unreasonable bias against technology. She rejects the use social media because she had to struggle to get her platform and now just any lowly person can have their message go viral even though they haven’t “earned” it. These things are a part of my life and there’s nothing wrong with that. 

7. She has a terrible history with family and close relationships. Her critics have made a point in pointing out her estrangement from her mother, which is part of the reason her mother was dead for quite a while before anyone knew. In Dr. Laura’s defense, as she has pointed out, her mother apparently had no friends to notice she wasn’t present, but Dr. Laura also wasn’t close to her father, apparently isn’t close to her sister, didn’t keep her first marriage together, and either her son and/or daughter-in-law requested she not talk about them on air anymore, other than mentioning stories of his childhood, or they’re estranged. Whatever is going on, it’s very different from when she’d frequently mention them, have current pictures of the three of them together posted on social media (which is OK for her to use), and have the DIL on the air with her to talk about HR situations. We also know Dr. Laura, well into adulthood and her career, decided to practice Orthodox Judaism (her mother was an Italian Catholic, her father Jewish), got her husband and son into it as well, then she stopped, apparently because of some problems with some people. What’s the common denominator in all of this?

We don’t really know how her relationship to her late husband was. We know she didn’t give their son her husband’s last name, and we know what little she has said: he was ill or in delicate health for years before he passed, he agreed with her when she said she’d destroy him if he ever hurt their son (said when she was pregnant), he protected her while she was very pregnant and crossing a busy street, he’d gas up her car. We really haven’t been told more, so we don’t know more than that and how the relationship started. He doesn’t show up in the stories of her son’s childhood other than handling something at the school office.

Yes, a heart surgeon can treat heart ailments even if they have their own heart ailments or even unhealthy behaviors. But in the context with everything else, it’s a concern. I have benefited from what she’s said and written about marriage and family, but it has to be taken with much salt.

8. General rudeness. I can agree that, sometimes, her tactics are “necessary” to push a caller out of their rut. However, that’s not always the case, as other professionals have demonstrated. She herself will, occasionally, show that she can be gentle and pleasant in dealing with a caller, so we know she can do it.

It’s definitely rude for the host of a call-in talk program to make assertions and bring up topics but refuse to take calls pertaining to them. If I could call her and discuss some of her assertions I think might be flawed, I might. But she doesn’t allow for that. She will not argue nor debate. As such, I’m left with thinking she’s mistaken or being too selective in the studies she uses; maybe I’m wrong, but she won’t take the steps to show why. Callers aren’t even allowed to address something relating to a previous caller other than to ask for “clarification.” 

So, there it is. I don't want to be misinterpreted and verbally beat up, I can't ask many questions I'd like to ask, and I have doubts that for some of my specific concerns, I'd be getting advice that isn't being skewed by her own obvious biases and the relational failures she doesn't discuss. Those are the reasons I don't call. I could call her to praise her for the many things I do like about her program, books, social media, etc., but that’s boring radio.

Men You Shouldn't Marry

This post is directed at women. 

I've written a lot here about women men shouldn't marry. But how about men that women shouldn't marry?

I've gathered these from women in general, media by and directed at women, and marriage advocates of both sexes, including Dr. Laura. Plus, as a man, I know how men can be, so I figure I should warn you.

Most of these are reason enough individually to NOT marry him, but if more than one describes him, that's even worse! In no particular order:

1. You're not strongly attracted to him. If he doesn't make you tingle and make you weak in the knees, you can't marry him. It wouldn't be fair to him and you're not going to be happy for very long.

2. He's younger than 28, or older than 40 and has never been married, or more than 10 years older than you, or more than a few years younger than you. If he's younger than 28, he's too young and immature to marry. If he's 41 or older and has never been married, he doesn't really want to be married or there is something else terribly wrong with him. If he's 11 or more years older than you, he just wants a young hardbody he can manipulate. If he's more than a few years younger than you, he wants a Mommy, not a wife.

3. He's proposed in less than 24 months. He's not taking marriage seriously. He doesn't know you and you don't know him. He's desperate.

4. He wants a prenup. That means he's planning to leave you.

5. He asks you about your sexual past. He's an insecure, misogynistic pervert.
 
6. He's not an Alpha Male. You need a stoic REAL MAN who takes charge, can handle himself, and handles business, not some wimpy guy whining about his feelings.

7. He's a Momma's Boy. You don't want a guy who cares so much what his mother thinks and is always catering to her, especially if he's lived with her after turning 18.

8. He has a family member in his life who is trouble. He should have distanced himself from any problematic family member.

9. He flirts with other women, like waitresses, receptionists, etc. Smiling at these women, looking them in the eye, joking with them, laughing at their jokes... who needs that?!? You should be the only woman to whom he looks.

10. He's not established in his career and making a lot of money. You can't build a marriage, let alone a family, with a guy who is still trying to figure out what he's going to be when he grows up, who needs to relocate, who is still getting an education.

11. He earns less than you. Why do you need that? You want a man who will take care of you. Plus, it isn't good for his ego.

12. He doesn't have at least as much education as you. You deserve a husband who has at least as much education as you, not some loafer who can't finish anything.

13. He's too focused on work. If he works long hours, or doesn't make it home to have dinner with you, or is texting/calling/emailing his boss, coworkers, or subordinates when he's with you, then he's neglectful and his priorities are screwed up.

14. He's plays video games. Why would he do such a childish thing when he could be watching The Bachelor with you?

15. He has a Facebook account. Did you know people survived for thousands of years without Facebook? A guy shouldn't be on Facebook.

16. He doesn't ask you what you want. He should be seeking your happiness, not being self-centered. 

17. He doesn't share his feelings. If he's not going to open up to you and be vulnerable, you can't have a real relationship.

18. He doesn't discuss things with you. If he's not willing to discuss anything and everything with you, then you can't have a real relationship.

19. He has shacked up. This means he's OK with mistreating and using women and doesn't value marriage.

20. He wont tell you about his sexual past. He's hiding something and has hang-ups, and probably erectile dysfunction. He's quite possibly gay. He's definitely had way too many sex partners. 

21. He's viewed porn. This means he's OK with sex trafficking, objectifying, abusing, and raping women and probably kids as well. He's not going to be satisfied with a real woman. Porn melts brains and turns men into serial killers. It's a public health crisis. Most importantly, his eyes should only be for you.

22. He's divorced. Second marriages have a 70-percent divorce rate, and he probably can't keep a woman happy.

23. He's a widower. A real man protects and takes care of his wife. Fail. 

24. He's had sex. If he's had sex outside of marriage, then he's OK with having sex outside of marriage, which means he's more likely to cheat on you. If he's only had sex inside of marriage, it means he's either divorced or a widower, which we already covered. 

25. He has kids. Maybe he had them within marriage, but remember, he shouldn't have had prior marriages. And if he had them outside of marriage, he's more likely to have them outside of YOUR marriage! And if those kids are minors, he should be focused on raising them, not bringing a stepmother into their life. He's going to choose them over you, and if he doesn't he should!

26. He neglects his mother. If he neglects her, he'll neglect you. A man who isn't warm and doting on his mother won't dote on you.

27. He's an only child. He doesn't have any siblings to babysit your children or provide other support. He's used to getting his way and doesn't understand sibling dynamics or what it is like to live with kids. The burden of caring for his parents will fall solely on him.

28. He's never dated a woman with kids. He doesn't like kids! He's unable or unwilling to step up and be a real man and take on a paternal role. He's selfish. He's not attracted to women who've had kids, which will doom your relationship.

29. He abandoned a kid of an ex. He's cold-hearted and doesn't care about children if he didn't keep being a paternal figure to the child of an ex.

30. He's lived on his own for many years. He's used to having his own way. How is he going to live with you?

31. He asks you what you want. He should know already! Why is he adding to your emotional labor???

32. He had a girlfriend or crush when he was in high school or younger. That means he's attracted to minors, which makes him a pedophile. You can verify this whether or not he's admitted to having such a crush by showing him a picture of a model who is 17 years and 11 months old. Don't tell him her age. Ask if he thinks she's pretty. If he says yes, he's a pedophile. 

33. He has the kids of ex girlfriends in his life. That's going to confuse any kids you have with him and take away time and possibly money from them. What's worse is that it will keep him in touch with his ex girlfriend.

34. He compliments you on your appearance. This means that he's a misogynist who objectifies you. 

35. He's cold to waitresses, receptionists, etc. and will barely look at them. If that's the way he treats them, that's the way he will eventually treat you. He's not a good person.

36. He hasn't had sex. Something must be wrong with him and he's not desired by other women. If they don't want him, you shouldn't either. 

37. He argues with you. He should respect your opinion enough to defer to you, not cause you stress.

38. He yells. This is abuse and will lead to you being battered.  

39. It's been 30 months and he hasn't proposed. Leave. He's wasting your time. Do not accept a proposal from him, because he wouldn't be proposing because he really wants you, just because you decided to leave.  

This isn't an exhaustive list, such as a criminal record, substance abuse, and him not being at least a few inches taller than you.

Don't settle, ladies!!! Refuse to marry or live with a man who is beneath you!!!

Marriage Material Men

Men Need To Protect Themselves In the Workplace

 

Don't be fooled, guys.

It doesn't matter how relaxed your workplace feels or seems. It doesn't matter what your boss does, what other men do, or what the women do there.

You must always remember that normal adult behavior, including harmless behavior that has gone on in workplaces for as long as workplaces have been a thing, can now get you in deep trouble. Normal behaviors, normal conversations, can lose you your job, your entire career, and more.

Your job, your workplace, is not a place to find a date, or a lay, or a girlfriend, or a wife. It doesn't matter that people have done that for as long as there have been workplaces and are still doing it now. It is far too much of a risk for you. You need to think about you, and covering your donkey.

No, it's not just crude jokes, or lingering hugs, or cheesecake screensavers, or trading favors. The way you look at a woman, even if she is fine with it, can get you into trouble.

So, how do you prevent accusations?

The best way is to work for yourself, or for very small business at which no women work and no women will ever work. Even then a woman who interacts with you as a customer or supplier or whatever can make accusations, but you have more control and protection than if you're working for a large employer, especially one where misandrist feminists are in control, or at least in control of dealing with alleged sexual harassment.

But if you do work somewhere that women also work, you need to be very careful, deliberate, and consistent in what you do:

Keep your interaction with women strictly professional and to the minimum that is absolutely necessary.

What does this mean in practice?

Let’s Check Up on a Marital Bed Again

It’s been over a year since I posted this.

So, we’ve had another year, another anniversary, our birthdays, Valentine’s Day, Christmas, and so on.

The kids are older and more self-sufficient.

Speaking of anniversaries, I was happy, but didn’t let myself get too happy, that our anniversary prompted my wife to look again for “adult” items, such as toys. I told her it meant a lot to me and I presented excitement and enthusiasm. The business she bought from has a clever marketing/sales strategy, so she bought plenty of items, supposedly at low prices.

The reason I secretly tempered my excitement is that she’s bought toys, games, and other items before. They hardly get used. We have at least one activity book that’s gone unused - ever. She took a look through it and that was it.

But… I wanted to encourage her effort this time, even knowing it wasn’t going to lead to much in the short term and even less in the long term.

Yes, we’ve tried out most of what she bought. Most stuff got tried…once.

When you’re only getting sexual once every few weeks or less, bells and whistles are likely to be neglected.

I mean, what can I expect when we left town (at great expense and hassle) for our anniversary and, per her planning, we brought the kids with us, and they stayed with us in the same room?

Yes, we could send them out of the room, and we did. But… really.

She knows we don’t do it enough. She knows her inhibitions are restrictive. She has said both of those truths. But she’s not doing anything to change it. And there’s nothing I can do change it.

On the plus side, she hasn’t added new restrictions since my previous post. That might be because I learned not to bring the subjects of not getting enough sex/wanting to do certain things; she took those opportunities in the past to say boner-killing stuff and add more restrictions.

So, here we are.

If you’re not married, don’t lock yourself into that terrible state contract, guys. Stay free. If you want female companionship, running game will get you plenty with little cost or trouble. If you absolutely must be what you’ll think is monogamous, you still should avoid that terrible state contract.

Important Messages to Young Men - Health Is Invaluable

The introduction to this series is here.

Health is invaluable. If you're in good health and haven't been suffering from any serious illnesses, genetic problems, or injuries, you might feel indestructible and not be thinking much about it, but good health is one of the most important things in life and shouldn't be taken for granted. Bad health is limiting, costly, and time consuming.

If you're in good health, you almost certainly have fewer years of good health ahead of you than overall time, and as I said previously in this series, life is short. Someday, an injury or illness or just plain old age will do you in.

You have no control over which genes you got, but you can control what you consume and whatever else you do.

So:

• Get the sleep you need
• Keep yourself on the move by walking briskly, bicycling, hiking, climbing, or swimming - something with "cardio."
• Build and keep your muscles - like with cardio, you don’t have to join a gym to do this, if you need to save money and have the discipline to do it without a formal gym
• Control your anger, rage, aggression, and depression - therapy, exercise, and hobbies can help
  
• Watch what you eat and drink - the best way to lose excess fat is to never put it on in the first place - the 2nd best way is to move more and eat less
  
• Practice good hygiene, keeping your body washed, your hands washed and/or sanitized throughout the day, brush and floss your teeth and use a rinse
• Be careful about where you stick your penis and your mouth, and get tested regularly if you're not
  
• Be careful about steroids, booze, smoking of any sort, vaping, or any mind/mood altering substances whether prescribed, legally allowed, or illegal - you want your brain to function at its optimum, you don’t want addiction, and dirty needles are death
• Don't pick unnecessary fights and be careful about fights picking you - consider serious self-defense training, which will teach that it’s usually best to avoid a fight
  
• Don’t engage in stupid, unnecessary risks, like street racing
• Don’t shortcut safety protections for work
• Go to your doctors - all of them, including your dentist, and don’t ignore symptoms
  

You’re not indestructible. If you want a good, long life, you’ll take your health seriously. Bad health makes good sex less likely. Good health puts you at an advantage in many aspects of life.

Life is Short

Life on the Carousel

In an effort to discourage what they see as unfair competition, people like Dr. Laura will tell unmarried women something like:

 "The more sexual partners a woman has before she marries, the less she'll enjoy marital sex."

How exactly is that determined?

We can't compare people to themselves. No one person has had both experiences - having many sexual partners before marrying and having few or none before marrying. So how can anyone know?

This is how it is determined. Usually among other questions, they ask women who are or were married:

• How satisfied they are/were with their marital sex life
• How many partners they had before they married

Then, they notice that there appears to be some correlation.

Let's be clear about a few things though.

1) This is based on self reporting. People who have had few or no sex partners before their marriage have nothing for comparison. It's like giving a starving person plain rice. How happy is that person going to be with rice? Very! As far as sex, it's basically saying "I like sex" or "I'm happy with our sex life" even if they're having sex four times per year.

2) Who has few or no sex partners before marrying? Very religious people. Many of them consider it a sin or even a "negative confession" to say that they are anything less than thrilled with their marital sex life. Also, some unattractive women don't attract many sex partners. Of those who do marry, they're probably going to be happy.

3) There are many women who saved sex for marriage and then had a terrible sex life.

4) There are women who had "many" sex partners before marriage and have a great marital sex life. They tend to be women who like sex a lot and have a high drive.

5) What people who use this tactic are advocating is that you make vows and sign a state contract with someone before finding out if you're sexually compatible. It is VERY different to have no sex at all before marrying and to get very sexual with one person before marrying them. The latter often get lumped together with the former, even though with the latter, if they realize they're not sexually compatible, they are far less likely to marry in the first place.

6) It means something that the people who use this tactic don't apply to anything else. If a woman never goes to a nice restaurant before she marries, won't that make the experience of going to one with her husband that much more special? So an unmarried woman should decline offers to go to a nice restaurant, right?

There are many women who get bored of sex. If those women have had many sex partners before they married, then they might hit that wall of boredom earlier in their marriage. Incels and some others (like Dr. Laura, "purity" purveyors) say a woman's ability to bond, and thus enjoy sex more, gets damaged more the more sex partners she has (like a piece of tape that gets reused and reused loses effectiveness). But for any individual woman, there's no assurance that she'll enjoy sex a lot if she's waits and she won't enjoy it much if she doesn't.

Again, these studies never separate out women who have decided not to marry at all, are enthusiastic about sex, and don't have moral qualms about unmarried sex. Some of them enjoy sex very much. I know my first serious girlfriend enjoyed sex a lot even after having many partners. Or at least she was very effective at pretending to.

A Very Tiny Pool

"Refuse to date men use porn!" was tweeted out by one my favorite antiporn accounts.

First things first: Of course people can and should set any standards or requirements they think are best when it comes to who they'll date.

Two very important words in the tweet were "use" and "porn". What exactly are we talking about here? Is a guy who stares at artistic nudes once or twice per month or enjoys the annual Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue just as out-of-the-question as a guy who is viewing hardcore videos 2-3 times per week? If so, there's going to be almost no man who passes this test. And "use" implies it is ongoing. Given how much we are told  by antiporn activists that porn damages the brain, shouldn't men who used porn be out of consideration, too?

A Tale of Two Dear Abby Letters

Two recent letters to Dear Abby provide lessons for men, especially when taken together.
 
PUT-UPON MOM IN GEORGIA wrote:

My 50-year-old daughter divorced her husband 15 years ago because she thought she could do better.

Unless it would truly be better for her to be alone, you already know that was a stupid move. Did she talk with any other women around that age about how hard it is to find good men?

From what I could see, he was a good husband. She didn't work and lived a comfortable lifestyle with two small children.

How much in assets did that guy lose? How much money went to lawyers? How much alimony did he have to pay? How much time with his kids got taken away from him? How much child support did he have to pay?

Since the divorce, that lifestyle has gone steadily downhill.

Of course!

She can't hold a job because she always finds some way to be offended, and quits.

What must it have been like to live with her?

She had a house my husband and I paid the down payment on, but lost it by making the ownership joint with her abusive second husband.

So she exposed her kids to an abuser?

She no longer receives child support because her children are grown, so her finances are worse than ever. We bought her a car last year because she had no transportation.

All that money should have gone in to trying to get custody of the kids, or helping their first ex son-in-law so do. And isn't child support supposed to be for the children? Why did it stopping hurt her finances if she no longer had to support children? Hmmm...

My question is this: How much should we continue to financially support her?

NO MORE!

Yet again, guys, we see that you should avoid signing a terrible state contract with a woman.

In another letter, PROCEEDING WITH CAUTION wrote:

I'm a 32-year-old woman. My 20s were spent in a serious long-term relationship. It was a lot of firsts for me. After we split, I took a couple of years to sow my wild oats and find out who I am as an individual.

Guys, you want to meet up with women when they are doing that.

I'm now looking for something more than "friends with benefits."

"I've had my fun."

However, the last few men I've met and gone on dates with, as wholesome as they seemed on dating sites (which have been my main source of meeting men), were really just looking for hookups. I want to find a life partner.

What does "life partner" mean? Dose it involve someone doing free work for you? Paying your way through life?

Most men want hookups. Some are willing do more because they think they have to. But most men, especially if they know what they're doing can get hookups. That's the competition you're facing.

I have been chatting with a potentially great guy I met online, and we have a date scheduled. But I'm nervous that when we meet that he'll expect more than a date. I'm over that. Like I said, I want an actual relationship.

You're over that? So you don't like sex?

Can you give me some advice on what to do and say, or not, on a first or second date to help move it in the right direction without scaring the guy away?

That depends if you're going to hold out or not. If you're not going to hold out, don't bother with the speech. If you are going to hold out, be blunt about that, and tell him it's not an invitation for him to try to persuade you differently.

If he sticks around, consider he might be desperate, have little drive, be gay, or otherwise in little interest in grown women. Or, he might be very religious. Are you willing to be with a man who is very religious, and everything that entails?

Pay attention, men.

Unmarried Women and Elections in the USA

This was originally published in September 2012. It still holds up, I think. In 2024, elective abortion was a big issue, even though plenty of states shave unrestricted abortion and travel to those states isn’t difficult. Follow the money.

In 2025, there’s a socialist running for mayor in New York City who’ll probably win.

*****

Married women are more likely to vote Republican, unmarried women are more likely to vote Democrat.

Why?

Different people have different explanations, because even asking female voters why they vote the way they do won't necessarily get you the truth.

One explanation I think holds a lot of water is that while many unmarried women see themselves as independent, they want someone to promise them security, and they are very much dependent - on taxpayers they don't even know. Another way of putting it is some some women who say, "I don't need a man!" are counting on men (and women) who pay the taxes that fund the government programs on which these women depend. Democrats promise larger (and supposedly bringing more goodies) government. Republicans promise... to slow the rate of increase in expanding of government. So someone who wants the government to take care of them (as opposed to simply protect them from invading armies, terrorists, and criminals) is much more likely to vote Democrat.

Of course there are unmarried women who are successful and are part of the 53% paying federal income taxes to support those other women who claim to be independent. One big reason many of them are unmarried is because they will only marry a man who will earn more than they do and will promise them additional financial security. The more successful a woman is, the fewer men there will be who are more successful than she is. (Isn't Oprah still unmarried?) If she has been focused on her education and career and growing her business or climbing the corporate ladder, she may not have had the time or interest in building personal relationship with a marriage-minded, marriage-material man. And, by the time she feels like she has arrived at a level where she feels successful, the men in her age range are married, or divorced with children and nasty ex-wives, and/or dating younger women.

On the other hand, someone could argue that the kind of women more likely to vote Republican are also the kind of women more likely to be married. Not sure how that works, though, given that statistically, almost everyone gets married.

I've also noticed that Democrat operatives, academics, and leaders tend to classify people by their sex, sexual orientation, skin color, religion, income level, etc. and then tell them that if they are Latino, black, homosexual, non-Christian, lower-income, or female they then are victims of hate coming from white, heterosexual, Christian, wealthy men and the only or best way to mitgate such injustice, or course, is new or expanded federal programs and protections. Yes, unless they make the system bigger and more powerful and put the "right" people in charge of it, rich male breeder Bible-thumpin' whitey will deviously take any income, food, or home they arrange for themselves, and force them to be incubators for the new supply of child labor. Well, I'm a white, male, heterosexual, Christian, and my income is higher than average. I want people to have whatever they've earned. I want every person's rights protected. I don't want to oppress anyone. I don't want big corporations or the wealthies to manipulate the system unjustly. That's why I believe in Constitutionally-limited government and, as much as possible, power being decentralized. Congress can't give out corporate welfare if Congress sticks to the Constitution.


There other other explanations, too, as to why there is such a split between unmarried and married women, but I think the dependency/security or "I want someone take care of me but not tell me what to do or hold me accountable" thing makes the most sense, based on what I've heard from the very women in question.

Yes, there are exceptions and outliers and I'm generalizing. Of course I am. And I welcome your disagreement or agreement or citing of exceptions.

November Requires Evasive Meneuvers For American Men

 

Free Men, hopefully you didn't spend your Halloween catering to a woman.

If you haven't done so already, you need to start implementing your holiday game plan. Thanksgiving, Hanukah, Christmas, New Years, and Valentine's Day are on their way.

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 now 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 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.

"Why Can't Men Be Upfront and Honest?" - Part 4

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Let's flip this around. Are most women upfront and honest when it comes to dating? Ladies, if you're going to be honest with yourself, can you really say you are upfront and honest all of the time? What about your friends? Sure, you don't date them, but from what they've told you?

Are any of these things upfront and honest?

• Fake breasts
• Padded/pushup bras
• Fake eyelashes
• Fake nails
• Fake hair color
• Weaves, extensions, wigs, anything that makes it look like you have more/nicer hair than you do
• Makeup
• Pretending to like something about us or what we like that you really don't
• "Oh him? He's just a friend." [...who has had his penis inside you.]
  
• "I'm on The Pill."
• "I'm unable to get pregnant." or "It will be really difficult to get me pregnant."
• "I've never done that/this before."
• "I'm not like that." [Something he wants that you do with other men.]
• "I'm not like that." [Something he doesn't want but you will bring.]
  
• "We're pregnant."or "This baby is yours." [He didn't get you pregnant.]
• I need a man who is X, Y, Z." [When she has sex with men who are none of those.]
• "Friends first." [She has had sex with plenty of men who never became a friend.]
• "I need to be romanced, pursued, won over." [Except when it comes to the booty calls and hookups.]
  

Have you ever said to a man, being honest, "I will let you take me out, but I'm not going to have sex with you, even though I have sex with other men"? Hardly any, if any, woman who behaves in such a way will actually say that to a man. Why? Because it doesn't get her what she wants. Well, that's why men say or don't say certain things, too.

Why should men be upfront and honest when dealing with women who walk all over men who are?

There's still more to come in this series.

Part 1 in This Series

Part 2 in This Series

Part 3 in This Series

Part 5 in This Series

Managing Danger

Many years ago, a significant earthquake hit where I was, and without even thinking about it I was under an extremely sturdy table as fast as I could get there. I didn't even have to think about it, because I had thought about it many times before.

Thinking ahead and paying attention can help protect you.

"What if...?" can help you.

How many people get into accidents while driving because they weren't paying attention? How many accidents have been narrowly avoided because someone was paying attention? We count on other drivers driving safely and following the rules of the road, but sometimes they won't or can't: They have have a medical problem, they're drunk, they're fighting with a passenger, they're distracted, their vehicle has a mechanical failure, they're angry or set on committing a crime, a pedestrian/animal/other object gets in their way, etc.

Driving or anywhere else...

What a Woman Can Do With Your DNA

There are some simple facts of biology. Men usually produce millions of viable sperm cells on an ongoing basis. A man is able to do so starting in puberty and lasting most of the rest of his life. Sperm cells can leave his body while he's asleep. He doesn't have to have an orgasm to expel sperm cells.  New human life takes place inside women. Women get pregnant, men do not.

There are some basic realities of current law. Once a woman has possession of a man's sperm cells, he has lost any control, legally, he has over them.

When a sperm cell leaves a man's body, he loses all control of his own DNA.

Here are the things a woman can do with YOUR sperm cells, men:

Questions Expose Bad Thinking By Would Be Censors

Unfortunately, a lot of people spread the claims of crusaders who want to censor adult media or donate to them without asking some very basic questions about what they've said, what they're doing, and how they're doing it.

If they say or write a bunch of words without actually answering the question, then they haven't answered the question.

It's good to get them on record either through social media, email, text, audio, or video recording. It is good to think critically about what they say.

When they say "Porn is [something they consider negative]." it is almost always unreasonable. The there is a very plentiful, wide variety of porn. For example, if they say "Porn is misogynist," consider how it could possibly be misogynist for, example, a video produced by women with female performers in which nobody is hurt, disrespected, or portrayed as in a negative or dismissive way.

A common assertion is "Porn is rape." To that, I have responded:

A woman decides to masturbate and record it. She then sells the video. Either:
1) That is rape

2) That isn't porn
3) Your assertion isn't correct

Almost all of their assertions like that can be exposed with similar examinations or some simple questions like:

What is gay porn? ("Porn objectifies women!" What is gay porn?)

What is dominatrix porn? ("Porn is about women being abused by men." What is dominatrix porn?)

You've seen all porn?

Sometimes they will try to use numbers or supposedly scientific claims to impose what is a personal moral issue for themselves onto others. An example of that is when they say something like "79 percent of porn contains acts of aggression toward women." Really? 79 percent of which porn? They haven't watched all of it. Gay porn certainly doesn't have that. The inconvenient truth is that women like "aggressive" or "violent" or BDSM porn more than men. Also, one must know what they are counting as "aggression." A light slap on the butt? If these are people who have claimed that watching porn causes brain damage, how can they trust the claims of the people who watched all of that porn? And by their own claim, 21 percent of porn has no aggression in it. So that porn is OK, right? (Spoiler: they will still say it isn't.)

It's also important to remember that apparent correlation isn't causation, and to see if there are studies that contradict the studies to which the crusaders appeal.

Another good question to ask is why they hold adult media and adult media outlets to standards they don't apply anywhere else. An example of that is when the crusaders cite that someone uploaded illegal material to a porn site as to why a porn site must be shut down, while the crusaders are using a social media service with exponentially more illegal uploads. Or "She wouldn't do that if she wasn't being paid to do it!" That also describes most other work women do for money. "Some performers get injured." And how is that different than pro wrestling, football, or movies with stunts? If they claim that their goal is fighting rape, assault, child molestation, etc., but never apply the standards the apply to adult media to, for example, churches, then it smacks of "We want church ladies to give us money to censor porn."

I could go on. The bottom line, no pun intended, is... think. Pay attention. Follow the money.

Don’t Call Dr. Laura If You’re Doubting Truth Claims of Your Religious Organization

I don’t think Dr. Laura has explicitly stated what her current theological beliefs are other than a few limited statements. She has every right to keep her theology private. Although she'll sometimes work with a caller's tradition, the program isn’t a religious one. But because it isn’t a religious program, she should probably defer some calls. [Bumping this up because it is still relevant.]

From what she has said, she’s either a Deist, Agnostic, or Atheist. It matters, and we can discern this to be so, because she doesn’t believe in miracles and will get snippy with a caller who mentions or implies being saved from a terrible or worse fate by supernatural intervention. Also, because she encourages people to stay with their current religious organization, as if it really doesn’t matter which one they are with. 

I originally felt compelled to write this entry because of a call she took on Tuesday, December 10, 2019, 27 minutes into first podcast hour. But she has subsequently taken other calls reinforcing my point.

“Sarah” or “Sara” was the caller. The caller said hello and started to get emotional, saying she didn't want to get emotional. She was crying.

"I was raised in a very orthodox religion..."

Dr. Laura asked which one. "You were raised in what church?"

"The Mormon church."

Sarah went on to say "Recently, within the last couple of years, I found out a lot of inconsistencies about the church, a lot of things that I was taught that aren't true about the church…”

She started getting emotional again.

Dr. Laura told her she needed to stop crying. "This is not life and death."

Well, actually, for believers, it is. It certainly was for the martyrs.

"Why Can't Men Be Upfront and Honest?" - Part 6

Male nature means he's thought about it. Keep reading for an explanation of what I mean.

I've meant to write something like this for a long time now, but after seeing a couple of women on Reddit asking related questions, I'm finally doing this.

You need to sit down and brace yourself. This may come as a surprise to women, especially the more "education" they've been through, but...

Men and women are different. Some of those differences are natural, and we were born with these differences.

You might need to take a minute to recover from reading that. You might be angry with me. But it's the truth. And the sooner you accept that, the better off everyone will be. Read it as many times as you need.

You need to keep that truth in mind when you say you want men (or, "your" man) to be honest, to be vulnerable, to be open, to share things with you, to tell you what they're thinking, to share their fantasies, to not have secrets from you, etc.

Because here's one thing that it means that might startle, disturb, or disgust you, because you literally have a brain that works differently:

Men are attracted to a far wider spectrum of women than women are to men. In general, for any woman he's spent any amount of time around, he's wondered what she looks like naked, has pictured it, has likely thought at least briefly what it would be like to have sex with her, and even might have masturbated with her in his mind, no matter how briefly. This includes female neighbors and coworkers, your friends, even your sister, mother, etc. This is male biology. This is part of male sexual nature.

Are there exceptions? Yes. They include:

You Can Be Right or You Can Be Married

Have you ever heard that saying I used as the title of this entry?

Have you seen the exchange written in the picture to the left, or anything like it? Or experienced something like it?

When I got engaged, someone gave me a graph depicting a man's chances winning and argument. It starts at 50%, then goes to 25% when he gets engaged, then to 0% when he married.

How many times have you heard men told that the key to a happy marriage is to learn to say "Yes, Dear."?

Consider this letter from a listener to Dr. Laura:

Winning Isn't Everything

I have been married for 27 years, and I have a few thoughts to share about working through arguments with your loved one.

1.You should listen enough to at least let the other person articulate their issue or point of view.

2.Do not force the other person to listen if they don't want to!

3.Listen to YOURSELF so that you are not ever speaking too loudly, with harshness or even a hints of sarcasm.

4.It doesn't matter who wins - it's how both parties feel afterwards.

Sometimes being a good loser makes you both winners.

The letter is really good right up to the underlined part.

I realize that letter is to be considered by both husbands and wives, but the bulk of these things are directed at husbands. We're told in many ways that we're supposed to simply accept and/or announce that we're wrong even when there hasn't been a logical explanation that even demonstrates the possibility that we are. We're supposed to cater to unjustified or even irrational hostility, demands for apologies, and her claim of control, except where she has inconsistently and temporarily (and often silently) ceded some power back to us.

Protect Children By Parenting Your Children

"Protect Children Not Porn" is a false dichotomy.

It is expressed on services like Twitter/X as #ProtectChildrenNotPorn by the usual antiporn crusader would-be censors and the people who make a living grifting off of them, who try to make life as difficult for people who make, sell, and watch any erotica.

Groups like Exodus Cry (originating from an Evangelical church), Justice Defense Fund (which is basically Laila Mickelwait, who was with Exodus Cry but might not be anymore for some still unexplained reason), National Center on Sexual Exploitation (which is a rebrand of Morality in Media) and Fight the New Drug (which insists it is NOT a Mormon organization, and we know Mormons have never tried to conceal their motives and operations before) know that very few people will support a religious crusade trying to ban all pornography, but their core supporters want that. So these groups try to fool people with campaigns that claim to be secular campaigns about children and women being abused. 

Except that we know their campaigns are really about attacking the freedom of consenting adults to make and watch erotica.

How?

1) They claim that porn websites must be shut down if rogue users violated the terms of service by uploading illegal video content, claiming that such content victimizes women and children. But these same people have never called for shutting down churches (or their Mormon equivalents) when staff is is caught making or distributing such material, or actually, personally assaulting a woman or a child. They don't even pressure banks/credit card companies to stop processing payments to/for those churches.

2) They use social media that has far more illegal videos on it than any of the porn sites they target, and they know this.

3) They have attacked OnlyFans, one of the best services for ensuring the women participating are consenting, are indeed women and not girls, and that the people viewing their explicit material are adults (they charge!).  

One of them, let's just call her Mayla Ficklewaste, has let her toddler play with her phone, even though Mayla constantly searches out illegal videos, frequently visits porn sites, and the child was able to access X/Twitter, which has rape and snuff videos. Anyone can upload anything to X/Twitter right now. PornHub only has verified uploads. Guess which service this MF attacks?

It's a RUSE.

It's a SHAKEDOWN.

It's a FUNDRAISING PLOY.

They're NEVER going to ban porn, but they'll keep collecting money from scared, insecure, gullible people who are counting on them to do so. All they can do is shake down what other people have earned, and make life difficult for models and performers. Likewise, they tell the broader public that they simply want these restrictions, but that's a lie. Their crusade would continue.

They haven't prevented one person from being abducted, enslaved, or assaulted. But Laila sure has gotten lots of attention, fed her ego, and lined her pockets.

It is not "defending porn" or "protecting porn" to value freedom of speech, freedom of expression, and free enterprise.

It is not defending porn or protecting porn, and certainly not attacking children, to point out that "leaders" in these "movements" are hypocritical, two-faced, and fleecing the gullible.

They say there's nothing stopping children from viewing porn websites. There is "nothing stopping" kids from walking into traffic, or taking an automobile a joyride, or setting themselves on fire, or burning down their residence.

Except that there is. It is called...

P A R E N T I N G

That's why I use the hashtag #ParentYourChildren

These crusaders are such bad parents that they want the whole world to change for the sake of what they don't want their kid seeing.

Here's what people can do to parent their own child.

1) Don't give your a child a networked phone or tablet. If you do, have controls and monitors on it.

2) Keep any other device that can access online content in common areas of your home, where it will be supervised. Controls can also be used on these.

3) Don't let your children go without your supervision to any residence that doesn't follow these practices.

Author of Men on Strike Interviewed at NRO

[This entry is an interesting time capsule from September 2013. I'm bumping it up because it is interesting to me to go back and see what my observations and thinking were, and what was in media, at the time.]

* * * * * * *

I've heard two interviews with Helen Smith about her book Men on Strike, one by Tom Leykis and one by Michael Medved, who have very different goals and perspectives than each other. Kathryn Jean Lopez of National Review Online interviewed Smith and the interview is up.

Most men who are consciously on a marriage strike are also going to avoid having (more) children and they will try to influence other men boys to do the same.

Obviously, if this idea catches on and sticks, it means fewer thinking, responsible, productive men getting married and raising children. That's a problem for governments, churches, and all of the people who depend on such men, especially dependent or lazy women, or women desperate to have children who do not want to raise them without a man. So some people have a bit of a panic about this.

Of course, the marriage strike can be ended if there is a successful effort to mitigate the concerns of the strikers. But how likely is that to happen?

Yes, I'm a Christian and I believe the Bible. The most persuasive Biblical argument I've heard that men are required to marry, if possible, and have children, is that we are told to go forth and multiply to spread God's image (that's people) all over the world. However, hasn't that been done? Mission accomplished in that regard. Taking the Bible as a whole, there simply is no requirement that men today marry and have children. What many Christian leaders will say is that men can't control themselves and since fornication is so awful, they should marry. A lot of these same people would tell me I got married with the wrong attitude because I married because I wanted to have sex (and because I wanted to be a father who gave his children the best circumstances I could.)

Some marriage strikers are Christian. Some are atheists, or have some other worldview. Some swear off women entirely, others indulge in fornication. Some have never had a desire to marry. Some have a desire to marry and have children, but that desire is trumped by their concerns about the legal system and culture. Some want to avoid marriage so they can goof off, others want to avoid marriage because it slows down their work as very important scientists. It's a diverse group.

Anyway, here are some excerpts of the interview:

LOPEZ: Who are “White Knights” and “Uncle Tims” and why are they a problem?

SMITH: White Knights are typically conservative men who are chivalrous and always trying to protect women and have no problem with biased laws that punish men while protecting women. Uncle Tims are generally liberal guys looking to get sex or political favors by being male sellouts to their own gender. They are the Bill Clinton types who crack down on their own gender, using biased laws such as sexual harassment while sleeping with women and using them.

Terms like "mangina" and "beta" get thrown around in some circles.

LOPEZ: How has the Obama administration curbed due-process rights of men on campus?

SMITH: The Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights sent out a “Dear Colleague” letter in 2011 telling colleges that take federal funds that they should use a lower preponderance-of-evidence standard in sexual-assault cases. Basically it is “50 percent plus one,” meaning that a campus tribunal can decide a young man is guilty with less certainty than is needed in a criminal trial. Read the case of Judith Grossman’s son in the Wall Street Journal to find out more about how young men are believed to be guilty without a fair trial or real evidence.

Outrageous.

Ladies, do you care about your brothers? Your sons?

* * * * * * *

[Now I am more stridently in support of the marriage strike.]